Remusings

What is reality? Where does one anchor one's sense of what is real? In other words, what is the true nature of the phenomenon of our experience? These questions contain many loaded terms, much-debated and discussed. As such, they can quickly become philosophical dynamite, the kind that could burst into flames by the tiniest spark of a misspoken word or an ill-pondered conjecture. Nonetheless, some deem these questions worth asking, to grab hold of that philosophical dynamite, to stroll through the cloud of metaphysical splinters, to brave the tumult of the raging epistemic tempest. All in the hope of reaching some imagined calm centre of understanding, enlightenment, deliverance, redemption, yada, yada, yada . Here is one such attempt.   Things and Stuff: The fetish of materialism, as manifested today through consumer capitalism, is no stranger to anyone, anywhere, anymore. While it takes different forms in different places, the essence of the obsession is the same. On Wall St...

Our shared disillusionment with the leadership class has been a persistent narrative within the zeitgeist for decades. The archetypical representation of a modern politician is commonly associated with a number of troubling traits - untrustworthy, selfish, greedy, power-hungry, corrupt, deceitful and more. Put simply, the  majority of people around the world do not trust their politicians . Meanwhile politics itself, in the words of George Orwell,  "is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia". As such, we have come to accept the sad truth that all our leaders come with a price tag, for those who can afford it. And that, in the big picture, you and I are left not only powerless, but also utterly hopeless.  Meanwhile, even our sense of hopelessness is not spared from manipulation either. The rise of the "right wing bros club" (the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi among others) was fueled by this very same hopelessness and mistrust of the political eli...

What is a conspiracy theory? Political Psychologists define it as "attempts to explain the ultimate causes of significant social and political events and circumstances with claims of secret plots by two or more powerful actors". There are a few important elements that form part of this definition. Firstly, conspiracy theories seek to provide an explanation for political and social events. Secondly, they rest on the belief that shadowy powerful actors are executing secret plots to manipulate socio-political dynamics. Thirdly, they are generally based on a number of deductive errors in reasoning on the part of their proponents, whereby singular events or data points, that have no rational causal relationship, are linked together to form a narrative. In essence, conspiracy theories are based on connecting information nodes (which may or may not have an observable correlation, i.e. tendency to occur together) without any empirical evidence that proves a causal relationship betwee...