The Great Reset: An Alternate Theory

In my last post I speculated that covid was a plan orchestrated by the heads of the important central banks to provide cover for printing a gazillion dollars to head off an imminent economic collapse, and to implement tools like digital currencies and lockdown mechanisms that will be useful for maintaining social order when money printing eventually fails and the economy collapses.

In that post I asked the key question:

What force is powerful enough to synchronize senior leaders in most countries to do the wrong thing on almost every covid action without assuming every leader is evil and/or stupid?

I stated that those of us paying attention and not listening to the official narrative know that nothing about covid makes sense.

Here is a brief summary of the covid facts and actions that do not make sense and that together suggest there is an objective other than public health in play:

  • no investigation or consequences for China and it’s Wuhan lab that engineered the virus
  • no investigation or consequences for the funders of the Wuhan lab work
  • Fauci kept in the most powerful healthcare position in the world, despite his involvement in funding the virus research and the subsequent coverup
  • no gain of function research policy changes to prevent a recurrence
  • no consequences for grossly incompetent WHO policies that encouraged global spread of the virus in the early days
  • suspiciously short and record time to develop a novel vaccine technology
  • all 4 vaccine manufacturers use the same (probably bad idea) mRNA code
  • suspicious vaccine patent history
  • probable fraudulent vaccine approval process and attempt to hide it for 75 years
  • insufficient testing to determine mRNA longevity and locations of activity in the body
  • willingness to rapidly deploy a novel insufficiently tested vaccine technology to billions at low risk from the disease including pregnant women
  • confident claims that vaccines are safe and effective despite being unwillingly to unconditionally approve the vaccines
  • indemnification of vaccine manufacturers
  • aggressive censorship of covid policy debate
  • aggressive character assassination and career destruction of dissenting experts
  • no updates to mRNA vaccines despite being ineffective against current variants
  • boosters recommended despite risks of infection, hospitalization, and adverse reactions increasing with each subsequent shot
  • elimination of non-mRNA vaccines from the market
  • ignoring 50 years of knowledge and discounting the risk of promoting vaccine resistant and/or more virulent strains by vaccinating in the middle of a pandemic with a non-sterilizing vaccine
  • no cost benefit analysis on lockdown policies
  • testing methods that grossly overstated the prevalence of disease
  • reporting methods that grossly overstated the severity and risk of disease
  • data manipulation that grossly overstated the effectiveness of vaccines
  • passports required for vaccines that are ineffective at preventing transmission
  • no passports given to people with naturally acquired immunity
  • zero promotion of effective disease prevention methods like vitamin D and weight loss
  • aggressive promotion of ineffective disease prevention methods like mask policies that did not prevent and probably encouraged disease spread
  • blocking of all effective early treatments including those profitable for pharma
  • strong arming countries like India & Japan that developed successful prophylaxis and early treatment protocols from disclosing what they did
  • preventing doctors from treating patients by blocking fulfillment of prescriptions
  • ignoring record numbers of adverse reactions confirmed by different systems in different countries
  • avoiding autopsies to determine causes of suspicious deaths
  • gaslighting and not supporting those suffering from adverse reactions
  • no adjustment to policies or admission or error regardless of evidence

I argued that if we assume that most of our leaders are not evil and/or stupid then the only plausible explanation for their behavior is that they are working as a team to prevent harms worse than those being caused by their covid policies.

Those of us that study human overshoot know that 8 billion people depend for survival on rapidly depleting non-renewable, non-substitutable resources, and that the only reason our global growth dependent system functions today is that we deny limits to growth by accelerating the use of unrepayable debt, and we know that emerging inflation will soon force a day of reckoning via an economic reset.

This day of reckoning will harm many people. Most citizens will be surprised and unprepared. If citizens respond with violent social unrest then the harms will be magnified. Hence the urgent need for tools to manage a collapse such as:

  • lockdown tools to prevent rioting
  • lockdown tools to reduce consumption of energy and other scarce resources
  • digital currencies to enable a negative interest rate so debt can continue to grow
  • digital currencies to enable fair and effective rationing of scarce resources like food and energy
  • digital currencies to prevent panics from destroying the financial system

I argued that the real purpose of our otherwise irrational and obsessive focus on vaccines as a response to covid was to prepare the behaviors and infrastructure necessary for lockdown policies and digital currencies.

While I still think this hypothesis is plausible and probable there is a fact that bothers me because it is inconsistent with the assumption that our leaders are not evil or stupid.

That is the recent push to vaccinate children. This policy makes no sense in the context of the above hypothesis because:

  • vaccinating children for covid is 100% risk and 0% benefit
  • any sane, non-evil person knows that protecting children from harm should be a top priority
  • young children do not need to participate in the economy with digital currencies
  • children can be vaccinated at a later and safer age when they need to participate in the economy

I do not understand what’s going here. I suppose you could argue that our leaders really are evil and/or stupid, although that seems improbable given the large number of cooperating leaders.

Another possible explanation is that my hypothesis that covid is cover for collapse preparation is incorrect.

What other purpose might there be for our insane covid policies?

Just for fun, let’s go all dark and crazy and speculate the mRNA has some function that has not yet been deployed, and our leaders want it to be injected in everyone before pushing the on button.

Perhaps our leaders have employed, or stolen the ideas from, Jack Alpert to mastermind a humane population reduction plan.

I say humane, by which I mean no suffering or violence, because we’re still assuming here that our leaders are not evil.

Alpert has developed the only feasible plan in existence for retaining a modern technologically advanced civilization after we have depleted most of the economically recoverable fossil energy. His idea is to rapidly reduce our population to about fifty million people concentrated in 3 regions of world with adequate hydro electricity and other necessary natural resources. By keeping the population low and constant, but still large enough to sustain advanced technology and manufacturing, and by aggressively recycling materials and forgoing impossibly wasteful luxuries like air travel and personal vehicles, it might be possible to sustain our science and technologies long enough to make fusion work, before the hydro dams inevitably silt in.

Because of the rapid rate that fossil energy is depleting, and the total dependence of our food supply on that energy, there is insufficient time for a one-child policy and/or family planning education to get the population down to a sustainable level without massive suffering.

A very aggressive plan for reducing the population is required to avoid unimaginable suffering and probable civilization ending nuclear resource wars.

Jack’s idea is to vaccinate everyone on the planet with a genetically engineered substance that causes sterility and that can be reversed with an antidote.

Any couple desiring a child must apply for a birth permit. Once a year a carefully calculated number of permits will be randomly awarded to applicants and those lucky people will be relocated to one of the 3 regions established for humanity’s permanent civilizations and issued the sterility antidote.

If our leaders are indeed implementing Alpert’s plan with a time delayed sterility inducing vaccine, this would explain why children are being targeted for vaccination. It would be imperative that as many child bearing, and soon to be child bearing, people be vaccinated as quickly as possible because once word of the plan gets out, either via a leak or via impossible to ignore evidence, then no further vaccinations will be possible.

If true, this thankfully means our leaders are brilliant heroes rather than evil idiots.

And it gives “The Great Reset” a whole new meaning!

Go Jack go!!!

P.S. I would like to make the above list of covid things that don’t make sense as complete as possible. If I missed anything, please let me know and I will add it.

17-Jul-2022 Addendum

I’m worried that a future visitor who does not know me will will read this post and conclude that I’m a wack job and therefore should discount everything else I’ve written. This is a statement to clarify what I actually believe is going on with covid.

If we assume that our leaders are not evil and/or stupid then there is overwhelming evidence to suggest there’s an agenda other than public health in play for covid policies.

I believe that some of our most senior leaders with the power to influence lower level leaders are using covid as an excuse to implement tools that will be helpful for maintaining social order during an economic collapse.

I do not know if these senior leaders deliberately released an engineered virus, or if they are just taking advantage of a mistake made at the Wuhan lab.

All of the evidence I see supports this “covid is cover for collapse prep” theory, EXCEPT the push to vaccinate children which I cannot explain if we continue to assume our leaders are not evil and/or stupid.

I proposed above, tongue in cheek, that perhaps the child vaccination push could be explained by a humane population reduction agenda, which I think would be a brilliant thing for our leaders to do, because population reduction is the only path to reducing the suffering that is coming due to human overshoot.

The problem with this population reduction hypothesis is that I don’t think are leaders are aware or smart or brave enough to try it.

So to be clear, I do NOT think there is a population reduction agenda in play.

Which means our leaders must be evil and/or stupid.

I’m pretty sure Fauci and his gang are corrupt, but I do not think all the collaborating leaders in the world are evil.

Which leaves stupidity as the only viable explanation for what’s going on with children.

Stupid behavior can have causes other than a low IQ.

Stupid behavior can result from our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities, like for example, doubling down because “I can’t possibly have supported the biggest blunder in human history”, or from a mass formation al la Mattias Desmet that causes temporary insanity.

July 13, 2022 Addition

Thank you to a reader for bringing to my attention a list of bad covid decisions compiled by Dr. Vinay Prasad.

I respect Dr. Prasad’s fairness and integrity by only listing those items for which a functioning brain looking at evidence available at the time would know was wrong.

https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/a-checklist-for-covid-policy

“Lots of people commented about COVID-19. Some were more right than others. It isn’t fair to judge people by facts not known at the time. Instead here is a list of issues where a person who read actively, and whose brain was working (aka not riddled with anxiety) could be right in the moment.

  1. The evidence for community cloth masking was awful, nonexistent, negative and poor and we should have run cluster RCTs. This view was obvious based on reading pre-pandemic literature and is why the CDC, WHO and Tony Fauci himself initially advised against masking. Instead, in the weeks that followed many lied about the evidence of cloth masking to push this intervention. It was propaganda, not science. It was shameful how real scientists lied and exaggerated and virtue signalled, all of which prevented randomized trials.
  2. Without embellishment, I will think it’s ok to have supported cloth masking initially, but smart people understood the residual uncertainty and wanted cluster RCTs. Unfortunately, they were defeated by zealots, and we have zero cluster RCTs in high income countries. Aka we learned nothing. This is embarrassing.
  3. Masking kids 2-4 and mandates (oh, of course, except when they nap for 2 hours in the same room!) was a stupid policy and it’s hard to understand how anyone whose brain was working would support it. They napped together in the same room unmasked! Use your brain! How could that possibly work? Moreover, the World Health Organization advised against doing it.
  4. School closure in the spring of 2020 was arguable, but closure any time after Aug 2020 was clearly wrong. Enough data had accumulated by then to know it was a fools errand. Most Western European nations had returned in person by then. Liberal American cities remained the last hold outs. They paid lip service to vulnerable children, but their policies crushed their future.
  5. Vaccinating 20 year old health care workers and teachers and ‘first responders’ before the elderly was clearly stupid. It only happened because anxious first responders are more powerful lobbying force than old people. Society, particularly America, does not value the elderly. Anyone who could do basic arithmetic would know this would cost lives. Even assuming first responders were much more likely to get the virus, the IFR by age was so steep, it could not be overcome by exposure. Wise nations didn’t do it. You only needed a calculator and 2 seconds to realize how stupid it was.
  6. When J&J was found to cause VITT, it was obvious the product should be pulled from the market. Bad policy makers analogized it to DVT after oral contraceptives. They apparently did not understand the difference between the cerebral sinus, and the leg. Or a simple clot and runaway platelet activation. Alternatives were available. The FDA and CDC kept the product for one more year and many people were harmed.
  7. Mandating the mRNA shot was always a stupid idea. First, remember mandating a medical intervention is not done to protect the person getting the intervention. We don’t mandate you take your blood pressure pills. And you’re allowed to decline life-saving therapies. Mandates only exist when there is sufficient benefit to third parties that the intrusion on autonomy is justified. It has to clear a high bar. In the beginning, it looked like the vaccine provided massive individual level protection. Thus, it didn’t matter if someone else didn’t get the shot, you were protected. Modeling studies suggested that thousands of people would have to be excluded to avert one acquisition of COVID. It was clear that many people would be angered, a few would not comply, and there was no justifiable case that coercive vaccination benefited third parties. If a third party was worried, they could get vaccinated themselves. Later, by the fall of 2021, when it was abundantly clear that vaccines were unable to halt novel variants and breakthrough was inevitable, then vaccine mandates were unethical because vaccines could not protect a third party from transmission anyway. Ironically, vaccine mandates were always unethical because they never conferred sufficient benefit to 3rd parties. Instead, some people argued that protecting someone from their own choice was a valuable use of coercion. These people are ignorant of medical history, and do not see the fact that there is no end to this principle. You can mandate people to get any medical intervention by this logic. Moreover, they are aloof from Americans. Americans would never tolerate such an intrusion.
  8. Wearing a mask after vaccination. Or distancing. Or avoiding weddings or avoiding other things. After vaccination, there was nothing more you could do to lower your individual risk. Weight loss, optimizing medical issues, and vaccination by the only three risk reducing interventions. Before it was evident that breakthrough was inevitable, there’s no point to take precautions after vaccination because you were very well protected. The moment it was evident that breakthrough was inevitable, there was no point to take precautions after vaccination because if you live long enough, you’ll eventually get the virus. So what’s the goal of delaying?
  9. Testing testing, testing. The United States not for 1 minute was able to control the virus through test, trace, isolate. The seed load or initial preconditions in 2020 made it impossible to do that. The idea we could test our way halting the virus and his tracks was delusional. Someday Congress should pass a bill asking testing companies to release the names of doctors and epidemiologists who they paid. Once you see the money trail, you will understand why people pushed testing.
  10. After adult vaccination, the idea that wide scale testing was necessary or desirable was a delusion. Testing kids and quarantining them was massively disruptive. The loss of educational alone offset any potential gains. And the final outcome will be inevitable. 93 to 98% breakthrough.
  11. The idea kids need a vaccine to return to normal– was insane. This was absolutely a crazy point of view. Proof that it was not true is that many nations had very high sero prevalence prior to the debut of vaccines. The United Kingdom was nearly 100%. The US was at least over 70% but probably much higher, due to terrible data collection. If kids got COVID anyway prior to vaccine all the restrictions hurt them with no possibility of benefit.
  12. Children never faced an emergency. The regulatory use of emergency use authorization for kids was unjustified. Their drug products should have come through traditional marketing pathways. The IFR in children was too low to constitute an emergency. Moreover, by the time kids vaccines arrived it was clear that breakthrough was inevitable. Ergo vaccinating kids would not protect anyone else. The abuse of expedited pathways benefits companies, but does not benefit people. This abuse has continued in cancer drugs for years. COVID makes people scared, which pharmaceutical companies use to enrich themselves with scant data.
  13. Giving paxlovid to young vaccinated people. Anyone who knows the history of medicine knows that extrapolating data from very sick individuals to milder versions of disease is never a good idea. It’s always better to run a randomized trial before you spend $5 billion dollars treating your anxiety.
  14. Anyone who ever said the word zero COVID is an idiot. Because the opportunity for zero COVID ended in early December 2019, and firmly closed by March of 2020. Anyone who still thought it possible, particularly in 2021, should be muted and ignored.
  15. By June 2022, anybody who thinks the United States should do anything to control infections is wrong. Such a person must be living under a rock to not notice the fact that 200 million plus Americans have returned to complete normal. Moreover, it is not biologically possible. These should be too good reasons for these people to stop.
  16. Travel bans. Border closure. Testing to cross borders. It was evident that these measures could do nothing to stop spread. It’s unbelievable we repeated that until 2022.
  17. Long COVID: If you were very ill with COVID-19, if you were hospitalized, if you were intubated, if you were on death’s door, it is entirely possible that you will have a prolonged recovery. You may never be the same. This has always been the case with respiratory viruses. Or any illness for that matter. But if you had a mild infection, if you didn’t even know you were sick, then it would be astonishing that you would have serious long-term sequela. The burden of proof that this is due to COVID should be very high. That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t take you seriously. Doctor should always take patients seriously. And if a person feels bad, we should run studies to determine what makes them better. But that’s very different than advising people that asymptomatic Long Covid is a big problem, and that we should try to control infections in perpetuity. Those are bold policy maneuvers. It requires extraordinary evidence. That evidence has never been met. The best study from the Annals of internal medicine compares patients with milder Covid to those without milder Covid and finds no differences in any of dozens of dozens of biological tests. That finding is astonishing. And should be replicated in larger sample size. But if it holds true, a serious rethinking of long COVID is needed.
  18. Saying in 2022 we need to control infections to prevent mutations. Serious science writers are saying this. In top magazines. It’s totally delusional. There is no political buy-in. Even if there were, you’d have to weld door shut like Shanghai to achieve it. That’s not possible in free society. It’s living in a fairy tale confusing it for reality.
  19. Saying healthcare workers will mask forever. Before you institute a sweeping change in healthcare, don’t you want to run a randomized trial to know it works? Evidence-based medicine is dead when people propose such changes without evidence. I’m pretty confident now that many people didn’t understand it.
  20. And the biggest way to know somebody doesn’t know what they’re talking about: when somebody suggests school reopening benefits rich and privileged kids. It benefits poor, underserved, minority kids. How clueless are you?
  21. I forgot to mention boosting 12-year-olds, yearly booster, and a load of other things. That’s for another column.

These were issues that were not just obvious in retrospect but at the time. A simple test for who knows what they’re talking about.”

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Nina
Nina
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 10:54 pm

Thank you so much for posting this, Rob. The response of the medical community to the pandemic has made things immeasurably worse. It’s not a good prognosis, but it’s good to know. Haven’t seen this info anywhere else.

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 1:41 pm

WOW,
I read Kunstler’s whole post. Am I living a dream???? His whole solar debacle mirrors my own. I did the same thing 5 years ago for about $30k. I now wish for the same simple things too.
I built a tiny house just recently and the solar system (for lighting and water pumping) only cost $2000. It’s simple and “should” last for 20 years and for the difference I built a solid tiny house for 3 people. It has metal siding so hopefully it will survive the forest conflagration that is coming – and provide me with somewhere to live a much more modest life.
AJ

monk
Reply to  AJ
July 11, 2022 2:25 pm

I think if someone purchases an EV they should be made to put in solar panels at their house so they don’t increase stress on the grid. For myself, I didn’t see the point of solar, we have very good hydro schemes in New Zealand run by the power companies. I think our time is better spent learning skills to live without electricity, than doing everything we can to keep the lights on. I am young-ish by the by, so I’m often thinking about what skills and tools would be value to pass down to others.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  monk
July 11, 2022 8:34 pm

Yes, living without electricity is what humans had to do for almost the entire time they have been on this planet. It’s clearly possible. Hydro is very destructive of nature, as are all cars (EVs included) and so-called renewable energy. If only I was 30 years younger (I’m 68), my aim would be to develop the skills to live without civilisation. Sadly, I don’t really have the time or strength to do that now so have to do the best I can.

monk
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 12, 2022 1:04 am

I’m in my early 30s, so very keen on practicing these skills. Even if I don’t use them much, they can be passed on to future generations when I’m older. We have this knowledge gap between say my grandparents generation and maybe the children or grandchildren of millennials. What information we steward will set the tone of the future (assuming there is one for humans)

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 2:20 pm

You know this reminds me of why I don’t find a lot of Richard Heinberg’s advice very helpful

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 7:38 pm

The average utility bill in the US is $ 2000, that seems very low as most people I know it is $5000 or more and all my middle income friends and fam are at $12,000 to $20,000 per year. Over 10 years $100,000 to $200,000, solar is a massive savings and can easily maintain its self.

If you need to redo all of it after 10 years you have been screwed. I have had Solar for over 20 years, both thermal and electric and I have replaced about 1/3 of it in the last 10 years. Point being that I consume about 75% less than most households. All comparisons of energy and/or transportation are usually about keeping things the same as they are now, not about using less so ….forget about it.

Having said that there is no way that even one billion people could do this.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 12, 2022 4:34 pm

Future??? What future ;-}

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 8:28 pm

I have repeatedly considered solar and repeatedly rejected it. Mainly because it is almost as bad as fossil fuels in its impact on our planet but JHK’s travails just cement that decision. I will shortly be installing a wood-burning oven to act as a heating source and a cooking device. So long as we can collect wood (I’ve also planted some trees that can be coppiced for this purpose) we’ll have a way to heat the house and to cook food. Water is my main concern as we are dependent on it for getting water out of our rain tank and into our house. My aim is to construct a header tank that can provide water to the house, without a pump. Still looking for a suitable hand pump to pump water from the main tank to the header tank, occasionally, though some windmill device would be ideal (for mechanical pumping, not for generating electricity). With water secured, we’d be set up for a fairly good existence, even without lighting. We do have a Berkey water filter for emergencies, though.

Regarding tiny homes, I am also keen on them. However, I’m not the only one to consider, as I don’t think my wife would find it suitable. We’re having a sort of experience of it now as we’re temporarily (for over a year) living in a small cabin (10 metres by 2.8 metres). The main problem with the cabin is that it is really not set up for long term living (it’s rented) so we are constantly finding it difficult to do things in it. The new house we’ll shortly be moving into is small (just under 70 square metres) but not tiny. The extra space will be very noticeable going from a cabin. If we’d moved from our last home to the new house, it would feel very small so having to squeeze into a cabin for over a year is great preparation!

CampbellS
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 12, 2022 2:43 am

Nice Mike. We’ve only been in our place about 18 months after 5 years in a house bus (24m2) so we’re used to small spaces. Our house is around 100m2 but our kids have that while Nikki and I still have the bus. Trying to sell our bus diesel hot water and space heater to replace with small wood burner / cooker. It’s very efficient on fuel but cost of diesel making it less attractive for potential purchasers.

We’re also on the look out for a hand pump for the house. We currently get water via gravity from the creek and use without filtration. Nice big spring fed creek in summer but in winter gets runoff from neighbouring farm so need a few days of no rain before clean enough to fill the tank. Hard to find a gap in the rain here in Northland at the moment. We’ve purchased another tank for roof collection which will gravity feed ground floor but not upstairs. Want to be able to pump rain water up to smaller tank higher up hill for when power outages mean the pump fails.

Also about to install a big old Stanley wood burner oven with wetback in the house.

I have about 2kw of secondhand solar panels I’m wondering how best to utilise. We also have potential for micro hydro from the creek but would require about 200m of cable plus inverter, battery etc. One option is to utilise batteries from our old Nissan Leaf (sorry Monk we’ve ended up with 2 small electric cars 🙂).

Or maybe we just jump straight to wood world.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  CampbellS
July 12, 2022 3:27 am

Good stuff, Campbell. Lots of rain here, too. I’ve seen lying water here for the first time in the 3-4 years we’ve had the place.

We had a Stanley Donard in our previous house, with a wet back. It was quite efficient but I wasn’t really happy with the quality as the fire door didn’t quite fit properly so couldn’t be fully damped down to keep it ticking over all night on cold winter nights. Also, a wet back can’t be turned off so using it in summer didn’t work too well (we also had solar hot water which couldn’t be turned off).

One thing I wonder about with wood burners, though, is the need for replacement fire rope, every now and again. And, it doesn’t last for ever, needing some replacement parts from time to time. Still, it’s the best we can do for now.

I’m collecting primitive and old-fashioned skill books slowly. Hopefully some will come in useful (as they already have) in the future.

CampbellS
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 12, 2022 12:41 pm

Yes our Stanley has just seen reconditioned with new rope, wetback and bricks. Might add spare rope to the parts list. I’m also thinking about summer hot water heating options and collecting books.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  CampbellS
July 12, 2022 4:50 pm

Campbells – I have several small stand alone solar set-ups 500W each. One at the house, one in the shop, and one in the greenhouse. 500W controller and 1000W and 3000W inverters are all very affordable and yes I have spares.

I built one set up on a hand truck with 2 Trojan batteries so I can easily trundle serious electricity anywhere I need it.

My idea for tiny house is to get several of them in a sort of circle the wagons set up with a large indoor/outdoor common area in the middle or something like that.

So far everyone I know is going big with massive house or two so no takers.

CampbellS
Reply to  Jef Jelten
July 13, 2022 1:09 am

Thanks Jef. Good food for thought there. We’re also looking at small cottages mainly from materials off the land for the kids. Planning appropriate post fossil fuels locations and infrastructure is a good challenge.

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 1:21 pm

Good piece. If he’s right, soon after UK goes belly up the rest of Europe will follow suit and then U.S.
Should be interesting.
AJ

Mandrake
Mandrake
July 10, 2022 8:42 pm

For all the volcano lovers out there.

https://films.nationalgeographic.com/fire-of-love

CampbellS
Reply to  Mandrake
July 10, 2022 10:07 pm

Reminded me of of this equally tragic bear enthusiast.

https://watchdocumentaries.com/grizzly-man/

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  CampbellS
July 11, 2022 6:06 am

Mother Nature consumes her own children.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 9:29 pm

Gosh, this is why I’ve become disillusioned with his site, apart from not wanting to dish out even $9 a month just to comment. I’m guessing he’s making a lot of money and he’s put on weight since shedding so much. Sorry, that’s not relevant but it sure is odd.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 10:06 pm

What happened to his previous spouse? Corona divorce ? I know a few people whose marriage did not survive. Big stress test.

monk
Reply to  Mandrake
July 11, 2022 2:15 pm

They just got divorced, she is still around on the interwebs. One of their grownup children had a serious cancer illness (pre-covid). That sort of thing normally puts a lot of stress on a marriage

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 3:57 am

Yes, I saw that. I think maybe he was trying to be like Max Kaiser, with his spouse.

monk
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 11, 2022 2:14 pm

So I’ve been buying the new subscription, lowest possible level, and I’m not impressed sadly. You can get everything you need for free on his website – the part 2s are more of the same but with more blame the global leadership stuff. I won’t be renewing my subscription. Once you’ve got a good grounding in our predicament, his website isn’t as helpful. He also has gone more and more down the global kabal conspiracy route. I would however 100% recommend everyone do the crash course

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 9, 2022 2:06 pm

I agree 100%. If you read his article he is in complete denial of overshoot/collapse. He takes a right wing/libertarian view point I have seen before – the socialists/liberals wanted clean energy to stop fake global warming. He and others (Market Ticker – Denninger) think the solution to our energy problem is to drill for more oil – I wonder if they are even aware of Peak Oil? The problem is that Global Warming is real, but the liberal solution, more renewables is subject to both Jevon’s Paradox, limited inputs and the substantial fossil fuel necessary to construct and service them.
Denial is paramount to avoid any cognitive dissonance.
AJ

Anonymous
Anonymous
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 8, 2022 2:31 pm

I really despise this person’s analysis!
He just parrots the MSM presentation of the West vs. Russia in everything he says. No mention of how Russia is not the USSR. How the West (U.S.) promised Gorbachev not to expand NATO if the USSR would allow Germany to reunite. How the West went back on that promise again and again. How any need for NATO disappeared with the fall of the USSR and Warsaw pact (yet the west made NATO into an offensive force). How the West tried to export Capitalism to Russia after the fall of the USSR (rape Russia of it’s natural resources and impoverish all the people) in the early 1990’s. How Putin has asked again and again not to have NATO expansion and how this is seen in Russia as an existential threat (would the U.S. see Mexico or Canada as a threat if they joined in a Chinese defense pact?). How U.S. (CIA) engineered a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and got rid of the elected president, who was friendly with Russia. How since 2014 NATO helped train Ukrainian troops and wage a war against the civilian populations in the Donbass. How Crimea was always a part of Russia (since 1783?)(Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine in a drunken party in 1954). How Germany and France got Russia not to invade Ukraine in 2014 with the Maiden agreement which Ukraine violated again and again. How Ukraine intended on annihilating the Donbass republics just prior to Russia invading. How Finland (who sided with the German Nazi in WWII) has a treaty with the USSR, and by extension Russia, to forever be neutral (and thus avoided becoming a part of Russia after Stalin/Russia defeated Germany in WWII.
Need I go on? The West/U.S. is pushing a war against Russia because it wants to maintain it’s former status as the world’s only superpower. To read history and respond to politics as if the U.S. (and the West) is some kind of paragon of virtue and light is totally at odds to the behavior on the world stage (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria)., Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia) .
To have to explain all this is a waste of time just like this blogger’s analysis is.
AJ

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 9:13 pm

Rob, do you think that those responsible for the shelling of civilian homes, hospitals and infrastructure are not on the Russian side? Or does 100% support mean that you support the principle of Russia invading a sovereign country, presumably with the aim of annexing more or all of that country, without necessarily supporting its tactics? What about the laws it brought in to try to ensure that only its leader’s narrative is published?

Whatever the supposed provocation of Ukraine (that is the country Russia invaded and is demolishing in parts) it seems bizarre to me that Russia can be seen to be totally pure in this.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 10:09 pm

We’ve had part of the discussion before. I didn’t realise that the US had put weapons on the Ukraine/Russian border before the invasion. In the hypothetical Mexican situation, should that force include the shelling of civilian homes and infrastructure, and the near levelling of major towns?

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 4:06 am

What makes you think the military are sheltering in civilian apartments, shopping centres and hospitals, Rob? The Russians tell us they are liberating the people living in razed cities and never target civilians. Sorry, I think what Putin is doing is 100% wrong. There was never any justification for it – complaining that their concerns were being overlooked is pathetic and definitely not justification. He has made his concerns worse by pushing more countries into Nato. Good job. Not. However, there will always be small strong-willed men who feel they need to make their mark. He’s certainly done that.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 7:22 pm

Rob – please ignore mike, he has trolled several sites until everyone ignored his ignorant incendiary comments and he left.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 8:13 pm

OK, Rob. I see this thread has yielded no new information. However, I just find it hard to believe that you think it’s 100% acceptable for Russia to invade a country, inflict a huge toll on its civilians, because another country didn’t accept and act on Russia’s concerns.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 9:46 pm

As a supporter of Russia are you willing to fly a Russian flag outside in your yard? Post a pic? Courage of your convictions and all that.

Speaking of flags, Bastille Day is coming up. I was thinking of erecting the French Tricolour with a sign that reads

“Happy Bastille Day Citizens!”
And in smaller print, “Generally not celebrated by those whose surnames are preceded with a ‘de’”

The lyrics of La Marseillaise are so peaceful. It’s always interesting to see young tykes in short pants singing about bloody flags.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mandrake
July 10, 2022 9:57 pm

My comment about Russia was not fair. I apologize. It’s a complicated issue with a complicated history.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mandrake
July 11, 2022 5:55 am

tho for the record I echo Mike’s sentiments. What Putin is doing is wrong.

Mandrake
Mandrake
July 8, 2022 8:43 am

I was thinking of changing my handle to Flow Dojo. Any thoughts?

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 8, 2022 1:14 pm

I’m wary of convictions. Cotton Mather had convictions and look how that turned out. The way I see it, convictions too easily morph into fanaticism. Even so called positive convictions lead ppl astray – “here let me show you how virtuous I am by stabbing you in the back!” So sorry, I just don’t feel comfortable joining you and Gail. Especially not since hatred has become the all American pastime.

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Mandrake
July 9, 2022 11:49 am

I agree, some anonymity is helpful. I have a couple of my rural neighbors that are full blown right wing “let’s go up to Portland and shoot some liberals”. They were born and raised here and feel their country has deserted them. They spend an inordinate amount of time shooting off their assault weapons (not that I don’t have one too – you know, self-defense). I just fear that in a collapsed situation they already have me pegged as a liberal because I moved here from the SF Bay area (of course I used to be a liberal, and still might be on some issues but eschew any illogical irrational position – and doctrinaire liberals have plenty of them).
So, I would have no fear of anybody on this site knowing who I am but I’d be scared of some people at some point doing a Google search and saying look he’s a liberal. Just can’t be too careful.
AJ

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 9:40 am

uhhh, that’s easy Rob. Anyone with a bigger truck.

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Mandrake
July 10, 2022 2:04 pm

Real men have 4 wheel drive diesel trucks, just saying 😉
AJ

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  AJ
July 10, 2022 5:36 pm

Have you seen this scene in the black comedy “War of the Roses”? I think it’s a 4 wheel drive.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dXskW2VvfC0

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Mandrake
July 11, 2022 3:19 am

Yeah, great clip – she’s a real man 😉
AJ

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  AJ
July 10, 2022 8:40 am

Maybe take your neighbors some home made muffins in a gift basket. I hear that works.

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Mandrake
July 10, 2022 2:08 pm

Already had all the neighbors over individually (or as families) for an intro cookout when we first moved here. Probably a bad idea because for some reason lots of native rural Oregonians blame California (and Californians) for the liberal state of the urban population of Oregon that out votes them all the time.
AJ

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 13, 2022 6:34 pm

that belief died out with the Rockefeller Republicans.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  AJ
July 10, 2022 5:45 pm

Yeah, your guests at the cookout probably thought “there goes the neighborhood,” but hey – this pesto and crostini ain’t half bad.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 2:43 pm

Oh and as to the Flow Dogo

https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/live-event

Don’t tell me rolling around in that human gyroscope doesn’t look like fun.

But I’m a little confused about the omega of Camp Omega – I mean do you get to leave?

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mandrake
July 10, 2022 2:53 pm

For those interested in the gyroscope you can find it in the Menu under Train – Live Events.

And Bonus – good training for the future Mars mission.

Serenity Now.

theblondbeast
theblondbeast
July 7, 2022 7:23 pm

The birth rate is already much lower than it was in the past. It’s the death rate which has to go up. We’re looking at it wrong here.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  theblondbeast
July 10, 2022 9:47 am

Dude that’s trepidaceous. You might want to break out the white board like Turd Blossom and explain how that works.

monk
July 7, 2022 2:54 pm

I know we have discussed it before, but man o man are there a lot of muppets on OFW. Rather embarrassingly for me, a lot of them are New Zealanders. Rob’s comment sections are full of good information, discussion and top notch people. There’s so much value over here. Thank you Rob for all the effort and time you put in to this little corner of the interwebs

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 7, 2022 7:53 pm

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Ya know what I’m saying.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mandrake
July 8, 2022 6:52 am

To be more clear Rob, I was referring to taking things at “face value.”

I agree with Nicholas Taleb that “IQ tests select suckers for noise who overdetect patterns…

They think that intelligence is about noticing things are relevant (detecting patterns); in a complex world, intelligence consists in ignoring things that are irrelevant (avoiding false patterns)”

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 8, 2022 9:09 am

Some of your points/observations are valid. I also think you have also fallen victim to confirmation bias. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 9:33 am

I’ll be on the lookout. Would you prefer a 3 point or 5 point explanation?

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 11:07 am

“Super” smart eh. Would you like that served with a super sized meal?

Flipper
Flipper
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 8, 2022 1:57 am

I pinged Gail about this a couple of years ago, apparently she’s just not interested in doing any comment moderation. She’d be better off without comments at this point IMO.

monk
Reply to  Flipper
July 8, 2022 11:24 pm

Alice had to killed the comments on her blog because it was mostly nuclear and AI bros trolling the site.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 11:09 am

About the nutter part Rob. The red button doesn’t exactly lend credibility.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 12:35 pm

You’re the one who said you were worried. I simply pointed out that having a Ronald McDonald Red Nose reset button accompanying your headline looks a tad suspect. And lo and behold you push the red button (deign to read the post) and out springs a Jack in the Box. Last name Alpert.

And writing “let’s go all dark and scary” might come across as one flew over the cuckoos nest. Not too far removed from FE CEP. I hope you view this as constructive criticism.

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 2:03 pm

I really think most of the leaders in the West are brain dead stupid. Look what kinda degrees they have. Economics, Political Science, Communications, Gender studies, etc. Not exactly hard science/math types that are used to logical rational thought. Then a lot of them became lawyers – not a bright profession either (always defend your paying client even if you hate, despise or think they are bat shit crazy). I learned a lot being a lawyer – but mostly how dumb and just plain stupid lawyers as a group are. So, I go with brain dead stupid.
AJ

Mike Roberts
Reply to  monk
July 8, 2022 3:56 am

I echo that, monk. Many here may not agree with some of my comments but I get good discussion back without all the insults and bad humour. So this is my favourite hang out, at the moment, when I get time. My apologies for the few New Zealand “muppets” that seem to congregate there – most are pretty good.

monk
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 8, 2022 11:21 pm

Thanks Mike! I’m a Kiwi too 🙂

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 10, 2022 11:20 am

Birds of a feather flock together. Kiwis that is.

CampbellS
July 7, 2022 12:15 pm

Rob someone else writing about collapse talking about Varkis theory.

https://stevebull-4168.medium.com/todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-lviii-721a00a87c2f

“The widespread adoption of magical thinking to avoid anxiety-provoking cognitions is in no way surprising. It is perhaps, as Ajit Varki argues, that “Some aspects of human cognition and behavior appear unusual or exaggerated relative to those of other intelligent, warm-blooded, long-lived social species — including certain mammals (cetaceans, elephants and great apes) and birds (corvids and passerines). One such collection of related features is our facile ability for reality denial in the face of clear facts, a high capacity for self-deception and false beliefs, overarching optimism bias and irrational risk-taking behavior…”

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 7, 2022 2:55 pm

I need an eye-roll react button

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 7, 2022 9:13 pm

He’s sired more kids than Captain von Trapp. Maybe when they assemble for Christmas they can all sing together and Grimes can play Maria.

AJ
AJ
Reply to  Mandrake
July 8, 2022 2:59 am

I read somewhere that to become a CEO of a successful company you need a sociopathic personality. Kinda fits with Musk.
AJ

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  AJ
July 8, 2022 7:08 am

I read that Musk said to his first wife Justine,

“if you were my employee i would fire you”

I suppose we all say things we shouldn’t from time to time. Despite his gaffes he’s a likable bloke in many ways.

Flipper
Flipper
July 7, 2022 7:04 am

Great work Howard, thanks for sharing.

We don’t need no stinkin’ guidestones round here: https://www.axios.com/local/atlanta/2022/07/07/investigation-underway-after-georgia-guidestones-bombed

Daiva
Daiva
July 5, 2022 10:48 am

A compelling story of an awakening to the ultimate taboo 😊

Secondly, we realize unconsciously, and to varying degrees consciously, that acknowledging civilization’s inherent flaws will bring with it psychic pain, difficulty in functioning and possibly ostracism. Thus, our own defense mechanisms kick in and aid civilization’s own mechanisms in bolstering our denial.
[…]
Finally, we are, in a way, numb to discussions of collapse. There have been doomsday prophets crying wolf throughout the centuries and, since they were always wrong, it makes it hard for us to believe that this time it’s real. At present, this is still probably my own greatest barrier to complete acceptance of civilization as unsustainable.

And it only gets better from there. 2007(!). SystemsThinker ftw! 😍😘

Bonus: a link from ↑ link, civilisation as a graph

What makes collapse a certainty, rather than a probability, is, ironically, the very thing that defines civilization in the first place: complexity.

monk
Reply to  Daiva
July 5, 2022 8:12 pm

What an awesome website, thank you for sharing

Anonymous
Anonymous
Reply to  monk
July 6, 2022 9:09 am

The www 1.0 feel to it is a perk, innit? 😌

el mar
el mar
Reply to  Daiva
July 5, 2022 11:14 pm

Possibly the whole universe is evil and the dissipators are gods confederates to stop it.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  el mar
July 7, 2022 8:32 pm

You’ve watched Melancholia one too many times I’d say. Maybe give the movie Ted a go. It’s about a guy and his friendship with a beloved teddy bear.

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 5, 2022 1:34 pm

Gosh even nanna nation New Zealand has given up on forcing people to get vaccinated and boosted. Canada has gone crazy

Perran
Perran
July 5, 2022 1:38 am

Maybe this helps explain at least part of the insanity. I knew the TGA was partly funded by industry but I didn’t realise it was to the tune of 96 %. Drug regulators shouldn’t be sponsored by the industry they are supposed to regulate.

https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1538

James T
James T
Reply to  Perran
July 5, 2022 2:49 am

It always cracks me up that people think that people give a care for those that they don’t know. Truly when you drink your tea or coffee in the morning (a simple pleasure) do you ever think about whether the people that brought that to you through all the processes were suffering, living horrific exploited lives. Of course not. That would ruin your morning, stop the pleasurable activity (did you really check that fair trade is real). So why would those higher up the food chain give a toss about you and your suffering. Nothing must get in the way of their rituals and pleasures – most of which are making money and spending it. They care not for those beneath them. We are all the same so therefore expect sh itty outcomes as a trend even if Jef is right and people can behave beautifully or badly.

Mike good to see you are no longer a vax supporter FE misses giving you sh it.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  James T
July 5, 2022 3:24 am

I don’t see the benefit of vaccines with the current variants, that’s all. If there is a benefit to more vulnerable older folk, it seems to be minimal and yet to be demonstrated to me. For young children, there seems to be no benefit. That’s all. My views change with the data. That’s not true of FE. I’m surprised so many over there put up with his insulting behaviour and fixed opinions (including the high opinion of himself).

As for the rest, it’s true that we generally don’t think about who may have suffered to bring us our daily pleasures but can cry about a sob story on the news. It has to be in our face for most of us to be affected, I think. We’re all contributing to the crazy messed up world but find it easy to blame others.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 7, 2022 8:12 pm

I kinda see FE as Sir Didymus…

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mandrake
July 7, 2022 8:18 pm

…an annoying pompous little dog.

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Mandrake
July 8, 2022 9:20 am

Great muppet cast. Highly entertaining.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  James T
July 5, 2022 6:43 am

Hello James,
Oh how true your words are and perhaps it is high time we learn the truth in this time of reckoning. You are so right about us in the exploitative nations denying the existence and suffering of those who allow us to continue our rarefied lives. To remind myself of this great injustice, I have come up with a new definition for fair trade, that is I will consider something truly to be fair if we are willing to trade our own daughters (or sons) to do the same hard labour work under the same oppressive conditions and receiving same pathetic subsistence pay, day after day for the remainder of their earthly existence without a hope of reprieve or amelioration. I can never look at the little fairtrade sticker on the coffee packet without a thought for this and it only makes me want even more to grow my own coffee beans, if nothing else to become more empathetic about what it takes to allow this ubiquitous simple pleasure whilst another human being is only trying to survive. But then it multiplies into just about everything I see or touch or use throughout the day, the weight of this knowledge and responsibility building up relentlessly like the bewitched buckets in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice!

Over the years of trying to justify my own existence at the expense of countless, nameless others, I have come up with just one ray of hope for myself, and that is just try to be kind and compassionate as best as I can, to the most people I can, for as long as I can, and in attempting to do so, I believe there is a good life lived. I can only be where I am and accept responsibility of the consequences of my choices, but if this privilege can propel me to become more than I thought I could be, then that is grace enough for me and my way of paying forward. Thank you for bringing this thought back to the surface where it should be a discerning and radiating beacon to guide our judgment and bring us to humility. And it has not escaped my lesson learning that whatsoever befalls us, if we have the humbleness and honesty to admit and see truth, we will know that we have already visited that upon another, if not in the same quantity, then at least with the same quality. As you say, we are all the same in possibility, and we each crave one another’s understanding and compassion.

Namaste.

PS Growing coffee is a relatively successful attempt here in subtropical Far North QLD, but the processing of it is a whole another story! So many steps and all quite fiddly, too, to come up with a handful of beans to make a passably recognisable brew! I am not a confirmed coffee drinker (the caffeine content does not agree with me) but I thought I would give it a go since so many are. I have a few Camellia sinensis plants from which tea originates, but here, too, it is more than just picking some leaves and boiling them, somehow the flavour isn’t quite the same, but hopefully the antioxidant value is still there. Never mind, I’m sure in the times to come we will be only too grateful for a few leaves to colour the water! For those food forest fanatics here (and we are a goodly bunch), you do know that mulberry, persimmon, and loquat leaves all make a very delicious tea and with many health benefits, too.

James T
James T
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 5, 2022 4:28 pm

Hi Gaia,
A challenging path. Good luck with the coffee and tea growing. I too need to get some tea plants, I have coffee and they grow readily down here in the Warning of mountains region.
regards
James

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 5, 2022 6:20 pm

It could be argued that growing your own coffee (and everything else) denies others the opportunity to make a living. However, in the end, we’re all going to have to do that, as much as we can.

I’m actually growing coffee, here near Auckland. I’m just south of Auckland and do get frosts from time to time, which the coffee bushes haven’t enjoyed. However, I’ve recently planted them in the ground, transferring them from pots, and so far so good. I did manage to get enough of a crop one year to make some coffee, which tasted good. Yes, it’s a fiddly process but not very difficult. One of the hardest parts is actually roasting them. You have to keep them moving. I’ve done it in a pot and in a popcorn maker. The latter is easier but it needs a good machine – one I tried couldn’t move the beans around. I won’t go into the details but I hope to be able to do that again, we’ll see if I get any beans this year. I’ve also tried tea and that tasted good too but the bush is looking a bit bare. Again, that was initially in a pot but now in the ground. Hoping for great things!

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 5, 2022 8:13 pm

You can grow them in a pot inside maybe? Potted coffee plants are sold in NZ
I love coffee!

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 6, 2022 2:40 pm

I’d be having withdrawal headaches through the apocalypse LOL 🙁

Flipper
Flipper
Reply to  monk
July 7, 2022 9:23 am

Seriously, a few bottles of drug store caffeine were my first “prepper” purchase when I started getting my head around all this stuff. That was back when I thought I could survive what’s coming.

CampbellS
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 5, 2022 11:15 pm

I’ve got coffee and tea in pots for planting in the spring. Think they should go pretty well in the Bay of Islands.

monk
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 5, 2022 8:46 pm

Gaia I think you have to semi-ferment the tea leaves to get the flavour out

monk
Reply to  monk
July 5, 2022 8:50 pm

Oh you have to lightly roast the leaves! Fermented is how oolong tea is made

Mandrake
Mandrake
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 8, 2022 8:02 am

Existence is fundamental I’d say. No one is asking you to justify your existence so why ask yourself that question? Even if you were a mean old cynical gal you would still have the right to exist. In my books anyhow.

Now maybe if you were a stowaway discovered on a manned mission to Mars and had no usable skill set to justify your existence you would be dragged to the airlock and blown out the hatch. Different situation entirely.

But as it stands you have as much right to existence as anyone else and I would help you defend that right even if you didn’t know how to garden.

James T
James T
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 5, 2022 2:36 am

sucks to wake up. It will only get worse Rob. Your darkest fears about what drives humanity are being realised.
stay tuned for more updates or upgrades.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 4, 2022 12:28 am

No, you really can’t.

I guess what the FDA is trying to say is “Since you’ve already successfully been able to produce an ineffective inoculation agent, we trust that you will be able to do the same again this time, and besides, if we require the same shoddy clinical trials as you submitted and that we accepted the first time around, that might be a bit more revealing than we are comfortable with, so let’s adopt our don’t ask, don’t tell policy which works for everybody.”

Perran
Perran
July 3, 2022 3:50 pm

I think I might have linked some stuff of Dr Gary Fettke’s on here before. I watched this on YouTube last night and thought it was good. Basically the dietary guidelines issued by our government are wrong, the bodies that issue these dictates are hopelessly corrupted and you should completely ignore and unlearn what we’ve been taught in school about good nutrition.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 3, 2022 10:44 pm

I’m fairly sure that various studies have linked the consumption of red meat to an increased risk of cancer but even if your risk goes up by a factor of 2, it may still be a tiny risk. The risk factor is often not useful on its own, in many statistics, it has to be taken in context with the absolute risk after the factor is applied.

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 4, 2022 7:00 pm

People’s beliefs about food are often religious. Not uncommon to see a scientist thinking they’ve found the food answer and becoming a quasi-cult leader on their chosen bad food / super food.

Weogo
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 4, 2022 8:56 am

Hi Rob,

When you differentiate between CAFO meat and grass-fed, many of the associated health problems disappear.

On a separate note, meat from grass-fed animals can have net carbon sequestration.

Thanks and good health, Weogo

CampbellS
July 3, 2022 12:51 pm

Hi Rob. Instead of digital currency will we get digital ration cards? Or are they the same thing?

https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-most-valuable-form-of-money-nobodys.html?m=1

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
July 2, 2022 5:50 pm

As I said I have made a commitment to be very careful to not blame someone for not having the information they need to act appropriately. I don’t feel right accusing someone of denial when they have never been taught the truth of what is happening.

That said I do believe that there are lots of people who do have all the info choose to be ignorant ie live in denial. I just see from my life experience that that is only a tiny % of the population.

The main reason that people do not “do the right thing” with regards to overshoot, AGW, resource limits, destruction of the biosphere, etc, is because…and they will tell you out loud, heads of nations are on record stating it… it would cause massive economic collapse, suffering and death. No one will willingly enter into that bargain. You can try and tell them that they will suffer if they don’t do something but all they know for sure is the absolutely will suffer NOW if they do all of what is being presented.

We must make it abundantly clear that with the power down plan no one will suffer, everyone will pull together and everyone will get through this in the most equitable way. Do not think I am advocating growing out of this…quite the opposite. I have been advocating for over 15 years now for stopping all the nonsense bullshit jobs and activities and just focusing on making sure everyone is OK and that means that means everyone.

Thats all for now. I actually have worked most of this out over the last 10+ years but I don’t need to go into it here.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Jef Jelten
July 2, 2022 10:19 pm

I’m not sure what you mean by “the power down plan”. If you mean the Oil Depletion Protocol, then I still don’t think it will ever be done in an equitable way but Oil (or fossil fuels, generally) is only one depleting resource and climate change is only one of the environmental stressors. I can’t see any way that everyone will pull together unless the collapse is rapid and hits everyone at the same time (though, even then, I think many will try to get an advantage over others in an attempt to maintain some semblance of a modern technological society). However, I don’t think collapse will be a sudden tipping point. It’s probably more like a “long emergency” or a “long descent”.

As Tim Garrett and others point out, even a contracting economy will require increasing amounts of energy and governments will try everything they can to minimise recessions. So there is no getting through this equitably or in a controlled way.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 3, 2022 4:32 pm

As I noted there are dozens of way in which we are killing off all life on the planet. All of which needs to stop ASAP.

There are no incremental measures. TPTB are not doing anything to minimise recession in fact they are doing the opposite. As Rob/HHH pointed out TPTB is removing money from the global economy. This is catastrophically deflationary. TPTB has done this before over and over;

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.”

This is the future and there is no hiding or prepping for it. Either we let them control “power down” which means bottom up suffering and death (same as it ever was) or we insist on controlling it by taking down the “Golden Billion” then making sure everyone else is ok for the next 10+ years of “simplifying”.

Required
Required
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 2, 2022 1:01 am

Absurd EU regulations regarding nitrogen pollution? Whats the alternative? Happily poison our soil and water? We grew into the situation Borlaug warned us about. Anyway, the take from the linked tweet is highly stup … simplistic and I would expect better from you Rob.

Joe
Joe
July 1, 2022 8:06 am

I always thought the 3 locations chosen by Jack to settle the entire world population seemed a bit odd. Two centres of population in the americas and only one in the entire Eurasian and African land mass. Why can’t we make use of the hydro dams already in existence in Norway which is in a seismically neutral area and well located for climate change? Or another small population in Switzerland with similar circumstances. The Chinese and American located hydro civilisations proposed are both in humid climate zones that will only get worse with climate change.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 3, 2022 8:06 am

As a bonus essay for the final exam in this compulsory Pass/Fail course entitled The Future of Humanity, here is a thought experiment opportunity–Knowing what we know about the parameters needed for maintaining some form of modern civilization, what are your top three candidate locales for humanity’s last stand at this present time and why? You can start with likely countries and narrow it down to specific locations. What is the evidence, if any, that such a transition is already underway in these places? For extra credit, Would you want to be part of the chosen new world population and why? List pros and cons for your choice. Time limit for completion–you have the rest of your life to work this out if you choose. Good luck and may the best answer win!

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 3, 2022 11:29 pm

I hear you, Rob and more power and awe to you! From what I’ve gathered of this intrepid little band, we are all more than content with where we’ve been planted (or transplanted) on this green earth, and that’s cause for more gratitude than we can ever express. There will be hardship ahead no doubt, but I trust we will all find a way through our remaining cycles of the sun with the least suffering and the most fulfilment. Go well and in peace, everyone.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 3, 2022 4:37 pm

I can’t see any country actually doing any planning to keep its part of the planet in a modern technological industrial society. And country economies are so intertwined that I don’t know how a single country will extract themselves from that web. Maybe poorer countries have the best chance as some may not be as dependent on a global economy.

Michael Mann was interviewed on a New Zealand programme a few weeks ago and basically said Australia is the worst place to be and New Zealand is one of the best, so far as the effects of climate change is concerned. I live in New Zealand, so that’s plus.

As I’ve pointed out, from Tim Garrett’s work, only a complete cessation of economic activity will halt the growth in emissions. So I can’t see anyone getting away without extreme hardship. Sadly.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 4, 2022 12:02 am

Hi Mike,
Yes, I hear you, too, loud and clear! I’m glad you are happy and well in NZ, along with monk, Campbell and I trust all your families, too. Sorry for missing any other members living in the Land of the Long White Cloud who gather here.

I am hoping that there will be first nations in all continents that will be able to return to their traditional way of life once we of the western world diminish, for it is their turn again for self-directed evolution after being so rudely interrupted. Alas, we leave a far more degraded land, flora and fauna scape in return, not to mention the lasting poisoned gift of climate change, but trusting that Nature and time will find a way to heal some, if not all, wounds.

Things here in Australia are pretty shaky indeed with more catastrophic flooding in the Sydney area, the third “wave” in under one year. How much longer before people wake up and pack up, but to where and with what means? Maybe some will see the light and emigrate to New Zealand, I wouldn’t be surprised if you experience a significant influx of climate refugees from Oz in the coming months. Tasmania has always been an escape pad for mainlanders but our infrastructure here will not cope with too many more. And the spectre of supercell bushfires always looms large on the horizon, even more so now after two relatively mild and wetter than average years with rampant undergrowth in the easily tinder-dry forests.

Ah well, it is our turn for hardship, perhaps just another shade of what all our ancestors have had to overcome so we may have a chance at life on this planet. May we prove to be as steady and courageous, and moreover, humble and kind. I think we’ve long lost our bid for increased wisdom and temperance.

Hope this winter is going well for you and your family. The days are getting longer for us again, and as long as we have breath and wake up to a new morn, we can make each day a full life. All the best.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 4, 2022 3:11 am

Thanks, same to you, GG. I don’t hold out much hope for what you call “first nations” people in New Zealand reacquiring the skills needed to survive without modern civilisation. Maybe that will be true of other countries where there are indigenous people who could trace a thread of ancestry back more than several hundred years and who may have kept up those skills. For myself, I’m keen to get back to planting my food forest after a lot of disruption over the last year and a half which has sapped a lot of drive from me but I’m sure that will return soon.

Sadly, we don’t really have our ancestors to point back to as I think we (or our kids) will be the first humans to have to live in a world this warm and this depleted, with chemicals lacing the air and most non-human life extinct. Oh what fun!

Yes, things aren’t going too badly for us this winter though we’ve only had one frost so far, where we are, which is a bit strange. Some trees need more. I think we’re about to get some of Sydney’s rain but I hope it’s not anywhere near as bad. I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like.

Mike Roberts
July 1, 2022 3:50 am

I disagree with many of the items on the list of things that don’t make sense, though there are some I do agree with, vaccinating young children for one. The list depends on believing some information given by contrarians (some might be true but not necessarily all) and others are simply corollaries of others (such as several related to not enough testing of vaccines). But the list may make more sense in the US than in other countries (for example some countries did recognise immunity from infection in providing passes).

However, the way data is presented in my country, NZ, seems bizarre. The data we get make it impossible to determine the efficacy of the vaccines (in the case of kids, there simply is no data). One wonders why, especially as the data we do have suggests no current efficacy for the vaccines (though there was for Delta).

I really don’t understand how digital currencies can do anything claimed, though this could be my ignorance on such currencies. Lockdown policies were weak in almost all non-authoritarian countries, so it’s hard to see how they could be used effectively. In the US and some other countries, individual states had quite varied policies. In many countries, they simply couldn’t wait to get back to long-distance travel as normal. China had some childbirth restrictions for a long while but abandoned them. Why? The US is going backwards on abortion so are actively encouraging a booming population. Many states are also quite anti-vaccines.

Our leaders are mostly inept and, for me, completely incapable of devising and sticking to a plan for a great reset. I remain unconvinced of any such plan and, therefore, of COVID-19’s place in it. In any case, it looks like nothing will stop a civilisational collapse, the only question is when it will become obvious to most people that it’s happening. Perhaps the idea of a great reset is comforting because it provides some kind of reason for the deterioration we see around us and perhaps absolves us of some guilt in that deterioration. Just a thought.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 1, 2022 10:50 pm

Oh, I thought you were referring to cryptocurrencies as digital currencies. I agree that if all money was only digitally available then a lot of those actions are possible. It already is, to some degree. There has been a lot of talk, here in NZ, about removing paper money and coins. I don’t see it happening for a very long time, though. Perhaps when economies are constantly contracting, it might happen.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 3, 2022 7:39 am

Oh I do hope they will still let us barter in pumpkins, or at least set a good exchange rate for trading in such jolly commodities!

In all seriousness, I am confident that you have described what is about to become our material reality, the only question remains, will it be effected by carrying a card or by implanted chip?

O Brave New World, we have been awaiting thee, your arrival has been portended for so long now. And now that you are upon the doorstep, is it with trepidation or anticipation that I tremble so?

el mar
el mar
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 1, 2022 2:16 am

Today I sent this reader-article to my local newspaper here in Germay (near Dortmund).
Probably they will not pubish it:

“Energy poverty means collapse in the medium term

The consumer center warns of energy shortages. This is truly not new information after the sanctions imposed on Russia, which have a boomerang effect.
Capitalism requires growth. The business model of industrial civilization depends on cheap oil and easily extractable raw materials. Germany and the EU in particular. Many are not aware of the degree of dependence. But our politicians are certainly aware of it.
As is well known, Russia has great potentials of raw materials and fuels, very close to us. Thus, it is incomprehensible that Germany has allowed U.S.-dominated NATO to take very offensive action in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union. The war started by Putin could probably have been prevented by politicians acting in Germany’s interests. Russia has long sought proximity to the EU. Kohl and Brandt pursued such a policy. Now 50 years of détente have gone down the drain. The losers are Europe and Russia. The profiteers are elsewhere. We are now faced with a shambles.
As a result, we will probably not only freeze, but there will also be no peace. We have gambled it away here in Europe in the interests of third parties. Third parties who, for competitive reasons, have historically had no interest in a good neighborly relationship between Europe and Russia.
If we don’t get access to affordable energy, Germany and the EU, which is interconnected with us, will collapse. Perhaps our government can still turn the tide.”

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

MickN
MickN
Reply to  el mar
July 1, 2022 4:29 am

Be interesting to see if it’s published and if it gets any replies el mar.
Most of what you say is obvious to un-denialists but there are not many of us (as yet).

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 1, 2022 10:45 pm

50 years of detente went down the drain but primarily because Russia invaded another country, after unilaterally annexing a substantial part of it. It may have had reasonable security demands (debatable) but the invasion of a sovereign country and the targeting of civilians is not reasonable. Patting Russia on the back for such a move is also not reasonable but should we let a bully get away with murder just because it causes us some suffering by not doing that?

As el Mar said, capitalism requires growth but we all know that such a situation is unsustainable and may be unsustainable in the very short term.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 2, 2022 3:51 am

Oh, I thought they were better than that. So Russia are just doing what any other country would do? Why so much support for Russia, then? If they are doing what any other country would do, they deserve our scorn and derision, as for any other country. I would still hope, though, that most other western countries wouldn’t deliberately target civilians in a country that didn’t even have enemy weapons placed there when invaded.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 2, 2022 10:08 pm

Well, there are nuances but if any country became powerful enough and well armed enough, then they would do what Russia is doing. In my opinion, you seem to be trying to accumulate reasons for Russia, today, wreaking devastation on another country which didn’t attack it. I can’t see a justification for it but others’ mileage may vary. At least, if we dislike what our leaders are doing, we can vote them out.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 3, 2022 7:17 am

Hi there Mike,
Pardon me for my confusion but I am having a very difficult time trying to discern what the difference is between what you ascribed to Russia and what the US and before that, the British Empire have done to mow down swathes of countries in multiple continents with gay abandon, just to make triple sure they never had the chance to become powerful and well armed enough. I am sure that those sovereign nations couldn’t see the justification for imperialism running over them like a steam train, but of course we the beneficiaries got a lot of mileage from it. And every four years or so, we are given a chance to rubber stamp a choice between two pre-selected candidates and feel validated in our robust democratic process. Yes, we can vote one out, but the problem is that another one more or less just like it gets voted in. I completely agree with Rob that the US and Europe have lost all common sense but also add that we have never even come close to seeing things from another country’s perspective, because if we have ever tried, we wouldn’t have done what most other countries haven’t. I know I am not being subtle here, but I just can’t nuance it any other way.

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 3, 2022 4:16 pm

Well, GG, I was simply responding to what I saw as an attempt to justify what Russia has done because of something some other country might do in what could be seen as similar circumstances. I don’t think it can be justified, from my point of view. Though neither of us are residents of the US, I agree that there isn’t much choice for citizens there but remember that their primary process does give ordinary people a chance to get the candidate they prefer (and, in some states, you don’t even need to be registered with the party). Of course, the two main candidates are always (at the moment) from the same two parties and I agree that, insofar as the health of the planet is concerned, they are very similar. But there are always other candidates and that people don’t feel inclined to vote for alternatives is really down to their choice. In some other countries, they don’t really get any choice and candidates or parties that pose a threat to the rulers are either banned or imprisoned. So there is a big difference in my opinion.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
June 30, 2022 6:30 pm

Oh I should add that the Gene Jabs have none of the traditional elements of what used to be defined as a “Vaccine”.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
June 30, 2022 4:08 pm

I doubt that this will make it to your comment section as you seem to be resistant to alternative opinions but…

You keep saying “virtually all of the world bought into the “pandemic”…but the truth is less than half the countries of the world complied and if you count those who did not accept the Gene Jabs it is the majority of the population.

I know that this truth is inconvenient and destroys your thesis but will you please acknowledge? There are tens of thousands of Dr’s , researchers, scientist, journolest, public officials, and activist citizens that stood up and pointed out the truth. It is only a relatively small % of those in charge that have been pushing the lies + a bunch who are in a situation that is so bad that they have no choice but to go along, who are perpetrating this lie. If and when the truth comes out I am certain that the masses will step up too, just like with the fake battle against Russia and the rest of the planet racing to join them in their fight against the EVIL Empire of Lies. Please don’t give it more power than it really has.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
June 30, 2022 6:29 pm

Well thanks for asking. First there are two distinct differences wrt “vaccines”. A traditional vaccine takes all the elements of the virus and as many of the variants as possible and “attenuates” them, makes them less harmful if you will, then uses that as the vaccine. This has the net effect of bolstering the process of herd immunity. This has been historically, relatively effective. What is well known and key to this traditional vaccine process is the fact that the injection of the virus is ineffective most of the time until they discovered that when the subject being injected was poisoned with some toxic event, then the virus and the therefor the vaccine was effective, so they began to include what is called an adjuvant to the mix and this is where the whole “anti-vax” controversy comes in.

Most often the adjuvants commonly used have very bad side effects/after effects and are not commonly discussed.

I would define the greater tragedy of C-19 as the fact that it has been disallowed for Dr’s to treat it. Never before has this happened with any illness. All the other responses have been tragic for sure but none of it compares to the fact that in much of what is called the West and those countries locked into alignment with them were disallowed from treating sick people. They were threatened in every way to not treat. They would lose their jobs, open themselves to certain law suits that because TPTB said don’t treat, if they treated they would lose any lawsuit.

I know you are loath to say it but there is no other way to say it other than that it is EVIL. All lies, especially those that harm are pure and unadulterated EVIL. I don’t care how altruistic some believe their perceived goals are there is no rationalizing this kind of behaviour. I fully believe that given the information most of humanity will respond properly to the crushing limits that humanity faces and do the absolute necessary actions of powering down that needs to happen in order for humanity to survive. In fact it would empower humanity and they would pull out the best behavior we are capable of.

I know many or most of you will try and refute this and summarily condemn all humanity as incapable of this level of behavior …and to you I say FUCK OFF!!! You have no idea what you are talking about and I will fight you and your defeatist perspective to my dying breath I have seen people behave better and if you can’t see it then consume feces and cease to exist.

Sorry about that at the end there I do get worked up about this.

P.S. Rob, I live in north Oregon and would like to talk more about all this if you are interested. I have been doing this for over 20 years.

I have a small farm called Grace Farm & Gardens. 2901 NW oak grove Dr. albany oregon, 97321.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
June 30, 2022 8:01 pm

I have heard Jair on this and he waffles on this topic depending on how the wind blows.

Truth being that we are not far apart on all this. The ultimate goal as with all US Imperial exploits over the last 50 – 75 – 100+ years has been/is demand destruction. Everyone … all the alt media… focuses on resource grabs – the resource curse but that is only half the equation. We live on a finite planet.

Rob – I know you were part of the oil drum way back when…you must remember “Export Land Model”. The concept was that as a resource rich country produced their resources they would use more and more of it to further their own economy until they were no longer exporting. The US could NEVER allow that. We take their resource production but more importantly we make sure they will not be consuming their own resources. Bomb back to the stone age. We have done this a hundred times.

We… the West have done this consistently and aggressively on every continent, all around our 800 military bases placed around the world , for the last century. The US has been the one and only driver of world policy this whole time. We have decide all resource extraction and all environmental destruction parameters involved in that process on the planet for the last century…no other entity has had even a hint of influence. Few if any can accept this reality…many as you say choose to deny it, the vast majority of the population simply do not have the information they would need to form an opinion either way. That is not denial by the way.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 1, 2022 9:15 am

Yes I do remember all that. I still believe that by definition denial means having the information but choosing not to use it or acknowledge it. My position is that the vast majority of people do not have the information they would need to act appropriately.

America in particular and the West in general are perhaps the most lied to population in the world. Our education system has been severely degraded as to be embarrassing.

I used to believe that change was coming and more people would learn the truth, get the information, but the opposite has happened. TPTB can now tell nothing but a steady stream of lies and get away with it as we have just seen with “the pandemic” and now wrt Russia. Try and help someone acquire the information they need and you become the enemy.

People are mostly not in denial, they have had ignorance forced on them without their knowledge.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of people who choose to be ignorant aka in denial too. This is a choice, it is a behavior, and it is my commitment that instead of condemning people for behaving badly I try and understand WHY they behave that way, what is it that elicits this behavior?

I too am looking at and trying to understand overshoot, how we got here, and how we might do it different.

I also agree that we are heading for total collapse from so many angles and we must do something or else but TPTB making the decision that we do not get to have the information to do what is needed and instead we need to be lied to, manipulated, and killed off is straight up evil and wrong.

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 1, 2022 3:40 pm

There is a often repeated quote;

“it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair.

I would say it differently if you want to truly understand the world as it is;

“it is absolutely impossible to get a person to understand something, when their salary and therefor their life and the lives of their loved ones depends 100% on their not understanding it.” – jef.

Cheers for now! jef

Jef Jelten
Jef Jelten
Reply to  Jef Jelten
July 1, 2022 9:00 pm

Please Rob, There is absolutely no one who will verbally agree with me on the fact that people behave badly for a reason. It is a forbidden topic. Everyone disparages everyone for behaving badly but refuse to talk about why. You insist that you and Varki are the only ones who DO know why and you refuse to talk about any other possibilities. That is completely non scientific but I guess thats how the world works now.

I would add to my earlier comment on the Sinclair quote. The other side of that coin;

It is incredibly easy to get someone to do absolutely anything no matter how evil if you offer them vast sums of life changing money. You seem to have “enough” money so you probably can’t understand this.

Shawn
Shawn
June 30, 2022 5:33 am

Hi Rob

Some comments, playing devil’s advocate to your post.

I have now had Delta (Oct 2020) and Omicron (May 2022 exact lineage unknown). I think I can say, in case anyone still has doubts, that this virus is real.

It is also different than influenza or the seasonal flu. I experienced loss of smell with Delta, so this thing got into my brain? Both Delta and Omicron raised my blood pressure a bit which suggest something about its systemic impact? I don’t remember other respiratory viruses doing that. 6 or so years ago I had influenza, I felt sicker with influenza, but recovery was shorter.

Accident or plan? You hint at but don’t directly address whether this virus was released purposely as part of a plan, or whether the virus “naturally” appeared and created a crisis that was used by the elite to impose an economic slowdown? (FYI, Recently I spoke to someone who works at the Gates Foundation, their scientist still think that this virus came from a bat in a wet market. Take that information for what it is worth.)

If this virus was intentionally released, who are we saying was willing to make/take that decision? And on behalf of whose interests specifically?

Fear. One possible explanation for some of the early actions on COVID is that officials feared this virus was much worse than it turned out to be. Case Fatality Rates initially looked to be 5% or so. Perhaps they had inside information about the experimentation in the Wuhan lab, and really believed it might have been released from that lab. They knew the U.S. had funded development work in China. They feared the worst. (Apparently the U.S.A has biolabs elsewhere in the world? Fauci et. al. don’t want those programs disclosed… Is this research for benevolent purposes, or part of military programs and plans?)

Incompetence. Another explanation for many actions is just the incompetence of institutions and government, especially in the U.S.A. They are not good at solving complex problems, and very bad at solving them under pressure of time and economic distress. One specific example, the process used by the FDA and CDC are making decisions on vaccine approvals prone to error and bias. However, even given the general institutional incompetence, I don’t deny a lot of actions seem just flat out wrong given what we know. Now they cannot admit to making mistakes.

Cognitive limits. We humans are not really so smart as we think we are. It can take years for science to come to settled conclusions. Sometimes decades. Here we are trying to do sciences in months, and discussing it real time on twitter etc. Hence, why so many decisions going begging for explanation. Mask work, or don’t? Scientist still disagree? (Why don’t we know for sure after all these years studying respiratory viruses?) Is Dr Geert Vanden Bossche right in his view that vaccines will push the virus to evolve into more lethal forms? Or do unvaccinated people present a greater reservoir for virus mutation. Published consensus science statements don’t support Bossche’s views. (Personally, Bossche makes sense to me. If the current vaccines don’t prevent infection or transmission, then how can some scientists say we must vaccinate to reduce the mutation rate?).

I have a few more thoughts and why and how this COVID thing played out, but out of time today. Maybe will try again tomorrow.

Secretface2097
Secretface2097
June 30, 2022 2:25 am

How does your theorie that Covid is used as a cover for population reduction fit with the ongoing policy to increase the population in countries with high energy consumption (e.g. USA and Western Europe) by immigration?

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Secretface2097
June 30, 2022 5:06 am

Hello Secret one,

Thank you for bringing up this interesting concept. I think there are two separate issues here, and the one you are bringing up relates to first world countries trying to save their sinking economic ship by bringing in new Ponzi scheme candidates in the form of migrants. Given everything that is happening now, this will be a flash in the pan measure to try to assuage internal fears of recession, it’s just like printing money but instead they’re trying to use an influx of people to prop up the decaying facade. Despite this, how many can they import and from where? Mainstream Australia thinks it can support up to 50 million people (currently we are about 25 million) but of course we all know this is an impossibility. To have even several more million of high energy consumption people shift from one first world country to another (or equivalent, as the only migrants we are wanting to attract are the wealthy ones from developing countries who are already hefty consumers and will thus add to our economy) obviously will not solve our population and over consumption problem in any way and may well add to it. We have merely shifted the population distribution an infinitesimal degree but we are still on the same planet. I have never understood how re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic changes anything. Whether a very small minority of people shift from one country to another doesn’t change the fact that we are still 8 billion on the same planet, or am I missing something? I think the long term goal is still squarely on the side of overall population reduction, be it obscured to the masses for the time being, especially in first world, high energy consumption countries where the Covid rollout has been the most egregious. Perhaps this very fact adds weight to the theory that Covid and its repercussions is a Swiss Army knife of a tool, very handy and versatile.

I am wondering how many extra migrants are your country proposing to accept and does your country’s current citizens think this will be a solution to whatever issues at hand?

I, of course, am very grateful that Australia has accepted my husband and me as migrants, and before that, my parents were migrants to the States. We are all nomads on our home planet, a temporary sojourn between infinities.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
June 30, 2022 11:42 pm

Hi there Rob,

There is more than one way to skin a cat, preferably without suffering but what a strange saying nonetheless! I really appreciate that we can come together here from all different backgrounds and mind make-ups to communicate ideas and understand one another. I think you and I (and others here) have very differing “antennae” with which we access and process input but still we can reach quite congruent understandings, but using different lens to come at it from varying perspectives. You are guided by logic and reason and things you can measure and test, and whilst I, too, rely upon these tools, my overlay is a filter of intuition and emotive feeling about the situation. Having the full spectrum of perceptions as we do here in this space is a great strength in our collective pursuit for truth and understanding. The fact that we can usually get our points across as cogently and accurately as we do, and in such a congenial manner despite missing the key element of direct connection and real-time conversation, is a source of great wonder and delight for me–utterly fascinating and satisfying!

I believe I attempted to make some sense of why the push for vaccines on children in a previous post, and it went something along the lines of trying to keep up appearances so that the main narrative stands as long as possible to keep discontent at bay as much a possible so the Great Reset can be put into place as smoothly as possible. Since all other age groups in the population were mandated to have this “safe and effective” wonder therapy, and now when the wheels are obviously falling off the bus but still no-one can comment or change policy otherwise that would turn the tide of public opinion in the direction of malcontent to put it mildly. If they were to single out the ineffectiveness or unnecessariness of the intervention for children, not to mention the risk of harm, that would most likely open up floodgates of provocation in the general public who would be then demanding what the safety assurances were for them. And then the litigation would begin as VAERS and life insurance claims become the goldmine trail of breadcrumbs for damaged and dead parties. This would up-turn the country in the other direction, removing what gains of Mass Formation and control of the people were made in the past 2.5 years. The best policy, even though an utterly unsatisfactory one and possibly reckless, is just to continue BAU, and that has been applied to this case of the vaccines for children. Perhaps the leaders had no inkling how pear-shaped this whole Covid vaccine debacle would end up, but once the decision was made to pursue this policy over the entire western world, there was no other way than forward.

However, the side effects of this spectacularly bad failed intervention (as far as medical therapy goes) still may have some silver lining (as far as the preparation for the Great Reset goes). A sicker population (as well as a deceased one) is easier to control on the main, as one becomes ever more dependent upon the State that provides health care and welfare benefits for treatment and survival. I have touched upon this before as well. The countries can continue to print money to keep up the health and social services as long as possible to keep the social structure going, but the main thing is the beneficiaries are effectively enfeebled not only physically but also in their capacity for active dissent. Just garnering enough energy as someone with long Covid (aka immune collapse) or being completely overwhelmed and burnt out in the care of sick family members will suck all the life force from thinking anything else other than what needs to be done to get through the day. These members of your society will be easy candidates to assimilate into whatever new paradigm is necessary. Therefore, if these vaccines have the possibility of creating dependent citizens through every age group, then that already is an effect that could be used in favour of the agenda, decreased fertility or outright population reduction notwithstanding. This could be another reason the policy to continue recommending boosters, and vaccination of children is still the ascendant for now. Of course, sicker children with weaker immune systems over the course of the next 10-20 years of their child-bearing age, most likely would contribute to decreased fertility, even if the actual repeated inoculations do not have a direct longstanding effect. Once again, whether or not this was an occult by design goal or an unintended but “re-purposed” consequence, it still ticks the boxes for Reset and overshoot mitigation. I think the leaders or rather their superiors have overshoot squarely on their radar, and the economic reset is a stepwise intervention to address it–in this I know you have another opinion and forgive me for being slow on the uptake but can you humor me again to explain why?

I’ll leave this rather loquacious post with a book and/or movie suggestion of my own. Some of the most eye-opening and provoking books are in the children’s or young people’s genre, but seeing as they are written by adults who are interpreting some very deep issues in a manner for formative minds to grasp, I find the truth and possibilities in this literature to have especial power to reach all open minds, and sometimes these stories cut through like a hot knife through butter. This seems the perfect time in our discussion to introduce Lois Lowry’s The Giver which was a Newberry Award winner (highest acclaim for a children’s book), and has been made into a movie in 2014. It paints a utopian/dystopian world post some kind of apocalypse where the remaining humanity lives in a completely behaviour modified society much like Skinner’s Walden Two. Everyone has specific roles, only certain members can breed to keep population in balance, and they are kept isolated from the outside physical environment, very much like Alpert’s vision. The technological advances guarantee every member of this bubble world a convenient and pleasant existence. Every member has to take daily injections to retain their well-being. There are rules for proper speech to convey equality and respect but most of all, to objectively describe feelings rather than abandon oneself to emotionality. The structure has been place for so long that no-one questions anything at all, but everyone knows their lives are so much better than that of the long distant past from which all memories and experiences have been erased from the collective psyche, bar one most esteemed member in the society called the Giver who retains these in the event something happens to the community which needs his/her guidance. Then one day everything starts to unravel. If you have a lazy free afternoon, I highly recommend getting the book and movie out from the local library and just let the implications wash over whilst being thoroughly entranced and very possibly disturbed.

All the best everyone, and welcome to the start of a new month. July, named in honour of Julius Caesar, crosser of the Rubicon, creator of an empire but destroyed by his own hubris. I wonder what lessons are in store for us in this moon cycle?

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 2, 2022 7:19 am

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the invitation to try to explain myself more clearly, could we hold this thought for a few days until I find a window to compose my ideas? I think I did try to expound on this in an earlier post back some time ago about the insidiousness of the influence over every major aspect of Western society, from education, medicine, media, politics, and of course control of money. Suffice it to say for now that I concur you’re getting very warm with the idea that the most obvious main players are the central bank heads, but who is their boss? And then asking that question again? Just because we do not know them by name or face does not preclude existence; we can see how hierarchy works in every sphere. These structures of power do not evolve overnight. I’ve taken a very cursory delve into the history of money and banking and that has been most revealing, methinks the crowning pate of this many-headed hydra has its origin story there, for whosoever controls the money, or even the illusion of money, has the keys of power over the world.

Interestingly, the history of universities and education in general, medicine and medical education, especially in the US, is a walk down a shadowy lane with many of the same banking and business magnates prominent as foundational players. I began my undergraduate degree at one of the most notable institutes (The University of Chicago) founded by one such magnate, a household name of JD Rockefeller, wealthier than Croesus and perhaps more powerful and influential than any king over the scope of his business and philanthropic life. Whilst this esteemed private university was to be his American ideal of the elite European university system, his quote “I don’t want a nation of thinkers; I want a nation of workers” sums up what he thought public education goals should be (he had a guiding hand in compulsory schooling). He also had a great deal of influence in setting up modern medical education as well, and from there we have the underpinnings of the current pharmaco-medical system. What I am trying to say is it only takes a few key players at key times in history to fashion the course of institutions which have power over the masses. It is not a stretch to envision that a few key players keep it going, as ideological descendants of the original masters. Their names and places are not of importance, rather the true power lies in anonymity because from nebulous depths, all things can arise and seem naturally so.

Oh my, I’ve done it again, that is gone on and on in what you all now know is just Gaia’s way. Thanks for bearing with me.

All the best to everyone.

Flipper
Flipper
Reply to  Gaia gardener
July 3, 2022 11:34 pm

All the best everyone, and welcome to the start of a new month.

Congrats on surviving the easy part of 2022 Gaia and all! I hope I’m joking…

Mike Roberts
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 2, 2022 2:03 am

Once someone gets hooked on an idea, it is very difficult to shift them off of that idea and even evidence to the contrary can often not shift them. I’ve seen that in the first couple of years of COVID-19 with the contrarians. In this case, our leaders think that the only way out of the pandemic is to vaccinate everyone and keep vaccinating them until the virus is beaten to death. Of course, this will never happen but they have now embarked on this road and, if there is one thing our politicians do well it is not admitting they were wrong. Not vaccinating young children would be admitting they were wrong. They are hoping against hope that eventually new formulations of the vaccines will be the final straw for the virus but, in the meantime, they have to keep up the pretence. As the vaccines don’t appear to be too harmful (I know some here doubt that) our leaders can’t see much of a downside to maintaining the message.

Adam
Adam
Reply to  Mike Roberts
July 2, 2022 5:04 am

These jabs offer only risk for my cohort.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
June 29, 2022 10:49 pm

Hi Rob and friends on this brand new page, getting further and further stuck into the Story of Humanity that we are all writing together. May we see it out until the end of this exciting chapter, at least!

Following this discussion these past few months has been a lifeline for my well-being and especially knowing that others share my thoughts, or at least can understand and respond to them, has certainly made this a less lonely and desperate time.
Thank you, everyone, for finding your way to this oasis in the desert and sharing around the warming campfire as we ponder these days of wonder.

Rob, you know that I have been thinking exactly on these lines since the first I reached out like a timid wallflower to you and you encouraged me to share my thoughts through posts (hah! you didn’t realize then what you unleashed, did you!). You have the skill to distil all the salient points in the most logical manner which is so edifying and satisfying. I concur with all the stepping stones leading to the resolution theory–through all the twists and turns of this saga, it still makes the most logical sense that there is one overarching aim to one overarching issue at hand. However, despite knowing in my heart of hearts and mind of minds that this must be so, I feel no great joy, but neither sadness, in the conclusion, only an overwhelming sigh of resolution and gathering of resolve for the coming days. It must be what it will be, and just as surely as we have written each page, we must endure and accept the finale.

I completely trust that you have the utmost intention to reduce suffering for all who can suffer, and that you have the highest reverence and awe for life and the architecture of our cosmos, but I think you will find few fellow earthling hominids who will be able to see the view of surreptitiously engineered infertility to be a cause for approbation. I have wrestled with this idea for many months now and for me the only solace comes from hoping to believe that this is the more compassionate way forward, as well as the only clear path remaining to us in the time we have yet to able to choose one. We being those who can effect change and carry them out as agency and advocates for the masses whom they have been entrusted to have dominion. Suffering is in their final analysis, but survival is paramount. I will never forget the words of a top Chinese party official many years ago that awakened me to leaders’ great responsibility and sacrifice. It went something like this: “We have over one billion people to try to feed, house, clothe, to keep society stable–you in America only have 1/4 of that. We have to use the tools we have (communism) to keep society going in the way we can to mitigate suffering for the majority. In our country, the individual doesn’t exist and cannot, except as a part of the whole which is the only thing that must be preserved at all costs. We don’t have the luxury of democracy and freedom as you think you have, so we don’t pretend as you do to even try. ” For an earth as diverse in resources and population as we have now, 8 billion human bodies all one meal shy from hunger, several more from chaos, with multitudes already starving, a totalitarian regime seems the only solution to accomplish what needs to be done to change the course of our biosphere. That is why I have never thought our leaders or even the entity pulling their strings are evil, they are only obeying, as we all are, the ultimate law of this universe which is to exist and continue to do so, matter into energy, stardust to stardust, worlds without end.

Go well everyone, and looking forward to as always robust discussion on this new post!

PS Almost on cue, a couple days ago I read about Virtual Children being part of our answer to overpopulation, with technology by 2050 allowing for “parents” to haptically being able to interact with their child in the metaverse. For those who wish to skip the terrible twos or the teenage years, no problems, just program everything and enjoy the perfect child minus any upkeep costs! I suppose this will be the solution for those unable to have their own physical child (for any and every reason) to have the opportunity at parenthood.

Bev
Bev
June 29, 2022 8:10 pm

“Jack’s idea is to vaccinate everyone on the planet with a genetically engineered substance that causes sterility and that can be reversed with an antidote.”

Except that you’d only have to vaccinate future and current breeders. For those past breeding age it would be a waste of time and resources, BUT, if you also introduced a novel engineered virus that would take care of the elderly and those with co-morbidities (the rest of us), AND a dangerous vaccine for them, you’d be home and dry. You don’t need a suite of evil, stupid leaders onside, just those who see an opportunity to increase their power (most of them). It only needs a few evil people to engineer all of it and there’s no shortage of them. Getting BigPharma onside will be a doddle, given the dollar signs in their eyes. Covid and the vaccines was a first shot…they’ve learned a lot from it. I’m waiting for Round 2.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
June 29, 2022 11:23 pm

The older and weaker population has already begun its truncation, by all forms of attrition natural or otherwise encouraged. I am most definitely of the opinion that the vaccine policy has increased the death rate of this cohort and the effects will be cumulative. Even the middle aged sector is heading towards decline. In 20 years, I think most of us here will not be logging in anymore, and that is being optimistic. Increasing the death rate in the older population will happen regardless of any extra intervention now, so there’s no need to belabour that cohort, but it makes sense to keep printing money to support them through their latest years to retain some semblance of the State taking care of its people, this will help keep society more stable during these tricky transition years.

Reducing the birth rate is the critical arm in this equation to get the population down as quickly as practicable, and as we have already covered in earlier posts, the only way to do this en masse in countries not already under near totalitarian rule such as China, is to effect decreased fertility involuntarily but surreptitiously, but it must still retain the possibility that it occurred by natural means. I think we have identified one such intervention to this possible strategy, which is why there is such a push to vaccinate even babies now in some Western countries, notably the ones of the Commonwealth and of course the US. In 10-20 years time, if infertile men and women account for a great portion of the breeding aged population, then the goal of long term and last reduction will be accomplished. Interestingly, the Scandinavian countries have curtailed their child vaccination campaigns, take this where you will.

Gaia gardener
Gaia gardener
Reply to  Gaia gardener
June 30, 2022 4:21 am

Hi Rob,
I just wanted to add/clarify a few points to what I wrote earlier. Your hypothesis that the Covid Chronicles are a prerequisite to our engineered economic collapse is still the most salient and the agenda to push unnecessary and potentially harmful inoculations upon children doesn’t preclude it at all, but it can be seen as an adjunct policy to address the other major overshoot branch that needs literal pruning, that of our population.

Both contracting our economy and reducing our population are equally vital in attempting to mitigate our energy overshoot woes, two sides of the same coin. What you have outlined has now fleshed out the plan more completely, whether or not it will be followed to Alpert’s full conclusion, it is still the foundation stone for the Great Reset. So I just wanted to stress that you needn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. The most immediate problem is still runaway economic collapse which would lead to societal stability free-fall. Covid has certainly erected the scaffolding from which to build our technocratic, digitalized, and authoritarian new world order. The inoculations for the entire age range, are deemed to be a critical component of this agenda, whether it be as a vehicle for the expedient Mass Formation by creating internal irreconcilable factions, a biological means for increasing morbidity and mortality across the board and also affecting future fertility, or even as a test case of how the masses respond to authoritarian policy in order to refine the control techniques needed for future even more draconian measures. I think everything still fits well into the biggest picture, we only need to step back a bit more to appreciate the scale and scope of the task underway.

Thank you for being brave and honest to put it out here as you see it with all due diligence thoroughly accounted for. That takes a lot of courage and conviction which I know we all appreciate and I for one can draw much encouragement from.

monk
June 29, 2022 7:54 pm

Neither of these two theories explains the push for boosters though.
I personally don’t think there is anything nefarious about the vaccines. They seem to be protective to higher risk people. There’s the usual big pharma being corrupt stuff which I think is pretty factual (hiding the side-effects etc.). There’s a sheep mentality in health care and academia, every organization and country just copies the one above it. Epidemiologists got carried away for their 20 seconds of fame.
However, there seems to be good evidence showing the covid controls in China are being used to control dissent and protesting.

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 3, 2022 4:37 pm

Why the need to keep boosting people though?

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 4, 2022 6:46 pm

If the plan was to use vaccines to create a digital passport, why is there a push for booster vaccines? You already collected the people with the initial vaccine…

monk
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 5, 2022 1:30 pm

A cafe that I love recently shut down. It was owned by a young woman. I wonder how many young businesses were lost during the shutdowns, all so someone’s ancient granny can eke out another turn around the sun.
The boosters are so BS.
I never used the get the flu vaccine for much of the reasons you’ve just laid out.
I think the kicker for me was when they said the covid vaccine was safe for pregnant women, with absolutely no evidence to back up that claim. It was just said from a position of authority and people believed it 🙁

nina
nina
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 10, 2022 5:57 pm

Rob–Our leaders don’t have to be stupid or evil. All they have to be is greedy. Pushing highly questionable vaccines on kids expands the market–which is all the motivation Big Pharma needs.

Nina
Nina
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
July 11, 2022 11:54 am

Rob Mielcarski–it would be hard to find a global system more hierarchical than the medical system. I think you and many others are underestimating the level of control that Big Pharma–along with their political allies at the WHO, the CDC and the FDA–exercise over this system, especially when it comes to dealing with a novel, highly contagious and potentially lethal virus. People freak out, and small-time hospitals, researchers, health-care professionals–even doctors–are granted scant leeway when it comes to treatment options (witness the Ivermectin debacle). And the media who (have you noticed?) are now bought and sold across the board, fall quickly in line. So when it comes to ascribing motivation for response to emergencies, it’s always a good idea to start with the fail-safe idea that underlies almost all human actions: Follow the Money.

Nina
Nina
Reply to  Nina
July 11, 2022 1:39 pm

Rob Mielcarski–in your LONG list of things that don’t add up about this virus, you include “ignoring 50 years of knowledge and discounting the risk of promoting vaccine resistant and/or more virulent strains by vaccinating in the middle of a pandemic with a non-sterilizing vaccine.”

Why didn’t more evolutionary virologists warn us about this obvious risk? Some tried, but were shouted down. https://www.quantamagazine.org/vaccines-are-pushing-pathogens-to-evolve-20180510/

So now the chickens are coming home to roost. Some of us–a few anyway, who were also loudly shouted down– were RIGHT when we objected to the wide-spread use of “leaky” vaccines. Unlike the “sterilizing” vaccines for smallpox and polio which prevent both infection and transmission, leaky vaccines like the ones rolled out so quickly for covid PROMOTE the rise and spread of mutations. And researchers have known this for some time, as you point out.

Unsurprisingly, this is just like overuse of antibiotics promoting the rise and spread of bacterial mutations that are antibiotic-resistant. Thus, making a bad situation worse. https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-india-united-states-e461b0c0db39707aab884378c24292ae

Remember back to the start of the pandemic in 2020 when the authorities were quick to reassure us that SARS-CoV-2 was a slow-mutating virus? Well, somehow, a couple of years down the road that turned out to be wrong. Or else a slow-mutating virus has gotten turned into a fast-mutating one. Or else, viruses are NOT static entities and in general respond to and evolve in tandem with their hosts.

What’s happening now is a proliferation of vaccine-evasive variants, each more transmissible than the last. Meanwhile, our masters at Big Pharma and their political and media allies keep urging us to just trust our betters and take more vaccines/boosters–which inevitably results in more vaccine-evasive variants, but more ginormous profits for them. And if a few million humans are hastened towards their deaths in the process….well, so much the better.

Huh. Come to think of it, this futile battle with Natural Selection mirrors the larger wetiko effort to dominate Nature in general. You’d think that any non-hijacked, truly sapient species would look up and notice at some point that it’s in a hole, and just stop digging.

Anonymous
Anonymous
Reply to  Rob Mielcarski
June 19, 2024 10:17 pm

They did as they were told and didn’t question….I was set to lose my job until the SCOTUS stopped it.

monk
June 29, 2022 7:10 pm

New Zealand Police used sound weapons on the anti-vaccine-mandate protestors at NZ Parliament. Are they practising and prepared for the coming inflation/energy riots? I really don’t like it when conspiracy theories become fact 🙁

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/revealed-police-used-sound-cannons-against-parliament-protesters/PIBFZEHRIOEADS7SK4Y4SWM464/

And for all you international folks saying you wish Jacinda was your leader, well you can have her.

Sam Mitchell
June 29, 2022 6:52 pm

I honestly do not know if you are joking, Rob, but I agree: Go, Jack, go!! I interviewed Jack for Collapse Chronicles and I am sorry to report that nothing of the sort ever left his mouth during our hour together. Maybe I just did not ask the right questions.