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So Scott Alexander posted about why the CDC and FDA etc can be so easily outperformed by randos (power-seeking and political considerations compete with being right) and used Zvi Mowshowitz as an example.
Turns out that aside Zvi is even more cynical. He initially notes the asymmetry of criticism, and being able to build on top of the bodies' work, but his main argument is that the institutions are fundamentally broken environments devoted to self-perpetuation, a bureaucracy optimizing for ass-covering and sucking up to power, and are completely unconnected with making the right decisions. If good policies are pushed through, the ass-covering instinct will be to defend them and pretend that's what they were trying to do all along - but that's a big "if", because such institutions are procedural mazes and lack competitive pressures.
More from AntisocialJustice
Here's the article from a month ago questioning the squashing of the lab-leak coronavirus hypothesis.
Key points for me are:
* Lots of labs around the world have been performing "gain of function" research, deliberately making diseases more infectious or infectious to humans - and received lots of funding
* Peter Daszak - who coordinated the Lancet statement labeling all non-natural origin theories as conspiracy theories (based on no conclusive evidence) - has been channeling funding into gain of function bat virus research in Wuhan (and elsewhere) for years
* COVID-19 is distinctive in that it binds to the ACE2 receptor (allowing it to infect humans) and it has a furin spike cleavage (making it more virulent) - both mutations arising together are less likely, but there's been years of gain of function research introducing these characteristics into SARs viruses, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology
* The closest known relative is bat virus that infected miners in Yunnan in 2012, and it was taken to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for study by Shi Zhengli (partially funded by the US through Daszak); she claimed the miners died of a fungal disease despite them being treated with antivirals
* Shi Zhengli collaborated with gain of function researcher Ralph Baric, and mysteriously renamed this virus sequence when she published papers about it (Daszak claims these samples have disintegrated because of course he would)
* When the NIH tried to stop Daszak from sending more money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to arrange outside inspections, and to get a sample from the lab, he refused, and got 77 Nobel Prize winners to say the funding should continue
* Somehow Daszak became the Lancet's lead investigator into the origins of the virus, and one of the 10 people in the WHO's virus origins investigation
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
180 views · Feb 7th
Related to the last post is the expansion of “slurs”, where the process is as follows:
1. Claim a common phrase is offensive
2. Paint people who use it as bigots
3. Force everyone to comply with not just your speech codes but the rationale and characterizations too
The last point is important: it’s well-poisoning, dictating the interpretation of language, and pushing ideology via the speech policing
And nowadays we have activist dictionaries (I’m not even kidding) that enshrine the politicized meaning, first claiming descriptivism (“we just record how people use it”) before applying it with prescriptivism (“the dictionary contains the right meaning of words”)
Of course claiming something is a slur can be weaponized against SJWs too, and maybe this tactic will be defanged the way claiming being triggered was
172 views · Feb 7th
With the 45-year veteran of the NYT forced to resign for mentioning the n-word while discussing whether it was appropriate for a student to be suspended for saying it years before, it’s important to point out the insane expansion of what constitutes fireable racism
How you actually treat people doesn’t matter, intent doesn’t matter, context doesn’t matter
There are now just taboo sounds that ipso facto “prove” you’re racist, a moral designation divorced from impact or intention
It’s chum in the water for Tumblr-trained hordes (now young adults) incapable of processing a situation beyond reacting to Pavlov’s bell symbols burned into their brains, and all very convenient for political organization
184 views · Feb 7th
More from AntisocialJustice
Here's the article from a month ago questioning the squashing of the lab-leak coronavirus hypothesis.
Key points for me are:
* Lots of labs around the world have been performing "gain of function" research, deliberately making diseases more infectious or infectious to humans - and received lots of funding
* Peter Daszak - who coordinated the Lancet statement labeling all non-natural origin theories as conspiracy theories (based on no conclusive evidence) - has been channeling funding into gain of function bat virus research in Wuhan (and elsewhere) for years
* COVID-19 is distinctive in that it binds to the ACE2 receptor (allowing it to infect humans) and it has a furin spike cleavage (making it more virulent) - both mutations arising together are less likely, but there's been years of gain of function research introducing these characteristics into SARs viruses, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology
* The closest known relative is bat virus that infected miners in Yunnan in 2012, and it was taken to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for study by Shi Zhengli (partially funded by the US through Daszak); she claimed the miners died of a fungal disease despite them being treated with antivirals
* Shi Zhengli collaborated with gain of function researcher Ralph Baric, and mysteriously renamed this virus sequence when she published papers about it (Daszak claims these samples have disintegrated because of course he would)
* When the NIH tried to stop Daszak from sending more money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to arrange outside inspections, and to get a sample from the lab, he refused, and got 77 Nobel Prize winners to say the funding should continue
* Somehow Daszak became the Lancet's lead investigator into the origins of the virus, and one of the 10 people in the WHO's virus origins investigation
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
180 views · Feb 7th
Related to the last post is the expansion of “slurs”, where the process is as follows:
1. Claim a common phrase is offensive
2. Paint people who use it as bigots
3. Force everyone to comply with not just your speech codes but the rationale and characterizations too
The last point is important: it’s well-poisoning, dictating the interpretation of language, and pushing ideology via the speech policing
And nowadays we have activist dictionaries (I’m not even kidding) that enshrine the politicized meaning, first claiming descriptivism (“we just record how people use it”) before applying it with prescriptivism (“the dictionary contains the right meaning of words”)
Of course claiming something is a slur can be weaponized against SJWs too, and maybe this tactic will be defanged the way claiming being triggered was
172 views · Feb 7th
With the 45-year veteran of the NYT forced to resign for mentioning the n-word while discussing whether it was appropriate for a student to be suspended for saying it years before, it’s important to point out the insane expansion of what constitutes fireable racism
How you actually treat people doesn’t matter, intent doesn’t matter, context doesn’t matter
There are now just taboo sounds that ipso facto “prove” you’re racist, a moral designation divorced from impact or intention
It’s chum in the water for Tumblr-trained hordes (now young adults) incapable of processing a situation beyond reacting to Pavlov’s bell symbols burned into their brains, and all very convenient for political organization
184 views · Feb 7th
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