Think Better - A Brain Dump

About Poor Decisions

Standard preamble: (1) These are my opinions and nothing more. I could be wrong about every single assertion I make. Deal with it. (2) Do your own research and come to your own conclusions like a functional adult.

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In the last 6 years, I’ve been watching closely what has been going on, trying to figure out exactly what is happening globally. One of the categories of this is the behavior of my fellow Humans. I’ve noticed that I think quite differently than most people to varying degrees depending on who I’m being compared against. I have realized that I was blessed with a very rare upbringing that led to lighter indoctrination than most received and also strongly reinforced certain habits that most don’t have. The result is that I believe I think more clearly than most.

I’ve made a line item list of the specific differences I’ve found and I’ll try to explain each. Some points are guidelines about how people think and others are common misconceptions that most are tricked into by those who seek to enslave you.

I’m writing this just to help others in clarifying their thought processes. I hope it helps someone.

After writing this, I can say confidently that this may not be the most cohesive article I’ve written. It is more of a brain-dump of things I’ve thought about having to do with how people think. I hope you get something out of it and I’m sorry if you don’t! I’m not going to worry too much about it.

Logical vs. Emotional Thinking

When I was 8 years old (1975), my father took me into a computer store and I was immediately fascinated by the notion of being able to program a machine to do whatever I wanted. Over the next two years, I spent most days walking to and from the closest computer store (0.7 miles away) and playing with the computers. The staff, baffled by me, were very helpful in showing me how to program the computers and I learned a lot. There was another computer store in town and I rode my bike there when I could. I met other kids my age who had the same interests and ended up with a small but tight set of acquaintances. We all learned from each other and grew up loosely over the years. You may have heard of this before - Silicon Valley’s whiz kids.

My first computer, an Apple ][ in 1977. I liked touching keys more than girls until I was 16…and even then…

I spent most of my free time between 8 and 10 years old programming computers or hand writing BASIC programs. I got thrown out of classrooms for this. I got D’s and F’s in school. I was told I would never amount to anything. Since then, I’ve built my own supercomputer. It is pretty clear those school teachers were not as smart as they thought they were.

What actually happened is that I found my first passion and absorbed it like a sponge. I didn’t spend nearly as much time doing normal things with other kids - I was much more interested in learning. Because of this, I avoided much of the indoctrination that slowly programs kids to become zombies.

One of the most prominent effects of this is that I learned that I was usually the problem. Computers don’t make mistakes. If a program didn’t do what I expected, it was because I screwed up — NOT because the computer was wrong.

In contrast, most other kids learned that they could make excuses, lie about things and wiggle out of many things. But in my experience, I wanted a certain outcome and the only thing preventing that outcome was ME. After about 10 years or so of programming, this had been beaten into me with such force as to be totally irreversible. There was no way anyone would be able to con me into believing that logic was not paramount.

Anyone who tells you that you should disregard logic and follow your emotions first is either a con man or a useful idiot who has been suckered into emotional thinking. Emotional thinking can be very dangerous.

There are two types of thinking — type 1 thinking and type 2 thinking. Type 1 thinking is almost instant and highly susceptible to the brain chemistry responsible for emotions. It is the kind of thinking that can save your life (because it is so fast), but it can also be very, very wrong. Type 2 thinking is rational and deliberate. It requires a lot more focus, practice and uses a lot more energy than type 1 thinking. It is based on logic and reason. This is the thinking necessary to perform science.

Type 1 thinking is fast and incredibly efficient while Type 2 thinking is slow and less efficient, but much more reliable.

Did you know that science is the only way the Human species has ever devised to be able to determine the difference between reality and imagination — between truth and falsehood? I heard this decades ago and have never seen anyone document another method. I believe it is true.

You’ll notice that almost all advertising, marketing and confidence tricks try as hard as they can to confuse you and appeal to your emotions. This is because they’re trying to keep you away from type 2 thinking and get you to use type 1 thinking. If they can stimulate your emotions, they can get you to make an otherwise irrational decision.

The defense against this is type 2 thinking. Whenever you find yourself doing anything (being awake), practice using type 2 thinking and thinking rationally and logically. You’ll be amazed at the differences in your choices.

Diagram of a person who thinks they know more than they actually know.

Despite the fact that I have, in fact, isolated computer hardware making mistakes, it is astonishingly rare. As a hard rule, I always check to see if I’m the problem first before assuming the problem is elsewhere. This is a very good rule and I think you’ll be surprised how often you find you are the problem if you starting questioning yourself first.

Brains Don’t Seek Truth

Interestingly, the Human brain does not seek truth. Instead, it seeks to minimize conflict with existing beliefs. This is why cognitive dissonance is so powerful — people really don’t want to remove and reformulate existing beliefs. It hurts, in a way.

Because of this, the best thing to do with your own thinking is to acknowledge this and put extra effort into getting rid of malformed beliefs whenever you find evidence to disprove them.

The only way to reliably seek truth is to intentionally use type 2 thinking (reason and logic) and to identify and destroy all beliefs that you have that are not based in reason and logic.

Claiming To Know Things You Don’t Know

One of the biggest problems is that people think they know things without actually knowing if those beliefs are true.

If a person runs into a room and says there was just a car crash down the street, your intuitive reaction is to believe them. Why would they make a claim like this if it wasn’t true? Well, maybe they’re trying to distract you from the guy stealing your car.

I suspect most things that most people say are things they don’t actually know to be true — they just think they’re true because someone else told them.

In order to know something, you have to fully understand it. That most often means learning enough about a subject matter that you can confidently understand how something works.

For example, if you don’t know how hydraulic systems work, then don’t claim to know attributes of hydraulic systems.

It is perfectly acceptable to say “I don’t know” instead of acting like you know things that you don’t know. Intelligent people will actually respect you more for saying you don’t know when you don’t know.

One of the best ways to gain the disrespect of intelligent people is to claim you know things that you obviously don’t know.

I say “I don’t know” all the time. Nobody cares. Intelligent people respect it.

When someone has told you that something happened or something is real, all you really know is that you were told that. Unless you understand enough to prove it happened, you don’t really know anything except you were told something.

A good example is the genesis (creation) of crude oil. For more than 100 years, the west has been taught at a university level that oil is created from decaying biological material. It isn’t. The Rockerfellers paid scientists to make this claim in the late 1800’s in order to make oil appear more scarce, allowing them to constantly claim it is rare. Oil is the second most common liquid on our planet (not including the molten core). Everyone believed this because almost nobody knew enough to refute it. But the Russians have taught geological genesis of oil this entire time. No wonder the Russians are one of the biggest producers of oil in the world.

But don’t believe me — do your own research instead and suspend your belief until you’ve seen enough evidence for yourself.

Most of what I’ve been told is in the “I don’t know” bucket in my brain. I try to keep everything I am not very confident of in this bucket by default, until I have good reasons to be confident about beliefs.

I Want To Believe — Ignoring Evidence

There are a plethora of theories circulating about things that are just false and provably so. This has been the case for all of history. People make shit up, then they tell other people. Those people believe said bullshit and then tell other people. The plague spreads.

Many of these false stories are fantastic and this is precisely why people believe them — they want them to be true. This is emotional (type 1) thinking again.

You see, reality doesn’t care if you want something to be true. Ever. Reality hasn’t even given it a thought because reality doesn’t think. It just is.

So, how do you figure out if some theory is true or not? Well, a first step is to find evidence that disproves a theory. Here are some examples:

Many people say the Earth is flat. Literally all of the evidence of the shape of the Earth demonstrates that it is a sphere instead of being flat and none of the evidence supports the Earth being flat instead of a sphere. I just did a search for “reasons the earth is flat” and found this in seconds: https://medium.com/@hb20007/20-reasons-we-know-the-earth-is-spherical-8dca3ecdeaf, which is a web page with 20 rational reasons the Earth is roughly spherical.

Because the brain seeks to avoid conflict with existing beliefs and people really want fantastic stories to be true, they tend to strongly ignore evidence that would destroy their existing beliefs. It is as if they are putting their fingers in their ears and trying as hard as they can to ignore evidence.

Ignore these reasons at your own peril. Every single one of these reasons disproves the Earth being flat. Every single person that believes the Earth is flat has either never done such a simple search or is ignoring these reasons.

Ignoring evidence is a form of confirmation bias.

This one is a bit trickier because it involves actually knowing how electricity works: Some people believe the ancient Egyptian pyramids were producers of wireless energy. A quick investigation into this yields no actual descriptions of how this would be the case, although there are many web sites making empty claims without actual descriptions of how it worked.

Any electrician or electronics engineer would immediately look for conductors that could carry an electric current or do something useful with it. But there aren’t any. We know these people had metallurgy because there are plenty of copper and gold artifacts. However, there is not one single transformer or anything that looks like wiring. How did the electricity do anything useful without wiring?

Anyone saying pyramids or ancient artifacts were used for electrical power doesn’t understand the very basic fundamentals of electricity.

But they want to believe.

Don’t do this. If you want to know if something is true, research it and understand what would be necessary for that to be true. This may mean you have to learn things in order to get enough of a grasp of a subject to be able to know confidently whether or not certain things are possible. But that’s life. You either know what you believe or you don’t.

And for the Love of God, if you don’t actually know, don’t say you do!

Trying to Look Smart

One reason people claim to know things is because they think that if they say “I don’t know”, they will look dumb. So instead, they try to constantly look smart by claiming to know things they don’t.

It is a known phenomenon that the dumbest people in the room think they’re smarter than 50% of the others while the smartest don’t think they’re the smartest. This phenomenon is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The dumbest people in the room think they’re smarter than 50% of the others while the smartest don’t think they’re the smartest.

Most people would be amazed at how easy it is to just say “I don’t know” and instead focus on figuring out what you do know, listening and learning.

Trying to Look Cool

We’ve all been told by media and peers that we will be happier if we look a certain way. We’ll be able to find better mates if we have stylish clothing — if we have an expensive car. How many guys have bought expensive shoes because they were told that girls look at their shoes?

If you owned a business selling something people don’t need, how would you sell them?

I would try to convince them they needed it.

How much of people’s wealth is spent on looking cool? Does it actually get you anywhere? I mean, if you’re really good at it, then you’ve spent a lot of time and money and you will be surrounded by people who like that about you. But wait — what type of people are attracted to that? If you succeed at this, congratulations! You’ve just surrounded yourself with people who waste time and money and adoration on things that just shouldn’t matter.

When your identity is tied up in trying to convince others how great you are, you might be an idiot.

Looking cool is one of the stupidest and most destructive things people would be best off to ignore. Good people don’t care how you look as long as you take care of yourself and are not just an obvious wreck. Just be yourself and be comfortable, prudently.

A good example of the epic stupidity of this is everyone driving around in brand new cars they are paying for with a loan because they couldn’t afford the vehicle. I have two vehicles — both paid off. If possible, I will never buy another vehicle with a loan. I don’t wash them either, because there is no good physical reason to wash a car, other than to look cool.

Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None

Have you ever heard the adage “Jack of all trades, master of none”? Did you know that isn’t the full statement? The full statement is thus:

“Jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

The meaning of the full statement is somewhat opposite of what most people remember.

Why would anyone promote this idea? Well, those who would enslave you want you to specialize in a specific field. They do everything they can to tell you that unless you specialize, you’ll fail. And this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Almost every disruptive inventor was a master of multiple disciplines. This enabled them to understand how different types of things related to each other and could be used together. This is what led to most inventions.

The people who want to control everything hate these types of people because they can create things that cannot be easily controlled.

I’ve been able to successfully expand my expertise across multiple careers, even to an extent where I think I’m very competent in more than one field. Software is my forte, but I’ve become very adept at electronics, milling, mechanical engineering, design, fabrication and some specific parts of materials science and manufacturing. How is it possible that I was able to do this if I should be a master of none?

I think the answer is that most people can master more than one field and would be better off doing it. This is why they tell you not to do that.

Everyone Needs a Hobby

No they don’t. Hobbies are almost always wasteful compared to other choices you could make with your time, money and effort.

Compare collecting stamps with collecting tools that make you more productive and capable.

Compare scrap booking with refining a skill that makes you more money or improves your local community.

The reason you’ve been told that everyone needs a hobby (or everyone has a hobby) is because those who would enslave you want you to waste as much time, money and effort as possible.

Paranoia Will Destroy You

No it won’t. The word “paranoia” has a bad connotation, but it is just a heightened state of vigilance against attack.

With all of the indoctrination, brainwashing, lies and corruption being exposed in the world today, it is easily understood that being paranoid is a very low risk proposition compared to the alternative — being fleeced.

It is much better to be paranoid and occasionally miss out on opportunities than it is to not be paranoid and be in a state of constant vulnerability.

This Group Is To Blame!

Most people have been trained to blame groups of people for many of the ills of the world. This is the basis of racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. It is also the basis of condemnation of Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc.

But there is a very simple rule one can follow to dispel all of these claims. In reality, criminality is the only ill in the world.

How could it be any other way? If some action is wrong, then whoever is performing that action is a criminal. Criminal literally means a person who does something wrong.

Any time you see anyone claiming any other group is responsible for the problems of the world, correct them. Correct them because they are wrong. Criminals are the only group that should be divided away from the rest of society.

The last thing any of us need is to be blaming groups of people and not blaming criminals. Criminals cross into every other division of people.

That said, the only other group that always fits this definition of criminal is Satanist. Satanists, by definition, define criminality.

Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation is usually correct. It is a common fallback to win debates because it sounds like it makes sense.

However, there is one case where Occam’s Razor is almost never correct — during a con. When a criminal is trying to fool you, Occam’s Razor will almost never be correct. That’s how the cons work.

So who would try to get you to believe that the simplest explanation is usually correct? Criminals, of course. This belief makes everyone an easier target.

“I Can’t”

Most people have been raised in an environment where they are convinced that things that take effort are things they cannot do. It is easier for them to just think they cannot do something than it is to rationally consider the possibility that they could do something.

Part of this is that everyone has been tacitly promised a lot of things that aren’t realistic. All product marketing and media shows you a world where you should expect to get many benefits almost immediately and very cheaply. However, in reality, anything valuable usually takes a lot of time and effort. So people get the misplaced idea that they can’t do things because they only want to consider options which get them something cheaply and quickly.

On the other hand, if you spend years learning a skill, that skill lasts for the rest of your life. You’re going to be alive for a very long time in comparison with the length of goals that people usually take on.

I got successful by working my ass off for about 25 years solid before I hit my first really profitable product. Then everyone was telling me how lucky I was. But it wasn’t luck — it was 25 years of hard effort in order to get to the point where I could pull off a very successful goal.

And then I was a multi-millionaire.

People would be amazed at what they could do if they just decided to do it and stopped using excuses like “I can’t”. Just do it instead.

Short Term Planning

In the same vain as “I can’t”, people tend to only plan for goals which are short term. They only want to commit to things which will have a very quick payoff. This greatly limits their ability to do things that are greater than what their peers will do.

If you’re the only one who is willing to spend a long time to pull off a large goal, then you will have no competitors. This is the perfect place to be in business because nobody will take the risks necessary to compete with you.

Goals don’t always have to be all that long term to be valuable. For example, learning to type faster increases the productivity of computer programmers by a LOT. I have programmed all my life. Spending a few weeks of quality time and focusing on typing faster can double or triple the amount of programming you can get done. This is because you’ll never be able to type faster than you can think about what you’re programming. By typing faster, you are literally removing the wasted time in your programming.

In the 1970s and early ‘80s, Wordstar was a common text editor on CP/M machines. I used it a lot. At that time, the [Ctrl] key was just to the left of the ‘A’ key. (Later, IBM and Microsoft decided to move the [Ctrl] key to the lower left, I believe, just to make it difficult to use Wordstar and give Microsoft Word an unfair advantage by crippling the Wordstar users. But I digress…)

The placement of the [Ctrl] keys on the modern 101-key keyboards. This guarantees a cramp in your hand if you try to use Wordstar control key commands in an effort to edit text faster. Note also the placement of the [CapsLock] key, which is stupid at best, but similar to the IBM Selectric typewriters in the ‘70s.

In any case, why would the placement of the [Ctrl] key matter? Well, because Wordstar commands all use [Ctrl]+[key] combinations. I can use them instantly without moving my hands at all. This means I am not constantly moving my right hand around in order to move around in the text or use a mouse — something that is otherwise done all the time while typing. So, I use little-known utilities to switch the [Ctrl] key and the [CapsLock] keys. This enables me to type significantly faster — a lot faster than people think is possible.

I can probably program at double or more the rate of the typical programmer just because of my ability to type faster and not move my hands.

So, you see, if you’re always focused on one main issue and not all of the possible other issues involved with an overall problem, you might just miss an opportunity to vastly improve the quality of your life. So spend more time thinking about what is actually at issue.

Priorities

The Human brain makes decisions constantly. Every single time you decide to do something, that single thing is the highest priority in your mind at that time. If it weren’t the highest priority, your brain would have decided to do something else — whatever was the highest priority at the time.

For this reason, understanding your priorities is very important.

If you want to be able to accomplish a goal, you merely have to reduce the priority of everything else in your life. If you cannot do that, you will not achieve your goal.

If you fail at something that was in your control, don’t make excuses. The reason you failed will always be that your priorities for that goal were not higher than something else that interfered with your ability to succeed.

This means the problem was your priorities — not something else.

If you want to achieve something, simply make it your highest priority. You may not achieve it because success may be out of your control, but at least you will have the best chance of success without tricking yourself into doing something less important.

Entertainment vs. Productivity

One of the biggest ways people avoid success is by doing things that don’t lead to success. I believe most people spend most of their free time doing things that have virtually no long term benefit to them. The only benefit is a short term dopamine rush in their brain. In other words, they do things that feel good at the moment but don’t get them anywhere in the future.

An example I use a lot is doing heroin. There are pros and cons. Write them down on a piece of paper. Sure, heroin is dangerous and you might end up dying an addict. However, it sure feels great at the moment!

Is this really any different than watching a professional sports exhibition? The viewer gets a good feeling while doing it and then it is over. They’ve spent time and effort doing it and end up with nothing to show for it.

I can already hear the sports fans reading this gnashing their teeth. Get over it. It is a stupid activity that nobody should ever be conned into participating in.

Have you ever heard the phrase “bread and circus”? Have you read the history about that phrase? Do you realize that it is a very real construct that was designed to enslave you?

I’ll go even deeper into the analysis of pro sports fans. These people actually say “their team” as if they are a member of it. I have news for them: The members of that team don’t even know who they are. They are financially benefiting from people sitting on their couches drinking beer and eating pork rinds. They are being paid by the producers of said beer and pork rinds so people will sit there, yelling, cheering, consuming garbage and being very highly interested in the score at the end of the exhibition.

How much is that game going to matter tomorrow? My guess is it won’t matter at all. All of the justifications for it are just excuses defending an otherwise ridiculous waste of resources.

Bookies make a lot of money on people who bet on the outcome of those exhibitions. They couldn’t do this unless these brainwashed sheep really cared about the outcome and had arguments over them. Which team will win? My team! Do you really think the outcomes of those games aren’t rigged by sports betting factions? Do you know how much money is involved? How much would it cost to bribe some referees?

So go to the mall and buy a jersey donning the number of your favorite player (who you have probably never met and never will.) Note the premium price for that jersey because it has that number on it.

Or, you can decide to watch some YouTube videos for that 3 hours and learn how to weld, create electronics or program computers. You know, things that will make the rest of your life better because you’ll have new skills that you didn’t have before you sat down for that 3 hours.

Do you see the difference? Entertainment for the sake of entertainment is inherently destructive to the rest of your life because of the lost opportunity of wasting resources — time. Consider the number of movies the average person watches each year. I watch about 10 per year and when I do, it is always because I have a particular interest in the content of the movies. This is one way I found the Q symbolism in the media. I wasn’t watching it for entertainment value — I was doing research.

You can choose to do something that is entertaining at the moment, but has no other benefit. Or you can choose to entertain yourself with productive pursuits. Figure out which one will make your life better tomorrow and always do that.

By the way, if you’re a sports fan and this offends you, please know that I don’t care. I’ll learn things while you’re watching the game and happily out-compete you every single day of the week. The same goes for all your friends watching the game. If you think you’re having a better life because of the fun you have while watching the game, I will suggest trying heroin.

Video Games

I was in the video game industry and made a lot of money writing video games. I worked with Will Wright, the author of Sim City and The Sims. In some ways, I am melancholy about this because I now understand the actual cost to Humanity.

Those badges and virtual rewards don’t exist in the real world. Nobody cares how good you are at video games. Video games create an environment of total self inflicted disability paired with unnecessary costs.

Now try to calculate the real damage being done to children by unwitting parents. How many hours of childhood development are lost in a virtual world? How much dopamine dependence is caused? All so some company can sucker someone out of some money. Those companies don’t give a shit if people waste their whole life in front of a screen as long as they get money in the process. In fact, they encourage people to waste their lives so they can get their stuff. Let that sink in. Consider the word “Vampire.”

Distractions - Why Does It Matter?

This week, Vladimir Zelenskyy appointed Marina Ambrovic as an ambassador of Ukraine. I watched as thousands of people on social media exchanged news articles and screen shots and voiced their shock and horror.

Look! A Squirrel!

First, who cares? I shouldn’t even have to say that. How is Marina Ambrovic being an ambassador for Ukraine going to change what you do today, tomorrow, next week, month, year, etc.? Hint: It isn’t.

Second, there is no real world where a real President of Ukraine (of which Vladimir Zelenskyy is not) would appoint such an obvious Satanist buffoon as an ambassador. It is literally absurd. Someone is trying to fish slap normies into waking up. That should be pretty obvious by now. Marina Ambrovic is not going to do anything as ambassador that changes the world one bit, and that assumes that she’ll actually accept an ambassadorship.

This news story is a distraction. If you are thinking about this, you are not thinking about something else.

Be careful what you do with your attention span. The first question above was “who cares?” That is exactly what I asked myself when I first saw the headline. My answer was that I didn’t, so I tried to ignore it. The reason I mention it here is because of the deluge of everyone else apparently thinking it matters and filling the information space with shock and grief.

Every minute you allow your time to be taken by distractions is a minute you are not using to make the rest of your life better.

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On that note, I’m going to go do something that I feel is a higher priority than making this article better.

- sapioplex