Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 13

I'm Waiting for You by Kim Bo-Young

The first story is brilliant. I like it a lot. Love story, but bittersweet, and set in our future (so sci ficish). 
Also, reading Hammurabi laws here. Kinda interesting, tbf. 
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Watchmen

interview with the writer behind that comic, Alan Moore. He denigrates comics, and though I try to match the visual with the textual, I will say most of the "deep" comics are not all that impressive and, in fact, are not better than similar textual works in the same vein. Some famous graphic novel I read didn't even come close to an essay I read on the same subject. You can say it's a different vehicle to get that information out there, but come on now. In a way the reddit thread on this was similarly angry "don't talk about comics that way" to what Moore says, but I've yet to see him be wrong. Will try some of the recs on that thread:

Eisner's Contract With God has already been mentioned elsewhere in the thread. Maus is an obvious one. Even Moore himself thinks Dave Sim's Cerebus the Aardvark is one of the greatest achievements in the history of comics (and keep in mind he said that well after Sim got redpilled into schizophrenia). Love and Rockets is amazing. I'd argue a lot of Robert Crumb's stuff that isn't just porn is incredible, and honestly some of the porn is also incredible... and so on and on.

Anyhow, am I wrong? Let me know. 
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Bucha

There seems to be a whole lot of "Russia didn't do Bucha" or some mass killing in Ukraine. The Nazis did. Not sure why this is prevalent. I'm sure the right wingers in Ukraine have done plenty, but no need to white wash other things. There are lots of people in the left going that way. What to do? Read this while I go look for more on it.  More here too. 
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Sachs on Hegemony.

Some sane thinking out there. Guess we won't see him on TV any time soon. Especially when he said the quiet part loud that he talks to reporters off screen and they think that the US did it too, but dare not speak that to the public. Chomsky is right. The control of the narrative is going nuts out there. 
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Our MSM

Plenty of people shout about the MSM (from right and the left) and try to make it seem that they are truth tellers against the machine. Fair enough, I do too, but I do try to discern what the differences are,  the nuances are, especially vis a vis geo politics (very jingoistic usually) or domestic politics where no matter the screams by the right, the MSM, the Times included, will go with what the oligarch class want. See the difference between how corporate debt being wiped out vs student debt. Just nuts. 
Then how they've been going on and on about inflation (mainly because they want a fed recession to crush any rising worker morale). Dean Baker has more on that. Nevermind how they're back to screaming about the debt:

Never did that with Trump. So they did hate trump (running Russiagate tripe, though Trump did plenty against Russia) but not for cutting taxes on the rich. So it goes. But there are lots who don't even like Trump but they think that he's against the establishment. Only his boorish ways (so perhaps they think they have to control him somehow). Just unmoored narratives out there. Now we've added the spice that if you speak a single phrase the same as the other side, you're somehow boosting them. 
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Misinformation About Misinformation

Reading about Russian misinformation tactics is like reading meta misinformation takes on the idea that they have somehow learned to control social media with a few easily (relatively) dollars. Take this article by the Atlantic. 

In the years ahead, the agency would write more than 6 million tweets, and its posts would attract 76 million engagements on Facebook and 183 million on Instagram. Some posts were outright disinformation; others sought to whip up anger at the truth. But their common aim was to amplify the worst cultural tendencies of an age of division: writing other people off, assuming they would never change their mind, and viewing those who thought differently as needing to be resisted rather than won over.

Ok, I get the number seems like a lot, but why not compare to the over all number of tweets, ask how much engagement they had (vs total, or even vs other forms of astroturfing  by corporations or state actors) etc. 
The Author, Anand, is one I respect but really seems to be snuggling in with the elites of this country a bit too much. Take this last piece:

Americans didn’t need outside help to see one another in these ways. The culture of the write-off, of mutual contempt and dismissal, could be found everywhere you looked. If anything, this attitude was a rare point of commonality across left and right. The ease with which the Russian government exploited these tendencies is frightening, but it also, perhaps, points to a way out: If Americans are so easily manipulated in the direction of enmity and sniping and rage, might they also be more open to persuasion than we tend to assume? If Russian trolls could pull us apart, can we bring ourselves back together?

Like he almost gets it, then goes back to Russia blaming. Also goes on to mention some twitter accounts with 6k or 56k followers. Better then I ever had, but come the fuck on, that's really low in terms of numbers. And you can buy that many online. And it mentions some "divisive tweets" but how about comparing to actual divisive tweets out there? How about telling us how many views those got? The silliness here is ridiculous and unbecoming of an otherwise careful journalist like Anand. 
I mean look at this:

But what seemed to me even more significant than the subject matter was how the trolls talked about these issues. Over and over, they used these topics to suggest to Americans a certain way of looking at one another: as menacing, alien, and, therefore, unchangeable.

Really? Pretty sure that was always there. But let's say it changed the degree to which this was true... well let's see something on that, huh? 
Again, not saying that not a single idea from Russia didn't proliferate in the US, but come on. [1]
And, indeed, the rest of the article, getting us to talk to each other instead of writing each other off is worth it. But why that beginning part? Trying to use bipartisan xenophobia to fight xenophobia? 

[1] and this goes into an in-depth discussion to have on when outside interference is bad and moves into proxy levels (I think supplying weapons is the main one). But wherever you draw the line, it cannot be anywhere near "tweets". 
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Sachs on Covid

Sachs with the point that we need more thorough investigations into the origins of Covid to include the lab theory. 

That is exactly right. There were several kinds of experiments of manipulation of the genes of dangerous viruses. And this raised a lot of alarm. And there was actually a moratorium in 2014. But the champions of this kind of research pushed on, they applied for waivers, which they got, and finally the moratorium came off in 2017. And they said how important it is to do this dangerous kind of research, because they claimed, “Well, there are lots of viruses out there. And we don’t know when they’re going to become highly pathogenic, and we need to develop drugs and vaccines against a wide spectrum of them. So we have to test all these viruses that we can find, to see whether they have high spillover potential.” But they weren’t actually aiming to just test viruses that they were collecting in nature. They were aiming to modify those viruses. Because the scientists knew that a SARS-like virus without a furin cleavage site wouldn’t be that dangerous. But they wanted to test their drugs and vaccines and theories against dangerous viruses. Their proposal was to take hundreds, by the way—or least they talked about in one proposal more than 180 previously unreported strains—and test them for their so-called “spillover potential.” How effective would they be? And to look: do they have a furin cleavage site, or technically what’s called a proteolytic cleavage site? And if not, put them in. For heaven’s sake. My God! Are you kidding?
 

Okay, but we didn’t even ask the question from the first day: did you guys do that? Tell us what you did. Could you give us your lab notebooks? We’re kind of curious. Instead, these people who are writing these New York Times articles right now and publishing these pieces about the market, from the first day—without asking about the experiments—they said, “Nope, it’s natural.” That’s why I don’t trust them. Because they’ve never looked at the alternative hypothesis. And their hypothesis has so many gaps, so many holes in it. But they don’t even try to look at the alternative hypothesis.

&:

In fact, it’s very interesting. The alternative that is the right one to look at is part of a very extensive research program that was underway from 2015 onward, funded by the NIH, by Tony Fauci, in particular NIAID [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases], and it was to examine the spillover potential of SARS-like viruses. The champions of this research explained in detail their proposals. But after the event, we’d never asked them, “So what were you actually doing? What experiments did you do? What do you know?” We somehow never asked. It was better just to sweep it under the rug, which is what Fauci and the NIH have done up until this point. Maybe they could tell us, “Oh, full exoneration,” but they haven’t told us that at all. They haven’t shown us anything. 

So there’s nothing “kooky” about it, because it’s precisely what the scientists were doing. And then you can listen to the scientists on tape describing why they think the research program is so important, because they say these are dangerous viruses, and therefore we have to prepare broad spectrum vaccines and drugs. They explain it’s not good enough to test one or two viruses. We have to test all of them. And then they came to realize, as I said earlier, that just having a SARS-like virus, if it doesn’t have this piece of the gene, it’s almost surely not going to be that effective. So they got around to the idea. “Well, let’s put these in,” if you can imagine that. To my mind, it’s mind-boggling.

& this:

Now, again, let me emphasize, we don’t have definitive evidence of either hypothesis. But what we do have is definitive evidence that officialdom has tried to keep our eyes away from the lab creation hypothesis.

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Lies About Books

Looks like another sign of decaying structures. The Times bestseller list and other facets of "what a bestseller is" are subjective not objective. Like I said when Trump was elected, he's only a symptom. He's probably hung out with people in literary circles and he knows exactly what they are. Crazy stuff. 
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Getting Vaxxed Works.

So get yours, seriously. Also, this issue right here has now been studied:


Note the differences are there, though so large as to be something that people would notice. Also, I should say I don't understand this graph that shows a slight uptick in deaths for those with at least one dose:

Wanna add something else I saw on reddit:

My parents escaped Stalin's regime in their early 30s..I was born in Canada in 1980s shortly after they landed. 

My upbringing was rough as my parents..despite having left...are permanently damaged from being raised in fear and watching their families have their livelihoods ripped away from them. The constant boot to the face as they say. As if living in happiness and peace and thriving was a crime. My dad still worries when we're on the phone..any little click or disconnection from bad reception is likely the government listening in while we talk about absolutely nothing interesting. Heck..my parents still don't trust their kids and we're adults now...they never told us anything...not even how they felt about anything. It's hard to explain the damage done to people living in these climates. Just no trust or faith in anyone...especially themselves. Afraid to show happiness or have nice things. They may've escaped physically but their minds were forever moulded to be afraid even when there is no threat. It makes them want to have nothing in a sense...to not have anything nice that might get them in trouble or questioned. Like they don't deserve to be happy or be rewarded for hard work.

When the lockdowns started and the propaganda became rampant a few years back I knew exactly what it was. Talking to my parents they did too. It was a replay of what they went through as children...just dressed up differently. 

But try as I might to make the comparison and to warn others..it seemed your average person who never experienced this sort of thing was quick to call me nuts or overly cautious...that I'm nuts for even comparing the two. That there's no way Trudeau or any current politician would do that. That it looks nothing alike.

Well look at us now. And still.. to your average person...I sound nuts comparing the two..this is not the same thing apparently.

Maybe I am. Maybe it's all in my head. I doubt it but I just don't say much about it anymore. The scary thing is these poor people's perceptions of things. That just because they didn't roll in on tanks and move us all into government housing and forcefully strip us of any sign of wealth doesnt mean it's not happening. 

Just the vaccine passports in themselves were a huge reminder of the "passports my parents would have to carry to prove their allegiance to Stalin...you can't eat unless you obey..you can't work unless you agree...the food shortages..the TP shortages...the mandating staying inside or else!! The feeling of being monitored and ripped off and like you're always doing the wrong thing no matter what you're doing. It's the same shit. It all leads to the same place. It all has the same effect on the human psyche. 

But yeah. Trudeau's such a nice guy. He'd never do that to you. Just to the "dirty unvaccinated unemployed useless eaters"...talk about getting played. Go get your next booster then..you wouldn't want to be one of us. And by one of us I mean a "dirty unvaccinated useless eater" waitress that was allowed to serve your table or tell you I cannot let you in without your vaccine passport despite not having a vaccine passport herself. Tell me how exactly this is all in the name of public safety. Based on this tiny fact alone.

Source: I don't know. Just ask anyone who escaped or lived in a "communist" regime for any amount of time. During the trucker convoy I remember an older Polish lady being interviewed. In her broken english she tried to explain this very concept but was quickly interrupted and made to sound like a nice polish lady who brought the truckers treats. I got so annoyed. Let the lady speak. Let her connect the dots for all those who don't see what this all is. Let her explain why exactly this convoy is so important.

I say "communist" lightly I think that's where the issue lies. We have a great population of people who love communism (and I admit that in theory it sounds great). So when the word communist or socialist is used these days these people are quick to defend it. They argue it's better than the capitalism we have now. That it's the capitalists that have made our lives so miserable all these years. What we're seeing is totalitarianism disguised as socialism..just like my parents saw when they were growing up. It's so hard to explain at this point since definitions have been so blurred and people are so quick to get defensive. So I'll just say: Has nobody read animal farm?

Sorry for the length...I just couldn't stop. The frustration has been eating away at me.

Seems legit to me, but, then again, I think of the anti-vax deaths chart and wonder what it is that drove a certain subsection of people not to trust the vaccine (my hypothesis was places harder hit by the opiate crisis had much less trust in the medical est. and so didn't roll that way, this would be an example of something else). 
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What is art?

Not sure. DOn't think anyone is, tbf. 
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