The premise of the article doesn't make sense. Tools can only train thinking ability, they cannot extend it. Thinking and reasoning must be fixed at the root.
I'm curious (genuinely) how you define thinking in a way that it's unaffected by the dominant mediums of communication and culture. Maybe you can recommend some reading material?
In my view 'critical thinking' is real thinking. There is a lot of misinformation and a lot of what we perceive as knowledge is in fact rhetoric. You need to learn to take everything with a grain of salt; sometimes that means you need to unlearn things along the way. Doubt is important.
I think it's good to read a variety of books with opposing viewpoints or with viewpoints which contradict popular ideas.
For non-fiction, the books 'Black Swan' and 'Fooled by Randomness' by Nassim Taleb were eye-openers for me. Also, I found an interesting synergy between Nassim's books and the book 'Thinking fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman (which is a book about human psychology).
Also, I enjoyed reading 'Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World'.
I don't read much fiction but it can be interesting sometimes. I read 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley many years ago and it's a book that appears to be becoming more relevant with time. I find that watching foreign films can also help to diversify my thinking.
Most of critical thinking is awareness of uncertainty. It is abductive reasoning. It's about 'most likely' conclusions and 'best explained by' situations. Which is why:
> You need to learn to take everything with a grain of salt
That's uncertainty. And once you are in the realm of uncertainty (which is almost always), society and culture take a large role in affecting your decisions.
A tool for thought helps navigate that uncertainty, so you have a better understanding of systems, which likely translates to making better decisions.
