Freedom of expression is the foundation a free society. Though codified in our Constitution, protecting it requires our participation. (audio track included)
I cancelled my paid subscription to "News from Those Nerdy Girls" this morning. Substack allows one to explain the reasons to the authors. Here it is:
"Dear Nerdy Girls authors, you have banned me from leaving comments on your articles. Though I left comments critical of your approach to certain topics, they were respectful and were offered in a spirit to encourage dialogue. The "100 year ban" was initiated without any warning or explanation from you.
Not only have you misrepresented the benefits of a paid subscription to your publication, it runs counter to the values you espouse on your page. You have every right to do as you please, but what you are doing here is emblematic of a much bigger systemic problem: dissenting opinions are removed from conversation and people arrive at the false sense of consensus. This is antithetical to all scientific pursuits.
I am a physician and an engineer. I too am a substack author and have recently written about your latest post and the ban you have imposed. I encourage you to comment on it. Doing so will also allow you to address those who disagree with you; it's an opportunity to communicate with what should be your target audience.
You don't have to pay to leave a comment on any of my content. I am committed to invite all dissenting voices without insisting on a fees of any kind.
I recall many years ago a woman's observation about a feminist conference she attended; she mentioned a pejorative term used there to speedily identify and disallow any sort of critical thinking. And the critic was, herself, a self-described feminist. I regret not spending the effort to commit such special language to memory. But from a low level position on the hospital floor, I was routinely swamped with it. Amid sea of inexact and tone-deaf "language", that forgotten word might have conveniently accounted for your hundred-year banishment from their thousand-year reich.
"Evidence based", as employed by the ladies above, was one such indignity I remember from the hospital -- whose "evidence", and on what basis? In my last year, performance evaluations were indexed to a series of virtues under capital headings which -- if conditions were fully satisfied -- spelled "TRUSTED". It was a social credit score. From my last performance review, it was "evident" that I couldn't be trusted at all, since there weren't enough capital letters to spell anything meaningful. But what need of language at all? Some nurses have a hard time with vomit, others with mucus, and a few with blood -- I could clean up any mess, no problem. But when I heard the word "protocol" or encountered a decision tree, I felt queezy.
The following is not directly related to your experience as a substack writer, but I include it, since you may find it interesting:
Igor Shafarevich, in his "History of Socialism" put forth that the end goal of socialism is in fact the extermination of the human race. Having read what I could of his work, in the brief time I had it in my hands, it's unsurprising that socialized medicine could so readily be converted to a killing field, as it has in Britain and Canada.
A contradiction in terms if I ever saw one. You're either a 'specialist' or a 'generalist.' There's nothing in between.
As for conspiracy theories, how can you tell the difference between an unfounded or a legitimate belief unless you investigate the actual subject of the belief, and to do that would require a much larger, much better qualified group of researchers than a bunch of self-aggrandizing "nerdy girls."
To me, this is emblematic of how far the social sciences have fallen in the last few decades. To even call it science is an insult to actual scientists.
Powerful article - thank you MD, a gentle, fair, informative & honest analogy. I believe Truth is recognized - it comes from within where Spirit lives. I am drawn & intuitively feel truth & most times, know when lies are spoken/written. Your article is one of the most balanced views I've read. I thank you deeply - I believe our Creator lives in the Truth & the Light of Truth will come to pass, in part, due to people such as you ...
I appreciate Those Nerdy Girls efforts to lift up women’s voices in science. Women are under-represented in the field and still are paid less than their male colleagues.
TNGs stated values—a desire to seek out opinions of others and promote rational, evidence based thinking—are commendable. Unfortunately when they wrestle with conspiracies, those values go flying out the window.
If it’s a conspiracy, ipso facto it must be false. No need for evidence and who cares about alternative opinions.
If NIST says WTC7 fell because of office fires and a single column failure, evidence of it falling like a rock doesn’t need to be examined. No need to look at University of Alaska’s 4 year study that concluded It didn’t collapse due to fire. It’s a conspiracy so the case is closed.
The same reasoning applies to things labeled a covid conspiracy. Pfizer’s own clinical trials showed higher all cause mortality for those receiving the vaccine, but thankfully that evidence doesn’t need to be considered because it falls in the bucket ‘conspiracy’.
I really appreciate this article, your thought and your huge capacity to think through things compassionately with others holding opposing views. I strive for your equipoise but am no where close. Your 100 year ban a loss for all of us: Those Nerdy Girls, you and the readers.
We're in an information war, and one of the tactics is that they pretend to be us.
MSM doesn't have the absolute power over public opinion that it used to enjoy before their lies got bigger and the internet made them more obvious. But people's belief in MSM as a reliable source of truth is not completely gone by any means.
The world of independent media and a free internet offers a challenge to their narrative control, and they're meeting that challenge by infiltrating "independent" news and social media. We have a pressing need for search engines and distribution networks that are uncorrupted. The truths that we have to tell are intrinsically hard to accept, and that's an unavoidable challenge. But censorship, shadow-banning, and throttling our "freedom of reach" are unnecessary impediments, and it is up to us to build a robust information ecosystem so that we can continue to communicate with one another and reclaim the exponential potential of internet news.
I agree. I also believe that we may never be able to know whether or not a search engine or distribution network is uncorrupted.
In that sense, the exchange of information is subject to a similar model as the exchange of value. The old paradigm of centralized authority validating a transaction or a piece of information has to go. Validation has to be distributed, which means we have to rely on our gumption, wits, intelligence and, of course, our intuition.
Incredible and common. Did you at least get your money back? I can't believe this can continue, unless, as Michael Nehls argues in his The Indoctrinated Brain the vaccines are changing the brain, making people stupid. His position is backed by neuro-molecular biological data, which is Greek to me. Love you to look at it and offer your view. Love you anyway Maha Madhava.
Yes, please do. I'd be interested to know what info is out there. My amazing primary care doctor (one of the few brave ones who spoke up and continues to ask questions and speak openly about her concerns about the jab) told me at our last visit that she and her colleagues are seeing more and more brain inflammation and other autoimmune issues, even in the unjabbed. She believes we all have the spike protein in our bodies at this point, either from getting COVID or the vax or shedding. I do think it's worse the more times you've had COVID or been jabbed.
I think this is why people like TNG are so invested in us taking vaccines: so we don't stand out for our unclouded thinking. The internets are full of people calling for some type of medical intervention for "wappies" my favorite Dutch word for "conspiracy theorists."
You have a stronger constitution for tolerating nausea than I would. They epitomize this leftist wokist BS devoid of critical faculties that seems to be everywhere.
And as regards 'conspiracy beliefs' - do humans not conspire for their own gain/aggrandizement?
Is history literally not a litany of one conspiracy after another?
Thank you Madhava Setty. That was such an erudite and succinct assessment of the First Amendment and how woke type people react to reason and truth. You do much better than I do.
I became an unpaid member of your site because of Joe Martino. I've followed Joe since he started Collective Evolution. Joe is awesome, and I quote him often. Now I have another higher source of truth, and not just truth. You and Joe are true thinkers and great leaders of the lost souls. Thank you, Sandi
The thing about leftists is that they can not tolerate any dissent. Their entire worldview is built in the sands of lies told over and over again amongst themselves thinking that their lies are the truth and reality. However the wave of reality will always wash away the world they build because its nit built upon the rock of truth and reality. The debris is always the lives and fortunes of the poor and middle class. The elites never suffer from their lies. Understand this and you will be able to deal with their lies more effectively.
It is interesting to note this trigger reaction that some writers/commentators seem to have....how they immediately just cancel someone who challenges their point of view, without any conversation or discussion. I personally believe it's because the issues we bring up challenge their world view, and perhaps even their whole psyche, to such an extent that they just have to shut it down, or they might implode. And, yet, perhaps you have helped to create a small crack through which a bit of light can make its way through. Keep commenting. It takes time for the layers of programming, propoganda, etc, to peel away. I know that I am still having a-ha moments and realizing there's more and more and more to uncover.
It's an important observation. We may never know with 100% certainty what "the truth" is. When we regard "conspiracy theorists" and what I like to call "coincidence theorists" together, they appear to be mirror images of each other. Each thinks the other side is wrong and that they are spreading incorrect information and narratives. Each thinks the other side is gullible.
The difference is that one side wishes to debate the issue and the other wants to muzzle any conversation. This doesn't prove that one side is right. However it doesn't take a college eduction to see that if the side that doesn't want to talk it out is wrong they will never realize it.
If people are worried about defending their views or criticism of them, somewhere they must have some inkling that they may be wrong. And this is intolerable for many and a true obstacle to learning and dialogue
I agree. I also think there could be programming involved, as is the case with faith-based belief systems which get perpetuated because rational examinations of counter arguments are prohibited because they might upend the belief. The possibility of being wrong could not possibly exist because it would lead to the loss of things that are necessary to keep their world together. It is maddening to see this obvious distortion co-exist with the idea that they believe themselves to be logical and driven by objectivity.
Yes, for most of my life I noticed this primarily in religious fundamentalists, and my reaction was always, oh ye of little faith. It is depressing to see it leak into spaces where people should know better. Current consensus should not be mistaken for truth, their education has failed them or perhaps they have failed it
You are kind and intrepid, Madhava!! You go boldly where no one should want to go! No, seriously, this is a wonderful musing by you. Full of grace and generosity. I subscribed to the YLE Substack on your mentioning of it. I will now subscribe, but not pay for, these nerdy head girls. I am so happy they call themselves girls, so I can.
The principle quote from Sara Gorman (one of the girls)'s piece is classic and ominous and clueless. It "suggests". Quisling academic posturing. Say it is so or it ain't so. Don't "suggest". "the study needs to be repeated". Further study needed. More gov't grants or perhaps grants from philanthrophy. Keep the research funds flowing. Then she wipes away critical thinking and hypothesis generation, which she calls conspiracy theory, and "suggests" it may not be a real phenomenon. "Interventions", ie censorship, propaganda and nudges funded by "grants", might be capable of grooming everyone into one way of seeing things. And it will all be so rational. Until it isn't.
Have they not read about diversity and it's crucial role in survival. We need diversity of thought in order to survive. That's about all free speech does. Not much more.
So the question for behavioral sociology is, why is there an explosion of youngish professional women so sure conspiracy theories are completely anathematic to civilized conversations about cause and effect in a complicated world. Where are they coming from?
From Sara Gorman as you quote.
“This suggests that this kind of study needs to be repeated. In the meantime, we should check our beliefs that conspiracy thinking is a permanent phenomenon and start to entertain the notion that these ideas could be more fluid than we thought. If this is the case, it opens up the possibility of more successful interventions to change conspiracy thinking. If we can understand when and how conspiracy beliefs tend to change, we can target interventions to help people transition away from these beliefs at times when their thought patterns are prone to change. This would be a great boon to our efforts to promote rational, evidence-based thinking across the population.”
You are quite right about the “interventions” which is the clear and present danger in their stance.
I am seeing a drop off in recently educated professionals’ ability to think for themselves. It’s been gradual and now it’s appreciable. It’s easier to follow guidelines than challenge them or understand how they came to be. Believing in conspiracy puts you outside the fold.
Recently had a conversation with our mutual friend Meryl about this phenomena - neither of us could think of a single PhD under the age of 45-47 who could think for themselves (i.e. made it through Covid with clear eyes)
She could come up with a couple of younger lawyers she knew who could still think, but it appears that sitting for a PhD meant someone of that age or younger has almost certainly had to compromise their critical thinking too much.
Yes. I have talked about this with her. Guidelines used to just be guidelines, or loose expectations that were based in a more general understanding. When I was in training there came to be an emphasis on "evidence-based medicine" which seemed rational and used large data sets that could be mined to determine what was correct. But data sets can be gamed very easily. It has had the unfortunate consequence of suppressing doctors' trust in their own eyes and experience. In other words, clinicians are now programmed to not think for themselves anymore and just do what they are told.
A 100-year ban for a polite question! What massive hypocrites these people are. This happened to me a few times on FB in 2020, and funnily enough, once on a local influencer doctor’s page, when I was Covid-narrative dissenting (for a change), yet still believing, in those first few months, that I’d get a reasonable response to my reasonable questions. Nope! Blocked! Banned! Later she sent me an email apologizing for having to block me from her page and that it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t understand “basic science, statistics and math.” It’s absolutely amazing that she wrote all that (and worse) for a whole host of reasons. I will have to write a post about it soon. Thanks for telling us this ludicrous story.
This Nerdy Girl substack is clearly a contrived site to attract & influence the democrats biggest voting block - Affluent White Female Liberals. And the supposed writers that “contribute” all appear to be AWFLs. Now they can find each other & remain in their echo chamber. Your comment put a pin prick in the bubble & that is not allowed.
The extent to which they believe in their own bullshit is governed by their moral and intellectual certitude. No self-reflection is necessary when you are 100% sure you are a good and wise person.
I cancelled my paid subscription to "News from Those Nerdy Girls" this morning. Substack allows one to explain the reasons to the authors. Here it is:
"Dear Nerdy Girls authors, you have banned me from leaving comments on your articles. Though I left comments critical of your approach to certain topics, they were respectful and were offered in a spirit to encourage dialogue. The "100 year ban" was initiated without any warning or explanation from you.
Not only have you misrepresented the benefits of a paid subscription to your publication, it runs counter to the values you espouse on your page. You have every right to do as you please, but what you are doing here is emblematic of a much bigger systemic problem: dissenting opinions are removed from conversation and people arrive at the false sense of consensus. This is antithetical to all scientific pursuits.
I am a physician and an engineer. I too am a substack author and have recently written about your latest post and the ban you have imposed. I encourage you to comment on it. Doing so will also allow you to address those who disagree with you; it's an opportunity to communicate with what should be your target audience.
You don't have to pay to leave a comment on any of my content. I am committed to invite all dissenting voices without insisting on a fees of any kind.
Sincerely,
Madhava Setty, MD"
The discussions you provoke at YLE are chef's kiss catnip!
I found a way to get the message out about this chicanery! I re-stacked their article with a note reading:
TNG have banned one of their paying subscribers from posting a comment “for 100 years”
So much for Curiosity, Humility, Impartiality, Empathy, Respect and a desire to look at Multiple Perspectives.
If science can’t defend itself on an even playing field, it isn’t science, it’s dogma.
Now why are are “conspiracy beliefs” on the rise I wonder?
Perhaps others might like to do the same?
Well said! Perhaps we will learn something about how to break open the barriers to open dialogue with this exercise.
I recall many years ago a woman's observation about a feminist conference she attended; she mentioned a pejorative term used there to speedily identify and disallow any sort of critical thinking. And the critic was, herself, a self-described feminist. I regret not spending the effort to commit such special language to memory. But from a low level position on the hospital floor, I was routinely swamped with it. Amid sea of inexact and tone-deaf "language", that forgotten word might have conveniently accounted for your hundred-year banishment from their thousand-year reich.
"Evidence based", as employed by the ladies above, was one such indignity I remember from the hospital -- whose "evidence", and on what basis? In my last year, performance evaluations were indexed to a series of virtues under capital headings which -- if conditions were fully satisfied -- spelled "TRUSTED". It was a social credit score. From my last performance review, it was "evident" that I couldn't be trusted at all, since there weren't enough capital letters to spell anything meaningful. But what need of language at all? Some nurses have a hard time with vomit, others with mucus, and a few with blood -- I could clean up any mess, no problem. But when I heard the word "protocol" or encountered a decision tree, I felt queezy.
The following is not directly related to your experience as a substack writer, but I include it, since you may find it interesting:
Igor Shafarevich, in his "History of Socialism" put forth that the end goal of socialism is in fact the extermination of the human race. Having read what I could of his work, in the brief time I had it in my hands, it's unsurprising that socialized medicine could so readily be converted to a killing field, as it has in Britain and Canada.
"A group of 23 multidisciplinary specialists"
A contradiction in terms if I ever saw one. You're either a 'specialist' or a 'generalist.' There's nothing in between.
As for conspiracy theories, how can you tell the difference between an unfounded or a legitimate belief unless you investigate the actual subject of the belief, and to do that would require a much larger, much better qualified group of researchers than a bunch of self-aggrandizing "nerdy girls."
To me, this is emblematic of how far the social sciences have fallen in the last few decades. To even call it science is an insult to actual scientists.
Are you a CT (conspiracy theorist) or a CT (critical thinker)? It’s not either/or, it’s both and more, as I explain in this Venn diagram: https://open.substack.com/pub/sanefrancisco/p/the-navy-blue-venn-diagram
I prefer to think of myself as a conspiracy analyst.
Nice video BTW.
Thanks!
I don’t normally follow self-promoting links, but that was excellent.
Thank you! I know what you mean but I felt compelled to post as it's so very pertinent.
I LOVED the Venn diagram, Thanks!♥️
Aw, cheers! 💛
Powerful article - thank you MD, a gentle, fair, informative & honest analogy. I believe Truth is recognized - it comes from within where Spirit lives. I am drawn & intuitively feel truth & most times, know when lies are spoken/written. Your article is one of the most balanced views I've read. I thank you deeply - I believe our Creator lives in the Truth & the Light of Truth will come to pass, in part, due to people such as you ...
I appreciate Those Nerdy Girls efforts to lift up women’s voices in science. Women are under-represented in the field and still are paid less than their male colleagues.
TNGs stated values—a desire to seek out opinions of others and promote rational, evidence based thinking—are commendable. Unfortunately when they wrestle with conspiracies, those values go flying out the window.
If it’s a conspiracy, ipso facto it must be false. No need for evidence and who cares about alternative opinions.
If NIST says WTC7 fell because of office fires and a single column failure, evidence of it falling like a rock doesn’t need to be examined. No need to look at University of Alaska’s 4 year study that concluded It didn’t collapse due to fire. It’s a conspiracy so the case is closed.
The same reasoning applies to things labeled a covid conspiracy. Pfizer’s own clinical trials showed higher all cause mortality for those receiving the vaccine, but thankfully that evidence doesn’t need to be considered because it falls in the bucket ‘conspiracy’.
I really appreciate this article, your thought and your huge capacity to think through things compassionately with others holding opposing views. I strive for your equipoise but am no where close. Your 100 year ban a loss for all of us: Those Nerdy Girls, you and the readers.
We're in an information war, and one of the tactics is that they pretend to be us.
MSM doesn't have the absolute power over public opinion that it used to enjoy before their lies got bigger and the internet made them more obvious. But people's belief in MSM as a reliable source of truth is not completely gone by any means.
The world of independent media and a free internet offers a challenge to their narrative control, and they're meeting that challenge by infiltrating "independent" news and social media. We have a pressing need for search engines and distribution networks that are uncorrupted. The truths that we have to tell are intrinsically hard to accept, and that's an unavoidable challenge. But censorship, shadow-banning, and throttling our "freedom of reach" are unnecessary impediments, and it is up to us to build a robust information ecosystem so that we can continue to communicate with one another and reclaim the exponential potential of internet news.
I agree. I also believe that we may never be able to know whether or not a search engine or distribution network is uncorrupted.
In that sense, the exchange of information is subject to a similar model as the exchange of value. The old paradigm of centralized authority validating a transaction or a piece of information has to go. Validation has to be distributed, which means we have to rely on our gumption, wits, intelligence and, of course, our intuition.
Josh, were you a physics major at Harvard? When?
He was. Josh, which years? '68-'72?
Incredible and common. Did you at least get your money back? I can't believe this can continue, unless, as Michael Nehls argues in his The Indoctrinated Brain the vaccines are changing the brain, making people stupid. His position is backed by neuro-molecular biological data, which is Greek to me. Love you to look at it and offer your view. Love you anyway Maha Madhava.
Yes. That stuff has been brought to my attention a lot recently. I will look.
Yes, please do. I'd be interested to know what info is out there. My amazing primary care doctor (one of the few brave ones who spoke up and continues to ask questions and speak openly about her concerns about the jab) told me at our last visit that she and her colleagues are seeing more and more brain inflammation and other autoimmune issues, even in the unjabbed. She believes we all have the spike protein in our bodies at this point, either from getting COVID or the vax or shedding. I do think it's worse the more times you've had COVID or been jabbed.
I think this is why people like TNG are so invested in us taking vaccines: so we don't stand out for our unclouded thinking. The internets are full of people calling for some type of medical intervention for "wappies" my favorite Dutch word for "conspiracy theorists."
You have a stronger constitution for tolerating nausea than I would. They epitomize this leftist wokist BS devoid of critical faculties that seems to be everywhere.
And as regards 'conspiracy beliefs' - do humans not conspire for their own gain/aggrandizement?
Is history literally not a litany of one conspiracy after another?
It only takes two to conspire!
for real.
Thank you Madhava Setty. That was such an erudite and succinct assessment of the First Amendment and how woke type people react to reason and truth. You do much better than I do.
I became an unpaid member of your site because of Joe Martino. I've followed Joe since he started Collective Evolution. Joe is awesome, and I quote him often. Now I have another higher source of truth, and not just truth. You and Joe are true thinkers and great leaders of the lost souls. Thank you, Sandi
Joe is an old soul indeed
Conspiracy thinking?
So, I guess they don't even know what the word means?
They don't believe in conspiracies? Conspiracies happen
all the time. Every second of every day.
conspiracy
kən-spîr′ə-sē
noun
An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
A group of conspirators.
An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime
or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
The used car salesmen are a group of conspirators
Excellent article Mr. Setty.
You give Dear Nerdy Girls more respect and humility than they deserve
I just posted “It only takes two conspire!”
The thing about leftists is that they can not tolerate any dissent. Their entire worldview is built in the sands of lies told over and over again amongst themselves thinking that their lies are the truth and reality. However the wave of reality will always wash away the world they build because its nit built upon the rock of truth and reality. The debris is always the lives and fortunes of the poor and middle class. The elites never suffer from their lies. Understand this and you will be able to deal with their lies more effectively.
It is interesting to note this trigger reaction that some writers/commentators seem to have....how they immediately just cancel someone who challenges their point of view, without any conversation or discussion. I personally believe it's because the issues we bring up challenge their world view, and perhaps even their whole psyche, to such an extent that they just have to shut it down, or they might implode. And, yet, perhaps you have helped to create a small crack through which a bit of light can make its way through. Keep commenting. It takes time for the layers of programming, propoganda, etc, to peel away. I know that I am still having a-ha moments and realizing there's more and more and more to uncover.
It's an important observation. We may never know with 100% certainty what "the truth" is. When we regard "conspiracy theorists" and what I like to call "coincidence theorists" together, they appear to be mirror images of each other. Each thinks the other side is wrong and that they are spreading incorrect information and narratives. Each thinks the other side is gullible.
The difference is that one side wishes to debate the issue and the other wants to muzzle any conversation. This doesn't prove that one side is right. However it doesn't take a college eduction to see that if the side that doesn't want to talk it out is wrong they will never realize it.
If people are worried about defending their views or criticism of them, somewhere they must have some inkling that they may be wrong. And this is intolerable for many and a true obstacle to learning and dialogue
I agree. I also think there could be programming involved, as is the case with faith-based belief systems which get perpetuated because rational examinations of counter arguments are prohibited because they might upend the belief. The possibility of being wrong could not possibly exist because it would lead to the loss of things that are necessary to keep their world together. It is maddening to see this obvious distortion co-exist with the idea that they believe themselves to be logical and driven by objectivity.
Yes, for most of my life I noticed this primarily in religious fundamentalists, and my reaction was always, oh ye of little faith. It is depressing to see it leak into spaces where people should know better. Current consensus should not be mistaken for truth, their education has failed them or perhaps they have failed it
Brilliant article! You ticked all my boxes :-)
You are kind and intrepid, Madhava!! You go boldly where no one should want to go! No, seriously, this is a wonderful musing by you. Full of grace and generosity. I subscribed to the YLE Substack on your mentioning of it. I will now subscribe, but not pay for, these nerdy head girls. I am so happy they call themselves girls, so I can.
The principle quote from Sara Gorman (one of the girls)'s piece is classic and ominous and clueless. It "suggests". Quisling academic posturing. Say it is so or it ain't so. Don't "suggest". "the study needs to be repeated". Further study needed. More gov't grants or perhaps grants from philanthrophy. Keep the research funds flowing. Then she wipes away critical thinking and hypothesis generation, which she calls conspiracy theory, and "suggests" it may not be a real phenomenon. "Interventions", ie censorship, propaganda and nudges funded by "grants", might be capable of grooming everyone into one way of seeing things. And it will all be so rational. Until it isn't.
Have they not read about diversity and it's crucial role in survival. We need diversity of thought in order to survive. That's about all free speech does. Not much more.
So the question for behavioral sociology is, why is there an explosion of youngish professional women so sure conspiracy theories are completely anathematic to civilized conversations about cause and effect in a complicated world. Where are they coming from?
From Sara Gorman as you quote.
“This suggests that this kind of study needs to be repeated. In the meantime, we should check our beliefs that conspiracy thinking is a permanent phenomenon and start to entertain the notion that these ideas could be more fluid than we thought. If this is the case, it opens up the possibility of more successful interventions to change conspiracy thinking. If we can understand when and how conspiracy beliefs tend to change, we can target interventions to help people transition away from these beliefs at times when their thought patterns are prone to change. This would be a great boon to our efforts to promote rational, evidence-based thinking across the population.”
You are quite right about the “interventions” which is the clear and present danger in their stance.
I am seeing a drop off in recently educated professionals’ ability to think for themselves. It’s been gradual and now it’s appreciable. It’s easier to follow guidelines than challenge them or understand how they came to be. Believing in conspiracy puts you outside the fold.
Great article.
Recently had a conversation with our mutual friend Meryl about this phenomena - neither of us could think of a single PhD under the age of 45-47 who could think for themselves (i.e. made it through Covid with clear eyes)
She could come up with a couple of younger lawyers she knew who could still think, but it appears that sitting for a PhD meant someone of that age or younger has almost certainly had to compromise their critical thinking too much.
Yes. I have talked about this with her. Guidelines used to just be guidelines, or loose expectations that were based in a more general understanding. When I was in training there came to be an emphasis on "evidence-based medicine" which seemed rational and used large data sets that could be mined to determine what was correct. But data sets can be gamed very easily. It has had the unfortunate consequence of suppressing doctors' trust in their own eyes and experience. In other words, clinicians are now programmed to not think for themselves anymore and just do what they are told.
Exactly!
Sorry, but they sound like another group of woke people who believe in diverse opinions only if they agree with theirs
A 100-year ban for a polite question! What massive hypocrites these people are. This happened to me a few times on FB in 2020, and funnily enough, once on a local influencer doctor’s page, when I was Covid-narrative dissenting (for a change), yet still believing, in those first few months, that I’d get a reasonable response to my reasonable questions. Nope! Blocked! Banned! Later she sent me an email apologizing for having to block me from her page and that it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t understand “basic science, statistics and math.” It’s absolutely amazing that she wrote all that (and worse) for a whole host of reasons. I will have to write a post about it soon. Thanks for telling us this ludicrous story.
This Nerdy Girl substack is clearly a contrived site to attract & influence the democrats biggest voting block - Affluent White Female Liberals. And the supposed writers that “contribute” all appear to be AWFLs. Now they can find each other & remain in their echo chamber. Your comment put a pin prick in the bubble & that is not allowed.
I’m not sure that their stack is contrived. I think they sincerely believe in what they write.
I wish I knew which comment was unacceptable to them. It seems that their ban was in force before I commented on their last post
The extent to which they believe in their own bullshit is governed by their moral and intellectual certitude. No self-reflection is necessary when you are 100% sure you are a good and wise person.