Cognitive Dissonance

I'm going to post a video here:

Or at least this will be a link to the video

Do yourselves a solid and watch this video. It's a conversation between two guys. Jay Bhattacharya, who is a professor of medicine at Stanford Medicine and a core faculty member at Stanford Health Policy. His March 24, 2020, commentary in the Wall Street Journal questions the premise that “coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines.” In the article he suggests that “there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.” He's interviewed by Peter Robinson, who I guessed, and Wikipedia confirmed, is a conservative talk show host. So that's important. Also, look where Dr. Jay's commentary was published. That's also important.

I think it is fascinating to see smart people coming to not-so-smart conclusions! And the examples are endless. But I particularly enjoy the examples in direct proportion to the smartness of the people and the extent to which the cognitive dissonance is exhibited. The problem with examples such as these is that a lot of people see truth and logic instead of the willful suspension of it. Because they see that the people ARE so smart. I think we tend to agree with people who show intellect because we are conditioned to think that because we may be less intelligent, we can't be right and they can't be wrong. In this way, a lot of us get convinced of the wrong things. The other problem is at this sort of level, that is often the purpose. Now I am not saying either of these guys are trying to convince anybody of anything, or not. But I absolutely AM saying that many will use this conversation and Dr. Jay's commentary, to back their personal points of view, and those points of view are not very smart. I'm talking, if you haven't guessed, about the opinions of rich, greedy assholes who want their minions to get the fuck back to work because they're losing money.

Don't forget, while you are watching, that Dr. Jay IS an expert on the virus, but he also has a doctorate in economics and is introduced as a friend of the conservative host. It is also mentioned that they had a "previous conversation." They rehearsed this interview and I can't help thinking it was to strategically plan their inferences. For further clarification, notice that at no point did the doctor say he has a test or any research that proves the currently accepted guesses of the world medical community about the deadliness of the Coronavirus/Covid 19, are wrong. He just says that they're just guesses. Well I hope we all know that. Since little is known, even by the experts about this NEW virus, we need to be smart and assume that.

I don't believe there is any irresponsibility on the part of Dr. Fauci in predicting the rate of deadliness as a mortality rate of 10X that of the flu. He makes it very clear in many statements that the models used in predictions such as these, are based only on assumptions. The only possible irresponsibility might have been if he had stated this as an absolutely infallible fact, which we've gotta understand, he didn't.

I mean watch the actual footage. He makes several qualification even within that to make us understand that he's only trying to make us understand. These are not precise statistics or studies. He was speaking from what the data he'd seen to that point SEEMED to indicate.

It is expertly explained by Dr. Jay, though in a frustratingly halting style of a man trying not to make any mistakes or trying to remain politically correct, how nobody can KNOW what Dr. Fauci has said. He talks about a test that measures antibodies in the blood that is needed and I'm sure he's right. Dr. Jay even says he doesn't know either. There's nothing shocking here. We are all aware that nobody KNOWS because it's a new virus and testing is just beginning. But these two guys are trying to make Dr. Fauci's statement seem intentionally misleading to the public. "What's Dr. Fauci up to?" is one pretty charged question asked by Peter Robinson. "He should not be saying that," he continues. "This is a little on the mind-boggling side," Robinson adds. Just after Dr. Jay says that Fauci is reflecting on what his guess is, and I am reflecting MY guess on what it is. So if Dr. Fauci is seen as irresponsibly overestimating the danger of this virus, then this is a video in which they are doing the exact opposite. If one prefers to err on the side of caution, then Fauci is actually LESS irresponsible than these two smart guys calling him irresponsible.

It's fascinating how this happens! Let's break it down. Next they get into how the press likes to promulgate fear - a tactic I have said many times the rich or Republicans hate because it equates to the press stealing their best weapon. Then they talk about how the universal quarantine conditions are very costly. Dr. Jay very carefully explains how he doesn't just mean costly to the economy, but costly to people, how ever honest, or accurate that is. Remember, PEOPLE are NOT his area of expertise but money and medicine are. He says that a global economic collapse will cost lives, so he's not comparing dollars with lives, but lives with lives. Then Dr. Jay goes ahead and makes an alarming, and unconfirmed estimate on par with or worse than what they are slagging Fauci for making and says universal quarantine could lead to the loss of millions of lives not just in the US, but worldwide.

What comes next is astonishing! They actually talk about HOW people will die and they get so VERY close to a much better, more humanitarian, even, in my opinion and many others', a better solution economically, but they steer clear of the obvious path of conversation! This, I suspect, is why they needed to rehearse this interview. Right around the 18 minute mark, Robinson says that in his lifetime the GDP has quadrupled. If suddenly we're all poor and we go back to 1950's standards of living, what's wrong with that? What's the mechanism that kills people. And the answer (they avoid) is the rising cost of EVERYTHING. The rapid inflation that has systematically made more money for the rich and made life worse for everyone else. And I don't mean just monetarily. These same rich people have polluted the earth, destroyed animal habitat and in the opinion of ANOTHER really, really smart person, this is what has CAUSED the Coronavirus.

Well, as we all know, to go back to 1950's standards of living, we'd have to go back to 1950's prices. When a friggin' PENNY was worth something. When a house was 7 thousand and a car was 2 thousand. The GDP has quadrupled but the cost of living has WAY more than quadrupled. Look at the price of a house nowadays or a university education! But any good capitalist knows jacking up these prices since 1950 has been the number one job for every corporation, big business, bank and politician since even before then. We certainly can't just undo all their hard cheating, lying and thieving in one fell swoop! I think Robinson hit on a wonderful solution here, but purposely sidestepped it. If we just reduced prices of everything when we come to the end of this Coronavirus pandemic, we'd be broke, but we wouldn't starve or die!

But to even suggest DEflation, as you can see, is far more extreme than suggesting deaths in the millions. They're scared about people becoming depressed and losing hope, they're scared for poor countries like India, they're scared of shortened life expectancy... cue the alarmism they pretended to tsk tsk in Fauci. Then they settle on the ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION: you gotta work. By the end they're defending Trump and promoting Big Brother. Constant surveillance? Just dealing with new viruses and diseases routinely coming up? How bout no? Let's get to the REAL causes instead of finding extreme solutions that enable the continuation of those causes. This reminds me of cows. You put cows in modern, close-quarter, cow factories and they're out of their natural habitat. They eat grass. With cows so close together, there's not enough grass. So you feed them corn or the shit they now feed them. Their stomachs (all four of them) can't handle that. So don't go to the obvious solution and put them back out to pasture, that'll "LOSE" you money. Develop a drug to fix their stomachs. Then the meat gets contaminated and the milk does too. Suddenly, HOLY SHIT, out of NOWHERE we have mad cow disease and hoof in mouth disease and who knows what? But the assholes need to make their money. So let's set up interviews with cow experts/capitalists extolling the virtues of the new and improved vaccines for all cow diseases.

Did you come to this conclusion? I didn't right away, I must admit. But this is what we need to do so we don't get sidetracked by smart people with ulterior motives. These guys are smart. I don't doubt that. And they certainly know there are other solutions than what they are offering. They may even know that telling people they need to go back to work before we can fully understand this virus IS irresponsible. More irresponsible than old Dr. Fauci. So why are they doing it? This is something I mentioned last post without definition. It's a psychological theory called cognitive dissonance and it's what I find fascinating in these types of conversations. Here's the definition.

I see it SO often in people and its largest trigger by FAR is money. When people, just for example, can believe that they are followers of Jesus, but true capitalists, it is fascinating the lengths of creativity they can go to in order to combine the conflicting ideas. Now, note I said "true capitalists." If you give to the poor like Jesus commanded, and your gifts multiply because of it, 1) you are not a true capitalist and 2) you are the exception. True capitalism is profit at all cost and that necessarily includes screwing the poor, semi-poor, middle class, upper middle class and if you can, screw the other rich people too. But do it in the name of the Lord! That just doesn't add up. But Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz!

The two dudes in this video are showing that creativity I talked about. The old "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I" argument illustrated by calling Fauci irresponsible then getting highly technical medically and economically is truly creative! And you need to be pretty sharp to spot its bullshittedness. It's a challenge I relish. This time at home has been largely wasted if you're like me, but I've done a little of this BS busting and it makes me feel like I haven't wasted it all. And it's my pleasure to share it with you.