the issue with becoming more knowledgable about the world is you feel less special.

and people are desperate to feel special. our entire consumer economy is built around exploiting folks insecurities and convincing them that their purchases make them better than other people.

before chat gpt we called that using google.

whether you got it from chagpt or saw it on a site that gpt got it from… you still had to read it or watch a video of it.

the individual matters more than the education. i know several st johns graduates whose personality is yes-men. i have a liberal arts education from an ivy and 95% of my peers at uni thought it was stupid and just wanted job skills. they didn’t give a fuck about learning or education, they just went there so they could get a job at goldman or similar and get rich or because their parents told them had to. they thought i was mentally ill for valuing liberal arts and focusing on education rather than getting a big fat paycheck after graduating.

a Socratic education only works if you already inclined towards skeptical inquiry. you can’t educate people into skepticism, it’s really an emotional disposition. normal people do not want to think anyone than they want to run marathons. only a small percentage of people are inclined to such activities.

i taught philosophy for 3 years, about 500 students. maybe a dozen of them actually learned anything… the other 490 were just there for a requirement/grade/elective and did absolutely did not give a fuck other than thinking quoting Plato make them sound smart and win arguments, or help them further entrench themselves in their delusional conspiracy mindset. had about 50% of my students actively argued for exploiting slaves for business profits, because all that mattered was their own wealth.

for every liberal atheist skeptic linux genius here on lemmy, there about a 100+ people who believe the opposite out there in the real world.

i don’t really use apps on my phone anymore other than for maps. i just my phone primarily as a phone.