An Introvert On Arguing

The biggest problem I have in my arguments is timing. I get out talked by people who tend to be wrong. Only later does the truth come out or I can express myself, but no one (except me) cares by then.

Like most introverts, I think things through, throw out the things that are wrong, then come up with a salient and correct argument. All of this is well after the discussion took place.

LESSONS LEARNED

While being pressured to get the jab during Covid, I knew it was wrong and listened to everyone regurgitating the media and government lies (paid for by the Big Pharma companies). Since I was an island, it was everyone against me. There was nothing I could say that anyone would listen to other than my black friends. They remembered Tuskegee like I did.

The lesson? Stop trying to be right, learn patience for the facts to come out. They are coming out now.

This would have also helped me a lot earlier in life if I’d have known. I didn’t understand that I was an introvert though and thought I could go toe to toe with extrovert talkers not afraid to be wrong. I lost a debate to an imbecile in 8th grade when I clearly had the facts. He had the class popularity and the class went with him as he made up stuff.

It was similar in politics. The 2016 election won me a $100 bet, not that anyone cared. The 45th President continues to be right, so they just throw dirty underwear against the wall until something sticks. He is the comeback champion in rhetoric though so I stopped talking about that also. I was an island politically also. I lost every discussion on that one also even though my facts were proven right over time.

I found out that a lot of people don’t have a sense of history or really understand anything other than reading and repeating talking points they are told to think. Social media is making idiots out of the next generations. Knowing how to find information is not the same thing as understanding why things are the way they are.

I was already recognizing the pattern of facts that led to the truth, just not when I wanted it. I’d never make it as a lawyer or politician.

Maybe that’s why I write about this. It gets my thoughts (mostly cogently) in order and documents my position. It’s all I have sometimes. Since the internet is forever, here you go in the future if you read this.

Very rarely in my life do I have the proper comeback. It’s not satisfying when I do compared to the frustration of not being drop quick witted and precise information when needed.

So, I just have decided to let some stuff pass. It gets me out of talking to the under educated anyway.

The other lesson?

“Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

― Mark Twain

AI is churning out articles, illustrations, fake product reviews and even videos.

This is more on my war to out think AI, or at least not have it run my life in the background. Besides, robots always kill their humans. Also, Google is involved so I’m sure there is no-goodery going on.

Here goes….

You probably haven’t noticed, but there’s a good chance that some of what you’ve read on the internet was written by robots. And it’s likely to be a lot more soon.

Artificial-intelligence software programs that generate text are becoming sophisticated enough that their output often can’t be distinguished from what people write. And a growing number of companies are seeking to make use of this technology to automate the creation of information we might rely on, according to those who build the tools, academics who study the software, and investors backing companies that are expanding the types of content that can be auto-generated.

“It is probably impossible that the majority of people who use the web on a day-to-day basis haven’t at some point run into AI-generated content,” says Adam Chronister, who runs a small search-engine optimization firm in Spokane, Wash. Everyone in the professional search-engine optimization groups of which he’s a part uses this technology to some extent, he adds. Mr. Chronister’s customers include dozens of small and medium businesses, and for many of them he uses AI software custom-built to quickly generate articles that rank high in Google’s search results—a practice called content marketing—and so draw potential customers to these websites.

“Most of our customers don’t want it being out there that AI is writing their content,” says Alex Cardinell, chief executive of Glimpse.ai, which created Article Forge, one of the services Mr. Chronister uses. “Before applying for a small business loan, it’s important to research which type of loan you’re eligible to receive,” begins a 1,500-word article the company’s AI wrote when asked to pen one about small business loans. The company has many competitors, including SEO.ai, TextCortex AI and Neuroflash.

Google knows that the use of AI to generate content surfaced in search results is happening, and is fine with it, as long as the content produced by an AI is helpful to the humans who read it, says a company spokeswoman. Grammar checkers and smart suggestions—technologies Google itself offers in its tools—are of a piece with AI content generation, she adds.

More at the WSJ, but it might be behind a paywall

The rise of AI-generated content is made possible by a phenomenon known variously as computational creativity, artificial creativity or generative AI. This field, which had only a handful of companies in it two or three years ago, has exploded to more than 180 startups at present, according to data gathered by entrepreneur Anne-Laure Le Cunff. These companies have collected hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in recent months even as the broader landscape for tech funding has become moribund.

A lot of the content we are currently encountering on the internet is auto-generated, says Peter van der Putten, an assistant professor at Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science at Leiden University in the Netherlands. And yet we are only at the beginning of the deployment of automatic content-generation systems. “The world will be quite different two to three years from now because people will be using these systems quite a lot,” he adds.

By 2025 or 2030, 90% of the content on the internet will be auto-generated, says Nina Schick, author of a 2020 book about generative AI and its pitfalls. It’s not that nine out of every 10 things we see will be auto-generated, but that automatic generation will hugely increase the volume of content available, she adds. Some of this could come in the form of personalization, such as marketing messages containing synthetic video or actors tuned to our individual tastes. In addition, a lot of it could just be auto-generated content shared on social media, like text or video clips people create with no more effort than what’s required to enter a text prompt into a content-generation service.

This was about how I started out on Covid and the Jab. I don’t even think I’m a conspiracy theorist when you are right this many times. I don’t know that AI is the next tin foil hat thing, but I do know that there are people who are going to use it against us.

Introvert Time Again, My Life Up In Pictures

Seriously, just because I’m there doesn’t mean I want to do stuff like small talk. Sometimes I don’t talk just to see if they notice.

Text before knocking

Every day I get older, the more this is true.

I treat people the way they should be treated, accordingly. It’s how I can be nice to one person and an asshole to the next. It’s on you.

I don’t kid about this one. I kill people off in my autobiography a lot.

Words I Made Up

Spell check catches a lot of my mistakes. I’ve noticed a trend recently when I write a word that I can’t find anywhere, so I started keeping a list. I’m sure that some of these should be words and I’ve used them in posts already.

Some may actually be words and I’m wrong about it, but I didn’t win the National Spelling Bee or grammar contest either.

Here’s my list so far. I’ll add to it as I make stuff up. I’ll take contributions if you have one and give you credit on the blog.

Christmasness – too much Christmas

Commerciality

Dickness – acting like a dick

Assholiness – speaks for itself

Incorrecter – more incorrect

Silenting – silencing someone

Frothily – frothy

Ender – the event that signals the end of something. That goal was the ender of the game.

Holify – translation of sanctify from the Greek, but we don’t have that word in english.

Sandwichable – things you can put in a sandwich, or a nice girl in a tight place

Introverting – avoiding people

Libtardedness

Conservatardedness

Ineptocracy – Biden administration

Fuckedupness

Propagandish – sort of propaganda

Pussify – make less manly or more cowardly

Impartation – to take part of

Hero’d – being a hero at something, I’m super hero’d out I’ve seen it so many times

Jonesy – jonesing about something, I feel jonesy

Dumbassery – doing dumb things

Unintimidating – not intimidating

How To Know Who You Really Are – Try Writing Your Own Eulogy

An acquaintance’s father passed away a few years ago. He was an adjunct to a Five Star General in WWII and a press officer for IBM. He wrote his obituary and his funeral notice. It was spectacular. Not because it touted all that he had done, but that it was clear and concise. When my uncle died, I got that he was a pilot, but not much else and he did a lot of other things that would have been nice to hear.

It’s because someone else wrote his obituary. And there you have the key.

Write your own eulogy and find out what you want the world to know or not know about you. It’s harder than you think because you only have a short space to get in what are the highlights.

A BIGGER PROJECT

For me, it went to exploring the rest of my life and before I knew it, I’m writing about kindergarten or my 3rd job. No one will ever read it, but I finally found out that things like me being an introvert were there all along. My life would have been a lot easier if I’d have known the things I wrote. Sure, it’s hindsight, but the pattern was there. I wonder why it took me so long to see some things.

I remembered teachers (back to kindergarten), classmates, situations, jobs, life and so much that I couldn’t type fast enough. I knew I’d have to edit and re-edit for details and accuracy, but if I could remember it, I wrote it down. I forget a lot of stuff now anyway.

It fell out on the pages who was loyal or a back stabber to me. What was it that I expected or deliverd to friendships. Who I could count on and who I could count on to try to cause me difficulty or harm (mentally or physically).

I realized who was actually a friend and why, and who was passing through that time of my life, but didn’t remain. As I have said, there are a lot of characters in my autobiography who don’t make it to the end.

MY EULOGY

Guess what I haven’t finished yet. That’s right, the original project. I got so enthralled with trying to recall memories that sometimes would flood my mind, or that one deep memory that I hadn’t thought about in decades.

I’m going back to it as I need a break. It wasn’t just the writing, but having to re-experience feelings and situations that I’d buried were mentally taxing. I haven’t been blogging much as it has been overwhelming.

DO IT

Why? You will find out more about yourself than you could imagine. You think you know who you are until you write about your warts and missteps, the awkward things you said that you wish you could take back. Why you react the way you do instead of being more effective, especially when you are protecting your inner self.

I found out who I was and why I act the way I have. I got to re-visit a lot of times in my life. While writing, I put myself back into the 6 or 12 year old to feel those times again the way they were, instead of how my mind changed them over the years. Then, I thought if that moment affected my life later. Most times the answer was yes.

There were times I couldn’t type fast enough and had to keep a separate list of all the things I needed to write about. Conversely, I didn’t want to go back after vomiting up memories, joys and pain, success and failures in my life. I didn’t want to write the pain, but it felt better after having said it.

I’ll keep the eulogy, but delete the life story, no one cares anyway other than me. I won’t care soon either.

I guess I’d better get around to that Eulogy now so the kids don’t screw it up.

Why Not To Trust The Media, One Of My Favorite Targets

Why? Because I worked with/for/against them and understand who they are.

We had an analogy to describe working with them. It went like this. If the media were covering Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the tablets, it would read, “Moses gets 10 commandments from God. Here are the 2 that we think are the most important to you”.

Donny Deutsch tweeted this gem just yesterday:

MSNBC’s @DonnyDeutsch: “We don’t have the economy on our side as Democrats. So you have to scare the bejesus out of people — & a way to scare them, to say, You know this replacement theory, this is not just coming from some dark corner of the web, this is the Republican platform” pic.twitter.com/JWwfDYJrny

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 18, 2022

I was listening to a talk show on cable radio and the announcer said his advice to newbies was say it convincingly, and they will believe it five fold.

These people are just news readers, from a teleprompter. It doesn’t appear that anyone on the MSM or social media care to get the facts right, rather try to impose their biased view (both sides) on you by shouting from their bully pulpit.

My advice? Turn off the news, all of it. It is propaganda anyway.

They. Are. Lying. On Purpose. In coordination with a lot of players. It’s coming out about bots on Twitter, Hunter’s Laptop, email servers and it’s all not being reported by those who should be investigating. That is a reporter tool, that along with verifying sources died in journalism a long time ago.

The media are in the crowd that hates America. Look at their position (it’s surprisingly the same one across the board with the same talking points).

I could site any number of examples, but you can’t tell anyone anything. I have a meathead just like Archie Bunker and I don’t try anymore.

Sharyl Atkisson details the media’s missteps, mistakes and lies, and she’s in the media here.

Let’s hope the truth finds a way to the surface before it drowns.

My Lunch With The Editor Of The National Enquirer

When I worked in Boca Raton, my collegues were mostly guys in their 20-30’s, trying to make it in the computer industry. I am not naming names to protect the guilty.

We’d go to lunch together and have pitchers of beer, a good time and then go back to work. We were single, well employed and for the most part, presentable to good looking.

One of the lunch spots/watering holes was Tom’s Ribs next door.

On a particular lunch outing, one of our guys invited the editor and some writers of the National Enquirer. This was the 80’s so their reputation was near or at the bottom for truthfulness.

We enjoyed the best ribs in the South (Florida only) and numerous pitchers of beer. I was the PR department where we worked so I bonded easily with them even though we were in different industries.

I was used to reporters being heavy drinkers, but not on the day they had to close the current edition that day and it was only half written.

I chanced to ask the Editor how he was going to fact check his story (something all journalists used to do) in time to get the publication out by deadline. Here it is….he said, we don’t have to worry about the facts. He waved his hand in the air as if he was batting the truth away. The worse things we publish, the more they read. Everyone loves a train wreck and that’s what the Enquirer wrote about.

We all had a good laugh and we went back to the computer world and they went back to the tabloid world and got their edition out on time. The Enquirer was like pro wrestling. We knew it was fake, but watched it anyway. (Now, they get it more correct than the MSM and break actual stories that the rest of the media jointly buries).

I learned a valuable lesson. Even though I worked with the media for a living, I realized that those behind the words are human also. Some care about the truth and others care less. Also learned was that the media has control over some people. In other words, they believe whatever is written, like my son-in-law from Portland who watches NBC and CNN and believes them.

They as a group be-clowned themselves starting with the Clinton-Lewinsky affair in the Oval office, got worse under Bush and gave away any credibility after 2008.

Sharyl Attkisson has a summary of their mistakes. She is the media reporting on them.

It is quite the list. Before you end it, you’d realize just how little you trust the media after watching them blatantly fabricating the truth.

This brings me back to the lunch. The reporters today, care as little about the facts and the truth as the drunk Enquirer writers that day eating ribs. Both laugh at the truth and the integrity of their jobs.

Introvert Stuff – Blaise Pascal On Being Alone

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century.

I like others and have socialized for many decades, but given the choice I’d rather be alone.

I watch people who don’t know what to do with themselves if they are alone. Now, a lot of people don’t know what to do with themselves without a phone.

Instead of looking at it as withdrawing from others, I view it as learning to enjoy the time alone and discover the real me.

Writing has been invaluable to me. I write here, but my diaries are hundreds of thousands of words that are how I find out who I am and how to cope with the day to day issues. It helps me put my thoughts together before I have to face people because most can out talk me before I can put my thoughts together cogently.

Once you have mastered the ability to be alone, you have freed yourself from the bonds of others to live life on your own terms.

Blogs I Follow, Deplorable Bloggers Alliance

I find this to currently be an excellent source of Covid information and other truths. It used to be called Infidel Bloggers Alliance when it covered obvious other subjects when I first found it.

Some of the links in my Covid stuff come from there because he finds a ton of information that the mainstream lamestream Media (MSM) won’t cover. There is a lot of ways to get around what we are being told and what is true can be found there.

I found that they follow a lot of the same blogs I follow, so we think alike.

If you want to find the truth about Covid that other won’t tell you, go there.

I promise that no matter how sarcastic I am, my stuff is absolutely tame compared to this place, which is why I find it refreshing.

Here’s the tagline at the top of the blog:

All of us, every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth were born with the same unalienable rights; to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, if the governments of the world can’t get that through their thick skulls, then, regime change will be necessary.

Blogs I Follow – Busted Knuckles

I’m not sure how I found Phil at Busted Knuckles. It may have been through the Feral Irishman or Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away. It may have been a link from someone pointing out his site. When he was changing platforms, a lot of blogs I follow pointed to the new URL to help him out. He’s a popular guy.

It doesn’t matter because it’s near the top of the list of blogs I look at in the morning. His mornings are a lot funnier than mine with his morning coffee and smokes, and really tough work hours.

It took me a while to figure out what he did, but I think he is a mechanic. A lot of his blog stuff doesn’t concern it other than going to work and them trying to screw him out of a job because of the jab. I am following closely to hope he beats the system and gets to keep working. He looks like a pretty talented worker and would be valuable to whoever picks him up.

What is great is that his tool collection/stuffed garage and how he can fix damn near everything is intriguing. His followers send him old tools that they don’t use, but he knows exactly how to use them/fix them if they are broken and tells tales about how he has used them on a job. No matter how much I bitch, no one sends me anything like that.

I find his car project, a Sprite to be funny also. He’s put months or years into fixing it and every drive is an adventure as to if it will make it home or where it’s gone. I saw him threaten to sell it after owning in as a project for years. I’ve been a car guy forever and love these stories.

Back to the Vaxx, he has done his homework on what it can do to you and I agree with his position many hundreds of percent. It is surprising given that he lives near Portland. That has become a hellhole (I had a daughter who lived there) and not known for people educated like him.

I’ll give him this, he is very generous with helping others, especially his family and I don’t know if they appreciate it enough.

Anyway, head on over and enjoy like I do.

In honor of him, I’ll end it like he does a lot, BFYTW.

Blogs I Follow – Grouchy Old Cripple

It’s tough to stick your neck out in today’s cancel culture. It’s why I read who I read.

Denny, the author at GOC does just this. He isn’t afraid to call out the truth and say what is going on the way it should be said. If you are offended easily, don’t go there (actually please do for my entertainment). If you are PC or a SJW, you will be offended. You probably deserve it.

He is a clever writer (something I admire) and has a way with words. He breaks from stoic grammar with words that don’t exist like yannow (hope I spelled it right).

I started following him when he was pointed out by a lot of other blogs I read. I thought the name of his blog was funny as hell and so was his banter.

One of my favorites is AOTW (asshole of the week). I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with him.

I discovered that he also suffered through working at IBM. He routinely roasts them with the truth about diversity, wokeness and other crap that is ruining a once great place. Since we worked about the same time there, albeit in different divisions, I can relate to what he says.

We texted through comments this week and he hammered them appropriately. I felt a kindred spirit. I was glad to find out I wasn’t alone and that I am glad I left when I did.

I wish him well and look forward to every next post, especially AOTW.

Captain Kirk Finally Gets to Go Into Real Space, The Final Frontier – But May Return Alone Or The Only One Alive

This morning, William Shatner will ride aboard Blue Origin at 90 years of age to be the oldest person ever in space. He missed being the first actor in space by a week as the Russians did that to shoot a movie.

Anyone who knows Star Trek fully gets that the red shirts are the ones who get it on away missions.

He isn’t the first Star Trek Alumni to go to space, just the first one that is alive. Some ashes of Scottie and Gene Roddenbery were sent up a few years back.

There is always the Who is the best Star Trek captain or best series. I am in the TOS camp. The rest use the TOS playbook, but with less daring, panache, creativeness and conquest. For Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer fans, they wouldn’t be Captains in the running if there wasn’t a Kirk, end of story.

Even in the movies, the best one is always the Wrath of Khan. It has the best villain, ironic ending and mano a mano story.

I have been a huge Trekkie all of my life. I was alive and watched it during it’s actual first run. When Chekov discovered the Botany Bay on Ceti-Alpha 5, I had goose bumps in the Theater.

The only thing that bothers me about this is that the Enterprise NCC-1701 was a cool ship. Blue Origin looks like a flying dick.

Anyway, live long and prosper.

Blue Origin Employees Accuse Jeff Bezos' Company of ...

Blogs I Follow – Sharyl Attkisson

I was made aware of her when she left CBS when her computer was hacked by the FBI/DOJ, and she wouldn’t stand for it. She currently is in mid-trial against them and I’m on her side. (Link here to her site)

Why I follow her is that she is actually independent in her views. Any post that have written that has the tag MSM shows my contempt for the press, their bias and lack of journalistic skills. They have become the propaganda tool for political parties. Note, I don’t excuse Fox News either because they have been on an island for their views, but still are not unbiased. The rest are fully ensconced on the left.

I also have been clear about my respect for those who write well. She is among them. She also has established an independent online show and podcast. Disclosure: I follow her blog and podcast.

I spent my career working with TV, Radio, print and online journalists. There are very few that I ended with any respect once they made their bias known.

Just to prove that she is a better writer than me, here is an excerpt from her book, Slanted.

The five-time Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled and The Smear uncovers how partisan bias and gullibility are destroying American journalism.

The news as we once knew it no longer exists. It’s become a product molded and shaped to suit the narrative. Facts that don’t fit are omitted. Off-narrative people and views are controversialized or neatly deposited down the memory hole. Partisan pundits, analysts and anonymous sources fill news space leaving little room for facts. The line between opinion and fact has disappeared.

In Slanted, Sharyl Attkisson reveals with gripping detail the struggles inside newsrooms where journalism used to rule. For the first time, dozens of current and former top national news executives, producers and reporters give insider accounts, speaking with shocking candor about their industry’s devolution.

For those who understand how hard it is to write well, I encourage you to go to read her work. It is a breath of fresh air in the cesspool of what is journalism and the MSM are.

Blogs I follow and Why – Don Surber

Here is the link to his blog.

Now, why I follow him.

When I first started blogging in 2004, Glenn Reynolds or Instapundit was the the biggest game in town. I noticed that Don got a lot of attention by linking to him. I thought he was being contentious to gather a following, until I found out what he did for a living.

He was a reporter for a Newspaper in West Virginia, now retired. I won’t mention it because he’s said that he’s not all that fond of it.

What draws me to his writing is that it is good. It’s hard to write well. I can ramble on and take forever to make a point, but Surber gets to it with wit and pithiness that I admire.

I love his Highlights of the News and his commentary of it. I’ve read it for a long time now. He doesn’t pontificate, yet makes his point with the summary that he presents.

Hopefully, I’ll one day be able to get my style somewhere in the ballpark of Surber, but I doubt it.

I don’t expect him to mention or follow me. It doesn’t matter.

I was most happy for him when the greatest radio host of all time called him out last year. That is an accolade to take to your grave and I’m glad it happened to him.

Blogs I Follow – Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away

I decided to break from Covid vaccine bashing (I’ll be back, don’t worry) and give some shout outs to those who deserve it.

Ken the wirecutter writes this blog. You should go over there and donate because I think that is how he makes a living.

Why do I like it? I first started when I found your Florida report for the day. I’m originally from there and it is so true. I didn’t realize how many idiots were there until he pointed it out.

I like that he doesn’t care about offending anyone. One of his regular posts is shit I post on Facebook. I think it’s great that he tries to get banned. If you’ve read much of my blog, you already know how much I loathe fake book and happily got rid of my account. That he ties up their time to review the hilarious stuff he posts there kills me.

There are posts like, roast me, fucking Mondays, Friday gif dump and I’m sure she’s taken men that I look forward to. I went through the loss of his 2 dogs and now he’s left with Jack the asshole dog that found him with a broken tail.

His sarcasm, wit and creativeness is a breath of fresh air for me and I hope it is for you.

I linked to him in the posts that I follow and hope he links back as his audience is big. He also is in cahoots with other blogs I’m going to call out.

Keep it up Ken. I love your stuff.

Describing Almost Every Movie In One Picture (1000 words)

With CGI and the video game culture of limited attention span, combined with the need to shoot everything that moves, there haven’t been great movies recently.

You have to tell a story, build up tension, explore a characters mind and motivation to become emotionally involved.

I don’t need to write the cliche because anyone who reads knows it’s true. You can’t cram the development of what is going on inside of your mind into 1-2 hours of someone else’s version of the story.

Besides, in the race to become the most “woke”, most of the protagonists are cast incorrectly.

Enjoy reading. It’s better than wasting time on fake book.

How To Write If You Want To Capture Your Audience

I didn’t want to read this until I couldn’t keep my eyes from jumping ahead to find out what happened. I never expected how it would turn out.

As for me, when I write (not blogging where I write streams of thoughts usually too early and mostly unedited), trying to urge a reader to become emotionally involved with the characters and read on is what I try for.

I read on to find out who this bitch was and why. Fortunately it is short.

Excerpt:

They didn’t want to turn her on but they did. I never want to turn her on but I do. After they had turned her on for awhile they grew tired of listening to her. After listening to her for even ten seconds I’m enraged by her. Somewhere along the long road to their duck hunting camp they named her “The Bitch” and turned her off. At random points on any road I drive I want to throw “The Bitch” out the window and run over her until she’s nothing but a flat black splotch on the asphalt.

“The Bitch” has her uses. She’s helped me find my way to unknown destinations and out of places where I’m hopelessly lost. It doesn’t matter. I hate the very thought of her. She’s the worst nag since Eve made Adam slap on the fig leaf and remarked on how small it was. She’s Lilith and Delilah and the “What–ever Girl.” She’s the most passive-aggressive talker since the last speech by Barack Obama. She’s “The Bitch.”

Breaking: A New Update On Euphemisms for Stupid (Bonus For Introverts, What to Say Is Handed To You Here)

By far, my most popular posts are What’s it like to have a high IQ and this one, Euphemisms for Stupid. For a decade, this post was #1 worldwide in Google on how to call someone stupid.

More people have re-used content on this post around the world than some marketing campaigns by Facebook, and that is where a lot of it wound up it seemed (and I still have a happy life after I fired them).

To honor that post, I updated it today (there are almost a hundred creative ways to say someone fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down or that they couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel) with this one:

Enjoy, and if you want to find out a way to say someone is stupid that you’ve never heard of, go get you some at the link above.

Story Telling, Why The Marvel Movies Were So Successful

“It’s not enough to bash in heads. You’ve got to bash in minds.” Joss/Zack/Jed Whedon

There are really a lot of reasons it was successful, but being able to tell a story is what enthralls people. It doesn’t have to be Marvel really, it has to be a good story.

What they are referring to is anyone can make a fight scene, or imitate someone else in real life. This isn’t hard. Weaving the fight into the story arc is the art.

Not every story has a happy ending. Sometimes, a character has to die. In life, some sacrifices for the better good must be made. That could include you as the sacrifice.

It is also about hard choices that divide allegiances. It is a no win and usually a blurred line as to where the divide between right and wrong exists.

Telling the story that involves emotions is always better than just stating facts.

Friday Saying – From a Rocket Scientist

If you stick to the convenient, you’ll never find the unexpected. – Ozan Varol

He writes well and is an incredibly interesting person and his book How to think like a rocket scientist is a good read.

Here is where he drops the hammer:

It’s only through the inconvenient and the unfashionable that you’ll find diverse inputs that will expand your thinking and spur your imagination.

Friday Saying – A Different If A Tree Falls In The Forrest Point Of View, Mensa Version

Even if one tree falls down it wouldn’t affect the entire forest. Chen Shui-bian

 

Yes, the one we know is “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it make a sound?”, but in a way the above one is more correct.

Of course it makes a sound, but unless it is a forest of one, it doesn’t affect the forest.  The reason is that life goes on.  We are all trees in the forest of life, but we are born, live and then die.  Most are forgotten, but that is the way of life.  What is it’s meaning and what is your contribution to society, family or….?

Here’s a quick test to see what you’ve done.  Write your own obituary.  You’ll see what you’ve contributed and what you have done.

Which brings me to my favorite Mensa joke.  What is the meaning of life, give 3 examples.  Those who understand it will get it.

Wednesday Saying – Nietzsche on Suffering

What does not kill me, makes me stronger.

For Nietzsche, psychological growth is one of the most important things there is. Experiences do not have to be pleasurable to be good for us. Often it is suffering which gives meaning to our lives. By gaining experiences, good or bad, we grow as people, so long as we survive them, of course.

This quote is usually said as a quip, rather than to understand it’s true meaning.  Navy Seals fully understand this and what it takes to not give up even when you want to and it is the easy path to take.

File this under the school of hard knocks, of which I have a Ph.D.

Great Sayings – How To Read The News (Or Don’t If You Don’t Have To)

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”

-Douglas Adams

I worked with the press/media for 3+ decades.  I know they don’t write the correct story and at best it is partially true.  It is also biased one way or another depending on the publication.

It seems these days that all we get is bad news.  There is an old saying for news outlets, “If it bleeds it reads”.  There is also the sex sells and others that are the same.

It might be best to not look at the news very much right now, at least until the election is over.

My other piece of advice is to not just read (if you have to) things that confirm your bias.  It won’t really inform you although it could make you feel better than what you don’t agree with.

The MSM isn’t going to write anything good or unbiased right now.  If you know that going into it, you can treat it with the (dis)respect it deserves.  Also, don’t even pretend to get proper information from social media.  You’ll drive yourself and others crazy.

Great Sayings – What The Heck is Aristotle Really Saying?

“In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts, there is a cause; for even in bodies contact is the cause of unity in some cases, and in others viscosity or some other such quality.”

I got this from Mark Manson.  The original quote we think we know goes like this; the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.  Mark points out that almost nothing Aristotle says is all that understandable so I thought I’d give an example above.

Usually I have something pithy today, but I thought I’d throw in an example of something we think we know and really don’t, along with how little we pay attention to history.

Are High IQ People Better Off With Fewer Friends?

So says an article published by the Washington Post.

Having discussed high IQ people including those with a perceived higher intelligence a number of times (this one with the highest Google ranking), I like to ponder on these things.

The first in this article tends to reference dwelling among all people as it relates to happiness:

They use what they call “the savanna theory of happiness” to explain two main findings from an analysis of a large national survey (15,000 respondents) of adults aged 18 to 28.

First, they find that people who live in more densely populated areas tend to report less satisfaction with their life overall. “The higher the population density of the immediate environment, the less happy” the survey respondents said they were. Second, they find that the more social interactions with close friends a person has, the greater their self-reported happiness.

Why would high population density cause a person to be less happy? There’s a whole body of sociological research addressing this question. But for the most visceral demonstration of the effect, simply take a 45-minute ride on a crowded rush-hour Red Line train and tell me how you feel afterward.

One would tend to think that if you weren’t in such a densely populated area, that it might lead to greater happiness.  No wonder New York, Chicago and other highly populated cities have such low rankings in this category.

THE NEED TO BE ALONE

I can’t prove it, but there is a tendency for “Smart People” to be either introverted or have a need to spend time alone to gather their thoughts when making contributions to inventions, theorem’s, calculations and other notable achievements. (Note: the link above describes things introverts won’t tell you, but you should know).

Being an author, I know that I prefer quiet to gather my thoughts and increase the powers of concentration on what I am trying to write.  It’s hard to clear your mind when there is a bombardment of distractions either from people, social media or other causes.

The article does state the obvious, long commutes, traffic, waiting in line and crowds are tedious, monotonous, and can grate on anyone over time. The infrastructure is usually older (see the lead in the water in Flint, Mich.)  I’ve often wondered why anyone would want to live in a place like that if they really had a choice.  Maybe that is why there is such a large population outflow to Florida upon retirement.

Kanazawa and Li’s second finding is a little more interesting. It’s no surprise that friend and family connections are generally seen as a foundational component of happiness and well-being. But why would this relationship get turned on its head for really smart people?

I posed this question to Carol Graham, a Brookings Institution researcher who studies the economics of happiness. “The findings in here suggest (and it is no surprise) that those with more intelligence and the capacity to use it … are less likely to spend so much time socializing because they are focused on some other longer term objective,” she said.

Think of the really smart people you know. They may include a doctor trying to cure cancer or a writer working on the great American novel or a human rights lawyer working to protect the most vulnerable people in society. To the extent that frequent social interaction detracts from the pursuit of these goals, it may negatively affect their overall satisfaction with life.

The article and researchers discuss a “Savannah theory of happiness” which is a bit of a reach since there weren’t iPhones for cavemen, although an ability to deal with new challenges seems obvious.

FEAR OF MISSING OUT OF SOMETHING FOR SOME, LOATHING PEOPLE FOR OTHERS

There is a need for many in the general population to gain happiness from their social interactions.  I have relatives who suffer from FoMo syndrome, generally indicating that they derive their happiness and/or satisfaction from others or the perception of others.

When drilling down and specifically targeting high IQ people, there is a distinct difference from the last sentence in the above quote:

Second, they find that the more social interactions with close friends a person has, the greater their self-reported happiness.

But there was one big exception. For more intelligent people, these correlations were diminished or even reversed.

“The effect of population density on life satisfaction was therefore more than twice as large for low-IQ individuals than for high-IQ individuals,” they found. And “more intelligent individuals were actually less satisfied with life if they socialized with their friends more frequently.”

Let me repeat that last one: When smart people spend more time with their friends, it makes them less happy.

Again, an observation from the high IQ group and personal introspection, there seems to be less of a need to find your happiness in others or what others think of you in this space.  It might be in the above stated pursuit of goals:

Hell might actually be other people — at least if you’re really smart.

That’s the implication of fascinating new research published last month in the British Journal of Psychology. Evolutionary psychologists Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Norman Li of Singapore Management University dig in to the question of what makes a life well-lived. While traditionally the domain of priests, philosophers and novelists, in recent years survey researchers, economists, biologists and scientists have been tackling that question.

There’s a twist, though, at least as Kanazawa and Li see it. Smarter people may be better equipped to deal with the new (at least from an evolutionary perspective) challenges present-day life throws at us. “More intelligent individuals, who possess higher levels of general intelligence and thus greater ability to solve evolutionarily novel problems, may face less difficulty in comprehending and dealing with evolutionarily novel entities and situations,” they write.

It appears that the high IQ might actually have another less socially accepted skill that is less politically correct as defined by the masses.  They may just have thought out that they are able to be happier or more satisfied while being alone rather than by having to try and satisfy others definition of their happiness.

Conversely, they might find being around other people annoying, especially the chatty or needy.

Once you are able to happy alone, the ability to be happy with others is icing on the cake, but shouldn’t be the definition of the cake.

 

How Do High IQ People Read Books

Note: intelligent people generally read a lot.  There are many ways to read a book.  Authors read for story arc’s, character profile and emotional connection.

Many people learn from textbooks, but for general reading, here is a good list I found on how high IQ people read:

1) Find a personal angle: You need to relate to what you’re reading

2) Get a bird’s eye view: Get the basic outline of the book by skimming through the table of contents (and the rest of the book); try finding a central theme

3) Drum up curiosity: Draft a few “curiosity questions” based on the theme; consider these questions as you read the book

4) Create your own structure: Identify key points in the book and leave space for you to take in-depth notes

5) Record key insights: Take in-depth notes based on the elements you mentioned in Step 4; think about what the “Takeaway Message” is.

6) Review your notes: Now that you have a summary you have created in your own words, it’s now time to review; try to remember the details related to the messages you recorded 10 minutes, 2 days, 1 week after finishing the book.

7) Repeat with another book.

Here is the link to this list.

Quotes On Writing By Famous Authors

“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

Robert Benchley

“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.”

Jerome K. Jerome

“It is always the best policy to speak the truth–unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.”

Daphne du Maurier

“Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.”
“Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies.”

Henry David Thoreau

“Men have become the tools of their tools.”

Philip G. Hamerton

“Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?”