Absolutely. If it wasn't enough for people to not see how disingenuous he was about his loss in this existential competition ( my gods man...all of us Plebs are losers here!) By means of a dice roll?( to us heuristic, mouth-breathing,knuckle-dragging,authority distrustful morons)... he trolled us all this morning.
To see people think him sincere in his " Well, tell me what strangers do I trust?" Tweets... it was so disheartening. So many actually thought him sincere. As if he was truly contrite and wanted to know ! "Oh! How...how did you do it, so that I can emulate your beingness!" Kinda bullshit.
"You backed the bad guys. THAT’S the thing everyone wants apologies for." Exactly! He once interested me, too, and I read many of his books and watched his podcast. Then he lost me completely when he got jabbed and became a tiresome vax jerk who weirded me out. And is he jab injured? He made a video recently saying he could no longer exercise and might never be able to have a personal relationship again. He also said if he is still in this much pain in a year, he will kill himself. I find him very, very strange.
Shades of Sam Harris. A self proclaimed enlightened rational thinker descends into reptilian irrationality after only the slightest hint of fear, never mind actual danger.
All I heard was contempt in that apology. There's no going back from contempt on the emotional Richter.
He hates us more now because he knows nobody will be standing tall on the rubble left behind from this abomination. That's what really gets him; the realization that he wont be glorified standing atop a righteous mountain.
Don't kid yourself; his level (and others like him) of contempt would manifests itself in the most unspeakable of punishments if he could get away with it. The level of cruelty influenced by virtue of how right his victim was.
He's the guy that smiles at you while he opens the gates to the furnace.
You have said it more concisely than I in my earlier remarks.
May his contempt breed contempt within his mesmeric petri dish in which he thought us bound by his sorcery. We weren't. We visited curious and unchained we left him to hisself furious.
Ryan,I feel this is insight of an exacting nature.
Contempt.
I've never seen contempt be converted to a healthier,growth oriented display. It's as if Contempt is the fuel of cancer,and I've never known anyone (for whom I've recognized that emotion ) Not try to exactly vengeance.
Very yes. The bit about "archetypal backhanded apology of the kind every toxic marriage, corporate press release, or celebrity confession is built on: I am technically in violation of some terms that YOU set, and YOU’RE being so emotional about this perceived injustice that I’m going to Be The Grownup and follow a token ritual of contrition so we can Move Forward." in particular really hits the nail on the head. It'd be nice to know how to fix that in a person...
Stay tuned. As per the post script, I intend to think on that a whole steaming heap. It feels like something that has become really important to the survival of civilization.
I'd be quite interested in that. I remember in marriage counseling the ass hat saying "you don't have to apologize for the action, but you can apologize for how the other person feels." I wanted to punch the shit out of them while screaming "I am sorry you feel pain! I can fix that for you!" Well, I did after I realized that they really believed that, that one shouldn't feel bad for violating a rule with regards to someone you purport to care about so long as they don't feel bad. If you don't get caught, it doesn't count! You only apologize when you make the other person feel bad, and if they don't you did nothing wrong!
I can't tell if I am just strange and notice "Hey, you aren't admitting any mistake other than the fact I found out" when most humans don't, or what, but it seemed like horrifically bad advice.
I absolutely did not learn that in group/couples counseling training. That principle infuriates me on its face.
There are a lot of modalities out there, and because it's a social science, there's (probably) never going to be anything like a "scientific consensus" on teaching the "best" one.
Yea, I have had some shit therapists, and some shit marriage counsellors, too. Plus a handful of good ones, I must say. It seems very swingy in terms of quality, with some just being out and out frauds. Basically more expensive and time consuming self help books you have to book an appointment to read.
>> more expensive and time consuming self help books you have to book an appointment to read.
If this is primarily what's going on in therapy it's a waste of time regardless of modality. "Psychoeducation" (what you're describing here) is a distant adjunct to helping work towards insight. If your therapist is doing most of the talking it's probably not worth it.
Maybe not even if they just feel bad. Maybe there's another issue of where they exist in the social hierarchy, specifically if they are powerful enough to demand that the offender actually care that they were hurt or offended.
Maybe the Scott-berts of this world are not so much slow on realizing they were wrong, as they were previously in a position of relative power in the hierarchy (said status having lowered, and thus necessitating an appearance of regret).
Seriously. How that whole ecosystem got started, I would kind of love to know. It's like a shepherd hiring someone to help his sheep get along who actively destroys the sheep's ability to get along, yet sheep keep getting sent to them. If I ever was in charge of such things, I would make a hard rule that anyone hiring or sending employees to such training must attend themselves, and write me a report on what happened and judge it. I'd have an eye towards whether it was horrible training, and whether the manager realized it.
It is very difficult to execute en masse, but turning away and giving him no further attention can work wonders both for us and for him. Starve his self-regard with inattention.
Think about how he drew some of us back to hear what he had to say.
When he is left talking to himself in an echo chamber of nodding acolytes, who are shaved bald and who'd occasionally venture out to ask for alms on his behalf, we cheerfully shake our heads, No, and charitably say nothing more in word or deed.
Agree Doc H. Perhaps the key is "token ritual". Do you ever feel that almost everything today seems to come down to attempts to stage performances of the rituals deemed appropriate by the self-appointed arbiters of all that is good and holy?
Yes! Cargo Cult might be another way of thinking about it: do the token ritual but have no idea why the parts work or what causes the end results. What matters to those who arbitrate is that you go through the motions, despite the fact that those motions are as often actively detrimental.
I wonder in part if we have forgotten as a culture what apologies are for and why, or if people never really knew, or whether so much of corporate/academic/bureaucratic culture has simply driven into people doing what is necessary to get other people to shut up and go away only, that it has bled into all aspects of life. Just check the box that says you did what you were supposed to do, so you can't be blamed any more for your bad behavior.
We have forgotten, yes, or allowed it to be forgotten.
Earlier, a lack of an apology was the equivalent of standing your ground in a physical confrontation, meaning the argument/conflict was ongoing and could very well escalate to violence (hence: formal duels).
If any apology was to be made, it followed a (compared to today) stylished and formal form leaving no doubt that the one apologising was doing precisely that. Also, it always included how they had wronged the other party.
This included the one receiving the apology to acknowledge it and to show he/she was satisfied with it (honour was satisfied), and to thank the one making the apology for doing so.
And all of it done in public before witnesses. Say, outside church on a Sunday or after a guild or town hall meeting.
The alternative as mentioned was duels or a court process for slander, defamation or libel (some jurisdictions made/make no beans about the actual medium used, or even the truth of the information spread around).
An "easy" way out of this trap is to make it to expensive for the personality-types revelling in and benefitting from the current state of affairs by simply working towards re-establishing the ritualistic manner of the apology, with hefty punitive fines and even duels as a back up.
Could even be good charity: who wouldn't pay say $20 to see someone from The Young Turks go up against Tyrus from The Gutfeld show?
And that may be why so rapidly our society succumbed to the covid maniacal rituals of covering our faces, keeping our distances, and chasing our vaxes (we as in society). It was striking how the anointing of hands with goo mimicked the more somber ritual of blessing oneself at the entrance of a church or that of smudging oneself as in a native indian healing circle.
One could extend the notion to the schedule for infant vaccines which prepped the way to the horrific march toward including children in the C19 rollout for the sake of "immunity".
And now we have the rituals of segregation by status - today its wokeism and covidism, tomorrow who knows what it will be?
Look around the world. All of the 'western liberal democracies' are plummeting, simultaneously, into some kind of lovecraftian maelstrom of societal decay. We have done away with, or are in the process of doing away with almost all that is great and good. I have maintained for years that we now live in a checkbox world. We lackadaisically check the boxes, but never, never, ask who created the f'ing forms. And if that ain't ritual....
You nailed it. Adams has positioned himself as some sort of bullshit detector intellectual guru, so this has to represent some kind of psychological break with his subconscious identity or sense of self. In the 5 stages of grief, I’d put him at Anger. His anger is a kind of psychological defense mechanism. Pride is an ass kicker. Next up: Bargaining.
That Twitter thread is insightful, if somewhat painful. It looks like he's being deliberately obtuse. What he completely misses is that it isn't really about knowing what data (or which person) was "correct" but rather taking responsibility for one's own choices and not being a f#$%ing authoritarian twat.
Jan 24, 2023·edited Jan 24, 2023Liked by Guttermouth
Maybe he’s already in the Bargaining stage with this “tell me which stranger to trust” bullshit he’s started. Start with Dr. Mercola, Dell Bigtree, Judy Mikovitz. Go from there.
If he sincerely meant this- which his behavior on the tweet thread suggests he doesn't at all- he completely missed the point.
There was decades of uncontroversial research and even (gasp) consensus before COVID. There were plenty of data streams even the bad guys couldn't fudge hard enough.
You didn't have to trust anyone if you didn't want to. You just had to examine what you were being given critically.
Exactly. All he had to do was ponder the effectiveness of the flu vaccine, or think for a moment how completely crazy it was to think that herd immunity could be reached through vaccination.
To say nothing of the reams of writing from sources he'd probably trust previously disavowing things like social distancing, quarantine of healthy people, or masks.
Hard to figure out why in all cases. But I think Matt is encountering a diffuse fear that getting on the wrong side of DOD/DARPA/unamed-defense-agencies would be a bridge to far for a sustainable life, even if it is the right bridge. After working at China Lake, I concur that it is a very, very risky thing to do/place to be. As Uncle Joe says, those guys have F-15s. I am astounded that no one will even engage Matt on the DMED disaster -- but I expect that is why.
I like Mathew. I can say this even if I cannot comprehend his polymath mind. Seriously,I can't Math,but I'm pretty sure it's the language of the universe ,in concrete terms.
"...He spent the entirety of the pandemic using his position as a social influencer and guru to advocate for lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masks, punishment for the unvaxxed, and to castigate and soundly mock the stupidity of his opposition on every social channel he copiously occupies...."
And that is why I don't give a flying fat rat's ass about Scott Adams' or any of his like-minded ilk's apologies. I don't want their apologies. Their apologies are shit to me, because they are as empty as the "Please forgive us and let's be friends again" drum they're now beating on ... Given the opportunity they'll act in the very same manner, because that's their nature.
So they can shove their apologies up their collective asses so hard and so deep that it not only gags them, but bucks their teeth and gives them a nose bleed!!!~
Yep. We are now at the stage where they try to "Control the mark" (not us refuseniks). Great article by Ivor Cummins
By the way the CDC had a huge budget for "conveying their message". About $1 billion. A lot of that went to influencers, writers and comics to "Mock The Unvaccinated". I want to know if Adams (or Kimmel and other losers) took money, how much, and when.
But there is also the open hand of encouraging praise that makes the money seem, well, a mere formality as it is slipped into the palm ever so delicately.
I'm thinking this may go the way of that social experiment with the grade school kids where they were divided into brown eyes and blue/green eyes with one group instructed to wear a neck collar; different privileges for the uncollared. And, part way through the experiment, the kids were told a mistake had happened and so the roles were reversed and the collared became the uncollared group. By end of the thing the kids were released from this tortuous "game" and they tore those collars to shreds, together.
Nice work. I like Scott Adams, but stopped watching him due to his bad Covid-19 takes. Of course a rich, age 60 person likely with some form of autism spectrum disorder is a perfect candidate to believe he has to take a brand new mRNA injection to avoid dying and losing everything. So I don't blame him. I think Mathew Crawford has done a good job challenging Adams' faux probability analyses.
Adams is pure unbridled narcissism. His second wife cheated on him and that affected him deeply, after he supported her. I remember listening to one of his Coffee YT's pre-covid (before he got married) in which he in effect alluded to the fact that his powers of persuasion allowed him to keep his gf very satisfied. It gave me pause at the time. Fast forward many years, and sure enough she dumps him.
On a different note, I can't find the obligatory paragraph about the Treaty of Westphalia, and I haven't read about escaped livestock in what seems like ages.
If he wanted to do it in style, he'd simple sing Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry".
Maybe while dressed like her.
I think that would have worked heaps better, sincerity or no.
Now for the more important issue: dinosaurs obviously used PCs for gaming. Just look at the forearms of the T-Rex: obviously evolved from endless hours using a keyboard.
I'm a simpleton,however I wanted to recognize that even though this is The Gutter ( and some folks like me are allowed to get colorful) I am never bereft for sage outlooks. For dark humor. For insights that cause me to aspire to think deeper ( although posts wholey of psycho babble leave me cold) about subjects, and my fellow Gutter denizens.
You should* try this: long march eating low fat high calorie food.
Worst/best one we had our one pre-cooked and then dried rations. About 14 days of food each, each day's rations weighing under a 100 grams. Plus dried apples and banana slices for snacks.
You literally stop farting, burping or shitting day 1, as each leg of the trek is 50 kilometers in varied terrain (moors, heaths, peatbogs, dense pine forests, Rogen moraine, and bare mountain) and the summer heat wrings all excess water out of you.
Wasn't until day 5 I was even able to take a dump. If you can imagine a jet-black doorstopper that bounced when hitting the ground, there you are.
Funniest of all was, I lost 20 kilos that march. My wife lost 2. And our packs were equally heavy.
*Should as in: it's a fun experience but I wouldn't want to do it every day-should.
No,man.... I had enough of constipation by day 5 after my brain surgery. The worst of it was that the morphine didn't even work for me!( when I demanded a change,I guess they thought thry eere being self-righteous by giving me "only" Tylenol ...the relief was palpible) . That does not sound like a good or healthy hike,Rikard. Did ya not have plentiful water?
"And then there is the psychological effect of the Big Lie which is axiomatic in gaslighting. The paradox here is that the bigger the lie, the harder it is for the mind to bridge the gulf between perceived reality and the lie that authority figures are painting as truth. I believe that the prospect of being deceived evinces a primitive emotional response on a par with staring death in the face. We are hard-wired to fear deception because we have evolved to interpret it as an existential threat. That’s why deception can elicit the same emotional response as the miscalculation of a serious physical threat. Lies told to us don’t always bear the same cost as a misjudged red light, but the primitive part of the brain can’t make this distinction and we rely on cerebral mediation for a more appropriate but delayed response. And in the long run, the lie is often just as dangerous as the physical threat. Many government whoppers – ‘safe and effective’ – do cost lives.
To avoid the death-like experience of being deceived, a mental defence is erected to deny that the lie is happening. "
To rephrase what I said on Jeff Childers' recent post:
Scott's most damning statement, to be read back to him at trial, is this:
"All of my fancy analytics got me to a bad place. All of your heuristics — ‘don’t trust these guys, it’s obvious’ — totally worked.”
We applied both analytics and heuristics. Scott applied neither. What Scott did was abuse his training as a hypnotist to play authority games disguised as Socratic argument.
In deploying this strategy, he convinced those who supported him financially to harm themselves and their children, all while setting a torch to constitutional and human rights.
The only possible mitigation for Scott is if we find out he was not paid by monsters to do so. But the flip side of that coin - that he was paid to pull his tricks - should haunt him every night. Because the punishment for that must be very severe.
Does he think I'm ashamed to wallow in schadenfreude? I'm not. I am correct and he, with all of those brains jammed into that weird pointy skull of his, was wrong. (I consider myself intelligent and yet I fuck up on a near daily basis. Hence it takes no huge leap to understand that "intelligent" is not the same as "correct." I imagine this is a shocking and unwelcome revelation to some.)
And I didn't need any fancy fucking data analysis to know that a miracle cure whipped up by the ghoul-circus we call Big Pharma and hawked by the likes of Joe Biden, Scott Adams and the WEF, could only do me harm.
I think you've hit the nail on the head with his toxic non-apology apology.
I remember reading parts of a debate between Adams and some writer for Salon.com about feminism. Adams was clearly using his intelligence to sidestep any kind of honest exchange, so he could hang back and belittle the writer for being stupid.
I think Dilbert is emblematic of his basic mindset: Dilbert is smarter than all of his coworkers and gets to make smug comments all day long, but he's too stupid to realize he's a pudgy incel trapped in a blasted corporate hellscape.
>> I think Dilbert is emblematic of his basic mindset: Dilbert is smarter than all of his coworkers and gets to make smug comments all day long, but he's too stupid to realize he's a pudgy incel trapped in a blasted corporate hellscape.
I would tweak this a little if we're using Dilbert as a genuine stand-in for Adams: he is smarter than his coworkers and gets to make smug comments all day long, but sees himself as a victim of their disrespect and ignorance rather than a victim of his own inefficacy.
I don’t know much about Scott Adams, but I did see his online ‘apology’.
It doesn’t appear to be an apology at all.
I saw it as merely a statement of fact, ie: you anti-vaxxers were right and I was wrong. He said it several times, but he seemed pissed that he had to say it.
I don’t know if there was actually a ‘fuck you’ in there or not but it certainly didn’t come across as a gracious concession......
Maybe he just doesn’t know how to say ‘I was wrong’ without sounding like an asshole......
You’re right. And the only time that any of it seemed important to him was when he said that the anti-vaxed didn’t have to worry (about vax side effects), but that he did.
Absolutely. If it wasn't enough for people to not see how disingenuous he was about his loss in this existential competition ( my gods man...all of us Plebs are losers here!) By means of a dice roll?( to us heuristic, mouth-breathing,knuckle-dragging,authority distrustful morons)... he trolled us all this morning.
To see people think him sincere in his " Well, tell me what strangers do I trust?" Tweets... it was so disheartening. So many actually thought him sincere. As if he was truly contrite and wanted to know ! "Oh! How...how did you do it, so that I can emulate your beingness!" Kinda bullshit.
Ugh.
How to tell if you're sincerely apologizing:
1, 2, and 3) If you're being sarcastic anywhere in your apology, you're not apologizing.
It's so hard to get good, solid, winning advice these days, isn't it?
"You backed the bad guys. THAT’S the thing everyone wants apologies for." Exactly! He once interested me, too, and I read many of his books and watched his podcast. Then he lost me completely when he got jabbed and became a tiresome vax jerk who weirded me out. And is he jab injured? He made a video recently saying he could no longer exercise and might never be able to have a personal relationship again. He also said if he is still in this much pain in a year, he will kill himself. I find him very, very strange.
I think all of this, weird apology and today's strange tantrum included, is a slow-motion meltdown that is fairly common to celebrities these days.
Shades of Sam Harris. A self proclaimed enlightened rational thinker descends into reptilian irrationality after only the slightest hint of fear, never mind actual danger.
...mmmmmmaybe rationality isn't everything and the mind starves when it is.
Harris is even more self-righteous.
Incredible (or maybe not) how many of the grifters from the Trump area revealed themselves as hollow nullities once the COVID era began.
Full disclosure: I, too, went through a brief period of paying attention to him.
Wow, I didn't realize his health had already taken a downturn after getting "vaccinated."
Unrelated...but HI! From a Moon in Capricorn.
Oh, there you are!
Did ya miss me?
Why wait? He should kill himself now and avoid the rush.
All I heard was contempt in that apology. There's no going back from contempt on the emotional Richter.
He hates us more now because he knows nobody will be standing tall on the rubble left behind from this abomination. That's what really gets him; the realization that he wont be glorified standing atop a righteous mountain.
Don't kid yourself; his level (and others like him) of contempt would manifests itself in the most unspeakable of punishments if he could get away with it. The level of cruelty influenced by virtue of how right his victim was.
He's the guy that smiles at you while he opens the gates to the furnace.
>> his level (and others like him) of contempt would manifests itself in the most unspeakable of punishments if he could get away with it
This is why I have a very hard time seeing any glimmer of redemption whatsoever in anything Adams has said since he backed off from cheerleading.
This is a sarcastic "take my ball and go home" tantrum.
Agree.
*Take my ball and go home and think about killing you because YOU made me take it home
You have said it more concisely than I in my earlier remarks.
May his contempt breed contempt within his mesmeric petri dish in which he thought us bound by his sorcery. We weren't. We visited curious and unchained we left him to hisself furious.
Ryan,I feel this is insight of an exacting nature.
Contempt.
I've never seen contempt be converted to a healthier,growth oriented display. It's as if Contempt is the fuel of cancer,and I've never known anyone (for whom I've recognized that emotion ) Not try to exactly vengeance.
Exactly. Contempt is a causeway to cruelty. That's why it was conditioned for maximum effect in the PSYOP.
Contempt divorces one from empathy.
Who wants another person to have contempt for them? It's just easier to put the mask on...
So.much.this.
well said
Very yes. The bit about "archetypal backhanded apology of the kind every toxic marriage, corporate press release, or celebrity confession is built on: I am technically in violation of some terms that YOU set, and YOU’RE being so emotional about this perceived injustice that I’m going to Be The Grownup and follow a token ritual of contrition so we can Move Forward." in particular really hits the nail on the head. It'd be nice to know how to fix that in a person...
Stay tuned. As per the post script, I intend to think on that a whole steaming heap. It feels like something that has become really important to the survival of civilization.
I'd be quite interested in that. I remember in marriage counseling the ass hat saying "you don't have to apologize for the action, but you can apologize for how the other person feels." I wanted to punch the shit out of them while screaming "I am sorry you feel pain! I can fix that for you!" Well, I did after I realized that they really believed that, that one shouldn't feel bad for violating a rule with regards to someone you purport to care about so long as they don't feel bad. If you don't get caught, it doesn't count! You only apologize when you make the other person feel bad, and if they don't you did nothing wrong!
I can't tell if I am just strange and notice "Hey, you aren't admitting any mistake other than the fact I found out" when most humans don't, or what, but it seemed like horrifically bad advice.
I absolutely did not learn that in group/couples counseling training. That principle infuriates me on its face.
There are a lot of modalities out there, and because it's a social science, there's (probably) never going to be anything like a "scientific consensus" on teaching the "best" one.
Yea, I have had some shit therapists, and some shit marriage counsellors, too. Plus a handful of good ones, I must say. It seems very swingy in terms of quality, with some just being out and out frauds. Basically more expensive and time consuming self help books you have to book an appointment to read.
>> more expensive and time consuming self help books you have to book an appointment to read.
If this is primarily what's going on in therapy it's a waste of time regardless of modality. "Psychoeducation" (what you're describing here) is a distant adjunct to helping work towards insight. If your therapist is doing most of the talking it's probably not worth it.
Maybe not even if they just feel bad. Maybe there's another issue of where they exist in the social hierarchy, specifically if they are powerful enough to demand that the offender actually care that they were hurt or offended.
Maybe the Scott-berts of this world are not so much slow on realizing they were wrong, as they were previously in a position of relative power in the hierarchy (said status having lowered, and thus necessitating an appearance of regret).
I dunno, I might be wrong.
Holycrap...that's kinda ethically bankrupt.
If it isn't malpractice, it should be, but I have heard it from multiple sources. Corporate "sensitivity" trainers push that line all the time, too.
Seriously. How that whole ecosystem got started, I would kind of love to know. It's like a shepherd hiring someone to help his sheep get along who actively destroys the sheep's ability to get along, yet sheep keep getting sent to them. If I ever was in charge of such things, I would make a hard rule that anyone hiring or sending employees to such training must attend themselves, and write me a report on what happened and judge it. I'd have an eye towards whether it was horrible training, and whether the manager realized it.
He/she would probably only tell you that if it were a gasoline/electric fire anyway...
Why is it, that when I think of GM and "steaming heap', the "survival of civilization" is NOT what comes to mind?
I never claimed to be a good guy.
I just want to be YOUR bad guy.
All great civilisations are based on handling shit in a good way.
Pipe it somewhere else, I say, and then grow potatoes on it in a few years!
It is very difficult to execute en masse, but turning away and giving him no further attention can work wonders both for us and for him. Starve his self-regard with inattention.
Think about how he drew some of us back to hear what he had to say.
When he is left talking to himself in an echo chamber of nodding acolytes, who are shaved bald and who'd occasionally venture out to ask for alms on his behalf, we cheerfully shake our heads, No, and charitably say nothing more in word or deed.
This is honestly my preferred approach to just about everything in this arena, but it seems very hard for a lot of people to do.
Agree Doc H. Perhaps the key is "token ritual". Do you ever feel that almost everything today seems to come down to attempts to stage performances of the rituals deemed appropriate by the self-appointed arbiters of all that is good and holy?
Yes! Cargo Cult might be another way of thinking about it: do the token ritual but have no idea why the parts work or what causes the end results. What matters to those who arbitrate is that you go through the motions, despite the fact that those motions are as often actively detrimental.
I wonder in part if we have forgotten as a culture what apologies are for and why, or if people never really knew, or whether so much of corporate/academic/bureaucratic culture has simply driven into people doing what is necessary to get other people to shut up and go away only, that it has bled into all aspects of life. Just check the box that says you did what you were supposed to do, so you can't be blamed any more for your bad behavior.
We have forgotten, yes, or allowed it to be forgotten.
Earlier, a lack of an apology was the equivalent of standing your ground in a physical confrontation, meaning the argument/conflict was ongoing and could very well escalate to violence (hence: formal duels).
If any apology was to be made, it followed a (compared to today) stylished and formal form leaving no doubt that the one apologising was doing precisely that. Also, it always included how they had wronged the other party.
This included the one receiving the apology to acknowledge it and to show he/she was satisfied with it (honour was satisfied), and to thank the one making the apology for doing so.
And all of it done in public before witnesses. Say, outside church on a Sunday or after a guild or town hall meeting.
The alternative as mentioned was duels or a court process for slander, defamation or libel (some jurisdictions made/make no beans about the actual medium used, or even the truth of the information spread around).
An "easy" way out of this trap is to make it to expensive for the personality-types revelling in and benefitting from the current state of affairs by simply working towards re-establishing the ritualistic manner of the apology, with hefty punitive fines and even duels as a back up.
Could even be good charity: who wouldn't pay say $20 to see someone from The Young Turks go up against Tyrus from The Gutfeld show?
I'd pay more.
"cargo cult" is an excellent analogy. Mindless adherence to ritual. Aptly describes much of modern life. We do, sadly, live in a checkbox world.
Interesting insight there, Andy.
And that may be why so rapidly our society succumbed to the covid maniacal rituals of covering our faces, keeping our distances, and chasing our vaxes (we as in society). It was striking how the anointing of hands with goo mimicked the more somber ritual of blessing oneself at the entrance of a church or that of smudging oneself as in a native indian healing circle.
One could extend the notion to the schedule for infant vaccines which prepped the way to the horrific march toward including children in the C19 rollout for the sake of "immunity".
And now we have the rituals of segregation by status - today its wokeism and covidism, tomorrow who knows what it will be?
Look around the world. All of the 'western liberal democracies' are plummeting, simultaneously, into some kind of lovecraftian maelstrom of societal decay. We have done away with, or are in the process of doing away with almost all that is great and good. I have maintained for years that we now live in a checkbox world. We lackadaisically check the boxes, but never, never, ask who created the f'ing forms. And if that ain't ritual....
Edited for typo.
You nailed it. Adams has positioned himself as some sort of bullshit detector intellectual guru, so this has to represent some kind of psychological break with his subconscious identity or sense of self. In the 5 stages of grief, I’d put him at Anger. His anger is a kind of psychological defense mechanism. Pride is an ass kicker. Next up: Bargaining.
Apparently on Twitter today he's in the middle of some really bizarre childlike tantrum like Michael Scott repeating everything someone says.
It's incredibly cringe and it just KEEPS GOING because he's responding to almost everyone.
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1617877693013581829
Holy shit I posted a Twitter link. Please pray for me to whatever gods you hold dear, mine are just shaking their heads in disappointment.
OK, as a permanent non-Twatterite, my head is shaking in disappointment.
Yeah, I get it.
That Twitter thread is insightful, if somewhat painful. It looks like he's being deliberately obtuse. What he completely misses is that it isn't really about knowing what data (or which person) was "correct" but rather taking responsibility for one's own choices and not being a f#$%ing authoritarian twat.
It's not that hard to understand.
THERE WAS SO MUCH DATA THOUGH.
My initial inclination is to laugh because it seems so childish, but it’s really just sad. Definitely some kind of mental break.
Maybe he’s already in the Bargaining stage with this “tell me which stranger to trust” bullshit he’s started. Start with Dr. Mercola, Dell Bigtree, Judy Mikovitz. Go from there.
If he sincerely meant this- which his behavior on the tweet thread suggests he doesn't at all- he completely missed the point.
There was decades of uncontroversial research and even (gasp) consensus before COVID. There were plenty of data streams even the bad guys couldn't fudge hard enough.
You didn't have to trust anyone if you didn't want to. You just had to examine what you were being given critically.
Exactly. All he had to do was ponder the effectiveness of the flu vaccine, or think for a moment how completely crazy it was to think that herd immunity could be reached through vaccination.
To say nothing of the reams of writing from sources he'd probably trust previously disavowing things like social distancing, quarantine of healthy people, or masks.
A spinal cord would suffice for someone who has hate in the heart and contempt in the head.
Apparently he didn't learn that measuring yourself by the tape of consensus means your prone to measuring only once.
He made his cut by measuring flattery and where he'd be in parade.
The thing is...he doesn't Want to know.
He's used just about every response to slyly belittle the suggesting person.
At least in my eyes.
Yes, his Twitter interactions(or mainly non-interactions) with Mathew Crawford confirm his wilful ignorance.
I was amazed at how patient Mathew was, tbh.
It seems like Mat is under attack from a lot of sides lately.
Hard to figure out why in all cases. But I think Matt is encountering a diffuse fear that getting on the wrong side of DOD/DARPA/unamed-defense-agencies would be a bridge to far for a sustainable life, even if it is the right bridge. After working at China Lake, I concur that it is a very, very risky thing to do/place to be. As Uncle Joe says, those guys have F-15s. I am astounded that no one will even engage Matt on the DMED disaster -- but I expect that is why.
I like Mathew. I can say this even if I cannot comprehend his polymath mind. Seriously,I can't Math,but I'm pretty sure it's the language of the universe ,in concrete terms.
So am I
Me, too
He's an impotent caged animal who wants back in his cage of luxury.
Those people are dangerous if circumstances allow for it.
yes.
Maybe he just wants some one 'source' to pick apart under a microscope.
"...He spent the entirety of the pandemic using his position as a social influencer and guru to advocate for lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masks, punishment for the unvaxxed, and to castigate and soundly mock the stupidity of his opposition on every social channel he copiously occupies...."
And that is why I don't give a flying fat rat's ass about Scott Adams' or any of his like-minded ilk's apologies. I don't want their apologies. Their apologies are shit to me, because they are as empty as the "Please forgive us and let's be friends again" drum they're now beating on ... Given the opportunity they'll act in the very same manner, because that's their nature.
So they can shove their apologies up their collective asses so hard and so deep that it not only gags them, but bucks their teeth and gives them a nose bleed!!!~
Want to have some fun today, tomorrow and onwards? Go to Scott Adams Twitter & Youtube feeds and post this:
Watch out for the "Controlling the 'Mark' after a Con Trick" scam next!
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/controlling-the-mark-after-a-con
Yep. We are now at the stage where they try to "Control the mark" (not us refuseniks). Great article by Ivor Cummins
By the way the CDC had a huge budget for "conveying their message". About $1 billion. A lot of that went to influencers, writers and comics to "Mock The Unvaccinated". I want to know if Adams (or Kimmel and other losers) took money, how much, and when.
I'd bet a little on "yes," especially given his particular audience.
Perhaps.
But there is also the open hand of encouraging praise that makes the money seem, well, a mere formality as it is slipped into the palm ever so delicately.
I'm thinking this may go the way of that social experiment with the grade school kids where they were divided into brown eyes and blue/green eyes with one group instructed to wear a neck collar; different privileges for the uncollared. And, part way through the experiment, the kids were told a mistake had happened and so the roles were reversed and the collared became the uncollared group. By end of the thing the kids were released from this tortuous "game" and they tore those collars to shreds, together.
Jane Elliott “Blue Eyes - Brown Eyes” Experiment
https://youtu.be/dLAi78hluFc
Nice work. I like Scott Adams, but stopped watching him due to his bad Covid-19 takes. Of course a rich, age 60 person likely with some form of autism spectrum disorder is a perfect candidate to believe he has to take a brand new mRNA injection to avoid dying and losing everything. So I don't blame him. I think Mathew Crawford has done a good job challenging Adams' faux probability analyses.
Adams is pure unbridled narcissism. His second wife cheated on him and that affected him deeply, after he supported her. I remember listening to one of his Coffee YT's pre-covid (before he got married) in which he in effect alluded to the fact that his powers of persuasion allowed him to keep his gf very satisfied. It gave me pause at the time. Fast forward many years, and sure enough she dumps him.
On a different note, I can't find the obligatory paragraph about the Treaty of Westphalia, and I haven't read about escaped livestock in what seems like ages.
1) Europe is going to be eaten by dinosaurs within the next three years so I've decided to stop teasing them by constantly bringing up Westphalia.
2) Electric fences.
If he wanted to do it in style, he'd simple sing Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry".
Maybe while dressed like her.
I think that would have worked heaps better, sincerity or no.
Now for the more important issue: dinosaurs obviously used PCs for gaming. Just look at the forearms of the T-Rex: obviously evolved from endless hours using a keyboard.
PC MASTER RACE
I'm a simpleton,however I wanted to recognize that even though this is The Gutter ( and some folks like me are allowed to get colorful) I am never bereft for sage outlooks. For dark humor. For insights that cause me to aspire to think deeper ( although posts wholey of psycho babble leave me cold) about subjects, and my fellow Gutter denizens.
Thank you.
I just farted.
Are ya gunna need to go wipe? We'll wait.
No, dude, my farts are air only. I'm a fuckin' lady.
You've never done keto then... farts can be scary when you're on keto.
You should* try this: long march eating low fat high calorie food.
Worst/best one we had our one pre-cooked and then dried rations. About 14 days of food each, each day's rations weighing under a 100 grams. Plus dried apples and banana slices for snacks.
You literally stop farting, burping or shitting day 1, as each leg of the trek is 50 kilometers in varied terrain (moors, heaths, peatbogs, dense pine forests, Rogen moraine, and bare mountain) and the summer heat wrings all excess water out of you.
Wasn't until day 5 I was even able to take a dump. If you can imagine a jet-black doorstopper that bounced when hitting the ground, there you are.
Funniest of all was, I lost 20 kilos that march. My wife lost 2. And our packs were equally heavy.
*Should as in: it's a fun experience but I wouldn't want to do it every day-should.
No,man.... I had enough of constipation by day 5 after my brain surgery. The worst of it was that the morphine didn't even work for me!( when I demanded a change,I guess they thought thry eere being self-righteous by giving me "only" Tylenol ...the relief was palpible) . That does not sound like a good or healthy hike,Rikard. Did ya not have plentiful water?
He's a true believer that cannot fathom the depths of the big lie.
(From https://leftlockdownsceptics.com/alleged-cia-involvement-in-jfk-assassination-goes-mainstream-so-now-what/ )
"And then there is the psychological effect of the Big Lie which is axiomatic in gaslighting. The paradox here is that the bigger the lie, the harder it is for the mind to bridge the gulf between perceived reality and the lie that authority figures are painting as truth. I believe that the prospect of being deceived evinces a primitive emotional response on a par with staring death in the face. We are hard-wired to fear deception because we have evolved to interpret it as an existential threat. That’s why deception can elicit the same emotional response as the miscalculation of a serious physical threat. Lies told to us don’t always bear the same cost as a misjudged red light, but the primitive part of the brain can’t make this distinction and we rely on cerebral mediation for a more appropriate but delayed response. And in the long run, the lie is often just as dangerous as the physical threat. Many government whoppers – ‘safe and effective’ – do cost lives.
To avoid the death-like experience of being deceived, a mental defence is erected to deny that the lie is happening. "
Well said.
I would go so far as to argue that the lie is nearly ALWAYS more dangerous than the threat. At least in my experience.
Brilliant read. "Gathering round to touch weiners in the middle", i thought that was just my scout troop.
I'm told it's traditional in the opening ceremonies of many Scandinavian legislatures.
Agree on all points, including how hard it is to apologize sans any justifications.
Right? It's an interesting problem beyond "why can't these public-facing assholes/psychopaths do it."
I see it almost every single day in org consulting, and every single day in social media.
Scott is an example of that against which we, as a society, need to fortify our social norms to protect us.
To rephrase what I said on Jeff Childers' recent post:
Scott's most damning statement, to be read back to him at trial, is this:
"All of my fancy analytics got me to a bad place. All of your heuristics — ‘don’t trust these guys, it’s obvious’ — totally worked.”
We applied both analytics and heuristics. Scott applied neither. What Scott did was abuse his training as a hypnotist to play authority games disguised as Socratic argument.
In deploying this strategy, he convinced those who supported him financially to harm themselves and their children, all while setting a torch to constitutional and human rights.
The only possible mitigation for Scott is if we find out he was not paid by monsters to do so. But the flip side of that coin - that he was paid to pull his tricks - should haunt him every night. Because the punishment for that must be very severe.
...and that's the only part anyone gives a shit about him or anyone else apologizing for.
Does he think I'm ashamed to wallow in schadenfreude? I'm not. I am correct and he, with all of those brains jammed into that weird pointy skull of his, was wrong. (I consider myself intelligent and yet I fuck up on a near daily basis. Hence it takes no huge leap to understand that "intelligent" is not the same as "correct." I imagine this is a shocking and unwelcome revelation to some.)
And I didn't need any fancy fucking data analysis to know that a miracle cure whipped up by the ghoul-circus we call Big Pharma and hawked by the likes of Joe Biden, Scott Adams and the WEF, could only do me harm.
Was there anything before that that rang your bell?
I think you've hit the nail on the head with his toxic non-apology apology.
I remember reading parts of a debate between Adams and some writer for Salon.com about feminism. Adams was clearly using his intelligence to sidestep any kind of honest exchange, so he could hang back and belittle the writer for being stupid.
I think Dilbert is emblematic of his basic mindset: Dilbert is smarter than all of his coworkers and gets to make smug comments all day long, but he's too stupid to realize he's a pudgy incel trapped in a blasted corporate hellscape.
>> I think Dilbert is emblematic of his basic mindset: Dilbert is smarter than all of his coworkers and gets to make smug comments all day long, but he's too stupid to realize he's a pudgy incel trapped in a blasted corporate hellscape.
I would tweak this a little if we're using Dilbert as a genuine stand-in for Adams: he is smarter than his coworkers and gets to make smug comments all day long, but sees himself as a victim of their disrespect and ignorance rather than a victim of his own inefficacy.
(Which I guess "incel" is short for these days.)
I don’t know much about Scott Adams, but I did see his online ‘apology’.
It doesn’t appear to be an apology at all.
I saw it as merely a statement of fact, ie: you anti-vaxxers were right and I was wrong. He said it several times, but he seemed pissed that he had to say it.
I don’t know if there was actually a ‘fuck you’ in there or not but it certainly didn’t come across as a gracious concession......
Maybe he just doesn’t know how to say ‘I was wrong’ without sounding like an asshole......
A real apology would have been a better idea.
But notice he DOESN'T say "right" and "wrong." He says "you won, I lost."
All he's conceding is a reframed contest of opinions. Not facts, not his behavior.
It has all the content of conceding the outcome of a game of checkers.
You’re right. And the only time that any of it seemed important to him was when he said that the anti-vaxed didn’t have to worry (about vax side effects), but that he did.
That appeared to bother him.....
Well, he's apparently vaccine injured, or believes he is, and has been despondent about it before now.