For those in search of unfiltered opinions, there are a few platforms worth checking out. Perhaps best known are the Joe Rogan Experience and members of the 'intellectual dark web' - a phrase coined by Thiel Capital managing director Eric Weinstein (who has his own podcast - The Portal).
Another watering hole for free thinkers is the Hermitix podcast. Hosted by the 'Meta-Nomad' (James), topics of discussion include social engineering, collapse, occultism, primitivism and consumerism - and has featured guests such as Dmitry Orlov, John Michael Greer and 'weirdness' expert Erik Davis.
About a month ago, Hermitix sat down with several collapse experts, including Dmitry Orlov - a Russian-American engineer who has written multiple books on societal decline, and John Michael Greer - who has written on collapse, ecology, religion, philosophy, oil depletion and the occult.
In short, super interesting guys - both of whom accurately framed the coronavirus 4-6 weeks ago as overblown when the rest of the world was hoarding toilet paper and the largest job losses since the Great Depression was underway.
Orlov posits that because China and Russia treated COVID-19 as a bioterror attack - locking down cities and restricting travel, that it "created so much angst in the West that we 'self destructed,' and that governments have taken advantage of global panic in order to enact authoritarian measures and cover up for the fact that 'the West has collapsed.'
The United States in particular has gone into financial collapse in the middle of last August, 2019, when it suddenly turned out that United States government debt is no longer valid as collateral for a loan - even an overnight loan. And interest rates on so--called repo contracts shot up to something like over 10% over the prime rate. And so then the federal reserve had to step in and start offering these repo contracts by itself, basically supported by the printing press. This was the first step towards monetizing the debt. This is a hyperinflationary measure. -Dmitry Orlov
"The reason for the whole COVID-19 panic hysteria is that it's very difficult for people to come out and say 'ok we'll just completely fail. ok, we have run the economy into a dead end'," he adds.
And what are the signs of collapse? Orlov says that since US economic statistics are "a complete forgery and have been for many years," that we can look to countries like Germany - which has seen "double-digit declines in the last year or more" in manufacturing.
Part of it is mal-investment in green energy in Germany which caused electricity rates to shoot up to a point where Germany is no longer competitive as far as manufacturing. Same thing pretty much is happening in Japan. China has seen the slowest growth in several generations. Same with India.
When asked when things will 'completely erode' to the point where the average person can clearly see what's going on, Orlov suggests that "The human psyche is a very fragile thing. If you've been taught one thing all your life, and suddenly it turns out you've been lied to all your life, this is rather harsh. Most people have trouble with it and some people can just never get through the denial. And get stuck, and develop a mental health crisis that can become chronic."
Listen to the entire interview here.
John Michael Greer expanded on the human nature aspect of the COVID-19 (over)reaction after noting that "we have lucked out - as this has a relatively mild death rate." What's causing panic, however, is asymptomatic transmission.
"Unlike some illnesses, this one transmits very well without you knowing it. People can be dripping viruses from every pore and look perfectly healthy, and so that's producing the, sort of, terror reaction."
We are not really rational beings. Most of us under some circumstances, when we're calm and not particularly threatened by anything, we can think rationally. But it doesn't come naturally... you put any pressure on most people and the rational mind just shuts down and they do very strange things.
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http://www.zerohedge.com/health/two-collapse-experts-cooler-heads-opine-covid-catalysts-and-human-nature?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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