Where are the usual attacks on white male-dominated science? Where’s the “standpoint epistemology” to tell us how different is the knowledge intersectionally-appropriate feminist scientists would bring to this crucial problem? How many of those labs fiercely trying to find a treatment, a vaccine, a path forward, have a demographically appropriate number of women researchers? Not to mention racially and sexually “diverse” ones? What can possibly explain the lack of attention to this terrible problem of marginalization of the already oppressed?
Transformative hermaneutics
Hey, where'd y'all go?
Security theater
From Jim Geraghty's interview with a hospital honcho:
“Go out to the supermarket or the hardware store or wherever else people are being instructed to wear a mask or other facial covering, and you’ll see about half of them have pulled the mask down off their nose because it’s uncomfortable to breathe,” he said. “That totally defeats the purpose. There are people spending stupid amounts of money to buy N95s, and then wear them with big gaps around their mouth because they don’t take the time to learn how to use them properly — and they keep using them, even after they’re physically broken down and can’t seal properly. If I wanted to be one of those Karen scolds, I could get my [thrills] all day lecturing those folks, but since this is the epidemiologic equivalent of TSA Security Theater, and the typical American puts personal comfort and convenience first, it’s not worth doing. Then again, I’m not one of those persons who gets their [thrills] bossing others around.”
The man could turn a phrase
I don't when I've ever read such a brief, deadly letter, especially the devastating use of the "Yours" convention in the closing:
Philadelphia, July 5, 1775.
Mr. Strahan:--You are a member of parliament, and one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns, and murder our people. Look upon your hands! They are stained with the blood of your relations. You and I were long friends:--you are now my enemy, and I am
Yours, B. Franklin.
Good if True
ROK scientists believe that you develop a firm immunity from recovering from the virus. Of course it’s too early to know if it lasts from year to year, and of course there are frequent mutations; but good if true all the same.
John Keats, 1795-1821
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–
I hold it towards you.
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–
I hold it towards you.
The fog of medical war
WIRED so often runs annoying agitpop articles that it's a pleasure to find another piece there without an axe to grind, this time examining the continuing confusion over whether chloroquine is effective in COVID-19. The author manages to point out that the opponents of the drug aren't yet in any more position to be sure that it's a failure than its advocates are in a position to know that it's a success. All this without taking more than a few tiny potshots at President Trump.
I admit, however, to some disappointment. I hoped by now we'd have clear evidence, and obviously it would have been nice to get confirmation that the drug works.
I admit, however, to some disappointment. I hoped by now we'd have clear evidence, and obviously it would have been nice to get confirmation that the drug works.
Georgia Leads the Way
Governor Kemp, scoundrel though he is, has been making some strong moves lately. Georgia has scrapped driver's license tests for teenagers, leaving it to parents to determine when skills are strong enough to justify the state issuing a license. They're pursuing the most aggressive re-opening plan in America. And they've ordered state agencies to plan for $3.5 Billion in cuts to balance out extra spending from the emergency.
Maybe being the most aggressive isn't the right road; maybe a middle path is wiser. The state is definitely showing commitment to individual liberty in a time of crisis, though, which is praiseworthy. I hope it works out well, and that the harm is as minimal as possible along the path they've chosen. One harm or another is unavoidable, whichever path is chosen.
Maybe being the most aggressive isn't the right road; maybe a middle path is wiser. The state is definitely showing commitment to individual liberty in a time of crisis, though, which is praiseworthy. I hope it works out well, and that the harm is as minimal as possible along the path they've chosen. One harm or another is unavoidable, whichever path is chosen.
Armed Protesters Swarm Michigan Statehouse
The armed protest in Virginia a few months ago was friendly, peaceful, and completely failed to prevent the governor and legislature from enacting unconstitutional laws. In Michigan, today, a much smaller but much angrier protest is likely to encourage a governor with proven disdain for the Constitution and its norms to call out the National Guard. Of course, sentiment in the National Guard probably runs against her; and the President can always call the guard into Federal service and overrule her orders if he decides to do so.
Interesting times.
UPDATE:
She's calling the thunder.
Interesting times.
UPDATE:
She's calling the thunder.
Karen
You're probably aware of the development of a new stereotype called "Karen," a middle-aged white woman who acts from a position of tremendous cultural privilege. She's rude to workers, demands to see the manager and then chews them out because she isn't satisfied with the service, demands freebies and discounts and generally to be satisfied by someone else doing more for her.
I noticed today that both sides of the American virus discussion think that Karen is on the other side.
If you're on the keep-it-closed side, Karen is a woman who is ridiculously pushing for business to re-open even though it will endanger workers, because she wants those businesses to provide her with hairstyles and manicures and other luxuries, and to use shopping as an escape from her horribly-behaved children.
If you're on the open-it-up side, Karen is privileged enough to work from home or have a husband who supports her, and she is unconcerned with suffering and ruin being brought on business owners or workers put out of a job. Instead, she's calling the cops on you for letting your kids play at the neighbor's house, and leaving aggressive notes on your door if she noticed someone delivering groceries 'because quarantine means no visitors!'
Of course there are probably many tokens of both types in the real world, but it's amusing to me to see the disconnect. Both sides are sure Karen is a bad person, but they both think she's the other kind of person.
I noticed today that both sides of the American virus discussion think that Karen is on the other side.
If you're on the keep-it-closed side, Karen is a woman who is ridiculously pushing for business to re-open even though it will endanger workers, because she wants those businesses to provide her with hairstyles and manicures and other luxuries, and to use shopping as an escape from her horribly-behaved children.
If you're on the open-it-up side, Karen is privileged enough to work from home or have a husband who supports her, and she is unconcerned with suffering and ruin being brought on business owners or workers put out of a job. Instead, she's calling the cops on you for letting your kids play at the neighbor's house, and leaving aggressive notes on your door if she noticed someone delivering groceries 'because quarantine means no visitors!'
Of course there are probably many tokens of both types in the real world, but it's amusing to me to see the disconnect. Both sides are sure Karen is a bad person, but they both think she's the other kind of person.
Overconfidence
A military AI outperforms humans in correctly lowering its confidence when judgments are made on limited information:
They couldn’t explain why they were overconfident; they just were. Overconfidence is human and a particular trait among highly functioning expert humans, one that machines don’t necessarily share.It's worth remembering that, especially if you happen to be a high-functioning expert human. At least some of you are.
Go North From Jupiter
A fascinating article explores some new findings in the world of physics.
“And it seems to be supporting this idea that there could be a directionality in the universe, which is very weird indeed,” Professor Webb says.He goes on to say that these findings are so new and so weird that he's skeptical of them for now, even though it's his own work. That sounds like a real scientist to me.
“So the universe may not be isotropic in its laws of physics – one that is the same, statistically, in all directions. But in fact, there could be some direction or preferred direction in the universe where the laws of physics change, but not in the perpendicular direction. In other words, the universe in some sense, has a dipole structure to it.
“In one particular direction, we can look back 12 billion light years and measure electromagnetism when the universe was very young. Putting all the data together, electromagnetism seems to gradually increase the further we look, while towards the opposite direction, it gradually decreases. In other directions in the cosmos, the fine structure constant remains just that – constant. These new very distant measurements have pushed our observations further than has ever been reached before.”
In other words, in what was thought to be an arbitrarily random spread of galaxies, quasars, black holes, stars, gas clouds and planets – with life flourishing in at least one tiny niche of it – the universe suddenly appears to have the equivalent of a north and a south.
Ethics and Re-Opening
Here is a proposal by an author you know well for approaching the problem of re-opening given that all options entail highly undesirable consequences. It may be right or wrong, but it does at least lay out clear principles.
There is no option that does not entail extra deaths. Medical professionals seem to think that we will experience thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of extra deaths if we re-open quickly. The UN has produced two reports lately on the effects of the shut down, one of which says that hundreds of thousands of extra children will die of starvation; the other of which says that over a hundred million people will be pushed to the edge of starvation by the economic lockdowns.
So we have to choose between dark roads. That's the problem the model tries to address.
There is no option that does not entail extra deaths. Medical professionals seem to think that we will experience thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of extra deaths if we re-open quickly. The UN has produced two reports lately on the effects of the shut down, one of which says that hundreds of thousands of extra children will die of starvation; the other of which says that over a hundred million people will be pushed to the edge of starvation by the economic lockdowns.
So we have to choose between dark roads. That's the problem the model tries to address.
Intellectual relativism
This is a very peculiar article at Politico, arguing that in a pandemic, everyone is a "moral relativist," because if you're honest with yourself, you're willing to let someone die in order to open the economy back up.
If you've ever wondered why it's so hard to talk to a moral relativist about moral relativism, the article sheds a little light. The author, at least, thinks that moral relativism means being willing to accept the idea that a policy might not be effective in producing 100% safety. It doesn't occur to him to wonder, on the other hand, whether the policy he would prefer--keeping the economy shut down--would produce 100% safety. Has he asked himself whether he's willing to let someone die in order to prevent the economy from opening back up? I suspect he operates entirely on emotion, which makes these questions meaningless.
A standard definition would be that moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others. What would be the moral judgment here? That saving a life is, on the whole, a worthy objective? That's the one area where there's no particular disagreement in the current pandemic policy debate. We're not even arguing about whether one probable saved life is more worthy than another, or how to weigh non-fatal damage against fatal damage. It's not moral relativism to consider whether a cure is more damaging than a disease. A truly morally relativist approach to the COVID-19 policy dilemma would be to question the assumption that saving lives is a moral imperative at all, and to criticize a would-be life-saver as privileging his pro-life fetish over some other value, such as community sacrifice, or extreme personal liberty, or strengthening the genome by Darwinian ruthlessness, or making more room in over-crowded nursing homes, or fattening the profit margins of Big Pharma. Alternatively, a moral relativist might argue that there was no infallible basis for preferring sacrifice, liberty, profits, etc., over longevity.
But if someone merely argues that he can tolerate the possibility that someone will die after a policy is implemented, you don't learn much about his view of moral relativism. He might think the body county is inevitable, or no greater than is likely in the context of some competing policy, or frankly unknowable at this point. He might come to all these conclusions despite entirely agreeing with his critic on the relevant moral judgments. He might equally well disagree on all the relevant moral judgments, without that's having any effect on his policy preference. The big difference would be that he openly acknowledges a belief that his moral judgments are based on a standard independent of his historical or cultural standpoint or personal preferences, and are "privileged" over moral judgments he considers wrong. His critic, on the other hand, is just as strident and inflexible in his moral judgments, but thinks he escapes the error of believing they are "privileged" simply because he can't articulate a reason for adopting them, clinging to them, or imposing them on skeptics--though he will certainly go on doing so.
If you've ever wondered why it's so hard to talk to a moral relativist about moral relativism, the article sheds a little light. The author, at least, thinks that moral relativism means being willing to accept the idea that a policy might not be effective in producing 100% safety. It doesn't occur to him to wonder, on the other hand, whether the policy he would prefer--keeping the economy shut down--would produce 100% safety. Has he asked himself whether he's willing to let someone die in order to prevent the economy from opening back up? I suspect he operates entirely on emotion, which makes these questions meaningless.
A standard definition would be that moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others. What would be the moral judgment here? That saving a life is, on the whole, a worthy objective? That's the one area where there's no particular disagreement in the current pandemic policy debate. We're not even arguing about whether one probable saved life is more worthy than another, or how to weigh non-fatal damage against fatal damage. It's not moral relativism to consider whether a cure is more damaging than a disease. A truly morally relativist approach to the COVID-19 policy dilemma would be to question the assumption that saving lives is a moral imperative at all, and to criticize a would-be life-saver as privileging his pro-life fetish over some other value, such as community sacrifice, or extreme personal liberty, or strengthening the genome by Darwinian ruthlessness, or making more room in over-crowded nursing homes, or fattening the profit margins of Big Pharma. Alternatively, a moral relativist might argue that there was no infallible basis for preferring sacrifice, liberty, profits, etc., over longevity.
But if someone merely argues that he can tolerate the possibility that someone will die after a policy is implemented, you don't learn much about his view of moral relativism. He might think the body county is inevitable, or no greater than is likely in the context of some competing policy, or frankly unknowable at this point. He might come to all these conclusions despite entirely agreeing with his critic on the relevant moral judgments. He might equally well disagree on all the relevant moral judgments, without that's having any effect on his policy preference. The big difference would be that he openly acknowledges a belief that his moral judgments are based on a standard independent of his historical or cultural standpoint or personal preferences, and are "privileged" over moral judgments he considers wrong. His critic, on the other hand, is just as strident and inflexible in his moral judgments, but thinks he escapes the error of believing they are "privileged" simply because he can't articulate a reason for adopting them, clinging to them, or imposing them on skeptics--though he will certainly go on doing so.
The Flynn prosecution looks worse and worse
The notes the prosecution finally had to cough up, and even unseal, are deadly.
No Opening in North Carolina
Governor Cooper is taking a more cautious approach than Georgia, Tennessee, or South Carolina. I had a moment of hope when he scheduled a call today specifically for the rural parts of the state. It would make a lot of sense to do as Texas is doing, and begin with areas of low population density and where new cases are not emerging.
But no, what he wanted to talk about was government programs. Reopening will have to wait until we have “sufficient” testing capacity, whatever that means, and he wasn’t clear about exactly what the standard for sufficiency is. It also has to wait until they’ve fully staffed a 500-person task force whose job is to track down all the people who’ve come into contact with any new positives and quarantine them.
Until then, hey, we’ve got all kinds of welfare options, and eviction protections, and we hope you’ll apply for loans to keep your business paying people. And we swear that improving internet access and quality out there is a real priority for us so you can work from home. That’ll happen any year now.
But no, what he wanted to talk about was government programs. Reopening will have to wait until we have “sufficient” testing capacity, whatever that means, and he wasn’t clear about exactly what the standard for sufficiency is. It also has to wait until they’ve fully staffed a 500-person task force whose job is to track down all the people who’ve come into contact with any new positives and quarantine them.
Until then, hey, we’ve got all kinds of welfare options, and eviction protections, and we hope you’ll apply for loans to keep your business paying people. And we swear that improving internet access and quality out there is a real priority for us so you can work from home. That’ll happen any year now.
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