[asg70]

I haven't read Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World but I get the gist of it and believe we are very far along that cultural pathway.

Kirby Ferguson is a documentarian who tends to work for years on mega-projects. He made something called This Is Not a Conspiracy Theory. I haven't seen the finished product but I've seen the teasers and they are all excellent. Unfortunately, current events have been moving faster than his ability to finish his projects. He made a rather long video that anchors things more topically which I feel helps demonstrate much of the divide I experience when I participate here. It doesn't go into the ideological tribalism so much but it does go into the tinfoil hat aspect.

I am quite certain that those here who need to digest this video will be least able and least willing to watch it straight through. He even concedes as much, but I decided to start this thread anyway.

He has framed where we are as society as being two camps, the MAGICAL THINKERS and the EVIDENCE SEEKERS (and by evidence, no I'm not talking about building 7 style evidence). This is a bit of an oversimplification in that it doesn't factor in left vs. right thinking but I think he does have a pretty firm grasp on a lot of what's going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2DSsuE7jI

The problem is his prescriptions at the end feel hopelessly optimistic. I feel that magical thinking is really a one way street from which few ever return.

Personally I feel the pull of magical thinking myself, but I indulge as a form of recreation or escape rather than something I can say I sincerely believe in. Of more concern is my sister who is very deep down this rabbit hole. I don't want to go into more detail because it's personal information but I'm afraid showing her a video like this would not be enough to pull her out of it. She's just too deeply invested on multiple levels. It has really damaged my relationship with her because of how much I have to self-censor or try to change the topic when she ventures into Alex Jones territory.

Like I said. He's too optimistic. I think there's no way for things to stop going off the rails. Even if Trump loses the election, the toxicity of society will continue even if the power shifts away from the alt-right and towards the equally destructive left's purity testing and cancel culture. This cultural rot is like a flocking mechanism. All these practices societies to through on the downslope, the chaos, the scapegoating, it seems to be inescapable. The intelligentsia can put up countless videos like these and it will be pissing in the wind. I don't begrudge him for trying to help but for his sake I hope he learns to just accept it.

[Plantagenet]

VISUALS GOOD---VOICE OVER COMMENTARY BAD

I watched about half of it. I really enjoyed the clever visuals----the movie is filled with hundreds of brief snippets taken from old movies, cartoons, documentaries, nature specials etc. and its pleasant and interesting to turn off the sound and watch the various images go by.

However, I thought the political analysis in the youtube video was a bit simple minded. The person who made the video speaks in a loud and authoritative "voice over" all through the video and he is convinced that all humans can be divided into two types---the magical thinkers and the knowledge seekers. Its a simple white hats vs. black hats view of humanity.

However, in my experience people are more complex then that. There are also shades of grey and even some manifest internal contradictions in the way people think and act in real life.

For instance....there are many people who are magical thinkers in the sense that they believe in god and are devotees of some religion and devoutly accept the Bible or the Koran or the Bhagada Vita or something as being true and inspired by god, but may be trained scientists and adhere rigorously to scientific principles in their work and the rest of their life. So are those people magical thinkers or knowledge seekers?

Its not black or white.

Similarly there are people who seem to be devoted to rigorously examining the truth, but for political reasons veer off into conspiracy theories and magical thinking, like the FBI agents and DOJ Officials who were mostly very competent and honest government officials, but duped themselves into believing the conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent and even went so far as to knowingly lie to the FISA court in sworn documents, even when their own evidence showed that it wasn't true. So are such people conspiracy nuts or knowledge seekers?

Again, its not black or white.

The documentarian spends much of the video picking sides in various twitter wars and going through the bizarre conspiracy theories of Q-anon and Alex Jones. Personally I think all those things are an utter waste of time, so that part of the video seemed like an utter waste of time to me..........

So my final opinion on this youtube video is:

Visuals good. Voice-over commentary bad.

Cheers!

[Subjectivist]

I watched the whole thing to form my own opinion. I find I must agree with Plant that the video is much too sure of itself, dividing everyone into "rational" and "Emotional" camps as if people are not much much more complex than that. It is reminiscent of the way many folks around here instantly classify others as being the enemy if they say anything that crosses some opinion line. You go from being a good guy who supports issue X to being evil incarnate because you liked decision Y on a totally unrelated subject.

Polarization is the enemy IMO and this video is all about classifying anyone who doesn't agree with the makers "rational" conclusions as being an "Emotional thinker" who doesn't have any valid viewpoint to raise discussion points from. The problem with this classification is two equally rational people can come to different solutions for the same problem without either of them being emotionally driven or evil.

[Ibon]

I didn't watch it since I do not want to pollute my brain. Why would you want to go so deep in understanding the minutiae of dysfunctional orientations?

I know, this is ASG special gift, understanding warped humans.

Just watch out it doesn't warp you out too much!

[asg70]

two equally rational people can come to different solutions for the same problem without either of them being emotionally driven or evil.

Solutions to problems are politics. He's talking more about trying to make sense of how the world works, which is more akin to religion. On that front, rationality and critical thinking is a far better guide than magical thinking. Given that your avatar is a pyramid I wouldn't expect you to be anything other than triggered by his critique.

[sparky]

.
....................Women are crazy !!!

[evilgenius]

I think the divide can be characterized along the lines of Plato vs. Aristotle. One side, Plato's, believes in discovering through reason. The other, Aristotle's, believes in discovery through experience. In today's America, the right is on Plato's side. Everything they promote comes from a position of knowing better. The left is much more uncertain about the course of the world. They need experiment, and verifiable results.

Conspiracy theory comes, I think, from a desire to tap into the authority that reason brings. It seeks to co-opt it. The explanations that conspiracy theory offers are not the sort of explanations that experience demands. They are definitely explanations that ask people to take someone's word for it, or to accept a thing at face value. They are not explanations that have much integrity, as they often contradict their own assertions in an attempt to promote themselves. But they can get away with that because people are not after integrity. Most of them are just trying to gripe. Conspiracy theories are great places to offload one's gripes about the world. Blame is easily passed around, and nobody ever has to stand accountable for what they say about anyone else.

[asg70]

Conspiracy theories are great places to offload one's gripes about the world. Blame is easily passed around, and nobody ever has to stand accountable for what they say about anyone else.

In a broader tapestry more and more I feel that politics or activism is also about little more than griping. It's very easy to complain. Solutions are hard. And most policy ideas that come out of activism are either impossible to implement or littered with negative unintended consequences. This is part and parcel of why I support a technocracy.

[evilgenius]

Conspiracy theories are great places to offload one's gripes about the world. Blame is easily passed around, and nobody ever has to stand accountable for what they say about anyone else.

In a broader tapestry more and more I feel that politics or activism is also about little more than griping. It's very easy to complain. Solutions are hard. And most policy ideas that come out of activism are either impossible to implement or littered with negative unintended consequences. This is part and parcel of why I support a technocracy.

Yeah, it's too bad. What you describe could be a system in the throws of problem solving. Problem solving benefits everybody. The thing is, we don't want to problem solve. Problem solving takes listening. If we don't listen when we are wrong, then we don't benefit.

Do you suppose American exceptionalism has anything to do with that? I don't mean across the board, but something that teaches us through the culture not to admit doubts and uncertainty. There are some other likely culprits as well, such as the particular form of Christianity that thrives in America. It mired us in the abortion debate, considering the interests of an unseen 'other' over the interests of those more readily visible, which could be considered a prelude to today's thinking. And, then, there is what business has managed to do to the rights of those they need to make a cheaper cost. Without hyper organization, labor became impotent. Hyper organization frightens Americans. They are afraid of any downtrodden group that tries it. Done wrongly, a group can go from being "All American" to communist over night. A lot of things are potentially involved in this.

[asg70]

something that teaches us through the culture not to admit doubts and uncertainty.

Absolutely. I think internet discourse in particular discourages anyone to ever admit being wrong. Digging your heels in when down deep you know you're wrong seems to be a sport for many. That's why I keep posting clips of Bart Simpson singing "I didn't do it". It's about leading all discourse from the vantage point of ego-protection which is infantile.

This is, for instance, one reason I've lost most of my respect for Elon Musk, because even if he IS worried about some of the same problems I am, he has such a fragile ego that he never wants to admit to any errors in how he runs Tesla or to problems with the cars. So I struggle to find really anyone to look up to and is worth emulating these days.

I know I'm generalizing but I think why so many people seem envious of Europe or Asia is because they seem to have more of a sense of common purpose. We USED to have that common purpose like when during WWII everyone bought war bonds, were OK with rationing, etc... But today people feel only loyalty to themselves and their chosen tribe. True patriotism in the sense of envisioning the country as a united whole in which minority speech and opinion still matters no longer exists. We are a already ideologically balkanized and only interested in winner-take-all across the board.

The birther controversy is a great example of this ego-protection nonsense. You start out by trying to create a conspiracy around Obama's birth certificate. Then finally the birth certificate is produced. Then Trump says where is the LONG-FORM birth certificate? The goal-post shifts but the bottom line is if Trump had already seen Obama's birth certificate he never would have launched the birther campaign in the first place. The only reason to keep digging in your heels is to avoid looking like an idiot.

Another one is the face on Mars. Sure, the original viking lander photos looked like a face, but when they went back and got high res photos from a different time of the day where the shadows didn't align just right, the face no longer looked like a face at all. But Richard Hoagland had invested so much of his ego in pushing the face on Mars concept that he retconned his theory to suggest that the face was actually a lion/sphinx. But again, if you started OUT with the high res photo, nobody at first glance would say it looks like anything concrete. Only in the context of trying to protect the sunk ego investment in having spent so much mental energy constructing this belief system can you rationalize continuing to dig in your heels.

I could go on and on with similar phenomenon--including, of course, fast-crash peak oil doomers who failed to accept the idea that the credit crisis caused the recession instead of peak oil and fracking caused a glut.

(People tend to operate on auto-pilot like this rather than being able to step outside of that ego-protection bubble and see things from a more objective perspective. The "evidence seekers" strive to do just that.)

There are many many psychological articles that talk about how once you have that sunk investment you will heavily weight all arguments in favor of continuity rather than to take the ego hit of accepting you're wrong and falling into the emotional abyss:

The answer is related to their ego, their very sense-of-self. Some people have such a fragile ego, such brittle self-esteem, such a weak "psychological constitution," that admitting they made a mistake or that they were wrong is fundamentally too threatening for their egos to tolerate. Accepting they were wrong, absorbing that reality, would be so psychologically shattering, their defense mechanisms do something remarkable to avoid doing so — they literally distort their perception of reality to make it (reality) less threatening. Their defense mechanisms protect their fragile ego by changing the very facts in their mind, so they are no longer wrong or culpable.
...
People who repeatedly exhibit this kind of behavior are, by definition, psychologically fragile. However, that assessment is often difficult for people to accept, because to the outside world, they look as if they’re confidently standing their ground and not backing down, things we associate with strength. But psychological rigidity is not a sign of strength, it is an indication of weakness. These people are not choosing to stand their ground; they’re compelled to do so in order to protect their fragile egos.


This plays out in so many ways. Think of Trump supporters. They started out thinking he was one thing but over time it's revealed that he's another, frog boiling in the pot style. But since they put on that hat--since they fought tooth and nail to defend the guy, gosh darn it, nothing is going to make them throw all that away, not even 150K+ dead from COVID, the impeachment, Bounty-gate, various tell-all books from insiders saying he is a complete moron, etc... But like I said, if you pulled these people aside quietly and asked them, gee, if you knew back then before you became a Trump supporter what you know now, would you have chosen to support him, they would probably say no.

Same thing with relationships and jobs. When you have that sunk investment you heavily favor the status quo in a way any outsider never would.

Humans are all about stubborn inertia. Inertia of behavior, inertia of ideas.

The other aspect is what humans do when any shocking world event happens like what we saw in Beirut. The knee-jerk impulse is to think like what Trump did, that it was an "attack". We don't wait for evidence. Our brain-stem reaches for the most extreme explanation right off of the bat. And those who can't admit being wrong will cling to this initial idea. If they eventually concede it will be way later than it should be, because it just feels too humiliating.

How about Short and his lost bet? He deserves ridicule not so much for losing the bet, but by being psychologically incapable of conceding, tying himself into a pretzel to somehow rationalize away his error.

People go through life exhibiting these character flaws and seemingly never have these pointed out to them. But even when you do point them out, they just double-down and triple-down. They are the epitome of the unexamined life that is not worth living.

The vast majority of posters here do not engage in a true back and forth dialogue as much as they seek to merely project/impose their view of the world, their narrative, their overarching paradigm.

Humans tend to clutch at some very simple rule of thumb that defines this view of the universe. This is the lens through which everything is filtered.

Take Onlooker, for instance. It became clear pretty early on that he has sort of a romanticized lefty concept of communism in which the poor are by nature good and the rich and powerful are evil and corrupt in an X-Files Smoking Man sort of way. He then goes out and purposefully selects "news" that reinforces and affirms this way of thinking. No matter how often it's pointed out to him that he may only be seeing what he wants to see, that maybe the MSM isn't always fake-news and Zerohedge isn't somehow the key to enlightenment, it's like talking to a brick wall. He has reached, as I've said many times, EPISTEMIC CLOSURE.

This is true of just about every poster that I have trouble with here. They are filtering reality through a heavily distorted lens which they are holding onto for dear life. Anything that conflicts with this vision is "the enemy". Truth is not what is being sought. Only the comfort of validation.

[Ibon]

Truth is not what is being sought. .

Your allowing digital social media to skew your cultural experience.

You really do need to get your head out of this fucking computer. It is seriously warping you out.

[asg70]

I don't know what that's supposed to mean. People are the same whether they're online or not. They just feel more of a license to be rude online, but over time that has filtered back into how they relate face to face.

[evilgenius]

I enjoyed your above post, asg70. It's nice to read something that doesn't make me cringe.

The worst thing I ever said on this site, I think, was to say that the Deep Water Horizon was going to be worse than it was. I was guilty of thinking they would have to use a small nuke to stop it. I can come up with that pretty easily. I don't know if there are other things for which I am equally guilty. I still think that high oil prices had a hand in clamping down the fortunes of many who relied upon cheap gas prices to cut costs, those who were too stretched, in 2007-8. But gas prices were just one more voice in a crowd, which was mostly related to profligate borrowing. You are right, it takes real self-examination to see those things. I developed that habit, questioning myself, from a young age.

Even when it is a habit, it can be hard to let things go. Another example, not from this site, is when I once posted a travel video I made in London. I got onto this bus and could swear I read the number plate of it as I got on. I posted that as part of the video, and was immediately told by the world it was a different bus I was on. I yelled back, if you could say such a thing is possible online, that I had seen the number myself. Eventually, I came round to realizing I was wrong. I took offense, until I humbled myself.

You know, it could be that we are not mired in an irredeemable situation. Another thing about my life I've noticed is that I tend to discover things a little ahead of other people. When I was in philosophy class in college the subject matter caused me to think about the questions being asked a lot. I came up with the same arguments we would later learn were the thoughts of famous philosophers. The rest of the class were introduced to those arguments from the lesson. I 'invented' them, and then learned I wasn't the first person to do so. My friends, who had classes with me, laughed at me when I mentioned it. I was only coming, however, to realizations that were logical given the context. In the end it doesn't really matter if those sorts of ideas are your own, or given to you, as long as they become part of you. Maybe, if the trend holds, self-examination is on its way?

And, as regards proof, there was something else I wanted to discuss. That has to do with the nature of capitalism. You don't have to be a genius to succeed in business. When you are right, capitalism will give you a reward. Those who get rewarded that way tend to make certain assumptions about themselves, particularly about their ability to judge situations and capitalize upon opportunity. Gamblers do that too. Not unlike gamblers, successful capitalists don't always attribute their success to luck. I think that sort of thing is a source of much of the distortion field you describe surrounding this topic. There are enough mixed messages in our culture that not confronting our own faults is sort of built into the system. It is possible to gain huge reward in this world, and still be horribly wrong. But do we want a world where everyone is always right? Wouldn't that get in the way of things like problem solving, which often needs conflicting opinions to come to a consensus?

Similar to that regarding capitalism is the notion that we do a lot of things out of prevention. We know more about certain things that could go wrong. It's more than no shirt, no shoes, no service. Sometimes, it's no hoodie. But we can lean on those rules of thumb a little too much. We can fixate upon those threats when something else is much more likely to wreck us. We develop underclasses because people get caught in that type of thinking, as players in the game and not as potential business people. It limits their opportunity. It narrows their path. It becomes easy for those people to fulfill the prophecies of those who only see them as things that could go wrong, and not as potential customers. The economics are against them, and few people overcome economics. They shouldn't expect any sympathy from the general public, especially from those who live in the demon haunted world, because this is about prevention and fear is more powerful than love in the demon haunted world. I have been astonished at some of the things I've seen people write concerning those who are sticking up for themselves in this sort of thing. Currently, it's black people suffering from the ire, but it could be any group next time.