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When I was an undergrad, I had an internship at a Federal Agency. My summer task was to look at certain data and detect trends. I brought to my boss the data that showed there were two deaths out of 100,000 in one year, and the next year there were three deaths out of 100,000. So, even if you’ve never had a course In statistics, you can see that there was no ‘statistically significant’ increase, right? But my boss exclaimed, “Great! That’s a 50% increase - we can get funding to study that!”

That sums up the ‘government mindset’ right there. Yikes.

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author

words you will never hear:

"we, the experts empaneled to study the problem have determined that there is, in fact, no problem. please accept the return of the remainder of our budget and put it to better use."

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founding

You have a doppelBot hitting your site fyi

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My Statistics professor when I was an ungrad would say “you can make the numbers say anything you like”.

Many in the public throw up their hands when they see number sets, fractions, and most especially, any sentence with the word “standard deviations”. It’s partly because they are convinced these things are always complicated. Many times they are not.

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My favorite quote along the lines of your statistics professor is "Torture the data long enough and it will confess."

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Toss in some word salad and you're good to go.

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That is AWESOME! I will certainly use that one in the future.

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Correct. A lot of the terminology is often thrown in to purposely mislead and deflect. When you just step back and apply some critical thinking, it often falls apart pretty quickly.

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The great secret of academia revealed.

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They think "Standard Deviation" is a criticism of Hunter Biden or Justin Trudeau and can't go any further.

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Good point rjt. Is it possible that victims of our modern "education" system are unaware that mathematical "deviation" is NOT actually the same as "deviate" in a medical sense?

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founding

You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half the population is dumber than that

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My favorite has always been Mark Twain's Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. Time tested.

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Like Walensky throwing out "equipoise" to obfuscate why no mask RCTs were done!

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founding

Thank for reminding me of that. It's quite funny.

What a total farce.

I'm still surprised she hasn't become the "fall guy".

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This is basically what they did to justify the statin drugs. Absolute vs. relative risk reduction - 0.63% absolute, 85% relative. Of course they trumpeted the 85% (mumble mumble relative mumble) risk reduction! https://peterattiamd.com/ns001/

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Someone using relative risk without talking about absolute risk makes me automatically write them off as propagandists or crooks. I'm sure everyone remembers Pfizer's claim of "95% effective"... what a joke, they didn't even tell us what it was 95% effective at stopping.

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95% effective at stopping your swab being sent to Pearl River for testing.

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what a great internship, to open your eyes at such a young age. I had a similar experience, concerning working for a large charitable organization in fundraising. Really caused me to question a lot of the paradigm.

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Agree. My short stint at a large ~ish non-profit made me quickly realize they were just in the business of taking money from the wealthy in exchange for giving those same people power and influence over just about everything.

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Back in the late 70's I got a job at a local nonprofit through something called a CETA (Comprehensive Education and Training Act) grant. It really opened my eyes to the amount of waste that goes on in these places due to their nature. Every penny accepted must be spent on something, it doesn't matter if it is relevant to the grant or not. Among other things I ended up transcribing the private travel journals of one of the senior staff members. This had nothing to do with what I was supposedly hired for and which I was supposedly being trained to do. Eventually CETA went the way of the dodo but I doubt any of its successors are any better. It's all make-work with no real training.

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It’s quite an eye opening experience to go from the private sector to a non profit/governmental agency. The amount of waste is jaw dropping and hard to wrap your head around.

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Fun thing about living in a DC swamp suburb is seeing Feds and the Fed-adjacent let their hair down on local social media. We're all just numbers in their spreadsheets. It makes them genuinely angry when we make our own decisions and make the line on their graph come out wrong. Hayek's "Fatal Conceit" is their livelihood and identity.

People around here would insist that we must obey the experts at government agencies like DHS, NIH, and FDA. Then I'd cross-check their Linkedin profiles and find... they worked for government agencies like DHS, NIH, and FDA. Even if they didn't work for a public health agency specifically, they clearly understood or intuited the threat to their class interests.

The self-righteousness "public service" fug and their complete lack of self-awareness about this is what makes it hilariously funny.

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Compare this with the snivelling in Ottawa a year ago when some real working people came to town.

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When the Freedom Convoy came here to DC, there were some really entertaining (and revealing) freakouts. The Convoy didn't even do anything significant. I was skeptical it had any value. But the fact that it drove these people nuts made it absolutely worth it.

There's something comforting about the fact that our would-be oppressors aren't hardened thugs marching around in jackboots and Hugo Boss uniforms. They're hysterical ninnies who are literally terrified of the air they breathe.

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They can still do quite a lot of damage, though. Some of my close friends are DOD/pentagon, and they are "all in" on the vaccine and Ukraine thingy. I have a very good BS detector, and they are not pretending.

Because I have lifelong associations with quite a few career government employees, many of them are at very high levels in their various agencies, and even if they give out dribs and drabs of info, I am not too bad at putting two and two together to get a bigger picture.

Mostly what I've seen is a combo of superficial, go-along non-thinkers, and highly-credentialed, intelligent ivory tower people with blinders on. A mix of slaking their thirst from MSNBC/NPR and following orders. On board with the ESG philosophy. And wanting, above all, to fit in. Several who worked their way up to quite high levels are just hanging in there until they can retire, because they know too much of what's going on, it's too late to change careers, and they have qualms about the direction their agencies want them to operate in. Lower and mid-level people by and large do not have enough of the big picture (compartmentalized).

I'm not comforted.

But yeah, there were so many revealing freakouts over the DC Freedom Convoy.

I just wish they would wake up.

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I'm surrounded by them. Family, neighbors, friends.... and they all "believe in what they are doing," and many (if not all) got suckered into taking the shots. They are all lefties and have no idea how racist and bigoted they actually are. Even though they know I'm politically "independent," they do not self-censor when they are with me, so I yeah, I do get to hear what they really think about the rest of the country.

Yes, this is where I was born, where I grew up, where my roots are. It was not always this bad and I used to love living here; it happened gradually. So, yes, they are my family, friends, neighbors. And my life/job is here. So many ties to the area including elderly parents I help care for -- hard to think about moving away.

As you put it, yes, there is something "fun" about living in the swamp and witnessing all this insanity up close and personal. It would be more fun if I knew more people like us, though, to balance it out, and if the insane people were not lifelong family and friends.

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founding

Fatal Conceit *

Nice reference

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The key motivator in any complex system is "funding." He who pays the piper call the tune, and there will always be a very long line of would-be musicians awaiting the chance to audition for the part.

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founding

Sounds like "patrons" from "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss.

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A friend was working on a project for a group that was getting federal funding. He figured out how to do the project with less cost, which was at odds with the goal of getting more federal money. He just walked away and learned this lesson the hard way.

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I'm quite convinced we could slash the federal government's budget by 90% and the average person wouldn't notice a thing.

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A good friend, now retired, owned a local pharmacy. There were always a couple of fed funded organizations that would come in at the end of the year and buy up thousands of dollars worth of syringes and other stuff they had no use for just to make sure they hit their budget limit. This was over forty years ago and I am sure it's much worse now.

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so true! I worked in a small city in the combined safety & risk department. The month before budgets were due was a frenzy of spending in all departments. And you had to buy the most expensive available. If you didn't spend all your budgeted funds, then you couldn't get an increase in your budget the next year. Thrift was penalized, extravagance was rewarded. Recently, our county judge bragged that he had lowered the property tax rate 1/2 of one cent. When I reminded him that the property values had gone way up & he should have lowered the rate much further, he had a word salad response, including that I didn't understand budgets. Right....

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I also heard the opposite, "I don't care, just get it out of my unit or we'll lose funding!"

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founding

So true!

Give figures to a "village" watchman and they'll put down whatever damn well pleases them.

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founding

You don’t believe data—you test data. You're genuinely screwed the moment you decide that data is something to be used to substantiate words like believe or disbelieve.

In other words; if it's not falsifiable it is digital detritus.

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Release the raw data - not just some of it ; all of it

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Let’s always know... knowledge is not the same as wisdom. The word “expert” now means nothing to me.

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A very wise uncle of mine once opined on the origin of the word "expert". Ex means has-been and a spurt is a drip under pressure.

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When someone uses the word "expert" I automatically think it's someone who toes the line of the prevailing theory. People who do their own thinking and arrive at different ideas are labeled "quacks" and "kooks" so the opinion leaders can write off their ideas without actually examining them.

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The new vernacular is "conspiracy theorists".

Truth is they were often ahead of the game.

:-)

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Wasn't there a book entitled: How to Lie with Statistics ?

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Lying liars

Gonna lie,

Trying to hide

Their Genocide

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And what do we do to stop them? You lose your comfort to pull that string

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*A great introduction to the use of statistics, and a great refresher for anyone who's already well versed in it." - BILL GATES

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Gates uses it as a "how to" and not a cautionary tale.

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Yes -- published almost 70 years ago, and still a book that should be read by any adult that wants to understand the world.

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There is the phrase, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

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Yes, Mark Twain and his almost unending quips of wisdom. He also said:

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

And of course, its difficult to know which to hope for.

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I worked at a government agency for ten years and I can tell you that all kinds of black magic and dark arts were employed to get numbers that made people look good, irrespective of actual performance.

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As someone who's followed the climate science debate for 15 years I am not surprised a single iota that the government lackeys are putting their thumbs on the scale. My default position on every claim these days, particularly when the solution is more taxes and less liberty, is "I don't f#cking believe you".

It's served me well over the years and I'm sure it will continue to in the future.

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And the sad part.... they think they’re helping us. I don’t need their help. They don’t have the ability to help or save me. Only One can do that. They keep trying though.

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Virtue signaling will be the death of us all.

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For sure. Because it’s fake and it helps nothing.

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There's also the problem of insentives. As Joel Smalley pointed out, his vaccination recoreds and many of his friends are not accurate. He is listed on the NHS database as being vaccinated as are his freinds, when accually they are not. GPs are being paid to vaccinate so if they 'bump up' their numbers who is to know? Unless someone complains and then they just say it was a clerical error. We need to know how many people this effects but that would need our public health serivice who want to know the truth.

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And this is the corollary. When an action is coerced, there is an incentive to lie about it. Then even independent statistics will be unreliable.

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Fox-conducted review of henhouse safety measures finds no issues, more taxpayer funds needed to assess long-term

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Also, more regulatory oversight to ensure compliance.

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founding

When in doubt "fix" it with "commissions".

Problem solved; it's been "fixed".

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And if comissions fail, use commissars.

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Commissions don't try to "fix" problems anymore, they "address" issues.

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founding

I agree.

But "fixing" it means more power, more appointments, "addressing" the predicament and conclude there's no possibility they could've screwed it up. Wash. Repeat. Tax.

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"We're from the government and we're here to help".

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Feb 25, 2023·edited Feb 25, 2023

"ourselves to whatever we want."

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founding

Exactly.

Or kill the hens and then tax to build more "henhouses".

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Haha, your morning stack routine mirrors mine. Gotta go make the world a more beautiful place, have a good one and see you on JBI 2 later.

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Curious… What is your Stack routine? And what is JBI? just hoping I’m not missing something important

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You are missing out! Look up Sage Hana's stack. Very creative, intelligent, fun crowd, but lots of seriousness too. JBI stands for jabs bad island and JBI 2 is jabs bad island 2. There are several posts explaining the concept. Be aware, your head will be spinning with all the acronyms of already agreed upon concepts. But a friendly and accepting group that will welcome you. Trust me, you'll have fun.

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Before I retired I was a government contractor/subcontractor so I know very very very well about acronyms!

Thanks for the referrals👍

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Lol, tell 'em Don sent you.

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founding

Peace. Me too

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We need to build tribes. In a tribal society killing or maiming a member of a tribe is a problem, in a state society apparently not.

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We already HAVE tribes. They go by various names but they all have one thing in common. Gangs and drug dealers are one kind of tribe, they take care of their own. They also will look after those who are not in the tribe when it is in their best interests to do so. I lived next to a drug dealer in a gang-infested trailer park. Everyone said, aren't you scared? I said, no, I am not. As long as I mind my own business I am safe. Because the one thing that the drug dealers did not want is the cops coming in to the park. So they basically did their own policing. One of them in fact actually told me this in so many words, we will keep you safe if you do not interfere in our business. If not, we will not protect you.

There is another type of tribe and it is basically found in the workplace. Unlike gangs and drug dealers this one can't be spoken about freely. Let's just say there are certain groups who are legally protected people. They can do what they want but if you fall into the category of not legally protected, you'd better watch what you say and do around them. Legally protected people are considered oppressed victims and therefore should get special treatment. Everyone else not in that category is considered a privileged oppressor and should step aside. Some people belong to dual categories, being both oppressor and oppressed at the same time. They really have to walk a tightrope between the two groups because the power dynamics--never really spelled out--are constantly shifting. This second tribe, legally protected people, has the power of the law and the courts on its side. And unlike the drug dealers, there's no neutral ground.

I have been hearing from one of my former coworkers that everyone at my workplace has to attend "diversity training." Now this is in a factory, and factory workers are not known for tolerating nonsense. The company brought in a high-priced lawyer to lead the sessions. Among the things she said was that there was to be no religion in the workplace. You cannot pray out loud anymore; if you want to say grace over your food do it in silence. I did not know that this was such a big problem that it deserved to be singled out but there you have it. One brave soul spoke up and said, "What about certain individuals from another country who chant over their food--do they have to abide by this?" No. They can pray aloud because "it is their culture". That is not fair. "No, it isn't, but this is what you will just have to deal with," the lawyer said, adding that the ACLU or other civil liberties organizations will not help you. This is where we are going with tribalism. I am very glad that I am retired and out of it. And remember--these are the companies that produce the cars you drive, the medicines you take, and anything else you purchase. This is the mindset that is in them. Producing a quality product takes a backseat to appeasing certain groups.

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Very well stated. Thank you for sharing that.

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founding

"culled by consensus"

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The consensus is whatever I say it is. Shut up and eat your crickets.

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founding

Well we agree on one thing with the WEF et al:

The population is too "dense".

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Unfortunately, you're right. Again.

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I think truly what we need to know is progressivism is a religious cult and we can’t fight that politically.... until we turn to God... there’s no chance for us.

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founding

he's not picking up the phone right now

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Oh, I think you’re mistaken about that. Just as thousands and thousands of people are waking up on jabs bad Island, thousands and thousands are waking up to the reality of evil and the presence of God.

They are realizing that spiritual warfare and God are real. How valuable must your soul be for such a magnificent battle to be fought over it?

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founding

I hope so Queen.

God bless you!

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Are we on our knees?

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founding

We need to bend lower

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As you read this, keep in mind that they do this with climate data, ALL vax data and "gun violence" data as well. Smoke and mirrors.

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As is famously attributed to Mark Twain, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." I determined many, many years ago, that most of what I was being told was a lie. Nothing has happened in the last 60 years to change that opinion.

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The US, over the last few years, has become like the old Soviet Union. Nothing our government says can be trusted. Nothing.

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Agreed, except it's been far longer than "the last few years". Greek playwright Aeschylus said, 2500 years ago, "In war, truth is the first casualty". And when, in the last 80 years, has the US not been "at war?"

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And let’s not forget inflation and unemployment data.

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Every experienced manager knows by painful experience that most internal performance data is manipulated/slanted/fabricated/wrong because it comes from those whose performance is being evaluated. As a long time manufacturing turn-around manager I followed the mantra, "Man with one watch only thinks he knows the time. Man with two watches is never sure. Man with three watches can make reasonable guess."

EDIT: As an example, in a paper product manufacturing business much of the financial statement in dollars can be tested against a statement in pounds and against a statement in hours. Hidden disparities become readily apparent.

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The core analysis process you describe in your edit can, (and should), be applied to almost any activity, in almost any environment. And yes, "Hidden disparities become readily apparent".

Which is why this approach is seldom used.

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If you applied that process of analysis to most governement programs/programmes, the result would be very depressing.

As a local example from here, there's no difference between Social Services aiding ailing families with counseling et c, and families/individuals shaping up and bettering themselves withut aid - the frequencey and rate is the same between both groups.

If anything, it looks like the more SS steps in, the harder it gets for people to sort themselves out.

Tangent:

You can observe the same phenomenon with counseling groups: everyone in the group is there because they have a problem -> in groups humans reinforce eachothers behaviours and normalise those as the group's baseline for normal -> so while everyone feel better from going to a group where they get a sense of belonging, psychologically they keep getting worse since the groups reinforces their problem in the first place.

And since there's a vested interest for counselors, therapists and psychologists to ensure a steady supply of customers, all forms of therapy will (completely without any conscious or overt conspiracies or plots) over time "evolve" to make sure the patients stay dependent on counseling (and medication).

No conspiracy needed, just vested interest acting as selection pressure on the makro-level.

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Sadly, I did, in the prehistoric past, have occasion to apply 'that process of analysis' to far too many government programs. With, as you note, very depressing results. Depressing to me that is - not necessarily to the bureaucrats who engaged us to discredit rivals or help divert funding to pet projects.

Your 'tangent' simply illustrates "groupthink". A malady that, with the advent of modern electronic communications, exacerbated in recent decades by the sewer that is social media, seems to have terminally infected most of the world.

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Also.... if you’re in the right... they should be gladly very open and upfront. But they aren’t doing that. Sad

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What would we do without super-sleuth super-cats? Bravo to you and your eagle-eyed compatriots!

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“Vaccines are safe and effective”. If you take that as a core pillar of the belief system that supports the church of public health, it explains everything they do. You don’t need to read the papers or listen to their spokespeople. They will only publish papers that prove that “vaccines are safe and effective. “. Anything else would be heretical.

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I'm not sure that leaving it to private companies to collect the data would be any better, and it might actually be worse. The problem isn't entirely with "government" per se. The problem is that selfish private parties, whether government fund-distributors like Fauci, or external "philanthropists" like Gates, have largely taken over the machinery of government and made it their own private tool.

If a big private corporation collects the data, that data will belong to the corporation and will be even harder to get at than government data, for which we can at least launch a reasonable political and legal demand that it be shared. And if it could be left to individual internet cats to collect, then why do they not already have the data anyway?

What we really want, I believe, is a system like what the Founders strove for: a government so divided against itself that the interests of each center of power would check the selfishness of every other center of power.

Instead of abolishing the alphabet agencies, perhaps we should divide them out by state, constitutionally prohibit them from receiving either private or federal funding, make it a personal felony for any officer thereof to invest in, or later accept employment in, any business their agency regulates, and to strictly divide the Office of Data Collection from the Office of Policy.

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The advantage of private companies isn't that they will always be open, it's that they will be in competition. BIG_CORP collects data that makes their funders look good, and charges for access to the raw data (in reality, to stop people nitpicking it)... but then SUSPICIOUS_CAT_COOPERATIVE can go start collecting the same data (but unbiased this time) and publish it, because it's not the government and therefore not a monopoly.*

(* this of course assumes there AREN'T laws giving monopoly to certain private firms, but in that case we are effectively back at the "government collects data" problem.)

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This sounds good in theory. I think the problem here is that we are talking about data that can only be collected by some privileged party, typically the government. Neither BIG_CORP nor SUSPICIOUS_CAT_COOPERATIVE has any access to the data in the first place, unless they are in the business of providing healthcare. Hospitals could collect it, but they would have to run data sales as a sideline for this to work, and there might be laws against that. The government can command that the hospitals share their data with them, but then government makes up the rules for what is collected. Government may be the problem, but it may also be our only tool for gathering the data at all.

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then there are the people, and i suspect there are a lot of them, who got fake vaccine cards in order to keep their jobs. until that population is included where it belongs- in the unvaccinated category- all bets are off

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