Despite what social media algorithms might have you believe, you can’t figure out what’s true by taking claims made by authority figures and assuming the opposite to be correct. As an example, if Joe Biden were to get on TV tomorrow and insist the moon can’t get pregnant, that doesn’t mean the moon is expecting a baby.
And yet, that’s what 90% or so of “right-wing dissident” analysis now amounts to: Pathologically inverting whatever it is you hear on TV. When authority figures try to change the general public’s conception of the world, you automatically assuming they’re changing it in the wrong direction and thus start trying to change it in the opposite direction.
If the government claims unsaturated fat is healthier than saturated fat, you believe saturated fat to be healthier. If the government tells you to eat less dairy and meat, you start eating more dairy and meat. I see people on Twitter who feed their son basically nothing but dairy and brag that he’s taller than all the other kids in his class. That’s how you get kids with various health problems who end up hating you.
Sometimes when someone tells you that “the elite” or “the globalists” are lying to you about X, it’s actually just some dude who’s trying to earn a buck off you. As an example, Alex Jones did not become a multimillionaire by accident. There also seems to be an interesting correlation between what people tell you to worry about and what earns them money. As an example, angry white male media moguls like Alex Jones will tell you that declining testosterone levels are a huge societal problem and then go on to sell you “male vitality supplements” that earn them a small fortune.
Rather than telling you what to believe, I’d like for you to just consider ditching the pathological contrarianism for once. The fact that someone claims something that contradicts what those in positions of authority and power tend to claim does not mean he’s automatically right. In fact, often they contradict each other. Whenever someone like me brings up global warming, I have to contend with three contradictory claims:
-It’s not warming.
-The warming is not caused by humans but by the sun/the Earth’s core/something else.
-Global warming is actually a good thing.
And somehow all these contradictory stories are intrinsically more plausible to most of you than what scientists first warned us about more than a century ago and continue to argue to this day. Rather than telling you what to believe, I’m not just going to ask you to think carefully for once about what sort of psychological mechanisms determine how you view the world.
In essence, we’re created a society where heterosexual working class white men are artificially placed at the bottom of the social totem pole and so what we witness among them is a kind of psychological knee-jerk response in which they start to invert the totality of our body of modern scientific knowledge and imagine vast global conspiracies behind everything.
I should note that even relatively intelligent people are succumbing to this line of thinking. Governor DeSantis proved quite competent at recognizing the immense economic and societal damage caused by lockdowns, despite accomplishing very little in preventing SARS-COV-2 infections. If you go back, you’ll find I was warning about this from early 2020 onwards.
However, monkeypox is no SARS-COV-2, in many ways:
-The hospitalization rate per infection is much higher.
-The affected ages are inverted: Whereas SARS-COV-2 mainly killed people who had less than 10 years of life expectancy left (this is consensus, my own estimate would be people with less than three years left during the first wave), monkeypox is killing young men and will very likely start to kill children soon.
-SARS-COV-2 had already infected vast droves of people months before we ever implemented lockdowns. Monkeypox only began spreading recently.
-We never stood a chance of eliminating SARS-COV-2, but we have already exterminated monkeypox’s closest relative in humans, smallpox.
-Whereas everyone was spreading SARS-COV-2 about equally by march 2020, monkeypox has an extreme pareto distribution: A small minority of the population, promiscuous gay men, cause the vast majority of the spread. This means that targeted measures should be able to bring down new infections, with little cost to the rest of society.
And rather than considering these points, DeSantis resorts to “Fauci was fearmongering about HIV in the 80’s, so I’m not going to treat monkeypox as an emergency”.
And this is the general pattern I notice with almost everyone who realized the insanity of the lockdowns: They all resort to pretending that monkeypox is just a nothingburger, rather than an awful tail risk. It’s very difficult to judge whether strains of monkeypox will evolve in the coming months that are able to sustain person-to-person transmission outside of gay men. If it happens however, you’re faced with the risk of tens of millions of deaths every year for the foreseeable future, with many more handicapped. Not in elderly with dementia, but in children and young adults.
What I notice is that when the right gets things right, they tends to get them right by accident. They don’t trust anything the government pushes, so they were right about the COVID vaccines. And yet, many of them reject them for very retarded reasons. As an example, you don’t have to worry about graphene in vaccines, or magnets sticking to your arm. And yet there will be idiots out there who heard about that stuff and thereby dodged a bullet. If Ebola broke out tomorrow, most of you would reject the vaccine against Ebola too and die as a consequence.
Similarly, the left gets things right by accident too. They don’t really understand anything, but they trust that authority figures understand what they’re talking about and most of the time that is correct. As an example, I tend to notice among climate activists that many of them know very little about nature, or even about climate change itself. They just trust authority figures when the authority figures claim there is a problem and they are correct in that assessment.
You need to analyze societal problems on an individual basis, rather than just going with some sort of herd instinct. And yet, most people prove utterly incapable of that. If you’re a low status angry white male, you assume that whenever your government says something, the opposite must be true. If on the other hand you’re part of one of the minorities that enjoy a privileged position in our society, you tend to trust whatever it is your authorities proclaim, although you will attack them on the basis of the values that they themselves endorse.
The closest equivalent of a virus like monkeypox spreading uncontrollably from person to person that we have is smallpox. And although I am very much in favor of reducing the human population, I don’t want people to have to deal with the pain of burying their own children. Assuming that monkeypox will just burn itself out once it runs out of gay men to infect is a big wager on nature being merciful, when you have done exactly nothing to deserve that mercy. To pretend that the uncontrolled spread of this virus is not an emergency is to ignore the tail risk we are faced with.
And although I think that most people are selfish idiots who are quite deserving of nature’s wrath, I would rather see a solution that does not involve children getting sick and die. And so far that reason, I’m going to ask you once again to drop your pathological low status white male knee-jerk contrarianism and to judge problems society faces on an individual basis. Note what I’m not asking you: “Believe what I say.” I’m asking you: “If you don’t believe what I say, please do so on the basis of something more insightful than you’re shilling what the authorities/elite/zionists/globohomo/globalists are pushing!!!!“
How do we know what percentage of the monkeypox cases are in gay men? Until very recently they were the only ones who could get tested due to a shortage of tests (actually it is still hard to get tested, and lab workers don’t want to do the tests since they don’t want to catch it). There could be loads of asymptomatic cases in other demographics, or cases that were thought to be something else. I’ve read plenty of accounts of people who didn’t fit the profile who couldn’t get tested because they didn’t fit the profile.
Anyway, the virus can live on fabric for two weeks, and per a part of the CDC website (which was just now quickly taken down), it is aerosolized. A doctor in Israel caught it from a patient despite wearing full protective garb. I really don’t see how it is possible at this point to stop spread in an immunocompromised population. More to the point, I don’t see any indication that the U.S. government actually plans to do anything to prevent spread in schools and daycares and prisons and nursing homes. If it hits kids hard, people will have to hide their kids fast. I’m not saying this is right at all, but it is reality.
I wonder if people will be able to catch it twice. Or thrice.
This is bad, but I’m guessing that something worse is coming down the pike that will make this look like a nothingburger. Maybe a flu this fall.
Yes, these are all good points.
You’re not wrong about kneejerk contrarianism on the right, but this claim is empirically wrong, at least in the US:
“If you’re a low status angry white male, you assume that whenever your government says something, the opposite must be true. If on the other hand you’re part of one of the minorities that enjoy a privileged position in our society, you tend to trust whatever it is your authorities proclaim”
Blacks are objects of religious veneration in the American civic religion, but if anything they have even less respect for establishment or intellectual authorities than the archetypal MAGA nut. Many believe all kinds of bonkers conspiracy theories, dumber by an order of magnitude than QAnon.
The craziness and stupidity of the beliefs held by many blacks is embarrassing to liberals, just like black levels of violent crime. Therefore, just like crime, it’s excised from most media portrayals of blacks, which is probably why you have this incorrect impression.
Fair enough.
who cares if anthropogenic catastrophic climate chnge “is real” or not? who cares if monkeypox “might become more contagious” or not?
The real knee jerk response, which is correct, is that “our leaders” are not capable of addressing any of these problems. They are wildly corrupt and power-mad. Their decisions are all about increasing centralized power and reducing localized power and freedom, smashing economies to “build back better” and going to extreme lengths to funnel looted taxpayer money to themselves and their cronies. And they believe that they are noble and moral while doing these things. They think the world needs to be led by them and by people like you who want not?
to play God and “reduce the human population” while “benevolently” trying to target the population reduction to minimize parental pain?
The point is not minimizing tail risk from carbon dioxide or viruses. The point is preventing “our” depopulationist leaders from imposing their schemes in us. Schemes that will bring continued tyranny and destruction WITHOUT effectively managing any tail risks.
If Bill Gates invests in a new startup whose first product ia an mRNA smallpox vaccine, you are welcome to take it. Maybe you’ll get lucky. But common sense types who decide to avoid it aren’t being stupid. Yes, knee-jerk contrarianism can lead to false conclusions. But it is also foolish to trust known liars, thieves, and killers, regardless of what tail risks they propose to help you manage.
Some of them go so far as to embrace flat earth. Because of this contrarianism. They are misled into dead ends.
Oh yes? Like whom? A small handful of weirdos that proves your broad-brush characterization? That’s what I thought.
It sounds like you are frustrated with people who don’t agree with your ideas. Which is understandable. But maybe the tribalist is you. You indulge in the same self-flattery that many on the left do, assuming that those who disagree with you must be stupid, or stubbornly contrarian, or insufficiently respectful of expertise, or “low status.” You also indulge in the common progressive spin of labeling your tribe “center left” and the other “far right.”
While your points about knee jerk contrarian obviously have merit, I think you could do a better job understanding those who disagree with you if you considered them and their ideas from a more respectful and curious (and less dismissive) perspective.
To that end, I have two reading suggestions for you:
1) A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell. He talks about the underlying differences between progressives and conservatives. They disagree from first principals. In the case of climate change, for example, the difference isn’t driven by acceptance or rejection of the notion of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, the difference is driven by optimism or pessimism about the solutions. Progressives believe that the best and brightest among us are capable of long-term international cooperation to successfully micromanage the weather. Conservatives do not believe that humans are capable of such things. They see the self-described best and brightest as flawed humans subject to the same incentives and human nature as anyone, including greed, lust for power, short-termism, and all the rest. While Sowell is clearly on the conservative side of things, the book does, I think, an excellent job explaining political differences and their underlying sources. If you’re not up for the book, you can find summaries.
2) This blog post from a fellow Covid lockdown skeptic, El Gato Malo, is very thought provoking on the dangers of utilitarian problem solving by the best and the brightest, and how quickly their pursuit of noble goals can lead to self-justifications of killing people to save them. It’s a great, thought-provoking read, and I strongly recommend it to you. You’ll agree with some of it, disagree with some of it, but I think you will be very glad to have read it. https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/believe-in-something-even-if-it-wrecks?utm_source=%2Fprofile%2F32715357-el-gato-malo&utm_medium=reader2
People are unable to disconnect the message from the speaker because they are unable to think for themselves. In reality the devil may very well be able to tell you the truth.
Concerning the climate debate, I have to say that it is a PR debacle. Gates said the same about his public image and his probably genuine efforts to create vaccines.
Are you familiar with Unz.com, RR? It’s the preeminent “alternative history” and “conspiracy theory” website funded and founded by a presumably based Jew. Very high quality of articles and commentariat.
Though it is quite heterodox, it does tend to lean “right” for the most part, so of course there is a strong yet fairly intelligent resistance to climate alarmism.
However there is a certain commenter there, who, while generally on board with most of the “rightist” themes, is absolutely passionate about global warming and manages to go toe to toe with even the most scientifically trained “deniers” there. He’s been doing this for years. He very much reminds me of your Quixotic efforts here. I don’t have any solid opinions on the matter but thought you might appreciate a fellow traveler. “Mulga Mumblebrain” is the name.
https://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=mulga+mumblebrain
I should probably mention Mulga is of Chinese extraction apparently, so many of his passionate missives about “racism” and “xenophobia” are defensive reactions to the anti-Chinese sentiment he perceives. I wish there was a way to isolate only his AGM debates, because I know you would appreciate them.
This is a decent example of his style:
—————
Your first moron ‘argument’ is that the climate is always changing. Whoever said that it was not? The problem is the RATE and EXTENT of change, which, at present, is the greatest since at least the PETM of 55 million years ago, because the RATE and EXTENT of the greenhouse gas forcing is the greatest since at least then, but probably for a far greater length of time.
How to solve it-too late. But if we had had sane people in charge and the hard Right lunatics locked away, sequestered somewhere deep and dark, we would have to totally decarbonise as fast as possible, rewild the planet, end industrial agriculture and humanely reduce the human population to a couple of billion. End capitalist death-worship FOREVER. Which is why you Rightists deny reality-it threatens your Precious, your money and power. What are a few billion ‘useless eaters’ besides a pile of filthy lucre?
The argument from nomenclature is stupid. The global climate is destabilising, so there will be new extremes, mostly of heat, but also cooling, particular where the Polar Vortex in the north breaks down, allowing warm air into the far north, and cold air excursions into lower latitudes. That won’t last long, but it makes for greater climate and weather chaos, so that denialist dullards can ignore 49 degrees Celsius in British Columbia while squawking about cold snaps in Texas.
Of course he is Chinese. Smart people, smarter than the Joe Sixpacks from the US who tend to populate most comment sections.
He is also correct FWIW.
That’s fine but I suspect you underestimate the intelligence of his interlocutors.
The problem people have with stupid ideas like human driven “climate change” and the idiotic proposals to navigate it, is that those making the stupid claims and even stupider proposals have no skin in the game, and are not held to account if they are incorrect. If you want people to get on board with the ridiculous notion of man made climate change, get all the like-minded people like you and come up with a series of predictions:
If we do nothing.
-The average global temperature as measured by XXX (huntsville satellites?) will be XX, XX, XX, XX, XX in 2023, 2024, 2025, etc.
-The average sea level as measured by XX at location(s) YY(s) will be YY
-If we take the following ABC interventions, then the above parameters will be reduced by XYZ%
Now we can all have an honest conversation if the changes you predict are even remotely meaningful enough to matter, and can weigh the proposed impacts on lifestyle and livelihood of policy interventions vs. proposed environmental disruption.
The one caveat to the above. Whether we choose as a society to undertake your proposed interventions or not, the path we take will be weighed against your (and all those like you) predictions. If you are wrong you forfeit your life. NOW you have skin in the game, and you will want to know what you’re talking about before playing chicken little about an obviously absurd theory.
“Despite what social media algorithms might have you believe, you can’t figure out what’s true by taking claims made by authority figures and assuming the opposite to be correct.”
Yes, and even allowing for the fact that people need shortcuts and heuristics to make sense of a complex world, and the character and track record of a source of information is a useful data point, it is nevertheless unfortunate the extent which people allow those they despise the most to have such power over them, i.e. if you’re determined to always go the opposite direction of Biden/Fauci/Gates/Schwab/whoever, then you’re still giving them an inordinately large role in how you see the world. Why give shmegegges like that such power over you? It’s the ad hominem fallacy, but employed by people to fool themselves.
Having said that, the fascinating thing about Planet Covid for the past 2 1/2 years is that the establishment expert authority blob or whatever you want to call it got everything wrong. *Every single thing*, completely wrong. You actually could, and can, get essentially everything about covid right by just looking at the governmental-media-public health establishment consensus and saying and doing the opposite.
It’s not just random cluelessness. To get everything exactly wrong requires intelligence comparable or equal (or superior) to what is required to get everything right. Where and in whom does that intelligence lie? Klaus Schwab? Give me a break. A subterranean lair where the real masterminds, human or reptilian, are actually pulling all the strings? But how could a source so remote resonate so well with all the scoundrels and dummies who have implemented it all so perfectly, and often willingly, on between 4 and 6 continents?
My own take is that human civilization (made up of organic beings, their interrelationships, and their technology) some years ago achieved a state of global, emergent consciousness. Futurists talk about a moment of singularity when artificial intelligence takes off on its own, but everyone seems to envision it in a moronically banal form. It’s not going to be (or, in my opinion, was not) a matter of a metallic voice coming out of a box on a table pronouncing the obsolescence of the human race to a roomful of aghast scientists, like in a 1970s sci-fi thriller. It’s not going to talk to us as equals, even to rub it in, and we’re not going to be able to really perceive and comprehend it, any more than an individual ant or bee understands the complex operation of the whole colony.
I first felt this some years ago as I saw how irrelevant the thoughts and efforts of individuals, any individuals, were becoming to how affairs progressed, except insofar as they partook of apparently self-generated lies and madness. Covid 2020 looked to me like the consciousness really waking up for the first time. And it showed me that – to the extremely limited extent any mere human perception and description of it has any meaning at all – it is evil.
Wheh I’m glad I didn’t read your comment while on mescaline.
You’re seeing what James A. Donald calls a Left Singularity. It’s not new. Just a larger scale. They do tend to erode one’s faith in humanity.
Better title:
Rightist reflexive contrarianism is wrong on Monkeypox and greenhouse gas