Censors have a fantasy that if they get rid of all the Berensons and Mercolas and Malones, and rein in people like Joe Rogan, that all the holdouts will suddenly rush to get vaccinated. The opposite is true. If you wipe out critics, people will immediately default to higher levels of suspicion. They will now be sure there’s something wrong with the vaccine. If you want to convince audiences, you have to allow everyone to talk, even the ones you disagree with. You have to make a better case. The Substack people, thank God, still get this, but the censor’s disease of thinking there are shortcuts to trust is spreading.
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Samizdata quote of the dayJanuary 28th, 2022 |
 22 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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True that.
It was the double speak of Fauci and the media that made me suspicious of the vax.
Exasperated
Just in time for this Taibbi quote is the FLCCC weekly round table. It addresses the lies my government told me, the fact that US statistics are out of sync with the rest of the world, questions over modeling, horror stories emerging from hospitals/enforcers, questions about the increase in metastatic cancers……
https://odysee.com/@SpicyClips:d/ron-johnson-hearing-covid-19-second-opinion:6?lid=3871ec51c705d2477d8c74958be9fb58ada5725a
Exasperated
Here’s an amusing comment on the fuckwittery of Neil Young -v- Joe Rogan.
https://rudolphrigger.substack.com/p/the-arrogance-of-certainty
And an earlier article –
https://rudolphrigger.substack.com/p/a-finger-of-nudge-is-just-enough
“thinking there are shortcuts to trust”
Not sure that they are actually thinking in the way I’d use the word, and I’m definitely sure that trust isn’t their goal. Obedience, maybe. Capitulation for sure.
-XC
I agree with the commenter who said that it’s not about trust, it’s about obedience. Maybe trust is what the censors think they are helping build by censoring, but the real goal of the people who are very powerful and are implementing this agenda has nothing to do with trust. The real goal of the very, very powerful people implementing this agenda is obedience.
I will also note that censorship works. In many ways. Does it build trust? For some people yes and for some people no. For people who frequent this blog censorship does not build trust. And for many, many people who do not frequent this blog censorship does not build trust.
But, on the other hand, for many, many people censorship does help build trust because they do not know about the scale of the censorship or because the censorship falls into the “it’s good because we need to stop the spread of lies/misinformation” bucket. I know, it makes no sense. But not every human is the sharpest tool in the shed. And we would do well not to paint so broadly with too-generous a brush.
I recall Mattias Desmet the famous psychology professor (whose youtube video interview went viral and was posted on this blog not a long time ago) said that as restrictions get more extreme in a mass psychosis, the supporters of the restrictions become more adamant and more passionate in their support of the restrictions. Presumably, in a certain sense, censorship is one of those such restrictions.
Worth noting (from the same source)
Matt Taibbi
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-pandemic-censorship
FWIW, I don’t remember ANY conservative calling for censorship of either media or people who dared question whether or not Saddam Hussein and Iraq had WMDs back in the run up to and early days of the Iraq War in 2002 and 2003. And ya, we were 100% certain that he had WMDs. Some of us would question the patriotism of anyone questioning the narrative that Saddam had WMDs but none of us called for censorship of those who claimed he did not have WMDs.
These days, on the Left, there are more people on the Left publicly calling for censorship than there are people on the Left publicly speaking out against the censorship. And that’s censorship of everyone. Regular people, media, podcasters, individuals, organizations, epidemiologists, researchers, and medical doctors.
The arrogance of certitude is a dangerous thing from any part of the “political spectrum”. But this left-wing version is particularly terrifying.
That Taibbi bit is going in my quote file, along with XC’s response.
Sholomo Maistre: At the time, even as a mild conservative, I was somewhat suspicious of the WMD as justification for invasion. Being a Cold War soldier, I was perhaps a bit dismissive. “Wake me up when the get ICBMs, like the Soviets” was my go-to phrase, along with “Let’s just keep having Iraq and Iran keep killing each other”. I guess I was too Jacksonian in my philosophy of war.
But I never heard anything about censoring other views, even my view which was quite controversial amongst some of my more warhawk associates. Even my one Paleoconservative friend didn’t shout for censorship. He was usually shouting about other things, like the gold standard…
The censorious Left, to me, merely signals the inadequacy of their premises and their arguments.
“The censorious Left, to me, merely signals the inadequacy of their premises and their arguments.”
This, absolutely. Can I nominate this for SQOTD?
Dissent, somewhat.
If it is obvious that anti-vax discussion is being quelled, then, yes, it’s only going to increase suspicion and pushback.
But if all of that anti-vax discussion simply doesn’t occur – if you can censor so completely that the discussion of the censoring doesn’t even happen – then I think it works.
So, just be grateful they’re not very good at censoring. If they were good at it, the game would be over.
I mean, it’s a gradient. They certainly could be a lot better at censoring.
But they also could be a lot worse at censoring too.
There are still a lot of people who think the Science is Settled and Everyone Should Get The Jab and Booster(s) ASAP.
And More Jabs Are Coming, Halleluyah!!
https://dossier.substack.com/p/6-pack-pfizer-fauci-press-forward
Censors have a fantasy that if they get rid of all the Berensons and Mercolas and Malones, and rein in people like Joe Rogan, that all the holdouts will suddenly rush to get vaccinated. The opposite is true for some people.*
FTFY, Matt
I was trained as a scientist, and science is never settled. Scientists are still performing more and more sensitive tests of Einstein’s General Relativity. That’s been around for over 100 years.
There are, however, a bunch of ‘scientists’ who don’t know that, nor agree with it.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/27/who-chief-backs-neil-young-over-covid-misinformation-row-with-spotify-joe-rogan
https://archive.is/x97lH
https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1486723273362575361
Mean girls. They’ve all simply turned into mean girls.
Re Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director general
Lest we forget how the dots are joined:
Wow. You’re easily pleased.
It was the fact that for this emmergency all of the protections we’d accumulated around producing a novel drug, were swept away. Normal drug research development and production cycle, ten to fifteen years. Anti Covid-19 mRNA therapy, six months ( if you ignore the fact that the instructions for the Spike protein were patiented sometime around 2009 ).
There is no way in hell, I’m going to mainstream something that was cobbled together in six months, for a condition that I suspected then ( 2020 ) was no worse than influenza, but if you ignored the symptoms, or even, misdiagnosed and mistreated the symptoms, could, like influenza in similar circumstances, kill you.
The double speak of Fauci, came later, and confirmed my opinion.
And why wouldn’t we be? He did. Not even the UN disputed that and, indeed, in 2009 when Iraq signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, it declared a massive stockpile. The issues at the time were how ready they were for use, and whether he could be trusted not to mislead the UN inspectorate over that question.
Censorship does not have to prevent most people seeing and hearing dissenting arguments – it just needs to prevent the MAJORITY of people from doing so.
Remember that piece of excrement (no apology for the harsh language) who came onto this very site and claimed that the only opposition was from Robert Kennedy and “other kooks”.
That creature was an example of how successful the censorship, and the smearing of dissenters, has been.
Remember, for example, in both the United States and the United Kingdom most people still get the news from the “mainstream media” (the BBC, Sky News – owned by Comcast, C4, and so on – and in the United States ABC, CBS, NBC…..).
The number is falling (that I grant) – but the Collectivist, tyranny supporting, “mainstream” media is still very powerful. As is the Collectivist, tyranny supporting, EDUCATION SYSTEM.
The education system is incredibly powerful – and now dominated by pro tyranny forces, forces that lie about, or hopelessly twist, just about everything.
Indeed it is the education system that produced the “mainstream media” and it is also the education system (specifically Frankfurt School doctrines that Freedom of Speech is “repressive tolerance”) that has spread the idea that censorship, and smearing dissenters, is morally good.
Folks might remember the “Streisand effect”
I wonder if (in years to come) we’ll be noting the “Neil Young effect”?
Against a background of the NASDAQ down 20%:
Joni Mitchell is another “media star” with unintended consequences, and increasing awareness of their woeful condition. It appears she spoke in favour of Neil Young (and censorship), and then her medical condition got mentioned.
Who knew that cocaine users are reliable witnesses?
Oh, and follow the money…
Make a fuss about a reseller (of your music) who pays you less than you think you deserve. Transfer the rights to someone like Reservoir instead. But do say the fuss is for a reason other than money.