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Trump Celebrates Treason with Return of Statues & Over 420 Anti-Science Bills Being Considered in StatesNovember 4, 2025
What I'm Discussing Today:
Congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers!I've been a fan of the Dodgers since I was a little boy (was I ever little?) and they were called the Brooklyn Dodgers playing at Ebbets Field. Even after they moved to L.A. in 1958 when I was 11, I remained a loyal fan. As a child, baseball was my first love and I dreamed of being a major league player. But my body had other ideas. My gangly limbs weren't right for the game, so I turned to basketball. Nevertheless, I still watch baseball as often as possible. The Dodgers have won back-to-back championships, which is something I know first-hand is very hard to achieve. Some sports writers may give credit to the money the Dodgers spent to acquire talented players, but the fact that the series went seven games tells us exactly why sports is so exciting: it's unpredictable. If money were the deciding factor, why did the Blue Jays, which has the fifth highest payroll, beat out the second through fourth teams with higher payrolls? Money matters, sure, but so does grit. To win back-to-back championships requires much more than talent: it depends on that talent playing at their best all the time. Every coach in every sport knows that is the ultimate dream. To make it as much a reality as possible requires consistency and determination. When a favored team is tied going into the deciding game of a championship series, salaries don't matter. They're also carrying the extra burden of being favored, of feeling like they'll let down the fans if they lose, of being humiliated. It's easy to fold in that last game. They didn't. That's why they're champions. Again. Kareem's Daily Quote
Albert Einstein
Common sense can sometimes seem as mythical as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. However, common sense does exist, but people often confuse it with "informed decision-making." Real common sense is observing that a ladder rung is cracked and therefore not stepping on it. Informed decision-making is, before choosing surgery for your child, consulting with experts, researching possible alternatives, finding out about side-effects, reading other patient experiences, etc. The reason for this confusion is because politicians often attempt to manipulate voters by flattering their common sense. They want their congregation to believe, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, that "Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes." But what politicians mean by common sense is forming opinions without regard to facts, research, historical precedent, or experts. When a politician refers to common sense, they are appealing to people to ignore all that egghead stuff and just go with their uninformed, deeply biased guts. Recently during a Cabinet meeting, Trump invoked this idea while promoting that pregnant women not take Tylenol: "There's something going on, and we have to address it. And so, I'm addressing it the best I can as a nondoctor, but I'm a man of common sense." His "common sense" has been rejected by almost all experts in the field as well as decades of research. He doesn't specify what the "something going on" is, or why it needs to be addressed. He implies, without facts, that there's a problem that his common sense will solve. Here's an example of legit common sense: If your child were sick, would you take them to Trump to diagnose, or to a medical doctor? In August, Trump rejected his own administration's monthly job reports: "It's totally rigged. Smart people know it. People with common sense know it." Again, by "common sense" he means those who don't check the facts or read why these figures can't be rigged. By the way, those original figures were never found to be inaccurate. People who are proud of their gut opinions often mistake their intuition about something they know a lot about from years of experience, such as their jobs or hobbies, with actual knowledge about things they have no practical experience with. A surgeon or a lawyer may have excellent instincts when it comes to their professions, because those instincts have been honed through years of practice. Same with carpenters, plumbers, and athletes. I used to be able to sink a jump shot without looking at the basket. I just knew where it was in my gut. But my gut knows nothing about the efficacy of vaccines, about the years of study, the types of research, the benefits, the dangers. All of that has to be learned, not by consulting one source that confirms what my friends and parents and neighbors believe, but what makes sense. Not what makes common sense, but what makes informed sense. That's why billionaires who are massively successful in business think that they automatically know something about how to optimize a democracy. Yet, they are proven wrong again and again. The problem that many people face is that choosing an opinion that defies those in their friend group, their family, and their community could mean being marginalized by those they care most about. To reject your parents' opinion could make them feel like you don't love them. To question your friends' opinions might make them think you don't respect their intellect. It's better to just agree so you fit in. And, because you know deep down that this is a cowardly way to behave, you shout these group-think opinions even louder and with more vehemence against those who disagree. The reason we have such strongholds of conservative common sense/gut reaction thinking in the rural South and Midwest is that rural areas have smaller populations that have to count on each other more. Harmony is more important for survival than being right. So, they hoist up on their shoulders Common Sense like a golden calf and worship it. There was a study at Harvard University in which they discovered that when people who held a certain political opinion were given irrefutable evidence contradicting their opinion, if they immediately rejected that proof, their brain released dopamine in the same way it did with drug addicts getting a fix. Your brain rewards you for not having to think because that's less stressful. French jurist Monique Chemillier-Gendreau said, "Democracy is the fruit of unending diligence." Not just diligence against our foreign and domestic enemies, but also diligence against our own prejudices, even if we dress them up in a gold tuxedo called common sense. For me, common sense is knowing when you don't know. Then either doing something about it, or shutting up until you do know... |
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