I can identify a lot with your journey. I'd spent most my life thinking I was a rational, analytical thinker, though, at the same time, I'm very fond of Hamlet's “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Anyway, it was beyond discombobulating to suddenly find myself regarded as a deluded conspiracy theorist anti-vaxxer for questioning the (as you pointed out) increasing shakiness of the official narrative as the panic progressed. More than once, I was agonisingly (for me) confronted by friends or colleagues with the, "What makes you think, you've spotted something or can understand something better than the experts?" It really made me question myself, and mostly resulted in me redoubling my efforts to look up the data, research and analysis available online. Gradually, I learnt how to answer: "Because, unlike you and your "experts", I have actually looked up the data. Your acceptance of the pandemic response is based on your trust in authorities, my criticism is based on data and rational analysis."
A further frustration was that so few were capable, or willing, to engage on the data, either out of time constraints or lack of basic mathematical/statistical knowledge. This was quite depressing. Substack was a lifeline! =)
I think many people are waking up to the reality of the parallels between “science” and the European churches of centuries past. Some threw off the intellectual shackles of the “church” only to be captured into the intellectual hegemony of “science”.
While we may not be in possession of all the facts about “covid”, the truth of it is becoming more and more evident.
All are empowered to discover truth. The truth shall set you free.
I’ve never been good at writing what I think so I tend not to write lengthy comments. However it was obvious to me that the bullshit being spewed at us was wrong. The vaccines, the masks, the Covid death count, etc. I argued with friends and family about this. Unfortunately most of them believed the bullshit and still do.
The scientific method is a brilliancy that changed the world. Apparently, however, it is frighteningly easy for humans, even the most educated, to fall back upon superstition and turn “science” into yet another form of us vs. them tribalism. Thus the most burning questions weren’t “how effective and durable is the vaccine” and “what side effects might it incur” but “how can we persuade people to get vaccinated?” It also shows the laziness and stupidity of our intellectual elite that they will always prefer to turn to the soft sciences— the sociology of vaccine hesitancy rather can the mRNA vaccine technology really deliver us from a coronavirus pandemic?
There was lots of insane bulshit spouted during thst period of mass societal derangement, but for my money, the prize goes to "Nobody is safe until we're all safe", which is...I dunno...just completely and obviously bonkers. What do you say in response to someone who earnestly espouses such gibberish?
I'm seeing a quite consistent pattern of missing any mention of babies dying shortly after the injections they received. There's a clear tendency to look for other explanations and causes.
Only the accountants and bankers understand, and dictated this culling; the country is bankrupt (from war, theft, grift, greed and waste), and for the books to be balanced, they must be wiped clean. Humans are the most easily expendable cost to 'delete'. It's all so simple and so cruel. Humans are officially commodities, no different than sheep or tin. Sincerely, commodity # 377-94-8591.
Vaccine passports is not that new a thing though: it used to be standard practice to get stamps in your passport or VISA or other related document when travelling to certain nations or areas, so that authorities at home could feel reasonably safe you wouldn't bring any nastyness back.
Which is why Sweden was rabies-free for decades. Free of TBC. Free of cholera. Free of typhoid. Free of syphilis. And so on. (Yes, I know some of those are bacterial - point stands, as testing on return was also mandatory. This is how we stopped the last outbreak of smallpox in the 1960s, and it still cost about a dozen people their lives.)
Then came "open borders". "The right to travel". Multiculturalism. Testing people from certain nations and populations was deemed racist - as if diseases care about that.
And now we have all the old favourites back, except the Black Death and smallpox. Just because the borders must be open because reasons.
If we actually used medical science properly, we'd insist on medical VISAs showing the visitor (or the citizen returning from holiday!) free of insert-list-of-dangeous-diseases.
But there's no monetary profit in that, and a lot of political flak.
This tendency of some scientists to trust expertise -- I think you are speaking more of the protected scientists who inhabit institutional 'zoos', those who haven't lived in the wild, so to speak.
I can identify a lot with your journey. I'd spent most my life thinking I was a rational, analytical thinker, though, at the same time, I'm very fond of Hamlet's “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Anyway, it was beyond discombobulating to suddenly find myself regarded as a deluded conspiracy theorist anti-vaxxer for questioning the (as you pointed out) increasing shakiness of the official narrative as the panic progressed. More than once, I was agonisingly (for me) confronted by friends or colleagues with the, "What makes you think, you've spotted something or can understand something better than the experts?" It really made me question myself, and mostly resulted in me redoubling my efforts to look up the data, research and analysis available online. Gradually, I learnt how to answer: "Because, unlike you and your "experts", I have actually looked up the data. Your acceptance of the pandemic response is based on your trust in authorities, my criticism is based on data and rational analysis."
A further frustration was that so few were capable, or willing, to engage on the data, either out of time constraints or lack of basic mathematical/statistical knowledge. This was quite depressing. Substack was a lifeline! =)
Same thing I missed, that people prefer safety and the acceptance of the herd than any notions of truth.
I think many people are waking up to the reality of the parallels between “science” and the European churches of centuries past. Some threw off the intellectual shackles of the “church” only to be captured into the intellectual hegemony of “science”.
While we may not be in possession of all the facts about “covid”, the truth of it is becoming more and more evident.
All are empowered to discover truth. The truth shall set you free.
Thanks Lon. I needed to hear that.
I’ve never been good at writing what I think so I tend not to write lengthy comments. However it was obvious to me that the bullshit being spewed at us was wrong. The vaccines, the masks, the Covid death count, etc. I argued with friends and family about this. Unfortunately most of them believed the bullshit and still do.
Dear Professor Rigger. You must have missed that money is still the root of all evil. And that the Media is not only biased. It is stupid and corrupt.
As for Ivermectin, I gave my then doctor a piece of my mind when he claimed it was dangerous - because the Health Authorities said it was.
Does anyone know what happened to Covid and Ivermectin in Utter Pradesh India.
The scientific method is a brilliancy that changed the world. Apparently, however, it is frighteningly easy for humans, even the most educated, to fall back upon superstition and turn “science” into yet another form of us vs. them tribalism. Thus the most burning questions weren’t “how effective and durable is the vaccine” and “what side effects might it incur” but “how can we persuade people to get vaccinated?” It also shows the laziness and stupidity of our intellectual elite that they will always prefer to turn to the soft sciences— the sociology of vaccine hesitancy rather can the mRNA vaccine technology really deliver us from a coronavirus pandemic?
There was lots of insane bulshit spouted during thst period of mass societal derangement, but for my money, the prize goes to "Nobody is safe until we're all safe", which is...I dunno...just completely and obviously bonkers. What do you say in response to someone who earnestly espouses such gibberish?
I'm seeing a quite consistent pattern of missing any mention of babies dying shortly after the injections they received. There's a clear tendency to look for other explanations and causes.
Excellent - lucid & amusing, Included much that I recognised through my own thought processes over the last years.
Only the accountants and bankers understand, and dictated this culling; the country is bankrupt (from war, theft, grift, greed and waste), and for the books to be balanced, they must be wiped clean. Humans are the most easily expendable cost to 'delete'. It's all so simple and so cruel. Humans are officially commodities, no different than sheep or tin. Sincerely, commodity # 377-94-8591.
Vaccine passports is not that new a thing though: it used to be standard practice to get stamps in your passport or VISA or other related document when travelling to certain nations or areas, so that authorities at home could feel reasonably safe you wouldn't bring any nastyness back.
Which is why Sweden was rabies-free for decades. Free of TBC. Free of cholera. Free of typhoid. Free of syphilis. And so on. (Yes, I know some of those are bacterial - point stands, as testing on return was also mandatory. This is how we stopped the last outbreak of smallpox in the 1960s, and it still cost about a dozen people their lives.)
Then came "open borders". "The right to travel". Multiculturalism. Testing people from certain nations and populations was deemed racist - as if diseases care about that.
And now we have all the old favourites back, except the Black Death and smallpox. Just because the borders must be open because reasons.
If we actually used medical science properly, we'd insist on medical VISAs showing the visitor (or the citizen returning from holiday!) free of insert-list-of-dangeous-diseases.
But there's no monetary profit in that, and a lot of political flak.
This tendency of some scientists to trust expertise -- I think you are speaking more of the protected scientists who inhabit institutional 'zoos', those who haven't lived in the wild, so to speak.
dietrich bonhoeffer " on stupidity "