Develop a Taste for Truth

Why do good people believe different things to be true? And, therefore, how do you know what is really true?

Those are age-old questions, still worth asking.

I recently read a book (actually listened to the audio version from the library, so I don’t have access to it for quotes): Collective Illusions, by Todd Rose. The author uses research and examples to show that what we believe, and how we perceive things, has more to do with social pressure than we realize.

book cover image from Amazon

He makes some good points. But I found that every example he uses that wasn’t politically neutral was from the point of view of a leftist/progressive. He was talking about how we censor ourselves to avoid social backlash, which is sometimes real. His example was a single, obscure statement that got backlash from, I guess, a Trump supporter, and that explains why he and so many of his friends feared saying anything about the subject online. It may have had to do with COVID shots; I can’t remember.

But he fails to recognize that there was actual censorship, cancelling, lives ruined for those who disagreed with the party line about such things. I’ve been censored. People I know personally have been censored. Many many online sources I listen to have been censored. “Going against community standards” could mean anything from suggesting ivermectin could be useful to showing footage of J6 with people being welcomed into the capitol where they peacefully walked through and exited without incident; or pointing out that “summer of love” riots, which were not mostly peaceful, were staged and paid for and not organic; or saying that men cannot get pregnant.

In other words, the author of a book encouraging us to recognize where our bias comes from, so we can better understand one another and come to know the truth, is unaware of his social biases and fails to overcome them, even while he tells us he knows what to do about them.

I listened to a podcast last week about how our beliefs come more from gut feelings than from reason and logic. The context was religious faith, as in leaving or coming to faith. But I think the concepts can be extrapolated further to truth in general. The interview is with Dr. Jeffrey Thayne, a psychologist and professor at BYU-Idaho, on the podcast Let’s Get Real with Stephen Jones. 

Thayne refers to a metaphor from a Jonathan Haidt book with an elephant and a rider. The rider is ostensibly in control, sitting up on top. But in reality, the rider goes where the elephant goes; the elephant has the power to obey or ignore the direction of the rider. The rider metaphorically represents the brain, while the elephant represents the gut, or the heart—the feelings of a person. It’s the feelings that have the real power.

Thayne gives some examples; this one was memorable: say he goes to the fridge to get the ingredients for his morning smoothie, but he’s out of berries, peaches, bananas—all the regular things. But he does have some leftover pizza. So he tosses that in the blender and makes himself a delicious breakfast smoothie. And Jones has a visible “gross” reaction: disgust—just as you probably did reading it here. But Thayne says he can give all the reasoning. The ingredients are the same for the pizza whether solid or in the smoothie; and the pizza gets essentially turned into a smoothie in your mouth by the time you swallow it. The nutrients are the same. It’s reasonable. And yet, you’re still going to find it disgusting.

However, there are some things that start out disgusting to you, but with repeated exposure become acceptable, and you even develop a taste for them. Avocadoes. Hot chili. Maybe black coffee (I’m not a coffee drinker, but it appears to me that no one starts out liking it). Smoking (again, never tried it, but secondhand smoke is pretty disgusting). There’s no reason I shouldn’t like honeydew melon, and yet it hasn’t been worth developing a taste for. I suppose, though, that I could develop a taste if I put effort into it.

The same principles might apply to social behavior or moral behavior. This week, as the P Diddy trial is underway, the defense seems to be saying, “Even though you might find his lifestyle disgusting and immoral, what you’re judging him on is whether he broke the law.” I do find his lifestyle disgusting and immoral. But the ostensible reason for the trial was the blackmail and human trafficking, which may or may not be among the racketeering charges. So I fear his defense might work in this specific case.

Testimony from one of the witnesses seems to say she did a lot of things that were disgusting to her, because she wanted something—connection to the famous guy who was telling her he would help her career, or that he loved her if she did whatever pleased him. Some of those disgusting things were so far beyond acceptable that it’s hard to imagine someone—even under threat of being beaten—would give in and do them. Drugs seem to have been useful to make the disgust tolerable. As did a pre-existing willingness to do many immoral acts of a somewhat lesser nature.

Grooming is a methodical process used by pedophiles and human traffickers to get a victim to accept things they wouldn’t have otherwise accepted—until they are captured and enslaved.

In therapy for irrational fears, an effective approach is to desensitize by repeated exposure. Someone with a fear of snakes could start out being willing to see a photo. Then a distant caged snake. Then a caged snake up closer. Then a snake being handled distantly by a handler. Then being closer to the snake and handler. Then getting close enough to touch the handled snake. Then possibly actually touching it. Then a longer touch. Maybe getting all the way to handling the snake itself. But at least getting over the irrational fear of being in the same vicinity. This could take several sessions, or it could be accomplished in a matter of hours.

On some scale, maybe we are all being groomed to accept things we shouldn’t. There are things that we found shocking even a couple of decades ago that seem tamer today. Movie depictions of sex outside of marriage today are a far cry from the separate beds in the old I Love Lucy sitcom of a married couple. We don’t want to be prudish, so we label ourselves tolerant; that’s a social pressure.

There’s the Alexander Pope poem you’ve probably heard:

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

― Alexander Pope

I admit that I have become somewhat numb to portrayals of sex outside of marriage in media. When I was young, Dr. Zhivago was shocking to me. I still prefer my entertainment clean, but I find that I accept more than possibly I should (when it’s hinted at, not actually shown), because the characters don’t have the same beliefs as I do. But really, it’s more a matter of lack of options—and more often now than when I was younger, I opt out of entertainment rather than accept it. Maybe that’s a matter of no time for entertainment more than intentionality on my part. So am I vulnerable to accepting too much sin in the world around me?

How long did it take society to go from “marriage is between a man and a woman” to “of course gays should be allowed to marry”? I never got there. Marriage is a particular thing with a specific meaning; it is not physically possible for gay people to be married, by the original, millennia-old definition. The new definition didn’t even exist until this century—and officially here in America for just a decade. And yet I am in a minority today; even holding that opinion is considered bigoted, homophobic, and all the epithets. From my viewpoint, it does not mean that I hate gay people; it means that I understand something differently, based on what I believe God has declared, and I’m not willing to develop a taste for what society says I must.

I don’t know why I am not swayed when so many around me are, even among those who are like-minded in many other ways. I don’t feel special or brave; maybe I’m just stubborn. Or maybe I have sought out reasons that align with my beliefs. One thing I do not do, as it would be fruitless, is to argue about it online. I do post my opinions here, but people who even find my opinion can take it or leave it; I don’t contend and attack.

Stephen Jones, left, with Dr. Jeffrey Thayne,
screenshot from here

Thayne points out that people are pretty much never swayed to think like you by rational arguments online. What sways people is “regular exposure to people who think like you, developing friends with people who think like you.” This could explain why people who exit the Democrat party and come to associate with Republicans find themselves picking up conservative ideas pretty quickly; they surround themselves with people having those ideas, and feel welcomed among them—finding them unlike the stereotype of racist angry people the previous group had portrayed them as.

But there has to be something that triggers the exit from the original group in the first place. Was it having just enough exposure to the other side to develop a taste for it? Or was it a growing distaste for being on a side with ideas and actions that didn’t align with their own?

It’s like being in a dining social club that only enjoys Indian food, and one day you say, “I admit I don’t really like Indian food.” So you go elsewhere and find a taste for Tex-Mex or smoked BBQ, and wonder how you’d let yourself miss that for so long.

OK, so this shows that gut feelings (or heart) move us more than logic and reasoning. And yet, there’s got to be a place in the search for truth for logic and reasoning, right? “Come now, and let us reason together,” as the scriptures tell us [Isaiah 1:18]. Yes. For strengthening a belief you are leaning toward because of your feelings. For aligning your mind with your heart, you could say. The more you do that, the more you’re going to trust your feelings when they come up against opposition.

Here’s one piece of advice Dr. Thayne suggests that I think makes a whole lot of sense: pray that truth and righteousness will be delicious to you, so you’ll recognize and embrace them.

Developing a taste for truth and righteousness might be one of the most valuable spiritual gifts—up there with healing and discernment. I do seek for truth. I do find it delicious, satisfying, when I find it. I pray that I will always be blessed with that gift; I intend to live in a way that makes it likely. For the sake of our world, I pray that everyone develops a taste for truth and righteousness.

Trolling—and How Not to Take the Bait

I happened upon a video, about a letter/article that was making the rounds. It was a YouTuber I was unacquainted with. As he read through it, he expressed some doubts about its authenticity. In fact he said he hoped this was satire, because it was so unbelievably obtuse. So, upon hearing it, I wanted to see it in context, to see if it was indeed satire. I think the word trolling applies.

the quick definition that came up in the search engine

the longer definition that came up within Urban Dictionary

The piece was a bit obscure to find. A fact checker claimed it was debunked. The magazine, called The Conversation, that supposedly published it denied doing so. The sources I found, to get screenshots and piece together the entire letter, did not have an author or date. But the fact checking claimed it was dated June 2023, several months hence. And it had an author, who denied writing it, as you’d expect, because his job is to combat vaccine hesitancy.

So, I can’t say who wrote it. Some image editing made it look like it was published by that unlikely magazine.

The funny thing is, we’ve heard so much irrationality from the pro-vaccine crowd that this isn’t all that much of a stretch.

Several of the sources—and most of the commenters—were livid. The hypocrisy, adding insult to injury, was definitely bait to make a person respond emotionally. And they certainly did.

We’ll talk about it some more—after you’ve had a chance to read it. Warning: don’t go trying to think through how to respond; there is no need. Here’s the whole thing:

screenshot found here

They knew: why didn’t the unvaccinated do more to warn us?

The unvaccinated knew what we didn’t. Some of them said too little. Most said nothing at all. A lot of blood is now on their hands.

As the world struggles to come to terms with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, one question that continues to surface is why the unvaccinated didn’t do more to warn us about the potential dangers of being injected.

While well intending citizens lined up, did the right thing, and received their COVID19 vaccinations—now seeming to do more harm than good—their unvaccinated friends stood by and let them do it. Some of them said too little. Some said nothing at all.

Even though they knew what we didn’t.

Our blood is now on their hands.

Those are strong words. But the unvaccinated had access to important information about the potential side effects of vaccines. They knew about the risks of severe allergic reactions, blood clots, and other serious health complications. They knew that vaccines did not immunize us. They knew it wasn’t effective, and that they can cause more harm than good.

They knew all of that, but instead of warning us, the unvaccinated chose to remain silent. They chose to

look the other way and not speak out about the potential dangers of vaccines. They let millions of good folks who did the right thing (at the time) fall to death and disease, and many antivaxxers even gloated online about how their coin flip had been the right bet. The more diabolical even urged folks they disagree with to “get boosted.”

It has become all too clear. The silence of the unvaccinated was a dangerous, sociopathic, and irresponsible decision that has had serious consequences for those of us who received the vaccinations.

And silence is, after all, consent.

It is time for the unvaccinated to take responsibility for their actions and to work with the rest of us to find a solution to that crisis. We cannot afford to let their selfishness and lack of action continue to harm our communities. It is time for the unvaccinated to step up and do the right thing.

The unvaccinated should by any moral measuring stick have done more to warn about the potential risks—to help us make informed decisions about our health And they must now ask us for our forgiveness.

And, hand to heart, we may just give it to them.

Because we are good people. We took those injections because it was the right thing to do—until it wasn’t.

OK, take a deep breath. And consider laughing.

I’m not all that familiar with trolling, as an online sport. But this seems to me a definite example of master trolling, ticking off everybody on every side. And adding in a byline for an author who would never write such a thing—if indeed the originator did that—has to qualify for a few extra bonus points.

But it made me think about the questions I’ve had throughout the last three years:

·        Why don’t people know what I know?

·        How do we know what’s true?

As Ronald Reagan used to say,

“The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.”

image found here

Some of it has to do with who your sources are. Mainstream media, as is becoming more clear every day, is not a reliable source. Sometimes for local stories, or human interest. But even more of that is becoming agenda-driven.

So how do you know you’ve found the truth? Because this would be good to know relative to all facets of life.

I don’t always know. But as I go to a source that seems to ring true, and then that source proves themselves again multiple times, I tend to rely on them more. There’s quite a list of my sharing those sources—because, of course, we in-the-know people weren’t withholding information; we were just speaking, metaphorically, with the mic turned off. (My year-end review includes links to several of my posts about COVID during 2022.)

If a source contradicts itself without explanation for the pivot, that’s a red flag. I didn’t start out distrusting Fauci. But by April 2020 I did. Things didn’t add up. And he’d already pivoted on the mask wearing, claiming he’d lied about them being unreliable at first to avoid a shortage for frontline workers. No. You don’t get a pass for that. You tell the people up front; they come up with solutions, like making their own. Which, we shortly learned, weren’t filtering well enough. But then, neither were the medical grade ones—because the virus was too small. So wearing them was a sign of compliance only. Many of us complied merely to avoid upsetting the fearful.

Meanwhile, actual doctors, doing actual clinical work, were finding ways to treat successfully, and they were shut down, careers and reputations destroyed. Once you see that happen, you tend to turn away from those shutting them down and toward those who were brave enough to speak anyway.

I built a collection of sources, and continued to be open to new ones. And the pattern continued to be against government and mainstream media and social media. Facebook placed (continues to place) those handy warnings about where to turn for accurate information—which meant you might want to take an extra look at the source they’re trying to turn you away from. That led to some good information.

And recommendations from the reliable sources helped. They tended to come to know each other. If I trusted one doctor, I could probably trust someone he trusted.

This trolling letter shows another thing: no point of view is immune to emotional triggers. But that’s also a clue. If something seems designed to push your buttons, you might want to ask why they want your emotional reaction. And then don’t give it to them. Do more rational searching instead.

If you do that most of the time, you might have been among those whose “coin flip had been the right bet” concerning the vaccines.

It’s also possible that you thought you’d reasoned everything out, and getting vaccinated (two doses) seemed reasonable. And while serious side effects happen more frequently than ought to be allowed in the health care market for any product, it’s still highly likely that your “coin flip” will not show up as harm to your body. But I wouldn’t press your luck. And, to avoid the risk of being accused of not warning my neighbor, let me just urge you not to go on getting boosted.

I might never get good at trolling. But I might just be able to appreciate a good troll. Laughing at the absurdity of our world is a relatively sane response.

Remembering Freedom and Finding Truth

I started off today with a plan to do a comparison of people under tyranny and under freedom, before going down a slightly different rabbit hole. But let’s start with a few quick visuals.

I came across this photo of Girl Scouts in Iran in 1969.

Girl Scouts in Iran, 1969, before the Islamic Revolution
image found here

Somewhere near that time, maybe a decade earlier, Mr. Spherical Model’s grandparents lived in Iran for several years. Grandpa was an educator, near the end of his career (he had been president of a college), and was contributing to education in Iran. At the time, it was a modern and thriving part of the world. People looked and dressed much like people elsewhere. An organization such as Scouting could thrive and be seen as a positive contribution to society in such an atmosphere.

Then there’s this photo, from much more recently, where women not only look oppressed; they feel it. They want to throw it off, and return to the freedom they had before the oppression.

Women in Iran, October 2019
image found here

There are similar comparisons for Venezuela, before and after socialist reforms imposed by Chavez, and then Maduro. Venezuela had been the wealthiest, most prosperous and forward looking nation in South America. Only about a short decade later, toilet paper shortages are the least of their problems. People are literally starving, while the nation’s wealth has disappeared, offshore, into accounts belonging to the rulers' family members.

Destitution in previously thriving Venezuela
photo by Claudia Guadarrama/Polaris/Newscom, found here

In a 2018 piece on socialism, David Harsanyi says this:

After all, socialism is the leading man-made cause of death and misery in human existence. Whether implemented by a mob or a single strongman, collectivism is a poverty generator, an attack on human dignity, and a destroyer of individual rights.

In both the Iran and Venezuela cases, the implementation of tyranny happened quickly enough that the memory of previous freedom and prosperity remained. But, in time, would the societal memory disappear? Then what?

A comparison of North and South Korea can give us a pretty good look at the differences between relative freedom and tyranny. The ethnicities and cultures started out the same. The dividing line is artificial. The North has almost no access to the outside world, or any news beyond what the government tells its people. And this has been going on for 70 years, pretty nearly a lifespan. In other words, anyone who remembers previous freedoms has probably died off by now. Societal memory is virtually gone.

North Korea, left; South Korea, right
comparison photos found here

In our social media world, we often see funny memes comparing things to olden days—when we didn’t have internet, and phones were connected to the wall, and you went to the library or opened the set of encyclopedias to look up information. Enough of us remember those “olden days” that it’s still societal memory.

Lately there have been memes talking about the good old days of 2019, back when we used to go to restaurants or get together with friends.

I was thinking through these comparisons when a friend posted something about a Scott Adams podcast from Saturday, October 24. My friend pointed us to around minute 16. So I listened. I’ll summarize the data afterward, but it’s fun getting the data a bit at a time, with a tad of misdirection and suspense, as Adams reveals it. So here’s a transcript of that section. He’s talking about national daily polling numbers, by Rasmussen, for black likely voter job approval for the president:

So these are likely voters who are also black, how much they approve of the president. Back on—this is just not long ago; this is October 19^th, not that long ago, right? Just last week? Black likely voters have a 25% approval rating for the President, which would be crazy, like off-the-charts crazy. Because he only got like 11% of the vote, so you’d expect his approval would be closer that 10% range, right? 10-11%. But 25%! Last week? That close to the election?

Oh, I’m not done yet. That was last week. So, that was the 19^th. On the 20^th it dipped a little bit. OK, that’s back to normal; it dipped to 24%. Still really high, but at least you can see it trending down where you’d expect it to trend, right? You kind of expect it to sink back down.

Except, oh, what happened on the 21^st? Huh. It reversed directions and went to 31%. What? Thirty-one percent of black likely voters have given the President—who is considered by his enemies the worst person in the world—they’re giving him 31% approval? On the 21^st? That was only a few days ago.

But, you know that’s not going to hold, right? That’s the kind of number where, you hear it, and you say, “OK, that’s not gonna hold.” And it didn’t. It didn’t hold.

So, the very next day it was pretty different. It was up to 37 frickin’ percent. Black likely voters, 37% approved of the President, on the 22^nd. What’s today? Today’s the 24^th. That was only 2 days ago. 37% of the black likely voters approve of the President? What’s happening here?

So, one thing you can say for sure, again, the 25% was crazy, so you didn’t really expect that to hold. But when it reaches 37%, you know that number’s not going to stay there, right? ‘Cause that’s just crazy. It’s not going to stay at 37%. And, indeed, sure enough, the very next day, the 23^rd, it changed again by quite a bit—to 46%. Forty-six percent!

I feel like I have to keep reading this again, because you won’t believe you heard it right. Let me say it again, to make sure you heard it right. The national daily black likely voter job approval for the President, according to Rasmussen, went from 25%, which was sky high, on the 19^th, just a few days ago, to 24%, 31%, 37%, then 46%.

What the h— is happening? What the h— is happening?

Here it is in quick-to-digest chart form:

National daily black likely voter job approval for the President—Rasmussen polling
date	%
Oct 19	25%
Oct 20	24%
Oct 21	31%
Oct 22	37%
Oct 23	46%

Estimates are that, if Republicans can get 15% of the black vote, they win. So, while job approval doesn’t equal votes, it tends toward that direction—bigly, as the President would say.

Scott Adams went on to speculate about why this is happening. Maybe because of the influence of prominent blacks: 50 Cent for one—who quipped that Biden’s tax increases would make him only 20 Cent. Ice Cube for another, who asked questions of both sides and got better answers from President Trump's side. Also Kanye West—hard to tell whether his write-in campaign is to give blacks a transition alternative away from Democrat Biden, or if he legitimately wants to run, even though he has expressed great approval of President Trump in the past. And former Obama adviser Van Jones said aloud that Trump isn’t getting enough credit for what he is accomplishing for blacks.

All of that could contribute. But Adams has his own theory. He says there’s a crack in the media silo, “the news silo that keeps the left in their bubble—I feel like it cracked.” Actual news is seeping out. He goes on to talk about this theory:

My world view is that our opinions are assigned to us by our chosen media. And if the media you’re absorbing is telling you Trump is a monster, you go away believing it—and you believe you’ve made up your own mind. But you didn’t. And I would say that my world view has all of the scientific backing, that people can be convinced to believe anything, just about anything, if their news source is consistent.

And, so, my world view is completely intact. The people who watch the wrong news get the wrong feeling about the world. The people who watch the correct news, or at least they’re smart enough to recognize fake news when they see it, have not been brainwashed. And that’s it.

And that’s what we see. We see some brainwashed people, some not brainwashed people. It’s all perfectly consistent. And scientifically backed, I would say.

That part where he says “people can be convinced to believe just about anything, if their news source is consistent” brings me back to North Korea, and probably other tyrannies—where memory is gone and current beliefs are controlled by the government. I don’t think North Korean’s know the rest of the world is far and away better off than they are; they see no evidence. 

This past week we saw the blatant partisan media attempt to black out news about the Biden family crime corruption. NPR—which we taxpayers pay for—decided to avoid all mentions of the story, to dismiss it as unproven, even as one source after another comes out. And all the “legacy” media sources blacked it out or repeated the “Russian meddling with our election” line, preventing their followers from even hearing about the story—while all the intelligence say there has been no Russian connection at all.

I continue to wonder about the news related to COVID-19, the virus from China. Why has it been so difficult to get accurate, or even consistent reports? I collect data myself—I’m dependent on government sources, but at least I can see trends for myself. News lately claims we’re in an upsurge in cases right now. But the rates I’m seeing (I ignore cases, except in my own zip code) are essentially flat or lowering slightly, as they have been for months. Death rates are a lagging indicator, so I’ll have to wait to chart that. But here’s the current epi curve chart for cases, on the Harris County Public Health site, looking pretty much the way it has looked for the last couple of months:

Harris County Epi Curve of Cases Over Time, October 26, 2020
image from here

This doesn’t look like a surge in cases. It doesn’t look like we should expect a sharp rise in deaths within a couple of weeks. With the county level still at red, no matter how low the cases and death numbers, it looks like someone is ignoring the data—ignoring the science—to keep us in fear and confusion, and under control.

Who would want to control other people? Tyrants. People who don’t understand that there’s a whole northern hemisphere on the model, where you find freedom, prosperity, and civilization—those people look only at who’s in charge; and they want to either be in charge themselves, or have someone in charge who has promised them special treatment.

I believe the principles of freedom, prosperity, and civilization will work every time they are tried. I see evidence that bears that out. It's in our history. And it's what we see when we examine the truth in real time.

But people who never see that higher possibility are brainwashed to think that no better possibility exists. It looks like intentional blindness to those of us who see, who are trying to show them, mostly without success.

I don’t know what our country is going to look like after this election. I hope we have beautiful freedom and all that comes with it for a good and righteous people.

But if we don’t, I won’t think it’s bad luck; I will see that it is bad choices by tyrannical, corrupt overlords, who managed to get their power—not by telling the truth, but by obfuscation and outright lies.

I'm hoping that Scott Adams is right about a crack in the fake news silo—through which truth will flow. And people who love truth will move toward it, and find that truth is easier to find when their eyes are open.