EP29: Covisionaries Revolt Against Michigan Dictator

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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