717 karma · joined October 7, 2019
1) Establish a false dichotomy ("All vaccines are good, all vaccines are bad")
2) Come up with a pithy slur for the other side ("Antivaxx")
3) Emphasize the looniest people on the other side, ignore and hide the reasonable people on the other side.
4) Use this slur to browbeat moderates, the skeptical, the unsure and the open minded into silence.
It's very effective.
Yes.
Are there reasonable people with valid concerns and perspectives worth considering?
Also yes.
No matter what you do, people will think it is profoundly smart.
Are there other variables involved? Were those different times? Grand Rapids had the lowest mortality rate and, if I'm reading the chart right, had no NPIs. Why?
People pushing these hysterical false dichotomies (coupled with a hefty amount virtue signalling) are going to be responsible for a huge amount of human suffering in the coming months and years.
The linked article does not say that the cities locked down, only that they implemented what they call Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). They didn't say that they locked everyone inside.
The evidence offered shows that the west wasn't has hard hit as the east. I can think of all sorts of confounding variables in that situation, particularly back then when the east was much more heavily industrialized.
It is possible that if we had quarantined the at risk population and focused our efforts on reasonable NPIs such as masks and social distancing, we could have kept the economy open, leading to far less suffering and death in the long run. Hysterical black-and-white choices like we are being given are their own form of gas-lighting.
Foreign Policy is the main outlet for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is one of the main organizations of the establishment. It is useful to read to see what the establishment is thinking, although of course one should not expect too much honesty.
This article is academically hysterical in tone and doesn't say very much, other than things are unprecedented and central banks are trying things on a scale never tried before. Of course the problems with globalization (which the CFR championed) will never be discussed.
It does mention a Debt Jubilee, which is the best option we have right now, but doesn't drill down on it. It says something about how dire the situation is that they will even mention it without completely dismissing the idea.
For those of you interested at home, Steve Keen is the economist who has done the most work on what a fair modern debt jubilee would look like:
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/manifesto/
It makes sense to call instead for a more active, more visionary government to lead the way out of the crisis. But the question, of course, is what form that will take and which political forces will control it.
The CFR has consistently advocated for global government, and you can expect this to be their solution to this crisis.
https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
Good example of someone who is smarter than you, dear reader, and can argue either side of a technical argument convincingly, even to himself.
We could have locked down the vulnerable (60+ and those with pre-existing conditions), and anyone with a temperature, focused our healthcare efforts on them and let everyone else go about their business with more caution (masks + hand washing).
We would have built societal (cows are a herd, humans are a society) immunity by this point and could slowly return to normal for the at-risk crowd.
As it stands, we haven't built up any social immunity and will have to wait over a year for a vaccine which, by definition, we will not know the long term effects of.
Louis CK's "OF COURSE... but maybe" skit:
It is ridiculous to have national elections matter so much at the local level and come down to a few counties in a few contested states, remote from the vast majority of citizens.
Edit: It's heartening to see all the principled federalism and subsidiarity here in the HN comments. I'm sure it would be the same if a Democrat were in office and a Republican governer were talking this way, no?
OK.
On the other hand, I think everyone would be better off reading Propaganda, by Bernays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)
It's short.
As the technocracy consensus has reacted to the election of Trump the band of acceptable discussion has narrowed a bit, but it isn't awful.
"Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that at least two gunmen fired at the President."
and
"The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Com...
But then the conspiracy theory meme just kinda mopped everything up, and that was that.
Kissinger should be regarded as the elite spokesman and what he says should be taken very seriously.
"Addressing the necessities of the moment must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and program."
This is not a surprising take.
" The pandemic has prompted an anachronism, a revival of the walled city in an age when prosperity depends on global trade and movement of people."
OK.
We get it, we are going to have to shut down the main street economy for months, and potentially on and off for years.
OK, we aren't rioting yet.
So, elites, what's the plan to keep people from starving and being thrown out in the streets? A one time $1000 check at some point in the future isn't a plan.
People who swarm criticize anyone saying "this is crazy" need to start presenting feasible economic plans, or they are gonna see fully operational crazy in a month or so.
Individual investors and low level financial industry employees will be hit hard, but that's not who I'm talking about.
The main trade-off is that you aren't going to be able to so something hyper-interactive stuff like a game. If you try to push it too hard it will end up being a mess. OTOH, the closer it is to a traditional web app, the easier it is to use.
There are a bunch of examples of common web patterns here:
Elite wall street doesn't care when the economy reopens. They are gonna get bailed out by the Fed no matter what, and the worse it is on main street, the more assets they can buy up at distressed prices.
Main street is getting absolutely wrecked right now: barbers, restaurants, mom & pops, etc. Gates can sit in his multi-million dollar compound and talk about how we are gonna have to shut the entire country down for the summer. He is going to be fine, sure. But until he starts talking about how he is helping the average family feed itself he's just an impossibly out of touch elite, and, what is worse, potentially talking his own book.
And look what we got. Maybe that was the mistake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Aron
It appears that traditional marxism has been largely coopted by identity politics, as an intentional strategy by the corporate powers that be. This is why you see companies that are absolutely brutal towards labor virtue signal about trendy left-wing social issues.
Despite being deeply conservative, I see a lot of truth in Marx's analysis of the problems with modern financial capitalism. Paraphrasing Chesterton: right about what is wrong, wrong about what is right.
No, I will not be talking to my car.
Knobs and buttons with tactile feedback were great and should be used for major functionality.
My favorite fan controller of all time was a fan pull knob on a FJ40, which had physical clicks for each fan setting as you pulled it out:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/attachments/p13-jpg.509941/
It was intuitive and deeply satisfying.
You pay taxes on the gains over the initial investment. Why would where the money came from matter?
Capital gains should be taxed at windfall rates, say income + 10%.
Prioritize repeatable, stable profits over swing-for-the-fences highly-leveraged moonshots, and watch how many of these problems disappear.
You are conflating Christianity with a particular flavor of protestant evangelicalism.