Machiavelli whitewashes transgressive behavior

If the finer points of our society think that something is good for the people, people can be lied to, scammed, sacrificed, impoverished, frightened, split, bullied, sickened – anything goes. But only if society itself thinks otherwise. If they agree with you, you'd better try gentle. That's called Machiavellian (or Machiavellian) leadership. Nowadays there is no 'leader' anymore. It is now the view of the political/science/media power bloc. There is even a foundation that encourages such leadership.

Policy is pseudo-scientifically laundered¹© @dimgrr on Twitter, the media vents this and thus creates support, the media public votes for the politicians behind the policy and the circle of totalitarian sham democracy is complete. As long as they steer in the right direction, it is fine, but if, after a long period on that car cruise, they take a wrong turn, the brakes no longer work.

Do we remember how Jaap van Dissel's transgressive behaviour²The limits of the Guidelines for Academic Integrity (of which KNAW is the guardian) are unashamedly trampled. And that of bodily integrity as well, for that matter. was laundered with an honorary prize from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences? How Koopmans and Gommers were awarded a Macchiavelli Prize for telling falsehoods 'in a positive way, for a sympathetic cause and with a socially relevant return'? And those other prizes: that slip-wearer Maarten Keulemans was named best journalist by Villamedia? That Marc van Ranst, who manifests himself on Twitter as an indiscriminate bully supported by a swarm of trolls, received honorary doctorates from three Dutch universities because he mercilessly rejected dissent?

That socially relevant yield is strongly disputed and any in-depth review is blocked by those who may have caused the disaster. But the media and academia cheer lustily: the power bloc is united; There's a huge packet of butter on each head of this three-headed monster. You can see it in the prize festival that is used as a propaganda tool.

Prices serve as lids on the cover-ups.

Also a prize for Ron

Last month, controversial virologist Ron Fouchier even won academic awards. Fouchier receives € 35,000 from the Academy as a thank you for tinkering with life-threatening viruses that he also managed to get on people. According to the Academy, the best intentions: animal and public health. Vaccines. Contribution from the media: Niki Korteweg, who produces pieces for NRC under the title 'science journalist' and has distinguished herself in this field before ³NRC sharpens the mind three months later, NRC lowers itself to questionable journalism was brought in for a big interview. Featured quote:

Well, what is "serious"? There's plenty going on Accidents with virus labs But most of the time we get away with it relatively well. But also about Ebola there are any reservations.

That best intentions We also saw the Machiavelli Foundation, which praised Koopmans and Gommers. That foundation rewards "The end justifies the means" behavior. But in what they see as a positive way, for a sympathetic cause and with a socially relevant return – according to the Foundation. Look at the board of the foundation and you will understand what they 'sympathetic' and 'socially relevant' find.

Among the Directors:

• the Director of Communications, Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport
• the Director-General of the National Information Service
• the Secretary-General Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
• the Director of Communications, Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management;
• media: RTL, NOS, Volkskrant, Elsevier
• MPs (VVD, CDA, PvdA, GroenLinks, strangely enough no D'66)

A government satellite, in other words. A propaganda tool.

The main sponsor is, judging by the size of the logo mention on the website: Public Matters, a The Hague lobby consultancy, specialized in Advocacy on policy and strategic communication.

Something about Machiavelli:

• Machiavelli argued that rulers should strive to maintain or expand their position, even if immoral acts are necessary to achieve that goal.⁴Source: study.com
• Machiavelli believed that it was better for a ruler to be widely feared than universally loved; A beloved ruler retains authority through obligation, while a feared leader rules for fear of punishment.⁵Source: wikipedia
• In psychology, Machiavellianism is a personality trait that indicates cunning, the ability to manipulate, and the urge to use all the means necessary to gain power. Machiavellianism is one of the traits that, along with narcissism and psychopathy, make up the Dark Triad.⁶Source: wikipedia

Machiavellianism reigns supreme. Treasurer of the Machiavelli Foundation is a political reporter at RTL News. That is the bridge to the second, related topic.

The head of the RTL article with a claim that the WHO would have made.

Like a true Macchiavellist, his broadcaster is burying trust in the media with this kind of false reporting. They also don't shy away from manipulation with lies. You could even speak of fear-mongering. In combination with the vaccination urge/coercion/promise also communicated via RTL, a clear message emerges: if you do not vaccinate, you will die early. Whether it is all true according to the WHO, we will see, but the news headline has already done its job.

People read '22 years too early', are appalled and understand little about statistics. Dying far too early is also terrible and the sooner, the worse. But those numbers give a completely different profile of the corona death than the statistics show: the average corona death is over eighty years old.

There are three options, even before you've read the WHO text:

1. the WHO has increased life expectancy by about 20 years
   Life expectancy then exceeds 100 years. Is that possible? A nasty flu could be on the A-list, the definition for 'vaccines' has been broadened, the concept of 'immunity' has the WHO tried to steer towards artificial defenses and the criteria for 'pandemic' they have stretched. So if all that is possible, why not this?
2. The WHO has discovered that in 2021 the average corona death was 40 years old
   Together with the already known eighties, the average age could then be around 60, which would explain the average 22 years of life lost. Anyone who follows the developments in mortality with even half an eye rejects this option.
3. The average age of 60 indicates other causes of death, so: misclassifications of 'corona deaths'
   Also unlikely because even then the excess mortality last year would have to come mainly from people in their fifties – and that is not the case.

So what has the WHO done?

Fact check:

What do we read in the report? First, it is striking that 2022 has not been included, as in the Cochrane report and in other government introspections. 2022, with hardly any corona deaths but persistent excess mortality, is of course a more difficult story. But what does the summary say [bold text from me]:

"The COVID-19 pandemic has led to 14.9 million additional deaths and 336.8 million years of life lost worldwide in 2020 and 2021. This means that every death that is directly or indirectly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic by the end of 2021, on average, has resulted in a loss of more than 22 years of life – equivalent to more than 5 years of loss per second."

World health statistics 2023: monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development goals

So it's not about corona patients at all. It is about the total number of deaths. As we know, a large part, perhaps the largest part of the total excess mortality up to 2023 in the Western world is unexplained, and then the missing under-mortality must be added to that.

If the average number of years of life lost due to unexplained mortality increases, then more young people have died than you would expect in corona patients. In the event of the death of an 80-year-old, approximately 4 years of life are lost (if in good health), in someone aged 24, 60 years of life are lost. That's 15 times as much. The total average age of death decreases, increasing the average number of years of life lost. Because life expectancy was determined for that moment.

Guest author Martijn de Jong followed a similar line of thought on Facebook:

We're not there yet

It's going to take a long time. The parliamentary inquiry will only be launched years from now, when the gentlemen can easily feign 'no active memory' ("Gee yes, how about that, it's been five years now"). Meanwhile, the massaging of public opinion continues. The disproportionate panic policy still needs to be laundered.

Machiavelli can be satisfied. Everything is permissible to maintain the incumbent. And in the Netherlands there is even a foundation set up for it. It is only a matter of time before this foundation receives some kind of prize!

Encore: A Facebook discussion on RTL article between wappies and policy supporters

Thicken a bit and you have a Monty Python sketch.

For me, this is not about naming and shaming people, I have anonymized them. They are different facebookers, working in the healthcare industry and they stand by each other through thick and thin. This is symptomatic of what often goes wrong in both the wappie camp and in their ranks: because they stand for the same cause, they agree with each other in everything, even if an assertion does not go either way. They are not all critical minds. There is soon an OMT flavor to it. They look like Thinktankers.

The fact that there are academics who cannot oversee basic calculations and take the measure of others on that basis is worrying to me. Reading comprehension and critically is difficult, but basic arithmetic is something you can expect. Especially if the person is involved in a conversation about numbers or even tries to prove something with numbers. Who makes arguments that he himself does not understand?

Not to repeat logic and fallacies.

Then comes desperate explanation of the word "average." We seem to take that completely wrong, although it remains unclear what it is. Something with a division, though.

And another thread, to be read as a follow-up:

This last link gives the same explanation I gave earlier but apparently the understood message depends on who says it.

And then we were back to square one... They pretend that "average" has different meanings. Level Senate. They also allowed themselves to be frightened in their ignorance.
Well, that WPG has to be abolished again, that will cost a ton of taxpayers' money. What a circus... with tragic clowns.

References

• 1
  © @dimgrr on Twitter
• 2
  The limits of the Guidelines for Academic Integrity (of which KNAW is the guardian) are unashamedly trampled. And that of bodily integrity as well, for that matter.
• 3
  NRC sharpens the mind three months later, NRC lowers itself to questionable journalism
• 4
  Source: study.com
• 5
  Source: wikipedia
• 6
  Source: wikipedia