John Hayward Profile picture
29 Dec, 10 tweets, 2 min read
Just as no amount of flat temperature data would dissuade the climate cult, so no amount of flat (or even negative!) data on mask effectiveness will shake the faith of the Church of Covid. Beautiful Theories cannot be disproven by mere information.
The "Covid emergency" will never be over. It will mutate and seek out new missions when this particular virus threat abates, repurposing its funding and clinging to its power. They're already talking up the "next pandemic" and how we must forever remain at DEFCON 2 to be ready.
Masks are now a visible and tangible symbol of an entire agenda. Its champions will use every means possible to force you to wear them forever, including corporate pressure, their new favorite tool. Expect commercial mask requirements to linger, especially big corporations.
True believers, meanwhile, will wear their masks with grim determination and scowl ostentatiously at everyone who refuses to join them. It's a new virtue signal that will not go away any time soon. Mask scolding is a quick, easy, heady power rush.
All the while, studies will keep rolling out that masks don't help, and might even hurt. That was fairly common medical knowledge before the pandemic began, but it was aggressively suppressed when masks became a political symbol, and a totem for people desperate to DO SOMETHING.
It was not irrational to say "maybe masks will help, let's give them a shot," but oceans of data are in now. The shot was taken, and proved minimally helpful at best. Continued worship of masks is psychological and political, not scientific.
The psychological benefit also is not irrational. If masks make people feel better during a time of desperation, that's a real benefit. Putting it bluntly, if masks help us escape from the destructive insanity of lockdowns, they're a small price to pay.
But if we're supposed to be a "science-based" society that prides itself on a commitment to pure reason, we have to be honest about what studies are telling us about the practical value of masks, and begin separating practical merit from political/religious symbolism.
The worst of all worlds is a regime of tribal superstition that cloaks itself in the mantle of science and reason - faith that pretends to be knowledge, so that heresy can be condemned as ignorance. We must aggressively thwart the formation of secular political religions.
We already have far too many state religions in our supposedly secular nation, increasingly enforced by armies of the faithful marching under corporate banners. We don't need the Church of Covid to become another permanent element of the Beltway communion. /end

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with John Hayward

John Hayward Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Doc_0

30 Dec
Argentina legalizing abortion offers an opportunity to reflect on the great unwritten media narrative of the past few generations: the lives of women and children got worse in so many ways after Roe v. Wade.
Media would never, ever write that narrative, of course - would never string stories together and search for a pattern that could be refined into a political point - but it's the net impact of their reporting on women's issues. Everything started getting worse in the 70s.
There is a valid "narrative" to be discerned from that ocean of bad news about women and children over the past few decades. It's not a coincidence. It's a direct result of the Big Lie pushed by the abortion lobby: that only one person is involved in the decision to give birth.
Read 14 tweets
29 Dec
Re-primitivizing the First World is an important agenda item for the Left. People who move around less, communicate less, earn less, and live shorter lives are much easier to control. Primitive societies don't have that pesky, independence-minded middle class to worry about.
Of course, Prince Charles and the other elites have no intention of living in mud huts and practicing subsistence agriculture to improve their "balance with the natural world." That's only for you Deplorables. The ruling class will travel, communicate, and consume as it sees fit.
Useful idiots have this romantic vision of primitive life as harmony with nature. It's part of their Marxist anti-capitalist indoctrination in school and popular culture. If only we were as wise and selfless as the noble primitives with their Earth-friendly communal lifestyles!
Read 9 tweets
28 Dec
The amazing thing about the era of filmmaking that ended with "Wonder Woman 1984" is that a script that dumb and joyless could get past dozens of people without anyone pumping the brakes before a firehose of funding was sprayed over the project.
The most entertaining thing about WW84 is the press tour where the filmmakers pretend to be creative geniuses who learned *so much* from the failings of the vastly superior original film, especially its climactic showdown.
"The studio forced us to wrap the first movie up with a loud, cartoony CGI smackdown!" they cried... then delivered a sequel that ends with an even more cartoony and pointless CGI smackdown, followed by half an hour of Wonder Woman explaining why cheating and selfishness are bad.
Read 10 tweets
23 Dec
When people voted to drain the swamp, they knew the alligators - the high-profile D.C. power players, special interests, and safe seat senators-for-life - would be a problem. They underestimated the vast horde of smaller critters squirming in the muck at the bottom of the swamp.
As @davereaboi pointed out, the ecosystem that feeds on the endless torrent of deficit-fueled D.C. spending is vast beyond belief, and it has tentacles that reach around the world. That ecosystem has multiple layers, and every one of them will fight to keep Big Gov money flowing.
@davereaboi There are entities wholly dedicated to spend money spent by entities that spend money spent by entities that spend money spent by entities that spend money from D.C. Many are invisible to taxpayers. Some are foreign operations utterly beyond the reach of American voters.
Read 16 tweets
22 Dec
Everything about the pandemic, culminating in the Covid stimulus/budget debacle, is a painful reminder that your ruling class does not see itself as "public servants" by any stretch of the imagination. They think their calling is to control you, shape you, reeducate you.
For the ruling class, their personal fetishes and ideological obsessions are VASTLY more important than your very life. You get pocket change while they pour countless billions into everything that matters to THEM. They couldn't be more insultingly obvious about it.
The illusion that voters have any meaningful control over the central government grows thin. Even during the worst crisis of our lifetimes, the ruling class thinks NOTHING of flipping us off while seizing our national wealth for their privileged concerns. No hesitation at all.
Read 13 tweets
18 Dec
The pandemic is prompting a lot of rethinking about the nature of work and capitalism. Here is one way to think about employment: for most people, it vastly increases the value of your time, which is the most important capital you own.
Look at a few of the objects in the room where you're sitting right now. How long would it have taken you to create them, all by yourself? Could you do it at all? Would those objects be of comparable quality if you tried making them with your own hands?
You probably bought most of the things in your room, including the computer or phone you're reading this on. You made those purchases with money you earned by working at your job. Your paycheck therefore increased the value of your labor by several orders of magnitude.
Read 20 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!