While everyone has their eyes on Ukraine, there's a comprehensive control system being erected all around us.
Let's count the ways. 🧵
First, there is the treaty being worked on, on the level of the WHO. The details have not been worked out yet, but the Director General of the WHO is pushing for a binding treaty with the power to apply sanctions if 2/3rds of the members agree.
Next, Biden signed an executive order so "study" the "risks" of cryptocurrency, and begin work on the "digital dollar". edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/inv…
The Financial Times helpfully informs us that Central Bank Digital Currencies, such as the Digital Dollar, will have to be Digital ID based, since banks are already bound by Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering regulations. ft.com/content/88f47c…
It should be noted that these regulations don't actually seem very good at their stated purpose. But they do make excellent control mechanisms for law-abiding citizens.
So what are Central Bank Digital Currencies? Well, in a way, it's like turning all money into food stamps. It can allow for all sorts of constraints to be placed on currency, including where, when, by whom, and on what it can be spent.
So if you thought Canada freezing Bank accounts linked to protests was scary, central banks are constructing a power that is far greater, an ability to intervene on every single transaction. cbc.ca/news/politics/…
In the meantime, vaccine passports are being implemented.
"IATA welcomes the EU’s effective work on establishing the EU DCC system across Europe and, at the same time, urges the World Health Organisation to build a global digital vaccine standard." schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-uk-vac…
At the same time, if you thought the COVID-19 vaccines were developed at miracle speeds, wait until you see the next generation! nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
How far are we from a world where a pandemic is declared, and within a few months everyone is mandated to accept a medical procedure or lose access to their assets, or even the ability to buy food until they comply? cbc.ca/news/canada/mo…
In fact, you may not have to protest physically to lose basic rights. Media, tech, and "fact checkers" all proudly cooperate to control the spread of "misinformation". bbc.com/news/entertain…
And as far as the US govt is concerned, they're not going far enough.
According to the NYT: "Dr. Vivek Murthy also demanded information from the platforms about the major sources of Covid-19 misinformation. Companies have until May 2 to submit the data." archive.ph/WPmBi
When I write about biology, I'm often told that I don't have the credentials. Well, as an academic with hundreds of citations to the work I did as part of my PhD on information systems, and as an entrepreneur working on IoT tech for over a decade, this is not looking any better.
In fact, I can tell you confidently, that the introduction of single points of control / single points of failure is exactly what we try to avoid when architecting large-scale systems, as they're well understood to be a threat to the stability and security of the system.
When people spoke about "turnkey totalitarianism", they were called conspiracy theorists and their voices were suppressed. Now it's all out in the open. There's no hiding whatsoever.
As a final thought, this isn't about left vs. right. Conservatives and Liberals, Progressives and Populists have all moved the system in one direction: Giving bureaucrats more control over the population. Stop giving them more problems to "solve", they only know one way.
Control promises efficiency, safety, while building an ever greater risk of inescapable systemic failure.
Like picking up pennies on train tracks, hoping this is not your unlucky day.
Seeing them fail with COVID, are these the people we will entrust with control of our future?
I wasn't planning to turn this into a pitch, but perhaps it was inevitable.
I don't know what the full solution is, but I know we'll need free expression to find it, and we need accessible technology to guarantee that.
Alongside @Ry_Nomad, @theHirad, and a few others, we're working on a project to restore the public square in the digital realm, with speech being unhindered, as was originally intended.
PS. The BITE model is a checklist to see if someone is in a cult: Behavioral, Information, Emotional, and Thought control. Cults combine these to control of members.
PS2. I'm encouraged to see this thread take off. If people are interested in discussing this more, set a reminder for this Space, at 9:30am Pacific Time or whatever time it is where you are: twitter.com/i/spaces/1mrGm…
It's so unnerving to see this treaty marketed as if it was a product on a shelf.
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It is claimed that the citizens of Gaza voted for Hamas in the last election. It is not mentioned that that election was in 2006. So of today's residents of Gaza, how many "voted for Hamas in the last election"?
Here's the portion who were adults in 2006:
That looks like 25%, perhaps less.
Of those, how many voted?
Participation in the elections was about 75.3%.
So of the current population, only 18.8% voted in the 2006 elections.
It occurs to me that this truly remarkable video with Dr Ralph Baric (not) receiving the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, posted on the UNC YouTube channel will inevitably be taken down sooner or later, so in the interest of posterity, here it is on X.
A few things to note about this historical document:
1. It is posted on the UNC public health YouTube channel, this isn't a deep fake or a montage. 2. It was posted on September 9th 2020, months before any vaccine was approved. 3. It specifically promotes the Moderna shots.
As far as I can tell, at the time this was taken, Baric could not have legally been given the shot, since he presumably wasn't part of the trial.
Naturally, comments are closed so we are not able to inquire.
For old times sake, a thread on Sam Harris' latest: "a postmortem on my response to COVID".
I believe this one is not out on YouTube yet, but I will try to produce a transcript and/or audio clips if need be.
Gods be with me, here we go. 🧵
As always, I will attempt to do some fact checking and as always I will cite my sources so you don't have to trust me.
Sam will inevitably claim that the clips make him sound bad, but I really want to make sure people have access to the underlying sources of my claims, so 🤷♂️
Ah, from the get go, Sam is talking about how social media clips take him out of context, and how they are deliberately constructed to do so.
He has accused me personally of such malice before, but never said what I left out which would have changed the result.
New documents found from UK parliament going full Big Brother on Russell Brand.
This may be the nuttiest thing I've ever read.
Writing to the GB News TV station, the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is warning them that the fact that @beverleyturner, a presenter at this station, was supportive of Brand on her social media and in broadcast, raises an issue of impartiality by the station.
The following is verbatim from the letter (screenshot below). I could not have made it up if I wanted to:
"...it is concerning that Beverley Turner, who described Mr Brand as “a hero” and invited him to appear on her show, subsequently fronted GB News’s coverage of the allegations regarding Mr Brand on the morning of 18 September. During that broadcast, Ms Turner announced that “if he’d offered to come on this morning, we’d’ve had him, let’s be honest”. While Ms Turner was challenged on her comments at length by her co-presenter, Andrew Pierce, we remain concerned that having a presenter so clearly supporting an individual who is the subject of intense media coverage, including seeking their appearance on the show, undermines any perception of due impartiality in the broadcasting."
In a different letter, writing to the BBC, the Chair pressured them to release to the public anything they legally can. Because who needs courts when you've got lynch mobs.
"Please could you also assure us that, while respecting any potential police investigations, all information that can be disclosed publicly will be so."
Same demand to release everything possible to the public was made by the Chair to Channel 4.
Let's talk about statistical manipulation of results in clinical trials.
Some times it can be so devious that it takes years to be noticed.
I want to walk you through something I **just** noticed in the ACTIV-6 trial for (what else) ivermectin.
Please stick with me.
We are about to dive deep into stats, but unfortunately this is what is needed to draw signal from noise. I think the payoff is worth it.
I will walk you through this and I think it will make sense.
In June of 2022, the principal investigator of the ACTIV-6 trial for ivm presented this slide of results:
Even though the day 7 and 14 endpoints showed 97% and 98% posterior p(efficacy), she discounted the result verbally, saying it "wasn't significant". dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/sites/NIHKR/KR…