Friam

the end of the pandemic

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: the end of the pandemic

Let’s compare the consequences of different leadership styles:

https://www.economy.com/south-korea/unemployment-rate

https://www.economy.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of David Eric Smith <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Monday, May 11, 2020 at 2:31 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

Replying to the Snoke post, and only to a specific part of it:

Why bother to put a bunch of text into refuting logical fallacies in screeds that were never about deduction in the first place?

Here is the republican version.

BOASTING: We have dismembered the government!

FEINED OUTRAGE: The government doesn’t do anything useful for us!

ERGO: Dismember the government!

As Marcus rightly said: don’t analyze; execute plans against these individuals.

The logical fallacy below? (Apart from the one Marcus already pointed out, that to compare a 3-month 1-cause death rate after mitigation to yearly all-cause, as the argument for no mitigation, is obvious bullshit that doesn’t even try to hide.). There was an article in the Atlantic sometime recently, that the 50-100 million dead from the Spanish flu left a significant mark within some parts of culture but the lives of a great many people. That was before fast transportation.

Whether a shutdown of a couple of months induces the collapse of an economy is not an inevitability, which the below pretends it is, but rather an outcome of quite clear choices. Choices in what the economy was before, and choices of what you do during the quick transient period. If you shut down quick and hard, backstop the _relations_ that keep people employed, implement test and trace and public health accepting that this will be a noticeable fraction of GDP going forward, and build new protocols understanding that work will not “go back” but will require a new compensating context, then this becomes a sharp and expensive setback. But the high-cost and high-latency steps of matching people to jobs on vast scale is not paid, because you don’t throw all that away. Likewise you choose a public redistribution over having debt crises in hundreds of millions of private contracts, all open to extortion because the debtors are alone and unorganized, etc.

It wasn’t the market drop of 1929 that caused the depression. The 1-day drop in 1987 was larger, I believe I one knew and now think I recall. It was how the economy had been structured before, plus the non-responses or poor responses of the Hoover administration, that turned a financial hitch into the entry to a decadal depression.

I was going to write a post a few days ago about how economists love to borrow metaphors from biology. This would be a good time to look at the abstraction of group selection, and maybe help it along a little. Countries that weren’t too sick at the beginning, and made a competent effort in the response, will have a few months sharp setback to deal with, and a year or more of considerable but not fatal costs. They should have months of head start in building back some degree of function, ahead of the countries that are working toward a depression and can be in this situation for a year or more (supposing there is a vaccine that soon). Maybe much longer than that if they create an economic collapse that is self-perpetuating even after public-health remedies become technically available.

NZ and Australia are looking at 2-country air travel if they think they can sanitize it enough. Air travel, to the extent that it resumes, should be added one-country-at-a-time to a club of those who can implement and follow a public health protocol that the current members accept, which includes keeping the case numbers of eligible travelers sufficiently low. Countries that are too corrupt or too incompetent to be admitted should be shut out. They wanted to be pariahs; help ensure that they are pariahs. It’s called sanctions. Leverage the advantage countries can gain from having chosen to do the right thing, as an investment in keeping their ideas alive and allowing better ideas to recolonize the wreckage of the places that burned themselves out.

It’s not just generalities and international steps either. There are specific things that one can look for ways to do. I am on a different list with a lot of farmers, and local agriculture is under demand it has not seen ever in modern times, while the centralized western/southern-states meatpackers both can’t get people to work, and have no infrastructure for storage and distribution to make emergency workarounds. So the players who used to be in coercive power are wobbly enough that we should try to tip them over. Instead of using public money to bail out a system that worked poorly before and can’t work at all now — and that will be a bad waste of public money because it is not built out correctly — we can look for opportunities both individual and political to try to get organized support into relocalizing ag. The farmers are on board and eager to go. One briefly could get the public’s attention, because they aren’t doing much else. That alone is not enough, but when the power was entrenched and well-defended, we didn’t even have this much.

I am not against Snokes's complaints that the predators are using this as a distraction to steal more. That seems correct and urgent. There is no reason it could not be mated to a more rounded picture of the other part. Probably he writes that way because he is trying to get a single local decision made _now_, in a context that he doesn’t have a way to change. But I wish he would accept so much language from a framing that is inherently false.

Eric

On May 12, 2020, at 3:07 AM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

My high school best friend Jim Snoke posted this on Facebook. He is also an anthropologist, like Dave. He says he finished his dissertation at UC Davis but his defense never happened because his major adviser moved to another university. (?). He has gotten involved in a major way with Native American causes and got about 40,000 signatures on a petition to save Chaco National Monument from fracking damage. He still lives in CA so he asked me to deliver it to the Governor's Office personally. I tried but they didn't really want that much paper. They said to tell him to email a digital file with the signatures. They took it seriously.

Compare the arguments of the two anthropologists:

The death rate in the United States, without considering the Covid-19 outbreak – and decades before it was even a twinkle in the eyes of America – stood at roughly 8.7 per 1000 people per year. That translates into a death rate of 0.0087. There are roughly 330 million people in the United States this year, and that translates into the following figure: 2,871,000. Two million, eight hundred and seventy-one thousand people die EVERY YEAR IN THE UNITED STATES of “natural” and “unnatural “ causes. Keep that figure in mind when those in power, and those in the media, scare the shit out of people with their dire “predictions” about the rising infection and death rates. At the present time, our already fragile economy is going to be ruined beyond all recovery – quite likely forever – and the draconian measures to “fight the virus” will have succeeded in destroying the lives of almost half of our total population in the name of a “pandemic” that is taking less than a tenth of 1 percent of the population. My point is that NO ONE in the United States goes berserk over the FACT that 2,871,000 people die – in this country alone – every year. We don’t forfeit our economy and our way of life over these equally-tragic deaths. But let it be an epidemic, and we DO forfeit our economy and our way of life – and the “epidemic” will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER reach the truly-epidemic proportions that constitute the NATURAL and UNNATURAL, ONGOING DEATH RATE IN THE UNITED STATES. OMG!!! 270,000 people have died from the pandemic !!!!! Yes, it is horrible – but what about the 2,871,000 people that die every year regardless of the pandemic??? 10 times the death rate of the “pandemic” -- every single, Goddamned year. Where is the outrage?? Where is the concern?? Are we actually so scared shitless that we are willing to lose our ENTIRE ECONOMY, OUR JOBS, OUR INCOMES??? Has anybody thought this through?? We have flunked, outright, many many tests as a population over the past 100 years. Those of you who insist on arguing that: “THIS IS DIFFERENT – IT IS AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE THAT WE HAD NO CONTROL OVER, AND IT MIGHT HAVE KILLED US” need to keep in mind that although there are now more than 30,000,000 unemployed – and soon to be upwards of 50,000,000 – someone stands to gain from all this. Trump is using the distraction of the pandemic to go after fracking leases in our National Parks, large businesses are profiting from the “bailout” by looting the U.S. Treasury, Shell Oil and others are cutting down the rainforest in Brazil at a rate that is 50% higher this year than ever before, and capitalism in general is nailing the coffin shut on control of the World’s economies. Once again, we humans are failing the test, and this time the “F” we get will be "F"orever.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Mon, May 11, 2020, 11:45 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Gary,

FOOD before FRIAM! Definitely. But if you do bet back before noon Mountain, sign on; we are often still going at it, even that late.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2020 11:13 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

I definitely will try to make it to some FRIAM Zooms. Unfortunately, Friday is the one day a week I am permitted to go out on the roads with my car here in Ecuador due to the pandemic pandemonium, and I have to drive to get to the only supermarket that is open within 50 miles, and it closes at 1:00 pm.

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 11:51 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Gary,

If you join the FRIAM ZOOM … perhaps come a bit late … you will get a chance to meet Glen. NOTHIN’ he says ain’t for nothin’. It starts at 9 am Mountain; you should get an invite automatically, sometime thursday. If not, let me know.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2020 10:09 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

I'm supposed to be a geek, but I don't understand "Tempus Dictum's Discord" - sounds like some mathematical proof from the ancient Greeks. Google search shows a company called Tempus Dictum, and there appears to be some software called Discord, either or both of which may or may not be associated with Glen and reminders. I feel so behind times and technologically challenged. :-). Channeling Nick, I supposer. [no offense intended, Nick]

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 10:28 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Among the many reasons email is obsolete is the ability of other tools to "pin" a post so that it's easily found later on. In principle, the Mailman list page could do this. But it's comparatively awkward. Piling more into the footer can play the same role, but since few posters clean up their posts (e.g. deleting the repeated footer), such piling makes sifting through contributions awkward, as well.

Anyway, I'd like to "pin" this post somewhere. I think it's fantastic to make such explicit predictions, similar to those experiment sites where you have to submit your design for review, then conduct the experiment, then submit your results:

https://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2020/04/06/filling-in-the-scientific-record-the-importance-of-negative-and-null-results/

And it follows nicely with the (painfully slow) admission that knowledge comes through failure, not success: https://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2020/04/06/filling-in-the-scientific-record-the-importance-of-negative-and-null-results/

For now, I'll simply install a reminder in Tempus Dictum's Discord to come back and look at Dave's prediction in late June.

On 5/11/20 7:42 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
>
> This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and the perceptual.
>
> The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made widely available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or may not be soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based prognostications will be confirmed. And none of this will matter.
>
> A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
>
> "Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift — after all, my individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."
>
> Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and socio-economic restrictions will collapse.
>
> The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the infection/death rate.
>
> Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will become "acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.
>
> There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and individuals who have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — who will argue against these changes but their objections will be quickly countered with, "why should I suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do not share — to cater to your fears or your ego?"
>
> None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple observation / prediction.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Frank Wimberly-2

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Gary,

No need to come late. Glen has been there on time, I believe. If he has other plans perhaps he will let us know.

Frank

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 10:51 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Gary,

If you join the FRIAM ZOOM … perhaps come a bit late … you will get a chance to meet Glen. NOTHIN’ he says ain’t for nothin’. It starts at 9 am Mountain; you should get an invite automatically, sometime thursday. If not, let me know.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2020 10:09 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

I'm supposed to be a geek, but I don't understand "Tempus Dictum's Discord" - sounds like some mathematical proof from the ancient Greeks. Google search shows a company called Tempus Dictum, and there appears to be some software called Discord, either or both of which may or may not be associated with Glen and reminders. I feel so behind times and technologically challenged. :-). Channeling Nick, I supposer. [no offense intended, Nick]

On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 10:28 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Among the many reasons email is obsolete is the ability of other tools to "pin" a post so that it's easily found later on. In principle, the Mailman list page could do this. But it's comparatively awkward. Piling more into the footer can play the same role, but since few posters clean up their posts (e.g. deleting the repeated footer), such piling makes sifting through contributions awkward, as well.

Anyway, I'd like to "pin" this post somewhere. I think it's fantastic to make such explicit predictions, similar to those experiment sites where you have to submit your design for review, then conduct the experiment, then submit your results:

https://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2020/04/06/filling-in-the-scientific-record-the-importance-of-negative-and-null-results/

And it follows nicely with the (painfully slow) admission that knowledge comes through failure, not success: https://blogs.plos.org/everyone/2020/04/06/filling-in-the-scientific-record-the-importance-of-negative-and-null-results/

For now, I'll simply install a reminder in Tempus Dictum's Discord to come back and look at Dave's prediction in late June.

On 5/11/20 7:42 AM, Prof David West wrote:

> The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
>
> This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and the perceptual.
>
> The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made widely available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or may not be soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based prognostications will be confirmed. And none of this will matter.
>
> A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
>
> "Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift — after all, my individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."
>
> Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and socio-economic restrictions will collapse.
>
> The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the infection/death rate.
>
> Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will become "acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.
>
> There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and individuals who have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — who will argue against these changes but their objections will be quickly countered with, "why should I suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do not share — to cater to your fears or your ego?"
>
> None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple observation / prediction.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

Steve Smith

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by Gary Schiltz-4

Gary -

Thanks for the additional context.   I wonder who else we have here from
significantly non US contexts.   We just heard from Pietro and do hear
from Jochen and the two? Aussies off and on, I'm sure we have lurkers
from many more places (I think Mohammed El-Betagay (Cairo/Stockholm)
left the list a long time ago?) that might provide yet more parallax.
I'm about to chat with my UK/Spain colleagues for the second time since
Humpty-Dumpty started to slip off his perch. Their network is quite
wide throughout Europe and the middle East.

> Ok, a little clarification is in order. Quito is about 50 miles away,
> but I'm not allowed to drive there (travel is extremely controlled
> right now). Where I can shop is only about 15 miles away, but I can
> only drive on Fridays, from 5am until 2pm.

That matches my general recollection of your context.   I would hope
that in a country such as Ecuador, that *local* agriculture would be
ramping up (though I realize you are *at the Equator* but also *at
altitude* so not sure how that translates into growing
seasons/contexts. In any case, the options there *have* to be better
than our short non-freeze growing season and significant drought right
at the beginning of the growing season (mid-may->june).    Eric Smith
mentioned his engagement with local farmers (local to SFe or just
farmers interested in local markets everywhere?) and my own engagement
with a subset of the local sustainable farmers in northern NM suggests
that they will be the next group of front-line essential (though not so
much at risk as health/emergency) workers.   They may not get
remunerated particularly well, but for the first time in a very long
time, their local market for their produce may be expanding beyond the
elite farmer's markets and expensive restaurants that they had to depend
on in the past.

I didn't realize Ecuador had normalized to US $$ (you have probably
mentioned it before)... it does seem like an incredibly mixed
blessing.    Being a petroleum economy isn't promising if my own
predictions (similar but very different to Dave's?) unfold.   Bananas
might not fare much better if the destination(s) are first world nations
(US only?) an ocean away (as they must be?). it seems like trade with
your geographic neighbors (Peru, Brazil, Columbia) don't provide a lot
of opportunity for leverage (they produce similar things and have
similar appetites for consumer goods?).

I haven't followed Ecuadorian politics closely but a quick check shows
that Moreno is probably getting his low marks due to a combination of
austerity and authoritarianism which it seems he *has to* double down
with during this crisis.

After my own flirting with moving to a rural part of a third (second?)
world country, my own feeling about such is ambivalent in these
contexts. If I had managed to get settled, get to know my community,
build some self-reliance (water, power, food), I might feel a lot better
where you are than where I am.   I feel like NM is a bit of an island of
sanity in some ways, having *some of* the benefits of rurality and low
population but with a modestly high index of education and
worldliness.   Mary, whose family-of-origin is in *western* NE and whose
children are in small-cities in TX and the Midwest is getting very
different messages than we experience here.

- Steve

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Prof David West

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Steve,

You noted, "I simply can't read this as a "simple observation / prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting."

Nevertheless, that is exactly what I intend — a prediction that will or will not be borne out. If not, everyone gets a chance to jeer at the wannabee Nostradamus. If it does, then maybe a discussion of why; the reasons behind the prediction.

I will cede, immediately, that there is a very strong subtext. For the last month or more I have seen this list, and a few virtual FRIAMS, almost exclusively devoted to "scientific," statistical, epidemiological, models and projections of the virus and what the future holds based on those models, that math, that science.

As if there was no other data set, no other way of thinking about the problem, no other way of making projections and predictions, no other way of making sense of the data. No other foundation upon which to make decisions.

My prediction is a challenge to a gentleperson's duel with regard that "as if ..." And, it is a continuation of a theme I have harped on before - there are other ways of knowing and other things to know about that are important but neglected because of the dominance of Scientism.

Certainly, the observations are grounded in particular perspectives and those should be examined. But later, if the prediction holds, more or less. At this moment they are merely a distraction. {BTW, Nick, white versus brown is almost incidental - the conflict is between the 10-15% and the 85-90%, an economic distinction.]

It was quite clever of you to see behind the seat belt facade and discern I was really talking about helmets. The perception is that helmets increase safety. Both riders and EMTs refer to helmets as "brain buckets" in that they hold the demolished and messy contents of the head surrounded by the helmet. A helmet is designed to protect the wearer from impact injury equivalent to a one-pound weight dropped from a height of 5 feet. Not much protection if you are traveling at 50 KPH flying through the air and hitting a tree head on. At the same time, wearing a helmet increases by roughly 65% your odds of being in an accident and triples the odds that the accident will result in a spinal cord injury and paralysis. Amazing how fast I switch sides and let the "science determine" the advisability of wearing a helmet. :)

davew

On Mon, May 11, 2020, at 10:49 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Dave -
The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.

This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and the perceptual.

The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made widely available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or may not be soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based prognostications will be confirmed.  And none of this will matter.

A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.

"Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift  — after all, my individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."

Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and socio-economic restrictions will collapse.

The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the infection/death rate.

Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will become "acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.

There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and individuals who have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — who will argue against these changes but their objections will be quickly countered with, "why should I suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do not share — to cater to your fears or your ego?"

None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple observation / prediction.
Look away...nothing to see here... move along... nothing up my sleeve!
Glen (and others here) often use the idiom of "strawman" and "steelman" as apparatus for argument or maybe more to the point of my interest, illuminating dialog. I would like to bring up a related idiom of "the stalking horse". I would like to submit your prediction here as such is significantly meant (and taken) as a "stalking horse"... And the p;oint of it is "what is it helping us to think about in a different way?"
I simply can't read this as a "simple observation / prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting.
I don't want to bash you with this Dave, just put it out on the table in the same spirit I think you are offering these observations. What DOES this observation expose and what does it (perhaps) obscure? Can it do both at the same time?
A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
I think this phrase (framed by other phrases like "media hysteria") suggests that whatever this pandemic (virtually?) the entire planet has been experiencing is predominately a psychological/social experience, rather than the biological/physiological phenomenon identified as SARS-Cov-2 and it's biological coupling with it's newly found host population of modern humans who live, work, and socialize in confined spaces and travel widely (often in closely confined conveyances).   It seems to imply that this last 4-8 weeks of radical self/government incited social-distancing has had NO (or little) effect on the biological reality of the network spread of a human-human airborne disease, and that it has been ENTIRELY (or mostly) a tool of social manipulation and control (and/or self-soothing?).
I don't want to suggest for a moment that we as a people/culture are not capable of mass hysteria or mass illusions... and in fact would submit that ideas like "politics" or "economy" or "society" are constructed on precisely that.   The part of your observation (without accepting or rejecting the prediction aspect) that exposes that aspect I think is very important... but to expose it in a way that is limited to undermining *one* illusion, whilst supporting *yet another* does not improve our circumstance, but rather simply stirs the mud in a different direction.
I think your allusion to seat-belt laws (and my own extension of that to motorcycle helmet laws) is apt and relevant but wrong.   Both seem to *only* preserve the sensitivities and sensibilities of the public and/or emergency-response people who have to scrape up the gore that might have been mildly less gory with those safety devices in use.   I will also admit (in this tangent) that seat-belts and helmets usually/mostly also help to shift the costs of insurance-supported-recovery from/to funeral expenses, etc. I'm fairly confident that the my wearing a mask while mixing in a population whose R0 is close to or above 1.0 (whether from herd immunity or lack of infection in the community or effective prophylaxis) protects others from the *probability* of my infecting them, as well as *signalling* to them that *I* believe R0 to be sufficiently high without it so as to want to reduce my own participation with this asymmetric "spittle barrier".
I currently never leave my property without a bandana and raise it over my mouth and nose anytime I expect to be within a few yards of other people or am on approach to them. I am *over* careful with this by some standards for two specific reasons related to your "perception" point.   I want to reinforce the idea that it is prudent for everyone who might have the virus to keep their spittle to themselves whether it is a cough, a sneeze, or just the specks that fly while speaking whether currently in a frothy mood or not.   I also feel *midly* safer with that in place while standing opposite someone *without* their own face-covering and without a sneeze shield (virtually all retail encounters?) between us.   I also almost entirely avoid close contact (same room) with anyone I recognize as high-risk (elderly, immuno-compromised, etc.) and maintain the 6'+ prescribed distance from everyone not already "in my pod" (nod to Nick's term) with or without masks.
- Steve
davew



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Prof David West

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Grumpy Nick said: "Neither are we going to go back to the way we were, nor are we going to remain in lock down mode. We ARE going to do something in the middle. What is that thing going to be?"

There are ways of thinking about "what that thing is going to be," but I am extremely pessimistic that they will be employed.

davew

On Mon, May 11, 2020, at 11:38 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

While we are all piling on Dave ….

His post made me grumpy because it cast us back into Excluded Middle discourse. Neither are we going to go back to the way we were, nor are we going to remain in lock down mode. We ARE going to do something in the middle. What is that thing going to be? Public health people seem to thing that we are going to squeeze the infection rate DOWN and the testing rate UP to the point where test, trace, isolate becomes a practical policy. NM should be trialing such a program and Santa Fe right now, given that the County of 150k only has 2 identified new cases a day. That is so few, that it would seem that the City has zero endemic circulation. This small number of new cases could be entirely from people coming in from outside. It’s a wonderful opportunity to explore test, trace, isolate as a policy.

I am sympathetic to the notion lurking in Dave’s post that too much effort is being expended to spare the White Elderly at the expense of the Brown Poor. But I have completely lost track of the statistics that would support sequestering the vulnerable and letting everybody else go about their business. That’s not going to be easy, as the recent experience of our elder-living facilities has demonstrated. And I keep reading reports of horrendous deaths of hale people in their 40’s. For people under 50, what is the relative lethality of this virus and the flu? That data must be out there.

By the way, speaking of predictions, I predicted back in February that there would be no democratic convention this year. That one’s looking pretty good.

By another way, my 7 years of Childhood Latin, otherwise totally useless, suggests to me that Tempus Dictum should be translated, “Only Time Will Tell”.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2020 10:50 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

Dave -
The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
 
This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and the perceptual.
 
The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made widely available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or may not be soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based prognostications will be confirmed.  And none of this will matter.
 
A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
 
"Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift  — after all, my individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."
 
Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and socio-economic restrictions will collapse.
 
The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the infection/death rate.
 
Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will become "acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.
 
There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and individuals who have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — who will argue against these changes but their objections will be quickly countered with, "why should I suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do not share — to cater to your fears or your ego?"
 
None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple observation / prediction.
Look away...nothing to see here... move along... nothing up my sleeve!
Glen (and others here) often use the idiom of "strawman" and "steelman" as apparatus for argument or maybe more to the point of my interest, illuminating dialog. I would like to bring up a related idiom of "the stalking horse". I would like to submit your prediction here as such is significantly meant (and taken) as a "stalking horse"... And the p;oint of it is "what is it helping us to think about in a different way?"
I simply can't read this as a "simple observation / prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting.
I don't want to bash you with this Dave, just put it out on the table in the same spirit I think you are offering these observations. What DOES this observation expose and what does it (perhaps) obscure? Can it do both at the same time?
A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
I think this phrase (framed by other phrases like "media hysteria") suggests that whatever this pandemic (virtually?) the entire planet has been experiencing is predominately a psychological/social experience, rather than the biological/physiological phenomenon identified as SARS-Cov-2 and it's biological coupling with it's newly found host population of modern humans who live, work, and socialize in confined spaces and travel widely (often in closely confined conveyances).   It seems to imply that this last 4-8 weeks of radical self/government incited social-distancing has had NO (or little) effect on the biological reality of the network spread of a human-human airborne disease, and that it has been ENTIRELY (or mostly) a tool of social manipulation and control (and/or self-soothing?).
I don't want to suggest for a moment that we as a people/culture are not capable of mass hysteria or mass illusions... and in fact would submit that ideas like "politics" or "economy" or "society" are constructed on precisely that.   The part of your observation (without accepting or rejecting the prediction aspect) that exposes that aspect I think is very important... but to expose it in a way that is limited to undermining *one* illusion, whilst supporting *yet another* does not improve our circumstance, but rather simply stirs the mud in a different direction.
I think your allusion to seat-belt laws (and my own extension of that to motorcycle helmet laws) is apt and relevant but wrong.   Both seem to *only* preserve the sensitivities and sensibilities of the public and/or emergency-response people who have to scrape up the gore that might have been mildly less gory with those safety devices in use.   I will also admit (in this tangent) that seat-belts and helmets usually/mostly also help to shift the costs of insurance-supported-recovery from/to funeral expenses, etc. I'm fairly confident that the my wearing a mask while mixing in a population whose R0 is close to or above 1.0 (whether from herd immunity or lack of infection in the community or effective prophylaxis) protects others from the *probability* of my infecting them, as well as *signalling* to them that *I* believe R0 to be sufficiently high without it so as to want to reduce my own participation with this asymmetric "spittle barrier".
I currently never leave my property without a bandana and raise it over my mouth and nose anytime I expect to be within a few yards of other people or am on approach to them. I am *over* careful with this by some standards for two specific reasons related to your "perception" point.   I want to reinforce the idea that it is prudent for everyone who might have the virus to keep their spittle to themselves whether it is a cough, a sneeze, or just the specks that fly while speaking whether currently in a frothy mood or not.   I also feel *midly* safer with that in place while standing opposite someone *without* their own face-covering and without a sneeze shield (virtually all retail encounters?) between us.   I also almost entirely avoid close contact (same room) with anyone I recognize as high-risk (elderly, immuno-compromised, etc.) and maintain the 6'+ prescribed distance from everyone not already "in my pod" (nod to Nick's term) with or without masks.
- Steve
 
 
 
davew
 
 
 
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Steve Smith

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by Prof David West

Dave -

You noted, "I simply can't read this as a "simple observation / prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting."

Nevertheless, that is exactly what I intend — a prediction that will or will not be borne out. If not, everyone gets a chance to jeer at the wannabee Nostradamus. If it does, then maybe a discussion of why; the reasons behind the prediction.

I understand that was how you wanted it to be interpreted, and I agree that it can be interpreted strictly that way. If I didn't know you at all, I might accept that the "subtext" as you acknowledge it could/should go unspoken to. I found (at least) two subtexts.

I will cede, immediately, that there is a very strong subtext. For the last month or more I have seen this list, and a few virtual FRIAMS, almost exclusively devoted to "scientific," statistical, epidemiological, models and projections of the virus and what the future holds based on those models, that math, that science.

As if there was no other data set, no other way of thinking about the problem, no other way of making projections and predictions, no other way of making sense of the data. No other foundation upon which to make decisions.

My prediction is a challenge to a gentleperson's duel with regard that "as if ..." And, it is a continuation of a theme I have harped on before - there are other ways of knowing and other things to know about that are important but neglected because of the dominance of Scientism.

I wasn't thinking that much about THAT subtext, though I recognize that it is a theme here and has been a point of contention.

I don't feel like I've been able to weigh in effectively in that particular discussion. I may have submitted a few posts, but more likely I deleted my feeble attempts. My life's work began with a pursuit of science in it's "pure" sense but morphed into a pursuit of supporting and developing intuition and tools and methods for supporting the development of intuition in the service of scientific understanding. I encountered any number of "newage" and "occultist" and "psychedelic" and other systems of thought/belief along the way which were also pursuing the development of intuition (or something seemingly like it? This role has put me somewhat in "no-mans land" with many "serious scientists" resisting the work I was doing, at least until they had a useful/relevant experience on one hand and many "wishful thinkers" seeking my support for their methods of seeking of "truth".

Scientific Visualization, Visual Analytics, Info/Data Visualization are some of the names that have been attributed to that work, hidden within that is often a significant amount of modeling and statistical analysis. If we take "Science" to be roughly the process of "hypothesis generation and testing", then there is a (I would suggest central) place for the intuitive in "hypothesis generation". If taking psilocybin mushrooms, or LSD or peyote or ayhuasca or meditation or fasting or sleep deprivation or chatting with a dead white man, or anything else vaguely like that helps someone generate novel hypothesis, then more power to them and their method, whether they or anyone else understands the mechanisms involved in triggering their intuition. But none of that obviates the need for the second part of that working definition "hypothesis testing". I don't fault someone who pulls amazingly intuitive leaps out of their ass (or their peace pipe or sex with a Gawdess) which are then proven to be accurate by the resulting data gathered, based on those hypothesis. If they are particularly good at it yet insist on obscuring their "methods" behind arcane explanations, I might find *that* a little offputting, but it doesn't change the validity of the results. If, however, they try to parlay a few "lucky guesses" (or vaguely-stated, goal-post moving revisionism) into a claim for a "sure fire method" that they can't or won't explain, then I'm not interested.

I also acknowledge that this is hard, and anecdotally we have many examples of where an intuitive grasp of a phenomena preceded anything like "proof" by months, years, even centuries in some cases. This means that part of being open-minded means that a lack of demonstrable "proof" (logical or statistical) does not necessarily make a hypothesis wrong. It also means acknowledging that an assumed "fact" (likely backed up by significant data and applied statistics) may well yield to A) new data; B) possibly supporting a competing hypothesis; or C) an as-yet unrevealed hypothesis that fits the existing data better. And of course this new "fact" is open to similar revision. Scientific ideas like Classical Mechanics had to be give way to Relativistic and Quantum Mechanics without becoming precisely *wrong*, just *incomplete*. Other ideas like Aether and Phlogiston or the Plum-pudding model of the nucleus came to be acknowledged as "simply" *wrong*. That doesn't mean they weren't useful and even reasonable models of phenomena... until experiments which directly contradicted them were contrived. I use this often here, but I *still* choose to speak of and even perceive the sun and moon as if they are orbiting earth, even though *those* models are patently *wrong* AND I know it to be so. Just because a model is wrong doesn't mean it isn't useful, as long as you understand it's limits.

So I will grant you (and others) that there are other ways of "knowing"... but I don't happen to have any reason to believe that they hold any objective reality... they are, in my experience, always either "wishful thinking" or subjective post-hoc rationalizations... the very thing I think you accuse "scientism" of indulging in. WHICH IT DOES! The only difference is that when science indulges in "rationalizing" one of it's hypotheses, it is by following a strong general method which includes repeatability by independent parties. I "know" a lot of stuff, "deep in my gut" which I occasionally have to face as *wrong* and sometimes even *wrongheaded*. I *think* some of your task with "scientism" might be that it has become quite popular among the "unwashed masses" and anything with a "science" label or flavor or endorsement gets held up as high as "gospel" (in the theological sense) is by another group (of groups) whose knowledge is entirely passed down by "received wisdom" from a "supernatural authority". I can see how frustrating that kind of "competition" must feel to the "true believers"... Yes, there IS a cult of "Scientism" which competes with other cults, but in fact that is NOT the same as Science itself.

Certainly, the observations are grounded in particular perspectives and those should be examined. But later, if the prediction holds, more or less. At this moment they are merely a distraction. {BTW, Nick, white versus brown is almost incidental - the conflict is between the 10-15% and the 85-90%, an economic distinction.]

I also winced at Nick's melanin-content implication, which is NOT unmotivated, but is often conflated with economic and class opportunities. There ARE strong correlations there, but in fact, white males *can* suffer equivalent barriers to success under the right circumstances.

It was quite clever of you to see behind the seat belt facade and discern I was really talking about helmets. The perception is that helmets increase safety. Both riders and EMTs refer to helmets as "brain buckets" in that they hold the demolished and messy contents of the head surrounded by the helmet. A helmet is designed to protect the wearer from impact injury equivalent to a one-pound weight dropped from a height of 5 feet. Not much protection if you are traveling at 50 KPH flying through the air and hitting a tree head on. At the same time, wearing a helmet increases by roughly 65% your odds of being in an accident and triples the odds that the accident will result in a spinal cord injury and paralysis. Amazing how fast I switch sides and let the "science determine" the advisability of wearing a helmet. :)

I didn't, in fact, discern that as YOUR sleight of hand... it was my own "trigger". Most of my riding years were in AZ which HAD a helmet law which I observed fairly consistently (on paved roads anyway), partly because I found a good helmet a good defense against bugs, wind (hot and cold), and sun, and partly because I knew I would not get more than a few miles down the road without having to have an unpleasant conversation with law enforcement if I did not. When I moved to NM, I went about 50/50 helmet/not for the reasons above. I was MORE offended by seat-belt laws which are not as patently conflicted ( I'm sure there are anecdotal examples of where someone died or was maimed by a seatbelt whilst someone else was miraculously saved by NOT wearing one) as helmet laws. As a motorcycle rider, I knew I was easily MUCH more exposed (with or without helmet) than as an automobile driver without a seatbelt)... simple laws of (newtonian) physics balanced those equations for me. To be told I was harming others by not wearing a seatbelt feels patently incorrect.

The Subtext I *was* calling out (unsuccessfully) was the strong implication that the threat posed by the COVID19 virus is not significantly greater than the myriad current threats to our lives and health. Several responded to that directly, and while I didn't double check their numbers or sources, I generally believe that in fact, COVID19 has been more devastating to life and health than any other threat, and that being a network-transmission "condition", critical intervention can (and did) change the exponent on it's propagation with huge results in rates and absolute numbers. Your post seemed to imply that the measures taken to reduce the exposure/transmission rates were not useful in reducing that exponent. It also seemed to imply that the threat of overdriving the medical system's capacity (as already demonstrated in Italy and elsewhere) was not worth trying to answer either.

I share some of Marcus' cynicism which might suggest that an *unmitigated* COVID-19 pandemic *might* factor in well on the "save the planet (and humans) from humans" side of the equation, but I don't think that was your claim. It is possible that a crushed industrial commodity might be a better remedy than a simple reduction of population... not sure. I also share what might be your point, that we *could have* possibly achieved a similar effect with significantly less economic impact. Due to collaborations with people in Sweden, I have been very aware of and have been tracking *their* alternative results and *wish for us* that *we* were capable of a similar response. While you may claim that the Swedish gov't/media is who is different and therefore who made their (tentatively successful alternative) a success, I would claim that it is the people/culture themselves. The open-carry, red hat wearing, "Liberate XXXXX" protestors sent out by the greatest red-hat of them all to try to rattle (mostly Democrat) Governors into opening prematurely, as well as the hero-worshiped scofflaws around the country (including POTUS and VPOTUS) are examples of WHY this country can't pull off what Sweden *seems to be* doing. Sweden asked a lot MORE of it's people because they have demonstrated that they are a lot MORE able than we are on average. I have nothing more than my gut-instinct to back that up... after-action analysis may well prove me wrong.

The game isn't over yet, so we don't know... but if *I* had to make a prediction, I'd say that by your "Mission Accomplished, There Was Never Really Anything to Worry About but Worry Itself" date of Mid June, we will see spikes in the number of new cases, leading to a new threat on the medical system capacity/fatigue, and an attendant death rate (not to mention new and previously masked or unrecognized comorbidities and harsh symptoms). Science will have a better handle on the problem which will include myriad new anomolous data sources, suggesting many more subtleties, not an overall "nevermind" as I *think* you implied would emerge.

I DO think that relatively low-density states and regions of states with limited mixing may fare well (on average, but with huge deviations with specific contexts such as on the Navajo Nation and perhaps the meat packeing plants in the mid-west). NM and UT may get off fairly easily (as we already have), but the big urban/industrial centers, unless they are very careful are surely going to see a lot more spiking in infections, and deaths before we either find a new/good way of limiting the replication exponent through changed behaviour, herd immunity, vaccine immunity. I would like to *hope* that it is all just rhetoric and that as we return to "social mixing" the bogey-man in the closet will show to be just bad lighting shown by the crazed liberals, mainstream media, fake science, and opportunistic elite alarmists.

Thanks to Glen for putting a pin in your prophesy. Mine is perhaps a little more vague, so harder to measure... but I'll try to think of something more specific and then get a pin in that as well.

- Steve

gepr

Re: the end of the pandemic

The contrary argument was made to me by my dad, who called himself a "Goldwater Conservative", was that when you end up as a blood smear all over the highway or all smashed up against a tree, *someone* has to clean that sh¡t up. Factor in, further, rubbernecking, the possibility of children seeing your dismembered body laying in parts on the road as they drive by, trauma to the poor truck driver who you smashed into who'll have to live with having killed you for the rest of her life, etc. You MIGHT save us *all* a lot of money and psychological trauma if you'd simply wear the seat belt. [†]

So, you *are* harming others by not wearing a seat belt.

In the immortal words of teenagers everywhere, it's not about you. >8^D

[†] Add to that the consideration that human life is *infrastructure*. Sure if you're a do-nothing wastoid, your death costs us only the above and may save us money in the long-term. But if you're competent at something, anything, then WE are all better off if you wear your seat belt. To assert that you're *not* harming us by not wearing your seat belt seems extraordinarily self-indulgent.

On 5/11/20 10:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> To be told I was harming others by not wearing a seatbelt feels patently incorrect.

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☣ uǝlƃ

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: the end of the pandemic

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year

My memory/impression is that widespread seatbelt use began in the mid sixties.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, May 12, 2020, 7:57 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

The contrary argument was made to me by my dad, who called himself a "Goldwater Conservative", was that when you end up as a blood smear all over the highway or all smashed up against a tree, *someone* has to clean that sh¡t up. Factor in, further, rubbernecking, the possibility of children seeing your dismembered body laying in parts on the road as they drive by, trauma to the poor truck driver who you smashed into who'll have to live with having killed you for the rest of her life, etc. You MIGHT save us *all* a lot of money and psychological trauma if you'd simply wear the seat belt. [†]

So, you *are* harming others by not wearing a seat belt.

In the immortal words of teenagers everywhere, it's not about you. >8^D

[†] Add to that the consideration that human life is *infrastructure*. Sure if you're a do-nothing wastoid, your death costs us only the above and may save us money in the long-term. But if you're competent at something, anything, then WE are all better off if you wear your seat belt. To assert that you're *not* harming us by not wearing your seat belt seems extraordinarily self-indulgent.

On 5/11/20 10:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> To be told I was harming others by not wearing a seatbelt feels patently incorrect.

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☣ uǝlƃ

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Steve Smith

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by gepr

On 5/12/20 7:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> The contrary argument was made to me by my dad, who called himself a "Goldwater Conservative", was that when you end up as a blood smear all over the highway or all smashed up against a tree, *someone* has to clean that sh¡t up. Factor in, further, rubbernecking, the possibility of children seeing your dismembered body laying in parts on the road as they drive by, trauma to the poor truck driver who you smashed into who'll have to live with having killed you for the rest of her life, etc. You MIGHT save us *all* a lot of money and psychological trauma if you'd simply wear the seat belt. [†]
>
> So, you *are* harming others by not wearing a seat belt.
In precisely the same way I am harming others when I ride a motorcycle
with or without a helmet (THOSE accidents are almost always more gory
than the ones with cars buffering/hiding/containing the mess) or a
bicycle on the roadways with cars, or fail to optimally care for my body
(and mind and spirit ... just google "people of walmart youtube").   The
messes we all present one another by being human are just so
*intolerable*... we should set a very high bar for how much any
individual can impose on the psyche/sensitivities of any other
individual by their mere existence and exercise of personal
preferences. Oh yeh... no more convertibles, no vehicles with a power
to weight ratio above X, certainly no ATVs... and no parkour... that
shit can just go SO wrong, and *somebody* has to clean it up... splint
the bones... gauze over the gaping eye-socket... >8^D
>
> In the immortal words of teenagers everywhere, it's not about you. >8^D
>
> [†] Add to that the consideration that human life is *infrastructure*. Sure if you're a do-nothing wastoid, your death costs us only the above and may save us money in the long-term.
I think the answer to this is to be a functional/useful part of a
community, and in fact participate in and generate a shared sense of
propriety and value with that community. I believe that is easier to do
in the small (nuclear family, extended family, neighborhood, work group)
at least in principle, and in fact I feel that I try to do that in the
large as well.
> But if you're competent at something, anything, then WE are all better off if you wear your seat belt. To assert that you're *not* harming us by not wearing your seat belt seems extraordinarily self-indulgent.
I do, by the way, generally wear my seat-belt, and not because I might
get a "ticket if you don't click-it". My father was a USFS employee
from the late 50s who were one of (as he tells it) first government
agencies to have seat-belts installed in their trucks and required
employees to use them.   We did not have seat-belts in the 1959 VW
pickup truck they bought but in the 1964 ford station wagon, they had
seatbelts installed all around, and we were (usually) expected to wear
them. I discovered as a young driver (with a car with a bench seat)
that I could take those corners a LOT faster and brake HARDER and still
maintain control if my lap-belt was strapped tight across my hips. I
even coveted one of those "racing harnesses" for the same reason.   In
some ways, you might say seat-belts made me a *less safe* driver.   But
then I learned most of my road awareness and driving skills on a
motorcycle which made me *hyper-aware* of my vulnerability.... while
other parents were buying their kids giant land-yachts do drive around
(because they were safer) I was buying my own (mildly underpowered)
motorcycle and possibly becomeing a much more aware/safe driver in the
process and definitely NOT risking other's lives nearly as acutely as
the first-year drivers on testosterone driving a buick with the
muffler's cut out.
>
> On 5/11/20 10:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> To be told I was harming others by not wearing a seatbelt feels patently incorrect.

>

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gepr

Re: the end of the pandemic

Ha! Well, these analogies do break down. So "precisely the same way" doesn't really work. For example, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that the costs associated with obesity are "precisely the same" as the costs associated with cleaning your smashed body off the road.

I continue to argue for context and it's importance in these issues. The RoI for seat belts is quite clear. I *think* it's quite clear for mandated helmets, too. A quick Google scholar search shows the actual science behind them (contrary to Dave's conclusion). Regardless, each issue, from the decibels of one's leaf blower to underage ATV riders, from binary rules (prison) to modest inhibitory policies (taxation) requires context. To ignore the context and make blanket generalities like you're doing or blanket laws for/against them is technically ignorant, in the sense that we're ignoring the details.

But the main point remains: It's not about the individual. It's about the collection of individuals, including the plants and bacteria.

On 5/12/20 8:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> In precisely the same way I am harming others when I ride a motorcycle
> with or without a helmet (THOSE accidents are almost always more gory
> than the ones with cars buffering/hiding/containing the mess) or a
> bicycle on the roadways with cars, or fail to optimally care for my body
> (and mind and spirit ... just google "people of walmart youtube"). The
> messes we all present one another by being human are just so
> *intolerable*... we should set a very high bar for how much any
> individual can impose on the psyche/sensitivities of any other
> individual by their mere existence and exercise of personal
> preferences. Oh yeh... no more convertibles, no vehicles with a power
> to weight ratio above X, certainly no ATVs... and no parkour... that
> shit can just go SO wrong, and *somebody* has to clean it up... splint
> the bones... gauze over the gaping eye-socket... >8^D

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Steve Smith

Re: the end of the pandemic

On 5/12/20 10:10 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> Ha! Well, these analogies do break down. So "precisely the same way" doesn't really work. For example, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that the costs associated with obesity are "precisely the same" as the costs associated with cleaning your smashed body off the road.
<grin> of course it is not "precisely" the same (hyperbole).. no thing
is precisely the same as any other thing (unless of course there really
is only one electron in the universe and it is everywhere at once).
Scraping the pixels of the image of my obese body out of people's
wedding and vacation photos might seem nearly as distasteful to the
happy tourists/wedding attendees as watching someone else scrape my
viscera from the pavement (or bridge abutment, or light post)... and to
complete the not-precisely-the-same-as analogy, the happy couple trying
to remove my photo-bombing self are likely not doing the scraping
themselves, but rather paying their photographer or digital lab to do
the same while they look away fastidiously (or gaze on morbidly)
(rubbernekking?).
> I continue to argue for context and it's importance in these issues. The RoI for seat belts is quite clear. I *think* it's quite clear for mandated helmets, too. A quick Google scholar search shows the actual science behind them (contrary to Dave's conclusion).

I don't know the detailed data/science behind helmets. I happen to be
on the end of the spectrum that says "I'd rather have a quick and
concise death than a long and lingering one" whether it is vehicle
accidents or pandemic health threats. I haven't owned a motorcycle in
over a decade and have only taken one for a spin a few times in the last
few years, always with a helmet (and boots, and long pants, and
long-sleeves). If I'm going to have a minor motorcycle accident, I'd
rather stumble away from it with all my skin and hopefully my joints and
bones and cranium intact. If I were riding hard and fast all the time,
maybe modern body-armour/helmetage is good enough (you may own some, or
at least be aware of the state of the art) to allow me to dump the bike
on a bad turn or to avoid a bad driver and slide, tumble, thump my way
down the roadway and not suffer (much) more than a bunch of bruises and
a lot of disorientation and maybe some PTSD dreams. If that is the
case, I recommend such... there might even be a self-inflating Michelin
man suit that emulates the effects of airbags.   If there are such
things then we should mandate them, maybe even for bicycles and scooters
and skate boards, electric-powered or otherwise.

But that doesn't mean I want to outlaw others who might want to ride
motorcycles, with or without helmets, with or without body armour, with
or without the Michelin Man suit.   I am much more sympathetic with
expecting (demanding of?) people hurtling down the highway at a relative
velocity (to my own) of 120MPH or more to wear eye protection so that
they are MUCH less likely to catch a bug in the eye and swerve into my
lane and do a face-dive through my windshield (with or without a
helmet).    I'm not sure what the right threshold for these things is,
but I do believe they are and should be negotiable within various
(sub)cultures... so I (mostly) wear my seatbelt and I don't ride a
motorcycle much anymore (because I'm probably more of risk of being a
burden to society as a motorcycle accident victim with or without a
helmet than ever before).   But that doesn't make me feel that I should
disallow you from riding yours (with or without a helmet or body armour
or yadda yadda).

> Regardless, each issue, from the decibels of one's leaf blower to underage ATV riders, from binary rules (prison) to modest inhibitory policies (taxation) requires context. To ignore the context and make blanket generalities like you're doing or blanket laws for/against them is technically ignorant, in the sense that we're ignoring the details.
Yes, we are prone to ignore details and the paradoxes of stacking rules
about how other people should behave when the consequences (to others)
of such are somewhat secondary or tertiary...   and we all have our pet
examples of things we think *shouldn't* be (en)forced onto us or we
think *should* be (en)forced onto others.
> But the main point remains: It's not about the individual. It's about the collection of individuals, including the plants and bacteria.
and Virii? Don't forget the viruses... THEY are just trying to live a
normal, robust, virus life... and they DO hole an important role in our
larger ecology. With that I might endorse the development and
distribution of a vaccine, but antivirals are somewhat questionable
morally.   And that Ice9 stuff? It has a right to reproduce too...
which of course seems to lead us back around to "what means behaviour?"
is crystalization as a self-reproduction mode above the threshold?

- Steve

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gepr

Re: the end of the pandemic

Aha! Excellent point! That viruses are parasites might be a critical issue, though. What do viruses really do for us? It's less a matter of whether they feel pain and more about parasitism. I hesitate to google "ethics of parasitism".

On 5/12/20 9:53 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> and Virii? Don't forget the viruses... THEY are just trying to live a
> normal, robust, virus life... and they DO hole an important role in our
> larger ecology. With that I might endorse the development and
> distribution of a vaccine, but antivirals are somewhat questionable
> morally. And that Ice9 stuff? It has a right to reproduce too...
> which of course seems to lead us back around to "what means behaviour?"
> is crystalization as a self-reproduction mode above the threshold?

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Steve Smith

Re: the end of the pandemic

Glen -

Aha! Excellent point! That viruses are parasites might be a critical issue, though. What do viruses really do for us? It's less a matter of whether they feel pain and more about parasitism. I hesitate to google "ethics of parasitism".

.. and now we tangent to mutualistic, commensal, and parasitic symbiosis. Viruses may or may not be strictly parasitic (if such an absolute is even possible)... it doesn't seem to be a far stretch to suggest that humans have adapted to hosting viruses in many ways, some as beneficial as compensatory. Following the other lines of thought here, it has been said that "pneumonia is the old man's friend" (not a virus, but the same role). Is not herd-culling of value to a species?

I nominally borrow my ethics in this context from Albert Schweitzer's "Reverence for Life" and his oft-quoted (by me mostly) line:

The most immediate fact of man’s consciousness is the assertion "I am life that wills to live in the midst of life that wills to live"

— Albert Schweitzer

This question took me nicely back to the Alife II conference in SFe in 1990 when these kinds of questions were still fairly fresh and young. I found a great "trip report" by another one of the attendee which preserved a number of great anecdotes from some of the familiar names.

http://shinyverse.org/larryy/ALife2.html

I think the most interesting to me (in that moment?) was a panel on the Ontology of ALife... probably good preparation for FriAM discussions...

Ontology of Artificial Life Panel with Peter Cariani, Steen Rasmussen, Norm Packard, Tom Toffoli, Robert Rosen and Elliot Sober

The trip-report didn't trigger my memories beyond remembering that the panel was a lot more lively and interesting than it's title would suggest.

Symbiotically yours,

- Steve

Prof David West

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Steve,

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I continue to fail in my attempts to parameterize discussions because all of you are so dammed smart. But I try again.

I wanted to make a simple prediction (the end of the pandemic) that contrasted significantly with the prevailing prediction (yours included) that there will be a round-two and a second lock down. Wait five weeks and see which one appears to be closer to observations and then explore the underpinnings of each.

I conceded the "facts" that, I think, the prevailing prediction relies upon: there will be spikes, the death toll will continue to increase, people will be careless with regard masks and social distancing, new mysteries will arise, etc.

But, I claim, those facts are irrelevant to the outcome.

What I hoped to achieve with this prediction — if it comes to pass — is a conversation about what variables, what data, what forces, what relationships, what principles where overlooked / willfully ignored by those making the prevailing predictions.

I hoped for Glen's reaction — pin this sucker and sharpen the knives while we wait. (thereby assuming the not inconsiderable risk of being carved like a Thanksgiving turkey come mid-June.)

Of course, I must believe I have an alternative perspective, think I have alternative facts, possess alternative theories; all of which underlay the prediction. Clearly, I have a not so hidden agenda. You called me on all of this and I made the mistake of replying and therefore muddied the water.

In particular, my admission of a subtext was hopelessly unclear. I should have spoke of alternative ways of "thinking," not "knowing." At the moment the whole "acid epistemology" theme I have raised before is deferred and not particularly useful. So to, the "cult" of science issue.

COVID presents a unique problem. The government's, the media's, much of the populace's response to that problem is to do "what the science tells us." FRIAM is seemingly obsessed with determining what the science is and what it is telling us to do.

But COVID, at least is most challenging aspects, does not present a scientific problem. The problem is human and cultural. Focusing on "the science" blinds us and causes us to ignore significant amounts of relevant information and knowledge. Moreover, much of that information and knowledge is not reducible to quantities and formal relationships.

And science is not the essential problem — the insanity of believing that unless and until a discipline becomes "scientific" (mathematical, quantifiable, etc.) it has little or no value. E.g. anthropology is ignored in favor of sociology because the latter is far more formal, more scientific.

Malinowski had the insight and provided a thorough description of "satisficing" along with all kinds of case studies of its application in Polynesian cultures decades before Simon won his Nobel prize in economics for making the exact same concept mathematical.

Similar things happen all the time when we insist on focusing on "the science" and ignore the "art" and the insights of "non-scientific" disciplines and fields of inquiry.

davew

On Mon, May 11, 2020, at 11:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Dave -
You noted, "I simply can't read this as a "simple observation / prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting."

Nevertheless, that is exactly what I intend — a prediction that will or will not be borne out. If not, everyone gets a chance to jeer at the wannabee Nostradamus. If it does, then maybe a discussion of why; the reasons behind the prediction.
I understand that was how you wanted it to be interpreted, and I agree that it can be interpreted strictly that way.   If I didn't know you at all, I might accept that the "subtext" as you acknowledge it could/should go unspoken to. I found (at least) two subtexts.

I will cede, immediately, that there is a very strong subtext. For the last month or more I have seen this list, and a few virtual FRIAMS, almost exclusively devoted to "scientific," statistical, epidemiological, models and projections of the virus and what the future holds based on those models, that math, that science.

As if there was no other data set, no other way of thinking about the problem, no other way of making projections and predictions, no other way of making sense of the data. No other foundation upon which to make decisions.

My prediction is a challenge to a gentleperson's duel with regard that "as if ..." And, it is a continuation of a theme I have harped on before - there are other ways of knowing and other things to know about that are important but neglected because of the dominance of Scientism.
I wasn't thinking that much about THAT subtext, though I recognize that it is a theme here and has been a point of contention.
I don't feel like I've been able to weigh in effectively in that particular discussion. I may have submitted a few posts, but more likely I deleted my feeble attempts. My life's work began with a pursuit of science in it's "pure" sense but morphed into a pursuit of supporting and developing intuition and tools and methods for supporting the development of intuition in the service of scientific understanding.    I encountered any number of "newage" and "occultist" and "psychedelic" and other systems of thought/belief along the way which were also pursuing the development of intuition (or something seemingly like it?    This role has put me somewhat in "no-mans land" with many "serious scientists" resisting the work I was doing, at least until they had a useful/relevant experience on one hand and many "wishful thinkers" seeking my support for their methods of seeking of "truth".
Scientific Visualization, Visual Analytics, Info/Data Visualization are some of the names that have been attributed to that work, hidden within that is often a significant amount of modeling and statistical analysis.   If we take "Science" to be roughly the process of "hypothesis generation and testing", then there is a (I would suggest central) place for the intuitive in "hypothesis generation".   If taking psilocybin mushrooms, or LSD or peyote or ayhuasca or meditation or fasting or sleep deprivation or chatting with a dead white man, or anything else vaguely like that helps someone generate novel hypothesis, then more power to them and their method, whether they or anyone else understands the mechanisms involved in triggering their intuition.   But none of that obviates the need for the second part of that working definition "hypothesis testing".   I don't fault someone who pulls amazingly intuitive leaps out of their ass (or their peace pipe or sex with a Gawdess) which are then proven to be accurate by the resulting data gathered, based on those hypothesis.   If they are particularly good at it yet insist on obscuring their "methods" behind arcane explanations, I might find *that* a little offputting, but it doesn't change the validity of the results.   If, however, they try to parlay a few "lucky guesses" (or vaguely-stated, goal-post moving revisionism) into a claim for a "sure fire method" that they can't or won't explain, then I'm not interested.
I also acknowledge that this is hard, and anecdotally we have many examples of where an intuitive grasp of a phenomena preceded anything like "proof" by months, years, even centuries in some cases.   This means that part of being open-minded means that a lack of demonstrable "proof" (logical or statistical) does not necessarily make a hypothesis wrong.   It also means acknowledging that an assumed "fact" (likely backed up by significant data and applied statistics) may well yield to A) new data; B) possibly supporting a competing hypothesis; or C) an as-yet unrevealed hypothesis that fits the existing data better.    And of course this new "fact" is open to similar revision.   Scientific ideas like Classical Mechanics had to be give way to Relativistic and Quantum Mechanics without becoming precisely *wrong*, just *incomplete*.   Other ideas like Aether and Phlogiston or the Plum-pudding model of the nucleus came to be acknowledged as "simply" *wrong*.   That doesn't mean they weren't useful and even reasonable models of phenomena... until experiments which directly contradicted them were contrived. I use this often here, but I *still* choose to speak of and even perceive the sun and moon as if they are orbiting earth, even though *those* models are patently *wrong* AND I know it to be so. Just because a model is wrong doesn't mean it isn't useful, as long as you understand it's limits.
So I will grant you (and others) that there are other ways of "knowing"... but I don't happen to have any reason to believe that they hold any objective reality... they are, in my experience, always either "wishful thinking" or subjective post-hoc rationalizations... the very thing I think you accuse "scientism" of indulging in. WHICH IT DOES! The only difference is that when science indulges in "rationalizing" one of it's hypotheses, it is by following a strong general method which includes repeatability by independent parties. I "know" a lot of stuff, "deep in my gut" which I occasionally have to face as *wrong* and sometimes even *wrongheaded*. I *think* some of your task with "scientism" might be that it has become quite popular among the "unwashed masses" and anything with a "science" label or flavor or endorsement gets held up as high as "gospel" (in the theological sense) is by another group (of groups) whose knowledge is entirely passed down by "received wisdom" from a "supernatural authority". I can see how frustrating that kind of "competition" must feel to the "true believers"... Yes, there IS a cult of "Scientism" which competes with other cults, but in fact that is NOT the same as Science itself.
Certainly, the observations are grounded in particular perspectives and those should be examined. But later, if the prediction holds, more or less. At this moment they are merely a distraction. {BTW, Nick, white versus brown is almost incidental - the conflict is between the 10-15% and the 85-90%, an economic distinction.]
I also winced at Nick's melanin-content implication, which is NOT unmotivated, but is often conflated with economic and class opportunities.   There ARE strong correlations there, but in fact, white males *can* suffer equivalent barriers to success under the right circumstances.

It was quite clever of you to see behind the seat belt facade and discern I was really talking about helmets. The perception is that helmets increase safety. Both riders and EMTs refer to helmets as "brain buckets" in that they hold the demolished and messy contents of the head surrounded by the helmet. A helmet is designed to protect the wearer from impact injury equivalent to a one-pound weight dropped from a height of 5 feet. Not much protection if you are traveling at 50 KPH flying through the air and hitting a tree head on. At the same time, wearing a helmet increases by roughly 65% your odds of being in an accident and triples the odds that the accident will result in a spinal cord injury and paralysis. Amazing how fast I switch sides and let the "science determine" the advisability of wearing a helmet. :)
I didn't, in fact, discern that as YOUR sleight of hand... it was my own "trigger".    Most of my riding years were in AZ which HAD a helmet law which I observed fairly consistently (on paved roads anyway), partly because I found a good helmet a good defense against bugs, wind (hot and cold), and sun, and partly because I knew I would not get more than a few miles down the road without having to have an unpleasant conversation with law enforcement if I did not.   When I moved to NM, I went about 50/50 helmet/not for the reasons above.   I was MORE offended by seat-belt laws which are not as patently conflicted ( I'm sure there are anecdotal examples of where someone died or was maimed by a seatbelt whilst someone else was miraculously saved by NOT wearing one) as helmet laws.   As a motorcycle rider, I knew I was easily MUCH more exposed (with or without helmet) than as an automobile driver without a seatbelt)... simple laws of (newtonian) physics balanced those equations for me.   To be told I was harming others by not wearing a seatbelt feels patently incorrect.
The Subtext I *was* calling out (unsuccessfully) was the strong implication that the threat posed by the COVID19 virus is not significantly greater than the myriad current threats to our lives and health.   Several responded to that directly, and while I didn't double check their numbers or sources, I generally believe that in fact, COVID19 has been more devastating to life and health than any other threat, and that being a network-transmission "condition", critical intervention can (and did) change the exponent on it's propagation with huge results in rates and absolute numbers.   Your post seemed to imply that the measures taken to reduce the exposure/transmission rates were not useful in reducing that exponent. It also seemed to imply that the threat of overdriving the medical system's capacity (as already demonstrated in Italy and elsewhere) was not worth trying to answer either.
I share some of Marcus' cynicism which might suggest that an *unmitigated* COVID-19 pandemic *might* factor in well on the "save the planet (and humans) from humans" side of the equation, but I don't think that was your claim. It is possible that a crushed industrial commodity might be a better remedy than a simple reduction of population... not sure. I also share what might be your point, that we *could have* possibly achieved a similar effect with significantly less economic impact.   Due to collaborations with people in Sweden, I have been very aware of and have been tracking *their* alternative results and *wish for us* that *we* were capable of a similar response.   While you may claim that the Swedish gov't/media is who is different and therefore who made their (tentatively successful alternative) a success, I would claim that it is the people/culture themselves.   The open-carry, red hat wearing, "Liberate XXXXX" protestors sent out by the greatest red-hat of them all to try to rattle (mostly Democrat) Governors into opening prematurely, as well as the hero-worshiped scofflaws around the country (including POTUS and VPOTUS) are examples of WHY this country can't pull off what Sweden *seems to be* doing.   Sweden asked a lot MORE of it's people because they have demonstrated that they are a lot MORE able than we are on average. I have nothing more than my gut-instinct to back that up... after-action analysis may well prove me wrong.
The game isn't over yet, so we don't know... but if *I* had to make a prediction, I'd say that by your "Mission Accomplished, There Was Never Really Anything to Worry About but Worry Itself" date of Mid June, we will see spikes in the number of new cases, leading to a new threat on the medical system capacity/fatigue, and an attendant death rate (not to mention new and previously masked or unrecognized comorbidities and harsh symptoms).   Science will have a better handle on the problem which will include myriad new anomolous data sources, suggesting many more subtleties, not an overall "nevermind" as I *think* you implied would emerge.
I DO think that relatively low-density states and regions of states with limited mixing may fare well (on average, but with huge deviations with specific contexts such as on the Navajo Nation and perhaps the meat packeing plants in the mid-west).   NM and UT may get off fairly easily (as we already have), but the big urban/industrial centers, unless they are very careful are surely going to see a lot more spiking in infections, and deaths before we either find a new/good way of limiting the replication exponent through changed behaviour, herd immunity, vaccine immunity.    I would like to *hope* that it is all just rhetoric and that as we return to "social mixing" the bogey-man in the closet will show to be just bad lighting shown by the crazed liberals, mainstream media, fake science, and opportunistic elite alarmists.
Thanks to Glen for putting a pin in your prophesy.   Mine is perhaps a little more vague, so harder to measure... but I'll try to think of something more specific and then get a pin in that as well.
- Steve

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Prof David West

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by gepr

glen,

another time, another place, if an only if someone is interested — I can prove my assertions about helmets and show exactly and precisely how all the studies you may have found using Google Scholar, err. Show how other factors (notably age and hours of experience) are far more important that presence or absence of a helmet, and statistics from autopsy reports that belie the simplistic police report based (dead-helmet, dead-no helmet) statistics.

davew

On Tue, May 12, 2020, at 10:10 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:

> Ha! Well, these analogies do break down. So "precisely the same way"
> doesn't really work. For example, I think you'd be hard pressed to say
> that the costs associated with obesity are "precisely the same" as the
> costs associated with cleaning your smashed body off the road.
>
> I continue to argue for context and it's importance in these issues.
> The RoI for seat belts is quite clear. I *think* it's quite clear for
> mandated helmets, too. A quick Google scholar search shows the actual
> science behind them (contrary to Dave's conclusion). Regardless, each
> issue, from the decibels of one's leaf blower to underage ATV riders,
> from binary rules (prison) to modest inhibitory policies (taxation)
> requires context. To ignore the context and make blanket generalities
> like you're doing or blanket laws for/against them is technically
> ignorant, in the sense that we're ignoring the details.
>
> But the main point remains: It's not about the individual. It's about
> the collection of individuals, including the plants and bacteria.
>
>
> On 5/12/20 8:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> > In precisely the same way I am harming others when I ride a motorcycle
> > with or without a helmet (THOSE accidents are almost always more gory
> > than the ones with cars buffering/hiding/containing the mess) or a
> > bicycle on the roadways with cars, or fail to optimally care for my body
> > (and mind and spirit ... just google "people of walmart youtube"). The
> > messes we all present one another by being human are just so
> > *intolerable*... we should set a very high bar for how much any
> > individual can impose on the psyche/sensitivities of any other
> > individual by their mere existence and exercise of personal
> > preferences. Oh yeh... no more convertibles, no vehicles with a power
> > to weight ratio above X, certainly no ATVs... and no parkour... that
> > shit can just go SO wrong, and *somebody* has to clean it up... splint
> > the bones... gauze over the gaping eye-socket... >8^D
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by Prof David West

Dave writes:

< Similar things happen all the time when we insist on focusing on "the science" and ignore the "art" and the insights of "non-scientific" disciplines and fields of inquiry. >

It is possible to state models of cultural interactions and simulate them on a computer. When one does this, they will have said something precise enough to be wrong.

Marcus

Prof David West

Re: the end of the pandemic

Marcus,

Unfortunately, culture is, at minimum, NP-Hard and almost certainly NP complete.

davew

On Tue, May 12, 2020, at 2:18 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

Dave writes:

< Similar things happen all the time when we insist on focusing on "the science" and ignore the "art" and the insights of "non-scientific" disciplines and fields of inquiry. >

It is possible to state models of cultural interactions and simulate them on a computer. When one does this, they will have said something precise enough to be wrong.

Marcus
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gepr

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by Prof David West

I understand. But remember that I care very little about the person wearing (or not) a helmet. I care *much* more about the other drivers, the ambulance, healthcare costs (of both dead and not-dead), etc. What that implies is that I don't care very much about the stories from MEs or EMTs, etc. What I care about is the cost to society.

To clarify, all that's required to get an endorsement in Oregon is to pass a relatively trivial test. But there is ample, scientific, evidence that taking a training course (even if only 2 weekends) prior to the test, reduces every bad consequence. I'd argue that a law in a *huge* territory like a state, covering a huge demographic, is not intended (and won't) help any given individual. They do, however, help populations of individuals. Helmet laws are no different.

So I'd welcome any statistics you have over, for example, costs to the state, county, city, hospital systems, charities, etc. But statistics showing things like Snell vs ODOT impact ratings and spine damage are less interesting to me. For data like that to be interesting, we'd have to look not at *laws* but best practices and, maybe, household rules (like ATGATT).

My prediction: Helmet laws *reduce* the cost of motorcycling to society.

On 5/12/20 1:14 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> another time, another place, if an only if someone is interested — I can prove my assertions about helmets and show exactly and precisely how all the studies you may have found using Google Scholar, err. Show how other factors (notably age and hours of experience) are far more important that presence or absence of a helmet, and statistics from autopsy reports that belie the simplistic police report based (dead-helmet, dead-no helmet) statistics.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: the end of the pandemic

In reply to this post by Prof David West

Dave writes:

“Unfortunately, culture is, at minimum, NP-Hard and almost certainly NP complete.”

Noisy wetware is going to get anywhere without exponential resources?

Like Sars-COV2, the humans are sometimes prone to that rate of reproduction.

Marcus

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: the end of the pandemic

Stress or virus

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipNtFVkBUo9UR7UFiqk8Pe9Jvo-2WubK07UEUGhr

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 2:33 PM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dave writes:

“Unfortunately, culture is, at minimum, NP-Hard and almost certainly NP complete.”

Noisy wetware is going to get anywhere without exponential resources?

Like Sars-COV2, the humans are sometimes prone to that rate of reproduction.

Marcus

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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

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