Notes from the edge of civilization: June 2, 2024

Globalists score a win at the World Health Assembly; the plot to decimate 'scrotally-challenged' men; decoding corporate gobbledygook; and the left panicking about the 'vibecession.'

This week, the World Health Organization’s annual assembly failed to reach agreement on a global treaty aimed at fighting future pandemics. While this may sound like good news, don’t pop the champagne just yet. The WHO said Saturday that the treaty will be concluded by 2025 (or earlier if possible).

Meanwhile, member states voted to update existing, legally-binding rules known as the International Health Regulations (IHR). These updates include a new category of "pandemic emergency," so one way or another the globalists will win. Critics are pushing back hard on the approval of the IHR updates, saying they go against the WHO’s own rules stipulating that amendments must be submitted four months before the assembly and calling the vote a breach of international law.

What may come from this protest is yet to be seen. The Director-General of the WHO is celebrating the IHR amendments as a win for the world, and “an historic achievement.”

Check out this week’s Collapse Life podcast with Dr. Kat Lindley for more details on what this might mean for individual sovereignty.

The push for a pandemic treaty isn’t over yet

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The global effort to coordinate health is certainly concerning. But it’s a reminder of how much we need to take responsibility for our own well-being. A big part of that is practicing critical thinking. That way, when ludicrous headlines like the one below pop up, you’ll be prepared to dissect them appropriately.

Here’s the story: Korean researchers put out a paper in 2012 in which they analyzed the lifespan of 81 historical Korean eunuchs dating back to the 14th century.

We studied the genealogy records of Korean eunuchs and determined the lifespan of 81 eunuchs. The average lifespan of eunuchs was 70.0 ± 1.76 years, which was 14.4–19.1 years longer than the lifespan of non-castrated men of similar socio-economic status.

The Guardian headline pictured above misleadingly attributes the finding to the “researcher” in the lead photographer. Pictured is author Cat Bohannon, and although she is described across the internet as a “researcher and author” (and even once as a scientist), it is unclear what she actually researches. She earned a PhD in “the evolution of narrative and cognition” by writing computer programs to analyze parts of speech over four centuries of English literature. She is most definitely not a biologist.

She is, however, the author of a book called “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution,” and while speaking about the book at a literary festival last week, she made a remark referring to the Korean research. She told the audience castration was a “way to make male mammals live longer.” As the Guardian details:

This effect was observed in American men in the mid-20th century who were institutionalised, usually because of mental illness, and castrated, and in Korean eunuchs. The castrated men lived longer than their “regularly balled peers”.

“You can castrate it. Cut off its balls. Don’t try this at home,” added Bohannon...

The point of all this is hard to fathom — we think it’s propaganda aimed to appeal to a particular Guardian demographic: the inconsolable middle-aged, mean-spirited, misandrist who can’t wait until technology replaces male mammals entirely. Largely, we would venture, the same target audience as Bohannon’s book.

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You’ll be grateful for your newly honed critical thinking skills when you read this next story. Remember earlier this year when President Biden declared war on shrinkflation? Consumers are not stupid and they are rightly getting pissed off about high prices and smaller portion sizes. Biden’s response was to put support behind a bill that aims to officially define shrinkflation as “an unfair or deceptive act or practice.”

If you haven’t heard the word shrinkflation come up in recent months, that may be deliberate. An ongoing New York Times series on business language, jargon, and idioms reports that companies are now increasingly using the phrase “price pack architecture” to describe their tweaks to product packaging.

… many companies have been using the term to describe how they’re giving customers less for more. James Quincey, chief executive of Coca-Cola, told analysts on a Feb. 13 earnings call that inflation “is pressuring certain consumer segments who are seeking value.”

His solution? “To keep consumers in our franchise,” Mr. Quincey said, “we are leveraging our revenue growth management capabilities to tailor our offerings and price pack architecture to meet consumers’ evolving needs.”

Or, in plain English: we’re putting less Coke in each can and charging more money.

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Meanwhile, another neologism — “vibecession” — is back in the news. The word has taken off, largely on the American left, to describe the mismatch between the official narrative about the economy and genuine consumer sentiment.

Essentially, Americans are down on the economy even though our overlords tell us their data shows the opposite. This sentiment is of great concern for anyone who doesn’t want to see Donald Trump voted back into office.

Last week, opinion columnist Paul Krugman basically said the vibecession could be a deciding factor in November.

If Donald Trump wins the election, the main reason will surely be that a majority of voters believe that America’s economy is in bad shape.

Commentator Peter Laffin had perhaps the best response to Krugman’s laughable remarks in a recent column for the Washington Examiner. His lead sentence is perfect, but the rest is worth reading too:

All you need to know about the legacy news media is that they hate you and think you’re a moron. Once you get this, the rest falls into place. 

Last week, New York Times writer and noted “man of the people” Paul Krugman wrote his umpteenth column accusing people of being confused about the state of the economy. Despite the fact that, in Krugman’s estimation, the overall economy is doing “quite well,” people consistently report dissatisfaction with it. Notably, a majority of people still feel good about their personal finances but feel sour about the broader economy, leading Krugman to conclude that America is amid a “vibecession.”

In his defense, the explanation for this discrepancy would not be immediately obvious to the thoroughly enbubbled legacy media that have long prioritized the concerns of the identitarian Left over the working class. And as always, it’s easier to blame the “messaging” than to actually empathize with voters. 

But if Krugman and his ilk were sincerely interested in getting to the root of President Joe Biden’s poor marks on the economy, they would do well to consider the following. 

To begin, Democrats and Democratic-friendly media have spent the past eight years trying to scare the wits out of everyone. In a ghoulish attempt to regain and maintain power, establishment liberals have adopted an apocalyptic tone over the past few election cycles. 

First, they said former President Donald Trump was an asset of a mortal enemy and that he was sure to bring on World War III. Then, they said COVID-19 was equivalent to a bazillion 9/11s and that skepticism toward the vaccine and masks was on the same moral plane as mass murder. They said the fall of Roe v. Wade would bring The Handmaid’s Tale to reality, that the planet would catch fire at any moment, and that black men were being gunned down in the streets en masse. 

And now they cry “Democracy is on the ballot” at every turn as if anything short of a Democratic sweep in November will mark the very end of the American experiment itself. 

And yet, the Krugmans of the world expect voters to have a rosy outlook on the future. Because the stock market is up, I guess? 

Read the full piece here.

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