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Assorted Virus News
ABCNews has a sensational report about an alleged epidemic warning report which circulated in November 2019. Some people claim that this proves that there were early cases of the covid-19 disease. There was likely a report but the insinuation that it was connected to covid-19 comes only from ABCnews.
Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources
As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.
Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.
The NCMI denies that such a report was made. But we can be sure that it would notice when news about a potential epidemic in China circulates. That was indeed the case in mid November. The news was not about the novel corona virus but about a small outbreak of bubonic plague from Inner Mongolia:
Three patients have been diagnosed in Beijing with the most dangerous form of the plague – the medieval disease also known as the Black Death.
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On Tuesday, Beijing authorities announced a municipal hospital had taken in a married couple from Inner Mongolia, a sparsely populated autonomous region in northwest China, seeking treatment for pneumonic plague. One patient is stable while the other is in critical condition but not deteriorating, according to Beijing's health commission.
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On November 16, authorities diagnosed a third case of pneumonic plague. The man, age 55, is also from Inner Mongolia though authorities said his case was not related in any way to the couple medically evacuated to Beijing. Twenty-eight people who were in close contact with the man have been quarantined and none have exhibited symptoms of the plague.
Of the three versions of the disease, pneumonic plague is the only one that can be transmitted from one person to another by coughing, for example. The other variants are typically spread by infected fleas or animals.
Pneumonic plague has symptoms of respiratory failure similar to pneumonia. Left untreated, it is fatal.
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Mongolia, which borders the autonomous region where the infected Chinese couple lives, reported two fatal cases of bubonic plague just this year, after the patients ate raw marmot, a species of wild rodent that often carry the offending bacterium. In Mongolia, eating marmot is thought to be good for health.
The covid-19 disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-19 virus, not by bacteria. The three cases in November were caused by a detectable bacteria. The first SARS-Cov-19 case currently known emerged in Wuhan in mid-late December.
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Religious people continue to undermine epidemic control measures:
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German researchers have used flow analysis experiments to test various household material that can be used to make masks. They conclude that high-quality vacuum cleaner bags are the best material usable for the purpose. On page 20 of their English language report (pdf) they describe and show how to manufacture masks out of them.
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Some people continue to argue that the death rate of covid-19 disease is as low as the death rate of the common flu. We actually do not know the death rate of covid-19 as we do not know how many have had it and how many died from it. Italy, Spain and France have seen more covid-19 death outside of the hospital system than inside. But only the inside numbers are counted in the official tally. There is also increasing concern of long term effects as the recovered patients seem to have a partially reduced lung function. The Case Fatality Rates though, which are the only reliable number we have, are quite high and our decision are based on them.
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Remember this screed from March 12:
Coronavirus burial pits so vast they’re visible from space
Iranian authorities began digging a pair of trenches for victims just days after the government disclosed the initial outbreak.
This picture shows New York City's mass graves on Hart Island. The island has been used as anonymous graveyard for 150 years but will now see a surge of new arrivals.
Mass Burials On Hart Island Increase Fivefold As COVID-19 Death Toll Skyrockets:
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PEPE ESCOBAR: Who Profits from the Pandemic? – Consortium News
Coronavirus now leading cause of death in US – The Hill
China Is Reopening Its Wet Markets. That's Good – Bloomberg
Inside a Real Chinese Wet Market – video
Mandatory vaccination against tuberculosis may help some people and countreis:
Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19: an epidemiological study – medRxiv
kgh
Posted by: your worst nightmare | Apr 11 2020 5:57 utc | 124
If I could find you useless and dishonest …
why that anger? You know better, but feel lost. Don’t feel lost. Trust yourself. Rely on yourself. Do not search for confirmation in the outer world. It is inside you. That’s all you need.
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Posted by: David F | Apr 11 2020 6:52 utc | 126
I have read this blog for years because there was usually some very good discussion here, and I found it often to be stimulating. Most of the time someone else had already said what I would have so I didn’t feel the need to add anything to it. This is turning into a shit show, I think I am going to take a break from this insanity.
that’s a good idea. Be yourself. Remember. Trust your instinct.
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Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 11 2020 8:20 utc | 136
thank you for the PDF.
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Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 11 2020 18:12 utc | 197
someone who watches television told me
thank you, this is golden. We live in a world where there are people who watch TV and people who quit watching TV years or decades ago. This is a property that can be named, and used in an introduction.
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We do not have to be afraid of anything. The thought of an external single cause of disease or even death is rather simplistic. This only applies to toxins that can kill in minutes. So-called infection is more complicated in biochemistry, but for us laywomen and laymen it is sufficient to know that there is no real danger from outside or other people. What we’ve been told in school and what we are still are told is not exactly how it goes. It is very complex in detail, but the workings of nature are rather easy to understand for the common sense. The world we live in is a very friendly place. When we fall and scratch our skin, it heals automatically without our doing. When the wound is deeper, and the skin protection is seriously ripped, the body may die. That is where medicine is life-saving, to prevent external microbes to enter the dying tissue. Because that’s their job. To reduce and dissolve dead tissue. We humans have the knowledge to prevent such things to occur since long ago. Even animals lick their wounds to prevent further infections. Sputum is medicine. Microbes never attack sane tissue, otherwise we would be dead long ago, or better said, never had the slightest chance to even exist in a biological body. Birth would be impossible, all live would never have existed.
The first stool from a new born does not show virus-like particles (VLP). Although it is exposed to viruses in the womb already. Just a week later there are tons of VLP’s in the baby stool. The baby adapts to the environment quickly. Children swallow things. Children swallow soil. They impregnate themselves with the environment. They feed from their mother’s breast. Directly, not squeezed in bottles. Directly from the nipple. After these procedures, the baby is adapted to the environment. The infant is naturally vaccinated. The same is true for every mammal, reptile, bird, and insect.
Viruses are ill-named. They are in fact helpers. They are there when emergency is needed in case of intoxination. Intoxination takes place all the time. When you put a simple item in your houshold or environment under the microscope, you see that there are plenty of ugly looking things. But no worry, our organism is prepared for all intrusions and disturbances. Our lungs expel countless of micro dust particles every time we exhale, as well as carbon dioxide. Otherwise we would carbonise in no time and become black like a piece of coal.
These so-called viruses are around in a sane body, they have many other functions we don’t know yet. According to a scientific paper released in 2012 there are 10 times bacteria in our bodies than body cells. And estimated 100 times of ‘viruses’ than body cells. Do you really think that nature put this vast amount of ‘viruses’ into our bodies for nothing? These very small particles that are not living beings, rather cell particles, sometimes not distinguishable from exosomes that are transmitted by our cells (not to be confused with enzymes), are vitally important to the very existence of our dear bodies.
It may be necessary to repeat that last sentence: viruses, as we call them today (we will rename them in future and make categories etc.) are vitally important to all biological life. Our bodies would not be here without these tiny small structures we falsely call viruses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exosome_(vesicle)
And when fate strikes, which is normal in our lives, and to which our bodies are not adapted to, when our bodies are confronted with toxins from wasps, bees, snakes, spiders, and from toxic products of metabolism from bacteria specialised in reducing dead tissue, our dear helpers appear out of nowhere to eat up the intruders that think we are their meal, but instead we are still alive. These tiny little helpers are there for our bodies to survive not only the first days, but even the first decades. And we call them viruses (latin for poison).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virome
Let’s not forget why we disgust feces. In our digestion apparatus our bacterial friends dissect animal corpses and dead plants: what we eat every day. This is dead material. Formerly living organic material, but after prepared, maybe cooked, then munched and swallowed, it is in principle dead organic material. That’s where the huge army of bacteria in our digestive system comes into play. They dissect and process the meal. These processes too difficult to understand and describe, finally makes organic life as we know possible.
But back to the result of digestion, the feces. As adults we would never even dip a finger in it, and with a reason. Because bacteria that dissolve dead tissue produce toxic metabolites. That’s why we have an inborn feeling of disgust against feces. However, infants do put their finger not only into the mud but also into feces. Which is a sort of self-immunisation, but that occurs only in early years. Soon later the child avoids the contact with its feces and dirt, and develops the disgust. It is a short early but very important phase of accumulation that will keep the organism sane (immune).
The virus and bacillus infection theory is a brilliantly stupid idea, but perfectly fitting the late 19th century concept of ‘knowing it all’ after a little bit of advancement in science and technology. Embarrassing in hindsight, but understandable at that point in time. Everybody was mesmerised by the daily new discoveries in many scientific fields. Microscopes, telescopes, photography, cinema, mathematics, chemistry, synthetic colours, the airplane, the submarine, and on and on. But in fact it only follows the old European concept of deadly body liquids.
We live now in the 21th century. Many of my old friends learned to use a smartphone, but haven’t adjusted their mindset. Which is good in some ways of course, some things never change. Good tradition, well behavior, truthfullness, honour, selfishness. Good traditions. But especially in microbiology there has been a lot of advancements, for example in virology. It is interesting to note that the last 20 years has seen an exponential increase in scientific papers about viruses, while at the same time we have witnessed a similar curve in observed viral epidemics. Note the word ‘observed’. Until recently we simply weren’t able to observe viruses in detail because there were no scientific papers released then, and because our laboratories were not equipped accordingly. Now that these studies have been performed, we see an increasing rate of virus diseases. Is there a correlation?
Some time ago we thought our Earth was the center of the world. It is in some way, but let us put this aside for a moment. The common consensus of our ancestors was that the Earth was in the middle of everything. With the invention of optical elements, the craft of glass refinements, it became possible to produce an instrument that we today call the telescope. With the help of that instrument it became clear that we are surrounded by other galaxies just like ours. We simply didn’t know of that fact before.
So, it seems, is it the same with the ill-named viruses. We first gave and still maintain to give them the wrong name, ignored and still ignore the purpose of these microbial helpers in nature, and then formulate a very simplistic and ill-intended theory about infectious diseases that will attack anyone without warning. Errare humanum est.
Viruses, as we call them, are the greatest population on earth. Even greater than bacteria, which themselves are about 10 high 9 in one gram of soil. Viruses, as we call them, are not living beings, while bacteria are indeed living beings by their own. Fungi are also living beings by their own, but that is another topic. The important thing to know is that the so-called viruses are
1. an integral part of biological life
2. have never been clearly determined
3. have only been studied when they appear when diseases occur
4. have not been studied for their real purpose
5. are according to a scientific paper from 2012 only known to 1 percent = not known
6. may very well be not only an integral part of biological life, but produced by body cells
6b. may be identical to exosomes
7. not living entities. No self-reproducion. No metabolism
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Nobody knows anyone in perfect health who has fallen victim to any external microbe. There cannot be a killer virus. Or fungus. Or bacteria. This is a science fiction movie from the 70’s. It is fiction. Not science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain_(film)
Think about it. Think about the entire concept you have learned from early on. Of course there are many other factors in play, and at this place I don’t even want to name them. Just remember that concepts are mind concepts. But that is just an afterglow of something you may have noticed but forgotten. Remember!
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It is best to return to our common daily work and hobbies, as best as possible. Enjoy life. Respect the uncertainty, conditioning and fear of others. Understand that they didn’t had the time and nerve nor interest to dive into the abyss of what is there around us. Adapt, accept, conform. Do not preach. Your calm presence does the work, and your calm mind has even more effect. No need for words. The love and knowledge that you have inside can be spread without words or rituals (greeting rituals, etc.).
It is all good. Although many people suffer because of the lockdown (and not because of ‘corona’), I suffer with them. It is a disgrace, but this is a political topic. Workers have to wear diapers because they are not allowed to go to the toilet during work time. Workers are expelled from ‘protection’ other citicens are allowed and enforced to. This all makes no sense, it contradicts itself. People wearing an uniform don’t have to follow the rule of 2m distance. This makes absolutely no sense. Either we are in a lockdown, or not. Every exception is meaningless and ridiculous.
Despite all these ugly occurrences, there are a lot of promising prospects. A reboot of economy. Dept forgiveness. These are topics that have been discussed and refused before, but now appear more and more necessary.
Posted by: Phil | Apr 12 2020 0:38 utc | 222
We know that government representatives are just subordinates of the superrich – rather minor subordinates – who vote for wars so the superrich can gain war profits – with the people paying for the wars in lives limbs labour pain and money
Ambrose Bierce: the poor man [and woman] pays for all
All the ‘reasons’ for higher than average pay per hour are nonlogical – and higher pay means lower pay for others – means higher pay for 1% and lower pay for 99% – and higher and lower pay means ever-increasing higher and lower pay and consequent ever-increasing violence (war, revolutions and crime)
Do people really want higher than average pay per hour if it means lower pay for 99% and ever-increasing violence and most other problems for everyone from richest to poorest?
The reasons for higher than average hourly pay – 1, natural gifts – but mother nature does the work to make natural gifts, not the person – it is as mad to pay for natural gifts as to pay people for receiving birthday gifts – to be paying for natural gifts is to penalize those who did not get the gifts 2, having learned – having learned is not work – justice is equal pay for equal work – people should be paid for studying/learning , for that is work (and society should pay for learning, not the parents, the students or scholarships, because it is society as a whole that profits from educated minds) – it is the poor man that has to pay for educated minds – 3, skill – but skill is either natural gift or having learned – 4, experience – but experience is gained in the course of paid work
it is ego that says pay me for my gifts, for my having learned, for my skills, for my experience – and ego is totally nonlogical, totally unjust – and injustice is the cause of violence and most problems – most problems and violence would disappear if we were just with incomes, so it is worthwhile learning to be just with incomes, although income justice is a strange land to the extremely dangerous costly nonlogical egotism of people – egotism is destroying 99% of your birthright happiness thru the problems and violence it causes thru the super-extreme injustice of incomes
D H Lawrence called the people the eternal dupe – over 98% of our genes are identical to that of chimpanzees
people see that low-gifted people are not going to create the computer or a satellite – it takes higher IQ to, say, discover vaccines or understand physics – and from there people leap to error – thinking the ones who got better paid in gifts in the birth lottery are giving us more so deserve higher pay – seems utterly natural to people that they deserve more because they are giving us more – they are not giving us more – that is where the error is – it is mother nature who is giving us more – thru them – but it is the egotism of people – of intelligent people – to appropriate this gift from mother nature – ascribe to themselves what they had no hand in, no control over – deficient appreciation of mother nature – big brains have long used the gift given them by nature to pay themselves more – to give others less and less per unit of work – shameful illogic – subrational – not intelligent
the sum total of human intelligence is going to prove to be as useful to us as stupidity would have been in its place – we are awash in the highest pitch of lovegift, throwing it away – ungrateful – money is a license to take workproducts out of the pool of wealth – and the only thing that by rights lets us take from the pooled workproducts is contributing an equal amount to the pool – the license concept is the key point, and foreign to the space between people’s ears
another illogical ‘reason’ people give for higher than average pay per hour is being higher up in an organization – but the person isn’t working harder – just working as hard higher up – wage slaves! – if you allow higher than average pay per hour for people higher up in an organization it is you who will have to pay for it out of your income – and higher and lower pay will become super-extreme ever-increasing higher and lower pay – which is the cause of super-extreme violence (war revolution and crime) in which you will have to pay in not just money but in powerlessness poverty lives limbs labour tragedy and pain
to the people of the world: there are people you want to have a lot of high pay – maybe Paul McCartney, people who thru their gifts give you so much – maybe Steve Jobs, Bill Gates – it feels so right to you for them to have so much – Bob Hope, Bing Crosby with their half billion – Picasso with his 693 million – Elvis – and so on and so on – but it is mother nature who has given everyone those gifts that live in gifted people – and the price, you really have to understand, is too high – way, way, way too high – unlimited fortunes for people who have done limited work means unlimited poverty for 90% – unlimited slavery, powerlessness – it means 2 million people each year go blind for lack of 4c of vitamin a per year – it means children prostituting themselves for water in Haiti – it means a million girls each year sold into sexual slavery – it means a million other sufferings as great as these examples – it means world wars created by the superrich for war profits at enormous expense in suffering for millions or billions – it means your country’s healthcare system is left dangerously undercapacity while the wealth is spent on wars – superwealth has a tail at the other end of it, in unlimited misery for all humans – it means the disgrace of 1% of humanity dying of starvation each year – quite unnecessarily – food production per person is increasing, there is no shortage of food – decide – and decide not to go with unlimited wealth, and so destroy unlimited poverty and powerlessness for everyone – for the 1% overpaid as well as for the 99% underpaid – destroy the enormous sadness, madness and badness that is the human experience today, after thousands of years of increasing overpay and underpay – pay from $10 a year to $10 billion a year for roughly equal work – see the super-extreme insanity of that – the superrich don’t work millions of times harder than the average person – no one can work more than twice as hard as the average – there aren’t enough hours in the day to work more than twice as hard as the average – Picasso, Paul McCartney etc. didn’t work more than twice as hard as the average – you have to commit justice – income injustice is killing the human race – it drives the arms race and the arms we have now can freeze the planet solid and dead and irradiate it for millions of years – we have to make this change now – we have no future at present – we are racing towards nuclear winter extinction and we are close – we have to suddenly become very mature and responsible and clearsighted and make this decision, make this change – it is not natural for humans to have to see the big picture – nature gave us natures to deal with local situations and to leave the big picture, the whole of society to the gods – but we have made a global society with our ships and planes and we have to grow the bigness to make the decisions that govern us all – the initiative has to come from the majority – limited income for limited work – limited overpay so that we have limited underpay – an approximation to income justice, because unjustice means violence – unlimited income injustice means unlimited suffering for all – even setting maximum income at $1,000,000 a year, which is over 5 times the maximum earnable income, will destroy 95% of human suffering – our sufferings are so great, so super-extreme now, after 1000s of years of ever-increasing overpay and underpay – we can probably not imagine how much happier we can be, how vast is the unnecessary suffering caused by super-extreme income injustice
both overpay and underpay are stimuli to violence and most other problems – and thank goodness we can destroy both, by setting a maximum income and wealth and spreading the excess above this limit around among everyone – if you had a community in which two or three got hold of 99% of the income of 90% of the community, you could restore that community to peace and happiness for all by setting a maximum income at twice the average income and spreading the excess around among everyone – it is as simple as that – you just have to focus on this, and see super-extreme overpay and underpay is extremely bad for everyone, from Caesar to everyone
hold in your mind the picture of how absurdly madly super-extreme the overpay and underpay is – if the average income of $100,000 is graphed at one metre high, overpay goes up 100 kilometres and 90% of people have incomes less than one centimetre high – if the graph were water in a pool with the average pay at one metre deep, most of the water is going up in a thin needle 100 kilometres high, the pool is practically empty – remember that although the needle of overpay is constant, the drops of water in that needle (the rich individuals) rush up and rush down and out – from rags to riches to rags in three generations, as the saying goes – wealth is not secure and safe, it comes under super-extreme attack from both rich and poor, who are both, for different reasons, extremely desperate
you ought to be embarrassed to be a citizen of such a super-extreme society
of such a madly mismanaged society
would you feed one child with a huge plate of food and your other children with a spoonful of peas? – it is as simple as that
We humans can be much, much happier, quite easily. There is a misunderstanding, one error, which destroys 99% of our natural birthright happiness. Unfortunately this error is so deeply entrenched in our minds that even to bring it in to question is very hard.
When everyone believed that the earth was flat, everyone was so certain of it being true, that to call it into question was very difficult. People felt: if this could be wrong, if this belief, which i am so certain about, could be wrong, then it throws all my knowledge into confusion and doubt. That is a lot to handle.
What I argue here is that, while money is very, very good – it satisfies millions of desires – unlimited wealth is very, very bad, it causes 99% of human suffering, of human tragedy, it causes all forms of violence (war, revolution and crime), it causes most problems that we have to struggle with, it is driving us to nuclear winter extinction in the near future. It hurts everyone, extremely, both the wealthy and the unwealthy.
The correction of this one error can shift us all into a perpetual golden age of peace and happiness. We haven’t been able to grasp this error in 1000s of years. The argument: money is very very good, so more money is better, is so simple, so clear, it seems that it cannot be wrong. The argument: wealth is the opposite of poverty, so more wealth means less poverty, again, is so simple that it seems it cannot be wrong.
It is just because money is so very, very good, that unlimited wealth is so very, very bad. Water is so valuable, that the concentration of it in few hands is very, very bad. If a bear corners all the honey in a forest, that bear has a terrible, terrible lifestyle of perpetually trying to fight off all the hungry, angry bears – and failing, more often sooner than later. Just think of Caesar, assassinated *because* he was the richest, most powerful man in Rome. Money is power, but it is also weakness: All the other Romans, who weren’t assassinated, were in one sense more powerful than Caesar. They stayed alive. Open any history book to any page, and you will find examples of the extreme tribulation of the wealthiest. They must fear not only would-be conquerors from other lands, they must fear their closest associates, their nearest family and friends. They must fear the poor, who may rise in revolution.
They are under attack from so many, that their defense costs are crippling, and they must garner more money to pay for this defense. This offends more people and increases his insecurity, creating a vicious circle of costs and danger. Every castle has been taken, every empire has fallen. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everyone suffers. We, after 1000s of years of concentration of wealth in few hands, have super-extreme wealth and poverty. 1% have 96% of income and wealth, 90% have half a percent. Everyone suffers extremely. Therefore, we can be super-extremely happier.
Posted by: Phryne’s frock | Apr 12 2020 0:40 utc | 223
Grieved, if I gave offense my apologies. I wasn’t trying to be rude I was trying to be HEARD. but every time I bring up the biggest-picture view of the survival need for humans to bestow pay justice on all humans it seems 99% don’t even read my post as if i could not possibly be getting this thinking correct and 1 person always steps up to try to drag the message into some kind of ‘morality’ or ‘spiritual’ or ‘pie in the sky philosophical’ death hole.
When the truth is pay justice is tied right down to Earth like no other message and has every rational argument FOR it and NONE against it. Pay justice is good for 100% of humans, it requires NO altruism whatsoever, it is as good for the most selfish person in the world as is it for the least.
A morality is either rationally based or it is irrational. If it is irrationally based, or adopted without awareness of the rational basis under it, it is insane, and all the actions based on it are insane (self-destructive). We need the basic reminder: We need rationality (sense, sanity). Irrationality is not as good as rationality. The culture has turned asking why into rudeness. Pushed out rationality! Driven the culture insane, put it on an irrational basis. Don’t ask why: “just do it”. That is, be a robot, a cipher, a complete waste of life. Don’t exist, don’t be genuine, don’t require rationality in your life, don’t be a nuisance, don’t think, don’t get a rational foundation, just join others in irrational activity. Don’t critically examine what your society is doing, just throw yourself in with whatever it is doing willy-nilly. Cicero: To think is to live. Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living. Bible: Seek, Test everything. The culture that needs to be reminded to think, to function with rationality, is far gone.
Somebody once said to me they were ‘all in favour of having some kind of ideology to proceed from’. That sounds like: Just grab an ideology off the shelf as you skateboard past – any one, it doesn’t matter which because none of them is rational. Teachers of moralities don’t bother with rationality. They don’t have the rationality at their fingertips and it is an effort to think, so don’t ask. And, over time, the rationality stopped being anywhere even close to people’s minds. Everyone is functioning without rationality, so, hey, get in the flow, join the crowd. People just hear of moralities, know that they are around, and file them away in the morality pigeonhole in the brain. Oh yeah, morality, yeah, I have one of those. Golden rule, yeah, I know, that sort of thing. What sort of thing? Well, it isn’t rational or anything, but we have it anyway. Why?
Guess what. The golden rule is not just some feel-good advice to be nice; the golden rule is your scientific guide to life. The Golden Rule – and justice – are rationally based. They are practical, realistic, very simple good sense: Don’t hit people, because they hit back. Don’t injure people, because they injure back. People get so much information, they lose their common sense. We never have enough time to get back from all the information dumped on us, back to common sense, the fundamentals, the very, very simple point. Be still and experience reality. We are never still enough to get to reality. Justice is non-injury. Look at the current case of Iraq and USA. The USA (and everyone else doing the same sort of thing) don’t realize that they are injuring *themselves* by firing rockets. If there was a rubber wall instead of Iraqis sending back rockets, the USA would grasp the fact they are injuring themselves. The effect is the same, rockets coming at the USA bases. The USA sees the ‘justice’ of sending back a rocket, whenever the Iraqis send a rocket. Take that, you Iraqis.
Forget the Iraqis for a moment, USA. Think just of yourself for a change. What is the effect of your actions on you? Injury. Suffering. Unsafety. Endless, expensive, escalating violence. Endlessly escalating misery. Endless expense. In money, time, labour and misery.
It would be far, far, far cheaper to give the Iraqis justice, non-injury. It would be practical, realistic, good sense. It would be self-interest. It would be rational pursuit of your own happiness. Charlie Chaplin hits the boxing machine, it hits back with equal force. Charlie Chaplin gets mad at the boxing machine for hitting him, and he hits it harder – and it hits back with equal force. How smart was Hitler, thinking that plundering Europe was a happiness strategy? Europe plundered right back. Hitler, bunker, bullet. Well, duh, big fat duh.
We have been taught to not be selfish. What is wrong with selfishness is not the self-interest, the pursuit of your own happiness, it is the ignorance of, or the forgetting of, the simple fact that people are too dangerous to annoy. People are totally unreliable as doormats. Give up the impractical, unrealistic dream of people being doormats. Accept that they never have been and never will be. (And there is no reason why they should be.) Old order or new, money is power – but every plutocracy has been brought down. Money is the second greatest power. The largest fortune is weaker than the rest of the world. Injustice doesn’t work. It is a vice, that is, it is an absolutely certain cause of unhappiness. Even if you die a natural death, like some wealthpower giants do, your life is completely ruined by the immense labour of self-defense, and by the isolation from the trust with, and belonging to, the human tribe, which is such a great part of happiness.
The issue we humans keep ignoring is the very one that cuts across all other issues. Pay injustice is the greatest injustice, because it is theft of money, which is the joker good, good for most things, including essentials for life, and social power. People are never going to take that theft lying down. Never.
The person who is totally selfish, in the right way, who is pursuing his self-interest, his maximal happiness, accepts, immediately, fully and freely, that people resent and retaliate injury, and much of his ‘selfish’, self-interest energies are happily engaged in avoiding injury to others. Kindness is the real Realpolitik – it is the hardest-nosed practicality. Other people are a near-perfect rubber wall. What you give is what you get back.
Decadent morality, which we have had for millennia, has made the virtues stink. All people think of the virtues are that they are a useless chore. Morality has been made odious to people, by ignorance or ignoring of the rationality in it, and by use of force or social pressure to enforce it. When force is used, you are implying that there is no other reason for doing it, you are teaching that morality is a useless chore. Morality long ago got into the hands of those who believe in injury, theft, overpay, and they have used morality as a stick and a prod. They couldn’t give the rationality, because their ‘reasons’ were irrational; they didn’t know the real reasons. For those who believe in God, surely you believe God is sane. If God is rational and loving, he has loving, rational reasons for his advice to obey the golden rule (which is ‘all the law and all the prophets’, which is the gist of morality).
The Golden Rule makes sense, and is good for you, it saves you from suffering. It is a kindly good true wise sensible sane loving rule. It increases your happiness.
Those who have been most vigorous in irrationality, in the wrong selfishness, in the Hitlerian, conqueror stupidity, in the cretinous underestimation of retaliation, have enforced the golden rule on others, without reasons, to facilitate their plundering. They took god hostage. They emasculated the message that was coming through wise people till it served their mistaken ideas of their self-interest. They made themselves miserable and all others miserable. For thousands of years. No one was teaching the sanity, the rational, realistic, practical foundation of the golden rule and justice: people are no good at being doormats. Spit in his eye, get your nose broken. Aristotle says it is the obvious which is hard to see. The simple truths have so few moving parts, they are hard to see.
By putting morality on a force, threat of punishment, authoritarian, obedience, state terrorist basis, those ignorant, self-destructive, irrational, conquering-minded people have undermined rationality and love. Giordano Bruno: Once love was used in the church, now force. But the truth is still there, half-hidden, in the words: love others as yourself. That is, love yourself perfectly and love others as much as you (rightly and properly) love yourself. What is more simple sense than that you are supposed to love yourself, that you are supposed to pursue your self-interest, your happiness? Every snail does it; every bird knows this loving right. That is your right and your duty, your responsibility. Every snail accepts this responsibility and loving right. Without that, you lack the basis for the rationality of not injuring others. The reason for not injuring others is because it will mean bad stuff for you. If the injury doesn’t come back directly to you, it will certainly ricochet around in your environment of other people and get back to you some time, some way. It will pollute your environment with violence, ill-feeling, hatred, resentment, bad stuff.
We have failed to learn the golden rule, because the basis for it, intelligent, observant, realistic self-interest, has been stolen from us. It is only the rationality of self-interest that drives the boat of the golden rule. If we don’t care about ourselves, if we have been made ashamed of the right and duty to pursue our happiness, what basis is there for caring about anyone else? The argument to authority (it is true because X said it is true) is false. It is false because the wisest get things wrong. And even if they never got things wrong, there is no way we can see the reasons just from someone’s word that it is true. Even the argument to the authority of god (it is true because (someone said) god said it) is false. The only true argument is a good reason that people can see. Don’t injure others because they will injure back. Simple as. But we have been cut off from this simple sense for thousands of years. When did you ever see the golden rule explained?
Government has been in the hands of the stupidest, the ones with least instinctive sense of the rationality and simple sense of the golden rule, and they have destroyed rationality, love, morality, golden rule, everything. They have thrown us into a mental and moral morass that now keeps us inert.
Have you heard of one dictator, one super-overpaid, who had a good old happy relaxed free easy time of it? They are swimming like superman to stay afloat, being pulled down by the whole world. Like a Las Vegas needle-shaped fountain, every bit that goes up comes down. Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, Ceausescu, Marie Antoinette, Charles I, Richard III, an endless stream. Like the king of the grove that Frazer writes about, who gets the role by killing the last king, and who has to meet every challenger.
Hence it should be obvious – now and in the future (if we learn in time to have one) – that justice, non-injury is certainly a cause of happiness. And we have super-extreme pay injustice. So we can be super-extremely happier. And we will be, as soon as we get our thinking caps on, as soon as we get our house back on the foundation of rationality.
Posted by: Phryne’s frock | Apr 12 2020 19:13 utc | 264
Posted by: Grieved | Apr 12 2020 2:18 utc | 230
Harking back to the Buddhist view I started this comment with, there is a somewhat animistic view that pestilence is one of the great catastrophes wrought by the Mamos – elemental beings angered by our loss of sacred view. It’s easy to fear them, and most practices involve appeasing them, but I have also been taught that we can befriend them and be grateful for their waking us into experiencing what is importantly happening to us in the present moment.
It’s a view I suspect you would like.
in some way yes, as I pursue some kind of animistic world view. However without the concept of ‘bad spirits’ and ‘divine punishment’. Here I am purely scientific. When we treat our environment badly, we just reap what we sow. When we make mistakes, we lose the reward that we are given from nature or universe.
It is funny, it writes by itself, so the following is of course just some thoughts not directed to you personally, Grieved.
There are a couple of fairy tales that describe this truth. It follows simple logic. The one that is observant and willing to do the work that has to be done, will harvest gold. While the one that only focusses on personal gain without lifting a finger will harvest tar (bad luck). No need for superstition, although I understand that superstition had its place in earlier epochs. Today we can explain things that have been occult. The spiritual world interacts in a subtle way, it is of course the source of all we know in the material world, but it does not punish. The punishment we do all by ourselves with our lack of patience and lack of wisdom. We do not have to fear anything other than our own misconceptions and fears. These are our true enemies, because we are spirits in biological bodies and therefore subordinated to biological laws. With true science, intelligent observation, the fear vanishes like a bad dream after awakening.
The same applies by the way to the concept of hell. Of course there is no hell. When we die while still trapped in false concepts and fears, we may very well encounter hell. Hell is not more than our own fear and lack of knowledge. But it’s easy: we only need to observe, do our work, stay regardful and faithful, help every living being we encounter, preserve and nourish life, and there will be no hell. Only bliss. We then can die any moment and be in peace. Not the slightest hint of fear. Then we have become man. This is what it means to become man.
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Posted by: Dream Weaver | Apr 12 2020 8:08 utc | 236
thanks for putting the ‘bodies piling’ story into perspective.
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Posted by: Ou Si / ??/ Usman | Apr 12 2020 11:53 utc | 242
thanks for the report.
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Posted by: Mark2 | Apr 12 2020 12:00 utc | 243
To use a metaphor. This virus is like a forest fire ! We need to deal with every spark and ember. Or it will just reignite!
To do as you suggest is to except that this will be with us for ever. I say no. For the sake of future generations ! Do we want to go down in history as the people That distroyed civilisation?
Thanks for your list of cases in Aus I found that very worthwhile and wish my area had information like that.
My suggestion to solve this —- identify the least infected areas town by town, county by county, regeon or country and operate a ‘cordon sanitare ‘ this was done with the plague. Do the same on city’s block by block.
This virus needs to jump host’s within about a month ! or the virus dies. That right there is the salution
Let’s put the forest fire out !!!
my metaphor is that viruses are the bark beetle in the forest. An untouched wild forest doesn’t have bark beetles. Only cultivated forests without underwood have bark beetles.
And: viruses cannot die, because they are no living beings. Bacteria and fungi are living beings. But not viruses. They are particles without life. I’m not a virologist or doctor, but this is something I know for sure. It is well known in the scientific community as well (although this doesn’t say much, but at least it is something to think about).
Posted by: c1ue | Apr 13 2020 15:55 utc | 268
thank you c1ue for the reminder.
Yes, it is true that real world immune systems work through practice. However, there is a huge difference between a child’s tuning of its immune system via relatively innocuous means such as nematode tasting (dirt eating) vs. exposure to lethal viruses or bacteria.
good observation. Indeed the current environment is crucial. When we travel to another continent we have to get a vaccination, to get our body fit to the future environment. If the foreign environment is really lethal I don’t know. It may be lethal in some cases. You may be right. But then I think about the Alexander the Great explorations. There is – to my knowledge – no tale of invectious diseases. Maybe you can help me with that. As well as other cases when the New America was discovered by Europeans. There are indeed known epidemics among the Inuit and the Native Americans after contact with Europeans. These events still nourish my investigative mind, but rather difficult to find a definite answer. Such events have multiple factors to count in.
nCOV isn’t just some regular flu or cold that “everyone” gets.
I suspect that this is not the case. But, to be honest, I don’t know for sure. There are many factors not properly determined: the tests, which are proven to be not reliable. The dead counts that have proven to be unreliable. We all do not know. Nobody knows for sure.
What I know is that a killer virus does not make sense. It cannot be sufficiently explained in the biological field. The scientific findings in the last 20 years is huge. We didn’t know about exosomes 20 years ago. Before there were theories but not observable facts. This pandemic event is, despite all the negative effects, absolutely necessary. We can learn in a quick way. Put all this trash away that we believed in since only short time, since 120 years. It is the time for real science.
Posted by: Phil | Apr 13 2020 18:07 utc | 271
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