The Problem With Idiots

I was still a kid in kindergarten when I realized that the world can be divided into two types of individuals.

1. Those who are honest about what they know
2. Those that pretend to know more than they do

I was of the first category, and my twin brother was of the other kind. He would talk with confidence about all sorts of things that he had no clue about, and I was amazed to see how many people fell for it. My twin brother was the smart one with simple answers to most things. I was the more complex one with all sorts of uncertainties.

Seeing that my twin brother had more success than I in things involving other people, I adopted some of his style in college, and continued with this into my career as a programmer. However, programming is not very open to nonsense. You either know what you're doing or you don't, so I tired of the constant need to impress as I entered my mid-life career. Then, as I saw all sorts of low life individuals suck up to colleagues and management at my expense, I quit, and I've been retired ever since.

Of the two types mentioned above, the pretenders are by far in majority, and this explains a tendency towards idiotic policies both in government and corporations. The only thing holding them back is reality, but this can be suspended for a long time. Cheap money and/or windfall incomes can keep idiots in power for decades on end. Portugal became an increasingly weird place to live during its golden era of imported riches form its colonies. Norway is currently run by a bunch of idiots, empowered to do all sorts of stupid things due to easy riches from oil. The US is in the midst of a complete Weimar meltdown due to its status as issuer of the world reserve currency.

Our history books are full of examples of this, and it always ends in one of two ways. Either, people come to their senses relatively early, as the US did immediately after the second world war, or lunacy plays out to its logical conclusion, as happened in the Soviet Union. Once a certain threshold has been passed, there's simply no way to avoid a complete moral and economic crash. The moral and economic decay spirals into lunacy, one driving the other lower. The more crazy things get, the more appeal there's in the type of simple solutions presented by pretenders, and the more things get out of hand as a consequence. There's no coincidence that moral and economic decay go hand in hand and that they crash together when reality catches up with delusion.

As of this year, I think it's clear that western society has passed the threshold of no return. Only a complete moral and economic collapse will wake people up from their collective delusions.

The idiotic response to the plague leaves no doubt as to how far gone we are as a society. There's hardly any opposition to the things currently being enforced, and there doesn't seem to be any limit to what people will accept, even embrace. People line up for untested vaccines, they love lockdowns and mask wearing rules, and vaccine passports for travel is greeted with enthusiasm. The idea that we must one day flash our vaccine papers to get into supermarkets is being discussed in earnest.

In all of this, there's no lack of logical thinking, so there's no point in trying to argue our way out of this mess. As an example, we can take the fact that the seasonal flu has all but disappeared completely this winter. This is to me proof positive that the plague is nothing but a flu. There's no way to distinguish one from the other. However, idiots tell us with confidence that the absence of the seasonal flu is due to the exceptional effectiveness of lockdowns and masks. It's proof that they are right and that everybody else are wrong.

Confirmation bias comes to the rescue, logic is applied, and the desired conclusion is reached. There simply isn't any way to fix stupid. Once the idiots are in charge, there's no way back. The only option left is for us to step out of their way and make sure that we're neither run over nor drawn into their lunacy as they run themselves into the ground. But this can be extremely difficult to do.

My twin brother makes a living off of giving advice. His habit of pretending to know more than he actually does has brought him far. But he's no idiot. He admits in private that he doesn't know half as much as he pretends to know. He can also see madness for what it is. But what is he to do? He can't very well voice his scepticism. In fact, he has to make an effort to believe in the nonsense presented to him. Otherwise, he would suffer greatly from moral objections to what he dishes out as sound advice. This explains why my otherwise level-headed brother is holding on to some rather naïve ideas related to the plague. He will no doubt line up to get the untested vaccine as well.

Of my two other brothers, my older one who has been retired for two decades is as sceptical as I am to both the moral and economic health of the current system, while my younger architect brother is as fearful as my nephew. My younger brother refuses to visit my parents out of fear of killing them with his mere presence. My older brother visits them regularly with no concern, and the only reason he keeps a polite distance from them is that they too have fallen for the hype.

People like my older brother and I are sceptical to what's going on, at least partially because we're not part of society's corporate structure. We don't have to parrot whatever is being told to us just to stay employed. We don't internalize their narrative. We read it with no special reverence. When things don't add up, we don't seek confirmation, we note it down as dubious at best, possibly even sinister with evil intents.

Something similar is going on in financial markets where otherwise level headed fund managers are starting to consider Bitcoin as an investment. The constant droning on about the superiority of Bitcoin to pretty much all other assets has finally worn them down. Also, there's the constant nagging of impatient clients as to why they aren't putting at least some money on this lottery ticket. Hopefully for them, they won't commit too much money to this sure failure.

What's becoming increasingly clear is that those operating inside the corporate structure of society cannot completely escape the insanity as it unfolds. There's simply too many idiots demanding that level headed analysis is put aside. Furthermore, rules are put in place to force the sceptical to accept what they don't want. Nurses are lined up and vaccinated. Never mind that some die as a consequence. To refuse would be tantamount to a resignation. Faced with the uncertainty of an untested vaccine or the certainty of economic hardships, most people choose the vaccine.

Left unchecked, this will only get worse. There will be vaccine passports required for travel, first internationally and then locally. This will then be required for entering stores in order to buy food.

There's very little we can do to stop this because idiots outnumber the rest of us by about eight to one. The evidence for this is everywhere to be seen her in Porto where just about everyone wears their mask with religious zeal. Apart from low level resistance, there's little we can do. 

This insanity cannot be stopped by popular resistance. The best we can do is to learn ways to go around the system as much as possible. We must resist the temptation to be drawn into it in the vain hope of a quick profit. Beyond this, we can only pray and hope that the economic crash for which we are headed will come sooner rather than later so that we can finally be free from these tribulations.

Mask of the beast