“[Johnson repeatedly told the American people] ‘the first responsibility, the only real issue in this campaign, the only thing you ought to be concerned about at all, is: Who can best keep the peace?’ The stratagem succeeded; the election was won; the war escalated. .... President Johnson thus denied the electorate of any chance to give or refuse consent to the escalation of the war in Vietnam. Believing they had voted for the candidate of peace, American citizens were, within months, deeply embroiled in one of the cruelest wars in their history. Deception of this kind strikes at the very essence of democratic government.” -- moral philosopher, Sisella Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 1999 (from chapter 12, Lies for the Public Good); Johnson fully intended to escalate the war while at the same time lying to the American people in his campaign for president, telling them that he would de-escalate the war; the moral lesson → → → lies and deceit deprive people of their right to make a choice on the basis of truth
Coronavirus misinformation: The source of the infodemic (misinfodemic, actually)
The New York Times reports that researchers who have analyzed 38 million English language articles about the pandemic find that the single most common source of misinformation is the president of the US. The NYT writes:
“Of the flood of misinformation, conspiracy theories and falsehoods seeding the internet on the coronavirus, one common thread stands out: President Trump.
That is the conclusion of researchers at Cornell University who analyzed 38 million articles about the pandemic in English-language media around the world. Mentions of Mr. Trump made up nearly 38 percent of the overall “misinformation conversation,” making the president the largest driver of the “infodemic” — falsehoods involving the pandemic.
The study, to be released Thursday, is the first comprehensive examination of coronavirus misinformation in traditional and online media.
“The biggest surprise was that the president of the United States was the single largest driver of misinformation around Covid,” said Sarah Evanega, the director of the Cornell Alliance for Science and the study’s lead author. ‘That’s concerning in that there are real-world dire health implications.’”
There are dire real-world health implications of misinformation? That is an understatement. If there are one million SARS-CoV-2 deaths worldwide so far, can one credit about 10-20% of them to the president’s misinformation influence worldwide, and about 60-70% of them in the US? It’s a moral conundrum. Call out the moral philosophers! HEY SISELLAAAAA!! (Marlon Brando voice screams)
Coronavirus testing, or not
Experts have been telling us all along that we need to do more testing to get a handle on control of the pandemic. NPR reported this morning that a new study, presumably based on statistical modeling, indicates that the US needs to do a lot more testing to even come close to dealing competently with the pandemic. At present, the most daily testing the US has done is 1 million tests/day. The experts estimate that to deal marginally competently with testing for just people at high risk, the US would need to do about 4 million tests/day. To deal marginally competently for the US whole population, about 14 million would be needed per day.
The bottom line is clear. The US was not competent in dealing with the pandemic, and it might never be. How much of the responsibility for this ongoing failure belongs to the president? He believes that he has done a great job and deserves an A++, presumably meaning he believes that he is 0% responsible. Other people might think that he gets a well-deserved grade of F-- and 100% of the responsibility.
Once again, we have at least a serious moral problem on our hands. HEY SISELLAAAAA!! And, probably also a political responsibility analysis problem.
Germaine's toxicity assessment: 45% probability
Vuukle says: Germaine has a 45% probability of being toxic
(see the small blue square)
I have just been booted off of a 7th radical conservative, blindly pro-Trump propaganda, lies and social polarization site.[1] This time it is American Thinker that gave poor, well-meaning Germaine the heave-ho. What was different about this site is that it uses a small comment platform called Vuukle (used at 302 websites) instead of Disqus (219,047 websites).
For a while, I thought that I would be able to roam freely with Vuukle because that site had not kicked me out long ago after I started spewing very unwelcome truth and reason there. What is different about Vuukle is that it uses some sort of comment screening technology to identify and remove undesirables like me. Like Disqus, Vuukle allows downvotes and blocking, which I get a lot of.
What is different about Vuukle is that once a bad person like me comes into the platform’s and/or website’s crosshairs, a probable toxicity assessment is shown. For Germaine, Vuukle believes that nasty person is 45% probably toxic (see screenshot above). What is interesting is that despite Germaine's probable toxicity, a comment like “Trump is a great guy and I love him” was allowed and posted as usual.
That probably means that sophisticated software is at work assessing the content of comments and instantly blocking undesirable (anti-Trump) comments, while passing pro-Trump comments on. American Thinker is the typical of kind of unreliable radical propaganda site I have been booted out of.
Who is toxic here and who isn’t?
It seems that as the election approaches, radical conservative sites are increasingly aggressive about shutting down commenters who disagree with the radical right's highly divisive, increasingly authoritarian and pro-Trump content. That content is heavily laden with lies, deceit, misinformation, emotional manipulation and hyper-partisan, incoherent reasoning.
Aw, tain’t fair - Germaine is toxic and can't log in any more
Footnote:
1. The radical conservative sites where I have been blocked, banned or otherwise ejected from so far are Daily Caller, Town Hall, Breitbart, Daily Signal, Daily Wire and Gateway Pundit. All of those sites use the Disqus comment platform. My Germaine II reputation is badly damaged from all the folks who have downvoted and/or blocked me at those sites.
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