Not what they say, but what they do

Years ago after reading Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile I drastically changed my perspective on two things: The parasitic “elite” class and the news. My new perspective could be summarised into two sentences:

1) Don’t listen what they say, instead watch what they do.

2) 99% of the news is noise, and 1% is signal.

It’s almost impossible to explain how much these two simple things changed everything. It really felt like seeing behind the matrix. Suddenly politicians or CEOs didn’t seem out of touch and incompetent as always, but rather mostly malicious and greedy. They are simply acting on the incentives in front of them. With no skin in the game, you don’t need to play by the same rules as everyone else. Instead of reading or watching the news (where 99% is noise) I spent that time reading books, listening to podcasts and diving deeper into subjects (where it’s mostly signal). I started to understand the world better.

Enter Covid-19

It’s really no surprise then that when Covid started I looked at it very differently from the people who trust “the experts” on the news. If in normal times 99% of the news is noise, with a novel virus wreaking havoc around the world you can safely say that the ratio is even higher. Therefore most of the day-to-day stuff ever since this debacle started is simply not true or not meaningful. Two weeks to slow the spread, or was it two years? One day masks are not needed, the next day they are the most important thing in the world. One day vaccines will take decades, the next day we have multiple vaccines ready to go. One day the vaccine will offer 100% protection from hospitalization, death and spread but the next day you need a third booster shot. Now we’re onto the next stage where the inflation from destroying the world economy and printing trillions will soon go away, no wait actually inflation is good for you.

At the same time, what did our leaders do? They were caught maskless in public spaces countless times, broke Covid-rules left and right, made millions insider trading , overhyped the effectiveness of every Covid-measure and of course locked YOU down over and over again, nevermind the cost.

If instead of being caught in the middle of it all, you try to zoom way out and look at the situation from a distance, a very clear signal starts to appear. This was never about your health. Don’t get me wrong. There is a virus, and it’s dangerous. But so is the influenza. We’ve never taken any of the Covid-measures against the influenza. And for sure we’ve never taken any steps against the influenza as a global collective. So why did all this happen? Again. Don’t listen to what they say. Watch what they do.

Eliminate the control group

The motives are unclear. Maybe it’s a bunch of cigarette smoking men in a dark room plotting against the humanity. Or more likely, maybe it’s just a spiral of incompetence and desperation flushing down the toilet at ever-increasing speed towards the inevitable. Whatever the reasons behind it, the IT is clear. Ever since this started, NOTHING HAS WORKED. In fact, the situation is now worse. Cases are now higher even with 100% vaccination rates than ever before. Seasonal virus gonna seasonal virus. Third booster shots are being administered with talks of 4th and 5h one already on the way when the first two didn’t work. Completely illogical vaccine passports are rolled out everywhere against massive public resistance.

Breathtaking footage from Rome tonight of demonstrations against Italy’s draconian vaccine pass regime.pic.twitter.com/HR537hjiyC

— Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) November 21, 2021

And don’t get me started on vaccine safety. In time, the truth will come out on that front too. And it’s not gonna look pretty. Some countries pause vaccinating children due to heart problem concerns while others plan to vaccinate toddlers. What this is all about is not being able to admit defeat. The experts lost. The virus won. It’s the sunk cost fallacy: They doubled down with their every move and every time they got knocked out. And when our leaders fail, we expect heads to roll.

But there’s a catch. If they eliminate the control group, they can keep playing. The control group of course being the unvaccinated and countries that didn’t lock down. So you pressure the unvaxed people to take the jab by any means necessary, and publicly shame countries like Sweden until their new government conveniently rolls out vaccine passports despite the fact that the country looks nothing like the rest of Europe. You ignore pesky little continents like Africa and focus your state-sponsored fear porn machinery on the coming winter. Stay scared. Keep trusting us. Don’t think.

What else could have they done, you ask? I don’t know, how about a Manhattan project of public health where the aim was to reduce obesity, top-up population vitamin D-levels, lower stress levels, get people moving and investigate every possible known treatment option? Probably cheaper than 10 trillion with massive upside benefits to every other disease.

It was never about health. It was about gaining and maintaining control. That’s the signal in the noise. We’ll see how many bodies it takes to keep that strangle hold.