People am stupid

I just saw something pop up on my YouTube home page, where some "pastor" was saying we've been lied to and that the cdc just spoke the truth.  He called out this line in a report:

"For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned."

And went on to talk about how this is all a hoax,  because only 6% of the reported number died front it, and see, it's nothing like we are told.  Mask wearing doesn't matter.  And the classic "I've never known anyone who was hospitalized."

We are clearly being lied to!

What I'd suggest instead is that the issue here is that he (and others like him) don't know how to read a chart.  Hey, the headline sounds good, why dig any deeper?! This is a failing of many to just accept one thing you hear without context, because it fits your narrative.  It's a failure to understand how "cause of death" is recorded.  And it's also a failure to understand basic science.

What this actually shows is that some of the underlying conditions many Americans have contributed to the higher-than-the-rest-of-the-world mortality rate.

I'd ask: do we have more deaths from these conditions than we had in previous years? The answer is yes, and therefore it's accelerated due to coronavirus.  You might argue "they might have died anyway," and that may be true, but it's missing the point that that they also had coronavirus, and that’s what is shown -  but Covid was still the ultimate cause.

They are just listing other conditions, because that what scientists do when they’re trying to understand what’s going on.

It’s so hard to counter stupidity.

We're doomed....

COVID-19 Provisional Counts - Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

Sent from my iPad

Ascent Of Man, episode 11 - Knowledge Or Certainty

In the 70s, Jacob Bronowski did a series called “the Ascent of Man”. The series is really quite good.

But this piece of storytelling is really deep and thought provoking.

Another thought on Religion

I was thinking more about my posts regarding religion. And maybe I'm wrong. Christianity isn't what it once was: a belief in an all powerful god who guides humans in some way.

Instead, it's become about Republican Jesus(tm) who is a white, gun-toting, self absorbed fellow who is in it for the cash.

That's what today's Christianity posits. And if we see it through that lens, then I reconcile peoples faith with what I see.

It's the 10 generally accepted recommendations (footnote: try not to break all of these at one time, and if you do, then make sure there's a darned good reason, like money).

It's stories about how a guy lived his life as a messenger for how you can pay cash to get in the afterlife.

It's about people preying on you while they ask you to pray.

It's absurd. And it's why there's a picture of Republican Jesus(tm) with his hand on trumps ass. Or maybe he's just reaching for his wallet!

Now it makes sense.

The messaging around Covid is wrong.

I read this article about the Covid messaging, and, yeah, Our messaging is totally flawed. 

https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/26/covid-19-messaging-is-wrong-americans-arent-listening/

But here's the funny thing: as I look back to March, when we first got sent home in order to "flatten the curve," the rational part of my brain knew this was just to get us on the right path. It wasn't the final answer, and there was still work to do. 

But the emotional part, that feeds on stories, news, and my own desires to go about my life saw it differently. Sure, we'd still have things in place, but we'll come up with better methods for testing and tracing and be able to balance. 

And as I look back, I realize that the emotional part was a little wishful - at least in part because of the messages we were getting. 

My rational brain kept telling me that we were in this for the long haul. And people are inherently selfish and stupid. And there was nothing whatsoever being done to effectively manage the spread. 

And I can see why people don't get the science part. It's an unseen "enemy" and their odds are generally good. And there's no sensational story here. No villain to hate. So it's easy to go with the emotional idea. Reopen the economy! It's a hoax anyway!

But I keep going back to the realization that a plane disappears with 150 people on board and it's a mystery that captures everyone around the world. Around 4,000 people died on 9/11. And we changed security and people were okay with it. 600,000 Americans died in WWII and we were motivated to deliver, to ration, to work toward something. 

We're at just under 200,000 dead from the virus. 10s of Millions infected. 

And we're arguing over whether we should wear a mask. 

You bet messaging is wrong. 

A follow up about religion

When my dad died a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about religion and how there is surely no merciful god.

Today, the husband of an aunt died. He had an untreatable form of cancer, and was dealing with it as best he could.

He was a good man. He gave of himself and lived his life righteously. People loved him, and sort of like my dad, people were inspired by him. 

And here's the thing. He was a man of god, and considered himself to be a good Christian.

And yet he got sick. He suffered. And he passed away.

Meanwhile, there are unhinged narcissists who live on. Without suffering.

So if you still believe in this god, then you've been duped.

This is not a merciful god. And the jokes on you.

Fuck that noise.

The GOP, Trump, and the election

Sometime in early 2017, the GOP agreed to fold its campaign role into the Trump campaign. So essentially they act as one unit. 

It makes sense in some ways, I'm sure. One go-to place to collect campaign funds and coordinate election efforts  

But, it's much deeper than that. Now, all the money, all the data collection efforts, and the mechanics of a party are controlled by the trump campaign. 

To a large degree, this explains why the GOP is so complicit with the guy:  their re-election hopes, and the ability to manage voter information and open up "the war chest" belongs to Trump. As we know, he only helps people who kiss the ring. So they are, for lack of a better way to say it, tethered to him. 

And there's a few interesting little things about this Trump campaign running things. First, and most importantly, this is what Brad Parscale setup for him. And when he left, mr-fix-it jack-of-all-trades Jared Kushner took over. They manage all of it, using whatever they feel is right, whoever they want to hire. 

So when the "tik tok kids" took on the campaign before the Tulsa rally and screwed up their data collection efforts, it not only affected Trump - it also messed with the GOP. No wonder he wants to ban tik tok. 

But therein lies the bigger problem. If their "solution" to have really bad data is to simply ban a platform, then they they don't understand the internet and ergo likely don't understand what they have. 

In recent months, we've heard rumblings that the GOP isn't happy with the opaque nature of the Trump campaign. They aren't allowed to see anything and don't know how it's running. All they know is that they are given money at times. 

Since Trump is nothing more than a common criminal but with his hands in bigger pockets, you have to figure that he's using data collection for his personal causes. And I would guess that the money is being mismanaged in any and every way possible to ensure he gets most of it, personally. 

So here comes the election. If he wins, then he controls all the efforts in perpetuity and gets wealthy. 

Assuming trump loses, do you think he'd simply give all that up? I doubt it. He'll either tell the GOP to fuck themselves or he'll sell it to them for large sums of money. 

But since no one in the gop has any real insight into what it looks like, it could be complete crap. He could be selling vapor ware. Or he may sell a package that gives them things piecemeal and He gets rich. 

So they have to know that if he loses, they are screwed. 

So why govern at all? 

...which of these outcomes better suits him? Hard to say.  He stands to get wealthy in either case - and can totally screw with his enablers on a whim if he so chooses. 

As I've said before, I don't think he ever wanted to win. And while he is not the kind of person who would simply quit, if he did, then he hasn't a different kind of outcome. 

It might be better to just exclaim that everyone is mean to him, or have a "health issue" and just quit. 

We'll see. But it makes me laugh because these dumbasses in the GOP brought most of this on themselves. 

Good analysis here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/us/trump-campaign-brad-parscale.amp.html

This Speech Will Change Your Life | Carl Sagan