These discussions have gone on with Hammond for years. I know people who gave up in 2020. Hammond is like a video game. Just write to him at 3 am and say something like "the sky is blue" and he will argue with you. The email will come back five minutes later, any time, day or night, even on Christmas. Has anyone met him in person? He seems to be some kind of in in silico script that spews out cliches.
There is a good case to be made that Hammond is a ringer (public relations shill), though he has a low level of expertise (ringers should know something, but he does not). Like Poornima Wagh, he has migrated to virology from some branch of finance or economics (virology and finance are both doing a great job of saving the world).
His entire role seems to be churning out a vast number of kilobytes of content that all claim that viruses exist, on and on and on.
There is no getting anywhere with him, and I do not understand his appeal to readers. The real problem is them, not him. He will only ever be convincing to an ignorant audience whom he has persuaded he's something really special. The only special thing about him is that he shows up with all the energy of a border collie and about 1/50th the intelligence. I am sure that an your average sheep could beat him at checkers.
The only reason he looks meekly smart in a debate is because his opponent knows something. If you played only his side of the argument, it would be evident that he has the IQ of a compost heap.
So we might wonder why Joe Mercola called him as a witness when he wanted to "prove the existence of viruses," and all we get is this smug gasbag consuming oxygen from other far more sophisticated biota, and saying "Bad faith! Bad faith! You make no sense! You make no sense!"
Exactly! And I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but his posts are so looooong. He also fills them full of elephant hurling links. His articles are mind-numbing to read. I went through his spike protein claims in this article:
I swore I would never do so again as it was tedious pointing out the flaws in what seemed like an endless amount of pseudoscientific studies one after another.
The last time I engaged him was in 2021 over the CDC document that reveals that no SARS-CoV-2 was available, so they were using a "mimicked clinical specimen" to prime the PCR (and cited MN980947.2, a fraudulent sequence so bad even the WHO dropped it from its assay). He insisted over and over that the document (dated July 2020) was old and that he knew they really HAD sequenced something real, directly to the contrary of what a primary source document was advertising.
We need to understand what this battle is really about. On one side you have people who say that metagenomics is medicine: assembling random, impure genetic material in a computer and calling it something, and using this to "diagnose" a person who is not actually suffering from any illness but they are called "infected."
On the other side, you have people wanting to see symptoms and understand the reasons people are unwell, and how to get better if they are not. This has nothing to do with computers.
So this discussion is the robots versus the humans.
George Lucas was trying to warn us about his problem by making it the central theme of the entire Star Wars series. The Empire has the machines and the robots and the sociopathy. Darth Vader had become "more machine than man., twisted and evil" But the rebels have the animals (Chewbacca, Ewoks) and Nature (the forest of Endor, Luke's putting away the targeting computer and trusting the Force). Lucas was on the side of nature and humans.
I'm an anarchist as Hammond (he is to the left of me) and it is completely true that anarchists write long and arid dissertations. It goes with the territory.
The best anarchist writer (most readable) is Robert Higgs, who left the US a few years ago because he saw the disaster coming. Higgs (1944) believes in germ theory and antibiotics like 99.9% of all other anarchist writers, because the State is an horrendous monster that lies about everything EXCEPT for public health. Shocking.
There is a subtext in all this: we have to accept reality as is described by the State, and show that there is a better way to do things. The State is always wrong about the way they do things, not about how things really are.
I think this is lazy, it's the emotional need to not be out there too much.
A similar phenomenon exists in the no-virus neighborhood: most of them are not anarchists in any way. They don't want to be too ou there, and they definitely don't want to be grouped with obnoxious anarchists that write too long.
I understand.
The truth or falsehood of germ theory should have nothing to do with politics. But it does. And it is a dead end. It's best to keep away from politics as much as possible.
Too right, that the real problem is his readers. I got into a debate with Hammond not long ago, not because I had any expectation of changing his mind (for that would be as delusional as believing in the megavirus of death), in order to provide an alternative view to his readers. (The topic was the Harcourt et al. paper and whether the authors had done a proper control.) It degenerated into Hammond's usual "show good faith by agreeing that I am right, and then we can discuss whether I am right" and then into his banning me for not showing good faith. So, it's impossible to provide an alternative view to his readers.
Exactly. Jeremy is great at gatekeeping and ensuring that he looks right by stonewalling and then banning anyone with relevant questions/responses, thus keeping his ignorance from his readers.
Although I'm not sure that he's ignorant. He's not very bright, but he's probably a shill (in the tripartite division into the many useful idiots who are brainwashed by the fewer shills who are paid off by the handful of sociopaths).
Mike, you entered the twilight zone! Thanks for your sacrifice. Hammonds level of argumentation is truly unique. An actual moderated debate would be devastating to his flimsy position.
Yes, I agree. It would be hilarious if he kept asking for a "modicum of good faith" as a response to everything in a live debate. I have a feeling he would be excluded from future debates. 😉
It still shows up when I click on it. Maybe you may have to be friends with Potente Angelo to read it? I'm not sure how FB works. I will ask if he can make the post public.
The cell cultures used to grow viruses do contain substances that produce cytopathogenic effects. If they are left on their own, remaining non-incoulated with the virus-containing 99% Hammond-proof purified inoculant, they should show similar CPE as the sister cultures that have been inoculated, regardless of 99% purification or 100% purification of the inoculant.
Or is it that the controls remain good and only the inoculated die out?
My question is: are the controls valid as controls?
The second question is: have the virologists and the defenders of virologists considered the previous question at any point in their lives?
The mock infection controls that virologists do occasionally are not proper controls as they would need to use a sample containing human fluids said to contain no "virus," which are treated the same way as the sample said to contain the "virus." Instead, they just use the cell with the additives. There are many types of controls that they should perform and definitely the length of the culturing plays a factor and should be looked at as far as a type of control. Would the mock infection eventually produce the same CPE if left to incubate for a few more days? I have never seen them check this.
Mike, it seems to be an error of semantics to allow cetrifugation to be equated with purification. Ditto filtration. I presume the argument is that all the contents of a single band of centrifuged source material is homogenous. If so, I gather the next step is to demonstrate/confirm the apparent homogeneity (no contaminants or admixtures) and to then propose the hypothesis that the uniform sample amounts to a purified or isolated sample of virus. Is this not then the stage at which the investigator can move to the innoculation stage to look for cytopathic effect?
These discussions have gone on with Hammond for years. I know people who gave up in 2020. Hammond is like a video game. Just write to him at 3 am and say something like "the sky is blue" and he will argue with you. The email will come back five minutes later, any time, day or night, even on Christmas. Has anyone met him in person? He seems to be some kind of in in silico script that spews out cliches.
There is a good case to be made that Hammond is a ringer (public relations shill), though he has a low level of expertise (ringers should know something, but he does not). Like Poornima Wagh, he has migrated to virology from some branch of finance or economics (virology and finance are both doing a great job of saving the world).
His entire role seems to be churning out a vast number of kilobytes of content that all claim that viruses exist, on and on and on.
There is no getting anywhere with him, and I do not understand his appeal to readers. The real problem is them, not him. He will only ever be convincing to an ignorant audience whom he has persuaded he's something really special. The only special thing about him is that he shows up with all the energy of a border collie and about 1/50th the intelligence. I am sure that an your average sheep could beat him at checkers.
The only reason he looks meekly smart in a debate is because his opponent knows something. If you played only his side of the argument, it would be evident that he has the IQ of a compost heap.
So we might wonder why Joe Mercola called him as a witness when he wanted to "prove the existence of viruses," and all we get is this smug gasbag consuming oxygen from other far more sophisticated biota, and saying "Bad faith! Bad faith! You make no sense! You make no sense!"
Exactly! And I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but his posts are so looooong. He also fills them full of elephant hurling links. His articles are mind-numbing to read. I went through his spike protein claims in this article:
https://viroliegy.com/2022/07/20/the-elephant-and-the-spike/
I swore I would never do so again as it was tedious pointing out the flaws in what seemed like an endless amount of pseudoscientific studies one after another.
The last time I engaged him was in 2021 over the CDC document that reveals that no SARS-CoV-2 was available, so they were using a "mimicked clinical specimen" to prime the PCR (and cited MN980947.2, a fraudulent sequence so bad even the WHO dropped it from its assay). He insisted over and over that the document (dated July 2020) was old and that he knew they really HAD sequenced something real, directly to the contrary of what a primary source document was advertising.
We need to understand what this battle is really about. On one side you have people who say that metagenomics is medicine: assembling random, impure genetic material in a computer and calling it something, and using this to "diagnose" a person who is not actually suffering from any illness but they are called "infected."
On the other side, you have people wanting to see symptoms and understand the reasons people are unwell, and how to get better if they are not. This has nothing to do with computers.
So this discussion is the robots versus the humans.
George Lucas was trying to warn us about his problem by making it the central theme of the entire Star Wars series. The Empire has the machines and the robots and the sociopathy. Darth Vader had become "more machine than man., twisted and evil" But the rebels have the animals (Chewbacca, Ewoks) and Nature (the forest of Endor, Luke's putting away the targeting computer and trusting the Force). Lucas was on the side of nature and humans.
I'm an anarchist as Hammond (he is to the left of me) and it is completely true that anarchists write long and arid dissertations. It goes with the territory.
The best anarchist writer (most readable) is Robert Higgs, who left the US a few years ago because he saw the disaster coming. Higgs (1944) believes in germ theory and antibiotics like 99.9% of all other anarchist writers, because the State is an horrendous monster that lies about everything EXCEPT for public health. Shocking.
There is a subtext in all this: we have to accept reality as is described by the State, and show that there is a better way to do things. The State is always wrong about the way they do things, not about how things really are.
I think this is lazy, it's the emotional need to not be out there too much.
A similar phenomenon exists in the no-virus neighborhood: most of them are not anarchists in any way. They don't want to be too ou there, and they definitely don't want to be grouped with obnoxious anarchists that write too long.
I understand.
The truth or falsehood of germ theory should have nothing to do with politics. But it does. And it is a dead end. It's best to keep away from politics as much as possible.
Too right, that the real problem is his readers. I got into a debate with Hammond not long ago, not because I had any expectation of changing his mind (for that would be as delusional as believing in the megavirus of death), in order to provide an alternative view to his readers. (The topic was the Harcourt et al. paper and whether the authors had done a proper control.) It degenerated into Hammond's usual "show good faith by agreeing that I am right, and then we can discuss whether I am right" and then into his banning me for not showing good faith. So, it's impossible to provide an alternative view to his readers.
Exactly. Jeremy is great at gatekeeping and ensuring that he looks right by stonewalling and then banning anyone with relevant questions/responses, thus keeping his ignorance from his readers.
Although I'm not sure that he's ignorant. He's not very bright, but he's probably a shill (in the tripartite division into the many useful idiots who are brainwashed by the fewer shills who are paid off by the handful of sociopaths).
Mike, you entered the twilight zone! Thanks for your sacrifice. Hammonds level of argumentation is truly unique. An actual moderated debate would be devastating to his flimsy position.
Yes, I agree. It would be hilarious if he kept asking for a "modicum of good faith" as a response to everything in a live debate. I have a feeling he would be excluded from future debates. 😉
I've been told that the post is "public" now so hopefully it should work. 🙂
It still shows up when I click on it. Maybe you may have to be friends with Potente Angelo to read it? I'm not sure how FB works. I will ask if he can make the post public.
Thanks. It works now.
I have always felt that Hammond argues like a "fact-checker" with equivocation and accusation. I see bad lawyers doing this all the time.
Arguing like a "fact-checker" is a great way to describe it Dave! And we know how accurate "fact-checkers" are... 😉
Epic.
I have questions.
The cell cultures used to grow viruses do contain substances that produce cytopathogenic effects. If they are left on their own, remaining non-incoulated with the virus-containing 99% Hammond-proof purified inoculant, they should show similar CPE as the sister cultures that have been inoculated, regardless of 99% purification or 100% purification of the inoculant.
Or is it that the controls remain good and only the inoculated die out?
My question is: are the controls valid as controls?
The second question is: have the virologists and the defenders of virologists considered the previous question at any point in their lives?
The mock infection controls that virologists do occasionally are not proper controls as they would need to use a sample containing human fluids said to contain no "virus," which are treated the same way as the sample said to contain the "virus." Instead, they just use the cell with the additives. There are many types of controls that they should perform and definitely the length of the culturing plays a factor and should be looked at as far as a type of control. Would the mock infection eventually produce the same CPE if left to incubate for a few more days? I have never seen them check this.
Thanks.
Mike, it seems to be an error of semantics to allow cetrifugation to be equated with purification. Ditto filtration. I presume the argument is that all the contents of a single band of centrifuged source material is homogenous. If so, I gather the next step is to demonstrate/confirm the apparent homogeneity (no contaminants or admixtures) and to then propose the hypothesis that the uniform sample amounts to a purified or isolated sample of virus. Is this not then the stage at which the investigator can move to the innoculation stage to look for cytopathic effect?