The President's Crackpot New Coronavirus Czar

The doctor is in and ready to rumble with the COVID

As always, the president hires only the best people. Those people are ones loyal to the president above the constitution, the rule of law, the truth and the American people. Their actual expertise and competence are both basically irrelevant. The New York Times writes about the new crackpot leader the president has picked to drive the federal COVID-19 disaster even farther off the rails than it already is.

“Dr. Scott W. Atlas has argued that the science of mask wearing is uncertain, that children cannot pass on the coronavirus and that the role of the government is not to stamp out the virus but to protect its most vulnerable citizens as Covid-19 takes its course.

Ideas like these, both ideologically freighted and scientifically disputed, have propelled the radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution into President Trump’s White House, where he is pushing to reshape the administration’s response to the pandemic.

‘I think Trump clearly does not like the advice he was receiving from the people who are the experts — Fauci, Birx, etc. — so he has slowly shifted from their advice to somebody who tells him what he wants to hear,’ said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University who is close to Dr. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.”

The NYT article points out that Dr. Atlas is not an epidemiologist or an infectious disease expert. Those are the usual kinds of expertise for dealing with jobs usually associated with a pandemic response. To compensate for his lack of expertise, Atlas has made appearances on the Fox News Channel. Apparently, his ideological rigidity and blithering infectious disease nonsense is what the president found appealing in this creep. Apparently, the president feels that this is the kind of pandemic leadership that can get him re-elected.

The president is enthused for obvious reasons he had made clear to the public: “He has many great ideas. And he thinks what we’ve done is really good, and now we’ll take it to a new level. .... Once you get to a certain number — we use the word herd — once you get to a certain number, it’s going to go away.”

We use the word herd?

Anyway, it is going to go away. And, Atlas has many great ideas, e.g., get herd immunity the old fashioned plague way and to hell with the death and morbidity toll. He is going to take gross incompetence to a new level, super-gross incompetence.

Dr. Atlas denies ever advocating getting to herd immunity the old fashioned plague way. But there’s that disconnect with these statements that Atlas made in public: “When you isolate everyone, including all the healthy people, you’re prolonging the problem because you’re preventing population immunity. Low-risk groups getting the infection is not a problem. In fact, it’s a positive. .... The reality is that when a population has enough people who have had the infection, and since these people don’t have a problem with the infection, that’s not a problem. That’s not a bad thing.”

I'm no expert, just a simple boy from the Midwest, but that sure does sound like Atlas favors building herd immunity the old fashioned way.

Against the advice of real experts and contrary to real world data, Atlas argued for the new CDC guidance that people without Covid-19 symptoms do not need to be tested even if they were exposed to an infected person. Atlas apparently ignores the fact that people without symptoms could be major disease spreaders.

Dr. Atlas has some influential experts on his side. For example, last April Rush Limbaugh praised Atlas for “countering Fauci. .... Scott Atlas is a brilliant guy, and he thinks by early October that we could well be burned out of Covid.” So there you have it, another expert, Rush the Blowhard, says it's going to be all over by early October.

It is good that the president has found one of the best people to valiantly protect Americans from the pandemic.

In other jaw-dropping news

Various sources are reporting that the president has recommended that people vote twice for him in the 2020 election, once by mail and once in person. Knowingly voting twice is illegal, but as we all know by now, the president does not care about the rule of law whenever it gets in his way. Massive voter fraud for the president’s re-election is good, but horrible and awful if it is for his opponent. The president's rationale is simple, but flawed: “If it has [mail in ballot been counted] you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do).”

Trump ignores the fact that many or most mail-in ballots will not be counted until after election day. He is asking people to risk breaking voter laws, some of which are felonies.

Of course, the White House strongly denies that the president was suggesting that anyone should break the law, but that denial is clearly contradicted by what the president actually said.

One has to admire hypocrisy and disregards for people’s welfare like that. It is just so blatant that one’s jaw literally falls off one’s face, or close to it.

Our Future Will Be Controlled By “Combined Will Of The People Of Earth” — Musk’s Neuralink

 Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, seeks to merge human brains with AI. In a live YouTube presentation on Friday, he said that his brain-to-computer interface company Neuralink is on the brink of letting people achieve what he calls “AI symbiosis,” in which the human brain will merge with an artificial intelligence.

“Such that the future of the world is controlled by the combined will of the people of Earth — I think that that’s obviously gonna be the future that we want,” he envisioned. Musk sees the Neuralink brain interface as a way toward such equity.

Musk’s Neuralink is a series of thin, flexible wires which are covered in electrodes to pick up brain activity. Dr. Robert Kirsch, chairman of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, explains in a New York Times piece that Elon Musk’s Neuralink is probably the best brain-sensing tech in development. It requires surgery, he acknowledges, but its thin and flexible nature can adjust to the topography of the brain, possibly making it less caustic.

The hairlike filaments, each of which contains multiple sensors, sink into brain tissue, which have the potential to capture more data than flatter arrays that sit at the brain’s surface. The tiny computer chip would be sewn robotically under local anesthesia in one hour into a human brain on a network of superfine electrode-studded wires about 5 microns thick each (20 times thinner than a human hair). The chip would read and write brain activity — sensing signals in the brain, translating them into motor controls, and interfacing with deficient parts of the human body like limbs.

Theoretically, such a brain-computer interface could reveal entirely new methods for humans to communicate with different parts of the human body. It’s “like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires,” Musk said. The device can pair with a smartphone app over Bluetooth Low Energy, he added.

His Neuralink brain insert is the latest in brain-machine interfaces that have been part of research studies since 2006. Small devices have electronically stimulated nerves and brain areas to treat hearing loss and Parkinson’s disease.

The Neuralink device hasn’t been tested in humans yet; however, the US Food and Drug Administration has designated it a breakthrough device, which allows them to obtain feedback throughout the development process.

Musk’s Neuralink Brain Insert Has Many Possibilities

Musk founded Neuralink in 2016. Then a 2019 media event announced what was titled the N1 Implant concept. This August 28, 2020 live demonstration featured the newest research, in which the brain activity of a pig exposed the results of a newly designed surgically implanted chip that transmitted data wirelessly.

“We have a healthy and happy pig, initially shy but obviously high energy and, you know, kind of loving life, and she’s had the implant for two months,” Musk said of Gertrude the pig during the live YouTube demonstration.

Rejection of the device — the brain automatically fights off foreign matter as a defense mechanism — is but one of many obstacles on the road to Neuralink implementation. Another is that healthy humans will have to agree to be subjects in the trials, which will require brain surgery to place the implant. The surgery would be relatively bloodless, according to Musk, as robots wouldn’t damage blood vessels.

The first clinical trials will be in a small number of patients with severe spinal cord injuries, to make sure it functions as anticipated and is safe for the volunteers. In the meantime, Musk announced that the company is looking to recruit robotics, electrical, and software engineers to develop the device and refine the surgical procedure for the implementation.

Musk said the device would be “quite expensive” when it first launches, but the goal is to reduce costs to about a few thousand dollars — “similar to Lasik,” he said.

Future Will Be Controlled By “Combined Will Of The People Of Earth”

Musk forecast that the Neuralink brain technology could one day cure neurological conditions and allow people with paralysis to control a computer mouse. It could alleviate memory loss, moderate strokes, or mitigate addiction. The technology could monitor a user’s health and warn them if they’re having a heart attack, enable superhuman vision, or even give people telepathy. (Well, the latter 2 aren’t really part of the near future plan…)

A new and fascinating television series on Amazon Video is called Upload. It’s a show in which a person who is dying can be uploaded to a “digital afterlife program” that has been created and is managed by a megacorporation. The Neuralink conversations did contain a bit of that feel, especially when Musk envisioned people using Neuralink to connect to their own digital AI incarnations.

But always visionary, Musk also outlined how “the future is controlled by the combined will of the people of Earth.” Continuing a community thread that he’s touched on before, Musk said, “It’s going to be important from an existential threat perspective to achieve a good AI symbiosis.” Musk has dabbled with different definitions of freedom and community in the past, always creating new spaces for innovation.

Acknowledging that the Q&A session was beginning to sound like a Black Mirror episode, he concurred that, one day, humans will be able to back up and restore memories. “The future is going to be weird,” Musk said, discussing sci-fi uses of Neuralink. “In the future you will be able to save and replay memories,” he said. “You could basically store your memories as a backup and restore the memories. You could potentially download them into a new body or into a robot body.”

Final Thoughts

Neuralink has raised more than $150 million in funding, including $100 million from Musk himself. The company employs roughly 100 people but could soon expand to 10,000, Musk said at the event.

Sure, some of the claims that Musk made about Neuralink’s future application were “outsized,” as the Guardian notes: be used to summon a Tesla, play video games, or allow a person with a severed spinal cord to walk again.

Also, Musk did not present any scientific data to support his claims about the pigs or the devices. Since the Neuralink launch event last year, Musk and Neuralink have published one scientific paper, in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in October.

“Everyone in the field would be very impressed if they actually showed data from a device implanted in a human,” Graeme Moffat, a University of Toronto neuroscience research fellow, told the Guardian.

Musk is the hands-down genius of our times. If anyone can bring this amazing idea to fruition, it’s him.

Here’s the August 28, 2020 demonstration in full, in case you’d like to see it for yourself.

https://youtu.be/iOWFXqT5MZ4

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/01/our-future-will-be-controlled-by-combined-will-of-the-people-of-earth-musks-neuralink/

Some WWII Photos

These are from a set of 45 photos that Reuters put up. Not sure why the seem timely, but they do. I left out the most gruesome photos.

Hitler in Paris June 1940

US troops at Normandy on D-day under heavy machine gun fire
(anti-fascists breaking up a large gathering
of white supremacists) 

Omaha Beach secured after D-Day, June 1944



Crossed rifles tribute to an American soldier
 Normandy beach, June 6, 1944

Nazis herding Jews in Warsaw Poland



German troops, Russia 1941

German soldier carrying ammo for Belgium counteroffensive
December 1944



German General Anton Dostler before execution by firing squad
Italy 1945

Japanese carrier launching attack on Pearl Harbor

Camp holding Japanese Americans captive
California 1942

Failed Japanese aircraft attack on the USS Kitkun Bay

Marines atop Mt Suribachi, Iwo Jima, 1945

US Marine finds Japanese family hiding on Saipan

Injured US Marine - Iwo Jima 1945

Sea burial, Iwo Jima USS Hansford, February 1945

Hiroshima after the bomb 1945

Japanese surrender, USS Missouri, Tokyo Bay
September 2, 1945



US overflight of USS Missouri during Japanese surrender

Trump's Failure: Federal Debt Approaches Size of US GPD

The president touts his "miracle economic recovery" in terms of lies, not exaggerations. His miracle is driven in large part by increased federal debt and the gushing up of wealth to the top 1-2% who are freed from both taxes and society and environment defending regulations. A Washington Post article, U.S. government debt will nearly equal the size of the entire economy for first time since World War II, CBO finds, reports what the title says:

“By the end of 2020, the amount of debt owed by the U.S. will amount to 98 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the highest level since the end of World War II, the CBO said. Total government debt will surpass the U.S. economy’s size next year, CBO said.

Fueling this rise is a big jump in the government’s annual budget deficit, which is projected to widen to $3.3 trillion by the end of this fiscal year, more than tripling since 2019. The deficit was already on track to be very elevated because of recent tax cuts and spending increases, but the government’s response to the pandemic changed things markedly.”

WaPo points out that republicans routinely claim they want to reduce the deficit. But as far as I can tell, that is only when democrats are in charge. When the GOP controls government, federal debt is irrelevant as the GOP passes laws to increase the rate of wealth gushing up to the top 1-2%. That has been standard GOP practice for decades. When democrats are in charge, republican hypocrites, about 97% of the GOP in congress and ~97% of elected GOP politicians, scream bloody murder about the federal debt. They rarely give even little squeak of mild milquetoast protest when the GOP is in charge.

It is true that democrats helped to increase unfunded spending and thus the debt by passing a major COVID-19 spending bill. That spending was in the face of a pandemic and an economic collapse. By stark contrast, the president and the GOP passed a budget-busting tax relief bill that mostly benefited rich people bill in 2017 while the US was in its 7th year of economic expansion. 

What is a reasonable conception of an economically successful federal policy?

Is it fair and balanced to call economic policy that adds to federal debt in times of economic growth a failure? Or, is increased economic growth at the expense of trillions in added federal debt in a growing economy a success? Or, does it not matter? If debt expands during times of growth, what about times of no growth? Is no growth a good time to shut federal spending down? 

Glazed eyeballs

I know, many eyeballs glaze over when the concepts like federal debt and economic policy are mentioned. That is unfortunate. Those concepts "run amok", as one person here likes to say, could help kill democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law as we used to know those concepts. Public detachment from, or boredom with, those economic concerns can and just might usher in a corrupt, incompetent authoritarian kleptocrat government. When that happens, people like me will probably be shut up in due course. Maybe in a year. Maybe in two or three. But it will come if past demagogic tyrannies are reliable evidence.

Regardless of the details, a veil of darkness will fall. Then cruel, corrupt, incompetent, deeply immoral self-serving beasts will control our fates.

Dissecting the Reality of Propaganda About Dysfunctional Democratic Cities

The New York Times reports on democratic cities and the history of how they got there and why they are there. The NYT writes:

“With this refrain, Mr. Trump has sharpened his party’s long-running antipathy toward urban America into a more specific argument for the final two months of the campaign: Cities have problems, and Democrats run them. Therefore, you don’t want Democrats running the country, either.

But that logic misconstrues the nature of challenges that cities face, and the power of mayors of any party to solve them, political scientists say. And it twists a key fact of political history: If cities have become synonymous with Democratic politics today, that is true in part because Republicans have largely given up on them.

Over the course of decades, Republicans ceased competing seriously for urban voters in presidential elections and representing them in Congress. Republican big-city mayors became rare. And along the way, the Republican Party nationally has grown muted on possible solutions to violence, inequality, poverty and segregation in cities.

Mr. Trump and his surrogates have pushed that history to its seeming conclusion: Rural and suburban problems in America today are national problems — but urban problems are Democratic problems.”

Asymmetric warfare: Advantage - liars 

The NYT goes on to point out that politicians of neither party blame Republican county executives for rural opioid problems. The republican argument also gives Democratic mayors no credit for 25-year decline in urban crime since the early 1990s. The NYT also points out that mayors have limited control over crime rates. Some researchers looked for studies suggesting that a mayor's party affiliation has an effect on crime, but found none. It is true that homicides have spiked this year in big cities, but that is also true by similar amounts in some smaller cities with Republican mayors, including Tulsa, Okla., and San Bernardino, Calif. 

Also, the president harshly criticized Chicago for failing to control gun violence despite the fact that the city tried to deal with gun violence. The city outlawed handguns and gun sales, but federal judges overturned those efforts. That shows how constrained local officials including mayors are. 

The rhetorical warfare on this point is, as often the case, asymmetric. This line of propaganda will be hard for democrats to refute because it requires an explanation. In propaganda wars, whenever a person has to explain something, they usually lose the debate. That is just a potentially lethal aspect of the human condition, specifically how the human mind processes propaganda or dark free speech. 

Why we should stop chasing the happiness rainbow

 OPINION by Zoë Wundenberg

https://www.youngwitness.com.au/story/6882168/why-we-should-stop-chasing-the-happiness-rainbow/?cs=13499

Happiness, noun, the state of being happy. Aristotle identifies happiness as the main purpose of human life and as a goal to achieve in itself.

Perhaps I'm in the throes of a COVID-19 pandemic-induced existential crisis, but I can't help but wonder at the futility of such a pursuit.

As humans, we seem intent on measuring our lives. Are you successful? Are you making a difference? Are you useful? Are you happy? We measure our lives by imagined abstract yardsticks.

Why do we have to weigh and measure ourselves? Why do we have to compare the measurements of our lives to each other's?

I am finding it increasingly astonishing that the very basis of our understanding of who we are is based on a constructed idea of what we should be.

In order to be accepted, we have to conform - and yet the people we admire are the people who stand out as different. It is, perhaps, one of the greatest paradoxes of human society.

The pursuit of happiness is so ingrained in our western culture that it is written into the US Declaration of Independence as a right.

While we don't live under this constitution in Australia, our global community has led to us assuming certain parallels to (at least the good bits of) the cultures of neighbouring national communities.

Our commercial arena has certainly latched onto the idea.

Happiness is now more of a pre-packaged consumer good than an abstract goal, recognizing that "the consumer society even has the capacity to absorb and co-opt that which seeks to transform it" .

We confuse happiness, I think. We confuse it with satisfaction, with contentment, with joy, with pleasure.

The state of happiness often involves all of these abstracts, but there are important distinctions to be drawn in our understanding here.

Contentment, joy and pleasure, for example, are largely thought of as the result of our actions, the by-product, effect, of what we do.

We accept them as fleeting, temporary, enjoyable outcomes of the activities and work we undertake. However, we rarely focus on their pursuit.

In what is perhaps a cruel twist of fate, researchers have discovered that people who consciously pursue happiness are less likely to actually achieve it and the pursuit itself can undermine their wellbeing.

Happiness isn't a destination. It's not a place that you arrive at as a reward for hard work and purposeful activity. It's not "what you get" when you serve others or make a sacrifice.

Psychologists tell us there are two general categories of the concept of happiness: hedonic (the pursuit of pleasure over pain) and eudaimonic (the result of the pursuit and attainment of life purpose, meaning, challenge and personal growth).

Some psychologists believe chasing happiness is pointless, others believe it can be purposefully increased.

Ultimately, what makes us feel happy will likely change as we evolve throughout our lifespan and our ideas of contentment and joy will be sparked by different experiences as we age.

I have a rainbow theory of happiness.

People constantly trying to catch it are too busy chasing it to appreciate it when it's there. If we are constantly measuring our lives, deciding if we've "made it yet," what happens if we achieve our goals and we still don't feel that warm buzz of happiness we've been told about?

What happens if we've been working towards achieving a goal that we believe will result in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, only to discover that the rainbow has moved again and we still haven't "arrived" at destination happiness?

If Aristotle was right and happiness is the primary purpose of human life, I think living our lives pursuing a state of being that is, by its very nature temporary, is a cruel joke of the gods.

To spend one's life chasing rainbows when one could take stock at any moment and revel in the beauty of the colours that light up the sky, is to miss the point entirely. Life is a series of moments.

Whatever your goals in your life are, pursue them for the journey. Happiness tends to capture us when we aren't looking.

Zoë Wundenberg is a careers consultant and un/employment advocate at impressability.com.au.