The only problem with this is that it ends up giving people the ability to think critically about information which contradicts their beliefs. It's the same problem smart people have - they're more capable at rationalizing their beliefs than they are at deciding what to believe.

That's not critical thinking then, it's reactionary thinking. Critical thinking is a tool for challenging our own beliefs and assumptions.

I agree. Critical thinking is often paired with developing the methods or tools of critique. Instead of applying the tools of critique to one's own thoughts, these tools get applied selectively to ideas, especially ideas one doesn't agree with already.

For example, recognizing bias is a component of critical thinking. Rather than recognizing one's own biases, the reactionary thinker will instead tend to recognize bias in other's assumptions and arguments. They apply different standards to their own thoughts than they do to others'. You're absolutely right that this isn't critical thinking, but it is definitely a result of half-teaching or half-learning the tools of critique, or an inability to be intellectually honest or emotionally available to being wrong.

Apparently vast swaths of humanity are dumb as bricks and teaching them to "think critically" has somehow ended up with a bunch of of knee-jerk contrarians who think they've uncovered conspiracies from global warming to covid vaccines.

I've been told the "free marketplace of ideas" will sort these sort of problems out any day now. Unfortunately the FMoI has zero capacity to handle Brandolini's Law and has shown itself to be so useless it can't even set Flat Earth believers straight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

smart people are just as susceptible

More so as you mentioned above. I know plenty of people who aren't that smart who know they aren't that smart and are humble and don't presume outside of their expertise. But there's a certain class of "educated" folk who think that because of their education they know everything. Let me say that troubleshooting software issues with doctors is absolutely the last thing you want to do. Please let me talk to the secretary who claims she knows nothing about computers.

at population level critical thinking is a dangerous hero myth. AI shows us clearly that our own faculties are very limited and there is no individual defense against propaganda and lies.

Treat everything as a lie. Boom - defenses go waaay up, and this avoids acceptance of lies.

People who live like this tend to be insufferable. It's intellectual auto-lobotomy.

To defend and clarify, another way to "treat everything like a lie" is to be a skeptic. And being skeptical doesn't necessarily require revealing one's skepticism.

To illustrate - one can be empathetic and choose to accept that other people have perspectives which work for those others, though not for themselves.

Keeping quiet about one's skepticism doesn't require one to have a superior attitude, or be arrogant.

On second thought we are likely talking about two different things.