The Contrarian Paradox
As we’ve seen time and time again, it is much easier to criticize someone else’s accomplishments and shortcomings, than it is to strive for your own achievements and fail in your endeavors. Screaming from the cheap seats takes a lot less effort, and requires far less risk, than getting into the ring, and getting punched in the face.
As Teddy Roosevelt famously said:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Unfortunately, for all of us living in the modern world today, grift has become a part of our daily lives. From real estate gurus selling fake courses on Instagram. To fitness influencers telling you to eat raw liver, while injecting enough Anavar to kill a small horse. The contagion of talking about things outside your wheelhouse has spread far and wide. All the way to prominent institutions, in media, academia, and even into our government.
In 2025, comedians are pontificating on geopolitical events (armed only with a PhD in Bullshit from the University of TikTok) and politicians are trying to be funny. Prominent tech oligarchs are reshaping the government (when they’re not snorting Ketamine and shit posting on Twitter) and politicians are trying to go viral, instead of governing quietly and professionally.
The contrarian take, typically offering only criticism, has replaced actual demonstrable competence. Furthermore, we have began to value spectacle over substance and entertaining theater over sound theory.
So what is the solution and the antidote to this endless grift? How do serious people expose obvious rubes, con-artists, and charlatans? Unfortunately (again), the answer seems to be exposure through exposure. Meaning, allowing the contrarian and the heckler to actually give it a shot. Give them what they really want—A stage.
As unbearable as this may be for real experts, this is not for their [experts] benefit. It is for the benefit of the audience. Ridicule alone is typically insufficient to demonstrate someone’s lack of expertise. Furthermore, ridicule does almost nothing to bolster your own credentials. The separation between grift and greatness has to be demonstrated through theater. With the expert stepping aside and allowing the heckler to expose himself to the audience. While this may be fun and completely inconsequential on a stage at a comedy club. It is far more dangerous in the cockpit of a plane or in the halls of power within our government.
So what happens when the hecklers from the cheap seats are invited on stage to show the crowd ‘How it’s done’? Worse yet, what happens when the heckler fully gets his way, and the real performer walks off the stage? Leaving the audience alone with the amateur.
We are seeing the result of this experiment play out in real time in the most sensitive and consequential government positions. From the ‘Signal Chat Fiasco’ to the ‘Epstein List Farce’, the new establishment has become what they loathed only a few months ago—‘The Deep State’.
I remember when my high school would allow the students to vote for the student body president and vice president to be principle and vice principle for a day.
The results were typically comical and irrelevant. Study halls were prolonged and the dress code would be relaxed, allowing everyone to wear hats for the last few days of school. Yet in 2024, American voters have essentially done the same thing with our government. It is as if we actually elected and hired a bunch of children to run the school district and make administrative, educational, and budgetary decisions for an entire school system. We brought the kids to work and allowed them to stay and actually do the jobs reserved for sober and serious professionals.
While the results of this abdication of responsibility was always predictable and obvious to many of us, it seems that even MAGAstan is starting to have second thoughts.
The same comedians who adored and promoted obvious clowns and grifters on their podcasts. Are now starting to wake up and realize that they’re not getting what they voted for. Yet even in this moment of somber realization, they’re still only seeing half the picture. They’re not upset and disillusioned at the lack of seriousness from obviously unserious people. They’re merely annoyed at the fact that their curiosity and outrage aren’t being fully satisfied.
No reality shattering alien technology at Area 51 and JFK conspiracy smoking gun evidence. No billions of dollars going to Democratic child sex trafficking and no Epstein Client List. This is what they voted for and what MAGA ran on, but even now they’re failing to see the greater tragedy. It is as if they were just told that their house is on fire, and rather than considering the full implications of the tragedy, they’re only concerned at the loss of their television and PlayStation.
They wanted to be entertained instead of governed. They wanted their trolls and bullies to finally dunk on their elite rulers. They were never interested in fixing the country in a pluralistic way, they just wanted to win. Perhaps the moment is finally here and it is time to admit that you were tricked and lied to. While this can be shameful and hard to do, it’s the only reasonable solution. If you fell for a scam and sent a ‘Nigerian Prince’ $10,000. You don’t resolve the situation by sending more money and pretending that it wasn’t a scam. Liars, con-artists and grifters are many things, but they are rarely self-deluded. So perhaps it is for the best to not indulge in the same self-delusions.
Lying is an outward exercise and no matter how good the lie, you know that you’re full of shit. Whether you’re running a Ponzi Scheme on your investors or running for the highest office in the land, you’re aware of your shortcomings, blindspots, and limitations—as well as your actual talents. Yet no matter how good the lies, the liar is actually easier to spot than most people think.
At the core of spotting an obvious lie are two basic and fundamental principles:
The longer it takes you to introduce yourself, the less you’ve actually accomplished.
Truthful people will convey facts and information. Liars will try to convince you that they’re truthful people.
Recognize these early and realize when you’re in the presence of someone who is telling you what they want you to think—instead of what you need to know.
Just as their is a difference between marketing and manufacturing. There is a difference between governing and campaigning. It’s easy to call the incumbents names on social media and question the legitimacy of elections on podcasts. It’s easy to complain about the skills of a pilot from the passenger cabin. It’s easy to throw insults at professional athletes from the comfort of your couch. What takes actual effort, dedication, and skill, is governing, piloting a plane, and getting into the arena.
To be clear, this is not a repudiation of change and not an indictment of streamlining government. I have always been, and continue to be, a huge supporter of making things simpler, more efficient, and more effective. Furthermore, experts are occasionally wrong, misguided, and ideologically captured. Just as non experts can occasionally be clear thinkers, properly motivated, and capable. None of this changes the heuristic of real knowledge and real expertise. After all, even a broken watch is right twice a day.
Yet despite these realizations, I recognize that real and sustainable change and improvement requires actual experts and competent professionals. Revolutionaries are often times only effective in the revolutionary stage. Once the dust settles and the incumbents are gone, the task of governing begins. Burning it all down is easier said and done than building it back up and running it right.
So now that the contrarians and hecklers fucked around and are actually in charge, the rest of us are starting to find out. Now that we’ve allowed the most vocal passengers into the cockpit, let’s just hope they don’t crash the plane.
I still think it’s time we all realize that the solution to corrupt and biased experts in any field, is better experts. Not renouncing all expertise and letting the amateurs “Take a shot at it”. While things can go wrong with actual experts in charge, they can be much worse with con-artist and grifters in charge. When you need a second opinion about your cancer diagnosis, you go to another doctor, not the Instagram influencer selling essential oils. Let’s all grow up and realize that cynicism is not a substitute for seriousness, and that contrarianism is not a substitute for competence.