Covisionaries revolt against Michigan dictator-in-the-making Gretchen Whitmer. Is COVID-19 too legit to quit, or is it truly a media-turbocharged hoax?

Show Notes

You’re offended! And you’re offended! And you’re offended!

• Unc comes out the gate offending people
• We don’t plan, and, when we do plan, we don’t follow the plan

A topic that may gain some traction: Coronavirus

• We’ve done no research
• Is coronavirus a hoax, or not?
• Phew: never thought it was a hoax
• Never even occurred to him that it could be a hoax
• The New York Times
• Source: the voices in Phew’s head

Covisionaries Revolt

• People in the state of Michigan protesting
• Blocking traffic and ambulances
• Also happening in Ohio, pressed up against windows,  straight out the Walking Dead
• Unc leans 80% right, Phew leans 20% left
• Is a legitimate thing; a real scientific entity
• That is beyond dispute
• More needs to be analyzed to assess the true degree of threat to us

Reaction vs overreaction

• We need to react in a manner that is consistent with the past with respect to prior viruses, in which no actions were taken
• Bird flu: no one ever suggested shutting down the world economy for a month or two
• The reaction has been an overreaction
• People die from other things all the time; why aren’t we getting excited about those things to a similar degree
• Economic damage has been unprecedented
• In the midst of the greatest economic run in world history
• Love seeing so many people included in the American Dream
• Is it a hoax? No
• The reaction is entirely overblown

The Impact of Local Culture on Perception

• The observations of Californians: look at those fucking idiots in Michigan!
• The impact of culture on the way we think and behave
• How Phew has changed since moving to Chicago, and then to New York
• Lots of that is self-preservation
• “If a man’s income is dependent on him believing something is not true, it will be hard to convince him that it is”
• The impact of economics on one’s worldview

Obligatory Reference to Hitler

• Many German generals knew the war was over in 1942 to 1943
• The culture that Hitler created was so strong that the opposit ion could not say anything
• That’s why some of them tried to kill Hitler
• The power of the German culture was so strong that people believed things that should have been obviously untrue with simple observation
• Not saying that what’s happening now rises to that level, but at the moment it is difficult to question anything that the prevailing culture accepts as true

CIA + Hollywood = Birth of Narrative Delivery System

• Christa Caulk posted a link to a video – Out of Shadows – that is very much akin to that
• CIA’s involvement with Hollywood
• Intentional manipulation of the masses
• Active, documented evidence of the degree to which powers that be are attempting to manipulate us
• Our most popular post ever – RIP Media – covered this
• Word-for-word parroting of a narrative

‘Big C’ vs ‘Little C’ Conspiracies

• Phew doesn’t believe in Big C conspiracies
• President is a reptile from another planet
• David Icke truly believes such things, to such an extent, it makes you question your own beliefs
• Phew believes in Small C conspiracies
• Unc and Phew realize they are more in agreement than they thought

Narrative Delivery Machinery

• The media is bought and paid for
• As we discussed in our most viral podcast ever, RIP Journalism
• We’ve had four more years of the media exposing itself for what it really is
• The media has become nothing more than a “narrative delivery machine”
• It doesn’t even purport to be the news, really
• Unc thinks virus is real, but the effects have been radically exaggerated for political purposes
• Phew doesn’t think COVID-19 has been radically exaggerated; believes 2-4% mortality rate

Assumptions Built into the Numbers

• New York Times headline said something that was ridiculous
• What is the actual mortality rate?
• As many as 50% of infected people have no obvious symptoms
• Deaths with uncertain causes being attributed to COVID-19
• The Icelandic study
• Even though less lethal that SARS, it’s much more contagious
• Agree with James Altucher that it’s probably 1% or slightly lower
• Even if just 1%, that is still outrageously high given the lack of resource capacity

Hard to Really Understand Stats

• Social distancing required just to stave off resource overrun (hospitals)
• Why they were including deaths without causation were attributed to COVID-19: because so many were dying at home, without ever having any contact with the medical system
• So hard to factor all these things into the equation

Sympathy for the Devil

• Phew understands all the ire directed at Gretchen Whitmer, and if he was her, he might have done similar
• No one wants to be the public official that didn’t do enough
• Governor of Georgia is on the hook right now
• Can appreciate how these decisions are made

What is the Role of Government?

• The greater the number of non-symptomatic infected people, the lower the actual mortality rate, by mathematical definition
• The key metrics are declining in most places
• Is the mortality rate truly THAT high, and is it the role of government to make these decisions for us
• Unc thought quarantine was isolating sick people from healthy people, not shutting an entire country down

Phew Thinks He Has (or Had) COVID-19

• Living three blocks from the cause of the New Rochelle infection
• People who have come into his building have had it
• Was so tired into late February
• Main issue with government stepping in is to manage limited public resources (hospitals)
• Overreaction caused by waiting too long to get started
• Making terrible triage decisions

Phew’s View of the Role of Government

• Phew: it is the role for government to step in in such situations
• Nobody wants to be the governor who did nothing
• People didn’t take it seriously early enough
• Leading to really sad triage decisions because resources stretched so thin

Michigan’s Draconian Response

• Phew thought Michigan protocols are Draconian
• Telling people not to go to work is one thing
• Telling people not to go to other people’s houses? WHAT?
• Sounds anti-American
• You can’t really blame the Covisionaries for revolting

Impact on an Industry

• The impact on the real estate industry
• What happens to people in the middle of the process when a state gets such down?
• Law-abiding citizens are breaking the law because they have no alternative
• Created untenable situations for so many people

PPP etc. and Economic Squeeze

• PPP already out of money; $384 BILLION GONE IN A WEEK
• People caught in the middle, squeezed between people who can’t pay them and others demanding payment from them
• People ruining their economic futures by not researching impact on forbearance
• People think they don’t have to pay their mortgage, only to later realize they have to pay all the deferred payments all at once
• If you couldn’t pay along the way, how can you pay four months all at once?
• Credit destroyed, AND they owe all the money they didn’t pay on time
• Feeling extreme gratitude to not be caught in the grips of all of this too badly

Covisionary Revolt is Understandable

• Makes sense that people would protest
• How many people would trade the virus for not having their financial lives ruined? The real measure
• If 50% of the infected people are asymptomatic, then that makes it that much less deadly
• What if someone who was at the protest dies from catching the virus at the protest?

A Groundswell Rising?

• Just within the last 24-48 hours, there has been a significant change in the narrative
• Seemed abrupt; it’s classic pent up demand, exactly as with the 2016 elections
• Hillary had a 98% chance at winning
• People wouldn’t be honest about their thinking, for fear of being browbeaten
• Pressure mounting significantly on Governor Whitmer
• People won’t tolerate lockdown past the end of April

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