Thoughts on economics and liberty

Author: Sanjeev Sabhlok

10th March 2023

Balaji Srinivasan’s comments on freedom contradict his support for lockdowns

Michael Senger has put out a fascinating analysis of Balaji’s foresight and support for lockdowns and other measures: https://michaelpsenger.substack.com/p/balaji-srinivasan-the-man-who-couldnt

At least some of this seems to be based on extrapolating what China was doing. He seems to have closely followed news agencies from China. And he might have had some insights from people he knew in WHO etc.

There’s another set of comments I quickly searched for which indicate strong support for freedom. It is therefore a big question why Balaji did not oppose lockdowns.  Instead, he supported them: “And this may actually work to stop the spread” –

He reminds me of some extreme libertarians for whom finding ways to hide from government (crypto/ Patri Friedman style seasteading, etc.) is important, but who also actively supported restrictions on movement and got personally terrorised by covid.

 

 

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9th March 2023

In 1802, the Annals of Medicine reported the vast exaggerations re: influenza

Jason Gavrilis has located this wonderfully old but evocative piece: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5110691/pdf/annmededinb75123-0488.pdf

I’ve cleaned out the Old English spellings for the first few paras and have annotated in colour.

We can CLEARLY recognise the echoes of covid hysteria in this!

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ANNALS OF MEDICINE, 1802.    

Since the publication of our last volume, no disease has claimed more attention from medical practitioners than the Influenza, which has raged very generally in many different parts of Europe, but particularly in Paris, in London, and in Edinburgh. We need hardly mention, that in newspaper paragraphs, and in vague conversations, many groundless and absurd stories have been circulated respecting it. Thus, among other particulars, it has been currently reported, that in the city of Edinburgh in one day, about the beginning of April, no less than an hundred patients were buried, all of whom died of the influenza; and that in one day about the end of March, one gentleman, in extensive practice, had been called to no less than one thousand patients labouring under this disease. But although our readers will readily conclude, that in these reports there has been a wonderful degree of exaggeration, and we can assure them from good authority, that, the present period, the greatest number of deaths from all diseases put together in Edinburgh, has never exceeded a hundred in any one week; yet it is an undoubted fact, that since the beginning of March, the influenza has been both a frequent and sometimes a fatal disease in Edinburgh.

But if exaggerated accounts have been given respecting the frequency and fatality of this complaint, no less groundless and wonderful stories have been propagated by ignorant or designing men respecting its nature and peculiarities. It has been represented by some, who ought to know better, as a new and most tremendous disease, which, unless happily remedied by a peculiar mode of treatment, will prove certainly fatal. But we need not observe to the candid reader, that such reports have no other foundation but the weakest credulity, or the lowest artifice.

The Influenza, as it has appeared in Edinburgh, in 1803, is precisely the same disease which has extended itself at different periods for near a thousand years past over almost the whole of Europe. We may refer those who wish for the most particular account of the authors who have described it, as appearing at different periods, to the Nosologia Methodica of Dr Cullen, under the genus Catarrhus. But we shall here present our readers with a short view of these Authors, in chronological order, as giving descriptions of different epidemics.

And so on…

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22nd February 2023

Fauci the Lying King

Anthony Fauci is a legendary liar. (Don’t miss these memes)

SCOTT ATLAS IN HIS BOOK, A PLAGUE UPON OUR HOUSE

It’s also worth noting the very relevant history of Dr. Fauci in regard to AIDS. He created headlines in New York Times, UPI, and AP articles for his alarmist speculations in his 1983 JAMA editorial that AIDS could be transmitted by “routine close contact, as within a family household.” It had already been known that transmission was via fluids through blood or sexual contact. Less than two months later, on June 26 in the Baltimore Sun, Fauci publicly contradicted his own explosive claim. “It is absolutely preposterous to suggest that AIDS can be contracted through normal social contact like being in the same room with someone or sitting on a bus with them. The poor gays have received a very raw deal on this.” That seemed like quite a flip-flop, with no new evidence or explanation given—more reminiscent of a politician than a reliable scientist.

PERPLEXITY

https://www.perplexity.ai/?s=u&uuid=35da6bc8-d47e-42ce-9687-ea1e3bbe1189

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