392 Comments
User's avatar
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

I believe this is one of the few articles I have ever read with my mouth increasingly agape from beginning to end.

How could the person who articulated the mechanisms of the sinister Cathedral then become its most ardent spokesperson? How could he have fallen for the shamefully contrived propaganda he once saw through like gauze? How could someone with such a potent intellect be so implacably dense?

This is the first time I’ve considered the possibility that he’s controlled opposition, but given that he’s arguing for a totalitarian panopticon over a manufactured permanent crisis makes me question both his integrity and his intelligence.

Expand full comment
Mel's avatar

Yarvin’s arrogant mess of an essay brings to mind a favorite quote from Twain: “Some conclusions are so stupid, only the most intelligent would ever believe them.”

Expand full comment
Jim Billy's avatar

“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

― George Orwell

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

Leave it to Orwell to come up with a more concise version!

Expand full comment
Barry O'Kenyan's avatar

I've never read 1984. That is history.....We are in 2021.

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

I truly hope you’re joking, Barry! If not, stop everything you’re doing this instant and go watch it (https://smile.amazon.com/1984-John-Hurt/dp/B07GT4D32H/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=1984&qid=1639049976&sr=8-3) RIGHT NOW. Then pick up the book immediately and read every line as soon as humanly possible :-) There is no better book in existence for understanding what is happening at this moment in history.

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

Expand full comment
Barry O'Kenyan's avatar

I could not watch it on Amazon. I don't and won't have an account with it. I searched on bitchute, rumble and banned videos for it. I found an early version. Two scenes stood out: people had to wear a tag on their shirts (vax id/passport); couples having dinners were being watched (CCTV). We have real-life examples during the Soviet times, and China.

Check your email re Prince Charles reference to "his trillions". Who is "he" that has trillions?

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

When you say you saw an “early” version, I truly hope you didn’t watch the crappy, anemic 1956 version. It *must* be the 1985 version with John Hurt.

Fortunately, I found it on bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/aXCuFNP7gls2/

Truffaut’s “Fahrenheit 451” (another must-watch) is also on there in full: https://www.bitchute.com/video/xv50v6sGhusH/

Expand full comment
Barry O'Kenyan's avatar

Thanks.

I am serious. I've never touched 1984. There is no need to read it now since I am experiencing it......

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

Wait, what?!! There is EVERY need to read it—now, more than ever before! You will never find a clearer articulation of what is occurring, which is necessary to jujitsu it into defeat. Don’t be like a Covidian and presume you know everything you need to know while refusing to listen to/read/watch a salient recommendation (okay, sorry, that was a low blow 😆).

At the very least, take the time to watch the exceptional film adaptation—I *promise* you the 1 hour and 50 minutes you spend watching it is worth a thousandfold that amount of time spent on Twitter ;-)

Besides, you’re missing out on all the hilarious inside jokes at Winston Smith’s blog if you don’t know the source material!

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

👏 How did I live all these years without having such a valuable quote available for dispensation? 😆

Expand full comment
משכיל בינה's avatar

This is not a fair or reasonable reading. Most of Yarvin's article is about how the measures advocated by the cathedral are pointless and abusive.

I have thought quite a bit about why Yarvin won't let this one go. Part of it is just not admitting he is wrong, but actually quite a lot of the dissident right was pro-lockdown 22 months ago and has wriggled out of it by now with varying degrees of candour. My explanation is twofold:

1) Personal reasons. I believe it is indelicate to talk about this explicitly, but perhaps eventually someone will have to in order to snap him out of it.

2) One of the nagging concerns with Neocameralism is essentially 'what's to stop the sovereign deciding large swathes of the population have negative value and just killing them?'. Yarvin never really solved this and part of the way he patches it up is an unwritten rule that you're just not allowed to be chill about human life. Now apply that principle to the virus and hey presto. The problem is that, actually, dying from disease and dying from someone killing you are just not the same thing morally. We all know that at some level, but I don't think anyone has ever really spelled out why, and until 2020 no-one really had to. Probing our moral assumptions is a dangerous thing with risks up to and including societal collapse.

Expand full comment
Desalita's avatar

Please. The dissident right was in favour of excessive caution for *a month or two* whilst the true mortality rate was bottomed out, as is sensible.

And then when it became apparent it wasn't they bad, the stance changed to "we don't need these draconian measures, let's get on with life", which again is sensible.

Expand full comment
משכיל בינה's avatar

Is it sensible to react to new diseases with unprecedented lockdowns before you know their severity? Seems like in retrospect it was not very sensible.

Truth is that advocating lockdowns was edgy and based until people actually did them and they turned out to be cringe. A warning for us all.

Expand full comment
hoppah's avatar

The populace was terrorized into this lunatic reaction by the volume of video and photos "leaking" from China of citizens dropping dead in the streets with blood pouring from their faces.

Expand full comment
Julia Lerner's avatar

That made it look more like an Ebola outbreak than a coronavirus.

Expand full comment
Desalita's avatar

Given at the time the CFR looked to be 5-10%, and at that time the evidence coming out of China seemed to indicate it was possible to contain it with lockdowns - yes.

Everyone is wise in hindsight.

Expand full comment
Michael Patterson's avatar

I remember Dr. John Ioannidis was wise to the scam/hysteria/reset from the beginning (Feb/March 2020), based on massively age- and health-stratified IFR from Diamond Princess and Lombardy, and I haven't seen anything in nearly two years to call his wisdom and foresight into question.

Expand full comment
משכיל בינה's avatar

That sounds great until you realise the downside risk is that if the disease turns out to be not so deadly, you don't just move on, you go into 2 (3? 4?..) years of societal insanity.

Again, I remember very well what it was like to be a fascist lockdown advocate. Yeah, we were scared, but also we were cool, looking down on stupid Nancy Pelosi hugging Asians, and advocating based border closures while laughing about muh individual rights. And, best of all, we were sure no-one would ever actually call us out by doing any of the stuff we were calling for. I'm not judging, obviously, but we should learn lessons from this. Speculative authoritarianism is nifty, until it isn't.

Expand full comment
Felix R Savage's avatar

I feel you. I (half-serious reactionary Roman Catholic integralist) was early to the panic and overreacted with the best of them in Feb-March 2020.

Then they closed the CHURCHES.

Ohshit.

Laughing at myself in retrospect, but mostly amazed by how many people have not seen through the psyop yet.

Expand full comment
Murray's avatar

This is still the virtue of hindsight, though. In retrospect, many of us dissidents were still far too naive. We knew our governments were full of stupid, incompetent, and evil people, but we (idiotically) didn't expect them to use this "crisis" as a pretext for eternal repression. I include myself in this critique, of course.

It was much like the guys in Charlottesville--whatever you think of them--believing that they could trust the authorities to live up to their own professed American liberal ideals. Well, now they know better, and so do we, at great cost.

Expand full comment
hoppah's avatar

If the disease was that bad, you wouldn't need to order anyone to lock down or stay away from others. And, they'd be fighting over doses of the "vax" and stealing it and stockpiling it if they could.

Expand full comment
Julia Lerner's avatar

Which is what our governments initially did. With masks too.

Expand full comment
arthur brogard's avatar

yep, that's very pertinent I think: it is the very absence of the disease from everyday view that keeps it a 'bogeyman'. once it is exposed, seen as it is, the threat goes away. which is why I try to teach myself to always spread the mantra:

. there is no emergency, never way, we've had worse than this before and dealt with it without any of this nonsense.

. however there is a disaster and it created and maintained by govt.

. vaccines purport to make your immune system 0.1% more effective is all they do.

That kind of thing.

Yep. Expose the disease as what it is.

Expand full comment
Brian Mowrey's avatar

No. 90% survival is a bargain price for freedom in historical terms, and no one who thinks it too costly can complain about losing it afterward.

Expand full comment
Joe Michels's avatar

99.8% survival. And in the .2% most were very near death anyway.

Expand full comment
Viv's avatar

One group is not wise in hindsight, Desmet's "captured 30%", all suffering from the anchoring effect of a 3.4% CFR.

They are stuck with the first piece of information and it cannot be shifted. Confirmed by conversations with the few people I know in that group. Science is a process of getting ever closer to the truth (while often never arriving, getting close enough), and is fine to change views. Note it could be in either direction - either it is not that harmful, or that it is even more harmful (not likely given the nature of the bug, but open minds).

While not moving in government circles it is hard to believe that many of them are sufficiently stupid to have not moved on from the anchoring bias, and that is very worrying. Some of them are playing a very very dangerous game, even if there is no overarching conspiracy.

Even in my remote corner of the clinical research/drug licensing bureaucracy, many of the covid-paranoid identify themselves immediately. The based can at least dog whistle among themselves, and you can plant seeds easily with the fence sitters. The paranoid masked covidians do not seem to be in a majority here, but it worries me that there are any of them!

Expand full comment
Frank Ch. Eigler's avatar

One did not need 22 month hindsight for this. 2 were plenty.

Expand full comment
John's avatar

Absolutely it is. With small amounts of information, you SHOULD overreact with caution. This is based in decision theory. You want to minimize the worst possible outcome. Imagine that corona had a 20% mortality rate plus we did nothing, for example.

Expand full comment
Brian Mowrey's avatar

So what. Life has a 100% mortality rate.

Expand full comment
John's avatar

You write a blog!?

Expand full comment
hoppah's avatar

Imagine that it had a 100% mortality rate. The prudent thing would have been to shoot anyone who tried to approach you. It's based in decision theory, you know.

Expand full comment
Frank Ch. Eigler's avatar

Maybe people don't want to minimize the worst possible outcome. Actually, people DEFINITELY don't want to minimize the worst possible outcome, otherwise they'd live in padded cells, never setting foot in a kitchen full of danger.

Expand full comment
Joe Michels's avatar

Also, let's remember that people in the deep state, knew the vast majority of people dying in Italy, we'er the old and sick. Yet, they propped up the lie that most anybody could die, to rid themselves, of Trump. Full Stop!

Expand full comment
Brian Mowrey's avatar

“The problem is that, actually, dying from disease and dying from someone killing you are just not the same thing morally. We all know that at some level, but I don't think anyone has ever really spelled out why, and until 2020 no-one really had to.”

It was spelled out before 2020. There were prophets warning against the medical war on natural death and illness, especially Illich.

Expand full comment
משכיל בינה's avatar

I didn't literally mean 'no-one', but thankyou for pointing me towards Ivan Illich.

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

To be fair, I haven’t had a chance to read the original article in its entirety, but the excerpts eugyppius cited are more than damning enough evidence in and of themselves, and I find it difficult to believe any context would mitigate his advocacy for tyrannical measures unless they were written as satire.

Expand full comment
משכיל בינה's avatar

It is fair to say that Yarvin's ideal plan is stupid, insane, evil even. It is not fair to say what you said.

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

Haha, okay, I must be missing the nuance then because I’m not sure how what I said is unfair given that I only asked questions and shared my own speculations based on what eugyppius relayed.

Expand full comment
Sean Mackesey's avatar

Comes down to an ambiguity in Yarvin's post, which is a kind of totalitarian fantasy about how to effectively handle the virus. However, he fully acknowledges the existing regime is full of incompetent and evil clowns who could never pull off what he's advocating.

So his essay, in the end, is ambiguous in terms of what he's practically advocating-- because its policy fantasies are based on an (acknowledged) fantastical ideal of competence, and ignore the realities of our current government. It's sort of like a Communist speculating about how industrial production could be given a population of New Soviet Men, except in this case its a monarchist speculating about how awesome public health would be given a competent state. But of course this is dodging the hard question of how you get a competent state...

In the end, I think a lot of people (mis?)interpreted the post as being pro-current-regime measures. Which is fair, because it *is* weird that Yarvin is more interested in fantasizing about how hypothetical based philosopher kings would deal with COVID than thinking realistically about the incredibly dystopian and messy scenario that actually exists.

Expand full comment
Malenkiy Scot's avatar

> Which is fair, because it *is* weird that Yarvin is more interested in fantasizing about how hypothetical based philosopher kings would deal with COVID than thinking realistically about the incredibly dystopian and messy scenario that actually exists.

Yes!

My charitable reading of his poasts on Covid is that he is trying to figure out how the sovcorp management would or might handle a similar situation. Which, imho, is kind of idiotic, for the following reason:

Yarvin's overarching thesis that his "sovcorp management" approach to government is the best (or the least bad.)

Now, actual situations that the new regime might face are countless. Therefore as a theoretician you must consider either how that regime would handle common situations or patterns that occur time and time again, or deal with *exactly the same* very rare situations that occur or have occurred in the past.

Taking a current rare situation and tweaking it in some way (devising a hypothetical virus that is at least as contagious, but much more deadly) does not support his main thesis in any way.

And if you do consider the exact same situation you must be very well aware of the facts. Which you can't be because the opposition is being actively silenced. And because you are a hypochondriac that seems to look at the fact through his own fear. Know thyself and shut up until the dust settles on the facts.

>Comes down to an ambiguity in Yarvin's post

Which he must be well aware of. Thus it was done on purpose. Readers who assume that he is talking about the current situation under the guise of a hypothetical are totally justified.

Also, if you look back at his earlier Covid poasts he does talk about how a competent regime would handle the current situation, not a hypothetical.

So my not-so-charitable reading is that the ambiguity is just a ruse.

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

Thank you for clarifying the ambiguity, Cornelius, and it does appear there was more subtlety than I realized. But a “totalitarian fantasy”? Seriously? And that’s okay? At least he acknowledges the incompetent and evil clowns—that’s substantial.

I’ve always felt his lofty ideas wouldn’t play out in the real world, but I felt his identification of concepts like the Cathedral made important contributions to public consciousness of propagandistic manipulations through colluding agencies and forces.

I could never get on board with his anti-democratic/republic stance and pro-monarchical stance given that it requires a truly benevolent being to serve in such a position and the likelihood of finding a “good” person to wield absolute power without fear of being voted out in this day and age requires a degree of faith beyond comprehension.

Expand full comment
James's avatar

That's a very insightful analysis. To be fair, I too was pro-extreme containment beginning in December 2019. I warned my coworkers, took kids out of school, bought heavy duty masks, and began disinfecting on my way out and in the house. Once I saw a close family member, of boomer age, with a terrible fever for a few days, then survive, I figured we were all infected already, and it was back to normal. Cognitive dissonance and the curve of awareness are implicated in the insanity still going on. We humans have a strong response to plagues: fleeing for the hills, self-isolating, etc. But we also come out of hiding once the threat is passed, spurred by necessity. Like Emerson said, the need for too much consistency is a bugbear for little men.

On the second point, that's a sad fact of neocameralism. It's the hatred of liberal democracy and individualism as such that prompted such a stance. The problem is that the tyrant is only ever an individual, himself, and large systems are rarely better than people or small tribes at adapting to reality. Neocameralism really isn't required for the substance of their critique. Merely removing the things that loosen feedback loops in society is good enough.

Expand full comment
VeryVer's avatar

Personal reasons?

Expand full comment
משכיל בינה's avatar

Curtis Yarvin was married to a woman with chronic illness who passed way this April. She was certainly among the rare people for whom Covid was a very serious health risk. I think we should be judicious in judging someone who is in such a position. I have a son who is celiac and suffers from rare and severe symptoms that at times have made both his and all of our family's lives intensely miserable for certain periods. I have felt personally rage at the sight of a child munching on cookies in a playground, because I know that this is the reason I have to wage a constant propaganda campaign on my son never to put his fingers in his mouth. I know it makes no sense, and I try to fight it, but who knows what kind of crazy policies I might advocate if I had millions of people who shared the same fears.

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

I hadn’t heard about the loss of his wife. I am certainly sorry for that and understand how it could have clouded his judgment. Sadly, her death—like nearly every death “from” COVID—was likely avoidable had the very BigPharma propagandists whose messaging he has fallen for not 1) smeared and prohibited early treatment protocols; 2) advocated killing treatments like Remdesivir (“Rundeathisnear” or “Remdeathivir,” take your pick) and ventilation/intubation, among other lethal interventions; and 3) discouraged healthy practices like enjoying fresh air and sunshine, exercising, and supplementing with vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, quercetin, etc.

He needs to redirect his acerbic intellect at the Cathedral rather than becoming a cheerleader for their authoritarian policies.

Expand full comment
Michael Patterson's avatar

Exactly, I can't understand Gabriel's point that one's personal sorrow/torment should make us tolerant of massively incorrect and dangerous arguments and/or policy demands.

Expand full comment
משכיל בינה's avatar

I wasn't necessarily saying we should tolerate it, I was saying it maybe explains it and, beyond that, just invoking a bit of commonplace 'take a walk in his shoes' thinking.

It is, however, absolutely wrong to say Moldbug is being a 'cheerleader' for the cathedral, and it's not really true to say he is advocating policies at all. He is saying what his hypothetical regime would so, while explicitly condemning what western governments have actually done. I thought Eugyppius's takedown was on point and fair in its harshness, but perhaps given some of the responses it would be the civilized thing to do to direct people to read Yarvin's article before commenting on it. It isn't even long.

Expand full comment
charles's avatar

Very likely was avoidable. When a friend of a friend came down with Covid I was not notified until Day #5 at which point his saturations were dropping (although by no means life threatening: they would not have raised an eyebrow in Denver). He was overweight and had made no preparations. I started giving her teledoc information and protocols but he went into the hospital that evening and came out about a month later in a body bag.

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

I’m so sorry for your friend’s loss, and yes, that is one of millions of such tragic stories that could have been prevented—and with the full knowledge of the psychopaths orchestrating this mass murder campaign, as becomes abundantly clear when you examine the airtight evidence presented in RFK’s “The Real Anthony Fauci.”

Expand full comment
Michelle.'s avatar

Sorry for your loss. Similar thing happened to my bil. Against all of our pleading and the virus he went to the hospital four days after Covid diagnosis. They put him on vent later that same night and killed him with remdesivir the next day. 40 years old obese but otherwise healthy. To this day I believe if he had been given ivermectin and or Regeneron he would be alive today.

Expand full comment
Ubbe's avatar

to keep in mind, if I remember well he said himself that his wife death was NOT related to the bug...he just stated that he is an hypochondriac...fear is the mind killer indeed...it's a pity because although he makes such glaring errors on his posts he also manage to bring some good arguments like the origin of the bug or the perverse functioning of the academia...

Expand full comment
hoppah's avatar

Recognizing a potentially devastating flaw in humanity's response to a personal issue is the first step to dealing with it.

Expand full comment
VeryVer's avatar

oh, I see. thank you for explaining. he's no doubt going through a lot of emotions as well. I'm sorry about your son -- chronic illnesses are very hard. My mother was ill with various conditions most of the time that I knew her -- that is I never remember her as a healthy, happy person who could take a walk or even leave the house after a while. I only really remember sickness and hospitals. She died in 2007 and the worst thing for me now is the guilt and shame I feel over the profound sense of relief I felt after she died.

Expand full comment
Refenestrated's avatar

Given how stressful prolonged illnesses are for family members as well as the patient, your feelings of relief after your mom’s passing are the normal and expected reaction to the cessation of that stress. Your feeling that relief at the time doesn’t mean you wanted her to die, is not evidence that you didn’t love her as much as you may think you should have, does not mean you were glad that she died or that you didn’t mourn enough, and is otherwise in no way a negative commentary on your worth or goodness as a person.

100% of people in that situation would have the same feeling of relief in addition to their grief. I hope at some point you’re able to forgive yourself (not that you actually did something that requires forgiveness) and let the guilt and shame go. I say this as someone who struggles with a negative internal monologue that is constantly whipping up my own feelings of guilt and shame, and can fully empathize with how corrosive those emotions are, as well as how difficult it is to just “let them go” when your internal narrative is telling you that you deserve them.

On that point, my therapist often reminds me that 1) the internal monologue is just a story we tell ourselves, 2) stories are just as often fictional as they are based in truth, and 3) believing the story we tell ourselves is a choice. Changing the negative self-talk dynamic has been hard for me because the thought pattern is so ingrained and habitual that I don’t usually even consciously realize it’s happening.

I get that my status as “some guy on the Internet” might not be convincing in and of itself, but please believe me: it would have been *extremely* unusual if you *hadn’t* felt relief after your mom’s passing given the circumstances, and you do not deserve the guilt and shame you feel about it.

Expand full comment
VeryVer's avatar

Thanks a lot, "random guy," I mean it. You're absolutely right. Our thoughts often do us no good. Or as I often say, "You're brain is not your friend!" Another negative aspect of this scamdemic is that many people have lost their ENTIRE social support network. Forced to work at home, social activities curtailed, volunteer work "on hold," churches gone virtual, told to avoid your neighbors and now ostracized by remaining friends and family for not getting vaxxed "enough." One reasons these substacks are so popular -- people need someone to talk to!

Expand full comment
elsterbirb's avatar

This is a valuable perspective. I'm sorry to hear about your son, it looks like your vigilance is very helpful in managing his disease.

Expand full comment
Unacceptable Bob's avatar

Not being in a position of power whilst being a 'neoreactionary' must be a tough pill to swallow.

Expand full comment
Florida Man's avatar

I second the mouth increasingly agape. Seems like he stopped himself, just short of daily rectal probes administered by the DMV

Expand full comment
Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

OMG, we must stop giving them ideas! 😂

Expand full comment
Barry Smith's avatar

How? Fear x $

Expand full comment
Novid Houellebecq's avatar

He lost his wife and touched the mainstream. Simple as.

Expand full comment
James's avatar

I was just thinking the same thing. Hopefully Nick Land and the other Dark Enlightenment folks haven't been brewing and drinking their own ultra-containment Kool-Aid during all this isolation and hysteria. I, for one, took the chance to get more physically fit than ever before, read a number of new books, and pick up new skills. Sad day for old Moldbug.

Expand full comment
ip204's avatar

Better part of him died with his wife, the benevolent explanation. Objectively most of his ideas are mix of missintegrative/disintegrative modes of thought that fall apart in contact with reality as they are explained in "The DIM Hypothesis". Great readable guide through modern philosophical swamp

Expand full comment
Lon Guyland's avatar

“Supplies are delivered.”

Yes, the delivery drivers produce them by magic on their trucks that are powered by unicorn farts and maintained by pixies. No farmers or supply chain necessary. Or is it that the slaves are disposable?

That anyone would listen to a person with such an infantile view of the world is sad commentary in itself.

Expand full comment
Frank Ch. Eigler's avatar

passive voice is a sign of rhetorical crime in progress

Expand full comment
Ann Banisher's avatar

Reminds me of Clarke's 3rd law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

It seems that a corollary to that is that the more advanced a society becomes, the more detached from reality we become.

It is clear people do not understand how things work.

How a supply chain works, how an electrical grid works, even as obvious as how food is produced, how a vaccine works (or doesn't) might as well be magic.

Expand full comment
hoppah's avatar

If the public were properly educated, so that they could tell how these systems work, they wouldn't be so easy to panic, suppress and control.

Expand full comment
Julia Lerner's avatar

That's a great argument for the more equal distribution of labor and goods.

Expand full comment
hoppah's avatar

Don't be silly, all those "supplies" will be planted, tended and harvested by magical robots using advanced "AI" and "machine learning", and then processed in robotic factories and delivered by autonomous robotic drones and land vehicles - all powered by unicorn farts and maintained by ... uhh... robots. Real soon now. Real soon.

Expand full comment
Codebra's avatar

I understand that this will land with a thud for many here--or worse--but this is a truth-telling space, no? None of this surprises me. Yarvin spinning off into the wilds of insanity is typical of any staunch atheist. It's the price one pays for living unmoored from primary reality. It's the reason men like Sartre, who could write "L'Etre et le neant : Essai d'ontologie phenomenologique", did ultimately turn to God after all -- to avoid a fate of stark insanity. Some here understand this. Some will come to understand it. Alas some will suffer a similar fate when their delicately balanced intellectual faculties become suddenly unstable when it is revealed in some Yarvinesque manner that they are ultimately supported by literally nothing.

Nietzsche explained this in 1882.

Expand full comment
Michael Patterson's avatar

While I hope and plan to stay sane, productive, happy and "moored to primary reality" without recourse to any sky gods, I enjoyed the tone and frankness of your truth-telling.

Expand full comment
Tardigrade's avatar

"...spinning off into the wilds of insanity is typical of any staunch atheist. It's the price one pays for living unmoored from primary reality."

As a staunch atheist, I find your statement to be oxymoronic.

Expand full comment
Barry Smith's avatar

Of course. I believe your concept of primary reality excludes God, Creation and the Natural Law. But we can still share this truth-telling space.

Expand full comment
Barry Smith's avatar

Very well observed and said.

Expand full comment
donmiguel's avatar

The only thing better than eugyppius' essays are the threads that follow. Zounds, I blame you all for sending me down rabbit holes of delighted reading instead of rendering onto Caesar. I pop in only to say Steve - for the win. Best truth-telling re: Sky Dad award of the day.

Expand full comment
VeryVer's avatar

I agree, the lack of religious belief is doing no favors to anyone.

Expand full comment
Tardigrade's avatar

Respectfully, that is something only a religious person would say.

Expand full comment
Lon Guyland's avatar

It’s not so much the lack of religious belief. Scientism and wokeness are religions, and they have plenty of believers. Naturism (in the form of nature worship) is another one.

The problem with them all is that the various “supreme values” held by their adherents fail spiritual tests — they don’t lead to the embracing of truth, beauty and goodness as a fundamental way of living; they fail in a true recognition of our spiritual interrelationship (called the “Brotherhood of Man” by Jesus of Nazareth) because they don’t see the reality of the very source of mind, body and spirit and indeed of personal individuality: the Heavenly Father, the Absolute Reality.

Expand full comment
Middyboy's avatar

Ever get the impression that someone else's paranoia is dictating what you can and can't do?

Expand full comment
Felix R Savage's avatar

“I don’t care if it means dying of the bubonic plague—these people and their dumb hygiene house arrests are to be opposed now and forever.”

This. This is the right argument. This is how you shock and startle Covidistanis out of their safetyist mental bunkers. “Yes, maybe we’ll all die [even though we won’t all die of Covid, we’ll all die sometime]. So? That’s better than living as slaves in a biosecurity dictatorship.” Harks back to “Better to die free than live a slave.” It might awaken some deep and noble cultural memory in people.

Expand full comment
David Watson's avatar

I initially withheld my usual up vote of eugyppius' excellent articles for this post, not because I disagree with the content, but I prefer to avoid flame wars unless they're imposed on me. But upon reflection, I considered these insults to be like cage fights, which I enjoy -- meaningless conflict but good entertainment. And the combative tone is likely to attract more readers than it discourages. And ridicule can be a powerful weapon. We need all the firepower we can find.

I do suggest that the age discussions are a distraction. There doesn't appear to be anything related to aging that enhances infection, other than time to accumulate bad decisions that diminish immune health. The virus doesn't check IDs, just goes where the immune systems allow it. The greatest scandal in this self-induced disaster has been the failure of the medical guilds to emphasize the importance of, and to teach the maintenance of, healthy immune systems.

"Containment doesn't scale" is correct, but in the case of an airborne virus, it doesn't work even on small scales, unless the isolation is total. Like hermetically sealed. The high risk labs don't isolate, they don space suits. Anything less assures infection. Masks don't prevent contamination, for the wearer or for others. "Distancing" is ludicrous, unless it's to a mountaintop in Wyoming, in which case you'll still get infected by whatever pathogens reside there, including coronaviruses.

The irrational demands are accepted by terrified populations who are ignorant of the virus and their own immunity, and driven by government bureaucrats who know better but are enjoying their temporary control over the terrified population. They will be punished when enough of the population learns how badly they've been misled.

Expand full comment
Tardigrade's avatar

"The greatest scandal in this self-induced disaster has been the failure of the medical guilds to emphasize the importance of, and to teach the maintenance of, healthy immune systems."

First, the medical guilds need to learn *how* to maintain healthy immune systems. Their focus in recent history has mainly been on treatment of symptoms using profitable pharmaceuticals, not helping people to be healthy as a preventive strategy.

As one bit of evidence, I offer the fact that American doctors receive one semester, if that, of training in nutrition. (Leaving aside the fact that what they learn is probably mostly incorrect anyway.)

Expand full comment
David Watson's avatar

If they have to learn something, they will. For nutrition, they don't. It's detrimental to their business model of selling us pills and procedures. They're not interested in our health, only our sickness.

California legislature wrote a bill years ago requiring nutrition training in med schools, but AMA cooperated with pharma and junk food lobbyists to kill it.

They don't know how because they choose not to know. Those who are interested might enjoy The 21 Day Immunity Plan. Or my substack (link beside my name, above, look for Zen and the Art of Immune Maintenance in the "see all" archive).

Expand full comment
Kerry Davie's avatar

I sincerely hope your last sentence is prescient.

Expand full comment
Malenkiy Scot's avatar

I am not holding my breath... They never really punished anybody for the financial crisis of 2008

Expand full comment
charles's avatar

As far as I can tell, Covid is primarily a disease of obesity. Peter McCullough early on (before he was banned from everything) noted obesity as a "super risk factor." I suspect that has much to do with the reason it is far less deadly in East Asia. The only fat Asians I have met were born and reared in the US

Expand full comment
INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

From all the people I know who got it (over 30) only 2 were overweight. They were both already hospitalized for other causes. Both died. All the others recovered.

Expand full comment
Darling Sneauxflayke's avatar

Similar profile to the only person I know to die from/with (not sure which one in his case) Covid: 48, mismanaged Type 2 diabetes, overweight.

Expand full comment
Tardigrade's avatar

Obesity is just one symptom of metabolic dysfunction. This is caused by our crappy modern lifestyle, especially diet. People on the metabolic dysfunction spectrum (obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, and more) are the ones who fare poorly from Covid, in addition to the very sick elderly.

Expand full comment
Ming the Merciless's avatar

I read somewhere that there are genetic reasons Asians are less susceptible than Europeans, it’s not just age and obesity. Which could lend credence to the “Chinese bio weapon” theory.

Expand full comment
ashton's avatar

I think it's mainly because prior SARS exposure grants some cross-immunity.

Expand full comment
charles's avatar

Yeah, that would be interesting. I remember reading at Ron Unz that Ashkenzi jews and the Amish (!) are less susceptible. I would be interested to know more.

I know at top doc at a top hospital who said all the people dying of Covid had horrible comorbidities. That was quite some time ago.

Expand full comment
Brian Mowrey's avatar

“PCR amplification is an epic technology”

Hold on. What if there was some kind of “virus detecting technology” that you could put inside the human body? Like, a “cell technology” that could actually detect a virus, and suppress it before it killed you? Maybe they could even get better at the job the second time around, by using some type of “memory” technology? Someone should work on this. Would be epic.

Expand full comment
Horten Who!'s avatar

That's called Natural Immunity..

Our bodies are Awesome!

Expand full comment
Neal Terrance's avatar

Surely you know, and actually sound like Bill Gates. Of course he already has this planned & has discussed the technology.

Is this you Bill?

This is just another plan from the evil people to put stuff in you to monitor you better.

This would be better for them

than their digital vaccine passport. Carefu what you wish for.

Do NOT be afraid anymore!!

Expand full comment
TheBigFish's avatar

"a deep, personal fear of infection." -- The primary cause of the mass hysteria is this fear replicated in hundreds of millions of weak minded fools in the West.

Expand full comment
Malenkiy Scot's avatar

"hundreds of millions of weak minded fools" aka normal human beings

Expand full comment
Bash's avatar

I think you touched upon a critical point, is that people like this are ruled by their own fear of infection. I actually extend that belief to all who have descended into psychopathy over the pandemic; the wellspring of their insanity is debilitating fear of getting infected. Fauci is a great example

Expand full comment
Surviving the Billionaire Wars's avatar

I'm somewhat ruled by fear of infection. I got the flu in '18 in the middle of a month of -20F daily lows. Living alone. With just 1 dog & 6 birds to care for would have been easy cuz main symptom was exhaustion, weakness. But add in 2 horses & 8 bunnies, & it was a nightmare. Lugging 2 buckets & 4 bottles of hot water plus 2 buckets of hot mash, 3x day, plus cleaning barn & cages. I left the cleaning for daily high of -1, lol. Spent afternoons chilled to bone shivering. Didn't think I'd make it. Then prayed to God to take me now. Dreamed Jesus paid a visit. I begged him to bring me home. He laughed at me.

So what have I done these last 2 years? 1st & foremost: my homework. Know the enemy. Avoid crowds, which is normal. And starting back in September, Z protocol. Not worried.

Expand full comment
Ann Glover's avatar

It is no wonder that those who emerged from the mists of fear first (if ever they were in them), were all of the people on the ground who got infected and came through. The ones who had to work and carry on, regardless. Who didn't have the luxury of sheltering in place. The people in the one-roomed shacks. The ones who got it through chance encounters. These have been forced to become informed, double-quick, as we are the ones who are now being rounded upon to take the shots - and for no good health reasons at all. We are the "alternative escape route" which cannot bear thinking about, so must be eliminated altogether as an option. We have become the pink elephants in the room. And one must never, ever admit to pink elephants.

Expand full comment
Bash's avatar

I was one of the fearful, I admit. But when the spell broke, it was the beginning of the end

Actually, now that I think about it - the single best thing we can do for our fellow man is to help them to stop being afraid. The rest will follow.

Expand full comment
Ann Glover's avatar

Oh, make no mistake - I was one, too, initially. I had, admittedly, always hoped to get it over and done with so I could carry on with my life, as am a firm proponent of battling illness out with my own natural defences, if possible. My short-lived relief and joy in my recovery have now been firmly shattered. My only recourse has been to try and educate myself, as hard and as fast as possible, in order to try and defend myself against those who will harm me. I submitted to the first injection under extreme duress. I will not permit it again.

Expand full comment
Barry Smith's avatar

Amen. Still feeding the animals, I hope.

Expand full comment
Thiago's avatar

The yarvin guy is an idiot. Never knew who that was. Dont want to know now.

Expand full comment
Unacceptable Bob's avatar

Apparently he's quite the intellectual, within certain circles.

Expand full comment
Horten Who!'s avatar

Glad I didn't kill brain cells in That circle!

Expand full comment
Connor Charchuk's avatar

His work on political theory and philosophy is undeniably brilliant. He has written plenty of valuable pieces on the illusion of democratic supremacy and the ways in which liberalism feeds off the narrative control of history. But his intelligence seems to stop there.

He's gone down the same route as Scott Adams, Sam Harris, Claire Lehmann, and others who have lost all credibility they may have otherwise had for their inability to make sense of Covid.

Expand full comment
Malenkiy Scot's avatar

>But his intelligence seems to stop there.

intelligence is overrated

Expand full comment
John's avatar

He is certainly not an idiot.

Expand full comment
Brad's avatar

He has written a lot of interesting ideas in the past. If his old ideas were totally unique his new stuff would make me question everything he's ever written. Thankfully, they're not.

Expand full comment
Malenkiy Scot's avatar

>Dont want to know now.

That's plain stupid. While you can't completely separate a person from the ideas, to a large extent you can. Also keep in mind that people change with time and life circumstances.

Expand full comment
Thiago's avatar

you are welcome to care about what he thinks. I couldn't care less about how you spend your time. You are also welcome to keep your opinions about what I write to your stupid self ;)

Expand full comment
Joe Michels's avatar

It took a few paragraphs of reading to get to where Yarvin approves of China. I stopped reading right there. I didn't need any other information to know his true intent.

Expand full comment
𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿 𝘾𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙕𝙀𝙉's avatar

I applaud your patience in rationally dissecting his drivel. One false assertion after another is not a wise foundation for expressing anything. I tired leaving a comment but it's only for his paid subscribers. He has quite the legion of paid subscribers for pumping out such lazy nonsense.

Expand full comment
𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿 𝘾𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙕𝙀𝙉's avatar

Perhaps one of his paid subscribers could leave a link in his comments to this piece?

Expand full comment
eugyppius's avatar

he’ll see it one way or the other.

Expand full comment
𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿 𝘾𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙕𝙀𝙉's avatar

He might read it, but I'm not sure he'll 'see' it.

Expand full comment
HardeeHo's avatar

You have been mentioned in his comments. Not sure it matters once a mind gets closed.

Expand full comment
George's avatar

I have duly done so

Expand full comment
polistra's avatar

There's a deep overlap between OCD and murderous psychopaths. Not entirely the same personality type, but both have a burning need to be the sole occupant of the universe. OCD focuses on exterminating microscopic vermin, while typical psychopaths focus on exterminating large bipedal vermin.

Public health has joined the two tendencies for more than a century. Ibsen depicted the Nazi impulse of Public Health back in 1900, in his play 'An Enemy of Society'.

https://books.google.com/books?id=P2QqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA56#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note that phrase 'whole of society', which appears constantly among the Bioterror practitioners who are running the current cleansing and disinfecting project.

Expand full comment
Ann Glover's avatar

"Why it is a good strategy to remain immunologically naive to a pervasive respiratory virus while the rest of the world develops antibodies, nobody has yet explained." This should be yelled from rooftops. Preferably with littler words. And maybe pictures. Because I am starting to despair that even the experts now only read in pictures and write with crayons.

Oh, how the old and ignorant and afraid have bought into the lie of eradication and containment!

With a cell phone in every paw and delivery trucks to every door, we shall overcome!

Expand full comment
Julia Lerner's avatar

But doesn't Sinovac help with that? Surely they don't want to leave their nation vulnerable to germ warfare and other future pandemics any more than we do.

Expand full comment
Ann Glover's avatar

I'm not sure that I understand, Julia?

Expand full comment
Unperson's avatar

The technology we have now (that we didn't have in 1889) has made those who pretend to understand it more stupid. Technology is what created SARS-CoV-2 and now it's making it worse. Mr. Yarvin will go down in history (along with many others) as a buffoon.

Expand full comment
Paula's avatar

The buffoon container ship seems to be one that has no trouble getting to the dock.

Expand full comment