Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis Paper

Imagine that as an individual you are a node within a social mesh network. Your function is to process information and distribute what is true. Even if something is false, it is also true that it is false. In essence, you make decisions and send them to other nodes. How do you make such decisions?

Believe nothing and you become isolated - a node at the edge of the network. Believe everything and you become a vulnerability, an uncritical processor of potential misinformation. A spreader of falsehoods is a liability to the network, even a point of failure to achieving consensus on what is true. So how should a good human node process information?

With critical thinking.

Here is an interesting (and free) text on the art and science of critical thinking from the point of view of military intelligence.

As the world is now enveloped in a pall of propaganda, critical thinking is now critically important. The alternative is that your social mesh network has reached a consensus that is false - this truth will result in its vulnerability and eventual failure.

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