As someone who has followed this from the beginning, I'm not sure I'm on-board with your point.
In May 2020, it wasn't in fact that important to identify the source as it was to coordinate a good response. in May 2021 auditing sources is now an appropriate project.
Some folks talking about sources in May 2020 were failing in their duty to prioritize coordinating a good response.
Some folks who wanted to shut down discussion in May 2020 possibly did so in bad-faith on one and maybe two counts... unless they are totally vindicated by scenario #1.
All of these things actually happened and it doesn't change the fact that you do the arson review after you control the fire.
I think it's important to segment the matter as one of scientific prudence and auditing rather than political side taking.
The highlevel survey of possible origins looks like this:
1. Zoological
2. Zoological related to work at Wuhan institute (i.e. bat guano thesis)
3. Natural Virus Lab Leak via negligence/accident
4. Natural Virus Lab Leak via gross-negligence/protocol failure
5. Engineered Virus Lab Leak (Gain of Function via various techniques)... Negligence/Gross-Negligence
6. "Bio-Engineered" weapon with malicious intent.
Personally, I think #6 was never really on the table... and I'm fine excluding it (absent some 'smoking gun' evidence) from polite conversation.
But #1 - #5? All plausible. And our position should be that it is important to understand whether 'mistakes were made' (scenarios 2 thru 5) by entities we trust with important research and funding such that those entities (and people) might be sanctioned from future funding and/or leadership roles in research and/or Lab management.
If we find that #5 played a role, there absolutely should be a review of the risks associated with Gain of Function research and weather it needs to be restricted to Labs with better safety protocols... or whether the benefits even out weigh the risks.
But the primary takeaway before it gets politicized (more than already) is that proclaiming that #1 was the and ONLY possible cause *without* access to all the data ... and with the data suppressed at the source. Well, that's a failure that may prohibit us from definitively making a conclusion about this event... but it is also a failure that should change our Funding and Research sharing processes - which are global and standards based.
This should be the baseline... it's an Audit, and if you're the Wuhan Instutite studying a virus that's also the source of a Global Pandemic... then yes, all your data and records and personnel records *have* to be reviewed without redaction. That's part of the Scientific Method. If this is prohibited, then it's an epistemic failure that must result in scientific sanctions.
10-yrs I've been coming to this site trying to inspire Chip out of his torpor to lead us to our distributist future, only to have victory snatched away at the last moment.
Having marched through the institutions the next phase of the revolution is to defend them against all possible attempts to improve them. Thus completing our mission.
~ Antonio Gramsci
Interesting point about Musk... but I'm not sure how that translates? Are we thinking a passive reality show that mechanically inclined Americans would watch to subsidize the making of the Moon shot? Plausible.
Or are we thinking bigger about crowdsourcing the Moon Shot! Become a legend and a b/millionaire if you can solve the radiation exposure problem with common household goods other than duct tape.
But more seriously, are we really getting at what "highbrow" is? It isn't A+ vs. B- I don't think. I'd suggest that Highbrow is 'gated content' or Esoteric in its purist form. It isn't that it's better, its that you don't get it if you don't have the requisite pre-requisites.
Greek and Latin don't make you better people, they make you better able to understand the jokes that allow you to sit with better people. Or it used to.
We see this in music all the time, especially classical music: usually it is the concerti written for the virtuoso artist of a particular instrument. These concerti are not particularly 'good' qua music, they are only good if you know how improbable they are to play at all. There are a tiny handful of pieces created that are both... but those are treated as transcendent genius precisely for being 'accessible'
So really, as far as I can tell, we're awash in Middlebrow... there's almost no Highbrow culture... just the brute force of $$. None of us have any notion that the Rich folks are highbrow, do we? Does Gates have taste? (Heh, well, that's fun these days). Bezos? Buffet? Thiel? Anyone? OMG, Zuckerberg? Or just the brute force of exclusivity by $$.
Other than being nervous that someone was going to serve you with a bill for the 'free champagne and heavy hors d'ouevres' you were scarfing at a party with our upper classes, none of us would feel particularly out of place... the topics would still be Game of Thrones or Bridgerton or football/baseball/basketball (depending on the mogul)... sure, you'd have to admit your car doors open side-to-side and not up-and-down and your boat is only cleared for lakes/rivers, but that's still just the middlebrow tyranny of $$.
A+ food is often middle brow; as a 'foodie' the closest I'd come to pointing out the 'highbrow' enclave (that isn't simply $$) is that some foods require an understanding of how difficult it is to prepare and/or pair flavors that make the achievement esoteric even when it's not accessible. Middlebrow is just mixing Asparagus and Jalapeno as an Ice Cream because it's 'wild'. A+ BBQ? Pisses rings around some of the technically brilliant foods I've had... but BBQ is pretty darn accessible... and strangely, some of the foodiest of food places are super accessible from a $$ point of view.
So my question would be where are the esoteric gates that aren't simply $$ gates? That's the enclave of the highbrow. Maybe fashion? Maybe certain forms of Art? But honestly, none of those are cultural signifiers and 'engagement' wouldn't be maintaining our intellectual curiosity about fashion. But they at least exhibit the esoteric requirements for 'Highbrow.'
Last weekend was our Covid Liberation weekend, so we had a weekend getaway with fancy meals... so now I guess it's back to mowing the lawn and pastures. Oh wait, this weekend is a friend's 50th which was going to be outdoors at their new party barn... and now that the Mask Mandate is gone will still be outdoors at her party barn. Will see some folks I haven't seen in over a year.
"They would defuse the bombs that could actually destroy their state in the long term: demographics and apartheid."
Freddie is attempting to navigate a domestic 'Thucydides Trap.' Basically he's arguing that Israeli Hegemony today is the reason why they should 'devolve' power *now* in a sharing agreement that brings along the upcoming power and aligns them with a peaceful transition to a Palestinian 'Secular' State with a Jewish Minority that's integral and integrated.
If they don't do it (now), then either that demographic has to be more forcibly removed/expelled or the upcoming power will eventually go to war themselves against the decaying hegemon -- and defeat the old regime with usually catastrophic results.
It's possible to navigate this, but, usually ends in war... I'm less sanguine than Freddie about the powers of Secular Liberalism to act as a magic balm. I see his logical steps of why it might, but they are laden with assumptions and, honestly, counterfactuals to lived experience in the region.
Which is to say, I thought his diagnosis of the interior dynamics of his faction forthright and honest... the obvious parallels and cross-parallels to US political dynamics is probably the better use of this article... But like most of us, the diagnosis is easier than the cure.
Heh, that's what got me thinking on it... it's hard to think of clowns who failed; like we have collective amnesia and/or we only want to track the failures who won.
Try googling for failures... it literally gives you a list of people who failed, but then overcome all the odds and won! Google assumes this is what we must mean, and maybe we do.
But then, perhaps that's the true Conservative insight: mostly we're failures with success bias.
"I don’t think you need to live with inequality to get economic growth.
It’s that economic growth will, by its very nature, create inequality."
We want inequality, but broadly based 'horizontal' inequality. It's the 'verticality' of the inequality that erodes trust, causes friction and ends with bad decisions all around.
Is it? Is it supposed to be ironic? I don't think I get it.
I mean, you're supposed to laugh at Bozo, that's success... who's the most spectacular failed inventor that everyone laughed at? That would provide the 'heightened contradiction'
But if the idea is that there are no clowns who think themselves geniuses... well then... that's good news for me, I guess.
One of my working dogs once mysteriously became paralyzed in his hind legs.
I spent a lot on money to learn about healthcare markets, death and sadness. It was all perfectly transparent and prices quite accurate. In the end, I'm sure my choices were perfectly rational. Still miss that dog.
Having sold to Walmart, it's interesting you bring it up because it acts like a giant single payer driving prices from suppliers down.
Are you advocating massive consolidation of Healthcare into one or maybe two primary distributors of services?
It would surprise me if you were... but as someone who negotiates prices on a daily basis, the managing/controlling prices angle of market analysis always strikes me as the weakest.
It is a little known fact that going to Disney with Boss's kids grants a plenary indulgence (under the usual conditions).
My wife and I have our private Covid-19 liberation day set for May 8; and as patriarch, I've set our public liberation day for June 1. The CDC is welcome to call me for rhetorical tips and graphics, if they'd like. Our 23yo is already vaxxed as childcare worker, the 20yo got first dose yesterday at the Amazon warehouse he's been working at this past semester, and 17yo is signed up and should get one in the next month or so...
Otherwise this weekend look to be mostly meh, chores, repairs, pastures, downed trees, maybe some stumps...
Which is both exactly right in the banal prosaic case *and* the philosophical argument that the Laws shape Morals.
I mean, having taken dozens of these CYA courses, I can imagine the future such that co-worker Suzie overhears Pam talking about the importance of choosing not to have downs-syndrome babies knowing that co-worker Divya has a downs-syndrome baby. Does Suzie a) Quietly take Pam aside and educate her about Downs-syndrome and Divya's child? b) Publicly confront Pam the next time she brings up the topic, c) Tell Divya about Pam's hurtful views so Divya can avoid Pam in the future?, or d) Discuss the matter with Pam's manager so Divya's views can be brought to HR for further review and possible action.
The levers of power are not shaped to one type of hand.
1996 Clinton speech writers:
*The era of big government is over.
2021 Rejected Biden speech writer ideas:
*The era of the big government we got after it was over is over.
*Government, it's gonna be YUGE
*Deficits don't matter
*Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help
*It's infrastructure week, baby!
Heh, we'll always have ribeyes. *I'll* have ribeyes, but they will be out of reach for the regular folks. Hopefully my ribeyes will get better since we won't be ruining our beef in the feedlots.
My status signal will be both financial and transgressively edgy... my instagram might even feature my enjoyment of raw meat.
Of course, people will tell me there's no difference in taste... and depending on how I feel and/or the audience, I'll let them believe it.
On “Wuhan Lab-leak Theory Timeline”
As someone who has followed this from the beginning, I'm not sure I'm on-board with your point.
In May 2020, it wasn't in fact that important to identify the source as it was to coordinate a good response. in May 2021 auditing sources is now an appropriate project.
Some folks talking about sources in May 2020 were failing in their duty to prioritize coordinating a good response.
Some folks who wanted to shut down discussion in May 2020 possibly did so in bad-faith on one and maybe two counts... unless they are totally vindicated by scenario #1.
All of these things actually happened and it doesn't change the fact that you do the arson review after you control the fire.
"
I think it's important to segment the matter as one of scientific prudence and auditing rather than political side taking.
The highlevel survey of possible origins looks like this:
1. Zoological
2. Zoological related to work at Wuhan institute (i.e. bat guano thesis)
3. Natural Virus Lab Leak via negligence/accident
4. Natural Virus Lab Leak via gross-negligence/protocol failure
5. Engineered Virus Lab Leak (Gain of Function via various techniques)... Negligence/Gross-Negligence
6. "Bio-Engineered" weapon with malicious intent.
Personally, I think #6 was never really on the table... and I'm fine excluding it (absent some 'smoking gun' evidence) from polite conversation.
But #1 - #5? All plausible. And our position should be that it is important to understand whether 'mistakes were made' (scenarios 2 thru 5) by entities we trust with important research and funding such that those entities (and people) might be sanctioned from future funding and/or leadership roles in research and/or Lab management.
If we find that #5 played a role, there absolutely should be a review of the risks associated with Gain of Function research and weather it needs to be restricted to Labs with better safety protocols... or whether the benefits even out weigh the risks.
But the primary takeaway before it gets politicized (more than already) is that proclaiming that #1 was the and ONLY possible cause *without* access to all the data ... and with the data suppressed at the source. Well, that's a failure that may prohibit us from definitively making a conclusion about this event... but it is also a failure that should change our Funding and Research sharing processes - which are global and standards based.
This should be the baseline... it's an Audit, and if you're the Wuhan Instutite studying a virus that's also the source of a Global Pandemic... then yes, all your data and records and personnel records *have* to be reviewed without redaction. That's part of the Scientific Method. If this is prohibited, then it's an epistemic failure that must result in scientific sanctions.
On “For All Mankind: A Peek Into What Could Have Been”
10-yrs I've been coming to this site trying to inspire Chip out of his torpor to lead us to our distributist future, only to have victory snatched away at the last moment.
"
In chapter one I...
"
Having marched through the institutions the next phase of the revolution is to defend them against all possible attempts to improve them. Thus completing our mission.
~ Antonio Gramsci
"
You forgot: FLAMETHROWERS.
Interesting point about Musk... but I'm not sure how that translates? Are we thinking a passive reality show that mechanically inclined Americans would watch to subsidize the making of the Moon shot? Plausible.
Or are we thinking bigger about crowdsourcing the Moon Shot! Become a legend and a b/millionaire if you can solve the radiation exposure problem with common household goods other than duct tape.
On “In Defense of the Middlebrow”
That's a getting closer to my point... what's 'highbrow' if the 'elite' can't segment it out by $$?
I'm suggesting Highbrow isn't a qualitative aesthetic, but a signifier.
What things do the people who go to Harvard use to signify that the Walton's couldn't get.
I think there are things, but they aren't 'high-culture' things.
"
"Crustpunk/Electroswing fusion"
Wait, is this an option?
But more seriously, are we really getting at what "highbrow" is? It isn't A+ vs. B- I don't think. I'd suggest that Highbrow is 'gated content' or Esoteric in its purist form. It isn't that it's better, its that you don't get it if you don't have the requisite pre-requisites.
Greek and Latin don't make you better people, they make you better able to understand the jokes that allow you to sit with better people. Or it used to.
We see this in music all the time, especially classical music: usually it is the concerti written for the virtuoso artist of a particular instrument. These concerti are not particularly 'good' qua music, they are only good if you know how improbable they are to play at all. There are a tiny handful of pieces created that are both... but those are treated as transcendent genius precisely for being 'accessible'
So really, as far as I can tell, we're awash in Middlebrow... there's almost no Highbrow culture... just the brute force of $$. None of us have any notion that the Rich folks are highbrow, do we? Does Gates have taste? (Heh, well, that's fun these days). Bezos? Buffet? Thiel? Anyone? OMG, Zuckerberg? Or just the brute force of exclusivity by $$.
Other than being nervous that someone was going to serve you with a bill for the 'free champagne and heavy hors d'ouevres' you were scarfing at a party with our upper classes, none of us would feel particularly out of place... the topics would still be Game of Thrones or Bridgerton or football/baseball/basketball (depending on the mogul)... sure, you'd have to admit your car doors open side-to-side and not up-and-down and your boat is only cleared for lakes/rivers, but that's still just the middlebrow tyranny of $$.
A+ food is often middle brow; as a 'foodie' the closest I'd come to pointing out the 'highbrow' enclave (that isn't simply $$) is that some foods require an understanding of how difficult it is to prepare and/or pair flavors that make the achievement esoteric even when it's not accessible. Middlebrow is just mixing Asparagus and Jalapeno as an Ice Cream because it's 'wild'. A+ BBQ? Pisses rings around some of the technically brilliant foods I've had... but BBQ is pretty darn accessible... and strangely, some of the foodiest of food places are super accessible from a $$ point of view.
So my question would be where are the esoteric gates that aren't simply $$ gates? That's the enclave of the highbrow. Maybe fashion? Maybe certain forms of Art? But honestly, none of those are cultural signifiers and 'engagement' wouldn't be maintaining our intellectual curiosity about fashion. But they at least exhibit the esoteric requirements for 'Highbrow.'
On “Linky Friday: People, or Lies, Slander, and Calumny Edition”
[LF2] I feel like Flannery O'Connor was just gunned down in a drive-by by Freddie "the Boar" deBoer.
Of all the dames in all the places, it had to be you?
On “Weekend Plans Post: Not Dreaming, Right?”
Last weekend was our Covid Liberation weekend, so we had a weekend getaway with fancy meals... so now I guess it's back to mowing the lawn and pastures. Oh wait, this weekend is a friend's 50th which was going to be outdoors at their new party barn... and now that the Mask Mandate is gone will still be outdoors at her party barn. Will see some folks I haven't seen in over a year.
On “IDF tweets footage of Iron Dome intercepting rockets”
"They would defuse the bombs that could actually destroy their state in the long term: demographics and apartheid."
Freddie is attempting to navigate a domestic 'Thucydides Trap.' Basically he's arguing that Israeli Hegemony today is the reason why they should 'devolve' power *now* in a sharing agreement that brings along the upcoming power and aligns them with a peaceful transition to a Palestinian 'Secular' State with a Jewish Minority that's integral and integrated.
If they don't do it (now), then either that demographic has to be more forcibly removed/expelled or the upcoming power will eventually go to war themselves against the decaying hegemon -- and defeat the old regime with usually catastrophic results.
It's possible to navigate this, but, usually ends in war... I'm less sanguine than Freddie about the powers of Secular Liberalism to act as a magic balm. I see his logical steps of why it might, but they are laden with assumptions and, honestly, counterfactuals to lived experience in the region.
Which is to say, I thought his diagnosis of the interior dynamics of his faction forthright and honest... the obvious parallels and cross-parallels to US political dynamics is probably the better use of this article... But like most of us, the diagnosis is easier than the cure.
On “Letter to a Young Conservative”
Re: Aristotle... cuttlefish biology is hard, tho
"
The guy who invented Zune?
Heh, that's what got me thinking on it... it's hard to think of clowns who failed; like we have collective amnesia and/or we only want to track the failures who won.
Try googling for failures... it literally gives you a list of people who failed, but then overcome all the odds and won! Google assumes this is what we must mean, and maybe we do.
But then, perhaps that's the true Conservative insight: mostly we're failures with success bias.
On “Darth Vader Visits HR”
Planets destroyed: 1
Deathstars lost: 1
Mixed results lead to no recommended merit increase this year; cost of living only.
On “Letter to a Young Conservative”
"I don’t think you need to live with inequality to get economic growth.
It’s that economic growth will, by its very nature, create inequality."
We want inequality, but broadly based 'horizontal' inequality. It's the 'verticality' of the inequality that erodes trust, causes friction and ends with bad decisions all around.
"
Exactly. But with someone everyone's heard of.
"
But if I'm Bozo I want you to laugh at me... all my self-evaluation points to: spectacular success!
Einstein:Scientists:Bozo:Clowns
But then, I've never really been impressed by Carl Sagan... so maybe the true lesson is the clowns we meet along the way.
"
Is it? Is it supposed to be ironic? I don't think I get it.
I mean, you're supposed to laugh at Bozo, that's success... who's the most spectacular failed inventor that everyone laughed at? That would provide the 'heightened contradiction'
But if the idea is that there are no clowns who think themselves geniuses... well then... that's good news for me, I guess.
"
One of my working dogs once mysteriously became paralyzed in his hind legs.
I spent a lot on money to learn about healthcare markets, death and sadness. It was all perfectly transparent and prices quite accurate. In the end, I'm sure my choices were perfectly rational. Still miss that dog.
"
Having sold to Walmart, it's interesting you bring it up because it acts like a giant single payer driving prices from suppliers down.
Are you advocating massive consolidation of Healthcare into one or maybe two primary distributors of services?
It would surprise me if you were... but as someone who negotiates prices on a daily basis, the managing/controlling prices angle of market analysis always strikes me as the weakest.
"
"Force medical care providers to have one price and publish it."
Like cars.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Disneyland”
It is a little known fact that going to Disney with Boss's kids grants a plenary indulgence (under the usual conditions).
My wife and I have our private Covid-19 liberation day set for May 8; and as patriarch, I've set our public liberation day for June 1. The CDC is welcome to call me for rhetorical tips and graphics, if they'd like. Our 23yo is already vaxxed as childcare worker, the 20yo got first dose yesterday at the Amazon warehouse he's been working at this past semester, and 17yo is signed up and should get one in the next month or so...
Otherwise this weekend look to be mostly meh, chores, repairs, pastures, downed trees, maybe some stumps...
On “Democrats Have a Problem, But It’s Not the One You Think”
Which is both exactly right in the banal prosaic case *and* the philosophical argument that the Laws shape Morals.
I mean, having taken dozens of these CYA courses, I can imagine the future such that co-worker Suzie overhears Pam talking about the importance of choosing not to have downs-syndrome babies knowing that co-worker Divya has a downs-syndrome baby. Does Suzie a) Quietly take Pam aside and educate her about Downs-syndrome and Divya's child? b) Publicly confront Pam the next time she brings up the topic, c) Tell Divya about Pam's hurtful views so Divya can avoid Pam in the future?, or d) Discuss the matter with Pam's manager so Divya's views can be brought to HR for further review and possible action.
The levers of power are not shaped to one type of hand.
"
1996 Clinton speech writers:
*The era of big government is over.
2021 Rejected Biden speech writer ideas:
*The era of the big government we got after it was over is over.
*Government, it's gonna be YUGE
*Deficits don't matter
*Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help
*It's infrastructure week, baby!
On “A Beef: No, Joe Biden Is Not Going To Take Away Your Burgers”
Heh, we'll always have ribeyes. *I'll* have ribeyes, but they will be out of reach for the regular folks. Hopefully my ribeyes will get better since we won't be ruining our beef in the feedlots.
My status signal will be both financial and transgressively edgy... my instagram might even feature my enjoyment of raw meat.
Of course, people will tell me there's no difference in taste... and depending on how I feel and/or the audience, I'll let them believe it.