Intellectual brain rot p – school is the new church, and authority is the new God. We are all doomed!

I just had a fight with my friend, and it made me lose hope in humanity. I was about to write a post about Trump being an idiot, or about the economy and the concept of the world reserve currency, but then my friend contacted me to talk – and we ended up fighting. That fight led me to write this post instead.

Because of that argument, I’m losing faith in humanity. He’s educated. I’m not. And, my God, thanks to him, I’m so happy I didn’t go through the education system. Right now, because of Trump’s tariffs, I’ve become even more immersed in studying the economy and trying to understand it. I had a discussion with my friend about the economy, and I’m speechless. It’s even hard for me to write this. He doesn’t even understand the basics of economics, but he’s read some historian, a few books, and now he constantly insults and belittles me – while saying incredibly stupid things.

For example: he claimed the 2008 crisis was caused by a “WOKE FED” that forced private banks to reduce credit requirements by lowering interest rates. So basically, the idea is that by reducing interest rates, the Fed forced private banks to give out loans to homeless people. How can someone say something so absurd? Or he’ll say he’s against monopolies – except for Rockefeller, because “that was a good monopoly.” He doesn’t understand anything, yet he thinks he knows everything. That’s the real cancer in our society.

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” –  George Bernard Shaw

This cancer – of knowledge without understanding, of blind faith in authority – is what’s destroying society. It’s perpetuated by our current education system, which functions more like a religion than a tool for critical thinking.

“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.”  – Arthur Schopenhauer

My friend constantly brings up authorities like Friedrich Hayek, and earlier he mentioned John Maynard Keynes, while saying Marx is stupid. But he didn’t even understand the concept of overproduction, which is based on Keynesian theory – despite the fact that the concept was first described by Marx. He’s read some books, yet he doesn’t truly understand anything. Still, because those books were written by smart people with authority, he thinks he knows better than me – even if he doesn’t grasp the concepts. 

They taught him in school what to think, not how to think. They taught him to read, but not to understand what he reads.

“When we read, another person thinks for us; we merely repeat his mental process… So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading… he gradually loses the capacity for thinking… such is the case with very many scholars; they have read themselves stupid.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

People today spend their time reading, but not thinking. Logic and critical thinking have died – especially among the educated, the so-called “intellectuals” who hold authority in our society. That’s why everything’s falling apart. My friend is a perfect example, and this fight made it clear to me.

God help us if people like him – educated but clueless – continue to shape our future.

As I said, I tried to discuss economics with him. We touched on many topics. I brought up the Rockefeller monopoly. He said he’s against monopolies but still defended Rockefeller’s monopoly as “good,” because a book told him so. I told him that monopolies destroy innovation – an undeniable fact all economists admit. But he insisted Rockefeller was “innovative,” that his monopoly promoted innovation. I asked, “Who wrote that book? Who paid for it? Did you even ask yourself that?” No one questions the sources of their information – especially the educated.

It’s like I said in a previous post about geopolitics and history, quoting Douglas Valentine:

“Well, that’s the end result of decades of military propaganda in the United States… The rulers of society, who own the property and control the means of production, hire people like Homer to tell their story…”

Just like Homer was hired to tell the heroic story of war, books were written about Rockefeller – by or for Rockefeller. Yet people take these books as gospel truth. It’s like asking Dick Cheney to write the history of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our kids are now learning from textbooks likely funded by the very people who caused the wars.

It doesn’t matter if something doesn’t make sense. If a “smart” person with credentials wrote it, it must be true, right?

This is the real cancer in our society.

This fight with my friend showed me just how deeply rooted this blind faith in authority is. He argued that we should let the “free market” control interest rates, because that’s what Friedrich Hayek said. I told him the Fed currently sets interest rates – and the Fed is privately owned by banks. So aren’t private banks already controlling interest rates?

He said, “No, that’s not the free market.” So I asked, “Then what is the free market controlling interest rates? How does that even work?” He had no answer – just kept saying I should read Hayek. I asked him to explain the concept. He admitted, “I can’t explain it. I’m not an economist.” But still insisted Hayek was right. I told him, “So you don’t understand it, but you still believe it’s true?”

He told me, “I was taught that if I don’t understand something, I should just refer to the source.”

And that, right there, is the religion of our time.

People claim things are true without understanding them – because “authority” said so. That’s not knowledge. That’s faith. That’s dogma.

“Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”  –  Albert Einstein

Our schools have become churches, and our teachers and experts have become priests. We are taught to believe things we don’t understand simply because someone smarter than us said them. This is how propaganda succeeds – by building a new church out of the education system, and a new God out of “authority.”

I told my friend: look at the JFK assassination. Most books say Oswald acted alone. Look at 9/11 – most books say it was just some random terrorists. Look at COVID – many books and scientists said it wasn’t manmade, and that turned out to be false. So just because “most books” say something, does  mean it’s true?

Apparently, yes – if you’re educated.

So tell me – how are we going to fix the world when we’re teaching people to believe what they don’t understand, and then putting them in positions of authority?

It doesn’t matter if I point out logical inconsistencies in the narrative. I didn’t go to university. I don’t have the title. So what I say doesn’t matter – because the majority of people with “authority” say something else.

“Knowledge will make you be free.”

― Socrates

+

“Knowledge isn’t free. You have to pay attention.”

― Richard P. Feynman

=

“Freedom is not free, you need to pay attention.”

― Grzegorz Ochman

Please pay enough attention, or we will all be screwed. God bless you all.

“Children are nowhere taught, in any systematic way, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, statements. Why is this so? Because their elders, even in the democratic countries, do not want them to be given this kind of education.” — Aldous Huxley

“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” — B.F. Skinner

“Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.” — Bertrand Russell

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” — Isaac Asimov