What happened to all our Common Sense ?

 

Pondering last week’s story about the closedown of the world’s largest online eBook library  by the US authorities led me back to the question asked increasingly often nowadays:  

“Where has all our common sense gone ?”

This might be a good opportunity to take a light-hearted 'tongue-in cheek' look at the logic (or lack of it) underlying human behaviour.

What is it ?

First of all, what is ‘common sense’ – and how do we define it ? To start with, here's a bit of personal history to put things in context.

I can well remember from my early childhood the frequent exhortations I received from my parents in response to what I thought was perfectly reasonable behaviour: ‘…for goodness sake lad, just use your common sense for change...’. And I'm sure plenty of my contemporaries will have experienced the same thing.

At the time, I really had no idea what this strange commodity might be, whether I actually had any, or if not, where I might be able to get some. Which worried me a little, given the implied threat of retribution if I didn’t….

Could you buy it, I wondered, or did it grow on trees ? Or did the tooth-fairy administer it in one’s sleep in exchange for used molars ?

On occasion, when particularly perplexed, I did venture to pose such questions to one or other parent following a particularly vehement ‘exhortation’ on their part, but was normally rewarded with a traditional ‘clip round the ear’ for cheek (this was of course well before beating one’s offspring came to be regarded as child abuse).

Being an adaptable lad, I quickly realised that direct enquiry of 'the oracle' in such circumstances was not a profitable line of approach, and I realised I was going to have to work out how to acquire some of this 'common sense' myself…

During the years that followed, it became apparent that just defining ‘common sense’ wasn’t going to be easy, let alone working out how to acquire it, and so it remains to this day. I still don't know whether I actually have any, and if so, how much - here's hoping I may find out one day, though.

For the cognoscenti, the Wikipedia definition is:

“..sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that is shared by (i.e. common to) nearly all people.”

This attempt is certainly a valiant effort on Wikipedia’s part, but the last element of it may well need some revision in the coming years, given the polarisation of views steadily creeping throughout our society.

Since no one has yet found a way of measuring common sense (like the 'immortal soul', it appears to be mass-less and not composed of atoms, molecules or even any sub-atomic particles we're so far aware of), I think the concept is probably will only ever really be definable in terms of the specific behaviour patterns it gives rise to. 'Intelligence' testing, although widely practised and often used as a yardstick of potential ability, has always been problematical, so I doubt whether a comparable 'Common Sense' test would really catch on.

However, most of us ‘of a certain age’ are quite certain about what constitutes a lack of common sense, and are usually pretty forthright in pointing it out in others when we see it. 

We generally associate strange and unconventional behaviour (particularly in the young) as being due to a lack of the commodity in question, frequently bemoan its loss…and question who's responsible. We also firmly believe that acquiring common sense is a time-dependent process tending to a maximum in our later years, and which definitely can’t be rushed. The general consensus is that, once acquired, it stays with you (although the behaviour of some of my peers recently does suggest they may have already have lost significant amounts of theirs….if they ever had any in the first place)

Is it really disappearing ?

If you go by the conventional definition, subjectively most of us would say humanity's 'pool' of common sense certainly appears to be ebbing away. We should beware, however, of treating any new or unexpected behaviour in others as indicating a lack of common sense.  

Given the speed at which the world is changing around us, it may just be our own perceptions haven’t caught up with what is ‘normal’ - this week. It may also be simply a question of misuse - you need to know how to use it properly once you've acquired it, after all.

However….you only have to look at YouTube or one of the other social media platforms to see countless examples of behaviour indicating a complete absence of common sense.

The most obvious one, of course, is posting unclothed images of oneself all over social media (usually, but sadly not always, confined to those in their teens and twenties). Not just an idiotic move at the time, but potentially disastrous in later life. What is more worrying is that it’s not just individuals, either, displaying inexplicable behaviour, but whole organisations....

Reverting to the example of the z-library debacle, US law enforcement agencies actively chose to destroy online access to the largest e-book resource in the world, despite the fact that a) it would probably lose their government votes in critical US mid-terms a few days later, b) the library would still be available on the ‘dark web’ and their actions would thus be likely drive many students onto that (and hence out of their view) c) it would play into the hands of the far right republican conspiracy theorists at just the wrong time, and d) there would be a risk of targeted reprisal cyber-attacks by aggrieved user-hackers.

With individual teenagers, whose experience of life and all its consequences and pitfalls is still relatively limited, and who are frequently beset by emotional and hormonal ‘storms’, one can understand (and to an extent sympathise with) illogical behaviour (we all went through it at some stage, after all). With big organisations, however, given their vast resources and access to external expertise, this is much more difficult to understand, let alone condone, and one has to put it down to mistaken thinking on the part of key individuals, and a dangerous absence of internal checks and balances on their activities.

We can actually see a lot of this happening worldwide – not the least in some of the world’s most powerful leaders. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine implies a complete lack of common sense and good judgement on his part, in that he assumed the West would (or even could) sit on its hands and do nothing in response. Xi Jinping, in supporting Putin's strategy by forming a strategic alliance with Russia, also showed an apparent lack of judgement here (but see my earlier blog for another more sinister explanation). Xi’s dogged obsession with ‘zero Covid’ throughout the pandemic in the face of the success of mass vaccination in the West, however, is quite sufficient on its own to confirm a diagnosis of lack of common sense on his part. (See later for a possible remedy in his case.)

Where has it all gone ?

Assuming we accept that common sense in our populations is disappearing at a significant rate, and has been doing so for several decades, what has actually happened to it ?

There are 3 possibilities: a) It has spontaneously degenerated, or simply evaporated, b) It's still there, but is being masked in some way (possibly as a result of 'long-Covid', or some other viral infection) or c) Someone has actually stolen it.

Since we can’t actually measure it physically, or even track it, finding a definitive answer to this question is not easy. While not normally an advocate of conspiracy theories myself, there is one doing the rounds which rings true, and does provide a plausible explanation.

The China Syndrome

Over the past 40 years or so, we in the West have been ‘hooked’ on cheap manufactured goods from China, especially electronics. Over the past 10 years or so, online retailing has predominated, with each transaction potentially providing an electronic link between the customer and the Chinese government. It is well known that the CCP retains an iron grip on the Chinese internet, so such a link is perfectly plausible. If a way were found to ‘siphon off’ a small quantity of common sense from the customer with each order, and this was then transferred to a server in China,  a valuable resource could be accumulated. The process would, of course, need to be invisible to the customer and cause no residual ill-effects at the time.

Another potential means of extraction more locally would be via the phone networks. Our smartphones are continually in dialog with the mobile phone networks, much of which are controlled by Chinese infrastructure & software. Our brains are continually bathed in the 2-way radiation involved during these exchanges, so providing an obvious opportunity for interception of neuronal output. Why not harness the technology for direct extraction of common sense ? An even more lucrative means of ‘harvesting’, given that it wouldn’t be dependent on our continuing to order goods from China.

If the CCP have, in fact, been getting away with this for the past 20 years as is rumoured, not only will they have managed to accumulate most of our capital, which given the state of our economy in 2022 we are all too aware of, but they may now hold most of our common sense 'reserves' as well.

Why would they go to all that trouble ?

Purely from a marketing point of view, being steadily drained of our available ‘nouse’ without realising it would be likely to reduce our powers to see their cheap electronic rubbish for what it really is – and stop buying it. It would also reduce our capacity to recognise covert external threats. UK intelligence services have belatedly recognised that China presents the number one security threat, and went public over it this summer.

A readily available stock of 'medicinal grade' common sense would also allow the Chinese to ‘treat’ high level CCP officials deemed to have a deficiency syndrome (rather than simply removing them for 'reprocessing' as they do now). Xi himself might well benefit here from a course of treatment, given his manifest zero-covid common-sense ‘problem’.

There might also be a political motive. At some point in the future, the Chinese government might reveal the existence of their common sense ‘mega server’ and offer to reinstate some of ours in return for more economic or political dominance.

An even more chilling possibility also presents itself - as a new biological WMD: if a way could be found to convert some or all of the accumulated product into its oppositely charged form (i.e. anti-Common Sense), and this could be weaponised, it could be used neutralise all the remaining common sense we had left….Zombie Apocalypse 6 UK here we come.

Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it ?

Viv

Version Date: 1 April 2023