Posted on 09/19/2021 4:14:22 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Are the “smart” people really very smart? That is, do the people who score at the top on standardized tests and then turn up at the fancy universities actually have a superior level of reasoning and rationality that they can apply to solving the problems of the world? Or are they instead just trapped in the same sorts of groupthink and mass irrationality as everyone else?
Well, let’s consider the latest information coming out of Harvard University. Harvard — you can’t get any “smarter” than that. This is America’s premier institution of higher learning. You don’t get to go there unless you are at the very top of the top of intelligence. And the people who run the place have to be even smarter still. If you want to see what “smart” really is, this is where to look.
About a week ago Harvard President Larry Bacow decided it was time to send out one of those occasional missives addressed to all “Members of the Harvard Community.” Likely, you might think, this would be an occasion for Harvard to announce some incremental enhancements to its efforts to fulfill the core mission of educating the students. Hardly. People, this is Harvard — we don’t think small. So instead, the purpose of the communication is to tell us that Harvard is on the front lines in the battle to save the world. Bacow:
Climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity. . . . We are going to need a little optimism to preserve life on Earth as we know and cherish it today.
And how exactly do we know that “climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity”? Easy — in the Harvard way, we just look to the evidence before our very eyes:
The last several months have laid at our feet undeniable evidence of the world to come—massive fires that consume entire towns, unprecedented flooding that inundates major urban areas, record heat waves and drought that devastate food supplies and increase water scarcity. Few, if any, parts of the globe are being spared as livelihoods are dashed, lives are lost, and regions are rendered unlivable.
But wait a minute Larry. Is that just apocalyptic rhetoric? Is there actually real evidence that environmental disasters have recently been occurring at some greater rate than they ever have?
If we think that fires and floods and heat waves might prove that we are now facing some kind of climate armageddon caused by sinful human carbon emissions, then perhaps we should look to see if today’s catastrophes are any different from those before the era of human carbon emissions. For example, how about just 90 years ago. The invaluable Tony Heller dredges up this from the Los Angeles Times of September 18, 1931:
The truth is that Larry can’t be bothered to actually try to compare rates of droughts, floods, heat waves, hurricanes or anything else to see if they have gotten better or worse. He’s way too “smart” for that. If you want to get some real statistics, go to this page. Excerpt:
-Heat Waves – have been decreasing since the 1930s in the U.S. and globally.
-Hurricanes – this decade just ended was the second quietest for landfalling. hurricanes and landfalling major hurricanes in the U.S since the 1850s.
-Tornadoes – the number of strong tornadoes has declined over the last half century. More active months occur when unseasonable cold spring patterns are present.
-Droughts and Floods – there has been no statistically significant trend
-Wildfires – decreasing since the very active 1800s. The increase in damage in recent years is due to population growth in vulnerable areas and poor forest management.
But forget climate change and move on to Covid-19. A year and a half into the pandemic, with a lot of data having been accumulated, if there’s one thing we know it’s that mask mandates don’t work. On that subject, here’s one of my favorite charts, with data from Minnesota, from Kevin Roche at Healthy Skeptic via John Hinderaker at PowerLine:
See how well the mask mandate worked in Minnesota? Well, the students are returning to Harvard, and here is the latest advice from the university on “Health & Wellbeing.” Excerpts:
Mask up. Mask indoors and wear your mask properly, fitting securely over your nose, mouth, and chin. Ensure a secure fit around all mask edges. Remove your mask only around your household/suite if possible. . . .
There are special tips for eating and drinking:
Dine in small parties of 2-4 people. Avoid table-hopping. Consider dining consistently with the same people rather than a different group at every meal. Consume your meal and immediately mask up when done.
And you thought that the reason you were attending Harvard was to have the chance to meet a lot of the other students. And then there’s my favorite, the tips for how to drink a beverage while masked:
When drinking, lower your mask, take a sip, and then promptly cover your mouth and nose. If you’re taking your time between bites and sips, put your mask back on.
Obviously they don’t cite any studies or evidence showing that any of this will have any effect. They don’t have to. They’re “smart.”
Philosophical inbreeding has the same effect as its biological twin.
LOL, and if you’ll recall, the big fear in the 70s was that of Global Cooling.
Yes,that and acid rain.
Overpopulation and starvation was another one from the 1970s—many “experts” believed mass starvation would be “the big story” worldwide by 2000.
The average person on the street has _much_ more common sense than any of the “experts”.
In a survival situation, you would be far better off throwing in with a group of well-armed grade-school educated Southerners than a group of Northeastern Ivy-League educated wimps who don’t even know how to load a gun (if they had one) and wouldn’t know the first thing about field-dressing a deer.
Instead, the “experts” are now saying the global population will likely peak and then begin to decline around the middle of this century, and that some countries. Some countries, like Italy, Japan, and China, will lose half their population or more by 2100, while the population of sub-Saharan Africa will triple. Populations in the developed world will have aged dramatically, and countries will be competing for immigrants to replace their vanishing workforce.
They’re probably wrong about most of this as well.
Yes. You have Harvard grads that think there are 52 genders calling a mechanic who can rebuild an engine a stupid redneck.
One reason the “experts” always get it wrong is that people change and adapt.
Countries that are rapidly losing population could easily create policies that rewarded families with children and punished single unmarried folks, for example.
As I wrote elsewhere, one of the most magnificent contemporary pieces was written by Jeffrey Snyder, A Nation of Cowards. While the piece is overtly about concealed carry, it is much broader than that. To wit:
Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the police's, not only are you wrong -- since the courts universally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so -- but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself?...One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back...He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance.
What Snyder wrote applies literally to every situation under the sun, not just thieves in the night or bad dudes in an alley but bureaucrats in lab coats and college faculty in sport coats. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
But for a moment, consider the 19-year old in Quinnipiac. They saw this notice on the college's website: Quinnipiac is requiring all students, faculty and staff be vaccinated against COVID-19 to participate in the fall 2021 semester. Medical and religious exemptions will be granted upon review and were due by July 6, 2021.
Do the student's parents possess the mindset Snyder references? Have they imparted that mindset into their progeny? The exemption process is likely (and intentionally) not easy...that alone will deter the most casual opponents of the shots. In fact, I bet the college will offer information and links and all but administer the shot to the kid directly if they go that route; there will be no such support for the exemption-seekers. The mildly freedom-curious student or parent will give up; They'll cave.
For the remnants, not only do they need the will to persevere through this exemption process (which may require unjust queries, e.g. what kind of religion do you practice?), but in many ways they need a robust pro-liberty mindset that is exercised often.
As the meme goes, one does not simply become Deplorable over night. Sure, it's easy to see the immorality of what's going on. It's also easy to say "no, I'm not getting vaxxed." But, as difficult as it may be for people who've had a Framer's mindset all their life, noobs don't just follow up that new attitude with the ninja-like thought process and access to information to facilitate a successful redpilling in an instant. That process takes some time.
Yes, there ARE many students - backed by parents with Snyder's mindset that's exercised often - who climbed through the muck and mire of the exemption process successfully. Those are the future of our nation.
But the road ahead will not be easy. Yes, I know...it wasn't easy for us. At least when we were young, civil society tolerated rebellious youth. These kids will not be celebrated or championed by the universities. Indeed, these free-thinkers who were previously held up by leftist society as the future of the country, are now ridiculed and doxxed.
"Question Authority" has morphed into "Obey Authority".
For those noobs who haven't yet built a Snyder mind, we need to bring them into the fold. Liberty grows when the field of participants expands, not by shrinking ourselves to glory.
The silver lining in all this, is that this incredible opposition thrown up by the statists to someone standing athwart the political science of vaccinations and saying "halt", really reveals how scared they are of us.
40 years ago, it was a Global Cooling flood.
This was one a Global Warming flood.
One of the serious potential downsides of much higher education is the development in the individual of an unhealthy level of confidence. Many of these folk tend to be often in error, and never in doubt. If there is one thing that I have learned in my trips around the sun it is that I have a lot to learn.
I think a lot of ambitious people go to Harvard, and they learn that to be part of the ruling class they need to be WOKE.
“That is, do the people who score at the top on standardized tests and then turn up at the fancy universities actually have a superior level of reasoning and rationality that they can apply to solving the problems of the world?”
Absolutely yes. Indisputably.
They arrive that way and leave stupid.
“You don’t get to go there unless you are at the very top of the top of intelligence.”
And that is pure bullsh!t.
No reason to even read the rest.
It’s not about smarts..>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh yes it is....... If one cannot cope with the environment as it exists, then the Law of Darwin simnply takes over.Thats the smart we speak of.
And yes, any one who graduates form Harvard these days can barely look after themselves , let alone anyone else. They are emotive, cast iron clad, dumb Marxists who live to emote rather than survive and thrive.
Dumber than dirt.
Anyone who subscibes to the theory that Marxism spawns intelligence are themselves intelligence challenged. I mean look at Venezuela?
True intelligence leads to wisdom, joy and the ability to thrive in ones living environment, and share with those who are sick, infirm or ill. And that means Capitalism, the greatest economic engine the world has ever experienced.
These Harvard rubes and all like them are a curse on the Constitution and the Freedoms by which we illuminate our way.
A pox on them all.
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