Analysis and Opinion

By Joe America

I posted this tweet a few days ago:

"Science is knowledge. Truth is knowledge. Politics, propaganda, lies, trolls, and conspiracy theories are the opposite of knowledge. They are deceits and delusions. They are good for the greedy, bad for the nation. The Philippines is largely anti-knowledge."

Philippine government blows smoke and buys loyalty. It is a successful formula, although, for the nation, it produces wholly underwhelming results. People live in poverty, solutions create red tape and inefficiency, the infrastructure is dilapidated, favored people get rich, and the rest lap up simplistic ideas as if they were salvation.

Truth is irrelevant. Transparency no longer exists. Science is shoved aside. Accountability is missing.

Do you know what accountability is? It is the science of results. It takes human insecurities out of the equation and looks strictly at achievements. If a pole vaulter succeeds at 5.7 meters but fails at 5.8, the science says he is accountable for achieving 5.7, and there is no further judgment needed. That's a fact.

Bad use of the fact occurs if we say "you bad man, you". It's destructive. Or if the runner says "the track was slow" and learns nothing from the jump.

Good use of the fact occurs if the vaulter says, okay, in 2024, I will make 5.8 and beyond, so I have to work on my strength and technique. He is using the fact to build.

That's accountability.

The Philippines aspires on a base of deceits and delusions, not facts. It learns nothing. It fails every time.

The nation's character is largely one of blames and excuses. Not accountability or lessons learned.

To build well, you have to have facts, the stuff of cement and steel that anchors thinking. Cold rational thinking.

I've come to appreciate our contributor LCX here at the blog after many years of argument. His technique is to challenge or take down our conventional thinking. He challenges democracy, religion, human rights, education, ecology, electricity, or any other conventional thinking. Then, when it is sufficiently destroyed (fallaciously or otherwise), he reconstructs a different model. Sometimes he is genius, sometimes he is naive, sometimes he is wrong, but 100% of the time he provokes new thinking.

The Philippines has very little thinking, as far as I can tell. Old or new. It has reacting, gaslighting, guessing, lying, or playing. Not thinking.

The Philippines does have one gentleman who understands. His name is Agerico de Villa. He says:

"The enemies are the wrong forms of reasoning that contaminate minds like viruses that contaminate our blood streams. These wrong forms of reasoning make zombies out of our generals and the man on the street."

Here's one of his articles. It discusses a particular popular fallacy, Affirming the Consequent:

https://www.pinoytoolbox.org/post/conspiracy-theorists-and-rules-of-inference-as-memes-blog-ko-from-elsewhere

"If I am a competent leader, then our economy is going to grow. Our economy is growing. Therefore, I am a competent leader."

That's the style of reasoning that infests Filipino thinking and voting. And it is bad. Just plain bad.

You never get to accountability.

You build on deceits and delusions and get failure.

Filipinos need to work harder on the science of results, and their sense of logic. They need to set aside easy moral judgments and fascination with symbols and idols. They need to stop escaping with excuses and taking the easy way with blames. They need to get to work, thinking. Cold, rational thinking that removes THEM from the premise.