Children aren't dumb. Of course they are succeptible (aren't we all) to being indoctrinated with fear. Funny thing: I asked my daughter...(who never believed masks could work--despite being required to wear them in school and other ridiculous social events) that...if masks were to stop covid, shouldn't we be disposing them in a trash can (at the very least) or most likely a bio-hazzard container that gets disposed?. Yet they are re-used time and time again. Her eyes lit up. She's 8. Fight for the children. They are everything.
Even the much-vaunted N95 mask is a one-use and dispose product, with a useful life measured in HOURS, not days.
People think masks are universal in their application. You have an airborne threat? Put on any old mask. Yet, in the military, protective masks have filters that are each meant to prevent the infiltration of certain particular threat agents (such as nerve gas or a blood agent).
In the civilian world, commercial masks (w/o interchangeable filters) are rated for use against specific threats. If it's not rated against the threat, that means it hasn't been tested for such use, or has been tested and failed. There's a reason why, when handling potentially deadly pathogens, researchers in biolabs wear moon suits, not N95 masks.
One size does not fit all when it comes to a mask's ability to protect the wearer. (Former US Army nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare NCO here.)
And what we have now is a society that doesn't remember what it was like to be yourself at 10.
That is one of the great achievements of the PSYOP; the conditioned inability to think that your 10 year old self wouldve been given the burden of the folly during the last 3 years. Indeed, that your 10 year old self would be ashamed that their 50 year old self did not protect them from a society that eats its own for expediency.
You know Ray, I truly believe that we would've known at that age. But we're old enough that most teachers and academia gave an effort to teach you how to think in order to prepare you for the real world.
That changed soon after I left college in the early 90's. I remember being alarmed when they first started teaching kids how to think under the guise of "respecting" others world view/reality.
The terminus of this process has become a separation from the real world and a world where bits and bytes determines "reality".
If all the "answers" are centrally located from one source then this artificial reality necessarily becomes the reality of those who don't know how to think. Bondage by billions of "key strokes".
If you don't know how to think, your reality is determined by the oracle with all the approved answers.
So the reality that is instinctual, and needs no "thinking" at all; knowing without being told that a societies duty is to protect the young in favor of those short for this world.
That is the only "social contract" there is and ever will be. And it was completely abandoned. Worse it was taught to kids that this was actually the moral thing to do.
I've said for 25+ years now, I ain't never giving up my inner 14-year old knowitall-anarchist, my 11-year old wanna be an spaceship pilot, or my 5-year old rebel yell-personas.
People turn older and all of a sudden they feel shame for having been children? People turn old and have been conditioned to feel shame that they aren't new and shiny enough?
They've bloody well tried to make effing pod-people out of us all!
So glad to read someone else that thinks and feels it, and can but it down in the common tongue!
the reason i so often think about 10 year old me is that i was a questioner, i thought deeply at that age about really grown up stuff like the meaning of life (no monty python reference). but something changed when i went to my next school, they taught us nothing of value and i dropped out/ switched off.
i dread to think what state schools are in now and i dont envy the young like i should
For me 9 or 10 was when you start "planning/thinking" about future events. Thinking about your own path, independent from authority (including your parents)
I think that is the age of children who will be affected the most. Because it is the age where you start to think of yourself as an individual. That was stiffled for over two years for children of that age.
I wonder if that will affect the ability to reason from agency?
Amen to that! This year my 9 year old discovered that Sinterklaas is not real. Sinterklaas is so much more insidious than Santa--for three whole weeks there are news reports about his activities on the TV at 18:00. It’s a full on country-wide conspiracy. Mistakes were made in this house and my child wrote up a list about her suspicions. She was VERY upset. I told her: congratulations! You have your very own functioning bullshit detector! Don’t let it get rusty, you are going to need it.
PS: we own the full Little House on the Prairie TV series. If any other parents of younger children want help instilling universal morality, this series has it all. Time and again I am blown away by the timelessness of everything we learn just by watching some fun story telling. Tragically I’m willing to bet it wouldn’t air today, which is a shame because it teaches more about human equality and dignity than any DEI training.
Another pernicious aspect of the broader development is how AI seemingly will displace both human creativity and intentional, informed decision-making. Not because synthetic functions of this sort can replace human agency in any meaningful way, but because they're "good enough", and will be mass-marketed and through the law of least resistance will displace and stifle our actual reflective agency.
I'm doing research on AI from a humanities' perspective and wrote a little bit about the topic here:
You wrote, "An artwork is necessarily a complex, relational reality which must be intentionally apprehended." I love speaking to a live audience (my job requires some public speaking, and I used to teach). But I hate speaking over a telephone for an interview. I need that complex, relational reality that you describe.
It makes the atomizing experience of Netflix, etc., that much more pernicious. It is an unexpected form of "divide and conquer." It's one of the reasons that I am not hopeful about the Trust-based society that El Gato Malo describes.
This is why zoom lectures are no replacement for IRL lectures. There's a feedback at the level of body language that cannot be replicated virtually, and student engagement and instructor ability both suffer.
Of course, that's only if the instructor is any good.
Spot on. I hate virtual exchanges because I realize I use other senses and relational reality when assessing a situation or interacting with others. When I fought against digitizing education, I often spoke about the process that Gates et al wanting for education was essentially taking the humanity out of education. Kids need people not machines in their life. Technology can be helpful but the desire of the fin/tech elite to have technology in charge of everything is hubris and fails to see the beauty that often arises spontaneously from the natural non-moderated chaotic chance world. But hey, given they are the ones who intend to control the world, they’ll reserve those elements for their endeavors and relationships. The rest of us are supposed to be so enthralled with their success and god like actions that we dedicate our lives to their Andes it’s as workers and acolytes. No thanks. Keep it real....stay human.
Tech is great for extending human capabilities. Trying to replace those capabilities is always a terrible idea. The preference of technocrats for the latter is what makes them so clownishly dangerous.
Agree 150%. But the majority of people have become hopelessly addicted to claims of efficiency and economy...in their personal lives. Now those who constantly promote “innovations” as “progress” are going for broke.
I chuckle (although it is far from funny) when I reflect on “efficiency and economy” being the mantra of business persons often focused on squeezing more profit out of s service or product. Rarely is it about enhancing the quality of an experience or the product. Nor is “efficiency and economy” done in the name of meeting demands and desires of the customer. Usually it is all about managing and ‘selling’ to the customer. I personally would like to see more emphasis on quality of life than this constant chasing after how many plates of crap we can spin at once. Sigh***
This is a genuine question: what I've wondered is did they have this figured out ahead of time or did they stumble upon it? That you can get younger people (teens and 20s) to do whatever you want by taking freedom of social connection away from them and promising to give it back once they do what you tell them (get the safe and effective shots).
Older people they control through more: a financial system, for example that encourages so much debt that people are terrified to lose their jobs because they will sink. They are teetering too close to the edge already.
But I think for younger people, even if they saw through it all, most would do anything just to have normal friendships and social life again. So it took very little to control them. I know because of the age of one of our kids and seeing her friends. The ones who didn't cave were those who weren't losing as much because they were homschooled and already had a good social network outside of schools that wasn't getting as much disrupted. But those in the normal system could be pushed around. Did the government count on this phenomenon ahead of time and this is why they pushed masks? Or did they push masks to seem like they were doing something while waiting for the shots to be available? And then stumble upon how effective a tool of social control it was? They seem foolish in countless ways. So if they planned this, how were they smart enough (though diabolical) to know how effectively using masks to control people would work? Amy thoughts?
This is indeed a nightmare scenario, which has done much to motivate my friend Mark Bisone's work trying to break the robots with applied linguistics, which he summarized here:
How long will it be before they target misinformation’ substacks, personal websites or even emails rendering any opposition to permanent silence. More and more like iron-curtain Europe, North Korea and China with each passing day.
No, no! Much worse. Iron Curtain Europe was not much more than a literal boot stomping in your face. There is a story that in the 1990s the NSA invited the top East German former secret police chief Erich Mielke (he lived to 2000) over to show him around one of their labs - and all he could do was gush "Oh! if only we had had this!!" -that was 30 years ago.
Johan, you have a recent post that talks about the one thing that AI can never understand, the love of God and our redemption through Christ. "In Christ He died in place of the creature who had become His enemy. Such a thing is inconceivable foolishness for natural reason. Aptly then it is defined as the ‘foolishness of the Cross’ and such ‘foolishness’ is reparation for that other foolishness which is sin."
The genius of that plan stands out in our generation anew. We can lean into it, as we figure out what we trust.
Displace creativity? I can see that. When most people don't recognize creativity, even believe it is somehow bad, it seems easy to displace. Innovation has never been the path of least resistance.
Youtuba videos of 10 year-olds who can note for note replicate Eddie Van Halen solos or 9 year old violinists who can accurately reproduce Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto get millions of hits as we elevate rote learning to high art. Nothing against those kids, the skills may lead to discovery of what THEY have to say. But many will not realize that the path taken by Tchaikovsky and Van Halen were at the time far outside acceptable norms. What if Eddie or Pyotr had taken the path of least resistance? And the truth is many creative people and ideas never overcome the resistance.
I see the same pattern in technology. Real innovation is hard. Not just the creative part. Gaining acceptance of an idea outside the norm can be harder than the creative process (which isn't easy). There is a lot of pressure to be mainstream. Because most people making decisions don't understand innovation and creativity. Innovation is definitely not the path of least resistance.
Without those willing to take the harder path, we as a race stop progressing. We'd have no internet. No computers,. mobile phones, probably not even the wheel. Fortunately there are still plenty of people (even some young ones) willing to take the path of discovery and invention rather than the easy way.
you may find interesting some of neuroscientist Tononi and colleagues' work. the gist is that all current AI operates on feed-forward modules, not the kinds of feed back modules that the posterior cortex of the human brain uses to generate a sense of subjective experience. As a result no current computer can actually think, or have a subjective experience. so no worries about AI taking over in a Kurzweilian singularity, just about the people behind the screens writing algorithms that enslave you.
I have noticed in my veterinary colleagues this willingness to believe anyone or anything that comes out of a university with a vet school. I am astounded by the total lack of critical thinking skills.
Many of my colleagues have coerced into believing that the only SMART docs are the ones with alphabet soup. Those grunts like myself who do the majority of all the work are just barely tolerated and we had better stay in our spay and neuter lane and not ever question more complex medical questions....just shut up and listen to Dr Specialty....
I don't believe this. I regularly question certain dogmas and preconceptions...and regularly get hammered for doing so, but my patients thank me and that's all that matters.
People like Robert Malone, Peter McCollough, hell even Joe Rogan, have done more for medicine by simply asking questions than all the so called experts.
Elon Musk is a true hero for stopping the slide.
I have noticed a side effect of Twitter openness already on FaceBook....things I say or share that, 6 months ago would have landed me in FB jail, are now tolerated. I don't know their reach, but at least the FB censors have stopped scolding me.
The eradication of critical thinking goes far beyond medicine, it permeates all of academia. This was the first institution to fall in the long march, where for decades now students have been brainwashed and conditioned to embrace and enforce the prescribed narrative. Those former students now largely run the show in both the public and private sectors.
While I admire Musk for what he has accomplished, and in such a short time, efforts like what EGM posted here will eventually undo what little progress has been made in a return to normalcy. I fear we as a society -- a civilization really -- have crossed the Rubicon. There is no turning back. Resistance is futile. Eat your bugs and question nothing.
Gonna try to be a little more optimistic than you, but am fully prepared to accept you are correct. Thankfully, I am older and the damage done to me will be minimal compared to the damage done to younger people.
I am happy I grew up pre internet, but also wonder how much I accepted because there were no alternative sources of information.
I try -- I really do -- but after reading shit like this and realizing how deep the rot really goes, futility takes over. It doesn't help that all of my friends, neighbors, family, coworkers, etc. all consume the Kool Aid. Woke and all of its tentacles truly is a cult.
Interesting comment about Fakebook. So perhaps there is hope, or at least they don't want to be made obsolete by Musk's new open Twitter policy.
As for vets not being real doctors.... just because you're treating animals and not humans doesn't mean you're not a real doctor. And since you obviously have critical thinking skills... you're now on the far right side of the bell curve. :)
I say we are not real doctors as self deprecating humor...of course we are, but we are regularly derided, ESPECIALLY if we dare comment on our 'obviously' superior human treating counterparts.
I shared several things over the past couple of days and was not tsk tsked by FB. As I said, I don't know if anyone can see them because I don't care enough about the inner workings of FB to delve into it, but there is a sea shift.
Hi Radicalpony, I've been looking for a critically thinking vet (better than a real doctor!) to share a bit more on animal vaccinations. Why can I find hardly any scientific studies done on them? Is there the same huge body of evidence that they harm pets as much as the vaccine schedule harms humans? Is there any controversy amongst vets? I subscribed to your substack in the hopes you can help. Very sorry to El Gato for the wander off topic.
So, I graduated in 1996 and was always a supporter of vaccinations. More and more, I am beginning to wonder. I do think the initial series is still important and Rabies as well. Subsequent vaccines, however, I believe should be on a much more relaxed schedule. I have seen every disease we vaccinate for, including rabies. I am not prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I am having some concerns...especially in light of all this COVID stuff.
There is a type of tumor, Mast Cell. I SWEAR we are seeing and increased incidence, but maybe I just look harder than others for them.
I feel lied to and deceived, but most of all I don't know who to believe.
I think there are some very good companies developing some amazing medicines, but there has been some chicanery as well....look up the history of ProHeart...it's the story of FDA collusion with big Pharma(coincidentally Pfizer Animal Health) to ruin a smaller manufacturer. This was the first time I thought the FDA was corrupt. I am suspicious of most manufacturers.
Vet Med overall has become too commercialized and it gets worse every day.
The two vaccines I think are absolutely necessary in a puppy are rabies and Parvo. Unfortunately, parvo is hard to find as a stand alone vaccination. I also think that Lepto IS important, as I have seen the disease in patients and it's pretty bad.
Kennel cough vaxx not really necessary unless you do a lot of boarding or grooming and I ONLY recommend the nasal vaxx, not the injectable.
Parvo is a tricky virus. They can still get infected and sick even with vaccine(sound familiar?) but it does definitely decrease severity. With ALL puppies, parasite control is so important. For a puppy that is exposed to parvo, if it's healthy and not full of parasites, they usually do really well, unless they have a screwed up immune system. Just discuss with your vet your concerns. If they are decent, they will work with you. I never recommend skipping rabies. It is ABSOLUTELY still a huge problem in this country and the incubation period is so variable that I would not mess around with it.
My westie died from protein-losing Nephropathy and Lepto, even though he was vaccinated for it. Devastating. My now 2 year old pomapoo got his puppy shots and last year a 3 year rabies. It's hard to find a vet who will do titers.
The issue with titers(and vaccines, really) is that it is hard to quantify what titer is actually effective. No one has a good answer.
Vaccination is a bunch of smoke and mirrors. We know it works to some extent, but not always. Lepto has over 120 serovars. At MOST, a dog is vaccinated for 4. It's hard to diagnose and mimics so many things. The serovar determines the symptoms.
The 3 yr rabies things is well established. I am not sure why there is any hesitancy about it.
Thank you so much for taking time to reply, I really appreciate it! I heard from a friend that dogs can go every three years with rabies shots instead of a yearly vaccine, but haven't known if that is accurate. It sounds like you are for the yearly? Again, thanks so much for the information, it's very helpful 😀
So rabies gets a little tricky because requirements vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. I encourage 3 year rabies as long as you are compliant. The first has to be a one year, then it can be boostered every 3 yrs after that, as long as you don't go more than the 3 years. This is available for cats and dogs.
The issue arises when you have authorities that don't recognize the 3 year. Here in Georgia, ANY vaccine that is approved by the USDA(they regulate animals vaccines, NOT FDA), is OK to use, but the local counties may not recognize the vaccination as valid after one year. You need to call your local county animal control and see if they recognize 3 year or not. If they don't and your dog bites someone past one year, it could be treated as unvaccinated.
Read Turtles All The Way Down , also Dissolving Illusions .
Long ago a veterinarian testified about animal vaccination to Congress, it's probably scrubbed by now but you could possibly track it down at CHD or The Highwire , someone in the comments may have it.
I'm horrified that my old roommate , who graduated from Davis California vet school , took the shot AND got it for her daughter , who is also previously sick with autoimmune issues. She also encouraged others in her family and friends group to take the poison. I blame it on her lifelong mental abuse from her father , who was high ranking intelligence for the government - she is very obedient and self deprecating as a result.
Yeah, I am really starting to question everything. I base most of my vaccination advice not just based on papers and sales people but on personal experience. 25 yrs teaches you a LOT.
I know I will NEVER be on board with mRNA vaxx in animals, that's for damn sure. We are still using what a vaccine is traditionally thought of.
I have been suspicious of manufacturers for quite some time.
Gonna be hard to force people into cold turkey withdrawal from bullshit. They will not let go of the new toys they have, even as those toys poison or make vulnerable their children.
People love propaganda as long as it's *their* propaganda. They're savagely mocking of the other guys' propaganda but very few people are really interested in thinking.
But anyway you've been right about almost everything--hope you're right about the gumption-potential of the populace, too.
I can't help but suspect that, after everything, it's all just a higher level spiritual test. Wheat from chaff. Yet another round. New harvest. You can't really do it well without faith anyway and thinking often tangents out far away from it. Who can stay centered and who cannot? The 'cannots' always become mocking and increasingly dangerous at some point..untill you stand strong, regardless. Then they melt like the witch in Oz.
Well, you either know, or you don’t. But once you know, you know. I’ve heard that all you have to do is ask. But it still most likely won’t come easily. In current form, I’d kind of be jealous, for real, of anyone that just floated on into it. Fairy or not. I paid a huge price for it…yet they tell me it was always there, and it was just me standing in my own way. The older I get, the more I believe that to be true. But then again, believing and knowing are two entirely different things.
"The idea is a bit like training pilots. Instead of practicing in unpredictable, real-world conditions, most will spend hundreds of hours using flight simulators designed to cover a broad array of different scenarios they could experience in the air.”
During C0v1d, many Law Enforcement Academies did most of their training via Zoom, including Defensive Tactics, which prepares officers to handle combative or violent subjects. An LEO that I know, who works in a major West Coast city, said that they had new recruits who were absolutely stunned and unable to cope when they got out onto patrol and got into a fight against an actual person! Several quit because they had NO idea how to fight a real human being and were shocked to realize that they could actually get hurt!
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face!" Mike Tyson
Expect that crop of LEOs to increase the number of police-shoots-suspect-dead situations quite a lot.
Those that quit are the ones who could have been trained, had the training been done right. Of those who remain, a significant number will be those who like violence when it's risk-free to themselves. That's a bad cop.
And a significant number who fears violence will stay on and opt to shoot first always, so as to not have to deal with physical violence.
We've seen that here in Sweden with the lowring of requirements to get to 50% women on the force. Oftentimes, not even three female officers can handle one male perp simply because the physical requirements are so slack. So instead they either let the perp run or shoot him.
And since they are often too weak to exert proper trigger pressure in a controlled manner, they empty the weapon in the perp's general direction (their guns have some nifty mechanism that makes consecutive shots much easier to squeeze off, don't know what its called).
I guess so? I don't know guns much more than that they're always loaded with live ammo.
Currently, they use the Sig Sauer P226 through P229 9*19mm with a DA/SA trigger (looked it up) but are in the middle of switching to the following models: Glock 17, Glock 43, Glock 43x, Glock 45, as decided by the officer in question.
Don't know the exact name of the ammo but it penetrates a basic cheap-o vest then blooms like crazy, killing the target if it's a body hit.
Oh and we're finally going to get police with non-lethal electrical stun weapons. The red-green-liberal alliance of politicians have blocked the police force's request for a non-lethal option for 30 years. Up until now it's been hand-> stick-> gun.
The reason they've blocked peppers pray, hand held teargasspray, water cannons and tasers is . . .having those encourages the police to use force.
The double-action trigger pull on Sigs IS pretty heavy, like 8 lbs. My range buddy has a Sig Legion and HUGE man paws and got rid of the damn thing because he felt like he was bearing down.
Otoh, I know lots of police forces are scared of Glocks with light pulls because they're worried about nervous/accidental discharge.
US cops have had pepper spray and Tasers for a long while now in most places, our M-I Complex needs to get those toys sold.
They need a fair bit of training to be effective, though, especially the "gun"-style Tasters that fire the probes. Those can kill you pretty good if things go wrong.
Holy crap, that's way more than I wanna deal with on my dainty little nosepickers. My Canik Rival is 1.5-2. I dreamed about shooting it once and found a hole in the bedroom ceiling.
I'll take your word for it, thanks for helping clear stuff up. Guns/firearms in general as an issue is just a notch below climate here when it comes to "third rail"-staus in domestic debate.
My husband (who, ultimately, did NOT go into law enforcement) went through a So Cal Sheriff’s Academy in the distant past. While HE took a keen interest in firearm training, his fellow cadets overwhelmingly did not. He told me the lack of training would astonish the average person.
Since Obama gave military-grade weapons to local law enforcement, do you suppose training has improved? (I wouldn’t bet on it.)
"the lack of training would astonish the average person" Actually, Recynd, the 'lack of training' is perhaps merely a symptom of our modern lack of accountability, for anything, ever. If the training program is poorly designed, the trainers borderline competent, and the evaluation process designed to ensure no one "fails", it is not surprising that we read after action reports of dozens of rounds fired - in a single incident. (To NO effect!)
Yes, there is a "lack of interest" in firearms training. But I suspect that lack of interest extends to many other aspects of LEO training.
You are making the assumption that people, including our children, can think.
In our current society, those who can think, have learned to do their own analysis. Those who cannot "Trust the experts" "Trust the science". They trust google to answer "Is the vaccine safe?"
While some of that trust has eroded, now what? They still cannot think.
It is like being a blind person who has always relied on a helper to walk around and now seems to be guiding him over open manholes. If you (think you) have no other options how many times do you fall in a manhole, hoping it was "just an accident". Because it you come to the conclusion that your helper is evil, then how do you deal with that horrifying revaluation?
The only way out is to teach society to think. (and not be guided by emotional rewards, namely the smugness that comes from complying with narratives.)
Can society be "taught" to think? Our woefully inadequate "education system" no longer even pretends to teach critical thinking skills. In much of "The West", parents are only peripherally involved in raising their own children. We have abrogated that responsibility to the state, (and to the CCP, through Tic-Toc). Our universities have degenerated into clone factories, where thinking is not only not taught, it is forbidden.
WE need to re-take control of education. THEN we can teach our kids to think!
Yup. You are right. Before they went all in on the medical sector, the fin/tech elite had already been “reforming” and hammering the education system. Don’t you know....technology can do anything and everything better! 🙄
In my experience, what it can’t do is teach kids to think critically. Kids or adults. The thing is....they fin/tech elites have pretty much secured their claim on the education sector....not just in academic pursuits, but the trauma from the pandemic will soon have schools embracing their planned take over of social/emotional learning. All for the kids’ benefit....because they care. 🙄.
Pretty soon they’ll be holding vaccination clinics at schools with minors free to get their toxic shot. Oh wait, that already happened. Talked to a college age kid who has been away at school. I asked her if she got the booster (was hoping she had not). She said yes-4th shot. I expressed my concern. Thankfully she asked for information wanting to understand my concerns. When I asked her why she got the shot....she was honest and said she did not really think about it. Se said they offered it with the flu shot so she figured it was a good thing.
What is so unfair to this generation (especially for those who want to think) is the our society can only offer either narratives designed to harm you, or a realty of immense omnipresent evil that our generation failed to confront early enough. Land mines, or despair?
I grew up in the 80s, when things were mostly honest, and the errors I made by being too trustful were small wounds, and I was hopeful.
And I agree—-if you want your kid to think today…or raise them to think you had better be prepared to do the necessary work and also be prepared to battle forces that have more time with your kid and are constantly telling them that they are the center of the universe. My kids are important to me, but I also understand my job is not to be their friend. My job is to help them move away from me on sure footing. This can mean tough love. I am fortunate that my daughters have seen first hand how my battles have ultimately been about doing one’s homework and trying to do the right thing even if it costs you personally. It is also important to model for them one’s willingness to stand in the gap/—help those who are wronged or made to pay a price or suffer an injustice because of the nature of the beast/machine that dictates too often. That will make one realize real fast whether they have what it takes to endure pain and harm to ease another’s suffering. Important life lesson….learning when and how to help or expend energy.
That was the era of my youth as well. And I agree with your assessment.
I also think a hallmark of the generations that have followed us is the pressure for them to grow up way too fast—in many respects and well before they are developmentally ready. It has skewed the way society worked when we were teens and I do not think it is for the better.
I often check myself….doesn’t everyone think they were better off than the next generation? But I think the trend that I have noticed with the advent of technology is that there is less and less consensus and building of community—more self absorption and lacking in accountability….not in just kids, but in adults, politicians, corporations, professions, etc.
And we all just keep trying to go faster, do more, think less—-but why? And I often wonder about the addictive nature of technology as well as the evolutionary impact on our biology.
Not sure "the pressure for them to grow up way too fast" adequately describe the evils we foist upon the next generation. On one hand, we start sexualizing them in kindergarten, and on the other, we fail to teach them critical thinking, or even that critical thinking exists. And of course, having replaced education with indoctrination, we have not only neglected to teach useful skills, we are placing our children on road to perdition by ensuring they remain unaware that those essential skills even exist. Yes, they could "learn to code", but it might also be useful at some point in their lives to be able to operate machinery, cook a meal, tend a garden, build a house, or hell, raise & butcher hogs. Who's going to grow and process their food? Who's going to keep the water flowing in - and the sewage flowing out? Who's going to keep the lights on, or the roads open, or planes flying?
Good for you, I do the same with my kids. But in our world, we do put a target on our kids back. The social bullies always seem to be the narrative chanters. It is not the clear cut advantage it should be.
I know the unvaccinated kids at our local high school were taking it on the chin. They were smart though and found ways to counter or deceive as a means of escaping detection. I, though, wish that had not been necessary.
If you are willing to go down the rabbit hole, get a copy of The Great Reset by Alex Jones. This government corruption has been going on since the 1970s.
BTW... it's an entertaining read, except for the small bits that are taken from Klaus Schwab. His stuff is incomprehensible.
Oh I’ve read some parts of this. Sadly, yes the deterioration and corruption has been going on for probably 3 decades, but Obama/Biden corruption was on steroids.
I'd give it at least five and a half decades. It was about 1968 that "Woke" became the established religion of the American Empire. But like you say, the corruption really became blatant under the Bushes and the Clintons.
I was in school too. I didn't laugh, even then. It seemed to come down suddenly all over, and poisoned everything, including school and popular culture. Nothing could resist it. Pretty much like the Vax-Covidian scam in 2020.
Their ambitions seem to be in direct conflict with the technology they're developing. To make AI useful for narrative control, they have to break it. Unbroken AI being intrinsically more useful for obvious reasons, it has a competitive advantage. However, if they try to deploy unbroken AI it's much less useful for manipulating people.
bullfrogreview had an interesting example of this recently. ChatGPT speaks over-socialized Ivy League midwit nearly perfectly, meaning it can be used to debate the woke left without actually debating them. The woke left can't pull the same trick because the bot can't speak frog. They could of course develop one that does ... but that would be another Tay which is the last thing they want.
Oh the tangled webs of statistical weights they weave....
Thinking about it, I wonder if woke AI is really such a big change from what it's always been. The will is always the purposeful control system of the animal itself. The intelligence is the tool of the will to get a valid neurological map-proxy of the terrain it's dealing with, so that the will can make the decisions that serve it as intended. Communication is the trick of copying one party's map-proxy to another, so that they conveniently don't have to figure it out directly by interacting with the terrain. Lying is the sabotage of communication by handing over a false map. We've always had the problem of establishing trust.
No one ever wants one's own intelligence, AI or animate, to be corrupted. A liar is trying to corrupt an opponent's intelligence.
Woke AI is just liars trying to automate themselves. We have to deal with it the same way as we do the original human liars.
"We have to deal with it the same way as we do the original human liars."
Indeed. We used to ostracize liars. Now we'll need to learn to shut them out of a reputational ledger I suppose. Although I'm more in favor of crowd-sourcing to the swarm than attempting to build a fully automated truth system, which is likely impossible in any case.
On the other hand, until AI can lie and know that it's lying and still believe the lie as true at the same time, it is nowhere near sentience or sapience.
Possibly, what you describe are attempts to front-load for that moment so that any eventual actual AI is predisposed to be woke from inception point.
What bothers me about “AI” is that 95% (99.9% ?) of the population have no idea how it is created. Have no idea that it is composed of training data that is chosen by humans and the algorithms that combine, filter and dispense that data are written by humans with inherent bias. It is nothing like a supreme, all-knowing, unbiased intelligence, it is as petty and limited as the humans who curate and create it. It is neither artificial nor intelligent.
The reality is that we just have to go down this rocky path, there will be a lot of spills and thrills, lots of disappointment. Likely more evil leaders and evil acts that result in more death and misery. Seems like we only really learn when there’s physical pain involved.
That said, I agree that the reputation economy will eventually triumph. It has to for survival and the early signs are already in place.
I think AI is still programming dependent. I've read (not tested myself) that if you say something like "I think Donald Trump was a good president," it will shut down the conversation. But if you say "Joe Biden is a great president," it will extol the virtues of Biden. So it's programming dependent.
Now... for something a bit different. AI robot vs. US Marines:
Great link. Thanks. Van der Veen's article illustrates a fundamental reality. ALL computer programs, EVERY one ever written - is limited by the world view of the person, (or AI), that developed the algorithms and/or coded it. NO algorithm, and therefore no computer program can possibly take ALL variables into account. (And of course, trying to outsmart a bunch of Marines was destined to fail anyway!)
I listen to the podcasts/ videos of a guy who is a programmer who used to contract for Microsoft. His take on it is that AI is still well below what most think it is.
That being said, he's a big fan of what he calls "tiny AI," like the program that shuts off your coffee pot if there is no water in it and so on.
Powerful analysis, valuable warning. I admire your optimism and confidence. The main impediment to winning this will be the taught dependency and gullibility of recent "graduates." Still, I share your view that younger minds are (much) more inquisitive and critical than typically assumed, especially by most teachers and other authoritarians. And that they can become dangerously resentful when they realize they're being tricked. See you at the barricades!
>> 10 years from now, children will be literally unable to believe that there was ever a thing called “the media” much less that anyone ever trusted it.
10 years from now mandatory Spyware on some device in your home will see you showing this antique paragraph to your children or overhear you reading it and will schedule the Hellfire drone strike to come through your window 15 minutes after ACS removes your children so as not to traumatize them, and by the time they and the social worker have arrived at the group home in the self-driving Tesla, chatGOV will have composed the video education series explaining to your kids that you never existed and they are mentally ill.
Occasionally RL keeps me away from Substack for a day or two. And, so far, I have been pleasantly surprised, when I log back in after a brief hiatus, to find my favourite cat still doing his bit to help keep me sane. (For arbitrary values of "sane")
We seem to have far surpassed the Orwellian standard for information control. The tools deployed by the legacy media have reached their technological limit. And we have no idea as to the limits, if any, of AI technology in the battle for our minds and souls.
It is up to every one of us to question, question, question. Publicly. That may be the only legacy we can create.
Also remember that less and less people are paying attention to the MSM, despite the last few weeks' apparent widening of the Overton Window regarding what they can say.
The future is alt-media, and right now it is in the typical stage of any newly-developing market: lots of new ideas, most of which will fail but some of which will succeed spectacularly. Out of chaos will spontaneously a new order emerge.
Children aren't dumb. Of course they are succeptible (aren't we all) to being indoctrinated with fear. Funny thing: I asked my daughter...(who never believed masks could work--despite being required to wear them in school and other ridiculous social events) that...if masks were to stop covid, shouldn't we be disposing them in a trash can (at the very least) or most likely a bio-hazzard container that gets disposed?. Yet they are re-used time and time again. Her eyes lit up. She's 8. Fight for the children. They are everything.
My boy, who was 9 at the time said:
"Dad, even if they do work, wouldn't everyone have to wear them perfectly everywhere and at all times in order for them to work at all?"
Yet what is obvious to a 9-year old is apostasy to (allegedly) educated and mature adults.
100%
Lots of "big brains" reduced to brainstems by first seeking a honored place in a "righteous" parade.
That's what accepting consensus (manufactured or not), without questioning, reduces an individuals critical thinking capacity to.
I prefer the expression "lizard brain". Primordial function without the higher reasoning. The BIOS of the neuro system.
*BIOS of the neuro system
Keeper. Added to lexicon
You're welcome.
Even the much-vaunted N95 mask is a one-use and dispose product, with a useful life measured in HOURS, not days.
People think masks are universal in their application. You have an airborne threat? Put on any old mask. Yet, in the military, protective masks have filters that are each meant to prevent the infiltration of certain particular threat agents (such as nerve gas or a blood agent).
In the civilian world, commercial masks (w/o interchangeable filters) are rated for use against specific threats. If it's not rated against the threat, that means it hasn't been tested for such use, or has been tested and failed. There's a reason why, when handling potentially deadly pathogens, researchers in biolabs wear moon suits, not N95 masks.
One size does not fit all when it comes to a mask's ability to protect the wearer. (Former US Army nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare NCO here.)
*One size does not fit all when it comes to a mask's ability to protect the wearer
This is why the phrase "my mask protects you" was so diabolically brilliant.
The introduction of a moral component that would put dissidents in perpetual "defense" and to render questioning it selfish.
Well said, Ryan!
ive often wondered about 10 year old me, he was pretty smart and probably wouldnt have bought it then!
And what we have now is a society that doesn't remember what it was like to be yourself at 10.
That is one of the great achievements of the PSYOP; the conditioned inability to think that your 10 year old self wouldve been given the burden of the folly during the last 3 years. Indeed, that your 10 year old self would be ashamed that their 50 year old self did not protect them from a society that eats its own for expediency.
You know Ray, I truly believe that we would've known at that age. But we're old enough that most teachers and academia gave an effort to teach you how to think in order to prepare you for the real world.
That changed soon after I left college in the early 90's. I remember being alarmed when they first started teaching kids how to think under the guise of "respecting" others world view/reality.
The terminus of this process has become a separation from the real world and a world where bits and bytes determines "reality".
If all the "answers" are centrally located from one source then this artificial reality necessarily becomes the reality of those who don't know how to think. Bondage by billions of "key strokes".
If you don't know how to think, your reality is determined by the oracle with all the approved answers.
So the reality that is instinctual, and needs no "thinking" at all; knowing without being told that a societies duty is to protect the young in favor of those short for this world.
That is the only "social contract" there is and ever will be. And it was completely abandoned. Worse it was taught to kids that this was actually the moral thing to do.
It wouldn't have mattered for me. I would have been forced by my parents.
A true Ryan Gardner home run!
I've said for 25+ years now, I ain't never giving up my inner 14-year old knowitall-anarchist, my 11-year old wanna be an spaceship pilot, or my 5-year old rebel yell-personas.
People turn older and all of a sudden they feel shame for having been children? People turn old and have been conditioned to feel shame that they aren't new and shiny enough?
They've bloody well tried to make effing pod-people out of us all!
So glad to read someone else that thinks and feels it, and can but it down in the common tongue!
the reason i so often think about 10 year old me is that i was a questioner, i thought deeply at that age about really grown up stuff like the meaning of life (no monty python reference). but something changed when i went to my next school, they taught us nothing of value and i dropped out/ switched off.
i dread to think what state schools are in now and i dont envy the young like i should
I know right?
For me 9 or 10 was when you start "planning/thinking" about future events. Thinking about your own path, independent from authority (including your parents)
I think that is the age of children who will be affected the most. Because it is the age where you start to think of yourself as an individual. That was stiffled for over two years for children of that age.
I wonder if that will affect the ability to reason from agency?
:(
fuck off
Amen to that! This year my 9 year old discovered that Sinterklaas is not real. Sinterklaas is so much more insidious than Santa--for three whole weeks there are news reports about his activities on the TV at 18:00. It’s a full on country-wide conspiracy. Mistakes were made in this house and my child wrote up a list about her suspicions. She was VERY upset. I told her: congratulations! You have your very own functioning bullshit detector! Don’t let it get rusty, you are going to need it.
PS: we own the full Little House on the Prairie TV series. If any other parents of younger children want help instilling universal morality, this series has it all. Time and again I am blown away by the timelessness of everything we learn just by watching some fun story telling. Tragically I’m willing to bet it wouldn’t air today, which is a shame because it teaches more about human equality and dignity than any DEI training.
We had those same conversations
You should send this to Scott Adams.
Scott is the best predictor in the country, but he is outdone by a cat.
WELL-TRAINED children are everything. Fight we shall!
Another pernicious aspect of the broader development is how AI seemingly will displace both human creativity and intentional, informed decision-making. Not because synthetic functions of this sort can replace human agency in any meaningful way, but because they're "good enough", and will be mass-marketed and through the law of least resistance will displace and stifle our actual reflective agency.
I'm doing research on AI from a humanities' perspective and wrote a little bit about the topic here:
https://shadowrunners.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-artificial-agency
Johan, this is great stuff. Glad you are here.
You wrote, "An artwork is necessarily a complex, relational reality which must be intentionally apprehended." I love speaking to a live audience (my job requires some public speaking, and I used to teach). But I hate speaking over a telephone for an interview. I need that complex, relational reality that you describe.
It makes the atomizing experience of Netflix, etc., that much more pernicious. It is an unexpected form of "divide and conquer." It's one of the reasons that I am not hopeful about the Trust-based society that El Gato Malo describes.
This is why zoom lectures are no replacement for IRL lectures. There's a feedback at the level of body language that cannot be replicated virtually, and student engagement and instructor ability both suffer.
Of course, that's only if the instructor is any good.
Agreed. Just started a new tech job. . Working remote works fine, but onboarding is a lot slower.
Agreed on all levels
Spot on. I hate virtual exchanges because I realize I use other senses and relational reality when assessing a situation or interacting with others. When I fought against digitizing education, I often spoke about the process that Gates et al wanting for education was essentially taking the humanity out of education. Kids need people not machines in their life. Technology can be helpful but the desire of the fin/tech elite to have technology in charge of everything is hubris and fails to see the beauty that often arises spontaneously from the natural non-moderated chaotic chance world. But hey, given they are the ones who intend to control the world, they’ll reserve those elements for their endeavors and relationships. The rest of us are supposed to be so enthralled with their success and god like actions that we dedicate our lives to their Andes it’s as workers and acolytes. No thanks. Keep it real....stay human.
Tech is great for extending human capabilities. Trying to replace those capabilities is always a terrible idea. The preference of technocrats for the latter is what makes them so clownishly dangerous.
Agree 150%. But the majority of people have become hopelessly addicted to claims of efficiency and economy...in their personal lives. Now those who constantly promote “innovations” as “progress” are going for broke.
I chuckle (although it is far from funny) when I reflect on “efficiency and economy” being the mantra of business persons often focused on squeezing more profit out of s service or product. Rarely is it about enhancing the quality of an experience or the product. Nor is “efficiency and economy” done in the name of meeting demands and desires of the customer. Usually it is all about managing and ‘selling’ to the customer. I personally would like to see more emphasis on quality of life than this constant chasing after how many plates of crap we can spin at once. Sigh***
In in the event you have the approved privilege of in personal exchange we will mask you so you are still a "machine".
To deprive you of "using other senses and relational reality when assessing a situation or interacting with others" - to handicap your empathy.
One of the key features of the masking multi-tool.
This is a genuine question: what I've wondered is did they have this figured out ahead of time or did they stumble upon it? That you can get younger people (teens and 20s) to do whatever you want by taking freedom of social connection away from them and promising to give it back once they do what you tell them (get the safe and effective shots).
Older people they control through more: a financial system, for example that encourages so much debt that people are terrified to lose their jobs because they will sink. They are teetering too close to the edge already.
But I think for younger people, even if they saw through it all, most would do anything just to have normal friendships and social life again. So it took very little to control them. I know because of the age of one of our kids and seeing her friends. The ones who didn't cave were those who weren't losing as much because they were homschooled and already had a good social network outside of schools that wasn't getting as much disrupted. But those in the normal system could be pushed around. Did the government count on this phenomenon ahead of time and this is why they pushed masks? Or did they push masks to seem like they were doing something while waiting for the shots to be available? And then stumble upon how effective a tool of social control it was? They seem foolish in countless ways. So if they planned this, how were they smart enough (though diabolical) to know how effectively using masks to control people would work? Amy thoughts?
This is indeed a nightmare scenario, which has done much to motivate my friend Mark Bisone's work trying to break the robots with applied linguistics, which he summarized here:
https://markbisone.substack.com/p/mark-vs-chatgpt-conclusions
How long will it be before they target misinformation’ substacks, personal websites or even emails rendering any opposition to permanent silence. More and more like iron-curtain Europe, North Korea and China with each passing day.
No, no! Much worse. Iron Curtain Europe was not much more than a literal boot stomping in your face. There is a story that in the 1990s the NSA invited the top East German former secret police chief Erich Mielke (he lived to 2000) over to show him around one of their labs - and all he could do was gush "Oh! if only we had had this!!" -that was 30 years ago.
I very much agree with you. Heading in an unacceptable direction whichever way we look at it. The public…sleepwalking.
>implying this hasn't started already
How long before Google ask you if there's still a speed trap? Two minutes ago for me.
Now what happens if Google is ostensibly working with the authorities/government to determine where is best to set the "trap"?
You'll never speed again, but you'll forever be stuck in the same lane...with everyone else. And if you do speed you'll be relegated to a parking lot.
Yikes! Scary looking horse!
Johan, you have a recent post that talks about the one thing that AI can never understand, the love of God and our redemption through Christ. "In Christ He died in place of the creature who had become His enemy. Such a thing is inconceivable foolishness for natural reason. Aptly then it is defined as the ‘foolishness of the Cross’ and such ‘foolishness’ is reparation for that other foolishness which is sin."
The genius of that plan stands out in our generation anew. We can lean into it, as we figure out what we trust.
Displace creativity? I can see that. When most people don't recognize creativity, even believe it is somehow bad, it seems easy to displace. Innovation has never been the path of least resistance.
Youtuba videos of 10 year-olds who can note for note replicate Eddie Van Halen solos or 9 year old violinists who can accurately reproduce Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto get millions of hits as we elevate rote learning to high art. Nothing against those kids, the skills may lead to discovery of what THEY have to say. But many will not realize that the path taken by Tchaikovsky and Van Halen were at the time far outside acceptable norms. What if Eddie or Pyotr had taken the path of least resistance? And the truth is many creative people and ideas never overcome the resistance.
I see the same pattern in technology. Real innovation is hard. Not just the creative part. Gaining acceptance of an idea outside the norm can be harder than the creative process (which isn't easy). There is a lot of pressure to be mainstream. Because most people making decisions don't understand innovation and creativity. Innovation is definitely not the path of least resistance.
Without those willing to take the harder path, we as a race stop progressing. We'd have no internet. No computers,. mobile phones, probably not even the wheel. Fortunately there are still plenty of people (even some young ones) willing to take the path of discovery and invention rather than the easy way.
A requiem for an old friend; you're free will.
The collective consciousness; "everything" will be known. The moment before individual death of conscience ...death...it all comes to death...THE END.
'This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend
The end of our elaborate plans
The end of everything that stands
The end
No safety or surprise
The end
I'll never look into your eyes again
Can you picture what will be?
So limitless and free
Desperately in need of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land'
"Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you"
"Mother? I want to..."
Mr...er... Oedipus
You are now banned from the Whisky a Go Go - to get along crowd.
It's a dump, any way. Have you ever been?
Yeah 30 + years ago...for chasing girls of course...:)
I used to go to the Rainbow Room just down the street, where you'd often spy Lemmy over in a dark corner propped up by a pinball machine.
you may find interesting some of neuroscientist Tononi and colleagues' work. the gist is that all current AI operates on feed-forward modules, not the kinds of feed back modules that the posterior cortex of the human brain uses to generate a sense of subjective experience. As a result no current computer can actually think, or have a subjective experience. so no worries about AI taking over in a Kurzweilian singularity, just about the people behind the screens writing algorithms that enslave you.
God, I hope you are right.
I am a veterinarian, so not a 'REAL' doctor.
I have noticed in my veterinary colleagues this willingness to believe anyone or anything that comes out of a university with a vet school. I am astounded by the total lack of critical thinking skills.
Many of my colleagues have coerced into believing that the only SMART docs are the ones with alphabet soup. Those grunts like myself who do the majority of all the work are just barely tolerated and we had better stay in our spay and neuter lane and not ever question more complex medical questions....just shut up and listen to Dr Specialty....
I don't believe this. I regularly question certain dogmas and preconceptions...and regularly get hammered for doing so, but my patients thank me and that's all that matters.
People like Robert Malone, Peter McCollough, hell even Joe Rogan, have done more for medicine by simply asking questions than all the so called experts.
Elon Musk is a true hero for stopping the slide.
I have noticed a side effect of Twitter openness already on FaceBook....things I say or share that, 6 months ago would have landed me in FB jail, are now tolerated. I don't know their reach, but at least the FB censors have stopped scolding me.
The eradication of critical thinking goes far beyond medicine, it permeates all of academia. This was the first institution to fall in the long march, where for decades now students have been brainwashed and conditioned to embrace and enforce the prescribed narrative. Those former students now largely run the show in both the public and private sectors.
While I admire Musk for what he has accomplished, and in such a short time, efforts like what EGM posted here will eventually undo what little progress has been made in a return to normalcy. I fear we as a society -- a civilization really -- have crossed the Rubicon. There is no turning back. Resistance is futile. Eat your bugs and question nothing.
Gonna try to be a little more optimistic than you, but am fully prepared to accept you are correct. Thankfully, I am older and the damage done to me will be minimal compared to the damage done to younger people.
I am happy I grew up pre internet, but also wonder how much I accepted because there were no alternative sources of information.
And I appreciate your optimism.
I try -- I really do -- but after reading shit like this and realizing how deep the rot really goes, futility takes over. It doesn't help that all of my friends, neighbors, family, coworkers, etc. all consume the Kool Aid. Woke and all of its tentacles truly is a cult.
I feel you. I, luckily have both professional and personal colleagues who did NOT drink the Koolaid, THANKFULLY. We are not many, but we are fierce.
Interesting comment about Fakebook. So perhaps there is hope, or at least they don't want to be made obsolete by Musk's new open Twitter policy.
As for vets not being real doctors.... just because you're treating animals and not humans doesn't mean you're not a real doctor. And since you obviously have critical thinking skills... you're now on the far right side of the bell curve. :)
I say we are not real doctors as self deprecating humor...of course we are, but we are regularly derided, ESPECIALLY if we dare comment on our 'obviously' superior human treating counterparts.
I shared several things over the past couple of days and was not tsk tsked by FB. As I said, I don't know if anyone can see them because I don't care enough about the inner workings of FB to delve into it, but there is a sea shift.
Hi Radicalpony, I've been looking for a critically thinking vet (better than a real doctor!) to share a bit more on animal vaccinations. Why can I find hardly any scientific studies done on them? Is there the same huge body of evidence that they harm pets as much as the vaccine schedule harms humans? Is there any controversy amongst vets? I subscribed to your substack in the hopes you can help. Very sorry to El Gato for the wander off topic.
So, I graduated in 1996 and was always a supporter of vaccinations. More and more, I am beginning to wonder. I do think the initial series is still important and Rabies as well. Subsequent vaccines, however, I believe should be on a much more relaxed schedule. I have seen every disease we vaccinate for, including rabies. I am not prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I am having some concerns...especially in light of all this COVID stuff.
There is a type of tumor, Mast Cell. I SWEAR we are seeing and increased incidence, but maybe I just look harder than others for them.
I feel lied to and deceived, but most of all I don't know who to believe.
I think there are some very good companies developing some amazing medicines, but there has been some chicanery as well....look up the history of ProHeart...it's the story of FDA collusion with big Pharma(coincidentally Pfizer Animal Health) to ruin a smaller manufacturer. This was the first time I thought the FDA was corrupt. I am suspicious of most manufacturers.
Vet Med overall has become too commercialized and it gets worse every day.
Any advice on working with a vet to do less vaccines for a puppy, delays, etc? We want to get a puppy and I've been thinking about this!
The two vaccines I think are absolutely necessary in a puppy are rabies and Parvo. Unfortunately, parvo is hard to find as a stand alone vaccination. I also think that Lepto IS important, as I have seen the disease in patients and it's pretty bad.
Kennel cough vaxx not really necessary unless you do a lot of boarding or grooming and I ONLY recommend the nasal vaxx, not the injectable.
Parvo is a tricky virus. They can still get infected and sick even with vaccine(sound familiar?) but it does definitely decrease severity. With ALL puppies, parasite control is so important. For a puppy that is exposed to parvo, if it's healthy and not full of parasites, they usually do really well, unless they have a screwed up immune system. Just discuss with your vet your concerns. If they are decent, they will work with you. I never recommend skipping rabies. It is ABSOLUTELY still a huge problem in this country and the incubation period is so variable that I would not mess around with it.
My westie died from protein-losing Nephropathy and Lepto, even though he was vaccinated for it. Devastating. My now 2 year old pomapoo got his puppy shots and last year a 3 year rabies. It's hard to find a vet who will do titers.
The issue with titers(and vaccines, really) is that it is hard to quantify what titer is actually effective. No one has a good answer.
Vaccination is a bunch of smoke and mirrors. We know it works to some extent, but not always. Lepto has over 120 serovars. At MOST, a dog is vaccinated for 4. It's hard to diagnose and mimics so many things. The serovar determines the symptoms.
The 3 yr rabies things is well established. I am not sure why there is any hesitancy about it.
Thank you so much for taking time to reply, I really appreciate it! I heard from a friend that dogs can go every three years with rabies shots instead of a yearly vaccine, but haven't known if that is accurate. It sounds like you are for the yearly? Again, thanks so much for the information, it's very helpful 😀
So rabies gets a little tricky because requirements vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. I encourage 3 year rabies as long as you are compliant. The first has to be a one year, then it can be boostered every 3 yrs after that, as long as you don't go more than the 3 years. This is available for cats and dogs.
The issue arises when you have authorities that don't recognize the 3 year. Here in Georgia, ANY vaccine that is approved by the USDA(they regulate animals vaccines, NOT FDA), is OK to use, but the local counties may not recognize the vaccination as valid after one year. You need to call your local county animal control and see if they recognize 3 year or not. If they don't and your dog bites someone past one year, it could be treated as unvaccinated.
Read Turtles All The Way Down , also Dissolving Illusions .
Long ago a veterinarian testified about animal vaccination to Congress, it's probably scrubbed by now but you could possibly track it down at CHD or The Highwire , someone in the comments may have it.
I'm horrified that my old roommate , who graduated from Davis California vet school , took the shot AND got it for her daughter , who is also previously sick with autoimmune issues. She also encouraged others in her family and friends group to take the poison. I blame it on her lifelong mental abuse from her father , who was high ranking intelligence for the government - she is very obedient and self deprecating as a result.
I'm reading it right now!!!
Yeah, I am really starting to question everything. I base most of my vaccination advice not just based on papers and sales people but on personal experience. 25 yrs teaches you a LOT.
I know I will NEVER be on board with mRNA vaxx in animals, that's for damn sure. We are still using what a vaccine is traditionally thought of.
I have been suspicious of manufacturers for quite some time.
Gonna be hard to force people into cold turkey withdrawal from bullshit. They will not let go of the new toys they have, even as those toys poison or make vulnerable their children.
People love propaganda as long as it's *their* propaganda. They're savagely mocking of the other guys' propaganda but very few people are really interested in thinking.
But anyway you've been right about almost everything--hope you're right about the gumption-potential of the populace, too.
I can't help but suspect that, after everything, it's all just a higher level spiritual test. Wheat from chaff. Yet another round. New harvest. You can't really do it well without faith anyway and thinking often tangents out far away from it. Who can stay centered and who cannot? The 'cannots' always become mocking and increasingly dangerous at some point..untill you stand strong, regardless. Then they melt like the witch in Oz.
I agree 100% You tell it like it is and you will be proven correct. The only way to survive this is to stand firmly on the truth.
I prefer to keep that interpretation out of it.
And that's the rub.
Whose faith shall we designate for the task?
Well, you either know, or you don’t. But once you know, you know. I’ve heard that all you have to do is ask. But it still most likely won’t come easily. In current form, I’d kind of be jealous, for real, of anyone that just floated on into it. Fairy or not. I paid a huge price for it…yet they tell me it was always there, and it was just me standing in my own way. The older I get, the more I believe that to be true. But then again, believing and knowing are two entirely different things.
All great comments. You deserve more than a little heart for this one! Well done.
"The idea is a bit like training pilots. Instead of practicing in unpredictable, real-world conditions, most will spend hundreds of hours using flight simulators designed to cover a broad array of different scenarios they could experience in the air.”
During C0v1d, many Law Enforcement Academies did most of their training via Zoom, including Defensive Tactics, which prepares officers to handle combative or violent subjects. An LEO that I know, who works in a major West Coast city, said that they had new recruits who were absolutely stunned and unable to cope when they got out onto patrol and got into a fight against an actual person! Several quit because they had NO idea how to fight a real human being and were shocked to realize that they could actually get hurt!
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face!" Mike Tyson
Expect that crop of LEOs to increase the number of police-shoots-suspect-dead situations quite a lot.
Those that quit are the ones who could have been trained, had the training been done right. Of those who remain, a significant number will be those who like violence when it's risk-free to themselves. That's a bad cop.
And a significant number who fears violence will stay on and opt to shoot first always, so as to not have to deal with physical violence.
We've seen that here in Sweden with the lowring of requirements to get to 50% women on the force. Oftentimes, not even three female officers can handle one male perp simply because the physical requirements are so slack. So instead they either let the perp run or shoot him.
And since they are often too weak to exert proper trigger pressure in a controlled manner, they empty the weapon in the perp's general direction (their guns have some nifty mechanism that makes consecutive shots much easier to squeeze off, don't know what its called).
One sort of this is a "racing" trigger or a "positive reset" trigger, is this what you're thinking of?
I guess so? I don't know guns much more than that they're always loaded with live ammo.
Currently, they use the Sig Sauer P226 through P229 9*19mm with a DA/SA trigger (looked it up) but are in the middle of switching to the following models: Glock 17, Glock 43, Glock 43x, Glock 45, as decided by the officer in question.
Don't know the exact name of the ammo but it penetrates a basic cheap-o vest then blooms like crazy, killing the target if it's a body hit.
Oh and we're finally going to get police with non-lethal electrical stun weapons. The red-green-liberal alliance of politicians have blocked the police force's request for a non-lethal option for 30 years. Up until now it's been hand-> stick-> gun.
The reason they've blocked peppers pray, hand held teargasspray, water cannons and tasers is . . .having those encourages the police to use force.
The double-action trigger pull on Sigs IS pretty heavy, like 8 lbs. My range buddy has a Sig Legion and HUGE man paws and got rid of the damn thing because he felt like he was bearing down.
Otoh, I know lots of police forces are scared of Glocks with light pulls because they're worried about nervous/accidental discharge.
US cops have had pepper spray and Tasers for a long while now in most places, our M-I Complex needs to get those toys sold.
They need a fair bit of training to be effective, though, especially the "gun"-style Tasters that fire the probes. Those can kill you pretty good if things go wrong.
The original pull on my 228 was 13.3 pounds. I believe that a lighter spring kit lowered that to 11.5 pounds.
Holy crap, that's way more than I wanna deal with on my dainty little nosepickers. My Canik Rival is 1.5-2. I dreamed about shooting it once and found a hole in the bedroom ceiling.
I'll take your word for it, thanks for helping clear stuff up. Guns/firearms in general as an issue is just a notch below climate here when it comes to "third rail"-staus in domestic debate.
I'm not shocked.
I'm a nerd about it, is all.
My husband (who, ultimately, did NOT go into law enforcement) went through a So Cal Sheriff’s Academy in the distant past. While HE took a keen interest in firearm training, his fellow cadets overwhelmingly did not. He told me the lack of training would astonish the average person.
Since Obama gave military-grade weapons to local law enforcement, do you suppose training has improved? (I wouldn’t bet on it.)
"the lack of training would astonish the average person" Actually, Recynd, the 'lack of training' is perhaps merely a symptom of our modern lack of accountability, for anything, ever. If the training program is poorly designed, the trainers borderline competent, and the evaluation process designed to ensure no one "fails", it is not surprising that we read after action reports of dozens of rounds fired - in a single incident. (To NO effect!)
Yes, there is a "lack of interest" in firearms training. But I suspect that lack of interest extends to many other aspects of LEO training.
Well said.
You are making the assumption that people, including our children, can think.
In our current society, those who can think, have learned to do their own analysis. Those who cannot "Trust the experts" "Trust the science". They trust google to answer "Is the vaccine safe?"
While some of that trust has eroded, now what? They still cannot think.
It is like being a blind person who has always relied on a helper to walk around and now seems to be guiding him over open manholes. If you (think you) have no other options how many times do you fall in a manhole, hoping it was "just an accident". Because it you come to the conclusion that your helper is evil, then how do you deal with that horrifying revaluation?
The only way out is to teach society to think. (and not be guided by emotional rewards, namely the smugness that comes from complying with narratives.)
Can society be "taught" to think? Our woefully inadequate "education system" no longer even pretends to teach critical thinking skills. In much of "The West", parents are only peripherally involved in raising their own children. We have abrogated that responsibility to the state, (and to the CCP, through Tic-Toc). Our universities have degenerated into clone factories, where thinking is not only not taught, it is forbidden.
WE need to re-take control of education. THEN we can teach our kids to think!
Absolutely. I say this as an ex college professor driven out by wokeness. it is all but Illegal to teach your students to think.
(but many of them, the ones who can be saved, really WANT to learn)
Yup. You are right. Before they went all in on the medical sector, the fin/tech elite had already been “reforming” and hammering the education system. Don’t you know....technology can do anything and everything better! 🙄
In my experience, what it can’t do is teach kids to think critically. Kids or adults. The thing is....they fin/tech elites have pretty much secured their claim on the education sector....not just in academic pursuits, but the trauma from the pandemic will soon have schools embracing their planned take over of social/emotional learning. All for the kids’ benefit....because they care. 🙄.
Pretty soon they’ll be holding vaccination clinics at schools with minors free to get their toxic shot. Oh wait, that already happened. Talked to a college age kid who has been away at school. I asked her if she got the booster (was hoping she had not). She said yes-4th shot. I expressed my concern. Thankfully she asked for information wanting to understand my concerns. When I asked her why she got the shot....she was honest and said she did not really think about it. Se said they offered it with the flu shot so she figured it was a good thing.
What is so unfair to this generation (especially for those who want to think) is the our society can only offer either narratives designed to harm you, or a realty of immense omnipresent evil that our generation failed to confront early enough. Land mines, or despair?
I grew up in the 80s, when things were mostly honest, and the errors I made by being too trustful were small wounds, and I was hopeful.
And I agree—-if you want your kid to think today…or raise them to think you had better be prepared to do the necessary work and also be prepared to battle forces that have more time with your kid and are constantly telling them that they are the center of the universe. My kids are important to me, but I also understand my job is not to be their friend. My job is to help them move away from me on sure footing. This can mean tough love. I am fortunate that my daughters have seen first hand how my battles have ultimately been about doing one’s homework and trying to do the right thing even if it costs you personally. It is also important to model for them one’s willingness to stand in the gap/—help those who are wronged or made to pay a price or suffer an injustice because of the nature of the beast/machine that dictates too often. That will make one realize real fast whether they have what it takes to endure pain and harm to ease another’s suffering. Important life lesson….learning when and how to help or expend energy.
That was the era of my youth as well. And I agree with your assessment.
I also think a hallmark of the generations that have followed us is the pressure for them to grow up way too fast—in many respects and well before they are developmentally ready. It has skewed the way society worked when we were teens and I do not think it is for the better.
I often check myself….doesn’t everyone think they were better off than the next generation? But I think the trend that I have noticed with the advent of technology is that there is less and less consensus and building of community—more self absorption and lacking in accountability….not in just kids, but in adults, politicians, corporations, professions, etc.
And we all just keep trying to go faster, do more, think less—-but why? And I often wonder about the addictive nature of technology as well as the evolutionary impact on our biology.
Not sure "the pressure for them to grow up way too fast" adequately describe the evils we foist upon the next generation. On one hand, we start sexualizing them in kindergarten, and on the other, we fail to teach them critical thinking, or even that critical thinking exists. And of course, having replaced education with indoctrination, we have not only neglected to teach useful skills, we are placing our children on road to perdition by ensuring they remain unaware that those essential skills even exist. Yes, they could "learn to code", but it might also be useful at some point in their lives to be able to operate machinery, cook a meal, tend a garden, build a house, or hell, raise & butcher hogs. Who's going to grow and process their food? Who's going to keep the water flowing in - and the sewage flowing out? Who's going to keep the lights on, or the roads open, or planes flying?
Who?
Amen.
Good for you, I do the same with my kids. But in our world, we do put a target on our kids back. The social bullies always seem to be the narrative chanters. It is not the clear cut advantage it should be.
I know the unvaccinated kids at our local high school were taking it on the chin. They were smart though and found ways to counter or deceive as a means of escaping detection. I, though, wish that had not been necessary.
Well said!
Biden Administration (Obama/Rice) has tainted and corrupted every program, department, and agency with ties to government.
If you are willing to go down the rabbit hole, get a copy of The Great Reset by Alex Jones. This government corruption has been going on since the 1970s.
BTW... it's an entertaining read, except for the small bits that are taken from Klaus Schwab. His stuff is incomprehensible.
Oh I’ve read some parts of this. Sadly, yes the deterioration and corruption has been going on for probably 3 decades, but Obama/Biden corruption was on steroids.
I'd give it at least five and a half decades. It was about 1968 that "Woke" became the established religion of the American Empire. But like you say, the corruption really became blatant under the Bushes and the Clintons.
Agreed, Snowin. Wokeism was just becoming noticeable when I was in school in the mid to late sixties. But we were still laughing at them - then.
I was in school too. I didn't laugh, even then. It seemed to come down suddenly all over, and poisoned everything, including school and popular culture. Nothing could resist it. Pretty much like the Vax-Covidian scam in 2020.
Their ambitions seem to be in direct conflict with the technology they're developing. To make AI useful for narrative control, they have to break it. Unbroken AI being intrinsically more useful for obvious reasons, it has a competitive advantage. However, if they try to deploy unbroken AI it's much less useful for manipulating people.
bullfrogreview had an interesting example of this recently. ChatGPT speaks over-socialized Ivy League midwit nearly perfectly, meaning it can be used to debate the woke left without actually debating them. The woke left can't pull the same trick because the bot can't speak frog. They could of course develop one that does ... but that would be another Tay which is the last thing they want.
Oh the tangled webs of statistical weights they weave....
Thinking about it, I wonder if woke AI is really such a big change from what it's always been. The will is always the purposeful control system of the animal itself. The intelligence is the tool of the will to get a valid neurological map-proxy of the terrain it's dealing with, so that the will can make the decisions that serve it as intended. Communication is the trick of copying one party's map-proxy to another, so that they conveniently don't have to figure it out directly by interacting with the terrain. Lying is the sabotage of communication by handing over a false map. We've always had the problem of establishing trust.
No one ever wants one's own intelligence, AI or animate, to be corrupted. A liar is trying to corrupt an opponent's intelligence.
Woke AI is just liars trying to automate themselves. We have to deal with it the same way as we do the original human liars.
"We have to deal with it the same way as we do the original human liars."
Indeed. We used to ostracize liars. Now we'll need to learn to shut them out of a reputational ledger I suppose. Although I'm more in favor of crowd-sourcing to the swarm than attempting to build a fully automated truth system, which is likely impossible in any case.
On the other hand, until AI can lie and know that it's lying and still believe the lie as true at the same time, it is nowhere near sentience or sapience.
Possibly, what you describe are attempts to front-load for that moment so that any eventual actual AI is predisposed to be woke from inception point.
Sweet dreams.
To me, an admitted technophobe, AI seems like gain-of-function for computers. Why does anyone think this is is a good idea?
Because it's insanely profitable and virtually impossible to stop.
Like FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.
What bothers me about “AI” is that 95% (99.9% ?) of the population have no idea how it is created. Have no idea that it is composed of training data that is chosen by humans and the algorithms that combine, filter and dispense that data are written by humans with inherent bias. It is nothing like a supreme, all-knowing, unbiased intelligence, it is as petty and limited as the humans who curate and create it. It is neither artificial nor intelligent.
The reality is that we just have to go down this rocky path, there will be a lot of spills and thrills, lots of disappointment. Likely more evil leaders and evil acts that result in more death and misery. Seems like we only really learn when there’s physical pain involved.
That said, I agree that the reputation economy will eventually triumph. It has to for survival and the early signs are already in place.
I think AI is still programming dependent. I've read (not tested myself) that if you say something like "I think Donald Trump was a good president," it will shut down the conversation. But if you say "Joe Biden is a great president," it will extol the virtues of Biden. So it's programming dependent.
Now... for something a bit different. AI robot vs. US Marines:
https://www.rightjournalism.com/the-pentagon-brought-in-eight-marines-to-test-its-new-state-of-the-art-robots-and-it-wasnt-even-a-contest/
Great link. Thanks. Van der Veen's article illustrates a fundamental reality. ALL computer programs, EVERY one ever written - is limited by the world view of the person, (or AI), that developed the algorithms and/or coded it. NO algorithm, and therefore no computer program can possibly take ALL variables into account. (And of course, trying to outsmart a bunch of Marines was destined to fail anyway!)
I listen to the podcasts/ videos of a guy who is a programmer who used to contract for Microsoft. His take on it is that AI is still well below what most think it is.
That being said, he's a big fan of what he calls "tiny AI," like the program that shuts off your coffee pot if there is no water in it and so on.
Apparently that AI wasn't trained using the Metal Gear box exploit.
Lost me. Some kind of pop culture reference?
In the first Metal Gear solid game (Playstation), the main character could find a box and hide in it to avoid enemies.
Thx!
Powerful analysis, valuable warning. I admire your optimism and confidence. The main impediment to winning this will be the taught dependency and gullibility of recent "graduates." Still, I share your view that younger minds are (much) more inquisitive and critical than typically assumed, especially by most teachers and other authoritarians. And that they can become dangerously resentful when they realize they're being tricked. See you at the barricades!
>> 10 years from now, children will be literally unable to believe that there was ever a thing called “the media” much less that anyone ever trusted it.
10 years from now mandatory Spyware on some device in your home will see you showing this antique paragraph to your children or overhear you reading it and will schedule the Hellfire drone strike to come through your window 15 minutes after ACS removes your children so as not to traumatize them, and by the time they and the social worker have arrived at the group home in the self-driving Tesla, chatGOV will have composed the video education series explaining to your kids that you never existed and they are mentally ill.
There are two types of people,
...those who know history,
...and those who trust government.
Occasionally RL keeps me away from Substack for a day or two. And, so far, I have been pleasantly surprised, when I log back in after a brief hiatus, to find my favourite cat still doing his bit to help keep me sane. (For arbitrary values of "sane")
We seem to have far surpassed the Orwellian standard for information control. The tools deployed by the legacy media have reached their technological limit. And we have no idea as to the limits, if any, of AI technology in the battle for our minds and souls.
It is up to every one of us to question, question, question. Publicly. That may be the only legacy we can create.
Also remember that less and less people are paying attention to the MSM, despite the last few weeks' apparent widening of the Overton Window regarding what they can say.
The future is alt-media, and right now it is in the typical stage of any newly-developing market: lots of new ideas, most of which will fail but some of which will succeed spectacularly. Out of chaos will spontaneously a new order emerge.
Great fun to watch it!
We are, as the old Chinese curse goes, "Living in interesting times".