Reasoning Deficit Disorder is Real

Thanks, Dilbert. 

 

Hell, no, you’re not making sense

There is an affliction evident in the general population roughly coincident to the diagnoses of Asperger’s Syndrome or autism: Reasoning Deficit Disorder.

It is clear that large numbers of people express opinions stridently, sometimes even justifying their use of actual violence, based on completely contradictory points of view, a lack of information, or outright lies. They block, ban, unfriend one another for even imaginary slights, each offense more trivial than the last.

The lack of information is the easiest to comprehend, but very hard to fight once a person has adopted an emotional bond to their idea, however baseless. Only the harshest circumstance of reality can cause them to abandon their oh-so-pleasing fantasy, and then childish tantrums and chaos result. This is to be expected, because Reality is often harsh, and the number of people allowed to age without education and responsibility is rising.

So, I first offer a series of statements to fill some gaps. You can look things up yourself to confirm them; I hope that is your habit, and that you seek sources of information, not editorials - basically, everyone who was NOT the originator of any story. 

If you are offended, then you have an emotional stake in the issue. That interferes with reason. So:

• A crime is an action specifically prohibited by a statute. Thus, there is no such thing as a “pre-crime”. Since criminals engage in wholly legal activity up to the very point they commit a crime, the intended victim is the only person who can defend against it. Police must always act after the fact, because until there is an act, there is no crime. The operative syllable in the term, “self-defense” is “self”.
• No person can be prevented from a first offense.
• Heat flows from hot to cold, and this does not depend on the “system” being “open” or “closed”.
• Violating a law, rather than getting it changed, is how you start a process that gets you outrageous civil rights violations and unchecked police powers. We call the most pervasive case “the Drug War” now.
• Steam is not the mist you see when your breath is chilled, nor is it air: it is gaseous H₂O, and its minimum temperature depends on its pressure.
• You may not possess cash of a denomination greater than $100, no matter what it says on it.
• Electric cars are far more efficient in use than fossil fuel cars.
• Plastic grocery bags are really cheaper to use and less of an impact on the environment than reusable bags, which is obvious if you know how they are made.
• You will be told something to make you afraid because that is the best way to prevent you from thinking and to get money from you.
• No public official may legally use their office to violate the Bill of Rights.
• Every employer gains every penny used to pay rent, utilities, wages, salaries, and for new product from their customers. It costs an employer about 135% of the wages or salary of an employee to employ them.
• Your personal satisfaction at the result of any election does not mean it was valid.
• An audit has not been conducted if the same people were asked to verify their own results.
• A gun uses chemicals derived from tree bark to propel bits of metal as directed by the person holding it, and it never does anything on its own.
• Slavery is actually being practiced in a number of nations today.
• You are not permitted to know that your vote was counted in any Presidential election because it was set up to be secret; it was feared that voters could be targeted for voting a particular way. This means that process manipulation can negate your vote.
• Every police officer in the country speaks English. This is especially important when you meet one carrying a gun and they are issuing lawful orders.
• Chemistry is an inherent part of all life and all manufacturing processes. In practice, accuracy of description is everything, because a spelling error will identify a completely different chemical.
• The popular COVID-19 vaccines in use in 2022 DO NOT eradicate the virus, therefore they also do not prevent its transmission.
• Crediting God™ for saving the child from the tornado simply excuses Him™ for the devastation and killing all over what’s left of that town.
• Races do not condone crime or decide it is proper: cultures do.
• Mathematics, like all languages, does not depend on skin color for any operations. It is the only language which can describe the unseen accurately.
• Statistics is not only a real science, it is an inherent and essential part of all manufacturing and research processes.
• Criminals ignore signs, rules and regulations every bit as easily as they do laws.
• Your offense is never more precious or special than anyone else’s.
• No expert is an authority just because of the label, “expert” or because of credentials. The expert’s ideas must stand on their own, the credential serving only to establish that said expert had the opportunity to learn. In fact the credentials should be suspect, as they indicate the degree of obligation to be correct.
• Your fitness level will always be more important to you than to anyone else, no matter your age or how badly you hate being called out for a lack of it. Being overweight means fewer activities to enjoy and greater vulnerability to injury in accidents and criminal assault. A gut is no more attractive at 40 than it is at 15, because your appearance indicates how capable you may be.
• The biological purpose of sex is to produce offspring, not to provide entertainment. Every attempt at contraception which fails is a mistake made by a responsible party, and only those who engage in sex are responsible for the consequences.
• There is no such thing as an “exact” measurement. All measurement citations properly identify the thing used to make the measurement and the degree of confidence that the measurement is correct. Do not confuse this with a standard, which is a definition, not a measurement. In machine work, a clearance is a measurement, with uncertainty; a tolerance is a definition, of only one value.
• “Diversity” actually means that people cannot possibly have the same abilities.
• Things have been better and worse in our history. Americans died of starvation in the Great Depression; there were anti-aircraft missile sites in the USA until the late 1970s. Your situation is not at all new.
• If you wish for the attention of a remarkable person, you must also be remarkable in some manner - by what you DO, not what you claim.
• However it is encrypted or otherwise protected, data is not more secure just because it is handed to someone else. “Secure” does not just mean you don’t lose your data – it also means it is not released to anyone else.
• Your belief in something does not have to be fully correct, and in fact it is not – it just has to give you enough utility to continue living. Others can take advantage of this.
• The only way to prevent ID theft is to not be identified.
• There is a reason commercial software is cheaper than custom software.
• If you need to use deadly force, be sure that you know that after you fight the criminal, you will fight the State, which reserves deadly force for itself.
• Every time you are subject to a rule, regulation or law for which the source cannot be identified, you will lose.
• There are four fundamental forces which act on everything you can see or learn: magnetism, gravity, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force. The universe has laws of physics which makes these forces responsible for how matter and time behave. They rule out “paranormal” phenomena as well as any physical effect of begging, however expressed, because they fully dictate which effects follow causes.
• World population is made possible because of modern medicine and the use of fossil fuels in food delivery.
• Insurance does not undo damages or injury in the slightest. Insurance companies can and do run out of funds, completely legally, when the scope of a disaster exceeds their payout capability, which consists of direct investment funds and their reserves, secondary funds typically invested in semi-liquid markets.
• If all of the participants in an “insurance” program take funds or services from the program, it is no longer insurance, but a socialized benefits program. Actual insurance always includes part of the population which does not make a claim.
• No right may demand the performance of or a contribution from another person. This is not lost on those who would have their definition of rights applied for their personal gain. Many people and entities deliberately distort and expand the definition of “rights” so that they may benefit monetarily from the confusion.
• Every transaction of a dollar which is not made in return for goods or services devalues that dollar immediately.
• School systems seek power and influence every bit as much as the most avaricious politician.
• There is no such thing as “free”. The cost is just hidden from you, and market forces will bring the expense back around to you eventually.
• Evidence consists of a consistent chain of observations which can be shown to have an exclusive relationship to the event of interest.
• EBT, SNAP and other benefits/welfare programs take more money, by proportion, from the convenience store clerk near you than anyone in big business or government, and that money is taken from wage-earners under threat of force, by government agents, to buy votes.
• The first rule of disease is that it sucks for someone. The second rule is that some are naturally immune.
• The winner of a knife fight dies in the hospital, the loser having died on the street. Do not imagine that only guns are violent. Knives and guns are still only tools.
• There is no group so diverse that a government agency will not lump them all together to get money and power.
• The first duty of any organization is to preserve that organization, and its leaders will employ every tactic to see to its success. Your personal concerns will be second to any already recognized by the organization.
• In any fight involving a weapon, control over the weapon becomes paramount and deadly, because deadly force is often the only way to stop the fight over that weapon.
• Bans only prohibit the possession of a thing by some people, and only those who obey the law are affected.
• Modern schools must deal with the fact that many of its teachers have never done anything but attend school. There are more administrators than teachers in colleges nationwide today.
• Asset forfeiture, the process by which police seize your valuables on the premise that they were ill-gotten, has taken more from the American public than burglars annually since 2014.
• Classical physics rules out most of the claims of conspiracy theorists, which are examples of why you should learn about classical physics.
• The leaders of the most savage and corrupt governments on Earth are still wealthy.
• The founding documents establishing the United States provided that you would run the country.
• Nuclear warfare will be far more savage than you can imagine. You will have no warning, and no actions to take, because the first strike is too fast. If you see an American Navy destroyer in port firing missiles while tied to the pier, that’s likely your only signal. No video toy you play with represents this accurately. You will likely have no electricity, no fuel, and no food but what you can make yourself for a long time.
• Any school which advocates or provides a “safe space” is blatantly lying, failing to prepare students for the real world – which has no such thing.
• Declaring yourself or others wonderful by simple assertion is useless. The whole world wants to know what you can DO, not what you represent yourself to be, and they will tell you what you are worth in the marketplace.
• If you offer or advertise something by word, appearance or attitude, you must expect observers to expect something from you based on your actions, and these observers are often stupid, selfish and demanding.
• No employer owes you anything whatsoever other than full payment for your talents and effort – which you are actually selling to them.
• Medicine works on physical biology, not opinion, even as there is debate about efficacy of treatment; if it is not there, the doctor cannot pretend it is no matter how holy your cause.
• You can have trade, and thus an economy, without a government, but you cannot have a government without trade.
• Laws are flatly not necessary until the many have been hurt by the few who misbehave.
• Every measure to limit wealth has made things harder on the poor.
• Government cannot give you anything it has not taken from someone else by force.
• Governmental bodies routinely ignore existing law to pursue policies which promote their office – even the guys you voted for.
• A corporation is an entity created to perform a particular function, has many features analogous to a person, and must act according to the charter it filed in its state of record. If you are not a stockholder or government authority, you have NO say in how it operates, including pay practices.
• If you do nothing to correct a wrong, your indolence is not excused just because you didn’t know what to do. You did nothing. Speech or prayer is not action. Claiming to care does not provide relief.
• Your personal hygiene will determine not only how others see you, but will determine how quickly and effectively others will render first aid.
• The height of arrogance is assuming that you know everything about someone else, or their job.
  
• Billions of successful people worldwide have never seen a Bible™ - or a Koran™.
• Every item prohibited or confiscated by the TSA flew on every airline flight prior to 2001.
• Since screening is not 100% effective (demonstrated by actual TSA testing), or even applied to all avenues of approach to any aircraft, there are several guns on airliners at any given moment. Nothing is happening other than the denial of human rights.
• There is a point where an increase in taxes decreases revenue. The ratio of planned income to actual income via taxation is graphed, and called the Laffer Curve.
• There is no such thing as homeopathic gasoline or liquor.
• Single motherhood is not a virtue, and acceptance of that status is the leading indicator of criminality in every culture it is found. Note that an indicator is not a cause.
• A child who has not been taught to deal with their own neighborhood will likely not be successful upon leaving it.
• Ritalin is often an antidote to being a small boy, and it can prevent the formation of an adult.
• Neglected responsibilities extract payment through consequences which do not depend on other people to exist.
• Leaders do not have to be nice people to be supremely effective.
• Health care plans are often designed with someone other than the patient in mind.
• Common definitions are not engineering or scientific definitions, which must mean the same thing, specifically, every time.
• A theory is a detailed explanation of as many aspects of a phenomenon as can be expressed, not a guess.
• The presence of a “rebate” means the item’s price is artificially inflated beforehand.
• Probate is much more complicated upon the death of a loved one when there is no marriage certificate. The court may then keep assets for itself, no matter what you think.
• Video and audio recording equipment is everywhere because millions have learned that lying, cheating and stealing for personal gain is completely acceptable.
• The name of a nation, religion or reason is not a race.
• Lowering standards does not produce better or more capable people.
• There will always be a percentage of the population which cannot be employed – at all.
• If you do not know how something is produced – a pound of beef, a peck of corn, a minute of airtime, a vote -- you are at the mercy of those who DO know, because they can alter it without your knowing.
• No matter your level of training, aptitude, competence, intelligence or experience, there is an activist who wants to prohibit you from doing what you choose because they cannot do those things.
• No matter what you have, be it possession or opinion or status or dignity, there is someone who thinks you should not have it, and in some cases they favor your punishment even as they have no experience of it.
• There is no benefit to exposing yourself to ionizing radiation whatsoever, and you cannot build up any immunity to it. A cell phone does not produce ionizing radiation.
  
• Information which does not come from its source is subject to manipulation for the presenter’s benefit.
• Gun control laws benefit the criminal, first and immediately.
  

 Examples of The Exercise of Poor Reasoning

• Mistaking fiddling with a computer for real output
• Having a child before providing a stable environment
  
• Allowing children and adults to be treated in ways that would bring prison time if an animal was affected
• Using the word, “liberal” to denote a person insisting on government mandates and regulations
• Using the word, “conservative” to denote a person who thinks squandering natural resources is their entitlement
• Believing handcuffs and other restrictions on you make you safer
• Insisting that the only way for a woman to gain social significance is to act more like a man
• Believing television shows the proper handling of firearms, the exercise of law or the use of any military equipment
• Believing that lying, violence, child abuse or other misbehavior is only practiced by one gender
• Accepting the idea that “the South” is where incest and ignorance abounds, when northern states also exhibit these behaviors with regularity
• Thinking that someone intent on killing people will read a sign about any other law, rule or regulation
• Thinking that after one law has failed to stop a criminal act, another law will do the trick
• Thinking that extra time on tests and other performance measurements in training is reasonable for a job demanding time-critical effort in the field
• Giggling about marijuana use, as the criminal enterprise that brings it to you kills people to do so
• Destroying natural habitat by building homes and businesses, then claiming they are “green” structures
• Thinking that “other” people or the police are responsible for your personal prosperity and welfare – that “they” should do for you what you will not do for yourself
• Thinking that you know more about an historical figure, such as Robert E. Lee, than his opponents of that time - who actually knew him personally
• Asserting that police cause crime / are responsible for protecting your person
• Turning the other way when taxes collected from you are obliged to pay government workers’ pensions and unions
• Assuming that the law is what you wish for, rather than what is spelled out
• Assuming that law enforcement and the justice system actually adheres to the letter of the law
• Assuming that calling the police will yield the result you want
• Objecting that someone “took the law into his own hands”, seeing that court proceedings did not do what you wanted, then offering that if only YOU could take the law into YOUR hands, then that would be OK
• Boycotting the Major League Baseball All-Star game in Atlanta because of Georgia’s Voter ID law, thus moving the game to Denver – which has Voter ID, a lower population of those claimed to be victimized by having to show ID, and which required photo ID to pick up tickets to the All-Star game
• Insisting that voters having to present ID is racist, but having to present vaccination ID is not
• Believing that your “participant” trophy has value
• Thinking that your vote counts, when you cannot name where the record of your vote might be or the method by which it was counted
• Making any claim about gun laws without even looking up Form 4473, a Federal requirement
• Believing that you could never support or endure the atrocities found in history, having never noticed that those people also lived in the most modern society they knew and were sure that their ideas were right
• Indebting yourself to a college for a program in a field without employment, when what should have happened is that you determined what job you wanted, THEN enrolled in courses to train you in that field
• Thinking that you saw evidence on television, and being offended when shown otherwise
• Failing to distinguish between editorial output and source information when forming opinion
  
• Clamoring for a law or regulation which can then be applied to you
• Believing that an American government official could never victimize his/her people, because “this is America”
• Claiming that your political favorite can do {thing prohibited by the Constitution}, but shouting that his/her opponent doing the exact same thing should be jailed
• Expressing an opinion without the reasoning behind it
• Condoning drug use among “friends” and family while noting their gross failures
• The federal government requires that no private vehicle be parked within 30 meters of an occupied Federal building at contractor facilities. Put in effect as a knee-jerk response to the events of 9/11, this ignores that attackers a) now have a clear running start to the building, b) government license plates are easy to steal, c) suicide bombers can just walk into the building, and d) in most cases, there are zero measures in place to even notice a suspicious vehicle, much less deal with one. So tens of thousands of government contractors walk another 30 meters for nothing – as the fuel truck can still go wherever it wants
• A shooting occurred at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. Activists insisted loudly that only the police and military should own guns, even as a Broward County deputy sat in his car with his guns and did nothing while this activists' classmates were being killed. Later, the same activists claimed that a requirement that backpacks be see-through was intrusive and a violation of their rights
• Assuming great skill in driving cars or riding motorcycles without attending a single class which teaches what to do at speed
• Claiming competence in a chosen field of employment or field of study other than the ones you trained for
• Insisting that you have special status because you champion the cause of other people fully capable of speaking for themselves
• Downloading an artist’s work without paying them and then wondering why they have put out so little work
• Admiring an athlete, artist or other celebrity, often to the point of buying merchandise they endorse, without doing any of the things they did to succeed
• Envying “the rich”, and/or crying for a public official to penalize “the rich”, rather than taking the same or similar steps they did to earn more
• Calling a weapon “defensive” or “offensive”, when it is the user who determines the weapon’s usage
• Insisting that race is a reason to exempt a person from obeying the law, then insisting that the same person is equal before the law
• Paying tens of thousands of dollars for “health care” you do not use
• Blaming an object (the car left the road, the gun went off, etc.) rather than the person who actually caused an incident
• Believing a “statistic” cited by a public figure or media outlet without evaluating its validity
• Claiming that bans on guns or nuclear weapons are reasonable and effective, yet teens having sex are completely uncontrollable
• Clamoring for “women’s rights” while intentionally degrading the definition of “woman”