2020, the Year of Everything Fake

https://graymirror.substack.com/p/2020-the-year-of-everything-fake

by erichocean • 6 years ago

27 19 6 years ago

graymirror.substack.com

rhacker• 6 years ago

1/4 of all small businesses are dead.

Do you have a source for that? I mean you might be right, but I haven't heard anything like that. Also pretty much every restaurant I went to before (non-chain) and after the pandemic are open today. I know of 1 that closed permanently, with 100s of others that I frequent. Some are even expanding.

paulryanrogers3• 6 years ago

Fourth: caring intensely about making everyone wear a mask, while not caring at all whether it’s a real respiratory filter or a paisley do-rag bandana

Most serious coverings were more effective than nothing. And from what I've seen any fashion/joke-only coverings were denied or criticised immediately.

xkbarkar• 6 years ago

In my country ( nordics with mask mandates ) the single layer mask is explicitly forbidden and is scientifically proven be worse than no mask at all, as single layer cloth disperses droplets making spread worse. I would be kicked out of any store if I wore a single layer mask.

In other countries the same scientific dogma states that single layer is not only allowed but even recommended as better than nothing.

Sigh...

paulryanrogers3• 6 years ago

What kind of material causes more dispersion than nothing?

fredley• 6 years ago

Second: after it took two days to invent a defense against the disease, spending eleven months deciding to use it. Then, eleven months later, not already having made enough for everyone.

Seriously? It took two days [citation needed] to do some chemistry, but the rest of the time making sure that that chemistry had resulted in what was actually a valid and safe vaccine against the disease. And ramping up production is hard, and you don't want to scale up the wrong lab bench process too soon.

rorykoehler• 6 years ago

This is like the opposite of anti-vaxx.... any-vaxx? Just shoot up millions of people and hope for the best!

jessaustin4• 6 years ago

I interpreted this as referring to masks? The immediately preceding point included the phrase "new respiratory disease". For that, masks worn in healthcare are more effective than a vaccine could possibly be, and have been for the entire year.

tzs• 6 years ago

Read farther down, where the article elaborates on the short numbered points such as the one that the person you are replying to quoted.

That particular point gets almost 30 paragraphs of elaboration starting at the heading "Our yearlong journey to Mars".

JasonFruit• 6 years ago

I can't handle the pretentious writing style. Topic aside, the writing alone made me angry.

Edit: didn't realize this was Moldbug. Right in line with his other work.

phcordner• 6 years ago

Some readers may ask why I am not considering the failures of the White House, and making the case that the President is also a joke.

Some readers implicitly understood why when the author presented the pricipal disaster of 2020 as the death of '1/4 of all small businesses' and bailed before 20k words of statue-avi rationalist faux-erudition gave them aneuryisms.

sushisource• 6 years ago

Totally lost me at

“IQ” is pseudoscience—no one is intelligent. There is no such thing as intelligence—just inverted stupidity.

Yeah, IQ isn't a great metric. No, the entire concept isn't bullshit.

tarboreus2• 6 years ago

I believe the author was being ironic, as they essentially go on to make an argument based on intelligence (von Neuman, etc.). The tone here is also a light one.

jessaustin4• 6 years ago

You got really close here, but in comparing USA to Taiwan somehow assumed TPTB here want to save Americans from pain and death. Sorry, you'll have to take the class over. Don't worry, they'll give the class again very soon. We had to wait twelve years last time. Now that they've figured some things out, this class will repeat every three years at the maximum.

modzu• 6 years ago

flagged? because humor is illegal. everything you say or do can and will be taken literally.

jessaustin4• 6 years ago

HN downvoters can handle humor in small doses. A wall of text like TFA is certain to contain several phrases about which they'll have to think really hard in order to exclude the possibility of wrongthink. Humor is tough! Want to go shopping?

tarboreus2• 6 years ago

Yes, a lot of literal interpretation in this comments thread.

paulryanrogers3• 6 years ago

It [USA] does not have a government because the thing it calls a government cannot tell its people what to do, and make them do it, which is the basic function of a government.

May be at the micro level governments should have the capacity to force involuntary action. But if it is democratic then I think by definition it is the people telling the government what to do.

LargoLasskhyfv• 6 years ago

I think the word he is looking for in the beginning is surreal.

2020, the Year of Everything Fake

Related Stories