Robert Wright's anti-tribalism; Scott Alexander on Paxlovid; Freddie DeBoer sounds like Martin Gurri; Matt Ridley on the lab-leak theory; Infovores on uneven distributions;
That *LA Times* article buried the lede: "The report does state that, among its contributing agencies, four 'assess with low confidence' that the virus probably sprung from natural sources; one finds with 'moderate confidence' that the pandemic 'most likely' resulted from a laboratory incident, and three couldn’t decide between the two theories." In other words, four intelligence agencies find a natural source more likely (with "low confidence"), while one intelligence agency find the lab-leak hypothesis more likely (with "moderate confidence"). Three other agencies cannot decide which source is more likely. It kind of seems like we don't know. Razib Khan has said that as time goes on, he finds the lab-leak explanation more likely, since the probability of finding a wild bat coronavirus that matches goes down with time (we have already checked a lot of bats and continue to do so).
Rand Paul: "So when EcoHeath SAC014 and combined it with WIV1 and caused a recombinant virus that doesn't exist in nature and it made mice sicker, mice that had humanized cells, you're saying that that's not gain of function research?"
Fauci (slowly): "According to the framework and guidelines..."
Rand Paul (cuts off Fauci): "So what you're doing is defining away Gain of Function. You're simply saying that it doesn't exist because you changed the definition on the NIH website."
Note that Fauci doesn't deny that the NIH was funding the creation of modified bat coronaviruses viruses designed to be more infectious to human lungs, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci is saying that isn't considered gain of function research. He's playing games with words. He's lying. He's guilty.
The FDA is captured both by government bureaucrats and by Big Pharma and the result is a lot of bad decisions, bad communication and bad / inconsistent policy.
I tend to agree with Freddie that in this cynical, disillusioned age, most people don't have much appetite for the sanctimony and self-righteousness of our social justice apostles. The problem I see, though, is that a lot of these people have bound up their self esteem, identity, and sense of purpose with this movement, and they won't give it up lightly. What would they do with themselves, then? They'd just be another nit-wit blathering on the interwebs. It will take a good amount of sustained mockery to make anyone give up something that gives them such a strong sense of righteousness, and even then, I don't know if that will happen. People have become so information-siloed (can I use silo as a verb? Nevermind, I just did) that it's possible to avoid well-deserved mockery for a loooong time. For example, the other day I read Jonathan Kay's essay today in Quillette which kind of has some fun with, some laughs at, and some genuine sympathy for a particularly bizzaro-world "scholar" at Berkeley named Mel Chen:
On one level, the essay makes a genuine attempt to understand Chen's writing and thinking. On another level, it eviscerates it completely. This is satisfying to the reader, but what are the odds Chen will ever actually hear about this essay or read it? Probably not so great. The author's work of "queer-utopian imagining" and describing "queer ecologies" will likely continue undisturbed. Furthermore, think about the cultural and intellectual milieu one has to be in to produce something like "Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect" and have your peers laud you for it (the book won an award). It's one where reality has left the campus. This is a group of people with their heads firmly lodged in a large bodily orifice, and they ain't takin' it out to listen to any of us.
That *LA Times* article buried the lede: "The report does state that, among its contributing agencies, four 'assess with low confidence' that the virus probably sprung from natural sources; one finds with 'moderate confidence' that the pandemic 'most likely' resulted from a laboratory incident, and three couldn’t decide between the two theories." In other words, four intelligence agencies find a natural source more likely (with "low confidence"), while one intelligence agency find the lab-leak hypothesis more likely (with "moderate confidence"). Three other agencies cannot decide which source is more likely. It kind of seems like we don't know. Razib Khan has said that as time goes on, he finds the lab-leak explanation more likely, since the probability of finding a wild bat coronavirus that matches goes down with time (we have already checked a lot of bats and continue to do so).
"The intelligence report ... effectively demolishes the lab-leak theory."
Is Kling serious? That click-baity, non-serious phrasing.
I'd like to see Kling comment on this article:
https://nypost.com/2021/11/04/letter-confirms-wuhan-lab-virus-study-was-funded-by-taxpayers/
Rand Paul: "So when EcoHeath SAC014 and combined it with WIV1 and caused a recombinant virus that doesn't exist in nature and it made mice sicker, mice that had humanized cells, you're saying that that's not gain of function research?"
Fauci (slowly): "According to the framework and guidelines..."
Rand Paul (cuts off Fauci): "So what you're doing is defining away Gain of Function. You're simply saying that it doesn't exist because you changed the definition on the NIH website."
Note that Fauci doesn't deny that the NIH was funding the creation of modified bat coronaviruses viruses designed to be more infectious to human lungs, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci is saying that isn't considered gain of function research. He's playing games with words. He's lying. He's guilty.
The FDA is captured both by government bureaucrats and by Big Pharma and the result is a lot of bad decisions, bad communication and bad / inconsistent policy.
Was Anthony Huber more the type out for the excitement or to protest?
IMHO the overlap between protesters and rioter/looters/thrill seekers is small.
Since this post didn't include a link to the original deBoer quote, I had to find it, at
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-witching-hour-approaches .
OK, I can see it as "well crafted", but otherwise hardly better than trite.
I tend to agree with Freddie that in this cynical, disillusioned age, most people don't have much appetite for the sanctimony and self-righteousness of our social justice apostles. The problem I see, though, is that a lot of these people have bound up their self esteem, identity, and sense of purpose with this movement, and they won't give it up lightly. What would they do with themselves, then? They'd just be another nit-wit blathering on the interwebs. It will take a good amount of sustained mockery to make anyone give up something that gives them such a strong sense of righteousness, and even then, I don't know if that will happen. People have become so information-siloed (can I use silo as a verb? Nevermind, I just did) that it's possible to avoid well-deserved mockery for a loooong time. For example, the other day I read Jonathan Kay's essay today in Quillette which kind of has some fun with, some laughs at, and some genuine sympathy for a particularly bizzaro-world "scholar" at Berkeley named Mel Chen:
https://quillette.com/2021/...
On one level, the essay makes a genuine attempt to understand Chen's writing and thinking. On another level, it eviscerates it completely. This is satisfying to the reader, but what are the odds Chen will ever actually hear about this essay or read it? Probably not so great. The author's work of "queer-utopian imagining" and describing "queer ecologies" will likely continue undisturbed. Furthermore, think about the cultural and intellectual milieu one has to be in to produce something like "Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect" and have your peers laud you for it (the book won an award). It's one where reality has left the campus. This is a group of people with their heads firmly lodged in a large bodily orifice, and they ain't takin' it out to listen to any of us.