Don’t confuse facts with fashion

There is this deeply ingrained notion that the crowd “knows something we don’t,” but there is no authority or wisdom of crowds.

It is not wisdom to believe in the authority of emotion. It is not wisdom to revere strong belief.

An emotional display does not prove or disprove any assertion. Don’t confuse convincing for true. Or should I say belief for truth.

We have at the societal level, have reduced, yes, reduced all facts to whether they are the most (or least) popular belief.

Polls: 78% think THIS is true, and so on.

That problem (Let’s take a survey!!!) even contaminates courtrooms, where jurists, even after seeing the facts of a case, including proven scientific evidence, don’t “see” facts as facts, but as things to believe or not believe and vote on. Literal forensics will become so much “blah blah blah meh whatever” when contrasted with their own emotional “gut feeling,” and first impression of the person, and their body language or behavior: “they didn’t cry enough!”/ “I could never see (believe) them doing that! They look so nice!”

“Seeing is believing” is the logical fallacy, is the problem, not some guide-rule or goal.

And “the problem” is NOT getting people to “believe in” the authority of an “expert” or to believe “the science.” That is an unscientific attitude entirely. The problem is teaching people to themselves have a scientific attitude: an attitude of skeptical, real curiosity. Actually being curious. Actually wanting to understand and know, not just believe; wanting to be *correct, not seen as “right.”

The entire idea that “they are wrong this time,” or “we are right,” or “this time we have proof,” even if there actually is objectively this or that **genuine fact on your side, should not be thought to be then played out in a vote. To be “proved by” the masses.

Social proof isn’t.

It is a mistake to try to reason with (or look for reason in) fashion.

It is a mistake to think forensic level truth will change a vote, or the public mind.

Winning a vote proves nothing.

It only tells the public mind. It only tells the “NUMBER ONE hit in the nation.” Yech!!!

And yes it only my opinion, but what absolute garbage THAT is.

McDonald’s doesn’t sell filet mignon.

Voting (or polling) no more “proves” right or wrong than arm-wrestling does.

* including wanting to correct one’s self: wanting to measure three times and cut once.

** remember, you cannot reason facts with beliefs, nor expect facts to (forcibly) influence feelings. They are incompatible.

Chronocentrism

There is this arrogant ugly hubristic conceit displaying in more recent generations, that history is useless, and there is nothing to be learnt from the past, because newer generations know better, and are more moral than all generations preceding them.

Shut up grandpa!

There is nothing we can learn from you. We’re the teacher and you’re the student!

Whenever anyone even dares to admit any nostalgia for any earlier time, they are treated like they don’t *know that time as well as they think they do, and told that not only that things-weren’t-as-good-as-you-think (again implying said nostalgic person is longing for a time that never was, this even if they actually HAD BEEN THERE, but also spelling out how the changes from then to now were not a trade off, (which they actually were) but that ALL changes are IMPROVEMENTS (which is itself a BIAS).

These nostalgia-bashing opinion pieces are tantamount to a kind of modernist supremacy.

* the character of the nostalgic straw man is always painted as someone who never personally saw that time; as someone who only saw a period-era movie, and wants to play dress-up.

Stop calling them “liberals.”

I don’t care if that’s “what everyone calls them,” or what you’ve “always heard them called,” or “what they call themselves.”

As a *classical liberal, just stop.

What they mean by calling themselves “liberal” is that in their mind, they’re “enlightened,” and “modern,” and “on the right side” of history – a “history” they imagine will be written in the books of tomorrow, not the actual history of the past they have no respect or use for – and in all of those terms it is important to note in a binary, and comparative sense of the word. They see the word only as a team name for their “side.” As mutable, changing with the times, and malleable, sculpted into their likeness. Binary: only two, with or against. Comparative: with “liberal” being the flip-side of the “conservative” side of the coin, with “enlightened” as opposed to “backward” (or “deplorable”), “modern” as compared to obsolete and out-of-date. You’ll notice they project every quality they don’t want to own; that whatever they don’t want said of them, they say of the other side. They do not mean open minded, or tolerant, or mean or know anything about what makes a liberal. Because of this lack of understanding, the irony of calling themselves “liberal” while being illiberal, unempathetic and incurious is lost on them.

• I am not a conservative nor a Republican

Never fear the wolf

In all the cases of great evil on large scale, that you could ever point to in history, without any exception, it has never been this dictator, or that despot that actually carried out the great massacres and genocides. It has always been the followers, not the leaders. It has never been the evil men we all know about, but the good people that we don’t.

But good people plug their ears and sing “la la la la la I’m not listening to you” when you point this out.

Good people love to hate evil men, because it takes the spotlight off of them.

But I say, we shouldn’t fear evil men, we should fear good people.

Never fear the wolf, fear the sheep.

The usual suspects

One logical foible, not necessarily a named fallacy, that it seems sooner or later, we all stumble into, is making cartoon villains out of certain people we know. And, it seems that simply knowing the definitions of the terms “scapegoat” or “psychological projection” won’t save us from making this mistake. We…..like to imagine ourselves like Spider-Man, morally, just lacking his super-human strength. We think we “identify with him” as the “good guy underdog.” Oh if we had his super powers!

But if we are actually honest, morally, we are much more like J. Jonah Jameson, chasing our favorite black sheep.

You will never find the best – of anything – among any top 10 list.

Any top 10 list you’ll ever see is only a ranking of popularity.

Music is (only) one example.

Good music didn’t go away, but good music isn’t on the billboard charts. The good music in any generation has never been on the top 40. If you want to find good music, avoid commercial radio, and find a college station that does not play music that is on the charts.

The whole idea of social proof is backwards. The whole idea that something is good because it’s popular, and popular because it’s good, and not popular because it’s popular, is an idea that will mislead you, not educate your choices.

Social proof finds you the most mediocre, the lowest common denominator; it finds you the Kraft singles, not the crème de la crème, the haystack not the needle.

Nine times out of 10, the best seller is the best seller because of mere exposure and peer pressure.

The top seller is never the top-of-the-line.

Something that is accessible to everyone, is, necessarily in the same measure, the dullest, most ordinary option; the safest choice. It’s a risk aversion tactic: it pleases everyone and thrills no one.

Normality is not sanity

Conformity, that is “normality” is not sanity.
The popularity of an idea does not prove its truth.
But, unthinking people think “what everyone else thinks” is a compass of truth, wisdom, or sanity.
And, that they think what everyone does, means they understand.
‎When that, the fact that they have internalized other people’s ideas as their own, and they have forgotten their original thoughts, is itself exhibit of their dissociation.
You can’t be authentic, or sane, and be disconnected with yourself.

False “negativity” attribution

When I hear someone’s honest, thoughtful, and perhaps careful appraisal and appreciation of real flaws met with dirision, and approached as “negativity,” perhaps lazily misunderstood as a plea or ploy for pity, I must admit….
I lose respect for the person who would think to do so.

Why?

I look at it this way: if mention of real time issues and concerns is portrayed….shall I be crassly vernacular, as “just talking shit,” then the implication is that a negative review is only nothing more than “name-calling.”

A label. Nothing more, nothing less. Essentially meaningless outside the concept of team loyalty. Protocol dictating that I compliment you meaninglessly when I’m with you on your side, and trash you when I’m no longer with you on your side. Nothing I say is to be taken as a real evaluation that I put real time and real energy into. Nope. Just rubber-and-glue. If you can say it, I can say it. Meaningless!

Meaning that any praise from them is truly nothing at all but cheerleading. They’ll “like” what you like and what you say because they’re on your team. It doesn’t mean they even thought about it. At all.

Please. Just stop.

Happiness, its mystery

Happiness is the most distinctive thing, therefore the very easiest to recognise…providing you already know what you’re looking at. Yeah, I know. Happiness is the simplest thing, moreso yet than even love, but one the most counterintuitive to find grasp of. Everyone insists they already know, insulted that you want to tell them. They are not as smart as they think.

Happiness is definitely not some self-deluding inner joy. Joy is more like a slow-release pleasure. Joy is not happiness. It is also not better than. Though happiness is an acquired taste. Less sweet. More satisfying.

Happiness is: being approached by pleasure, and saying “No thanks. I’ve got a date with satisfaction.”

A thread

A string for your finger. To remind us always.
That force is not power, and force without power is only strain. Truth is beauty, not beautiful. And you cannot see truth’s beauty until you can actually see the grace in ugliness. Desire is not ambition. It need not be. For it does not need in order to be. That is a very old error. It is ambition not desire that will blind you to who you really are, with its blinders. To meditate, to be, in a moment, without your thoughts. Is not the ambition for silence. It is not to chase away your thoughts, for that is no different or better than to chase your thoughts, and be chased by them. Peace is not unity. Nor is it muted, subdued and orderly. It is this misunderstanding that leaves most wishing for something they don’t even want, simply because they fail to even understand it. Peace can only be found embracing chaos. Peace comes with true acceptance of otherness, not only mere toleration of diversity. And when you come to a genuine experiential understanding of peace, then you will know that youth is not beauty. No one will need to explain this. And it won’t be something you are telling yourself you are “supposed to think”. You will know in a way…that can’t be explained anyway.