Sunday, January 31, 2021

Fact or Fiction: The Great Reset Conspiracy — Eric van de Beek

Based on my surveying the evidence, this conspiracy theory seems to be far more wide-spread and much more unhinged than the article makes out, at least at the fringes. The issue now is distinguishing the morons from the crazies.

I have not been posting on this so far, but it is getting to be pretty huge.

At the same time, as the article points out also, conspiracy theories are not necessarily totally wrong and often are based on an element of truth that exaggerated so greatly as to distort the picture.

But the world does seem to be at a turning point for several reasons, including the pandemic and the potential for more pandemics, the pace of climate change increasing, hybrid and kinetic warfare and an emerging new cold war and arms race, and a shift in the basis of the world order from unipolarism to multipolarism, along growing inequality and systemic dysfunction. 

Further complicating matters, this is all taking place at a moment in the historical dialectic when liberalism, traditionalism, authoritarianism, and socialism are butting up against neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, and neocolonialism in an age of decolonization. And, of course, as resetters point out, this is all taking place during a transition from an industrial to a post-industrial age, and from modernism to post-modernism.

The elites — chiefly Western — have deputized themselves as the ones best equipped to deal with this, , based on past performance, but one wonders whether they are up to it. After all, who got us here?

Eric van de Beek's op-ed looks like a pretty good summary of where matters stand.

I would quibble with this statement, however.
All it took was a global mass hysteria, peer pressured governments that overreacted or simply took the wrong measures, and - last but not least - fear struck, paralyzed citizens that - without offering considerable resistance - let their civil rights and liberties be taken away from them step by step, one by one.
In my view, it is more complicated than this and involves tradeoffs. It is not yet clear what choices were beneficial and what choices harmful, and what choices were meaningless in effect. All that is clear at this point is that the elites were winners and the rest were losers. Whether the facts will ever be established objectively is questionable. It is even more questionable whether blame will be assigned correctly. More uncertain is future developments.

Sputnik International — Opinion
Fact or Fiction: The Great Reset Conspiracy
Eric van de Beek, Dutch journalist

6 comments:

Ahmed Fares said...

From the article:

The virus may be deadlier than the flu, but it's not a killer virus like ebola or the Spanish Flu.

The virus can kill you in other ways. Like you could be in a car accident and can't have access to an ICU bed because they're all in use.

How many people died because of the 9/11 attacks? You would have to include these people in the count:

Driving fatalities after 9/11: a hidden cost of terrorism

Abstract

We show that the public's response to terrorist threats can have unintended consequences that rival the attacks themselves in severity. Driving fatalities increased significantly after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, events that prompted many travellers to substitute road transportation for safer air transportation. After controlling for time trends, weather, road conditions and other factors, we find that travellers' response to 9/11 resulted in 327 driving deaths per month in late 2001. Moreover, while the effect of 9/11 weakened over time, as many as 2300 driving deaths may be attributable to the attacks.


source: Driving fatalities after 9/11: a hidden cost of terrorism

Matt Franko said...

“And, of course, as resetters point out, this is all taking place during a transition from an industrial to a post-industrial age,”

Industrials would then be the contrarian play....

Greg said...

Comparisons to the Spanish flu are irrelevant. In today’s health system the Spanish flu would be roughly as deadly as our usual flu. There certainly are strains that are more deadly than others but with simple IV fluid resuscitation alone , not readily available til after 1940 I believe, the 1918 flu would not have been nearly as deadly as it was.

Ebola is certainly more deadly to those who contract it but analyzing the population wide threat of a pathogen involves looking at more than just how deadly it is to those who contract it, you also have to look at how long someone can spread the disease before becoming obviously incapacitated. From an individual perspective Ebola is deadlier and more dangerous, from a population wide perspective Covid is far far more dangerous.

Peter Pan said...

Mass starvation would be a great reset.

Not much of a conspiracy when UN documents are public, and elites make fools of themselves in front of the cameras. The right wing naturally refers to this as a communist takeover.

Can their stated plans for the future work?
Nope.

Calgacus said...

Greg: In today’s health system the Spanish flu would be roughly as deadly as our usual flu. There certainly are strains that are more deadly than others but with simple IV fluid resuscitation alone , not readily available til after 1940 I believe, the 1918 flu would not have been nearly as deadly as it was.

"Not nearly as deadly as it was" is not the same thing as "roughly as deadly as our usual flu" - which seems unlikely to me as it is the opposite of the conclusion of your underlying logic.

Spanish flu was much more deadly than the usual flu of the time. What reason is there to believe that the "usual flu then" is not about as deadly as "the usual flu now.", holding treatments constant? None, I think. So the natural first guess is that a new Spanish flue would likely be as much more deadly than the "usual flu now" as it was then. Usual flu mortality today is under the conditions of IV fluids, antibiotics etc. - which you seem to miss in this comparison.

Matt Franko said...

Yo he says right here: “ but with simple IV fluid resuscitation alone , not readily available til after 1940 I believe, the 1918 flu would not have been nearly as deadly as it was. ”