While preparing to write this blog entry, I hesitated. The topic being “why modern times are dividing us”, we’re talking huge swathes of data that need to be summarized before presentation. And when I summarize, I’m cutting corners. What if I’m wrong about something, jumped to conclusions and present you falsehoods?
And that was the epiphany. That is exactly the core problem. Because we are living times where new information is being produced at the fastest rate it has ever been produced, thanks to science being venerated and well-funded, but also media production for mass online markets inspiring micro businesses, ie. Youtubers and podcasters. Because of this overwhelming non-stop torrent of new scientific research and media commentators who integrate the research socially, we’re running into our human processing limits. On top of that, we have not overcome our tendency for tribalism. We still jump to conclusions via intuitive reasoning, just like our ancestors did in the jungle.
Humans are naturally tribal creatures. We make quick judgements about situations based on available information and band together with similar-thinking people. We choose sides and organize to fight threats. It’s an ancient survival mechanism.
There are damn good reasons why we developed the scientific method. There are damn good reasons why humility is venerated in Christianity. And apparently we’re all stupid these days, I must write the obvious: Because everything we know could be lies! And when our societies are not committed to honest dissemination of reality, the goat shall cross the Rubicon.
There’s so much new information coming out every day, it isn’t possible to always be in agreement. We could try that together. Imagine if political debates, instead of being verbal punching matches where the best quips win the crowd, consisted of candidates sitting down to calmly read books about a debate topic, then politely talking about what they found. And instead of scoring points with the crowd with statements that make the other candidate look like a corrupt, incompetent jackass (which all politicians are anyway), they’d get official scores for excellent argumentation. Listeners could then reflect on what they had heard, while having objective standards to evaluate the candidates’ intellectual honesty.
But objectivity is not the aim in the political theater. Social power is the goal, discovering truth together is secondary.
Your next reading assignment is studying my thoughts on why radical voices must be included in public discussions.
Personally, I read a lot. I have to, because I run businesses and have staff, we have meetings. Unless I’m the most informed individual in the voice call, my staff will question my authority. I’ve also done consulting gigs to some companies, slide show presentations via Google Meet, and preparing those took 20+ hours each. The slide shows and the speeches were generally well received. But not always, because whenever my research wasn’t deep enough (20 hours is hardly enough for peer review), and if the listeners had more knowledge of the topic than I did, they could tell.
What makes it extra difficult to discern what is fact and what is manipulative propaganda is the fragmentation of the social fabric into warring tribes, which is enhanced by the media. Whenever new research comes out, some media outlets choose to omit important parts, because it advances or protects their agenda. Thus there are filters that create distortion, and this distortion gets worse when the material is disseminated through media commentators to citizens.
The problem? News is also a business, and you practically have to stoke tribalist sentiments among ideological or ethnic demarcation lines in order to appeal to a crowd and sell products. I know this, because I do this.
All that craziness aside, it appears to me that we’re simply producing too much new information to integrate socially, and this hectic pace of new research being discussed, debunked, re-discussed, it’s just a chaotic whirlwind. Quick rundown:
What is a woman? Some researchers actually upended this settled question. Most of the world laughed, but some countries are actually debating that. What happened on January 6? I saw a video of Jake Sullivan dressed as a Trump supporter, filming himself at the rally inciting the crowd and causing mischief. I’ve seen footage of baseball bats handed to rioters through a secret hatch. What happened with the 2020 US election count? The bellwether counties, which have always predicted the outcomes of these elections were won by Trump, but Trump still lost with record-shattering vote numbers? I watched Dinesh D’souza’s film ‘2000 Mules’ and saw the ballot harvesting. What happened to Nordstream? Why are we giving violent ultra-nationalists in Ukraine endless weapons? What about the lab leak theory, how’s that going these days? What about the aliens?
Just look at this mess. Even the Wikipedia article on a basic matter like the bellwether counties has new, original, inconclusive research and a public data verification request. There is no such thing as settled science!
With so many unanswered questions lingering between us, why are our leaders rushing from reading news and listening to experts that get debunked the next month, sometimes the next day, to implementing policies? What’s the fucking rush? Western leaders did huge damage by rushing to action during “the plague”. Many families are still recovering from messy divorces, health problems and their small businesses bankrupting due to the lockdowns.
When our news organizations and scientific institutions were less corrupt, we could function faster as societies. Now we cannot. There’s too much ideological bias and foul play in these organizations to take what “experts” say at face-value. We need time to disseminate available facts, we need time to discern who is trustworthy. We have to be systematic about this.
We have to slow down.
Read why modern times are dividing us part 2. Read macro-economic context for why you’re alone.
3 comments
Guess what? We aren’t going to slow down.
In fact, things are going to ACCELERATE as the fucking greedy, lazy, narcissistic generation of b00mer rapists drives this ship head-first into the nearest iceberg and sinks what’s left of the US dollar. The government can already no longer service interest on its national debt as it aims to surpass $43 trillion owed within the next 4 years. Inflation is growing out of control, food and gas prices are at all-time highs, banks are collapsing as they consolidate in the midst of this shitshow; MBS, CMBS, real estate, and the used auto market are ALL crashing simultaneously. The administration has even resorted to outright lying, fudging numbers, and changing definitions in order gaslight away this hopeless situation.
You can bet that other countries will suffer during the aftermath as millions lose their savings in the upcoming Great Depression 2.0. Japan, the UK, and China are already feeling the effects, and the CCP is (naturally) hiding just how close China is to internal collapse. There will be mass rioting, starvation, homelessness, and death. War isn’t completely off the table either.
Yeah, you’re not far off the mark. This is one way this could go and likely will, to an extent. I first learned of this from an old business partner who was way ahead of me in his research. I believed like half what he said, only later learning how right he was about most things. However, I’m off the doomer train after having spent a long time with those thoughts. I found a surprising number of silver linings, and this is the truth I’ve come to:
In a recession, there are economic winners, but they are far fewer than the losers. Every cataclysm is also a transfer of wealth and power. If you are positioned properly, you can be one of the feudal lords of the new world economy. I’ve found myself very much greatly positioned, position which I’m fortifying on multiple fronts constantly. If you are smart and think ahead, you can win against impossible odds and make gains. But rough times are ahead, you got that right.
The best that can happen is for the collapse to be slow. Then we can prepare our transition into new systems painlessly, like when my old laptop fell apart. I had enough savings to buy a newer model and much of my work saved in an external hard-drive. Resuming work took merely 24 hours.
This is why prepping is so important. You cannot know the extents to which worst-case scenario predictions come true. Usually there are plenty of silver linings too, great opportunities. And things always settle down at some point, then another growth cycle begins.
I’ve lived through two recessions, so this third one I’m plenty prepared for. Perhaps the next one will clarify to more people what the limits of life truly are, when the smokescreen of stimulus spending dissipates.
Thanks… your words are actually very reassuring to hear. It’s so rare to meet someone who doesn’t immediately dismiss facts and data as delusions or conspiracy theories. Apologies for initially coming off like a rant, it’s just that in these uncertain times I begin to feel like King Theoden from Tolkien’s LotR: “What can men do against such reckless hate?”
I was just a college student when the 2008 recession hit, young… carefree… and naïve. It didn’t really affect my life too much and I wasn’t interested in learning about finance or investing. Too busy studying for a career in lab-work and research. Now I have a partner that I need to support, and during the last three years, I’ve learned that my entire generation’s future has all but been robbed. They never intended to leave anything behind, only to make wage slaves of us for the next 50 years while they groom their successors.
I’ve joined a community of like-minded investors, and like you, I sincerely hope that we’ve all managed to position ourselves properly. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to it being scary. Studying history prepares us for what’s to come, but we’re all still slaves to our baser instincts. Still vulnerable to being gaslit and emotionally abused by the financial terrorists in control. I truly want to believe that not every single level of infrastructure has been completely inundated with corruption, and that nature will be able to take its course as it always has.