At the helm of these cesspools of certitude — are influencers who peddle repeatedly rehashed insight their followers praise like they split the atom. To be sure, some of it is insightful. But these “geniuses” are so full of wisdom that they’re oblivious to how they are feeding the very problems they’re ostensibly trying to solve.
Purveyors of virtue are put on a pedestal telling you what you wanna hear every goddamn day. They haven’t accomplished anything with their aimless arguments. But who cares about the efficacy of their efforts when failure is a pretty profitable enterprise these days.
If you think you’re making progress because of ever-increasing attention to your concerns, I suggest you reconsider.
Repeatedly rehashing issues is not the mark of problem solving: It’s the mark of a market. All these channels are blunt instruments . . .
Including those I agree with:
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.
What’s more, you’re making matters worse and being rewarded for it.
I’m going to show you how to fix the problem you don’t even know you have. And I assure you — the gains you get now pale in comparison to what awaits you. All ya gotta do — is do what you say you do. And my idea is a framework for debate that boxes you in to do exactly that. You won’t like it — but here’s the deal: Your opposition won’t either.
And who knows, you might learn to love embracing challenge, changing your mind, and the fruits from demanding across-the-board accountability.
This — is not that
This — is Broadcasting Beliefs About That
It’s pure fantasy to think that you can ignore key dimensions of a problem and magically solve it. The problems that plague America are interrelated, and anything short of addressing that is going nowhere. But everyone’s wrapped up in their wheelhouse — operating under umbrellas of interests that don’t account for complexities outside of them. Conventional methods have repeatedly failed and won’t put a pinprick in the atmosphere of absurdity suffocating the country.
The rules have changed, as in — there are none. By failing to understand that you cannot adapt to deal with it. But adapting is not exactly what America does best:
Like many alternatives, however, it was psychologically impossible. Character is fate, as the Greeks believed. Germans were schooled in winning objectives by force, unschooled in adjustment. They could not bring themselves to forgo aggrandizement even at the risk of defeat.
— Barbara Tuchman
Unschooled in Adjustment
There’s no willingness to say, “I’m wrong.” I mean, you have to take a 2×4 to these people, basically — to get ’em to, sorta, knock ’em down and admit they were wrong.
That physicist is talking about the people pushing the aluminum tubes fantasy that took us to war.
And I’m talkin’ about you
[T]here could be no country that makes less use of the accumulated experience of those who have served it – none that is more frivolously neglectful and improvident of these assets – than the United States of America.
— George F. Kennan, Around the Cragged Hill
“Wut?”
But this crowd takes the cake
I’ve never seen so much ass-kissing in all my life — it’s just pathetic! Interconnected communities are seemingly in competition for fawning over this fraud: A professional know-it-all who fabricated a “follow the facts” fantasyland with fancy quotes that amount to fortune cookies for followers:
The “genius” of Thomas Sowell is that this charlatan not only got followers to believe he’s a genius, but some kind saint-like Sherlock Holmes to boot. This guy’s a master at engineering illusion, but I saw right through it.
It took me all of 10 minutes to size up Sowell. On WMD, it took 2.
I couldn’t agree more
But there’s another reason why so many people misunderstand so many issues.
People like you pull stunts like this while peddling lines like that as cover: To whitewash your record of patently obvious hypocrisy and lies.
8. Old information at the beginning of the sentence, new information at the end.
— Steven Pinker
How do you feel about no new information — anywhere?
Touting technicalities as “facts” doesn’t get it done: Especially when you make a living selling slogans and catchy quotes about careful consideration. On evidence involving artillery rockets and material properties of centrifuge rotors — the apostles of Sowell smugly cite his books on economics, race, and whatnot: Anything to glorify him as they abandon any notion of accountability:
Butchering his bedrock beliefs as they dance in delight behind their force field of fallacy.
These people do nothing but question my motives, mock my site, and assault my character — then proudly post quotes of Sowell looking stately as he condemns the very thing they’re doing.
- Repeat slogans: “Everybody believed Iraq had WMD”
- Question people’s motives: Bush hater, Bush basher, Bush Derangement Syndrome, Plamegate & plenty more. Adding to the arsenal of childish crap to continue the tradition: Snowflake, Libtard, Libturd, Cupcake, TDS, Demon-crat, Democrat Party
- Bold assertions: Russians said so, British said so, Bill Clinton said so, Leaders of both parties said so . . .
No coherent argument, Repeat slogans, Vent their emotions, Question people’s motives, Bold assertions . . .
I’m practically spit on by people promoting principles I followed to find Sowell didn’t . . .
And that’s a fact:
truth verifiable from experience or observation
In what parallel universe does this even remotely reflect anything like that:
A couple of 2-minute reads that never even mention the tubes that took us to war (or anything else of substance on this endless saga of absurdity). If you only apply the principles you preach when it serves your interests — they’re just empty claims on a cup and a meaningless mantra touted on a T-shirt.
As a distinguished scholar once said: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.”
— Thomas Sowell
Simply by virtue of writing those words, he couldn’t possibly do the same in service of his own interests? These people are not gods. When you treat them as such — you do a cosmic disservice to them, yourselves, the country, and the world as well. Oh my God, somebody’s not who they claim to be — that’s never happened before! With the mountain of childish & spectacularly stupid shit I’ve seen in defense of this man — you’d think his disciples really were born yesterday:
Automatons who act as though they have no understanding of how to process anything that doesn’t instantly compute in their favor.
That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of [does it matter?]
— Glenn Loury, Tucker Carlson Today
When the context suits you, such words are solid gold. What you do when it doesn’t — determines the worth of your word.
Consequences matter or should matter more than some attractive or fashionable theory.
— Thomas Sowell
I couldn’t agree more
Except there were no consequences on the fiasco for the ages driven by this manifesto: The outcome of which fashioned a culture of no consequences.
She also saw wooden-headedness as a certain proclivity for “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by facts.”
Thomas Sowell played along and got off scot-free.
they all did . . .
Wooden-headedness, said Tuchman, was finally — “the refusal to benefit from experience.”
— Russ Hoyle
The Refusal to Benefit from Experience
Sowell is lauded for calling out problems he helped create and takes no responsibility for it. A lot of that goin’ around too! And yet Sowell is worshipped as a folk hero for responsibility, accountability, and following the facts where they lead. Never mind he didn’t go anywhere near ’em on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history: Opting to peddle partisan hackery that poisons political discourse to this day.
He touted technicalities as “facts” then made a living selling slogans like these:
I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell . . .
Quite the contrary! Stick around — you’ll see. But lemme put it in terms you’ll understand: If he stepped into a debate with me on this matter, the beating he’d take would be biblical. If you think you can challenge me on that, I invite you to try. I’ve been inviting you for a really long time.
And by the way: Clickbait for battles you’ll do all over again tomorrow — doesn’t strike me as destroying anything.
While you’re destroying everything:
From decades of being increasingly accommodating of liars aligned with your interests: You kept lowering the bar . . .
And now there is no bar
V for Victory — How Fitting . . .
A world where you can win an argument without even knowing what the issue is about. How you behave in denying the undeniable daily would be unthinkable for me to do ever.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
— Attributed to Mark Twain
Imagine America as an engine and you come along with a cross-section of it to explain why it’s not working. Since your audience shares your concerns, you’d think they’d be interested in understanding the internals of the problem. But they spend all their time talking about parts made by people they don’t like — never considering the defects in their own parts.
And even though you’ve got a rock-solid idea for how to fix the engine (or at least make it run on reason): They’d rather spend the rest of their lives complaining about problems than take responsibility for their part in creating them. The image above is for my 15-part series on factions acting as force fields of fallacy for the Left & Right: Shielding you from the whole truth while you’re pursuing part of it believing you’re after all of it.
To concisely capture the absurdity that’s canon across these echo chambers where childish behavior is celebrated:
Imagine a club for international travel made up entirely of people without a passport. Day after day, they talk about their love of going somewhere — with no interest in anyone who’s been somewhere. There was a time when people were willing to take a journey to understand what doesn’t instantly compute. Those days are long gone.
And this — is the height of your contribution:
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains . . .
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
Fools, said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
As for my bio . . .
One Voice Became Two 