COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)

[Negatory]

12 hours ago, brabus said:

@FLEA I remember summer 2020 talking about these aspects of Covid - it’s amazing how so many people said I (and others like me with critical thinking capability) we’re out to lunch, dangerous, etc. Complete silence from those same people who have been proven 100% wrong. I don’t hold grudges, so whatever, but I’ll still remember how some individuals in my life were horrendously wrong, shit on those who disagreed, and have made zero acknowledgment about it. Says something about their character. 

Nah bro, says that you oversimplify things significantly into right or wrong, black or white. You have become what you criticize, and you all wonder why folks stopped commenting back. The forum turned significantly more into an echo chamber the last year, which has been nice for you guys, but doesn’t necessarily represent reality.

We all, right now, have the benefit of knowledge we did not have when decisions were being made. Your debrief choice (i can’t really call it a loop) is that we all made and then executed the wrong decisions in the beginning of the pandemic, and that “we” have doubled and tripled down and screeched the entire time. But in reality we as a society had very limited SA or perception of what the actual truth of the situation was until science uncovered some of those answers. It took months to years for that. And, you seem to forget, we had to operate and make decisions in that limited SA environment. You can’t put the big arrow on a decision when your SA is super low. The ends don’t justify the means. I believed, and will continue to believe, you 100% did not have the SA in the Summer of 2020.

For example, we now know mRNA vaccines are entirely ineffective at stopping transmission - we were hopeful they would be very effective. Didn’t know that. We now know that we’re looking at a significantly lower mortality variant with significantly higher spread - the first variant spread slower but had a mortality rate about 10 times higher pre-vaccine. Didn’t know when that was coming. We know that COVID is airborne. Didn’t know that, remember folks sanitizing everything? We know how to test for it, and we know generally how long folks are contagious. We understand mortality risks much more completely now (fat and old). We did not know any of these things with significant certainty for a long time.

You’ll also note that many folks on here changed our minds on many policies as more data emerged. As folks got vaccinated and mortality decreased and transmission reduction efforts clearly failed, many folks like me changed our opinions. We built SA and made decisions with said SA. You can demonize that, if you want, but it’s a pretty rough take.

If your point is that in the absence of proof, we should be optimistic, fine, that’s your philosophy. But it doesn’t mean those that wanted to be conservative in the face of unknowns are inherently wrong and/or evil. In fact, you literally can’t prove that those efforts didn’t save significant lives (bang your head against the wall on that one, if you want).

For the record, I think that masks and vaccine requirements now should be entirely removed in society with the exception of elderly care or hospitals. We should have gotten rid of it over a year ago for the military. There is more nuance to how decisions have to be made and opinions should be formed than you give credit.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Negatory

[brabus]

14 minutes ago, Negatory said:

But in reality we as a society had very limited SA or perception of what the actual truth of the situation was until science uncovered some of those answers. It took months to years for that. And, you seem to forget, we had to operate and make decisions in that limited SA environment

And that’s the excuse you tell yourself to feel better. Despite this entire reply I disagree with, I will give credit to you changing your viewpoints over time. I am not including you personally (I know we had several back and forth in the past) in my above comment. In fact, you are the opposite of the people I described. 
 

To you’re overarching statement that it was pure guessing optimism with no info (paraphrasing), completely disagree. It was critical thinking based on observation, data (yes there was data that was rapidly coming out by summer, but it was suppressed heavily), and unemotional/logical thought process. Throughout the first 2 years tens of millions of people called it 100% time and again, they were labeled all sorts of things. No, it is not logical for you to argue all of them had no SA and just got lucky that they were completely right, it is logical they executed as stated above and everyone else made errors in judgement (trusted garbage lies, illogical arguments, etc.), thought processes, and allowed emotion to rule over logic. Zero stones cast at those who came around and acknowledged what had transpired. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by brabus

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, Negatory said:

And, you seem to forget, we had to operate and make decisions in that limited SA environment. You can’t put the big arrow on a decision when your SA is super low. The ends don’t justify the means. I believed, and will continue to believe, you 100% did not have the SA in the Summer of 2020.

You and I have agreed and disagreed on a lot, and I commended your ability to change your mind. But this part gets to the crux of the issue, and why I think your assessment is so wrong.

 

The ability to make decisions in an environment of incomplete information is quite literally definitive of intelligence and leadership. There's a whole lot of people right now throwing their hands up in the air and saying " well we just didn't know," but that's bullshit. Part of the job is not knowing, and being able to accurately assess and communicate that lack of knowledge, and recognize that without perfect information, your ability to compel others should be equally limited.

 

This is foundational stuff to the way our government was designed and is supposed to work.

 

The "experts" lied. Flat out. I'm including using intentionally misleading language. There are plenty of examples in this thread.

 

But worse than lying about things they knew (to cover their asses), they lied about what they didn't know. They did so because they knew we-the-people wouldn't have done what they commanded if it was based on a hunch. But it was, and unfortunately (as any real scientist would admit) when you act on a hunch, you'll be wrong more often than not.

 

So the point isn't "we would have done things differently if we had better information." The point is "will we do things differently the next time we have a crisis with little available information?"

 

Based on the experts skittering like cockroaches into the shadows to avoid responsibility, and a whole bunch of well-meaning Americans seeking to look the other way because their "team" was the one that got it so incredibly wrong, I'm not sure we've learned much at all.

 

Maybe when the 2018-2019 babies hit their teenage years, and we see the devastation wrought by depriving them of the irreplaceable socialization training needed between the ages of 2-4, we will have that conversation. 

 

But saying "hey, you didn't know anything either, we were all in the dark" doesn't cut it. How you act in the dark is what matters... (giggity).

 

Again, not directed specifically at you, but I think you're missing the point. It's not that they were wrong, it's what they forced us to do while they were (knowingly) wrong.

[FLEA]

8 hours ago, Negatory said:

Nah bro, says that you oversimplify things significantly into right or wrong, black or white. You have become what you criticize, and you all wonder why folks stopped commenting back. The forum turned significantly more into an echo chamber the last year, which has been nice for you guys, but doesn’t necessarily represent reality.

We all, right now, have the benefit of knowledge we did not have when decisions were being made. Your debrief choice (i can’t really call it a loop) is that we all made and then executed the wrong decisions in the beginning of the pandemic, and that “we” have doubled and tripled down and screeched the entire time. But in reality we as a society had very limited SA or perception of what the actual truth of the situation was until science uncovered some of those answers. It took months to years for that. And, you seem to forget, we had to operate and make decisions in that limited SA environment. You can’t put the big arrow on a decision when your SA is super low. The ends don’t justify the means. I believed, and will continue to believe, you 100% did not have the SA in the Summer of 2020.

For example, we now know mRNA vaccines are entirely ineffective at stopping transmission - we were hopeful they would be very effective. Didn’t know that. We now know that we’re looking at a significantly lower mortality variant with significantly higher spread - the first variant spread slower but had a mortality rate about 10 times higher pre-vaccine. Didn’t know when that was coming. We know that COVID is airborne. Didn’t know that, remember folks sanitizing everything? We know how to test for it, and we know generally how long folks are contagious. We understand mortality risks much more completely now (fat and old). We did not know any of these things with significant certainty for a long time.

You’ll also note that many folks on here changed our minds on many policies as more data emerged. As folks got vaccinated and mortality decreased and transmission reduction efforts clearly failed, many folks like me changed our opinions. We built SA and made decisions with said SA. You can demonize that, if you want, but it’s a pretty rough take.

If your point is that in the absence of proof, we should be optimistic, fine, that’s your philosophy. But it doesn’t mean those that wanted to be conservative in the face of unknowns are inherently wrong and/or evil. In fact, you literally can’t prove that those efforts didn’t save significant lives (bang your head against the wall on that one, if you want).

For the record, I think that masks and vaccine requirements now should be entirely removed in society with the exception of elderly care or hospitals. We should have gotten rid of it over a year ago for the military. There is more nuance to how decisions have to be made and opinions should be formed than you give credit.

Nah bud you didn't have the SA. Not we, you. Everyone else did and was trying to explain that--and we were examining public data with a finer degree of granularity and recognized the data available was based on assumptions that weren't compelling enough to justify the length of policy measures being made. This wasn't high level college statistics. It was basic data 101. Instead we were gaslighted, shut down and dismissed. You're advocacy permanently damaged lives and will go on to upset many more as we walk into a recession that will likely see a growth in homeless populations, and a correspondent rise of substance abuse. Trying to dismiss yourself of responsibility for it isn't going to fly. 

 

Edited January 15, 2023 by FLEA

[dream big]

8 hours ago, Negatory said:

Nah bro, says that you oversimplify things significantly into right or wrong, black or white. You have become what you criticize, and you all wonder why folks stopped commenting back. The forum turned significantly more into an echo chamber the last year, which has been nice for you guys, but doesn’t necessarily represent reality.

We all, right now, have the benefit of knowledge we did not have when decisions were being made. Your debrief choice (i can’t really call it a loop) is that we all made and then executed the wrong decisions in the beginning of the pandemic, and that “we” have doubled and tripled down and screeched the entire time. But in reality we as a society had very limited SA or perception of what the actual truth of the situation was until science uncovered some of those answers. It took months to years for that. And, you seem to forget, we had to operate and make decisions in that limited SA environment. You can’t put the big arrow on a decision when your SA is super low. The ends don’t justify the means. I believed, and will continue to believe, you 100% did not have the SA in the Summer of 2020.

For example, we now know mRNA vaccines are entirely ineffective at stopping transmission - we were hopeful they would be very effective. Didn’t know that. We now know that we’re looking at a significantly lower mortality variant with significantly higher spread - the first variant spread slower but had a mortality rate about 10 times higher pre-vaccine. Didn’t know when that was coming. We know that COVID is airborne. Didn’t know that, remember folks sanitizing everything? We know how to test for it, and we know generally how long folks are contagious. We understand mortality risks much more completely now (fat and old). We did not know any of these things with significant certainty for a long time.

You’ll also note that many folks on here changed our minds on many policies as more data emerged. As folks got vaccinated and mortality decreased and transmission reduction efforts clearly failed, many folks like me changed our opinions. We built SA and made decisions with said SA. You can demonize that, if you want, but it’s a pretty rough take.

If your point is that in the absence of proof, we should be optimistic, fine, that’s your philosophy. But it doesn’t mean those that wanted to be conservative in the face of unknowns are inherently wrong and/or evil. In fact, you literally can’t prove that those efforts didn’t save significant lives (bang your head against the wall on that one, if you want).

For the record, I think that masks and vaccine requirements now should be entirely removed in society with the exception of elderly care or hospitals. We should have gotten rid of it over a year ago for the military. There is more nuance to how decisions have to be made and opinions should be formed than you give credit.

This is what worries me. “We have little data but we will swing hard left, decimate the economy, and ruin careers in the name of public safety.” The government has shown what it is capable of when there is a “crisis.” The infringement of individual liberties has placed a dangerous precedent for this country.  We cannot just sit back and accept that we will just go full lockdown, liberties and the economy be damned, anytime there is a crisis because “we didn’t have SA.” Now, to be fair, other countries have had even more stringent restrictions (Germany, Japan, etc) but I expect better of the U.S.

 

[BashiChuni]

10 hours ago, Negatory said:

But in reality we as a society had very limited SA or perception of what the actual truth of the situation was until science uncovered some of those answers. It took months to years for that. And, you seem to forget, we had to operate and make decisions in that limited SA environment. You can’t put the big arrow on a decision when your SA is super low. The ends don’t justify the means. I believed, and will continue to believe, you 100% did not have the SA in the Summer of 2020.

For example, we now know mRNA vaccines are entirely ineffective at stopping transmission - we were hopeful they would be very effective. Didn’t know that.

no no no no don't you dare spin that....your side was 100% CONFIDENT THEY WOULD STOP THE SPREAD AND YOU WOULD NOT GET COVID. Your side was militant in that view. People lost jobs, businesses, freedoms, friends and family if they wouldn't get the shot. The very shot your side promised would save them. I could forgive the vax extremists if they were willing to listen to dissenting scientific opinions, but unfortunately those were suppressed, censored, and blotted out.

all of this statement is not true. if the government/fauci didn't know, then why the urgent memo from fauci to censor the barrington declaration scientists?

fauci  and his thugs are the ones who doubled down and illegally broke the first amendment by colluding with social media to censor/block any viewpoint they deemed untrue.

early on we knew masks didn't stop the spread. we quickly knew it was airborne transmission, but to this day i still see people whiping down surfaces.

there's a HUGE coverup going on by the left/fauci/CDC/media talking heads....why is that? why did fauci lie in his congressional testimony about gain of function research?

this was a huge power grab, and a few key government deep state power brokers knew exactly what was happening and exactly what they were doing.

 

[Swizzle]

8 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

all of this statement is not true. if the government/fauci didn't know, then why the urgent memo from fauci to censor the barrington declaration scientists?

fauci  and his thugs are the ones who doubled down and illegally broke the first amendment by colluding with social media to censor/block any viewpoint they deemed untrue.

early on we knew masks didn't stop the spread. we quickly knew it was airborne transmission, but to this day i still see people whiping down surfaces.

there's a HUGE coverup going on by the left/fauci/CDC/media talking heads....why is that? why did fauci lie in his congressional testimony about gain of function research?

this was a huge power grab, and a few key government deep state power brokers knew exactly what was happening and exactly what they were doing.

 

How do you define, actualize, the power grab?  Is the power grab you speak of more defined as: pandemic enabling more mail in voting, thus leaning a certain way? More dependency on gov't by saving a person from paying their student loans? Forbearance of home loans/financial choice(s)? To experiment with the boundaries or gov't control/power of our American system of governance? ....how, or how else is actualized?

[slc]

I often wonder who the wizard is behind the curtain.........cause we all know it isn't Biden pulling the strings

[nsplayr]

Dudes, again, there’s no grand conspiracy.

Occam’s razor - it’s always fog of war, happenstance, bad SA, and incompetence. Very very rarely is there an actual conspiracy. Over and over again throughout history this has been true. Being a military member you know full well how unorganized and grabasstic even our best institutions can be.

Except Epstein definitely didn’t kill himself 😅, that’s the only recently conspiracy theory I unironically believe is true. 

[FlyingWolf]

37 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Dudes, again, there’s no grand conspiracy.

Occam’s razor - it’s always fog of war, happenstance, bad SA, and incompetence. Very very rarely is there an actual conspiracy. Over and over again throughout history this has been true. Being a military member you know full well how unorganized and grabasstic even our best institutions can be.

Except Epstein definitely didn’t kill himself 😅, that’s the only recently conspiracy theory I unironically believe is true. 

Nah... Do you not believe in drug cartels?

You seriously dont think people in the military "join or work together"?

Conspiracies happen all the time, they are fundamental to the concept of society itself. Often we call it politics.

 

Sure, the wizard behind the curtain concept is unrealistic. Its often groups of likeminded individuals who have convinced themselves they are the good guys and fall back to ends-justify-the-means philosophy.

 

[SurelySerious]

There is definitely a political faction that would like to further their means by consolidating federal power to lessen the efficacy of local efforts, and some of the covid measures were in line with that. There are definitely political factions in the US bemoaning that we didn’t enforce China-like lockdowns/tracking, which would further enable the federal government more control over more dependent subjects and benefits a few political elites; if you’re blind to that “wizard,” reevaluate.

[brabus]

 

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

Occam’s razor - it’s always fog of war, happenstance, bad SA, and incompetence.

Those are all certainly at play, but follow the money and power; there are absolutely “elite” class members who are purposely pushing things a certain way via multiple lines of effort to increase one or both of those metrics for themselves and their class peers. It’s not really a conspiracy theory, as it’s written all over world history books as long as recorded history has existed. The problem is Americans are incredibly naive because they believe things like, “no way the US could ever have czars like Russia did,” or “no way our gov would do mass firearm confiscation as a precursor to the complete destruction of individual freedom…like has happened hundreds of times, every time, in history…hmmm.” Those things and everything else written in history can and will happen here if we let it. Americans need to stop being naive and lazy, else they are completely complicit in the destruction of our great country. 

[BashiChuni]

5 hours ago, Swizzle said:

How do you define, actualize, the power grab?  Is the power grab you speak of more defined as: pandemic enabling more mail in voting, thus leaning a certain way? More dependency on gov't by saving a person from paying their student loans? Forbearance of home loans/financial choice(s)? To experiment with the boundaries or gov't control/power of our American system of governance? ....how, or how else is actualized?

the WEF and WHO. that's where your power grab is happening. US domestic politics are a smoke screen and they're just actors executing the script that the people who hold real money are writing

[Danger41]

Out of all this Covid stuff, my favorite part was back when that F-35 crashed on landing on the carrier and the narrative was the pilot said something like “damn vaccine!” That was some funny shit.

Anyhow, back to your regular scheduled programming.

[HeloDude]

2 hours ago, nsplayr said:

Dudes, again, there’s no grand conspiracy.

Occam’s razor - it’s always fog of war, happenstance, bad SA, and incompetence. Very very rarely is there an actual conspiracy. Over and over again throughout history this has been true. Being a military member you know full well how unorganized and grabasstic even our best institutions can be.

Except Epstein definitely didn’t kill himself 😅, that’s the only recently conspiracy theory I unironically believe is true. 

But Jan 6th is different…or something.

[nsplayr]

1 hour ago, BashiChuni said:

the WEF and WHO. that's where your power grab is happening. US domestic politics are a smoke screen and they're just actors executing the script that the people who hold real money are writing

See this is what I’m talking about. This is just not the case and most of y’all know it.

Some other things being discussed, yea, that’s just groups of humans organizing themselves for a shared goal. That’s what civilization is fundamentally. Can be toward good ends or bad ones and those definitions depend on your perspective. I vote we encourage and supper the good groups and discourage and work against the bad ones, real ground breaking stuff I know.

What I’m saying is there are not lizard people eating babies and pulling the strings of global power from the WHO or whatever.

If you have any passing familiarity with large organizations you should know that all is extremely unlikely just due to how hard it is to get big orgs to all row in the same direction on completely mundane things, let alone massive secret conspiracies for world domination.

p.s. - ::whispers:: Hail Hydra 🤣

[herkbum]

George Soros


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Biff_T]

3 hours ago, Danger41 said:

Out of all this Covid stuff, my favorite part was back when that F-35 crashed on landing on the carrier and the narrative was the pilot said something like “damn vaccine!” That was some funny shit.

Anyhow, back to your regular scheduled programming.

I'm not a sailor but I have a cousin who was in the Navy for 7 months (currently works at 7/11) and he told me that his cousin Dale saw the MP snorting a few lines of the vaccine before he stepped.   

[ViperMan]

On 1/15/2023 at 7:51 AM, Negatory said:

We now know that we’re looking at a significantly lower mortality variant with significantly higher spread - the first variant spread slower but had a mortality rate about 10 times higher pre-vaccine. Didn’t know when that was coming.

On 1/15/2023 at 7:51 AM, Negatory said:

We understand mortality risks much more completely now (fat and old). We did not know any of these things with significant certainty for a long time.

On 1/15/2023 at 7:51 AM, Negatory said:

You’ll also note that many folks on here changed our minds on many policies as more data emerged. As folks got vaccinated and mortality decreased and transmission reduction efforts clearly failed, many folks like me changed our opinions.

No. No. No. No. No. And no. We knew all those things and more. And moreover, the historical record in this very thread is still available for those who care to go back and read it. People here knew the mortality rates were getting blown out of all proportion. How did they know? It wasn't because they were conspiracy nuts. It was because they looked at and compared diverse data sets, examined how certain groups were behaving and listened to what they were saying, and taking in the totality of all that, made a more accurate deduction.

Plenty of others were willing to just take the properly-credentialed authorities' opinions and run with them, sans critical thinking.

I'm glad you've revised your view "now" that "more" data is in - and respect that you have the balls to publicly admit at least that much. If you dare look back further, however, you'll notice that the data to make that same determination was present then, as well. History is not confirming for you that other people "guessed" right. We more thoroughly analyzed the data available and made a more correct assessment.

[Lord Ratner]

We knew that COVID targeted fat old people from what, January 2020? We knew it didn't affect kids either by the time we went into lockdown in March. We knew it spreads almost entirely indoors by April, because I remember the Florida beach controversy. 

Nearly everything we "learned" about COVID after the summer of 2020 involved an "expert" prediction that proved inaccurate. 

[brabus]

Mid-summer 2020 is a good line for enough data available to call with near 100% accurately everything that has happened and is “just now” coming up. Prior to that I’ll give anyone a pass, after that people were simply lacking critical thinking skills, too lazy to research beyond media headlines and “expert” talking points, prioritized emotions over logic, politically polarized to the point they’ll happily walk off the cliff if that’s what the party says to do, etc. For those who woke up late and acknowledged it, good for them. I hope they have the maturity to do a self-debrief and identify how they fucked up and what they can do next time to avoid the same mistake. Because there absolutely will be a next time. 

[BashiChuni]

On 1/16/2023 at 1:06 PM, nsplayr said:

See this is what I’m talking about. This is just not the case and most of y’all know it.

Some other things being discussed, yea, that’s just groups of humans organizing themselves for a shared goal. That’s what civilization is fundamentally. Can be toward good ends or bad ones and those definitions depend on your perspective. I vote we encourage and supper the good groups and discourage and work against the bad ones, real ground breaking stuff I know.

What I’m saying is there are not lizard people eating babies and pulling the strings of global power from the WHO or whatever.

If you have any passing familiarity with large organizations you should know that all is extremely unlikely just due to how hard it is to get big orgs to all row in the same direction on completely mundane things, let alone massive secret conspiracies for world domination.

p.s. - ::whispers:: Hail Hydra 🤣

You have nothing but insults to dispute what I’m saying. THIS is the power grab I’m talking about. 

[BashiChuni]

So you think the WEF or WHO has zero influence in the affairs of nation states? That’s a very naive take and one that the head of the WEF disputes. 

[nsplayr]

It's not "zero influence" and it's not "lizard people pulling all the strings on a world-wide conspiracy." They're an organization of people working toward certain outcomes you may or may not agree with at any one time. I wouldn't even call the WEF and WHO particularly overly powerful organizations all things considered. Nowhere near the CCP, Vladimir Putin's random whims, the Fed and ECB, or the U.S. executive branch for example.

You're just not making a super compelling case that Børge Brende, head of the WEF for the last 5 years and who I had to google despite having several degrees & above average interest in international studies, is some kind of incredibly powerful overlord actually controlling Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Xi Jinping, Ursula von der Leyen, etc.

I mean the guy looks like a total dweeb or what you would get if you asked an AI to generate an image of a Norwegian politician.

And I will happily, mercilessly mock people who believe in wildly bullshittenous conspiracy theories because it's fun and funny, I'm not that sorry. Fear, sarcasm, and ridicule...it's truly an all-time great combo for getting some folks to learn.

Edited January 18, 2023 by nsplayr

[nsplayr]

And if you're upset with the rich continuing to amass ever growings and disproportionate sums of wealth, there's one weird trick that you have to see to believe!

It's called tax the rich.

I'm super on board with discussing the best ways we can do that without overly damaging the capitalist economic engine that has put our country and our allies on top, but this is weird thread to do that in since it has nothing to do with COVID.