In some places they're trying to bring the hysteria back, but in general we seem to have moved on to the "lessons learned" stage. Email via Tom Woods

It's hard to imagine that the kind of people who thought putting arrows on supermarket floors, distinguishing "clean" from "dirty" pens in doctors' offices, and putting small plexiglass barriers (that everyone simply evaded) in front of cashiers would "save lives" are capable of learning any lessons, but let's be sports about it and give them a shot.

(I realize that I am assuming good will on their part, which is a rather generous assumption.)

The great Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, one of the three drafters of the Great Barrington Declaration, tells us that in the UK, at least, the regime is drawing the wrong lessons.

A public inquiry has been opened into the government's handling of the situation there. And unfortunately, some people are trying to popularize the idea that the problem was that the government didn't lock society down at precisely the right moment or in just the right way.

But as Gupta says, "The most important question to consider is not whether the Government locked down the country at precisely the right moment, but rather whether lockdowns and other restrictive measures were justified at all, given the uncertainties that existed at the time concerning their efficacy in containing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the negative knock-on effects on the health and well-being of the population.

"We now know that many of the measures imposed during the pandemic did not have a significant effect on reducing the spread of the virus and led to an entirely predictable set of concerning outcomes of extraordinary proportions among the most vulnerable sectors – children, the elderly, and the economically deprived.

"This is because, as any standard epidemiology text will tell you, measures restricting activity are unlikely to stop the spread of a novel virus in the long term. Such interventions, however, will alter the dynamics of endemic diseases (such as RSV, influenza, adenovirus) causing them to transiently disappear and subsequently re-emerge at unusual times with some attendant perverse consequences....

"Locking down 'earlier' or locking down 'properly' would not have avoided any of the unconscionable harms inflicted upon those whom society has always agreed to protect – children, the elderly, the economically disadvantaged.

"It is also unlikely that it would have had much impact on the spread of the virus."

Indeed it is.

For me, the Covid nuttiness had two primary effects:

(1) It made me realize I had been far too naive about the world's ruling classes -- and I say this as someone who had had nothing but cynicism and contempt for them before 2020. These people, and whatever their sinister agenda is, are far worse than I thought.

(2) It drastically lowered my estimation of mankind. I am still flabbergasted at the nonsense so many people went along with, when the truth was not hard to find -- and when these people's very lives hung in the balance! They couldn't even take a few minutes to figure out whether their lives were being ruined for a good reason or not?

Because of (2), I began to shift my emphasis toward all those good people who did see through it all, who weren't afraid to be unpopular by speaking forbidden truths, and who themselves may have suffered professionally, financially, socially, or in any number of other ways because of the stands they took.

I want to use my resources to help those people.

I still promote my ideas on my podcast, because I do believe in libertarianism.

But a lack of knowledge of how to argue about antitrust law is not keeping people up at night.

What is?

A looming sense of dread about the future. If they pulled this Covid b.s., what else will they try? And do we have any choice other than to sit back and take it?

Or:

How do I carry on in a soul-crushing job that makes irrational and unjust demands of me, and could be yanked away at any time?

Or:

What do I do with my money, when the geniuses in charge seem hell-bent on destroying it?

Or:

How do I keep these people from colonizing my children's minds?

How about those for starters?

Everybody already knows what the problems are. What the world needs now isn't more articles telling them about the problems.

What the world needs is someone to hoist a flag and say: I'm determined to do something about this, and if you are, too, then come join me.