He has a rather narcotic joy in dismissal and belittlement . . .
John McWhorter captured Trump in one line alone, but it escapes the likes of Loury & McWhorter that their own communities behave the same way. And course, because I’m not kissing their ass in their echo chambers of self-congratulations:
The faithful instantly assume I’m against those guys.
Nice work! You’re just sharp as a razor in your reasoning.
The smorgasbord of sub-cultures has created another dimension of delusion in America — hardening minds not broadening them. The commentary in these communities speaks volumes about social media and the state of society:
Habitually hailing high praise for purveyors of virtue — virtues that vanish the second they’re called to put them to the test.
I’m sure it’s intoxicating to amass a following and feel like you’re making a difference. But I’m gonna weigh your impact partly as a reflection of your community:
How people behave — not what they believe.
If you can’t get that right, I don’t care how big your following gets — you’re taking this nation nowhere. Not in the right direction, anyway.
Fanatical followers of pundits act like these people are some of the greatest minds to ever live. We’ve become a culture that wildly exaggerates on everything: Gushing with over-the-top praise or seething with over-the-top scorn.
And gain you get in the moment is the only measurement that matters.
What I Do Takes Work:
Time and Effort to Think It Through
This — is entertainment
A bit about work
Work is a Journey on Which You Welcome Challenge
Work does not instantly respond — work digs to discover and inquires to clarify. Work is difficult and demands discernment. Work wonders, pauses, listens, absorbs, and reflects.
Work does not rest on who’s right and who’s wrong: Work wants to know if there’s something more to see, something to learn, something that sharpens the mind. Work never stops building on the foundation of your own work and what you learn from the work of others.
Work works its way through material that is not easy.
Work recognizes complexity and the demands of in-depth explanation. Work will go on a trip to ideas that take time and effort to understand. Work knows that you can’t see your way through to a solution without understanding the different dimensions of a problem.
Work does not defend before you consider
Work does not race to conclusions — work arrives at them through careful consideration. Work is willing is rethink what you think you know. Work takes integrity, courtesy, curiosity, courage, and decency.
Work comes with the willingness to be wrong.
Work is not self-satisfied. Work does not sling snippets of certitude — work crafts argument on the merits. Work is an exchange where each party takes information into account. Work does not issue childish insults — work demands that you act your age.
You’ll find that work is far more fruitful and fulfilling than ease.
Work rises & falls
As this is the prism through which we work:
How we weigh what we see and measure our response. We’ll fall short from time to time — but those willing to work will keep each other in check.
Work respects your intelligence by using it.
And shows respect to others as we work our way to mutual respect. Work won’t be pretty and might even get ugly — but work will do what it takes to work it out.
And if you wanna start solving problems — work is what it’s gonna take.
I’ve always hated Twitter and when I’m done doing what I gotta do — I’m never goin’ back. Until then, I’m sending out a certain set of messages looking for intelligent life (fiercely independent thinkers who want to solve problems — not endlessly talk about them).
Think of my signals as a poor man’s SETI:
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth
Going by the galaxies filled with rock stars of reasoning across the social media universe — I should have no shortage of people eager to examine my idea and discuss how we could improve on it and proceed.
You tell me where those people are — and I’ll gladly send out my signals to them. What I have in mind could turn the tide. I’ve already done all the work — I just need a little help in having it land in the right hands. If you’re game, please contact me through the site or Anchor.Press.gg@gmail.com.
But if you’re not interested in hearing me out and having meaningful conversation — we have nothing to talk about and I wish you well.
I’d just ask that you block me and politely move along. Is that really too much to ask? Apparently so — as some just have to fire off whatever comes to mind on what you instantly perceive.
I know your type — all too well:
From where I sit
We owe all those who came before us who had to fight in ways we’ll never have to. They handed us so much to build on.
And this is how we honor their sacrifice:
- Rather than read and digest, people scan and dismiss — frantically seeking any fragment they can frame in their favor
- Sensible arguments are snubbed with meaningless replies that are utterly absent of thought — mercilessly torturing reason with trite talking points
- Even against overwhelming evidence served on a silver platter — they will swat it away in disdain without so much as glancing at the goods
- Any sound bite that can be manipulated to their liking will be repeated in endless cycles of certitude
- Always at the ready — they’ll gleefully “inform” you with 60 seconds of “research” — compiled by copying & pasting material disseminated by the equally uninformed
- They’ll look away from a mountain of evidence against their side — while nitpicking over pebbles to pounce on the other
- Their civility is a charade in their immovable contempt for correction — playing childish games that fit a formula designed to infuriate you (at which point they’ll pull the innocence card and haughtily condemn your tone)
- They want a presence without having to exert any effort to legitimately participate
- They peddle their opinions while shirking any responsibility to validate them
- They launch volleys of vitriol as fireworks for freedom
- They see themselves as conveyors of truth while dripping in duplicity
- They want respect without having to earn it
- Their hypocrisy knows no bounds
I don’t know how people find the path of least resistance so satisfying — as I love the demands of difficulty and discernment.
To not step up my game in the midst of opportunity or challenge — would be tantamount to treason upon my very existence.
It’s amazing how everything falls into place from a foundation of effort and understanding.
This is more your style:
If only you’d laid it all out exactly as I like it — then I’d abide by the principles I preach
Funny how there’s always an excuse
Back in the day — there was no website with an array of illustrations to gripe about. I was just sharing Trillion Dollar Tube to all these fine folks flaunting their badge of beliefs so F.A.I.R.
Showing a modicum of courtesy for a 5-minute excerpt doesn’t seem like much to ask such bastions of virtue. But without watching one second — self-satisfied scorn was your gold standard for gleefully gutting the truth.
And why mess with tradition?
And to top it all off
Some rapid-fire ridicule from afar
Cozy in the KILL
As You Recoil From Questions Secure in Your Cover on Social Media
Where you can promote principles in one breath and abandon them the next. And get away with it with ease:
Because you’ve got friends
The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence we have specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.
These five conditions specify the circumstances under which increased proselyting would be expected to follow disconfirmation.
And by the way . . .
Cognitive dissonance doesn’t care that you signed a pledge.
A fairly famous person on F.A.I.R’s board of advisors once called my writing “brilliant” and was “blown away” by this site and signed up. Alas, he wasn’t too keen on the truth when I took his hero to task.
He wasn’t about to look at undeniable evidence warranting that he change his mind — so he changed the rules:
Right on cue | Never fails
And that guy was Glenn Loury:
Such high praise from a man of his caliber is a helluva lot of incentive for me to think these people are the “geniuses” their ever-growing audience thinks they are.
I don’t roll that way . . .
While I maintain a degree of respect for him — and I’m forever grateful for the inspiration he provided: If you’re part of the problem, I don’t care who you are — I’m calling you out.
And that’s
For 20 years, I’ve been practically spit on for following principles those same people promote on a daily basis. On matters on mathematical certainty (taking both parties to task on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history):
These are the gems of genius that await me:
So, on an issue involving the separation of uranium isotopes — you wanna ignore the evidence to show off your math skills by splitting hairs over the meaning of “mathematical certainty”?
by the way
Decorating your points with special punctuation does not make meaningless crap magically have merit.
How can you stand to insult your intelligence with such stupidity?
Alas, we live in a world that would rather split hairs over semantics than consider the spirit of an argument.
Whether or not it’s literally “religion” is not the point — it’s faith-based belief that has no bearing on reality:
A.K.A. Wishful Thinking
The same wishful thinking that’s utterly oblivious to the counterproductive nature of endlessly beating issues into the ground in entirely transactional tactics.
You’re all operating under umbrellas of interests that don’t account for complexities outside of them. I don’t see anyone examining the efficacy of their efforts.
If you think you’re making progress because of ever-increasing attention to your concerns:
I suggest you reconsider . . .
It’s as apples & oranges as it gets to compare my efforts against the transactional nature of news and social-media norms.
As the problems that plague America are interrelated — I draw parallels and make correlations that don’t compute in a culture that craves information formatted to your liking:
- Nice and linear
- Easy to swallow
- Short and simple
- Effortless to spread
Bonding in Bumper Sticker Branding
I see crap with crystal clear clarity — because unlike you:
I Don’t Have Situational Rules
We’re well beyond “disagreement” in America — this is madness (countless millions miserably failing to follow even the most fundamental methods of how understanding works).
As I said in my doc:
At the heart of why we fail to live up to our potential as a society is because we excel at polluting even the purest form of fact.
How can we possibly solve serious problems when we refuse to adhere to some semblance of the fundamentals of making sense?
— Richard W. Memmer: Epilogue
Or Not . . .
Snowflake, Libtard, Libturd, Cupcake, Bush hater, Bush basher, Bush Derangement Syndrome, TDS, Demon-crat, Democrat Party
Stirring Defense
Anything Goes for apologists trying to preserve what they perceive. I know their Rolodex of Ridicule rabbit-hole routine — all too well:
Because your kind just wouldn’t STFU and listen 20 years ago . . .
And still won’t:
I gotta explain it today in a hundred different ways: Spoon-feeding you like a child while you spit it out and cry about being hungry.
Oh, you’re sharp as a tack on Titan — but where was all that passion for material properties on the tubes that took us to war?
Stockton Rush’s name will never be forgotten for his folly that took 5 lives in a contraption doomed to fail. That same wishful thinking in totally unsuitable material — was held by a CIA/WINPAC analyst named Joe Turner:
Who provided a path to war that cost countless lives and $2.2 trillion.
Never heard of him . . .
I imagine not — in a country that can’t even get this straight:
One picture is worth a thousand words
When you don’t want the pictures and you don’t want the words — what would you have me do?
And once I did it
We both know your next move . . .
You have no original ideas and have no questions for those who do. You have no imagination and are utterly devoid of any virtue that would allow for actual conversation to take place:
Not that lickety-split, self-satisfied crap you flood the internet with daily.
It’s not my writing, my graphics, or documentary: The flaw is within you — and it always has been:
The cesspool of certitude on social media is an embarrassment to the entire history of human achievement. And in your infinite wisdom while Tweeting your lives away:
It’s your tone & your title — that’s the problem . . .
Not the dumb, dishonest, and delusional behavior that created this clusterf#$K of a country.
He showed himself proficient at elegant insults, an essential literary talent at the time, and possessing a precocious knowledge of history, philosophy, politics, economics, and law. In retrospect, it was clear that he had found his calling as a fearless, swashbuckling intellectual warrior who excelled in bare-knuckled controversy.
— Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton
How I wish I had Hamilton’s intellect and knowledge, but the image below is what elegance looks like.
You — are the “ass-hat” crew: Dropping your idiotic derision with pride.
You never raise the bar one bit — clutching onto your bullshit beliefs for dear life: Dragging yourself down and delighting in the company you keep along the way.
And before Sowell’s disciples even know what the subject is — they dig in to defend.
Once again — just sharp as a razor
If you opened Sowell’s piece (all 752 words of a 2-minute read) — knowing that I did a 7-part series that’s 2 hours and 40 minutes.
On that alone
What goes through your mind? And Sowell’s article makes no mention of the evidence on display with the props.
So one guy goes into great detail — and the other guy doesn’t go anywhere in detail.
The famous one, naturally
And while you’re at it — butcher the bedrock beliefs he’s famous for (just as he did).
Hard to Imagine:
That I have to explain that quote to people who seemingly live to flood the internet with his words.
He and his flock incessantly complain about the media — and they don’t make policy. But the second I scrutinize Sowell — suddenly you have new standards.
180 — how fitting
And without even the most basic insight into anything on this story: His camp has a habit of glossing over global issues of catastrophic consequences with:
“Seems”
This chart is misleading in several respects . . . Beams centrifuge never actually worked . . . We can infer . . .
Sounds pretty sloppy to me
Perhaps we should have a conversation to clear up what all this means on issues that have eroded reason beyond recognition?
As I said on my doc:
D.O.E.’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of ‘rough indication.’ And since the entire point of testing should be to replicate the conditions of centrifuges, one would think that the full-blown testing would be performed before the N.I.E. was completed. . . .
Out of 31 tubes in subsequent testing, only one was successfully spun to 90,000 RPM for 65 minutes — which the C.I.A. seized on as evidence in their favor.
One D.O.E. analyst offered a superb analogy of that contorted conclusion: “Running your car up to 6,500 RPM briefly does not prove that you can run your car at 6,500 RPM cross country. It just doesn’t. Your car’s not going to make it.”
In an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter, these guys were playing horseshoes with centrifuge physics.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
That sounds worthy of consideration — don’t ya think?
Not to Sowell’s camp
And their kin who came before them:
It is as though with some people — those who most avidly embrace the “we are right” view — have minds that are closed from the very get-go, and they are entirely incapable of opening them, even just a crack.
There is no curiosity in them. There are no questions in their minds. There are no “what ifs?” or “maybes.”
— Laura Knight-Jadczyk
The second you’re questioned, those precious virtues you peddle in the Facts Over Feelings Parade — are rolled right over with your feelings.
And about that “mudslinging” . . .
Fact:
truth verifiable from experience or observation
If you have a history of hypocrisy and lying — you are a hypocrite and a liar. If you don’t like being called those things, don’t do those things. But so typical of the times — nothing has meaning anymore.
Calling criticism “mudslinging” is just somethin’ to say to escape scrutiny.
And the irony is
I’ve received almost nothing but mudslinging for decades — by people who cry foul with counterfeit claims on what they do for real. And let’s face it: You need it to be mudslinging, because if it’s not — your beliefs are gonna fall apart.
The surgical specificity of this clip puts this lie in its place in 5 minutes alone.
Trillion Dollar Tube
Sowell’s got all kinds of fancy quotes to float — but some circles are not burdened by squaring their walk with their talk.
They seem to think that advertising virtue equates to embodying it.
And these are on the mild end
You couldn’t carry Sowell’s jockstrap!
Seriously? Get a life. It doesn’t matter what you say, he’s better than you basically in everything.
You deserved to be treated that way! You’re a moron and pathetic character assassin
Your reply shows me you have no such experience and knowledge. You played yourself, and you lost. Sorry, read some Thomas Sowell
You introduce statements and arguments of people who aren’t Thomas Sowell
As this story is also
About the behavior of the echo chamber around Sowell — it’s kinda necessary to include other people to properly illustrate the problem.
And I wouldn’t mind explaining everything — if you thought about anything.
So you found one small crack in Sowell’s character where he defended Iraq having WMD, does that hurt his credibility?
This man muddied the waters of debate to serve himself:
On a little matter of war in the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11. Factoring for his history of hypocrisy and lying on that — along with ripping the Left while shamelessly ignoring the debauchery on the Right:
That “one small crack” is a wide-open window into his character and credibility.
Half the country took the word of professional know-it-alls over nuclear scientists.
And when your camp came up empty on WMD — you just bought more bullshit from the same people who sold you the first batch:
Shrewd!
I wouldn’t care if Sowell cured cancer . . .
You don’t get a pass for basking in baseless beliefs that cripple the country — and have the bottomless nerve to preach responsibility & accountability to boot.
That is a cancer of its own
The poison he pumped into the atmosphere helped destroy the internal organs of America. So we have very different standards as to what qualifies as a “National Treasure.”
There are far worse culprits on all-things Iraq, but I’ve been down that road for decades. Discovering Sowell and the underworld of absurdity that shields him — makes him ideal to put these lies in their place once and for all.
And change the dynamic of debate to boot.
A “great man” would not have his egregious hypocrisy, gross negligence and lies plastered all over my website.
Sowell is not a great man — but he could be:
To the uneducated, abstract ideas are unfamiliar; so is the detachment that is necessary to discover a truth out of one’s own knowledge and mental effort. The uneducated person views life in an intensely personal way — he knows only what he sees, hears or touches and what he is told by friends.
As the unknown sage puts it, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
But more than ever
Even the most educated minds act in an uneducated manner in service of their interests — and do catastrophic damage by doing so.
Give it a go . . .
I’ll be happy to show you the courtesy so few have shown me:
- You don’t listen
- You don’t learn
- You don’t ask questions
- You don’t think — you just react
- You don’t reflect
- You hate being challenged on your calcified convictions
- You never admit you’re wrong
- You never change your mind
And most of you take pride in being jerks while you’re at it — then cry foul when called on your crybaby ways.
In a country that craves ease and increasingly values bullshit as currency.
What could go wrong?
For those who cry foul for crashing your conversations: I didn’t get the memo that it’s invite-only social media.
So there’s that — and this:
I threw down the gauntlet and you have a choice: To ignore or engage. But most who reply choose to be pricks.
As you’ve had a have a helluva lot of practice — it gets easier every day.
And it shows
The thing that is most disturbing to me, in a sea of disturbing things — is that there is no opportunity in all of humanity, to observe the world we live in, and to see all the scope of life in the world, like being President of the United States. You sit there, and for 4 years, or for 8 years — the crème de la crème of society is presented to you.
“Here’s the bravest man and woman in the military. Here’s the smart scientists. Here’s the most dedicated children in their learning.”
You get to see the ugliest . . . what are terrorists doing in torture camps. You see the world from a vista that only a man, or one day a woman, can have that outlook. And I thought to myself: “Surely, when he won . . . he would change as a result of that.”
Every day, you’re having meetings and talking to serious people. And then you come into the Oval Office to “Here’s the winners of the Spelling Bee of San Diego.” . . .
And you meet these people, and life just comes washing over you. Your heart and your mind open up. What a learning experience — how much you learn about the world.
And I thought, “It’s gonna change him.” . . .
He didn’t change one f#%@g gram!
That says a great deal more about America than it does about Trump.
Who said it?
Does it matter? To defenders of the indefensible — oh yeah! Because the source is what you’d seize on to deflect & deny the undeniable:
Then go right back to bitching about the opposition doing the same.
Above all else — that’s how we go here.
We could do something about that . . .
But you’re busy
One Voice Became Two 