Constructivism / Josef Albers/ Rolled Wrongly
The real hard part that I am trying to come to grips with is the simple idea that there was simply a set of “wrong” assumptions made at the beginning of the COVID debacle. I think that it explains a bunch.
Those wrong assumptions led us down the path of the mess that we find ourselves in now.
Those original assumptions were simply mistakes made by humans and started the landslide of consequences that we are dealing with now.
The original assumptions were: 1) the disease was a bigger killer than it was. 2) PCR was a useful diagnostic tool.
All the downstream decisions and processes stemmed from these two simple mistakes.
I don’t think that they were made in bad faith.
I am not normally one to support anything written in the “Atlantic”, but the idea of a “amnesty” isn’t all that awful. Despite the howling for blood, I think that the failures of the response to COVID stemmed from lousy initial assumptions.
Photorealism (Super-Realism, Hyper-Realism) / Glennray Tutor/ Going to Heaven
Blue sky mornings the past couple of days have improved my mood greatly. It was getting entirely too “oregonish” for my tastes.
I did my walks yesterday, not where I want to be, but I am beginning the discipline of getting out and moving every day. It does help when the weather cooperates. I have rain gear, but I am of the opinion that this old body hurts more when it is rainy and cold.
So, in the process of trying to find one decent thing to read on the internet every day (a goal which is getting progressively more difficult) I ran across an article whose title intrigued me.
"Multitasking Isn't Progress—It's What Wild Animals Do for Survival"
Definitely worth a read. Not at all perfect and deals with epiphenomena and rough ideas, but gives room for thought.
The only thing in the article that really got my goat was the last paragraph. While there are nuggets in the article worth pondering, the last paragraph completely ignores the thrust of what Han appears to be saying and places the “enlightened” individual into the role of leader whose actions spur others to follow his lead. So the act of rebellion and independence merely become yet another insurmountable self-improvement fever dream.
Maybe this is the problem with reading the writings out in blogoland. I am coming to the conclusion that it is all about status. Maybe that is what ties the whole blogging phenomenon together, folks writing about things to assert their status as a thinker. Truth is, I probably fall prey to this myself. But for some reason, I think that it isn’t my main thrust. I kinda pride myself on my poor readership numbers and high bounce rates.
I think that this is mostly a diary. It gives me something to do when I am drinking my coffee in the morning and when I am otherwise bored. If you stop by, you are welcome to say hi and stop by anytime.
Just recognize that I am wrong more often than I am right.
Post-Impressionism / Vincent van Gogh/ The Starry Night
Spent the last couple of months assiduously ignoring the news and the research. Really was a nice mental health break. But all good things must end. With the hospital in the early stages of the freakout mode, I thought that I would spend a little time catching up.
Lots of preprints out there. Lots of work is being done. I think that it is now more important than ever to look at the conflict of interest statements. The data is not hopeful.
Now, I don’t think that this can be considered unexpected. I am thinking that the problem is more subtle than a virus that is known for its ability to throw off adaptations at a furious rate. But what may well be happening is yet another slide down the slope of loss-of-faith in science and medicine. Right now, the faithful are trying to shove the “science” down the throat of the apostate. But the “science” has always been a touch on the threadbare side, and now if the science is shown to be again suspect, we will get another load of folks dropping into heresy.
This one is tough. Right now my estimate of the ratio believer/apostate is 60:40. If delta and lambda start getting traction in a serious way (I am hoping against it, but the news ain’t promising) the ratio will take another step on the “down” stairs.
50:50 is a dangerous place to be in situations like this. The world is getting progressively more unstable and folks tempers are getting out of hand.
Art Nouveau / Franklin Carmichael/ La Cloche Panorama
Been pondering of late. Of course, I have always pondered, but this is more of a fourth quarter kinda ponder. I think that it is normal for this age.
Now, a lot of you might immediately label my thoughts as heretical were I to share them. I will go so far as to admit that they violate the law of obligatory positivism that pervades what passes as thought in these times.
I think that the biggest source of angst that I am wrestling with of late is the idea that the dreams of my youth were false and appear to be getting “Falser”.
Ugo wrote a piece over at his place last week that really got me a-pondering. Now, as most of you know, Ugo is one of my gurus, but as one old man to another, Ugo, I think that you are going down the wrong path on this one.
The article seems to me to be self-effacing and a call to the old days of a unitary science. I can’t remember any such thing appearing in my days of being a scientist. Money decided what was science and what wasn’t. Molecular Biology was worshipped, there was money there. Ecology was denigrated, things like the environment interfered with funding. The unitary church that Ugo pines for was long ago bought and paid for by industry.
Ugo is my guru, and I read him religiously. But I am thinking that in this particular case, he is doing what us old men do, fetishizing a non-existent past.
After all, and I speak here from hard experience, it is not fun to realize that you were just a part of the problem.
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