There’s a lot of knowledge, history, out there, that COULD be useful, BEFORE you think you KNOW what is what.
Furthermore there’s a lot of ways you can “qualify” yourself to someone qualified, qualified to be considered LEARNED and KNOWING .
In the same time even all the knowledge in the world — does not guarantee creation of NEW KNOWLEDGE. Nor all QUALIFICATIONS in the world the creation of the next BREAKTHROUGH
Thus we have authorities, experts, when we can,
to not drawn in noise
and perhaps to not experiment when there’s too much at stake.
you don’t want plane pilots debating and trying out different flying techniques, while you’re on the fucking plane,
and you don’t want flat-earthers ask questions on your newtonian mechanics lecture, and definitely not on your theory of relativity lecture
and you don’t want bloodthirsty authoritarian nationalists influencing the state’s policies
but we also have scepticism,
AND open society,
AND capitalism,
and DEMOCRACY,
and FREE SPEECH
so that if someone has a different idea,
even a weird idea,
or a “stupid” idea,
he can still voice it,
he can still try it out,
for MAYBE, just maybe, it will work.
And that’s how today’s authorities were made in the first place,
By first questioning the authority of the PREVIOUS authorities
Priests would tell you that the earth is in the centre,
They authority was adding weight to this statement,
But it also DID sound rather reasonable
We all think we’re so important, after all. We all think we’re the centre of the fucking universe
BUT,
nevertheless
Some folks had other ideas
And they just happened to have been right
So this is why we need democracy,
Because even the most enlightened leader, or lineage of philosopher kings — is not infallible,
And there MUST be a mechanism to correct their dogma
This is why we need FREE SPEECH,
Because the costs of NOT having free speech are even worse,
When good ideas can’t battle the bad ideas — then how do you know they are so good?
It becomes a dogma in and of itself
And this is why we need FREE MARKET,
Because what you think is best for society, for economy, is perhaps NOT as omnipotent as what the market, the society, thinks is best for itself,
And as it votes for the best products and services every single day, million times a day — through every consumer and business financial decision, every purchase, every sale, every investment,
And finally,
This is perhaps why we even need NONSENSE,
Nonsense and FILTH and DEVOLUTION
We need ignorant people voicing their ignorant opinions,
We need dumb people having dumb ideas,
We need disgusting people sharing their disgusting views,
We need crazy people flaunting their crazy,
We need to suffer our values trodden upon,
Watch what we hold dear desecrated,
Ourselves critiqued and offended by people below our criticism,
And all of it, paradoxically,
So that it doesn’t get even worse,
And more paradoxically,
So that it actually LONG TERM gets better
Now,
I’m no fucking idealist,
Ugly people run their mouth, but let them speak and show their ugliness,
Pop-culture is pathetic, but it’s only because I’m myself not,
World has to cater to the lowest common denominator, so unless you’re that — you “hope for more”,
I’m no idealist,
But idiots especially annoy me
Because you’d think that plain UNTRUTH, plain FALSEHOOD — would be the easiest to reveal,
And then to fucking obliterate
You’d think nonsense would be easy to obliterate,
Ignorance ousted as ignorance, go back to school
Clueless people ousted as clueless
Flawed logic ousted as either intellectual shortcomings or bad faith
PERHAPS we’re at the most critical point, with the advent of social media,
And with the devolution of institutions, and trust in institutions, and authorities
Perhaps it will get better
Perhaps one more thing should happen, which we didn’t have before, did we
I would like people to admit that they are stupid
Or ignorant,
Much in the same way you’d admit that you are short,
Or physically weak,
Or poor
Admit it with neither pride nor shame,
Just state a fact,
Perhaps that would be a more evolved, enlightened society
This is not to say we don’t have meritocracy when it comes to building real things,
You can’t create wonderful things by being poor at creating, thank goodness,
When something is judged on it’s merit, and speaks for itself, when something just works — it ceases being judged by it’s looks, or dumb opinions and relatability and popularity
But of course I would like more,
BUT, returning to the initial statements,
Perhaps we can never eradicate much of stupidity,
Because
Because perhaps this STUPIDITY is NECESSARY
Perhaps you have to be a little foolish — to try foolish, hopeless endeavours,
And to push the envelope,
And actually do something new,
And to actually do something GREAT
Not merely correct,
But great
(And, of course, fail thousands times first, or be one of the thousands who failed)
Thus my conclusion is,
I’m not a fan of coercion
=let ugly people show their ugliness, let stupid people show their stupidity,
I believe in individuals self-regulation
=you yourself, as individual, voluntarily choose to have nothing to do with that which you find ugly, or stupid.
And hopefully other individuals will do the same, and the society, without resorting to violence, will eradicate ugliness and stupidity, by simply rejecting it
And this is where I would hope we’d do better,
I think we are doing poor job now of HONESTLY battling out bad ideas with good ones, and deciding on what is real and what is not
We became distracted by partisanship
Thus failing our duty to pursue truth — instead pursuing the party line
Of course internet favoured this immense tribalisation
This is true for every part of the political spectrum, or ANY discipline where views could consolidate into a certain philosophy or set of beliefs
Let’s battle with ideas again
ACTUALLY
Let ideas be free
So that bad ideas can be obliterated
And good ideas can thrive
And stupid ideas can be obliterated
And some MAD ideas can actually be ingenious