Me oh my, there are a lot of dumb-cunts, yes boy. I find it deeply concerning that four, and a bit years ago, the United States ended up in the predicament it did. Of 300 million people, they ended up with two of the worst candidates to choose from for the presidency; the narcissistic liar and the psychopathic liar. They ended up with one (I’ll let you decide which was which), and it went surprisingly well. I believe this is true because I think what we got was close to the best it could have possibly gone. It was also nowhere near the worst it could have perhaps gone (see nuclear annihilation/genocide).

It completely floored me when, four years later, I looked into who the candidates were this time around only to find it had happened all over again but somehow even worse than last time.  How did this happen? How does this country of so much intellectual power constantly end up with one or more abysmal candidates for the presidency? I couldn’t say with certainty, but I’d say it was dumb-cunt related if I had to guess. Jim Jefferies once said something to the effect of: “If you’re a dumb cunt and your husband or wife is a dumb cunt, what does that make your kids?” and also: “Our society is very accommodating of dumb cunts.”

Dumb cunts are allowed to vote. What can this mean? One of two things, I believe. It is a good thing because everyone has an equal say in who runs a country, yay. It is a bad thing because it means people who think TVNZ contains anything worth watching get a voice, boo. Ponder this for a minute. The median IQ is 100 – all of you reading this will likely have an IQ higher than 100 because you are at an institution of higher learning. Now I’m going to say something that may be upsetting to many of you. Consider that half of all people have an IQ lower than 100. Half of all people is a troubling thought. Somewhere in this overwhelming 50% of the population exist most of our MAGA supporters and people who thought Joe Biden has all his mental faculties/will live another four years.

In today’s climate, it is unacceptable to even comment on the existence of intelligence. It simply upsets too many people that some people are very clever and some are very unclever. It’s so upsetting that we don’t dare discuss it. But what if that were untrue? It could be the case that no one is that upset by it. What if it were a taboo topic by design? Maybe it’s unacceptable to comment on intelligence, not because it upsets people, but because it makes those whose jobs rely on keeping us subdued more difficult. Unacceptable because it means that politicians have to do their jobs instead of spewing nice-sounding rhetoric.

It could be the case that politicians actively subvert the truth in favour of easily digestible narratives. Perhaps they utilise the mainstream media to achieve this end. The formless behemoth of media feeds us a great deal of what we encounter online and in the world. Seldom is the news we experience found from our active interest and pursuit. So the concept of influential people controlling what we encounter and subsequently believe is not precisely farfetched, considering that this is already true for most of what we perceive of the world.

We are now entirely at the mercy of AI controlling what we experience in the media. Even those listening to the radio or watching TV are still hearing the same regurgitated news stories picked by AI. This news is often a narrow slither of reality, and it’s packed in between hours and hours of unimportant filler material to keep you thinking about literally anything else.

I’ve had the displeasure of working in proximity to fans of The Edge and ZM of late. Listening to the same forty songs on repeat and utter low-level chat about celebs and not a great deal else is a mind-numbing experience. I now wake up in the morning with a song that I hate, already stuck in my head. I’ll hear a news headline of something I’ve already read or will shortly encounter on my phone, and then it’s back to the same songs and shit chat. At the same time, China has an unknown number of deployed nuclear warheads. Russia and the United States have 1,572 and 1,700, respectively. But more important than that, Dua Lipa and old mate have got new music coming out, and they are just so cool, really you guys.

The dumbing down, the deliberate selection, and the scarcity also come when authentic, engaging, and truthful journalism is tough to find. I’d guess that in today’s market, it’s challenging to produce as well. There was a time when journalists cared about the truth. You’d see some old mother fucker reading a newspaper on a bus, and he’d look like the most intelligent person in a kilometer radius. It became apparent that catering to fear and the limbic system was infinitely more profitable in recent years.

Here’s a fear example, over 60% of firearm-related crimes in the US involve handguns. Less than 10% include rifles, with the remaining 30% unknown or not specified. It might come as a surprise when all anyone ever hears about is “assault rifle” this, and “semi-automatic” that. Here’s a limbic system example, “Remember this guy from the ’90s? You won’t believe what he looks like now.” I do remember that guy; what does he look like now? You look, it’s disappointing, you’re not any more knowledgeable, and you’ve lost four minutes.

None of us should know the slightest fucking thing about what is going on in the United States, but we do because the mainstream media tell us. One might argue that they are an essential part of the world economy, so it’s wise to keep up. If that were true, we’d also be keeping up with news in China in equal standing, which is not even close to the case. It’s only been since more prominent genociding and gulaging that the mainstream media has taken much of an interest in China lately. None of us should know who George Floyd is, but we do; why?  We don’t know about the other 241 black men that were shot to death by police in the same year, and we certainly don’t hear about the 457 white men who met the same fate.

I often ask myself, why do I know these things? Who benefits from these stories occupying my thoughts and likely the minds of many others? These things should not be at the forefront of our minds, but they are. It is challenging not to conclude that these stories from other continents are wilfully selected for our consumption. It is challenging not to believe that the powers that be control the narrative. It becomes easy to perform nefarious actions with your populations once they believe with absolute certainty that which just ain’t so.

On average, the number of people inclined toward left or right-leaning ideas is roughly even. Despite this, Labour managed to walk away from the election with a majority share of seats. If people voted their temperament 100% of the time, this outcome is not mathematically possible. This outcome might indicate that you can talk undecided voters into anything, and you can win an election off the back of that. I know a young man who is not a Greens man who voted for Greens because “I don’t know.” Dan Peña says, “show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” I think this can apply to countries and governments, too. All that’s needed is to replace the word “friends” with “dumb cunts”.

It is not unreasonable to conclude that manipulating the public’s perception of the world is 1) reasonably easy to do and 2) a desirable pursuit for those in power. Maybe the powerful want you stupid, and perhaps they want you more ignorant than you could be. But you can reject that by seeking what’s real and vital and becoming a truth warrior. Just know that no matter what, they’ll try to force-feed you fear with one hand and feel good repetitive meaningless with the other. Four more years. Build that wall. Year of delivery. From my cold dead hands. Black lives matter All men and women created, by the… go, you know… you know the thing.