Chris Bray, who writes Tell Me How This Ends, has a fantastic essay about the years he spent covering a complex international legal dispute. Basically, historians had conducted confidential interviews of former IRA members about their activities during the Troubles. UK police, when they learned of this, attempted to subpoena these tapes, leading to a years-long court battle:
Sadly, it has become so bad that people are living in completely different realities at the moment. Even to have a good faith discussion with a covidian would take many many hours just to unravel and unpack everything, a feat that few people have the energy or bandwidth for
The problem I have been confronted with is that the “covidian” does not want the facts and data to back it up. They are very comfortable in their self righteousness. I find this very disturbing and fear where it leads.
Great post eugyppius and thank you for introducing me to Chris Bray, another fabulous writer.... I'm never going to get anything done anymore because there are just so many great substacks to read! Happy Saturday to all you lovely open minded people!
Exactly what I found talking about anything outside the mainstream narrative and specifically about covid. They become like the three monkeys and tell you to stop the emails.
When talking face-to-face their eyes glaze over and you feel the unease. Average people do not engage and want to escape as fast as possible. They will react with emphatic emotion and say "that's not true!" in a raised voice or "that's crazy!" Which makes no sense because they've done no research whatsoever and therefore cannot judge. They've been been implanted with a sub-program that labels anything that triggers cognitive dissonance a conspiracy theory.
But a smart person reacts differently; they show curiosity by asking questions such as why do you say that. Unlike the others they have retained the ability to change, adapt, evolve, progress, and learn. They willingly examine unexamined assumptions.
Unfortunately the others have embedded mainstream beliefs, and do not care whether they are correct or not. They don't have confidence in their critical thinking and so let others do the thinking for them. They parrot processed news, which makes them feel smart. These well programed Bots may never understand how things work. We have become surrounded by zombies, monkeys aping their handlers.
Like machines, they lack metacognition, which makes them good slaves. In fact they can be counted on to program their kids to not question the mainstream and fight against those who do.
Ideological thinking is a common human propensity exhibited by both liberals and trumpsters. The cultural engineers know this well and are experts at exploiting this default psychological mechanism. Once you get a generation programmed, the ideology takes on a life of its own and replicates internally through families. It becomes a semi-conscious entity with legs.
You cannot reason someone out of an opinion they didn't reason their way into. Fear is an especially powerful instinct for survival--it triggers the fight or flight response in individuals.
With SARS-2, we saw in many places people flea from cities. The shutdowns and work-from-home policies encouraged/incited a fearful reaction, not to mention the panic porn that filled media.
Only when the fear subsides can people begin to recover their sense of reason and probity. But they will be trapped by the decisions surrounding their previous fear-filled conduct--unable to admit any "unreasonable" choices or decisions which works against recovering their reason and probity.
Soon enough, presumably, many of us will be standing up to the govt and media bullies who unnecessarily inflicted mental anguish through psychological torture imposed on the public with the panic porn.
It was intentional, it was propaganda, it was meant to generate panic and fear, it was meant to manipulate a public reaction, it was a violation of human rights, it was a massive beta-test on the human condition, it was not for the purpose of public health, it was effected by the power-mad for their personal aggrandizement. It was a sham.
Agreed! Also, I keep going back again and again to Pareto's Law, where inputs NEVER equal similar outputs. Explains so many 'naturally occurring' phenomena in life.
I would say, generously, that far less than 20% of all people (educated or not, trained or not) within any chosen cohort group would have the capacity/patience/tenacity/persistence/intelligence/comprehension/will, to truly do the work and understand anything presented to them.
The intellectually 'rich' and 'curious' have the capacity and will to do the work and to gain greater wisdom and insight, and they become more intellectually advantaged and benefited by their efforts, while the dim and incurious remain so... as the gap between two groups ever widens.
Laziness is obvious -- it takes some intellectual effort and
capability to delve into an issue. Most people don't want to
do it. They just say: just tell me what it is and what to do.
Instead of people asking themselves "is this true?", they ask "will others be ok with me thinking this is true?"
If every article, TV program, social media they read says the same thing, they will adopt that very same position, because they think that every person in the tribe believes it.
And from evolutionary point of view (even a few hundred years ago), if you were not part of the tribe, you were as good as dead.
Unless you had balls of steel or were mentally or physically strong.
Yes, it sad to find out (from a research study) that the studious A-students now commonly work for the more socialized B-students who partied through school.
We are in an information war, and these people are "captured." We can't free them. However, I think it's worth engaging with them if there is another person present who is on the fence. The payoff may come much later. Like I'm in a little groupchat with 2 relatives. In October 2020, one of them stated firmly that the Hunter Biden laptop was debunked. Because I didn't think it was debunked, she sent me a link to a video I should watch about Russian disinformation! It had Hillary Clinton in it!! But recently I was able to send them both the link to the NYT story admitting the laptop was authentic. (I confess to making a smart-ass comment when I sent the link.) The normie in our little group tends to be unsure of exactly what's going on for a variety of issues, but he's fairly open minded -- or, as my mom says, at least he can still think. Anyway...It's a long time to score a point, but why not chip away at the "captured" people for the benefit of the independents & normies?
I gave up trying to change somebody's mind. It's fruitless and exhausting.
BTW, there's a great book, "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It", by a former hostage negotiatior. The author discusses "negotiation" strategies and how to change people's minds (or get them to do what you want). There are a few podcasts with the author to get the gist of it.
and tell them to start reading the free "Look Inside."
"Red-Handed" is a best seller on Amazon and convinced me that the laptop story is real.
Implicates Joe too.
It's also third-party info - so not just You sayin' it - on how China captured our elites and has essentially taken over the government. (They've captured our corporations too. Since all supply chains lead to China, US companies are China's PR department lobbying Congress)
Then, to cap it off, send them this link and tell them to start listening to the Senate testimony of Professor Emeritus Richard Muller from minute 17:30. He tells a story about how his colleagues would not speak up against Covid lies because they were afraid of getting backlisted by China and lose the ability to collaborate with Chinese scientists.
Its a competition of realities. I do sympathise sometimes - accepting that government and various authorities are mendacious venal lying incompetent bastards supported by so called experts in their tyranny is a bitter pill to swallow. The world which we have awoken to is an ugly one, and perhaps their blue pill would be a happier and blissful ignorance
That is exactly correct; people want to believe and they can get by with believing pretty much anything as long as they can continue to do their daily job and pay taxes. Their low-level thinking is binary and thus generally good/bad emotional making them easily to manipulate. What they most value is being part of a larger group, and even if that group is going over a cliff they will join right in.
Consider a lynch mob. You know it is wrong but because everyone is doing it, you can do no wrong. Such a feeling!
My husband says they are fine as long as they can still go to the beach and no one takes their toys away. Only if someone interferes with their toys and beach trips do they begin to pay attention, and even then it's minimal if shiny things are thrown at them.
Not "covidian".... Covidian. And most Covidians are not comfortable at all. Most have to deal with enormous cognitive dissonance which creates even more anxiety and fear. The self righteousness is simply a shell since actual reality fails to back up their cult and deep down inside, they know it.
right now it might be better for them NOT to see the truth. Imagine if they read all the articles we do, from the Expose and Substack and Epoch news, of how their kind is dying at much bigger rates from covid and more from jab side effects and harm. I don't even try to point this out, because I still care for them, even though my former love for them is gone, and certainly the respect. But those that wake up need our help. Those that keep on happily going the wrong way, well there are still plenty of other people around to befriend.
Same here. I harbor great fear of what is coming for those who accepted the biojunk in their arms, but I don't mention it to them when discussing things. I know several who have had previously dormant cancers suddenly reemerge. My suspicion is that the jabs were the trigger, but I bite my tongue; I haven't the heart to make their plight more worrisome with my words. Daily, though, my disgust with those who fostered this mess, the "experts" on television, those speaking officially for "science," grows. I despise these criminals.
As Mark Oshinkie stated a while ago, it is a cult now. They need to be deprogrammed, like cult members. Very few find the way back to normality on their own.
Unfortunately I believe the deprogramming will only come when confronted with an inescapable horror show the cult is responsible for. Residents outside Auschwitz denied the horrors that had occurred there under Nazi rule. As word came back to the generals of the allied forces that had liberated the death camp that residents completely denied and rejected the atrocities committed by their neighbors and occupiers they had become friends with they were brought into the camp and forced to bury the bodies. Only then did the God-awful truth sink in about what had happened. Sadly, tragically, it will take a bury the bodies moment to deprogram a great many of our friends, family, colleagues and neighbors who live in denial.
I hope the Holocaust denier that saw on here lately reads your comment too. I had no way to convince them they were wrong... just like I have no way to convince my former friends.
I actually know a woman who lived in a town next to a camp as a young teen in Germany and she sees no connection to this. She still claims the people in her town didn't know what was happening during the war until the camp was liberated, they thought it was a "work" camp. It's such strong denial because the truth meant they had to ACT, which meant they and their families would end up behind the camp wires, so it WAS a "work" camp. That's why this whole event IS what Fauci says it is and mandates and vaccines ARE the only solution because if it's all lies then they are lost as to who and what the truth is. And these people are not used to critically thinking for themselves, to researching, to spending time figuring out the oxymoronic issues they see in front of them.
No I expect reality does eventually creep into their thinking. To my mind truth always arrives we can't know when. The evidence continues to mount despite recent efforts to make it harder to find.
OMG! You used the correct word, normality! I didn't know anyone, other than myself knew that word anymore. It seems that everyone on the planet believes Nixon's "normalcy," is a real word.
Yet the government says we are the ones who should be deprogrammed and are the cult members, we who think independently of the masses. It's so mind-numbing to process with others.
Yup, my brother and cousin and friend did the same. Can't entirely blame them as I can - and do - go on about Vitamin D3 for an hour. And don't get me started on so-called Vax safety or micro-clots or the CDC or the NYT - not to mention the steroidal march of totalitarianism.
Yeah, moral superiority feels good and comes very cheap these days. I mean,who has the time for all that research? Besides, look at all the goodies they get for staying on the reservation.
Exactly. I can't tell people to go back and read 2 years of disparate posts from Eugyppius, gato, Berenson, Kerpen, Kuldorff, Battacharya et al. The best thing to recommend for a full primer is RFKs Fauci book, but that too is going to overwhelm them. No one I know has read it. People are comfortable in their ignorance and their support for fascism.
Instead of getting into the details of how the Narrative is blatantly false, I now just tell people their DNA was bioengineered thousands of years ago and outer-space-alien Ai is running the world - and not for their benefit. Gets their attention and throws a wrench into their programming and is more fun than going on about RCTs and masks and PCR tests.
They're more likely to listen when you mention O-S-A Ai than a Bayesian analysis proving covid was lab-created or the CIA runs the NYT (Operation Mockingbird) because the media has yet to program them against That. You really have to think exponentially to get out in front of their programming because that's what the Deep State does.
Besides, "outer-space-aliens" using alien Ai to manage the human assets they created and thus own, kinda explains everything. The totalitarian roll-out is so comprehensive, unprecedented, and preternaturally well-engineered it's hard to believe humans are behind it.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
The problem I run into is that it's one thing to research and understand something well enough to be sure what the truth is; it's another thing to know it -- and have all the details memorized -- well enough to debate and convince someone else on the spur of the moment, especially someone who has been programmed by media with a handful of firmly-held points of doctrine.
For instance, when the CDC flipped from anti-mask to pro-mask around April 2020, I hunted up a handful of articles on sites like the NHI they'd previously pointed to that proved masks don't work and are probably counter-indicated. The science was clear, and I was convinced. But to be able to convince a masker of the same in 2022, I would need to have memorized those arguments and sources, or carry around a briefcase of printed white papers I could slap down in front of him. It would take exponentially more study and preparation than convincing myself did. And then I could still only reach the tiny minority whose faith is already wobbling.
I try an easier example. I live in a locale that still has indoor smoking in some places. I ask a masker if they can smell the smoke with their mask on. The answer is obviously yes. I congratulate them and inform them that sars-2 is smaller than a smoke particle.
I watch my neighbor's cat 2-3 times a year when he travels and find that the newish N95 mask that I wear when cleaning the litter filters almost none of the urine and litter dust smell. I'm certain, however, that the same mask saves me from breathing any sub-microscopic virions that might be in the room. 😆
You're forgetting a religion/cult is not based on rational thinking but rather emotions and deference to cult leaders. You could present all the facts and figures in the world and 2+2 would still never equal 4 in their reality.
Yes, that's the problem. If you do hit them with a slam-dunk argument, their next response will be, "Ok, but why would they all be lying: the health officials, media, politicians, etc.?" Then you have to talk about how it's really a cult, and how what's going on is really a holy war, not a health crisis. Then they decide you're just crazy and disregard the good arguments you pinned them down with previously.
Ironically, it would be easier to convince people if the cult/conspiracy weren't so vast. If it was just about a handful of pharma CEOs lining their pockets, people could understand and accept that. Millions of people falling into a media-driven cult is just too much for them to consider.
That's the whole point, "they" want you to sound crazy so no one listens to you, because the entire story is deep, wide, tangled, and insane. As a movie it's a great plot, as reality it's crazy. So those of us that have been aware for years that something isn't right and are putting pieces together, even if we don't know or understand it all, trying to explain it to someone who doesn't understand, sounds like the insane one who has no touch with reality. That's the way "they" want it, so the masses don't pay attention, it's the way to conquering the majority.
My approach to deprogramming is simply point them to openvaers.com, which proves the vax is dangerous. Then to c19early.com, which proves there are easy, cheap, safe, and effective cures. I don't say anything but just watch the anxiety derived from cognitive dissonance, prior to their inevitable denial.
100%. A month ago a close friend, in one conversation said, "No one is forcing people to get vaccinated' and 'without lockdowns it would have been worse'. In March of 2020, he sent a note to the gang about how he wanted us to 'panic'. He works for pharma and is in hospitals and so he "knows" because the doctors are telling him how *bad* it is and how awesome restrictions are.
Lotsa of unpacking on so many levels - including about how pathetic doctors have been throughout this. But then again, I don't have the energy and not sure if it's even worth it. Let's just say a friendship of 46 years has cooled off significantly. I admit it's more on my end because iI can't accept this position. It cuts to the core of my values and morals.
When passports were required here. five of us in a gang of 10 weren't vaccinated. We are all boyhood buddies who try to meet up as much as we can. I explained to my friends even if I were vaccinated I would NEVER download such an app and partake in an unethical and immoral game of 'show papers'. I especially made this clear to my closest friend that it was disappointing they were playing but he believed in all this anti-science, anti-human nonsense as noted. What I didn't appreciate was being put on a text group where he organized dinners 'with the boys'. I appreciate he wanted to keep me in the loop but after three times I found it to be tone deaf if not insulting. So I asked him to keep me off the list.
We haven't spoken since. It is what it is. I just can't accept what has happened these past two year and it's been rough having your closest friend swallow all this bull shit so hard.
I don't think time will heal what has happened to the civil order. We were seriously aggrieved. Lied to. And bullied and assaulted where our rights are concerned. It blows my mind how people are so flippant about this.
Exactly my experience as well. I get the added bonus of hearing constantly “ even though I don’t agree with you, I still care for you “. So far I have been able to look past , however it is rapidly coming to the point where I will be cutting ties. So very disheartened and exhausted by it all.
When you lose your job to a mandate we'll see how much they 'care' when they'll say 'just take the shot'. I had a family member tell me at the peak of the insanity (is there Peak Corona hysteria?) 'you'd better get vaccinated'. The fact I've resisted is actually invigorating .
Eventually there's going to be losing your health care, and that's my concern. I've been through what you all describe, losing the ability to go to events, on trips with my "sister-cousin" who I've always travelled with everywhere, a friend postponed her wedding in Canada because I couldn't come, but the big concern is that one day Medicare coverage will be withheld to force the mandate in the US, and then it will be a very difficult decision for us. My sister-cousin was so proud to tell me that last week she and the friend she's taking on the trip I was to go on to Hawaii in Oct. had gotten their fourth vacs last week, like how insane is that? And she has friends who have had all theirs who have had the virus. It makes no sense to me and when I (rarely) question her she says, "It keeps them out of the hospital and from dying, and they don't have to be tested before going on a plane or to an event." OMG!
Yes, that last line is very popular. Except it's not that good against infection and so-so preventing disease. It's not sinking in their heads that they're pumping a medicine - mRNA potion - in their bodies that is not matched to the disease. That potentially leads to all sorts of bad outcomes.
Those potential bad outcomes they believe are all conspiracy theories and misinformation because we are all crazy people who have been duped, just as we feel the same about them. I do find it interesting that most of "us" seem to have done far more serious research than "they" have v taking the word of the media. We won't really know for years who was correct, but I've made my decision and now feel right about it so don't argue. I state my choice and if asked will explain why, but not defend after because there's no point. "They" don't want to hear more or read the articles or listen to the videos, if Fauci didn't say it -
I can't understand why all the info on him doesn't change their minds, but it doesn't so I wait. It's been all this time and neither my husband or I have had any version of the virus. I've mostly been home except for doctor trips but for 5 months that has included twice weekly physical therapy visits, masked of course. He was considered an essential worker so has been out throughout the event but rarely wore a mask (we live in North Carolina and he does most of his work in fire stations and EMS bases where they didn't wear them). We've done hand and surface hygiene but nothing overboard like wiping down groceries or packages. I don't suspect if new mask mandates come along we'll be wearing them except in doctor offices where they're still required. We've lost so much of our freedom, but mostly we've found how many people in our country don't believe in our country's values and they've been the most vocal. It's been depressing for those of us that still care about it and keeping it for the younger ones who matter.
Thank you for the term "covidian". It helps to have something to use in a conversation that is descriptive yet not snarky. What is the non-snarky term for un-covidians? I don't like the "anti" terms being used, is there something less volatile?
Never thought of it. I know people go with the 'Pure bloods' for the unvaccinated. But as far as the Uncovidians go not sure I've come across one. Maybe go with a classic: Skeptics.
What's the old adage about not arguing with people about politics or religion? As has been often pointed out, COVID is a quasi-religion, with its own tenets and sacraments. The media's role has been to evangelize and to spread "the good news."
Even if researchers aren't eager for attention, the whole system has been captured through grant funding. There is no way to be successful or achieve without being part of the system. Grant funding needs a major overhaul and definitely more oversight
This might be the most under discussed problem in our world. Science is dead until professors are funded for whatever they want to study. Understand that very few of them will do anything interesting.
Our scientists have also been specifically captured by the CCP, according to Dr. Richard Muller, emeritus professor at Berkeley, in Senate testimony (alongside Dr. Stephen Quay). Dr. Muller said CCP influence (fear of being blacklisted from collaboration) is the reason scientists had not spoken up.
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
Robert Malone also recently shared this via Substack ~ our warriorheroleaders now no longer have the luxury of 'turning the page,' but must live in hyperawareness virtually 24/7.
It is utterly maddening, not to say frightening, that so many people have such a simplistic view of all things in life, and when complex matters arise, God help them, or should I say God help us all.
Most things in life are simple - until you actually study them.
A dental hygienist shared with me that more patients aren’t getting boosters and claiming it was because the doses are too weak,(for safety), requiring more shots and she wishes that they had made them stronger from the start. She spun a story from whole cloth.
I mentioned one of the findings from the FDA document dump being analyzed by Naomi Wolf’s team indicated Pfizer may have intended 6 shots all along.
Blank stare. She knew nothing about the court mandated FDA document release, adverse effects, Naomi Wolf, etc. (and she didn’t want to)
She was totally a product of the news media you described.
Confronting delusions head on is rarely effective. There is too much information for most to want to look at. Reality is sometimes best delivered in small doses through cracks in the wall that has been built up. We may view the Jehovah's witness that knocks on the door as believing some ridiculous nonsense not realizing that they view us in the same way. The true vax believers see us as the cult that has irrational beliefs.
It is somewhat amazing that most people with an open mind who spend an hour or so just looking at the statistics would at least question the official narrative but most don't have the time or desire to look at what they already 'know' is bunk.
This is an edit addition:
Right after I wrote the above I saw this Carl Sagan quote on Steve Kirsch's substack.
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: if we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth."
In a way, these communities of SubStack readers found the communities because they did not trust the narrative. We are here because we are of a questioning mindset, I think. We even pay these writers to explore the data with us and we interact with our comments. I expect we are quite a minority capable of such navigation - seek and find. Google doesn't index these pages particularly well and author searches may require Duck to find a writer.
Historians may find these pages useful in analyzing the mass hysteria affecting society and the few who didn't buy into the propaganda. But that requires some archive and page capture that may or may not be happening. Those of us who witnessed the destruction of GeoCities by Yahoo understand that well; some manger didn't quite understand that they had Facebook before it was Facebook. A few people took it upon themselves to scrape GeoCities before the server plug was pulled. Of interest now mainly for the history, primitive stuff of the day.
The Internet is forever might well apply to some piece of trivia usually something embarrassing, but substantive stuff can well evaporate into digital nowhere. When Google bought Dejanews, that archive represented topics still of interest in how things happened. Much of that has now gone into the digital nowhere.
Still by these writers, we are informed and slowly truth arrives.
One reason the mainstream media is so rabidly anti-anti-narrative and censors obvious truth is they realize they're being supplanted by long-form social media, like SubStack. In such formats (Rumble, Joe Rogan) the news is not processed, not filtered, and often has studies, data sets, and interviews with the smart people - rather than propaganda "stories" with no cites. It's interesting that QAnon's motto is: "Do Your Own Research," which can't be beat and happens to be the opposite of a conspiracy theory.
Let's put some numbers on that. Last August 2021 the BJM published a study that found a significant IQ drop in pandemic babies. For perspective, the US Army has a cut-off of 80.
Results: "Across all measures, we found cognitive scores were significantly reduced during the pandemic by 27 to 37 points (or almost two full standard deviations)"
Way back, when I was a very diligent, serious fellow, one of my first bosses & mentors – bless him - warned me not to put my faith in the carefully worded memos & briefs I would write. Said he: ‘Nobody reads anything.’
Over the years, I learned just how right he was.
He also warned me to always take notes of important meetings and conversations. Because, he said, “Nobody remembers anything.”
"the reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer- and they don't want explanations that do not give them that."- Thomas Sowell
I believe there is an excellent explanation for the lack of complexity of journalistic (and legal) thought. There are two basic ways of thinking (modes) that begin in the first 6 months of life and continue throughout our lives each growing with 5 logarithmic orders of sophistication.
Only one of these two modes is able to handle logical rigor, scientific experiments and cause and effect complexity, this is mode one.
Complex systems, logical solutions start at a very young age, similar to a baby thinking of a smile or a coo to draw the parent closer, creating great value. This mode is about making value, solving problems, building systems, eventually resulting in the creation of self-sustaining genius individuals after many logs of complexity.
The second mode utilizes an impassioned use of force, exactly like a baby crying to control its mother for food. “I take because…”. This advances one log to “we take because life is unfair” and so on. It is an us-them, mode that does not create real value or intellectual independence.
Journalism today almost completely uses this mode two thought. There are no real thinkiers they all parrot the same talking points again and again as nauseum.
When a person using high level mode one thinking (fourth or fifth log of complexity like Chris Bray or eugyppius or Alex Berenson) they can not be understood by a mode two person who place their force-based arguments upon these logical mode one problem solvers.
Totalitarian thought is always mode two, and is basically a baby throwing a tantrum to get something, it destroys everything it touches, because it use emotional arguments “to take”. That is 98% of journalism today.
I have an unpublished book which describes the bifurcation of human thought. Basically an Adam Smythe “wealth of nations” and inventor Ben Franklin vs. Josef Stalin/Adolf Hitler/Mao/Pot battle for the ages. Sadly, it describes exactly what Bray is bemoaning.
Journalism should follow the great printer and thinker Ben Franklin as a force of enlightenment and complexity for mode one thought. Instead they are simplistic propagandists for the shallow and forceful mode two totalitarians.
Journalists are like real estate brokers, insurance salesmen and many teachers. 2nd or 3rd rate minds incapable of even doing their own jobs well, let alone much else.
I have two fields where I have significant experience, aviation and engineering. Every time, and I mean virtually without exception, when there is a news story concerning one of those fields, so called journalists, get even the most basic facts wrong. They are only after the most sensational aspects of a story and happy to manufacture some if none can otherwise be found.
They are stupid, inumerate, and largely incurious. Take any report by the MSM concerning the internet. They'll almost always show stock footage of overhead high tension power lines. These idiots either don't know, or don't care that those are providing power, not internet connectivity.
Talking heads at the maljor news outlets mostly do whatever is easy. They travel to some newsworty location and then waste their time asking random passebys the apparently cannoncal Journalism 101 stupid question, "What went through your mind when X happened?" As if anyone cares. And almost every issue must be twisted to make it about diversity, inclusion, and victimhood. The whole of the Ukraine/Russia coverage is heavily slanted towards the, "Women and children hardest hit." narrative they love to flog. Reporters: I hate those guys!
I have a relative who was a news presenter in another country. I went to work with her one day. Basically, she got all her news stories from a news feed. Then she discussed what she was going to say during a staff meeting and that was that. It's more of a production than anything else. On another note, I think we have always been manipulated. For example, why did no one do anything when President Kennedy was assassinated? These forums have become invaluable in finding alternative sources of information that we didn't have before. Imagine if these had existed in the 1960s!
Many years ago, at a DC cocktail party, I spoke with the number five person at the State Department who was often in the news. I asked him what percent of the news is correct. He said 50%.
That may be the best summation of intellectual laziness ever written. Nothing could describe a modern journalist better than "anxiously eager, well-trained but utterly uneducated pup with nary a thought not imparted by third party agents."
In the old days, when everything was simpler, confirmation bias and going along with the crowd worked okay. The average person got by with low-level binary thinking and democracy worked okay. These mainstream people comprise the 84% under the curve that are average and below-average. The corporate media caters and sells to these people. But now the world is far more complex and these average thinkers, who now have effectively below-average IQs, are easily manipulated by anyone who has an interest in doing so. The media's job is not to inform, as they say, but to lead these people around by the nose and program them in whichever direction best suits the interests of the institutional investors who own and thus control the corporations and the corporate media. It's how they manage their portfolio which comprises essentially every corporation as only 0.1 of the corporations own 80% of all other transnational corporations (from a complexity research study in 2013).
It's this massive power inequality that rules and runs the world. Their goal is total technological control and full-spectrum dominance. This new world will not be needing most of the people and those left over will be digitally managed Human Resources - they will be slaves.
Totally false! In fact I would bet vaccinated have a higher IQ than unvaccinated. A below average IQ is more likely to be unvaxxed. Our times are more split by courage and having been brainwashed in higher education.
Even many highly intelligent people succumb to the herd mentality. Just because they’re smart doesn’t mean they don’t fear ostracism from the peer group more than the risk of vaccine side effects. They can ignore their peers or the vaccines, but they can’t do both.
MIT released a study of "coronavirus skeptics" in January, 2021. In the study they found that "skeptics" were the most scientifically literate, educated, reasoned and articulate cohort of all populations. It surprised them, the research preconception that we were all a bunch of illiterate, uneducated, selfish freedom-loving MAGA rubes. They grudgingly acknowledge we were the opposite.
As I read the study I had moments when I wanted to jump up and do my best Sally Fields impression, "they get me, they really, really get me!" Expecting to be met with an apology for being dismissed for so long. But when I got to the findings and conclusions they stated, "therefore we must be shouted down or silenced." That's all you need to know to know that medical science, natural science is not what's been declared "the best science" that they we are told to follow.
The science being followed is social science, behavioral science, the science of the efficacy of propaganda, manipulation and coercion that changes perspectives and behaviors. Medical and natural sciences like microbiology are only useful insomuch as they bolster a social science agenda.
Think of behavioral science as linguistic sorcery. The tool of authoritarians throughout the ages wielded by Merlin's and Rasputin's at the side of rulers. Casting spells on the masses with symbols and words of duplicity. The strategy to defeat them is to pull the curtain back and reveal the wizards pulling the levers and ropes for magical effect. We must expose the inner workings of the cult-making machine for all to see.
Lorn: For the entire population, I suspect you are correct. It hurts to know we're the dumber group (well, I am at least). However, there is that study that found a "U-shaped" curve for vaccination hesitancy by level of education. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260731
I work with objective geniuses who are unwilling to question anything! It’s even more maddening. I’m the only unvaccinated person I know of at work and that freaks me out more than if it were just intelligence.
The Perception Gap study found that the higher education of the Democrats did not save them from media programming. They were off by 30%, exactly the same as the less well-educated Republic trumpsters.
Liberal versus trumpster is just an ideological overlay on our more basic psychological nature. We are the same underneath, with the same motivations, fears, and aspirations. It is our separate self-selected media programming that ostensibly divides us, as with the age-old Divide et Impera.
Liberals are also definitely less skeptical of government authority. They've yet to realize the government has been captured by and works for the corporations, not for them. They still think democracy works.
Republicans are more cynical about government due to their alt-media programming. I'm to the left of Bernie but also have become - due to the constant stream of provable lies from the liberal media - to the right of Trump. Was once "woke" but am now Awake. Once you start doing your own research you find the cynicism is deeper than you ever thought possible.
Only recently have I realized Hunter Biden actually is corrupt - what they've been sayin' ain't no lie. It is shocking that much of what the Trumpsters were screaming about is actually true.
I've even become open-minded about who won the 2020 election. Heck, I'm now even convinced that climate change is a fake narrative!
I recall the study. They were, of course, attempting to figure out how to nudge us into getting vaccinated. At the time, we thought vaccination was useful in stemming the pandemic. But we lacked both data and history, We did have confidence in our officials. Since then we have discovered a lot, mainly that the highly touted mRNA platform may or may not be ready; that the issues of some 40 years of research still exist and that the human immune system remains somewhat opaque to science.
Actually, to my mind, the arrival of this pandemic has reaffirmed how little we actually know. The timing remains quite suspicious and will create conspiracy theories for a long time. Great days ahead.
Actually not, 1) The average IQ of the majority is now effectively below-average because the world has become more complex. 2) Studies find the unvaxxed have higher IQs and are better educated than those who get vaxxed. 3) PhDs - as a group - have the highest level of vaccine hesitancy.
Those of higher intelligence are not actually anti-vax, as they've been labeled, but seek more transparency.
Interesting. I would consider family members that took the jabs as “smarter” than I am. Perhaps I am more skeptical by nature and don’t care if anyone agrees with me. I think so many listened to the “experts” purporting that the jabs were safe that the believers wanted to be part of that group. They forgot about their entry level psychology classes that they had to take in college.
Studies show that when people fear (the job of the media) their brains stop processing and they will easily obey any authority. They do not stop to think if the authorities, the experts, are working against their interests. It is now not just the experts who are bought, but all the elites. This is called "elite capture." Expert capture would be a subset. Researchers who look into this report that the CCP is the entity doing the capture.
You can read about that for free in the Amazon best seller Red-Handed:
Sadly, it has become so bad that people are living in completely different realities at the moment. Even to have a good faith discussion with a covidian would take many many hours just to unravel and unpack everything, a feat that few people have the energy or bandwidth for
The problem I have been confronted with is that the “covidian” does not want the facts and data to back it up. They are very comfortable in their self righteousness. I find this very disturbing and fear where it leads.
Dr. Mark McDonald has great advise. He says, and I completely agree based on my own experience, anyone who does not shows curiosity about covid nor is ambivalent about the narrative has zero chance of changing their mind and not to waste your energy trying to convince them. https://www.theepochtimes.com/doctor-reveals-best-way-to-deal-with-familys-irrational-fear-of-virus_4284635.html?utm_source=ai&utm_medium=search
Great post eugyppius and thank you for introducing me to Chris Bray, another fabulous writer.... I'm never going to get anything done anymore because there are just so many great substacks to read! Happy Saturday to all you lovely open minded people!
Exactly what I found talking about anything outside the mainstream narrative and specifically about covid. They become like the three monkeys and tell you to stop the emails.
When talking face-to-face their eyes glaze over and you feel the unease. Average people do not engage and want to escape as fast as possible. They will react with emphatic emotion and say "that's not true!" in a raised voice or "that's crazy!" Which makes no sense because they've done no research whatsoever and therefore cannot judge. They've been been implanted with a sub-program that labels anything that triggers cognitive dissonance a conspiracy theory.
But a smart person reacts differently; they show curiosity by asking questions such as why do you say that. Unlike the others they have retained the ability to change, adapt, evolve, progress, and learn. They willingly examine unexamined assumptions.
Unfortunately the others have embedded mainstream beliefs, and do not care whether they are correct or not. They don't have confidence in their critical thinking and so let others do the thinking for them. They parrot processed news, which makes them feel smart. These well programed Bots may never understand how things work. We have become surrounded by zombies, monkeys aping their handlers.
Like machines, they lack metacognition, which makes them good slaves. In fact they can be counted on to program their kids to not question the mainstream and fight against those who do.
Ideological thinking is a common human propensity exhibited by both liberals and trumpsters. The cultural engineers know this well and are experts at exploiting this default psychological mechanism. Once you get a generation programmed, the ideology takes on a life of its own and replicates internally through families. It becomes a semi-conscious entity with legs.
indeed. and let's hear it for the non-liberal non-trumpsters ...
I think it's very difficult to change somebody's mind (on something non-trivial). When was the last time you were successful?
People immediately form an opinion about something (emotions, false information, rumor, etc.) and then they stick to that.
You cannot reason someone out of an opinion they didn't reason their way into. Fear is an especially powerful instinct for survival--it triggers the fight or flight response in individuals.
With SARS-2, we saw in many places people flea from cities. The shutdowns and work-from-home policies encouraged/incited a fearful reaction, not to mention the panic porn that filled media.
Only when the fear subsides can people begin to recover their sense of reason and probity. But they will be trapped by the decisions surrounding their previous fear-filled conduct--unable to admit any "unreasonable" choices or decisions which works against recovering their reason and probity.
Soon enough, presumably, many of us will be standing up to the govt and media bullies who unnecessarily inflicted mental anguish through psychological torture imposed on the public with the panic porn.
It was intentional, it was propaganda, it was meant to generate panic and fear, it was meant to manipulate a public reaction, it was a violation of human rights, it was a massive beta-test on the human condition, it was not for the purpose of public health, it was effected by the power-mad for their personal aggrandizement. It was a sham.
The only one I can think of is myself.
Agreed! Also, I keep going back again and again to Pareto's Law, where inputs NEVER equal similar outputs. Explains so many 'naturally occurring' phenomena in life.
I would say, generously, that far less than 20% of all people (educated or not, trained or not) within any chosen cohort group would have the capacity/patience/tenacity/persistence/intelligence/comprehension/will, to truly do the work and understand anything presented to them.
The intellectually 'rich' and 'curious' have the capacity and will to do the work and to gain greater wisdom and insight, and they become more intellectually advantaged and benefited by their efforts, while the dim and incurious remain so... as the gap between two groups ever widens.
True. Humans are 1) lazy and 2) tribal
Laziness is obvious -- it takes some intellectual effort and
capability to delve into an issue. Most people don't want to
do it. They just say: just tell me what it is and what to do.
Instead of people asking themselves "is this true?", they ask "will others be ok with me thinking this is true?"
If every article, TV program, social media they read says the same thing, they will adopt that very same position, because they think that every person in the tribe believes it.
And from evolutionary point of view (even a few hundred years ago), if you were not part of the tribe, you were as good as dead.
Unless you had balls of steel or were mentally or physically strong.
Two excellent points.
That's right. Learning requires 1) sticking with something an uncommonly long time and, 2) avoiding distractions. Not easy for most people.
So we're all the ones sitting at the "losers lunch table" in the cafeteria? Cool to know there are so many.
Yes, it sad to find out (from a research study) that the studious A-students now commonly work for the more socialized B-students who partied through school.
We are in an information war, and these people are "captured." We can't free them. However, I think it's worth engaging with them if there is another person present who is on the fence. The payoff may come much later. Like I'm in a little groupchat with 2 relatives. In October 2020, one of them stated firmly that the Hunter Biden laptop was debunked. Because I didn't think it was debunked, she sent me a link to a video I should watch about Russian disinformation! It had Hillary Clinton in it!! But recently I was able to send them both the link to the NYT story admitting the laptop was authentic. (I confess to making a smart-ass comment when I sent the link.) The normie in our little group tends to be unsure of exactly what's going on for a variety of issues, but he's fairly open minded -- or, as my mom says, at least he can still think. Anyway...It's a long time to score a point, but why not chip away at the "captured" people for the benefit of the independents & normies?
I gave up trying to change somebody's mind. It's fruitless and exhausting.
BTW, there's a great book, "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It", by a former hostage negotiatior. The author discusses "negotiation" strategies and how to change people's minds (or get them to do what you want). There are a few podcasts with the author to get the gist of it.
Yep, read that book. Splitting the difference is negotiating against yourself.
Regarding Hunter's laptop, easy, all you need to do is send them this link:
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Handed-American-Elites-Helping-China-ebook/dp/B0995XDZX3/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3C1TN8JG0HG2L&keywords=red+handed&qid=1649546323&sprefix=red+handed%2Caps%2C224&sr=8-2
and tell them to start reading the free "Look Inside."
"Red-Handed" is a best seller on Amazon and convinced me that the laptop story is real.
Implicates Joe too.
It's also third-party info - so not just You sayin' it - on how China captured our elites and has essentially taken over the government. (They've captured our corporations too. Since all supply chains lead to China, US companies are China's PR department lobbying Congress)
Then, to cap it off, send them this link and tell them to start listening to the Senate testimony of Professor Emeritus Richard Muller from minute 17:30. He tells a story about how his colleagues would not speak up against Covid lies because they were afraid of getting backlisted by China and lose the ability to collaborate with Chinese scientists.
https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=354151369642884&_rdr
In an information war Truth always wins, eventually.
Truth always wins, huh? I've found the opposite to be true, if the liars repeat their lies often enough to enough people.
The Liars eventually die off or just get tired, whereas the truth goes on forever and no one needs to keep propping it up.
Yes, it's similar to the old saw that you can't help a substance abuser unless they want to be helped.
Its a competition of realities. I do sympathise sometimes - accepting that government and various authorities are mendacious venal lying incompetent bastards supported by so called experts in their tyranny is a bitter pill to swallow. The world which we have awoken to is an ugly one, and perhaps their blue pill would be a happier and blissful ignorance
That would be acceptable if that is where it stayed, however history tells us otherwise.
Indeed. Yet history is replete with examples of this, and so perhaps we are doomed to repeat it.
Hence why the covidians can not only be pushed back. They must be crushed and exposed, ridiculed and humiliated. Its a long fight ahead.
It appears they may soon die of the injection...
A sad but possible solution
Precisely. My definition of an expert is a well paid liar that hides deceit in complexity
unfortunately, most times true
That is exactly correct; people want to believe and they can get by with believing pretty much anything as long as they can continue to do their daily job and pay taxes. Their low-level thinking is binary and thus generally good/bad emotional making them easily to manipulate. What they most value is being part of a larger group, and even if that group is going over a cliff they will join right in.
Consider a lynch mob. You know it is wrong but because everyone is doing it, you can do no wrong. Such a feeling!
And if things continue on the path they are now, it will be a starving herd going over that cliff...
Yes. People’s fear of ostracism far outweighs their desire to known and act on facts and truth. The herd instinct is very strong.
My husband says they are fine as long as they can still go to the beach and no one takes their toys away. Only if someone interferes with their toys and beach trips do they begin to pay attention, and even then it's minimal if shiny things are thrown at them.
Not "covidian".... Covidian. And most Covidians are not comfortable at all. Most have to deal with enormous cognitive dissonance which creates even more anxiety and fear. The self righteousness is simply a shell since actual reality fails to back up their cult and deep down inside, they know it.
right now it might be better for them NOT to see the truth. Imagine if they read all the articles we do, from the Expose and Substack and Epoch news, of how their kind is dying at much bigger rates from covid and more from jab side effects and harm. I don't even try to point this out, because I still care for them, even though my former love for them is gone, and certainly the respect. But those that wake up need our help. Those that keep on happily going the wrong way, well there are still plenty of other people around to befriend.
Same here. I harbor great fear of what is coming for those who accepted the biojunk in their arms, but I don't mention it to them when discussing things. I know several who have had previously dormant cancers suddenly reemerge. My suspicion is that the jabs were the trigger, but I bite my tongue; I haven't the heart to make their plight more worrisome with my words. Daily, though, my disgust with those who fostered this mess, the "experts" on television, those speaking officially for "science," grows. I despise these criminals.
Good plan. My boyfriend tells them they’re going to get AIDS and die. Quite the conversation stopper.
I hope you're right.
My being right doesn't fix anything.... How to deprogram 3+ billion people from a cult is beyond my pay grade.
As Mark Oshinkie stated a while ago, it is a cult now. They need to be deprogrammed, like cult members. Very few find the way back to normality on their own.
Unfortunately I believe the deprogramming will only come when confronted with an inescapable horror show the cult is responsible for. Residents outside Auschwitz denied the horrors that had occurred there under Nazi rule. As word came back to the generals of the allied forces that had liberated the death camp that residents completely denied and rejected the atrocities committed by their neighbors and occupiers they had become friends with they were brought into the camp and forced to bury the bodies. Only then did the God-awful truth sink in about what had happened. Sadly, tragically, it will take a bury the bodies moment to deprogram a great many of our friends, family, colleagues and neighbors who live in denial.
I hope the Holocaust denier that saw on here lately reads your comment too. I had no way to convince them they were wrong... just like I have no way to convince my former friends.
I actually know a woman who lived in a town next to a camp as a young teen in Germany and she sees no connection to this. She still claims the people in her town didn't know what was happening during the war until the camp was liberated, they thought it was a "work" camp. It's such strong denial because the truth meant they had to ACT, which meant they and their families would end up behind the camp wires, so it WAS a "work" camp. That's why this whole event IS what Fauci says it is and mandates and vaccines ARE the only solution because if it's all lies then they are lost as to who and what the truth is. And these people are not used to critically thinking for themselves, to researching, to spending time figuring out the oxymoronic issues they see in front of them.
No I expect reality does eventually creep into their thinking. To my mind truth always arrives we can't know when. The evidence continues to mount despite recent efforts to make it harder to find.
OMG! You used the correct word, normality! I didn't know anyone, other than myself knew that word anymore. It seems that everyone on the planet believes Nixon's "normalcy," is a real word.
Yet the government says we are the ones who should be deprogrammed and are the cult members, we who think independently of the masses. It's so mind-numbing to process with others.
this is my brother and his wife.
at the beginning of the pandemic I shared with them information about viruses and also about treatments.
over the past two years, they do not listen. They refuse to. My sister in law has called me a stupid F.....ing bitch several times now.
I am a long time, RN, retired about 20 years ago. I am not stupid.
I cannot stand interacting with them. Now they always look at me like I am not to be believed about any discussion.
Yup, my brother and cousin and friend did the same. Can't entirely blame them as I can - and do - go on about Vitamin D3 for an hour. And don't get me started on so-called Vax safety or micro-clots or the CDC or the NYT - not to mention the steroidal march of totalitarianism.
So sorry 😢🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️
Yeah, moral superiority feels good and comes very cheap these days. I mean,who has the time for all that research? Besides, look at all the goodies they get for staying on the reservation.
Milgram‘s experiment…
Exactly. I can't tell people to go back and read 2 years of disparate posts from Eugyppius, gato, Berenson, Kerpen, Kuldorff, Battacharya et al. The best thing to recommend for a full primer is RFKs Fauci book, but that too is going to overwhelm them. No one I know has read it. People are comfortable in their ignorance and their support for fascism.
Fascism is exactly what this is.
Instead of getting into the details of how the Narrative is blatantly false, I now just tell people their DNA was bioengineered thousands of years ago and outer-space-alien Ai is running the world - and not for their benefit. Gets their attention and throws a wrench into their programming and is more fun than going on about RCTs and masks and PCR tests.
They're more likely to listen when you mention O-S-A Ai than a Bayesian analysis proving covid was lab-created or the CIA runs the NYT (Operation Mockingbird) because the media has yet to program them against That. You really have to think exponentially to get out in front of their programming because that's what the Deep State does.
Besides, "outer-space-aliens" using alien Ai to manage the human assets they created and thus own, kinda explains everything. The totalitarian roll-out is so comprehensive, unprecedented, and preternaturally well-engineered it's hard to believe humans are behind it.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
The problem I run into is that it's one thing to research and understand something well enough to be sure what the truth is; it's another thing to know it -- and have all the details memorized -- well enough to debate and convince someone else on the spur of the moment, especially someone who has been programmed by media with a handful of firmly-held points of doctrine.
For instance, when the CDC flipped from anti-mask to pro-mask around April 2020, I hunted up a handful of articles on sites like the NHI they'd previously pointed to that proved masks don't work and are probably counter-indicated. The science was clear, and I was convinced. But to be able to convince a masker of the same in 2022, I would need to have memorized those arguments and sources, or carry around a briefcase of printed white papers I could slap down in front of him. It would take exponentially more study and preparation than convincing myself did. And then I could still only reach the tiny minority whose faith is already wobbling.
I try an easier example. I live in a locale that still has indoor smoking in some places. I ask a masker if they can smell the smoke with their mask on. The answer is obviously yes. I congratulate them and inform them that sars-2 is smaller than a smoke particle.
I watch my neighbor's cat 2-3 times a year when he travels and find that the newish N95 mask that I wear when cleaning the litter filters almost none of the urine and litter dust smell. I'm certain, however, that the same mask saves me from breathing any sub-microscopic virions that might be in the room. 😆
🤣
Where's the MASK? Give this mannequin a godd*mn N95-- that little sip-straw will let in the virions, fomites, droplets, or whatever !!
Great point!
Wow! Indoor smoking?! I didn't know it still existed. Congrats!
You're forgetting a religion/cult is not based on rational thinking but rather emotions and deference to cult leaders. You could present all the facts and figures in the world and 2+2 would still never equal 4 in their reality.
Yes, that's the problem. If you do hit them with a slam-dunk argument, their next response will be, "Ok, but why would they all be lying: the health officials, media, politicians, etc.?" Then you have to talk about how it's really a cult, and how what's going on is really a holy war, not a health crisis. Then they decide you're just crazy and disregard the good arguments you pinned them down with previously.
Ironically, it would be easier to convince people if the cult/conspiracy weren't so vast. If it was just about a handful of pharma CEOs lining their pockets, people could understand and accept that. Millions of people falling into a media-driven cult is just too much for them to consider.
That's the whole point, "they" want you to sound crazy so no one listens to you, because the entire story is deep, wide, tangled, and insane. As a movie it's a great plot, as reality it's crazy. So those of us that have been aware for years that something isn't right and are putting pieces together, even if we don't know or understand it all, trying to explain it to someone who doesn't understand, sounds like the insane one who has no touch with reality. That's the way "they" want it, so the masses don't pay attention, it's the way to conquering the majority.
And even if you did all that, you’d still be beating your head against a brick wall trying to explain it all to them.
My approach to deprogramming is simply point them to openvaers.com, which proves the vax is dangerous. Then to c19early.com, which proves there are easy, cheap, safe, and effective cures. I don't say anything but just watch the anxiety derived from cognitive dissonance, prior to their inevitable denial.
I was not aware of the early treatment site. Fantastic link. Thanks for sharing!!
Flccc.net is the best IMO....
100%. A month ago a close friend, in one conversation said, "No one is forcing people to get vaccinated' and 'without lockdowns it would have been worse'. In March of 2020, he sent a note to the gang about how he wanted us to 'panic'. He works for pharma and is in hospitals and so he "knows" because the doctors are telling him how *bad* it is and how awesome restrictions are.
Lotsa of unpacking on so many levels - including about how pathetic doctors have been throughout this. But then again, I don't have the energy and not sure if it's even worth it. Let's just say a friendship of 46 years has cooled off significantly. I admit it's more on my end because iI can't accept this position. It cuts to the core of my values and morals.
When passports were required here. five of us in a gang of 10 weren't vaccinated. We are all boyhood buddies who try to meet up as much as we can. I explained to my friends even if I were vaccinated I would NEVER download such an app and partake in an unethical and immoral game of 'show papers'. I especially made this clear to my closest friend that it was disappointing they were playing but he believed in all this anti-science, anti-human nonsense as noted. What I didn't appreciate was being put on a text group where he organized dinners 'with the boys'. I appreciate he wanted to keep me in the loop but after three times I found it to be tone deaf if not insulting. So I asked him to keep me off the list.
We haven't spoken since. It is what it is. I just can't accept what has happened these past two year and it's been rough having your closest friend swallow all this bull shit so hard.
I don't think time will heal what has happened to the civil order. We were seriously aggrieved. Lied to. And bullied and assaulted where our rights are concerned. It blows my mind how people are so flippant about this.
Exactly my experience as well. I get the added bonus of hearing constantly “ even though I don’t agree with you, I still care for you “. So far I have been able to look past , however it is rapidly coming to the point where I will be cutting ties. So very disheartened and exhausted by it all.
When you lose your job to a mandate we'll see how much they 'care' when they'll say 'just take the shot'. I had a family member tell me at the peak of the insanity (is there Peak Corona hysteria?) 'you'd better get vaccinated'. The fact I've resisted is actually invigorating .
Eventually there's going to be losing your health care, and that's my concern. I've been through what you all describe, losing the ability to go to events, on trips with my "sister-cousin" who I've always travelled with everywhere, a friend postponed her wedding in Canada because I couldn't come, but the big concern is that one day Medicare coverage will be withheld to force the mandate in the US, and then it will be a very difficult decision for us. My sister-cousin was so proud to tell me that last week she and the friend she's taking on the trip I was to go on to Hawaii in Oct. had gotten their fourth vacs last week, like how insane is that? And she has friends who have had all theirs who have had the virus. It makes no sense to me and when I (rarely) question her she says, "It keeps them out of the hospital and from dying, and they don't have to be tested before going on a plane or to an event." OMG!
Yes, that last line is very popular. Except it's not that good against infection and so-so preventing disease. It's not sinking in their heads that they're pumping a medicine - mRNA potion - in their bodies that is not matched to the disease. That potentially leads to all sorts of bad outcomes.
Those potential bad outcomes they believe are all conspiracy theories and misinformation because we are all crazy people who have been duped, just as we feel the same about them. I do find it interesting that most of "us" seem to have done far more serious research than "they" have v taking the word of the media. We won't really know for years who was correct, but I've made my decision and now feel right about it so don't argue. I state my choice and if asked will explain why, but not defend after because there's no point. "They" don't want to hear more or read the articles or listen to the videos, if Fauci didn't say it -
I can't understand why all the info on him doesn't change their minds, but it doesn't so I wait. It's been all this time and neither my husband or I have had any version of the virus. I've mostly been home except for doctor trips but for 5 months that has included twice weekly physical therapy visits, masked of course. He was considered an essential worker so has been out throughout the event but rarely wore a mask (we live in North Carolina and he does most of his work in fire stations and EMS bases where they didn't wear them). We've done hand and surface hygiene but nothing overboard like wiping down groceries or packages. I don't suspect if new mask mandates come along we'll be wearing them except in doctor offices where they're still required. We've lost so much of our freedom, but mostly we've found how many people in our country don't believe in our country's values and they've been the most vocal. It's been depressing for those of us that still care about it and keeping it for the younger ones who matter.
Thank you for the term "covidian". It helps to have something to use in a conversation that is descriptive yet not snarky. What is the non-snarky term for un-covidians? I don't like the "anti" terms being used, is there something less volatile?
Realists?
Never thought of it. I know people go with the 'Pure bloods' for the unvaccinated. But as far as the Uncovidians go not sure I've come across one. Maybe go with a classic: Skeptics.
What's the old adage about not arguing with people about politics or religion? As has been often pointed out, COVID is a quasi-religion, with its own tenets and sacraments. The media's role has been to evangelize and to spread "the good news."
Ridicule them. Keep it light but don't stop. Let them know their behavior is foolish and silly.
I agree with this. Keep it light, keep it short, and quickly move on to other things, but never miss the opportunity to mock the Covidian.
Exactly, silence only helps normalize such insanity.
Even if researchers aren't eager for attention, the whole system has been captured through grant funding. There is no way to be successful or achieve without being part of the system. Grant funding needs a major overhaul and definitely more oversight
This might be the most under discussed problem in our world. Science is dead until professors are funded for whatever they want to study. Understand that very few of them will do anything interesting.
He that pays the piper calls the tune….
Our scientists have also been specifically captured by the CCP, according to Dr. Richard Muller, emeritus professor at Berkeley, in Senate testimony (alongside Dr. Stephen Quay). Dr. Muller said CCP influence (fear of being blacklisted from collaboration) is the reason scientists had not spoken up.
Start at minute 17:30: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=354151369642884
Prior to 17:30 he lists five scientific reasons why covid was lab created.
And Dr. Quay's previous testimony proves beyond a 99% probability that covid was lab created.
The question is oversight by whom? Clearly the current hate keepers have proven they are useless. How do you get actual oversight?
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
Michael Crichton
Robert Malone also recently shared this via Substack ~ our warriorheroleaders now no longer have the luxury of 'turning the page,' but must live in hyperawareness virtually 24/7.
I’m too old and tired to try to explain the world to people who have no interest in learning the truth.
You confuse science(little 's' real science) and faith. Both are divergent paths to relative truth. The Covidians have chosen Faith.
It is utterly maddening, not to say frightening, that so many people have such a simplistic view of all things in life, and when complex matters arise, God help them, or should I say God help us all.
Most things in life are simple - until you actually study them.
Covid and the responses to it in particular.
The same cancer is on full display in the coverage and framing of Ukraine- Russia.
A dental hygienist shared with me that more patients aren’t getting boosters and claiming it was because the doses are too weak,(for safety), requiring more shots and she wishes that they had made them stronger from the start. She spun a story from whole cloth.
I mentioned one of the findings from the FDA document dump being analyzed by Naomi Wolf’s team indicated Pfizer may have intended 6 shots all along.
Blank stare. She knew nothing about the court mandated FDA document release, adverse effects, Naomi Wolf, etc. (and she didn’t want to)
She was totally a product of the news media you described.
Confronting delusions head on is rarely effective. There is too much information for most to want to look at. Reality is sometimes best delivered in small doses through cracks in the wall that has been built up. We may view the Jehovah's witness that knocks on the door as believing some ridiculous nonsense not realizing that they view us in the same way. The true vax believers see us as the cult that has irrational beliefs.
It is somewhat amazing that most people with an open mind who spend an hour or so just looking at the statistics would at least question the official narrative but most don't have the time or desire to look at what they already 'know' is bunk.
This is an edit addition:
Right after I wrote the above I saw this Carl Sagan quote on Steve Kirsch's substack.
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: if we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth."
"It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So." - Mark Twain
In a way, these communities of SubStack readers found the communities because they did not trust the narrative. We are here because we are of a questioning mindset, I think. We even pay these writers to explore the data with us and we interact with our comments. I expect we are quite a minority capable of such navigation - seek and find. Google doesn't index these pages particularly well and author searches may require Duck to find a writer.
Historians may find these pages useful in analyzing the mass hysteria affecting society and the few who didn't buy into the propaganda. But that requires some archive and page capture that may or may not be happening. Those of us who witnessed the destruction of GeoCities by Yahoo understand that well; some manger didn't quite understand that they had Facebook before it was Facebook. A few people took it upon themselves to scrape GeoCities before the server plug was pulled. Of interest now mainly for the history, primitive stuff of the day.
The Internet is forever might well apply to some piece of trivia usually something embarrassing, but substantive stuff can well evaporate into digital nowhere. When Google bought Dejanews, that archive represented topics still of interest in how things happened. Much of that has now gone into the digital nowhere.
Still by these writers, we are informed and slowly truth arrives.
One reason the mainstream media is so rabidly anti-anti-narrative and censors obvious truth is they realize they're being supplanted by long-form social media, like SubStack. In such formats (Rumble, Joe Rogan) the news is not processed, not filtered, and often has studies, data sets, and interviews with the smart people - rather than propaganda "stories" with no cites. It's interesting that QAnon's motto is: "Do Your Own Research," which can't be beat and happens to be the opposite of a conspiracy theory.
If they choose to realize what this has done to their childrens development, they might begin to change their minds.
Unfortunately that makes it even harder for some to realize.
Let's put some numbers on that. Last August 2021 the BJM published a study that found a significant IQ drop in pandemic babies. For perspective, the US Army has a cut-off of 80.
Results: "Across all measures, we found cognitive scores were significantly reduced during the pandemic by 27 to 37 points (or almost two full standard deviations)"
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.10.21261846v1.full-text
The legal system is no longer insulated. You surely are familiar with the new SCOTUS appointee?
of course, it's not totally insulated, and over time less and less probably, but more so than science
Way back, when I was a very diligent, serious fellow, one of my first bosses & mentors – bless him - warned me not to put my faith in the carefully worded memos & briefs I would write. Said he: ‘Nobody reads anything.’
Over the years, I learned just how right he was.
He also warned me to always take notes of important meetings and conversations. Because, he said, “Nobody remembers anything.”
"the reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer- and they don't want explanations that do not give them that."- Thomas Sowell
I believe there is an excellent explanation for the lack of complexity of journalistic (and legal) thought. There are two basic ways of thinking (modes) that begin in the first 6 months of life and continue throughout our lives each growing with 5 logarithmic orders of sophistication.
Only one of these two modes is able to handle logical rigor, scientific experiments and cause and effect complexity, this is mode one.
Complex systems, logical solutions start at a very young age, similar to a baby thinking of a smile or a coo to draw the parent closer, creating great value. This mode is about making value, solving problems, building systems, eventually resulting in the creation of self-sustaining genius individuals after many logs of complexity.
The second mode utilizes an impassioned use of force, exactly like a baby crying to control its mother for food. “I take because…”. This advances one log to “we take because life is unfair” and so on. It is an us-them, mode that does not create real value or intellectual independence.
Journalism today almost completely uses this mode two thought. There are no real thinkiers they all parrot the same talking points again and again as nauseum.
When a person using high level mode one thinking (fourth or fifth log of complexity like Chris Bray or eugyppius or Alex Berenson) they can not be understood by a mode two person who place their force-based arguments upon these logical mode one problem solvers.
Totalitarian thought is always mode two, and is basically a baby throwing a tantrum to get something, it destroys everything it touches, because it use emotional arguments “to take”. That is 98% of journalism today.
I have an unpublished book which describes the bifurcation of human thought. Basically an Adam Smythe “wealth of nations” and inventor Ben Franklin vs. Josef Stalin/Adolf Hitler/Mao/Pot battle for the ages. Sadly, it describes exactly what Bray is bemoaning.
Journalism should follow the great printer and thinker Ben Franklin as a force of enlightenment and complexity for mode one thought. Instead they are simplistic propagandists for the shallow and forceful mode two totalitarians.
Journalists are like real estate brokers, insurance salesmen and many teachers. 2nd or 3rd rate minds incapable of even doing their own jobs well, let alone much else.
I have two fields where I have significant experience, aviation and engineering. Every time, and I mean virtually without exception, when there is a news story concerning one of those fields, so called journalists, get even the most basic facts wrong. They are only after the most sensational aspects of a story and happy to manufacture some if none can otherwise be found.
They are stupid, inumerate, and largely incurious. Take any report by the MSM concerning the internet. They'll almost always show stock footage of overhead high tension power lines. These idiots either don't know, or don't care that those are providing power, not internet connectivity.
Talking heads at the maljor news outlets mostly do whatever is easy. They travel to some newsworty location and then waste their time asking random passebys the apparently cannoncal Journalism 101 stupid question, "What went through your mind when X happened?" As if anyone cares. And almost every issue must be twisted to make it about diversity, inclusion, and victimhood. The whole of the Ukraine/Russia coverage is heavily slanted towards the, "Women and children hardest hit." narrative they love to flog. Reporters: I hate those guys!
I have a relative who was a news presenter in another country. I went to work with her one day. Basically, she got all her news stories from a news feed. Then she discussed what she was going to say during a staff meeting and that was that. It's more of a production than anything else. On another note, I think we have always been manipulated. For example, why did no one do anything when President Kennedy was assassinated? These forums have become invaluable in finding alternative sources of information that we didn't have before. Imagine if these had existed in the 1960s!
Many years ago, at a DC cocktail party, I spoke with the number five person at the State Department who was often in the news. I asked him what percent of the news is correct. He said 50%.
Yup. I worked in the defense industry and I never saw an accurate article on the business.
That may be the best summation of intellectual laziness ever written. Nothing could describe a modern journalist better than "anxiously eager, well-trained but utterly uneducated pup with nary a thought not imparted by third party agents."
Applies to COVID and Ukraine and global warming, etc.
In the old days, when everything was simpler, confirmation bias and going along with the crowd worked okay. The average person got by with low-level binary thinking and democracy worked okay. These mainstream people comprise the 84% under the curve that are average and below-average. The corporate media caters and sells to these people. But now the world is far more complex and these average thinkers, who now have effectively below-average IQs, are easily manipulated by anyone who has an interest in doing so. The media's job is not to inform, as they say, but to lead these people around by the nose and program them in whichever direction best suits the interests of the institutional investors who own and thus control the corporations and the corporate media. It's how they manage their portfolio which comprises essentially every corporation as only 0.1 of the corporations own 80% of all other transnational corporations (from a complexity research study in 2013).
It's this massive power inequality that rules and runs the world. Their goal is total technological control and full-spectrum dominance. This new world will not be needing most of the people and those left over will be digitally managed Human Resources - they will be slaves.
Totally false! In fact I would bet vaccinated have a higher IQ than unvaccinated. A below average IQ is more likely to be unvaxxed. Our times are more split by courage and having been brainwashed in higher education.
Even many highly intelligent people succumb to the herd mentality. Just because they’re smart doesn’t mean they don’t fear ostracism from the peer group more than the risk of vaccine side effects. They can ignore their peers or the vaccines, but they can’t do both.
MIT released a study of "coronavirus skeptics" in January, 2021. In the study they found that "skeptics" were the most scientifically literate, educated, reasoned and articulate cohort of all populations. It surprised them, the research preconception that we were all a bunch of illiterate, uneducated, selfish freedom-loving MAGA rubes. They grudgingly acknowledge we were the opposite.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07993.pdf
As I read the study I had moments when I wanted to jump up and do my best Sally Fields impression, "they get me, they really, really get me!" Expecting to be met with an apology for being dismissed for so long. But when I got to the findings and conclusions they stated, "therefore we must be shouted down or silenced." That's all you need to know to know that medical science, natural science is not what's been declared "the best science" that they we are told to follow.
The science being followed is social science, behavioral science, the science of the efficacy of propaganda, manipulation and coercion that changes perspectives and behaviors. Medical and natural sciences like microbiology are only useful insomuch as they bolster a social science agenda.
Think of behavioral science as linguistic sorcery. The tool of authoritarians throughout the ages wielded by Merlin's and Rasputin's at the side of rulers. Casting spells on the masses with symbols and words of duplicity. The strategy to defeat them is to pull the curtain back and reveal the wizards pulling the levers and ropes for magical effect. We must expose the inner workings of the cult-making machine for all to see.
Where should we start? Athens 400 BCE?
Lorn: For the entire population, I suspect you are correct. It hurts to know we're the dumber group (well, I am at least). However, there is that study that found a "U-shaped" curve for vaccination hesitancy by level of education. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260731
I work with objective geniuses who are unwilling to question anything! It’s even more maddening. I’m the only unvaccinated person I know of at work and that freaks me out more than if it were just intelligence.
The Perception Gap study found that the higher education of the Democrats did not save them from media programming. They were off by 30%, exactly the same as the less well-educated Republic trumpsters.
Perhaps a liberal mindset isn't as skeptical of authority?
Liberal versus trumpster is just an ideological overlay on our more basic psychological nature. We are the same underneath, with the same motivations, fears, and aspirations. It is our separate self-selected media programming that ostensibly divides us, as with the age-old Divide et Impera.
Liberals are also definitely less skeptical of government authority. They've yet to realize the government has been captured by and works for the corporations, not for them. They still think democracy works.
Republicans are more cynical about government due to their alt-media programming. I'm to the left of Bernie but also have become - due to the constant stream of provable lies from the liberal media - to the right of Trump. Was once "woke" but am now Awake. Once you start doing your own research you find the cynicism is deeper than you ever thought possible.
Only recently have I realized Hunter Biden actually is corrupt - what they've been sayin' ain't no lie. It is shocking that much of what the Trumpsters were screaming about is actually true.
I've even become open-minded about who won the 2020 election. Heck, I'm now even convinced that climate change is a fake narrative!
See here (Danger, Science ahead): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oog7-KOtpEA
Intro to Princeton Professor William Happer's above talk by Ed Witten, arguably the world's smartest guy.
I recall the study. They were, of course, attempting to figure out how to nudge us into getting vaccinated. At the time, we thought vaccination was useful in stemming the pandemic. But we lacked both data and history, We did have confidence in our officials. Since then we have discovered a lot, mainly that the highly touted mRNA platform may or may not be ready; that the issues of some 40 years of research still exist and that the human immune system remains somewhat opaque to science.
Those in 1918 perhaps were lucky that science had not progressed to sainthood. Sadly, history repeats itself given the Swine Flu Debacle of 1976 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydx_ok6gyiY) and a later potential pandemic in 2008-9. Reading the Swine Flu story https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/12660/the-swine-flu-affair-decision-making-on-a-slippery-disease suggests great caution. But Event 201 largely assummed a lot and ignored a lot. We are just so much smarter now!
Actually, to my mind, the arrival of this pandemic has reaffirmed how little we actually know. The timing remains quite suspicious and will create conspiracy theories for a long time. Great days ahead.
I did see that!
Actually not, 1) The average IQ of the majority is now effectively below-average because the world has become more complex. 2) Studies find the unvaxxed have higher IQs and are better educated than those who get vaxxed. 3) PhDs - as a group - have the highest level of vaccine hesitancy.
Those of higher intelligence are not actually anti-vax, as they've been labeled, but seek more transparency.
Interesting. I would consider family members that took the jabs as “smarter” than I am. Perhaps I am more skeptical by nature and don’t care if anyone agrees with me. I think so many listened to the “experts” purporting that the jabs were safe that the believers wanted to be part of that group. They forgot about their entry level psychology classes that they had to take in college.
omg, best observation of the day: "They forgot about ... "
Studies show that when people fear (the job of the media) their brains stop processing and they will easily obey any authority. They do not stop to think if the authorities, the experts, are working against their interests. It is now not just the experts who are bought, but all the elites. This is called "elite capture." Expert capture would be a subset. Researchers who look into this report that the CCP is the entity doing the capture.
You can read about that for free in the Amazon best seller Red-Handed:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=china+red+biden&i=stripbooks&crid=3VSE3K6FFKY4M&sprefix=china+red+biden%2Cstripbooks%2C60&ref=nb_sb_noss
Weren’t those studies pre mandates very early on? I’d be hard pressed to believe that is even close yo true now
What is IQ, a result on a biased test?
There's very little cognitive differential in ability in 8b humans although we are all different.
Not so sure of that! I know lots of endemically dumb people and lots of really smart people. Big difference - dull versus sharp.
It's subjective.
Great point. Thank you for making it. Makes me wonder where courage comes from. Something to ponder.
In the old days they had trial by ordeal. Talk about confirmation bias!