THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2026
It's the semi-stupidity, Stupid: We humans just aren't super-sharp.
That doesn't mean that we're bad people; it means that we're people people. Still, this shortcoming tends to obtain all the way up the line:
Here's an anecdote from the career of (Lord) Bertrand Russell, IQ roughly three million. It's drawn from Stephen Budianky's 2021 biography of Kurt Gödel:
Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel
[...]
(page 108): ...Russell's idea had been to establish the soundness of mathematics by showing how it could all be reduced to principles of logic so self-evident as to be beyond doubt. Defining even the simplest operations of arithmetic in terms of what Russell called such "primitive" notions, however, was far from an obvious task. Even the notion of what a number is raised immediate problems. The laboriousness of the methodology and notation was all too evident in the (often remarked) fact that that it took more than seven hundred pages to reach the conclusion, "1 + 1 = 2," a result which Russell and Whitehead described as "occasionally useful."
As far as we know, that "often remarked" fact is an actual fact. In Budiansky's formulation, Russell and Whitehead performed that act of labor in their giant text, Principia Mathematica.
(How giant was it? According to Budiansky, Russell and Whitehead's "massive manuscript, with its complex notation which could only be written out laboriously by hand, had to be carted in a four-wheeler cab to the offices of the Cambridge University Press when it was finally done." Years after publication, Russell is quoted as having said this: "I used to know of only six people who had read the later parts of the book." Russell was gifted with a self-effacing sense of humor.)
In the passage we've posted, Budiansky seems to be chuckling about that apparent side trip to the dark side of Neptune on the part of Russell and Whitehead. One page later, he discusses a related, extremely well-known artefact of academic logic--the peculiarity famously known as "Russell's Paradox:"
(page 109): "Russell's Paradox," as it came to be known, echoed paradoxes that had been around since antiquity. The prototype is the Liar's Paradox, attributed to Epimenides the Cretan, who asserted, "All Cretans are liars." Russell noted that this was akin to the conundrum posed by a piece of paper on which the sentence, "The statement on the other side of this paper is false" is written on one side, and the sentence "The statement on the other side of this paper is true" on the other.
"It seemed unworthy of a grown man to spend his time on such trivialities," Russell later recalled, and "at first, I supposed that I should be able to overcome the contradictions quite easily, and that there was some trivial error in the reasoning." The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was a flaw in the reasoning too deep to be ignored...
Budiansky seems to be taking this foolishness seriously. We can't tell you why.
At any rate, so it went as people with the planet's highest IQs ran down famous rabbit holes of their own peculiar making.
Luckily, CNN's Harry Enten isn't quite that smart! On the other hand, he recently stood in line to join the crowd of observers who are puzzled, or who are willing to say they're puzzled, by this puzzling manifestation:
...CNN Data Guru Stunned by Democrats’ ‘Nutty’ Lack of Pride in America
CNN’s Harry Enten expressed shock over Democrats’ lack of pride in America during a Tuesday morning segment previewing the country’s 250th birthday celebration.
After being asked, “Who is proud to be an American?” by anchor John Berman, Enten replied:
"There is such a polarization, partisan split on this issue, the largest that I’ve ever seen. Just take a look at this. This is where it really gets interesting, and I would dare say a little bit nutty..."
You can continue reading from there. Fox has been pimping this blather quite hard. We stop here to ask a question:
Is there anyone alive on the planet who doesn't know why liberals, Blues, progressives or Dems might balk at expressing pride in this country at this particular point in time?
Really? Is anyone really that dumb? You may not agree with, or share, the outlook of those citizens. But is anyone really so dumb that they can't discern at least one obvious reason for this "nutty" manifestation?
Moving right along, we move to some recent cable news ratings, as reported by Forbes. We start with some of the basic numbers, before a Forbes writer does it again:
Fox News Beats CBS, NBC And All Of Cable TV In Prime Time
Fox News Channel ended the second quarter with a strong ratings delivery in June, leading not just every network in cable TV in prime time, but outperforming CBS and NBC as well. In June, Fox had an average weekday prime time audience of 2.63 million viewers, compared to NBC’s 2.42 million viewers and CBS’s 2.05 million viewers.
For the second quarter, Fox News finished first among the cable news networks with 2.5 million viewers in prime time, well ahead of MS NOW (1.06 million viewers) and CNN (716,000 viewers).
For better or worse, Fox News averaged roughly 30 percent more viewers than MS NOW and CNN combined. Moving right along once again, these were the top-rated programs:
FNC’s The Five continued its incredible run as the most-watched show in cable news...In the second quarter, The Five finished first with an average total audience of 3.58 million viewers, followed by Jesse Watters Primetime (3.23 million viewers), Gutfeld! (2.84 million viewers), Hannity (2.8 million viewers), and Special Report with Bret Baier (2.72 million viewers)--all airing on Fox News.
[...]
In June, The Five was most-watched with 3.39 million total viewers, followed by Jesse Watters Primetime (2.96 million viewers), Gutfeld! (2.64 million viewers), Special Report with Bret Baier (2.55 million viewers), and Hannity (2.41 million viewers).
As a rough rule of thumb, the dumber it gets, the more people watch. By the way, do those numbers include a given evening's rebroadcasts, or are they just the numbers for the initial airings?
In all our years of checking such numbers, we've never seen anyone say!
Speaking of the stupidity, Stupid, we'll quit with this classic mandated memorized press corps howler:
The end of CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert left Fox News with the most-watched show in late night, with Gutfeld! drawing 2.8 million viewers...
There's no way to make them stop doing this! According to every known expert, Gutfeld! airs at 10 p.m. in the east, 7 p.m. on the coast. According to normal parlance, it simply isn't a late-night show, except 1) in Fox News Channel propaganda releases, and 2) inside the brains of the journalists who rush to repeat such claims.
Russell and Whitehead filled 700 pages. Judged by the norms of the species, they were extremely high-IQ.
"Why does arithmetic need a foundation," Wittgenstein thoughtfully asked.
"At any rate, so it went as people with the planet's highest IQs ran down famous rabbit holes of their own peculiar making. "
ReplyDeleteCalling logic a rabbit hole and sniffing at it, as if it were trivial, is Somerby's way of salving his own ego. Somerby once claimed that Godel contributed nothing with his own thinking, despite the fact that grad students in several disciplines (including my own) are routinely taught Godel's work as a foundation to delving deeper into their own fields.
There is another type of limited mind that will not consider anything important if it is not immediately useful in some applied way. Those folks were always attacking the funding of theoretical work because it produced nothing concrete that they could appreciate. But this is the nature of science -- the practicality is not always known at the start of investigations.
Godel laid a foundation for computational modeling and computer science. He is why we now have AI and data mining. It is important to keep computers from disappearing down rabbit holes built into their code by unwary scientists.
Somerby divides expertise into things he understands and things he doesn't understand, then he dismisses the things he doesn't understand as useless, and blames those who created that knowledge for his own ignorance. Somerby is a good example of someone unfit to be any kind of intellectual. He lacks respect for knowledge, those who create it, and the process of creating it. He doesn't deserve to benefit from what others have built, but there is no practical way to keep that from happening.
"Streaming platforms (such as YouTube and Netflix) have officially surpassed cable news in total viewership and audience reach, accounting for nearly 45% to 47% of all U.S. television usage.In comparison, cable television sits at around 24% of overall TV consumption. Streaming platforms like YouTube and Netflix frequently account for a larger share of all TV viewing time individually than the entire cable news sector combined. " Even AI knows this, but not Somerby, apparently.
ReplyDelete"The series finale of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert drew an audience of 6.74 million live and same-day viewers."
ReplyDeleteSomerby wants to quibble over whether Gutfeld is a late-night show or prime time, with his 2.8 million viewers. Why?
""Why does arithmetic need a foundation," Wittgenstein thoughtfully asked."
Who is smarter, the person asking a question or the person answering it? Somerby's purpose is to portray smart people as dumb. Who does that? Assholes who don't appreciate the gifts smart people have left the world to enjoy. Including mathematics, logic, and now computer science. Gutfeld has done nothing with his life, nor has Somerby.
So sad that Somerby has wasted so much of his life worrying about his own IQ. If he had devoted the same time to thinking about mathematics, he might be able to answer Wittgenstein's question, instead of mocking the fields of logic and philosophy.
ReplyDeleteNo one forced Somerby to study philosophy at Harvard. If he didn't like his major, he should have changed it to something useful, like Teacher Education and Training. Imagine how different his life would be if he had learned to like something!
Simon Rosenberg says this:
ReplyDelete"We are seeing a new Democratic Party emerge before our eyes. Our goal here at Hopium is to work hard to ensure that this new Party that we are building is better than what came before, and not just new and different; that it fields candidates who fit their states and districts, and can best represent their own constituencies; and that we must strive to be both warriors for working people and defenders of freedom and democracy, here and everywhere. I call this embracing the rainbow, an acknowledgement that our party must be diverse to be successful; that there is no one path forward for us but many; that as we go forward we must hang together or we will hang separately; and that we must at all times as we build this next party be respectful of one another, inform and not inflame, listen more and shout less, and welcome the debate about our future and not run from it." [Hopium Chronicles]
Robert Reich says this:
ReplyDelete"Job growth slowed considerably last month. Employers added a less-than-expected 57,000 jobs in June, according to Labor Department data out today.
That’s far below the 129,000 jobs added in May and comes amid high anxiety about the state of the American economy.
According to today’s report, average hourly earnings increased by 3.5 percent. But prices are increasing at an annual rate of 4.2 percent.
What do you get when prices are increasing faster than wages? You get people who are becoming poorer. And what do you get when people become poorer? Angry voters.
Trump is constantly talking about the strength of the stock market. This morning he even shared a link to an article called “S&P 500 closes with strongest quarter since 2020.” Yesterday, when asked about the huge profits he’s made off his stock trades, he countered "Well, you know why I'm profiting? Cause the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting."
The truth is most Americans aren’t profiting in the stock market. The richest 10 percent own over 90 percent of the value of all shares of stock. The richest 1 percent own over half of the value of all shares of stock.
Trump frequently points to 401(k) accounts as evidence of Americans benefiting from the strong stock market. But only around a third of working-age individuals have any savings at all in 401(k) accounts. About 40 percent of all Americans having no retirement savings whatsoever.
Bottom line: It’s a lousy economy. Anyone who voted for Trump in 2024 should have buyer’s remorse."
I am proud of what happens when different people and nations work together. For example:
ReplyDelete"Mexico’s Los Topos Azteca, the civilian rescue brigade born from the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, is deploying to Venezuela after quakes killed more than 2,200 people. Known as “moles” for crawling through collapsed buildings, the brigade has become a symbol of Mexican disaster response and exported rescue practices now used around the world."