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Personally, I’m glad that Sweden has chosen a different policy response than the rest of Europe, since that offers us more information about what to do next. But a lot of people, however, are not happy that Sweden is not going along with the herd. From the Washington Post opinion page:
The risk of Sweden’s coronavirus strategy? Blind patriotism.
Criticism from abroad may trigger a national identity threat for many SwedesBy Gina Gustavsson
May 3, 2020 at 2:00 a.m. PDT“Be like Sweden!” — this slogan appeared on a sign last weekend in Minnesota, one of several U.S. states where protesters are pushing governors to roll back lockdown orders. Sweden, unlike the United States and many other countries, has largely stayed open for business. Pandemic experts have criticized this approach, combining a handful of restrictions with strong recommendations for risk groups and anyone feeling sick to self-isolate and voluntary social distancing for everyone else.
So why does Swedish public opinion continue to show not just high but increasing levels of support?
As of April 30, Sweden ranked among the 10 countries in the world with the highest covid-19 deaths per million people, with a ratio of 244. This is seven times more than neighboring Finland and Norway.
… What we are witnessing in Sweden is more likely to be the dark side of nationalism. To be sure, many Swedes who now say “let Sweden be Sweden” are staunch supporters of wider immigration and international cooperation. But such convictions are no vaccine against the psychological forces of nationalism.
Like any group identity, national identity is a powerful force. In “Liberal Nationalism and Its Criticcs,” contributors and I show how national identity can charge both the best and worst sides of human behavior. In a recent research article, I argue that when self-critical and based on a shared public culture, nationalism can legitimately be liberal or even progressive in nature. But when it takes the form of blind allegiance, nationalism becomes a danger to liberal democracy. …
Critics of the Swedish pandemic strategy meet with hostility and ridicule, both in academia and the media. Vulnerable minorities might be next in line. Former chief epidemiologist Johan Giesecke, for instance, pinned the failure to protect the elderly on immigrants. “Many of the people working in nursing homes are from other countries; they are refugees or asylum seekers,” he said. They “may not always be understanding the information.”
Elon Musk mentioned Covid-19 deaths may be inflated. If you have the virus and get hit by a bus, it’s listed as a coronavirus death.
He’s not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran’s blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don’t seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.
The Powers That Be clearly seem to have wanted a global crisis they could manage to their great gain.
Sweden as too nationalistic is yet another example of the utter insanity and mendacity of The Powers That Be for the worldwide Anglo-Zionist Empire with its lidless eye.
Hard to say because we've never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don't care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly...)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don't care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that's not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he's borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we're still living in Regan's world--the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan's Reaganesque tax cuts. Y'all like it here? I'm overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I'm surrounded with.Replies: @SimpleSong, @Dtbb, @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar, @RichardTaylor, @RichardTaylor
Every piece of actual on the ground evidence collected by citizens shows that this virus is LESS deadly than the media hype, not more.
They told us hospitals were overflowing, until we proved them wrong by videotaping their empty buildings, exposing their doctored pictures, and fake "live" news events.
In 2 years when we have instituted tattooed rfid tracking and 24/7 "contact tracing", maybe the once illustrious hbd blogosphere will admit they have been duped by Bill Gates and other sjw globalists into handing over the keys to our civil liberties. Or, maybe not, and they will be swallowed up, incorporated into the leftist technocrat new world order. Maybe Don Lemon will be interviewing Greg Cochran encouraging him to berate the low-IQ peons who value antiquated concepts like "freedoms" over "lives".
Ive mentioned before that this "pandemic" is like ideological kryptonite to a certain kind of thinker, one who:
-is super nerdy and understand the world primarily through mathematical models and graphs instead of real world experience (this also means these autists are unlikely to discern the nefarious actual motives of "philanthropists" like Bill Gates)
-is a sci-fi fan of apocalyptic doomsday scenarios of the kind written about by Niven and Pournelle; only nerdy scientists like them can save the day!
-is an aging boomer in poor health who is personally threatened disproportionately
If there's one thing that this pandemic has made me realize, it is that the future of conservatism can not be steered by this unprincipled, easily cowed (all bark and no bite), slightly narcissistic and arrogant group of people. I love them for who they are but they can not be trusted with the captains hat.
Calling Sweden nationalistic is a joke. They are consistently one of the least nationalistic nations in Europe.
https://www.pewforum.org/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/19/western-europeans-vary-in-their-nationalist-anti-immigrant-and-anti-religious-minority-attitudes/
It should also be noted that since the old concerns of whites not kissing the feet of their global Judeo-Homo-POC masters with sufficient enthusiasm are coming back, I guess the crisis must be over.
Here is Gina Gustavsson:
https://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N6-952
https://uppsala.academia.edu/GinaGustavssonBasically some sort of tenured sell-out to the muslims.
So “refugees and asylum seekers” are spreading the virus because they can’t understand proper hygiene instructions? I wonder what else they we’re doing wrong before the Wigan flu arrived?
If white nations are so racist why do so many non-whites want to live in them? For all their alleged faults, white nations must be better than non-white ones since so many non-whites want to move there.
“National identity is a powerful force”
Yeah, because tribalism and “xenophobia” are evolutionary psychological defense mechanisms which were produced through millions of years of natural selection. Groups with a healthy distrust of outsiders survived. Those without such defenses were wiped out and replaced.
Even the strongest of such inborn defenses can be eroded with powerful public propaganda campaigns, however. The almost totally Jewish-owned Swedish media (owned by the Bonnier family and the halachically Jewish Peter Hjorne) have been very effective at psychologically mindfucking the Swedes, suppressing their natural psychosocial immune system, giving their country a mass case of pathological altruistic Stockholm syndrome for a rapidly growing “immigrant” community. As the AIDS virus does its host, the suppression of the national immune system by this parasitic foreign caste has resulted in an infestation by various opportunistic parasites which will eventually kill the host.
This is what happens when your national media is co-opted by a hostile foreign elite.
the Jews"liberal democracy."https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8285149/Denmarks-immigration-ministry-declares-wonderful-migrants-left-entered-2019.html
I have previously commented that Jewish influence on immigration policy in Europe is mostly indirect via US cultural and political domination. But here it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the marked difference in immigration policy between the two neighbours is due to the fact that nearly all Jews left Denmark, primarily for Sweden, during WWII (With most not bothering to return later, which has of course nothing to do with the old antisemitic canard that Jews don't have much attachment to their "home countries" ).
Problem with Swedes is that they’re not nationalist enough.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
Musk may not be dumb but he does seem to be a bit of a nutjob.
Washington Post:
Right? This could be true anytime, anywhere. Therefore whatever you want to do should be prohibited. What I want to do, though? That’s a separate matter.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
Many people in the medical field have been saying the same thing about inflated Covid-19 deaths for a couple of months.
The Powers That Be clearly seem to have wanted a global crisis they could manage to their great gain.
Sweden as too nationalistic is yet another example of the utter insanity and mendacity of The Powers That Be for the worldwide Anglo-Zionist Empire with its lidless eye.
The journalist/academic class are always prattling on about the sacredness of “Democracy.”
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, “Democracy” is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, “diversity” preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called “Democracy” even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of “democracy,” even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.
Freedom is Slavery.
These people *hate* democracy and hate republican government. What they love is elite tyranny.
Witness the adulation here in the US, for the Supreme Court imposing elite policies, and the whining and gnashing of teeth at the mere thought that the courts should stick to their actual job of enforcing the law and leave law making to officials elected by the people.
- Bentolt Kebrecht
It’s pretty funny to see Sweden losing friends on the left, while gaining them at Fox.
Sweden is nationalistic? If Swedes had any nationalism they would not have imported the dagger that will cut the heart out of their nation.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
Mark Twain explored the notion of the engineer-king in A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur. It didn’t work out as the engineer expected and there were tears before nightfall.
Yes, as in next time around, let’s not get hysterical.
Like we told you already, Bill Gates, we don’t need no steeenking vaccine!
Haha, on the grammar, but yes, and people die because of that. But if diversity were to suffer, that’d be worse, right?
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, "Democracy" is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, "diversity" preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called "Democracy" even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of "democracy," even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.Replies: @Bill Jones, @jbwilson24, @Mr. Anon, @AnotherDad, @J.Ross, @BenKenobi, @Dtbb
The imposition of “marriage” between homosexuals is a great example of the redefinition of democracy. Overwhelming defeated whenever voted upon by tens of millions. Imposed by fewer Judges than could sit in a Jury Box.
And that’s not an after-the-fact claim. I remember Steve saying this about GB back when Johnson was considering treating this like rhe view and eschewing the quarantine.
At that time Steve shares the mainstream view that this Coronavirus was absolutely deadly, to the extent that was going through OCD paranoid hand-washing cycles and he was as in favor of The Quarantine as anyone.
But the difference between him and all of the others was that he open to evidence to the contrary which is why he was glad that Britain was ostensibly going to try something different.
THE DANGER IS CERTITUDE.
Religious Conviction is the enemy. Knowing that you could be wrong is what differentiates between honest thinkers and dishonest ones.
Supporting experiments that could present evidence against the conclusions that you yourself have drawn and are promoting, is the sign of an honest thinker.
There’s something about those Swedes. They all want to believe in the same things; to stay psychologically in lockstep. This makes them seem deceptively tame – it’s the prevailing consensus. If events caused a shift in critical mass, in an instant, each and every one of them would turn back into a Viking.
SJWs kinda know, which is why a seemingly faint whiff of patriotism like this sends shivers up their spines.
Minnesota is a lot like Sweden already.
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, "Democracy" is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, "diversity" preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called "Democracy" even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of "democracy," even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.Replies: @Bill Jones, @jbwilson24, @Mr. Anon, @AnotherDad, @J.Ross, @BenKenobi, @Dtbb
It’s the managerial or technocratic approach to liberalism. Instead of thinking that society works best when people are free to make their own choices (barring choices that harm others, which require state intervention), the managerial approach involves a set of properly educated managers who form committees to evaluate any and all policy proposals – many of which involve enforcing norms, such as hate speech.
The entire notion of representative government is thrown out the window, because the values and interests of the citizenry are sure to be misguided on account of the fact that they are not well educated, unlike the technocrats.
If Americans or Germans don’t want mass immigration, they are simply wrong and need to be re-educated. Doing so is inherently democratic because [marginalized people | white privilege | diversity | inclusion | too many old people | young workers | immigrants are better entrepreneurs].
Steering such a society is simply a matter of capturing the committees.
Swedes are shockingly non-Nationalistic. In fact, the average Chinese person or Mexican probably thinks Swedes are insanely stupid for giving their country away.
Nationalism implies a people with a defined territory. That is, common descent. Sweden USED to be a nation, but it is no longer a nation due to having 30% foreign-born and a government that cares nothing for actual Swedes. Canada is no longer a nation either. Japan is a nation, so are Pakistan and Turkey (courtesy of purging its minorities).
Procrusteans are an interesting lot – we always know they’re around and among us, just every so often they stand up and announce themselves and confirm our suspicions.
Their term is “liberal democracy”. In their view, the ‘liberal’ ideology is the guarantor of the truest democracy – therefore the people’s vote is only democratic in nature when it legitimises the ‘liberal’ ideology.
To Marxists, EVERYTHING mustbe viewed through the lens of diversity, racism, inequality, etc.
What’s most important during a pandemic? Immigrants! People of Color! Refugees!
At my university, in all departments, most teaching, research, creativity, scholarship, student support, and administrative effort focuses on victimology, diversity, inclusion, White privilege, transgender rights, etc. For example, in my science department, we don’t discuss whether we should offer more classes in virology or hire a new molecular biologist, but instead hours of committee and faculty meetings are devoted to discussing transgender bathrooms and, increasing gay/lesbian/transgender/woman/minority faculty and students, how to increase financial aid for undocumented students of color, etc. There’s little science being performed in our “Science Department”
This is not the case in China.
Marxism was about "class struggle".
Minoritarianism is certainly not about class struggle nor workers nor capitalism. It's a form of leftism that is about breaking national identity, balkanizing the population and weakening traditional culture and social solidarity.
It's a form of "leftism"--i.e. breaking things--that is in the interest of the global cosmopolitans and finance capital rather than opposing them. That's why it is wildly more successful than Marxism ever was in the West and shoved down our throats at every turn.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Actually, Swedes are not patriotic enough. They need to do more to secure their borders. I have told them that before.
I have heard from residents of Sweden that such a suggestion will horrify native Swedes. They become quiet all of a sudden.
On March 8 2020, Sweden announced 135 deaths in one day. That woudl be the equivalent of 4450 deaths in one day in the U.S. (something that the U.S. have not been close to doing). Does anyone really believe that everyone would crowd onto planes, malls, and stadium crowds if 5,000 people were dying each day in the U.S.?
Even though Sweden has bought into the new world order hook, line and sinker, even the slightest stray from their masters earns a reprimand. The right to determine the welfare of your people is nothing in the face ideology.
What is Steve’s often go to phrase: “Who, whom?”
Indeed.
The comparisons to Norway and Finland only are as cherry picked as comparing Sweden to New York or Belgium only.
If you look at all the euro and anglophone countries Sweden is basically right in the middle, in between Ireland and the Netherlands. I think that says something.
They are actually a little bit better on infections per million (however accurate that may be) but they are a little worse on deaths per infected, but deaths per infected has nothing to do with quarantine measures.
We are approaching 1968 flu level of fatalities but we are all in some goofy unprecedented neo-quarantine situation where no one actually knows if the neo-quarantine measures are actually working at all or not. If not, this thing may not reach 1968 flu levels although I think it will probably end up surpassing them. But if these measures are slowing the spread then we still have to spread it, these quarantine measures are not going to hold for years until a vaccine is maybe invented.
I have not heard anyone suggest a mechanism by which stalling for 2 months actually saves anyone.
The way things look now, unless the average public is suddenly swamped with deaths of acquaintances and relatives I think I can safely predict that even if a vaccine was invented, half the country or so would refuse it.
Is Sweden releasing infection data based on race? It would be pretty easy to tell how much greater the infection rate among refugee groups based on that data. Economic reports from Sweden have been that people are largely avoiding bars, movie theaters, etc. even though they are open. That has one of the points about reopening in the United States, just because it is allowed doesn’t mean people will come back.
I don't know where these figures are coming for, but it suggests that Sweden has released some racial/ethnic statistics.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
I beg to differ. He’s an overrated “high IQ idiot”, almost as overvalued as TSLA.
“X Æ A-12: Elon Musk and Grimes confirm baby name”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52557291
Probably not even what's on the birth certificate.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
I dunno, I think if you had sufficiently nationalistic/ethnocentric scientists/engineers that might not be that bad. That is essentially the current Chinese system, and while it is of course far from perfect they’ve gone from being poorer than most of Africa to a world power in one lifetime, while we have seen an erosion in real living standards.
Hard to say because we’ve never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don’t care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly…)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don’t care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that’s not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he’s borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we’re still living in Regan’s world–the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan’s Reaganesque tax cuts. Y’all like it here? I’m overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I’m surrounded with.
However, at 95 he is the longest-lived President in U.S. history. Once he finally sloughs off his mortal coil and goes to the great Peanut Farm in the sky, there will probably be a retrospective effort to figure out what he meant.
All this blather about "risk" of nuclear war skates over actual nuclear war. Only one leader has ever resorted to it, and he wasn't a Communist, a National Socialist, or a Republican.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
“Please spare us the engineer-king.”
That was the attitude that prevailed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution and during Pol Pot’s rule. No technocrats or intellectuals for them, no sir. Remind us, how well did that work out?
Are your recommendations for running society as consistently boneheaded as your coronavirus forecasts?
That’s quite possibly true. Here’s another possibility: those foreign nursing home workers may not like the elderly Swedes in their charge and/or don’t particularly care if they live or die because they are not their own people.
I wonder how many foreign nurses/aids/cleaners who work taking care of the elderly really are motivated by kindness rather than picking up a paycheck. We know what the answer is.
I have been impressed by staff (American melting pot) who work in rehabilitation facilities and hospice care. These people, regardless if they are immigrants, enter this demanding field because they felt a calling a long time ago - hospice nurses are the highest level/ranking.
So, yeah, it seems weird to me that so many foreign "guest workers," and sullen refugees are working with fragile people in the Nordic countries. Which, to make another stab at SJW's: the Nordic countries do not pay nurses well: ethnic citizens nor immigrants. Ironic that USA, particularly so-called Progressives, think everything is so much better in Scandinavia! - nurses, childcare, teachers have low salaries. Another bubble bursts.
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, "Democracy" is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, "diversity" preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called "Democracy" even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of "democracy," even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.Replies: @Bill Jones, @jbwilson24, @Mr. Anon, @AnotherDad, @J.Ross, @BenKenobi, @Dtbb
Or to put it another way:
Freedom is Slavery.
A similar article she published in the Grauniad on May 1:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/may/01/sweden-coronavirus-strategy-nationalists-britain
Her homepage at Uppsala University:
https://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N6-952
That’s isn’t what he said, but why should you be concerned with the truth. By the way, it is Mao’s political descendents who gave us the lockdown.
They’re certainly no worse than those of the lying, hypocritical “experts” upon whom you rely.
And let’s not lose track of what that incident really means. It means that Ferguson – Dr. Lockdown – doesn’t actually believe the bullshit he’s slinging.
Hard to say because we've never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don't care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly...)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don't care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that's not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he's borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we're still living in Regan's world--the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan's Reaganesque tax cuts. Y'all like it here? I'm overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I'm surrounded with.Replies: @SimpleSong, @Dtbb, @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar, @RichardTaylor, @RichardTaylor
My Jimmy Carter thing was sorta tongue in cheek, but it is worth noting that the most prominent America Firster, Charles Lindbergh, was basically an aerospace engineer who flew his own designs.
“Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics” summarized:
When $CONCEPT is used by my side, it is good. When $CONCEPT is used by the other side, it is bad.
Sure. It’s OK to be a “nationalist” as long you’re a gelded cuck who’s afraid to speak out against the replacement of Sweden’s indigenous population.
Life in every breath.
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, "Democracy" is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, "diversity" preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called "Democracy" even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of "democracy," even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.Replies: @Bill Jones, @jbwilson24, @Mr. Anon, @AnotherDad, @J.Ross, @BenKenobi, @Dtbb
Spot on, solid gold Hypnotoad.
These people *hate* democracy and hate republican government. What they love is elite tyranny.
Witness the adulation here in the US, for the Supreme Court imposing elite policies, and the whining and gnashing of teeth at the mere thought that the courts should stick to their actual job of enforcing the law and leave law making to officials elected by the people.
Read:
As long as you are self flagellating things are fine, but when you stray from internalizing what a horrible racist group of thought criminals you and your countrymen are it’s time to lobotomize yourself or else.
I mean Trump! ummm nazis ??
national pride, based on life-saving sensible planning, and a clear head amid unscientific panic, is a “threat” which can be “triggered”
Coronachan is not killing nearly enough people.
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, "Democracy" is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, "diversity" preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called "Democracy" even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of "democracy," even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.Replies: @Bill Jones, @jbwilson24, @Mr. Anon, @AnotherDad, @J.Ross, @BenKenobi, @Dtbb
Agree, just like Soros himself co-opted the Popperian concept of an “open society” to mean its opposite.
Open society, eh? Well, the hidden (and vital) question is... Open to what, exactly? Open to who, exactly?
Somehow, the hidden answer always seems to be... Well, open to (((us))) of course!
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
Richard, Ah, yes deaths from Covid…I posted this before, an actual headline above an article in the Buffalo News on line…”She would have made it to 105 but Covid-19 killed 99 year old.” Last week, same paper, “Long time Akron (NY) teacher and coach dies from Covid-19.” Half through the article they mention that he was 92 ears old. And Elon Musk is brillant at marketing his products. His engineering is more build upon existing tech.
Engineer: "It's usually the user's fault."
Marketer: "It's never the customer's fault."Replies: @Testing12
Swedes “too nationalistic”… Well I guess for the powers that be, even one percent of a micron of nationalism is already too much.
“What they love is elite tyranny.”
What they desire is the Chinese model. So just relax and lounge around in a tranquilized state absorbing their images while they take your children for their rituals. Life is easier when you accept the inevitable.
Elon Musk has zero (0) engineering skills. He’s a marketer whose only skill is finding ‘angel investors’ to defraud.
2. Even if what you say is true, he has built up 2 tech based businesses that are doing quite well. That’s a pretty solid accomplishment.
The graph that brings up the worst in Swedes
You've compared Sweden--a place where most of it's residents live in pretty dense urban areas--to mostly places where they are much less dense. It'd be like comparing NY to North Carolina.
Compare them to their Euro counterparts and they are pretty similar, besides lack of lock down. Compare them to a similar situation, like the Netherlands, and you get almost identical numbers: 2500 cases per millions and 300 deaths per million.
I don't mind counter-arguments, but you anti-Sweden people just resort to lies by omission of facts.
In “Liberal Nationalism and Its Criticcs,” contributors and I show how national identity can charge both the best and worst sides of human behavior.
In support of her position, she cites … herself!
So, Sweden is the Model championed by the Bernie Sanders style comrades and Bolshevik progressives, but when they choose freedom from Dr. Mengele style style health fascism, it is the Bad Model of Selfish Nationalism.
My head is spinning! Can’t the Bezos Post realize that the masses can’t handle these kinds of contradictions?
And why do we never see Crazy Joe with a mask on in his basement? Is he all alone down there when he’s broadcasting? What if he falls and can’t get up?
America could use a few killing fields. It would really spruce up the joint.
I’ve seen a few references to CV deaths in Stockholm (where I assume the lion’s share of Sweden’s death have been) being 40% Somalis. There’s been some speculation that many can’t read or understand the safety guidelines the Swedish public health service is disseminating.
I don’t know where these figures are coming for, but it suggests that Sweden has released some racial/ethnic statistics.
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, "Democracy" is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, "diversity" preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called "Democracy" even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of "democracy," even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.Replies: @Bill Jones, @jbwilson24, @Mr. Anon, @AnotherDad, @J.Ross, @BenKenobi, @Dtbb
Would it not be easier at this point, to dissolve the elite and form a new one?
– Bentolt Kebrecht
So to compare to two American states of roughly equivalent population (within 15 to 20 percent), Sweden is slightly more dangerous per day than Illinois, and much much safer than Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania 290, 110, 2.67
Illinois 246, 89, 2.76Replies: @XYZ (no Mr.), @Lars Porsena, @Anonymous Jew
“….I show how national identity can charge both the best and worst sides of human behavior.”
I submit Israel as the test case for her thesis. Or would that be asking for trouble?
I take a backseat to no one in my admiration for Charles Lindbergh, but this is overegging the pudding. He had a pretty good idea what would be needed for the transatlantic crossing, but the guys at Ryan made the Spirit of St. Louis.
If you look at all the euro and anglophone countries Sweden is basically right in the middle, in between Ireland and the Netherlands. I think that says something.
They are actually a little bit better on infections per million (however accurate that may be) but they are a little worse on deaths per infected, but deaths per infected has nothing to do with quarantine measures.
We are approaching 1968 flu level of fatalities but we are all in some goofy unprecedented neo-quarantine situation where no one actually knows if the neo-quarantine measures are actually working at all or not. If not, this thing may not reach 1968 flu levels although I think it will probably end up surpassing them. But if these measures are slowing the spread then we still have to spread it, these quarantine measures are not going to hold for years until a vaccine is maybe invented.
I have not heard anyone suggest a mechanism by which stalling for 2 months actually saves anyone.
The way things look now, unless the average public is suddenly swamped with deaths of acquaintances and relatives I think I can safely predict that even if a vaccine was invented, half the country or so would refuse it.Replies: @HA
“I have not heard anyone suggest a mechanism by which stalling for 2 months actually saves anyone.”
Assuming you’re not just being rhetorically obtuse, I can give you a long list — stalling for several months gives doctors a chance to evaluate different courses of treatment and pick the best one and optimal doses and whatnot. Forget ventilators and focus on non-invasive ventilation, or else only use ventilators in conjunction with blood thinners, and focus on keeping people on their stomach, etc., etc. — that kind of thing. They’ve learned an enormous amount already, but it takes a couple of weeks to let each approach run its course.
Waiting two months allows masks and gloves and sanitizers to be manufactured and restocked. It allows tests to be made available so that doctors can confirm that you actually have the disease as opposed to something that presents similarly. Do you want to start taking HCQ before you get to the hospital — i.e. at a time when it might possibly do you some good? Sorry, there’s not enough HCQ in stock right now for that kind of thing, so the only ones taking it prophylactically are the doctors and nurses who hoard it away — kind of the same situation we were in with masks a few months ago. It’ll take a while to restock all that supply. (Don’t try whipping up your own stash from fish-tank cleaner, regardless of whether or not your wife wants to kill you.)
If Sweden had waited just a few weeks more, they could have figured out that the Third-world temporary shift-workers changing the bedpans in the nursing homes are not staying at home like they should when they start to get sick, because unlike real Swedes, they don’t get all that trust-your-government generous sick-leave that is essential to making the Swedish approach work (which the Sweden-boosters seem to forget, but I digress). The government has made changes since, but that’s a little too late for those that died.
I’m sure you can think of a few more on your own. Obviously, there are enormous costs with extending the shutdowns, and a stage of diminishing returns, and I’m not arguing that my particular preferences should apply everywhere — that’s what countries and borders are for. If Texas or Sweden or Minnesota (or even different jurisdictions thereof) want to try another approach, let e’m. But let’s not pretend that someone catching this disease today isn’t better off than someone catching it a few months ago when doctors didn’t even know what to prepare for.
That's the last 3 months. I have the joy in living in one of the states where the governor is getting progressively more strict in lockdown policies even now, and claims life can never return to normal without a vaccine. What's the cost benefit on the next 3 months?Replies: @HA, @Polynikes
Meanwhile the damage done by the lockdowns increases much more rapidly. Not only economic, but social and health. There is article floating out there where someone is making the case that additional TB deaths alone due to the lockdown exceed the deaths saved by Covid. Possibly more hysteria in this article. But the point is no one can demonstrate that we are not causing more people to be killed by the lockdown than without the lockdown. It is likely, in my opinion, that the lockdown will kill many more people that it will save.
The Swedish experts feel that we are going to need to live with the reality that virtually everyone, in the near future, will be exposed and probably infected by Covid. They feel the death rate from Covid is not high enough to warrant shutting down society. Their prior predictions are coming largely true and, therefore, I tend to weigh their advice as better than than our own. I also like the fact they are holding true to their beliefs in the face of massive blowback.Replies: @HA
I don’t care whether it’s Soros or Popper pushing this cant (I’d call it “toxic” cant except that the word “toxic” has become yet another species of cant).
Open society, eh? Well, the hidden (and vital) question is… Open to what, exactly? Open to who, exactly?
Somehow, the hidden answer always seems to be… Well, open to (((us))) of course!
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
Of course they are inflated. They literally announced this when they said they would start including “probable” corona deaths in the official death tolls.
Every piece of actual on the ground evidence collected by citizens shows that this virus is LESS deadly than the media hype, not more.
They told us hospitals were overflowing, until we proved them wrong by videotaping their empty buildings, exposing their doctored pictures, and fake “live” news events.
In 2 years when we have instituted tattooed rfid tracking and 24/7 “contact tracing”, maybe the once illustrious hbd blogosphere will admit they have been duped by Bill Gates and other sjw globalists into handing over the keys to our civil liberties. Or, maybe not, and they will be swallowed up, incorporated into the leftist technocrat new world order. Maybe Don Lemon will be interviewing Greg Cochran encouraging him to berate the low-IQ peons who value antiquated concepts like “freedoms” over “lives”.
Ive mentioned before that this “pandemic” is like ideological kryptonite to a certain kind of thinker, one who:
-is super nerdy and understand the world primarily through mathematical models and graphs instead of real world experience (this also means these autists are unlikely to discern the nefarious actual motives of “philanthropists” like Bill Gates)
-is a sci-fi fan of apocalyptic doomsday scenarios of the kind written about by Niven and Pournelle; only nerdy scientists like them can save the day!
-is an aging boomer in poor health who is personally threatened disproportionately
If there’s one thing that this pandemic has made me realize, it is that the future of conservatism can not be steered by this unprincipled, easily cowed (all bark and no bite), slightly narcissistic and arrogant group of people. I love them for who they are but they can not be trusted with the captains hat.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
Brown-nosing multi-billionaires, I see. Sad.
Bullshit, you pathetic bozos who politicize health issues like only complete idiots do.
The Swedish failed. They admit it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8298081/Norway-lifts-lockdown-schools-opening-Monday.html
Yes, they’ve both imported Somalis to trash pretty nice, functional places.
Not that Chicago blacks are native to Minnesota. They arrived at about the same time as the Africans, escaping welfare crackdowns in their home states. The record murder total for Minneapolis occurred in 1995, thanks to them.
Eventually Minnesota cracked down as well. Which meant a lot of 30-year-old black women hired as bus drivers. That was a scary time.
“That’s isn’t what he said,”
Given the boneheaded things Richard Taylor has indeed said with regard to coronavirus — as I specifically noted — I doubt my inferences are making him look any worse than the image he himself has projected thus far.
“By the way, it is Mao’s political descendents who gave us the lockdown.”
Yeah, and this time around, they’re not pretending that sending intellectuals out to dig potatoes is going to solve anything, or that ignoring what the nerds are telling us with respect to infectious diseases will make those diseases magically go away. I.e., unlike some of the corona-truthers around here, they’re willing to learn from their mistakes.
“Neil Ferguson: UK coronavirus adviser resigns after breaking lockdown rules.”
I’ve known oncologists who smoke and drink to excess. Plenty of doctors do the same. The fact that they’re frequently too venal to live up to their own advice doesn’t mean the advice is wrong. Same goes if they also happen to be cheating sluts, as with Ferguson. If a preacher cheats on his wife, does that mean adultery is suddenly a-OK?
I understand the Chinese swear by tiger-dick soup too. Maybe you should have some. It might be medicinal.And it can hardly be taken as an argument for it being vital. Ferguson's line - and because of him that taken by the British government - is that by going outside you are killing people. You're killing people!
So, either Ferguson is a killer, or he really doesn't believe the bullshit he's peddling.
What's most important during a pandemic? Immigrants! People of Color! Refugees!
At my university, in all departments, most teaching, research, creativity, scholarship, student support, and administrative effort focuses on victimology, diversity, inclusion, White privilege, transgender rights, etc. For example, in my science department, we don't discuss whether we should offer more classes in virology or hire a new molecular biologist, but instead hours of committee and faculty meetings are devoted to discussing transgender bathrooms and, increasing gay/lesbian/transgender/woman/minority faculty and students, how to increase financial aid for undocumented students of color, etc. There's little science being performed in our "Science Department"
This is not the case in China.Replies: @AnotherDad
This isn’t Marxism it’s (Jewish) minoritarianism.
Marxism was about “class struggle”.
Minoritarianism is certainly not about class struggle nor workers nor capitalism. It’s a form of leftism that is about breaking national identity, balkanizing the population and weakening traditional culture and social solidarity.
It’s a form of “leftism”–i.e. breaking things–that is in the interest of the global cosmopolitans and finance capital rather than opposing them. That’s why it is wildly more successful than Marxism ever was in the West and shoved down our throats at every turn.
X=Death per Million, Y=Population Density [per sq.km], Z=X/Y
Sweden 314, 25, 12.56
Pennsylvania 290, 110, 2.67
Illinois 246, 89, 2.76
Stockholm county: 700, 360, 1.94
Are the arctic circle mountains in Sweden really comparable to downstate Illinois?Replies: @Lars Porsena, @utu
All of this is moot by my calculations. If, for example, the coronavirus takes 10 years off the average victim’s life and one week off everyone else’s (lost life events, public and private debt, psychological impact, house arrest, civil liberties etc) the lockdown would have to save about 630,000 lives to break even. That’s lives saved, not total deaths. There are different ways to run the numbers, but the only way to make the numbers close is if the lockdown saves a huge amount of lives and causes minimum inconvenience for everyone else. And that’s not going to happen based on the data we have.
If you want to maximize human life, the logical thing to do is simply let it rip with only a few, narrowly tailored interventions (masks in certain settings, ban events like Mardi Gras etc).
Unfortunately for Sweden, in 30 years coronaChan will be a distant memory but the Muslims and Africans that invaded their country and bred like rabbits won’t be. They chose the wrong policy to take a stand on.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @utu, @AnotherDad
AC, I guess what I should have said is he builds upon the works of others. But he does know how to market.
But when you just barely scratch the surface, it turns out that, to them, "Democracy" is just their shorthand for a bundle of Soros-style global elite policies like open borders, wealth redistribution, "diversity" preferences for the usual groups, etc.
These globalist policies are called "Democracy" even when they are imposed from above by elites. By contrast, any nationalistic policies are branded as the opposite of "democracy," even when the people vote for them overwhelmingly.Replies: @Bill Jones, @jbwilson24, @Mr. Anon, @AnotherDad, @J.Ross, @BenKenobi, @Dtbb
Don’t we have the technology now to give direct democracy an honest shot?
Ah, true, that is overstatement, I will back off of that. He was a very technically skilled, meticulous, quantitative person, in some ways the archetypal pilot (in reality if not in the popular imagination); and those personality traits seem to overlap quite heavily with engineers.
Question…..a strong national identity is a threat to……what group?
Hard to say because we've never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don't care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly...)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don't care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that's not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he's borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we're still living in Regan's world--the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan's Reaganesque tax cuts. Y'all like it here? I'm overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I'm surrounded with.Replies: @SimpleSong, @Dtbb, @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar, @RichardTaylor, @RichardTaylor
Thanks. Please comment more. I like your clear headed common sensical approach.
Pennsylvania 290, 110, 2.67
Illinois 246, 89, 2.76Replies: @XYZ (no Mr.), @Lars Porsena, @Anonymous Jew
Not lately, brainchild. Pennsylvania lost 245 yesterday, Illinois 137. So more than Sweden. Do keep up.
OK fine. But that’s quite marginal and as you say there are diminishing returns. Many of the people who died 2 months ago will still die today, and to the people who aren’t dying anyway (which is the vast majority) it makes no difference. And it comes at enormous expense.
That’s the last 3 months. I have the joy in living in one of the states where the governor is getting progressively more strict in lockdown policies even now, and claims life can never return to normal without a vaccine. What’s the cost benefit on the next 3 months?
Pennsylvania 290, 110, 2.67
Illinois 246, 89, 2.76Replies: @XYZ (no Mr.), @Lars Porsena, @Anonymous Jew
New York State: 1082, 159, 6.8
Stockholm county: 700, 360, 1.94
Are the arctic circle mountains in Sweden really comparable to downstate Illinois?
Cook County IL: 322, 1200, 0.27
That's based on the official figure for area per wikipedia. However if we only count the land area and not the middle of lake Michigan instead it's:
Cook County IL: 322, 2120, 0.15
The rest of Illinois without Cook County:
IL - Cook: 209, 51, 4.09
Despite a lower deaths per millions the massive amount of corn has shot this figure of deaths per density way up over Chicago.Replies: @utu
Manhattan: 27,826 per sq.km
Brooklyn: 14,649 per sq.km
Bronx 13,231 sq.km
Queens: 8,354 sq. km
____________________
I have looked at 22 European countries and found that the population density explains about 25% of data variance. To use the population density variable correctly one would have to calculate the disease effective population density. Each victim should be assigned the population density of the 5km radius where he lived/worked. Then the weighted population density should be calculated for each country, state or region. I am pretty confident that then the explained variance would be much larger.
There you have it. The instinctive and healthy desire to share a portion of the earth, protected by borders, with members of one’s own extended kinship group, is a psychological virus to these people.
I don’t have anything to add, but I’m angry, and I’m tired of this shit. They really do hate us.
https://i.ibb.co/QKytvSf/Graph-Sweden.pngReplies: @Polynikes, @utu
You can cherry pick all the stats you want. It doesn’t change the fact they are about average among European countries.
You’ve compared Sweden–a place where most of it’s residents live in pretty dense urban areas–to mostly places where they are much less dense. It’d be like comparing NY to North Carolina.
Compare them to their Euro counterparts and they are pretty similar, besides lack of lock down. Compare them to a similar situation, like the Netherlands, and you get almost identical numbers: 2500 cases per millions and 300 deaths per million.
I don’t mind counter-arguments, but you anti-Sweden people just resort to lies by omission of facts.
Correct. You can ignore utu’s statistics. Most of Sweden’s population is in dense urban areas. Then to the north they have vast areas of land that is sparsely populated, if populated at all. That brings their country population density way down in a way that doesn’t reflect how people live there.
Nationalism —
Now there is a model we should follow.
https://i.ibb.co/QKytvSf/Graph-Sweden.pngReplies: @Polynikes, @utu
The deaths/million data are worldometers.info world as of May 8.
We’ll know how well Sweden fared after the third wave hits everybody else.
Stockholm county: 700, 360, 1.94
Are the arctic circle mountains in Sweden really comparable to downstate Illinois?Replies: @Lars Porsena, @utu
This is an interesting way to look at this data and I congratulate you for coming up with it. You have to control for what you’re comparing though or it’s just more cherry picking. How about we get rid of all the rural areas and compare cities (or counties with cities) in different countries?
Cook County IL: 322, 1200, 0.27
That’s based on the official figure for area per wikipedia. However if we only count the land area and not the middle of lake Michigan instead it’s:
Cook County IL: 322, 2120, 0.15
The rest of Illinois without Cook County:
IL – Cook: 209, 51, 4.09
Despite a lower deaths per millions the massive amount of corn has shot this figure of deaths per density way up over Chicago.
https://www.unz.com/jthompson/europe-sickens/#comment-3879524
"Population’s effective IFR depends on the population age demographics. In many European countries 20% of population is above 65 years old (Italy 23%, Germany 21.5%, Portugal 21.5%, Finland 21.2%, Sweden 19.9%, ….). The youngest European countries are Norway 16.8%, Poland 16.8%, Slovakia 15.1%, Iceland 14.4%, Ireland 13.9%). Outside of Europe many countries are much younger: Israel 11.7%, Columbia 7.6%, Vietnam 7.2%, Egypt 5.2%, Nigeria 2.8%. So one may expect that IFR in Israel will be two times lower than in Italy and in Vietnam it will be 3 times lower and in Egypt 4 times lower and in Nigeria 8 times lower than in Italy."Replies: @res
Yes, but the Swedes didn’t have a mass of far more dysfunctional native blacks against which Somalis looked a “model minority” in comparison.
Not that Chicago blacks are native to Minnesota. They arrived at about the same time as the Africans, escaping welfare crackdowns in their home states. The record murder total for Minneapolis occurred in 1995, thanks to them.
Eventually Minnesota cracked down as well. Which meant a lot of 30-year-old black women hired as bus drivers. That was a scary time.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
The Engineer-King isn’t happening. Such people are generally scared of their own shadow, as much as they like to signal otherwise.
Basically, they're told to stick to their formulas and let others run overall society. And they do.
Hard to say because we've never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don't care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly...)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don't care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that's not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he's borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we're still living in Regan's world--the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan's Reaganesque tax cuts. Y'all like it here? I'm overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I'm surrounded with.Replies: @SimpleSong, @Dtbb, @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar, @RichardTaylor, @RichardTaylor
Calling him Alt-Right may have been tongue-in-cheek, but Carter was kind of a strange duck who is hard to categorize. Seen from a distance, he was part conservative, part liberal, and kind of autistically eccentric. History hasn’t figured out what to make of him, so it has mostly just ignored him.
However, at 95 he is the longest-lived President in U.S. history. Once he finally sloughs off his mortal coil and goes to the great Peanut Farm in the sky, there will probably be a retrospective effort to figure out what he meant.
Yeah, because tribalism and "xenophobia" are evolutionary psychological defense mechanisms which were produced through millions of years of natural selection. Groups with a healthy distrust of outsiders survived. Those without such defenses were wiped out and replaced.
Even the strongest of such inborn defenses can be eroded with powerful public propaganda campaigns, however. The almost totally Jewish-owned Swedish media (owned by the Bonnier family and the halachically Jewish Peter Hjorne) have been very effective at psychologically mindfucking the Swedes, suppressing their natural psychosocial immune system, giving their country a mass case of pathological altruistic Stockholm syndrome for a rapidly growing "immigrant" community. As the AIDS virus does its host, the suppression of the national immune system by this parasitic foreign caste has resulted in an infestation by various opportunistic parasites which will eventually kill the host.
This is what happens when your national media is co-opted by a hostile foreign elite.Replies: @Rosie, @Menschmaschine
Truth, and note their still not satisfied that Sweden’s nationalism, such as it is, is sufficiently “self-critical” to rule out any threat to
the Jews“liberal democracy.”That’s why they use the term “liberal democracy” rather than just plain old democracy. There is only one acceptable outcome: liberalism. The democracy part is a sham.
At that time Steve shares the mainstream view that this Coronavirus was absolutely deadly, to the extent that was going through OCD paranoid hand-washing cycles and he was as in favor of The Quarantine as anyone.
But the difference between him and all of the others was that he open to evidence to the contrary which is why he was glad that Britain was ostensibly going to try something different.
THE DANGER IS CERTITUDE.
Religious Conviction is the enemy. Knowing that you could be wrong is what differentiates between honest thinkers and dishonest ones.
Supporting experiments that could present evidence against the conclusions that you yourself have drawn and are promoting, is the sign of an honest thinker.Replies: @Rosie
Right, and this is why ALL WHITE NATIONS had to be diversified and multiculturalized at the same time. Eastern Europe, being too poor to show up the elites, could be allowed to stay White for another generation, but they will be kept down by effective trade sanctions (denial of EU membership) if they insist on their right to stay White.
I’m pretty sure he’s trolling people with that “name.”
Probably not even what’s on the birth certificate.
OT but timely: I wouldn’t trust the knowledgeable-but-airheaded Pamela Redmond Satran on the subject of names, but her commenters on Nameberry.com supply useful analysis on the so-far-unexplained postponement of the Social Security Administration’s annual name list, due out today:
Why the SSA Won’t Be Announcing the Most Popular Baby Names of 2019 Today
(Are double colons legitimate?)
Couple weeks ago I was driving and had NPR on the radio. They were doing a story on covid victims and covering the personal and family tragedy angle with interviews of family members of the victims and giving mini biographies. All the victims covered in the program were in their 90s and 80s. After like the 3rd nonagenarian they covered, I figured it was a fluke and that the rest in the story would be tragic middle aged or young victims leaving behind dependents or passing in their primes, but they never came. It was all very elderly seniors. And I’m sure they were looking for younger victims to cover and highlight on the program.
SJWs kinda know, which is why a seemingly faint whiff of patriotism like this sends shivers up their spines.Replies: @G. Poulin
Yeah, only this time it would be the Viking chicks going out and getting all berserk, while their menfolk stayed home and sewed their jerkins.
Hard to say because we've never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don't care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly...)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don't care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that's not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he's borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we're still living in Regan's world--the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan's Reaganesque tax cuts. Y'all like it here? I'm overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I'm surrounded with.Replies: @SimpleSong, @Dtbb, @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar, @RichardTaylor, @RichardTaylor
Whatever that means, he is unquestionably the best, or at least least-destructive, Democrat since Cleveland, if not Pierce or Van Buren.
Why is “mutually assured destruction” any better than a defensive shield? Certainly not in any moral sense. If realizing that the Soviets could never afford one of their own, and offering them the use of ours, is “demented”, then long live dementia.
All this blather about “risk” of nuclear war skates over actual nuclear war. Only one leader has ever resorted to it, and he wasn’t a Communist, a National Socialist, or a Republican.
Marxism was about "class struggle".
Minoritarianism is certainly not about class struggle nor workers nor capitalism. It's a form of leftism that is about breaking national identity, balkanizing the population and weakening traditional culture and social solidarity.
It's a form of "leftism"--i.e. breaking things--that is in the interest of the global cosmopolitans and finance capital rather than opposing them. That's why it is wildly more successful than Marxism ever was in the West and shoved down our throats at every turn.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
No it wasn’t. It was about power. “Class struggle” was just a veil.
The gains that the common man has made have taken thousands of years and are still pitiful.
Obama didn't run for the benefit of the common man any more than Trump or Napoleon or Lenin did. To destroy the Czar's locus of power would be counterproductive to their very goals - having that power for themselves.
That's why it's actually cirrect to say that Marxism or Communism has never been done. It hasn't. Any more than Democracy has been done.
To the extent that a Romney or a ¡Jeb! appeal to the masses it is because that's how the game of thrones is played these days.
Marxism may technically be about overthrowing the bourgeois class system but, in practice, neither the members of the 99% Class nor their leaders actually want equality. They want there to be a lower clases forever. They just don't want to be in it.
What about Georgia? Aren’t we a couple of days short of being two weeks after reopening? Shouldn’t everyone be infected by now? Shouldn’t hospitals be overwhelmed? I don’t expect deaths to change much for another week.
Of course. Every Revolution, including our own quadrennial Ballet Revolutions is just a game of thrones. It’s about who gets to sit in the throne, not about getting rid if the throne in the name of demo-cracy or commu-nism or social-ism.
The gains that the common man has made have taken thousands of years and are still pitiful.
Obama didn’t run for the benefit of the common man any more than Trump or Napoleon or Lenin did. To destroy the Czar’s locus of power would be counterproductive to their very goals – having that power for themselves.
That’s why it’s actually cirrect to say that Marxism or Communism has never been done. It hasn’t. Any more than Democracy has been done.
To the extent that a Romney or a ¡Jeb! appeal to the masses it is because that’s how the game of thrones is played these days.
Marxism may technically be about overthrowing the bourgeois class system but, in practice, neither the members of the 99% Class nor their leaders actually want equality. They want there to be a lower clases forever. They just don’t want to be in it.
No, the timing is crucial: the (formerly) affluent West would collapse before the East gives in.
How did they react when you told them that? Did they blush?
I have heard from residents of Sweden that such a suggestion will horrify native Swedes. They become quiet all of a sudden.
Pennsylvania 290, 110, 2.67
Illinois 246, 89, 2.76Replies: @XYZ (no Mr.), @Lars Porsena, @Anonymous Jew
But how much of Sweden lives outside of Stockholm and other cities? Stockholm’s population density is 13k/square mile (that would be 4th among major US Cities). Also, how many of Sweden’s deaths are from its non-native Somalis et al?
All of this is moot by my calculations. If, for example, the coronavirus takes 10 years off the average victim’s life and one week off everyone else’s (lost life events, public and private debt, psychological impact, house arrest, civil liberties etc) the lockdown would have to save about 630,000 lives to break even. That’s lives saved, not total deaths. There are different ways to run the numbers, but the only way to make the numbers close is if the lockdown saves a huge amount of lives and causes minimum inconvenience for everyone else. And that’s not going to happen based on the data we have.
If you want to maximize human life, the logical thing to do is simply let it rip with only a few, narrowly tailored interventions (masks in certain settings, ban events like Mardi Gras etc).
Unfortunately for Sweden, in 30 years coronaChan will be a distant memory but the Muslims and Africans that invaded their country and bred like rabbits won’t be. They chose the wrong policy to take a stand on.
Well said AJ. Very well said.
All of this is moot by my calculations. If, for example, the coronavirus takes 10 years off the average victim’s life and one week off everyone else’s (lost life events, public and private debt, psychological impact, house arrest, civil liberties etc) the lockdown would have to save about 630,000 lives to break even. That’s lives saved, not total deaths. There are different ways to run the numbers, but the only way to make the numbers close is if the lockdown saves a huge amount of lives and causes minimum inconvenience for everyone else. And that’s not going to happen based on the data we have.
If you want to maximize human life, the logical thing to do is simply let it rip with only a few, narrowly tailored interventions (masks in certain settings, ban events like Mardi Gras etc).
Unfortunately for Sweden, in 30 years coronaChan will be a distant memory but the Muslims and Africans that invaded their country and bred like rabbits won’t be. They chose the wrong policy to take a stand on.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @utu, @AnotherDad
” If, for example, the coronavirus takes 10 years off the average victim’s life and one week off everyone else’s (lost life events, public and private debt, psychological impact, house arrest, civil liberties etc)”
That’s a big question we aren’t close to answering yet. My guess is that Quality Adjusted Life Years lost among those who die might be more like 5 QALYs than 10. But what about, say, those who are hospitalized but pull through? What’s the long term cost on average in QALYs for them? How do you figure that out for a 4 month old novel disease?
I’d guess by way of analogy to other diseases that sometimes put people in the hospital.
https://www.pewforum.org/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/19/western-europeans-vary-in-their-nationalist-anti-immigrant-and-anti-religious-minority-attitudes/Replies: @Bard of Bumperstickers, @alt right moderate, @Pericles
Right? ‘Cause obliterating one’s nation, via unchecked immigration of a violent, mentally deficient culture of rapacious termites and locusts is so nationalistic.
This seems true. I always sense a feeling of contempt from Somalis, both from men and women, when I am in Scandinavia. However, in Finland they employ many nurses (women) from Thailand, Philippines and Cambodia. These women come alone, and send money back to their families. Therefore, are they as dedicated to their elderly patients who may not be culturally relevant to them? – it’s just a job.
I wonder how many foreign nurses/aids/cleaners who work taking care of the elderly really are motivated by kindness rather than picking up a paycheck. We know what the answer is.
I have been impressed by staff (American melting pot) who work in rehabilitation facilities and hospice care. These people, regardless if they are immigrants, enter this demanding field because they felt a calling a long time ago – hospice nurses are the highest level/ranking.
So, yeah, it seems weird to me that so many foreign “guest workers,” and sullen refugees are working with fragile people in the Nordic countries. Which, to make another stab at SJW’s: the Nordic countries do not pay nurses well: ethnic citizens nor immigrants. Ironic that USA, particularly so-called Progressives, think everything is so much better in Scandinavia! – nurses, childcare, teachers have low salaries. Another bubble bursts.
I think Lars is fundamentally correct. There is a very low probability that some miracle drug, or approach is going to be discovered in the near term. I have read some on the research they are doing now and they are still at the very beginning just starting to understand the mechanisms that Covid uses to cause the various diseases (coagulation, bleeding, pneumonia etc.). Once they understand the mechanisms, they may be able to better target therapies. It is very early days.
Sure they are tweaking treatments and may save a small number of additional lives as the slowly gain knowledge. But your likelihood of surviving Covid is only increasing by a very small amount each week/month.
Meanwhile the damage done by the lockdowns increases much more rapidly. Not only economic, but social and health. There is article floating out there where someone is making the case that additional TB deaths alone due to the lockdown exceed the deaths saved by Covid. Possibly more hysteria in this article. But the point is no one can demonstrate that we are not causing more people to be killed by the lockdown than without the lockdown. It is likely, in my opinion, that the lockdown will kill many more people that it will save.
The Swedish experts feel that we are going to need to live with the reality that virtually everyone, in the near future, will be exposed and probably infected by Covid. They feel the death rate from Covid is not high enough to warrant shutting down society. Their prior predictions are coming largely true and, therefore, I tend to weigh their advice as better than than our own. I also like the fact they are holding true to their beliefs in the face of massive blowback.
You don't need a miracle drug or approach. Start with getting enough masks and sanitizer and tests and seeing if the properly adjusted CFR is dropping. That'd be my vote, anyway, but as I say, I realize I share this country with those who vote differently, and I'm fine with a pretty wide range of approaches.
"There is article floating out there where someone is making the case that additional TB deaths alone due to the lockdown exceed the deaths saved by Covid."
Yeah, and there's one saying that Bill Gates's vaccine will give our kids autism. In other words, it seems the corona-truthers can shriek hysterically about some article "floating out there" as well as the doomers. Good for you. Let's keep that in mind when one side pretends the other has a monopoly on apocalyptic doomsday scenarios.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/may/01/sweden-coronavirus-strategy-nationalists-britain
Her homepage at Uppsala University:
https://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N6-952Replies: @Lagertha
Would love to know how she spins that!
This is the problem with Swedish women: they did not have to suffer nor sacrifice anything during the WW’s, or since 1809. This is why they are such insufferable, misandrist SJW’s. It seems like a severe neurotic sense of inferiority, and need to matter. So, they get all involved in fruitless work in Africa, Middle East, wherever – and, often they get raped or killed in the process.
It really is weird. Had they had bombs dropped on them; suffered severe food rationing; were child evacuees; made uniforms, warm weather clothing for their soldiers, packed food, packed food for horses, they would have become enlightened/strong and independent. Women in war-time Finland, ran the farms, factories, hospitals, businesses, alone, and they would not have allowed their daughters or granddaughters to study sociology and and write about such idiotic topics like this.
Hahaa: Gigi Gustavsson: epitome of a non-essential worker!
Of course, the Lutheran church that made them vulnerable had been beating on them for five centuries.I am sure Finnish women of today are just as insufferable SJW's as Swedish ones, although a bit retarded. Maybe the tradition of Lotta Svärd has held them back.
Still, great hordes of Finns do nothing but study sociology today.
Yeah, because tribalism and "xenophobia" are evolutionary psychological defense mechanisms which were produced through millions of years of natural selection. Groups with a healthy distrust of outsiders survived. Those without such defenses were wiped out and replaced.
Even the strongest of such inborn defenses can be eroded with powerful public propaganda campaigns, however. The almost totally Jewish-owned Swedish media (owned by the Bonnier family and the halachically Jewish Peter Hjorne) have been very effective at psychologically mindfucking the Swedes, suppressing their natural psychosocial immune system, giving their country a mass case of pathological altruistic Stockholm syndrome for a rapidly growing "immigrant" community. As the AIDS virus does its host, the suppression of the national immune system by this parasitic foreign caste has resulted in an infestation by various opportunistic parasites which will eventually kill the host.
This is what happens when your national media is co-opted by a hostile foreign elite.Replies: @Rosie, @Menschmaschine
It is interesting to compare the immigration policy in Sweden to that of its neighbour Denmark:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8285149/Denmarks-immigration-ministry-declares-wonderful-migrants-left-entered-2019.html
I have previously commented that Jewish influence on immigration policy in Europe is mostly indirect via US cultural and political domination. But here it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the marked difference in immigration policy between the two neighbours is due to the fact that nearly all Jews left Denmark, primarily for Sweden, during WWII (With most not bothering to return later, which has of course nothing to do with the old antisemitic canard that Jews don’t have much attachment to their “home countries” ).
I disagree somewhat. Swedes did not live fat and sassy since 1809, but suffered many hardships. The rot was stuck into them in the 1970’s.
Of course, the Lutheran church that made them vulnerable had been beating on them for five centuries.
I am sure Finnish women of today are just as insufferable SJW’s as Swedish ones, although a bit retarded. Maybe the tradition of Lotta Svärd has held them back.
Still, great hordes of Finns do nothing but study sociology today.
Stockholm county: 700, 360, 1.94
Are the arctic circle mountains in Sweden really comparable to downstate Illinois?Replies: @Lars Porsena, @utu
Population Density of Stockholm: 4,800 per sq.km
Manhattan: 27,826 per sq.km
Brooklyn: 14,649 per sq.km
Bronx 13,231 sq.km
Queens: 8,354 sq. km
____________________
I have looked at 22 European countries and found that the population density explains about 25% of data variance. To use the population density variable correctly one would have to calculate the disease effective population density. Each victim should be assigned the population density of the 5km radius where he lived/worked. Then the weighted population density should be calculated for each country, state or region. I am pretty confident that then the explained variance would be much larger.
Cook County IL: 322, 1200, 0.27
That's based on the official figure for area per wikipedia. However if we only count the land area and not the middle of lake Michigan instead it's:
Cook County IL: 322, 2120, 0.15
The rest of Illinois without Cook County:
IL - Cook: 209, 51, 4.09
Despite a lower deaths per millions the massive amount of corn has shot this figure of deaths per density way up over Chicago.Replies: @utu
I believe that the effective population density and the age demographic profile together should explain the majority of the variance in the covid death per capita data. The population density directly affects R0 and the age demographics determines the value of IFR.
https://www.unz.com/jthompson/europe-sickens/#comment-3879524
“Population’s effective IFR depends on the population age demographics. In many European countries 20% of population is above 65 years old (Italy 23%, Germany 21.5%, Portugal 21.5%, Finland 21.2%, Sweden 19.9%, ….). The youngest European countries are Norway 16.8%, Poland 16.8%, Slovakia 15.1%, Iceland 14.4%, Ireland 13.9%). Outside of Europe many countries are much younger: Israel 11.7%, Columbia 7.6%, Vietnam 7.2%, Egypt 5.2%, Nigeria 2.8%. So one may expect that IFR in Israel will be two times lower than in Italy and in Vietnam it will be 3 times lower and in Egypt 4 times lower and in Nigeria 8 times lower than in Italy.”
We should be able to do an analysis like that for the US at the county level. Are you able to do it, or do you need me to do the heavy lifting?
P.S. Is median age enough information about age demographics? How about percentage over 65?
Crowded states can have empty areas. Ever heard of the Pine Barrens? The Adirondacks? The Everglades? Death Valley?
This goes for Sweden as well. The top two-thirds of the country is empty. Were Sweden the male organ it looks like, most everybody would be living in the glans cap.
This is nothing new. A map of archaeological sites:
All of this is moot by my calculations. If, for example, the coronavirus takes 10 years off the average victim’s life and one week off everyone else’s (lost life events, public and private debt, psychological impact, house arrest, civil liberties etc) the lockdown would have to save about 630,000 lives to break even. That’s lives saved, not total deaths. There are different ways to run the numbers, but the only way to make the numbers close is if the lockdown saves a huge amount of lives and causes minimum inconvenience for everyone else. And that’s not going to happen based on the data we have.
If you want to maximize human life, the logical thing to do is simply let it rip with only a few, narrowly tailored interventions (masks in certain settings, ban events like Mardi Gras etc).
Unfortunately for Sweden, in 30 years coronaChan will be a distant memory but the Muslims and Africans that invaded their country and bred like rabbits won’t be. They chose the wrong policy to take a stand on.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @utu, @AnotherDad
“All of this is moot by my calculations. If, for example, the coronavirus takes 10 years off the average victim’s life and one week off everyone else’s (lost life events, public and private debt, psychological impact, house arrest, civil liberties etc) the lockdown would have to save about 630,000 lives to break even. ” – What conversion coefficient do you use to compare 1 week of lost life with 1 week of lost life events. Walking, bowling, dining out must have their own conversion coefficients? Should sleeping count for anything? Do not forget to add the value of human corps utilization in your ledger. You may consult German tables from Auschwitz.
That's the last 3 months. I have the joy in living in one of the states where the governor is getting progressively more strict in lockdown policies even now, and claims life can never return to normal without a vaccine. What's the cost benefit on the next 3 months?Replies: @HA, @Polynikes
“Many of the people who died 2 months ago will still die today, and to the people who aren’t dying anyway (which is the vast majority) it makes no difference.”
And there we have it. Some people just can’t be bothered if they’re not the ones doing the dying. To them, it makes no difference.
I can’t really argue with that, because if that’s the guiding principle, even if the dead were in the tens of millions, as long as you yourself weren’t one of them, you can’t be bothered.
Really, though, you should have been honest enough to lead with that. Everything else was just lipstick on a pig.
What I said was if they were only having mild symptoms, an extra 3 months of experience for hospitals dealing with corona does not effect their survival chance.
It is like threading a needle. What is the percentage of people who's survival has actually changed? It is a very small percentage of a small percentage.Replies: @HA
Meanwhile the damage done by the lockdowns increases much more rapidly. Not only economic, but social and health. There is article floating out there where someone is making the case that additional TB deaths alone due to the lockdown exceed the deaths saved by Covid. Possibly more hysteria in this article. But the point is no one can demonstrate that we are not causing more people to be killed by the lockdown than without the lockdown. It is likely, in my opinion, that the lockdown will kill many more people that it will save.
The Swedish experts feel that we are going to need to live with the reality that virtually everyone, in the near future, will be exposed and probably infected by Covid. They feel the death rate from Covid is not high enough to warrant shutting down society. Their prior predictions are coming largely true and, therefore, I tend to weigh their advice as better than than our own. I also like the fact they are holding true to their beliefs in the face of massive blowback.Replies: @HA
“There is a very low probability that some miracle drug, or approach is going to be discovered in the near term.”
You don’t need a miracle drug or approach. Start with getting enough masks and sanitizer and tests and seeing if the properly adjusted CFR is dropping. That’d be my vote, anyway, but as I say, I realize I share this country with those who vote differently, and I’m fine with a pretty wide range of approaches.
“There is article floating out there where someone is making the case that additional TB deaths alone due to the lockdown exceed the deaths saved by Covid.”
Yeah, and there’s one saying that Bill Gates’s vaccine will give our kids autism. In other words, it seems the corona-truthers can shriek hysterically about some article “floating out there” as well as the doomers. Good for you. Let’s keep that in mind when one side pretends the other has a monopoly on apocalyptic doomsday scenarios.
All of this is moot by my calculations. If, for example, the coronavirus takes 10 years off the average victim’s life and one week off everyone else’s (lost life events, public and private debt, psychological impact, house arrest, civil liberties etc) the lockdown would have to save about 630,000 lives to break even. That’s lives saved, not total deaths. There are different ways to run the numbers, but the only way to make the numbers close is if the lockdown saves a huge amount of lives and causes minimum inconvenience for everyone else. And that’s not going to happen based on the data we have.
If you want to maximize human life, the logical thing to do is simply let it rip with only a few, narrowly tailored interventions (masks in certain settings, ban events like Mardi Gras etc).
Unfortunately for Sweden, in 30 years coronaChan will be a distant memory but the Muslims and Africans that invaded their country and bred like rabbits won’t be. They chose the wrong policy to take a stand on.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @utu, @AnotherDad
Bingo. Your nation’s CoronaChan policy–what a petty little piece of nonsense to get all high and mighty about.
Well said AJ. Very well said.
Just a question: Why is everyone fixated on Sweden (with it’s voluntary social distancing added to the intrinsic distancing of its inhabitants) when we have a country that really did let it rip, Belarus, which is denser on average, has a high percentage of residents in urban areas, and whose new case level seems to have completely flattened; and not just on a log scale?
Are they lying liars who lie? Or should we just wait two weeks? Because that’s what I hear from the smartest people on the planet around these parts every time.
In Belarus, World War II Victory Parade Will Go On Despite Rise In COVID-19 Cases
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/08/852673360/in-belarus-world-war-ii-victory-parade-will-go-on-despite-rise-in-covid-19-casesI would think Lukashenko would be a hero to some here. And a devil to others. I agree with the final paragraph in this excerpt.
1. How well do you know Elon Musk to make that assertion?
2. Even if what you say is true, he has built up 2 tech based businesses that are doing quite well. That’s a pretty solid accomplishment.
“Blind patriotism” and the “darker side of nationalism” are nothing that will ever be printed in the Jewish-owned Washington Post about Jews and Israel.
It will only be printed in the bigoted Washington Post in regard to non-Jews.
Observing this example of anti-European hate and agitation:
what was that again, about Jewry being innocent?
You don’t say, Jews. Couldn’t be less interesting. I think that you have some Palestinians to attend to, and eat some extra sh@# today for attempting to yet again undermine and destroy Europe.
Today, its easy to take solace in the older mythologies that frequently contain themes of the devil eventually being chained in a pit forever.
The main feature of Maoists isn’t their opposition to mass social engineering. What color is the sky in your world?
Hard to say because we've never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don't care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly...)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don't care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that's not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he's borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we're still living in Regan's world--the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan's Reaganesque tax cuts. Y'all like it here? I'm overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I'm surrounded with.Replies: @SimpleSong, @Dtbb, @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar, @RichardTaylor, @RichardTaylor
But I don’t think that’s why China suddenly rose. I think it’s because they allowed some free markets and got rid of the worst command and control elements of communism. If it was just a matter of having Really Smart People run everything, seems like they would have been at the top centuries ago?
And plus, the West helped them by providing a vast market and using their workers as cheap labor.
Yeah I wonder if this is why all the computer engineers in Silicon Valley rolled over for the SJWs? I must say, despite their occasional bravado, they are squarely in the “don’t make trouble” camp when it comes to political/social conflict.
Basically, they’re told to stick to their formulas and let others run overall society. And they do.
That's the last 3 months. I have the joy in living in one of the states where the governor is getting progressively more strict in lockdown policies even now, and claims life can never return to normal without a vaccine. What's the cost benefit on the next 3 months?Replies: @HA, @Polynikes
Out of “likes” but I agree. It’s likely the lockdowns won’t be worth it by any metric. But the marginal utility of HA’s argument, while not wrong, will be so small as to be not worth considering when we analyze this in retrospect.
No, they’re pretending that hosing down city streets with bleach from a sprayer truck is going to stop a viral epidemic.
I understand the Chinese swear by tiger-dick soup too. Maybe you should have some. It might be medicinal.
And it can hardly be taken as an argument for it being vital. Ferguson’s line – and because of him that taken by the British government – is that by going outside you are killing people. You’re killing people!
So, either Ferguson is a killer, or he really doesn’t believe the bullshit he’s peddling.
Lockdowns these past 4 weeks is a mistake. However, now people know that cities are not where you want to live….so that is the upshot. And, being around people who you share no connection to, is also, bad. Immigration is bad. Diversity is bad. Multiculturalism is a complete illusion and globalism is an utter failure that causes famine and distress. I could go on. At this point, I only have compassion for the farm animals that are being slaughtered due to the evil people who brought this pandemic upon us…and, I am not simply speaking about China. There are truly horrible people in this world, and people need to wake-up about that fact.
Nah, they have little care for anyone. They would treat their own no better, aka pretty badly. Remember we are talking about the same folks who aren’t even bothering to take care of themselves!
Sure, but do we have the people?
Dilbert will hate me for this, but the difference between an engineer and a marketer is made clear when products don’t perform.
Engineer: “It’s usually the user’s fault.”
Marketer: “It’s never the customer’s fault.”
The best response, Ive found, is to hold up Uber on my phone and say look, I've never once needed to refer to a user manual for this. Now go fix!
Yes. And as the technologists say, “GIGO”.
https://www.pewforum.org/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/19/western-europeans-vary-in-their-nationalist-anti-immigrant-and-anti-religious-minority-attitudes/Replies: @Bard of Bumperstickers, @alt right moderate, @Pericles
Yes according to survey’s the Swedes are more liberal and less nationalistic than most Europeans. However, Swedish does have some very smart nationalists. Look how the Swedish Democrats have bagged 18 percent of the vote and had a big influence on immigration policy, despite formidable head winds. Compare that with the pathetic showing of the British National Party, which couldn’t even pull 2 percent of the vote in its best showing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Northern_War
Hard to say because we've never tried it. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter I believe are the only presidents who have engineering backgrounds; in our system the ruling class is typically educated in law or finance.
Most of the people I know who have really heterodox opinions while still being highly educated are scientists/engineers, I think the reason for this is that they like to live in the world of things and not people. So they don't care if their opinions are not accepted by polite society. They also have personal experience with truth being something that is not based on consensus opinion (aka the bridge falls down despite the paperwork being done correctly...)
The other side of this coin is that they often lack the ability (or even desire) to persuade, they don't care that much about appearances, etc., so they have little success in things like politics.
My personal opinion is that Jimmy Carter was the most alt-right president ever. He started taking steps to disentangle us from foreign obligations, recognized the value of autarky and began the (painful) process of making us energy independent, etc.
But that's not what Americans wanted. They want a charismatic, handsome former actor who will get bamboozled on the amnesty act of 1986 because he's borderline demented, pointlessly risk nuclear war challenging another superpower that had been contained for 40 years and was not threatening US territory (although that actually came out well, but it could have gone very very badly), and kick off the process of transferring power from labor to capital thus destroying the middle and working classes. America as capitalism, America as a market. How is that different from the transnationalism of Marxism?
Anyway we're still living in Regan's world--the only thing Trump has passed was Paul Ryan's Reaganesque tax cuts. Y'all like it here? I'm overwhelmed with the all the vibrant freedom I'm surrounded with.Replies: @SimpleSong, @Dtbb, @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar, @RichardTaylor, @RichardTaylor
Getting rid of Big Communism, totally discrediting it, has been a huge boon to the world. A big reason why the world is much richer and will continue to get richer.
Carter’s problem was that he had those “let’s all suffer and sacrifice” sensibilities. In a weird way, he didn’t have American sensibilities.
If you think American capitalism is the same as Marxism you’re living on another planet. Why did the Marxists have to shoot people who tried to escape? Why do we worry about too many trying to get in? Why were so many people trying to get into America even under mean ol’ Reagan?
We needn't worry, our capitalist dole queues and food banks can take the strain.
https://www.pewforum.org/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/19/western-europeans-vary-in-their-nationalist-anti-immigrant-and-anti-religious-minority-attitudes/Replies: @Bard of Bumperstickers, @alt right moderate, @Pericles
I assume that WaPo is doing a bit of imperial policing. Thänk you for the reminder, Massa Bezos! It’s good that you think of us, your poor subjects so far away from the imperial capital.
It should also be noted that since the old concerns of whites not kissing the feet of their global Judeo-Homo-POC masters with sufficient enthusiasm are coming back, I guess the crisis must be over.
Here is Gina Gustavsson:
https://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N6-952
https://uppsala.academia.edu/GinaGustavsson
Basically some sort of tenured sell-out to the muslims.
The joke in the north is, keep a two meter distance? why do they want us to crowd up close that way?
There. Fixed it for ya!
The power base of the Swedish Democrats is in the Eastern third of Denmark (Skåne), which has been occupied by Sweden for 370 years (with a few short interruptions).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Northern_War
Now that’ true. On the Corona Virus he deports from the left but supports basic income and is against oil.
But how would Pennsylvania be compared to Lombardy Italy or Catalonia Spain? If you are going to Cherry pick, you are going to make Sweden look better?
You have chosen to interpret that as not caring if they died.
What I said was if they were only having mild symptoms, an extra 3 months of experience for hospitals dealing with corona does not effect their survival chance.
It is like threading a needle. What is the percentage of people who’s survival has actually changed? It is a very small percentage of a small percentage.
Engineer: "It's usually the user's fault."
Marketer: "It's never the customer's fault."Replies: @Testing12
Ha! Very true – If I had a nickel every time one of my developers insisted confusion caused by their shitty UX was merely “user error” to be remediated by “user education” instead of redesign, I would be as rich as Elon.
The best response, Ive found, is to hold up Uber on my phone and say look, I’ve never once needed to refer to a user manual for this. Now go fix!
Which is why re-electing Trump and appointing conservative federal judges is a top priority if we want to save America.
What I said was if they were only having mild symptoms, an extra 3 months of experience for hospitals dealing with corona does not effect their survival chance.
It is like threading a needle. What is the percentage of people who's survival has actually changed? It is a very small percentage of a small percentage.Replies: @HA
“What I said was if they were only having mild symptoms, an extra 3 months of experience for hospitals dealing with corona does not effect their survival chance.”
Um, OK. For the people who doesn’t need treatment, it doesn’t matter how much better the treatments are getting. True enough, I suppose, but did something that obvious even need to be said?
“It is like threading a needle. What is the percentage of people who’s survival has actually changed? It is a very small percentage of a small percentage.”
In a country of 300 million people or so, a small percentage of a small percentage can still be a very large number of dead people. If Toyota has a defective gas pedal that once in a hundred cars accelerates suddenly, does it really have to recall every single one of those pedals? Yes, of course it does. They don’t get to make trivial observations like the one you made. Sure, it may well that compared to the many people who die on the highways as it is, the extra dead are only a small blip, but that’s not an excuse either. To the extent their mistake was the result of identifiably bad design or some other bungling, they are expected to fix it. No one is asking for the moon in this case. Making sure that the sick have — at the very least — masks and sanitizers and the medicines required to treat them (especially when it’s something as generic as HCQ or whatever, assuming that’s ever shown to be effective) is not some pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking on my part.
You asked about the percentage of people whose survival has changed. You know, that’s actually something we could measure. Wouldn’t it be better to do that as opposed to just dismissing the matter altogether or just assume it’s not worth bothering with? At this point, it seems as if you’re just throwing any objection you have at the wall in the hope that something sticks. And also waving around the concept of “small” like it’s a trump card. Yeah, I get it. Even if coronavirus took out one or two percent of the population (which it might ultimately do if no vaccine is found, given that immunity for existing coronaviruses only lasts a year or so, and if this thing is similar it will be able to take another bite out of everyone every few years) it would still be a small number, so according to you, what’s the big deal?
A beatnik is standing on the corner snapping his fingers.
A guy comes by and says, “Why are you snapping your fingers?”
The beatnik says, “It keep the tigers away, man.”
Guy says, “There aren’t any tigers within 10,000 miles of here!”
The beatnik says, “See. It’s working!”
And that, my homies, will be the justification for how the lockdown worked. Those who were so dreadfully wrong, who threw 30 million people out of work, who added 10% to the national debt, and who destroyed 25% of our economy, will suffer no consequences.
“And that, my homies, will be the justification for how the lockdown worked.”
Except that those who seem peculiarly incapable of following lockdown restrictions seem to be the ones that are hardest hit.
So to follow your analogy, it turns out that beatniks who don’t bother to snap their fingers are disproportionately likely to mysteriously get turned into tiger scat.
And also consider the fact that tigers prowling around the hedges tend to put a damper on people wanting to go out and carry on business as usual even if they primarily prey on just the old and the sickly, and only rarely get hungry. Trying to blame the economic downturn on just the finger-snapping is not going to fool anyone who doesn’t want to be fooled. Even the countries that have tried a softer approach to lock-downs are still feeling plenty of hurt. But I get it — you want to pretend this virus is just some fiction, so the only thing left to blame is those trying to put a dent in its casualty rates.
“The main feature of Maoists isn’t their opposition to mass social engineering. What color is the sky in your world?”
A key feature of the Cultural Revolution was dispensing with nerd-rule, so to speak. I don’t have a problem with your statement, but it doesn’t disprove mine, nor does it change the fact that getting rid of the geeks — like some of Mao’s other quick-fix think-from-the-gut “common sense” solutions — proved to be disastrous, and something the Chinese don’t seem eager to repeat, especially given all the other flaws (inherent in any system of Communism) that they already have to contend with.
So, once you’re done pondering on the color of the sky, see if you can reflect on that. If that can occupy your time to the extent that it prevents you from dispensing any more disastrously idiotic forecasts of coronavirus mortality, you will have done us all a favor.
https://www.unz.com/jthompson/europe-sickens/#comment-3879524
"Population’s effective IFR depends on the population age demographics. In many European countries 20% of population is above 65 years old (Italy 23%, Germany 21.5%, Portugal 21.5%, Finland 21.2%, Sweden 19.9%, ….). The youngest European countries are Norway 16.8%, Poland 16.8%, Slovakia 15.1%, Iceland 14.4%, Ireland 13.9%). Outside of Europe many countries are much younger: Israel 11.7%, Columbia 7.6%, Vietnam 7.2%, Egypt 5.2%, Nigeria 2.8%. So one may expect that IFR in Israel will be two times lower than in Italy and in Vietnam it will be 3 times lower and in Egypt 4 times lower and in Nigeria 8 times lower than in Italy."Replies: @res
I would be surprised if you are correct. There is a reason I keep arguing about what a big deal it is that a single IQ number explains over 50% of intelligence test variance.
We should be able to do an analysis like that for the US at the county level. Are you able to do it, or do you need me to do the heavy lifting?
P.S. Is median age enough information about age demographics? How about percentage over 65?
Because the Swedish data can be used to validate lockdowns if spun correctly? (as utu is attempting) Do you know of any good accounts of COVID-19 countermeasures and results in Belarus?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out:
In Belarus, World War II Victory Parade Will Go On Despite Rise In COVID-19 Cases
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/08/852673360/in-belarus-world-war-ii-victory-parade-will-go-on-despite-rise-in-covid-19-cases
I would think Lukashenko would be a hero to some here. And a devil to others. I agree with the final paragraph in this excerpt.
Why do we worry about too many trying to get in?
We needn’t worry, our capitalist dole queues and food banks can take the strain.
He's not a dumb guy. We need a better breakdown of the deaths.
As far as Sweden and other dissenters, it seems to really irk the new technocrats. Glancing at Greg Cochran's blog, I get the impression some people are eager for a dictatorship of the scientists (which would be a disaster). They don't seem too crazy about free markets or free speech. Please spare us the engineer-king.Replies: @Joe Walker, @Jake, @Anonymouse, @Dumbo, @SimpleSong, @HA, @Buffalo Joe, @Testing12, @obwandiyag, @UK, @Jon Orton
Some of the Pacific Islands, at least the one I live on, have taken the same pragmatic approach that Sweden has. Business and personal life continue as normal here albeit with constant reminders to keep hands washed and, when in public, slightly more distance than usual to the next person.
We’ve had very few acknowledged cases and no deaths officially ascribed to the virus. That said, I understand relatively few tests are carried out on patients that present with symptoms that are nowadays associated with covid-19, such as pneumonia etc. There have been deaths ascribed to those issues but it seems that the over riding philosophy is don’t scare the horses as things will be what they will be and we’ll come through this ok in the end.
Watching the rest of the world’s apparent descent into madness from afar, I congratulate our government on their stance. Nevertheless many families here are already suffering from the economic fall out due to our decimated tourist industry. That said, the larger Pacific islands are far better placed to deal with privation as it’s very easy to carry out subsistence farming. Sometimes even the fence posts sprout leaves.
Food, clean water, a roof and reasonable health are the essentials – everything else is gravy.
Ferguson looks like a nerdy guy who never got much female attention. Now he’s famous he’s getting hit on by attractive women and it’s made him lose his mind.