It made me more wise.

But self educated individuals are probably in the 10-3% bracket of overall statistics for humanity. Right up there with those disobedient to authority on pain of death or the US revolutionaries.

The majority of humans, 68%, are too weak to rule themselves. Thus when you give them the tools of power and knowledge, they don’t know how to use it.

I’m gratified.

It really IS hard to change anyone’s mind. The perjury thing is a pet peeve of mine, for some reason.

I have a nephew that is a petroleum engineer. His career has been up and down so much it looks like a stock market chart. In the last few years he has gotten a piece of some production in the Denver – Julesburg Basin. He’s not on easy street yet, but it gives him some stability. Oil will rise again. It was $2 a barrel in 1954 and no one ever thought the price would break $3. 🙂

Another geologist! Geology is interesting work but hard to make a living at it (at least for me). Diversity (career changes) became a necessity. Coal, geothermal, coal, hydrology/nuclear waste, directional drilling/oil ….. You keep em flying!

This is an instinct that goers back to our days as tribal hunter gatherers. My grandmother had a saying that applies.
“Birds of a feather flock together, and so do pigs and swine.
Ducks and geese will have their choice, and so will I have mine.”

I first recognized this tribalism when, as a young geologist, I was doing mapping in the Uinta Basin in Utah. There was a Ute Indian reservation in the basin and we would occasionally come across a Ute settlement. They would be groups of crude houses with a nice pick up truck parked in front of each one. I talked with many of the men who came out to see what we were up to. This was 1954. In those days all Indians were sent to boarding schools for an education and many were even sent on to colleges. These Utes were well educated, but they preferred to live in their villages on the reservation. They had big herds of sheep, which provided them with some income, as well as the money that came in from the Federal government every month. They didn’t want to live like white men (though they liked the white man’s trucks), and because they had an income that made them independent, they had a choice.

I live in a community for “active adults” (over 55) and my neighbors are mostly people who were successful in their careers. Yet they are mostly incurious about the world and politics. One fellow I have breakfast with occasionally, will not discuss politics or world affairs. If I mention something in those areas, he becomes agitated and even red-faced as he says, “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s all BS!” I consider him to be and example of someone who is closed minded.

Yes, people don’t like to leave their comfort zones, if they have a choice. Tribalism, closed mindedness, need to identify with some moral cause. etc. We humans have a hard time dealing with instincts that are hard to overcome.

― Jonathan Swift

Two points (I’m in a hurry).

I did not use the term imbecile. It’s a quote from another source. I actually was careful not to use the term myself.

Too many Jews did not stay. I wrote a long post about this (don’t have time to find it now). Most of the Jews who COULD leave, did. The ones that stayed were mostly very old, taking care of the old, too poor to leave, or had their way blocked for other reasons. Huge numbers left, the ones who could. Some of them got trapped in the countries to which they fled, later on. But the vast majority did not stay of their own free will.

They were not stupid, they were trapped.

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

how stupid can one be to make a new weapons more powerful than russia stalin era bomba which caused the planet to ring like a bell 7-8 times when tested..

i dont know if they have the SATAN II on this application