I left the house yesterday; I walked all of two blocks to get eggs. As soon as I left the apartment I put my gloves on and removed them as soon as I got home. I still washed my hands. I wiped down the egg carton with antiseptic. We are being very careful in this apartment. I’m feeling confident that we won’t get sick or spread it. As long as I was buying eggs I also bought chicken breast fillets. I bought the eggs first so that age-old question is now answered. Chicken breasts are usually a dietary staple for me, but I have not found them on sale in a long time. They were yesterday even though not in the form I like. It was two whole breasts, I cut each into thirds of about half a pound each. I made one of the blackened in the air fryer. As usual I made it perfect. Too often people overcook chicken till it’s dried out. I’m pretty well set for food now other than snacks, potatoes, and coffee. That means one more expedition. I want to a walk with a camera and photograph the deserted streets. I wonder if even Fordham Rd is empty. I hope all the retail shops there are closed. I hope Maria’s Coffee is open. Coffee is a necessity right? A friend tried to order marshmallow Fluff from Amazon and couldn’t get it as it’s not essential. In what kind of world is Fluff not essential? People need to get their priorities straight.
Yesterday I didn’t blog or call a friend, two things I’m supposed to do every day. Then I didn’t write down my idea for today’s entry. I know it was something I wasn’t sure I was competent to write about. I try hard to be reliable. Of course, I sometimes fail but overall, I’m happy with myself. I make it clear when I’m speculating and what the basis of my speculation is. And that kicked my memory into gear. It’s pretty much what I wanted to write about; knowing the difference between opinion and fact, especially when it comes to future events. Fortunately, what I did forget is the post that triggered it. Now I don’t have to walk on eggshells to prevent someone from thinking that I’m singing them out. I’m not singing anyone out that might read this. There will some people that I doubt will.
Let’s say that someone says, on the next roll of one die there is a 5/6 chance that it won’t be a six, and it turns out to be a six, that person was not wrong. He gave a probability of the event, the correct probably. This person is being honest and knowledgeable. Even though he said it probably wouldn’t happen and it did, is not flaw. It’s the best that can possibly be done.
On the other hand, if a person guarantees that the next roll will be a six, and that turns out to be true, the speaker is either fool or a charlatan. If the die is a fair die than he can’t possibly know the next roll and is a fool if he thinks he can. He might also be a charlatan that makes predictions blindly but relies on people only remembering the correct ones and thinking him wise. If the person knows because he loaded the die he’s obviously a charlatan and a cheat. If he got it right because he knew somebody else loaded the die he’s also a charlatan for not being honest and telling you how he knew. He’s taking chance of somebody else’s duplicity which makes him an accomplice. Both those are classic cons. In the simplest version someone tells 100 people who will win the race. He tells the first group of ten it’s horse 1, the second group horse 2, and so on. After the race ten people are impressed that he got it right. The next day he does it again telling each one of those ten that a different horse will win a race. One is guaranteed to be right. Now there’s a person that really impressed because this guy predicted two races in a row and is willing to pay him for a tip on a race the next day.
More often it relies on people selectively remembering only the correct predictions. This is at the core of every mentalist act. Michael Moore admits that he lies in his films to make his point, yet people will still believe him. He predicted that Trump would win the election. Not a particularly bold prediction as a reliable and honest predictor, FiveThirtyEight gave it about a 30% chance. Then he predicted something totally ridiculous, that Trump would resign before his inauguration. People took that seriously because he got lucky the first prediction. Charlatan’s do things like that all the time. Trump made light of the COVID-19 epidemic for weeks. Almost everything he said was wrong. He did one right thing, preventing people coming in from China. Of course, banning non-white people from entering the country is something he always wants to do, but before and after the crisis. Now he’s praising his own foresight and people continue to believe him.
I see this all the time in Facebook posts. There was one guy that would make predictions on a baseball group I’m in and say, “It’s a lock.” I called him on it. He could very well say, “I think this will happen.” That’s fine. We all do that. But calling it a lock is claiming knowledge he doesn’t have. It’s lying. When one of his predictions came out false, I pointed it out. He just shrugged and continued to call things a lock. I know that all of you have seen posts on FB guaranteeing the results of the next election. Those are all foolish or dishonest. I have a confession to make in 2016. So many of my friends were catastrophizing and sure that Trump would win that I didn’t just state what the facts as I understood them, that Trump had only a 30% chance of winning so he probably wouldn’t; instead I promised that he would lose. I did that to calm friends down. That was wrong. I was dishonest and it backfired. Even if Trump had lost it would have been wrong. I feel terrible about doing that and have meant to do a mea culpa here since it happened. I finally got up the nerve to do so. I’m usually quick to admit a mistake but this was a moral failing on my part and that’s harder to face.
I’ll be better now and hope to still have your trust. I think I’ve been good enough since then to have earned it. When you see other people making claims like that now, no matter what they predict happens, remind yourself that the poster is either a fool or a charlatan. Call them on it. It’s a destructive to society to be a false prophet and should be discouraged.
Now I better eat, I have a phone appointment with my psychiatrist today. I don’t want to talk to her with a mouthful of food.
Wise Madness 