Floating where life takes me - and maybe sticking an oar in, once in a while.
There are two eternally contending forces that have generated enormous contending social pressures that will be released soon in the US, hopefully in a non explosive manner - fear and (non-romantic) love. The French Revolution (as a historic example) went all fear - deeply into fear. The American Revolution (for a happier example) ended up with scattered love (if not for everyone involved), and the promise of more love to come (the more perfect union).
A wise man once said, never make a prediction that has both a fixed date, and an outcome. ‘Something important will happen by summer’ is fine. ‘I will get a vaccine sometime’ is fine. ‘I will get a vaccine by summer’ is risky. I like risk.
So big news for me, and this blog is all about me. If you aren’t interested, don’t bother. Of course, if you weren’t interested, you probably wouldn’t be here - so whatevs.
American politics, in this age of Trump, is terrifying. The richest, most militarily powerful country in the world is running full speed towards Civil War II, the Empire Falls Apart. There are piles of commentary on the convention speeches, and policy positions, and whatever, about the political minutiae, but they seem to be overlooking the big stuff.
This is half philosophy, half morals, and half science. Those are three different paradigms in different dimensions of thought so that statement isn't as wrong as it looks. There sort of are three halves here. What makes a person who they are? The nature/nurture discussion. How much is genetic, and how much is upbringing and experience? This is all my opinion and lots of it are facts in my head, but they might not be true facts and whatever. Using that context to read about more context, here we go.
We are at an interesting point in the development of the Corona story. In the States, the Republicans are saying the scientists, and the Democrats who listen to them, are being overly cautious, and that the economy must be saved. The scientists (and the Democrats that listen to them) are saying the data quality is poor, and there is a lot of uncertainty here - so we should be cautious to prevent the potential mass death AND destruction of the economy that will result.
Why we don’t want to let the virus run its course. There are ideas that might cause people to lose sleep in here, so fair warning.
So, it’s rant day, here at Skellywords. Maybe it will become a regular-ish Friday feature. Today’s rant is scientific predictions. I do these predictions for a living - if in a totally different field. Through painful experience, it became clear that understanding data quality was a required part of understanding the uncertainty of that prediction. As we learn more and more about the Covid data, it’s clear that the only prediction that we can make with any certainty is that if everybody acts like they did last year at this time, lots of people would get sick and lots of people would die. I’ll put that at ninety nine percent likely. It doesn’t rate higher, mostly cus I’m not totally positive the world really exists and this isn’t a simulation or dream or something. That’s the other percent.
I have hidden away from the world, and locked myself into a small confined space for the duration of this Mexican Beer Crisis. I have damaged lungs so am deathly afraid of getting this thing, like, death for real. I have a new morning plan - to get out of bed, have a Mexican beer (who’s brand has been hijacked in a particularly nasty way), and document my gradual decline into madness here (I can hear Deb saying “but that happened years ago!” Whatevs).
So, this little virus problem...I’ve been following stuff, cus I do that, and I’ve been projecting stuff into the future, cus I do that, and it’s come to an interesting place. Emotionally, I’ve reached a ‘holy shit’ level, but because I’m lazy and ‘holy shit’ is work, I’ve put that away and pulled out math, and assumptions and followed where they went - all in an emotionless way, to try and shut the ‘holy shit’ up. I have a weakness for drama, so I’m trying to keep it real.
Emotion and rationalism. The first only somewhat in our control, and the second is who ‘we’, as a concept, are. Our self awareness is rational. Without that piece of rationality, our sense of self wouldn’t exist.
My last blog was a bit down, so I thought I’d follow it up with a more positive vibe quickly. This blog will wander less and stay a bit close to a single idea. The human interactions with opportunity, second chances, and failure - but the good kind of failure.
