Brownstone always seems to have a good perspective. They were one of the first I saw pushing back against the scamdemic. Obviously, the scamdemic is another great example of the educated being most fooled. It's been known for decades that lockdowns don't help and do cause harm. It's been known for 100+ years that masks don't stop viruses. These were things I learned in a freaking intro to public health course. Somehow we never developed a cold vaccine in 100 years of trying but this magic drug developed in months would certainly be 100% "safe and effective." An actual modern day version of snake oil. Since 2020 every educated person has been threatening anyone who doesn't believe in "the Science." In fact, "the Science" might be the scam the educated and intellectuals are most taken in by now. Or maybe the concept of a benevolent government. Either way, as my cousin once said: smart people are so dumb.
It's Occams midwitt. since they have a slightly higher than average IQ they try to sound intellectual by just regurgitating the "message". but have no real grasp of the concept.
my father asked my why is was so stupid not to take the vax (he's had 5 and luckily seems to have no visible side effects)
it's because what i understand about the vaccines scares the shit out of me and what i don't know about them scared the living shit out of my shit.
saying that doesn't make you seem smart in an intellectual circle of gammas but the intellectual gammas generally tap out at 115 iq.
Honestly? I could not believe my own eyes when I saw people lining up for this! Rich people 'jumping the line' and all the other nonsense of who should get it first! All those medical workers, service members, teachers...I thought the world was going bonkers!
I see it has especially when we are seeing the deaths and injuries continuing to pile up. They will NOT admit their error.
How they are going to avoid taking responsibility escapes me. Do they really think they are going to get off scott-free? If there is no judicial justice and they don't take responsibility now, while they can, they will be tormented in the future.
One important point that was missed. Perfectionists. These are people who grew up addicted to A's... and they got A's by mostly perfect regurgitation of the material. Creative thinking was rarely required to excel. The closer they got to perfection the more they were rewarded by getting into 'top' universities followed by a lofty positions. In order to maintain their position and their sense of self... they believe they CAN'T be wrong. The way to not risk being wrong requires one stay in the prescribed box of the field/institution...following the dictates of those 'smart' enough to put you in your lofty position. The powers that be knew they would follow like sheep just by infiltrating the top and giving one order. "Repeat this line or you will not only be wrong but will be branded forever a 'conspiracy theorist'!!
Meanwhile, those of us that figured out the world still spins when we got B's and C's and even a D and we were ok with ourselves as we were busy building various skills not taught in school. Many figured out that perfect only matters in how you complete a job well done and is not an advantageous personality trait. We noticed that a-holes were often in charge who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag. We weren't thinking emotionally... we were relying on critical thinking/common sense and often that leads to creative thinking. These people, with open minds who have no fear of being wrong, come up with ideas good and bad...they are the practical problem solvers and the ones who called BS out of the covid gate. "Stay in and cover your face ." Rather than 'Get fresh air and sunshine" ...the number one health directive since FOREVER!... told us all we needed to know. Anyone who went along after this directive on top of seeing that riots were allowed but business closed, large stores were open which draws large crowds vs. small stores closed that don't, keeping kids out of school who had a zero chance of getting sick...just revealed to the world how top down dictates to the so called highly educated, perfectionists in charge is deadly.
Only speaking in generalities regarding why so many educated drank the Kool aid. We all know professionals in our lives, docs, lawyers, dentists...highly educated that took the jab. Why? Some for the reasons listed in the substack, some for the reason I laid out, many just because they REALLY wanted to fly to an important event...sporting, wedding etc...with "i'll just take my chances" philosophy. There is never a single all encompassing reason why people do what they do.
Hey, I am not arguing. I read a study that there were 2 groups that did not buy into the jab - high school graduates and PhDs. Those with Bachelors and Masters degrees took the jab, potentially because of job mandates.
It's the scathing wit and humor like this that keeps me reading. Most people don't have near as much contempt as they should for our modern unimpressive elites. They must be relentlessly and ruthlessly mocked at every step. Thanks for starting my day with a good laugh!
"I’m constantly asking: How big of an intellectual circle-jerk do you need to participate in to reconcile the idea that taking on more debt is a way to solve a debt problem? Or to justify the idea that printing more money won’t lead to inflation?"
I think it has more to do with trusting people who we feel have more knowledge than we do. Most people have some suspicion, especially when one or two points or facts don't seem to be true. This then sets off a cascading effect of one wanting to find out the truth, with a good dose of suspicion, and making us wonder if those who are telling us these things have an alternate motive, and whether that alternate motive aligns with our hypothesis.
That is to say, their goal is to control the population. Hospitals are faking COVID deaths, using remdesivir, and starving COVID patients who are having problems. I know for a fact that ivermectin is one of the safest medicines, yet the news tells us it's not and only for horses. I know for a fact that is untrue, so when others tell me that ivermectin, if used early when you get COVID, will cure it, I investigated further and thousands of testimonials confirm that ivermectin does cure COVID. So with this one point, you can ask why they are not allowing us to use ivermectin, or use vitamin C or D, which also help. Why are they pushing "stay at home" until your lips turn blue before going to the hospital?
To me, it all makes sense that the governments around the world are all conspiring with NGOs like the WHO and the WEF to depopulate the Earth to meet their green agenda. They think that having fewer people using Earth's resources will be better for them.
The conclusion is undeniable in my mind that they are trying to kill us, and if you take any vaccine, you are a moron. If you take any mRNA fake vaccine, you are utterly stupid. mRNA has been shown since the 1980s to not work, and all animal test subjects died, and to this day they still die.
So why can't the intellectuals see the obvious? It's because they are spoon-fed facts that, on the face of it, look true, but if you investigate, they are not. The intellectuals just believe these facts, whereas the rest of us will investigate.
Now, I have two engineering degrees, and some may put me in the intellectual category, but my skills are technical and I deal in facts and qualified data. If someone told me to build a bridge and do it this way, I would accept the data but would do my own analysis, as I would be the one building the bridge and, at the end of the day, if the bridge fell down, I would be the one going to jail, not the designer or the manager who told me to build it that way.
Similarly with Building 7 on 9/11. That building fell down, and logic and science tell me that the twin towers simply could not fall down due to an airplane. To all intents and purposes, an airplane is as strong as paper against a metal-clad tower. It is simply impossible. So I do not believe that story and believe they blew up those towers to steal the gold in the basement and to hide all the evidence in Building 7.
I am not a conspiracy nut. I just deal in facts that I prove and research myself.
I believe the 911 event had incentives for a number of parties. Building 7 reveals some. There are also other “reasons” for those in the know to go along. But people don’t realize that some who pay a part don’t need to have the big picture. There are many who just follow orders and have no idea how their piece fits into a larger endeavor. It’s pretty easy to keep secrets actually.
Yes. I believe it’s useful to have a category for the unknowable. They say the ability to dwell in uncertainty is the cardinal sign of intelligence. Perhaps that’s where creativity lives too.
"It's been known for decades that lockdowns don't help..."
The CDC actually did a study (2014?) outlining potential actions to be taken in response to an epidemic. The study specifically rejected lockdown as an unsuitable and ineffective intervention. Then it proceeded to ignore its own determination because it was politically expedient to do so.
Another contributor post??.....It appears that there have been a lot more contributor posts in the past month or two. In addition, the frequency of the posts appeared to have slowed compared to last year. I love QTR and more importantly love to read when he writes something. He is a fantastic communicator and value his thoughts!! I just hope this is a temporary thing or maybe a little bit of "summer vacation" which everyone deserves.
The idea is that experts become "experts" by simplifying reality enough to create a model that they can manipulate, then they acquire an aura of command over the entire subject, after which the unscrupulous ones get government support to impose their simplistic ideas on the rest of us. For example, no one gets a Nobel Prize in the whole field of economics; not even in a subfield such as trade. So it is that Paul Krugman got a Nobel Prize in a subset of trade economics, then goes on to write that the rich should be taxed at 80% because they "don't need the money," as if capital investments and capitalism don't exist or are to be avoided.
Once created, these models can be very convincing, and the more "educated" people are (with high IQs such as in highly selective high schools and universities), the quicker they are to grasp and "run" with such nonsense. As to that, you might also be interested in my extensive deconstruction of climate-change alarmism, for the simplistic idea of carbon dioxide being the only contributor to global warming can be very convincing--until you know that natural forces are much more powerful and can cause massive cooling too (ice ages past and projected to come). https://ernestdlieberman.substack.com/p/climate-change-alarmists-ignore-how
Ultimately the points are: intelligence and wisdom (based on experience, including "gut" feelings) are orthogonal--perpendicular; Power corrupts; and intelligence is a form of power.
You’ve touched on an observation of mine: someone really smart and knowledgeable in one area assumes that carries over to areas outside their expertise. There oughta be a word for this phenomenon. It’s quite common. Bill Gates as exhibit A. He wasn’t even that good at containing computer viruses - his own field - but sets himself up as a spokesman for biological virology?
Way back when, I was shopping for a desktop computer when IBM's PC first came out. (I bought one.) The story going around was that Bill Gates bought the operating system from a Seattle software company that he gave to IBM (which became PC-DOS). Yes, "gave," with the proviso that he could sell his version of it--MS-DOS--to other computer companies. In that way he beat Gary Kildall, who had the prevailing operating system, CP/M, for the then-current 8-bit machines, and who was bargaining to sell his software to IBM. So I'm not at all sure that Gates was even that proficient in programming. Clearly, if anything, it was business savvy.
And Yes, so many of them are full of themselves. In that vein, you might like to see how Penelope faces down murderous Antinous in my play, "Penelope and Odysseus," on my substack. At one point I have her say "Full of nothing but yourself, you master nothing." That turns out to be half of why the suitors failed to kill Odysseus and the other three men. (The other half is what Penelope and Odysseus did, in learning to master people, things, and themselves.). Also, you might like to see how Telemachus replies to Agelaus, which includes "You take umbrage at our achievement."
I read a study a couple of years ago that the 2 groups that didn't buy into the vax were PhDs and high school graduates. Between those groups, the bachelor and masters degrees, were more likely to get the jab.
The salient points are: 1) Listen to the experts in their areas of expertise because their comments are based on facts; 2) be skeptical of their opinions on subjects outside their areas of expertise; 3) seek out information from experts on whatever the subject you're interested in; and 4) beware of your "gut" because like a pilot with no visual clues, reacting to the "feelings" of the inner ear almost always result in a pilot crashing, so rely on facts and truth over your gut.
Facts and truth are not accessible in every situation. As our ancestors undoubtedly understood. But we humans have access to all relevant knowledge? This is a really really dumb assumption.
Brownstone always seems to have a good perspective. They were one of the first I saw pushing back against the scamdemic. Obviously, the scamdemic is another great example of the educated being most fooled. It's been known for decades that lockdowns don't help and do cause harm. It's been known for 100+ years that masks don't stop viruses. These were things I learned in a freaking intro to public health course. Somehow we never developed a cold vaccine in 100 years of trying but this magic drug developed in months would certainly be 100% "safe and effective." An actual modern day version of snake oil. Since 2020 every educated person has been threatening anyone who doesn't believe in "the Science." In fact, "the Science" might be the scam the educated and intellectuals are most taken in by now. Or maybe the concept of a benevolent government. Either way, as my cousin once said: smart people are so dumb.
It's Occams midwitt. since they have a slightly higher than average IQ they try to sound intellectual by just regurgitating the "message". but have no real grasp of the concept.
my father asked my why is was so stupid not to take the vax (he's had 5 and luckily seems to have no visible side effects)
it's because what i understand about the vaccines scares the shit out of me and what i don't know about them scared the living shit out of my shit.
saying that doesn't make you seem smart in an intellectual circle of gammas but the intellectual gammas generally tap out at 115 iq.
Honestly? I could not believe my own eyes when I saw people lining up for this! Rich people 'jumping the line' and all the other nonsense of who should get it first! All those medical workers, service members, teachers...I thought the world was going bonkers!
I see it has especially when we are seeing the deaths and injuries continuing to pile up. They will NOT admit their error.
How they are going to avoid taking responsibility escapes me. Do they really think they are going to get off scott-free? If there is no judicial justice and they don't take responsibility now, while they can, they will be tormented in the future.
One important point that was missed. Perfectionists. These are people who grew up addicted to A's... and they got A's by mostly perfect regurgitation of the material. Creative thinking was rarely required to excel. The closer they got to perfection the more they were rewarded by getting into 'top' universities followed by a lofty positions. In order to maintain their position and their sense of self... they believe they CAN'T be wrong. The way to not risk being wrong requires one stay in the prescribed box of the field/institution...following the dictates of those 'smart' enough to put you in your lofty position. The powers that be knew they would follow like sheep just by infiltrating the top and giving one order. "Repeat this line or you will not only be wrong but will be branded forever a 'conspiracy theorist'!!
Meanwhile, those of us that figured out the world still spins when we got B's and C's and even a D and we were ok with ourselves as we were busy building various skills not taught in school. Many figured out that perfect only matters in how you complete a job well done and is not an advantageous personality trait. We noticed that a-holes were often in charge who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag. We weren't thinking emotionally... we were relying on critical thinking/common sense and often that leads to creative thinking. These people, with open minds who have no fear of being wrong, come up with ideas good and bad...they are the practical problem solvers and the ones who called BS out of the covid gate. "Stay in and cover your face ." Rather than 'Get fresh air and sunshine" ...the number one health directive since FOREVER!... told us all we needed to know. Anyone who went along after this directive on top of seeing that riots were allowed but business closed, large stores were open which draws large crowds vs. small stores closed that don't, keeping kids out of school who had a zero chance of getting sick...just revealed to the world how top down dictates to the so called highly educated, perfectionists in charge is deadly.
I beg to differ. Think of super smart people like Dr Peter McCullough and others like him. They helped us all by sounding the warning.
Only speaking in generalities regarding why so many educated drank the Kool aid. We all know professionals in our lives, docs, lawyers, dentists...highly educated that took the jab. Why? Some for the reasons listed in the substack, some for the reason I laid out, many just because they REALLY wanted to fly to an important event...sporting, wedding etc...with "i'll just take my chances" philosophy. There is never a single all encompassing reason why people do what they do.
Hey, I am not arguing. I read a study that there were 2 groups that did not buy into the jab - high school graduates and PhDs. Those with Bachelors and Masters degrees took the jab, potentially because of job mandates.
It's the scathing wit and humor like this that keeps me reading. Most people don't have near as much contempt as they should for our modern unimpressive elites. They must be relentlessly and ruthlessly mocked at every step. Thanks for starting my day with a good laugh!
"I’m constantly asking: How big of an intellectual circle-jerk do you need to participate in to reconcile the idea that taking on more debt is a way to solve a debt problem? Or to justify the idea that printing more money won’t lead to inflation?"
I think it has more to do with trusting people who we feel have more knowledge than we do. Most people have some suspicion, especially when one or two points or facts don't seem to be true. This then sets off a cascading effect of one wanting to find out the truth, with a good dose of suspicion, and making us wonder if those who are telling us these things have an alternate motive, and whether that alternate motive aligns with our hypothesis.
That is to say, their goal is to control the population. Hospitals are faking COVID deaths, using remdesivir, and starving COVID patients who are having problems. I know for a fact that ivermectin is one of the safest medicines, yet the news tells us it's not and only for horses. I know for a fact that is untrue, so when others tell me that ivermectin, if used early when you get COVID, will cure it, I investigated further and thousands of testimonials confirm that ivermectin does cure COVID. So with this one point, you can ask why they are not allowing us to use ivermectin, or use vitamin C or D, which also help. Why are they pushing "stay at home" until your lips turn blue before going to the hospital?
To me, it all makes sense that the governments around the world are all conspiring with NGOs like the WHO and the WEF to depopulate the Earth to meet their green agenda. They think that having fewer people using Earth's resources will be better for them.
The conclusion is undeniable in my mind that they are trying to kill us, and if you take any vaccine, you are a moron. If you take any mRNA fake vaccine, you are utterly stupid. mRNA has been shown since the 1980s to not work, and all animal test subjects died, and to this day they still die.
So why can't the intellectuals see the obvious? It's because they are spoon-fed facts that, on the face of it, look true, but if you investigate, they are not. The intellectuals just believe these facts, whereas the rest of us will investigate.
Now, I have two engineering degrees, and some may put me in the intellectual category, but my skills are technical and I deal in facts and qualified data. If someone told me to build a bridge and do it this way, I would accept the data but would do my own analysis, as I would be the one building the bridge and, at the end of the day, if the bridge fell down, I would be the one going to jail, not the designer or the manager who told me to build it that way.
Similarly with Building 7 on 9/11. That building fell down, and logic and science tell me that the twin towers simply could not fall down due to an airplane. To all intents and purposes, an airplane is as strong as paper against a metal-clad tower. It is simply impossible. So I do not believe that story and believe they blew up those towers to steal the gold in the basement and to hide all the evidence in Building 7.
I am not a conspiracy nut. I just deal in facts that I prove and research myself.
I believe the 911 event had incentives for a number of parties. Building 7 reveals some. There are also other “reasons” for those in the know to go along. But people don’t realize that some who pay a part don’t need to have the big picture. There are many who just follow orders and have no idea how their piece fits into a larger endeavor. It’s pretty easy to keep secrets actually.
I used to wonder how anyone who voted for Biden was smart enough to be able to get in a car and drive to the polls to do so. This explaines it.
How do we know ghosts don’t exist?😁
Yes. I believe it’s useful to have a category for the unknowable. They say the ability to dwell in uncertainty is the cardinal sign of intelligence. Perhaps that’s where creativity lives too.
"It's been known for decades that lockdowns don't help..."
The CDC actually did a study (2014?) outlining potential actions to be taken in response to an epidemic. The study specifically rejected lockdown as an unsuitable and ineffective intervention. Then it proceeded to ignore its own determination because it was politically expedient to do so.
Another contributor post??.....It appears that there have been a lot more contributor posts in the past month or two. In addition, the frequency of the posts appeared to have slowed compared to last year. I love QTR and more importantly love to read when he writes something. He is a fantastic communicator and value his thoughts!! I just hope this is a temporary thing or maybe a little bit of "summer vacation" which everyone deserves.
Yup... In the world of 'mass everything', media especially, we may need to rework Descartes... "I think, therefore it probably isn't." :-)
You might appreciate my post "Expert Ignoramuses and President Eisenhower's prescient warning about them." https://ernestdlieberman.substack.com/p/first-principles-expert-ignoramuses
The idea is that experts become "experts" by simplifying reality enough to create a model that they can manipulate, then they acquire an aura of command over the entire subject, after which the unscrupulous ones get government support to impose their simplistic ideas on the rest of us. For example, no one gets a Nobel Prize in the whole field of economics; not even in a subfield such as trade. So it is that Paul Krugman got a Nobel Prize in a subset of trade economics, then goes on to write that the rich should be taxed at 80% because they "don't need the money," as if capital investments and capitalism don't exist or are to be avoided.
Once created, these models can be very convincing, and the more "educated" people are (with high IQs such as in highly selective high schools and universities), the quicker they are to grasp and "run" with such nonsense. As to that, you might also be interested in my extensive deconstruction of climate-change alarmism, for the simplistic idea of carbon dioxide being the only contributor to global warming can be very convincing--until you know that natural forces are much more powerful and can cause massive cooling too (ice ages past and projected to come). https://ernestdlieberman.substack.com/p/climate-change-alarmists-ignore-how
Ultimately the points are: intelligence and wisdom (based on experience, including "gut" feelings) are orthogonal--perpendicular; Power corrupts; and intelligence is a form of power.
You’ve touched on an observation of mine: someone really smart and knowledgeable in one area assumes that carries over to areas outside their expertise. There oughta be a word for this phenomenon. It’s quite common. Bill Gates as exhibit A. He wasn’t even that good at containing computer viruses - his own field - but sets himself up as a spokesman for biological virology?
Way back when, I was shopping for a desktop computer when IBM's PC first came out. (I bought one.) The story going around was that Bill Gates bought the operating system from a Seattle software company that he gave to IBM (which became PC-DOS). Yes, "gave," with the proviso that he could sell his version of it--MS-DOS--to other computer companies. In that way he beat Gary Kildall, who had the prevailing operating system, CP/M, for the then-current 8-bit machines, and who was bargaining to sell his software to IBM. So I'm not at all sure that Gates was even that proficient in programming. Clearly, if anything, it was business savvy.
And Yes, so many of them are full of themselves. In that vein, you might like to see how Penelope faces down murderous Antinous in my play, "Penelope and Odysseus," on my substack. At one point I have her say "Full of nothing but yourself, you master nothing." That turns out to be half of why the suitors failed to kill Odysseus and the other three men. (The other half is what Penelope and Odysseus did, in learning to master people, things, and themselves.). Also, you might like to see how Telemachus replies to Agelaus, which includes "You take umbrage at our achievement."
https://ernestdlieberman.substack.com/p/pao-front-page-cast-and-characters
Dunning Krueger effect !!
Look it up - it’s fascinating!!
It’s simply not knowing that you don’t know. A remedy might be to recognize the possibility.
Read 'The Airmen who Would Not Die' by John Fuller for balancing perspective on A. Conan Doyle.
I read a study a couple of years ago that the 2 groups that didn't buy into the vax were PhDs and high school graduates. Between those groups, the bachelor and masters degrees, were more likely to get the jab.
Here is an article about it:
https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-vaccine-hesitant-education-group-of-all-phds/
The salient points are: 1) Listen to the experts in their areas of expertise because their comments are based on facts; 2) be skeptical of their opinions on subjects outside their areas of expertise; 3) seek out information from experts on whatever the subject you're interested in; and 4) beware of your "gut" because like a pilot with no visual clues, reacting to the "feelings" of the inner ear almost always result in a pilot crashing, so rely on facts and truth over your gut.
Facts and truth are not accessible in every situation. As our ancestors undoubtedly understood. But we humans have access to all relevant knowledge? This is a really really dumb assumption.