![\"A](\"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Common-Sense-Thinking.jpg\")
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Have you ever been in a debate where everyone else agrees that you\u2019re wrong, where studies and statistics are thrown in your face by the other side to prove their point and yet you still can\u2019t bring yourself to agree that up is down and that down has somehow \u2013 because it\u2019s morally virtuous to believe so \u2013 become up?<\/p>\n
Well I have the answer for you.<\/p>\n
And yes I know that this could be taken wrongly. Leftists all across the globe will be jumping for joy now that they can find a way to keep believing their absurd ideas, even though hundreds of years of science and even more years of plain old common sense, is utterly clear on the absolute fact that men are men and women are \u2026 not.<\/p>\n
But I mean this answer for those who have sensible, rational, reasonable opinions, yet find themselves under attack from a mob, who assure them that the opinions that they<\/em> have uncritically accepted from the news, media and the professors who couldn\u2019t make it into teaching a real college degree, are correct. And here are the studies and statistics that prove it, even though in all probability they haven\u2019t read them, and in all greater probability they couldn\u2019t understand them if they had. We\u2019ve swallowed the whole nine yards, it\u2019s only fair that you do too.<\/p>\n So how do you deal with these studies and statistics?<\/p>\n And the answer is to use your common sense.<\/p>\n But everyone\u2019s common sense is different, I hear the less intelligent among you say.<\/p>\n Nope.<\/p>\n Not even close.<\/p>\n You see we all think it makes sense to look before you cross the street, to be polite to people who are bigger than you, not to lock the pilot in the toilet, and that just because they can rise from the ashes, it doesn\u2019t mean you should set a phoenix on fire. It\u2019s not nice and it sets a bad example for children.<\/p>\n No, common sense still exists. And it\u2019s pretty much the same for everyone. It\u2019s just that sometimes, when we really really like her, we don\u2019t listen to the alarm bells ringing in our head and the knowledge of how she treated her last boyfriend that\u2019s warning us to stay the hell away, and for some reason, we go ahead and ask her out.<\/p>\n Why do we do that?<\/p>\n Scientists are still working on an explanation. Or would be if they weren\u2019t so busy tied up with the same problem themselves.<\/p>\n Yes common sense is the answer to all your problems. But surely, I hear you ask, aren\u2019t experts, authority and statistics not more important than common sense? Well, maybe. Sometimes. But surely, I hear you ask with even more fervour, EXPERTS, AUTHORITY, STATISTICS!<\/p>\n Yes that\u2019s all well and good but surely it\u2019s common sense (ironically) that you should run everything that comes from those above three sources through a filter. A filter that thinks about the information it has received and wonders whether it makes any sense at all.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t mean critically analyse it.<\/p>\n No.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not there yet.<\/p>\n Sadly.<\/p>\n I mean a pre critical analysis stage, called the does-it-pass-a-simple-sanity-check stage.<\/p>\n Let me give you an example.<\/p>\n You go the doctor with a tummy ache. The doctor says you have a rare disease in your arms and legs which produces the symptoms that you\u2019re experiencing \u2013 namely, the pain in your stomach. There is no cure and the only way to save your life is to cut off your arms and legs.<\/p>\n Do you:<\/p>\n A: Have your arms and legs cut off as soon as possible because they are the experts and are always right.<\/p>\n B: Go home, have a little cry and then have your arms and legs cut off as soon as possible because they are the experts and are always right.<\/p>\n C: Go get a second opinion.<\/p>\n If you needed some time to think about it, then there is something very wrong with you and you need to have your arms and legs cut off as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Now it may well be true that in this case you will need to take these extreme measures but it will also be true that the most intelligent of us will have run this through our common sense subroutines which will compel us to seek a second opinion along with a thorough explanation of why pains in the stomach are caused by a disease in your arms and legs.<\/p>\n Because the idea that pains in the stomach are caused by a disease in the arms and legs strikes all normal people as unusual, if not outright insane, and should immediately activate an alert in the common sense part of whatever\u2019s left of your miniscule brain and be flagged as something that doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n If thereafter an explanation is forthcoming we would then move on to the critical analysis stage that is supposed to facilitate a better understanding of whatever we\u2019ve been told and assist us in determining whether it is indeed accurate or not. In our example, this may prove the doctor right after all, or it may not.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m concerned with the first stage. The stage before any real analysis in terms of how the experiment was done, who was doing it and whether their conclusions actually follow from what was found.<\/p>\n I\u2019m talking for the moment, about the common sense stage. The stage that asks one simple question. Does what I have been told fit in with my understanding of the world.<\/p>\n Yes. It\u2019s as simple as that.<\/p>\n Even against statistics.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s see some real life examples.<\/p>\n The gender pay gap<\/strong><\/p>\n By now everyone knows why this is ridiculous. You can\u2019t simply average the amount of money men make and the amount of money women make and say, see one is so much more than the other. Studies show that this is a consequence of various other factors like women making different life choices than men. If women want to work less, they will make less money on average. It\u2019s basic mathematics.<\/p>\n But we could have come to this conclusion by ourselves using a little bit of common sense. Without knowing exactly how the pay gap was calculated and without having read with a fine tooth comb the multitudinous pages of numerous studies that found that it was other variables that caused this.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n I think I may have already mentioned it. You simply ask yourself, does this fit in with my understanding of the world.<\/p>\n When you hear that women earn less than men you should ask yourself how that could come about in the world as we know it.<\/p>\n Perhaps it\u2019s not illegal to allow employers to pay women less.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not a lawyer.<\/p>\n But common sense would say that there are probably laws in place that don\u2019t allow women to be paid less than men for working the same job. It fits in with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about equality that we hear on a daily basis. Now maybe a lawyer will be able prove me wrong, but until then I think it\u2019s safe to assume it\u2019s against the law to pay women less than men.<\/p>\n And yet somehow, they\u2019re getting less money.<\/p>\n Perhaps then, employers are not obeying the law and are paying women less anyway.<\/p>\n Though this is doubtful.<\/p>\n Surely we would have heard. At least a handful of examples. If not most of them.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not short of Leftist journalists and this would be exactly the type of thing they would love to report on. It would prove the rampant inequality that they knew to exist all along (even though the evidence would have emerged post the knowing \u2013 an interesting order – i.e. the wrong order – in other words in case I haven’t made myself sufficiently clear, the order used by immoral people who instead of looking for the truth are more interested in highlighting anything that supports their pre-existing beliefs), while at the same time destroying someone\u2019s life \u2013 a hobby the Left indulges in.<\/p>\n There would also have been numerous, highly publicised court cases where female employees would have successfully sued their employers for obscenely large amounts of money for paying them less than men.<\/p>\n But this does not appear to be the case.<\/p>\n It seems, it\u2019s against the law and that in the main, employers are keeping this law.<\/p>\n So how are we to explain the gender pay gap when the only possibilities – that the Left would love to be correct, don\u2019t fit with our current understanding of the world. When they don\u2019t pass the common sense test.<\/p>\n And when there is another, simpler way to explain why one group of people earns less than another. Namely: That they work less and at the type of jobs that pay less.<\/p>\n And these ideas do<\/em> pass the common sense test. It makes sense that women, who are still the ones who bear the children, work less than men. And that this will have a knock on effect as to the type of job they will be able to get and how much it will pay.<\/p>\n There will be plenty of other factors as well, but I\u2019m just looking at some of those that we can work out via our common sense.<\/p>\n Common sense will therefore say that the gender pay gap is not caused by the nefarious discrimination of women, but by the rather less problematic result of decisions women make about their own lives.<\/p>\n Sure, if my questions could be explained another way then we would move to the next stage of further analysis, but if you can\u2019t tell me how employers get away with breaking the law, then how am I supposed to believe that there is wage gap as a result of the discrimination of women, without taking leave of my senses. Ah, happily we\u2019ve explained in passing, how the Left does<\/em> believe in the wage gap.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not of course suggesting one need not do further research. It is a very good idea to read the studies, especially those that claim that the gender pay gap exists even when all the various external factors are taken into account. Read them, pass them through your common sense filter and then critically analyse them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m simply saying that using common sense thinking is a good starting position. And one should always start by thinking. Even about studies and statistics that find something that supports<\/em> your position.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t you want a functioning brain?<\/p>\n One more example.<\/p>\n Rape culture<\/strong><\/p>\n Some argue that there is a rape culture on college campuses in America and cite studies that say that one in four women have been raped.<\/p>\n Really?<\/p>\n Does anyone buy that?<\/p>\n Well obviously many do otherwise it wouldn\u2019t be such a widespread belief, but I meant any normal people.<\/p>\n I mean if you\u2019re at college, take a casual look around. Do you get the impression that one in four of the women that share your campus have been raped?<\/p>\n Well how can you tell?<\/p>\n Good point.<\/p>\n But wouldn\u2019t you be able to sense if a quarter of the women in your class had been raped?<\/p>\n Would things just carry on as usual?<\/p>\n Wouldn\u2019t there be a sense of misery coming from a quarter of all the women on campus? Something devastating has happened to so many of them and they\u2019re all carrying on as normal.<\/p>\n And if things are so bad, why aren\u2019t women afraid to go college?<\/p>\n Well, they are.<\/p>\n But I don\u2019t mean the superficial fear they inculcate themselves with by believing the garbage they\u2019ve been fed. \u201cI\u2019m so afraid of going to college. One quarter of the women there have been raped\u201d. Please read with the appropriate high pitched moany voice.<\/p>\n I\u2019m talking about real fear. The kind of fear that says, \u201cone in four women are raped on campus, I am not going anywhere near there<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n After all, if there was a drink in front of you that had a one in four chance of being poisoned would you:<\/p>\n A: Ignore the statistics. They don\u2019t mean anything anyway.<\/p>\n B: Worry about the statistics but drink it anyway.<\/p>\n C: Not drink it but give it to someone you don\u2019t like to drink.<\/p>\n D: Ensure no one drinks it.<\/p>\n If you needed some time to think about it, then there is something very wrong with you and you need to have your arms and legs cut off as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Would you go somewhere where you had a one in four chance of being killed?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n What kind of idiot sets foot, or lets their daughter set foot in a place where you have a one in four chance of being raped?<\/p>\n They believe in the myth of rape culture on campus, yet they still attend college in droves!<\/p>\n How does that make any sense?<\/p>\n No.<\/p>\n Not only is it unlikely to be true, it looks like the people who claim it is don\u2019t even believe it either.<\/p>\n And I have a rule. If you want me to take on a belief, you could at least have the common courtesy to believe it yourself.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all about common sense thinking. It\u2019s simply a matter of dusting off the old cogs and letting them turn ever so slightly. It will be slow going and sluggish at first, but with some effort, over time, it will become easier. It may take a few attempts to get the hang of actually thinking about the ideas you\u2019re being fed, but like any muscle that hasn\u2019t been used in a while, once you get it going, you\u2019ll find that it becomes easier and easier until that wonderful day when you realise it has become second nature.<\/p>\n Yes, it will hurt \u2013 the embarrassment you\u2019ll feel when you remember the absurd nonsense you used to believe, will be excruciatingly painful. Yes, there will be side effects \u2013 you\u2019ll lose all your friends and be excommunicated from society in the process \u2013 but you were supposed to lose those types of friends when you reached puberty.<\/p>\n So I plead and implore the last remaining humans who posses semi-functioning brains. When you find yourselves in the vicinity of ideas and opinions, studies and statistics, try running them through your common sense filter and see how they hold up.<\/p>\n And by the way, those studies and statistics you\u2019re so afraid of, how do you think that all works? How do researchers decide what to investigate? How do they design an experiment to test any of their hypotheses? How do they analyse their results and arrive at their conclusions?<\/p>\n Do they get magic knowledge once they become ordained as experts? No, a lot of it is just them using their brains and a little common sense.<\/p>\n Of course the place to start is with this very article. Don\u2019t take my word for anything. Run the ideas contained herein through your common sense filter and \u2026 if they make sense \u2026 you\u2019ll erm \u2026 have absolute proof that your brain is working.<\/p>\n And if you didn\u2019t get my last point you\u2019ll have absolute proof that it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever been in a debate where everyone else agrees that you\u2019re wrong, where studies and statistics are thrown in your face by the other side to prove their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2525,"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions\/2525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actualthinking.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}