I don't know where it originally came from, but Stewart Brand published a saying in the old Whole Earth Catalog, "smart but not wise."
I read that back in the seventies, and it has come to mind on myriad occasions since, when encountering the pronunciomentos of "smart people."
Regardless of intellectual deftness, people are subject to the will of their basic emotional drives. Fear trumps all others, and so-called "smart" people are extremely vulnerable to fear of things not proximal to them. Memory correlates with intelligence, and pattern recognition is also largely imprinted as a function of memory.
Smart people remember a lot of things, wise people are those that properly categorize the things they remember. The two cohorts overlap to some degree, but perhaps not to as great a degree as we might suppose....
Fear could do that especially to old men like Chomsky. Fear for their own lives. Not excusing them. Reminds me of that story of Bertrand Russel falling into a hole and being rescued by an old lady only if he recanted his atheist ways
"And then there is the psychological effect of the Big Lie which is axiomatic in gaslighting. The paradox here is that the bigger the lie, the harder it is for the mind to bridge the gulf between perceived reality and the lie that authority figures are painting as truth. I believe that the prospect of being deceived evinces a primitive emotional response on a par with staring death in the face. We are hard-wired to fear deception because we have evolved to interpret it as an existential threat. That’s why deception can elicit the same emotional response as the miscalculation of a serious physical threat. Lies told to us don’t always bear the same cost as a misjudged red light, but the primitive part of the brain can’t make this distinction and we rely on cerebral mediation for a more appropriate but delayed response. And in the long run, the lie is often just as dangerous as the physical threat. Many government whoppers – ‘safe and effective’ – do cost lives.
To avoid the death-like experience of being deceived, a mental defence is erected to deny that the lie is happening."
"The evolutionary psychologist William von Hippel found that humans use large parts of thinking power to navigate social world rather than perform independent analysis and decision making. For most people it is the mechanism that, in case of doubt, will prevent one from thinking what is right if, in return, it endangers one’s social status. This phenomenon occurs more strongly the higher a person’s social status. Another factor is that the more educated and more theoretically intelligent a person is, the more their brain is adept at selling them the biggest nonsense as a reasonable idea, as long as it elevates their social status. The upper educated class tends to be more inclined than ordinary people to chase some intellectual boondoggle. "
Apr 10, 2023·edited Apr 10, 2023Liked by Toby Rogers
Ugh - I have said the same thing many times. It just baffles me how so many people that I had previously considered as being "smart" were so easily manipulated and fooled. Many very close friends (fortunately we have been able to remain friends in spite of their failure to see it or even now to admit that they failed to see it) as well as the public "intellectuals" that you mentioned.
Taleb was just shocking to me. I've read all of his books and have generally thought of him as a smart and rational person (even though he has had a tendency to be a belligerent ass on Twitter when he disagrees with someone). But then he went "all in" on the Covidmania, and couldn't even contemplate that he might have allowed an over reactive amygdala to cloud his judgement, even more than 18 months after the initial lockdowns.
He posted something non-Covid related on Twitter in October 2021, correcting himself on something he had said previously, and made a big deal about how he was "constitutionally required to publicly admit when he was wrong about something" or something like that. As luck would have it, I saw the post about 2 minutes after it went up and I was the first to replay "So when are you going to admit you've been wrong about Covid?" Just that. No name calling. No disrespect. Just a simple, and as far as I'm concerned factual, statement. And the thin skinned d-bag immediately blocked me. Oh, boo hoo - now I won't be able to see any more brilliant Twitter posts from the eminently brilliant NNT!!
I consider that moment to be a badge of honor. And I wear it proudly. We can never again allow ourselves to be led by these overcreditialized, self proclaimed, echo chamber reinforced naked emperors. To paraphrase Reagan: The trouble with our elites is not that they are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
In my opinion, they'd already crossed that Rubicon a while back, during the Obama presidency. His election was kind of the ultimate triumph of the 1960's movements, but when it turned into a real nightmare for so many of the purported beneficiaries, they became his Praetorian guard, leaving all critical analysis behind. When so many of those beneficiaries then turned against them, joining the populist revolt that defeated Hillary, passed Brexit, etc., defeating that movement became their all-consuming goal, even if that meant allying themselves with the absolute worst kinds of authoritarians, warmongers and profit-seekers in the entire world today. COVID then came along (coincidentally?) at exactly the right time to establish a new order seemingly less susceptible to that kind of populism. Essentially, in the mid-2010's, most of the left came to understand that the most compelling criticisms of the ruling global order were coming from the right, and so they cast their lot in with supporting that order. When that order became associated with COVID biomedical facism and criticism of it became associated with the right, the mainstream left had only one place to go, and it wasn't critical analysis.
"We cannot allow ourselves to ever be led again..."
But the sheep are being led, still, right now. Down the path toward poverty and misery in the name of fighting "climate change." If you thought the past three years were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Such a good analogy - the Asch conformity experiment. Not so sure 'vax' culture is on its last legs, most of the kids at my child's school have parents who sacrificed them to the system and are unlikely to see it. And they will continue to comply with additional 'shots.' Just knowing the numbers of the autistic tragedy, I find to be emotionally unbearable. I can't get my head around the fact that parents are ignoring this calamity of enormous suffering to children, due to parental negligence. It is negligent to relinquish doing the work needed to make an informed decision. On another note, but related, I heard a radio discussion today with the mother of a highly educated black woman who died from hypertension brought on during pregnancy. According to the mom, the hospital staff nurse minimized the patient's concerns and told her to go home and wait it out, which ended in disaster. The mother said her daughter was dismissed because she was a black woman. I could not go along with her assumption, since I as a Caucasian have experienced an enormous amount of minimization and poor treatment at the hands of the medical establishment. Her assumption has gained traction, and that is dangerous because it is not founded on fact, but springs from the natural emotions rooted in grief and anger from the loss of a child.
There is one possibility worse than that the smartest people in the world have lost their minds. It is that through all of this they have *kept* their minds.
While I am convinced of the damage vaccines and pseudo-vaccines can do, I read an article today that discusses the possible role of acetaminophen in the incidence of autism. If this is true, everyone should be screaming it from the rooftops. Many babies are given Tyenol after receiving vaccinations--a possible double whammy. What do you think?
Somebody explain to me how the so-called Left went so completely off the rails during Covid. It's truly the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. How can progressives--who traditionally were the vanguard against corporate malfeasance and over-reach--be so blind to the obvious depredations of Big Pharma which have a long and shameful history? And be willing to swallow the crap that was fed to us via the MSM and the government? And suddenly fall into this mania for censorship?
Thank you, Toby, for being such a courageous and sane voice in these times, when up is down, and it seems, as a society, we've gone through the looking glass into an alternate reality. Truly this is Bizarro World.
I don't know where it originally came from, but Stewart Brand published a saying in the old Whole Earth Catalog, "smart but not wise."
I read that back in the seventies, and it has come to mind on myriad occasions since, when encountering the pronunciomentos of "smart people."
Regardless of intellectual deftness, people are subject to the will of their basic emotional drives. Fear trumps all others, and so-called "smart" people are extremely vulnerable to fear of things not proximal to them. Memory correlates with intelligence, and pattern recognition is also largely imprinted as a function of memory.
Smart people remember a lot of things, wise people are those that properly categorize the things they remember. The two cohorts overlap to some degree, but perhaps not to as great a degree as we might suppose....
Glad to see you moving toward becoming an anarchist! No leaders, no institutions! No management class! No bureaucracy!
Fear could do that especially to old men like Chomsky. Fear for their own lives. Not excusing them. Reminds me of that story of Bertrand Russel falling into a hole and being rescued by an old lady only if he recanted his atheist ways
"And then there is the psychological effect of the Big Lie which is axiomatic in gaslighting. The paradox here is that the bigger the lie, the harder it is for the mind to bridge the gulf between perceived reality and the lie that authority figures are painting as truth. I believe that the prospect of being deceived evinces a primitive emotional response on a par with staring death in the face. We are hard-wired to fear deception because we have evolved to interpret it as an existential threat. That’s why deception can elicit the same emotional response as the miscalculation of a serious physical threat. Lies told to us don’t always bear the same cost as a misjudged red light, but the primitive part of the brain can’t make this distinction and we rely on cerebral mediation for a more appropriate but delayed response. And in the long run, the lie is often just as dangerous as the physical threat. Many government whoppers – ‘safe and effective’ – do cost lives.
To avoid the death-like experience of being deceived, a mental defence is erected to deny that the lie is happening."
(From https://leftlockdownsceptics.com/alleged-cia-involvement-in-jfk-assassination-goes-mainstream-so-now-what/ )
------
"The evolutionary psychologist William von Hippel found that humans use large parts of thinking power to navigate social world rather than perform independent analysis and decision making. For most people it is the mechanism that, in case of doubt, will prevent one from thinking what is right if, in return, it endangers one’s social status. This phenomenon occurs more strongly the higher a person’s social status. Another factor is that the more educated and more theoretically intelligent a person is, the more their brain is adept at selling them the biggest nonsense as a reasonable idea, as long as it elevates their social status. The upper educated class tends to be more inclined than ordinary people to chase some intellectual boondoggle. "
-Sasha Latypova
Ugh - I have said the same thing many times. It just baffles me how so many people that I had previously considered as being "smart" were so easily manipulated and fooled. Many very close friends (fortunately we have been able to remain friends in spite of their failure to see it or even now to admit that they failed to see it) as well as the public "intellectuals" that you mentioned.
Taleb was just shocking to me. I've read all of his books and have generally thought of him as a smart and rational person (even though he has had a tendency to be a belligerent ass on Twitter when he disagrees with someone). But then he went "all in" on the Covidmania, and couldn't even contemplate that he might have allowed an over reactive amygdala to cloud his judgement, even more than 18 months after the initial lockdowns.
He posted something non-Covid related on Twitter in October 2021, correcting himself on something he had said previously, and made a big deal about how he was "constitutionally required to publicly admit when he was wrong about something" or something like that. As luck would have it, I saw the post about 2 minutes after it went up and I was the first to replay "So when are you going to admit you've been wrong about Covid?" Just that. No name calling. No disrespect. Just a simple, and as far as I'm concerned factual, statement. And the thin skinned d-bag immediately blocked me. Oh, boo hoo - now I won't be able to see any more brilliant Twitter posts from the eminently brilliant NNT!!
I consider that moment to be a badge of honor. And I wear it proudly. We can never again allow ourselves to be led by these overcreditialized, self proclaimed, echo chamber reinforced naked emperors. To paraphrase Reagan: The trouble with our elites is not that they are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
In my opinion, they'd already crossed that Rubicon a while back, during the Obama presidency. His election was kind of the ultimate triumph of the 1960's movements, but when it turned into a real nightmare for so many of the purported beneficiaries, they became his Praetorian guard, leaving all critical analysis behind. When so many of those beneficiaries then turned against them, joining the populist revolt that defeated Hillary, passed Brexit, etc., defeating that movement became their all-consuming goal, even if that meant allying themselves with the absolute worst kinds of authoritarians, warmongers and profit-seekers in the entire world today. COVID then came along (coincidentally?) at exactly the right time to establish a new order seemingly less susceptible to that kind of populism. Essentially, in the mid-2010's, most of the left came to understand that the most compelling criticisms of the ruling global order were coming from the right, and so they cast their lot in with supporting that order. When that order became associated with COVID biomedical facism and criticism of it became associated with the right, the mainstream left had only one place to go, and it wasn't critical analysis.
"We cannot allow ourselves to ever be led again..."
But the sheep are being led, still, right now. Down the path toward poverty and misery in the name of fighting "climate change." If you thought the past three years were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
So true and well said, so much was missed by spiritualists, intellectuals and academics. I had to write about it:
https://open.substack.com/pub/sinatana/p/identify-yourself_its-required?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Such a good analogy - the Asch conformity experiment. Not so sure 'vax' culture is on its last legs, most of the kids at my child's school have parents who sacrificed them to the system and are unlikely to see it. And they will continue to comply with additional 'shots.' Just knowing the numbers of the autistic tragedy, I find to be emotionally unbearable. I can't get my head around the fact that parents are ignoring this calamity of enormous suffering to children, due to parental negligence. It is negligent to relinquish doing the work needed to make an informed decision. On another note, but related, I heard a radio discussion today with the mother of a highly educated black woman who died from hypertension brought on during pregnancy. According to the mom, the hospital staff nurse minimized the patient's concerns and told her to go home and wait it out, which ended in disaster. The mother said her daughter was dismissed because she was a black woman. I could not go along with her assumption, since I as a Caucasian have experienced an enormous amount of minimization and poor treatment at the hands of the medical establishment. Her assumption has gained traction, and that is dangerous because it is not founded on fact, but springs from the natural emotions rooted in grief and anger from the loss of a child.
Who disciplines? A. Self? B. Others?
If the first, then moral/ethical compass must direct.
If others, then lowest acceptable intolerance will rule all.
The one is more loving. They other more damning.
The one more tolerant. The other more fatal.
Always.
Quite dark, Mr. Rogers.
But...
Blessings to you, Toby. Prayers for you, Toby. Keep heart, Toby!!!
There is one possibility worse than that the smartest people in the world have lost their minds. It is that through all of this they have *kept* their minds.
While I am convinced of the damage vaccines and pseudo-vaccines can do, I read an article today that discusses the possible role of acetaminophen in the incidence of autism. If this is true, everyone should be screaming it from the rooftops. Many babies are given Tyenol after receiving vaccinations--a possible double whammy. What do you think?
https://www.theepochtimes.com/ultra-orthodox-jews-have-lower-autism-rates-is-it-because-they-circumcise-their-boys-differently_5142854.html?ea_med=desktop_health&tmp=1&ea_src=ai_recommender
Leftists are generally stupid. Naomi Wolf is a worthy exception
Somebody explain to me how the so-called Left went so completely off the rails during Covid. It's truly the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. How can progressives--who traditionally were the vanguard against corporate malfeasance and over-reach--be so blind to the obvious depredations of Big Pharma which have a long and shameful history? And be willing to swallow the crap that was fed to us via the MSM and the government? And suddenly fall into this mania for censorship?
Thank you, Toby, for being such a courageous and sane voice in these times, when up is down, and it seems, as a society, we've gone through the looking glass into an alternate reality. Truly this is Bizarro World.
Pure F*ing gold every. Single. Time! 👏👏👏👏👏 My eternal thanks will never be enough, Dr. Toby!