You wouldn’t have thought a talk about the welfare of our children was controversial. But it has turned out to be.
“There is a dangerous intolerant totalitarianism, aided by timidity, strangling debate in this country,” writes Professor Richard Ennos as he describes the disturbing cancellation of my proposed talk to parents.
The cancer of slowly killing free speech in Edinburgh and beyond continues, aggressively. Our event with Hugh McCarthy, a respected retired headteacher, and a former Director of Education of three Northern Ireland Learning Areas, someone who has presented directly to ministers, political party leaders and elected members, was refused several possible venues for the talk ‘What Are We Doing To Our Children?’ on grounds that were both spurious and unsettling.
“Anyone speaking out can be suppressed,” Prof. Ennos told Jeffrey Peel, adding that his group, Common Knowledge, has been denied venue after venue.
Censorship is, of course, rife. My cancellation demonstrates how far the tentacles of totalitarianism reach. And for me, it wasn’t the first time.
If you are proposing to vaccinate my child or grandchild, surely I am entitled to ask why, but doing so resulted in a ban from LinkedIn. And my attempts to obtain answers from the medical authorities fared no better, simply being ignored.
Similarly, if you are insisting that my child or grandchild wears a mask at school and on the bus for eight hours a day, I must be entitled to ask if you have carried out a risk-benefit assessment. But pointing this out and drawing attention to the potential damage to children resulted in me being silenced by the BBC, when the host closed the call despite me being an invited guest on his popular phone-in radio programme.
I further thought in a liberal democracy that I was allowed to ask questions such as, “What are we doing to our children?” Yet a talk on this topic in which I largely used Government data to highlight the adverse effects of Covid restrictions on children had to be given only to invitees and was subject to stringent security measures – and was then banned from YouTube for good measure.
The focus of my cancelled talk in Edinburgh was to be to present the evidence of the harms to children from restrictions while examining whether those harmful policies – masks, testing, isolation, school closures – actually worked. I was also to look at whether children were ever in danger from the virus or a danger to others, and therefore whether restrictions on them were necessary at all.
Arguably this is what any responsible society should be asking. And if the answers are ‘no’, somebody should be held responsible.
Apparently though, the Times, Telegraph, Express and others can say it, but I can’t.
Lockdown “damaged a generation“, the Telegraph reports former Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies saying. She told the Covid Inquiry of the “damage” lockdowns had done to children and that it was “awful” to see “these young people struggle”, according to the Express.
The Times reported similar comments from former Chancellor George Osborne, saying lockdown “harmed a generation of children”.
The Telegraph ran a further feature under the headline, ‘How lockdown broke a generation and no one seems to care’. It states: “New research has shown that lockdowns fuelled a staggering rise in teenage eating disorders – and this was not the only damage done.”
This is basically what I was going to say in Edinburgh. Why may they say it but I may not?
Should I be surprised, though, when world-leading scientists have suffered the same fate. Professor Norman Fenton explains how his status as a world expert “counted for nothing” and he became an “academic pariah” after his public criticism of Covid countermeasures such as lockdowns and vaccines. “Now no one is even prepared to review our papers let alone accept them,” he said. He is now “shunned by my academic colleagues”. ”Just having my name on a paper was enough to get it rejected.” His academic papers are now routinely being rejected, even by pre-print servers. Having been invited to speak at a major NHS event, the invitation was summarily withdrawn of the basis that he had questioned the efficacy of the vaccine.
The censorship has sometimes taken on an intimidatory tone as world-renowned scientists have been denigrated and subjected to threats. For example, the authors of the widely-endorsed Great Barrington Declaration were derided as “fringe scientists” by U.S. Government officials. Professor Sunetra Gupta in particular was subjected to intimidation and cancellation. I had offered her my support and complimented her on the roundtable discussion hosted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in which she participated. She replied: “The round table has been taken down by YouTube – very depressing.”
The Great Barrington Declaration itself and its three authors were subject to a Government-sponsored attack, as reported in STAT:
Emails released through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Institute for Economic Research revealed worrisome communication between Director Francis Collins, Anthony Fauci and others within the National Institutes of Health in the fall of 2020. At issue was the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter written in October 2020 and eventually signed by thousands of scientists. It argues that COVID-19 policy should focus on protecting the elderly and vulnerable, and largely re-open society and school for others.
Collins’s response to the memo signed by thousands of scientists demonstrates a clear intention to silence. Collins wrote:
This proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists who met with the Secretary seems to be getting a lot of attention – and even a co-signature from Nobel Prize-winner Mike Levitt at Stanford. There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises.
The Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART) – a group of scientific and medical experts formed to present evidence around Covid policies – is similarly concerned about the suppression of freedom of speech and academic inquiry among scientists and other researchers. They write:
Once you are persona non grata for one of your beliefs, you become an ‘untouchable’. This culture of instant dismissal for an unpopular belief (regardless of whether it is accurate or not) has been exponentially rising in prominence in the last decade. It has led to a culture of self-censorship amplified by social media algorithms which merrily curate your timeline into a homogenous soup of unilateral agreement, obscuring anyone who may challenge your worldview.
Perhaps the biggest danger is indeed that we engage in self-censorship. The HART authors continue:
At heart is the realisation that it is not just a question of eradicating the physical act of censorship, as bad as it is. A much more insidious and evil practice seems to be rife, that of silencing a few outspoken people such that a larger minority choose to self-censor for reasons of self-preservation. The ‘official’ narrative… therefore prevails, unchecked.
Or as Professor Ennos puts it in his conversation with Jeffrey Peel: “There is incredible social stigma about being different – it takes a lot of courage, so we self-censor.”
Worryingly, some countries are taking censorship a stage further, starting to legislate directly against free speech. The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, for example, currently being debated in the Irish Senate (having been passed by the lower house) has been described by the Free Speech Union’s Toby Young as a “draconian anti-free speech law”.
Finally, there is the growing absence of democratic accountability. I have written of the order of 200 emails to individual politicians in our political parties and to Government medical officials asking why we are vaccinating children, why children are masked and why schools were closed. Most recently I asked if medical facilities had displayed information explaining to patients the meaning of, and their rights under, informed consent rules.
Most do not even afford me the courtesy of an acknowledgement, let alone answers to my questions.
In a second article, the HART authors write:
So what is the truth, and who can speak it? While the answer to this question may not be clear-cut, one thing is absolutely crystal clear: if we are not allowed to talk about it, then it seems very unlikely that the mainstream narrative will resemble anything that is even remotely close to the truth. HART has more to say on this matter, and we intend to say it.
Brownstone Institute founder Jeffrey Tucker is even more forthright:
There will be no restoration of liberty, rights and truth until we come to terms with what happened, why, and how to prevent it in the future. Playing along with this conspiracy of silence surrounding a policy that effectively blotted out every advance in human rights since the Magna Carta is a disastrous error that could lead to the entrenchment of a new dark age.
Strong words indeed, but I fear he may not be wrong.
Hugh McCarthy is a retired headteacher in Northern Ireland who until recently served as a director on two of the province’s main education councils and who remains a ministerial appointment on one.
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I started in tech long before it was ‘cool’. There is indeed good and bad. It depends on the actors and the actors running our ‘systems’ are for the most part, quite evil, totalitarian and in my opinion in many ways, rather idiotic as most totalitarians are. These actors will use technology to tie you down, censor you, track you, make sure you comply and if not, you will lose your bank account and job. The actors, not the underlying technology is to blame. Akin to the use of guns, or cars, if you drive drunk and stoned.
We see the abuse of technology and ‘data’ in the Rona scamdemic and Climate bollocks amongst many other examples. I would say it is more the cult of $cience and $cientism, using technology as a means of control to lever power and profits and kill off our freedom.
Trust big tec at your peril, even if, and it’s a very big if, it appears benign and helpful.
The death of spontaneity is already upon us – try just going to your local train station/airport to go somewhere – No can do without bigbrother knowing all about you.
Submit to change What is your Vax staus – that will be the new normal of course for the Greater Good. (Blair you utter bastard, I pray you rot in Hell).
I often wonder what George Orwell would have made of Clown World.
The RPTB never stop. Control of the MSM is the key.
RPTB? I’ve seen this a few times recently, but unclear about the initialism’s meaning.
I assume ” … powers that be”, but the R?
“Real”
“Modern technology teaches man to take for granted the world he is looking at; he takes no time to retreat and reflect. Technology lures him on, dropping him into its wheels and movements. No rest, no meditation, no reflection, no conversation – the senses are continually overloaded with stimuli. [Man] doesn’t learn to question his world anymore; the screen offers him answers-ready-made.”
“The world of tomorrow will witness a tremendous battle between technology and psychology. It will be a fight of technology versus nature, of systematic conditioning versus creative spontaneity.”
Joos Meerloo
To be clear I think we cannot blame technology much the same as we cannot blame science. It is always people, whether it’s malevolence or stupidity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjI3BXKBgY
Ascent Of Man, episode 11 – Knowledge Or Certainty
“It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.”
I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here, to stand here as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”
Is that Bronowski from the 1970’s? It’s very good.
Regardless of the technology, the same wisdom applies to all ages of homo sapiens.
It is he and I fully agree. I find the last sentence the most important and moving, especially against the backdrop of all the tyranny of Covid where human contact was outlawed. In contrast to Jacob Bronowski’s plea above, here is an excerpt from Klaus Schwab’s book about resetting Humanity.
Page 156 – Accelerating the digital transformation
In one form or another, social and physical distancing measures are likely to persist after the pandemic itself subsides, justifying the decision in many companies from different industries to accelerate automation. After a while, the enduring concerns about technological unemployment will recede as societies emphasize the need to restructure the workplace in a way that minimizes close human contact. Indeed, automation technologies are particularly suited to a world in which human beings can’t get too close to each other or are willing to reduce their interactions.
Yes. Superb. Still available on DVD I believe.
And free on Archive.org
https://archive.org/details/the-ascent-of-man-ep1
And here on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pMhqKVYNHA&list=PLVVydzWYmxcl5m0wXY5X176IvbJoLrz6q&pp=iAQB
i.e. Hubris on a monumental scale.
And as those of us lucky enough to have studied the Classics, Hubris (not “pride”, rather “breaking well defined boundaries”, is ALWAYS followed by Nemesis.
We all need to beware of what will be claimed in the name of AI. It is called Artificial Intelligence because it has no real intelligence. It is an artefact of human minds and is likely to embody their prejudices and preferences. This is already showing as left wing bias in Chatbot.
I recall an online discussion between a retired pilot and a young computer programmer. The programmer was proposing the removal of the ‘error prone’ human to be replaced with ‘reliable’ computers. The retired pilot urged the programmer that it is a very bad idea to replace the pilot. The programmer accused the pilot of trying to protect his job (the pilot was retired). The pilot’s age and years of experience was lost on the young programmer as lacking in years himself he had no concept of what experience actually is. The retired pilot was Capt. Sullenberger.
I picked up this discussion with another programmer and to back up the pilot story above I recounted a friends story about his father, a retired airline pilot. He was originally in the RAF and moved into civilian flying. Before a fight he would calculate his route, timings etc. He would then load the same inputs into the onboard computer and check if the computer gave the same result. If it didn’t he would ignore it. The programmer I was discussing this with asserted that this pilot was wrong and should always believe the computer.
“There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots”
Anon
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”
T. Sowell
“I’m not young enough to know everything”
J. M. Barrie
Back in the early 1990s New Scientist ran an article about automation and concluded that there were two different drivers which had profoundly different outcomes. Either automation was used to replace humans or it was used to enhance humans. In the case of aviation automation must only ever be an enhancement to the skills of the pilot (this also applies to Sub-Postmasters), although there are also mundane and reliably repetitive jobs where automation is a bonus. In the case of flying auto-pilots have been a great help by reducing the work load, but it is also understood that automation can lull pilots into carelessness, or worse de-skill the pilots. This was evident in the case of Air France 447. Following this accident pilot training to deal with ‘upsets’ was re-introduced as it had been reduced in the belief that the auto-pilots would prevent the aircraft getting outside the flight ‘envelope’. And then there was the two Boeing 737 Max accidents where the auto-pilot flew the planes into the ground and the pilots were unable to dis-engage the auto-pilot. Automation must always, always be our servant.
The graph below shows a graph from Hans Rosling’s excellent book FactFullness, showing the dramatic improvements in airline safety since the 1930s. This is how Hans described it:
“Back in the 1930s, flying was really dangerous and passengers were scared away by the many accidents. Flight authorities across the world had understood the potential of commercial passenger air traffic, but they also realized flying had to become safer before most people would dare to try it. In 1944 they all met in Chicago to agree on common rules and signed a contract with a very important Annex 13: a common form for incident reports, which they agreed to share, so they could all learn from each other’s mistakes.
Since then, every crash or incident involving a commercial passenger airplane has been investigated and reported; risk factors have been systematically identified; and improved safety procedures have been adopted, worldwide. Wow! I’d say the Chicago Convention is one of humanity’s most impressive collaborations ever. It’s amazing how well people can work together when they share the same fears.”
All good, but what is interesting is the lion’s share of improvements that happened before 1944 convention. In addition fully automated airliners start appearing in the 1970s except the general trajectory of improvements remains the same. All this safety has been achieved not through regulation or punishment, but through pilots sharing their experiences and through skilled and diligent analysis of accidents and the general application of the knowledge gained across the various contributing professions, and for the most part, across the planet. In every case it is humans that make it all work.
When we don’t have religion we don’t believe in nothing, we believe in anything.. I can’t even remember whose that quote is, but it’s one of the best!
Climbing on the shoulders of the giants of the Enlightenment of the past 400 years, we collectively, complacently imagine that we are so wise and intelligent.
The opposite is often the case and ‘knowing thyself ‘ remains as elusive as at any time in human history.
The cult of Science/Technology and the online/digital world of the past few decades deludes us into believing we are all knowing, with our super intelligent electronica to hand.
In fact the opposite is, as often as not, true. Hence the belief that computer modelling, based on the often highly questionable assumptions of the programmer, have more validity than mere speculation, or that any computer programme is somehow more able than the abilities of the human being that created it.
The evidence of the online age of the 21st century, with infinite distraction, and with the decreasing attention span of most of the population, is a return to pseudo religions and cultism, as witnessed with the, yet to be proven, climate emergency death cult, with it’s unquestioning belief system, and it’s need to silence and vilify heretics.
Science and technology are not cults. It is people that become cultish, and arrogant and hubristic. I think that we have been predominantly collectivist and cultish for most of human history. In addition when humans come up with better and more powerful ways of doing things these become targets for corruption, whether by an individual or the group. Thus we have Galileo being threatened with torture and death unless he renounced the idea that we lived in a Solar System instead of an Earth centred system. The Church had become cultish and malevolent towards any threat to it’s power. Jon Huss was burned at the stake for having Bibles written in English. Therefore, I’m not convinced that the predicament we are is entirely due to a lack of religion. Most people behave in a civil manner and not because of the threat of punishment if they don’t. The Rotherham rape gangs are not lacking in religion. Although I do agree with your last paragraph.
GK Chesterton. And boy, was he right. Climate Change for example; Marxism, all full-blown quasi-religious faiths, in which belief replaces reality. And Covidmania/Jabmania
Konstantin Kisin opened up his Substack for questions for one hour yesterday.
I asked him a question:
“What will constitute a meaningful life once AI takes over?
Jobs left will be in IT and regulatory bodies.
Shall humanity just eat and drink and be happy?
Will humans feel satisfied and meaningful in that world? Purposeful?
Sorry, feeling a bit gloomy on this wonderful sunny day!”
Konstantin Kisin’s answer:
“Humans will never feel happy or satisfied by eating and drinking and consuming. Life is suffering. Life is struggle. Without that, there can be no meaning. But, like all disruptive technology, I think AI will simply change the nature of the challenges we face. We will find new struggles and new challenges to overcome.”
Re. The Post Office scam, even the big banks have errors that affect people. Here’s a little extract from a recent document issued to me in my account with one of them: “Between 3 January 2019 and 27 July 2022, we have identified that as a result of an error some customers’ may have incorrect figures showing on their Return on Investment figures within their GIC costs and Charges statements. We’re really sorry about this. This issue has been fixed and all future statements will show the correct figures. If you have any questions about this or would like us to provide corrected figures or any previous Costs and Charges statements, please let us know by calling us on the number at the bottom of this statement.” It came to light on 16/1/2024 (sic). It won’t be in the press.
I think this article is good and quite true (he might have said that hugely increased use of technology is aided and abetted by the desire of so many for convenience, time-saving, whatever it might be, as well as just pure laziness). However, I believe that we need to acknowledge our sinfulness (inadequacy??) before God and turn to him in repentance – in the face of all that is going on in our world, we have no hope otherwise!
Top article on the flawed ideology of some of the major people behind it:
The Right Wing Progressives (RWP, like Elon Musk) and their commonalities and differences with conservatives, lefties and libertarians.
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-right-wing-progressives
More here
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-right-wing-progressives
You can all start by ditching your Smartphones (form which every piece of personal data is scraped off to be used against you). It will also help you to live in the here and now – someone on their Smartphone is not here, not present. Appalling effect on society
And this…
“The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff — Big Tech is stealing our lives”
https://archive.ph/D0dJi#selection-2527.8-2527.149