Fear Porn, a Nobel Prize and Midwits
An Explanation of the Last 3 Years
I only recently heard the term “midwit”. I hope that doesn’t mean that I actually am one….but it very much ties in with an explanation of the seemingly illogical events of the past three years. Let me attempt to shine a light on the “arrows” than connect the “boxes”, or in network theory jargon, the “edges” that connect the “nodes”.
The term “midwit” originated back in a blog post by Vox Day in February 2012. That was back in the day before the madness infected society and critical thinking was still possible, and, for many, still celebrated.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit
The meme was formed on posts in 4chan, with clever little cartoons that showed the strange consistency between the ideas of those with low and high intelligence, who arrived at the same conclusion but though different means. Those in the middle, the “midwits” were consigned to a different opinion, mostly though conformation bias.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/rule-of-midwits
Please note: I am referencing a number of articles which may use the principle of the midwits to draw a number of conclusions about various ideas with which I may or may not agree. I use them only to show the construct of understanding how the middle of the IQ range may be prey to such conformation biases!
I also point out that I am not the first to raise the topic of the midwits on Substack. The cartoon at the introduction of this piece, as well as this one:
were published before by Wesley Yang:
I was especially amused by the midwit in the second cartoon. Compare his demand with this:
I am not for a moment suggesting that Anthony Fauci is a midwit. Quite the contrary. He is playing to the midwits to whom this all makes perfect sense. Their conformation bias prevents them from seeing what is clearly nonsense. To refrain from ANY treatment except “sickening at home” is the height of idiocy and never was done before in modern medicine, all to make sure that an Emergency Use Authorization could be given to an experimental gene therapy, which completely lacked the type of long-term study always required of real vaccines in the past. Yet somehow, this illogical recommendation was swallowed by many in the public and parroted by those medical elites in public health and academic medicine. WHY???
In order to understand this, you must see the connections (the arrows in an organization chart or the edges in a network graph) between the elements (the boxes in an organization chart or nodes in a network graph):
In Operation Warp Speed, these connections were, and are, just as important as the elements themselves as they give an understanding to actions.
From the beginning, the Department of Defense greatly outnumbered the civilians:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/28/operation-warp-speed-vast-military-involvement/
The closing sentence of the above article is interesting: “BARDA also appears to be fronting a large chunk of the funding for the Warp Speed initiative, alongside the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense.”
What exactly is BARDA?
https://aspr.hhs.gov/AboutASPR/ProgramOffices/BARDA/Pages/default.aspx
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority played a critical role in apportioning the finances of Warp Speed to the cooperative manufacturing companies. It had been led by Rick Bright until he was fired by President Trump. Bright is the individual perhaps most responsible for derailing the efforts to utilize hydroxycholoroquine as part of a multi-agent therapeutic approach for early COVID, paving the way for the Emergency Use Authorization of the gene-therapy mRNA agents, a point about which he has boasted:
Bright went on to an executive position at the Rockefeller Foundation:
https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/profile/dr-rick-bright/
If we see that Anthony Fauci and a number of people who stood to make a lot of money were playing to the midwits, we need to understand how they did it. How did they come to the realization that this segment of the population was key, and how did they sharpen the weaponization of their message? To that we need to understand the message of “framing” found in the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman on Prospect Theory and Loss Aversion that won the Noble Prize for Economics in 2002:
https://thedecisionlab.com/thinkers/economics/daniel-kahneman
They postulated two systems of thinking, System 1 (fast) and System 2 (slow). System 1 is the automatic thinking that we use when we drive a known automobile route, play tennis, or flee from danger. System 2 is the deeper one that takes mental effort, like mental long division or thinking of complicated new automobile routes.
Kahneman came to this idea after years of behavioral science experiments he conducted with Amos Tversky. Together, they realized that when we exert mental energy trying to form a decision (using System 2), we are often overridden by our powerful but illogical System 1, which is automatic and designed to keep us alive.
Kahneman also pointed out:
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.”
So, to manipulate decision making, one has to first induce an overpowering feeling of danger and repeat a message. Bingo! Where have we seen this in the last 3 years? The Fear Porn pedaled by those interested in “never letting the COVID crisis go to waste” was carefully, and in my estimation, willfully, heightened and diffused though our society by the elites though the willing mouths of the midwits in the media, public health, academic medicine and those poor souls who willingly sent their children to get the mRNA agents because they thought they were “doing their thing to help the world”.
Pope Francis went so far as to recommend that everybody had the moral obligation to line up for the jab, even though the mRNA agents did not prevent infection or spread! The message was “to be a good Catholic, you needed the jab”.
The tragedy is that all of these techniques should have been known, as they were outlined in the December 2003 white paper by the US Army on PsyOps (Psychological Operations) entitled, “Tactics, Techniques and Procedures:”
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-05-301.pdf
In order to create a successful PsyOp, the following must be accomplished:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(United_States)
1. clearly define the mission so that it aligns with national objectives
2. need a PSYOP estimate of the situation
3. prepare the plan
4. media selection
5. product development
6. pretesting - determines the probable impact of the PSYOP on the target audience
7. production and dissemination of PSYOP material
8. implementation
9. posttesting - evaluates audience responses
10.feedback
Interestingly enough, the above Wikipedia entry contains the following:
U.S. PSYOP forces are generally forbidden to attempt to change the opinions of "U.S. persons" (citizens, residents, or legal entities), in any location globally.[8][9] However, commanders may use PSYOP forces to provide public information to U.S. audiences during times of disaster or crisis. Information support to a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) by PSYOP forces to provide evacuation information to U.S. and third-country nationals would also adhere to the order.[7] The use of PSYOP forces to deliver necessary public information to a U.S. audience was established in relief activities after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Tactical Psychological Operations teams (TPTs) were employed to disseminate information by loudspeaker on locations of relief shelters and facilities.
During such Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) operations, military public affairs activities, military civil authority information support (CAIS) activities, public information actions, and news media access to the DSCA operational area are subject to approval by the federal department or agency assigned primary responsibility for managing and coordinating a specific emergency support function in the National Response Framework. Since October 2018, PSYOP forces may be employed domestically for such CAIS activities during an emergency under direction of the Department of Homeland Security.
So, there in a nutshell is the explanation for the Great COVID Disaster. It wasn’t illogical at all! The elites understood the power of the midwits and used them as willing tools to effect an outcome they desired. Was that outcome economic, political, social or ALL OF THE ABOVE?
One thing, however, is clear: it would never have been successful unless the media and medicine were comprised primarily of midwits. The profession to which I dedicated my professional life seems to be controlled by individuals who have no more altruism or courage than those running a pickle factory…perhaps less. That is no slam on those running pickle factories. If they make good pickles and are fair in their business dealings, they are doing what is expected. However, we expect a certain degree of altruism and courage from those in whom we entrust our health and lives. Sadly, the trust of the general public in physicians has plummeted in response to the Great COVID Disaster. And it is not just the leaders in medicine. The vast majority of practicing physicians seem to have followed the example of their fellow physicians of 80 years ago:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/fernandes-doctors-who-became-nazis
The few notable and courageous exceptions have been hounded, cancelled and persecuted with relentless fervor, oftentimes by their former colleagues. That is especially true at some noted and “famous” academic institutions. We absolutely need to reform medical education to prevent an even more catastrophic repeat of this shameful episode in the future. We need to change the way in which we select those entering the profession as well as the standards for advancement within it.
Our current model of medical education has produced, and is continuing to produce, a profession of midwits! Unless we understand the value of critical thinking, integrity, courage and moral responsibilities, medicine and society will be lost. A profession of social justice warrior physicians will be of no use if society itself collapses. Medicine will not heal itself. It needs the active intervention on the part of those whom medicine serves. Society must demand a return to the ideals contained in the Hippocratic Oath.
This makes so much sense! You are right, we need to stand up and demand better of our medical community. I demand it divorces itself from big Pharma, who has been controlling everything from the medical schools, to research, to journals, to medical centers, to the doctors themselves. Allopathic medicine needs to become more holistic and less reliant on drugs!
As a nowit, I give this stack 👍👍👍