One of the less pressing moral issues of our time involves the propriety of mocking people who embrace obvious frauds like Global Warming. We may snicker openly as we say to them, “Remember how you used to believe in Global Freezing? Then, when the fad changed, you switched to Global Warming. Now, that’s been shown to be still another fraud in which you believed. I have to ask, is there anything you’re smart about?”
There is not a positive relationship between I.Q and believing in frauds. Those who realized that Global Warming was a fraud from the beginning have the highest IQs. Those who stopped believing in Global Warming a few years ago are the second smartest group. People who stopped believing in Global Warming after the “climategate emails” showed that a few people were manipulating both the data and selecting those allowed to publish it have above average I.Q.s, too. How smart are those who still believe in Global Warming?
There is an easy way for each of us to get an idea of how pseudo such intellectuals are: While sticking your tongue firmly into your cheek, (actually, stick your tongue into your cheek!) and say loudly, “I believe in Global Warming.” You will thereby perfectly replicate their thinking abilities while retaining your own.
Whenever we hear about the latest Imaginary Problem, we should boil it down to a single sentence and say it the very same way. That helps identify their self-serving silliness. Saying, tongue-in-cheek (now, we know what that means!), “Childhood obesity is a threat to our civilization.” we’re helped to see it’s just another Imaginary Problem. It also works with “The ozone hole is still a great danger.” When we identify, isolate, and boil down Imaginary Problems into single sentences and say them, tongue-in-cheek, we see how inane they are.
Every day, we are threatened with bigger and bigger Imaginary Problems. Growing hordes of hopelessly over-educated, increasingly frantic, and under-employed people hope that each new Imaginary Problem will provide them with the lucrative employment they’ve been led to feel they deserve. Many prefer that to real jobs.
Is it wrong to tell them that they really don’t appear to be much smarter than lemmings or better than pickpockets?
