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Re:DoD Awards $1B Contract to Peraton to Counter Misinformation by tablespoon on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @04:37PM (#28147431)
> invest in education, and give people the ability to spend 30 extra seconds critically thinking about the information they see and where it came from

Where might people who are long out of school receive such an education, if they are not seeking it? And what if it doesn't work as well as you hope it would?

Re:DoD Awards $1B Contract to Peraton to Counter Misinformation by gmadsen on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @05:04PM (#28147705)
doing nothing is also a choice, with consequences(which are observably harmful) should be considered against the possible benefits/consequences of trying.

To me it is seems worth the attempt, but I'm also not an expert in education policy

Re:DoD Awards $1B Contract to Peraton to Counter Misinformation by tablespoon on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @05:29PM (#28148025)
> doing nothing is also a choice, with consequences(which are observably harmful) should be considered against the possible benefits/consequences of trying.

> To me it is seems worth the attempt, but I'm also not an expert in education policy

My point is that relying on an ill-specified "invest[ment] in education" with idealistic hopes for its effectiveness is pretty much equivalent to "doing nothing." The people who most need it will not seek it out. If it works (a big if) and it's incorporated into compulsory education, it'll take at least a decade to show any results at all, and whole generation or two to work its way through the population and have a chance to actually solve the problem. And like another commenter mentioned, it's not like our current educational system hasn't been trying to instill critical thinking since before any of us were born, so I have little hope that some new investment will solve that problem.

Relying on education in this case is like having window break during a rainstorm and deciding to fix the problem by ordering a new window from the manufacturer, with a lead time of a month. That might eventually fix the broken window, but it's not going to solve the problem of rain pouring through the broken window now. If you've got a rainy month ahead, the incomplete solution may even lead to more problems, like mold.

This is a problem that requires both long-term strategic and shorter-term tactical solutions.