Plotinus is boring, but to give him due credit, his apophatic theology influenced all three Abrahamic religions and probably made life a good deal less dreary for untold numbers of intelligent people who had the misfortune to live in the mid-to-late first millennium.
"Based and blue-pilled" gets it right. I find it strange that you of all people would take the covid hysteria to be basically true. The Cathedral's coverage has been transparently dishonest (or, at least, incorrect, but it's hard to believe that the entire media/public health sphere don't understand basic statistics).
For example, the constant scaremongering of "cases" - which is an entirely useless metric on its own, as it is proportional to the number of tests. Or how about the fact that a "covid death" is anyone who dies within 28 days of a positive test - which the uk government explicitly states on their website is to make you more afraid than you otherwise would be. https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/08/12/behind-the-headlines-counting-covid-19-deaths/
I'm not really sure what the motive for this is, but my best guess is something like what you describe for Michael Mann in your Climate Gate. They aren't lying because they have some secret dark motive, but because the deadly threat of covid is *true*, and so reporting in a way to support that is not dishonest but *righteous*.
Believing in the covid menace is the high-status, fashionable position, and so is supporting these endless lockdowns, the masks, or whatever it is the Cathedral calls for next. Isn't it interesting how "anyone who doesn't take the vaccine is an anti-vaxxer" and "you'll still need to lockdown and wear a mask after the vaccine" are simultaneously fashionable positions? One could even call it a test of faith, with the masks taking the place of a crucifix...
Simply put, the cathedral seems to be up to its old tricks. I'm curious why this doesn't seem to have factored into your analysis, even of screen. Or perhaps I'm wrong about that, and you simply didn't want to retread old ground.
Among other fake incidents this year, the lack of concern from the establishment regarding protests during the pandemic really worried me. The lengths people will go to conform to the right opinion never ceases to amaze me.
"China’s hard lockdown took R far below 1 and killed the virus in two months."
I really can't understand how someone so well read in history could treat any information coming out of China (i.e. from the CCP) as anything but exactly what it is (propaganda) - unless I am misreading and this is somehow tongue-in-cheek. The CCP has absolutely no reason whatsoever to allow any information to surface that would make the CCP look bad. And why would they? They control everything. It's almost like if you could cheat at cards, no one else who's playing can do anything about it, and you get to go home with your winnings every night. Of course you're going to cheat. Any data from China should be automatically discarded as the junk it is.
The question is how much room for fudging does China have, on a scale from Denmark to North Korea. It can only be shown by facts, not logic, so you can disregard that point if you would like.
You're suffering from western chauvinist delusions. Let me guess you simultaneously thought China was downplaying the severity as well as exaggerating it.
Go play with your straw men elsewhere. If someone you know is a pathological liar (read: 20th century Chinese history), eventually you simply stop listening to anything they say, unless you're a fool. I'm not speculating about what reality is (we'll probably never know anyway), and I don't need to. Specifics of what it actually is aside, the likelihood that it lines up with anything close to what the CCP says is approaching zero, when compared to literally any other reality.
Well, let's say we ignore China entirely and look at Taiwan instead. Curtis' claim is still exactly on point. Taiwan killed the virus in months while not being a part of the WHO and having a capital with population density approaching that of NY. So at the very least it's not physically impossible.
Japan also did quite well with no serious domestic lockdown, and a very aged population.
If you look at countries like theirs, and Vietnam that also did quite well, the common denominator starts to look more like early border control measures than internal lockdowns.
It makes sense intuitively, as it's a heck of a lot more pragmatic - and ethical - to keep people from coming in (esp. if you're on an island, and/or your border doesn't leak like a sieve as does the US southern border) than it is to keep your own citizens locked in their homes hoping that the virus won't spread intra-population (a lot of good that did in Europe).
Mr Moldbug once compared it to the "Harlem Globetrotters" exhibition basketball team and their "rivals" the always defeated, bufoonish Washington Generals. It's certainly one of his "trucks" that's gotten better with time.
Thats funny. I wasn't aware he used that comparison as well. That is my go to explanation for why conservatives shouldn't bother with twitter. It's like signing up to play the globetrotters. Your role there is to be a loser. They cheat, they travel, they foul, they have two balls, and you as a conservative, your job is to be dunked on! Passionate, dedicated basketball players, would do well to avoid it.
In the last episodes of "Common Sense" Dan Carlin echoed a lot of similar sentiments. His second to last episode is called "A Recipe for Caesar". I would love to see a conversation between you two and would gladly chip in to make it happen.
BTW Borzoi from the therightstuff.biz is not a nazi, he literally said "I'm not the nazi you're looking for", although he's familiar with the argumentation.
As with alcohol, blow and women, sometimes the nazi you're looking for is a bit unrealistic and you have to do with the one who's hanging around the place.
Communists emit a field in their general vicinity that causes fascists to spontaneously pop into (and subsequently *out of*) existence. Really interesting phenomenon.
Based and blue-pilled
Plotinus is boring, but to give him due credit, his apophatic theology influenced all three Abrahamic religions and probably made life a good deal less dreary for untold numbers of intelligent people who had the misfortune to live in the mid-to-late first millennium.
"Based and blue-pilled" gets it right. I find it strange that you of all people would take the covid hysteria to be basically true. The Cathedral's coverage has been transparently dishonest (or, at least, incorrect, but it's hard to believe that the entire media/public health sphere don't understand basic statistics).
For example, the constant scaremongering of "cases" - which is an entirely useless metric on its own, as it is proportional to the number of tests. Or how about the fact that a "covid death" is anyone who dies within 28 days of a positive test - which the uk government explicitly states on their website is to make you more afraid than you otherwise would be. https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/08/12/behind-the-headlines-counting-covid-19-deaths/
I'm not really sure what the motive for this is, but my best guess is something like what you describe for Michael Mann in your Climate Gate. They aren't lying because they have some secret dark motive, but because the deadly threat of covid is *true*, and so reporting in a way to support that is not dishonest but *righteous*.
Believing in the covid menace is the high-status, fashionable position, and so is supporting these endless lockdowns, the masks, or whatever it is the Cathedral calls for next. Isn't it interesting how "anyone who doesn't take the vaccine is an anti-vaxxer" and "you'll still need to lockdown and wear a mask after the vaccine" are simultaneously fashionable positions? One could even call it a test of faith, with the masks taking the place of a crucifix...
Simply put, the cathedral seems to be up to its old tricks. I'm curious why this doesn't seem to have factored into your analysis, even of screen. Or perhaps I'm wrong about that, and you simply didn't want to retread old ground.
Among other fake incidents this year, the lack of concern from the establishment regarding protests during the pandemic really worried me. The lengths people will go to conform to the right opinion never ceases to amaze me.
They were plenty concerned about *some* protests...
Counterpoint: the number of dead from covid may have been massively exaggerated (https://wmbriggs.com/post/33680/).
Briggs is full of shit on covid. Read Greg Cochran instead.
lockdown but not for protests. clownworld in display
"China’s hard lockdown took R far below 1 and killed the virus in two months."
I really can't understand how someone so well read in history could treat any information coming out of China (i.e. from the CCP) as anything but exactly what it is (propaganda) - unless I am misreading and this is somehow tongue-in-cheek. The CCP has absolutely no reason whatsoever to allow any information to surface that would make the CCP look bad. And why would they? They control everything. It's almost like if you could cheat at cards, no one else who's playing can do anything about it, and you get to go home with your winnings every night. Of course you're going to cheat. Any data from China should be automatically discarded as the junk it is.
I, too, find our host's faith in what the CCP tells him...disturbing.
The question is how much room for fudging does China have, on a scale from Denmark to North Korea. It can only be shown by facts, not logic, so you can disregard that point if you would like.
You're suffering from western chauvinist delusions. Let me guess you simultaneously thought China was downplaying the severity as well as exaggerating it.
Go play with your straw men elsewhere. If someone you know is a pathological liar (read: 20th century Chinese history), eventually you simply stop listening to anything they say, unless you're a fool. I'm not speculating about what reality is (we'll probably never know anyway), and I don't need to. Specifics of what it actually is aside, the likelihood that it lines up with anything close to what the CCP says is approaching zero, when compared to literally any other reality.
Well, let's say we ignore China entirely and look at Taiwan instead. Curtis' claim is still exactly on point. Taiwan killed the virus in months while not being a part of the WHO and having a capital with population density approaching that of NY. So at the very least it's not physically impossible.
Japan also did quite well with no serious domestic lockdown, and a very aged population.
If you look at countries like theirs, and Vietnam that also did quite well, the common denominator starts to look more like early border control measures than internal lockdowns.
It makes sense intuitively, as it's a heck of a lot more pragmatic - and ethical - to keep people from coming in (esp. if you're on an island, and/or your border doesn't leak like a sieve as does the US southern border) than it is to keep your own citizens locked in their homes hoping that the virus won't spread intra-population (a lot of good that did in Europe).
If you think China is totally lying about the coronavirus, I commend to you this 40,000 word set of articles by (French) conservative philosopher of probability, Philippe Lemoine: https://necpluribusimpar.net/did-china-lie-about-covid-19-the-identification-of-sars-cov-2-as-the-cause-of-the-outbreak-in-wuhan-part-1/
Honestly, I'm just mad that I'm forced to play along with this bullshit to have a normal life. Why did I have to be born into the era of WWE politics?
Mr Moldbug once compared it to the "Harlem Globetrotters" exhibition basketball team and their "rivals" the always defeated, bufoonish Washington Generals. It's certainly one of his "trucks" that's gotten better with time.
Thats funny. I wasn't aware he used that comparison as well. That is my go to explanation for why conservatives shouldn't bother with twitter. It's like signing up to play the globetrotters. Your role there is to be a loser. They cheat, they travel, they foul, they have two balls, and you as a conservative, your job is to be dunked on! Passionate, dedicated basketball players, would do well to avoid it.
No thing fake ages well.
New game
Rock = Monarchy
Paper = Democracy
Scissors = Oligarchy
You can only play if you’re already playing, or if you’ve played before.
You don’t understand Plotinus
If only we could code our way out of this...
In the last episodes of "Common Sense" Dan Carlin echoed a lot of similar sentiments. His second to last episode is called "A Recipe for Caesar". I would love to see a conversation between you two and would gladly chip in to make it happen.
BTW Borzoi from the therightstuff.biz is not a nazi, he literally said "I'm not the nazi you're looking for", although he's familiar with the argumentation.
As with alcohol, blow and women, sometimes the nazi you're looking for is a bit unrealistic and you have to do with the one who's hanging around the place.
Communists emit a field in their general vicinity that causes fascists to spontaneously pop into (and subsequently *out of*) existence. Really interesting phenomenon.
Yarvin on a Dan Carlin podcast would be amazing, but somehow I think Carlin is way too kosher for it.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and marches like a goose.............
Cringe
no u
Ask your 8-year-old how many people would take the vaccine if they thought production quality sucked? Even now only half want it.
Just saw on Michael Malice's reading list a book about the 1960s Camp culture - perhaps, "camp" is the word? Or, postmodernism, in general?
For all things Covid-related, Jean-François Gariépy is the go-to guy.