The American Dunning-Kruger Epidemic (Or Why Ignorant People Are So Sure They’re Right)

This article was originally published by Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper

It’s time to address an epidemic in the United States. It’s one that could be deadly, particularly to liberty.

It’s an epidemic of Dunning-Kruger. It’s why ignorant people are so certain that they’re right.

What’s that, you ask?

The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which individuals, who are unskilled at a particular task, believe themselves to possess above-average ability in performing the task. On the other hand, as individuals become more skilled in a particular task, they may mistakenly believe that they possess below-average ability in performing those tasks because they may assume that all others possess equal or greater ability. In other words, “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.” (source)

And haven’t we all seen that lately? Let’s look at a recent example right here in the good ole USA.

Those who haven’t lived like the rest of us are the ones shouting the loudest.

Let’s start with the current gun control debate.

We have high school kids who think they are experts on policy, firearms, and the Constitution, smugly telling us how clueless they believe we are.

We have movie stars who make millions from movies where they shoot people and who are protected by armed security guards, telling us that we law-abiding citizens who have guns are vicariously responsible for every school shooting that has ever happened.

We have wealthy city dwellers who live in buildings with doormen telling the rest of us that we’re nuts for wanting to protect ourselves.

And all of these people who want to loudly tell the rest of us how to live our lives have one thing in common: they are completely out of touch with the real world.

When you live in your guarded castles, you don’t have to worry about defending yourself from a rapist who might break in through your bedroom window. When you’re a kid, you can’t fathom the vast responsibility one feels as a parent to protect one’s children from home invaders or kidnappers. When you haven’t yet gone out there and lived your life with jobs and crime and financial instability, you have no idea what it’s really like for the average American.

And yet, these out-of-touch people are the ones screaming the loudest that only they know what is right for America.

And that’s where the Dunning-Kruger effect comes into play.

Back in 1999, social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University performed tests on some subjects and discovered that in many cases, the lower the performance of a subject, the higher their confidence was that they had done well. They published their findings in a paper entitled, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.”

In an article by David Dunning called “We Are All Confident Idiots,” he wrote of his studies:

In 1999, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, my then graduate student Justin Kruger and I published a paper that documented how, in many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.

What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

This isn’t just an armchair theory. A whole battery of studies conducted by myself and others have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge. College students who hand in exams that will earn them Ds and Fs tend to think their efforts will be worthy of far higher grades; low-performing chess players, bridge players, and medical students, and elderly people applying for a renewed driver’s license, similarly overestimate their competence by a long shot. (source)

Hmmm….that sounds familiar.

And the way Dunning applies this to politics vividly demonstrates why we have the polarization we’re currently experiencing in the US.

Some of our most stubborn misbeliefs arise not from primitive childlike intuitions or careless category errors, but from the very values and philosophies that define who we are as individuals. Each of us possesses certain foundational beliefs—narratives about the self, ideas about the social order—that essentially cannot be violated: To contradict them would call into question our very self-worth. As such, these views demand fealty from other opinions. And any information that we glean from the world is amended, distorted, diminished, or forgotten in order to make sure that these sacrosanct beliefs remain whole and unharmed…

…Political and ideological beliefs, too, often cross over into the realm of the sacrosanct. The anthropological theory of cultural cognition suggests that people everywhere tend to sort ideologically into cultural worldviews diverging along a couple of axes: They are either individualist (favoring autonomy, freedom, and self-reliance) or communitarian (giving more weight to benefits and costs borne by the entire community); and they are either hierarchist (favoring the distribution of social duties and resources along a fixed ranking of status) or egalitarian (dismissing the very idea of ranking people according to status). According to the theory of cultural cognition, humans process information in a way that not only reflects these organizing principles, but also reinforces them. These ideological anchor points can have a profound and wide-ranging impact on what people believe, and even on what they “know” to be true.

It is perhaps not so surprising to hear that facts, logic, and knowledge can be bent to accord with a person’s subjective worldview; after all, we accuse our political opponents of this kind of “motivated reasoning” all the time. But the extent of this bending can be remarkable. In ongoing work with the political scientist Peter Enns, my lab has found that a person’s politics can warp other sets of logical or factual beliefs so much that they come into direct contradiction with one another. (source)

And most importantly:

Sacrosanct ideological commitments can also drive us to develop quick, intense opinions on topics we know virtually nothing about. (source)

This isn’t just about gun control, though.

This article isn’t just about the hot-button topic of gun control. It’s about how we’re living our everyday lives.

Here’s an example: People either love President Trump so much they are unwilling to see any wrongdoing or they despise him to the point that they are unwilling to recognize any right-doing. Most people’s analyses of the actions of the President are completely warped by their sacrosanct ideologies of whether he is “good” or “bad.” They don’t weigh the merits of the actions – instead, they judge them from a place of deeply committed cognitive bias.

The same thing is true for many topics:

• Illegal immigration


• Freedom of speech


• Political ideologies


• Economic theories


• Gay rights


• Abortion


• The right to bear arms


• Taxes


• The bathroom drama at Target

All of us – myself included – can look at the list above and immediately say whether we are for or against these things, and what our specific belief is – but do we honestly know the details of these topics? Are our opinions sourced from cognitive bias or fact?

I have biases. You have them. We all do. However, the ability to recognize your own cognitive bias is the gold standard of intelligence.

This isn’t something that is going to change.

It’s completely normal for us to base our opinions on our own moral beliefs. As Dunning wrote, we are, at heart, either individualist or communitarian, hierchist or egalitarian. These are core attributes that would be difficult, if not impossible, to change.

But what we CAN do is make a conscious effort to catch ourselves when we make rapid judgment calls without the facts. We can educate ourselves on both sides of an issue and make an effort to use facts instead of feelings in our arguments.

What we CANNOT do is expect everyone to play by these rules. But that’s okay because by understanding how an opposing view was developed, we can use that to fuel our own arguments. We can call out the cognitive biases. What we can’t expect is for facts to change their deeply held beliefs, no matter how ignorant those beliefs might be.

We can correct the lack of information, but we can’t really expect someone with a confident, sacrosanct opinion to change their minds. They’ll hold on to a belief even after it is proven factually incorrect because, as Dunning said, “We are all confident idiots.” Remember, facts have nothing to do with why they have their points of view.

The good news is that there are folks in the middle, who may not have a deeply held opinion on hot-button topics. These are the folks who can be reached by logic and facts. It’s nearly impossible to battle confident ignorance, but with facts, you can influence people who are undecided.

If you ask me what is going to be the end of our civilization, the rampant epidemic of Dunning-Kruger seems to be the most likely cause. Let’s not be guilty of this confident ignorance ourselves. Let’s vow to inoculate ourselves with facts instead of enabling ourselves with emotional biases.

Hat tip to Suzanne

Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is the author of The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide To Whole Food on a Half Price Budget.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca</e

Retired Green Beret: “Give All Of Washington D.C. and Congress An Enema To Drain The True Polluting Substance From The Swamp”

So, let’s cite a few passages from President Trump’s National Security Speech:

“Throughout our history, the American people have always been the true source of American greatness. Our people have promoted our culture and promoted our values. Americans have fought and sacrificed on the battlefields all over the world. We have liberated captive nations, transformed former enemies into the best of friends, and lifted entire regions of the planet from poverty to prosperity. Because of our people, America has been among the greatest forces for peace and justice in the history of the world. The American people are generous. You are determined, you are brave, you are strong, and you are wise.”

Determined, brave, strong, and wise. Certainly, the President wasn’t referring to most of the population? Maybe he was in Wal-Mart, looking at these determined, brave, strong, and wise citizens:

But the generosity? Here is the “generosity” in a nutshell, for those can see it for what it is, just after that section:

“Fourth and finally, our strategy is to advance American influence in the world, but this begins with building up our wealth and power at home. America will lead again. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but we will champion the values without apology. We want strong alliances and partnerships based on cooperation and reciprocity. We will make new partnerships with those who share our goals, and make common interests into a common cause.”

Here’s some more generosity, of the “Black Friday” type…with the determined, brave, strong, and wise, once more:

Yes, it sounds very similar to the imperial hubris we have heard parroted for the past half a century and more.  Look at this oxymoronic sentence:

“We will not allow inflexible ideology to become an obsolete and obstacle to peace.”

Not allow inflexible ideology? And if our government is the unbiased “factor” to determine what ideology is inflexible, perhaps it should examine itself, first, as we are the ones not to compromise. Just the statement “we will not allow inflexible ideology,” is an inflexible statement; ergo, perhaps the government should fold.

We are at a very important juncture right now. The President made this speech to galvanize public opinion and support with ratings at about 60% disapproval. There is no clearly defined (let alone productive) foreign policy, with gross inconsistencies throughout this first year of the President’s term. Praising Russia for cooperation and sharing of intelligence to thwart a terrorist attack, just months after we expelled all Russian diplomats from the Russian embassy in California, as well as forcing them to vacate properties…in under a week.

Granted, all embassies (American and foreign nations) are full of spies, however, such a forced eviction has not improved relations with the Russians. The North Korean situation takes center stage:  as mentioned before, North Korea only has two options. They can either relinquish their nuclear weapons and submit to western hegemony as another IMF and World Bank vassal, or they can continue in their present course.

The punch line: they possess nuclear missiles with the capabilities of delivering an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attack, or a nuclear strike against American cities. The President of the United States just stated (as printed above) “America will lead again.” What better leadership example than to do a 180-degree turn, and try…make the attempt…to extend full diplomatic courtesy to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un? What better strategy than to roll out the red carpet, and treat him with the courtesy of a leader of another nation…one with nuclear missiles…and show yourself to extend the hand of diplomacy?

The President owes that much: owes a legitimate attempt to help to protect the 320 million people of this country, who do not have a Mt. Weather or a Cheyenne Mountain to retreat to. He owes it to 320 million American people who are in the crossfire. And if Un is unresponsive? Then the attempt was made. Lead by example and take the first step, for the welfare of the millions…ours, and yes, theirs.

Any who may be smirking will lose such skepticism if the city their family lives in suddenly becomes a dust cloud spiraling into the upper stratosphere.

There was much the President said that was worthwhile, but he said most of it in the present tense…as if we are “there” already, and not that we have a long way to go. To credit him, the Obama years almost destroyed this country. We are now as the hollowed-out exoskeleton of a cicada…clinging to the Tree of Liberty, but emptied, with barely a pulse.

Determined, brave, strong, and wise? The teleprompter told him that: he certainly wasn’t looking out of the window and viewing actual people. Our people have promoted our culture and our values? And just what would those be?  Reality T.V. shows and professional football players who take a knee in a foreign country, and refuse to stand for the anthem of the United States, but will stand for Britain’s anthem?

Yes, there is our value system: not even pride or loyalty to respect the U.S. when in a foreign land… a nation that we fought two wars against, then saved in World War II.

Their right to “take a knee” exercised their right to freedom of speech, while they also exercised the freedom to make complete jackasses out of themselves. Such freedom was earned for them and is maintained for them by their betters…

Pat Tillman was one of those betters: standing for something he believed in, and remembering that he was an American…something he held higher in importance than being a professional football player in the NFL. We can learn much from the example that he set.

It’s from the ground up that we need to return to our basics, and give all of Washington D.C. and Congress an “enema” to drain the true polluting substance from the “swamp” of D.C.  We are long past the tipping point, and possibly past the point of no return, but we still must try. From the President of the United States down to the rest of us…all of us…We the People. Hopefully we’ll have one more example to go by. Lead from the front, Mr. President, and be a Statesman…and act as the Commander-in-Chief as a last resort.

You have the power, Mr. President, to destroy many nations and enter a war, but do you have the strength to not do this? Remains to be seen. If you care about the American people and the United States as much as you say you do, then the choice is simple, even though the execution of it will be tough.

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Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne).  Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape).  He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here.

This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.

When Will The Left Come For You?

Via JC Collins of Philosophy of Metrics.com,

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—
And there was no one left to speak for me.

– From the Postwar War Anti-Nazi Lectures of Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller.

From a philosophical perspective I dislike breaking topics down into left and right ideologies. It minimizes and degenerates meaningful conversation into well rehearsed diametrical talking points which do little but entrench and promote ongoing political and social conflict. There have been some articles published which both use and explore these opposing positions, but the focus remains on the semi-engineered outcomes which are expected from such a left vs right political and socioeconomic paradigm.

The term semi-engineered is used for the first time here and is reflective of an allowable and flexible margin related to an unpredictable human quality which exerts itself on all events and situations. The intent is to ensure that the actions and reactions of the electoral body remain predictable. The semi-engineered aspects take these human nature qualities into account and prepares strategies which flow to “natural” and “organic” outcomes. These join other terms such as “grassroots” to make up the talking points of the modern political lexicon.

The Western systems of governance and education hammer the left and right ideologies through the use of mainstream media and alternative media, while using the bricks and mortar institutions of wisdom and learning as a degenerative weapon meant to promote and perpetuate the continued fragmentation and division of the electoral demographic composition.

The argument can be made that this semi-engineering is a product of both extensive conspiratorial planning as well as the human predisposition to avoid change and stick with the known. Conspiratorial planning is not as difficult to define and accept as we have been conditioned to believe. The socioeconomic and geopolitical strategy of “divide and conquer” has been a part of the worlds history as much as anything else. It is more probable that conspiratorial groups of likeminded individuals have directed and shaped the course of human history than it is that all has simply been a result of chance or happenstance.

In the book The Anglo-American Establishment by Georgetown University Professor Carrol Quigley we find that such groups have been defined and have in fact shaped the Western world through its use of the British Empire and subsequently the American hegemonic empire.

Professor Quigley states the following in Chapter 9 titled The Creation of the Commonwealth:

“The evolution of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations is to a very great extent a result of the activities of the Milner Group. To be sure, the ultimate goal of the Group was quite different from the present system, since they wanted a federation of the Empire, but this was a long-run goal, and en route they accepted the present system as a temporary way station. However, the strength of colonial and Dominion feeling, which made the ideal of federation admittedly remote at all times, has succeeded in making this way-station a permanent terminal and thus had eliminated, apparently forever, the hope for federation. With the exception of a few diehards, the Group has accepted the solution of imperial cooperation and “parallelism” as an alternative to federation.”

This paragraph defines for us the function of conspiratorial planning as well as its response to the unpredictable human quality, which in this case, supported Dominion over federation. The plan and strategy of the Group was adjusted and the engineering of the Western governance structures continued. These historical realities are indisputable and provide conclusive evidence of the existence of such conspiratorial groups and sub-groups.

Subsequent groups from that defined above, which have continued the engineering of Western civilization and governance frameworks, have further developed the political left and political right ideologies as fine tuned “weapons of the weak”, which are meant to further erode civil liberties and consolidate power. This is the same objective and scope of work which the Milner Group was tasked with in its attempts to implement a federation but settled on the Dominion for the integration of sovereign regions under the Commonwealth of Nations.

The left position has been established as existing in the progressive spectrum, while the right has been established as existing in the regressive spectrum. The natural and historical tendencies of the electoral population have been positioned on the traditional right. The political left has been attempting to push and pull the mass population and its demographic ideals towards the left spectrum. This is considered progressive and resistance to this program of engineering is labeled as regressive.

From this basic setup the political tension we are experiencing today has developed. Those wanting to remain in the past, or the place from which we have been pushed and pulled, or any attempt to go back to that place, is regressive, while everything which is transforming the past and pulling our civilization further from that past is progressive.

The consideration that everything progressive is not necessarily productive and aligned with the natural demands of homo-protoculture traditions is never considered. Everything left-progressive is positive and everything right-regressive is negative.

The case is now being made by the disorganized mass of the electoral demographic that the left has become regressive while the right is now expressing the qualities of a progressive society. The core argument that the left is now regressive is best expressed in the spread and abuse of political correctness and social justice.

The left-liberal ideology promotes so-called equality and human rights for all. On the face this would appear to be extremely reasonable and honourable. In the first years of this agenda no one could argue with its mandates and goals. It started with equal rights for women, which included voting and other legal alignments which had not before been in demand or expected.

Those few who disagreed with these social objectives were rightly labeled as “chauvinist pigs” and promoters of misogyny. It was the first real movement from the traditional spectrum of the right. It is only in hindsight that we can see this, a rational social movement, as the first step towards a “progressive tyranny” and at the time it was only looked upon and considered a change for the betterment of Western civilization.

The next phase of this progressive social justice built on the ending of slavery which re-manifested as the civil rights war. Like the origins of the feminist movement, the arguments were rational and no ethical and honourable citizen could disagree with equal rights for African-Americans.

It was in the 1970’s that we first began to experience the open social expressions of the marginal segment of the population which represented homosexuality. Television programming such as Three’s Company began to condition and engineer the acceptance of the electoral demographic “right”majority.

In the show Jack, played by the late John Ritter, pretended to be gay so he could live with two women in an apartment. The “homophobic” and “regressive” landlord Mr. Roper would only let Jack live there if he was gay and not straight, as his old school traditional ethics considered a man living in sin with two women as immoral. Hilarity ensued as Jack went through a series of challenges and obstacles to live a normal heterosexual life while maintaining the illusion of homosexuality to fool the simple and backwards Mr. Roper.

Evenings as a child was spent watching Three’s Company and the humour of John Ritter with my family and laughing. It was considered good quality time and I remember laying on the carpet in front of the television with feelings of guilt as I knew late homework waited elsewhere.

It is only now that I look back and see that the show was an early weapon used to marginalize a majority into accepting a social mandate which wasn’t very popular. Nobody wanted to be a fool like Mr. Roper, so we laughed and shut up about our own personal opinions and went about our business of school and work.

The progression of the regressive-left continued through the decades with similar tactics and methods of social engineering. Everything from movies, music, and additional television programming pushed the mass population further away from the traditional roots where Western civilization began. The pendulum swing has gone so far to the left that equal rights for all has now morphed into anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-traditional, anti-male, and anti-Capitalism.

For decades already movies have imagined every mastermind criminal as an evil Capitalist who wants to enslave and control the world. This social engineering is now so rampant that discussions supporting the Capitalist system turn into serious arguments with the liberal-left making accusations of identity politics for the purpose of demeaning and minimizing both the position and character of those promoting Capitalism.

The same methods and techniques are now used on anyone who disagrees with the left ideology and its stated goals and mandates. The mass immigration which has been happening for decades already has taken on a new sense of urgency and panic as migrants and refugees from Islamic nations flood into the West. The differences in culture and beliefs between the West and Islamic cultures is obvious to most but open discussions and analysis are not permitted.

It is beginning to appear that this so-called “Islamophobia”, which has built on the resentment surrounding the labels of Homophobia and Xenophobia, among others, is being established as a benchmark on hate and hate speech. Members of Academia, which have hijacked and used our Western educational institutions to promote the liberal-left agenda, are coming in force to condemn anyone who disagrees with mass Islamic migration and open borders.

It was evenly recently stated that a database, or register, of those charged with hate crimes should be kept so the rights of those individuals can be restricted. The comparison is made to the databases which keep track of sexual offenders. The difference between hate crimes, which often, like Islamophobia, is not clearly defined and can be used to demonize unwanted behaviour from the right, and the actions of sexual offenders such as pedophiles and rapists , are massive. To marginalize a majority as Islamophobic and hateful because it does not want to lose its cultural identity to the onslaught of a culture who, by its very expressed purpose, wants to spread and take over the host culture, is one of the greatest travesties of our modern world.

Creating and maintaining a database of such “offenders of the left” is a horrible suggestion and is reminiscent of the registries which Nazi Germany utilized to track and manage the “undesirables” such as Jews.

There is a concerted effort to criminalize the behaviour and opinions which the liberal-left find undesirable. This is a serious threat to our civilization and the methods by which we ensure the continuation of freedom of speech, electoral voting, and the perpetuation of cultural segregation and division.

A man who recently burned a copy of the Koran was charged with blasphemy. How is this even possible? Our governance system which has become dominated by the left, is using that very same system to restrict the rights of varying demographics. It is ironic that the liberal-left mandates, which were born in seeking equal rights for all, like women having the right to vote, is now attempting to restrict the rights of those who do not agree with its transformed goals and objectives.

First they came for the traditionalists. Few said anything. Then they came for the Christians. Still, few said anything. Eventually they started coming for the males. Nothing. After males they started coming for the whites. Even this couldn’t get everyone to stand united against the tyranny. Now they are using a regressive ideology to take rights away from anyone who disagrees. Finally, some are speaking louder and beginning to be heard. But is it too late? When will the left come for you? Will you now speak out?