> Moreover, the reluctance of Western nations to provoke Russia, for fear of "nuclear escalation," mirrors the hysteria that gripped these societies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both reactions are symptomatic of a deeper neurosis, revealing a collective psyche that is fundamentally risk-averse.
This is clearly nonsense on two counts. Covid was worse than the flu - although the original death toll was to turn out to be an exaggeration.
The other problem is of course that nuclear war is a big threat. Russia vs Ukraine is a minor war. The conventional threat to Europe is massively exaggerated.
The threat to the US is non existent, it is the same as the threat to Mexico - which isn’t rushing to send troops.
A modern nuclear war wouldn’t destroy the earth. It would however destroy the west and significant parts of the northern hemisphere. China would just mop up.
"This mindset was starkly evident in the response to Covid-19, a virus that, despite some of its exotic symptoms, was not significantly more lethal than the flu. "
This is nonsense. 5-51K Americans die from flu annually:
The essential problem with those official numbers is that they most likely reflect deaths WITH Covid, not FROM Covid. Assuming how meticulously testing was done during hospital admissions and the way deaths were recorded, the former seems to be closer to truth. But even if the official numbers do really reflect deaths from Covid, still the bottomline is that the virus was certainly not so dangerous to justify the neurotic reaction to it.
Looking at excess deaths indicates we significantly underestimated deaths from Covid, not overestimated them. This essay started out well but I had to do a double take on that.
The excess deaths were the result not of Covid but the reaction to it - e.g., delayed diagnoses, postponed surgeries and side effects of Covid vaccines (yes, they were not as deadly as the alternative media claimed, but also not nearly as safe as the mainstream claimed).
Regardless however, the central message remains valid. Even if Covid were as dangerous as it was purported to be, or even more(!), it was nowhere near dangerous to justify the neurotic reaction to it. In the end, this reaction, rooted in saving any lives at all costs, did more harm than the virus itself. In the same way as the neurotic fear of "nuclear escalation" by Western governments has cost countless more Ukrainian deaths that could have been easily avoided had Ukraine from the start received all the necessary weapons to crush Russia decisively.
I agree with the second part, but you’re still completely wrong on the dangerousness of covid and your claim that vaccines can explain excess deaths is shockingly misinformed.
Covid was most serious in 2020 when it was a brand new disease where we had no resistance, no treatment, and no vaccine. The strains prevalent then were more serious that what I got infected with in Jan 2022, and there was no effective treatment. If this disease was a nothing burger like you say how it is so may people went to the hospital and why were they on respirators. I've never heard of large numbers of people on respirators during previous outbreaks of flu.
Generally, if people are so far gone they can't breathe on their own, they ain't ever going to get better. Surely you recall all the stories about respirators in the spring of 2020 and then no stories about the same later one, when the largest death rates happened? The fact is tons of inflected folks were dying from this disease at the beginning of the pandemic who were not dying later on because the treatment got better. And as 2021 moved on, more and more people got vaccinated and so had milder disease.
Higher deaths in 2021 than 2020 reflect many more people getting infected as life started to go back to normal.
Covid deaths only reached the high end of flu levels in the last 12 months or so, after the vast majority have been vaccinated, had Covid or both. Covid is essentially a cold, but is is a NEW cold virus, but it won't become like other cold viruses until those who were infants in 2020 reach old age. That's how these things work. But for those who are already older adults when the new cold virus strikes, a lot of them die before their time. And you may not give a shit about them, but most of my friends are old as am I so I see it differently.
Posts like yours are saying older folks like me should just shut up and die and so decrease the surplus population.
> Moreover, the reluctance of Western nations to provoke Russia, for fear of "nuclear escalation," mirrors the hysteria that gripped these societies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both reactions are symptomatic of a deeper neurosis, revealing a collective psyche that is fundamentally risk-averse.
This is clearly nonsense on two counts. Covid was worse than the flu - although the original death toll was to turn out to be an exaggeration.
The other problem is of course that nuclear war is a big threat. Russia vs Ukraine is a minor war. The conventional threat to Europe is massively exaggerated.
The threat to the US is non existent, it is the same as the threat to Mexico - which isn’t rushing to send troops.
A modern nuclear war wouldn’t destroy the earth. It would however destroy the west and significant parts of the northern hemisphere. China would just mop up.
I’m dying of cancer have wondered about whether the literal cost of keeping me alive is worthwhile: https://jakeseliger.com/2024/05/16/the-financial-costs-of-healthcare-costs-or-is-keeping-me-alive-worth-it/
"This mindset was starkly evident in the response to Covid-19, a virus that, despite some of its exotic symptoms, was not significantly more lethal than the flu. "
This is nonsense. 5-51K Americans die from flu annually:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=While%20the%20effects%20of%20flu%20varies%2C%20it%20places,%E2%80%93%2051%2C000%20deaths%20annually%20between%202010%20and%202023.
Covid deaths were around 385K in 2020, 446K in 2021 and 250K on 2022. This is 5-9X worse than the worst flu years.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2022/01/16/fact-check-did-more-people-die-covid-19-2021-than-2020/8858993002/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7218a4.htm
The essential problem with those official numbers is that they most likely reflect deaths WITH Covid, not FROM Covid. Assuming how meticulously testing was done during hospital admissions and the way deaths were recorded, the former seems to be closer to truth. But even if the official numbers do really reflect deaths from Covid, still the bottomline is that the virus was certainly not so dangerous to justify the neurotic reaction to it.
Looking at excess deaths indicates we significantly underestimated deaths from Covid, not overestimated them. This essay started out well but I had to do a double take on that.
The excess deaths were the result not of Covid but the reaction to it - e.g., delayed diagnoses, postponed surgeries and side effects of Covid vaccines (yes, they were not as deadly as the alternative media claimed, but also not nearly as safe as the mainstream claimed).
Regardless however, the central message remains valid. Even if Covid were as dangerous as it was purported to be, or even more(!), it was nowhere near dangerous to justify the neurotic reaction to it. In the end, this reaction, rooted in saving any lives at all costs, did more harm than the virus itself. In the same way as the neurotic fear of "nuclear escalation" by Western governments has cost countless more Ukrainian deaths that could have been easily avoided had Ukraine from the start received all the necessary weapons to crush Russia decisively.
I agree with the second part, but you’re still completely wrong on the dangerousness of covid and your claim that vaccines can explain excess deaths is shockingly misinformed.
Covid was most serious in 2020 when it was a brand new disease where we had no resistance, no treatment, and no vaccine. The strains prevalent then were more serious that what I got infected with in Jan 2022, and there was no effective treatment. If this disease was a nothing burger like you say how it is so may people went to the hospital and why were they on respirators. I've never heard of large numbers of people on respirators during previous outbreaks of flu.
Generally, if people are so far gone they can't breathe on their own, they ain't ever going to get better. Surely you recall all the stories about respirators in the spring of 2020 and then no stories about the same later one, when the largest death rates happened? The fact is tons of inflected folks were dying from this disease at the beginning of the pandemic who were not dying later on because the treatment got better. And as 2021 moved on, more and more people got vaccinated and so had milder disease.
Higher deaths in 2021 than 2020 reflect many more people getting infected as life started to go back to normal.
Covid deaths only reached the high end of flu levels in the last 12 months or so, after the vast majority have been vaccinated, had Covid or both. Covid is essentially a cold, but is is a NEW cold virus, but it won't become like other cold viruses until those who were infants in 2020 reach old age. That's how these things work. But for those who are already older adults when the new cold virus strikes, a lot of them die before their time. And you may not give a shit about them, but most of my friends are old as am I so I see it differently.
Posts like yours are saying older folks like me should just shut up and die and so decrease the surplus population.