Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 128

[ecosophia]

We are now in the third year of these open posts. As the phrase "died suddenly" repeats in the mass media like a mantra, statistics for work days lost to illness and all-cause mortality mount up in heavily vaccinated nations, and more and more ugly facts about the official response to Covid spill out into public, we are entering what may well turn out to be the most difficult period of the Covid disaster -- the phase in which denial rises in lockstep with the death rate, and a great many people try not to admit what has been done to them by the people and institutions they trusted. It could get ugly, folks.

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before: 

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

In answer to your question, "Does anyone have any ideas as to why biotech seems to turn off so many people's ability to perform critical thinking?"

It is because so many people have fallen under a spell. I mean that literally-- not that the spell-casters would think of themselves as magicians; they are modern marketers, and university and other institutional scientists and bureaucrats who want funding, policymakers who want to achieve certain goals, and so on. What works for them: to make people think of "biotech" as ultra high-status: sophisticated, very modern, altogether very caring & good!

Want to see some bodaciously powerful spells? Just open any glossy magazine. Just watch TV ads.

(So far, I'm only repeating my understanding of what our host, JMG, and Ioane Couliano, have said about cacomagic.)

Take away the ads, it gets more difficult to cast such spells, however, never fear, there are other ways to cast other blandishments, and powerful enticements. To take but one example: The Argyle, one of the most exclusive social clubs in Texas, was organized precisely around raising funds for biotech. See and be seen at the Argyle, baby!(Google and ye shall find it.)

Now, whether you're, let's say, a starry-eyed kid in some random highschool in flyover country, or a long-standing deep-pockets member of the Argyle, or anything in between, after you've invested your time and money, your reputation, and above all, your sense of yourself as a person who occupies a certain rung on the status totem pole-- sophisticated, very modern, altogether very caring & good!-- why would you want to question the connotations of this mesmerizingly yummy wonderfulness known as "biotech"? It would be more than a little painful, I would think.

[(Anonymous)]

biomed, biotech, eye of newt, boil!

[methylethyl]

Eye of newt, dilute dilute, OK!

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of interesting points you raise.

Yes it seems one could enter a 'whirligig' and the exit/entrance points sort of 'heal over' behind you and after whirling round and round how do you get out.

How would it even dawn on you.

[(Anonymous)]

To be able to see things clearly requires (1) being able to recognize own's own biases that impede seeing clearly and (2) being willing and able to set them aside.

It's sort of like losing weight. It requires (1) being willing to recognize what you're doing that's causing you to remain overweight and (2) being willing and able to stop doing that.

Easier said than done.

[(Anonymous)]

Easier Said Than Done. Great old early rock n' roll song. Yeah, seeing and enabling actions at the same time. Not so easy. Too easy to cut corners. Giant corners.

[(Anonymous)]

OP here. The Argyle was established to support biomedical research, not biotech per se. Everything I said in my comment applies to both terms.