Shane Greenup
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

Great discussion David Ng and Henry Kim.

Henry Kim said:

“In this sense, “critical thinking” requires a “leisure,” a knowledge that getting everything right immediately is not necessary, that even when there are mistakes, it is not so consequential if they can be turned into long term understanding. But, for many, this leisure is lacking. They can’t afford long term understanding if the cost is short term errors. So they get impatient and try shortcuts — and get flustered at the noise.”

I think this is incredibly insightful. Especially in an age of Infographics.

The number of times I have pitched rbutr (and The Socratic Web) to people only to have them tell me we should be focussing on summarising the debates so that people can just get the gist of the argument, is quite large.

I understand the motivation, and it plays perfectly into what you are saying here — people don’t feel like they have the time to fully explore the ideas themselves; “can’t someone just tell me the conclusion already?” But there is a huge value in being able to explore the contrary arguments of a complex issue which cannot easily be learned by reading the ‘Cliff Notes’ version.

My hope with The Socratic Web concept is that increased availability of the debate is sufficient to simply increase the opportunity to explore the nuances of the argument — even if most don’t do it most of the time.

A small percentage change, over the entire population of the planet, over the course of years, and decades, results is a massive change in the future.

Basically: Everyone is already trying to give everyone what they want. Infographics. Summarised articles and arguments. Cliff notes. Someone needs to implement a system which gives everyone what they need in a way which doesn’t force them to act on it, or punish them for not using it.

David Ng Said:

Right now, we live in a world where news programs regularly invite pundits to present “opposing views” on air, and people vote up the comments they consider to be the best “takedowns” or counterarguments in forums. If these are the best critiques we’re exposed to, we aren’t going to develop very good critical thinking skills.

This is another area I hope the Socratic Web will give us massive improvement. When we bring on pundits to argue the opposite view (ignoring the problems of false balance which exist in an editorial context like the news room), we are stuck with the best arguments and best performance of that one person in that one moment.

This is the same as any live debate with the classic three for and three against structure. We only ever get the best that those people have to offer us, at that particular moment.

What if they forget their best arguments? What if they misinterpret the argument of the other side? What if there is some key piece of information they lack?

Instead of expecting one person, or some selected group of people to be the only ones who can argue a position, and instead of expecting them to do it on their feet — why not allow everyone the chance to argue the position, and then let the public choose the best from that pool of arguments?

Sometimes the most professional argument isn’t the one which will speak to the most people. So letting the public sort out the arguments themselves may be the best approach. It may not necessarily give the ‘most technically accurate’ response, but this concept isn’t about reforming the scientific method or peer review or the final decisions of experts. We’re talking about organising the content of the web. We are talking about public perception and communicating with the public. Reaching the most people in the way which has the most impact is the most important metric.

As for developing “very good critical thinking skills.” I think there is a bigger job which needs to be addressed first: How do we make the public engage critical thinking at all?

If we can improve that step even slightly, then the positive results will be massive. And the opportunity to work on improving the skills themselves will finally be available and we will have a reason to pursue it!

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Shane Greenup

Written by

Founder of rbutr and dedicated to solving the problem of misinformation. Father, entrepreneur, generalist, futurist, philosopher, scientist, traveller, etc.

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