“Critical thinking”

You're right that the medium isn't the problem - but, be fair, when people vehemently insist they've researched it with YouTube (especially while scorning the WEF-owned MSM), you know they don't mean they've spent hours having their intellects challenged by a range of real experts debating the issues!

See, you have swallowed the bollocks whole. Misinformed totally but convinced you are on the right side. Spouting idiotic sound bites, there were a lot of highly qualified people who had a problem with "the vaccine" none of which featured nanotech to take over your brain 🙄

Seems to me to mean, haven't swallowed the BBC/mainstream media line wholesale.

Do you have a source for that opinion?? Hah

People berate YouTube as some kind of gormless shite. You can literally watch Nobel prize winners having in depth conversations about the cutting edge of physics. The medium is not the problem.

Thinking back to Brexit, people were convinced that continued EU membership would cause hundreds of thousands of evil Turks to flood the UK. They couldn't explain what's so dreadful about Turks, nor why a number that, quite often, exceeded the whole population of Turkey wanted to move here. Most crucially, Turkey was not an EU member and had no realistic prospect of joining any time soon.

They couldn't compute the illogic of these claims but got all the more emotionally intense about this Turkish threat, the more you asked them to think it through. It happens on all sorts of issues. I find it very odd - it's quite a lot like a small child's foot-stamping denial of things they don't want to hear!

We've had countless highly-qualified people of real influence insisting that men can grow female reproductive organs with hormone treatment. Asked how that works, or why men receiving prostate treatment don't change sex, they go all blank and foot-stampy. They know how to use Google and probably count doctors among their friends, but can't apply logic to this question. Also see those US congressmen who said women can't get pregnant from rape or ectopic pregnancies can be transplanted: they have wives, they have armies of researchers, but somehow never asked themselves "Does this statement fit the facts as known?"

Remember how "They" - usually Bill Gates, but take your pick - were forcing the entire world population to have the Covid vaccine because it contains tiny transmitters that will be used to gain remote control of your brain? Millions of people believed that, and believed it more intensely the more you asked them to think about the how and the why. Half the believers were convinced these were 5G transmitters! I mean, cool afaiac, free phone service 😂 but - erm, why and how?? In-body 5G devices (if they existed) would need to be powered. Perhaps the vaccinators also install a USB socket in your leg, I dunno.

Finally, one I was guilty of this week. At the start of this year, I decided to stop voraciously consuming the news; it was making me feel helpless. I get headline feeds from mainstream news outlets and limit myself to reading those for around five minutes a day. In February, my feeds reported that Russia had used tactical nukes in Ukraine. My feeds did not follow up with retractions, so it stayed in my brain as factual. I had my arse deservedly handed to me for repeating this 'fact' on a thread about war. It's unlike me not to have thought "Hang on, this is a bit drastic. What other news has there been about it?" I've gone back to actually reading the news in long form, with arguments.

When people only ever quote from unverified sources it is appropriate, newspapers and people's opinions on blogs or vlogs or social media dont count, people need to think for themselves and not parrot others

And that stands for left or right wing or anything in between

'They are here taking our jobs and get free handouts' ok please actually provide verified examples and not the Daily Mail

I havent seen it in a while, but when I have seen it on Mnet it's been used incorrectly.

I can only talk about Americans (I do see it here, too, but I don't know whether or not the posters are Americans or not).

I can't give you examples, because they're constant, and I dismiss them from mind after responding (or not). But I can tell you that I'm on two American forums and that overall the conservative/right wing posters almost across the board tend to be ill-informed, incapable of logic, incapable of sustained rational argument - and weirdly bad with basic English. The same is true from the few in-person conversations I have. They make wild statements (do you know about Pizzagate?), and commonly are completely hypocritical, happy with things that Trump does when they would have been outraged if a Democrat did the same. They make (like Trump) sweeping generalizations without any evidence. By contrast, most of my political posts are accompanied by a link to a reputable source.

But that's if you were referring to ordinary people. If you were referring to people high up in government, it's the same. The American secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is making such wildly false statements that his own family is calling on him to resign. The Supreme Court justice who struck down the abortion protection cited a "fact" about abortion history that was untrue. (If I remember correctly, he claimed that America had always been anti-abortion, whereas in fact abortions were common in the mid 19th century, usually via mid-wives, until doctors decided they didn't like them encroaching on their income.). This kind of thing is happening daily.

There were once serious conservative intellectuals, but they've died out.

It's become a nonsense phrase. Generally, if you see "does not engage in critical thinking", you can replace it with "does not agree with me".

Interesting... In the last few years - and especially the last 6 months - I've only ever heard that used by right wingers to criticise supposed left wing 'extremists' who 'shut down debate'. Social media is hopelessly polarised regardless of which side of the fence you're on.
Concretely, I'd say critical thinking is an ability to engage with others quoting facts and counterarguments whilst understanding their context. Basically, not taking soundbites at face value. It's hard to give examples because the entire online debating style encourages soundbites and rage baiting...

A recent one is believing social media conspiracies that you should be home educating your kids this term because the government are hiding that asylum seekers are planning acts of terror against schools so your kids aren’t safe there.

A left wing one is if transwomen were women then why is the patriarchy prioritising them over women? Why are transwomen more centred than transmen?