Dystopian Download 12 March 2024
Transparency, the power of good questions, summer, gene therapy, advice from an emperor, thank you
Welcome to the latest Dystopian Download, a pick-n-mix of observations from the past month or so. I write from sunny Perth, Western Australia, where the sand is white, the ocean is clear and the skies expansive. I always say, I live in a postcard.
‘Transparency’
The CDC, in partnership with Johns Hopkins, has put out a Practical Playbook for Addressing Health Misinformation which includes a lengthy Checklist to Improve Trust. However, not once on the four-page checklist does it suggest: ‘Stop hiding data and lying your face off.’
Speaking of hiding data, the CDC just released a 148-page study on myocarditis after Covid vaccination in response to a Freedom of Information request from Epoch Times journalist Zachary Stieber. Every single page of safe and effective, redacted.
It’s like that time the TGA released 74 fully-redacted pages of safe and effective mRNA vaccine batch testing results.
See, misinformation on social media is the problem folks.
To change someone’s mind you need only ask a good question
Watch this video to see power of asking intelligent questions and listening to the answers without judgement. A teacher guides his student in parsing his own assumptions, resulting in the student revising his previously unthought-out opinion. If only more teachers had these skills.
Gene-based therapy
"Australian scientists have made a major discovery that could underpin the next generation of RNA-based therapeutics, and lead to more potent and longer-lasting RNA-based drugs with an even wider array of potential uses," reports the Peter McCallum Cancer Centre (emphasis added).
Scientists from the ‘Peter Mac’ Centre in Melbourne have found a way to make RNA therapies even more durable, with a "more robust form of RNA – known as circular or circRNA."
This is to overcome the fact that mRNA injectable material can "break down quickly once absorbed into the human body."
That's misleading, as modified-RNA vax elements have been found circulating in the body up to 30 days after injection, but nevertheless... This new tech promises to be even more durable and with a wider range of applications, including cancer treatment.
Most interesting is this excerpt from the Australian's write-up: "Dr Wickramasinghe said it was now becoming clear that mRNA vaccines were “just the tip of the iceberg” in terms of the potential of gene-based therapies."
Ahem. So we’re back to calling these gene-based therapies?
Summer
We had a hot spell in Perth recently. People FREAKED OUT.
(FYI Sophie McNeill’s claim that this was the hottest February ever on record was contested in this thread).
When I was a kid in Western Australia (30 years ago now), if temperatures hit over 40°C three days in a row, kids stayed home from school on the third day. Demountable classrooms were ovens on stilts, ceiling fans circulating the soupy hot air.
On nights when our bedsheets were hot before we got in them, we lay on the tiles under a pedestal fan dabbing ourselves down with refrigerated face towels. Summer school holidays with no aircon meant aimlessly wandering air-conditioned shopping centres for hours on end.
And every kid who grew up in WA carted around a frozen drink bottle wrapped in a towel, held in place with an elastic band. IYKYK.
It wasn’t terrifying, it was summer.
TV Climate Expert on The News said of the spell, “Heat and heatwaves are unfortunately a normal part of the Australian summer, particularly on the West Coast… but the climate change predictions do suggest that over the coming decades we will see an increased frequency in the number of extreme heat events we see, so it’s a little bit of a tough one when they’re already part of the natural scheme of things, but it is likely with climate change we may see them more often.”
Insightful stuff.
Oppressing the people destroys the state
“The ruler depends on the state,” the emperor Taizong wrote, “and the state depends on its people. Oppressing the people to make them serve the ruler is like someone cutting off his own flesh to feed his stomach. The stomach is filled but the body is injured: the ruler is wealthy but the state is destroyed.”
Quoted from War! What is it Good For? by Ian Morris.
Imagine that instead of a single ruler, we have a bureaucracy that’s so bloated that it exists primarily to maintain and expand itself. Progress is measured mainly in box-ticking exercises, like how many vaccinations were administered, or how many housing contracts were awarded, or how many equity surveys were returned, processed and compiled into comprehensive reports.
Increasingly, resources are diverted towards more and more committees, reports, equity officers and satellite bureaucracies to manage ever more regulations and administrative projects.
Increasingly, individual citizens are required to conform to these bureaucratic regulations and box-ticking exercises in order to carry out basic civic functions, such as running a business, schooling their children and managing their health. At the same time, bracket creep and inflation claim more and more of their earnings for the state, to fund more regulation, committees and equity programs.
The stomach is filled, but the body is injured. The bureaucracy bloats, but the state bleeds out slowly, slowly, one cost of living crisis after another. Then what?
Thank you to paid subscribers
So far this year, paid subscriptions have supported my work volunteering on projects including a Class Action for the vaccine injured, working on the People’s Terms of Reference for a proposed Covid Royal Commission, and a contribution to physical community newspaper, The Light.
Of course, paid subscribers also support this Substack, which remains free to read. So, thank you.
In the coming month, I’ll aim to set up an Ask Me Anything session. Subscribers, let me know in the comments, what AMA formats have you been involved in and enjoyed? I have seen some done all in written format, some in pre-recorded video, and some live zoom link.
I’ll also be reaching out to founders this month to set up a time for a live meet-up.
If you would like to upgrade to a paid or founder subscription, you can do so below.
To support my work, make a one-off contribution to DDU via my Kofi account and/or subscribe. Thanks!
"Imagine that instead of a single ruler, we have a bureaucracy that’s so bloated that it exists primarily to maintain and expand itself."
No imagining needed!
It's here, NOW, we're living with it as best we can... at least for the time being.
Problem is if things continue on this way we're ALL in for a heap of trouble when what's been allowed to grow unhindered by any reasonable attempts at truth and transparency push us all off into a ditch in the name of ESG.
Don't kid yourself thinking ESG's anything other than wealth-transfer by yet another name.
Stop redacting the data :)
It is simple as that