Your sense of humor is wonderful, I laughed out loud a few times. (desperately needed)
And your point is wonderful as well.
I would add that if someone is held up to me as the one and only expert and is also financially making a huge profit off my choice, it doesn't take much thinking on my part to say no.
I would also add that when what I thought was my tribe, starts saying things like... don't you care about others and holds a very archaic idea of contagion or illness? And then starts posting photos of themselves alone wearing a mask, when I know for the good of all we need to see facial expression. It's a hard no.
And I realize I don't have a tribe, even now, as those who believe as I do, believe all sorts of other things I can't begin to embrace.
And I also know my body tells me all sorts of stuff without my understanding, and so I listen.
Tribe can get you into trouble,
if belonging is the be all and end all. And we are always outsourcing our worth to others.
Let me respond with my very limited supply of wisdom:
1) It's fine, right, and good to be skeptical and suspicious of tribes.
2) That said, we all need them, even if they can get you into trouble, and denying that part of your humanness can get you just as unhealthy and unhappy as becoming a cultist.
I don't know... I would have been okay without the shit show coming to town. I had just moved off grid and was happy to be embracing a way of living that felt good.
Many people's trauma is so amplified right now (mine included) it's a hard place to negotiate.
I guess I didn't use the word "informed" because I'm not at all sure what that means. If I only watch or read pro-narrative accounts can I be considered to be informed? If I only read or watch sceptical accounts can I be considered to be informed?
If the information we're 'informing' ourselves with is itself flawed, then to what extent can we be considered to be informed?
At some point we have to 'trust' experts in technical fields - but it should never be a complete trust. As much as I would like to understand the virology and immunology required I recognise that I can't read stuff fast enough, or understand it fast enough. To get myself to a level which I might consider to be reasonably 'expert' in these fields would probably require a few years of some really serious study.
But what if the experts disagree? How are we to come to a reasonable conclusion then? We might be swayed by some notional 'consensus' - but whatever side we pin our hopes on, consensus or anti-consensus, we should never stop questioning. There's a further supplementary question - exactly *who* establishes and maintains the 'consensus'? We've been told that the 'expert' consensus surrounding covid aligns with the official narrative. But does it?
I have my doubts on that score. Most of my ex-colleagues at the uni where I worked had very serious doubts and concerns about the 'official' position - but none of us felt able to properly speak out (it didn't help that there were punitive fines imposed in the country where I worked for going against the narrative or the restrictions imposed).
In the case of covid I think the 'consensus' is nowhere near as firm and widespread as we are being led to suppose. We might do some sort of published paper count to see where the 'consensus' lies, but this is also not a good measure - too much pressure has been applied by journals to promote the narrative - and pro-narrative papers have been fast-tracked, being pushed through without proper process (not to mention the work itself has often been rushed out before it's really ready). It's an emergency, see?
Piss poor excuse for pumping out crappy work, in my view.
There are also plenty of examples where the abstract and conclusions read as if they're "pro-narrative" - but when you look at the meat, rather than the trimmings, you find data and analyses that run counter to the given conclusions. It's almost as if the authors recognise they have to 'hide' their true opinions with some propaganda in order to get their work published.
So it's a pragmatic measure to place some degree of trust in experts in a technical discipline - you simply can't read and understand everything properly in every field. Even in my own research field - a pretty narrow specialization of physics - it was a bugger of a job to keep up with all the stuff that was getting published.
But my view is skewed precisely because I'm a physicist. In physics, or at least in my little part of physics, it's possible to work through things and see where things don't fit, or don't make sense - or where the math has been fucked up. But we have a set of fairly simple and well-established 'laws' to work with - all of classical electromagnetic phenomena, for example, is beautifully described by Maxwell's equations with the Lorenz force law - essentially just 5 equations. It's really, really hard to apply those equations though - and new consequences are still being discovered over a 100 years after they were worked out.
Not so with biology or medicine. It's a level of complexity that is in an entirely different league. There are, I think, few such guiding principles like the laws we have in physics. And we've seen so very many examples where 'consensus' in these fields has been overturned - in some cases quite spectacularly. Given the complexity of these disciplines I don't find that at all surprising - and I really don't think 'consensus' arguments hold up too well here because (a) there are too many examples where the consensus view was horseshit and (b) I'd be sceptical of *too much* consensus in such very complex fields.
Anyway - as is my wont - I'm rambling. Thanks for writing this piece - really enjoyed it. Very funny and insightful.
Kind words from you go a long way- your Stack is an important part of my healthy breakfast.
I always assumed you didn't delve into the "informed" part of medical consent simply because it wasn't the focus of your essay.
The fact that you reference so much about research publication in this comment is very telling of the problem. Academic documents that 99% of people impacted by their concepts will never read should not be the pillar upon which practitioners of ANYTHING are holding public trust. They are highly politicized communications from an expert to his or her own audience, full of all the tricks and bullshit you mention.
The "mafia" of research publication is a big part of what's gotten us here. (I highly recommend "Can Medicine Be Saved?" on this.)
I've heard many people ask what distinguishes Team Reality from Team Apocalypse. How did we see it when so many did not? While reading your article, it occurred to me that maybe we're all control freaks. I know I am. I don't like people telling me what to do. I never have. As a young adult, I noted that the parents in Charlie Brown don't use words. I'd never noticed. My older brother said, "Wow! You didn't even listen to adults in cartoons". LOL.
I've had a few scrapes with the white coats. My approach to health concerns, especially in my children, was to learn everything I possibly could so that I could advocate. In truth, it was and is my coping mechanism for things I can't control. Some doctors welcomed my approach. I can't count the number of times I was asked if I was a doctor or clinician. A vet even asked me once. When I hear hoof beats, it's always a zebra...even my cat is a zebra. In my experience, though, most doctors are annoyed that I just won't submit to their wisdom and expertise. I don't like those doctors.
Ultimately, we are the stewards of our life. We get to make choices, for good or ill, about what is injected into our body.
IMO, we need a constitutional amendment barring any government (local, state, or federal), business, or entity from mandating any medical procedure. We won't be safe until we do.
If this was music it would be like the best of Manowar, Judas Priest and Saxxon. Because it kick-starts (does the kids of today know what a kick-start really is?) the same reacion as when the first riffs of "Judas is rising" starts coming through the car's sound system. Like a chainsaw bursting through the forehead from inside out and you just want to headbutt the world for the Hel of it.
Right, inner teenager fed, time for fancy-schmancy know-it-all academic( see, your writing style rubs off!):
Through teaching HFAs, I've come across what you described re: people with cognitive impairment and the concept of informed consent (which even is covered by what passes for a constitution over here - not that it helps).
The typical song and dance routine goes like this: after an Odyssey of meetings including me, the student, its parents, my boss, school nurse, school head of special needs students, representative from council schoolboard, rep from public health care: juvenile mental illness department, and possibly the state agencies for adaptations for handicapped and special needs teching respecitvely - all the while the kid being present and continously put on the spot as the one making the decision - we always come to the same conclusion.
We will use one of the options which actually exists, and call that consent and an individual educational plan. Yay us.
Options being remain in normal class, transfer to special needs school (this is reserved for those under IQ 85* or with severe physical impairments, so not my students), or transfer to behaviour modification school, the latter for those who are very antisocial, violent and criminal - budding little psychopaths. (Yes, really, it is 9 times out of 10 correct - if the behaviour is pathological, it will remian and grow worse until they finally mutilate or murder someone to be put away for a couple for years. Typically, after a couple of murders, rapes and cases of wanton violence, meaning 5-10 victims apiece, they are finally put away for life at the price of $750/day. Meanwhile, their victims get no damages, no insurance, no nothing - yay socialist democracy.)
*Hilariously, IQ is scoffed at by almost all teachers here, it's seen as racist pseudoscience. And is still used by those same people to decide if a student counts for special needs. Also, 85 is the lower limit for becoming police...
Anyways, the law requires us to establish an individual plan for each such student. Time consuming. Good thing there are ready made official documents ready to print. Just fill in the personal detalis and your individual plan, which the student gets to sign signifying their informed consent, is done. Yay.
And in all my years, I have met a grand total of two teachers who could see and speak out about this ridiculous little ritual. Two out of hundreds. On the other hand, every aspie student of mine have pinted it out within seconds of having it explained.
So who's really the "retard" I wonder: the aspie kid or the acdemic with five years of university up their holes of choice? Me, I filled in those silly little papers and then got together with the parents putting a real plan together, since they'd be doing half the work at home anyway.
Which I got censured for. "It is unfaur to put such demands on the parents"... "Not everyone have the same background and ability to help their child so your method creates inequality and is discriminatory" and so on.
Because to feminists, socialist democrats, and people obsessed with equality and other such fumettes of that character, it is better if all fails equally than that some succeeds.
"The gods made heavy metal, and they saw that it was good..."
All societies are based on collective standards - even among animals. Those who violate these too much get taken care of. Among animals, especially apes, permanently so. Personally, I think people deserve a chance to learn how to control their impulses if they are born with a disturbed or malformed system. As such, they must be taught a minimally acceptable level of behaviour - and since I don't mince words, I call it behavioural modification, as that what it is.
It is no different from adopting an abused dog and training it to become as normal as possible. The alternative is a bullet.
Being antisocial, violent and a repeat offender are traits which virtually always appear together. I think you are confusing antisocial with asocial, as in not wanting or needing much social interaction. Antisocial is more like the person is in constant and aggravated conflict with basic and normal social strucures (waiting their turn f.e.), and this is then often aggravated by drug use, most commonly cannabis and marihuana which are well-known to bring about psychotic breaks and progressive cognitive retardation in those susceptible to such.
And we can't have people handling normal conflicts, such as who gets the last cookie, and disagreements with violence, can we?
Whether or not you associate with (known) criminals is of course your choice, though I would recommend against it, seeing as there is no honour among thieves and especially not among violent repeat offenders, them often verging on being psychopathic either by birth or habit, mental illness and substance abuse.
By offering behavioural modification, the person can have a chance to be saved from a series of (eventually) lifelong incarceration due to hurting or killing others. And since every antisocial person, once they start committing violent crimes, racks up victims in double or triple digits, it is well worth it both for humanitarian reasons and economic ones.
The word feminist is not bastardised. It has from its inception meant the same things it means today. You see, originally women sought equality before the law. Same jobs if they could hack it. Sufferage. Same number of days for vacation. No barred educations. And so on. All of that was done in the seventies. So from then to today, they have been forced to rationalise why "inequalities", read not the same outcome all the time no matter individual differences, persist.
Because otherwise they'd have to accept that men and women on group level are different, physically and mentally. And accepting and embracing difference and diversity also means accepting different outcomes due to individual factors.
Which they don't seeing as they come up short in any competitive environemt no matter the subject. Ask yourself: if you by paying tax could either found 10 more nurses for out-patient outreach programmes, or a center for genderstudies, which would you choose before the other, and which one gives a tangible benefit to society as a whole?
Hint: it's not the feminists.
So, despite your tone and your vulgar and unfounded accusations, you have been given an adult, polite, and reasoned response. Can't say fairer than that, yes?
It's a good response. We don't have to tolerate antisocial behavior (what Rounding the Earth refers to as "the Kunlangeta") to enshrine liberty as some kind of devil's bargain.
Thank you for a fair representation of "feminist." I consider myself a feminist, as did my mother and grandmother. We were and are interested in no more or less than the things you listed in that paragraph: equal opportunity and representation under the law.
Do like 'The Lord Weird Slough Feg', 'Orange Goblin', and 'Truckfighters' among other such bands.
Tip for you: check out 'Gogol Bordello', especially their song 'American Wedding' and british 'Oxymoron'. And why not treat yourself to some sweet tunes from 'Th Templars' (out of Long Island), or the 'P.I.N.S.' or 'The Devotchkas'?
The hippety hop rnb gots to gets my whatever on bongo blingo drongo pop? Rather listen to paint dry.
Exactly right. Extremely well thought out and well said. Informed consent must at all times be respected and exercised. Legally, USC 45 CFR 46, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and others, and maybe especially 42 USC 1983, I think, but more so because informed consent is what separates us from fascists. Our respect for bodily autonomy and self-determination is that essential difference. If a guardian/parent carries that authority, okay. If an overwhelmed feeling person says, "I don't care; you decide," that can be okay too, as long as First do no harm is observed. But the default condition of every encounter must be based on informed consent, of course, as a natural corollary of The Golden Rule.
I think we are at a point where they feel that we are too stupid to make the decisions for ourselves. We might mishandle or misconstrue information. We are being tiresome with our demands when our demands will not matter anyway. Cut to the chase! When you move from citizen to chattel, civil rights become sort of a quaint notion. If the jab makers never have to face the penalty for holding back information on their drug that would effect our decision making, we have crossed over to chattel.
Being overwhelmed is such a dangerous condition and so easy to slip into. It is getting worse with each ever increasingly cossetted generation.
This is why I think we (not just the United States) are headed towards something like a divorce- people who WISH to live as chattel and those who do not. I think there are still too many who do not, and that number is too stubbornly high, to simply imprison or kill us all without a lot of difficulty (which is not to say it isn't outside the realm of imagination that they would try).
Violently or nonviolently, I think the coming decades will see the world split between consistently, undisguisedly totalitarian states (ultimately organized largely by consensus) and those resembling the original vision of the United States.
The jab was a handy way of sorting out the trouble makers. The terrorists. The ones who must be crushed. The next 10 years should be interesting. Not globally pretty I'm guessing.
I also dislike writing about topics already covered. 😎 I recommend “Carte Blanche” by Harriet A Washington. 4.5 hour listen on Audible. Recently published - as we are both unusually well informed about Informed Consent, it’ll possibly knock your socks off, as it did mine. (Get through her Covid-based intro story - the book is gold.)
This (bold-and-brilliant-as-ever) post reminds me of some of the most insufferable authority-bias–licking Nextdoor posts engineered to make the sniveling plebs grovel before the Science™, one of which was a final exam for a doctoral-level microbiology course or some such rot, and the poster said if you can’t pass this exam, then you’re not qualified to speak about COVID or think or make decisions for your own pitifully ignorant self.
This is, I think, the result of living in "end stage <whatever>" at this point in history where volume of information, communication technology, and population size have resulted in every social force only existing at its most extreme capacity: you must be a PhD to have anything like "informed" to say, you must be this rich to participate in gainful investment activities, you must be this victimized to be recognized, etc.
I think it's going to be the death of us. Civilization as it has grown from its foundations simply isn't scalable above a certain point- or if it is, I sure as hell don't see a sturdier shape resembling anything we'd want to live in.
When at unversity I sometimes thought: "We should never have abolished duelling". This was more than 25 years ago, and it's only gotten worse, because the type of person you describe when confronted by someone from the soft sciences (like me) about "what does the style of prose in 'Fanny Hill's tell us about the mores of the time and plave it was written in?" they sure do love to have opinions about things they haven't the slightest about.
And they always resort to "that's not real science"...
@Guttermouth:
Spruce and pine farmed to give lumber fast, gives bad wood. Grown at their natural pace gives wood as strong and supple as steel. I think that holds for civilisation too - and with the triumph of the "engineers as heroes"-genre in the late nineteenth century the soil was fertile for modernism and futurism, where faster and newer take on intrinsic value. By developing some kind of civilisational eugenics-of-ideas we think we are the pinnacle and that our position is natural: even a cursory look at history shows this to be untrue.
Just look at the Tesla or the smart-phone. Technical wnders, yes, but anywhere you can drive a Tesla I can drive a Volvo Amazon from 1968 too, and the longer you can use a pice of tech, the more the environmental impact drops due to utility over time. And when at work I could either search things online via phone or computer, or turn around a look it up in the National Encyclpedia or the Britannica. Sure, new and modern has it's uses, but we as acivilisation has let those two plus prfit become the sole points of our moral compass.
And apologies for butting in - I've never learned the proper 'netiquette' for when it's acceptable or not to chime in.
You're not butting in. I hope the weird fucked-up occurrence yesterday illustrates where my lines are.
Philosophically, your point is interesting, but I wonder if we have EVER engaged in any sort of deliberate mechanism by which advancement is throttled. I don't know that any society besides the Amish have responded to innovation in a calculated way, and even then, they're only responding to advancements from the world beyond them (within which they enjoy the benefits of a surrounding society that prevents them from invasion or persecution without demanding they participate in it).
In principle, I agree with you and it reflects the way I tend to live, but I don't think the problem of "eugenics-as-ideas" speaks to a clear system we can try to fix- I think it's an entirely organic and inevitable product of large groups of people living relatively freely.
The key phrase being "people living freely". I read that as living according their own cultural and social norms and mores. I have to, basically, because "living freely" is a cultural concept and would mean different things to different people, and over time too to boot.
And advancment have been throttled many times during history - either by design or accident or just circumstance. From Hero of Alexandria to todays computer systems, we limit the technology available and its potential by adjusting it to society as it is - computers make the work go faster but all we did was replace typewriters and pneumatic tubes, really. We do not to any greater extent use computers to the limit of their ability. The revers is also true: we sometimes try to change society so that a new-ish technology actually might work (Tesla's cars f.e.).
And sadly, often we only limit technology's potential after first having to experience it's dangers: we did not invent traffic safey, driving licenses and so on before cars were commerically viable and available. Instead, the modern traffic systems everyon born post-1950 in the west are used to, came about after half a century of more or less anarchically evolved arbitrary regulations, some of which have left lingering traces:
In Sweden it wasn't until 1995 ER staff working from ambulances needed driving licenses, is one such smallish thing. and then, experiencing danger and problems we think we can fix 100% if only we find the right regulation and coercive force, we invent stuff like driver's license for chainsaws, brushsaws, snowmobile, water-scooters, and floor cleaning machines - the ones you "drive". All real examples by the way, makes me wonder how many people have gotten killed or injured by accidents involving floor cleaning machines... must be many to warrant an entire sub-bureaucracy.
About the person I angered, I don't take offence that easily so it's no skin off my nose, though maybe the person in question responded with even harsher words which I didn't see? But it's your house, so your rules, yes?
He referred to another reader as a "dumb cunt" for the crime of reading Malone's stack and was generally being disruptive for the sake of being disruptive.
Ah, I see. Oh well, we live and learn. Dad used to tell me that "You're either a good example to others, or a warning one - choice is yours". Took me becoming a father to get what he meant.
In the spirit of not saying something if someone else says it better, I give you the great Thomas Sowell, speaking on slavery but I thought the sentiment is relevant;
"That such an institution could last for so long unchallenged, on every inhabitated continent, is a chilling example of what can happen when people simply do not think"
Except people DO think. They do a calculation of say... "worth" probably every day. Do I buy this Nike sneaker even though it was likely manufactured in a shop fulla Uighurs? When people ignore inconvenient truths is where we get into trouble. Among other things. Also, giving your pig a book how to flip a metal rake with their snout - trouble.
And that's how slavery persisted for millennia in every culture, and WHY it existed in every large society. There is a level of civilizational development where it makes economic sense in the face of your society-level goals, and your culture's morality adjusts itself to accommodate the institution- relegating those enslaved to subhuman status or identifying them as less good or simply outside the moral framework and thereby fair game for exploitation. Society tells itself what it needs to tell itself and goes ahead.
Slavery dies when economic systems or technology outgrows it or when the enslaving power loses its ability to maintain its supply of slaves, whether due to loss of relative strength against its neighbors or the simple exhaustion of supply (the Aztecs).
Economics were killing slavery in the United States faster than the moral argument against it (which is not to say that the moral argument wasn't valid). The moral framework of whatever the "present" is will always be a post hoc argument against the behavior of the past.
I think he just said it another way. People shut their moral mind off when the truth is bothersome. We can let our mind "think" what it wants thru various means. Rationalization. Pretending or magical thinking. Telling yourself a lie. Telling yourself, if only man would THINK, he would always do the right thing is sort of silly. I love Sowell. I differ from him on this. Man is inherently evil, but sometimes overcomes his nature. Plenty think and when they have weighed it out, they often go for the evil.
I've been politely ignoring your relentless spamming of the comments with your off-topic non sequitur and constant abuse of anyone who doesn't agree with your "viruses don't exist" beliefs and your rambling stream of consciousness bullshit about yourself that no one asked for and whatever that weird fetish shit was yesterday in the hopes that like a reasonably socialized adult you would realize that no one is responding to you because you're annoying the shit out of them.
But you don't get to call my other readers dumb cunts because they don't see what a genius you are.
Here's the other thing. Sometimes I want to make poor choices ON PURPOSE.
I WANT the right to, once in a while, have a bourbon followed by a mug of beer and a bacon cheeseburger and maybe even a cigar. And understand that I am compromising my health all the while.
And fuck you for saying I must always be clean and healthy and sterile and safe. And then trying to convince us all to redefine happiness to exclude any notion of thrill, danger, risk, or adventure.
I just got back from my local Grange meeting (look it up) and prior to the opening ceremony a number of the women were sitting around swapping horror stories about terribly behaved kids we knew or worked with in our various professions. Someone said, "many parents probably shouldn't be parents," and it certainly isn't the first time that thought has entered my awareness or indeed my own mind.
But there's always the problem: do you want someone to be the arbiter of who should and shouldn't reproduce? My answer to this is no, of course not, but you can still address the problem: stop propping up and maintaining people's bad choices. A little more natural selection is not the worst thing that could happen to a free society.
I cannot tell you how many teen girls I would encounter in counseling roles years ago that were genuinely extremely distressed that their boobs were slightly uneven and had to be convinced they were normal (and that no, having hair follicles on your aureola is NOT a disease, it means you're not prepubescent or a porn star).
I had moved on from that profession before the latest insanity of girls being horrified by the existence of their labia.
Porn has been pretty awful to the psyche of young women.
Thank you for this.
Your sense of humor is wonderful, I laughed out loud a few times. (desperately needed)
And your point is wonderful as well.
I would add that if someone is held up to me as the one and only expert and is also financially making a huge profit off my choice, it doesn't take much thinking on my part to say no.
I would also add that when what I thought was my tribe, starts saying things like... don't you care about others and holds a very archaic idea of contagion or illness? And then starts posting photos of themselves alone wearing a mask, when I know for the good of all we need to see facial expression. It's a hard no.
And I realize I don't have a tribe, even now, as those who believe as I do, believe all sorts of other things I can't begin to embrace.
And I also know my body tells me all sorts of stuff without my understanding, and so I listen.
Tribe can get you into trouble,
if belonging is the be all and end all. And we are always outsourcing our worth to others.
Damn I need to pee.
(Oh, my box of 'And'sss is empty.)
Let me respond with my very limited supply of wisdom:
1) It's fine, right, and good to be skeptical and suspicious of tribes.
2) That said, we all need them, even if they can get you into trouble, and denying that part of your humanness can get you just as unhealthy and unhappy as becoming a cultist.
3) You do have a tribe, and it's right here.
4) Go pee.
I did pee!!
I agree about what you say about tribe. A bit of time on my own is probably good though.
Thank you for welcoming me!!!
Be grateful you live in a time and culture, for all its other flaws, where you can still move tribes and live to tell about it.
For most of human history, it's been strictly blood in, blood out.
I don't know... I would have been okay without the shit show coming to town. I had just moved off grid and was happy to be embracing a way of living that felt good.
Many people's trauma is so amplified right now (mine included) it's a hard place to negotiate.
Of course you'd have been happier. I would have, too- I did exactly what you just did. But it's not what we got. This is a time for Stoics.
Be happy you can still navigate well enough to survive. While you're still alive, anything is possible.
I'm not sure why you keep telling me to be happy.
I am happy when I am.
Sad when I am.
Etc. etc.
Happiness is not a state of being but a feeling. Something that moves through like any other.
I knew a man who moved here at the age of twelve, from Italy.
His perspective was that 'Americans' have a curious idea about happiness. Not something that all hold.
(I guess I'm assuming you're in the states, I don't really know)
Great article - loved it.
I guess I didn't use the word "informed" because I'm not at all sure what that means. If I only watch or read pro-narrative accounts can I be considered to be informed? If I only read or watch sceptical accounts can I be considered to be informed?
If the information we're 'informing' ourselves with is itself flawed, then to what extent can we be considered to be informed?
At some point we have to 'trust' experts in technical fields - but it should never be a complete trust. As much as I would like to understand the virology and immunology required I recognise that I can't read stuff fast enough, or understand it fast enough. To get myself to a level which I might consider to be reasonably 'expert' in these fields would probably require a few years of some really serious study.
But what if the experts disagree? How are we to come to a reasonable conclusion then? We might be swayed by some notional 'consensus' - but whatever side we pin our hopes on, consensus or anti-consensus, we should never stop questioning. There's a further supplementary question - exactly *who* establishes and maintains the 'consensus'? We've been told that the 'expert' consensus surrounding covid aligns with the official narrative. But does it?
I have my doubts on that score. Most of my ex-colleagues at the uni where I worked had very serious doubts and concerns about the 'official' position - but none of us felt able to properly speak out (it didn't help that there were punitive fines imposed in the country where I worked for going against the narrative or the restrictions imposed).
In the case of covid I think the 'consensus' is nowhere near as firm and widespread as we are being led to suppose. We might do some sort of published paper count to see where the 'consensus' lies, but this is also not a good measure - too much pressure has been applied by journals to promote the narrative - and pro-narrative papers have been fast-tracked, being pushed through without proper process (not to mention the work itself has often been rushed out before it's really ready). It's an emergency, see?
Piss poor excuse for pumping out crappy work, in my view.
There are also plenty of examples where the abstract and conclusions read as if they're "pro-narrative" - but when you look at the meat, rather than the trimmings, you find data and analyses that run counter to the given conclusions. It's almost as if the authors recognise they have to 'hide' their true opinions with some propaganda in order to get their work published.
So it's a pragmatic measure to place some degree of trust in experts in a technical discipline - you simply can't read and understand everything properly in every field. Even in my own research field - a pretty narrow specialization of physics - it was a bugger of a job to keep up with all the stuff that was getting published.
But my view is skewed precisely because I'm a physicist. In physics, or at least in my little part of physics, it's possible to work through things and see where things don't fit, or don't make sense - or where the math has been fucked up. But we have a set of fairly simple and well-established 'laws' to work with - all of classical electromagnetic phenomena, for example, is beautifully described by Maxwell's equations with the Lorenz force law - essentially just 5 equations. It's really, really hard to apply those equations though - and new consequences are still being discovered over a 100 years after they were worked out.
Not so with biology or medicine. It's a level of complexity that is in an entirely different league. There are, I think, few such guiding principles like the laws we have in physics. And we've seen so very many examples where 'consensus' in these fields has been overturned - in some cases quite spectacularly. Given the complexity of these disciplines I don't find that at all surprising - and I really don't think 'consensus' arguments hold up too well here because (a) there are too many examples where the consensus view was horseshit and (b) I'd be sceptical of *too much* consensus in such very complex fields.
Anyway - as is my wont - I'm rambling. Thanks for writing this piece - really enjoyed it. Very funny and insightful.
Kind words from you go a long way- your Stack is an important part of my healthy breakfast.
I always assumed you didn't delve into the "informed" part of medical consent simply because it wasn't the focus of your essay.
The fact that you reference so much about research publication in this comment is very telling of the problem. Academic documents that 99% of people impacted by their concepts will never read should not be the pillar upon which practitioners of ANYTHING are holding public trust. They are highly politicized communications from an expert to his or her own audience, full of all the tricks and bullshit you mention.
The "mafia" of research publication is a big part of what's gotten us here. (I highly recommend "Can Medicine Be Saved?" on this.)
I've heard many people ask what distinguishes Team Reality from Team Apocalypse. How did we see it when so many did not? While reading your article, it occurred to me that maybe we're all control freaks. I know I am. I don't like people telling me what to do. I never have. As a young adult, I noted that the parents in Charlie Brown don't use words. I'd never noticed. My older brother said, "Wow! You didn't even listen to adults in cartoons". LOL.
I've had a few scrapes with the white coats. My approach to health concerns, especially in my children, was to learn everything I possibly could so that I could advocate. In truth, it was and is my coping mechanism for things I can't control. Some doctors welcomed my approach. I can't count the number of times I was asked if I was a doctor or clinician. A vet even asked me once. When I hear hoof beats, it's always a zebra...even my cat is a zebra. In my experience, though, most doctors are annoyed that I just won't submit to their wisdom and expertise. I don't like those doctors.
Ultimately, we are the stewards of our life. We get to make choices, for good or ill, about what is injected into our body.
IMO, we need a constitutional amendment barring any government (local, state, or federal), business, or entity from mandating any medical procedure. We won't be safe until we do.
If this was music it would be like the best of Manowar, Judas Priest and Saxxon. Because it kick-starts (does the kids of today know what a kick-start really is?) the same reacion as when the first riffs of "Judas is rising" starts coming through the car's sound system. Like a chainsaw bursting through the forehead from inside out and you just want to headbutt the world for the Hel of it.
Right, inner teenager fed, time for fancy-schmancy know-it-all academic( see, your writing style rubs off!):
Through teaching HFAs, I've come across what you described re: people with cognitive impairment and the concept of informed consent (which even is covered by what passes for a constitution over here - not that it helps).
The typical song and dance routine goes like this: after an Odyssey of meetings including me, the student, its parents, my boss, school nurse, school head of special needs students, representative from council schoolboard, rep from public health care: juvenile mental illness department, and possibly the state agencies for adaptations for handicapped and special needs teching respecitvely - all the while the kid being present and continously put on the spot as the one making the decision - we always come to the same conclusion.
We will use one of the options which actually exists, and call that consent and an individual educational plan. Yay us.
Options being remain in normal class, transfer to special needs school (this is reserved for those under IQ 85* or with severe physical impairments, so not my students), or transfer to behaviour modification school, the latter for those who are very antisocial, violent and criminal - budding little psychopaths. (Yes, really, it is 9 times out of 10 correct - if the behaviour is pathological, it will remian and grow worse until they finally mutilate or murder someone to be put away for a couple for years. Typically, after a couple of murders, rapes and cases of wanton violence, meaning 5-10 victims apiece, they are finally put away for life at the price of $750/day. Meanwhile, their victims get no damages, no insurance, no nothing - yay socialist democracy.)
*Hilariously, IQ is scoffed at by almost all teachers here, it's seen as racist pseudoscience. And is still used by those same people to decide if a student counts for special needs. Also, 85 is the lower limit for becoming police...
Anyways, the law requires us to establish an individual plan for each such student. Time consuming. Good thing there are ready made official documents ready to print. Just fill in the personal detalis and your individual plan, which the student gets to sign signifying their informed consent, is done. Yay.
And in all my years, I have met a grand total of two teachers who could see and speak out about this ridiculous little ritual. Two out of hundreds. On the other hand, every aspie student of mine have pinted it out within seconds of having it explained.
So who's really the "retard" I wonder: the aspie kid or the acdemic with five years of university up their holes of choice? Me, I filled in those silly little papers and then got together with the parents putting a real plan together, since they'd be doing half the work at home anyway.
Which I got censured for. "It is unfaur to put such demands on the parents"... "Not everyone have the same background and ability to help their child so your method creates inequality and is discriminatory" and so on.
Because to feminists, socialist democrats, and people obsessed with equality and other such fumettes of that character, it is better if all fails equally than that some succeeds.
"The gods made heavy metal, and they saw that it was good..."
All societies are based on collective standards - even among animals. Those who violate these too much get taken care of. Among animals, especially apes, permanently so. Personally, I think people deserve a chance to learn how to control their impulses if they are born with a disturbed or malformed system. As such, they must be taught a minimally acceptable level of behaviour - and since I don't mince words, I call it behavioural modification, as that what it is.
It is no different from adopting an abused dog and training it to become as normal as possible. The alternative is a bullet.
Being antisocial, violent and a repeat offender are traits which virtually always appear together. I think you are confusing antisocial with asocial, as in not wanting or needing much social interaction. Antisocial is more like the person is in constant and aggravated conflict with basic and normal social strucures (waiting their turn f.e.), and this is then often aggravated by drug use, most commonly cannabis and marihuana which are well-known to bring about psychotic breaks and progressive cognitive retardation in those susceptible to such.
And we can't have people handling normal conflicts, such as who gets the last cookie, and disagreements with violence, can we?
Whether or not you associate with (known) criminals is of course your choice, though I would recommend against it, seeing as there is no honour among thieves and especially not among violent repeat offenders, them often verging on being psychopathic either by birth or habit, mental illness and substance abuse.
By offering behavioural modification, the person can have a chance to be saved from a series of (eventually) lifelong incarceration due to hurting or killing others. And since every antisocial person, once they start committing violent crimes, racks up victims in double or triple digits, it is well worth it both for humanitarian reasons and economic ones.
The word feminist is not bastardised. It has from its inception meant the same things it means today. You see, originally women sought equality before the law. Same jobs if they could hack it. Sufferage. Same number of days for vacation. No barred educations. And so on. All of that was done in the seventies. So from then to today, they have been forced to rationalise why "inequalities", read not the same outcome all the time no matter individual differences, persist.
Because otherwise they'd have to accept that men and women on group level are different, physically and mentally. And accepting and embracing difference and diversity also means accepting different outcomes due to individual factors.
Which they don't seeing as they come up short in any competitive environemt no matter the subject. Ask yourself: if you by paying tax could either found 10 more nurses for out-patient outreach programmes, or a center for genderstudies, which would you choose before the other, and which one gives a tangible benefit to society as a whole?
Hint: it's not the feminists.
So, despite your tone and your vulgar and unfounded accusations, you have been given an adult, polite, and reasoned response. Can't say fairer than that, yes?
It's a good response. We don't have to tolerate antisocial behavior (what Rounding the Earth refers to as "the Kunlangeta") to enshrine liberty as some kind of devil's bargain.
Thank you for a fair representation of "feminist." I consider myself a feminist, as did my mother and grandmother. We were and are interested in no more or less than the things you listed in that paragraph: equal opportunity and representation under the law.
Don't use Google, so haven't access to u-tube.
Do like 'The Lord Weird Slough Feg', 'Orange Goblin', and 'Truckfighters' among other such bands.
Tip for you: check out 'Gogol Bordello', especially their song 'American Wedding' and british 'Oxymoron'. And why not treat yourself to some sweet tunes from 'Th Templars' (out of Long Island), or the 'P.I.N.S.' or 'The Devotchkas'?
The hippety hop rnb gots to gets my whatever on bongo blingo drongo pop? Rather listen to paint dry.
Exactly right. Extremely well thought out and well said. Informed consent must at all times be respected and exercised. Legally, USC 45 CFR 46, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and others, and maybe especially 42 USC 1983, I think, but more so because informed consent is what separates us from fascists. Our respect for bodily autonomy and self-determination is that essential difference. If a guardian/parent carries that authority, okay. If an overwhelmed feeling person says, "I don't care; you decide," that can be okay too, as long as First do no harm is observed. But the default condition of every encounter must be based on informed consent, of course, as a natural corollary of The Golden Rule.
I think we are at a point where they feel that we are too stupid to make the decisions for ourselves. We might mishandle or misconstrue information. We are being tiresome with our demands when our demands will not matter anyway. Cut to the chase! When you move from citizen to chattel, civil rights become sort of a quaint notion. If the jab makers never have to face the penalty for holding back information on their drug that would effect our decision making, we have crossed over to chattel.
Being overwhelmed is such a dangerous condition and so easy to slip into. It is getting worse with each ever increasingly cossetted generation.
This is why I think we (not just the United States) are headed towards something like a divorce- people who WISH to live as chattel and those who do not. I think there are still too many who do not, and that number is too stubbornly high, to simply imprison or kill us all without a lot of difficulty (which is not to say it isn't outside the realm of imagination that they would try).
Violently or nonviolently, I think the coming decades will see the world split between consistently, undisguisedly totalitarian states (ultimately organized largely by consensus) and those resembling the original vision of the United States.
The jab was a handy way of sorting out the trouble makers. The terrorists. The ones who must be crushed. The next 10 years should be interesting. Not globally pretty I'm guessing.
I also dislike writing about topics already covered. 😎 I recommend “Carte Blanche” by Harriet A Washington. 4.5 hour listen on Audible. Recently published - as we are both unusually well informed about Informed Consent, it’ll possibly knock your socks off, as it did mine. (Get through her Covid-based intro story - the book is gold.)
This (bold-and-brilliant-as-ever) post reminds me of some of the most insufferable authority-bias–licking Nextdoor posts engineered to make the sniveling plebs grovel before the Science™, one of which was a final exam for a doctoral-level microbiology course or some such rot, and the poster said if you can’t pass this exam, then you’re not qualified to speak about COVID or think or make decisions for your own pitifully ignorant self.
This is, I think, the result of living in "end stage <whatever>" at this point in history where volume of information, communication technology, and population size have resulted in every social force only existing at its most extreme capacity: you must be a PhD to have anything like "informed" to say, you must be this rich to participate in gainful investment activities, you must be this victimized to be recognized, etc.
I think it's going to be the death of us. Civilization as it has grown from its foundations simply isn't scalable above a certain point- or if it is, I sure as hell don't see a sturdier shape resembling anything we'd want to live in.
@Margaret Anna Alice:
When at unversity I sometimes thought: "We should never have abolished duelling". This was more than 25 years ago, and it's only gotten worse, because the type of person you describe when confronted by someone from the soft sciences (like me) about "what does the style of prose in 'Fanny Hill's tell us about the mores of the time and plave it was written in?" they sure do love to have opinions about things they haven't the slightest about.
And they always resort to "that's not real science"...
@Guttermouth:
Spruce and pine farmed to give lumber fast, gives bad wood. Grown at their natural pace gives wood as strong and supple as steel. I think that holds for civilisation too - and with the triumph of the "engineers as heroes"-genre in the late nineteenth century the soil was fertile for modernism and futurism, where faster and newer take on intrinsic value. By developing some kind of civilisational eugenics-of-ideas we think we are the pinnacle and that our position is natural: even a cursory look at history shows this to be untrue.
Just look at the Tesla or the smart-phone. Technical wnders, yes, but anywhere you can drive a Tesla I can drive a Volvo Amazon from 1968 too, and the longer you can use a pice of tech, the more the environmental impact drops due to utility over time. And when at work I could either search things online via phone or computer, or turn around a look it up in the National Encyclpedia or the Britannica. Sure, new and modern has it's uses, but we as acivilisation has let those two plus prfit become the sole points of our moral compass.
And apologies for butting in - I've never learned the proper 'netiquette' for when it's acceptable or not to chime in.
You're not butting in. I hope the weird fucked-up occurrence yesterday illustrates where my lines are.
Philosophically, your point is interesting, but I wonder if we have EVER engaged in any sort of deliberate mechanism by which advancement is throttled. I don't know that any society besides the Amish have responded to innovation in a calculated way, and even then, they're only responding to advancements from the world beyond them (within which they enjoy the benefits of a surrounding society that prevents them from invasion or persecution without demanding they participate in it).
In principle, I agree with you and it reflects the way I tend to live, but I don't think the problem of "eugenics-as-ideas" speaks to a clear system we can try to fix- I think it's an entirely organic and inevitable product of large groups of people living relatively freely.
You are probably right at that.
The key phrase being "people living freely". I read that as living according their own cultural and social norms and mores. I have to, basically, because "living freely" is a cultural concept and would mean different things to different people, and over time too to boot.
And advancment have been throttled many times during history - either by design or accident or just circumstance. From Hero of Alexandria to todays computer systems, we limit the technology available and its potential by adjusting it to society as it is - computers make the work go faster but all we did was replace typewriters and pneumatic tubes, really. We do not to any greater extent use computers to the limit of their ability. The revers is also true: we sometimes try to change society so that a new-ish technology actually might work (Tesla's cars f.e.).
And sadly, often we only limit technology's potential after first having to experience it's dangers: we did not invent traffic safey, driving licenses and so on before cars were commerically viable and available. Instead, the modern traffic systems everyon born post-1950 in the west are used to, came about after half a century of more or less anarchically evolved arbitrary regulations, some of which have left lingering traces:
In Sweden it wasn't until 1995 ER staff working from ambulances needed driving licenses, is one such smallish thing. and then, experiencing danger and problems we think we can fix 100% if only we find the right regulation and coercive force, we invent stuff like driver's license for chainsaws, brushsaws, snowmobile, water-scooters, and floor cleaning machines - the ones you "drive". All real examples by the way, makes me wonder how many people have gotten killed or injured by accidents involving floor cleaning machines... must be many to warrant an entire sub-bureaucracy.
About the person I angered, I don't take offence that easily so it's no skin off my nose, though maybe the person in question responded with even harsher words which I didn't see? But it's your house, so your rules, yes?
He referred to another reader as a "dumb cunt" for the crime of reading Malone's stack and was generally being disruptive for the sake of being disruptive.
Ah, I see. Oh well, we live and learn. Dad used to tell me that "You're either a good example to others, or a warning one - choice is yours". Took me becoming a father to get what he meant.
In the spirit of not saying something if someone else says it better, I give you the great Thomas Sowell, speaking on slavery but I thought the sentiment is relevant;
"That such an institution could last for so long unchallenged, on every inhabitated continent, is a chilling example of what can happen when people simply do not think"
Except people DO think. They do a calculation of say... "worth" probably every day. Do I buy this Nike sneaker even though it was likely manufactured in a shop fulla Uighurs? When people ignore inconvenient truths is where we get into trouble. Among other things. Also, giving your pig a book how to flip a metal rake with their snout - trouble.
And that's how slavery persisted for millennia in every culture, and WHY it existed in every large society. There is a level of civilizational development where it makes economic sense in the face of your society-level goals, and your culture's morality adjusts itself to accommodate the institution- relegating those enslaved to subhuman status or identifying them as less good or simply outside the moral framework and thereby fair game for exploitation. Society tells itself what it needs to tell itself and goes ahead.
Slavery dies when economic systems or technology outgrows it or when the enslaving power loses its ability to maintain its supply of slaves, whether due to loss of relative strength against its neighbors or the simple exhaustion of supply (the Aztecs).
Economics were killing slavery in the United States faster than the moral argument against it (which is not to say that the moral argument wasn't valid). The moral framework of whatever the "present" is will always be a post hoc argument against the behavior of the past.
That's not the thinking Sowell had in mind.
I think he just said it another way. People shut their moral mind off when the truth is bothersome. We can let our mind "think" what it wants thru various means. Rationalization. Pretending or magical thinking. Telling yourself a lie. Telling yourself, if only man would THINK, he would always do the right thing is sort of silly. I love Sowell. I differ from him on this. Man is inherently evil, but sometimes overcomes his nature. Plenty think and when they have weighed it out, they often go for the evil.
No, if I weren't lazy and typed the whole quote it would be clear that's not what he meant.
well... ctrlC, ctrlP
All right, that's it. You're fucking done.
I've been politely ignoring your relentless spamming of the comments with your off-topic non sequitur and constant abuse of anyone who doesn't agree with your "viruses don't exist" beliefs and your rambling stream of consciousness bullshit about yourself that no one asked for and whatever that weird fetish shit was yesterday in the hopes that like a reasonably socialized adult you would realize that no one is responding to you because you're annoying the shit out of them.
But you don't get to call my other readers dumb cunts because they don't see what a genius you are.
You're fucking out of here.
patronised by these bell ends needs to be a crime
Here's the other thing. Sometimes I want to make poor choices ON PURPOSE.
I WANT the right to, once in a while, have a bourbon followed by a mug of beer and a bacon cheeseburger and maybe even a cigar. And understand that I am compromising my health all the while.
And fuck you for saying I must always be clean and healthy and sterile and safe. And then trying to convince us all to redefine happiness to exclude any notion of thrill, danger, risk, or adventure.
Thanks for the recommendations.
I just got back from my local Grange meeting (look it up) and prior to the opening ceremony a number of the women were sitting around swapping horror stories about terribly behaved kids we knew or worked with in our various professions. Someone said, "many parents probably shouldn't be parents," and it certainly isn't the first time that thought has entered my awareness or indeed my own mind.
But there's always the problem: do you want someone to be the arbiter of who should and shouldn't reproduce? My answer to this is no, of course not, but you can still address the problem: stop propping up and maintaining people's bad choices. A little more natural selection is not the worst thing that could happen to a free society.
You know La Grange is about the city in Texas of the same name, right?
Damn it, it was supposed to be the pic of two! Fixing shortly.
I cannot tell you how many teen girls I would encounter in counseling roles years ago that were genuinely extremely distressed that their boobs were slightly uneven and had to be convinced they were normal (and that no, having hair follicles on your aureola is NOT a disease, it means you're not prepubescent or a porn star).
I had moved on from that profession before the latest insanity of girls being horrified by the existence of their labia.
Porn has been pretty awful to the psyche of young women.