Hey man, a never washes his hands, eat off other peoples plate, inhale deeply while others cough, doorknob licking 'its-just-the dang-flu' idiot here. I am 63 years old with one failing kidney who worked unmasked around other unmasked over 320 days in 2020 and on my way to a similar 2021. Here in the oilfield in Texas, its just low on the list for ways to die suddenly. Here is my take:
I think we care about this thing, -worldwide- because it primarily affects old, fat people. Old fat people are abnormally afraid of death and most critically, old fat people run everything. They therefore tell us what to worry about.
Yes it can kill you, so what? So can being fat when you are old - and at much higher rates. No one avoids any of that. Yet for some unknown reason, meaning a few million elitist fat, old f'cks kicking off, we are losing our collective minds.
You are awesome Curtis. I love your writing and I learn something from you almost every time I read Gray Mirror. Death is coming for us all, and 'geologically speaking' haha, in the next instant. I would consider giving this topic near zero time in your head going forward. Move on with your life.
Can we, perhaps, hear some actual facts in the next COVID post about the actual mortality of this disease for those below the average US life expectancy? Or must we continue to rely on the “long covid” complaints of your San Francisco neighbors?
For God’s sake, the one thing always brushed over in these posts is some objective analysis of the data. I know that’s hard to find in almost all public discussion (googling COVID statistics is walking through a minefield of Wikipedia obfuscation, Pravda and culture-war nonsense) but that is precisely what everyone needs.
Sheer lunacy and for what? So that multi morbid 83 year olds can get 84? Or that landwhales that have to take forty different pills a day to keep existing never have to face up to the reality that their habits might be a tad unhealthy? Instead of trying to wipe out the flu (lol) lets make diabetes (type II) illegal and make 10k steps a day mandatory with thread of corporeal punishment. Just as crazy but at least there would be a public health benefit to that.
I know every comment here is already, "here's why you are wrong, Curtis", but here's why you're wrong, Curtis.
1) Though I am not myself a Chassidic Jew, I have a lot of professional and personal contact with them. Except for two sects, they all stopped keeping any Covid rules in by July 2020. This is the case in America, the UK, Belgium, and Israel. And what happened? Nothing happened. Probably, you could demonstrate that something had been shaved off the the average end of life, and there are a handful of tragic stories (more than any other year, though, is not clear), but that's it. Everyone has had it, and no-one is sorry, no-one is licking their wounds, no-one is doing anything except recounting stories of the bizarre rituals you have to go through to go shopping if you venture outside of Williamsburg. I was the hawkiest of Covid-hawks, but neither my own pride nor my own trust in Yarvin-Sailer-Cochran could withstand contact with reality. As for stories I read in the media of Covid being really bad, I ascribe it 50% to just lies and 50% to a sort of nocebo effect that comes from being exposed to Covid hysteria. Just don't think about it dude, 4 real.
2) Covid-19 appears to have replaced the Influenza virus. No-one knows why that should have happened, because virologists don't know a lot of basic stuff about their discipline, like why outbreaks are seasonal or why they peak. However, it has happened. So, after a nasty transition period where it knocked out some dry timber, Covid-19's lasting effect is to transfer some of the burden of random death from the young to the old and obese. What are you so het up about?
3) This is accusing the Pope of heresy, but 2 basic principles of post UR Yarvinism should, surely, be (1) don't start monkeying around with stuff like virology that neither you or anyone else understands and (2) don't start abolishing universal features of human existence because it satisfies some sort of superficial utilitarian hedonic arithmetic. Now you're talking about getting rid of the common cold. Have you thought about the effect this will likely have on auto-immune diseases, let alone more spiritual matters? Icarus, put down the crack.
I gotta be honest, the "God-Emperor" scenario Curtis describes near the end is actually something like what I pictured really could or would happen, just last March: a strong, coordinated response that would result in a severe, uncomfortable, but definitely TEMPORARY change in daily life, while the competent parts of government took care of things for us. Even if it were five months I could've lived with that. I just can't believe how naive I was back then. I was also a Bernie liberal with only a vague sense of who Curtis Yarvin was, so suffice to say it's been a hell of a year.
> In particular, it has long been known that a month-long hard lockdown eradicates all respiratory viruses, perhaps with occasional remnants to be cleaned up by spot treatment.
I think viruses (including respiratory viruses) are more complex than that, and can remain dormant within the body or in the environment for extended periods of time, only to be reactivated by some sort of trigger.
I refer you to this paper: "An outbreak of common colds at an Antarctic base after seventeen weeks of complete isolation"
Honestly this Covid situation is a perfect example of the problems Curtis keeps hammering on. On one hand, I have no problem complying in principle and see nothing wrong with masks, vaccines etc. On the other hand, I know that we're ruled by complete ghouls and find myself questioning things I never even noticed before.
Curtis tickles my brain. Whether I agree with him or not, he provides a neural workout.
Based on zero probability of Curtis' prescriptions taking place, I'd say it's time to just take our lumps & move on. I do find it humorous that everyone around me in the suburbs of NYC, is going to supermarkets, concerts, and restaurants unmasked, but they're afraid to go back to the office. LOL.
I admire Curtis greatly. Not enough to venture into the hellscape of NYC to meet him, but enough to appreciate his work & help his grift.
Once again the same narrative template (every post). A perceptive, sharp analysis with irrelevant asides for a flourish, followed by a messianic call a monarch and his non existent solutions. This provides as much satisfaction as an old omelette.
How exactly could critical infrastructure and food production, distribution survive a strict 40 day quarantine? Would the livestock of our massive mega farms be fine after not being tended to for 40 days? Crops just left to their fates? Supply chain disruptions due to our half-arsed lockdowns were serious and we are still suffering the consequences. Could we mobilize enough gubmint workers to distribute enough food to keep people from starving during the quarantine? What happens if those workers have a rash of infection among them? Even if that worked, the populace would likely starve afterwards. Imagine the vulnerability to infection of a people emerging from being locked inside for 40 days, pale, emaciated and depressed. How many would turn on each other during being imprisoned, not to mention after being released. Could the water supply be safe after being neglected for that long?
We are human beings with many more needs than simple survival.
Even if we had robotics and automation in place to tend to these things for us, the physical and psychological toll would be enormous.
We would emerge from our caves only to find nothing left to sustain us.
I don't really know anything about Bayes, but it seems like Bayes rule is the simplest way to describe the bi-partisan, class based split on corona virus reactions. If the new information that "you will be exposed to a lethal risk" is something that *greatly surprises you*, then it would, in theory, greatly alter your behaviour. Many new economy people live their entire lives entirely insulated from lethal risk. I work with someone who claims to have "never been injured". Not surprisingly, this person is a covid hardliner.
Another commenter here, Ted Royer says he works in the oil patch in Texas. He is exposed to significant and continuous potentially lethal risk at work. The new information "you will be exposed to a lethal risk" does not surprise him, and does not alter his behaviour.
As someone for whom the lockdown has been an unmixed blessing, improving my standard of life far more than a lottery win would have done, I look with a baleful eye towards anything that promises itself as a solution. The virus has come to make what used to be unpleasant now impossible: the open plan office is virtually a thing of the past, the sweatshop's days are numbered.
It's a completely mainstream opinion to say that we shouldn't routinely give antibiotics to pigs and chickens, because doing so allows us to keep them in entirely inhumane conditions. Instead organic farms restrict antibiotics to the sick pigs and keep the rest of them in conditions that are healthy enough that most will be ok relying on their natural immunity. Can't we at least consider doing the same for ourselves?
Hey man, a never washes his hands, eat off other peoples plate, inhale deeply while others cough, doorknob licking 'its-just-the dang-flu' idiot here. I am 63 years old with one failing kidney who worked unmasked around other unmasked over 320 days in 2020 and on my way to a similar 2021. Here in the oilfield in Texas, its just low on the list for ways to die suddenly. Here is my take:
I think we care about this thing, -worldwide- because it primarily affects old, fat people. Old fat people are abnormally afraid of death and most critically, old fat people run everything. They therefore tell us what to worry about.
Yes it can kill you, so what? So can being fat when you are old - and at much higher rates. No one avoids any of that. Yet for some unknown reason, meaning a few million elitist fat, old f'cks kicking off, we are losing our collective minds.
You are awesome Curtis. I love your writing and I learn something from you almost every time I read Gray Mirror. Death is coming for us all, and 'geologically speaking' haha, in the next instant. I would consider giving this topic near zero time in your head going forward. Move on with your life.
Can we, perhaps, hear some actual facts in the next COVID post about the actual mortality of this disease for those below the average US life expectancy? Or must we continue to rely on the “long covid” complaints of your San Francisco neighbors?
For God’s sake, the one thing always brushed over in these posts is some objective analysis of the data. I know that’s hard to find in almost all public discussion (googling COVID statistics is walking through a minefield of Wikipedia obfuscation, Pravda and culture-war nonsense) but that is precisely what everyone needs.
Sheer lunacy and for what? So that multi morbid 83 year olds can get 84? Or that landwhales that have to take forty different pills a day to keep existing never have to face up to the reality that their habits might be a tad unhealthy? Instead of trying to wipe out the flu (lol) lets make diabetes (type II) illegal and make 10k steps a day mandatory with thread of corporeal punishment. Just as crazy but at least there would be a public health benefit to that.
I know every comment here is already, "here's why you are wrong, Curtis", but here's why you're wrong, Curtis.
1) Though I am not myself a Chassidic Jew, I have a lot of professional and personal contact with them. Except for two sects, they all stopped keeping any Covid rules in by July 2020. This is the case in America, the UK, Belgium, and Israel. And what happened? Nothing happened. Probably, you could demonstrate that something had been shaved off the the average end of life, and there are a handful of tragic stories (more than any other year, though, is not clear), but that's it. Everyone has had it, and no-one is sorry, no-one is licking their wounds, no-one is doing anything except recounting stories of the bizarre rituals you have to go through to go shopping if you venture outside of Williamsburg. I was the hawkiest of Covid-hawks, but neither my own pride nor my own trust in Yarvin-Sailer-Cochran could withstand contact with reality. As for stories I read in the media of Covid being really bad, I ascribe it 50% to just lies and 50% to a sort of nocebo effect that comes from being exposed to Covid hysteria. Just don't think about it dude, 4 real.
2) Covid-19 appears to have replaced the Influenza virus. No-one knows why that should have happened, because virologists don't know a lot of basic stuff about their discipline, like why outbreaks are seasonal or why they peak. However, it has happened. So, after a nasty transition period where it knocked out some dry timber, Covid-19's lasting effect is to transfer some of the burden of random death from the young to the old and obese. What are you so het up about?
3) This is accusing the Pope of heresy, but 2 basic principles of post UR Yarvinism should, surely, be (1) don't start monkeying around with stuff like virology that neither you or anyone else understands and (2) don't start abolishing universal features of human existence because it satisfies some sort of superficial utilitarian hedonic arithmetic. Now you're talking about getting rid of the common cold. Have you thought about the effect this will likely have on auto-immune diseases, let alone more spiritual matters? Icarus, put down the crack.
I gotta be honest, the "God-Emperor" scenario Curtis describes near the end is actually something like what I pictured really could or would happen, just last March: a strong, coordinated response that would result in a severe, uncomfortable, but definitely TEMPORARY change in daily life, while the competent parts of government took care of things for us. Even if it were five months I could've lived with that. I just can't believe how naive I was back then. I was also a Bernie liberal with only a vague sense of who Curtis Yarvin was, so suffice to say it's been a hell of a year.
> In particular, it has long been known that a month-long hard lockdown eradicates all respiratory viruses, perhaps with occasional remnants to be cleaned up by spot treatment.
I think viruses (including respiratory viruses) are more complex than that, and can remain dormant within the body or in the environment for extended periods of time, only to be reactivated by some sort of trigger.
I refer you to this paper: "An outbreak of common colds at an Antarctic base after seventeen weeks of complete isolation"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/pdf/jhyg00082-0026.pdf
I pay by the year so rage quitting has a narrow window.
Honestly this Covid situation is a perfect example of the problems Curtis keeps hammering on. On one hand, I have no problem complying in principle and see nothing wrong with masks, vaccines etc. On the other hand, I know that we're ruled by complete ghouls and find myself questioning things I never even noticed before.
Curtis tickles my brain. Whether I agree with him or not, he provides a neural workout.
Based on zero probability of Curtis' prescriptions taking place, I'd say it's time to just take our lumps & move on. I do find it humorous that everyone around me in the suburbs of NYC, is going to supermarkets, concerts, and restaurants unmasked, but they're afraid to go back to the office. LOL.
I admire Curtis greatly. Not enough to venture into the hellscape of NYC to meet him, but enough to appreciate his work & help his grift.
Who would win? A monarch with a tyrannical trillion dollar global lockdown, vs some idiot coughing into a freezer?
Also, despite my other issues with this article, the parable about the Irish flags was awesome.
Once again the same narrative template (every post). A perceptive, sharp analysis with irrelevant asides for a flourish, followed by a messianic call a monarch and his non existent solutions. This provides as much satisfaction as an old omelette.
How exactly could critical infrastructure and food production, distribution survive a strict 40 day quarantine? Would the livestock of our massive mega farms be fine after not being tended to for 40 days? Crops just left to their fates? Supply chain disruptions due to our half-arsed lockdowns were serious and we are still suffering the consequences. Could we mobilize enough gubmint workers to distribute enough food to keep people from starving during the quarantine? What happens if those workers have a rash of infection among them? Even if that worked, the populace would likely starve afterwards. Imagine the vulnerability to infection of a people emerging from being locked inside for 40 days, pale, emaciated and depressed. How many would turn on each other during being imprisoned, not to mention after being released. Could the water supply be safe after being neglected for that long?
We are human beings with many more needs than simple survival.
Even if we had robotics and automation in place to tend to these things for us, the physical and psychological toll would be enormous.
We would emerge from our caves only to find nothing left to sustain us.
I don't really know anything about Bayes, but it seems like Bayes rule is the simplest way to describe the bi-partisan, class based split on corona virus reactions. If the new information that "you will be exposed to a lethal risk" is something that *greatly surprises you*, then it would, in theory, greatly alter your behaviour. Many new economy people live their entire lives entirely insulated from lethal risk. I work with someone who claims to have "never been injured". Not surprisingly, this person is a covid hardliner.
Another commenter here, Ted Royer says he works in the oil patch in Texas. He is exposed to significant and continuous potentially lethal risk at work. The new information "you will be exposed to a lethal risk" does not surprise him, and does not alter his behaviour.
Does this make any sense?
Dirty hands,
clean money,
strong immune systems.
Life will not be contained.
Life breaks free.
Life finds a way.
King Canute
hung up his crown.
What hubris
to believe politics
can contain nature!
As someone for whom the lockdown has been an unmixed blessing, improving my standard of life far more than a lottery win would have done, I look with a baleful eye towards anything that promises itself as a solution. The virus has come to make what used to be unpleasant now impossible: the open plan office is virtually a thing of the past, the sweatshop's days are numbered.
It's a completely mainstream opinion to say that we shouldn't routinely give antibiotics to pigs and chickens, because doing so allows us to keep them in entirely inhumane conditions. Instead organic farms restrict antibiotics to the sick pigs and keep the rest of them in conditions that are healthy enough that most will be ok relying on their natural immunity. Can't we at least consider doing the same for ourselves?