Redditors have an unusually high academic literacy compared to any other platform or medium

[u/CrazyBar6116]

I've looked at other posts, so I know that whenever someone says something like this, the answer is almost always something along the lines of "People are just as stupid here than they are everywhere else" but I think that is just due to the Dunning-Kruger Effect happening all over again, because you know more, you would think you are as ignorant if not more than other people.

For instance, if I go outside and take a random poll even in the "young, tech-savy, college educated" environments (another big counterpoint used by the "we are all stupid" camp) and ask a random simple academic literacy question such as "what is epistemology" I would bet that less than 10% would know what epistemology is, let alone describe it or list any number of its schools of thought. But, on reddit, this seems common knowledge, no matter what sub-reddit you are in.

The examples are endless, I think its just because of reddit's anonymity feature and the fact that only 1% of reddit users have ever posted at least once in their lives that people seem to not realise that.

The proof is in the making, my point is academic literacy and not academic knowledge, On reddit, it doesn't matter what degree you chose out to be you would at least have heard (instead of knowing it very well) of phenomenology and factor analysis, while in university setting, less than 5% of humanities majors would know what factor analysis is and vice versa for formal sciences majors with factor analysis

[u/klumpp]

Or people are just googling shit. Ever go to the subreddit for something you’re are very knowledgeable about? The number of people who are confidently wrong is shocking.

[u/irrelevantusername24 → u/klumpp]

Yeah but the thing is that is legitimately a skill. It should be common knowledge, because it's literally just basic reading comprehension and troubleshooting, like basic critical thinking, but if you look around in your personal life or online, clearly many people did not get the memo.

A scary number of people rely overwhelmingly on magical thinking for half their decisions and for the other half they just go with whatever impulse they feel. I won't say that I never do either of those things, because we all do it from time to time, and I mean sometimes "magical thinking" is just being hopeful about shit, but that's different than the magical thinking of literally just believing shit that aint true and has no basis in reality.

Those are very different phenomenons. As is what I mentioned about being driven by emotions. There are people that have literally zero control over their emotions, in any situation, because they don't even understand what they are or why they have them, and as the saying goes "the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging you have one". Most people don't do that kind of shit, they don't even stop to think about it. At my last job, my coworker one time was all stressed out about shit and asked me how I'm always so calm. I was like... I'm not not stressed out, I just put that shit to the side as much as possible because constantly letting stress drive you is a recipe for disaster.

And that's basically like square zero of how shit spirals out of control. I try not to project my emotions outward - at least the negative ones - as much as is possible. Because that shit is contagious, and then suddenly everyones stress is in a doom loop amplifying each other. If you try and contain your own shit inside, then at least you aren't feeding everyone elses. And that in itself can be a kind of stabalizing thing. But most people have effectively negative emotional intelligence.

[u/skeptical-speculator]

Some redditors do.  However, it can be incredibly easy to fake knowing something about something when you have internet access and you are talking to someone who knows nothing about the subject.

[u/MZ_LaylaLucielle]

I'm outside of the average age range on here,but in the subs I am used to there does appear to be a maturity as well as knowledge about particular fields,but somethings are niche.I have also noticed that some people say things in a certain way to gain a collective momentum. For instance,make a point,sound down to earth like you own it,but fill it with swear words or some kind of aggressive manner also,and suddenly people become supportive,almost like they are supporting a cause,or supportive of a person knowing their shit,or owning their view,apparently...

However,being an older person on here,i am somewhat impressed by the level of knowledge some people have in particular fields.But go into a more generalized sub then that does not come across so much.However,my experience is limited of those as I don't spend so much time in them and knowledge isnt necessarily the requirement.

[u/AnonymousEngineer_]

For instance, if I go outside and take a random poll even in the "young, tech-savy, college educated" environments (another big counterpoint used by the "we are all stupid" camp) and ask a random simple academic literacy question such as "what is epistemology" I would bet that less than 10% would know what epistemology is, let alone describe it or list any number of its schools of thought. But, on reddit, this seems common knowledge, no matter what sub-reddit you are in.

I would be careful making the assumption that just because someone claimed to know of a specialised topic on reddit, that they legitimately have actual knowledge on the subject.

I do not know what epistemology is. But I could type that into Google/Bing, bring up the relevant Wikipedia article, and type up a plausible reply in about a minute if chose to do so, or if I wanted to pretend I knew more about something than I did.

The key difference between a redditor and asking someone in meatspace, is that they don't get the opportunity to consult with the internet before giving a response. And if they attempted to do so, it would be immediately obvious due to them pulling out their phones/laptops.

[u/sanzako4 → u/AnonymousEngineer_]

Also, if you pull a random person in real life and question them about x topic, they would have to answer, whether they know the subject or not. Here people choose to engage willingly.

I know what epistemology is in general terms, I have a vague idea about phenomenonology, and know nothing about factor analysis. What discussion do you think I will participate and appear slightly knowledgeable and what I'm just going to nod along? 

I think this is just some confirmation bias. 

[u/Dismal_Heat_9677]

You're using anecdotal experience to qualify this site's userbase as academically literate?

[u/PushTheTrigger]

Sampling bias. You only see posts written by those with the confidence to write something.

[u/Lefaid]

Just because many of know how to fart out paragraphs about how we think the world works does not mean that we are any more educated than the average Facebook user.

[u/Micro-Naut → u/Lefaid]

Man. The lowest common denominator here is nothing compared to the lowest common denominator on Facebook. That place is a toilet bowl of intellect.

[u/Micro-Naut]

I had no idea what epistemology was. But I signed into the class anyway. Later that day I looked it up and I was pleasantly surprised.

The professor was this brilliant Older Hungarian, truly a crazy bastard. Was one of my favorite classes ever. And I understand now why he was "crazy."

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[u/irrelevantusername24]

I think that's definitely true, despite how it may seem. It's appropriate you mention the Dunning-Kruger effect, because between that and "average familiarity" what we have is... basically an incredibly diverse group of people where most of us (or at least the original demographic of Redditors, which is still here albeit probably quieter) are, indeed, at the very least above average as far as intelligence.

And I mean intelligence very generally. There's a good mix of all kinds of intelligence, whether book smarts or street smarts or emotional intelligence or... whatever. A bit of everything. Like anywhere else, there's also plenty of people who think they are more intelligent than they are - whether that's due to being on the low end of the Dunning-Kruger effect or the high end, which effects their personal confidence level - but luckily, there's almost always somebody to come around and humble you.

Whether that humbling is accurate or not is another matter. But Reddit is still, as it always has been, despite all the very many flaws, the smartest of the social medias. Because it is far less insular than the others... despite all the boneheaded "brigading" rules, and all the automod shit that autobans you from every other subreddit some weirdo has volunteered to dedicate their life towards.

I won't say I really know all that much about Elizier Yudkowski, but I know he and a bunch of other people have been on the back end of the AI stuff for... awhile now, and I don't think it is a coincidence that his website is basically Reddit, but not Reddit. What I mean by this is the structure of Reddit is and always has been better than any other social media site. Not perfect, but better.

Anyway, so I made a comment the other day that explained that "confidence level" idea more:

I am definitely not as properly educated about these things as you, and I do not at all understand the technical details but I kind of think like there's a few different groups in which people can be categorized around various high complexity topics.

You have two main groups, people who are genuinely well educated about the topic and then people who at most know surface level things. This is where it gets complicated. There are two other groups, that are correlated with but not exactly reflective of, the actual familiarity with the truth of the matter.

I think of it as overestimation and underestimation. But the estimation, even if it is in the same direction, is slightly different for each group. There are people who only know the surface level who underestimate, and people who know surface level that overestimate. That same is true for people that have the on paper credentials that say they know what they are talking about - some of them overestimate, and some of them underestimate.

The way the estimation is done between those groups is slightly different. Again, weirdly, there is a correlation with this next bit too, but it is not a direct relationship. Typically those who have the on paper credentials are overly confident about their estimations, regardless of how accurate those estimations actually are. But that doesn't mean that people with surface level understanding aren't also sometimes overly confident - and neither does it mean that either group can be what is optimal for all humans everywhere in every possible situation: being relatively unsure about things.

Lastly, there are people in each group who, for mostly different reasons, are fairly correct in their estimation. This applies to AI things, and not AI things. Typically the best way to identify these people is they are calm, they are neither professing an immediate end to the world (lacking details) or an immediate utopia (lacking details). They tend to be detail oriented, and couch their predictions in a lot of language that makes it clear they are making a guess, and nothing more - because these people tend to understand that things only happen when people do them.

But that last part is the complicated one that a lot of people have a hard time believing is true. That people who do not have the on paper credentials, and people who do, can both be relatively accurate in their estimations about some topic and, amusingly, actually understand the reality about the same. Meanwhile everyone else is (mentally) in outer space talking about building autonomous robots on mars so we can prevent the aliens from dropping nuclear bombs on us or trying to believe that the weird things they see in the sky are not literally just drones or weather balloons. Most unfortunately somehow a lot of that group seems to be in charge...

edit: Oh, there's also the flipside of people who underestimate the reality and therefore think things are far worse than they actually are. But basically it comes down to people being in their imagination and thinking that is reality rather than seeing reality for what it is, and seeing how it could be made better and also how it could possibly get worse. But again, unfortunately most people have very little grasp on reality

I've also wrote many comments talking about the uh sort of generational competence effect - an idea many others have also wrote about. Though truthfully it's less a generational demographic specifically and more a set of experiences and I guess ways of thinking. I kind of consider both boomer and millennial fairly similar in that way - though I know they're supposed to be an age range thing, to me it's more a set of behaviors that have become stereotypical. And both of them do have *some* correlation with the stereotyped behaviors, that's why they're stereotypes, but it's kind of like a bell curve. I don't know the "peak" year for boomers, but the "peak" of the millennial phenomenon was I think around 1990.

Which, if you've read about the whole economic crises - and the "mental health" crises - that's pretty much the age where that begins. The "upper half" of millennials are mostly doing fine. Starting around 1990 - the age where all this happy horseshit was fully implemented, like credit scores and whatever else - we've basically been given zero chance. Despite being clearly more competent, if only because we are quick learners. Like some screenshot the other day where the poster said something like "I'm just going to make my entire resume "I'm a millennial, whatever it is I'll figure it out in like three days"

Right so, like I was saying, on the topic of that whole economic crises thing. So I know it's anecdotal, but from what I know, pretty much everyone my age and younger is completely screwed, no matter what they did. Whether they went and got a degree or took some other path, whether they went straight to working or kind of fucked around for a few years... everyone is in the same place. But we're all equally competent. So that's kind of the millennial condition. We are simultaneously the most intelligent, in every sense of the word, the most competent, as in we basically step in anywhere and immediately become a "go to" person, but we have had the fewest chances and have been extorted and exploited every step of the way. Many people I know literally can't even get a loan or sign their own rental agreement - which means we have no legal protections - because this whole system is a fucking scam.

[u/makemeking706]

Keep in mind that for the first half dozen years or so, the userbase of reddit was predominantly college students. It's part of the reason it gained a reputation as some sort of crazy liberal website.

It's grown significantly beyond that userbase and the source of those perceptions since then, but they seem to have persisted to some extent. 

[u/Nerd_199]

This is not saying much tbh, all of other social media have low effort built into them, twitter 140 character for example

[u/Fauropitotto]

The Dunning-Kruger Effect has been falsified by the way. It was never real. The data was wrong.

[u/AlexDaGreatful]

Nope. People on Reddit are here instead of working. The most active ones do the least IRL.

[u/Ryzasu]

And theyre still dumb as fuck no matter how familiar they are with academic terms

[u/triplediscount]

Redditors have a lot of surface level knowledge, becomes quite obvious when people talk about a subject you have a deep understanding of.

I have a geography degree and while the r/geography subreddit is alright there’s a lot of misinformation on there with a lot of upvotes

[u/Taint_Flayer → u/[deleted]]

I'm guessing there is some irony going on with how confidently people talk about the Dunning Kruger Effect on social media while only having a surface level understanding of how it works.