This column is written from the viewpoint of investing success, but much of it applies to the political sphere and to life generally. (Emphasis below is mine)
https://financialpreparedness.substack.com/p/barking-up-the-wrong-tree
And here's something to be mindful of when investing. Barker writes, “But confidence can also be extremely dangerous...because [it] feels good. [It] makes us feel powerful. But plenty of research shows that when we feel powerful, it can be a slippery slope to denial and hubris.”
Barker quotes Richard Tedlow, a professor at Harvard Business School: “...what is striking about the dozens of companies and CEOs I have studied [for four decades] is the large number of them who have made mistakes that could and should have been avoided.... These mistakes resulted from individuals denying reality.” This is especially dangerous when you surround yourself with people who just tell you what you want to hear.
Barker writes that “Overconfidence is usually the mistake of experts, and we do give them a lot of power and authority....incompetence is frustrating, but the people guilty of it usually can't screw things up that bad. The people guilty of overconfidence can do much more damage.” Yes. This reminds me of the book Hormegeddon: How Too Much of a Good Thing Can Lead to Disaster, which I recommend.
Now here's an interesting metric I plan to add to my massive stock-tracking spreadsheet: “Want to know which CEOs will run their company into the ground? Count how many times they use the word 'I' in their annual letter to shareholders. This is what [a] financial analyst discovered when she evaluated leaders and how their companies performed. Me, me, me means death, death, death for corporations. But when hubris takes over and you're self-absorbed, you can't see straight. What's worse is you're not aware of it. You're blind to your own blindness.”
The experts told me I had "Oppositionial Defiance Disorder". I told them to fuck off, you're full of shit.
I suspect most of us here are several standard deviations above the mean in the "thinking for oneself" category.
I'm an expert on that subject.
"You did right" - Dr. Scott, Rocky Horror Picture Show
😆😂😆😂😆 They call us *damaged. Nar we just don't tolerate their 🐂 💩
ROFL Kek
Applies to doctors for sure. Good podcast a while back about the power of what is communicated and how by medical professionals.
https://skeptiko.com/steve-bierman-hypnosis-nlp-in-the-er-570/
I look at everyone as equal pieces of sh!t until proven otherwise. Dr,police officer, thief, theyre all the same to me.
People that moved away from Jesus and became secular atheists/agnostic removed their belief in God but that doesn’t remove their religiosity. They instead created their own dogma, and their own priests.
I’m glad I was exposed to authority figures that were blatantly full of shit from a young age. What a gift. Pattern recognition is a wonderful thing. Being exposed to bad situations and bad people feels rotten in the moment and for a long time after, but what a payoff later on.
Strife is where wisdom is forged.
So when someone is presented as an expert, the paet of the brain that says "stop, this information may be wrong" gets short-circuited...
I actually had someone---young woman with nose ring and tats all over---ask me what MAGA was?? I asked her if she lived in a cave!
Yupp, they outsource too much of their own thinking
Monkey see Monkey do, albeit from a Christian perspective.
In some churches they do certain things like being slain in the spirit, where you fall down, after a laying on of hands, speak in tongues, etc... I don't attend churches of many denominations, Charismatic in the early 90s. Anyways I NEVER saw anyone not fall down when brought to the front of the church, and I'm not talking only big churches . I never saw anyone not fall down, its a social aspect
A similar thing in Vigilantes, you can whip a crowd into a frenzy. Mob mentality, Antifa
Which reminds me:
Just remember that Anthony Fauci "represents science"