CV19 - Cure Worse Than The Disease? (Vol 18)

CV19 - Cure Worse Than The Disease? (Vol 18)

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Elysium

13,755 posts

186 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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Twinfan said:
This is also the bit I'm struggling with. Pre-pandemic I was approaching what I called "peak life" in that we had spent a lot of time getting financially stable and looking forward to doing a whole bunch of bucket list stuff. While the fog has mostly cleared with regards to world travel etc, there's still the gloom of thunder clouds in the sky. I just don't trust the world not to go batst mental again at the drop of a hat.

It's really taken the wind out of my sails and I'm in a very different place mentally than I used to be frown
In a way it’s possibly a good thing. Nothing is certain, including the stability of our society. Just look at what has happened to the people of Ukraine.

None if us know what will happen. But COVID provides an insight into the way we will behave in a future crisis. I have had a comfortable life and like you am in a good place to enjoy the coming years. I fully intend to do that and will put my families welfare first, no matter what anyone says.

B'stard Child

28,320 posts

245 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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Biker 1 said:
GSE said:
I doubt that I am going to bother voting next time.
Same.
I received my polling card in the post the other day, advising me that I need to bring photo ID with me to the polling station - yet another 'solution' to a non-existent problem.
Took me less than a minute to apply

https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-author...

It arrived almost as soon as I submitted the application

Biker 1 said:
I suppose I won't even bother spoiling my ballot.
Big cock and balls on mine or NOTA - still not made up my mind

If MRLP put a candidate up against Truss previous choices go out the window and I'll vote for whoever stands for them biggrin

Twinfan

10,125 posts

103 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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Elysium said:
In a way it’s possibly a good thing. Nothing is certain, including the stability of our society. Just look at what has happened to the people of Ukraine.

None if us know what will happen. But COVID provides an insight into the way we will behave in a future crisis. I have had a comfortable life and like you am in a good place to enjoy the coming years. I fully intend to do that and will put my families welfare first, no matter what anyone says.
Indeed, and I'm re-configuring my expectations accordingly. It's just taking me a little time. It is a real First World problem though for sure, and I'm eternally grateful for all that I have,

B'stard Child

28,320 posts

245 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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Sorry meant to say I applied for it because

I can't find my passport haven't used it for over 3 years due to some rules about having a vaccine in order to cross international borders.... (It will be somewhere very safe......)

My DL is a paper one as I haven't moved house in over 31 years rather than a Photocard one

So I'm a bit fked for photo ID biggrin

JuanCarlosFandango

7,787 posts

70 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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Agree completely on voting GSE.

I got a bit suckered in to the Corbyn thread recently. I got half way through a long reply then just thought "sod this." Why even give such importance to it?

It doesn't matter which party or which wing of it gets in - Labour, Tory, Liberal, Green. Farage got suckered into it. Trump, Biden, Adern, Merkel and Modi.

Sweden is held up as an example but even they had restrictions, masks and vaccines. They were the tallest dwarf.

You get pulled in to a whole false dualism while they do what the hell they want.

jameswills

3,416 posts

42 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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JuanCarlosFandango said:
jameswills said:
Here here. I view the World completely differently now, there’s no turning back that clock for me.
What I'm still trying to figure out is whether it was always like this - a complete pack of lies - and just became obvious then, or has it been steadily getting worse and this was just the most extreme case yet?
I've very unsure. 2008 crash and then the bail outs made me really think about the markets and how our economy didn't make a lot of sense, plus the warmongering we seem to do on a whim but try and call out others for doing the same, but I just put that down to recent blips and typical boom and bust economy of the Capitalist West. Now I don't believe in any of it. Absolute sham.

jameswills

3,416 posts

42 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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grumbledoak said:
BrewsterBear said:
He's not alone though. The world has irrevocably changed for me too. I feel like the Wizard of Oz's curtain has been pulled. I mean, I knew that all governments were fetid pools of corruption, but I believed that, in the west at least, it was kept out of sight and punished when outed. Now I see that even when presented with concrete evidence of their incompetence, embezzlement, nepotism, hands in the till, and downright dishonesty they either lie about it or shrug their shoulders and nobody seems to care. Why are they not being held to account?

I feel like the contract I had with the UK government has been broken and there's no way to fix it. They still expect me to keep up my side by paying in far more than I take, but they have no intention of upholding their side by providing a free and fair society. They don't even hide it any more. That they still haven't rescinded the power to place me under house arrest at will is chilling. That even with messages written by ministers stating they know it was all political theatre, people still think it's "no biggie." It all makes me literally feel sick. I have never felt less proud to be British in my entire life and there's nothing I can do about it. I am politically homeless with the only choice being between a sh!t sandwich or turd on toast.

The West as I knew it is dying and it's terminal. Tearing itself apart over whether women have penises, how many genders there are, how much we owe ex-colonies for things done hundreds of years ago, how many masks can save just one life, how many years of my life I should give up so Doris can have an extra 6 months to cower behind her sofa bleaching her mail. Whatever the western dream was, it's over. And then people wonder why Putin had the temerity to invade. I feel like we've never been closer to WWIII.

My outlook on life, the world, and everything, has changed. In some ways for good and in others for bad. I'm travelling a lot this year and for the next few before they stop us doing that again, in the name of a new bug, new war, net zero, or whatever they like as nobody will stop them. Maybe I'll find a part of the world I feel I fit in better. Whatever the outcome, it's now me and mine first and f**k everyone else. The majority have proven themselves not worth attempting to save. If they're willing to accept the status quo then they're welcome to it. It saddens me to feel that way, but when people won't even help themselves then there really is no alternative.
Well said.

This was a script they have used before and they will do it all again. There are no consequences. No-one in power will be held to account. Our liberal democracy is a sham, but it is enough to prevent the cattle from getting restless. Add the occasional fright and you can shunt them in any direction you want. That direction, the destination even, was decided some decades ago. You won't like it. But you will be happy according to the YouGov poll results.
Another well said from me too. How I feel about it.

jameswills

3,416 posts

42 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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One thing to really make you stand up and take notice is that during this "pandemic", which was supposedly so deadly and important to everyone's well-being, they passed more laws than ever before, they expedited and pushed through the "net zero" nonsense and then decided that entering a proxy war in Ukraine was a good idea.

2019 seems like 30 years ago now.

pork911

7,086 posts

182 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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jameswills said:
One thing to really make you stand up and take notice is that during this "pandemic", which was supposedly so deadly and important to everyone's well-being, they passed more laws than ever before, they expedited and pushed through the "net zero" nonsense and then decided that entering a proxy war in Ukraine was a good idea.

2019 seems like 30 years ago now.
who are 'they' and how do you think they have in any way expedited and pushed through net zero?

Elysium

13,755 posts

186 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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JuanCarlosFandango said:
Sweden is held up as an example but even they had restrictions, masks and vaccines.
This is where I recommend stepping back. There is a domino effect here where we ending up rejecting all interventions. I do believe COVID was a genuine threat. But is seemed obvious to me from the outset that the only way through it was to face it.

Limiting our interactions slowed transmission and was necessary. But we went too far and neglected human rights when we forced that behaviour change through lockdown.

Vaccines saved lives, but should never have been pushed for the young and healthy and vaccine passports were a deranged dystopian nightmare.

Doing nothing was never an option and Sweden at least tried to respect human rights in the process. They show us that the more draconian approaches did not bring greater benefits.

Sweden indulged in vaccine passports for entry, but not domestically. Having visited them toward the end of the pandemic I think there was a dual response in Sweden. What they did internally and what they presented to the outside world. This was obvious in the way that they ‘switched on’ all the COVID madness on planes leaving the country when none of it was required on the way there or anywhere within Sweden.


jameswills

3,416 posts

42 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
pork911 said:
jameswills said:
One thing to really make you stand up and take notice is that during this "pandemic", which was supposedly so deadly and important to everyone's well-being, they passed more laws than ever before, they expedited and pushed through the "net zero" nonsense and then decided that entering a proxy war in Ukraine was a good idea.

2019 seems like 30 years ago now.
who are 'they' and how do you think they have in any way expedited and pushed through net zero?
The UK government. In November 2020 when we were all locked down, Johnson brought forward the petrol and diesel car ban from 2040 to 2030. Just like that, out of the blue, during a "pandemic".

Seventy

5,500 posts

137 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
jameswills said:
The UK government. In November 2020 when we were all locked down, Johnson brought forward the petrol and diesel car ban from 2040 to 2030. Just like that, out of the blue, during a "pandemic".
No he didn’t.

jameswills

3,416 posts

42 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
Seventy said:
jameswills said:
The UK government. In November 2020 when we were all locked down, Johnson brought forward the petrol and diesel car ban from 2040 to 2030. Just like that, out of the blue, during a "pandemic".
No he didn’t.
He did. I suppose you'll argue the ban was brought forward from 2035, but that was brought forward in Feb 2020, a mere 9 months before, at the beginning of the "pandemic".

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-tech/sale...


JuanCarlosFandango

7,787 posts

70 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
jameswills said:
I've very unsure. 2008 crash and then the bail outs made me really think about the markets and how our economy didn't make a lot of sense, plus the warmongering we seem to do on a whim but try and call out others for doing the same, but I just put that down to recent blips and typical boom and bust economy of the Capitalist West. Now I don't believe in any of it. Absolute sham.
2008 was extraordinary, but it was building up way before then as I see it. We had been piling up debt for years before then and we just printed a load more money to "solve" the problem.

The Iraq war and the WMD were made up

Climate Change, 9/11, AIDS, famine, moon landings, war, peace, empire and everything else. If not entirely fabricated these things are at least spun and manupulated in a way and to such extraordinary degrees for the benefit of whatever it is certain groups want to do anyway.

The further I go down the rabbit hole the more sense it makes until I find myself scrabbling back out thinking these nutty conspiracy theories can't be right - it flies in the face of everything I know. Back out, blinking in the light I see people arguing over whether Boris Johnson had a glass of wine at his desk in a professional capacity as a key worker or or as a lying scoundrel who doesn't follow his own rules and I think this st makes alien lizard overlords seem like a logical explanation.

I'm caught between because the errant nonsense on the surface is so far gone that people aren't receptive to logic or reason, because they're too partisan and too caught up in picking over various details within the lies. Going down the rabbit hole again makes some sense but it isn't merely an uncomfortable truth - it's a complete reevaluation of who were are, what we're about and what we stand for. It would require the complete overthrow of every institution, the slaughter of every sacred cow and the smashing of every pillar that supports the current order.

I'm not a revolutionary by nature and I instinctively tend to thing that would do more harm than good. At the same time though I can't stand to see these lies go unchallenged where they become accepted as truths and become foundations of how we live.

AstonZagato

12,649 posts

209 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
Governments and newspapers love fear. Fear that requires a government to "do something" to save the population. Fear that generates clickbait headlines. That's not to say climate change / Covid / extinction events are not real threats, just that one needs to understand the lens through which crises are projected.

Seventy

5,500 posts

137 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
jameswills said:
He did. I suppose you'll argue the ban was brought forward from 2035, but that was brought forward in Feb 2020, a mere 9 months before, at the beginning of the "pandemic".

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-tech/sale...
So I was correct. He didn’t.

jameswills

3,416 posts

42 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
JuanCarlosFandango said:
2008 was extraordinary, but it was building up way before then as I see it. We had been piling up debt for years before then and we just printed a load more money to "solve" the problem.

The Iraq war and the WMD were made up

Climate Change, 9/11, AIDS, famine, moon landings, war, peace, empire and everything else. If not entirely fabricated these things are at least spun and manupulated in a way and to such extraordinary degrees for the benefit of whatever it is certain groups want to do anyway.

The further I go down the rabbit hole the more sense it makes until I find myself scrabbling back out thinking these nutty conspiracy theories can't be right - it flies in the face of everything I know. Back out, blinking in the light I see people arguing over whether Boris Johnson had a glass of wine at his desk in a professional capacity as a key worker or or as a lying scoundrel who doesn't follow his own rules and I think this st makes alien lizard overlords seem like a logical explanation.

I'm caught between because the errant nonsense on the surface is so far gone that people aren't receptive to logic or reason, because they're too partisan and too caught up in picking over various details within the lies. Going down the rabbit hole again makes some sense but it isn't merely an uncomfortable truth - it's a complete reevaluation of who were are, what we're about and what we stand for. It would require the complete overthrow of every institution, the slaughter of every sacred cow and the smashing of every pillar that supports the current order.

I'm not a revolutionary by nature and I instinctively tend to thing that would do more harm than good. At the same time though I can't stand to see these lies go unchallenged where they become accepted as truths and become foundations of how we live.
I wholeheartedly agree, but before 2008 I was pretty politically naive and agnostic, I went along with the standard narratives. The political talking points you mention (9/11, climate change, AIDS etc) I also now look back on with huge suspicion, as you say, not that everything was entirely fabricated, but having seen how manipulated people can be to follow a certain belief or "truth" and then defend that belief so vehemently, I do find myself wondering was it ever thus? Probably so!

What is extremely clear is that division is key to all of this, left vs right, red vs blue, LGBT, BLM, vaccine status, climate change (deniers vs believers). If that division between the populace can continue, people driving it continue to profit. I am not talking shadowy figures plotting and scheming, it's pure unadulterated greed and want of power of the human being.

What I struggle with now is having any "normal" political conversation with someone that still thinks like 2019 and before. Talking about interest rates, and inflation and who to vote for next election, just baffles me now. It's all fluff, none of it has any bearing on our lives in a positive manner.

I am getting tired of it all now, but I think it's important to keep speaking out, or at least keep discussing it. We won't get admission and accountability, that is never going to happen.

JuanCarlosFandango

7,787 posts

70 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
Elysium said:
This is where I recommend stepping back. There is a domino effect here where we ending up rejecting all interventions. I do believe COVID was a genuine threat. But is seemed obvious to me from the outset that the only way through it was to face it.

Limiting our interactions slowed transmission and was necessary. But we went too far and neglected human rights when we forced that behaviour change through lockdown.

Vaccines saved lives, but should never have been pushed for the young and healthy and vaccine passports were a deranged dystopian nightmare.

Doing nothing was never an option and Sweden at least tried to respect human rights in the process. They show us that the more draconian approaches did not bring greater benefits.

Sweden indulged in vaccine passports for entry, but not domestically. Having visited them toward the end of the pandemic I think there was a dual response in Sweden. What they did internally and what they presented to the outside world. This was obvious in the way that they ‘switched on’ all the COVID madness on planes leaving the country when none of it was required on the way there or anywhere within Sweden.
This is the sort of fine line I tread - on one side I agree with you that less is better and Sweden is to be applauded for a light touch. In the not insignificant way the Yugoslavia was far less awful than East Germany. Moderating the worst excesses of government is a worthwhile thing.

On the other side I can't accept that covid was a significantly dangerous disease that warranted any special measures. Not only because it wasn't deadly to most people statistically speaking, but because I don't want the government having those powers ever, for any reason.

I'd rather take my chances with a deadly disease than with an over mighty state. To my concept of what I am and am not, I am a free individual who makes these choices and judges these risks myself. I can ride a motorbike, jump out of an aeroplane, sail single handed across the Atlantic and set off up a mountain in the middle of winter. I can bloody well choose whether or not to go out when there's a nasty cold about. I am not a farm animal to be herded around at their behest, those rights and liberties are not something I'd willingly trade to stop a government policy (the NHS) from failing.

Doing nothing absolutely was an option. In fact it was pretty much the plan, worked out by actual scientists and experts long before we had a pandemic. Experts who noted that panic, fear and disruption would do far more harm than good. And whose recommendations were thrown out by opportunistic politicians and The Science (TM) when they realised they could 'get away with it.'


pork911

7,086 posts

182 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
Seventy said:
jameswills said:
He did. I suppose you'll argue the ban was brought forward from 2035, but that was brought forward in Feb 2020, a mere 9 months before, at the beginning of the "pandemic".

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-tech/sale...
So I was correct. He didn’t.
Quite. As I recall Boris was very far from leveraging fear mongering in Feb 2020.

jameswills

3,416 posts

42 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
quotequote all
JuanCarlosFandango said:
This is the sort of fine line I tread - on one side I agree with you that less is better and Sweden is to be applauded for a light touch. In the not insignificant way the Yugoslavia was far less awful than East Germany. Moderating the worst excesses of government is a worthwhile thing.

On the other side I can't accept that covid was a significantly dangerous disease that warranted any special measures. Not only because it wasn't deadly to most people statistically speaking, but because I don't want the government having those powers ever, for any reason.

I'd rather take my chances with a deadly disease than with an over mighty state. To my concept of what I am and am not, I am a free individual who makes these choices and judges these risks myself. I can ride a motorbike, jump out of an aeroplane, sail single handed across the Atlantic and set off up a mountain in the middle of winter. I can bloody well choose whether or not to go out when there's a nasty cold about. I am not a farm animal to be herded around at their behest, those rights and liberties are not something I'd willingly trade to stop a government policy (the NHS) from failing.

Doing nothing absolutely was an option. In fact it was pretty much the plan, worked out by actual scientists and experts long before we had a pandemic. Experts who noted that panic, fear and disruption would do far more harm than good. And whose recommendations were thrown out by opportunistic politicians and The Science (TM) when they realised they could 'get away with it.'
Again well said. Not only did I think this disease wasn’t worth any measures at all, it was never up to the government to impose any of them on us. Absolutely abhorrent for a western democracy, I can’t believe we allowed it all so readily, some welcoming more. Quite scary.
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