I'd actually say critical thinking has seen considerable improvement in the past few years. For one thing people no longer unconditionally trust the press and government institutions like they used to in, say '00s, and instead see them for what they are - a little more than Pravda and Politburo. Wars are also a lot less feasible now (thanks, ironically, to the cancer that is social media) than they used to be - people will bypass the media and shit all over the military industrial complex saber rattling. The establishment's control over narratives is at historic lows - that's why you're seeing increasing censorship - "consent of the governed" is getting a lot harder to manufacture. I'm pretty sure NYT would not be able to sell Iraq war to the public in 2021. I like that. I wish there was a less society-damaging way to achieve the same effect, but there doesn't seem to be one.
I've seen a lot more blanket skepticism and cynicism, but these new views are often as uncritical as the credulity they replaced (and as easily exploited).
I haven't really seen an increase in people doing the hard work of gathering facts, considering new perspectives, and challenging their own assumptions or prior beliefs. It's more like switching from uncritical consumption of NYT to uncritical consumption of YouTube.
I did like your idea that this could be a good thing though, not sure I believe it yet.
If all we get from this is the impossibility of droning children in the Middle East, it's a worthwhile tradeoff in my view. But I feel like we'll get more than that, in time.
We've kept a lot of drones in the region, and have continued using them (though at a reduced pace). I hope you're right that it will become an impossibility but I really doubt it.
These are all very good points. The ability for misinformation to propagate means that manufacturing consent has become a lot harder. As we've seen with COVID, that has some downsides, but it also has upsides because selling war is going to be a lot harder. Every tool has light and a dark side.
Think of it this way: the establishment is merely not a single source of misinformation anymore. Misinformation was always easy to propagate. I'd say easier, in fact. See e.g. Iraq war - 100% disinfo, parroted uniformly and enthusiastically by the entirety of the mainstream press.
Except in the past you could create (via mass media controlled by, quite literally, five people) an airtight, completely impenetrable narrative and feed it to the public, and now the public can get both the information, and conflicting disinformation elsewhere. Oops. Bet the CIA did not think of that when they helped create Twitter and Facebook.
