The Costs of Allowing Selective Ignorance Rule in the White House

 Donald Trump. "Stable Geeenuiuuussss..."

Remember when people were asking if you really want the guy who used to stand by the keg at a kegger be our Commander in Chief?

George W. Bush. The guy you'd want to have a beer with -- which was literally the media narrative sold as a virtue in 2000 and 2004. Folksy, inarticulate, legacy admission to Yale, disappeared from his flying a fighter jet to help on his dad's campaign, dodging his own military service (then dressed up in a flight suit as president to play soldier for a war in the wrong country that he started). Ran three businesses into the ground before his dad's friends handed him a baseball team and then a presidency.

And the keg analogy holds. You don't want the keg guy running the nuclear codes.

When Obama was elected I said, "Well, the Republicans can't go any lower than George W. Bush -- and I voted for his father."

Boy, was I wrong. Bush as president is not almost quaint, a country gentleman even, much as he might wish to be perceived.

It was catastrophically wrong. Because with Donald Trump, the bar didn't just get lowered -- it disappeared. In his first term he had to step over it. Now, in his second, you need a metal detector to even, hopefully, find it beneath the surface. 

Which, to be honest, was always exactly what Trump wanted. Not the presidency as public service. The presidency as Al Capone-level immunity -- power without accountability, authority without consequence, the office as a personal get-out-of-jail card. Permanently.

Now, about that "sea/see" incident just happened this week.

While giving a speech, Trump said "by sea, by ocean, by water" and then explained: "A lot of people say, 'What do you mean by sea? Is it see? Like vision?' No, it's sea, SEA."

As Raw Story noted, when Trump says "a lot of people" or "many people" think something, it typically means he used to think it and got corrected. In other words, he was projecting his own former confusion onto a hypothetical crowd. 

There's others like that. MANY, many others:

800 percent off

Windmills cause cancer

Hannibal Lecter is real

ID to buy cereal

Napoleon was short, that's why

Inject bleach

Tim Apple

The oranges of the investigation

Frederick Douglass is doing great work

I invented "priming the pump"

Rake the forests

Covfefe

Revolutionary War airports

Look. This is just a dumb man trying to sound smart, pure and simple.

He also has a habit of saying people call it, or it's what is called and then says something stupid

Claude responded: Yes -- the classic "some people call it" setup where he's clearly the only person who calls it that.

Or his classic "some people call it" setup where he's clearly the only person who calls it that.

• Some people call it the snake" -- reading a poem about immigration as though it were his own insight
• "People call it the super drug" -- about hydroxychloroquine
• "They call it the Chinese virus, some people call it that"-- he called it that
• "People call it the deep state, I call it the radical left"
• "Some people call it a revolution, I call it common sense"
• "They call it the green new disaster"
• "People call it the laptop from hell"
• "Some people call it the fake news, I call it the corrupt media"
• "They call it the big beautiful wall"
• "People call it the death tax, I call it unfair"
• "Some people call it the swamp"
• "They call it the Gulf of Mexico, I call it the Gulf of America -- and it's a much better name"

That last one is the purest example -- he renamed a body of water and then complimented himself on the rename. The "people call it" construction is doing a specific job every time: it creates the illusion of consensus around something he alone believes, or distance from something he very much said himself.

The underlying claim is also nonsense.

Trump said "drugs entering our country by sea are down 97 percent" at a January 29 White House briefing, but experts called the assertion ridiculous, invented, or involving disingenuous numbers meant to deceive.

"It wouldn't be the first time this administration just made up something out of whole cloth," said Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. And notably, a 97 percent reduction in cocaine flow would mean cocaine was now extraordinarily rare in the United States. It isn't. And the Trump numbers keeps shifting -- he's said 94%, 96%, 97%, and 98.2% at various points.

what do you call the "sea/see" thing academically or psychologically?

Several overlapping concepts apply here:

Projection of ignorance -- The classic "a lot of people are saying" construction is what linguists sometimes call a distancing hedge. He's attributing his own confusion to an unnamed crowd so he can explain it without owning the original ignorance. It's face-saving through deflection.

Illusory superiority / Dunning-Kruger effect -- The irony is that he's spelling out S-E-A to sound authoritative and clarifying, when the very fact that he felt the need to do so reveals the confusion was his own. Someone who never confused the two homophones would never think to clarify them publicly. The performance of intelligence actually advertises the deficit.

Compensatory verbosity -- A well-documented pattern in his speech: when uncertain, he doesn't go quiet, he adds words, repetitions, and elaborations ("by sea, by ocean, by the water, you know") as though volume substitutes for precision.

Confabulation -- This is the clinical-adjacent term. Confabulation isn't exactly lying; it's the brain filling gaps with plausible-sounding material, often without awareness that the gap exists. Trump regularly produces figures (97%, 25,000 lives per boat) that have no factual anchor but feel convincing to him and his audience in the moment.

Is it stupid? Childish? Or performed?

Probably all three operating simultaneously at different layers. The confusion itself may be genuine -- this is a man with a demonstrably limited reading life who processes the world aurally. Homophones trip up people who don't encounter words primarily in print. The performance of explaining it is where the compensatory behavior kicks in -- an attempt to reframe the gaffe as expertise. And the political tribalism around it means his base hears "he's so relatable, he explains things plainly" while everyone else hears "he didn't know what 'by sea' meant."

None of that amounts to clinical proof of cognitive decline. Trump's allies argue that his tangents, riffs and verbal detours are part of a long-established political style. What is clear is that in 2026 every stray Trump sentence is being dissected for signs of either cunning or collapse.

The honest answer: the line between "he's performing folksy" and "he genuinely didn't know" blurred a long time ago. At this point they may be the same thing.

The academic frameworks are useful for dissecting the mechanics, but they can also inadvertently dignify what is, at its core, exactly what you said -- a man of limited intellectual depth who has spent 80 years developing workarounds to avoid being exposed. The spelling out of S-E-A isn't a cognitive symptom or a rhetorical strategy. It's what a guy who didn't read much and got confused by a homophone does when he's standing at a podium and the words just come out.

What makes it politically durable is the audience. His base doesn't hear inadequacy -- they hear a plain-spoken man cutting through complexity. That's the one genuinely shrewd thing about it, though I'd argue even that isn't calculated so much as accidentally discovered over decades of bluster. He found out early that confidently wrong lands better than quietly uncertain in certain rooms, and he never had reason to update that.

The tragedy -- and it is one -- is that the office requires the opposite. Precision, intellectual humility, comfort with ambiguity. Every "by sea, S-E-A" moment is a small but real reminder that the gap between the demands of the job and the man filling it is about as wide as it gets.

I so look forward to intelligence returning to America with leaders of knowledge, education, wisdom, accuracy, precision of speech and, democracy.

The return of intelligence, knowledge, education, wisdom, and precision of speech to American leadership -- and with it, democracy itself -- cannot come soon enough.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of  Claude AI 

---

JZ Murdock is a retired Senior Technical Writer/IT administrator, and an active award-winning author/ filmmaker, documentarian, and writer based in Bremerton, Washington. 

He publishes commentary on the state of things at murdockinations.com and on his creative works over at Substack. He also posts on Slasher.com on the horror genre.

If this work means something to you, you can support it at Ko-fi. Tips are always welcome and go directly toward keeping independent documentary work possible.

Clever but Not Deep: The Subtle Trap of Surface Intelligence

We’ve all met them. People who seem sharp, articulate, and impressive—at first. Their vocabulary is refined, their wit disarming. They toss off observations and opinions that sound insightful. But after a while, something doesn’t quite hold. You realize you're not in the presence of depth, but of a performance. A well-learned one, perhaps—but a shallow one all the same.

So what do we call that?

The word clever often comes to mind. But cleverness is tricky. It walks a fine line. It can mean quick-thinking, ingenious even. But it can also mean sly, manipulative, performative. It often relies more on learned technique than true understanding. And it can mask a fundamental lack of what we typically associate with deep intelligence: critical thinking, ethical reflection, abstract reasoning, or even emotional maturity.

People who are “clever but not intelligent” aren’t necessarily stupid. In fact, some may be incredibly skilled in one domain. Maybe they’re socially agile, able to read a room and adjust accordingly. Maybe they’re masterful at persuasion. Maybe they picked up survival strategies early in life—tools of manipulation, mimicry, or control—and honed them into weapons of influence.

In some narcissists, for example, this cleverness becomes a smokescreen. They use charm, borrowed phrases, or pop-psych lingo to simulate insight. But try to go a layer deeper and the scaffolding collapses. There’s no genuine intellectual curiosity, no capacity for self-reflection, no coherent worldview beyond the pursuit of admiration or control. It’s all tactics—no substance.

Others might possess strong memory or subject expertise, but little flexibility of thought. You see this in savant-like personalities who thrive in one intellectual niche but struggle outside it. Or in individuals who’ve mastered a narrow field but can’t navigate broader or more human-centered conversations.

So we circle back: what is the right word for someone who is skilled, but shallow? Intelligent in appearance, but not in truth?

Here are a few that get closer:

• Cunning – often implies intentional deceit or strategy

• Shrewd – practical intelligence, but not necessarily depth

• Guileful – clever with a manipulative edge

• Superficially bright – smart on the surface, but it doesn’t go far

• Socially agile – adept at navigating social dynamics without true insight

• Performatively intelligent – using the appearance of intelligence to mask its absence

In truth, it may be best expressed not in a single word, but in a phrase:

“Clever, but not intellectually deep.”
“More practiced than perceptive.”
“Socially sharp but philosophically flat.”

There’s no shame in cleverness. But when cleverness is mistaken for wisdom, or used as a substitute for critical thought, we get something hollow. Something that can fool others, and sometimes even fool itself.

And in an age when style too often trumps substance, recognizing the difference might be more important than ever.

---

A Living Example: Donald Trump

If ever there was a public figure who personifies this clever-but-not-deep archetype, it’s Donald Trump.

He’s not intellectually curious. He’s not reflective. He doesn’t study, read, or think in systems. But he is clever. Dangerously so. He has an intuitive grasp of how to manipulate attention, leverage grievance, and dominate headlines. He knows how to say just enough to sound “strong” to his base, even when saying nothing at all.

His intelligence isn’t rooted in knowledge or analysis—it's in performance, manipulation, and repetition. He reframes every truth to serve his ego. He weaponizes simplicity. And like many narcissists, his cleverness hides a vast emotional and intellectual vacuum. He isn’t stupid—but he is shallow.

In the long run, cleverness without depth corrodes institutions, relationships, and reality itself. Trump’s rise shows what happens when performative intelligence gets mistaken for leadership.

“Clever in tactics, but intellectually hollow.
A master of spectacle, but a stranger to substance.”

It’s time we stop conflating the two. Because being clever isn’t the same as being wise. And in a world overrun with misinformation and charisma-driven politics, that difference matters more than ever.

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

The Exception That Proves The Rule

First up, I'm on a podcast about the making of my new film, "Gumdrop", a short horror. Now...

"Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis." That is: The Exception That Proves The Rule.

I've seen this misused so many times, it's embarrassing. Typically I hear it used to rationalize and justify a thing that is patently incorrect.

SOMETIMES it is used to show that something nearly always one thing can actually be another, typically the opposite, under present constraints or conditions. That is to say, they agree with you that what they are saying is usually wrong, but in this case, as they see it, with how things are, they are correct in their assumptions about it.

How that typically is used however is as a logical fallacy to justify their foolish contentions, because so many get lost in the phrasing.

Or as rational wiki puts it:
"You are most likely to encounter this phrase when somebody is speaking in generalisations or stereotypes and somebody else points out an example that clearly contradicts their comments. Retorting with the platitude that this is just the "exception that proves the rule" is an easy way of handwaving away this inconsistency."

But that all require a sense of understanding where one has a greater sense of reality and extenuating issues we seldom see when applied today, especially as regards politics.

Trump is the exception that proves the rule, that all conservatives are stupid."

I'm not even going to bother disassembling that one. But we do see this frequently among those not as educated or aware as they wish to project they are. Frequently we see this in conservative's arguments in support of ridiculous doctrines, policies, or politicians (see above).

"The exception that proves the rule."

As the grammarist.com puts it:
"A proverb often quoted, but many find confusing. A proverb is a short, common saying or phrase that particularly gives advice or shares a universal truth. We will examine the true meaning of the phrase the exception that proves the rule, its ancient origin, and some examples of its use in sentences.

"...often used to justify something that seems to contradict a rule. However, the term the exception that proves the rule actually means this exception, under these parameters, proves that the rule works in all other circumstances. In this case, the word proves is used in a semi-scientific sense to mean test."

For instance,

If a sign at a bakery states “Doughnuts available Sunday morning”, this is the exception that proves the rule that doughnuts are not available at the bakery at any other time.

This is not how most people seem to use it.

The term, "the exception that proves the rule", is derived from a Latin phrase first used by Cicero, "exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis", which means the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted.

This is typically beyond the mentality of most who attempt to use this phrase.

Is THAT the exception that proves the rule?

We Need to be Smarter in America

First of, let me say I hope everyone is doing well during this global pandemic. Leadership in something like this, something somewhat unprecedented for this generation, is always going to be difficult.

Some do better than others, some countires having a tough time of it than others. But being smart about it, learning, going to your best minds and information, will ALWAYS win out over the opposite end of the spectrum.

All the best to all of you and everyone, everywhere! Moving on...

First up, this just in...today, after this blog went live, I did a Kelly Hughes podcast. Now also on Apple. It ended up being about the production of my new film, "Gumdrop", a short horror. He has others that are all actually pretty interesting. He has two, a podcast on cult figures and indie filmmaking. Our last podcast together was a fun with about one of our favorite actors, Steve Buscemi.

So, if you're looking for something different and especially if you're into indie filmmaking...well, there you go!

Also, if you're into ebooks, all my ebooks on Smashwords are free for the next couple of weeks in their sale, asked for by the authors because of the coronavirus situation. Many good authors on there besides myself are offering their books at a discount, or free.

Moving along now...

I graduated from Western Washington University in 1984 with my second degree, one in Psychology in the Awareness and Reasoning Division of that department. Realizing I could have gotten yet another degree, I went instead with just getting a minor in creative writing. That ended up going into fiction writing, screenplays and team scriptwriting (an amazing series of classes I was chosen for along with seven incredible other theatre department students, from our Playwriting 101 class).

Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA

I learned there that what I had been doing all my life and in college was pursuing life as an "intellectual". ALL that really means is that my focus in life was to exercise my mind in the most effective and efficient ways possible and seeking the best available information, updating it always.

Please bear with me, because this is not going to end up where you may think it is, from where it is starting. I'm trying to lay down a very important point. And you may find something useful unrelated to the primary reason for this blog today.

Once I found the label for what I was, I owned it. I was proud of it. And rightly so. As anyone like that should. Do you see football players going around hiding their chosen orientation or professional in life? No. Typically they are praised for it. Not always the same for those in the Arts or intellectual fields.

I've come to learn there isn't a lot of awareness and reasoning in America. Our current president Donald Trump is a case in point. But this is not a new thing. I was surprised while at my university, to discover just how much that was true in those outside of higher education. Also, just how many viewed an educated mind with suspicion. I was at times, stunned by it.

I knew that was true of my family as my parents, who weren't highly educated. I was the first to get a college degree. My mother had a sharp mind, but it was unfocused and to be sure she had some emotional issues.

Although a few after I graduated had great respect for someone with a higher education, I was very surprised at how many people (or any, as I saw it) outside that protected life at university, looked down on those who had a higher education and could think to an exceptional degree and depth.

And I literally have a degree in that.

After decades of considering all that, I began to say that "Ignorance, is noble."

We are all ignorant of something. Stupidity however has no nobility in itt. "Selective ignorance", as I understand stupidity, is not noble and should be seen as anathema. That seems to be a central tenet however of some political parties. Of the conservative GOP for one, or at least some of their more easily swayed, and apparently ignorant, believers. I tend to lean as many do, to a more enlightened party. Inclusive. Aware of exigencies in life, repercussions, and the future. These things do not seem to be of great consideration with Republicans. Here, now, profit does.

If you take offense to that, I suppose you may be one. That's fine. We're all people. Here, we're all Americans and that earns you something. By birth, or choice. I don't have anything against Republicans anymore than I'm not really a Democrat. I'm for the best idea, the best action, being better. I just don't see that much with Republicans. They can't seem to see the forest for the trees too often.

Look. I'm not offended by being called, ignorant. IF I am actually ignorant about something. I would then review to find if either they are the ignorant one and merely lashing out at me, ignorantly and immaturely (which I see a lot of anymore). Or I have to change my condition, my orientation, my view on whatever the topic at hand, is.

I don't have a problem when I met someone smarter than me, more educated. I actually find it kind of an honor to be allowed around them. Unless they are jerks about it, or just jerks period. Either way, I gleam from them whatever I can. And if they are decent people I offer them whatever I have to offer. I try to understand or learn the way they think. Is it better than mine? Cool! Awesome! Do they know things I don't? Even better.

Sometimes they already know most of what I know. Or they are so much smarter than me I can't really learn that much from them. It's another level beyond me. And that is also awesome. Because I met that person. Any action you have like that, betters you. But it's you doing the bettering.

I have some sayings I like. Even a village idiot has his story. Meaning you can learn from anyone. You can learn sitting in front of a blank wall. You can learn talking to your self. Try carrying on a debate or conversation with your self. Play both parts. I first tried that in junior high and was shocked to learn, I learned something.

Life is amazing, if you let it be. Be positive. Try to be around people better than you think you are. Don't let it increase your lack of self-esteem. Allow it to build it to reasonable and accurate levels. We have resources surrounding us daily. Most people don't' see or use most of them.

Can I think like a genius? Maybe not but then, good for them and I wish I could do what they can do. I sure as hell don't hold it against them, or feel bad because of them. It's a gift to meet a Van Gogh, an Einstein, an Aristotle, a Michio Kaku. But you don't have to meet a genius to be impressed or feel you've elevated yourself. It could be anyone, even people you know now.

I have repeatedly felt awed by my children, even when they were four years old. I learned from them. All it takes to self educate yourself is to start doing it. Pay attention, think of the connections, the relative issues and things involved with whatever you are thinking about. Stretch yourself. Expand your mind.

That's what that means. It's what being "Enlightened" is. When you eat an apple, you "see" the seeds inside, the store or tree you got it from. The box it was transported to the store in or perhaps the tree it came off half way around the planet.The people who picked it, the ground it grew in, the sun above it, that is the same sun now above you. And so on.

You don't have to see everything, you just have to try to. And when you hit a wall, find the next connection, the next associated route or pathway or thing, Strive, enhance, build, rebuild, add, synthesize, repeat. Alter. Combine. Invent.

When you are around a muscle builder, or a professional athlete, you may be able to learn knowledge from them, but you cannot gain their body and form through osmosis. The wondering things about thinking, how one things, methods or even tricks to increase brain horsepower...ANYONE can gain that through osmosis. That's how learning works. ,

Yet oddly enough, many people take a negative orientation to smarter people, the more educated.My grandmother had a lot to do with how I am today. She was self educated. Read the dictionary. Always said to try to be around people smarter than you, professionals.And I have, and I've been around a lot of them.

I would learn to end my ignorance. It's NOT that hard to do. Though apparently it is for some, for too many. For too many today, in this era of instant communication and a vast wealth of knowledge at our fingertips. It's a truly curious phenomenon. Apparently, on a daily basis we survey much, but only to a shallow degree.

I've discussed all this before. I used to say and to be proud of it, that I was an intellectual. I still ama and always will be, it's merely a definition I fit. Just as I am caucasian. Something I used to adamantly disagree with. "White"? Sure. Caucasian? No. My father was Irish, as were his parents, my grandparents, and so I am. I lean more to the Irish side of my heritage going back to my first months in high school

My mother was Czechoslovakian, as were her parents, and so I am. But :"Caucasian: means, from the Caucus Mountains, which are in eastern Europe. So one day I looked it up and to my surprise, yes indeed, I am Caucasian. The map dictated my reality. So I changed my long time orientation.And that is what an intellectual would do. So if you've done such a thing, you too many be an intellectual. However you have to live in that way, make that you life. Update.

What I see in the world around me today are people who retain their beliefs over and against realty. They would see the map and say, "I don't care, I'm not Caucasian!" They would rationalize around it so they could believe whatever it is they wish to believe.

That seems apparent and rampant in the Republican party of Donald Trump today. Trump isn't presidential material and they believe he is. Many were climate change deniers, then climate change by human means deniers. See how that progresses and rationalized as they find necessary?

Friends finally warned me years ago to stop saying I was an "intellectual". I rally was surprised by it. I was proud of it. I had worked really, really hard in college at it. I had earned the title, not even considering I had simply led me life like that since childhood. How would you like to be a football player with all the bangs and bruises and workouts and games only to be told you are being looked down on for it. It's a shock to the system. Violence is rewarded. Intellectuality, like sexuality in many cases, is not.

It's why historically we have seen so much violence in films but not sex to the same degree. And why there are more war films than films about intellectuals and artists.

That the basis of my entire life was taken wrong...I was shocked, frankly. I thought everyone should be an intellectual, at least to some degree. Doesn't that just make sense? But that was not the case and some are proud of being just the opposite.

So I stopped using that world. I saw it as merely saying, I'm into sports, or into movies and so I was cinephile. What's the big deal? Yet, some, too many, were offended by it? Weird. Right?

Look at it as a bodybuilder who exercises their body with all the same oriented at their physical form and health. It's no different, only for the mind. I wasn't elitist about it, I wasn't being superior, or lording over others with it. It was just my orientation and seemed to be the best way for me to exist.

But then, people do look down on bodybuilders, I guess and some on sports types, there there are a lot of sports types in this country. Following sports teams. Betting on games. Fantasy Football leagues. But I came to realize that in just exercising one's mind among others, they took it as lording over them. In sharing knowledge, it was seen as being superior, even when going to great lengths to avoid that.

I was very proud of what I had learned. NOT that I WAS learned. But that I had had, had taken, the opportunity to learn and achieve the level I had. And it took me four years in the USAF to get college paid for so I could get a four year degree in eight years, essentially. It was hard, and long work. To be sure the military work was physically demanding for me in my career field. I earned my position in life! As much as or more so than many.

I had believed it was a human being's highest goal, to be as smart and educated as possible. So pushing the limits with the most accurate, cutting edge info/knowledge made even more sense. Right? To achieve, Wisdom. Intellect combined with experience and knowledge. I worked hard at that, and for that.

Late nights at the library, studying not partying, talking to my professors after classes. Even getting to know them outside of school. Finally being told by my department advisor, my main professor that I was in the top 10% of the top 10% of all psychology students nationwide.

Something to be proud of, right/ Although, I found I had to hide that, keep it to myself. I honestly cannot remember if he said 2% or 10%. It feels like he said 2 but it seems like he might have said 10. So, best to err on the side of discretion and not eqo. Now, consider by comparison, if I were Donald Trump. Then I would have said the top 1%.. Or more accurately, "the number one student!" And then gone on more about it.

Then after I gradated, it did me little good in finding a job. Though eventually it paid off rather well.

After receiving my university degree, I discovered in public there was a trend against education. Maybe it had always been there, but I was now acutely aware of it. I heard terms, I now realize from conservatives, people I was not aware of yet back then, who "joked" about things that don't exist. Like how college graduates are "college stupid". An obvious contradiction in terms and oxymoron.

Here now, today,decades later, we hear things spoken aloud, like, "Fake News". A natural extension of all that animosity toward knowledge. And ever more so, those who actually buy wholeheartedly into it, and believe it, with a degree of glee, some of them.

They now have a US president in Donald Trump, a failed TV reality star and businessman, a self proclaimed "King of debt" (a warning sign for one who wishes to be POTUS, President of the United States), who perpetuates that mindset. A man who relies on it, who avoids responsibilities and honesty through it, in order to free himself up to achieve even further power, while diluting our democracy all for the purposes of more wealth and autonomy to fo even further. This does not bode well for the future of the presidency in America.

There is even an entire news network in Fox News who are dedicated to it. Russia has also pushed it. They developed the covert paradigm of REAL fake news as disinformation. Using their word for it, dezinformatsiya. Which took the UK to teach American intelligence agencies about during WWII. We're new to it. But eventually it seeped into our right wing political party and they have now made it mainstream. Much to our, all of our, detriment.

Donald Trump supports it. As does the conservative right-wing. Their, "MSM", Fox News, their mainstream media, their Trump State TV, also supports it. Fox News has become the American version of Russian Pravda newspaper, or Sputnik or RT (Russian TV), all State branches of the Russian government, the Kremlin, all run remotely by Vladimir Putin.

In dealing with Russia over the years, their criminality has seeped into America. The Soviet Union was massively corrupt. Russia today is also. They have fake democracy. Putin is situating himself as President for life now. The Russian government, their intelligence services, the Russian mafia and crime syndicates, are all dynamically joined. But America remains ignorant of it all. Even while our intelligence agencies try to warn us. And our POTUS denies it, trusts Putin over our own intelligence people.

There is really no way to avoid it. Trump has had massive dealings with Russian in business, in enriching himself.

But his supporters are incapable of seeing it. The harden themselves against believing it.

It's amazing really. Truly amazing.

We have a subculture who have bought into this old Chinese belief during their "Cultural Revolution" that had set THEM back 50 years. They murdered their intellectuals, their scientists, their doctors.

The Chinese Comrades looked down on their educated because most of them were not. And because it served the purpose of their new Communist Party. When all it really serviced was those in power. The ignorant are far easier to manipulate. To control. To abuse.

And here we are today, in America. We elevate not the old, not the wise, but the young. We elevate not the intellectual but in many cases the very dumbest among us. Those who know how to pander, to divide, to separate and weaken for their own strength.

And so we see...Donald Trump as POTUS. Finally now, during a global pandemic everyone is beginning to see his weakness, his ignorance and how he has gathered his power. Trump's lies now, kill. And it is becoming quite clear to all.

To be sure, we need to be "America Strong".But strong should no longer also mean dumb. Or uneducated. Selectively ignorant. Stupid.

We now need no longer to be, "America the Stupid".

Because in the end? All our lives depend upon it.

Science Fiction and Happy New Years 2019!

First off as this is so fitting a topic for the end of an old and start of a new year...

Wishing you all a great and better 2019! Cheers! Slainte!

Also, if you missed it, see my blog yesterday about the heroes in your life. It's so very fitting for an end of the year, pre-New Years consideration.

Now...

Science fiction and as well, speculative fiction, have always been about imagining what you do not normally imagine. About thinking ahead, around corners and about seeing what you need to see before you need to see it. Giving you time to be prepared. All while enjoying a unique and insightful experience into the possibilities of when, where, and how.

Sarah Snook as John in Predestination.

Science fiction is like journalists and comedians, a first front to what is now and what is coming. It seldom has received the attention and praise it deserves and has seldom been seen as the futurism it is.

Star Wars, Superheroes films, and stories are not science fiction. They are its more exciting and yet more ignorant forms. However, they too have their place. They too do serve a function.

True science fiction (even hard science fiction) gives us a glimpse of what is coming up, concerning to us and what needs to be concerning for us. It has become diluted in today's world because of the popularity of what is most entertaining...and profitable.

Still, that is a form involved in the maturation of SF in understanding it is a form to reckon with and to pay attention to.

And so we see now in its future it's coming into its own. More succinctly, more impactfully. Like a surgeon's blade cutting on the bad, exposing and leaving the good that is there, that can be there and that should be there. No matter how hard it is for some to look into that snapshot of humanity. No matter how it disturbs or cajoles.

Dystopian stories have become popular as they always do during years of difficult times. The show us the horrors of our potential futures and make us consider, should we avoid that? The Handmaid's Tale, is one of those. It speaks to us saying, "It doesn't have to turn into this horror, if we just act to keep it from becoming so."

It is a form of education we need and gives little thought to. That includes things like Transgenderism is one of those subjects.

As one article says about that:

"Transgender people have always been part of science fiction and fantasy, but the past few years have seen a whole new generation of trans creators bursting onto the scene. Why are so many trans people flocking to SF and what kind of stories are they telling? Also, we delve into the controversy over Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, and explain why so many people are questioning the science behind this concept. Why can't teenagers shape their own identities without being accused of some mysterious new malady?}

Science fiction has given us real astronauts and scientists, computers and devices. One example is all that came from a single offering in the Star Trek TV show of the 1960s and as well, its descendent shows and films, comic books and novel and so on.

So many childhood fans grew up into careers they first learned about in a science fiction show. They created devices that now exist because they were first imagined by these kids when seen on Star Trek. All because they were first made aware of the possibility and then grew to become their future inventors.

It was a show ignorantly canceled due to concerns of profit, when the service it was performing should have been seen as the news back then, a loss leader sorely needed by our society and humanity at large. The costs of that show were minimal to what benefits we have since reaped from them.

How many astronauts today can say they wanted to be an astronaut because of watching Star Trek shows? From the article:

"When "Star Trek" first aired, on Sept. 8, 1966, the American human space program was only four years old. NASA was practicing rendezvous, docking and spacewalks in the agency's Gemini program. The Apollo moon landings were still three years away, and the space shuttle was only just being designed.

"It was an exciting time for future American astronauts, including Virts, Tom Jones and Mike Massimino. All three would become shuttle and space station astronauts, and they told Space.com that the 1960s space program highly inspired them as children. "Star Trek" was a lesser influence, they said."

We are today living our realities from the science fiction of those past days.

I could go on and on about all the shows and books and various media types of science fiction. All we need to know is though, it is a useful tool we should pay attention to and better utilize. It is forward thinking. It creates and invents as it goes and its goal really, is to make our world and universe a better place, for all. Not just humanity. But intelligent life everywhere.

Appreciate it. Pay attention to it. Support it.

And we will all be the better for it.

SPECIAL - Gina Haspel and Her First Female Director CIA Nomination

I don't feel good in supporting someone Donald Trump does, but he's bound to get something right as POTUS. And I think this is one.

Being an intellectual and with knowledge of the CIA and covert intelligence mechanism in general as well as how covert operations work and the dynamics therein, I have the following orientation on this topic. IF I did not, being the progressive I am and have been, I would possibly be against Gina Haspel.

For I see others like me, who are against her. But I feel in their good intentions, they are simply ignorant overall of how and what we're dealing with here. Even in the knowledge and intelligence of them of them, such as Kamala Harris, who unlike Fox News' juvenile opinion, had very succinct and direct questions, unlike some of the confirmation hearing.

I agree with Michael Hayden who said we NEED someone who will stand up to our questionably qualified POTUS. With all his people whittled down to the current YES men and women, who is telling this child president what reality is? Whomever you'd name, they're not enough. And who from intelligence would really push back on Trump's childish rantings?

That's Gina. Flat out.

If we really want to re-litigate CIA overreach in enhanced interrogations, then it should be those who ordered it, not those who were in the trenches and abandoned or abused later. Look, if you treat someone like Gina this way after what America demanded back in the day, then stop asking those things of our people and later abusing them for it.

As she has said today when testifying she would not follow an illegal order from the president. Odd that is actually a serious potential concern with Donald Trump but we've already seen that to be a serious concern. When you do put people in harm's way, as Gina was, don't later disingenuously claim ignorance and damn them for it.

And that, goes on up the chain right to George W. Bush, the #Republican party and their toxic #GOP methodologies of subverting America.

If you think this is a bad idea, you're just not fully informed and have only a Fox News level and mediocre orientation on this matter.

Let me give you another perspective on Gina Haspel, who, if she gets the position, will be the FIRST FEMALE head of the CiA!

Here's my point.

We had a chance for a woman to become the FIRST AMERICAN FEMALE PRESIDENT..

But NO. People allowed themselves to be easily swayed not to vote for her, which played right into Russia, Putin, Republican party and Donald Trump's grubby little hands.

Remember, if you didn't vote for her, you are part of that. Whatever your reasons.

NOW we have an opportunity for the FIRST HEAD OF THE CIA and what happens?

People are finding reasons not to let that happen. Again. Another women cvould lead but no, a woman has to be perfect to lead, unlike most of the make leaders.

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? Are you children? Religius with juvenile views of reality? Virgins? I really don't get it.

We're losing to Republicans and conservatives repeatedly because of crap like this!

You don't get to have the perfect person to be the first.And this is really so very important.

On top of which she really is a very good, excellent choice even. But not, not touchy feely enough for you because of following orders at a time that was patently schizophrenic. And now people want to judge when they are calm, feeling safe, not terrorized, as happened back then and I SAID BACK THEN, THIS WAS THE KIND OF CRAP WE'D SEE AND...HERE WE ARE.

We demanded things of the military and intelligence communities I didn't want, they didn't want but it was shoved down their throats. I knew, and they knew they would be the ones to suffer later, and right then if they refused and would be called traitors. Don't remember what it was like then?

JUST THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MINUTE. I get not wanting her because Trump chose her, I fully get that and I hate he agrees with me. But that's how it is. You don't get a perfect situation to make a woman first in anything and that's how it's going to be UNTIL YOU START PUTTING WOMEN IN CHARGE OF THINGS.

No! De Vos was a horrible choice, but hey, she's there. Now we have a woman I'd bet my life on, but she's not good enough? I wouldn't trust De Vos (or her brother, Erik Prince) to hold my lunch money.

What pisses me off about all this is I said this would happen and here we are, throwing those under the bus who did what we demanded.

Shame, America. All that talk about "Thank you for your service", but this. What do you think soldiers do in war? Hypocrites.

Stand behind the people you send out into harm's way who sacrifice to protect us.

Don't treat them like trash later when your senses return, when the Zeitgeist changes, and when you feel you can now feel pretty and judge others for our acts.

That's it. I'm done. Just consider the next time a woman, appropriate for an important position is up for it, will you support her, or pick at her to find a reason for her to not take the position.

Then wonder if you REALLY DO want women to have positions of importance.

Good grief. America gave Donald J Trump the presidency. And Gina can't head the CIA? Hillary couldn't be president?

Give me a break!

It's weird watching the Gina Haspel hearing and feeling on the side of mostly Republicans.

Surreal, distasteful considering their behaviors of late. It's like that hearing doesn't remember America just a few years ago.

Dems are playing Devil's advocate and that is good, but some very stupid questions, redundancies, lack of reality and history and I find it, disconcerting.

I'm used to Democrats not being bold enough, not fighting hard enough, while not being this foolish. In the most part they're asking the wrong questions. If feels like they don't like her just because Trump does, but let's not act like Trump as he does against Obama. Let's make the best choice.

As for those videos (echoes again of emails?), when I heard they were destroyed years ago, I said good! Because in the future there WILL be a REAL witch hunt, and... here we are. As the Bush administration was forcing things onto our intelligence community, I could foresee the future abuse of our intel officers in the future, it was obvious it would happen. The point being, if  they were going to ask too much, then stand by your people. Who are now being thrown under the bus. It was bound to happen.

I was against torture from the beginning, but if Bush was going to force it, as he did, then let's not wipe out our intelligence community now over leader's damages to the CIA and democracy. This, is ignorance. IF you want to do something now that is decent, put Bush on trial for the murder of thousands and thousands of Iraqis and Americans and others because of an illegal war they knew was illegal but had plausible deniability over. Which they built into it. But let's not now take it out on our foot soldiers.

Yes, we should be pissed, we should not ever have been torturing. But we were scared, we were afraid, and acting as such. Remember that. We acted like frightened children, striking out in the dark. I was embarrassed for us at the time. I still am. And this makes it worse because the reality I saw coming, is here.

We also have to protect and serve. Just let them do that. And don't ask of these people, what you will later chastise them for.

Game of Putin, Russia, Trump, America

Why are the Russians acting as they are? Isn't it odd how they act the victim about the recent murder attempt in the UK, how they act so "guilty" as many have observed? Is it a coincidence that Pres. Donald Trump acts the victim and guilty himself? What an odd coincidence.

Why are they doing so well, getting away with so much? I guess that refers not just to the Russians, and in the Russians let's face it, this refers to once again their newly "elected" leader, Vladimir Putin. "Vlad", what an appropriate name for Putin. It harkens back to another damaging leader from hundreds of years ago in that region of the world.

If you've read traditional Russian literature, it tells you something. As a people, Russians are traditionally a complicated people. Complex. Overly so sometimes. But it's certainly worked to their advantage in international relations. And covert operations.

We here in the west, well not so much. We're not stupid, to be sure. But neither are they. Not, by a long shot. They understand better than anyone to and how to play, the long game. At times, the very, very long game. I had learned myself when I was young and fighting tournaments in martial arts, if I played the long game, I won fights more easily. Everyone practiced "techniques". What we called, "combinations" of basic moves. You took basic moves, put them together and you had a combination, then involving in that a strategy, and you had a technique. Now some refer to a movement, a strike of some sort as a technique, too.

As a student of marital arts we learned the basics, offensive moves (and of course, defensive but they stopped the other side from scoring on you, not gaining you points (or tempo in damaging them) but made your points more valuable if you stopped them from scoring, or damaging you). A punch, a kick, whatever single movement that could score a point or damage an opponent.

What I discovered as a kid, even in grade school (and I never heard anyone else talk of it and if I mentioned it to a friend they were surprised and intrigued, which seemed unbelievable to me as it seemed so obvious), was that at that time everyone seemed to practice techniques with two movements. Say, two punches, or a punch and a kick, whatever their favored combination was.

So I started practicing three movements in my techniques. And more. NO one I came up against was doing that. They would practice how to counter, or block someone throwing a right punch, then a straight kick at them and they were prepared, but if you continued on, ready to alter as need be, it left them confused because they expected a two combination technique, then they were going to attack again. It confused many of my opponents who weren't ready for that.

When someone did happen to pull that typically in merely throwing a lot of stuff ast me, out of frustration many times, I was prepared because I practed that myself. Understand, there is a difference between practicing a technique, a combination, and throwing them in the moment. A big difference. You do have to think fast, incredibly fast in the moment, but practicing it outside of that moment over months or years, gives you a toolset others do not typically have.

That, is emblematic of the Russians over others. I also started playing chess when I was in grade school. There were a lot of similarities between martial arts and chess. Or espionage, international politics (or international politics for that matter) and chess.

And so, something came to me about this as a way to explain that difference between Russian culture and say that of Great Britain, or America.

Consider the case with who have mostly bee Chess champions over the past decades.

Mikhail Botvinnik 1948–1957 Soviet Union Vasily Smyslov 1957–1958 Soviet Union
Mikhail Botvinnik 1958–1960 Soviet Union
Mikhail Tal 1960–1961 Soviet Union
Mikhail Botvinnik 1961–1963 Soviet Union
Tigran Petrosian 1963–1969 Soviet Union
Boris Spassky 1969–1972 Soviet Union
Bobby Fischer 1972–1975 United States
Anatoly Karpov 1975–1985 Soviet Union
Garry Kasparov 1985–1993 Soviet Union/ Russia

Classical (PCA/Braingames) world champions (1993–2006)
Garry Kasparov 1993–2000 Russia
Vladimir Kramnik 2000–2006 Russia

FIDE world champions (1993–2006)
Anatoly Karpov 1993–1999 Russia
Alexander Khalifman 1999–2000 Russia
Viswanathan Anand 2000–2002 India
Ruslan Ponomariov 2002–2004 Ukraine
Rustam Kasimdzhanov 2004–2005 Uzbekistan
Veselin Topalov 2005–2006 Bulgaria
Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Bulgaria, all once part of the Soviet Union.
My point is as I said, don't think Russians are stupid. I could go on. 100 years ago Britain learned espionage from the Russians and then the Soviets. We learned from the Brits.

America  has gotten fat and lazy, in certain areas.

Back in the 1980s for instance, military might and new advances in electronics meant we didn't need as many good intelligence people. Or so we mistakenly believed. Much to the horror of our intelligence community who clearly knew better. Not just to retain their jobs, but out of reality, sanity and...intelligence. In ever sense of the word.

What's cheapest we asked? And some managers in intelligence who mistakenly believed and agreed with civilian leadership in Congress.  We  had gotten perhaps a somewhat inflated ego. We believed that satellites and computers would, could, replace real people on the ground in foreign counties. We didn't need foreign nationals to help us spy. That was so stupid, that now it almost hurts in just thinking about it.

All too often we have exchanged intelligence for profit or "saving" money in the short term, over how much we ended up losing in the long term, later, and in reality. How much money, and lives we could have saved over decades if we only had not thought to save a few dollars during one or two presidential terms. In this case it was Ronald Reagan who damaged America, and in so many ways, both externally and within.

As the current Pres. Trump, as ignorant as he is in so very many areas, he has no clue how he is internally damaging America from his international actions. Many of which may not play out completely until long after he is gone from office.

Now with Mr. Trump, in his fear of office because of his lack of ability to manage well, with his lips so far up Putin's backside he's not acting properly in relation to the Russian leader. An, if not illegal, then illiberal leader, a criminal much like Trump, and a con man. Though a far better con "artist" than Trump could ever be.

Putin relies on our good intentions and nature. Not unlike Hitler with Chamberlain.

So finally this past week we  have acted, mostly because we have to with long standing agreements with other countries who are our friends. Not that Trump is treating our friends like friends, but as a bully in so many ways. And too often an ignorant bully, as so many are. Putin too is a bully, but a wise one nonetheless, in part because he is Russian but in larger part because he is KGB trained.

And he has the backing of both Russian and other oligarchs, and the Russian Mafia contingent. Criminals working with the State and the  State as criminals, working with professional criminals. But it is difficult too tell in this case, who are the true professionals.

Perhaps, as they have so long been tied together, it is both. Similar in a much less organic and professional level to the American political Republican party and corporations. America is a far less pungent example of  the workings together of criminal organizations and State, or church and State as in Russia and as we're seeing today in Putin's moves. As some have said, Putin looks for an unlocked door in Eurasia and just walks in when he can. Therefore, we need to be vigilant, aware and know where the doors are "unlocked" and be sure to secure them, and our futures.

We need to help to guide Russia in the right ways to be able eventually tu join the world in positive advancements and a free and open world citizenry. Elections as he has been manipulating to date, are not allowing for free and open elections and therefore for free and open citizens. It's a miserable travesty of government and governing citizens, as well as aggressions against other countries.

This isn't mere diatribe against Putin, or Trump for that matter, though both have some bad things about them, and both need to go, ASAP. However, for something substantive on Putin....

The Great Soviet broke in 1989. Later Yeltsin passed power to Putin, partially in order to protect Yeltsin and family for his criminal activities. Putin appears now to be in that same position of being unable to leave power until there is someone to protect him, as he protected Yeltsin. But in Putin taking over, the effort to reconstitute the Soviet Union under a new banner, began.

As US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI, Chairman, Homeland Security Committee) said the day I wrote this blog, if instead it had been Boris Nemtsov (assassinated as so many Putin opponents have been in 2015, and I'd suggest, indirectly by Putin) taking over rather than Putin, we may have had a Russia who was much more interested in taking the time and effort to join the world in a more open and welcomed situation.

Boris was as Wikipedia put it, "a Russian physicist and liberal politician. Nemtsov was one of the most important figures in the introduction of capitalism into the Russian post-Soviet economy." Russian state news Pravda (which rather sadly translates as "Truth") claimed anything but what the reality appears to be about Nemtsov in report after slanderous report.

Russia has destabilizing Europe as they can only do, because they are good at it and because they're options are limited. They are gaining power in ways that shouldn't be allowed. As with the Nord Stream pipeline Germany has been trying to promote which would give Russia even more geopolitical power especially in the Balkan States.

Long term we need better relationships with Russia. But we have to take a hard line as Putin respects power and Trump has been weak. Very, very weak on Putin. NATO countries need to step up and pay their fair share to protect themselves and stop Putin's soft aggressions that seem to be working so very well so far for him.

 So we we may have stopped being lazy now, but we're still fat. When you've been fat and lazy for a while, it takes a long time to get back in shape. And Mr. Trump acts like he has an inordinately excessive amount of adipose tissues in his gray matter.

This is going to be hard, and it's going to take a while. We can't do it with Trump. Where he's strong he's most likely not being smart and vice versa. Or he wouldn't have so many bankruptcies and so many wouldn't hate him so much, fand or good reason, and for so long. He can be treacherous. But let's not forget, not as treacherous as Putin.

What am I saying? Only what I've been saying for decades now.

Don't play patty cakes with Putin. Act professionally. Be smart, be very smart. Play to win. Leave America on top at the end, as a world leader. With the world looking up to us as how to act, and how to be a leader. We need to be not just a leader of the "free" world, but the world at large.

But I don't see that starting to happen any time soon.

As a brief aside... it's probably useless putting up #VPOTUS hashtag here, in mentioning Donald Trump's chosen VP in Mike Pence, as too many wacko Christian types see a Biblical second coming as ultimately necessary which is simply and solely working against our government and our nation.Yet, it is relevant and we need also to be aware of that path we need not to tread upon. Not in America. Not in a free country. Not in a democracy and one that is adamantly not a theocracy.

We need to be smart, to act with our eyes wide open. In the most enlightened ways possible.

And treat Russia with respect, and a full understanding of who they are, and who they can be. Who we can end up being, if we don't respond to them properly, and direct them in the best ways possible.

If it wasn't for Britain so long ago having learned about the Russians in their long dealings with them over hundreds of years. If they hadn't taught us, been patient with us in our initial disbeliefs of what and who the Russian culture (Soviets back then, even scarier), we'd still be lost in our dealings with them. And yet we seem to be lately anyway? Fat and lazy? Or just stupid for profit and believing Putin's promise and promises? Like Chamberlain baring his throat for Hitler?

And yet, we still seem to play games with Russia, when they most assuredly are not simply playing game, with us.


#GOP #CIA #INTEL #Putin #POTUS #Democrat

Issues with Authority and Producing Smart Answers

I admit it, I have a problem with authority.

Look, I'm happy as hell to follow when things are working. To offer my best efforts and considerations for bettering what is already a good situation. But when you start to realize you're smarter than your leaders (talking jobs, not government, which can be worse and has so much to do with knowing how to play a dysfunctional game, making others smarter than politicians look dumber), it quickly gets hard to keep things under control. Not speaking out, not losing faith can become impossible.

You should and I do speak when I can. But so often you get cut off at the knees, because of the "bigger picture", or money, or just, "reasons". Typically valid much of the time, it is also typically not valid much of the time. Mostly just excuses for not bucking the system by the higher ups.

It's just how it is much of the time.

I learned two things early on in a sizable corporation. Don't talk to much in meetings. You open yourself up to look stupid. A prime motivator for Republicans in Congress. Except they can't take that advice. They speak up anyway and come up with the dumbest crap believable far too often. Well, not so believable actually.

Whenever asked a question, especially in a meeting in front of others, when you do not have the answer to respond with, just say, "I can't speak to that just now but I'll get back to you after the meeting." Then do that. Never let what you promise to not happen. And always come back with a well researched and viable answer. It will give you a reputation and one you definitely want.

I learned right off, in the beginning to just say yes. no matter what, whenever someone tries to give you work. Take on all you can... produce. Then turn it in before expected and do a job better than anyone else.

I took that to another level as a technical writer. I would turn in before the deadline, do an excellent job on the documentation I wrote and frequently would turn in three versions, giving them a choice. The first version was the one they asked for. Then another I thought they really wanted, and finally one that pushed the boundaries and perhaps was the one I thought they most needed (and frequently they never wanted, until they read it).

Frequently, they did not choose the one they asked for and on occasion, would even choose the one that would have been considered too far "out there" when I was initially given the assignment. Things change and you have to be ready for that, prepared ahead of time.

That led to my acquiring a reputation. And a good one. The other thing I did and this was not intentional, but just how I worked. I would turn in typically three drafts but write more. They never saw the first one. As a professor at my university told me...

"We do not show anyone a first draft. That is like showing someone your shit. We just do not do that!"

My first draft then was not my first I would show them, but was meant to be sure that I was in the ballpark for what they wanted. Because managers were not always clear and did not always know what they really wanted. Even when they thought they did. They would typically be concerned in reading that "first" draft that I didn't know what they wanted. Again, typically they thought they were being clear, when they clearly (to me) weren't.

I would then turn in the second draft, usually days later depending on the schedule. I remember one manager who read it, looked at me and said he was very worried I wasn't getting it at all. I told him not to worry, it's just my process.

When I then later turned in my third and final draft, I got an amazed look nearly every time.

They would be stunned I had nailed it so spot on, especially in considering the previous two drafts. Then I would hand them the other two (third) drafts, usually quite a bit different from the initial one I had just handed over. Frequently they would choose the first, sometimes the second but not all that often the third.

This all led to my gaining an interesting reputation for doing way more work than needed, in far less time than they had expected, for merely a single finished product. And this was in keeping up with any and all of my other work.

First and foremost you have to produce and you have to produce quality. But if you can produce quality and volume, if you can also keep quiet enough to at least appear smarter than you are, never letting them gauge just exactly how "brilliant" you may (or may not) be, you will be far ahead of the game. A game that is generally stacked well against us all.

Why are we sometimes so stupid when we're just not?

Age and intelligence don't always bring better judgment; this does.

By Adam Grant Ph.D.

First off, this isn't perfect, it's not meant to be. It's meant to provoke thought, to give one a way to perceive a frustrating and confusing issue. To open us up on a topic beyond not ever really even thinking about it all that much. And so we go off....

This is the perceived standard definition of how we understand all the information we take in on a daily basis. This is essentially how people think things work. We take in Information, we understand it as we can in who we are through our Wisdom, and then we end up with Greater Knowledge.

  I + W = GK

But that doesn't quite cover how things actually are. There is a big difference between taking in information (the "I" in the formula) depending on if it is easy to understand, or not that much information. What we see happen all too frequently of late is this form:

  I > W = GK

Information that is more than we can handle, or too complicated, with filtered through, or understood by us using our personal forms of our wisdom, does not give us Greater Knowledge. Rather it gives us confusion, which we ameliorate by rationalizing that we understood enough to make an informed decision, to have an opinion that we can not only share with others, but in many cases, demand is what is really going on. At times, even against all good sense and information to the contrary. 

We watch the news or read something online and believe that we walk away with more than we had to begin with. Now being more informed and not less informed than before we took in the new information.

However, that is not always true. And why is that?

Understand, there are always outiars. But in general as a general rule, this seems to have a good deal of veracity. And the general perception after all, is similar but misconstrued. And that too bears weight on this.

Information that is in quality or quantity (typically both) less than or equal to one’s inherent (learned) wisdom, does usually lead to (or equals) gaining greater knowledge from the input of new information. Whenever we read or view new information, we tend to believe we will walk away more informed.

And yet in considering say, the 2016 US Presidential election, that does not seem to be the case. I've heard many reasons to explain why smart people would make a stupid choice in voting for Donald J. Trump. And they all fall short of explaining just what is happening. And it's happening in a lot of areas, all across the world. 

So what were they thinking? What is happening? What is the common denominator? 

Instant Media, for one thing. We are taking in vast amounts of information now a days and much of it is more complex than many of us realize. Not to mention much of this information is incorrect, unvetted or purposely put out to confuse and misinform. Aside from all that, exactly what is happening?

The issue is the original formula. It's not what is typically at play here. Information is not equal to or less than what we can understand. It is frequently more than we can understand, or just as important, information we have access to enough other relative or related information so that we can give it true context and understanding. 

This form makes it much more usable: 

  I < W = GCK + PF = GK/W

INFORMATION that is in quality (or quantity) less than or equal to one’s inherent WISDOM (or in challenging one’s non verifiable perceptions (i.e., religion)) leads to (or equals) GREATER (or enhanced) COHERENT KNOWLEDGE which is countered or enhanced by one’s PROPER FOUNDATION which equals one’s Wisdom in it also then being undercut or enhanced by the quality of one’s inherent (previously acquired) Wisdom.

And relax, a “proper” foundation does not relate to an Ivy League school or a progressive over conservative or religious education. Typically that IS true, but it just seems like what is going on. A proper foundation (or education) t is actually any one that trains and allows one to think clearly and accurately. 

Obviously an improper foundation is one that trains or allows one’s thinking to be unclear and inaccurate. And yes, that too is up for debate, and mostly incorrectly. But that's another blog entirely. 

What seems to be happening all too frequently and world wide, is this form:

  I > W = LCK + pF = S\W

Too much or too complex (i.e., greater) INFORMATION than one’s inherent WISDOM leads to LESSER COHESIVE KNOWLEDGE which, when added to one’s POOR FOUNDATION then leads to STUPIDITY depending on how one's inherent Wisdom then interprets all that.

You'd be surprised at just how much information we receive on a daily if not hourly, or minute by minute basis, is too much information or too complex information for us to make any sense of at all.

And yet, we think we do understand it and some people delusionally believe they fully understand it. I've talked to more conservatives on that matter, who believed they fully understand things over that of progressives who seem to have a better handle on just how much we do not really understand. 

Getting back to it, information that is less than or equal to one’s inherent Wisdom leads to (or equals) less (or defective) Coherent Knowledge which equals one’s Wisdom being undercut or enhanced by the quality of one’s inherent (or previously learned) wisdom. Not to mention, learning is misunderstood by many. Simple knowing information is not "knowing" knowledge" One has to also correctly and sufficiently understand it. 

If you take in more information than you can handle either due to quantity or complexity (quality), at some point it's simply too hard to understand. Mix that with a typical American (new millennium) or western consideration of what one should be able to do and understand, and this can lead to a perfect storm of misunderstanding.

Consider you are talking to a physicist and he is talking at the top of his understanding. Do you really think you know what he is talking about sufficiently to go out and explain it? Now consider a child explains to you how a tow works that they just made from scratch. Couldn't you normally go out and explain that sufficiently to others? Well that is the situation in a nutshell. 

Merriam-Webster defines stupidity as: 1 "The quality or state of lacking intelligence or quickness of mind." 2 "A stupid act or idea."

In 1976 a Professor at the University of California came up with a set of five rules about stupid people. Carlo M Cipolla.

Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

Cipolla called this one the Golden Law of stupidity. A stupid person, according to the economist, is one who causes problems for others without any clear benefit to himself.

The uncle unable to stop himself from posting fake news articles to Facebook? Stupid. The customer service representative who keeps you on the phone for an hour, hangs up on you twice, and somehow still manages to screw up your account? Stupid.

This law also introduces three other phenotypes that Cipolla says co-exist alongside stupidity. First there is the intelligent person, whose actions benefit both himself and others. Then there is the bandit, who benefits himself at others’ expense. And lastly there is the helpless person, whose actions enrich others at his own expense. Cipolla imagined the four types along a graph, like this:

Basically I have always argued that stupidity is a chosen or selected ignorance. We are all ignorant and I've said for very long that is a noble state of being. We all have ignorance. It's selecting to remain ignorant, especially against all good sense, when you have chosen to remain ignorant and therefore are stupid. We've all seen situations where someone knew better and did something anyway and suffered for it and they were told they were stupid. 

If one believes something one should always be ready to upgrade the quality of a belief. Whenever we are faced with a reason to change and refuse, we have then chosen stupidity over intelligence. Ignorance is then completely off the table, it's gone. Thus, stupidity is a chosen or selected ignorance.

IF however you are stupid by nature, if it is your make up, your DNA at issue, then you have a mental challenge and it is out of your control to make informed decisions. Labeling a person such as that as stupid then is just mean and inaccurate. 

In my view to be stupid requires a conscious decision.

So, what does all that mean? 

In the end it's actually kind of simple...choose not to be stupid.