Reality Again? Really?
Yes, really. Last year was filled with news about people who seem to live in another reality altogether, and I often wrote about them; QAnon, Flat Earthers, Anti Vaxxers, you know who I'm talking about. The fact that there's a considerable overlap between these people and conservatives, Republicans and Trumpists is no coincidence.
source: YouTube
I've talked about that overlap on numerous occasions, but if you've missed those, here's the TLDR: conservatives want things to stay the same, or go back to a highly romanticized era in the past. They want to keep intact established hierarchies and therefore consist overwhelmingly of white men of a certain age. Curiosity not only killed the cat, but is an existential threat to be avoided at all costs, which makes them allergic to any new social experiments or developments like the broadening discussions around sex, gender or race. Their anti-science stance is characterized by a strong adherence to religion and traditional values, like the "nuclear family." And when this general loathing of science is combined with a strong urge to conserve established economical hierarchies, we get things like anthropogenic climate change denial, a general distrust of academia and movements to ban Critical Race Theory from schools where this theory isn't even part of the curriculum. This is generalizing a lot, but ultimately what it comes down to, and is the reason why any dumb conspiracy theory that confirms their confirmation bias, like the ones under the QAnon-umbrella, is likely to get a foothold among these conservatives.
I know, that sounds rather harsh when condensed in a single paragraph like that, but it's true nonetheless. But... We're all capable of falling in similar traps. How we perceive reality is another one of my favorite topics, and one I've written about extensively last year. And "confirmation bias," so I've learned, isn't just about our political or ideological opinions. Instead it's everywhere, it's all our perceptions, including our senses. We don't see, hear, smell, taste or feel with our senses, but with our brains. And our brains fill in the gaps left by our sensory organs with what it expects to be in those gaps. Much of our perception of the world is constructed by our brains presenting us with stuff it expects to be there, rather than what's actually there. And it fills those gaps with what it has learned previously. Intuitively we'd expect evolution to have honed us to see reality as accurately as possible; you'd think that seeing reality as it is would increase our chances for survival and reproduction. But that may not be the case. At all.
Modern research seems to indicate that evolution has armed us with some sort of user-interface to interact with reality. The best comparison to make is with a desktop on a computer screen with icons that are sort-cuts to applications. We see an e-mail icon and know that clicking it will start up the email application. But the icon is not the application, it's not the highly complicated process of electrical currents, bits and bytes or thousands of lines of source-code. We experience the icon-equivalent of reality; we all see the same "icons," that's our shared reality, but not really. It's not reality. This is such an interesting topic, one that really makes me think about not only my own experience but all our shared and individual experiences, and how two individuals can indeed experience reality differently, let alone form an opinion about that reality. "Alternative facts" become lit in a completely different light now... The below linked video is about this very topic and shows us how easily our eyes and ears are fooled; it's slightly unnerving even to hear the same sound, but it sounds completely different depending on what words you read while listening to it...
An Argument Against Reality - Why You Can't Trust Your Senses
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Thank you for posting this, you're a great writer!
Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving these kind words, @wedacoalition :-)
I am a truthteller what can I say :)
Lets talk about this. For the record, my girlfiends got even bigger equipment than i do if you know what i mean. Certainly not conservative. Anyways, anti-scientific? No.
There is literally NOTHING more unscientific than listening to the experts. Thats exactly what the scientific method did away with. Your creditials do not matter, what matters is what you can show. And if you do not even entertain certain ideas you can not then claim them to be false, either.
Heres the world we are actualy living in: One where the governments and your "experts" are preparing the biggest genocide of human history.
Now is it true that there are also a lot of quacks coming out the woodworks? Well, yes, of course it is. What else do you expect if the mainstream no longer tolerates science?
And, yes, the people to blame for ALL OF THEIR BELIEVES AND ACTIONS are YOU. You are the one that wants to socialise medicine, i on the other hand fundamentaly oppose the very idea of public health. Under your logic you are responsible of not only the things you cause but also the things you do not fail to prevent. And in this case, you even caused a lot of shit.In fact, there are sideffects like with any medical treatment. If even one person dies from the shot then if you participated in pressuring them to get it you are a murderer. Theres nothing wrong with a medical treatment that occasionaly kills someone, it likely prevents a lot more harm than it causes, but as soon as you pressure them to do it you lack voluntary consent, making you 100% responsible of all consequences.
You must be new here :-) I understand and fully agree that we live in a world where governments and fake experts disseminate false ideas about almost anything; that's something I've spent many words on explaining in my blogs. There's no doubt, at least there shouldn't be, that governments will use any crisis to increase their power and control over us, like 9/11 was used to introduce the Patriot Act and take away all kinds of freedom all over the world. So too is this pandemic abused to usher in all sorts of control mechanisms, like the bar codes and passports, creating a new division within an already hopelessly divided populous. I, nor anyone else, needs a libertarian (or anarcho-capitalist?) to school us on these obvious facts. That's not where you're hopelessly wrong. You're wrong by not recognizing that the power the government has over you is actually in service of the capitalists. That the mechanisms of control used against you are in fact the source of mega-profits for these same capitalists. Government in and of itself isn't the problem here; capitalism is, and the capitalists are.
It's actually sad that I'm almost sure that if we had a face to face conversation about how we want life on this planet to look like, we would probably mostly agree. The problem is that our methods to get to that world are light-years apart. We'll probably never agree on that because you believe I'm indoctrinated by traditional institutions like the academia you demonize in your response, but I'm convinced you're brainwashed by the global paradigm of free market capitalism. Libertarians and anarcho-capitalists are funny to me like that, on account of the fact that they're so utterly blind to the material power imbalances that are inherent to their ideology, and fail to understand that this is exactly the unjust power imbalance they proclaim to combat. Even your handle, "reversehitler88" shows how righteous you believe you are, when in fact, in my opinion, free market libertarians uphold an ideology that is anything but righteous when practiced. But what's most disturbing of all, is that your justified suspicion of the powers that be is completely derailed into a state where you distrust all institutions; that's extremism to a tee. I was amused by your keeping score between Conspiracy Theorists and Experts, for most of the predictions you stated there were plainly wrong. Sure, mandates aren't necessary, and yes, mandates usually have the opposite effect. But there are almost no mandates. If you don't want to get vaccinated, you don't have to; you can instead get tested regularly. And if a private company demands that their employees get vaccinated, that's entirely in line with your ideology of private justice, security and law entirely determined by free markets. Right?
I won't delve deep into the technicalities of vaccines, their efficacy, side-effects and so on: you've clearly made up your mind about all that. But know this: the best place to get an honest advice about it is your doctor, just ask him or her. Also I must admit that you've made one point that I think is worth investigating further, and that is the point about the virus becoming more infectious but less deadly; this is in line with evolution's desire to survive. The virus will die if it kills all its host organisms, so it stands to reason it would evolve into a form that creates an optimum equilibrium for its growth and survival; having more host organisms alive is good, all hist organisms dead is suicide. That sounds reasonable, but then again, there's a highly deadly flu virus every 100 years or so... So I'll have to investigate, but I thank you for bringing it to my attention :-) I wish you and your "girlfriend" a happy new year!
Well, i am glad that you are willing to have a conversation with such an extremist nonetheless. And you are probably right that we might agree on the world wed like to see. As for terminology, ancap is fine though i would describe myself as voluntaryist, its a similar result but the philosophical foundations are maybe a bit different.
Tell me, which capitalist benefits from this? The corporations are all socialist, in fact corporations are a socialist, more precisly, facist, idea. We dont have a free market, the USA for example went fully socialist in 1798.
In fact, aquiring a lot of currency in this system i would indeed see as an indication that you probably arent a capitalist seen as it is government issued currency, not to far of from a socialist credit system.
As for my name, my account is old and my name older, just a joke while shaving.
" that's extremism to a tee." Of course it is. Or another word to use here would be "consistency".
Now i wouldnt agree with point 3 here, life in itself doesnt mean much to me. Even human life, ive lost a few good friends to suicide and in fact regret not taking that route a few years ago when my trigeminal neuralgia started myself, obviously i couldnt have known back then how long it would take to be treated. Had i known then that amount of pain over that long a timeframe wouldnt have been worth it.
"And if a private company demands that their employees get vaccinated, that's entirely in line with your ideology of private justice, security and law entirely determined by free markets. Right?"
It would be, yes. And so would a worker coop btw, worker-coops are still capitalist provided everyone thats part of it agreed to be and they dont force themselves on anyone else.
Anything that does not involve the initiation of violence is in line with my ideas.
Now, lets get back to the real world though. In the real world, companies exist under the states monopoly on violence, competition is heavily hindered by that.
Monopolies in general couldnt exist under a capitalistic framework.
You entirely sidestep the idea of a free market. For instance, in a free market the black community does not have to allow a racist security provider in their neighbourhood. If workers are mistreated or underpayed theyll just make their own company taking their expertise with them. Or maybe they unionise and coordinate their end of the deal. Currently thats often prevented by licensing, beurocracy, noncompete clauses (on that or rather on contracts in general, i would recommend https://mises.org/wire/why-property-rights-are-absolute-contracts-are-not ), we certainly dont have a free market.
The same, of course, applies to mistreating or overcharging customers. Why buy an iphone from apple if you can buy it from the former employees that left them after being underpaid for half the price? And maybe without all the shitty serialisation bullshit.
"the best place to get an honest advice about it is your doctor, just ask him or her."
I know. And i know that i shouldnt get it becouse of my preexisting conditions seen as most the sideffects appear to be autoimmune reactions and i have an autoimmune disorder, multiple sclerosis.
"and that is the point about the virus becoming more infectious but less deadly"
Well, yes. Not just less deadly, if you are ill enough to stay in the bed or at least at home you arent going to spread it, either. But weve gotten used to looking at the number of infected instead of hospitalisations or deaths, we in germany even have the supression measures trigger based on number of infections (by the way, even the lower end of false positives if you tested everyone in a region with a PCR-test you would comfortably get to the number that triggers the most severe supression measures.
Another thing about those numbers combined with the measures, if the vaccinated dont have to do all those tests, guess what? The number of infected would go down even if the vaccine does absolutely nothing becouse less people are getting tested. Just a point of note to keep in mind.
And of course, its not like theres no consequences. Even the UN speaks of 10.000 children starving each months as a result of our measures while 500.000 people are pushed into extreme poverty (im not rich, either, btw, im disabled and on welfare. And, yes, while in my case i can in good times be productive if left to my devices which sadly means economic activity in the white markets is a problem with all those regulations and all that beurocracy, but of course there are people that really cant be. For that, family, friends, communities, mutual aid societies like the freemasons are good bets, definately preferable to the state. And all of those have more than twice as many ressources if they arent taxed.
Oh, but I can. Argue against self-ownership that is ;-) Rights, my friend, do not exist in nature. Ownership doesn't exist in nature. Property rights are a legal construct, enforcement of which is depending on the use or threat of force, be it from the government or some libertarian day-dream of a privately owned enforcement agency; it's all the same. Property therefore is the diametrical opposite of liberty. And self-ownership..? That's a meaningless concept as far as I'm concerned; I do not own myself, I AM myself, ownership never enters the picture. As a consequence, free markets don't exist, have never existed and will never exist. It's also meaningless to discuss or theorize about a free society with absolutely free individuals. The only thing we can do, is try to maximize freedom for as much people as possible, and for that it's best to forget about property altogether, and talk about access to the things we all need. I don't need to own a CD, as long as I can listen to the music I want to hear. I don't need to own a home, as long as I have a place to stay where I'm not bothered by others. The problem is that we've attached those needs to property, instead of mutual respect and consideration. We don't need ownership, we need access. And access doesn't have to be determined by ownership or any other contract. Sure this sounds extremely idealistic (I guess we're both extremists ;-)), but it's in fact the way we used to live with each other in tribes.
Back to capitalism, because I suspect (not entirely sure) that you misunderstand what it is. Capitalism isn't defined by markets, free or otherwise. Capitalism is defined by the private ownership of the means of production. There's a difference between personal ownership and private ownership. To own the things we use ourselves is personal ownership; I have my toothbrush, you have yours. Owning the stuff we all use and need is private ownership; the land, the food, the water, the resources from which we make the products we all need. As far as ownership goes, I can live in a world with personal ownership, but private ownership is exactly what's wrong in this world. The American constitution begins with "We hold these truths to be self-evident," and that's a problem; there are no such things as innate rights. Just like way back when we were tribal people, rights are exactly what's allowed by the community you're born into. Rights are always granted and taken away by your fellow human beings.
This is another reason why I suspect you don't fully understand what capitalism is; worker-coops can exist withing a capitalist framework, but are themselves the opposite of capitalism. Again, capitalism is defined by the private ownership of the means of production, socialism is defined by the workers owning the means of production; worker-coops are a form of socialism, and if that coop sells their products on a market, it's called "market socialism," which is yet another indication that capitalism isn't defined by free or regulated markets. And in our world several worker coops exist alongside capitalist corporations.
I really appreciate your responses by the way, it's always good to see people who are willing to exchange ideas, thoughts and opinions; it's something that's becoming rather scarce these days ;-) I hope I've explained sufficiently that I'm not "sidestepping" the idea of a free market; it's just something that's not worth expending time or effort on in my opinion. And I'm sorry to hear about your struggles with your health; I sincerely hope you've found a way to manage and exist at peace with yourself and your loved ones...
"Capitalism isn't defined by markets, free or otherwise. Capitalism is defined by the private ownership "
Agreed.
"I don't need to own a home, as long as I have a place to stay where I'm not bothered by others. "
How is that not ownership?
"Again, capitalism is defined by the private ownership of the means of production, socialism is defined by the workers owning the means of production; "
Those workers are still private individuals, it is still private ownership. Just becouse it is multiple people does not make it not capitalistic.
As for free markets, theres some that are pretty close in the darkweb. Very consumer friendly, when my goods didnt arrive in a reasonable amount of time they just sent it again. I ended up getting both on the same day somehow.
In any event, you seem to draw a weird distinction between workers and owners, between private and personal property which really doesnt make a lot of sense. Capitalism is the workers right to the result of their labour and/or fair compensation for their labour/goods.
The elites are lying to you about capitalism.
Lets say, theoreticly, a lawyer who has a sister who is a doctor was to talk about how universal healthcare would require his sister to be a slave (or other people to be a slave to pay for her if she is willing to accept that and if she isnt then... well then she would have to be the slave ,wouldnt she?) but completly ignores that there is no free market for healthcare. Im not allowed to make cheap insulin and sell it for little more than production costs precisly BECOUSE it is allready socialised. Likewise, im not allowed to treat patients unless ive got a license which in the US would require me to go through their expensive education programs.
Whereas in China theres a lot more of a free market here, with so called barefoot doctors that arent educated for the most basic of needs, you dont need to see someone who went to medschool for years to deal with the common cold.
Again, you dont take issue with capitalism. You take issue with socialism. Or more precisly, with keynesian economics.
On the health stuff, i did receive neurosurgery and now drugs to manage it. :)
The means of production ARE publicly owned in the USA. Since 1798 they are merely rented out to people through what is called "property tax". That is, of course, if you serve the USA, if you use your property to make cheap insulin to provide for the poor you are not allowed to do that.
And, yes, it is very much in line with capitalism to want to provide for the poor. I like helping people and i like to know people are not starving. Thus, doing that does bring me psychic profit. Of course, youve never thought about nonfinancial or even immaterial profits becouse the state does not acknoledge those types of profit. Let me assure you that modern capitalist thought, espacialy austrian economic theories, do account for such immaterial profits.
I think you saw from how i adressed those points that you dont really understand where im coming from.
Allow me to elaborate. Why are property rights? Property rights arise from selfownership (which you literally can not argue against without being selfcontradictory) and from those the right of a worker to his produce. If i pick up an unowned stick and fashion it into a walking cane, that resulting cane is mine to do with as i please. Including selling it. Proudhon actualy while "property is theft" is regularly quoted by socialists, is part of the history of my ideas. He was in that instance specificly talking about landproperty gained through violence instead of homesteading. Capitalists would agree with him and would view the vast majority of land as unowned. Of course, proudhon also stated that "Property is Liberty" on another occasion adressing actual legitimate property.
Now, yes, i believe you are fundamentaly wrong about a few things.
What you, as well as capitalists (and, yes, many socialists) actualy have a problem with is not capitalism. Aside from general state interference it is the economic model under which we operate. Keynesian economics. Literally designed to trap our children in debt so we can now spend, spend, spend. Trying to increase the GDP is what we are doing, why would any Person actualy care about that? The state does becouse its got debt to pay and pays them with on one hand tax revenue, on the other hand, promised tax revenue in the future, thats where the fixation on the GDP comes from.
As i see it, the GDP is a massive bubble and it is a bubble by design, needs to come way down. I rather have an apple tree in my garden then buy apples, you understand? But that wouldnt be good for the GDP now, would it? Heck, have you ever thought about why so many people rent an apartment rather than build a house? Well, theres two ways to explain that, i could go into the mechanisms such as the state rejecting the homesteading principle, zoning laws and so on, but why do they want us to rent a place rather than building or buying? Simple, if i build my own house, thats at most counting one transaction towards the GDP. If i take on a loan to buy a house to rent out thats now counted at least 4 times over, once for the actual building of the house, once for me buying the house, once for me taking the rent and once for me paying back my loan.
Now im not saying landlords are illegitimate, as an arangement it may make sense for some people (namely those that dont want to take care of everything about the house themselves) but it would be a lot less common if capitalism was allowed.
In any event, thats all keynesian economics.
Lets lay out some predictions of us anti-vaxxers. It all started december, maybe allready november 2019. Thats when some people started warning about some virus in wuhan. The chines government and your experts at the WHO denied everything. We warned about it and memed about their denial, saying "its just a flu" to pictures with people in full body biohazard gear.
We were dangerous conspiracy theorists for that. And i dont believe you now still stand by your experts and claim that it is nothing or under control.
And i do fully understand that more information was gathered, but that data confirmed our hypothethis.
Conspiracy theorists 1 - "Experts" 0
Then it came to italy which actualy proved it to be more harmless than one may fear from an unknown virus, certainly less harmful than i wouldve thought. But still, enough to get many people to wear masks.
Many experts said we shouldnt be wearing them at that point, i will not count that against them becouse a "should" is not a scientific claim, however, there were some experts that even claimed they wouldnt work. So ill have to deduct 0.1 point from you. I think thats fair.
Conspiracy Theorists 1 - "Experts" -0.1
However, the real reason i like to remind you of this is that it shows that you do not need mandates to get people to wear masks. On the contrary people will get entrenched against them if you do mandate it which you are responsible for, your "experts" sadly were never from the fields relevant for any policy decissions. Those fields are politics and economics, not medicin, sorry, medical doctors are not even the relevant experts for policy.
Then the imperial college published its ideas, the supression plan which proposed a lockdown until the vast majority is vaccinated (they expected this to take at least 18 months) with obviously intermittent openings to avoid the virus and other viruses being to strongly supressed (which... would lead to issues if you come out of it eventualy) being the one the world ran with.
At this moment in time i had no disagreements on factual grounds. I was against it, but thats simply becouse i want health, justice, security and law to be private and entirely determined by free markets. But in terms of results at the point it seemed like it could work.
Let me remind you, however, what the goal of this supression was. The goal was to keep ICUs under capacity. Now why you wouldnt have built a lot more and hired a lot more employees by now but instead are firering people who refuse the jab is beyond me. Just let them build their private unvaccianted hospitals? Whats the problem?
But i get ahead of myself.
What we learnt over the course of the next months and knew by summer or autumn 2020 was that in fact even natural immunity didnt last all that long. Not only that, it also infects other animals than humans. Most other mammals infact. Either of those 2 facts would be bad news for vaccines, in combination they meant you can entirely forget that original plan.
Yet theres politics involved. Nobody wanted to admit to the implications of the new information, certainly no politician.
So we continued on that path.
And we can confirm, indeed it did not work.
Conspiracy theorists 2 - "Experts" -0.1
Another prediction that came out of that is that of course we would never get rid of covid, but it would evolve which is a good thing becouse that makes it more infectious but less deadly over time. We were right on that too, if delta did not end the pandemic, omicron will. By now it is endemic.
Conspiracy theorists 3 - "Experts" -0.1
In that time we also started warning about potential vaccine passports, where decried as CTs for it and turned out right on that, too.
Conspiracy theorists 4 - "Experts" -0.1
Personaly i slowly started worrying about genocide. Which certainly in some places of the world you now need to scan a QR-code to enter many places, including places which sell food. And not everbody has a cellphone, so you are starving those that dont.
Conspiracy theorists 5 "Experts" -0.1
As vaccines became available, we started trying to vaccinate many people. Even while knowing that the vaccine is not perfect and even natural immunity doesnt last all that long as well as other mammals carry the virus. Now, if you understand the first thing about evolution you SHOULD understand that you should not vaccinate the masses in such a scenario. You should vaccinate the vulnerable. The only thing you achieve by vaccinating everyone is that if a vaccine resistant strain evolves - and it will - that it will become dominant, making the vaccination of the vulnerable pointless.
We were also correct on that one.
Conspiracy theorists 6 "Experts" -0.1