Good videos, with context.
George Carlin "The American Dream" Best 3 Minutes of His Career

George Carlin "The American Dream" Best 3 Minutes of His Career

Dan K Schroeder
0 HN recommenders · discussed 2015–2018
Open YouTube ↗

About this video

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.

Why it appears in the archive

Quoted in threads about education, inequality and critical thinking as a cynical take on who benefits from the system.

AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.

From the Hacker News discussion

unabst · 2015-08 · reference

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 authority and depend on spin to achieve their goals have used these weapons time and time again. "They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking."[0] -- George Carlin Amen. [0] [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
cmurf · 2017-01 · reference

George Carlin, the American dream (quite cynical) [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 they'd vote Democrat. Ergo if you vote Republican you're either stupid or evil. This is not a winning strategy, obviously.

Read original comment ↗
tekkk · 2018-04 · reference

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. [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗