ZeroHedge, the successful bad boy financial news reporting site, is shifting to a subscription model.
I might subscribe if ZeroHedge knew what the fuck was going on in the world, but they’re as much in denial about human overshoot as the mainstream news outlets.
Granted, ZeroHedge is at least willing to report on the daily insanities of our monetary and financial systems, which everyone else conveniently ignores, and I do value some of their observations, but they assume some evil cabal of elites is plotting to enrich themselves, rather than understanding that we’ve hit limits to growth caused by non-renewable energy depletion (and soon other non-negotiable constraints like climate change), and central banks are desperately printing money and using every slight of hand they can think of to extend and pretend a little longer our system that requires growth not to collapse.
Basically ZeroHedge doesn’t have a clue, and they make a living by feeding the conspiracy hungry crowd that congregates there. Not only do they not make the world a better place, they foment social unrest to make it a worse place.
So no, I won’t be subscribing.
Where can you go for intelligent apolitical reality based news?
It’s very hard to find.
Nobody important talks about what matters, and I guess they wouldn’t be important if they did, because most people don’t want to know the truth.
It’s 24/7 tribal fluff and denial everywhere.
And they’ll say no one saw it coming.
A pox on them all.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/introducing-zerohedge-premium
INTRODUCING ZEROHEDGE PREMIUM
BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, DEC 10, 2020 – 23:35
When this website launched 12 years ago, little did we know – or expect – that it would grow to become one of the most popular and trafficked financial blogs, let alone websites, in the world. Since then, ZeroHedge has expanded from being focused on purely esoteric concepts in finance and capital markets to covering geopolitics, social, political (and recently, healthcare) matters (if for no other reason than the central bank takeover of markets has made discussing centrally-planned “markets” borderline absurd and often painfully boring).
In those twelve years we have had the pleasure of sharing hundreds of thousands of notable news items, events and market absurdities with you, our readers, creating a magnificent support base of millions of fans who – for one reason or another – come to this site daily, sometimes dozens of times. In that period we have, of course, also spawned countless critics and haters, and that’s perfectly normal: that’s what free speech is all about – the ability to exchange opinions, often in a less than glorified manner, in order to reach a consensus or optimal conclusion. After all, that is one of the anchors that made America great.
Which is why what troubles us most, far more than the Fed’s vain and futile attempt to control the business cycle and plan markets (for the eventual outcome, see USSR), are the creeping attempts by various multinational entities and corporations to quash free speech, both elsewhere and here. It started with Facebook, which in May 2019 became the first “social network” to ban ZeroHedge, only to reverse shortly after (admitting it had made a mistake); this was followed a little over half a year later by Twitter, which “permanently” banned our account, only to admit 6 months later that it had “made a mistake” and reinstated us. But barely had the digital ink on these “mistaken” attempts to censor free speech dried, when the world’s biggest online advertising monopoly, Google, took the unprecedented step of demonetizing the website (following a similar step taken by PayPal). Why? Because it disapproved of the language in our comments (how or why it picked on this website’s comment section as opposed to millions of others, we will never know). To avoid a shutdown, and against our wishes, we were forced to implement comment moderation as the alternative was insolvency. Also, contrary to occasional laughable rumors, we don’t and have never had access to outside capital – be it political or financial – and have been reliant on the same advertising model we have used since inception.
Needless to say, whether due to “mistakes” or overt attempts to demonetize us, the writing on the wall was clear: while they may be entirely within their rights to do whatever they want as “private” companies, pardon monopolies, the ‘social’ and ad-based gatekeepers of online content – the twitters, the googles, the facebooks of the world – had launched an overt crusade to upend the uncensored internet, to snuff out independent thought, contrarian views, and inconvenient opinions and create one giant echo chamber of consent straight out of George Orwell. To do that they would use any and every tool they have access to, and unfortunately we had to comply with the whims of these monopolies which nobody in Congress has the guts to challenge directly and to strip them of their too-big-to-question powers.
Until now.
When Google suspended us in June we said that a standalone website was in the works, one which is funded not by advertising – and is thus beholden to the biased internet titans of the world – but by you, our readers.
We are launching that website today, call it ZeroHedge Premium for lack of a better word.
Here’s what will happen next.
We will maintain the traditional zerohedge.com website as is, without a paywall and with ads… but since it has ads, it will also maintain the comment moderation – that, as we explained in June, was a prerequisite demand by Google. But parallel with that we are launching a “premium” website, where subscribers will not only never again have to see one more ad but more importantly will have access to a fully unmoderated comment section.
Our hope is to eventually have enough subscribers so we can do away with advertising altogether – call it a real-time experiment in media for the censorship age. Because “mistakes” and events in the past several years have made it clear to us – and we hope to you – that there is no such thing as free speech any more; if you really want “free speech” you have to pay for it (in the case of ZeroHedge, the premium subscription will be $1/day – less than the proverbial cup of coffee). We also hope that enough people sign up allowing us to aggressively grow our team and expand our coverage, both thematically and geographically, so we can provide you with better content, better coverage, better everything.
un-Denial 
My all time favorite song.
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While your site is not a news site I do find it to be a valuable source of information. I usually stop by once a day.
I have stopped visiting a lot of sites over the last 12 months. Zero hedge is one of them. There are only so many hours in the day and I came to the conclusion that I was wasting my life away sifting through a lot of bullshit for the odd gem.
Social media is nearly entirely bullshit. I don’t do Twitter and am an infrequent user of Facebook. I used to follow two people, but you quit, so now I only follow one.
I also find that the more I learn the more depressed I feel. The other day I was reading about China’s fishing fleet. Why I read about it I don’t know because it certainly didn’t make me feel happy. The exact opposite actually.
I think your right when you said that seeing reality and depression are linked.
On another note I just finished reading Breath by James Nestor. I was a bit sceptical when started reading this book but found it fascinating and would recommend it. As a chronic mouth breather I’ve started putting some of what I read into practice. James gives some interesting interviews on YouTube if your interested.
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Yes I agree social media is a disaster. I check into Twitter once in a while and am saddened to find that most of the few people I follow have lost their minds.
Thanks for the tip on Breath. I’ll check it out.
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I just finished reading Breath because of your recommendation. I thought it was interesting.
For anyone that doesn’t have time the key take-aways for me were: 1) breath through your nose, and 2) breath slower (5 seconds in, 5 seconds out).
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Good for you. I agree
Sent from my iPhone
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WOW,
Both really good comments. My personal all time favorite song is “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas (due to it’s truly existential take on our existence). I did like “Buy Myself Some Freedom”. As to Zero Hedge. I understand where they are coming from with regard to monetization vis-a-vie Google/Youtube/Facebook. But I couldn’t agree more with both Rob’s post and Perran’s comment above. I too used to read Zero Hedge almost every day but the left/right conspiracy theories just got too much (and too depressing). At this site I think there is a greater dependence on reality (science (physics/thermodynamics), logic, MORT and MPP).
Thanks,
AJ
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Nice hair.
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When I first frequented Zerohedge shortly after it started, it seemed they were far more focused on the economic/financial shenanigans of the ruling/political class but they did indeed, for whatever reason, drift into somewhat unrelated ‘news’. And its popularity also attracted some interesting and probably trollish characters to its comment section, including some of what Caitlin Johnstone would term ‘narrative managers’. I believe there are indeed conspiracies out there, some of which aim to ‘guide’ and ‘control’ our complex world as best as the conspirators believe they can (is this not what the ruling/political class is primarily about: controlling/expanding the wealth-generating systems that provide their revenue/wealth/power/prestige?) But we do, after all, live on a planet with finite resources and the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice our ‘elite’ encourage have some very real negative consequences that the vast majority deny or ignore to reduce the cognitive dissonance that is created when one comes to realise our plight. How this is all going to play out is anyone’s guess for as the saying goes: it’s difficult to make predictions, especially if they’re about the future.
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I think I need to drop it now as well as I waste too much time looking for the occasional gem in their huge pile of dog turd. And now they want $365 a year to read it without ads. By not going there I will achieve that anyway.
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Zero Hedge thinks infinite growth is possible if the Federal Reserve is eliminated. I think eliminating the Federal Reserve is a good start to living within the limits of a finite world. Too bad it’s not enough of a coalition to make it happen.
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Getting rid of our debt backed fractional reserve monetary system (aka the Fed) would force us to live within our means. But this is not what most people who want to abolish the Fed have in mind. They want more economic growth for themselves.
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ZH is an alt-right rage machine……. by design.
If you like any of the non anonymous authors they feature, most have personal blogs and/or write elsewhere.
I like ZH regular, Charles Hughes Smith – https://oftwominds.com/blog.html
Most American news media is designed to produce rage via pushing the chimps tribal/emotional buttons. It’s easy & formulaic – I know because I’ve pushed thousands of morons buttons in my trolling career. It’s like an experiment in which I’ve played many different characters of different ages & backgrounds – even women. Try it, it’s free & fun;)
Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another
Matt Taibbi
“In this characteristically turbocharged new book, celebrated Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi provides an insider’s guide to the variety of ways today’s mainstream media tells us lies. Part tirade, part confessional, it reveals that what most people think of as “the news” is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business.
In the Internet age, the press have mastered the art of monetizing anger, paranoia, and distrust. Taibbi, who has spent much of his career covering elections in which this kind of manipulative activity is most egregious, provides a rich taxonomic survey of American political journalism’s dirty tricks.
Heading into a 2020 election season that promises to be a Great Giza Pyramid Complex of invective and digital ugliness, Hate Inc. will be an invaluable antidote to the hidden poisons dished up by those we rely on to tell us what is happening in the world. ”
https://b-ok.cc/book/5264511/8ecafd
For seasoned doomers, what’s left to discuss? Not ‘the news’ which is trash & gossip. I’m still interested in reading insightful peoples take on some current events & the great unravelling.
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I’ve been toying with a thought experiment lately. Y’all feel free to weigh in.
Assume the plandemic & ‘great reset’ is real.
Who & Why in as few as words possible.
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If plandemic is real, it would need to be a very small group of smart like minded people with a lot to gain. That rules out governments who mostly don’t trust each other and are too stupid. And it rules out altruistic elites because none that I’ve seen understand reality. That leaves perhaps a small group of pharmaceutical investors who influence research dollars in the Wuhan lab, and who would profit from a vaccine. But I don’t buy it. Too risky, too much uncertainty in the outcome, and most people are not that evil.
Could a virus engineered by scientists seeking fame and fortune have escaped from the Wuhan lab by mistake? I think the probability is very high.
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Essentially it would be like the two season miniseries from Britain called utopia. Worth the time. Though knowing this would give a lot away.
In searching for the clip I found that Amazon has made a new US version, it looks bad in comparison.
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Utopia was a great series. I posted some clips 2 days ago here:
https://un-denial.com/2020/11/26/on-drunks-flying-planes/comment-page-1/#comment-29668
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Tis great. No denying it.
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Perhaps Steve St. Angelo is wrong.
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/12/11/update-on-the-feds-qe/
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Occam’s razor
The World Is Not Ready for the Next Pandemic
May 4, 2017
“On a hyperconnected planet rife with hyperinfectious diseases, experts warn we aren’t ready to keep America–and the world–safe from the next pandemic”
“From Ebola in West Africa to Zika in South America to MERS in the Middle East, dangerous outbreaks are on the rise around the world. The number of new diseases per decade has increased nearly fourfold over the past 60 years, and since 1980, the number of outbreaks per year has more than tripled.”
https://time.com/magazine/us/4766607/may-15th-2017-vol-189-no-18-u-s/
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Occam’s razor
The Next Pandemic: Not if, but When
By David Quammen – May 9, 2013
“TERRIBLE new forms of infectious disease make headlines, but not at the start. Every pandemic begins small. Early indicators can be subtle and ambiguous. When the Next Big One arrives, spreading across oceans and continents like the sweep of nightfall, causing illness and fear, killing thousands or maybe millions of people, it will be signaled first by quiet, puzzling reports from faraway places — reports to which disease scientists and public health officials, but few of the rest of us, pay close attention. Such reports have been coming in recent months from two countries, China and Saudi Arabia.
You may have seen the news about H7N9, a new strain of avian flu claiming victims in Shanghai and other Chinese locales. Influenzas always draw notice, and always deserve it, because of their great potential to catch hold, spread fast, circle the world and kill lots of people. But even if you’ve been tracking that bird-flu story, you may not have noticed the little items about a “novel coronavirus” on the Arabian Peninsula.
This came into view last September, when the Saudi Ministry of Health announced that such a virus — new to science and medicine — had been detected in three patients, two of whom had already died. By the end of the year, a total of nine cases had been confirmed, with five fatalities. As of Thursday, there have been 18 deaths, 33 cases total, including one patient now hospitalized in France after a trip to the United Arab Emirates. Those numbers are tiny by the standards of global pandemics, but here’s one that’s huge: the case fatality rate is 55 percent. The thing seems to be almost as lethal as Ebola.
Coronaviruses are a genus of bugs that cause respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, sometimes mild and sometimes fierce, in humans, other mammals and birds. They became infamous by association in 2003 because the agent for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is a coronavirus. That one emerged suddenly in southern China, passed from person to person and from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, then went swiftly onward by airplane to Toronto, Singapore and elsewhere. Eventually it sickened about 8,000 people, of whom nearly 10 percent died. If not for fast scientific work to identify the virus and rigorous public health measures to contain it, the total case count and death toll could have been much higher.
One authority at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an expert on nasty viruses, told me that the SARS outbreak was the scariest such episode he’d ever seen. That cautionary experience is one reason this novel coronavirus in the Middle East has attracted such concern.
Another reason is that coronaviruses as a group are very changeable, very protean, because of their high rates of mutation and their proclivity for recombination: when the viruses replicate, their genetic material is continually being inaccurately copied — and when two virus strains infect a single host cell, it is often intermixed. Such rich genetic variation gives them what one expert has called an “intrinsic evolvability,” a capacity to adapt quickly to new circumstances within new hosts.”
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Occam’s razor
Fact Sheet – October 2008
The Next Flu Pandemic: What to Expect
“A flu pandemic could touch us all A flu (influenza) pandemic is an outbreak caused by a new human flu virus that spreads around the world. Because the pandemic flu virus will be new to people, many people could get very sick or could die. Seasonal flu shots do not protect people from pandemic flu. It’s not a matter of IF, but WHENFlu pandemics have happened throughout history. They occur from time to time, and some are worse than others. ”
“Public health experts say it’s not a matter of IF a flu pandemic will happen, but WHEN. We cannot predict when the next flu pandemic will happen. Limiting contact helps to save livesWe have learned from past flu pandemics that during a pandemic, limiting contact among people helps to slow the spread of the virus and helps to save lives. Being around other people makes you more likely to get sick or to make others sick. The flu could spread and more people could get sick. Until a vaccine can be made, limiting contact among people will be our main tool for helping to contain the disease and to prevent others from getting it. ”
Click to access nextflupandemic.pdf
Clearly loads of infectious disease experts have been covertly working for a secretive cabal of Jewish super elites for decades – just waiting for 2020 to unleash the ‘plandemic’ on us cuz they hate Trump-N-stuff. They iz evildoers.
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Yup.
The best evidence for conspiracy is that most governments haven’t told their citizens to take vitamin D.
But incompetence is a much better explanation.
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Rob the UK gov has recently made a half-assed, better late than never, Vit-D gesture.
COVID-19: UK Govt to Distribute Free Vitamin D Doses for Winter Months to 2.7 Million Individuals Under Risk Group
” The tablets would supplied to care homes or residential addresses, and would be packed for usage throughout the four colder months beginning from January, said a statement issued by the Department of Health and Social Care.”
https://in.news.yahoo.com/covid-19-uk-govt-distribute-172817199.html
I always suffered moderate SAD living in the great west coast rainforest. Never realized it until I moved to Alberta (sunnier winters) at 28 years old. I started taking Vit-D when I moved back here in 2014. Worked. It’s one of the cheapest & safest supplements around. I’ve been taking 25% more during the pandemic. Cheap insurance.
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Yeh but, there’s always a but, the UK is recommending 400IU which is at least 5 times too little.
For Covid I doubled up to 2000IU per day. Some people I respect are taking more.
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400IU = “half-assed”.
I take 5000 per day, but I miss/forget a couple of days per week. You’d need to take a lot over an extended period to reach toxicity & living in Vancouver vs Miami makes a difference.
Caveat emptor
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These people don’t have a clue what it would take to do something useful about climate change, but they’re sure good at razor sharp critiques of other people that don’t want to do anything, even if not useful, about climate change.
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Makes me proud to be Australian.
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I don’t understand, what makes you proud? A satirist that doesn’t understand the physics of climate change? Or a government that plays make believe better than other governments?
You’ll know that a country is serious about climate change when they increase their interest rate by say 5%, and they implement a birth lottery.
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Sarcasm directed at the irony of all that you just mentioned.
Aussies are big into denial. i have given up talking about most of it these days.
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https://desdemonadespair.net/2020/12/covid-lockdown-causes-record-drop-in-carbon-dioxide-emissions-for-2020.html
Unfortunately a global pandemic is not sufficient. We’ve got to get the population down quickly, which, even if it’s too late to stop a runaway climate, will reduce suffering.
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I once was a senior executive reporting to a really, really smart and successful CEO.
I remember him lecturing me that markets were perfectly rational because participants integrated all available information to decide on a price.
I now know he didn’t know what he was talking about. Nevertheless, pretty much any company would love to have him as their CEO.
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/12/12/tesla-the-quadruple-wtf-chart-of-the-year-it-should-just-sell-shares-on-autopilot-at-huge-prices-and-exit-sordid-business-of-making-cars/
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K-Dog is taking over for sick RE, and he wrote a wise essay today.
I’ve long felt that citizens have the power to improve things, if they would somehow wake up from their denial stupor, and use their democratic power, while they still have it.
While I’m sure there are some shenanigans in the US electoral system, the fact that a candidate can be elected who half the country loathes, and who is opposed by both the elites and the bureaucrats, is proof that a vote still has power. Now if that power could just be used to elect someone wise and aware…
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2020/12/11/the-war-at-home/
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Here’s a very good summary of wind turbine technology, with an explicit acknowledgment that the success of wind is dependent on natural gas backup power.
As you watch this, pay attention to all the other fossil carbon, especially diesel, required for wind turbines that is not mentioned.
This entire industry will collapse overnight when diesel is in short supply. We’d be much smarter to conserve the remaining diesel and use it to build a softer landing zone.
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The pandemic’s most bitter pill
Plagues and disease are familiar villains in human history
” The most troubling reality of a sustained pandemic that has killed over 112,000 Americans (as of June 10), shuttered cities, and emptied stadiums, is this isn’t some fluke.
It has long been expected. It’s totally predictable. And an outbreak will happen again.
“The history of humanity is punctuated by pandemics,” said Dr. Richard Gunderman, an M.D. and medical historian at Indiana University. “This is just another chapter in that big volume.”
We all want to live healthy lives. And with the medical triumphs of the 20th century, we’ve largely come to expect it. Twentieth century physicians, armed with germ theory and soon potent bacteria-killing drugs, could do what previous practitioners couldn’t, explained James Kyung-Jin Lee, the director of the University of California, Irvine Center for Medical Humanities. Doctors became curers of many diseases.
This infused the following narrative into the American mind, said Lee: “Yesterday I was healthy. Today I am sick. But I’ll get better tomorrow.”
The idea is formally called the “restitution narrative,” meaning the belief that one’s health will be restored by the wonders of modern medicine. It’s certainly an attractive creed. “Who doesn’t want to live in a narrative of restitution and health?” asked Lee.
But a microbe that jumped from animals to humans in late 2019 has shaken this expectation.
“We’re now at a point in 2020 when the world has essentially been brought to its knees by this new coronavirus,” said Lee. This narrative isn’t infallible, he emphasized. It’s fragile.
Many of us alive today, particularly in the U.S., are too young to fully grasp this fragility. We haven’t lived through a pandemic event that threatens everyone. “We haven’t experienced a pre-vaccine virus with this high level of mortality circulating in the community in a long time,” explained Sara Keller, an infectious disease expert and assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine. “And this is what it looks like.”
https://mashable.com/feature/coronavirus-pandemic-history-cures/
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Can’t remember if it was you that recommended it, but I just got this audiobook, and it’s next up for my reading walks.
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Dr. John Campbell tiptoes around not having today’s video deleted by the YouTube censors.
I have a family member who is a retired veterinarian and I asked him to get some Ivermectin, which is used by vets, to have in the cupboard for a rainy day. He thinks I’m a whack job.
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Getting to the truth on all these Covid deals is a shitload of work which I decided not to do. So much dishonesty, financial & idealogical agendas. I know all about scuzzy big Pharma, but the ‘all natural’ supplement industry is $150 billion annually & growing & their pimps, Alex Jones, The Health Ranger, Dr Oz, Gwyneth Paltrow, et al, are just as scuzzy. Fuck them too. My buddy is one of these ‘all natural’ dupes. Arsenic & mercury are all natural buddy, so supplement away dude.
I’ve opted for the ounce of prevention strategy. – mask mask mask & vit, D, C & zinc. Covid free so far.
Stumbled across this. Arguments are full of holes on both sides.
No evidence ivermectin is a miracle drug against COVID-19
‘CLAIM: The antiparasitic drug ivermectin “has a miraculous effectiveness that obliterates” the transmission of COVID-19 and will prevent people from getting sick.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There’s no evidence ivermectin has been proven a safe or effective treatment against COVID-19.
THE FACTS: During a Senate hearing Tuesday, a group of doctors touted alternative COVID-19 treatments, including ivermectin and the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine. Medical experts have cautioned against using either of those drugs to treat COVID-19. Studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine has no benefit against the coronavirus and can have serious side effects. No evidence has been shown to prove that ivermectin works against COVID-19. ‘
‘In June, Australian researchers published the findings of a study that found ivermectin inhibited the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in a laboratory setting, which is not the same as testing the drug on humans or animals. Following the study, the FDA released a letter out of concern warning consumers not to self-medicate with ivermectin products intended for animals.
“It is a far cry from an in vitro lab replication to helping humans,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection prevention at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospital. ‘
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9768999400
Starts in the headline. There is no such thing as a ‘miracle drug ‘ period.
“Dr. Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at Aurora St Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, described ivermectin as a “wonder drug”
Miracle & wonder are not in the scientific lexicon. I get suspicious when any doctor refers to any medication as a “wonder drug”.
Claims of wonder drugs & miracle drugs are a big part of the reason medical regulatory bodies were created.
I also find it curious that so many plandemic sceptical anti-vaxxer, anti big Pharma types are suddenly such enthusiastic proponents for a select few big Pharma drugs which are still in the infancy testing phase for treating a novel virus that’s less than a year old. You would think that would make them more sceptical, not less. I wonder if they’ll keep their scepticism bar that low come vaccine time?
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Thanks it is all very confusing. My evidence in favor of Ivermectin is thin and solely based on who I have chosen to trust on Covid issues: Chris Martenson and John Campbell. I don’t listen to anyone else.
Martenson is not perfect but he’s worked very hard from the beginning to analyze the data objectively, and his track record is pretty good. Campbell is even more squeaky clean. I think today is the first day he’s said Ivermectin should be reviewed by medical experts, which is why I posted it. Martenson has being talking about Ivermectin for a long time.
To date I’ve done exactly as you. Vitamin D & C, zinc, and masks.
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I have been following Martenson and Campbell from the beginning of Covid. I think that Martenson has consistently been in favor of Science/published results of well designed studies/with rigorous statistical analysis. He has no money in the game with big Pharma and seems to have integrity. I suspect all of the governments and experts have lots of prestige and or money riding on big Pharma/Sickcare stocks or jobs – so they are suspect.
Our local farm supply store has been selling ivermectin paste for horses. I picked up a couple of tubes just in case.
AJ
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This favorite song of mine is dedicated to retired blogger friend Gail Zawacki, who spent many years writing about the global decline of tree health caused by a rising concentration of ground level ozone, which is a byproduct of industrial combustion, and which is an issue we don’t talk about because it’s so depressing that planting trees is no longer a viable climate change mitigation strategy, and because there’s nothing we can do about it except shrink the economy and/or the population.
I initially thought Gail was a crazy person, but then I started to pay more attention to tree health in my area, and I read her research more carefully.
Here are some of Gail’s excellent essays:
https://un-denial.com/?s=Zawacki
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The pandemic has further exposed a great many westerners for the over privileged coddled babies they are.
You know that adage about how one’s reaction to adversity brings out their true character?
Thanks to the internet, the west’s character has been exposed & found lacking. Hundreds of millions have opted for conspiracy crisis cults & the test of resilience has a long way to go.
The infantilization of Western culture
August 1, 2018
“Society-wide arrested development
The dictionary defines infantilizing as treating someone “as a child or in a way that denies their maturity in age or experience.”
What’s considered age-appropriate or mature is obviously quite relative. But most societies and cultures will deem behaviors appropriate for some stages of life, but not others.
As the Bible puts it in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
“..we’ve witnessed the rise of a “therapy culture,” which, as sociologist Frank Furedi warns, treats adults as vulnerable, weak and fragile, while implying that their troubles rooted in childhood qualify them for a “permanent suspension of moral sense.” He argues that this absolves grown-ups from adult responsibilities and erodes their trust in their own experiences and insights.”
“While we might find it trivial or amusing, the infantilist ethos becomes especially seductive in times of social crises and fear. And its favoring of simple, easy and fast betrays natural affinities for certain political solutions over others.
And typically not intelligent ones. ”
https://theconversation.com/the-infantilization-of-western-culture-99556
Of all the consequences of Overshoot, having to listen to the temper tantrums, bitching, moaning & blaming are what I dread most. I’ll opt for extra physical hardship just to not have to listen to them.
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Mac10 is funny today. One of these decades his predictions will come true.
https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2020/12/fomc-fear-of-missing-crash.html
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Paul Beckwith published last week a nice summary of climate change impacts on the global food supply.
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Sabine Hossenfelder says singularities do not occur in reality.
Ajit Varki says singularities do occur in reality, provided that they deny reality.
I side with Varki because I don’t see any other species praying to gods for new technology, to save themselves from their old technology, while denying their core overpopulation and energy depletion problems.
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Albert Bates today on the overpopulation of a single family…
http://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-great-pause-week-39-amishmash.html
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Steel production is #1 for CO2 emissions and #2 for fossil energy consumption. Modern civilization and “renewable” technologies require lots of steel.
Dave Borlace here makes a good effort to explain how we’ll produce steel without fossil energy.
I don’t buy it because it requires huge up front capital (debt) and government subsidies (more debt), both of which require robust economic growth, and growth is no longer possible because we’ve burned all the cheap fossil energy.
I also doubt that the extra steel required to make the extra wind turbines required to make the extra power required to make the extra steel is autocatalytic like coal and oil were.
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I am no scientist, but I have some questions. How much energy does it take to produce one ton of steel with the current coal/coke process? How much energy does it take to produce one ton of steel with the hydrogen process? I don’t know the answer, but I looked an article on energyskeptic.com and thought it was more than an order of magnitude more. That cannot be right, can it?
Then I thought that this process requires very high temperatures. Fossil fuels (oil the most but coal) are quite dense. If it takes “x” joules of coal in the current process, is it really going to take “x” joules of electricity, too? Unless I missed it, there was no mention of this in the video. Nor did he utter the phrase “net energy.”
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David Goza in today’s Sunday school lesson provides an insider’s view of Christian fundamentalism. He was for a brief period in his 20’s an Arkansas pastor. Content warning: there’s some partisan politics here that you should fast forward past.
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Andrew Glikson on Varki’s MORT, without knowing that’s what he’s talking about.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-myth-of-net-zero-emissions-by-2050.html
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Hi Rob.
This is completely off topic, but I wanted to ask if you’ve ever discussed this common meme: giving up meat and dairy will save us (from just about everything these days LOL but mainly from climate change). I think there are good points on both sides of the debate, but it entirely misses the mark. After all, people having been eating meat and dairy for millennia without sending the world into a death spiral. It wasn’t cow farts that got us into this predicament, but somehow so many people are convinced that if they don’t eat certain things it will “save us”. Seems almost religious to me. Meanwhile it is blasphemy to suggest that we won’t drive cars in the future and that we might have to give up iPhones and flying.
I would love to hear your perspective on this.
P.S wishing you a Happy holidays and thank you for sharing all your perspectives with us.
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Good question Monique, and happy holidays to you too.
Meat is a complicated and emotional issue.
Our species evolved to eat some animal protein and fat, and so they should be included in a healthy diet, but most people in rich countries eat too much, and it is possible to have a healthy diet without animal protein and fat, if you’re very careful (read Lierre Keith’s book for a cautionary tale).
Meat is more nutrient dense than grains and vegetables, which is why it takes more inputs to produce a pound of meat than a pound of grains or vegetables. So meat does have a bigger impact on the environment, especially how it is produced today, but you also need to eat less to achieve a healthy diet.
I think the main environmental problem is far too many people on the planet, and a secondary problem is that rich people eat more meat than they need to be healthy.
I do not agree with the ethical argument that it is wrong to kill other sentient life to survive. Life should eat whatever it evolved to eat. That’s what life does. Those eating grain and vegetable based diets for ethical reasons might be shocked at how many small animals are cruelly killed by tractors and combines. There is no government inspector ensuring that the mouse is painlessly dispatched as it is maimed by combine blades.
As our society becomes less complex due to energy depletion, we will be forced to eat locally produced foods. In the colder climates, like here in Canada, I don’t think it will be feasible to have a healthy local diet that does not include some animal protein and fat. We can’t grow avocadoes and cashews.
In the longer run, the only form of farming that might be sustainable without fossil carbon derived inputs, is a mixed farm that produces grains and potatoes (for calories), legumes (for protein and soil nitrogen fixing), vegetables for vitamins and minerals, and livestock (for meat, fat, milk, eggs, fiber, and manure for fertilizer). The farm will require careful crop rotation and livestock movement to be sustainable, and even then if much food is sold to customers, those customers may have to return compost and waste to not deplete the soils. There is no free lunch. If you export nutrients from the farm they must be replaced (unless you are a rice farmer in Asia that replenishes nutrients with glacier melt water).
Most importantly, when fossil energy depletion really starts to bite, we will be very grateful for whatever calories we can get our hands on, regardless of how they are grown, or what diet they belong to. And we’ll marvel at the energy we wasted on irrelevant issues as we go to bed early with sore muscles from working all day in the fields.
https://un-denial.com/2019/02/26/on-gmo/
What do I eat?
I eat a balanced diet with a lot of vegetables, a modest amount of butter, cheese, meat, fish, and eggs, some grains, and as little seed oils and sugar as I can, but I frequently cheat on the sugar. 🙂
And I am very, very grateful for every meal.
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Tim Watkins today wrote a nice political history of Brexit. He thinks UK leaders are idiots for causing a self-inflicted wound. I usually agree with Watkins but today not so much. He knows better than anyone that energy constraints will soon force every country n the world to become less complex and more local. So what’s the problem? Brexit is just accelerating what’s going to happen anyway. Might as well get on with it.
Next up the UK needs a referendum for rapid population reduction policies, otherwise they’ll be very hungry. But first they need to do something about that pesky reality denial thingy.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/12/14/the-final-curtain/
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Charles Hugh Smith today wrote a good primer on the many complex feedback loops at play in the oil industry we depend on for our survival.
His punch line is that we are about to transition from relatively stable prices and availability to wildly unstable prices and availability.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/12/one-little-problem-with-all-electric.html
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Here’s an interesting new browser plugin that tells you if a news site is biased, and in what direction. It will also tell you if a financial site has a bullish or bearish bias. They’re working on a feature to let you know if you can trust health advice.
https://nobias.com/
I tested it and it doesn’t have an opinion yet on unDenial.com, megacancer.com, or Al Jazeera, but definitely says Fox News is highly credible and leans center left.
Now if they would extend it to tell us if a site denies reality we could solve all of the world’s problems. Should be an easy feature to add. All they have to do is display STRONG DENIAL for every popular site on the internet.
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Why would anyone trust them? They also could be honest & well meaning, but wrong and/or biased.
Kinda reminds me of the ‘true or false’ website snopes that became popular with leftys a few years back. I dug around. snopes is run by a US, progressive husband & wife team from their home.
Step #1 declare your site/tribe/king/experts/priests/god the authority on all matters.
My favourite lazy man site:
“Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.”
https://answersingenesis.org/
No pesky bible reading needed. You don’t even need to use your memory. If you forget, just google again again again – copy-N-paste……you’re a neo scholar.
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Unbelievable how many wacky sites and people there are in world. Reality is vanishingly rare.
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The more I watch Steven Van Metre, the more I respect him. He’s not energy or overshoot aware, but he has a good handle on the economy, and doesn’t blame evil cabals.
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December 15, 2020
Menacing Methane – An Analysis
“The story of methane really is a story of a very serious definitive threat to our future existence on this planet.” (Peter Wadhams)
Dr. Peter Wadhams (A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic, Oxford University Press) delivered the principal lecture for a very special presentation by Scientists Warning/Europe ‘20: “The Threat from Arctic Methane” Nov. 24, 2020 (1:32 m)
In his lecture, Dr. Wadhams accentuated profound Arctic changes unprecedented throughout recorded history that go well beyond the context of NOAA’s Arctic Report Card. He discussed far-reaching Arctic changes with a distinct possibility of dire consequences for the planet’s climate system.
Based upon his presentation, highlighted herein, unless and until ongoing experimental efforts in England for remediation of the Arctic are proven to work, meaning revival of the Arctic, the planet is destined to become a vastly different place, not for the better, and likely not in the distant future but much sooner than that. The Arctic is changing too fast for comfort.
“The Arctic is no longer the Arctic” (Wadhams). It is something entirely different. The change is palpable. It has morphed into a looming threat of radical climate upheaval.
Regrettably, neither the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) nor any major nation/state is braced for Arctic upheaval. It is not universally recognized as an impending threat in the near future.
World opinion is broadly shaped by the IPCC narrative, which does not recognize a methane threat from the seas off Russia’s northern coastline. But, according to Professor Wadhams: They’re wrong!
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/15/menacing-methane-an-analysis/
Yabut the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is governmental & governments never fuck up, nor obfuscate & they are certainly not responsible for killing more humans than all serial killers, crimes of passion murders & hungry man eating carnivores combined.
Governments combined killed about 130 million last century, but obviously that sort of thing will never happen again since the humans have evolved beyond slaughtering & starving each other.
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Yabut we are in really serious trouble even if Arctic methane doesn’t materialize, and even if we stopped all CO2 emissions today, which we can’t and won’t.
I watched Wadhams’ talk instead of the usual M.A.S.H. with my dinner. Wadhams is very good but less fun. I was going to watch it later this evening but didn’t want bump Hogan’s Heroes.
The severity of the situation is underlined by the lameness of his proposed solution: machines to create water vapor clouds.
Not a single mention by Wadhams or the audience of rapid population reduction policies.
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Martenson broadcasted from Vimeo today so he could say what he wanted to say about Ivermectin.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/war-on-truth/
Source info:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/
https://covid19criticalcare.com/i-mask-prophylaxis-treatment-protocol/i-mask-protocol-translations/
Click to access FLCCC-Ivermectin-in-the-prophylaxis-and-treatment-of-COVID-19.pdf
Click to access FLCCC-IVERMECTIN-Summary.pdf
Click to access Meta-analysis-of-COVID-19-therapeutics-Dr-Paul-Marik-FLCCC-Alliance.pdf
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Great post, Rob. On a similar note, I just read the article below on the high prevalence (much, much higher than I previously realized) of a plethora of LONG COVID symptoms even in very young humans (as young as age 15 months). I’m still often reading, including on Surplus Energy Economics, multiple commenters writing that they think COVID is a hoax. It’s disgusting and whether they acknowledge it or not these people have blood on their hands (as do those who spew and blather anti-mask bullshit). The virus that is conspiracy theory which seems to be increasing worldwide at present is likely more dangerous and damaging than SARS-2.
https://www.vox.com/22166236/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-symptoms-heart-fatigue
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The outstanding documentary “The Social Dilemma” makes a good case that social media is to blame for every person on the planet now having a different reality.
How can we make progress on anything when we can’t even agree on a base set of facts?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Dilemma
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I viewed it last night and it does make a good argument that social media has massively contributed to this ontological schism. Without a common ground of reality all meaningful discussion and argument is DOA. This problem seems to be metastasizing by the second. I see it, like overshoot and climate disruption, as a wicked problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
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Facebook is not evil. Their business model and stock holder demands for growth create evil results. The solution that worked for me and that can work for anyone else is very very simple. Close your account.
Overshoot is much more wicked because anything we do to improve the long term makes the short term worse, and we evolved to give priority to the short term.
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I did not want to close my YouTube account because it has a lot of good information and entertainment.
My compromise is that I never ever look at the YouTube home page because that’s where their AI feeds suggestions and fucks with our brains.
I only open my subscription page which shows me content I’ve already vetted and selected.
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Rob,
I appreciate the suggestions. I had scrubbed my YouTube account of all videos I had made and deleted all my subscriptions – I’m sure that those plus my viewing habits were what the AI used to make “suggestions” for my home page (it must be a pretty simple AI as all the “suggestions” seem obvious). From now on when I use it I will only view my subscriptions. I trust Google even less. I used to trust (very qualified) the internet searches to bring me truly unbiased results. Now it seems that every search is only designed to sell me what Google wants me to buy or their pre-approved story line (like no Covid treatment other than vaccines or Big Pharma crap). Other than your site and Megacancer there are few not in denial places. Who do you use for new? I got rid of NYT, WaPo, Guardian long ago and just recently got rid of AP. What’s left?
AJ
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My favorite news source is Al Jazeera. I detect less obvious bias from them. They also do a good job of covering global news, and they produce great documentaries.
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A different way of youtubing.
Never use their app.
Use firefox in private mode.
install adblock plus and ublock origin addons.
Never sign in unless commenting.
Bookmark the channels you want to see in firefox.
This way they can’t track you and if a channel you watch is shadowband you still see their videos.
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Very good tips. Thanks.
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If you want Ivermectin or any Covid related product try & get some from a local established source, like AJ did, first. The online Covid scamming is just mental. Dark Web is mental x 2. Vampires selling Covid vaccines on the dark web & the desperate & fearful are buying. Nuts.
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Thanks for the tip. Sounds like US people are buying Ivermectin as horse paste from the local feed shop. Wonder if that works in Canada? My family member retired vet seems like a dead end since he thinks I’m crazy.
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We use ivermectin as part of our sheep drenching programme. We usually buy it in 5 litre bottles from online farm suppliers. I’m sure you’d have multiple options in Canada. I’m not sure if it is available in smaller quantities. Have you got any friends with sheep?
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I do, but too far away in Alberta. Thanks for the tip. I’ll check the local feed stores.
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Coronavirus Vaccine Side Effects: Some Suffer Bell’s Palsy After Inoculation, FDA Reveals
https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-vaccine-side-effects-some-suffer-bells-palsy-after-inoculation-fda-3102900
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We’re at what, T+2 days? You can’t make this shit up.
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The Nicole Foss that I knew and loved 10 years ago is back with a focus on the coming crash (with little partisan politics).
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Must be something in the air. Charles Hugh Smith agrees with Nicole and predicts we will completely unwind the asset bubble that we built over the last 20 years in the next 2 years.
Thing is, he’s blaming it on the virus. But he was predicting a crash due to energy depletion prior to the pandemic. Smells like subscription growth opportunism because pandemics sell better than overshoot.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/12/can-20-years-of-deflation-be-compressed.html
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Like I’ve been saying for months, Overshoot/limits to growth, & all it’s consequences have been psychologically transferred to Plandemic Super Jews, especially if you’re a white American.
N0 no no, Overshoot/limits to growth, & all it’s consequences have nothing to do with the last 5 generations of white westerners living as the most obscene fucking degenerate pigs in human history. It’s not on us. Everything was awesome until 5 minutes ago when the Super Jews unleashed their evil plandemic upon the pure humans (white American gentiles).
IT WASN’T ME!!! IT WASN’T ME!!! IT WASN’T ME!!! IT WASN’T ME!!!
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I don’t want to post it here because it’s crazy talk, but Nicole Foss yesterday with the same interviewer posted a discussion on politics and global conspiracy.
It’s quite remarkable how a brain can be sane on one issue and insane on another.
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Must watch explanation of how the global plastic recycling business never was sustainable, and how it is now completely broken.
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Vulfpeck is a great band with the world’s best bass player.
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This was my introduction to vulfpeck too.
The bass playing is brilliant.
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Funktastic! I’m hearing a strong Steely Dan influence in there.
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Greta does not appear to be aware that we need rapid population reduction policies, and in the interim, all we need to do is raise the interest rate.
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Friedemann on Smil on battery powered ships.
http://energyskeptic.com/2020/battery-powered-container-ships/
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No real effort to curb growth will ever be made. The talk & empty promises/policy will go on until the energy to maintain that charade is no longer available.
Here’s some news – woe – on slowing population growth.
COVID baby boom? No, 2020 triggered a baby bust – and that will have lasting impacts
“COVID baby bust:Experts see spike in birth control orders
30% change their family plans
In a survey published Wednesday by Modern Fertility, about 30% of nearly 4,000 people with ovaries expressed that they were changing their fertility/family planning timelines this year.
Of those who said they were changing their plans:
The pandemic “made me look at the people around me — and that was my family, that was my children,” she said. “We still love each other, and I want another child to join.”
Top reasons for people delaying or questioning having kids altogether included feeling “unsure about my financial position,” seeing “the challenges of parenting this year” and being worried about “safely accessing prenatal care/healthcare.”
“”Both Urbanski, 33, and her partner have pivoted to egg retrievals and plan to pick up their donor conversation in 2021. Still, it’s been difficult to delay the major life milestone — something she recognizes may be a shared experience for other prospective parents, now more than ever.
“There’s the importance of allowing yourself to be flexible with your plans, but also grieve what you were initially trying to do,” she said. ”
Up to half a million fewer babies in 2021, lasting impact
Urbanski is not alone. In a June report, Levine and Melissa Kearney, an economics professor at the University of Maryland and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, projected that the nation could see 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in 2021.
In a December update published Thursday, Levine and Kearney stood by their initial prediction of a large reduction in births. But projected that the number would likely be closer to 300,000.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/16/covid-19-baby-bust-coronavirus-pandemic-lead-birth-decline/6507974002/
Next to day to day survival, the drive to reproduce, via fucking, is the strongest drive. The notion that any signifiant number of humans can control their breeding drive is absurd. That would imply the humans are calling the shots, not evolution & the MPP.
C’mon people we must replenish our ranks of worker-consumers – probably going to need more cannon fodder soon as well. Do your part & start fucking like Catholic rabbits.
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An unfriendly state broke into, and has been roaming around inside, thousands of secure networks, including the US government, for several months. I first heard about this yesterday on Security Now, a computer security podcast I monitor. I’m thinking it’s a pretty big deal.
https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/supply-chain-attacks-and-nation-state-pwnage-a-primer/
h/t Yoshua
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Chris Kresser is someone I trust on health issues. Today he interviewed Dale Harrison, an expert on Covid testing, and they provide an excellent overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the various tests.
In summary, you can trust a positive test but you cannot trust a negative test. What this means for my life is that I will not seek out a test, and I will continue to assume everyone is infected.
https://chriskresser.com/what-covid-19-testing-can-and-cannot-tell-us-with-dale-harrison/
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Rob, I’ve always assumed everyone is infected, but it don’t have nuthin to do with Covid.
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LOL, me too…
Just got back from my daily 7 km walk on a beach. I ran into another old timer and I asked him if he noticed how completely dead the beach is compared to what it was like in the 70’s when we were kids. He got defensive and argued the beach is not dead. Just like the parrot in Monty Python.
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Speaking of the 70’s and seeing what you want to see…………
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I’ve been tested twice, both with a negative result. Once during April (no symptoms, but had been exposed) and again during early November (when I had mild cold-like symptoms and a few unusual symptoms). I work with street homeless persons and have been exposed multiple times to persons having tested positive for COVID. I always wear a mask and try to physically distance but it’s (the physical distancing of six-ish feet) simply not possible sometimes due to the nature of the work. Many of my colleagues at the office have tested positive and some have had mild and even severe symptoms (one was hospitalized, but not ventilated) so I may have been exposed there as well.
I’m highly skeptical about the negative result for my second (November) test due to the very high false negative rate for the COVID PCR/RNA test. I didn’t lose smell or taste but I had some very strange symptoms (earaches, in particular) which I hadn’t had since I was a young child when I had chronic ear infections. After a few days of these symptoms I was pretty much back to 100% but I lean toward it being very mild COVID.
Since February, I’ve daily taken 5000 IU vitamin D3 (+ K2), zinc picolinate, n-acetylcysteine, quercetin (+ bromelain), vitamin B-complex, vitamin C, and omega-3. Maybe these supplements have reduced my risk of severe symptoms – difficult to be certain about this. I just purchased three tubes of ivermectin paste from Tractor Supply Company for 10 dollars to treat worse symptoms if they occur.
As you mentioned Rob, assuming everyone is SARS-2 infected is without a doubt the best approach.
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Thanks! Can you tell us a little more about the Ivermectin paste? I assume it is for topical use? How do you take an appropriate dose internally?
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I’m learning as I go with this stuff and so I’ll have to wait until I receive the tubes before I can provide a more informed response.
To the best of my current knowledge, it can be taken topically (for conditions such as rosacea) or orally (for conditions such as roundworms) but for COVID it needs to be taken orally to be effective. In the video below, the gentleman provides a nice overview of how to measure the dosage based upon one’s body weight.
Honestly, I’m still a bit skeptical about using it in this form (as it really is designed to be used with non-human animals) but the more I’ve read about farmers and ranchers having accidentally swallowed it without adverse effect when giving it to their livestock or horses, and others who have used it intentionally to very effectively treat other conditions, the more I think it’s perfectly safe as long as it’s dosed correctly.
I’ll provide an update here once I’ve received it and thoroughly analyzed it.
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Thanks, please do let us know what you learn.
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I can get 2 tubes on Amazon for $20 delivered. But it’s coming from the US and I have no control over the best-by date. There are 3 feed stores in my town that probably carry it. I’m going to try them first.
My retired vet relative says to make sure it only has Ivermectin. Some horse dewormers also have Praziquantel which you do not want.
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Sorry Rob,
I wasted a lot of time on this recommendation. Yesterday I watched 30 minutes of this video and then wrote a long negative critique and deleted it numerous times. I would not trust either of these commentators. What agendas do they have? Where’s the money? Are they true scientists or shills for the established sickcare/pharma industries?
I won’t say more.
AJ
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Are you talking about Chris Kresser? He’s about as squeaky clean as they come and works very hard to stay up with the latest research. When he makes a mistake he admits it. What error did you spot?
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Rob,
Yes, I mean Mr. Kresser and the person he interviewed. Just googling Kresser and https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Chris_Kresser (do I have the wrong guy??)
Really, acupuncture? (woo), Paleo diet (woo)(besides who really knows what our distant ancestors ate and which ones – the ones in Africa, the high Arctic, the steppes?). He is suspect. Sure the wiki could be wrong but I don’t have time to waste. AND my big beef was with the statementthat PCR testing has low false positive? Says who (WHO – pun). I read quite a bit that said it had a high false positive because they are doing to many cycles. BUT I could be wrong. I follow Chris Martenson’s recommendation to look at people dispensing advice and see if they are making reputations or money by promoting the status quo in the sickcare/big pharma industries. Both of these people seem to have that incentive?? (not that it’s automatically disqualifying but I get suspicious and then look for mistakes. Like PCR testing, where there is a perverse incentive to make people trust a testing procedure and then label them infected (hospitalize them and give them worthless treatments at great expense all to further the dominant narrative). I’ve rambled enough.
AJ
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I’m also allergic to woo. I’ve been following Kresser for 4+ years and have never heard a hint of woo. He may have been involved with acupuncture early in his career but I have never heard him mention it once in 4 years. He does not advocate any particular diet. He thinks we should be eating a balanced diet of mostly unrefined and unprocessed foods. People can learn and change. I thought environmentalists were idiots 10 years ago when I was engaged in the industrial machine. With regard to PCR, I thought they made the point that too many cycles made results suspect, and I thought they also made the point that a positive result does not mean you are sick or going to get sick, nor that you are spreading the virus.
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Good, I should know that you would be skeptical 😉 of any junk science. I just have become too emotional about all the evil and anti-scientific thought that is foisted on the public by the media and the sickcare/big pharma/gov entities that are supposed to be purveyors of truth.
AJ
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I think there has been a bit of a smear campaign against Kresser because he has been vocal that a healthy diet should include some animal protein/fat, and that a vegetarian/vegan diet can be ok if you’re really careful but they have some health risks. He speaks from personal experience having been a vegan. Kresser engaged in 2 very public debates on the Joe Rogan podcast and most people think he lost. I think he is perceived to have lost because he stuck to the high ground with credible science and did not engage in a dirty fight like his opponent. He’s just a nice guy trying to make sense of the latest very complex and confusing health science.
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This one makes a number of good insights & contains some fine comic relief
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Population Bomb
“People don’t like to admit this uncomfortable truth. If there’s a problem, we look for someone to blame. Newspapers fill their pages blaming politicians and bureaucrats, businessmen and corporations: the Strangeloves of our world. All the problems of the world fall upon their shoulders. If they fail, we demand their heads.
If a flood occurs, it’s the fault of the engineers or the mayor or someone in power. They should have done something! If our prosperity declines or our freedoms erode, the cause is evil politicians scheming to increase their control.
To blame overpopulation is to admit our freedom is chained to circumstance. That forces beyond our control govern our lives. We’d have to admit we’re just an animal in an ecosystem.
Yet there are people alive today who have seen the global population quadruple: from two to almost eight billion people. That dwarfs the entirety of human history. Lone countries now contain the population of the planet at the turn of the last century.”
View at Medium.com
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Thanks for the intro to Bill Burr, he’s excellent. I added it to the unDenial gallery. https://un-denial.com/gallery/
You’re probably right that a majority will never vote for population reduction laws. I still find it amazing that we are unable to even discuss the issue in elections given that pretty much every health indicator for the planet is flashing bright red. The strength of denial is gobsmacking.
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Population reduction the hard/historical way.
The Only Thing, Historically, That’s Curbed Inequality: Catastrophe
Plagues, revolutions, massive wars, collapsed states—these are what reliably reduce economic disparities.
“Calls to make America great again hark back to a time when income inequality receded even as the economy boomed and the middle class expanded. Yet it is all too easy to forget just how deeply this newfound equality was rooted in the cataclysm of the world wars.”
“This equalizing was a rare outcome in modern times but by no means unique over the long run of history. Inequality has been written into the DNA of civilization ever since humans first settled down to farm the land. Throughout history, only massive, violent shocks that upended the established order proved powerful enough to flatten disparities in income and wealth. They appeared in four different guises: mass-mobilization warfare, violent and transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic epidemics. Hundreds of millions perished in their wake, and by the time these crises had passed, the gap between rich and poor had shrunk.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/
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Dr. John Campbell today tries not to get emotional about the inexplicable and inexcusable incompetence of health authorities in most countries on Vitamin D.
A year’s supply costs about $5. I do not understand why we would be willing to print trillions for stimulus and billions for vaccines and not spend a few million handing out Vitamin D.
It is very very strange.
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It’s par for the course IMO. The short explanation is an axis of
evilgreed – Big Ag, Big Pharma & Big Gov (eg:FDA). Legitimized by greedy status seeking scientists going back many many decades.Dr. Campbell ‘s mention of pre WW2 ‘forgotten’ German nutritional science is a story I’ve heard before & the vitamin D evidence is but one of many instances. It’s not exclusively German – Austrian, Soviet, UK, US etc, research as well.
It’s a rabbit hole as deep as any I’ve come across. Do you want to go down it?
Y’all likely know a bunch of it if no all the connections & depth.
Where to start? It goes back a ways but, I might start here first.
The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains
Robert H. Lustig
“Explores how industry has manipulated our most deep-seated survival instincts.”—David Perlmutter, MD, Author, #1 New York Times bestseller, Grain Brain and Brain Maker
The New York Times–bestselling author of Fat Chance reveals the corporate scheme to sell pleasure, driving the international epidemic of addiction, depression, and chronic disease.
While researching the toxic and addictive properties of sugar for his New York Times bestseller Fat Chance, Robert Lustig made an alarming discovery—our pursuit of happiness is being subverted by a culture of addiction and depression from which we may never recover.
Dopamine is the “reward” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we want more; yet every substance or behavior that releases dopamine in the extreme leads to addiction. Serotonin is the “contentment” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we don’t need any more; yet its deficiency leads to depression. Ideally, both are in optimal supply. Yet dopamine evolved to overwhelm serotonin—because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they were constantly motivated—with the result that constant desire can chemically destroy our ability to feel happiness, while sending us down the slippery slope to addiction. In the last forty years, government legislation and subsidies have promoted ever-available temptation (sugar, drugs, social media, porn) combined with constant stress (work, home, money, Internet), with the end result of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And with the advent of neuromarketing, corporate America has successfully imprisoned us in an endless loop of desire and consumption from which there is no obvious escape.
With his customary wit and incisiveness, Lustig not only reveals the science that drives these states of mind, he points his finger directly at the corporations that helped create this mess, and the government actors who facilitated it, and he offers solutions we can all use in the pursuit of happiness, even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Always fearless and provocative, Lustig marshals a call to action, with seminal implications for our health, our well-being, and our culture. ”
https://b-ok.cc/book/3352415/fb2920
http://audiobookbay.nl/audio-books/the-hacking-of-the-american-mind-the-science-behind-the-corporate-takeover-of-our-bodies-and-brains-robert-h-lustig/
I have not seen ‘The Social Dilemma’, but I’m certain the tech scumlords are just the latest to follow this play book.
Most are defenceless & will remain that way & not necessarily due to ignorance or lack of effort.
It’s very easy to evolutionarily hijack humans. It takes 1000 times the time & effort to reverse it.
Healthcare among most corrupt sectors, warns UN expert, backing “citizen whistleblowers”
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22283
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Thanks, I’ve read a lot about the disgraceful history of heart health and diabetes/obesity science: animal fat bad, eggs bad, cigarettes good, sugar good, margarine good, German science bad, etc.
I can understand why a country with looney tunes corrupt politics like the US might go down the wrong path.
But our leaders in Canada don’t seem crazy. Dr. Bonnie Henry here in B.C. is not corrupt. Why hasn’t she mailed vitamin D to every household in B.C.? Screw the rest of the world. We should be able to get our shit straight at home.
I don’t understand, it doesn’t compute, and I don’t buy conspiracy.
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Anyone working in BigPharma and the government sickcare industry (FDA, CDC, WHO) is suspect to me. If they are like Dr. Campbell or Chris Martenson and have earned my respect by being science centered and logical then I will listen.
AJ
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BMJ editor Fiona Godlee takes on corruption in science
“It’s unusual to watch one of the world’s most powerful editors in scientific publishing play with a marionette puppet.
But Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor of the BMJ, specializes in the unexpected.
The puppet she’s holding is dressed as a doctor, complete with a stethoscope around its neck. Its strings represent the hidden hand of the pharmaceutical industry.
Godlee keeps it on her desk to remind her of the dark forces at work in science and medicine. And she is blunt about the results.
“I think we have to call it what it is. It is the corruption of the scientific process.”
There are increasing concerns these days about scientific misconduct. Hundreds of papers are being pulled from the scientific record, for falsified data, for plagiarism, and for a variety of other reasons that are often never explained.
Sometimes it’s an honest mistake. But it’s estimated that 70 per cent of the retractions are based on some form of scientific misconduct.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/bmj-fiona-godlee-science-1.3541769
.
Former NEJM editors on the corruption of American medicine (NY Times)
March 20, 2012
” Marcia Angell MD is a well-known, respected physician, long-time editor of NEJM. So it was a bit of a shock today when Amy Romano, blogger for Lamaze International, sent me this quote:
It was from Dr. Angell’s review Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption. ”
https://participatorymedicine.org/epatients/2012/03/former-nejm-editors-on-the-corruption-of-american-medicine-ny-times.html
Editors from two of the most prestigious medical journals on the planet. Not exactly your run of the mill conspiracy tards.
They are not alone among professionals in medical research. Far from it.
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The sugar conspiracy
In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health. But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long?
“For at least the last three decades, the dietary arch-villain has been saturated fat. When Yudkin was conducting his research into the effects of sugar, in the 1960s, a new nutritional orthodoxy was in the process of asserting itself. Its central tenet was that a healthy diet is a low-fat diet. Yudkin led a diminishing band of dissenters who believed that sugar, not fat, was the more likely cause of maladies such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes. But by the time he wrote his book, the commanding heights of the field had been seized by proponents of the fat hypothesis. Yudkin found himself fighting a rearguard action, and he was defeated.
Not just defeated, in fact, but buried.”
“Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane. Just 12% of Americans were obese in 1950, 15% in 1980, 35% by 2000. In the UK, the line is flat for decades until the mid-1980s, at which point it also turns towards the sky. Only 6% of Britons were obese in 1980. In the next 20 years that figure more than trebled. Today, two thirds of Britons are either obese or overweight, making this the fattest country in the EU. Type 2 diabetes, closely related to obesity, has risen in tandem in both countries.
At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worst, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
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Marcia Angell has been writing about the big pharma world for a long time. I’ve read her book, “The truth about the Drug Companies” and John Abramson’s book. “Overdosed America”. Both are gadflies when it comes to examining the state of medical health in the US. At least Canada has a national health service while we in the USA have the most expensive system in the world and compared to other countries the poorest outcomes. Go figure.
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Reminds me of the guys I worked with who were avid gun collectors and hunters. I would wonder why they would exclaim, “we need to cull the herd!” when the herd that needed culling was/is us.
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I am a gun owner (since 8 years old) & hunter (not for almost 20 years), but I’ve never been avid. I know the type.
The last few years, I’ve been hearing plenty from a certain breed of humans
crying “we need to cull the herd!” It’s code for – ‘someone kill them libtards, migrants & jews for me’
White supremacists, MAGA-tards, The Proudgirls, etc….. Avid talkers.
Since the election the threats & calls for violence have gone waaaay up, but the first shot of their great white revolution has yet to be fired. “Just you wait-N-see mister!!”
Whatever you say windbag poser.
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Speaking of Johnny Cash, I’d like to nominate this one to be on the official Endtimes© soundtrack.
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I like the tune but had no clue what the lyrics meant. There is something seriously broken in my brain. It doesn’t compute nuance. All poetry flies past me as an incomprehensible word salad.
I looked up an explanation of the lyrics:
https://heathert.org/2014/08/09/johnny-cashs-man-comes-around-what-do-the-lyrics-mean/
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Proudgirls now that’s new to me.
“Progress and mass murder run in tandem. As the numbers killed by famine and plague have waned, so death by violence has increased. As science and technology have advanced, so has proficiency in killing. As the hope for a better world has grown, so has mass murder.” ~ John Gray Straw Dogs
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Your rant is way out of context, apneaman, you windbag poser, bombast. You virtue signaler.
If you really know the type, then you would know the meaning behind “cull the herd”. For example, the first article listed after googling “cull the herd” is from Salt Lake Tribune: “Culling is part of a larger attempt by land managers to keep populations stable in the park. There are currently 4,730 bison in the park, a slight decline from the estimated 4,900 bison counted last summer, officials said. More than 800 bison were culled last year.” https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2020/12/04/montana-officials-plan/
Need another? How about this one from National Geographic where you need only read the title to understand “cull the herd”: “Unique elk in California may be killed under controversial plan: The National Park Service’s proposed plan for Point Reyes National Seashore would preserve ranching and cull tule elk within the park’s boundaries.” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/09/tule-elk-culled-under-point-reyes-proposal/
What a knee-jerk, circle jerk this blog is: “‘someone kill them libtards, migrants & jews for me’. Where did I say “jews”? I never have typed the word “jew,” EVER!
But from James and Rob it’s overwhelming…from James’ DNA to DNA:
“The Jews need some Kentucky tongues-speaking, snake charming “Proud Boys” to crash the party and really get things moving.” (James)
“It’s not that it’s only the Jews. But if someone doesn’t mention the Jews, they aren’t being complete. By the way, this simple thought qualifies me as being a rabid anti semite in today’s America. Just like the thought, I don’t want want to live in a crime infested black area, makes me a rabid racist. The three protected classes in America: the rich and powerful, the Jews, and the blacks.” (Dolph)
“I have a delightful new Israeli neighbour, the only man I’ve met who can talk my legs off! I enjoy the lively minds of the secular Jews.” (Cynic)
“I think the average IQ of Jews is higher than the rest of the globe. Nobel prizes per capita stats support this. As do my personal observations. There seems to have been some historic selection pressures for intelligence in Jewish communities, probably created by their persecution.” (Rob)
“Last time they came for the Jews. This time they come for the doctors. The immunologists and virologists are next. Better leave while you can. It is time for the Fourth Reich, I mean the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Heil Klaus. Heil Mein Fuhrer.” (James)
“I don’t know for sure either, but the wheels of some devious plan are in motion. I hope the banker Jews don’t get the regular Jews holocausted again.” (James)
I won’t even spend time taking down James’ suspect comment about Nixon.
When calling out someone as a racist or as a white supremacist, do you take the time to look in a mirror or actually understand what your blog-kin are saying?
“Culling the herd” in affluent societies such as the USA and Canada and Western Europe could actually mean not providing limited resources to
this 11 month old son just came off his ventilator this morning following a ruptured brain aneurysm 12 days ago
or to
this newborn who is allergic to breast milk and requires formula to survive
Reducing the population IS culling the herd and NOT only relegated to nazism or eco-fascism, nor solely eliminating the libtards, migrants or jews. And it is certainly NOT ONLY educating women. Paternity tests to determine the father and snipping that father after one child will be the best option in my opinion. But then again, I’m not part of this circle jerk fraternity.
Truthfully, I think you protest too much and want to keep your social media status with Ron and James and are virtue signaling with your unfounded accusations. I must have hit a nerve or is it denial or is it DNA/RNA?
Everybody’s got something to hide except for you and your monkey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fv_gCn1CUU
Let’s get this dissipation party started! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwtyn-L-2gQ
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As for this blog’s formatting it sucks.
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My rants are never out of context & that one is not about you unless you are a card carrying member of the loud & Proudgirls – all talk & no action except for back shooting unaware protesters now & then or running them over from behind with their car.
If you were my intended target, believe me, you’d know.
That voice in your head that said ‘it’s all about me’ after reading my comment, is wrong. I wouldn’t trust that voice.
As for virtue signalling James & the MC gang, ha ha, indeed you have not been paying attention to my comments toward Plandemic & Reset & Jew blamers & stupid fucking, lost their shit, Americans in general.
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She’s a couple months older than me.
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Ivermectin Dose Calculations
standard tube of horse dewormer paste contains 6.08g of 1.87% Ivermectin
https://www.drugs.com/vet/eqvalan-paste-1-87.html
1 tube contains 6.08g * 0.0187 = 113.7mg Ivermectin
FLCCC Covid-19 protocol is 0.2mg Ivermectin per Kg body weight on day 1 and day 3, repeat on day 6 and day 8 if still sick, 4 doses max
https://covid19criticalcare.com/i-mask-prophylaxis-treatment-protocol/i-mask-protocol-translations/
https://covid19criticalcare.com/math-hospital-treatment/pdf-translations/
It is reassuring to note that the vet recommended horse dose per Kg is the same as the FLCCC recommended human dose per Kg.
1 tube will dose 113.7mg/0.2mg/kg = 568.5Kg of human
1 tube provides 568.5Kg/90Kg = 6.3 doses for 90Kg person
therefore buy 1 tube per person (available over the counter from feed stores)
important note: some horse dewormer contains Praziquantel in addition to Ivermectin – you do not want this unless you have equine tapeworms in addition to Covid-19 🙂
get paste with Ivermectin only
P.S. I learned later that the strange numbers above result from tubes being sold as grams. If you buy a tube sold as mL then the numbers are clean (15ml tube, 10mg Ivermectin per mL, 150 mg total per tube).
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Great breakdown, Rob. Thank you very much! If I use it I’ll post my experience of it here.
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Lots of Ivermectin at my feed store with prices ranging from CAD$15 to $22 per tube.
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It’s a wonder British Columbia didn’t enforce isolation and quarantine early on for its islands. That’s what Tasmania did and we haven’t had a serious outbreak for months.
Many of the indigenous communities on the mainland were very quick in prohibiting access and Western Australia is still closed off from some of the other states suffering (limited) outbreaks.
You’ll have to let us all know how you go with the horse drench if your unlucky enough to have to use it 🙂. I just discovered my wife uses equimec for her horses and has a couple of unused doses. Not that we have a need for in this part of the world yet but might put them aside just in case.
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I watched China bulldoze Wuhan streets to stop their citizens from travelling back in January and wondered why my government didn’t immediately close the airport. Idiots.
I live on Vancouver Island and we are doing quite a bit better than the rest of the province. Hopefully I won’t need the Ivermectin but I’d rather be safe than sorry. If things turn bad and the hospitals get really busy I’d rather stay home and self medicate.
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Ahh. . . picked up from The Automatic Earth blog (sometimes ok). https://off-guardian.org/2020/12/18/who-finally-admits-pcr-tests-create-false-positives/
Seems like we don’t need Ivermectin as we have vaccines now and the PCR test will show a low amount of cases (cynical comment). So, the BS that PCR tests were the gold standard was just that by the sickcare/big pharma/gov controllers.
AJ
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This is an interesting video but pretty much sums up what the current line of thinking is for most people in the world. Almost everyone believes that this is the future.
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For most people, fossil energy is indistinguishable from magic.
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Steve Keen today explains how a debt jubilee could work.
I’m skeptical. If you extinguish debt, which is a promise to create and return real wealth in the future, with printed money, how can you not cause inflation?
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2020/12/19/discussing-a-modern-debt-jubilee-on-macroncheese
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Watkins cries that we should extend and pretend, so we can buy time to “develop a steady-state economy”.
But we didn’t try in the last decade, why would we try in the next decade?
And how can you have a steady-state economy when energy is declining? You can’t.
Total wealth will decline as energy declines, therefore if you want to retain a reasonable standard of living, population must decline at about the same rate.
Watkins, like everyone else, never discusses the only thing that will help.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/12/19/its-the-third-wave-that-sinks-you/
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heads up- Albert Bates over at The Great Change features Varki’s MORT theory in his latest “pause” entry (After covering Catton ).
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This statement is categorically false and unfortunately undermines his entire piece about Catton:
“Nor is it unprecedented for a sitting US President to marry his own daughter, by the way. Frances Clara Folsom Cleveland became the youngest First Lady at age 21 when she married President Grover Cleveland in the White House. Catton’s point, and his life’s work, was that insanity runs not merely in individuals or families, but in whole societies.”
From wiki:
Frank [Frances] Clara Folsom was born in Buffalo, New York to Emma (née Harmon) and her husband, Oscar Folsom, a lawyer who was a descendant of the earliest European settlers of Exeter, New Hampshire.[1]
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Thanks Steve. Varki doesn’t get mentioned very often. I think Bates may be the only overshoot writer that thinks MORT has some relevance. I of course think MORT explains pretty much everything that demands an explanation.
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Sean Carroll: A Case Study in Denial
Sean Carroll is a brilliant physicist who has written several popular science books and who hosts a podcast where he regularly proves his intellectual width and depth. Earlier this month he did an Ask Me Anything (AMA) 3 1/2 hour episode in which he answered about a hundred mostly difficult, mostly physics questions.
I found all of his answers to be uniformly intelligent with great care taken to distinguish between generally agreed facts and personal opinions.
Except one question. Care to guess the topic?
Yep, you got it: overshoot.
Notice his brain doing backflips trying not to actually address the intent of the question. Notice the total blanking on thermodynamics which he understands inside out. Notice his inability to scale feasible energy types to the nearest order of magnitude.
Go ahead and listen to the other questions and answers. They are like night and day compared to this one question his brain did not want to think about.
What you see here is genetic denial of unpleasant realities, as explained by Varki’s MORT theory, fully engaged and blocking his brain from thinking rationally.
I checked, Carroll’s already on my list of famous polymaths in denial.
https://un-denial.com/2018/09/03/on-famous-polymaths/
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2020/12/09/ama-december-2020/
Here is Tom Murphy discussing the overshoot issue Carroll did not want to think about.
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Do the Math was one of my favorites. Too bad he stopped posting.
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Jesus!! He almost sounds like a semiliterate just trying to come up with something and puking incoherent word salad. Its so embarrassing that a part of me believes that you made a mistake while posting his comments on this page.
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Denial?
Don’t discount option #2 which is probably even more ubiquitous than denial – lying.
Sean Carroll’s career is even more brilliant than his brain. Telling unpleasant truths never won anyone a popularity contest & doing it is pretty much career & social suicide. Any politician will tell you that & they know best since elections are just popularity contests.
The truth about lying
‘We’re lied to 10 to 200 times a day, and tell a lie ourselves an average of 1 to 2 times in the same period. These talks will help you understand why — and will make you better at sussing out the truth.’
https://www.ted.com/playlists/222/5_talks_on_the_truth_about_lyi
I expect to be lied to & more times than not my expectations are met.
..
Guy McPherson is none to popular – hated by many & don’t sell many books. Why? McPherson is a very intelligent scientist & understands the living planet more thoroughly than all but others with his expertise. Sure McPherson has misinterpreted some of the physics & his prediction is kinda early, but he’s not THAT! wrong.
“Shooting the messenger” is a real condition, explain scientists
Harvard psychologists discover why we dislike the people who deliver bad news.
” A new study looked at why people tend to “shoot the messenger”.
It’s a fact that people don’t like those who deliver them bad news.
The effect stems from our inherent need to make sense of bad or unpredictable situations.
Have you ever felt like you really didn’t like the person who gave you some particularly bad news? Maybe it wasn’t even their fault – all they did is tell you about it, but had nothing to do with the news themselves. Still, you couldn’t help but hate them for it, even if you logically knew it wasn’t right. Well, it turns out you are not alone in this feeling – wanting to “shoot the messenger” is a widespread psychological reality for many humans. It’s just how we are wired, says a new paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.”
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/why-shooting-the-messenger-is-a-real-condition-explain-scientists
There is no upside to being a Cassandra.
Forget about the endtimes, just pointing out the worst hypocrisy & bullshit of your society can be costly.
It’s best to do it like George Carlin, lest you end up like Socrates.
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Did you listen to the nuance of the audio? It didn’t sound like a lie to me. It sounded like his denial circuit was scrambling his logic circuit. I see it everyday in interactions with people. It can be harder to pinpoint denial with less educated people because you’re never sure if what you’re observing is ignorance. In Carroll’s case we know for sure it’s not ignorance.
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I know that scientists and politicians have to project optimism or else risk serious damage to their careers. It is also the reason why despite climate change accelerating at an alarming pace and various feedback loops kicking in, the IPCC is still not ready to revise their conservative projections about the temperature rise. I understand this phenomenon perfectly.
What surprised me about Carroll’s response is that he could not even lie in a coherent manner. Its as if he has never given this topic any serious thought and was caught completely off guard and just said whatever he could think of at that particular moment.
A good example for someone who peddles insane fantasies is Michio Kaku. According to him -and this is for real- In the next few years we would be like the ancient Greek gods.
What he means by that is that we will conquer disease and aging, colonize mars, upload our minds to a server and create a “soul library” among other things. This is just a sample of the elaborate BS that Kaku is selling the people who attend his talks.
My point is Kaku is precise and articulate and probably knows this is all fantasy where as Carroll seems like he just has never meditated on this topic.
I don’t know which is worse!!
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Back in the 80s, I used to listen to Michio Kaku on WBAI in NYC. He seemed like a reasonable scientist back then. He’s become a perfect example of a scientist who is selling wishful thinking to a gullible public. Does he know it’s all fantasy? You have to take what he has written at face value. His particular take on the future probably sells more books because as everyone on this website says people like happy outcomes. It’s like the old Mad Magazine caption, “What me worry!” Contrary to what Rob says, I don’t think that if people really did acknowledge that they all lived in denial that it would really change anything. The internal momentum of our society pulls (MPP?) everyone along.
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Couldn’t have said it better!! We apes have good detectors against being lied to. It’s why watching/reading the MSM makes me want to scream (which I do on occasion much to my wife’s consternation).
Oh, we are all going to end up like Socrates (we’re drinking the hemlock now).
Thanks,
AJ
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Lying and denying are probably related. A good preacher does not lie that heaven exists. He believes that heaven exists because he evolved to deny death. He’s successful because our lie detectors tell us he’s not lying, and because he tells us what our denial genes want to hear.
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You can’t make this shit up.
George Mobus, a long time observer of overshoot, in one of his rare posts today, summarizes all of the problems our civilization faces, and then he concludes:
https://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2020/12/merry-winter-solstice-2020.html
The virus seems to have made everyone crazy.
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“We need to have a future population of sapients to carry on!”
Why? To carry on destroying our (one and only Earthly) habitats, non-human organisms and ourselves? Mobus is writing as though humans are going to suddenly change their evolved behaviors and instantly become caring servants to ourselves, other beings and the Earth. Optimism is a turd wrapped in gold foil.
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“It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.”
― David Benatar , Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
To be perfectly honest, I don’t give two fucks about the humans or any other species here on planet meat grinder except the one’s I eat.
Extinction is the ultimate mercy.
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I still haven’t read that book by Benatar, nor his most recent. AFAIK, Benatar doesn’t address human denial of reality but nonetheless many of his premises and arguments which I have read from interviews of him ring true to me. Here’s a 2017 New Yorker article on him which I recommend:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-case-for-not-being-born
Also, the first season of “True Detective” was probably the most outstanding television series (of any genre) I’ve seen, except for the last 10-ish minutes of the final episode in which the writer(s) and/or producer(s) copped-out of reality in favor of religious delusion.
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“Truly sapient” is about 10,000 people, so it would take a while to fcuk everything up again 😉
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Here is un-Denial optimism:
Starting tomorrow, our days will be brighter.
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Speaking of everyone going crazy, Kunstler today turns up conspiracy to 11.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/yuletide-visitations/
Do mammals go insane when they sense an imminent overshoot crash?
Or is the virus similar to the one that makes mice love the smell of cat urine?
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I think it was Apneaman who recently mentioned a pattern of previously great thinkers (prominently among them J. Kunstler and D. Cohen) rapidly descending into conspiracy theory and other irrational madness. It’d be nice to fully comprehend the sequence of psychodynamic regression involved in this pattern. Or maybe it’s not regression but simply a progressive irrationality and conspiratorial mindset that eventually takes over as a new and primary worldview.
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I think, on a subconscious level, folks are tribing up & closing ranks & the conspiracy memes are a form of tribal loyalty signalling. Signalling that makes one look stupid is actually more valuable than any calm rational promise.
How bad do you want to be seen as a loyal (and protected) member of our tribe?
Anyone can claim they are loyal, but like they say in Missouri ‘Show Me!’
Costly signaling theory in evolutionary psychology
“Costly signaling theory in evolutionary psychology refers to uses of costly signaling theory and adaptationism in explanations for psychological traits and states. Often informed by the closely related fields of human behavioral ecology and cultural evolution, such explanations are predominantly focused on humans and emphasize the benefits of altering the perceptions of others and the need to do so in ways that are difficult to fake due to the widespread existence of adaptations which demand reliable information to avoid manipulation through dishonest signals.[1] ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costly_signaling_theory_in_evolutionary_psychology
Now we have American, white, educated long time doomers who are frothing at the mouth spewing jew hating plandemic conspiracies that entail a level of complexity, sophistication & cooperation that would put ‘The Borg’ to shame.
So how come we never heard all this jew hating, Trump luving, conspiracy & blaming from them prior to Covid? Because talking that shit was too costly for their status & self-image as the educated class , but now that they are full of fear, now that collapse is no longer just an abstract academic hobby, their subconscious survival computer has recalculated and it’s told them it’s too costly not to jump on the conspiracy blame wagon. IOW, they have better survival odds down in the gutter with those they once mocked. Now they just deplorables with degrees looking for protection & the James Gang is showing the typical zealousness seen in all new converts. New guy must signal louder to prove loyalty. Sometimes the signalling it’s referred to as virtue signalling & in the case of the scared shitless neo deplorable converts, it’s a virtue of necessity or at least that’s what their amygdala is telling them (with a social media shove).
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Fellow British Columbian Baba Brinkman on a different type of costly signaling…
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Yes, it looks like tribal urges are heightening, and dawdlers are making their choices, picking their “team”.
E.O. Wilson lays out the genetic and evolutionary basis for our tribal nature. I recently finished his “The Social Conquest of Earth”. It explains a lot, and I recommend reading it. Our dual nature is a genetic battle between individual success and group success forged on the African veldt. Signaling is all part of establishing and defining tribal affiliation. At one time it helped ensure mutual aid and survival. Now, in the self inflicted predicament we’ve caused, not so much.
We’ve expanded so quickly into the rest of the ecosystem, we aren’t co-evolving with the rest of nature like ants did, so are like a cancer that will most likely burn out and take a lot with us.
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Heinberg, in a very long essay today, is also thinking about why everyone is going crazy.
I disagree with him. I think the cause of craziness is simple and related to denial.
It’s clear from every angle that you care to view it from that we are in serious trouble. And yet, not a single one of our political, intellectual, business, or pop media leaders speaks honestly about what’s going on (overshoot), nor what we should do about it (population reduction), because they all deny reality.
And so everyone makes shit up and forms into tribes.
Heinberg contributes to the problem by once again failing to discuss the need for rapid population reduction policies.
https://richardheinberg.com/museletter-334-2020-the-year-consensus-reality-fractured
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Charles C. Mann
State of the Species
Does success spell doom for Homo sapiens?
(This essay was a finalist for a 2013 National Magazine Award in the Essay category.
https://orionmagazine.org/article/state-of-the-species/
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Mann’s conclusion:
So many words and so little value. I observe that bacteria cannot write such an essay. I also observe that Mann never once mentioned the need for rapid population reduction policies despite having the intelligence, and an audience and platform to do so. Denial dominates once again.
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https://srsroccoreport.com/the-collapse-of-u-s-shale-oil-production-has-now-begun/
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Tverberg today…
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/02/humans-left-sustainability-behind-as-hunter-gatherers/comment-page-44/#comment-272212
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Big news today for documentary collectors.
MVGroup released a 1080p x265 blu-ray rip of the famous 1980 series Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
I already had the best available rip released in 2014 but this new rip is much better.
You can get it from MVGroup directly if you have an account, otherwise it should be up on other public trackers soon.
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China is experiencing electricity shortages, because of coal shortages, because it stopped importing Australian coal, because Australia called for an investigation into the virus source.
Does this smell true, or is something else going on?
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Restricts-Electricity-Use-Amid-Coal-Shortage.html
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Whats-Driving-The-Energy-Feud-Between-China-And-Australia.html
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I was just going to post this link but looks like you best me to it. Interesting. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
It’s been doing the rounds for a while that ships laden with Australia coal weren’t being allowed entry into China’s ports. However this is the first article I’ve read on developing electricity shortages.
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Don’t know if it’s true but I’ve heard saving face is pretty high on the list of Chinese cultural priorities.
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The Arctic is in a death spiral. How much longer will it exist?
“At the end of July, 40% of the 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf, located on the north-western edge of Ellesmere Island, calved into the sea. Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf was no more.
On the other side of the island, the most northerly in Canada, the St Patrick’s Bay ice caps completely disappeared.
Two weeks later, scientists concluded that the Greenland Ice Sheet may have already passed the point of no return. Annual snowfall is no longer enough to replenish the snow and ice loss during summer melting of the territory’s 234 glaciers. Last year, the ice sheet lost a record amount of ice, equivalent to 1 million metric tons every minute.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/oct/13/arctic-ice-melting-climate-change-global-warming
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I like Baba Brinkman.
If you’re sick of hearing me say rapid population reduction is the only thing that will help, here is Baba with a “happier” solution.
I don’t think Baba’s aware of overshoot and the effect scarcity will have on our good nature, but he does present a fresh idea.
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I remember some people predicting that the new regulations requiring ships to use low sulfur fuel might cause shortages and disruptions to global shipping. It seems a different serious problem has emerged due to insufficient testing and quality control of the new fuel.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nishandegnarain/2020/12/21/shipping-gate-why-toxic-vlsfo-fuel-is-such-a-danger-for-global-shipping/?sh=2d677aa878fd
h/t Panopticon
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Hmm- a made up fuel, inadequately tested and rushed through. I’m sure that reminds me of something. Shouldn’t that percentage have given the ships herd immunity?
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Reading the article now seems I shouldn’t have been so flippant-good article. I don’t remember who said it but “when politics meets science it becomes politics”. Here’s another quote-
” It was accelerated based on a politically-driven, artificially tight timeline, without proper safety testing. The intention was to give the impression that global shipping was a clean industry, ahead of important climate talks planned for 2020. That was before COVID-19 hit.”
So politics and PR.
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He had seven children. Of course, the Earth was relatively empty back then.
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Thanks, I didn’t know that. In fact I know nothing about Watts. Just thought there were a few truths here.
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Andrew Glikson today discussed the severity of our climate situation. He thinks we should shift military funding to climate mitigation, and he chastised his climate science colleagues for having less courage than school children.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/12/an-orwellian-climate-while-rome-burns.html
Notice that Glikson did not have the courage to call for rapid population reduction policies, despite the fact that nothing else will help.
Or perhaps he has courage but doesn’t have a clue.
Or perhaps he denies reality like everyone else.
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Rob, I will never, ever, ever tire of you prioritizing overshoot (particularly massive human overpopulation) here at un-Denial. Nothing causes me more distress and existential anguish than this problem [I wish I could just let it go, as it’s futile, but I’m not wired that way]. I know of no other space (online or off) where it’s (overpopulation) prioritized as consistently as it is here. It’s importance cannot be overstated, nor emphasized too many times. Not possible. Thanks for your persistence.
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Thanks kindly.
Of late it’s become much clearer to me that only population reduction will help. It’s a no lose solution because even if it’s mostly too late, a smaller population means less suffering, and a better chance of a decent life for some of the people and other species that remain.
What’s the big deal? We manage the breeding of our pets and many people love their pets as much as their family. We need to get over it and grow up. The alternative is much worse.
I’m much less tolerant now of people that have not given up and advocate we do something, but never mention the only thing that might help. I’m going to call them out every chance I get.
Many (most?) doomers have given up and are resigned to accept whatever comes. I don’t agree with them but I respect and understand their position. Perhaps some day I’ll join them.
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Rob, I understand your emphasis on overpopulation and the need to drastically reduce it but it is interpreted in many circles as a form of colonial mindset coming from a citizen of the first world. After all an average American consumes as much as 50 times the amount of resources as an average Indian which means America as a whole is consuming resources as much as 15 Indias!! So the immediate focus becomes overconsumption and not overpopulation although I believe both are equally important.
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I understand. I think Canada should implement population reduction policies first, and increase it’s interest rate to drive down consumption. We should then shame the rest of the world to follow us.
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I think it should be the other way around. The consumption must go down before population does. Let me elaborate-
At present Canada is probably consuming as much resources as about a billion Indians. Even if you somehow reduce the population by 25% in the next 25 years (which is highly unlikely) they would still consume as much as about 750 million Indians. Reduction in consumption by even 50% would bring consumption levels to about 500 million Indians. Also this is achievable much more quickly the population reduction.
Then there is the moral aspect of this problem. If you have people in one part of the planet consuming 50 times as much as people on the other side then the people on the other side will aspire to become part of the people on the more privileged side. That is human psychology.
Therefore consumption must be reduced before population can be reduced.
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You make a good point but I think the focus should be on population reduction because energy depletion and our debt bubble will cause consumption to fall soon without us having to do anything.
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Reducing population even by a small amount in a manner that is acceptable to vast majority of population will take decades at the very least, where as reducing consumption by a signifcant amount is possible in just a few years.
Also people will be more amenable to consumption reduction compared to population reduction.
And as I mentioned earlier there is the issue of optics. Someone living in developing world will not care about reduction of population in a developed country when the developed country in question is consuming 50 times resources per capita compared to a developing country. Reduction in consumption is more visible.
So it is clear that reduction in consumption is a higher priority.
Also if as you say energy depletion and debt bubble will lead to a crash in a few decades any way then we might as well not do anything since any meaningful reduction in population will take far longer than that.
If you can please post our exchange at the top of the blog as I am very interested to see what others on this site think about what is a higher priority. Reduction is consumption or Reduction in population?
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Not to be a complete cynic (yeah!!). But wouldn’t MPP kinda suggest that even if we denizens of the West lowered our consumption dramatically the other inhabitants of this pale blue dot would say “Fools, MORE for me”. Lowering consumption could lead to dramatic immediate benefits and but without a simultaneously lowering of the population it would seem to be futile. Mostly I think the decreasing fossil fuel availability will pop the bubble of “growth” and the question will then become, does the biosphere survive the collapse of civilization? (probably not due to the 400+ nukes melting down?).
AJ
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I don’t think it will take a few decades for our consumption to be forced down. The decline started this year and will probably accelerate quickly over the coming months and few years at most.
I agree with AJ’s point. I also don’t think consumption reduction would be favored over population reduction. We know that the birth rate falls when the cost of raising a child increases, so many people appear to give priority to consumption. If the Canadian government said to its citizens there will not be sufficient food to feed our population in 10 years, I think a lot of people would support population reduction policies.
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My point of view was that of people in developing countries. Of course the developed countries are free to choose any path they want consumption or population reduction.
But they WILL NOT have the moral authority to ask poorer countries to reduce population until their per capita consumption is near or just a few times more than that of poorer countries instead of the present 50 times.
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Chuckling at the latest monkeyshines south of the border, and wondering about pins and bubbles…
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Works for me.
Accurately described Terror Management Theory in lay-monkey terms.
Cancer Monkeys
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Excellent, added to the Gallery.
https://un-denial.com/gallery/
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A quick check-in on the monkeyshines and yep, they’re still monkeyshining.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shutdown-looms-democrat-bid-2000-relief-checks-fails-house-heres-what-happens-next
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I remember watching this video 10 years ago. I thought it was brilliant back then and would agree today. Only wish we would have the mentioned 6 billion people instead of the > 8 billion today.
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Yes, it’s amazing how fast the billions have ticked up.
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Hossenfelder made me smile today.
She’s great and not yet on my list of famous polymaths in denial.
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Tverberg today describes our economy as citizens walking up a downward escalator.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/23/2020-the-year-things-started-going-badly-wrong/
The escalator I think is an analogy for the depreciation factor in Tim Garrett’s thermodynamic model of the economy in which energy consumed is proportional to the total capital of the system.
https://un-denial.com/?s=Garrett%3A
A good example of this is that annual maintenance costs and property taxes increase with the size and complexity of a home. If you don’t have the money (aka energy) to maintain the home its capital value will fall. It takes energy to have wealth, and even more energy to grow wealth.
Which is why to improve your resiliency you should simplify your life.
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Nice find by Dave Lysak @ http://megacancer.com.
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I’m gonna LMFAO when the grid goes down
I’m gonna LMFAO when the grid goes down
I’m gonna LMFAO when the grid goes down
And I’ll never use LMFAO, WTF?, OMG!, LOL or 😦 🙂 again 😉
I love these fucking halfwits plan to take down the very thing that powers their greatest recruiting tool ever.
FBI Says White Supremacists Plotted Attack on U.S. Power Grid
“The Ohio teen, who was 17 at the time, also shared plans with a smaller group about a plot to create a power outage by shooting rifle rounds into power stations in the southeastern U.S. The teen called the plot “Light’s Out” and there were plans to carry it out in the summer of 2021, the affidavit states.
One group member, a Texas native who was a Purdue University student at the time, allegedly sent the informant a text saying “leaving the power off would wake people up to the harsh reality of life by wreaking havoc across the nation.”
“Some group members also indicated that they were prepared to die for their beliefs. ”
“He then outlined a “radicalization” process to instill a “revolutionary mindset” which ended with recruits proving they are more than just talk. He allegedly wrote that if it seemed too tough, “I recommend leaving now, we are extremely serious about our goals and ambitions.”
“This investigation apparently began after a fourth man, from Canada, was stopped while trying to enter the U.S. The man told border agents that he was going to visit the Ohio teen, whom he had recently met over an encrypted app, according to the affidavit. Agents found Nazi and white supremacist images on his phone.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-22/fbi-white-supremacists-plotted-attack-on-us-power-grid?sref=qTppeEL3
No word yet on how they plan to communicate with each other after they take down the internet.
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Russ Roberts is an economics professor on my list of famous polymaths in denial, who hosts the EconTalk podcast, which I monitor, because every once in a while, when he doesn’t discuss how the economy works, he produces an episode that is intelligent and interesting, like this week when he interviewed Jay Bhattacharya, the author of the Great Barrington Declaration.
https://www.econtalk.org/jay-bhattacharya-on-the-pandemic/
Two side observations. First, the discipline of economics is a disgrace in that the only time you should listen to its experts is when they don’t discuss how the thing they specialize in works. Second, even people deeply in denial occasionally say something worth listening to.
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The two great weaknesses of the Great Barrington Declaration is that it doesn’t address the exceptional importance of everyone wearing masks when near to one another (particularly indoors) and maintaining a good six feet of distance from one another (admittedly, this distance is sometimes impossible to initiate/maintain, as I’ve learned firsthand in my work, but the mask wearing is a piece of cake). Another weakness, if maybe lesser than the previous two, is that is considers humans knowledgeable, responsible and sapient enough to gauge their own level of COVID risk, which is dubious AT VERY BEST and the consequences of which might very well include rendering hospitals and health care workers even more severely overwhelmed than at present.
My position on the best societal approach to SARS-2/COVID has been, since at least May, that everyone (literally, unless physically impossible) wears a mask at all times indoors and wears one outdoors only if within close proximity to others. Otherwise, no need to wear one outdoors nor when one is by oneself in certain interior spaces (e.g., one’s automobile). Unfortunately, this approach still leaves restaurants and bars in a terrible position. It’s completely reasonable to me to have government stimulus keep them viable until patrons can return to support them. Much better government spending than the first stimulus (and likely the second, based upon what I’ve read about it) giving more billions to those already billionaires.
To me, this approach is a “win-win”. Lockdowns can be avoided (allowing societies to function almost normally) AND humans can greatly minimize their risk of receiving or transmitting SARS-2.
Am I missing something here? Please let me know the flaws you see in this approach [unless you feel that mask wearing is worthless, unconstitutional/authoritarian, virtue signaling, or other perfect bullshit; if so, PISS OFF YOU TERRIFIC MORON]. If there’s a better one, I’d be glad to acknowledge and promote it.
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I haven’t read the Great Barrington Declaration but in the podcast masks were only discussed in the context of them being the best example of American societal breakdown because they are sadly used as a political tribe allegiance signal.
I think I was close to being the first person in my community to wear a mask. I remember people looking at me with some derision. Now everyone wears a mask.
I haven’t read the science behind mask effectiveness but for me it is common sense reinforced by Nassim Taleb’s explanation that even if they only block 50% of the virus you get a 1-(0.5*0.5)= 75% reduction when interacting with another person who is also wearing a mask.
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Oh geez, I just realized that this comment could be taken as me replying directly to you, Rob. I was writing to all people who visit un-Denial to elicit their feedback to the approach I’m advocating for SARS-2/COVID. I wasn’t calling you a terrific moron, LOL. I just wanted to clarify this to avoid misinterpretation.
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Thanks. I was feeling pretty depressed yesterday that 1 of the 3 people that read this blog think I’m a moron. 🙂
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Here’s an entertaining rant by a couple of short selling experts on what it takes to make money in the stock market today. Basically you check your brain at the door, forget about rational valuations, profits, and possible fraud, and buy whatever your family members like because the Fed’s got your back.
It seems the only thing you need to get rich are the denial genes most people are born with.
What could go wrong?
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I thought it might be the pop of a bubble. Maybe going out with a different bang?
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It don’t take much to dupe most/enough of the American public. Especially when it comes to bombing brown people – any ole pretext will do.
Going to war on Iran would be a great distraction & economic stimulus plan.
U.S. military is the largest employer in the world
“Travel on Uncle Sam’s dime and have taxpayers pay for your education—these are some of the perks offered by the U.S. military, and it appears its recruiting strategy is effective.
The U.S. Department of Defense has been named the largest employer in the world with 3.2 million employees on its payroll, according to the World Economic Forum. ”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-military-is-the-largest-employer-in-the-world-2015-06-17
For over 100 years, the American aerospace and defense (A&D) industry has moved, connected, and secured the modern world. And in 2018, the industry continued to pave the way to what’s next, providing world-class products to partners and allies around the globe and developing new, cutting-edge technologies that will shape life for generations to come.
Our “2019 Facts & Figures: U.S. Aerospace & Defense” analysis highlights an eight-year trend of sustained growth, culminating in 2018 sales exceeding $929 billion and a trade surplus of nearly $90 billion. This success was underpinned by innovative manufacturing and was felt across the supply chain, which grew to $459 billion in output – a four percent increase over the previous year. And none of this would have been possible without the more than 2.5 million people who make up the talented A&D workforce.
Explore our 2019 Facts & Figures report for more on A&D’s contributions to America’s economy, national security and innovation.
https://www.aia-aerospace.org/2019-facts-and-figures/
Don’t forget to include the secondary businesses the Dept of War & death manufactures hire that employ many people too.
If global peace broke out the US would go broke overnight.
Raining hell from above is ‘good fer da Conomy’.
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Witty comment by erwalt at https://ourfiniteworld.com.
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David Collum, since 2009, has written a year in review essay that is published around Christmas on Chris Martenson’s site.
I always read it although I frequently don’t agree with Collum’s world view, nor his lack of awareness and integration of overshoot and denial forces, but he does a fantastic job of summarizing many of the important and easy to forget (because there’s so many) crazy events of the year.
Click to access 2020+Year+in+Review+Full+Final.pdf
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Kunstler speaks with him frequently. It is a bit of a mystery why a “world made by hand” guy spends so much time talking with believers in infinite growth on a finite planet. It is not as if they discuss those ideological differences.
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Yes it is very strange. Collum’s an excellent candidate for another case study in denial. I think if you go back to his first essays you will see an awareness of overshoot issues like energy depletion. That is after all why he is associated with Chris Martenson. Today somehow his brain has blocked all those unpleasant thoughts and he worries about someone stealing his stash.
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Sorry Rob,
I am familiar with Collum from previous years rants. . .
BUT he has what I consider a problem. Correct me if I am wrong.
I am a firm believer in Science and the scientific method for determining what little we know of reality. Science as a way of approaching reality (as apposed to religion, and other methods?) is nominally self correcting. Institutional science as practiced in academia and especially as practiced in the corporate world is “corruptible”, IMHO.
However, as someone who attempts to practice scientific thought (testable, falsifiable, logical), one can never be an expert in every field (except physicists who think they are certifiable geniuses who can expound scientific opinions is all fields – see Richard Feynman (joke)). Hence, one must occasionally and tentatively rely on scientists in other fields as having expert opinions that are correct.
Collum has concluded that global warming/climate change is wrong.
Another polymath who is in denial??
AJ
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Yes for sure Collum is in denial on climate change, and also energy and all things overshoot.
I finished reading his long essay. He clearly sees the madness but is no longer able to connect the dots on the underlying cause. I remember interviews with him 10 years ago when he did connect the dots. It seems denial has pushed that awareness out of his brain.
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Working my way through it. Gotta give Collum credit.
No matter how crazy you think you know the world is, Collum shows you are low by an order of magnitude.
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I liked this analogy by Jason at OFW comparing bacteria in a petri dish and civilization.
I think it’s a different way of explaining Tim Garrett’s thermodynamic model of the economy.
The key take-away: buckle up.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/23/2020-the-year-things-started-going-badly-wrong/comment-page-3/#comment-272445
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Harry McGibbs is a pseudonym for a friend who was one of two people that encouraged me to start https://un-denial.com. Ironically, I began writing with a pseudonym but Harry criticized me for not writing with my real name, so I came out of the closet. Harry, on the other hand, for personal reasons, went in the opposite direction and now has two pseudonyms, the other being Panopticon at https://climateandeconomy.com, where he publishes a daily roundup of climate and economic news.
Harry has a lot of interesting things to say but rarely says them, preferring to let the news speak for itself. Today he wrote a rare brief essay at OFW discussing David Korowicz’s seminal 2012 essay Trade-Off.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/23/2020-the-year-things-started-going-badly-wrong/comment-page-1/#comment-272406
Click to access Trade_Off_Korowicz.pdf
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Hey kids! Yes it’s that special time of year again. The birthday of our lord Mammon.
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Youtube/Google cares about the children & will spare no effort to protect them from humanity’s worst evils, like swearing. Executions, combat video & police shooting unarmed civilians is fine. Watch away kids….just don’t swear.
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Don’t call Eric a humbug. He writes happy hopey tunes too 🙂
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The Pythons are one of the few remaining deep pleasures, too. If I’m super duper down, I’ll watch one of their bits/skits or films and get a brief respite from the terror of reality. Thanks Pythons.
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COVID KILLS
California man ‘kills fellow Covid patient with oxygen tank’
“Jesse Martinez became upset when the 82-year-old man sharing his hospital room started praying, according to Los Angeles police.
Mr Martinez then allegedly grabbed an oxygen tank and bludgeoned the elderly patient.
The victim died the following day.
The pair, who police say did not know each other, were receiving treatment for coronavirus in a two-person room in Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster in southern California.
“The suspect became upset when the victim started to pray. He then struck the victim with an oxygen tank,” a statement from Los Angeles police said.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55408492
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A little plug for a YouTube channel you might not know about. FortNine targets motorcycle enthusiasts that might buy something from its parent site, and stars and is written by fellow British Columbian Ryan Kluftinger with his brilliant cinematographer Aneesh Shivanekar.
Even if you have zero interest in motorcycles you will probably enjoy the intelligent humor and jaw dropping video quality. It’s one of the best channels on YouTube. Here’s todays video:
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ATV’s – population control the fun way.
I can see motorcycles possibly becoming more popular as employment & income declines & fuel prices rise and/or supplies get erratic. Fuel rationing would make some 4 to 2 wheel converts as well.
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I agree. When I want insight into life here in the not too distant future I look at the Asian countries where motorcycles are very popular and people use them for transporting everything you can imagine.
Earlier this year I traded in my Yamaha Majesty scooter which I rode for 7 years and upgraded to a Honda CB500X which burns 3L per 100km and has a 500 km range on one tank.
https://un-denial.com/2020/08/31/duffey-lake-loop-motorcycle-trip/
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For anyone considering an electric motorcycle…
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Just spent a good hour or two viewing some of his productions. The kid has a great voice and creative vision. I most appreciate that he prioritizes efficient function, practicality and durability. His loving attempt (and failure) to destroy the KLR650 was my favorite so far. Thanks Rob!
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More on the electricity\coal shortages in China.
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If Korowicz doesn’t understand, I sure as hell don’t.
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https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237672
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