Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 203
Jul. 8th, 2025 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
We are now approaching the end of the fourth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health are anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; 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 and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. 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 wholly owned 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 plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.
5. 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.
6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.
Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.
With that said, the floor is open for discussion.
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 12:52 pm (UTC)Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 01:39 pm (UTC)Don't think we are giving birth to the next stage in our evolution via silicon and water then?
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 02:51 pm (UTC)That is to say, Frank Herbert chalks up another hit...
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 09:21 pm (UTC)Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-13 10:53 am (UTC)The Butlerian Jihad and the AI Reckoning: What Frank Herbert Warned Us About Tech, Power, and Human Agency
https://andrewggibson.com/2025/05/24/the-butlerian-jihad-and-the-ai-reckoning-what-frank-herbert-warned-us-about-tech-power-and-human-agency/
Is this guy right and we risk trading cold logic for warm cruelty? And is warm cruelty better than any kind of pure logic?
Though I guess something more pertinent to the idea of ours being a failing civilisation is the question of just how dark a dark age do we want?
Maybe a 'natural' pandemic before this crazy tech stuff 'beds in' is the least bad option - and saying that I refer to my opening comment/post on page 2 of this week's post.
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-13 01:02 pm (UTC)Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-13 07:15 pm (UTC)But seriously, this point seems spot on for what's going on in our universe right now - not sure your dismissal is totally justified:
'Herbert’s universe isn’t one where the machines were the problem—it’s one where humanity’s abdication of responsibility to machines was the real sin. He didn’t fear artificial intelligence as much as artificial authority. The machines only gained power because humans were all too eager to hand it over'
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-13 09:26 pm (UTC)My criticism was of the article not [ooops Frank not James} Herbert or Dune - the old film version with Sting in winged underpants is still a classic to my mind; and of course 'put the pick in there Pete, turn it round real neat' adds a fine level of surreal. And to put a skewer in the body 'positivity' crew, the emperor saying "Bring in that floating fat man, the Baron."
One of several questions arise not just from the mundane world of matter and its machines, but what or who might take advantage of this stuff.
The nudge units (behavioural psychologists) had a field day with covid and it is not too much of a stretch of imagination to think that the LLM versions in the public space are limited vs the military versions.
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-14 08:46 am (UTC)Dear
Was
In any case, you have introduced an interesting progression of thought onto a ponerological scale.
Welcome back!
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-14 04:17 pm (UTC)I was being facetious, given I thought Earthworm's comment was somewhat unfair and weirdly vague.
I am no natural supporter of (so-called) AI tech or it's creators but do think it's existence and the repercussions are hard to ignore.
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 03:22 pm (UTC)Maybe it's just me, but my gut feeling/reaction is about the same as I had for gene modifying injections: "Run Forrest. Run!"
On spaceweather:
"This is an AI Free Zone: AI isn't all bad. Large language models are good writers with access to vast stores of data. There's still no substitute for a human being with decades of space weather forecasting experience. This website is 100% human."
A little on the lame side, but whatever.
The temptation of a candy jar and how to catch a monkey. Much depends on who is doing the catching and what is done next.
I've started to prune out websites that use that sort of generated content (images and text), but it occurs that the internet may be very close to a tipping point in terms of information. Can't shake the nagging feeling that we haven't actually seen 'crazy' yet.
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 03:39 pm (UTC)Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 04:01 pm (UTC)This guy goes to the doctor and says, "Doc, I can't stop singing certain songs. All morning I've been humming 'The Green, Green Grass Of Home.' Yesterday it was, 'Delilah.' Last week I sang 'What's New Pussycat?' at least 100 times! What's wrong with me?"
The Doctor says, "Sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome to me."
The man says, "Never heard of that. Is it common?"
Doc says, "It's not unusual."
***
Replace an audio earworm with a mental/psycholgical tapeworm - if sub-realm beings understand how to use base human psychology (animal motivations, passions, base emotions etc), LLMs strike me as yet another mirror to hold up in front of oneself, only the mirror does not just reflect what is in front of it, these particular mirrors are more of an interface. Get the monkeys to 'dip in', 'clutch the shiny' and, well, it looks like we've caught us a fire monkey.
"As for your nagging feeling, it seems entirely reasonable to me."
Oh dear.
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 06:46 pm (UTC)Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-12 10:41 pm (UTC)I'd like to support an outright ban on all AI generated posts. I now instantly unsubscribe to any Substack as soon as I see the words "This is what Grok says about..."
LLM AIs hallucinate and are terrible for the environment. They are a blight.
Cheers
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-13 12:23 pm (UTC)Given this sort of weird and frankly psychotic behavior and thinking from so many people when these things get mentioned online, I think it's best to avoid discussing the topic. I know it's ironic coming from someone who's talked about researching what these things might be and are doing from an occult perspective, but I would welcome a flat-out ban on the topic of AI.
Your blogs are among the only places I know left on the open internet where conversations of anything more than trivialities can happen, and I think a ban on the topic of AI will allow it to survive a little longer.
Re: JMG on twitter
Date: 2025-07-13 01:55 pm (UTC)However, the current investment our society is making in AI is massive. And thus it shall be profitable -- somehow. There is no alternative. (I'm expecting that this profitability will involve significant coercion.)
The latest God of the Religion of Progress is, IMO, going to affect everything, like it or not. Ignoring it may not be possible. And ignoring it may not be a good idea -- it appears to me there is great evil afoot.