As I explained in the Taleb piece, the first, the initial, scientists to refer to in a case like SARS-CoV-2 are not epidemiologists, because they are backward looking; they compare the little they know about a new virus with what they know about earlier ones. Even if it’s all essentially a mismatch.
Instead, the first people you consult are risk specialists; yes, like Taleb. To know what the -necessarily basic- steps are to take against something you know very little about, other than it is contagious and potentially lethal. One of the obvious steps is close your borders. Another is a lockdown. But a lockdown is not a lockdown is not a lockdown. If you don’t get it right, it’s useless, oppressive and even harmfully counterproductive.
That’s why blueprints and playbooks, written well before a pandemic happens, are so important. You should never leave those things up to politicians, who don’t understand the matter at hand, who will always have other interests in mind (the economy), and will therefore assemble a bunch of local epidemiologists in order to declare: we’re listening to science!
Most of these people mean well, but that’s not enough. And with that, we’re moving out of the summer time and into, what?, COVID 2.0? With Lockdowns 2.0? There is no need. Here’s what you do: Order a billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks.
Not the crappy bluish masks everyone’s wearing today, that’s just a symbolic thing, but get the real thing, for everyone. How many has your government offered to you to date, while spending billions of trillions on the effects of the virus?
I am increasingly amazed at the ability of otherwise intelligent people to ignore completely the systemically destabilizing threats of climate change and the depletion of soil, water, fisheries, energy and key metals and pretend that global society will move forward along uninterrupted trend lines extrapolated from the past.
I wish Cobb would study Varki’s MORT theory. I could use some company in the blogosphere.
“We must now understand that our own well-being can be achieved only through the well-being of the entire natural world around us.” ~ Thomas Berry
…
The current pandemic may well mark the beginning of the end for growth as we knew it. In the U.S. right now, there are 29 million unemployed and tens of thousands of small businesses that have closed during the pandemic will never reopen. In the Age of Environmental Breakdown, there can never be a return to normal. For the normal that industrial civilization has become accustomed to is the very thing ripping to shreds those white picket-fenced lives in suburbia. A Biden presidency may bring back some sense of sanity and order to those pursuing the illusion of the American Dream, but it won’t alter global civilization’s current trajectory toward an increasingly chaotic world of never-ending disasters. The synergistic effects of biodiversity collapse, climate change, and industrial pollution will act as a growing weight on the economy.
…
Scientists can issue warnings about our impending demise until they are blue in the face, and they have, but they and the public are at the mercy of economic, financial, and political forces beyond anyone’s power. Couple that with the fact that the average person on the street has a Trump-level of comprehension about these existential crises and is being bombarded on social media by fake news that plays on emotions and deep-rooted inter-group distrust. Cheap energy and the individualistic consumer culture have created an illusion of abundance and destroyed any sort of communal cooperation which was once the basis of everyday life. I’ve walked this Earth for over five decades and have seen a steady and continuous degradation of the natural world; corporate greenwashing is rampant. The growth in ‘green energy’ has not displaced fossil fuel fuel consumption to any great degree; fossil fuels still supply 84% of global energy consumption. Worse yet, just to maintain our current growth in energy consumption would require an unattainable expansion in alternative energies. If one connects all the dots on our current state, then there is no refuting this most clear-eyed of scientific assessments:
“Given the momentum in both the Earth and human systems, and the growing difference between the ‘reaction time’ needed to steer humanity towards a more sustainable future, and the ‘intervention time’ left to avert a range of catastrophes in both the physical climate system (e.g., melting of Arctic sea ice) and the biosphere (e.g., loss of the Great Barrier Reef), we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse.”
The end of the world is the ‘cha-ching’ of a cash register as the last vestiges of nature are converted to dollars. Lest we forget, 71% of global emissions come from just 100 companies and more than half of global industrial emissions since 1988 originated from 25 corporate and state-owned entities. While the ultra-wealthy reap the profits of a poisoned ecology, the rest of the world is left to take the brunt of consequences from an increasingly dangerous world. Those living on the edge who lost their livelihood during this pandemic are the collateral damage of an out-of-control socio-economic system whose incompatibility with life on Earth becomes more evident with each passing year. There’s nowhere to escape for most people because, to one degree or another, we are all entrapped in this system. The immutable laws of biology, physics, and chemistry have set an expiration date on America’s non-negotiable way of life, ensuring that many more will soon fall victim to the short-term greed of capitalism. As Stephen Hawking warned, “Stupidity and greed will kill off humans.”
A glimpse behind the scenes into stock market shenanigans.
I remember being taught that the value of a company is determined by investors judging its profit growth potential and then trading its stock in a free market.
How much did SoftBank buy? According to the WSJ, which also moments ago confirmed our original reporting, SoftBank…
… spent roughly $4 billion buying call options tied to the underlying shares it bought, as well as on other names
… which due to the embedded leverage in options, is the equivalent of buying tens if not hundreds of billions of underlying stocks, thus sparking the massive upward move in the handful of tech stocks which then spilled over everywhere.
… the real question is which media publication will refuse to touch on the next part of this story, and where the rabbit hole really goes: namely the frontrunning of call options by certain HFTs who clearly magnified the gamma effect sparked artificially by SoftBank.
Wolf Richter explains in more detail what’s going on. I don’t understand it very well, nor do I want to, but it’s enough to reconfirm that sane people who do not deny reality should stay out of the stock market.
Why is the Average Crude Oil Price decreasing since 2008 ? or: Thermodynamics of Oil Production
by Berndt Warm, 11th March 2020
The thermodynamic calculation shows that the energy expenditure for oil production is increasing. The effect is irreversible. The global economy’s ability to pay for oil will go to zero if there is no net energy left over from oil production with which it could generate wealth. Nobody will pay for something which has no benefit for them.
The oil price has been falling since 2008 because the energy expenditure for oil production is increasing. A limit will soon be reached when the total energy production effort is as large as the total energy content of the oil produced. Then the global economy will no longer spend money on oil.
Tim Watkins explains the most important question citizens should ask leadership candidates before deciding who to vote for.
So when the various political campaigners ring you or knock on your door to pedal their version of Making Your Country Great Again, don’t be fooled by the smoke and mirrors of unrealisable promises – still less by the chimerical cheer leading of the establishment media. When they call, ask only this: “What energy will provide the power to achieve the growth and prosperity your team is promising?” Because if their answer is anything other than a cheaper and more energy-dense liquid fuel than diesel, their promises are worth less than dust in the wind.
This is a thoughtful data dense discussion on the health, environmental, and ethical dimensions of eating meat by my favorite nutrition expert Chris Kresser.
I observe that he and his guests spend considerable time contemplating why people so readily disregard facts on this topic. Apparently they’re not aware that humans evolved to deny unpleasant realities.
Profit and growth through energy gradient reduction is the meaning of life. We spend much of our time as human RNA devising information, tools and conduits through which to feed the energy. It’s called complexity. The potential complexity is pretty much open-ended as evidenced by the proliferation of species but unfortunately humans have built their complexity with very finite energy resources. Even with what can be considered an infinite amount of sunlight there is Liebig’s Law of the Minimum in which some other growth factor such as phosphorus will ultimately limit the growth and complexity.
What dunce comes out at the peak of an out-of-control liquidity driven super bubble during the worst economy since 1930 and claims full credit for human history’s biggest con job?
The Dow Jones Industrial just closed above 29,000! You are so lucky to have me as your President😉With Joe Hiden’ it would crash😧
Preface. Winston recreates what life was like from the 5th to the 15th centuries — from the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance.
Energyskeptic.com shows why hydrogen, wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, fusion, and other alternatives to fossil fuels can’t replace them. So it is worth knowing how people lived before fossils if we’re doomed to go back to Wood World after peak oil, where biomass was the main source of heat and infrastructure.
If only peak oil, rather than climate change, had been understood as the main problem facing us, we could have prepared for the future much better. We could have had civil engineers figuring out how to insulate homes better, build roads to last as long as the Roman ones still around today, and other infrastructure for future generations. Organic farming would start in earnest, horses be bred to replace tractors, materials scientists would find ways to preserve knowledge that lasted longer than paper. Stone fences built since barbed wire will rust away. Social structures like guilds, who enforced high standards lest all of them not be trusted put in place. Tens of thousands of small granaries to keep pests from devouring crops post-harvest.
I’m sure as you read this you can think of ways to prepare now for the future, and most of all, a social system that doesn’t make most of us poor peasants.
Richard Winston. 2016. Life in the Middle Ages. New Word City.
Some of that scenery is almost “too silent to be real.” You have to go further and further north for something truly undisturbed along all site-lines.
Too bad fracking stifled Elio Motors’ 84 MPG project and similar designs, at least temporarily. That 3-wheeler was the closest mass-market thing to a motorcycle for those who want more protection.
Yes, British Columbia is very diverse. We have rain forests, mountains, grasslands, and even a small desert. I’m thinking about writing about gratitude soon.
If someone could make a solar-assist bicycle that would fully recharge as you coasted to the next grade, it would be very useful. Not likely, given thermodynamics. I also think people who trust average drivers on rural roads have a death wish!
David Pursel
August 31, 2020 3:54 pm
Wow Rob! I love everything about those photographs. The route, the exceptionally beautiful landscapes, your motorcycle and gear, and the nice-looking horse. I ride a BMW F650GS (single-cylinder/”thumper”) and I haven’t gone on a road trip in a looooong time (I live in Omaha, Nebraska, so the mountains aren’t too far away). This will motivate me! Glad you took some time off from your hard work here at un-Denial and enjoyed all of that beauty. Again, thanks for sharing your adventures here. I get a kick out of them.
Thanks. I’m very much enjoying the recent upgrade to my Honda CB500X after riding a Yamaha Majesty scooter for 7 years. The Honda has twice the power and gets 30% better fuel economy. I burn 3 liters per 100 km (78 mpg) and have a 550 km range on a tank of gas.
There is something zen like about riding a motorcycle. You have to be in the moment paying attention to what’s around you because it’s so dangerous. Fingers crossed that I don’t cripple or kill myself before old age forces me to stop.
That Honda is a great all-purpose motorcycle. The upright riding position offers much more comfort and reduced fatigue than many MCs. Windscreen is just the right size for city, back roads, and small-medium highway riding. Nice hard cases with plenty of volume. Just an excellent choice. It’s actually very similar in design and functional purpose to my 2007 650GS. I get between 60 and 65 mpg with a range of about 260 miles. Your 78mpg/550km per tank is just outstanding. I actually prefer bicycles, but my love of motorcycles runs almost as deep. You’re description about the zen-like focus required to ride an MC safely and competently is perfectly apt – it is an incredibly dangerous endeavor. But the rewards are sublime!
Thanks for pointing me to that article, Rob. It’s the best I’ve yet read on the F650GS. A very enjoyable, informative read, with a nice combination of analytical and prosaic writing. Dude nailed it about the saddle and windscreen on the original. I replaced the saddle after several years of riding the terribly designed original one. I thought I’d adjust to it, but that just wasn’t possible. And I purchased the Madstad windscreen which he mentioned and it made such a tremendous difference, particularly at speed. Much less headwind buffeting and wind goes right over the top of my helmet now. I’ll try to occasionally write briefly about those of my GS adventures I think you might find interesting.
This fellow resident of British Columbia rode the same motorcycle on roughly the same route this summer.
The main difference is she’s much better looking than me.
Ilargi made sense today.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2020/09/lockdown-2-0/
New evidence in support of vitamin D for avoiding the Wuhan virus. I doubled up to 2000 iu per day a few months ago.
Kurt Cobb asks “Do we have room for a billion Americans?”
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2020/09/do-we-have-room-for-billion-americans.html
This paragraph stood out for me:
I wish Cobb would study Varki’s MORT theory. I could use some company in the blogosphere.
Many people see denial, very few understand it.
It’s great to see xraymike79 writing again.
https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2020/09/04/age-of-annihilation/
A glimpse behind the scenes into stock market shenanigans.
I remember being taught that the value of a company is determined by investors judging its profit growth potential and then trading its stock in a free market.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/one-day-after-zero-hedge-ft-unmasks-softbank-call-buying-nasdaq-whale
Wolf Richter explains in more detail what’s going on. I don’t understand it very well, nor do I want to, but it’s enough to reconfirm that sane people who do not deny reality should stay out of the stock market.
Nice find by James.
http://megacancer.com/2020/07/29/wisdom-from-aargot/#comment-10075
Tim Watkins explains the most important question citizens should ask leadership candidates before deciding who to vote for.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/09/02/when-politicians-call-ask-only-this/
This is a thoughtful data dense discussion on the health, environmental, and ethical dimensions of eating meat by my favorite nutrition expert Chris Kresser.
I observe that he and his guests spend considerable time contemplating why people so readily disregard facts on this topic. Apparently they’re not aware that humans evolved to deny unpleasant realities.
https://chriskresser.com/setting-the-record-straight-on-meat-with-diana-rodgers-and-robb-wolf/
The author of the bible on debt has died.
https://www.economic-undertow.com/2020/09/03/david-graeber-dead/
James on the meaning of life.
http://megacancer.com/2020/07/29/wisdom-from-aargot/#comment-10069
Mac10 made me laugh today.
https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-trump-dump.html
Nice post today from Alice Friedemann on what life may be like after we can no longer afford the oil that remains.
http://energyskeptic.com/2020/will-life-after-peak-oil-be-like-the-middle-ages/
Some of that scenery is almost “too silent to be real.” You have to go further and further north for something truly undisturbed along all site-lines.
Too bad fracking stifled Elio Motors’ 84 MPG project and similar designs, at least temporarily. That 3-wheeler was the closest mass-market thing to a motorcycle for those who want more protection.
Sight-lines, rather.
I did some wiki time on British Columbia. I didn’t realise some parts of Canada were so dry and hot come summer time. Very beautiful too.
Yes, British Columbia is very diverse. We have rain forests, mountains, grasslands, and even a small desert. I’m thinking about writing about gratitude soon.
You can do the trip again in 20 years—on bicycle
Not likely. In 20 years I’ll probably be dead from old age, nuclear war, or starvation – whichever comes first. 🙂
If someone could make a solar-assist bicycle that would fully recharge as you coasted to the next grade, it would be very useful. Not likely, given thermodynamics. I also think people who trust average drivers on rural roads have a death wish!
Wow Rob! I love everything about those photographs. The route, the exceptionally beautiful landscapes, your motorcycle and gear, and the nice-looking horse. I ride a BMW F650GS (single-cylinder/”thumper”) and I haven’t gone on a road trip in a looooong time (I live in Omaha, Nebraska, so the mountains aren’t too far away). This will motivate me! Glad you took some time off from your hard work here at un-Denial and enjoyed all of that beauty. Again, thanks for sharing your adventures here. I get a kick out of them.
Thanks. I’m very much enjoying the recent upgrade to my Honda CB500X after riding a Yamaha Majesty scooter for 7 years. The Honda has twice the power and gets 30% better fuel economy. I burn 3 liters per 100 km (78 mpg) and have a 550 km range on a tank of gas.
There is something zen like about riding a motorcycle. You have to be in the moment paying attention to what’s around you because it’s so dangerous. Fingers crossed that I don’t cripple or kill myself before old age forces me to stop.
That Honda is a great all-purpose motorcycle. The upright riding position offers much more comfort and reduced fatigue than many MCs. Windscreen is just the right size for city, back roads, and small-medium highway riding. Nice hard cases with plenty of volume. Just an excellent choice. It’s actually very similar in design and functional purpose to my 2007 650GS. I get between 60 and 65 mpg with a range of about 260 miles. Your 78mpg/550km per tank is just outstanding. I actually prefer bicycles, but my love of motorcycles runs almost as deep. You’re description about the zen-like focus required to ride an MC safely and competently is perfectly apt – it is an incredibly dangerous endeavor. But the rewards are sublime!
I did a little reading on the F650GS. Looks like a great bike. Here’s an interesting discussion on the advantages of a single cylinder engine.
https://650thumper.blog/2018/04/09/the-bmw-f650gs-its-not-just-a-starter-bike/
Thanks for pointing me to that article, Rob. It’s the best I’ve yet read on the F650GS. A very enjoyable, informative read, with a nice combination of analytical and prosaic writing. Dude nailed it about the saddle and windscreen on the original. I replaced the saddle after several years of riding the terribly designed original one. I thought I’d adjust to it, but that just wasn’t possible. And I purchased the Madstad windscreen which he mentioned and it made such a tremendous difference, particularly at speed. Much less headwind buffeting and wind goes right over the top of my helmet now. I’ll try to occasionally write briefly about those of my GS adventures I think you might find interesting.