The Glade 4.0

Read the paper. Don't let others do your thinking for you. You're a human being so use your gifts.

Lockdowns had been studied long before this Covid issue came along and the conclusions were that the negative effects outweighed the benefits in almost all scenarios (in all scenarios studied). When asked if any other consequences were examined when recommending lockdowns the US departmental answer was 'No we only focused on effects on Covid'.

Seems you've settled into a comfortable zone of life where you've outsourced your examination of the world and your place in it though so I doubt you'll dig for anything more than something that allows you settle back into your comfort. I hope I'm wrong but I'm not often wrong.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Go read the rebuttal, it seems that you have settled into the comfortable zone of life inside your own head of conspiracy theories you have been espousing on this board for over twenty five years now that still have not come to fruition. You continue to seek out cherry-picked data that supports your myopic worldview that lets you settle back into your bunker content that you were right all along. I hope I'm wrong but you've been posting the same stuff since this board came along with EQ so I don't think I am.

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My opinion has changed in certain respects, but I do not disavow anything that I said in the past simply because of hindsight. One thing much forgotten by many people is how limited our information was back in early 2020. I am fairly sure, for example, that I did not know at the time of writing earlier posts in this thread, that COVID is an aerosol virus. With that knowledge, I would have revised certain things, but no one fully knew that at that time.

This is, however, over as far as I'm concerned. I'm tired of the bewailing the disease; I'm tired of the fussing about the damn vaccines, and the controversies over who said what about what course of action from all and sundry. I did not go home. I remained at my post for the duration of the emergency, just as my grandfather would have. I am tired of the cowardice and fearfulness of spoiled people - both in regard to the disease, and the vaccines.

And now, we have bigger things to worry about. COVID will seem like small potatoes indeed if Putin miscalculates. I have worried and posted about that sort of thing probably too many times but this time, well...

Let's not dwell on that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Collectively, we behaved like panic-stricken morons.

The coronavirus was different from the flu, but not really. It spread differently, and that was a big deal. It was more serious, but not really. We acted like it was ebola, when in reality it was a lot closer to the flu. Most people who caught it didn't care. Catching covid is not a death sentence, but we still can't admit that because too much of our identity is wrapped up in accepting Fauci into your heart.

And here I always thought the Christian conservatives were the religious nutjobs. I really should apologize for that. All this time, it turns out you were the sane and rational ones. I'm still seeing the Branch Covidians putting their BLM signs on their doors in the hopes that the Angel of Covid passes over their home and spares their families.

The last report I read on the matter said that masks reduced transmission by 15%. That's not nothing, but it's also not justification for authoritarian mandates. I might not have been quite so outraged, but it was the self-professed "liberals" who suddenly decided that government lockdowns and mask mandates were warranted. You lied to me, and you've been lying for 20-25 years. You're not liberals, and you never were. You're just a different brand of psychotic religious cranks. The masks were never about protecting the public from covid. Right from the very start, the mask was your blue version of the MAGA hat, and the mask mandates were about forcing everyone around you to declare their Party loyalty.

Vaccines are very effective. They're way more effective than masks. The marginal benefit of masks was never worth all of the social tensions that draconian mask mandates caused, and we should have done away with those draconian mandates immediately once we had vaccines available. A responsible government would have done that, and in many areas that's exactly what happened, but in certain areas, Party loyalty was prioritized above all else.

Vaccines are not proving to be as effective as we hoped, nor are they as effective as advertised. For as quickly as they rolled out, it's okay for the vaccines not to be perfect. We needed something right away, and that's what we got. It was sufficient to be better than the nothing we had, and judged by that metric, the vaccines were a smashing success. They were not good enough to justify an attempt at vaccine mandates.

Covid, while dangerous, was never dangerous enough to justify draconian authoritarian overreach. We now know several big risk factors. Be careful around old people. Get off your **** ***, exercise, and go on a diet. But it was never about public health, that's just the lie that faux-liberals tell to justify their power grab.

But the one I really hate is you. You're so far up your own *** with your histrionic opposition to Donald Trump that you'll fall for the most ridiculous ****. All someone has to do is imply that someone might think you're a Trump supporter if you object, and all sense of skepticism goes out the **** window. One minute you're celebrating a Summer of love, and the next you're shrieking about masks and social distancing. The economy is a mess, inflation is through the roof, gas prices are at a record high, the Afghanistan withdrawal was a complete **** disaster, and yet you still can't admit that you **** up. You deserve another four years of President Trump. The whole world does.

I'm generally in favor of abortion, but I'm kinda looking forward to Roe v Wade getting overturned. I want to roll a nice, fat blunt and smoke it while I watch YouTube unfold in the aftermath. I don't even smoke weed, but I'm going to make an exception for the lulz.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

It's becoming more clear to more people that those in charge aren't working in your best interest. That's great, but I'm worried they'll start WW3 to stay in power.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Don't worry about it, they will. Make your plans accordingly.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I'm reading that there's talking around to have "amnesty" for the idiots that pushed quarantine on folks that didn't want it.

I swear, some folks elevate their opinion to virtue, and disagreement then becomes sinful... THEN they want a "get out of jail free" so they can go on being idiots.

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In time, this too shall pass.

This aged well. Care to consider the one who lives inside their own head or are you so stubborn you'll happily repeat your mistakes on the bodies of others - again?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That's typical human behavior you shouldn't be surprised by it by now.

Being in the tribe means support, comfort, and a life of more ease than being outside of it and disagreeing with the tribe could get you ousted. Thing is that works up until the tribe makes a ruinous decision and then it is those ousted who best survive.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville