I have no idea why this painting sold for $300 million in 2015. But I do know that I’m wildly unqualified to know. You don’t have to be qualified in order to have an opinion about whether you like something or not. But when you haven’t trained your mind to understand what you might be missing, you’re in no position to be the arbiter of truth on the value of the work before you.
I had a choice between Art and Music Appreciation at Purdue. I made a mistake — as I’ve always wished I had taken both. The image above is to the boxset of cassettes from that course. I learned to listen in ways well beyond music. Alas, we live in a nation that never listens and never learns.
And has seemingly forgotten how understanding even works:
Speaking of art and appreciation — I still love all the same music and movies I always have (regardless of what I think of the artists’ views and those who have fallen from grace). The quality in their craft didn’t change — even if they did. Will Smith comes to mind as an educational example on multiple fronts. He overreacted in a culture that overreacts on everything. Take Microsoft’s Inclusiveness Checker shown in the image below. Such over-the-top engineering of sensitivity has gotten totally out of hand, and it’s an example of unintended consequences from good intentions.
Excessive sensitivity breeds hypersensitivity — and that is the poisonous atmosphere in which Will reacted.
Obviously, there are other issues going on there — but before the internet the cable clans, we lived in a very different world. Whatever their marital problems, in that world — they would not have manifested themselves by slapping a comedian in front of a worldwide audience. Tough love used to be timeless: Now everything’s an assault on increasingly fragile egos. The ability to take criticism (harsh or otherwise) — is at the core of what this nation so desperately needs (while you’re killing us by being needy).
This horseshit has got to go (and a great deal more to boot):
Which do you think is more valuable?
Me explaining every aspect of the banner image above — or you working it out for yourself and asking questions on anything unclear? Even if I told you, it wouldn’t be compelling without seeing the story behind it:
And how it’s all connected to everything you see in our society today.
Speaking of Will Smith — this scene from Men in Black embodies my America’s mindset vs mine. While everyone else stays confined within their pods: Smith sees a table and moves it so he can be smart how he takes his test. That turns out to be part of the test — as it shows he’s thinking on his feet instead of simply accepting the conditions before him. The befuddled look on their faces reminds me of what I have faced for decades by those “unschooled in adjustment” (borrowing from Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly).
That it’s a “Binge Society” broadcast makes it all the more fitting for a world tuned into podcasts — unwilling to access the situation and adjust accordingly: Just like the linear thinkers who stayled glued to their pods above.
And what Smith says below is what this is ultimately all about: An idea that could turn the tide — and all it takes is to “move this table” to take your tests more intelligently.
Speaking of assessing situations:
Once again, while everyone else comes out guns blazing — Smith examines the situation and takes one shot. If you pay attention to what I’m telling you, you’ll find you can save your ammo and start solving some propblems for a change.
On that note:
The solution to this problem is more truth, not less.
No, it’s not. You cannot forever beat something into the ground and think it’ll magically make a dent someday. And even if by some miracle it does, wouldn’t you want to know if you could have cut out years or even decades had you been smart about it?
Someone once replied, “What makes you think I’m not interested in deep discussion?” To which I essentially wrote, “The fact that you responded with that question — instead of something of substance that addresses the issues in question.” An increasingly popular pundit Tweeted “If you want to rebut an argument you disagree with, you have to understand it first.”
That same guy once called my writing “brilliant,” was “honored by it,” and “blown away” by my site and signed up.
Alas, he wasn’t too keen on the truth when I took his hero to task. And lo and behold, “understanding the argument” (or even attempting to) — was nowhere to be found. In response to their beloved influencer, a follower wrote: “Know your opponent’s argument as well as your own.” What does it mean to say that and then flagrantly ignore facts that fly in the face of your calcified convictions? It’s meaningless — which is why I set out to do something about that 10 years ago:
When I Saw the Writing on the Wall
I took on the automatons of the time (Left & Right). No one listened, and lo and behold — automatons exponentially multiplied. Those times were tame compared to today. The toxicity of venom has been taken to a whole other level with pride.
People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results. They choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar — and I’m not and never have been familiar.
— Michael Burry, The Big Short
If that were not overwhelmingly true, this site would not exist. I would not have been practically spit on for 20 years of telling undeniable truth of mathematical certainty (on painfully obvious deception shaped everything you see today).
That you have no idea what I’m talking about is precisely to the point:
What the American public doesn’t know is what makes them the American public!
It’s bad enough that you don’t know what’s going on in the imagery below (manipulated intel that cost countless lives, unspeakable destruction, trillions of dollars & counting, and poisons political discourse to this day and probably generations to come). But that you make it impossible to explain it to you: Is exactly why that line is so fitting for a country that’s gone out of its mind. “Understanding develops by degrees”:
Do you really need a proverb to know how undestanding has worked since the dawn of time?
Do I really need to explain that to understand an illustration, you dont instantly fire back about how you don’t understand everything (conveniently acting like an imbecile who can’t understand anything).
While I stopped watching the NBA long ago — it’s ongoing decline reminds me of America’s descent into the abyss. I thought I’d seen it all until clips from last year’s All-Star Game took shamelessness in sports to a whole new low. There’s no shortage of people who feel the same: Taking pleasure in pouncing on the players for destroying the game (right along with the ridiculous rules for Charmin-soft standards of play).
The players want it all and they want it easy — which is what they’ve been conditioned to do.
Same goes for America — and it shows!
Blind loyalty would bore the hell out of me, so I don’t get the attraction. Not to mention the damage from decades of denying the undeniable in the Gutter Games of Government. Politicians and pundits are not gods. When you treat them as such — you do a cosmic disservice to them, yourselves, the country, and the world as well. Look around! If they were the genuine article — they’d be pushing you to make a habit of welcoming challenge:
Not just endlessly pointing out the opposition’s flaws while unconscionably ignoring your own.
If your claims can’t survive scrutiny, just how real could they be? But just as Lebron’s ego is boosted by fanboys with a vested interest in denying reality — so too does a world that wallows in echo chambers that change the rules whenever they don’t work in your favor.
I don’t roll that way — and fair play in sports helped set those wheels in motion long ago.
Even in my diehard days of watching baseball back in the 70s and early 80s, no amount of loyalty to my beloved Yankees would allow me to look away from glaringly obvious cheating below.
That the game is governed by rules is part of its beauty — as with life when governed by conscience.
I play an aggressive game. I don’t flop. I’ve never been one of those guys
— LeBron James
There was a time when it would be embarrassing for a ball player to feign being fouled on the level of theatrics in King James’ court. You’d be laughed off the court for pulling stunts like that in my day. It’s all the more absurd when you consider that even with the hardest-hitting fouls back in the 80s — nobody flailed about like that on impact.
Never mind Lebron’s built like a Tiger tank.
Tiger Tanks Could Withstand a Dozen Sherman[s]
The only way that so many levels of sham and stupidity could be so easily accepted — is that it was normalized little by little over time.
Ain’t that America
His words are pure fantasy . . .
But it doesn’t matter, because that’s the country we’ve become — where words are empty and you can feign offense to avoid having to answer for anything. Believing things that have no bearing on reality has become a plague across America — erosion of reason that took decades of denying the undeniable.
Systematic oversimplification has taken over to the point where inconvenient correlations are condemned as convoluted.
And any attempt to have a conversation on issues that clearly call for careful consideration — is hijacked by baseless beliefs beaten into your brain as bedrock fact. But all’s fair in The March of Folly and fraud on the The Yellow Brick Road: The path of America’s predictably counterproductive pursuits.
As I said in my doc:
It’s astounding how the mind can pull off psychological gymnastics that allow us to believe what we say without any sense of accounting for it.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act V
Is it “mudslinging” to call this clown what he is? The fact that I even have to explain this is just how clownish our country has become (where expecting people to act their age is even too much to ask anymore). If this were pro wrestling, this jackass crowning himself King would be perfectly fine. But in the NBA — there is measure for how classless and cringeworthy this childish behavior is.
Fact:
truth verifiable from experience or observation
If you have a history of hypocrisy and lying — you are a hypocrite and a liar. If you don’t like being called those things, don’t do those things. But so typical of the times — nothing has meaning anymore. Calling criticism “mudslinging” is just somethin’ to say to escape scrutiny.
And the irony is:
I’ve received almost nothing but mudslinging for decades — by people who cry foul with counterfeit claims on what they do for real. And let’s face it: You need it to be mudslinging, because if it’s not — your binary beliefs are gonna fall apart.
Toward the end of my time at Purdue in 1995 (in another world from where we are now): I saw a disturbing trend in pick-up basketball — as traveling became increasingly acceptable. I never got on board. I’ll never forget the day I called traveling on myself at a crucial point in the game.
My team took issue with that, so I walked off the court saying:
If that’s the way you wanna win, you can do it without me!
After every game in Little League, we lined up to high-five our opponent with “Good game!” Back then we were told, “It’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game.” I imagine coaches still preach the same thing today, but what’s the point if we’re just gonna abandon our sense of honesty and fairness for political gain?
We damn sure didn’t have the ability to go pro, so obviously those lessons had a larger purpose in mind.
I don’t know what the hell happened to the rest of America, but such ideals stuck with me — and I’ve got the lifelong record to prove it. One of my favorite moments of truth is the Florida election fiasco of 2000. I just wanted the right thing to be done — whether it served my interests or not was irrelevant. That sense of fairness is so foreign I might as well be speaking another language.
This man takes no pride in how he wins — and it’s increasingly rare to find anyone who does.
It’s year one (of the [flopping] fine protocol), so you’re not just going to go cold turkey. . . . Guys have been accustomed to doing it for years, and it’s not even a bad thing. You’re just trying to get the advantage. Any way you can get the advantage over an opponent to help your team win, then so be it.
His excuse is exactly in line with how we created a nation that has no shame.
Any way you can get the advantage over an opponent . . .
A lot of that goin’ around!
The blameless attitude below embodies the one above:
That even with irrefutable evidence on tape, he still threw up in his arms in disbelief. And right on cue, the universal symbol for “I couldn’t care less if you’re out or not — you’re safe because you’re on my team.”
Matters of world-altering consequence have been decided in such ways: Where it wasn’t about what was right, what was true, and what made sense — convictions were calculated entirely based on benefit to the team.
If you learned from it — at least that would be something (but America doesn’t roll that way):
That the hometown crowd threw baseballs onto the field perfectly captures the folly of our times:
Where your favorite authority figures throw 99 items of shit on the wall to make damn sure you never discuss what matters most. And how eagerly you comply with the contempt they conditioned you to have for anyone exposing the truth and how they gutted it with your help.
How did our country come to abandon principle with such ease? It happened for the same reason that the likes of Lebron and A-Rod lost their way:
Decades of “Working the Refs“
By people like these working you:
This nation has no such notion.
Just like it’s nothing new to go overboard a bit to draw the foul — how politicians and pundits worked the refs in the old days wasn’t as egregious as it is now. The internet and the cable clans paved the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd. And the decades of conditioning that came before it — set the stage for people to work the refs as they were worked themselves. Now it’s nothing but noise from the endless complaining by one grievance industry grinding against another.
Anything Goes in service of the cause:
Racing to win without a second of consideration for unintended consequences.
The way people play today reminds me of when I would babysit little kids and play basketball with them . . . anytime they got stuck they would just pick up the ball and run as far as they needed to then put it down again when they were ready to attempt a new dribble. I allowed this because they were just little kids learning the game and it was all about fun. No problem.
But now adults pull this crap and have the nerve to act like they have mad skills.
Today’s NBA has been on a steady path of reducing ball handling restrictions to that of toddlers playing on a 3 foot tall nerf court. If that doesn’t personify that things are getting easier I don’t know what does.
I could easily switch the context with almost the same wording to show that’s exactly what’s happening in a country of adults behaving like children on a daily basis: Selling your souls for politicians & pundits who don’t give a damn about you.
Almost 200,000 views combined to cry foul about how the NBA’s lost its way — but try telling you that you’re all part the same charade, and I’m lucky to get 20. I don’t care about the views — as all I need is one.
With what I have in mind, the right person is all it would take on an idea that could turn the tide.
To the uneducated, abstract ideas are unfamiliar; so is the detachment that is necessary to discover a truth out of one’s own knowledge and mental effort. The uneducated person views life in an intensely personal way — he knows only what he sees, hears or touches and what he is told by friends.
As the unknown sage puts it, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
But more than ever, even the most educated minds act in an uneducated manner in service of their interests — and do catastrophic damage by doing so. Even the best of the bunch are part of the problem they’re trying to solve.
Alas, like Lebron . . .
Rather than work for it (where Work is a Journey on Which You Welcome Challenge) — you want it all and you want it right now! In a world where easy is all the rage: You incessantly complain to get your way (bemoaning the decline of America as if you had nothin’ to do with it).
And whatever your aims — you’ve got a crowd to comfort you:
Welcome to Your World
V for Victory & Venom for Values
In this fantasyland where wishful thinking rules: You can win an argument without even knowing what the issue is about. What you do in denying the undeniable daily would be unthinkable for me to do ever.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
— Attributed to Mark Twain
Imagine America as an engine and you come along with a cross-section of it to explain why it’s not working. Since your audience shares your concerns, you’d think they’d be interested in understanding the internals of the problem. But they spend all their time talking about parts made by people they don’t like — never considering the defects in their own parts.
And even though you’ve got a rock-solid idea for how to fix the engine (or at least make it run on reason): They’d rather spend the rest of their lives complaining about problems than take responsibility for their part in creating them. The image above is for my 15-part series on factions acting as force fields of fallacy for the Left & Right:
Shielding you from the whole truth while you’re pursuing part of it believing you’re after all of it.
I’ve always hated Twitter and when I’m done doing what I gotta do — I’m never goin’ back. Until then, I’m sending out a certain set of messages looking for intelligent life (fiercely independent thinkers who want to solve problems — not endlessly talk about them).
Think of my signals as a poor man’s SETI:
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth. There’s a way we can harness folly from the past for the benefit of the future (a.k.a. learning). My idea is simple: Cutting through our Crap is King culture to get you to see it — is not.
Where infantile insults are celebrated:
The doubt-free who don’t do their homework are the experts.
Those who belittle and outright reject correction — are the righteous and wise. The ones with courage to admit when they’re wrong — are the weak. Tireless dedication is mercilessly mocked — while intellectual laziness is esteemed. Original thinking and uniqueness are bashed — while conforming to the trite is trumpeted. Depth is discarded with disdain — while shallowness is embraced with love.
The honest & sincere are shunned — while manipulators & liars are welcomed with open arms.
This is my story — and if you read it in full, you’ll find it’s part of your story too. You’ve all dealt with the same behavior I have — the difference is that I get it from every direction.
The NBA implemented an anti-flopping rule almost a decade ago, but it’s rarely enforced. That such a rule was needed in the first place is bad enough, but then they created one with fines that are a joke — since they miserably fail to follow through.
So the saga continues — much like America’s ever-increasing acceptance of the asinine & flagrantly false.
A buffoon befitting of this circus music — that is the legacy he’ll leave behind. He doesn’t concern himself with the future and the harm he does in shaping it. And neither do you!
My idea is as outside-the-box as it gets (but rooted in timeless truths America made outdated). All ya gotta do — is do what you say you do. And my idea is a framework for debate that boxes you in to do exactly that. You won’t like it — but here’s the deal: Your opposition won’t either. And who knows, you might learn to love embracing challenge, changing your mind, and the fruits from demanding across-the-board accountability.
This — is not that . . .
This is Broadcasting Beliefs About That
I’ve already done all the work: I just need a little help in having it land in the right hands. I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much. One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had.
Going by the galaxies filled with rock stars of reasoning across the social media universe — I should have no shortage of people eager to examine my idea and discuss how we could improve on it and proceed.
You tell me where those people are and I’ll gladly send out my signals to them.
Speaking of “Rock Stars” . . .
If you’re not interested in hearing me out and having meaningful conversation — we have nothing to talk about and I wish you well. But if you’re game for good old-fashioned conversation — please contact me through the site, Anchor.Press.gg@gmail.com, or DM (Direct Message) on Twitter:
As I no longer respond to Tweets or superficial fragments of any kind.
Conventional methods have repeatedly failed and won’t put a pinprick in the atmosphere of absurdity suffocating the country. It’s high time to take another approach. If we don’t take a long, hard look at what America has become and how we got here — we will not see a return to some semblance of recognizing reality in our lifetime. As my videographer perfectly put it:
We finally figured out what we were doing by the end
If we don’t change course as a country — we won’t. Mark my words: Your ways will seal that fate.
