Matt Taibbi on censorship; John Cochrane on official lies; Emily Oster on living with COVID; Bari Weiss hosts a COVID journalist; Heather Heying on the Canadian trucker protest
In consideration of Cochrane's opinion I'll add that humans are both gullible and skeptical and sometimes this duality serves us well and sometimes it fails us. Furthermore, the things about which we are gullible and skeptical varies by individual and this creates a diversity of opinion and conflict between individuals and groups.
As a younger person I was more gullible of the things my tribe said and more skeptical of what those not in my tribe. When Colin Powell gave his 2003 testimony justifying military intervention against Iraq, I distinctly recall thinking the evidence was thin but I wanted to give Powell and the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt.
Now in my more seasoned age I have gone full George Carlin who declared: "I don't believe anything the government says." The more I see and hear the more I feel justified in this skepticism.
The American government response to Covid has been horrible. It has been defined by hyperbole, lies and deception, coercion and hostility. I think it a normal response for people to consider the government's behavior and be troubled by it, and become ever more skeptical of its claims.
My impression is the government officials who have acted badly and the "influencers" who support them are are blind to the duplicity. At each moment, they demand we ignore anything said and done previously. But we have memories and we have the internet.
A healthy government would prioritize the building of public trust. But this effort would require government officials to be dispassionate about political and corporate interests. Time and again we learn it is good luck to have a government that is for the people more than it is for itself. Most of the time we get the government we deserve.
"I wish we had one or two presidents of Ivy League universities who were as principled and articulate when facing demands from students who are offended." Amen, amen.
Thanks Arnold for reminding us the many Substack writers rising against the barbarians that are trying to censor those threatening their grabbing and consolidation of power. You should have read Chelsea Clinton's tweets for censorship --she is worse than her terrible and senile mother although she has been rewarded much more than Hunter Biden. You should paid attention to how Robert Reich and other little academics have been trying to censor millions of Americans. Btw, don't forget the many cowards at GMU that remain silent and prefer not to speak out against the barbarians.
@ Cochrane, on "so many Americans believe... beliefs that *wildly* get *wrong factual* costs and benefits, such as those of vaccines?"
Since Cochrane didn't deign to provide evidence that anti-vaxers are "wildly" wrong, Here is an alternative outlook:
"Pro-vaxers push beliefs that *wildly* get *wrong factual* costs and benefits, and bring with this pushiness a dogmatism reminiscent of totalitarian mov'ts of the last century.
Why shouldn't laymen wager, that this dogmatism bespeaks a determination to intimidate laymen away from the likely truth,, that these vaxes are the most deceitful products in the history of Big Pharma & the FDA?"
For the latest related bombshell, see the BMJ revelation that vax producers admit they’re *hiding test data* (’til at least late 2022?): see https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3775784 (“Until This Data Is Produced, STFU”)
It was smart for substack to stay web-based and accessible on the open internet via any browser, as opposed to something mostly experienced via proprietary smartphone app, in which case they become subject to pressure from Google and Apple, or more precisely, the pressure moves upstream to those companies and then through them. That still leaves the payment processing companies and the ISPs and in most other countries the government.
One question floating around out there is why substack should succeed now, since, after all, it is just widespread blogging reincarnated with a subscription option (which, IIRC, was already something people could do via WordPress plugin I don't know about Blogger). If blogging mostly died except for a few die-hards, then why won't this?
My speculative and provisional guess is that because the first time, all the riff raff piled in, in multiple instances of "eternal September". But this time, all the riff raff have *other* places to go, which are more, ah, 'compatible' with their preferences, dopamine triggers, impulsiveness, and other character deficiencies, and in general cater to the needs and multimedia desires of the vast majority of the low-quality population of our increasingly post-literate society.
So the other terrible social media apps are kind of like a pile of shit attracting all the flies, in which case, the riff raff are selecting themselves out, making the regular web internet safe for blogging again.
Heying protest the invisibilty of the convoys by the MSM. Well, a 50K truck convoy would be half the lenght of Canada and the province of New Brunswick ten times over. The Kingston convoy from the whole of Southern Ontatio had a hundred trucks and 200 cars. The 1.5 million turned out to be 5000.
It is obvious that Heying has no idea what a truck is or what is Canada. At that level, the only thing left is one more, one less, adjust the dose.
The masses of protesters, far from the "hundreds of thousands" that were supposed to appear, were a rather pitful by canadian standards. The 2012 "Printemps Érable"("Maple Spring") regularly brought 250K people each month for a year.
The "truckers" (most of the protesters are not truckers) are not affected by the vaccine mandates as, being unvaccinated, they are not involved in cross-border traffic. The vaccination is required by the US and "protesting" in Canada is somewhat pointless.
Their goal included that a "Memorandum of Understanding" be signed by both the Governor-General and the Senate (institutions with no power to wipe their own noses) to the effect of abolishing fderal, provincial and municipal authorities and replacing them with a "Unity Comittee" of themselves. Even the January 6 idiots were not that deluded.
Anyway, these nice "freedom fighters" blocked ambulance access to hospitals ,killing one person, vandalized hotels and liquor stores, broke into a homeless shelter and stole food, parked their cars and danced drunken on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, defaced the monument to Terry Fox (Canada's greatest canadian hero) and paraded ina various mix of Nazi and Confederate flags.
But they are the kind of 'freedom fighters" much admired by the libertarian cosplayers like Heying.
Schools start to realize that it's impossible to keep school open while following CDC guidance. Decide that only way to stay open is to not test and therefore not have any contact tracing and quarantining. End run around public health officials by not telling them they are wrong but denying the data.
This may be how a lot of COVID "ends". The laws stay on the books but everyone avoids testing so they don't trigger them.
Note this makes everyone happy because CDC can report "victory" as a result of their "guidance".
There really ought not to be a "phase transition" as Oster suggests. At every stage we as individuals and as policy makers should be processing information on the costs (including of course external costs) and benefits of different behaviors and taking the net benefit maximizing action? She gives a good example of this in that the recently recovered person does not need to take the same self protective and other protective actions that others do. But she could have generalized the point.
I don't see the anti-spread measures becoming "more authoritarian." Although patchworky, I'd say they have declined and ever so slightly become more focused on the externality of spreading the infection rather than self protection. The most important remaining failure is not to use cheap rapid screening test as an alternative to more costly anti-spread measures. Daily testing for example could allow less rigorous social distancing in schools.
I probably haven't listened to 99% of Joe Rogan's content, but what I have seemed just fine.
I think he even said he was going to get the vaccine, but something got in the way, then he got COVID, so he figured he already had immunity. This is a common story. I suspect a lot of people that haven't gotten vaccinated have natural immunity.
I think vaccine resistance is some peoples way of related to it being the only practical way most people can "resist" public health officials. They can't get the mask policy at their kids school changed, but they can refuse the jab. This makes even more sense considering that the vaccination rate among older Republicans is still very high, the signaling is mostly done by lower risk people.
Anyway, I've got COVID. I rate it a 5/10 in severity, though its lingered a long time. Not the worst cold I had this year, annoying but not worth what we've done.
My kids had it and I would rate it a 1/10 for severity and a 1/10 for length. I can't fucking believe they ever masked children, or that many school districts are thinking of doing it the rest of the year (and of course, if there is another variant this summer...).
Maybe people getting COVID is the only way for them to get over it.
I wish Taibbi had been a little more specific about who holds the position he (very rightly) criticizes.
Cochrane has it slightly wrong in implying that public health officials have only been exaggerating the harms of the various pandemic waves. Their messaging mistakes have been to give recommendations rather than criteria for decision about how both individuals and policy makers can reduce the harms in the most cost effective ways. [In addition the message to individuals (most tragically about vaccines) was only about self protection, not what we should do to protect others.]
In addition they did not allow development of effective anti spread technologies such as vaccines and cheap rapid screening tests quickly enough.
In consideration of Cochrane's opinion I'll add that humans are both gullible and skeptical and sometimes this duality serves us well and sometimes it fails us. Furthermore, the things about which we are gullible and skeptical varies by individual and this creates a diversity of opinion and conflict between individuals and groups.
As a younger person I was more gullible of the things my tribe said and more skeptical of what those not in my tribe. When Colin Powell gave his 2003 testimony justifying military intervention against Iraq, I distinctly recall thinking the evidence was thin but I wanted to give Powell and the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt.
Now in my more seasoned age I have gone full George Carlin who declared: "I don't believe anything the government says." The more I see and hear the more I feel justified in this skepticism.
The American government response to Covid has been horrible. It has been defined by hyperbole, lies and deception, coercion and hostility. I think it a normal response for people to consider the government's behavior and be troubled by it, and become ever more skeptical of its claims.
My impression is the government officials who have acted badly and the "influencers" who support them are are blind to the duplicity. At each moment, they demand we ignore anything said and done previously. But we have memories and we have the internet.
A healthy government would prioritize the building of public trust. But this effort would require government officials to be dispassionate about political and corporate interests. Time and again we learn it is good luck to have a government that is for the people more than it is for itself. Most of the time we get the government we deserve.
Very good articles. Thank you.
"I wish we had one or two presidents of Ivy League universities who were as principled and articulate when facing demands from students who are offended." Amen, amen.
Thanks Arnold for reminding us the many Substack writers rising against the barbarians that are trying to censor those threatening their grabbing and consolidation of power. You should have read Chelsea Clinton's tweets for censorship --she is worse than her terrible and senile mother although she has been rewarded much more than Hunter Biden. You should paid attention to how Robert Reich and other little academics have been trying to censor millions of Americans. Btw, don't forget the many cowards at GMU that remain silent and prefer not to speak out against the barbarians.
@ Cochrane, on "so many Americans believe... beliefs that *wildly* get *wrong factual* costs and benefits, such as those of vaccines?"
Since Cochrane didn't deign to provide evidence that anti-vaxers are "wildly" wrong, Here is an alternative outlook:
"Pro-vaxers push beliefs that *wildly* get *wrong factual* costs and benefits, and bring with this pushiness a dogmatism reminiscent of totalitarian mov'ts of the last century.
Why shouldn't laymen wager, that this dogmatism bespeaks a determination to intimidate laymen away from the likely truth,, that these vaxes are the most deceitful products in the history of Big Pharma & the FDA?"
For the latest related bombshell, see the BMJ revelation that vax producers admit they’re *hiding test data* (’til at least late 2022?): see https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3775784 (“Until This Data Is Produced, STFU”)
It was smart for substack to stay web-based and accessible on the open internet via any browser, as opposed to something mostly experienced via proprietary smartphone app, in which case they become subject to pressure from Google and Apple, or more precisely, the pressure moves upstream to those companies and then through them. That still leaves the payment processing companies and the ISPs and in most other countries the government.
One question floating around out there is why substack should succeed now, since, after all, it is just widespread blogging reincarnated with a subscription option (which, IIRC, was already something people could do via WordPress plugin I don't know about Blogger). If blogging mostly died except for a few die-hards, then why won't this?
My speculative and provisional guess is that because the first time, all the riff raff piled in, in multiple instances of "eternal September". But this time, all the riff raff have *other* places to go, which are more, ah, 'compatible' with their preferences, dopamine triggers, impulsiveness, and other character deficiencies, and in general cater to the needs and multimedia desires of the vast majority of the low-quality population of our increasingly post-literate society.
So the other terrible social media apps are kind of like a pile of shit attracting all the flies, in which case, the riff raff are selecting themselves out, making the regular web internet safe for blogging again.
Heying protest the invisibilty of the convoys by the MSM. Well, a 50K truck convoy would be half the lenght of Canada and the province of New Brunswick ten times over. The Kingston convoy from the whole of Southern Ontatio had a hundred trucks and 200 cars. The 1.5 million turned out to be 5000.
It is obvious that Heying has no idea what a truck is or what is Canada. At that level, the only thing left is one more, one less, adjust the dose.
The masses of protesters, far from the "hundreds of thousands" that were supposed to appear, were a rather pitful by canadian standards. The 2012 "Printemps Érable"("Maple Spring") regularly brought 250K people each month for a year.
The "truckers" (most of the protesters are not truckers) are not affected by the vaccine mandates as, being unvaccinated, they are not involved in cross-border traffic. The vaccination is required by the US and "protesting" in Canada is somewhat pointless.
Their goal included that a "Memorandum of Understanding" be signed by both the Governor-General and the Senate (institutions with no power to wipe their own noses) to the effect of abolishing fderal, provincial and municipal authorities and replacing them with a "Unity Comittee" of themselves. Even the January 6 idiots were not that deluded.
Anyway, these nice "freedom fighters" blocked ambulance access to hospitals ,killing one person, vandalized hotels and liquor stores, broke into a homeless shelter and stole food, parked their cars and danced drunken on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, defaced the monument to Terry Fox (Canada's greatest canadian hero) and paraded ina various mix of Nazi and Confederate flags.
But they are the kind of 'freedom fighters" much admired by the libertarian cosplayers like Heying.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/30/omicron-states-education-coronavirus-00003424
Living with COVID watch:
Schools start to realize that it's impossible to keep school open while following CDC guidance. Decide that only way to stay open is to not test and therefore not have any contact tracing and quarantining. End run around public health officials by not telling them they are wrong but denying the data.
This may be how a lot of COVID "ends". The laws stay on the books but everyone avoids testing so they don't trigger them.
Note this makes everyone happy because CDC can report "victory" as a result of their "guidance".
There really ought not to be a "phase transition" as Oster suggests. At every stage we as individuals and as policy makers should be processing information on the costs (including of course external costs) and benefits of different behaviors and taking the net benefit maximizing action? She gives a good example of this in that the recently recovered person does not need to take the same self protective and other protective actions that others do. But she could have generalized the point.
I don't see the anti-spread measures becoming "more authoritarian." Although patchworky, I'd say they have declined and ever so slightly become more focused on the externality of spreading the infection rather than self protection. The most important remaining failure is not to use cheap rapid screening test as an alternative to more costly anti-spread measures. Daily testing for example could allow less rigorous social distancing in schools.
I probably haven't listened to 99% of Joe Rogan's content, but what I have seemed just fine.
I think he even said he was going to get the vaccine, but something got in the way, then he got COVID, so he figured he already had immunity. This is a common story. I suspect a lot of people that haven't gotten vaccinated have natural immunity.
I think vaccine resistance is some peoples way of related to it being the only practical way most people can "resist" public health officials. They can't get the mask policy at their kids school changed, but they can refuse the jab. This makes even more sense considering that the vaccination rate among older Republicans is still very high, the signaling is mostly done by lower risk people.
Anyway, I've got COVID. I rate it a 5/10 in severity, though its lingered a long time. Not the worst cold I had this year, annoying but not worth what we've done.
My kids had it and I would rate it a 1/10 for severity and a 1/10 for length. I can't fucking believe they ever masked children, or that many school districts are thinking of doing it the rest of the year (and of course, if there is another variant this summer...).
Maybe people getting COVID is the only way for them to get over it.
I wish Taibbi had been a little more specific about who holds the position he (very rightly) criticizes.
Cochrane has it slightly wrong in implying that public health officials have only been exaggerating the harms of the various pandemic waves. Their messaging mistakes have been to give recommendations rather than criteria for decision about how both individuals and policy makers can reduce the harms in the most cost effective ways. [In addition the message to individuals (most tragically about vaccines) was only about self protection, not what we should do to protect others.]
In addition they did not allow development of effective anti spread technologies such as vaccines and cheap rapid screening tests quickly enough.