In celebration of the 15th anniversary of the launch of The Corbett Report, James presents a list of 15 things that he’s learned in 15 years of doing this work.
1. People don’t fundamentally change when they “wake up”
2. Almost no one is actually anti-war nor actually pro-freedom
3. People want to be ruled
4. Everyone’s your best friend…until you say something they disagree with
5. Most people think this is a spectator sport
6. People do not rationally arrive at conclusions, they “feel” something to be true and then rationalize why their feeling is correct
7. The more you learn, the less you know
8. You should be more confident with what you do know
9. A certain section of the public is truly incapable of understanding satire or identifying sarcasm
10. The most important research is dumbed down when it becomes widespread
11. People get their “news” from headlines
12. People absolutely judge books (videos) by their cover (title and thumbnail)
13. You can’t wake someone up who’s pretending to be asleep. See: How Do I Wake Up My Friends and Family? – Questions For Corbett #065
14. Everyone thinks they are EXPERTS at breaking down video “evidence”…but they’re all wrong. Case in point: Upon Meeting A Friend for the First Time
15. The Library of Alexandria is on Fire. Save The Corbett Report from the library fire by ordering the 2007-2008 Data Archive USB.
Congratulations on 15 years of brilliant work, James. A jubilee actually worth celebrating.
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Information overload explains a number of these issues. I don’t have the time to watch/read all the articles I come across, so by default I’ve already read the headline and looked at the image. It can’t be helped.
But I am certain you fit in time to watch TV, sports or movies which are so much a better use of time. IF you watch even just 5-8 hrs of useless shit A WEEK, you could have been fully informed AND learned a new skill in 3-4 hrs per week.
People in this day and age are nothing but excuses and this statement lends credence to his point #3, because if it wasnt true then you would be certain you were fully informed.
I prefer to read my info, not watch videos.
The video guys can hem and haw, scratch themselves, misspeak, ramble on about the products their selling, drift off-topic into irrelevancies, play music, make dumb jokes, or otherwise waste my time.
If I gave every idiot with a video 12 minutes of my time, i’d never have time for myself.
It has gotten to the point that, mostly, if it is a video link, I just skip it.
Just about every single video out there can be condensed by 80 percent.
(No offense to the corbet report, but I don’t have 30 minutes to give him. Happy to read a transcript, though, if it were available.)
Me too.
But we are rare. Reading is hard. People are lazy. Plus, you can play with your phone while not really listening to a video.
Besides, that would require people who can write, spell and understand grammar. Then they would not be able to use “yaknow” and “like” several times per minute while making stupid faces.
I disagree. General stupidity and lack of any semblance of common sense explains many of these.
4 truisms. Deceit and denial are the birth mother of chaos. Chaos is a tool of utter destruction . Capitalism will not bond you our of hell. Jesus is King. Make of it what you will.
Everyone with a heart is deceived. Jeremiah says the heart is full of deceit and exceedingly wicked. Who can know it? Get in the vine with Jesus for the spirit of truth.
The most important things he should have learned is that the government and media are his enemy, should never be trusted, and never act in anyone’s best interests except their own.
Thanks James. One of the most rational and discerning people out there, and has still managed to keep a sense of humor after all he’s seen. Maybe that comes from living away from north America, lol.
#6 is one I’ve recently learned. I suppose I always knew it to be true, but the number of people who operate this way is much larger than I thought.
9. A certain section of the public is truly incapable of understanding satire or identifying sarcasm.
Are you being sarcastic? I can’t tell.
I was being serial. A tongue in cheek comment must be qualified with a generous amount of winks and nods.
Hard to disagree with these. Especially 1, 3, 4, & 5.
12. People absolutely judge books (videos) by their cover (title and thumbnail)
True. That guy looks gay.
People judge a lot of things by their covers, including human beings, not just books and videos. But sometimes, looks can be deceiving.
Yes. But better than 9 in 10 times, my first impression is quickly proven correct when they open their mouths.
My fuckwit-radar seems highly tuned.
Covers of books and music albums, as well as dress and comportment, are all advertisements aimed at getting you to judge these things. A huge amount of time and expense is put into doing this.
I work blue collar, and I dress like it. My customers expect it, and it advertises competence at my profession. If I showed up dressed in a three-piece suit or all hip-hop, they would rightly expect poor performance, and ironically, judge me worse on my actual work.
Looks can be deceiving, but for the most part, you advertise who you are by your dress and demeanor. I can’t be bothered to look closed to see if you really are a diamond in the rough.
First impressions are vital. In an old cleaning business, we used a “clean linen” air freshener at the end of each job. It was just a mild, clean, and inoffensive scent. Made a huge difference with the customers. Their first reaction was that the house smells clean, therefore it must be clean.
(As an aside, that is why today seems so crazy: We have a Pres who is senile, a VP who has to be mildly retarded (based upon her own words), a tranny health secretary, and all kinds of other garbage going on. Who is actually making ‘positive’ quick judgements about these people, etc?)
Is this a good time bring up “gaydar”?
#3 is the bitch of the bunch.
And worse, those people want you ruled too. Even if they have no idea why.
———
Have you ever heard the story of the 5 Monkeys Experiment? It may sound familiar when you think of your organizational culture. It goes like this:
5 monkeys were placed in a cage as part of an experiment. In the middle of the cage was a ladder with bananas on the top rung. Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder, the experimenter sprayed all of the monkeys with icy water. Eventually, each time a monkey started to climb the ladder, the other ones pulled him off and beat him up so they could avoid the icy spray. Soon, no monkey dared go up the ladder.
The experimenter then substituted one of the monkeys in the cage with a new monkey. The first thing the new monkey did was try to climb the ladder to reach the bananas. After several beatings, the new monkey learned the social norm. He never knew “why” the other monkeys wouldn’t let him go for the bananas because he had never been sprayed with ice water, but he quickly learned that this behaviour would not be tolerated by the other monkeys.
One by one, each of the monkeys in the cage was substituted for a new monkey until none of the original group remained. Every time a new monkey went up the ladder, the rest of the group pulled him off, even those who had never been sprayed with the icy water.
By the end of the experiment, the 5 monkeys in the cage had learned to follow the rule (don’t go for the bananas), without any of them knowing the reason why (we’ll all get sprayed by icy water). If we could have asked the monkeys for their rationale behind not letting their cage mates climb the ladder, their answer would probably be: “I don’t know, that’s just how its always been done.”
This story, whether real or a fable, captures a pervasive theme in many organizational cultures: We tend to do things the way we’re told they’ve always been done without questioning or revisiting the reason behind it, even long after that reason ceases to exist.
——-
We are surrounded by ignorant but arrogantly certain monkeys.
But we are humans, not monkeys.
Well, even with the monkeys, there was a good reason for the custom.
Just like traditions. There are very good reasons for them.
It is the people who just throw-out the old ways of doing things, without ever trying to understand why the tradition exists, who are the dangerous ones. After all, Traditions are to society, what safety procedures are to dangerous occupations. Throw them out or change them without understanding them, and you will get pretty poor results.
But maybe the birthing persons, and same-sex couples will raise wonderful children.
Maybe free love and single mom households will raise wonderful children.
Maybe creating new and exciting “family” arrangements will help society to bring in a new, creative, and productive young generation.
Maybe lifting the old fashioned taboos against incest and pedophilia will help youngsters and close family members reach their full potential.
Maybe, if a wonderful child comes out of all of that, it is chance, not due to those innovations.
But I guess I’ll stick with the monkeys on this one. The attractive bananas of free love, self-indulgence, sexual perversion, dependence upon the state, etc. are just something I’ll have to pass on.
Sigh. Context.
#3
I like Corbett. But 15 years? I picked up these styx river skimming stones in a few 15-minute bouts…when I was, ostensibly, a kid. Snap the nappy-headed headline I’ll benefit doubt.
16. Generalizations are rarely helpful to understand the deeper meaning behind things.
James Corbett is freaking awesome.
The End.
The list can be much longer than fifteen.