Skip to main content
Tangentially Speaking

443 – ROMA 38, Part II (Wear a Mask!)

By October 14, 2020June 18th, 20227 Comments

I respond to some of the feedback I’ve received in the past day or two in response to my posts on wearing masks. The article in Nature I mention is here.

Find me on Instagram or Twitter.

To listen to this episode, plus get access to bonus content including bonus episodes, newsletters, and exclusive blog posts, please head over to Substack.

Intro music: “Brightside of the Sun,” by Basin and Range,“I Don’t Think You Understand,” by Goliath Flores.

7 Comments

  • Sebastian says:

    Dear Doctorpher,

    unless you take all the facets of this pandemic into account like;

    – how many people died with Covid and how many people died because of Covid
    – how many new infections are there vs how many are sick/hospitalized
    – how many people died because of the treatment of Covid published in Lancet
    (I believe, can’t check as Youtube et al deleted the Video I got the information from)
    – how many people died this year vs. the average of the last years
    – how many people suffered of postponed surgery, distress or just alone because they weren’t allowed visitors
    – how accurate are the tests and what does it mean for the statistics
    – will we get our constitutional rights back or is Covid 20 right around the corner
    (here in Germany they just amended the Grundgesetz (§143h)
    – and others I forgot to mention

    I doubt the usefulness of those Podcasts.

    After the original SARS, Bird Flue, Swine Flue and others that came and went, and the data that comes in now I’m sorry to say I don’t buy it anymore (coming from a guy who said “They don’t cancel Carnival this year, are they fucking nuts”)

    Your argument that it would be illogical to crash the economy because of that seems valid, however I would counter that the economy was about to crash anyway at some point in the near future but now there is a scape goat.

    Still your Podcast is #1 on my list

    Keep up the great work and thanks for everything

  • Sebastian says:

    The Treatment as published in Lancet on February the 18 was as follows:

    Antivirals: Interferon alfa-2b – Lopinavir – Ritonavir (Kaletra)
    Antibiotic: Moxifloxacin
    Cortison: Methylprednisolon

    Though the Lancet comes to the conclusion that the 50 year old patient died of Sars Cov2 there are several medical doctors who, looking at that “cocktail”, weren’t surprised that the patient didn’t survive. Maybe the Lancet is right but maybe this treatment was, like the artificial respiration, a bad idea and ‘it’s all guess work in a white coat’.

    There is also the Recovery (Solidarity) study that tested the effects of Hydroxychloroquine:
    The loading dose was 2400mg and then 800mg Day 2 to 10 making it a total of about 10g (yes 10g) without considering the overall health condition, the weight of the patient or their liver/kidney function. It was dismissed because 25.7% of the patients died.

    Similar with the REMAP study of Hydroxychloroquine which was held in 200 different places in 14 Countries (USA – Great Britain – Belgium – Netherlands – Spain. So the countries with high mortality in a short time) published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
    The loading dose was also 2400mg and then a total of 6,4g over 6 days. But it was only issued to people who were artificially respirated or otherwise near death. It was dismissed because 32.3% of the patients died.

    Then there is that whole Fauci Remdisivir connection… I could go on and on.

    Reminds me of that Goethe Poem:

    Hier war die Arznei, die Patienten starben,
    Und niemand fragte: wer genas?
    So haben wir mit höllischen Latwergen (some sort of medicine)
    In diesen Tälern, diesen Bergen,
    Weit schlimmer als die Pest getobt.
    Ich habe selbst den Gift an Tausende gegeben,
    Sie welkten hin, ich muß erleben
    Daß man die frechen Mörder lobt.

  • (Trying to post this for a second time. Page sometimes blocks my comments I don’t know why)

    Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about a movie I saw a looong time ago, called Higher Learning (1995) with Ice Cube, Jennifer Connelly and Michael Rapaport. It’s about all the social tensions and racial issues experienced by freshman students who just entered Columbus University, which is shown as a microcosmos of the problems in our modern society faced by kids coming from different ethnicities and all walks of life, who are totally unprepared for them.

    And the reason I keep thinking about the movie is because of the character of Michael Rapaport: a bright but shy white kid who finds himself as an outcast, because his lack of social skills (and the color of his skin) puts him at odds with the other little ‘cliques’ around the campus. This is a situation I can completely relate to, because *I* also recognize myself as an outcast: My life-long interest in what many people would categorize as ‘weird shit’ meant I was never invited to sit with the ‘cool kids’ at the school cafeteria; when you’re growing up that can be hard, but later as I grew older I came to appreciate it, because the thing about outsiders (as Colin Wilson once wrote) is that we’re in a vantage position to observe what’s wrong with society, and –if we’re lucky– to have a chance to influence society in ways people who are too busy playing by the rules cannot.

    But here’s the thing: There are OTHER people who have been cast away from society, and with reason. Getting back to the movie and Michael Rapaport (Spoiler alert!) after he finds himself all alone he’s invited to join a group of White Nationalists; he shaves off his head and starts to become radicalized. You see, I believe this is what happened with alternative groups in the Internet in the last 15 years: Outsiders like me were lured by right-wing groups who told them “hey, we’re outsiders like you! Come hear the things we have to say, which ‘The Man’ doesn’t want you to learn” and that’s why (IMO) people who are interested in alternative ideas like UFOs, ancient civilizations, psychedelics, alternative medicinal remedies and all that jazz can very easily become radicalized by the ideas of Alex Jones, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and Steve Bannon –I know because I have had good friends who went through that, and while they were just interested in UFOs and Ancient Aliens we could have great conversations; but when they began to talk against vaccines and supported the ‘plandemic’ (or Vladimir Putin) I knew they had crossed beyond a threshold I couldn’t follow…

    And yes, it’s not like right-wing groups didn’t exist before the invention of the world wide web, but never had it been easier for them to spread their message and recruit more people to their cause than today. And like Chris said, the Silicon Valley tycoons are totally okay with it as long as we keep our noses stuck to our gadgets’ screens.

    • Sebastian says:

      You are absolutely correct when you say that right wing groups use certain topics to their advantage, however grouping people with nazis because they don’t blindly believe that all forms of vaccines are great, or that there is circumstantial evidence that raise questions about this pandemic or that Putin is a logical consequence of americas foreign policy only deepens the trench.

      Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle but, as you said, “People want cookie-cutter answers”, so we are getting polarized waisting a whole lot of energy fighting with each other.

      It’s a dangerous game to play and If you read ‘Speech to the workers of Berlin’ you can see what can happen if you leave problematic issues to people who make Alex Jones look moderate in comparison.

  • Will says:

    Chris, this might have been the most important opinion piece you’ve recorded. Thank you. The world needs to hear these things spoken. We are losing sovereignty over our attention at an an alarming rate to technology, consequently being robbed of the mental space needed for reflection and critical thinking. Witnessing how smartphones alone have eroded people’s social interactions and situational awareness over the last decade has felt like living a sci-fi horror film. We should be fighting the lure of the Matrix like our lives depended on it.

  • Cory Joe says:

    Thanks for articulating these issues with such clarity. These ROMAS were a great listen. I particularly resonated with the “this is the hill you want to die on?” segment in part 2. Critical Thinking has taken a nose dive in my lifetime, I’m 32. Continue to seek out the truth. Thanks again Chris

  • maistvanjr says:

    Ahahaha. “Kevin Spacey I would have believed!”

Leave a Reply to Red Pill Junkie Cancel Reply