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Can't Get You Out of My Head [BBC][UK-only]
Eight hours of an epic, factual story how the societies across the Global North became split and polarised.
Adam Curtis shows how the evolution of societies in the 20th century diminished the sense of community, spread loneliness epidemic and irrational beliefs.
Personally, I have been aware of most of the events shown in the movie through following news or reading historical sources but this does not make this series any boring.
The way the historical events are put together allows to see how human vulnerabilities were exploited and who, if anyone, benefited from it.
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When did we give up on persuasion? [UnHerd]
When I was still part of the debate society, we had multiple conversations on topics which can often be considered outrageous.
For me it was obvious opinions in our discussions need not be our personal views but rather opinions we want to have challenged by others.
The unknown motion and randomly-assigned position on it is the very nature of competitive debating.
The tournament participants, however, often did not wish to have their debates recorded, fearing consequences of being taken seriously.
In his essay, Tom Chivers brings an example of someone who was not afraid at first and how it led to him gaining bad press.
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Kitchen-table classrooms: Covid-19 has persuaded some parents that home-schooling is better [The Economist][paywall]
Schools in England reopen to pupils on 8 March.
Most parents I know cannot wait to send their kids back to school, not least because this allows them to focus at work.
It is still uncertain what damage one-year-long break in education has done to the children.
Some parents, however, are not looking forward to this and decided to keep home-schooling their kids.
In the article you can find about various motives, problems with state school system and different national regulations influencing such decisions.