3083 replies to this topic

[Advocatus Diaboli]

The following paper is probably falsified:

 

Falsified papers in high-impact journals were slow to retract and indistinguishable from nonfraudulent papers

 

Conclusions:

"Retractions due to falsification can take a long time, especially when senior researchers are implicated. Fraudulent articles are not obviously distinguishable from nonfraudulent ones."

 

And now, for something entirely different:

 

"Most corporates know how to do stakeholder analysis."--Indeed, everyone knows this, because most corporates have been polled on the matter and they say so. Corporates also claim that 63% of statistical data, concerning corporations and cited on the internet, are just plain made up--while 17% of corporate contrarians claim otherwise. The balance remaining mute.

 

"Another thing that non-scientists do not understand is the fact that scientists have got a predilection for truth."--Yes, most scientists have been polled about their veracity, and the ones that may or may not have been lying have said that they weren't lying, or faking and distorting data in their research. QED, or W^5. 

 

"Thus when anyone tries to distort or manipulate the truth for their own nefarious purposes, as businessmen and some politicians are apt to do, they are always going to have trouble getting scientists on their side, as there are not many high level scientists who are prepared to sacrifice the truth."--Correct, not many. Where "not many" means: I have absolutely not even the slightest clue as to what the number might be, and can't present a citation, so I'l just claim "not many", because it fits my narrative de jour.

 

Do the math to see what "not many" means in this recent example of truth (3 good guys, a minority) vs greed.

Edited by Advocatus Diaboli, 27 June 2021 - 09:09 AM.

[Hip]

Give me a billion dollars & I'll show you how easy it is to corrupt science.  There are actually many billions in play with this pandemic.    

 

If you think it is that easy to corrupt science and distort scientific truth, how are we going to go to Mars and go back to the Moon, because these projects require very precise science and technology, and in a world were all scientific facts are easily corruptible, it is going to be hard to achieve such a precision project like a Moon landing. Let's also forget about addressing global warming, because the oil industry is so rich, they can pay to distort any scientific facts connected to climate change. 

 

If the world was as corrupt as you are suggesting, humanity would not be able to tackle climate change, or land on the Moon.

 

But NASA is going back to the moon in 2024, and apart from the Trump setback, climate change is slowly being addressed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Corruption of science does occur, though, and as a chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patient, I have seen it for myself:

 

The disability insurance industry, which has an annual turnover in the trillions, did not want to pay out disability support for ME/CFS patients. So this insurance industry teamed up with a bunch of dubious psychiatrists, and started a misinformation campaign to portray ME/CFS as an "all in the mind" psychologically-caused condition (a psychosomatic disease). This then meant that the insurance companies were able to withhold disability support from ME/CFS patients, saving them billions each year.

 

These insurance companies even went so far as to set up university departments at certain universities, where they could install academics whose held psychosomatic views on disease. So these insurance companies were controlling an actual university department. 

 

But in these cases, billions are at stake, so you can understand why the corruption took place. There was a strong motive.

 

In any crime, you need a motive. These insurance companies had a motive to try to portray ME/CFS as "all in the mind" illness, because it stood to save them billions each year. 

 

But nobody has told me the motive for trying to make an effective COVID drug look as if it does not work.

 

Who stands to make billions from this? If you can explain the motive for making an effective drug look ineffective, then your arguments would have more weight.  

Edited by Hip, 27 June 2021 - 02:07 PM.

[Dorian Grey]

Here's 1.2 billion reasons why any and all outpatient therapeutics have had to be suppressed: 

 

https://www.reuters....rug-2021-06-09/

 

U.S. signs $1.2 bln deal for 1.7 mln courses of Merck's experimental COVID-19 drug

 

Problem with molnupiravir is, it was abandoned by a previous company as it appears it may be mutagenic!  

 

https://en.wikipedia...ki/Molnupiravir

 

"In April 2020, a whistleblower complaint by former Head of US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) Rick Bright revealed concerns over providing funding for the further development of molnupiravir due to similar drugs having mutagenic (DNA damaging) properties.^[3] A previous company, Pharmasset, that had investigated the drug's active ingredient had abandoned it."

 

Apparently this (mutagenicity)  isn't a problem for big pharma.  They'll take the money and run with it anyway.  

[Dorian Grey]

https://www.yahoo.co...-120300323.html

 

The FDA is broken. It's controversial approval of an ineffective new Alzheimer's drug proves the agency puts profit over public health.

 

Money Talks!  

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Something to think about when searching related to "Protecting from Coronavirus - Supplements & Therapies": Or any search, for that matter.

 

For example, typing:   

 

""It’s the vaccinations that are creating the variants”. —- Dr. Luc Montagnier, French virologist and Nobel Prize Winner"

 

into a Google search will get you this. 

 

Whereas, doing the same search with DuckDuckGo will get you a selection of web pages which are actually relevant to your search.

 

Big difference. Big Brother Google apparently knows what's best for you to see.

 

After several edits and checks on the links I've noticed that DuckDuckGo search hits are getting fewer in number and drifting way far away from the original results I had gotten. Interesting.

 

 

I tried Bing and it gave some results similar to DuckDuckGo initial results.

Edited by Advocatus Diaboli, 28 June 2021 - 09:38 AM.

[Raphy]

I have been following quietly for a while without saying anything. However Hip you finally compelled me to reply. You are well articulated, but you appear to be stuck into your theories, and you have a simplistic view, imho, of reality.

 

A while ago an academic came up with a system that would predict the political and geopolitical future with what he claimed was 90% accuracy. His system was simple: you identify and weigh up all the stakeholders in a situation, and you then find that the future outcome is, in 90% of cases, the one which aligns with the dominant stakeholders.  

 

Most corporates know how to do stakeholder analysis. If you want to achieve some objective as a corporate, but the thing that you are planning to do disadvantages 90% of stakeholders in the situation, well then forget about it, your objective not going to happen. I think most people would understand that. In stakeholder analysis, it's nearly always the bulk weight of the stakeholders who stand to benefit who will force their desires and objectives on the world.

 

 

Now let's look at ivermectin from a stakeholder analysis perspective. Let's assume for the sake of argument that ivermectin has profound effects in stopping COVID, as some claim. But does this benefit the relevant stakeholders? Well first we have to identify the stakeholders. The ivermectin study is being conducted in the UK, and so the largest stakeholder is the UK government and the NHS.  

 

With an effective drug for COVID, the UK could end all lockdowns and return to business as usual. The money to be saved in doing this is in the £trillions, because the pandemic is costing all countries trillions. The NHS will also be greatly advantaged by an effective drug, as this would take the enormous pressure off the NHS. The people of the UK would also be greatly advantaged, because nobody likes lockdown. So these are the stakeholders who stand to benefit if ivermectin were indeed an effective treatment.

 

Are there any stakeholders who would be disadvantaged if ivermectin were an effective treatment? Hard to find any, but maybe there are some pharma companies planning their own drug to treat COVID who might be disadvantaged. But in terms of stakeholder weight, a pharma company is a lot smaller that a national government. Thus stakeholder analysis would show that the pharma company would lose, and the UK government, NHS and people of the UK would win. Thus should ivermectin be a viable treatment for COVID, stakeholder analysis shows that this treatment would be rushed out to help get the UK economy back up and running. 

 

This analysis is missing a key hypothesis: Institutions don't exist in themselves, they don't take decisions: Individuals take decisions. And the incentives of those individuals can diverge from those of the institutions they represent. I'm sure you are intelligent enough that I don't need to elaborate on why this renders your whole model invalid.

 

Another thing that non-scientists do not understand is the fact that scientists have got a predilection for truth. After all, that is what science is about, the search for knowledge and truth. 

 

Thus when anyone tries to distort or manipulate the truth for their own nefarious purposes, as businessmen and some politicians are apt to do, they are always going to have trouble getting scientists on their side, as there are not many high level scientists who are prepared to sacrifice the truth. 

 

Pharma companies for an example sometimes get a bad press, but that bad press may arise more from the attitudes of the businessmen the board room, rather than from the everyday scientists working in the lab of the pharma company, who are trying to find cures to the many horrible diseases which afflict humanity. 

 

It is true that scientists love the truth. But they are human beings and can be subject to the same biais and pressure. For example, if saying something can put your career on jeopardy, how many scientists will speak out? In the longevity field, Aubrey De Grey has long been alone in claiming science could help people live longer. And according to him, that is not because no other scientists believed it possible, but because saying so would put an end to their career.

We are at a time where the pressure on anyone diverging from official guidelines is enormous. I am sure you are aware of this pressure. How many doctors have been ignored or ridiculed or worse because of reasonable positions on say, covid vaccine on children, or efficacy of cortico-steroid or ivermectin,... And what about major social media platform effectively censoring any dissenting voice?

 

Who stands to make billions from this? If you can explain the motive for making an effective drug look ineffective, then your arguments would have more weight.  

 

 

If it was ever acknowledged IVM (or HCQ) was an effective treatment, the EUA for the vaccines would be invalidated until 2 year safety studies were complete.  Do you really believe this might not effect the science regarding outpatient therapeutics?  

 

[Hip]

This analysis is missing a key hypothesis: Institutions don't exist in themselves, they don't take decisions: Individuals take decisions. And the incentives of those individuals can diverge from those of the institutions they represent. I'm sure you are intelligent enough that I don't need to elaborate on why this renders your whole model invalid.

 
If you want to think about it a little bit more, you will realize that institutions like corporates and governments do indeed in a sense take decisions, based on the weighted result of all the pressurized inputs to that institution. Every institution is a node in our society and economy, with various inputs and outputs to other institutions.
 
 
For example, in the corporate boardroom, the CEO and board will get pressurized inputs from various forces, including any unions or staff representatives of the company, who will dictate their requirements to the board; the senior managers, who will dictate their requirements too; the company shareholders, who dictate their requirements regarding dividend payments; the bank that the corporate may have lent money from, which will be concerned about getting its interest payments; input from the company's customers, whether or not they are buying the products, which will dictate what sort of products and services the company will offer next year.  
 
The media will also have an input to the board, as any media stories which may expose shortcomings of the company will add a further pressured input to the board.
 
The legal profession will also have an input to the corporate board, since if any of the company's products have cause death or injury, that will result in expensive lawsuits, which can be costly. 

 
The reality is that corporate decisions are highly constrained via a variety of inputs, which each input placing pressure on the corporate entity. 
 
 
Yes, of course there is scope for individuals to make decisions within the corporate boardroom, and indeed a good CEO can result in much better performance of the company. 
 
But that CEO cannot just do anything he wants, because of the high number of constraints placed upon the corporate entity. If the corporate stops making profit, then the shareholders will complain. If customers do not like the products, then they will go elsewhere. If senior management are not treated well, they will find a better company to sell their talents to. If the CEO or board do something illegal, they may have to face the consequences later.
 
To understand global economics and business, you have to view the world in a mathematical way. Corporate economics and business are a mathematical subject, where fundamental mechanical forces operate and dominate the landscape. 
 
 
 
 

We are at a time where the pressure on anyone diverging from official guidelines is enormous.

 
Never has there been more freedom in the world than in our current Western society. Never has it been easier to whistleblow on governments, corporates, etc, or express and publish a view or opinion contrary to the mainstream view. 
 
As someone born in the 1960s, I grew up in a time when society was quite conservative, where people were constrained and expected to follow narrower paths prescribed by their government and society. 
 
The liberal movement of the 1960s slowly changed the world, and so now, 60 years later, we have high levels of liberal freedoms. You only have to look at things like the advancement of gay rights, feminism, etc, and the replacement of religious values by liberal values, to appreciate the enormous social changes that have taken place since the 1960s.
 
I am not a big fan of the way the liberal movement has currently morphed into woke and politically correct activism, because now we start to see a reduction in the freedom of expression. 
 
But I suspect this current woke and politically correct backlash on freedom of speech may be a result of too much freedom being giving to the populace, and now the pendulum is swinging back to conservatism, which see reflected in politics around the world, with many people switching to right wing politics, which they see as representing order and control rather than unbridled freedom. It's not governments which are pushing this right wing backlash, it is the people themselves who decided that we have had enough of liberalism. Society has its own rhythms, and throughout history, you often see the pendulum is swinging back and forth on all sorts of social parameters.

 

 

Edited by Hip, 28 June 2021 - 03:57 PM.

[Hip]

 

If it was ever acknowledged IVM (or HCQ) was an effective treatment, the EUA for the vaccines would be invalidated until 2 year safety studies were complete.  Do you really believe this might not effect the science regarding outpatient therapeutics?

 

That makes no sense at all, given that we already have several quite effective treatments in use in hospitals, including oxygen, ventilators, corticosteroids.

 

Added together, these treatments have reduced the death rate considerably, but that has not halted the vaccine rollout.

 

 

Edited by Hip, 28 June 2021 - 03:52 PM.

[Raphy]

 
If you want to think about it a little bit more, you will realize that institutions like corporates and governments do indeed in a sense take decisions, based on the weighted result of all the pressurized inputs to that institution. Every institution is a node in our society and economy, with various inputs and outputs to other institutions.
 
 
For example, in the corporate boardroom, the CEO and board will get pressurized inputs from various forces, including any unions or staff representatives of the company, who will dictate their requirements to the board; the senior managers, who will dictate their requirements too; the company shareholders, who dictate their requirements regarding dividend payments; the bank that the corporate may have lent money from, which will be concerned about getting its interest payments; input from the company's customers, whether or not they are buying the products, which will dictate what sort of products and services the company will offer next year.  
 
The media will also have an input to the board, as any media stories which may expose shortcomings of the company will add a further pressured input to the board.
 
The legal profession will also have an input to the corporate board, since if any of the company's products have cause death or injury, that will result in expensive lawsuits, which can be costly. 

 
The reality is that corporate decisions are highly constrained via a variety of inputs, which each input placing pressure on the corporate entity. 
 
 
Yes, of course there is scope for individuals to make decisions within the corporate boardroom, and indeed a good CEO can result in much better performance of the company. 
 
But that CEO cannot just do anything he wants, because of the high number of constraints placed upon the corporate entity. If the corporate stops making profit, then the shareholders will complain. If customers do not like the products, then they will go elsewhere. If senior management are not treated well, they will find a better company to sell their talents to. If the CEO or board do something illegal, they may have to face the consequences later.
 
To understand global economics and business, you have to view the world in a mathematical way. Corporate economics and business are a mathematical subject, where fundamental mechanical forces operate and dominate the landscape. 
 
 
 
 

 
Never has there been more freedom in the world than in our current Western society. Never has it been easier to whistleblow on governments, corporates, etc, or express and publish a view or opinion contrary to the mainstream view. 
 
As someone born in the 1960s, I grew up in a time when society was quite conservative, where people were constrained and expected to follow narrower paths prescribed by their government and society. 
 
The liberal movement of the 1960s slowly changed the world, and so now, 60 years later, we have high levels of liberal freedoms. You only have to look at things like the advancement of gay rights, feminism, etc, and the replacement of religious values by liberal values, to appreciate the enormous social changes that have taken place since the 1960s.
 
I am not a big fan of the way the liberal movement has currently morphed into woke and politically correct activism, because now we start to see a reduction in the freedom of expression. 
 
But I suspect this current woke and politically correct backlash on freedom of speech may be a result of too much freedom being giving to the populace, and now the pendulum is swinging back to conservatism, which see reflected in politics around the world, with many people switching to right wing politics, which they see as representing order and control rather than unbridled freedom. It's not governments which are pushing this right wing backlash, it is the people themselves who decided that we have had enough of liberalism. Society has its own rhythms, and throughout history, you often see the pendulum is swinging back and forth on all sorts of social parameters.

 

Regarding the stakeholders analysis, yes of course institutions have pressure to keep them somewhat aligned with their stated goals. But this is not black and white, obviously there is a lot of intersecting and conflicting interests at play. Furthermore, you keep taking the example of corporations, which may be the worst example, because corporations are indeed much more vulnerable to profit motive, public pressure, "the market",... while governmentals and other monopolistic institutions are generally much more shielded from outside pressure for obvious reason.

 

 

Regarding freedom, you contradict yourself, if we have never been as free then we are not in a pendulum swing back. But indeed we are in a pendulum swing, we may have reach "peak freedom" 20 years ago. In fact it's much more complicated than that, different domains offer different degrees of freedom. Social pressure ("organic" limitations on freedoms) may have been much worse in the past, however other freedom like economic one (the ease to start and operate a business) have clearly been declining for decades, with regulations building up, fiscal and financial pressure as well, to take one example. Freedom of speech has long been under pressure with political correctness, now turbo-charged with wokeness. However that's not the worst. The worst is the censure by social media giants. Like for example mentions of the lab leak hypothesis, to take an opinion that has been systematically censored on those platform only to be vindicated in the end. You could say we are free to go elsewhere. But the goal of those platforms are to become the backbone of the internet. And they are getting closer to that every year. See for example the fate of parler.com, that got completely shutdown by big tech. We are not far from a world where every service relies on big tech companies. When that happens, and they enforce the same or worse level of censorship that they do now, where will critical scientific debate happens? Offline? In magazines?

 

That makes no sense at all, given that we already have several quite effective treatments in use in hospitals, including oxygen, ventilators, corticosteroids.

 

Added together, these treatments have reduced the death rate considerably, but that has not halted the vaccine rollout.

If those treatment were really efficacious, the vaccines would not have been authorized in emergency, since as far as I understand, the condition for their authorization is the absence of an alternative treatment.
 

[geo12the]

 

Never has there been more freedom in the world than in our current Western society. Never has it been easier to whistleblow on governments, corporates, etc, or express and publish a view or opinion contrary to the mainstream view. 
 
As someone born in the 1960s, I grew up in a time when society was quite conservative, where people were constrained and expected to follow narrower paths prescribed by their government and society. 
 
The liberal movement of the 1960s slowly changed the world, and so now, 60 years later, we have high levels of liberal freedoms. You only have to look at things like the advancement of gay rights, feminism, etc, and the replacement of religious values by liberal values, to appreciate the enormous social changes that have taken place since the 1960s.
 
I am not a big fan of the way the liberal movement has currently morphed into woke and politically correct activism, because now we start to see a reduction in the freedom of expression. 
 
But I suspect this current woke and politically correct backlash on freedom of speech may be a result of too much freedom being giving to the populace, and now the pendulum is swinging back to conservatism, which see reflected in politics around the world, with many people switching to right wing politics, which they see as representing order and control rather than unbridled freedom. It's not governments which are pushing this right wing backlash, it is the people themselves who decided that we have had enough of liberalism. Society has its own rhythms, and throughout history, you often see the pendulum is swinging back and forth on all sorts of social parameters.

 

I agree with much of what you say but would add that today, in contrast to when we were younger there are a few other things at play:

 

Starting with Rush Limbaugh, there was a pre-digestion of news content and current events to fit a certain mind-view. Like a mother bird regurgitating food into her children's mouth, Rush fed his "dittoheads" regurgitated editorialized news that they greedily gobbled up. That trend has worsened with pundits on both the left and right copying that recipe. Even here now on this forum we see people regularly quoting Tucker Carlson like he is a magical bounty of scientific and medical knowledge.  People no longer think anymore, they let the Tucker Carlson's of the world be the template for their worldview and as a result the political extremes (both left and right but especially right) have an outsized influence in our politics and you have a scary number of people on the right clamoring for a right wing coup to install Dear Leader as King of the USA. I discourage people from participating in the current tribal political wars (full disclosure- I am registered as an independent and consider myself politically moderate with Libertarian leaning views on many issues. I have problems with the policy positions of both major political parties).  

 

There have always been conspiracy theories and crazy ideas floating around. But social media has had the effect of amplifying them. Even here on this forum people complain about "censorship" when they can't find the latest crazy conspiracy on Google. Truth no longer maters. People here will regularly post information that is exaggerated or false because it reinforces their belief system.  People think they want truth but they want to hear what conforms to their worldview. 

 

I am pretty pessimistic about the whole thing.  

[Dorian Grey]

Oxygen, ventilators & steroids?  Oh my!  

 

What truly makes no sense at all is opining you'd rather get ambulanced off to a hospital and put on a vent, rather than popping a few dollars worth of pills at home.  

 

Plenty of options to choose from here: https://c19early.com/

 

Cheers!  

[geo12the]

Oxygen, ventilators & steroids?  Oh my!  

 

What truly makes no sense at all is opining you'd rather get ambulanced off to a hospital and put on a vent, rather than popping a few dollars worth of pills at home.  

 

Plenty of options to choose from here: https://c19early.com/

 

Cheers!  

 

 

"Popping a few dollars worth of pills" to get better sounds good but I am not at all convinced we know with certainty would pills to pop. The c19early website is shady in how it presents the data- I don't believe it's s useful source of information. 

[bladedmind]

Scientists love the truth?  More than does the total population of a given country?    Minority propensities to opportunism and (worse in content but smaller in extent) stark sociopathy, appear in all realms of life.  Indeed the social institutions of science exist to check that opportunism, and like all institutions is imperfect and sometimes fails.  The bigger the temptaton, the more the opportunism. 

Thirty-five years ago my next-door neighbor was a geology professor.  He seemed to become a little more prosperous than he had been.  He published an op-ed in the state’s leading newspaper advocating, as a geologist, for a controversial nuclear-waste siting decision.  It came out a few months later that a) he had not written the op-ed, and b) he received a payment for signing and submitting it.  One truth doesn’t make someone honest, but one lie does make them a liar.  

Let’s take truth-loving Peter Daszak.  His lies about one of the major public health issues in the world suppressed debate for 14 months.  It worked because he used the usual bait for the gullible:  science! conspiracy theory! racism! 

Emails show scientists discussed masking their involvement in key journal letter on Covid origins
 

Daszak drafted the statement and circulated it to other scientists to sign. But the emails reveal that Daszak and two other EcoHealth-affiliated scientists thought they should not sign the statement so as to mask their involvement in it. Leaving their names off the statement would give it “some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way,” Daszak wrote.

 

Daszak noted that he could “send it round” to other scientists to sign. “We’ll then put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice,” he wrote.

 

The two scientists Daszak wrote to about the need to make the paper appear independent of EcoHealth, are coronavirus experts Ralph Baric and Linfa Wang.

 

In the emails, Baric agreed with Daszak’s suggestion not to sign The Lancet statement, writing “Otherwise it looks self-serving, and we lose impact.”

 

Daszak did ultimately sign the statement himself, but he was not identified as its lead author or coordinator of the effort….

U.S. Right to Know previously reported that Daszak drafted the statement for The Lancet, and orchestrated it to “not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person” but rather to be seen as “simply a letter from leading scientists”.

 

EcoHealth Alliance is a New York-based nonprofit that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses, including with scientists at the Wuhan Institute.

 

Notably, Daszak has emerged as a central figure in official investigations of  SARS-CoV-2’s origins. He is a member of the World Health Organization‘s team of experts tracing the novel coronavirus’s origins, and The Lancet COVID 19 Commission.

 

Under-fire Lancet admits conflict of interest on lab-leak letter
After criticism that it failed to declare Peter Daszak’s work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, journal has also ‘recused’ zoologist from its coronavirus origins taskforce

Another six of the signers were affiliated with Daszak’s One Health Alliance.  None of them declared potential conflict interest for the letter’s first publication, and none disclosed their affiliation and potential conflict after Lancet’s second inquiry to authors.

As for Lancet, the default action following failure to declare a conflict is retraction of article.  Lancet, however, let it stand. 

 

Solzhenitsyn on evil: 

 

It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.

 

Edited by bladedmind, 28 June 2021 - 06:28 PM.

[Hip]

Regarding freedom, you contradict yourself, if we have never been as free then we are not in a pendulum swing back. But indeed we are in a pendulum swing, we may have reach "peak freedom" 20 years ago.

That's being pedantic. But yes, it could be the case that we have passed "peak freedom", and the swing-back to more conservatism has already begun.

 

Certainly we are seeing already the sexual morals backlash. The sexual liberation and sexual promiscuity of the 1960s is now facing the MeToo movement, where women are trying to curb being casually hit upon at work etc. Of course, MeToo is a blunt tool, and has a witch-hunt quality in some cases. But MeToo seems like it could be the beginning of a swing back to less casual promiscuity, and slightly more puritanical values. 
 
 
 
 

Furthermore, you keep taking the example of corporations, which may be the worst example

Aren't we taking about coronavirus treatments and the pharma industry? These are corporates.

 

But democratic governments are also exposed to pressures. The electorate and media being the main ones. Plus governments have to try to keep the super-wealthy happy, otherwise they can also turn against you. 

 

 
 

The worst is the censure by social media giants. Like for example mentions of the lab leak hypothesis, to take an opinion that has been systematically censored on those platform only to be vindicated in the end. You could say we are free to go elsewhere. But the goal of those platforms are to become the backbone of the internet. 

 

I would have to disagree. By the very definition of IQ, in Western countries, about half the population will have an IQ below 100. Think about that. 

 

There is a reason why one of the most popular shares on social media is inane cat videos: it is because that is the intellectual standard of social media. 

 

If you are university educated, your IQ is going to be around 120 on average. If you did a more difficult university degree, like mathematics, science, medicine or engineering, your IQ is going to be a bit higher, maybe 140.  

 

But there are millions of people on social media who share cat videos and have IQs in the 80s. These people are part of out society, and I have the greatest of respect for all sections of society.

 

But unless you want the world to be run by people who are not the sharpest tool in the box, like in that film Idiocracy, it is fairly clear you need to prevent those who don't really understand how the world works from trying to take control. People on social media will virally share any dumb conspiracy theory as quickly as they share cat videos.

 

The latest stupidity being virally shared is the idea that vaccinated people can shed viral particles to others, and some nutty people have thus banned the vaccinated from entering their shops and restaurants, as a result of silly social media hearsay. 

 

Edited by Hip, 28 June 2021 - 07:33 PM.

[Hip]

People no longer think anymore, they let the Tucker Carlson's of the world be the template for their worldview

 

Yes indeed. Thinking requires a bit of time and personal space, where you reflect upon the facts, and come to some conclusions. But nowadays all our minds are so wired together by the Internet and other electronic media that there is hardly an hour goes by where you aren't disturbed by some message being delivered to your phone or email inbox. Perhaps that constant buzz of electronic media disturbs the quiet thinking process.

Edited by Hip, 28 June 2021 - 06:54 PM.

[Hip]

Scientists love the truth?  More than does the total population of a given country?

 

Yes, in my experience they do, much more than the general population. I am not sure why in your post you bring up some random examples of scientists distorting the truth from the pandemic, as this a general statement I am making, nothing specifically to do with the pandemic. Pandemic is a bad example in any case, because it is like a wartime situation, and the well-known maxim tells us that in war, truth is first casualty. 

 

Some research I read years ago found that people who were good at lying, and lied regularly in their social interactions, did far better in their careers than those who were more sincere. Lying can be a useful form of social lubrication, and because of this, everyone lies to some extent, even scientists, in order to lubricate their path. 

 

But if your basic interest and passion is the fundamental truths of nature and the universe, you are going to be a far more truthful person than say a door-to-door salesman, who will spin any bullshit in order to sell his product. 

Edited by Hip, 28 June 2021 - 07:34 PM.

[DanCG]

  People no longer think anymore, 

 

I agree. I have noticed a tendency of people to simply dismiss facts that disrupt their worldview as "conspiracy theory".

[Advocatus Diaboli]

.

Re: post #2774:

 

"If you are university educated, your IQ is going to be around 120 on average. If you did a more difficult university degree, like mathematics, science, medicine or engineering, your IQ is going to be a bit higher, maybe 140."

 

Sorry, Hip. The correct numbers, for your above statement, are 119.3 and 141.

 

"But there are millions of people on social media who share cat videos and have IQs in the 80s. "

 

Once again, Hip, you are wrong. I personally surveyed 11.3 million cat-video posters and found that their IQ range was in the low-to-mid nineties.

 

"But unless you want the world to be run by people who are not the sharpest tool in the box, like in that film Idiocracy, it is fairly clear you need to prevent those who don't really understand how the world works from trying to take control."

 

I would suggest that Deer Leader be given the job of determining who among us really understands how the world works. And, as part of that job, prevent, by way of censoring and cancelling, all those cretins who don't meet his personal criteria, from engaging in the catastrophe of freedom of speech and expression.

 

Deer Leader is uniquely qualified as he has, by way of metempsychosis, been channeling such luminaries as Joseph Goebbels, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Kim Jong-un, and Elvis (who actually hasn't left the building).

 

In light of your egregious factual errors, I would suggest that you abandon your current source of data and find sources and links that can be cited as actual examples of the points that you're trying to make.

 

 

Edited by Advocatus Diaboli, 28 June 2021 - 10:35 PM.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

It would have been nice if the following NIH article had been dated:

 

Dietary Supplements in the time of COVID-19

 

 

geo12the wrote:

"The c19early website is shady in how it presents the data- I don't believe it's s useful source of information. "

 

Care to offer any reasons for that opinion, geo12the? I mean, if you could point out that Deer Leader God King was funding that site, for example, and that He had given explicit instructions for them to present data in a "shady" manner (whatever that means) it would go a long way to further your thesis. Shirley you don't mean that it's shady, and not useful, because you don't like the information that the site presents?

 

 

If information or opinion comes from sources who express ideologies that you don't like, then the information or opinion is prima facie bad and vice versa for information or opinions that you do like. It's best to focus on the messenger and not the message.  See Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh references in an above post.

 

Here is a message/messenger example of hypocracy:

 

Students love Trump's tax plan when they think it's Bernie's

 

 

[DanCG]

Even here on this forum people complain about "censorship" when they can't find the latest crazy conspiracy on Google.

 

So, you are ready to dismiss the opinion of Dr. Luc Montangier, Nobel Laureate, discoverer of HIV, as "the latest crazy conspiracy".

 

And, if the folks at Google did not deliberately manipulate the algorithm to keep opinions like this from the public eye, how do you explain the search results?

Edited by DanCG, 29 June 2021 - 12:16 AM.

[Hebbeh]

So, you are ready to dismiss the opinion of Dr. Luc Montangier, Nobel Laureate, discoverer of HIV, as "the latest crazy conspiracy".

 

And, if the folks at Google did not deliberately manipulate the algorithm to keep opinions like this from the public eye, how do you explain the search results?

 

Devils advocate was just posting another misleading faked post like he loves to do and you like the other blind followers fell for it.

 

Try Googling it for yourself:

 

It’s the vaccinations that are creating the variants”. —- Dr. Luc Montagnier, French virologist and Nobel Prize Winner

 

https://www.google.com/search?

 

About 12,500 results (0.56 seconds)

 

PS:  While you're at, you obviously need to actually read the links to find out what Dr Luc Montagnier actually said then get back to us about conspiracy theories.

Edited by Hebbeh, 29 June 2021 - 01:07 AM.

[Hip]

So, you are ready to dismiss the opinion of Dr. Luc Montangier, Nobel Laureate, discoverer of HIV, as "the latest crazy conspiracy".

 

And, if the folks at Google did not deliberately manipulate the algorithm to keep opinions like this from the public eye, how do you explain the search results?

 

You think the insane drivel that Luc Montagnier has come out with in recent years is science? Montagnier says everyone who has had a COVID vaccine will die within two years. Yeah, right.

 

But you are in good company, as there are a lot of people out there who cannot distinguish between scientific drivel from good science, and this is why the information sphere is being increasingly policed by the tech giants, because it seems we cannot rely on the judgement of the public on complex issues like science.

 

 

Quite a few Nobel Prize winners have gone stark raving mad, incidentally. Montagnier follows in that tradition of a brilliant mind becoming deranged. Montagnier did sterling work in his earlier career, but being a clever scientist does not protect you from getting serious mental health problems later in life. Indeed, it has often been said that genius is not so far from insanity, so perhaps going mad later in life might be an occupational hazard of genius.

 

Insanity has sadly hit many top rate minds, like the philosopher Nietzsche.

 

And one of my favorite mathematicians, Georg Cantor, who proved that numbers larger than infinity exist, developed serious mental heath issues later in life. 

 

Many brilliant artists went insane too, like Vincent Van Gogh, who cut off his own ear.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Re post #2781:

 

When I went to my post #2755 and clicked on the link "this" here is what I got (a few minutes ago):

 

_______________________________________________________________________________START

About 0 results (0.28 seconds) 

 

Vaccines work - Protect against disease

Ad·https://www.who.int/vaccines

 

 

 

 

 

Read more about vaccines on the Official Vaccines page from the World Health Organization. Info on Initiatives, Diseases, Impact and Common FAQs on Vaccines and Immunization. Rolling updates. All info in one place. Latest WHO conferences.

‎Vaccines & Immunization · ‎Vaccine Champions · ‎How to use masks · ‎COVID-19 Dashboard

Related searches

____________________________________________________________________________END

 

Thats it. Period.  (I copied the above into this post in case the link content changes for any who want to try it.)

Clicking Hebbeh's link in post #2781 (same apparent query) gives in part:

 

"About 15,200 results (0.48 seconds)"

 

Note the difference in the results number Hebbeh cites (12,500 results). Might be a dyslexic typo on Hebbeh's part. 

 

The point is, that search results can be wildly different, and that all of the first page results, in this case, lead with what Luc didn't say or why what he did say isn't true, or "fact checks" and "debunkings". Those results didn't directly address the query. Why not?

 

 

PS--Hebbeh you still haven't cited the PDR where you claim a doctor must only follow on-label prescribing directions. 

 

 

 

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Hip:

"Montagnier says everyone who has had a COVID vaccine will die within two years."

Fact check it, Hip.

[Hebbeh]

Re post #2781:

 

When I went to my post #2755 and clicked on the link "this" here is what I got (a few minutes ago):

 

_______________________________________________________________________________START

About 0 results (0.28 seconds) 

 

Vaccines work - Protect against disease

Ad·https://www.who.int/vaccines

 

 

 

 

 

Read more about vaccines on the Official Vaccines page from the World Health Organization. Info on Initiatives, Diseases, Impact and Common FAQs on Vaccines and Immunization. Rolling updates. All info in one place. Latest WHO conferences.

‎Vaccines & Immunization · ‎Vaccine Champions · ‎How to use masks · ‎COVID-19 Dashboard

Related searches

____________________________________________________________________________END

 

Thats it. Period.  (I copied the above into this post in case the link content changes for any who want to try it.)

Clicking Hebbeh's link in post #2781 (same apparent query) gives in part:

 

"About 15,200 results (0.48 seconds)"

 

Note the difference in the results number Hebbeh cites (12,500 results). Might be a dyslexic typo on Hebbeh's part. 

 

The point is, that search results can be wildly different, and that all of the first page results, in this case, lead with what Luc didn't say or why what he did say isn't true, or "fact checks" and "debunkings". Those results didn't directly address the query. Why not?

 

 

PS--Hebbeh you still haven't cited the PDR where you claim a doctor must only follow on-label prescribing directions. 

 

Funny as usual Devil.  Remove your quotation marks.  You intentionally inserted the search item in quotations knowing how that would effect the search just to mislead.  Either that or you have no clue on how to use a search engine.  Hard to say.  But typical modus-operandi.

 

And thanks for demonstrating exactly how devious individuals start conspiracy theories.  Bravo.

 

And it is you that needs to research what Dr Luc Montagnier actually said.  Of course you already know what he actually said but why waste a good conspiracy theory.

[Hip]

Fact check it, Hip.

 

OK, I found this article which says he may not have said that everyone who has had a COVID vaccine will die within two years. So someone may be spreading misinformation regarding the misinformation that Montagnier is spreading!

 

But according to that article, he apparently has said that coronavirus vaccination would be a "historic blunder" as it creates variants, which is nonsense. Major variants were appearing right from the start of the pandemic, long before vaccination began.

 

Montagnier has also talked a lot of drivel about homeopathy in the past, which is when everyone in the scientific community realized he had lost the plot.

Edited by Hip, 29 June 2021 - 03:19 AM.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

The quote is: ”It’s the vaccinations that are creating the variants,”. You know, a quote, a thing where you duplicate what was said, and use " marks to delimit the extent of said duplication.

 

Your post #2781 leaves out the leading quote mark and that's why you got the results you did. Talk about clueless vacuous dolts, LOL.

 

 

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Hip writes:

 

"But according to that article, he apparently has said that coronavirus vaccination would be a "historic blunder" as it creates variants, which is nonsense. Major variants were appearing right from the start of the pandemic, long before vaccination began."

 

Hip, 2 things can be true at once. Yes, viruses mutate and create variants. I suspect that a man of Luc's education and experience realizes that. Luc states that it is his belief that COVID-19 vaccines will apparently also create variants in addition to those variants that he realizes will appear naturally. He doesn't explicitly state "also" but it really should be understood, by any reasonable interpretation, as being a priori.

 

 

[Hip]

Luc states that it is his belief that COVID-19 vaccines will apparently also create variants in addition to those variants that he realizes will appear naturally. He doesn't explicitly state "also" but it really should be understood, by any reasonable interpretation, as being a priori.

 

I know of no mechanism by which vaccination can create variants, and in fact, it seems obvious that a widespread vaccination program would reduce the natural emergence of variants. Variants appear by random mutations in the virus in infected COVID patients. So for each person infected, there is a very tiny chance that a mutation will occur in the virus that leads to a new more virulent strain.

 

But if you greatly reduce the total number of people infected in the world by a comprehensive vaccination program, you are going to reduce the chances that a new random mutation will appear.

[geo12the]

 his belief that COVID-19 vaccines will apparently also create variants in addition to those variants that he realizes will appear naturally. He doesn't explicitly state "also" but it really should be understood, by any reasonable interpretation, as being a priori.

 

There is no scientifically sound mechanism whereby vaccinations can create variants. It makes no sense.  There are no examples of this happening with other vaccines.  As Hip pointed out, Nobel Laureates sometimes go off the deep end.