Authority, Common Sense, and a New Mythology

I personally experienced a breakthrough on November 30, 2020 when I wrote a post titled This I Believe.  

An overriding lesson I have learned is to look at controversial issues using my own common sense.  In case after case, the conventional wisdom defies common sense.  Once common sense is applied, then the pieces fit together reasonably.  Common sense consists of considering both sides of an issue, along with the motives involved.  With respect to the cases below, one side of the issue has won the day with regard to the mainstream media and the conventional wisdom.  Thus, I am questioning "the facts" and recent history as widely accepted across the U.S. global empire.

Common sense leads me to consider the reason why only one side of some issues is considered legitimate.  Most people do not have the time to dwell extensively on such matters.  It is convenient to accept a well established narrative and move on.  I have done that most of my life, but in retirement and with access to the Internet have had time and capability of looking at both sides of confusing episodes.  I learned that it is valuable to weigh circumstantial evidence in forming an accurate mental model of the world.  While there may be no proof for the things "I know" which are listed below, consideration of the likelihood (Bayesian probability) of certain matters based upon circumstantial evidence leads to a more robust mental model.

As Steve Randy Waldman has pointed out, authority is extremely valuable to a society as it allows conflicts to be resolved peaceably:

The behavior of so many bodies must be improbably constrained and synchronized to yield functional societies, which requires elaborate social coordination. Authority is an invisible drummer that helps to organize this dance. We construct authority. How we construct it is among the most important social, ethical, and technological problems we face.  

I am contributing to a crisis of confidence in authority when I question the credibility of mainstream institutions such as the New York Times, the Democratic Party, and the CIA.  Thus, the antipathy I receive in response is understandable.

Take, for example, the Wuhan lab leak origin hypothesis for COVID-19.  For me, this is obviously true.  The closest living relative to the SARS-CoV-2 virus was found in caves and taken to a Wuhan laboratory 1000 miles away for gain of function research.  This was known to be risky and safety concerns were raised shortly before the pathogen was discovered in the open near the lab.  The international team of scientists involved with funding and operating the labs quickly closed ranks to say that a lab leak was impossible, and to prevent investigation.  Objective scientists (i.e. without conflicts of interest) from around the world soon questioned the prevailing wisdom and easily debunked the conventional wisdom.  Meanwhile, no evidence of zoonotic origin has been found.

It doesn't get any more cut and dried than this, in my view, and I've been following this more and more closely for almost a year.  We warned this might happen if gain of function research was carried out, and sure enough a pandemic emerged right at the spot where such research was carried out.  So what we do we do when common sense defies what our authorities are telling us?  When we attack the credibility of our own tribe (NY Times, NPR, Democrats), are we not on the verge of nihilism?  Do we need Democratic authority to prevent the even more corrupt and nihilistic Republican authority?  

Perhaps it is common sense that we ought to question?  Certainly, common sense yields different conclusions for different people.  My common sense might be wrong, and the evidence for that might be that the NY Times, NPR, and the Democratic leadership disagree with me.  Certainly their accumulated wisdom and credibility surpasses that of me and my fringe fellow travelers.  Shouldn't I just realize that I am probably wrong and shut up?

The question answers itself in the context of our democratic values.  In the United States, we are encouraged to participate in public discourse even if we disagree with the authorities, and this is a good thing about our country.  On the other hand, my understanding is that in other large and successful countries such as China, public disagreement with the authorities is discouraged much more severely.  Further complicating matters is that fact that modern China is quite successful as a culture and nation and as an alternative model to western democracy.  Maybe we need to emulate the Chinese a bit and tone down our anti-authoritarianism.

Let's see if we can untangle the above using a bit of common sense.  Of course those parties who unleashed the global pandemic via careless gain of function research will try to protect themselves.  This is human nature and is quite understandable.  This extends to Chinese researchers, U.S. researchers, parties that functioned the research such as Peter Daszak's nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, and U.S. government agencies such as the NIH that were involved in such funding.  Mistakes were made resulting in almost 4 million deaths globally and the shutdown of much of society around the world for over a year.  Common sense tells me that we've arrived at something of a global reckoning.  The authorities made massive mistakes, but they remain the authorities with massive power to brush aside questions and complaints.

Let's look at other current examples of authority in conflict with common sense.  

1. Global warming.  The earth has a carbon cycle.  In the last couple hundred years we have been releasing carbon reserves (oil, gas, coal) that were sequestered in the earth over hundreds of millions of years.  Common sense would indicate that such a disruption of the earth's atmosphere would have a significant effect, and that's what the evidence on global temperature and melting glaciers confirms. Republican authorities have been unwilling to accept this and work toward solutions.
2. Weapons of mass destruction.  We've seen the power of nuclear weapons and it's widely accepted that they could decimate humanity if ever used in an all out war.  Now we've seen that biological engineering can create pandemics.  The destructive potential of our advanced technologies is plain to see.  Yet the Republican authorities in the Trump Administration seemed intent on dismantling international cooperation to deal with such existential threats.  And the Democratic authorities have provoked Russia and tried to back this nuclear powered rival into a corner.
3. Autonomous vehicles.  Artificial intelligence would obviously pose a threat to humanity, which now occupies the highest rung of intelligence and consequently dominates all other species.  Why would we want to create new forms on intelligence that could prove superior?  Nevertheless, our corporate authorities have poured billions of dollars into the development of self-driving cars and trucks.  Common sense would dictate that we pour our resources into dealing with the existential threats to humanity rather than such inane, yet potentially dangerous, pursuits.

The pattern that emerges is that common sense points in the direction of dealing with existential threats to our species.  The dangers are obvious, as are the vested interests that keep us from dealing adequately with the existential threats.  We need to elevate such common sense ideas to global mythological status.

All hail the new gods of technological restraint 

and intertribal cooperation