Greetings, everyone! Today we are going to talk about 11 techniques for developing critical thinking. Probably everyone will not understand why to do it and what results to expect. However, when the simple things form the basis of the complex there is always a misunderstanding.
In this article we will deal not only with critical thinking, but also with intelligence.
Intelligence is the basis of critical thinking. Few people use it when society is under media pressure. However, if this continues, degradation is inevitable. In this article you will read part of an interview with Jacques Fresco. In my opinion it was he who clearly and understandably dispelled the veil of fog that shrouds the human mind.
Few people know him, but this man was widely known in narrow circles. To this day his name and experience help people understand what man is really all about.
Fresco died at 101, retaining a clear mind and a brilliant worldview. And so here it is, part of his interview, in text:
Jacques Fresco’s Venus Project
In the future there will be no publicity all this will go away. There will be no need to go to Fresco asking, “Can I go sailing on Saturday?” You’re already the 15th petitioner. We’ve already set up more boats than there was demand. So, go for a ride, you don’t even have to fill out anything!
You walk into a restaurant and as soon as you sit down at the table the menu lights up without you doing anything. A picture appears. And when the menu lights up, you can place your order aloud or using the buttons.
And there is a sensor in the table that scans you, whether you have diabetes or not. The prescription adapts immediately. You don’t have to say “I have diabetes” or “I can’t have whipped cream and honey together.” It won’t need to be said.
That’s what I mean by future directions. Tables and chairs will all be smart! You leave the room-the lights go out! Savings. I don’t have to turn it off myself.
When you bring your phone or tablet closer, the focus gets bigger. See? We haven’t even begun to apply this knowledge to life!
There were no other systems, well almost. There’s the government in the picture over there, behind you! See the ground and the displays? That’s the government of the future without people. Because people shit themselves every time they got to power!
All rulers are bought and sold! They start wars, drive countries into crisis, and never solve problems! And this is how this government works:
- The Department of Agriculture is a computerized system.
- However, it is not one computer, but six connected in a loop.
- If one computer breaks down, another one insures it.
Government without people.
That’s how they will work. Next: sensors are inserted into the ground. If the water reading drops, then watering from the center is turned on. If the soil is low on nutrients, then the system pumps them up! Do you get it? For those who don’t know what I’m talking about read more.
About 10 months ago, developers from IBM were working with computers and it turned out that they(computers) could process somewhere around 1,000 trillion operations per second! No group of people is capable of that, whatever they end up there!
1000 trillion operations per second! So, when there is one world in the future, industry and transportation will have to be run by computers!
Because only they can manage the global system! People won’t be able to cope! If you still don’t understand, here’s an example: When I was a kid people used to look out of planes and say to the ground about a mile and a half!
Now there are Doppler radars! Do you know what it is? It (radar) sends a signal to the ground, gets a response and says you’re at 1615 m and 2 cm.
People can’t do that! You know what I mean? Some people write articles against the Venus Project. Like this guy wants machines to decide everything. That’s not true. That’s just not humanly possible!
That’s why he uses Doppler radar! There are night vision goggles with infrared beams which show soldiers walking through the woods in complete darkness! Thanks to the infra-red rays!
People can’t do that! Nowadays they put such beams on robots and machine guns! And when a man in a certain uniform appears, the machine gun fires. People can’t do that. It’s not that I like machines more than people, I’m just explaining that machines should rule, because they can do better than us!
You probably don’t remember, I don’t think, but people used to drive elevators! There was a woman standing nearby and turning the lever. And the elevator just wouldn’t go. I had to dig around, call the fitter, repair, until it was normal! Now you push button 17 and the elevator takes you there in a jiffy! It doesn’t go between floors.
Using modern technology
You can talk to anyone in the world from your phone! Do you get it? Some roboticists, those who study robots, write in books that machines will take over! That’s not true.
That’s because a machine has no aspirations! It doesn’t want to take over! It has no aspirations! If you take a computer and smash it in front of 15 others, they won’t say, “We’ll get back at you! Maybe not today, but we’ll get our revenge!”
Robots have no impulses, no aspirations. So a government of robots will only keep track of farms, population and calculate how much food to grow to feed all the mouths!
You see? It won’t be directing, it will only be controlling the machinery. Machines will not rule over humans. Remember this. In the Venus Project, the computer government doesn’t run people, it runs the railroads, the distribution of goods and services, automation, and so on. But not people. Is this clear?
Machines are amplifiers of human functions. For example, you call your grandmother. It’s three miles to her house. You say, “Will you be home on Saturday?” “Yes, come and visit,” you get the answer. But without the phone, you’d be there, and she wouldn’t be home.
So the phone is an amplifier! Do you understand that? All machines are amplifiers. For example: first they dug with their hands, and then invented shovels. It became easier. A lot of people say, “I hate cars!” That’s what people who lose their jobs because of new machines say.
Problems of human degradation
Here they are angry at the machines, but the machines of the future will free people from work. There will be no miners in the future. Coal will be mined by machines and automatically. We don’t want people doing dirty or dangerous jobs! Do you understand?
You don’t need people to do this monotonous work. I don’t want a girl like you behind a store counter. “Can I help you ma’am? It’s not a head job. She’s selling bright lipstick and hair lotion.
A woman works like that for 18 years and then she goes into retirement and you know what’s in her head? Hairspray and lipsticks and shit like that!
For example, a man works eight hours a day, now he will work four. The machine does ten times what you do, so I’ll pay you more. But that’s not what employers do! They cut people down and lay them off or give them jobs to China. Labor is cheap there.
It seems like he wouldn’t pay a maid $5.00 and 65 cents an hour, but $10.00 an hour. Then here he is a good man, you say. He builds playgrounds for children, female workers in his factory. You can’t go to waste with him, sort of. You know?
But in real life, you’d be fired, and he’d give all the work to China. So you, if you were an employer, would also start giving jobs to China, while forgetting about ethics.
Religion is the opium for the people
Going to church, believing in God, saying the words “good man” and “ethics” is not profitable. You’re working in a department store and a woman asks: “How much is this lamp?” You’re like, “$20,” and you’re like, “Give me two.”
However, like a righteous Christian, you say, “If you walk two blocks, there’s the same lamp for ten bucks.” You wouldn’t work at my store for long! You know what I mean? It’s hard to be decent in a world of money. Is that clear?
That’s why I think the system run by people is the source of all evil. Even in the Bible it says, “The love of money is the root of all evil. Jesus drove money out of the temple. If anyone’s a believer, I’m not. But now it’s back.
We handed money, public money, to people who created problems. Did you get that? People not only need to be shown them (the problems), but there’s a lot to teach them. In nature there is such a thing as dynamic equilibrium.
The equilibrium of a dynamic system
It means that if we have 100 acres and we have four rabbits on it, the rabbits eat the roots of the plants. There are also two foxes. If there is a drought, the rabbits will die and so will the foxes.
But if there are lots of roots, the rabbits will multiply and so will the foxes. However, foxes cannot breed beyond the potential capacity of the environment.
In other words, if you breed more people than the Earth can feed, there will be riots, famine, and crime. Therefore it is necessary to study the potential carrying capacity of each region of the Earth and keep the population within the potential carrying capacity.
This wasn’t Fresco’s idea, you know? I’m not a dictator. Understand this. A bunch of scientists are not eager to show people the workings and technology. First we need to estimate how much transportation we have, how much arable land we have. That will show how many people can be fed.
Then make global health statistics, by country, for all physical illnesses. Only then do we build hospitals according to the statistics. Not that we build and hope that in 4 years there will be enough customers in the hospital.
The hospital business goes bust, too, because the system is garbage. It is detrimental in all areas. I don’t see any merit in this system other than technology. That’s where we’re figuring it out. In other areas, however, we are slowing down.
Betrayal of scientists
And it’s also interesting that scientists used to write books in their first books about what lies ahead for us, “Why humans won’t be able to fly.” I don’t know if you’ve seen them or not? They’ve been out of print for a long time.
But the Right brothers didn’t read those books and made a flying car. When scientists do that, they betray the scientific method. That’s how you can write: “I personally can’t imagine how a man can fly.
However, many people have developed a strong ego. It is one of the most pernicious things when you can substitute ego for the desire to share ideas. This is the beginning of real development. Start there. And it is also good to tell people that you were once the same way and thought the same way.
Otherwise it will be that you are talking down. It’s unpleasant to listen to. Do you understand? You say, “I was as dumb as you” or “I’ve done a lot of stupid things too.”
The man doesn’t want you to be smarter than he is. Don’t forget! When confronted with an egoist, which is what such people are called, he always tries to hold on to his position as leader.
Going back to religion
I recently read in the newspaper about a girl who was about 15 or 16 years old. She said she was about to get on an airplane when suddenly she felt something. She didn’t understand what it was, but she decided not to fly. And the plane went down and 150 people died.
And she said: “Jesus kept me safe.” I read that she would be speaking at the Praetorian Church of Hollywood. She told the story to the whole parish and when she finished they said, “God bless you. Amen.”
I got up in the pulpit and said, “Jesus rejected you. He took those 150 people to him.” It worked well. I then stood outside the church. People came up and shook my hand and said, “And somehow I didn’t think on this side.” It’s just that when they say, ‘Jesus saved me’-“Who are you to be so important?
I try to tell people that, but here at church I was just wondering what would happen when I said it. So I waited outside and people reacted positively. To religious people I suggest that instead of all ideals, all religions make a union of people on earth.
No borders, no one profits from their neighbors. It happens very often people do not understand that. Say a man does not understand and says, “There is my kingdom in heaven, not on earth. It is often said that way. There is what is called the Lord’s Prayer. In it Jesus says, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
There’s no money, no firms, no private property in heaven-hook that up and lead them with that closest thing to religion. Explain it to people. I am confident that if we achieve all this, the contribution to Progress will be enormous. Without limitations, every laboratory will have everything it needs.
The absence of prudence and rationality
They will no longer have to beg and sell. We’ll give every lab everything they need. Do you understand? That’s the smart man’s approach to people. It’s like everyone understands his logic. That it is enough to talk. But they can kick you in the neck for being reasonable.
Suppose you’re very sensible and you serve in the army. And in some other country, on guard duty, all of a sudden you look at the bushes and they’re shaking. And you’re like, “Uh-oh, what if it’s our wounded man crawling.” You go to look and you get killed. And you’re gone. I mean, discretion is sometimes deadly. You know what I mean?
That’s why you have to play by the rules of the person you’re talking to. You figure out his condition and find an approach. If that doesn’t work, you go in from the other side. And do not use the same method until you find 50 different approaches to people. That’s the only way to talk sense into them.
Where does the knowledge come from?
Jacques is asked the question, “Do you have these approaches written down or do you just know them all and don’t make mistakes?” I’m not saying I know everything, I learn new approaches every year and don’t make mistakes.
That’s where the knowledge came from. Another man made a pair of wings. It was true, they were a meter long, and he jumped off the Eiffel Tower and crashed! His cousin wrote, “make the wings bigger next time.” That’s where it all comes from. That’s what it means.
No one makes mistakes. That’s what we do with cognition. They are often limited and one suffers. Do you understand what I mean when I say I don’t make mistakes? And if I mix substances in search of a stronger plastic, I don’t know what will turn out. The metallurgist doesn’t know either.
He mixes different metals and sees what comes out, but he can’t be wrong. If the lava boils and burns his fingers, he writes to himself, “Don’t do this or that, don’t mix that.” Where else do you think knowledge comes from? So that people don’t make mistakes.
Also, this understanding is consistent with the principle that people don’t actually make decisions right. We are driven by circumstances.
If a man says, “I’m going to marry a Swede,” he must be a Swede himself, right? I had a friend who was Swedish, and every time lightning flashed, his mother wailed: “Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming.”
The influence of the environment on a person
That’s how she reacted to lightning. Did she choose to speak that way? No. She learned it in Sweden. We don’t make decisions, even though I feel like I’m deciding something. Why do so many people do evil things? Why don’t they listen to you? Because my ideas are very difficult to understand.
When they say, “I believe in our country-this is the best country in the world.” It’s easy to answer and say, “I agree with you. But when you start to go deeper into how America got there, it’s hard to agree. It’s too complicated. The man falls asleep! You see? Intelligence-it’s complicated!
There are so many questions and thoughts when people say, “I love my country. If you don’t like something, get the fuck out!” That kind of thing is very easy to understand. That’s why most people are primitive.
That kind of thing is easy to understand: “Do the right thing.” That’s it. What’s the right thing to do? But they say to me, “I give you a question and you give me a whole lecture. Can you just answer it?”
Well, you know, there are no easy answers. All the questions are very complicated. Why do some people work hard and others don’t work at all? It’s not because he’s lazy. It’s understandable when you start to figure out how a person became like that. Why he avoids this work.
Then you get to know the nature of the factors that form that person’s behavior. Is that clear? It’s-it’s too complicated. You have to, when you get to know a person and decide to fix him, do the following thing.
Suppose you decide and ask him, “Which of the people you admire the most”-that’s when you get acquainted. I don’t know the person yet, and he answers: “Rubilo Malone. Knocked a man out with one punch.” It would take 20 years to cure a man like that, so I give up talking to him.
If, after everything you’ve been through, he’s your idol, you’re a moron. You can’t take away 15 years of conviction. It’s not worth it. So, first scout what he likes, what does not, what interests him, and then you say goodbye to him if the man is selfish. There are adequate people closer to our worldview.
Principles of future management
Communicate with them first and also remember we don’t need to convince everyone. 7,000 people are enough to govern everything on Earth. We don’t need billions of loyal employees. Thanks to automation, we don’t need everyone’s approval! Do you understand?
Don’t get sympathy speeches, I don’t do that! I only tell you what I think. Whoever doesn’t like it can leave. But most who come here are somewhat familiar with “Zeitgeist” or “The Venus Project.” They’re easier to deal with.
But if I talk to people on the street, I won’t be as forthright. I’ll be softer. It’s like a game of chess. You have to pick your moves. Don’t expect your words to be understood. Such expectations are fraught with disaster!
Conclusion
I came across this interview with Fresco, almost immediately, after the other one. I saw it on Youtube, where Valeriy Ryzhov said almost the same thing I had heard from Jacques more than once. I recommend everyone to watch it. This one:
It seems to me, that said, I dare not claim that there are very many ways to become smarter and increase the level of intelligence. Let it be this way or that-it does not matter. But we all need to learn to hear each other, to speak in words whose meaning we understand in the same way.
One person’s great knowledge may lead to a conflict with another person, or to a lot of misunderstanding with a third person who has no such knowledge. All the more practical.
And stepping on a rake, if you are warned about a blow to the head in advance, a person initially makes himself look like an idiot. It’s not me who said it, it’s Fresco, but in other words. I only agree with him!
Good luck to all!
