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  1. 00:00:01 Prologue
    00:05:06 Chapter 1- Intellect & Intellectuals
    00:06:48 Intelligence vs Intellect
    00:08:26 Defining Intellectuals
    00:15:01 Ideas & Accountability
    00:23:33 Chapter 2- Knowledge & Notions
    00:29:05 Competing Concepts of Knowledge (special knowledge vs mundane knowledge)
    00:33:48 Concentration & Dispersion of Knowledge
    00:49:57 Experts
    00:58:45 The Role of Reason (reason and justification)
    01:08:33 “One Day at a Time” Rationalism
    01:14:00 Chapter 3- Intellectuals & Economics
    01:17:21 Income Distribution
    01:30:10 Moral Considerations
    01:38:28 The Poor as Consumers
    01:43:33 Economic Systems
    02:03:19 Government Intervention
    02:22:00 Business Power or Control
    02:42:15 Chapter 4- Intellectuals & Social Visions
    02:44:13 A Conflict of Visions ⭐️
    (vision of the anointed [unconstrained] vs the tragic vision [constrained])
    02:53:38 Arguments Without Arguments
    03:00:22 Unworthy Opponents
    03:10:29 The Rhetoric of Rights
    03:15:44 The Left/ Right Dichotomy
    03:37:04 “Change” vs the Status Quo
    03:42:38 Rhetoric vs Revealed Preferences
    03:51:52 Youth & Age
    03:57:29 Notions vs Principles
    04:02:36 Abstract People in an Abstract World⭐️ (abstract equality)
    04:16:50 Chapter 5- Optional Reality in Academia and Media
    04:17:22 Filtering Reality
    04:22:20 Suppressing Facts (ex Gun control, burned churches, starving kids)
    04:41:00 Fictitious People (ex Hoover, Truman, Clarence Thomas; nations- India)
    05:03:11 Verbal Cleansing ⭐️
    05:09:13 Objectivity vs Impartiality
    05:13:13 Subjective “Truth”
    05:18:58 The Invidious and the Dramatic
    05:25:42 The Dramatic (changing gas prices, intellectuals and common sense)
    05:38:52 Chapter 6- Intellectuals & The Law
    05:42:20 Changing the Law
    05:46:23 The Constitution and the Courts (courts vs private property, courts and social justice)
    05:59:55 Judicial Activism (Dredd Scott/ Wickard v Filburn/ United Steel workers v Weber)(Social Justice- Pound and Brandeis)(redefining judicial restraint w/ activism)
    06:18:33 Judicial Restraint & Original Intent
    06:30:48 Results of Results Doctrines
    06:33:26 Burdens of Proof
    06:45:10 Property Rights
    06:55:15 Crime ⭐️ (“root cause” theory, imprisonment, Britain, alternatives to incarceration)
    07:20:31 Chapter 7- Intellectuals & War
    07:24:30 The First World War (Progressives and WWI)
    07:30:32 America at War
    07:45:51 The Second World War (Pacifism & intellectuals, disarmament-moral/military, the fall of France)
    08:27:06 Responses to International Crisis
    08:37:35 The Outbreak of War
    08:41:53 Chapter 8- Intellectuals & War, Repeating History
    08:49:35 Replaying the 1930s
    08:51:59 The Vietnam War
    09:08:01 The Cold War
    09:23:08 The Cold War Intelligentsia
    09:36:00 The Iraq Wars
    09:54:12 Patriotism & National Honor
    10:06:19 Chapter 9- Intellectuals & Society
    10:11:53 Incentives & Constraints
    10:12:18 The Supply of Public Intellectuals
    10:17:11 The Demand for Public Intellectuals
    10:21:23 The Influence of Intellectuals (reason or force, vision of the anointed in academia and media, protest/“community” organization, schools)
    10:39:55 Constraints
    10:42:36 Government
    10:53:11 Social Cohesion ⭐️
    11:00:01 Localization of Evil (“agents of change”, slavery)
    11:09:15 The Propagation of the Vision (summary of prominent effects the intelligentsia has had 11:10:50)
    11:16:08 Summary & Implications
    11:23:10 Conclusion

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  2. Interesting book for sure… However so incorrect in parts. Example about economics reforms pulling people out of poverty in India. When in reality more people are destitute in india every year no matter what policy or power…. Because economics itself is divorced from reality. Thomas Sowell could look into his own backyard, rotten América, to find devastating effects of neoliberalism, warned decades earlier by american intellectuals… Instrad he decides to bow to Milton Friedman and F. Hayek both enemies of free society and equality

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  3. The most dangerous presumption is the presumption of wisdom. Socrates understood this well, reminding his fellow-men, that for all their intelligence and civilization, they were unwise — and, that what passes for human wisdom is worth little or nothing! This, of course, is still true today.

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  4. Whitehead's definition of intelligence is over-simplistic. Most animals in the wild are quick to apprehend, yet not capable of complex reasoning, nor of the development and understanding of abstract concepts. While animals other men are certainly intelligent to varying degrees, they lack the intelligence to develop language, mathematics, logic, science, art, law, morality, civilization, etc. — none of which can simply be explained in terms of a quickness to apprehend.

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  5. I've found that I have to set the playback speed to .75 so I can take in what he is saying. That way I only have to re- listen to half the sections rather than all of them. This man is beyond genius.

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  6. The ratio of positive comments on this man’s audiobooks is extraordinarily rare and shows what value the content holds. I have no doubt that while Sowell is largely hidden from the world today, he will posthumously become known to the world just as his antithesis, Karl Marx. If there can be Marxists in this world, let me be known as a Sowellian.

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  7. Dr. Sowell makes it clear Malignant Stream Media and government schools through establishment intellectuals and their text books and droning boring teachers paralyzed our ability to think for ourselves. a A psychic command and control intelligencia succinylcholine drip over 12-20 years of re education camps.

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  8. The section about euphemism being used to distort reality, all I could think about was George Carlin take on how liberals have euphemized the problems of reality away rather than solve them.

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  9. University are full of intellectual asshole,I remenber while in the university,leftist distributing leftwing leaflet,graffiti full of marxist slogan,a leftwing run book store full of communist book,herbert marcuse,mao little red book,sarte, noam chomsky…….and then there is sit down lecturing or brain washing.but most of time most thevstudents simple ignore them.

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  10. I believe Jordan Peterson was quoting someone else when he said "be careful of knowledge that you havn't earnt". The best intellectuals are those who contrast their ideas againat reality.

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  11. I come from south Somalia, I am amazed at the horrific parallel results received by the imposition of equality by intellectuals. Whether it’s by the communists or extremist. The agenda of Al shabab( local militant group) is set by other than the enforcers. Everywhere the details are different but the same pressures and results and the inevitable human suffering that’s worse than what it was meant to avoid.

    Edit: An intellectual doesn’t have to be in the classical western type. The village rain man can be classed so.

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  12. As Jordan Peterson says "most ideas are stupid but you have to take aim and try to see if they work" ie: test them against everything possoble to see if they hold up. Problem is that most intellectuals go so far deep into the rabbit hole of their own idea and build up their whole personality around it that they completely lose track of reality in order to justify their bad idea.

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  13. I just stumbled upon this author, and I mean, wow!

    It's a breath of fresh air to know that this man would not only give myself the other the tools
    to think more critically about how the parts and pieces fit together but also see our

    society grow into what it is today. Mr. Sowell's work in this book seems to me to be very
    rooted in his experience. This man has now become one of my favorite thinkers.
    I'm still buying the book out of respect for his time and thought.

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