Remembering the CG Computer-Generated Pandemic Tyranny

[DavidOdden]

Usually, when we talk about “the government”, we mean the US government. In this case, we should instead say specifically “The US government” and “The Chinese government”, since I don’t think the intentions of the two governments are the same here. There is no merit to the idea (occasionally floated in irresponsible venues) that this was a CIA experiment. On the other hand, given the actual history of CIA clandestine evil-doing, it not unimaginable that the CIA might do such a thing. Ability to imagine an event is not proof that the event happened, and until real evidence to that effect is uncovered, we should give no more attention to a CIA theory than we would give to a claim of a convention of gremlins discussing Hegel’s Logic on Venus.

The plausible theories of the origin of covid are (1) bad luck at the meat market and (2) deliberate creation by the Chinese government with probably accidental release. Under any theory of what happened, it is very clear that the Chinese government has been extremely secretive and obstructive of all attempts to learn the truth. US government involvement in not clarifying the origin of covid is not obvious, but seems to fall in line with a general pattern of spinelessness in foreign affairs – a general unwillingness to upset the Chinese government (since they have shown their willingness to engage in subtle economic warfare, which IMO poses an under-appreciated existential threat to the West).

The question is not whether covid exists, but rather whether it is “metaphysically given” vs. “man-made”. Either way, governmental responses have been nothing short of 100% wrong.

[monart]

18 hours ago, EC said:

The mRNA vaccines are direct proof of the type of scientific evidence of the existence of COVID that you were looking for and things like the identification of different strains if for some reason you want to deny the evidence of the senses. What could be a ton of administrative reasons for the denial of a Freedom of Information Act request is not proof of anything except maybe they to protect the companies that make the vaccines patents since they use exactly that DNA to create the vaccines. Besides asking a form of question that created the response "no records found" over and over as David suggested, another plausible explanation is this was the governments manner of "complying" with the request while actually not to protect patents or something else.

To claim that covid vaccine research is "direct proof" of SARS-CoV-2's existence and identity, is the same circular reasoning as the claim that covid deaths are also proofs. They both assume that which is yet to be proven (proven with a definite, not probabilistic identity).

Even if 99% of the FOI request were administrative exclusions (which they're not, as shown by Christine Massey's notarized documents), why aren't there the 1% of records (research papers) of SARS-CoV-2 having been isolated and purified?

Moreover, a sampling of papers, including the first one from Wuhan, show no isolation and purification were done. Authors of some of those papers, when contacted, confirmed that they did not do isolation and purification. 

Even more revealing, apologists have insisted that current microbiology neither practice nor require virus isolation, and that virus identification is in percentages of probability.

(See earlier posts on all this.)

[monart]

16 hours ago, EC said:

That said, mod hat on for the first time, this isn't really a forum to discuss the "non-existence" of a disease where a massive amount of evidence exists that it actually exists while denying all of that evidence and substituting in the supposed single piece of very sketchy "evidence" in replacement. I'm not taking any mod actions but just don't like what seems like a blatant conspiracy theory with essentially no evidence in support and massive amounts of evidence against potentially making the forum look bad to outsiders interested in Objectivism, especially when this is a topic that has nothing to do with Miss Rand's philosophy in any manner.

Where is the "massive amount of evidence"? Do you know of one paper clearly showing that SARS-CoV-2 was isolated and purified?. Investigators have searched and have yet to find or receive one.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, the claim that SARS-CoV-2 has not been proven, by isolation and purification, to exist with a distinct and definite identity, is not the same claim as that it doesn't exist.

It's not a "conspiracy theory" to not accept a claim without proof. The burden of proof is on they who assert, not on the non-believer to disprove the assertion.

It's a credit to Objectivism, on this topic, that its epistemology (and ethics) are applied and Ayn Rand's advice is followed, to "check your premises", think for oneself, with "reason as one's only absolute". "Nothing to do with Miss Rand's philosophy in any manner"?

[monart]

16 hours ago, necrovore said:

... "The virus exists, but we can't tell you how we know that."

 

That's about sums it up. Add: "And that's sufficient justification to impose global pandemic tyranny (following the WHO-extolled exemplar of China)."

[EC]

Observational evidence, deaths, sicknesses, not accepting that massive amounts of health care workers are all lying and involved in a huge conspiracy of a non-existent disease worldwide, the existence of vaccines for the virus, the list goes on and on. The questions I want to ask you is why you specifically are denying evidence from reality on this issue, what your overall purpose and point in doing so, and what do gain from it?

[Doug Morris]

On 2/7/2024 at 5:14 PM, tadmjones said:

 

But maybe you mean there wasn't an overall uptick in total deaths from covid combined with noncovid, and that without the mitigation efforts the total would have been higher due to historic trends plus added covid deaths , which were lowered also , that the case fatatlity rate was so high that the mitigation worked to slow covid too,

This is what I meant.  Note that I have left out part of your paragraph to more accurately reflect what I meant.

 

[Doug Morris]

On 2/6/2024 at 2:10 PM, Doug Morris said:

Have you considered that anti-pandemic measures, whether right or wrong, would naturally reduce cases of all respiratory diseases?

 

On 2/8/2024 at 12:02 PM, monart said:

What are your grounds for claiming that the anti-pandemic measure did reduce the cases of covid (when the existence of covid is yet to be verified without using circular reasoning or appeals to authority)?

Please note that I did not claim what you say I did.

 

[EC]

Also note, this claim of "circular reasoning" of the existence of any disease without extremely specific answers from a government is actually the ridiculous argument. I don't think that term means what you seem to believe it means. 

[monart]

On 2/9/2024 at 3:08 PM, EC said:

Observational evidence, deaths, sicknesses, not accepting that massive amounts of health care workers are all lying and involved in a huge conspiracy of a non-existent disease worldwide, the existence of vaccines for the virus, the list goes on and on. The questions I want to ask you is why you specifically are denying evidence from reality on this issue, what your overall purpose and point in doing so, and what do gain from it?

The "massive amounts of health care workers", or any number of believers or partial believers, don't need to be "lying", they don't need to be"involved in a huge conspiracy". They don't even need to know the truth; they just need to believe, trust in the "experts" and authorities, do their jobs, keep their head and eyes down, and just do as they're told.

The "list" of "evidence" are all downstream and derivative, contingent for validity on the primary evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has been proven to exist definitively and distinctly, by its having been isolated and purified. Verified documentation is yet to be found for this proof. Continued attempts to use "deaths", "vaccines", and consensus as "evidence from reality" are really just circular reasoning and begging the question, along with appeals to popularity, authority, and ignorance.

My "overall purpose" on this topic is to expose the truth by challenging believers in "SARS-CoV-2" and "Covid-19" to check their premises, think for themselves, and hold reason as absolute. I myself did that, and have been pointing to what I and others have found. Am I mistaken? Lying? Deluded? Ill-willed? What else have I posted, here or elsewhere?

 

Edited February 12 by dream_weaver
Accident file inclusion.

[monart]

On 2/9/2024 at 1:12 PM, Doug Morris said:

 

Please note that I did not claim what you say I did.

 

Double-checking back, I acknowledge that I don't clearly know what you did or did not claim. What do you really claim?

[monart]

On 2/9/2024 at 8:38 AM, DavidOdden said:

The question is not whether covid exists, but rather whether it is “metaphysically given” vs. “man-made”. Either way, governmental responses have been nothing short of 100% wrong.

Is covid's existence not "the question", because it's definitively proven, or because it's a trivial, unimportant question?

Why was the "government response "100% wrong", if covid is real, deadly, and contagious, given the legal emergency and quarantine powers, and the moral-political principles prevailing? Indeed, the government had the legal responsibility, if covid is real, to STOP THE SPREAD, even at the suffering and loss of individuals.

[Doug Morris]

4 hours ago, monart said:

What do you really claim?

I claim that anti-pandemic measures, whether right or wrong, would tend to reduce the incidence of all respiratory diseases.

I am not claiming anything specific about the exact extent of this or the extent to which it might or might not vary from one disease to another.

I do claim that this effect should be considered when trying to deduce anything from statistics about respiratory disease.

 

[Doug Morris]

2 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

I claim that anti-pandemic measures, whether right or wrong, would tend to reduce the incidence of all respiratory diseases.

 

Of course this would not be relevant to any alleged respiratory disease that does not actually exist, such as the "were-unicorn coronavirus".

 

[monart]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:38 AM, Doug Morris said:

I claim that anti-pandemic measures, whether right or wrong, would tend to reduce the incidence of all respiratory diseases.

I am not claiming anything specific about the exact extent of this or the extent to which it might or might not vary from one disease to another.

I do claim that this effect should be considered when trying to deduce anything from statistics about respiratory disease.

 

Yes, and I did acknowledge your point here, where I also wrote that not all respiratory illnesses/deaths are caused by microbes; some are caused by breathing polluted, toxic air, and some by other, non-microbial causes.

[Doug Morris]

On 2/7/2024 at 10:26 AM, monart said:

Some of the anti-pandemic measures may have reduced the spread and reported cases of some respiratory diseases due to microbes, but not those from other causes like asthma, malnutrition, or air pollution (in heavily polluted cities like Wuhan, Beijing, and Mumbai).

It's a little more complicated.

To the extent that the measures, rightly or wrongly, keep people indoors, that would help with air pollution.

Masks would help with sufficiently large particles of pollution.

 

[monart]

11 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

It's a little more complicated.

To the extent that the measures, rightly or wrongly, keep people indoors, that would help with air pollution.

Masks would help with sufficiently large particles of pollution.

 

That may have happened for new potential exposure to (outdoor but not indoor) air pollutants, but not to pre-existing and ongoing cases of polluted-air caused respiratory illnesses/deaths. For these prior cases, being kept indoors and wearing masks by anti-pandemic measures would have been too late and unhelpful.

The significant and premier example of this was in Wuhan, where there was already an epidemic of respiratory illnesses/deaths due to the prior years of increasingly severe air pollution, against which there had been daily protests -- until the CCP's draconian covid lockdowns were imposed. How many of these pollution cases were re-diagnosed as covid?

Indeed, the first paper reporting on the study that discovered a "novel coronavirus" (a paper which I read myself and have referenced a few times here), does not account for the polluted-air caused cases in the selection of patients for their study. {And the study team admitted, when asked, that they had not isolated and purified the "novel" virus and yet had sequenced "it".)

[necrovore]

I remember learning as a kid that the reason people get colds and flu during the winter is not because they go outside and get it, but because they stay inside with other people who may have colds or flu. This is what allows colds and flu to spread.

On that basis, I would have expected lockdowns to increase people's exposure to Covid. Something like walking on the beach alone, which would have gotten you arrested in some places during the lockdowns, is actually safer than being locked in a building with other people.

[tadmjones]

Being in 'the great outdoors' with 'fresh air abound' will by volume of air reduce the concentration of free floating particulates as opposed to a relatively closed environment of a structure that 'turns over' the volume of air within via the natural restrictions of  venting.

That coupled with the reduced ability of the body to produce and utilize vit D in winter months because the angle of the rays of the sun are not conducive to the process. Not exactly rocket science and yet on the whole basic logic was jettisoned.

Edited February 14 by tadmjones

[DavidOdden]

On 2/14/2024 at 4:56 AM, necrovore said:

I would have expected lockdowns to increase people's exposure to Covid. Something like walking on the beach alone, which would have gotten you arrested in some places during the lockdowns, is actually safer than being locked in a building with other people.

However, a lockdown plus rigidly-enforced anti-social distancing would dramatically decrease all communicable disease transmission. A lockdown for a single person is highly effective, for two or more people in a household, much less so. The US lockdown practice was not as draconian as the French lockdown, which was literally “stay in in your apartment unless you have an emergency pass”, whereas the US practice was aimed at primarily “non-essential” businesses such as restaurants, cultural events, classes, going to work in an office, and the truly non-essential business of church gathering. It is true that a walk on the beach was an offense in France, but not in the US as far as I know, and I endured the plague in Washington which was one of the most extreme-restriction states. Nevertheless, the dog park and plain old city streets was a no-mask zone.

The underlying theory of isolation is reasonably good up to the point that you have actually impenetrable barriers between dwelling-units, and do not allow people to leave the isolation ward. Neither of those requirements was rigidly enforced, hence the randomness of the covid-containment numbers. A classic example of misintegration. The mask theory is a third misintegration, since it is invalid to extrapolate from the actual masks and hook-up procedure used by trained surgeons to common face-diaper procedures, which only somewhat reduce the number of viral particles that you take in.

There is only one way to determine the efficacy of disease-containment strategies, namely with carefully-controlled scientific experiments, which cannot be conducted. Vague concepts like social distancing, lockdown and masks are not even applicable to the observational studies of medical practitioners, which do not generalize to Everybody In The World.

 

[monart]

On 2/11/2024 at 7:22 AM, monart said:

On 2/9/2024 at 1:08 PM, EC said:

. . . The questions I want to ask you is why you specifically are denying evidence from reality on this issue, what your overall purpose and point in doing so, and what do gain from it?

My "overall purpose" on this topic is to expose the truth by challenging believers in "SARS-CoV-2" and "Covid-19" to check their premises, think for themselves, and hold reason as absolute. I myself did that, and have been pointing to what I and others have found. Am I mistaken? Lying? Deluded? Ill-willed? What else have I posted, here or elsewhere?

 

I appreciate and am grateful that, in response to this challenge, each one of you have given it attention and posted your replies. I have learned and am encouraged that there are Objectivists here who are curious and caring about the truth of covid. My will was good, and I've received goodwill in return.

[monart]

Reflecting on all the facets of the covid pandemic tyranny, there is much to think about - even if to most people, it's like a nightmare better to be forgotten, or even if, to a few others, it's like a comedy gone stale and no longer amusing.

What's more to look at? The murky reality of "SARS-CoV-2" and "Covid-19" raises doubts in the minds of independent thinkers about the objective existence and identification of a distinct, "novel" virus causing a new respiratory disease, deadly enough to justify a pandemic tyranny. But why then have so many people, the overwhelming majority, including most Objectivists, believe in covid?

Consider this: For thousands of years, nearly everyone believed in some God/gods. Even today, in our enlightened, scientific age, according to surveys, 85% of the world population reportedly believe in a God, over 6 billion people – including 2.4 billion Christian (1.4B Catholic), 2 billion Islamic, and1.1 billion Hindu – all preaching and practicing selfless service to God and the needs of others.

Why do these mystical beliefs in unproved, non-existent beings and irrational concepts endure and persist? What's similar, and what's different, between belief in God/Christ and belief in covid?

Edited February 18 by monart

[monart]

On 2/18/2024 at 9:20 AM, monart said:

 . .  What's similar, and what's different, between belief in God/Christ and belief in covid?

What's different is that the belief in covid is based on science, so say the covid believers. Our belief is based on observation, experimentation, evidence, logic, and all the methods of reason; whereas, the belief in God is based on revelation, authority, testimonials, intuition, faith.

So, do you, the covid believers, know that covid exists by your own reason? Or, do you know it by reliance on the authority of (some of the) experts in virology and epidemiology?

For most of us, of course, we have to trust the consensus of experts; we don't have the knowledge or time to learn and know it for ourselves, which is normal and to be expected, for all knowledge outside our own fields.

Isn't your trust in covid experts is similar to that of the God believers' trust in their pastors, priests, popes, and theologians?

Not at all. Our trust is based on science and the science of the experts.

So it's rational for you to trust the covid experts, but not rational for the God believers to trust their God experts.  Yet you both don't know for yourself the existence of covid/God. What if belief in either is unjustified because the experts haven't told the whole truth? How do you find out?

 

Edited February 19 by monart

[tadmjones]

Belief in all things covid is more complicated, I think, than whether or not one believes there was a specific viron spreading through the human population.

One reason to defend one's belief 'in it' is to rationalize the relinquishing of autonomy and especially among those who are cognizant of the level of prize they allot to individualism and productivity and the associated emotional responses that are tied into that relinquishment.  

Edited February 19 by tadmjones

[DavidOdden]

The same question can be asked about the common cold, appendicitis or malaria. Do you know by your own reason that these things exist, or do you merely rely on the expertise of others who say that they exist? I have personal sensory experience with the common cold and appendicitis, and not malaria. I now know that Turkey exists, though I do not know directly that Iraq exists, however, I have friends (whom I trust, perhaps unreasonably so) that can attest to the existence of Iraq.

There is a simple formula that can be followed to deny all knowledge: just deny something. If you claim “I personally had covid”, the counter-claim would be “How do you know it was covid that you had, not something else?”. Indeed, Peikoff discusses the procedure in his explication of reason and certainty – to be certain, you must not just have evidence for a proposition, you must eliminate all evidence, even conceptual evidence, for alternatives. You could say “Possibly I had covid” or “Possibly I had appendicitis”, but how can you rule out all of the alternatives. It is always possible to say “It might be something else”.

The key to not devolving into epistemological nihilism is to reject unsupported denial as a logical tool. To deny that an individual has appendicitis or the common cold, you must offer superior evidence that they have a specific alternative. My initial hypothesis regarding covid was that I had strep throat. I refuted that in two ways. First, the probative throat pustules of strep were lacking. Second, the antigen test was positive. My knowledge of what I had was not complete, for example I do not know which of 5 variants I was infested with, and certainly not which of the thousands of sub-mutations. The broader lesson is that you don’t deny knowledge just because you are not omniscient.

If you intend to discount the testimony of scientific experts, you have to have superior evidence that they are not to be trusted. In fact, scientific experts collectively provide the essential evidence against themselves. I always urge people to directly engage the peer-reviewed literature as best they can, though I can’t make heads of tails of physics publications. An article will (should) contain the seeds of its own destruction, identifying weaknesses and alternative accounts, because the reviewers demanded that those seeds be planted.

Unfortunately, most popular knowledge of science is transmitted in untrustworthy venues. I don’t know whether Science is trustworthy in other areas, but I can tell you that it is completely untrustworthy in the area of linguistics, where it occasionally publishes an ill-researched article. Blogs are plainly untrustworthy. So, a crucial skill in evaluating scientific claims is being able to evaluate the credibility of a journal, which is a very difficult task.

Belief in climate change is a major problem, because it's a very specific package deal which is partially related to something else that the senses directly validate – weather change. "Climate change" is an ill-defined assertion that cannot even be spelled out as a concrete scientific hypothesis. Covid, on the other hand, is a specific, testable, and tested scientific claim.

 

[monart]

20 hours ago, monart said:

So it's rational for you to trust the covid experts, but not rational for the God believers to trust their God experts.  Yet you both don't know for yourself the existence of covid/God. What if belief in either is unjustified because the experts haven't told the whole truth? How do you find out?

 

Many tips and clues are posted by the participants here. The fundamental question is: Has the alleged cause of covid, the "novel SARS-CoV-2", been scientifically proven to exist and be identifiable by a process of isolation and purification? In answering this question, there may be distractions and diversions from its primacy and the controversy that, after 4 years,  the answer may still be in the negative.

Note that there is an as-yet unclaimed 1.5 million Euros award to any “virologist who presents scientific proof of the existence of a corona virus, including documented control experiments of all steps taken in the proof.”