Why consensus can be so dangerous for science - and for the modern societies that depend on it
[This explains succinctly why the middle fell for it but some of us saw through the hoax almost immediately and resisted but most did not]
What the study really explains, Eugyppius argues, is why near-compulsory mRNA jabs became national policy in wealthy democracies. In those countries, this smart-not-smartest group dominates politics and most businesses (if not startups).
He draws on a 1985 paper called “Intelligence and personal influence in groups” to argue that the most intelligent people cannot argue down persuasively and so have limited influence.
Instead, people who are somewhat smarter than average, with an IQ of about 120 (I’d go slightly higher, to 125-130), dominate debate. They can understand - if not formulate - somewhat complicated ideas and still argue them in ways less intelligent people can follow. The smart-not-brilliant range also contains enough people to form powerful and reinforcing social networks. The very top definitionally does not.
As Eugyppius writes:
Ours is therefore an IQ 120 midwit society; it could not be any other way… since our midwit rulers are cognitively better endowed than probably 90% of the whole population, it’s easy for them to overlook the rare 10% of people who are smarter than they are. Accordingly, they throw all of their opponents into the same basket of intellectual deplorables…
The ideas which dominate our world are… those ideas which appeal to people whose intelligence is above average if less-than-phenomenal, and whose other personality traits optimise their institutional influence. They have the brains of upper middle-class professionals, and they’re also much more extroverted, conscientious and conformist than the broader population...
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/on-head-girls-genius-boys-and-the
While Beijing-backed hackers infiltrated Canadian telecoms, federal and B.C. leaders quietly financed a billion-dollar shipbuilding deal with a Chinese state firm—then tried to pass the buck.
https://theoppositionnewsnetwork.substack.com/p/ottawa-funded-the-china-ferry-dealthen
Some of these things I still miss
I grew up without safe spaces.
I grew up without trigger warnings.
I drank water from the hose.
I ate peanuts in class.
None of us wore a helmet.
Kids got hurt. We fell down. And we signed a lot of casts.
We couldn’t pause TV. We’d call out “It’s on!” as soon as the commercials started to end (for those who had left the room). And we watched our favourite shows as a family.
There was no next day delivery.
There was no bundle this with that.
There was no internet. Skip the Dishes didn’t exist.
Fast food was not the norm. It was easier to eat healthy. There were home phones. There was VH.........