Yes!  I am an extremist in most everything, and proud of it.  Here, I will argue for—not the “middle of the road”, but a nuanced analysis.  Observe that the two opposite poles you describe are simple “easy answers” of the type for which people tend to reach.  I think that the situation is more complicated.

I myself have never said that Covid is inconsequential.  To the contrary:  In my first public statement about it, I said, “Some of you will die from the coronavirus....  The virus may kill me, too; maybe, maybe not.”  I then proceeded to explain at length why we should not destroy the world whilst failing to save it.

Perhaps the concept of managing and accepting risks in balance with worse risks may be too difficult for most people?


How many people here have experienced hunger?

I mean:  Real hunger.  Chronic malnutrition.  A starvation diet for an extended period of time.  To feel your body slowly wasting away, dissolving itself from the inside out, as you weaken and descend into madness.  You lie down, feel too weak to get up, fall half-unconscious, dream about food—any food...

I have that experience.  I think it’s likely that soon, many more people will have that experience, too.

Most governments worldwide have been following exactly the policy that they would take up, if they intended to destroy their economies and cause a global Depression.  That is not a “conspiracy theory”:  It is a blackbox observation of actual behaviour, with malice and stupidity being indistinguishable.  I believe that I have used the term economic arson.

I have been saying for the past six months that I fear starvation more than I fear Covid...

Whereas I don’t brush Covid off or pretend that it doesn’t exist.  I know people who have had it, including someone close to me.  That was very worrisome; I mentioned it at the time on this forum.  I myself am at high risk of complications due to pre-existing conditions.  I have said this before:  I am taking personal precautions, which do not affect society.

So as for my own experience.  Thereupon, how about this for a change:  Isolate nursing homes.  Encourage people with high risk factors to get a little bit “OCD”.  And otherwise—let life go on.  Perhaps encourage some moderate precautions that don’t leave masses of people totally dysfunctional.  Improved hygiene and a social respect for personal space are good ideas anyway—hey, I never wanted anybody within two meters of me unless we intended to kiss!  I said that before Covid:  Back off.  What is unacceptable is turning the whole world into a prison, and potentially a starvation GULAG, in failed attempts to prevent the ongoing spread of a virus that has low lethality for people without high risk factors.

Too nuanced?  I am trying to be blunt.


Panic is also a foundation for malicious actions.  Panicked people are easy to manipulate en masse.  (Insert book-length post here.)

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Agreed.  I was always against the lockdowns.

What’s much scarier than Covid is that “lockdown” is prison terminology being openly applied to people sheep who fancy themselves to be “free” because they live in “democracies”.


Also agreed.  Though the death rate won’t be so low if (when?) economies are imploded to the point that people are starving in the streets.

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Almost everything that I have said in the foregoing is a repeat of what I said in March and April.  All that has changed is that we are further along on the same trajectory toward global disaster.