<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title><style type="text/css">p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Steve,<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">You noted,<i> "I simply can't read this as a "simple observation /
prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and
assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either
questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting."</i><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Nevertheless, that is exactly what I intend — a prediction that will or will not be borne out. If not, everyone gets a chance to jeer at the wannabee Nostradamus. If it does, then maybe a discussion of why; the reasons behind the prediction.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I will cede, immediately, that there is a very strong subtext. For the last month or more I have seen this list, and a few virtual FRIAMS, almost exclusively devoted to "scientific," statistical, epidemiological, models and projections of the virus and what the future holds based on those models, that math, that science.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">As if there was no other data set, no other way of thinking about the problem, no other way of making projections and predictions, no other way of making sense of the data. No other foundation upon which to make decisions.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">My prediction is a challenge to a gentleperson's duel with regard that "as if ..." And, it is a continuation of a theme I have harped on before - there are other ways of knowing and other things to know about that are important but neglected because of the dominance of Scientism.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Certainly, the observations are grounded in particular perspectives and those should be examined. But later, if the prediction holds, more or less. At this moment they are merely a distraction. {BTW, Nick, white versus brown is almost incidental - the conflict is between the 10-15% and the 85-90%, an economic distinction.]<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">It was quite clever of you to see behind the seat belt facade and discern I was really talking about helmets. The perception is that helmets increase safety. Both riders and EMTs refer to helmets as "brain buckets" in that they hold the demolished and messy contents of the head surrounded by the helmet. A helmet is designed to protect the wearer from impact injury equivalent to a one-pound weight dropped from a height of 5 feet. Not much protection if you are traveling at 50 KPH flying through the air and hitting a tree head on. At the same time, wearing a helmet increases by roughly 65% your odds of being in an accident and triples the odds that the accident will result in a spinal cord injury and paralysis.<u> Amazing how fast I switch sides and let the "science determine" the advisability of wearing a helmet. :)</u><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Mon, May 11, 2020, at 10:49 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><div>Dave -<br></div><div> <br></div><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:952b63d5-9b70-4082-9647-8f6a9ec7ca37@www.fastmail.com"><pre class="qt-moz-quote-pre">The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and the perceptual.
The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made widely available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or may not be soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based prognostications will be confirmed. And none of this will matter.
A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
"Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift — after all, my individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."
Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and socio-economic restrictions will collapse.
The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the infection/death rate.
Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will become "acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.
There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and individuals who have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — who will argue against these changes but their objections will be quickly countered with, "why should I suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do not share — to cater to your fears or your ego?"
None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple observation / prediction.<br></pre></blockquote><p><i>Look away...nothing to see here... move along... nothing up my
sleev</i>e!<br></p><p>Glen (and others here) often use the idiom of "strawman" and
"steelman" as apparatus for argument or maybe more to the point of
my interest, illuminating dialog. I would like to bring up a
related idiom of "the stalking horse". I would like to submit
your prediction here as such is significantly meant (and taken) as
a "stalking horse"... And the p;oint of it is "what is it helping
us to think about in a different way?"<br></p><p>I simply can't read this as a "simple observation /
prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and
assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either
questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting. <br></p><p>I don't want to bash you with this Dave, just put it out on the
table in the same spirit I think you are offering these
observations. What DOES this observation expose and what does it
(perhaps) obscure? Can it do both at the same time? <br></p><blockquote><pre class="qt-moz-quote-pre"><i>A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
</i><br></pre></blockquote><p>I think this phrase (framed by other phrases like "media
hysteria") suggests that whatever this pandemic (virtually?) the
entire planet has been experiencing is predominately a
psychological/social experience, rather than the
biological/physiological phenomenon identified as SARS-Cov-2 and
it's biological coupling with it's newly found host population of
modern humans who live, work, and socialize in confined spaces and
travel widely (often in closely confined conveyances). It seems
to imply that this last 4-8 weeks of radical self/government
incited social-distancing has had NO (or little) effect on the
biological reality of the network spread of a human-human airborne
disease, and that it has been ENTIRELY (or mostly) a tool of
social manipulation and control (and/or self-soothing?). <br></p><p>I don't want to suggest for a moment that we as a people/culture
are not capable of mass hysteria or mass illusions... and in fact
would submit that ideas like "politics" or "economy" or "society"
are constructed on precisely that. The part of your observation
(without accepting or rejecting the prediction aspect) that
exposes that aspect I think is very important... but to expose it
in a way that is limited to undermining *one* illusion, whilst
supporting *yet another* does not improve our circumstance, but
rather simply stirs the mud in a different direction.<br></p><p>I think your allusion to seat-belt laws (and my own extension of
that to motorcycle helmet laws) is apt and relevant but wrong.
Both seem to *only* preserve the sensitivities and sensibilities
of the public and/or emergency-response people who have to scrape
up the gore that might have been mildly less gory with those
safety devices in use. I will also admit (in this tangent) that
seat-belts and helmets usually/mostly also help to shift the costs
of insurance-supported-recovery from/to funeral expenses, etc.
I'm fairly confident that the my wearing a mask while mixing in a
population whose R0 is close to or above 1.0 (whether from herd
immunity or lack of infection in the community or effective
prophylaxis) protects others from the *probability* of my
infecting them, as well as *signalling* to them that *I* believe
R0 to be sufficiently high without it so as to want to reduce my
own participation with this asymmetric "spittle barrier". <br></p><p>I currently never leave my property without a bandana and raise
it over my mouth and nose anytime I expect to be within a few
yards of other people or am on approach to them. I am *over*
careful with this by some standards for two specific reasons
related to your "perception" point. I want to reinforce the idea
that it is prudent for everyone who might have the virus to keep
their spittle to themselves whether it is a cough, a sneeze, or
just the specks that fly while speaking whether currently in a
frothy mood or not. I also feel *midly* safer with that in place
while standing opposite someone *without* their own face-covering
and without a sneeze shield (virtually all retail encounters?)
between us. I also almost entirely avoid close contact (same
room) with anyone I recognize as high-risk (elderly,
immuno-compromised, etc.) and maintain the 6'+ prescribed distance
from everyone not already "in my pod" (nod to Nick's term) with or
without masks.<br></p><p>- Steve<br></p><p><br></p><pre class="qt-moz-quote-pre"><br></pre><blockquote><br></blockquote><p><br></p><p><br></p><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:952b63d5-9b70-4082-9647-8f6a9ec7ca37@www.fastmail.com"><pre class="qt-moz-quote-pre">davew
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