Wisdom of crowds=Wisdom of the mob.

Wisdom of crowds. This was an issue addressed by  my Dad. After a career in science, he went into the stock market. He told me once the best way to lose money in the stock market is to listen to advice of the experts or the crowd. That was pretty much in accord with the general world view of Californians  in those days of the importance of  finding your own path and not listening to the wisdom of crowds.

He was in those days working with the best stock brokers of Merrill-Lynch. But that was what my Dad said even abut the top experts--not to listen to their advice about what to invest in.

Today I would have to temper (modify) this advice. Sometimes. Sapolsky mentioned on one of his utube videos  [#22. min. 45 ]that if you take a lot of experts and take the average of all their estimates about the thing they are expert in then the medium turns out to be very close to the true value more than any one expert. But the caveat [condition] is they have to be experts in that field. For example given to Navy geologist temperature and some other variable the question was asked, "Where in the world would this be?" Take the collective answer of all and take the average. It came out within 300 meters of the right spot.

So you really have to be expert enough to be able to tell who is a real expert and who really has just assumed expertise.


[Mainly the reason my Dad went into business instead of continuing in science was as far as I understood was the his project of creating satellite communication by lasers was completed for NASA and he no longer wanted to be under the thumb of an any employer. He wanted to be self employed. He was tired I think of taking orders and thought he could do better n his own.

pantheism means making the whole world into an idol.

The major problem with pantheism is that you do not want to turn the whole world into an idol.

While God is beyond this world and also since he made place and time so the world is not empty of Him. Still that does not mean the world is a god or godliness.
he is infinity close and infinity far but that does not mean pantheism. You can understand this by ontological undecidability.

The Rambam dealt with this problem in several ways First he wrote the whole second volume of the Guide  to show God made the world something from nothing--not from Himself. The world is not godliness, nor condensed godliness according to the Torah. (But it is according to Advaita Hinduism.) Thus the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on teach Advaita Hinduism.


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הבעיה העיקרית עם פנתאיזם היא שאתה לא רוצה להפוך את העולם כולו לאליל. בעוד שהאלוהים הוא מעבר לעולם הזה וגם מאז הוא עשה המקום וזמן, כך שהעולם הוא לא ריק ממנו. עדיין זה לא אומר שהעולם הוא אלוהים או אלוהות. הוא קרוב ורחוק  אבל זה לא אומר פנתאיזם. רמב''ם התמודד עם בעיה זו במספר דרכים. הוא כתב את הכרך השני כולו של המורה  להראות אלוהים ברא את העולם יש מאין, לא מעצמו. העולם אינו אלוהות ולא אלוהות מתומצתת על פי התורה.

But as far as left wing politics goes I think there is one unifying principle: the desire to feel moral at other people's expense.

Michael Huemer holds that people are irrational about politics  and religion and decide their beliefs based on group affiliation and other principle that have nothing to do with reason. But as far as left wing politics goes I think there is one unifying principle: the desire to feel moral at other people's expense.

political power in the hands of the unjust

Socrates once had a chance to debate a person of great political power in Athens. Socrates thought that political power in the hands of people that do not know the difference between justice and injustice is a bad thing. He brought an example of Cleon an orator that had convinced the Athenians to execute all the males of some city that had rebelled. The decree was recalled when the Athenians came to their senses and sent a ship to overtake the first ship that had the first set of orders.

Religious teachers are stupid. It is possible to generalize about groups of people. To say one can't is absurd. You might as well say you can't generalize about child pornographers. Or you can't generalize about pedophiles. How can you say they are all bad. No. I can say they are all bad.

Religious teachers claim to be able to understand the Talmud.That is clearly false to anyone who has ever asked them a question about anyplace in the Talmud.

They always lie about what the Torah says because they are trying to change Torah into a recipe for making people give them money. They will claim whatever clams people like to hear about anything besides this one basic point.

It is possible to generalize about groups of people. To say one can't is absurd. You might as well say you can't generalize about child pornographers. Or you can't generalize about pedophiles. How can you say they are all bad. No. I can say they are all bad.


People in Litvak (Lithuanian) yeshivas certainly do know the material well, but all practicing religious teacher not only are stupid when it comes to the Talmud but also do not care what it says. They just want to continue their pretense in order to preserve their status quo in which they get all the perks and the working people have to bow to them. They make good money off of rituals.
{See Animal Farm in detail by George Orwell.}



There are two reasons for saying this. One is Rabainu Yona. That is his is the opinion that Lashon HaRa (slander) does not apply to truth unless the damage caused by it would not be according to the din (law) of the Torah. That is in plain English Lashon Hara (slander) to him is specifically on lies. Truth (true slander) is only forbidden because of collateral damage. [See the Chafetz Chaim Vol I chapter 4 and Vol I chapter 7.] In this case, the damage the religious teachers cause is so vast and encompassing of every single Jewish home, that there is no choice but to make this public. And the Chafez Chaim decided like Rabainu Yona.[That is in chapter 7 he makes this clear even though he uses the language of the Rambam in the beginning of chapter one. For some reason I do not understand the Chafetz Chaim did not mention this argument between the Rambam and Rabainu Yona openly. This is very curious to me.]

But I think that even the Rambam would agree here. Even though to him Lashon Hara is on truth still to warn people about a danger that they otherwise would not be aware of I think he would agree is permissible and even praiseworthy. [Otherwise the only time you could even warn someone would be in Bet Din. You could not even warn your own teenage children about avoiding some bad cult. What the Rambam might do is go a completely different route than Rabainu Yona. That is he might say מומר לדבר אחד אינו מומר לכל התורה כולה a person that does not keep one mitzvah is not a person that keeps no mitzvot. But he is still a "mumar,"  and thus lashon hara on him is allowed. It is allowed not because it is true but because the prohibition of lashon hara does not apply.]

That is to say: You have trusted the religious teachers until now. How did that work out for you? If you think they ruined your life, you are not alone. And they get this power from the pretense of knowing the Talmud.


Stupid is not the same as dumb. Dumb is just Dumb. But Stupid implies a kind of damage that they do. Stupid jerks telling others about Morality and ethics just can not have a good end to it.

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There are two reasons for saying this. One is רבינו יונה. That is his is the opinion that  לשון הרע does not apply to אמת unless the damage caused by it would not be according to the din (law) of the Torah. That is in plain English לשון הרע  to him is specifically on lies.  אמת true slander is only forbidden because of collateral damage. See the חפץ חיים חלק א' פרק ד'  ופרק ז. In this case, the damage the religious teachers cause is so vast and encompassing of every single Jewish home, that there is no choice but to make this public. And the חפץ חיים decided like רבינו יונה. That is in chapter שבע he makes this clear even though he uses the language of the רמב''ם in the beginning of chapter one. For some reason I do not understand the חפץ חיים did not mention this argument between the רמב''ם and רבינו יונה openly. This is very curious to me.

But I think that even the רמב''ם would agree here. Even though to him  לשון הרע is on truth still to warn people about a danger that they otherwise would not be aware of I think he would agree is permissible and even praiseworthy. Otherwise the only time you could even warn someone would be in בית דין. You could not even warn your own teenage children about avoiding some bad cult. What the רמב''ם might do is go a completely different route than רבינו יונה. That is he might say מומר לדבר אחד אינו מומר לכל התורה כולה a person that does not keep one מצווה is not a person that keeps no מצוות But he is still a מומר  and thus  לשון הרע on him is allowed. It is allowed not because it is true but because the prohibition of  לשון הרע does not apply.


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And  you could ask but he is still בכלל עמיתיך? So לשון הרע still applies to him? Answer Yes לשון הרע still applies to him but not on that one מצווה that he is not doing. 

But after a while I saw many of the cult's (that the Gra signed the excommunication on) obsessions with rituals was not coming from Torah, but from psychological defects that manifested themselves in many other ways.

There is a kind of schizo personality that is overly interested in religious matters

I tried to judge people that showed this tendency on the scales of merit. After all, the Torah is by its very nature all encompassing. But after a while I saw many people's obsessions with rituals was not coming from Torah, but from psychological defects that manifested themselves in many other ways.

So like Sapolsky I ask, "What does this mean?"  Even if there was one case in history of someone considered a tazdik who was merely suffering from some chemical problem, what does this mean?

"Religious leaders tend to be the most fervent and the most accomplished at carrying out the rituals."


If it is real, then there has to be some connection with menschliechkeit human decency. If that connection is not there, that is a sure sign the rituals are coming from a schizo personality.
And since, by and large, the relationship between rituals and human decency is inverse, therefore the majority of ritual-people are coming from either following a schizo personality, or they themselves are schizo.

The Schizo ritual obsessed  I think is an evolutionary strategy of nature. It has amazing reproductive advantages. It is the schizoid leaders of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on that have the most reproductive success.

My Dad and the path of Torah and Science. He would not have put it in that way. He would have said "menschlichkeit"--"Be a decent human being." But much more. To be a mensch is to be honest loyal trustworthy hard working etc. All things that my father and mother were.

My Dad as a rule showed me his places of work. I went to visit the factory where he was producing his invention, a super sharp copying machine called the "copymate." Then we moved to Beverly Hills and his new place of work was very far away. (We were there for the high school. And was  a great school. My friends were super achievers, and I was a distant second place in everything I did.)
But I still managed to visit his place of work once. It was on an upper floor in the TRW building where he was working on a laser beam for the sake of satellite communication for the SDI project. I showed interest in science myself when I was young and also in elementary school. But in high school that interest went out the window. My interests were at that point in other directions like Philosophy and Music. Here is a piece I wrote then



But today I think the problem was that I did not have a good method for learning science. Still for me to have gone into science would have taken a lot of time. Nor was I aware of the Rambam's opinion about science at the time. I do not have pictures but here is a link to the Life Magazine article about my Dad

In high school I had a continuing interest in science but it was hard to do well in anything because of time constraints. I felt pulled in lots of directions. Not just philosophy and Music, but I found all my classes interesting and worthwhile. I wanted to do well in all of them. But there was the same old problem of time. I tried to solve it by applying to a private school, and  a college, and UCLA where I could concentrate on one thing alone. But nothing came of it. 

[I was accepted in all three places but did not have the guts to actually leave home.]

 By the time it came time to chose a career, I thought going to Mir in N.Y. made the most sense-- because it appealed to my philosophical side.  In other words, I was able to concentrate on one thing, and in fact the one thing that I really loved--learning Torah. 


My father and mother represented Torah with Derech Erez.
But I admit there are some people that sit and learn Torah all day and succeed. Rav Shach clearly held from the basic Litvak yeshiva model: learn  Torah and everything else will work out.


I never mention my mother because my Mom and Dad functioned as one unit. There was never a case where one or the other said I have to ask what the other one would say about this. Their coordination was extremely fine tuned. They always knew and agreed with what the other would say on any issue. They never argued. They never disagreed. And they loved each other and us kids with intense self sacrificing lobe as parents ought to be.


Appendix:

He entered active duty on July 20, 1944, and was an aircraft engineering officer 4823. His medals were the American Campaign Medal, Army of Occupation Medal and World War II Victory Medal. He served 1 ½ years in the US and almost 8 months in Europe. He left active duty on September 29, 1946. His serial number was 0 872 281. He was promoted to captain just before he left the US Army, and served in the US Army, Headquarters and Base Service Squadron 413th Air Service Group 40th Bomb Wing United States Air Forces European Theater. In the US, he served at Great Bend , Kansas and was in charge of maintaining 6 B-29 aircraft for the unit. He supervised the work of 75 enlisted men. In Europe, he was a civilian personnel officer. He served 8 months in the European Theater of Operations (France, Germany and Switzerland ) with the 413th Air Service Group and was in charge of 1500 German civilians, supervising 1 officer and 20 civilians. He spoke German fluently at the time.