The Tyranny of Groupthink
Posted by freedomforall 3 years, 8 months ago to Philosophy
This article starts out talking about the lack of independent thinking in the stock market but goes on to discuss the herd following disaster in the lock-downs.
"Sweden has a WITH-Covid mortality rate of 56 per 100,000 for the entire country. But 26% of those deaths occurred among the population 90 years and older, which accounts for just 1.1% of Sweden’s population.
Similarly, 67% of the deaths were among the population 80 years and older and 93% were among those aged 65 or more. By contrast, persons 65 and older account for just 19% of Sweden’s population, and the preponderant share of the latter, who have suffered serious illness or death from the Covid, were already in long-term care facilities and programs.
Needless to say, locking down the schools, gyms, restaurants and malls does nothing for the institutionalized population of the vulnerable elderly and co-morbid. Sheltering and treating the latter in place, rather than quarantining the younger, healthier populations, is the self-evident answer.
Indeed, the virtue of Sweden’s anti-lockdown strategy virtually screams out from the schedule above. Sweden did not close its schools, yet there has been just one WITH-Covid death among its 2.4 million school age children under 20 years.
Likewise, there have been just 71 deaths among its 4.0 million prime working and consuming age population (age 20-49). That’s a rounding error mortality rate of 1.77 per 100,000. Who in their right mind would want to shutdown the economy based on such infinitesimal risks?
Due to enlightened leadership by Sweden’s health professionals and leading epidemiologists, they got it right, and now both new cases and WITH-Covid deaths have virtually disappeared.
And that’s to say nothing of the fact, that Sweden’s Q2 GDP decline of just 8.6% was far better than the double digit declines in the US and most European countries, which imposed far more draconian lockdowns.
In America, by contrast, the tyranny of groupthink on the matter has become so great that college football and in-person college classes are being closed from coast-to-coast when the risk of serious illness or death among the college age population here, like in Sweden, is virtually nil.
"Sweden has a WITH-Covid mortality rate of 56 per 100,000 for the entire country. But 26% of those deaths occurred among the population 90 years and older, which accounts for just 1.1% of Sweden’s population.
Similarly, 67% of the deaths were among the population 80 years and older and 93% were among those aged 65 or more. By contrast, persons 65 and older account for just 19% of Sweden’s population, and the preponderant share of the latter, who have suffered serious illness or death from the Covid, were already in long-term care facilities and programs.
Needless to say, locking down the schools, gyms, restaurants and malls does nothing for the institutionalized population of the vulnerable elderly and co-morbid. Sheltering and treating the latter in place, rather than quarantining the younger, healthier populations, is the self-evident answer.
Indeed, the virtue of Sweden’s anti-lockdown strategy virtually screams out from the schedule above. Sweden did not close its schools, yet there has been just one WITH-Covid death among its 2.4 million school age children under 20 years.
Likewise, there have been just 71 deaths among its 4.0 million prime working and consuming age population (age 20-49). That’s a rounding error mortality rate of 1.77 per 100,000. Who in their right mind would want to shutdown the economy based on such infinitesimal risks?
Due to enlightened leadership by Sweden’s health professionals and leading epidemiologists, they got it right, and now both new cases and WITH-Covid deaths have virtually disappeared.
And that’s to say nothing of the fact, that Sweden’s Q2 GDP decline of just 8.6% was far better than the double digit declines in the US and most European countries, which imposed far more draconian lockdowns.
In America, by contrast, the tyranny of groupthink on the matter has become so great that college football and in-person college classes are being closed from coast-to-coast when the risk of serious illness or death among the college age population here, like in Sweden, is virtually nil.
Government actors who have something else in mind for our population. This just scares the beejeezus out of me, that there is still talk of another lockdown coming in some states. Our Governor, Kevin Stitt (OK) has been under incredible pressure from Washington (Birx, who made a special trip here last week to show us the error of our ways) as well as much of our younger population, to institute a mask mandate as well as to consider another lockdown. Since he refuses the mask mandate, many of our "oh so virtuous" mayors, including the mayor of Tulsa, have done so for him. Today, we are voting for a new mayor (I hope), who has campaigned on freedom, no lockdown and NO MASKS.
I can only conclude that most of those who want MORE lockdowns are people who have yet to miss a paycheck and frankly don't care about any of the rest of us. To be clear: we ourselves haven't lost a nickel from it, and indeed my husband got a nice raise...and his full employment continues. However, we're close enough to retirement that either way, the world won't end for us. People who have active families to raise, mortgages, car payments, etc., etc., they should be very worried. I am afraid that no matter what else happens, it's not over yet.
I just read today that MSC has started regular 7-day cruises in the Mediterranean on August 16. That cruise went well, and now they are on August 23rd sailing. On August 16th sailing, they denied boarding to a passenger who had tested positive at boarding (two tests) and the entire bus that rode in with him, even though all of them tested negative. (Lesson always make your way to the port with ONLY your primary party members...never on a bus.)
If MSCs cruises continue to go well, that will definitely help. However, the CDC will literally jump at the chance to deny further sailing, if they can gin up a reason.
People tend to think of cruise ships as "special cases," but really, they aren't. Anyone who has ever worked - or lived - in a high-rise building is subject to similar risk every day, and they haven't emptied those. I am sure we can think up some circumstance in which ships are more dangerous than a high-rise building, but IMO the building is worse, as people are free to come and go, and take the virus with them and spread it out to the entire city, or worse.
But...here's my thing: it doesn't matter how deathly afraid the cruise companies are. The CDC is the final arbiter in the US, period, end of story. Until they can be persuaded, the rest of us will be landlocked.
For us, it’s a lifestyle, one we miss terribly. And we are sooooo ready to go back. If you aren’t one of “us,” it’s not really something you’d understand.
And while this might not have been THEIR attack.
They were PREPARED to take the steps they needed to see how far they could push Tyranny!
The govt should be able to URGE us to behave a certain way with a looming threat... But they SHOULD NEVER be able to force us to behave that way! It must ALWAYS be OUR CHOICE.
Couldn't agree more.
We need a large group of people who voluntarily expose themselves to COVID and get it over with. I volunteer. Maybe some number of the states decide to just "open", and stop the madness.
The stock market is a rigged game designed to enrich Wall St by stealing from small investors. There are no laws to prevent this because Wall St controls the lawmakers and the SEC.
2015 the refugee crisis that overwhelmed Europe threatened to bury Sweden. People fleeing fighting in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and across Africa streamed into the continent in record numbers. In 2015, the government of Sweden, a country of not quite 10 million people, recorded nearly 163,000 asylum-seekers arriving in the country. The country today has the highest number per capita of asylum-seekers in the EU.
I had posted earlier a link of research I found between tuberculosis vaccination and reduction of covid-sars cases and mortality.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Sweden has no compulsory vaccination program for TB and their covid-sars is still low comparatively.