The COVID-19 era taught us: Don’t trust, verify
Bad faith leaders demand trustless solutions.
The past year and a half has acted as a consistent test of our ability to process fact from fiction. Turn on the TV and you’ll surely run into a CDC or Big Pharma sponsored commercial demanding the population-wide embrace of the latest radical “solution” to the “scary virus” out there. Walk through any major American city and you’ll find yourself bombarded with advertisements and placards in both public and private spaces requesting your help with the campaign to “stop the spread” of COVID-19. With so much manipulative programming being thrown at us from every direction in life, it’s easy to get lost in the madness of these times. And we need to set our defenses to these propaganda campaigns accordingly.
The most important thing that we need to accept about this whole COVID-19 era is that so much of the information we are being flooded with is based on nothing at all. The track record of the ruling class in “stopping the spread” could not be any worse. The vast majority of the problems and the corresponding “solutions” to these problems have no basis in science and/or reason. Dig deep enough into these issues and you’ll find yourself scrambling to find how exactly the “expert” class came to adopt these supposed virus defeating strategies. Sometimes, the “consensus” comes from shoddy academic modeling or recommendations from totalitarian regimes. Other times, “The Science” comes from politically correct, woke ideologues in “elite” academic institutions who don’t even have as much as a junk model to base their findings on.
And the facts support the reality that their proposals and commands have been based on nothing from day one. From lockdowns to masks to six foot social distancing to vaccine passports and the like, every strategy imposed on us by the people in charge has done nothing whatsoever to mitigate the virus problem. The ruling class in the United States and the greater Western world has become a blend of an incompetent ideological idiocracy coupled with lying, rudderless, power-hungry sociopaths. These people have not earned our trust, they have only earned our disdain.
In this time of nonstop propaganda and manipulation, the mentality of the semi good faith notion of “trust, but verify” — the Russian proverb popularized in the West by President Ronald Reagan in the context of nuclear disarmament policy — does not fit our times. Trust, but verify was a nice adage when both sides were acting in good faith, and showing substantial, measured progress in backing their words with verifiable actions.
But during the COVID-19 era, the people in charge have consistently been acting in bad faith in pursuit of their incredible power grab. It’s much healthier, in this day and age, to simply assume the powers that be are lying to us.
When Anthony Fauci goes on air for his 4th media appearance of the day, start with the impression that he’s lying to you, because his track record certainly implies that. If someone from Gilead, Pfizer, Moderna, or one of the other Big Pharma behemoths comes to you promising a cure for COVID-19, don’t trust what they’re saying, but see if it can be verified through independent inquiry. When Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, and other Western leaders tell you about the latest “scariant” virus such as the Delta variant, assume they’re bullshitting you, because their track record says they probably are.
The era of trust, but verify is long over. In the COVID-19 era, don’t trust, verify.
I haven't trusted the government since the 60's. My first knee jerk reaction to anything they say is that it's a lie. After that everything makes sense...
Charles Darwin, in his book The Descent of Man, wrote "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge".
Darwin was the recipient of much criticism regarding his often astute observations, including his observation of the existence of carnivorous plants, as the largely theological-based "science" of his day held strict belief in the concept of the hierarchy of species, thus refusing to believe that "lower-order" plants could never prey on "higher-order" insects & animals.
And though Darwin has often been used as a divider between the theists and atheists, he started-out pursuing work in the Clergy, and never lost his faith in a higher-power, but did lose his faith in the human-manipulated Church doctrine.
Darwin's observation "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" serves as a basis of the Dunning Kruger effect.
Those with lesser knowledge of a topic or subject, tend to overstate their perceived knowledge of that subject or topic.
I.e. they lack the more comprehensive knowledge to realize what they don't know.
The "liberal" Philosopher, Educator, Mathematician, Polymath, etc. Bertrand Russell, in his Ten Commandments of Critical Thinking wrote:
"Do not feel absolutely certain of anything."
And: "Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light."
And: "Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."
And in another source wrote: “A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world suffers.”
The last concept what I call the sliding scale of belief.
One can hold BOTH belief and disbelief of anything simultaneously. The degrees of those based on available evidence, knowing that additional or contrary evidence may surface later, shifting that scale of belief vs disbelief.
Real science is in NOT knowing, or ever being certain.
Real science is in always looking for answers, but knowing you're never fully certain.
Francesco Petrarca, aka Petrarch, was a 14th century Poet and Philosopher, whom is credited with the concept of the Dark Ages of the Middle Ages.
He lived during a time when the Church was most powerful, wealthy, and controlled most all info (even forbidding & banning unapproved books).
He saw that Church, which largely served as the government of the time, as promulgators of myth, superstition, and human-manipulated theology.
He was a frequent critic of the Scholastic Movement of the time, which was the Church's effort to skew logic, reason, thought & such towards official theological ideologies.
Rather than shedding "light" on knowledge, that Church brought darkness.
Interestingly, that Scholastic Movement of the Middle Ages paved the road for our contemporary system of "scholastics".
We are currently experiencing much the same today.
An "educational" system based largely on mere indoctrination of official narrative, rather than a pursuit of true knowledge.
The ability to merely recite conventional narratives is more highly regarded than the ability to observe, discover, think, etc.
Degrees are awarded based primarily on conformity to systematic procedures & beliefs.
"Eccentricities" of thought are largely abhorred.
People should always question, everything.
Including their own beliefs, biases, judgments, prejudices, presumed knowledge, etc.
But do so based on evidence, logic, reason, induction, deduction, and such.
And always look, objectively, for additional & greater evidence, prior to deciding how much to believe and disbelieve anything.
And always be willing to admit they might just be wrong.
There is no weakness in admitting "I don't know".
As long as you continue to search for answers.