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Shh, don't tell Harrier that Harvard is the most conservative of the Ivies.
Yes, but........Obama went there.
I think we all know the original intent of this thread was to try to discredit President Obama by pointing out that a few students from Harvard couldn't name the capital of Canada.
I think the most entertaining part of this thread is not so much that the people in this video didn't know the capital of Canada, but that 90% of the people on this thread who sneer about it immediately googled the answer because they, too, did not know.
The reality is simply that ALL of us have limited knowledge and going to a well-respected college or university is no panacea that bestows ALL knowledge on students. All it can do is raise the level of information a person possesses.
That said, I'm guessing that this apparent lack of knowledge speaks, in part, about the relative youth of interviewees than about their level of intelligence. It also speaks to great editing since none of us have any idea how many students answered correctly but were, for obvious reasons, excluded from the video.
Finally, if you believe that this is indicative of anything and if you believe that this video is representative of Harvard students, you really need to worry. After all, Harvard is usually seen as one of the top schools in the nation and in the world. If your premise it true and if these are America's brightest young individuals, then America is headed for a lot of pain.
In other words, there really is no reason to buy into the message of the video unless you lack the ability to perceive it within context. We know that Harrier is unable to do so - or he would have worded his OP differently - and there are quite a few others who clearly fall for the most basic mechanisms of propaganda: Selectively highlighting individuals that further your message without offering validation that they are, in fact, what you purport them to be (Harvard students) and without explaining how many people, in total, needed to be interviewed in order to create a video of some ten or so students who did not know the correct answer.
Congratulation to all of you for clearly demonstrating how easily you can be manipulated. You are government's dream - you believe everything thrown at you while you are convinced of your intellectual superiority. Machiavelli would just laugh, laugh, laugh.
Thank you--excellent observation. Threads like these truly depress me, as there appears to be a growing mob mentality and even glee in regard to encouraging anti-education and anti-college beliefs--almost a celebration of ignorance. Very scary for the future of this country. In actuality, an educated population is the only real hope for the future of this country. Ignorance combined with hate, hasty generalizations and a total disrespect for anyone with a differing opinion has the very real power to doom this country. The internet has been the great equalizer, but sadly it is all too apparent that people believe that as long as they have a keyboard, they also have an informed opinion. Unfortunately, it is all too obvious that many people who cannot be bothered to learn how to spell, use grammar or the English language properly, and who lack critical thinking skills or any logical evidence on which to base their opinions, are often the ones attacking others as being "low information voters," while they simply regurgitate reactionary talking points.
Harrier bets the same amount that you will never contact Harrier to pay him.
Now you owe double money.
Still waiting for Harrier to seek the opinion of a mental health expert.
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for going to all the work of gathering that information up and posting it.
