In America, being perceived as smart confers social status. Nearly everyone sees themselves as smart. Those who think they’re smart want to control those whom they view as less smart. Many want to be governed by those whom they perceive as smart. Nonetheless, Joe Biden is President. And most governors and all living ex-presidents shilled for the jabs.
Thanks for this, Mark. Your essays are a balm. There has been such an astounding amount of stupidity on display in recent times. And cruelty is a form of stupidty. Plenty of that, too.
It’s been an excruciatingly painful realization that my two older brothers, who I once thought to be brilliant, indeed are not.
One has an IQ of 149 (he likes to remind me of that). The other had a sudden death happen in his extended family. Neither have awoken. And sadly, I truly believe never will. 😢
Feb 1, 2023·edited Feb 1, 2023Liked by Mark Oshinskie
Spielberg is only smart in that he is able to extract money from people less smart than he.
Of which, there are many.
Personally, I'll take Spielberg and Hollywood's advice on healthcare when I decide to take the investment advice of the local homeless gentleman down the street.
Love this article especially the line about the “full event passes for three years of Fear Fest.” I am not a movie buff so I could care less about Spielberg, but I grew up listening to Jackson Browne. Seeing some of my favorite artists take such a hard line on vaccines and masks was very disturbing. I really didn’t care about any artist’s political views but promoting the Scamdemic changed not only my opinion but my play list.
As much (partly deserved) heat as Scott Adams is taking over his positing that those who instinctively mistrusted government "lucked out," in my own personal experience, there's some truth there. I've often wondered why I, a barely high school graduate from podunk Iowa, smelled a rat immediately while so many I perceived as infinitely smarter came so quickly under the spell. Some still there. 🙄
While an inherent distrust of authority was certainly helpful, it's not the whole story. The Scott Adams of the world would have you believe only shiny experts like him are capable of real analysis. They sleep better at night assuming losers like myself can't possibly learn.
I have been saying this for 3 years, mostly in response to my patients who say: 'My [spouse/parent/sibling] is really smart; they just fell for the whole covidmania theater: mask, lockdown, jabs. BUT, they're really smart.'
To which I respond: COVID has been several mostly bad things, but above all, it's been an IQ test, and the most important IQ test of our lives. Those who flunked wallowed in covidmania.
Smart does not equal eagerness to follow asinine marching orders.
This essay really highlighted one of the major frustrations I had with Coronamania. When I would try to have a fact based discussion with people using the percentages and real life numbers from my state, they'd just fall back on the lame, “well, I don’t want to be that one person who could die from it”. Then the cognitive dissonance over the vaccines was stunning. I remember a conversation with a woman who had been in hospital administration. It was a weird circular conversation in which I pointed out the vaccines didn’t stop her from getting CoVid. Basically, the conversation ended with her saying , “well , I still think everyone should get one,.” It was so bizarre to see people unable to form a cogent argument once you refuted the talking point with actual facts. It was truly as if they never thought beyond what they were told. It was like living in an alternate universe with a bunch of preprogrammed zombies.
This topic of intelligence/smartness overlaps with another topic: a survival mindset. I wish I could cite the studies, but there have been some that show that in a crisis situation, around 10% of the population are survivors, 10% panic, flail about and can ruin it for everyone else -- and the 80% in the middle can be led to safety (and are looking for leaders to tell them what to do).
Perhaps this is another axis of "smartness" -- but it is actually an automatic type of reaction. 10% automatically, instinctively "know" where the exit to safety is, and make a beeline towards it, often ignoring everyone else around them. They just know what to do. (this is not always a literal "exit" but can also be a "fight or flight" reflex -- sometimes fighting is the necessary survival behavior, and it is almost as though superhuman strength or power takes over, temporarily, to get the person out of the situation)
The fire and airplane safety drills that we do are to help ingrain some of this automatic, instinctive behavior through training and repetition into the 80% in the middle. However, in an emergency, there is still a need for a leader, with a bullhorn or loud voice, or over a loudspeaker, to guide and tell the herd where to go and what to do -- in as calm a way as possible. This works for most people. And prior drills do help.
Well -- back to COVID -- what happened? Our "leaders" were fake and led us astray. They, too, many of them, were also similarly led astray, though a significant number are in on the plot. And the voices of those true leaders who really were trying to save people were silenced and censored.
When an emergency or sudden crisis occurs, the herd becomes frightened (and the TV told us to be frightened, didn't it?), the 10% survivors go into heightened senses, instinctive survival mode (which is beyond logic or is kind of a higher form of thinking -- people in this group will understand what I'm talking about). But the 80% in the middle want to be reassured by a person in authority who will guide them to safety. The propaganda voice has been the loud voice, and the herd listens to the loudest voice.
Feb 1, 2023·edited Feb 1, 2023Liked by Mark Oshinskie
Great stuff Mark.
One of the odd silver linings of Covid is that those who played for Team Reality the last 3 years can now know their critical thinking and decision making skills are in the top decile of society.
As well, we have been given full transparency to the quality (or lack of quality) of decision making of others in your life and in positions of authority or prestige. Offering a pretty good roadmap for who to pay attention to going forward.
What constitutes a person as being smart? Let's set up a little spectrum just for discussion purposes. On this spectrum, there are three reference points. Smart based on intelligence, credentials, and practicality.
I know some truly intelligent people. But I would not say they are smart. Their discernment powers are not great. They certainly know a lot, but whether it is useful is another matter.
I know many highly credential people. Some of them are smart because they have learned to transcend the validation of the credential to achieve significance in their field. The question is,"Take them out of their institutional setting of their credential, what happens then?"
And, I know people who would not rate high on an IQ scale or have any credentials, and yet, they are incredibly smart. They are because they have used what talent that they have to create a life that matters. One of those people is a friend of mine. An unspectacular high school education. No higher education. No professional credentials. Spent his life as a store clerk. And, yet, his intuitive sense of people and organizational situations is absolutely remarkable. He is a wise man. I find it far easier to trust him than many of the intelligent, credential people that I know because he is not confused by abstract arguments. Every time I am with him, I learn something.
my BF kept asking "are we crazy? what if everyone is right and we're wrong?" i had no such doubts and besides, if the vaccines were everything their advertising claimed, i still reserve- even if it works out to my detriment, the right not to take them.
i saw so many formerly logical intelligent health conscious people go off the rails, start behaving in ways that were the opposite of how they had always been before.
on the phone with an acquaintance in NY one night, she could hear over my speaker phone the happy completely normal noise of my neighbor's family enjoying the balmy evening in the privacy of their own backyard. she panicked and demanded that i call the police immediately to turn them in! i would never do any such thing and i wouldn't have thought that she would either, especially since she's jewish and must have heard sad histories of her people being betrayed by their neighbors more than a few times.
and yet, scratch her kind tolerant humane appearing surface and you release a petty tyrant. scratch my surface as far down as you like and i'm still me. i didn't change.
i've always been rebellious, always mistrusted organized medicine, always steered clear of doctors, always handled any virus or flu in my own contrary way, always sourced my food carefully.
imagine me waking up one morning and being totally compliant, completely trusting of medicine, running to a doctor at the slightest sniffle, treating a flu with tylenol, and eating any old garbage that came in a package!
i wouldn't recognize myself!!
i pass through life these days, wondering who all these people are. could i trust them? would they turn on me? if the chips were down, who among them would be steadfast and true? it's pretty sobering
I believe, regarding colleges, that they were mega bribed with m[b]illions of taxpayer funded money to be that stupid. Maybe they weren’t so stupid after all, just mega evil.
This is so full of truth. Common sense trumps a degree of any kind. Our society is so backwards in its values in so many ways, and the remedies they concoct to control people and the environment, such as all of wokeism, exemplify the UTTER STUPIDITY of the uber educated and brainwashed.
Thanks for this, Mark. Your essays are a balm. There has been such an astounding amount of stupidity on display in recent times. And cruelty is a form of stupidty. Plenty of that, too.
It’s been an excruciatingly painful realization that my two older brothers, who I once thought to be brilliant, indeed are not.
One has an IQ of 149 (he likes to remind me of that). The other had a sudden death happen in his extended family. Neither have awoken. And sadly, I truly believe never will. 😢
Spielberg is only smart in that he is able to extract money from people less smart than he.
Of which, there are many.
Personally, I'll take Spielberg and Hollywood's advice on healthcare when I decide to take the investment advice of the local homeless gentleman down the street.
Love this article especially the line about the “full event passes for three years of Fear Fest.” I am not a movie buff so I could care less about Spielberg, but I grew up listening to Jackson Browne. Seeing some of my favorite artists take such a hard line on vaccines and masks was very disturbing. I really didn’t care about any artist’s political views but promoting the Scamdemic changed not only my opinion but my play list.
As much (partly deserved) heat as Scott Adams is taking over his positing that those who instinctively mistrusted government "lucked out," in my own personal experience, there's some truth there. I've often wondered why I, a barely high school graduate from podunk Iowa, smelled a rat immediately while so many I perceived as infinitely smarter came so quickly under the spell. Some still there. 🙄
While an inherent distrust of authority was certainly helpful, it's not the whole story. The Scott Adams of the world would have you believe only shiny experts like him are capable of real analysis. They sleep better at night assuming losers like myself can't possibly learn.
I have been saying this for 3 years, mostly in response to my patients who say: 'My [spouse/parent/sibling] is really smart; they just fell for the whole covidmania theater: mask, lockdown, jabs. BUT, they're really smart.'
To which I respond: COVID has been several mostly bad things, but above all, it's been an IQ test, and the most important IQ test of our lives. Those who flunked wallowed in covidmania.
Smart does not equal eagerness to follow asinine marching orders.
I don't expect anyone from the Hollyweird cult to go against the narrative publicly. I have a feeling most actually know it's all a load of bullshit.
I have a Masters degree from Boston University, so I be smart. Wait AOC went there as well, should have sold that stock short.
This essay really highlighted one of the major frustrations I had with Coronamania. When I would try to have a fact based discussion with people using the percentages and real life numbers from my state, they'd just fall back on the lame, “well, I don’t want to be that one person who could die from it”. Then the cognitive dissonance over the vaccines was stunning. I remember a conversation with a woman who had been in hospital administration. It was a weird circular conversation in which I pointed out the vaccines didn’t stop her from getting CoVid. Basically, the conversation ended with her saying , “well , I still think everyone should get one,.” It was so bizarre to see people unable to form a cogent argument once you refuted the talking point with actual facts. It was truly as if they never thought beyond what they were told. It was like living in an alternate universe with a bunch of preprogrammed zombies.
Wow! Hard to imagine finding an article better than this one today. Thank you!
This topic of intelligence/smartness overlaps with another topic: a survival mindset. I wish I could cite the studies, but there have been some that show that in a crisis situation, around 10% of the population are survivors, 10% panic, flail about and can ruin it for everyone else -- and the 80% in the middle can be led to safety (and are looking for leaders to tell them what to do).
Perhaps this is another axis of "smartness" -- but it is actually an automatic type of reaction. 10% automatically, instinctively "know" where the exit to safety is, and make a beeline towards it, often ignoring everyone else around them. They just know what to do. (this is not always a literal "exit" but can also be a "fight or flight" reflex -- sometimes fighting is the necessary survival behavior, and it is almost as though superhuman strength or power takes over, temporarily, to get the person out of the situation)
The fire and airplane safety drills that we do are to help ingrain some of this automatic, instinctive behavior through training and repetition into the 80% in the middle. However, in an emergency, there is still a need for a leader, with a bullhorn or loud voice, or over a loudspeaker, to guide and tell the herd where to go and what to do -- in as calm a way as possible. This works for most people. And prior drills do help.
Well -- back to COVID -- what happened? Our "leaders" were fake and led us astray. They, too, many of them, were also similarly led astray, though a significant number are in on the plot. And the voices of those true leaders who really were trying to save people were silenced and censored.
When an emergency or sudden crisis occurs, the herd becomes frightened (and the TV told us to be frightened, didn't it?), the 10% survivors go into heightened senses, instinctive survival mode (which is beyond logic or is kind of a higher form of thinking -- people in this group will understand what I'm talking about). But the 80% in the middle want to be reassured by a person in authority who will guide them to safety. The propaganda voice has been the loud voice, and the herd listens to the loudest voice.
Great stuff Mark.
One of the odd silver linings of Covid is that those who played for Team Reality the last 3 years can now know their critical thinking and decision making skills are in the top decile of society.
As well, we have been given full transparency to the quality (or lack of quality) of decision making of others in your life and in positions of authority or prestige. Offering a pretty good roadmap for who to pay attention to going forward.
A level of clarity most would have never had.
What constitutes a person as being smart? Let's set up a little spectrum just for discussion purposes. On this spectrum, there are three reference points. Smart based on intelligence, credentials, and practicality.
I know some truly intelligent people. But I would not say they are smart. Their discernment powers are not great. They certainly know a lot, but whether it is useful is another matter.
I know many highly credential people. Some of them are smart because they have learned to transcend the validation of the credential to achieve significance in their field. The question is,"Take them out of their institutional setting of their credential, what happens then?"
And, I know people who would not rate high on an IQ scale or have any credentials, and yet, they are incredibly smart. They are because they have used what talent that they have to create a life that matters. One of those people is a friend of mine. An unspectacular high school education. No higher education. No professional credentials. Spent his life as a store clerk. And, yet, his intuitive sense of people and organizational situations is absolutely remarkable. He is a wise man. I find it far easier to trust him than many of the intelligent, credential people that I know because he is not confused by abstract arguments. Every time I am with him, I learn something.
my BF kept asking "are we crazy? what if everyone is right and we're wrong?" i had no such doubts and besides, if the vaccines were everything their advertising claimed, i still reserve- even if it works out to my detriment, the right not to take them.
i saw so many formerly logical intelligent health conscious people go off the rails, start behaving in ways that were the opposite of how they had always been before.
on the phone with an acquaintance in NY one night, she could hear over my speaker phone the happy completely normal noise of my neighbor's family enjoying the balmy evening in the privacy of their own backyard. she panicked and demanded that i call the police immediately to turn them in! i would never do any such thing and i wouldn't have thought that she would either, especially since she's jewish and must have heard sad histories of her people being betrayed by their neighbors more than a few times.
and yet, scratch her kind tolerant humane appearing surface and you release a petty tyrant. scratch my surface as far down as you like and i'm still me. i didn't change.
i've always been rebellious, always mistrusted organized medicine, always steered clear of doctors, always handled any virus or flu in my own contrary way, always sourced my food carefully.
imagine me waking up one morning and being totally compliant, completely trusting of medicine, running to a doctor at the slightest sniffle, treating a flu with tylenol, and eating any old garbage that came in a package!
i wouldn't recognize myself!!
i pass through life these days, wondering who all these people are. could i trust them? would they turn on me? if the chips were down, who among them would be steadfast and true? it's pretty sobering
I believe, regarding colleges, that they were mega bribed with m[b]illions of taxpayer funded money to be that stupid. Maybe they weren’t so stupid after all, just mega evil.
This is so full of truth. Common sense trumps a degree of any kind. Our society is so backwards in its values in so many ways, and the remedies they concoct to control people and the environment, such as all of wokeism, exemplify the UTTER STUPIDITY of the uber educated and brainwashed.