Why I am a misanthrope.

I have been calling myself a misanthrope for years. It’s not entirely true because I don’t hate people, I actually love quite a few. My problem is not with individuals, although there are a few I could live without. But most people I have known in my long life are rather nice and decent human beings.

That leads me to the other thing I have been saying for years: there are a hell of a lot more decent, nice people than smart ones. I have been watching people voting against their own self-interest, year after year, unaware of the tragedy and the irony.

The problem is endemic in the human species. We have two faculties to employ in solving problems: The intellectual and the emotional and the emotional wins every time. This gives the opportunity to the power-mad and insatiably greedy amongst us to emotionally manipulate people so they would fight those who are trying to help them.

Problem solving is a strictly logical and rational process that scientists are very familiar with. You define your terms, identify facts and cause-and-effect relationships, identify your objectives, identify the different options open for achieving these objectives and then select an action plan to execute the option with the highest probability of success.

Can you see this process even remotely followed in public life?

Of course you can’t because this doesn’t exist. What you see is blatant distortion of facts, transparent emotional manipulation, appealing to the lowest level of primal emotions of fear, hate, greed. And it works every time.

That’s why I think it is hopeless, that’s why I have given up on the human species. We are an irrational species and irrationality will lose at the end. The planet and the universe doesn’t care.