madamski cafone
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If the Powers That Be try what Dr. D describes above, it will only take one decent case of the internet catching the flu for them to lose all of their power and most of their wealth. This is not looming Orwellian sociocultural colossi, this is collapse. Storm troopers will be lucky to keep their stomping boots from people ki8lling them for decent footwear.
@ Doly
“In other words, you are saying you understand nothing of the science, because you are less afraid of the option that is intuitively obviously more dangerous.”
My. We’re not presumptive, are we? Normally, I think one should address others with respect… unless they show a lack thereof. So I’ll just say that you show, to my eyes, even less knowledge of the viiral pandemic situation than the person you claim knows “nothing of the science”.
Oh boy. When it comes down to street violence, this is going to be a doozy.
@ kultsommer
“Oddly, despite my posted links related to major skepticism when it comes to Covid, no doctors on this site would give us their OWN OPINION what is going on.”
Doctors here have done so many times in the last year. Maybe they’re tired. Maybe no one owes you jack squat.
Like I said, the street-fighting will be spectacular.
A problem with mandatory vaccines is that placing people in jail begs infection? We’re not a totalitarian society. China can do this stuff with little resistance. USA, while mostly a nation of obedient toddlers, also possesses that tantrum power that 3-year olds can muster when they feel sufficiently wronged.
If somehow we attain that level of control, we will have back-flipped over China into NK reality.
Times are weird enough: I susspose it could happen. But I doubt it. We’ll just clusterfuck into a mass collapse and then fight each other until we’ve had enough.
“You want me to borrow $100 from you? OK. I’ll give you$100 for a loan of $200.”
I phrased that poorly. I meant to imply that if you loan me $100, you need to give me $200 so I can use half of it to pay you back and keep the rest.
“I predict that is followed by weight loss in the dining out population. This will be based on loss of appetite – think about how the majority of Americans look with their clothes ON at this point.”
We’ll wear blinders to go along with our masks.
The greedy fools who own most of the world simply can’t comprehend that the thing they manipulate so well for their gain could otherwise fail through their management. It is wise to remember that empathy is a necessary component of human psychology. Those lacking empathy are literally incapable of running a society anyewhere but to the ground via their bank accounts.
Meanwhile, the rest of the populace is conditioned to follow orders, period.
Oh, come on: it’ll be fun, y’all.
An amazing thing about Van Gogh is how he could use such dense saturated colors but still have light come through them.
“UST 30-year is over 3%, UST10 is over 1.6% and yet shorting liquidity is negative 4%. No, for a change I don’t claim to understand this. But the bond market sets the price for money which sets the price for everything. ”
I don’t either, but it reminds me of how a sudden drop in petroleum sales made it necessary to pay people, sometimes heftily, to take oil off some trader’s hands. Perhaps shorting liquidity 4% is similar. Who wants to borrow money now while defaulting on loans they made to cover the past 3 imminent defaults.
Inflation measured in the ratio between demand for goods and the amount of money chasing them is one thing. Inflation measured in the demand for borrowable money is another. Methinks that banking is entering one helluva financially deflationary state where you have to pay people to borrow money (a mirror image of negative interest rates?) from you: “You want me to borrow $100 from you? OK. I’ll give you$100 for a loan of $200.”
&*$
““We’re just going to have to disagree on “But it takes a very long time to effect a “mass” change in consciousness that results in changes in the “physical” world.””
First we should decide whether the hypothesis (sane nondestructivre human progress) is even possible. (fwiw, my vote is No.)
“Oh sure, let’s pretend that Manchin keeps Biden from keeping his promises.”
But it doesn’t say that. It hypothesizes Manchin as a tool by which to leverage Biden. How sound that hypothesis is, I don’t know, but it doesn’t pretend that Manchin is the goal-keeper.
Also, regarding the allegedly missing flu:
“One study looked at airline passengers’ missed flights during the 2009 outbreak – given that flying with a bunch of people in an enclosed space is likely to spread flu. There was a massive spike of missed flights at the beginning of the pandemic but this quickly dropped off as the infection rate climbed, although later, missed flights did begin to track infection rates more closely.”
We’ve stopped flying, car-pooling is surely dead, and we generally spend much less time indoors except for at home. Not that we seem to spend much time outdoors. I reckon people read blogs like TAE. 😉 Anyway, the missing flu makes sense: influenza is well optimized to homo saps and our habits. Alter those habits in crucial ways, and flu populations decline radically.
I see so many people assume that the decline in flu stats is a statistical error related to generally inane incompetence and corruption in such things these days. But the events that might cause such an anomaly could also create a genuine anomaly in real life: reduce that much flu habitat, you remove an awful lot of flu.
Because when things change, things change, and when things change they change things. Whatever is true or not regarding covid itself and our stat models for tracking it, it is glaringly obvious that we’ve radically altered the human/microbe shared environment that the 20th Century produced.
Meanwhile, I read elsewhere:
“The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all coronaviruses is estimated to have existed as recently as 8000 BCE, although some models place the common ancestor as far back as 55 million years or more, implying long term coevolution with bat and avian species.[73] The most recent common ancestor of the alphacoronavirus line has been placed at about 2400 BCE, of the betacoronavirus line at 3300 BCE, of the gammacoronavirus line at 2800 BCE, and of the deltacoronavirus line at about 3000 BCE. Bats and birds, as warm-blooded flying vertebrates, are an ideal natural reservoir for the coronavirus gene pool (with bats the reservoir for alphacoronaviruses and betacoronavirus – and birds the reservoir for gammacoronaviruses and deltacoronaviruses). The large number and global range of bat and avian species that host viruses has enabled extensive evolution and dissemination of coronaviruses.[74]
“Many human coronaviruses have their origin in bats.[75] The human coronavirus NL63 shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (ARCoV.2) between 1190 and 1449 CE.[76] The human coronavirus 229E shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (GhanaGrp1 Bt CoV) between 1686 and 1800 CE.[77] More recently, alpaca coronavirus and human coronavirus 229E diverged sometime before 1960.[78] MERS-CoV emerged in humans from bats through the intermediate host of camels.[79] MERS-CoV, although related to several bat coronavirus species, appears to have diverged from these several centuries ago.[80] The most closely related bat coronavirus and SARS-CoV diverged in 1986.[81] The ancestors of SARS-CoV first infected leaf-nose bats of the genus Hipposideridae; subsequently, they spread to horseshoe bats in the species Rhinolophidae, then to Asian palm civets, and finally to humans.[82][83]”
Yeah, well the clap comes from sheep, but getting the clap doesn’t mean you have sex with sheep…. just that long long ago, some human did. Which reminds me:
“The Guardian recently published an article saying “People won’t get ‘tired’ of social distancing – and it’s unscientific to suggest otherwise”. “Behavioural fatigue” the piece said, “has no basis in science”.”
People won’t get ‘tired’ of social distancing – the government is wrong to suggest otherwise
Now that The Guardian has officially denied the existence of behavorioral fatigue (BF), BF is now free to come forth and create more public resistence to covid (alleged) prevention measures.
I predict that naked restaurant dining will be in come Xmas.
I recall first associating TAE with its concern and grief for young chiuldren suffering in places like Lesbos. Reading us bemoaning and ranting here, I think of the children coming on line.
“Is it the school closures, or is it banning them from meeting?”
Both. School is the largest social structure in modern children’s experience. The long term effects of this, as those children come online into a reality very diofferent than the one they started in, could be powerful. Normally, this time in a greneration cycle has kids who obey authority, which is useful during such times. But these kids are being taught there is no authority but that which gets you throuigh the day.
Lordy, we seem to cresting on the mother Niagra of modern extinction events. We’re leaviing no tombstone unturned.
““I’m still a bit amazed at how the meaning of “herd immunity” seamlessly came to include vaccines.””
As creole lnaguage evolves, a word become obscured or confused, and either rise to a larger meaning group, or stoop smaller, depoending mostly on how much is it is used afterward. Herd immunity is currently being semantically expanded.
@ Dr. D
“Fauci said “We would never shut down the economy for ebloa.” ”
Fauci is probably right. Ebola is so virulent and fatal it doesn’t get far. Very easy to track.
^&*
There is no way to hold a jubilee. That is, imo, silly worship of those in power. There is only crash. You can’t steer a tobaggan on a nearly vertical incline. Those few wealthy bastards who create a genuinely loyal survival team may hold on to a bunch of their capital via applied defensive military force, but no one is in control of the money machine. It’s like the Midas touch: they can turn everything into money but all that does is turn valuable stuff into useless $$ denominations.
@ V. Arnold
“And who, may I ask, are you? To recommend which vaccine is best? For the readers of this blog?
Hmmm???….”Just another shmuck like you or I, V. However, a moniker like Germ is kind of special.
Check this out:
A google quickie:
“An R-loop is a three-stranded nucleic acid structure, composed of a DNA:RNA hybrid and the associated non-template single-stranded DNA. R-loops may be formed in a variety of circumstances, and may be tolerated or cleared by cellular components. The term “R-loop” was given to reflect the similarity of these structures to D-loops; the “R” in this case represents the involvement of an RNA moiety.In the laboratory, R-loops may also be created by the hybridization of mature mRNA with double-stranded DNA under conditions favoring the formation of a DNA-RNA hybrid; in this case, the intron regions (which have been spliced out of the mRNA) form single-stranded DNA loops, as they cannot hybridize with complementary sequence in the mRNA.
***
R-loop formation is a key step in immunoglobulin class switching, a process that allows activated B cells to modulate antibody production.[15] They also appear to play a role in protecting some active promoters from methylation.[16] The presence of R-loops can also inhibit transcription.[17] Additionally, R-loop formation appears to be associated with “open” chromatin, characteristic of actively transcribed regions.[18][19]”HMMMMM…………….. she said, doing her best Ann Smiley impression.
I repost this wonderful message to point out that such “memes” making the rounds spell the end of the covid hysteria. As these ‘sound bites of sanity’ proliferate and, as in this instance, become more or less bullet-proof to standard covid brain-trained mainstream nonsense (“take your shot and shut up”), the populace will mood swing away from giving a shit about covid.
I wonder if covid will prove to be the straw that fully breaks public confidence and support of government. It crosses ethnic, regional, and ideological lines. This summer will probably see public displays of mask-burnings and such.
^&*
“Why do we insist on electing such miserable people to positions of power?”
Once we’re suckered into anointing kings with public approval rather than requiring them to slash and burn their way to power as in older days, anything goes. Modern democracy confers greater power than even the Divine Right to Rule that kings employed in times past.
“That’s 18 weeks you can stay home and read Cicero – from a real-to-god, paper book — with your children.”
Not sure why, but this pleases me greatly. Maybe I’m imagining it as an advertizement for a wood stove manufacturer. Although I’m not sure they’d pick Cicero.
Substitute USA for Ukraine:
“On April 24, 2019, during the online broadcast of the night of the second round of the presidential elections in Ukraine, Ishchenko outlined his vision of the main difference between the political situation in Ukraine and Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In his opinion, it consists in the fact that bureaucratic states were formed in these three largest post-Soviet republics, while an oligarchic republic arose and developed in Ukraine, which destroyed formal state structures during the first term of the presidency of Leonid Kuchma, and after the events of 2014 actively militarized to support the established regime by force, since there are more security officials per capita in Ukraine than in the Russian Federation. “In 2014, government bodies were finally rolled into asphalt, and now we see that various kinds of informal associations have more power than formal government structures” [10] .
“He has repeatedly emphasized in various articles and reviews the advantages of Russian society over Ukrainian (including in terms of household, communal and bureaucratic development) [11] .
“He also repeatedly noted the incredible incompetence of the Ukrainian leadership of different generations, lack of professionalism, corruption, nepotism and other negative phenomena that no one tried to overcome during all the years of Ukrainian independence.”
We are becoming the Ukraine of North America.
I told someone just today that a strong immune system is like a really solid constabulary (they really do exist here and there, now and then): it won’t eliminate organized crime but it keeps it from taking over the neighborhood, and if the cops stay honest long enough (well, that too occasionally happens) organized crime hardly bothers with that hood anymore.
Today’s younguns may be the most important generation to come along since the ones that crossed the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age, poor heroic darlings.
@ WES & V. Arnold
All true about stoves, and I feel duty-bound to remind us what a thing of deft engineering and beautiful craft is a well-designed and well-employed wooden cookstove.
I’ll note that, in hard times, people tend to ignore prohibitive government regulations when they need major things repaired. Black-market plumbing will be huge in Texas. Government has mostly done all the damage they can do. Now we’re experiencing the consequences of those damaging actions while the government (as Dr. D observed), is finding it can hardly sustain a sovereign erection these days even with a steady IV Viagra drip courtesy the Federal Reserve and a compliant media.
I sometimes think that the paradigm shift aka collapse will happen like this:
@ limeincoconut
“I wonder if Dr D uses “absolutes” in his writing to provide emphasis. Others might use CAPITAL letters or exclamation marks.”
Well, there’s a huge difference between, for example, 97% or, say, the vast majority bolded and italicised for emphasis and 100% stated as just plain fact. I’m all for so-called “weasel words” (in moderation, like everything else except infinity) but weasel numbers, even when used as expressive metaphors, fall under what Twain called “lies, damn lies, and statistics”. My feeling is that the mysterious Dr. D gets so (understandably) overwrought about the insanity of modern culture that he starts shooting wildly. Being that smart and informed can drive a person edgy.
Me, I just start cussing at anything that moves. But I try to aim true. I prefer to hit something when I’m shooting the moon or just the local streetlight. How can a person curse the darkness with all those annoying lights in the sky?
Lord, I hate rap. Good thing he’s just shooting off his mouth. 😉
@ John Day
As for hope: we reproduce via love. Erotic love, nurturing love, enduring love… and that requires hope. However the philosophers feel about hope, they6 wopuld all drink hemlock if they had none.
We’re all here because of acts of love, directly or indirectly. Love is the tender trap. Hope is how we endure this captivity we call life.
But I consider myself essentially Daoist. Detachment, like hope, is also a great tool and emotional experience.
Hope for the best but detach from the outcome because things rarely work as planned.
@ John Day
““Girl-illa”? Samsomnette””
Let’s go maximum and call me Spamsonella. Name like that should get me locked upo trying to flee across the border.
Speaking of Hades, Dr. D provides a postcard of hell: “How much gasoline is that, for 5 million people to run 100 decibel, failing, overheating small engines running?”
Obviously, things like covid cannot be managed for the common good by those authorities entrusted to do so… and that’s as kindly as I can address that issue. So why are we even discussing vaccines etc?
To use a phrase I’ve found ridiculously necessary, ‘whatever covid is or isn’t’, it will do as it will, period. Every second, the virus makes a few billion copies of itself around the globe. We will NOT stop the spread. To even consider otherwise, after a year of watching public health authorities’ response to it, is like smoking crack up your ass. Pondering vaccine responses at this point is like complaining about Hades’ inadequate air-conditioning.
Dr. D, bless his blameful soul, does a handy job above of pointing out what a cataclysmic shift in the
energy/resources/goods paradigm will occur and change day-to-day reality in wild ways. Reverting to the “Old Ways” will be virtually impossible for the majority of the populace, including my retired urban self. Things will fall apart. The totalitarian crackdown so many fear will not happen because the system to implement such will also fail. We will enter a period of emphatic lawlessness.@ WES
I said “run out of fossil fuel energy” not run out of fossil fuel.
@ V. Arnold
“Jill has been criticised for insisting to be called, Dr. Jill Biden.
A bit pretentious, IMO…and maybe a bit insecure?…”More likely, I think, is that she’s pandering to that annoying U Go GRRL feminist crowd.
” Intelligence is great fun but not a viable long-term species survival rate for us. ”
Trait not rate.
@ Doc Robinson
“Reminds me that “Hope” (or expectation) was in Pandora’s jar of evils, as if Hope was one of the evils.”
The Box surely contained not just evil. Hope is that match in the dark. It requires Despait to exist, Hope, but Despair exists, hence Hope.
The Box contained wonderful good things… but not in our hands.
“In Hesiodic scholarship, the interpretive crux has endured:[20] Is the hope imprisoned within a jar full of evils to be considered a benefit for humanity, or a further curse? A number of mythology textbooks echo the sentiments of M. L. West: “[Hope’s retention in the jar] is comforting, and we are to be thankful for this antidote to our present ills.”[21] Some scholars such as Mark Griffith, however, take the opposite view: “[Hope] seems to be a blessing withheld from men so that their life should be the more dreary and depressing.”[22] The interpretation hangs on two related questions: First, how is elpis to be rendered, the Greek word usually translated as “hope”? Second, does the jar preserve elpis for men, or keep it away from men?
“As with most ancient Greek words, elpis can be translated a number of ways. A number of scholars prefer the neutral translation of “expectation.” Classical authors use the word elpis to mean “expectation of bad,” as well as “expectation of good.” Statistical analysis demonstrates that the latter sense appears five times more than the former in all of extant ancient Greek literature.[23] Others hold the minority view that elpis should be rendered “expectation of evil” (vel sim).[24]”
Expectation is the prequisite for disappointment. I suppose it depends on where one points that thing.
@ Farner McGregor
“…the slow-motion train wreck of industrial society breaking down around me — I already see this in subtle ways that very few people comprehend, present company excluded of course! (The $hite is hitting the fan in dribbles — if you watch closely you will see the color of the walls slowly changing.) ”
Indeed.
