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VIDEO: Boris Johnson with two naked men No, this is not one of my clickbait headlines. The video is from 2000 and at 1:03 we see a younger, slimmer Boris express commendably libertarian views on the right to be naked in conversation with two people exercising that right.
Sad to say, an older, fatter Boris has recently “ditched ‘libertarian’ position on obesity after coronavirus battle”, according to PoliticsHome.
The Prime Minister is not the only one to cut a poor figure compared to his earlier self. His host on that trip to Glastonbury – for there it was that these events took place – was the singer and songwriter Billy Bragg. Bragg has always been a massive lefty, of course, but in that video from the turn of the millennium he came across as enjoying the exchange of political barbs with Johnson. In contrast, the Billy Bragg of a few days ago who wrote this miserable article in support of cancel culture in the Guardian comes across as an old man abasing himself before the cult of youth.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Face mask fuckwittery. Despite Gove BS yesterday tomorrow SNP-aping face-masks-in-shops is to be announced.
The cleverness of the evil is that all the shops will try to enforce the evil. So we end up brawling with shop staff.
And Plod can role out breeching the peace etc.
Too many bedwetting scum. But I will do what I can to ruin as many businesses who comply as possible.
” But I will do what I can to ruin as many businesses who comply as possible.”
I don’t think that is really fair on the business in question. The government is to blame for this nonsense.
Ditherer Boris Decides, compulsory masks in shops from next Friday (but covid will leave us alone till then).
How will supermarkets markets impose this on their own staff who gave up on masks and everything else months ago and how will the Police enforce it since as one said to me a while back ‘we don’t wear them’.
What should we do to protest against the mandatory wearing of face coverings in shops?
James Strong, Wear a pair of Y-fronts over your head which obeys the law while displaying your contempt for it.
All falling to pieces already, BBC Radio 4 8am news Sports Direct boss came just short of calling it total ballocks followed by the Chief Constable of somewhere declaring it to be unenforceable.
Maybe ask BLM for some advice? Ahem…
James Strong, do a Blackadder by wearing a pair of Y-fronts over your head/face which would comply with the stupidity and show your contempt for it.
The thing is collapsing already. BBC R4 8am news, boss of Sports Direct saying it’s not for his staff to enforce and stopped just short of calling it total ballocks. Followed by the Chief Constable of somewhere saying that compulsory mask wearing was not enforceable, Policing by consent blah blah so it’s up to those who do notconsent to stand firm.
There are a couple ways to approach the mask tyranny short of armed insurrection (and, sadly, there are too few of us for that option):
1) you could comply but in a way that mocks the whole pantomime; wear a V for Vendetta mask (it covers the mouth and nose, and a sufficient number in the shops should send the correct message to our portly version of Chancellor Sutler), or a burka, or, perhaps one of these
2) don’t wear one; here in Scotland we’ve been under the yoke since July 10th and you’re allowed to claim an exemption for a ‘health condition’. No proof of your ‘health condition’ is required, and you’re under no obligation to disclose details of your medical history, nor does anyone have the right to demand that you do. I have a health condition that I believes confers exemption and haven’t worn a mask since the horseshit began. Ditto my good lady (though yesterday a shopworker asked her why she couldn’t wear a badge to signify that; one wonders if a yellow Star of David is what the shopworker had in mind…). I bet many Samizdatistas (particularly those who are older, and have suffered their fair share of the slings and arrows) can find some medical / health justification for not wearing a mask. I’ve no idea what provisions will be in the mask SI for England, but I imagine it’ll largely align with what’s been visited upon us in Scotland.
Remember: all you have to do is say “no” one more time than they demand “yes” and you win. Resist in whatever way you can, and do not go gentle into that good night.
The degeneration of lefty Bragg was predictable. The left is going where it has obviously been going all my adult life. The exceptions are the (pleasant) surprise, not Bragg.
I was aware back in 2016 (so much has happened since then, but I still remember 🙂 ) that £350millionNHS was part of the win-Brexitref deal and it was very important to win Brexit. So you may say that I accepted that deal. Boris has, is and will disappoint in various ways (stop the presses: libertarian criticises government) but whenever it is in a specifically-NHS-related area, there will always be a part of me that remembers: “You knew what they were doing (and you were supporting) when you sought to win on those terms”.
Used to be–I understand that shop workers are still exempt from wearing masks. Blojo is a cosmic idiot. As if a poss 7 million on the dole and angry in time for Xmas isn’t enough trouble,he wants an extra war over soggy face nappies.
Ed Turnbull–also make yourself a wide mesh metal mask which wont keep out the breezes and is no more useless than a cloth suffcator. Let the shops or Plod try to dictate what is a face mask–when most you see are wearing homemade crap even more useless than ns95s. What a lovely court case and either way bad news for the mask gang.
You could make one quite easily using strips of plastic from ordinary plastic milk bottles
Also a covenant for people to sign and pay a small fee to swearing NOT to wear the mask and to fight all fines and cop thuggery.
Ed Turnbull: “There are a couple ways to approach the mask tyranny short of armed insurrection (and, sadly, there are too few of us for that option):”
[off topic rant ]
I had to go into a bank branch on Friday. Neither their internet banking nor their telephone banking could cope with the simple request, please open this new account for me. Opened the account online, a week later a letter to ask me to ‘telephone bank’, then two agents at the ‘telephone bank ( first one hung up ) couldn’t deal with the issue’. So walked into the branch. Essentially three hours to open an account, I’m not a new customer of this particular bank, I’ve had an account with them for more years than I care to remember.
Three hours of my time to get £35 interest over a year. What an utter farce. [ end off topic rant ]
Anyway, all the branch employees were wearing these stupid Perspex visors.
In the back of my mind, I’m waiting for news of the first masked gang to rob a bank.
Should I be refused entry to a shop, I’ll simply go home, tog up in my full NBC kit. So clad, I couldn’t look more of a prat than the mindlesssheepmorons wearing their useless ‘surgical’ masks.
FFS. they don’t even have a seal around the edge. Nor do they protect the mucus membranes around the eyes. And to cap it all, a viron will pass straight through the material.
APL
According to the Scottish legislation, face coverings are not required in banks or similar establishments.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2020/103/regulation/6B
Mr Ecks, see clause 6B, (2), (d) re shop staff and face coverings.
I suspect the English corona regs will end up something similar.
Other than that it must cover the mouth and nose, there is no definition of what a face covering must be made of. Arguably a bee-keepers net covers your mouth and nose!
I did see something about the FM of Wales wanting the law to specify 3-layer coverings, but I wonder if he has shares in a mask making company.
Surely if this virus is so dangerous, might Mr Johnson soon decree that this is the time for a ‘balloon debate’ where anyone who tests positive is simply thrown into a working blast furnace and instantly sterilised, taking the virus with them? That would prevent the transmission of it, if only we could test everyone, all the time. I hope that he would be working on the side-effect of a horrible rapid death for the infected and tested (and the false positives) and he might throw in a few false negatives just to be safe, but, as the common good goes before the individual good (hat-tip NSDAP), there is no logical reason (is there ever an illogical reason?) why the few should not pay the price for the sake of the many. Since no cure is worse than this disease, this drastic method will:
1. Stop the virus.
2. Keep us alert.
3. Protect the NHS.
4. Save lives (eventually).
And whilst we are at it, can a Spanish Penitent’s Hat (adopted by the KKK branch of the Democratic Party) count as a ‘face covering’?
Mr Ecks, just confirmed by a Scots retailer on Jeremy Vines show, shopworkers do not have to wear face nappies but customers can take theirs off when using the in-store cafe, and toilets. Doesn’t the Army have a word for this sort of thing ?
WoW, I just saw The Invisible Man walk down the street, face covered from under the chin to his forehead, very tidilly; topped off with thick black shades and a trilby. Mockery is the way forward.
UsedtobeBanned, Mr Ecks
Here’s the actual clause regarding shop workers:
So if the member of staff is stacking shelves, less than 2m away from customers, then, by law, they must wear a face nappy.
Duncan S Thank you for that clarification, I thought laws of that complexity and detail took years of…(insert Yes Minister scene here).
On a lighter note the Pedestrian Marshall at my nearby Co-OP was joking that he was going down the army surplus to try and find a gas mask to use next week. The old ladies loved it while the sour faced younger ones looked at him daggers.
I’ve always thought BB’s songs clever, even if their politics bordered on the Stalinist, but he has degenerated into a champagne socialist of the most risible kind.
I was always baffled as to why a “supporter of liberty” should be admirer of PERICLES.
And Mr Johnson always was a fanatical admirer of Pericles – he even had a bust of the man in his room in Oxford. This is the Pericles whose regulations and wild government spending turned that allies of Athens into enemies (as he stole the money of the defence league to finance his domestic spending) and brought Athens to its needs.
The solution to the puzzle was simple – but I was too stupid to work it out. Mr Johnson as never a supporter of liberty.
This was brutally clear even before the Covid 19 crises – as Mr Johnson was already committed to wild government spending that would break this country.
I am very sorry indeed that I voted for this man to be Leader of the Conservative Party, I give my apologies (for what little they are worth) to everyone.
All the evidence was there – but I was just too stupid to understand.
Given that ‘flu will be on us in a few months (if not a repeat of Covid) then are we to wear masks all the time or go into permanent lockdown over the winter? As the NHS cannot cope–which was the underlying message in the spring however carefully it was worded–how can they cope with anything on a large scale again?
Maybe it is permanent suppression. I never thought I’d see that from a Conservative government but I’m glad I avoided voting for them last December. I’d feel really bad about it now if I had.
Seriously? What the actual fuck. If you think this is bad, now imagine we are where we are now but with that Lenin-Lite cunt Corbyn in No.10. Jesus Christ, snap out of it!
Thank God we don’t, but no thanks to you.
No, we knew what to expect from Corbyn, that’s why we didn’t vote for him or his party.
In the back of the mind of many Tory voters, was I imagine: Tory = sober financial management of the economy.
What we got? The economy shut down, the population paid at our own expense ( HP terms, natch ) to sit on our arses for three months. While we were lied to and gulled by politicians, ‘deep Staters’, (Fergusson et al) and Internet trolls ( who knows what three letter agency they work for? ), while us Untermensch are harried and lectured day in day out.
I’ve seen British Police kneeling – actually kneeling — before a raging mob, I’ve seen leftist mobs allowed to roam the streets unopposed, I’ve seen the Police stand by while opposition to the Leftist are attacked, all under the auspisis of a supposedly Conservative government.
Your solution, ‘just snap out of it’.
This is not a Tory government and this is not good enough.
You avoided open borders, you still HAVE an economy to damage, the government still employs less than half of the country’s population, you’re getting a Brexit . . .
And now BJ is a disaster because he didn’t deliver Libertarian UK?
You sound like the people over here saying we need to dump Trump because he didn’t build the wall along the entire southern border.
What do you think we end up with if we dump Trump?
No, mate, my solution is don’t stand on your high horse & make it incomparably worse. Yes, this is a dismal government, no argument there. But even if we know what was going to happen, not voting to keep Corbyn out means you must either be a full blown socialist or you have a screw loose.
Bobby b has it exactly right.
Ed Turnbull (July 14th 8.32am) suggests “you could comply but in a way that mocks the whole pantomime” and links to a medieval ‘Plague Doctor’ mask. Unfortunately someone has already tried that and – you guessed – got a visit from the police for doing so.
But surely nobody could object if instead you went to the shops wearing a mask representing this well-remembered character from a 1980’s TV show for children, could they? (Note: I didn’t say ‘fondly remembered’)
Boris has decided to implement a policy that he must know will be hated by a large section of the population because it is both pointless and humiliating (CF Gulag Archipelago, prisoners forced to drag a pile of rocks across the yard then drag them back again, or was that the nazis ?).
It’s only purpose must be divide and rule but to what end ? No doubt when covid makes its seasonal return it will be labelled Second Wave and blamed on us for being insufficiently zealous about mask wearing so it’s local lockdown for You and Roadblock Quarantine for Them.
But again, for what purpose ?
Boris Johnson is a disaster because he has no backbone. Only four months after being returned to Parliament with an impregnable majority he crumpled like a soggy napkin – to the BBC, ‘Wah! we need more ventilators’, ‘Wah people are going to die!!’ All that bullshit.
There is no comparison with Trump. Trump has been fighting for his Presidency like a pole cat on steroids against all comers, for four years now. If he figures some battles are worth passing up, OK. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Johnson is a spineless worm. We could have been Sweden with 549 deaths per million and a functioning economy, but largely because we elected a wet blanket instead of a Prime minister, we’ve got a decimated economy, 622 deaths per million, and phenomenally increased government debt.
Trump is still good, and Johnson is the new puppy that’s just crapped on our your best Persian rug.
(That serves as my answer to PdH too)
“Boris has decided to implement a policy that he must know will be hated by a large section of the population”
A little under 10% of the population disagree with the lockdown.
“Johnson is a spineless worm. We could have been Sweden with 549 deaths per million and a functioning economy, but largely because we elected a wet blanket instead of a Prime minister, we’ve got a decimated economy, 622 deaths per million, and phenomenally increased government debt.”
Only if you had a Swedish population, who implemented their own lockdown without having to be told.
Oh, give over. This is a post-hoc rationalisation trying to get round the fact that Sweden was going to have tens of thousands of deaths, and it didn’t happen. Suddenly, instead, we are made to pretend that they did, really cross my fingers, lock down after all.
Swedish schools up to 16 remained open. How is that a lockdown without being told to? Hospitals still could accept cancer and heart patients. Again, not a lock down. Transport kept operating. People kept going to work.
Yes, people did do some of the things that a lockdown enforces. That is not the same thing at all. They had choices and options.
During my lockdown I was unable to go to work to pick up something important. Despite no-one being there. It was a pointless way to do things — I could have gone in with no risk to anyone. But apparently we were unable to weigh such risks and so had to have a stupid blanket ban. A Swede could have just gone in, even if the business was “working from home”.
“A little under 10% of the population disagree with the lockdown”
So why do only a tiny minority wear masks in shops voluntarily and the only others are those waiting at bus stops (and the occasional loon driving by himself)?
The million of deaths were bullshit. The Virus is a damp squib flu and non-wearing of masks is the only moral course remaining. Perhaps with a minor sideshow in wearing wide-open mesh metal/plastic masks that will cause them to have to define masks and open them to endless court cases and ever-growing resentment.
As for voting for Blojob in Dec. I did so for Brexit. NONE of us could have known this load of evil shite would arise.
Jizz would have been worse–already destroying econ when this shite arrived and wanted to ration food so we would be starving already. Keir Stumour has spent LD whining Johnson’s hysteria not hysterical enough.
As to this govt–well I did think Johnson just a cowardly mis-informed hysteric –and a lazy bastard who did not do checks on Pantsdown’s appalling record of doom-mongering failure.
But this –worldwide mask shit stinks of a globo-elite plan. To muzzle us 24/7 until we take Gates gene re-writing untested shite “vaccine”. Which we don’t need as we have several good enough treatments already.
Take the jab and lose the suffocator–until the next phony pandemic. This IS a tactic they will try again.
What other choice is there–submit like a cowardly dog and be unable to look your cowardly masked face in the eye? Fuck that.
Also Johnson is either a very evil globo stooge –who knows he is wrecking our economy and is content to do his masters bidding. Or he is a very stupid individual–ancient Greek speaker or no.
Stupid enough to believe money printing can not only keep things going but repair all the damage.
If they try to run winter flu as the return of or 2nd wave shite and revive LD–people WILL starve in this coming winter. We can’t take anymore “help” from Bloj.
It may be rough the next few months of standing up to morons and bluebottle scum. But help will arrive by Oct-Xmas. The states bullshit “worst case scenario” itself says maybe 4 million on dole by Xmas. Given their neo-Keynes fantasy world I think 7 million is quite possible.
So Bloj will soon have millions of v angry people on his case and a new cold war with China plus war re soggy face nappies and gen encroaching tyranny. Cos 10% of the population with balls can make life difficult for him. Together with everything else Mr Blojob will find life every bit as difficult as the rest of us will. I think–once the heat rises enough–he will do a Camoron -style runner for cover.
“Oh, give over. This is a post-hoc rationalisation trying to get round the fact that Sweden was going to have tens of thousands of deaths, and it didn’t happen.”
It’s a simple observation. Initially, cases in both Sweden and the UK were going up 10-fold a week. About two weeks in, when the alarm in Italy was raised, Sweden’s curve turned a sharp corner and the rate of infections dropped hugely. The curve in the UK didn’t. It kept on ramping upwards 10-fold a week. If the UK population had responded as early and obviously as Sweden, I doubt we would have had as severe a lockdown, either.
“But apparently we were unable to weigh such risks and so had to have a stupid blanket ban.”
Yes. Exactly.
People follow the herd. The herd was headed for what most of them could see looked like dangerous ground, but without clear direction it wasn’t stopping. When they realised how near the edge they were and how deep the hole, the flock leaders shouted ‘stop!’ and had no time for subtle. Boris has kept on going on about people using their common sense, but the flock are scared and are constantly demanding clear, detailed, and precise instructions about everything, and then enforcing them to absurdity.
Our problem, if we have one, isn’t the leaders. It’s the people.
“So why do only a tiny minority wear masks in shops voluntarily”
Because up until now, they’ve been told it’s not necessary.
Borat Johnson. An go Fuck himself and take his gimp mask.
I don’t believe the satisfaction ratings cause those are always lies, but if they are close to true, we deserve to die from this fraud virus, even the officially faked numbers aren’t scary. 20% of GDP written off for a measly 50,000 people who would have died anyway. That is insane.
@Zerren Yeoville
Thanks for the link, interesting. I note that the ‘offending’ teenager had been ‘given words of advice’; translation: he’d done nothing illegal, they couldn’t charge him, so they tried to intimidate him into not ‘reoffending’. I hope the kid carries right on doing what he’s been doing, thereby sending the piglets a giant “fuck you!”. I never thought, that as I approach retirement (assuming I’m ever allowed to retire, as my taxes will probably be required for decades yet to pay for this utter clusterfuck), I’d be referring to the ‘boys in blue’ as ‘the pigs’, like I was some Black Panther rebooted for the 21st century. But I find myself doing so increasingly frequently. Strange turn of events indeed.
As for NiV’s statement
Well, we do have a problem, and its cause is both the ‘leaders’ and the people. All that was required of Bottler (my thanks to Mr Ecks for coining that oh so appropriate nickname) was to be the adult in the room, to do his best Michael Winner impression (“Calm down dear, calm down”). But no, he bottled it and we find ourselves in the current dystopia. And as for the people…their behaviour has turned me into a confirmed misanthrope. I find myself wishing for an asteroid (about the size of the one that did for the dinosaurs would be just fine) to strike this planet in an extinction level event. I’d accept my own quietus with equanimity, knowing that the squealing hordes finally had something real to fear, rather than some ginned-up hobgoblin created by a mendacious media and a bunch of arse-covering politicians. A pox (or an asteroid) upon them all.
NiV: “Because up until now, they’ve been told it’s not necessary.”
So much of this whole shit show was lies – right from the beginning.
Here is Dr Fauchi ( AKA Dr Death ) before a congressional committee:
Dr Fauci: ” at that time there was a paucity of [ppe] equipment, … we did not want to divert masks and PPE away from them to be used by the people … ”
Translats as:- Fuck the plebs, they can die. We’re keeping this shit for ourselves.
“20% of GDP written off for a measly 50,000 people who would have died anyway. That is insane.”
It is – quantities that ought to be on the same side of the risk balance sheet are being put on opposite sides. An accountant would have a fit!
The comparison you need to make is (20% GDP + 50,000 dead) *with* lockdown versus (unknown% GDP + 500,000 dead) *without*. We picked ‘with’ and got *both* of the above. The question as to whether the lockdown was worth it requires that we compare the ‘with’ to the ‘without’.
I blame the maths education in schools. Although schools would no doubt argue that only 10% insanity is a grand achievement.
“All that was required of Bottler (my thanks to Mr Ecks for coining that oh so appropriate nickname) was to be the adult in the room, to do his best Michael Winner impression (“Calm down dear, calm down”). But no, he bottled it and we find ourselves in the current dystopia.”
What was required was to make it clear to the public that the epidemic was serious, that they were expected to voluntarily take significant, common-sense measures to reduce infections, and that people would be supported with regard to breaking contracts and lost earnings as required, so they shouldn’t feel they had to choose their jobs over peoples’ lives. He did in fact attempt to do that, and went on at length about how confident he was about British common sense, but either it wasn’t taken sufficiently seriously, or it was done too late for the effect to pass through the system and get observed. The basic problem was that up until the lockdown was declared the epidemic was still expanding rapidly, and was on the verge of turning disastrous.
“Translats as:- Fuck the plebs, they can die. We’re keeping this shit for ourselves.”
Not quite. It’s arguable that they’re more lying now, saying masks are useful, than they were then, saying they were not.
The issue is not a simple binary ‘necessary-or-not’ decision. You have a menu of many measures you can take. Each has its own costs and benefits – each reduces transmission by a certain amount, but also impacts a wide range of other things like the economy, the health system, and political opinion. You need to pick enough measures from the menu and apply them to a sufficient portion of the population to reduce R to below 1, but not inflict more damage on everything else than you need to. Masks certainly do reduce infections a little. But the basic cloth masks are not tightly fitted to the face and leak air round the edges, and so are not very effective at reducing R, give people a false sense of security which may be dangerous if they take more risks as a result, were in short supply at the start of the pandemic, and might indeed have led to shortages for health workers at high risk by giving them to people at low risk, thus kiling more people than they saved. Killing more people than you save is generally considered a bad idea. But now, the pressure on the supply for health workers has eased, businesses have had the time to ramp up mask production, and it’s an easy win to satisfy the unreasoning political criticism of the government from people moaning about ‘why don’t they mandate masks?’ It’s a minor contribution to reducing R, which gives them a little more leeway for relaxing other measures, which they can allow now that the costs of the policy have dropped. But frankly, it makes no great difference in the grand scheme of things, and is more of a political sop to the critics than it is helpful to the fight.
R was below 1 already even without the masks. They should help, but probably not by much.
At this point anyone who still pretends the lockdowns were about saving lives is a liar.
Nullius is a liar.
Your evidence?
The other day we had three gunshot fatalities characterised as COVID-19 deaths. Today it’s motorcycle accidents.
Once upon a time one might have said, ‘you couldn’t make it up’, but that doesn’t seem to convey the bite it used to.
No, that would have been a lie.
We now know, and some of us said at the time, that it was just a version ( maybe a little more aggressive ) of seasonal flue.
It attacked the same demographic as seasonal flue. Even when the BBC showed the overflowing hospital wards in Italy, it was clear then that it didn’t attach the young, unless they had some other underlying condition.
I knew several lefties like Bragg at university. It’s no surprise they’re in favor of masks now, they’re so used to wearing them. The jackbooted thug is never far below the surface.
“We now know, and some of us said at the time, that it was just a version ( maybe a little more aggressive ) of seasonal flue.”
Sure – and NASA didn’t land on the moon; the Apollo missions were all a mad scheme by the round-world elite to persuade the population that the world isn’t flat.
APL: “that it [COVID-19] was just a version ( maybe a little more aggressive ) of seasonal flue.”
Good, another point of agreement.
Good God! Given your record on COVID-19, You compel me to review my moon landing and my heliocentric view of the solar system, denial.
Nullius, you only weaken whatever argument you have by such an extreme comparison. At a time when vaccine developers repeatedly report that the UK is not producing enough cases for full trials (so much so that one is now advertising for volunteers to be infected), a comparison of “it’s the 1968 flue, not the 1918 flue” to “the earth is flat and we never landed on the moon” is itself the far-out idea.
When a calendar year has elapsed, we will know whether the UK’s ChiComCold death toll order-of-magnitude-exceeds (for example) its 1968 flue toll. Meanwhile, if you choose to bet your shirt that it will, have a back-up plan for surviving winter topless. 🙂
“Nullius, you only weaken whatever argument you have by such an extreme comparison.”
I’ve already repeatedly explained the reasoning – that it makes no sense to treat the outcome *with* the preventative measures in place as if that was the full extent of the consequences *without* taking measures – and it has no effect. People just carry on making the same assertions, as if they were unable to comprehend that they’re obvious nonsense.
So on this occasion I couldn’t be bothered to explain again – there would be no point (except for my own amusement) since nobody is listening – and resorted to sarcasm instead. For which I apologise; it was late and I was feeling mildly irritable and impatient. The comparison I intended was with the *believers* in the moon hoax, who no matter what arguments you make and evidence you present, are immovable from their crazy beliefs.
“At a time when vaccine developers repeatedly report that the UK is not producing enough cases for full trials (so much so that one is now advertising for volunteers to be infected), a comparison of “it’s the 1968 flue, not the 1918 flue” to “the earth is flat and we never landed on the moon” is itself the far-out idea.”
Hardly anyone today in the UK is dying of Ebola, or the Black Death, or radiation poisoning from big blocks of Plutonium-239, far, far less than the number dying of flu or COVID-19. Hence Ebola and the Black Death are (maybe a little less aggressive) versions of seasonal flu? All the precautions we take to stop them getting out are unnecessary wasted effort? You don’t think that argument is as crazy-insane as the Moon Hoax?
Would you agree to someone setting up a mail-order Ebola delivery service to the general public around the world, on the grounds that statistically Ebola is less dangerous than flu? Oh, sorry, was that sarcasm again? 🙂
No, you are the one not listening. It is because you have explained that – and were indeed heard – that you then got the opportunity to ignore, amongst others instances, my twice pointing out the North Carolina data, whose predictions with the preventive measures proved wildly exaggerated (never mind failures of exaggerated claims of what would happen without, where policy allowed that to be known).
The ChiComCold has underperformed in a number of scenarios, not just those where the authorities allowed the public to decide on their own precautions. A lockdown that appeared sensible on starting, when it seemed possible that only thus could the NHS avoid brutal triage, needed to be reassessed as overly aggressive and overly long when it became clear the NHS was very far from being in the least danger of approaching triage. And when, as in e.g. NY state, the claim of triage was used to push untested people back into care homes, infecting others, while the beds that were emptied by that, never mind the navy hospital ships and charity-set-up treatment areas, remained blatantly empty, then people noticed many things, one being that the triage danger had been exaggerated and the danger of excessive guarding against it minimised.
“It is because you have explained that – and were indeed heard – that you then got the opportunity to ignore, amongst others instances, my twice pointing out the North Carolina data, whose predictions with the preventive measures proved wildly exaggerated (never mind failures of exaggerated claims of what would happen without, where policy allowed that to be known).”
I didn’t ignore it. I looked at it, and the outcome predicted appeared to match what actually happened. They were right at the start of the epidemic, when the first deaths were only just appearing. If they ordered an immediate lockdown for three months, it was predicted (green line) that virtually no cases would arise until the lockdown ended (whereupon it would rise precipitately because, obviously, no lockdown then). They ordered a lockdown the next day. The line stayed flat, as predicted.
I asked you how this supported your point, in case I’d misunderstood what you meant, and got no answer, so I assumed the discussion was over and the debate settled. Would you like to carry on?
https://www.samizdata.net/2020/06/the-great-unfollowing/#comment-800571