81–90 of 675 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consider that causing 1% of the group's population to die might not weaken the group and in fact might make the group stronger.
Disease doesn't kill "weaker" members of a group, it kills susceptible ones. The Spanish Flu notably had a much higher mortality amongst younger, healthier people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
but why are you so adamant on making everybody so perfectly safe? there used to be something about freedom and risk; heck, about life and risk. it's risky to be alive but it was more risky live way back in the day at what point does safety begin to stifle the drive to live? we as humans originally evolved in a risky environment, we thrived in it, we made it safer for ourselves; but maybe, just maybe, we also acquired…
Less about making those people safe and more about making you safe by making those other not spread the disease to you. For example: Go ahead and drive drunk, I don’t care, just do it on your private property so you don’t kill me. Similarly: Go and don’t get vaxed, honestly I don’t care. But viruses don’t respect borders like cars do, so if you are going to do it then make sure you are isolated on a private island wh…
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky
I find this idea a little repellant, but it's something Friedrich Hayek wrote about too. (In my mind Hayek is the person most associated with distributed knowledge.) ~"You may not understand the forces that have led society to be organized the way that it is, but you should respect that sometimes the order of things reflects knowledge you may not have."
One of his essays on this topic was "Individualism: True and False":
"""This brings me to my second point: the necessity, in any complex society in which the effects of anyone’s action reach far beyond his possible range of vision, of the individual submitting to the anonymous and seemingly irrational forces of society—a submission which must include not only the acceptance of rules of behavior as valid without examining what depends in the particular instance on their being observed but also a readiness to adjust himself to changes which may profoundly affect his fortunes and opportunities and the causes of which may be altogether unintelligible to him."""
this is the best explanation I've even seen for a positive aspect to secrecy. yet I still distrust secretive practices on principle, because evil deeds require secrecy 99% of the time
many forms of good deeds also rely on secrecy
Reading this gave me a kind of horrifying idea that goes something like: You know about a deadly disease whose most serious outcomes can be avoided by getting a shot. Many members of a group in your society have decided they don't want to get the shot. You are annoyed by the way they talk about a lot of things, including the way they talk about avoiding the shot. They, in turn, call you "smug" for the way your group…
What happened to "personal responsibility" that these people like so much? If the whole country tells these people to get vaccinated, they don't, and they die, then I don't think I should be held responsible for being smug, or snarky, or whatever.
The author presents the idea that "you may be born into a culture with social practices that you don't understand but that work for your benefit; they may work better if you don't understand them!" I find this idea a little repellant, but it's something Friedrich Hayek wrote about too. (In my mind Hayek is the person most associated with distributed knowledge.) ~"You may not understand the forces that have led societ…
LOL okay I literally can't go any further than the first sentence. Very good much wow so projection.
I like the document title, though. "Microsoft Word - Document1". Very classy.
As for the rest, it's disturbing and I don't want to think about it. So I won't.
Like discovering the ancient concept of 'Public Communications' by accidental recourse of self aware rhetoric. Every single thing we do, if the public were to have access to the raw facts, it would cause 'outrage'. The entirely of leadership is putting the difficult facts into the difficult context and making the trade offs. We 'don't talk about' the fact that we don't give medical aid to COVID patients past a certai…
There's a classic engineering ethics problem involving an overpass. Build a cheap overpass with a support in the median and eventually someone may die crashing into it. The odds are low and the cost of a bridge with no support is high.
Modern, western, white collar society is unable to look itself in the mirror and say "we're building the cheap bridge" for anything but the most ludicrously extreme cases.
If it wasn't Covid that made this clear it would have been something else.
They lost me at the dangers of ultrasonic humidifiers.
I think you misinterpreted that part. It's talking about how cults who believe in weird stuff grow, despite there being no real danger of ultrasonic humidifiers or whatever.
So from context I think that the Hobo-Dyer projection and using bromine are both supposed to be superior to current common approaches, but, like ultrasonic humidifiers, normies don't accept these superior new facts even though the arguments for them are strong and flawless.
I still don't get the point of the last two paragraphs in that part.