Category: Denial

Water is flowing uphill. Why?

El gato malo does more intelligent analysis in a week than the idiots in our governments do in a year.

Today’s analysis suggests Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche was correct in predicting that applying a leaky vaccine effective at preventing sickness in the middle of a pandemic was a very bad idea.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/are-leaky-vaccines-driving-delta

all a virus wants is to replicate. “make a copy of me and pass it on.” that’s the biological imperative of the selfish gene. excel at it, you win. fail, you disappear. simple as that.

killing or harming the host is maladaptive to viral spread. it’s like burning down your own house with your car in the garage. now you have nowhere to live and no way to get around. that’s not a recipe for reproductive fitness.

so viruses evolve to become less, not more virulent. they do not want to kill you. ideally, they’d like to help you. figure out how to be a useful symbiote, and you get a huge boost in propagation. (mitochondria were probably bacteria that were so useful, all our cells incorporated them.)

so seeing case fatality rate (CFR) rise in a variant of a virus is like watching water flow uphill. it’s not supposed to do that and when it does, you need to suspect some external force acting on it.

and we’re seeing water flow uphill here.

Key points:

  • Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is rising for Delta and is probably not caused by Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) or Original Antigenic Sin (OAS) because CFR is rising in both vaccinated and unvaccinated, and is not rising in previously infected, and Vaccine Efficacy (VE) for deaths remains good.
  • The most probable explanation is Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) in which a leaky vaccine that keeps the host healthy causes the virus to evolve to a more deadly variant.
  • Vaccine Efficacy (VE) on spread is negative (bad) because infected people don’t know they’re infected which accelerates spread.
  • Everyone is harmed but unvaccinated are worse off creating the illusion that the vaccines are a good idea.

it’s just simple math. if we do something to one group that makes their death rate rise from 1 to 2 per 100 but that also makes the death rate in another group rise from 1 to 4 per 100, that looks like a VE of 50%. in reality, it’s killing 100% more vaxxed people and 300% more of the unvaxxed.

mistaking that gas pedal for the brake and pushing ever harder when you fail to slow would represent an accelerating disaster curve.

I like that el gato malo seeks to prove himself wrong. That’s a strong signal for someone with integrity and intelligence that we should trust.

it’s still, or course, possible that i’m wrong, but this is looking more and more like it has to be the answer. i can find nothing else fits the facts and the facts themselves are weird enough that “it’s just normal” does not look like a satisfying explanation either and we have enough features here that we can really start testing our puzzle pieces. this one aligns in an AWFUL lot of places.

for something this odd to happen, it takes a truly uncommon exogenous stressor.

i’m just not seeing what else it could be than vaccine mediated selection for hotter variants driving pernicious delta evolution.

so, i’m putting this out to you all to see if you can find some other explanation for what’s going on that fits these facts.

looking forward to the peer review as, honestly, i hope i’m wrong here. this is not an outcome that anyone wants. it’s the nightmare scenario both as a pandemic and as a political horror in the making as if this was an “own-goal”, what would the experts and politicians that pushed this plan not be willing to do to avoid accepting the blame?

because this is career or pharma franchise polonium, and that’s if you’re lucky.

I also very much like that el gato malo does not subscribe to crazy conspiracies that lack evidence. I would of course augment el gato malo’s explanation by including an element of genetic reality denial in our leaders.

“But what is the end game if purposefully designed this way?”

i don’t think it was. i think these fools really thought mRNA and adenovirus carrier vaccines would be sterilizing.

they pushed them as herd immunity.

having it all fall apart cornered them but by the time they knew it, they were “pot committed” and had already vaxxed 100’s of millions of people.

this has been this shiny tech they have been trying to make work (and recoup money on) for decades and failing over and over.

i doubt this was deliberate. it was just stunningly arrogant and reckless.

So now the million dollar question:

Assuming a better explanation does not emerge, what should an unvaccinated person do?

Prioritizing self-preservation this analysis suggests one should either:

  • get vaccinated, or
  • acquire natural immunity by deliberately getting infected before the variants become more deadly, and apply early treatment protocols to maximize the probability of a successful recovery.

Choosing to get vaccinated makes the most sense if:

  • you are in a high risk group (old or obese)
  • you do not care about worsening the overall outcome for both vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Choosing natural immunity makes the most sense if:

  • you are in a low risk group
  • you are concerned about the yet to be established long term health effects of the novel vaccines
  • you want to be a good citizen and do what is best for everyone.

I’m old but not obese which makes the choice difficult.

I’m going to watch the data and hope for a better explanation to emerge for a while longer before making a decision.

You can’t make this shit up: observe that our “leaders” are pushing hard in exactly the opposite direction of what wise leaders would do if this VME hypothesis is correct:

  • stop further vaccination of low risk people
  • start collecting the data necessary to prove or disprove this hypothesis
  • promote healthy immune systems (vitamin D, weight loss, etc.)
  • aggressively evaluate and deploy promising early treatment protocols (Ivermectin etc.)
  • aggressively investigate root causes and modify policies to prevent a recurrence.

One more observation to make you admire our “leaders” even less:

the same NIH that was funding the GoF research in wuhan miraculously had the viral code to drop into the moderna mRNA vaccine in under 2 weeks.

that always smelled like a sushi bar dumpster.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/were-some-folks-a-little-too-prepared

17-Oct-2021 Addition

In a paper today, Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche argues that boosters will probably boost the virulence of Delta rather than long term protection from severe disease.

Israel is misreading their booster results by only tracking booster effectiveness for 12 days.

https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/what-happens-if-israel-fails-the-stress-test

17-Oct-2021 Addition

El gato malo reviewed new UK data today which supports his Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) hypothesis.

Rate of cases down 30% from a year ago. CFR up 3x since June.

getting 50% protection from a tripling in virulence caused by the vaccines is still a net loser for the vaccinated. and it’s savage for the unvaccinated. everyone loses. and this evolution is ongoing.

establishing what is going on here should be the all hands on deck mission of global public health right now.

none of us want to be living in the world where we leaky-vaxxed ourselves into a second pandemic by reversing the evolution of one that was about to go endemic and harmless.

that’s a terrible place to be.

but if that IS where we are, we need to know, and we need to know right now.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/is-this-the-smoking-gun-for-leaky

I keep searching for a rational reason for the obsession with 100% vaccination, other than assuming every health official in every country of the world is corrupt, because that seems improbable.

What if they’re aware of the Vaccine Mediated Evolution (VME) trend and know that their mistake of vaccinating more than the high risk with a leaky vaccine will kill many more unvaccinated than vaccinated?

They can’t disclose the real reason for the push for 100% because they would lose their credibility and jobs.

This would also explain why they’re so willing to accept possible long term vaccine side effects in low risk children.

It’s analogous to continuing to print money long after it no longer provides a net benefit, because you know if you stop many will be harmed on your watch, and if you continue, many more may be harmed in the future, but it will be on someone else’s watch, and maybe someone will think of something by then.

21-Oct-2021 Addition

A fresh, intelligent, clean sheet, big picture review of vaccine efficacy vs. risk. I remain impressed with el gato malo’s productivity and clarity of thought.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/properly-measuring-vaccine-efficacy

– measuring vaccine efficacy as % reduction in likelihood of severe outcomes can be misleading

– we must also measure absolute risk reduction. 50% drop from 20% risk is very different from 50% drop on 0.2% risk

– vaccines seem to show % efficacy in reducing hospitalization and death

– but for the young, healthy, and recovered, risk was already so low that the absolute drop does not look like good risk/reward vs side effect profile of the vaccines

– vaccines do not provide sterilizing protection against spread and seem to make it worse. there is no case to be made for societal obligation to vaccinate to protect others.

– mandating vaccination rather than allowing personal choice based on individual circumstance will inflict net harm on a great many people

– that’s immoral and represents medical malpractice

book review by AJ: Our One and Only Spaceship: Denial, Delusion and the Population Crisis by Eric Pianka & Laurie Vitt (2019)

Thanks to AJ for contributing this book review.

https://oneandonlyspaceship.com/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/our-one-and-only-spaceship-eric-pianka/1133496721?ean=9781733030533

Publisher’s Summary

Ecologists Eric R. Pianka (University of Texas) and Laurie J. Vitt (University of Oklahoma) provide a scientific summary of the overpopulation crisis facing humanity and itemize its many consequences, including climate change (global warming), conservation biology, economic systems, energy and resource shortages, human instincts, immigration conflicts, politics, pollution, poverty, technological problems, and solutions needed. Their underlying thesis is that denial and delusion work synergistically to undermine our ability to confront these serious issues, and unless we undertake proactive measures now, overpopulation and its impact on resource competition and climate change will ultimately lead to the collapse of civilization.

Authors’ Overview

In Road to Survival 70 years ago, William Vogt tried to call attention to the human overpopulation crisis, but failed. Paul Ehrlich raised this issue again 20 years later but was also widely ignored. We wish to re-open this long overdue and much needed discussion about population, a toxic topic that politicians globally avoid. We have written a book “Our One and Only Spaceship:Denial, Delusion and the Population Crisis.” We are two well-known ecologists Eric R. Pianka (University of Texas) and Laurie J. Vitt (University of Oklahoma).

Our book is based on a great deal of research that we have conducted into the topic and on a course that Pianka taught. http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/

We have edited and written books together, both scientific and semi-popular. Using fact-based analyses, we make the case that human population size and growth is the greatest threat to human survival, and that most if not every major global problem (including spread of AIDS and other communicable diseases, wars and other conflicts, climate change and in particular global warming, food water and energy shortages, poverty, political unrest, pollution, extinctions, etc.) are all direct results of overpopulation. Our birth rate far exceeds our death rate and the current global population of 7.7 billion in itself is unsustainable even without additional growth. This has put us on a collision course with disaster. It is perilous to remain in denial about all of the threats emanating from overpopulation.

As we become ever more and more desperate in trying to provide resources necessary to meet critical demands, our environmental problems will only worsen as we continue to deregulate thus allowing increased exploitation of dwindling natural resources. The thin skin of life on our planet is seriously threatened by the actions of a single species, Homo sapiens. Remarkably, even with our putative high intelligence, we don’t seem to be able to even admit that the problem is population such that discussions can begin on how to stop population growth. One thing is certain, it must and will stop—either we can do it through a series of logical steps (educating the public, coming up with a global plan, implementing the plan), or it will occur as the result of a combination of wars over resources, spread of infectious disease, or even famine. Such a discussion will have a greater impact on human survival than any of the many news stories currently dominating our media.

Overpopulation has only one outcome, and we have all seen it when mold takes over an orange—unlike mold growing on an orange, we do not have another “orange” to which we can send our offspring (There is no planet B). We are fully aware that discussions on population are “politically incorrect” and will be extremely sensitive to many people (especially religious groups) who take up arms in response to any discussion to limit reproduction. The ultimate biological reason for this response is simply that our genes control much of what we do, and reproduction is the currency of future generations. A more proximate reason is simply that our hormonal systems kick in when we reach puberty and all reason is washed away in the maelstrom of hormonal activity pushing us to reproduce. We must do something — ignoring our pressing problem and expecting it to go away is like hoping in vain to win the mega-lottery.

AJ’s Review

This is my brief review of the book, “Our One and Only Spaceship” subtitled “Denial, Delusion and the Population Crisis” written by Drs. Eric Pianka and Laurie Vitt. Copyright 2019.

I came across this book through one of the comments on your website. Since it was one of the few books that concerned population (in the title) I decided to buy it and read it.

The authors are ecologists. Dr. Eric Pianka is a Professor at UT Austin and Dr. Laurie Vitt is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. The forward was by Paul & Anne Ehrlich.

I overall liked the book. My feeling is that it is somewhat like Tom Murphy’s book and was intended for an intro college course in ecology/sustainability (without the math). That said I never had the impression that the authors were talking down to the reader.

There is some hope in this book. “This generation will be the last with decision-making powers to save our spaceship for all future earth-lings, including human beings.” But as the authors state in the Prologue, “The problem can be easily framed in three words, population, population, and population.” Human civilization is in overshoot and that we in the west are living far beyond the carrying capacity of the planet is covered in detail. So, the problem is both overshoot and population.  

There is an acknowledgement that denial and optimism bias are part of our problem. But, I think that the authors are also in a little denial, “If humans are to survive into the next century, we need to reduce population growth, convert to renewable energy sources, use much less energy overall, and develop a plan for the future this is based on fact and not on fiction.” Their opinion is that we can maintain much of our technology (through “green” tech transition) and slowly reduce population with education and enlightenment. I don’t know if they really believe this or like Tom Murphy need to give students something positive to live for in the face of a depressing predicament.

Don’t get me wrong. This book touched all the right notes and I only disagreed with a tiny bit of it. I thought that the preface/into to the last chapter was perhaps the best quote I have seen on our place in the universe (other than Rob’s quote):

“Man did not have forever to harness the forces of the sun and stars. The Sun was an elderly light, long past the turbulent heat of youth, and would some day join the senile class of once-luminiferous bodies. In some incredibly remote time a chance collision might blow it up again into incandescent gas and start a new local cosmic cycle, but of man there would be no trace. In Balfours’s terms, he “will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. ‘Imperishable monuments’ and ‘immortal deeds,’ death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. Nor will anything that IS be better or worse for all that labour, genius, devotion and suffering of man have striven through countless generation to effect.” –Homer Smith (1952) “Man and His Gods” and Earl Balfour (1895) “Foundations of Belief”

Eric Pianka on Kurt Vonnegut‘s Requiem:

From a presentation by Eric Pianka:

https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/eric-r.-pianka-human-population-growth.jpg
https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/eric-r.-pianka-green-new-deal.jpg

Click to access eric-r.-pianka-overpopulation.pdf

Descending Into Madness

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

I expect something will snap soon in a bad way.

Symptoms I see include:

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

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

MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL

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

Totalitarianism is the greatest threat.

Reality Blind by Nate Hagens and DJ White

Nate Hagens has published a new book on the predicament that fossil energy consumption and depletion, and our denial of this reality, have created for life on this planet.

A skim suggests the book will be excellent and I hope to write a review after reading it.

I observe there is no mention of Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory which is sad because MORT provides an evolutionary foundation for the denial that Nate discusses, and explains why only one species has emerged with the intelligence to exploit fossil energy.

Denial of our genetic tendency to deny reality is apparently the strongest form of denial, even among the few of us that are aware of the human predicament.

You can read Nate’s book for free and purchase a copy here:

https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/i/

Click to access reality-blind-by-nate-hagens-and-dj-white-2021.pdf

In case you missed it, this year’s annual Earth Day talk by Nate is on the same topic and is a masterpiece.

Denial with Cortical Columns

I just finished the new book by Jeff Hawkins titled “A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence”.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41OZTG+1b3L.SX321_BO1,204,203,200.jpg

A bestselling author, neuroscientist, and computer engineer unveils a theory of intelligence that will revolutionize our understanding of the brain and the future of AI. 

For all of neuroscience’s advances, we’ve made little progress on its biggest question: How do simple cells in the brain create intelligence? 

Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses maplike structures to build a model of the world-not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know. This discovery allows Hawkins to answer important questions about how we perceive the world, why we have a sense of self, and the origin of high-level thought. 

A Thousand Brains heralds a revolution in the understanding of intelligence. It is a big-think book, in every sense of the word.

I’ve followed Hawkins for many years and he’s one of my favorite neuroscience researchers. He started as an electrical engineer and created in 1996 the groundbreaking handheld PalmPilot (which I owned 🙂 ), and then switched careers to his passion of figuring out how the brain works.

In his book he proposes a new theoretical framework for how intelligence works. I think he’s on to something important. So does Richard Dawkins who wrote the forward and compares the book to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

I see an opportunity to build on Hawkins’ intelligence framework to push Varki’s MORT theory forward by refining why and what we deny, and how denial is implemented in the brain. Some of my still rough ideas are presented at the end of this essay.

There’s a second aspect of Hawkins’ book that is also interesting.

After presenting his new theory on intelligence, Hawkins spends the last half of the book explaining how our old brain behaviors and false beliefs (aka denial) threaten the survival of our species, and he proposes several ways we might avoid these threats.

He’s clearly worried and knows we are in trouble.

Yet when discussing the threats to our species he is blind to the biggest, imminent, and certain threat we face: fossil energy depletion. Hawkins, like most polymaths, can’t see that the technology he loves, was created by, and totally depends on, rapidly depleting non-renewable resources.

So we have a world expert on how and why our brain creates false beliefs, that can’t see his own false beliefs.

We could ask for no better evidence that MORT is true! 

But wait, there’s more.

In the last chapters Hawkins obsesses over inventing a lasting means for our species to signal to other life in the universe that human intelligence once existed. As I was reading this I kept thinking, what the hell are you going on about? The odds are extremely low that other intelligent life will ever see our signaling satellites, and who the hell cares if they do? Then a light went on. His signal is a high tech version of an Egyptian pyramid, and is his brain’s mechanism for denying death.

So how could it get any better?

  • a well written enjoyable book
  • with an important new theory
  • on the most interesting aspect of a unique species
  • that may push forward Varki’s MORT theory on why we exist
  • by a brilliant polymath
  • that is blinded by the same denial that created his species

Following is a brief recapitulation of Hawkins’ cortical column framework for intelligence integrated with my musings on how it might be used to clarify and focus Varki’s MORT theory.

This hypothesis will be revised, possibly substantially, after I complete a 2nd more careful reading of Hawkins’ book and published papers, which I’ve just started. I’m also hoping to incorporate criticism from Dr. Varki which may improve or kill my ideas.

Downvoting the Cortical Column Death Model to Breach the Extended Theory of Mind Barrier

Version 1.2, April 17, 2021

Note: For the sake of brevity, every occurrence of “not die” should be read as “not die until viable offspring are produced”.

  • Genes evolve and collaborate to create bodies.
  • Bodies exist to replicate genes.
  • A body must not die to achieve its purpose of replicating genes.
  • The brain exists to help the body by choosing the best action to not die for a given set of sensory inputs.
  • The old brain uses simple static models to directly cause actions to not die.
  • The neocortex uses more complex learned models to indirectly cause actions to not die by requesting the old brain to execute actions.
  • Learning is moving: the neocortex learns by moving senses around the subject to create (up to about 1000) reference frame models.
  • Thinking is moving: concepts without physical form, like mathematics, are learned by moving between models to create new reference frame models.
  • Models have redundancy which makes knowledge more resilient and repurposable.
  • Models are stored in cortical columns.
  • The neocortex is composed of many nearly identical cortical columns.
  • Senses (and outputs from other models) are evaluated for matches by models.
  • Models collaborate by voting to decide our conscious reality.
  • The agreed reality is used by other models to select the best action to not die.
  • Evolution increases the number of cortical columns in species that benefit from more intelligence to not die.
  • Social species have the most cortical columns because modeling social relationships is hard.
  • The human neocortex has about 150,000 cortical columns.
  • There are two important thresholds on the continuum of increasing social intelligence.
  • “Theory of mind” is the threshold where a brain learns a model of another brain, and that model includes an understanding that the other brain can die.
  • “Extended theory of mind” is the threshold where a brain learns that its model of another brain also models itself, and that it can also die.
  • The extended theory of mind threshold may be difficult for evolution to cross, because it has happened only once on this planet.
  • A model that predicts possible death from injury and certain death from old age results in fewer actions to not die.
  • Fewer actions to not die is called depression.
  • Genes for an extended theory of mind thus do not persist.
  • To break through the barrier, evolution requires a mechanism to prevent the learned death model from evaluating true.
  • A mechanism consistent with the archeological record was to learn a model for life after death (aka God) which downvotes the death model thus continuing the actions to not die.

Modern Implications of the Death Model

  • Climate change acceptance combined with the common false belief that renewable energy can replace depleting non-renewable fossil energy, and the common false belief that technology can remove sufficient CO2 from the atmosphere, does not trigger the death model, and the false beliefs cause our species to take actions that worsen our overshoot predicament.
  • Awareness of human overshoot and its implications are present in less than 0.01% of humans, including most highly educated polymaths, because it triggers the death model. Most people deny overshoot with false beliefs that non-renewable resources are abundant.

Crash Course Crash: On Making a Living from Overshoot Education

Chris Martenson yesterday unveiled what has been going on behind the scenes at Peak Prosperity.

Major Announcement To The Community

I salute Martenson’s honesty for explaining how difficult it has been to make a living from overshoot education.

As an aside, I don’t think he’s aware of it, but the reason it’s so hard to teach overshoot is explained by Varki’s MORT theory.

It seems there were 3 key problems at Peak Prosperity:

  • insufficient revenue from selling overshoot education;
  • one partner who wanted to focus on science based journalism, and one partner who wanted to focus on how to profit from the coming economic collapse;
  • a threat to revenue from YouTube’s censorship of Martenson’s excellent science based COVID-19 journalism.

Martenson shared something that troubles me (even more than I already was) about out future:

I created the Crash Course in 2008 because it didn’t exist. I’m proud of all that the Crash Course has accomplished – without it Peak Prosperity would never have come into being – and while it represents some of the best work of my life (so far), if it didn’t already exist I would not invest the time to create the Crash Course today.

Why not? Because the world has changed and I don’t think it would be even slightly receptive to that material now. The Crash Course had a huge impact in 2008. My assessment is that today it would fall flat and gain little traction. The programming against critical thinking and independent thought is too pervasive and successful. In brief, from my perspective, the world has gone a bit mad. It’s lost its grip on reality.

In case you aren’t aware of it, Martenson’s Crash Course is the best introduction to our overshoot predicament available anywhere. It was instrumental on my personal journey to awareness, and I thank Martenson for his excellent work.

There are two dimensions to his statement that trouble me.

First, Martenson is saying that citizens today are less interested in understanding reality than they were 10 years ago. It’s a concern because to reduce future suffering we need the overshoot awareness trend to be increasing rather than decreasing. The more we grow our population, deplete critical resources, degrade ecosystems, and inflate our debt bubble, the greater the eventual suffering we will experience. By denying an unpleasant reality we are making the eventual reality more unpleasant.

Although I think I understand the underlying reason for this trend, which is that our genetic tendency to deny reality is proportional to the unpleasantness of the reality, and our predicament today is much much worse than it was 10 years ago, it still deeply troubles me.

Second, Martenson is saying that if he were to start Peak Prosperity today he would not invest the time to create the Crash Course because insufficient people would pay for it.

Martenson is one of only two individuals out of eight billion (the other being Nate Hagens) that has taken the time to create a high quality video course on everything every citizen should understand to be a good citizen.

And he says he wouldn’t do it again because no one would watch it.

What else is there to say than WASF.

Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche on Vaccination Policy Risks

At the end of this post I will add periodic updates on the case trend in Israel so that we can determine whether Bossche’s claims are likely true or false.

Synopsis

Geert Vanden Bossche, a vaccine expert with 3o years experience, thinks our vaccination policy has a high probability of causing the virus to mutate into variants that cause more serious illness, and that people who have been vaccinated will spread the virus rather than protecting those that have not been vaccinated, and that the immune systems of vaccinated people will be less effective at fighting future variants of the virus.

Bossche believes we are on the cusp of creating a global catastrophe and is asking the WHO to change course, and is calling on other scientists to engage in scientific review and debate of the risks.

Background

Thanks to Nehemiah @ OFW for bringing Bossche to my attention.

I posted some of this material in the comments section of the last post, but after further review and thought, I decided it’s important enough to warrant its own post.

My initial reaction was to dismiss Bossche as yet another wack job / conspiracist / anti-vaxxer / pandemic denier. After reviewing Bossche’s credentials and thinking carefully about what he’s saying I concluded his concerns are worthy of consideration and may prove to be serious.

His message is a little difficult to understand because the topic is inherently complex, is not intuitive without some understanding of biology, and he speaks fast with an accent.

My objective of this post was to make it easier to understand Bossche’s key points, and to make all of his source information easily accessible.

In case any readers are wondering why I am distrustful of the authorities, it is because the biggest issue by far that we face, the danger of which far exceeds the virus, is human overshoot, the symptoms of which are climate change, non-renewable resource depletion, unsustainable debt, habitat destruction, and species extinction, which is completely ignored by our leaders, and the policies they have chosen are making much worse the future suffering that will be experienced when it is no longer possible to deny human overshoot. If our leaders don’t have a clue about the important issues, why would we trust them on lesser issues?

Summary

Here are the key points I think Bossche is making.

Note: If I have made any errors in summarizing Bossche I will promptly correct them when informed.

  • What is the big picture background?
    • We are conducting an unprecedented global experiment by broadly administering a vaccine in the middle of a pandemic, while having an imperfect understanding of pandemic science.
    • For example, we do not understand why pandemics usually have 3 waves before dying out. Or why pandemics often first attack old people and then shift to younger people in subsequent waves.
    • Given our imperfect understanding, our priority should be to do no harm.
    • Experts today are so specialized that very few have an integrated big picture view.
    • Our culture today is fixated on technology as being the solution to all of our problems.
  • Do our officials and experts have any bad intentions?
    • No.
    • The vaccines were developed by brilliant people in professional companies, have been properly tested for safety, and achieve the objective of preventing people from becoming sick when exposed to the virus.
  • Why have officials chosen a plan for mass vaccinations?
    • Their top priority is to prevent the medical system from crashing in the short term due to an overload of sick people. They are not thinking about the long term.
    • I would add, which Bossche did not mention, that governments are anxious to restart their economies because they know the system is fragile and susceptible to a deflationary crash, and because current emergency deficit spending is not sustainable.
  • What are the characteristics of the vaccines we’re using?
    • The vaccines prevent someone from becoming sick when exposed to the virus for which the vaccine was designed.
    • The vaccines do not kill the virus. A vaccinated person can spread the virus without showing any symptoms.
    • Bossche claims that the immune system of a vaccinated person will be less able to fight variants of the virus for which the vaccine is ineffective. In other words, an unvaccinated person may stand a better chance against future virus variants.
    • A vaccine is not like a drug that is eventually expelled by your body. A vaccine permanently reprograms your immune system software. Because of this, the precautionary principle is critical.
  • What are the problems with the current vaccination plan?
    • Mass vaccinations, in the middle of a pandemic, which do not kill the virus, and which keep the recipient healthy and thus less prone to spread the virus, will apply strong selection pressure to the virus for mutations that both evade the vaccine AND make people sicker.
    • If more deadly variants of the virus emerge we will not be able to outrace them with new vaccines. In other words, if we inadvertently create a more deadly variant, we have no exit plan.
  • Why did Bossche become alarmed, and why is he speaking up so late in the game?
    • Bossche’s studies of pandemic history suggest it is very unusual for more virulent strains to emerge late in a pandemic. When more virulent strains were reported in late 2020 he became concerned and suspected that our lock-down policies may have encouraged the virus to mutate. Then he thought about the implications of broadly vaccinating both healthy and unhealthy people and decided to pull the fire alarm.
  • What should we have done?
    • Protected vulnerable people with some combination of isolation and vaccinations.
    • Allowed the virus to spread and build natural immunity in the healthy portion of the population.
    • Encouraged lifestyles for healthy immune systems.
  • How will we know if Bossche is right?
  • What are the main arguments against Bossche’s concerns?
    • Some scientists do not think there is evidence for immune escape variants as Bossche predicts.
  • What does Bossche think individuals should do?
    • Promote a strong immune system with good diet, exercise, sleep, and some light exposure to the virus to train the immune system.
    • If you are young and/or healthy, delay being vaccinated until there is scientific consensus on Bossche’s concerns.
  • What do I think an individual should do?
    • Stay healthy as Bossche suggests, also take Vitamin D.
    • Have some Ivermectin on hand for self-treatment if required.
    • Prepare for the possibility in a few months of a more serious pandemic in which we might choose a self-imposed lockdown without access to grocery stores for some period of time.

WTF does this have to do with Denial?

I’m thinking that if the experts and authorities continue to ignore Bossche we will have another superb example of the human tendency to deny unpleasant realities as explained by Varki’s MORT theory.

Of course you can’t beat our collective denial of human overshoot, but this could be a close second if it unfolds as Bossche predicts.

Source Information

Here are Bossche’s credentials from Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/geertvandenbossche/

Profile: Experienced management professional; expert in vaccine R&D and early vaccine dvpt,; proficiency in program and grant management; used to working in a heavily interconnected environment (in private and nonprofit sector) while managing the needs of numerous stakeholders. Proven track record of success in designing and developing vaccines, managing dynamic, high-performing consortia, developing efficient processes to deliver impact, offering expert scientific-technical advice on complex immunisation projects, leading vaccine R&D work as CSO. Proficiency in program management, team leadership, patent writing, laboratory research, immunology, epidemiology, microbiology, vaccine technologies, preclinical vaccine dvpt. Substantial experience in strategic budgeting, CMC- and IP-related matters, incl. patent infringement and litigations. Over 2 decades of professional experience working in Europe and the US in managing implementation of immune interventions to address unmet medical needs. Highly familiar with major challenges in Global Health (as previously engaged with B. & M. Gates Foundation and GAVI).

This April 22 interview is the best summary of Bossche’s concerns that I’m aware of. Bret Weinstein does an amazing job of helping Geert Vanden Bossche explain a very complicated topic.

Here is a March 1 keynote given by Bossche at the Vaccines Summit Ohio 2021 titled “Why should current Covid-19 vaccines not be used for mass vaccination during a pandemic”.

Here are the slides from the March 1 keynote:

Click to access geert-vanden-bossche-why-should-current-covid-19-vaccines-not-be-used-for-mass-vaccination-during-a-pandemic-1-mar-2021.pdf

Here is the March 6 post of his open letter:

Here is the full text of his open letter published on March 6:

Click to access Public_health_emergency_of_international_concert_Geert_Vanden_Bossche.01.pdf

Here is an excellent March 8 interview with Bossche:

Here is another March 6 interview, which I did not enjoy as much as the above interview:

Here is Bossche’s March 11 appeal to the WHO to change course:

Here is a March 12 statement from Bossche distancing himself from the crazies who are misrepresenting his concerns.

https://twitter.com/GVDBossche/status/1370359538780663808/photo/1

Here is a March 12 detailed rebuttal to Bossche’s claims which I skimmed but don’t understand. If anyone does understand this, please translate for us.

March 14 addition…

Here is another presentation by Canadian researcher Byram Bridle that supports Bossche’s claims.

https://ovc.uoguelph.ca/pathobiology/people/faculty/Byram-W-Bridle

My summary:

  • Historically it usually takes 10 years to develop a vaccine. The previous shortest record was 4 years.
  • There is a lack of peer reviewed data to assess the current vaccines.
  • Those that are being vaccinated now are participating in what was previously called a phase 3 trial during which they monitor the safety of the vaccines.
  • There have been historic examples of new vaccines where the short term safety profile was good but long term problems emerged after 2 years of use.
  • There is good reason to believe that the efficacy data being reported may prove to be optimistic.
  • Some countries (like Israel) are changing the protocol for administering the vaccines from what was tested and approved. That’s a apparently a big high risk no-no in this industry.
  • A total of 8 pregnant woman have been vaccinated, 4 of which aborted shortly thereafter.
  • The type of vaccines we have chosen, and the method we are using to roll out them out, is maximizing the probability that vaccine immune variants will emerge. He thinks it’s only a matter of time.
  • People who have been vaccinated will do less well against vaccine immune variants than people who have not been vaccinated.
  • Bridle predicts that in the end we will be forced to adopt the strategy that we should have adopted from the start which is to build natural herd immunity.
  • He’s cautiously optimistic that there may already be considerable herd immunity in countries like Canada that have not been locked down all the time and because the PPE we have been using is ineffective against the virus.
  • He personally will not take the vaccine because he has a low risk profile and prefers the broader protection of natural immunity. He thinks people with high risk profiles should consider taking the vaccine.
  • He predicts historians will document this period as the greatest mismanaged crisis of all time.

March 17 addition…

Here is a rebuttal to Bossche’s claims. I did not appreciate that ZDoggMD spent more time attacking Bossche’s character and making fun of his accent than he did discussing Bossche’s claims, of which he only addressed 2 of the 4 key points made by Bossche, and provided just as little hard data as Bossche did.

I don’t know who’s right. I’m going watch the Israel data over the coming weeks to decide.

March 20 update.

Israel cases are still trending down with 56% of population vaccinated.

March 31 update.

Israel cases still trending down with 57% of population vaccinated. No evidence yet that Bossche is right.

https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/israel-cases-31-mar-2021.jpg

April 9 update.

Israel cases have leveled off with 58% of population vaccinated. No evidence yet that Bossche is right.

https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/israel-cases-9-apr-2021.jpg

April 20 update.

Israel cases still flat. No evidence yet that Bossche is right.

https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/israel-cases-20-apr-2021.jpg

April 28 update.

Bossche has a recently updated FAQ on his site which says we should not have to wait too many more weeks before his prediction comes true.

https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/faq

Q: How can it be explained that in Israel it seems that the massive vaccination has almost stopped the pandemic and no dramatic effects are being observed over people that have been vaccinated?

A: It’s just a matter of weeks for a surge in Israel to occur due to resistance of the virus to vaccinal antibodies in vaccinees. I expect this surge to occur before summer.

May 21 update.

Israel cases showed their first small uptick yesterday since I started watching 2 months ago. Could be statistical noise.

Bossche has been working hard to better understand and explain his concerns about our vaccination policy. There is a lot of new information on his site:

https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/

This April 22 interview, which I also linked above, is the best summary of Bossche’s concerns that I’m aware of. Bret Weinstein does an amazing job of helping Bossche explain a very complicated topic. It’s a must watch.

June 24 update.

Bossche predicted an increase “by summer” which began 3 days ago.

https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/israel-cases-24-jun-2021.jpg

By Jean-Marc Jancovici: Will technology save us from Climate Change?

Brilliant new talk by my favorite alien engineer, Jean-Marc Jancovici.

If you only have 90 minutes to spare, and you want to understand everything that matters about how the world works, and the nature of our overshoot predicament, and what we need to do to minimize future suffering, then this talk is the best use of your time.

spoiler alert: the answer is no

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-34-638.jpg

https://www.media.mit.edu/events/will-technology-save-us-from-climate-change/

Bio: 

Jean-Marc Jancovici is an advisor to the French government on climate change and energy as part of the French High Council for Climate. He is a founding partner of Carbon 4, a Paris-based data consultancy specializing in low carbon transition and the physical risks of climate change (www.carbone4.com). He is also the founder and president of The Shift Project, a Paris-based think tank advocating for a low carbon economy (www.theshiftproject.org). Jean-Marc Jancovici also serves as an associate professor at Mines ParisTech.

Abstract:

The thermo-industrial development of our society has been possible due to resource extraction and the transformation of our environment. Unfortunately, it has led to severe environmental consequences that humanity is experiencing around the globe: shifting and unpredictable climate, extreme weather events, and biodiversity collapse. Humanity is paying the consequences for technical and technological progress. Thus, can technology still save us from climate change?

Jean-Marc Jancovici will address this question through the paradigm of energy. He will first detail how modern society is structured around thermal and nuclear energies, and will then discuss the impact of this structure on global climate and society. Finally, Jean-Marc Jancovici will conclude by exploring the trade-offs between economic growth and sustainable climate stewardship.

Slides: https://fr.slideshare.net/JoelleLeconte/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021/1

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-11-638.jpg

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-21-1024.jpg

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-25-1024.jpg

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-26-638.jpg

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-27-638.jpg

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-30-638.jpg

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-32-638.jpg

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/mitmedialabfebruary2021-210225093340/95/jancovici-mit-media-lab-23022021-33-638.jpg

Click to access jean-marc-jancovici-will-technology-save-us-from-climate-change-23-feb-2021.pdf

By Tim Garrett: Jevon’s Paradox: Why increasing energy efficiency will accelerate global climate change

CO2 vs. COP

Thank you to X for finding this new talk by professor Tim Garrett.

Garrett has developed the most significant and useful theory for explaining the relationship between climate change and the economy.

In this talk, Garrett explains his theory and tears a strip off climate scientists for their unscientific beliefs.

Garrett, in the Q&A, discusses the disgraceful manner that climate scientists have responded to his theory. I think the fact that almost all climate scientists ignore or deny Garrett’s theory is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence in support of Varki’s MORT theory.

Paraphrasing Garrett, an educated person would not infer from the above plot that human agency has an impact on climate trajectories. Instead, a naive person might reasonably conclude that CO2 emissions are caused by COP climate change accords. 🙂

Garrett used to summarize the conclusion of his theory as:

US$1 (1990) = 9.7 mW

Garrett is now expressing the same conclusion as:

5.8 gigawatts = US$1 trillion (2010)

Garrett observes that a single atmospheric chemist stationed on Mauna Loa would more accurately measure global GDP than the tens of thousands of idiot economists we employ.

GDP vs. CO2

One component of Biden’s climate change plan calls for more efficient appliances, machines, and buildings. Garrett shows that this piece of Biden’s plan will make climate change worse because the more efficient we are, the more we grow.

Garrett does not discuss it, but Biden’s plan would help if we tax away all of the savings that result from improved efficiency and use the taxes to pay down public debt. Biden of course would not have been elected if he included this in his plan.

Garrett also does not discuss the simplest solution for reducing CO2 emissions, which one person at a keyboard can implement: increase the interest rate. Garrett’s theory predicts a higher interest rate will reduce emissions because our wealth would reduce through defaults.

Garrett correctly observes that our current path of trying to switch to renewable energy will increase the combustion of fossil energy, but he doesn’t add the important caveat, until fossil energy depletion collapses our economy.

Garrett remains blind to one key piece of the puzzle: The depletion of affordable fossil energy has created a global debt bubble because the cost of extracting fossil energy is now higher than what consumers can afford. When this debt bubble pops, our wealth and CO2 emissions will decline, a lot. Curious minds want to know if the bubble will pop soon and fast enough to retain a climate compatible with a much poorer civilization.

My take away: The only path to maintaining our wealth and reducing CO2 emissions in time to possibly prevent a climate incompatible with civilization is to switch to nuclear power more quickly than we can possibly afford. And so our wealth will decline regardless of what we do.

One path, if we somehow breakthrough our genetic tendency to deny reality, might be a managed and civil decline. The other path will be chaotic and uncivil.

The Homer Simpson Climate Change Plan

You can find more work by Garrett that I’ve posted here.

P.S. I note from the title slide that economist Steve Keen was a collaborator. Steve Keen, in case you’re not aware, is one of the only economists on the planet with a clue. The behavior of economists differs from climate scientists in that idiocy explains the former and denial the latter. Here is some of Steve Keen’s work that I’ve posted.

Hot Money

I watched the new documentary Hot Money by Susan Kucera tonight.

An intelligent world-wise father (General Wesley Clark) and his son discuss some of the problems we face with many smart participants. I don’t think they interviewed a single idiot, which was refreshing.

They know something is seriously wrong and make an honest attempt to connect the dots. They come tantalizingly close to a complete picture of reality, but miss the all important overshoot drivers of over population and declining returns from non-renewable energy.

Which of course means they understand everything, except what matters.

Nevertheless, Hot Money is excellent and worth watching because it has a lot of intelligent substance.

I also think it indicates a growing mainstream awareness of how close we are to collapsing, and I suspect herd awareness (coupled with denial of the real causes) may be the trigger.

Some of the important points made:

  • the financial system is a bomb waiting to explode, climate change may be the trigger
  • climate change is real and very serious
  • droughts, floods, and fires are a big problem now
  • it now takes more than 3 dollars of debt to create 1 dollar of growth, it used to take less than 1 dollar of debt to create 1 dollar of growth
  • farmers are struggling and failing due to climate change, debt, high input costs, and low crop prices
  • real incomes and living standards are falling despite lower taxes than the 50’s
  • some young couples are not having children because they see a terrible future
  • it was much easier to make a profit in the good old days, doubly so if you were early enough to steal land from the aboriginals
  • companies now invest more money in stock buy-backs than R&D
  • there is no such thing as trickle down economics
  • the financial system is now too complex for its players to understand – it’s like trying to understand quantum mechanics when you don’t have high school physics
  • the planet is a finite physical system and the financial system is unbounded – the two systems are incompatible
  • Venezuela is a preview of where the USA is headed
  • if the government isn’t competent enough to deal with homelessness in L.A., how can it possibly deal effectively with COVID?
  • Americans live under the illusion that they are different and could never descend into the savagery they’ve witnessed elsewhere in the world
  • the Kosovo genocide was committed by and against people with homes, refrigerators, cars, kids in college, and who spoke the same language
  • people are turning on each other because the capitalist system is breaking down and climate change is causing scarcity
  • there will be a billion displaced people within 30 years
  • it’s unlikely the Romans could give us advice on how to avoid collapse
  • the wealth gap increases as a civilization collapses
  • many nest eggs will be wiped out when insurance companies won’t insure homes because of sea level rise
  • much of the oil industry’s infrastructure is at risk from sea level rise
  • rich people are not investing enough in renewable energy because they can make better returns elsewhere
  • governments must step up to invest in what needs to be done
  • most authorities think we have 30 years to act before civilization collapses, some people think it’s already too late
  • the most valuable thing in the world is oil reserves in the ground, but the damage burning oil causes is even higher – we must tax carbon energy
  • we need a cultural change to accept less – but that’s hard
  • nothing comes for free, everything costs energy
  • renewable energy cannot replace fossil energy and satisfy our greed, but it can help us survive
  • the food system is a huge consumer of energy (lots of interesting detail here)
  • our energy system is highly dependent on water which is being disrupted by climate change
  • we need to democratize the electric grid to accelerate renewable energy, but that requires a long range plan which we don’t have
  • we should tax pollution and use the funds to improve the grid and to pay farmers to sequester carbon
  • we will not be able to re-order our system until it crashes, but if we wait until we crash we’ll be too poor to fight climate change – it’ll be like asking Somalia to fight climate change
  • the final scene has the son arguing that we’re not facing reality; and the father arguing that we can use our democracy to solve the problems, fade to “The End?”
  • there is no one driving the bus, our leaders don’t have a plan
  • no mention of population reduction or peak oil, not even a whisper

P.S. Ugo Bardi is featured in a couple clips discussing the collapse of the Roman empire, how we may be starting down a Seneca cliff, and the viability of renewable energy.

P.P.S. My favorite central banker, Canadian Mark Carney, has a clip in which he says the main role of central banks is to pull wealth from the future into the present.

P.P.P.S The cost of insurance for the small farm I assist more than doubled this year to over $6,000, I suspect due to climate change. We have to sell a lot of lettuce to earn $6,000. 🙁

You can download Hot Money here: https://yts.mx/movies/hot-money-2021

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13837022/

With wit, satire, and historical context, Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark and his son Wes Clark Jr. take us on a journey through the financial circulatory system connecting farmers, homeowners, bankers, academics, and business professionals in a tale that explains the knot of economic forces that can lead to collapse and how to untie it.

https://www.hotmoneyfilm.com/

SYNOPSIS
Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark and his son Wes Clark Jr. take us on a journey through the complicated realities of our financial system and its profound exposure to climate change. Hot Money outs the whole game, the whole charade, the whole crapshoot of the money system with all the humor and intelligence of a New Yorker cartoon. Combined with the wisdom of international business experts and academics, Hot Money is rich with historical context. It severs the knot of economic and political forces that may lead to societal collapse.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I met General Clark and his son Wes Jr. while filming Living In the Future’s Past, then met the General again at a speaking engagement two years later and the kernel of a film planted itself in my mind – a conversation between a father and son on how climate change will affect our financial system. It seemed logical to follow up to the introspective Living In The Future’s Past with a nuts and bolts view of how the machinery of our money system contributes and reacts to climate change. We lined up a broad and diverse cast of experts who’ve spent their lives doing the work. What we could see emerging was an easy to understand story whose depth is masked by its light-hearted breeziness. The Covid 19 pandemic cut short our filming and I turned to a New Yorker cartoonist to visualize concepts so somebody like me, who doesn’t have an MBA or ever worked in finance, can be simultaneously entertained and enlightened about one of the prime forces driving our world – debt.

Hot Money is an important film for right now as America stands on the brink of conflict. Many people lack context interpreting the world and this documentary delivers it. Conversations taped more than a year ago about wildfires making homes impossible to insure and the ripple effect that will roar through the financial system seem as startlingly prescient as the scenes describing populist breakdown in a country like Venezuela and how it can happen here. Hot Money offers a glimpse into our future and a chance to avoid the dangerous course we are on. To solve a problem we have to understand it.