A philosophy professor & dad, teaching kids and adults critical thinking. See more at schoolofcriticalthinking.org 🇺🇸
Joined May 2022
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All knowledge work is model building. To verify is the mode is right, we need to validate it against data.
But, unlike the more technical disciplines, huge parts of social science and humanities exist without a faintest intention to validate their models.
At a fundamental level, this is no different than fiction. The touch with reality is either accidental or irrelevant.
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Jun 12
Tell me you don’t understand the difference between linear and non-linear processes without telling me
Jun 12
Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire.
The typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk's level of wealth.
We need a wealth tax.
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Jun 12
Tell me you are not a systems thinker without telling me
Jun 12
Elon Musk Wealth
2012: $2 billion
2026: $1.1 trillion
Jeff Bezos Wealth
2012: $18.4 billion
2026: $262 billion
Mark Zuckerberg Wealth
2012: $17.5 billion
2026: $202 billion
Tipped Minimum Wage
1991: $2.13 an hour
2026: $2.13 an hour
5 words: Tax oligarchs out of existence.
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Jun 11
When your understanding of money and wealth is at the monkey level, you reason like this.
But when you evolve, you understand that wealth, as all other compound phenomena, follow a power law distribution and you simply can’t change that without messing everything up.
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Jun 10
To combat the negative impact of AI on education, we need to introduce a new subject starting from elementary school onwards:
Critical thinking.
It’s the only thing that can integrate everything else kids learn into a coherent framework that will make them thrive in a tech-dependent world.
I have an idea how to do that.
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Jun 10
This right here shows the root problem with the ideology of the modern left:
The belief that all questions about reality are reducible to questions of morality.
But this is mere virtue-signaling. Ask any of these people to give away their hard earned money to someone less fortunate, they’ll immediately switch the tune.
Don’t believe me. Here’s a book that shows it explicitly:
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Jun 10
Underrated life advice:
Live free of narratives.
When you have an overarching narrative (be it religious, secular, cultural, ideological), you will by default have a selection bias.
The more you live narrative-free, the more you’re sensitive to truth and reality.
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Jun 10
Statistical illiteracy is the most serious obstacle to critical thinking today in America.
So many bad takes and opinions would disappear if we had better statistical education.
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Jun 10
Or much better:
Everything in life is ruled by a probability distribution.
You just have to figure out its shape.
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Jun 9
Modern schooling produces people who sound articulate about big ideas but fall apart when asked to break a messy real problem into solvable pieces.
Words replaced models.
It's one of the lessons I regret not learning earlier the most.
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Jun 9
AI tutors and personalized learning apps will create two groups of kids.
Those whose parents still force pen-and-paper thinking practice, and everyone else who gets smoother but shallower brains.
The gap is already forming.
Pen and paper are the king and queen of learning.
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Jun 9
This is so true.
The T method is king.
Jun 8
Go deep on one thing long enough, and it becomes a doorway to everything else.
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Jun 8
Parents are told to trust the schools on thinking skills.
The same schools that can't explain why graduates struggle with basic reasoning, reading, math, even after countless dollars spent per each student.
Trust is earned, not automatic.
This ain't it, folks.
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Jun 7
It's not exactly a secret that the education system rewards kids who follow instructions and remember facts.
We all know that it punishes the ones who notice contradictions or ask why the rules exist.
But, why do we then act surprised when adults can't think independently?
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Jun 6
Most "critical thinking" lessons in classrooms are a joke.
I say this as someone who taught this for a decade and observed dozens of teachers to it.
Students learn to spot fallacies in made-up arguments while staying blind to how their own brain simplifies reality.
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Jun 5
"Question everything" is terrible advice (I know it's weird to hear it from a philosopher, but hear me out).
It turns kids into reflexive doubters who can't tell good authority from bad.
Real thinking means knowing what deserves trust and building reasons for it.
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Jun 4
Public education should be dismantled.
Free market for schools and colleges would generate much better outcomes, both for kids and parents.
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Jun 4
Schools pretend every kid can become a strong thinker if they just try harder.
That's a lie that protects the system.
The harsh truth is that some minds are simply better at building world models than others and no amount of worksheets changes the ceiling.
The trick is pushing a mind to its limits.
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Jun 3
Critical thinking is not some vague thing synonymous with being smart.
It’s a set of precisely defined skills.
It can also be measured.
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Jun 3
What do you guys think about teaching kids debating skills in school?
My guess is that it just helps producing expert bullshitters (and future politicians) because it teaches kids how to be successful in thinking within given frames, and never questioning the frames themselves.
Maybe I'm wrong, dunno.
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