It seems there is no working around learning to write and read properly. We've drifted away from this idea, which might lead to a "soft" dark age.
I think most people don’t bother to use the reading and writing skills they did learn, so I doubt this is as big a deal as people think.
More than half of the USA believes the Earth is less than 10k years old, and this has been true for decades. Being able to read isn’t enough, people have to actually do the reading.
Aside from the facts that a) the polls don't actually show that and b) people professing religious beliefs aren't necessarily as serious about them as you'd think (and can accept quite a bit of contradiction in them depending on the context), learning consists of something more than "doing the reading" and then choosing correctly what to believe from among what was read. When your outgroup doesn't agree with you on something, generally it isn't because they haven't heard from your authorities; it's because they don't trust your authorities. (And why would they, given their perspective?)
mkl95 · · focus · HN ↗
sneak · · focus · HN ↗
More than half of the USA believes the Earth is less than 10k years old, and this has been true for decades. Being able to read isn’t enough, people have to actually do the reading.
zahlman · · focus · HN ↗