Coronavirus Pandemic: Apocalypse Now! Or exaggerated scare story?

Windmill knight said:
That video of Netanyahu just blew my mind. I knew the guy was a psycho, but still. Here he is speaking openly and proudly of how he used Israelis as Guinea pigs. "We'll use that to tell you what vaccines do to people". So neither Pfizer nor Israel knew that already - yet they were given to the masses. Unbelievable!
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I know. Imagine any other leader of any other country admitting to this, and with this particular swagger. It's unthinkable.

And he's saying all this so openly - without any fear of backlash! The mind boggles at the hubris on display. Really goes to show you how the power elite in Israel are quite possibly the most anti-Semitic group on the planet, and a far bigger threat to the Jewish world than Iran would ever dream of being.

A particular note - I think the 'DW' logo in the corner is the Daily Wire...
 
SOTTREADER said:
Weaponised empathy - that's the term. Thanks!
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I saw this a lot during 2020/21 in my local community. A lot of people I saw succumb to this appeared to be highly empathic people with little knowledge or discernment: they just wanted to help at any cost. Doing a search for the term 'weaponized empathy,' which I thought I had come up with from my own observations during 2021, I found it is out there already in the zeitgeist. I noticed quite a few social justice warrior types running with it (gaslighting perhaps?) but I did find one good article here:

How to Defeat Weaponized Empathy

here are some quotes:

"What is Weaponized Empathy? It is the deliberate hijacking of your own moral standards, your ability to empathize with your fellow man, in order to force you to serve someone else’s narrative. It is, in essence, a highly sophisticated form of guilt-tripping designed to turn you into a slave. …"

and once again knowledge protects when it comes to defeating weaponized empathy:

"The key to defeating Weaponized Empathy in yourself is understanding that more choices exist than are presented by the wielder of the weapon. …"
"You may have empathy, and may wish to do right by other folks. That is a fine and good thing. A noble trait. But never allow yourself to be manipulated and deceived into doing a liar’s bidding."
 
Freya Stewart said:
I saw this a lot during 2020/21 in my local community. A lot of people I saw succumb to this appeared to be highly empathic people with little knowledge or discernment: they just wanted to help at any cost. Doing a search for the term 'weaponized empathy,' which I thought I had come up with from my own observations during 2021, I found it is out there already in the zeitgeist. I noticed quite a few social justice warrior types running with it (gaslighting perhaps?) but I did find one good article here:

How to Defeat Weaponized Empathy

here are some quotes:

"What is Weaponized Empathy? It is the deliberate hijacking of your own moral standards, your ability to empathize with your fellow man, in order to force you to serve someone else’s narrative. It is, in essence, a highly sophisticated form of guilt-tripping designed to turn you into a slave. …"

and once again knowledge protects when it comes to defeating weaponized empathy:

"The key to defeating Weaponized Empathy in yourself is understanding that more choices exist than are presented by the wielder of the weapon. …"
"You may have empathy, and may wish to do right by other folks. That is a fine and good thing. A noble trait. But never allow yourself to be manipulated and deceived into doing a liar’s bidding."
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Yes - we see this in action I believe in other arenas like

  • LGBTQ+ stuff
  • Climate change stuff
Have you noticed how in Europe and the West our leaders are very clever with words - Western principles, rules based order, human freedom etc and these are the "go to" narratives when they are about to do something despicable e.g. send weapons to arm the neo Nazis in Ukraine, or squash some protest from their own citizens about e.g. lockdowns. They've surely mastered the art of hypocrisy and elevated it to the highest realms possible. Citizens however remain none the wiser. I've long observed this in the people closest to me and wondered why, why do you always fall for the same tricks. From my point of view, I think the answer lies somewhere in the pursuit of dreams and happiness as marketed in the West. To break my thinking on this down further:

  • in the West we are mostly allowed enough freedom to chase our dreams which are made to appear within reach. In addition, we are told life is about having "fun", being "happy". These are 2 things that you must arrive to as if some destination on a map. People are therefore preoccupied with either the pursuit of dreams or happiness that they see all the other stuff as a distraction and hence why the politicians always get away with it.
What are your thoughts on this?

I'm finding the people who bill themselves as the most empathetic are the ones who paradoxically are becoming the most tyrannical and calling for more and more controls in society - big government and big tech. The collective good has been weaponised that it now threatens to devour the individual and leave nothing in his/her place.
 
SOTTREADER said:
Yes - we see this in action I believe in other arenas like

  • LGBTQ+ stuff
  • Climate change stuff
Have you noticed how in Europe and the West our leaders are very clever with words - Western principles, rules based order, human freedom etc and these are the "go to" narratives when they are about to do something despicable e.g. send weapons to arm the neo Nazis in Ukraine, or squash some protest from their own citizens about e.g. lockdowns. They've surely mastered the art of hypocrisy and elevated it to the highest realms possible. Citizens however remain none the wiser. I've long observed this in the people closest to me and wondered why, why do you always fall for the same tricks. From my point of view, I think the answer lies somewhere in the pursuit of dreams and happiness as marketed in the West. To break my thinking on this down further:

  • in the West we are mostly allowed enough freedom to chase our dreams which are made to appear within reach. In addition, we are told life is about having "fun", being "happy". These are 2 things that you must arrive to as if some destination on a map. People are therefore preoccupied with either the pursuit of dreams or happiness that they see all the other stuff as a distraction and hence why the politicians always get away with it.
What are your thoughts on this?

I'm finding the people who bill themselves as the most empathetic are the ones who paradoxically are becoming the most tyrannical and calling for more and more controls in society - big government and big tech. The collective good has been weaponised that it now threatens to devour the individual and leave nothing in his/her place.
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I think that is an excellent observation, SOTTREADER. I would agree that most people that I've seen seem to be running on some fun/happy destination program. I would also like to add that not all minds seem to be created equally. There appear to be others that are just struggling to survive and don't have the mental resources available to even think beyond immediate survival objectives. Then there are the types that realize things are wrong, but wind up getting lost in some cointelpro narrative. "There's a program for everyone," right? Not even factoring in the constant assaults from different directions on the total inner and outer integrity of human beings living on this planet, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps some portion of humanity is completely unable, at this point in time, to perceive anything outside a narrow band of awareness. That is the sad truth of the matter OSIT.
 
Freya Stewart said:
I think that is an excellent observation, SOTTREADER. I would agree that most people that I've seen seem to be running on some fun/happy destination program. I would also like to add that not all minds seem to be created equally. There appear to be others that are just struggling to survive and don't have the mental resources available to even think beyond immediate survival objectives. Then there are the types that realize things are wrong, but wind up getting lost in some cointelpro narrative. "There's a program for everyone," right? Not even factoring in the constant assaults from different directions on the total inner and outer integrity of human beings living on this planet, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps some portion of humanity is completely unable, at this point in time, to perceive anything outside a narrow band of awareness. That is the sad truth of the matter OSIT.
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I for one have noticed that the situation with pandemics, war, and generally straining like a string in almost every area of life causes me to notice these two attitudes: reasoning-where people sense that something is wrong and look for others to share their doubts, and-acceptance which is characterized by saying: "I prefer not to know there" and go on to have a lively conversation about how it was at my aunt's name day.

Maybe as the situation develops, we will see "organic portals" more and more clearly.
But why do we need them in the first place?
 
SOTTREADER said:
Yes - we see this in action I believe in other arenas like

  • LGBTQ+ stuff
  • Climate change stuff
Have you noticed how in Europe and the West our leaders are very clever with words - Western principles, rules based order, human freedom etc and these are the "go to" narratives when they are about to do something despicable e.g. send weapons to arm the neo Nazis in Ukraine, or squash some protest from their own citizens about e.g. lockdowns. They've surely mastered the art of hypocrisy and elevated it to the highest realms possible. Citizens however remain none the wiser. I've long observed this in the people closest to me and wondered why, why do you always fall for the same tricks. From my point of view, I think the answer lies somewhere in the pursuit of dreams and happiness as marketed in the West. To break my thinking on this down further:

  • in the West we are mostly allowed enough freedom to chase our dreams which are made to appear within reach. In addition, we are told life is about having "fun", being "happy". These are 2 things that you must arrive to as if some destination on a map. People are therefore preoccupied with either the pursuit of dreams or happiness that they see all the other stuff as a distraction and hence why the politicians always get away with it.
What are your thoughts on this?

I'm finding the people who bill themselves as the most empathetic are the ones who paradoxically are becoming the most tyrannical and calling for more and more controls in society - big government and big tech. The collective good has been weaponised that it now threatens to devour the individual and leave nothing in his/her place.
Click to expand...
What a nice way to put it; the art of hypocrisy.

Certainly an argument can be made that a number of world leaders truly and sincerely believe that they are making the right decisions when implementing policies. They are after all guided by this or that group of "experts" who seemingly know what they're talking about. Still, they are hypocritical liars, as with e.g. covid measurements, how many politicians were caught not following their own mandates?

I think part of 'the politicians getting away with it' (which they for sure don't always do) has to do with some kind of memetic idea that is firmly embedded in the collective field which stems from the mother-meme of 'Statism®', and has the "average peasant" truly believing on a deep level that he is lower in some sense to those that rule over him, thus lacking any real initiative to do something about it.

Another big part you already mentioned; the obsessive need for distraction and entertainment (in the name of fun and happiness) alongside with the preoccupation of chasing one's fictitious dreams.

"Politicians are liars" is another meme, certainly well-spread and accepted, and maybe that is part of the problem. People are so used to having their leaders lie to them, it stops affecting them in the way that it should. A bit like transmarginal inhibition no?

Another thought occurs to me from the last paragraph of your post. Following the theme of inversion so ubiquitous in our realm, it's as if the concepts of internal and external considering have been flipped around as "the programming is complete". People in a way believe they're being externally considerate - by masking, distancing, vaccinating, "standing with Ukraine" etc. - when in fact they're expressing the highest form of internal considering. They are completely ruled by the opinions of others, especially those opinions they know are state-sanctioned. They're getting rewarded by their internal considering, which they - if they were aware of the terminology - think is external considering.

Okay another thought occurred to me right now, and this might be pushing it a bit, but I'll share.

We use dissociation to cope with stress, both in a neurophysiological sense to protect the brain, and in a psychological/emotional sense to protect the ego. We escape external threats (big or small, perceived or real) by internally relocating our awareness, the extreme of this would be the fugue-state, where the "observing ego" is nowhere to be seen for any length of time. Conversely we escape internal threats (negative states of mind, negative emotions etc.) by externally relocating our awareness, we watch movies, read books, indulge in addictions and so on.

What I see when I look at the hardcore ideolouges and "SJW-types" and fanatics of any hot topic issue, is people in a state of dissociation. They're responding to the source of their stress (which of course isn't the real source) by dissociating and becoming an alternate version of themself, designed to defeat the perceived enemy.

When the propaganda - the negatively charged psycho-emotional bullets shot at them - create significant enough trauma, the brain reacts in the only way it knows to react: by dissociating.

Maybe this can even be seen somehow in a bigger scope, in a transgenerational and societal, even metaphysical way. Maybe a big part of our 3D reality is simply us collectively dissociating from the trauma we experienced during the time of the Fall. The metaphor of us living in a collective madhouse has always struck me as a uniquely accurate description of our predicament in this realm. Current times can't help but drive that idea home.
 
Freya Stewart said:
"What is Weaponized Empathy? It is the deliberate hijacking of your own moral standards, your ability to empathize with your fellow man, in order to force you to serve someone else’s narrative. It is, in essence, a highly sophisticated form of guilt-tripping designed to turn you into a slave. …"
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There is this book "The empathy trap: understanding antisocial personalities", shared by Luc in this post:

luc said:
Since I'm currently re-reading "The Empathy Trap: Understanding Antisocial Personalities", I'd like to bump this thread to recommend the book - the sott radio interview with the authors is also excellent.

I think the book is one of the most accessible discussions on how to deal with psychopathy/sociopathy on a personal level. It also gives many useful hints on how to recover from such encounters.

As Laura said, the new angle the authors bring to the table is about the empath/apath/sociopath triangle, which seems to be a very common dynamic we need to be aware of. I have personally experienced such dynamics as well and it's really important knowledge IMO. Here are a few excerpts from the book about this:
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Sociopath-induced distress and trauma

Individuals who have been targeted by a sociopath often respond with self-deprecating statements like ‘I was stupid’, ‘What was I thinking?’ or ‘I should’ve listened to my gut instinct.’ But being involved with a sociopath is like being brainwashed. The sociopath’s superficial charm is usually the means by which he or she conditions people. On initial contact a sociopath will often test other people’s empathy, so questions geared towards discovering whether you are highly empathetic or not should ring alarm bells. Those with a highly empathetic disposition are often targeted. Those who have lower levels of empathy are often passed over, though they may be drawn in and used by sociopaths as part of their cruel entertainment, as we discuss later in the book.

Those living with a sociopath usually exist in a state of constant emotional chaos. They may feel anxious and afraid, not knowing when the sociopath will fly into a rage. The sociopath meanwhile carries on untouched, using aggression, violence or emotional bullying to abuse his or her partner. Sociopaths are often aggressive, though not all of them exhibit violent or criminal behaviour. Aggression is not limited to men either; sociopathic women can be aggressive and violent too. Sociopaths make up 25 per cent of the prison population, committing more than twice as many violent and aggressive acts as other criminals do. Violent sociopaths who cheat on their partners or defraud people are the ones most likely to get caught. According to Robert Hare, the author of Without Conscience, in the United States approximately 20 per cent of male and female prisoners are sociopaths. They commit more than twice as many violent and aggressive acts as do other criminals and are responsible for more than 50 per cent of all serious crimes. When they get out of prison, they often return to crime. The reoffending rate of sociopaths is about double that of other offenders and for violent crimes it is triple.5

As well as inflicting physical trauma on others, there is the added and less visible burden of sociopath-induced emotional trauma, which if left unchecked can lead to anxiety disorders, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Chronically traumatized people often exhibit hyper-vigilant, anxious and agitated behaviour. They may also experience insomnia and assorted somatic (bodily) symptoms such as tension headaches, gastrointestinal disturbances, abdominal pain, back pain, tremors and nausea. Exposure to and interaction with a sociopath in childhood can leave lifelong scars, including a deep mistrust of other people and anxiety in social situations. Yet for all these problems, no one knows the true extent or depth of mental anguish suffered by those on the receiving end of chronic sociopathic abuse, because in the majority of cases the physical and mental health problems either go undetected or the root cause is overlooked.

...

The apath

In the context of any sociopathic interaction we call those that collude in the sport of the sociopath apathetic, or ‘apaths’ for short. An apath is the type of person most likely to do the sociopath’s bidding. Being apathetic in this situation means showing a lack of concern or being indifferent to the targeted person. In Chapter 3 we highlighted the importance of ‘seeing’ the problem for what it is via the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, which represents the collective denial and double standards that are often a feature of social life. The apath in this context is someone who is willing to be blind, i.e. not to see that the Emperor is naked.

Apaths are an integral part of the sociopath’s arsenal and contribute to sociopathic abuse; sociopaths have an uncanny knack of knowing who will assist them in bringing down the person they are targeting. It’s not necessarily easy to identify an apath from the outside. In other circumstances an apath may show ample empathy and concern for others, just not in this case. The one attribute an apath must have is some connection to the sociopath’s target. Hence close friends, siblings, parents and other close relations can become accomplices to the sociopath and be instrumental in the downfall of the targeted individual.

How apaths, who may otherwise be fair-minded people, become involved in such destructive business isn’t difficult to understand, though it can be hard to accept. The main qualifying attribute of the apath that renders him a willing accomplice is poor judgement resulting from lack of insight. This may be linked to reduced empathy for the targeted person. The apathetic person might bear a grudge, be jealous or angry, or have a sense of being let down by the individual concerned, and in consequence may be as keen as the sociopath to see the target defeated. Hence, the apath may be willing to join forces with the sociopath because he too has something to gain from the evolving situation.

At other times the apath doesn’t want to see ‘bad’ in others, so chooses not to see it. On still other occasions, he might choose not to see because he has enough on his plate and doesn’t possess the wherewithal or the moral courage to help the targeted person at that time. Usually, and whatever the reasons for his active or passive involvement, what happens during the course of interaction with a sociopath is that the apathetic person’s conscience appears to fall asleep. Apaths walk in and out of situations in a trance-like state. It is this scenario that causes people blindly to follow leaders motivated only by self-interest. We excuse bullying, outrages, even murder, on the grounds that the leader knows best, regarding the injured and maimed targets not as fellow humans, but as objects, as ‘it’.

...

Within this majority group lurk the apaths, the foot-soldiers to the sociopath. Apaths are less able to see the situation for what it really is; their view of the bigger picture is obscured by their attitude to and opinion of the target, and by the sociopath’s mesmeric influence.

Apaths are often fearful people; individuals who feel they do not possess the level of skill required to confront a challenge. They are the ones most likely to go with the flow, to agree that the Emperor is wearing new clothes. But apaths may also fail to perceive any threat at all. A danger is of no importance if one denies its existence. An apath’s response to a sociopath’s call to arms can then result from a state of ‘learned helplessness’. Apaths behave defencelessly because they want to avoid unpleasant or harmful circumstances. Apathy is an avoidance strategy.

...

Empathy is a shared emotion. To show empathy is emotionally to put yourself in the place of another. It is a learned phenomenon that requires emotional control and the capacity to distinguish oneself from others. Most of us possess the automatic ability to perceive and share others’ feelings. A baby listening to another baby cry will cry too. Unconsciously people mimic the facial expressions of those they see. The ability to empathize is directly dependent on your ability to feel your own feelings and identify what they are. If you have never felt a certain feeling, it will be hard for you to understand how someone else is experiencing that feeling.

An empath, in the context that we apply the term, is not a person with near magical powers. Empaths are ordinary people who are highly perceptive and insightful and belong to the 40 per cent of human beings who sense when something’s not right (those who respond to their ‘gut instinct’). Going back to our folktale, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, the empath is the boy who mentions the unmentionable: that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.

Back in the 1990s, researchers suggested that there was a positive relationship between empathy and emotional intelligence.3 Since then that term has been used interchangeably with emotional literacy. What this means in practice is that empaths have the ability to understand their own emotions, to listen to other people and empathize with their emotions, to express emotions productively and to handle their emotions in such a way as to improve their personal power.

...

The Sociopath-Empath-Apath Triad

For a sociopathic transaction to be effective it requires the following threesome: a sociopath, an empath and an apath. We call this the Sociopath-Empath-Apath Triad – SEAT for short. The usual set-up goes something like this: the empath is forced to make a stand on seeing the sociopath say or do something underhand. The empath challenges the sociopath, who straight away throws others off the scent and shifts the blame on to the empath. The empath becomes an object of abuse when the apath corroborates the sociopath’s perspective. Ultimately the situation usually ends badly for the empath, and sometimes also for the apath (if his conscience comes back to haunt him or subsequently he becomes an object of abuse himself). Frustratingly, however, the sociopath often gets off scot free.

Sociopaths rarely vary this tried and tested formula because it virtually guarantees them success. In fact, in almost every sociopathic interaction we know of, this interpersonal exchange is enacted. The sociopathic transaction relies heavily on the apathy of those close to the event or situation and highlights the importance of the apath in the transaction, as indicated in Figure 1 overleaf.
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(The bolded words in this extract are Luke's doing.)


Weaponized empathy can also be described as a ponerization of empathy, the parallel must be made with the current paramoralism:
Laura:
Paramoralism - The definition in the context of ponerology

If you google the term 'paramoralism', you will not find a definition. This is not a surprise. Lobaczewski was forced to create words to describe aspects of evil that, until then, our natural language could not adequately deal with. He writes in his book Political Ponerology:

"Paramoralism: The belief that there are moral values and that certain actions violate moral rules is such a common and ancient phenomenon that it seems to have some substratum at the level of instinctive heritage (though certainly not entirely adequate within the framework of moral truth), and not only represents centuries of experience, culture, religion, and socialization. Therefore, any insinuation embedded in moral slogans is always suggestive, even when the 'moral' criteria used are purely 'ad hoc' invention. Any act can therefore be seen as immoral or moral through paramoralisms and active suggestion; there will always be people who fall for this kind of reasoning. As an example of an evil act whose negative value is not in doubt in any social situation, ethics experts often cite child abuse.

But psychologists are frequently confronted in their practice with pseudo-moral characterisations of this behaviour, as in the case of the family mentioned above, where the older sister had suffered a lesion in the prefrontal area. Her younger brothers were adamant that their sister's sadistic treatment of her son stemmed from her exceptionally high moral sense, and they had been convinced of this by autosuggestion. Pseudo-morality deftly eludes the control of our common sense, and sometimes leads to the affirmation of behaviour that is clearly pathological in character.

Pseudo-moral statements and suggestions so often accompany various forms of evil that they seem irreplaceable. Unfortunately, it has become very common for individuals, pressure groups, or patho-political systems to invent new moral criteria for their own benefit. Such suggestions often deprive people of part of their moral reasoning and affect the development of moral reasoning in young people. There are pseudo-moral manufacturers all over the world, and it is difficult for the ponerologist to believe that these people are psychologically normal.

The features of inversion in the genesis of pseudo-moralism tend to prove that they arise mainly from a subconscious rejection (and elimination from the field of consciousness) of something entirely different, which we call the voice of consciousness. The ponerologist can, however, point to numerous observations supporting the view that various pathological factors contribute to the tendency to pseudo-moralism. This is illustrated in the family mentioned above. As with the moralistic interpretation, this tendency is intensified in egocentrics and hysterics, and its causes are similar. As with all inversion phenomena, the tendency to resort to pseudo-moralism is psychologically contagious. This explains why it is observed in people who have been raised by individuals in whom the phenomenon has developed in parallel with pathological factors.

Perhaps it is time to say that true morality arises and exists independently of our judgements about it, and even of our ability to recognise it. The attitude required to understand this is therefore scientific, not creative: we must humbly submit our minds to perceived reality. This is what happens when we discover man in his truth: his weaknesses and qualities; it shows us what is proper and appropriate in relation to others and to other societies.

Gurdjieff discusses a certain example of "paramoralism" in the following excerpt from Piotr Demianovitch Uspensky's In Search of The Miraculous:

"As I have already said, people very often think that if they start to fight the 'consideration' in themselves, it will make them 'hypocrites' and they are afraid of it because they think that in this case they will lose something, lose a part of themselves. The same phenomenon occurs here as in their attempts to avoid the outward expression of their unpleasant emotions. The only difference is that in one case a man struggles with the outward expression of emotions and in the other case with an inward manifestation of perhaps the same emotions. This fear of losing sincerity is of course a self-deception, one of those lying formulas on which human weaknesses are based. Man cannot help but identify and reflect inwardly and he cannot help but express unpleasant emotions, simply because he is weak. Identifying, considering, expressing unpleasant emotions are manifestations of his weakness, his powerlessness, his inability to control himself. But not wanting to acknowledge this weakness, he calls it "sincerity" or "honesty" and tells himself that he does not want to fight against sincerity, when in fact he is unable to fight against his weaknesses.
Sincerity and honesty are actually something very different. What a man calls "sincerity" in this case is really simply the refusal to be constrained. And deep down, the man is aware of this. But he is lying to himself when he claims that he does not want to lose his sincerity.

Lobaczewski links certain other psychological deficits to paramoralism:

"Reverse blocking: the energetic insistence on something that is the opposite of the truth prevents the average person's mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of common sense, he or she begins to search for meaning in the "middle ground" between the truth and its opposite, ending up with a satisfying misinformation. People who think this way do not realise that this was precisely the intention of the person who subjected them to this method. If such a statement is the opposite of a moral truth, it represents at the same time an extreme pseudo-moralism, and carries with it its particular suggestiveness.

We rarely see this method used by normal people; even if it is mentioned by those who have abused it, they usually indicate the results only in the form of characteristic difficulties in grasping reality correctly. The use of this method may be part of the psychological knowledge developed by psychopaths about the weaknesses of human nature and the art of leading others astray. Where they are in a position of power, this method is used with virtuosity, and to a degree that matches their power."
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In French: Paramoralisme - La définition dans le cadre de la ponérologie -- Sott.net

To work on the subject a little more, on Spanish Sott, there are these two articles:
Encadenados a nosotros a mismos -- Sott.net
Encadenados a nosotros mismos II -- Sott.net
 
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Looks like early shaping of the narrative for an incoming space virus, with key features being it labelled as 'novel' although comparable to smallpox in deadliness; a weaponized bio-terror agent; and the need for more government-military-private sector cooperation when it drops. In other words, when a space virus drops, it is likely to be blamed on this or that terrorist group, or even an entire nation, which will lead to the only viable response - fascism. I'm so glad Bill Gates is such an optimist.

  • The next deadly disease that will cause a global pandemic is coming, Bill Gates said on Friday at a discussion of epidemics.
  • We're not ready.
  • An illness like the pandemic 1918 influenza could kill 30 million people within six months, Gates said, adding that the next disease might not even be a flu, but something we've never seen.
  • The world should prepare as it does for war, Gates said.


If there's one thing that we know from history, it's that a deadly new disease will arise and spread around the globe.

That could happen easily within the next decade. And as Bill Gates told listeners on Friday at a discussion about epidemics hosted by the Massachusetts Medical Society and the New England Journal of Medicine, we're not ready.

Gates acknowledged that he's usually the optimist in the room, reminding people that we're lifting children out of poverty around the globe and getting better at eliminating diseases like polio and malaria.

But "there's one area though where the world isn't making much progress," Gates said, "and that's pandemic preparedness."

The likelihood that such a disease will appear continues to rise. New pathogens emerge all the time as the world population increases and humanity encroaches on wild environments. It's becoming easier and easier for individual people or small groups to create weaponized diseases that could spread like wildfire around the globe.

According to Gates, a small non-state actor could build an even deadlier form of smallpox in a lab.

And in our interconnected world, people are always hopping on planes, crossing from cities on one continent to those on another in a matter of hours.

Gates presented a simulation by the Institute for Disease Modeling that found that a new flu like the one that killed 50 million people in the 1918 pandemic would now most likely kill 30 million people within six months.

And the disease that next takes us by surprise is likely to be one we see for the first time at the start of an outbreak, like what happened recently with SARS and MERS viruses.


If you were to tell the world's governments that weapons that could kill 30 million people were under construction right now, there'd be a sense of urgency about preparing for the threat, Gates said.

"In the case of biological threats, that sense of urgency is lacking," he said. "The world needs to prepare for pandemics in the same serious way it prepares for war."
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Cue scary photo, filled with mystery and import!

9761f758524d4d9f80c91c72c1b9e80c.jpg

John Moore/Getty


Stopping the next pandemic​

The one time the military tried a sort of simulated war game against a smallpox pandemic, the final score was "smallpox one, humanity zero," Gates said.

But he reiterated that he's an optimist, saying he thinks we could better prepare for the next viral or bacterial threat.

In some ways, we're better prepared now than we were for previous pandemics. We have antiviral drugs that can in many cases do at least something to improve survival rates. We have antibiotics that can treat secondary infections like pneumonia associated with the flu.

We're also getting closer to a universal flu vaccine; Gates announced on Friday that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would offer $12 million in grants to encourage its development.

And we're getting better at rapid diagnosis too — which is essential, as the first step toward fighting a new disease is quarantine. Just this week, a new research paper in the journal Science touted the development of a way to use the gene-editing technology Crispr to rapidly detect diseases and identify them using the same sort of paper strip used in a home pregnancy test.

But we're not yet good enough at rapidly identifying the threat from a disease and coordinating a response, as the global reaction to the latest Ebola epidemic showed.

There needs to be better communication between militaries and governments to help coordinate responses, Gates said. And he thinks governments need ways to quickly enlist the help of the private sector when it comes to developing technology and tools to fight an emerging deadly disease.

Melinda Gates recently said that the threat of a global pandemic, whether it emerges naturally or is engineered, was perhaps the biggest risk to humanity.

"Think of the number of people who leave New York City every day and go all over the world — we're an interconnected world," she said.

Those connections make us all vulnerable.
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iamthatis said:
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[...] New pathogens emerge all the time as the world population increases and humanity encroaches on wild environments. [...]
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Of course, it should not be said that the Cosmos is constantly sending new contributions/pathogens/new life elements into the Earth's atmosphere, regularly through meteors, but also in a more cyclical way and on a much larger scale through events such as cometary bolides/fragments. The Gauls of Asterix and Obelix French comics said that the only thing they were afraid of was that the sky fall on their heads. The only thing the elites are afraid of is losing their power. And that's about to happen exactly the way Gauls in Asterix & Obelix were afraid of. BY the way, is there a real reason why the Gauls were afraid about the sky falling on their heads or is it just a comics thing?

While searching for a text about Asterix and Obelix for non-French speakers who might not know this comics, I found this:

One or two of us probably wonder why the Asterix comics constantly refer to the Gauls worrying about the sky falling on their heads. German and Austrian geologists and archaeologists researching the upmarket Chiemsee (Chiem lake) region measuring approximately 58 by 27 Kilometers between Munich and Salzburg in Austria may have the answer to this question and more. Most of this is based on a largely verifiable comet impact around between 465 and 200 BCE.
[...]
Geologically, the cosmic impact is easy to prove. The area in Southern Bavaria is pockmarked with a multitude of impact craters that have by now often have become lakes. The region also has a layer of exotic metal and mineral deposits that would not normally occur. Physicists calculate that the small comet measuring about 1 km in diameter violently broke up at high altitude, perhaps 50 Km in the atmosphere, and the showered the area underneath with relatively large fragments that would have churned up the country side with a force of about 80 one Megaton hydrogen bombs. To add insult to injury, remaining methane fumes would have suffocated many survivors of the impacts and resulting fire storms.
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At the end of the article, it is said that "This article is inspired by a documentary which ran on the Phoenix Channel in Germany".
Only four comments under it, but the first one written in 2007 refers to the work of Baillie and includes links that may be of interest, although I was not able to watch them and therefore to talk about it here, which would be at this point a bit of topic anyway.

Edit: Forgot a word
 
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