George Carlin "The American Dream" Best 3 Minutes of His Career
Why Hacker News recommends it
Quoted in threads about education, inequality and critical thinking as a cynical take on who benefits from the system.
What it is
A three-minute clip of George Carlin's bit on the American dream, arguing that the owners of the country do not want an educated population capable of critical thinking.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2015 to 2018.
What Hacker News said
Cites unabst · 2015-08 · on “A successful strategy to get college students thinking critically”
Here is a simple definition of critical thinking: Be critical of what is being said until it can be validated tangibly. It only has two requirements. The courage to question what is in front of you, and the tools to test and validate statements objectively. What people trip on is often the "thinking" part. It plays on the myth that thought and logic is what solves problems, but in reality we need to be able to refer to something tangible -- such as evidence. If you don't have enough information, stop thinking and do your research (or experiments). Most evidence is rather obvious once found. Anecdotally, fear and anti-science are the enemy of critical thought, and those who claim moral author
Cites cmurf · 2017-01 · on “Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate”
George Carlin, the American dream (quite cynical) [this video] Hillbilly Elegy [LINK] My version: Republican party platform does not believe in the "veil of ignorance" at all whatsoever. They support neo-feudalism and aristocracy. Equality is fake, people are in fact different, those differences should be rewarded and punished in a free market, it is considered unfair to force equality to be true. Even equality under the law is negotiable, where those who can afford better lawyers get better justice. Democrats are tone deaf, and suck at marketing their own policy successes. They'd rather convince people to vote for them on the basis of a smug liberalism which says if only people had the facts the
Cites tekkk · 2018-04 · on “Stock Markets Tumble Amid Worries Over Tech Firms and Trade Tensions”
George Carlin said it well: "Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don't GIVE a fuck about them."[1]. I can't say that I didn't feel bad for them but this has been long time coming. How come countries like Germany are at the same time booming, is it because there is something intrinsically different about the two populations? We are not just leaves in a stream floating around aimlessly, the people themselves have to try and change the current status quo. If the system in place does not provide a way to do it or does it inefficiently (how I view Trump election win) it does a disservice to its people. [this video]