rigorousintuition.ca

JackRiddler » Mon May 31, 2021 5:47 pm wrote:

Belligerent Savant » Mon May 31, 2021 1:48 pm wrote:Any disagreement?

None of the four things you list are facts. They are all practices or proposals, and as you know I have expressed the same opposition to all of them as you have, in posts on this board. So there's no need to ask as if that is unknown or requires additional confirmation from me.

What to know about the vaccine passports already being tested for international travel
Keen to avoid losing another summer of holiday revenue to the coronavirus pandemic, the European Union, some Asian governments and the airline industry are scrambling to develop so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports to help kickstart international travel.

They're working on systems that would allow travelers to use mobile phone apps to prove they've been vaccinated, which could help them avoid onerous quarantine requirements at their destinations.

But the multiple efforts underscore the lack of one central international system to electronically verify vaccination status. The projects also face technical challenges in working together, while questions about privacy and vaccine inequality linger.

Vaccination passports would add another digital layer to the multitude of existing coronavirus health and contact tracing apps many countries and U.S. states have rolled out. Their use domestically to reopen local economies has been hotly debated, with many opposed to requiring them for pubs, concerts and sporting events. However, there's more momentum to use them for international travel, especially as countries like Iceland open their borders to vaccinated visitors and others like Saudi Arabia start allowing vaccinated citizens to travel abroad. The EU's decision last week to open its borders to fully vaccinated travelers adds even more urgency.

1 Widespread Allegiance Rituals – Wearing a mask, staying home, staying six feet apart, reporting your daily health status to work or school, wearing two masks, etc.—and now being vaccinated—are not just public health measures, but important cultural signifiers of being a good citizen, signaling one’s solidarity with a cause and obedience to important new public safety rules. These have been encouraged through the use of
2 Ubiquitous Slogans and Mottos – Lockstep messaging on billboards, highway signs, in advertising and on mass and social media, short phrases repeated endlessly to frame public thought into simple moral directives.
3 Mass Paranoia – The governing idea that all people are potential threats at all times—“sick until proven healthy”—has now been accepted by a large portion of the populace. Even when the virus seasonally wanes (“cases” down 90% as they are now) this way of thinking has taken deep root, with fear of the unvaccinated now working in tandem with fear of the virus itself, even though covid is showing every sign of becoming an endemic—i.e. normal—part of the public health landscape. This is being expressed through another classic building block of an authoritarian society, the
4 Vilification of the Other – In the past, this group has often been a well-defined ethnic or religious minority, or a minority/dissenting political party or movement. In this modern, technocratic version of fascism, the “other” is a more loosely defined category of “anti-vaxxers,” “denialists,” “conspiracy theorists,” “extremists” and/or “the vaccine hesitant.” The important part here is the dynamic of projecting society’s ills onto a scapegoat group at which to be enraged and disgusted, to be feared and shunned and silenced.
5 Strong Partisan Influence – This movement towards authoritarian control of the population, in the United States at least, is heavily weighted by political affiliation. Four years of media-stoked outrage at Trump, the last of which was marked by extreme frustration at his weak policy on the coronavirus, has segued seamlessly in the minds of many Democrats and liberals into redirected anger at anyone who challenges any pandemic policy whatsoever, no matter how damaging or questionable.
6 Enormous social pressure to conform – From persuasion to bullying to coercion to shunning, there is widespread and increasing pressure on those who remain skeptical of this entire process to fall in line. This is reaching its apex with the vaccination issue, driving a wedge into society that is further undermining normal, healthy social interaction, resulting in dysfunctional workplaces, broken friendships and fractured families.
7 Pervasive Censorship – Not just random opinions on social media, but highly credentialed scientists, epidemiologists, and doctors with decades of medical or pharmaceutical experience who stray from the acceptable scope of opinion have been systematically silenced by enormous tech corporations like YouTube, Google, Twitter and Facebook. Most concerning is the suppression of information about helpful, even life-saving treatments from well-known drugs with many decades of safety and efficacy data. Even public testimony in front of Congress, a symbolic emblem of a democratically functioning state, has been censored. Cheering on this assault on democratic process, normal medical peer review, rational critique and dissent are the
8 True believers – Whether in the media, on social media, or one’s friends in real life, there are those who have consistently pushed the envelope to ever more extreme reactions and “solutions.” A well-known progressive writer mused online about the need to set up detention camps for those who won’t vaccinate; a NY Times columnist unironically suggested critical thinking about the pandemic is a bad idea, and that the top three searches on Google on any topic are always the most factual; another journalist posited that we need to start shunning the vaccine hesitant. In the social media space, namecalling and accusations of being a “threat to everyone’s health” or “causing harm” are hurled at those that critically examine the official narrative by increasingly angry individuals who see themselves as sane, noble protectors of the public health, a rationalization that justifies every aggressive move they make. Every authoritarian movement has its brownshirts, and this one is no exception.
9 Extraordinary level of denial – Like the Good Germans who had no idea where those trains were going, there is a widespread, bizarre avoidance and ignoring of the development of all of these technological and social structures, which are unfolding rapidly in plain sight. This is way more than a public health response to a pandemic. I urge everyone to break the cycle of denial and look fearlessly at what is happening. Continued acceptance of this extreme remaking of society will have grave consequences for our and our children’s future. Look again at what I just wrote, as a simple list. Tell me this is all okay:
Autocratic governance
Campaign of fear
State of emergency
Official identification papers
Medical apartheid
Destruction of healthy social supports
Powerful moral belief system
Widespread allegiance rituals
Ubiquitous slogans and mottos
Mass paranoia
Vilification of the Other
Strong partisan influence
Enormous social pressure to conform
Pervasive censorship
True believers
Extraordinary detention

Big thank you to the highly observant creator of the above post... James Spione - Thank you James. I am very glad to share your excellent work. Everyone should read this and realize what is really happening around them while so many people have fooled themselves into not believing it is actually taking place. Their weakened, heavily propagandized, brainwashed minds need this and it is what the corrupt controllers of society fear the most. Simply put, it is the truth coming out into the daylight... and it is refreshing, invigorating and empowering once you realize that you have been lied to all along. If you want to feel alive again...and get rid of those terrible feelings they have created for you in the downward spiral they have put you under.....then simply spread the truth and expose their real evil nature and deeds. Help wake up other people. They want a revolution. They want to divide, distract and conquer us. We want an evolution where all sides they have put in boxes against each other instead come together and realize we have all been played. An awakening of worldwide consciousness must come forth now. Let's use their Achille's Heel to bring it.

Username » Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:14 pm wrote:~
Harmonic Series
Vol. III
THE GREAT WORK
by J. E. Richardson
The Great School of Natural Science
copyright, 1906, by Indo-American book co.

Addressed to The Progressive Intelligence of the Age

“Fools Deride, Philosophers Investigate.”

Chapter I.

EVOLUTION IN OPERATION.

1. Nature evolves a Man.

2. Man co-operating with nature, evolves a “Master.”

3. The Master-Man, co-operating with and controlling the forces, activities and processes of nature, evolves a ____________?


Chapter II.

CLASSIFICATION OF DATA.

Some things we know, and we know that we know them.
Some things we assume to know, but we know that we do not know them.
Some things we believe, but we do not know them, nor do we even assume to know them.
For illustration:

First Class.

We know that we exist.

We know that other people exist.

We know that other things besides ourselves also exist.

We know that fire burns and that water quenches thirst.

We know that snow is soft and white and that ice is hard and cold to our senses.

We know that flowers bloom and that birds sing.

We know that as individual Intelligences we possess certain faculties, capacities and powers.

We know that certain things we call food, water and air are necessary to sustain what we name the life of our physical bodies.
We know when we are happy and we know what sorrow is.

We know that we can think and that we can convey our thoughts to others.

We know that life has a present existence and that what we call death dissolves the physical manifestation of this earthly life.

These are things we know and we know that we know them. Why? Because they fall within the radius of our own individual experiences. By the aid of our own senses we have personally demonstrated them. And these are the only reasons that warrant us in asserting that we know them. That which is outside the range of our own personal experience is not definitely and positively known to us.

It is of the utmost importance, therefore, to the cause of truth, that every man who speaks for the world to hear should never allow himself to forget that personal experience is the only absolute basis and infallible test of what we know. Whatever fails to reach the demands of this simply and exact test does not rise to the dignity of actual and personal knowledge.

Second Class.

We assume to know that the earth is round. We not only assume this to be a fact of nature, but we are ready to act upon that assumption, and we do so act without the slightest hesitation whenever occasion therefor may require. But on a basis of actual test it is doubtful if one in a thousand of the human race, as it exists today, has ever personally demonstrated the truth of that assumption. We have read in books that it is true. We have been taught in our school studies that it is a fact. We have been assured, on what we have considered good authority, that others have actually proven it beyond all question; and we have had pointed out to us methods by which we are led to believe we might prove its truth for ourselves if we but had the time, money, opportunity and inclination necessary to make the demonstration. But that is all. In other words, the very large majority of us do not, in literal truth, personally know whether the earth is round or square or cubical or pyrmidal or any other specifically definable shape. We only assume to know.

We assume to know how old we are, and in our relations and dealings with others we treat the subject of our own age with all the seeming assurance of exact and definite knowledge. We do not hesitate to go into court, when called upon to do so, and solemnly make oath as to our respective ages. Many there are who do this without so much as a qualm of conscience or a suggestion of doubt or uncertainty. And yet, in all human probability, not one of those who read this page knows to a definite certainty his or her own age. Furthermore, there is, perhaps, no person living in all the world, who remembers the exact year, month, day and hour of his own birth. Why? Because under and by virtue of the arbitrary and mysterious provisions of nature, that somewhat important event in our respective histories lies all the way from two to fours years backward beyond the limits of individual memory. All we know of it, therefore, is that our reputed fathers and mothers and those who are older than ourselves have told us that we were born on a given day of a given month in a given year. We take their word as literal truth and govern ourselves accordingly. And so, we do not know how old we are. We only assume to know.

We assume to know that a certain man, whom history names Columbus, discovered the continent of America; that a certain other man, named Washington, was the first president of the United States of America.

We assume to know that a certain other man, named Moses, led the Children of Israel out of captivity into the land of Egypt.

We assume to know that one Benjamin Franklin, by means of a kite, made an important discovery concerning the action of electricity; that another wise man, named Newton, made an important scientific discovery concerning the action of that force we name Gravity.

If time and space would permit and the occasion would warrant the effort, it would be quite possible to mention hundreds or even thousands of other things we assume to know, all of which, however, are wholly outside the limits of our definite and personal knowledge. Indeed, if we but held ourselves to a rigid and strictly truthful differentiation of the data we employ, there is perhaps not one of us but would be greatly surprised, if not genuinely humiliated, to find how many things we assume to know which are, in truth, altogether outside the limits of our personal knowledge. We do not know them. We merely assume to know them, and our assumption passes current for actual personal knowledge.

Third Class.

Many there are who believe in a God, in the sense that the Great Creative Intelligence is a distinct and definite personality. But there are also many others who believe just a firmly that the Great Creative Intelligence is not a God in the sense of a definite personality. It would seem, however, that among all these there are few, if any, who could truthfully assert that the subject is one which falls within the limits of their personal knowledge.

Some men believe there is not only a personal God who created the universe, but that he is a triune Being, composed of three persons in one, namely, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” Others believe He is but one person. They hold that he is “One and Indivisible.” There are others still who believe that the Creative Intelligence is but an all-pervading essence or power, wholly without the element of personality. It would doubtless be conceded, however, that not one among all these is in position to know anything about it.

Some there are who believe in the doctrine of literal transubstantiation, in accordance with which the bread and wine used in the sacramental service of “The Lord’s Supper” are said to be transmuted into the body and blood of Christ. Others believe with equal sincerity that such a doctrine is not only false, but utterly absurd and too ridiculous for a moment’s serious consideration. But if the question could be removed from the field of theological discussion and then submitted to the several disputants on the basis of their definite and personal knowledge, it is not at all likely that a single one among them could be found who would seriously claim to know anything about it.

There are also those who believe in the absolute, inherent immortality of all mankind. Others believe in conditional immortality, only as a reward of individual effort. And there are others who believe with equal earnestness that immortality is only a pleasant dream, a comforting delusion, a fascinating fiction, and that physical death means total extinction.

Human intelligence has formulated concepts which have become the bases of many other beliefs. All such beliefs, however, may be distinguished without difficulty from definite personal knowledge, or even assumed knowledge, as these are classified and defined above.

Fourth Class.

We neither know, nor assume to know, nor can we formulate a well defined belief as to when time began or when, if ever, it will end; where space begins, how far it extends, or where, if at all it ends.

We neither know, nor assume to know, nor do we have even a definite belief as to where, when or how matter first came into existence, how long it will continue to exist or what will ultimately become of it.

We neither know, nor assume to know, nor do we have a clearly defined belief as to how many suns, moons and stars there are throughout all the universe of space; how many of them are inhabited; or what may be the number and character of their inhabitants.

We neither know, nor assume to know, nor can we formulate so much as a definite belief as to the number of fishes or other living things in all the waters of the earth, the insects which pervade the atmosphere that encircles and incloses the earth, or the living creatures that move upon the dry land.

As to all such problems as these, and many others, we do not hesitate to acknowledge our total ignorance.

Thus, by a simple analysis, we find that the data of the whole universe, so far as we are individually concerned, naturally divide themselves into these four distinct and separate classes, namely:

1. Things we know.
2. Things we assume to know.
3. Things we believe.
4. Things of which we are wholly ignorant.

Of these four classes of data, there can be but little doubt, in the mind of any honest student of nature, that the first is by far the most limited. For, the things we know comprise only those things which are a conscious part of us, and those with which we come into conscious personal contact or relation in nature.

No man is in position to understand or appreciate how almost infinitesimally small and seemingly insignificant, by comparison, is the volume of his own definite, personal knowledge, until he undertakes to write out in definite form a crystallized statement of those things he can say truly he knows. Then it is, for the first time he becomes clearly conscious how meager is his store of actual knowledge and how conspicuous is his intellectual poverty.

To be brought thus suddenly face to face with his own destitution is, perhaps, one of the most effectual lessons of humility that could be administered to a human being. It would also seem that of all the many important lessons of life it is one among those we need most to learn. For, whilst it humbles our pride of intelligence into the very dust, at the same time it teaches us the exact measure and intrinsic value of our own actual attainments and points the way to a much broader understanding and a more just appreciation of all mankind. It teaches a deeper respect for the lives and experiences of our fellow men, admonishes us to a more generous sympathy with them in all their honest efforts, and stimulates
in us a more healthful desire to increase our own store of exact and definite knowledge.

The second class of data constitutes a volume much greater in magnitude than the first, and much more pretentious as to the character and scope of its contents. For, under the head of “Things we assume to know,” are, in general, the discoveries and demonstrations of science, the data of history, the deductions of philosophy, and the great body of “Spiritual Revelations.”

No truly progressive intelligence of the present age will attempt to deny or even minimize the value of all these data to both the individual and society. Indeed, most of such data comes to us from out the ages. It bears upon its face the seeming stamp of truth. Since it comes to us at second hand, it does not rise to the dignity of absolute knowledge. Nevertheless, it is of great value because it is the nearest possible approach to that which we designate as absolute, personal knowledge.

The third class of data, “Things we believe,” would constitute an immense library of itself. But here, in the realm of mere speculations, opinions and beliefs, we come face to face with all those unsatisfactory and disquieting elements of uncertainty, unreliability, insecurity, fallibility and change.

For instance: No man’s mere belief, however honest of earnest it may be, carries with it a positive guaranty of its truth. He may believe, with absolute sincerity, the most impossible things.

Then again, the things he merely believes today he may be able to demonstrate tomorrow. When so demonstrated they at once become things he knows and are no longer mere matters of belief. By the process of demonstration they immediately pass from the third class of data to the first. By this transition alone, they attain to the highest possible degree of value and importance in his life.

Or, it may perchance, occur that the things he believes today he may demonstrate tomorrow to be false. In that event their non-existence is established and they no longer have a place in the data of the universe.

It may also happen that some of the things he believes today may be proven tomorrow by somebody else to be true. In that event, as facts demonstrated, they come to him at second hand. Thenceforth, in their relation to him, they pass into the category of reported facts, history or science, as the case may be, and fall under the second class. Though he may not know them of his own personal knowledge, yet he may thereafter reasonably assume to know them upon the strength of their reported demonstration. Thus they are advanced on step in their relation to him, and by this transition they become of secondary importance in his essential life. They are now second in value only to the things he knows.

The fourth class of data, “Things we neither know nor assume to know nor even believe,” constitutes the, at present, unknown field of nature. Whatever that field may contain is, as yet, a closed book to us. Whatever influence its contents may exert upon our lives or destinies is not yet within our powers of analysis. The unexplored field of nature may, perhaps, contain countless treasures of infinite value to each one of us, and doubtless does. But until we see, know, or in some other manner become possessed of them, their intrinsic value is not, for us at least, a conscious factor.

Thus it will be observed, that of all the data of the entire universe, that which most intimately and vitally concerns each one of us falls under the first class designated at the beginning of this chapter. That is to say, the things we know are those of which we are in position to make the best and most intelligent use, both in our own behalf and in behalf of those who need our help. This fact alone gives to them a value and an importance which is to us paramount.

It is equally true that the things we assume to know, and upon the truth of which we implicitly rely and unhesitatingly act, are the things which approach most nearly absolute, personal knowledge. These, therefore, are second in value only to the things we know.

In other words, of all the data of the universe, that which falls withing the radius of absolute, personal knowledge is of paramount value and importance to each individual. And conversely, that which lies farthest from such knowledge is, for analogous reasons, of least personal value and importance to him.

For instance: To every intelligent man and woman who has followed the subject to this point it must be clearly apparent that actual knowledge, as hereinbefore defined, is of greater value and importance to the individual who possesses it than assumed knowledge. It is vastly multiplied in value and importance when it is compared with mere speculations, opinions and beliefs, any or all of which may prove to be erroneous or entirely without foundation in fact. It follows with equal certainty that it stands at the highest point of relative value and importance when it is compared with total ignorance.

These facts being admitted, it follows with irresistible logic that one of the most important duties every individual owes to himself and to his fellow man is, at all times and as rapidly as possible, to increase the number and volume of the things he knows, and in so doing select those facts and truths of which he can make the most valuable use. For by this process alone he becomes the better equipped to discharge his personal responsibility to both himself and his fellow man.

To one who sees life from this point of vision it matters very little what others may believe (except for their own good), so long as they do not trespass upon the perfect liberty of his own intelligence. That which is of paramount importance to him is what they know and what they can help him to know.

A brief analytical study of this subject cannot fail to emphasize, among others, the following facts, namely:

1. Exact and definite knowledge is always of the greatest possible value and importance to every individual who has the moral courage to use it rightly. To such it is more to be desired than all other classes of data combined. Nevertheless, it is only the exceptional man or woman, of the present time, who is ready or even willing to pursue it with a degree of intelligence, courage and perseverance, necessary to obtain the desired results.

2. The average intelligence is satisfied to act upon the basis of assumed knowledge. This is true, even though such data are admitted to be wanting in reliability and therefore of only secondary value or consideration. Why? Because assumed knowledge involves far less personal effort on his part than actual knowledge. With most of us it is so much more pleasant and agreeable to accept as true the declarations and findings of others than it is to make a personal demonstration of them for ourselves.

3. If an exact numerical balance could be struck, at the present time, it would, without question, be found that a very large majority of the men and women of deeply interested in the consideration of mere speculations, opinions, dogmas and beliefs that they are in the acquisition of actual, personal knowledge.

Why is this? The question is a most natural one in the mind of the honest student. It would also appear timely and pertinent. More especially is this true in view of the fact that the door to personal knowledge stands so wide open and the way leading thereto is so smooth and inviting.

Many answers, or partial answers, suggest themselves. Each of these contains certain elements of truth. The following, however, would seem to cover the largest number of cases:

The acquisition of exact and definite knowledge involves a labor. It calls for the unremitting exercise of honest, earnest, intelligent, courageous and persistent personal effort on the part of the individual concerned.

Indolence, however, in this department of human endeavor, would seem to be an almost universal characteristic of human nature. However much we may desire a thing whose value we know and appreciate, we possess only a limited amount of intelligence, courage and perseverance which we are ready and willing to exercise in the task of acquiring it. In the largest number of instances–-more especially where the thing to be acquired is knowledge–-the amount of personal effort we are willing to exert is very small. Moreover, when we have reached its limit we are inclined to accept almost any recognized substitute that may be offered.

This characteristic of human intelligence is so general and so strongly marked that it constitutes one of the chief reasons why so few of our brightest and otherwise most capable men and women become personal demonstrators of the law. It also explains why so many become mere readers of books. And yet, we are forced by evidence which cannot be refuted, to recognize as a fundamental principle of individual human development, that exact and definite knowledge comes to all of us in exact ratio with the amount of intelligence, moral courage and perseverance we put into the active search for it.

One person may possess the necessary intelligence but lack the courage and perseverance. Another may have the requisite courage but fall below the necessary standard of intelligence and perseverance. A third may possess the full measure of necessary perseverance but fail in point of both intelligence and courage. A fourth may be able to demonstrate an abundance of both intelligence and courage but find himself deficient in the element of perseverance. And yet another may meet the required standard of intelligence and perseverance, and at the same time be wholly deficient in courage; and so on. But the men and women are few indeed, who possess all three of these elements of character in such measure and quality as to lead them into the field of personal demonstration. This is more especially true within the field of what, by common consent, we have come to designate as the higher laws, principles, forces, activities and processes of nature.

As a perfectly natural result, most of us find it so much easier and more convenient to assume knowledge than to demonstrate its truth, that we fall into the habit of relying more upon others than upon ourselves to discover the facts of nature and reduce them to definite and personal knowledge.

Even more strongly still are we tempted to content ourselves with reveling in the nebulous and fascinating field of mere speculations, opinions and beliefs. Why? Because this calls for the minimum of personal effort on our part.

Indeed, to this intellectual inertia and inherent indolence of human nature are due most of the prejudices, superstitions and dogmas of both science and religion throughout the ages. It is easier to entertain a prejudice than it is to acquire the knowledge necessary to rise above it. Most of us, therefore, are the witless slaves of prejudice. It is more convenient to cherish a superstition that it is to acquire the wisdom necessary to demonstrate its fallacy. For this reason most of us are bound by superstition. It is more agreeable (to ourselves) to dogmatize than to demonstrate. Hence it is that most of us are dogmatic and preach than it is to practice. Therefore the majority preach and minority practice.

These are among the frailties and fallacies of human nature with which we have to contend in our search for truth. We all know them. We all recognize them–-in others. We all admit them–-for those who decline to do so. Much as we may appear to be, we are neither entirely ignorant nor wholly innocent of the part they play in our own lives. More than this, we know the remedy. We cannot hope, therefore, to evade nor even minimize our personal responsibility for the evil results which flow from their daily presence and influence in our lives.

Let us not deceive ourselves longer. Let us not even try to do so. On the contrary, let us declare our emancipation from the tyranny of such a slavery. Moreover, let us do it NOW before we turn the leaf on which these words are printed. Let us do it so effectually and so irrevocably that we shall be able to maintain our independence throughout all the succeeding pages, even to the final word of the closing sentence.

Hereafter, then, let us intelligently, courageously and persistently apply ourselves to the honest and earnest search for definite, personal knowledge. Let us do this in whatsoever fields are open and accessible to us. Let us do it, if necessary, in defiance of our own present opinions and beliefs, prejudices and superstitions, inclinations and desires, as well as those of our fellow men who would seek to hold our Souls in bondage. Let us do this, secure in the consciousness that truth is always a friend to him who honestly seeks it and a benefactor to him who lives it.

Briefly recapitulating, the specific purposes of this chapter are:

1. To fix indelibly in the mind of the reader the four distinct and separate classes into which the data of the universe naturally divide themselves when considered solely in their relation to the individual.

2. To emphasize the paramount importance of “The things we know” over all the other classes of data in the universe, from the standpoint of the individual.

3. To remove from the mind, as far as may be possible, all blind acceptance of the mere speculations, opinions, beliefs and dogmas of mankind who speak without the authority of definite and personal knowledge.

4. To open the way to a fair and unprejudiced consideration of the subject before us with a view to obtaining the largest measure of truth possible.

5. To stimulate a healthful desire for exact and definite knowledge concerning the subject under consideration, regardless of the source from which it may come.

6. To lead to a personal investigation and intelligent study of such facts as may be accessible and pertinent.

End of Chapter II.

It is the bane and the balm of individual perception that 'objective' reality is seen through the filter of each person's temperament.
~Leonard Shlain

Consider the comparable and even more recent 180° pivot of the US government and its tame media over the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus. Until quite recently, the party line was that the new virus had jumped from bats to humans via a Wuhan “wet market” where shoppers purchase live animals as food. Any suggestion that something else might have been involved— say, any suggestion that Wuhan was also the site of a major Chinese government medical research installation where scientists carried out extremely risky “gain-of-function” research on bat coronaviruses—was instantly slapped down by supposedly impartial fact checkers in the media as a crackpot conspiracy theory.

Now all of a sudden US government flacks and the corporate media have turned on a dime and are admitting that, well, yes, there’s a major Chinese government medical research installation in Wuhan, and scientists there were conducting gain-of-function studies on bat coronaviruses—that is to say, studies in which viruses are genetically modified to make them more dangerous—and yes, there’s some evidence that viruses thus modified got out of the installation by way of inadequate biosecurity procedures and caused the pandemic. What was a crackpot conspiracy theory a few months ago is now being taken seriously all over the front pages, and the sudden pivot on the part of the supposedly impartial fact checkers is getting a lot of raised eyebrows.

Is there more going on here than meets the eye? Of course there is. Those gain-of-function studies in Wuhan were partly funded by US tax dollars, via one of the many slush funds that our federal government uses to prop up the medical industry here and abroad. (The reason seems to be that these extremely risky studies can’t be done in the US due to safety regulations, and so the US medical industry promptly offshored them so they could keep playing with their dangerous toys.) Specific US officials approved that funding and the studies it paid for—and some of those officials ended up also playing a significant role in pushing the narrative that the Covid-19 virus must have come from the meat market and couldn’t possibly have escaped from a lab. It’s pretty clear that covering certain highly placed and highly exposed rumps took precedence over the truth for a good long time.

One question for which I don’t have an answer yet is why the narrative has shifted so suddenly. No new data has surfaced—the information about the facility in Wuhan and the evidence that the virus was manmade have been around for more than a year, and yet suddenly they’ve gone from fringe subjects to front page news. I confess I wonder if this is connected to the equally sudden swerve that’s turned Bill Gates from media darling to media punching bag. Until quite recently, Gates was one of the principal celebrity flacks promoting the medical industry’s response to the Covid-19 virus, and his charitable foundation was heavily involved in funding that response. From at least one angle, it looks rather distinctly as though he’s being set up to take the fall for something. Still, we’ll just have to wait and see.

More generally, public skepticism about official pronouncements concerning the coronavirus outbreak has risen to remarkable levels, and not just on one side of the social landscape. For every person who insists that the virus isn’t a problem and refuses to take the vaccine, there’s another person who claims that the vaccine isn’t good enough and insists on wearing a mask and staying six feet away from everyone else even when official pronouncements insist that these steps are no longer necessary. It’s the same phenomenon on both sides, driven by a spreading distrust in those who claim to be able to speak with authority but have changed their minds too publicly, too often, with too little scientific justification. Meanwhile websites are springing up for people to talk about the health problems they’ve had after getting one of the Covid-19 vaccines—complications the media won’t talk about and, in many cases, doctors won’t treat.

None of this is particularly surprising, since official pronouncements on the virus have been driven by political pressures rather than scientific or medical concerns since the beginning of the outbreak. It somehow never occurred to anyone in power that hearing authority figures talking out of both sides of their mouth does not inspire confidence in their claims. Do you recall, dear reader, how health officials insisted early last year that masks weren’t necessary? Coronavirus advice from official sources during the outbreak has resembled nothing so much as the weather here in southern New England: if you don’t like it, wait a little while and it’ll be different.

All this comes, furthermore, at a time when public confidence in the official pronouncements of the scientific and medical establishments was already at an all-time low, for the same reason. Over and over again, the claims of supposedly authoritative figures have turned out to be just plain wrong. Take a look sometime at the number of pharmaceuticals that were approved by the FDA as safe and effective, and then had to be withdrawn in a hurry when it turned out they were neither. For that matter, look into the way that official attitudes toward, say, cholesterol have veered back and forth over the years, and ask yourself this: why should you believe that this year’s fashionable opinion is any more correct than last year’s, when you know as well as I do that it’s going to be replaced by some different opinion in another year or two?

Behind this is a far more drastic problem that cuts to the heart of the scientific enterprise. The power of science as a way of finding out truths about nature depends on replicability—that is, when one set of researchers publish a paper saying that they’ve done some experiments and gotten certain results, anyone else with access to the necessary hardware ought to be able to repeat the same experiments and get the same results. That was the basis on which science broke free of the pack of competing methods of making sense of nature and became our culture’s core way of understanding the world. Unfortunately, in a great many cases, it’s no longer true.

The replication crisis, as this far from minor problem is called, has been the subject of a great deal of worried conversation in the pages of scientific journals for years now. The difficulty is that a huge number of experiments that have been taken seriously, and used as the basis for influential theories, have turned out to be irreproducible: when other researchers repeated the same experiments they didn’t get the same results. Some of that is due to scientific fraud of various kinds, ranging from outright faking of experimental results to increasingly arcane statistical gamesmanship that extracts the illusion of meaning from random data.

Much more, however, it is due to a culture of sloppy science in which experiments are set up to support fashionable prejudices rather than putting them to the test. It’s indicative of this, as a recent survey of published studies showed, that studies that failed the test of replication were cited literally hundreds of times more often than studies that passed that test. Tell people what they want to hear and they’ll splash your name around in the journals that matter: that’s the logic that makes for a successful career in too many fields of scientific research these days. It also means, unfortunately, that medical care and public policy these days are quite often being guided by studies worth a lot less than the hot air that promotes them.

nomorefakenews

Wuhan, the lab? No, the other Wuhan nobody is talking about: Opioid Trafficking Headquarters for Death and Destruction

by Jon Rappoport
June 1, 2021

This article takes off from the work of investigative reporter, Whitney Webb. [1] Much of what I’m laying out here confirms her exposure of “the other Wuhan.” [1a] Webb writes at Unlimited Hangout and The Last American Vagabond. [1b]

When I put together Webb’s findings with my own COVID research, startling new dimensions of the false “pandemic” story come to light.

Who would have thought that, in less than a year, the image of the opioid drug, fentanyl, would undergo a face lift, enhancing it from “most destructive killer drug in the world” to “lifesaver in the treatment of COVID patients?”

And if this PR miracle is not a sufficient stunner, it just so happens that Opioid Central for illegally trafficking fentanyl to the planet is Wuhan, now the focus of claims that COVID was born in a lab there.

(Fake) pandemic transforms fentanyl into “vital COVID medication.”

(Fake) pandemic starts in Wuhan.

Wuhan is the city where killer drug fentanyl is shipped out to dealers all over the world.

High-level operators, focusing on Wuhan, manage to obscure, from the broad public, the city’s global role in killing millions of people with opioids…by claiming a pandemic was born in Wuhan. “The ONLY thing you have to know about Wuhan is the virus broke out there.”

This has the earmarks of a highly successful cover story.

Here’s a prime illustration of fentanyl’s PR facelift:

NJ [New Jersey] Spotlight News, April 14, 2020, “No Longer a Scourge, Fentanyl Is Now Most-Needed Drug in COVID-19 War.” [2]

“…fentanyl, one of the drugs given to patients so they can withstand the pain of having a breathing tube inserted, is in short supply along with a handful of other crucial drugs.”

“The first wave of critical shortages exposed by the coronavirus was medical masks and gowns. Then it was ventilators. Now, a handful of crucial drugs are in short supply in overrun ICUs throughout northern New Jersey and New York City, many of which are needed to use the ventilators.”

“At the top of the list is fentanyl, the deadly synthetic painkiller — 100 times more powerful than morphine — the very drug that has become public enemy No. 1 in the nation’s war on opioid addiction. Demand for fentanyl has doubled nationwide and shot up more than 500% in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan region, the current global epicenter of the pandemic.”

“Fentanyl may have been killing people in record numbers on the streets of New Jersey in recent years, but in our hospitals, it is now saving lives.”

“Demand for fentanyl is followed by Propofol, a sedative also used with ventilators, according to Soumi Saha, Premier’s senior director of advocacy…Close behind those two is a new category of drugs to face shortages — neuromuscular blockers, which are also being used for ventilator patients because they keep them from involuntarily coughing on the healthcare worker inserting the vent tube.”

“During normal times, patients stay on ventilators for three or four days. Now, not only has the number of ventilated patients spiked, but the time they remain on the device is two to three weeks.”

I gave you an extended quote from that New Jersey article, because I’ll cover the real story behind ventilators later in this piece.

Right now, here are a few references pointing to Wuhan as Opioid Central...

continues: https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2021/06 ... icking-hq/