Self Contradictory Alternatives

[From March 8th]

Let’s call them alternative explanations since “conspiracy theory” is inherently pejorative. There are a few floating around surrounding Covid-19. In fact, you’ll often see the same people that say “no big deal” also claim that the disease is a Chinese Superbug or somehow released by Bill Gates or whatever. The thing about alternative explanations is that they are never internally consistent. The ability to hold contradictory evidence in one’s hand and simultaneously arrive at mutually exclusive conclusions is a hallmark of nutjobs…I mean, free-thinkers…across the globe. I’m going to make my version of one, and talk through it. Disclaimer: no doubt someone else has already created this one.

(to moderators, it ends up looking ridiculous)

In 1979 China introduced a One-Child Policy in order to stem population growth. As China’s per capita incomes have increased over time, life expectancies have increased. This has caused a demographic disaster. There are too many old people in China, and not enough young people to keep them alive while they are not enhancing the state. The old people are not dying quickly enough.

What if we could make a virus that would culle out the old and weak while leaving the young and virile virtually unscathed? We’d solve our demographic problems at the same time that we kept our populations in check. Money would be released to the younger generation, spending would increase, businesses would boom heralding another 20 years of 8% growth, medical expenditures would drop. It’s a perfect crime, a final solution.

So, in a secret lab, start with SARS. Using CRISPR, splice in the protein spike from Ebola to make it more contagious. Do some unintelligible mumbo-jumbo to make it target epithelial cells of old people (more plaque, less something, more something, lipase, cisplatin, who knows what). Problem solved.
Plausible, right?

So, who is the agent supporting this outcome? China
What is their goal? to cull the aged without resorting to unpopular state sponsored suicide
How did they do it? release a bio-engineered superbug into an area deeply integrated into the Chinese economy, yet distant from the politburo.

First off, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we can’t make a vaccine for the flu that’s effective from year to you. Do you really think we’re capable of targeting a specific demographic with a super cold? I see this as all or nothing: we can wipe out half the planet, we can make someone have itchy eyes, we can’t do diddly in between.

Further, this premise has a problem. China has shuddered their entire economy for 2 months to try to stop it…right when it was accomplishing the goals that they had supposedly engineered it for. The whole motive falls apart when they implode their entire society to stop it from doing what they wanted it to do in the first place.

Another problem? Everybody in power basically everywhere in the entire world is old! The Illuminati? Old! The ruling classes? Old! Barons of industry (barring a few aging techies)? Old! Biting off our noses to spite our faces, much?

So, maybe it’s a rogue state new world order who wants to topple world governments and usher in their technocratic dystopia? WTF! Read that again! I have encountered nothing in my time on this celestial plane which would indicate to me that anyone is competent to pull off any substantial subterfuge, let alone architecting the clandestine development of a superbug that would kill everybody’s grandparents. Do you know what the masses don’t like? When they lose their video games (irrelevant for this example). Do you know what else? When you kill their grandma!

Anyway, you know what has made sense for the last 4,000 years of human history? People doing weird stuff with wild animals and getting sick and some of them dying because of microbes evolving via random Darwinian processes. No reason to dredge up theories that make no sense and fail under basic scrutiny!
I’m not much for conspiracy theor…I mean…alternative explanations.

Advertisement