We have probably all heard of the law of unintended consequences; when a course of action has resulted in unforeseen outcomes. These outcomes may be in addition to the intended ones, or in place of them; the difference between a relative failure and an abject failure, but a failure nonetheless. It may be that the good still outweighs the bad, or not. It may be that whatever resources have been invested were worth the effort or, on balance, could have provided better value elsewhere. And, finally, it may be that the negative consequences could not have realistically been foreseen or, alternatively, they should have been but some eejit pressed on regardless.
When a competent organisation is in charge of matters, one would expect that things would go according to plan a sizeable majority of the time; that planners had a good handle on likely outcomes and did not seek to remove or alter before understanding what would be lost, as well as what would be gained. In short, to take account of Chesterton's Fence:
“In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”(1)
There is one other quality that might reasonably be expected of our governments; good faith, honesty. As I write those words I have a feeling of naivety, that I am foolish to be idealistic enough to expect something that ought to be fundamental, but is no longer. Chesterton's dilemma assumed that the modern reformer was hasty, not corrupt. However, it seems to me that there are a number of ways in which our modern masters have already implemented (or have given notice that they intend to implement) policies and reforms that have had the opposite effect to that advertised, and that there was nothing unintended about it. This, in and of itself, is bad enough. The fact that they have somehow been able to obfuscate and deceive the vast majority of citizens as to their intentions is a bigger problem still. They have done so via the twin mechanisms of managing our expectations downwards, not just in the recent past, but over the course of decades and by systematically distancing themselves from democratic control. Allow me to elaborate.
The 'pandemic' has prompted a substantial minority to take an interest in subjects that have never previously crossed their horizons (vaccinology and epidemiology foremost among them). We have gained an understanding of relatively arcane terms such as 'gain of function', the practice of enhancing the ability of a wild virus to infect humans and then to become transmissible between humans, ostensibly in order to create vaccines to said enhanced viruses. It doesn't take a huge mental effort to see the flaw in this justification.
To begin with, a tiny percentage of wild viruses have the ability to achieve stage one zoonosis – the capacity to infect a single person directly – let alone to advance to stage 2 and spark an epidemic. Further, if the reason for this research was as stated, there isn't a valid reason for combining viruses found in bats and pangolins, for instance. These animals do not exist in proximity to each other; there is a vanishingly small chance of a recombination of separate viruses into one new one. And, given that truth, why would governments be investing time and money into creating a pointless vaccine?
The answer, I suspect, lies in the dual purpose nature of these endeavors. While a wild virus will never exist, the laboratory version will. Far from being an exercise in prevention of disease, this type of gain of function research is actually involved in creating bio-weapons and the means to keep your own side healthy with a vaccine. What else can it be? Idle tinkering with nature? It's possible; scientists do things because they can, not necessarily because they should. But, whatever the intent, the result is that laboratories create viruses that have not (and could not) occur in nature. It's a biological agent, by definition, and if it's harmful to humans, it's a potential weapon – again, by definition.
And how about lock-downs? The justification provided to the masses was that such a measure would stop the virus in its tracks by preventing further spread and would stop health services from being overwhelmed by 'cases'. However, any virologist not in the pocket of Big Pharma will testify that the opposite it true, which is why lock-downs are not used during every bad flu season. Removing host organisms from circulation (that's us) drives the virus to mutate more rapidly and become more transmissible as it attempts to survive. Isolating people in their homes, while allowing some to circulate at work, will accomplish two ends; the mutated virus will still thrive in enclosed environments and people's immune systems will rapidly de-train, making them more vulnerable, not less. Given that this information is widely known amongst the 'experts', it's difficult to dismiss the belief that this was the intention all along.
'Vaccine' mandates? More of the same. Governments tell us that they are necessary to protect public health, to preserve society. Workers must get the jab, the public at large need to be good citizens. Hospitals, especially, must be protected; the evidence is supposedly so compelling that jobs will be forfeit unless medical staff comply, as we are now in a 'pandemic of the unvaccinated'. Not just them, mind. In Europe and in the US, truckers are also required to be 'vaccinated' in order to cross borders. The result? The exact opposite of what was allegedly intended. Hospitals sacked staff (realistically, this was the inevitable outcome as medical staff have the opportunity to be the best informed cohort of any and are, therefore, likely to be refuseniks), truckers rejected the jab in overwhelming numbers and now hospitals are either begging 'unvaccinated' staff to return or, if they can't bring themselves to eat humble pie, are simply closing wards and denying treatment. Truckers are blocking roads rather than hauling goods.
Still, at least hospitals are continuing to rake in federal money for treating 'Covid' patients. A patient that tests positive in a US hospital, whatever the reason for their admittance, automatically becomes a cash cow. Leaving becomes their major problem, as the administrators that run hospital trusts do so for profit and the government has made the internment of a Covid patient very profitable indeed. There are payments for testing, admittance, treatment with Remdesivir, for every patient on a ventilator and for every Covid death. It is estimated that the full set is worth nearly $100,000. I don't know exactly what justification the federal government used at the outset, but I assume it was danger money or similar, an incentive to fearful medical staff to treat the dangerously unclean. It really doesn't take the brains of an archbishop to see that, even at the best of times, that amount of money represents a serious temptation. When it is offered at the same time that hospitals are floundering and going bankrupt due to staff shortages and a lack of income from elective surgery, the net effect is that there is no incentive for hospitals to treat patients with known, effective medications and discharge them swiftly. In fact, the opposite is true. So, once again, are we to believe that this consequence is unintended?
Governments have spent billions paying individuals to stay away from work and billions more in ensuring that they cannot be evicted from their accommodation. Ostensibly, this was another measure taken to protect the people from the devastation of the 'pandemic', by mortgaging the country's future to pay them to stay home in the here and now, but nonetheless keeping them in the workforce. The net result? When it was time to return to in person working, the combination of welfare payments, 'vaccine' mandates and debilitating fear has so far persuaded over four million Americans to forgo the pleasure of being a useful member of society and settle into the role of parasite instead. It turns out that giving people oodles of cash and scaring them witless doesn't keep them in the workforce after all. How very strange.
Moving away from all things Covid, but still remaining in the present, we find other initiatives that don't do what they say on the tin. The defund the police movement, combined with the doctrine of Critical Race Theory and the rash of liberal District Attorneys failing to apply the law, doesn't lead to social justice. It leads to societal breakdown, instead. Diverting funds and attempting to deal with criminals with kid gloves, for reasons of their ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity does not result in a more harmonious public space. In entirely predictable fashion, it leads to record numbers of police officers being shot, to escalating murder rates and criminals ransacking businesses with impunity.
What could be more overtly perverse that to call legislation the For The People voting rights bill and include within it numerous provisions which ensure that at least half the people will never get a meaningful say in elections ad infinitum. The Left bangs on about voter suppression and, in a way, they are correct to do so. Since the last debacle in 2020, when weak or corrupt governors and the courts rearranged election law at whim, some states have finally woken up to the fact that widespread fraud has been practiced with impunity. They have subsequently passed laws that generally reinforce the concept of one person, one vote. They have frequently had the temerity to insist that voter rolls are accurate, ballots are only sent to those that request them (as in person voting is less susceptible to adverse manipulation) and that voters show ID to prove their identity. These conditions will, inevitably, suppress the illegal vote. Therefore, the Left is not happy. They are unhappy because the bill they want to pass specifically prohibits all of the above. That's right; it's not that it doesn't enforce these norms, it actually makes it illegal to ask for an ID or to go through the registered voting list and remove the dead voters and those that don't actually exist.
As an example of why this is quite important, I give you Wisconsin. This past week it was revealed that this state of 5.8 million souls has 569,277 voters on the rolls with a birth date of 1/1/1918. Perhaps even more surprisingly, 119,283 had retained sufficient energy, at the age of 102, to vote in the last election. There must be something in the water. Or, alternatively, it's likely that elections in the state (and it's by no means atypical) have been a farce for decades and Democrats – because it's always Democrats – want to keep it that way. Once again, what is claimed is the polar opposite of the truth. A bill that allegedly restores voters rights by dint of a federal takeover would, in fact, further destroy election integrity.
There's more. Governments around the world have kept interest rates low for the past decade. This is a departure from any other era and it is wholly engineered by the central banks. Ostensibly, money is cheap to borrow and businesses and individuals can avail themselves of inexpensive loans, the better to indulge their entrepreneurial instincts and grow the economy. This state of affairs is supposed to be broadly beneficial to all Americans. In practice, once more, this is not the case.
With interest rates hovering around 0%, there is no incentive to save money; there is only incentive to borrow. Secondly, much of the money created out of thin air (and in the case of the dollar, 40% of all US dollars that have ever existed have been created in the past 12 months or so) has not been invested in small and medium sized businesses, but has instead been used by financial institutions to buy back their own stock in the market, thus keeping their company value high by artificial means. And thirdly, as we are seeing increasingly, creating vast tranches of money devalues the currency and, if done with reckless disregard for the future, leads to rampant inflation. Anybody still laboring under the misapprehension that Western economies are of the free market variety needs to come to their senses as a matter of urgency. Governments are continually interfering and the beneficiaries are not the rank and file, those with little financial margin for error; big banks look after their own.
And the future? The future is sold to us under false pretenses, using one subterfuge in particular – convenience, with a side dish of smugness for those who wish to flaunt their technological precociousness. There are innovations already under way which we are invited to endorse and utilize. I say 'invited'; I mean forced. As an example, the case of digital currencies. We've been softened up over the past decade or so, as cashless payments have become more ubiquitous and cash ever rarer. We're told that this is an advance, that it's progress. Initially, it was sold to us as a speedier alternative, then as a safer one – no need to carry all that cash around. Then there were further, 'cool' innovations which dispensed with the need for a bank card even; a watch or mobile 'phone would do the trick instead. Now there is even the option to pay by wafting one's own hand across the electronic till, as the Scandinavians are now injecting financial microchips.
The unwary have yet to compute that there are downsides as well as upsides. In the first instance, assuming that the banks are acting in our best interests, rather than their own, is a dangerous game to play. Phasing out cash allows them to shut branches and ATMs, both of which eat into profits substantially. Face to face interactions are intended to become a thing of the past. And there is a huge privacy cost to pay. If every transaction is electronic, then every transaction is logged. With cash, there is anonymity. With a cashless system, there is none. There is also a considerable problem with fraud and hacking; I've noticed how many new layers of passwords and checks have been added of late, which does not inspire confidence.
And then there is the granddaddy of all dis-benefits; if an account can be rendered active, it can be rendered inactive or circumscribed as well. And for those of you who think that scenario far-fetched, I'd direct your gaze towards China, where it's already happening. It's called a Social Credit Score and if yours happens to be less than stellar, due to an unfortunate outbreak of honesty on Twitter or a similar misdemeanor, you will find your ability to buy transportation, entertainment, perhaps even provisions, either diminished or cancelled. Can you imagine a world where the system decrees that you'll have to go everywhere on foot because the world is going to end in nine years due to global warming? I don't believe that is even vaguely fantastical. So for convenience, read control.
The same goes for other innovations that our lord and masters are rolling out without any input from the masses. What exactly is the point of 5G, unless you happen to be a gamer who wants to play multiple games simultaneously and therefore needs other-worldly bandwidth? I don't intend to delve into the technical aspects of it, other than to observe that 4G seems to be quick and perfectly sufficient for our needs. We clearly don't need more, at present. What is it that is coming down the track that requires such a huge investment in resources? Where is the risk v reward analysis? Does anyone who isn't some sort of techie have any real idea why 5G is being rolled out around the developed world? Is it so that every product can be 'smart'? Why? When was there ever a discussion in the public square about the desirability of installing powerful microwave transmitters (which chuck out electromagnetism in a vast bandwidth between 600 MHz and 100 MHz) every 300 metres or so in all our towns and cities? What are the dangers? Does anybody care? When an innovation is pushed through in this manner, and taking note of the tendency to sandbag us in other areas, it is difficult to be sanguine.
In similar fashion, Artificial Intelligence is said to be a boon to humankind, a convenience, a way to relieve us of the burden of doing those menial jobs that are beneath us. Robots to build cars, algorithms to regulate free speech, machines that may develop a human-like consciousness. This is, of course good. It must be because it's progress and progress is always good. Humans will have more time to undertake other, more rewarding activities and if gainful employment in our chosen field is no longer available, we can always learn to code.
The one thing the advance of AI has nothing to do with is any attempt to downgrade the importance of sentient beings or simply to pursue greater control and profits. Indisputably not. Even though AI can't answer back (yet), has no union representation, requires no pension payments nor medical schemes. Even though removing people from the process and replacing them with machines concentrates all the power in very few hands and can have the effect of removing any moral dimension from decision-making. As well as giving humans once more shove towards irrelevance.
We see a similar mindset in the infamous WEF propaganda video, which alerts us to the way the world will be by 2030. Apparently, we will own nothing, but we'll be happy. Or, to put it another way, someone else will own everything and they'll be even happier. It's not difficult to see how it might be sold to us. It takes energy to make products and it's very known that most have built-in obsolescence. That will have to become a thing of the past and if things are rented rather than owned, there will be less downtime for the product. Less waste. Therefore less pollution in making the product. Less need of fossil fuels and, you being a good citizen and all, you'd want to make that happen, wouldn't you? And in case you wouldn't, kiss goodbye to the ability to use public transport or the internet for a month or so and then think again.
We are continually sold on a surface purpose, usually on the grounds of cost or convenience – and occasionally by manipulation of our better natures – which is not, in fact, the truth of the matter. You may disagree with some of the examples I have used. You may take issue with any attempt to ascribe motive. I would counter, by reminding you that it isn't what you think the elites will do that counts. It's what they could do.
If a cashless system is implemented, that system can be used to exercise control over a citizenry. We know this, because it's already happening. Cheap money leads to inflationary pressure which has its most deleterious effect on the poor and on savers; this is not in dispute either. The science that refutes the efficacy of lock-downs is well established, Green Passes do not keep populations free of disease etc etc. Governments and elites have sold us a bill of goods far too often for us to be guileless and trusting. They have talked out of the side of their mouths, told us one thing when they mean another. Progress in and of itself is not an inherently bad thing. The problem seems to be that it is so frequently disconnected from any actual public need and driven by elites who have their own best interests at heart, not ours.
Citations
(1) G K Chesterton, The Thing: Why I am a Catholic, pg 29.