Debt Rattle Boxing Day 2020
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Salvador Dali Christmas Tree 1959 • Pfizer’s Vaccine Maximizes Profit, Not The Greater Good (Quelch) • UK Scientists Trial Drug To Prevent Infe
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle Boxing Day 2020]Salvador Dali Christmas Tree 1959
Words fail; but I love it…it likely says all I’ve ever thought or felt regarding Christmas…
A recent study of lockdowns in the UK shows how they aren’t working because the imposed rules are routinely broken by those with “deviant behavior.”
Non-compliance with the lockdown rules, “despite exhaustive efforts of authorities to promote and encourage compliance,” is framed as being a problem with the deviant “perpetrators,” instead of possibly being a problem with the specific rules.
The proposed solution to the non-compliance with the rules, is for authorities to double down and somehow convince the people that “rule infringement is deviant and harmful and that lockdown norms over-ride other norms,” and “stress the need for self-control and responsibility in the face of challenging circumstances.”
This reassurance is given to the authorities imposing the lockdowns: “Post-pandemic, it seems likely the actions of enforcing authorities may well be lauded for their efficiency and civic good…”
I found nothing in the study about whether the specific lockdown rules are actually backed by science and non-arbitrary. Nor did I find any accounting for the various societal costs of the lockdown and how these would need to be outweighed by the actual benefits of the lockdowns.
Breaking Lockdown during Lockdown…data collected indicates that the citizens interviewed commonly broke espoused lockdown rules… techniques may be adopted to justify rule infringements despite exhaustive efforts of authorities to promote and encourage compliance…
Data analysis reveals that while informants initially maintained that they closely obeyed lockdown rules, on further probing, 48 out of 54 informants accepted that they had broken the rules in some way at least once every two days, with 24 eventually accepting that they had not followed the lockdown regulations for most days of the lockdown period. Conversely, on questioning, all informants self-evaluated themselves as normally law-abiding members of their communities…
…justification techniques of individuals outweighs the espoused norm of absolute compliance to crisis-driven, emergency rules. That is, individuals who otherwise consider themselves ‘normally’ law-abiding, employ neutralization techniques to justify their actions..
…rule infringement in the face of compelling safety and societal arguments may be interpreted as endemic to human nature. Researchers of human nature and society have long since embraced the notion that deviance is not limited to a sub-stratum of society. The current study reflects these notions in uncovering deviance by otherwise law-abiding and societally focused individuals. This support the view that rule infringement is inherent to our individualistic and family-oriented society which supports the rights of the individual to be free to choose and act as they deem fit. Indeed, many informants argue that their actions are for either their own good or for the benefit of their family. In this regard, the deviance uncovered in the current study is not merely irrational or anti-social but logical in the view of the perpetrator…
The findings of the current study suggest a number of implications for practitioners and public policymakers. Post-pandemic, it seems likely the actions of enforcing authorities may well be lauded for their efficiency and civic good…
Posthoc analysis of lockdown enforcement seems to support the merits of this approach in that most citizens follow most of rules, most of time. However, the current study indicates that rule infringements are common despite general support. That is, interviews found lapsing behaviors to be far more common than complete contravention. In this way, while supporting the general tactic of lockdown and while the policies and procedures adopted seem generally successfully, most citizens undertook actions and behaviors that eroded the effectiveness and efficiency of the strategy…
…the current study suggests that citizen-focused enforcement campaigns should focus on these to increase compliance. In this regard, public authorities should emphasize two key issues. First, communications should stress that rule infringement is deviant and harmful and that lockdown norms over-ride other norms – both of which reinforce the message that infringement behaviors are deviant. Second, to emphasize individual responsibilities, communications should stress the need for self-control and responsibility in the face of challenging circumstances. While authorities have clearly emphasized elements of these messages in their efforts to enforce stay-at-home and lockdown rules, evidently such communications have only been partly successful.
Published online this past week in the (US) journal Deviant Behavior.
Breaking Lockdown during Lockdown: A Neutralization Theory Evaluation of Misbehavior during the Covid 19 Pandemic
Lloyd C. Harris
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01639625.2020.1863756In the UK we had a lockdown, which didn’t work. It was decided that another lockdown was called for, which didn’t work. After that it was variations of lockdown, which didn’t work. The conclusion is that we need another lockdown.
Apparently Boris Johnson will soon be travelling to the south coast to command the tide to retreat. Certainly a lot of people think he is a Cnut!
“Our Upside-Down Postelection World (Hanson)”
And people look at me like I’m a nut when I say that I don’t trust anything from the TV or papers. All I have to do is take a quick look at the top headlines on my phone to know what the latest scam is.
Hanson does a great job in this article of contrasting media behavior between Trump and Biden: while one was relentlessly attacked, the other was buoyed into the White House. This could change at any time, though, depending on the needs of the oligarchy, and yet the herd will not miss a beat when being stampeded in the complete opposite direction from the day before.
The takeaway from this article is the enormous power of media to shape public opinion. The average person is powerless to resist it. Like the Pied Piper, the media calls the narrative and the hypnotized public marches behind. They are public enemy #1 as far as I’m concerned, and I will never stop pointing this out whenever the subject arises, whether it paints me as a crazed conspiracy theorist in the eyes of the other person or not.
Of course, the media receives their marching orders from above, but they are still the glue which holds the machine together. Destroy them and the whole thing grinds to a halt.
@Doc Robinson
Thanks very much for the link to the Harris article. Though it’s very “academic” (and was intended to be), reading through to the comments made by those in lockdown situations in the UK was enlightening. At least in our “individualistic” society we’re all constantly having to make trade-offs between individual desires and group norms, guidelines, rules, and laws.
Two things: 1) It is also Kwanzaa (African Christmas). 2) I’m guessing these new, relatively untested vaccines are going to turn into a monumental clusterfuck. This might encourage more people to become anti-vaxers, which I don’t like, but it might also further sour people on the Myth of Perpetual Progress, and I do think that would be a good thing.
I:vevread more than 300 pages of David Graeber’s debt book. There are dozens of great examples relevant to our times, totally overturning my understanding and perhaps that of others. Here’s one:
In the late 1500s, during which large amounts of silver were circulating in Europe (much of it mined in the Americas), there was a collapse in European standards of living. Taxes had to be paid in silver
However, very little of this silver was in hands of ordinary people – most went to bankers, governments and large-scale merchants, who -double surprise! — used their control of silver to insist that silver be considered as money and replace the community systems of trust that were in place for ordinary people. This period, described by Graeber as one of unparalleled violence, resulted in unsuccessful uprisings, after which impoverished peasants became vagabonds who were rounded up by governments and exported to the colonies as indentured laborers.
Today many of us think of precious metals as some form of freedom currency, not realizing that it was anything but that historically.Okay, so now we know silver is the root of evil, to be used against peasants right? Not so fast:
Back in the 1400’s in China during the Ming dynasty, there was general distrust of any type of commerce. Taxes were paid in labour, under a quasi-caste system. Over time, taxes became so high that peasants left their lands, and there were large floating populations
Some of these folks took to silver mining, and silver began to be used in the illegal economy (remember Ming dynasty disliked commerce). When the government tried to shut down the mines, popular uprisings were do strong that the government gave up and allowed silver to be used as currency, instead of labour.A sad sidenote on the human cost of silver: the vast majority of silver mined in the Americas was destined to feeding China’s heavy demand, as the Chinese quickly depleted their own mines. Europe at the time did not produce anything of interest to China, but Europe wanted Chinese silks and spices, and had to pay for them in silver.)The toll of silver mining on Indigenous communities in the Americas was horrendous.
Another major impact that the discovery of the Western Hemisphere had on China: The transplantation of maize-corn there fueled a great deal of China’s population boom, as it would grow anywhere something could conceivably be grown, being a much less temperamental member of the Poaceae family of flowering grasses than wheat, rye, barley, or rice.
Carol:
Your comment about silver has a ring of truth to it. (Silver coins make a special ring when dropped.)
But there were also many other factors too.
All of my ancestors came (fled) to the US and Canada in unhappy circumstances. Basically one way trips.
On the English side, Bridget Bishop unluckily ended up being the first witch hung in Salem, while some of the later Bishops, siding with the British, ended up in Ontario as Empire loyalist. Another married for love, instead of money, a miller’s daughter and was banished disgrace, by the family, to Canada. Later English arrivals,1890s, fled in the middle of the night, when their teenage son was expected to report for factory grinding work which caused black lung (health & air polution). They ended up on the clean air of the prairies in Saskatchewan.
On the Irish side, some had to flee Ireland due to being on the losing side of a clan dispute, while another, tenate farmers, where evicted by the landlord and replace with sheep to feed England’s wool industry. Both landed in Quebec City, with nothing, before migrating to Ontario.
Having traveled and worked in many of Britain’s former colonies, I came to the conclusion that Britian had a colony, to fit ever crime!
If you married for love instead of money, you got sent to Canada to cool off! If you committed a political crime you ended up in the 13 colonies (US)! If you stole a rabbit from the lord’s private game preserve, you got sent to Australia!
Canada was also home to the remittance man! If you somehow disgraced the family, say by getting a women pregnant, or just being the inconvenient youngest son, you would be banished to Canada with the stipulation that you would receive an annual remittance, providing you never return to Britain!
@WES: It is my understanding that in old Britain, the ne’er-do-well sons of the upper classes would be shipped off to Ireland.
ARE VIRUSES ALIVE?
If your interested, and haven’t made up your mind, then follow my path and you will be more undecided.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
chemistry leading to life may have begun shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago, during an epoch when the universe was only 10–17 million years old.https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/replicator
A replicator is an object or organism that can make copies of itself. Examples abound in the biological world; cells are a common example.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_growth
A crystal is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. Crystal growth is a major stage of a crystallization process, and consists in the addition of new atoms, ions, or polymer strings into the characteristic arrangement of the crystalline lattice.[1][2] The growth typically follows an initial stage of either homogeneous or heterogeneous (surface catalyzed) nucleation, unless a “seed” crystal, purposely added to start the growth, was already present.The action of crystal growth yields a crystalline solid whose atoms or molecules are close packed, with fixed positions in space relative to each other. The crystalline state of matter is characterized by a distinct structural rigidity and very high resistance to deformation (i.e. changes of shape and/or volume). Most crystalline solids have high values both of Young’s modulus and of the shear modulus of elasticity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia#Research_in_outer_space
Panspermia (from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pan) ‘all’, and σπέρμα (sperma) ‘seed’) is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by space dust,[1] meteoroids,[2] asteroids, comets,[3] planetoidshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
In evolutionary biology, abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life (OoL),[3][4][5][a] is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.[6][4][7][8] While the details of this process are still unknown, the prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes.[9][10][11] Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood. There are several principles and hypotheses for how abiogenesis could have occurred.John Day-
A while back you mentioned you had some citrus seedlings. Did you sprout them from seeds? I have have three citrus trees I grew from seeds- one Temple orange (my favorite), one lime, and one grapefruit. All of them are now over 25 years old, and they are all the same: glossy, fragrant leaves and HUGE, vicious thorns. Apparently all edible citrus are grafts. One of my trees bloomed (they look like four foot bonsai trees) and smelled heavenly. Mites love them, so they get regular baths.
They are getting too big to haul into the house each winter, but I just don’t have the heart to kill them.Roboto:
Lol, I hadn’t heard of that one!
I do know unwanted extra sons were sometimes sent to the church or bought a commission in the army or navy.
It is obvious (unless your paycheck is involved) that the Western response to the coronavirus pandemic is solely injecting profitable vaccines. Clearly Pfizer was across the line first and gains the riches. Second there is no “greater good” anymore. With the privatization of healthcare in the USA, the public health system was decimated.
Los Angeles is running out of oxygen for its COVID patients. Vaccine logistics needs to be straightened out. There are indications of significant allergic reactions to mRNA vaccines. Yet, corporate propaganda is shameless. Dr. Anthony Fauci who didn’t control either the HIV and coronavirus pandemics is idolatrized, not called a Loser like Donald J Trump. The US Government failed across the board. Profiteering is rampant.
Unless the US Constitution and the Public Health System are restored, the dog fights over the remains between national oligarchs and global high caste billionaires are sure to result in the secession of the US Heartland from either coast like a nightmare Brexit. Only the most deluded would call that good. This is on Joe Biden and the Democrats if they continue down the current path. Today’s coronavirus death toll of 339,921 is sure to climb well above the US Civil War’s 750,000 dead. Millions more will die if a second civil war breaks out.
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