I’ve been recording the audio version of my new book, The Bug in our Thinking. In it I quote Carl Sagan from 1996:
We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it? …
Science is more than a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking. A way of sceptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask sceptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be sceptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.
Sagan was on the money. Every day brings news of more absurdities from charlatans in science, education, politics and media. To quote myself, from the same book: “Never have so many been so wrong about so much.”
Why is this happening?
If I could answer that in a couple of paragraphs I would not have had to write a whole book. Here, I will focus on just one element. Underneath all the dangerous and troubling beliefs about gender, climate, race, migration, medicine and vaccination lies a psychological problem. Too many people believe things that are not true. This is the new normal. Let’s call it the Pandelusion.
The Pandelusion – thinking and doing the ‘right thing’ – is the worldview relentlessly promoted by most of the media and driven by bad science and big money.
This doesn’t require a conspiracy by the way. That is just what the profit motive will do when untrammelled by conscience or virtue. For the controlling minority of society it is extremely lucrative to promote the Pandelusion. For the majority, the result is an expensive, destructive, disempowering rip-off.
It would take an encyclopaedia to itemise and refute each of the delusions one at a time. In fact it already has. On websites and Substacks and in books and scholarly journals millions of words have been written refuting every one of the dominant delusions with rational argument and factual evidence – yet the delusions are still in the ascendant. The encyclopaedia of hard evidence and common sense is ignored by most of the mainstream media and censored or ignored by complicit scientists.
It is extremely depressing to see that the majority of the population remain convinced by the Pandelusion. They are accustomed to being guided by orthodoxy. In good times that is not such a bad strategy. In hard times, and very specifically in these hard times, it does no good at all. All around us are hundreds of thousands of people who have been seriously injured by doing what they were told was ‘the right thing’. It takes time, independence, courage, humility, encouragement and good fortune to build the habit of trusting your own judgement even when all the facts are not available.
Now that lockdowns and the uptake of the staggeringly ‘safe and effective’ vaccines have set the precedent, the next bonanza is the climate emergency and orthodox opinion is being boosted, adjusted and streamlined to serve the interests of those who have positioned their investments to profit from it.
Externalities
Do you remember when environmentalists used to talk about ‘externalities’? Externalities, you may recall, are the costs of a service or product which are not paid by the immediate user but by society at large. The costs of driving a car, for example, are not just purchase, fuel and maintenance. The external costs are exhaust emissions and tyre wear particulates, the motorways, the loss of mediaeval town centres to create road systems and car parks, the loss of market share for public transport, the cost of road traffic accidents, and so on and on.
It is helpful and illuminating to consider externalities when assessing the overall impact of a policy. Recently, however, the term has fallen out of favour amongst governments, environmentalists and the mainstream media. Why might that be?
The externalities of Net Zero are mind-bogglingly vast: environmental, economic, social and, for some, existential. Consider just one small element of the path to Net Zero: electric vehicles. The carbon cost of their manufacture means they have to be driven for nearly 10 years before there is a net carbon benefit. Cobalt mining in the Congo is environmentally destructive and exploitative of the local population. Dependency on manufacture in China creates huge political and economic weaknesses. I could go on, but you already know this and much, much more.
The externalities of lockdown were destructive beyond measure: the emotional abuse of elders dying alone, the sabotage of education in schools and universities, the bankruptcies and destruction of thousands upon thousands of small businesses, the depression, the abuse, the suicides and more.
The externalities of Covid vaccination, as we all know, without a shadow of a doubt, are ‘extremely rare’ because the vaccines are so very, very, very, very safe and effective. Nevertheless the vaccines have a remarkable correlation (not causation! Heaven forfend) with a plague of evil coincidence fairies and uncounted cancers, TIAs, myocarditis, heart disease, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and a huge range of other ailments, injuries and disabilities.
The externalities of catering to a tiny number of transgender activists are expensive, disproportionate and insulting and dangerous to women.
The externalities of woke policies in education include rendering academics too frightened to promote independence of thought. Not a great outcome for education.
I can stop listing externalities now – you can think of plenty of them that follow from every Government policy from migration to taxation.
No wonder the mainstream doesn’t talk about externalities any more. They are not to be mentioned.
The orthodoxy has aligned its messages across different platforms by means of helpful, fact-checking, billionaire-backed NGOs. All the bad science, the abstract thinking, the experts, the absurdities from wokery to environmental zealotry, the emotional incontinence and plain stupidity have become one overarching right think’.
It is all a single dictatorial blob of grandiose self-righteousness. The Pandelusion with its Pharisaic acolytes guides 100% of BBC output and at least 90% of media content throughout the Western world.
The power of the Pandelusion is immense.
That is terrifying and horribly depressing.
Some days I feel utterly defeated as I read, yet again, of more moronic orthodoxy.
And yet, and yet, I see a glimmer of hope.
Here is the weakness. Precisely because the Pandelusion has become a single, overarching, dominant orthodoxy, any flaw or weakness in any part of it can affect the whole thing. One tiny little crack anywhere in the whole monstrous edifice has the possibility of advancing, little by little by little, so that it will all, eventually, fall down.
All is not lost. We don’t need to challenge the whole Pandelusion or the big, embarrassing controversies about climate science confirmation bias or the magnificent safe and effective vaccines (Blessings be upon their profits forever, Amen). Now we can just chip away at one small, apparently insignificant, peripheral belief and open up one little crack. Then we can walk away and let the crack spread throughout the whole belief system – all by itself.
Those undiscussed externalities are impinging on more and more people’s everyday lives and they don’t like it. As people reject heat pumps, sabotage Ulez cameras, refuse smart meters, and electric cars, and protest against LTNs and 15-minute cities, they are discovering that those who claim to ‘know better’ know very little at all, and often, it turns out, are misrepresenting the science and even sometimes are lying. And the more they research the more inconvenient facts they unearth. In Germany a rebellion against dominant orthodoxy has gained power in a district council election. In the Netherlands the Farmer-Citizen movement (the BBB) has become the third-largest political force in the country. In Spain, Sweden and Italy there are flickers of sanity.
Let’s talk
So let’s talk about externalities. Not the big ones, just the little ones. Like, “Oh Net Zero! Yay! but… I’m not totally sure about the cost-effectiveness of heat pumps.” Let’s say “Yay, Electric vehicles! … except how quickly, I wonder, will the authorities be able to upgrade the national grid to cope with charging them?”
Let’s talk about how 15-minute cities could be utterly brilliant – except maybe there might lots of traffic jams on the ring roads when you take your kids to karate. Let’s talk about how marvellous furlough was, it’s just a shame about inflation.
Let’s talk about how puzzled we are about the little white lies from our governments, about the police who have stopped policing, and the strange, inexplicable inaccuracy of predictions that haven’t come true.
Let us keep tap, tap, tapping away at the monolithic Pandelusion until we make the smallest little crack. Then in that crack, plant tiny little seeds of doubt – and walk away. The light of day will nourish those seeds and the seedlings will enlarge the crack and reality will finish the job. The hypnotic trance can be broken.
There has already been too much death, destruction and conflict. There will be more. But perhaps if we all keep talking we might be able to save some people and salvage a society worth living in.
The Bug in our Thinking and the Way to Fix It is available in the U.K. here. For the rest of the world, for the ebook – and in a week or two the audiobook – you can find it on your national Amazon store.
This article has been corrected. An earlier version incorrectly stated lithium rather than cobalt was mined in the Congo and that an electric car battery would need replacing after five years.
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Pfizer Whistleblower Leaks Execs Emails: ‘We Want to Avoid Having Info on Fetal Cells Out There’
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Can you remind me of the time of the event 16.10.21 in Stafferton Way Maidenhead please?
Tuesday 12th October Years 7/8 12+ Covid Vaccination.
Eaton House The Manor
58 Clapham Common North Side, London SW4 9RU
Phone: 020 7924 6000
“U.S. and European regulators caution, however, that both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines appear linked to a rare reaction in teenagers and young adults — chest pain and heart inflammation.”
This particular reaction might be “rare” but if you add all the rare reactions together the answer you come to is THESE VACCINES AREN’T SAFE, DON’T WORK AND SHOULD BE WITHDRAWN ENTIRELY.
If you look at the Yellow Card reporting of deaths shortly after vaccination you will find that 1 person dead in every 28,938 people vaccinated, and adverse effects are being reported at a rate of 1 report in every 132 people vaccinated.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting
This is a scandal and yet… with the exception of a few Scandinavian public health bodies, nothing changes and the media is silent.
“rare” is the MSM-speak term for not quite 100%
Unfortunately those stats have become irrelevant because the rules have been completely changed.
Before, even very very low levels of damage would trigger the suspension of a drug of vaccine. The expectation was that vaccines and drugs had to be virtually 100% safe.
Now, jab side effects need only be less damaging than the damage from covid to be justified. Most people shrug at the risks of this jab and consider them absolutely justifiable because they think covid is far more dangerous.
To make matters worse they have an exaggerated sense of the risk of covid, so many end up thinking it’s less risky than the jab when we all know that for many age groups it’s the opposite. But that is beside the point. The fundamental shift is we no longer demand that our drugs and vaccines are virtually 100% safe, just safer than the perceived risk of the disease.
We need to change that perception back.
That is going to be an uphill struggle. Well known that reversing brainwashing is incredibly difficult and people struggle to admit they were wrong.
You won’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into.
Not sure who said that or when, but they were right then and they are still right today.
Wise words… sadly not enough wise words or common sense around at the moment. I made the mistake of mentioning to a group of friends that deaths in teenagers had doubled since the vaccine was introduced and maybe there might be a link – cure worse than the disease. You’d have thought I’d pee’d on the Queen’s statue considering the response I got.
I think that your experience is not untypical. I use the litmus of talking to those who are pretty sceptical in many ways, but balk at the final step of seeing the whole thing as a total scam.
They cannot believe that such dishonesty exists.
40% of the population is too far gone and cannot be talked back with evidence and data.
20% of us are sceptical.
It’s the remaining 40% we need to work on. Using humour, asking questions, planting seeds of doubt. Every second of every minute of every day.
People go mad in crowds but recover their sanity one by one.
Yeah, maybe by starting with: “It’s awful that the Government has not been straight with us from the start,” rather than “Unfortunately everything you believe is wrong or some variant on that. Much as one wants to shake them till their teeth rattle.
Yes. Simply shouting won’t do it, especially from a sound-proofed room.
This is absolutely the nail on the head Stewart. The psyops has convinced many that Covid is basically a death sentence, even for young people. Therefore I think many people reason that seeing as it’s unlikely that the jab will kill them, it must be a better option. When I had Covid a few months back and told people that I’d had it, their reaction was as if I was telling them I had cancer or a brain tumour or something.
my experience is that when I tell people I had covid they don’t believe me because I “was never in hospital” ie hospitalised it has to have been covid, but not hospitalised it couldn’t have been
Same here. I carry a copy of my positive antibody test around with me, because when I go on to explain why I now have natural immunity, they tend to glaze over. Because they’ve not seen anything in the papers or on the telly about it they seem unable to process what I’m telling them – had it – can’t get it again – can’t give it to anyone else.
My brother (who’s also had it) is recieving calls from his surgery accusing him of being irresponsible and a danger to others because he refuses the jab. I advised him to speak to a solicitor abour ‘coersion’ as it’s illegal.
Having had so many hideous reactions to so many prescription medicines I have been issued with over the years I now have a very healthy scepticism about ANYTHING produced by big pharma – to the point where I would always be looking for a natural alternative – and this whole fiasco has just heightened my concerns about the safety of anything they produce – because they operate on the policy of having another drug to counteract the unpleasant side effects of the first drug, as opposed to the natural alternative which is invariably not only completely safe and side effect free but actually treats the ailment in question as opposed to merely tamping down symptoms which seems to be the big pharma approach.
I wouldn’t get too excited. In due course they’ll conclude it’s fine and resume. And they’ll use it to “prove” that they are safe and that the authorities are taking the side effects seriously, which we all know they aren’t really. But they have the megaphone…
If it was most other countries I would agree with you, but this is Sweden which has shown a lot of sense so far (although admittedly vaccines have been their weak spot up until now).
Getting accurate information out of teenagers is notoriously difficult, they have inherent skills related to “conduct after capture”. However, young Eagle reports that many classmates have had one or two days off after the injection of the operating system upgrade. These kids have all been summonsed or taken to their GP for “their jab”. Small class sizes, so aftereffects significant to warrant a couple of days off school constitute a large proportion of those jabbed.
The BBC are already running interference for Big Pharma. They did a piece on how heart conditions in young people are not that unusual LMFAO.
The BBC is fucking disgusting, there are literally no depths to which they won’t stoop.
All part of the BBC’s “Trusted News Initiative”
Reading this “gies me the dry boak” or for the non Scots, makes we want to vomit.
https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2020/trusted-news-initiative-vaccine-disinformation
Yes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/ecu/chiles-on-friday-radio-5-live-1-january-2021
Yeah. I mean, most sunday morning football matches have ALWAYS had at least one cardiac related collapse, it’s always been true. It must be true, the BBC says so.
… but it’s why I’m wary of extreme adverse reactions as an indicator – they are too rare to provide clear statistical information.
I spotted this on the BBC this morning…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58170809
It is an appalling hit job on Ivermectin.
It has now seemingly been disappeared so no one can find it. It is full of lies and may have been pulled because it attempted to link to the fake ivermectin deaths in the US. Quite disgraceful.
Absolutely – I saw it too – astonishingly biased piece of Government ordered propaganda – for “me” if “no-one else”, another nail in their coffin.
This is awkward for the UK, because the UK withdrew the AZ vaccine for the under 40s, due to the risk of #extremelyrare blood clots, and said they could get Moderna instead. And of course we know that Pfizer has the same issues around myocarditis and pericarditis.
But I’m sure the MHRA will say “no, no, no it’s all cushty, move along, nothing to see here”.
What a time to be alive.
>What a time to be alive
Or not
This will be why the ONS report 50%rise in teenage deaths since the vaccine was extended to include children. The Governments own data won’t stop them so don’t expect Sweden’s change will have an impact.
If you look at the age group 1-14 for which there is a long ONS death history, it appears that covid doesn’t affect this age group at all (source ONS: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 24 September 2021). Time will tell if any increase in all cause mortality following vaccination occurs in this age group bearing in mind most of this age group is too young to have been experimentally vaccinated.
The next age group up for which there is long term data available is 15-44 so that doesn’t give us many clues pre 2020.
See this chart I’ve produced which on the left shows weekly all cause deaths in the 1-14 age group and on the right cumulative all cause deaths in this age group over the calendar year.
Notice the absence of any obvious peak at all in all cause deaths in Spring 2020 or Winter 2020/2021 and that the number of all cause deaths in this age group during 2020 or year 2021 to date is lower than in the preceeding years.
And this is despite the number of people in England and Wales in the age 1-14 age group being 9.1 million in mid-2010 and 10.1 million in mid-2020. Increasing numbers in this age group would mean other things being equal more expected deaths in 2020 than in 2010 etc.
It’s often said that covid roughly affects different age groups proportionately in relation to their chances of dying from other causes. But this chart indicates this may not be true for the 1-14 age group. On the surface given all cause deaths are lower in the age 1-14 age group than previous years, then the starting assumption should be that all covid deaths in this age group are other deaths that would have occurred anyway that have been misallocated as covid.
It would be interesting if ONS were to respectively split their all cause registered weekly deaths into the same groups they’ve been using since the beginning of 2020, 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44 etc and apply this back to say 2010 as it would show if and when vaccination or covid potentially increased deaths in these age groups.
Interesting work.
“It would be interesting if ONS were to respectively split their all cause registered weekly deaths into the same groups they’ve been using since the beginning of 2020, 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44 etc and apply this back to say 2010 as it would show if and when vaccination or covid potentially increased deaths in these age groups.”
I noticed this early 2020.
It makes comparisons with previous years difficult and was, to me, the first hint that there was more to this ‘pandemic’ than meets the eye.
On top of this, Covid deaths exceed excess deaths which means that deaths from other causes are fewer than normal. How come?
The Moderna ‘vaccine’ contains three times the amount of LNP containing mRNA that the Pfizer jab does.
Why is anyone surprised that it causes more ‘events’?
No one who is paying attention is surprised, and the rest don’t give a shit.
Is it too early to deduce that those reading the Inde and the Guardian (and the Sun and the Mail on line) will be suffering a higher level of heart events?
If they are, they will be quite sure that it’s not related to the vaccine…
I sometimes feel that the focus on serious, reported adverse events – although important as a significant canary down the mine – takes focus away from the key issues around the snake oil.
… because the jabberwocky advocates are correct in pointing out that these events are, still, of a low probability.
It strikes me that the focus diverts away from the fundamental issues :
Bluntly – immediate headline-grabbing safety issues apart, there is absolutely no case for the jabberwokery, and that does not fundamentally hinge on the VAERS/Yellow Card data.
And determined coercion – I’m sure that, like me, many of you on here have been bombarded with vaccine “offers” from NHS England. My data protection complaint about this (that this level of coercion was a misuse of personal data) was of course rejected by them. I then put in a complaint to the ICO – awaiting a response, but not hopeful as I expect they’ve been told to reject any such complaints.
Your point is an interesting one – because I haven’t been bombarded, following one telephone approach right at the beginning, wher no persuasion was used, and the conversation ended when I said I would evaluate when the ‘vaccine’ was not an experiment. The chuckle at the other end suggested that my correspondent understood perfectly that I knew what the issues were and that it was pointless trying any persuasion.
Gosh, you don’t say.
I expect Bozo will want to snap up those not being used in Sweden, so he’s got plenty to bugger-up our under 30s with…
Three cheers for the Swedes. At least they have acted rationally throughout this debacle and have ignored its hysterical Northern European neighbours e.g. the UK.
The risk curves cross each other at about 30. Whatever the risk of the vaccine is (even if we take best case numbers) it isn’t less until you hit the age 30 grouping. Jabbing under 30s is not needed, but it is both profitable (I’m a capitalist so, not anti-profit) and makes the government able to beat its chest.
As long as it is their free choice, made with knowledge of the risks, and without compulsion by exclusion from daily life, allowing 18-30s to get jabbed is fine. But we have become vaccine addicted, just as the data begins to show the vaccines are not the silver bullet hoped for.
The risk curves cross each other at about 30.
It was age 55 when i looked and Delta is a less (flu level) risky.
What?
A democratically elected government’s health authority challenging a private corporation’s instructions.
I honestly thought that wasn’t allowed to happen anymore.
Under news round up,I am horrified to see the daily sceptic referring to the absolute nonsense the BBC has put out about IVERMECTIN. Come on daily sceptic, do your homework. Ivermectin being used around the world with huge success. Merck’s new oral anti viral? Look it up. Every time it looks like things are moving forward the daily sceptic prints one piece of NONSENSE! Shame on you.