Odd thing to say considering US excess mortality rates are significantly up. Clearly it does kill people that the flu otherwise would not have killed.
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I’m reading Duesberg’s Inventing the AIDS Virus; he figures prominently. Once upon a time, he seems to have not been so well regarded by some:
An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci | The Village Voice
There were projections of millions of people dead. Parents should not touch their children. Society should be severely curbed. Billions upon billions of dollars spent on the first political disease. Turns out, as of the publishing of that book in the late 1990s, it failed to destroy civilization. And what did curb “the spread?” Lifestyle changes among those demographics most affected, something no one wanted to say in the early 1980s.
Wah. Wah wah.
He deserves no sympathy or praise, only mockery
Get over yourself.
That 2 minute video with Mullis is interesting on so many levels. The Nobel prize winner who himself who invented the PCR test saying, straight up, that his PCR tests cannot tell you when someone is sick. Yet, decades later they are being for precisely that during this age of COVID, and the public believes the charade because a nerdy, bookish caricature version of an expert on a TV screen told them to.
His contempt and disgust for fake expert Dr. Fauci is palpable here, all those years ago. He said Fauci doesn't know anything about anything and he would say it to his face. What a shame Mullis died last year just before all this started.
Did you notice how Mullis described Fauci as an "Administrative Type" - as opposed to a Scientific or even a Philosophical type? This completely sums up the problem we face. In this thread, we've had people wade in and parrot the lines of neo-liberal Officialdom on various topics, from social justice/racism to health hysteria, and accuse us of all sorts of unsavoury things, and we've variously dismissed them as frightened and subservient pussies, shit-sucking Statists, Marxists, etc.
This description of the Administrative Type really hits the nail on the head. You know these people. You studied along side them, and were taught by them. You have to suffer them at the managerial positions in your corporate workplace. They talk to you through your television. They are everywhere.
For these people their main concern is the bureaucratic application of concepts, procedures and policies that are given to them from a higher authority. They are not interested in understanding the truth or the underlying concepts of mechanisms of things.
Their main concern is the career of managing people, managing business enterprises or government bureaucracies. It is the memorization of concepts, policies and procedures and making sure these policies and procedures are in effect - rather than actually thinking critically or creatively and creating policies.
This is what education and the academic system in general is creating. You don't need any creative or critical thinking skills to rise to the highest levels of academia. In higher education, the most creativity they will ever ask of their students goes along the lines of "Apply this concept, we have already taught you, to a new context".
For example: "Apply Critical Theory... find racism, sexism, homophobia... in a new context... like this literature or this piece of media" or "Apply the thinking of one philosopher to a different philosopher".
Memorizing facts, memorizing concepts and applying them to different contexts. That's the extent to which you need critical or creative thinking in the academic system today. Academia and science is not in pursuit of truth. It's a guild.
The people who you knew in high school or college who were objectively not very bright, or generally interested in or passionate about anything except social issues, are now the ones managing us. They learned by rote, and repetitiously drilled concepts into their brains and now unquestioningly apply these concepts to all of us at the behest of those with real power.
The majority of people out there in professional positions - especially medical doctors - are the Administrative Type. They are not there to think critically. They memorize what the authorities have told them. Memorize what's accepted. Memorize the consensus. Then apply whatever they have memorized. They're not there to question or be critical.
When you look at this COVID situation with the erosion our liberty, and as our societies and economies deteriorate, and you ask yourself "just how many people need to be *in* on a conspiracy like this in order to make it happen?" the answer is not very many at all. The doctors certainly aren't *in* on anything. They are there to memorize and apply.
For a conspiracy like this, all you need is some international agencies (all of which seem to be based in fucking Switzerland - and I am sure it's just a coincidence that Switzerland has been the centre of international banking and finance throughout history...) and a very small but wealthy and influential elite, with shared interests, to forcefully nudge the direction of politicians and CEO's. Then, everyone else naturally falls into place and unquestioningly fulfils their role, all the way from the top-tier administrative and managerial levels downwards.
Mullis also said most people cannot tell the difference between a truly creative, critical, scientifically minded person and an Administrative Type. They look for a credential, or a badge, social cues and signs and symbols of authority - and they're satisfied. If a public simply cannot even recognize bad actors, how could a status-quo-threatening political alternative ever be possible through democratic means? It could never come from Whitehall or the Oval Office or the system itself. Trump wasn't it, and neither was something like the Brexit referendum. At best, these things can be seen as throwing dog shit through the open window of the elite's passing limousine. We can gain a little bit of pleasure in watching them scramble to deal with the mess and minor inconvenience, but that's about the extent of it and they roll onwards basically uninterrupted.
I read something about the US money supply. 21% of the total of all US dollars were created in 2020. I'm no economist but it doesn't sound like this can go on forever without something very painful occurring at some point, even if they do have a new central bank digital currency up their sleeve to transition over to. Is this going to be the rude awakening we need?
*The Evidence Collection*
https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/...472957953?s=19
I declined the free shot from my new job. They asked what my excuse was. I told them it was simple math: that for my age, level of physical capability, and complete absence of comorbidities the shot posed a greater risk to my health and was unnecessary. They didn't have a problem with it.
As someone whose brain was wired for dot connecting... it has been a rough year. It's also why I think people have been so consumed by false dichotomies.
A letter to the ACM, a professional organization for computer scientists, by respected professors. This immediately follows some cancel-drama involving Pedro Domingos.
Quote:
Dear CACM Editor,
We are a group of researchers, industry experts, academics, and educators, writing with sadness and alarm about the increasing use of repressive actions aimed at limiting the free and unfettered conduct of scientific research and debate. Such actions have included calls for academic boycotts, attempts to get people fired, inviting mob attacks against ‘offending’ individuals, and the like. We support discussion of policies aimed at a more diverse and inclusive society; a range of opinions is natural. We condemn all attempts to coerce scientific activities into supporting or opposing specific social-political beliefs, values, and attitudes, including attempts at preventing researchers from exploring questions of their choice, or at restricting the free discussion and debate of issues related to scientific research.
Such actions are antithetical to the very nature of scientific inquiry, which often advances most through the pursuit of that which others believe to be implausible, banal, or wrong-headed. Debate must be free of prior restraint, and the use of public shaming or similar tactics to restrict the scope of scientific research and discussion is regressive and contrary to the values expressed in the ACM Code of Ethics. Such actions are particularly odious when directed toward junior colleagues and students, who are especially vulnerable.
We urge the community to reaffirm their core principles that:
Scientific work should be judged on the basis of scientific merit, independent of the researcher's identity or personal views,
Discussion and debate in the scientific community must be free of prior restraint as to topic or viewpoint, and
No individual should suffer harassment or attack based on their personal or political views, religion, nationality, race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Scientific discourse should be based on mutual respect, use of civil language, and professional conduct. Indeed, all disagreements in the scientific community, however heated or fraught, should be addressed through argument and persuasion and not through personal attacks or by coercively shutting down those with dissenting points of view.
In short, challenging and debating ideas is always acceptable and ought to be encouraged. Marginalizing, intimidating, or attacking the holders of those ideas is not.
If you are an established researcher, educator, or professional in computing or an adjacent field and would like to add your name to the signatories of this open letter, please fill out this form (or email karyeh@cs.bgu.ac.il and lreyzin@uic.edu). Note that signatories will be vetted before being added.
Initial Signatories
Scott Aaronson
David J. Bruton Centennial Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Texas at Austin
Ezio Biglieri
Honorary Professor
Department of Information and Communication Technologies
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Pamela Cosman
Distinguished Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California, San Diego
Harry Crane
Associate Professor
Department of Statistics
Rutgers University
Co-Founder, Researchers.One
Pedro Domingos
Professor Emeritus
Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
Shlomo Dubnov
Professor
Department of Music and Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, San Diego
Anthony Ephremides
Distinguished University Professor and Cynthia Kim Eminent Professorship Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Maryland College Park
Georgios B. Giannakis
Professor and Endowed Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Minnesota
Aryeh Kontorovich
Professor
Department of Computer Science
Ben-Gurion University
Marius Leordeanu
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
Polytechnic University of Bucharest
Shachar Lovett
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, San Diego
Ryan Martin
Professor
Department of Statistics
North Carolina State University
Co-Founder, Researchers.One
James E. Moore, II
Professor
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University of Southern California
Alex Olshevsky
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Boston University
Judea Pearl
Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus
Department of Computer Science
University of California, Los Angeles
Keshav Pingali
Professor and W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Chair of Computing
Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at Austin
Lev Reyzin
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science
University of Illinois at Chicago
Ilya Safro
Associate Professor
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
University of Delaware
Niculae Sebe
Professor
Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science
University of Trento
Ari Trachtenberg
Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Boston University
Pavan Turaga
Associate Professor
School of Arts, Media and Engineering
Arizona State University
Etienne Vouga
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Texas at Austin
Fuck off.
They are not up significantly over the 20-year average excess mortality numbers. And if they were, how much excess death justifies the destruction of the economy of the world, the remaking of civil society, and the excess death associated with these effects? Really, tell us how much COVID death justifies all this other death.
Your most important post so far. Very insightful.
Because he interprets it as an accusation that Fauci is gay, and I guess he thinks being gay is disgusting. Homophobes are found in the oddest places.