I'm excited to see talk like this, but we do have a big problem: a whole bunch of our Third Estate is on the side of the First Estate. Hell, Trump's whole thing is getting the Third Estate on his side as a bona fide member of the First Estate.
There is a route to reigniting the revolutionary potential of the Third Estate, though I'm afraid a Democratic Party led by and subservient to the First Estate won't be much help.
They famously built one (I think it cost more than $11.6 million) that was finished early in the pandemic, but it was so poorly constructed that they just scrapped it.
I've read this paper. As I've said, there are people publishing lab leak arguments in the literature. This should a.) be pretty strong evidence that your narrative about suppression of this theory among scientists is wrong, and b.) not be taken as indicating that there is not a consensus.
It's important for scientists to publish ideas that challenge consensus, and they are doing so. Here you have a paper using a novel risk assessment method (novel as in, it's the authors' own method). I don't yet know of a reply to this paper, though I'm sure they're coming.
Oh wait, I think I see where the source of our disagreement lies: you think her having ideas that were very popular among Sanders' voters, but not the mainstream of either party, is a sign that she's terminally online, whereas I'm saying using online terminology like "woke gender ideology" is. The policy of opposing programs or grants or whatever that promote views of gender the Trump administration doesn't like, while bad, is not in itself a sign of terminal onlineness, nor is opposition to social safety net policies, but calling these things "woke gender ideology" and "Marxist equity" are.
The liberal equivalent might be her saying, "1312" in a memo suspending funding for police, or "eat the rich" in a press release about increasing taxes for the 1%.
(If you think those links look awful, you should have seen how it looked when I first posted it. Forgive me; I'm old, and these computing boxes confuse me.)
Ah yeah, I didn't remember where she said that stuff, but now I vaguely do. I'm still not quite sure how that's equivalent to "woke gender ideology," or an official memo, but you've brought an example, and I suspect we're simply not going to agree on their equivalence, so I'll leave it an acknowledgement that you at least brought a relevant counter.
OK, a Biden party influence is different from an official memo, silly as it was.
I don't know Harris' ACLU questionnaire, but could you just post some quick examples from it that you think are equivalent to an official memo saying "Marxist equity" or "woke gender ideology"?
This is perhaps true in an abstract philosophical sense: there will always be room for doubt in any empirically-based conclusion, but it is not true in any meaningful practical sense. We absolutely can know where it came from. For example, if someone were, presumably at great personal risk, leak genetic evidence of laboratory-held viruses dated well before the pandemic (say, from 2018 or early 2019) that matched early strains of COVID in China (we have their DNA makeup, and have since early January 2020), that'd be dispositive under pretty much any theory of knowledge short of radical skepticism.
The same is true if we were able to find samples from the local wet market from well before the outbreak (similar timeframe) with the exact DNA signature, except this would give us pretty firm knowledge that it was the result of spillover.
Short of these two things, we have to go with the data we have, which is samples taken from the markets early in the outbreak, as well as later samples, and deduction from the genetic makeup of the early virus. These will not give us 99.999999% certainty, the way the two pieces of evidence described above would, but they'll get us pretty close over time. To a large extent, they already have.
It's only a relevant counter if you can give equivalent examples. Then sure, we quibble over their equivalence, but at least we've got something to quibble over. Simply saying "both sides do it" is not really a counter at all, it's the wave of a hand.
If you find a scientist who has published their arguments in the scientific literature -- and there are some who have -- then it will not be hard to find several scientists who've rebutted those arguments in the scientific literature. This is an exercise you can complete yourself, and I would hope that, since you seem to have largely made up your mind, you have done so and merely concluded that the counterarguments were impotent or incomplete.
Ignoring Jay's BSDI, I think one of the differences in Trump Volume II is how many terminally online people he has in prominent positions, including Musk himself. Sure, there were some of them in Volume I, but most of his major people were more old school (and more old). It's probably also a recognition that a large portion of their supporters are so dialed in to right wing media and social media that "woke gender ideology" and "Marxist equity" are perfectly narrowly tailored phrases.
What it affects is going to ultimately be up to OMB. I don't see any indication that it affects Pell Grants, or funds to states generally, yet, but it's vague enough that OMB could shut down anything it wants, so anyone, from contractors to states to individuals, who receives any sort of federal grant money, should definitely be paying close attention.
No one thinks the science is settled. The science is, however, almost entirely pointing in one direction. Who knows what we'll find in a 5 years, or even next month? But right now, there are no good scientific arguments for a lab leak. There are, however, good political arguments for one, and the politicians are putting serious pressure on scientists, which your talk of censorship would suggest you're opposed to, but your continued beating of any talk of scientist with a stick suggest you're actually in favor of.
On “Trump’s Unforced Error”
Glad I went with this instead of my original comment, "You say you want a Revolution? Well, you know..."
"
I'm excited to see talk like this, but we do have a big problem: a whole bunch of our Third Estate is on the side of the First Estate. Hell, Trump's whole thing is getting the Third Estate on his side as a bona fide member of the First Estate.
There is a route to reigniting the revolutionary potential of the Third Estate, though I'm afraid a Democratic Party led by and subservient to the First Estate won't be much help.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
I'm really excited for the new Constitution to ban "Woke Gender Ideology," "Marxist equality," anti-fascism, and DEI.
"
They famously built one (I think it cost more than $11.6 million) that was finished early in the pandemic, but it was so poorly constructed that they just scrapped it.
"
I've read this paper. As I've said, there are people publishing lab leak arguments in the literature. This should a.) be pretty strong evidence that your narrative about suppression of this theory among scientists is wrong, and b.) not be taken as indicating that there is not a consensus.
It's important for scientists to publish ideas that challenge consensus, and they are doing so. Here you have a paper using a novel risk assessment method (novel as in, it's the authors' own method). I don't yet know of a reply to this paper, though I'm sure they're coming.
On “Memo: All Federal Grant, Loan, and Financial Assistance “Temporarily Paused””
I'm sure they are, but for better or worse, we'll never know whether they would have used the "I am once again asking you" meme in an official memo.
"
Oh wait, I think I see where the source of our disagreement lies: you think her having ideas that were very popular among Sanders' voters, but not the mainstream of either party, is a sign that she's terminally online, whereas I'm saying using online terminology like "woke gender ideology" is. The policy of opposing programs or grants or whatever that promote views of gender the Trump administration doesn't like, while bad, is not in itself a sign of terminal onlineness, nor is opposition to social safety net policies, but calling these things "woke gender ideology" and "Marxist equity" are.
The liberal equivalent might be her saying, "1312" in a memo suspending funding for police, or "eat the rich" in a press release about increasing taxes for the 1%.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
(If you think those links look awful, you should have seen how it looked when I first posted it. Forgive me; I'm old, and these computing boxes confuse me.)
On “Memo: All Federal Grant, Loan, and Financial Assistance “Temporarily Paused””
Ah yeah, I didn't remember where she said that stuff, but now I vaguely do. I'm still not quite sure how that's equivalent to "woke gender ideology," or an official memo, but you've brought an example, and I suspect we're simply not going to agree on their equivalence, so I'll leave it an acknowledgement that you at least brought a relevant counter.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
I dunno how to respond to a link to a Wiki talk page, but I can recommend this, and the works cited therein:
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jvi.01240-24?fbclid=IwY2xjawIGLypleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWomOrcIBe_iUiWbpbj6ZoSFfu-JjoScNehZvizY9avZG96I__pEajP61w_aem_4Dz7htJWLtKLWHfB_GG6CQ
Particularly:
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jvi.01240-24?fbclid=IwY2xjawIGLypleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWomOrcIBe_iUiWbpbj6ZoSFfu-JjoScNehZvizY9avZG96I__pEajP61w_aem_4Dz7htJWLtKLWHfB_GG6CQ
https://ct.prod.getft.io/YXNtLGFhYXMsaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2NpZW5jZS5vcmcvZG9pL2Ficy8xMC4xMTI2L3NjaWVuY2UuYWJwODMzNw.O_lDOw2Z1t6rJr6L4WNDYt28rjYviyiQIL0SZvW8Hw0
along with this accessible counter to the main lab leak arguments:
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/lab-leak-mania
And this more formal one:
https://journals.asm.org/servlet/linkout?suffix=e_1_3_2_15_2&dbid=4&doi=10.1128%2Fjvi.01240-24&key=10.1128%2Fjvi.00365-23&site=asmj
"
Sorry, yes, I should have just said genetic material.
On “Memo: All Federal Grant, Loan, and Financial Assistance “Temporarily Paused””
OK, a Biden party influence is different from an official memo, silly as it was.
I don't know Harris' ACLU questionnaire, but could you just post some quick examples from it that you think are equivalent to an official memo saying "Marxist equity" or "woke gender ideology"?
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
Yes, the FBI and CIA, two sources we should absolutely believe over the scientific literature.
"
and nobody can know where it came from.
This is perhaps true in an abstract philosophical sense: there will always be room for doubt in any empirically-based conclusion, but it is not true in any meaningful practical sense. We absolutely can know where it came from. For example, if someone were, presumably at great personal risk, leak genetic evidence of laboratory-held viruses dated well before the pandemic (say, from 2018 or early 2019) that matched early strains of COVID in China (we have their DNA makeup, and have since early January 2020), that'd be dispositive under pretty much any theory of knowledge short of radical skepticism.
The same is true if we were able to find samples from the local wet market from well before the outbreak (similar timeframe) with the exact DNA signature, except this would give us pretty firm knowledge that it was the result of spillover.
Short of these two things, we have to go with the data we have, which is samples taken from the markets early in the outbreak, as well as later samples, and deduction from the genetic makeup of the early virus. These will not give us 99.999999% certainty, the way the two pieces of evidence described above would, but they'll get us pretty close over time. To a large extent, they already have.
"
I'm not smart enough to figure out whom this is meant to describe, but I am sure there is someone, and it describes them well.
On “The Colombia Gambit”
Dealt himself into like 6 bankruptcies, as all great dealmakers do.
On “Memo: All Federal Grant, Loan, and Financial Assistance “Temporarily Paused””
It's only a relevant counter if you can give equivalent examples. Then sure, we quibble over their equivalence, but at least we've got something to quibble over. Simply saying "both sides do it" is not really a counter at all, it's the wave of a hand.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
If you find a scientist who has published their arguments in the scientific literature -- and there are some who have -- then it will not be hard to find several scientists who've rebutted those arguments in the scientific literature. This is an exercise you can complete yourself, and I would hope that, since you seem to have largely made up your mind, you have done so and merely concluded that the counterarguments were impotent or incomplete.
On “Memo: All Federal Grant, Loan, and Financial Assistance “Temporarily Paused””
Ignoring Jay's BSDI, I think one of the differences in Trump Volume II is how many terminally online people he has in prominent positions, including Musk himself. Sure, there were some of them in Volume I, but most of his major people were more old school (and more old). It's probably also a recognition that a large portion of their supporters are so dialed in to right wing media and social media that "woke gender ideology" and "Marxist equity" are perfectly narrowly tailored phrases.
"
This reminds me very much of something I was just reading this morning:
https://defector.com/the-ghosts-of-new-atheism-still-haunt-us
"
How weird is it that we're now being governed by terminally online people?
"
What it affects is going to ultimately be up to OMB. I don't see any indication that it affects Pell Grants, or funds to states generally, yet, but it's vague enough that OMB could shut down anything it wants, so anyone, from contractors to states to individuals, who receives any sort of federal grant money, should definitely be paying close attention.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
No one thinks the science is settled. The science is, however, almost entirely pointing in one direction. Who knows what we'll find in a 5 years, or even next month? But right now, there are no good scientific arguments for a lab leak. There are, however, good political arguments for one, and the politicians are putting serious pressure on scientists, which your talk of censorship would suggest you're opposed to, but your continued beating of any talk of scientist with a stick suggest you're actually in favor of.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/20/2025”
Appreciate that the left and the far right have this in common: believing everyone is a fed.
"
Not technically a groyper, but same diff. https://images.app.goo.gl/sNSZQ7TXqgexLj7b8
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.