If he does his job once he gets in its going to be a painful period fixing everything up, but a lot of us are willing as long as there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
"of cooooourse if someone found that the vaccines were dangerous they'd want to publish immediately! The fact nothing has been published shows there's no evidence!"
No kidding.
I don't know how anyone could make a reductive statement that COVID restrictions and forced vaccinations saved lives when the realities are so much more complex.
-increased "deaths of despair" such as suicide, drug overdoses, and death by alcoholism immediately and directly due to lockdowns
-increased deaths due to abuse not being intervened because abused were legally stuck in the house with their abusers
-economic stress leading to long term effects due to poverty (and for idiot boomers who think the economy is going well because their 401(k)s are going up, most people don't have significant retirement savings or investments -- millions are putting stress on food banks because people who never had to use them before are going now, and there's tent cities in many cities that never had them before because so many people are being bumped out of permanent housing)
-Gen Z kids in high school and college have major problems due to subpar education. Reading, writing, and math competency levels are massively affected particularly among vulnerable communities which will have knock-on effects for generations we won't even know.
-Gen Alpha kids born immediately before or during the pandemic are developmentally delayed due to massively reduced exposure to critical stimuli early on in life which will have knock-on effects for generations we won't even know.
-Gen Alpha kids born earlier and so in kindergarten are facing early developmental setbacks such as poor socialization which will have knock-on effects for generations we won't even know.
-Donald Trump's project warpspeed by definition sped up development of COVID vaccines by speeding up basic testing, and by giving drug companies liability waivers so they could toss their Latest R&D out there without regard for long-term efficacy or long-term side-effects. Trump-haters correctly pointed out that it takes decades to properly test a vaccine, but magically forgot that fact when their political leaders took on vaccination as their authoritarian cause du jour. "Oh, a bunch of people didn't immediately die when they took the vaccine" you might counter, to which I'd point to many things that have long term effects such as cigarette smoking, asbestos, DDT, lead paint, or radioactive substances. To give it an immediate and obvious example of how long-term testing wasn't done and nobody really knew, it was originally stated that getting vaccinated was enough, but for people following along at home they'd be on like their 8th booster at this point.
-some might argue "oh none of this was the doctors fault, it was caused by the virus", but we have a growing body of evidence from official sources suggesting that the NIH was illegally funding coronavirus gain of function research in Wuhan and so there's a direct csusal link between fauci and the novel coronavirus.
-some might argue "the vaccine saves lives among the vulnerable such as cancer patients or the elderly", which I would potentially accept, except it wasn't just rolled out to people who were vulnerable and people who were worried and wanted additional protection, it was mandated to many people who were healthy and could have withstood the virus without taking experimental drugs and didn't want to take it but had to or lose their jobs or freedom to travel. Some countries following Americas lead forced everyone to get vaccinated period, and it was common for politicians to make certain levels of vaccination in the population conditions of easing restrictions, an authoritarian measure that took everyone's freedom hostage.
-it is now proven beyond any doubt that the federal government directly interfered with science, using levers behind the scenes to reward certain viewpoints and totally silence others. Besides the immediate harm from causing potentially false science to be published about the pandemic, the damage to science as an institution will have long lasting knock-on effects we can't predict and likely won't be able to measure given the dataset we have.
-the lockdowns and other measures such as mail-in voting can be seen as having a direct causal link to both left wing and right wing riots which even if you justify your own side's riots can at least be seen as harmful due to the other side's riots. These events have long tail effects I doubt we can easily measure, but increased political instability can have larger effects than even the most charitable COVID death tolls.
-the weakening of the west due to COVID measures could be seen as having a direct causal link to Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, seeing a moment of weakness as a good time to strike. Of course it is a complex issue and perhaps he would have done it anyway, but if he wouldn't have but for the intense weakening of the west due to the self-imposed measures due to a potentially self-inflicted virus, then a lot of peoples miserable deaths may be attributed to it.
-there are a number of deadly regional conflicts which can be shown to have been causally linked to COVID restrictions. As just one example, Sri Lanka was doing very well before the pandemic, but due to travel restrictions lost a key revenue stream ultimately leading to mass starvation and political revolution.
So to summarize: there are broad and far-reaching effects of everything that was done during the covid-19 pandemic such as lockdowns and forced vaccinations, and the pandemic itself may have been caused by the Fauci-led NIH, and the overbroad nature of pandemic measures increased the harm done. It's really difficult to legitimately say Fauci saved lives in the long term with any level of certainty.
Certainly, the point that I'm making is not necessarily that the response was wrong on its face, but rather that stating unequivocally that they saved lives is extremely naive and imprecise. Even the stuff that looks really bad like the gain of function research or the censoring of academics may have been done with the absolute best of intentions, but good intentions don't prevent policies from having unintended consequences.
I don't know how anyone could make a reductive statement that COVID restrictions and forced vaccinations saved lives when the realities are so much more complex.
-increased "deaths of despair" such as suicide, drug overdoses, and death by alcoholism immediately and directly due to lockdowns
-increased deaths due to abuse not being intervened because abused were legally stuck in the house with their abusers
-economic stress leading to long term effects due to poverty (and for idiot boomers who think the economy is going well because their 401(k)s are going up, most people don't have significant retirement savings or investments -- millions are putting stress on food banks because people who never had to use them before are going now, and there's tent cities in many cities that never had them before because so many people are being bumped out of permanent housing)
-Gen Z kids in high school and college have major problems due to subpar education. Reading, writing, and math competency levels are massively affected particularly among vulnerable communities which will have knock-on effects for generations we won't even know.
-Gen Alpha kids born immediately before or during the pandemic are developmentally delayed due to massively reduced exposure to critical stimuli early on in life which will have knock-on effects for generations we won't even know.
-Gen Alpha kids born earlier and so in kindergarten are facing early developmental setbacks such as poor socialization which will have knock-on effects for generations we won't even know.
-Donald Trump's project warpspeed by definition sped up development of COVID vaccines by speeding up basic testing, and by giving drug companies liability waivers so they could toss their Latest R&D out there without regard for long-term efficacy or long-term side-effects. Trump-haters correctly pointed out that it takes decades to properly test a vaccine, but magically forgot that fact when their political leaders took on vaccination as their authoritarian cause du jour. "Oh, a bunch of people didn't immediately die when they took the vaccine" you might counter, to which I'd point to many things that have long term effects such as cigarette smoking, asbestos, DDT, lead paint, or radioactive substances. To give it an immediate and obvious example of how long-term testing wasn't done and nobody really knew, it was originally stated that getting vaccinated was enough, but for people following along at home they'd be on like their 8th booster at this point.
-some might argue "oh none of this was the doctors fault, it was caused by the virus", but we have a growing body of evidence from official sources suggesting that the NIH was illegally funding coronavirus gain of function research in Wuhan and so there's a direct csusal link between fauci and the novel coronavirus.
-some might argue "the vaccine saves lives among the vulnerable such as cancer patients or the elderly", which I would potentially accept, except it wasn't just rolled out to people who were vulnerable and people who were worried and wanted additional protection, it was mandated to many people who were healthy and could have withstood the virus without taking experimental drugs and didn't want to take it but had to or lose their jobs or freedom to travel. Some countries following Americas lead forced everyone to get vaccinated period, and it was common for politicians to make certain levels of vaccination in the population conditions of easing restrictions, an authoritarian measure that took everyone's freedom hostage.
-it is now proven beyond any doubt that the federal government directly interfered with science, using levers behind the scenes to reward certain viewpoints and totally silence others. Besides the immediate harm from causing potentially false science to be published about the pandemic, the damage to science as an institution will have long lasting knock-on effects we can't predict and likely won't be able to measure given the dataset we have.
-the lockdowns and other measures such as mail-in voting can be seen as having a direct causal link to both left wing and right wing riots which even if you justify your own side's riots can at least be seen as harmful due to the other side's riots. These events have long tail effects I doubt we can easily measure, but increased political instability can have larger effects than even the most charitable COVID death tolls.
-the weakening of the west due to COVID measures could be seen as having a direct causal link to Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, seeing a moment of weakness as a good time to strike. Of course it is a complex issue and perhaps he would have done it anyway, but if he wouldn't have but for the intense weakening of the west due to the self-imposed measures due to a potentially self-inflicted virus, then a lot of peoples miserable deaths may be attributed to it.
-there are a number of deadly regional conflicts which can be shown to have been causally linked to COVID restrictions. As just one example, Sri Lanka was doing very well before the pandemic, but due to travel restrictions lost a key revenue stream ultimately leading to mass starvation and political revolution.
So to summarize: there are broad and far-reaching effects of everything that was done during the covid-19 pandemic such as lockdowns and forced vaccinations, and the pandemic itself may have been caused by the Fauci-led NIH, and the overbroad nature of pandemic measures increased the harm done. It's really difficult to legitimately say Fauci saved lives in the long term with any level of certainty.
Certainly, the point that I'm making is not necessarily that the response was wrong on its face, but rather that stating unequivocally that they saved lives is extremely naive and imprecise. Even the stuff that looks really bad like the gain of function research or the censoring of academics may have been done with the absolute best of intentions, but good intentions don't prevent policies from having unintended consequences.
Thinking you can just swap out one tech company for another and you're gonna find shelter from the storm is absurd. Everyone and everything is always for sale, and if there's one quick and easy company to buy out or to sue, it's a squishy target.
"I sense some sort of dog whistle in this message. Like maybe he doesnt like someone and wants to cause them harm but is trying very hard to hide it!"
Linus Sebastian typing "YES I UNDERSTAND I AM ABOUT TO BREAK MY LINUX DISTRO BY UNINSTALLING THE BOOTLOADER" and pressing enter while complaining "I shouldn't have to type this, it's so inconvenient", then running the command and breaking his linux distro by uninstalling the bootloader.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/04/lets-not-sugarcoat-it-people-are-not-reading-your-stuff-post-reporters-outraged-after-publisher-drops-truth-bomb/
Really good article about something I think about a lot: these media outlets that are utter garbage today once weren't. They were infiltrated and infested, and even people who used to do good work were infected with a mind virus. It's easy to rewrite history to think things have always looked this way, but go back 20 years and the whole world looked way different. Not saying there weren't biases and media spin and political spin, but rather that the character of society was much different. It's like the classic Yakov Smirnoff joke: "in America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, the party can always find you!" -- things were a lot more about having fun. You could see it in the movies, hear it in the music, feel it in the video games.
There's a reason why for so long when someone came "back" from that time period everyone got excited for a while, because people want to go back to having fun. But instead every time we end up seeing more preachy bullshit.
That isn't owned solely by the woke either. Every report I hear out of the daily wire plus is that It's just the same content flipped around. I don't want to pwn the libs, I just want to see a fun to watch story.
Let me give an example demonstrating what media could be if we stop letting $currentyear define everything: this season I'm watching one show about a prince trying to use his ability to see people's skill levels to help him rule a barony through a time of conflict, a story about a goblin who has the ability to learn more abilities by eating trying to help his people thrive, a story about a kid playing with magic with intense passion, a story of a young man's second chance in a fantasy world, a story of a slime becoming the most powerful demon lord through the power of friendship, the story of a hero coming back after defeating the big bad after 500 years and trying to find his bearings and the relationships with his old friends, and a story of a guy who fights in a modern self defense force against city destroying monsters while secretly using his powers as a city destroying monster to tip the scales in the humans favor. Some people want to say "everything is political", but do any of those stories strike you as overtly partisan? I feel like generally speaking I could sit next to someone of any political stripe and we could enjoy those stories together.
I don't know if media institutions that were previously perfectly acceptable and enjoyable and worthwhile can be saved, but it would be nice.
Really good article about something I think about a lot: these media outlets that are utter garbage today once weren't. They were infiltrated and infested, and even people who used to do good work were infected with a mind virus. It's easy to rewrite history to think things have always looked this way, but go back 20 years and the whole world looked way different. Not saying there weren't biases and media spin and political spin, but rather that the character of society was much different. It's like the classic Yakov Smirnoff joke: "in America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, the party can always find you!" -- things were a lot more about having fun. You could see it in the movies, hear it in the music, feel it in the video games.
There's a reason why for so long when someone came "back" from that time period everyone got excited for a while, because people want to go back to having fun. But instead every time we end up seeing more preachy bullshit.
That isn't owned solely by the woke either. Every report I hear out of the daily wire plus is that It's just the same content flipped around. I don't want to pwn the libs, I just want to see a fun to watch story.
Let me give an example demonstrating what media could be if we stop letting $currentyear define everything: this season I'm watching one show about a prince trying to use his ability to see people's skill levels to help him rule a barony through a time of conflict, a story about a goblin who has the ability to learn more abilities by eating trying to help his people thrive, a story about a kid playing with magic with intense passion, a story of a young man's second chance in a fantasy world, a story of a slime becoming the most powerful demon lord through the power of friendship, the story of a hero coming back after defeating the big bad after 500 years and trying to find his bearings and the relationships with his old friends, and a story of a guy who fights in a modern self defense force against city destroying monsters while secretly using his powers as a city destroying monster to tip the scales in the humans favor. Some people want to say "everything is political", but do any of those stories strike you as overtly partisan? I feel like generally speaking I could sit next to someone of any political stripe and we could enjoy those stories together.
I don't know if media institutions that were previously perfectly acceptable and enjoyable and worthwhile can be saved, but it would be nice.
The idea that Donald Trump can be subtle about anything seems beyond comprehension. If the guy was calling for something, he'd say it so loudly everyone in the solar system would know what he wants to do.
I forgot that the other side of the bill was a building that isn't finished (maximum downtown Winnipeg)
[Admin Mode] just switched IP addresses, so everything remained up but local users lost connectivity for a short while.
It would be nice if politicians just said what they meant and what they were going to do instead of what they thought was going to get them brownie points.
There's another side of this though, that a lot of people want exactly what this guy is talking about, but then they vote for someone who says they're going to do it and then they just don't do it.
Essentially, nobody's happy with politicians. No matter what model you think you're buying you're getting something else because they're not playing the same game as the rest of us.
There's another side of this though, that a lot of people want exactly what this guy is talking about, but then they vote for someone who says they're going to do it and then they just don't do it.
Essentially, nobody's happy with politicians. No matter what model you think you're buying you're getting something else because they're not playing the same game as the rest of us.
Me looking at these rusty old computers: "I can fix her..."
But in reality, no I can't. At best I can take it on and throw it in my garage and then forget about it for the next 20 years until I have to clear that shelf off for some other project I'm going to ignore...
But in reality, no I can't. At best I can take it on and throw it in my garage and then forget about it for the next 20 years until I have to clear that shelf off for some other project I'm going to ignore...
I think it's Ella Creamer commenting on someone else named Cat Bananahohanna or something.
I think a lot of us will never forget.
On the other hand, there's a lot of things that's more important in life than dwelling on it, so for now a lot of us can do is move forward and try to make tomorrow better than today.
On the other hand, there's a lot of things that's more important in life than dwelling on it, so for now a lot of us can do is move forward and try to make tomorrow better than today.
I read an article recently that suggested that listening to earbuds for even moderate amounts of time at moderate volumes can cause hearing loss over time.
I basically live my entire life with an earbud in so I'm pretty bummed out, so for now what I've been trying to do is make sure I'm listening at the absolute minimum volume I can hear.
I basically live my entire life with an earbud in so I'm pretty bummed out, so for now what I've been trying to do is make sure I'm listening at the absolute minimum volume I can hear.
I started listening to podcasts again recently, and was really surprised to realize how much was just bad propaganda breathlessly cheerleading the state talking points. It became clear to me that I was better off without them.
In the case of what I'm talking about, it's a lot of market podcasts and the like, and there's a really simple metric: will listening to them give me useful insights into what either the economy or the markets will do, or will they make predictions that are wrong?
Not a podcast though similar to one, Maverick of Wall Street on YouTube has been a great example where the information on the show correctly predicts and explains things that are going on beyond just reading the headline numbers or what policymakers claim they're trying to to do.
In the case of what I'm talking about, it's a lot of market podcasts and the like, and there's a really simple metric: will listening to them give me useful insights into what either the economy or the markets will do, or will they make predictions that are wrong?
Not a podcast though similar to one, Maverick of Wall Street on YouTube has been a great example where the information on the show correctly predicts and explains things that are going on beyond just reading the headline numbers or what policymakers claim they're trying to to do.
Money is a complicated subject.
There are people for whom money is really all they need and if they had that then they'd be set. But there's a lot of people where if you gave them a million dollars, they would just be dead within a little while. Some people would just drink or drug themselves to death almost immediately. Some people would take that million dollars and use it unwisely, so even with a million dollars they would eventually just be broke again.
It's like almost anything that people think will make them happy. It might, and for a certain percentage of people it will, but often the thing that everyone thinks is the problem is just one problem of many. Once the one problem is taken care of, suddenly the other problems end up just coming to light.
On the other hand, there are people who earn a million dollars and are just fine. They have great relationships with their family, they're active in their community, they are responsible with their money so they never run out, maybe they go off and find a nice girl and make a nice life for themselves. Maybe they already have.
You see it in a lot of things, where certain people think that if only they can get the one thing then all their problems will go away. A lot of fat people think that if only they'd be skinny, then they'd be happy. But then you meet a bunch of people who get bariatric surgery, and they go from being fat and miserable to being skinny and miserable because they're just miserable people, and afterwards they don't even have being fat too and justify how miserable they are. You made a bunch of people who think that if they can just get a really good job that pays well, all their problems will go away. A lot of those guys have X wives and substance abuse problems because it turns out money doesn't solve all your problems, not by itself.
Sometimes you even see it with people who earn enough money to not be worried about money anymore, and they just kind of stop. Guys with half their lives ahead of them retire and sit down in a chair and that's that... They don't do anything else ever because they have enough money, they have a house around them, they can get the food they need... But if you talk to them you know that they're not happy, because getting the base of your hierarchy of needs taken care of isn't enough.
It even happens to people who are really successful financially, that they retire and they don't know what to do with themselves. There's people who make their entire careers off of helping retiring executives come up with some kind of plan because they got so much stability out of their actual work that once you take that part away the money by itself isn't enough.
But if you have money, and that lets you take care of all of your basics, and then you go out and you work on your relationships with other people and building a community and finding a mission for yourself, at that point the money can't buy happiness, it could be part of the recipe.
There are people for whom money is really all they need and if they had that then they'd be set. But there's a lot of people where if you gave them a million dollars, they would just be dead within a little while. Some people would just drink or drug themselves to death almost immediately. Some people would take that million dollars and use it unwisely, so even with a million dollars they would eventually just be broke again.
It's like almost anything that people think will make them happy. It might, and for a certain percentage of people it will, but often the thing that everyone thinks is the problem is just one problem of many. Once the one problem is taken care of, suddenly the other problems end up just coming to light.
On the other hand, there are people who earn a million dollars and are just fine. They have great relationships with their family, they're active in their community, they are responsible with their money so they never run out, maybe they go off and find a nice girl and make a nice life for themselves. Maybe they already have.
You see it in a lot of things, where certain people think that if only they can get the one thing then all their problems will go away. A lot of fat people think that if only they'd be skinny, then they'd be happy. But then you meet a bunch of people who get bariatric surgery, and they go from being fat and miserable to being skinny and miserable because they're just miserable people, and afterwards they don't even have being fat too and justify how miserable they are. You made a bunch of people who think that if they can just get a really good job that pays well, all their problems will go away. A lot of those guys have X wives and substance abuse problems because it turns out money doesn't solve all your problems, not by itself.
Sometimes you even see it with people who earn enough money to not be worried about money anymore, and they just kind of stop. Guys with half their lives ahead of them retire and sit down in a chair and that's that... They don't do anything else ever because they have enough money, they have a house around them, they can get the food they need... But if you talk to them you know that they're not happy, because getting the base of your hierarchy of needs taken care of isn't enough.
It even happens to people who are really successful financially, that they retire and they don't know what to do with themselves. There's people who make their entire careers off of helping retiring executives come up with some kind of plan because they got so much stability out of their actual work that once you take that part away the money by itself isn't enough.
But if you have money, and that lets you take care of all of your basics, and then you go out and you work on your relationships with other people and building a community and finding a mission for yourself, at that point the money can't buy happiness, it could be part of the recipe.