Amoeba’s Lorica: Pyrrhus Was An Optimist

2 April 2020

– Amoeba’s Lorica: Meme-ories 28 (Paging Pyrrhus)

11 April 2021

“So we cheat and we lie and we test, or maybe we don’t. We get the COVID vaccine, or maybe we don’t, and we argue about whether it’s any good and how long it will last if it is. We complain about masks and whether or not we can find a restaurant, never mind get a seat at one, and we bitch about how life hasn’t returned to normal yet, not realizing, or caring, that human life since the discovery of penicillin has been anything but normal, not realizing, or caring, that humanity is setting itself up for a knockout punch from an increasingly grim and determined biosphere, a biosphere whose probing jabs land no matter how we thrash.

“Just over a year ago, when the news was full of how We the People would soon put COVID down and initiate a V-shaped economic recovery, YFNA made a more sombre prediction about the outcome of the COVID pandemic. A year later, when the news is full of how the COVID vaccines will save us and usher in a new (and planet-destroying) Roaring Twenties (though one might wish to ask India about that), he stands by his prediction. And hopes that we may be that lucky.”

– Amoeba’s Lorica: Losing COVID Religion

19 December 2021

“All vaccines still seem to provide a significant degree of protection against serious illness from Omicron … But only the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced with a booster, appear to have success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world. The other shots – including AstraZenica, Johnson and Johnson[,] and vaccines made in China and Russia – do little to nothing to stop the spread of Omicron, early research shows. …

“Nations across Europe are tightening restrictions to prevent the spread from Omicron. The Netherlands became the first European country to announce a full lockdown to fight the variant.

“France is tightening rules for the unvaccinated.

“London declared a ‘major incident’ – or emergency – for the first time since January.”

– Remy Turin, “The Morning” (New York Times Newsletter)

So “when will we return to normal?” Not there yet, and We won’t be until the unnatural advantage conferred upon humanity by penicillin, and the era of heroic medicine that it ushered in, has been fully and utterly squandered, and our parasites of body, mind, and soul have reasserted the control over human daily lives that they have always had. And will always have, for We have conclusively demonstrated Our lack of capacity, Our lack of will, Our lack of personal and social discipline, to do otherwise. Nor can solace be sought by bashing the President, or the “red states” or the “blue states”, or any other convenient bogeyhuman, for, as Thomas Hobbes wrote in 1651:

… he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself …

Because the sovereign, whatever form it takes, is itself a mirror, reflecting what its subjects demand … in deeds, not words. 

And because Freedom!!, conducted in wanton disregard of the facts of the situation, is indeed slavery. Or oblivion.

… therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.