Know your mind

How to think

It might sound very presumptuous to write an article about ‘how to think’, and on ‘know[ing] your mind’. Let me preface this by stating that anything in this article applies first and foremost to me. Take from it what you want or need. (But realize that often what we need is not what we want). Realize also that I am not telling anyone ‘what’ to think, but that I am only talking about ‘how’ to think. Thinking critically and clearly is a skill, that needs practice and training.

Let start with something simple. Look at memes and posts like these:

and:

This Secret Service Agent is publicly humiliated, the butt of a whole lot of jokes, and inspiration for meme after meme. I spoke about her with my oldest son, who was scathing in his opinion of her, too. “She’s awful! That’s what you get when you allow women in the Secret Service for the purpose of diversification only! She deserves all those memes! Why did she apply for that position, if she hasn’t mastered even the most basic skills?”

Just before we got onto this topic of the Secret Service agent, I had given him this comment on my article on the Water Tower to read, by Jim Liesen:

“As a trained person in close protection, security, and firearms, I agree with this post.

I have another (Occam's Razor) theory about this entire mess.

I believe, based on recent reporting about the USSS systems and hierarchy of priorities, that the team protecting Trump is not the A TEAM of the USSS, which means he isn't as protected as we (the public) believe. This makes sense from an operational perspective, as the ACTUAL sitting POTUS is more important than the potential POTUS.

In my experience as a volunteer with local sheriff activities, I know that training certifications are all the 'system' cares about. Take a class, add a cert. And repeat. The bureaucrats can confidently state that they're team is 'highly qualified' etc. The point is, if you are certified for prisoner transport, for example, but don't do it everyday, your paper cert is worthless. The prisoners know the difference but the bureaucrats do not.

I understand that the USSS does a lot of different things and I also know they assemble 'teams' as needed and use local help I have witnessed this and have witnessed it to be effective. (Trump rally in Bullhead City AZ.)

When I see video of close protection personnel barely above to handle their firearms (witness the video of the confusion and ridiculous time delay of action to cover Trump) OR handle their principal (witness the confusion once Trump was INSIDE the SUV and before they drove off), it is obvious to me that these people do NOT DRILL and PRACTICE these skills regularly and are most likely NOT the A TEAM.

I know better and I am only a part timer for a private protection group in Las Vegas - we trained monthly and would have been far better than these people we saw from Saturday. And it would be because we actually trained with the intent of being involved in an attack action and monthly. I really doubt those we saw on video have trained with 'serious intent' more than once per year for a day-long class.

This is a systemic failure of epic proportions as, I believe, these people, while officially certified, did NOT ACTUALLY BELIEVE they would ever be involved in an actual attempt on their principal.”

So I countered: “But you read my first article, what about the Pittsburgh office sending temporary agents, the shenanigans with Jill Biden and Kamala Harris suddenly organizing a trip to Pennsylvania, getting a higher threat assessment and thus more resources that were pulled from Trump’s rally, etc? The Secret Service does a lot more than personal protection detail of presidents and candidates, and even with such protection work, there are several different jobs that are needed that do not require being next to the protectee. What if they just pulled this lady from her normal job, at which she might have been really good, and told her to just stand there, as ‘nothing was going to happen, anyway’? What about that comment I showed you? She really looks like someone who did not train for this, at all, safe perhaps for a once in a year certification. Is this close personal protection detail really what she signed up for? Is it fair to blame her and humiliate her for a decision that was made well above her head?”

“Mmmmmh... Perhaps...” he replied.

“Did I convince you?”

“No,” as he dug in: “Only if you’re proven right will I retract my displeasure and mockery for her....”

“But is my explanation about how she got there in the field next to Trump plausible?”

“Myeah...”

“Can you really insist that your view of her is the only correct one, even as I didn’t ‘prove’ my counter-point?”

“No,” he conceded.

His first idea is still the one he holds, but now nuanced, with an openness that there is a very plausible explanation that ‘exonerates’ the woman, and places the actual blame squarely on the shoulders of her superiors.

[As an aside: notice how easy it would be to attack me, and accuse of ‘protecting and defending that inept agent who endangered Trump!’ Yeah, but no. I am not defending the error, I am only pointing out the truth behind what we perceive. By focusing on this agent, we miss the decision makers who put her there. THEY are the real target of scrutiny, scorn and legal consequence. Look at the bigger picture, and make sure you are picking the right targets!]

We often think in black and white, in absolutes. Of course, we think that our position is the good one, the correct one (otherwise we would not be holding it!) Which means, then, that the other position must be wrong, or bad! Sounds logical, but it ignores so many other possibilities.

We demand unassailable proof of any counter-claim, even if we cannot offer such proof to support our own position. Look at all the strong opinions people have about the shooting, the motives, is it staged or not, was there a second shooter, and so on: all convinced they are right, even though they have NO proof of the level they demand others to produce. Do we subject our own instinct and gut to pass through the same rigorous proof and fact-finding process before we adopt the conclusion they lead us to? How often are our opinions formed by ‘feeling’ and ‘it must be...’ rather than fact and logic?

Which is not to say that such is always wrong. We all do that, this is why we have an instinct and ‘gut feeling’, to help us decide and move, even when there isn’t much evidence to weigh. It helps us survive! Now, as I have been writing about information war, Ukraine, the United States, culture, etc. for at least 5 years, and especially the last 3, since the war in Ukraine started, I decided to stay as close as I could to facts and verifiable information. I rarely will ‘spitball’, or use conjecture. Others will do that, and I leave it to them. It allows them to move a whole lot faster than I ever could.

The level of proof for a spitballed opinion is paper-thin, on the level of ‘guilt by association’. Sometimes spot on, other times wildly off the mark. Did anyone need any hard proof to know the second they saw Trump reach for his ear, go down, and then rise up again with blood on his face, that someone just tried to kill Trump? No. That was our first instinct. Some had the opposite instinct: this must be staged! Look at how calm the crisis actors in the bleachers are! Look at the lack of blood on his cuff!

Amazing, how people look at the same set of images and video, and come away with such wildly different ideas on what happened and didn’t happen! That brings me to another very important point. My students will groan, as I keep repeating this: NOTHING IS OBVIOUS, UNTIL POINTED OUT. After having been pointed out something, you can no longer un-see it. But we forget how we DID NOT see the obvious at first!

Or, we THINK something is obvious, but don’t look close enough. People focus on 2, 3, maybe 6 different elements, and use that to construct their view. Anything that counters that view, will then be dismissed as ‘obviously false’. They forget that the reality is a lot more complex than those 2, 3 or maybe 6 different elements, and that their view, based on those elements, needs to be in line with all the other elements.

Yes, there are elements and snippets that cast suspicion on the water tower. Yes, there is news that Secret Service was told not to go on the Water tower, apparently. Yes, there are eyewitnesses that mention a shooter shooting from or towards the water tower. Yes, it is a high vantage point. Yes, it is very visible.

But no, you cannot use that to construct a view that there MUST have been a second shooter there, while discarding all the other information we have (for example the know hits right when the first shot rang out: they form a line, and that line is not coming from the water tower).

Am I saying that no one was on that tower? No, I do not know that, at all. Perhaps there was someone there (who somehow stayed out of any pictures, and wasn’t noticed by either sniper team). But I CAN prove to you that the first 8 shots fired, all with the same sound signature, did NOT come from the water tower. A single contradicting point of evidence is enough to falsify a whole theory, however solid you think it is outside that single point.

To give another example, look at this video by Dan Bongino. Go straight to the 43:50 mark, and listen for a minute or so from this video.

“...but for the multiple people in the chat suggesting that I am obfuscating it was an inside job, are you serious? You have some evidence? Folks, I have this thing called the Bongino Rule, it’s for a reason. I don’t put out shit without receipts. Could it have been some inside job? Very suspicious that this guy’s social media profile has disappeared? Absolutely. Do I discount that? Not at all. But I am going to suggest to you in the chat, and I mean it, maybe you find a new show. I don’t say things I can’t back up! I come out today and say to you, because I want clicks, ‘Dan Bongino, former Secret Service, says it is an inside job!’ ‘What evidence does he have?’ ‘Oh, none, he just thinks it!’ Who gives a fuck what I think? We almost lost a president! It only matters what I can prove!”

This is something I’ve seen happen a lot. Just because I don’t talk about everything at once, does not mean I am discounting it. I am very much focused on reconstructing what happened that day at that field in Butler, PA. Based on what we can now and find, we can reconstruct what happened, and, almost more importantly, what did NOT happen. This narrows down the possibilities.

Do I have to bring up, at length, all that Democrats have said? Or Republicans? Do I have to talk about the wider struggle? I could, if you want to read a 100,000-word book. We all have our own pet theories: not everything needs to mention those, or go into detail about those pet theories.

Look at this response to a repost of my main article, where the reposter didn’t give any opinion of his own:

“Oh No ! Not you too!! Of all people!! ?So once again the “ official narrative “ is the only narrative we are allowed to consider? Otherwise we are considered “

Conspiracy theorist s” ! ? See 9/11 / Lahaina/ Odessa ? Tx School shooting/ etc!! ,,, also remember what a cunning nefarious diabolical character Don Jr is! And how he insisted on calling a Reno Nevada Trump Rally “ minor disturbance “ an ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT “

!! I’m not saying this is similar scenario but only that Don Jr knows the VALUE of having a ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT on his dad in gaining valuable votes in what is going to be a close race! ( to the point that Don Jr etc would STAGE A FAKE ATTEMPT even if it means killing a few innocent by standards!! ,, u know Blood pills do exist too btw!!”

Where in that article is the ‘official narrative’ the ONLY narrative we are allowed to consider? Where is that article even supporting or stating ‘the official narrative’? It is jumping to conclusions, based on paper-thin correlations and ‘impressions’. ‘Don Jr is a cunning, nefarious, diabolical character, therefore it is not unthinkable that...’. Yeah, that is pure conjecture. May be true, about Don Jr.’s character, and this might be a correct assumption (even a broken clock is right twice a day), but it is conjecture, a pure opinion, without anything to back it up, and contrary to what was actually offered as argument.

Often, we mistake what we want for what actually is. Again, apophenia.

We don’t realize our mind works like this, and we don’t realize that we make such jumps in our reasoning. And we get defensive when challenged (because our idea was not based on facts, external to us, but on our own feelings, much more personal).

I prefer to stick with facts. Bit by bit, more news is coming out. Any theory you had must be able to incorporate those new facts. Perhaps they refute your ideas, perhaps they support them.

Anyone can think what they want, of course. It is your good right to be wrong. Or correct, whatever the case may be. But if you  make open claims and statements, you better make sure you are right, and not just voicing your ‘feeling’, what you ‘think’, but as the result of a thorough analysis. Especially if you want others to change their mind, or base their next actions, on what you are telling them. If it is just for you, go ahead. But the moment you want others to listen, and act, and change their own mind, based on your explanation? At that moment, feeling and thoughts and instinct don’t cut it. This is too important to make mistakes about, if you can avoid it.

There is so much information still missing, even with the steady stream of new ideas coming out. When we talk, and debate, let’s be mindful of how we think, what tricks our minds play, and focus on facts. What do we know, for sure, likely, or not at all.  

I highly recommend reading my previous writing on trying to convince others:

All is well.