Read a little further into your link, and you'll find this:
"Researchers then collected samples from poultry, snakes, badgers, giant salamanders, Siamese crocodiles and other animals sold there. They also swabbed drains, cages, toilets and vendors’ stalls in search of the pathogen. Following an investigation led by the World Health Organization (WHO), researchers released a report in March 2021 showing that all of the nearly 200 samples collected directly from animals were negative, but that around 1,000 environmental samples from the stalls and other areas of the market were positive."
The part you quoted talks about environmental samples, not samples from animals.
I may have missed something, but I am not aware of any positive tests from animals in the market. If true, that would certainly be a game-changer.
" they did, in fact, find live virus in animals in the market"
Do you have a source for that? The closest I've seen has come from environmental sampling and not actual live animals.
"Now, that does not mean that the experts have, as a group, completely ruled out the lab-origin hypothesis, but they all seem pretty convinced, from the data and their knowledge of viruses, that it’s untrue, and they’ve laid out their reasoning multiple times, in multiple media, in a clear enough way that pretty much anyone can understand it."
The experts "all" seem convinced? All of them?
I would also note that expert opinion is not proof or evidence.
"The last 2 1/2 years have been better than any textbook could ever be in illustrating the power and prevalence of heuristics and biases in reasoning, and of motivated reasoning generally. So much so that there are a bunch of people out there with no relevant expertise whatsoever who’ve become convinced, they, with less than 5 minutes of research, know better than the people actually studying the virus, and are not the least bit embarrassed to tell people this, repeatedly."
And by the same token, the appeal to authority fallacy is still alive and well.
Point being, we still don't know. That said, I agree the preponderance of evidence we have at this point points to the wet market, and I have no quarrel with anyone who favors that hypothesis, especially since I am one of them. But the fact remains the source hasn't been proven to be the market, nor has the lab leak (or several other) hypotheses been disproven. Experts and laypeople who take the less popular theory more seriously than others are not cranks engaging in motivated reasoning.
I'm not making definitive claims either way. And I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I do push back against claims of certainty and overconfidence. And as I noted at the end of my comment, I think the future is more important and either way, China does not appear to be taking the steps necessary to prevent this from happening again.
First, I'd be talking about the problem more frequently and coordinating with allies on messaging that this aspect of China is a worldwide threat that China must address. I'd communicate clearly that if China does nothing and another dangerous pathogen emerges that wrecks the global economy and kills millions, then we will take measures to hold China accountable.
I'd consider travel restrictions for Chinese nationals and other restrictions that are tied to progress by the Chinese government to address the problem. I'd make it an item in future trade negotiations.
I'm not an expert on China, so better and different methods are probably available. The point is, we did much more to punish countries who spread Mad Cow in meat than we've done for a virus that nuked the global economy and killed tens of millions.
The problem is that there is no solid evidence for any theory, nor is there evidence that disproves any theory. There is a lot of uncertainty. I haven't revisited this in a couple of months, but it seems to me the fundamentals have not changed.
The major problem with the wet market theory is that no animal or intermediate reservoir has been found as the source of the virus, and I believe it’s still the case that there’s no data on the precursor strain. The closest strains were at the Wuhan lab and originated from Yunan province, thousands of miles from Wuhan.
So there’s nothing definitive linking it to the market – the primary evidence is the grouping of cases at and near the market and the association of previous outbreaks to similar markets.
Plus, the animal reservoir for most sars viruses are bats and pangolins, which weren’t sold at the Wuhan market.
Similarly, there is nothing definitive pointing to the lab.
And I think we shouldn't confine theories to just these two given these uncertainties. For instance, someone could have caught it in Yunan and brought it back and infected people at the market. This could include a researcher from the Wuhan Lab since they would go collect samples from animals around the country to study and bring them back for analysis. In other words, it could be from a lab worker but not from a lab leak. Or it could have been a random person. Or maybe someone did go catch bats or pangolins in Yunan and bring them back to Wuhan to sell at the wet market.
There are other possible theories as well.
But to me, all of that is less important than preventing this from happening again. And I'm concerned there is so little pressure on the Chinese to clean up their wet markets and provide transparency for their lab research and specimen collection practices. We've had SARS and other viruses break through to humans before from China - with Covid this ended up killing tens of millions. The wet markets still exist and are in business, and still represent a threat to humanity and China is not transparent about its lab practices - and no one seems to care, least of all China.
Played a few hours last evening (staying up too late) and boy is it fun, but difficult! I’m struggling on easy with a party of four, but am slowly learning.
I've been playing Cyberpunk recently, actually, and it's very playable and very fun. The world itself is still amazing to just run or drive through and look at - it's really disappointing the developers screwed up the launch so bad. It should have had another year or more in the oven. I'd recommend playing at this point, either on your existing character or rolling a new one to see how it feels.
It's disappointing there will only be a single DLC, but if it's at the scale of Blood and Wine for the Witcher, I'll be happy.
I've also been playing Mass Effect 1 since I got the legendary edition for free a couple of months ago. I've previously played the 2nd and 3rd game long ago, and now I"m making my way through the first. Even with the updates, it's a bit clunky, but the story is interesting.
I've also been playing "Old World" which is like a cross between the Civilization series and Crusader Kings and made by one of Civ's former developers. I think it's quite good, but it is still rough around the edges and can use some more balancing. It sits at a nice point in terms of complexity between Civilization and most Paradox titles, but it takes some getting used to for those who are used to traditional empire-building games because it does quite a few things differently. The soundtrack is great too.
I’m usually in the position of wishing they both would lose, so this question is difficult for me.
That said, I think it’s situational - it depends on the two candidates, the current Zeitgeist of the country, and the dominant policy issues of the day. It also depends on strategy - what are the best themes to hold the base and get enough independents to win.
That tweet had me nodding my head vigorously until I remembered how crappy dating was in the 80s and 90s for an introvert like me. It was overall pretty bad until I happened to randomly meet a woman on a work trip. We've been married now for 22 years.
I'm with Oscar that avoiding the dating scene is definitely an incentive to keep my marriage healthy. But as much as dating generally sucks, using apps and online tools does not seem any worse than what I had to do, which is going to bars or hoping for serendipity.
I've had City Skylines for quite a while now and own most of the DLC.
Maybe it's an epic thing - I have it on Steam and don't need to log in to play, although you do have the option of logging into your Paradox account if you want to.
There really isn't any need to get the DLC to enjoy the base game - all the core mechanics are there. And yes, it is a complicated game but...Paradox.
There's also a huge modding community and several mods significantly improve on what Paradox has done. Most of these are, again, complex. In addition to mods, there are tens of thousands of custom community-made assets - probably every major skyscraper and building on the planet is on the Steam workshop.
I've been playing the Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 patch a bit and it's really how the game should have shipped. It really needed another year in the oven. But I'm not putting a ton of time in as I'm waiting for DLC.
I've also been playing Dying Light 2. I never played the first one, but DL2 is fun so far. I'm not as coordinated as I used to be, so chaining parkour moves together has been a challenge and there are some annoyances with the gameplay, but so far the story is interesting even if pretty cliche' (finding your little sister).
I would like to see that, but I think he's too out of step with where the national party is now. Like Hickenlooper, I don't think he can compete in the primaries. But I'm not sure what else he would do unless one of the Senate seats opens up.
Wastelander's 3 is an RPG that plays like the X-Com series - so it features turn-based tactical combat and success there requires a party with a balanced set of skills. It's also very similar to the Pillars of Eternity series.
The RPG elements are just what Jaybird said for Wastelanders.
I hope Cyberpunk was a good cautionary tale for Bethesda. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the game is delayed, although the anniversary might make that difficult. And reportedly Bethesda has done a lot of work updating their engine, which was definitely showing its age for Fallout 4 (a game I still really enjoyed).
But I am looking forward to a change from post-apocalypse dystopian settings and fantasy. Skyrim in Space checks the blocks for me right now that really hasn't been filled since Mass Effect 3, which was forever ago.
The only other thing I'm looking forward to at this point is real DLC for Cyberpunk, but I'm keeping low expectations.
BTW, I'm currently playing Wastelanders 3, which I picked up on the Steam sale. While I heard great reviews of it and had good expectations, it's really impressing me.
There is a lot of general disagreement. I spend some time on a few socialist subs on Reddit and the infighting between various self-described socialists and even Marxists is pretty vast. You've got everything from "the government does stuff" socialists all the way up to tankies.
As one who isn't a socialist, it makes it difficult to determine who the "real" socialists or Marxists are.
I started another Cyberpunk playthrough after the most recent major patch a couple of months ago, but paused about halfway through. I got a new PC recently on black Friday and spent a few hours just running around and enjoying the much better graphics from a higher-end machine.
I'm still pretty positive about the game (at least on PC), but it definitely fell short in many areas. But for now, I'm gonna wait until there is some "real" DLC before continuing and I hope CDPR learned some lessons from the fiasco they created.
The thing I'm playing now is the new Minecraft patch. I rarely stay super interested in Minecraft for very long, but the latest update is really good.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about this too much. The kind of weird things that float to the top of social media are an anomaly. As your kid grows they will learn to separate things out on their own with a bit of guidance from you.
I have three kids which are now 17, 16 and 11. All they've really needed is the encouragement to live in the physical world along with reminders that social media is not an accurate reflection of the real world, or what's important.
There are a lot of great games on sale. Even relatively recent AAA titles can be had for $20-30.
I haven't played Stellaris - it's a game I will probably pick up. I am a big fan of Paradox. Hearts of Iron IV is one of my favorites and the new DLC that just came out is very good. The base game is only $10 currently. I also have the new Crusader Kings but am having a hard timing getting into it.
The Dishonored franchise is also very cheap and they are great games.
Fallout 4 is one of the "five years ago or more" games that's super cheap and well worth getting.
"Now, it’s possible to make the argument FDR is the _most_ authoritarian present in history without saying he implemented it fully"
That's exactly the argument I made. For example, I did state in another comment that "FDR was (IMO) the most authoritarian President because he concentrated power on himself and the Executive more than any other President before or since. "
Note that I never claimed the US as a country was authoritarian.
IIRC, the old Libertarian view was a bit unconventional. Essentially many Libertarians believed the legal contract part of marriage (ie "civil marriage") could be unbundled from "marriage" as a social or religious construct.
The result of this unbundling was that the Libertarian position went far beyond mere SSM. The Libertarian position was (and still is for many) that the government should not have any involvement in personal relationships, but also that it should not have the authority to restrict access to legal contracts (ie. civil marriage) based on any arbitrary criteria. So the Libertarian view of "civil marriages" was that any two people of legal age should have access to a legal marriage contract including siblings, friends, whatever.
But of course, that doesn't really work because society does not unbundle those things.
Thanks! I do like the Avatar and while I have my disagreements with pragmatism as a philosophy, I think it is something that is very short supply these days.
Also, I appreciate the perspective on DSA, etc. I do not really follow the dynamics of groups on the left. I've just noticed that Freddie and the few other older-school socialists I'm aware of have fallen out and think they are now heretics on the left.
His main complaint is that all the social justice stuff is distracting from getting actual work done that improves people's lives. Canceling people for wrongthink on Twitter, or insisting strongly that issues must be framed using certain language and berating anyone who thinks otherwise are, in his view, obstacles to doing things that produce tangible results.
The other thing Freddie doesn't like is the racial essentialism in a lot of liberal circles. He is very much an old-school socialist that cares primarily about class and believes that is much more important in terms of effective change than the kind of intersectional identity-based politics that's become dominant in progressive circles.
You can think of Freddie kind of like the equivalent of a #nevertrumper but on the left. He's found that the people who used to be his allies have moved on and now they hate him for not playing ball with the new dogma.
I personally like Freddie because he's honest, especially about his personal struggles, and he's willing to engage honestly with people like me - ie. people who are pretty skeptical of socialism, class-based or otherwise.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Throughput: The COVID Lab Leak Theory Resurfaces”
Read a little further into your link, and you'll find this:
"Researchers then collected samples from poultry, snakes, badgers, giant salamanders, Siamese crocodiles and other animals sold there. They also swabbed drains, cages, toilets and vendors’ stalls in search of the pathogen. Following an investigation led by the World Health Organization (WHO), researchers released a report in March 2021 showing that all of the nearly 200 samples collected directly from animals were negative, but that around 1,000 environmental samples from the stalls and other areas of the market were positive."
The part you quoted talks about environmental samples, not samples from animals.
I may have missed something, but I am not aware of any positive tests from animals in the market. If true, that would certainly be a game-changer.
"
" they did, in fact, find live virus in animals in the market"
Do you have a source for that? The closest I've seen has come from environmental sampling and not actual live animals.
"Now, that does not mean that the experts have, as a group, completely ruled out the lab-origin hypothesis, but they all seem pretty convinced, from the data and their knowledge of viruses, that it’s untrue, and they’ve laid out their reasoning multiple times, in multiple media, in a clear enough way that pretty much anyone can understand it."
The experts "all" seem convinced? All of them?
I would also note that expert opinion is not proof or evidence.
"The last 2 1/2 years have been better than any textbook could ever be in illustrating the power and prevalence of heuristics and biases in reasoning, and of motivated reasoning generally. So much so that there are a bunch of people out there with no relevant expertise whatsoever who’ve become convinced, they, with less than 5 minutes of research, know better than the people actually studying the virus, and are not the least bit embarrassed to tell people this, repeatedly."
And by the same token, the appeal to authority fallacy is still alive and well.
Point being, we still don't know. That said, I agree the preponderance of evidence we have at this point points to the wet market, and I have no quarrel with anyone who favors that hypothesis, especially since I am one of them. But the fact remains the source hasn't been proven to be the market, nor has the lab leak (or several other) hypotheses been disproven. Experts and laypeople who take the less popular theory more seriously than others are not cranks engaging in motivated reasoning.
I'm not making definitive claims either way. And I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I do push back against claims of certainty and overconfidence. And as I noted at the end of my comment, I think the future is more important and either way, China does not appear to be taking the steps necessary to prevent this from happening again.
"
Unfortunately, I have to agree with your assessment on the low probability of anything actually happening.
"
First, I'd be talking about the problem more frequently and coordinating with allies on messaging that this aspect of China is a worldwide threat that China must address. I'd communicate clearly that if China does nothing and another dangerous pathogen emerges that wrecks the global economy and kills millions, then we will take measures to hold China accountable.
I'd consider travel restrictions for Chinese nationals and other restrictions that are tied to progress by the Chinese government to address the problem. I'd make it an item in future trade negotiations.
I'm not an expert on China, so better and different methods are probably available. The point is, we did much more to punish countries who spread Mad Cow in meat than we've done for a virus that nuked the global economy and killed tens of millions.
"
The problem is that there is no solid evidence for any theory, nor is there evidence that disproves any theory. There is a lot of uncertainty. I haven't revisited this in a couple of months, but it seems to me the fundamentals have not changed.
The major problem with the wet market theory is that no animal or intermediate reservoir has been found as the source of the virus, and I believe it’s still the case that there’s no data on the precursor strain. The closest strains were at the Wuhan lab and originated from Yunan province, thousands of miles from Wuhan.
So there’s nothing definitive linking it to the market – the primary evidence is the grouping of cases at and near the market and the association of previous outbreaks to similar markets.
Plus, the animal reservoir for most sars viruses are bats and pangolins, which weren’t sold at the Wuhan market.
Similarly, there is nothing definitive pointing to the lab.
And I think we shouldn't confine theories to just these two given these uncertainties. For instance, someone could have caught it in Yunan and brought it back and infected people at the market. This could include a researcher from the Wuhan Lab since they would go collect samples from animals around the country to study and bring them back for analysis. In other words, it could be from a lab worker but not from a lab leak. Or it could have been a random person. Or maybe someone did go catch bats or pangolins in Yunan and bring them back to Wuhan to sell at the wet market.
There are other possible theories as well.
But to me, all of that is less important than preventing this from happening again. And I'm concerned there is so little pressure on the Chinese to clean up their wet markets and provide transparency for their lab research and specimen collection practices. We've had SARS and other viruses break through to humans before from China - with Covid this ended up killing tens of millions. The wet markets still exist and are in business, and still represent a threat to humanity and China is not transparent about its lab practices - and no one seems to care, least of all China.
On “Paypal Updates its “Acceptable Use” Policy”
So a private version of civil asset forfeiture - I’m sure that will work out just fine.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Gloomhaven is this week’s Free Game from the Epic Game Store”
Thanks for the tip, I picked this game up.
Played a few hours last evening (staying up too late) and boy is it fun, but difficult! I’m struggling on easy with a party of four, but am slowly learning.
What a great game!
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Cyberpunk Finally Gets DLC”
I've been playing Cyberpunk recently, actually, and it's very playable and very fun. The world itself is still amazing to just run or drive through and look at - it's really disappointing the developers screwed up the launch so bad. It should have had another year or more in the oven. I'd recommend playing at this point, either on your existing character or rolling a new one to see how it feels.
It's disappointing there will only be a single DLC, but if it's at the scale of Blood and Wine for the Witcher, I'll be happy.
I've also been playing Mass Effect 1 since I got the legendary edition for free a couple of months ago. I've previously played the 2nd and 3rd game long ago, and now I"m making my way through the first. Even with the updates, it's a bit clunky, but the story is interesting.
I've also been playing "Old World" which is like a cross between the Civilization series and Crusader Kings and made by one of Civ's former developers. I think it's quite good, but it is still rough around the edges and can use some more balancing. It sits at a nice point in terms of complexity between Civilization and most Paradox titles, but it takes some getting used to for those who are used to traditional empire-building games because it does quite a few things differently. The soundtrack is great too.
On “Comment Rescue: A request for a sales pitch from Chip Daniels”
Besides they’re not the Democrats?
I’m usually in the position of wishing they both would lose, so this question is difficult for me.
That said, I think it’s situational - it depends on the two candidates, the current Zeitgeist of the country, and the dominant policy issues of the day. It also depends on strategy - what are the best themes to hold the base and get enough independents to win.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Catching Up With Old Friends and Discussing Dating”
That tweet had me nodding my head vigorously until I remembered how crappy dating was in the 80s and 90s for an introvert like me. It was overall pretty bad until I happened to randomly meet a woman on a work trip. We've been married now for 22 years.
I'm with Oscar that avoiding the dating scene is definitely an incentive to keep my marriage healthy. But as much as dating generally sucks, using apps and online tools does not seem any worse than what I had to do, which is going to bars or hoping for serendipity.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Cities Skylines”
I've had City Skylines for quite a while now and own most of the DLC.
Maybe it's an epic thing - I have it on Steam and don't need to log in to play, although you do have the option of logging into your Paradox account if you want to.
There really isn't any need to get the DLC to enjoy the base game - all the core mechanics are there. And yes, it is a complicated game but...Paradox.
There's also a huge modding community and several mods significantly improve on what Paradox has done. Most of these are, again, complex. In addition to mods, there are tens of thousands of custom community-made assets - probably every major skyscraper and building on the planet is on the Steam workshop.
I've been playing the Cyberpunk 2077 1.5 patch a bit and it's really how the game should have shipped. It really needed another year in the oven. But I'm not putting a ton of time in as I'm waiting for DLC.
I've also been playing Dying Light 2. I never played the first one, but DL2 is fun so far. I'm not as coordinated as I used to be, so chaining parkour moves together has been a challenge and there are some annoyances with the gameplay, but so far the story is interesting even if pretty cliche' (finding your little sister).
On “From The Hill: Colorado governor pardons 1,351 people for minor marijuana crimes”
I would like to see that, but I think he's too out of step with where the national party is now. Like Hickenlooper, I don't think he can compete in the primaries. But I'm not sure what else he would do unless one of the Senate seats opens up.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: The Year to Come In Video Games”
Wastelander's 3 is an RPG that plays like the X-Com series - so it features turn-based tactical combat and success there requires a party with a balanced set of skills. It's also very similar to the Pillars of Eternity series.
The RPG elements are just what Jaybird said for Wastelanders.
"
I'm looking forward to Starfield.
I hope Cyberpunk was a good cautionary tale for Bethesda. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the game is delayed, although the anniversary might make that difficult. And reportedly Bethesda has done a lot of work updating their engine, which was definitely showing its age for Fallout 4 (a game I still really enjoyed).
But I am looking forward to a change from post-apocalypse dystopian settings and fantasy. Skyrim in Space checks the blocks for me right now that really hasn't been filled since Mass Effect 3, which was forever ago.
The only other thing I'm looking forward to at this point is real DLC for Cyberpunk, but I'm keeping low expectations.
BTW, I'm currently playing Wastelanders 3, which I picked up on the Steam sale. While I heard great reviews of it and had good expectations, it's really impressing me.
On “From The Hill: Colorado governor pardons 1,351 people for minor marijuana crimes”
I think you are a Colorado guy too, correct?
Definitely a good move by Polis.
On “Is Leftist Authoritarianism A Thing Or Not?”
Yep, it's the same problem on the libertarian side - they're usually too busy infighting to be any kind of meaningful political force.
"
There is a lot of general disagreement. I spend some time on a few socialist subs on Reddit and the infighting between various self-described socialists and even Marxists is pretty vast. You've got everything from "the government does stuff" socialists all the way up to tankies.
As one who isn't a socialist, it makes it difficult to determine who the "real" socialists or Marxists are.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: A year of Cyberpunk (plus some VR!)”
I can't speak for consoles, but I think the game runs well on PC - at least it runs consistent with industry norms.
I do hope they iterate on the game, and not just with DLC. It's a great and immersive world.
"
I started another Cyberpunk playthrough after the most recent major patch a couple of months ago, but paused about halfway through. I got a new PC recently on black Friday and spent a few hours just running around and enjoying the much better graphics from a higher-end machine.
I'm still pretty positive about the game (at least on PC), but it definitely fell short in many areas. But for now, I'm gonna wait until there is some "real" DLC before continuing and I hope CDPR learned some lessons from the fiasco they created.
The thing I'm playing now is the new Minecraft patch. I rarely stay super interested in Minecraft for very long, but the latest update is really good.
On “Make Truth Self-Evident Again”
Personally, I wouldn't worry about this too much. The kind of weird things that float to the top of social media are an anomaly. As your kid grows they will learn to separate things out on their own with a bit of guidance from you.
I have three kids which are now 17, 16 and 11. All they've really needed is the encouragement to live in the physical world along with reminders that social media is not an accurate reflection of the real world, or what's important.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: The Steam Sale Is On!”
There are a lot of great games on sale. Even relatively recent AAA titles can be had for $20-30.
I haven't played Stellaris - it's a game I will probably pick up. I am a big fan of Paradox. Hearts of Iron IV is one of my favorites and the new DLC that just came out is very good. The base game is only $10 currently. I also have the new Crusader Kings but am having a hard timing getting into it.
The Dishonored franchise is also very cheap and they are great games.
Fallout 4 is one of the "five years ago or more" games that's super cheap and well worth getting.
There really are options for everyone.
On “Is Leftist Authoritarianism A Thing Or Not?”
"Now, it’s possible to make the argument FDR is the _most_ authoritarian present in history without saying he implemented it fully"
That's exactly the argument I made. For example, I did state in another comment that "FDR was (IMO) the most authoritarian President because he concentrated power on himself and the Executive more than any other President before or since. "
Note that I never claimed the US as a country was authoritarian.
"
IIRC, the old Libertarian view was a bit unconventional. Essentially many Libertarians believed the legal contract part of marriage (ie "civil marriage") could be unbundled from "marriage" as a social or religious construct.
The result of this unbundling was that the Libertarian position went far beyond mere SSM. The Libertarian position was (and still is for many) that the government should not have any involvement in personal relationships, but also that it should not have the authority to restrict access to legal contracts (ie. civil marriage) based on any arbitrary criteria. So the Libertarian view of "civil marriages" was that any two people of legal age should have access to a legal marriage contract including siblings, friends, whatever.
But of course, that doesn't really work because society does not unbundle those things.
"
Thanks! I do like the Avatar and while I have my disagreements with pragmatism as a philosophy, I think it is something that is very short supply these days.
Also, I appreciate the perspective on DSA, etc. I do not really follow the dynamics of groups on the left. I've just noticed that Freddie and the few other older-school socialists I'm aware of have fallen out and think they are now heretics on the left.
"
I've been reading Freddie for quite a while.
His main complaint is that all the social justice stuff is distracting from getting actual work done that improves people's lives. Canceling people for wrongthink on Twitter, or insisting strongly that issues must be framed using certain language and berating anyone who thinks otherwise are, in his view, obstacles to doing things that produce tangible results.
The other thing Freddie doesn't like is the racial essentialism in a lot of liberal circles. He is very much an old-school socialist that cares primarily about class and believes that is much more important in terms of effective change than the kind of intersectional identity-based politics that's become dominant in progressive circles.
You can think of Freddie kind of like the equivalent of a #nevertrumper but on the left. He's found that the people who used to be his allies have moved on and now they hate him for not playing ball with the new dogma.
I personally like Freddie because he's honest, especially about his personal struggles, and he's willing to engage honestly with people like me - ie. people who are pretty skeptical of socialism, class-based or otherwise.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.