📘 2+2=4 Vol. 1: Hard lessons and uncomfortable truths

Introducing “2+2=4”, a bi-weekly roundup of the best articles and podcasts on the web that challenge groupthink narratives.

(Source: Freepik)

“Two Plus Two” was founded out of my personal quest to understanding what is going on in the world and to getting as close to the truth as possible. Somewhere between the madness of the COVID pandemic, the complete deconstruction of biological reality and the continuous lying of mainstream media – in short, the explosion of Wokeism in Western society and with it the destruction of Truth and Science as we know it – I understood that the most important asset we have is our personal capacity for critical thinking.

Critical thinking, however, can only be developed through reading and processing new information. There are a lot of brilliant journalists, scientists and commentators out there whose texts and podcasts have helped and are helping me make sense of what is happening in politics and society right now. I would like to feature the most interesting and worthwhile articles in this new bi-weekly roundup called “2+2=4” – articles that will hopefully be as intriguing to you as they have been to me and will help burst the groupthink bubble. Let’s go!

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#1 A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century: Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation

by Jacob Siegel (Tablet Magazine, published on March 29, 2023)

In an absolutely outstanding piece of journalism that will open your eyes, Mr. Siegel outlines how the American public has been duped and kept in the dark by its own government, tracing back different disinformation and counter-disinformation campaigns that allegedly served to protect the people, but effectively consolidated the government’s grip on power. A must read.

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#2 Hard lessons in life

by Helen Joyce (The Critic, published in April 2023)

Ms. Joyce has always struck me as an eloquent and powerful voice speaking up against the madness of gender ideology. In her new piece for The Critic, she explains how the current victimhood mentality is a direct consequence of learned mental fragility (oftentimes due to bad parenting) and how the postmodern turn has favored the rise of transgenderism by declaring subjectivity more important than objectivity.

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#3 How to Understand the Well-Being Gap between Liberals and Conservatives

by Musa al-Gharbi (American Affairs, published on March 21, 2023)

Sociologist Musa al-Gharbi makes a very interesting case for why Liberals – especially liberal women – are less happy than their Conservative counterparts. Not only are the statistics quite interesting (Liberals are more likely to be depressed, anxious and overall neurotic than Conservatives), the possible connection al-Gharbi makes to the importance of religion, patriotism and wokeism provide ample food for thought.

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#4 The boys are not alright

by rebelEducator (rebelEducator, published on March 14, 2023)

The boys are not alright

Something is going awfully wrong in today’s educational system and it’s affecting boys the most. RebelEducator’s article on the problems of male students at school is a must-read for every educator and parent and shows how urgently we need to re-think and re-structure schooling, especially for boys. He makes a convincing case for why boys are struggling at school: the over-feminization of the profession, the rising rates of boys growing up without a father, the lack of rites of passage, making them sit still at an age where they should be running around, etc. One thing is clear: We need to help our boys more, so that they can become strong and happy men.

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#5 It takes a body to understand the world — why ChatGPT and other LLMs don’t know what they’re saying

by Arthur Glenberg & Cameron Robert Jones (The Conversation/Medium, published on April 14, 2023)

2023 will probably go down in history as the year that ChatGPT became publicly accessible, turning both the virtual and the real world upside down. While a great many journalists and scientists have deemed the advent of ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMA et al. as the beginning of the end of human society, Glenberg and Jones take a much more calm and nuanced approach: They argue that Artificial Intelligence works on data sets and statistics, not on actual physical experience. Even though AI seems like it is sentient, it can in fact not “sense” in the truest sense of the word.