Feynman, Science, Experts, Trump

https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/Richard_Feynmans_Philosophy_of_Science

My favorite quote from this piece is “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says 'science teaches such and such', he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach it; experience teaches it”.

I was once an actual assembly language programmer. As a university graduate, I knew something of the theory as to why things worked, however some of the guys that were derisively called "sweepings from the manufacturing floor" (no degrees, IBM trained them in-house). were actually better at "getting it done". 

Another way of saying it is "Those who can, DO, those who can't, teach". 

Yet another is "The map is not the territory". 

We have a fantastic opportunity to understand these truths much better at this point in time. As TR said so well: 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 

Trump is the man in the arena. The media, the FB critics, the Democrats, etc are not -- and we can be thankful that is the case.

In this day of thoughtless judgement and snap tribalism, I sadly have to explain that this is NOT to say that "experts, teachers, critics, opposition parties, etc" are not needed, THEY ARE ! We just need to return to "common sense". If my plumbing is bad, I don't need a PHD in flow dynamics, I need a PLUMBER!

Reality often falls to comply with theories, models. the most votes, etc

God gives different gifts -- use them them with thanks, and be thankful for others using their gifts! Rom 12:6-8

We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith;  if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Dyson, Heresy

https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-heretical-thoughts-about-science-and-society

Dyson was a heretic, Christ is a heretic, Luther was a heretic, Churchill was a heretic ... we NEED heretics! Heretics are always dangerous to the accepted wisdom, and they are often dangerous period -- like people have died because of each of those mentioned. Reality is also dangerous -- the death rate is 100%, and freedom is NOT everyone being treated the same! We are each God's unique creation FOR HIS PURPOSE ... not ours.

A heretic questions the prevailing dogma ... Dyson questions AGW, Christ preaches Grace fulfilling the Law, Luther preached Grace in place of Roman Catholic law, Churchill questioned the belief that suing for peace with Hitler was the only option.

The article is worth the read -- especially in this time of plague in which I am writing, heresy even less popular than it always is. Typically, a time when we need it most!

I will not attempt to summarize the lessons that my readers should learn from these heresies. The main lesson that I would like them to take home is that the long-range future is not predetermined. The future is in their hands. The rules of the world-historical game change from decade to decade in unpredictable ways. All our fashionable worries and all our prevailing dogmas will probably be obsolete in fifty years. My heresies will probably also be obsolete. It is up to them to find new heresies to guide our way to a more hopeful future.

Edison, Edmund Morris

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/edmund-morris-edison/598357/

I mostly enjoyed this book, though I found the Morris technique of chronicling Edison's life in reverse to be unhelpful.

I had not realized the worldwide fame and admiration of Edison around the turn of the century ... comparable to Lindbergh after his flight. With a little reflection it is pretty easy to understand. For conscious beings, the power to turn night into day was indeed Promethean, and they were grateful.

Edison liked to be in control, and he was supremely confident in his visions -- he was certain that he could employ magnetism and massive technical advancement in mining to corner the market on iron production. He lost massively to the iron rich Mesabi Range in northern MN to the tune of many millions and years of wasted time for a brilliant man.

When we say "hello", Edison invented that.

As a mostly deaf man, he was a strange sort of audiophile -- always searching for perfection in sound with the phonograph being his personal favorite invention.

He was BOTH an inventor and a master of applied technology  -- he was able to visualize all the parts that were needed to deliver PRACTICAL electric lights to the masses, and was able to invent the pieces required to make  it happen (wiring, substations, dynamos, switches, etc). He, was able to lead a band of technologists (in his own eccentric way) to get the WHOLE THING done.

Possibly his most critical invention was the development laboratory.

To vastly oversimplify the AC/DC decision, Edison was "technically correct" about AC, however in the day, AC was more practical to widely distribute. Today, we may be heading to the DC world of Edison's vision. The Tesla / Edison personal "war" was more a made for media creation than a reality.

He was a difficult father and spouse -- which is not at all uncommon for men of at least near genius and absolute dedication to their visions -- many visions in Edison's case.

His "kaleidoscopic laser" focus was a great asset and a great liability. He could shift his focus at the drop of a hat and be "gone" for days, months, even years (in the case of mining), when that focus would have been much more "productively" applied in other areas. However, who is to say if that was possible -- the muse is hardly ever a slave to practicality.

His energy and stamina were incredible throughout his life 20 hour "average" workdays for long stretches, driving himself and certainly his assistants to exhaustion in pursuit of the "aha".

The time in which a book is read has an effect on what the reader sees in it. Edison lived through the time of the Civil War, WWI and of interest today, the Spanish Flu -- none of these were of that large an effect in Edison's life. WWI the most, because his batteries had explosive issues and submarines were important. The US military made a fairly big show of having Edison involved in weapons research, however the bureaucracy largely just wanted to use his name, not his innovations or recommendations. 

 I don't believe the Spanish Flu was mentioned in the book. Reading history gives perspective. When we live through an event ... JFK assassination, moon landing, end of the USSR, 911, etc, it SEEMS to be "historic"  at the time, however time -- and our personal and societal biases of course, are the arbiter of it's actual effect. We all know this life is finite. If this is all there is, then history, nor our lives really "matter", because mattering involves some idea of "meaning" or "purpose", and godless randomness lacks both.

In the context of "progress" toward more ease, longer less painful lives, more atomization of community, family, culture, etc, Edison is very much a hero. He was a firm believer that technology was the solution.

In today's psychological language, Edison may have been quite high on the Asperger scale -- his experience as a young boy of having a playmate drown, wait around for him, get tired of waiting then go home and have to be woken up at night to be asked when he last saw him seems quite disconcerting  (they found the body after Edison told them where he disappeared). The incident seemed to have little effect on him.

A decent book ... I would be tempted to do more evaluation and would likely choose another given a second chance.

Corona Deaths, Germany, FDA

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys-coronavirus-death-rate-is-far-lower-than-in-other-countries?fbclid=IwAR3RBkji1jc61lIeB5gQpF1PEa_zjtkMU2zIVzEYpDQqyhFkzxyW-67faeY

"We have a culture here in Germany that is actually not supporting a centralized diagnostic system," said Drosten, "so Germany does not have a public health laboratory that would restrict other labs from doing the tests. So we had an open market from the beginning."

Remember why the US was slower on testing than Germany ... the FDA.

A Reasoned Approach To Corona

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/kevin-roche-my-struggle-with-the-star-tribune-3.php

This agrees with a lot of my thinking, however this guy has better credentials than me. Very worth reading.

Great Society, Amity Shlaes

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061706426?tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1

Excellent book, bit on longish side for what it covers, but that doesn't bother me. Best read after reading "The Forgotten Man" first.

My synopsis of that work,

The short version of "The Forgotten Man" (TFM) is that Hoover and others started the policies that would cause the depression in the late '20s by trying to reduce the money supply, raise taxes pass tariffs (Smoot Hawley), and increase Government control and projects (eg. Hoover Dam). Hoover and the Republicans started the descent, but FDR and the Democrats weakened and prolonged it by pushing the failed policies harder, and most damaging, actually attacking business and criminalizing individual business practices. In some cases, the rules were completely irrational, as in the NRA insistence on "straight killing" of chickens disallowing customer selection and differential pricing that went all the way to the Supreme Court in Schechter. When FDR and the New Dealers lost, he was furious and embarked on his "packing the court" attempt to circumvent the Constitution.


The degree to which the Democrats, the schools, and the MSM have propagandized the "New Deal", The Depression" and especially FDR himself is incredible. The spectacle of a very rich man "going after the rich" while sailing on his yacht may be the poster child case for "consistency is not an issue". By raising taxes, criminalizing business behavior after the fact and moving the Government into new areas (utilities, unions, pricing, etc), he managed to simultaneously reduce the prospective return for risk taken (by tax rate increases) while drastically INCREASING the risk on both the business front (regulation, government takeover, unions), but also add in the prospects of CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, even if the act was not "illegal" at the time it was done. An amazing combination of horrible policy, no wonder he managed to prolong the Depression until WWII forced him to change his policies so business could get busy and win the war.

We have been "progressing" toward tyranny at the hands of the "progressives" since TJR!

"Great Society" (GS) takes us from the "lead up" (Ike / JFK) into the promise that America could "do it all" ... guns, butter, defend against Communism, end poverty,  ensure "equal rights" (and likely outcome), go to the moon, and MORE .... all without raising taxes or wrecking the economy.

The GS "succeeded" in losing the war, increasing poverty, exploding the deficit, exploding taxes, burning the inner city, blowing up morality ... hey, at least we went to the moon!

From page 116, "...the civil rights bill was establishing a precedent. A law that defined new rights at a national level was taking away from individuals the authority of their own conscience and substituting a federal, national conscience to overrule them. And who knew whether the federal government's conscience would always be better?"

The biggest thing the book made clear to me is exactly how the party of Slavery and Jim Crow became the "Party of Civil Rights".

On p 152, "The OEO "Equal Opportunity today" allowed that it would welcome experiments, including those where community action organizers paid by Washington where "facilitating opportunities for the poor to participate in protest actions" "

The Democrats and the unions CREATED the protest movement! The "Port Huron Statement" was funded by Walter Reuther, president of the UAW! Saul Alinsky, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton were all federally paid to foment protest! The federal agencies created as part of the GS funded and encouraged the people who encouraged and took part in demonstrations and riots. 

On page 201 "The War on Poverty welfare benefits actually encouraged men not to work" ... average family welfare check was up to $238 a month, wages were at $220.

The sad story of the book is that between FDR and LBJ, they all but completely destroyed the greatness of America -- LIMITED GOVERNMENT!

A more complete and expert review here.

Tracking Corona Chaos

I continue to calmly track the Corona pandemic here.

My biggest concern is that we LEARN! I'm a believer that everything including our next breath is in God's hands, and that he has given us reason as a gift to balance our emotional selves, in the best cases producing wisdom. The fear of God is the beginning of such -- without it, it is nearly certain we will be driven by our own fears, pride, envy, self righteous, desire to be "right", "poplar", "virtuous", etc.  Science / statistics CAN help, but I'll argue below in this case we seem to be ignoring standard scientific / medical procedure. (eg, FIRST do no harm!)

In short, we are all affected by "Original Sin / Sinful Nature". Sadly, we all have it -- as a panic attack sufferer, fear vs trusting in God and worship of knowledge vs God (gnostic heresy) are biggies for me ... we will refrain from a complete list in the interest of brevity.

My second worst concern is that we have fallen into a state of being WAY too prone to panic, and WAY too media / ideologically driven. Why did we not do what we have done in the past?

1. Isolate vulnerable populations (we have done that, GOOD!) 
2. Isolate areas -- like why are we still flying in the US? Certainly in/out of major cities? 
3. Do random testing (including presence of antibodies) to get a good picture of what our actual situation is. If we already have a high infection rate (which we well may not know since 80% of cases are mild), then it is already too late for the "lockdowns" to work -- keep the vulnerable isolated! 
4. If we DO see definite hot spots of infection rates, THEN lock THOSE areas down. Encourage people not to travel to / from those spots. 

My third concern is "the halting problem". Like debt, it was quite easy to get into this "distancing". How are we going to decide to get out of this? We are doing a lot of harm -- not just to money. People NEED to work and have social interaction, for both their mental and physical health. They need communion -- both Holy and secular.

My favorite statistics on Corona remain cases / deaths per million ... you need to scroll down to a table and then sort by the 2nd from right column highest to lowest if you want to find cases, right column for deaths. DATA is a wonderful thing, how look at it to turn it into information is critical 452734983 is data ... 452-73-4983 is information.

My view a week into "lockdown" is that we badly failed the "First do no harm" test on this one ... and when you compare to our reactions to previous pandemics there is a definite learning opportunity.

The 1st chart below is CERTAINLY influenced by amount of testing ... although Germany has done a lot of testing, so it's total cases are likely pretty close to right. The obvious question is "Why is the US not generally doing random testing"? When faced with a large data set, that LEAPS to the mind of any non-panic or agenda driven person.

Cases Per Million:

• I threw out the top 7 due to small population.
• Little countries with lots of people packed closely and fairly old population are near the top.
• The top infection rate countries have socialized medicine which typically means wards with 8+  people. A 2017 post showed 18 patients per ward was common. Current data is HARD to find! (I'm guessing because they are not very proud of it) Does anyone else think that a ward system might not fare well in an epidemic?
• Note China, USA, Germany near the bottom with the rate of infection / million CASES being .0002. Car fatality rate per 100k population is "10ish" ... TEN, not "point oh something". Again, I'm comparing cases rate to death rate for context, death is a lot more serious than catching Corona (see second chart).
  
  More testing may increase the infection rate, however Germany is one of the best tested countries, so we can have some hope their numbers are going to hold. I have no faith in Chinese numbers. 

Death Rate Per 1 million people (same source), top 7 excluded due to low population:

• Since we are talking deaths per million, big is better all else being equal (which it never is) Switzerland 8.5 mil, Italy 60.5 makes a difference, as does how tight they are packed ... like mountain valleys. 
• Similar point, an honorable statistician would throw out Monaco and Gibraltar and others ... however, most of the stats we are being fed are pure "total deaths", certainly evidence of statistical / media malpractice! 
• For the use and China don't make this list ... US 3/mil, China 2. Again, someone looking to honestly understand vs confuse would go to regional / local analysis. Good map for that here. 

Death rate by age:

There is VERY good news here ... if you are are under 40 you have a .2% chance of dying of Corona.  If you are 0-9 years old, it's 0 so far.




It is interesting that the Worldometer site does not include H1N1. This from WikiPedia:

It is estimated that 11–21% of the global population at the time — or around 700 million–1.4 billion people (out of a total of 6.8 billion) — contracted the illness – more than the number of people infected by the Spanish flu pandemic,[6][10] with about 150,000–575,000 fatalities.[7] A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu.[11]

So, "500K" vs a "billion", and "30K" vs 400K fatalities SO FAR. So we must be careful ... this might be different. We are being confidently told that it IS! Good to watch what actually happens, we clearly do know it is being treated in an VERY unusual manner.

Apparently the UK started random testing at the end of February, so there ought to be some good data from there on rate if one can find it.

Some information on handling epidemics. ... staging is the norm.

Breaking The Two Party Doom Loop

A classic case of false advertising. My title would  be "OMG Trump Got Elected! How to get us back to the single party Deep Totalitarian State we had FINALLY got!"

“Our expert respondents perceive a consistent, ongoing decline in the overall quality of American democracy from 2015.”

Indeed ... the Civil War could have been a sign of decline ... or maybe FDR court packing, a plethora of unelected alphabet unconstitutional bureaucratic agencies with their own judiciary, etc, etc.

Only one other time in American history has the party system resembled this arrangement: the 1860s, when the United States fought a civil war and then tried to recover from one.

Well, actually 1800 as well. The conflict has been the same from the start -- between those who desire a centralized ever more powerful federal government not burdened by the restrictions of following the written Constitution and the separation of powers vs those who believe in the liberty provided by following the written Constitution which specifies divided and LIMITED government.

"Control vs Chaos". America was founded as a "center right" country with that bias to the creativity of "chaos" ... the unknown, the free, the unpredictable, vs the "control" of monarchy, giant centralized bureaucracy, the "central committee", the "experts". We were founded to be more Han Solo than Darth Vader.

At least he is a little honest ...

As a lifelong Democrat, I tend to see the Republican Party as driven by radical extremists and primarily responsible for the escalating breakdown of democratic fairness.

I'm not going to spend a bunch of time giving the counter argument to all he has to say ... go look at my comments on goodreads if you want more of that.

What is the "doom"? It is limited government to this author, as it has been since the beginning of the "progressive" era. Why does he want "4-6" political parties? To weaken the impact of voters -- the same reason the Framers architected 3 branches of the government. They wanted it to be LIMITED! "Divide and Conquer" (in this case conquer the electorate). "A house divided cannot stand" (or at least not be as strong as it could be if it was united.

We were SO close!

At the height of the hidden four-party system, from the late 1960s to mid-1980s, American democracy was far more responsive and flexible than today, and landmark legislation flowed out of Washington, solving some big public problems.

A good counterpoint to this narrative is in the book "The Great Society" by Amity Shlaes which argues in a continuation of her excellent "The Forgotten Man" .

A lot of the book just repeats old leftist mythology ... "The Southern Strategy" or the execrable "Dog Whistle Politics".  Much of leftist orthodoxy is based on the loaded question, the classic, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet" is easily transformed to "Do you even know how racist you are?"

If you are a true believing leftist and want to "win", I highly recommend
"Rules For Radicals" -- it is more honest than this book and the methods it espouses have made a TON of "progress" in moving this country to the totalitarian state Drutman desires.

Would ranked choice voting and a handful of chaotic parties assist in that effort? Probably. However mass panic leading to marshal law as we may be experiencing as I write this may well achieve it without wasting time reading this fictionalized view of America history.

Sexual Morality In A Christ-less World

https://www.challies.com/articles/sexual-morality-in-a-christless-world/

This book reminded me of a Dennis Prager post that impressed me. 

In the ancient world, sex (like life in general) was simply about power. Sometimes the perpetrator vs the penetrated had higher status, however, if you were in power, might made "right" -- being powerful meant you got to do whatever you wanted. The idea that being in power meant that "the gods smiled on you", meant that you were inherently just. Julies Caesar for example:

Julius is “Every woman’s man and every man’s woman.”Despite the raised eyebrows with Julius playing the woman in sexual encounters with men, he was given a pass by society because he proved his strength and manliness through his many military conquests

The idea of morality being something other than mere power is a Judaeo / Christian concept ... thus as Prager points out, it comes very close to "proving" God. If there was not revelation, why would the powerful even consider giving up ANY of their privileges?

It was Christ that instituted the idea of wives having rights equivalent to members of mans own body, and using the idea of the Church being "the bride of Christ".

The theme of the book is that what many in our culture think are "advanced ideas" about sexuality, they are in fact ancient -- and there is more to come.

"For more than a thousand years pederasty was the norm. More than the norm, in many circles it was actually considered the purest form of love."

 The Greeks and the Romans considered sexual relations between men and young boys to be "pure love".

While many "moderns" consider Christians to be "prudish" or "old fashioned" the "modern" pagans are in fact returning to the "moral" outlook of the ancient pagans -- including the sacrifice of children, now euphamised  as "abortion".

One  theme of the book that is certainly uncomfortable to many Christians (including me)  is that homosexuality is not some "special sin", like blaspheming the Holy Spirit often is claimed to be (a discussion for another day).

Contrary to popular accusations, Christian opposition to homosexuality is in no way based on hatred of homosexuals. The Bible is equally firm that heterosexual intercourse outside the estate of marriage is wrong; no one suggests that the prohibition against heterosexual immorality is born out of hatred for heterosexuals.

Many a man addicted to porn feels smug in his sin because "I thank God I am not a homosexual".

Practicing Jewish men pray each day  ... “Blessed are you, LORD our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has not made me a woman.” Prior to that he also blesses God for not making him “a Gentile” and “a slave”. 

I'm not sure I'd go with "no one suggests that the prohibition against heterosexual immorality is born out of hatred for heterosexuals" as Rueger does. I think many do find homosexuality to be a far worse sin than adultery or fornication -- ALL of us are prone to seeing our own sins as being "less sinful" than others sins -- however, God;s ways are NOT our ways, and part of submission to Christ is accepting HIS morality rather than attempting to justify ours.

The other theme of the book that I find important is understanding how or view of "being human" has changed:

The historic Western understanding of the human person was that we are fundamentally religious creatures.

Sex education in schools builds on this fundamental cultural belief that everyone is born a “sexual being.”

Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, etc started Western civilization down the path of man's intellect and spirit being what identified him has human vs animal. Animals don't do philosophy at all. The "ancient enlightenment" was that the "higher" human was able to have at least significant rule over his animal  parts through cultivation of those "higher" aspects of his being.

The "modern" idea is the thought that we are primarily animals -- and that any thought of "higher functions" creates dangerous distinctions and is "false consciousness", "privileged" or "whiteness".

If the physical rules, then eventually physical power rules -- and we can expect the ancient (and obvious) idea of might being right will increasingly replace the "2000 year reign" of Christian morality.

Diamond Princess, Corona

https://spectator.us/consider-costs-coronavirus/

A generally worthwhile article, the following especially interesting.

The only situation to date where an entire, closed population was tested was the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, as Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis observed last week. Among seven hundred passengers and crew members, seven died, for a 1 percent mortality rate — low given the close and prolonged exposure among the passengers. A cruise ship’s population is much more elderly than the general population and thus more vulnerable to disease. Ioannidis suggests that a reasonable fatality estimate for the US population as a whole could range from 0.05 percent to 1 percent; he settles for 0.3 percent. If 1 percent of the US population becomes infected, under a 0.3 percent fatality rate, 10,000 people would die, a number that would not move the needle much on the existing level of deaths due to various types of influenzas, Ioannidis notes.

In the current world, one thing is very certain, the greatest focus of the MSM is to get Trump removed -- at ANY cost ... lives, dollars, future growth, continued reduction of faith in any institution -- JUST GET TRUMP OUT!

The press is working overtime to ensure maximum hysteria. The New York Times outdid itself on Saturday, following a weeklong run of terrifying front-page banner headlines. A blood red map of the US above the fold purported to show infections by July 1 if no restrictions were imposed on public life — a completely counterfactual projection, since numerous restrictions have already been imposed and more are being added daily. The headlines above the fold contained the usual blend of Trump-bashing and fear-mongering: ‘PRESSURE ON TRUMP AS MILLIONS ARE KEPT HOME’, ‘Mixed Signals From President Sow Confusion’, and ‘Virus Tightens Grip on Nation’. This at a time of 214 deaths and 17,000 infected, compared to the 36 to 51 million infected by the flu this season, and the 140 to 350 flu deaths a day.