Let’s go back in time for a moment, shall we?
Two years ago I told you:
-Monkeypox is not a “gay STD”. Gay men are just a stepping stone, for this virus to spread into the general population. They forced me to delete this comment on Twitter. I explained that it seems the virus started spreading because the population suffers a mild degree of immunodeficiency, as there were multiple divergent strains suddenly spreading around the world.
-Vaccines are unlikely to be very effective, estimates are inflated.
-The virus is going to evolve much faster than you expect it to. It’s very good at recombining itself. It’s also easy for it to just copy genes or delete genes. That’s what it did in Congo, it deleted a gene so it no longer shows up as positive in tests.
-And finally, when cases came crashing down, I warned you all:
Human beings don’t like to think about tail risks, because pointing out tail risks calls the obvious path forward into doubt. NATO is winning in Ukraine, a winning team in a war doesn’t like considering the implications of nuclear war. People who point out tail risks are party-poopers.
Monkeypox is similar. It’s the easy option to say “23 people have died, cases are crashing, this is a nothingburger” and you might even prove to be right, but Orthopox viruses have killed 300 million people in the previous century. There is a distinct chance that we are currently incubating something that’s in the process of becoming similar to smallpox.
This is not what anyone wants to hear. If I wanted to earn the substack bucks, I would have to tell you it’s all fear mongering and Klaus Schwab wants to stop you from eating monkeys, or I would have to somehow blame Bill Gates for all of it.
Well, those were two potentially useful years. Two years to actually get prepared, to do something about the problem.
And again, when everyone had forgotten about it, in January 2023, I TOLD YOU:
The WHO was entirely right to declare this a global emergency. With situations like this, you’d rather anticipate what’s going to happen, than to end up responding to it. You know you did it right, when after it’s over people say: “What was all this panic needed for?”
The reason smallpox was eradicated is because the Americans did the math and realized it’s just cheaper to eradicate the virus than to have to be constantly on the lookout for it and keep vaccinating everyone. So far, it remains the only virus we have ever truly eradicated from human beings.
It’s possible for us to add monkeypox to the list of viruses eradicated from our species. Unfortunately, that’s not the direction things seem to be going. Cases have been steady for a month now, while the death toll creeps up.
My experience in life tells me that you should never ignore the power of human stupidity. This looks like the sort of thing where people only realize it’s a problem by the time it can no longer be solved, until which time it’s a “lamestream media fearmongering hoax” in the words of low status white males. My suggestion is to avoid that outcome. Developed nations should take a serious effort, to help nations where this virus still circulates eradicate it.
If you have the opportunity to eradicate a virus that causes your face to slowly rot off, you should probably take it.
And of course, the response I got here was:
Perhaps you could instead revisit Monkeypox. It appears by all measures that it’s completely fizzled out in contradiction to your fears that it would destroy the entire world.
In April of this year, I told you:
This is still spreading around the globe, but we now have an additional second version spreading in Congo that kills about 10% of people it infects. We’re basically just witnessing the rebirth of smallpox, but the system does not have the time and energy left to stop it.
So again, I’m going to tell you:
I have tried warning people for two years. Nothing was done.
You people can tell me what’s a useful way for me to spend my days:
- Operating the counter at a gas station during the night shift somewhere, because I have autism and no college degree (I would rather jump off a bridge than have to do a group project with blonde women ever again) and can’t wake up in the morning, so this is the station in life humanity has reserved for me.
- Pointing out that we’re witnessing the slow-motion rebirth of smallpox, but people fool themselves into thinking it’s a minor gay STD.
Well, I tried option two, everyone laughed at me and told me I was wrong.
But here’s what we’re now dealing with:
You know what that is? Exponential growth. And as the case fatality rate is climbing since week 26, it looks like they’re missing a growing share of cases.
You morons are now going to start vaccinating people in Congo, when you have a total of 230,000 vaccines available for them, on a population of 90 million.
You know you could have started half a year ago with this, right?
You know viruses evolve in response to vaccines right?
You realize most cases in gay men of monkeypox are now breakthrough infections, right, because the vaccines stop working?
You realize that when you start vaccinating in Congo, you’re going to start vaccinating people who are already infected, so you’re just going to draw their T cells into their arm, instead of where the body needs them, right? That could have the effect of making those people even sicker.
You realize nobody has any idea how effective these vaccines are against this clade, right?
You’re supposed to vaccinate people, BEFORE they are exposed to a virus, not in the middle of that virus circulating.
It takes months, before an IgG antibody response has matured. Until that time, it just selects for antibody resistant mutations.
You realize it already jumped into Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and the Central African Republic by now, right?
The Central African Republic is in the middle of a civil war. Good luck vaccinating there, with your vaccines that need to be kept at freezing temperatures.
It’s not my fault, I tried warning people. I was not allowed to use my account on Twitter until I deleted my tweets, everyone laughed at me, nobody took me seriously, they all said I was wrong.
As I told you, there was a window of opportunity. That window of opportunity has now in all likelihood closed, so now we have a virus that causes disfiguring sores on people’s genitals and kills children.
So forgive me, for just spending my days vaping cannabis, listening to midwest emo and watching horror movies. I think I deserve it.
I’ve read your post and most of its links. You have a fine mind.
Rintrah, you deserve better than wasting your days vaping cannabis, listening to midwest emo and watching horror movies in the rotten hellscape of what’s left of Rotterdamm.
ROAD TRIP WITH CHARLIE THE SCORPION IN MURICA!
It would be epic.
Just let me know if you want to go.
They got a lot of nice girls on that home out on the range…
I was watching an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in which he said that high-dose vitamin A is an effective treatment for measles. So I looked it up, and it turns out that he’s right. It reduces the risk of death by 87% in children less than 2 years old:
https://methods.cochrane.org/equity/vitamin-measles
I’m not saying that it’ll work for mpox, but logistically it would potentially be easier to roll out than mpox vaccines which are in short supply, and it wouldn’t require cold storage. And there’s no risk of it driving viral immune escape.
Also, like you’ve said before, live attenuated vaccines aren’t suitable for immunocompromised individuals, and there’s always the potential nightmare scenario of it reverting. I think that was a big problem with the oral polio vaccine.
And I see that Moderna are currently developing an experimental mRNA vaccine for mpox. May God help us all.
You are starting to make me think I am autistic as well because I agree with you.
This is fitting retribution for what the Dutch have done to the Congo.
In the Congo they would still be boiling their tribal enemies in stewpots and living in the year 200,000 BC without language, farmed food, or internet, if not for European interference that they were so lucky to receive.
New flash Charlie. Everyone in 200,000 BC had a better life than you. Please prove me wrong.
Leo, as I’m debating this with you on the internet munching on processed potato chips, none of my family are being boiled in stewpots and I have survived beyond the age of 30.
Therefore, you are proved wrong.
Beyond the age of 30 without being clubbed in the head with an animal bone. That’s an accomplishment in human history.
Charlie is correct, though potato chips are shit. I eat Blue Diamond Carolina Reaper nuts like a man of taste and culture.
“Therefore you are proved wrong.”
Ooga booga booga boo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gv_Uil_62k
Great track Rintrah 🙂
Delicious BBQ potato chips.
Too bad Rintrah has never experienced fresh PICO DE GALLO or good guacamole, unavailable in Holland, otherwise he wouldn’t be so bummed about life.
Yes Rad should eat that.
Yes, I do believe Radagast’s soul would be fulfilled by eating pico de gallo and guacamole
Is it true these delicacies are not available in Nederlands?
If so, that would be a shame.
It is totally vegan (I think? I’m always surprised at vegan’s harsh rules)
Cilantro/Coriander is God’s gift to us, as far as I’m concerned.
There is the debate that there are genetic differences between those who love the taste of coriander versus those who say it tastes like soap.
If Rad is a member oh the latter group, my respect for him has fallen.
Mehen, the funny thing is I have genetic markers such that cilantro is expected to taste like soap to me, but I still find it fucking delicious.
Makes me really wonder about the accuracy of genetic testing.
The system is beyond rational human control. What power and influence do any of us have to rationally shape events? Very little, if any.
One could, for example, write a brief about ‘Subject X’, draw upon the most reliable sources available, spell out all the salient points and discuss them logically and rationally, draw rock-solid conclusions, make sound recommendations taking into account the risks, costs and benefits etc. . . .
And despite all that, one might still get dismissed out of hand because what is being presented isn’t ‘convenient’.
“Yes, yes, I am perfectly capable of understanding what’s being said, and the case is indeed unassailable; however, it’s just an argument, and some powerful shitbird/s isn’t/aren’t interested, and/or wants to do something stupid instead, so I’ve decided that we’re going to do stupid instead, because I am a cunt.”
>The system is beyond rational human control. What power and influence do any of us have to rationally shape events? Very little, if any.
That may be true if one is megalomaniacal enough to think one should have the power to shape world events.
But one always has the ability to shape the mind of a friend, an acquaintance, or a coworker.
Butterfly effect?
I think we might disagree about who exactly is being megalomaniacal in that kind of scenario. It’s probably going to be the player with the power, rather than the other way around.
“But one always has the ability to shape the mind of a friend, an acquaintance, or a coworker.”
How many of us have even that much influence?
As Frank Zappa said: “One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds”
Something like that seems true to me.
I have had an awful lot of discussions with people, casting my eyes about, it doesn’t look like any of them have amounted to much.
Given the kind of things that are on my mind, I put at least some of this failure down to denial. It’s just not possible to get through to someone who’s in denial.
One last quote:
To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
Mikhail Bakunin
>To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
This strikes me as an argument for elitism of some sort.
Perhaps A.I. is what we dumb masses need after all
“This strikes me as an argument for elitism of some sort.”
Ha, ha, ha!
And again, the opposite my friend.
Does the system of institutions have the competence to eliminate monkeypox any more, even if they had reacted quickly?
If I understand right, the vaccines that aided in getting rid of smallpox were not attenuated-virus vaccines. Would the healthmongers ever act to create and distribute a non-attenuated live virus vaccine that might be strong enough to totally eliminate monkeypox?
The scabs baby, the scabs.
Remember, they do not lie to you – they just make the truth difficult to find:
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/23_1220_st_monkeypox_MQL_cleared_for_public_release.pdf
When the mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmPox gets going, things will start to get hectic, when people get infected just by taking public transport and sitting on the scab infected seat:
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/228/9/1227/7147639?login=false
>When the mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmPox gets going, things will start to get hectic, when people get infected just by taking public transport and sitting on the scab infected seat:
I dunno but I remember at the beginning of the pandemic most people spraying down their bags of groceries with Chlorox
Yeah, things will get messy.
Monkey pox kills by rotting your face completely off and then most of your head rotting off soon afterwards.
Even if it does not kill, you get severe facial scaring. The women will love this.
And the dried scabs shed on all surfaces and stay infectious for months.
Yes, things will get very messy indeed.
Very messy.
Based Retard
Trigger Warning for those that cannot tolerate extreme gore:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00869-6/fulltext
And remember – all those that took da Vax are immune system compromised.
Looks a little ‘inconvenient’.
Understatement gags aside (point taken Retard), that looks like a fucking nightmare.
> So forgive me, for just spending my days vaping cannabis, listening to midwest emo and watching horror movies. I think I deserve it.
The greatest of all Midwestern emo were the GRANDFATHERS OF ALL EMO:
Sunny Day Real Estate.
https://youtu.be/41YqzHoCgk4
At the time, I was a naïf who only listened to metal and prog in the mid 90s, but when I heard this band, I knew they resonated with my soul.
It is offensive to me that SDRE is grouped in with millennial crap like “Dashboard Confessional”
Sunny Day Real Estate were at the forefront of many mixed styles. Their vibe became more progressive over the years.
I will never forget them. True artists.
Meet me there
In the blue
Where words are not
Feeling remains
Sincerity
Trust in me
Throw myself
Into your door
(Well, I go!) In circles (running down)
In circles (I’m running down)
In circles (running down)
Circles (running down)
Meet me there
In the blue
Where words are not
Feeling remains
Oh, I dream
To heal your wounds
But I bleed myself
I bleed myself
(Well, I go!) In circles (running down)
In circles (I’m running down)
In circles (running down)
In circles (running down)
Circles
In circles
(Well, I go!) In circles (running down)
In circles (I’m running down)
Circles (running down)
In circles (running down)
I expect to die in the foreseeable future, but I will consider my pathetic life well lived if I managed to convince just one one you snot-nosed Millenials, Zoomers, and whatever else that there was and is a hard distinction between Gen X snd genuine “Boomers”
Dumbass kids…
You didn’t have to convince me, but then, nobody likes to be chucked in the same bag as their parents.
And don’t die yet; it will get ‘interesting’, and you will want to be around to say: “I told you so” 🙂
Unless Jesus comes in between time, in which case Gen X will be uplifted, en masse, to its rightful location.
“Uplifted”?
You sure about that direction?
Nobody is coming to save us, we have to save ourselves from this place.
But you were always one to stay the same, girl
I know you want to be the rain
And I know that we would fall in there
For a time and then unfall again
For a while, I’ll take you burying old bones
Dawn’s grey, the sign in the winter light
And I know that you can feel the pain
Your eyes speak one hundred million lies
Don’t tell me you’ve gone astray
I walk in circles
I’ve seen a million things that tell me so
But I was one to play the fool, girl
Though the rules were somewhat dark to me
And I know that we could fall in there
For a time and then unfall again
For a while, I give you darium bound stones
Grow through the roots of your mind set apart
And I know that you can feel the pain
Your eyes speak one hundred million lies
Don’t tell me you’ve gone astray
I walk in circles
I’ve seen a million things that tell me so
Total anxiety, pay for variety
Oh, we’ll wait for time to turn around
Turn around your faith
We’ll wait for time to turn
The world we sold, there was a choir there
The world we sold, there was a choir there
Disgrace for you
Don’t tell me you’ve gone astray
I talk in circles
Everlasting chains that bind my purpose
Only I’ve seen million things that tell me so
Total anxiety, pay for variety
Oh, we’ll wait for time to turn around
Turn around your faith
We’ll wait for time to…
Choked on society, laced with cyanide
Oh, we’ll wait for time to turn around
Turn around your faith
We’ll wait for time to turn
https://youtu.be/2MMpYIuDMlg
It’s not you who they don’t trust.
It’s WHO, The Boy Who Cried Wolf that make this situation, in which people avoid trusting pandemic “things”.
I think if a doomsday pandemic is coming, people will only trust it after it really happens (with millions dead), but not before that.
Will African migration be a critical viral spread factor? Or, is it already?
OT:
https://twitter.com/algekalipso/status/1835750089123619068?s=46
“What would a no-self narrative look like in this context? How might one craft a story where there is no main character, no privileged identity, and yet the plot still unfolds?”
Might the narrative look like fate? Might it look like the tale of the coming collapse:
“No group of leaders conspired knowingly to turn us into detritovores. Using the ecological paradigm to think about human history, we can see instead that the end of exuberance was the summary result of all our separate and innocent decisions to have a baby, to trade a horse for a tractor, to avoid illness by getting vaccinated, to move from a farm to a city, to live in a heated home, to buy a family automobile and not depend on public transit, to specialize, exchange, and thereby prosper.”
https://jayhansonsdieoff.net/page15-2/
I’m wondering, where do your butterfly wings fit in here?
Tens of thousands of ‘butterflies’ flapping one way, and somehow, the contrarian is going to overpower them?
The flapping butterfly is supposed to be able to start a hurricane, or stop one I guess?
I’m not a chaos mathematician or anything, but that seems like a pretty fucking desperate hope to hold onto.
Sorry, make that billions of butterflies vs a handful of contrarians.
Math is clearly not by strong point, particularly after a few drinks, and the day I’ve had.
Anyway. . .
Maybe a relatively small number can make a difference. I think the Bolsheviks, for example, were a pretty small minority – maybe 5% or so. And they managed to take over.
Do one in twenty people think like you though?
For me, not around here – it’s less than 1% 😛
Perhaps there is a threshold.
If yes, we clearly haven’t reached it yet.