USA Politics (redux)

[Florestan]

     Scientists should not "always be taken at their word" no matter where they are located. There is no scientific infallibility principle, no one whose word must be taken.

That's not what you believed / posted a year ago.

[Florestan]

JAMES LINDSAY:

Critical Race Theory...
believes racism is present in every aspect of life, every relationship, and every interaction and therefore has its advocates look for it everywhere
relies upon "interest convergence" (white people only give black people opportunities and freedoms when it is also in their own interests) and therefore doesn't trust any attempt to make racism better
is against free societies and wants to dismantle them and replace them with something its advocates control
only treats race issues as "socially constructed groups," so there are no individuals in Critical Race Theory
believes science, reason, and evidence are a "white" way of knowing and that storytelling and lived experience are a "black" alternative, which hurts everyone, especially black people
rejects all potential alternatives, like colorblindness, as forms of racism, making itself the only allowable game in town (which is totalitarian)
acts like anyone who disagrees with it must do so for racist and white supremacist reasons, even if those people are black (which is also totalitarian)
cannot be satisfied, so it becomes a kind of activist black hole that threatens to destroy everything it is introduced into

https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/reasons-critical-race-theory-terrible-dealing-racism/

John McWhorter

THE ELECT: THE THREAT TO A PROGRESSIVE AMERICA FROM ANTI-BLACK ANTIRACISTS
My main aims will be:
1. to argue that this new ideology is actually a religion in all but name;
2. to argue that to understand it as a religion is to see coherence in what may seem like a welter of "crazy" or overblown behaviors;
3. to explore why this religion is so attractive to so many people;
4. to show that this religion is actively harmful to black people despite being intended as unprecedentedly "antiracist";
5. to show that a pragmatic, effective, liberal and even Democratic-friendly agenda for rescuing black America need not be founded on the tenets of this new religion;
6. to suggest ways to lessen the grip of this new religion on our public culture.

https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/the-elect-neoracists-posing-as-antiracists

Thank you very much for that!

May God have mercy on them, traitors to their race as they are!

[drogulus]

     

|I was born and raised in a Communist dictatorship, so I'd rather err on the side of disbelieving / doubting each and every sentence uttered by a Communist government (such as China), be it weather forecast...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_the_Holodomor#Cover-up_of_the_famine

     That's my position for any attempt to interfere with empirical processes on behalf of absolutist priors. I grew up in various parts of America, the land of the Free and the Monkey Trial.

That's not what you believed / posted a year ago.

     I extend more trust to scientists than to wizards, but that's conditional. I don't always accept a scientific consensus because the history of models is that they tend to last well past the point when they should be challenged. The Big Bang is one such model. I try to be careful not to stray out of my philosophical lane, but it really is the shit.

     

[Karl Henning]

|I was born and raised in a Communist dictatorship, so I'd rather err on the side of disbelieving / doubting each and every sentence uttered by a Communist government (such as China), be it weather forecast...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_the_Holodomor#Cover-up_of_the_famine

I don't see that as gainsaying my point.

[Karl Henning]

That's not what you believed / posted a year ago.

So far as I know, Ernie has always believed so.

[Karl Henning]

Don't read it, greg, it's MSM:

"A new surge of interest has revived the lab-leak theory. Well over a year since a novel coronavirus began to spread in Wuhan, the idea that the deadly outbreak could be linked to a virus research center in the Chinese city has lingered, unproven but not eliminated.

"Although the resurgent chatter may suggest new clues or proof, the inverse is in fact true. It is the persistent absence of any convincing evidence either for or against the theory that has prompted calls for more investigation.

President Biden said Wednesday that the U.S. intelligence community does "not believe there is sufficient information" to fully understand the likelihood of different scenarios for explaining the origin of the virus that causes covid-19.

"At least publicly, the evidence in favor of a link between the outbreak and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has not changed significantly in months, and many virologists still have persistent doubts that such a link exists.

"What has clearly changed, however, is the political debate. Most obviously, a new U.S. administration that is not so openly anti-China has led some former skeptics to reconsider the existing evidence. And public health experts — most of whom never ruled out the lab theory outright — have expressed disappointment with a World Health Organization-backed investigation that dismissed a link between WIV and the outbreak.

"The annual World Health Assembly this week brought new calls to significantly expand upon the WHO-backed investigation, which concluded in March. Biden on Wednesday announced that he was asking the U.S. intelligence community to "redouble its efforts" to collect information about the coronavirus's origin.

The United States would continue to partner with "like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation," Biden said.

"So far, though, there is certainly no smoking gun. Here's where things stand:

"The public evidence for or against the lab leak is nowhere near decisive.

The lab-leak theory emerged in January 2020, when the virus was still mostly confined to China and had killed hundreds, rather than millions.

Links between WIV and the virus were floated in right-wing news organizations like the Washington Times, while former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon questioned whether there was a link between the virus and "bioweapons research" in China.

"Experts quickly dismissed the idea that the coronavirus was intentionally developed as a bioweapon, but vaguer questions about the link between WIV and the virus, including those asked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in February 2020, were harder to answer.

In April 2020, journalists including The Washington Post's David Ignatius and Josh Rogin suggested that a bat virus being studied in potentially risky experiments could have escaped the lab.

"For example, "gain-of-function" experiments examining how viruses found in animals can infect humans are noble in aim and designed to prevent future pandemics. But Rogin reported that U.S. officials had raised concerns about safety at WIV in 2018. "Whether the staff are interacting with bats in the wild or in the lab, they are routinely putting themselves at risk of infection," one unnamed U.S. scientist told a team of Post reporters for an April 30 report.

Most pandemics, however, have emerged via a simpler route: passing from an animal to a human through "zoonotic" infection. Plenty of virologists still argue that this was the most likely path of the novel coronavirus.

"But there is still a dearth of evidence about this coronavirus's origins. Without full cooperation from Chinese authorities, clues have primarily come out in dribs and drabs from intelligence leaks or complicated analyses of genetic code.

"Some analysts have complained about the unproved provenance of leaked intelligence, including the detail in a recent Wall Street Journal report that WIV staff may have fallen ill in 2019 with covid-like symptoms.

"The WHO-led investigation into the virus's origins only spurred interest in the lab-leak theory.

"Prominent virologists, many of whom had been hesitant to speak out publicly before, are now openly calling for a broader investigation.

Eighteen prominent scientists on May 14 published a letter in the journal Science arguing that "theories of accidental release" remained "viable." Among them was Ralph Baric, a virologist who worked with Shi Zhengli, a renowned expert on bat coronaviruses based in Wuhan, who is central to many lab-leak hypotheses.

"Their timing was motivated by this week's World Health Assembly and a desire to point out the perceived weaknesses of the WHO-backed investigation.

"That probe saw a team of 17 international experts fly to Wuhan to visit WIV themselves. It found that a "very likely" scenario involved an unknown animal passing the virus to humans.

The WHO team dismissed the lab-leak idea as "extremely unlikely." Indeed, its report spends considerably more time discussing a theory that the virus was imported on frozen food, an idea pushed by Beijing that has little international support.

Even to the leak theory's skeptics, that was a stretch.

"The dismissive attitude to the lab-leak theory furthered criticisms that the WHO team was too close to Chinese experts: Peter Daszak, head of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, had been a colleague of Shi, the Wuhan coronavirus expert, for 15 years. The team only got three hours to visit the lab.

"At the end of the day, they show us what they show," Hung Nguyen-Viet, a Vietnamese expert on livestock and human health who joined the trip, told The Post.

"Speaking at a news conference in March, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the lab-leak theory "requires further investigation" and that he was ready to deploy specialists on additional missions.

"It is still not clear what the endgame is.

"Biden's announcement on Wednesday lent credence to the lab-leak theory: Some Democrats are now backing calls for a congressional inquiry. The president set a 90-day deadline for the intelligence community to come "closer to a definitive conclusion" and pushed for more international pressure on China.

Yet Biden also admitted that the intelligence community so far only had "low or moderate confidence" in its assessments. Without Chinese cooperation, it is unclear how these bodies would be able to reach new conclusions within a three-month period.

"Broader international pressure could well stumble against China, which wields veto power not only at the World Health Assembly, but also at the U.N. Security Council. Plus, it isn't clear what standard of evidence would satisfy partisans on either side of the divide on the lab-leak theory, if any.

"We may never know exactly how the coronavirus that causes covid-19 spread to humans. Scientists still haven't pinpointed the origin of the influenza strain that killed millions in 1918. Although civet cats were speculated within months to be the intermediate host in a 2003 SARS outbreak, it took years to confirm it.

It wasn't until 2017 that that virus was finally traced back to bats. The lab that solved the mystery? The Wuhan Institute of Virology."

— Adam Taylor, reporter at The Washington Post.

[drogulus]

     People are going back to some version of the lab theory because natural transmission hasn't lead to a confirmed pathway. Many early cases had no connection to the wet market. So, if you want a definite answer the lab gives you a specific target, which may never be the case with natural transmission. Therefore, why not look for the lost wallet right by this lamppost, instead of out there in the dark?

     As Thomas Cromwell might have said, or at least a really good version of him, the Chicoms are certainly guilty, though not necessarily as charged.

[Florestan]

I don't see that as gainsaying my point.

It doesn't. I don't even remember why I posted it as a reply to you.

[MusicTurner]

Most of DK in embarassement and anger about the breaking news, that sections in our intelligence services helped the US/NSA with spying on Danish neighbours and allies (Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway). And possibly on local Danish politicians too ...

The US might very well be conducting this policy in a real lot of nations: help us, and we'll of course exclude you from the tapping ...

The level of decision-making is unclear, but the leading Danish officers were after all transferred or sacked, when a report to politicians told about it. But real punishment (some would call this being close to high treason) is probably going to be diffuse and mild, unfortunately.

[Florestan]

Most of DK in embarassement and anger about the breaking news, that sections in our intelligence services helped the US/NSA with spying on Danish neighbours and allies (Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway). And possibly on local Danish politicians too ...

The US might very well be conducting this policy in a real lot of nations: help us, and we'll of course exclude you from the tapping ...

The level of decision-making is unclear, but the leading Danish officers were after all transferred or sacked, when a report to politicians told about it. But real punishment (some would call this being close to high treason) is probably going to be diffuse and mild, unfortunately.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Swedes, Germans, Dutch and Norwegians in the intelligence services in their turn helped US with spying on Denmark, or on each other. Heck, it's in their job description. 

[milk]

Thank you very much for that!

May God have mercy on them, traitors to their race as they are!

I shouldn't laugh; that's what they (McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Erec Smith, Coleman Hughes, et al.) are called.

[Karl Henning]

It doesn't. I don't even remember why I posted it as a reply to you.

No worries.

[drogulus]

     How to Navigate the 'Great Reset'

Pandemic lockdowns are coming to an end in the U.S., and with them, a massive economic recovery has begun. The closest parallel is the post-World War II era. That period created a massive societal "reset" in terms of employment, housing, infrastructure, wages and financial markets -- just like now.

Consider the circumstances of both periods. The nation is forced into difficult circumstances by a frightening enemy. Shortages are commonplace. The government and private sector focus on obtaining sufficient ammunition to vanquish this foe. Workers are furloughed, people are fearful even as the economy starts to recover. It takes time, but soon victory is at hand. The reopening begins with surging inflation, spot shortages of commodities, a dearth of housing, difficulty finding workers, and a very challenging transition as factories and offices struggle to restart and return to a more normal setting.

     Ah-yup....

Inflation: With the post-war period as a guide, we should expect commodity shortages, challenges in hiring, rising wages and a spike in inflation. But we should also expect this to be temporary, as more production comes online and the marketplace pivots to satisfy increased demand. Rather than persistent inflation, this might be a short, sharp reset upwards.

It is worth noting that the inflation cranks have been fighting the 1970s stagflation for decades. I question their motives, and marvel at how wrong they have been about inflation in both directions. I see no reason to suspect their approach has changed for the better this time, either.

     The day may finally come when "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" goes the way of the Big Bang.

[greg]

Speaking both English and Mandarin isn't the rarity you seem to think it is.

And this is to say nothing of the number of Chinese professionals who have learned English as a matter of course. All of which means no one needs some random Youtuber to be "the bridge".

Many of which who might be afraid to tell the truth, even abroad, because they might have family back home in China or want to return someday and still may suffer the consequences of telling the truth.

He has a large audience of listeners and doesn't plan to return to China, yet has spent many years building connections and learning many things about it, the language, culture, the Chinese internet, etc.

He doesn't have to go through anyone stifling his speech at all. So he was in a unique position to share the information. Sure, there could have been other people doing the same, but they either didn't or weren't able to get the information out so early to the English-speaking world.

A complete failure of your critical faculties.

Lol what, that doesn't even make sense as a response.
You're the one who dismissed it as "conspiracy-like" rather than critically thinking about how it stacked up vs. the mainstream "wet market" narrative. Not me lol.

[Florestan]

https://www.isidewith.com/profile/4658280864/parties

My result: 78% Republican, 31% Democratic

[SimonNZ]

93 Green
92 Socialist
91 Democratic
89 Women's equality
88 Peace and freedom....

That was far more interesting than most online quizzes I see offered.

[JBS]

93 Green
92 Socialist
91 Democratic
89 Women's equality
88 Peace and freedom....

That was far more interesting than most online quizzes I see offered.

My results were not out of line except for one thing: it decided I was an isolationist based solely on my dislike of drone assassinations. (I don't remember any other questions on foreign affairs.)

[SimonNZ]

My results were not out of line except for one thing: it decided I was an isolationist based solely on my dislike of drone assassinations. (I don't remember any other questions on foreign affairs.)

I got a question about assassinating foreign suspects but not one about drones.

I assume there must be a larger pool of questions than those that come up in any one test.

[Florestan]

That was far more interesting than most online quizzes I see offered.

I found it accidentally. 

Took it again with all the questions.

78 Republican
75 Constitution
53 American Solidarity
50 Libertarian
38 Transhumanist
31 Democratic
25 Women's Equality
17 Green
17 Socialist
15 Peace and Freedom.

[Fëanor]

https://www.isidewith.com/profile/4658280864/parties

My result: 78% Republican, 31% Democratic

Well that was fun.  Of course I don't get to vote in American elections, (more's the pity).

As between the only two relevant US parties, my result is Democrat 85%, Republican 25%.