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<p>Dave -<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
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<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>
</blockquote>
I understand that was how you wanted it to be interpreted, and I
agree that it can be interpreted strictly that way. If I didn't
know you at all, I might accept that the "subtext" as you
acknowledge it could/should go unspoken to. I found (at least) two
subtexts.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:249381e5-d636-44eb-a19a-0592d5e3acd7@www.fastmail.com">
<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>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:249381e5-d636-44eb-a19a-0592d5e3acd7@www.fastmail.com">
<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>
</blockquote>
<p>I wasn't thinking that much about THAT subtext, though I
recognize that it is a theme here and has been a point of
contention. <br>
</p>
<p>I don't feel like I've been able to weigh in effectively in that
particular discussion. I may have submitted a few posts, but more
likely I deleted my feeble attempts. My life's work began with a
pursuit of science in it's "pure" sense but morphed into a pursuit
of supporting and developing intuition and tools and methods for
supporting the development of intuition in the service of
scientific understanding. I encountered any number of "newage"
and "occultist" and "psychedelic" and other systems of
thought/belief along the way which were also pursuing the
development of intuition (or something seemingly like it? This
role has put me somewhat in "no-mans land" with many "serious
scientists" resisting the work I was doing, at least until they
had a useful/relevant experience on one hand and many "wishful
thinkers" seeking my support for their methods of seeking of
"truth". <br>
</p>
<p>Scientific Visualization, Visual Analytics, Info/Data
Visualization are some of the names that have been attributed to
that work, hidden within that is often a significant amount of
modeling and statistical analysis. If we take "Science" to be
roughly the process of "hypothesis generation and testing", then
there is a (I would suggest central) place for the intuitive in
"hypothesis generation". If taking psilocybin mushrooms, or LSD
or peyote or ayhuasca or meditation or fasting or sleep
deprivation or chatting with a dead white man, or anything else
vaguely like that helps someone generate novel hypothesis, then
more power to them and their method, whether they or anyone else
understands the mechanisms involved in triggering their
intuition. But none of that obviates the need for the second
part of that working definition "hypothesis testing". I don't
fault someone who pulls amazingly intuitive leaps out of their ass
(or their peace pipe or sex with a Gawdess) which are then proven
to be accurate by the resulting data gathered, based on those
hypothesis. If they are particularly good at it yet insist on
obscuring their "methods" behind arcane explanations, I might find
*that* a little offputting, but it doesn't change the validity of
the results. If, however, they try to parlay a few "lucky
guesses" (or vaguely-stated, goal-post moving revisionism) into a
claim for a "sure fire method" that they can't or won't explain,
then I'm not interested.<br>
</p>
<p>I also acknowledge that this is hard, and anecdotally we have
many examples of where an intuitive grasp of a phenomena preceded
anything like "proof" by months, years, even centuries in some
cases. This means that part of being open-minded means that a
lack of demonstrable "proof" (logical or statistical) does not
necessarily make a hypothesis wrong. It also means acknowledging
that an assumed "fact" (likely backed up by significant data and
applied statistics) may well yield to A) new data; B) possibly
supporting a competing hypothesis; or C) an as-yet unrevealed
hypothesis that fits the existing data better. And of course
this new "fact" is open to similar revision. Scientific ideas
like Classical Mechanics had to be give way to Relativistic and
Quantum Mechanics without becoming precisely *wrong*, just
*incomplete*. Other ideas like Aether and Phlogiston or the
Plum-pudding model of the nucleus came to be acknowledged as
"simply" *wrong*. That doesn't mean they weren't useful and even
reasonable models of phenomena... until experiments which directly
contradicted them were contrived. I use this often here, but I
*still* choose to speak of and even perceive the sun and moon as
if they are orbiting earth, even though *those* models are
patently *wrong* AND I know it to be so. Just because a model is
wrong doesn't mean it isn't useful, as long as you understand it's
limits.<br>
</p>
<p>So I will grant you (and others) that there are other ways of
"knowing"... but I don't happen to have any reason to believe
that they hold any objective reality... they are, in my
experience, always either "wishful thinking" or subjective
post-hoc rationalizations... the very thing I think you accuse
"scientism" of indulging in. WHICH IT DOES! The only difference
is that when science indulges in "rationalizing" one of it's
hypotheses, it is by following a strong general method which
includes repeatability by independent parties. I "know" a lot of
stuff, "deep in my gut" which I occasionally have to face as
*wrong* and sometimes even *wrongheaded*. I *think* some of your
task with "scientism" might be that it has become quite popular
among the "unwashed masses" and anything with a "science" label or
flavor or endorsement gets held up as high as "gospel" (in the
theological sense) is by another group (of groups) whose knowledge
is entirely passed down by "received wisdom" from a "supernatural
authority". I can see how frustrating that kind of "competition"
must feel to the "true believers"... Yes, there IS a cult of
"Scientism" which competes with other cults, but in fact that is
NOT the same as Science itself. <br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:249381e5-d636-44eb-a19a-0592d5e3acd7@www.fastmail.com">
<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>
</blockquote>
I also winced at Nick's melanin-content implication, which is NOT
unmotivated, but is often conflated with economic and class
opportunities. There ARE strong correlations there, but in fact,
white males *can* suffer equivalent barriers to success under the
right circumstances.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:249381e5-d636-44eb-a19a-0592d5e3acd7@www.fastmail.com">
<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>
</blockquote>
<p>I didn't, in fact, discern that as YOUR sleight of hand... it was
my own "trigger". Most of my riding years were in AZ which HAD
a helmet law which I observed fairly consistently (on paved roads
anyway), partly because I found a good helmet a good defense
against bugs, wind (hot and cold), and sun, and partly because I
knew I would not get more than a few miles down the road without
having to have an unpleasant conversation with law enforcement if
I did not. When I moved to NM, I went about 50/50 helmet/not for
the reasons above. I was MORE offended by seat-belt laws which
are not as patently conflicted ( I'm sure there are anecdotal
examples of where someone died or was maimed by a seatbelt whilst
someone else was miraculously saved by NOT wearing one) as helmet
laws. As a motorcycle rider, I knew I was easily MUCH more
exposed (with or without helmet) than as an automobile driver
without a seatbelt)... simple laws of (newtonian) physics balanced
those equations for me. To be told I was harming others by not
wearing a seatbelt feels patently incorrect.<br>
</p>
<p>The Subtext I *was* calling out (unsuccessfully) was the strong
implication that the threat posed by the COVID19 virus is not
significantly greater than the myriad current threats to our lives
and health. Several responded to that directly, and while I
didn't double check their numbers or sources, I generally believe
that in fact, COVID19 has been more devastating to life and health
than any other threat, and that being a network-transmission
"condition", critical intervention can (and did) change the
exponent on it's propagation with huge results in rates and
absolute numbers. Your post seemed to imply that the measures
taken to reduce the exposure/transmission rates were not useful in
reducing that exponent. It also seemed to imply that the threat
of overdriving the medical system's capacity (as already
demonstrated in Italy and elsewhere) was not worth trying to
answer either. <br>
</p>
<p>I share some of Marcus' cynicism which might suggest that an
*unmitigated* COVID-19 pandemic *might* factor in well on the
"save the planet (and humans) from humans" side of the equation,
but I don't think that was your claim. It is possible that a
crushed industrial commodity might be a better remedy than a
simple reduction of population... not sure. I also share what
might be your point, that we *could have* possibly achieved a
similar effect with significantly less economic impact. Due to
collaborations with people in Sweden, I have been very aware of
and have been tracking *their* alternative results and *wish for
us* that *we* were capable of a similar response. While you may
claim that the Swedish gov't/media is who is different and
therefore who made their (tentatively successful alternative) a
success, I would claim that it is the people/culture themselves.
The open-carry, red hat wearing, "Liberate XXXXX" protestors sent
out by the greatest red-hat of them all to try to rattle (mostly
Democrat) Governors into opening prematurely, as well as the
hero-worshiped scofflaws around the country (including POTUS and
VPOTUS) are examples of WHY this country can't pull off what
Sweden *seems to be* doing. Sweden asked a lot MORE of it's
people because they have demonstrated that they are a lot MORE
able than we are on average. I have nothing more than my
gut-instinct to back that up... after-action analysis may well
prove me wrong.<br>
</p>
<p>The game isn't over yet, so we don't know... but if *I* had to
make a prediction, I'd say that by your "Mission Accomplished,
There Was Never Really Anything to Worry About but Worry Itself"
date of Mid June, we will see spikes in the number of new cases,
leading to a new threat on the medical system capacity/fatigue,
and an attendant death rate (not to mention new and previously
masked or unrecognized comorbidities and harsh symptoms).
Science will have a better handle on the problem which will
include myriad new anomolous data sources, suggesting many more
subtleties, not an overall "nevermind" as I *think* you implied
would emerge.<br>
</p>
<p>I DO think that relatively low-density states and regions of
states with limited mixing may fare well (on average, but with
huge deviations with specific contexts such as on the Navajo
Nation and perhaps the meat packeing plants in the mid-west). NM
and UT may get off fairly easily (as we already have), but the big
urban/industrial centers, unless they are very careful are surely
going to see a lot more spiking in infections, and deaths before
we either find a new/good way of limiting the replication exponent
through changed behaviour, herd immunity, vaccine immunity. I
would like to *hope* that it is all just rhetoric and that as we
return to "social mixing" the bogey-man in the closet will show to
be just bad lighting shown by the crazed liberals, mainstream
media, fake science, and opportunistic elite alarmists.<br>
</p>
<p>Thanks to Glen for putting a pin in your prophesy. Mine is
perhaps a little more vague, so harder to measure... but I'll try
to think of something more specific and then get a pin in that as
well.</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
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