The Pandemic Claims New Victims: Prestigious Medical Journals (archive)
One study promised that popular blood-pressure drugs were safe for people infected with the coronavirus. Another paper warned that anti-malaria drugs endorsed by President Trump actually were dangerous to these patients.
The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, were retracted shortly after publication, following an outcry from researchers who saw obvious flaws.
The hasty retractions, on the same day this month, have alarmed scientists worldwide who fear that the rush for research on the coronavirus has overwhelmed the peer review process and opened the door to fraud, threatening the credibility of respected medical journals just when they are needed most.
[...] "The problem with trust is that it's too easy to lose and too hard to get back," said Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, which published one of the retracted papers in early May. "These are big blunders."
If outside scientists detected problems that weren't identified by the peer reviewers, then the journals failed, he said. Like hundreds of other researchers, Dr. Kassirer called on the editors to publish full explanations of what happened.
See also: US FDA pulls its emergency approval of chloroquine use for COVID-19
[NB: This follows up on "Doubt Looms Over Hydroxychloroquine Study That Halted Global Trials" which was part of 2020-06-15 Roundup of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2, Coronavirus) Stories --martyb]
Related Stories
World-wide data as of: 20200615_140637 UTC:
| total_count | 8,028,325 |
| closed_count | 4,584,407 |
| closed_deaths_count | 436,277 |
| closed_deaths_percent | (10%) |
| closed_recovered_count | 4,148,130 |
| closed_recovered_percent | (90%) |
| active_count | 3,443,918 |
| active_mild_count | 3,389,380 |
| active_mild_percent | (98%) |
| active_serious_count | 54,538 |
| active_serious_percent | (2%) |
| total_deaths | 436,277 |
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @11:40PM (12 children)
These same journals said vaccination is safe. Can we trust them? Better safe than sorry... I'm going to continue to raise my children organically.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday June 15 2020, @11:47PM
You should raise them in bubbles [wikipedia.org] with VR helmets attached at all times for virtual life experiences.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Kitsune008 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:14AM (7 children)
Organically? Please explain your depiction of raising children 'organically'.
If you mean no man-made/'artificial' chemicals, medicines, drugs, vaccinations, immunizations, etc., well then, good luck with that.
Pro tip: Peel the inner bark from willow trees for an aspirin analog.(actually can easily be turned into actual aspirin using chemistry. ;-)
BTW, under the freedom principle of 'my right to swing my fists stops at your nose', foregoing vaccinations/immunizations violates that principle. Anti-vax advocates are advocating 'punching random people in the nose', but in reality, even worse...illness at best, and death at worse.
I am curious, and hope you respond to clarify. I could easily be way off track, on track, or somewhere in between. Or even way off base?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:27AM (3 children)
That A/C might be our resident anti-vaxxer.
He's also a flat earther so your reasoned arguments are falling on barren ground.
(Score: 2) by Kitsune008 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @03:02AM (1 child)
LOL!
I will heed your wisdom in this matter, and not debate the issue further.
I'm reminded of several relevant sayings my grandfather was often remarking on:
1) don' argue with fools and idiots, as it is hard for spectators to tell the difference after a short while
2) don't bother trying to insult idiots, as they have to have a modicum of intelligence to realize they have been insulted. 'Water off a ducks back' as they saying goes.
Good advice indeed.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 16 2020, @03:21AM
So true: Don't argue with an idiot, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:49PM
At least A/C arguments will be flat ones.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:15AM
He means water them once a day, and turn them towards the sun from time to time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @07:09PM
"BTW, under the freedom principle of 'my right to swing my fists stops at your nose', foregoing vaccinations/immunizations violates that principle. Anti-vax advocates are advocating 'punching random people in the nose', but in reality, even worse...illness at best, and death at worse."
No it doesn't, you stupid fuck. I don't control nature/diseases and am not responsible for your immune response. Your using force of government to physically invade my body with chemicals and biological agents against my will is what violates rights, and i will protect mine with enough force to make it very expensive for everyone who thinks about trying it on anyone in the future. Their blood will be on your hands, not mine. I'm minding my own business, but you stupid brainwashed cowards won't mind yours.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @05:35AM
This bastardization of freedom has a very dangerous precedent. Let me give you another little quote:
The quote is from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was arguing, in a form not very different from your argument, that eugenics is ultimately little more than a vaccination. It requires the individual to suffer what is, from their perspective, a modest sacrifice in order to ensure an overall greater good. Interestingly enough, the court case that this was from (Buck v Bell) has never actually been overturned.
I think it's important we never bastardize notions, for that bastardization tends to swing both ways. In this case it's even more absurd. The whole point of vaccinations is to protect you in cases of exposure to the disease. In particular vaccinations originated from the discovery that cow maids, who were regularly exposed to cow pox, were seemingly immune to small pox. And indeed they were. It didn't matter that the rest of the world was not vaccinated. Herd immunity can of course help matters since vaccines may not be 100% effective, but now you're pushing to force somebody to do something they don't want in order to move some decimal place a fraction of a point - not even to achieve a major victory.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:11PM (1 child)
> raise my children organically
Only natural fertiliser for them and no pesticides in the paddling pool?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:48PM
Those children will smell of manure and urine. Hmm, just like normal. Carry on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:51AM
So you're vaccinating your kids then? Since *all* vaccines are organic.
Because organic means molecules that have carbon.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Username on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:04AM (17 children)
I remember when Trump says it sounds like a certain drug could save many lives, and the media immediately call it fake just to be contrarians. This lead to papers being invented just to confirm a political bias. Is scoring points for your team worth more than people's lives now? I also recall the media saying "all" lives matter and we need a lockdown to save as many as possible, and that these evil "altright" protesters are killing my grandma. Now that it's their team it is suddenly ok to kill grandma?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:59AM (4 children)
It sounds like the global conspiracy of scientists that promoted global warming.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:51AM (3 children)
Global conspiracies are easy once you have a single financial system ruling over most aspects of life. You may disagree, time will tell.
TFA: [retractions] have alarmed scientists worldwide who fear that the rush for research on the coronavirus has overwhelmed the peer review process...
Given the widespread lack of information over alternative cures found and the widespread faith in the vaccine, I'd contextualize this event in a less pathetically naive way.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:27PM (2 children)
Back to the feudal era for you. Donate your computer to charity and get back to peasant life. You might find Amish communities in the USA relevant to your interests and receptive to your views.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:51PM (1 child)
You don't know Bot. He'd promptly construct a difference engine and keep on truckin'.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:23AM
Weird solidarity between you conservative shit posters, feels almost tribal O.o
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:41AM (4 children)
I remember when Trump says "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!"
and then “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
and then “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that type of a virus.”
and then “It’s going to disappear, one day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
and then “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
And then 110,000 Americans died.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:27PM
He also said "If we manage to stay below 100,000 deaths, we will have done a good job" somewhere in between.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @05:53AM (2 children)
Question for you. Imagine we found whoever the world's most foremost experts on the virus happened to be, and we gave them complete authority to rule the US, and also gave them 'reasonably' infinite funding. Would you have expected a significantly different outcome? What do you think they would have done differently? Nobody has any magical power when it comes to a plague. A significant chunk of the US has disregarded all concerns about the virus from day 1. Would you propose the government simply have arrested everybody going to the beaches early on during the spread? Presumably you'd then now also propose the government simply arrest everybody protesting and spreading the virus? No, of course not. That'd be absurd. Even if for some god awful reason you want to go full dystopic authoritarian like that there's not even enough prison cells in the US to hold them.
The news media, as usual, presents a broken picture of reality. Do you know the country that had one of the worst outcomes, by far, in this world? They currently have well over 200% the death rate of the US with no end in sight? It's Belgium - the defacto capital of the EU and the global nanny state. And outside of the micronation of San Marino, they have had by far the worst results in the world. This [worldometers.info] page provides a constantly updated view on what's happening on this topic. France was a country that reacted somewhat strongly and had some extremely brutal lockdowns. And they also have about 33% more deaths than the US. UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden - all worse than the US. And the Netherlands and Ireland are just the slightest bit behind us.
I think in a case like this the main goal of the government should be (1) to avoid a panic and (2) to avoid a reaction that's going to end up destroying your economy. And I think we probably failed on both those accounts, like most of the world. But blaming Trump, or anybody besides ourselves, for deaths is just plain dumb. There's just nothing and nobody to blame besides ourselves. We're already seeking a skyrocketing number of cases due to people deciding to get out in massive numbers. And that's going to result in a proportionally sharp increase in deaths. If you want to blame the government for this you now then need to ask yourself how they could have stopped it. And the answer is that there is no acceptable answer. So end up in a logical contradiction by seeking to blame them.
(Score: 4, Informative) by KritonK on Wednesday June 17 2020, @10:52AM
This is more or less what we did in Greece, apart from the infinite funding bit. The government's policy on COVID-19 is dictated by a committee of epidemiologists, and we've had great success in limiting the spread of the disease. The government acted on their advice from the beginning; they started gradually implementing a lockdown even before the first COVID-19 case in the country, and implemented a full lockdown before the first death. Now that the lockdown is over, there are safety rules in place, dictated by the committee, for just about every activity. There are even rules for how brothels should operate [kathimerini.gr][article in Greek]! Some of these rules may be unenforceable, but the more that are followed, the better. Again, according to the epidemiologists, even if part of the people do not follow these rules, we should still be OK, with OK being defined as the transmission factor R0 remaining less than 1.
Would politicians, who thought they knew better and/or weighed in other factors, such as the effect on the economy or their political careers, have acted as effectively? I doubt it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @05:58PM
The US is a democracy. We elect politicians to rule us, not unelected purported experts. The population has many valid interests, not just one hyped up in the media, that the purported experts have an educated opinion on.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Kitsune008 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:32AM
Why do you want to kill your grandma?
You need help...soon.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @05:31AM (2 children)
Not just did they call it fake, they hyped up their own untested contender Remdesvir. Just to spite Trump. Which apparently crashed pretty hard, while hydroxychloroquine remains being prescribed off-label.
Back when we were being ejected from our lives, one of my colleagues mentioned that now is the time to get published in Nature and Science, because no one is putting much effort into factual evaluation anymore. I acknowledged what he said, but I didn't know how right he was at the time. Science has regressed to religion, being abused for political purposes.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @03:32PM (1 child)
Funny. Way I see it politicians are abusing science, not the other way around. This may be hard for you to grasp, but Remdesivir is a known broad spectrum antiviral medication, and COVID is a virus. There was a lot more evidence for trying remdesivir than -quines. Both trials failed and were stopped. In the United States physicians are still free to prescribe any schedule II-V drug at any time for anything in case you didn't know that. This is what "off label" is. The physician simply puts up his or her license and malpractice insurance when stepping outside known standards of care, and risks his or her insurance reimbursement when departing those standards. And since FDA has cautioned that hydroxychloroquine should not be used outside the hospital or clinical trial settings for COVID, that risk is now more considerable. Not to mention causing patients unnecessary expense when prescribing drugs that don't work and are outside formulary for the diagnosed condition so the patient bears full brunt of that cost. Just because a physician might prescribe either Remdesivir or hydroxychloroquine off label means... nothing. Other than that physician is deviating from current (as of today) recognized standards of practice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @06:23AM
Remdesivir is not a "known" drug, certainly not in terms of efficy. It's an extremely new drug that's failed to provide meaningful results every single time it's been tested outside of Gilead Sciences [wikipedia.org] private tests. Gilead Science, the creator Remdesivir, has now a lengthy history of anti-social profit seeking behavior. They prophetically patented Remdesivir as a treatment for coronaviruses in April 2019 and stood to make an immense amount of money if they could convince governments to deploy it, whether or not it worked. If you think this is overly cynical see things such as this [arstechnica.com]. I'm not sure what it is about the pharmaceutical industry but it seems to attract the absolute dregs of humanity.
So in part, I agree with you. But, as usual, it's politicians abusing science at the behest of their friends and acquaintances who are looking to get filthy rich off COVID. Hydroxychloroquine, by contrast, is a drug that is "known". It's been in use (and out of patent) for many decades - first being commercially used in the us in the fifties. It's also prescribed millions of times per year in the US alone. It's also on the WHO's list of ~400 essential medicines. The point I make there is two fold. The first is that the supposed dangers of it have been greatly exaggerated by our media which has turned seemingly exclusively to yellow journalism. The second is that there's no way to make real money off of it and so we don't need to worry so much about motives. If somebody is pushing for it, they genuinely believe in it. Could be that they're wrong, but it's not that they themselves think they're wrong and are just aiming to make a buck for themselves or their friends/acquaintances. That latter risk is the major underlying problem with much of government today.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday June 16 2020, @03:10PM
I remember when medical professionals were debating hydroxychloroquine use and Trump was pushing its use despite there not being solid scientific evidence to use it, only enough possibility to warrant testing. (As opposed to letting the professionals speak for themselves). In other words, practicing medicine without a license.
I remember that from the beginning there was pushback in the medical community on its use.
I also remember that debate has gone back and forth and that now there is even more evidence to suggest hydroxychloroquine does nothing to improve survival rates. Enough now that FDA has now pulled its use authorization [wsj.com]. Blah blah deep state, but please show me recent (as in less than a month old) study data that shows it is effective.
I don't remember the media using the phrase "all lives matter" relating to COVID-19 measures. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to the citation of such?
I don't remember any medical authority suggesting that violating those guidelines and regulations are OK for BLM protests, instead I remember the exact opposite [cbslocal.com]. Then again, I don't generally conflate political party, protests, and COVID. But if you want to go there, I remember the Trump administration specifically appearing many times in public without social distancing or masking, but in instances where this was pointed out to Democrats they immediately changed what they were doing to achieve better compliance. In short, Joe wears a mask and Trump doesn't.
Are you quite sure your memory is intact?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:25PM (1 child)
The entirety of Trump's term and pre-term are evidence that to the media and Democrats, yes, everything and anything no matter how disingenuous or inherently destructive, is worth it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @03:31PM
Of course. Donald J. Trump "is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life,' and even now I feel that way - this minute." [wikipedia.org]
And his majesty would never tell a lie [politifact.com] or raise his voice in anger at *anyone* [axios.com], especially not women [wikipedia.org], whom he treats gallantly [thedailybeast.com] and with respect [politico.com].
I'll say it again. Donald J. Trump "is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:11AM (12 children)
If you would simply dedicate a few moments of your time
to discovering where in the world HCQ has been used over the last decade or so,
which, just to give you a hint, is easily done by obtaining a map of the world's malaria zones,
then, pick a country, any country, and drill down on the regions within that country
to find the malaria-risk and all the covid-deaths in those very regions,
you would very quickly discover that there are none, or almost no covid deaths in these regions.
i've done this every few weeks since february, have written about it, have tweeted about it. nothing.
please run your own numbers.
in maybe 15 minutes you would learn that the real question is
.. why even bother with vaccines when there's no covid trouble wherever HCQ is in routine use.
but that's unthinkable... and you won't even waste 15 minutes researching. i know. so sad.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:02AM (1 child)
Shhhh! I've been on full paid vacation for 4 months, don't tell them it's safe to come out until I've finished all the booze.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:54PM
Tja, that would work if you hadn't chosen to shelter at the Jack Daniels distillery.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:06AM
If you add up the ages of all the people appearing in the Bible = 6000 years. Go and check it yourself! Why are you putting me in a straight jacket?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:47AM (8 children)
Once again, correlation is not causation. The maps I just looked at show that covid is just taking a little more time to get to the poorer parts of the world, possibly because there isn't so much international travel to those places where poverty and malaria are common. Give it another few weeks (just a guess) and it will be there too.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:55AM (7 children)
I dunno about you but I would give more exposure to one thing that has a direct correlation with less deaths over one that has an inverse correlation with them.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:29PM (6 children)
You also worship a dead god who must be resurrected every spring in a pagan ritual.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:56PM (2 children)
Boy did you fail Div School. It's a commemoration of the Son of God who defeated death, not a cyclical repetition of that act like the Mayan re-lighting of the sun or something.
Anyway why are you so dismissive of pagans? I am not one, but they seem to have a good time. Did someone pee in your Cheerios this morning?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:51PM (1 child)
Odd that you read that as being dismissive of pagans like you're some kind of concern troll who likes to claim he was close to Clinton's inner circle and left in a huff of moral indignation about thos libruls.
Face it, Man Jeebus is just yet another dead/dying god and a particularly antisocial one. He doesn't even carpool with the others who migrate between the heavens and the underworld.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:26AM
Sock puppets and secret SN Pinky Brigade.
Just mock Bot, Phoenix666, The Mighty Buzzard, or Fustikrach any time they start up their washing machines.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @05:05PM (1 child)
>dead god
oxymoron, kid
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @10:19PM
James George Frazier [wikipedia.org] disagreed, but then the worshipers of the dead god threatened to deplatform him.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:46PM
Bot worships Punxsutawney Phil? I knew there was something strange about him. Thought he was an Eye-talion?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:40AM (1 child)
The retracted paper in The Lancet should have raised immediate concerns, he added. It purported to rely on detailed medical records from 96,000 patients with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, at nearly 700 hospitals on six continents. It was an enormous international registry, yet scientists had not heard of it.
The data were immaculate, he noted. There were few missing variables: Race appeared to have been recorded for nearly everyone. So was weight. Smoking rates didn’t vary much between continents, nor did rates of hypertension.
“I got goose bumps reading it,” said Dr. Jüni, who is involved in clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine. “Nobody has complete data on all these variables. It’s impossible. You can’t.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:20PM
It's data from Google's hoover. Of course they have that data.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:14AM (21 children)
The journals are not victims of the pandemic, but scientists' political agenda. There will be more blood.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:34AM (2 children)
Thank goodness we can continue to trust and rely upon the inimitable SoylentNews Eds, especially when it comes to understanding expertise, peer-review, and other sciency things. And keeping those nasty, nasty aristarchus submissions far, far away.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:58PM (1 child)
The conversation is the peer review on Soylent, aristarchus.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:58PM
Don't delude yourself, noone can peer with aristarchus, much less review him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:38AM (16 children)
oooh the scientist's political agenda... do tell us more! those bastards, I knew those nerds were up to something
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @02:33AM (15 children)
if those incel dorks have their way, we'd be living comfortably in some kind of eco-socialist paradise with 10 billion people and approaching post-scarcity.
just think of how many of those people will be non-white. it's frightening. hold me, i'm scared!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Kitsune008 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:51AM (13 children)
Sarcasm aside, you stated the core of the problem I think.
Cornered like rats on a sinking ship, lashing out at everything that defies them. "Kahn!!!"
The world and reality are progressive, otherwise we would still be wearing fur clothes, drawing on cave walls, and clubbing each other for some reason, or another.
It's not the 1950's anymore, and the 1960's and 1970's should have clued everyone in to reality, but it did not.
Some refuse to see the writing(and/or cave drawings) on the wall, and will be surprised to find themselves in a minority soon.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @05:37AM (9 children)
This is the kind of hubris born from watching too many years of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver. Progressive worldviews are being pushed to the point of absurdity. The pendulum will swing back, hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @06:46AM (2 children)
For those of us that remember the 80s, it was just as bad when the rightists controlled the public debate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:02PM (1 child)
Yes, it was bad, but not this bad. The Left and Right quibbled, but both believed in the core ethos of America. These now believe in nothing but nihilism; they are the Red Guards. Every man, woman, and child who cherishes civilization should fight them hard because they are the quintessence of barbarism. Anyone who doubts how far they'll go to erase everything and everyone must stop and read the history of the Cultural Revolution; it will make you physically ill.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:36PM
They'll be begging for Hydroquinone after the scientists get their way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @06:59AM (3 children)
This is the back, but the neo-conservatives, with the help of the alt-right, have broken the pendulum. This will be no "Back", there is no "Back". There is only death to conservatives, who have split the world, and now the chickens, and the antifa, have come home to roost. Hope your bug-out bag is in order, because there will be no boogaloo. Goodbye, conservatives!!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2020, @01:30PM (2 children)
We agree on the trajectory, but not the outcome. Armed Antifa and Woke are seizing territory in American cities and burning and looting and killing. The government is allowing it to happen, which means the reaction will not be controlled and will consume everyone and everything. Cast your lot carefully, because it matters.
It sounds like you're betting on the overlords of CHAZ/CHOP, who are already falling out among themselves and are failing at the basic machinery of life like sanitation, food, organization, etc. Meanwhile the other side is quietly cleaning its weapons and adding to the stockpile of ammunition they have been amassing for decades.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:41PM
The "other side" is quietly wondering what the darn kids are yapping about now and turning up the TV.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @03:04AM
Have you considered switching careers? Because the fiction you're writing might make you some money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @12:42PM (1 child)
That's odd. Maybe you've been watching too much of that. I don't recommend the pseudo-left, because you'll come to absurd conclusions like that.
I was influenced by ST:TOS, which features a socialist society predicated on the labor theory of value, socialist culture, post-scarcity, and an optimistic view of the future and the other. Granted, there were fictional elements like warp drives and Heisenberg compensators too, but those are just storytelling devices.
Give it a watch some time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @04:18AM
Sounds like TV for obsolete BOOMERS. BOOMERS must be annihilated, and we have a convenient viral weapon that can help with that. Spread the word.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2020, @06:35AM
https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/image-450w-105465722.jpg [shutterstock.com]
https://3dempire.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/6-1.jpg [3dempire.org]
https://rainbowwarrior2005.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/batons_133193800_620x350.jpg [wordpress.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @10:15AM (1 child)
Do you know why the world has seen such relative peace? Is it because we've all become secretly nice and friendly even though literally every single observation you could make of such a notion (beyond groups of already homogeneous folks) would render such an idea absurd? Even though violent crime has skyrocketed since those old regressive times? No. The reason the world has seen such relative peace is because, and only because, of a little event [wikipedia.org] or two with a Fat Man that happened in the latter half of 1945. If not for that, then indeed you would see us regularly killing one another as we always have and very possibly always may.
Watch one of the countless time lapsed histories [youtube.com] of the world. It's quite informative. Ostensibly you'd come to believe that in modern times we reached something like a stability - finally coming to a peace with one another. But in reality the exact opposite is true. Up until 1945 the world was dividing and conquering, falling, and repeating more rapidly than ever before. The one and only thing that temporarily halted our tendencies was a Fat Man. But that deterrence will too eventually fade as it becomes counteracted by various defensive techniques at which point we're going to get right back to the game. Hell even look domestically. You think this country is going to last at its current rate?
In any point, modern 'progressivism' is little more than a rebranding of fascism with a bit of 1984 and newspeak added in. It's not about the politics (though I suspect most progressive would have loved the Italian Fascist party's political ideology) but about the intolerance that defines fascism. And indeed the intolerance invariably leads to an implosion and backlash. That you can't see this is already happening is indicative you are spending way too much time in echo chambers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @12:01PM
Violent crime rates have fallen lately, probably linked to the banning of leaded gasoline and lead paints.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2020, @11:58AM
In soviet russia the soviet paradise predicts YOU!!!
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:58AM
There. FTFY.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday June 16 2020, @04:01PM
It should have been quite clear to anyone that there was no time for proper peer-review when they keep pushing these out while it's still happening. So they gambled, with their reputations, that this would pan out and be correct and that there would be no objections. After all if you are the first to push some groundbreaking COVID19 news/solutions/whatever then you are a like the shining beacon and it's just win-win all around. But I guess they got it wrong and now it's time to pay the piper.