The Rise and Fall of Rationality in Language:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107848118
The curves are kind of amazing.
Cheers,
Earl
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What is not discussed is the rise of feminism and female infuence partucularly in advertising (greater susceptibility) and the media beginning in the '70 s, and the female preference for emotion over rationality.
Walk into most bookshops and libraries and you will find most of the occupants are female. Likewise go ito a liberal arts lecture in any university/college and you will find most of the students are female.
Arts faculties are usually the largest faculties in most universities.
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That’s a very interesting result, never occurred to me that such a study was possible. The study is from two years ago but I don’t recall ever seeing anything about it.
Whatever differences there are between men and women they are far to subtle to account for a shift of this magnitude.
I’d say Guy Debord and "The Society of the Spectacle" is a better guide, or maybe Neil Postman his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death,"
This is from here: Amusing Ourselves to Death
The essential premise of the book, which Postman extends to the rest of his argument(s), is that “form excludes the content”, that is, a particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas. Thus rational argument, integral to print typography, is militated against by the medium of television for this reason.
Here’s another well known source: The medium is the message
McLuhan proposes that a communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, should be the primary focus of study. He showed that artifacts such as media affect any society by their characteristics, or content.
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Perhaps the females are more literate where you are located. Bookshops I go into have male and female customers. Not that I care who the customers are I am just looking for a book, not sex.
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It’s not discussed because it’s entirely irrelevant and mostly imaginary, unlike your blatant misogyny. Please do keep screaming into the void though; the industry is moving on and leaving you and your garbage worldview in the dust. Good riddance.
Edit: Lmao this comment was flagged: “Your post was flagged as inappropriate : the community feels it is offensive, abusive, to be hateful conduct or a violation of [our community guidelines].”
If this comment feels offensive to you then I kindly invite you to take a long walk off the nearest short dock 
Flag away, snowflakes!
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This may be a little off-topic but text vs social media is discussed albeit in a unsettling way.
I found the video easier to follow than the text which is here: From Crooked Timber: “The Algorithm” is the only critique of “The Algorithm” that “The Algorithm” can produce
Last time I was in a Barnes and Nobles there were few people looking at books. More people were sitting in the coffee shop looking at a screen, taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi and drinking Starbucks “coffee-flavored milk shakes”.
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hahaha, I look for books too but notice anything with sex first !!!
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well no one is going to convice me we can’t have another thousand years of the dark ages or more holocausts !!
The end of free money and the resultant economic reality will make all this woke crap go away…I hope
At a guess I think 50% of uni graduates go to work for woke companies that dont make any money and probably never will. How long can that be funded?
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The linked article in the OP is about "the rise of fact-free argumentation".
Which is exactly what this is:
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The young ones are also the dumbest generation ever, they have been told they are the smartest ever so 6 months into the first job they cant understand why they are not the MD, there’s proof.
They also think they are in short supply as in a job interview will ask what are YOU going to do for me?
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Based on the amount of hiring companies are doing it seems like this part is fairly accurate.
Can I see some research to back this one up?
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The world is, always has been, and always will, be going to hell.
The world is nothing more than a giant hall closet. The minute you clean it up and organize it the way you want–which is the only possible way for it to work, mind you-- the barbarians come it and wreck it again.
In the end, the best thing to do is keep the door closed and play frisbee with the dog.
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I am more optimistic than most folks, there’s an advantage to being a ‘boomer’. I see plenty of young folks trying to get ahead and as always, the slackers. The cream rises to the top eventually. The stupid poisonous ‘us versus them’ political environment that depends on clicks or ratings for money only serves to make things worse. However, I am certain there are enough level headed young people who can ignore all that bullshit and keep things running.
We went thru the same thing in the 1960’s early 70’s. Survived and became better for it.
Never underestimate the ability of people to see thru bullshit, it may take some time but eventually they do and the results make the country better.
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Try working with them
Here in Asia where you have old school less developed economies and modern you can see the attitude differences in the kids.
The school of hard knocks versus the woke modern entitled education.
The old school know they need to keep learning, the modern are sure they know everything yet their education has been very narrow so general knowledge is way down.
So, no, you don’t have any. Thanks for your anecdotes on a thread literally about arguing without facts.
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Earls link is discussing where facts have given way to emotion.
Thats got worse via social media and via the internet as a punter can look and find 50 fake posts and one real but will assume the collective is true.
Hence the internet is open to massive dis information campaigns like these:
China has had growth for years - 15 years ago a researcher buddy of mine working in China was telling me all the wealthy people he talked to had sold out of all their property and business as they knew it was all over. ( just about everything that has happened since in China he told me was going to happen)
The Rothschild’s control all reserve banks - lol
The USD will be replaced as the reserve currency - 99% trolls funded by the ccp saying that.
Digital widgets will replace money - people selling the tulips saying that
Central banks practicing fractional reserve lending devalues your currency and creates inflation so we need independent control of money- lol , yes but without FRL that it would be very difficult to borrow money and unless your on an oil well your economy cant expand, your house would be worth less than when you bought it.
Passenger jets are spraying us with chemicals, -lol only on cold days…
So my facts are my own research, work with young people in may areas, business and sport.
Create a conclusion and talk with friends in all sorts of businesses local and global and they all say the same. There’s the peer review.
The research
Back in the late 90-2000 when I worked in a bank in the UK and was learning about education because I invested in a college, I asked HR about degrees in the uk, they said we throw 50% of cv’s in the bin once we read which uni.
There’s the peer review.
There has always been clever and not so clever people but the touch feely woke crap is everyone must win a prize, everyone at uni must get a degree hence all standards way down pretty much globally in just about everything we do these days.
Back in my secondary education all the teachers kept harping on about here’s my delivery but dont believe me prove it to yourself.
Now they are told your the best era ever. lol and you can see that the newbies dont know what they dont know , creates funny situations:
Employment review, Johnny are you happy?
“Not really, I cant understand why I’m not the boss after 6 months here”
HR trying not to laugh.
So naive,
no comprehension of man management
No experience at all
No decision making skills
Dont believe there is anything left to learn.
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The apprentices and cadets and new academy grads are pretty much the same kids they ever were. A lot of really good workers. If they’re more willing to stand up to shitty management and set boundaries well it’s a union job and that’s not a bad thing since they’re still basically eager to please on the job.
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It’s more complicated than that. This is from the linked article in the OP:
After the year 1850, the use of sentiment-laden words in Google Books declined systematically, while the use of words associated with fact-based argumentation rose steadily. This pattern reversed in the 1980s, and this change accelerated around 2007,
What was going on before 1850? What happened from 1850 to the 1980s?
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