Everything You Believe Is Wrong will drop on 1 December. Three short weeks.
Pre-order it, in paperback or e-book forms, now: Amazon paperback, Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Walmart (not quite honest about release date). Others (like Alibris) will have it after it is released.
This post is just a teaser. More to come soon about this magnificent new work of art…
Book Description:
If you are an Expert, professional, bureaucrat, teacher, professor, Democrat or Republican, liberal, progressive or conservative, consider yourself in any way in the educated classes, the odds are high that everything you believe is wrong.
Not everything. Not simple things. Only the most important things. If you are in the majority, then a great deal of what you hold true about the world and of life is false.
Here is a small sample of things that majority of educated believe are false, but which are instead true: Science cannot answer every question put to it; It is not always right to correct a wrong; There is no wisdom in crowds; A consensus among elite academics does not prove the belief of the elite academics is true; That you are offended is irrelevant to whether a proposition is true or false; Defining yourself as your sexual desire is nonsensical; Voting does not make the majority position right and the minority position wrong; Voting is a leading cause of discord; Democracy is rarely to be desired; You cannot choose to believe you do not have free will; God exists.
These are only some of the ideas and arguments explored in this book. The majority, and that means likely you, are wrong about all of them. This is no idle claim. It will be proved chapter by chapter.
Every bad or invalid or unsound argument contains a fallacy or mistake in thinking. Nobody knows the complete list of ways thought can go wrong, and it has even been surmised such a list is endless. History supports this contention. There is ample reason to believe the human race is congenitally insane.
Some mistakes are more common than others. Every age has its own favorite forays into fiction, driven by fashion, fad, and fantasy, all of which are enforced by the culture’s self-appointed Watchers. The balance of truth versus error shifts in time, yet the current age is more eager than average to ferret away any shiny object it finds and call it precious.
Fallacies therefore have tremendous inertia. Some mental misconstructions are permanent fixtures. I have evocative and memorable nicknames, at least for speakers of English, of the most popular and important fallacies of our day. We step through each, showing how it is false.
Here are just a few of our age’s favorite fallacies: Controversial Fallacy, Non-Fallacy Fallacy, Appeal to Non-Authority, So Yer’s Old Man, Bluff & Bluster Fallacy, You Bigot Fallacy, Hate Speech Fallacy, Bureaucrat Fallacy, One True Spartacus Fallacy, Wisdom of Crowds Fallacy, I Can’t See Another
Way Fallacy; many, many others, including the ever-popular Meta Fallacy. This is a fallacy that says a thing is true because it is a fallacy. Strange as it seems, it is most convincing.
Back Cover:
If you are in the Expert credentialed hyper-educated class, you won’t have the guts to read this book. You will have been told everything in it is false. You will believe this because you were told to believe. You will call your blind belief rational. You will say your credentials are proof of this rationality. You will congratulate yourself for your superiority.
And everything you believe will continue to be wrong.
Author Description:
William M. Briggs was born in Detroit at the height of its majesty. When he left, it went into the crapper. Coincidence?
He later entered the Air Force and became Staff Sergeant Briggs. When he took off his stripes, the Soviet Union crumbled. Coincidence?
He went to university and earned many letters after his name which wow the unthinking. After he graduated, they installed a Dean for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. Coincidence?
He lived for many years on the isle of Manhattan during it brightest years. When he fled, the city’s Mayor instituted Vaccine Passports. Coincidence?
Finally, he wrote this penetrating book. After you close it covers, you, dear reader, will find that you are based.
Coincidence?
Price:
It’s $20 for the paperback, and $12 for the ebook.
It may help to know that price cannot drop much lower, as I get $1.90 per copy.
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Pre-ordered: that’s my Christmas present to myself sorted out. And I noticed that “Also recommended for you” listed some books about exorcism. Nice algorithm!
MiniTru declares it to be double-plus bad, so it must be good.
You cannot choose to believe …
Of course. You have no control over your beliefs. One believes because one is compelled to the belief. You may say your beliefs are chosen but that’s doesn’t mean you actually chose them.
Most recently, Briggs has become an advocate for Straight Christian Uncolored Males (SCUM). SCUMs have since become the most hated group in the world. Coincidence?
Just pre-ordered four copies, w/ hopes they’ll arrive in time for Christmas, and may order a few more, after reading it myself. Because I used Amazon Smile, Bezos may make a small profit, but so will the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Thank you, Briggs!
A buck ninety? Everything I believed is indeed wrong. (/If I could just rite-a book, I’d be reeech./)
”’Everything You Believe Is Wrong’ will drop on 1 December.
Great news, Sarge, I believe I’m going to enjoy reading it.
Har-dee-har.
”There is ample reason to believe the human race is congenitally insane.”
There’s one belief that isn’t wrong.
“Author Description …”
Fun stuff, Boss.
But Briggs, “Everything You Believe Is Wrong” is offensive. A book titled, “You’re A Dope” will snuff sales. You should title it, “Ten Secrets To Super Power Thinking, Huge Profits, and Bigger Boners”. That will trick more dopes into buying the book. That’s what I believe.
Hagfish, By gum, you’re right.
If I’m right I must be wrong.
Anyway, I pre-ordered your dad-gum book. I believe I’m going to hate it.
Good Luck! Wealth and fame to you! When will we see you on Tucker et. al.?
Bill,
He had on Moldbug, why not me?
I just preordered the book. It turns out Ohio gets almost as much as you. Coincidence? Hmmm.
Bill_R –
Briggs cannot go on Tucker. I can’t even imagine the catalytic interaction between two highly-based entities. Explosive for certain.
I will order it when it is available. Good luck.
And now Pfizer has proven that Ivermectin works! Pfuckers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufy2AweXRkc
If I believe Briggs is right, does that make me wrong?
😉
I’ll get a copy.
Just bought pre-order Kindle for $10.99! Thank you, Matt!!
God bless, C-Marie
OH COME ON SHECKIER!
Do I have to carry YOUR water now?
… and in the darkness “bind” them
Get ‘im off the payroll
We can’t choose our beliefs at all, which is one of the reasons why (libertarian) free will can’t work. If we could choose our beliefs, how could we tell whether we *really* believe something, or that we’ve just chosen to believe it? If we examined our reasons for believing something, how could we tell whether those reasons had *really* convinced us, or that we’d just chosen to be convinced by them? This would completely undermine our ability to reason or hold true beliefs.
The Fish-man is underwater again. Glug, glug….
I long suspected that almost everything I thought I knew was untrue, but i’ll order a copy to dispel any residual doubt.
No surprise that Fishy takes the essentially nihilist view that “beliefs” (presumably his own “beliefs” in atheism and scientism as well, no?) are merely arbitrary positions one has (I was going to say “one chooses,” but it must be by some mysterious process instead, I guess, since Fishy also denies one can “choose” one’s beliefs, or even reason about them meaningfully) which bear no relation to Truth (which, of course, also cannot exist as such in Fishy’s world). What is left then but raw power and the war of all against all, and might makes right? This is, of course, also the reigning ideology of the world today. Again, no surprise Fishy has chosen the side of the oppressors seeking to enforce their Will on the world in the name of The Science backed by the aggressive tyrannical power of the State.
Of course, “belief” is not merely an arbitrarily chosen or mysteriously arising construct, but the proper ordering of one’s Will to arrive at intellectual assent to Truth in accordance with right Reason and Revelation, as the case may be (though when each is properly understood, there can be no contradiction between Reason and Revelation).
By gum! Hagfish has a point about the title!
I have the solution.
Keep the “Everything You Believe Is Wrong” original. And print a separate wraparpund slip-cover with “Ten Secrets To Super Power Thinking, Huge Profits, and Bigger Boners”.
Charge an extra $2.90 for it. ($1 to cover the expenses, $1.90 extra-extra for Briggsy.) It is worth it for the bigger boner. Include a hot bikini model on the inside and the reader will feel it working already! Market this version to men. Give the “Everything You Believe Is Wrong” vanilla version to women. They will buy it for their husbands/boy-friends based only on the title, but will still end up reading it themselves because they will have the pressing need to know whether he has read it when they ask him a week later and there is only one way to know!
You’re welcome! If you want to thank me I’ll be standing by for my free copy. With the slipcover.
I think some people are missing the obvious joke about “choosing to believe you don’t have free will.” Geddit?
Maybe we need to bump up the age-rating. Presuming age is a general measure of intelligence. But the general public might be stupider than we think. When this occurs, their only recourse is OUTRAGE!!!
The Bible is free.
Ah, cool. Next time I’m at a bookstore, I’ll just grab a handful of Bibles and walk out without paying.
Dennis,
It’s incredible that you can read so much into so little. My position isn’t in the least bit nihilistic, nor do I deny that we can make choices. I simply deny that we can make “free” choices, which can be defined as choices which we could have made differently if we could somehow rewind time.
Either our choices depend on the state of the universe (including that of our own mind) leading up to our making them – in which case they aren’t free, or they’re not dependant on the state of the universe leading up to our making them – in which case they’re just random.
Regarding beliefs not being arbitrarily chosen, that’s my point. The only way we could be free to choose different beliefs is if we chose arbitrarily.
Dennis
free ‘anything’
That’s how it’s done in San Francisco
Dennis: The Bible is free on the internet with just a few keystrokes. Google it.
Peter, are your internet connection, and the device you use to connect to it, free too? You’ve got to hook us up with all these freebies! We’re clearly missing out.
Swordfish: “My position isn’t in the least bit nihilistic, nor do I deny that we can make choices. I simply deny that we can make “free” choices”
Talk about a distinction without a difference! “Well, ok we can make ‘choices,’ but they aren’t really ‘free’ choices, and just depend on the ‘state of the universe’ at the time, and we couldn’t actually choose otherwise even if we could rewind time and do it again…” LOL.
Can’t wait to read it…ordered!
Wow! “There is ample reason to believe the human race is congenitally insane,” just went into my book of treasured quotes.
@Swordfish: “Either our choices depend on the state of the universe (including that of our own mind) leading up to our making them – in which case they aren’t free, or they’re not dependant on the state of the universe leading up to our making them – in which case they’re just random.”
Swordfish didn’t you know that elementary particles have free will? (Conway-Kochen Free Will Theorem). see, for example: https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/free_will_theorem.html
Briggs, did you mean to say that “God exists” is one of the beliefs about which many of us are wrong? or did I miss a comma or a word? And I will list this book (ebook form, I’m not allowed to bring more 3d books into the house anymore) as a desired Christmas gift to family. Thanks for writing it.
Cmdr. Briggs; I have ordered a Kindle version of your book and look forward to reading it. — kh
Bob Kurland
Briggs said : Here is a small sample of things that majority of educated believe are false, but which are instead true … list of other truths … God exists … final truth
If you’re educated and believe Briggs’ truths, you’re not in the majority
Congratulations!
In other words, if you have the guts to read this book, you aren’t in the Expert credentialed hyper-educated class, which seems to be your targeted readers anyway. The word “proof” could scare people away though.
“If YOU are…, then YOU will/would/won’t/wouldn’t…” Is this one of your favorite ways to display your thoughts and opinions of others? Regardless of whether I agree, your thoughts of others, especially those of your perceived foes, amuse me in various ways. For example,
LOL.
Take it easy. Good luck on your book.
Bob Kurland,
Thanks for the link, which I read halfway through before realising that I’d read it before. I don’t see how QM indeterminacy can equate to free will. If our brains flip between two choices depending on the spin direction of a particle, then how can we be in control of that?
AFAICS, we can’t be in control of choices which are determined by the prior state of the universe, nor can we be in control of choices which aren’t determined by the prior state of the universe (as in the QM spin example). To me, this forms a true logical dichotomy, so free will is impossible.
“If our brains flip between two choices depending on the spin direction of a particle, then how can we be in control of that?”
This is your fundamental problem in the end – materialism. You think Mind, and things like one’s choices, are merely a function of material particles randomly spinning one way or another. Again, a nihilistic view of the universe. This is the same problem with those scientists who seek to explain various emotional states by looking at which neurons fire in certain states, and then conclude that the neurons firing is the cause of the emotion, instead of the other way around.
Yet the fish is swimming here angered at our opinions and trying to get us to see the error of our ways. Only his spinning neurons are correct! And the spinning also happens to be the the same directions of the state approved media-recognized experts! The State truly is god in the eyes of the materialist atheist! Yet swordsy claims he doesn’t believe that the spinning things that came from nowhere created everything! They direct his thoughts, but they didn’t do nuthin’ else! All the material stuff just exists because whatever! But rest assured that absolutely nobody can rise from the dead! Dead – no. Nothing? Yes! But whatever it was, it certainly is never going to judge you, because non-judgmentalism is luv! Unless you’re hurting someone… non-consent-sexually…
Bob kurland,
Animals lack free will per Aquinas and yet quantum particles have it?
It strains credulity to believe that.
I love the cover art.
Al (played by Tom Neal) from Detour.
Al is a self-pitying loser who whines to the audience his excuses for his actions. But does exclaim “My favorite sport is being kept prisoner”. The avatar for the expert class.
I guess Staff Sgt Briggs is more like Vera (played by Ann Savage) as the acid tongued dame with claws. “that’s the trouble with you, all you do is bellyache”
Al “I’m tired of thinking” Vera “Your philosophy stinks, pal”
“Detour” is streaming free on Amazon Prime, but it is the silly colorized version.
Johnno,
This isn’t true. I’m not in the least bit enamoured by “the state”. If you’re going to grandstand and tell everyone else what I think, you could at least have the decency to ask me what I think first. As it is, everything you said was a misrepresentation.
Dennis,
From a free will standpoint, I don’t see why it makes any difference whether the mind is material or immaterial – in fact, you could say the difference is immaterial 🙂 Whether the mind is material or immaterial, its state must either depend on its previous state or not. Neither of these possibilities can buy free will, unless you just mean the ability to choose/act/behave completely at random.
As for the idea that immaterial mental states cause brain states, that strikes me as ridiculous. If the mind was immaterial, why would we even need a brain at all? Literally every bit of evidence we have points to the mind being affected by the brain, not the other way around.
We have! You never answer, nor return the courtesy!
Also you are constantly here shilling for the official state party lines! So, you basically have a history of contradicting yourself! You say one thing then pretend you didn’t mean it when called out later! Just like you did the other day, first trying to criticise someone for criticising Isaac Newton, then when told this was nothing controversial nor remarkable, turning around like a blushing embarassed schoolgirl and going, “W… well… I ackshully knew that all along! Hmmph!”
So, nope, we’ve got you figured out pretty good!
I don’t know what’s going on.
I clicked on over to Amazon to preorder the Kindle version and found…
…that I had already preordered it.
Audrey,
Clearly the Lord is looking out for you.
Johnno,
What’s with the “we” (and the exclamation marks)? Speaking for everyone again? You sound like the Borg.
Wrong. I’m supporting the scientific and medical consensus, which has nothing to do with “the state” per se. Nor am I being paid in any way to comment, as “shilling” implies. You shouldn’t make accusations you can’t substantiate. If anyone is “shilling” on here, it’s probably you, judging by the hundreds of links to ZeroHedge. You behave like a spammer, so maybe you are one?
This is a lie, as can be seen by your example:
What actually happened was that you cited a completely ridiculous claim by a pseudoscientific charlatan and several people called you out on it. I pointed out that Marinelli wasn’t smart enough to criticise Newton AND I WAS RIGHT. Newton’s theory of gravitation only produces inaccurate results at extreme speeds and/or in the presence of extreme gravitational fields. Marinelli’s criticism of Newton was wrong, so my point STANDS. I did not contradict myself.
It’s like you’re determined to make yourself look dishonorable.
Bob Kurland,
Swordfish didn’t you know that elementary particles have free will? (Conway-Kochen Free Will Theorem)
Your link didn’t work for me but I suspect it’s a conflation of what-we-can-know with what-is-really-happening: i.e., elementary particles are unpredictable therefore they have “free will”. As far as anyone knows, the unpredictability is on the side of the observer. It’s quite a leap from saying “don’t understand how they work” to “they must be freely making choices” or “act randomly”. The latter is assuming that randomness is an inherent feature of the universe and not merely a lack of knowing the cause(s). If the universe truly is random then physics is fundamentally a pointless endeavor.
DAV, sorry the link didn’t work. In short, what the Conway-Kochen Theorem says is that what observations are made for this triplet pair (S=1) does not depend on the previous history of the universe and IS NOT RANDOM and that (here’s an important assumption) if the observer(s) have free will, so do the particles of the triplet pair. Here’s another link, an post previously published on Briggs’ blog:
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/11264/
Actually, yes, because in the past we’ve all repeatedly asked you questions you never answer and isntead isult us and skirt around, just like you are doing now. It is not a good idea to upset the borg!
So you admit you are shilling for the state, and a ‘consensus’ built upon state coercion?
Well just as you like to call us “homophobes” and don’t care about the actual definition of the words you use because words and their coloquial use changes, ‘shill’ applies to you very well. Again we see here another example of fishy-contradiction! Only fishyfist may use words as he likes, but you, you must adhere to specific dictionary definition and never contemporary slang because fishy-fish is caught in a corner!
Plug: Please read ZeroHedge everyone! A good place with news more accurate than fak-checkas! Too much information that squidfish doesn’t like, he can’t fak-chak them all! I encourage all to share all the news they can find from their favorite sites in the section for Covid-news Updates and whenever relevant to the topic!
Then trumbone blows himself up by proving me right! Observe:
By “several people”, fishy means:
1. himself – providing nothing of substance
2. DAV – who was having actually a good natured discussion with me even if he disagrees.
How?
Here, fishy took the time to run back to try and quickly read something Marinelli wrote, likely the title for which said something along the lines of “why Newton was wrong about XYZ” or whatever, where back then we know fishy probably only read the title, because now he’s attempting to reply here with an objection he never cited nor raised in the other thread other than “Newton so smart, Marinelli so dum!” to cover for his lack of rationale whereby he attempted to object to one paper on the subject of heart and blood movement by reference to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PAPER ON SOME OTHER TOPIC ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT TO THE DISCUSSION!
Yes, it’s hard to contradict yourself when you said nothing at all! So here we have swishyfishy engaging in a classic fak-checka tactic. Straw-manning! But in the most hilarious inept manner possible!
Let’s sum up fishyswish’s entire attempt:
Johnno: “Here is interesting paper claiming heart may not actually work like a pump for blood distribution”
Fish:
Johnno and others: “But Newton did get gravity wrong. There’s nothing wrong with that! Scientists today continue to critique him and further try to understand gravity.”
Fish:
Johnno: “Then why did you bring Newton up at all? And why fault Marinelli for attempting to critique him?”
Fish: “…”
Bravo! *clap*clap*clap*
But let’s play a little game – does Fishy understand any of what he just said? Answer for us Fishy:
– How did Einstein correct Newton?
– What specifically did Marinelli say about Newton? Quote the relevant portions and refute them for us in your own laymen’s words. Also please provide the link to Marinelli’s paper.
You have lots of questions to throw at us about what God did or didn’t from suffering to belly-buttons. Surely you can answer some of ours!
Marinelli being right or wrong about Newton has nothing to do with the worth of Marinelli’s propositions on another topic entirely. Next thing you’ll be telling us that Briggs website can’t be taken seriously because this one time in the 4th Grade he got some math questions wrong on his test. Ah classic fak-chaking from a fan of the fak-chaks!
Bob Kurland,
OK I read your Briggs post (most of it anyway). You seem confused by the word “random”. It simply means “from unknown causes” or “from reasons too much trouble to work out”. It does NOT mean “without a cause”.
The result of tossing of a pair of dice is “RANDOM” only because it’s too much trouble to figure out how it came about.
does not depend on the previous history of the universe and IS NOT RANDOM
Not sure how something cannot depend on previous history and still be NOT RANDOM. If it’s NOT RANDOM then it must have a cause, yes? Not depending on previous history seems to be saying “without a cause”. Are claiming that the “free will” of these particles is the cause which is tantamount to claiming these particles have volition? That the particle’s actions arise from the particle being its own First Cause? Your only evidence for this volition is you can’t identify the cause even though you think you’ve examined all possible causes that would arise from previous history.
All I can say is: WOW! If the causes are such that they can never be known through previous history then physics is ultimately a waste of time. “Free will” is effectively throwing in the towel and saying physics has come the end of the road.
@Dav: When I say it’s not “random” I’m merely repeating Conway’s argument…go to his lectures and the linked commentary to get a more detailed account of his argument. And “if the causes are such that they can never be known through previous history then physics is ultimately a waste of time…saying physics has come to the end of the road.” Some people might agree with that statement; I don’t, even though I do say, as does Bernard d’Espagnat, that there is a veiled reality underlying QM.
Everyone has repeatedly asked me questions I’ve never answered? Sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, to say the least. I’m under no obligation to answer any questions (and neither is anyone else), but I usually enjoy answering questions if they’re about my beliefs. If I’ve not answered a question, it’s most likely because:
1. It made assumptions which I don’t agree with, like “how did rocks fly through other dimensions and come to life?”.
2. I didn’t see the question, or some other mundane reason.
This is a perfect example of (1), above. No. I don’t “admit” any such thing, nor did I imply any such thing. You are a truly loathesome person to deal with. Now I need to add another reason to my list:
3. It was asked by someone loathesome who I knew would twist my answer into something I didn’t say.
In that case, I’d like to know what meaning of “shill” you meant? The least offensive (and most apt) one I could find was:
“to act as a spokesperson or promoter”
Which might be true if applied to science and naturalism, but false if applied to “the state”.
Wikipedia says: “A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with said person or organization.”
Which doesn’t apply to me at all.
ZeroHedge is rubbish. And I don’t accept things because I like them, I accept what the evidence says is the case. I agree I can’t fact-check the hundreds of links you post, but you can’t either, which proves that you post anything that supports your pre-determined conclusion.
You ignored “Jerry”, who said:
So that’s three, which is definitely several.
[Marinelli wasn’t smart enough to criticise Newton]
Because his criticisms were incorrect.
When I see that someone has published a ridiculous paper arguing that blood moves on its own and the heart isn’t a pump, it hardly needs refuting at all. If that same person has published a paper trying to critique Newton, it’s further evidence that they are a pseudoscientific crackpot.
By “others”, you mean just “Dennis”. So your previous criticism applies to you, not me. As usual. And I don’t agree with your claim. Newton didn’t get gravity “wrong”. His theory is completely correct on its own terms, and only produces innacurate results when applied to situations Newton didn’t realise existed. No scientific theory is 100% accurate – even Einstein’s understanding of gravity as curved spacetime is inaccurate at the quantum-mechanical scale, but no one would say Einstein is “wrong”. Criticising Newton for the wrong reason doesn’t mean Marinelli was smart. In fact, targeting the scientific greats is a hallmark of crackpots, like all those young-earth creationists who think they’re smarter than Darwin.
Each paper is wrong for independant reasons, but both indicate the author is a crackpot.
No comment…
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