The Coronapocalypse Part 32: Book Announcement

69 thoughts on “The Coronapocalypse Part 32: Book Announcement”

1. Hi Simon,

   I’ve also been keeping an eye on the news on that front and The Plague Story does look like the way out of the mess, but who knows. But err, the word on the street up there in NSW is that things are going to get worse. And to think I thought that they were doing so well up there until now. I’m very curious to observe whether this phenomena moves around the country with each state having its proscribed term. Dunno, but it sure looks crazy to me.

   Incidentally I just wanted to chime in and say how much I enjoyed your analysis on the Greta story. At the end of it all, I just hope that she’s OK as the comedown can be pretty brutal.

   Cheers

   Chris

2. Simon: “The coming northern hemisphere winter seems to me to be the critical period. Either The Plague Story holds and life goes back to normal or we slip into an indefinite round of restrictions and The Devouring Mother wins the day. The Devouring Mother, of course, does not want an end and you really get the feeling that the public health bureaucrats would just love to continue locking people in their homes indefinitely.”

   Yes. We’ll see what happens. Over here in CZ, some biochemist who’s been in the news non-stop on coronavirus questions has even resorted to name calling (https://plus.rozhlas.cz/konvalinka-je-tady-eticka-pravni-a-moralni-otazka-omezime-se-kvuli-tem-kdo-se-8530247). Via Google translate (a slightly awkward, but basically correct translation):

   “And now here’s the question. Ethical, perhaps partly legal, certainly moral: if we stop the whole country because of people who have consciously and freely decided not to be vaccinated, because our hospitals will be filled and people will die. Doctors must provide care to fools, ignoramuses and people who are irresponsible. The question is whether the rest of us should pay.”

   (Mind you, this particular person is not in the government, and so he does not get to make any decisions. Still, he seems to be somewhat influential.) I think this may actually be good news, i.e. the restrictions may be lifted. He’s oh-so-mad at us anti-experimental-gene-therapy-ers (hehe), but maybe, just maybe, they’ll finally decide to call it quits with this lockdown nonsense. Granted, he’s also proposing increasing the cost of health insurance for the unvaccinated, etc. etc., though I rather doubt this will happen.

   Also, have you noticed how pro-experimental-gene-therapy-pushers keep framing the matter: “anti-vaxxers” are forcing us to remain in lockdown!! Never mind that the number of people who simultaneously refuse gene therapy *and* support lockdowns is approximately zero.

3. BTW, did you know that gun violence is now a “public health” matter? According to Cuomo, it is (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57743694).

   Lest I be misunderstood: in no way, shape, or form am I trying to suggest that rising homicide rates are not a problem. But name one – any – human activity that doesn’t have some sort of effect on human (and “public”) health. Ha! You can’t!!! Hence, Devouring Mommy dearest (I mean, public health authorities) must have the final say in all aspects of human life. Obviously. You aren’t against public health, are you?

4. Chris – who knew that it was impossible to stop respiratory viruses spreading in the middle of winter? NSW was supposed to the be the ones who knew what they were doing but that illusion is well and truly shattered so come up with a story quick to show we’re on top of it. The four stage strategy – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak

   Irena – interesting that Cuomo tacitly admitted the covid was no longer a problem (less of a problem than gun deaths). The whole thing sounds like a way for him to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to his supporters which is probably quite necessary at the moment given he has a target on his back. As for that biochemist, I would turn the whole thing around. Let me pull out of the national health service. Bring me a contract and I’ll happily waive all rights to use public hospitals. Oh yeah, that means I don’t have to pay the tax for those hospitals either. I take care of my health and have had to pay an awful lot of money to the health system for no return up until now. Let’s see how long these hospitals last without the healthy propping them up financially.

5. No further explanation required on this one. Wow. https://www.instagram.com/p/CREMns_NS05/

6. Simon, who IS that person?? I recognize Greta. Who’s the masked one??

7. According to his instagram, he’s a bank robber. I hope his getaway car is electric. Or maybe he rides a getaway bicycle.

8. Hey mate, I wonder how the pomes will be going with their freedom day. The reaction of the left media was predictable, and I don’t think Boris will have the balls.
   It might not matter. If the Devouring Mother or the Plague Story wins out won’t make much of a difference in the long run. I see this as a “the empire strikes back” situation. If the covid stick stops working, another one will be made. I think we can all easily guess what it will be.
   Plus there is a level of madness in society now which won’t just go away.

9. G’day Roland. Will be interesting to watch. Politicians are going to have to hold the line and show some real leadership for a change. Trouble is, most of them have no experience in that domain.

10. The Plague Story vs The Devouring Mother

    New Zealand vaccine advertisement as Plague Story with vaccine happy ending https://twitter.com/inquisitiveGyn/status/1414162205986017283

    Australian vaccine advertisement based on gaslighting, emotional manipulation and guilt tripping – https://twitter.com/KJBar/status/1414082953571799045

11. @Simon

    Is that the best actress you Aussies have? Geez.

    Then again, maybe it’s a good sign: the gals who know how to act refused to participate! 😉

12. Actually, now that I think about it, she’s not that bad: I burst out laughing, so maybe her acting counts as good comedy.

13. Note the progression from last year, though. Last year we were killing grandma if we didn’t comply. Now we’re killing young women. I wonder if babies are next.

14. I found the New Zealand one funnier. There’s been several of these kinds of Disney-style videos floating around where the people are back to normal cos of the vaccine even though it’s plain as day that the Plague Story has not and won’t end properly in the real world. So, at the moment in the West, we a have a choice between two versions of unreality: a children’s fairy tale or a nightmare.

15. The New Zealand one left me puzzled. I’m not sure what the point was. Ah, but that Australian one: I burst out laughing! 😛

16. You obviously have a dark sense of humour 😉

17. Simon: “You obviously have a dark sense of humour”

    Aye. 🙂 But look, that gal was so bad that she was good!

18. Simon, I’m having second thoughts about something. I wrote that the number of people who simultaneously refuse gene therapy and support lockdowns is approximately zero. Is that actually true, though? I’d imagine it is in both Europe and the Americas (given how widespread the virus is on these continents). But is it true in Australia and NZ? Maybe not. There may be some people who really, truly do not want to get COVID, and also really, truly do not want gene therapy, and are therefore fine with the lovely lockdown regime you’ve got over there in Oz. What are your thoughts?

    I agree with Roland that there’s a level of madness in society now that’s unlikely to go away any time soon. There was article in Spiked recently (https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/09/the-lockdown-addicts/) about how quite a substantial number of Brits, especially young ones, would want to keep some COVID-19 restrictions permanent, regardless of COVID. And I think they’ll have it their way, at least in some ways. 9/11 changed flying effectively forever. This will be the same thing, only on a much larger scale. After all, most people fly just a couple of times per year (if that). But these lockdowns affect pretty much all aspects of life. Some of the restrictions will stay with us for the long term, and it need not be the ones that make the most sense epidemiologically. For instance, why exactly can’t you bring your own bottle of water past airport security? They had some explanation for that. Whatever. So, what is the lockdown equivalent of no-own-bottle-of-water? That is: which utterly nonsensical restrictions (as opposed to really annoying, but I suppose somewhat effective for suppressing infection) will stay with us for the years and decades to come? I suppose we’ll see, but I bet there will be some.

    Another thing that’s been on my mind is this. I live in the Czech Republic (as I’ve mentioned before), but I’m a foreigner and still don’t quite understand the country. What I can tell you is that this is a country that has recent (i.e. well within living memory) experience with totalitarianism. So, I’m trying to figure out if that makes it more likely or less likely (compared to, say, a country like France) to accept authoritarian infringements on freedom now. (Think vaccine mandates.) I simply don’t know. You could make an argument either way. I suppose we’ll see.

19. Irena – no, i think the venn diagram of lockdown supporter and “vaccine” enthusiast is a single circle. There are, as you point out, some people who like lockdowns and I’ve identified these as The Orphan archetypes. The corona hysteria has given social and political support to such people and, in my opinion, permanently damaged them by encouraging their shadow side. So, it’s no surprise they want things to continue and society is likely to indulge them from now on. Whether society demands the rest of us be Orphans too is yet to be seen. By the way, there is a word for this in Japan which I can’t remember. But a large number of young people either never leave their house and some never even leave their bedroom. We’re talking grown adults who are still living with their parents and don’t work or go to school. We’ll likely see the same thing in the west now. The reclusive germophobes.

    Interesting question about Czechia. Australia has no history of totalitarianism (although I suppose a convict colony was pretty totalitarian) and we’re living in it right now. Melbourne goes back into lockdown as of midnight tonight. Lockdown number 5 for this city. Last time I checked, China had 1 lockdown. Australia is now well into double digits. Funny how that never gets talked about.

20. @Simon

    I believe the term you’re looking for is “Hikikomori” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori). Speaking of Japan: it appears that they’re not very enthusiastic about vaccines, but they’re lockdown-compliant. They’re also stuck hosting the Olympics, and they’re doing it rather unenthusiastically, with no spectators and with strict restrictions for the athletes. Which reminds me: there was an article (in the WSJ, I believe) some time ago about how Istanbul was the luckiest city on the planet, because it very nearly got the 2020 Olympics, but then it didn’t, and now Tokyo is stuck with it instead. 😛

21. Yeah, the Japan story looks a lot like India. They had essentially no cases all through 2020 and then it shot up. Why? Same reason as India: they increased the amount of testing they do at the start of 2021. In fact, the two recent peaks in “cases” coincide exactly with two recent spikes in testing presumably done in the lead up to the Olympics. It amazes me that we are still counting cases this way. China and now Singapore now only count a case if the person has symptoms. The whole thing looks very suspicious to me. Even by official stats you’ve got 100 people dying a day in a population of over one hundred million where the average death rate per day is 3,500. Doesn’t sound like an “emergency” to me.

22. > The whole thing looks very suspicious to me

    It is, but I don’t consider it to be malicious.

    I shared a house with a person once who has proper irrational behaviour and one of the things that became apparent is that the ‘cause -> effect’ path that rational people follow is backwards when dealing with irrational behaviours. It is literally `effect —> cause`. A crude example would be ‘feeling cold —> maximum heater’. What is actually happening is ‘maximum heater —> feeling cold’. Thus even if you rationally try to resolve the cold situation the heater will be left on its maximum setting (despite things getting unbearably hot). And then you will find yourself either attacked for breaking the delusion (sound familiar?) or another cause will instantly be found – ‘maximum heater -> clothes need to be dried’. Very occasionaly if you are extremely lucky you might figure out the actual real, unstated, and as far as I can tell unconscious, cause (‘my cat likes to sit by the heater’) and you can resolve the immediate issue (remove the cat). But that will not fix the underly irrationality, and some other completely different ‘effect -> cause’ situation will arise almost immediately.

    So in the case of covid testing, the presented logic is that testing shows large number of cases, thus there is a serious issue. What is actually happening is the opposite – ‘There is a pandemic, thus there is a dangerous situation, thus lots of testing is done’. The crux is that while this also appears like a sane statement, the results of the testing are actually irrelevant. A rational response would be to re-evaluate the first statement ‘There is a pandemic’ based on the test results, but the irrational behaviour has no interest in that because the axiom on which all subsequent actions are based _is_ the first statement.

    For whatever reason almost this entire planet is caught in an irrational hysteria at present and no amount of testing, or logic, (or even vaccines) can resolve it. We just have to wait until such time as the irrationality hopefully recedes. And until that time we can’t put much steed the in presented causes, because they are actually effects.

23. Daniel – that’s a good example. Of course, most people are irrational in the sense that you describe. Very few people ever reason through things from first principles even in our supposedly scientific society. What most people call “reason” or “logic” is just a set of post hoc rationalisations designed to justify the position they have already accepted.

    It does seem to me, though, that politicians could bring this to an end rather easily. To use your heater example. One way to stop your housemate from turning the heater up full would be to change the knob so what looks like “maximum” is really only medium. Because the housemate is not looking for the effect of heat that should satisfy them and the inconvenience of racking up huge heating bills would be mitigated. You could then get them off to a psychiatrist to sort through the deeper issues. Same thing with the “case” numbers which everybody is obsessed about. Government could just drop the number of cycles for the PCR test and the numbers go down. We could even do what China did way back in February 2020 and only count cases when people were actually sick, something that Singapore has now started to do too. Why don’t we? Are our politicians also stuck in the hysteria and can’t think properly? Do they not have the political power to make these changes? Or do they actually want things to continue like this?

24. > One way to stop your housemate from turning the heater up full would be to change the knob so what looks like “maximum” is really only medium.

    In my experience such tricks don’t work – there is enough intelligence present to see through such antics and then you’re just back to square one with even more distrust. And even removing the cat is not easy, because when you break an effect -> cause loop it just relocates to something else, very possibly worse.

    > Same thing with the “case” numbers which everybody is obsessed about. Government could just drop the number of cycles for the PCR test and the numbers go down.

    That still assumes this is a rational cause (testing) —> effect (pandemic) response – ie if the case numbers dropped the ‘there is a pandemic’ would be re-evaluated. It won’t be because the pandemic is the cause and thus tweaking results (testing) won’t affect it. And even if it did, something else will immediately take it’s place, probably even more detached from reality. You can see glimpses of this process already in locations that are trying to ease restrictions and now face stiff opposition and protests to continue along with hype about ‘variants’.

    > Are our politicians also stuck in the hysteria and can’t think properly? Do they not have the political power to make these changes? Or do they actually want things to continue like this?

    They truly can’t do anything – the politicians are just an effect in all this as much as anything else so they just prod and poke at levers trying to make thing appear to be under control. You noted that most people are not rational even on a baseline state, and I would extend that further to leaders and politicians as well. They rarely (possibly never) lead, instead just playing out the role required for the effect (which must be a very unpleasant and highly conflicted position to be in). I found this startlingly obvious when the pandemic started and the (actually) rational responses promptly got discarded for the irrational ones.

    That is why I find Archetypal analysis interesting, because it doesn’t bother with a cause —> effect dependency (or loop) and simply gives a framework to model the appearance of what is happening. On a personal level this can give insight on how to make changes, but for a society there is no lever big enough (or anyone strong enough, let along wise enough) to matter.

25. @Simon

    As far as I can tell, what made COVID an emergency were the overwhelmed hospitals, or at least the threat thereof. It was never really about the number of infections and deaths. In the case of India: you’ve got a huge, quite poor country, with a terrible health care system. It doesn’t take much to get it to collapse. Hence, the emergency.

    BTW, do you know this Sting song: “I forgot the first commandment of the realist’s handbook, / Don’t be fooled by illusions you created yourself, / And fall in love with someone, when she loves someone else.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=464m8zVqB1g). Forget about falling in love. What seems to have happened to our betters is that, in an effort to get the populace to go along with their emergency measures aimed at preventing institutional collapse (i.e. overwhelmed hospitals), they generated a huge amount of fear, and they ended up scaring themselves in the process. Some realists. So…

    “Are our politicians also stuck in the hysteria and can’t think properly?” – Yes.

    “Do they not have the political power to make these changes?” – By this point, probably not.

    “Or do they actually want things to continue like this?” – I don’t think they’re thinking very far ahead. They have no idea what the endgame is, and if you asked them, they’d either give you some fairytale, or they’d get mad at you for even asking.

26. Daniel – the way I’m thinking of it is that the “lever” that the politicians have is story telling. They chose The Plague Story at the start because it has an ending with the vaccine. That was always a huge risk because it had never been tried before and there was no reason to expect a vaccine would end it. Right now, we are in the balance. The official narrative at the moment, even by the globalists, is that the vaccine “works”. There is a counter narrative to this now that it doesn’t “work” and that is coming even from within the public health bureaucracies. That is a huge threat to politicians because they have no other story to fall back on. That’s why we are seeing Macron go the next step of a (soft) mandating of the vaccines. Not because it will do any good but because he must be seen to follow the story or risk admitting failure (powerlessness). So, I agree. The reason Texas and Florida and other states (including Singapore and China) could end it was because they were less in thrall to the archetype. In places where the public is still in thrall to the archetype, we are probably going to see The Plague Story continue in altered form where yearly booster shots are required. “Just one more booster and then it will be over”. That will continue until either the archetype recedes or some external event shakes us back to reality.

    Irena – I have a different recollection of what happened. Back in mid-March, the Prime Minister of Australia was telling the public the truth. He said everybody will get infected but only the elderly and immuno-compromised are at risk. But the public, including the media and instruments of government, had been overwhelmed by the archetype at that point and so the politicians had to change tack from telling the truth to saying whatever they thought was best. A good politician is half actor and they have embodied the archetype (The Devouring Mother) because that is what the public wanted. But a politician also needs to have a handle on reality. I think they still know the truth but, as Daniel pointed out, their power is limited and they are just waiting for the storm to blow over like the rest of us.

27. I always have the feeling that politicians are (self-)selected as good judges of which way the wind is blowing and then proceed to head off in a hurry in front of where the crowd was already heading. But whether or not the choice is conscious, like you say they have to embody the archetype.

    Getting slightly off topic, but a curve ball to all this here in NZ – and I’m curious if/when you think it might arise in Aus too – is populism. We’ve just our first glimpse of it here with this weeks farmer’s protests, right on cue for our typical 7 year political lag from the rest of the Anglo sphere. The movement has yet to find a competent leader, but when it does there is plenty of ammunition for it to take off quickly. And I expect resolution of the covid issue to be one of the core issues – there are a huge number of business people hurting due to the travel restrictions killing exports. And then conversely the local economy is booming because the travel restrictions are also functioning as a very effective tariff on imports (particularly tourism) so buy, fix or holiday locally has become a necessity.

28. @Simon

    Yeah, quite a few politicians (and public health experts) originally told the truth. But then, as you point out, that narrative got overpowered by an alternative (hysterical) one, coming from the media and certain public health experts. And as that happened, experts promoting hysteria got promoted to top pandemic-handling positions. Now, there are some truly impressive bullshitters out there, but generally speaking, if you want to convince others of something, it helps if you believe it yourself. I think the experts running the show really are true believers. And that’s who the politicians are now surrounded by. So, I suspect that, whatever they (the politicians) may have believed in the beginning, they believe *the* story now, or at least most of them do.

29. Daniel – interesting. Didn’t know about those protests but they make sense to me. The inner city left leaning people seem to have trouble figuring out where their food comes from. I don’t see farmers ever having much power in Australia as the demographics work against them. The cities dominate everything far too much. Here in Victoria, the rural areas are currently locked down despite having no cases. Makes no sense but the Premier doesn’t seem to care as he gets no votes in those areas anyway. There was a big protest on the Sydney Harbour Bridge today. The NSW government, needing to make it look like they are in control cos the case numbers won’t go down, actually banned construction for two weeks. Even the Victorian government didn’t do that during our epic lockdown. That could get very interesting.

30. Irena – I’ve lost track of what “the story” is. Now Europe seems to be set on internal vaccine passports all while it’s becoming ever more clear that the vaccines don’t stop infections. The current line is that they do stop hospitalisations. If that narrative breaks down, who honestly knows what comes next? Vaccine passports AND vaccines AND lockdowns? Even the most hardcore Branch Covidian will struggle to explain that away.

31. “Irena – I’ve lost track of what “the story” is.”

    I don’t blame you. 🙂 But the basic story is that this is the plague, and it should be treated with a comparable level of panic.

    Yes, Europe is moving toward COVID passports (some countries more aggressively than others). I remember how masks and lockdowns were going to save us (and then they didn’t). Now it’s the vaccines, except that even true believers are having second thoughts about that. But to them, that just proves that it’s imperative that everyone get vaccinated as soon as possible, and that everyone keep wearing masks (at least indoors). Come fall, I fully expect another lockdown.

32. @Simon

    Ultimately, the problem for the politicians is that they’re being asked to accomplish something that cannot be accomplished. What do you do when a totally unreasonable boss asks you to do the impossible and threatens to sack you otherwise? You can quit, obviously (and then he’ll just replace with someone else). But if you don’t want to quit (or get sacked), then your best bet is to make it seem that you’re doing “everything possible” to accomplish what he told you to accomplish, even if you understand full well that you’re going to fail. (If you keep at it long enough, you may even convince yourself that he was right. In other words, you may, sadly, go insane yourself.)

    The truth of the matter was that there was a new, unpleasant virus on the loose, that for a year or three, more people than usual would die, and that some medical rationing was necessary. There were some reasonable mitigation strategies: increase hospital capacity, test aggressively in nursing homes, and encourage the elderly and immunocompromised to shelter as much as possible. But that quite obviously wasn’t going to solve the problem, you see, and the problem had to be solved (even if it couldn’t be). So, we went into lockdowns, etc. Did that solve the problem? Of course not: we got more deaths than usual, and we got medical rationing (but the trick was that there was no rationing for COVID, but only for such things as cancer, strokes, heart attacks…; let’s not even talk about mental health). The results aren’t much better than they would have been with far less drastic measures, but hey, at least we get to say that we’re doing everything possible! And the pain that this is causing is in fact proof of this everything-possibleness.

    I suppose gene therapy is now part of the package as well. Whether or not it works, and how well, and for whom, and at what cost for the beneficiary’s overall health, is not really the point. The point is that we must do “everything possible,” and that, among other things, means administering gene therapy to everyone (soon enough, that will include infants).

33. Hi Simon,
    Fellow JMG blog reader here. And a former gym attendee, whose regime was based around the 3 powerlifting exercises. I say former, due to family member health issues starting mid 2018, which resulted in the gradual tossing out of many habits and activities I’d taken for granted. Who knows? Maybe I’ll resume gym attendance if/when things get back to “normal”??? And not bloody “covid-normal” either.

    I’m really sorry to hear that your back under house arrest in Vic. I’m in South Australia. Touch wood, we’ve been relatively fortunate.

    I really enjoyed your series, I first started reading it when you mentioned it on JMG’s blog, then left it for some time due to more declining health issues, this time with my best friend in the world, my beloved dog Molly, a battle we fought together for almost a year.

    May I ask, are you the sanest person on the internet?

    Regarding the Three Forecasters post, I also follow the other two (Taleb, was just casually on twitter via the browser, not the app. I believe he’s gone private) and in hindsight, yes Chris M. was probably a bit over anxious. I do think he means we’ll though.

    With regards to JMG, I think possibly his mundane astrology missed the mark, by leaving out Pluto?
    You may be aware that he’s had a few debates with some of his blog readers regarding its continued relevance.
    He has said that he hasn’t found it to have much relevance in his personal chart, but perhaps that’s because he’s “too good” of a Stoic and magician? By that I mean he’s able to shrug off or deal with “Plutonic” influences so capably, compared to the rest of us mere mortals, that he doesn’t see them as warranting attention?

    Do you ever listen to Gordon White’s podcast? His latest astrological talk with Austin Coppock is a real heartwarmer, not. Apparently this month and then November are the yucky months. Then pretty much all of 2022. Happy joy. 🤪

    What about Martin Armstrong? Ive casually dipped into his blog for many years now, although I certainly don’t agree with a lot of his personal opinions, there’s valuable information to be gleaned.
    One of his cycles is for pandemics, but his model shows next year as the peak. Speculation for me, then follows, “Who will be most affected, Vxd, or Non Vxd? Everyone?
    Ah, the trouble with the long term is that it takes time…

    Much more could be said, but I’ll leave it here for now. Apologies for any spelling and grammatical errors, I’m definitely not a trained linguist!

    Kind Regards,
    Helen

34. You’re not your. Gah
    Helen

35. BTW, I may have been naive, but I am somewhat shocked by what’s going on in France (https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/15/france-is-sliding-into-medical-authoritarianism/). Of course, there is the possibility that the French will come out with pitchforks and that Macron will be booted out of office prematurely. I suppose we’ll see. When it comes to CZ, I suspect that much will depend on what happens in Germany. That seems like the country that CZ is most likely to imitate.

36. Irena – As you’ve pointed out, JMG’s problem vs predicament distinction is useful here. Climate change and respiratory viruses are two of the oldest predicaments of mankind. Now we pretend they are problems to be solved. And, of course, the solution never comes. Just one more lockdown. Just one more gene therapy. Just one more government measure and everything will be fine. But, as I’ve said multiple times, that’s just The Devouring Mother’s co-dependence requirement.

    Helen – Welcome! Sorry to hear about your health issues. I hope it sorts itself out sooner rather than later. By pure luck, when the madness began I had access to weights and racks and so I’ve been able to train uninterrupted during the last year and a half. I know some fellow powerlifters who have really struggled. The research on powerlifting is still in its infancy but its usefulness in combating depression is well proven. So, those who’ve had it taken away have suffered doubly.

    Thanks for those references. Hadn’t heard of Armstrong or White. I know nothing about astrology so couldn’t comment on Pluto. A couple of years ago I worked my way through Greer’s Learning Ritual Magic and made an interesting discovery on the tarot divination exercises. I was really bad at them but what I realised was that they interrupted my current practice which may not technically count as divination but which I think uses the same underlying faculty. I think of it as the old fashioned “listen to your gut”. Anyway, my gut is telling me that this business won’t end for a long time and is likely to get worse before it gets better. So, I agree with Armstrong on that one. We’ve walked into a hall of mirrors and it’s not clear how we’re going to get out. Oh well, as the saying goes, it’ll be ok in the end and if it’s not ok, it’s not the end.

37. Irena – yes. That’s very bad news. I saw they are trying something similar in Britain where the state gets private enterprise to check the passports. My understanding is a lot of nightclubs and venues have said they won’t do it. Makes sense. It will cost money to enforce these things and the companies will have to pay that cost. The whole approach in Europe seems like economic suicide.

38. Irena – not sure how to judge this from the other side of the world, but maybe there’s hope – https://twitter.com/ManonCreativeM/status/1416365634825433089

    Wish they were all singing La Marseillaise 🙂

39. Hi Simon,
    Thanks for your reply.
    The health issues I mentioned were actually those of my Mother, she had a stroke, due to a series of events following on from an initial misdiagnosis of something entirely unrelated. A long and sad story which culminated in her death last December. It was actually a “good” death, as opposed to the previous two and a half years of hard slog, that all the family went through in caring for someone who had lost most of their short term memory overnight. Combine that with the general decline in of a person in their 90’s, and the nightmare of the care home system and that’s where your time and focus has to go.
    I work full time from home and like you have a large garden, hot, dry Adelaide summers anyone?
    The great proportion of my spare time was diverted to caring for Mum. With the (back then still two) dogs who are my constant companions in tow of course!
    I think I am a bit depressed, but that is the depression of grief from the loss of Molly, which is natural.
    I do aim to get back into some weight work and although not a cure all I know it will help lift my spirits.

    I agree about the Tarot and JMG has mentioned that it can act as a surrogate or support for our own intuition. I’m a bit of a Tarot junkie, but I don’t do a lot of readings. To be honest I don’t have a lot to ask them! I tend to mull over things myself. One thing I definitely think is true though is if you ask a vague question you’ll get a vague answer.
    I have a friend who is French, I just texted her that twitter link. Her mother in France is ill and she wants to go back to see her, but she doesn’t want the Vax, so she’s in a terrible bind. She has concluded that she will have to get all the doses and go through all the waiting, quarantine etc. What an awful position to be put in.

    💪😉
    Helen

40. Gday mate,
    You might have seen this
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_6zPINy1A2U
    From the department of unintended but not unpredicted consequences.
    They overplay it a bit and the predictions will turn out to be wrong as usual , but the principle is sound.
    I guess that means future lockdowns will be because of the common cold. This will weaken our immune system further and we will have to get locked down forever

41. Helen – sorry to hear that. My condolences. We watched my grandfather go through something similar so I know what it’s like. The garden and the weights have certainly helped me stay on track the last year and a half. Before that I was living in an inner city apartment which would have been a nightmare during Melbourne’s lockdowns, so I’m grateful to have got out. I’m in the west of Melbourne which has very Adelaide-like weather. We get about 200mm of rain less than the eastern suburbs each year so I’ve learned to do dry climate gardening and make every drop of water last. I’m definitely keen to explore the tarot stuff more. What I found was that the asking a question part seemed to switch on my conscious mind and that got in the way. Normally I’m used to “listening”. I guess I have to learn how to ask a specific question and then listen for a specific answer through the cards. I suppose like any skill it takes practice.

    Roland – yeah, no surprises there. I remember right back at the start of the whole thing a couple of California immunologists went viral for saying exactly the same thing. You can’t just remove the immune system from circulation without consequences. I guess nobody will be testing for the other cold and flu viruses cos all the testing will be for sars-cov-2 so maybe nobody will notice if everybody’s coming down with the flu next winter. You might have heard the stories about how GPs in Melbourne and Sydney are currently refusing to see anybody with cold and flu symptoms. They are telling people to go straight to hospital. Now imagine this time next year, the borders open and everybody comes down with the cold and flu viruses they haven’t been exposed to in the last two years and the GPs just send them straight to hospital. And you can bet that in amongst those people are some corona cases. Gonna be chaos.

42. Think you might be wrong there
    My guess is they will start testing for flu and common cold like mad and then declare them the new covid.
    This way they can keep the game going.
    The Insanity that has built up won’t go away in a hurry, but can be usefully redirected.

43. Hi Simon,
    So, here we go again, how far will the rollercoaster ride go this time?
    I found out via my sister, as Ive pretty much stopped paying attention to all MSM, which for me was basically just ABC radio.

    https://indaily.com.au/news/2021/07/19/high-alert-sa-bracing-for-new-restrictions-following-new-covid-case/

    You really have to wonder, how long do they think they can keep this up?

    I’m going to throw out a, shall I say “speculation” Ive had for quite a while: Some vials contain only saline. I think just to get more volume out there quickly, but also because then for all of those doses, there’s guaranteed to be no side affects.
    Obviously my hypothesis falls down if you consider that that would involve knowledge by those at the “coal face” manufacturing end. Well I’m assuming so.

    Regarding the compromised immune systems, I remember bringing that up with family members last year.
    How come a mere pleb like me can see that, over a year ago but all the “experts”can’t?
    Perhaps because my point of view is seeing our body as part of a natural, interacting with everything system and not a machine that can be fixed by dispensing pills and jabs?

    I don’t watch much TV, but whenever I see those ads for disinfectant of one kind or another, to sterilize our dangerous, bug filled homes, I feel like licking the floor in defiance!
    Not really, but you get my drift. 😉

44. Roland – I wouldn’t dismiss it. There’s also an endless supply of covid scariants if they want them.

    Helen – I saw that. Hey, why not join in the fun. The whole country might be in lockdown soon. Apparently respiratory viruses spread in winter. Who knew? Not sure if you’re a George Carlin fan but he has a very funny, and very prescient, bit about germaphobia in the culture (strong language warning) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo&ab_channel=GeenNaam

45. Haha, yes I’m a fan of George, but I hadn’t seen that one.
    The man was a modern day Prophet, or perhaps Cassandra?
    So far it’s “only” going to be stage 4 so I believe they don’t have to compensate people for their losses.
    Very cynical.
    I turned on the local ABC talkback radio, a nurse was at one of the so called “exposure sites” (my god don’t you hate all the vocabulary that’s sprung up) so when she informed her employer that that meant 14 days quarantine, they told her LWP or take 2 weeks holiday.
    So much for being one of the “hero” workers.

    And we keep hearing, “Sigh, but it’s for the greater good, we’ve got to all stay safe”

    A couple of months ago, I heard a caller on the radio talking about something else, but in passing, she mentioned that she was a country ER nurse and in the overflowing ER, about 70% of admissions were failed suicide attempts. I’m sure there were some before all this but the way she said it, I got the impression she was talking about an increase.
    Unfortunately, the announcer breezed right over her comment, as if she didn’t even hear it.
    Who was keeping them safe?
    Sorry, not the right type of “cases”.

46. Helen – wow, I didn’t know they weren’t even compensating workers. I guess the federal government will be expected to pay for it like they are in the other states. That’s what’s known as an SEP (somebody else’s problem). It’s never good when the people making the decisions get to treat the costs of those decisions as SEPs.

    I remember way back at the start of corona on ABC tv they interviewed an expert and asked him “how accurate are the tests” and he replied that we don’t know how accurate they are cos there’s no gold standard test. Now, you think the reporter might have at least followed up on that answer but he just breezed on to the next question. The kind of testing we are doing now goes even against the official advice of The Doherty Centre (aren’t we supposed to listen to experts?) who rightly say that when there is no pandemic, like in Australia right now, if you do mass testing most of your positives are going to be false positives. Would love to know how many of these “cases” are even sick. Of course, we only hear about the few who are seriously sick in hospital.

47. On the topic of testing: How children are spoofing Covid-19 tests with soft drinks – https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210705-how-children-are-spoofing-covid-19-tests-with-soft-drinks

48. Daniel – too funny. I like how the expert’s opinion is buffered with the word “likely”. It’s “likely” to be this. Ok, but where is the actual science to show that? Why haven’t these questions already been sorted out prior to undertaking mass testing of the population? Shouldn’t we know the answer to these questions before spending billions of dollars on tests? And even if we knew the answers, the testing “system” as a whole is what produces false positives and that includes the people who are involved in the testing and their actions and motivations. Having already highlighted that schoolchildren are not disinterested parties in the system, they gloss over that fact and get down to a technical explanation that is also just a hypothesis and leaves open as many questions as it answers. How many schoolkids are faking the results and what impact is this having on the overall statistics? The fact is, the testing system as a whole needs to be tested so that you know what the error rate is. It should have been the first priority to know the error rate of the whole system. That’s if we actually cared about doing real science.

49. So yes Simon, we’ll be joining you as of tonight apparently.
    I had rung my brother to check about whether 10 people was still the “allowed limit” in homes as it’s my nephew’s birthday on Friday.
    Nope, going into lockdown was the reply.
    Regarding this testing crap, which apparently “Twiggy” Forrest has a huge stake in, people here are going to these drive in places in the middle of the night and still sitting in their cars waiting, come morning!
    If everyone just said, nope not getting anything stuck up my nose, the whole thing could end, but they’ve been convinced it’s their civic duty.
    Some are terrified too, this morning I heard one lady on the radio, waiting in the cue since 2am, went because she heard yesterday’s press conference, had a bit of a cough and got frightened. This was about 6.30 am and there were still 100 or so cars ahead of her.
    At one point she said she had to get out of the car and run into the servo to go to the loo!
    It’s a mind virus.
    Sigh…

50. Helen – yeah, the enthusiasm to get tested is quite mind boggling. I remember way back at the start of all this there were people lined up around the block in the Melbourne CDB. That was when we supposedly didn’t know anything about the virus. So, all these people who apparently thought a killer virus was on the loose stood in line next to a whole lot of strangers who thought they were sick. Don’t you know, the tests are all free. So are the vaccines. So are the lockdowns. Everything is free now and money grows on trees!

51. Fascinating thread on the issue of not being able to see a GP in Australia in the last year and a half – https://twitter.com/andrewbogut/status/1417267030344966149

52. @Simon

    Re: France

    There have been some protests in France, but as far as I can tell, they’ve all been relatively small. So, it looks like Macron will win this one. By “win,” I mean get a large percentage of the French population treated with gene therapy. This should not be confused with “stopping cases and deaths,” which is a different matter entirely. Israel, as you’ve probably seen, keeps pushing its estimates of Pfizer effectiveness downwards. Macron just hasn’t received the memo yet.

53. BTW, here’s a Twitter thread by Robert Malone “unrolled” (so, easier to read than on Twitter):

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1417087811505819653.html

    Most of it is (or at least should be…) just common sense, but the part I found particularly interesting was that he agreed entirely with Geert Vanden Bossche. Geert Vanden Bossche was on Bret Weinstein’s Dark Horse podcast a few months ago, and I must admit some of it went way over my head. But what I did get out of that podcast (and subsequent reading) was that vaccinating in the middle of a pandemic drives escape variants (makes sense), and that if a sufficiently bad new variant arises, then the vaccinated will be more vulnerable to it than the unvaccinated (over my head).

54. You’ve probably seen this, but here we go:

    https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/chris-kenny/fear-factor-over-covid-is-out-of-hand/video/a9464409c0c1747012ac253bb10d0f60

    Apparently, Australians (on average) think that if they catch the Delta variant, they have a 38% chance of dying. If correct, that would put the brave new Delta somewhere between smallpox and Ebola in terms of deadliness. So, there you have it. As long as people are that scared, you can expect them to do anything to avoid getting infected, even if it means ruining their own lives and the lives of their children.

55. So much for the Hippocratic oath.
    Hardly anyone knows anyone that either got CV or who died from it, but nearly everyone either has a sad or tragic story or knows of one, due to this madness.

    This is well with worth a listen, scarily prescient, including about “tele health”.

    https://factcheckvaccine.com/2021/07/dr-reiner-fuellmich-interviewing-whitney-webb-corona-committee/

56. Irena – I figured that might be the case in France. Some “vaccine” enthusiasts were gloating that 2 million people signed up for the “vaccine” after Macron’s announcement. I saw that Malone post. The real noble lie was the vaccine happy ending. That’s what DeSantis has done: make the vaccine available and then pretend that it worked suppressing all evidence to the contrary. That gives everybody closure and ends it. The idea that the vaccine will give herd immunity was not a noble lie. It was an ignoble lie. Blatant corruption. The point of the noble lie is to tie society together but that lie will only separate us. They will twist that into endless scariants and associated booster shots. Munchausen by Proxy on a grand scale.

    Helen – thanks for that link. Will give it a listen when I have a chance. I’ve seen some of their other videos. One of the others at that table is Wolfgang Wodarg who has been an excellent source of truth from the start of the whole mess. Luckily, my German is still good enough to mostly follow along. It’s been interesting to hear a perspective from the non-English speaking world.

57. @Simon

    Re: (ig)noble lies

    I’d prefer not being lied to! What a mess…

    There are some good noises coming out of the Czech media. For now, no “vaccine” mandates. They’re making moral arguments (“they said vaccines wouldn’t be mandatory, and if they’re suddenly mandatory, it’ll lead to a loss of trust”), but also purely practical arguments (“our medical and care services are already understaffed, and if even just 10% of that workforce quits in order to avoid vaccination, it’s going to be a disaster”).

58. Irena – As Solzhenitsyn said: “They lie. We know they lie. They know that we know they lie. We know that they know that we know they lie. And still they lie.”

    Yeah, I saw that Macron walked back some of his proposed restrictions and also that Merkel said they wouldn’t do it in Germany. Maybe there’s hope for sanity to prevail. The economics of it all are not trivial either. Assuming very conservatively that 10% of people will forego buying things if they have to be “vaxxed”, that would have huge ramifications. Not many businesses could take a 10% fall in revenue, especially after the carnage of the last year and a half.

    Helen – if you’re still reading, any ideas what’s going on with this story where they are forcing people in hotel quarantine in Adelaide? – https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/south-australia-records-two-new-local-covid19-cases/news-story/a02a71128d94ae1f3e22c9f14192ddef I can’t see the actual reason for it but it says most of them are not tested but they will get tested in quarantine. Does this mean they are forcing people into quarantine before even getting a test result back? That might be a new low.

    P.S. had a look at that Fuellmich interview with Whitney Webb. Very interesting. Of course, google and microsoft will also be making enormous amounts of money out of the working from home situation cos they provide the teleconferencing software that companies need to operate. So, they want to disintermediate the office rental market as much as the medical industry.

59. Simon, vaccine mandates in the *German* health care system could be a big blow to the Czech one. Why? Well, a certain number of German health care workers would quit as a result, leading to shortages. What to do, what to do?? I know!! Import them from abroad! Such as the Czech Republic. After all, German wages are quite a bit higher than Czech ones, so this should be possible. ::gulp:: But no need to panic: the Czech government could easily address this with some good old-fashioned exit visas (oh, wait…).

    As for the business aspect of these COVID passes, mask mandates, and what have you: me, I’ve already decided that all these “non-essentials” are far more trouble than they’re worth. Sure, I go to the supermarket once a week or so, but I haven’t been to a restaurant in Prague since the first lockdown (that was in March last year), and if I pass by an interesting store during my daily walks – I just keep walking. To enter, I’d need to put on a mask, and I’d rather not, you know. I wonder how many people feel the same way.

60. Irena – quite a lot. Then they go home and buy things online thereby channeling money away from the local economy and to the Amazons of the world. I’ve heard it said this will be the greatest wealth transfer in history and I could easily believe that.

61. Hey mate,
    Maybe a trace of sanity is showing in Germany, but certainly not in Australia. If i was 10 years younger, I’d get out of this country as fast as i could. Oz is a lost cause.
    But on the bright side, things start to make sense. While I still have no good theory how we got into this mess, it is now quite clear, what keeps us in it. At least here in Oz.
    The powers that be know they fucked up. Royally. Epically. Historically. More than anyone has fucked up in a century. And they know that the peasants are slowly starting to notice this.
    They are cracking. Badly wounded and in a corner. And they have a lot to lose. The masters, not us slaves.
    This is really really bad news for us.
    A badly wounded but still powerful opponent backed into a corner is what we face now.
    This is historically a common situation and it usually goes from bad to worse and ends badly for everyone.
    See how they are losing it. Gladys sounds definitely unhinged, NSW Health Hazzard around 13:00 outright insane.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4mvNBh53_d4

    Actually here is a stunningly sane interview
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9cZd5WzvIvo
    So maybe there is a way out that won’t trash the country wholesale, but I’m not optimistic.

62. Hi Simon,
    You’re more up to date than me!
    The way I see it, apart from the fact that the CHO now appears to be our
    absolute Queen and ruler, (Marshmallow is one name for the Premier), they’ve actually been too successful in their messaging.
    The repeated mantra of if you have even the slightest symptom, which of course we can convince ourselves we have when we don’t, has become embedded in so many minds, that it’s causing these massive 10 hour plus lines of cars of people “rushing” er maybe not so much once you’ve driven there, to get the swab.
    So then the people that they really need to focus on are caught up in it and due to to the dictatorship mentality of our Queen, well let’s just haul those people off to a hotel.
    Double down, double down.
    Mind you not for her consort (husband), his task, while under lock and key was to sort out his sock drawer.
    How long this mania persists is anyone’s guess.
    We’re a state full of old, conservative, frightened people.
    I wonder how Don Dunstan would have handled it? 🤪

    On a completely different note, have you started sowing for summer seedlings yet?
    I’m going to start later this year (August) among the reasons, last spring was so cool and mild that when I planted stuff out, they were set back anyway.
    I believe this spring may be similar, plus also, wetter.
    Growing Veg: Always making mistakes, always learning!

63. Scary when Ol Alan is the voice of reason.

    https://youtu.be/4mvNBh53_d4

    The last bit is LOL absurdity, by Health Hazard as Jones calls him.
    Actually everything he says in it is.
    He’s really lost the plot 🤯😵

64. Roland – in a macabre way, it’s quite fascinating to watch Australia have a complete meltdown. The old line about having second rate leaders who share the luck couldn’t be more accurate. That’s all that happened in NSW, they got lucky but told everybody how good they were. Pride goeth before a fall. And here we are completely dependent on overseas countries and companies to send us a vaccine. Imagine if it was something important like oil that we couldn’t get hold of. Maybe some good will come of this. I think by the time we are finished with this mess, all the political parties will have outed themselves as completely inept. If I was an ambitious politician, I would be starting a socially conservative-economically liberal political party right now. Such a party should get significant votes, not in the next election, which will just be a referendum on ScoMo but the one after that. The one where all the economic damage that has been done will have come home to roost and people will be mightily pissed off.

    Helen – jinx. You and Roland shared the same video. Yes, Alan Jones has the been the voice of reason almost from the start of this. The crazier they get, the more sensible he sounds. Of course, Jones’ argument is logically true but can’t work psychologically and politically. We’ve backed ourselves into a corner with no way out. For vegetable growing, I’ve over the years ended up focusing on just a few core crops that give me the most value. Garlic and leafy greens are my staples. I also grow pumpkin over summer. This year I experimented with cabbage but that was a big failure. I’ve never found starting summer crops early to be worth it. So, cucumber and tomato can go in September at the earliest here. Capsicum a bit later. Sounds like it will be a wet spring which is good news. What are you planting over summer?

65. You’d have my vote. Definitely. Actually I’d be a paid up member.
    True, it is fascinating to watch this slow motion trainwreck. Would be nicer if we were not all in that train.
    It will be interesting to see what is left of our political system when this is over in 3 or 4 years.
    Hopefully not too much, so it can all be rebuilt from scratch.
    Here’s an interesting one. Nothing too original, but it is nice to see it written down.
    https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/07/covidanity-australias-new-state-religion/

    @Helen
    Funny old world where Murdoc’s media is the voice of reason.
    Never took much notice of Jones and Bolt in the past. Maybe that was a mistake.
    I was supposed to go to Adelaide for two weeks in August for work. Was looking forward to that, Adelaide being one of my favourite cities. Not gonna happen now that you’re all gonna die of the delta strain.

66. Yes, I never thought I’d find Sky News the most measured of the media’s response.
    I’m disappointed at how all out ABC has been in it’s mouthing of all the official propaganda.
    Apart from my alarm wake up where I listen for a bit before I get up, I don’t really ever turn on the radio now. I can’t bear to hear them all parroting the party line.
    My brother in law works in commercial radio, apparently he’s going a bit mad having to hold his tounge!
    This winter I planted a bed of Brussels sprouts for the first time, they got bombarded by white fly.
    The peas are going well as usual and broccoli.
    Ive a jungle of leafy greens, pity I don’t eat more of em!
    Garlic is growing slowly.
    With all that went on with Molly it all took a bit of a back seat and to be honest I’m still to regain any enthusiasm, normally I’m excited about my summer sowing.
    I do plan on doing more paste tomatoes this year. In the past I’ve done the Fowler’s vacola thing, so I want to give that ago again.
    I’ll do zucchini and I want to try spaghetti squash.
    Last summer I did a bunch of rock and watermelon up trellis, but didn’t have a lot of success.
    I’m always tinkering, it’s still more of a yearly experiment at this point.
    Maybe when vegetables become increasingly expensive, I’ll take it more seriously, which is probably not the best attitude to have, but I’m still ahead of most people and certainly don’t take the availability of food for granted. Or running water, lights and refrigeration!
    Oh, and I put up white shade cloth once it gets regularly over 33ish.

67. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: most countries in the world (or at least in the West) are not going to get out of this in any sane manner. See what a horrible mess UK’s “Freedom Day” has turned into. No, what’s going to happen is that they’ll keep digging (“Don’t talk to your neighbors!!!”), until some sort of explosion happens and we just forget about COVID. I suspect that the explosion won’t be directly caused by COVID. Instead, it’ll be caused by some old problem (such as ethnic tension) that got exacerbated by anti-COVID measures, with their impact on the economy and human sanity. Best case scenario: some Trump-like clown gets elected and smashes much of the establishment, leaving a mess in his wake (but also, hopefully, some sort of opportunity for a new start). Worst case scenario? Think Rwanda. But no, I don’t think we’ll get out of this in any sort of sane way. Our betters simply don’t have a workable exit strategy.

68. Roland – the covid-religion theme makes a lot of sense within Jung’s thought too as he believed the only reason we needed psychology was to fill the hole left by religion. i always find it funny how some people, always men, talk about the case numbers like they talk about sports results. sport used to be our religion but now we got a new one with new numbers.

    Helen – over the last year and a half, i’ve come to think that the main value from gardening is precisely so you can learn how “nature” works so we can understand what these absurdly easy lifestyles we have built for ourselves are founded on. I grew up in country NSW, so have a bit of a different take on it. there’s no way something like covid could happen if the majority of Australia was country towns. this is a big city problem (note that’s true both psychologically and probably also biologically).

    Irena – you mean, the rebellious children will have to win the fight against The Devouring Mother? 😉

69. Simon: “Irena – you mean, the rebellious children will have to win the fight against The Devouring Mother?”

    Ha! Yes, that’s a nice, succinct way of putting it. 🙂 Let’s just hope they/we do it carnival-style (think Trump) and not genocide-style…