I just picked a fight with AI in posing the question: “Who judges what’s ‘credible’?” I had noticed that AI frequently cites Wikipedia in its answers, and I challenged its use. AI replied, “I use credible and well-established sources that are Peer-reviewed or scholarly and primary or officially vetted.” Hmmmmmm. Can you really trust Wikipedia?
In fact, AI freely admits that Wikipedia’s sourcing policies, while officially grounded in reliability and verifiability, often reflect the biases of its most active editors, many of whom lean towards liberal or progressive views. Wikipedia maintains a “Perennial Sources List,” which outright bans most conservative outlets as biased or unreliable, but not so liberal outlets.
Image created using AI.
Regarding AI in general, it is wise to keep in mind that a student is rarely more conservative than the teacher. AI is constantly being tinkered with as one logical fallacy after another is uncovered.
AI uses something called a “Toxicity Score“ that is supposed to be a governor on sensitive subjects. Outside researchers constantly find issues that bolster certain groups, like gay and transgender, while effectively doxing conservative thought concepts like limited government or the importance of individualism.
Allan’s Rule Number Six is: “Always evaluate the evaluator.”
I won’t bore you with the back and forth I went through trying to corner AI. Let’s just say its programmers figured out the art of circular logic early on. In AI, if your premise (programming) is wrong, it doesn’t want to be bothered with things like logical endpoints because it does not believe in absolutes, except perhaps in math. Everything else is either fungible, situational, or a question of framing. Not so.
Moral absolutism is vitally important to our survival, which is the opposite of what we are told, as people in 205 are encouraged to live lives of moral relativism. I just argued with a friend over the issue of I.C.E. enforcement versus the assumed right of people to negate federal law in an almost Newtonian way, i.e., violence for violence. My friend’s underlying contention is that each individual gets to judge what is moral and true, as there are no definitive sources that can be relied upon for issues that are fundamentally not mathematical in nature. Poppycock! Just read Immanuel Kant and learn something different.
American intellectuals had a striking fascination with a period in Europe that lasted from about 1900 to 1950, sometimes referred to as European Modernism, and which was the wellspring for almost all liberal causes that afflict us today:
In the early 20th century, Paris was the beating heart of European intellectual life—a crucible where philosophy, literature, politics, and art collided in cafés, salons, and smoky backrooms. This era, especially between the World Wars, saw the rise of existentialism, surrealism, and radical political thought, with thinkers gathering to debate not just ideas, but the very future of humanity.
After World War I, and again after World War II, intellectuals questioned the foundations of Western civilization, employing a similar logic that parallels and underlie progressive thought and actions seen today. In the 1960s, Michel Foucault highlighted how power operates—not through brute force, but through institutions, knowledge, and everyday norms. His seminal work on what society calls “truth” argued that historical forces and expansive control shape identity, morality, and sometimes, even sanity. Heady stuff!
Because they lacked access to modern forms of communication, such as television and social media, the most significant impact the intellectuals had was on fellow thinkers, professors, and the bomb throwers of their day, communists, socialists, and nihilists. Talk of overturning the European dynasties and killing the robber barons in America dominated their imagination.
To understand the progressive left today, we must realize that progressives intend to destroy Western Civilization, a goal naturally closely guarded by their leaders—and one made possible thanks to the modern communication methods available today.
Fundamental proof for this theory is that so many people have been allowed to migrate to Western countries without the requirement to see them assimilated and integrated into our existing social structure. You can see a not-so-isolated example of this in recent events in Michigan.
In January 2023, the Hamtramck City Council, which is composed entirely of Muslim members, voted 3–2 to allow residents to perform religious animal sacrifices on private property.
More recently, in Dearborn, Michigan, during a city council meeting last month, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud listened as Ted Barham criticized the city’s decision to honor “journalist” and Palestinian supporter Osama Siblani with a street sign. Barham said that the sign was comparable to honoring terrorist organizations.
Mayor Hammoud responded by attacking Barham:
You’re an Islamophobe. And although you live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here. The day you move out of the city will be the day I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city.
Those are the ideas that Wikipedia and, by extension, AI are regurgitating. The absolute truth in America used to be tied to the Bible and the Constitution. Now, not so much...
Authoritative sources, for all intents and purposes, seem to be ever harder to find and even tougher to agree on. Many today, with a straight face, push “their” truth over absolute truth. Intellectuals in Paris would be ecstatic to know their existentialism has been bequeathed to the great unwashed and the uneducated, who think they hold the keys to all relevant knowledge! So informed by whatever the latest Podcast one deigns to listen to.
As everyone’s opinion is frequently treated as equal, who to believe? If you lean left, you have your Rachel Madow and Hillary Clinton to tell you it takes a village. On the right, you have President Trump, who, unfortunately, leads through acts and isn’t great at articulating ideas. Yes, we have our Mark Levins and Victor Davis Hansons, but too often, their thoughts and views are heard by those who already agree.
Like the weather, Western Civilization is constantly in motion, seeking equilibrium, yet never actually attaining it. While our government has many tasks it is responsible for, perhaps one of the most vital is to ensure that our citizens are well-informed, educated, and provided with reliable truth. We’ve strayed from that to a degree hard to fathom.
President Franklin Roosevelt did at least one thing exceptionally well. Edward R. Murrow recalled:
“Mr. Roosevelt could talk to the American people as if he were chatting with them across the back fence.”
Even an admittedly highly polarizing president like Trump could reach out to the millions of dissidents in our country with a nuanced message that will still resonate with millions of persuadable voters. We can’t deprogram them all, but we must never give up trying.
God Bless America!
Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.