Are We Just Better Than You?
(It's a joke!)
Calm down…
It’s a joke.
As Jeffstill SBanned pointed out: They’re like, “How was anyone supposed to know?”
Yes, the problem is that many can’t distinguish between those who listen to the authorities and assume they are wrong (fairly, safe assumption to make in retrospect) and those who listen to authorities and KNOW they are wrong. If you listened to authorities and believed they were right, how could you know?
The reason many of us (well, we weren’t great in number, sadly) were right early on was not because of a guess, coincidence (although, funny you should say that considering this ain’t our first rodeo) or a callous disregard for the health of others nor the elevation of our own need to disobey authority over your crucial need for safety. Of course they want you to believe that those who obeyed blindly are on equal footing with those of us who disobeyed. For the most part, you weren’t on equal footing in this. And it’s not your fault, per say.
The reason we did what we did was literally because we spent countless hours going over the research that was not allowed to be shared on social media (which most of us lost our accounts for trying to share it anyway). Our research wasn’t from some crackpot news source like “health nut news.” We were being banned for sharing PubMed studies and .gov links and direct quotes from the inventor of the PCR test you all elevated. You were told that we lost our accounts for sharing misinformation. But, in your defense, you never actually got to look at what we shared to judge for yourself. First, they removed our reach. We no longer came up in your news feed. At the top of the pandemic, they limited all feeds to the top 15 accounts you interacted with most. That’s a hell of a coincidence. Next, they removed almost all links outside of FB that were not on an approved list of approved sources who were in lockstep with the recommended policies. This ironically eliminated even direct government sources such as the NIH, FDA and CDC, established mainstream media voices and of course, published and reputable scientific journals.
What we shared was ironically the stuff you are being presented today as if it was some new thing. In fact, the research studies on masks had been conclusively conducted and published over the past twenty five straight years. Everything that went wrong during Covid with masks not seeming to control the virus (to which the health authorities offered the ingenious solution of masking harder with more penalties or doubling up) only confirmed what the scientific community had already evidenced long before you donned a single mask.
You were mislead. We can all acknowledge that. Our sanctimonious insistence that we were correct probably only hurt our case and your ability to hear us. It’s all rather unfortunate that it rolled out the way it did.
Some of us have the time and know where to look, the bored housewives and science geeks among us. We went in search of evidence to back up the recommended policies in effect and came up wanting. The reason we share (then and now) is not to point out that we are better than you. It’s merely to offer an opportunity for education out of concern for our fellow man. We refused to wear a mask in hopes you would ask us why rather than assume our disregard for your feelings or safety. Not wearing a mask was scientifically (and ethically) more healthy and safer for everyone. If and when some of you asked, we were overjoyed to share that with you.
We recognize that many of you are just going to say that we didn’t know what we were doing, and that we were lucky we didn’t make things worse. We know you believe Covid was so novel and unprecedented that any choices made (yours and ours) were all some kind of a crapshoot of which you were following the science. It was natural that you believe that we just merely ended up against all odds guessing right somehow. The fact of the matter is that all odds were always in our favor. Nothing but wind was against us. We just bothered to check the facts (unlike the posing “fact check” operations of whose summaries you empowered yourself by glancing over that aligned with the same unchecked authorities’ biases).
What we want to let you know today is this. A. There are two sides to every policy and B. When the next divisive issue comes, you don’t have to be wrong again. You also don’t have to work super hard or spend an exorbitant time to educate yourself. You just have to know the right people to point you in the right direction. You don’t have to listen to us. We aren’t like that piece of (insert expletive here) on TV telling you what to do and saying he has the evidence but that he’s not gonna show you because you wouldn’t get it. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt to put shit stuff together on your own, like we did. They told you that you required extensive degrees to understand the information. You don’t. If I could do it and end up ahead of the likes of Dr. Fauci, now under criminal investigation, I’m not better than you, so assuredly you are more than capable of reading at least a summary of a scientific paper or two.
Next time something like this comes up, we hope you believe in yourself and ask yourself, “Who are these authorities and what are their degrees and jobs and how did they get to this position of power?” “What’s this guy’s track record on AIDS for example?” “What possible conflicts of interest is he involved in?” Next time, ask yourself, “Who are the highest authorities here?” You can dig a little. Your trusted friends who got it right last time can help. “What are the greatest tests of scientific merit? Are they double blind, placebo controlled, 3rd party studies? Are they large cohort studies? Are they case-controlled studies? Are the epidemiology based or mechanism based? Or are the greatest scientific merits given to the Cochrane styled studies where research groups without conflicting interests pour a vast overarching look at all the available studies to date, dissect each in their merits and flaws and then, come up with what they see at the time as a pretty well balanced conclusion with an in depth explanation?”
The thing was, I bet you thought that the last example was what someone like the WHO and Tony Fauci do for a living. Perhaps you thought this was the job of the NIH, FDA or CDC. You’d be surprised to learn they have nothing to do with this kind of research. Researchers from Cochrane itself and The Oxford Centre for Evidenced Based Research, these are the guys that your Faucis and whatnot look to as their own authorities under ideal conditions for how to make informed policy recommendations. These studies may be commissioned by such agencies but are not conducted by the agencies. Make no mistake, there are research groups who do these studies. These researchers were saying the exact opposite of what we were told was the “scientific consensus” by authorities like Dr. Fauci who had financial interests in the outcome of recommending vaccines as the only recourse and a financial stake in the prolonged deleterious effects of Covid on the public up to the release of the vaccines he profited from promoting. At one point, these heavy hitters said they had no idea upon what evidence people who recommended lockdowns and masks were basing their unscientific recommendations and that although they were asked for their knowledge which may have informed decisions differently, they felt they seemed to have been ignored. That’s a big red flag.
This public discussion took place early in 2020. These researchers had spoken out on Unherd about the conclusive evidence against pursuing lockdowns and masking that was never taken into consideration by Fauci and his consensus of colleagues with extraordinary conflicts of interest intent on suppressing all conflicting data. I shared the link at the time. It was not long before my whole page was removed without warning or reason.
If you had lived your life up to this point trusting your doctor or your local health agencies, you probably didn’t know where to look for unbiased research. I didn’t trust, so I did know where the research could be found. That doesn’t make me better than you. You probably spend your free time making way better time management decisions and piling up the cash to better live out the upcoming apocalypse. In most cases, I humbly recognize this reality and where I am lacking. You didn’t hyper focus on the stuff I did. Different priorities. No wrong or right with priorities. But, now, hopefully you know where to go to make informed decisions for yourself and your family despite the doctors and agencies who obviously get it completely wrong sometimes (and presumably) even on purpose. That’s a safe assumption to make based on what many of us discovered this go around.
Here’s where we get nervous for you. We see you not wanting to admit you were lied to and misinformed. Don’t puff yourself up saying you made all the right decisions and sided with the science. No, you sided with the authorities who lied to you about following the science with mealy mouthed explanations while never giving you any good science with which to garner your trust. Again, it’s ok to be wrong. It’s ok to not know something… as long as you learn from it.
Don’t in the future feel the need to take my word for it. However, it wastes both our time and faculties using their baseless lies to argue the evidence I present to you. You can’t rectify going against evidence based research on the basis of some “doctor’s” or other “authority’s” political positions. Don’t take my word for it, either. Simply, look into the evidence to back up whatever the authorities are telling you for yourself (if there is any). Ask yourself why they are withholding the information my friend is sharing if their position is so sound- not refuting it- just flat out burying it. They called it “misinformation” for not aligning with their own recommendations and offered little more to substantiate the claims made against us. “I am the science,” he said. He lied. He’s done it before with AIDS. He’ll get away with it and likely, once again, if past is precedent, be pardoned and promoted.
Don’t fret. Don’t make excuses. Don’t think your self-esteem is at stake here because once upon a time I knew something you didn’t. Your self-esteem should be based on what you learn from your mistakes going forward. The only competition is your old self. To win, just be better. Be more open to opposing viewpoints in the future for the sake of your health and that of your children and ultimately, if you really cherish it enough, your sense of self-worth.
Thank you for your time.