These kinds of polls are not exactly authentic, reliable, valid indicators of anything other than the publishers' views.
But that's a minor quibble. You're articulating some of the most important questions in this piece, and I hope you continue to take these sociological breaks from the biochemistry. Are we such easily boiled frogs? How far is too far? What would it really take?
I'm a little perplexed how you managed to omit Ottawa, though. Does the honking just not count?
Yes, we are boiling frogs. All we are dealing with today could easily have been stopped years ago if only people took an interest in what their elected governments were actually doing and not just what they were saying.
Maybe so. That's not how it played out, though. Trudeau panicked and pulled an emergency lever, triggering bank runs and precipitating a little bit of a financial crisis as foreign capital started withdrawing.
Meanwhile his gang was using very strong language. Somebody genuinely super-cluelessly out of touch might be forgiven for thinking there was a real dangerous violent insurrection taking place. Very Jan 6... another event worth consideration, if you're really going to follow the line of reasoning you've started down here.
“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
Your comments above repeat and reinforce a commonplace misunderstanding about what a haka is. The specific haka that was done in front of Parliament was the Ka Mate Haka, in case you or anyone else is interested in learning more.
Thank you. I will google Ka Mate and attempt to correct the portrayal above (I did not form my comments from the presumption that the haka was only one thing, but from the impression given by the footage!)
I think it's linked to the fact the liberties restrictions were consequences of a so called virus. If the restrictions were applied to the people for any other reasons there would have a been a much stronger reaction. This is a perfect scam for our governments and now they found the recipe they will abuse of it
They found a weakness and exploited it. Having done so, it will be more difficult to exploit next time: they will encounter more of a conditioned immune response. Maybe they'll overcome it. Probably they have more tricks up their sleeves.
In this case, yes, because the risk was so low as to essentially qualify as background noise; so the spell of science/authority was required to make everyone "see" death that wasn't there. But societies still shut down over plagues before Germ Theory over-simplistically tried to explain them, and the killer was imagined as miasma.
Thanks for these fascinating musings. You summed up my own feelings perfectly with "But at times, including now, I feel that rational explanations are inappropriate; the incomprehensibility of those who cannot move on from fear of the Virus must simply be beheld in its raw, organic majesty. How are their brains actually pulling this off?"
My book group is currently plowing through Robert Sapolsky's "Behave", investigating the neural underpinnings of human behavior. We're hardwired to look at things as Us versus Them. In the last couple of years the Virus has become Them. (Maybe this at least partly explains why so many progressives are demonizing the virus, because we don't have Trump to kick around anymore.)
I still think the state would have grounds for severe actions, but those grounds would be contingent upon 1. Something truly serious à la bubonic plague, and 2. If the imposed actions actually *work*. Neither of which was the case with Covid, but somehow the state managed to bamboozle a majority of citizens into believing it was. (Maybe this explains why most conservatives prioritize ending restrictions, because they were predisposed to be skeptical of government.) This bamboozling required redefining basic terms like "vaccine", manipulating data, and outright gaslighting, and as you say, the raw organic majesty of the bamboozlement is breathtaking. We can only hope that enough people will notice so that it won't be so easily accomplished in the future.
I'm not very optimistic about this. When I point out to friends that vaccination isn't keeping people from getting sick, they look at me like I might storm the Capitol.
My brother has a general theory that masses of people won't hit the streets to protest until they're hungry. The state minimizes the chances of this by providing us with bread and circuses.
If there were a deadly virus, nothing in the past two years convinces me that we would be able to avoid mass casualties. Some phenomena are beyond our ability to control, regardless of our willingness to cooperate.
I agree somewhat. No matter who was president the virus would've still done its virus thing. It's silly to blame Trump or Biden. I think the politicians were actually the puppets of larger forces with ulterior motives; an argument could be made that if things like early treatment and vaccine development had not been so badly mishandled the impact would've been less. But the pandemic aspect was vastly overblown.
I may have to check out the book. I'm always a bit skeptical of the tribal-centric evolutionary psychology track, and hew more to the "language as a virus / societal operating system," Snow Crash-y way of thinking.
As far as the bamboozlement, I think the Fauci axis of actors at least knew that that would be fiat accompli as soon as society took the media's bait and bought the plague narrative to begin with. I also had this instinct back in March 2020, but unlike them I had yet to acquaint myself with the previous times society was brainwashed into believing a vaccine saved them when it did nothing, or caused harm, or when the original problem was minor to begin with (smallpox, polio, measles...). So they knew they odds were stacked in their favor.
The hunger thing is probably a big explaining factor. I think that accounts for the unrest in Italy in April / May-ish of 2020. But the lockdowns *certainly* took away society's circus features, and it remains astonishing that that was so well tolerated, but I think we can also point to obvious examples of "yes, that actually happened" here in the Great Awokening protests.
"But the lockdowns *certainly* took away society's circus features". For circuses, substitute the Internet. As for bread, in America anyway, the lockdown prompted a frenzy of bread-baking ;) not to mention the opportunity to sit around watching movies and eating crap all day. (not everybody, of course! But a lot of people.)
Sapolsky's work is based on neurological lab testing. He's brilliant and very funny.
Now I might have to re-read Snow Crash (Stephenson is one of my favorite authors).
Also plausible. But the internet is not as deep as it looks as far as the pure consumption of entertainment, and the first thing the media did with their reality-fabricating machine was use it to fabricate the most dismal and depressing reality possible. Toobin could at least have waited until he was on air to have his moment, that would have brightened things up. So it remains surprising there wasn't more pure crazy as a backlash to all that torture.
The state has overwhelming firepower. Although finding good help is a challenge (i.e. a soldier willing to dutifully machine gun civilians), nations like Myanmar have shown that it can be done.
Protests are not designed to challenge state violence. Insurgencies and guerilla warfare are. No one with an ounce of self-preservation is willing to go from peace to conflict. When we do, rest assured that our penchant for violence is undiminished.
Is there confusion as to what this civilization experiment is all about?
What are the benefits of civilization? What are its drawbacks?
Ideals such as freedom belong to the individual. It is up to the individual to live according to their principles, or to die for them. It is up to the individual if they have any principles in the first place. It's easier to give in to social conditioning. When you do, society will fit you like a glove.
Overcoming self-preservation is what peer pressure and mob mentality is really good at. And even if it was only a minor risk, the consequences of arrest in the case of the January 6 or the New Zealand not-a-coups are unpleasant enough to breach the sunk cost barrier - why not just go ahead and do the coup? But your point is still convincing; it could have been simple fear of the backlash in case of failure.
The state's firepower, itself, is an interesting point. Myanmar demonstrates what we should expect when governments become weak - a praetorian revolt / military coup, usually leading to more destabilization. But none of the police / armies in the West have done so since the Greek Junta (I think?), so again it seems like the police are pacified by some "spell" built into our post-war materialism/media culture as well.
Mar 3, 2022·edited Mar 3, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey
I don't know about Greece, as that was in the 70s, but Egypt is an example where the warrior class is the ruling class. They rolled back the Arab Spring, and are now led by the diminutive Al-Sisi.
Mar 3, 2022·edited Mar 3, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey
I can <3 this article from the archive list, but not on the article itself. SWW persists in its take over of most that is <3ing.
Re: what happened:
1. The "“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” phenomenon makes a lot of sense as I look around at what you query here.
2. I also wonder if we have bred out the dissenters, genetically? America at its founding selects for a particular phenotype, but that was a long time ago. Now the victimisers and their willing participants rule the roost.
Re: revolution faltering: one issue is that the systems in place are fairly complex now, interdependent across the board, meaning a revolution is not a simple undertaking - not that it ever is, but even less so now. Plus, we're out of practice. Schooling teaches us more what to think than how to think.
Government replaces Father, Mother is typically (Big 5) agreeable, neurotic and non-confrontational, outsourcing her violence, which the state readily takes on with gusto.
I have been thinking a lot about trust, also, and how you could trust the founding forefathers and the constitution to look after the government, and banks to look after your money, and the doctor to do his best. But that trust was not tested for veracity over time, just accepted; fait accompli.
I think we're waking up to the fact that they have taken that trust and run with it, exploited it, set up the system for themselves while we were not looking / watching, too busy with life and earning a living, enjoying the good times, etc to have the time / will to stay up to date with all the machinations going on behind the scenes.
More than that, I would like to determine a solution.
Right, and there is still that effect of selection going on, with Americans who bristle at parentalism sorting to red states. But since most "blue states" are largely heterogeneous, I'm surprised there isn't more organized conflict and rowdiness. Just violence against private individuals. But I also don't have a good idea of how well the rural pockets of these blue states are shrugging off the state's orders. The news suggests rural CA was pretty compliant with the lockdown, but I never went and took a look for myself. Maybe things were wide open in places like Mt Shasta the whole time.
1.These people are living in a superficial world of terror where they get to play the victim and the hero at the same time. 2. They have absolutely no concept of history and thanks to the colleges and universities no ability to think critically (or desire to do so). 3.The only source of information they have is the same mindless propaganda media punctuated by like minded confirmation from twitter, facebook ect. The rest of us have been told it is... 1 rude or futile to argue. 2. The world(country,state,neighborhood) is divided geographically in such a way that it is very hard to 'know' who your enemy is, gather an army ect. 3. The stunned disbelief that people could possibly ignore the truth. I will say though that we are WAKING UP. We are legion. And we are mad.
Right, displacement / misidentification of the enemy is a big part of the "protection" that the state enjoys - since the state itself is something like a phantom, a giant theatre choreographed by the media. It might not be possible to displace the state without physically taking over the national media at the same time. Before the media was centralized it would already be understood by either a left or right faction that shutting down the other side's press was part of the minimum requirements. Now the media can pretend to be neutral.
1.These people are living in a superficial world of terror where they get to play the victim and the hero at the same time. 2. They have absolutely no concept of history and thanks to the colleges and universities no ability to think critically (or desire to do so). 3.The only source of information they have is the same mindless propaganda media punctuated by like minded confirmation from twitter, facebook ect. The rest of us have been told it is... 1 rude or futile to argue. 2. The world(country,state,neighborhood) is divided geographically in such a way that it is very hard to 'know' who your enemy is, gather an army ect. 3. The stunned disbelief that people could possibly ignore the truth. I will say though that we are WAKING UP. We are legion. And we are mad.
Right, the polls are always skewed, but I don't think they're that skewed here. And the problem with using current behavior as a sign of people's attitudes toward the virus is that the same people failed to exhibit said behavior when it mattered - when to do so would have constituted actual rejection of the Pandemic Narrative (again, only talking about those areas that didn't move on a year ago or earlier). So, I remain black-pilled on that front.
But as I said I think the next few months spent "practicing being not crazy" might do the trick, we'll see when the next scariant comes around.
These kinds of polls are not exactly authentic, reliable, valid indicators of anything other than the publishers' views.
But that's a minor quibble. You're articulating some of the most important questions in this piece, and I hope you continue to take these sociological breaks from the biochemistry. Are we such easily boiled frogs? How far is too far? What would it really take?
I'm a little perplexed how you managed to omit Ottawa, though. Does the honking just not count?
Yes, we are boiling frogs. All we are dealing with today could easily have been stopped years ago if only people took an interest in what their elected governments were actually doing and not just what they were saying.
Falls under "can just be waited out."
Maybe so. That's not how it played out, though. Trudeau panicked and pulled an emergency lever, triggering bank runs and precipitating a little bit of a financial crisis as foreign capital started withdrawing.
Meanwhile his gang was using very strong language. Somebody genuinely super-cluelessly out of touch might be forgiven for thinking there was a real dangerous violent insurrection taking place. Very Jan 6... another event worth consideration, if you're really going to follow the line of reasoning you've started down here.
“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
— Chuck Palahniuk
Your comments above repeat and reinforce a commonplace misunderstanding about what a haka is. The specific haka that was done in front of Parliament was the Ka Mate Haka, in case you or anyone else is interested in learning more.
Thank you. I will google Ka Mate and attempt to correct the portrayal above (I did not form my comments from the presumption that the haka was only one thing, but from the impression given by the footage!)
Understood. I fully empathize that it makes a certain impression. Thank you for taking a look.
I think it's linked to the fact the liberties restrictions were consequences of a so called virus. If the restrictions were applied to the people for any other reasons there would have a been a much stronger reaction. This is a perfect scam for our governments and now they found the recipe they will abuse of it
They found a weakness and exploited it. Having done so, it will be more difficult to exploit next time: they will encounter more of a conditioned immune response. Maybe they'll overcome it. Probably they have more tricks up their sleeves.
In this case, yes, because the risk was so low as to essentially qualify as background noise; so the spell of science/authority was required to make everyone "see" death that wasn't there. But societies still shut down over plagues before Germ Theory over-simplistically tried to explain them, and the killer was imagined as miasma.
It's not over yet…here's a truly terrifying point of view. "Next Winter, What If We Test for Even More Viruses?" https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/03/covid-test-all-respiratory-viruses/622959/
They have a shiny new mRNA hammer, and they're looking everywhere for things to hit with it.
The Atlantic has clearly forgotten Robert Downey Jr's advice in Tropic Thunder
I'm seriously starting to think this Wu person is a menace. It's so frustrating to not be able to comment on those articles.
Eh. If they accepted comments their tawdry little rag would be perma-wrecked.
Thanks for these fascinating musings. You summed up my own feelings perfectly with "But at times, including now, I feel that rational explanations are inappropriate; the incomprehensibility of those who cannot move on from fear of the Virus must simply be beheld in its raw, organic majesty. How are their brains actually pulling this off?"
My book group is currently plowing through Robert Sapolsky's "Behave", investigating the neural underpinnings of human behavior. We're hardwired to look at things as Us versus Them. In the last couple of years the Virus has become Them. (Maybe this at least partly explains why so many progressives are demonizing the virus, because we don't have Trump to kick around anymore.)
I still think the state would have grounds for severe actions, but those grounds would be contingent upon 1. Something truly serious à la bubonic plague, and 2. If the imposed actions actually *work*. Neither of which was the case with Covid, but somehow the state managed to bamboozle a majority of citizens into believing it was. (Maybe this explains why most conservatives prioritize ending restrictions, because they were predisposed to be skeptical of government.) This bamboozling required redefining basic terms like "vaccine", manipulating data, and outright gaslighting, and as you say, the raw organic majesty of the bamboozlement is breathtaking. We can only hope that enough people will notice so that it won't be so easily accomplished in the future.
I'm not very optimistic about this. When I point out to friends that vaccination isn't keeping people from getting sick, they look at me like I might storm the Capitol.
My brother has a general theory that masses of people won't hit the streets to protest until they're hungry. The state minimizes the chances of this by providing us with bread and circuses.
If there were a deadly virus, nothing in the past two years convinces me that we would be able to avoid mass casualties. Some phenomena are beyond our ability to control, regardless of our willingness to cooperate.
I agree somewhat. No matter who was president the virus would've still done its virus thing. It's silly to blame Trump or Biden. I think the politicians were actually the puppets of larger forces with ulterior motives; an argument could be made that if things like early treatment and vaccine development had not been so badly mishandled the impact would've been less. But the pandemic aspect was vastly overblown.
I may have to check out the book. I'm always a bit skeptical of the tribal-centric evolutionary psychology track, and hew more to the "language as a virus / societal operating system," Snow Crash-y way of thinking.
As far as the bamboozlement, I think the Fauci axis of actors at least knew that that would be fiat accompli as soon as society took the media's bait and bought the plague narrative to begin with. I also had this instinct back in March 2020, but unlike them I had yet to acquaint myself with the previous times society was brainwashed into believing a vaccine saved them when it did nothing, or caused harm, or when the original problem was minor to begin with (smallpox, polio, measles...). So they knew they odds were stacked in their favor.
The hunger thing is probably a big explaining factor. I think that accounts for the unrest in Italy in April / May-ish of 2020. But the lockdowns *certainly* took away society's circus features, and it remains astonishing that that was so well tolerated, but I think we can also point to obvious examples of "yes, that actually happened" here in the Great Awokening protests.
"I'm always a bit skeptical of the tribal-centric evolutionary psychology track..."
I'm kind of the opposite. We have Paleolithic brains, for the most part, trying to shoehorn ourselves into a modern world of our own making.
"But the lockdowns *certainly* took away society's circus features". For circuses, substitute the Internet. As for bread, in America anyway, the lockdown prompted a frenzy of bread-baking ;) not to mention the opportunity to sit around watching movies and eating crap all day. (not everybody, of course! But a lot of people.)
Sapolsky's work is based on neurological lab testing. He's brilliant and very funny.
Now I might have to re-read Snow Crash (Stephenson is one of my favorite authors).
Also plausible. But the internet is not as deep as it looks as far as the pure consumption of entertainment, and the first thing the media did with their reality-fabricating machine was use it to fabricate the most dismal and depressing reality possible. Toobin could at least have waited until he was on air to have his moment, that would have brightened things up. So it remains surprising there wasn't more pure crazy as a backlash to all that torture.
Doesn't have to be pure entertainment to have eyeballs glued to it for hours every day.
The state has overwhelming firepower. Although finding good help is a challenge (i.e. a soldier willing to dutifully machine gun civilians), nations like Myanmar have shown that it can be done.
Protests are not designed to challenge state violence. Insurgencies and guerilla warfare are. No one with an ounce of self-preservation is willing to go from peace to conflict. When we do, rest assured that our penchant for violence is undiminished.
Is there confusion as to what this civilization experiment is all about?
What are the benefits of civilization? What are its drawbacks?
Ideals such as freedom belong to the individual. It is up to the individual to live according to their principles, or to die for them. It is up to the individual if they have any principles in the first place. It's easier to give in to social conditioning. When you do, society will fit you like a glove.
Overcoming self-preservation is what peer pressure and mob mentality is really good at. And even if it was only a minor risk, the consequences of arrest in the case of the January 6 or the New Zealand not-a-coups are unpleasant enough to breach the sunk cost barrier - why not just go ahead and do the coup? But your point is still convincing; it could have been simple fear of the backlash in case of failure.
The state's firepower, itself, is an interesting point. Myanmar demonstrates what we should expect when governments become weak - a praetorian revolt / military coup, usually leading to more destabilization. But none of the police / armies in the West have done so since the Greek Junta (I think?), so again it seems like the police are pacified by some "spell" built into our post-war materialism/media culture as well.
I don't know about Greece, as that was in the 70s, but Egypt is an example where the warrior class is the ruling class. They rolled back the Arab Spring, and are now led by the diminutive Al-Sisi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJXootdQzDI&list=RDUshEeyv8YZM&index=4
Rather impressively heartfelt
I can <3 this article from the archive list, but not on the article itself. SWW persists in its take over of most that is <3ing.
Re: what happened:
1. The "“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” phenomenon makes a lot of sense as I look around at what you query here.
2. I also wonder if we have bred out the dissenters, genetically? America at its founding selects for a particular phenotype, but that was a long time ago. Now the victimisers and their willing participants rule the roost.
Re: revolution faltering: one issue is that the systems in place are fairly complex now, interdependent across the board, meaning a revolution is not a simple undertaking - not that it ever is, but even less so now. Plus, we're out of practice. Schooling teaches us more what to think than how to think.
Government replaces Father, Mother is typically (Big 5) agreeable, neurotic and non-confrontational, outsourcing her violence, which the state readily takes on with gusto.
I have been thinking a lot about trust, also, and how you could trust the founding forefathers and the constitution to look after the government, and banks to look after your money, and the doctor to do his best. But that trust was not tested for veracity over time, just accepted; fait accompli.
I think we're waking up to the fact that they have taken that trust and run with it, exploited it, set up the system for themselves while we were not looking / watching, too busy with life and earning a living, enjoying the good times, etc to have the time / will to stay up to date with all the machinations going on behind the scenes.
More than that, I would like to determine a solution.
Right, and there is still that effect of selection going on, with Americans who bristle at parentalism sorting to red states. But since most "blue states" are largely heterogeneous, I'm surprised there isn't more organized conflict and rowdiness. Just violence against private individuals. But I also don't have a good idea of how well the rural pockets of these blue states are shrugging off the state's orders. The news suggests rural CA was pretty compliant with the lockdown, but I never went and took a look for myself. Maybe things were wide open in places like Mt Shasta the whole time.
Ironic that the blue big wigs love holidaying in Florida still. I think Ron put together a list of them at some stage?
They probably get off on flaunting their ability to flout the progressive taboos. They are taboo flout flaunters.
Feral flout flaunters, fellowshipping in Florida.
2 Flout 2 Flounterous
OIC OAC FOQ to FLA.
I should publish the population movement graph of Australia. It's a blinder. Talk about selection ...
Have you considered a return to an agrarian or hunter-gathering culture?
No, I hadn't. I would like to be an explorer, and a lot of earth is done, and science fiction is great, so space explorer appeals a lot.
Is there anything in particular that appeals to you about those cultures?
About the only appeal is I wouldn't be required to wear a silly mask, or have to receive dubious vaccinations.
I think there will still be the occasional silly mask, but it will be the fun kind.
Even your meanderings are spectacular.
Unglossed runs like a river.
1.These people are living in a superficial world of terror where they get to play the victim and the hero at the same time. 2. They have absolutely no concept of history and thanks to the colleges and universities no ability to think critically (or desire to do so). 3.The only source of information they have is the same mindless propaganda media punctuated by like minded confirmation from twitter, facebook ect. The rest of us have been told it is... 1 rude or futile to argue. 2. The world(country,state,neighborhood) is divided geographically in such a way that it is very hard to 'know' who your enemy is, gather an army ect. 3. The stunned disbelief that people could possibly ignore the truth. I will say though that we are WAKING UP. We are legion. And we are mad.
Right, displacement / misidentification of the enemy is a big part of the "protection" that the state enjoys - since the state itself is something like a phantom, a giant theatre choreographed by the media. It might not be possible to displace the state without physically taking over the national media at the same time. Before the media was centralized it would already be understood by either a left or right faction that shutting down the other side's press was part of the minimum requirements. Now the media can pretend to be neutral.
1.These people are living in a superficial world of terror where they get to play the victim and the hero at the same time. 2. They have absolutely no concept of history and thanks to the colleges and universities no ability to think critically (or desire to do so). 3.The only source of information they have is the same mindless propaganda media punctuated by like minded confirmation from twitter, facebook ect. The rest of us have been told it is... 1 rude or futile to argue. 2. The world(country,state,neighborhood) is divided geographically in such a way that it is very hard to 'know' who your enemy is, gather an army ect. 3. The stunned disbelief that people could possibly ignore the truth. I will say though that we are WAKING UP. We are legion. And we are mad.
Right, the polls are always skewed, but I don't think they're that skewed here. And the problem with using current behavior as a sign of people's attitudes toward the virus is that the same people failed to exhibit said behavior when it mattered - when to do so would have constituted actual rejection of the Pandemic Narrative (again, only talking about those areas that didn't move on a year ago or earlier). So, I remain black-pilled on that front.
But as I said I think the next few months spent "practicing being not crazy" might do the trick, we'll see when the next scariant comes around.