५ नोव्हेंबर, २०१९

"There are so many people — among the intelligentsia, especially — who are absolutely immune to facts.”"

५५ टिप्पण्या:

henry म्हणाले...

Not invented here is a convenient block to inconvenient truths. Not restricted to politics or academia.

Wince म्हणाले...

Krugman was wrong in his prediction or forecast.

To what extent that was the result of ignoring factual evidence rather than animus or negative wishful thinking is harder to discern.

Jerry म्हणाले...

The trouble is that the intelligentsia never bother to question whether they're right. And they're usually quite immune to the effects when they're wrong, so being wrong never has any repercussions.

And since their friends are of the same 'class' and persuasion, there's never any contrary information that reaches their consciousness. If you never realize you're wrong, you'll just keep on being wrong.

The 'vast unwashed' in the US don't hate the intelligentia - they hate people who are constantly wrong but will never examine their mistakes or admit they're wrong. At a certain point you just tune them out because their utterings are meaningless.

wendybar म्हणाले...

They don't like him, because he is NOT them...and they want to keep their money train going, and he's out to crash it.

Jersey Fled म्हणाले...

That might be the best quote I ever heard.

I intend to use it liberally in the future.

NEO-FIDO म्हणाले...

This perfectly describes most social sciences today.

Lucid-Ideas म्हणाले...

Thomas Sowell is a national treasure and is the successor to and bears the same mantle Frederick Douglas did in his time.

He has repeatedly and consistently gored the sacred oxen of race apologism and the use of African ancestry as a crutch excusing every kind of bad behavior.

I only wish that Barack Obama had taken on the same mantle to speak truth to Black America. Such an opportunity was completely wasted. And if Obama had a son, he would've looked like Trayvon.

Nonapod म्हणाले...

There's never been shortage of people who are willing to believe nonsense and disbelieve demonstrable facts as long as their personal biases are confirmed. But I think that Trump is sort of a special case.

Certain people find Trump so absolutely and thoroughly objectionable that he could literally cure cancer and they would still refuse to credit him. They're willing to totally believe any negative story or leak or claim made against Trump, and totally disbelieve anything positive that could possibly be attributed to him. It's as if their capacity for rational thought and basic reasoning has been completely short circuited, but only with regards to Trump. In many other cases they can still make reasoned arguments.

I mean, it's hardly a deep insight to say that emotions are very powerful things that can override rational thought. Negative emotions seem to be especially powerful. In particular emotions like disdain and disgust seem to be very potent when it comes to overriding reason.

Bilwick म्हणाले...

Facts and logic don't matter to cultists, especially State-cultists.

Temujin म्हणाले...

I've read Sowell for years. A great free-market economist and a clear mind. We will miss him when he's gone. If you ever want to read about how our education system got to be what it is now (which is to say- not good) pick up his book, "Inside American Education", which was published way back in 1992 and lays out what was going on then, what went on before the 90s and what was to come (to reach the point we have today).

Sebastian म्हणाले...

Progs are immune to facts because they can afford to be: no one will hold them accountable, and when reality bites, reality is to blame.

Bay Area Guy म्हणाले...

I love Thomas Sowell. The man is a righteous dude. In 1988, he wrote "A Conflict of Visions" - wonderful little book. Explains the big picture very well.

Greg the class traitor म्हणाले...

There's good reason why IYI "Intellectual Yet Idiot" is a comment in widespread use.

https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577

TDS: Trump Derangement Syndrome can combine with IYI, and make it at least multiplicatively worse.

But even without TDS or the previous BDS, IYI is still a very real thing.

Because there's a huge difference between being educated, and being credentialed

Rick म्हणाले...

To what extent that was the result of ignoring factual evidence rather than animus or negative wishful thinking is harder to discern.

Presumably by framing these as separate triggers you're limiting the first to ignoring factual evidence for reasons other than animus or negative wishful thinking. With this established it is not that difficult to discern which causes Krugman's errors. If it were the first his errors would be randomly distributed. If the second his errors would disproportionately denigrate his opponents or aggrandize his allies. Since Krugman's errors on politics nearly uniformly fit the latter pattern we know his errors are driven by animus.

roesch/voltaire म्हणाले...

Works both ways Trump supporters believe him when he says the CNN camera's are turned offf when they are live broadcasting for instance, and then there is the tax cut for the rich which has proven to benefit the few and the list goes on,

Drago म्हणाले...

Thomas Sowell is despised by the dems and their LLR fake con allies for his fearless truth-telling and unassailable scholarship.

Todd म्हणाले...

Lucid-Ideas said...

Thomas Sowell is a national treasure

11/5/19, 10:12 AM


This!

And yes, what a wasted opportunity Obama was. He was able to refocus and redirect SO much in regard to race relations and POC culture and instead he was totally unable to raise himself above his ideology for the good of the country. Instead history will know him as one of the worst Presidents this country has ever had [the savior of Carter]. What a shame.

Qwinn म्हणाले...

I would crawl over broken glass to vote for Thomas Sowell for President.

I know that probably makes me a racist according to the Left.

cubanbob म्हणाले...

"There are so many people — among the intelligentsia, especially — who are absolutely immune to facts.”"

Tens of millions to be exact and they are going to vote Democrat next year. Ask them about their 401Ks and they are happy but cannot comprehend had Hillary had won their 401Ks wouldn't be up much and if Warren gets elected next year they really should sell off the day after the election.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Bilwick said...
Facts and logic don't matter to cultists, especially State-cultists.


Like Jo Biden SAID: We Choose TRUTH over facts

Owen म्हणाले...

Thomas Sowell is a star. So disarming in his plain-spoken style, but his BS filter is pretty much perfect. God bless him.

I think the intelligentsia ignore inconvenient facts because they pay no price for doing so. Up to a (considerable) point, they are rewarded for doing so, by their community of peers and clients. By the time the shared delusion becomes fully detached from reality, too much time has passed and too many rice bowls have been filled and emptied, for any honest accounting to take place.

Ken B म्हणाले...

Wince
So Krugman confessed his error? Link please.

gahrie म्हणाले...

Facts are an invention of the White Patriarchy designed to allow White men to oppress women and minorities.

Drago म्हणाले...

r/v: "Works both ways Trump supporters believe him when he says the CNN camera's are turned offf when they are live broadcasting for instance, and then there is the tax cut for the rich which has proven to benefit the few and the list goes on,"

It is very unfortunate for you and your latest batch of lefty lies that CNN and MSNBC et al routinely explain why they won't show Trump rallies or cut away from the Trump rallies.

Further, your very very very tired tax cuts only for the rich lies are also falling flat in a full employment/rising employment/rising wages across all quintile groups.

And all of that on top of the collapse of all your extraordinary hoax lies over the last 3 years.

Not very impressive r/v. Not impressive at all.

Which makes you angrier r/v: record low unemployment among African-americans, or record low unemployment among hispanics/latinos?

Spoiler: I'm guessing its Both!!

Greg the class traitor म्हणाले...

Blogger roesch/voltaire said...
Works both ways Trump supporters believe him when he says the CNN camera's are turned offf when they are live broadcasting for instance, and then there is the tax cut for the rich which has proven to benefit the few and the list goes on,

Wow, that's impressive.

"Trumps voters are delusional, so I'll spout some Left wing delusions to show how that is so!"

Qwinn म्हणाले...

Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Democrat treason and plot
I see no reason why Democrat treason
Should ever be forgot

I posted that unironically one year ago (or maybe two?) on this board. The Dems did something that easily fit my definition of treason (and that of many others here) on Nov 5 a year or two ago, and now, ironically damnit, I can't remember what it was. In my defense, it's just been buried among all the other crap they pull every day of the year.

Michael McNeil म्हणाले...

Works both ways Trump supporters believe him when he says the CNN camera's are turned offf when they are live broadcasting for instance, and then there is the tax cut for the rich which has proven to benefit the few and the list goes on,

Fake, fake news! You don't believe The New York Times? Even the Times on the eve of “tax day,” April 14, 2019, had to admit that most folk in America got a tax cut, rather than a tax hike, as a result of Trump and Congress's tax reform bill.

As the foregoing Times piece notes: [quoting…]

If you’re an American taxpayer, you probably got a tax cut last year. And there’s a good chance you don’t believe it.

Ever since President Trump signed the Republican-sponsored tax bill in December 2017, independent analyses have consistently found that a large majority of Americans would owe less because of the law. Preliminary data based on tax filings has shown the same.

[/unQuote]

As that piece lays out, overall 64.8% (nearly 2/3!) of the public is paying lower taxes than under the previous law. Even for households with incomes below $30,000 per year (most of whom paid no income taxes to begin with), overall 32.1% (nearly 1/3) of such families received a tax cut. For the $30,000-50,000 household-income range (where people indubitably do pay taxes), 68.1% (more than 2/3) of the people in that category paid lower taxes.

Why don't you lay off the lies, r-v? “Proven,” indeed — not!

MountainMan म्हणाले...

Thomas Sowell is a fount of great observations. Some of my favorites that I have cataloged over the years:

“In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.”

“The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals’ expansion of the welfare state.”

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

“Much of the social history of the Western World, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.“

"I can't imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."

What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice.“

Big Mike म्हणाले...

“There are so many people, especially among the intelligentsia, who are absolutely immune to facts.”

roesch being a case in point.

And add my vote for Sowell being declared a national treasure.

RNB म्हणाले...

“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” -- George Orwell. [Probably fake but irresistable.]

cubanbob म्हणाले...

roesch/voltaire said...
Works both ways Trump supporters believe him when he says the CNN camera's are turned offf when they are live broadcasting for instance, and then there is the tax cut for the rich which has proven to benefit the few and the list goes on,"

I happen to be one of those "rich" who happened to get a tax rate reduction which is not a tax cut. Those who argue tax cut instead of rate reduction are either stupid or willfully stupid. CNN= the Baghdad Bob of 'news'.

M Jordan म्हणाले...

Here’s a fact: Polls a year out are WORTHLESS. Even worse than worthless. They are corrupt attempts to craft a narrative. Don’t believe me? Look at previous poll numbers a year out from any election.

Yet the pundit class cites them — or should I say cherry picks them — every day to validate their biases. Sickening.

stevew म्हणाले...

So long as Krugman and others among this intelligentsia never pay a price, professionally, for being wrong then they will continue to ignore the things that contradict their prognostications.

Jaq म्हणाले...

I am very curious, R/V. Show me how the tax cuts favored the rich. I think cancelling the SALT deduction hurt rich people a lot more than poor people. Aren’t you always yammering on about how blue states and Democrats are better because you guys are richer?

Isn’t that why you belong to the party of the rich, the Democrats? You don’t even understand the tax cuts, you just repeat the talking points that the DailyKos gave you in its “call to action” to go spam blogs.

Jaq म्हणाले...

the best way to combat delusion is with cold hard facts, R/V. Educate us with the facts. This is a chance for you to deal out a real WWF style smackdown!

Jaq म्हणाले...

Meanwhile Reuters is running a Twitter poll about what people think is most likely to tank the economy.

John Scott म्हणाले...

Back before the vote for prop 209 that was designed to end affirmative action here in California, they held a big rally for those who were against it at the Federal building in Westwood. They had a lot of heavy hitters, including Bruce Springsteen giving a free mini concert. But there I was, the lone counter protester across Wilshire Blvd., holding up a sign that stole a subtitle from Thomas Sowell's "Vision of the Anointed." It read End Self-congratulations as the Basis for Social Policy.

I guess we were a little more civil back then. I got flipped the bird a few times, but no one came over to try to beat me up.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

Sowell wrote some great books.

"By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s" -- NYeT columnist Krugman.

Bilwick म्हणाले...

One of the best Sowell videos is his take on the phrase "trickle-down economics" . . . the favorable use of which pretty much brands the user as a member of the Stupid Left.(Hi, roesch/voltaire!)

rehajm म्हणाले...

To what extent that was the result of ignoring factual evidence rather than animus or negative wishful thinking is harder to discern

I'd offer they were arrogant enough to believe they would alter the outcome by their proclamations.

n.n म्हणाले...

Speaking truth to facts, not limited to the Twilight faith, Pro-Choice quasi-religion, political congruence, social-justice mongering (e.g. elective wars), diversity and exclusion, and the prophecy of [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate change established by an ensemble of models that demonstrate no skill to hindcast, let alone forecast, and require regular injections of brown matter to sustain a consensus with reality.

Original Mike म्हणाले...

"There are so many people — among the intelligentsia, especially — who are absolutely immune to facts.”

Exhibit A: Blogger roesch/voltaire said..."and then there is the tax cut for the rich which has proven to benefit the few ..."

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil म्हणाले...

Big Mike said...
“There are so many people, especially among the intelligentsia, who are absolutely immune to facts.”

roesch being a case in point"

Posting a drawing of Voltaire on your Google profile does not make you a member of the intelligentsia.

Voltaire, remember, was a champion of free speech.

"It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster."

Has R/V ever criticized campus speech codes? Or Antifa?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil म्हणाले...

Exhibit A: Blogger roesch/voltaire said..."and then there is the tax cut for the rich which has proven to benefit the few ..."

11/5/19, 12:59 PM


The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom. – the real Voltaire

NorthOfTheOneOhOne म्हणाले...

RNB said...

“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” -- George Orwell. [Probably fake but irresistable.]

Not fake, just a paraphrase. What Orwell said was; "One has to be a member of the intelligentsia to believe this." It was his comment on the British Left's idea, which gained traction during the pre-Normandy troop build up, that Churchill's real movtive was to use the US Army to eradicate them.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

@exiledonmainstreet, whoever said one has to be intelligent to self-identify as a member of the intelligentsia?

Hammond X. Gritzkofe म्हणाले...

Keep on keeping on, Mr. Sowell. Please!

Maillard Reactionary म्हणाले...

I've always enjoyed Dr. Sowell's unadorned matter-of-factness in dealing with issues others find uncomfortable or taboo. (Separately, he's also a pretty good amateur photographer.)

Being comfortable with facts is a discipline that needs to be cultivated early in life for most, since few are born with that temperament. It is not a way to become popular with one's (real or aspirational) peer group, that's for sure, but it does have its rewards, if sometimes rather sardonic ones.

Part of being civilized is achieving a balance between being well-oriented regarding reality, and maintaining ties to the rest of the human race.

Sam L. म्हणाले...

That's Paullie "The Beard" Krugman for you!

iowan2 म्हणाले...


Sowell's think piece hits two of the four

FOUR STUMBLING BLOCKS TO TRUTH

I. THE INFLUENCE OF FRAGILE OR UNWORTHY AUTHORITY
II. CUSTOM
III.THE IMPERFECTION OF UNDISCIPLINED SENSES
IV. CONCEALMENT OF IGNORANCE by OSTENTATION of SEEMING WISDOM

Roger Bacon, 1219 - 1292

translation: There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.

Patrick Henry was right! म्हणाले...

My hero!!!

Larry J म्हणाले...

Like the Emperor’s new clothes, our so called intelligentsia is proving themselves monumentally ignorant. They might be book smart within their domain, but all too often, they read the wrong books.

bagoh20 म्हणाले...

He's right, and the reason he's right is that the intelligentsia is as susceptible as anyone else to emotion and bias, but they have additional flaws: 1) is that they are less able to admit that they share these weaknesses; "I mean how can I be wrong when I'm part of the intelligentsia. I'm one of the smart ones.", and 2) their knowledge base comes primarily from academia which is only tangentially related to the real world, and their knowledge is always obsolete by comparison. That's why so many of us do not consider that intelligentsia has superior knowledge, just different knowledge, much of it useless.

bagoh20 म्हणाले...

A strong economy, especially one with full employment and rising wages, benefits more people than any other pile of polices could. If policy does not do that, then what is it for? The idea that the tax cuts did not help substantially with that is just willful blindness.

I can't imagine ever wishing for an economy like this to stop or reverse, but there are a lot of Americans who do wish that, and would relish the news if it appeared, and for what? Because they are butt-hurt. Get over it, children.

I hated Obama and his policies, but I never wanted a bad economy just to prove him wrong. In the end, he produced the slowest recovery in modern history, and I do think that was a direct result of his policies and his rhetoric, and that both discouraged investment and risk-taking by the makers, while paying the takers more than ever. He encouraged sloth and graft, rather than effort and risk taking. Trump does just the opposite.

Unknown म्हणाले...

Sowel invented the Pith helmet