“Shoot The Messenger”: What We Can Say Publicly About Coronavirus & What We Can’t

Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,

It’s Time…

If you’ve been watching our Youtube video series on the Wuhan Coronavirus (2019nCoV) pandemic, you know that it’s time to prepare.

Yes, we can always hope that the latest unconfirmed potential treatment marks an actual turning point (i.e. treating patients with HIV protease inhibitor drugs) . But it’s much better to be safe than sorry.

You’re probably reading this because you tend to think critically, and you trust your own judgment.  Weirdly, that sets you apart from the masses.

And so here you are.  Not because you’re weird, but because it’s weird that common sense and prudent caution are so uncommon.

For a whole host of reasons that extend well beyond this emerging pandemic, we think being prepared is a selfless and prudent thing to do.  Everyone should seek to be as resilient as possible. Our book Prosper! covers this in much greater detail. It encourages readers to build capital.

Yes, build up your financial capital. But don’t ignore social, knowledge, time, material, living, cultural and emotional capital.  If you have depth in each of these, you will be truly wealthy, happy and fulfilled — no matter what the universe throws your way.

A pandemic is a hard kick in the pants that will propel many people to finally begin preparing. If you’re one of them, don’t ignore this important call to action.

For those who are already in good shape — Congratulations! Use this opportunity to re-evaluate your planning, inventory your preps, and then improve upon both if needed.

What We Can Say Publicly & What We Can’t

As with our coverage of the Fukushima nuclear disaster back in 2011, we believe it is our duty to make our gifts of sleuthing, clarifying, and decoding freely available to the world.  That’s what we’ve done in the past, and we’re doing it in spades now — releasing at least one video every day for the past 13 days, keeping the public updated on the evolving coronavirus threat.

But there’s certain content that we cannot put out into the public realm.

Some of it can put a target on our back for the media to use in accusing us of being “alarmists” or “fearmongers”.

Other content may not be sufficiently proven, but we feel is important to consider and monitor as more data comes in.  But it’s too half-baked to put out to a public audience where some folks might accept it as gospel simply because we shared it.

Often, we just go deeper into a subject than the general public has any interest in going. But our insight-hungry subscribers value this greatly. One thing Peak Prosperity subscribers share in common is that we’re all curious, committed life-long learners.

Cutting to the chase: subscriptions are how Adam and I support and run this site.  Without our premium subscribers there would be no site at all.

Google is a monopoly and shares less and less advertising revenue with the content creators that use its platform. The advertising check Peak Prosperity receives are really so tiny as to be laughable.  There’s no possible way to support this site via ad revenue.  If we relied on ad revenue — of which the monthly check could buy us a nice dinner and little else — this would become a hobby site. Adam and I would have to earn a living other ways, and maybe write a single article once of twice as month as we could get to it. The PeakProsperity.com experience would be vastly different from the daily publishing programming we have, not to mention the even more valuable vibrant community of intelligent thinkers that is fostered here.

I feel odd having to spell this out. But you’d be surprised how many people decry that we have a revenue model that funds this site’s existence.  Some of these critics are journalists, too; which is odd to me, because they’re in the same business —  except a parent company cuts their paycheck.

Denying Ammunition To The Haters

In fast-moving situations like the coronavirus outbreak, the unknowns outweigh the knowns.  Quite often the most useful and most actionable material is in the ‘unknowns.’

This is where our super-power comes into play: sifting through vast piles of snippets and fragments and assembling them into a coherent (if still incomplete) picture.  One with actionable insights to help you make important life decisions.

Sometimes we simply have to avoid handing weapons to our enemies.  Early, fast-changing information can (and often is) taken out of context to try to “shoot the messenger”.  Throughout this pandemic so far, the vast majority of attention we’ve gotten from the established media has accused us of whipping up fear or being opportunists.

Not a single one of these critics has yet sought to engage in debate on the data we’ve provided in any of our writings or videos to argue “here’s something you got wrong.”

Why not?  Because they have no interest in whether we have the facts right or wrong.

Instead, they’re interested in pushing a narrative that says “don’t worry, everything is just fine”. In their eyes, our sin is that we happen to think some of the facts ARE indeed worrying. Or at least too important to simply take on faith.  It’s the oldest trick in the book – when you can’t beat the message, attack the messenger.

Just last night, my Wikipedia page, up for more than a decade, was deleted by Wikipedia’s editors.  I guess if you feel that shooting the messenger isn’t enough, try to expunge him from history.

Again, this is all just part of the territory.  Like the trolls who sometimes show up in this site’s comments section, armed with the latest talking points (“no worse than the flu!”) and seeking to swamp or derail the conversation.

Behind our paywall, there are no trolls.  Well, maybe once in a blue moon, but we have a rapid and inspiring tribal antibody response that detects and ejects such entrants, so they don’t last long.  Which means we’re free to engage in very open and intelligent wide-ranging conversations.

In our brand new report for our premium subscribers, Adam and I share our own personal preparations for the coronavirus which — for reasons of not arming our critics with more ammunition for  “fear mongering” charges, and for our family’s personal safety, and given the fact that what works for us may not be appropriate for everyone — are not things we’re willing to broadcast to the public.

Finally, we’ve learned that when we recommend specific actions that can have an actual impact on supplies, we shoulder an ethical responsibility.  We trust our subscribers to avoid hoarding and be otherwise responsible in their purchases, only securing what they need and thereby also being in position to support others should things become dicey.

On that note, let’s review this passage from our book Prosper! because it’s important framing for everything that comes next:

Selfless Not Selfish

Another objection we hear to the prospect of preparing and becoming more resilient is that those actions could be seen as being selfish. Instead we see them as being selfless. Those who are not prepared when an emergency strikes are a drain on critical resources, while those who are prepared can be of assistance.

To be among those who can be in a position to render assistance, or at least need none of their own, means that your prior acts of preparation have selflessly removed you from the minus column and placed you on the plus side.

The first steps towards preparedness usually involve addressing your own needs or those of your loved ones, but many people then go beyond that and prepare for others who may not be able to do so, or have not done so, or maybe even will not do so.

But let us put an important qualifier on that; preparing before a crisis hits is responsible and selfless, but trying to accumulate necessary items during a crisis is an act of hoarding. We do not and never will advocate hoarding. Responsible preparations begin long before any trouble appears. Anything else stands a good chance of making things worse, not better.

The news has been full of stories of how people behave when scarcity strikes and they are generally not pretty. People in Boston fought over bottled water just hours after a water main broke in 2010. Nasty fights, too. In Venezuela, as of the writing of this book, desperate people are attempting to buy anything and everything that might remain in the stores as their national currency devalues by the day. This is bringing forth all sorts of government-mandated counter measures that make it impossible for many families to buy essential items.

We mentioned earlier that time may well be your most valuable asset in becoming resilient. Be aware that many things that are easily available now may be difficult to obtain later. Now, before any big crises have hit, it’s very easy to pick up the phone, or click a mouse button, and have the big brown truck of happiness roll up to your doorstep a few days later. Everything you could ever want to buy is currently available and stores are abundantly stocked in most countries. However, we can imagine a large number of possible futures where such easy access to consumer goods and desired items is either much more difficult or impossible.

The Time To Prepare Is *NOW*

It’s time to begin preparing.  Well, honestly, given the demonstrated threat of the Wuhan coronavirus, it’s past time — which means it’s time to begin preparing responsibly (no hoarding of items already in short supply like face masks, please).

This is especially true if you live in a country with substandard health care or a weak hospital infrastructure.

There’s room for hope that this pandemic will be limited by aggressive containment efforts. A vaccine at some point is highly likely.

But there’s no guarantee either will happen. Or even if they do, that help will arrive before the virus hits your community.

The odds of the virus threat are more than sufficient to cause me to take prudent defensible precautions now, to follow the developing news like a hawk, and to advise people to prepare today should they soon need to remain at home for days to weeks during an outbreak.

In this new report for our premium subscribers, How We’re Personally Preparing Against The Coronavirus, Adam and I share the steps we’re taking to protect our own families.

We cover both what we’re prioritizing BEFORE the virus hits our towns, and what we plan to do AFTER it does.

For those who choose not to subscribe, for whatever reason, that’s fine. We’ll continue our daily work here scouring the world of news for you and issuing as many videos, articles and podcasts as we can to distill the key insights we feel are most important for you to know about this swiftly-unfolding situation.

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access).