{"id":2437,"date":"2023-06-03T14:15:58","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T18:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/?p=2437"},"modified":"2023-06-03T16:57:26","modified_gmt":"2023-06-03T20:57:26","slug":"the-majority-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/the-majority-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Majority Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

widely held opinions are often irrational<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2015 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Marcus Aurelius was a stoic philosopher and a Roman emperor from 161 AD to 180 AD, the last of the Five Good Emperors and, according to Wikipedia, \u201cthe last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace, calmness, and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD.\u201d The stoicists believed that practicing virtue in one\u2019s life was a necessary and sufficient condition for happiness, which they called eudaimonia. The literal translation of eudaimonia is \u201cgood spiritedness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meditations <\/em>contains 12 books, but historians think that Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations<\/em> for himself, as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement, and that the book was never intended by him to be published. Although a Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius was a deep thinker and nothing like the mindless leaders and politicians of our day. He believed that it was important to develop a cosmic perspective on life, and to understand that everything we see comes from Nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some pretty smart and wise people lived 2,000 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2,000 years later…<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The quote above applies to our lives today because the majority opinion changes depending on what fear porn is currently being promoted by the mass media and on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe economy is collapsing!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are now at the beginning of World War 3!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t raise the debt ceiling the government will default!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t lower our carbon footprint humanity will be destroyed by climate change!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just goes on and on and on… and there\u2019s a new one every week. These insane narratives \u2013 all of which are lies \u2013 are promoted over and over again by a mass media whose purpose, it seems, is to spread fear porn and chaos. It is easy to go along with these narratives because not to \u2013 as the talking heads and the social media gurus tell us \u2013 makes us social outcasts. We feel stupid not to join the majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the majority opinion is often the insane opinion. The majority opinion is often just a narrative \u2013 a collection of lies and half-truths designed to scare us. For example, a 4th-generation farmer in South Dakota is being threatened with an eminent domain lawsuit \u2013 the precursor to seizing his land \u2013 so that a private corporation can build a \u201ccarbon capture reduction pipeline\u201d on his property<\/a>. According to MIT\u2019s Climate Portal<\/a>, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to a collection of technologies that can combat climate change by reducing carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions. The idea behind CCS is to capture the CO 2 generated by burning fossil fuels before it is released to the atmosphere. The question is then: What to do with the captured CO 2? Most current CCS strategies call for the injection of CO2 deep underground. This forms a \u201cclosed loop\u201d, where the carbon is extracted from the Earth as fossil fuels and then is returned to the Earth as CO2.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If this seems nutty to you, well, it is. There are a lot of climate change grifters out there, and they are making a ton of money on incomprehensible programs like these. Part of this majority opinion includes the idea that raising cows is environmentally dangerous<\/a> because it raises the carbon footprint, and farming itself is dangerous because of polluting fertilizers and gas-guzzling farm equipment. The government of the Netherlands believes just that. The Dutch are the greatest farmers in the world, but their government wants to shut down farming to a large extent because it is (supposedly) environmentally dangerous. Type in \u201cNetherlands farmer protest<\/a>\u201d into your search engine and read all about this craziness! What is truly dangerous are nutty opinions like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Majority Opinion is that global warming is going to destroy the climate and the planet. But like many majority opinions, it is crazy. Here is a graph <\/a> that shows 4 consecutive years of decreasing maxima in the past four 11-year solar cycles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The last four 11-year solar cycles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As you can see, for the past 44 years the sunspot numbers \u2013 a measure of the amount of solar radiation that hits the earth<\/a> \u2013 has been decreasing. The planet warms when the amount of solar radiation increases, and cools when it decreases. The Majority Opinion doesn\u2019t want to examine the science, because it conflicts with the fear-porn global warming\/climate change narrative and the grifters who benefit from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Marcus Aurelius\u2019 maxim holds true more than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems like a good idea to me to develop a more cosmic perspective on life, like Marcus Aurelius did 2,000 years ago. This involves recognizing our own spirituality and connection to the Infinite. And it would probably be a good idea to observe nature and pay attention to the vast, underlying harmony we see there. Through nature we can perceive the face of the Creative Source.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

widely held opinions are often irrational \u201cThe object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.\u201d \u2015 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Introduction Marcus Aurelius was a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-and-living-from-a-higher-perspective","category-news-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2437"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2444,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions\/2444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjmaclean.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}