House of Eratosthenes

Thank God the election is over. We’ve spent plenty enough time & energy on it. Nevertheless, it is useful to ponder the path forward…the whole reason for us obsessing about it in the first place, after all, is because it matters.

At about the 50-minute mark Newt starts talking about the IYI, the Intellectual Yet Idiot. He should’ve found a way to put this at the beginning.

I was looking it up in my archives, and I came across this: “There’s nothing more frightening than rule by the smart.”

And of course, what geniuses like Rogoff know more than anything is that their great genius gives them the ability to envision a far more perfect world than this imperfect thing we’ve been suffering with so far. Naturally the visions of these geniuses are all variations of the same thing, namely some kind of government program to more closely monitor and/or control the people.

Yes, it’s been playing like a one-note samba since…well, forever really. It probably started playing a whole lot louder with FDR’s “brain trust” but it sure hasn’t subsided much since then. Washington’s got these really smart guys in it, who are going to fix everything, we know this to be true because they have very, very, very impressive resumes…

…that don’t actually have anything on them. Not, that is, anything that has to do with getting actual work done.

Be that as it may, I’m anxious to look past the election, although it’s a cinch that we’ll be arguing back & forth about the 45th President pretty much constantly for the next 48 months at least. After the New Year, I’m bracing for a never-ending drumbeat of “ZOMG!! Did you hear about what he’s done NOW??” Well, if President Trump does something wrong, by all means call him out on it. Just state the case, first, is all I ask.

It’s not reasonable to demand a specific defense, if the attack is not specific. Right?

Quite right. And if the tail end of 2016 has found me exhausted from & unable to tolerate more of anything, it’s the non-specific, incoherent, incongruous, nonsensical, wink-wink-nudge-nudge “let’s see you defend this” attack.

It isn’t just the election. From my Hello Kitty of Blogging account:

People, I notice, have a pronounced tendency to form “logical” conclusions by dismissing any other logical conclusion about the same thing that says something different. The dismissal usually involves mockery, but it can also rely on sarcasm, a bunch of logical fallacies, name-calling, “You’re on the wrong side of history,” et al….

Point is, dismissal is not reasoning. It can be persuasive in an argument. And so, as they win arguments, people get suckered into thinking they’ve reasoned. Then they see they weren’t correct. Actually, the winning of the arguments is a good example of this. “This oughtta convince him/her/them for sure!!” And it doesn’t happen.

“It doesn’t happen” is something we’ve watched take place ALL…YEAR…LONG. I’m not just talking about the election, pretty much done with that now. We would do well to dwell on the lesson. Especially with Christmas, and a new year, coming at us like a freight train with the throttle stuck…

You don’t make a logical argument that “My grandkids will just love this homemade sweater” by sarcastically dismissing the idea that they would prefer socks. It kinda feels like you did, but you didn’t. That’s exactly what’s been happening all year. EVERYBODY knew the election would go one way, and then it went a different way. That’s the way it’s been going down with everything. Think about it. We’ve spent the last year or two, solid, watching established narratives get kneed in the gut…and then the nose, and then the groin, and then in the teeth, and then in the groin again. There’s a quote from Men In Black about this, something about “500 years ago people knew the Earth was flat, fifteen minutes ago you knew there were no aliens, whaddya gonna know tomorrow?”

Almost like a lesson from on high. From someone who must be wistfully wondering…what’s it gonna take??

Found the clip:

What’s happened to us lately? That’s the real question.

I think we’ve collectively developed a real phobia against the future. I say “collectively.” Some of us can look at the future and say what is true about it, “Some parts of this are easy to predict, others not so much. I don’t know what will happen. Every speculation on it is a gamble.” In other words…Let’s See. Let’s-See takes balls, though, and a lot of people are missing this. That is not to say they couldn’t develop the ability if only they made a priority out of it.

Things the way they are, though…they know SO much that is not so. Much of it is about what’s going to happen. Any day now. For absolute sure.

When it doesn’t happen, they can’t say “I was wrong” — can’t even say “I’m surprised.” Surprise seems to have passed out of fashion, but it seems to be more than just fashion. Like I said, above, a genuine phobia.

A good resolution for the general population in 2017 would be to get the hell over it. The future is the future, and the only way to find out what’s going to happen in it, is to wait awhile until it isn’t the future anymore. There is no substitute. That’s not to counsel against trying to speculate, trying to predict, maybe even trying to bet. Nothing wrong with any of these. But a man who is absolutely sure about something that is not a matter of absolute certainty, is not being honest with himself, and when you aren’t honest with yourself it’s impossible to be honest with anyone else.

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How Trump Beat the MediaWednesday, December 21st, 2016

How Trump Beat the Media
Wednesday, December 21st, 2016