The COVID humbug thread (2021 edition)

Listen to this episode from The Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify. Dr. Pierre Kory is an ICU and lung specialist who is an expert on the use of the drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist, visiting fellow at Princeton, host of the DarkHorse podcast , and co-author (with his wife, Heather Heying) of the forthcoming “A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century.”

I don’t get it.

How would you precis the “fact” check, then?

Scrooge McDuck, playing the part of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Bah?

Sorry, not that invested

Yes, mostly. I mean there are some obvious things that point out. Such as if we only ate corn the sugar and lack or nutrients would probably show aspike in diabetes. There are some actual scientific realities. What is dumb is sayinng “meat” is bad or “vegetables” are bad as both are literlally insanely large food groups. Meat = animal and vegetable = vegatation from plants. To think one can conclude anything from such abroad stroke is nothing short of moronic.

But i would say that generally eating factory farmed meat, with all their hormones and medicines, isnt good. That isnt to say the flesh from a given species is bad. As such, eating vegetables soaked in chemicals to kill fungi, animal pests and weeds also isnt good. So if someone if going to go have this conversation we need to have specific conversations on exact species/varieties being eaten and where, how, when the were grown as well as eaten. The effects of every single different temperature change, water change, soil fluctuation, nutrient available, bug visit, where the bug visited from and so on etc etc. Then cross those data sets with the massive variability of humans and effects on digestion, allergies etc etc. The variables are in the billions of trillions, far beyond the complexities of the most advanced tech systmes by a magnitude larger than i can count.

This is why people dont do it, because it is so insanely largely complex and variable. And people just arent currently capable of mapping it all out. its good if the average person realized our ignorance and just tried to make good decisions based on common know facts, not conspiracies and religious whatevers.

As we chip away we do at least know certain things are for sure bad for our health. Tobacco, round up, tape worms etc. So instead of coming from a place of all mighty and thinking we know everything, we should be following basic scientific principles and chipping away at removing what we know to be truly bad and keep going.

No one reading this will ever see a realistic final conclusion on diet essentials in their lifetime. We just wont. Anyone claiming otherwise is just selling snake oil and/or letting ego overturn fact. Its tooooooooo complex for our computaional power to yet comprehend.

Luckily things like the CCP virus are far easier to figure out and we can.overcome that hurdle and pat ourelves on the back. But thinking we know even a fraction of one percent about nutrition is the definition of delusional when we think big picture

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Re loosening restrictions, lowering Levels and the COVID QR code system in Taiwan.

I pray we don’t follow the Australian route.

QR codes are heralded as a key component in the ‘fight against COVID.’ In TW they are at initial stage of use, where you simply register your details to enter some place. That’s all anyone does at this point.

However, in countries such as Australia, this is how it works when restrictions are loosened and they move into ‘Level 2’ (example):

On a Saturday morning at 10.00 you scan your code when entering 711/ PXMart/whatever. One week later you get a message saying you’ve been in a COVID hotspot (someone who tested positive was shopping that day sometime between 10-6!). You’re now deemed a “close contact” of a COVID positive person and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days. That shopping center also gets closed down. If necessary, entire suburbs/ cities/ regions/ states can also get quickly locked down.

Now if you don’t follow the order to place yourself under voluntary house arrest you will immediately get fined AU$1000. They will also fine you another $5,500 for each day that you don’t follow the order. Additionally, a court can fine you up to $11,000 or give you 6 months imprisonment or both.

If you don’t pay the fine they can suspend your driver’s license, cancel your car registration, take money from your bank account or wages, and get the Sheriff to seize and sell things you own.

I’m waiting to see if the TW govt. are thinking to go down this route with the infrastructure they’ve already set up. If they do then I will do everything I can to avoid it.

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And these are the types of cold-hearted sociopaths running things in that country.

I give you…the Right Honourable NSW Health Minister Brad Hazard:

Brad Hazzard warns against affection within homes during lockdown.

“It would be very wise for you to avoid kissing, cuddling, closeness or any proximity at all.”

And don’t forget, there’s no specific timeline to return to ‘showing any affection,’ either. Just, “From now on, don’t show affection to your loved ones.”

This type of policy is going to see a massive amount of social destruction down the track, particularly amongst children. What sort of dysfunctional, mentally and emotionally unstable society are we creating?

What a cnut. F*** that guy.

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Well thanks for that analysis, but…

That’s a bit odd, coming from someone who’s known to hate on high carbohydrate diets as if they were a single entity. :yin_yang:

I’m just the messenger, eh? Fanmail and hatemail should go to DW.

Why is it odd? “High carbohydrate” defines a particular (important) characteristic of a meal. You can measure it, quantify it, and link it to specific health outcomes. If you consume a high-carbohydrate diet (roughly, >70% calories from carbs) for ten years or more, you’re likely to develop metabolic syndrome, for well-understood physiological reasons. It’s doubly likely if you consume those carbs in the form of processed crap courtesy of McDonalds, Nestle, et al., and lead a sedentary lifestyle.

“Vegan” can mean absolutely anything, encompassing meals that will send you to an early grave (quickly or slowly) to meals that will nourish you just fine, albeit on the edge of the human adaptive range. It can mean a white bread sandwich with margarine and fake vegan ‘ham’ accompanied by a glass of Coke, or it can mean a coconut-based curry full of actual vegetables. One is a good meal, one is not.

The reason TPTB are pushing veganism, IMO, is so that they can make even more money from cheaply-made pap (corn+soy+chemicals) which can be easily grown in third-world shitholes keen to sell off their remaining natural resources to foreign conglomerates. I’m not sure what route to profit they anticipate when they’ve turned those fragile ecosystems into desert, but I’m sure they’ll think of something wonderfully creative.

What I particularly object to is the hijacking of the term “plant based” to mean both “vegan” and “uber-healthy”. My diet is “plant based”. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped eating meat.

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IMO nutrition, as a discipline, is obsolete. It might once have made sense to ask questions like “does saturated fat cause heart disease?” in the absence of any theoretical framework. However, physiology has outstripped nutrition by leaps and bounds (mainly because the study of physiology is scientific, whereas nutrition is not). Metabolic processes have now been characterized in such mind-boggling detail that we can more-or-less determine from first principles what eating patterns are likely to do harm and which are not. We can also determine which nutrition theories are unlikely to be true, because there doesn’t appear to be any physiological basis for them (eg., “too much protein harms your kidneys” and “we should all eat as little salt as possible”).

Humans have an extremely wide adaptive range for diet, and there are very few eating patterns we can’t thrive on. The only two that we absolutely can’t cope with are (a) diets based mostly on starch/sugar and (b) diets with a very low fat content. The fact that nutritionists have combined those two things into their fantasy healthy-eating plans says a lot about the shortcomings of nutritionism, IMO.

That’s a reasonable approach; what irks me is the nutritionist’s quest for the Ideal Diet. This is a foolish goal - it’s based on two equally-foolish underlying assumptions:

  • Humans are primitive creatures like, I dunno, chickens or hedgehogs, which will fail to thrive if they can’t consume a very specific combination of macronutrients.
  • Unlike every other animal on planet earth, humans have no innate ability to gauge their own dietary requirements, so if you leave them to their own devices they’ll gorge themselves on old batteries, paperclips, and poison ivy until they explode.

There is no “ideal” diet. Certainly there are a few things that don’t do us much good - supersized Coke, for example - but that’s been established beyond doubt already. Nutritionists therefore don’t have much left to do.

Is this a legit news report? It sounds like something from Soviet Russia.

These people belong in jail, or possibly in a lunatic asylum. They’re undermining the very fabric of society. The question is: do they realise what they’re doing (which would be monstrously criminal); are they just pig-ignorant; or have they gone honest-to-goodness crazy, sucked into the vortex of fear that they created?

I think I need to do a post on the specifics of brainwashing. The techniques that are known to be highly effective, and that the politicians are (possibly unwittingly) deploying against the public.

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The media are f’ing full of it. Who the hell to they think they are, spewing out nonsense in one publication and then pretending to be sober analysts in some other publication. It’s completely mad. Why does anybody put up with this?

I expected better from you, @TT. We’ve had Mike and Brian do drive-by "hahahahaha"s, but you have some academic expertise in making sound arguments. This thread is specifically for people who wish to have a serious debate. Consider yourself buried up to your neck in compost.

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With apologies, I was day drinking when I wrote that.

Take it as a compliment. I have learned a serious discussion with you, in areas where we disagree, will be an investment of my time, energy, and brain. This is because you are not a fool. When I was a few drinks in yesterday I wasn’t ready for that. And today I have actual work to do.

Also, humbug, I got to break out some Disney ducks.

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Yep. Here’s a news report outlining this type of thing, from this very morning:
https://bit.ly/3xkQ8W1.

And these are the NSW Public Health Orders (laws/fines) you can read here.

You’re very kind. I’d opt for alternatives :laughing:

I’m reminded here of Terry Pratchett’s not-too-subtle otherworldly caricature of Australia, in which politicians are jailed as soon as they’re elected “to save time”.

This stuff is just mad. You can imagine some teenager making a desultory protest and having his life ruined by crippling fines and/or a jail sentence … just for, say, going to buy a beer while “quarantined” (despite having essentially zero chance of actually having COVID).

I see unfortunate parallels here with Taiwan, specifically the existence of legislation that grants the CDC powers to hand out completely arbitrary “Orders” without debate or public consent - in effect, to rule by decree. This is not how democracy is supposed to work. You can’t just make laws to suspend the operation of The Law.

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Police officer snatches phone off elderly and threaten to arrest her in Melbourne | Daily Mail Online

Good on the old folk for standing up to the police. It’s nice to see Aussies aren’t going to just take this lying down.

Those young policemen should be f’ing ashamed of themselves. If they had any conscience at all the police would be resigning en masse. Don’t they realise this is going to backfire? Without public trust between police and the public, law and order falls to pieces.

As I remarked to MalcolmReynolds elsewhere, it’s a good thing that the police in Taiwan are making some attempt to subvert the rules, in their own special way, instead of going around threatening old codgers sitting on park benches (of which there are many, of course, raising the hackles of those in the main COVID threads :slight_smile: )

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I’ve worked at a professional level with police in a few Australian states as well as in in a couple of South Pacific and Asian countries.

Out of all of them, I would have to say the Victorian police are the most fascist of them all. Never met a Vic copper I wouldn’t have gladly punted through a window.

Yes Ned.

I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also, who have no alternative but to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed, big bellied, magpie legged, narrow hipped, splaw-footed sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords , known as ‘officers of justice’ or ‘Victorian Police’ who some call honest gentlemen but I would like to know what business an honest man would have in the Police as it is an old saying it takes a rogue to catch a rogue.

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Good find! :rofl:

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I am with you on that. No fan of nutritionists as we commonly encounter them. However nutrition is absolutely a science. I would use animal feed formulation and hydroponics to prove the point on nutritional importance. Plants are far easie to see nutrient deficiency in compared to humans. However, human examples might include women in older age, especially those that have had children having bone issues and calcium concerns. Not that its so simple as eat a calciumtablet and sit in the sun for 20 mins a day, but they are certainly part of the whole picture…

Unlike with plants and animals which we just want to live long enough to be able to kill and eat them (mostly), our nutrition needs are usually aimed at a higher auality of life not just weight gain and speed. Although we could eat plastic and bread all day, one could probably easily argue various things will start going wrong. IImmune system is very related to ccp virus, and any virus, and a healthy body with a strong immune system is arguably better than an obese smokin alcoholic that never leaves the house.

I dontthink nutrition is nothing, but it also isnt everything. The whole picture is so massive, complex and diverse, its going to take decades of hard core computing to get a grasp. Its worth pursuing in a scientific manner.