I honestly think it’s the internet as a whole that’s done that to us.

You used to be able to not know things, but now I’m expected to have encyclopedic knowledge of every factor going into any individual choice I make as though I’ve gotta min/max my life. I think the expectation that everyone needs to have an opinion on everything because “the information is available, just Google it!”, combined with the fact that we have a limited rate of knowledge consumption and limited bandwidth has led to people just skimming information. Shortest path to having an “informed” opinion on every topic, because God forbid you don’t know something online.

I think in order to increase our media literacy we must return to partial ignorance.

Because when the average person hears “the government owes x Billion Dollars” the assumption is “they will be handing over X billion in cash”. It’s like the Ukraine military support - people hear “3 billion USD in military aid for Ukraine” and think the US is handing over 3 billion dollars, not handing over about 3 billion worth of old soon-to-be-retired equipment.

Which makes conversations about government debt really fun. It’s just a lack of understanding.

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