IMF, 10 countries simulate cyber attack on global financial system
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When you think of what such a coordinated attack would look like, and by who, the only plausible scenario to me is a Russia/China axis setting up a SWIFT alternative for client states and then attacking the US network as a way to ride to the rescue with the new one and use it as a forcing function to overcome switching costs. Otherwise, the economics of mere vandalism at that scale don't make sense. They'd broadcast their intentions anyway if that were the case. (e.g. de-dollarization, China's SDRs, etc.) I don't think they're ready yet.
There is a cynical view that this was related to a trial run to determine whether retail deposits could be shifted to a U.S. Fed and ECB or other temporary* liquidity facility, but the failure of the US admin to install its favored comptroller of currency nominee, who would be supportive of the scheme, has reduced its momentum. I don't know that this was part of the simulation, but shift from a monopolar world and the vacuum it has created means we're literally in an age of conspiracies, so it's one of those 'when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro' situations. When it clicks that "cyber" just means governance, these exercises become a useful signal for overarching power plays.
Imo, the real threats to the "global financial system," aren't really to it at all, as cyber is a tactic in support of other co-ordinated activities to destabilize individual governments by undermining civilian infrastructure. I would interpret these exercises as more of a war games demonstration for policymakers who may be thinking about supporting populist national policies in their countries and deviating from the emerging hegemon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Border_Inter-Bank_Paymen...
Came to the comments for this. The simulation is being done out of fear that such things may come to pass. The number one goal is for the elite to figure out how to save themselves in such a scenario. Secondary goals are to help at various lower levels. This is always the case for every human being. In what order do you prioritize your allegiance to: Self, family, friends, company, country, coworkers, species, etc... ? These vary for each person, but typically self is near the top and some affiliations are next. I had to look at that list to see if I inadvertently put my own ordering... No, it's a mix of mine and what I suspect other peoples are.
It doesn’t have to be for financial profit
Since roughly January 2020, as a life scientist, my confidence in pretty much all of the world's governments' abilities to act quickly and/or in concert, in the face of an emergency, has gone from maybe ~60% to near 0%.
Bureaucracies are generally incompetent in direct proportion to their size.
Or so a particular group of wealth owners would like to have us believe.
Fortunately, not everyone is drinking this koolaid.
I don't think I needed to drink any koolaid to come upon this political stance, although I may have seen a cat or two.
Simply put, I want a government which maximizes freedom, flexibility, and opportunity for as many people as possible.
This narrative has been pushed for many decades, since the 70's.
I once saw a great post on reddit that gave tons of examples of government working. Really wish I saved that.
Government agencies and politicians have proven, by and large, to be incredibly inefficient allocators of capital. When the bloated arm of government expands into an area that's already well-served by markets, it impedes economic growth.
Otherwise, the PRC (CCP = world's largest bureaucracy) has clearly had the most successful response to the pandemic due to its decisive measures, which goes against your conclusion that less governance is needed to effectively combat pandemics.
It's a textbook conspiracy theory.
Also can their stats be trusted? How would you know? Yes the west is following some very repressive and revolting media policies "Hi Julian!" But still a long way behind the PRC so stuff tends to come out eventually. Hunter Biden's laptop emails were real, not "russian disinformation" and we are now aware of that censorship which troubles us regardless of who we voted for. Most chinese in China have never heard of or seen this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man Still some 3 decades later. These things are related, similar but their magnitude is (at least at this stage) not remotely comparable.
There is deliberate effort by that government to erase that history. Do you think they are not effective in doing so in their own house?
- Signed, Santa Claus, coming to deliver presents to children worldwide soon.
Supposedly they have not had a single covid-death since March 2020, and have had 100 new cases this week, with a country that has 1400 million inhabitants.
I've been wondering about this as well, the extreme example of this would have been the European invasion of the Americas, and the thousands of years of disease evolution of common viruses around the world that the natives missed out on, which killed most without weapons.
There's a certain value in letting your population's immune systems adapt as the viruses come, instead of letting it be overwhelmed after long isolation.
We're in a constant natural arms race with viruses, isolation isn't sustainable.
Especially since they didn't know that they were being hit by a pandemic in the early stages of the virus in Wuhan, and would have had a delayed response even compared to the countries that handled this well.
China's statistics are a case of some combination of lying and ignorance, not of success. They aren't telling us what is happening on the ground in China.
Wikipedia says they have 100k cases in a population of 1.4 billion, or 0.007% of the population caught the coronavirus. That compares to New Zealand - a tiny, wealthy, well organised island nation with a near perfect border quarantine and easy conditions for contract tracing - where 0.2% of the country is known to have caught the coronavirus.
China did not have 1-2 orders of magnitude less cases than New Zealand (which is already going to be an outlier). The country is large and COVID is hard to control. Their stats are impossible. Having facial recognition tech and being willing to use it can't get the result the numbers claim. They got hit by a novel virus in the middle of Chinese New Year and they are having the same problem with outbreaks as literally everyone else.
Plus we know they aren't trying to publish accurate stats because they vaccinated most of the country in a few day according to the data that filtered back into the western media. They may not necessarily be malicious but the Chinese are certainly not accurate and timely with their statistics.
Here is the ideological conditioning coming into play. You have been conditioned to believing that it is impossible for the Chinese to do things better than the West. If they do, they must be cheating/stealing IP/fudging the numbers.
They are reporting believable numbers for an excellent response. China is not. Singapore alone had double the number of cases that China is reporting. Singapore! It is totally incredible, impossible, not remotely plausible and a poorly conceived joke that China's confirmed COVID number represents the number of people in China who had COVID. China is not outperforming those countries on a per-capita basis in the happy reality we all live in. There is - I repeat myself - literally no way they could have achieved that. Maybe it is equalling them, though I doubt that too as a practical matter.
The Chinese work hard, are organised and have intelligent people working in their government. But what they don't have is a magic spell to make COVID disappear the way the stats suggest it has. The stats are not real.
Why is it so hard for you to accept? China is easily the least individualistic, and most collectivist, of the major Asian economies. Chinese people, and its government, generally value social harmony over individual freedoms. This makes dealing with transmissible disease outbreaks a no-brainer -- you quarantine and do whatever it takes to prevent things from spreading. Of course, executing this correctly is only possible because the CCP is the most effective bureaucracy in human history (enabled by technology, of course).
"China is easily the least individualistic, and most collectivist, of the major Asian economies."? They have a population of 1.4 billion people! A full 17% of the earth's population! Sure on average they may be fairly communal, but that doesn't change the fact there will be some really huge pockets of weirdness that will get COVID (much like Singapore where the problem was ghettos and the disease was contained elsewhere). They aren't going to be enforcing any sort of uniformity over a country that big without switching on the mind-control waves in Ye Olde 5G infrastructure. Which is to say, they aren't. There has been at least one million-person COVID outbreak in China. Probably more than that.
> you quarantine and do whatever it takes
You're handwaving the part where you come up with a theory on how this is possible. Other countries tried better quarantines than China can achieve. Like Taiwan.
I recommended watching the American PBS documentary China's War on Poverty (which was taken off air by Washington censors) for a quick glimpse into the real China. You can find uploads on YouTube, probably.
To suggest this means that large bureaucracies are inherently good or efficient is very strange.
This era has given mankind the license to self-organize on a totally unprecedented scale.
Russia and China are only allied around their common enemy, the US. Don't believe for a second that these two nations wouldn't throw each other under the bus if it furthered their respective causes.
Never forget that. The 99.99% of us are just humans together and we don't want to fight anyone.
I'd rather segment people by the class they are in.
replace “autocratic” with “unelected”/unaccountable and you get the NSA.
I thought you were referring to the US here until I finished reading the comment.
In a CCP world, probably within a decade, if you posted a critical comment on a messageboard - you would "disappear" in a week, and all mentions of you would be gone from the earth within a month. They don't tolerate resistance my friend.
However, it is apparently much more robust than traditional finance. Rapid drops of 50%+, that would be devastating if it were to happen in sp500 or bond markets, did not destroy crypto markets despite huge amounts of high leverage.
Maybe it is too small to matter still, but either way I would much rather worry about traditional finance.
The military sometimes use the term 'simulate' to mean what soldiers do during training or mission rehearsal, not just in the sense of running a simulation system (although training may obviously be supported by a simulator)
Masses of people would likely push back against CBDCs, unless they came in to fix and solve a crisis. A collapse of the electronic financial system would justify this.
Is this Covid's digital counterpart in making way for Social Scoring Governance to be imported to the West?
Really not need, they will just build their own. Believe Japan is already allowing them to use their banking clearing system. I'm sure they and China already have one. All this cyber attack stuff are really not worth while when country can just build their own SWIFT type of system.
Besides, it's not "the West" who wants to cut Russia out, it's only the US. European politicians don't seem to be that supportive of this idea and they are the ones who have legal power here, not the US.
Tbh, it seems to me that Russia would actually profit in the long-term from yet another US illegal abuse of SWIFT. They already provide their own ISO 15022/200022 compatible solution, cheaper and decentralized https://www.cyberft.com/
Creating further inconvenience for business would simply drive them to consider additional diversification and redundancy, given that there are alternatives.
The US is really overplaying its hand under Biden, it's quite sad to watch such a complete mishandling of foreign policy and energy policy. This is almost certainly the US presidency that markets the tangible decline of US global order.
I'm not sure if Trump understood this explicitly, but he did implicitly: the correct way to "defend" from Russia and China is not to try to freeze them out, but to make them active participants. If the loss of SWIFT hurts Russia, Russia would have a vested interested in its protection. Instead Biden is desperately trying to force Russia to accelerate SPFS, and in these circumstances they're going to send all of Europe along with Russia.
The self-caused European Energy crisis means that the EU has to play with Russia at this stage in the game. If Biden pushes the removal of Russia from SWIFT, Russia just has to tell the EU "we only accept payment for LNG via SPFS, in Rubles, Euros, or physical delivery of gold". And that's it, Europe immediately is adopting SPFS because the alternative is freezing to death.
The US is not going to ship enough LNG to the EU to keep it going - it's not even going to be able to keep Nord 2 offline. It's such an absolute negligence of foreign policy that I'd almost think the US is intentionally playing into Putin's hand.
He lost the 2020 nomination because he was absolutely terrible. You are ignoring the abysmal results before the first southern state even voted (south carolina). Him being gay didn't even register given how badly he killed his chances of him just being himself.
I suspect the "Financial System" being referred to is the SWIFT system and chances are in the next few years it will be replaced by a new Sino-Russian system backed by Saudi oil.
No cyber attacks will be needed to bring SWIFT down, just a few too many sanctions being wielded like cudgels by over eager bureaucrats trying to impose their "Morality" on the rest of the world.
I suppose it is possible that is the point, they want to be prepared for the backlash sure to follow when the Greenback is no longer the reserve currency.
Who will they trade with? Themselves? Will Saudi Arabia join in when it means the US abandons them, stops selling weapons, and takes other punitive economic measures? Cryptocurrency is a much greater "threat" to these systems, but even then it's more of a threat to countries with poor quality or unstable currencies.
> when the Greenback is no longer the reserve currency.
It's just a fancy title. Dollar is the reserve currency, but Euro, Pound, Yen, etc. are all reserve currencies too. It's not some sort of designation bestowed upon the dollar from which the downfall of America will lead to it losing such status, it's just what central banks and governments hold in reserve. If the US dollar loses market share (if you'll allow here), it'll probably drive up the value of dollars since the US federal reserve no longer has to print dollars to help maintain global liquidity. The whole RESERVE CURRENCY thing is just FUD.
The Saudis have already entered a mutual defense pact with Russia
>>>It's just a fancy title. Dollar is the reserve currency, but Euro, Pound, Yen, etc...
Actually it isn't, that is why sanctions work so well, Russia and China just entered into an agreement to trade directly between themselves without converting to USD first. It wont be long before Syria, Iran, North Korea, Argentina, Cuba and several African nations join the fray. Not to mention a large number of other out of favor political leaders that are sick of US led regime change or coup attempts constantly testing them..Think Bolsonaro, Duterte, Aung San Suu Kyi.
These are the countries that hold the resources needed for a productive world and soon enough the rest of the world, including the West will be forced to follow them into an new non US hegemonic world, regardless of the number of guns and bombs Uncle Sam has.
The EU is already dependent on Russian natural gas and middle eastern oil so they will be forced to accept the new trade rules even if under protest.
There is a possibility that the commonwealth countries along with the US might be able to put up a good fight but the current state of anti colonial rhetoric from within most commonwealth countries will most likely push the current leaders of these countries out of power and one by one they will join the rest of the world...The sun has been setting on the British Empire for a while now.
Themselves? Allied nations? Other countries around the world? Your entire discussion centers around this idea that all resources and all things are made in these non-western countries. It's a faulty assumption. China is dependent on imports as well - remember the rolling blackouts shutting down factories in China when they stopped coal imports to teach Australia a lesson and then Australia just sold the coal elsewhere? [1]
Europe is "dependent" on Russian gas but those who are in charge in Russia really like that European money and their vacation homes. Long-term Europe is just fine here because they can just build alternative energy sources (warming planet may make much of Europe even less dependent on Russian natural gas for heating). It doesn't help them today but if the costs are too high there becomes a point that it's either not worth it, or liquified natural gas products from the US become attractive. It should go without saying that the oligarchs in Russia who run these companies... like not having their villas in London confiscated due to "sanctions". There's an upper limit on the maximum pain (outside of actual war) that either will inflict upon the other.
The EU dependency on Russian gas thing is yet another overly simplified boogeyman like the US Dollar Reserve Currency status. What is actually concerning is Ukraine and how serious Putin is about invading and starting a war and whether or not he stops at Ukraine or does something drastic. I don't think the EU will be able to coordinate an effective military response which may lead to the block dissolving, especially if Putin does something crazy like invade Poland or some NATO country that isn't "important" - will the West really go to war? If Putin gambles here I don't think nukes will fly. So now Russia gets to fight a conventional war in Europe without existential risk - it's a great move for him geopolitically and strategically. EU member states such as France and Germany (the former is the only one that appears to have the ability to even fight) would basically go into a "save yourself" mode and start acting independently when push comes to shove. Outside of the UK most of the rest of the EU is far too small or useless to do anything. Americans are much more willing to fight in Europe than Italians or Spaniards are and I don't think we'd even send ground troops unless we're in an actual World War III scenario which nobody in the West wants to engage in, hence the stronger Russian upper hand here. Though I wouldn't put it past the U.S. to take a chance to really screw with Russia here in the meantime. [2]
I wonder how that happened. Interesting coincidental timing.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/china-power-supply-crunch-re...
[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10331843/New-Russia...
one of us will be eating crow soon enough.
You may be interested to know that some time in the last decade the Russians clearly signalled they would be prepared to use nuclear weapons in Europe. Brilliant play since they know the US sentiment around preparedness to enter another conflict that isn’t theirs.
By simply signalling they forced the US to consider other options hence the decisions to deploy tactical nuclear capabilities not subject to the same rules as strategic nuclear weapons. And last I heard they were deploying these tactical capabilities to a sub class also responsible for SSG.
I’m very curious to understand whether Russian simply signalling in the way that they did has caused the US to strategically compromise their second strike guarantee. That would mean that by simply introducing the idea they have let the US take the mutually assured destruction elements off the table that made it so risky to begin with.
* To your point (let me know if you disagree) I think that the MAD concept can be overcome and we'll see countries figure out strategis around it. What if you had World War III and... just nobody fired the nukes? New York City is bombed, Moscow is invaded, whatever and the countries just don't do the doomsday? What if we've taken MAD for granted and it turns out it's not even on the table?
* > Brilliant play since they know the US sentiment around preparedness to enter another conflict that isn’t theirs
Many wars and conflicts begin because of miscalculations. I think on Putin's part for Russia this could be one of those. I mentioned this in another thread but the U.S. just spent 20 years at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, people dying, IEDs, terrorists, all of that stuff and if you turned the TV off you'd have no idea these wars were going on. America spent 20 years doing this stuff in two countries and not a single American day-to-day really gave a crap. While it may be the case that America is not willing to fight in Eastern Europe, I think that this is one of those potential miscalculations and it's certainly an unknown variable. Hell, even if the American people were not being drafted the US military is certainly actively strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Russia or anyone so we could yet again have a military at war but not a people. Just some food for thought. Even with Biden (smartly IMO) actually getting us out of Afghanistan, the left and the right were crowing about it. Might be more willingness to fight then one might think and this could lead the U.S. to another direct conflict with Russia this decade. [1]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american...
I was under the impression that it is an international organisation that is backed by most countries.
Wikipedia calls it "an international financial institution consisting of 190 countries" and says it "came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries"
Even though it had a few wealthy founders, one of which is John Maynard Keynes, probably one of the most well known economists, I wouldn't describe the IMF as "an NGO made up of a few wealthy people".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund
"Oil backed" makes less sense, IMO.
However, if a cyber attack does happen a few years from now that takes out the global financial system... it'll definitely make me a little queasy.
So we should be weary about any company that runs disaster recovery exercises? We just saw another AWS outage take many significant services offline a couple weeks ago.
Which I think is a very cynical take - but I'm not exactly thrilled with some of the statements of these organization's leaders.
Just like most conspiracy theories, the idea just doesn't make sense once you get past the sensationalism. What kind of power are they seeking that they don't already have?
But also you should realize that after attaining a certain level you cannot be bribed anymore and can only be blackmailed
Whether you feel it was planned or not, the lockdowns did pretty much halt the velocity of money. Sure they printed a ton of social care money, but again the inflationary trap had already been set, it was the velocity that needed to be killed to buy some time.
This idea extends the concept.
I am glad that systems are actively and preemptively tested so that issues can prevented. It is the duty for some body in society to do so and I would be incredibly angry if no one felt responsibility to do so.
Whats sad to me is that entities with a vast history of conducting outright conspiracy get defended as if those of us skeptical and cautious about their true motives are just being cynical. What the financial elite have planned is not even close to just regular old corporate IT department red-teaming... so I find this framing naive at best.
"The COVID-19 crisis has since been cited as the main justification for accelerating what is termed the digital transformation of the financial sector and other sectors, which that the World Economic Forum and its partners have promoted for years. Their latest prediction of a doomsday event, a cyberattack that stops the current financial system in its tracks and initiates its systemic collapse, if it came to pass, would be the final, necessary step required to bring about the Forum’s desired outcome of a widespread shift to digital currency and increased global governance of the international economy.
Given that experts have been warning since the last global financial crisis that the collapse of the entire system was inevitable due to central bank mismanagement and rampant Wall Street corruption, a cyberattack would also provide the perfect scenario for dismantling the current failing system, as it would absolve central banks and corrupt financial institutions of any responsibility. It would also provide a justification for incredibly troubling policies promoted in the WEF-Carnegie report, such as a greater fusion of intelligence agencies and banks in order to better “protect” critical financial infrastructure." [1]
"A massive cyberattack, such as that simulated at Cyber Polygon 2020, would allow faceless hackers to be blamed for economic collapse, thus absolving the real financial criminals of responsibility. Furthermore, due to the difficult nature of investigating hacks and the ability of intelligence agencies to frame other nation states for hacks they in fact committed themselves, any boogeyman of choice can be blamed, whether a “domestic terror” group or a country unaligned with the WEF (for now, at least) like Iran or North Korea." [2]
"Ultimately, what WEF-PAC represents is a global organization that aims to neuter anonymity online, whether for financial purposes or for browsing and other activities. It is a global effort combining powerful governments and corporations that seeks to usher in a new age of surveillance that makes such surveillance a requirement to participate in the online world or use online services. It is being sold to the public as the only way to stop a coming “pandemic” of cybercrime, a crisis taking place largely in murky parts of the internet that few understand or have any direct experience with. Having to rely on State intelligence agencies and intelligence-linked cybersecurity firms for attribution of these crimes, it has never been easier for corrupt actors in those agencies or their partners to either manufacture or manipulate a crisis that could upend online freedom as we have known it, something these very groups have sought to implement for years." [3]
1. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-reports/w...
2. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/02/investigative-reports/f...
3. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/07/investigative-reports/e...
The risk of a pandemic was clear enough that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) got made about the same time. It ticked pretty much all the boxes - China as origin, people thinking it's a bioweapon, contact tracing, politicians reluctant to take quarantine measures, panic buying, unrest, bat-borne virus, conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers, etc.
It's a hell of a movie to watch in 2021.
Both global pandemics and cyberattacks are plausible events. This is the true cause of both the simulations and the events occurring. It is incredibly improbable that the IMF thinking of them and simulating them had anything to do with them happening.
This is a truly simian approach at pointing the finger at people who plan on preventing disaster because simply uttering its name causes it to be.
Personally, I'd prefer a timeline in which Jim Phelps isn't a traitor though, and in which the IMF operated more on teamwork than on depending on heroic acts of a single operative.
We need strategy that has the ability to be flexible. It needs to be based on outcome. These simulations incorrectly teach people that the strategy is the goal, instead of aiming towards an outcome. For example, reducing hospitalization and deaths isn't the goal with current covid policy. The goal is to vaccinate as many people as possible.
People running these simulations are obviously focused on outcomes, that's why you run these simulations in the first place. Simulations allow you to find flaws in your preparations, but it doesn't make your preparations flawless. You try to minimize your outcome downside risk .
It is not obvious that these people who run these simulations are focused on positive outcomes on behalf of the population.
Historically the point of vaccines have been to prevent transmission. The covid vaccine is distinct on this.
> If you can prevent that, then you can likely limit or eliminate the spread.
That doesn't make any sense. Mitigating serious illness puts no downward pressure on transmission.
And in fact, if someone's symptoms are reduced and they don't need to test because they aren't required for vaxxed, it may even encourage spread.
You are right that this could be offset because there is no isolation happening in case of an unknown infection.
> Doctors have widely been prevented
citation needed I guess. Again, lots of stuff is being looked at (and some integrated in treatment recommendations), not just "Pfizers own new drugs".
Lol no, obesity is one of the biggest factors in covid mortality
You said you are in the US in another comment. I took 3 minutes to google some big US news sites. They all had multiple articles on the topic from spring 2020 until now. Your criticism is false. Some random examples:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/health/coronavirus-patien...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/04/coronavirus-...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-obesity-ri...
https://www.foxnews.com/health/study-links-coronavirus-morta...
https://www.foxnews.com/health/obesity-increase-coronavirus-...
https://www.foxnews.com/health/is-americas-high-obesity-leve...
The above statement contradicts most/all studies on the subject. A few randomly selected sources:
- https://www.gov.uk/government/news/excess-weight-can-increas...
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8073853/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33463658/
- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughl...
> Wide spread testing of asymptomatic people
Yes, those are very new. If the previous generations had that capacity they wouldn't think twice about doing it, but they didn't so it's new.
> lockdowns, travel restrictions, medical passports
Those are right there since ancient Rome times.
First of all, previous pandemics like bird flu had fast infection but it was known to the experts and easier than COVID-19 to handle. But COVID was unknown and it took more time to respond properly and actually there's still more unknown things that the responses cannot be validated. It's hard to respond unknown unknowns.[1]
Second, the strategies are great on paper but when it comes to implementing them, it is all about the politics. The politics of funding the research institutes and academic institutions, the structure of the nation's health care system, economic situation and use of state budget to support people in the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, the policies to allow human movement such as lock downs and restrictions... When it comes to actions, it's just the decision of the politicians.
Third, the strategies are created with stakeholders based on previous experience. And when they exercised, they are based on either previously occurred issues or predictions of the experts/participants of the strategy. You cannot be prepared for everything so you create many different feasible scenarios and exercise them. And they are limited by the capability of the participants.
Finally, strategies are already flexible because they are not binding for the states. A government can change the strategy on the go. A government can also totally ignore the current strategy for its political agenda.
This is the crux of the current failures. Many politicians seem to be making decisions based on the consensus of the loudest in their constituencies and select experts who mirror them rather than people who have studied epidemiology.
The Great Barrington Declaration advocated more traditional responses for prioritizing the protection of those most at risk prior to the vaccines. The public discussion around this was almost entirely based on optics, and the term "herd immunity" was demonized and considered too non compassionate. It was treated like a political language exercise rather than a public safety issue. Now that term has quietly reentered discourse without much acknowledgment of what was stated by those epidemiologists because reality isn't permitting any other end state. Yet many of the original policies which the declaration advises against are still being repeated and still failing, I think in large part to save face.
Many people recognized the problems with the current policies and advocated better ones very quickly. The amount of unknowns were mostly only an issue for the first few months. Once the demographic data came in a sensible response should have been (and was to many) fairly obvious. But sensible policy acknowledges a certain unavoidable risk, and the optics of that isn't allowable in our current political climate, so we advocate delusional fantasies instead.
Those trained in fields like epidemiology and pandemic response who know what they're doing and see the failures should continue to refuse to sign their name to bad policy and publicize their issues with it. That's what the Great Barrington Declaration was and what some who have resigned from certain positions at the CDC have done.
The main justification for bad policy has been "the support of experts". Public health experts are having their field tarnished dramatically by being leaned upon in name by people that are ignoring their actual advice. They should stop allowing it. They have the most power to hold irresponsible politicians accountable, and should exercise it. The amount of good disaster management strategy that was thrown out because it had the potential to look bad and was more difficult to implement than ineffective measures (like designating certain areas safe spots for at risk people and providing spaces for them to shelter during spikes) should be more publicized.
For anyone who hasn’t read through John Hopkins simulated SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028 it’s pretty interesting [0]. They discuss controversies concerning medical treatments, anti-vaxxers, and strategies to engage in propaganda wars on social media. Disclaimer: not wearing a tinfoil hat, no the report isn’t part of a conspiracy to railroad the population into vaccines, but it does reveal a certain ineptitude and bad faith.
[0] https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/spars-...
That’s not to say I often agree. But it’s a really interesting exercise to explore their theories. You’ll often learn an abundance yourself.
I did that recently regarding the election hacking claims: https://austingwalters.com/mike-lindell-and-china-hacking-am...
I ended up narrowing down who it was who was perpetrating the claims and validated my theory it’s probably BS.
In this case, the WEF and IMF have a lot of the same participants and have run hacking simulations. That seems reasonable to me imo. That said, it’s fairly clear why people believe there’s a conspiracy with the IMF —
https://quotefancy.com/quote/1275693/Henry-Kissinger-Who-con...
There’s probably something there, but it’s not clear the cyber attack simulations are anything related to a conspiracy. China and the west’s adversaries have a pretty clear incentive to replace / destroy the IMF. They could do that via hacking.
I know "misinformation" was being thrown around for years. The Mueller report and 2016 election are great example of the media spreading misinformation. Most of the Russia-gate stuff has been debunked by now including the Steele dossier recently. I actually believed a lot of that stuff at first because I hated Trump so much.
In case you missed this: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/analyst-...
borrowed from...
"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - J. Paul Getty
Also unprotected IoT devices provide ways to protect the attackers.