well, it's a little slow coming, but it is at least the right choice, finally.

again, though - the first thing they closed was bars and the last thing they closed was hair salons and churches. 

do you really think this is being driven by science?

obviously, it should have been the other way around. but, i'm just happy that they shut the religious gatherings down.

if i can't go to a concert and get a beer, nobody should be allowed to go to a religious ceremony, either. that's only fair.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/eastern-ontario-health-unit-orders-salons-daycares-and-churches-to-close-due-to-covid-19-1.4863769

it's baffling.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/03/21/coronavirus-whitmer-updates-order-assemblies-exempt-churches-penalty/2885395001/

well, cuomo?

you gonna act or not?

i'm not losing any sleep over it.

imagine a world without old people, fat people or smokers at all. 

i don't want to get your hopes up - it's not that lethal.

imagine a world with less old people and less fat people.

less smokers, maybe, too?

hrmmn.

maybe that's not so bad.

governments that insist that we get through this together, while refusing to protect the vulnerable, are going to see a lot of dead geriatrics, and a lot of dead fat people, very soon.

this isn't an issue that we solve with cooperation and teamwork and hard work. that's the wrong model for this problem.

this is an issue where you need to look at the evidence very carefully and take steps to protect the very specific groups of people that need it. that's the right model for this problem.

and, that's the path of least resistance.

what will you do when there is no longer a path of least resistance, and people start rioting?

this is stupid.

adjust.

adapt.

do you know what's going to start happening soon, if it isn't already happening?

people are going to figure out which states are open, and they're going to go party there on weekends.

you're going to see increases in travel, increases in tourism....

do you really think the whole world is going to sit inside for the next two years to protect some fucking geriatrics from the common fucking cold?

wake the fuck up.

You would think there was nothing going on in parts of New York City," he said in a news conference Sunday. "You would think it was just a bright, sunny Saturday."

"This is just a mistake," he added. "It's insensitive, it's arrogant, it's self-destructive, it's disrespectful to other people and it has to stop and it has to stop now."

no, cuomo.

what's mistaken is your analysis of the situation.

you see what's in front of you - and you criticize it. but, this is the reality. you can see it with your eyes, and you process it with your brain and you speak about it with your mouth.

this is an empirical question, and you have the ability to analyze it.

but, rather than say "the world is not reacting. we need to adjust, we need to adapt.", you insist on pushing down harsher rules, harsher laws.

how much information do you need to process, mr. cuomo, before it is clear to you that you need to stop treating this as a general problem that everybody has to deal with and begin treating it as a specific problem that affects a very narrow group of people?

and, when will you finally announce rational, evidence-based strategies to protect the vulnerable, as this thing runs out of control?

"(It's) time to recognize it's not only about the old folks, it's about your impact in their lives. Don't be selfish,"

fuck you, gov newsom.

i don't want anything to do with them; and i'm well aware that the feeling is mutual.

i'm no doubt going to find myself producing all manners of angry, cynical rants as i'm locked up inside for who knows how long. this blog is likely to just radiate negativity for weeks to come.

let me just try to focus.

but, i don't want to be a member of your species. i really don't.

fucking humans...

no, really.

you hear people talk about "faith in humanity", but i thoroughly reject the concept of faith, so if ever had faith in humanity i would scold myself for it. this is a meaningless term.

but, this stupid fiasco is just confirming my previous deductions, arrived at via analyzing large amounts of previous evidence, that humans are incredibly stupid animals.

we're really quite stupid creatures.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-28/coronavirus-panic-caused-by-probability-neglect

we should be playing probabilities & taking chances, not resorting to base absolutism.

listen, i don't have any interest in being responsible.

fuck you and your conservative bullshit - i'll be as irresponsible as i please.

i'm more interested in being right, and i am, whether your cultural backwardsness interprets me as reckless or not.

we want the health care workers to be immune to this. if we still have time, we should be systematically exposing them. and, we should be flying health care workers from less populated areas that have been exposed in to areas that are understaffed.

i am being consciously insolent on this point because this careful, conservative approach is the wrong way to do this, and we need to have dissenting voices that call attention to it.

they should have purposefully exposed them weeks ago so they'd be immune and ready to go when it peaks.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/03/22/at-least-thirteen-toronto-doctors-nurses-longterm-care-workers-infected-with-covid-19.html

"this isn't the flu, it's a different virus"

you're right - it's not the flu.

it's the common cold.

i want to be clear.

we know that this virus only targets people that are old, or people that have underlying conditions. we know that the probability of getting substantively sick if you're young and healthy is about 1/100000 - which doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but those are exceedingly good odds.

you can't let examples in the media define public policy. you have to look at the data. one young person getting sick doesn't mean anything, in the face of the probabilities, and you're stupid if you can't figure that out.

so, we essentially have a choice in how to deal with it:

(1) we could aggressively act to prevent the vulnerable from getting the virus, and more or less let it run rampant in the general population. you would still have those 1/100000 young people that get sick, but that's manageable - that's comparable to the flu. the downside (arguably. not everybody will see it that way. my own grandmother is a loner that would rather avoid people.) is that the elderly will have to avoid direct human contact for a while.

(2) you could force everybody to stay inside to try to prevent the spread of transmission. in theory, the upside to this is that the elderly will not have to be as strictly isolated (it does not take much insight to realize this will not hold in reality, and it hasn't up to now). the downside is mass unemployment, economic carnage and the potential for generational revolt.

our governments appear to have decided that (1) is immoral and have chosen (2) instead.

but, they are wrong.

(2) will not prevent transmission to the elderly; that is naive, and we have more than enough data to demonstrate it. but, advocates are failing einstein's definition of insanity - the more this fails, the more they call for it to intensify. only (1) can accomplish that task.

there is a window, still, for governments to course correct.

but, they are badly failing, right now. and, we should expect this to rip through the elderly population like nothing we've ever seen.

you're going to have to tie me down and sedate me to accept this vaccine....

i will fight you off.

we know the drug companies have politicians across the spectrum in their back pocket. somebody like gavin newsom or andrew cuomo takes orders directly from merck and pfizer. we know that.

are they going to order forced vaccinations of billions of people? at $200/pop, that's a substantive expense, and one that is ultimately shouldered by taxpayers.

is that the game, here?

i just don't understand it, otherwise. you can't buy a beer anywhere, but they're letting people in and out of care facilities. it makes no sense.

i do not wish to be reliant on drug manufacturers to develop a vaccine to protect me from a weak virus.

i want to build natural immunity.

i resent the state for preventing me from doing that.

and, i will refuse vaccination out of spite.

i've wondered a few times...

who is writing these policies?

who benefits?

there is only one beneficiary in this absurdity, and it's the drug companies.

are they trying to stop us from building natural immunity so they can mass immunize us? is that it?

i can often make sense of bad policy, but this is beyond the pale. i don't understand....

expect this: if the government won't take the aggressive steps required to protect the elderly from the general population, which is in the process of building natural immunity, then they are going to die at alarming rates and it is going to look like italy.

and, it will not be the fault of young people that would not stay in - it will be the fault of governments that did not act intelligently, who promoted stupid policies designed to minimize disruption on the vulnerable at the expense of the majority and ignored sensible, effective ones that would directly target them, as they need to be targeted.

what do you think we did for the millions of years before we understood vaccines? this isn't the bubonic plague. this isn't ebola. it's literally the common cold, albeit on steroids. it has a less than 1% death rate.

what we did was build up natural immunity. and, that's what we will need to do now.

*sigh*

the idea that the public response to this virus can or should be about minimizing transmission is idiotic. we already know that almost everybody is going to get infected, no matter what we do.

it's like looking at the weather forecast, realizing it says it's going to rain and then developing public policy to stop it from raining, which may include things like ordering people to stay inside so they don't accidentally upset the rain gods.

it's gonna rain.

so, what should governments do?

they need to prepare for the storm.

...and stop caving to the hysteria that is promoting policies that we know won't work.

the one and only thing we can do is aggressively act to prevent vulnerable groups from interacting with the general population, as immunity builds. and, we refuse to do it. instead, we're insisting on foolish policies that will do nothing but create victims out of the economic collapse that is happening in front of us, and we're actively encouraging.

is this a virus of the mind, as well? has it driven us all insane?

due to our inaction in targeting the vulnerable, these people are going to die, and our governments will be responsible for it. they will also be responsible for the potentially irreversible economic effects that they are creating from their senseless policies that won't work in saving anybody. and, i hold them directly responsible for ruining my april, at least.

what is my self-interest right now?

if the government insists on doing what it is doing, my self-interest is to sit back and let these people die, as their death will open up various opportunities. so, for example, i'm on a wait list for subsidized housing. if old people start dying, i could get bumped up the list. and, if the vacancy rate increases in general, it will reduce the price of rent.

younger people looking for employment opportunities will benefit from the older generation clearing out of the work force.

etc.

but, you can't stop this - and you and your government (and the horse you both rode in on) are stupid if you think you can.

the two ideas being thrown around are suppression and mitigation. we initially decided that suppression was unlikely, so we looked at mitigation. then, we decided that mitigation was unlikely, so we went back to suppression.

the right idea is adaptation.

in the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.

what did spock say?

he said that the individual rights of the many overpower the individual rights of the few. this is utilitarianism. it's also democracy. he did not say that the rights of the collective (the state. society. whatever.) overpower the rights of the individual, which would be collectivism.

there is some overlap in utility theory and corporatism, sure. there's overlap everywhere.

but, where an anarchist can readily embrace democracy, they would never agree that the state can take away individual rights.

if you look in the literature, you'll see references to this historical grouping of anarcho-collectivism.

this refers to a type of anarchism that's built around small scale collectives, or co-operatives. in english, it would probably be better to refer to it as anarcho-cooperativism; it's not collectivism in the sense that the word is generally invoked in the english language, to imply that the individual is unimportant in the face of the group, which is something that is fundamentally incompatible with socialism.

collectivism is really exactly the same thing as fascism - historically, philosophically & linguistically. it got confused with the left during the cold war, as the bolsheviks were really just a different type of fascist. you had fascists in russia, fascists in germany, fascists in italy, fascists in spain & a few fascists in france, too - they were all very different, but the one thing they had in common was that they all based their economic policies on the principles of collectivism.

and, they all brutally targeted actual communists, actual socialists and actual anarchists.

the struggle of anarchism against collectivism is the struggle of the revolutionaries against franco, it is the struggle of makhno against stalin, the struggle of malatesta against mussolini and the struggles of the uncounted leftists that hitler sent to die in the camps.

if you misinterpreted me as an advocate of collectivism, you were sorely mistaken.

to an anarchist/communist, collectivism is synonymous with fascism - it's the use of state power to deny rights, and is never justified, no matter what.

anarcho-communists also tend to argue that free markets are a type of collectivism, so don't pull out that canard. i know that liberals don't see it that way, but that's a different debate.

i'm just clarifying the point, in case people are confused. i'm a leftist, so i should support collectivism, right?

no. this is longstanding, and i'm not contradicting anything: if you're an anarchist, collectivists and collectivism are public enemy number one. they are the single greatest threat to human freedom, and have been since the dawn of time.

this is the kind of thing that you'd expect to happen in a country like iran, but i've said that so many times, now, that i'm starting to deal with it.

i repeat: i would advise you to keep your status unknown as much as is possible, so that it is not used against you in order to restrict your rights.

as you no doubt know, unless you're older or have underlying conditions, chances are exceedingly high that you'll beat this in a few days like the common cold.

you're clearly far better off just not telling anybody that you're sick.

as it is, due to the violent and authoritarian overreaction by law enforcement in this country, i would advise against seeking testing or otherwise disclosing your status to the authorities unless you are seriously ill and need actual medical attention.

these elderly people don't care about me at all.

i'm not sacrificing shit for them unless you put a gun to my head and force me to, and you can expect i'll do my best to evade your weapons, when you try to hunt me down.

do you work in public health?

are you frustrated by this?

then get the fucking point already and order a lockdown for the elderly. stop living in a fantasy world, where everybody is going to sacrifice for the greater good. most of us don't fucking care, and this is the empirical reality - deal with it, or prepare for a wave of death.

and, am i worried about this thing hurting me?

well, i posted the probabilities. 

and, frankly, i think i already beat it.

i'm more worried about the cop upstairs coming in here and fucking with my computers, so i'm going to plan to stay in until i get to a point where i can shut it all down.

this is the actual reason i didn't get tested when i got back from detroit last week.

i didn't really think something like this was going to happen - i am shocked and saddened and surprised - but i had it in the back of my mind. so, i avoided the health care system as a result of it.

and, the evidence that i've seen indicates that i made the right choice, and that i should continue to avoid the system until they pull their heads out of their asses.

"It's a question of respect. The rights of individuals stop when the impact of the community is very high."

wrong.

if you're going to tell me that i'm going to lose basic rights after a positive test, the solution is to avoid testing, so you won't know if i have it or not. 

i hope these people launch civil actions.

where is the ccla on this?

well, after reading this, you can be sure i'm not getting tested.

this is exactly the wrong thing to do....

https://nationalpost.com/news/governments-threaten-fines-arrest-if-orders-to-distance-and-isolate-not-followed

so, i'm done cleaning up from the start of february until the day of the debussy show.

i was hoping to finish this before i stopped to eat, but i'm behind by a few days and getting hungry enough that focusing is fleeting so i'm going to stop right now.

i'll do the debussy review when i'm fed.

if he does catch it, he's in for a fight.

well, they keep delaying the primaries.

he's in a very high risk category. it's entirely plausible.

then, what if sanders dies from it, after that?

well?

what if biden dies of covid-19?

he's 78 years old.

fwiw, if there was any question about my health over the last few days, i think i'm back up to being at about 90%, now.

what i'm doing right now is double-checking february. yeah, i know. but i have to do it. i'm about half done.

if you lose your job, you might not get it back.

memories of 2008.....

https://singularityhub.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-may-mean-automation-is-coming-sooner-than-we-thought/