Would you agree or disagree?

Question

"The strongest and most impenetrable prison of the mind that you can lock yourself into is a belief system that whispers to you, with perfect certainty, that that only people who are just like you matter and are worth knowing."

What do you think?

Chris Seveney · Answer

@Jim K.

If you do believe that people like you are the ones that matter and that is a prison of the mind then yes that is a prison but an awful way to think

As mentioned people typically follow extemely biased media and listen to what they want to here

I get people angry at me and get some nasty messages here on BP because I am honest. For example when someone has a 520 credit score and no money they should not be trying to buy real estate with no money down. People will cheer them on to live the dream and go for it - yeah let’s cheer someone jumping out of a plane with no parachute as there are reasons someone has a low credit score and no money and being a financially responsible person is not one of them. Sometimes the truth hurts and depending on your generation some are thicker skinned than others.

Account Closed · Answer

What shocked me was the ferocity of the Cult of the Covidians in such a short period of time. Just by suggesting that Covid was being overhyped and the "shot" was untested, I lost a few "friends" (one is a very noted physician) that “only people who are just like you matter and are worth knowing."

You can argue that the guy who died in a motorcycle crash died of covid because he tested for covid. Or that the guy with the gunshot wound in Chicago
died because of covid but how do you explain that when covid, which has flu like symptoms, was rampant, the flu deaths disappeared? Did flu suddenly become a non issue? There was a lot of money sent by the government to hospitals if the diagnosis was "covid", not so much if it was "flu".  

And Pfizer made more money than they ever dreamed possible with a faulty product.

VAERS - Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System
https://vaers.hhs.gov/
Shows how dangerous the vaccine really is

and yet, with all of that 
you have "most impenetrable prison of the mind" in a whole lot of people of the covid persuasion.

Proof be damned.

Brie Schmidt · Answer

Account Closed - For me it was more about losing respect for people who refused to educate themselves.  They listened to every word the media told them and took it as the only possible truth.  If someone shared their beliefs or any research to the contrary they labeled them as a conspiracy theorist and refused to consider what they had to say.  Those type of people I have cut from my life not because of their beliefs but their inability to think for themselves.

I have lots of friends from before I got into REI and I have made lots of friends since I got into REI.  I mostly enjoy my time spent with my REI friends because the core of our beliefs are the same.  REI isn't a job, it is a lifestyle based on following your passion and continuous growth/development.  I always joke that you can lock 12 real estate investors in a room with a bunch of wine and open the doors 12 hours later and they will still be talking

Account Closed · Answer

Your comment: "They listened to every word the media told them and took it as the only possible truth. If someone shared their beliefs or any research to the contrary they labeled them as a conspiracy theorist and refused to consider what they had to say."You are exactly right.There is now so much proof about what really went on, that as it comes to light, people will have to consider if their source of information should change.I liken it to the 2008 debacle. I sold off in 2006 & 2007 and it took a year later to collapse, but I didn't want to be with the crowd when it did collapse.Kinda like today. Every indicator that can actually be verified (not unreliable government reports and statistics which always get "revised") says that housing is very overpriced compared to income and productivity. And the economy is far weaker than admitted to.I'm using the formula underwriting uses for lending, simply because if they won't lend, most people can't buy. It significantly limits the pool of buyers.

Allan C. · Answer

@Jim K. No one wins in life without growing, and you can’t grow without diversity of thought… and you can’t get that by surrounding yourself with like-minded people.

Account Closed · Answer

It's okay to disagree. As long as the conversation keeps on going. 

It's when people break into their groups of "I'm always right that they lose their humanity.

Jim K. · Answer

@Mike Dymski

Hitler believed that changing your mind or entertaining a different viewpoint after the age of 30 was a personal weakness. He also believed any sort of public debate was futile. And there was of course, the fact that he wanted to exterminate a lot of people who weren't just like him.

Jim K. · Answer

I think a lot of people simply don't want to think and hold opinions based on comfort and what the friends they surround themselves with say. Here's one example: there was a time when I researched and wrote about a group of  environmentalists who hated deer hunters. Deer hunting was cruel and evil, and annual deer hunters were all dangerous, lawless gun-nut criminal sickos who shot at anything and simply enjoyed killing. That was their narrative, and they believed it without hesitation. Hunters were dangerous, dangerous people.

The truth is, by our best estimates, the forests of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hold three times more deer today than they did in pre-Colombian times. Without the predators that used to control the deer population, our only hope at successfully managing the resources is, in fact, hunting. Our entire system of game management is funded by hunting and the approximate 600,000 hunters who overwhelmingly buy their annual licenses, respect tags and bag limits, and do their best to follow the law. All of these hunters are policed by only 114 active game wardens. Eleven game wardens have been killed in the line of duty since the inception of the Pennsylvania Game Commission in 1895. In 2019, four, count 'em, four people died in hunting accidents.Understand that there are currently 4,547 active Pennsylvania State Policemen, largely to make sure that we don't break the speed limit, and 111 State Policemen have died in the line of duty since 1905.The narrative of the lawless hunter is obvious lunacy. But you will find plenty of people who believe it.

V.G Jason · Answer

You can't scale truly with being surrounded by like minded people. You need to be put out of your comfort position with people challenging your views, and understand how to read and react to them.

Lots of people think being successful at one is being synonymous with doing so at others. When you fail, you learn the hard way. But those failures will lead you to success, cause you were forced to change your thoughts. There's no other way.

Jim K. · Answer

Account Closed

You and I will not agree on much with COVID, but as far as the COVID-profiteering thing went, hell yeah. Hospitals make their real money on elective surgeries. Those disappeared during the pandemic. COVID money was the only game in town. And of course the government knew what was going on and turned a blind eye in the interest of keeping the US health system going.

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