WAGERS: "Our democracy" hit rock bottom last week!

MONDAY, JULY 1, 2024

A boon for Putin's wager: Long ago and far away, Blaise Pascal, for better or worse, authored a famous wager.

Who the heck was Blaise Pascal? And what exactly was his "wager"—his gamble, his thesis, his bet?

We've never been hugely impressed with the gentleman's wager. That said, the leading authority on the topic thumbnails the matter as shown:

Pascal's Wager

Pascal's wager is a philosophical argument advanced by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian. This argument posits that individuals essentially engage in a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God.

Pascal contends that a rational person should adopt a lifestyle consistent with the existence of God and [should] actively strive to believe in God. The reasoning behind this stance lies in the potential outcomes: 

If God does not exist, the individual incurs only finite losses, potentially sacrificing certain pleasures and luxuries. However, if God does indeed exist, he or she stands to gain immeasurably, as represented for example by an eternity in Heaven in Abrahamic tradition, while simultaneously avoiding boundless losses associated with an eternity in Hell.

"The original articulation of this wager can be found in Pascal's posthumously published work titled Pensées, which comprises a compilation of previously unpublished notes," the authority then reports.

So it went with Pascal's wager! Long story short, with the reasoning, such as it was, only slightly dumbed down:

Pascal didn't believe that anyone could prove the existence of [the conventional Judeo-Christian] God. But just in case that God does exist—just in case that God will punish nonbelievers with the torments of Hell—we should strive to convince ourselves that He [sic] does exist, and we should conform to his rules.

Dumbed down to a slightly greater extent, the wager went like this:

If God doesn't exist, you wasted your time at Mass each week, but the price you paid was minor. 

On the other hand, if God does exist and you thumbed your nose at religious requirements, you may end up burning in Hell.

The so-called "wager" went something like that. Those who seek complexification can immerse themselves in overthinking in Professor Hajek's treatment of the wager for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

People have been discussing Pascal's wager since the dawn of time. By way of contrast, the gamble we'll describe as "Putin's wager" seems to have come about in fairly recent times.

"Putin's wager" seems to go something like this:

Vladimir Putin, the Russian potentate, seems to believe that the future belongs to the autocrats, not to systems like the one we refer to as "our democracy." 

When it comes to systems like ours, he seems to be gambling that "the center [won't be able to] hold." 

We can't necessarily say that the Russian strongman is wrong in this apparent assessment! Consider:

In our view, "our democracy" has been placed under vastly increased levels of stress by the process known as "the democratization of media." 

Also, by the proliferation of "identity groups" within our struggling culture (though no specific "identity group" can be tagged as the source of the problem).

Also, by the punishing limits of human cogitation, a factor we'll survey all week.

Is it possible that Vladimir Putin's wager will pay off?  We would say it's entirely possible! Just consider what happened in Atlanta last Thursday night:

Last Thursday night, in Atlanta, our system was groaning under the strain of at least forty years of journalistic and academic devolution.

Two candidates stood on a stage, hoping to be our nation's next president. They interacted with a pair of major journalists who had agreed that they would question or challenge no misstatements, no matter how absurd.

Operating within this system, the one candidate produced absurd misstatements all night. The other candidate routinely struggled to complete a thought, delivering such statements as this:

MODERATOR (6/29/24): President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to this question about the national debt.

CANDIDATE:  He had the largest national debt of any president four-year period, number one.

Number two, he got $2 trillion tax cut, benefited the very wealthy. What I’m going to do is fix the tax system.  For example:

We have a thousand trillionaires in America–I mean, billionaires in America. 

And what’s happening, they’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent, 25 percent—either one of those numbers—they’d raise 500 million dollars–billion dollars, I should say—in a ten-year period.

We’d be able to right–wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do—childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system—making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the, uh, the Covid—excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, uh—

[PAUSE]

Look—

[PAUSE]

If—

[PAUSE]

We finally beat Medicare.

MODERATOR:  Thank you, President Biden. President Trump?

"We finally beat Medicare?" After a set of pauses and self-corrections, as the culmination of an imponderable overall claim about the way the candidate plans to "fix the tax system," that bizarre statement was delivered at 9:12 p.m. 

(For a fuller assessment of that presentation, you can see Saturday's report.)

"We finally beat Medicare," the stumbling candidate finally said. The moderator simply plowed ahead, as if nothing had happened. 

Earlier, the moderators had done the same thing when the other candidate had grossly misrepresented the basic nature of tariffs.

Full disclosure:

Under current arrangements, the astonishing presentation we've transcribed came from the candidate we'll be voting for in November! By our own assessment, the other candidate would be a much worse bet for our struggling nation.

Fellow citizens, is there a halfway decent chance that Putin's wager will pay off? Please understand:

What we saw last Thursday night was the current functioning of "our democracy" under the strain of forty years of cultural devolution. 

In our view, the exchange we've transcribed involved the more capable of the two men who stood on the stage that night! Aso, it involved the conduct of a major mainstream journalist, who had agreed to "see no evil" all through the course of the evening.

Under this journalistic arrangement, the other candidate issued a string of ludicrous claims all through the course of the event. The candidate for whom we ourselves will vote showed little ability to counteract these crazy statements and claims.

The major journalists who served as moderators made no attempt to react to the other candidate's ludicrous claims. And sure enough:

In kneejerk fashion, many of Blue America's vastly limited "thought leaders" were soon describing these ludicrous statements as "lies." Among various problems with this childish approach, this framework implies that the other candidate isn't cognitively disordered.

Is Putin's wager likely to pay at the betting window? Consider:

By now, each of the candidates on the Atlanta stage has shown overwhelming signs of cognitive incapacitation. Beyond that, a wide range of medical specialists have said, rightly or wrongly, that the candidate for whom we won't be voting has shown unmistakable signs of major psychological / psychiatric disorder.

The people cast as major journalists in our nation's ongoing TV show have agreed that none of these factors should be reported, discussed or evaluated. Beyond that:

As we type this assessment this Monday morning, major thought leaders in Blue America are insisting that the candidate for whom we'll vote simply had "a bad night."

In the face of all this moral and intellectual dysfunction, Vladimir Putin seems to have made a private wager. In our view, Pascal's wager didn't make much sense—but Putin's wager certainly could end up paying off.

It isn't just Candidate Biden! "Our democracy," such as it is, has been visibly struggling for the past forty years. 

It isn't clear that our vastly limited species is built to address such systemic challenges. Reactions to last Thursday's debacle only serve to make the shape of this problem more clear.

"Our democracy" might seem to have hit rock bottom last Thursday night. Sadly enough, the situation could get worse, much worse.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman, seems to have made a private wager. Even as our various "thought leaders" engage in their own unacknowledged wagers, it seems to us that Putin's wager may end up paying off.

"Our democracy," such as it ever was, has been rapidly moving from imperfect to worse. In the aftermath of last Thursday's debacle, we'll be discussing this matter all week.

An array of wagers are involved. We know of no safe bet.

This afternoon: Weekend of the Hunter