As IF Times

It’s bizarre to even think of having a discourse about this, but given the events in the world today, the topic begs to be discussed.

The topic is: What is common sense?

Empirically, the meaning of ‘common sense’ is:  sound and prudent judgement based on a simple perception of a given situation or facts.  At its most basic level, the application of common sense is one of the most important attributes which allow for one’s survival, beyond the normal 5 sensory ones that we all possess.  Even in the animal world, common sense is a natural survival mechanism allowing for the avoidance of unsafe situations.

While most everyone has some innate level of common sense, it’s also true that this skill is developed over a lifetime, based largely in part to unpleasant experiences.  Some achieve common sense the easy way by listening to people with actual life experience, such as parents or close friends.  Others have to acquire common sense the hard way, through personal experience, often bad ones.

Regardless of how it’s acquired, over a lifetime, one accumulates a storehouse of knowledge which presumably directs one away from undesirable activities, which would have led to undesirable consequences.  Those that choose to ignore common sense and pursue some course of action despite warnings are seen as somewhat lacking in intellectual capacity.  Ultimately, common sense is all about maintaining self preservation.

It’s also true that for most people, their perceptions of the world around them and by reflection, their own self worth in that world is dictated by their place in that world.  Numerous psychological thinkers such as Philip Zimbardo, B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget and Ivan Pavlov have described in their work the tendencies of humans and their behaviors in a social context.  What we have learned from these studies is that humans are quite malleable in their views and even in the case of things that are contrary to ‘common sense’.

In our modern world, two great influences are at play.  Firstly, the sheer amount of information that is available to people is at a level never before seen in history.  Access to information and knowledge in any domain is virtually unlimited. Logically, this vast amount of information should augment whatever level of common sense is in our warehouses.  On the surface, one could assume that this leads to an intelligent and rational society.

Bizarrely, the other great influence at work are the outlets that specifically reject the notions of ‘common sense’ and thus propagate narratives that are clearly at odds with what are observable, concrete facts.  Among the most blatant is the ‘debate’ over gender.  We’re seeing this carried out at all levels now as the narrative being pushed is that gender is a  social and mental construct, not a natural one.  You would think that this is the easiest issue to dismiss out of hand because of, well, common sense.  But in fact, the heated and pervasive battles over defining gender has escalated to the point where politicians have had to create rules demanding that the views of gender deniers receive appropriate consideration in society.  Thus, we are at this point in history that we should ignore all common sense built up over thousands of years and accept that 2 distinct genders has been a false narrative.  That’s quite an error to make for all that time.  Odd that it took so long for someone to notice.

If the most elementary of observations about the human condition can be made to be ambiguous, what chance do other issues of significance have for the public mind?  Most people who have lives don’t really have the chance to delve into the nuances of major political issues.  Thus, they fall on the views espoused by media talking heads and such views become their views.  Thus everyone will consider their views independant….in a me too kind of way.  Ask anyone about their views on Climate change, vaccines, urban crime, foreign wars, price inflation and their major source of information will be popular news outlets which of course parrot the narratives by political sources.  The champions of these causes defy all common sense in their narrative and their actions and yet, they continue to be paraded as experts.  *Cough cough*, John Kerry, Greta Thunberg..

Most if not all of the narratives pushed by media outlets have been disproven by empirical and measurable observations, but once entrenched in peoples’ minds, they cannot be dislodged especially if continuously pushed by media and ‘authorities’.   The wearing of masks and vaccinations are a recent example. We had discussed previously the famous psychology experiments by Solomon Asch in which he demonstrates the pressure of conformity among people.  The most notable experiment was replicated more vividly in an episode of the TV show Candid Camera in 1962. To summarize, a subject entering an elevator encounters all of the occupants facing towards the rear of the car.  Not wanting to stand out, the subjects also decided to face rearward as well.

But all hope is not lost as some lament.  A conclusion by James Surowiecki in his book, “The Wisdom Of Crowds”, points out that Asch notes;

“….that while people slip into conformity with striking ease, it also doesn’t take much to get them to snap out of it. Asch demonstrated this in a series of experiments, planting a confederate to defy the crowd by engaging in the sensible, rather than nonsensical, behavior. That, it turned out, was just enough. Having just one peer contravene the group made subjects eager to express their true thoughts…”

And Surowiecki concludes by noting that, “….Ultimately, diversity contributes not just by adding different perspectives to the group but also by making it easier for individuals to say what they really think. […] Independence of opinion is both a crucial ingredient in collectively wise decisions and one of the hardest things to keep intact. Because diversity helps preserve that independence, it’s hard to have a collectively wise group without it.”

Hopefully, it’s time that people started facing the front of the elevator.

link; https://www.withinnigeria.com/news/2022/12/14/unvaccinated-people-more-likely-to-have-car-crash-study-shows/

There is an oft quoted statement by of all people, the infamous Karl Marx.  He postulated that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Like many other sage philosophers, he described precisely the human condition based on the predictability of human experience through the ages. Authors such as Ayn Rand and George Orwell have also well depicted the common frailties of people, frailties which transcend time.

Greed, fear, naivety and tribalism are hard wired into our psyche it seems and the really smart (or really diabolical) people of every generation capitalize on these traits during their lifetimes. The vast majority of people however are like flotsam on waves since only a small group of influential people set the big picture agendas and determine the flow of society.

In earlier times, ‘influential’ meant people with military capability, since those who had the swords, made the rules. In fact, that dynamic still exists today. Some of the more primitive cultures still use swords to enforce their worldview on captive citizens, since this continues to work quite well.  Some more advanced societies have upped their game to more sophisticated weapons and thus employ guns and prisons.

In even more civilized societies, such blatant use of force to coerce people into a viewpoint has largely been overtaken by the use of propaganda, with the use of traditional methods of persuasion only obliquely implied. In our modern times, the persuasion tool of choice is the use of interminable lawsuits.

Thus the use of media as the mechanism to control the thoughts and opinions of citizens is the default choice for the majority of the world’s nations.  As a means of propagating fear, weaponized media is vastly more effective than the threat of a few cuts or bruises.  Once you are able to tap into existential fears of a populace, one can enact all kinds of “solutions” to ameliorate, assuage and address their fears.  Studies on mob psychology by such as Zimbardo  and others prove this.

Coincidently, there is always a cost involved since the assuaging fears business can be expensive and thus, somebody always winds up benefitting from these campaigns. Naturally, those who propose the fixes receive consideration for their efforts as well.

In our lifetime, there have been many such industries which have preyed upon the natural fears of people to become permanent money making ventures. I remember a wise professor years ago who made the point that there were four industries that have a permanent monopoly on making money:  War, religion, drugs and insurance.  All of these business have to do with death.   Which is odd, because death is an eventuality for all of us. Nevertheless, if there’s a way to squeeze money from people because of their mortal fears, well there’s no shortage of entities that will do just that, including and especially of course, governments.

A recent entry into the top 4 industries is the Global warming business.  Still very young but voracious in its appetite and reach, this industry continues to bleed the naïve of both money and brain cells.  This industry could not have grown without a very active and persistent on-going media campaign.  The campaign has been brilliant because the lack of measurable statistical evidence of warming has necessitated the re-branding to Climate Change.   So they’re covered, rain or shine, snow or not.

As we all know, the drug industry has a new arrow in their quiver, namely vaccines, thanks to Covid-19.  Like Global warming, most any medical ailment can be attributable to either Covid 19 or the lack of vaccination against Covid-19.  So, they’re covered, sick or not.  Someone pointed out that this is the first time in history that those who weren’t ill were blamed for those being ill.

As the article above shows, the insurance industry could not possibly be left out of this new revenue stream and thus, the notion has been floated that people who are not vaccinated against the modern plague are more likely to be at risk for automobile accidents.  The linked article shows I am not making this up. This is not an isolated article; similar stories can be found from numerous sources worldwide. How they’ve managed to come to this conclusion is amusing….unless over the past 2 years, they’ve  been keeping statistics at accident scenes.  Perhaps there’s a box in the police report which is checked off.  That would have been very prescient on someone’s part years ago to have thought of this.

Or maybe this is just opportunity knocking and the media will back them up because it can be sold.  The pharma companies need to step up their game because treatments for acne, premature baldness, obesity, nail fungus, near-sightedness, bad breath and the misery of psoriasis caused by the non-vaccinated has yet to be exploited.  This has indeed become a farce.  It’s only a matter of time before someone links up the correlation of non vaxxers to climate change deniers, the new enemies of the state. As the author Orwell noted, it’s more effective to push a narrative if someone can be identified as a villain or scapegoat and thus, here we are.  The classic techniques still work.

For more shocking correlations that will keep you up at night, see here.