Funnily enough, I’ve seen some compelling criticism of good old D & K.

The original paper by Dunning and Kruger starts with the quote: “It is one of the essential features of incompetence that the person so inflicted is incapable of knowing that they are incompetent.” This idea has spread far and wide through both scientific literature and pop culture alike. But according to the work of my colleagues and me, the reality is that very few people are truly unskilled and unaware. The Dunning and Kruger experiment did find a real effect – most people think they are better than average. But according to my team’s work, that is all Dunning and Kruger showed. The reality is that people have an innate ability to gauge their competence and knowledge. To claim otherwise suggests, incorrectly, that much of the population is hopelessly ignorant.

I named myself after two scientists, whose work I share with the world regularly 😉

The solution is to put all of the uniqueness in the middle name. Then you still get to feel “special” while not forcing your kid to go by “tragedeigh” or whatever.

When I chose my name - I made my first as milquetoast and appropriate to my age as possible. My middle I went balls out - I guarantee I have a cooler middle name than you do.

That sounds like a criminal confession. You’ll need to show up to court this Sunday for arraignment.

🎶Tastes good, like a cigarette should🎵

Fred and his best friend, Barney Rubble, participated in the Bedrock Wars, where they and other soldiers were deceived by the conqueror, Mordok the Destroyer, into committing genocide against the Tree People and burning down their home to establish Bedrock. Barney and his wife Betty raised the infant sole survivor of the Tree People as their son, Bamm-Bamm. The “Loyal Order of Water Buffalos Lodge” from the original show is instead depicted as a veterans group the two attend to help them deal with the trauma of the ordeal.

wat

The best part of BlackkKlansman was that I watched it with two literal billionaires who most assuredly voted for Trump 3 times. I got to feel their reaction to that ending montage. Thank you for the reminder.

The absolute best strategy for most reading comprehension struggles is read aloud. Active discussion is good too.

Or I also like to tell my high schoolers to be contrarian with the text. To argue against it, to try to prove it wrong, even to the point of bad faith. “You’re saying the book sucks - I want receipts. Tell me about it.” I don’t really have training in teaching english but I will happily pressure high schoolers into reading the books in English class.

Random question -what’s your favorite book? I’m really vibing with your interpretation here.

For some reason you reminded me of this.

because it was mandatory to do some

Usually understood to be a violation of ethics if they didn’t provide you the opportunity for an alternative assignment btw.

Thanks for the explanation. It’s very interesting to learn about how others perceive the world.

What does understanding mean for you in this sense?

I don’t mean to come across as ignorant or disrespectful - just curious. A big part of my understanding of that passage is the process of visualization. When I read that passage, I feel it. It’s wet, it’s filthy, everyone is upset and I imagine faces scowling. That’s what “understanding” means to me as a process.

It’s probably some ASD-ish adjacent, but it just breaks my brain every time. It seems like there’s a large proportion of people who don’t seem to actually care whether they have an accurate understanding of the world or not? The amount of times online I’ve been able to show someone evidence that they demanded, and then they double down. At best they’ll go silent, but then you’ll see them making the exact same claim later.

In general right now it seems like there are a lot willing to call evil good, and good evil. Everything is backwards. The Moral Majority voted in a pedophile rapist.

Flex Loans offer borrowers up to $4,000 at 279.5% interest, trapping thousands of people in debt that can land them in court.

Payday loans in the states are horrifying. It got so bad that the US government stepped in to limit the interest rates they could charge military members.

Certain tribes are exploiting regulatory loopholes and charging 600%.

Hey - don’t stand so close to me.

Nabokov is fun, because he had an opinion on basically every author ever. If you feel frustrated about something you read in an English class, you can probably find an essay by Nabokov reading that author to filth.

“Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre- Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human English words expressing several, although by no means all, aspects of poshlost are, for instance,” cheap," “sham,” “smutty,” “highfalutin,”“in bad taste.” dignity - all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of “sinning their way to Jesus" or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, "spilling Jesus all over the place.”

Like c’mon man - if you don’t feel something reading the Grand Inquisitor passage in Karamazov - are you human?

You say in another comment that this is indicative of a failed American education experiment, and that there’s a generation of illiteracy.

Yes, I’m alluding to a larger context outside of that study. In addition to the obvious harms of COVID/virtual school, many US schools switched to a model of teaching reading that omitted phonics entirely. This simply does not work for the vast majority of students, and this had already been demonstrated in the 1970’s.

The authors refer to that larger context here -

My remarks on generalizing the study to Kansas undergrads was to point out that is an entirely acceptable sample size. In statistics, when you think about sample size, you have to think about the population you are studying. This study was specifically studying the literacy of Kansas English undergrads, which I imagine is a small enough population that you can generalize that study to. This would indicate that many future English teachers in Kansas are struggling readers.

We can put that as a data point next to several other studies about the US’s current literacy crisis.

As far as why they chose Bleak House:

N of 85 is entirely reasonable for that kind of study. You could safely generalize that to the population of Kansas English undergrads - run that through G Power and tell me otherwise.

The streets are incredibly muddy, as if the waters of the Biblical Flood of Noah had just receded. So muddy, one would not be surprised to find a giant amphibian frolicking in it up on Holborn Hill.

I really love your breakdown here. You should move to teach English in Kansas, they need you.

But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.

It is so goddamn frustrating. I had one on here claiming that the US had not deported US citizens, while linking the article saying that the US had deported four children who were citizens!

I read fast and have been following this shit for so long that I can call a lot out. But it never changes their minds, they never concede defeat. They just jump from place to place. Or “you libs always assume i’m MAGA” is a funny one I keep seeing on here - like, if you are supporting Trump’s policies, you are a Trump supporter. It’s so goddamn slimy and disingenuous.

TERFs are the worst about it. They’ve started spreading Holocaust denial. I saw one claim the the Nazi government issued transvestite passes! Like no! It was the Weimar Republic! The Nazis used those passes to track down and kill trans people!

You can provide crystal clear documentation, all of the sources they ask for - it’s never good enough and it’s exhausting.

Nabokov seemed to think that the fog was important. I guess it’s a novel about a legal case, and maybe the metaphor is the “fog” of legal confusion.