Corona Virus

[nullnor]

3) I forgot what number 3 was.

it was T Cell memory runs out as you get older. the more vaccinations you get the more memory is used.

[GwynnInTheHall]

[nullnor]

I find it extraordinary that space and time can interact. and we don't know what space is. it's just way too powerful of a thing. yet so simple. where time is in complete control of our lives and reality. and space shapes it. we aren't supposed to know that.

[nullnor]

is that like Biden warning of winter of 'severe illness and death' for unvaccinated. or is that like Dirty Harry in the elevator when Biden said the unvaccinated are like the dog shit on his shoe. or when doing the right thing was causing 50 million food insecure children were sent into poverty and 200 million were sent into extreme poverty while we horde vaccines and sit behind our remote jobs in lockdown behind our laptops. there is this thing called Karma.

or maybe it's like One Morning in Poland https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-mor...and-1442006282

Not only the murderers, but also the rescuers—who risked their lives to save Jews—remained terrified to talk: Well over half a century later, they still feared their neighbors.

scapegoating. that's the moral of the story. not to use WW2 as an example, because that's wrong.

but not knowing basic fucking science. because if this is the right thing to do, than I aim to misbehave.

[nullnor]

https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2022/01/destroy-the-one-ring-frodo/

Huskynut: The three Lord of the Rings movies are usually recollected for their stunning NZ landscapes and epic battle scenes, but we could do well to reflect on the way aspects of the core plot mirror our current situation.

At the outset, an unexpected knock at the door draws Frodo to undertake an epic quest, for the good of Middle Earth. It takes little effort to imagine the way politicians, policy-wonks and health advisors and modellers all – consciously or unconsciously – answered the door to the Covid response and unexpectedly found themselves with oversized roles in the epic of a lifetime.

How intoxicating it must have felt to be cast as central figures in a complex plot line that has now dominated headlines for nearly two years! How noble and glorious to be on the front lines battling a constantly mutating Balrog or legions of Orcs. How majestic to dedicate one’s work life to completely vanquishing the enemy and pronouncing the joyous day of Zero Covid! All the intensity of a global war, but from the comfort of home, and with negligible personal risk.

The problem with this is twofold – firstly Covid isn’t at all like an epic army of well-armed marauding Orcs. It’s a virus. It isn’t “trying” to do anything.. not to get past our defences, let alone to attack and kill us, any more than the grass outside is trying to. On a scale of sentience, grass is vastly more complex and adaptive than Covid, though far less glamorous.

All of that excess emotion – that epic drama – led not a single step closer to understanding the nature of Covid or improving our response to it, in the same way the epic battle scenes in Lord of the Rings contributed little to the wider plot. But they were EPIC! And human love of epic stories is hardwired into us. Before we know it, we’re junked up on adrenaline, rooting for the hero, and hoping the movie never ends.

Secondly, when the mythological parts of story take hold of our psyche, any possibility of sound science disappears straight out the window. In science, there are no heroes, no villains. No-one swoops in at the last moment to save the day. No-one plots dastardly revenge. Perhaps those things take place on the periphery, amongst the humans engaged in a scientific pursuit, but not in science itself. Within science there is postulate, hypothesis, experiment, result.

Which is profoundly boring from an entertainment perspective, so the media never talk science. They talk instead of opinion, speculation, human interest or politics, and people mistake those for science. For those of us watching rather than creating the movie, there’s little input required beyond showing up and giving the screen our attention. That’s pretty much the opposite of how a participatory democracy is supposed to work, but a pretty accurate description of the way many have approached Covid. Tune into the daily podium soap-opera and FEEL.

Watching those plucky characters on the screen, entwined in the plot twists and turns, large numbers of us forgot that as citizens we ourselves are the fundamental characters in the plots of our own lives, not bit players in the primary drama or – worse – simply rubes to be milked for cash at the box office.

Back in the film, as they near Mount Doom, Frodo struggles against the spell of the One Ring, becoming increasingly distrustful and paranoid about the intentions of his loyal friend Sam. Again and again he feels compelled to wield the Ring. With every use of it he surrenders a little more of his integrity and sovereignty.

And as NZ draws closer to the end of the Covid pandemic, with the world opening up and the UK, Ireland and Czech Republic dropping most restrictions, the NZ government, their pet scientists and tame media seem increasingly paranoid about the intentions of loyal, taxpaying kiwis demanding the right to return to their lives unmolested by vaccine mandates and passes. Their finger twitches reflexively towards wielding The Ring – when Omicron hits, the Red “Traffic Light” will be invoked.

For anyone observing the character development over time, the trajectory is clear. What began as careful, nuanced and tentative statements from the NZ scientists, politicians and pundits moved to strident, dismissive and arrogant. Little of the science remains, only politics and drama. These characters move inexorably towards becoming Ring Wraiths … servants of the One Vaccine.

It’s abundantly clear that every time Jacinda and Ashley succumb to temptation and slip their finger back into the Ring – issuing a new compelling edict upon the public, they lose another sliver of humanity. Things that were once unthinkable – medical mandates throwing thousands out of work, say, or closing the borders to prevent our country’s own citizens from returning – are now routine. And there is no evidence these serious blows to NZ citizens trouble the Ring wielders for a second.

Our leaders appear to have convinced themselves of the essential need for their character’s places in the ongoing drama, because that’s precisely what power does, and particularly when the wielder is not held consistently to close account by a wise and honest friend like Sam, rather than the increasingly Gollum-like suck-ups populating the commercial media. The NZ government needs to take the One Ring of power – that body of Covid-19 legislation and operating practice they’ve been accumulating and casually toying with for two years – and fling it into a metaphorical Mount Doom before it consumes both them and us.

In watching the movie, we will Frodo to summon the strength to do what must be done in destroying the Ring. In our current political world there is no sign our politicians and bureaucrats possess the self-awareness, the wisdom or the will to do that themselves. There is even a substantial mass of people who would cry out against it.. either loath to have their passive movie-watching end and be confronted with the mundanity of their pre-Covid lives, or terrified that absent their heroic leaders the mythologised terror will rise and strike them down.

It’s time to put down the empty popcorn container and recall our place is on the relatively tepid yet real world outside the cinema. Yes, Covid is real, but the theatrical accoutrements that have come to surround it are not. We cannot afford to continue investing the colossal amounts of time and money that have been diverted to Covid at the expense of other priorities, including wider health and education.

Power corrupts. What started as naïve individuals embarking on an important quest has led to what it necessarily must – the time for those same people to reject the self-corrupting influence of power, and for both themselves and us to return to the Shire.

[nullnor]

on the trucker thing going on in Canada

[nullnor]

heh

[nullnor]

one problem I have is when you watch news on TV as opposed to reading it, watching news is voyeurism. like TV shows about crime or peoples court. depravity. on the Brightside, everyone thinks they are good.

[GwynnInTheHall]

Dear Nullie, I as every other poster here have done, have forgiven you for your issues.

We drink, we envision a world that loves us and our beliefs, we encourage other viewpoints that are VALID.

But just fucking STOP.

You are NOT even close to correct when it comes to Covid info.

Or let us start a Covid thread that you will stay OUT of so that it ONLY includes facts and science instead of your horseshit.

Love Ya but fuck off if you can't get it together.

[nullnor]

there is also a natural explanation for a few HIV inserts in COV-2, and it's because it infected a person with HIV and the virus reassorted

[nullnor]

Dear Nullie, I as every other poster here have done, have forgiven you for your issues.

We drink, we envision a world that loves us and our beliefs, we encourage other viewpoints that are VALID.

But just fucking STOP.

You are NOT even close to correct when it comes to Covid info.

Or let us start a Covid thread that you will stay OUT of so that it ONLY includes facts and science instead of your horseshit.

Love Ya but fuck off if you can't get it together.

except I was the only person to state early you can't vaccinate your way out of a respiratory virus with a intermuscular vaccine. and I said it would mutate to evade immunity.

it's funny. I state basic laws of science and ppl ask me to show proof.

[nullnor]

the only reason I don't go completely out of control is because you guys have put up with so much of my bullshit of the years.

[nullnor]

today I found 4 or 5 dozen everything bagels in the trash at Cumberland farms. it was the first time I ever got food out of a dumpster. I marked the day and time in the hopes I can catch the bagel guy throwing them out again.

[nullnor]

all you guys talk about is bullshit. you find some poor sap that made a poor choice and use him as an example to further your perspective. you put up charts that lack information and say, which is a popular saying these days, this is all you need to know. like 20 years you guys have been reading charts, and suddenly it's ok not to ask questions.

[nullnor]

your next move would be to identify respiratory viruses that are vaccinated with intramuscular vaccines to refute me. like the flu. but I anticipate that your lack of science wouldn't allow you to get that far. because even on it's best day the flu vaccine's efficacy is laughable. or pickup where I said T Cells have limited total memory to theorize early jabs with the flu vaccine actually diminishes it's effectiveness later in life when you will need it. we're making groundbreaking discoveries here. but instead of working together it's more important to win a fruitless debate instead of expanding it.

if you ever want to challenge me in science. it's great. I learned one thing from this pandemic. I learned to be confident and not afraid.