The underlying question I was getting at is how suggestible the people are. My basic thought is that the wave of insanity is the result of peer pressure, assuming that the smarter people are, the less suggestible [read: gullible]. There are plenty middle- and upper-class people who have regressed to the mean, so have a paucity if walki…
The underlying question I was getting at is how suggestible the people are. My basic thought is that the wave of insanity is the result of peer pressure, assuming that the smarter people are, the less suggestible [read: gullible]. There are plenty middle- and upper-class people who have regressed to the mean, so have a paucity if walking around sense.
Among other places, Weimar Germany is a good model for this. People went totally nuts in the 30s. The process is anti-entropic in that, once a movement gets started—no matter how off the wall it is—it attracts followers. It’s a social phenomenon, but it extends into all parts of life. I’ve lived through several examples of it myself. The first was came in the late 60s when I was in college. A Russian chemist/physicist was said to have been in Siberia looking at winter wheat swaying above the frozen tundra and wondered why the water in it didn’t freeze. He postulated that there was another form of water, which got dubbed “polywater,” that was responsible for the effect. Paper after paper appeared in JACS—journal of the American Chemical Society—dealing with polywater. I understood exactly none of them, assuming that my level of understanding simply didn’t reach that necessary to grasp that level of subtlety.
And then, suddenly, people stopped writing about it. The effect simply wasn’t real. It wasn’t so much a hoax as unconscious selection bias regarding data. I don’t recall seeing papers retracted, or even criticized. They were just ignored. Some money wasted, but nobody got hurt.
Around the mid-1980s, digital subtraction angiography, aka DSA, appeared on the scene. A simple IV injection was all that was required to do a neurovascular workup. No one could afford to be left out, so we also bought a unit. In two years I think we got maybe 2-3 readable studies. At our main meeting, a raft of speakers lauded the technique and gave “helpful hints” to overcome limitations. None of them worked for us. The following year’s meeting saw the very same speakers denounce the whole thing as unworkable and useless, which vindicated our experience.
Both of these are examples of people oohing and aahing over the emperor’s clothes. Being a nuts and bolts kinda guy, I always saw a buck naked emperor. Which is exactly how I see people in the trans movement, as well apostles of other social fads. They feel very strongly about….whatever is fashionable to feel very strongly about at the time. And when that fad fades, another will come along. What makes this one different is that actual physical mutilation is involved, so it’s not just protest and picketing.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Talking to Strangers gets at one reason -- people tend to default to truth, meaning they believe that others are trustworthy.
The cynics are few, and they’re drowned out until everyone else has time to realize that they’re right to ask tough questions and balk at lousy answers.
When I was in college, I got to hear a few lectures by the late, great Philip Morison. He was a physicist, but he and his wife reviewed 5-10 technical books each month in Scientific American. In addition to everything else he did, which was a lot. Very bright guy.
Anyway, he suggested that a good way to look at and react to things was always to stop for a moment and ask yourself if it had “the ring of truth.” That’s served me well for over half a century. Following that suggestion didn’t always make me popular, but it did stop me from doing a few pretty bone-headed things I was tempted to do.
The underlying question I was getting at is how suggestible the people are. My basic thought is that the wave of insanity is the result of peer pressure, assuming that the smarter people are, the less suggestible [read: gullible]. There are plenty middle- and upper-class people who have regressed to the mean, so have a paucity if walking around sense.
Among other places, Weimar Germany is a good model for this. People went totally nuts in the 30s. The process is anti-entropic in that, once a movement gets started—no matter how off the wall it is—it attracts followers. It’s a social phenomenon, but it extends into all parts of life. I’ve lived through several examples of it myself. The first was came in the late 60s when I was in college. A Russian chemist/physicist was said to have been in Siberia looking at winter wheat swaying above the frozen tundra and wondered why the water in it didn’t freeze. He postulated that there was another form of water, which got dubbed “polywater,” that was responsible for the effect. Paper after paper appeared in JACS—journal of the American Chemical Society—dealing with polywater. I understood exactly none of them, assuming that my level of understanding simply didn’t reach that necessary to grasp that level of subtlety.
And then, suddenly, people stopped writing about it. The effect simply wasn’t real. It wasn’t so much a hoax as unconscious selection bias regarding data. I don’t recall seeing papers retracted, or even criticized. They were just ignored. Some money wasted, but nobody got hurt.
Around the mid-1980s, digital subtraction angiography, aka DSA, appeared on the scene. A simple IV injection was all that was required to do a neurovascular workup. No one could afford to be left out, so we also bought a unit. In two years I think we got maybe 2-3 readable studies. At our main meeting, a raft of speakers lauded the technique and gave “helpful hints” to overcome limitations. None of them worked for us. The following year’s meeting saw the very same speakers denounce the whole thing as unworkable and useless, which vindicated our experience.
Both of these are examples of people oohing and aahing over the emperor’s clothes. Being a nuts and bolts kinda guy, I always saw a buck naked emperor. Which is exactly how I see people in the trans movement, as well apostles of other social fads. They feel very strongly about….whatever is fashionable to feel very strongly about at the time. And when that fad fades, another will come along. What makes this one different is that actual physical mutilation is involved, so it’s not just protest and picketing.
Question remains how suggestible the people are.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Talking to Strangers gets at one reason -- people tend to default to truth, meaning they believe that others are trustworthy.
The cynics are few, and they’re drowned out until everyone else has time to realize that they’re right to ask tough questions and balk at lousy answers.
When I was in college, I got to hear a few lectures by the late, great Philip Morison. He was a physicist, but he and his wife reviewed 5-10 technical books each month in Scientific American. In addition to everything else he did, which was a lot. Very bright guy.
Anyway, he suggested that a good way to look at and react to things was always to stop for a moment and ask yourself if it had “the ring of truth.” That’s served me well for over half a century. Following that suggestion didn’t always make me popular, but it did stop me from doing a few pretty bone-headed things I was tempted to do.
I’ll check out the Gladwell. Tx for the tip.