Just today I was listening to Consider This on NPR (transcript [1]) about the increase of election worker harassment. It's quite scary the level things have gotten, with serious death threats, harassment, vandalism, even one election worker's dog being poisoned.<p>What we still haven't come to grips with is that the internet and the information age have made propaganda and the ability to sway large swaths of the "stupid" (which I would more accurately call the uninformed credulous) exceedingly easy. Network effects cause this mob behavior to accelerate much more rapidly than before.<p>In Carl Sagan’s <i>The Demon Haunted World</i> [2], he starts his book with an account of what Dietrich here would call the "stupid", a taxi driver that begins to question Carl in earnest about all sorts of conspiracies.<p>Carl shows through this exchange that it's not that people are stupid. Often many of the credulous are very intelligent, and curious. But what has happened is that our society has failed to teach critical thinking across the board, and has also failed in its ability to democratize education in a way the reaches everyone equally.<p>Public schools have been a failure in teaching critical thinking. Teachers are not versed or required to have standards in critical thinking skills. Our society also lacks a focus on childhood mental health, so children the most at risk often can't even begin to benefit from school, and will continue down the same paths as their parents. And so we are left with a perpetual problem that continues generation to generation.<p>If we fix our education and mental health systems, I believe a lot of the worlds problems will follow.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183289840/election-workers-are-already-being-threatened-theyre-worried-about-2024" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183289840/election-workers-a...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark-ebook/dp/B004W0I00Q/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DOZ38JK66SXJ&keywords=the+demon+haunted+world+carl+sagan+kindle&qid=1687315364&sprefix=the+demon+haunted+world+carl+sagan+kindl%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Da...</a>