Stop pretending we have exact, rigorous answers to questions we expect answered, because we do not. We build models, theories, playbooks then tell people we can calculate and foresee the future based on mathematical and statistical assumptions that are far from the reality of the ‘here and now’. We then pretend the paradigm is reality, lulling people into thinking we know, basically exposing our mechanism for control of information leading any unsuspecting followers into a false sense of security.
We too often rarely ask, “Are we sure that what we believe is true or are we deceiving ourselves to believe in half-truths and untruths? Getting deceived by that which appears true is one factor that contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008 that led to worldwide recession.
Stop childish and exaggerated belief on important questions, for example, like climate change. Stop pretending and pursue objective, relevant, all-encompassing empirical studies, observations, debates, interviews, discussions from all sides of important questions, events and issues before extolling conceivably far-fetched answers.
If important questions were truly relevant to the ruling parties involved to fairly debate and persuade the electorate, the ruling classes would be eager to televise national lengthy debates on important issues. For example, the anti-slavery, pro-slavery Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858 went on numerous times for days. Anything less than this on important issues is nothing more than rhetoric to persuade for political and financial gain by those in power.
If it is natural or human behavioral questions being debated, or anything that cannot be broken down into altruistic mathematical equations, due to the nature of determining and predicting behavior of any kind from the geological to human, the most we can ever aspire to establishing are ‘possible’ tendencies with ‘varying’ degrees of ‘generalizations’ equivalent to ‘fuzzy’ logic at best.
Regardless, a more broad-minded, multifarious approach would be more rewarding and thus more convincing. Stop forecasting the future assuming people are lightning calculators. Realize our 21st Century ‘techno-minds’ have become nothing more than products of surveillance capitalism built to keep us consuming until we are exhausted of the strategy of getting us, its children, the techno-minds, to continue to row harder, do not ‘rock the boat’, and do not question the system. In the end we know it would have helped if all good things could have been done sooner.
How can a true thought leader, in good conscience, not question a system that is built on corrupted ways of thinking? Seeking truth in the 21st Century requires a revolutionary leap to thinking ‘outside the box’ that has been pounded into our minds by the ruling classes for decades. To get ‘outside’ will require a real paradigm shift in focus.
Too often we claim to have a formula but upon inspection it is filled with fragility and uncertainty. Free-thinkers, in turn, accuse partisans of pretending and posing, protected by their so-called intellectual jargon built upon gross negligence, flawed and incomplete, upholding no standard which is then reported to the populace, brick by brick, in every form of media. We all too often consume information then unknowingly conspire, at the behest of ‘group think’, to convince others to recklessly support our illusions at the expense of others.
For 50 years now, most all ‘do-gooder’ government ideas fail on many levels because of unforeseen, unintended consequences. Politicians on either side of any issue use science to lead voters like sheep to slaughter. Remember, statistics lie and liars use statistics.
For example, if climate change, or any issue, was so clearly defined by scientists then “the scientists”, they always speak of, should be household names by now. Instead of using issues as political clubs on the ‘baby seal’ electorate to wield their power over their hapless flock, if they really wanted to inform voters on issues, like climate change, there would be numerous nationally televised debates broadcast to the masses with several scientists on both sides of the issue as well as a couple scientists with middle of the road opinions about the all the scientific findings.
There would be few if any questions posed to the scientists. Let the scientists present their cases like a real debate with lengthy rebuttals which will negate the ‘one-liner’, headline news ‘snippits’, like we always get in our ‘run and gun’ U.S. presidential debates, which always end up being nothing more than rapid fire TV interview questions to reap one-liner sound bites for the next day’s misleading headlines in the news. In a real debate voters will get a clearer picture of the issues and they can make up their own minds instead of having politicians, activists and others spread their parties’ ‘group think’ always trying to persuade uninformed voters what to believe.
However, keep in mind that scientists are also too often betrayals of truth and never assume they can always be trusted like any other power broker trying to persuade you of anything. Partisan scientists may “fudge” scientific data just to prove their theory or hypothesis. Scientists may even steal ideas to advance their careers. There is ample opportunity to “makeup” data to support the scientists’ theories and the results of the experiments they promote because scientists are human too with prejudices and narratives to promote like every other human on the planet out to persuade others and come across as all-knowing. During the 1970’s the big question was, “Does TV cause violence?” Out of the approximate 500 ‘scientific’ studies done on the subject basically half said TV does cause violence and half said TV does not cause violence. On most complex issues rarely is there consensus of scientific opinion resulting in facts to rely on.
Too often scientific fraud just gets shrugged off by the media, and the so-called science watchdogs, unless it furthers the media corporate conglomerates’ own political, personal, social and/or financial narrative they want to use to persuade the uninformed. The roots of fraud may lie in the so-called scientific experiments and studies themselves.
Educated guessing, or what scientists call fact-finding, is inherent in the nature of what they do. The ever-faithful public feels that anything “scientific” MUST have fail-safe mechanisms of inquiry and corrections. Not true! Tidying up numbers and stretching or “fudging” a few statistics may end up as standard operating procedure for too many scientists who, remember, get paid by research institutes, universities and corporate capitalists to GET RESULTS, and in too many cases, may be by any means necessary to justify the end result.
For fame and fortune some scientists may betray their devotion to the discovery of truth and, consequently, may abandon their professional ideals. As in any workplace, the temptation to cheat, corrupt and lie may be too great. Too often scientific laws, rules and principles may give way to scientists’ egos of the “here and now” who seek, the too often overwhelming, desire for self-realization and their fleeting ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ to justify their relevance for the years of hard work and thankless perseverance they have already ‘put in’ toward their scientific endeavors.
To re-program this doomsday machine may require the work by people who live below the radar, those who are financially and materially poor who live outside the purview of the dominants that for decades have controlled thought and written the history.
It is the ‘seamy underbelly’ of human nature to want to live at the expense of others. When the public is continually bombarded with subjective, one-sided, negative news without the benefit of objectively spending the ‘same amount of time and space’ covering all sides of any issue, it is no wonder a pandemic of fear and paranoia may spread rampant. Beware of convincing yourself about that which is questionable.
Seeking truth, the means too often never justifies the ends. For example,
‘info-demics’ surpasses epidemics meaning so many questionable sources, as well as ‘spinning’ the opinions of tried and true credible sources for political and economic gain leads to fearmongering…the spreading of fear, panic and mistrust to politicize issues and events to maintain and/or gain financial and political power by the ruling classes over the masses.
It goes without saying that fear can boost profits for political and economic gain for all those related to or involved in crisis management and solutions from politicians to pharmaceutical companies to those who disseminate misinformation like 21st Century news media and social media. Spreading pandemic fear may be overblown and unwarranted with grave, unintended political and financial consequences.
Concerning many issues, events and ideas, if you are really sure you are right, well… you are probably wrong and mistakes are predictable. On the other hand, never underestimate those who overestimate because they may be right so put it all on the table for microscopic inspection. Generally, a good bet may be that nothing is as bad or as good as they say it is or will be, consequently, truth and reality may fall somewhere in the middle. Regardless, mistakes ARE predictable. Always trying to make things better, the cynic in you should always skeptically ask, “But am I sure?”
In a global economy, during a pandemic of fear, we find out our lifesaving manufacturing and supply lines may be held hostage by exporting countries where importing countries’ politicians and manufacturers have ‘sold out’ their own motherland in favor of cheaper products and prices provided by the exporting countries. For example, in America this leads to new calls for diversifying, as much as possible, manufacturing and supply lines, and where applicable, restarting the long lost economy of ‘buy American made’ and de-globalization; even if products cost more and raises prices, because in the name of homeland security it may be better to risk higher inflation and pay more for products to potentially be safe than sorry and decrease the risk of being held hostage by unfriendly, competitor nations. The ‘silver lining’ to a pandemic of fear effecting supply lines should, in the long run, end up bringing home to America all the long lost manufacturing jobs and more, creating ever-growing employment numbers for Americans for many decades to come.
When communist China was allowed to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an equal partner with capitalist nations during the late 20th Century, capitalist nations worldwide assumed communist China would eventually free the Chinese people from Communist Party constraints and join the Free World. However, relinquishing power from communists values to capitalist values did not happen.
As a consequence, capitalist profiteers worldwide simply looked the other way, and ‘sold out’ their values of ‘freedom-for-all’, for profit at the expense of the working classes worldwide, allowing China to manufacture and build in China everything from life-saving drugs to computers. ‘Selling out’ allowed communist China to hold nations hostage for life-saving supplies. Making matters worse, rich politicians contribute large sums of money to activists to ‘sell out’ and buy their silence to keep a lid on uprisings from their followers, uprisings which would make it harder for the ruling parties to stay in power.
Furthermore, it is no secret that over one million packages a day flow into America, from China alone, through Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and others making these service providers, critics charge, ‘counterfeiter enablers’.
Through all this we rely on educators to teach and inspire free-thinking. However, free speech on college campuses is turning to fascism in the 21st Century similar to that of the ‘Red Scare’ in the 1950’s which blacklisted purported socialists and communists by the U.S. government and activists, literally destroying the lives of many people from all walks of life, from educators to soldiers to Hollywood film actors and screenwriters.
In the new social/political world of ‘guilt by accusation’ by the prevailing ruling class, there are no heroes and no villains, there are only victims. There are no winners…only losers. In this process of being hounded by the ruling class destroys and bankrupts families needlessly leading some of those charged to suicide. Once this process takes hold and is allowed to flourish it may take generations to repair the wounds inflicted on each other and upon ourselves as a society.
History is cruel and does not distinguish between Jesus Christ and genocide. To survive, as a person or as a country you have to be strong and smart or you may not survive. You can respect widely varying opinions, but what you cannot respect are those that say one thing and actually mean something else, consciously or unconsciously, hiding their true intentions, thus lying to people to win an argument or gain some advantage, or worse, accrue financial gain or political power.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: MEME WARS: THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION OF NEO-CLASSICAL ECONOMICS BY KALLIE LASN and KICKITOVER.ORG 2020 and HOW TO RE-ESTABLISH TRUST IN SCIENCE BY LARS SYLL and THE BOOK: PANDEMIC OF FEAR BY DR. MARC SIEGEL, INTERNIST & CLINICAL PROFESSOR AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY and ECONOMICS PROFESSOR RICHARD THALER AT UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WHO ALSO HOLDS 2017 NOBEL PRIZE WINNER FOR ECONOMIC SCIENCES ON BLOOMBERG TV NEWS MARCH 2020 and THE BOOKS: RHETORIC OF MOTIVES and ETHICS OF RHETORIC BY RICHARD WEAVER and ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU on FOX TV NEWS FEBRUARY 2020 and DALTON TRUMPO, BLACKLISTED, ‘RED-SCARE’, OSCAR WINNING HOLLYWOOD SCREEWRITER and CHARLIE MUNGER, A FOUNDER OF WALL STREET’S BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY FUNDS and PETER NAVARRO, U.S. TRADE ADVISER ON BLOOMBERG TV NEWS FEBRUARY 2020