Publisher's Synopsis
The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions as shown by reviews of books by leading authors in philosophy and psychology, which as I note can be seen as the same discipline in many situations. In the next section I comment on very basic confusions where one might least expect them - in science and mathematics. Next, I turn to confusions where most people do expect them-in religion (i.e., in cooperative groups formed to facilitate reproduction). Finally, I provide some viewpoints on areas where all the issues come together-economics and politics. The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell on Earth. As Wittgenstein noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of consciousdeliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules.This is the source of the universal blindness described by Searle's The PhenomenologicalIllusion (TPI), Pinker's Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides' Standard Social Science Model.America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world.This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Hence my essay "Suicide by Democracy". It is also now clear that the seven sociopaths who rule China are winning worldwar 3, and so my concluding essay on them. The only greater threat is Artificial Intelligence which I comment on briefly in the last paragraph.
