At every turn, the story of the world’s response to Covid is the story of power: The perception of it, the exercise of it, the fear of it, the abuse of it, and the pathological lengths to which some will go to obtain it.
Our current condition calls for introspection, not partisanship. As a profession, we have complied with directives to discriminate, stigmatize, and exclude, whilst blurring requirements for informed consent. We have helped remove basic human rights – to bodily autonomy, education, work, family life, movement and travel.
It was not the poor, the working classes, or the person on the street who did this. These policies were not an act of nature. They were never even voted upon by legislatures. They were imposed by men and women with unchecked administrative power under the mistaken belief that they had it all under control. They never did and they do not now.
“Eye-watering sums of money were spent during lockdowns, on furlough and business support schemes which helped mask the inevitable economic consequences we are now seeing. Many of our current problems could have been avoided had the government carried out an effective cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns and other restrictions.”
It’s nice of the New York Times to finally print this fact, but they would appear to be, euphemistically, a day late and a dollar short—the “dollar” in this case being as many as 200,000 young American lives.
Freedom of conscience is out. The real responsibility of the players, according to the Gray Lady, was to seamlessly parrot the wholly extraneous ideological line of their employer whether they believed in it or not. The truth is they should have never, ever been put in that position.
The covid pandemonium was a reminder that even rich, sensible, well-mannered, and well-educated societies can descend into the pits of hell faster than you can cry “emergency.” Society always balances on the edge of an unspeakably horrific abyss.
Mattias Desmet on the Totalitarianism of Mass Panic Read More
Let’s not be naive about the prospects for change. It is going to require far more than merely electing a new class of supposed rulers via the democratic process. The real rulers are too smart to subject themselves to the business of elections. Those are designed to keep our minds busy with the belief that democracy still survives and therefore it is the voters, not the government, that is responsible for outcomes.
The Origin and Operation of the US Administrative State Read More
Before the next public health crisis, we need to create a fair, forward-thinking, and reputationally robust institution to serve as a non-governmental alternative and foil to federal bureaucracies like the CDC. Privately funded laboratory research, an alternative framework for reputation analysis and peer review and influence-free conclusions could revolutionize the political approach to health and safety. Ideally, such an institution would be a gathering-place for those experts like the Barrington signatories who stood against the tide and prioritized real science over politics.
The Urgent Need to Break the Public Health Monopoly Read More
Social engineering appears doable only to those persons who, seeing only a relatively few surface phenomena, are blind to the astonishing complexity that is ever-churning beneath the surface to create those surface phenomena. To such persons, social reality appears as it does to a child: simple and easily manipulated to achieve whatever are the desires that motivate the manipulators.
If you tested yourself on a random day when you had no symptoms, your one test would probably say “You’re Negative,” and that wouldn’t change your behavior at all. Such a negative test used with a low pretest probability of being positive is like firing a bullet haphazardly into the fog, long before you see the whites of your enemy’s eyes with a low pre-shot probability of hitting anyone.
Participants wearing masks reported marked discomfort, such as feeling hot, humid, and breathing resistance and claustrophobia with higher exercise intensity. While other researchers could not measure significant detectable differences, these signs need to be taken seriously.
Wearing a Mask During Indoor Exercise Can Be Fatal Read More
