El gato malo does more intelligent analysis in a week than the idiots in our governments do in a year.
Today’s analysis suggests Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche was correct in predicting that applying a leaky vaccine effective at preventing sickness in the middle of a pandemic was a very bad idea.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/are-leaky-vaccines-driving-delta
all a virus wants is to replicate. “make a copy of me and pass it on.” that’s the biological imperative of the selfish gene. excel at it, you win. fail, you disappear. simple as that.
killing or harming the host is maladaptive to viral spread. it’s like burning down your own house with your car in the garage. now you have nowhere to live and no way to get around. that’s not a recipe for reproductive fitness.
so viruses evolve to become less, not more virulent. they do not want to kill you. ideally, they’d like to help you. figure out how to be a useful symbiote, and you get a huge boost in propagation. (mitochondria were probably bacteria that were so useful, all our cells incorporated them.)
so seeing case fatality rate (CFR) rise in a variant of a virus is like watching water flow uphill. it’s not supposed to do that and when it does, you need to suspect some external force acting on it.
and we’re seeing water flow uphill here.
Key points:
- Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is rising for Delta and is probably not caused by Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) or Original Antigenic Sin (OAS) because CFR is rising in both vaccinated and unvaccinated, and is not rising in previously infected, and Vaccine Efficacy (VE) for deaths remains good.
- The most probable explanation is Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) in which a leaky vaccine that keeps the host healthy causes the virus to evolve to a more deadly variant.
- Vaccine Efficacy (VE) on spread is negative (bad) because infected people don’t know they’re infected which accelerates spread.
- Everyone is harmed but unvaccinated are worse off creating the illusion that the vaccines are a good idea.
it’s just simple math. if we do something to one group that makes their death rate rise from 1 to 2 per 100 but that also makes the death rate in another group rise from 1 to 4 per 100, that looks like a VE of 50%. in reality, it’s killing 100% more vaxxed people and 300% more of the unvaxxed.
mistaking that gas pedal for the brake and pushing ever harder when you fail to slow would represent an accelerating disaster curve.
I like that el gato malo seeks to prove himself wrong. That’s a strong signal for someone with integrity and intelligence that we should trust.
it’s still, or course, possible that i’m wrong, but this is looking more and more like it has to be the answer. i can find nothing else fits the facts and the facts themselves are weird enough that “it’s just normal” does not look like a satisfying explanation either and we have enough features here that we can really start testing our puzzle pieces. this one aligns in an AWFUL lot of places.
for something this odd to happen, it takes a truly uncommon exogenous stressor.
i’m just not seeing what else it could be than vaccine mediated selection for hotter variants driving pernicious delta evolution.
so, i’m putting this out to you all to see if you can find some other explanation for what’s going on that fits these facts.
looking forward to the peer review as, honestly, i hope i’m wrong here. this is not an outcome that anyone wants. it’s the nightmare scenario both as a pandemic and as a political horror in the making as if this was an “own-goal”, what would the experts and politicians that pushed this plan not be willing to do to avoid accepting the blame?
because this is career or pharma franchise polonium, and that’s if you’re lucky.
I also very much like that el gato malo does not subscribe to crazy conspiracies that lack evidence. I would of course augment el gato malo’s explanation by including an element of genetic reality denial in our leaders.
“But what is the end game if purposefully designed this way?”
i don’t think it was. i think these fools really thought mRNA and adenovirus carrier vaccines would be sterilizing.
they pushed them as herd immunity.
having it all fall apart cornered them but by the time they knew it, they were “pot committed” and had already vaxxed 100’s of millions of people.
this has been this shiny tech they have been trying to make work (and recoup money on) for decades and failing over and over.
i doubt this was deliberate. it was just stunningly arrogant and reckless.
So now the million dollar question:
Assuming a better explanation does not emerge, what should an unvaccinated person do?
Prioritizing self-preservation this analysis suggests one should either:
- get vaccinated, or
- acquire natural immunity by deliberately getting infected before the variants become more deadly, and apply early treatment protocols to maximize the probability of a successful recovery.
Choosing to get vaccinated makes the most sense if:
- you are in a high risk group (old or obese)
- you do not care about worsening the overall outcome for both vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Choosing natural immunity makes the most sense if:
- you are in a low risk group
- you are concerned about the yet to be established long term health effects of the novel vaccines
- you want to be a good citizen and do what is best for everyone.
I’m old but not obese which makes the choice difficult.
I’m going to watch the data and hope for a better explanation to emerge for a while longer before making a decision.
You can’t make this shit up: observe that our “leaders” are pushing hard in exactly the opposite direction of what wise leaders would do if this VME hypothesis is correct:
- stop further vaccination of low risk people
- start collecting the data necessary to prove or disprove this hypothesis
- promote healthy immune systems (vitamin D, weight loss, etc.)
- aggressively evaluate and deploy promising early treatment protocols (Ivermectin etc.)
- aggressively investigate root causes and modify policies to prevent a recurrence.
One more observation to make you admire our “leaders” even less:
the same NIH that was funding the GoF research in wuhan miraculously had the viral code to drop into the moderna mRNA vaccine in under 2 weeks.
that always smelled like a sushi bar dumpster.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/were-some-folks-a-little-too-prepared
17-Oct-2021 Addition
In a paper today, Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche argues that boosters will probably boost the virulence of Delta rather than long term protection from severe disease.
Israel is misreading their booster results by only tracking booster effectiveness for 12 days.
https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/what-happens-if-israel-fails-the-stress-test
17-Oct-2021 Addition
El gato malo reviewed new UK data today which supports his Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) hypothesis.
Rate of cases down 30% from a year ago. CFR up 3x since June.
getting 50% protection from a tripling in virulence caused by the vaccines is still a net loser for the vaccinated. and it’s savage for the unvaccinated. everyone loses. and this evolution is ongoing.
establishing what is going on here should be the all hands on deck mission of global public health right now.
none of us want to be living in the world where we leaky-vaxxed ourselves into a second pandemic by reversing the evolution of one that was about to go endemic and harmless.
that’s a terrible place to be.
but if that IS where we are, we need to know, and we need to know right now.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/is-this-the-smoking-gun-for-leaky
I keep searching for a rational reason for the obsession with 100% vaccination, other than assuming every health official in every country of the world is corrupt, because that seems improbable.
What if they’re aware of the Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) trend and know that their mistake of vaccinating more than the high risk with a leaky vaccine will kill many more unvaccinated than vaccinated?
They can’t disclose the real reason for the push for 100% because they would lose their credibility and jobs.
This would also explain why they’re so willing to accept possible long term vaccine side effects in low risk children.
It’s analogous to continuing to print money long after it no longer provides a net benefit, because you know if you stop many will be harmed on your watch, and if you continue, many more may be harmed in the future, but it will be on someone else’s watch, and maybe someone will think of something by then.
21-Oct-2021 Addition
A fresh, intelligent, clean sheet, big picture review of vaccine efficacy vs. risk. I remain impressed with el gato malo’s productivity and clarity of thought.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/properly-measuring-vaccine-efficacy
– measuring vaccine efficacy as % reduction in likelihood of severe outcomes can be misleading
– we must also measure absolute risk reduction. 50% drop from 20% risk is very different from 50% drop on 0.2% risk
– vaccines seem to show % efficacy in reducing hospitalization and death
– but for the young, healthy, and recovered, risk was already so low that the absolute drop does not look like good risk/reward vs side effect profile of the vaccines
– vaccines do not provide sterilizing protection against spread and seem to make it worse. there is no case to be made for societal obligation to vaccinate to protect others.
– mandating vaccination rather than allowing personal choice based on individual circumstance will inflict net harm on a great many people
– that’s immoral and represents medical malpractice
Gail Tverberg today makes the case that we have reached the end of our ability to increase complexity to support and cope with the high energy prices now required by energy producers to extract from their depleted reserves.
Tverberg is one of the best of a vanishingly small number of thinkers doing independent analysis on THE most important short term problems we face: the end of economic growth and the consequences of overshoot due to energy depletion.
It’s a tragedy that she permits so many crazy people to hang out in the comments section of her otherwise superb blog. A newcomer to the topic of peak oil, after taking a look at the comments section with its claims of a global conspiracy to depopulate the planet and faked moon landings, would conclude that peak oilers are wack jobs and therefore energy depletion is nothing to worry about since none of our “important” people talk about it.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/10/18/spike-in-energy-prices-suggests-that-sharp-changes-are-ahead/
I discovered Gail´s blog a few months ago. The content is always excellent but as you said the comments section is full of crazy people. Funnily, the really crazy ones post stuff that is only marginaly related to the content of the article. I agree that this is detrimental to convince people of the article concent if you only have these crazy comments below instead of a fruitful discussion.
Sometimes it’s fun to visit the circus. Gail is an indulgent ringmaster and rarely takes out the whip. Enjoy the magic and thrills & don’t take take it too seriously. Yes, at times the comments section has a carnival atmosphere and there is always the danger some clown will throw a custard pie in your face if you’re not careful.
I get your point, but if you’d like a larger portion of the population to understand what’s going on so that we don’t, for example, start a war by blaming an innocent actor, then a circus of clowns is a bad idea.
Sometimes I feel sincere people end up as cannon fodder so might as well have a laugh. Admittedly the sideshow detracts from the seriousness of the conversation. Maybe we could elevate the tone by stuffing Fast Eddy in a cannonball and have Norm light the fuse.
agree on Fast Eddy.
I credit Fast Eddy with making me aware of the danger of spent fuel ponds. For that, I give him a pass on his more extreme theories. He also has appears to have learned some sobering lessons about the difficulties of homesteading/prepping. As one who is trying these things myself I find value in that. I also think he’s funny. That said I also see why some may not want to have him around.
I get that. If there were dozens of energy depletion/overshoot authors writing regularly instead of a two or three it wouldn’t matter. But with so few it does matter, if you care about credibility.
Yes, Fast Eddy is quite the cutup. He’s a bit of a guilty pleasure….
…stuff him in a cannon would be more technically accurate.
Step Right Up! The World’s Largest, Grandest, Best Amusement. It will blow you away! Dare Devil Fast Eddy, the Human Cannonball. The man who knows no fear and thinks he’s a God. Disregarding life and limb in his breathless plunge through the air. Come and witness a living God shot through space.
I remain split on this – Have you considered the possibility that if broad awareness of LTG were truly believed by governments that it wouldn’t start a war based on deciding to eliminate competition, reduce population and seize resources?
I have thought about that. I can also imagine a citizen living in LA that can’t get gas for their car saying “god dammit, we should use our nukes”. Every good path is blocked by something. That’s why I focus on awareness of genetic denial, but that’s also blocked by denial of denial. It’s a clusterfuck.
Are you asking that question tongue-in-cheek? I mean c’mon man “eliminating competition, reducing population and seizing resources” IS the story of man writ large. Sure there have been interludes of relative peace, primarily owing to the FF age & I’m sure S.Pinker might object by invoking the better Angles of our nature, but lethal violence and conflict is in out DNA. Humans are highly territorial, we are biologically and genetically triggered for violence. If we want to survive we had better learn, as Peter Watts said “to act unnatural.” A snowball’s chance in hell of happening if you ask me.
Gail has often noted “we need a variety of viewpoints.” Her own opinion about conspiracies I could generally characterize as skeptical (i.e. she points toward self-organizing and emergent behaviors in a complex adaptive system). However – I’d harken back to our prior comments about conspiracy theories that I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve been overly skeptical of some issues. I personally agree with Gail’s sense that results are emergent and not directly the result of intentional actors. I balance that against the fact that there are indeed powerful global actors with their own agendas. I think they are in denial and can’t actually accomplish any of their goals, though it may eventually look like it. Finally, I think we’d better get used to being surrounded by conspiracy thinking – as collapse proceeds apace I think almost everyone alive will attribute it to the purposeful actions of some group or another.
Yes, I fear you’re right about the future having less rational thinking. And I expect a lot more religion.
I get the value of diverse opinions, but I do wish Gail would make a distinction between faked moon landings and speculating that something evil is afoot because supporters of covid vaccines fight to prevent the complementary use of vitamin D, early treatment, and natural immunity.
Everyone could do without the nonsense on the fake moon landings. It is so well documented.
Yes, Rob, The future will have lots of less rational thinking and that is my greatest short term fear.
Tim Watkins today (https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021/10/20/yet-another-tory-wealth-transfer/) ended his post with my greatest fear:
“As happened with Brexit and Donald Trump, if green and left-leaning parties refuse to acknowledge the reality of Tory eco-austerity, then sooner or later a populist right wing party will come to power on a ticket to Make Energy Cheap Again. And if we are not careful, all of those people who screamed “fascist” at anyone who considered voting for Brexit or Trump may well get to see what a real fascist party looks like. ”
I have argued with many people that Trump was not a fascist in the Hitler sense – he was too self-centered and narcissistic. Hitler had a genius for motivating people to do what he needed done to advance his agenda (which was not all about him all the time – in a narcissistic way). So, we here in the U.S. have to worry about fascists on both the right and left coming to power.
AJ
I agree with you. That’s a very probable scenario to worry about.
My distilled version of what happened in Germany is that the middle class lost most of their wealth when the currency was debased to pay reparations. They were VERY angry and sought someone to blame. Hitler fulfilled their passions.
That’s why I think it’s a very bad idea that most governments are printing money to extend and pretend, rather than telling citizens to make do with less, along with taking aggressive steps to reduce the wealth gap between rich and poor so keep social unrest under control.
It would be much wiser to ratchet down than crash down.
Interesting point you make about the future being less rational. Is theft and predation irrational if it means feeding your young children and ensuring survival of your genes? I think what you’re saying is that what we want and value will change in a world of extreme deprivation and how we act (not necessarily according to norms of fairness and reciprocity) will change (for the worse) and it could get ugly. Hobbes said people prefer to follow the Golden Rule but under difficult circumstances -haha extreme competition, they will pursue their narrow self interest at the expense of the greater good. My hope, possibly naive, is that as social creatures we will cooperate and help one another.
I think the odds of us helping each other will improve if we understand the reality that energy depletion is to blame for our hardship rather than denying reality and blaming members of the opposing political party.
This is from a german blog, deepl translated:
https://limitstogrowth.de/2021/10/07/es-ist-alles-gesagt/#comment-263
M. Püschel says:
October 17, 2021 at 3:53 pm
It is not a decline of civilization, but its normalization.
Two and a half trillion barrels of oil have been burned in the last 150 years, if gas and coal are converted to oil. That’s another 750 billion people converted to human labor, working through from age 15 to age 70. Without vacation, or holidays. A crazy energy orgy, and the essential part of it took place in the last 50 years. There are supposed to be people who think that was normal.
Well, that’s over now.
We are now entering the electrical middle ages, or have already done so to some extent, if I look at the consensus that has been decreed. I’m pretty sure that the elites will win, and the masses will let themselves be put to sleep almost silently in Germany. There will be much more resistance from our neighbors in Italy and France, but he will fail if he doesn’t manage to get enough military potential on his side, which I assume he will.
When that happens, it will be exciting again, because then the elites will fight each other. That will be the time to do some justice, but not too much of it.
People like Zuckerberg will not make it either, because they have made themselves vulnerable. Their social network censorship orgies will come back like a boomerang, and they will be charged with anti-democracy blah blah and expropriated. They’re just too rich not to do that.
But who am I telling – I’m sure everyone here has read the Ugo Bardi blog.
The new feudal system with digital mass control will ultimately not last long. Maybe a hundred years, but hardly longer, because it depends on the availability of digital devices.
For the “dropouts”, or better “switchers” among you, I have a simple tip: do something with horses 🙂 That has a future. And somehow that’s the good news.
The future will be a pony farm.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Breeding mules might be a wiser profession since they combine the fuel efficiency, off-road capabilities, and docile nature of a donkey with the power and speed of a horse.
Thanks, el mar. I translated the comments (using the right click tool “Translate to English” in my browser) and was impressed by the clarity and utility of some of them. My favorite comments, both from Patrick, are:
“Therefore, the question remains: where do you want to go?
Switzerland and Austria are no better either, there are few places where it is better. Sweden is an exception.
Let’s see how it is: we won’t be able to change anything about the big game.
There is no safe space anywhere.
Where you know your way around, where you have roots, where you have connections… I think that there he will still have the best chance of getting by with very limited resources.”
and
“In the end, we will all bite the grass anyway!”
How very true. And I must say I often enjoy translated text (also, people writing in their non-native language) more than the original, if for no other reason than the unexpected vocabularic and syntactical gems that it produces. I’ll leave with this translated bit of comment from H.C. in the same thread, for some comedic relief:
“The blog here is a pure hobby – like my other. I “afford it” because it is valves for me to write my head empty of all the thoughts. Health care? Plaster gluing is everywhere. And in DE you are a milking cow. Emergency medicine o.k. – the rest, with a few very laudable exceptions, is often for the bin.”
El gato malo reviewed new UK data today which supports his Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) hypothesis.
Rate of cases down 30% from a year ago. CFR up 3x since June.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/is-this-the-smoking-gun-for-leaky
I keep searching for a rational reason for the obsession with 100% vaccination, other than assuming every health official in every country of the world is corrupt, because that seems improbable.
What if they’re aware of the Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) trend and know that their mistake of vaccinating more than the high risk with a leaky vaccine will kill many more unvaccinated than vaccinated?
They can’t disclose the real reason for the push for 100% because they would lose their credibility and jobs.
This would also explain why they’re so willing to accept possible long term vaccine side effects in low risk children.
It’s analogous to continuing to print money long after it no longer provides a net benefit, because you know if you stop many will be harmed on your watch, and if you continue, many more may be harmed in the future, but it will be on someone else’s watch, and maybe someone will think of something by then.
I think it also gives them a political out. If they get everyone vaccinated they’ve done everything they can to stop the virus. Lockdowns aren’t working as well anymore. But they can’t just stop lockdowns with no other plan
One thought I had is that people broadly embraced the logic of masks as in “I wear a mask to protect you, while you wear a mask to protect me.” There is something to that logic in understanding how transmission works (especially when COVID was considered a droplet spread pathogen). Whether masks work or not I think people have falsely applied that logic to vaccines. It’s irrational and if I’m right has more to do with a social momentum and narratives about responsibility than about understanding science.
It’s all part of shifting goal-posts, which surprised me. I think “slowing the spread” was a good idea. Unfortunately the part people missed is that everybody else needs to get sick gradually to develop natural immunity. Then came the notions of COVID-0 and 100% vaccinations.
Even if vaccines worked as sterilizing that wasn’t a realistic goal. Hell, even polio still exists in some places. And the virus has a permanent reservoir in animals. It’s never going away – it will be endemic and eventually less lethal and it seems like only risk and no reward in pushing vaccination at this point (beyond folks at high risk.)
My wife, and a close friend, both have health conditions putting them at risk. So I understand the interest in high risk individuals wanting vaccines and boosters. I’ve also worked in hospitals before which typically require employees and contractors to have a variety of vaccinations which most people don’t get (different HEP strains, etc.), and tests for TB and whatnot. This also makes sense to me if we’re talking about sterilizing vaccines. If I’m going to be walking around a hospital in touch with vulnerable populations it’s reasonable to expect this kind of thing.
I like your hypothesis.
My hypothesis charitably assumes health care professionals in aggregate are intelligent and aware, but like most evolved animals, prioritize the short term over the long term.
Your hypothesis assumes health care professionals in aggregate are not aware or intelligent, preferring to default to the consensus of their leaders. This is consistent with several huge and still persistent errors of their profession such as ignoring obvious harms from refined carbohydrates, and fantasying harms from cholesterol and animal fat.
From my personal experience as a former pharmaceutical consultant, I can say that most of the physicians are not interested at all in how the prescibed medication is working. I tried to convince them with study results, but most of them did not care and maybe even did not understand the study results at all. I would say that they easily succumb to political pressure (or consensus of their leaders which are often in close contact to politicians) with their default attitude. This seems to be the case with Covid. Our primary care physician is so afraid of unvaccinated people that my mother in law could not get her sickness certificate when she had a mild cold. I had to get it handed over to me outside of the doctor´s office.
Part of my thinking is informed by my professional experience. Everyone has such a niche and narrow focus. I design sustainable commercial buildings as a large part of my practice. The sector is very focused on global warming. My professional association has released statements about it – but I’ve never seen an article or symposium on energy scarcity, overshoot or related issues. Part of the problem is that professionals have atomized knowledge and can be totally blind to closely related knowledge.
Of course architects/engineers are unlikely to tell clients they should stop building, build smaller structures, etc. The narrative of build new, spend more per s.f. to reduce energy, and pay for complicated mechanical systems run on electricity has obvious financial appeal. And then denial kicks in when I mention neither the local grid nor the regional energy infrastructure can support this plan.
One Dr. I talked with recently is a close friend of the family. He was expressing disdain over lack of vaccination popularity. He’s an allergist. I told him that COVID-0 was never a realistic goal, even if the vaccines were sterilizing, as the virus mutates. I said there is no reasonable window of time during which 100% of the global population could be vaccinated faster than variants could arise – and countries can’t do it on their own because they can’t close their borders to trade. His rejoinder was along the lines that “Yes, but the vaccines lower viral load making the vaccinated less infectious.” I don’t know if this is or was ever the case in reality, or even the official logic, but it totally ignored my points.
One unfortunate side effect of being intelligent is that it can make you better at denial/rationalizing support for false conclusions. Intelligence and sincerity don’t offer much protection from cult membership, for instance.
Another part of the problem is when people become morally and politically attached to something as being “good / bad” they are now fighting to support both their ego and their group identity. The idea of accepting excess death from COVID is toxic and denial inducing because of the politicization (Some common stupid ideas: All good people should do whatever they can to reduce excess death. Vaccines have no risk, so opposers must be stupid, irrational and selfish – not just concerned or afraid.) I think being skeptical and having a low need to be seen as morally good is salubrious to dealing with reality.
theblondbeast
“Intelligence and sincerity don’t offer much protection from cult membership, for instance.”
What do you think about el gato malo saying that Rob has fallen prey to a “doomsday cult”?
I think El Gato was dismissive and uncharitable, and seems politically committed against the idea of limits. He hits all the right points about past failures of these predictions. And unfortunately there is a long list of catastrophisation. This is one good reason to doubt serious claims about limits (But please note I’m just saying I understand why people would doubt, not that I agree with those doubts.). Just because I find one hypothesis persuasive doesn’t mean I have to claim that there is no evidence which would more support another hypothesis.
Some honesty about the doom-o-sphere: There is a psychological appeal to having esoteric knowledge. Those who are “collapse aware” share all the foibles of other human beings. It’s also accurate to say that by engaging in activities like online communities we are getting some of the same payoffs as other types of group-think. This is all too human.
For this reason I think it’s best to try and avoid moralizing the opposition, and try to avoid grandiosity.
There has always been some group (religious or otherwise) predicting the end of civilization. Then again, every past civilization has collapsed. A full-picture view has to incorporate both of these facts, and I think Rob’s (and Varki’s) take on denial is valuable here. I came accross Rob’s work through reading and researching Becker’s Denial of Death.
Thank you for your insights and thoughtful answer. I have been meaning to read Becker for ages. I listened to a podcast of Lex Fridman interviewing Sheldon Solomon, co-author of “The Worm at the Core” and developer of Terror Mgmt Theory mention how influential Becker was on his thinking.
My pleasure! Sheldon highly recommended! His appearance on Planet of the Humans is very important to the collapse aware!
“…Could we have a religion that we’re not aware of?”
Nate Hagens once said that for most people talking about peak oil is like eating a bad oyster. Better to deny the message by attacking the messenger.
There is a famous aphorism by Kurt Tucholsky, which goes in this direction:
“Im übrigen gilt ja hier derjenige, der auf den Schmutz hinweist, für viel gefährlicher als der, der den Schmutz macht.”
Translated to English:
“By the way, the one who points out the dirt is considered much more dangerous than the one who does the dirt.”
If you look closely, you see this pattern very often in our society. A lot of problems are swept under the rug by discrediting the people, that point at the problems.
Good one. Peak oil is particularly dirty for most people.
Neighbors and friends get visibly uncomfortable when I try to discuss it with them, as do truth seeking intellects like el gato malo.
Given how EVERYTHING most people value in modern civilization depends on oil, it is AMAZING how little we discuss its finiteness and depletion. That’s the main reason I started writing about Varki’s MORT theory which explains our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities.
Thanks, good points.
I nevertheless do not respect a profession that claims to be concerned about people dying from covid, and then not only does not embrace, but fights against vitamin D, weight loss, natural immunity, and early treatment as complements to vaccines, obscures harms from side effects, and ignores long term risks from VME. Why isn’t the 10% or 20% of the profession not captured by group think speaking out? They’re probably not evil. Are they all idiots? WTF is going on? It makes me crazy.
A friend made a very large investment in making their home green. The complexity of the system is staggering. Solar water preheat, integrated with a geothermal heat pump, and electric backup, feeding one system for in-floor hot water heating, and another for domestic hot water. There are many electronic control systems, pumps, vales, etc. all made in China. Also a large grid-tied PV system that does not provide any power when the grid is down, or when it is cold and dark, like in the winter. I’m thinking to myself, it would be much more green and resilient to build a smaller home with a wood stove.
I share your frustrations. I’d like to predict that if things hold together for a few years there will be a massive loss of faith and confidence in our institutions. I certainly have lost all respect for the surgeon general, CDC, FDA, WHO, etc.
I’ve had a general mistrust of medicine for some time. There are some areas which seem to be very effective, and then a whole lot of modern peripheral stuff which is over-complexified and of dubious value, even harmful.
Before 2019 I didn’t trust big Pharma – and I’m shocked now at how many forgot the sordid track record of the opiate age. Nobody likes to hear “I believe drug companies have continued their universal track record of profit seeking dishonesty and incompetence.”
But again, being honest – I don’t use my professional career to beat the drum on collapse. I justify this in a number of ways, some of which I admit are cynical. I cash checks for buildings I sincerely believe shouldn’t be built. I perform life-cycle cost analysis on a 30 year time horizon which I don’t really think is going to happen. The simplest justification is “I could be wrong, it’s not my money after all. And everyone has to make their own decision.” If I really spent my time talking about collapse people would think I’m crazy and I’d soon be unemployed and socially isolated – so it is these fears which guide my behavior in part. I assume many in the medical profession might be in similar situations. I understand there is a great deal of pressure to follow official guidelines, too – as acting on your own opens you to liability. In my case, I have professional/legal codes of ethics I’m signed up to which require me to have stewardship of my clients money.
Where does the Hippocratic oath start, and the practical requirements of following the official standard practice end? I wish more would speak out, and am galvanized by how many are if you get off main stream sources of news. In fairness, one has to be really sure of oneself to take these kinds of risks.
I’ve started reading the books of Dr. Malcolm Kendrick. He does a superb job of explaining the methods used by the pharmaceutical industry to influence a desired outcome. They don’t lie, but they distort data in a manner that is very effective at persuasion unless you are expert at statistical analysis and critical thinking.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll add to the read list. After you introduce me to Whitney Webb I decided to read up, at least, on the declassified CIA history.
I haven’t read the book yet, but here is my predictions:
To conspiracy theorist aficionados I think a certain kind of logic goes “If this is what’s declassified, it must be the tip of the iceburg.” And they would expect to find more and larger successful conspiracies.
In my mind I go to “I don’t doubt that clandestine interests may WANT to accomplish intricate conspiracies, I just predict to find a history of bungled, hubristic ad-hoc activities lacking any coherent ends, with a history of changing goals and failure.”
Time to test my hypothesis!
I suspect you’re right. Bungled hubris is the more probable explanation.
Take for example the Afghanistan war. US leaders were aware of mistakes made in Vietnam and did not want to repeat them. And yet they did.
https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/afghanistan-papers-secret-history-of-the-war-craig-whitlock/
Dr. Malcom Kendrick also has an excellent blog (https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/).
He seems to be one of the few physicians who values truth higher than his own job security. We need more people as brave as him.
Thanks, someone else also recently introduced me to Dr. Kendrick and I’m really impressed.
I just finished his book The Great Cholesterol Con. It’s a great primer on how pharmaceutical companies deceive the medical profession (and citizens) without breaking the law.
Oh, and by the way – I’ve seen you comment on nutrition related issues. I can heartily recommend Diet Cults, by Matt Firzgerald on the topic.
Thanks for the tip. I found the book and will read it soon.
Breatharians are my personal favorite
I finished reading Diet Cults. It was ok but not great. Too many anecdotes, too little data, and too many words per idea for my taste.
Some of you might enjoy these podcasts, especially those busting some hydrogen myths https://spitfireresearch.com/podcasts-and-youtube/
Thanks, I’ll check them out.
The human species’ genetic denial of unpleasant realities on full display…
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/How-Much-Oil-Can-OPEC-Realistically-Add.html
Our ability to increase oil production is low.
Notice how they spin this as a consequence of choosing to underinvest.
If incomes are insufficient to afford higher energy prices, because high energy prices are suppressing incomes, because low cost energy reserves are depleted, and debt is maxed out, then underinvestment in energy is not a choice.
Planned degrowth vs. a chaotic collapse is a choice.
But only if we first acknowledge our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities.
Some excellent chuckles here for motorcycle fans.
Ryan is British Columbia’s (and Canada’s) most talented video producer.
In a paper today, Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche argues that boosters will probably boost the virulence of Delta rather than long term protection from severe disease.
Israel is misreading their booster results by only tracking booster effectiveness for 12 days.
https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/what-happens-if-israel-fails-the-stress-test
Sabine Hossenfelder pokes fun at the morons who think we will colonize Mars.
Hahahahhhhh. Well done, Sabine! I’ve been waiting for someone of her intellectual and scientific prowess to bring the sledgehammer down on this technofantasy nonsense. Maybe others have already done this, but I particularly enjoy Sabine’s blend of stone cold rationality and sarcasm.
And there are many other big roadblocks she doesn’t mention.
I always thought that it is absurd to colonize such a hostile environment. Why don´t we start with the most hostile places on earth like the pole caps? Maybe we will do that anyways due to the changing climate.
I am wondering how such an intelligent person as Elon Musk could be serious about Mars being our exit strategy if we f… up our home planet.
Humans can’t even live on Antarctica all year round, and that place is peachy compared to Mars LOL
With all the talk about terraforming Mars, there is little mention of all the terraforming we have been doing here on Earth – it’s known as mining.
Ha ha….not sure that qualifies as terraforming in the technical sense.
Got my first vax yesterday (Pfizer). No issues apart from a sore arm. Way less pain than I had with the tetanus injection
Good luck. I may some day join you depending on what happens with VME, long term health effects, and laws to keep me out of grocery stores.
Way to go monkmil. I had my shots last spring and so far I’m not picking up any 5G signals.
Well if there’s literally anything in between you and the tower you won’t get the signal anyway LOL! 5G is pretty much useless. #diminishingreturns
Lie or noble lie to save lives?
If a noble lie you would expect leaders to also:
– encourage weight loss
– ensure adequate vitamin D
– research & support promising early treatment protocols
– debate rather than censure conflicting evidence
– punish rather than reward those responsible
Nice recap of our energy predicament by Steve St. Angelo today. Kudos to him for dropping his promotion of that secret sauce energy solution developed by a friend.
St. Angelo now says the only rational path forward is planned degrowth.
Yes-very good recap although I’m still not convinced about holding precious metals.
There’s a blockbuster post by the very impressive Antonio Turiel on the latest IEA report-World Energy Outlook 2021 trying to see the truth in what he says, by usual standards, is a surprisingly short report
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2021/10/world-energy-outlook-2021-aqui-tienen.html
In Spanish but some of the sarcastic humour survives the translator.
The post is very information dense covering a lot of ground but basically the curtain is being pulled back on what he thinks is going to be the narrative to cover what happens as we go down what Steve St Angelo calls the Energy Cliff.
As Antonio Turiel says “No Hay Tiempo.”
Thanks, I saw and skimmed that post by Turiel. Sounds like I should go back and read it more carefully.
It kind of feels like the shit us peak oilers have been talking about for 15 years is getting real.
Buckle up.
Hi Rob,
I might be interesting to feature this Turiel’s post on the IEA report-World Energy Outlook 2021 in further comments or a separate post. There is a lot there, and a lot to read between the lines in the IEA report. My read between the lines read: “They” know. They know we are facing the energy cliff. This IEA report is drafted to support a narrative of demand for fossil fuels declining through a voluntary move to renewables, rather than involuntary energy decline and degrowth through the depletion of fossil fuels. So how much of the rest of the narrative is controlled or corrupted? My belief is their ability to control the narrative is limited, and things are now getting way out of control.
I extracted some key notes from Turiel’s post, can send them if you want, but the key point is this…. “We are also reminded that without any additional investment, oil production from existing fields would fall at a rate of 8-9% per year…… at a rate of 9% per year, production without new investment could fall by around 40% after 5 years.”
I don’t know how to post up a chart in comments, but the figure 6.18 might be worth posting.
As you say, buckle up.
I was thinking the same thing. Send me your thoughts and I’ll send you my ideas for a post and if we have complementary ideas let’s do a joint post.
Yes I think they (whoever that is) have known for a long time-probably since 1973. They just didn’t know what to do about it -now they possibly think they have the answer. They are ,of course, wrong. Unwinding dissipative systems in an orderly fashion is probably impossible.
We are now in the observing stage- nothing anyone from the highest to the lowest can do about it-IMO
Thanks for mentioning the post by Antonio Turiel – very impressive indeed, and it is shocking to see the IEA’s bizarre and grotesque attempts of camouflaging the unfolding situation. This is more than denial, this is fantasizing and creating a “reality distortion field”.
Agree, denial is not a strong enough word to describe this year’s IEA World Energy Outlook report. Fairy Tale is more apt.
Expected annual oil depletion rate has increased from 5% 11 years ago to 9% today.
Our “leaders” are going to try to pitch the fossil energy decline as a planned action in response to climate change, and any problems will be blamed on not investing enough in “clean” energy.
We’re going to achieve Net Zero 2050, but not by choice.
We can expect a fast collapse of modern civilization.
the net zero ting by 2050 really irks me
https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-hardest-landing.html
I still wonder why nobody has bought this place:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/172-Morris-Turk-Rd-Hankins-NY-12741/2070477824_zpid/
What a nice hideaway, in upstate New York – when it comes time to head for the hills, the perfect place in the hills to head to. I’d rather live here than in a half-million-dollar condo in Surfside, Florida, in a high-rise building shoddily constructed for drug-cartel money laundering. No mortgage needed – an affordable cash purchase.
That’s my kind of home. Beautiful. I agree with you.
IF Mac10 is right we are in for one hell of a ride down. Many of us will be impoverished and many will starve. I wonder if he actually thinks we will collapse completely or if some bottom is there? I personally don’t mind collapse – sooner or later we will all be back to 1750 (if we are lucky); if we are unlucky we will most all be dead and those remaining will be back at 15,000 BCE. Even that might be lucky because we might not have a livable climate anymore. We, who are living at the peak of industrial civilization have quite a view of the universe – catch the view and enjoy it before it is gone.
AJ
I think it’s pretty cool to be alive to witness the peak of comfort and complexity with a brain that knows it.
I used to think we would “go back” to 1750. I don’t think so anymore because the environment is trashed. We don’t have the kind of resources available that they did back then
At least equally as important is that the human population in 1750 was about 750 million [low estimate of 700 million by Thomlinson, 1975; high estimate of 814 million by HYDE, 2010], about half the current human population of China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_population
My modest experience on a small organic farm, and some big farms, tells me we are in a shit load of trouble without diesel, fertilizer, and plastics for irrigation and greenhouses.
If we don´t have the fossil fuels for powering our society anymore, we should have a lot of people looking for work, since their old jobs aren´t feasible anymore. They could then work again in agriculture. At least, permaculture claims to have higher yields per m2 than industrial agriculture but you have to put in more human work. Is this feasible or wishful thinking?
A much larger percentage of the populaiton will be required to work in agriculture as fossil energy depletes. I don’t think Permaculture’s yield claims are realistic although they do have some good ideas. We can grow food with less energy and capital by substituting labor, and we can grow food with less harmful chemicals. Feeding 8 billion without nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas will probably be impossible. Suggest you read the Alchemy of Air for the history of the Haber Bosch process and how close we came to starvation as natural sources of fertilizer were running out. Phosphorous without diesel to mine and transport it will also be a big problem for agriculture.
https://un-denial.com/2016/02/03/book-review-the-alchemy-of-air-by-thomas-hager/
Thank you for the book recommendation. I added it to my reading list. I just read somewhere on the internet about the Haber-Bosch process that it enabled us to double our population due to increased agricultural yields. It will be interesting to see how we transition back to a society with a much larger part of the population working in agriculture. At least we have enough useless elites who we could repurpose to become farmers, not sure whether they would like it.
Peak Phosphorus seems also to be a problem that could haunt us in the future. I just looked into it very briefly, but basically Morocco seems to be the only country in the world left with large reserves. According to Wikipedia, the depletion of phosphorus reserves could become a problem within the next 50-100 years. The problem would become even worse, if we cannot even extract the known reservers economically due to declining fossil fuels.
Haber Bosch is the most important invention most people have never heard of. About 50% of the nitrogen atoms in our bodies originated from a Haber Bosch factory. When Nixon opened up trade with China, the very first thing they bought from the West was Haber Bosch technology so they could better feed their people.
Bill McKibben suggested some years back that we should rename the Earth because humans have changed it so fundamentally. He proposed Eaarth but settled on Earth 2.0. I was partial to Earth-redux. Yeah Earth 2.0 is not Earth of 1750. Of course living systems are never in equilibrium.
Fall storm and colors today.
beautiful
Maybe the reason for this is, that a health expert will earn less money with more healthy people.
Interesting interview with Richard Wrangham about his theories on human evolution which I think nicely complement Varki and which I discussed here:
https://un-denial.com/2019/05/07/on-the-emergence-of-behaviorally-modern-humans-the-denial-to-domesticate-dtd-theory/
Reality is trending up.
h/t Ilargi
The theme of friend Panopticon’s roundup of economic news today is food and energy.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2021/10/15/15th-october-2021-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
I’m watching staples in the grocery store like a hawk. The combination of energy shortages, supply chain breakdowns, and the climate shifting a gear has got to impact food in a big way soon.
I’m not seeing big increases in prices yet, except for beef and some fats. What are you seeing?
I’ve seen it mostly in meats and fresh produce, less so in processed foods. I’ve been adding to my canned foods. I used to buy staples from augason farms in #10 cans – last I checked most of my list (rice and beans etc.) were unobtainable. I like to get the #10 air sealed cans of stuff we use regularly and rotate them through.
Thanks. I considered #10 cans but I couldn’t find affordable sources in Canada. I decided to go with 5 gallon pails and mylar bags.
I’ve noticed that the quality of imported produce from California is down. Local produce is still good.
In case you missed Joe Rogan’s take down of CNN, Kunstler today explains what happened. Stop reading half way through when he switches to bullshit partisan politics.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/poster-boy/
I have seen a few snippets of Joe Rogan talking with Dr. Sanjay Gupta. I’ve never seen anyone squirm in a conversation like Gupta. Joe Rogan didn´t let him off the hook. I did not have a high oppinion of Rogan before, but I was thoroughly impressed, how he trapped Gupta in a corner, where he could not escape without losing his face.
I used to think we’d experience a series of stair steps down. Now I’m not so sure. I’m thinking we’re setting up for one really big crash.
Charles Hugh Smith today explains the logic.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/10/are-we-really-crazy-enough-to-believe.html
Well that was a totally draining and discouraging experience. 🙁
I’m a fan of el gato malo’s intellect and analysis of covid issues. Occasionally he veers off into discussions of other problems we face and tends to attribute root causes to politics. More specifically that socialism and big government are to blame for all our ills.
I thought to myself, here’s a really smart guy that is probably influential. I’m going to try to shift his awareness to the fact that most of our problems are underpinned by overshoot.
I tried hard and totally failed.
It’s quite remarkable that someone so smart can be so blind. Very strong evidence in support of Varki’s MORT theory.
I’m pretty sure we’re going to ride this rollercoaster all the way to the bottom without ever collectively admitting, even a tiny bit, that our species was in overshoot.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/cave-man-capitalism/comment/3244766
Valiant effort, Rob, but hopeles! El Gato is brilliant on Covid but delusional on overshoot issues (as are many of his readers apparently).
There being no single font of wisdom we will simply have to sip a bit here and bit there in trying to work out what is going on as we go down.
Thank goodness for the internet that allows us to monitor progress of collapse in real time…
Thanks. What struck me was the ultra fast emotional responses without time to view or digest the evidence I provided.
Also of note was the venom directed at Mathusian theories. Malthus was correct. How could he not be correct? We live on a finite planet. Malthus appeared to be wrong for a little while because we increased the planet’s carrying capacity with non-renewable finite fossil energy. But that doesn’t undermine his theory. A kindergarten student can understand that, provided she’s not in denial.
Conclusion: Our species REALLY hates to think there are any limits to growth.
They really like to beat up on Malthus don’t they? Gets under their skin . And Erhlich too – they hate him with a similar passion.
“In 1968, biologist Paul Ehrlich achieved infamy by publishing The Population Bomb: Population Control or Race to Oblivion?, one of the most controversial eco-books ever printed. Ehrlich has been condemned to spend eternity with Thomas Malthus, in a dungeon reserved for doom perverts. To this day, professors still use the two lads as great reasons to never take seriously anyone who asserts that there are limits to growth. We all know, of course, that humankind has no limits. We have technology!
Richard Reese 2015
https://transitionvoice.com/2015/01/the-population-prophet-we-all-love-to-hate/
Quite shocking when you see well educated intelligent people argue against the laws of thermodynamics or the finiteness of Earth.
One of the main reasons I’m attracted to Varki’s MORT is that without some rational explanation for the insanity all around me I’d go crazy.
When I’m debating someone that’s not interested in truth, I can literally see the denial shutters come down over their mind.
I just read part of your discussion. It was noble entreaty and total waste of time 😀 .
Now it came to my mind that there are two kinds of people: these that understand/accept that there is not something like “infinite growth” and those that don’t. In case of first ones – discussion is always worthwhile. But they are scarce minority.
Here are two things that I noticed:
And here is huge portion of denial from your side, Rob 😛 :
“So I’m trying to open your mind to some new ideas, because I think you are influential and we need more people like you with an accurate understanding of what’s going on.”
Why we need more people? Do you really believe that even if 1% of people miraculously agree with you and rest of “doomers”, it is going to change anyhing??
People want to believe they are only and exceptional event in the whole universe and the whole universe was designed for them. It will never change (at least for great majority).
We have walked this planet as self-aware species for last 70-80 thousand years. It is nothing in the depth of time. We will disapear soon. If it is 30 or 300 years (or even 3000) – it doesn’t matter. Nothing changes for the universe.
and sorry for formatting, it did some strange things 😐 ….
You’re right about our meaningless to the universe. On the other hand, its likely that similarly intelligent life will be extremely rare and we should be aware of and celebrating that fact.
You’re also no doubt right about one of my blind spots. Others have also pointed it out. Nothing will change voluntarily because we are what we evolved to be.
Nevertheless, when I see someone like el gato, who is clearly bright, and who is trying to influence people to make the world a better place, but is going in the wrong direction because he doesn’t understand what’s going on, I’m motivated to engage. Many people are worried and want to improve the future. If they all pushed in a useful direction maybe we could pull the probability of success up a little from the current zero.
Wow, that was a truly noble effort at education. Sorry it went nowhere.
I was impressed at how little people really understood the rising cost of obtaining energy (EROEI). Also interesting was the optimism bias – we will always find some new energy source (yeah! what geology and physics are they using on what planet?). Some of this I blame on Star Trek thinking – Di-lithium Crystals are right around the corner.
Again, my complements a heroic effort in the face of a lot of ad hominum attacks.
AJ
I had the same impression 🙂 .
I read the part about the energy a bit later and I can understand that overshoot itself might be complex subject for the fresh-starters.
But I was absolutely stunned when I saw that people who claim being knowledgeable about energy defy simple facts like EROEI or finiteness of something material…
Thanks, I don’t do it very often. I find it very stressful having a conversation with someone not interested in evidence.
I read the exchange…that pussy is the queen of condescension.
Yes, and I was trying to flatter him with genuine respect but it did not help. Denial is VERY powerful.
We are of course meaningless o the universe, but my comment was a bit to harsh probably.
The meaning is within us – it is infinitesimally small and short-lasting of course – but there are still some things we can do (putting aside discussion about free will). For you it is trying to educate others, for me it is trying to minimize suffering of other beings. So I have one child (I wouldn’t have him if I knew what I know now – although I trully love him) and for sure I will not have anothers. I am vegetarian and I try not to be to awful shit ass to others.
And my biggest dilema when meeting other people is – should I keep smile and chime in or should I destroy their good moods with “doomish” discussions. I hardly do the late one nowadays…
Keep smiling Madbobul and put up a brave front especially for your child. You never know the inner psychological state of someone so best not to add to their burden. Think of it this way – if a plane is going down b/c of technical difficulties does it help if everyone knows hours in advance? Trying not to be a shit ass to others is about as noble as you can be. Good on you for that.
Having a goal to be kind person is a very good thing.
As life gets tougher, kind people will make a big difference.
Intellectual property cannot grow forever – a good fact to point out to El Gato could be that discussed by Joseph Tainter regarding the diminishing returns on the patent process:
“We looked at a database of over five million patents over the period from 1974 through 2005. In every field we looked at, the productivity of innovation is declining, and it is declining because innovation becomes more and more complex and more and more costly to achieve. This is Planck’s principle of increasing effort.”
Also The Rise and Fall of American Growth is excellent on this subject.
But overall I think nobody will ever get it. We’ll overshoot and collapse. Most people will blame the sinners, or God, or the jews, or the liberals will blame people for not getting vaccinated when the next wave shows up – or those opposed to vaccinations will blame the WEF for conspiring with governments to shut down the economy for the great reset. And everyone will be sure that if “they” had just done it the right way BAU would have gone on forever.
Good idea about IP, I’ll try to remember to use it next time.
I see diminishing returns in my computer hobby. In the early days, speeds doubled every couple years. Now we’re lucky to get a 5% improvement per year. Ditto on hard drive capacities. I suppose the good news is we’ve got all the performance and capacity we need to enjoy computers now so it doesn’t matter if improvements stop. I’ve got spare parts to keep my system going until I die.
Your point about blaming the wrong actors is very important. I tried to make it to el gato. When people have legitimate reasons to be upset but don’t understand the cause of their pain, it’s a very dangerous situation because wars and revolution become probable.
Insightful comments.
The shutters come down because there is no evolutionary advantage to seeing reality. It’s doesn’t aid in reproduction or finding food. Evolution does not have foresight – it only cares about immediate challenges.
I would say that our leaders are, maybe only subconsciously, aware of the limits of growth but their solution is to expand into space to continue growth instead of staying within our (in the future much reduced) means on earth.
Bezos has explicitly said he’s funding space travel because he knows rationing and austerity won’t work and we’re going to need more resources.
Hate to admit it but he’s probably right. The hungry ape needs more more more.
How does Bezos know it won’t work? FFS WW2 wasn’t that long ago. Rationing austerity worked very bloody well. More like, ‘I can’t stay insanely wealthy when the majority are on rationing and austerity’.
Even in the 70s, some kind of rationing worked, even though it was fuel back then. I just talked today with mother about the oil crisis of 1973. She said, that it was a big shock for everyone and all people went along with not being allowed to drive. She was at university back then and just took the bike instead of the car.
Unfortunately, everybody resumed BAU after the crisis was over.
People want to thrive – something about well-being connected to growth. I’d guess any kind of experience of thriving would involve creating a surplus. And that surplus of everything creates a larger metabolism of the system, requiring yet more surplus to maintain and feel like thriving. Seems so Sisyphean, but alas here we are.
Yes, the behavior encoded by genes in all life is probably biased to surplus, but the human desire for surplus differs from other life.
Almost everyone that wants growth does not understand the real reason they want growth. They think the reason growth is good is that tomorrow will be a little better than today.
The real reason is that with growth, TODAY is much more plentiful, because with growth we can consume much more than we produce through the magic of credit, and credit needs economic growth to be plentiful.
The best example is a young person today can save 5% of the value of a home and then enjoy 100% of the home through the magic of a mortgage. Mortgages will be scarce or unavailable in a contracting economy. Most young people will probably live with their parents until their parents die like we did before exploiting fossil energy.
https://un-denial.com/2016/01/30/why-we-want-growth-why-we-cant-have-it-and-what-this-means/
I’m sure you’re right – somewhere in Vorki there is a difference that humans have a consciousness of futurity that is both absent in other critters, and also entails an awareness of mortality, therefore denial, and an attentional bias toward an imagined future.
That cat seems to believe that the government can print energy at will.
A misunderstanding of energy is at the core of much of our incorrect thinking about reality.
Given that energy is THE most important thing in our economy, it’s remarkable that energy is not taught in grade school and most university curriculums. Neither is how we create our claims on energy, money.
Every person on the planet wants more money, and less than 1% understand how money works.
A thought on denial: Marx noted that for capitalism to be profitable some factor of production had to be “discounted.” He thought this was labor. I think it’s energy.
http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/social-cognition/discounting-in-attribution/
Discounting is related to denial, I suppose. It’s part of the explanatory process. People under-attribute energy as a causal factor (to say the least) and grossly overattribute human intention, particularly moral intentions.
I can see discounting and attribution at work in your conversation with El Gato. Readers discounted the possibility that you were sincere, and instead attributed other motivations to you. The way this generally goes is that you make someone feel defensive, then they attribute to you that your intent is what is causing the feeling of defensiveness. This usually quickly morphs into accusations that the other person is being stubborn or defensive (projection). All for the protection and aggrandizement of the ego.
I used to run a blog on psychoanalyses, then took it down when I said all I had to say.
Interesting. Perhaps Marx was right because labor is energy.
I might expand your hypothesis on discounting of energy to include all natural resources, although maybe you’re right because other resources are implicit with energy.
Of course Tesla is all about innovation and green energy and has nothing to do with mines digging up shit with diesel machines made from steel produced with coal.
You’re understanding of what goes on in another brain is much more sophisticated and nuanced than mine. I just see denial of reality.
Excellent analysis, theblondbeast. Thank you for this.
Rob,
You are the first (and I mean First!!) EE that I have ever respected. My ultra-conservative religious Joe McCarthy loving father was an EE. So is my stupid religious conservative son-in-law. It was always my impression that engineers had a little too much hubris because they had taken some advanced mathematics and were good at it. Engineers as a group might not make shit up, but they are as prone to denial/optimism bias and group think, as any group (except lawyers which are the most illogical conformists – I know that group too well).
You are indeed a rare engineer – it is a pleasure discussing denial and reality with you!
AJ
Thanks kindly. I had a lot more hubris when I was young and unaware.
Totally off topic but I found this to be provocative. I love my fruit. We have quite an extensive back yard orchard with over 100 fruit trees and do lots of preserving in the summertime.
You’ve opened up a can of worms since you introduced me to Dr Kendrick. There’s all these things about health that I thought were true that I’m no longer sure about. I might have to attend some of Dr Fettke’s talks in the future since he is a local.
I watched this and it was excellent. Thank you.
Reinforces what a disgrace the discipline of nutrition science is. They just make shit up with no scientific evidence. They’ve killed millions of citizens with bad advice, and assume no responsibility nor try to mend their ways. And our moron leaders don’t hold them to account.
Electrical engineers make mistakes, but we don’t make shit up.
Poly-unsaturated fats and the lipid hypothesis was the worst!
Interesting example of how interconnected our world is.
You can’t run a modern diesel engine without DEF (aka AdBlue). I didn’t know you needed natural gas to make it.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/09/25/could-we-be-hitting-natural-gas-limits-already/comment-page-15/#comment-319088
We took a simple and reliable diesel engine, and made it complex and fragile, to reduce soot emissions, which we actually need to prevent another degree of climate warming.
Homo sapiens not so wise.
I wasn’t aware of this – but looks like it’s a Euro zone issue for most diesel (cars only it appears) after 2015. It’s made with urea (made from natural gas). It appears to be a digital control feature of the car which prevents it from starting? I understand if you run out while driving the speed of the vehicle will be limited to limit pollution – as the adblue is injected into the exhaust stream? Interesting here as a mechanical engineer.
I believe all newish diesel motors use DEF. It’s a liquid that is injected into the exhaust system to help clean up emissions. Like diesel fuel it must be regularly topped up. Our trucking network will shut down without it.
a bitter irony and a point too often ignored
…Rob’s comment about soot emissions that is
Public transit not good enough.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021/10/13/the-problem-in-microcosm-2/
Some wise advice from Jill Winger on preparing.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS80Njk0NjUucnNz/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC05MzQ1OTk3
Sweden doing good. US not.
Sweden criticized for bad policies.
Spot the denial? Or is it corruption?
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/sweden-wins-again
Interesting. I wonder how all cause death figures in Norway, Denmark, and Finland compared. Sweden has a lot more official COVID deaths than its three neighbors.
ps. Consider this my contribution to the Halloween Season.
Martenson asks, do you know anyone that’s gone insane? Pretty much everyone I’d say.
Re: Martenson
Anyone up for a mind virus challenge? I suggest we hit the neighborhood streets & start shaking our collective bootays ala Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.” Start a dance plague but with a 10:00 pm curfew. Fun but safe! Get out your boom box and dance monkey dance.
Tough crowd.
I guess disco still sucks.
🎼My baby moves at midnight
Goes right on till the dawn
My woman takes me higher
My woman keeps me warm🐵🎶
Re: Martenson,
I’m amazed at how the Dems were so fearful of Trump (and his followers) becoming a fascist dictator. I still think a certain bunch of republicans would love a theocratic dictatorship. But now we have the Dems (and a senile Biden – oops! can’t say that) wanting to demonize republicans and take away all their constitutional rights if they don’t get vaccinated (is that totalitarianism?). I’m always amazed that Dems don’t want the government telling women what they can do with their bodies (re: abortion) but have no problem telling them what vaxes they have to have to be citizens AND the republicans want to force women to have babies (and criminalize all docs who would perform abortions) but don’t want to have a vax they don’t think is necessary. Both sides are descending into madness. Listening to any tribe without critical thought is mind cancer.
AJ
Do I know anyone who has gone insane? Are we talking “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) or meowing at strangers and other weird shit? I’m pretty sure that people who wear their mask while alone in their car have a disorder. Maybe they forgot is the most charitable explanation.
Nice summary by TonyH…
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-9/#comment-727519
I suggested to el gato malo that he might have a better chance of shifting the needle if he toned it down and focused on the core evidence. He’s going in the opposite direction.
Maybe he’s right and I’m wrong ? Or maybe something else is going on.
Perhaps a few powerful people with good intentions are trying to slow down the discretionary energy consuming components of the economy to conserve depleting fossil energy for tractors, trucks, trains and ships, and at the same time reduce CO2 emissions, so that we stand a chance of continuing to feed 8 billion people.
Panic over a not so serious virus might be a good way to accomplish this.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/lion-awake
“If you’re not obedient, you will get the “special” vaccine.” (James)
Peak oil, peak natural gas, peak coal.
Might be a good thing we now have peak sperm due to not peak phthalates.
Interesting video. I generally like the artwork of the After School videos.
Regarding the topic of dropping sperm count, I have read an article about the work of Shanna Swan, that with the current decline rate, the industrialized nations could become infertile by 2045 (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/26/falling-sperm-counts-human-survival).
If you look at it from the point of view of declining ressources, it seems to be good that we become more an more infertile, but from the point of view of human wellbeing, it seems to be a major issue for the future of humanity.
For what it’s worth, I wish somebody would put something like this together for COVID or other issues. I was raised in an extreme religious environment and freed myself when I had access to the internet and could research my doubts. Among others I had doubts about evolution/creation and had only had access to bad data previously:
http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
I found the format of a point-by-point response to be so helpful, as denial often leads people to common rationalization and latching onto spin. Some day perhaps such effort at organizing information will be available for other topics.
Yes, a cheat sheet would be helpful. There are many lines of evidence and each is complex. It’s very hard to keep track.
Most people really do accept without question what is on TV news.
The theme I see in family and friends is “vaccines keep people out of hospital and that’s good enough, don’t ask questions, we’re in an emergency and we need to rally around the flag”.
Couldn’t agree more Rob, my wife acts like it can’t get on the evening news if it isn’t completely true. That might have been partially true back in the 1960’s with Walter Cronkite but even then I’m sure there was spin. For many people if they had to admit the MSM was lying it would require too much effort to figure out the truth so they just go with what they’re told (denial makes cognitive dissonance go away).
AJ
Every time I’ve had personal knowledge of a story in the media, what was reported was around 50% inaccurate (just plain nuts and bolts facts gotten wrong). And those were for very specific small stories. It does make me wonder what % of journalism is plain wrong on basic facts
Censorship in general make me cringe but this instance of silencing is particularly cringeworthy. In the “Collapse of Complex Societies” J. Tainter mentions that numeracy and literary decline as societies start unraveling. In other words the educational systems deteriorates. QED – Geophysicist Dorian Abbot was disinvited from giving a climate lecture at MIT. MIT for f…s sake. Not some back water liberal arts college that no one has heard about but MIT. You can read about it in The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/why-latest-campus-cancellation-different/620352/
“Following a Twitter outcry, a scientist was stopped from giving a lecture at MIT for reasons that had nothing to do with the lecture itself.
Dorian Abbot is a geophysicist at the University of Chicago. In recognition of his research on climate change, MIT invited him to deliver the John Carlson Lecture, which takes place every year at a large venue in the Boston area and is meant to “communicate exciting new results in climate science to the general public.”
Then the campaign to cancel Abbot’s lecture began. On Twitter, some students and professors called on the university to retract its invitation. And, sure enough, MIT buckled, becoming yet another major institution in American life to demonstrate that the commitment to free speech it trumpets on its website evaporates the moment some loud voices on social media call for a speaker’s head.
But there is more to this story than meets the eye. For although most outlets have covered Abbot’s disinvitation as but the latest example of an illiberal culture on campus, it is qualitatively different from other recent instances in which invitations have been rescinded—and suggests that the scope of censorship is continuing to morph and expand.”
There’s another troubling issue going on in universities. They seem to be dumbing down their curriculums. I had to take 11 advanced mathematics courses over 5 years for my B.A.Sc. degree. Today they make you take 3 math courses over 4 years for the same degree. It was the math courses that weeded out weak people.
In Germany, the whole school system – including academia – is getting dumber and dumber. My mother was a school teacher in the 60s and after a longer break resumed the job in the 90s. The difficulty of here old material from the 60s was so high that it only be used in higher grades than the foreseen grade.
In addition, when I started my Biology studies at the University around twenty years ago, I was astonished about the stupidity of the majority of students. There were preparatory courses at the university, as there was low trust in the high school diploma. We had also a few exams to weed out the chaff (Math, Chemistry and Physics) but it was not nearly enough. When I graduated with my PhD, I was completely disillusioned about the quality of academia, especially in comparison to what I was told by my mother about the challenges, students had to face only 30 years earlier.
Universities have become factories churning out degrees that everyone thinks they are entitled to so they can enjoy an affluent lifestyle.
All levels of the school system now seem to avoid failing someone for a lack of competence.
Many of these incompetent people with degrees seem to end up running our governments.
Not a good trend.
Advanced education’s become a halfway house for the unemployable, not a vocation of superior and curious minds. Today’s students sense of self worth is inversely proportionate to their actual worth & many of them think it’s perfectly acceptable to approach and petition the professor if dissatisfied with their grade. That never happened in my day.
I agree, the quantity of university degrees is way more important than the quality. I would say that this problem is already bad in some of the natural sciences. Biology seems to be the worst in the bunch because it is the easiest to achieve a university degree (at least from my own experience). The awakening comes after you graduate as every second open job position is some kind of sales job (e.g. pharmaceutical representative). There, you compete as a Biologist with a PhD with people, who most of the time did not visit a university at all (like PTAs).
It is even worth in the humanities . I once read about a woman with a PhD in gender studies who was at the unemployment center in Germany. They offered her a job position as a strawberry picker, because her university degree was basically useless outside of academia.
Meanwhile, you hear all the time in the media, that skilled workers are missing everywhere (e.g. truck drivers, electricians, healthcare professionals…). Craftsmen can choose their customers due to extrem high demand.
Since most of the Germans don´t want to do any physically strenuous labor (for low pay), we then import workers from other countries to do the dirty work for cheap (e.g. construction is mainly Eastern Europeans or Turks, healthcare workers from South East Asia and Eastern Europe, etc.)
How can a system like that work over a longer timeframe? From my point of view, this is doomed to fail due to having too many useless graduates, not enough skilled workers and no more countries to import cheap labor.
I also agree that many of these useless graduates now flood the government. There are a lot of former humanities students in the government (some prominent ones even without a degree). Therefore, the quality of the government is also decreasing rapidly.
Nicely put, especially your observation about the over production of useless elites, which is I might add, a hallmark of civilizational decline. And a recipe for revolution.
If I was a young person wondering what to do, I’d get a trade like mechanic, electrician, plumber, or carpenter. As the world simplifies we will need more people that can fix things.
I worked part time the last few years as a masonry assistant. It’s hard physical work but very satisfying work.
Have you ever worked with rammed earth or cob? I almost took a workshop many years ago. I admire the craftsmen in England who specialize in thatched reed roofs.
Just a little bit. I participated in a two day workshop on cob construction. I also helped a friend build a wood fired cob pizza oven.
I agree with your advice. I am 40 years old and also thinking about getting into crafts since my current office job sucks. Funnily, one of our department managers joked about leaving his “bullshit job” to join his brother´s carpentry. So, it is not only me, who is not satisfied with sitting on his ass for 8 hours in front of a pc.
How did you get your masonry assistant position? I am intrigued in doing some woodwork, carpentry or blacksmithing. A few years ago, I visited an open air museum in Germany where old crafts are demonstrated in a restorated middle age style village. There, I had a long talk with the blacksmith about his craft. Sounded very interesting back then.
I helped a friend build his house. He had to hire a mason to build a block retaining wall and the mason needed help so I volunteered. The mason apparently liked my work and then hired me for subsequent projects.
Motherf***er this young woman Whitney Webb made my head spin.
She’s bright and articulate and rattles off hundreds of conspiracies underway without taking a breath.
As always there are nuggets of truth mixed with crazy/improbable stuff combined with ignorance/denial of our overshoot predicament.
Something I think a lot about when trying to understand world events is:
If I was a powerful person at the top of the sand castle, well connected and respected, with honest and good intentions, and I was aware of the overshoot issues I discuss here, and the universal aggressive denial of those issues, what would I do to try to reduce the suffering and chaos I saw on the horizon?
Might explain some of the weird things we are seeing.
https://odysee.com/@Chris_Martenson:2/WhitneyWebb:d
Right? And your question to ponder is a good one. It doesn’t surprise me that there would be a group of “global elites” trying to forestall our crisis. My gut reaction is that these same folks are highly likely to overestimate the power of technology as a blindspot.
I have to admit I may underestimate the power of social control and intelligence/collusion. I’ve always been skeptical of conspiracy. But if it’s true this is a blindspot of mine I would predict that many “free thinkers” in the collapse space may share this blind spot. Those who have already shucked many common delusions may conclude it is easier for others to do so than is really possible – with the implication it may be easier to fool the masses on purpose. I’d also admit my attention tends to be narrowly focused on a few issues and I haven’t dedicated time to much of this sphere of concerns.
You might be right. Many a smart person has criticized me for being blind to obvious conspiracies.
Back to my question about what a good intentioned powerful person might do, I can think of many examples that can be seen in a different light.
For example, digital currencies are viewed as bad because they are a means for the state to control citizens. A positive way to view digital currencies is that simple mathematics will soon cause monetary systems to explode resulting in a breakdown of civil society, unless a means can be found to implement negative interest rates, but that’s not possible unless we replace cash with a digital currency.
Another example, with energy constraining real growth, we are forced to continue to inflate assets to prevent an economic collapse. But with high asset prices most citizens will be unable to afford a house. Therefore get people prepared by starting a meme that we will own nothing and be happy.
Another example, Cheney’s invasion of Iraq can be rethought in the context of peak oil at that point in history.
A quick skim suggests this analysis of vaccine safety in favor of early treatment might be legit.
Anyone know if Steve Kirsch can be trusted?
Click to access All.pdf
As far as the trust issue goes, I think the “ALL you Need to Know” might be a give away. Run for the hills and stay away from this dude.
Do you have any prior knowledge of this guy? Have you scanned this document?
Nope, can’t say as I have. Maybe I jumped the gun and he’s the real deal. I based my judgement on the inclusion of the word “All” in the title. I’m generally suspicious/critical of papers or books that make grandiose claims. Our knowledge of the science surrounding COVID is not static, new information is coming out all the time so I think it’s hubristic and probably wrong to make such a claim as to knowing it all about vaccine safety.
I’ve read Steve’s work before and have seen him interviewed. This slide deck presentation is intended as a summary of his research and is not to be taken as comprehensive. Steve is the guy who presented concerns to the FDA recently. I had trouble finding the video of the FDA hearing but I think it’s reposted here: https://citizenfreepress.com/column-1/bombshell-testimony-from-doctors-at-fda-vaccine-booster-hearing/
I’ve followed his work on and off and think he is well intentioned. Maybe he is mistaken, but he also has put his money where his mouth is with a $1M prize for a research project. https://www.skirsch.io/vaccine-resources/
He has rejoindered to most “fact checkers” and rebuttals of his work that I can find. To the best of my knowledge he’s on the right track.
Thanks kindly for the recommendation. I’ll pay attention to him. My one exposure via the Malone/Weinstein interview made me think he was an asshole but I don’t recall any reasons to question his competence.
Just first links that suggest that one should approach it at least “sceptically”…
As I already said I don’t engage in COVID discussions any longer as the amount of stuff one has to go through is many times bigger than one can absorb.
Anyway – you can probably find hundreds if not thousands documents that at first sight look legitimatelly.
I don’t want to read through that all and spend hours to validate it.
And I think COVID is amazing opportunity for anti-vaxxers of all kinds to produce disinformation and they are eager to “fight for their cause” without any incentives.
I just don’t believe that goverments manipulate statisics and millions of healthcare employees are part of conspiracy.
And one anecdotal thing – when I skim-read it, page 15 took my notice. Using claims of some Ozzie cup as a “medical proof” is very funny 🙂 …
https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9N862V-6
It is very hard to sift wheat from chaff on Covid. I tend to rely on the integrity of the source these days. That’s why I asked someone to vouch for Kirsch.
Your second link reminded me that I saw Kirsch in an interview with Malone and Weinstein. He’s a prick. Thanks for your help.
I’d recommend you at least check out his FDA testimony. Also listen to the speaker before him who had the opposite concern – about lack of data. I’m relatively comfortable in 3 elements I consider factual, leading to two conclusions – one I consider strong, and the other weaker:
I have a high degree of confidence that COVID diagnoses and cause of death have been over counted by a statistically significant margin.
I have a high degree of confidence that the VAERS system indicates the vaccines have more risk than prior vaccines
I have a high degree of confidence that the VAERS system underreports adverse effects, including deaths
Therefore…
The public is accepting a weaker standard for COVID caused deaths than vaccine caused adverse reactions, since both have a significant problem with correlation vs causation.
It would not surprise me at all if the vaccines are both dangerous enough and weak enough that they should be regulated to only high risk people from a standpoint of traditional medical ethics and risk management.
I agree with all 3 of your points.
el gato malo has persuasively argued VAERS grossly under reports adverse reactions.
It might be reasonable to accept these health risks if there were compensating benefits, like a clear path to herd immunity. But evidence is mounting that the vaccines are reducing herd immunity by promoting VME. You can’t make this shit up. It boggles my mind that our leaders can be so reckless and incompetent. Every day I ask myself, am I crazy?, what am I missing?
Rob, this writer is amazing. I’m reading through all his posts. Who is he? Where did you find him? (I’m assuming it’s a he, of course it could be otherwise)
I assume you’re referring to el gato malo and not Denninger.
I agree. A reader here pointed me to el gato malo a little while ago.
I don’t know much about him/her other than he was banned on Twitter earlier this year. I’m guessing that he is employed in some senior technical role in the pharmaceutical industry and thus hides his identity. He seems really bright and knowledgeable and has a libertarian political orientation.
He’s quickly become my favorite source for covid trends because he does regular original analysis on source data, and he seems to be only motivated by determining what is true based on evidence.
What do you make of his moniker- el gato malo – as in “bad cat”? Perhaps he’s trying to communicate that his state of mind isn’t good? Or he’s a bad ass? A rebel? I dunno, I haven’t read any of his stuff and probably won’t.
I think he has a wry sense of humor and may be poking fun at idiots since cat pictures are the most popular thing on the internet.
Ha ha. Probably so. I like it but I’m going to tell my cat on you.
Anyone out there able to confirm or disprove these claims by Karl Denninger? I’ve already put the same question to el gato malo.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=243859
https://www.stopworldcontrol.com/report
https://twitter.com/Kukicat7/status/1447275228401446912
Pride goeth before the fall & the bigger the ego the harder the fall. The Chinese are shooting themselves in the foot with their ban on Australian coal. Just read that India is scooping up Australian coal stranded in Chinese ports at a significant discount.
Interesting comments on China by Jimothy.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/09/25/could-we-be-hitting-natural-gas-limits-already/comment-page-13/#comment-318577
Good find Rob. A lot of bad things happen in the absence of trust.
I always felt queasy about the prolific use of phony receipts by the Chinese. There is a cottage industry of black market forged receipts over there costing the Chinese state billions in lost tax revenues. My concern was that this practice might metastasize to the West as our markets became more fully integrated.
Antonio Turiel today argues that peak coal is the real cause of electricity shortages in China and India.
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2021/10/la-crisis-del-carbon.html
Wow.
It feels like we have finally reached growth limits and begun energy descent and degrowth. Or collapse.
And not just because of this article from Antonio Turiel on possible peak coal and gas.
You can now read the daily mainstream headlines now and pretty much get your limits to growth and collapse news.
So Peak oil in 2018, peak Coal and Gas now.
Maybe.
COVID did result in something like a 9% drop in oil production. Therefore I assume there was a commensurate drop in extraction of other natural resources from resource stocks, including gas and coal. I have not checked in a while, but I think we are still 3-4% below pre-COVID oil production levels. The FLOW of natural resources through the economy must still be reduced however.
So the price spikes in coal and gas might be from the loss of marginal supply in these markets.
Might be. Can POST COVID oil production climb back to pre-COVID levels? Time will tell. My guess is no, but the resiliency of this fossil fuel powered system has been surprising.
My guess is the actions taken be governments to paper over COVID with money might have begun the puncturing of credit bubble and fiat money illusion, and this is the beginning of the end of pulling future consumption forward through massive increases in debt. Without massive debt and valued fiat currencies, demand will drop, and then supply. (Or is it supply drops, then demand? Energy stocks like oil create provide the net energy to leverage human labor to extract natural resources and ultimately produce income for spending, that drives demand for more oil. A kind of virtuous feedback loop. Decreasing oil production becomes a negative feedback loop, decreasing income and demand, decreasing supply.)
Maybe preventing collapse is why governments are so eager to vaccinate everyone with non-sterilizing vaccines in the middle of a pandemic. If they can just get this thermodynamic engine back up to its previous fuel burn rate everything will be ok…………
Lots of warning signs which is why I moved to DEFCON 1.
https://un-denial.com/2021/10/02/take-us-to-defcon-1/
I think if there is any connection between overshoot and Covid policies, it is subconscious, not a planned response. Much like citizen’s demand for EVs is a subconscious response to peak oil.
Prudent of you to balance your remarks with the caveat that the price spikes might be a result of marginal supplies in these markets. Time will tell.
We have created a big mess! The self-organised system is ready to collapse:
The attempt to create a new, lower equilibrium (lower fuel burn rates, adapted to thermodynamic realities) with the support of “Covid-Measures” (Lockdowns and so on), is going to lead to unintended and chaotic feed back loops which will finally collapse the fragil system of industrial cicvilisation.
I assume, this is the engame, the seneca cliff!
el gato malo went on a rant today about employers requiring vaccination.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/in-support-of-southwest-employees
I left this comment on his blog:
We might have more success at shifting the needle if we toned it down a little and focused on the key issues.
If the vaccines were proven safe after long term testing, and if they were sterilizing and did not promote VME, then it would make sense to encourage everyone to be vaccinated.
But our reality is:
1) The vaccines are effective in the short term at reducing sickness.
2) Your analysis suggests the leaky vaccines may soon make things much worse for both vaccinated and unvaccinated, and this outweighs 1).
3) We don’t yet know if there are any long term negative effects on health but there are some worrying signals that advise caution.
I appreciate your measured tone and response.
It’s remarkable how divergent world views can be among people who study our overshoot predicament. Tim Watkins believes we have 50 years of oil and gas left at our current rate of consumption. I think that’s wildly optimistic. I expect we’ll be consuming at least 30% less by 2030. There’s a huge difference in how we should respond to a 10 vs. 50 year threat.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021/10/11/is-this-peak-gas/
The problem is mixing up oil and gas, and maybe converting gas and coal into barrel of oil equivalents. If there’s only 40 years left of oil, how can we get the 100+ years worth of coal and gas?? If you added oil, gas and coal reserves together and averaged it you’d get a more optimistic picture of the future. I do think humans will continue to mine and burn accessible coal well into the future, but oil and gas are some time in the coming decades. At least I’m young enough to wait and see if I’m right hahaha
… but further down in the same piece, he writes:
“While we may have a theoretical 50 years or so of oil and gas available to us then, there is good reason to believe that in reality we will be lucky to have even half of this. Indeed, with oil production already falling, and given that producing gas relies heavily on oil-powered machinery, we may be lucky if we have more than a decade of gas available to us.”
Converging with your estimate.
Interesting discussion of China/US geopolitics by someone who is reasonably energy aware but not a doomer.
How do you explain the Delta variant being discovered in October 2020 and the first vaccines were rolled out in December 2020?
I’m not sure but it sounds like a good question to ask el gato malo on his blog. He’s pretty good at answering important questions. If I had to guess I’d say “Delta” is not a static genetic sequence but rather a strain of the virus that emerged in late 2020 and has been evolving over time in a certain direction.
Thanks, I’ll ask El Gato Malo. I thought for a long time that the vaccines caused the Delta variant until I looked at the timeline. Vaccines causing Delta makes sense but the timeline doesn’t look good for that theory.
We would get variants with or without a vaccine. How the variants continue to evolve under the pressure of vaccines is what you’d look for. Delta was less deadly than original COVID when it emerged
Good point.
Yes, good point.
Also scientists have been researching vaccines for coronaviruses for a long time, especially since 2003 after the SARS outbreak. The covid19 vaccines were not brand new in early 2020.
Good God. In Asia, the spot price for LNG measured in a million BTU went from less than $5.00 in September 2020 to more than $56.00 this October. Dramatic.
On another note entirely. What has happened to Albert Bates??? https://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/
He used to be uniformly depressing – he saw extreme overshoot, climate change catastrophe and a collapse of industrial civilization around the corner.
Now he has gone all techno “green” stuff will save us?? Fake food, electric cars/ride sharing apps for all?
Is this just denial?
AJ
Bates makes a living flying around the world teaching permaculture. Do you think that might indicate a higher level than normal dose of genetic denial?
We’re all in denial about something Rob. At least he’s doing some good.
We might differ on this. I think climate change is so serious that no one should be flying, especially green people who should know better. A person does have to make a living. Permaculture teaches that it’s possible to have a profitable farm will few inputs so why not make a living applying your knowledge to set an example, and then teach the locals to do the same? Maybe he’s already doing that, I don’t know, but he shouldn’t be flying.
I have wondered off and on if the Permaculture Design Course became a bit of a Ponzi scheme by accident
I have studied permaculture, and taken a small scale organic farm course, and have worked on several organic farms. I think permaculture’s claims exceed what is possible in most situations. You can make more money teaching it than farming it.
Permaculture is a scam that, like the mainstream religions, provides a quick and easy solution, which of course is wrong.
For people that are thinking about paying $5000 for a weekend to learn permaculture – why don’t you ask any old person from a traditional community and you will learn the same techniques but with more realistic hopes.
In my case, I compared permaculture with the traditional gardening/homesteading in Eastern Europe and everything is there: combining trees with gardens and animals, care of the earth, natural pest removal etc.
And the methods they used in EE are proven over thousands of years.
And when I see people (like the person above in this blog) saying: “at least he’s doing some good”, I know that permaculture is yet another cult, like the cult of Greta or Musk.
I remember the old people saying “do what the priest says, not what the priest does” – I always hated that!
If a person does not walk their talk, they are not doing good. In fact, they are quite evil and they will turn away many people like me.
Albert was holed up in the Yucatan for the last year and a half because of covid. Hard to tell from his posts if he’s gotten out. If he has, good for him, but EV-utopia won’t solve our problems.
Bates was interviewed 4 days ago by Alex Smith on Radio EcoShock. I quit part way through due to excessive denial from both of them.
https://www.ecoshock.org/2021/10/albert-bates-getting-to-little.html
I’m not sure in the grand scheme of things that it matters, tho I agree in principle it is better not to fly. But maybe I’m just virtue signaling.
It’s an open question. A good argument can be made that positive feedback loops beyond our control have taken over. You can also argue that we can still act to make a bad situation less bad. I favor the latter because it also keeps some fossil energy in the ground for the grandchildren.
I reckon only a serious economic depression can achieve this
It’s not an open question Rob.
Forget about the physical impact of flying/not flying.
The important thing is that people that pretend to care about the Earth and say “we have to reduce our footprint” and then fly everywhere (or worse, take a private jet to a CC conference) – those people convince billions of regular humans that they are lying and AGW is either a scam or real but not important.
Again, think about Greta – a children of privilege, making millions of dollars, in bed with the most corrupt and evil psychopaths. But she is making the right mouth noises, isn’t that something?
No, because most people are smart enough to look at her actions not her lying words.
Out of 8 billion hairless monkeys, I know many millions that pretend to be “green” but exactly one that walk his talk – that is John Michael Greer.
As for me – I am too cynical at this point to even try.
I am under the impression that Greta is a good person trying to do the right thing, but is young and hasn’t yet figured out that economic contraction and population reduction are the only good paths forward. Can you point me to something that shows she’s corrupt?
That’s another proof of how well propaganda is working.
I could point you to investigative journalists that show that Greta is a PR scam designed from the ground up by corporations (for example “The Making of Greta Thunberg”).
But here is the thing: why do I need to do that? Are you stupid?
Just look at her actions and stop being an emotional monkey (oh, she is just a cute kid!). She flies all over the world and is treated like royalty by the psychopaths in charge. She is the media’s darling. Germany does not allow any protests against Covid policies but they allowed and supported a big Greta protest.
And aside from the mouth music, what did she actually do? And if you think that at this point what people are saying is what matters, you might as well join the fundamentalists in the bible belt (saved by words) and assume that a serial killer that confesses before the electric chair will go to heaven while an innocent murdered kid will go to hell because he did not know Jesus.
I could go on, but again – if you are brainwashed is useless. Just try to put your least favorite politician in her place, doing and saying the same things and see if you feel the same about her.
You didn’t answer the question. Instead you insulted Rob. Grow up.
NomadicBeer As far as I know, Greta has never flown anywhere, as least not since she became climate aware. She took a sailing yacht to get to the USA once, and the rest of her time she’s been in Europe, where it’s easy to take the train.
There were some critics that pointed out Greta’s sailing trip burned more carbon than a flight, but I think she had good intentions and does not yet understand thermodynamics of the economy, but neither do most climate scientists with PhD’s.
Exactly, plus she is so young. She should be allowed to get things wrong
I would say Colette O’Neill from Bealtaine Cottage is a great example of walking the talk. She stays in Ireland, compost her toilet waste (without a fancy composting toilet), collects rainwater, reuses anything she can, and has aforested 3 acres of trashed agricultural land. She’s the real deal https://www.youtube.com/user/BealtaineCottage/videos
Guess I’ll have to learn how to fly an ultralight or sail to the Galápagos Islands if I want to see the mating ritual of the Blue Footed Booby, lest I earn the undying enmity of Nomadic Beer.
Guess we’ll have to search someplace else for for our daily dose of Doom. I’m sure there’s someone out there who can deliver the goods straight up with no sugar. It’s kinda like when a comedian loses his touch and stops being funny – ya just gotta move on. Turn the channel.
hahaha
Not sure I was clear – ref to AJ’s observation on Bates.
Meanwhile, other disasters we’ve caused continue with less social media awareness…
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/american-bumblebee-has-vanished-from-eight-us-states-180978817/
In Memoriam of the Victims From the the Sixth Extinction. To the ones we lost, you’ll always be a part of the Walking Dead, I mean Planet Earth Family.
…buzzzz….
I live in northern NH and can tell you bumblebees are here and happy. We had a large nest under our porch all summer.
I see them on the wildflowers in our farm fields. So all is not lost. They are fun to watch this time of year landing on the fall asters.
Nice to know they’re ok in some places.
Scary stuff
Dr. Bossche on the same topic today.
https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/keep-asking-the-wrong-questions-and-we-ll-never-tame-this-pandemic
I’m sorry as a educated and trained biologist (my first career was biotech/Big Pharma – later I made the mistake of going to law skool). I am not getting something.
If:
“all a virus wants is to replicate. “make a copy of me and pass it on.” that’s the biological imperative of the selfish gene. excel at it, you win. fail, you disappear. simple as that.
killing or harming the host is maladaptive to viral spread. it’s like burning down your own house with your car in the garage. now you have nowhere to live and no way to get around. that’s not a recipe for reproductive fitness.”
AND evolution is a random process of mutation of a genome (right?).
Why?:
“The most probable explanation is Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) in which a leaky vaccine that keeps the host healthy causes the virus to evolve to a more deadly variant.”
Wouldn’t random evolution cause both less virulent variants AND more virulent variants? And then those variants “that burn the house down” fail??
I’m not getting something (maybe it’s just old brain syndrome??)
Thanks,
AJ
People over simplify how bacteria and viruses evolve and then get ‘unexplainable’ results. The little buggers are clever and complex in how they test ideas, communicate and share information with each other. Here’s a consideration: viruses also need people to get sick enough to go out and spread viral loads – so coughing, sneezing etc. If the host has a very poor (or very strong) immune system, they could still die. If the virus has already spread to 10 people by the time the old host dies, why would they care? Another thought, if a virus gets rid of unhealthy and old animals from the host herd, they are optimizing the longevity of the host herd which would help the virus in the long-run too. It will be way more complex in real life than we can explain in a short blog. And we shouldn’t oversimplify viruses just because they are very small
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01880-6
Good question AJ. Unlike you I’m not a biologist so my electrical engineering speculation may be wrong.
I think you’re correct that both more virulent and less virulent variants will result from a leaky vaccine.
If the vaccine is somewhat effective but not perfect at preventing spread, then there will be pressure on the virus to evolve more virulence.
If the vaccine also does a good but not perfect job of reducing sickness and death, then more of the virulent variants will survive to kill more of the most vulnerable or unlucky vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
I’m also wondering (but don’t recall Bossche or el gato malo saying this) if those variants that evolve to make the host a little sick, so that coughs & sneezes help spread it, will outcompete those that don’t, and this also will tend to kill more of the most vulnerable and unlucky.
“. . . subsequently followed by enrichment of these populations with healthy, unvaccinated individuals (hence why we will need a baby boom and encourage the influx of young & healthy unvaccinated immigrants).”
What the hell? No, we don’t need a baby boom and and an influx of “young & healthy” unvaccinated immigrants. That is insane overshoot bullshit-talk. The first part of his first proposal (massive antiviral chemoprophylaxis) and his second proposal of massive early treatment are on point and well-taken.
Rob, you’re suggestion of intentional infection as long as it’s combined with prophylaxis and immediate early treatment protocols and current/future good health and lifestyle is thought-provoking. How could one intentionally infect oneself with the lowest viral dose/load possible, or at least the lowest dose needed to cause an infection which will provide durable immunity? Because if you fuck that up (i.e. inadvertently get a large viral dose/load) you could be in big trouble (potential for breathing/O2 concerns, chronic fatigue, Long COVID, death, etc.).
Good grief I’m reading too fast these days. Bossche tends to repeat the same message over and over so I read the intro and conclusion but missed his new idea calling for an inflow of unvaccinated people.
I have a hunch he’s not proposing we increase the population. Rather he may be hinting that we should expect an unavoidable die-off in the highly vaccinated and obese rich countries, and that to rebuild their economies they will need immigrants from the less vaccinated poor countries.
I understand. There’s so much important content on a bunch of essential topics to read and process right now as overshoot is picking up steam. Thanks for clarifying and you’re probably right about Bossche’s thought process as regards recouping population if rapid die-off does occur.
With respect to intentional infection, I don’t know what is the best method, I just started thinking about this after wondering what I should do if el gato malo is correct.
I suppose it might involve nothing more than exposure to lots of different people in not too dense situations, with not too little movement of fresh air, for not too long a duration. Maybe like hanging out at the mall. Attending choir practice in a small church might be a bad idea.