There’s a compounding factor that hasn’t been discussed: Length of time between boosters. For older and immune compromised people--it is a misnomer to say they are “vaccinated” beyond six months. In fact, boosters are probably due after 4 months if you have pre-existing conditions, especially if you are over 60!
Wear masks--there’s still a trifecta of covid-flu-RSV--and keep alcohol spray on hand; keep your hands clean and out of your face.
I have no patience for “anti-vaxers” or anyone else who thinks they are just, too special to deal with reality.
No, Shee-rah. If you listen to most of these stark raving anti science lunes, they would simply tell you they and theirs can survive anything because they are "real" Americans. They are at their core fundamentally anti science and pro "belief."
Agreed Shee-rah. I was born after the polio vaccine was available but still remember pictures of all the kids in those iron lungs and still think about how fortunate I was to be born when I was!
The only “good” news in this essay is that unvaccinated right-wing morons are dying at a faster rate than Dems. Unfortunately, that rate is nowhere near fast enough! The Self-Extermination of the Stupid is taking much too long.
Well, Judith, that is not very Christian of you to revel in the death and suffering of our fellow citizens, but you like me have had to come to face a brutal reality. It does us no good to "care" more for our fellow citizens than they care about themselves. Covid is a zero sum disease. It is reflected in who gets sick and sickest (the unvaccinated) and those who die most (those who believe they can beat it on their own or with quack MAGA endorsed cures.) So, in the end as in most things Darwin was right.
Christian? Christian? Like Christian Nationalists who favorably compare Christian values to Putin’s Orthodox Church, and back Russian oligarch/mob bosses in their Ukrainian war crimes? Christians who elevate tRump to a figure like The Second Coming? Christians who ignore the science behind public health to excuse their anti-vaxx, pro-gun agenda? Makes me more proud to stand with Judith .
Dawna, while I also find the rabid brand of evangelical Christianity off putting, I also sense in your post an antithesis against those, like me. who practice what I refer to as New Testament Christianity. Of put another way following in the teachings and admonitions of Jesus particularly as it relates to unconditional love, charity and forgiveness. There are many Christians like me who are often condemned out of hand because of the actions of others who are practicing what I like to call Cafeteria Christianity as in being selective as to what sinful actions to condemn and ignoring the often un Christ like nature of what accompanies that. But, my main point is if you want to condemn organized religion with such zest do not be surprised when those who do practice it take your comment to mean there is no place for them in your world which condemns all religion out of hand. Or, put another way. It is difficult to build political coalitions if you want to limit your club to those who do not practice a religion.
Note that his father was a Christian minister who was a stout abolitionist, so the family was persecuted by, who else, other Christians who were pro-slavery! The family had to relocate several times as a result.
Robert later raised the 11th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry after the onset of the Civil War, and assumed command, they fought at the Battle of Shiloh. Later he was captured by the Confederates, released in a prisoner trade, and after the war became Attorney General of Illinois. One of his daughters became a well-known campaigner for women's rights. Known as "The Great Agnostic," he lectured across the USA. Also a Shakespeare scholar, friend of Walt Whitman, and more.
Nor did I suggest it would be. My comment addresses the political reality if the left in American wants to govern it must persuade some of those who are religious to come along for the ride. Alienating them by constantly suggesting religion is a stigma is not going to win minds or hearts to the liberal cause. For every Christian you drive away you have to replace them with someone else. Zero sum politics is not a way to win elections.
No, people who are going to base their political support for progressive legislation on their own religious interpretations are too far gone to worry about. Being "driven away" because people don't take your religion seriously is your problem. No one is obligated in any circumstance to take any given religious doctrine seriously, if it escapes the four corners of sound public policy. And policy is always open to debate, criticism, testing, contentious arguments. Too bad if your religious feelings are hurt, mais c'est la vie!
You either have a social conscience, or you don't, you either realize what policies are beneficial irrespective of religious dogmas, or you don't. No one should ever cater to people so self-involved and complacent about crucial issues like, for example, climate change, reproductive freedom, a fair tax system, dark money in campaigns, and so on, that they feel they must inject the requirement for some symbolic blathering about religion into the mix.
Where does it end? Anyone still voting for the GQP has no functioning moral compass anyway, so it can't matter in that respect, they represent a totally hopeless lost cause writ large. Ditto with "fundamentalists."
And other people whose "religious values" are so shallow they can be appeased by anodyne statements should just remain ensconced in their incredibly narrow world-view, if that's their choice. If they are petty enough to demand some kind of a "loyalty oath, " a swearing that progressives won't try to alter the tax code to tax church-owned property, for example, that's also rather presumptuous, isn't it? Other than that I cannot even imagine what "values" would deter people from separating their political views from specific religious doctrine, eschatology and biblical hermeneutics --- surely you are not arguing that's not fair to the "religious"?
And there are a host of examples of the deleterious effects of having zealous religious true believers engage in politics, those aren't difficult to find!
No one needs any kind of religion to live an ethical life, and to do their best to honor the true, the good, and the beautiful. More of a snare and a delusion than a helpful auxiliary to that project, from what I have observed, in fact.
Wishing death upon others can have serious legal and social consequences. In many countries, it is considered a form of harassment or threatening behavior and is punishable by law. In addition to legal repercussions, wishing death upon others can also lead to social ostracism and loss of relationships and employment opportunities. It can also contribute to a toxic and hostile environment for those around you. It is important to be mindful of the power of words and the impact they can have on others.
There's no way to know that, nor is it a reason to also participate in the same behavior. To do so would be swan diving from any moral high ground to add fuel to the fire. Not engaging in a fight because it's stupid has always been one of the most prominent lessons put forth by the responsible liberal. Why was this so quickly thrown out the window against better judgement?
in the largest sense (but also the most general one), it's hard to argue with what you're saying. most of us prefer the moral high ground because it is, after all, the moral high ground.
but applying it to the specific case of what's been going on in this country for the last seven or so years (in its most blatant, in-your-face way...we all now it goes back quite a hell of a lot longer way) strikes me as, at very least, casuistry. certainly, it strikes me as an example of the fake both sides-ism that has been unnecessarily poisoning the well of public discourse.
using myself as an example because it's the case I know best, I can say that I've never agreed with the philosophy of people who are, say, as much on the Right as I consider myself to be on the Left. but for most of my life, I thought they were wrong but never once thought to make up the kind of crazy shit they've been trading in. I don't think Republicans have run child trafficking operations out of the White House and can't see myself making that kind of argument. as much as I find the Social Darwinism of today's Republicans to be mean-spirited, I didn't used to make the assumption they were EVIL (nowadays, I can't say the same thing, but I'm not the one who brought things to this point.
I don't think I need to take any more time advancing this argument. in fact, I think the last ten or so minutes have been largely wasted since I'm making exactly the same point previous readers have made. I get that there's a shitload of tribalism happening and I can certainly perceive how ugly it is, but it really DOES matter who created the environment in which this tribalism thrives as a way to increase and retain political power. it's not MY tribe that bitches and moans about "excessive spending" when they're the out party but which spends like a drunken sailor when they're in. and....yadda yadda yadda. I've made my point. selah.
Yes! I do also think it wasn't a complete waste of time, though, as clarifying one's own views is intrinsically valuable. Even though it may be wasted on some hypothetical interlocutors, who have already decided in advance what it is you think!
Preach all you want, brother. I will continue to hate t-rump and wish death and damnation on him and every last one of his worshipers. They are destroying this country, and if that doesn’t make you furious, then there is something seriously lacking in you.
You should look into the psychology behind tribalism. It distorts perception to make you hate rival tribes. Ever wonder why everything "they" do seems be nefarious and depraved? It's delusion. They're experiencing exactly the same thing back at you. There's no actual rationale behind it, it's just instinct doing what it does. It's unwise to fall for it.
"Tribalism can lead to a negative perception of other tribes, as individuals may view members of other tribes as a threat to their own group's interests or values. This can lead to feelings of hostility or mistrust towards those in other tribes, and can make it difficult for individuals to see the humanity and commonality with those from other groups. Additionally, tribalism can lead to stereotyping and generalization of members of other tribes, which can further reinforce negative perceptions. This negative perception of other tribes can be further reinforced by the self-affirmation bias which is a cognitive bias that makes people focus on confirming their pre-existing beliefs while interpreting new information."
The term "self-extermination" makes the statement distinguishable from a "death threat." We are dealing with people who are "wishing death on themselves," and in the course of that, raising the risks of spreading a deadly disease. Not only that, the coronavirus and its varaints are linked to brain damage, heart damage, and other long-term health problems.
Try reading more closely, your expansion of the legal concepts that treat making serious threats of death and/or great bodily harm to specific people who are innocent, to include simply hoping that evil, disease-spreading nitwits die off as soon as possible, and so stating, is absurd.
It's much more reasonable that failing to condemn the disease-spreading nitwits would lead to ostracism, and it certainly isn't toxic to state a strong condemnation of those who remain unvaccinated against a highly infectious and potentially lethal disease. In fact I can't really avoid the conclusion that it is you who just made the reflexive and senseless threat, and not Judith. That would follow the typical far right template for argument and debate: always take the position that you are being victimized, always insist your notions are immune from criticism, that is, that your views are always fundamentally beyond reproach, irrespective of the real world consequences of following them, etc.
But thanks for injecting a note of hysteria into the discussion, by exaggerating a sensible hope that disease-spreading anti-vaxxers cease and desist, into threatening them with death. It's very instructive to study the defenses offered for not getting vaccinated against a highly infectious, potentially deadly disease, including using incendiary rhetoric about "serious legal consequences" and "a form of harassment....punishable by law"!
It's what you learn in the course of taking many (too many?!) philosophy courses, where you almost inevitably encounter variations of his approach in various transmutations, going back to the Socratic dialogues --- in other words I can't really take that much credit for any brlliance, just for being able to synthesize a way of countering various kinds of bad arguments. Arguments which may seem superficialy sound, but simply fail.
I mean, who wouldn't love to be able dismiss uncomfortable and fairly complicated (!) problems we encounter in life and politics, by simply deploying a binary template, such as "Tribalistic thinking, bad, very bad!" and "Non-tribalistic thinking, good or at least much better!"
It's really quite mechanical and not context-sensitive enough to accomplish any real work, unfortunately enough for those who fall into using it.
The newer strains of Covid might not be as lethal as the earlier strains in 2019 and 2020, but they can be just as debilitating.
What we are seeing is Republican psychology coming home to roost. Dumb is dumb no matter how you look at it; but the Republican cultural warriors seem to have a way of celebrating stupidity. The 'hold my beer' culture is alive, but increasingly unwell. And that's a hazard for all of us. I'm fully vaccinated, but my wife brought it home, and I got it too, despite the four rounds of anti--Covid vaccinations that I got. People say is nothing worse than a bad cold, but this is a bad cold with, statistically speaking, longtail effects. I date my infection from Thanksgiving weekend, or within the following week, but I am plagued with continuing nasal congestion and a dry cough. It's not as bad as it was a month ago, but this thing hangs around longer than your unemployed brother-in-law. I went through a five day regimen of Paxlovid, which helped but didn't last. I'm well enough to be able to function normally, but it truly is a drain on my energy.
Those people out there who need to get to a job on time, and need to be mentally focused on what they're supposed to be doing are in a world of hurt. They're not sick enough to need hospitalization; medications and palliatives seem to have limited efficacy; and yet we have to struggle on, day in and day out. Over the past month, I felt so debilitated that I wanted to sleep most of the day, and that meant that I was not getting restful sleep at night.
Undoubtedly, there are an awful lot of people around will be experienced diminished capacity to get things done as I've described above. The really sad part is that these reality deniers, and sowers of anger, doubt, and division really don't get it. Donald Trump really ripped the lid off Pandora's box, and we will be battling his legacy of mindless defiance for years to come. I certainly don't want to see people dying over this, but unless people get their heads on straight, that is exactly what is going to happen.
What's truly scary is this angry fatalism that we get from the cultural warriors, some of whom apparently realize that Blue states are doing better, and enjoy much better survival rates than down-home places that like to pretend that prayer is preferable to vaccination. I am reminded of stories about people in plague years during the Middle Ages, where large numbers would wander about the countryside flogging themselves would knotted ropes as penance for their sinfulness. In this, the Catholic Church was wholly complicit, and in fact losing large numbers of their clergy to the plague. Undoubtedly, the sinfulness was there, but that had nothing to do with flea infested rats, and the plague bacterium that they harbored. That mentality has not gone away. If anything, social media is a festering wound that continues to infect the body politic. Go figure.
Yes. When walking from your front door to your back door is a MAJOR effort and causes you to collapse weak and breathless, Covid presents itself as NOT "just a cold." Especially when it goes on for months. I wish you a full and speedy recovery.
Thank you for the kind sentiments. It's not all that bad; and once I get back into power walking, I think a lot of this fatigue will simply melt away. On the other hand, this gives me unparalleled opportunity to kick back on the couch and listen to New Age piano solos and Liquid Mind on Pandora.
Arthur, I spend a great part of my day with art and classical music and fun fiction. My knees won't cooperate with walking...this from a former runner (one marathon) who walked two miles a day in the hills of Central Texas. Life gives us opportunities, no?
Ellen, like you, I was a runner in my younger days but when knee pain started in my 40's I had to switch to another exercise for good health. I've been swimming for the past 30 years and I've been pain free. Walking is good but swimming gives my heart & lungs a better workout. Give it a try.
I am an active practitioner of "ART": Agressive Rest Therapy. It's a real thing, and it really works. No guilt! . High on the therapy list is kicking back on the couch and listening to your favorite music! Follow that with pacing out your activities. I also recommend starting with a less than power walk routine, gradually increasing as your stamina returns. Expect "crash days." I've learned to relish them rather than fear them.
Indeed I have. He told me he was going to borrow my statistical description of the longtail probability distribution to describe what happens over extended lengths of time in which the lingering effects of Covid received with unexpected slowness. I guess I learned something during those months of being housebound.
See the article I summarize here in a new comment today (from The Tybee 11/7/22). COVID disarms us by "aging" our T cells, so "herd immunity" doesn't work, and a chronic condition afterwards is more likely. I feel your fatigue.
I don’t care what the “official” government position on Covid-19 is or isn’t, this peckerwood is wearing a mask anywhere where people congregate, which is as rarely as possible. I have all my groceries delivered and buy a lot of my stuff through the internet, and practice social distancing all the time when I absolutely have to go anywhere. Nothing is “normal” anymore and I intend to treat things that way for the foreseeable future. And actually, I don’t mind that at all…social interaction is so overrated.
Thank you Lucian for continuing to report on this. All I can glean from reading the various newspapers and the Johns Hopkins Newsletter leave gaps in the information and confusion. Without someone pulling the strings together it feels like we’re making up a dance as we go along. Being a trained dancer I know all the studying, preparation, practice and rehearsal that goes into it. ….and this is no ‘dance’ but a life and death situation.
According to another post on here, it's all about tribalism: you're on one of side of a life and death situation, sure, good for you, but that's merely a characteristic of some larger tribalistic something something. Some others are on some other side of the life and death situation.
Following that kind of slippery paralogical path is one way to dance right into nihilism, come to think of it!
Thanks for this update, Lucian. Like many of your readers, COVID finally caught up to me (fully boosted, moderately careful) and my husband. The latest alphabet soup variant is quite contagious and I am once again rethinking my activities, going to inside venues, etc. I suspect I have a few more days to go, which will be the two-week point. My point is that I’m damn lucky I’ve had all those shots. And the only anti-vaxxers I’ve encountered (family included) are...you guessed it...Republican.
Interesting fact, many seniors on cruise ships, even the Trumpsters, have to prove current Vax data and a very recent negative test to even board. It is a uniquely safe demographic, but, I tested positive with no adverse conditions a year ago, quarantined on board ship for 6 days.
My neighbors went on a repositioning cruise from Seattle to Portugal, 41 days. They too had to provide proof of vaccination. Both fully vaxed and both caught COVID on the ship. Fortunately, they had mild cases and just had to quarantine in their cabin for a week.
I worry that sooner or later one of these variants is going to combine transmissibility with lethality. A fatality rate of 20% would create chaos around the world. 50% would create Thanos level disruption.
This is interesting. An infectious agent that kills too quickly and efficiently is not good at spreading itself through a population. Think Ebola. An infectious agent that makes its victims sick and symptomatic but leaves them still walking around is much better at spreading itself. It infects many more victims, although its kill rate is lower. Think measles.
Corona virus kills elderly and immunocompromised people at a pretty good rate, but the elderly recognize this and take precautions, like getting vaccinated and masking. Corona virus finds a more amenable host population in the young, who are less likely to die, who do a better job of spreading it while sick, and who distain preventive measures.
My household of three, two of whom are over 80, has so far successfully avoided Covid for the past three years. My anger at the other pandemic that afflicts this country - stupiity - has only gotten more intense over those years. I don't wish death on anyone no matter how stupid they may be, but I also don't feel much sorrow for those who have succumed because of their own stupidity. Early on I lost a close friend to Covid - he was over 90 - and since I now know at least 30 people who have survived a bout, or two, of Covid I realize I have to be careful for the rest of my life, no air travel among other things, because of the stupids who allowed Covid to become endemic. Unfortunately, the pandemic of stupidity is also endemic, and seems to get passed from one generation to the next unaltered. There definitely is no vaccine to protect ourselves from it.
The top 5 global problems are caused by overpopulation. Why would a declining population be a problem? Re: covid 1. You can be infected and transmit the disease and never know you have it. 2. vaccination does not prevent getting the disease or getting sick from the disease 3. Vaccination only slows hospitalization / death in the vaccinated (if under 50 years old) 4. Over 40% of the USA deaths from covid last year were people who were fully vaccinated. 5. Getting infected with covid and getting over it is as effective as being vaccinated. For weekly updates on covid from the smartest virologists and doctors in the room: "This Week In Virology-with Daniel Griffin" For deep background: any podcasts with Vincent Racaniello and his colleagues. Helpful hint #1: The thymus is a key organ in protection against pathogens as it creates T cells. T cells are a crucial link to educating B cells to produce antigen-specific antibodies against new pathogens (covid variants etc.). The human thymus degenerates and dissolves as we age. People over 60 have weak T-cell activity thus are more prone to getting very sick from viruses and bacteria. Helpful hint #2: 50% of our immune warrior cells and other molecules that fight invaders, circulate in our lymph system. The lymph system runs throughout the body- analogous to the blood circulatory system except the lymph has no pump. Lymph is pumped by exercise. If you get little exercise, your immune system is working at 50% at best. If you are an old person lying in bed all day in a nursing home your lymph is not circulating - your warriors are dormant in pooled lymph.
Yes. To quote from Katelyn Jetelina (source can be found at the link in my other reply here):
"Vaccines and infections (still) reduce transmission
What we know: Before Omicron we knew that vaccines reduced transmission. Mis/dis-information has sown doubts.
New info: A new study from Nature examined prison systems to assess transmission networks. A COVID-19 vaccine reduced infectiousness by 22% and prior infection reduced infectiousness by 23%. Hybrid immunity reduced infectiousness by 40%. The least infectious cases were those who had been recently vaccinated."
nb. Hybrid immunity is the combination of both types.
Appears to be the elderly and disabled. But statistics show the vaccinated are significantly less likely to be hospitalized or die than the unvaccinated regardless of age or disability.
I'm uncomfortable wading in here, but ask you to consider: My first reaction was likeTC's but, extraneous population remarks aside, the rest of Jim's comment seems to be valid. The authorities he cites are credentialed. Look 'em up. I don't see vax denial—more like vax realism. Most people I know have been fully vaxed, then got (home-treatable) covid. The same is true of some commenting here. (Vaxed, boostered, and masked indoors, I live as isolated as TC says he does, so have avoided it myself.) Anyway, Jim's comment seems to me to be confusing, not necessarily evil.
I think the the key here is what you said about the fully vaxed getting home treatable Covid. That is what we see in the Hospital where I work. If they are admitted they go home unlike most of the unvaxed. Maybe I misconstrued what he said but I feel it’s important not to belittle the vaccine as it has significantly decreased the morbidity and mortality rates from Covid. And a side note, I’m a fully vaxed nurse working in a major metropolitan medical center and have avoided Covid as well. I’m glad you have avoided it too.
One cannot help but to notice that these current spikes in Covid cases are in red states where the percentage of the unvaccinated is high. I have always maintained that we could have nipped Covid in the bud when it first started infecting people here in our country if we would have tested, masked and isolated . Of course it goes back to Donald Trump and his tragic mishandling of this. He was denying the severity of the pandemic early in 2020 even as he was being interviewed by Bob Woodward telling him that the coronavirus was deadlier than the flu. Such a travesty and could have been largely avoided.
I had to smile at TCinLA's comment on evolution. In my family, except for me, the children, grandchildren have all had COVID at least one but each time, because they had the shots, while they were sick to varying degrees, they quickly recovered. As TCinLA implied, there is no cure for stupid.
Ken posted twenty minutes ago a link to the most recent substack by Katelyn Jetelina, who posts items opproximately once a fortnight. She predominantly provides updated information regarding epidemiological matters, especially with regard to the current pandemic.
The latest article was about a resurgence in dis/misinformation in respect to deaths caused by vaccinations. We're all grown up enough to be well over that and I know I don't need to go there in depth again (anyone coming at me mouthing that crap will retreat very rapidly with blistering ears).
There’s a compounding factor that hasn’t been discussed: Length of time between boosters. For older and immune compromised people--it is a misnomer to say they are “vaccinated” beyond six months. In fact, boosters are probably due after 4 months if you have pre-existing conditions, especially if you are over 60!
Wear masks--there’s still a trifecta of covid-flu-RSV--and keep alcohol spray on hand; keep your hands clean and out of your face.
I have no patience for “anti-vaxers” or anyone else who thinks they are just, too special to deal with reality.
If these anti-vaxxers had lived through the polio epidemic, they’d be first in line for the COVID vaccine and boosters.
For sure!!!!!!
No, Shee-rah. If you listen to most of these stark raving anti science lunes, they would simply tell you they and theirs can survive anything because they are "real" Americans. They are at their core fundamentally anti science and pro "belief."
How nice for them to negate reality—at the expense of the common good—so they may cling to their oh-so-special beliefs.
Agreed Shee-rah. I was born after the polio vaccine was available but still remember pictures of all the kids in those iron lungs and still think about how fortunate I was to be born when I was!
I am with you, Dawna. No patience for those who brag that they’re not vaxxed and won’t ever get the shots.
The only “good” news in this essay is that unvaccinated right-wing morons are dying at a faster rate than Dems. Unfortunately, that rate is nowhere near fast enough! The Self-Extermination of the Stupid is taking much too long.
Amen!
Self-Extermination of the Stupid—perfect!
Well, Judith, that is not very Christian of you to revel in the death and suffering of our fellow citizens, but you like me have had to come to face a brutal reality. It does us no good to "care" more for our fellow citizens than they care about themselves. Covid is a zero sum disease. It is reflected in who gets sick and sickest (the unvaccinated) and those who die most (those who believe they can beat it on their own or with quack MAGA endorsed cures.) So, in the end as in most things Darwin was right.
Christian? Christian? Like Christian Nationalists who favorably compare Christian values to Putin’s Orthodox Church, and back Russian oligarch/mob bosses in their Ukrainian war crimes? Christians who elevate tRump to a figure like The Second Coming? Christians who ignore the science behind public health to excuse their anti-vaxx, pro-gun agenda? Makes me more proud to stand with Judith .
Dawna, while I also find the rabid brand of evangelical Christianity off putting, I also sense in your post an antithesis against those, like me. who practice what I refer to as New Testament Christianity. Of put another way following in the teachings and admonitions of Jesus particularly as it relates to unconditional love, charity and forgiveness. There are many Christians like me who are often condemned out of hand because of the actions of others who are practicing what I like to call Cafeteria Christianity as in being selective as to what sinful actions to condemn and ignoring the often un Christ like nature of what accompanies that. But, my main point is if you want to condemn organized religion with such zest do not be surprised when those who do practice it take your comment to mean there is no place for them in your world which condemns all religion out of hand. Or, put another way. It is difficult to build political coalitions if you want to limit your club to those who do not practice a religion.
Then keep your religion to yourself and don’t use it to shame others who deign to disagree with your holier-than-thou opinions.
"The Liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church."
---- Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, his fascinating bio is summarized here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll
Note that his father was a Christian minister who was a stout abolitionist, so the family was persecuted by, who else, other Christians who were pro-slavery! The family had to relocate several times as a result.
Robert later raised the 11th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry after the onset of the Civil War, and assumed command, they fought at the Battle of Shiloh. Later he was captured by the Confederates, released in a prisoner trade, and after the war became Attorney General of Illinois. One of his daughters became a well-known campaigner for women's rights. Known as "The Great Agnostic," he lectured across the USA. Also a Shakespeare scholar, friend of Walt Whitman, and more.
Nor did I suggest it would be. My comment addresses the political reality if the left in American wants to govern it must persuade some of those who are religious to come along for the ride. Alienating them by constantly suggesting religion is a stigma is not going to win minds or hearts to the liberal cause. For every Christian you drive away you have to replace them with someone else. Zero sum politics is not a way to win elections.
No, people who are going to base their political support for progressive legislation on their own religious interpretations are too far gone to worry about. Being "driven away" because people don't take your religion seriously is your problem. No one is obligated in any circumstance to take any given religious doctrine seriously, if it escapes the four corners of sound public policy. And policy is always open to debate, criticism, testing, contentious arguments. Too bad if your religious feelings are hurt, mais c'est la vie!
You either have a social conscience, or you don't, you either realize what policies are beneficial irrespective of religious dogmas, or you don't. No one should ever cater to people so self-involved and complacent about crucial issues like, for example, climate change, reproductive freedom, a fair tax system, dark money in campaigns, and so on, that they feel they must inject the requirement for some symbolic blathering about religion into the mix.
Where does it end? Anyone still voting for the GQP has no functioning moral compass anyway, so it can't matter in that respect, they represent a totally hopeless lost cause writ large. Ditto with "fundamentalists."
And other people whose "religious values" are so shallow they can be appeased by anodyne statements should just remain ensconced in their incredibly narrow world-view, if that's their choice. If they are petty enough to demand some kind of a "loyalty oath, " a swearing that progressives won't try to alter the tax code to tax church-owned property, for example, that's also rather presumptuous, isn't it? Other than that I cannot even imagine what "values" would deter people from separating their political views from specific religious doctrine, eschatology and biblical hermeneutics --- surely you are not arguing that's not fair to the "religious"?
And there are a host of examples of the deleterious effects of having zealous religious true believers engage in politics, those aren't difficult to find!
No one needs any kind of religion to live an ethical life, and to do their best to honor the true, the good, and the beautiful. More of a snare and a delusion than a helpful auxiliary to that project, from what I have observed, in fact.
Then keep your religion to yourself and don’t use it to shame others who deign to disagree with your holier-than-thou opinions.
I am not a Christian, so please don’t expect me to act like one.
I do not play "zero sum games" so don't expect that, either! I am having to explain this to Mr. B and then explain my explanation, ok, fair enough.
For Robert Bell: Then keep your religion to yourself and don’t use it to shame others who deign to disagree with your holier-than-thou opinions.
Wishing death upon others can have serious legal and social consequences. In many countries, it is considered a form of harassment or threatening behavior and is punishable by law. In addition to legal repercussions, wishing death upon others can also lead to social ostracism and loss of relationships and employment opportunities. It can also contribute to a toxic and hostile environment for those around you. It is important to be mindful of the power of words and the impact they can have on others.
Toxic Trump and the MAGAts started the hostile, venomous rhetoric. And they never stopped.
you took the words, etc.
There's no way to know that, nor is it a reason to also participate in the same behavior. To do so would be swan diving from any moral high ground to add fuel to the fire. Not engaging in a fight because it's stupid has always been one of the most prominent lessons put forth by the responsible liberal. Why was this so quickly thrown out the window against better judgement?
in the largest sense (but also the most general one), it's hard to argue with what you're saying. most of us prefer the moral high ground because it is, after all, the moral high ground.
but applying it to the specific case of what's been going on in this country for the last seven or so years (in its most blatant, in-your-face way...we all now it goes back quite a hell of a lot longer way) strikes me as, at very least, casuistry. certainly, it strikes me as an example of the fake both sides-ism that has been unnecessarily poisoning the well of public discourse.
using myself as an example because it's the case I know best, I can say that I've never agreed with the philosophy of people who are, say, as much on the Right as I consider myself to be on the Left. but for most of my life, I thought they were wrong but never once thought to make up the kind of crazy shit they've been trading in. I don't think Republicans have run child trafficking operations out of the White House and can't see myself making that kind of argument. as much as I find the Social Darwinism of today's Republicans to be mean-spirited, I didn't used to make the assumption they were EVIL (nowadays, I can't say the same thing, but I'm not the one who brought things to this point.
I don't think I need to take any more time advancing this argument. in fact, I think the last ten or so minutes have been largely wasted since I'm making exactly the same point previous readers have made. I get that there's a shitload of tribalism happening and I can certainly perceive how ugly it is, but it really DOES matter who created the environment in which this tribalism thrives as a way to increase and retain political power. it's not MY tribe that bitches and moans about "excessive spending" when they're the out party but which spends like a drunken sailor when they're in. and....yadda yadda yadda. I've made my point. selah.
Yes! I do also think it wasn't a complete waste of time, though, as clarifying one's own views is intrinsically valuable. Even though it may be wasted on some hypothetical interlocutors, who have already decided in advance what it is you think!
Preach all you want, brother. I will continue to hate t-rump and wish death and damnation on him and every last one of his worshipers. They are destroying this country, and if that doesn’t make you furious, then there is something seriously lacking in you.
you go, girl.
You should look into the psychology behind tribalism. It distorts perception to make you hate rival tribes. Ever wonder why everything "they" do seems be nefarious and depraved? It's delusion. They're experiencing exactly the same thing back at you. There's no actual rationale behind it, it's just instinct doing what it does. It's unwise to fall for it.
"Tribalism can lead to a negative perception of other tribes, as individuals may view members of other tribes as a threat to their own group's interests or values. This can lead to feelings of hostility or mistrust towards those in other tribes, and can make it difficult for individuals to see the humanity and commonality with those from other groups. Additionally, tribalism can lead to stereotyping and generalization of members of other tribes, which can further reinforce negative perceptions. This negative perception of other tribes can be further reinforced by the self-affirmation bias which is a cognitive bias that makes people focus on confirming their pre-existing beliefs while interpreting new information."
You have an all-purpose debating sophistry, we get it. But it has no real traction when applied to any given specific case.
Where does this quote come from?
It sounds reasonable, even it it doesn’t apply in this instance.
Political preference is not tribalism, hence the terrific argument does not apply to matters of opinion.
The term "self-extermination" makes the statement distinguishable from a "death threat." We are dealing with people who are "wishing death on themselves," and in the course of that, raising the risks of spreading a deadly disease. Not only that, the coronavirus and its varaints are linked to brain damage, heart damage, and other long-term health problems.
Try reading more closely, your expansion of the legal concepts that treat making serious threats of death and/or great bodily harm to specific people who are innocent, to include simply hoping that evil, disease-spreading nitwits die off as soon as possible, and so stating, is absurd.
It's much more reasonable that failing to condemn the disease-spreading nitwits would lead to ostracism, and it certainly isn't toxic to state a strong condemnation of those who remain unvaccinated against a highly infectious and potentially lethal disease. In fact I can't really avoid the conclusion that it is you who just made the reflexive and senseless threat, and not Judith. That would follow the typical far right template for argument and debate: always take the position that you are being victimized, always insist your notions are immune from criticism, that is, that your views are always fundamentally beyond reproach, irrespective of the real world consequences of following them, etc.
But thanks for injecting a note of hysteria into the discussion, by exaggerating a sensible hope that disease-spreading anti-vaxxers cease and desist, into threatening them with death. It's very instructive to study the defenses offered for not getting vaccinated against a highly infectious, potentially deadly disease, including using incendiary rhetoric about "serious legal consequences" and "a form of harassment....punishable by law"!
Wow! Thank you for this brilliant dissection of that attack in my comment!
It's what you learn in the course of taking many (too many?!) philosophy courses, where you almost inevitably encounter variations of his approach in various transmutations, going back to the Socratic dialogues --- in other words I can't really take that much credit for any brlliance, just for being able to synthesize a way of countering various kinds of bad arguments. Arguments which may seem superficialy sound, but simply fail.
I mean, who wouldn't love to be able dismiss uncomfortable and fairly complicated (!) problems we encounter in life and politics, by simply deploying a binary template, such as "Tribalistic thinking, bad, very bad!" and "Non-tribalistic thinking, good or at least much better!"
It's really quite mechanical and not context-sensitive enough to accomplish any real work, unfortunately enough for those who fall into using it.
🤣🤣 “I put a hex on traitors!” Or as another culture warns, “Those who bring troubles upon their house will inherit the wind.”
The newer strains of Covid might not be as lethal as the earlier strains in 2019 and 2020, but they can be just as debilitating.
What we are seeing is Republican psychology coming home to roost. Dumb is dumb no matter how you look at it; but the Republican cultural warriors seem to have a way of celebrating stupidity. The 'hold my beer' culture is alive, but increasingly unwell. And that's a hazard for all of us. I'm fully vaccinated, but my wife brought it home, and I got it too, despite the four rounds of anti--Covid vaccinations that I got. People say is nothing worse than a bad cold, but this is a bad cold with, statistically speaking, longtail effects. I date my infection from Thanksgiving weekend, or within the following week, but I am plagued with continuing nasal congestion and a dry cough. It's not as bad as it was a month ago, but this thing hangs around longer than your unemployed brother-in-law. I went through a five day regimen of Paxlovid, which helped but didn't last. I'm well enough to be able to function normally, but it truly is a drain on my energy.
Those people out there who need to get to a job on time, and need to be mentally focused on what they're supposed to be doing are in a world of hurt. They're not sick enough to need hospitalization; medications and palliatives seem to have limited efficacy; and yet we have to struggle on, day in and day out. Over the past month, I felt so debilitated that I wanted to sleep most of the day, and that meant that I was not getting restful sleep at night.
Undoubtedly, there are an awful lot of people around will be experienced diminished capacity to get things done as I've described above. The really sad part is that these reality deniers, and sowers of anger, doubt, and division really don't get it. Donald Trump really ripped the lid off Pandora's box, and we will be battling his legacy of mindless defiance for years to come. I certainly don't want to see people dying over this, but unless people get their heads on straight, that is exactly what is going to happen.
What's truly scary is this angry fatalism that we get from the cultural warriors, some of whom apparently realize that Blue states are doing better, and enjoy much better survival rates than down-home places that like to pretend that prayer is preferable to vaccination. I am reminded of stories about people in plague years during the Middle Ages, where large numbers would wander about the countryside flogging themselves would knotted ropes as penance for their sinfulness. In this, the Catholic Church was wholly complicit, and in fact losing large numbers of their clergy to the plague. Undoubtedly, the sinfulness was there, but that had nothing to do with flea infested rats, and the plague bacterium that they harbored. That mentality has not gone away. If anything, social media is a festering wound that continues to infect the body politic. Go figure.
Yes. When walking from your front door to your back door is a MAJOR effort and causes you to collapse weak and breathless, Covid presents itself as NOT "just a cold." Especially when it goes on for months. I wish you a full and speedy recovery.
Thank you for the kind sentiments. It's not all that bad; and once I get back into power walking, I think a lot of this fatigue will simply melt away. On the other hand, this gives me unparalleled opportunity to kick back on the couch and listen to New Age piano solos and Liquid Mind on Pandora.
Arthur, I spend a great part of my day with art and classical music and fun fiction. My knees won't cooperate with walking...this from a former runner (one marathon) who walked two miles a day in the hills of Central Texas. Life gives us opportunities, no?
Ellen, like you, I was a runner in my younger days but when knee pain started in my 40's I had to switch to another exercise for good health. I've been swimming for the past 30 years and I've been pain free. Walking is good but swimming gives my heart & lungs a better workout. Give it a try.
Yeah, my knees are what they were just a few years ago. I can't afford to get down on the floor, because getting up again is such a hassle.
I am an active practitioner of "ART": Agressive Rest Therapy. It's a real thing, and it really works. No guilt! . High on the therapy list is kicking back on the couch and listening to your favorite music! Follow that with pacing out your activities. I also recommend starting with a less than power walk routine, gradually increasing as your stamina returns. Expect "crash days." I've learned to relish them rather than fear them.
I hope you recover sooner rather than later. Have you seen a doctor for your ongoing issues?
Indeed I have. He told me he was going to borrow my statistical description of the longtail probability distribution to describe what happens over extended lengths of time in which the lingering effects of Covid received with unexpected slowness. I guess I learned something during those months of being housebound.
See the article I summarize here in a new comment today (from The Tybee 11/7/22). COVID disarms us by "aging" our T cells, so "herd immunity" doesn't work, and a chronic condition afterwards is more likely. I feel your fatigue.
I don’t care what the “official” government position on Covid-19 is or isn’t, this peckerwood is wearing a mask anywhere where people congregate, which is as rarely as possible. I have all my groceries delivered and buy a lot of my stuff through the internet, and practice social distancing all the time when I absolutely have to go anywhere. Nothing is “normal” anymore and I intend to treat things that way for the foreseeable future. And actually, I don’t mind that at all…social interaction is so overrated.
Thank you Lucian for continuing to report on this. All I can glean from reading the various newspapers and the Johns Hopkins Newsletter leave gaps in the information and confusion. Without someone pulling the strings together it feels like we’re making up a dance as we go along. Being a trained dancer I know all the studying, preparation, practice and rehearsal that goes into it. ….and this is no ‘dance’ but a life and death situation.
According to another post on here, it's all about tribalism: you're on one of side of a life and death situation, sure, good for you, but that's merely a characteristic of some larger tribalistic something something. Some others are on some other side of the life and death situation.
Following that kind of slippery paralogical path is one way to dance right into nihilism, come to think of it!
Thanks for this update, Lucian. Like many of your readers, COVID finally caught up to me (fully boosted, moderately careful) and my husband. The latest alphabet soup variant is quite contagious and I am once again rethinking my activities, going to inside venues, etc. I suspect I have a few more days to go, which will be the two-week point. My point is that I’m damn lucky I’ve had all those shots. And the only anti-vaxxers I’ve encountered (family included) are...you guessed it...Republican.
Be careful. I hope you escape long Covid. It is devastating to quality of life...personal knowledge.
😔
Interesting fact, many seniors on cruise ships, even the Trumpsters, have to prove current Vax data and a very recent negative test to even board. It is a uniquely safe demographic, but, I tested positive with no adverse conditions a year ago, quarantined on board ship for 6 days.
My neighbors went on a repositioning cruise from Seattle to Portugal, 41 days. They too had to provide proof of vaccination. Both fully vaxed and both caught COVID on the ship. Fortunately, they had mild cases and just had to quarantine in their cabin for a week.
Interesting that 30% unvaccinated is about the number of drumpf supporters.
I worry that sooner or later one of these variants is going to combine transmissibility with lethality. A fatality rate of 20% would create chaos around the world. 50% would create Thanos level disruption.
This is interesting. An infectious agent that kills too quickly and efficiently is not good at spreading itself through a population. Think Ebola. An infectious agent that makes its victims sick and symptomatic but leaves them still walking around is much better at spreading itself. It infects many more victims, although its kill rate is lower. Think measles.
Corona virus kills elderly and immunocompromised people at a pretty good rate, but the elderly recognize this and take precautions, like getting vaccinated and masking. Corona virus finds a more amenable host population in the young, who are less likely to die, who do a better job of spreading it while sick, and who distain preventive measures.
Less likely to die, but death is not the only possible consequence of infection, and of course, unlikely things happen all the damn time.
My household of three, two of whom are over 80, has so far successfully avoided Covid for the past three years. My anger at the other pandemic that afflicts this country - stupiity - has only gotten more intense over those years. I don't wish death on anyone no matter how stupid they may be, but I also don't feel much sorrow for those who have succumed because of their own stupidity. Early on I lost a close friend to Covid - he was over 90 - and since I now know at least 30 people who have survived a bout, or two, of Covid I realize I have to be careful for the rest of my life, no air travel among other things, because of the stupids who allowed Covid to become endemic. Unfortunately, the pandemic of stupidity is also endemic, and seems to get passed from one generation to the next unaltered. There definitely is no vaccine to protect ourselves from it.
The top 5 global problems are caused by overpopulation. Why would a declining population be a problem? Re: covid 1. You can be infected and transmit the disease and never know you have it. 2. vaccination does not prevent getting the disease or getting sick from the disease 3. Vaccination only slows hospitalization / death in the vaccinated (if under 50 years old) 4. Over 40% of the USA deaths from covid last year were people who were fully vaccinated. 5. Getting infected with covid and getting over it is as effective as being vaccinated. For weekly updates on covid from the smartest virologists and doctors in the room: "This Week In Virology-with Daniel Griffin" For deep background: any podcasts with Vincent Racaniello and his colleagues. Helpful hint #1: The thymus is a key organ in protection against pathogens as it creates T cells. T cells are a crucial link to educating B cells to produce antigen-specific antibodies against new pathogens (covid variants etc.). The human thymus degenerates and dissolves as we age. People over 60 have weak T-cell activity thus are more prone to getting very sick from viruses and bacteria. Helpful hint #2: 50% of our immune warrior cells and other molecules that fight invaders, circulate in our lymph system. The lymph system runs throughout the body- analogous to the blood circulatory system except the lymph has no pump. Lymph is pumped by exercise. If you get little exercise, your immune system is working at 50% at best. If you are an old person lying in bed all day in a nursing home your lymph is not circulating - your warriors are dormant in pooled lymph.
Yes. To quote from Katelyn Jetelina (source can be found at the link in my other reply here):
"Vaccines and infections (still) reduce transmission
What we know: Before Omicron we knew that vaccines reduced transmission. Mis/dis-information has sown doubts.
New info: A new study from Nature examined prison systems to assess transmission networks. A COVID-19 vaccine reduced infectiousness by 22% and prior infection reduced infectiousness by 23%. Hybrid immunity reduced infectiousness by 40%. The least infectious cases were those who had been recently vaccinated."
nb. Hybrid immunity is the combination of both types.
Thanks for this info.
Pseudo-scientists, at it again.
I agree TC. Just wondering what part of the population Mr. Blake is okay with their decline?
Appears to be the elderly and disabled. But statistics show the vaccinated are significantly less likely to be hospitalized or die than the unvaccinated regardless of age or disability.
And the unvaccinated are largely responsible for being the host for the virus to mutate.
I'm uncomfortable wading in here, but ask you to consider: My first reaction was likeTC's but, extraneous population remarks aside, the rest of Jim's comment seems to be valid. The authorities he cites are credentialed. Look 'em up. I don't see vax denial—more like vax realism. Most people I know have been fully vaxed, then got (home-treatable) covid. The same is true of some commenting here. (Vaxed, boostered, and masked indoors, I live as isolated as TC says he does, so have avoided it myself.) Anyway, Jim's comment seems to me to be confusing, not necessarily evil.
I think the the key here is what you said about the fully vaxed getting home treatable Covid. That is what we see in the Hospital where I work. If they are admitted they go home unlike most of the unvaxed. Maybe I misconstrued what he said but I feel it’s important not to belittle the vaccine as it has significantly decreased the morbidity and mortality rates from Covid. And a side note, I’m a fully vaxed nurse working in a major metropolitan medical center and have avoided Covid as well. I’m glad you have avoided it too.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/11/07/COVID-Reinfections-And-Immunity/
Yes. Significantly.
I was just thinking that...
One cannot help but to notice that these current spikes in Covid cases are in red states where the percentage of the unvaccinated is high. I have always maintained that we could have nipped Covid in the bud when it first started infecting people here in our country if we would have tested, masked and isolated . Of course it goes back to Donald Trump and his tragic mishandling of this. He was denying the severity of the pandemic early in 2020 even as he was being interviewed by Bob Woodward telling him that the coronavirus was deadlier than the flu. Such a travesty and could have been largely avoided.
I had to smile at TCinLA's comment on evolution. In my family, except for me, the children, grandchildren have all had COVID at least one but each time, because they had the shots, while they were sick to varying degrees, they quickly recovered. As TCinLA implied, there is no cure for stupid.
More information:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-vaccines-and-sudden-deaths/comments
Ken posted twenty minutes ago a link to the most recent substack by Katelyn Jetelina, who posts items opproximately once a fortnight. She predominantly provides updated information regarding epidemiological matters, especially with regard to the current pandemic.
The latest article was about a resurgence in dis/misinformation in respect to deaths caused by vaccinations. We're all grown up enough to be well over that and I know I don't need to go there in depth again (anyone coming at me mouthing that crap will retreat very rapidly with blistering ears).
Anywho, worthwhile subscribing to the free substack just to keep up to date with developments. You will see by the few comments there that they are probably best left for medical professionals to make. Here's Katelyn Jetelina's January 11th Covid-19 update item... https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-research-round-up?publication_id=281219&post_id=95683728&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true
Excellent. Thank You.
More data re: Idiocracy death gap:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/12/covid-deaths-anti-vaccine-republican-voters/672575/
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gop-covid-anti-vax/tnamp/
More data to support secession:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing-political-geography-of-covid-19-over-the-last-two-years/
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1098543849/pro-trump-counties-continue-to-suffer-far-higher-covid-death-tolls
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0265053
I wish their Covid mortality rate were 100 percent!
Took me a bit to parse that sentence. Dying of “his” bad case of Covid, I assume you mean. Yeah, too damn bad he didn’t!
Then he’d be a martyr to the MAGAts and they’d erect a statue somewhere in a red state.
I am wondering if Adderall is a secret human preservative that keeps the body alive despite all odds.
He's never going to die.
Like the devil.
Like Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men.