Interesting commentary (in Off-topic)

Article

About the state of discussion and thought. It seems to be a response to the bitter divisiveness and aggressiveness we've seen in the past couple weeks from all the health care debate.

From the article

"...our lifestyles favor knee-jerk reactions. The way we think, work and live in the Digital Age demands we quickly categorize information without investing time into rich interaction, research and understanding."

Ruiz lost me when he said "here's my diagnosis."

This is definitely the debate of all debates for this decade, but there this is so much more than not having an open mind. When it comes to changing something for the worse (if that is your position), it's a no-brainer to have a stance on the issue that is fortified. The US has the best health care available anywhere. The other systems have more flaws, and stereotype it because of socialism, governmental control, bla bla... it still comes down to the US having the best health care available. There are so many underlying things about the policy that aren't discussed in detail, and the main reason is because they are things that the hard working people of America will object to. Such as making it easier for illegals, those on welfare, etc to have, as they scaringly make it seem, a more unrestricted availability to health care, a la carte of the taxpayer.
Some Med Students are currently going towards the upside of $500,000 loans to pay for their education. The changes proposed are going to make their financial responsibility incompatible with life. But hey, I bet they were just quickly categorizing information.

As for the quoted comment (sorry felt compelled to comment on the article), I don't believe it is accurate. I do agree we are living in the fast lane of the digital age, but I don't think people as a whole have become that easily misconstrued as to forfeit common sense on well established embodiments of our society. My family, friends, coworkers, church body all interact, research, gain knowledge and awareness....

I think Ruiz's sentence was just a glorified way of saying "we" have become lazy. Which is true to an extent... but he's reaching with relating it to the health care debate.

I think that one of the concepts that he was trying to get across is that in this digital age, we are much more vulnerable to the silo effect, or the echo chamber, whichever metaphor you like better. Now more then ever it's really easy to seek out our own opinions and have them validated by others.

It seems like it's really important for people who have different ideas and opinions on a subject to debate that subject rationally, using facts and critical thought to come to conclusions. It appears as though there are people that are adopting someone elses opinion without any second thought or critical thinking involved.

"The US has the best health care available anywhere."

No.