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Kevin Pezzi, MD

I developed technology to instantly
stop school shooters and other criminals,
such as rapists, robbers, home invaders,
and shoplifters. I also created ways to block
airborne germ transmission. Read more >

Iconoclastic views on economics, politics, technology, science, and life.

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“What I would like to see more often in this nation is an open and intelligent conversation, not people just casting aspersions at each other … it's unbelievable to me the way people act like third graders. And if somebody doesn't agree with them, they're this and they're that … it comes from both sides. And it's just so infantile.”
— Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“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 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 and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

To The Next School Shooter: If You Do It, You Will Never Do This Again

Go out to eat.
Hang out with friends.
Have a girlfriend, wife, and children.
Choose a career, who to spend your life with, and where to live.
Travel.
Go shopping.
Have fun with hobbies.
Enjoy holidays with family & friends.
Have a pet.
Kiss, hold hands, snuggle, fall in love, make love.
Make plans, change ‘em, do what you want to do.
Go for a drive, to the beach, a game, or out for a movie.
Go fishing, camping, boating, snowmobiling, biking, hiking, or skiing.
Have fond memories.
Revel in the latest technology.
Choose what clothes to wear.
Enjoy silence and solitude.
Look forward to your vacation.
Impress a woman.
Have a chance to develop into a better person.
Make your family, friends, and children proud.

PULLING THE TRIGGER IS LIKE FLUSHING YOUR LIFE DOWN THE DRAIN. BE SMART: THINK OF A BETTER WAY TO VENT YOUR FRUSTRATION. CAN'T THINK OF IT? LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO LISTEN AND HELP

This is available as a poster in PDF and GIF formats.

COMMENT: Four days after posting that on LinkedIn, it received 553 views, 3 likes (< 1%), and 2 comments yet gorgeous women with transparently flimsy excuses for posting pictures of themselves can get tens of thousands of likes.

After most school and other shootings, people bring flowers, spout platitudes, and profess to care—but do they really? They seem to care more about stroking the egos of narcissistic young beauties than doing something to deter the next shooter. I've heard “we must do something!” umpteen times yet can't recall the last viable solution proposed.

I have a folder full of other ideas on ways to prevent and stop shooters, prevent rape (posted an article on that long ago), and stop physical bullying.

Prediction: venture capitalists will continue to ignore innovation solving real-world problems until one of their loved ones is victimized.

Something for thinkers to think about

Why has revenge persisted for millions of years? Why is behavior akin to it seen in some animals? Because behavior is shaped not on the basis of what is right and wrong, but what is most adaptive. In evolutionary terms, it is adaptive for others to know that if you screw with them or their loved ones, you will pay a price for it.

Until recently (in the evolutionary timescale), we didn't have courts to adjudicate disputes, we had angry fathers literally bashing in the skulls of men who raped their wives and daughters, which made would-be rapists think twice.

While we are wired for revenge, we are also wired to think of ourselves, doing what is best for us. That is the impetus for the above message to would-be shooters: instilling the idea that NOT shooting is in their best interests long-term. Long after the brief flash of satisfaction from revenge, they face decades of living a life much more miserable than it could have been.

Yes, I know: temporal discounting (a.k.a., discounting the future) makes most people place more value on smaller rewards now versus bigger ones in the future, so my poster clearly won't deter everyone thinking of shooting, bombing, or whatever. But its batting average will not be zero; if seen by enough people, eventually it will change someone's mind so he thinks of what is best for him in the future, thus it will save lives.

The views expressed on this page may or may not reflect my current opinions, nor do they necessarily represent my past ones. After reading a slice of what I wrote in my various websites and books, you may conclude that I am a liberal Democrat or a conservative Republican. Wrong; there is a better alternative. Just as the primary benefit from debate classes results when students present and defend opinions contrary to their own, I use a similar strategy as a creative writing tool to expand my brainpower—and yours. Mystified? Stay tuned for an explanation. PS: The wheels in your head are already turning a bit faster, aren't they?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reference: Imagining dialogue can boost critical thinking: Excerpt: “Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning …”

Kevin Pezzi, MD

To The Next School Shooter: If You Do It, You Will Never Do This Again

Something for thinkers to think about

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