86 Comments

But.. there IS a Them, and They DID do this to us.

I didn't shutter all my clients' businesses and lock myself in my house. I didn't forbid myself from seeing friends and family and lock children out of school and playgrounds. I didn't choose to degrade and torture myself by wearing a face covering all day like a chattel wife under orthodox Islam.

I'm angry, and it has not affected anyone else. But I've had plenty done to me in the past two years that had nothing to do with flame wars on forums (I'm not on any) or hate- reading social media (I'm not on any).

There is a Them, and They are trying to crush me to death like a python, and I hate Them.

This has nothing to do for me with outrage porn.

Expand full comment

Long time reader, first time commenter here. For the past few months, your posts gave me hope that there was a way to get out of this, but everything I thought was possible became impossible on September 1st, when Quebec (the province I reside in), mandated vaccine passports. I thought I'd be able to find a restaurant or two that are not asking for the vpass, but nope! Businesses have no say in the matter - they have to oblige or else they get penalized. I can't even enter the botanical gardens anymore, an outdoor space (!) because it is on the list of places that requires the pass.

In a few weeks time Canada will be mandating the vaccine passport for international travel. That means no plane travel unless you are inoculated x2 and can provide proof. And I am desperately trying to decide where to go before I still can leave this country, but where? I'm in my twenties and I never thought that this would be something I'd have to worry about, but here we are. Anyone in the US hiring?

Expand full comment

I understand your point, but I'm not sure I agree. I don't think we can create the world we want to live in...the world we thought we lived in until 18 months ago...just by changing our social media habits.

I joined Fakebook in 2015 when my children went away to college (they're twins) in different states far from home. Ironically, I wanted to advocate for the Meningitis B vaccine at Johns Hopkins. My purpose was to provide information that I thought most parents needed and didn't have. MenB had sickened, disabled, and even killed college students in the years prior. I, like most parents, had dutifully gotten my children the "Meningitis vaccine" when they were 11 yrs and the booster when they were 16 yrs. I thought they were fully protected but learned they were not during the college search. After many delays, I lost confidence the Bexsero vaccine (which had an EUA at Princeton) would be approved anytime soon, so we drove to Ontario during their first Thanksgiving break to get the vaccine with the help of a mother who lost her daughter to MenB in less than 36 hours from symptom onset. I gave them the booster myself at home a month later.

For the most part, the JHU parents I interacted with were thankful for the information. Some were hostile, which I found confusing and bizarre. (Not telling you what to do, folks, just giving you information I have that I suspect you don't have.) It was, for me, a moral imperative to share the information. I did interact a few times with the medical director of the student health center. I can't say what he thought about notifying parents and students. His hands were tied because some JHU doctors were on the ACIP panel.

Eventually, the ACIP did approve the MenB vaccines (Bexsero and Trumenba); but they do not recommend them...which means most pediatricians won't recommend them and most insurers won't cover them. Some universities now recommend a MenB vaccine. A handful require it to live in university housing. Most schools don't actually require a meningitis vaccine of any kind; they require a student to sign a waiver if he or she is unvaccinated.

After going through this experience wrt the MenB vaccines and colleges/universities, I was astounded by their bizarre and confusing response to the C19 "vaxxines". Invasive meningococcal infection has a 15%-20% mortality rate. Many who recover are permanently disabled (cognitive injuries, amputations, hearing loss). Adolescents and young adults have a high carriage rate and engage in behaviors that increase the risks (smoking, sharing drinks and food, kissing). While the absolute risk is low, the consequences of invasive infection can be terrible.

At the time, MenB accounted for about 33% of all invasive infections in the US. The serogroup for most infections is never identified, so the percentage may have been much higher. MenB is the primary serogroup in many foreign countries that send students to American universities. I do not understand how the CDC ACIP justified a recommendation for the MenACWY vaccines and not the MenB vaccines. It makes no sense. It was heartrending to watch the testimony of parents who'd lost children and those who'd recovered but had amputations and other injuries. They desperately wanted to spare others the pain they were experiencing, and the ACIP was, imo, indifferent.

Now hundreds of US colleges and universities are mandating two experimental gene therapy injections that employ a technology never before approved for use in human beings to allegedly protect students from a virus that does not threaten most of them and that many (most?) have already had. We have no idea what the longterm consequences for their health may be. None. Colleges and universities continue the mandate despite clear knowledge...admitted by the CDC director...that these injections do not prevent infection or transmission of the virus.

The Public Health England (PHE) data increasingly undercuts the CDC claim that these injections protect from serious disease or death. The "fully vaccinated" are less likely to be infected, but they're closing the gap quickly. The ratio of Delta infections in the unvaxxed to fully vaxxed has dropped from 6.7 as of June 21 to 1.9 as of August 29. Infections in the partially/fully vaxxed have now surpassed infections in the unvaxxed. And deaths have been upside down for weeks. According to PHE, the fully vaxxed were less likely to be infected with the Delta variant, less likely to seek care, less likely to be hospitalized...but more of them died.

Delta in England as of 8/29/2021...

Unvaxxed: 219,716 cases/536 deaths/0.2440%

Unvaxxed <50: 212,989 cases/99 deaths/0.0465%

Unvaxxed 50+: 6,724 cases/437 deaths/6.499%

Fully Vaxxed: 113,823 cases/1,091 deaths/0.9585%

Fully Vaxxed <50: 62,403 cases/37 deaths/0.0593%

Fully Vaxxed 50+: 51,420 cases/1,054 deaths/2.450%

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1014926/Technical_Briefing_22_21_09_02.pdf

There has been a coordinated attack against Ivermectin just as there was against Hydroxychloroquine. I don't know if either of these drugs are effective against the virus. Many of the doctors who've successfully treated C19 patients (Marek, Kory, Zelenko, Fareed, McCullough, Smith) say they help. I'd like the option to try them should I need them. Why would anyone listen to Fauci or Jha or Gupta or any of the other professional talking head "doctors" who haven't treated a single C19 patient? Fauci hasn't treated a patient in over 40 years.

Something is wrong in the world. IMO, it cannot be explained by stupidity or arrogance or greed or hubris or cya. It's happening all over the world. How? Why? By whom? For what purpose?

I agree that spinning our wheels with useless anger isn't helping us. The first step is to accept that we are where we are and what is happening in the world is really happening. We will not be able to reach everyone. We will not be able to save everyone. We have no idea what the future holds, but we must hold onto hope and faith.

Don't react. Provide information. Engage in a civil manner. If you can't, walk away. "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet." (Matthew 10:14).

It may help to believe that we are getting what we create with our reactions.

While that may play a role, I don't believe that is the cause of our current reality.

Expand full comment

Your forgot a step. Block ads everywhere. I recommend the Brave browser coupled with uBlock origin extension and it helps a lot. This way you can consume content and not reward them with any ad views. Works on YouTube as well, haven’t seen an ad for ages on the desktop.

Expand full comment

Rolling Stone (Virginia Tech?) starts the circle jerk and look at the caravan if idiots that climb aboard.

A reminder to all the little authoritarians > "Any steps that you think ought to be taken against me, will be mirrored by the same steps taken against you."

https://malice.locals.com/post/1033296/again-rolling-stone-visons-of-virginia-tech-and-then-the-inevitable-circle-jerk-disgusting

Expand full comment

I have a friend at work that used to seriously state “social media will be the downfall of society” years ago. I never argued against that position, but felt it was more nuanced than that. At times, it certainly seems prophetic nowadays.

Where I can, I try to explain to people that things are messy and dirty. In other words, we can’t break things down to binary positions that are black and white; oftentimes things are myriads of gray. This applies to most things around us— history, science, politics, religion, etc. it’s difficult to claim a singular known truth.

Social media provides an instant gratification, through likes, positive affirmations to ones beliefs, and an ego boosting echo chamber that can make one feel confident in ones mindset. But it’s dangerous in that it can insulate one from another side and challenges to how we think. Without these challenges, we don’t advance. Innovation, discovery, etc. are products of swimming upstream against the mainstream.

We are all guilty of this. But it’s important to recognize ones own biases to explore another side, lest we get caught into the same trap we are desperately fighting against.

In the end, it is alway money. And power. Social media and media has these things at stake. Disrupting these would help fracture the stranglehold, I would think.

El gato, I appreciate your dedication to writing these articles. Certainly an inspiration to me to consider the same and a light on days when I need it. Keep up the good work.

Expand full comment

Many inconvenient truths here. Yet I beleive what we let happen is accepting and not destroying and shaming any information that is not backed up by at least 2 notable and reliable sources. This used to be the standard to allow reported stories or data.

Expand full comment

So well written . So true. I cancelled my facebook account in 2019 . I felt so much more relaxed and happy. I never used twitter. I barely use instagram

Glenn Greenwald has had some very insightful things to say about this

Legacy media companies have adopted a business model the modus operandi of which is to excite , enrage and frighten in order to get you to watch advertising

Stephen King sells book promising to scare you.

Marvel comic movies get the dopamine flowing

Mainstream news is selling rage!

Those of us who can put this in perspective have to opt out and watch the rest consume eachother

Expand full comment

Oye, hombre: "ouropurros" is plain brilliant. Cat eating tail. Just brilliant. I happen to know folks at the Stone Rolling. Fabrication for monetization is feature, not bug.

Expand full comment

Liberal use of the block function is essential for a good social media experience. Before I ditched FB for good, I commented and 'reacted' to all the cat pictures. Result: Facebook shows me more cat pictures.

"knowledge of self is power to shape the self. embrace the process and learn to turn it into something more useful. transfer that energy to something else."

This is the core of simulation command. Turn away from the negative and use that energy to embrace the positive.

Expand full comment

Lets bite into our tails!

Expand full comment

Glen greenwald is on substack

https://greenwald.substack.com/

Expand full comment

The Almighty Algorithm has taken control. There's nothing we can do about it. Being a machine, he has no compassion for our current suffering. And the hard thing to accept about Darwinian natural selection is that replicators win, regardless of suffering. Memes that speak to the amygda and bypass the frontal lobes cannot be beaten. Unabomber time?

Expand full comment

the probability that accepting a statement in media is true and it is not true is troubling high.

most statements in media are not true in the context that you are concerned about.

Expand full comment

>>"it turns the internet into a voting machine whereby the audience of a horror move ballots in real time about what monster would be scariest in the next scene and then unfailingly delivers just that focus group tested avatar to menace them."

Ah yes, tulpas. Or almost anyway. A couple of the paranormal podcasts I listen to have talked about how humanity is essentially doing just that via the internet.

Expand full comment