thepossum

Grow up Winston. How old are you? I will stop graffiting my neighbours fence ok But seriously Winston if you saw my definition of my ideal philosophy I wouldnt actually be able to do very much at all. In fact if anything I take too much notice and consideration of other people's rights. It tends to hold you back in life sadly

I wasnt making an apology for anyone's philosophy. Just discussing aspects of my own. Sorry it seemed so twisted But in a nutshell, nobody has a right to tell me what to do unless what I am doing infringes someone elses rights :)

I'm curious about this issue and I'm not sure where I read it (maybe Breitbart) but I saw somewhere that 13/16 statues proposed to be demolished were democrats. Just curious as an outsider

I cant be bothered to go back and read what this is about but are we talking about those posts where people copy and paste some huge piece of text from somewhere wihout any/much comment of their own. I just ignore them usually

Shall I rephrase. Global pandemic response of that magnitude for an infectious illness

Well it's close to being global and brutal for many.

The first one where we have had global lockdown and unprecedented media

One research study/report I would be very interested in is an analysis of the number of media reports, social media posts, discussions and even the number of additional Under-review academic research that has been written and/or reported based on pre-prints over the last 6 - 8 months. Personally, while I understand the importance of the review process within expert circles I feel it has made something of a mockery of academic research processes. I also think quantity vs quality metrics come into consideration too. When a fully reviewed Lancet paper seems to get equivalent media standing to some rather half-baked attempt that would never pass review I get concerned. This has been the first pandemic post the massive growth in social media and MSM, in addition it seems to soemthing of a wild west reduced quality academe. Its hard to sort the wheat from the chaff and in the middle of a global crisis that is concerning Quoting from Medrxiv "Caution: Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information" SInce I last checked the number of preprints it appears our poor health research reviewers (in the middle of a crisis doing other rather important stuff I imagine) are drowning and unable to flatten the publication curve And while I know the important aspect of peer-reviewed research within academia, surely during a global health crisis there are more important things to do and use research resources for than just expanding bibilographies. I understand how it happens of course. You have existing studies and datasets. A big topical issue comes along. Small tweak to the objectives and hypotheses and away you go. Forgive me, I'm just bitter and twsited. There was one skill I lacked to prevent me becoming a professor or some other senior academic, the ability to churn out papers :) oh and the interest and motivation to pursue an academic career

I'm not going to try to critique your first sentence too much. You kind of escape from it with your later sentences. But there is too much of a tendency among too many influential people to think a measure is the same as the construct/concept they are attempting to measure; and to use them interchangeably in all kinds of publications and communications

I have some very serious concerns about the way data is used or abused by people who place excessive priority on restricting all risk over the broader aspects of people's lives. There was and still is (for want of better word) a background of risk for so many things under what most people in the world would prefer a form of freedom. It is not legitimate to use a legitimiate lockdown (to control case numbers in a public health emergency) and the case numbers of Covid (or everyting else for that matter) under extreme lockdown as a basis for losing sight of and arguing against people's freedomas the preferred and essential state of affairs. Please do not distort data or graphs or anything in order to back up an extreme (but necessary) repressive set of measures. That way leads to a dangerous world. You could remove amost all risk of many things through ridiculously repressive measures. But I think it is a very questionnable position to take. Many people are also taking excessively simplisitc univariate crude numbers and models to argue any manner of dodgy positions. I do understand where some who make those arguments come from professionally and I respect that at a professional and ethical level. But come on people. We have to look at the full picture of every outcome variable from any measures. And also I would hope have some common philosophical position that controlling other's lives is an extreme measure to be avoided as much as possible. If we dont have that shared position to start with then we have problems. Maybe start superposing some graphs of other indicators, overlaid on the same with the same timings I have been very concerned (as outlines in other discussions) about the tendency for people to abuse authority and misrerpesent data/research for countless agendas, for some areas of the media to apparently under some kind of questionnable control. The subtitle for this thread is about being doomed to repeat history if we forget it. There are many other stakes we are ignoring and are doomed to repeat if we allow those tendencies to take over and restrict alternative views or at least be prepared to accept challenge. I have seen all manner of tactics used and inuslts thrown to try and tar all people to question any measures with the same brush. That in itself deserves analysis annd question. When research is misused and misrepresented, when professional people themselevs do it, when people abuse/misuse their authority, when people claim expertise they dont have, when political interests get in the way of tru discussion and debate. I have seen many disgraceful abuses of research findings by people of many levels of knowledge/claimed expertise (none to expert believe it or not), some with huge influence well beyond the level of ability to report things clearly and fairly. We all need to be eternally vigilant. I am sorry PS I know I shouldnt really say this. But prior to Covid some cities/states in Australia decided to essentially close down their entertainment industries for health reasons when others chose to keep them open and explore other measures. And as an ex-UK resident if they had a constitution similar to the USA the second (of many) amendment would involve the right to sit in a pub with a nice glass of ale

I am not disputing the broader concept of education, or dismissing the child care analysis of schools, or the fact that sadly for many in society through schools, universities ( sadly many anyway), media and other forums the majority are becoming unquestioning drones. History has moved on. The time I was discussing post war gave access to much power denied to the majority of society by increasing access to high school and university education. That had been denied to many pre war. Sadly for me I feel some of those gains have been lost. There were forces that went beyond empowering people and giving opportunity to everyone to trying to destroy everything. I have a rather dark view. You cannot give everyone the chance to be the best by knocking everyone down and destroying quality I hate to say this to any educators but as someone lucky enough to have been to some top international schools the quality of much education has gone down the gurgler. I could rant on that for ages but it's late and I risk saying stuff I shouldn't But as a final late night comment a very alarming trend i have observed is a tendency by many who benefited over recent decades from the freeing up ( in my view reducing quality somewhat) to abuse their pieces of paper and think that all pieces of paper with the same letters and words are equal quality and merit, and we are in a dangerous time. To paraphrase, to me many letters and titles don't mean that much. Some do still more than others but when whole institutions are degraded politically there are dangers

Seems like a recipe for massive inequality to me. If there were no schools available to everyone to try to level some of the inequality of knowledge, opportunity and power in society many in post war generations would never have had educational opportunity (school, university, professions etc) and would still be consigned to the restricted opportunities the privileged classes wish to reimpose as part of the abuse of a pandemic emergency around the world. There are so many reactionary agendas being pushed it is quite frightening

I kind of meant both sides of the politics and media for many years, not specifically the CDC in this issue :) However I always feel in many such executive vs public service agency "differences" there can sometimes be something of different styles, approaches and treading on toes. But I don't know enough about this issue as I said. Its rather important for some of us (even those of us not in the USA) to have trust in most of the big institutions and agencies :)

Personally I believe that being responsble for the collective well-being and everyone's rights, and also implictly having responsibilities, is implicit within a truly libertarian philsophy since by definition you cannot be imposing your views/beliefs/expectations on others (that would violate their rights). So to achieve that for everyone and for everyone (I mean everyone) to be free to live under whatever level of authority (none, indicivual, collective, religious, state) whatever without imposing that on others leads to a position of responsbility and duty to others and the planet in fact etc Sorry not thinking clearly late at night. It would seem quite possible to be that under a libertarian world a large number of people would choose to live under some form of authority. But if you acted as an individual/group in a socially irresponsbile way surely that would be contrary to libertarian philosophy. But as I said, for me its just a guiding principle or ideal, and almost certainly impossiblye, but I think it is a superior position/principle that taking the principle of having the right to impose any system/beliefs on anyone else etc

Maybe not the best person. It would be good though if the world moved from ad hominem aspects of argument towards just looking at each individual issue on its merits, as well perhaps as the different roles/hats someone may be wearing. I know if you go to the extreme you need to use ad hominem to undermine some people in this world, but its used a bit too much these days, especially by people you would hope would be capable of winning arguments on merit

definitely fits into fairly elementary problems since I was able to work out what to do and so was a single dummy problem solver with the bidding included as constraints :) Neither of us bothered with the safety play - me because I didnt think and the software because of the heart constraint :)

I have to say, after reading the letter and not knowing anything more about the specifics of any issues at the NYT, many important issues and concerns are raised about the media and culture these days. I would share many of those concerns as a consumer of quality media. I feel, especially with the influence of social media and how it seems to work to reduce scope of ideas rather than increase scope, it has been increasingly concerning over recent years. When you start to feel almost unsafe commenting or arguing against the dominant othrodoxy on a number of major issues, which is published by previously highly respected media outlets (or at least seems to dominate), I think everyone needs to feel somewhat concerned. Some would say much media is dominated by a left bias but to me it isnt left at all - its some rather more concerning tendency. One thing I have pondered is whether it is algorithms, advertising requirements, need for reactions that appears to bias social media publication - and more diverse articles are lost. However, notwithstanding that, there have been very questionnable trends among users and apparently by some editors to become rather punitive towards comments that do not fit an othordoxy. It also incorporates a tendency to misrepresent anyone simply for discussing or debating a point etc. To be perfectly honest too, much of the dominant way so many important issues are presented is extremely misleading and open to challenge by any informed argument anyway - yet even the informed arguments are attacked. That is how dangerous it has become. Its been akin to a form of fascism in many ways. Where to next.

That's quite difficult. They tend be up in trees 😂 but a wombat hole. That's a different matter 🙂

But if everyone has what they want or need and are free from any oppression, where is the injustice. I agree there are privileged wealthy ones who do not think through the logic of their position

Sorry but I reject your association of authoritarianism and right wing. Some of the worst authoritarian tendencies come from many regarded as on the left. You are talking about the strongman - fair enough but there is much mmore to authoritatrianism than that. Authoritarianism can come from whole groups, whole tendencies on all parts of the political spectrum. And thinking about psychology and behaviour some of the worst authoritarian tendencies can come from the majority or larger group in any situation. But that label is often thrown at small groups. And I reject your definition of libertarian as equally simpleminded What is particularly strange is your dislike for each of two opposing tendencies. Who is your pet hate the right wing authoritarian libertarian. Who? And by the way, not thinking about or caring about other people's rights has another descriptor - not libertarian I am curious about the way so many on the authoritarian left love to attack libertarianism and associate it ith undesirable tendencies. Is not the dream of everyone being free from any other person/authority's control a beautiful (albeit unrealistic) ideal at least (or to be more accurate every individual to be free to choose the level of control under which they live individually!)

Personally I feel it is extremely simplistic to associate attributes/believes of freedom/liberty/justice/authoritarian to any political persuasion. That is very simplistic and very dangerous. Mst of the worst authoritarian, totalitarian and oppressive attitudes and behaviours against other's rights come from some on the so-called left. But I was brought up on the left, always supported and felt to be part of the left. And part of what the left were fighting for was complete freedom and liberty regarding psychology specifically there is a concerning trend (possibly politically moitviated or at least biased) to associate all bad qualities (eg authotitarian) with the right and to deny the existence of the left wing authoritarian. This clearly is ridiculous and fails every historical and rational test or debbate. But sadly it is there. Everything has become totally tarnished with the Trump obsession. Even respected and trusted instutions and professions are somewhat tarnished by poiticisation and possible bias. I find it alarming to see such potentially biased academic research. It is extremely dangerous But I have almost come to terms with the fact that I am associated with everything bad in this world purely due to my age, gender, and skin colour. What I find amusing is those associations and insults are often thrown about by certain political tendencies who have forgotten how to progress and think debate solely requires ad hominem attack

Personally I feel it is extremely simplistic to associate attributes/believes of freedom/liberty/justice/authoritarian to any political persuasion. That is very simplistic and very dangerous. Mst of the worst authoritarian, totalitarian and oppressive attitudes and behaviours against other's rights come from some on the so-called left

The latest incident causing so much distrust. The issue with the Whitehouse and the CDC When everything has been so politicised and extreme (from both sides sadly). When trusted institutions are so strongly aligned and openly party political. When the media also pays into that. When all conversation is like that. Who are we to believe and trust. What are we to believe and trust. Do people not think trust is important. Too many iterests everywehere getting in the way of what is right and honest and in the best interests of the people Who is behind it all. There are elements in extreme tendencies of many colours who love sowing dicsord and distrust. They all have their agendas. I for one find it frighteing, especially during this global cirsis of so many dimensions. Sadly some of the people or political views I trusted have been shooting themselves in the foot with their own bias and self-interest showing far too much I don't know if anyone here can give me a balanced analysis of what is going on. I certainly find it hard to get in the media in in conversations about the media anywhere PS In case anyone wonders about my own politcs and why I have ecbome so concerned. It is the way that political parties and tendencies I used to associate with because they cared about people, equality and injustice jumped on other issues politically and semmingly forgot that fundamental principle of justice. And I mean global justice. All we get fed most of the time here are constant and ridiculous arguments over fist-world problems. Meanwhile billions of the worlds most vulnerable people are losing the meagre livesaving incomes they had. Just one example. In Peru I believe close to 90% of the workforce have lost some or all of their hours etc

Well I can't claim any expertise or knowledge but if I'd invested when I said I would have been in the black at the moment. And if people had followed my recommendations in the week after my post they would have done much better than me. For the moment

Hi all, Sadly the concerns I expressed in this thread have not dissipated. They may even be worse Regards P