(Most) Intellectuals Are Cowards

GrowCake
8 min readJun 28, 2022

The fearless entrepreneur mentality is only learned through failures and mistakes, while it is only earned after facing these failures and mistakes with humility, patience, vision, and passion.

Written by Taylor J. Winum,
(Co-founder at GrowCake)

“If you succeed, every mistake becomes legendary”

— Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba

Part One: (Most) Intellectuals are Cowards.

Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist, Peter Thiel, is famous (infamous?) for starting interviews with one single question;
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

What answer would you give? Would you dive deep into your subconscious to reveal something personal and, perhaps, controversial? Or would you try to play it safe and provide the obligatory ‘i’m such a perfectionist’?

This question reveals two very important factors about a candidate, entrepreneur, or partner; 1) Are they articulate, confident in their convictions and 2) Are they brave enough to standalone through the pursuit of an impossible goal?

What type of individuals do you believe answer these questions in a way suitable to Peter Thiel? A physician or a masseuse? A professor or a drop out? A trust fund elitist or a scrappy resourceful orphan?

For our readers’ sake, let me elucidate freely. The Intellectuals and Elitists in our societies are the least interesting human beings on the face of the planet. These self-appointed, all-knowing ‘czars’ of our cultural, historical, and anthropological societies are nothing more than cowards.

Yes, intellectuals are cowards. Don’t think they are cowards because they aren’t engaging in bar fights or climbing atop mount everest, this is merely arrogant stupidity or overzealous showmanship.

What makes intellectuals the biggest cowards in modern society is that they stand for nothing and therefore fall for anything. Literally. Intellectuals spend their days debating fellow intellectuals, their only creations of significance are both born and die within the halls of Universities, ThinkTanks and high-priced Consultancies.

But why would I say this makes them cowards? Because intellectuals do not attempt to persuade culture, assist the poor, or connect with the population-at large. Instead, they weaponize their intellectual, social, and historical knowledge to assist the richest and most powerful members of our society in further destroying the middle and lower classes.

Intellectuals have become the embodiment of a new-age Charlatan; wielding the modern day sword of ‘cancel culture’ to silence the rebellious and reward the obedient. Draping themselves in the shield of expensive ivy-league degrees of institutions unavailable to the common man or woman.

Traditionally, the majority of intellectuals technically had no power or influence in society. In fact, these Intellectuals are mainly cowards because they shifted away from their selfless careers in research, development, and philanthropy towards a selfish pursuit of power, fame, and influence through the coddling and pampering of the most privileged amongst us.

But why is this a problem worth understanding or worrying about? Because intellectuals with no practical real world skills or experiences are shaping the national and international dialogue by manipulating and obfuscating the intent of the oligarchs and monopolies causing the downfall of the Western economy and way of life.

The intellectuals are also cowards because they manipulate from behind closed doors with subtleties unknown at first, but deep-rooted with dehumanizing intent. They have managed to change the meaning of an American parent telling their kid that “you can be whatever you want when you grow up” to “you can IDENTIFY as whatever you want when you grow up”.

While any person may interpret these subtleties differently, they have to admit that growing number of our prominent social and cultural issues seem to be non-existent one day, then undeniably systemic within hours.

But why does this really matter? What do I think makes a cowardly intellectual such a danger to society as a whole? Especially when they historically hold little to no influence over the majority?

When our society is educated by intellectual cowardice, it guarantees the following generations’ will learn only reactive, not proactive, methods for improving our world. Instead of innovation, the next generations’ will choose intimidation. Instead of thinking critically, the next generations’ will choose to think critically of those acting auspiciously. The cowardly intellectuals ensure the next generations’ will dissect inequalities instead of working actively to fix them.

Part Two: Be Bold, Be Brave

The one thing I’ve always been fascinated with is solving difficult problems. When a new technology or medium for innovation is introduced to the public, it is never obvious where this technology will take society. Hence making modern problems the most difficult to solve when there is no clear path ahead.

To be clear, we are never educated in the United States to truly understand how to be successful in America. Ask any public high school alumni if they ever learned 1) how to balance a checkbook 2) how to register, operate, or manage a Small-Medium-Business 3) how to monitor the detrimental impacts of pop culture, sex, or relationships, and finally 4) (and perhaps the most pernicious element) where to seek alternatives to the higher education industrial-complex if a trade school or apprenticeship suits your skillset or lifestyle more broadly.

If we can be certain that, at the very least, our society is not being controlled by the populist bourgeoisie or the impoverished lower class, then we can surmount that those in control wish to dilute the capacity of the general population to a point of paralysis.

Now, admittedly, I am not the brightest bulb in the shed. While in my opinion, it also isn’t obvious that high IQ is the driving force of our the most prolific problem solvers. In fact, It is fair to estimate that people who’ve changed our lives , most existentially, were likely not the same as our valedictorians or university professors.

While also, admittedly, our modern business leaders pretend to be just like us as if to distract the critical from digging deeper into all the above questions. Their narrative always mirrors a modern interpretation of the Hero’s Journey; a down-and-out child in poverty, against all odds, accomplishes the impossible goal of fame, fortune, and infamy.

What is my point? We have been led astray, likely by the hands of our aforementioned cowardly intellectuals, to believe that today’s elitist leaders of business, education, politics, and innovation are the absolute best and brightest America and the Western world have to offer. And when you start to internalize their propaganda, one will eventually begin to believe that not only have we reached the pinnacle of human achievement, and it is so unfortunate that people like you, or me, simply wasted our opportunities by never questioning the absolutely abhorrent public education, lack of upward mobility, or drain on creativity that could’ve, had there not been interference from the shadowy cabal of cowards and liars, our ticket out or venture within fixing and improving our own communities.

Part Three: Identify the Big Problems, Tailor Solutions, Develop New Category Creations

Thesis: The uncertainty of our evolving macro environment will become less daunting to navigate if we can return to an economy built on the foundations of a strong micro.

‘Think global, Act Local’ is a nice theory. The idea that our actions, production, and distribution locally would in turn impact the global market positively by way of free market principles. Although I call it a theory because this idea is nothing more than a bumper sticker, without strategic execution and bottom-up implementation it will remain impossible.

I hear the phrase ‘bringing jobs back to America’ quite frequently nowadays. My opinion is that we will not defeat China’s manufacturing sector, they’re 100x ahead of us and exist in a far less regulated state.

Checkmate? Nope…

By stopping our reactive economic policies and replacing them with technology-driven, human-centric craftsmanship, we will return to the artisan economy that was once responsible for spearheading the meteoric rise of the Western world.

It is become too nauseating to stomach the lack of self-awareness in American society. How can we still espouse our western values and impose them on the world when we as a people no longer live by the tenets that uplifted our melting pot patchwork of progress?

The biggest problems facing America in the next few years include, but are not limited to,..

INFLATION —
Inflation will be significantly reduced by implementing a hyperlocal decentralized urban farming community.

2. ANTI-TRUST —
Anti-Trust will not be solved by the courts, it will be fought on the frontlines by SMBs, Entrepreneurs, and micro-fulfillment and production.

3. EDUCATION — -
Education will be shifted from inactive to active with direct education and equal opportunity category design.

4. LIFE, LIBERTY, & PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS —
GrowCake believes that with Direct Education, Social Commerce, HyperLocal Production + Distribution, and Cooperative Neighborhood Supply Chains, we will enable all willing members of society to ditch the gig economy and replace it with the ownership economy!

Want to become a founding neighborhood member at the GrowCake community? Want early access as a Beta tester? Interested in becoming a

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HyperLocal Management
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HyperLocal Economy
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GrowCake

“When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro” - Hunter S Thompson