16th September 2024 / Written by Alex
Category: Mindset
Are you kidding me? You've clicked on a blog article about truth? Philosophers have fought about this for millennia. How the hell should I know what truth even is? You know, there are moments in life in which you question reality. Moments that you will remember and wonder "did that really happen?" because they feel surreal. The birth of my first daughter was such a moment. I'd never experienced anything as impactful and surreal before and never have I experienced anything similar after. And when a child grows up the only reference of information that it has are its senses and its parents. A child will believe anything you tell it. When you realize what a huge responsibility that is it will hit you hard. You will be responsible for shaping the belief system of another human being. And you should do your f*in best. But what I'm trying to tell you is that a small child will never ask the question "Is that true?" until it will only later on learn that information can also be false. This is something that we as grownups tend to forget when we consume information. We treat certain people or media as sources of absolute truth as if we were a little kid and the news anchor was our dad. When did you question your sources the last time?
This is one of the most crucial moments in a child’s life. It's not only the discovery that information can be false but that itself can produce false information. And, oh boy, will this child use this new superpower to enforce its own agenda on its parents. There is a movie by Ricky Gervais called The Invention of Lying which is exactly about this moment but with adults. It takes place in a world where nobody has ever lied before. Everyone is constantly telling the truth, always, until the main protagonist suddenly says something "that isn't". It is so weird for him at first and then it feels like a superpower because everyone around him instantly believes anything he says to be the absolute truth. So, lying to somebody else who believes anything you say gives you a lot of power. Consequently, I'd say that somebody in power will always hide the truth when the truth would undermine his power. After all, people who have power want to keep that power, don't they?
The best example for hiding the truth to stay in power are politicians. I'm not saying that all of them are constantly lying to us but I'm pretty sure that they often try to "bend" their truth so that selling it to us becomes way easier. Think about dictators. Once they are in power, they do everything to keep it. Money will quickly become obsolete to them and the only thing that will matter is staying in power or getting more power. And when they get old, they also want to build a legacy to be remembered. Even pseudo elected "dictators" will act the same. They invade countries like the Ukraine and tell their own people that it is just a special operation. It seems as if truth is subjective. But it isn't. There is perspective and there is universal, factual truth. Invading an independent and souverain country is no special operation, it is war. Unfortunately, a lot of innocent people will lose their lives for crazy ideologies and a dictator's truth. Connecting that to this site's main theme I'd say: This is no AlphaMale behavior. As an Alpha, and especially when you are in a leading position, you put the needs of others before yours. A lion would always protect his pack getting heavily injured or sometimes he'd even die for it. Sending innocent men into battle to fight for your small dick though, is just pathetic PseudoAlpha behavior. And what about truly elected politicians? They know that their power is limited in time. They focus way more on amassing money.
"Show me the money, Jerry!" Have you seen Jerry Maguire? A Tom Cruise classic from 1996. Anyway, I imagine politicians to say those words when they talk to lobbyists. Think about this: Big companies want to make a lot of money. Elected politicians want to make a lot of money and they have access to a lot of tax payer money. But they can't just take it. They need to make contracts with companies to be able to spend the tax money. This means companies need politicians. And I'm sure those politicians get way more back than just a "Thank you". I'm sure that big bags of tax money are flowing back into the politicians’ private pockets, unofficially of course. Take the German green party for example. Before the election at the end of 2021, they screamed "No more weapon deliveries! Weapons are bad!". Then came February 2022 and there was war in Europe. After the green party became part of the government they suddenly screamed "We need to deliver more weapons into Ukraine! We need weapons for peace!". What a coincidence that the arms industry is one of the biggest sectors in Germany. How come the green party's truth suddenly changed? Yes, of course. Money! And that's how 100 billion euros flowed to the arms industry, just like that. Politicians see an opportunity to spend tax money combined with a great story to sell it to the voters and they take it. You just need to sell it to the voters with lots of interviews and pseudo arguments and wait for your bag of tax money to be handed over back to you behind closed doors.
All the information you let yourself believe to be true creates a bubble around you. And some people create really thick bubbles. They are so thick that no logical argument, no proof, no facts, no numbers can enter that bubble. These people just believe what they want to believe. They have their "truth" and nothing else matters. Getting into arguments with such people is like talking to a donkey. It just leads nowhere. Don't waste your time. I recently thought about the bubbles we live in. There is your personal bubble with your own perspective on things. There is your family bubble in which you share common opinions and values and maybe you have a neighborhood or town bubble. Or there is a bigger social circle bubble that you share with friends and colleagues. No matter how many bubbles you live in, never stop questioning things.
When you give this obvious advice everyone just says: Yeah, of course! But do you? I mean, really? When was the last time you questioned information from the news or a social media post or what all those influences on social media tell you? When did you research something on your own the last time? You know, our brains are wired to save energy. Most of the time we run in auto-pilot. We are not really aware all the time and with all these floods of information that enters our brain daily it has become even harder to be stay aware and mindful. Have you ever felt like as if time flies by? That's because you're not aware. You've spent your days in auto-pilot consuming lots of content on your phone. Being more aware and mindful can be learned. If you go about your day like a zombie, mostly due to your phone, you won't be able to question your world. You'll just stay a rat in a maze going to work to pay taxes.
I said that I see it this way: There is perspective and there is universal, factual truth. This means to find out the truth behind things you basically do two things. First, when somebody tells you something, be it on the news or online, always ask yourself "Who would benefit from that?". Remember? Follow the money like Alice followed the rabbit and you'll find out what is going on. Second, research the numbers. When politicians tell you "We need to electrify all vehicles in the country and that's why we need this tax!" and you do your research and you calculate that you'd need like 300 nuclear power plants to achieve that while there are like none, you know that you've been bullshitted. There are a lot of studies on lies. This article e.g., says that on average we hear about 200 lies a day. Depending on the number of people you interact with of course. Anyway, maybe you give it a read. Now I'll have to go and feed my dragons with puppies. Just kidding, they only eat kittens.
Stay Awesome
Alex