COVID Humbug! (2022 edition)

[yyy]

@finley

@yyy

I still say you’re giving certain people too much credit.

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”

“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent”

One thing I’ve noticed lately is that magical thinking is way more pervasive than I used to think it is. We all engage in it to some extent without realizing it.

@finley

They appear to have achieved all their objectives and are on track to introducing their digital ID. They have all dissent under control.

Your definition of “under control” seems quite generous.

@finley

The world economy is on the brink of collapse

Yeah yeah, it’s been just about to collapse, any day now, for as long as the interwebs have been a thing. I’m still waiting!

@finley

and they seem to be on track for introducing the WEF replacement (“you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy”).

Which track is that? The one where covid passports would be permanent? Oops, they just fell off that one.

@finley

They’re shutting down the fossil fuels, thus preparing people for a winter of discontent followed by a “climate change” agenda.

Your definition of “shutting down” also seems generous.

@finley

Sure there are some bumbling idiots in the mix somewhere. I think Boris J is one of them

He certainly knows how to play the fool. What was that you were saying about the art of war?

@finley

“Health and Safety” started out as a good thing and turned into a monster; it’s now little more than a means of providing jobs for bureaucrats, and almost certainly causes more harm than it prevents.

I disagree with that assessment. There’s a lot involved in OHS. Take away covidism, and you’ll still have everything that was there before, which is a lot more than paper pushing.

@finley

IMO the main reason Africa is now the target is fairly simple: the European front has entered a new phase, and it’s a sensible moment to retrench and open a second front against Africa, while they’re getting ready to go live with “health passports” in the West. The point here is that Africa (just behind India) was the least affected by COVID. Healthy people who don’t need vaccines are a threat to the system; there has to be a big push to bring them to heel.

Anyone who doesn’t fit a narrative is automatically a threat to that narrative, yes, but no matter how grand the schemes are that some people cook up, or try to, most people are still motivated by simple things like money.

As has been discussed in the open recently, in western countries basically no-one who hasn’t already been jabbed is going to get jabbed. The marketing campaign has run its course, the several years worth of extra doses have been bought and paid for, and the customer base is only going to shrink. There is still some unrealized potential and there are still methods of squeezing blood from stones, but it’s going to be much more challenging than the incredible boom of 2021, especially with all the lawsuits.

Yet the African market is virtually untapped. The storm of anger brewing in the west has managed to brew largely because of the free flow of information and the expectation that people can obtain enforcement of their human rights. I think you would agree it works a bit differently in Africa. So once again they’re the West’s dumping ground. When the US considers a brand of voting machine unfit for purpose, it sends the crap to Africa as humanitarian aid. When clothes can’t be profitably recycled, same thing. Now this, but the technology rather than the product (i.e. the stuff will be made in Africa), in the hope that Africans will see it as an opportunity to lift themselves up and be self-sufficient and modern.

There’s no need to take over the world in the way the conspiracy theories have been talking about it. The zillionaires still win, as long as their immunity clauses hold up and the peasants with pitchforks don’t get past their security.

[Wombat]

@yyy

Which track is that? The one where covid passports would be permanent? Oops, they just fell off that one.

Don’t count your chickens…

[finley]

Yeah yeah, it’s been just about to collapse, any day now, for as long as the interwebs have been a thing. I’m still waiting!

Humans are finding it increasingly difficult to find workarounds for their screwups. It’s sort of like Moore’s Law - ingenuity makes it look like the desired trend is continuing even when it isn’t really, until at a certain point you hit a brick wall imposed by physics.

The reason people have been warning about it “any day now” is that it’s going to happen any day now. You don’t seriously expect them to predict the exact day and hour at which everything falls to pieces? Have a look at issues like circulating money relative to global GDP, return-on-investment for oil (which affects literally everything else), phosphate fertilizer reserves, soil loss, habitat loss, extinctions of small animals … it’s all converging on an unpleasant-looking point. If you think that it isn’t, feel free to explain why.

Which track is that? The one where covid passports would be permanent? Oops, they just fell off that one.

Did they? What makes you think that? I can still go almost nowhere without a vaccine passport - the UK is a bit of an outlier in that regard. The US, the EU, and the WHO are putting together the interoperability and the legal framework for digital health passes. I hope I’m wrong, but my guess is that they’ll just switch it on one day and tell everyone to line up for enrolment and a barcode tattoo.

Your definition of “shutting down” also seems generous.

If you lived anywhere other than Taiwan right now, you’d be feeling it. It’s a bit odd how Taiwan is shielded from such things.

There’s a lot involved in OHS. Take away covidism, and you’ll still have everything that was there before, which is a lot more than paper pushing.

Yes, I know. I have to deal with the fringes of these things as a matter of routine, and as you implied, much of it is perfectly sensible - but in my field at least, the sensible bits are those that have been around since 1970, in one form or another. The rest of it is not sensible: a project I was involved with years ago (HACCP monitoring in hospitals) is counterproductive, dangerous, and just a waste of everyone’s time and money. Food-industry “safety” in particular is an illusion, with procedures based mostly on superstition and ritual rather than science.

Yet the African market is virtually untapped. The storm of anger brewing in the west has managed to brew largely because of the free flow of information and the expectation that people can obtain enforcement of their human rights. I think you would agree it works a bit differently in Africa. So once again they’re the West’s dumping ground.

Agreed. I do think this is what they’re doing, and it is about money. However I think there’s more to it than that. One big issue is that they didn’t successfully eliminate the control group - all those unvaxed people who are (for example) persistently failing to keel over with heart problems. Africans were also irritatingly unaffected by COVID, and that was an unforgivable sin. The coercion and social disintegration that goes along with vaccine disbursement is going to hit them too. And imagine what “anti-vaxer” rhetoric is going to lead to in countries that are already prone to violent flashpoints.

There’s no need to take over the world in the way the conspiracy theories have been talking about it. The zillionaires still win, as long as their immunity clauses hold up and the peasants with pitchforks don’t get past their security.

There’s no need to, but it looks like they’re going to do it simply because they can. A lot of governments have been looking enviously at China’s level of control over their populace. I suspect some of them see the adoption of their methods as the key to retaining the upper hand in the international sphere.

[cake]

Fair play to him:

Disclose.tv

[cake]

Meanwhile, in Austria. This will actually upset some people. Only suspended:

Austria suspends law forcing all adults to have Covid jabs

[yyy]

@Wombat

Don’t count your chickens…

Don’t count your eggs either.

[Wombat]

Indeed

[yyy]

@finley

You don’t seriously expect them to predict the exact day and hour at which everything falls to pieces?

Bad predictions don’t need to be specific to the hour. Even the year is usually bad enough.

I laughed at Gordon Chang in the 00’s, and he was just talking about one country. Isn’t the WEF-as-ultimate-conspiracy conspiracy theory also doing that but on a global scale, by giving 2030 as the deadline? (Yes I know it was the WEF that said 2030, but not as a deadline for collapse.) There are of course much more pessimistic versions floating around giving deadlines for specific steps down to the month, and iirc we were supposed to be under martial law all over the western world by now. Is it so difficult to picture a room of psychologists etc. debating how to adjust those deadlines every so often in order to create maximum panic and pessimism among specific target audiences? People don’t even need formal qualifications. They just need to be good at saying ridiculous things and getting some people to go along with them. If they also capture a few intelligent minds, so much the better for them.

@finley

Have a look at issues like circulating money relative to global GDP, return-on-investment for oil (which affects literally everything else), phosphate fertilizer reserves, soil loss, habitat loss, extinctions of small animals … it’s all converging on an unpleasant-looking point. If you think that it isn’t, feel free to explain why.

You don’t need to explain to me that the planet is getting more and more crappified all the time. I know it is. I just don’t equate increasing crappification with imminent collapse of ~everything. Humans are very capable of adaptation.

@finley

@yyy

Which track is that? The one where covid passports would be permanent? Oops, they just fell off that one.

Did they? What makes you think that? I can still go almost nowhere without a vaccine passport - the UK is a bit of an outlier in that regard. The US, the EU, and the WHO are putting together the interoperability and the legal framework for digital health passes. I hope I’m wrong, but my guess is that they’ll just switch it on one day and tell everyone to line up for enrolment and a barcode tattoo.

I don’t understand what you’re saying about travel. You can’t enter Canada and a few other backward places, but in Europe even France is dropping the jab as an entry requirement. (And they’re talking openly about dropping the travel mandate in Canada.)

The argument you put forth was that the passport agenda was “on track”. My point was that it’s not. It was, but it’s been derailed. Could it be re-railed? Sure, all kinds of things are possible. The glass can be half this or half that, but right now the liquid is below the 50% line and continuing to fall.

@finley

Your definition of “shutting down” also seems generous.

If you lived anywhere other than Taiwan right now, you’d be feeling it. It’s a bit odd how Taiwan is shielded from such things.

You do know I spend most of my time in space, right?

I’m aware of fuel price increases for your “gas guzzler” Earth tech vehicles, but that’s not a shutdown.

@finley

The rest of it is not sensible: a project I was involved with years ago (HACCP monitoring in hospitals) is counterproductive, dangerous, and just a waste of everyone’s time and money.

Well now I need to ask: what part of HACCP is dangerous?

@finley

There’s no need to, but it looks like they’re going to do it simply because they can. A lot of governments have been looking enviously at China’s level of control over their populace. I suspect some of them see the adoption of their methods as the key to retaining the upper hand in the international sphere.

You know the theory that western style democracy is unfeasible in China for cultural reasons? One can disagree all one wants, but the fact remains that they didn’t pull that theory out of the air. If one posited the inverse, that would not be pulled out of the air either. Just sayin’.

[finley]

@yyy

You don’t need to explain to me that the planet is getting more and more crappified all the time. I know it is. I just don’t equate increasing crappification with imminent collapse of ~everything. Humans are very capable of adaptation.

That’s the guy-falling-off-a-building “everything looks fine so far” argument.

The reason those predictions of imminent failure haven’t come to pass is that, yes, humans are pretty adaptable. Some ingenious solutions have been found for various problems (most of which involve pretending those problems don’t exist). But eventually physics - or some other hard constraint - intervenes. You might wave your hands and say “well, at least it’s a net positive” if you have to burn one barrel of oil to pump two barrels out of the ground, but once you get to 1:1 you’re wasting your time; that’s effectively the end of oil.

I don’t understand what you’re saying about travel.

I think you need to go and actually look at the travel rules. There are a handful of countries that allow the unvaccinated in, pretty much as they would have done in 2019. I can’t go to Europe; in France, for example, I would have to have a “compelling reason” to be granted an exemption from the blanket ban on the untermensch, and I have no such reason. Most countries I am completely excluded from; no workarounds. In some countries I can technically get in as long as I pay a lot of money for “quarantine” or some similar nonsense. Even in the UK, as a citizen travelling to a supposedly “open” country, I have to pay for two tests that nobody even looks at; they literally don’t care what the results are, it’s effectively just a fine for my noncompliance with the prevailing religion.

You might say “well, immigration policies are not a matter of human rights; countries can do as they please”. Which is hard to argue with. But one has to ask: why is it all different now? And why are there two classes of passenger, treated in a radically different manner? Shouldn’t there be some sort of logic to immigration rules? There are no COVID-related justifications here that hold water.

It was, but it’s been derailed.

If it’s been derailed, why can’t I travel anywhere without a vaccine passport?

It hasn’t gone away; on the contrary, it’s been successfully integrated into ordinary life. People shrug and say “so you need a vaccine passport; it’s always been that way”.

Sure, it’s a bit ad-hoc at the moment, but they’ll fix that soon enough. Software development takes time, especially when you have to create international standards for it.

I’m aware of fuel price increases for your “gas guzzler” Earth tech vehicles, but that’s not a shutdown.

TPTB aren’t going to do anything that affects them personally, are they? Of course they’re not going to create a famine; apart from buggering up the champagne harvest, that sort of thing tends to get the peasants out on the streets with pitchforks. The aim here - as with COVID, I suspect - is to cause enough fear and pain to trigger the compliance response.

Everything in your life depends on oil or gas. Literally everything. You only need to fiddle with the spigot a little bit to create some very large disruptions. Now add in things like currency debasement and resource shortages, and you’re courting disaster.

Well now I need to ask: what part of HACCP is dangerous?

As it was implemented at the time, it involved repeatedly sticking temperature probes into people’s food. This had to be done because, in order to “simplify” the business of feeding patients, hospitals had come up with an immensely complicated system of pre-prepared “inputs” that are brought together to make meals over an extended period of time. That method was inherently unsafe. Having a spotty teenager walk around with a grungy temperature probe just made things worse, not better. I bailed on that project because it struck me as so completely stupid I wouldn’t have been able to work on it without going postal on someone.

A far more obvious and robust solution would have been the one that was used in the 1950s: you prepare some ingredients, you cook the food, and you give it ASAP to the patients.

You know the theory that western style democracy is unfeasible in China for cultural reasons? One can disagree all one wants, but the fact remains that they didn’t pull that theory out of the air. If one posited the inverse, that would not be pulled out of the air either. Just sayin’.

I posted a year or two ago a thread on the destruction of Western culture. Frankly, I think I’ve been proved more right than I wanted to be. Culture can be turned on a dime. People can be told to believe all sorts of stuff they would have laughed at six months previously. They can be told to do things (like submit their children to abuse by other adults) that we associate with long-defunct societies or the darkest days of history. The problem is that this only works one way: you can make things worse with almost no effort at all. Making them better is hard.

[finley]

Only vaguely related to COVID, but accurately sums up the situation in the UK right now (for those who care about such things):

SIR KEIR STARMER BREAKS SILENCE ON UKRAINE.

[finley]

The decision to suspend the law will be reviewed in three months, said Johannes Rauch, who took over as health minister this week as the third since the start of the pandemic.

Hmmm.

I was watching that one pretty closely because they were the canary in the coalmine. If they’d gone ahead with it, all hell would have broken loose. Thing is, though, the law is still there and they’re going to “review” it. They’ve got to keep that sword of Damocles dangling, just to make sure the public don’t get any funny ideas.

And the same assholes who pushed the law through in the first place are still in power, unaccountable for the crimes they’ve committed.

[yyy]

@finley

@yyy

You don’t need to explain to me that the planet is getting more and more crappified all the time. I know it is. I just don’t equate increasing crappification with imminent collapse of ~everything. Humans are very capable of adaptation.

That’s the guy-falling-off-a-building “everything looks fine so far” argument.

I disagree. The guy is inside the building and having bad experiences with the elevators, a bit moreso than usual. It doesn’t look fine, but it never did. The guy is far more concerned about all the time to be wasted while stuck in an elevator between floors than about the possibility of all elevators suddenly snapping their cables and plunging down to the Netherworld.

@finley

that’s effectively the end of oil.

The physical end of oil would be the physical end of oil. In practical terms, you were talking about a “shutdown” currently underway. On the basis of what, a rise in prices? I repeat, that’s not a shutdown.

The actual physical end of oil is something people have been planning for for decades, and the closer it gets, the more serious the planning will get.

@finley

I don’t understand what you’re saying about travel.

I think you need to go and actually look at the travel rules.

Exactly.

https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/covid-19-international-travel

• For unvaccinated travellers, the obligation to present a negative test to travel to France remains, but the measures on arrival (test, isolation) are lifted when they come from countries on the “green” list, characterized by a moderate circulation of the virus.
• When unvaccinated travelers come from a country on the “orange” list, they must continue to present a compelling reason justifying the need for them to come to mainland France and may still be subject to a random test on arrival. Travelers who test positive will have to isolate themselves, in accordance with the recommendations of the Health Insurance.

Your beloved Elbonia is currently on the green list. Dépêche-toi, camarade!

I could give other examples, but why bother? It’s the new trend, and humans love to be trendy. Which countries have not dropped or seriously relaxed entry restrictions recently?

@finley

I’m aware of fuel price increases for your “gas guzzler” Earth tech vehicles, but that’s not a shutdown.

TPTB aren’t going to do anything that affects them personally, are they? Of course they’re not going to create a famine; apart from buggering up the champagne harvest, that sort of thing tends to get the peasants out on the streets with pitchforks. The aim here - as with COVID, I suspect - is to cause enough fear and pain to trigger the compliance response.

What happened to your faith in the free market, Comrade? Every time the price of oil goes up or down, it’s controlled by the Welfluminati?

@finley

Well now I need to ask: what part of HACCP is dangerous?

As it was implemented at the time, it involved repeatedly sticking temperature probes into people’s food. This had to be done because, in order to “simplify” the business of feeding patients, hospitals had come up with an immensely complicated system of pre-prepared “inputs” that are brought together to make meals over an extended period of time. That method was inherently unsafe. Having a spotty teenager walk around with a grungy temperature probe just made things worse, not better. I bailed on that project because it struck me as so completely stupid I wouldn’t have been able to work on it without going postal on someone.

Last time I checked, thermometers were fine as long as you cleaned them between uses. So whatever potential danger there was was in the implementation of the idea, not in the idea itself, correct?

@finley

I posted a year or two ago a thread on the destruction of Western culture. Frankly, I think I’ve been proved more right than I wanted to be.

Round and round we go…

@finley

Culture can be turned on a dime. People can be told to believe all sorts of stuff they would have laughed at six months previously. They can be told to do things (like submit their children to abuse by other adults) that we associate with long-defunct societies or the darkest days of history.

Yes and no. People have always been believing nonsense. The trendiness of this or that kind of nonsense changes, but the inclination to irrationality doesn’t change that fast.

If the inclination itself is what’s surprising to you (and I think it shouldn’t be, based on how cynical you are overall), then I would suggest the problem might be you just weren’t cynical enough before covid, or your cynicism was focused too much in certain areas.

But there’s a difference between cynicism and pessimism, and I refuse to be outright pessimistic.

[finley]

@yyy

I disagree.

You don’t see anything in the combination of inflation and resource scarcity that might lead to something other than ordinary grumbling and crumbling?

The physical end of oil would be the physical end of oil. In practical terms, you were talking about a “shutdown” currently underway. On the basis of what, a rise in prices? I repeat, that’s not a shutdown.

I was talking about their preparations for “the Great Reset”, which seems to now include a Great Narrative about Climate Change. I’m one of the “greenest” people around, but what they’ve been up to with the AGW narrative is going to make things worse, not better. They’ve shut down Russia, which accounts for about a third of Europe’s oil and gas, and I’m pretty sure they’ve done that to put the fear of God into people: “do as you’re told or there will be more of this”.

The actual physical end of oil is something people have been planning for for decades, and the closer it gets, the more serious the planning will get.

My point exactly. Don’t you think the “plan” for the end of oil might conceivably look a bit like this?

Which countries have not dropped or seriously relaxed entry restrictions recently?

Elbonia. No entry under any circumstances and mandatory vaccination for all citizens (against which people are pushing back in their own special way - I think they’ve only achieved about 60% coverage). The Pharma companies must be giving out pesos to any politician with his hand held out.

Canada and the USA are completely closed, as is much of South America.

Most of the “relaxed travel restrictions” are smoke and mirrors. They might be “relaxed” compared to a few months ago, but they’re still a massive barrier for the unvaccinated. One big issue is the possibility of “testing positive” before your flight.

Every time the price of oil goes up or down, it’s controlled by the Welfluminati?

Well … I thought it was common knowledge that it is controlled by cartels, if not the WEF specifically. They don’t make any secret of it.

Last time I checked, thermometers were fine as long as you cleaned them between uses.

So whatever potential danger there was was in the implementation of the idea, not in the idea itself, correct?

The basis of the idea was “if you check the temperature of everything, that makes the food safe”. Which is fundamentally incorrect. There are a half-a-dozen different ways you can give someone food poisoning, and allowing the food to get too cold, in practice, is quite an unusual one. It was pointless ritual slathered on top of something that was inherently bad - disgusting, unhealthy food-like substances sitting around for hours gathering dust and flies (if the temperature was “wrong” it’d go in the microwave) to make it look as if an improvement had been made.

Yes and no. People have always been believing nonsense. The trendiness of this or that kind of nonsense changes, but the inclination to irrationality doesn’t change that fast.

If you’ve got a team of very experienced psychologists making it happen, you can achieve some pretty extreme results. The Nudge Unit sold their methodology to several other countries.

But there’s a difference between cynicism and pessimism, and I refuse to be outright pessimistic.

I’m not being pessimistic. But hoping for the best is not a strategy. I’m assuming the worst - and planning for it - just on the offchance that it happens. All our worst predictions for 2021 came true, and I don’t think They are going to switch everything off just because the peasants are revolting.

[cake]

The shamdemic:

United Airlines To Let Workers Who Didn’t Get COVID Vaccine Return To Work

[bingobango]

Hey anybody hear about what is going on in Hong Kong right now? I wonder if they think it is a “shamdemic” right now too.

I hear ~9/10 of the surging Covid deaths there right now are elderly people who haven’t been vaccinated. What a stumper am I right.

Hong Kong’s Covid-19 Death Rate Is the World’s Highest Because of...

[Andrew]

@bingobango

Hey anybody hear about what is going on in Hong Kong right now? I wonder if they think it is a “shamdemic” right now too.

Yeah, it’s been discussed a few dozen times already. No idea what Hong Kongers think, but it’s not clear to me how much of the blame is attributable to the virus per se and how much is attributable to the government response - I’m curious what the outcome would be if they just focused on treating the cases who need treatment, rather than overwhelming the system with people who don’t.

[QuaSaShao]

@bingobango

What a stumper am I right.

Low vaccination rate among elderly + low acquired immunity rate due to stringent pandemic controls + dense population + more transmissible Covid variant = spiking death rate

[finley]

I can’t understand why people seem so invested in saying “look, look, there’s a crisis, there must be a crisis because China is fucking up Hong Kong”. This is a bit like walking into a slum and declaring that we’re all going to get cholera. It’s pretty obvious what’s happening in HK - the Chinese government has found a foolproof method of making the peons suffer for their lack of patriotism - and that it has little or nothing to do with COVID.

Are doctors really incapable of treating a fairly ordinary respiratory disease? Thousands of them are saying it’s not a big deal: as long as you get the right treatment to the patient early in the course of the disease, it’s going to kill almost nobody. Why can’t we accept that doctors might be able to sort this out if we leave them alone, and tell the politicians to stop fiddling with stuff they know nothing about?

I notice, incidentally, that Taiwan’s authorities still deny the existence of early treatment for COVID. Even the US authorities are starting to um and ah about that, after two years of draconian censorship.

[finley]

“Let” them return to work. How generous of them.

I suspect the truth is that they’ll end up filing for bankruptcy if they don’t, rather like those Canadian hospitals who mysteriously found themselves short-staffed after firing all the unvaccinated medics.

[yyy]

@finley

@yyy

I disagree.

You don’t see anything in the combination of inflation and resource scarcity that might lead to something other than ordinary grumbling and crumbling?

Ordinary, what’s ordinary? Was 2008 ordinary? It doesn’t even matter. What matters is, it wasn’t The Big One™ as foretold by the prophets of doom. I do see bad times ahead, but I say TBO™ is still beyond the horizon.

@finley

They’ve shut down Russia

That’s what you call a shutdown? It’s not even at full Iron Curtain level yet, is it? If for argument’s sake we say it is, then so what? It’s still not a shutdown, just a barrier. The Russian oil and gas are still there, and Russia & pals can figure out what to do with the stuff. The non-Russian oil and gas are also still there. The world economy has a headache, but it keeps going.

@finley

which accounts for about a third of Europe’s oil and gas, and I’m pretty sure they’ve done that to put the fear of God into people: “do as you’re told or there will be more of this”.

If you leave the back door of your mind open – and I’m not saying you shouldn’t – magical thinking has a tendency to sneak in.

If by people you mean Russia, or specifically Vlad and his buddies, then I see the logic in what you’re saying. But I think you mean the general population of the West, who are not particularly known for their inclination to invade former SSR’s, so that’s an awful lot of trouble to go to just to persuade people not to do something they weren’t likely to do anyway.

@finley

The actual physical end of oil is something people have been planning for for decades, and the closer it gets, the more serious the planning will get.

My point exactly. Don’t you think the “plan” for the end of oil might conceivably look a bit like this?

No. Why would it?

@finley

Which countries have not dropped or seriously relaxed entry restrictions recently?

Elbonia.

Your point being?

@finley

Canada and the USA are completely closed, as is much of South America.

Things are moving along in Canada. Slowly, but still moving.

Mexico has been open and still is. Glancing at Wikivoyage, I see Costa Rica makes you buy insurance. Guatemala makes you do a test. So does Panama. The other CA countries, it doesn’t say, which is usually a good sign. Now you can make a list of all SA and Caribbean countries and post it here, and I think my point will still stand.

@finley

Most of the “relaxed travel restrictions” are smoke and mirrors. They might be “relaxed” compared to a few months ago, but they’re still a massive barrier for the unvaccinated. One big issue is the possibility of “testing positive” before your flight.

It’s the new “flying while Muslim”.

@finley

Every time the price of oil goes up or down, it’s controlled by the Welfluminati?

Well … I thought it was common knowledge that it is controlled by cartels, if not the WEF specifically. They don’t make any secret of it.

So capitalism was a sham all along, because the market allowed cartels to form? Or cartels are a feature, not a flaw, of capitalism?

If the former, where’s your capitalism-is-best-as-proven-by-history argument? If the latter, where’s your don’t-hate-the-successful-businessman argument?

@finley

The basis of the idea was “if you check the temperature of everything, that makes the food safe”. Which is fundamentally incorrect. There are a half-a-dozen different ways you can give someone food poisoning, and allowing the food to get too cold, in practice, is quite an unusual one. It was pointless ritual slathered on top of something that was inherently bad - disgusting, unhealthy food-like substances sitting around for hours gathering dust and flies (if the temperature was “wrong” it’d go in the microwave) to make it look as if an improvement had been made.

So they focused on the wrong criteria at the expense of the right ones. That still doesn’t mean an administrative system for organizing food production/delivery within an institution is inherently a bad thing. If you kept doing it the old fashioned way, you could still have your dreaded “spotty teenagers” messing things up, which may have been why they came up with the system in the first place.

@finley

Yes and no. People have always been believing nonsense. The trendiness of this or that kind of nonsense changes, but the inclination to irrationality doesn’t change that fast.

If you’ve got a team of very experienced psychologists making it happen, you can achieve some pretty extreme results. The Nudge Unit sold their methodology to several other countries.

But that’s the beauty and the horror of the marketplace of ideas – you have not just one team of psychologists or one methodology but several competing, sometimes working together, sometimes just pretending to work together.

@finley

But hoping for the best is not a strategy.

Expend resources prepping your bunker, don’t expend resources prepping your bunker. Either way it’s a strategy.