This is part of my report on our education system. I am not providing evidence for it right now (it's long and in my report), but our entire education system (as well as all books, movies, research journals, and all other sources of media) come from a single source, and they have for over 100 years (multiple generations). I like to call that source The Trust, but you can call them the Rockefellers. It's not entirely accurate, but for now it's close enough.

I am making this post because people often don't understand what "trust" is. Nor do they understand what "critical thinking" is. The reason they don't understand these things is because they have been taught that they are something different than what they actually are. These confusions give the PTB control over our beliefs and our actions. They are fundamental control mechanisms for The Matrix. Here I will discuss these concepts a little bit.

This is part of a longer report, so forgive the flow, as it may relate to other content, and forgive some of the normie centric stuff. The report is intended for an audience that still thinks vaccines are God's gift to mankind.

What is critical thinking?

Looking up the definitions I am very unsatisfied with what I find. In addition to a lack of agreement, the definitions seem nebulous, even circular. You would think something so fundamental would not be that difficult to explain. Stanford’s philosophical encyclopedia says this about it:

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus.

So its an “educational goal” that has apparently completely failed since it can’t even be defined in a satisfactory manner. What else?

John Dewey (1910), who more commonly called it ‘reflective thinking’. He defined it as:

active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends.

Mmkay… I find when something seems difficult to define, its best to look at the roots. The etymological dictionary is quite nice for this, though we have to… think critically about what it says to piece it all together:

critical: critic + -al "involving judgment as to the truth or merit of something"

-al: relating to

critic: from Greek kritikos "able to make judgments," from krinein "to separate, decide" (from PIE root *krei-"to sieve," thus "discriminate, distinguish"

So to be critical means to judge the truth or merit of something. An important implied statement is that if you are being critical, it is you being critical, i.e. you are the “critic” in “critical thinking”. It is you applying judgment as to the truth or merit of something. It is you that is being discriminating (discerning). It is you that is deciding for yourself after consideration.

think: "imagine, conceive in the mind; consider, meditate, remember; intend, wish, desire"

To think means (according to this) to conceive in the mind. It’s perhaps a bit narrow of a definition, but for this purpose I think (conceive in my mind) that it will suffice. This suggests it is possible to “think” without being critical, but it is not possible to be critical without thinking. Thus, using the etymological dictionary, my conclusion is:

critical thinking: to be discerning and think for yourself, applying your own judgment, after consideration, as to the truth or merit of something.

(Emphasis because these ideas are so often skipped in our teaching.)

That wasn’t so hard. I like mine a lot better than any of the other “competing definitions” I’ve seen, though I had to use some critical thinking to get to it.

What would be the opposite of critical thinking? It could be “any thinking that is not applying your own judgment as to the truth or merit of something” (not being critical). It could also be “not thinking at all” (not thinking).

On an unrelated note (but totally not unrelated at all), what does it mean to trust?

trust: reliance on the veracity, integrity, or other virtues of someone or something

belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective

To “trust” means to rely on someone else (e.g. to make judgments, or decide what is truth) for us. To be “critical” means to rely on yourself to make judgments, or decide what is truth. To trust means to assign your critical thinking over to someone else. Trust, in this context, is the opposite of critical thinking since you are giving up the “you” part of the critic and giving it to someone (or something) else.

Why would we trust? Sometimes there just isn’t enough time to do a whole lot of critical thinking or to be skeptical. Imagine couples figure skating without trust. It isn’t that I think there is never an appropriate time for trust. What I mean to say is, most of the time we are trusting, we aren’t realizing we are doing so. We are instead doing what we were trained to do (trust) instead of critical thinking, which is what we should be doing.

For example; we are told:

• Listen to your mother (but we really mean trust).
• Listen to your teacher (but we really mean trust).
• Trust your doctor.
• Respect your elders (but we really mean trust).
• Trust the experts.
• Trust the science (which is the opposite of what scientists are taught about science).
• Trust what you see on the news, they can’t lie because you are being shown the truth.

Other than what we are told, we trust certain institutions as well. For example:

• We trust government institutions, even though almost no one trusts any politicians.
• We trust large corporate institutions even though they are basically conflict of interest machines.
• We trust books if they are old.
• We trust what someone says, if someone we trust also trusts them. Trust is like a virus, it spreads unabated within whatever echo chambers we belong.
• We trust leaders, because they are more important than us, and there must be a reason they are more important than us.

In other words, we give up our own critical thinking in all of these circumstances.

All our lives, from cradle to grave, this is what we are taught; to trust these sources. I do not mean to suggest we should not be listening to our mothers, or teachers, or doctors, or experts, etc. On the contrary, I think that listening is an excellent path to understanding Reality. What I am trying to say is, listening to someone's argument and then thinking critically on it, and trusting someone are not the same thing. In fact they are, at least sometimes, at odds.