Traditionally humans have all been regarded as the same species, and differences in homonid have been have been relegated to the animal kingdom. However when one looks at the world and studies human behaviour one finds that there appear to be different classes of human, and as much as it pains me as a unifier to admit this, it is a theory that does hold water.
I do not want to put myself into a different category as some sort of elitist flex, and do still believe that we all are equal, but i cannot deny that I think differently, have a different outlook, and believe different things to the vast majority of humans. I don’t know why this is and sometimes wish it wasn’t so, but here we are and I can’t change it.
So looking at the masses then, I see that they are controlled by simple emotional tricks, and then they act together through fear of standing out in the crowd. No logical argument, or evidence to the contrary will sway them, and it is this facet of humanity that is exploited and allows conmen to be successful. On the other hand we have the critical thinkers in the minority who are the ones who reject this and do their own thing.
Now I don’t want to suggest that the critical thinkers are simply the ones in charge, or are winning at the game of life, and I believe it is actually the other way around. Those with the most money, influence, and power are the majority cult members. They are as easily swayed as the 98% but this is a subdivision into the realm of the cheaters, the wicked, the ruthless, and the greater Narcissists. These are the humans that crave attention, power, and control, even though they have no clue what to do with it other than to boss people about and self ingratiate themselves.
So I think it breaks down along following lines; there are 2 main groupings of majority and minority humans. Within each of these are splits of good vs evil, probably about 90/10 in favour of the good. The good in both groups are typically the empaths who do no harm, and the evil are the narcissists making a mess for everyone else. It is the evil who are in power in both groups, as they seek control most of all. The minority evil are the absolute worst human beings, as it is they who not only see what’s going on, but who have the skill and the will to take advantage of others. The only group who is not taken advantage of is the minority critical thinkers, and alas they are not the ones in charge even though they deserve it.
So with that model in mind I turn it on the planet earth and dissect humanity, rightly or wrongly.
Case in point: Dr David Cartland and the Malta Roman baths.
David here is a Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, he has a Bachelor of Medicine degree and a Bachelor of Medical Sciences degree. He is a Doctor with esteem, and would be considered intelligent based on his credentials.
On the 29th September 2024 he posted the following image on X.com without comment, showing his support for it’s message:
The implication he is making here is that a 2000 year old Roman era sea level structure remaining above the sea level, is proof that sea levels are not rising due to a warming of the earth’s climate. He further shares the idea that our children are being taught the wrong thing about global warming.
The thing is, this puts him in the non-critical thinking category, thus one of the masses. As the information in the image is wrong, and he has not checked this. The image is supporting his confirmation bias that global warming is not real, as evidenced by the Roman baths not being permanently submerged by rising seas in 2024.
He may indeed be correct about Climate Change, but he has harmed his cause with this image and it’s message.
The Roman baths, are situated on Tower road in Sliema, Malta and can be seen here via google maps:
While they are indeed called Roman baths, a little bit of digging reveals that they were not built by Romans 2000 years ago, and instead were built by the British in the late Victorian era. Here are some links to sites so you can confirm for yourself:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/roman-tidal-baths-malta/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/roman-baths-of-sliema
As a result, David has shared and promoted misinformation. This decorated doctor who professes on his profile “Promotor of safe, evidence based medicine, good medical ethics.” has not promoted a safe evidence based meme, the ethics of which are dubious and the conclusion drawn from the statement and image is therefore incorrect. It is in fact a lie. Again, I’m not suggesting that the sea level rise is true as a result of “climate change”, but in this case the information presented is false.
How could this be? How could someone who is intelligent and in the upper echelons of education, and presumably the top 10% percentage wage bracket, fall for this fake and deceive his 249,000 followers on X?
It is because of the way humans fall into categories. David here is not a critical thinker and is in the human masses category. He has gotten where he is by doing as he was told and copying others. Based on his education he can legitimately be a leader of man but he is not a “good” leader. What remains is to work out is if he falls in evil category, but this cannot be done based on the above evidence alone and I won’t do it here.
What we see with people in this category is often that they have a good memory for facts, figures, procedure, and who said what historically. This can often masquerade as intelligence, but where it fails is when a new situation is presented to them and they have no training on it and no-one to mimic. They are unable to deal with the situation, and make bad choices as they move forward without a memory of what to do.
David is adopting and anti-establishment, and anti-majority position here with his post on the sea level. This is interesting as it suggests the masses are now flipping sides in the ongoing “climate change” battle, and he is siding (albeit poorly) with a minority of critical thinkers who have been pointing this out for some time. Along with other significant facts such as rich people buying beach front homes and banks lending money to the less well off, in the form of mortgages, for coastal property which could be flooded in the near future.
He may face a backlash still from his peers because of this, but I would wager that it will be less of a backlash than say 5 years ago. He is in fact trying to lead his followers into an opposite way of thinking about the “climate change” sea level rise claim, as evidenced by one own eyes at the beach should you visit.
The punchline of the post is the implication that this is bad for our children to learn and they are not being taught the truth about “climate change”. David presumably had a different education to children today and as an adult this lead him to believe the children are being lied to about the climate. But in reality we know nothing of what children are being taught and the post shared shows that his own education failed him. I would suggest that what ever is being taught, some of the children will simply parrot what is learnt in school, and others will question it, and as in his day this will not create a homogenous classroom of people who think the same.
So what is the critical thinking skill and can it even be taught?
For me personally, critical thinking came out of me going along with the herd and getting in trouble for doing so. The pain felt from being punished was enough for me to change (when repeatedly applied for reoccurrences). I wanted to avoid getting caught out again in the future. So initially for me it was to escape pain, however over time it was a skill I turned from avoiding pain to helping others avoid the pain of being duped. I had no training or education in critical thinking, and one of the hardest confidence tests on this I had to face is when I was accused of not being a critical thinker by a confidence trickster. That’s a real soul searching moment, and thankfully I came through it intact!
It has been said that critical thinking cannot be taught in school, and that it is a many and varied subject leading to critical thinking only in specialist areas without a general ability. An example of this argument can be seen here:
https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2022/09/07/what-critical-thinking-is/
If this is true then it is clearly a problem for humanity and maybe is something that is hardwired in most people, with a few exceptions that have a genetic mutation pop up randomly? Maybe this is the unchangeable shape of humanity and it’s species divide which cannot be rectified?
One could argue that after thousands of years of attempts at human organisation, what we have now is the only thing we can come up with that is stable and takes into account the different classes of human! If it were to be any different, then maybe it would already be different.
In conclusion then, I suggest that we are a single species with critical thinking traits that emerge randomly and infrequently, not making a sub-species but like a specialised class of human. Think dog breeds rather than species separation, e.g. Border Collies vs Pit Bulls vs Afghan hounds. These human breeds should be identified and taken heed of by us at the global level of humanity. Specializations should be identified early and promoted by our schools, rather than knocked into a general set shape. Clearly there are some specializations for honest altruistic leadership and definitely some classifications that should be not allowed any power and control at all. We need to be better at identifying this, and perhaps, if it’s not too dystopian, breeding for specialist attributes to be enhanced and retained?
Wouldn’t it be nice to not have an embarrassing leader on the world stage for once!