It’s called thinking for yourself, Dave. You should try it sometime. Might calm your nerves.
You see, if you want to live in a democracy you have to get used to the idea of people having different points of view to yours. Moreover, they are entitled to them and their right to hold them should be celebrated. People can even take them out on the streets and demonstrate about them. It’s a bitch isn’t it? Most of us as we enter adulthood learn to not only cope with the burden of entertaining two or more opposing ideas in our heads at the same time in order to reach our own conclusions, but to learn from it. A diversity of ideas expands the intellect and should not be howled down.
As for it creating “monstrosities” - well, your monster might be another man’s angel. If you struggle with that concept you might find the plot line in Shrek illuminating.
Do you have a problem wuth democracy, Dave? You seem to be calling for a form of government where our elected representative must step aside and pass power over to unelected ‘experts’ in the bureaucracy of government and in big business. It has a name - Fascism. A lot of us here have relatives who died fighting it in WW2.
I could go on about how there is rarely one expert opinion that is right, and how experts often get it very wrong or simply build a case on lies. I could mention the IT experts ringing the alarm bells about the Millennium Bug (or Y2K) of 1999. Or the 2003 Invasion of Iraq by the ‘Coallition of the Willing’ (20 years ago this week) based on expert opinion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - he didn’t but millions died as a result. But instead I attach an old press clipping I took back in the mid-1980s when I was thinking about free speech and government censorship. Hope you have fun playing catch-up.
As for how you cope with the moral dilemma you pose in your final question, well that’s a matter for you and your conscience, when you find it. I hope you do.
Sigh..
Your low key ad hominems, hubris, strawmanning and bizarre definition of fascism notwithstanding (by that logic, I assume you support ANTIFA, right? I mean, you don't support fascism, do you?)
Look, I
get that people believing they're privy to some exclusive knowledge elicits sense of agency over their lives. Better still, believing the 'system' is out to get you, MSM lies and obfuscates literally everything as part of some corporate power play, experts are all on the payroll of 'big pharma', vaccines are part of ' the great reset' or whatever, and you know the
truth feels empowering. It feels good to be smarter than you dum dum neighbor, right?
However, it also spawns a particularly idiotic, mob-centric orgy of lazy thinking and contrarianism. Who needs context when social media provides a ten second sound bite?
Why steel man and argument and risk derailing your own narrative? Why issue a mea culpa when you can just double down?
Yes, experts often get it wrong, but when you get really sick for instance, do you visit a doctor or a homeopath?
You may hold experts in contempt, but when push comes to shove, you'll eventually be forced to eat your own words.
Personally, I tend to focus on issues within my sphere of influence and control. The things that directly effect myself and those around me. That's why my nerves are indeed,
calm. Deciphering the firehose of 24/7 news will drive you mad. What happens on the streets of Taiwan and Ukraine or any other of the multitude kayotic global hotspots of at best, in the periphery of my thoughts.
I can't change it, neither can you. Pick a charitable organisation you trust and put your money where your mouth is about the best you help.
But you are of course free to incinerate as much of your precious time getting to the core of these issues as you like. The net result of either one of our strategies will be effectively the same. The Chinese and Russians and for that matter, the internet don't actually care what you (or I) think. Sorry to break it to you.
Oh, by the way:
1 x great grandfather - WW1 - amputee.
1 x great uncle - killed in Gallipoli.
1 x grand father - mother's side WW2.
1 x grandfather - fathers side - RAAF - plane shot down by German U boat - recorded in Herbert A. Werner's book,
Iron Coffins.
1 x uncle - Vietnam - left a competitive runner and cyclist, returned an alcoholic who suffers PTSD.
1 x cousin - partial amputee as a result of a training accident.
So yeah champ, my relatives have paid their dues in both just and pointless wars alike.
You have have a nice day now.
