Sometimes it’s like herding sheep…

A special kind of sheep. The kind that herd themselves.

A perfect example is in this story from Australia about a woman who climbed over a safety railing and then back again, without falling over a cliff. A perfectly ordinary event in my view. I wouldn’t have done it but then I don’t like high places.

Safety railings do not grow on cliff edges. Someone put them there. The sensible response should have been ‘well, it’s definitely safe on this side of the railing but if you want to climb over it, that’s up to you’. That is never the actual response. The Daily Mail reports the story with breathless horror, as usual. This could have happened or that could have happened or even something else!

Nothing did happen, naturally.  She climbed over the railing, took a look over the edge, took a photo and climbed back again. This became a really big deal because she took her daughter with her. The daughter looks easily old enough to have climbed over herself. It’s not as if she let a toddler loose on the edge of a cliff. Yet the ‘onlookers were all horrified’ and one took pictures and sent them to the Mail as evidence. Evidence of… what?

Evidence of the sheep that ignored the sheepdogs, that’s what. Get back in line, stay inside the fences and wait for the big truck to come. No actual dogs required in this case. These are the sheep that herd themselves. They are all over the comments too.

While the sheep herd themselves, the farmers sit back and count their money. Occasionally they put out a ‘we know best’ propaganda peice disguised as a news story.

All those billionaires are not just clever, they are ‘scary smart’. The drones must believe that the rich are more intelligent than them and do indeed know what is best. Unfortunately the last line of the article totally gives the game away…

I think we should deeply consider the implications when a select group of scary smart people also tend to hold a disproportionate share of global wealth and power,’ he said. ‘We depend on these people to make wise decisions for all of us.’

Really? I think I’ll make my own decisions, even though I have no money at all. Looking at the decisions some of these rich people are making now, I wouldn’t trust them to decide what I have for breakfast. If they are truly the super-intelligent elite, they are exceptionally good at hiding it.

No, they do not have ‘scary smarts’. All they have is money. Bits of paper and metal. Increasingly, all they have are numbers on a screen. Let them have that. Let them dodge their taxes while insisting we pay the few pennies we owe. I have enough, I have no ambitions concerning fast cars and huge houses (the cleaning would be eternal!). I don’t want employees living in my house.because it’s too huge to manage alone. As for boats, I like building models of them but oddly enough, hate being on the real ones.

This ‘article’ and the Studies have Shown report it is based on is nothing more than the farmers telling the sheep who is boss. Keep them in line. They’ve been a bit restive lately, time for some reminders. We’ll start with a gentle one.

That report author equates ‘intelligence’ with ‘posh schooling’ and misses the point that many of the students in such places are there because of parental income rather than ability. George Bush went to a posh school and came out possibly dimmer than when he went in. Intelligence is not a result of schooling, it’s what you have to have to absorb more schooling than other people. And you do not have to use your intelligence to amass education.

Another story in that same issue is also about a billionaire. A very smart man indeed. What a pity he can barely read or write. Somewhat blows the ‘all billionaires are brilliant at everything’ line out of the water, doesn’t it? Oh, and this guy didn’t inherit so much as a tin of beans. He did it all himself. He also has no interest in controlling anyone else’s life.

Those ‘scary smart’ ones should pay attention to him.