About Our Societal Death Spiral . . .

Gad Saad writes:

A fundamental question that I ask people when I'm gauging their intellectual honesty is to describe for me what the evidence would need to look like in order for them to alter a given position that they hold. With that in mind, is there any reality that would cause the West to snap out of its parasitic ideological rapture and implement the necessary cataclysmic auto-corrective measures? If yes, we must still have some hope to hold on to. If not, it is going to be a painful death spiral.

Let's start by trying to convince people to use basic induction to convince them that A = A. That would be a good start. It's the basis for the Rule of Law.

Continue ReadingAbout Our Societal Death Spiral . . .

Robert Malone Analyzes a Self-Serving “Limited Hangout” Regarding mRNA

Robert Malone offers this definition of "limited hangout":

A limited hangout is a propaganda technique of displaying a subset of the available information. It involves deliberately revealing some information to try to confuse and/or prevent discovery of other information.

It misdirects an incautious audience, because information needs a context for correct interpretation. Subtly omitting information changes the interpretation of the surrounding information.

A modified limited hangout goes further by slightly changing the information disclosed. Commercially-controlled media is often a form of limited hangout, although it often also modifies information and so can represent a modified limited hangout.

Why is this important? Because "limited hangouts" are ubiquitous these days. They are a common tactic of those who use propaganda and censorship to create false consensuses and prevent robust national discussion of critically important national issues. When they are caught red-handed, they offer only a tiny subset of information, which has the psychological effect of satiating the audience, causing use to think that the full story has been disclosed. The cleverly disclose a tiny part of what is often their own misconduct and complicity in order to gain just enough credibility that they can they use that ill-gained credibility as a trojan horse for the next chapters of their misconduct.

Robert Malone takes a look at a very credible and scholarly-looking article, identifying it as a limited hangout, point by point. Here's the article:

“Lipid nanoparticle structural components, production methods, route of administration and proteins produced from complexed mRNAs all present toxicity concerns.”

Bitounis, D. et al. Strategies to reduce the risks of mRNA drug and vaccine toxicity. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 23 January 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41573-023-00859-3; PMID: 38263456

Here is an excerpt from Malone's article, his take-away
In this recent review article (23 January, 2024), Bitounis et al. provide a partial disclosure and examination of known risks and toxicities associated with the modified messenger ribonucleic acid/lipid nanoparticle pharmaceutical delivery platform. In general, what makes this publication particularly remarkable is that (collectively) the authors have significant employment or other ties to Moderna therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company whose very name (MODified RNA) indicates its corporate dependency on the feasibility of this technology. As a veteran of prior biopharmaceutical corporations, it is inconceivable to me that these authors do not have pre-existing restrictive non-disclosure agreements with Moderna, and therefore it is highly likely that Moderna pre-approved this publication.

Therefore, my most generous interpretation of the overall intent of the article is that this article summarizes and represents information concerning risks and toxicities of this platform technology which Moderna wishes to have disclosed in a manner which puts the firm, its activities and the underlying platform technology in the best possible light. A less generous interpretation of intent is that this article represents a subtle form of propaganda strategy commonly referred to as a limited hangout.

The essay includes extensive speculation concerning how emerging new technologies such as artificial intelligence and organoids (simplified tissue culture structures mimicking an organ, that are derived from stem cells), as well as well established ‘high tech” approaches such as single cell sequencing can be used to minimize animal model use (a specific NIH objective). They are intended to facilitate more efficient pharmaceutical development and toxicologic analysis of modified-mRNA drug and vaccine development technologies.

Through the jaded eyes of this highly experienced proposal reviewer, this mostly reads like a forward looking justification for increased investment in a variety of expensive new pharmaco-toxicology infrastructure advances which would be in the financial and professional interest of the authors, while avoiding and overlooking time tested approaches to characterizing the profound and wide ranging toxicities of these pharmaceutical preparations.

In other words, this reads as an extended justification for spending a lot of money on new goodies for pharmacologists and toxicologists while avoiding the obvious and less sexy basics that still have yet to be performed and reported.

I highly recommend reading Malone's point-by-point analysis to understand how a limited hangout functions.

Continue ReadingRobert Malone Analyzes a Self-Serving “Limited Hangout” Regarding mRNA

17 Life-Learnings to Celebrate the 17th Birthday of Maria Popova’s “The Marginalian”

This morning I received 17 wonderful gifts. Maria Popova’s website has been one of my places of respite for many years. In her most recent article, she celebrates her 17 years of online writing at “The Marginalian” by crystallizing 17 lessons she has learned along the way. Here is Maria’s introduction to her 17 lessons:

The Marginalian was born on October 23, 2006, under an outgrown name, to an outgrown self that feels to me now almost like a different species of consciousness. (It can only be so — if we don’t continually outgrow ourselves, if we don’t wince a little at our former ideas, ideals, and beliefs, we ossify and perish.)

What follows are merely the titles to Popova's 17 lessons. She discusses each of these more fully at her website. Everything she writes is, somehow, both analytically precise and poetic. I've printed this list and it has gone up on my wall so that I have daily reminders:

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.

2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone

3. Be generous.

4. Build pockets of stillness into your life.

5. You are the only custodian of your own integrity.

6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.

7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.”

8. Seek out what magnifies your spirit.

9. Don’t be afraid to be an idealist.

10. Don’t just resist cynicism — fight it actively.

11. Question your maps and models of the universe, both inner and outer, and continually test them against the raw input of reality.

12 There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

13. In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again.

14. Choose joy.

15. Outgrow yourself.

16. Unself.

17.Everything is eventually recompensed, every effort of the heart eventually requited, though not always in the form you imagined or hoped for.

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The Most Dangerous Lies

Sahil Bloom most warns that the most damning lie is the lie you tell to yourself. He then offers a list of the most dangerous lies, including these:

"When I get [X], then I'll be happy" "This is just who I am" "I don't have time for [X]" "I'm not capable of [X]" "I know exactly what I'm doing" "They just got lucky"

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The Pot Shot Version of the Ad hominem Attack

Today I posted the following on my Facebook account:

I often post quotes, article excerpts or videos featuring the writings or conversation of others. I post these because I find them interesting and, sometimes, inspiring. Quite often, people respond in the comments by pointing out that that person once did something they disapprove of. They often write something like "I don't like that person."

I don't understand this way of thinking. There are many brilliant but flawed people out there. In fact, each of us can see one of those significantly flawed people in the mirror every morning. When I share information on FB, it is because I find the information interesting. I am not saying "This is a perfectly well-adjusted person who is always correct and who has never done anything I would ever question." For instance, there are severely flawed artists (e.g., Michael Jackson) whose work I admire greatly. Same thing with writers, podcasters, politicians and activists. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Is this a problem? Hell, yes. Was he also brilliant? Did his genius help establish this amazing (though flawed) country you call home? Absolutely. When I celebrate Jefferson's amazing accomplishments am I trying to say it's OK to own slaves? Some people apparently think so, because they've been renaming schools that bore Jefferson's name. This is performative, not serious thinking.

All of the people I find interesting are flawed. I am flawed, you are flawed. People of prominence often stumble in big public ways. If you've never gone out into the world to attempt something brave and ambitious, you are flawed in that way too. Can we have an understanding, then, that I am already aware that everyone I mention in my posts is a flawed human being, and many of them have fucked up more than once? Sometimes they've fucked up in intensely cringe-worthy ways. Many of them have fucked up, realized they've fucked up and already admitted that they've fucked up. Pot shots are especially strange in those situations. When you watch a movie, do you sit there obsessing that some of the actors are personally flawed human beings? Or do you enjoy the movie on its own merits? Why do you give your favorite actors a pass?

I don't share information about people BECAUSE they are flawed. Rather, I am sharing their work and observations because I have found that work to be interesting or admirable. I work hard to try to make sense of an extremely complex world and my thought process never stops evolving. I often disagree with things I have stated in the past and you have too. We do this all the time and there is no way to stop doing this. That's how people think and that is why we have conversations--to help each other when we fall off the tracks.

It is the easiest, lowest and most ignorant form of criticism to sit back and point out people's imperfections. This insidious pot shot form of ad hominem is ubiquitous on FB. I assure you that I could engage in taking pot shots at others every hour of every day, with very little effort, but it would do nothing to encourage meaningful conversation or human flourishing.

Continue ReadingThe Pot Shot Version of the Ad hominem Attack