All right, you unruly night dwellers, buckle up. This is Knox. Episode 12. And guess what?
We've landed on the penultimate chapter of that savage little tome that started this whole freak show. Yeah, chapter 16, The Great Cerebral Wasteland. I'm Maverick from Trickster Collective and the Mindset Maverick channel. And if you've stuck around this long, you already know the deal.
I couldn't resist. I read this beast of a book in Russian. It blew my mind. So, I'm hauling it across the language barrier just for you.
Because I'm convinced it holds the ugliest, rawest truths about us, Homo sapiens, truths that your average bedtime story politely tiptoes around. A quick heads up before we dig in. This chapter is lethal. It's an unvarnished assault on the illusions we cradle about our intellect and identity.
This is the second to last chapter, so yeah, the fireworks are ramping up. Remember I mentioned that parallel show I'm cooking? The one where we tear these ideas apart together and throw our personal theories into the ring? It's still on the way.
Watch for it. You'll get to vent, argue, or celebrate, and I'll be right there with you. Until then, you can binge every past episode of Knox wherever you like. Spotify, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, YouTube, you name it.
We're also all over social media. Find every link in the description. Seriously, they're there if you want them. Because if you're as addicted to dissecting humanity's darkest corners as I am, you'll probably want to stay plugged in.
Now, let's not stall any longer. This book is not polite, nor is it gentle. Chapter 16 awaits. Let's see just how far down the rabbit hole we can go.
Prepare yourselves. This is The Great Cerebral Wasteland. Dig just a little into the origins of human behavior, and suddenly gulags, ballet, and holy scriptures stop looking like mysteries. What else would you expect from the descendants of Pleistocene scavenger packs?
Could it have gone any other way? Was there ever a real shot at steering civilization away from the gas chamber? Was there even a chance to make humanity's global symbol something other than two planks nailed into a cross, decorated with a mutilated corpse? Was there hope of cutting the umbilical cord to our Pleistocene ancestry?
Of tearing away from those damned roots that see nothing but spirits or overlords in every shadow? And if we had broken free, could we have ended up with a different history? A different science? A different kind of humanity?
One without gods, slaves, or wars? Most likely, no. That chance never actually existed. Is it even possible to make edits to a fully formed organism?
Legions of starry-eyed human improvers have tried to do it with enlightenment, with about the same success as giving a massage to a bronze statue. Even if a thousand masseurs work themselves into a sweat, the statue won't change its pose, or its structure. Let's be honest, even in the 21st century, Burmese girls still stretch their necks with coils of wire. Christians still eat their God.
Russians still burn eternal flames. Worshippers of the goddess Parvati still hang from hooks by the skin of their backs. On the Ganges, corpses are still fished out and devoured. And in Madagascar, the dead are dug up and treated to striptease.
The participants in these rituals are not considered insane, but those who dare to question the sanity of these customs, they're the ones who get jailed, beaten, or killed. So, yes, humanity is hopeless, and therefore doomed. Its vector points straight into the abyss. And that's perfectly fair.
With a brain like this, what else could you expect? Deprived of a set of precise facts about the world, this creature is doomed to whisper with dung beetles. And precise facts? They're rejected by the overwhelming majority because they conflict with culture and the comforting myth of the brain's genius and mystery.
Here's the bitter truth. The sum total of relatively accurate ideas about reality, what we call intelligence, exists not thanks to the brain, but in spite of it. It lives separately from the brain. The brain's own intellectual potential?
Zero. Try using it, just the brain alone, to grasp the nature of the wave function or aspirin. You'll see those proud little folds of grey matter twitch and twist until they form one big, cheerful middle finger. The innate intellectual capacity of the hemispheres would have left homo forever stranded in the middle Pleistocene.
He'd still be babbling to pebbles and gnawing on carcasses. It was the invasion of reason that shifted the picture. Undeniably, it ensured the survival of the human species, but let's not pretend that's impressive. Mass reason allowed homo to reproduce and spread, but that's about it.
Left to its own devices, this intellect would have waddled as far as the 10th or 11th century and stalled there forever. Europe would still reek of shit and burning witches. Notre Dames would clutter every other corner, and astronomy would still be ruled by guys like Leo Allatius, who claimed that Saturn's rings were nothing more than Jesus Christ's foreskin, lifted into the sky. Diarrhea and poisoning would be treated by swallowing emeralds.
Migraines by drilling holes into the skull. Everything else would be on par. Yes, reason is a great thing, but let's not forget it's soaked up every delusion since the Neolithic. It's terminally infected by them, which is why real scientific progress, real development, cannot and should not be expected from mass reason.
For 5,000 years, it's just been spinning in circles, manufacturing sacred idiocies. Every one of its moves is the same, to generate refined stimuli for the nervous system. Reason itself can't produce them, but the demand is there. Not everyone wants to spend centuries chewing on the flesh of their god, sniffing the smoke of their homeland, or marching in circles.
So, thought emerges, slowly. And over time, it becomes the rival and the enemy of mass reason. Only thought manages to make the story of the human race slightly less grotesque. It is sterile, free of religion, taboos, and all belief systems.
The moment any of that garbage enters its mechanism, thought shuts down. There's no mystery in thought, no sacred aura. It's nothing but a high-speed, unhindered recombination of all precise knowledge on a subject. At some point, elements of knowledge enter into reaction with one another.
And if you're lucky, a new element is born, a fresh understanding. It's an exhilarating thing to witness, and the mechanism is absurdly simple. All you need to do is gather the facts and, from that set, extract the only possible conclusion. If that conclusion is correct, it'll click perfectly into place within the existing matrix of understanding.
The teeth and edges of this new piece will fit the contours of the old puzzle with uncanny precision. The birth date of thought cannot be established, but its first pulses can be felt in the days of Aristarchus and Democritus. Still, thought is useless in the affairs of daily life. Genuine cynicism, but it won't provide correct answers to everyday problems.
Always represented by rebellious loners, thinking was typically persecuted, but it's precisely what changed the world, partially pulling it out of Neolithic and medieval shit. Thanks to thinking, all scientific discoveries were made, random collections of observations were transformed into intellect, and the so-called pantheon of geniuses emerged. Of course, if mass thinking had been possible, humanity might have had a very different fate. But sadly, it's not characteristic of the homo genus.
Instances of genuine thinking occur among these creatures, but only as the rarest anomaly. Unfortunately, I'm not joking. Take a look. According to Totter Salu, the total number of people who have ever lived on earth is approximately 100 billion individuals.
Let's agree on this number. It's debatable, but no worse than any other. If we could simultaneously extract all the brain matter from these 100 billion individuals, we'd get roughly 85 million cubic meters of sulci, gyri, convolutions, cerebellums, cranial nerves, and so forth. An impressive heap, equal in volume to 33 great pyramids of Giza.
And if we spread this mass into a single layer of brains, we could cover about 600 square kilometers with cerebral hemispheres. We'd face a horizon-spanning landscape, entirely carpeted by hemispheres, cerebellums, and brainstem structures. Crossing this brain desert from end to end would take about two weeks. These brains once rested under straw hats, miters, caps, peaked hats, crowns, berets, helmets, and top hats.
Here, on this vast field, lie all epics, countries, and continents. Now, let's divide these brains into two groups, the empties, which played no role whatsoever in humanity's development, and those that actually created intellect. We can count about 3,000 genuine creators. Consequently, there are 99 billion, 999 million, 997,000 empties.
Of the entire cerebral mass of humanity, the brains of geniuses and intellectuals constitute only about three billionths of 1%. These could easily fit into the back of a single truck. For clarity, you could park this truck in the center of our endless brain desert and marvel firsthand at this scandalous ratio. It's a mistake to assume that the majority consists solely of humanity's working cattle.
Oh no. Mixed in with the hemispheres of ordinary people from all epochs are the brains of kings, academicians, Olympic champions, writers, scientists, ministers, and composers. Yet these are just as empty as the brains of soldiers or locksmiths. It's crucial to understand that no title, no rank, grants automatic entry into intellectual status.
To hell with the good intentions of kings and educators, as well as academic degrees. Only one thing matters: results. The creation of genuinely new knowledge. And this is demonstrated by just three billionths of a percent.
3,000 intellectuals, that's actually a very broad and generous count. It includes even the most obscure figures, those rarely mentioned by historians of science. Not only part of the Nobel Prize laureates in physics, chemistry, and physiology, but also individuals pre-dating the Nobel era. Here we have doctors, scribblers, inventors, adventurers, and even one doorman.
We even count those who were mistaken, but whose mistakes served as starting points for discovery. In our register, there are no fewer than 300 completely anonymous heroes. Humanity's flawed memory hasn't preserved their names, but they undoubtedly existed. Someone must have laid the foundation of science itself.
It's not hard to see that both Aristotle and Democritus operated not just with ready-made concepts, but concepts polished by someone else's thought. Yes, our list is imperfect and rather conditional. It contains plenty of fools. This is because 98% of its figures were scientists.
Typically, their capacity for thinking was locked within a single topic, never venturing beyond its boundaries. Yes, they made brilliant conclusions about things like non-locality or photosynthesis, but in every other aspect of life, they remained children of their epochs and cultures, writing, speaking, and committing the same ordinary foolishness. But if we adopt strictness and start recalling all the nonsense sometimes spouted by Huygens or Cajal, the list would soon be empty. Obviously, our truck does not contain the hemispheres of Satan, Jesus, Buddha, or any other creators of religious or metaphysical fantasies.
Their place is among the 99 billion, 999 million, 997,000 and zero empties. They didn't lead toward thinking. Instead, they dragged humanity backward into primitive myths about spirits and masters, perpetuating prehistoric lies about the world's structure. The same goes for painters, novelists, musicians, dancers, and other cultural masters.
These folks played the role of makeup artists, nothing more. Yes, they worked hard, skillfully gluing romantic masks onto the snout of a Pleistocene scavenger. But artists didn't work for intellect, they worked against it, making the lies about humanity richer and more appealing. You could safely erase any of these cultural values from human history without causing the slightest harm to its development.
Nothing would change. Whether Baroque existed or not, whether Rembrandt was ever born or not, it simply doesn't matter. These are mere decorative baubles, influencing absolutely nothing. Of course, you won't find any Kants, Platos, or Hegels on our list either.
This may seem unfair. True, philosophy is complete garbage, but precisely because of this, it makes excellent fertilizer for journalism and atheism. However, even the highest quality manure is no reason to serve it at the table alongside the radishes grown from it. And as for wars, ballet, and sports, those are purely zoological amusements, hardly worth discussing at all.
Nevertheless, the mere fact of genius's existence doesn't allow culture to sleep peacefully. Culture is constantly trying to sneak its own creations into the pantheon of genius, forcing upon us various Napoleons and Pushkins. Among this crowd, there are indeed some charming characters, but their level of development certainly doesn't earn them a spot next to Planck or Kepler. It's crucial to understand that writing novels or symphonies, as well as carving Chinese ivory balls like any other handicraft, requires not even a minimum of intellect and has absolutely nothing to do with thinking.
It's an entirely different trade. This is easily proven by examples of openly feeble-minded yet highly successful generals, weightlifters, and writers. The 21st century has finally put an end to the myth of the dictators' or generals' personality. We must thank the Russian dictator Putin, who has provided ultimate clarity on this matter.
Putin proved that in order to shake humanity and pile up mountains of corpses, you don't need brains or intellect at all. To break empires and gut entire countries, there's absolutely no need even for that fictional personality, invented by popes, novelists, and psychologists. Hitler, Stalin, Nicholas II, Bismarck, Napoleon, and Batu have already been obscured by the fog of history. But Putin has given us the chance to study the phenomenon thoroughly and close the question forever.
As for the rest of humanity, there's no point even talking about them. Take the brains of a Roman legionnaire or a Russian singer, they explain their complete insignificance. These brains left no trace whatsoever and played no role in the development of homo. Yes, they successfully serviced their bodily host, secreting monthly pancreatic juice on schedule and ensuring bodily verticalization.
They allowed the organism to employ sets of learned words, to combine them into prayers and articles, to string together sounds into music, write novels, wage wars, study military history, fence, sew, somersault, and control chariots, rockets, and entire countries. Alas, we mustn't overestimate all these abilities. They are merely combinations of skills acquired and memorized through mutual social labor training. Undoubtedly, they affect nourishment, reproduction, and social status.
But none of this has the slightest connection to actual thinking. So, what gives us the right to divide humanity's brains so categorically? Denying the ability to think to 99 billion, 999 million, 997,000 of them? The point is, the existence of works by Pavlov or Einstein firmly sets the boundaries of what constitutes thinking and what does not.
Without these guys and their works, watching TV dramas or counting carrots could easily pass for thinking. Unfortunately, Newton and Darwin have deprived us of this comforting possibility. The difference between the results of the brains of these 3,000 intellectuals and all the rest of humanity is astounding. The disparity is so radical, it's as if we're dealing with creatures from entirely different worlds.
Here, in a dull, monotonous voice, we must recall a simple biological law. Any extraordinary trait can only be considered a common characteristic of a species if at least 95% of the entire population possesses it. In homo, we don't even have 95%, not even 1%, but three billionths of 1%. In other words, the ability to think cannot be considered a universal trait of the species.
Note this carefully. If Arctic terns have extraordinary bionavigation skills, then every single tern finds its way from the Arctic to Antarctica. Every single horseshoe bat uses echolocation, and every boa constrictor has infrared vision. If thinking were a standard function for the genus homo, then both the Papuan and Galileo would produce roughly similar cognitive outcomes, just as the liver functions in much the same way regardless of the body it's in.
If a trait exists, it fully extends to every individual within the species. For instance, fireflies of the Lampyridae family uniformly produce luciferin and luciferase, causing every single one of them to glow identically. But in the case of homo, despite identical electrochemical processes occurring in all their brains, only three billionths of 1% have their asses lighting up. And yet, this strikingly tiny ratio between thinkers and non-thinkers, across our 600 square kilometers of cerebral gallery, isn't even the most intriguing fact.
Far more fascinating is that the physiological potential of these hemispheres is absolutely identical among all 100 billion representatives of the human race. Indeed, genius has no biological basis. The brain of Sechenov or La Mettrie does not fundamentally differ from the brain of a taxi driver or a baccante. All right, let that sink in for a second.
600 square kilometers of brain matter, and not even a flicker of light, not even a spark. You hear that? That's not poetry. That's not metaphor.
That's an autopsy. And it's not over. We've still got the second half of this chapter ahead. But before we dive back into that cerebral desert, let's take a breath.
Let it settle. You're listening to Knox, the only English reading of The Origins of Genius and Fascism, written by Alexander Nevzorov. A thinker, a heretic, a man who stood up against Putin's bloody regime when most of Russian media still licked his boots. Glory to Ukraine and fuck Putin.
Let's be clear about that. I translated this book because someone had to, because the truth doesn't translate itself. And this one was too urgent to leave behind. So, follow Knox, follow Trickster Collective.
You'll find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. We're everywhere. Spotify, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, Amazon Music, wherever uncomfortable truth still slip through. Now, while the next track rolls, do what you need to do.
Close your eyes. Light a joint if that's your thing. Let it all swirl around in your head. But don't go far, we're not done here.
And that was Stay Here More. Felix Raphael remix. Originally by Just Emma and Yago Erton. Smooth, hypnotic, and exactly what we needed to catch our breath.
But now, no rest for the wicked. You're still listening to Knox, the only English reading of The Origins of Genius and Fascism, by Alexander Nevzorov. Translated by yours truly, because some books simply can't stay trapped in Russian. Not in times like these.
This podcast isn't about comfort. It's not here to lull you to sleep. It's here to dissect everything you've ever believed about intelligence, culture, and humanity. And in case you missed the memo, Nevzorov is not a journalist.
He's not a teacher. He's a public thinker, a dangerous one, and a man who's been at war with Russian propaganda long before it became fashionable. He was among the first to call Putin's invasion of Ukraine what it really is. Genocide.
And I stand with him. Putin is a war criminal. Fuck Putin. Glory to Ukraine.
If you're still here, it means you're thinking. And in a world like this, that already sets you apart. So don't stop now. Follow Knox.
We're on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. You can listen on Spotify, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, Amazon Music. Wherever your mind demands fuel. All links are in the episode description.
Now, uh, light one up if that's your thing. Marijuana's legal in New York, last I checked. And let's face it. You're going to need something to get through what comes next.
Because we're going back in. Back into the Great Cerebral Wasteland. Let's finish chapter 16. I repeat, the neural activity of all homo brains has absolutely identical chemistry and mechanics.
Yes, the anatomical parameters of convolutions and ventricles vary slightly from individual to individual, but this holds no significance whatsoever. Of course, hemispheres differ in size, but that doesn't affect the quality of their output. There's nothing surprising here. Underpants identical in style and fabric can differ in size as well, but size 46 isn't any warmer than size 50.
The brain is a standard evolutionary product. It is always assembled according to the same anatomical and histological blueprints. It can't be otherwise because any deviation from the standard risks deformity and death. Evolution doesn't have time for jokes, experiments, or modifications here.
Hundreds of thousands of years have honed the perfect standardization of the human brain. Any small mistake could trigger the sudden return of a tail or the emergence of cyclopia. The molecular and cellular assembly of the brain always follows a strict template. Neuronal tissue, glial cells, and every other minor detail are built using thoroughly tested, standardized materials.
Yes, small mutations constantly tick away in our genome. Sure they can push the brain beyond the standard, but only in the direction of pathology. The bearer of such anomalies might live only a couple of days after birth, never reproducing, thus preventing the anomaly from taking hold. Let's note, the role of genetic mutations has been grossly exaggerated by enthusiasts.
In reality, evolution blatantly disregards humanity's most pressing needs, refusing to make even minor adjustments to its construction. Remember, whenever evolution actually cares, it effortlessly grows improbable crests and double penises, equips creatures with extra eyes, echolocation, or geomagnetism. Evolution loves and knows how to play artist. We should appreciate its helpfulness, its readiness to correct its own mistakes.
Take, for example, the problem of feces dirtying buttocks, causing itching, irritation, and attracting swarms of flies. No problem. A quick genomic modulation, and suddenly an animal's tail acquires the functionality of a propeller, violently scattering fecal matter directly into the faces of giraffes and ostriches. Thus, the diarrhea-prone hippopotamus forever solves the issue of dirty buttocks.
This innovation happens easily, almost casually. Similarly, when whales needed to dive deeper and longer, their blood circulation underwent an immediate, total overhaul, efficiently and on time, upon the whale's first request. But when it comes to the human organism's desperate need for minor modifications, evolution stubbornly ignores it. To decrease human vulnerability, only a couple of simple mutations would suffice.
Yet, despite all the genetic fuss, homo still hasn't managed to evolve painless childbirth, tooth regeneration, or repositioning of the urethra away from the prostate. Luxuries like bio-synthesizing vitamin C, let alone tail propellers, remain unattainable fantasies. Minor concessions, such as lactose tolerance, high-altitude adaptation, or lighter skin pigmentation, hardly count. These minor bonuses are insignificant compared to the glaring defects that were allowed during the manufacturing of humans.
Clever mutations pretend not to notice these flaws. Over the entire existence of homo, the conveyor belt of cerebogenesis has churned out around 100 billion sets of hemispheres. This product always comes to the consumer in standard bone packaging, without which it cannot function. The packaging itself has undergone a series of charming but fundamentally insignificant updates.
Mostly, the design was adjusted. Cheekbones and brow ridges receded, chins protruded. Every day, approximately 350,000 fresh brains roll off the assembly line, while 150,000 old ones cease their electrochemical activity. After listening to Chopin's funeral march, they proceed through decomposition to molecular recycling.
From there, they return to the universal pool of elements, refreshed and ready for reassignment within other forms of life. The technology, as we see, operates smoothly for the mutual pleasure of both fleeting bio-cenosis and fundamental matter. Making one brain in a batch of 100 million somehow special is pointless, and there's no one to do it. No outsiders with wings are permitted to approach the cerebogenesis conveyor, and besides, no one really needs it.
The accidental emergence of unique properties is impossible. External influences won't get you there either. Genius isn't exactly syphilis. You can't accidentally catch it at a cave orgy.
And anyway, there was nothing to catch. The evolutionary history of the brain thoroughly destroys the possibility of genius as an innate property. Remember, the brain's primary and fundamental role is to fulfill physiological and reflexive needs of the organism. Reasoning and thought are deeply secondary, random embellishments without which the human brain happily managed for millions of years and can easily manage again if our species were ever to revert to savagery.
Perspiration or blood formation have always been, and will always be, immeasurably more vital than the capacity to correct Copernicus's tables. If there were some special, higher-grade brain, it would first manifest itself not in the beauty of rhymes or bold discoveries, but in the remarkable physiological health of its bearer. Such a brain would manage bodily processes far more effectively than a standard one. Its carrier would be immune to most diseases and issues.
Perhaps even the echoes of its neural activity, the mental play, would be more interesting than usual. Yet, there are no precedents, nor are any expected. On the contrary, most famous creators of intellect preferred an early grave, while those who lingered often suffered serious health issues. It's enough to recall Darwin alone, who couldn't stray more than 10 meters from the toilet due to his trypanosomiasis.
If Darwin isn't enough, there's Feynman with his cancer, Hawking with his wheelchair, and so on. Every genius bears the hallmark of a modest, typical brain, originally crafted for the needs of an ancient scavenger whose life held no value. Let me remind you, this brain is unable to independently solve even a trivial hemorrhoid problem. In short, the biological odds of becoming Descartes, Galileo, or Marie Curie are absolutely equal for all homo.
Thus, the ratio of empty skulls to geniuses could have easily been reversed. Our little truck should have been filled with the hemispheres of a few singular fools, while all the rest of the space would overflow with the brains of those passionately and successfully creating intellect. Yes, undoubtedly, that would be a different world, and it might even be fascinating to live in. But it didn't happen.
Earth was and still remains the planet of idiots. And that is the end of chapter 16. If you're still here, then you're my kind of human. The kind who doesn't run from the dark.
The kind who doesn't believe in bedtime stories, fairytale gods, or patriotic hallucinations. The kind who still knows what it means to feel, really feel, when everyone else just scrolls and swipes and forgets. We walked together tonight through a wasteland of brains. Empty, decorated, crowned, sung about, but empty all the same.
And in this desert of intellect, we found the only true oasis. Those few who dared to think. Not believe. Not follow.
Think. I read Nevzorov not because it's fashionable, but because his words cut deeper than any flag, any faith, any anthem. He's not a journalist, he's not a teacher. He's a scalpel.
And I, I'm just the hand that holds it steady for you. I'm against war. Always. Against tyranny.
Against old men in bunkers with hands soaked in blood. Putin is a fucking monster. And every time we stay silent, we become his accomplices. But not here.
Not in this space. Not in this voice. Not in this night. And if that makes you uncomfortable?
Good. It means you're alive. This is Knox. This is your refuge from the fake and the dumb.
This is a place where we still say fuck you to fascism and I love you to intelligence. So, subscribe. Follow. We're everywhere now.
Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, Instagram, TikTok, and even in the whispered breath of someone thinking for the very first time. And now, breathe. Light something soft, something green. Unbutton a few lies.
Let your heartbeat slow down. Let someone's memory touch your skin. And if there's no one there, touch your own. There's no shame in being your own last refuge.
No shame in holding yourself when the world won't. Tonight, you did not run away. And I saw that. I felt that.
And for what it's worth, I love you for it. In night we think. In night we feel. Remember, in night we trust.