Why are people not looking at data and thinking for themselves?

I believe that there has been a subtle, orchestrated campaign for decades to program us to “trust the experts” and believe we can’t figure things out for ourselves.

BS”D

Every human being is gifted by their Creator with two eyes, and two ears to take in information, a brain to think, and an instinctive sense of what is beneficial or dangerous to them.

G-d did not design the world in such a way that we need to research on Google in order to survive. Neither do we need the CDC or other “expert” authoritative instructions.

Humanity has survived and thrived way before these entities set themselves up to be our thought masters.

Torah Jews thank and praise G-d each day with 3 blessings for giving a human being wisdom and understanding to differentiate between good and bad. This is a critical survival instinct and means that every person of normal intelligence possesses the ability to delve into topics that are important for their survival and reach logical conclusions.

We do not need “experts” to think for us, and we should never abdicate our duty to THINK in favor of anyone else.

Of course, we can choose to ignore information, and our instincts can become blunted by propaganda which instills fear in us or tells us that we are unable to make good choices for ourselves.

And I believe that this is what has happened. The ideas that you cannot understand BIG, IMPORTANT things yourself and you need someone in a white coat or an Ivory Tower (or a fact checker on Google) to do so for you, and that these individuals are smart, unbiased, trustworthy, and all-knowing, and can make better decisions for your own life than you can, have been drummed into the population for many years.

Think: A smartphone in every hand, with the convenience of Google to “research” anything you want - but come out with the information they’ve programmed it for you to find, articles available on every topic where “experts” weigh in and unabashedly tell you HOW to think about issues, a cadre of Ivory Leaguers in every field offering their “expert” advice, well-paid fact checkers to handily debunk any ideas veering off course … and of course, plenty of ridicule for those who dare to think independently.

The herd has been trained to follow. Independent thought is almost extinct.

And then came the events of 2019 and 2020, and most of the population fell right into line, thinking just as they should - or rather, not thinking, just as they should.

Steve Kirsch wrote something very enlightening:

Inside the mind of one of my very smart pro-vax friends

Here's how they think. It's 100% based on deference to authority. If you ask them for data to back up their claims, they stop responding.

I recently talked to a friend of mine at a recent social event. We’ll call him Bob. He’s super smart about most things. But when it comes to the vaccine, he’s blind to the truth.

He was bragging about how he has been vaxxed 6 times with the COVID vax and he’s perfectly healthy. He can’t wait for SB 866 in California to pass so when his kids turn 12, they can decide to get the vaccine over their mother’s objections.

Bob thinks I’m a nut case, cherry picking data. He says I used to be respected, but after turning anti-vax, people have lost all respect for me. He said I have a religious belief about the vaccine and I’m not driven by data.

What he isn’t telling anyone is that he’s been losing his vision ever since he got his first COVID vaccine. He used to have 20/20 vision, but now he wears glasses and can’t drive at night. When I brought up the data showing the connection between the shots and vision loss, he changed the topic.

I showed him two papers showing the more you vaccinate, the sicker you get (see the two papers here). I asked, “Where are the papers that show the opposite?” He ignored my request.

He gets his belief system from the mainstream media. Full stop. He reasons that if I was correct, surely Bill Gates would agree with me and admit they goofed. It’s 100% deference to authority.

Bob will not look at the data himself and he doesn’t want to discuss it. He will not engage. He thinks that if I was right, there would be more than a handful of people speaking out. So he tallies the size of the support base on each side of an issue instead of looking at the data.

I hope this is useful in helping you understand the pro-vaxxers and how they think.

The important thing is you cannot turn these people around. Arguing with them is fruitless because they don’t want to see the data. They will only come around when the people they trust change their position.

This is why we need to focus on protecting doctors who speak out.

Perhaps a state ballot initiative in California providing that doctors cannot be retaliated against when they tell the truth (including having social media accounts taken down, having their license to practice medicine revoked, etc). That would prevent things like this from ever happening again.

Inside the mind of one of my very smart pro-vax friends

•••

Steve is bringing to light very important information to help us understand the people that aren’t looking at data, and refuse to do so, based on blind obedience to authority and the belief that they’re incapable of figuring anything important out for themselves.

However, I doubt that the ballot initiative idea in CA will work. 

More fundamentally, though, I really think we need to get to the root of the problem, by somehow deprogramming people and helping them start thinking for themselves, instead of just continuing to follow blindly and stay vulnerable to whatever the “experts” cook up next.