About Douglas Murray, “Experts” and War

I've often enjoyed listening to Douglas Murray, but he seems to have gone off the rails for two reasons: A) His enthusiasm for war as a solution to complex disputes and B) His wish to control the free flow of information between other people based on his claim that we need to shut up and rely on "experts," by which I assume he means credentialed experts.

In this segment, Joe Rogan and Dave Smith dismantle Murray with simple questions. Watch him dart to a new topic whenever he is challenged.

I would agree with Saagar Enjeti's description:

And here's a glaring irony pointed out by Enjeti:

As Dave Smith points out, during the pandemic, the "experts" got almost everything wrong. Murray has no response. The COVID error would include many of the following:

Here's a bigger irony. If only "experts" should weigh in on complex and important topics of the day, what does that say about democracy? Most of us voters are unwashed masses, uncredentialed in most things, yet we are asked to cast votes that will determine the fate of our country. Murray's attitude can be seen playing out in the EU (and elsewhere, including the US), where people are increasingly being denied the chance to vote for the candidates they support.

I'll end with this post by Mike Benz:

Continue ReadingAbout Douglas Murray, “Experts” and War

Non-Profits Often Aren’t What They Seem to Be

Do organizations actually do what they claim that they do? My favorite quote on this is from Thomas Sowell:

When examining institutions, it is critically important “to distinguish between:

(1) examining issues and institutions in terms of their process characteristics versus

(2) examining them in terms of their proclaimed goals or ideals….

Journalist Sharyl Attkisson offers this example: The American Cancer Society:

Nonprofits, virtually all nonprofits I would now say, have their origins in some kind of special interest that tend to be the opposite of what the nonprofit says it does.

And this was told to me originally by a producer who worked for me at CBS News years ago. And he said that very thing, that if they say they're the citizens against, you know, cancer, it's probably started by RJ Reynolds or a tobacco company. And it turns out it's true when you start digging a little deeper, which is not that hard to do. But as journalists were not taught to do that, and many journalists, including me, in my earlier time, we don't ask the basic questions. We're too trusting when a nonprofit tells us something. Well, nonprofits are all good, right? They're all just charities and altruistic. So let me tell you about the American Cancer Society.

Some years ago, I got a tip that antiperspirants had been linked to cancer, to breast cancer, and this tip actually came from the head of over the counter prescriptions from the FDA, in a conversation I was having about something unrelated, and I was stunned, because I'd never heard of such a thing, and I had a child who was getting to be about the age where she would start to use antiperspirants and so on, and I have breast cancer in my family, so certainly that's something I would want to know. So as I explored it a little more deeply, he told me that the FDA had been fighting for years to try to potentially put the warning of antiperspirant and cancer link on the label for antiperspirants, but had been beaten down year after year by the power of the antiperspirant industry, which was saying that the bar had to be met with different kinds of studies and things that hadn't been conducted. More about that in a moment, but as I came to interview one of the scientists who conducted a study linking the two, and as I read other studies that existed that also made a link, I asked for an interview with the antiperspirant industry. That, basically, it's the cosmetics industry, their trade group in Washington. And they didn't want to do an interview, but they kept saying interview the American Cancer Society. Go interview the American Cancer Society. And I'm thinking, Why? Why do they think the American Cancer Society is going to defend them. Why are they so sure of that? And of course, in my mind now, having covered these stories for a couple years. I thought, I'll bet there's a money tie.

So I call the American Cancer Society and their head of science that was answering my questions begins with a non secret. He just basically says, this is all a myth, which, by the way, the CDC website or the FDA website may say that, still today, it did. When I looked a couple years ago, claimed that this: this potential link was a myth. It's not, you know, you could say there's science on both sides, but you cannot say it's a myth. So when he's telling me it's a myth, I asked him about the recent studies that I had, and he didn't know about any of them. So here, the American Cancer Society is defending something antiperspirants as not a cause of cancer, and is saying it's a myth, but is not familiar with the latest science. That's clue two that there was something else at play.

So I faxed him the studies, and in the subsequent questions that I asked for my story, all his answers were the same. Instead of addressing the study, when I would ask a question about, what about this finding? What about that finding, he would say, women would do a lot better to get their annual mammograms and stop worrying about these other things that could be causing, you know, slight risk of cancer. They need to get their mammograms. And I finally said to him, do you guys get money from the antiperspirant industry? And he was yes, why? And I said, Well, how much? And they would not tell me how much. You know, no dollar figure, not even a percentage. He just, as I kept asking: so, well, it's a small amount.

That's a huge organization, if they get a small amount of funding from every industry that's implicated in cancer, you can see how the conflict of interest could stack up. So I did do that story and they got very angry at the American Cancer Society because I reported neutrally what they said and what they thought about this link between antiperspirants and breast cancer, but I pointed out that they accept money, and I said they say a small amount from the antiperspirant industry, and that set them off like crazy. We got nasty letter at CBS. How dare you say that, which is just the truth, but most reporters don't ask and then don't report that. I think that's crucial context. When you're looking at the viewpoint somebody is presenting, I think you have a right to know what the conflicts that exist may be.

Just one example of if you look at nonprofits, these are full of them.

Continue ReadingNon-Profits Often Aren’t What They Seem to Be

Maine Legislature Censures Member for Commenting on Male Participation in Female Sports.

Among other things, this situation raises First Amendment issues:

From FIRE:

Three weeks ago, Representative Laurel Libby of Maine’s 64th District posted on Facebook that a high school athlete won first place in girls’ pole vaulting at the Class B state championship after having competed the year before in the boys’ event and finishing in a tie for fifth place.

Libby’s post is constitutionally protected. She was speaking out about the policy in her state, set by the Maine High School Principals Association, that a high school athlete may participate in competitions for the gender with which they identify. Her post was also part of a nationwide debate. Maine Governor Janet Mills and President Trump have publicly sparred over the president’s executive order proposing to cut off education funding if states do not ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports.

But just days after Libby’s post, the Maine House speaker and majority leader demanded she take it down. When she refused, the majority leader introduced a censure resolution — to be heard in the House the next day — because Libby’s post had included photos and the first name of the student, who is a minor. Libby sought to defend herself in the hastily called House vote, but was repeatedly cut off. The censure resolution passed 75-70 on a party-line vote.

If all the censure did was express disapproval of Libby’s actions, that would be one thing.

A state legislative body is entitled to express displeasure with a member’s actions, which by itself does not violate the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court recently ruled.

But in Libby’s case, the Maine House went further, much further. When Libby refused to apologize for her protected speech, the House speaker declared she would be barred from speaking on the House floor or voting on any legislation until she capitulated. Thus, the House majority party has precluded Libby from doing her job and effectively disenfranchised her constituents, end-running Maine constitutional provisions that say a representative cannot be expelled absent a two-thirds vote or recall election.

Continue ReadingMaine Legislature Censures Member for Commenting on Male Participation in Female Sports.

Tribes and Stupidity

I just wrote this on FB, where I sometimes feel like a pinata by people have allowed themselves to be loyal mouthpieces for one political party.

I stand by my assertion that anyone who allows their facts or opinions to be shaped by party politics has allowed their intelligence to drop by 50 points. All of us should be making our own decisions issue by issue. If your opinions are fully or almost entirely aligned with one particular political party, I'm talking especially to you. If you refuse to publicly criticize at least some of the actions and corruption of both political parties, your brain has been captured by a mind-virus. There are no good or bad people. There are only good or bad ideas. As detailed in the book by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind, "One of the Three Great Untruths is Us Versus Them: Life Is a Battle Between Good People and Evil People." Excerpt from pages 58-59.

The bottom line is that the human mind is prepared for tribalism. Human evolution is not just the story of individuals competing with other individuals within each group; it’salso the story of groups competing with other groups—sometimes violently. We are all descended from people who belonged to groups that were consistently better at winning that competition. Tribalism is our evolutionary endowment for banding together to prepare for intergroup conflict. When the “tribe switch” is activated, we bind ourselves more tightly to the group, we embrace and defend the group’s moral matrix, and we stop thinking for ourselves. A basic principle of moral psychology is that “morality binds and blinds,” which is a useful trick for a group gearing up for a battle between “us”and “them.”In tribal mode, we seem to go blind to arguments and information that challenge our team’s narrative. Merging with the group in this way is deeply pleasurable—as you can see from the pseudotribal antics that accompany college football games.

But being prepared for tribalism doesn’t mean we have to live in tribal ways. The human mind contains many evolved cognitive “tools.”We don’t use all o f them all the time; we draw on our toolbox as needed. Local conditions can turn the tribalism up, down, or off. Any kind o f intergroup conflict (real or perceived) immediately turns tribalism up, making people highly attentive to signs that reveal which team another person is on. Traitors are punished, and fraternizing with the enemy is, too. Conditions of peace and prosperity, in contrast, generally turn down the tribalism.32People don’t need to track group membership as vigilantly; they don’t feel pressured to conform to group expectations as closely. When a community succeeds in turning down everyone’s tribal circuits, there is more room for individuals to construct lives of their own choosing; there is more freedom for a creative mixing of people and ideas."

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