So, we rise from the rubble...
Sunday, May 16, 2021
"Rising Inflation and Bill’s Doom Index"
"Rising Inflation and Bill’s Doom Index"
by Bill Bonner
OUGHAL, IRELAND – "Oh my… look up. There it is. Our old, tattered Black & Blue… Our trusty “Crash Alert” flag, proudly signaling the alarm. Yesterday, we saw consumer prices moving up. And we saw how the supply of “money” is far outstripping the supply of goods and services you buy with it. So far this century, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet (a rough way of keeping track of the supply of dollars) rose 15 times. U.S. GDP (an equally approximate measure of output) only doubled. That is the classic definition of inflation.
Today, we’re going to look at what kind of inflation it is… and how long it will be with us. Is it “transitory,” caused by a booming recovery and trillions in stimmy money. Or has it come with big suitcases and its favorite pillow… as if it intends to stay? We’ll come back to those questions. But first… the big news…
Crash Alert! Our Doom Index is registering an 8 – which is Crash Alert territory. We created the Doom Index a number of years ago to improve on our (often faulty) intuition. It tracks 12 key indicators to try to detect when there are dangerous excesses in the economy and markets are out of whack. Yes, you can see the full report on the latest Doom Index Reading here. But here’s the short version from our ace research team:
The chart below shows our Doom Index levels by quarter. The red bars indicate a reading of 8 or higher. That’s when we raise our “crash alert” flag and tell investors it’s time to prepare for a market crash. The last time we raised our “crash alert” flag was at the end of Q2 2019, when the Doom Index hit 8. We stayed in the “Danger Zone” for the next four quarters.
Economic conditions improved slightly in the second half of 2020, as evidenced by our Doom Index reading dropping to 7 for Q3 2020 and Q4 2020… Our recent Doom Index reading – based on the Q1 2021 data – is 8… which means we’re raising our tattered “crash alert” flag.
[…]it appears that the stock market is getting way ahead of the economy… Nearly all stock market valuations are at all-time highs, investors are using more leverage, junk bonds are looking riskier, and of course… the feds keep printing.
More Inflation Sightings: Meanwhile, we looked at some of the inflation sightings yesterday. Here’s The Wall Street Journal with more: "Americans accustomed to years of low inflation are beginning to pay sharply higher prices for goods and services as the economy strains to rev back up and the pandemic wanes. Price tags on consumer goods from processed meat to dishwashing products have risen by double-digit percentages from a year ago, according to NielsenIQ. Whirlpool Corp. freezers and dishwashers and Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. lawn and garden products are also getting costlier, the companies say. Some consumers are feeling stretched."
No Big Deal: But don’t worry. Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve and Janet Yellen at the U.S. Treasury both assure us that inflation is no big deal. The Fed is still “printing” $120 billion per month… trying to overcome the “low inflation” threat. According to Powell, the nation’s economic health is threatened not by inflation, but by the lack of it… that is, by persistent Consumer Price Index (CPI) readings below 2%. He thinks stable prices somehow inhibit growth.
As for Yellen, she believes the feds can hit whatever pitch comes their way. Here’s what she confidently told a Wall Street Journal CEO Council event last week: "I don’t think there’s going to be an inflationary problem. But if there is, the Fed will be counted on to address them." That settles it for us. Nothing to be concerned about. There is no inflation. And if there were any, just as a hypothetical, the Fed would smash it out of the ballpark. And Ms. Yellen should know. She used to run the Fed.
Intellectual Exercise: But… just in case – not that we’re doubting Ms. Yellen… or second-guessing the Fed – but just as an intellectual exercise, for our amusement… what if they’re all not really up to playing in the Major Leagues? What if they are better suited to the Special Olympics?
Before last Friday’s jobs report came out, Ms. Yellen suggested that interest rates might have to go up to contain rising price inflation, caused by a robust recovery. That is, she said she was concerned about “overheating,” whatever that is. Then, after stocks began to fall, she backtracked, letting the speculators know that she didn’t really mean it. In the space of less than 24 hours, she determined that the economy’s temperature was just right after all. She must have breathed a sigh of relief on Friday. The employment numbers made it clear that the economy is not heating up; it’s cooling off.
Phew! This takes the pressure off Yellen and Powell to “address” the inflation issue. But only by misunderstanding the nature of the inflation – which both Ms. Yellen and Mr. Powell are eager to do. More like “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry than “Boog” Powell, both want to win the game… but neither has any idea how to play it. They believe that inflation is purely cyclical, caused by rising demand in an expanding economy. (They also believe they can cause the economy to expand by pretending, that is, by inflating the money supply to look like real demand is increasing.)
Double Act: But this is no natural cyclical inflation. It is systemic. It is not driven (or, at least, not entirely) by the business cycle. Instead, it is man-made… caused by the two illustrious strike-outs themselves – Yellen weighing down heavily on the White House’s fiscal bench… and Powell heading up the Fed’s monetary team. The fiscal team spends. The monetary team prints. And they’ll both keep at it until the final inning… when the game is lost."
"Americans Are Panic Buying Homes! Prices Are Soaring: Prepare Your Self For A Housing Market Crash!"
Full screen recommended.
"Americans Are Panic Buying Homes!
Prices Are Soaring: Prepare Your Self For A Housing Market Crash!"
by Epic Economist
"Americans are in a wild panic buying frenzy for homes despite skyrocketing prices, which has been worrying experts that the fast growth of the housing price bubble and historically low inventory levels might lead the market to a sharp correction way sooner than expected. Panicked buyers are taking part in bidding wars and offering hundreds of thousands of dollars above the asking price, but on the flip side, a large chunk of the population is getting priced out of the market and affordable housing is nowhere to be found. House prices are soaring like never before even as the economy is still facing the worst slump since the Great Depression.
As we previously discussed, the frantic rally is being fueled by low-interest rates, which is keeping mortgage payments more affordable, cushioning the housing market from the current recession. But it wasn't that long ago that real estate experts were expecting the worst. At the beginning of the health crisis, everyone was predicting home prices would collapse given that this is what typically happens when economic downturns occur. But due to the extraordinary monetary response to the sanitary outbreak, markets have been artificially sustained and asset valuations were turbocharged. However, the current pace of home price appreciation is getting increasingly unsustainable, and mortgage rates are moving upward as inflation fears have started to mount, meaning that the current housing boom is headed to a bust.
Real estate analysts have been reporting this to be the most competitive market they have ever seen. According to the National Association of Realtors, the number of sales of existing homes reached the highest level since 2006 - with the US housing inventory dwindling by over 50 percent, while prices rose 9% from pre-outbreak levels, and the median price of an existing home hitting a record high of $329,100 in March. In one alarming example of how crazy the market has become, in a CNN article, realtor Ellen Coleman reported having received "76 all-cash offers on a $275,000 fixer-upper in suburban Washington D.C. within three days of listing the property. The four-bedroom, 1,800 square-foot home sold for $460,000, a 70% increase on the asking price".
Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather, "we are in a record-breaking housing market with asking prices at an all-time high, median sale prices at an all-time high, the share of homes selling over list price at an all-time high, and homes selling faster than ever before: 58% under contract within two weeks of listing and 46% within one week of listing". "Ask just about any real estate agent, and they'll tell you they've never seen a market this hot," he said. Another example of how the panic buying trend has been pushing prices through the roof can be seen in Southern California, where extreme prices are being reported in all corners of the region. For instance, in Orange County, with the highest spike on record, having registered a 38.5% increase in sales leading the median price of a home up by 10.6% to shocking $835,000.
Vanessa Stone, an Enfield real estate broker said that in the 32 years she’s been selling real estate "the current frenzy surpasses even the hot home-selling market of the early 2000s before the crash of 2007". How much longer such extravagant gains will continue is a question worrying both buyers and sellers. Americans are already sensing something is wrong in the market and recent date shows how home-buying sentiment has collapsed to its weakest since 1983. Although bubble deniers have been multiplying lately, realtors are frequently comparing the current market rally to what they have witnessed during the peak of the 2006 historic real-estate bubble.
But just because the market looks different on a macro level, doesn't mean this time will be different, as many want to believe. As we well know, blind believers frequently end up very, very frustrated when they choose to ignore the warning signs that are flashing right into their faces. And if you don't want to get caught off guard, don't take the opinion of those who make their living by selling the idea of a rose-colored reality as the gospel. The next housing market crash is fast approaching and all evidence is there for you to see. So beware of those weirdly upbeat forecasts or you might end up bitterly disappointed."
"We Are Watching A Giant Illusion; IRS Coming For You; Where Are The Good Times? Economy Worsens”
Jeremiah Babe,
“We Are Watching A Giant Illusion; IRS Coming For You;
Where Are The Good Times? Economy Worsens”
Saturday, May 15, 2021
"Riding the Lightning, and Living to Tell the Tale"
Well, I owe you an apology for not alerting you to my sudden and quite unexpected absence but there was simply no time to react to a medical emergency which very nearly took me out of this world. EMTs got me to the ER with no time to spare. 2 unspeakably horrifying jolts of cardioversion - "If they hadn't shocked you when they did you'd be dead." - and a Medevac ride to Tucson for 5 days in the superlatively excellent Banner Medical Center Tucson's Cardiac ICU has produced wonderful results, so now home. Slow and easy from now on, my friends, posting may be diminished briefly while I continue getting myself together, so please bear with me. I'm just grateful to be alive, and expect to be up to speed quickly. I hope you're all well and savoring this day, because tomorrow isn't guaranteed for any of us. Make this a good day!
- CP
Sunday, May 9, 2021
"Commercial Real Estate Collapse Triggering 45% Drop In Property Value As Businesses Face Foreclosure"
Full screen recommended.
"Commercial Real Estate Collapse Triggering 45%
Drop In Property Value As Businesses Face Foreclosure"
by Epic Economist
"While the entire country is on a countdown to the end of the health crisis, the retail industry should brace itself because a huge wave of closures is coming. Analysts from stockbroking firm UBS are warning that "at least tens of thousands" of store closures will occur as a result of the permanent shift in consumer behavior and the rise of e-commerce, whereas a new study conducted by Morgan Stanley experts found that 1 out of 3 shopping malls will soon disappear from the U.S. economic landscape. The decay of struggling U.S. malls has been years in the making. Industry analysts have been speculating for years what would be the ultimate catalyst to trigger malls' undoing - and after the sanitary outbreak hit, they had their answer. It seems like hundreds of commercial properties have reached the point of no return across the U.S., and that's mainly attributed to the fact that the strict social distancing restrictions forced consumers to learn to buy the things they like, want, and need using online platforms. In face of endless possibilities and increased convenience offered by the virtual experience, it's very unlikely customers ever resume their previous spending patterns in physical stores.
Already, 18 major retailers filed for bankruptcy, mostly concentrated in apparel and footwear, home furnishings, grocery, and department stores, according to Green Street reports. Some of these businesses spent over 100 years building their brands into household names, but in 10 short years, a retail apocalypse swept across the industry and left stores empty while malls started to lose relevance. The decay of the sector, like so much in the last decade, can be traced back to the last financial crisis. After the housing bubble burst, several retailers struggled to make it through the Great Recession. Hundreds of thousands of employees were laid off and private equity firms intervened, but in that process, they burdened mall brands with massive amounts of debt. Even companies that managed to stay afloat during the current recession, have been announcing mass store closures hoping to curb their expenses.
Consequently, such closures are having a huge impact on mall occupancy rates and recent numbers are already showing it. In the first quarter of 2021, regional malls in the United States registered the highest vacancy rate in history at 11.4%. The outlook for the sector remains bleak as many more closures are expected. In a report released in April, UBS predicted that in the best-case scenario roughly 80,000 retail stores would close all across the nation in the next few years, affecting nearly 9% of all retail stores, which means one in eleven stores in the United States is on the verge of disappearing forever. In the worst-case scenario is that twice that number of stores could be shut down, accounting for as many as 150,000 closures.
In face of this gloomy forecast, and considering it would be incredibly difficult to fill in all that vacant retail space during one of the worst economic recessions this country has ever experienced, according to a team of Morgan Stanley analysts, 30 to 35 percent of U.S. malls are likely to close for good over the next few months. In other words, 1 out of 3 shopping malls may go extinct even before the economy reopens. Until two years ago, Green Street Advisors still expected them to disappear by 2030, but after last year's events, that forecast got remarkably adjusted: now they anticipate the malls will fade out before the end of this year.
Investors are now having to assess if the best move is to reoccupy the vacant space or cut out the distressed property from their portfolios entirely. Remaining a viable option for investment in a market that is becoming increasingly distressed will certainly not be easy. Already, some of these property owners have taken some desperate measures to keep doors open. As a sign of the times, while vaccines roll out across the country, thousands of people are getting vaccinated in abandoned Kmarts, Sears, and Toys R Us, instead of CVS pharmacies or local health clinics.
For mall owners that have seen store vacancy rates skyrocket over the past twelve months, the symbolism of having deserted stores transformed into mass vaccination clinics underscores how rapidly our economy has changed after the health crisis began, and how the retail apocalypse is turning our once-thriving economic landscape in a dystopian scenario. And even though the end of the outbreak might be in sight as the distribution of the vaccine ramps up, for decaying malls, it seems that this "new normal" means that the new dystopian reality is here to stay."
"Consumers Squeezed; Millions Depend On Credit Cards To Survive; Auto Debt Explodes; Cyberattacks"
Jeremiah Babe,
"Consumers Squeezed; Millions Depend On Credit Cards To Survive;
Auto Debt Explodes; Cyberattacks"
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue vdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this well-composed celestial still life with dark, obscuring clouds recorded in Edward E. Barnard's 1919 catalog of dark markings in the sky. All are interstellar dust clouds, blocking the light from background stars in the case of Barnard's dark nebulae. For vdB 31, the dust preferentially reflects the bluish starlight from embedded, hot, variable star AB Aurigae.
Exploring the environs of AB Aurigae with the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the several million year young star is itself surrounded by flattened dusty disk with evidence for the ongoing formation of a planetary system. AB Aurigae is about 470 light-years away. At that distance this cosmic canvas would span about four light-years.”
Chet Raymo, "On Saying 'I Don't Know'"
"On Saying 'I Don't Know'"
by Chet Raymo
“Johannes Kepler is best known for figuring out the laws of planetary motion. In 1610, he published a little book called “The Six-Cornered Snowflake” that asked an even more fundamental question: How do visible forms arise? He wrote: "There must be some definite reason why, whenever snow begins to fall, its initial formation is invariably in the shape of a six-pointed starlet. For if it happens by chance, why do they not fall just as well with five corners or with seven?"
All around him Kepler saw beautiful shapes in nature: six-pointed snowflakes, the elliptical orbits of the planets, the hexagonal honeycombs of bees, the twelve-sided shape of pomegranate seeds. Why? he asks. Why does the stuff of the universe arrange itself into five-petaled flowers, spiral galaxies, double-helix DNA, rhomboid crystals, the rainbow's arc? Why the five-fingered, five-toed, bilaterally symmetric beauty of the newborn child? Why?
Kepler struggles with the problem, and along the way he stumbles onto sphere-packing. Why do pomegranate seeds have twelve flat sides? Because in the growing pomegranate fruit the seeds are squeezed into the smallest possible space. Start with spherical seeds, pack them as efficiently as possible with each sphere touching twelve neighbors. Then squeeze. Voila! And so he goes, convincing us, for example, that the bee's honeycomb has six sides because that's the way to make honey cells with the least amount of wax. His book is a tour-de-force of playful mathematics.
In the end, Kepler admits defeat in understanding the snowflake's six points, but he thinks he knows what's behind all of the beautiful forms of nature: A universal spirit pervading and shaping everything that exists. He calls it nature's "formative capacity." We would be inclined to say that Kepler was just giving a fancy name to something he couldn't explain. To the modern mind, "formative capacity" sounds like empty words.
We can do somewhat better. For example, we explain the shape of snowflakes by the shape of water molecules, and we explain the shape of water molecules with the mathematical laws of quantum physics. Since Kepler's time, we have made impressive progress towards understanding the visible forms of snowflakes, crystals, rainbows, and newborn babes by probing ever deeper into the heart of matter. But we are probably no closer than Kepler to answering the ultimate questions: What is the reason for the curious connection between nature and mathematics? Why are the mathematical laws of nature one thing rather than another? Why does the universe exist at all? Like Kepler, we can give it a name, but the most forthright answer is simply: I don't know.”
“Some Things You Need To Know”
“Some Things You Need To Know”
by Marc Chernoff
“I know you’re reading this. And I want you to know I’m writing this for you. Others will be confused. They will think I’m writing this for them. But I’m not. This one’s for you.
I want you to know that life is not easy. Every day is an unpredictable challenge. Some days it can be difficult to simply get out of bed in the morning. To face reality and put on that smile. But I want you to know, your smile has kept me going on more days than I can count. Never forget that, even through the toughest times, you are incredible. You really are. So smile more often. You have so many reasons to. Time and again, my reason is you.
You won’t always be perfect. Neither will I. Because nobody is perfect, and nobody deserves to be perfect. Nobody has it easy, everybody has issues. You will never know exactly what I’m going through. And I will never know exactly what you’re going through. We are all fighting our own unique war. But we are fighting through it simultaneously, together.
Whenever somebody discredits you, and tells you that you can’t do something, keep in mind that they are speaking from within the boundaries of their own limitations. Ignore them. Don’t give in. In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, find the courage to keep being your awesome self. And when they laugh at you for being different, laugh back at them for being the same.
Remember, our courage doesn’t always roar aloud. Sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering, “I will try again tomorrow.” So stand strong. Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out. And I am committed to making the best of it along with you.”
"Lemons..."
"When life hands you a lemon, say
"Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?"
- Henry Rollins
"Courage..."
“Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences – good and bad. Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as “ordinary courage.”
- Brené Brown
Greg Hunter, "Confronted with a Nightmare Scenario"
"Confronted with a Nightmare Scenario"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Financial writer John Rubino says there is no easy way out for the financial and political mess the United States has created for itself. Rubino starts with the economic problems and explains, “Now, inflation is starting to spread. Look at lumber. If you are trying to build a house, it’s $35,000 more now than it was two years ago just because of lumber. Iron ore, house prices, grains, food and you name it, we’ve got inflation going on. At the same time, we have an apparent labor shortage. All these companies are coming out and saying we would love to take on all the business we are being offered to us, but we don’t have enough people. Even Uber and Lyft cannot find enough drivers. It’s weird it is happening this soon, but we should not be surprised since we dumped tens of trillions of dollars into the economy over the past year. This is what you would expect if you get the money supply going up 30% or 40%, which it did. This is what you get. The economy overheats. Now, we are confronted with the nightmare scenario in a fiat currency system. Inflation starts to pick up, which it is. That sends interest rates higher, which is happening. That threatens all the heavily indebted people out there because as rates go up, their costs rise. Then they go bankrupt in increasing numbers, and the system collapses. We are in the early stages in that kind of a process, and I don’t think anybody knows what to do about it.”
It seems Sam Zell knows what to do. Who is Sam Zell? Rubino says, “Well, Sam Zell is one of the biggest real estate investors in the world. The guy has a history of being right at the big turning points. He will build a massive commercial real estate empire with billions and billions of dollars of offices and shopping malls and stuff like that. Then towards the end of the cycle, he will start selling. He will basically get out at the peak of the market. Then the market tanks, and he buys back in. So, he’s a really good indicator of where the economy is going because he has such a history of being right. So, now, the guy is buying gold. I think this is the first time I have ever heard of him doing that. He usually just sells his real estate and goes to cash. Now, he’s selling out of some of his real estate, and instead of putting it into a bank, he’s buying gold with it. This is a good sign from a smart guy. This guy is right so frequently, the fact that he is buying gold is a really good gold buying signal.”
Rubino goes on to warn, “I think the next stage in the market psychology is when people figure out there is no adult supervision left in these markets. Daddy is not going to come home and fix this. We are at the point where there are no solutions, and that’s when things spin out of control. The Mad Max scenario is the extreme end of the spectrum of possibilities, but there can be political and financial chaos where something like the Great Depression or something like the Weimar Germany hyperinflation becomes a real possibility. This is beyond the ability of any individual to fix. We can’t save the system.”
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One
with the founder of DollarCollapse.com, John Rubino.
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/9/21: "Markets, A Look Ahead: A False Flag Event Has Occurred"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 5/9/21:
"Markets, A Look Ahead: A False Flag Event Has Occurred"
And so...
Saturday, May 8, 2021
Musical Interlude: John Mellencamp, "Ain't That America"
Full screen recommended.
John Mellencamp, "Ain't That America"
What we once were...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“NGC 253 is not only one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, it is also one of the dustiest. Discovered in 1783 by Caroline Herschel in the constellation of Sculptor, NGC 253 lies only about ten million light-years distant.
NGC 253 is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest group to our own Local Group of Galaxies. The dense dark dust accompanies a high star formation rate, giving NGC 253 the designation of starburst galaxy. Visible in the above photograph is the active central nucleus, also known to be a bright source of X-rays and gamma rays.”
"The Time You Have Left..."
“The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it.
Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.”
~ Leo Babauta
The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Coming Home"
"Coming Home"
"When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place -
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me."
- Mary Oliver
"The Water Pitcher"
"The Water Pitcher"
by Paulo Coelho
"A legend tells of a man who used to carry water every day to his village, using two large pitchers tied on either end of a piece of wood, which he placed across his shoulders. One of the pitchers was older than the other and was full of small cracks; every time the man came back along the path to his house, half of the water was lost. For two years, the man made the same journey. The younger pitcher was always very proud of the way it did its work and was sure that it was up to the task for which it had been created, while the other pitcher was mortally ashamed that it could carry out only half its task, even though it knew that the cracks were the result of long years of work.
So ashamed was the old pitcher that, one day, while the man was preparing to fill it up with water from the well, it decided to speak to him. "I wish to apologize because, due to my age, you only manage to take home half the water you fill me with, and thus quench only half the thirst awaiting you in your house."
The man smiled and said: "When we go back, be sure to take a careful look at the path." The pitcher did as the man asked and noticed many flowers and plants growing along one side of the path. "Do you see how much more beautiful nature is on your side of the road?" the man remarked. "I knew you had cracks, but I decided to take advantage of them. I sowed vegetables and flowers there, and you always watered them. I've picked dozens of roses to decorate my house, and my children have had lettuce, cabbage and onions to eat. If you were not the way you are, I could never have done this. We all, at some point, grow old and acquire other qualities, and these can always be turned to good advantage."
"You Better Decide..."
“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.”
- “Dr. Meredith Grey”, “Grey’s Anatomy"
“The Truth Hurts, But The Lack Of Truth Hurts More”
“The Truth Hurts, But The Lack Of Truth Hurts More”
by Mark Manson
“Each week, I send you three potentially life-changing ideas to help you be a slightly less awful human being. This week, we’re talking about: 1) our inability to be objective about, well, anything, 2) the death of expertise, and 3) opinions are overrated. Let’s get into it.
1. What you see is who you’re with – A few years ago, I wrote an article about the ways our minds fail at interpreting what is objectively true about the world around us. I discussed cognitive biases, heuristics, false memories, and the ways that our neurological machinery is terribly limited. But I might have missed another factor: group identities. Psychologists have long known that 1) our minds warp our perceptions to fit our prior beliefs and self-interests and that 2) our deep need to feel like we belong to a larger group drives a lot of our behavior and reasoning.
Well, these two concepts collided in an interesting new paper by researchers in Denmark and the US. The paper suggests that similar to the way we distort our perceptions to fit our own interests, we might do the same to satisfy the interests of the groups we identify with. Money quote: “In sum, there are several reasons to believe that the human mind prioritizes false over true information in the context of group-conflict. This prioritization is not because the human mind is actively considering and evaluating the veracity of the information and choosing false over true. Rather, it is because that veracity is not the relevant dimension of evaluation; instead, the relevant dimension is mobilization-potential. And here false and extreme information is often more useful.”
In the age of online outrage, I’ve long wondered how it was possible that people of completely opposite belief systems and ideologies could see the same video or image and both come to conclusions that support their prior beliefs. I used to think that people had to be willfully lying about what they saw, or at the very least, so clueless that they couldn’t interpret the information correctly.
But this research suggests that no, it’s not ignorance or willful lying. In the same way some people see this dress as black and blue and other people see it as white and gold, something similar may be occurring when people of two different group identities hear the same speech or see the same news event or read the same article. They see the truth that confirms their group affiliations, but only because their minds unconsciously screen out information and interpretations that might conflict with them.
The paradox of the internet has always been that the thing that’s connecting all of us also seems to be driving us apart. This cognitive blip in our evolutionary machinery could explain why hundreds of millions of people can be given the same information and instead of uniting us under exposure to universal knowledge, it only gives us more opportunities to perceive divisions.
2. The death of expertise – But there’s something else that bothers me about all of the kibitzing that happens online these days, and the events of 2020 have definitely shone a light on it. I’m coming to believe that there’s something about the ability to post something online that gives people a false sense of importance. Maybe there’s an unconscious assumption that just because many people can see what I’m posting, I erroneously believe whatever I post must be important. Call it the, “Sniffing Your Own Farts Theorem” of social media usage… where the more people post stuff, the more likely they are to feel like what they say is terribly important.
In the spring, everyone and their dog became an epidemiological expert overnight. Who knew that Carl the electrician knew so much about contagious viruses! It got so bad that I eventually wrote a long piece in April imploring people to shut the f**k up so scientists could do their work. I see similar trends today, where people I went to grade school with have suddenly become legal experts and are now conducting forensic analyses of cell phone videos. Or where random family members apparently find themselves privy to the back-dealings of the world economy.
A couple of years ago, a book came out called ‘The Death of Expertise.’ It looked at the many ways that, more and more, experts in their fields are either ignored or simply go unheard for various political, social, or economic reasons. In the book, the author points out that the internet gives people the illusion of expertise by flooding them with useless facts and irrelevant information. He argues that true expertise is not in knowing lots of stuff, it’s in the ability to sort the useful from the useless.
But I think there’s something else at work, too – something more subtle and pernicious. The internet is so big and noisy, it is biased towards surprising and unexpected information. As a result, we tend to only hear about laypeople when they say or do something particularly extraordinary – something we would expect from someone much more prominent or famous.
Similarly, we tend to only hear about experts when they make a terrible mistake. You don’t hear about the millions of scientists quietly doing good science each week. You hear about the doctor who f**ked up and who killed a bunch of kids.
Similarly, you don’t hear about the hundreds of millions of Average Joes and Janes going about their lives doing dumb shit. No, you hear about the one extraordinary exception who stood up to tyranny or oppression or the system and turned out to be right.
Play this pattern out enough times and you start to generate a culture that distrusts experts, authority, and traditional systems as people are overexposed to their inevitable flaws. Similarly, you start to see an exaltation of random Joes and Janes who, whether by audacity or plain luck, happened to command a lot of attention for a brief period of time. The result: welcome to 2021.
3. You don’t have to have an opinion – There’s an alternative that’s worth considering here. It’s an alternative rarely discussed. It’s not a popular option. It won’t win you any awards or attention or admiration from anyone. But that’s to simply not have an opinion. It’s easy to forget: you don’t have to have an opinion about everything. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t have many strong opinions about many things for the simple reason that it’s so difficult to be led astray these days.
One thing I’ve been trying to do this year is create an imaginary threshold for myself – to not really have a strong opinion about something until a) I’ve been exposed to at least two different perspectives on it, and b) enough time has passed that people who have actual expertise have analyzed what’s going on to some extent. It’s hard to maintain this, of course. The usual advice about informational exposure and cutting out bullshit news is quite helpful. But it’s a constant work in progress.
But then I also remind myself that events that seem cataclysmic at the moment often end up being hugely positive decades later. That small things that go unnoticed can have big effects and huge events that are impossible to ignore can sometimes be nothing more than a pitiful distraction. I try to remind myself that in the full scope of human history, most of the trends are (still) headed in the right direction, even if I’m not terribly happy with how fast they’re moving at the moment. Because progress often takes detours, hits speed bumps, and sometimes engages in the old loop-de-loop before resuming its course. That maybe I just don’t know what the f**k is going on. And to a certain extent, that can be all right. Until next week…”
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