On doubting everything
This is a recent bald-faced lie told by the Biden administration:
The Biden administration vastly overstated its estimate that employers created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter of this year, claiming historic job growth when in fact hiring had stalled, according to a new estimate.
Job growth was “essentially flat” in the second quarter with only 10,500 jobs added, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.
That’s Soviet-style stuff: “The Five-Year Plan? It’s all lies, lies, lies!” [see *NOTE below]
There’s are twin dangers here. The first is an obvious one, which is to believe everything this administration (or any administration) says. The second is less obvious, but I’d say it’s to go beyond the border – a place where nothing is true, where you are free to make up your own truth. Or, it’s where all truths are equal and you get to choose your own.
I think that’s one of the worst things about the last decade or so. There have been so many lies that truth has become more difficult to find and more difficult to believe in. And of course, the country is roughly divided down the middle with two halves that believe in two completely different truths.
Which is not to say that truth is relative. I don’t believe that truth is relative. But truth becomes more difficult to discover and to trust. I often find myself trying to sort this out, even (or perhaps especially) with things that have to do with science and statistics – areas in which truth should (at least theoretically) be easiest to determine, not more difficult. But politics has infected everything – although perhaps ’twas ever thus.
When I use the term “the border,” I’m referring to this quote from Milan Kundera’s great work The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
It takes so little, so infinitely little, for someone to find himself on the other side of the border, where everything – love, convictions, faith, history – no longer has meaning. The whole mystery of human life resides on the fact that it is spent in the immediate proximity of, and even in direct contact with, that border, that it is separated from it not by kilometers but by barely a millimeter.
And here’s another way to look at it:
[*NOTE: That quote about the Five Year Plans being lies was from a 1931 article by Welsh reporter Gareth Jones, the first Western journalist to write truthfully about the Holodomor. Needless to say, he didn’t write for the NY Times. On Jones:
After being banned from re-entering the Soviet Union, Jones was kidnapped and murdered in 1935 while investigating in Japanese-occupied Mongolia; his murder was likely committed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD…
Born in Barry, Glamorgan, Jones attended Barry County School, where his father, Major Edgar Jones, was headmaster until around 1933. His mother, Annie Gwen Jones, had worked in Ukraine as a tutor to the children of Arthur Hughes, son of Welsh steel industrialist John Hughes, who founded the town of Hughesovka, modern-day Donetsk, in Ukraine.
Interesting fact about the founding of Donetsk.
Jones’ reporting was “debunked” by the NY Times:
[Jones’] report was denounced by several Moscow-resident American journalists such as Walter Duranty and Eugene Lyons, who had been obscuring the truth in order to please the dictatorial Soviet regime. On 31 March, The New York Times published a denial of Jones’s statement by Duranty under the headline “Russians Hungry, But Not Starving”. Duranty called Jones’ report “a big scare story”. Historian Timothy Snyder has written that “Duranty’s claim that there was ‘no actual starvation’ but only ‘widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition’ echoed Soviet usages and pushed euphemism into mendacity. This was an Orwellian distinction; and indeed George Orwell himself regarded the Ukrainian famine of 1933 as a central example of a black truth that artists of language had covered with bright colors.”
In the article, Kremlin sources denied the existence of a famine; part of The New York Times’ headline was: “Russian and Foreign Observers in Country See No Ground for Predications of Disaster.”
On 11 April 1933, Jones published a detailed analysis of the famine in the Financial News, pointing out its main causes: forced collectivization of private farms, removal of 6–7 millions of “best workers” (the Kulaks) from their land, forced requisitions of grain and farm animals and increased “export of foodstuffs” from USSR.
What are the causes of the famine? The main reason for the catastrophe in Russian agriculture is the Soviet policy of collectivisation. The prophecy of Paul Scheffer in 1929–30 that collectivisation of agriculture would be the nemesis of Communism has come absolutely true.
—Gareth Jones, Balance Sheet of the Five Year Plan, Financial News, 11 April 1933
On 13 May The New York Times published a strong rebuttal of Duranty from Jones, who stood by his report…
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Dueling truths – but only one of them was true. History – and time – has vindicated Jones’ truth against Duranty’s lies.]
Every single word from this illegitimate administration is a lie (including “and” and “the”), and every absurd utterance from the podium by KJP (paid very handsomely to lie) is in service to falsehood and untruth. Is it any wonder that more and more rational citizens are beginning to question conventional wisdom and received opinion concerning past administrations (see Bruce Bawer’s excellent and very sobering “Reflections on America at the End of 2022”, just posted at FrontPage)?
The Stock Market rallies on the job numbers. Will it tank on the actual numbers? No, it is up over 550 pt. It sound like our economy is no better than the Chinese.
Eugene lyons turned a corner if memory serves duranty was in the tradition of herbert matthews and ray bonner syd schamberg is a rare counter example
j e– Thank you for the reference. Here’s the link, for others who may wish to read Bawer’s essay:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/reflections-on-america-at-the-end-of-2022/
The “mood music” (if that term is okay) that came to me after reading Bawer and listening to Neo’s clip of Yul Brynner is the “Dies irae” from Verdi’s Requiem. The text is from Thomas of Celano, a 13th-century Franciscan, and describes the Last Judgment. Literal English translation from the Latin: The day of wrath, that day, will dissolve the world in ashes: (this is) the testimony of David along with the Sibyl.
How great will be the trembling when the Judge is about to come,
strictly investigating all things!
The trumpet, spreading its wondrous sound
through the tombs of all earth’s regions,
will summon all before the throne.
The “Dies irae” was removed from Roman Catholic funeral services by the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, but it was still in use when Verdi composed his Requiem in 1873. Full disclosure: I was a member of a chorus that performed the piece in 1969, and I remember the conductor commenting during the first rehearsal that Verdi wrote like a man who had seen the lid ripped off hell. The trumpets that open up around 2:24 in the following clip are downright chilling if you are in the concert hall during a live performance. The clip is from a BBC performance with English closed captioning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHw4GER-MiE&ab_channel=GustavoCoppini
And yes, I’m angry enough about the way in which Biden and his buddies (in both parties) have destroyed people’s trust in this country that I’d welcome the opening of a can of apocalyptic whoop-@ss on their shriveled souls.
The thing is, the lies and censorship works. That’s why the MSM and Left keeps doing it.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/house-gop-locates-emails-texts-showing-pelosi-office-directly-involved-failed
Bruce bawer has often shown himself to be very perceptive
Math, chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, and other technical fields are based on provable experiments and applications. But even there, we must maintain that the “science isn’t settled.” New discoveries and solid proofs can change the science and applications.
On the other hand, we have social science, political science, economics, religion, and other subjects where definitive proofs are more difficult and subject to various biases and blind spots. Many of our disputes about what’s true lie in this area.
But it isn’t just the soft sciences where we find ourselves enmeshed in efforts to push a false narrative on the citizenry. Consider the trans issues where biology is denied/ignored.
Consider the handling of Covid-19 where shaky opinions were pushed as facts and doctors with solid therapeutic ideas were silenced.
IMO, we are adrift in an era of mass psychosis where preposterous ideas and policies are accepted by large numbers of people, and it’s become fashionable to apologize for the sins of our ancestors.
My theory is that social media has had much to do with this. A ridiculous twitter meme can travel far and be accepted by many – much more so than pre-social media.
This isn’t new. The book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay chronicles some economic, religious, political, and national delusions that have gripped people in the past. If such things happened in times of slower communications, it makes sense that our instant communications of today would make it easier for such mass delusions to occur.
What usually brings people back to their senses is a mass failure or bursting of the bubble. I think that’s where we’re headed. A serious economic downturn may bring most
people back to their senses.
@ JJ:
My coworkers and I joke that what would solve this problem quick is an all-out world war.
(said very jokingly, as we’d be among the first participants at the pointy end of said world war)
There’s something about having to scrounge for survival that makes the extraneous BS fade away in importance.
https://twitter.com/thebradfordfile/status/1605638511826083840?cxt=HHwWgICl8YXur8gsAAAA
“This is a recent bald-faced lie”…was the BLS number really an intentional lie?..or was it a very preliminary estimate, promoted unreasonably by the Biden administration without any concern for its accuracy? Doesn’t say much good about Biden & co, either way, but different implications for the good faith of the BLS.
Economics & investment writer Mish Shedlock has thoughts:
https://mishtalk.com/economics/the-philadelphia-fed-just-revised-jobs-lower-by-1-2-million-for-q2
Cornhead:
Absolutely.
Cornhead has it right: lies and censorship work. Especially when the mainstream media is fully engaged in the lies and censorship.
Sr. Cervantes: I would be interested in expansion on your comment about Ray Bonner. I knew him in the early nineties, and there must be something about him of which I am ignorant. Elucidate?
PA Cat: Thank you for that link to the BBC performance. Very good.
Mencius Moldbug, The Nihilism of the Ruling Class: https://compactmag.com/article/the-nihilism-of-the-ruling-class
To do with lying as a way of life, one might say.
That the salvadoran army was a necessary evil in order for the fmln nog to win and we have seen what they have wrought in the 15 years they were in power shirley christian pulled him out of el salvador in part for his safety
We can move on to their coverage of afghanistan and the mujaheen some of their most noxious elements was seen then although ubl wasnt ever present
as elaborated before, the times were terrible in gauging the nature of the pahlevi regime, as they fell for every homespun black legend, typical of the nature of this, was sy hersh, insisting we taught the persians to torture, this was right around the time of the embassy takeover,
we can add thomas ‘flathead’ friedman, as taibbi dubbed him, he got his first big story wrong in substantial ways, this came to my attention by the account of an israeli stringer, because friedman, pretended to be more arab fluid, he blamed one wrong party (how do I know that he knew he had made a mistake,) he left this person samir geagea, out of the manuscript, sadly such mistakes contributed to the kangaroo court that banished him for 15 years or so,
Lying and censorship only work when the people doing the lying and censoring maintain a healthy respect for the truth. The real problem is we’ve broken the feedback loop. Liars now believe their own lies so they lose the ability to deal with the truth their lies were supposed to cover up.
Mike
With Neo, I don’t think truth is relative. Truth exists. But it may easily be obscured and twisted for the unwary. At this point I don’t believe much of anything from any source without corroboration.
Miguel Cervantes, your link at 4:02 to Just the News confirms what I have always thought to be the case, that Pelosi and her office were in great part responsible for the failures of security in the Capitol on 01/06/21.
PA Cat @3:20,
What is that brass instrument at 3:13 in the video?!
The bell and bore size seem similar to a bass trombone, and there are non-slide, three-valved trombones, but it seems to have more tubing length.
Euphonium?
RTF–
Yep, it’s a euphonium. The instrument was invented around 1843, and Verdi was one of several 19th-century composers who made use of it for its rich tenor range.
Grunt:
“My coworkers and I joke that what would solve this problem quick is an all-out world war.
(said very jokingly, as we’d be among the first participants at the pointy end of said world war)
There’s something about having to scrounge for survival that makes the extraneous BS fade away in importance.”
Well put, Grunt. Being on the tip of the spear does bring a huge dose of reality. (I was once there myself.) We all hope it isn’t war. You, most of all.
I’m a child of the Depression. I saw the reality of my parents struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. No time for delusions or hysteria. Much as I would hate to see another such calamity befall us, it would bring reality back.
These are trying times. Keeping peace in the soul and trusting that the universe is unfolding as it should isn’t easy these days. But it’s Christmas time. A time of renewed hope and looking forward to better news in the coming year. Merry Christmas to you and your coworkers, Grunt.
PA Cat,
Based on its size I assumed its sound would be similar to a Euphonium, but it doesn’t look anything like the Euphoniums I have seen: https://trumpet-to-euphonium.weebly.com/types-of-euphoniums.html
I’m not doubting you, I just don’t understand the unique shape and size.
Regarding neo’s second video, the song from “The King and I.”
I like musicals and one of my favorite scenes from any musical is the play within the play in, “The King and I” when the locals perform their retelling of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
One day I started researching the story it was based on, the life of Anna Leonowens. Imagine my disappointment when I learned how inaccurate it was. Mrs. Leonowens was quite the fabricator and teller of tall tales. The King was actually very progressive and lived most his life humbly, as a religious ascetic. He did much to promote other cultures in his kingdom.
“…Pelosi and her office were in great part responsible for the failures of security in the Capitol on 01/06/21.”
Um, er, OK…
BUT er/their excuses are still flatout, steaming, unadulterated BalderdaSh.
Optics?
Um, er, no.
It was part of the great setup: To create maximum chaos. Bring in ringers to enflame it. Film it. Replay the film 24/7/52. Call it an INSURRECTION. Blame Trump for it—along with “his” “SEMI-FASCIST” “DEPLORABLES”.
Prosecute the poor suckers who got caught up in Pelosi’s/Biden”‘s EVIL web: The whole SPECTACULAR, BUSBY-BERKLEY-ESQE PRODUCTION that goes by the name of “January 6”.
And then after this grand orgy of evil…the post-coitus extravaganza:
Talk about Prosecucting Trump.
Make sure to mega-raid Trump’s Personal Domain.
Keep talking about Prosecuting Trump for ever and ever, amen.
Steal ANOTHER election.
Prosecute Trump.
Can’t beat it.
If Jan. 6 was “Biden”‘s Reichstag Fire, then the Jan. 6 “COMMISSION”(!) has been “his” NUREMBERG”.
Fabulous orchestration.
Unparalleled choreography.
Pelosi, “Biden” and the Gang that couldn’t Talk Straight…TRULY deserve the Oscar of all Oscars.
(No doubt Hollywood is prepared to give it to them, no questions asked…in perpetuity.)
File under: The Honor! The Honor!….
Oops… Should be “…her/their excuses…”
– – – – – – –
And in other news…of the Mostest Highest Moral variety…
…it looks like Ethical Altruism(TM) has come home to roost….
“Caroline Ellison Throws SBF Under The Bus: Pleads Guilty To Fraud, Agrees To Cooperate With The DOJ”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/caroline-ellison-throws-sbf-under-bus-pleads-guilty-fraud-agrees-cooperate-doj
Speaking of the country that paid Biden’s crack smoking/influence peddling son millions,
Tucker: What’s wrong with our leaders, and where is this going?
Tulsi: Zelenskyy’s autocracy is a uniparty wet dream come true.
“But it isn’t just the soft sciences where we find ourselves enmeshed in efforts to push a false narrative on the citizenry. Consider the trans issues where biology is denied/ignored.”
Not by people in the know.
Trans people exist (heck, I am one), the problem here is that language is binary and can’t properly describe what we are. Male genitals but a brain that has strong female characteristics, probably (very hard to study ethically, for obvious reasons) due to abnormal hormone levels in the fetus and during brain development as a child.
What doesn’t exist is the whole ideological portrayal of being able to change your gender at a whim, that people born male can ever become pregnant, etc. etc.. That’s all just BS and attempts to either vilify all transgender people or excuse criminal behaviour by claiming victim status where there is none to be had.
For actual transgender people, HRT and gender reassignment surgery can help a great deal with suppressing the mental anguish and allowing us to lead a mentally healthy life and find acceptance rather than be seen as “freaks” and “weirdos”.
And no, I’m no drag queen. While I dress feminine, I try to dress conservatively, shave several times a day (pending money for permanent hair removal), etc. etc. so as not to attract undue attention.
And I loathe the whole “drag queen story time” phenomenon, which is just another way to push porn and acceptance of pedophiles on small children. The people responsible aren’t transgender (or not to any greater degree than the general population, where we make up a fraction of a percent of people) but are the real freaks who use the moniker of “transgender” to force themselves on children, so they can claim discrimination when denied.
JTW:
Thank you for that elucidation.You have described what I have long suspected — that there is a part of the population who are indeed transgender without flamboyance. People whose transition we never recognize as such because they don’t flaunt it or insist we acknowledge by pretending what we see with our own eyes does not exist. The recently fired Assistant Secretary of Energy for Spent Fuel is a case in point, leaving aside his penchant for purloined suitcases. They are not merely freaks, as you call him — they are people who want us to deny what we see with our own eyes.
But…OF COURSE!
“FBI Says Twitter Infiltration Business As Usual , Slams ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ “—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-says-twitter-infiltration-business-usual-slams-conspiracy-theorists
Opening graf:
” The FBI has issued a statement in response to the Elon Musk’s release of THE TWITTER FILES, which boils down to ‘Of course we’ve embedded ourselves in social media companies, and anyone who has a problem with it is a conspiracy theorist trying to tarnish our stellar reputation.’…”
Short version: Go back to bed!
(Well, THAT—together with knowing that it’s the Republicans who are responsible for the border disaster—is certainly reassuring!)
I hadn’t heard of the remarkable Gareth Jones until I came across the 2019 movie “Mr. Jones,” which recounts his 1933 trip to the Soviet Union where suspicions led him to see firsthand, and later report on, the famine in Ukraine. In Moscow, Jones met future adversary Walter Duranty, who the movie accurately shows to be degenerate, Stalin’s shill, and instrumental in FDR’s decision to recognize the USSR.
He was an “extraordinary linguist” and graduated from Cambridge with firsts in Russian, French, and German. Jones, who became a freelance reporter in 1929, had “an extraordinary knack of getting at things that mattered.” In his short career, he wrote about his meetings with such luminaries as Frank Lloyd Wright, Eamon de Valera, Lenin’s widow, and Adolf Hitler.
The movie is now playing on Amazon Prime.
More information about how the job numbers are computed..and a little history about the divergences:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/12/whats-happening-with-the-job-numbers.php
JJ,
Science is broken. The vast majority of peer-reviewed, published scientific studies are flawed. There’s no quality process.
Yes, the social sciences are even worse than the physical sciences. They’ve jumped the shark.
https://ahrp.org/cancer-research-false-claims/
https://peterattiamd.com/johnioannidis/
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/science-and-public-policy.html
When the news media only parrots the narrative that is reviewed and approved by the government, you live in a dictatorship.
Kate,
Any liberal will assure you that it is absolutely true that the truth is relative.
Malcome Muggeridge traveled to the USSR in the 1930s posing as an enthusiastic supporter of the revolution. He told the truth and called Walter Duranty a big liar, but nobody wanted to hear it. He was ostracized and couldn’t find work afterwards. Eugene Lyons became disillusioned with communism and became a fierce critic.
Are there examples in history of teetering countries righting themselves?
stan:
I only clicked on the first link you posted. It discusses the problem of non-replicability in cancer research, and basically seems to say that fraud is involved. But actually, the problem with replication of any research involving human subjects is far greater than that and does not necessarily involve fraud at all. Actual fraud probably plays only a very small part.
It’s a big and important topic as well as a complex one – Here’s a summary article about it.
Science is complicated and difficult. Fraud is an easy charge to make even when dialed to “11.”
JTW, thanks for telling your story. It’s good to hear from someone who is trans and doing your best to fit into society. You just want to feel right in your body. That’s a hard thing for those of us who don’t feel mis-gendered to understand. But we know you exist, and you need help to live a more authentic life. I have no problem with that. I wish you well in your quest to live as you feel.
What I refer to is the major push to guide young children into puberty blockers and surgery even without their parents’ consent. It has no scientific or ethical basis and seems to be based on a theory that large numbers of children are mis-gendered. We need to tread carefully in this area. Lives have been ruined. Our daughter is a therapist who has worked with children who believed they were trans. Most outgrew the idea. A small few didn’t. Better to take things slowly and provide support for each individual’s needs.
Stan, I checked the other two links and found them interesting. McKittrick’s work I’ve known about since the Hockey Stick debate. Ioannidis work is important and seems well done.
IMO, science is only broken insofar as we don’t allow debate and discussion of the findings. Which is too prevalent now because science has been, like so much else, politicized. Transparency is the best medicine, but power and money are at stake. That trumps the quest for the truth. Seeking government grants and finding new miracle cures from which fortunes spring is the MO. And using corrupt or poorly done science to form government policy is very much in favor among the Democrats. 🙁
JTW,
Thank you for providing your explanation. I reasoned into similar logic as your description about a year ago; why isn’t it possible that some people’s “brains”/”minds” don’t match their physical genitalia? As a casual observer, it also seems there are many other tangential circumstances, some cultural, some environmental (upbringing, experience, trauma…) that result in similar, external behaviors.
I have no idea what it’s like to live in someone else’s mind or body, so I don’t have a judgement here, but it seems reasonable to expect people to understand that there are societal norms and it is best for us all to respect them when they are reasonable and practical. Especially when it comes to minors.
There was a period in the late ’70s where dancing to anything but disco was considered “uncool,” and, to a lot of youths disco itself was “uncool.” The bars at my college took advantage of the anti-dance craze to maximize revenue by putting in as much seating, standing and bar space as possible. But some of us were figuring out how to dance to New Wave music and there was a bar on campus with a big dance floor that played New Wave music on Tuesday nights. It was a gay bar. Some of us heterosexual students learned about New Wave Tuesdays through our gay friends and started showing up on Tuesdays to dance. We jokingly referred to it as “straight night.”
When we were there we were always very respectful of the regulars. After all, it was their space and we were invading it. Many times I saw classmates who were not “out” and I never mentioned it to anyone. They were nice enough to let me take female dates to their bar and while I was at their bar I played by their rules, and I didn’t violate their trust when on the outside, or after leaving.
I know it must be very difficult for people with non-traditional sexual appetites and/or non-traditional sexual/gender feelings. The majority of the world does “straight night” 24 hours a day/7 days a week. It was easy for me to adhere to the culture of that gay bar. It was a place I could choose to walk in or out of, and, at most I was there for 3 contiguous hours, once or twice a month. I know I don’t understand what it would be like if the opposite were true, and those 3 hours twice a month were the only time I could be “myself.”
The innocence of children is where I feel strongest on this issue. Children deserve our protection and should be permitted to learn who they are in their own time. I like to think that if I were not straight, or suffered from some form of gender dysphoria I would respect the importance of traditional family values as the foundation of a well functioning society.
NO ONE REPLICATES.
I repeat Ioannidis — the majority of science studies are flawed.
The reasons are many. Horrific stats malpractice, fraud is not detrimental to careers, politicized results, the mad dash for cash, there are a lot.
The hockey stick and the polar bear study are the two most significant science studies of our lifetimes. Both are ridiculously incompetent. Neither was ever checked by science institutions. Both continue to be regarded by the science establishment around the world as authoritative. Truth is now irrelevant. All that matters is political usefulness.
That tells you all you ever need to know. We are spending trillions every year and killing millions of people on the basis of “science” that is so bad it would flunk a high school science fair. And these are typical. So typical.
The Amgen and Bayer experiences were trying to replicate studies that were the best of the best. They were featured studies in Nature and in Science — the premier science journals in the world. And they flunked more than 80% of the time. And some of the authors then confessed to fraud with a shrug. Because fraud doesn’t matter. Seriously. All that matters is that they get published.
I don’t even see how anyone could possibly defend such crap. If that isn’t “BROKEN”, what the hell is?
Marc Andreessen, at Twitter:
“The most common event in our times: An expert with power/authority/influence is wrong in full view, yet suffers no consequences.”
and
“And then that expert, and all the other experts, continue to insist on the primacy of experts.”
to which someone named Garrett Jones responded:
“I mean, have you compared experts to the alternative?…It’s not like the masses have a great track record. Hence the case for (his book) “10% Less Democracy–Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses at Little Less”
It seems people were not familiar with the Bayer and Amgen experience a decade ago. Is that right? I’m shocked.
Reason mag had an article about it. So did the opinion section of the WSJ.
Read the Climategate emails. Read the Harry Read Me file. Read the experiences of Steve McIntyre and Climate Audit. The science establishment is corrupt up to their eyeballs. Higher than that. This isn’t even debatable. They are more corrupt than Hunter Biden.
Clearly, some folks haven’t educated themselves on the true extent of the problem. You can claim Hunter Biden and the big guy aren’t corrupt. I’ll laugh. Same if you want to deny a claim that science is fundamentally broken due to the lack of any quality process (which is undeniable), and the overwhelming evidence of corruption by the science establishment (clearly established).
Ray
I have read Malcolm Muggeridge’s 2-volume autobiography. He wasn’t “posing as an enthusiastic supporter of the revolution” when he first came to the USSR. His father was a Labour MP. He was related to Sidney and Beatrice Webb- IIRC Beatrice was his aunt- who wrote the horrendous book and updates on “Soviet Union- a New Civilization.” Malcolm Muggeridge came to the USSR as a True Believer, just like Eugene Lyons, but like Lyons got disillusioned by what he saw.
Eugene Lyons’s Assignment in Utopia and The Red Decade are well worth the read. (Web Archive has them.) The Red Decade has an excellent refutation of the lefty put-down of “red-bating.” As he pointed out, no one considers “brown-baiting” to be an effective put-down of condemnations of the Nazis,
David Foster: somewhat OT, but I’ve been meaning to let you know that I bought an original paperback copy of Kendell Foster Crossen’s “Year of Consent” last year on your recommendation and have just started reading it. Very relevant to our current situation (universal surveillance, AI-driven social credit systems, a Potemkin political veneer etc.). I see it’s been dinged by critics for stylistic deficiencies, failures of scientific prediction, and “casual sexism” (some people might call that a feature, not a bug–I couldn’t possibly comment), but I’m enjoying it. If enjoy is the word. I’m a sucker for pulp thrillers, so may check out his Milo March series.
What Gringo said, re Muggeridge, who was an honest man.
(Would just point out the following quibble: that Muggeridge “…[QUICKLY] got disillusioned by what he saw…” and from that point on became a determined anti-Communist, on the level of Robert Conquest and others.)
Hubert…glad you like it. For anyone else who might be interested, my review is here:
https://ricochet.com/871838/book-review-year-of-consent-by-kendell-foster-crossen/
re Marc Andreessen’s tweet on Experts and the response from Garrett Jones (almost the same as that of the truthful reporter on the Soviet Union), all experts are not the same. I would assign a level of credibility in his field to a holder of an Airline Transport Pilot certificate or a Civil Engineer certificate that I wouldn’t necessarily assign to someone with an advanced degree Political Science.
Also, at least in his Twitter response, Jones misses Andreessen’s main point, which is that something said by a person *who has a personal stake in actually getting it right* is more likely to be correct than something said by a person who has no such stake.
stan longs for the good old days of alchemy and astrology. Because “he’s mad as hell and he ain’t taking it any longer.”
Also, at least in his Twitter response, Jones misses Andreessen’s main point, which is that something said by a person *who has a personal stake in actually getting it right* is more likely to be correct than something said by a person who has no such stake.
People rely on experts to give answers to normative questions, something they’re ill-equipped to do. As a result of the judgment of ‘experts’, we now have a subindustry devoted to poisoning people with hormone treatments and mutilating them surgically. As a result of the judgement of an adjacent set of experts, setting up a counseling practice to help people break free of the gay world is unlawful in one state after another.
It isn’t just the mental health trade. We’ve discovered in the last three years that the purveyors of ‘public health’ are largely peddlers of rubbish.
stan:
I repeat: condescension is not a winning argument for you. Or for most people, actually.
Alchemy and divining is what is being practiced
Genocide by starvation is not a new thing mengistu did it ethiopia in part and our response was live aid sarc sometimes you have the more cold blooded blood bath like kagame who was a rebel leader in the congo at the time of the rwandan massacre and is now president for life
There is politicized science and trendy science (chasing the hot grant money) but they aren’t trying to turn lead into gold (that’s a crypto currency thing).
Politicians, regimes, juntas, twist science towards their ends. Scientists go along, they are human after all. Not as if Lysenko has been forgotten, or Aryian vs Jewish science for that matter. But you know these things. Now stan seems to imply that all science is utterly corrupted. I guess there is nothing new to learn about anything.