Zeitgeist

Do they have an asshole award? You just won it.

Your line of reasoning throughout the discussion illustrates exactly why we need to be very worried. You make light of drastic measures and their impacts.

The Public Health Agency of Canada should also be dismantled and reassembled with personnel who emphasize fitness and building wellness proactively through exercise, diet, and building natural immunity. The current organization wants fascist restrictions to fight common colds. The PHAC is facked up.

Yes we must remember the number and length of lockdowns and restrictions. We must also remember their timing. I have no respect for governments that restrict freedoms so easily and unaccountably. Perhaps Britain will lead sad colonial Canada back to freedom, since we seem to have forgotten how long it took and how hard it was to forge our parliamentary democracy, so quickly erased and replaced by post-national state.

I agree, but look at the date on that post. It was 4 months into Canada’s first major pandemic measures. Here we are 23 months later still imposing our extraordinary measures to fight what has become a mild illness in a climate of mass vaccinations. No justification whatsoever for continued restrictions.

Yeah I don’t respect people without arguments. He’s a lazy heckler. Weak

Just as the Brits were the first to declare war on the Nazis, they have again stood up in defence of freedom over tyranny.

You’re lazy. Anyone can sling dismissive insults. Instead, why don’t you attempt to sincerely answer the question, “How far away is our current “pandemic” state from the totalitarian dystopia I just described?”

Once tech made remote work and learning possible, lockdowns and restrictions on movement became viable as a form of social engineering like never before. Add automation and pandemic fear factor and now you have the justification to keep people at home. They can be fed, educated, and productive in a virtual sense. The factories are mostly automated, so are the distribution centres (e.g. Amazon). No one is starving or being beaten. In fact it can be sold as ethical. “Sacrifice for the greater good. Bend the curve.” Once in a while let the useless eaters out of their cages as dogs are allowed to roam in an off-leash park. With drones and self-driving vehicles, even deliveries can be automated. If people get too antsy, ridicule them on social media as reckless, selfish safety risks. If people get too depressed, we have assisted suicide. If people start agitating politically through social media, ban them from sites or simply outlaw their content as spreading falsehood. The upside for climate is lower greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints as the birth rate plummets and people die because of various forms of neglect. Governments can issue enough universal basic income to keep people stupefied by drugs, alcohol, tv, and film (especially porn). Slam the former liberal democracy that once ruled the land as colonial and oppressive. Strip away religion and family as oppressive forms of patriarchy, sexism, and racism. Instil pandemic fear before holidays and opportunities to gather. Make the population feel guilty for wanting to spend time with parents, children, and loved ones. Maintain masking to help reduce human connection and individuality. Dehumanize people. Let data and algorithms drive all decisions based on the goals of reducing carbon footprints (humanity) and ensuring public safety (keeping people apart). Set up the automated systems and press start (the A.I. revolution Hariri described). Use digital vaccine passports and government-issued travel apps to track movements and ensure compliance with public health measures. No compliance means no employment or income. How far away is our current “pandemic” state from the totalitarian dystopia I just described?

True

I hope Boris has a massive televised unmasked party. If Labour gets in, welcome to restrictions. higher taxes, and all form of rationing for the greater good. Yeah Boris is a hypocrite like everyone else. He got caught. I’d be more worried if he didn’t see friends or live it up a bit over the past two years. Inhuman. The point is that the restrictions shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Boris should’ve stood up to the health authorities openly and honestly. Now he’s trying to score political points because he attended a party. Does anyone really care? If they do, they need hobbies. Sick of the public shaming of people doing human things. Transparent as hell and no worse than the lot of those world leaders far as I can tell.

You’re so right. Inertia, ignorant, and a population inured to waiting for instructions means we’ll wait for our government to decide how much freedom we can handle, but they’re waiting on our international government to direct them. Super efficient and not at all influenced by China or dictators. Sarcasm.

Not at all. You’re the apologist for government overreach.

Interesting that Dr.Tam made it clear that Canada isn’t calling the shots on its public health policy and that decisions on the virus’s status would be determined internationally. Canada isn’t really sovereign. https://apple.news/ALa__wHm-Sy-0Z8tukiBktA

Doubtful because it’s come out that many deaths attributed to Covid had other primary causes. In many cases Covid worsened sickness but in some cases the impacts from Covid were mild. Now with Omicron it’s very common for a patient to be admitted to hospital for non-Covid reasons but Omicron is discovered through testing and its impact is low.

We’re following the international consensus on vaccination and restrictions.

I think it means a much higher cost of living for essentials such as transportation, home heating, and housing, in order to reduce our “carbon footprint.” I think it also means giving the state greater control over people’s activities (driving, gathering, opinion) in order to keep people “safe.” It’s totalitarian capitalism meets surveillance capitalism meets Green New Deal. It’s creepy af and already mostly implemented.

For all we know there was double that number of Covid cases in Canada. How many people who were asymptomatic or had mild cases went undiagnosed? Hell, they can’t even test everyone who’s symptomatic right now.

Agreed, but some people have little risk tolerance and are willing to accept a massive curtailing of freedoms in the name of public safety. It’s critical to question how safe such measures make us and whether we want to live in a society with so few freedoms to ensure such a level of safety. Safer isn’t always better, when our thresholds for acceptable risk are so high that our society becomes dysfunctional across so many other metrics: public debt, suspension of personal medical discretion, freedom to gather, work unmasked, access basic services without proof of identification and vaccination, operate a restaurant with indoor dining, operate a gym, movie theatre, or sports venue, suffering mental health problems due to isolation, etc.

Yup. We don’t need to worry about what can’t be proven today to point out our reality, which is that much of the developed world is living under an extreme and unprecedented house arrest. The infringement of personal liberties is so widespread and pervasive that only people who have been heavily conditioned could accept what is taking place as in any way normal. Do I think that the conditioning is being directed by some evil genius or cabal behind the scenes? Well it doesn’t have to be and even such a theory is no less verifiable than notions like Covid originating from pangolins or that we must remain vigilant in our restrictions in case of variants and the effects of long Covid derived from Omicron, a mild disease that our heavily vaccinated population is well-equipped to fight. Look at what is still in place to fight Covid: suspension of the freedom to gather, operate businesses, travel freely, access services without identification and vaccine passports, hold jobs without proof of vaccination, be inside a private business or public building without a mask, etc. The restrictions and mandates are tyrannical. Our Canadian government is unable to see it or fight it. Almost all of Europe, South America, Asia, and half of the US refuses to overturn de facto totalitarianism. Where do we go from here? I can only point to the few jurisdictions where mandates and restrictions don’t exist or are minimal and Covid is being managed for what it is, an endemic disease that we must learn to manage without losing most of the aspects of our existence that we value: the ability to see each other, gather with family and friends, go out and travel unrestricted and meet new people face to face, sing, dance, play and watch sports, learn together, be in clubs and associations, celebrate our faiths together, celebrate holidays together, and so much else that has been simply removed from our lives without clear and ample justification. Arbitrary. draconian, unjustifiable infringements on freedom and liberal-democracy are our reality. No conspiracy theory is needed to call out what is right in front of us.

I do think we need to find ways to fast track production of these and other anti-virals. Scarcity breeds contempt.

Apples and oranges. You and I are arguing on a forum. Doctor is treating a patient. Are you treating patients?

Yup and the snow removal people are “sick” in Brampton. This Covid testing and screening is crippling us. Everyone can stay home and go on the dole indefinitely.

True but it speaks to the availability of medical information, including journals from accredited research hospitals and universities.

Yes there’s a doxa that comes through studying in the academy, to an extent. The days of only the ecclesiastical class (the first universities were religious institutions) having knowledge (and the wealthy who could afford private tutors) while the illiterate masses learned stories from stained glass and sermons are long gone. Hierarchies are quite flattened now, which is why the Occupy Wall Street movement rightly questioned how a CEO could justify earning thousands of times as much as the lowest paid employees in an organization. Regular people, even uneducated ones, have tremendous access to information, and I laugh when I see my doctor Googling for medical answers. That’s not to say that he isn’t an authority on medicine or that I could just become one overnight. Regular people have a right to question policies and there are conflicting professional opinions among virologists. I wish more people would take their cues from someone like Dr. Ladapo than Dr. Tam. Some approaches are serving humanity better than others right now.