October 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

 
The aide is saying knowledge is for fools, knowledge isn't needed by the world's actors.

Such persons act without brain one, and they don't see a problem with that. There is a large group of persons who are that way. The power of numbers causes them to assume they are invincible in their stupidity.

The quoted person is saying, exploiters farm the rational world for intelligence while ripping everyone off through force and violence.

Implicitly, it is this: "You will study our ass, and we will do as we please, through force and violence, because we are a bunch of cowards, and you don't have anything to say about it." And also implicitly, "this is the most brilliant way of life anyone has every conceived, because we are way above everyone else in our intelligence."

Maybe that's why the cost is a trillion dollars to produce the F35—the empire trying to leave behind the reality based community.