[FRIAM] flu versus COVID

[Prof David West]

The entire campaign, as near as I can tell, is nothing except scare the crap out of your base in order to defeat the other guy. Both sides are guilty, albeit with differences in luridness.

Once you have appealed to, and convinced your side of, fear and loathing, there is no easy off-switch. This pretty much guarantees that the losing side will react to the results from fear and nothing else. The fractures will become permanent precisely because they are grounded in irrationality and there is no path back from the brink.

The classical response to fear is "fight or flight."

If Biden wins: flight will become the majority response of the losing side. Massive influx of people to what Brigham Young envisioned as the "State of Deseret." Home and self defense coupled with preparation to "repel" the invading feds will be cultural themes of the day.

If Trump wins: fight will become the majority response of the losing side. Violence in the streets, mostly focused against police, but also against anyone and anything deemed to be "pro Trump" in any vestige. All the pomp and pageantry of a revolution, but without a cause and lacking any kind of purpose.

Just observations, not aspirations nor convictions.

davew


On Sat, Sep 12, 2020, at 4:17 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Without picking directly on Dave, or using him as a proxy for or maybe
> just a whipping boy for the folks who continue to imagine that having
> Donald Trump and his gang of openly sycophantic and corrupt supporters
> in his cabinet and in Congress is actually a *healthy* thing for this
> country, I think the question of whether humans in general and US
> Citizens at this time, are capable of anything outside of an A)
> Mobocracy; or B) Oligarchy thinly disguised as a Representative
> Democracy.  
> 
> I've been guilty of being a very poor voter-citizen by one standard or
> another and order 1/3 or more of my fellow citizens probably have a
> story where I am a total moron/idiot because I don't agree with one or
> more of their trigger-issues.
> 
> And talk about persuasion/governance-by-fear:   As a registered DTR
> (declines to respond == independent) voter I've been getting a barrage
> of nasty garbage mail about the presidential election from the
> Republican Party of New Mexico...  maybe they don't waste the postage on
> registered Democrats?  Mary doesn't get these.    You can imagine the
> crap they insert into their imagery and verbage, but  if I didn't have
> any other source of information (or more to the point, primary evidence
> of Biden and his allies' record and public demeanor), I'd think he (and
> they) are everything just short of child molesters who are in the
> streets themselves beating up cops with their own night-sticks, and that
> the fires in Oregon are being started by them personally in Portland and
> blowing the embers out into the forests (that Republicans would rake
> into safety if Democrats would let them).  The photos are perspective
> foreshortened and blue caste to make you feel like the figures shown
> (e.g. Biden, Bernie, Kamala, AOC) are vampires looming over you the way
> Trump stalked and loomed over Clinton at the debates.
> 
> I don't know *any* Republicans who are afraid of COVID... well... except
> for my hypochondriac sister and family who seem to have slowly come
> around to have a perspective that aligns pretty well with that of the
> Dems, yet very well may still help (try to) Vote Donald and his cronies
> right back into power (just because?).   Sturgis the community was only
> 60% against holding the annual HD/Trump rally there and only about
> 10-20% of the usual attendees declined this year.   That doesn't sound
> like fear to me.   I don't hear Biden's campaign chanting "Lock them
> up!" even though it seems likely that The entire Trump family , his
> staff (present and deprecated) and some of his cabinet might well be
> subject to criminal charges without the current obfuscation,
> misdirection, and direct obstruction the (implied/implicit?) power of
> the office of the President seems to allow for, hiding the evidence.  
> 
> I *do* think that a solid 51% up to 60% of the population *are* very
> scared at the quality and quantity of damage to the "America" he
> promised to make "Great Again" if he gets another 4 years...   The
> Trumpsters like to throw out "Trump Derangement Syndrome" left and right
> (and Left and Right) in the attempt to characterize anyone who is
> offended by anything (much less everything) Trump does.  
> 
> My enemy's enemies are not my friends, but it IS heartening to see the
> significant backlash against Trumpism by many non-liberal, non-Democrat
> factions.   The Lincoln Project might be the most well
> organized/funded.   THEY are throwing fear and loathing at Trump... and
> I"m sure plenty of LIberals/Democrats love seeing that... and I suppose
> I'm just glad I don't have to get my own hands dirty (possibly?)
> overstating Trumps outrageous behaviour.  
> 
> The next 2 months (and 2.5 beyond) will surely prove to be interesting...
> 
> - Steve
> 
> On 9/12/20 12:42 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> > When the populace won't tolerate this the populace won't get this.   But mostly people are morons.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2020 11:33 AM
> > To: friam at redfish.com
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] flu versus COVID
> >
> > Nothing in my post was intended to malign Fauci, nor attack his credibility. I did attempt to call him on a specific mistake (one he may have later corrected). He is not among the "powers that be."
> >
> > I totally stand by my accusation that "governance by fear" seems to have become the default for setting policy  — fear of pornography to justify repressive Web policies; fear of drugs to justify repressive regulation on use; fear of crime to justify militarization of police; fear of WMD to justify Iraq; fear of terror to justify TSA, fear of extinction to justify carbon regulation; fear of COVID to justify lock down.
> >
> > I have a real problem with this trend. One, it denigrates and devalues the populace as too dumb to understand the real issues, the messiness of incomplete but increasing knowledge, and the complexity and provisionality of solutions; two, any error, however minor, has the power to call into question the whole; and three it is ultimately self-defeating.
> >
> > davew
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 12, 2020, at 10:42 AM, glen∉ℂ wrote:
> >> Never ascribe malice (or governance by fear) when incompetence will 
> >> suffice. -- paraphrased from some pithy archetype somewhere sometime.
> >>
> >> I was totally with you until the last 2 paragraphs, though I haven't 
> >> checked your facts. In my posts about "credibility", I tried to lay 
> >> out the idea that someone like Fauci is NOT properly labeled 
> >> [in]credible because of any single act/statement or even the truth 
> >> status of one or several acts/statements. Credibility comes from 
> >> consistent *care*, including revisiting things later and making 
> >> attempts to abut or correct previous acts/statements.
> >>
> >> Fauci shows such care. Therefore, Fauci is credible, even if he's made mistakes.
> >>
> >> When you talk about ruling through fear, the real culprit is, as EricS 
> >> pointed out, the political pressure on people like Fauci to render 
> >> opinions *aligned* with some party line. To accuse Fauci of such in 
> >> light of the recent news from Woodward's book and the pressure on CDC 
> >> rank and file is disinformation. You're focus on the victim makes your 
> >> post incredible disinformation, even if (or especially if) the first 
> >> part of your post is factual. It's a typical abuse of facts to foster 
> >> a false narrative.
> >>
> >> But it's also important to realize we're all, always, susceptible to 
> >> such faulty reasoning. Attempts to be diligent and correct in such is 
> >> the source of credibility. I was once accused of being a spammer 
> >> because I posted too much, even though my accuser admitted the
> >> *content* of my posts were on topic and not spam, the very volume was 
> >> offensive to him. This is yet another example of normal people's small 
> >> appetite for verbosity. Pithiness, pseudo-profound bullshit, and false 
> >> narratives are all aspects of the same beast. It's impossible to 
> >> harden ourselves to such risk without holing up in our echo-chamber 
> >> dungeons, surrounded by others who've "jumped over the bar" to be 
> >> included in our in-group.
> >>
> >>
> >> On 9/12/20 7:44 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> >>> Sloppy reporting, and sloppy pronouncements — yes, you Dr. Fauci — have contaminated the discussion about COVID and appropriate responses. Specifically with regard equating or improperly substituting IFR with CFR.
> >>>
> >>> IFR = infection fatality rate
> >>> CFR = case fatality rate
> >>>
> >>> A "case"requires symptoms.
> >>>
> >>> Seasonal flu has an IFR of 0.1% and a CFR of 2-3%
> >>>
> >>> COVID has an IFR of 1.0% [initially WHO and CDC stated a higher 
> >>> percent] and a CFR of 2-3%
> >>>
> >>> For whatever reason, Dr Fauci and other official statements have compared COVID's CFR to the flu's IFR to assert the "deadliness" of the disease and to justify draconian measures.
> >>>
> >>> Naysayers, compare CFR to CFR to assert that COVID is no more deadly than the flu. They are correct. With the "TRUTH" on their side, they rail against the lock down.
> >>>
> >>> There is a justification for social distancing and masks in the difference between IFR and IFR coupled with the higher infection rate of COVID and the flu( a lot of flu immunity exists), plus the "infectious phase" of 12 days (COVID) instead of 2 (flu).
> >>>
> >>> In my opinion the "powers that be" have such a low opinion of the average intelligence of the populace that they misrepresent the data in order to scare the crap out of people in order to get them to comply with directives instead of making the reasonable and correct, but more nuanced and complicated, factual argument for their policies.
> >>>
> >>> Governance by fear seems to be standard operating procedure these days. 9-11 yielded the TSA abomination (expensive, ineffective and annoying). Can't wait to see what COVID inflicts — especially with the talk of "forced vaccinations" I have heard bandied about.
> >>
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