This post contains more education than 12 years of public school indoctrination. If you’re pumped full of identarian emotions and drugs, it’s hard for your prefrontal cortex to fully develop. Save the kids, Professor Gato!
Wow gato malo, you’re starting to sound like GK Chesterton! “Don’t tear down that fence until you know why it was there in the first place...” Great article.
We all need a default position because it is not possible, or desirable, to process enough information in real time to make every decision. I have a few:
-assume the government and its agents are lying/manipulating in favor of greater power for them.
-ask “who benefits?”
-stand on the hill of individual rights until carried off on a stretcher
-assume that the human body, biology, and the divine organism that is a person is far too complex to be managed like a machine, is operating in the interest of survival, and is best served by tools that enhance that mission without a lot of egghead meddling (Gato and I diverge a bit here, as I feel that most vaccines, most of the time, are a problem and much better solutions exist if we look for them).
On Twitter and through comments on MSM articles worldwide we are being manipulated on a grand scale. For every divisive issue, look closely at the Twitter profiles; these AI-bots, PSYOP adversaries, and 'machine tools' solely exist to herd and divide us....and there are tens of thousands of them! As such, I think people mistakenly believe Twitter represents real life. It doesn't. Unplug from Twitter, go to a local coffee shop or pub...and life goes back to nearly normal.
I’m not sure how anybody believes anything any person in government or media or on social media says after the last 2 years. Admittedly I’m a marketer’s nightmare - advertising makes me skeptical. (What’s the nice female term for a curmudgeon?!) But the higher the hype and hysteria the more our response should be skepticism OBVIOUSLY. But then, skepticism has been purposefully driven out of people through “education” and that reinforced on social media. I’m so glad we homeschooled our kids…
“nuclear war is worth risking for some things … But I think that’s a hard position to hold if you think the extinction of humanity is so bad that avoiding it trumps everything else.”
😵 WTLF. Please tell me that’s satire. Otherwise, there’s less hope for finding signs of intelligent life among the NPCs than I’d previously imagined.
“Crisis is our diet, served up as exotic dishes and dishes ever more exotic before we are able to swallow, let alone digest, those that were just before us.”
—Milton Mayer, “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45”
Until I see the mushroom cloud outside my window, I'm still choosing to focus on what I *do* know: And that's that America is being destroyed and the monsters behind the curtain don't want us to notice.
A child is told- 'don't touch that stove-it's hot'. This is necessary when the child is very young, because the child cannot think critically yet. Eventually, though, 1 of 2 things happens. That child grows up and is shown how to cook on the stove, or the child is served meals forever and never learns about the stove in a timely fashion. Apply this to all things we admonish children for...many people never get beyond that initial stage- Don't _________, because danger. Being taught to think always involves new knowledge, and it has to be true and relevant, even if it is not easy to understand. This brings me back to a free and truthful press.
Well, your article is making me realize why I have been feeling a sense of relief about this manufactured crisis (Ukraine), as opposed to the prior manufactured crisis (COVID). With COVID, I definitely know that they are trying to kill us. The threat is very direct, and that is my (current hypothesis) framework for understanding. I have been isolated and ostracized for holding my opposing, strong view (which I can support with evidence that my loved ones refuse to even look at).
With Ukraine, it is also obvious to me that we are being similarly manipulated. In fact, it is so obvious that it is a grotesque cartoon. But because here in the US (so far) the threat is not as immediately threatening to our lives (we are, so far, mostly threatened merely with out of control inflation and potential economic depression), it allows space to think.
The only rational viewpoint at the present time is that I "don't know enough" to form an opinion other than that there is an awful lot of corruption, a lot going on beneath the surface, and that the fog-of-war propaganda is quite thick (which must mean "something" along the lines of "beware of the lies you are being fed"). Whereas with COVID, I knew so much already, that it was horrifying to see my loved ones going over that cliff (why did they not spend 2020 researching, as I did, so that they would know better than to take one of those experimental shots by the time they were available?) Time will tell if I get to that horrified place, with respect to Ukraine.
I'm someone who won't sit on the sidelines. I will research with an open mind. Or I wouldn't be reading your substack.
Thank you Gato! I think each newly branded crisis will have a shorter half-life with fewer participants because the truth will get out faster and eventually everyone will get caught feeling stupid. There's also exhaustion with hysteria. At some point, people will just get tired of being in a total state of panic. The Salem Witch Trials did eventually end.
As usual, this is a thought-provoking analysis of our world today. You've written many excellent posts but this one finally got me to create a 'REREAD' label in my mail app so that I can flag it as something to revisit periodically.
The part I'm struggling with is in precept one. Too many times these issues aren't presented as sides of a debate. They are presented as monolithic matters that can only be right or else the other party is willfully evil. There is no space for debate about covid, Ukraine, racism, climatism, or the next 'crisis' du jour. As such I cannot seem to find a way to discuss these things with friends that I know to be otherwise intelligent. They are so convinced there is only one possible answer. This conviction is reinforced by various 'experts', 'fact checkers', and companies willing to punish 'bad thought'.
And the bow on top is the poison of 'silence is violence' in that you cannot attempt to remain neutral or state that you don't know enough to take a position. That exit has been barred, leaving me to politely state something non-committal like "It's terrible. I hope we are able to resolve it soon." before exiting the conversation swiftly.
One of the scariest words i constantly saw during the Scamdemic was,"Whereas..."
It was $^#^@!× unbelievable how any tyrannical government action could be justified with the prefecatory phrase,"Whereas [insert whatever unproven but widely believed bullshit crisis harm]..."
So in my state, courts were closed down, rights were trampled, livelihoods ruined, all with the magic wave of a Whereas. No debate, no committee hearings, no proof. Just a bald assertion, Whereas We Say This is So, therefore, we have power to screw you over. And no one objected. Biy, the Framers sure flubbed that one. They assumed the Legislature would be jealous of power exercised by the Executive and naturally rein it in. Nope. We have legislatures that run and hide at the idea of confronting the Executive. They love a dictator as it absolves them of all responsibility. Our republic is fallen and no election to a corrupt and subservient Congress will change that.
Excellent, I've been grappling with many of these rules lately myself and have never seen them laid out so clearly.
Plus of course there's the fact that ignorant people with strongly held beliefs are unpleasant buffoons that drive others away. If someone won't do it for society, they should at least do it for themselves. No one likes a pontificating bullshitter.
I'd add one more that wasn't explicitly stated but inferred: "Admit when you were wrong about a strongly held belief and understand and learn from the errors made in coming to that belief."
This post contains more education than 12 years of public school indoctrination. If you’re pumped full of identarian emotions and drugs, it’s hard for your prefrontal cortex to fully develop. Save the kids, Professor Gato!
Wow gato malo, you’re starting to sound like GK Chesterton! “Don’t tear down that fence until you know why it was there in the first place...” Great article.
We all need a default position because it is not possible, or desirable, to process enough information in real time to make every decision. I have a few:
-assume the government and its agents are lying/manipulating in favor of greater power for them.
-ask “who benefits?”
-stand on the hill of individual rights until carried off on a stretcher
-assume that the human body, biology, and the divine organism that is a person is far too complex to be managed like a machine, is operating in the interest of survival, and is best served by tools that enhance that mission without a lot of egghead meddling (Gato and I diverge a bit here, as I feel that most vaccines, most of the time, are a problem and much better solutions exist if we look for them).
On Twitter and through comments on MSM articles worldwide we are being manipulated on a grand scale. For every divisive issue, look closely at the Twitter profiles; these AI-bots, PSYOP adversaries, and 'machine tools' solely exist to herd and divide us....and there are tens of thousands of them! As such, I think people mistakenly believe Twitter represents real life. It doesn't. Unplug from Twitter, go to a local coffee shop or pub...and life goes back to nearly normal.
I’m not sure how anybody believes anything any person in government or media or on social media says after the last 2 years. Admittedly I’m a marketer’s nightmare - advertising makes me skeptical. (What’s the nice female term for a curmudgeon?!) But the higher the hype and hysteria the more our response should be skepticism OBVIOUSLY. But then, skepticism has been purposefully driven out of people through “education” and that reinforced on social media. I’m so glad we homeschooled our kids…
“nuclear war is worth risking for some things … But I think that’s a hard position to hold if you think the extinction of humanity is so bad that avoiding it trumps everything else.”
😵 WTLF. Please tell me that’s satire. Otherwise, there’s less hope for finding signs of intelligent life among the NPCs than I’d previously imagined.
“Crisis is our diet, served up as exotic dishes and dishes ever more exotic before we are able to swallow, let alone digest, those that were just before us.”
—Milton Mayer, “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45”
Until I see the mushroom cloud outside my window, I'm still choosing to focus on what I *do* know: And that's that America is being destroyed and the monsters behind the curtain don't want us to notice.
A child is told- 'don't touch that stove-it's hot'. This is necessary when the child is very young, because the child cannot think critically yet. Eventually, though, 1 of 2 things happens. That child grows up and is shown how to cook on the stove, or the child is served meals forever and never learns about the stove in a timely fashion. Apply this to all things we admonish children for...many people never get beyond that initial stage- Don't _________, because danger. Being taught to think always involves new knowledge, and it has to be true and relevant, even if it is not easy to understand. This brings me back to a free and truthful press.
Well, your article is making me realize why I have been feeling a sense of relief about this manufactured crisis (Ukraine), as opposed to the prior manufactured crisis (COVID). With COVID, I definitely know that they are trying to kill us. The threat is very direct, and that is my (current hypothesis) framework for understanding. I have been isolated and ostracized for holding my opposing, strong view (which I can support with evidence that my loved ones refuse to even look at).
With Ukraine, it is also obvious to me that we are being similarly manipulated. In fact, it is so obvious that it is a grotesque cartoon. But because here in the US (so far) the threat is not as immediately threatening to our lives (we are, so far, mostly threatened merely with out of control inflation and potential economic depression), it allows space to think.
The only rational viewpoint at the present time is that I "don't know enough" to form an opinion other than that there is an awful lot of corruption, a lot going on beneath the surface, and that the fog-of-war propaganda is quite thick (which must mean "something" along the lines of "beware of the lies you are being fed"). Whereas with COVID, I knew so much already, that it was horrifying to see my loved ones going over that cliff (why did they not spend 2020 researching, as I did, so that they would know better than to take one of those experimental shots by the time they were available?) Time will tell if I get to that horrified place, with respect to Ukraine.
I'm someone who won't sit on the sidelines. I will research with an open mind. Or I wouldn't be reading your substack.
Thank you Gato! I think each newly branded crisis will have a shorter half-life with fewer participants because the truth will get out faster and eventually everyone will get caught feeling stupid. There's also exhaustion with hysteria. At some point, people will just get tired of being in a total state of panic. The Salem Witch Trials did eventually end.
As usual, this is a thought-provoking analysis of our world today. You've written many excellent posts but this one finally got me to create a 'REREAD' label in my mail app so that I can flag it as something to revisit periodically.
The part I'm struggling with is in precept one. Too many times these issues aren't presented as sides of a debate. They are presented as monolithic matters that can only be right or else the other party is willfully evil. There is no space for debate about covid, Ukraine, racism, climatism, or the next 'crisis' du jour. As such I cannot seem to find a way to discuss these things with friends that I know to be otherwise intelligent. They are so convinced there is only one possible answer. This conviction is reinforced by various 'experts', 'fact checkers', and companies willing to punish 'bad thought'.
And the bow on top is the poison of 'silence is violence' in that you cannot attempt to remain neutral or state that you don't know enough to take a position. That exit has been barred, leaving me to politely state something non-committal like "It's terrible. I hope we are able to resolve it soon." before exiting the conversation swiftly.
One of the scariest words i constantly saw during the Scamdemic was,"Whereas..."
It was $^#^@!× unbelievable how any tyrannical government action could be justified with the prefecatory phrase,"Whereas [insert whatever unproven but widely believed bullshit crisis harm]..."
So in my state, courts were closed down, rights were trampled, livelihoods ruined, all with the magic wave of a Whereas. No debate, no committee hearings, no proof. Just a bald assertion, Whereas We Say This is So, therefore, we have power to screw you over. And no one objected. Biy, the Framers sure flubbed that one. They assumed the Legislature would be jealous of power exercised by the Executive and naturally rein it in. Nope. We have legislatures that run and hide at the idea of confronting the Executive. They love a dictator as it absolves them of all responsibility. Our republic is fallen and no election to a corrupt and subservient Congress will change that.
Excellent, I've been grappling with many of these rules lately myself and have never seen them laid out so clearly.
Plus of course there's the fact that ignorant people with strongly held beliefs are unpleasant buffoons that drive others away. If someone won't do it for society, they should at least do it for themselves. No one likes a pontificating bullshitter.
I'd add one more that wasn't explicitly stated but inferred: "Admit when you were wrong about a strongly held belief and understand and learn from the errors made in coming to that belief."
Never fumble the humble. Humility is the foundational virtue. The first step on the path to wisdom is the recognition of our own ignorance.
Some thoughts:
- Dunning-Krueger
- It ain't so much what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It is what you think you know that just ain't so.
- The West is now full of religious zealots, who don't believe in God.
- In the immortal words of Glum, "We're doomed, we're all doomed!"