Covid, the "lockdowns" etc.

[oggsmash]

The Nazis are the wrong example, they were only active for a few years.

Communists oppressed people for decades, they are the past masters of forced compliance. Read Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago for a primer on what the commies in authority are doing. It starts with little humiliations, repeated often enough for you to doubt your own conscience and volition. In service to a Big Lie which props up the regime.

  I think both are fully valid examples, hollywood has just made Nazi's the ULTIMATE hollywood bad guys.  Seems people in hollywood have a special place in their hearts for Nazis, which is understandable, but seem to some how, despite being learned and knowledgeable folk,  to completely miss the many, many many horrors of communism, which taken as a whole is worse and has taken a worse toll on humanity if nothing else, due to longevity. 

  Strange how one evil always gets the spot light and the other sort of gets excused by so many....almost as if agenda first principles distant second, or maybe not at all.

[oggsmash]

 Which to their credit, hollywood has managed to add a few new ultimate bad guys, seems russian mafia is behind almost all violent crime in the USA, or at least the ones the meth addled skin head hillbillies are not perpetuating. 

[Mercurius]

The attempt to reject the banality of evil comes from a desire to not view evil as a thing humans are all capable of, but instead demon spawn that can be killed without need of self reflection.

The easy lesson of the Holocaust is that Nazis are evil. The important lesson of the Holocaust is that we are all capable of becoming Nazis.

Robert Malone touched on this in his conversation with Joe Rogan. Mass Psychosis Formation is a real thing.

That said, while I suppose it is possible that we are "all" capable of becoming some variation on Nazis, I think it is important to understand the various factors that make one more or less prone to be come Nazi-like. I think a lot of it has to do with a propensity for groupthink and demonization of the other. But it also requires a context of propaganda-fueled fear and dissociation. 

And this is also why I'm not writing off the "Master Plan Hypothesis": the situation is too perfect for the ushering in of some kind of "new world order."

I think it's important to recognize the factors that make one less prone to become Nazi-like, because one thing that should be abundantly clear, both from recent memory and the atrocities of the last century, is that the vast majority of people fall into that category. We're eusocial animals, and the tendency to get along and go along are the fundamental characteristics exploited by totalitarianism. Rather, it's more important to recognize the traits that lead people to resist and push back against the groupthink and compliance, and even more importantly to recognize the means by which a small minority can sway the rest of the public. That's the missing piece, right now. There are people who are resisting the totalitarian demands, but the bulk of the public are just accepting the dictates and abuses, and a huge number are actively defending them. How do we shift that? The battle is between two minorities, and the battlefield is the rest of the body politic.

How to shift that? I have no idea, or rather, I have ideas but I don't know how they could be implemented successfully, given how attached people are to their tribal thinking.

I think a key component is a desire among the majority for a "benevolent dictator." This is why I see Covidianism (that is, unquestioning belief in whatever the official narrative is) to be quasi-religious. Actually, scratch the quasi. The irony, of course, is that some of the very same folks who bag on religious people for believing in their God or leaders, are zealous about the "new gods": Fauci, Gates, or whichever promulgator of the narrative they prefer. So they cheer on non-sensical platitudes like "Trust the Science" and believe Fauci when he says, "mistrust in me is not trusting the science, because I am the science."

Science becomes a new religion, and the opposite of its original intent. Enantiodromia, the Greeks called it, which is how the teachings of Jesus morphed into the Crusades and Inquisition: when an impulse transforms into its opposite. This is also at work with "Wokism": a desire for social justice and "inclusion" ends up creating a new monster or other - those that disagree with the new belief system. Or as George Bush famously said, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." Ironic how the Wokies have unwittingly followed the neo-con playbook.

Yet I wouldn't say that simply having a healthy degree of skepticism or capacity for rational thought is enough. I think of Sam Harris, a guru of secular humanist intellectualism, who is strangely unwilling to think outside of the box on this, as evinced by his weird disavowal of Bret Weinstein and refusal to debate him on anything Covid related. Even Harris, and any self-proclaimed guru of rationalism, is not immune to emotional override and cognitive blindspots.

Rather than mere rationality, I think what is required is both an active skepticism towards authority and, more importantly, a willingness to think on one's own, without ceding to authority. For some reason, that is very scary to people. Or rather, the reason is obvious: No one wants to be alone, which feels naked and terrifying. Here we see our embedded tribalism: most everyone wants to be part of a tribe, an "us." And unfortunately, the vast majority of people don't bother to work out their own thinking, but instead put a finger to the wind to figure out what their tribe believes, what is "Good Opinion."

This also implies that many of the "vax-hesitant" merely do so out of tribalism. I imagine their confusion at the recent bro-mance between Trump and Biden about the vaccines. In other words, the kind of blind tribalism and allegiance to the "benevolent dictator" is not a left-right thing, as both tribes are prone to it. This is why we have liberal pundits like Joy Reid talking about how she'd never take "Trump's vaccine" in mid-2020, and then once Biden was elected, joining the cult and bashing the "anti-vaxxers." And so it goes...

[dkabq]

Characteristics and Clinical Outcomes of Children and Adolescents Aged <18 Years Hospitalized with COVID-19 — Six Hospitals, United States, July–August 2021
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a3.htm

Approximately two thirds of patients (67.5%) had one or more underlying medical conditions, with obesity being the most common (32.4%); among patients aged 12–17 years, 61.4% had obesity.

[Shasarak]

The Nazis are the wrong example, they were only active for a few years.

Communists oppressed people for decades, they are the past masters of forced compliance. Read Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago for a primer on what the commies in authority are doing. It starts with little humiliations, repeated often enough for you to doubt your own conscience and volition. In service to a Big Lie which props up the regime.

Nazis and Communists got nothing on the CCP.

[Mistwell]

The Nazis are the wrong example, they were only active for a few years.

Communists oppressed people for decades, they are the past masters of forced compliance. Read Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago for a primer on what the commies in authority are doing. It starts with little humiliations, repeated often enough for you to doubt your own conscience and volition. In service to a Big Lie which props up the regime.

1932 to 1945 is not "a few years" and they were "active" for even more than those years (they were the second largest political party in Germany prior to becoming the first largest in 1932).

I am sure however we're all shocked you in particular tried to minimize the Nazis as "only active for a few years."

[RPGPundit]

The solution is strong and simple but clear rules. Remove bureaucratic and judicial discretion. The ability to decide when there's ambiguity is where corruption grows. The rules don't even have to be particular fair, just clear, because clear is ultimately fairer than arbitrary whim or preferential/adverse treatment. If you know what the rules are, you can make rational decisions and avoid breaking them, even if the rules are stupid.

The worst system is the one we have, where regulators, bureaucrats, legislators and judges have wide discretionary power, vast immunities, and have created and operate under an impenetrable and contradictory fog of rules, which give them great power over the lives and businesses they control, no fear of censure, and everybody they rule over knows they can be punished at any time because there's no way to avoid breaking a dozen rules before breakfast.

The ComputerBureaucracy Is not Your Friend.

You're not wrong. The root of the problem is that selective enforcement leads to inequality under the law. Biden's friends know they will never be audited, any conservative who speaks out knows he will. Communist Antifa & BLM terrorists burn down whole cities knowing that cops won't arrest them and DAs won't charge them, or let them on $0 bail, and in the most egregious cases will let them off with unsupervised probation. But anyone who goes to protest against the Left knows that they could end up theoretically facing no bail, months or years of imprisonment and mistreatment, with slow lingering trials, sometimes for no definable crime at all.

And then you wonder why the right increasingly distrusts the government.

The answer would be to restore equality under rule of law.  If you protest, or if you burn down a building, you face the same consequences whether you're on the left or the right. That literally doesn't happen now anymore.

Likewise, things like IRS audits have to be completely randomized, except in the case of tips being given of course, in which case the protocols for investigation MUST be applied EXACTLY the same whether the guy or company the IRS was tipped off about is the MyPillow guy or one of Hunter Biden's Shell Companies For CCP Payoffs. 

And the SEC and all other government institutions (including Education) get out of the business of pushing CRT, Gender Theory or Wokism.

[Shrieking Banshee]

I am sure however we're all shocked you in particular tried to minimize the Nazis as "only active for a few years."

I agree. National Socialism is just as comprable in atrocities as Communism.

[Zelen]

I am sure however we're all shocked you in particular tried to minimize the Nazis as "only active for a few years."

Honestly this type of bullshit is extremely pathetic. You aren't willing to accept or admit that the premises of the measures we're seeing are not grounded in sound science, ethical medical practice, or reasonable powers of governance, so you're just going to continuously try to make personal attacks. Worthless.

[Eirikrautha]

Rather than mere rationality, I think what is required is both an active skepticism towards authority and, more importantly, a willingness to think on one's own, without ceding to authority. For some reason, that is very scary to people. Or rather, the reason is obvious: No one wants to be alone, which feels naked and terrifying. Here we see our embedded tribalism: most everyone wants to be part of a tribe, an "us." And unfortunately, the vast majority of people don't bother to work out their own thinking, but instead put a finger to the wind to figure out what their tribe believes, what is "Good Opinion."

More than that.  What is required is a rejection of "authorities" as an intellectual concept.  Any "authority" should have no problem explaining to me why whatever they have concluded is correct.  A physicist doesn't need to appeal to their authority to explain quantum mechanics.  They can show me the math and explain the experiments that prove it.  If I can't follow the math, then that's on me... and lends credence to their argument.  But, "you need to believe me, because you wouldn't understand" is never an argument.  That's why Fauci is inherently untrustworthy.  If the official narrative was so readily apparent, then no one would need to slander and censor those who disagree.

This also implies that many of the "vax-hesitant" merely do so out of tribalism. I imagine their confusion at the recent bro-mance between Trump and Biden about the vaccines. In other words, the kind of blind tribalism and allegiance to the "benevolent dictator" is not a left-right thing, as both tribes are prone to it. This is why we have liberal pundits like Joy Reid talking about how she'd never take "Trump's vaccine" in mid-2020, and then once Biden was elected, joining the cult and bashing the "anti-vaxxers." And so it goes...

Well, not so much.  One side seems to be more prone to following "authority" figures more than the other.  Maybe a political movement that values independence engenders a respect for personal... independence?

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/587322-fauci-says-he-was-stunned-by-boos-from-supporters-to-trump-over

[Kiero]

1932 to 1945 is not "a few years" and they were "active" for even more than those years (they were the second largest political party in Germany prior to becoming the first largest in 1932).

I am sure however we're all shocked you in particular tried to minimize the Nazis as "only active for a few years."

Fuck off. At least 100 million dead because of communism, but leftards forever memory hole the evil they've done and flip to "but what about the Nazis".

The Nazis were evil. I have Ashkenazi heritage, so fuck you with your attempt to paint me as a Nazi apologist.

Communists were even more evil and there are avowed Stalinists and other fellow travellers around today who think the only problem with their evil creed is that it just hasn't been done correctly.

[Kiero]

The entire official narrative is founded on bullshit statistics.

"Cases" are not infections, they're pings on a crappy test never designed as a diagnostic tool. Hospitalisations depend upon testing everyone upon admission, even though a significant proportion weren't admitted for covid, but happen to have pinged the aforementioned crappy test. And "covid deaths" are the biggest chicanery of all, a bollocks measure invented in 2020 to artificially inflate the number of deaths "with" rather than from covid.

There's one statistic that can't be massaged or inflated, and that's the all-cause mortality figure. Which barely upticked in 2020 despite the so-called pandemic, and came after a decade of falling death rates to 2019. I bet 2021 will prove to be little out of the ordinary either.

[DocJones]

The entire official narrative is founded on bullshit statistics.

The pandemic isn't real and only fat people are dying from it.
You're a moron.

[Kiero]

The pandemic isn't real and only fat people are dying from it.
You're a moron.

Average age of death from covid indistinguishable from average age of death from all causes. Real pandemics kill across the board, they don't merely shorten old people's lives by a few months.

[Kiero]

For the third winter in a row, I have suspected covid (someone I've been in close proximity with tested positive with similar symptoms). 48 hours after it begun, it's on the way out with nothing more than paracetamol and ibuprofen. Yet again, no need for bed rest or anything out of the ordinary, besides suspension of exercise.

Killer viruses really aren't all they've cracked up to be.