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Unread 23-05-2006, 23:17
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Re: 10 Signs that your son is a hacker.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe
There is a serious danger that has not been mentioned, and that is SOMEONE WILL TAKE THIS ARTICLE SERIOUSLY.
If you read this entire thread you realize that it took a lot of thinking before someone pointed out that this was a JOKE. If took this many intelligent individuals at ChiefDelphi...

The problem with satire is that sometimes its humor is a little too subtle.
I'll probably get some people mad for posting this, so I'll try to say it nicely. Intelligence isn't everything.

Lately I've been having conversations with different people who are striving to see students trained in critical thinking (one chat in particular was about why a would-be engineer should be able to critique literature).

A lot of media attention has been given to "functional literacy." But there are different kinds of literacy. Many kids enjoy reading story books and novels, and can quickly read piles of books straight through (think Hardy Boys). Good for them!

But to be ready for high school and beyond, these same kids have to learn that a different approach is required for reading textbooks. This may seem silly to naturally talented scholars, but I once encountered a case where a student tried to read her textbook like a novel. She missed important information because she ignored the bold type--the chapter subheadings--and the information was not presented in the body of the text. As a result, she couldn't understand her lessons.

Moving ahead to the "critical thinking" level--this is where a lot of people think their English classes are a waste of time. But, as was alleged in one of the above-mentioned conversations, millions of students are spending a lot of time on the Internet. They instantly download pages, then zip right through them like the pages are pulp fiction. They don't read critically. They don't read between the lines. They don't ask hard questions, such as: "What is this author REALLY trying to say?" "What are the author's credentials?" "Is it reasonable to regard this as a trustworthy site?" "Are there serious logical or factual errors?"

Those who fail to pay attention as they read will be sitting ducks for anyone who wants to take advantage of them. Inattentive readers can be easily misled or manipulated by advertisers, news media, forwarded e-mails-- even by people who may get involved with FIRST to achieve their own private agendas rather than to benefit the community. Sloppy readers can easily misunderstand someone, and make fools of themselves with their off-target responses.

Satirists generally expect their audience to be intelligent--AND they expect them to be paying attention. Most people who enjoy satire would feel insulted if the author made the humor blatantly obvious to even the dullest near-literate stumbling around the Internet. Part of the fun of satire is that it starts out appearing serious, but the deeper in you get, the more you get a strange feeling about what's being said...then you begin to chuckle, and maybe end up roaring with laughter. (Unless you disagree--then you might be hopping mad.)

I think the piece of satire that is the subject of this thread is just about right-- neither too subtle nor too obvious. I remember a prank played on CD some years ago where the author DID make it too subtle. A lot of people believed it, and quickly became very upset. A reader had to be fairly Internet-savvy to catch on to the single clue that clearly betrayed the stunt. On the other hand, the "hacker" article is packed with clues everywhere in the page.
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