The author of The Sociopath Next Door found that 4% of the general population are sociopaths, 60% are predisposed to obey sociopaths and authority, and 36% are disagreeable free thinking people like us. Proportion of sociopaths is much higher in government, corporations, and cities. Meanwhile, the CDC just extended the vax travel requirement again...
I think the Pareto distribution is generally applicable here.
~80% of the populace are generally sane, moral people that simply want to live their lives in peace. ~20% of the population may swing to the dark side depending on conditions.
~80% of the above ~20%, although susceptible to barbarism, will under normal conditions remain sane and moral, if for no other reason than conformity.
It is the ~20% of the initial ~20%, or ~4% that are the truly dangerous ones. These are the sociopathic war criminals and grifters that above all else want to control and loot others, and as such, the more powerful the State becomes, they more they are drawn to it like carnivorous dung beetles reveling in the guano on the floor of the bat cave.
And once these parasites are in power, they will ruthlessly eliminate any that exhibit any scruples, ethics or morality.
It is this dynamic that has come to full fruition in our times, from the little Napoleons in the local construction permitting office all the way up to Jacobin Joe and his merry band of prancing and preening socialist diversity hires regurgitating incoherent drivel.
These four percenters have always been with us and likely always will be, so the only way to keep these barbarians from power is to not have powerful institutions for them to infest and colonize.
I view most of this woke (and climate) nonsense as just another permutation of the ancient mantra of rulers, what the Romans termed divide et impera, modernized with the addition of perhaps the largest grift in the history of mankind.
"[I]f experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. His very existence, indeed, is a standing subversion of the public good in every rational sense. He is not one who serves the common weal; he is simply one who preys upon the commonwealth"
~ H. L. Mencken, From "The Politician" in Prejudices: A Selection, edited by James T. Farrell
Well said. The problem with covid was that the folks who "just wanted to live their lives" were, to some extent, the reason the madness was protracted.
Funny. I told my nephew that the wind is "caused" by the sun and he told me that if we weren't destroying the atmosphere we wouldn't have high winds on occasion.
It was all I could do to keep from bursting out in laughter.
Yeah "killing grandma" is nothing compared to "killing earth".
I successfully converted one younger cousin (20 years younger), but the rest of them think I'm a "denier".
Back in the old, old ,old days, like thousands of years ago, these 4 percenters were dragged in front of the wise chief, sentenced, and then pushed off a cliff.
As anyone who has interacted with a PTA or homeowners' association board will testify, people given power have an innate desire to exercise it. Even if that exercise is irrational, and that person has never acted irrationally before.
Power tends to corrupt (and absolute power corrupts absolutely) -- Lord Acton
It takes self-actualization to resist this temptation, and our society and education system are no longer creating self-actualized citizens. There's a reason they call it the "Me Generation."
Strange - but - was watching "The Crown" to understand what the heck monarchy is about/like/for - and Edward VIII was "suited" to the throne but hated it (Liked Wallis Simpson better). Much better was George VI, who was speech impaired, unready, unwilling - and yet, became a strong monarch.
He who is unwilling to serve is probably the best candidate.
"Political tags, such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth, are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
Correct, it is Margaret Anna Alice’s portmanteau, shared without reservation and without seeking notoriety. It’s great to see her get credit though. My thoughts: it’s a potent contribution to the lexicon.
Here comes the vicious dynamics of viscous pathocracy cycle, explored in empirical depths by Andrzej Łobaczewski of Political Ponerology fame 🙂 Logocracy logically sprouts out as the most welcome alternative --> ponerology.substack.com/p/logocracy-chapter-1-introduction 👌
It's for a reason the 'stack has a name like that 🙂 You'd be remiss to not give yourself a rewarding tour there. Just don't be surprised when kinda addiction develops in no time. Such a treasure trove! 🔥👌
Indeed. Wonderfully communicated. On this point, "And once these parasites are in power, they will ruthlessly eliminate any that exhibit any scruples, ethics or morality," I might add one bit of embellishment. Hannah Arendt is on the red courtesy phone. She wants to thank you for updating her thesis!
4% is a staggering number and hard to believe. That these people rise to positions of authority is easy to understand. Without the conflict of conscience they have a tremendous advantage. My sisters, and I fought a two year long battle, including the court system against a woman who took control of our elderly father suffering with dementia in an effort to steal all of his assets. She almost succeeded.
So true! And I don’t know why, but it appears it’s mostly women who seem to enjoy being the enforcers of overreach.
My DIL informed me a few weeks ago that in her community they are now using drones to fly around the neighborhood and find people who have “violated” the rules and are setting up small chicken coops so as to have access to fresh eggs.
My family had a very similar situation: a man who took control of our father’s elderly cousin suffering with dementia in an effort to steal all of his assets. And he did succeed. My father was his next of kin and visited him about 3x a year as he seemed to mentally deteriorate. He then disappeared. Turned out his stepson had sold his house, moved him, taken power of attorney, bought him a new house but as tenants in common which allowed him to assume ownership on our father’s cousin’s death which happened soon after. Meanwhile my father was having to play detective to track his cousin down- found him 3 weeks after he died. Stepson knew about our father and hid his cousin from him. Stepson was 40 when his mother married our father’s cousin (late marriage, wife died soon after so, adult stepson for 5 years with no obligations because my father was next of kin and visited). Definitely a narcissist.
This sort of thing can happen all too easily. The problem is that it’s rare enough for the normal, sane victim to think “this can’t be happening, it’s so brazen, I must’ve got something wrong”. This plays right into the narcissists strategy of carrying on with being brazen, especially if there’s a big dollop of gaslighting and projection (he complained he had to pay for the tombstone so could he please be reimbursed).
This is a parallel issue with family courts. The rights over a human person can change from theirself or their parents to the state, a professional, or in your case step family, all lacking due process. In terms of guardianship of adults, Sam Sugar has done some incredible interviews, especially on the Maryanne Petri's Slam the Gavel. His organization gives some advice on how to protect you and your family from guardianship.
Similar story happened to an elderly, well-to-do great-aunt years ago. She happened to live (out of state from all her relatives) on her own for many years after her husband passed (no kids). She was isolated on a ranch and was not fond of family visiting. So the family was well behind events as they were happening; the first we learned things were not well was when her deceased brother’s kids (who had moved cross-country for this) answered her door with a weapon to hand, letting inquiring family members know that no, they could not visit their great-aunt as she was sleeping and could not be disturbed. Things went fast after that, culminating in a last hospitalization for her under suspect circumstances, and a even more suspect ending during that hospital visit. By the time her will (everything went to her brother’s kids, despite years of mentions that she wanted to leave it all to her local community) had been read, everything was cemented in stone and the lawyer that my family pooled in for was quick to say that all was legally correct, so sorry. Last I grass, they sold all timber and then the property itself and started a small business on the west coast. Unfortunately, my parents didn’t seem to learn much from this, and so I (only kid) went through a different version of this when they went. You really can’t imagine at the time it’s going on that this terrible thing really is happening and by the time you do, the damages are done.
I’m sorry to hear that story. It seems that this sort of behaviour is fairly prevalent. When it involves money, people show their true colours. I too am going through a different version of this with another family member who ticks all the boxes for narcissistic traits. I didn’t mention it above because it hasn’t played out yet.
I think this thread is useful to other readers, especially younger people who might not have experienced this sort of situation yet. I would say not to be too paranoid but if someone starts to show a pattern that looks as if they’re making a play to steal an inheritance, don’t spend to long in the adjustment phase where you debate whether your misreading the situation or not. Start delving, start asking awkward questions early on (but I know that’s difficult if they’re wielding a gun!). Getting access to the victim and assuring them of your 100% support for them is paramount. I’ve had to do this and have also told the ‘vulture’ that I’ll fight them in the courts with no hesitation if they try again what they had already tried and I stopped.
Good for you! So sorry to hear you are in the midst of all that though. Sometimes it is difficult to realize what’s going on unless you are very close to the vulnerable person. I recall one time I moved to a new area and the next door elderly disabled lady was very kind and we spent time conversing on her better days, since she was right next door. However, after a month or so, one of her favorite caregivers pulled me aside privately and said in no uncertain terms I needed to stay away from her. She was very adamant and unpleasant; completely different from how she normally acted around the elderly lady. I thought about it and decided to do so because I was not a relative and did not need to stir any pots. But it does go to show how things can sometimes easily slip under the radar.
That’s creepy and I’m sorry to hear you had that dilemma of whether to carry on talking to her. I’ve read a fair number of stories in the papers about nefarious carers over the years. Relatives and neighbours need to be ever vigilant especially when there are no close relatives around.
My second comment here (below/above?) was directed to you, Maureen but I’m not sure if it shows as being to you. I don’t understand these vertical thread lines and which replies they refer to.
Agreed. My parents differed from my great aunt by not having a lot of cash, etc. But they did have a house full of antiques. All of which went through the court system with no mention of where they went. Never did get to see a paper record of any accounting. My dad’s car disappeared three days after he passed; nobody knew anything. So sorry you had to go through something like this as well. It is life-changing. 😞
My sisters and I got involved with a group of people whose professions draw them into the orb of sociopathic women praying on wealthy, older men in Southern California. It’s not a small problem.
I think it may have to do with consequences of psycho/sociopathic behaviour.
As recently as the 1970s, such a person had to hide their proclivities (Dahmer's private roadkill-collection in the woods behind their house f.e.) or would be locked up, possibly for life.
Thanks in part to the anti-psychiatry movement but also postmodern and social constructivist schools of thought (you could make the case that secularisation also plays into this), from the 1990s on the ideal is that the person displaying clear psychopathic behaviours as long as they stop short of outright murder/rape (and sometimes not even then!) is to be treated in the community.
Maybe that's why the number has risen from way below 1%?
I disagree about "anti-psychiatry" - we don't state that "it's okay to be psychopath" - anti-psychiatry is about denying the DSM labels and the resulting destructive treatments. Psychiatry is a weapon used to cripple (and make money from) the poor, the struggling, the Other. If people are harming people - you don't need a diagnosis or label for that. It's a crime.
(note: psychiatry ***is*** harming people, and this latest COVIDian assault is just an extension of the arm of psychiatry. Who created the gas ovens in Germany? "We know your needs better than you do." is the mantra of psychiatry - very much like what we've been told about COVID.)
"Anti-psychiatry" has nothing to do with the convenient deinstitutionalisation of inmates - that was a capitalist move. Cheaper to drug them and keep them at home.
More, I blame corporate culture (there was a Canadian film, 2003, called "The Corporation,") wherein corporations are not liable for their individual actions. They are protected from that liability by the Corporation, and to rise in this environment, sociopathy and psychopathy is rewarded. The sociopaths and psychopaths rise to the top of the Corporation. How many corporate crimes have resulted in punishment? Fines are just a cost of doing business.
This rewards the sociopaths and psychopaths - and so they accelerate their crimes.
It was actually being a part of anti-psychiatry which enabled me to see through the bs that the COVIDians were presenting. Same tactics, same gaslighting.
I'm going on anti-psychiatry in my nation, should have pointed that out maybe.
Here, that idea is completely enmeshed with the wokest of the woke.
Thankfully, our psychiatric sector is and has been operating on two basic principles for the last decade now, while still using ICD/DSM-labels for various reasons (many to do with bureaucracy):
1) Is the person a proven danger to others?
2) Is the person a proven danger to themselves?
Those two are, while not formally written down or recognised, the basis for what if any treatment is to be mandated (KBT being the go-to method right now). Otherwise any contact with psychologists, therapists or psychiatrists is voluntary.
I can't see you and @JC disagreed in substance—more like a mismatch in what the anti-psychiatry appellation means to each. Just as you say, the eternal confusion over terms; your implied doesn't equal the other guy's 🙂
Peter Gotzsche is a Dane, he's kinda in this camp. Same with Olga Runciman. We have people who are battling the dangers of psychiatry on all continents. I'm in Australia (though have also experienced the US). But unless you are exposed to the history, then it's something new.
Has "antipsychiatry" been coopted by the Woke? "You can't diagnose me! I was BORN this way!"
I think he’s actually spot on. In the past, before internet, social media that %was probably lower but sociopaths can be created if you have the tools at hand…lots of sick people out there
They extended it last May 11? But I thought the emergency order stuff all expires on May 11. I wish I had the money to sue the US CDC. It’s such an unscientific random requirement to entry and they need to stop playing pretend and lying about it.
Biden ended the emergency order around April 11, a month early. However, the vaxx border requirement was issued independantly of the emergency order so requires a seperate 'decree' to end it. I remember hearing that it was Trudeau that requested that Biden close the border last year just before the Trucker Freedom Convoy. I don't doubt it.
There are 2 different orders and the vax requirement is separate but I confirmed it hasn’t been extended past May 11. (At this point) It is largely expected to expire when the second part of the emergency order ends May 11. I’m truly hoping that’s the case. Or that they make it a “last 6 months” thing so that the majority of vaccinated people are inconvenienced and pissed off by it rather than not caring because they have no problem with discriminating against us unvaxxed. 🙄
Makes me so angry because I know they love having people to control, people who want something enough to give in when told they have to do this in order to visit our country. It is a particularly nasty type of evil to delight in piercing the bodies of other people and making it a requirement when they know it's doing nothing to stop Covid.
Since 2020, I'd say that closer to 30% of the general population are sociopaths. They gravitate to big cities for some reason. Glad I live in a small town.
Simple. Working in corporate America, usually urban, rewards those who are willing to cheat, lie, steal, bury, hide - sociopathy and psychopathy is rewarded in corporate settings. Those who work for Mom & Pop don't have the same drives.
Novak Djokovic should simply walk across the Rio Grande with the nightly crowd, or merely cross from Canada using one of the dozens of unguarded crossing points.
Then the ICE gang can drag him off the court during his first match and we can watch it on video! Hope ICE wear gloves and masks...
My ex said that when I had all these problems coming to this country legally. The US must be one of the hardest countries to immigrate to legally. And expensive. And jab happy.
Public apology. I just inadvertently reported a comment, no idea whose, I had absolutely no intention, was having trouble with my phone screen jumping round. Please ignore Gato.,
Wow! We’ll said. My mind has been cracking now and then from the utter madness of Covid crazy around me. Now that the ‘crisis’ seems to be receding no-one says a peep about it. They just go on about their lives as if the threats of me being fired, the restrictions me and my family were placed under never existed?!?!? Not one shred of concern, not one apology. All’s good?!?!? I’ve been stunned at the people close to me who I respected fell for this insanity hook, lime and sinker. They would have reported me to the authorities. In fact one did report my anger on social media about the restrictions, where I never mentioned my employer by name, but brought it to the attention of my team leader, who brought it to the attention of Management and forced me to delete the post. My career, what’s left of it is done at work. I’m sure I’m effectively blacklisted. I’m off FB for life at this point and I will never trust anyone from work as long as I live. I will never be the same after being treated like a dangerous leper by almost everyone. It’s deeply wounded me in relationships. Thanks be to God above for that 15% of my friends who stood with me. I’d never had made it out in jabbed. 🙏🏻
Even though I presumably never met you, I was completely duped by the censorship and propaganda.
Wore the mask, got five shots, and although I never outright condemned any one else’s choice, inside I had an arrogant disapproval of the “crazy antivaxers and antimaskers”. It probably leaked out on occasion and I’ve apologized to those in my circle who had a different opinion and turned out to be right.
Probably one saving grace for me is that once I’m presented with contrary evidence, I’m willing to change my mind. Learning I’m wrong is something I relish, because that’s how I learn. Unfortunately the censorship/propaganda efforts were comprehensive and effective.
Now the people who still do nothing but stonewall, gaslight, and justify their foolishness, now that accurate information is widely available... well maybe they’re just crappy human beings.
Well said Art. Apology accepted, even though you addressed it to Ross. Your "saving grace" is probably the most important intellectual trait one can have.
Unusual characteristic, changing your mind in response to contradictory evidence (if strong enough, one piece of evidence can invalidate tracts of lies).
My PhD biologist sister in Australia, faced as she was with reams of information contradicting the narrative, including several peer reviewed journal articles, had no way out, so I thought.
Three days went by and no response. “Well?” I demanded.
Her reply? “It’s easy to generate fake documents these days”.
She found a way out. Deny the existence of the evidence that contradicted her narrative (she owned it by then).
Rather than trust her brother who she knew had been successful in corporate R&D and then in private biotechnology companies, in this field of respiratory diseases, or believe her government, chose to tell herself & others that “I’d lost my mind, taken by aliens, whatever”, so that she could discount to zero anything I told her.
I used to hold her up as a paragon of tough logic and distain for bossy authority.
Your response is beautifully honest and one I only wish more people could make, because I know they want to. So what was it? I’m really interested to know what the turning point for you was. Was it sudden or just an accumulation of ‘this doesn’t seem right’?
You hit the nail on the head that most do not want to hear. They are just crappy human beings. And we know who they are. If they weren't we would see lots of apologies (sincere ones), corrections, punishments, what have you. Instead we see memory holing, denials and ignoring the whole thing. That defines crappy human beings. I have completely revised the list of those to whom I will pay the least attention...for the better in every way.
With your background as a previous arrogant “crappy human being”, I’m curious what you were watching/listening to that convinced you to take five shots? Most importantly, how are you contributing to the deprogramming of your family and friends who also are still arrogant “crappy human beings”? We beg you here, please use your background for the greater good of all.
Amen. You are describing much of what I experienced. Just throw in the death of a loved one to the vaccine and terrible medical neglect and malfeasance.
Allegedly, some scruffy dude while having spikes driven through his hands and feet, into a wood cross spoke “forgive them father. They know not what they do.”
Someone knew. But the followers/sheep did not. Still don't, as far as I can tell. I come here so I can talk to people about this stuff - because I can't talk about this to anyone in person. Yes, I can say a word here, there - but - here - people know stuff, I learn stuff, I'm allowed to debate stuff and agree and disagree. Very different out in the "real world," now. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. I say it almost daily.
Some spiked guy is a compelling image! But we can’t dare think that Mr Science was successful in making his Faucian deal with the Presidency, to spike the global masses, making us all Jesus on earth!
My Lord! He and others may be using all this to pass the collection plate. And we dare not refer to Trump in vane (he knows better than poor, he has God like status, due life forever in the Oval Office).
America may aspire to creating a heaven on earth. May we learn we need not resurrect false Gods.
Ross, I'm lucky that I was retired from public transit service for a few years before the COVID BS hit. I'll be 72, with COPD/Emphysema, and will NEVER let myself be jabbed with that poison. I KNOW people that have been affected by it, and regret ever having it. Had C19 and treated it with the FLCCC protocol that includes both HCQ and Ivermectin. Still playing drums, and doing birds photography. Lost so many "friends" because I dared to challenge the "lets ALL get vaxxed" pressure. Called anti-vaxxer, racist, white supremacist, facist, by many. You have no idea how many times I've bit my tongue to not say: "I told you so." Just like you, not a single apology or a commentary about all that has been revealed about the shots. I just live my life happily, and those who insulted me can go "F" themselves and deal with the effects of the shots.
Ah, Rafael. A beautiful, dear friend of mine with an autoimmune disorder - listened to her doctor (people with autoimmune were especially "vulnerable," and commanded to take the shots. My husband also submitted, it seemed to make sense at the time to him, even though I thought the shots would be worse for the autoimmune sufferers). She was a lovely, trusting soul who had no reason to distrust. She is now dead with a breast cancer that took a few months from discovery to death. "I told you so," is too painful to deliver when the baby is born 10 weeks early, another's heart needs an ablation, another is suffering a neurological disorder so bad she can no longer drive, or surgery for varicose veins (and these are the small ones). All I can say is "please stop, don't take any more!"
Even though I have the documentation to prove any of these SFX, I can't even tell them why, it's too painful, and too close to "I told you so."
I have too many loved ones who took it. Now, I get to watch them suffer & die, and count the statistics of how many people I know are suffering. (from my notes: easily 30 people in my personal circles with SFX, some severe, & 10 deaths within 2 degrees of separation - but hard to ascertain causality.)
I am reluctant to contact friends & family who I believe have taken it. I feel like something has been removed from them - soul, empathy - something. I can't put my finger on it - but - the "go eff themselves" is a very real force. Plus - I frequently hear their struggles, their suffering, and my tongue is bloody and bruised from biting it.
Does it make me a lesser person to just release the ones I love into the pits of hell?
The very same people I hold the "F" themselves for are those who I KNOW would have had no problem at all of laughing or celebrate my demise because of C19 and me not having had the shot. The only ones I hold compassion for are those who believed it was the best course of action for themselves, but, unlike way too many others, didn't make it their business to demonize those who didn't. The vast majority on the former made it a point to make it known they were part of the "educated" class (wore their being jabbed as a trophy) unlike the unvaxxed, ignorant "rubes", who were labeled as "murderers", who should have been vaxxed by force or removed from the rest of society.
It always reminded me of this: Matthew 6:5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full."
Mind you, I'm NOT a religious person. Don't belong to any organized religion.
Yes, those people are gone. There were a few who asked me if I wanted to kill Grandma - but they were doing so in a kindly fashion (they believed).
But the WHOLE SOCIETY locked me out, which is why I responded to your post. It's difficult not to blame the little guy for going along with that debacle. While I have freedoms now, it's only a matter of time before the "next wave" or crisis (Bill Gates came to Australia to warn us it was coming), and here we go again.
Do not forget. Still working on how to forgive, not sure I can.
You need to cut those abusers out of your life. Call them up and say, "I have NOT forgotten your toxic, abusive behavior. You have not apologized because you are not sorry. Therefore, I insist you continue to stay away from me. You are no longer my friend. Your hateful, brutal personality is the real disease. I will NOT help or pity you if you develop health problems. Ask you precious government for help. Do NOT contact me again ever. Good bye!"
We actually moved halfway across the country to get away from one of the states that locked down the hardest. It was such a relief to land somewhere where only a few people are masked, and nobody cares about it. Even my new doctors don't ask if I got the vax.
Well that strikes a chord with me. I just... can't talk about all of /this/ that is going on with the people in my house. I hide it. My worries, my concerns for the people around me at work. William Makis' substack has been documenting deaths by demographics, and I'm so worried about a lot of the folks around me.
Sometimes reading things here makes me feel like I'm in an echo chamber, and I worry about that, too, but then I realise that it is because of communities here that I have been able to "see" everything that has happened before it happened.
Thanks for the confirmation: " ‘crisis’ seems to be receding no-one says a peep about it" - JUST what I have seen for about the last 8 months in my place of employment (e.g. the temperature sign in sheets disappeared with out a "peep"). I get a once monthly session with top management, and in sort of an exception proves the rule way, just this week at the end there was some hurried whispering - literally whispering - about "revising mask policies" and such. A bit worrisome.
What I kept hearing, then and now from those who did do it, was ‘what’s the big deal, it’s for your health, after all!’ And you’re right, that’s all the thought they gave it before moving on. Except for pointing out that they are the good guys here. 😖
I said this yesterday but it’s even more relevant to this post. Chesterton said, “The purpose of having an open mind is to close it on something solid.” I’ve always prided myself on my high trait openness and my ability *and desire* to steelman my opponents’ arguments. I did not waver during Covid.
BUT, I have come to realize that this very personality trait makes me vulnerable to gaslighting, at least as a distraction and an anchor, because I feel compelled to fully subscribe to every viewpoint for the purposes of examining my own.
And I discovered that I *have* to block people. I *must* turn it off. Instead of spending hours trying to debate, in good faith, the question of what it means to say “2+2=5” or “it’s rude and aggressive to refuse to call a biological male a woman if he/she/they demands it,” I need to recognize that there is a weakness in this openness. It allows too much debate to occur. At some point, it’s my responsibility to say,
“No. Children cannot consent to sex. ‘Gender affirming care’ is abusive. Etc.”
Closing one’s mind on something that is solid, I believe, is about identifying principles and building a foundation. It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be continually re-examined but one does have to construct a worldview based on what appears to be self evident ... that is, if one seeks a path to “enlightenment.” I will act as if these things are true.
Democrats can't accept that all powerful politicians who say they want to help could be evil. Republicans can't accept that corporations no one holds accountable (who bribe politicians) could be evil.
It's exhausting holding a worldview or a technical opinion that is well outside of the mainstream, when you're like that. I read every article that CNN put out that said that herd immunity was 80-no-90-no-95-no-98%, and that the only way to get there humanely was with vaccines and let's get a nice quote from this expert saying that kids are super resilient.
Because I needed to challenge my conclusions. Over and over again. To make sure that I wasn't missing something critical, given how far off the (observable) main path I was.
Even now, I don't have any solid answers on how to get through something like that without going insane, but I will say that I finally stopped clicking on CNN articles...
Waste of time talking to that kind. They love money and social acceptance more than truth or their neighbor. They freely chose the lie. They freely chose evil. That makes them evil.
You can't have a debate with someone who won't debate or negotiate in good faith. If their tactic is to shout you down like those sheep from Animal Farm, then it's better to point out that we know that's what they are doing. (Like Bad Cat did in this article.)
Overall I'd say that intellectuals are MORE susceptible to conformity manipulations. PhDs and MDs have done nothing but conform to attain the highest levels of their fields.
How do you get into a PhD program? Good grades and acceptable ideas. How do you get good grades? Absorb the information and regurgitate it. How do you get acceptable ideas? Believe what you're told. This occurs at every level of education. So what happens when you inject cancerous social ideas into that information stream and then grade students on that material? You get intellectuals who are well credentialed but can't think. Since credentials are proxy for intelligence, those who have no way of assessing the information themselves listen to the "experts" with credentials and those experts simply believe what they're told to believe.
I agree. Also, intellectuals worth in society is entirely predicated on their ability to convince other people that they “know” the answer. Non- intellectuals might be willing to change their mind because they never pretended to know in the first place. When an intellectual changes their mind or admits they don’t know, they’ve just admitted that they are not good at their job. And US society is becoming more and more overrun with intellectuals. Manufacturing and trades are being dismissed. Kids are being taught that being an “activist” is a career. I agree with EGM that the woke authoritarianism is just a natural outcome of a technocratic society.
Outside-the-box thinking is punished, not rewarded, in academia, the military, and most spheres of business. Advancement requires promoting the narrative, not challenging it, ad infinitum. The original commenter's observation regarding Ph.Ds and M.D.s is illustrative.
Einstein, initially clerked in a Swiss patent office. Was where he developed his early theories. Maybe we wouldn’t have nukes if he’d landed a job at a prestigious indoctrination spot where free thinking vas verboten.
Absolutely. The longer one spends inside the brainwashing apparatus posing as education in this country, the more compliant and unthinking one becomes. Just look at how the overwhelming majority are of doctors enthusiastically bought the narrative.
"So what happens when you inject cancerous social ideas into that information stream and then grade students on that material?"
Glad you brought this point up. In 1984, Yuri Bezmenov, ex-KGB agent, explained fully how our own public education system would be used to INDOCTRINATE the future generations. We're experiencing the results.
Back in the ‘80’s, when I first went to college for being an English literature major; I asked a professor (who worked in my small town) who claimed to have been to Oxford, what he liked about English as a major. He told me “it teaches you how to think.” That has stayed with me since that day, and I think it’s one of the crucial ingredients missing from upper education today.
Growing under communism made us keenly aware of propaganda. Americans are the most propagandized people in the world and the least aware of it. A major handicap! Since most of my American friends and family have read 1984 and Brave New World in high school, and since most did not “get” these books, I no longer believe the original intent was to educate but, instead, to program people. In fact, most of our schooling here is not education but programming, plus trade education. It seems to me that the more years of schooling one had the less likely one was to discern the psy-op. Schooling did not make us smarter, and most definitely did not make us wiser. The third of the population who questioned and remained skeptical comes from across the spectrum but it would not surprise me the over-schooled as group were underrepresented in that third.
The most activist teachers are invariably those with no life-experience outside institutions.
They have gone through school, then on to college/uni, then getting a teacher's degree or eq. and then back into the school system.
The good teachers by which I mean good at their subjects, good at teaching and separating private from public and also private from professional, are the ones who came late to the profession, first having done lots of other things in/with their lives.
Barring kindergarten and ages 6-8 it was rare to see a teacher under 40 when I started school, and they all - even the ones teaching the kids - had proper PhDs earned in a competitive system. The one exception being gym/PE and shop/HE teachers who instead often were 50+ and had had a real career before settling for teaching as a sort-of slow down before retirement.
While the specifics will vary by nation, obviously, I do believe (while admittedly being biased as all get out), that teaching should be reserved for the 40+ bracket. That would also create competition and selection pressure on modern teachers to shape up.
PS: If you want to see the effects of school vouchers, look at Sweden. It's a cautionary tale. DS
"The good teachers by which I mean good at their subjects, good at teaching and separating private from public and also private from professional, are the ones who came late to the profession, first having done lots of other things in/with their lives." - I think that is true of politicians as well.
I've met some of our MPs in person, back when I had a career.
The ones who are true party-creatures (partigängare in swedish, which can be read as "married-with-the-party" or "partyfucker" [literally] respectively) who joined the youth cadre in their tweens are ... well, just fill this space with every synonym for moron, idiot and conceited you can find.
I will never, ever, forget the man - publicly elected - who for real asked why we don't put mini-propellers connected to dynamos all over EVs.
See, he'd noticed that whenever he drives his EV, the wind blows so why not let that wind power the car...
"Systemet har inga problem - systemet är problemet!"
Old german and swedish anarchist slogan.
"The System has no problem - the system is the problem!"
Never thought I'd feel the urge to shout that again. In my youth, anarchists sometimes held a march on April First in mockery of the upcoming May Day-parades, where the ruling Socialist Democrat Party protested against their own politics, as we say here.
I like the European tradition (also common here in Australia) of a "gap year." Send the child abroad and get educated in different cultures, different ways of living. Backpacking, living dangerously (you still get the parties!), picking fruit, learning how to function in a society very different to what they know. Then, if they are interested in education, and have a drive to succeed at creating something in their lives - it is more real, realizable, and adds meaning to their lives.
The college environment was a really convenient step into structured adulthood, and I remain to this day reticent to just abandon it, but I think that the decision to attend a college needs to be made on the basis of the goal that it's fulfilling.
I got an engineering degree to do a style of technical work it would be quite difficult to teach on the job without a dedicated, corporate education system. I think if you want to be an engineer, a physicist, a chemist, a surgeon, you need to pick up a lot of specific knowledge, and a university is about the only place packaging that knowledge, right now.
Oh, how I wish they'd drop the 'general education' requirements and let students pick the classes they'd like to add to their focus, as they have time and interest, but that's a relatively minor complaint.
I think that, minus a focused drive to a profession that has a specific and substantial body of knowledge that you must master, it's possible that universities ought to be something pursued as a hobby while building an independent life down other channels. I would love to go back and take some history classes and some economics classes at some point, and may yet do it, but I'm not going to let those interests get in the way of the requirements of adult life.
At the most, university ought to be a bridge to independent adulthood, not a shield from it.
I'm a fan of general ed. While it is vital to be awesome in your specialty - it is also vital to be able to relate to people, history, language (this doesn't mean 'gender studies' or the other fluffy stuff). My father encouraged me to take remedial stuff - like typing, 10-key, writing, history, music, film, literature - which greatly improved my success in the workplace (accounting, also a technical specialty, though not as demanding as engineering!), as well as exposing me to things (I'm thinking about that film class) I would never have considered, and expanding my inner landscape.
I also agree that there are vital lessons to be learned at University. Living away from home for the first time - in a safe, structured environment where food is provided (dorms) and you learn to share your space with strangers. Learning how to organise your time without Mom around to help. SHOWING UP (this is a big lesson). DOING THE WORK (the next big lesson). Realising that you are no longer at the top of your class, and have to work to make it happen.
Australia doesn't do boarding/dorms at University so much, and I think they are worse off for it.
I agree - University as a bridge, not a shield. Too many snowflakes aren't dealing with the lessons in my second paragraph - so maybe University is wasted on them?
Here's what my father would object to (even though he was a Business PhD) - is the businessifying of education. He came from deep poverty and shame about that poverty. For him, education was opportunity, and this profit motive and greed will lock out people like him, who worked his way through 3 degrees in the 50's and 60's (yeah, no grants, no loans).
The private university I went to now runs $75k / year with room and board. State universities here around $30k. No way to justify spending $180k more for similar educations. The $120k state school cost itself is hard to justify.
Haven't you heard? They are no longer "teachers" but "educators". I believe they changed this to make the job sound more important. I call them teachers.
I grew up in a higher education family, PhD father was the first in his family to get a degree of any kind, pulling himself out of poverty. He was very practical in his administration (he was a Dean) - and died before any of this started. I wish he were still alive so that I could hear his opinions on what higher education has become (he retired in the 90's). His speciality was School of Business - so practical applications, teaching a trade, effectively. Is he spinning in his grave? Likely. While I'd love to chat with him, I'm also relieved that he didn't live long enough to see it.
I had a young child in a charter school in Los Angeles back in 2009. That is when it all started. I had moved him to the “progressive charter school for the arts” (yes - even in the name) because the regular public school complained that he wouldn’t sit in his seat and wouldn’t focus and was distracting other children. So I got the diagnosis (ADHD) but did not want to medicate him - and I thought a “progressive” school would just teach him without demanding a drugged up compliant child.
How wrong I was. They gave him ‘red cards’ for jumping outside, they banned playing tag, they did not give the children any exercise and playtime was monitored for ‘bullying’ (even touching another child was considered bullying), he got in trouble for ‘bullying’ his best friend when they were actually playing, they had constant lessons about causing harm and bullying, and they banned him from drawing any tanks or guns. No reading or stories about war or fighting or any kind of violence. They couldn’t manage to teach him to read though - because they believed in this ‘whole word’ way of teaching. That is “child will just pick it up automatically when they get to be 7” - or something. Oh and spelling was out because the child should just be able to spell things they way they sound and they will pick up the correct spelling eventually from reading. When and if they master reading that is. And as long as they are not reading about war or fighting or aggression or death or weapons or comics.
My child was 6 and 7 when he was exposed to this insane way of educating children. I actually moved to the UK when he was 9 which then came with it’s own set of rigid conformity issues but he is 20 now and actually fine and not woke at all. But these poor children who grew up exposed to that insanity and indoctrinated with the idea that they were bad and wrong if they wanted to play with a toy gun or liked comics where the superhero wiped out all the bad guys. And if they persisted in such ‘wrongthink’ they were drugged up to the eyeballs on methylphenidate or methamphetamine. No wonder they retreated to their video games. The progressives and their dumb ideas messed up an entire generation of kids and now we are seeing the consequences as these young adults are in universities.
There was some claim that "vax hesitant" persons tended to cluster about equally in the "only High School" and "PhD" education level spectrum - and were least present in the Masters Degree group. A little different than your claim; start with noting that tons of Public School teachers obtain MEds.
And - note to "1984" groupies: did you know that "Room 101" was something of an inside joke shared by Orwell and his BBC in-group? At the BBC head office, Room 101, at the time, was an ordinary conference room where particularly excruciatingly, boring meetings were held.
I am a PhD in marine biology with an emphasis in environmental tox with a BS in both chemistry and biology. I never fell for this bullshit (their bullshit)
I am interested to know how others in your field or associated areas fared. My suspicion was that perhaps bio-scientists familiar with the subject matter probably fared better but I have no way of knowing.
I wonder if it isn't that the University Professor PhDs are actually outnumbered by industry-employed professionals, and while those on campuses were profoundly pro-vaccine, in my experience, perhaps the ones who left the university and went to go do hard-thinking jobs did better.
Either that or the survey data was flawed. 50/50 in my mind. I hold very low odds that the university professor crowd was a massive reservoir of vaccine hesitancy.
I vaguely remember reading some books in high school. I often wonder how kids can read this as such a young age. Do they get it and how it relates to the world. I remember thinking in the grocery store how much we had. An obscene amount and questioned why we have so much. I also started wondering about what was being told to us, and what was real. It’s always far more complex.
The fact that people who write such things have access to oxygen troubles me beyond words. Referring to that insane tweet about opening the schools. My sister, a science teacher, no really- shrieked on Facebook that she was being “sentenced to death” when she had to return to classroom teaching. Masked her kids all alone at a lake in Vermont. We can’t discuss Covid because her opinions are based “on science”. Unlike mine. I asked her for scientific justification of those actions , still waiting.
There is plenty of science to back up any statement you may have to refute hers. She would likely be opposed to listening to any of THAT science, though!
Correct. CDC and Fraudci only. Everything else is sheer madness. I asked how jabbing everyone all at once with a technology never before used in humans was scientific. Why not a control group? What about all cause mortality? Why kids? Why does natural immunity suddenly not exist? That was my sister’s breaking point. I mentioned natural immunity and she flipped. Sorry for following all science ever sis. I won’t make that mistake again. Still waiting for an answer.
Your story about the conformity test reminded me about a similar experience I had way back in elementary school..........
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That particular day we were being tested on our ability to read and draw clocks. Simple stuff, and the first few questions went by just fine. 6 o’clock? Big hand 12, little hand 6. Easy Peazy!
The issue came when I was asked to draw 4:30. Because I understand how clocks work, I put the big hand on the 6 and the little hand halfway between 4 and 5.
BZZZZZZT
I was instructed that the proper way to draw 4:30 was to put the big hand on the 6 and the little hand directly on the 4.
For a second I thought she was joking. I even looked at the clock in our classroom: 12:15. And that little hand was definitely NOT right on the 12. “Holy shit, my teacher can’t even tell time!” I thought in second-grade language.
But looking back on this incident with a little more experience, I find what happened next to be fascinating: The rest of the test, I answered the questions INCORRECTLY (using her rules) to save my score. Even though my brain KNEW that she was wrong, I went along with it. How many students were similarly docked that day? We’ll never know, because NOBODY spoke up.
yes, there's a really nasty lesson about system design there.
you want to graduate med school? well, then you better tell us that gender is a social construct caused by climate change on the test.
high schools do it. they all do. you write what the instructor wants to hear. but the act of doing it causes performative internalization and thus indoctrinates you. unless you are consciously resisting, just the act of writing it shifts your towards it.
To jump on the bandwagon, this was a test we did at KomVux (a sort-of second chance school for adults who opted out of or flunked after finishing compulsory school) when I attended:
The teacher, a psychologist combining his research with teaching, randomised the class into groups of six. Each group sat at a round table, and each person in each group were given an envelope.
Each envelope was marked with a different colour and contained laminated coloured cardboard in various shapes. The object which he explained before giving the go ahead, was for each person and group to make a rectangle in the colour of everyone's respective envelope, while he timed the entire thing.
No one was to speak, use sign language, written notes et c - no communication basically. No one was allowed to give away a piece to anyone else unless they got a piece in return. No stealing some else's piece even if it is your colour.
Average time to completion was, he said close to ten minutes.
Upon opening the envelope, everyone at my table looked at one another as if telepathic and empited our envelopes in the middle of the table so everyone could pick out their pieces. 13 seconds.
When my group was excused, we saw on our way out two women seated across from eachother at one of the tables, each one lacking the piece the other one held and neither one willing to be the first to offer it.
For these women, and for 98.5%+ of test subjects according to the psychologist, the very ownership and control of the thing was apparently worth much more - infinitely more - than the actual thing itself.
Not exactly conformity, but in the same general area.
While I'd certainly like to claim that it was my idea to simply pour the pieces out into the middle, that's not true. It really was as if the same realisation struck all of us at the same time: to empty the entire load in the middle of the table and only take what you need is not against the rules.
I'd love to be able to do a similar study with groups of people sorted by how they identify politically.
That seems completely baffling to me. It's obvious (to me at least) that a piece that isn't my color is completely worthless to me........
I wonder if we could figure out what breaks down these barriers in some people. I've recently been pondering about sports and how they emphasize teamwork and cooperation, maybe that's a factor?
I have no idea. We were about 50/50 split men and women, age 25-50, all swedish except for one or two people from southern Europe, and had nothing to do with eachother except going to KomVux and taking the Psychology ABC-levels course. You picked your own courses as needed, so there weren't any classes the way it is in compulsory school.
While it would certainly be interesting to try and find the unknown factor, if it exists, once found it can be countermanded even more efficiently.
You had it easy, you knew what the teacher believed! During my degree I was faced with the conundrum of what to do about a professor who was teaching the subject wrong during the class. He was trying to teach C++ but clearly didn't actually know the language and was regularly putting code on the slides that was guaranteed to crash. When the test came, lo and behold, there was a question on what that sort of code did. Now here's the puzzle: do you write what the prof thinks the answer is, or the right answer? Whether you "win" or not depends on whether the test is marked by a grad student.
I recently had my Medicare Wellness Worthless check up. My doctor asked me to count backwards from 100 in 9s…. She stopped me half way down.. my response? “I bet the President can’t do that! “
We were gifted an Alexa a few years ago... my slightly hard of hearing spouse asked me who had sent me “that joke” I responded “ Dick”... and then a second time louder “ DICK” Alexa from a far corner chimes in “ That’s not nice.” And into the garbage she went. I think I may have told this story already....
That is frightening. It’s a loss of mathematics. Recently, salesperson at Dillard’s told me I could use their handy dandy price scanners to find out what my 20% discount would be on a $20 item…
What a great story. I had a similar experience with the Choo-choo train calendar month learning exercise. Where each car represented a month so the kids would understand the sequence of months.
So the teacher asked me how many months are there from February to August. I asked her (what was just an innocent question); can you tell me the year February is in and what year August is in?
She looked at me like I was crazy and sort of mocked me in front of the class and had me get up and count each car so I could come up with the answer of 6.
She said; now do you understand the year doesn't matter? And lmao I said; no not really, do the months just stop at December?
I thought the exercise was to recognize that a calendar is really just arbitrary in the sense we don't just start the "clock" again once a calendar year was over.
She kept me after class so i could "practice" counting the months. So I sat there for awhile fuming. Then I mustered the courage to say; Sorry Mrs Frederick I don't think December is the caboose any more than January is the locomotive/engine car.
She seriously didn't get it and a bunch of the kids snickered about how dumb I was.
If the school-system worked, kids showing aptitude for that kind of lateral thinking (for want of a better term) would be promoted to classes with teacher strained and able to let the kids develop said aptitude, not curb it.
A good teacher uses the kids' abilities as tools and levers when teaching; a bad teacher enforces conformity of thought.
So, I spent a misadventurous year as a Montessori teacher. In a classroom of young children, the shelves were full of "works", which are material things meant to take a child through a learning process. The children are supposed to take a work and "work" (not play) on it on a rug which each had for such purposes. One work was a basket full of toys starting with "C". A little boy who loves cars began to race the car. The engine roared! The car even drove beyond the boy's rug. I was quite admiring how the car found many interesting pathways upon which to drive, and other children were also appreciative. The oldest teacher put the boy in a time out for being loud and "not listening" to her (to be quiet, stay on the rug, and use the "works" for their stated phonetic learning purpose. The boy began to cry disconsolately. I was appalled and crouched down beside the boy, that he not be alone in this difficult experience. Later, after class, I curiously asked the teacher what the time out is about, why she uses it, what she thinks about emotional development and forms of discipline... Apparently questions are interpreted as a challenge to authority. I have noticed this has happened in many other situations in which I have asked questions. I was later called before the school director for my "defiance" and "disrespect" of the other teacher. I got through the year but happily left afterwards. I think they were happy about that too.
This is why I fought my high school years of imprisonment by striving to complete assignments in a manner by which I would both fulfill the requirements but completely subvert the presumptions. This worked great anywhere with a creativity potential. Give them what they say they want, but prove the failure of the mold in the process.
I remember doing something similar -- for example, during the first Iraq war my teacher wanted a paper about the importance of stopping warmongering governments quickly. (Basically trying to compare Saddam to Hitler)
Instead I "wondered" if the world would have come to the defense of native Americans if only they had the technology to see what early Americans were doing to them.......
It was more interesting this way, and allows us to claim our own perspective. It has also enabled me to train myself to always attempt to find a way to get alternate perspectives on any perspective, look for anomalies, look for paradigmatic consistency and edges.
You were analog and she was binary. Life is mostly analog. I wonder what sort of influence digitalization of clocks had on our culture. Our thoughts used to be more wonderfully different; people are now more two dimensional to fit neatly into predefined categories. While humans are prone to think in binary terms, (e.g. black or white, day or night,...), we have never been as binary as we have become. An intolerance is automatically associated with sort of thinking. You aren’t supposed to believe something outside your allotted slot. That is heresy and heretics are extremists, and extremists are all potential,terrorists. ;-)
I would submit that is true for more of us, than not. It also seems to me that more than a few of us always wanted to be part of the 'in' crowd or 'cool kids' at some point in our lives, as they were never really comfortable being an outsider – I came to love being an outsider, and like you, developed an immunity to 'group think.'
I have been searching for some common thread among those who resisted, and haven't been able to find a single one. I believe that faith helps, but our denomination refused to support religious exemptions, and all my friends from church posted their vaccine cards to Facebook. The out-of-step culturally didn't do all that well, either. I got a lot of *tolerance* out of my community, genuinely, but we still referred to ourselves as the danger-kittens because everyone we knew thought we were crazy.
For me, it's "having been screwed before," which helped me. I already didn't trust docs and pharma because of the harm that was done to me. In 2010 I took a personal oath to not take any drug which was younger than 10 years old, and preferably 20. To survive what I did - yes, faith is a requirement (as is self-care).
However - like with your church - most of the medical survivors in my forums took the juice, and the official narrative was widely accepted (and discussion of the juice was banned). EVEN THOUGH they had been harmed by other juices...
It was easier than fighting that dominant narrative.
How many people do you know who are confrontation-avoidant? Nearly every man in my life would sooner lie and agree with me, than disagree and risk a confrontation (the one who wouldn't was a narcissist!). It was their nature - and I had to learn to look for signs that this was "compliance" not "agreement." Extend this out to society as a whole, and most people would not tell you there was shit on your face, because - well, that's confronting.
It is easier to go along. It is easier to do what you are told. It is easier to trust what doc is saying, even when it harms you.
I know a person who was a kind of hippie artsy person in Los Angeles. She had been an anti-vaxxer for years and had home schooled her two daughters and not given them any vaccines at all. She sat at a party talking about how she had always been an anti-vaxxer until Covid but she now realizes how important and necessary these vaccines are and she is totally on board with making sure that everyone is vaccinated. So pro mandate in other words. This was in 2021. My eyes were just popping out of my head - I cannot fathom how someone could think like that and not see their own inconsistencies and even boast about it at a party. Not sure whether she has modified her views yet and gone back to anti-vaxxer beliefs - or maybe she has run out and got all the MMR and DPT vaccines she missed.
Everyone is susceptible. I thought I was a strong, smart woman. I escaped a dire marriage before it got terrible. And immediately fell into the seductive arms of a narcissist.
It can happen to anyone. If I were to hazard a guess about a stranger I know nothing about - her hippie lifestyle may have left her vulnerable to the heavy propaganda. Eyes wide open, she took the bait.
I have a dear artist friend I've been afraid to ask. I hate to think of her as a cyborg.
You poor darling! You are RIGHT, it could happen to anyone and those who think they would never be in a relationship like that are fooling themselves……
But your experience validates what I read in 2021 (see my extended comment below), that those who saw through the propaganda early on, had major impactful experiences with gaslighting.
Probably far too frequently, my propensity has been just the opposite. I'll TELL myself that I'm not actively seeking confrontation, but then I realise that I'm lying to myself.
I'm surprised that I was not kicked out of Target, during that time...
I appreciate your reply and all those below. I suppose it remains a mystery to a large extent. I agree with you regarding faith: my faith really did help me stay resolute (at one point I questioned my refusal) but most of the people at the 2 churches I attend took the juice and were so proud of it.
It's a good point t, I've been doing it too. Searching that is. I really have not found faith a good reliable tell. There are probably multiple reasons, which is why it is difficult. My best friend of 50 years was on the same page, I am grateful for that!
Also, having parents that model that helps. My parents were very successful at going their own way while generally being accepted by the in crowd. The lesson in that made me that way too.
I also wondered how my husband and I saw it right away (by end of April/beginning of May), especially because originally we were “all in” and took our daughter out of school 2 weeks before the lockdown based on what we were seeing abroad. I also originally thought it was a discernment by faith thing. That is, until our entire bible church went cancel all worship-crazy, mask-crazy, asked EVERONE when their vax appointment was (I asked one guy if he would like to know the results of my last Pap smear as well-that was FUN), and posted lots of social media posts of their virtuous children, “doing their part”-that part really broke my heart, because by then there was sooo much information available that showed what a bad idea it was to vax your very own children. I was so bewildered and dismayed by how many people I previously respected that were utterly duped. Then there was an entire OTHER group of friends that could see that we were all being manipulated, but got the vax (and for their kids) based on a desire to travel, go to a movie, eat out, or their kids to play sports. I was so shocked that they could fold so easily! We didn’t eat out or see a movie for 2 years! My daughter quit ballet and karate-there was no way we were doing the vax! I felt so depressed, confused, frankly……crazy. I spent HOURS trying to figure out why people weren’t seeing it, and trying to convince others and our local school board with data-(at great social pressure/risk-everyone here is as progressive as they come). Now I understand that “data” and rational thought had no chance for success—-their belief system was sort of ……“tribal”?
And finally…….you can not imagine the relief I felt when I came across an article in 2021, where a researcher in the field of psychology….
….REPORTED THAT 90% OF THE PEOPLE HE SAMPLED WHO “GOT IT” EARLY, EXPERIENCED A CHILDHOOD THAT WAS MARKED BY GASLIGHTING…..
……(Which he explained often happens in families with addiction present, a narcissist parent, or emotional neglect). And while my husband and I are both advanced degree holders, and very affluent (another marker of those who are highly vaxxed), I believe it was the fact that we both grew up in dysfunctional families—gaslit to the max —that saved us……
I think the reasons we saw through it all are varied and complex. My faith was a big part of it for me but for others, they listened to the advice of the Vatican and felt they were 'doing their part', i.e., it made them feel noble and selfless. A deacon at my church fell into this category. Sadly, his son, in his 30's just recently died of a stroke - otherwise healthy, fit and active. I don't know for a fact that he was vaxxed but he traveled a fair bit between Canada and the US so that and what I knew of his family tells me he was.
I was fortunate enough to be pointed to a podcast where a Franciscan Monk, in a respectful manner criticized the church for meddling in medicine saying that the aim of the church was saving souls not giving medical advice. He made other excellent points as well and he's one of the reasons I stayed vaxx free.
I too bought into the narrative at the very beginning but began to see more clearly by about April/May of 2020.
I'm used to doing medical research even before the internet due to some prior illnesses being misdiagnosed or complex and difficult to diagnose. Libraries and card catalogues existed long before Dr. Google.
The whole art world nonsense when they started to extol the greatness of abstract or modern art, obviously crap, yet promoted as brilliant. Random strokes or just a few shapes or smears or splashes of paint? Indistinguishable from a toddler painting.
An entire discipline devoted to a 12-tone row of notes completely divorced from the Circle of Fifths - we had to cover this crap in a music theory class at Eastman. I dropped out before the first term had ended - it damn near cured me of music.
Agreed – yet, there are still orchestra companies that will feature the occasional Bartok piece, or Britten work. I won't be critical of actual composers (while that was my aspiration when I entered, it will remain unrealized), but I can't listen to, and appreciate it as some can.
I dated a writer for a while. She used to condemn my preference for Kerouac and Bukowski and spoke often of "good" literature and "bad" literature. It used to drive her nuts when I told her that art is subjective and I used Jackson Pollock as an example.
WOKE is child abuse taken out of the home and spread to the populace at large. At 2 months of age, the human infant engages in the social smile towards the human face. It’s the beginning of learning reciprocity and reciprocity, reflection, back & forth honest social engagement builds frontal lobes & our capability to be human. Imagine this 2 month old infant has a “Helpless-Hostile” Borderline mother (like Susan would be in sure). She’s not interested in Reciprocity. She’s stuck in her own world and everyone exists to serve her. The infant doesn’t have an honest social partner. The infant is left in crazy-land on her own. This continues for the infant, now child. In order not to enrage the all powerful, self-centered and abusive mother, the child is forced to agree that 2+2 is 5. Not to agree is a sure way to be murdered quick but agreeing with all of this screws up you too. WOKE is child abuse taken out of the home and forced onto the masses. WOKE destroys frontal lobe development and human social capabilities by forbidding reciprocal dialogue, love and reason. There’s nothing empathic about it. It’s all personality disordered adults using power they shouldn’t have to hurt others and in doing this, they hurt themselves too. I hate Child Abuse and I hate WOKE.
Too many children are actually responsible for their parents. Example, narcissistic mother wants her daughter to excel (Tiger mom), but is a wreck herself. The daughter must comfort and eggshell-walk the mother, because Mum is too tangled in her own issues. Children should be children! I see this in a lot of young families, now.
Grew up like this. My mother was a mess who was determined I should grow up the way she would have done, had she been in charge of the whole thing. Needless to say, it didn’t end well. My dad tried to c stay in the background by leaving early, starting out as late as acceptable, and then vanishing to his own room upstairs from me and my mother as long as possible. If I had thought more about that aspect then, I would have realized some things sooner, lol.
Exactly right about authority, which is why there’s such a spiritual element at play here, as Tucker noticed too. If you don’t view God as being in charge, then you want to be in charge yourself.., and by the time you realize you’re actually enslaved to demons, it’s too late!
More on that in my recent piece at the federalist about the death cult of the modern medical establishment:
I always wonder "How do they know which god they should call on?".
I mean, there's no more proof for the divinity of the god of the jews (and the christians and moslems) than there's for Quetzalcoatl, Badb, Bes, Izanami or the Rainbow Serpent.
Ah, Rikard - there are simpler names than cultural ones.
My preferred name is "That which is Greater Than Myself."
It can be directly experienced, in the wonder of the stars, the cascade of a waterfall, the tender steps of a deer, the call of coyote, the glisten of a stone. (you can even be atheist and honour "That.")
If you want to narrow That, and give That cultural names for a specific purpose - okay. I like Thor for protection, Odhin for mystery, Isis for women's creative force, Jesus for opening the heart, Buddha for focusing my attention, Rainbow Serpent/Quetzalcoatl for exploring inner Dimensions (the Christians in here might disagree with my perspective, but I, too, have been Born Again).
But they are all, "That." I think of the cultural names as facets on a perfect diamond which dwells in my heart.
That's certainly one way to do it, and it has the undisputable benefit of being intrinsically non-authoritarian and non-totalitarian.
I'm just thinking, if one believes in [insert name here] and also believes that believing in the wrong thing means damnation, wouldn't one worry incessantly about it?
I mean, we don't know, we just think we do.
Tor is guardian of children and protector of family. Oden is god of kings and king of gods, also mysteries, riddles, hidden wisdom, knowledge, war and death. Also freedom - the word odalman in swedish meant a free man, not beholden or indebted to anyone and the sole owner and sovereign of his own land, and Od is one of the many names of Oden; i.e. a man is his own sovereign on and in his own land, by his own power. This gladdens the All-Father.
This is what I speak about Direct Experience. The Burning Bush, or - the blinding light on the road to Damascus - or - The Shamanic Death. (pick a continent, each has a version of ego-death/rebirth) It's Direct Experience (some would say gnosis) which makes faith real. Then, however you address That, it comes from the reality of your heart & experience. Through that, you know you are accountable for your deeds, and the Hell you create is your own making.
"Wealth dies. Friends die. One day you too will die. But, the thing that never dies is the judgement on how you have spent your life." - Havamal
God and tyranny are not orthogonal. We are not humans, we are humans / t. Assuming that we started at theoretical perfection and are devolving.
I argue that absolute orthogonality is tyranny. Programs such as us are designed to run in and adapt to a changing, non orthogonal environment.
It does not matter if you believe in God, gods, or not. We are a very complex system if nano-machines adapting to an environment created by similar systems, powered by a rando star, stars. We have been around for a very, very long time. Our base code is digital, adapts/t, and moves quickly with the environment.
We should really embrace the concept of GOD. Nothing else really fits the expansive majesty of our existence.
"So this is really about maintaining systems of white supremacy and patriarchy ... I think a lot of us are really working to divest from those ideas, but we haven't given ourselves permission to stop dieting or to accept our weight wherever it might fall."
As one who has battled his weight, body mass, and shape almost all of his teenage and adult life, I found this most interesting.
There is a fine line (not an invisible one) between acceptance of one's weight (and perhaps by extension, one's self), and insisting that one's morbid obesity is all right, even healthy, which is what the body-positivity movement is doing, and it's more destructive than the morbid obesity, itself.
Accepting that you are morbidly obese and admitting that it is not okay gives you a starting point to make changes (tiny, little ones, first) and work on becoming more healthy. In doing so, you are taking responsibility for your condition from that point, forward.
Whereas proudly (but ignorantly) proclaiming that your morbid obesity is a good thing, healthy, and even remotely attractive, is harmful. The odds are that if you are morbidly obese, you also are contending with other co-morbidities (type-II diabetes, high blood pressure, hypoglycemia, neuropathy, et al.) which, if not managed, will ultimately be prematurely fatal.
Being morbidly obese does not make you a bad person. It has nothing to do with your value as an individual. Being on the receiving end of someone maliciously fat-shaming you is no fun, and as difficult as it may be, there is likely something to take away from their ignorant remarks that smacks of truth.
It's okay to admit that you're not healthy. It's NOT okay to do nothing about it.
Exactly this! Struggled with morbid obesity from 16 to last year, 57. Since then have been on an intermittent fasting journey since I saw the signs that say weight is going to snowball health issues shortly. It’s one thing to be avoiding the health realities of it at a young age, but at some point, those realities will not ignore you. What I am curious about is what fault it will be when that day comes for them?
For me, gastric bypass surgery became necessary if I was to have a fighting chance managing my type-II.
For those who scream, "Follow the science!" let me point out that the BMI is a fluid measurement, at best, and its data is all but useless as it cannot be contextualized across gender, ethnicity, and a host of other genetic factors, and a determination of 'healthy' cannot be made, using it.
That doesn't mean that morbid obesity is genetically determined, and/or that some are destined to be so - there are many other factors (many psychological) that go into why someone may be that way. Often, self-medicating with food is a major culprit, and that is a mental-health problem – not without a solution.
But I submit that another major contributor is decades of consuming highly processed foods with high concentrations of high-fructose corn syrup. Additionally, low-calorie, low-fat foods contain chemical compounds that act as preservatives, but that the human body cannot metabolise – these chemicals remain in the body, and I submit that the effects are compromised metabolism digestive processes, that make weight-loss for some damn near impossible, because this dysfunction has been passed on from their parents who also consumed this same highly processed food for generations, and their parents before them. None of this can be borne out by studies because those studies will never be done – this nation's ag lobbies drive ag policy (I grew up on a farm – I know this). This video is not scientific either, but can anyone argue against the common sense he imparts?
Thank you so much for your detailed answer, really appreciate it. Yes, for me it was a combination of medicating with food and of course gravitating to all the junk I could find. But I often think one of the reasons I’m still around today is that for as long as my parents could control my eating habits, I ate straight out of a health food store, plus was given supplements. Was given junk food as a treat a few times a treat. Naturally, the minute I was able to get out of the house, I ate my way from one fast food place to another and of course the weight piled on but I didn’t even notice for a long time as I was so busy eating, lol. Still recall when my mother’s home furnishings were going away, her guardian and his team were astounded that the stove she had had since I was a toddler until she passed in 2008, did not have a single drop of grease on it or in it anywhere. They were further astounded that she didn’t own a coffee pot, microwave, toaster, and I can’t recall her ever using a blender. Now that I’ve had years to think on it, beginning to appreciate that about her very much and pondering it more now for my own life.
But yes. If medicine and psychology were able to combine better in the area of obesity, I think many would be better off for it. I recall way too many doctors over the years asking if I’d ever thought about losing weight. One in particular simply waved his hand and said, “You know what to do.”
As well, don’t think many really understand how the many things added to processed food today can severely impact your weight. I started this intermittent fasting thing after I had a discussion with somebody where they asked me if, I had ever eaten foods that made hungry afterwards? They told me real food should fill me up, not make me hungry. I hadn’t ever really looked at it like that before. But once I started paying close attention, I realized that indeed, some foods (some sweets in particular), really made me want more right away, or soon after. Stopping eating those foods has been a struggle ever since but getting better slower. Honestly though, for myself, think I’ll eventually have to cut all added sugars and highly refined flours. Agree too that BMI isn’t really a one-size-fits-all anymore than clothes with that designation, lolol.
These are some great points, the nutritional science in this country is absolutely terrible. Bought and paid for by big ag, same as we saw for covid and big pharma.
For me things that have helped, paleo/keto, time restricted eating, one meal a day mostly for me for a while, 2 meals maybe. Lots of great authors and books.
Dr. Jason Fung, Mark Sissom, Nina Teicholz, Gary Taubes, Robb Wolf, etc.
This would have been my guess prior to the previous three years. Alas, I’ve had a PROFOUND shift in my assessments many institutions and their employees.
I fall into that ~25% of not caving to Asch-style conformity not due to my intellect, but due to my stubbornness. Which has been a problem in the past, but served me admirably the last three years.
I didn’t really have doubts about my position, but the cognitive dissonance in watching (purportedly) intelligent/highly credentialed people act like a piece of cloth over their face would help prevent them from a microscopic virus, was REALLY hard to reconcile.
(Along with all the other safety theater based on nothing more than wishful thinking.)
I’m reminded of the meme you posted a few months back (I’m paraphrasing): we used to think that all people needed to behave in a sane, rational way was access to information. Now we have the internet. How’d that theory work out for us?
It just boggles the mind how educated we are, yet how fundamentally lacking in common sense, wisdom and courage.
I remember going to my small liberal arts college in 1980 and being told repeatedly that the point was not to teach us facts, but to teach us how to think. Somewhere along the way, that basic fundamental of higher education was flushed down the toilet.
This was my experience too! Just commented above about that before I saw your comment! One of the few things that has helped me keep my sanity over the years.
At my state school, there were two exceptional professors in the Speech Communications department. One also served as the forensics team coach. She taught us how to apply critical thinking skills to all that we took in whether it was a news broadcast, or articles we read in magazines like TIME, Newsweek, US News & World Report, et al.
The weekly assignment was to objectively analyse an article from any previous week's issue of the periodical of our choice – that exercise forced us to recognise our own biases, and to keep them out of the analysis. One of the best courses I in which I enrolled, ever!
The other taught public speaking – so every week, we had to prepare and give a speech, but we were not allowed to use 3x5 cards – whatever was our topic, we were expected to know it inside and out. Eventually, those speeches became akin to press conferences because we had to allow for a few minutes of Q & A.
We learned to think more critically, and to think on our feet because we knew our material so well. I doubt the likes of those two professors exist anywhere, anymore – though I do hope I'm wrong.
I've never been taught critical thinking, but i think i have been doing it without realising since this Covid fiasco began. I call it "my gut feeling", read as Faith.
Have enjoyed experiences similar to yours. My English literature professors taught me how to approach thinking critically/analytically. To ask questions. One reminded us of the who/what/when/where/why to get us started in that direction. Later by a few decades, I had a speech class, with a conservative professor (indeed a rarity!) who would allow us a few notes at the podium but would also grade us on maintaining eye contact and the more eye contact we had with the audience, the better the grade. We also had Q&A sessions afterwards. Loved what these experiences have done for me!
I'm being a devil's advocate here, but that doesn't really answer the question.
1. Giving speeches isn't critical thinking. If it were then politicians would be widely acknowledged as the sharpest minds in society, never prone to fallacious or incautious thought.
2. You were asked to analyze an article from any magazine, and the magazine was chosen by you. So you were probably selecting magazines and articles that already agreed with your biases without even being aware of it, making the feeling of being objective easy. Even if you managed to avoid this obvious trap, by what objective criteria did the professor evaluate your analysis? They don't necessarily know anything about the topic so that sounds very hard.
Over time, I've come to believe that the idea universities teach objective thinking is some sort of very clever trap. There's absolutely no detail on what they mean when they say this, I've seen no evidence of degree holders being more critical thinkers (if anything it's the opposite), and blatantly low quality thought is rampant in universities especially in the humanities that make the boldest claims in this regard.
My guess is that people go along with this because a humanities course is the first time people get asked to write something about their own thoughts as an adult. They're told that bias exists and to watch out for it. Then whatever is submitted, they're told that this is learning "critical thinking skills" which sounds so great nobody wants to object especially because it's usually the only generalizable skill the course claims to teach at all!
If they were really teaching critical thinking, the first thing students would ask is "what justifies this claim that you're teaching us critical thinking?"
Your response betrays a great deal you don't know - can't know - and that you don't acknowledge that ignorance, I'll respectfully decline on the advice of Mark Twain.
I once was a representative for Jeeps. I had to memorize the specifications and marketing talking points. Then I had to engage people in public. It didn't mean that I believed it all, but I agreed to be paid to convey their points. This is like speech and a press conference without needing to believe nor question it at all, and with no bother of analysis.
I don't really think that taking an article, doing your analysis, and then making yourself capable to speak to it in a press conference is the final word on critical thinking either.
I also went to a fancy critical thinking boasting university. We were all told how we were truly engaging in critical thinking there. Did I?
I think I have had some pride in seeing more, questioning more, but I have consistently discovered my past self not thinking and questioning about things I thought must be true at that time, and I would often discover this in a moment in which it was to my detriment. My best supposition right now is that I can think independently to a certain degree, but I also happen to miss quite a lot. I'm not God, so I figure it is pretty straightforward to have humility and accept my condition, but also to be vigorous and alive and participate in my own maturation to the best of my ability.
When I think of my family members who buy into the Covid crap, I don't really want to spend too long lamenting their lack of critical thinking. I do want to notice where they are inquisitive, curious, or have had experiences of coming to new awareness or standing apart with an independent viewpoint, and then I want to see where they might go with that. I've been wrong often enough that I'd prefer to shift my focus from us/them regarding critical thinking. I think we all have plenty to work with.
"I don't really think that taking an article, doing your analysis, and then making yourself capable to speak to it in a press conference is the final word on critical thinking either."
Absolutely correct – it is not – but it was a place to begin, to acquire the skills that would need to be developed for the rest of one's life. An attorney need not believe his client is not guilty, but he needs to be able to think like his opposite to raise reasonable doubt.
A crucial part of the exercise was to read the article, and begin to parse editorial comment presented as fact, from actual fact, then subject to scutiny both the editorial content, and the reported fact for accuracy, truth (supported by contextual data, or someone else's talking point?); put in writing, and write a paper that presents the analysis, conclusions, and reasoning behind them in a readable manner.
I'm wondering about a function of era. I had classes like these - debate classes, speech classes, critical thinking, logic. Many of them in high school. I graduated HS in 1980 - so . . . . I think it's gone downhill, since.
Stubbornness. Yes. I've been accused of digging in my heels. Also, according to management, of being strident and combative. Somehow made it to retirement before covid. Phew! Never took the asch test but can not lie to conform. Probably would have scolded my fellow test takers. Stridently.
So many red flags with covid policy. Denial of early treatment. Completely new technology for vaccines completed testing in months rather than years or decades. Banning use of existing antivirals with long histories of safety. Money trail from pharma into government oversight agencies. Data late, missing, confounded. Administering a brand new intervention to pregnant women! Quashing discussion, contrary views. All that before the vaccine injury signals began to cry for attention.
My faith in my fellow citizens is fairly well shattered.
Charlatans and fear mongers abounded, especially in 2020/2021.
No one was trying to stem the FULL-ON panic. Anyone with a mainstream platform was actively encouraging the lunacy. Therefore, I did not believe any of them.
The mitigation measures being pushed gave off such a stench of authoritarian CCP I couldn’t reconcile the dissonance being an American.
Therefore, when the “vaccines” arrived, I said, pass.
I was not going to justify the hysterics nor the trampling of our (supposed) rights as Americans by lining up to get injected to maybe get those rights back. They should have NEVER been touched in the first place!
More than a few must have felt similar in not wanting Pfizer’s wears, so then the politicos and media applied the full-court press of “vaccine” passes and mandates. Certain Democratic politicians made the CCP look like Libertarians. (Not that I don’t have a great deal of anger at the Republicans who also went nuts.)
I’m glad you got to your retirement. The stubborn, obnoxious American is why this is a great country; those are also crucial element for a dynamic, prosperous and joyous society.
I think I understand: you’re saying that people doing idiotic things does not prevent them from positively impacting society.
I don’t disagree necessarily (there are people I care about that displayed some very similar idiocy to your hypothetical driver), even though the use of masks everywhere was an unmissable statement that SOMETHING was very wrong.
My ultimate concern, though is a lack of confidence that many people now in positions of authority, and people who will one day take over those positions are power hungry tyrants that think nothing about personal liberty.
The graduating classes of the University of Michigan and, the following week, Princeton each gave Fauci a standing ovation at their commencements. Many of those kids are obviously bound for influential and powerful gigs graduating from such (once?) prestigious schools. To graduate from such institutions lacking such basic character assessment, well not thinking they are going to make great choices in the future.
One does not need any Ivy League education to know Fauci is a supreme narcissist who was instrumental in pushing massively destructive mitigation measures. To think otherwise shows a profound ignorance.
As you say, the amount of “Germans/npcs/sheep” that are helpful to society is weird, but that’s what SO disturbing. I’m not a doctor, so I do occasionally need to see one, but my level of confidence in the entire medical profession is extremely low to say the least, as an example.
The other frustrating part is how those highly educated and credentialed “German’s” so willing turned Nazi at the mention of a virus.
If it were just the landscaper that was freaking out about a virus, I’d cut the grass myself. But when years of proven methods, definitions and basic, really, really recent history gets forgotten or twisted out of any recognizable form by the very class of people steeped in this knowledge, well, that’s a different ball of wax entirely.
That’s what’s been so surprising: how fear and propaganda over rode decades of excellent educations.
Successful societies are based on trust. Trust is built over long periods of time, but pissed down the toilet in seconds. The damage done/propagated/defended by the elites will take decades to fully see but it’s coming and in the mean time I hold nothing but contempt for them. Not for those still driving in there cars alone in a mask—I feel really sorry for those people.
Sadly, I’d agree that it’s probably below 25%. I’m simply gob-smacked at the almost total compliance and lack of concerns for what I thought was basic Human Rights being trampled in mindless fear. I’m still astounded we’ll into Year 3!!!
The nuclear option is space aliens. Despite there being zero concrete evidence a recent poll indicated 70% believe in extraterrestrials. That’ll be the biggest avenue to bamboozlement of all time. And virtually everyone will buy it.
Hahahaha. I’ve been waiting for the alien story for years. But I don’t care. If something happens, I’ll undoubtedly die from it. My trust for propaganda and media is zero and I’m quite content to live my life doing my own thing.
I don't have " proof" other than myself and my family watching 3 light reflecting? objects seemingly 'playing tag' with each other across 1/3 of the sky for about 20 minutes in Central Maine in the late 70s.
I cannot imagine anything surviving the g-forces of the angles they took...yet... there they were.
I'd certainly like to know why You Tube videos on Dulce Base are flagged with all sorts of debunking and videos on the same channel about Bigfoot and Area 51 aren't.
God exists. Supposedly he created us with his attributes, his image if you will.
Supposedly, but was that just the original man, the uncorrupted man, that we have since devolved from.
It is us that must find him, by living each day - Kansas
I’ve a different def of orthogonal, math-computer language design or graph theory, which is that your little set of instructions, your service, delivers the same result for a set of inputs regardless of the greater context of it’s execution.
Frankly I confess I have no idea what God is, though I likely meet him every day I don’t see him, I see through him. Is he the spirit or am I. Is the concept of causality orthogonal, is it even physically true in 4D space time.
My software does bigger things than it was conceived to do. The services do not always produce the expected results and vast logs of message conflicts and unforeseen dead message queues fill and are dumped yet the greater system it’s self continues to fulfill basic customer satisfaction metrics. We the business created the system in our image, it was perfect when it was demoed in V1. But the universe is bigger than that moment and orthogonality decreases as time increases. Entropy perhaps.
Orthogonality, if it had a metric would decrease over time. You could even calculate the age of a system by describing its orthogonality, assuming it started from a perfect state.
Do aliens exist or are they just another version of us?
The idea of tyranny is to bring everything into a fully orthogonal state with no conflicts. The perfect world, which can not exist. Better to split the world into infinite little bits where everything is possible and assured, each light cone it’s own enforced tyranny, but limited in scope by the speed of time/causality.
Will we have an alien apocalypse? According to our oldest traditions we already did, at the beginning of our time. Tyranny of orthogonality/tyranny must fail because of thermodynamics/ because the space where perfection was (the orthogonal space) is ever expanding in time. The further from the origin t=0, the less tyranny.
And then God throws a curve 😲the edge of reality is dropping of behind the universe event horizion isolating us from our past and increasing orthagonality of the bit that remains.
These are fundemental forces of reality that extend like mycillium into every aspect of reality, our very requirement of life, our mytochomdria. Are we physically orthagonal?
The answer is yes, untill we are not.
So look through your eyes and imagine that god is also looking through them ...
I'm not sure they will keep doubling down until it collapses.
I think they'll just gaslight themselves and others into believing that they were never responsible (like Trudeau is doing). It's a pattern. They just pretend they didn't say "believe all women" or that they never wanted to "defund the police". They'll never confront anything.
The author of The Sociopath Next Door found that 4% of the general population are sociopaths, 60% are predisposed to obey sociopaths and authority, and 36% are disagreeable free thinking people like us. Proportion of sociopaths is much higher in government, corporations, and cities. Meanwhile, the CDC just extended the vax travel requirement again...
I think the Pareto distribution is generally applicable here.
~80% of the populace are generally sane, moral people that simply want to live their lives in peace. ~20% of the population may swing to the dark side depending on conditions.
~80% of the above ~20%, although susceptible to barbarism, will under normal conditions remain sane and moral, if for no other reason than conformity.
It is the ~20% of the initial ~20%, or ~4% that are the truly dangerous ones. These are the sociopathic war criminals and grifters that above all else want to control and loot others, and as such, the more powerful the State becomes, they more they are drawn to it like carnivorous dung beetles reveling in the guano on the floor of the bat cave.
And once these parasites are in power, they will ruthlessly eliminate any that exhibit any scruples, ethics or morality.
It is this dynamic that has come to full fruition in our times, from the little Napoleons in the local construction permitting office all the way up to Jacobin Joe and his merry band of prancing and preening socialist diversity hires regurgitating incoherent drivel.
These four percenters have always been with us and likely always will be, so the only way to keep these barbarians from power is to not have powerful institutions for them to infest and colonize.
I view most of this woke (and climate) nonsense as just another permutation of the ancient mantra of rulers, what the Romans termed divide et impera, modernized with the addition of perhaps the largest grift in the history of mankind.
"[I]f experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. His very existence, indeed, is a standing subversion of the public good in every rational sense. He is not one who serves the common weal; he is simply one who preys upon the commonwealth"
~ H. L. Mencken, From "The Politician" in Prejudices: A Selection, edited by James T. Farrell
Well said. The problem with covid was that the folks who "just wanted to live their lives" were, to some extent, the reason the madness was protracted.
Indeed. The PTB certainly succeeded in spooking the herd, that is for certain.
A century of progressive progressivism, particularly government "education" dominated by unionized State employees, has had its intended effect.
Given where we are as a society, I am almost surprised it wasn't worse.
Of course, there is always next time...
Correct!
I know I sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again:
GCC propaganda is probably a bigger threat to our liberties than covid was.
If for no other reason than 2 generations think its gospel.
No argument here.
Funny. I told my nephew that the wind is "caused" by the sun and he told me that if we weren't destroying the atmosphere we wouldn't have high winds on occasion.
It was all I could do to keep from bursting out in laughter.
Yeah "killing grandma" is nothing compared to "killing earth".
I successfully converted one younger cousin (20 years younger), but the rest of them think I'm a "denier".
Yes! Convenience, etc
Still gets under my skin. I try to understand. And I do to an extent.
The fact that it went on two years is unacceptable though.
Back in the old, old ,old days, like thousands of years ago, these 4 percenters were dragged in front of the wise chief, sentenced, and then pushed off a cliff.
Well, we have certainly advanced since then.
I think a good tar and feathering would do the job just fine.
I prefer the cliff approach. Some survive tarring and feathering...
Lol.
I betcha you had to administer some tough love to your patients occasionally over the years.
That's a good thing imo.
I certainly see your point, but as the dead tell no tales, perhaps it is beneficial that some survive to serve as living, speaking reminders.
Ah yes, when men were men.
Or they were put in the front rank of the fighters as leaders in the field, but never leaders in the fold.
Selection pressure thus ensuring that they do some good and either learn to control their urges or die failing to.
We are indeed fortunate to have such an elderly witness.
;-)
Like right now.
As anyone who has interacted with a PTA or homeowners' association board will testify, people given power have an innate desire to exercise it. Even if that exercise is irrational, and that person has never acted irrationally before.
Power tends to corrupt (and absolute power corrupts absolutely) -- Lord Acton
It takes self-actualization to resist this temptation, and our society and education system are no longer creating self-actualized citizens. There's a reason they call it the "Me Generation."
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."
~ Lord Acton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2wNEbG_OHE
Strange - but - was watching "The Crown" to understand what the heck monarchy is about/like/for - and Edward VIII was "suited" to the throne but hated it (Liked Wallis Simpson better). Much better was George VI, who was speech impaired, unready, unwilling - and yet, became a strong monarch.
He who is unwilling to serve is probably the best candidate.
"Political tags, such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth, are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
~ Robert Heinlein
Absolutely.
I’m afraid so.
Those 4% seems to be evenly distributed on both sides of the Bell curve.
On one end you have your stereotypical egotist narcissist violent psychopath, only concerned with instant gratification here and now.
On the other end you have the "philantropaths", who derive their perverse instead-of-real-pleasure from dominating others "for their own good".
Yes, no, maybe?
I believe Margaret Anna Alice coined the philanthropath term. I find it brilliant irrespective of who coined it.
It wasn't me; didn't mean to give the impression it was.
Margaret Anna Alice is one of the sharper knives in the Substack-drawer.
Correct, it is Margaret Anna Alice’s portmanteau, shared without reservation and without seeking notoriety. It’s great to see her get credit though. My thoughts: it’s a potent contribution to the lexicon.
SCA would agree, she loves that term "philanthropath."
Was it coined by MAA?
Yes, MAA. Credit where it’s due.
You just might be right. She uses it all the time too.
Absolutely.
Excellent - there's your 2 classes of evil: philanthropaths and robber barons.
Except that now there is overlap and entanglement between these two classes.
Then again...https://youtu.be/ppGd-2nEOVQ...at the 00:45 mark.
Forget it, Jake
"It's Cinatown."
Here comes the vicious dynamics of viscous pathocracy cycle, explored in empirical depths by Andrzej Łobaczewski of Political Ponerology fame 🙂 Logocracy logically sprouts out as the most welcome alternative --> ponerology.substack.com/p/logocracy-chapter-1-introduction 👌
Pathocracy!
Did you just make that up?
Either way it's hilarious.
You must be kiddin'! 'Tis from Łobaczewski's canon 😊
Thanks. I just learned.
Political ponerology. Interesting.
It's for a reason the 'stack has a name like that 🙂 You'd be remiss to not give yourself a rewarding tour there. Just don't be surprised when kinda addiction develops in no time. Such a treasure trove! 🔥👌
ponerology.substack.com/about
Indeed. Wonderfully communicated. On this point, "And once these parasites are in power, they will ruthlessly eliminate any that exhibit any scruples, ethics or morality," I might add one bit of embellishment. Hannah Arendt is on the red courtesy phone. She wants to thank you for updating her thesis!
Laughing.
4% is a staggering number and hard to believe. That these people rise to positions of authority is easy to understand. Without the conflict of conscience they have a tremendous advantage. My sisters, and I fought a two year long battle, including the court system against a woman who took control of our elderly father suffering with dementia in an effort to steal all of his assets. She almost succeeded.
Look no further than your average Home Owners Association leadership....
Talk about tranny
Ah, but what percentage of their sociopathic behavior is caused by the power over others? As the Stanford prison experiment demonstrated.
So true! And I don’t know why, but it appears it’s mostly women who seem to enjoy being the enforcers of overreach.
My DIL informed me a few weeks ago that in her community they are now using drones to fly around the neighborhood and find people who have “violated” the rules and are setting up small chicken coops so as to have access to fresh eggs.
Oh, the humanity! Despicable egg lovers!
My family had a very similar situation: a man who took control of our father’s elderly cousin suffering with dementia in an effort to steal all of his assets. And he did succeed. My father was his next of kin and visited him about 3x a year as he seemed to mentally deteriorate. He then disappeared. Turned out his stepson had sold his house, moved him, taken power of attorney, bought him a new house but as tenants in common which allowed him to assume ownership on our father’s cousin’s death which happened soon after. Meanwhile my father was having to play detective to track his cousin down- found him 3 weeks after he died. Stepson knew about our father and hid his cousin from him. Stepson was 40 when his mother married our father’s cousin (late marriage, wife died soon after so, adult stepson for 5 years with no obligations because my father was next of kin and visited). Definitely a narcissist.
This sort of thing can happen all too easily. The problem is that it’s rare enough for the normal, sane victim to think “this can’t be happening, it’s so brazen, I must’ve got something wrong”. This plays right into the narcissists strategy of carrying on with being brazen, especially if there’s a big dollop of gaslighting and projection (he complained he had to pay for the tombstone so could he please be reimbursed).
This is a parallel issue with family courts. The rights over a human person can change from theirself or their parents to the state, a professional, or in your case step family, all lacking due process. In terms of guardianship of adults, Sam Sugar has done some incredible interviews, especially on the Maryanne Petri's Slam the Gavel. His organization gives some advice on how to protect you and your family from guardianship.
Similar story happened to an elderly, well-to-do great-aunt years ago. She happened to live (out of state from all her relatives) on her own for many years after her husband passed (no kids). She was isolated on a ranch and was not fond of family visiting. So the family was well behind events as they were happening; the first we learned things were not well was when her deceased brother’s kids (who had moved cross-country for this) answered her door with a weapon to hand, letting inquiring family members know that no, they could not visit their great-aunt as she was sleeping and could not be disturbed. Things went fast after that, culminating in a last hospitalization for her under suspect circumstances, and a even more suspect ending during that hospital visit. By the time her will (everything went to her brother’s kids, despite years of mentions that she wanted to leave it all to her local community) had been read, everything was cemented in stone and the lawyer that my family pooled in for was quick to say that all was legally correct, so sorry. Last I grass, they sold all timber and then the property itself and started a small business on the west coast. Unfortunately, my parents didn’t seem to learn much from this, and so I (only kid) went through a different version of this when they went. You really can’t imagine at the time it’s going on that this terrible thing really is happening and by the time you do, the damages are done.
I’m sorry to hear that story. It seems that this sort of behaviour is fairly prevalent. When it involves money, people show their true colours. I too am going through a different version of this with another family member who ticks all the boxes for narcissistic traits. I didn’t mention it above because it hasn’t played out yet.
I think this thread is useful to other readers, especially younger people who might not have experienced this sort of situation yet. I would say not to be too paranoid but if someone starts to show a pattern that looks as if they’re making a play to steal an inheritance, don’t spend to long in the adjustment phase where you debate whether your misreading the situation or not. Start delving, start asking awkward questions early on (but I know that’s difficult if they’re wielding a gun!). Getting access to the victim and assuring them of your 100% support for them is paramount. I’ve had to do this and have also told the ‘vulture’ that I’ll fight them in the courts with no hesitation if they try again what they had already tried and I stopped.
Good for you! So sorry to hear you are in the midst of all that though. Sometimes it is difficult to realize what’s going on unless you are very close to the vulnerable person. I recall one time I moved to a new area and the next door elderly disabled lady was very kind and we spent time conversing on her better days, since she was right next door. However, after a month or so, one of her favorite caregivers pulled me aside privately and said in no uncertain terms I needed to stay away from her. She was very adamant and unpleasant; completely different from how she normally acted around the elderly lady. I thought about it and decided to do so because I was not a relative and did not need to stir any pots. But it does go to show how things can sometimes easily slip under the radar.
That’s creepy and I’m sorry to hear you had that dilemma of whether to carry on talking to her. I’ve read a fair number of stories in the papers about nefarious carers over the years. Relatives and neighbours need to be ever vigilant especially when there are no close relatives around.
My second comment here (below/above?) was directed to you, Maureen but I’m not sure if it shows as being to you. I don’t understand these vertical thread lines and which replies they refer to.
Agreed. My parents differed from my great aunt by not having a lot of cash, etc. But they did have a house full of antiques. All of which went through the court system with no mention of where they went. Never did get to see a paper record of any accounting. My dad’s car disappeared three days after he passed; nobody knew anything. So sorry you had to go through something like this as well. It is life-changing. 😞
Thank you for your input which helps to build up a picture of the different ways this phenomenon manifests itself.
My sisters and I got involved with a group of people whose professions draw them into the orb of sociopathic women praying on wealthy, older men in Southern California. It’s not a small problem.
Thanks, it’s interesting to see these stories to build up some sort of overall picture even though they’re depressing to see!
I think it may have to do with consequences of psycho/sociopathic behaviour.
As recently as the 1970s, such a person had to hide their proclivities (Dahmer's private roadkill-collection in the woods behind their house f.e.) or would be locked up, possibly for life.
Thanks in part to the anti-psychiatry movement but also postmodern and social constructivist schools of thought (you could make the case that secularisation also plays into this), from the 1990s on the ideal is that the person displaying clear psychopathic behaviours as long as they stop short of outright murder/rape (and sometimes not even then!) is to be treated in the community.
Maybe that's why the number has risen from way below 1%?
I disagree about "anti-psychiatry" - we don't state that "it's okay to be psychopath" - anti-psychiatry is about denying the DSM labels and the resulting destructive treatments. Psychiatry is a weapon used to cripple (and make money from) the poor, the struggling, the Other. If people are harming people - you don't need a diagnosis or label for that. It's a crime.
(note: psychiatry ***is*** harming people, and this latest COVIDian assault is just an extension of the arm of psychiatry. Who created the gas ovens in Germany? "We know your needs better than you do." is the mantra of psychiatry - very much like what we've been told about COVID.)
"Anti-psychiatry" has nothing to do with the convenient deinstitutionalisation of inmates - that was a capitalist move. Cheaper to drug them and keep them at home.
More, I blame corporate culture (there was a Canadian film, 2003, called "The Corporation,") wherein corporations are not liable for their individual actions. They are protected from that liability by the Corporation, and to rise in this environment, sociopathy and psychopathy is rewarded. The sociopaths and psychopaths rise to the top of the Corporation. How many corporate crimes have resulted in punishment? Fines are just a cost of doing business.
This rewards the sociopaths and psychopaths - and so they accelerate their crimes.
It was actually being a part of anti-psychiatry which enabled me to see through the bs that the COVIDians were presenting. Same tactics, same gaslighting.
I'm going on anti-psychiatry in my nation, should have pointed that out maybe.
Here, that idea is completely enmeshed with the wokest of the woke.
Thankfully, our psychiatric sector is and has been operating on two basic principles for the last decade now, while still using ICD/DSM-labels for various reasons (many to do with bureaucracy):
1) Is the person a proven danger to others?
2) Is the person a proven danger to themselves?
Those two are, while not formally written down or recognised, the basis for what if any treatment is to be mandated (KBT being the go-to method right now). Otherwise any contact with psychologists, therapists or psychiatrists is voluntary.
I'm not american, so hence the confusion caused.
I can't see you and @JC disagreed in substance—more like a mismatch in what the anti-psychiatry appellation means to each. Just as you say, the eternal confusion over terms; your implied doesn't equal the other guy's 🙂
Peter Gotzsche is a Dane, he's kinda in this camp. Same with Olga Runciman. We have people who are battling the dangers of psychiatry on all continents. I'm in Australia (though have also experienced the US). But unless you are exposed to the history, then it's something new.
Has "antipsychiatry" been coopted by the Woke? "You can't diagnose me! I was BORN this way!"
Whatever the number, it is increasing. Drugs cannot be good for sanity.
Bingo
Too low. I've personally run into far to many over my decades of rebellion and resistance. FAR too many...
I think he’s actually spot on. In the past, before internet, social media that %was probably lower but sociopaths can be created if you have the tools at hand…lots of sick people out there
Honestly, I think some of the drugs they give people for these so called psychiatric problems turn them into sociopaths.
Adderall being a prime example imo.
https://pathwhisperer.info/2011/09/20/post-redux-are-saps-socially-adept-psychopaths-real/
https://pathwhisperer.info/2020/10/10/pw-goes-all-in-psychopathy-as-a-green-beard-trait/
Ps are at least 1 in 20. Hidden as SAPs, socially acceptable pyschopaths. Interbreeding subspecies.
I thought it was 2% but maybe we’re producing more c
They extended it last May 11? But I thought the emergency order stuff all expires on May 11. I wish I had the money to sue the US CDC. It’s such an unscientific random requirement to entry and they need to stop playing pretend and lying about it.
I guess Novak Djokovic will never again be allowed to play the US Open. He's too dangerous to be allowed into the USA.
Novak is a real hero, not just a sports hero. He will outlive the players who took the jabs like sheep.
Puts his money where his mouth is.
Healthy global competitors to American patriotism, are deemed enemies of this new spiked state.
Biden ended the emergency order around April 11, a month early. However, the vaxx border requirement was issued independantly of the emergency order so requires a seperate 'decree' to end it. I remember hearing that it was Trudeau that requested that Biden close the border last year just before the Trucker Freedom Convoy. I don't doubt it.
Here's some good websites for up to date info:
https://flytrippers.com/usa-vaccination-requirement-travel/
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/us-border-vaccine-rules-remain-as-biden-ends-covid-national-emergency
There are 2 different orders and the vax requirement is separate but I confirmed it hasn’t been extended past May 11. (At this point) It is largely expected to expire when the second part of the emergency order ends May 11. I’m truly hoping that’s the case. Or that they make it a “last 6 months” thing so that the majority of vaccinated people are inconvenienced and pissed off by it rather than not caring because they have no problem with discriminating against us unvaxxed. 🙄
I read in not a particularly authoritative source that it has been extended and will
include the bivalent booster.
They must have a huge oversupply of the bivalvent
I read here in Aus that there was enough for 10 doses per person.
And now we're building Moderna plants in Brisbane & Melbourne & somewhere else. mRNA in everything, here we come! (sorry, don't have links handy)
I'm a little confused. So does that mean Novak Djokovic would get to play in the US open in August?
I hope you're right!
Agreed but the definition seems to keep changing.
Makes me so angry because I know they love having people to control, people who want something enough to give in when told they have to do this in order to visit our country. It is a particularly nasty type of evil to delight in piercing the bodies of other people and making it a requirement when they know it's doing nothing to stop Covid.
Since 2020, I'd say that closer to 30% of the general population are sociopaths. They gravitate to big cities for some reason. Glad I live in a small town.
Simple. Working in corporate America, usually urban, rewards those who are willing to cheat, lie, steal, bury, hide - sociopathy and psychopathy is rewarded in corporate settings. Those who work for Mom & Pop don't have the same drives.
no kidding ? I thought they had given up on it! Is this because of a tennis tournament upcoming maybe? Because Novak should not win?
Novak Djokovic should simply walk across the Rio Grande with the nightly crowd, or merely cross from Canada using one of the dozens of unguarded crossing points.
Then the ICE gang can drag him off the court during his first match and we can watch it on video! Hope ICE wear gloves and masks...
My ex said that when I had all these problems coming to this country legally. The US must be one of the hardest countries to immigrate to legally. And expensive. And jab happy.
No it didn't.
Was it actually extended? Or updated? I saw the UK article, but the CDC site doesn't extend anything, it just redefines the meanings?
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/proof-of-vaccination.html
Am I missing something?
I understand that of the ones who don’t rise to those levels, many often wind up in prison at some point.
Assholes
Public apology. I just inadvertently reported a comment, no idea whose, I had absolutely no intention, was having trouble with my phone screen jumping round. Please ignore Gato.,
Wow! We’ll said. My mind has been cracking now and then from the utter madness of Covid crazy around me. Now that the ‘crisis’ seems to be receding no-one says a peep about it. They just go on about their lives as if the threats of me being fired, the restrictions me and my family were placed under never existed?!?!? Not one shred of concern, not one apology. All’s good?!?!? I’ve been stunned at the people close to me who I respected fell for this insanity hook, lime and sinker. They would have reported me to the authorities. In fact one did report my anger on social media about the restrictions, where I never mentioned my employer by name, but brought it to the attention of my team leader, who brought it to the attention of Management and forced me to delete the post. My career, what’s left of it is done at work. I’m sure I’m effectively blacklisted. I’m off FB for life at this point and I will never trust anyone from work as long as I live. I will never be the same after being treated like a dangerous leper by almost everyone. It’s deeply wounded me in relationships. Thanks be to God above for that 15% of my friends who stood with me. I’d never had made it out in jabbed. 🙏🏻
Ross, I do apologize.
Even though I presumably never met you, I was completely duped by the censorship and propaganda.
Wore the mask, got five shots, and although I never outright condemned any one else’s choice, inside I had an arrogant disapproval of the “crazy antivaxers and antimaskers”. It probably leaked out on occasion and I’ve apologized to those in my circle who had a different opinion and turned out to be right.
Probably one saving grace for me is that once I’m presented with contrary evidence, I’m willing to change my mind. Learning I’m wrong is something I relish, because that’s how I learn. Unfortunately the censorship/propaganda efforts were comprehensive and effective.
Now the people who still do nothing but stonewall, gaslight, and justify their foolishness, now that accurate information is widely available... well maybe they’re just crappy human beings.
I admire this beyond belief. Thank you. You are a very important part of assuring this never happens again.
Again thank you for your honesty and speaking up.
Means a lot to folks like us who were either forced to take it on the chin or did at their own volition.
Cheers!
Well said Art. Apology accepted, even though you addressed it to Ross. Your "saving grace" is probably the most important intellectual trait one can have.
Wow! So you eventually woke up and saw the sham for what it was! After five shots! What happened to shift your mindset?
Art, welcome!
Unusual characteristic, changing your mind in response to contradictory evidence (if strong enough, one piece of evidence can invalidate tracts of lies).
My PhD biologist sister in Australia, faced as she was with reams of information contradicting the narrative, including several peer reviewed journal articles, had no way out, so I thought.
Three days went by and no response. “Well?” I demanded.
Her reply? “It’s easy to generate fake documents these days”.
She found a way out. Deny the existence of the evidence that contradicted her narrative (she owned it by then).
Rather than trust her brother who she knew had been successful in corporate R&D and then in private biotechnology companies, in this field of respiratory diseases, or believe her government, chose to tell herself & others that “I’d lost my mind, taken by aliens, whatever”, so that she could discount to zero anything I told her.
I used to hold her up as a paragon of tough logic and distain for bossy authority.
She’s been taken by aliens!!
We’ve not been in touch since (almost 2.5 years).
Your response is beautifully honest and one I only wish more people could make, because I know they want to. So what was it? I’m really interested to know what the turning point for you was. Was it sudden or just an accumulation of ‘this doesn’t seem right’?
You hit the nail on the head that most do not want to hear. They are just crappy human beings. And we know who they are. If they weren't we would see lots of apologies (sincere ones), corrections, punishments, what have you. Instead we see memory holing, denials and ignoring the whole thing. That defines crappy human beings. I have completely revised the list of those to whom I will pay the least attention...for the better in every way.
With your background as a previous arrogant “crappy human being”, I’m curious what you were watching/listening to that convinced you to take five shots? Most importantly, how are you contributing to the deprogramming of your family and friends who also are still arrogant “crappy human beings”? We beg you here, please use your background for the greater good of all.
Amen. You are describing much of what I experienced. Just throw in the death of a loved one to the vaccine and terrible medical neglect and malfeasance.
Aww, I’m so very sorry you went through that horrible experience. My sincere condolences. God bless you dear lady. 😢
oh goodness Laura - I too have experienced the same, not once, but twice! It is beyond comprehension at times.
Allegedly, some scruffy dude while having spikes driven through his hands and feet, into a wood cross spoke “forgive them father. They know not what they do.”
Truly, His love was far above my pathetic level. God help us all! Such dark times.
I'll have to disagree on this one. They KNEW exactly what they were doing, and HID, CENSORED, and DEMONIZED any kind of effort to go against it.
Someone knew. But the followers/sheep did not. Still don't, as far as I can tell. I come here so I can talk to people about this stuff - because I can't talk about this to anyone in person. Yes, I can say a word here, there - but - here - people know stuff, I learn stuff, I'm allowed to debate stuff and agree and disagree. Very different out in the "real world," now. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. I say it almost daily.
Some spiked guy is a compelling image! But we can’t dare think that Mr Science was successful in making his Faucian deal with the Presidency, to spike the global masses, making us all Jesus on earth!
My Lord! He and others may be using all this to pass the collection plate. And we dare not refer to Trump in vane (he knows better than poor, he has God like status, due life forever in the Oval Office).
America may aspire to creating a heaven on earth. May we learn we need not resurrect false Gods.
All in good spirit - be well and prosper.
🙏🏻
Ross, I'm lucky that I was retired from public transit service for a few years before the COVID BS hit. I'll be 72, with COPD/Emphysema, and will NEVER let myself be jabbed with that poison. I KNOW people that have been affected by it, and regret ever having it. Had C19 and treated it with the FLCCC protocol that includes both HCQ and Ivermectin. Still playing drums, and doing birds photography. Lost so many "friends" because I dared to challenge the "lets ALL get vaxxed" pressure. Called anti-vaxxer, racist, white supremacist, facist, by many. You have no idea how many times I've bit my tongue to not say: "I told you so." Just like you, not a single apology or a commentary about all that has been revealed about the shots. I just live my life happily, and those who insulted me can go "F" themselves and deal with the effects of the shots.
Live long and prosper.
Ah, Rafael. A beautiful, dear friend of mine with an autoimmune disorder - listened to her doctor (people with autoimmune were especially "vulnerable," and commanded to take the shots. My husband also submitted, it seemed to make sense at the time to him, even though I thought the shots would be worse for the autoimmune sufferers). She was a lovely, trusting soul who had no reason to distrust. She is now dead with a breast cancer that took a few months from discovery to death. "I told you so," is too painful to deliver when the baby is born 10 weeks early, another's heart needs an ablation, another is suffering a neurological disorder so bad she can no longer drive, or surgery for varicose veins (and these are the small ones). All I can say is "please stop, don't take any more!"
Even though I have the documentation to prove any of these SFX, I can't even tell them why, it's too painful, and too close to "I told you so."
Saying "I told you so" to people like those would be cruel.
I struggle with "Go eff themselves,"
I have too many loved ones who took it. Now, I get to watch them suffer & die, and count the statistics of how many people I know are suffering. (from my notes: easily 30 people in my personal circles with SFX, some severe, & 10 deaths within 2 degrees of separation - but hard to ascertain causality.)
I am reluctant to contact friends & family who I believe have taken it. I feel like something has been removed from them - soul, empathy - something. I can't put my finger on it - but - the "go eff themselves" is a very real force. Plus - I frequently hear their struggles, their suffering, and my tongue is bloody and bruised from biting it.
Does it make me a lesser person to just release the ones I love into the pits of hell?
The very same people I hold the "F" themselves for are those who I KNOW would have had no problem at all of laughing or celebrate my demise because of C19 and me not having had the shot. The only ones I hold compassion for are those who believed it was the best course of action for themselves, but, unlike way too many others, didn't make it their business to demonize those who didn't. The vast majority on the former made it a point to make it known they were part of the "educated" class (wore their being jabbed as a trophy) unlike the unvaxxed, ignorant "rubes", who were labeled as "murderers", who should have been vaxxed by force or removed from the rest of society.
It always reminded me of this: Matthew 6:5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full."
Mind you, I'm NOT a religious person. Don't belong to any organized religion.
Yes, those people are gone. There were a few who asked me if I wanted to kill Grandma - but they were doing so in a kindly fashion (they believed).
But the WHOLE SOCIETY locked me out, which is why I responded to your post. It's difficult not to blame the little guy for going along with that debacle. While I have freedoms now, it's only a matter of time before the "next wave" or crisis (Bill Gates came to Australia to warn us it was coming), and here we go again.
Do not forget. Still working on how to forgive, not sure I can.
You need to cut those abusers out of your life. Call them up and say, "I have NOT forgotten your toxic, abusive behavior. You have not apologized because you are not sorry. Therefore, I insist you continue to stay away from me. You are no longer my friend. Your hateful, brutal personality is the real disease. I will NOT help or pity you if you develop health problems. Ask you precious government for help. Do NOT contact me again ever. Good bye!"
While I haven’t used those words those are my actions. I am distancing myself from many people
We actually moved halfway across the country to get away from one of the states that locked down the hardest. It was such a relief to land somewhere where only a few people are masked, and nobody cares about it. Even my new doctors don't ask if I got the vax.
I had the same experience, Ross!
One upside is that I've made new friends in the many protests I've gone to and still join.
Just keep speaking the truth no matter what. The truth kills woke dead.
You have lots of friends. Right here.
Thanks Norma. I just realised why I come here. It's the only place I can speak freely.
Well that strikes a chord with me. I just... can't talk about all of /this/ that is going on with the people in my house. I hide it. My worries, my concerns for the people around me at work. William Makis' substack has been documenting deaths by demographics, and I'm so worried about a lot of the folks around me.
Sometimes reading things here makes me feel like I'm in an echo chamber, and I worry about that, too, but then I realise that it is because of communities here that I have been able to "see" everything that has happened before it happened.
Thanks for the confirmation: " ‘crisis’ seems to be receding no-one says a peep about it" - JUST what I have seen for about the last 8 months in my place of employment (e.g. the temperature sign in sheets disappeared with out a "peep"). I get a once monthly session with top management, and in sort of an exception proves the rule way, just this week at the end there was some hurried whispering - literally whispering - about "revising mask policies" and such. A bit worrisome.
What I kept hearing, then and now from those who did do it, was ‘what’s the big deal, it’s for your health, after all!’ And you’re right, that’s all the thought they gave it before moving on. Except for pointing out that they are the good guys here. 😖
I said this yesterday but it’s even more relevant to this post. Chesterton said, “The purpose of having an open mind is to close it on something solid.” I’ve always prided myself on my high trait openness and my ability *and desire* to steelman my opponents’ arguments. I did not waver during Covid.
BUT, I have come to realize that this very personality trait makes me vulnerable to gaslighting, at least as a distraction and an anchor, because I feel compelled to fully subscribe to every viewpoint for the purposes of examining my own.
And I discovered that I *have* to block people. I *must* turn it off. Instead of spending hours trying to debate, in good faith, the question of what it means to say “2+2=5” or “it’s rude and aggressive to refuse to call a biological male a woman if he/she/they demands it,” I need to recognize that there is a weakness in this openness. It allows too much debate to occur. At some point, it’s my responsibility to say,
“No. Children cannot consent to sex. ‘Gender affirming care’ is abusive. Etc.”
Closing one’s mind on something that is solid, I believe, is about identifying principles and building a foundation. It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be continually re-examined but one does have to construct a worldview based on what appears to be self evident ... that is, if one seeks a path to “enlightenment.” I will act as if these things are true.
It is a waste of time to debate "stupid" people.....they simply won't accept that the Democrat Party is corrupt.....so are the Republicans.
Democrats can't accept that all powerful politicians who say they want to help could be evil. Republicans can't accept that corporations no one holds accountable (who bribe politicians) could be evil.
Purchase some sheep stuffies. Hand them to these peeps when you walk away.
It's exhausting holding a worldview or a technical opinion that is well outside of the mainstream, when you're like that. I read every article that CNN put out that said that herd immunity was 80-no-90-no-95-no-98%, and that the only way to get there humanely was with vaccines and let's get a nice quote from this expert saying that kids are super resilient.
Because I needed to challenge my conclusions. Over and over again. To make sure that I wasn't missing something critical, given how far off the (observable) main path I was.
Even now, I don't have any solid answers on how to get through something like that without going insane, but I will say that I finally stopped clicking on CNN articles...
I agree
Waste of time talking to that kind. They love money and social acceptance more than truth or their neighbor. They freely chose the lie. They freely chose evil. That makes them evil.
You can't have a debate with someone who won't debate or negotiate in good faith. If their tactic is to shout you down like those sheep from Animal Farm, then it's better to point out that we know that's what they are doing. (Like Bad Cat did in this article.)
Overall I'd say that intellectuals are MORE susceptible to conformity manipulations. PhDs and MDs have done nothing but conform to attain the highest levels of their fields.
How do you get into a PhD program? Good grades and acceptable ideas. How do you get good grades? Absorb the information and regurgitate it. How do you get acceptable ideas? Believe what you're told. This occurs at every level of education. So what happens when you inject cancerous social ideas into that information stream and then grade students on that material? You get intellectuals who are well credentialed but can't think. Since credentials are proxy for intelligence, those who have no way of assessing the information themselves listen to the "experts" with credentials and those experts simply believe what they're told to believe.
I agree. Also, intellectuals worth in society is entirely predicated on their ability to convince other people that they “know” the answer. Non- intellectuals might be willing to change their mind because they never pretended to know in the first place. When an intellectual changes their mind or admits they don’t know, they’ve just admitted that they are not good at their job. And US society is becoming more and more overrun with intellectuals. Manufacturing and trades are being dismissed. Kids are being taught that being an “activist” is a career. I agree with EGM that the woke authoritarianism is just a natural outcome of a technocratic society.
Outside-the-box thinking is punished, not rewarded, in academia, the military, and most spheres of business. Advancement requires promoting the narrative, not challenging it, ad infinitum. The original commenter's observation regarding Ph.Ds and M.D.s is illustrative.
Einstein, initially clerked in a Swiss patent office. Was where he developed his early theories. Maybe we wouldn’t have nukes if he’d landed a job at a prestigious indoctrination spot where free thinking vas verboten.
Absolutely. The longer one spends inside the brainwashing apparatus posing as education in this country, the more compliant and unthinking one becomes. Just look at how the overwhelming majority are of doctors enthusiastically bought the narrative.
"So what happens when you inject cancerous social ideas into that information stream and then grade students on that material?"
Glad you brought this point up. In 1984, Yuri Bezmenov, ex-KGB agent, explained fully how our own public education system would be used to INDOCTRINATE the future generations. We're experiencing the results.
https://youtu.be/Z1EA2ohrt5Q
Back in the ‘80’s, when I first went to college for being an English literature major; I asked a professor (who worked in my small town) who claimed to have been to Oxford, what he liked about English as a major. He told me “it teaches you how to think.” That has stayed with me since that day, and I think it’s one of the crucial ingredients missing from upper education today.
💯
Growing under communism made us keenly aware of propaganda. Americans are the most propagandized people in the world and the least aware of it. A major handicap! Since most of my American friends and family have read 1984 and Brave New World in high school, and since most did not “get” these books, I no longer believe the original intent was to educate but, instead, to program people. In fact, most of our schooling here is not education but programming, plus trade education. It seems to me that the more years of schooling one had the less likely one was to discern the psy-op. Schooling did not make us smarter, and most definitely did not make us wiser. The third of the population who questioned and remained skeptical comes from across the spectrum but it would not surprise me the over-schooled as group were underrepresented in that third.
those running the schools, in particular, seem to be among those driven most mad.
the self-styled "teacher," especially one in a statist system seems incredibly prone to these derangements and desirous of sharing them.
it's why i think "public school" and the idea of state curriculums is so desperately in need of dismantling.
Something for you to consider:
The most activist teachers are invariably those with no life-experience outside institutions.
They have gone through school, then on to college/uni, then getting a teacher's degree or eq. and then back into the school system.
The good teachers by which I mean good at their subjects, good at teaching and separating private from public and also private from professional, are the ones who came late to the profession, first having done lots of other things in/with their lives.
Barring kindergarten and ages 6-8 it was rare to see a teacher under 40 when I started school, and they all - even the ones teaching the kids - had proper PhDs earned in a competitive system. The one exception being gym/PE and shop/HE teachers who instead often were 50+ and had had a real career before settling for teaching as a sort-of slow down before retirement.
While the specifics will vary by nation, obviously, I do believe (while admittedly being biased as all get out), that teaching should be reserved for the 40+ bracket. That would also create competition and selection pressure on modern teachers to shape up.
PS: If you want to see the effects of school vouchers, look at Sweden. It's a cautionary tale. DS
"The good teachers by which I mean good at their subjects, good at teaching and separating private from public and also private from professional, are the ones who came late to the profession, first having done lots of other things in/with their lives." - I think that is true of politicians as well.
Oh absolutely, only even more so.
I've met some of our MPs in person, back when I had a career.
The ones who are true party-creatures (partigängare in swedish, which can be read as "married-with-the-party" or "partyfucker" [literally] respectively) who joined the youth cadre in their tweens are ... well, just fill this space with every synonym for moron, idiot and conceited you can find.
I will never, ever, forget the man - publicly elected - who for real asked why we don't put mini-propellers connected to dynamos all over EVs.
See, he'd noticed that whenever he drives his EV, the wind blows so why not let that wind power the car...
omg lololol
John Taylor Gatto explains this whole area superbly. The error is embedded in the operating system.
"Systemet har inga problem - systemet är problemet!"
Old german and swedish anarchist slogan.
"The System has no problem - the system is the problem!"
Never thought I'd feel the urge to shout that again. In my youth, anarchists sometimes held a march on April First in mockery of the upcoming May Day-parades, where the ruling Socialist Democrat Party protested against their own politics, as we say here.
Absolutely agree. And universities should be the first to go.
To borrow a couple of slogans from the other side, we need to "Defund Academia" and "Reimagine Teaching."
My wife and me are trying to figure out what the right decision is regarding encouraging our children to attend university.
Every time we contribute to their 529's we have more reservations.
Hard because both of us come from poverty, but have 2 degrees each.
I'm not sure it's worth it anymore. My alma mater is literally 20X more for tuition than it was my freshman year in 88'.
I'm so disappointed. They used to teach you how to think. Now it's what to think.
Hard decision. Although, from my own experience, given today's quality of education, I'd probably just went straight to hustling at 18.
Although the partying was fun!...;)
I like the European tradition (also common here in Australia) of a "gap year." Send the child abroad and get educated in different cultures, different ways of living. Backpacking, living dangerously (you still get the parties!), picking fruit, learning how to function in a society very different to what they know. Then, if they are interested in education, and have a drive to succeed at creating something in their lives - it is more real, realizable, and adds meaning to their lives.
The college environment was a really convenient step into structured adulthood, and I remain to this day reticent to just abandon it, but I think that the decision to attend a college needs to be made on the basis of the goal that it's fulfilling.
I got an engineering degree to do a style of technical work it would be quite difficult to teach on the job without a dedicated, corporate education system. I think if you want to be an engineer, a physicist, a chemist, a surgeon, you need to pick up a lot of specific knowledge, and a university is about the only place packaging that knowledge, right now.
Oh, how I wish they'd drop the 'general education' requirements and let students pick the classes they'd like to add to their focus, as they have time and interest, but that's a relatively minor complaint.
I think that, minus a focused drive to a profession that has a specific and substantial body of knowledge that you must master, it's possible that universities ought to be something pursued as a hobby while building an independent life down other channels. I would love to go back and take some history classes and some economics classes at some point, and may yet do it, but I'm not going to let those interests get in the way of the requirements of adult life.
At the most, university ought to be a bridge to independent adulthood, not a shield from it.
I'm a fan of general ed. While it is vital to be awesome in your specialty - it is also vital to be able to relate to people, history, language (this doesn't mean 'gender studies' or the other fluffy stuff). My father encouraged me to take remedial stuff - like typing, 10-key, writing, history, music, film, literature - which greatly improved my success in the workplace (accounting, also a technical specialty, though not as demanding as engineering!), as well as exposing me to things (I'm thinking about that film class) I would never have considered, and expanding my inner landscape.
I also agree that there are vital lessons to be learned at University. Living away from home for the first time - in a safe, structured environment where food is provided (dorms) and you learn to share your space with strangers. Learning how to organise your time without Mom around to help. SHOWING UP (this is a big lesson). DOING THE WORK (the next big lesson). Realising that you are no longer at the top of your class, and have to work to make it happen.
Australia doesn't do boarding/dorms at University so much, and I think they are worse off for it.
I agree - University as a bridge, not a shield. Too many snowflakes aren't dealing with the lessons in my second paragraph - so maybe University is wasted on them?
Here's what my father would object to (even though he was a Business PhD) - is the businessifying of education. He came from deep poverty and shame about that poverty. For him, education was opportunity, and this profit motive and greed will lock out people like him, who worked his way through 3 degrees in the 50's and 60's (yeah, no grants, no loans).
Bernie has a point.
Well said. Your points are precisely why we're torn.
And the "social" aspect. Which I think helped me in life just as much as the education itself.
"My alma mater is literally 20X more for tuition than it was my freshman year in 88'."
Whoa!! 😲
I should check out my own school and see how the tuition today compares to when I went there.
I think you'll be surprised. Although it has been roughly 35 years since I started college
The private university I went to now runs $75k / year with room and board. State universities here around $30k. No way to justify spending $180k more for similar educations. The $120k state school cost itself is hard to justify.
Haven't you heard? They are no longer "teachers" but "educators". I believe they changed this to make the job sound more important. I call them teachers.
I call them indoctrinators.
And some of them child grooming perverts
I grew up in a higher education family, PhD father was the first in his family to get a degree of any kind, pulling himself out of poverty. He was very practical in his administration (he was a Dean) - and died before any of this started. I wish he were still alive so that I could hear his opinions on what higher education has become (he retired in the 90's). His speciality was School of Business - so practical applications, teaching a trade, effectively. Is he spinning in his grave? Likely. While I'd love to chat with him, I'm also relieved that he didn't live long enough to see it.
I had a young child in a charter school in Los Angeles back in 2009. That is when it all started. I had moved him to the “progressive charter school for the arts” (yes - even in the name) because the regular public school complained that he wouldn’t sit in his seat and wouldn’t focus and was distracting other children. So I got the diagnosis (ADHD) but did not want to medicate him - and I thought a “progressive” school would just teach him without demanding a drugged up compliant child.
How wrong I was. They gave him ‘red cards’ for jumping outside, they banned playing tag, they did not give the children any exercise and playtime was monitored for ‘bullying’ (even touching another child was considered bullying), he got in trouble for ‘bullying’ his best friend when they were actually playing, they had constant lessons about causing harm and bullying, and they banned him from drawing any tanks or guns. No reading or stories about war or fighting or any kind of violence. They couldn’t manage to teach him to read though - because they believed in this ‘whole word’ way of teaching. That is “child will just pick it up automatically when they get to be 7” - or something. Oh and spelling was out because the child should just be able to spell things they way they sound and they will pick up the correct spelling eventually from reading. When and if they master reading that is. And as long as they are not reading about war or fighting or aggression or death or weapons or comics.
My child was 6 and 7 when he was exposed to this insane way of educating children. I actually moved to the UK when he was 9 which then came with it’s own set of rigid conformity issues but he is 20 now and actually fine and not woke at all. But these poor children who grew up exposed to that insanity and indoctrinated with the idea that they were bad and wrong if they wanted to play with a toy gun or liked comics where the superhero wiped out all the bad guys. And if they persisted in such ‘wrongthink’ they were drugged up to the eyeballs on methylphenidate or methamphetamine. No wonder they retreated to their video games. The progressives and their dumb ideas messed up an entire generation of kids and now we are seeing the consequences as these young adults are in universities.
There was some claim that "vax hesitant" persons tended to cluster about equally in the "only High School" and "PhD" education level spectrum - and were least present in the Masters Degree group. A little different than your claim; start with noting that tons of Public School teachers obtain MEds.
And - note to "1984" groupies: did you know that "Room 101" was something of an inside joke shared by Orwell and his BBC in-group? At the BBC head office, Room 101, at the time, was an ordinary conference room where particularly excruciatingly, boring meetings were held.
I’ve seen this thrown about but I suspect this may be limited to certain PhD’s, perhaps in biological sciences. All PhD’s I know fell for it.
I am a PhD in marine biology with an emphasis in environmental tox with a BS in both chemistry and biology. I never fell for this bullshit (their bullshit)
I am interested to know how others in your field or associated areas fared. My suspicion was that perhaps bio-scientists familiar with the subject matter probably fared better but I have no way of knowing.
I wonder if it isn't that the University Professor PhDs are actually outnumbered by industry-employed professionals, and while those on campuses were profoundly pro-vaccine, in my experience, perhaps the ones who left the university and went to go do hard-thinking jobs did better.
Either that or the survey data was flawed. 50/50 in my mind. I hold very low odds that the university professor crowd was a massive reservoir of vaccine hesitancy.
I vaguely remember reading some books in high school. I often wonder how kids can read this as such a young age. Do they get it and how it relates to the world. I remember thinking in the grocery store how much we had. An obscene amount and questioned why we have so much. I also started wondering about what was being told to us, and what was real. It’s always far more complex.
The fact that people who write such things have access to oxygen troubles me beyond words. Referring to that insane tweet about opening the schools. My sister, a science teacher, no really- shrieked on Facebook that she was being “sentenced to death” when she had to return to classroom teaching. Masked her kids all alone at a lake in Vermont. We can’t discuss Covid because her opinions are based “on science”. Unlike mine. I asked her for scientific justification of those actions , still waiting.
Wow, that’s tough
There is plenty of science to back up any statement you may have to refute hers. She would likely be opposed to listening to any of THAT science, though!
Correct. CDC and Fraudci only. Everything else is sheer madness. I asked how jabbing everyone all at once with a technology never before used in humans was scientific. Why not a control group? What about all cause mortality? Why kids? Why does natural immunity suddenly not exist? That was my sister’s breaking point. I mentioned natural immunity and she flipped. Sorry for following all science ever sis. I won’t make that mistake again. Still waiting for an answer.
Your story about the conformity test reminded me about a similar experience I had way back in elementary school..........
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That particular day we were being tested on our ability to read and draw clocks. Simple stuff, and the first few questions went by just fine. 6 o’clock? Big hand 12, little hand 6. Easy Peazy!
The issue came when I was asked to draw 4:30. Because I understand how clocks work, I put the big hand on the 6 and the little hand halfway between 4 and 5.
BZZZZZZT
I was instructed that the proper way to draw 4:30 was to put the big hand on the 6 and the little hand directly on the 4.
For a second I thought she was joking. I even looked at the clock in our classroom: 12:15. And that little hand was definitely NOT right on the 12. “Holy shit, my teacher can’t even tell time!” I thought in second-grade language.
But looking back on this incident with a little more experience, I find what happened next to be fascinating: The rest of the test, I answered the questions INCORRECTLY (using her rules) to save my score. Even though my brain KNEW that she was wrong, I went along with it. How many students were similarly docked that day? We’ll never know, because NOBODY spoke up.
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https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/why-are-you-like-this
yes, there's a really nasty lesson about system design there.
you want to graduate med school? well, then you better tell us that gender is a social construct caused by climate change on the test.
high schools do it. they all do. you write what the instructor wants to hear. but the act of doing it causes performative internalization and thus indoctrinates you. unless you are consciously resisting, just the act of writing it shifts your towards it.
To jump on the bandwagon, this was a test we did at KomVux (a sort-of second chance school for adults who opted out of or flunked after finishing compulsory school) when I attended:
The teacher, a psychologist combining his research with teaching, randomised the class into groups of six. Each group sat at a round table, and each person in each group were given an envelope.
Each envelope was marked with a different colour and contained laminated coloured cardboard in various shapes. The object which he explained before giving the go ahead, was for each person and group to make a rectangle in the colour of everyone's respective envelope, while he timed the entire thing.
No one was to speak, use sign language, written notes et c - no communication basically. No one was allowed to give away a piece to anyone else unless they got a piece in return. No stealing some else's piece even if it is your colour.
Average time to completion was, he said close to ten minutes.
Upon opening the envelope, everyone at my table looked at one another as if telepathic and empited our envelopes in the middle of the table so everyone could pick out their pieces. 13 seconds.
When my group was excused, we saw on our way out two women seated across from eachother at one of the tables, each one lacking the piece the other one held and neither one willing to be the first to offer it.
For these women, and for 98.5%+ of test subjects according to the psychologist, the very ownership and control of the thing was apparently worth much more - infinitely more - than the actual thing itself.
Not exactly conformity, but in the same general area.
While I'd certainly like to claim that it was my idea to simply pour the pieces out into the middle, that's not true. It really was as if the same realisation struck all of us at the same time: to empty the entire load in the middle of the table and only take what you need is not against the rules.
I'd love to be able to do a similar study with groups of people sorted by how they identify politically.
That seems completely baffling to me. It's obvious (to me at least) that a piece that isn't my color is completely worthless to me........
I wonder if we could figure out what breaks down these barriers in some people. I've recently been pondering about sports and how they emphasize teamwork and cooperation, maybe that's a factor?
I have no idea. We were about 50/50 split men and women, age 25-50, all swedish except for one or two people from southern Europe, and had nothing to do with eachother except going to KomVux and taking the Psychology ABC-levels course. You picked your own courses as needed, so there weren't any classes the way it is in compulsory school.
While it would certainly be interesting to try and find the unknown factor, if it exists, once found it can be countermanded even more efficiently.
You had it easy, you knew what the teacher believed! During my degree I was faced with the conundrum of what to do about a professor who was teaching the subject wrong during the class. He was trying to teach C++ but clearly didn't actually know the language and was regularly putting code on the slides that was guaranteed to crash. When the test came, lo and behold, there was a question on what that sort of code did. Now here's the puzzle: do you write what the prof thinks the answer is, or the right answer? Whether you "win" or not depends on whether the test is marked by a grad student.
Yikes!
What is this “little hand “ and “big hand” of which you speak?😝 Telling time is no longer taught.
Yet it is still on standardized cognitive tests...
At the suggestion of which, the White House scoffed at with distain....
disdain...
Well, you know. Can't take the risk!
I recently had my Medicare Wellness Worthless check up. My doctor asked me to count backwards from 100 in 9s…. She stopped me half way down.. my response? “I bet the President can’t do that! “
So much easier these days when Alexa will just tell you what time it is.
We were gifted an Alexa a few years ago... my slightly hard of hearing spouse asked me who had sent me “that joke” I responded “ Dick”... and then a second time louder “ DICK” Alexa from a far corner chimes in “ That’s not nice.” And into the garbage she went. I think I may have told this story already....
LOL I hadn't heard it! Great story!
Yup, my neice is now pushing 40 and can only read digital.
That is frightening. It’s a loss of mathematics. Recently, salesperson at Dillard’s told me I could use their handy dandy price scanners to find out what my 20% discount would be on a $20 item…
What a great story. I had a similar experience with the Choo-choo train calendar month learning exercise. Where each car represented a month so the kids would understand the sequence of months.
So the teacher asked me how many months are there from February to August. I asked her (what was just an innocent question); can you tell me the year February is in and what year August is in?
She looked at me like I was crazy and sort of mocked me in front of the class and had me get up and count each car so I could come up with the answer of 6.
She said; now do you understand the year doesn't matter? And lmao I said; no not really, do the months just stop at December?
I thought the exercise was to recognize that a calendar is really just arbitrary in the sense we don't just start the "clock" again once a calendar year was over.
She kept me after class so i could "practice" counting the months. So I sat there for awhile fuming. Then I mustered the courage to say; Sorry Mrs Frederick I don't think December is the caboose any more than January is the locomotive/engine car.
She seriously didn't get it and a bunch of the kids snickered about how dumb I was.
If the school-system worked, kids showing aptitude for that kind of lateral thinking (for want of a better term) would be promoted to classes with teacher strained and able to let the kids develop said aptitude, not curb it.
A good teacher uses the kids' abilities as tools and levers when teaching; a bad teacher enforces conformity of thought.
(Why yes, I'm biased.... 😎)
Totally logical question on which year between the months.
So, I spent a misadventurous year as a Montessori teacher. In a classroom of young children, the shelves were full of "works", which are material things meant to take a child through a learning process. The children are supposed to take a work and "work" (not play) on it on a rug which each had for such purposes. One work was a basket full of toys starting with "C". A little boy who loves cars began to race the car. The engine roared! The car even drove beyond the boy's rug. I was quite admiring how the car found many interesting pathways upon which to drive, and other children were also appreciative. The oldest teacher put the boy in a time out for being loud and "not listening" to her (to be quiet, stay on the rug, and use the "works" for their stated phonetic learning purpose. The boy began to cry disconsolately. I was appalled and crouched down beside the boy, that he not be alone in this difficult experience. Later, after class, I curiously asked the teacher what the time out is about, why she uses it, what she thinks about emotional development and forms of discipline... Apparently questions are interpreted as a challenge to authority. I have noticed this has happened in many other situations in which I have asked questions. I was later called before the school director for my "defiance" and "disrespect" of the other teacher. I got through the year but happily left afterwards. I think they were happy about that too.
This is why I fought my high school years of imprisonment by striving to complete assignments in a manner by which I would both fulfill the requirements but completely subvert the presumptions. This worked great anywhere with a creativity potential. Give them what they say they want, but prove the failure of the mold in the process.
I remember doing something similar -- for example, during the first Iraq war my teacher wanted a paper about the importance of stopping warmongering governments quickly. (Basically trying to compare Saddam to Hitler)
Instead I "wondered" if the world would have come to the defense of native Americans if only they had the technology to see what early Americans were doing to them.......
It was more interesting this way, and allows us to claim our own perspective. It has also enabled me to train myself to always attempt to find a way to get alternate perspectives on any perspective, look for anomalies, look for paradigmatic consistency and edges.
You were analog and she was binary. Life is mostly analog. I wonder what sort of influence digitalization of clocks had on our culture. Our thoughts used to be more wonderfully different; people are now more two dimensional to fit neatly into predefined categories. While humans are prone to think in binary terms, (e.g. black or white, day or night,...), we have never been as binary as we have become. An intolerance is automatically associated with sort of thinking. You aren’t supposed to believe something outside your allotted slot. That is heresy and heretics are extremists, and extremists are all potential,terrorists. ;-)
I've often wondered why I and some others saw through all the BS but others did not.
Looking back to my childhood, I was never part of the 'cool kids' group and never really cared about that. I had friends and was fairly happy.
I think this made a difference. People like me sort of became immune to 'group think' and go-along-to-get-along.
I also think that having a strong faith life makes a huge difference.
I would submit that is true for more of us, than not. It also seems to me that more than a few of us always wanted to be part of the 'in' crowd or 'cool kids' at some point in our lives, as they were never really comfortable being an outsider – I came to love being an outsider, and like you, developed an immunity to 'group think.'
I have been searching for some common thread among those who resisted, and haven't been able to find a single one. I believe that faith helps, but our denomination refused to support religious exemptions, and all my friends from church posted their vaccine cards to Facebook. The out-of-step culturally didn't do all that well, either. I got a lot of *tolerance* out of my community, genuinely, but we still referred to ourselves as the danger-kittens because everyone we knew thought we were crazy.
For me, it's "having been screwed before," which helped me. I already didn't trust docs and pharma because of the harm that was done to me. In 2010 I took a personal oath to not take any drug which was younger than 10 years old, and preferably 20. To survive what I did - yes, faith is a requirement (as is self-care).
However - like with your church - most of the medical survivors in my forums took the juice, and the official narrative was widely accepted (and discussion of the juice was banned). EVEN THOUGH they had been harmed by other juices...
It was easier than fighting that dominant narrative.
How many people do you know who are confrontation-avoidant? Nearly every man in my life would sooner lie and agree with me, than disagree and risk a confrontation (the one who wouldn't was a narcissist!). It was their nature - and I had to learn to look for signs that this was "compliance" not "agreement." Extend this out to society as a whole, and most people would not tell you there was shit on your face, because - well, that's confronting.
It is easier to go along. It is easier to do what you are told. It is easier to trust what doc is saying, even when it harms you.
I know a person who was a kind of hippie artsy person in Los Angeles. She had been an anti-vaxxer for years and had home schooled her two daughters and not given them any vaccines at all. She sat at a party talking about how she had always been an anti-vaxxer until Covid but she now realizes how important and necessary these vaccines are and she is totally on board with making sure that everyone is vaccinated. So pro mandate in other words. This was in 2021. My eyes were just popping out of my head - I cannot fathom how someone could think like that and not see their own inconsistencies and even boast about it at a party. Not sure whether she has modified her views yet and gone back to anti-vaxxer beliefs - or maybe she has run out and got all the MMR and DPT vaccines she missed.
Everyone is susceptible. I thought I was a strong, smart woman. I escaped a dire marriage before it got terrible. And immediately fell into the seductive arms of a narcissist.
It can happen to anyone. If I were to hazard a guess about a stranger I know nothing about - her hippie lifestyle may have left her vulnerable to the heavy propaganda. Eyes wide open, she took the bait.
I have a dear artist friend I've been afraid to ask. I hate to think of her as a cyborg.
You poor darling! You are RIGHT, it could happen to anyone and those who think they would never be in a relationship like that are fooling themselves……
But your experience validates what I read in 2021 (see my extended comment below), that those who saw through the propaganda early on, had major impactful experiences with gaslighting.
Probably far too frequently, my propensity has been just the opposite. I'll TELL myself that I'm not actively seeking confrontation, but then I realise that I'm lying to myself.
I'm surprised that I was not kicked out of Target, during that time...
:D :D :D
I appreciate your reply and all those below. I suppose it remains a mystery to a large extent. I agree with you regarding faith: my faith really did help me stay resolute (at one point I questioned my refusal) but most of the people at the 2 churches I attend took the juice and were so proud of it.
It's a good point t, I've been doing it too. Searching that is. I really have not found faith a good reliable tell. There are probably multiple reasons, which is why it is difficult. My best friend of 50 years was on the same page, I am grateful for that!
Also, having parents that model that helps. My parents were very successful at going their own way while generally being accepted by the in crowd. The lesson in that made me that way too.
same for me.
Faith is the key.
I also wondered how my husband and I saw it right away (by end of April/beginning of May), especially because originally we were “all in” and took our daughter out of school 2 weeks before the lockdown based on what we were seeing abroad. I also originally thought it was a discernment by faith thing. That is, until our entire bible church went cancel all worship-crazy, mask-crazy, asked EVERONE when their vax appointment was (I asked one guy if he would like to know the results of my last Pap smear as well-that was FUN), and posted lots of social media posts of their virtuous children, “doing their part”-that part really broke my heart, because by then there was sooo much information available that showed what a bad idea it was to vax your very own children. I was so bewildered and dismayed by how many people I previously respected that were utterly duped. Then there was an entire OTHER group of friends that could see that we were all being manipulated, but got the vax (and for their kids) based on a desire to travel, go to a movie, eat out, or their kids to play sports. I was so shocked that they could fold so easily! We didn’t eat out or see a movie for 2 years! My daughter quit ballet and karate-there was no way we were doing the vax! I felt so depressed, confused, frankly……crazy. I spent HOURS trying to figure out why people weren’t seeing it, and trying to convince others and our local school board with data-(at great social pressure/risk-everyone here is as progressive as they come). Now I understand that “data” and rational thought had no chance for success—-their belief system was sort of ……“tribal”?
And finally…….you can not imagine the relief I felt when I came across an article in 2021, where a researcher in the field of psychology….
….REPORTED THAT 90% OF THE PEOPLE HE SAMPLED WHO “GOT IT” EARLY, EXPERIENCED A CHILDHOOD THAT WAS MARKED BY GASLIGHTING…..
……(Which he explained often happens in families with addiction present, a narcissist parent, or emotional neglect). And while my husband and I are both advanced degree holders, and very affluent (another marker of those who are highly vaxxed), I believe it was the fact that we both grew up in dysfunctional families—gaslit to the max —that saved us……
I think the reasons we saw through it all are varied and complex. My faith was a big part of it for me but for others, they listened to the advice of the Vatican and felt they were 'doing their part', i.e., it made them feel noble and selfless. A deacon at my church fell into this category. Sadly, his son, in his 30's just recently died of a stroke - otherwise healthy, fit and active. I don't know for a fact that he was vaxxed but he traveled a fair bit between Canada and the US so that and what I knew of his family tells me he was.
I was fortunate enough to be pointed to a podcast where a Franciscan Monk, in a respectful manner criticized the church for meddling in medicine saying that the aim of the church was saving souls not giving medical advice. He made other excellent points as well and he's one of the reasons I stayed vaxx free.
I too bought into the narrative at the very beginning but began to see more clearly by about April/May of 2020.
I'm used to doing medical research even before the internet due to some prior illnesses being misdiagnosed or complex and difficult to diagnose. Libraries and card catalogues existed long before Dr. Google.
The whole art world nonsense when they started to extol the greatness of abstract or modern art, obviously crap, yet promoted as brilliant. Random strokes or just a few shapes or smears or splashes of paint? Indistinguishable from a toddler painting.
Same thing with atonal music.
An entire discipline devoted to a 12-tone row of notes completely divorced from the Circle of Fifths - we had to cover this crap in a music theory class at Eastman. I dropped out before the first term had ended - it damn near cured me of music.
That atonal garbage is the quickest way to empty a concert hall. Zubin Mehta turned 87 today.
Happy belated birthday, Maestro Mehta!
Agreed – yet, there are still orchestra companies that will feature the occasional Bartok piece, or Britten work. I won't be critical of actual composers (while that was my aspiration when I entered, it will remain unrealized), but I can't listen to, and appreciate it as some can.
I dated a writer for a while. She used to condemn my preference for Kerouac and Bukowski and spoke often of "good" literature and "bad" literature. It used to drive her nuts when I told her that art is subjective and I used Jackson Pollock as an example.
Maybe just giving the finger to nature?
WOKE is child abuse taken out of the home and spread to the populace at large. At 2 months of age, the human infant engages in the social smile towards the human face. It’s the beginning of learning reciprocity and reciprocity, reflection, back & forth honest social engagement builds frontal lobes & our capability to be human. Imagine this 2 month old infant has a “Helpless-Hostile” Borderline mother (like Susan would be in sure). She’s not interested in Reciprocity. She’s stuck in her own world and everyone exists to serve her. The infant doesn’t have an honest social partner. The infant is left in crazy-land on her own. This continues for the infant, now child. In order not to enrage the all powerful, self-centered and abusive mother, the child is forced to agree that 2+2 is 5. Not to agree is a sure way to be murdered quick but agreeing with all of this screws up you too. WOKE is child abuse taken out of the home and forced onto the masses. WOKE destroys frontal lobe development and human social capabilities by forbidding reciprocal dialogue, love and reason. There’s nothing empathic about it. It’s all personality disordered adults using power they shouldn’t have to hurt others and in doing this, they hurt themselves too. I hate Child Abuse and I hate WOKE.
Too many children are actually responsible for their parents. Example, narcissistic mother wants her daughter to excel (Tiger mom), but is a wreck herself. The daughter must comfort and eggshell-walk the mother, because Mum is too tangled in her own issues. Children should be children! I see this in a lot of young families, now.
Grew up like this. My mother was a mess who was determined I should grow up the way she would have done, had she been in charge of the whole thing. Needless to say, it didn’t end well. My dad tried to c stay in the background by leaving early, starting out as late as acceptable, and then vanishing to his own room upstairs from me and my mother as long as possible. If I had thought more about that aspect then, I would have realized some things sooner, lol.
Exactly right about authority, which is why there’s such a spiritual element at play here, as Tucker noticed too. If you don’t view God as being in charge, then you want to be in charge yourself.., and by the time you realize you’re actually enslaved to demons, it’s too late!
More on that in my recent piece at the federalist about the death cult of the modern medical establishment:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/28/prescription-for-parents-vet-your-childs-doctors-they-no-longer-deserve-your-trust/
Gaty.substack.com
It is quite possible to not believe God exists and still oppose tyranny.
Lots of people quoted Romans 8:13 during the brutality I noticed.
The Government never does anything wrong I guess.
I always wonder "How do they know which god they should call on?".
I mean, there's no more proof for the divinity of the god of the jews (and the christians and moslems) than there's for Quetzalcoatl, Badb, Bes, Izanami or the Rainbow Serpent.
Ah, Rikard - there are simpler names than cultural ones.
My preferred name is "That which is Greater Than Myself."
It can be directly experienced, in the wonder of the stars, the cascade of a waterfall, the tender steps of a deer, the call of coyote, the glisten of a stone. (you can even be atheist and honour "That.")
If you want to narrow That, and give That cultural names for a specific purpose - okay. I like Thor for protection, Odhin for mystery, Isis for women's creative force, Jesus for opening the heart, Buddha for focusing my attention, Rainbow Serpent/Quetzalcoatl for exploring inner Dimensions (the Christians in here might disagree with my perspective, but I, too, have been Born Again).
But they are all, "That." I think of the cultural names as facets on a perfect diamond which dwells in my heart.
That's certainly one way to do it, and it has the undisputable benefit of being intrinsically non-authoritarian and non-totalitarian.
I'm just thinking, if one believes in [insert name here] and also believes that believing in the wrong thing means damnation, wouldn't one worry incessantly about it?
I mean, we don't know, we just think we do.
Tor is guardian of children and protector of family. Oden is god of kings and king of gods, also mysteries, riddles, hidden wisdom, knowledge, war and death. Also freedom - the word odalman in swedish meant a free man, not beholden or indebted to anyone and the sole owner and sovereign of his own land, and Od is one of the many names of Oden; i.e. a man is his own sovereign on and in his own land, by his own power. This gladdens the All-Father.
Beautiful, thank you for that.
This is what I speak about Direct Experience. The Burning Bush, or - the blinding light on the road to Damascus - or - The Shamanic Death. (pick a continent, each has a version of ego-death/rebirth) It's Direct Experience (some would say gnosis) which makes faith real. Then, however you address That, it comes from the reality of your heart & experience. Through that, you know you are accountable for your deeds, and the Hell you create is your own making.
"Wealth dies. Friends die. One day you too will die. But, the thing that never dies is the judgement on how you have spent your life." - Havamal
All we can ever do is our best.
God and tyranny are not orthogonal. We are not humans, we are humans / t. Assuming that we started at theoretical perfection and are devolving.
I argue that absolute orthogonality is tyranny. Programs such as us are designed to run in and adapt to a changing, non orthogonal environment.
It does not matter if you believe in God, gods, or not. We are a very complex system if nano-machines adapting to an environment created by similar systems, powered by a rando star, stars. We have been around for a very, very long time. Our base code is digital, adapts/t, and moves quickly with the environment.
We should really embrace the concept of GOD. Nothing else really fits the expansive majesty of our existence.
You are free to believe that.
What are we if not children of God? ☀️
very true.
A lot of self-styled Christians have gone along with this evil.
Many have dropped out of church however. Good riddance.
Those who remain are waking up as we meet and talk together every First Day.
Awesome article!! ❤️ Subscribed!!! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Blessings Adrian.
Thank you!
"So this is really about maintaining systems of white supremacy and patriarchy ... I think a lot of us are really working to divest from those ideas, but we haven't given ourselves permission to stop dieting or to accept our weight wherever it might fall."
As one who has battled his weight, body mass, and shape almost all of his teenage and adult life, I found this most interesting.
There is a fine line (not an invisible one) between acceptance of one's weight (and perhaps by extension, one's self), and insisting that one's morbid obesity is all right, even healthy, which is what the body-positivity movement is doing, and it's more destructive than the morbid obesity, itself.
Accepting that you are morbidly obese and admitting that it is not okay gives you a starting point to make changes (tiny, little ones, first) and work on becoming more healthy. In doing so, you are taking responsibility for your condition from that point, forward.
Whereas proudly (but ignorantly) proclaiming that your morbid obesity is a good thing, healthy, and even remotely attractive, is harmful. The odds are that if you are morbidly obese, you also are contending with other co-morbidities (type-II diabetes, high blood pressure, hypoglycemia, neuropathy, et al.) which, if not managed, will ultimately be prematurely fatal.
Being morbidly obese does not make you a bad person. It has nothing to do with your value as an individual. Being on the receiving end of someone maliciously fat-shaming you is no fun, and as difficult as it may be, there is likely something to take away from their ignorant remarks that smacks of truth.
It's okay to admit that you're not healthy. It's NOT okay to do nothing about it.
Exactly this! Struggled with morbid obesity from 16 to last year, 57. Since then have been on an intermittent fasting journey since I saw the signs that say weight is going to snowball health issues shortly. It’s one thing to be avoiding the health realities of it at a young age, but at some point, those realities will not ignore you. What I am curious about is what fault it will be when that day comes for them?
For me, gastric bypass surgery became necessary if I was to have a fighting chance managing my type-II.
For those who scream, "Follow the science!" let me point out that the BMI is a fluid measurement, at best, and its data is all but useless as it cannot be contextualized across gender, ethnicity, and a host of other genetic factors, and a determination of 'healthy' cannot be made, using it.
That doesn't mean that morbid obesity is genetically determined, and/or that some are destined to be so - there are many other factors (many psychological) that go into why someone may be that way. Often, self-medicating with food is a major culprit, and that is a mental-health problem – not without a solution.
But I submit that another major contributor is decades of consuming highly processed foods with high concentrations of high-fructose corn syrup. Additionally, low-calorie, low-fat foods contain chemical compounds that act as preservatives, but that the human body cannot metabolise – these chemicals remain in the body, and I submit that the effects are compromised metabolism digestive processes, that make weight-loss for some damn near impossible, because this dysfunction has been passed on from their parents who also consumed this same highly processed food for generations, and their parents before them. None of this can be borne out by studies because those studies will never be done – this nation's ag lobbies drive ag policy (I grew up on a farm – I know this). This video is not scientific either, but can anyone argue against the common sense he imparts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9XzSKIyqxg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGenmkhEbQA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ9RL6aziWE
Thank you so much for your detailed answer, really appreciate it. Yes, for me it was a combination of medicating with food and of course gravitating to all the junk I could find. But I often think one of the reasons I’m still around today is that for as long as my parents could control my eating habits, I ate straight out of a health food store, plus was given supplements. Was given junk food as a treat a few times a treat. Naturally, the minute I was able to get out of the house, I ate my way from one fast food place to another and of course the weight piled on but I didn’t even notice for a long time as I was so busy eating, lol. Still recall when my mother’s home furnishings were going away, her guardian and his team were astounded that the stove she had had since I was a toddler until she passed in 2008, did not have a single drop of grease on it or in it anywhere. They were further astounded that she didn’t own a coffee pot, microwave, toaster, and I can’t recall her ever using a blender. Now that I’ve had years to think on it, beginning to appreciate that about her very much and pondering it more now for my own life.
But yes. If medicine and psychology were able to combine better in the area of obesity, I think many would be better off for it. I recall way too many doctors over the years asking if I’d ever thought about losing weight. One in particular simply waved his hand and said, “You know what to do.”
As well, don’t think many really understand how the many things added to processed food today can severely impact your weight. I started this intermittent fasting thing after I had a discussion with somebody where they asked me if, I had ever eaten foods that made hungry afterwards? They told me real food should fill me up, not make me hungry. I hadn’t ever really looked at it like that before. But once I started paying close attention, I realized that indeed, some foods (some sweets in particular), really made me want more right away, or soon after. Stopping eating those foods has been a struggle ever since but getting better slower. Honestly though, for myself, think I’ll eventually have to cut all added sugars and highly refined flours. Agree too that BMI isn’t really a one-size-fits-all anymore than clothes with that designation, lolol.
These are some great points, the nutritional science in this country is absolutely terrible. Bought and paid for by big ag, same as we saw for covid and big pharma.
For me things that have helped, paleo/keto, time restricted eating, one meal a day mostly for me for a while, 2 meals maybe. Lots of great authors and books.
Dr. Jason Fung, Mark Sissom, Nina Teicholz, Gary Taubes, Robb Wolf, etc.
“is intelligence proof against authority?”
This would have been my guess prior to the previous three years. Alas, I’ve had a PROFOUND shift in my assessments many institutions and their employees.
I fall into that ~25% of not caving to Asch-style conformity not due to my intellect, but due to my stubbornness. Which has been a problem in the past, but served me admirably the last three years.
I didn’t really have doubts about my position, but the cognitive dissonance in watching (purportedly) intelligent/highly credentialed people act like a piece of cloth over their face would help prevent them from a microscopic virus, was REALLY hard to reconcile.
(Along with all the other safety theater based on nothing more than wishful thinking.)
I’m reminded of the meme you posted a few months back (I’m paraphrasing): we used to think that all people needed to behave in a sane, rational way was access to information. Now we have the internet. How’d that theory work out for us?
It just boggles the mind how educated we are, yet how fundamentally lacking in common sense, wisdom and courage.
I remember going to my small liberal arts college in 1980 and being told repeatedly that the point was not to teach us facts, but to teach us how to think. Somewhere along the way, that basic fundamental of higher education was flushed down the toilet.
This was my experience too! Just commented above about that before I saw your comment! One of the few things that has helped me keep my sanity over the years.
And how did they teach people how to think, exactly?
At my state school, there were two exceptional professors in the Speech Communications department. One also served as the forensics team coach. She taught us how to apply critical thinking skills to all that we took in whether it was a news broadcast, or articles we read in magazines like TIME, Newsweek, US News & World Report, et al.
The weekly assignment was to objectively analyse an article from any previous week's issue of the periodical of our choice – that exercise forced us to recognise our own biases, and to keep them out of the analysis. One of the best courses I in which I enrolled, ever!
The other taught public speaking – so every week, we had to prepare and give a speech, but we were not allowed to use 3x5 cards – whatever was our topic, we were expected to know it inside and out. Eventually, those speeches became akin to press conferences because we had to allow for a few minutes of Q & A.
We learned to think more critically, and to think on our feet because we knew our material so well. I doubt the likes of those two professors exist anywhere, anymore – though I do hope I'm wrong.
I've never been taught critical thinking, but i think i have been doing it without realising since this Covid fiasco began. I call it "my gut feeling", read as Faith.
Have enjoyed experiences similar to yours. My English literature professors taught me how to approach thinking critically/analytically. To ask questions. One reminded us of the who/what/when/where/why to get us started in that direction. Later by a few decades, I had a speech class, with a conservative professor (indeed a rarity!) who would allow us a few notes at the podium but would also grade us on maintaining eye contact and the more eye contact we had with the audience, the better the grade. We also had Q&A sessions afterwards. Loved what these experiences have done for me!
Invaluable, are they not?
Indeed, yes!
I'm being a devil's advocate here, but that doesn't really answer the question.
1. Giving speeches isn't critical thinking. If it were then politicians would be widely acknowledged as the sharpest minds in society, never prone to fallacious or incautious thought.
2. You were asked to analyze an article from any magazine, and the magazine was chosen by you. So you were probably selecting magazines and articles that already agreed with your biases without even being aware of it, making the feeling of being objective easy. Even if you managed to avoid this obvious trap, by what objective criteria did the professor evaluate your analysis? They don't necessarily know anything about the topic so that sounds very hard.
Over time, I've come to believe that the idea universities teach objective thinking is some sort of very clever trap. There's absolutely no detail on what they mean when they say this, I've seen no evidence of degree holders being more critical thinkers (if anything it's the opposite), and blatantly low quality thought is rampant in universities especially in the humanities that make the boldest claims in this regard.
My guess is that people go along with this because a humanities course is the first time people get asked to write something about their own thoughts as an adult. They're told that bias exists and to watch out for it. Then whatever is submitted, they're told that this is learning "critical thinking skills" which sounds so great nobody wants to object especially because it's usually the only generalizable skill the course claims to teach at all!
If they were really teaching critical thinking, the first thing students would ask is "what justifies this claim that you're teaching us critical thinking?"
</devils-advocate>
So critical thinker, now analyze why I'm wrong.
Your response betrays a great deal you don't know - can't know - and that you don't acknowledge that ignorance, I'll respectfully decline on the advice of Mark Twain.
I once was a representative for Jeeps. I had to memorize the specifications and marketing talking points. Then I had to engage people in public. It didn't mean that I believed it all, but I agreed to be paid to convey their points. This is like speech and a press conference without needing to believe nor question it at all, and with no bother of analysis.
I don't really think that taking an article, doing your analysis, and then making yourself capable to speak to it in a press conference is the final word on critical thinking either.
I also went to a fancy critical thinking boasting university. We were all told how we were truly engaging in critical thinking there. Did I?
I think I have had some pride in seeing more, questioning more, but I have consistently discovered my past self not thinking and questioning about things I thought must be true at that time, and I would often discover this in a moment in which it was to my detriment. My best supposition right now is that I can think independently to a certain degree, but I also happen to miss quite a lot. I'm not God, so I figure it is pretty straightforward to have humility and accept my condition, but also to be vigorous and alive and participate in my own maturation to the best of my ability.
When I think of my family members who buy into the Covid crap, I don't really want to spend too long lamenting their lack of critical thinking. I do want to notice where they are inquisitive, curious, or have had experiences of coming to new awareness or standing apart with an independent viewpoint, and then I want to see where they might go with that. I've been wrong often enough that I'd prefer to shift my focus from us/them regarding critical thinking. I think we all have plenty to work with.
"I don't really think that taking an article, doing your analysis, and then making yourself capable to speak to it in a press conference is the final word on critical thinking either."
Absolutely correct – it is not – but it was a place to begin, to acquire the skills that would need to be developed for the rest of one's life. An attorney need not believe his client is not guilty, but he needs to be able to think like his opposite to raise reasonable doubt.
A crucial part of the exercise was to read the article, and begin to parse editorial comment presented as fact, from actual fact, then subject to scutiny both the editorial content, and the reported fact for accuracy, truth (supported by contextual data, or someone else's talking point?); put in writing, and write a paper that presents the analysis, conclusions, and reasoning behind them in a readable manner.
I'm wondering about a function of era. I had classes like these - debate classes, speech classes, critical thinking, logic. Many of them in high school. I graduated HS in 1980 - so . . . . I think it's gone downhill, since.
1980 is when I graduated HS, as well - my guidance counselor steered me toward American, and English Literature...
Indeed, I was - I began to realise that ~1-2 years after I'd graduated and was working in the real world.
So many times in the past 3 years, I asked myself, "Am I just being stubborn?"
Then - I did my homework, and yes, I am being stubborn. With good cause.
Stubbornness. Yes. I've been accused of digging in my heels. Also, according to management, of being strident and combative. Somehow made it to retirement before covid. Phew! Never took the asch test but can not lie to conform. Probably would have scolded my fellow test takers. Stridently.
So many red flags with covid policy. Denial of early treatment. Completely new technology for vaccines completed testing in months rather than years or decades. Banning use of existing antivirals with long histories of safety. Money trail from pharma into government oversight agencies. Data late, missing, confounded. Administering a brand new intervention to pregnant women! Quashing discussion, contrary views. All that before the vaccine injury signals began to cry for attention.
My faith in my fellow citizens is fairly well shattered.
Charlatans and fear mongers abounded, especially in 2020/2021.
No one was trying to stem the FULL-ON panic. Anyone with a mainstream platform was actively encouraging the lunacy. Therefore, I did not believe any of them.
The mitigation measures being pushed gave off such a stench of authoritarian CCP I couldn’t reconcile the dissonance being an American.
Therefore, when the “vaccines” arrived, I said, pass.
I was not going to justify the hysterics nor the trampling of our (supposed) rights as Americans by lining up to get injected to maybe get those rights back. They should have NEVER been touched in the first place!
More than a few must have felt similar in not wanting Pfizer’s wears, so then the politicos and media applied the full-court press of “vaccine” passes and mandates. Certain Democratic politicians made the CCP look like Libertarians. (Not that I don’t have a great deal of anger at the Republicans who also went nuts.)
I’m glad you got to your retirement. The stubborn, obnoxious American is why this is a great country; those are also crucial element for a dynamic, prosperous and joyous society.
I think I understand: you’re saying that people doing idiotic things does not prevent them from positively impacting society.
I don’t disagree necessarily (there are people I care about that displayed some very similar idiocy to your hypothetical driver), even though the use of masks everywhere was an unmissable statement that SOMETHING was very wrong.
My ultimate concern, though is a lack of confidence that many people now in positions of authority, and people who will one day take over those positions are power hungry tyrants that think nothing about personal liberty.
The graduating classes of the University of Michigan and, the following week, Princeton each gave Fauci a standing ovation at their commencements. Many of those kids are obviously bound for influential and powerful gigs graduating from such (once?) prestigious schools. To graduate from such institutions lacking such basic character assessment, well not thinking they are going to make great choices in the future.
One does not need any Ivy League education to know Fauci is a supreme narcissist who was instrumental in pushing massively destructive mitigation measures. To think otherwise shows a profound ignorance.
As you say, the amount of “Germans/npcs/sheep” that are helpful to society is weird, but that’s what SO disturbing. I’m not a doctor, so I do occasionally need to see one, but my level of confidence in the entire medical profession is extremely low to say the least, as an example.
The other frustrating part is how those highly educated and credentialed “German’s” so willing turned Nazi at the mention of a virus.
If it were just the landscaper that was freaking out about a virus, I’d cut the grass myself. But when years of proven methods, definitions and basic, really, really recent history gets forgotten or twisted out of any recognizable form by the very class of people steeped in this knowledge, well, that’s a different ball of wax entirely.
That’s what’s been so surprising: how fear and propaganda over rode decades of excellent educations.
Successful societies are based on trust. Trust is built over long periods of time, but pissed down the toilet in seconds. The damage done/propagated/defended by the elites will take decades to fully see but it’s coming and in the mean time I hold nothing but contempt for them. Not for those still driving in there cars alone in a mask—I feel really sorry for those people.
I would wager the percentage is considerably lower than 25% today.
The "sample size" is much bigger due to the velocity of info.
So the pressure not to be wrong is even more intense.
The effect is levered because of visibility and exposure.
There's more to "lose", the bigger the audience.
I believe covid is prima facia evidence of this.
Sadly, I’d agree that it’s probably below 25%. I’m simply gob-smacked at the almost total compliance and lack of concerns for what I thought was basic Human Rights being trampled in mindless fear. I’m still astounded we’ll into Year 3!!!
No more than 1% resisted in any meaningful way.
You are so right. I was shocked. I thought it would be at least 10%.
The nuclear option is space aliens. Despite there being zero concrete evidence a recent poll indicated 70% believe in extraterrestrials. That’ll be the biggest avenue to bamboozlement of all time. And virtually everyone will buy it.
Hahahaha. I’ve been waiting for the alien story for years. But I don’t care. If something happens, I’ll undoubtedly die from it. My trust for propaganda and media is zero and I’m quite content to live my life doing my own thing.
skating on ice, I presume.
I used to figure skate every single stinking day in my 30's and 40's
John Kerry the “extraterrestical”.
John Kerry and Gavin Nuisance: 2 haircuts in search of a brain.
Watch the "Architects of Fear" episode on the original Outer Limits.
I don't have " proof" other than myself and my family watching 3 light reflecting? objects seemingly 'playing tag' with each other across 1/3 of the sky for about 20 minutes in Central Maine in the late 70s.
I cannot imagine anything surviving the g-forces of the angles they took...yet... there they were.
I'd certainly like to know why You Tube videos on Dulce Base are flagged with all sorts of debunking and videos on the same channel about Bigfoot and Area 51 aren't.
Some of the Newagers are saying the aliens are already here, and that Elon is a Walk-In from the Plieades....
God exists. Supposedly he created us with his attributes, his image if you will.
Supposedly, but was that just the original man, the uncorrupted man, that we have since devolved from.
It is us that must find him, by living each day - Kansas
I’ve a different def of orthogonal, math-computer language design or graph theory, which is that your little set of instructions, your service, delivers the same result for a set of inputs regardless of the greater context of it’s execution.
Frankly I confess I have no idea what God is, though I likely meet him every day I don’t see him, I see through him. Is he the spirit or am I. Is the concept of causality orthogonal, is it even physically true in 4D space time.
My software does bigger things than it was conceived to do. The services do not always produce the expected results and vast logs of message conflicts and unforeseen dead message queues fill and are dumped yet the greater system it’s self continues to fulfill basic customer satisfaction metrics. We the business created the system in our image, it was perfect when it was demoed in V1. But the universe is bigger than that moment and orthogonality decreases as time increases. Entropy perhaps.
Orthogonality, if it had a metric would decrease over time. You could even calculate the age of a system by describing its orthogonality, assuming it started from a perfect state.
Do aliens exist or are they just another version of us?
The idea of tyranny is to bring everything into a fully orthogonal state with no conflicts. The perfect world, which can not exist. Better to split the world into infinite little bits where everything is possible and assured, each light cone it’s own enforced tyranny, but limited in scope by the speed of time/causality.
Will we have an alien apocalypse? According to our oldest traditions we already did, at the beginning of our time. Tyranny of orthogonality/tyranny must fail because of thermodynamics/ because the space where perfection was (the orthogonal space) is ever expanding in time. The further from the origin t=0, the less tyranny.
And then God throws a curve 😲the edge of reality is dropping of behind the universe event horizion isolating us from our past and increasing orthagonality of the bit that remains.
These are fundemental forces of reality that extend like mycillium into every aspect of reality, our very requirement of life, our mytochomdria. Are we physically orthagonal?
The answer is yes, untill we are not.
So look through your eyes and imagine that god is also looking through them ...
I'm not sure they will keep doubling down until it collapses.
I think they'll just gaslight themselves and others into believing that they were never responsible (like Trudeau is doing). It's a pattern. They just pretend they didn't say "believe all women" or that they never wanted to "defund the police". They'll never confront anything.