I was watching Jordan Peterson answer a question about what Joe Rogan was like, and in answering the question he made the above comment about Ben Shapiro, “He’s so damn smart.”
It reminded me of an article sent to me by a reader (thank you Rex Larson) written by Shapiro in 2015, titled “Anti-Vaccine Fanatics Kill”, which I’ll get to a bit later.
It also reminded me of a discussion I recently had with a good friend about the subject of “smarts”, what is it exactly?
To be clear, I have nothing but respect for Peterson and I like Shapiro a lot, but don’t idolize either. What I’m more interested in is using these two obviously “smart” people to look at the question of what is “smart” and how come so many “smart” people failed during the GMC and specifically on the question of vaccines, covid and childhood.
Peterson mentions Eric Weinstein, as another one of the “smart” ones. I like Eric a lot too, but here is Eric in April 2021 telling us:
“I sought out the vaccine as an exercise in relative risk reduction. I made an affirmative choice.”
Eric believed that the experimental J&J was a lower risk than the “bug” that did the rounds in the Diamond Princess in Feb 2020. Eric also is working on a “unifying theory” of physics.
“We need more people standing up for the miracle of vaccines as relative risk reduction.”
Someone buy this man a copy of Dissolving Illusions.
This subject has made me think back to a short book I read a few years ago.
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
The book can be summarized this way:
The book "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" by Carlo M. Cipolla is a humorous yet insightful exploration of human behavior, particularly focusing on what the author identifies as 'stupidity'. The book outlines five fundamental laws of human stupidity:
1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. This law suggests that no matter how high one's estimates of human stupidity, one is frequently surprised by the fact that people one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.
2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. This law asserts that stupidity is an indiscriminate privilege of all human groups and is uniformly distributed according to a constant proportion. This means that the percentage of stupid people is the same whether one is considering very large groups or very small ones.
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. This law defines stupidity as actions that cause harm to others without any benefit to the person performing these actions.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. This law suggests that rational people have difficulty in understanding unreasonable behavior, leading them to underestimate the potential harm that a stupid person can cause.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. This law states that a stupid person's actions can cause significant harm to others, and their behavior is often unpredictable and irrational.
The book argues that these laws of human stupidity are fundamental and unchangeable, affecting all aspects of human life and interactions. It also humorously suggests that the level of stupidity remains constant across different social groups and power structures, including among those in positions of power.
What is interesting to me is that book was first published in 1976, but then republished in 2019 with a foreword by Nassim Taleb, one of the worst “intellectuals” of the GMC. Lauded as “smart” but patently not. I am sure the “stupid” that Taleb was thinking of when he promoted the book were the “rednecks and the Trump voters”. It is the sweetest irony that on any reading of Cipolla’s 5 laws, Taleb qualifies as Stupid and with flying colors.
Here he is telling us in Sept 2021 that surgical masks are effective.
With this wonderful line in the Abstract:
The framework demonstrates that masks can have a disproportionately large protective effect and that more frequently wearing a mask provides super-linearly compounding protection.
“Super-linearly compounding protection”, what a great line, “smart” people sure have a way with words.
Taleb gets an honorable mention here from Michael Senger:
The number of individuals in the world who publicly advocated or hoped for the international adoption of China’s lockdown policy prior to the lockdown of Lombardy is so small, in fact, that you might literally be able to count it on one hand. To those who’ve studied the response to COVID, some of the names may come as no surprise. Physicist Yaneer Bar-Yam and his colleague Nassim Taleb had long worked on the bizarre “science” of mass quarantine, and looked gleefully at the Wuhan experiment as something the rest of the world might come to emulate.
There is a moment at minute 4.09 in the masthead video where Peterson says, “it seemed like the…” and then he stares at the wall and trails off into thought. I’m pretty sure he was about to say “…the right thing to do” and I’m sure he was thinking “right for who” and realizing he was caught in a “greater good” thought. He doesn’t complete the sentence and swaps it out with “I’m tired of the lockdown”, as if Jordan taking an experimental injection that took all of half an hour to put together would make any difference to the lockdown. Not very smart.
I’ve written at length about my disappointment in Peterson, the student and educator of tyrannies, and his failure to see tyranny when it turned up at his doorstep and told him to bend over. I’m not rehashing that here; I just want to make a signpost and reminder that what we are taught about “smart” is wrong, there is something else, I’m not quite sure what it is yet, but it’s not degrees, nor letters nor the exam results. It’s something else.
Mark McDonald, in the video above, wrote one of the most important little books for me during the GMC, The United States of Fear, I produced two articles looking at the themes he highlighted.
Arguably my favorite quote of the GMC is from McDonald and his little book.
When a number of associated delusions organize themselves into an irrational belief system, a state of psychosis can develop. When the man who believes the world is out to get him also insists that his restaurant food is poisoned, that his wife is having a lesbian affair with the neighbor’s daughter, and that his boss is somehow involved in both—he is psychotic.
He may still be able to function quite well despite this, insisting that he be allowed to bring his own food with him when eating out, for example. Those around him may consider his behavior to be odd, but what if every diner in the restaurant brought his own food with him? Would that behavior still be considered odd? What if every restaurant insisted that customers brought their own food with them “to ensure everyone’s safety?” The one patron choosing to instead order from the menu would be seen as irresponsible and even dangerous.
Is there a connection between “delusion” and “stupidity”?
If a delusion is a disconnect from reality, being a belief that doesn’t map over “truth”, then does the accumulation of delusions “untruths” make you gradually more and more stupid and does that train ultimately get you to “psychosis”?
Here is another example of “smart”, if you listen to Balaji Srinivasan and his discussion with Lex Freidman, you might think he is a savant. But as Senger rightly outlines, Balaji couldn’t wait to lock us all up:
Yet among this extremely tiny group who looked positively on the prospect of global adoption of China’s lockdown policy before the lockdown of Lombardy, one person stands out in particular: Balaji Srinivasan, a venture capitalist and tech mogul who couldn’t tweet enough about all the details of the “new normal” that the world would soon see by the end of the year.
Balaji first began tweeting about the new coronavirus on January 30, 2020. For reference, this is the same day that an anonymous stock tip was posted by someone who said they had “friends and family in the medical industry and field, including at CDC and one close friend at WHO,” and that the WHO was already privately planning to begin recreating China’s response across the western world, first by locking down Italian cities:
There are very high profile investors who’ve been silently pulling out ahead of time… the WHO is already talking about how “problematic” modeling the Chinese response in Western countries is going to be, and the first country they want to try it out in is Italy. If it begins a large outbreak in a major Italian city they want to work through the Italian authorities and world health organizations to begin locking down Italian cities in a vain attempt to slow down the spread at least until they can develop and distribute vaccines, which btw is where you need to start investing… I just think it’s a really shitty thing to not be sharing this information with the public because they arrogantly think we’re all irrational and shouldn’t be informed as they are.
That same day, Balaji began his tweet campaign. Balaji presented himself as a kind of eccentric financial savant who was terrified of the new virus and had pieced together an earthshaking story that was being downplayed by the media. Balaji’s first tweets on the subject came in the form of a detailed and widely-shared thread about all the changes the world would soon see if this turned out to be “the pandemic that public health people have been warning about for years.”
Now it might just be that Balaji is a bought and paid for bad actor. In that case it’s pretty simple.
But I’m treating him as a “smart” useful idiot. Can you be “smart” while also being a useful “idiot”?
Can you be “smart” when what you are advocating for is anti-human flourishing? Is there a thread that connects “flourishing” with “truth”?
Is anti-human flourishing, anti-truth and accordingly “untrue”?
Does “true” need to map over reality, and is human flourishing the ultimate reality, the ultimate “truth”?
Let’s look at what Shapiro thought of anti-vaxxers in Feb 2015, after obviously paying attention to the subject:
Anti-Vaccine Fanatics Kill, by Ben Shapiro
This week, controversy broke out over whether state governments have the power to require parents to have their children vaccinated. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, no stranger to compelling his citizens to stay off the roads during blizzards, announced that he had some sympathy for the anti-vaccination position: "I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that's the balance the government has to decide." Kentucky Senator Rand Paul doubled down on Christie's remarks, stating, "I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental orders after vaccines. ...The state doesn't own your children."
Good to know Rand Paul has been on the right side of this.
Christie and Paul aren't the only politicians sympathizing with anti-vaccination fanatics; in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama repeated widely debunked claims of links between autism and vaccination. Skepticism of vaccination crosses party lines, unfortunately — although the most organized anti-vaccination resistance comes from the New Agey left in places like Santa Monica and Marin County, who worry more about infinitesimal amounts of formaldehyde in vaccines than about death by polio.
“Fanatics”, that pretty much closes the door on any objective discussion.
Here are two good delusions.
Ben believes that tiny, tiny bits of formaldehyde injected into a baby is fine. The basis for this would be…? Or as Thomas Sowell would say, “compared to what?” and “show me the evidence”.
Vaccines eradicated polio. This is a big one and between this untruth and all the smallpox lies, it’s no wonder that this Church has such a solid foundation.
Unsurprisingly, older Americans believe that children should be vaccinated against diseases like measles, mumps and whopping cough, by a 73 percent to 21 percent margin. Americans 18-29, by contrast, believe by a 43 percent to 42 percent plurality that government should not mandate such vaccinations.
Here Ben is relying on “the majority” to make his case.
That's because young people don't remember a time when such diseases claimed lives. They don't remember a time when the vast majority of Americans weren't vaccinated. Older people do. Many of them lost loved ones to polio and measles and mumps and rubella. In 1952, over 3,000 Americans died of polio and well over 21,000 were left with mild or severe paralysis. Thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine, there have been zero cases of natural polio in the United States since 1979.
It comes down to how tightly you hold onto your “truths”, here Ben seems to hold onto this nugget very tightly.
The same is true of measles. According to Dr. Mark Papania of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 90 percent of Americans suffered from the measles by age 15 before widespread vaccination beginning in 1962. From 1956 to 1960, he reports, "an average of 542,000 cases were reported annually." That included 450 deaths per year, as well as 150,000 cases of respiratory complications and 4,000 cases of consequent encephalitis per year, many of which resulted in later death. Then mandatory vaccination kicked in. Until a major upswing in 2014, we averaged less than 100 cases of measles per year in the United States since 2000.
The point of mandatory vaccinations is not merely to protect those who are vaccinated. When it comes to measles, mumps and rubella, for example, children cannot be vaccinated until 1 year of age. The only way to prevent them from getting diseases is to ensure that those who surround them do not have those diseases. The same is true for children with diseases like leukemia, as well as pregnant women. Herd immunity is designed to protect third parties.
“Protecting others” by force. I wonder where he stands now on this whole subject. He has been around Candance Owens, so you would think she might have woken him up.
But Americans have short memories and enormous confidence in junk science. Parents will ignore vaccinations but ensure that their kids are stocked up with the latest homeopathic remedies, Kabbalah bracelets and crystals. St. John's wort, red string and crystals all existed before 1962. They didn't stop the measles. Vaccination did.
That doesn't mean that all vaccinations should be compulsory, of course. There are certain diseases that can only be transmitted by behavior, like HPV. There are others that are too varied for effective herd vaccination, like the flu shot. But when it comes to measles and mumps and rubella and polio, your right to be free of vaccination — and your right to be a dope with the health of your child because you believe Jenny McCarthy's idiocy — ends where my child's right to live begins.
You can argue for all manner of prescriptions using the “my child’s right to live” argument.
I wonder if he has apologized to Jenny McCarthy yet?
So, what does all this mean?
What is “smart”?
Should “smart” include a qualitative component connected to what is “true” or what is “right”?
Can you be “smart” if you hurt people, steal from people our take freedom away from people?
Can you be “smart” if what you do or what you advocate for “reduces human flourishing”?
I am sure that when Peterson is using the word “smart” he doesn’t just mean the raw engine, but also the ability to discern true from untrue, and right from wrong.
Here are some recent thoughts on “how to be smart”.
Nick, gives us three general rules of thumb:
1. If any problem is being presented as a global crisis; then it is a scam.
2. If the only solutions that are permitted, are global ones, requiring global authority; then it is a scam.
3. If science is presented as static knowledge (consensus), The Science™; then it is a scam.
I think these three rules of thumb are “smart making”. Also…
“Zero” is the shibboleth of the totalitarian tyrant.
It doesn’t matter how many letters they have behind their name; it doesn’t matter how softly or elegantly spoken they are, it doesn’t matter how pretty they are of what suit or robe they are wearing.
If they are pushing for “Zero” anything, they are a dangerous totalitarian tyrant and should be heard and understood accordingly.
Anything that targets “zero” is wrong, not just morally, but in objective terms.
I also think that “smart” people hold their ideas lightly. They know the risk of a corrupted idea and the exponential damage that can cause to other layers of ideas balanced on top of it. So, they hold their ideas lightly, and with better evidence swap them out quickly.
I think Bigtree’s thought at the end of the video on freedom is also insightful. That’s another rule of thumb, I think.
If the solution reduces personal sovereignty and freedom, it reduces human flourishing, it is wrong, it is untrue. Anything that reduces human flourishing is “not true”, which makes it a “delusion”, which makes it “stupid”.
Do I think that Ben is “smart”? On many things, yes. In 2015 on childhood vaccination, no.
Do I think he can self-reflect and self-correct…yes.
If he can, that is arguably the highest indicator of smarts.
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