A Couple of Other Vaccine Thoughts

 The trajectory of cases attributed to the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that the available vaccines do provide some protection against infection, but that the protection is time-dependent and wanes significantly. This observation is supported by the recent observation that anti-body levels in patients who had received the Sinovac injection are not durable. Here are a couple of thoughts related to this:

It is possible that because corona viruses are ubiquitous that the body's immunologic response to them as a class is not durable. Immunologic protection possibly wanes over time regardless of viral mutation or antigenic drift because that is how the human body is adapted to deal with ubiquitous viruses. Again, the data suggest although, of course do not prove, that the protection provided by vaccines has a half-life; hence the consideration of the need for "boosters" and perhaps yearly inoculations. 

Measuring antibody levels as a marker of immunity is possibly a flawed strategy. It is perhaps the case that immunological protection depends more on T-cell response time rather the level of circulating antibodies at any one time. 

Taking the above two conjectures together, it is quite possible that immunity provided by vaccines is enhanced by repeated exposure to circulating virus, and that vaccinated people would be better off foregoing any strategies, such as masking, that are intended to avoid contact with coronaviruses. For example, if a person receives a vaccine and has the desired immune response, but the protection afforded by the vaccine begins to wane in a few months (assuming that this is because that is the evolved response to coronaviruses), the immune response is likely to be enhanced by exposure to the virus that current immunity is sufficient to prevent active infection. This is possibly why epidemics peter out on their own, and why the avoidance strategies do not seem to work well at the population level. The vaccinate-and-avoid strategy may be counterproductive. 

About the Vaccine...

The various waves of coronavirus infections provoke a great deal of dispute and angst about vaccines, vaccine hesitancy, skepticism and "science." An objective review of the available evidence suggests the following:

1. Vaccines do, in fact work. The mechanism is understood, although likely not as well as vaccine advocates claim.

2. The experience with the virus is unavoidably local. Environment has much more to do with it than a simplistic notion of R values.

3. From a COVID experience perspective, it is reasonable to ask if a person is better off being unvaccinated in South Dakota than vaccinated in Florida.

4. The trajectory of disease numbers in highly vaccinated United Kingdom and the rapid decrease in cases in India following a dramatic increase, suggests that vaccination is not an especially strong determinant of the course of the pandemic.

5. Vaccines probably do mitigate the severity of infection, even if they do not prevent them.

6. Assessing vaccine effectiveness by measuring antibodies seems to make sense, but is probably vitiated by invalid assumptions. The immune response likely has much more significant determinants than antibody counts.

7. The simplest explanation for the surge in cases in the United Kingdom, is that the vaccine is effective in suppressing infections but this effect wanes over time, There is likely a half-life to the vaccines effectiveness, which is measured in months.

8. Masks may affect whether a person gets infected with COVID on a particular day, but not whether a person will eventually get COVID. 

9. The Russian and Chinese vaccines provide some transient protection against COVID, but probably not enough to be part of a vaccination strategy. 

10. Vaccines are associated with auto-immune complications, the risk of which in particular people outweigh the benefits of vaccination. In other people the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks.

11. The discussion of vaccine has become so politicized that the "science" has been severely compromised. 

12. Some people will die of COVID complications. Some people can avoid these complications with vaccination. Nonetheless, some people who weigh the risks and benefits of vaccination and choose to not get vaccinated are making reasonable choices. For most people though, the benefits of vaccination, even if they are likely to be transient, outweigh the risk.

13. The science of virology is not nearly as advanced as its proponents claim. There is much more that we do not know, and show no interest in knowing if it compromises a political advantage, that we actually know. 

Can Communism Work?

 A sentiment which is common in current political discourse is that “communism has failed every time that it has been tried.” This certainly seems like an accurate assessment given the available historical examples, but does present the question of whether this is necessarily so. Is communism incapable of succeeding, or is it that is has simply been vexed by a run of bad luck?

The weaknesses of communism are contained in its assumption regarding “who” and “what.” The assumption, and a practical matter, the fallacy is that if you define the what the who is immaterial. This is exactly the opposite of the way the world works in practice, and the reason why communism has failed every time it has been tried.

The assumption behind communism, as well as any political doctrine that tends to result in totalitarianism, is that the details of daily life, regardless if those details are economic, political, social, legal, educational, etc., can be managed. This is the theoretical appeal of communism: it is possible to imagine any type of Utopian society, assuming that the right type of people can be found to manage it. This ideal fails in the real world for two reasons: 1) the process by which the leaders are selected in such societies favor the selection of those most adept at political intrigue rather than producing social harmony, and 2) the varied details of human life in any society are too diverse and idiosyncratic to be managed by anyone.

Mao Tse Tung was adept at acquiring power but relatively inept at using that power to produce desirable social progress. The same observations can be made of Castro, Stalin, Pol Pot, Tito, etc. Communism selects out “leaders” who have the capacity to aggregate and hold power, regardless of their ability to do anything else. As a practical matter, communism is a doctrine that provides an advantage for promoting those who are most effective at exploiting the theoretical benefits of totalitarianism, and whose political skills and ruthlessness are most useful. This is why communism fails, and will fail, every time it is tried. There may be selfless communists, who honestly believe that they are committed to social and economic justice, and who will not seek personal wealth, or dachas, etc. They will eventually , and inevitably, be supplanted by those who will, because the implementation of communism requires as a practical matter, a measure of totalitarian coercion. This is a huge advantage to those with totalitarian ambitions.

Even if it were the case that an altruistic communist, not prone to totalitarian excess, were to ascend to prominence in a communist regime, he would eventually have to confront the realities of human nature that make totalitarianism necessary in communist ideology. Furthermore, sustaining a communist regime, even if such were a practical possibility, would require a succession of selfless leaders, which is itself a practical impossibility.

Communism has failed every time that has been tried simply because communism requires a set of conditions that are not to be found in the real world, and which cannot be imposed by force.

Coordination in Messaging

Nikole Hannah-Jones recently said that Cuba is "the most equal, multiracial country in our hemisphere."

Previously, Ibram X. Kendi asserted that "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."

Both of these statements cannot be true. Of course, both can be false.

Destruction and Spontaneity

 In the previously-mentioned discussion between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky, the former made the following assertion about Marxist revolution:

"What the proletariat will achieve by expelling the class which is at present in power and by taking over power itself, is precisely the suppression of the power of class in general."

This statement represents more sophism than philosophy. It contains an inescapable contradiction that is masked by a category error. Foucault asserted that if the proletariat (a class) took power and suppressed those who had been ejected from power (another class), that this would not be oppression of a class (which it is by definition) but "suppression of the power of class." In schematic terms, Foucault's claim is that if A oppresses B, what A is achieving is not oppression of B but "suppression of the power" that allows oppressing by class. This is non-sense.

The occult assumption in Foucault's argument is that destruction, e.g. by violent revolution, will result in spontaneous improvement. This is the dubious assumption currently in fashion among many progressives who advocate for "burning it all down," defunding the police, and denigrating established institutions. For his part, Chomsky had previously been impressed with his perception that the communist takeover of North Vietnam had resulted in spontaneous emergence of small democracies in villages and hamlets. The idea that destruction of current institutions will inevitably result in their replacement by "better" ones appears to be a widely held, if seldom defended assumption. It is something like believing that if one smashes a porcelain vase on the floor, the pieces will reassemble into a better vase, and not, say a figurine of a Confederate General.

This idea of spontaneous improvement after catastrophic destruction can be supported somewhat by the observation that human progress has proceeded despite calamitous ruin, for example after the fall of the Roman Empire, or the rebuilding of post-war Germany and Japan. To infer from this that improvement is inevitable however overlooks such events as the Red Terror or the Killing Fields of Cambodia. 

The fantasy that sustains the illusion of inevitable spontaneous improvement is noted in the Marxist idea of the state eventually fading away, of ideas of classless society, or of eradicating oppression. This fantasy is undone however by a point repeatedly made by Jordan Peterson, for which the empiric evidence is overwhelming: hierarchies emerge spontaneously. This is observed in the animal kingdom, in human societies of every type and size, and as Professor Peterson frequently points out, was present in human society at least as far back as the paleolithic age. Hierarchies are a fact of life. One encounters no difficulty in describing the hierarchies present in Chinese society, among the Khmer Rouge, in Native American Tribes, the management of Facebook, the Roman Catholic Church, etc., etc. Destruction is accompanied by spontaneous emergence of social structures, and will always be accompanied by the emergence of hierarchies. Whether these are improvement or not depends on what those hierarchies are. If those hierarchies are reprises of Lenin and Pol Pot, misery will follow and the revolution will fail, to be replaced by new hierarchies, and new institutions, and the cycle will repeat.

Foucault was wrong, perhaps deceptively so. Power held by one group does not negate the idea of power in general. Violence and bloody revolution does not inevitably result in the "suppression of the power of class," or any other change in the immutable factors that govern the relationships between groups of people. Power is power. A change in who holds it does not automatically guarantee the emergence of improvement.

Chomsky, Doctrines and Science

 In a 1971 academic discussion with Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky made the following observation:

“…the fundamental property of behaviorism, which is in a way suggested by the odd term behavioral science, is that it is a negation of the possibility of developing a scientific theory.”

This insight is significant, especially if one infers from the specific case of behavior to the realm of doctrines in general. Professor Chomsky’s observation might be schematically presented as

“…the fundamental property of [subject of doctrine]ism, which is in a way suggested by the odd term [subject of doctrine] science, is that it is a negation of the possibility of developing a scientific theory.”

One may try this with any number of doctrines, or more colloquially, -isms. For example, the economic theory of distributism, which arose from Catholic social teaching and specifically is concerned with the just allocation of a society’s resources, would provide the following principle in Professor Chomsky’s formulation:

“…the fundamental property of distributism, which is in a way suggested by the odd term ‘distribution science,’ is that it is a negation of the possibility of developing a scientific theory.”

The same process might be applied to any number of doctrines; nationalism, socialism, supremacism, racism, classism etc. Professor Chomsky’s fundamental insight is preserved: the adoption and promotion of a doctrine impairs the ability to rationally assess the underlying conditions that give rise to that doctrine. Thus, for example, the preservation of a particular concept of “racism” impairs the rational inquiry into what might otherwise be considered “race science.” The doctrines surrounding the contemporary concept of racism puts many conjectures that would be assessed in a rigorous race science beyond consideration.

The validity of Professor Chomsky’s insight can be observed by how various doctrines of the middle ages impaired the advancement of science, and how social doctrines in early America impaired the scientific assessment of social problems. Defense of a doctrine involves defense of beliefs, regardless of the source of those beliefs. Doctrines are hostile to skepticism for this reason. This is contrary to the rational approach that is characteristic of science in which skepticism is, or should be a central part.

Consequences of the tension between doctrine and science, and more ominously the substitution of doctrine for science leads to dubious claims such as that any particular science is “settled,” or that “consensus” obviates the need for skepticism and further inquiry.

Doctrines, of all types, are congenial to politics and may be quite useful to political interests, but their inherent tension with science and rational inquiry leads to unfortunate result that politics often squanders the best opportunities for human flourishing.

Bias, Modifiers and Jargon.

The objectivity of the American media is a topic of ongoing dispute. News outlets that promote themselves as "trusted," or disinterested often produce material that contains an identifiable slant. The easiest way to identify this when it occurs is to examine the copy for adverbs and adjectives. Consider for example, this fictitious report of an automobile accident:

"A white pickup truck traveling at an excessive speed carelessly collided with a small sedan, causing horrific injuries to three people. Onlookers attempted to pull the injured victims, including a child from the heartbreaking scene."

The objective substance of the report can be succinctly stated as "Three people were injured when a pickup collided with another vehicle. Onlookers assisted those injured in the crash."

The modifiers in the first version; "excessive," "carelessly," "small," "horrific," "heartbreaking;" convey the subjective interpretations of the writer and therefore convey the biases of the writer.  A very common version that appears in mainstream media are the modifiers "controversial" and "bold." When a speaker, typically a public figure of some sort makes a statement of which the reporter approves, the accompanying, though unnecessary adjective is likely to be "bold," or some related term meant to enhance the power of the statement. Conversely, "controversial," when applied to the same statement conveys a subtle implication that the statement should only be accepted cautiously. Reporters and editors betray their biases in their choice of modifiers.

An analogous concept applies to many of the prevalent doctrines that are presented as though they are serious academic principles. In this case however, rather than being subjective opinions conveyed as superfluous modifiers, the issue is fallacies being masked by jargon. This is frequently seen in the neologisms and attempts to redefine words to have idiosyncratic meanings with the context of a particular discussion. Examples are "fragility," "misinformation," "systemic racism," "equity," etc. The issue is not that the terms are misleading, or necessarily refer to ideas and claims that are false, but that they are often used to obscure fallacious reasoning, and limit rational discussion by injecting subjective and emotional considerations when these have the effect of impairing rational discussion. A fallacy expressed in jargon is still a fallacy.

Two Basic Types of Satisfaction Driving Human Behavior

 An earlier post noted the difference between accomplishing and experiencing. It was noted there that a significant trend in modern society is to replace actual accomplishment with experiences that may or may not accomplish anything, and which may detract from more productive activities. This distinction may have more to tell us regarding why people are motivated to pursue certain ideological objectives, and why affluence and relative safety tend to skew preferences.

To begin, we may start with two common scenarios. Imagine first a television game show, or a college football game. Some desirable event occurs, and satisfaction is registered by the reactions of the participants, or their supporters. Observe the reactions that are associated with winning, or events that increase the chance of winning. This is the first type of scenario.

Next, imagine a park frequented by drug addicts and alcoholics. Observe their reactions to getting a fix, or consuming alcohol. This is the second type of scenario.

What the two scenarios have in common is that the activities described produce psychological perception of satisfaction. At a neurochemical level, a neurotransmitter in some brain structure is released, providing a reinforcing sense of satisfaction, or pleasure. In the first type of scenario, this occurs indirectly by awareness that a desirable event has occurred, satisfying some personal interest. In the second type of scenario, the sense of satisfaction or pleasure results directly from the effect of chemicals that produce the response. 

Experience demonstrates that the second type of satisfaction and pleasure is associated with accumulating episodes of misery and misfortune. Addiction tends toward tragedy and seldom if ever produces any type of beneficial side-effect. It predisposes to overdose, crime, poverty, homelessness, violence and depression. Forcing ones brain to release chemicals that produce a sense of pleasure or satisfaction is easy, and almost uniformly destructive. This is one of the perils of psychoactive substances: reinforcing destructive behavior.

The other type of reinforcement, i.e. the indirect type in which satisfaction derives from the perception of some desirable event, is dependent on two separate factors, both of which must be present. The event triggering the pleasurable or satisfying response must be perceived, and it must correspond to some interest of the person who experiences the response. The significance of this type of response lies in the source of interests that a person has. To the extent that human actions influence the occurrence of events, humans have an incentive to try and influence those events. 

Schopenhauer observed that a person cannot choose what he or she desires. These desires are generally the result of complex interactions between socializing instincts, personality traits and experience. From these human beings develop the desires that influence their political views and influence their behavior. Some people who have no experience of hardship or poverty adopt ideological perspectives that incline toward assuming that affluence is the natural state of humans, and any deviation is the result of malign characters. They achieve a sense of satisfaction from events that appear to chastise those perceived as responsible for the observation that not everyone enjoys affluence. Other psychological wants, such as the desire for social approval or power or revenge, lead people to ideological interests that are satisfied by events that are congenial to those interests. 

As in the case of experiences of pleasure or satisfaction that result directly from manipulations of brain chemistry, those same experiences that result indirectly from the perception of desirable events are reinforcing, and potentially destructive as well. The key point is that the perception of pleasure or satisfaction is independent of reason. In the case of cocaine or methamphetamine, the result depends only on biochemistry; in the case of political machination, the result depends only on the perceived state of ones interest at the time, regardless of whether this represents anything more than a transient fancy.

Social Media Suggestion

 Here is a suggestion for social media platforms:

There is certainly an argument that the "moderation," "fact-checking," suspensions, shadow bans that are par to f the experience on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. are net negatives for a free society. They may, perhaps do more harm than good, and it is inevitable that they will eventually produce more corruption than they inhibit. The issue is that, at the heart of every moderation, ban , suspension, etc. decision is a biased opinion. These are the opinions of the social media platforms: biased, uninformed, and risk averse.

Proposals to address this undesirable state of affairs, and to counteract the damage that social media causes with its short-sighted and unprincipled practices involve tinkering with section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, regulating the ability of social media to de-platform certain view-points, etc. These all involve the subjective judgments of a different set of people about what is and is not part of public discourse. Here is a suggestion for minimizing social media bias without additional government intervention:

Allow people to post whatever they want, but when they post they have to declare whether the content of the post is represented as fact or opinion. This should be trivial to implement; just have a check box on the post submission form. If the post is represented as fact, then there should be a mechanism to include a link to supporting information, so people can assess for themselves the validity of the claim. This will do two things. It will immediately put readers on notice that the content of the post is just an opinion. Imagine for example the claim that Trump colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election, or that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID. If the person posting such claims indicates that these are only his opinions, then the reader is apprised of the fact that the poster considers the claims to be opinions. If on the other hand, the poster indicates that the claim is fact, the reader can then assess the credibility of the supporting source. If something false is represented as fact, the poster would be subject to libel and slander actions, just as they were previously under common law. The great benefit to this proposal is that readers would bear the responsibility of deciding for themselves that something represented as opinion is worth believing, or that something represented as fact is true. The poster would in effect be producing his own content warning.

Make-Believe, Villains and Heroes

 Make-believe is an ingrained part of human experience. It is readily observed in the play of young children. It is observed in social conventions; it is expected that in many social interactions we are expected to behave as though something were true, even when everyone knows it is not. Make believe plays a role in how humans cope with misfortune, such as terminal diseases. Given the prevalence of make-believe, it is natural to consider whether it is innate, and more relevantly whether the capacity for make believe is useful, or even essential to human functioning.

As with any phenomenon that pertains to human cognition, one may surmise that make-believe is associated with the human capacity of awareness of the future. One of the ways that humans formulate plans is to mentally simulate processes that allow them to assess things will "play-out" in various scenarios, and this is a form of make-believe. Make-believe is an element of formulating models, which is essential to the human capacity to plan, innovate and anticipate in novel and complex environments.

Make-believe is also an element of mankind's socializing processes. The analogy of humans to actors playing parts is centuries old. It is almost universal that people behave outwardly in a manner to affect the opinions of others, whether or not this behavior is a faithful result of true personality. A lie is simply a species of make-believe. 

Make-believe is a part of the myth-making and narrative maintenance which are central to ideological movements. These types of make-believe tend to become more elaborate and, in many circumstances, more absurd. Social justice warriors, for example, engage in make-believe whereby they cast themselves as combatants in battles long since won, or contrive for themselves straw armies to vanquish anew. This type of make-believe is often found in mass-movements that produced some of history's worst atrocities.

An easy distinction in ideological make-believe separates those plot-lines in which people's pretensions apply to themselves, e.g. that they are heroic, or oppressed, or virtuous, etc., and those in which the make-believe is projected onto other people. The latter phenomenon involves make-believe, i.e. pretending that strangers are oppressors. or racist or backward or hateful, because it fulfills the psychological and ideological needs of the pretender. The former phenomenon, in which people engage in make-believe about themselves is universal, and for the most part, harmless and occasionally even useful. The later, in which people pretend that other people are a certain way because such make-believe is necessary to maintain an ideological myth and supporting narratives leads to discrimination, injustice, genocide and misery. When make-believe becomes indistinguishable from reality it becomes a delusion, and when this make-believe involves the bad character and lack of virtue of others, and affects how those others are treated, it becomes the excuse for great evil.

Election Fraud.

 Election fraud denies the benefit of elections to people who have the right to vote. If a person properly casts a vote for a given candidate or proposal and someone else casts an illegal vote in opposition, the legal vote is effectively canceled. 

There is an irreconcilable trade-off between access to voting and prevention of fraud. Constant complaints of abstract voter suppression ignore this fact. Addressing this circumstance dismissively by saying that there is "no evidence" of voter fraud enables voter fraud. 

It is more important that legitimate votes be protected against cancelation by fraudulent votes than it is that elections accommodate a theoretical class of people who are assumed to be unable to comply with even the most basic of voter requirements.