Descending Into Madness

I think our society is going mad because there are so many overshoot related problems converging at once that our inherited denial mechanism is overloaded, with no leaders who understand what’s going on, few experts willing to speak publicly, and no honest discussion about what’s happening, nor what we should do.

I expect something will snap soon in a bad way.

Symptoms I see include:

  • We talk about everything except what matters. For example, our climate has shifted a gear, and peak oil is behind us, yet there is zero discussion about food security or the need for population reduction.
  • We’ve polarized into tribes that are unable to contemplate or respect or discuss the beliefs of another tribe. We attack or ignore opponents rather than engage in respectful debate. We’ve always tended to do this, but it’s getting worse.
  • Facts are irrelevant to beliefs. When facts are unsure or complex we are unable to admit uncertainty. While common throughout history, this phenomenon is getting worse, and is now pervasive in our intellectual leaders.
  • We’re totally dependent for everything we need to survive from other countries that we now view as enemies, yet we never discuss the need for more resilience.
  • We embrace solutions that have zero probability of improving a problem. Think green new deal.
  • Our response to problems often worsens the outcome. For example, printing trillions to further inflate a bubble that when it pops will do additional damage to that which we’re trying to protect.
  • We embrace leaders who created a problem to fix a problem, and there are no longer consequences for illegal or unethical behavior. Think Fauci.

This excellent new video has many useful insights despite the producers not being aware of Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory.

MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL

A mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of the society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions.

Totalitarianism is the greatest threat.

306 thoughts on “Descending Into Madness”

  2. Damn. I was hoping an unvaccinated healthy natural immune system might perform better against the variants but that does not seem to be the case. Our vaccination policy is increasing the danger for everyone. Time to rethink our strategy.

    https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/c-19-pandemia-quo-vadis-homo-sapiens

    Summary

    The WHO’s mass vaccination program has been installed in response to a public health emergency of international concern. As of the early days of the mass vaccination campaigns, at least a few experts have been warning against the catastrophic impact such a program could have on global and individual health. Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is prone to promoting selection and adaptation of immune escape variants that are featured by increasing infectiousness and resistance to spike protein (S)-directed antibodies (Abs), thereby diminishing protection in vaccinees and threatening the unvaccinated. This already explains why the WHO’s mass vaccination program is not only unable to generate herd immunity (HI) but even leads to substantial erosion of the population’s immune protective capacity. As the ongoing universal mass vaccination program will soon promote dominant propagation of highly infectious, neutralization escape mutants (i.e., so-called ‘S Ab-resistant variants’), naturally acquired, or vaccinal neutralizing Abs, will, indeed, no longer offer any protection to immunized individuals whereas high infectious pressure will continue to suppress the innate immune defense system of the nonvaccinated. This is to say that every further increase in vaccine coverage rates will further contribute to forcing the virus into resistance to neutralizing, S-specific Abs. Increased viral infectivity, combined with evasion from antiviral immunity, will inevitably result in an additional toll taken on human health and human lives. Immediate action needs, therefore, to be taken in order to dramatically reduce viral infectivity rates and to prevent selected immune escape variants from rapidly spreading through the entire population, whether vaccinated or not. This first critical step can only be achieved by calling an immediate halt to the mass vaccination program and replacing it by widespread use of antiviral chemoprophylactics while dedicating massive public health resources to scaling early multidrug treatments of Covid-19 disease.

    Conclusions

    By enhancing viral infectiousness, both MASSIVE crowding and MASSIVE vaccination will only contribute to promoting dominant circulation of more infectious viral variants and hence, compromise the natural immune defense system in a relatively higher fraction of the young and healthy population (i.e., as compared to the fraction affected by previous natural pandemics). This will sooner or later lead to full viral resistance to virus-neutralizing Abs and a dramatic increase in morbidity and mortality rates. There is no way the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic could be controlled by the current, imperfect C-19 vaccines. Using imperfect vaccines to control a pandemic (of a highly mutable virus causing acute, self-limiting viral infection) will only increase the toll Nature will take on human health and lives in return for regranting a license to rebuild HI.

    A pandemic can only be terminated for good if the population develops robust protective immunity against the virus. This naturally occurs through HI. HI becomes increasingly stronger as a combined result of natural disease-mediated immune selection (i.e., as far as its innate, multipathogen-specific component is concerned) and active immunization (i.e., as far as its adaptive, pathogen-specific component is concerned). The more robust the HI becomes, the more effectively and durably the population controls the virus, the less frequently outbreaks will occur, and the less impressive those will be.

    No matter how many mistakes mankind makes, Nature will always take control of the pandemic and generate sufficient HI to bring it to an end. However, this will not come without a dire price to be paid for an immune intervention that was already wrong at the root. This is because Nature will first reset the population’s immune status to that of a Sars-CoV-2 naïve population, i.e., similar to what it was at the outset of this pandemic. The difference being, however, that the immunologically Sars-CoV-2 naïve population will now have to deal with viral variants that have a much higher level of infectiousness than the original Wuhan strain. This represents a formidable challenge to our innate immune system since it has not been conceived to deal with a high viral load (1, 2, 3). In the ‘post-resistance’ era, circulation of highly infectious variants, combined with underpowered population immunity, is likely to lead to outbreaks with higher morbidity and mortality rates in human settlements with a high population density (e.g., urban areas), whereas rural areas would be less frequently and less severely affected. Inversely, HI would build up much faster in urban areas, whereas people living in areas with low population density would be less likely to benefit from HI any time soon. In order for the latter to minimize the risk of repeated exposure, they would likely need to rely on infection-prevention measures for much longer. It could take several years before epidemiological disparities between rural and urban areas merge into a more homogenous distribution and Sars-CoV-2 becomes truly endemic.

    Artificial (human) immune intervention in a Coronavirus (CoV) pandemic could rapidly and durably yield immune protection of vulnerable individuals if and only if sterilizing immunity is induced. This means that the immune response induced is targeted at eliminating virus-infected cells. Provided this can be achieved at an early stage of infection, viral transmission and immune escape can be prevented all together. Consequently, immune interventions that generate sterilizing immunity are not at risk of putting immune pressure on the virus and breeding more infectious viral variants, even if deployed during a pandemic of highly infectious variants and even if vaccine coverage would need to be extended to larger (vulnerable) parts of the population. The first wave of a pandemic typically hits the most vulnerable part of the population. As a result of the growing infectious pressure, a number of young and healthy individuals may see their innate immune Abs temporarily suppressed. During this short period of natural Ab suppression (ca 6-8 weeks; 15), these individuals become susceptible to Covid-19 disease. Those who recover from the disease will exchange their innate immune defense for durable acquired immunity. This is to say that the overall rate of active immunization during a pandemic is merely determined by the level of infectious viral pressure exerted by the previous wave, but does not reflect the level of active immunization that would be required to tame the pandemic in case a surge in infectious pressure could be avoided. As a sterilizing immune intervention could readily abrogate a growing wave of infectious cases, immunization of only the vulnerable part of the population would already suffice to effectively and durably control a pandemic of an acute self-limiting viral disease and, therefore, obviate the need for mass vaccination. In addition, sterilizing immunity would grant full-fledged and long-lived protection to vaccinees, even if asymptomatic reservoirs of the virus would still serve as a source of continuous viral transmission. Last, usage of universal immunologic sterilizers (UISs) could abrogate and wipe out any CoV pandemic, regardless of the level of infectiousness of the circulating lineage and without the need for eradicating (*17) the virus. None of the current C-19 vaccines induces sterilizing immunity. They must not be used during a pandemic for they will merely drive immune escape and erode both, innate immunity (i.e., by breeding more infectious variants that exert enhanced infectious pressure, and thereby render younger age groups more susceptible to the disease) and acquired immunity (i.e., by driving viral resistance to neutralizing Abs).

    If we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race, one humanity, we, modern humans, should be able to exploit and coordinate our extraordinary and unique capabilities as ‘wise man’ (Homo sapiens) to turn the tide and rectify our mistakes. However, ‘wisdom’ can only prevail if we allow our intelligence capabilities (as measured by IQ) to synergize with our emotional capabilities (as measured by EQ). Over the last few months, we’ve increasingly been witnessing how profoundly this synergy has been disturbed. Let’s revamp our overall approach to this crisis and come up with a solution that can restore normality much faster, and reduce the case fatality rate much below the toll Mother Nature will claim if we leave it up to her to remedy. We can only turn the tide provided we work hand-in-hand to stop mass vaccination to begin with, and prevent high viral infection rates from inflicting further damage to the population. In the meantime we ought to upscale early treatment options and expedite the development of much more rational and pandemic-oriented immune interventions. The latter can be done if we learn how to educate our innate immune system to fine-tune its immunologic capacity and acquire immunologic memory in ways that enable more pathogen specificity and durability of the immune response, respectively.

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  3. The world is going crazy. Our best minds have degenerated into tribal politics and are unable to weigh evidence.

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    1. I read all of Dawkins’s books and I enjoyed some of them but I did notice that he is surprisingly “dumb” (aka in denial) about some aspects of human nature. He goes insane on the religious but he seems to believe that once we got rid of religions, everything will be kumbaya and Star Wars utopia.

      What clinched it for me was reading Rupert Sheldrake description of his planned debate with Dawkins. I don’t know if Sheldrake’s proposals have any merit but he is willing to subject them to scientific testing and public debate.
      Dawkins instead refused to read Sheldrake’s papers or offer any comments to it. All he wanted was a typical MSM propaganda interview where he can show Sheldrake as an unhinged nut.

      So no, Dawkins is not degenerating – he was a degenerate for a long time (maybe forever). If you think about it, what did you expect of any person that is a darling of the MSM? I don’t know of anyone famous that is not either straight evil or bought or both.

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      1. A biologist like Dawkins should be primarily worried about human overshoot and why we seem to have evolved to deny it. This would lead him to Varki’s MORT which also explains why we evolved to believe in Gods. Then Dawkins could stop ranting about religion and focus his energy on MORT awareness which might do some good.

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  4. Nice essay from Tad Patzek today that tries to find words to convey the coming horrors from climate change.

    https://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-letter-to-friend.html

    Are you beginning to realize what “global warming” really means for close to two billion people? Their lives and prosperity depend on the glacial rivers emanating from that most sacred cow on the Earth, the Tibetan Plateau? Tibet itself is a miracle of plate tectonics. Geologically speaking, it exploded up in no time and now it shapes lives of 1/3 of all living humans.

    Here’s how this slow-paced tragedy will unfold. First, as the glaciers continue to melt at the highest rates measured by humans, there will be increased flooding and damage. Then the glaciers will be gone and with them most or all of these live-giving rivers. And the roughly two billion humans, who depend on these rivers will wither too. Do you see the parched fields, and thirsty people migrating and dying? But where will they go? Now click on some of the links in the text and soak in the beauty of these magnificent rivers and landscapes. Geologically speaking, they will disappear in a blink. Puff!

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    1. Rob,
      This was a great essay by someone who understands how bad the future is going to be. All those around me – except on this and a few other blogs – are in complete denial about how BAU/civilization will collapse and the only questions are when and will it cause our extinction. It always amazes me how pervasive denial truly is.
      Thanks again for being such a great blogger/thinker.
      AJ

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  7. The default assumption of our reality denying brain is that climate change will cause food prices to rise. We don’t contemplate that food might be unavailable.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/13/business/food-prices-inflation-climate-change/index.html

    Wheat prices are going up in part due to “concerns over dry weather and crop conditions in North America,” according to the UN food agency. Specifically, droughts in Canada and the Northwestern part of the United States have wiped out wheat crops.

    The most recent crop report published by the USDA found that just 11% of spring wheat across six US states is in good to excellent condition. That’s down from 69% a year ago.

    In Washington State, a staggering 93% of the spring wheat is in poor or very poor condition because of droughts, according to the Drought Monitor.

    “It’s been cooked. Day in and day out they’re getting temperatures they’ve never seen before,” Yawger said.

    h/t Panopticon

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  8. July 2021 has earned the “unenviable distinction” of being confirmed as the hottest month ever recorded.
    ⁠
    According to new data released by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global land and ocean temperatures were 1.67F (0.93 C) above the 20th-century average of 60.4F (15.8C), making it the hottest July since records began 142 years ago.

    https://climateandeconomy.com/2021/08/14/14th-august-2021-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/

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    1. Bit harsh there Rob-I think you could count Korea as a score draw and there was an island in the Caribbean and the wars on drugs and terror are still limping along so technically I don’t think you can declare them lost just yet.
      Who knows if they lost? On the face of it they did but the only people who suffered were on the ground (on both sides) who don’t really count. On the other hand a whole shitload of inventory was moved (including a MOAB?) so the people and corporations who do count made out like bandits.
      Wars are still a racket.

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        1. “so it doesn’t matter if you win.”
          A touch of denial here – it does matter. If the going was good (opium poppies and MIC contracts) why would they stop the gravy train?
          Maybe because the US army is in such a bad state that they cannot even pretend to stay there?
          I know you (like all of us) have your blind spots regarding US but try to understand that US empire is collapsing now. This is USSR in 1989 – hollowed out but still looking impressive enough that no official commentator in the west expected when it just disappeared.

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          1. I agree with you. I think we’re witnessing the slow collapse of the US, along with most other countries in the world. US culture seems to be particularly dangerous due to its polarization.

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  10. Alice Friedemann today reviewed Nate Hagens’ & DJ White’s book “The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century”.

    https://energyskeptic.com/2021/book-review-the-bottlenecks-of-the-21st-century/

    The big shock is not reality itself, but in abruptly finding out – after much of your life—that you’ve been told incorrect, incomplete, and wildly overoptimistic stories about the world by those around you who never questioned that what “feels good to believe” might not be true. We think that if kids were taught the realities of energy, evolution, and ecology from a young age, they’d adjust to it, though more than a bit annoyed with the situation they’re being handed.

    Cleverness to find energy only works when there is energy around to be found, and a practical way to put it to work. An astronaut stranded on the moon will die even with an IQ of 300, because cleverness isn’t magic. If Einstein had been born in 1800 AD, he would not have discovered relativity. At that point human knowledge hadn’t advanced far enough. And Darwin wouldn’t have discovered evolution by natural selection if Britain hadn’t expanded greatly harnessing coal and able to finance scientific voyages.

    The problem is that people forget energy is a fundamental driver of all life and technology.

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  11. The collapse of Lebanon paints a picture of what we can expect in a few years:
    1) overshoot and energy are central to the story
    2) population grew 500% in 70 years from 1.3M in 1950 to 6.8M in 2021
    3) almost all energy is imported and the price is rising due to depletion
    4) the economy is collapsing due to insufficient affordable energy to power it
    5) citizens do not earn enough to afford energy without subsidies
    6) the government can no longer afford to subsidize energy because the economy is collapsing
    7) the central bank can no longer print money without destroying the currency
    8) the government is dysfunctional because there is no quick solution for overshoot
    9) starvation and a despot are likely on the horizon

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    1. When I was a kid, we lived in Beirut (1959-1965); my dad taught at the American University. In the late 1950s / early 1960s, Lebanon was still a frugal place – I remember my mom saying that she had to bring her own containers to the local dry-goods merchant when she went shopping. There were street vendors who sold their wares on hand-push carts. The photos I’ve seen of Beirut’s 2015-2017 garbage crisis would be inconceivable to Beirutis back then – rivers of white plastic trash bags… Lebanese have been emigrating abroad for the last century, because there were too many people for the land to support – and that was at a time when Lebanon was largely self-sufficient. The concrete grain silos that protected part of Beirut from the full effects of the catastrophic ammonium-nitrate port explosion last year contained much of the country’s imported grain. The British school my folks sent us to was on the outskirts of the city, on the airport road. At the time, it was surrounded by fields and woods – they are all gone now, cut down for urban development. In the nineteenth century, there were still some cedar forests in the mountains, but the Ottoman Turks cut them down to build and fuel the Hejaz Railroad, to ferry pilgrims to the hajj. There isn’t much forest left. Granted, Lebanon has had a serious refugee problem from neighboring conflicts for many years, but it is a microcosm of our modern consumer society – there is simply no room in the country to contain the waste, provide the resources and grow the food for everyone.

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      1. Thank you for educating us on life in Lebanon. I see signs of overshoot and ecological collapse everywhere here in sparsely populated Canada. I can’t imagine what it must be like in a densely populated country.

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            1. There is a lot of future firewood in California going up in smoke. In the link below is a map showing how much of California has burned in the last five years.
              https://www.popsci.com/california-five-year-wildfire/

              How quickly would North America be stripped of trees and the wildlife hunted out if our current energy system collapsed? I wonder if anyone has done that calculation? I am grateful that we still have some relatively intact ecosystems given that there are 7.8 billion humans on the planet.

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  12. Dr. Bossche challenges opponents to a public debate.

    https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/how-remaining-in-the-dark-and-turning-in-vicious-circles-inevitably-leads-to-erroneous-decisions

    This is to say that it is the complete lack of understanding of why morbidity rates are now increasing in younger age groups that now prompts short-sighted experts and politicians, who typically have no long-term antennae, to advocate for mass vaccination of younger age groups and children. As they obviously lack any kind of insight into the evolutionary dynamics of a pandemic and how those are driven by the interplay between viral infectious pressure and host immune pressure in the population, they don’t understand that mass vaccination of the younger age groups is only throwing fuel to the devastating fire of a self-amplifying vicious circle. I challenge any expert, regardless of reputation or qualifications, to invalidate or oppose my arguments in a public debate on a mainstream broadcasting channel. If that debate doesn’t take place, it should be very straightforward for youngsters, parents, guardians, or even the children themselves, to draw their own conclusions and decide what is best for themselves or the children.

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    1. LOL!

      The most rational argument for vaccination, which was not mentioned in the skit, is that by reducing severe sickness we help to keep the health care system functional for other non-Covid needs.

      This advantage is offset by the fact that vaccine effectiveness declines with time, and use of a non-sterilizing vaccine in the middle of a pandemic will likely promote vaccine resistant variants which seems to be happening as Dr. Bossche warned 12 months ago.

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      1. Exactly. Could be that in a year our hospitals are full of vaccinated people having terrible health issues. We just don’t know.

        I have had friends tell me “You are immoral if you don’t get the vaccine and then get sick and use up a free space in ICU”.
        I said “You’re being selfish for using for using up an ICU bed”.
        They said “I’m not using an ICU bed”.
        I said “you’re f***ing about to”.

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          1. “That comedy skit demonstrates how confusing our reality is.”
            The Twitter account is suspended. Your liberal friends protected me from seeing it. Thank you, progressive liberal elites!

            By the way Rob do you stay by what you said last year, that the teachers are well intentioned people that are trying to do their best?

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            1. I don’t do politics or have political friends. I disrespect all parties.

              I don’t remember the discussion about teachers. You’ll have to provide more context for me to comment.

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  15. Here is a new way (at least for me) to think about the growing pressure to vaccinate everyone.

    If Dr. Malone is correct, you can make a coherent argument that we need to increase the percent vaccinated to compensate for our initial mistake of vaccinating more than just the highly vulnerable with a non-sterilizing vaccine, which promoted more infectious variants.

    It’s analogous to our debt problem. By refusing to live within our declining means we have created a predicament where if we curtail debt growth we blow up the system, but if we continue on our debt growth trajectory we also blow up the system.

    I guess I need to say this again.

    1) Delta has an Ro of about 8, about 3x that of the Alpha (ref- CDC). With these leaky vaccines, if we were to have 100% vaccine uptake and perfect mask use we cannot stop the spread of Delta (ref- CDC).

    2) the current vaccines provide about 50-60% efficacy in protection from infection. They are not fully protective.

    3) if you are vaccinated and become infected (“breakthrough”), the virus will replicate at the same or higher levels than if you were unvaccinated and then become infected.

    4) if you are vaccinated and then become infected, your risk of transmitting virus to someone else is quite high – remember, the Ro measures how likely you are to transmit the virus.

    5) if you are vaccinated and then become infected, your risk of developing severe disease or dying is better than if you were not vaccinated and then become infected with Delta.

    6) Therefore, if you are vaccinated and then become infected, you MAY have a higher risk of becoming a “superspreader” because you are less likely to show disease. This has not been measured, but it should be.

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    1. Hi Rob

      Regarding the red line on the chart above….

      It looks like the main variants of concern came before the clinical trials?, and definitely before the introduction of widespread vaccination. Still, it is interesting to see the spread of variations of variants after mass vaccination began. This is the new phase of leaky vaccine virus mutation that Bossche warns about?

      Whether the clinical trials “pushed” variation, I have no idea. I would assume precautions were taken to prevent such unintended consequences?

      per Wiki. History of COVID-19 vaccine development – Wikipedia “Some 321 total vaccine candidates were in development as either confirmed projects in clinical trials or in early-stage “exploratory” or “preclinical” development, as of September.[5] “

      On Phizer: About Our Landmark Trial | pfpfizeruscom The Phase 3 clinical trial was designed to determine if the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19 disease. This trial began July 27, 2020, and completed enrollment of 46,331 participants in January 2021.

      Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine – Wikipedia
      On 31 August, AstraZeneca announced that it had begun enrolment of adults for a US-funded, 30,000-subject late-stage study.[73] ……
      Clinical trials for the vaccine candidate were halted worldwide on 8 September, as AstraZeneca investigated a possible adverse reaction which occurred in a trial participant in the UK.[74][75] Trials were resumed on 13 September after AstraZeneca and Oxford, along with UK regulators, concluded it was safe to do so.[76] ………
      .[77] While the trials resumed in the UK, Brazil, South Africa, Japan[78] and India, the US did not resume clinical trials of the vaccine until 23 October.[79]

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      1. Thanks for checking the chart. I should have done the same. Sounds like it is not good evidence in support of Bossche’s hypothesis.

        Stepping back from the detail, it does seem true that variants became a thing in the 2nd year of the pandemic about the same time vaccinations started. Of course not necessarily causation but is suspicious.

        It seems hard to argue that evolution by unnatural selection is a powerful force. Think wolf to chihuahua.

        Have you seen an intelligent argument why Bossche’s hypothesis is wrong?

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        1. I don’t speak a lot on Covid as the ocean of mutually contradictive opinions is so hugh that it is impossible to comprehend everything.
          Especially that I am laymen in the subject.

          More importantly – I really perceive Covid as a “relatively minor issue”. Unless it kills 500 millions people it is just another “blip” in our road to self-destruction.
          More than that – it may have some positive effects and the biggest one could be “lower population growth”. I guess many people has been really spooked by Covid and postponed decission about having children (in developed countries, in under-developed I am affarid it may be opposite). Moreover – people could start understanding that life may be something unpredictable and we don’t know what waits for our children. Of course it is again only “hypothesis” – I think population numbers in 2022 will tell us if it had any impact.

          Coming back to “Bossche’s hypothesis” I will invert your question. Does Bossche have any sound evidence that supports his hypothesis? I mean solid proof, not just “strong arguments”.

          As layman I know one thing. Most of viruses mutate with “impossible rate”. 99% of flu that “goes out” sick person differs from the flu that “went in” that person. And of this 99%, 99% will never really leave host organism – because mutation was dead-end, non-adaptable.
          Why then it seems to be unnatural that virus that infected 100 million people, mutated into many variants? I would expect tens of thousands of variants – and probably we have that many or more. 99,9% of that is just illy adapted.

          Ana again – looking at weather pattern, chaos in geopolitics, deplated resources – Covid is not our main issue. Though I absolutely agree that it impacts and deteriorates current situation (can we really assess he impact on poor countries?).

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          1. It makes sense that variants arise naturally when a population is infected. I think Bossche’s point is that if you apply a specific leaky filter to a large number of already infected people, you will push the variants in a more infectious direction that evades the filter, thus eventually worsening public health for both vaccinated and unvaccinated.

            Two people I respect now seem to disagree. Martenson says Delta is 50% less deadly than the flu and that most people will get it and recover with excellent natural immunity over the next 2 months, and then we’ll live with another flu like sickness forever. Bossche seems worried that the worst is yet to come with more infectious and virulent variants. It will be interesting to see who is right.

            I do agree that we’re facing much worse problems. I’m watching food and energy and the interest rate.

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        2. Hi Rob

          Yes to your question, there are rebuttals to assertions made Bossche. Most were posted up in March-April 2021. A few others since then, specifically addressing Bossche or the idea in general. I can send them to you directly if you like.

          The gist of the rebuttals is yes, virus mutate, but the risk of more virulent variants is in the large population of unvaccinated, not the vaccinated. Therefore we must vaccinate.

          That runs counter to what I read in science papers confirming (some) viruses tending towards greater transmissibility but less virulence.

          I did find one science article showing a higher evolutionary clock rate on the SARcov2 virus, the authors proposed it might have occurred within immunocompromised patients but they did not point the finger at vaccination.

          This article just posted, generally supporting Bossche, although some different thoughts. I don’t know the author or their qualifications. “leaky vaccines, super-spreads, and variant acceleration – by el gato malo – bad cattitude (substack.com)” They are careful to say these ideas (I will call them the Bossche position) are hypotheses, the authorities need to track the data and more data gathered and investigation needs to be done. Quickly.

          I have seen a few others (virologists) provide support for some or most of Bossche’s position, as I understand them.

          Clearly, some establishment folks think the virus will continue to mutate. “Long term evolution of SARS-CoV-2, 26 July 2021 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)” There is some discussion on the possible emergence of much more lethal variants. The question is how and why.

          I don’t have any qualifications to adjudicate. I suspect the correct answers will only be known in another year or two as we conduct the largest medical trial in history on 8 billion people in a highly complex mobile and networked world.

          Meanwhile, my next door neighbor is badly sick today from her third (booster) shot. Fever, pain all over.

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          1. Thank you very much.

            Do you recall if the rebuttals to Bossche made a clear distinction between sterilizing and non-sterilizing vaccines? This seems to be a key point that many gloss over. The famous effective vaccines from history (I think) were sterilizing and non-specific.

            It’s quite possible that the outcome is unknown to anyone because there is a large element of random chance involved.

            I know 2 people who had/have severe reactions to the vaccine. Both were already unhealthy in the highly vulnerable group.

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    2. What drive me crazy is every bloody website is different. Imagine going into a bookstore or a library to find that every book on the shelf is formatted differently. Just sayin’

      David Windt suggests that the clinical trials may have been the catalyst.

      Yes, Rob, there are much more dire situations looming on the horizon. But in the mean time, we can play inspector sleuth with COVID 😉

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      1. I’ve never seen such a confusing mess as Covid.

        The people in charge appear to be idiots, or are deliberately avoiding obvious important questions. The stated goal is impossible so there must be an unstated goal, but what is it? It can’t be to keep people healthy or they’d be talking about other obvious things we should be doing. The data we need to understand what’s going on is not available, why is it not collected and presented? Everyone, including the experts, has a different belief about what’s going on. Almost none of the the beliefs make logical sense.

        WTF!

        Maybe this is all a consequence of the systems involved being incredibly complex with a large element of random chance determining the outcome, plus leaders too incompetent to know what they don’t know, plus big money to be made, plus an opportunity for more power for some, plus a big dose of Varki’s MORT.

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        1. Yes, I think your explanation exactly hits it: it is a rapidly changing, overcomplex system with too many factors to understand and control, combined with a serious lack of understanding and logical thinking in almost all leaders and experts so that not even the right questions are being asked, let alone answered, and then a lot of confounding factors including greed (big money to be made etc.), “solutionism”, and denial of reality. And, this is a reality that is highly unpleasant and threatening. Compared to how easy and straightforward life used to be in our parts of the world 50 years ago, the world is disintegrating now, and that is what people cannot swallow.

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  16. Yesterday I bought some more Mountain House dehydrated food for hiking. It’s light weight, very convenient to cook on the trail, tastes pretty good, and has a 30 year shelf life so doubles as emergency food.

    Mountain House recently changed their packaging design and in the process decreased the portion size by 30% and increased the price by 30%.

    That’s 60% inflation in one year!

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    1. I guess dehydrated food might be best investment for coming times 🙂 . It is relatively expensive, but it is lightweight and “compact”. And of course shelf life is hugh advantage.

      Still philosophical question remains – do I really want to live in the world “after” 😐 ?? And I am affraid that even I “don’t want”, the biology will win 😐 .

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  17. So, the adult daughter who lives with us tested positive for the Delta variant. She has a job with exposure to the public here in Oregon. I anticipated getting Closeovid at some point. How can you not with the current R0? My spouse and I have been doing Quercitin/Zinc, Vitamin D and C for well over a year. I started the horse paste today, it tastes like crap but smells like apples. Better safe than sorry. Chris Martinson had an interesting video today, he expects based on Israeli experience that the Delta variant will be gone in a short time. I hope he’s right, wish me luck with the horse paste (Ivermectin)!
    AJ

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      1. Yep, the Melatonin and mouthwash are on the way. The protocol calls for baby aspirin and that is an easy do. I don’t have any symptoms and hopefully if I have it this will be a mild asymptomatic case. So, I will stay home for a week or so (now I can’t give my excess eggs, tomatoes and zucchini to neighbors).
        AJ

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  18. Interesting explanation of the Rubik’s cube the Fed has created. They had to print lots of money to keep the system from crashing, but as a consequence interest wants to go negative which would crash the system, so they’re trying the only trick they have left to stay on the razor’s edge.

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  21. Nice Mac10 rant today on denial…

    https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2021/08/fool-me-all-time-shame-on-me.html

    Fool Me All The Time, Shame On Me

    Blogging in a denialistic society is like pounding sand up your ass. These people are on permanent mental vacation. They have outsourced all thinking to their trusted psychopaths. Millennials at least have an excuse for not seeing this coming, this will be their first margin call of a lifetime. Very exciting. The rest of this society has made a way of life out of ignoring risk and central banks have ensured they are highly incentivized to do so…

    Mid-week the Fed minutes monkey hammered markets when it was “revealed” the Fed plans to taper their asset purchases starting this year. Deja vu of the retail sales “shocker” earlier in the week, this “news” should have come as no surprise to markets and yet it did. Why? Because there is nothing priced into these markets except for fantasy, delusion, denial, and misallocated capital on a biblical scale.

    In summary, the risks and divergences coalescing at the end of this summer far exceed those we witnessed one year ago when the market tanked in late August/early September.

    Next week is the Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole Wyoming. A chance for the Wizards of Oz to communicate their money printing plans for the future.

    Try not to be too shocked if the Creator pulls back the curtain on this Roman Circus.

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  22. Another port closure in China, due to a single case of Delta. Maybe.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/8/18/china-port-congestion-worsens-as-ships-divert-away-from-ningbo

    The partial closure of the world’s third-busiest container port is worsening congestion at other major Chinese ports, as ships divert away from Ningbo amid uncertainty over how long virus control measures in the city will last.

    In nearby Shanghai and in Hong Kong, congestion is once again increasing after dropping due to the reopening of Yantian port in Shenzhen, which shut in May for a separate outbreak. The number of container ships anchored off Xiamen on China’s southeast coast rose to 24 Tuesday from 6 at the start of the month, according to shipping data compiled by Bloomberg.

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  23. Peter Carter nicely summarizes the latest IPCC report.

    Notice that Carter denies the implications of what needs to be done and who needs to do it. I’m thinking he needs this denial to remain sane while having such a deep understanding of our peril.

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    1. The latest IPCC report says drastic methane cuts are necessary.

      The methane concentration in Earth’s atmosphere has been surging. The good news is we are finally getting serious about mapping methane emissions via satellite. Carbon Mapper is slated to launch two satellites in 2023 with more to follow which will provide near constant C02 and methane monitoring around the globe. The goal is to identify the super emitters and mitigate if possible. It is a good step in the right direction.

      https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210805-the-search-for-the-worlds-largest-methane-sources
      https://carbonmapper.org/

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    2. My perspective is that the only way we get “immediate and rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions” is by a collapse of civilization and a die off of most of the world’s population. Even that might not be enough (global dimming removed). Since mitigation strategies appear in the realm of science fiction what else is there?
      I know your plan Rob, but realistically what chance is there that government (mindless people) will wake up, transition us to a 1750 lifestyle with a birth lottery? No, governments along with their people will go on denying till the end. That’s what we are denial machines. So bleak.
      AJ

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      1. Stopping all high carbon discretionary activities might make the future less bad (it’s too late for a good outcome). The people who earn a living from the discretionary activities will need to find new useful work, like producing food and building climate change/peak oil mitigation infrastructure, and the people who still have a job will have to pay higher taxes to support the less fortunate.

        The probability is near zero that a majority will vote for severe austerity. The probability might increase a little if experts like Carter spoke honestly about what needs to be done, and compared the discomfort of austerity with the discomfort of a climate incompatible with civilization.

        But they don’t. It’s very curious that no one speaks the truth. Why? I think genetic denial.

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  24. A lot of chaff with Martenson’s wheat this week…

    How is saying godless atheists are the real threat and not mentioning the fact that our species is in severe overshoot and needs to reduce it’s population any better or wiser than promoting big pharma and the great reset?

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    1. Sorry Rob,
      Sorry for you if you wasted 2 hours listening to this podcast. I usually respect Chris Martenson, but the moment he opened the interview talking about sports I quit (20 seconds wasted). If there is anything more unimportant than sports (bread & circuses) I don’t know what it is (because of some genetic endowment you have some athletic ability that you have wasted countless hours practicing to extract MONEY from our civilization says – you are not thinking about what really matters). And being a godless atheist I think those that don’t understand that gods are just the result of magical thinking (i.e. completely irrational) and unscientific are almost hopeless. I guess even Martenson makes bad mistakes.
      Day 4 of 5 days of Ivermectin – then I’ll get tested.
      AJ

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        1. Other than the fact that my BMs (TMI?)have slowed way down (probably because my resident tapeworm is rebelling), I haven’t noticed any effect from the Ivermectin. Today for the first time I feel severely fatigued my muscles ache (kinda reminiscent of the normal Flu I had in the ’70s), I have a slight headache and my nose is a little runny. My daughter’s symptoms were a headache a runny nose and a cough but she appears to be slowly getting over it. She’s taking Ivermectin too.
          AJ

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      3. I also think his Delta isn’t as bad as the flu could be a mistake, but who knows? Current US death counts, to say nothing of other effects, are a tad more than the flu.

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        1. I looked at his video above again. Perhaps the infection fatality rate of Delta is similar to the flu. But he was quite hopeful for the UK on 8/10. Since then, cases have crept back up there. If mutation is happening faster than the flu, herd immunity may remain elusive

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      4. I hate sports too and never watch them. I was curious to see what an influential celebrity that opposes the mainstream had to say. Just like Kunstler predicted in his novels, and what’s happening in Afghanistan, it seems our next government will likely have God as one of its policies. I suppose how else can they rally our death denying brains to a new cause?

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  25. Some of the information on the flccc.net website was a little confusing. But I checked and rechecked and converted my figures to imperial/U.S. grams per pound of body weight. So I’m taking 25 mg once a day for 5 days.
    AJ

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  26. Like

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  27. Reality denial has struck again! The moderators on reddit have suspended one of my accounts for posting the following comment:

    “Water shortages are everywhere especially in the Colorado River watershed. It’s a twenty year drought that will NOT get better over time because “we” humans continue to increase CO2 through our use of fossil carbon. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/08/us/colorado-river-water-shortage/

    Tucson does have aquifers. Those aquifers were nearly drained dry (subsidence). The majority of Tucson’s water supply comes from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project. Tucson is at the butt end of the line.

    Never fear Tucson Water is looking out for your protection. https://www.tucsonaz.gov/water

    Edit Keeling Curve link https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/”

    It’s not my best comment for sure, but I didn’t expect my account to be suspended. The censorship AND denial is unreal.

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      1. My suspicion is the moderator wants to keep the r/Tucson sub on a “rainbows and ponies” track. He has stated that antivaxxers are not welcome and will be banned without notice. I wasn’t aware of his denial of climate change. But then again, who wants to here that the end is nigh.

        C’mon, Rob, who knows about overshoot except for a very small percentage of us. We be in an elite group.

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  29. Albert Bates today takes a deep dive into the history and politics of carbon taxes. Notice how we humans take a simple concept and completely obscure it in layers of complexity.

    Here is the simple version: Energy from burning carbon produces almost all of our wealth and food. To retain a climate compatible with civilization we must reduce carbon emissions which means we must lower our standard of living and/or population. This simple truth leads to the next problem which is that debt requires growth which means we’ll need our best minds to engineer a smooth decline that retains a civil society.

    https://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-pause-week-75-rolling-thedice.html

    A flurry of carbon pricing bills await the US Congress when it returns from vacation next month. Fifteen now pending are supported by Democrats and 5 of those are also supported by Republicans.

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    1. Rob- What is the source for this data, or at least can you explain it a bit more? Offshoring oil use can skew the interpretation.

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  32. Good one from TAE today…

    https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2021/08/the-covid-coyote-conspiracy-theory/

    As I mentioned early my town has a rat infestation problem and though some suggested rat traps the mayor (who owns a coyote pelt farm) decided to address this by introducing coyotes. This had some unforeseen consequences. The coyotes also ate peoples’ pets and chickens and were a danger to toddlers. The rats mutated to a strain that many coyotes wouldn’t eat (the so called Sigma Rats). Now there is a new problem: Coyotes kill other animals (like racoons) and the rats feed on the carcasses and their population explodes (this is known as Coyote Dependent Enhancement).

    Many people with pets, chickens and toddlers distrust coyotes and fenced off their yards and started using rat traps. They claimed traps worked well but the mayor brought in an expert that claimed that traps don’t work as well as coyotes and that traps can be dangerous to the user so the city outlawed the sale of rat traps. The mayor’s expert also did a study that showed that 93% of the rats were now coming from fenced yards and that Sigma Rats were breeding and mutating there. In desperation some anti-coyotes started buying gopher traps and trying to use these to catch rats.

    One woman injured her finger in a gopher trap. Her trip to the emergency room was front page news. People complained that news of their pets that were eaten were never covered by the paper. This was dismissed as an anti-coyote conspiracy theory. Pro-coyotes are saying those with fences don’t care about their neighbors, should be ostracized, lose their jobs and they are threatening to forcibly tear down all coyote proof fences in town. The mayor is consulting with the city lawyer to see if these things are legal.

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  33. If we can’t cope with a simple reality like Ivermectin that distorts the desired narrative, god help us when the distortions get serious like, for example, growth is over forever due to peak oil and climate change.

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  36. I’m surprised that the economy has remained as stable as it has through 2 years of pandemic. Wolf Richter today paints a nice picture of the extreme measures that were taken to achieve this stability. The negative consequences are beginning.

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    1. One of my general rules of life. Nothing is for free. Or, there is a cost for everything that appears to be free. Or, for every action there is a re-action. Etc. Etc.

      Of course, another rule is the law of unintended consequences. The vast money “printing” and “unearned” distribution of that money – without a corresponding increase in energy production and real economic “growth” – may have costs and consequences beyond just simple high inflation.

      What might those consequences be? It could be the complete un-mooring/un-tethering of the U.S. dollar from benchmarks of the dollar’s value. It could be the acceleration of actions by our international competitors to remove themselves from the U.S. dollar denominated system and end the U.S. hegemony. Or it could be something mostly “unpredicted” – such as a much earlier than anticipated fiscal “reckoning” for the U.S.A., and with it social and political upheaval.

      In a large, complex, interconnected system, I see the law of unintended consequences as a version of my “whack-a-mole” rule. Put “unnatural” pressure on one part of the system, and unwanted things pop out somewhere else. Unlike the child’s game version of whack-a-mole, things pop out in completely unpredictable ways. Print vast amounts of money to eliminate suffering, the suffering will occur elsewhere and at another time.

      One wonders, did the excessive money printing – and behind that the decline in U.S. oil production/surplus energy – influence the way the pull out of Afghanistan was mis-managed? Maybe there was subtle hidden-hand sort of “pressure” on the decision making that resulted in the too rapid withdrawal. We will probably never know and even the people who made the decisions may never understand what drove those decisions.

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      1. Could be there was “subtle hidden-hand sort of pressure” in the Afghan withdrawal. Seems plausible.

        Or maybe the new standard is incompetence.

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        1. It’s unbelievable that the mighty US military was unable to keep the Kabul airport and roads leading to it open long enough for friends to depart on an convoy of well organized US military flights. Is the most expensive and powerful organization on the planet collapsing before our eyes? Or has it simply become as incompetent as its political leaders?

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      2. I wonder about the scenario where rising inflation requires an increase to an interest rate that can’t increase without blowing up the system. I don’t understand how this would play out. Any ideas?

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        1. Here’s one hypothesis from HHH which might work for a little while.

          https://peakoilbarrel.com/april-non-opec-oil-output-declines/#comment-723866

          I’m going to explain what I think the FED will do this week and why they going to do it and how it will effect the price of oil.

          FED is have a hard time keeping short term interest rates from going negative. So they want to raise short term rates without actually raising rates.

          So what I think they will do is raise the interest they are paying on reverse repo. From 0.05% to 0.10% this will force people out of T Bills and into longer dated bonds. They going to compress the long end of yield curve below 1%

          Side effect from this is a stronger dollar. Which will put downward pressure on prices.

          They going to try to tame inflation with a stronger dollar.

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          1. It may work, probably even it will work.
            The question here is – for how long time?
            Autumn is coming and it is often time of “interesting developments”.

            In generally – I don’t believe in any signficant, middle-term interest rate increase. It would simple mean collapse. So this is last ditch effort in my opinion and “beyond that ditch” there is nothing else.

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    1. Thanks, that’s really funny, and ironically is another case study for Varki’s MORT.

      One of the actors (I think) is Michael Shermer who I’ve followed for years. His wheat to chaff ratio is pretty good on the small issues but stinks on the big issues like human overshoot and peak oil which he’s certain are loony doomer conspiracies.

      Shermer’s another famous polymath in complete denial of everything that matters and he’s already on my list:

      On Famous Polymaths

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  38. Liked by 1 person

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  39. Slipping into madness…

    Saagar announces he has Covid and the number of views is currently at 158k

    Paul Beckwith discusses weather whiplashing events in North American and the views are under 1k

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      1. Talking about overpopulation is taboo because of its historical association with racism, eugenics and ethnic cleansing. Most scientists and policy makers talk around it euphemistically as “reproductive rights” “educating women,” etc. Trying not to be offensive I suppose. One could make the case that the Sixth Extinction requires plain direct language.

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    2. Re: weather whiplashing events – all the back-to-the-land types must be pissed that their fruit trees and bushes are dropping buds prematurely. So much for food security and self sufficiency. Josh Dolan’s list of what to look for in a mate should include someone who can deal with unpredictability, disappointment and hunger. Good sense of humor is important ’cause you’re going to need it.

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    1. Yeah make yourself useful Muskrat. I could use one of those bots, a down-graded version would be acceptable, for urine duty detail. My dog George, 16 yrs old, has taken to stealthily pissing inside.

      Burrry me wee bonnie bone in the back yaaard

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  42. WSJ reported this morning that despite good sales the major wind turbine companies are losing money because of high shipping and raw material costs. Nevertheless they think the future of wind remains bright, especially if subsidies are increased as expected.

    What they did not discuss, despite their own report confirming it, is that wind energy depends on affordable fossil energy. Nor did they discuss how an energy source that requires taxes rather than paying taxes will ever succeed.

    Denial is amazing.

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    1. They are going to be amazing monuments to “not that distant civilzation”. Our global-level Moais. Easter Island on planetary scale.
      What a pity that they will be there only for a few tens of years before calapsing… (of course assuming that hey are not blown earlier by… wind???)

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      1. Everything turns to dust, sooner or later. I think I heard that on RHOBH. Sometimes those gals have moments of profundity.

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        1. psst…Dave

          Break it to Uncle Remus gently that Disney redid Splash Mountain in a ‘Princess And The Frog’ makeover

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  43. “How climate change amplifies extreme weather like Tennessee’s deadly floods and NYC’s record rainfall…
    ⁠
    …in Tennessee this weekend as more than 17 inches of rain fell in just 24 hours around McEwen and Centerville — a third of the region’s typical annual rainfall — which would set a record in the state of Tennessee once made official…
    ⁠
    Meanwhile, in New York City on Saturday night, residents saw extreme rainfall rates unmatched in the city’s history… 1.94 inches of rain fell in Central Park, setting the all-time record there for the largest amount of rain in a single hour, according to the National Weather Service.

    https://climateandeconomy.com/2021/08/24/24th-august-2021-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/

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    1. Headline from The Advocate – Aug 13, 2021
      “Rainfall tops annual average in Baton Rouge with four months left to go: It’s an odd anomaly.”

      Have to remind myself not to fall prey to confirmation bias but it does seem that weather patterns are trending to the extremes. Too much rain, not enough rain. Maybe next year it will go back to normal and we can all relax. 😉

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  44. Well, here is my report and I’m not dead yet – but give it a little more time. At 68 years old I figure I’ve lived past my expiration already.
    Now for the genetics and contingency (Steven J. Gould was good for that – history can control destiny?).
    I am fit (low BMI), exercised regularly for the past 50 years, am a vegetarian. But I smoked cigarettes in my late teens and early twenties for about 6 years (conformation changes to the lungs are permanent). I have NO co-morbidities, the only med I take is for genetic glaucoma.
    I have taken Quercitin, Zinc, Vit. D, Vit. C, N-acetyl cistine, and a multi-vitamin since the pandemic began. Against my better judgement I got the J&J shot in early April.
    I started the Ivermectin on the 21st. 5 days at 25mg a day. Didn’t notice any effect on the illness(but then how would you since you are a sample size of one?). Yesterday I tested positive for Covid and I was the sickest I have been in 10 years. Low grade fever (100.8F) followed hours later by sweats and chills and then no fever. Same thing repeated the next day (today). Cough is less, total wipe-out fatigue. The only saving grace is my pulse oximeter has never shown a %SpO2 below 90%. I don’t know what I will do it I become hypoxic. I have no desire to end life intubated, unconscious in some ICU while people who are dedicated but in denial try to “treat” me. Hopefully it will not come to that.
    My wife who is the exact opposite of all my parameters above tests negative (she is Chinese). My daughter has almost completely recovered from the Covid she passed to me.
    Genetics? Contingency?
    Be very careful, every disease is a personal crap shoot – that’s the universe!!
    AJ

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    1. Thank you AJ for finding the energy to update us despite feeling awful.

      Your experience demonstrates how difficult it is to know what is true. Perhaps you’d be in hospital without the IVM, or perhaps it had no effect. Who knows? At least we know it is probably safe based on 4 billion doses of history. I still plan to take it if I get sick.

      Wishing you the best of luck with your recovery.

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      1. Thanks for the get well wishes. I would not hesitate to use Ivermectin again. The science seems to support it’s efficacy. And you’re right Rib, without it I could be much worse. I was just trying to make the point that your personal genetics and life history constrain your responses to both Ivermectin and the Covid virus. And now in retrospect I think that my biggest problem was physical exhaustion prior to being exposed. I have been attempting to water and tend three huge gardens during an extreme drought and after working most days 8 plus hours I was physically exhausted. So that probably set me up to be hit by the virus regardless of all the other good things I was doing. Perhaps, who knows?
        AJ

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  45. Chris Martenson’s video today was harshly sarcastic of the incompetent manner that the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine. His video was deleted by YouTube for violating their guidelines. It seems you’re no longer allowed to say an idiot is an idiot.

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    1. Rob,
      I wonder how long it will take people to adapt to totalitarianism and censorship?
      Looking at history of communism it seems like in Eastern Europe it took less than 5 years to go from a corrupt but open society to a fully totalitarian nightmare.
      I bet the capitalists can do it better!
      I expect in a couple of years most of the independent internet will be gone and FB won’t have to censor anymore (or just notify the secret police of any dissenters).

      So how should we prepare? I think only in person networks can help.
      It is interesting though what will people read in a history book in 10 years. Most of the controversial data is not preserved so it will be easy to craft a narrative post-factum, especially if the ADE hits hard enough (“the great plague of 2020 that killed a billion people…”)

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      1. For some reason your comment reminded me of Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil. I should see that one again given our current state of madness.

        Mark Crispin provides a compelling argument about today’s propaganda. His main focus is the propaganda from 2019 to today’s hysteria over the “unseen” vapors. The two videos are titled Perspectives on Pandemic #17 and #18. The only concern I have is Crispin is spouting nonsense about masks causing hypoxia and children are NOT able to get COVID-19. Bunk.

        https://off-guardian.org/?s=mark+crispin&submit=Search

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        1. “The only concern I have is Crispin is spouting nonsense about masks causing hypoxia and children are NOT able to get COVID-19. Bunk.”

          There are many peer reviewed studies that show that masks do lead to high CO2 values in the lungs (aka hypoxia).
          Also all the statistics that I have seen show that NO healthy child ever died of Covid and when they get it, it’s much milder than the flu.

          So why cast aspersions on your own link?

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  46. Tad Patzek today with an interesting essay looking at the relationship between mineral resources and oil. We see once again that the discipline of economics is best understood by those without an economics degree.

    https://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-mulitple-fallacies-of-simon-ehrlich.html

    Multiple Fallacies of the Simon-Ehrlich Wager

    In summary, the blanket statements issued by economists and journalists are too simplistic and do not reflect the nuances of this complex wager. Dr. Paul Ehrlich has proven himself to be a deep thinking scientist, while Dr. Julian Simon remained a happy imbecile until his death. So much for the confrontation of science of the spherical physical world with the flat-earth, infinity-seeking economics.

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    1. Rob, do you have a sense of how credible “Sam Carana” is? I accept that there are possible “fat tail” events of abrupt climate change that “could” happen and rapidly change climate and weather patterns regionally and globally, and be very disruptive to human civilization. Or end it, I suppose. But Carana seems to stack possible event on event for a rapid rise in temperature amount that I don’t see supported anywhere else. Of course, on topics of such impact, the truth can be hard to find, and harder to talk about publicly.

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      1. I’m not sure Shawn. I’ve read her for many years and she seems credible but as you say is on the more extreme side of the balance. In her defense, the IPCC ha been consistently too optimistic, and my eyes tell me things are changing quickly now.

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  49. Nice response by Dr. Bossche to a critic today. I predict the rebuttal will be crickets.

    https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/response-to-attacks-from-dr-david-gorski

    Response to attacks from Dr. David Gorski

    My name is Geert Vanden Bossche. I received my PhD in Virology at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, and I have held adjunct faculty appointments at universities in Germany and Belgium. I also have worked in R&D and vaccine development for GSK, Novartis, and Solvay Biologicals. Next I was a Senior Program Officer for the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team, and from there went to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and was the Senior Ebola Program Manager. Then I joined the German Center for Infection Research as head of the Vaccine Development Office. Currently, I work as a consultant on biotech/vaccine issues, and I also do my own research on “natural killer” cell-based vaccines. I have argued that immune escape due to the current COVID-19 vaccines is driving new variants as the virus evolves its way around the inoculation. Dr. David Gorski is a Wayne State University of Medicine (Detroit) associate professor in oncology and surgery. He is also chief of the breast surgery division. Gorski has launched several “hit pieces” about me and my views. In one article, he attacks the notion that vaccines have a part in driving variants. He also has criticized YouTuber/intellectual Brett Weinstein for supporting the use of ivermectin in our pandemic.

    Lack of Expertise

    In my view, Gorski is both stigmatizing honest scientists and seemingly trying to create socially-dangerous tensions between the vaxed and the unvaxed and between medical experts who hold different views on our current vaccines. Gorski creates false dichotomies wherein one is good (pro-vaccine, put faith in government) or bad (anti-vaccine, open to alternate views and arguments), and this type of discourse and rhetoric is incompatible with science.

    Gorski is also largely scientifically illiterate in the fields of virology, immunology, vaccines, and evolutionary biology. He cannot see that both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are involved in the evolutionary dynamics of the pandemic; his effort to blame the latter category is unfair and potentially dangerous. Dr. Gorski is quick to mix up unrelated topics to create parallels that don’t make sense. He unscientifically conflates or compares data about: live vaccines and inactivated vaccines; epidemics and pandemics; measles and SARS-CoV-2; herd immunity and vaccine coverage rates; efficacy with effectiveness in vaccines; and sterilizing immunity with transmission-reducing immunity.

    He also unfairly lumps me in with antivaxxers when I am pro (beneficial) vaccines. Much of this is likely based on the fact that Gorski’s expertise is largely lacking. His professional expertise in breast surgery seemingly does not allow him to opine intelligently about the topics at hand. And he regularly gets tangled up in his own misunderstandings and contradicts himself. Also, he sets himself up as a maximal “pro-vaxer” despite the noted lack of expertise in the various disciplines that apply to vaccination during a pandemic.

    Innate Immunity

    Gorski possesses no understanding of the workings of innate immunity, i.e., innate oligospecific antibodies or natural killer cells. He does not know the difference between innate (i.e., polyreactive) and naturally-acquired (i.e., antigen-specific) antibodies. This is clearly reflected by Gorski’s list of ‘factors proposed to explain the difference in severity of COVID-19 in children and adults’. None of these factors could explain why not only children, but any young and healthy individual, could become susceptible to Covid-19 disease only a few months after they got asymptomatically infected. This can only be explained as a result of suppression of protective, innate antibodies by spike-specific antibodies (including vaccinal antibodies) as the latter outcompete innate antibodies for binding to SARSs-CoV-2. Gorski’s list, therefore, is completely irrelevant in regard of the overarching mechanism of natural immune protection against Covid-19.

    He doesn’t have the wherewithal to understand the difference between naturally acquired immunity’s sterilizing cell-mediated immunity (CMI) and the S-based vaccines’ lack of CMI. He fails to see that there is currently no evidence of population-level immune selection pressure on CMI-mediated, sterilizing immunity induced in previously symptomatically infected persons. He doesn’t seem to realize that only a minor fraction of the population acquires protective immunity against COVID-19, whereas the vast majority are naturally protected by their first line of innate immune defense (a notion, he obviously didn’t even hear about).

    Gorski specifically claims that younger people are now getting infected more because, “the variant is so much more transmissible and, therefore, the higher the percentage of the population that needs to be immune.” He doesn’t even seem to realize that these younger (<65 years) and healthy people (i.e., the majority of the population) proved to be immune during the previous waves. So why would they all of a sudden lose their immunity a few months later? Further hurting his credibility, Gorski refers to ivermectin as an “anti-worm” drug and wildly misrepresents the evidence so far showing that it can help with COVID-19. Again pushing the false either/or paradigm, he puts ivermectin in the “bad” category without any nuances.

    …

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      1. Why no hope that Delta is less deadly?
        Why no hope for early treatment?
        Why no hope for IVM?
        Why no hope for natural immunity?
        Why no hope for a sterilizing vaccine?
        Why no hope for vitamin D?
        Why no hope for not being obese?
        Why no hope that the fuckers who created this are fried?

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        1. As someone who is slowly recovering (little bit better every day), I really want to see Fauci brought down. People with such hubris need what the Greek playwrights always gave them – their comeuppance. What’s particularly infuriating is how when the right was in power it was full of hubristic megalomaniacs and now with the left in power they’ve been replaced by hubristic incompetents – denialists all. That they don’t get their comeuppance just shows that laws of physics that rule this universe really don’t give a crap about us (and why should it? we are just stupid apes).
          AJ

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        2. Thank you Rob for asking questions.
          Last year I thought for a while that you were a lost cause – you seemed to be defending TPTB and said that you don’t believe in any stinking conspiracy theory about this pandemic.
          Seeing how one sided the incompetence/mistakes are it’s hard not to wonder: what is the goal?

          As for me, I have no idea. What I do know is that most of the “debates” are distractions.

          To change the subject, there is the debate about AGW. I think it is useless and a distraction. Why not focus on environmental destruction? That is something concrete that everybody in the world (even remote tribes) can see in their locality. Instead, people that cannot imagine the size of a dinosaur try to debate the whole Earth.

          Thanks!

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          1. Thanks NomadicBeer.

            I try to be an evidence based truth seeker but sometimes fail. If the TPTB do something wise I will praise them. If they’re ignorant or in denial I will call them out.

            The quality of the discussion about our AGW predicament and what needs to be done is so abysmally bad, even among the experts, that perhaps shifting the focus as you suggest would be a good idea. The problem I see is that the same solution is required for environmental destruction as AGW: we must reduce our footprint via austerity and population reduction, and we aggressively deny this reality.

            Why do you think the outcome might be better with a different focus?

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            1. Like you said, the same response is required for AGW and for environmental destruction. So instead of playing into the hands of the manipulators and talk about abstractions, why not talk to your neighbors about local issues? Talk to redneck hunters and you will see they agree with you about deforestation for example.
              Same with air or water pollution, soil loss etc. Talk to people that are suffering because of it and we might be able to do something locally.

              That being said, I don’t believe there is a happy ending here. The best we can hope for is that in some localities people will come together and manage to survive despite the attempts of the Great Reset crowd to enslave them.

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              1. I don’t know. Suffering people usually want better jobs. Here in BC there’s a big fight underway to save the last 5% of the old growth forests. We’ve cut 95% and we can’t even find the will to save 5%.

                I do agree that whatever the future brings will be local. With scarce energy and an unreliable internet there will be no choice but to be local.

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