like most people, my weight fluctuates mildly. 

over the last ten years or so, my bmi has fallen in the 18-22 range when it's been tested. i have gained a little bit of weight since going on hormones, but it's never been over 22.

"We're seeing younger patients, one a 29-year-old, some in their 40s, 50s. " Dr. Adam Jarrett, the center's chief medical officer, told NBC News on Monday, adding he was surprised patients' ages skewed younger than he'd expected.

All but one had underlying health conditions, such as heart or lung disease, diabetes and obesity.

"I am concerned about people who are obese," Jarrett said. "I wonder about lung capacity." 

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/not-just-older-people-younger-adults-are-also-getting-coronavirus-n1160416

so, perhaps we can add obese people to the list that currently includes the elderly and those with preexisting conditions.

do i care more about fat people than i do about the elderly? hardly.

we can create a total ordering here:

beer >> the elderly > obese people

i still want to go out and play. ugh.

33% of americans aged 45-64 and 29% of americans aged 30-45 are considered obese.

again: these numbers are different from everywhere else in the world.

if you want a reason? it's no doubt that.

https://www.livescience.com/49587-obesity-rates-older-adults.html

so, there are claims that upwards of half of the patients being treated for covid-19 in the united states are under the age of 60. this is drastically different than data coming out of everywhere else in the world. how to make sense of that?

well, perhaps the first thing to point out is how unhealthy americans are - and this isn't simply another anti-yanqui screed, although it will no doubt become one if i end up ranting for long enough. you know this is mostly stream of consciousness, right? unless i pull out the math. there's really only any effort to order this if you see equations, that's the giveaway. 

but, it's true. americans have ridiculous levels of obesity, terrible blood pressure, off the chart rates of obesity, terrible heart health and even continue to smoke at high rates in some places.

the only data we have is their age. but, how many were obese? how many had heart disease? etc?

the second thing to point out is that if a lot of american cases are younger, that means they're at least doing a good job of staying away from the elderly. but, this is america. most people just stick their elderly relatives in a home and never call them ever again. whatever the reasoning, this is some cause for applause - they seem to be doing this right.

the third thing to point out is that it likely indicates a very, very high level of incidence in the general population. i don't have enough data to give you a rough calculation, but you're likely looking at hundreds of thousands or even millions of cases in the united states, alone. 

does it suggest that the virus is more deadly for young people than previously thought, or that young people should take extra precautions? well, we already knew it would be harmful for people suffering from obesity. so, i would not jump to that conclusion, no.

given the science here, and the mathematical likelihood of most people getting substantively sick, this stupid fiasco is already exceedingly difficult to justify - the vast majority of people are no doubt in a state of shock, and aren't thinking clearly. when they wake up...

if you can present an easy antibody test to demonstrate immunity and prove you're of no threat to the general public, it makes it that much harder to justify these draconian measures.

and, people pushing back against it should be denounced as anti-science luddites.

the readable version.

great.

so, test me. and, let me live again.

"but, i didn't get sick. that means i have to stay in? that's not fair, mom."

life's not fair, kid.

but, once these hit production, then you need to get the various local governments to fucking listen to the science, which has proven difficult up to this point. i may be given some bullshit collectivist line about doing my part and sacrificing for the team.

but, this is the problem with contract theory - i didn't sign up for this. i'm stuck in it. i don't want to do my part to help the community; i want out of the community. but, there's no escape - capitalism is ubiquitous. we're all stuck.

the ideal would be to get the government to produce immunity cards that you show at the border and at bars and venues. they already check ids, and they already kick out kids. so, it's not that onerous.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/new-blood-tests-antibodies-could-show-true-scale-coronavirus-pandemic

so this is what i wanted to see.

boris johnson - who i will repeat is surprisingly and refreshingly ahead of the curve on this - has labeled it a 'game changer'. and he's right.

i'd like to see some random sampling done.

but, i'd like to get tested for antibodies, myself - and i'd like to see the local authorities embrace this, and accept it as a get out of jail card. 

for example, i'd like to see them let me across the border if i test positive for antibodies.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615379/antibody-test-how-widespread-coronavirus-covid-19-really-is/

if bernie's like your unstable uncle, biden's like your senile grandfather.

hey, kids, it's...

guantanamo joe!

"uhh. congress made me do it. and that one time back in 1873, i remember that..anyways."

(pause)

that's right, kids - guantanamo joe!

here's your answer, i guess.

https://71republic.com/index.html@p=28588.html

you know, i wasn't taking tulsi gabbard very seriously, but she was supposed to be the anti-war candidate, right?

it's a little odd to see her endorse guantanamo joe.

this is really the truth.

we're all modeling. we're all guessing.

and, these lawyers (at best.) in charge of the political system don't know how to do anything except what they're told. most of them couldn't even follow the calculation i just produced - which is roughly at a grade 12 level.

it's why it's so important to have the right people in the ministries; the executive power is clueless, across the board.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

well...

how many people have the flu at any given time?

google's not helping.

2% of the people in the detro metro area would be 85,000 people infected.

there's roughly 100 known cases in all of michigan.

if 85% of the number of actual cases are unknown, a number used in models by epidemiologists, then the number of actual cases in all of michigan is pushing 700. 

(2^n)*700 = 85000 <---> 2^n = 121.43 <---->nln2 = ln(121.43) <--->
n = 6.92398108175

so, if the number of active cases doubles every week, you've got 7 weeks before you get to 2% - which doesn't include dead or recovered cases.

and, you should be able to crunch 5% or 10% or whatever else you want - but understand that this is concurrent and if you get to a number like 20% concurrent then you must be peaking. that number might actually be impossible.

but, is 5% possible? you figure that out.

lol.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51956510

it's not a question of "staring down death", it's a question of understanding the probability.

what is the probability of dying of coronavirus if you're under 50?

well, first you'd have to get it. what is the probability of that? the city that i live in has zero cases. there's some cases in michigan. if we assume there's even 1000 cases in detroit itself, and that it's evenly distributed amongst the population (a generous assumption), then there would be a 1/4200 (0.02%) chance of catching it, for every person you interact with. 

now, let's say you interact closely enough that transmission is possible with 5 people when you go out. then the probably of getting sick is equal to:

P(x1 or x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) = 

P(x1) + p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) - p(x1)*p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) =
.0002 + 0.9998[p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5)] =
.0002 + 0.9998[0.0002 + 0.9998(p(x3 + x4 + x5)] =
.0002 + .000199996 + .9998^2[0.0002 + .9998[p(x4 + x5)]] =
.0002 + .000199996 + 0.00019992 + .998^3[0.0002 + .0002 - .0002^2] =
.0002 + .000199996 + 0.00019992 + 0.00039972007 =
0.00099960007 =
0.09996007%

that's not 1%. that's 0.01%. so, that's your chance of getting sick right now, in michigan, in the worst case.

now, if you're under 50, you have about a 0.1% chance of dying given that you have the disease, and you pretty much must already be sick.

so, if A is the probability of getting the disease,
and B is the probability of dying from the disease,
we have

P(B|A) = 0.001, P(A) = 0.00099960007.

as P(B|A) = P(B & A)/P(A),
P(B & A) = P(B|A)P(A) = P(A & B) = P(A|B)*P(B)

so, P(B) = P(B|A)P(A)/P(A|B) 

but, (A|B) = 1.

so, P(B) = P(B|A)*P(A)  = 0.00000099960007 =  0.000099960007%.

those are pretty good odds - if you're young, and the virus is not running rampant. 

what if you were over 70 today, in michigan?

then you're looking at adjusting P(B|A) to around 10%. and, then P(B) = 0.0099960007%. those are still pretty good odds, then, even if you're older.

now, what if 2% of the population were infected, instead of 0.02%?

P(x1 or x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) =
P(x1) + p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) - p(x1)*p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) =
.02 + 0.98[p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5)] =
.02 + 0.98[0.02 + 0.98(p(x3 + x4 + x5)] =
.02 + .0196 + .98^2[0.02 + .98[p(x4 + x5)]] =
.02 + .0196 + 0.019208 + .98^3[0.02 + .02 - .02^2] =
.02 + .0196 + 0.019208 + 0.0372712032 =
0.0960792032 =
9.60792032%

now, that's actually 10%. or 1000x the previous amount, roughly.

now, if you're under 50,

P(B|A) = 0.001, P(A) = 0.0960792032
so, P(B) = P(B|A)*P(A) = 0.0000960792 = 0.00960792%

those are still pretty good odds - if you're young.

but, what if you were over 70 today, in michigan?

then you're looking at adjusting P(B|A) to around 10%. and, then P(B) = 0.00960792032 = 0.9%. and, we have our scary stat - that's almost 1%.

now, what about 20% of the people being actively infected, something that's only ever going to happen just right now?

P(x1 or x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) =
P(x1) + p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) - p(x1)*p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5) =
.2 + 0.8[p(x2 or x3 or x4 or x5)] =
.2 + 0.8[0.2 + 0.8(p(x3 + x4 + x5)] =
.2 + .16 + .8^2[0.2 + .8[p(x4 + x5)]] =
.2 + .16 + 0.128 + .8^3[0.2 + .2 - .2^2] =
.2 + .16 + 0.128 +  0.18432=
0.67232

for healthy people, .001*.67232 = .00067232 = .067232%. but, this is an overestimate, because you probably don't have a preexisting condition. that is, you don't really have a .1% chance of dying if you're healthy...

but, the numbers for the elderly are actually pretty realistic.

.67232*.1 = .067232 = 6.7%. and, that's a very scary number.

so, let me tell you - you want the elderly to stay inside, pretty soon. as soon as immunity starts building, their chances of getting sick starts to skyrocket.

so, are you going to tell me i'm a daredevil for taking a chance that low? ok.

but, note that those are better odds than you get from most actual daredevil acts.

so, i don't really think i'm invincible. really. i'm just not as bad at math as the media is

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/psychological-reason-why-gen-x-is-taking-covid-19-pandemic-seriously.html

"So again, I'm going to call on that generation ... not only calling on you to heed what's in the guidance, but to really ensure that each and every one of you are protecting each other," she said. "We cannot have these large gatherings that continue to occur throughout the country for people who are off work to then be socializing in large groups and spreading the virus.

no, deborah.

the best way we protect each other is by building immunity. that's how this works; it's how it's worked for millions of years.

protecting the weak means getting them out of the way.

there isn't a choice. and you're just wasting time denying it.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/us-coronavirus-case-updates-thursday/index.html

is it just me, or does that fauci guy sound like a pack a day smoker?

there are 0 confirmed cases in the windsor-essex region.

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/windsor-braces-for-heavy-hit-from-unprecedented-border-closure/wcm/e0884845-04de-4797-abf3-b8e6c42a98db/

well.

there's an incentive to get tested.

hey dougy, how's about sweetening the deal a little? 

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/ndp-calls-on-alberta-government-to-protect-renters-match-federal-stimulus-to-fight-covid-19/

some more actual science. and, this is a prominent publisher.

this one basically says that suppression is futile, because there's millions of undocumented cases and there's nothing you can do about it. 

listen - i'm not a doctor. but i get the math intuitively. and this was immediately obvious....

these hamfisted lockdowns are just needlessly harming people's livelihoods. 

you need to lock the old people up. anything else is just sacrificing them to baal.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/science.abb3221

i'm also going to ask another question.

hong kong is being presented as a model of success as a result of it's draconian response. "look", the fascists say, "hong kong is a totalitarian state, and they're not sick. they're keeping the trains running on time!".

well, there's some leaps of logic there. we don't know that this is the reason. because....

we just went over that one.

i have another suggestion. hong kong was also ground zero for the last sars outbreak, you'll recall. 

is there some immunity there from that? is that it?

who else got hit with sars in 2003?

taiwan & singapore, mostly.

hrmmn. they've been basically spared by this, haven't they? could it be that there's some immunity there, too?

you could test this - you'd have to do a random sample of people in hong king and test them for antibodies.

if that's the case, it's some good news for the future, because it means the next time this happens it won't be so bad.

i would predict that it is highly likely that you'll see some further hotspots develop in china fairly soon, perhaps on the other side of the country.

the reality is that there are likely millions of people already infected in europe. with 3,000 deaths in italy, and a fatality rate of 0.6%, a simple calculation suggests over 500,000 actual cases in italy alone.

there may be substantial levels of immunity building in northern italy right now, as well.

so, if they lock the country down right now and the numbers start coming down two weeks from now, do you jump to the conclusion that it was a lock down?

and, i'm going to leave you hanging with this for a few more sentences, because you had to know this was coming. i've been criticizing the scientific response by governments for a while now - basically calling them all a bunch of stupid thugs acting like goons in trying to strong-arm their way through this - and there's a few phrases that are inevitably going to end up in any such critique. really, it's sort of amazing that we haven't gotten here yet, although i foreshadowed it a little bit with the pissing in the flower bed analogy, and the suggestion that the efficacy of an overly broad measure doesn't justify the overly broad actions.

so, where are we going? say it out loud, kids. you know this one...

correlation does not imply causality!

you have to work that out. i'd be just as wrong to deduce it must be immunity. but, i have my views. and, what i've seen suggests that the studies being done right now are really leaning in my direction.

so, this might burn out in europe relatively soon.

but, don't deduce it's because of the nazi lockdown. it could very well be that the thing is actually out of control, and cases end up coming down due to immunity reaching an inflection point.

99%, huh?

i can't hit that link, so take this for what it's worth.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says

this is some actual science.

it suggests that the mortality rate in china is probably about the same as the published rate in south korea - somewhere around .08%.

it also suggests that roughly 20% of the population in the affected province may have contracted this disease by the end of january. 

the truth may be that china may be approaching herd immunity.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022434v2

do i believe that china just stopped transmission?

not really.

they more likely stopped publishing data.

when iran was suspected of fudging the numbers, we were able to pick it out through statistical analysis. i would be highly skeptical of claims coming from the politburo until they can be verified independently.

but, i would suspect that so many people in china may have come in contact with this at this point that they may have substantial immunity building up in the population. 

if the lockdown helped at all, it would have been in keeping vulnerable groups inside - but they could have done that with less severe restrictions on the general population. if you piss all over the wall in a drunken fit and you manage to moisten the flower bed, that's not any particular measure of success in the task of watering the flowers; citing overly broad measures to contain a small group doesn't justify them, that's just poor logic.

"you think having a beer is more important than saving old people?"

well, beer's done me more good in my life. i might say that, if pushed on it.

but, that's not what i'm actually saying.

what i'm saying is that the science doesn't uphold these policies and in some ways even argues against them - what's driving this is puritanism, not science.

if it was actually going to work, then maybe we could have this debate, and i might actually pick beer over the elderly, if it came down to it. but, we're not actually there - it won't work.

if i were to file for a judicial review against these laws, that would be the basis - there is no logical connection between the policy of banning concerts and the desired outcome of reducing transmission. and, that is my position: this will not work.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-220.html

the managers at that retirement home in bc should be charged with criminal negligence (leading to murder) for not taking the clear and obviously required step of banning all visitors.

and, they should shut the place down immediately.

this is not a country-wide emergency that affects everybody.

this is a crisis in a small group of vulnerable people that require targeted attention and aren't even getting it, from what i can tell.

and, our governments at every level and on both sides of the border have failed horribly in their botched response to something that should have been very simple to deal with.

it's the only place in the country that should clearly, unquestionably be locked down, and they're letting people in.

but, you're banned from buying a beer in toronto.

stupid.

i saw a report on cbc the other day that actually suggested they were letting people into this retirement facility in bc, where 6 of the 9 country wide deaths have occurred.

well? this outcome is predictable, when you don't follow the science.

there has been one death in ontario so far, a 70+ year-old who died before he even got his test results back, because he waited too long to get treatment.

there is one death in a retirement home in quebec, and a few in retirement homes in bc.

i'm not saying that isn't unfortunate and whatever.

but it's hardly indicative of an emergency in the province, or suggestive of the need for the kinds of draconian measures that have been pushed down.

really, it demonstrates the point - the only people dying are in care facilities. so, lock the doors to the care facilities and let everybody else carry on.

and, now they're resorting to fox news style disinformation to justify their unscientific, puritanical, fascistic dictates.

it's sad. really.

when's the fucking election, again?

https://globalnews.ca/news/6697273/ontario-coronavirus-30s-ventilators/

ok.

i'm getting the laptop back up, now.

and, i've got a month worth of posts to clean yup, again. lol.

this feels like a fascist coup, in slow motion.

is this the stand?

or is it more like the handmaid's tale?

well? they canceled drinking. what's next?

hail whitmer!

hail!

all hail rev whitmer!

this is not science.

this is puritanism.

more idiocy.

These restrictions do not apply to the following locations: office buildings, grocery stores, markets, food pantries, pharmacies, tribal casinos, drug stores, and providers of medical equipment and supplies, health care facilities, residential care facilities, congregate care facilities, and juvenile justice facilities, warehouse and distribution centers, and industrial and manufacturing facilities.

so, going to a bar and having a beer or seeing a concert is not allowed because of concerns of transmission to the elderly.

but, going to the grocery store and standing in line at the pharmacy after a long day at work, and then visiting your 90 year-old grandmother in the residential care facility is absolutely permitted, and perhaps even encouraged if i get the messaging right - you don't want her to get lonely, do you?

you think that's following scientific recommendations? you think that's based on science?

no. it's based on stupid.

https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/content/news/Report-Al-Michigan-bars-restaurants-ordered-to-close-Monday-568826061.html

so, the latest stupid thing is moving students out of their dorms and sending them home.

where are these 20-somethings most likely to interact with people they might infect? at school, where they can communicate with each other, and build up immunity? or at home, in their communities, where they're likely to interact with their parents and other older members of the community?

these are universities, too.

this is really, truly a clear demonstration of ubiquitous mass stupidity. everywhere you look, all you can see is stupid, for miles around.

of course it's not working.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/europe/italy-coronavirus-lockdown-intl/index.html

one wonders what the outcome would have been if the constitution hadn't failed.

would there be a more integrated social payer system? would italy have had better access to medical supplies when it needed them?

but, i hope that this is the narrative that takes hold - that border closures are making the problem worse, not better. 

https://time.com/5805783/coronavirus-european-union/

does cold weather kill viruses?

yes. sort of.

first, viruses tend to react badly to water. when you hear about water-borne viruses, they tend to either come from a host like a mosquito (who like standing water) or they end up embedded in a medium like animal feces. viruses are just protein - they will dissolve in running water. you should still use soap, as the ph reaction helps increase the efficacy, but water alone will kill the bulk of it.

second, while viruses may freeze in cold weather, the thaw process kills the bulk of them. and, this is where some shift in mindset is necessary.

anything that kills a virus will kill a percentage of the amount of it. so, if you wash your hands in lukewarm water, you'll kill most of it, but you'd have to do it for a really long time to kill all of it. and, if you increase the temperature, you'll kill more of it. and, if you add soap you'll kill even more of it. but, even washing your hands vigorously with soap in hot water for a long time is still probably only going to get 95% of the shit off of them - because your hands are filthy, no matter how hard you try.

you hear about viruses being thawed out in the ice, but it's the epsilon that's left. like washing your hands, the freeze-thaw process will only kill about 95% of the virus, leaving that little bit for scientists to go looking for.

so, is cold weather effective at killing viruses? yes - if cold means below freezing, and you're talking about surface contact or airborne particles. obviously, that doesn't hold once you get inside. but, the effectiveness of freezing weather is basic chemistry. and, don't listen to the people suggesting otherwise.

this is a catastrophe.

and, you shouldn't blame foreigners - you should blame your own government.

i need to create and send out some more documents tonight before i hunker down and get to work.

and, what's worse?

the government is no doubt going to blame it's botched strong-arm, authoritarian policies on a public that wouldn't comply.

no.

this is a failure in public policy, a failure at the level of government, which chased unicorns and insisted on absurd levels of complexity in it's response, instead of being rational and doing the simplest, most effective thing.

we could have just quarantined the elderly.

but, no.

we decided on Strong Leadership instead.

and, this is what we get for it.

and, let's be clear for context - what's happening in the market is not similar to 2008 or 1987. not any more.

the infamous 1929 crash wiped out 25% of the value of the market.

we've lost around 35% so far.

this is the worst crash, ever.

but, the money's still there, and then some. so, if you can get confidence up, it should come back - creating fools out of a lot of people who are going to end up selling low and buying high.

if you were to transfer me $5000 tomorrow, i'd say "thanks" and then wait for the bars to reopen to spend it.

what else am i going to do with it?

i don't oppose this, don't misunderstand me.

but, instead of quarantining the people that are at risk and allowing immunity to build, which would require minimal disruption and be highly effective, even if it might be seen as distasteful to family-first type conservatives, we are going to:

(1) shut down the entire economy for months, thereby

(2) creating massive levels of unemployment and then

(3) borrow billions of dollars from central banks at high interest rates to

(4) essentially put everybody on welfare.

we're actually doing this.

it's insane.

my gst rebates come in for april and july, so i'm not sure if he misspoke and i should expect the increase in april (or july) or if i should expect a separate check in may.

i'll take it. but, i'm going to have to wait for the economy to open back up before i have anywhere to spend it.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-unveils-82-billion-in-aid-tax-deferrals-for-coronavirus/

i really think that the boomers need to shut up and listen to young people, on this: our patience is not infinite, and we won't abide by these rules for very long.

maybe this is the event where the boomers lose control...maybe it's a turning point. it's happened before. look up the peasants' revolt, which happened as a consequence of the plague.

well? if you're going to lock us down indefinitely, you should expect a revolt. duh?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/politics/young-people-coronavirus-caution-white-house/index.html

the divisional court appears to be completely closed.

alright.

i'm not happy about any of this, and i hope that the government falls over it.

and, i just checked the exchange rate. yikes.

if it wasn't clear 20 years ago, it should be now: there should be a concerted effort by the feds to diversify revenues.

we could end up with a credit rating hit, which is what actually matters on the issue of deficits. the instinct will no doubt be to scale back on transition funding. but, dammit, look at the data...

if we had transitioned 20 years ago, right? 

right?

alas...

we might have to take the credit rating hit. if the saudis keep producing at these rates, the oil sands aren't going to get us anywhere any time soon.

a lot of the kids that carry this have no symptoms.

you have no idea if they have it or not.

and, what is that going to do to some of these people?

imagine this.

first, the government cancels the schools and daycares, leaving you to scramble to do something with your kids. so, you call your retired mom. of course she says yes.

three weeks later, you're grappling with the fact that your kids killed your parents by giving them the disease - and you organized it. how do you process that?

and, who is responsible for it?

the kids are only dangerous when they're around seniors. why not address the actual problem, instead of just banning everything like an idiot nazi?

so, they have closed both daycares and schools in ontario...

expect this to happen soon: a sharp rise in cases where grandparents contract the disease from their grandchildren, after needing to step in as emergency babysitters.

if you work in a bar, though, maybe now's a good time to put up a babysitting ad?

and, if you leave people in a situation where they have to go to work and can't find child care, what are they going to do with the kids?

they're going to drop them at their parents - which is probably the absolute worst possible outcome, and the thing that should be most strenuously avoided.

something else they're doing in the uk is allowing exclusive access to grocery stores for seniors during specific hours. this is a smart compromise - so long as you don't then shuffle them on to the bus.

i'm sorry to say it, but this is the government that appears to be developing smart, novel ideas and showing real "leadership" in implementing them, no doubt in spite of the prime minister.

there's different arguments about the schools.

one is that you don't want the kids spreading it. but, i'm not sure that keeping them out of school is really going to help. are you going to cancel daycares, too? rather, this would strike me as something you can't really stop.

the argument i initially presented was that you want to keep the teachers, many of whom are older. away from the kids. but, maybe you can deal with that with substitute teachers. or, maybe a few can get the hint and fucking retire already.

a third argument is that it might actually backfire, as if you do cancel daycares and schools then you're all of a sudden stuck with a high percentage of nurses that have kids that need to stay home to deal with. this is a good point that i hadn't thought of, but it could be dealt with by opening daycares that have youngish workers. or, you could just send the older teachers home...

my understanding is that the uk is kind of dealing with a mess with this right now, as they don't want to close the schools due to the third argument, but are finding that staff levels are too low to keep a lot of them open.

and, this is maybe the only country that is doing the right thing in forcibly quarantining the elderly.

new york is also facing a lot of pushback in keeping the schools open, i would suspect under argument three, because they no doubt realize the child care mayhem it would create, which could potentially exacerbate a looming crisis.

i just don't understand why so many people think it's necessary to take these ridiculous steps, when it's so easy to just quarantine the old.

stop.

the idiots shut the economy down over something that could have been dealt with by volunteer staff at nursing homes.

they need to be held accountable for this...

i want to see an opposition party somewhere stand up and be honest about this and start nailing their government for mismanaging the situation and creating this ridiculous mess.

so, i know the divisional court is adjourned until the first week of april.

i don't know exactly what that means. they're slow to answer the phone this morning...

does it mean that the date i have scheduled for june 23rd needs to be rescheduled? or only that issues between now and april are affected?

again: if the purpose of this is to stop me from posting on the internet, it's not working is it?

it's kind of making things worse, don't you think?

if you had left my laptop alone, i'd probably be done january, 2014 by now and on to period 3...

The federal government is working on a $1 trillion coronavirus stimulus package to try and rescue the U.S. economy from the abyss opened by the coronavirus pandemic. 

no.

the problem was not created by the virus - the problem was created by the ridiculous overreactions of state governments.

let's be clear what the crisis is here - it's a crisis of authoritarianism, a pandemic of statist tyranny.

as it is, i can't go out for five minutes without having to reimage the machine.

it's really killing my workflow.

so, it seems like i'll be inside until at least the end of the month.

after the entry in the apartment yesterday afternoon, i feel the need to reimage the laptop. i wanted to do that last night, but i nodded off when i got out of the shower.

if i can stay inside for a lengthy period, perhaps i can get things back to normal for a bit.

i might have to wait for the carnage to run it's course a little to see if i can take advantage of any decrease in rental prices.

if the school year is canceled early, and there are restrictions on reentry for international students in the long run, that should drive down the cost of rent quite a bit.

i wonder what the rental market looks like right now.

hrmmn.

in canada, we have something called the oakes test that asks whether restrictions on constitutional rights are justified in a free and democratic society.

while the science does not uphold the efficacy of closing mass events, and i would rule that such restrictions are not justified under the oakes test, the science is absolutely clear that discrimination on the basis of age would be.

i have no interest in strong leaders. but, if you want to talk about what leadership would look like, it would look something like that - it would be unpopular, and it might lead to a collapse in the government in the long run, but it's the only way to save their lives.

pretending you can stop the spread of it is just signing their death warrant, and destroying the lives of everybody else in the process.

what we are doing is the worst, and the dumbest, approach - it will not save anybody's life, and it will have catastrophic economic effects in the form of a wave of negative externalities.

in the process, ~.6-.8% of us, almost entirely over the age of 70, are going to die, if we don't take drastic steps to prevent them from interacting with the general population, which we seem to be unwilling to do.

it's not natural selection when you're talking about old people dying. natural selection has to do with reproduction, which they've already passed their ability to do. but, the development of new viruses is a very natural and normal response in organisms that are experiencing overpopulation. 

you're not helping anybody by denying the facts, which are uncomfortable, but need to be confronted and reacted to.

i don't have any family in the city i live in.

my father died of cancer in 2013. his father died in the late 80s or early 90s (i remember it, but i can't place it in time). his mother moved to british columbia a few years later in an attempt to start a new life and asked her children not to contact her, although some contact was reestablished many years later; i have no relationship with her, by her choice. i'd guess most of my father's siblings are probably dead by now, as they were all in very poor health, but i've maintained no contact with any of them at all.

my mother is in her 60s and has smoked since she was 12. she's a sitting duck. i don't want anything to do with her, generally, but i wouldn't go anywhere near her right now - she should lock herself inside of the house until christmas. she can order groceries online. i don't have a relationship with her father. her mother is now 80, and has apparently been moved into a care facility due to a struggle with dementia. i would avoid her like i have the plague....

so, i don't have to deal with this.

but, i would not be stupid about it. i would be very clear: i would tell them i am a clear and present danger to their health, and i can't go near them for their own safety. and, if they don't understand then that's too fucking bad.

i'm not going to coddle them with lies and delusions to stop them from crying, and kill them in the process.

because i know better: attempts to prevent this from spreading are futile. we're going to have to build immunity, and we will.

as hitchens would say, we're all a bunch of dumb primates.

and, we seem insistent on dying with our families, at the behest of all logic. we will ignore, pervert or dismantle the evidence to uphold the primacy of family.

and, we're going to suffer for our stupidity.

and, then we'll blame it on sin. because we're really that dumb. wait for it...

we have a simple, effective, achievable strategy in front of us.

but, we won't do it. 

we insist on demonstrations of mass stupidity, instead.

viruses don't care about equality. they don't kill people equally, in equal proportions or as a response to affirmative action programs. 

they're very mean, and they're not fair.

smallpox was totally racist.

so, the absolute dumbest way to approach a virus is by resorting to these liberal appeals to universalism, because the virus is a predator - it will pick off the weak. 

we are going to have to discriminate against people on the basis of age and other things to save their lives and, increasingly, it would appear, to stop the society from collapsing.

we could simply put a ban on communicating with old people, but, instead we're canceling everything and shutting down the border, so that we don't inconvenience them, or something. it's retarded...

we're retarded. collectively. there's your statement of solidarity - we're all a bunch of fucking idiots.

she's right.

and, the world's full of idiots that want to prioritize emotions and positive thinking over science and facts.

if you care about your immunosuppressed 23 year-old gay eskimo friend that much, then tell them to stay inside and avoid crowds of healthy young people that are building immunity to a new virus, as has happened throughout our biological history. don't tell me i have to suffer to save the lives of people i don't care about.

i mean, this is literally trying to stop natural selection from running it's course. if you die from this before you can breed, then you lost the game of biological roulette - you were too weak to beat it, and you died. that's how evolution works, and sitting around and crying in your church or mosque about it isn't going to change reality. 

https://globalnews.ca/news/6691201/coronavirus-vanessa-hudgens-under-fire/

i repeat: you will not get sick because of foreigners.

it is your friends & family that will make you sick.

ugh.

no.

you don't want to close the american border. you want to undo the previous restrictions. 

the virus is everywhere. it's not coming from out of the country. it's not coming from foreign lands. it's right here. 

your neighbours and friends and family members are far more likely to get you sick than random people from out of the country. you have to mentally undo this media framing and figure out how to deal with reality....

https://globalnews.ca/news/6693593/coronavirus-canada-united-states-travel-ban/

so, they foolishly shut down the economy, with no evidence that it would make any difference, then they get shocked at the market crashing after they scared everybody into being stupid, and have to scramble to bail everybody and everything out.

and, people just swallow it. eager to help. clueless. but affable.

idiots.

so, i actually sent something to my landlord.

it turns out he has footage; i'm on camera when i come in and out. fancy that. i didn't know that...

i'm not particularly upset about it.

but, he checked it and said nobody came up to the door when i was gone. and, yet - clearly, somebody was in here.

i haven't seen the footage, myself.

so, what we learn from this is:

(1) there's footage. supposedly.

(2) the landlord is probably a cop. which i already knew.

i think he was legit gone. it was the stinky female upstairs that must have snuck down and swigged on my vodka.

as was the case with the smoking (which he also denied), let's hope that saying something is enough to change things. let's hope that's all i had to do...

if not, the next step is setting up a webcam in here.

i've been saying for years that i'd rather see bernie quarterbacking the senate, anyways.

so, i had to get some things today and while my bed at least isn't gross today, i have noticed a number of weird things.

- it seems like somebody was rifling through my cupboards

- my 26er has decreased in volume

- the power bar for the modem, which i turned off before i left, has twisted sideways

- somebody turned my fridge off, oddly

- somebody was sorting through some items

- i think somebody took some of my coffee, too.

again - they're clearly looking for something, and i don't know what it is.

are they looking for drugs? i don't do drugs...

i'm going to send my landlord an email.

in the meantime, stopping events that are populated by young people is just reducing immunity. what we need to do is:

1) keep the old folks locked up.

2) let the young 'uns fuck each other on the street like it's saturnalia.

i know this contradicts your instincts towards the need to control.

but, you're wrong...

this study is backing up my point about the futility of mitigation. but, if mitigation is futile, surely suppression is even less likely.

i keep saying this, but you know what i actually get out of reading this? it's that capacity is way, way, way too low. 

these studies are all about how to reduce the case load to align with existing resources. they started with "flattening the curve", which was obviously naive, and which this study debunks. but, then they go back to suppression - having apparently forgotten that the whole reasoning behind mitigation was that suppression was seen as unrealistic.

i guess you need to let them work it out, because the bean counters are vicious, they really are. but, i'm telling you right now that the only way to deal with this is to get that red line up by increasing the system's capacity, and they're just wasting time trying to fuck with the curve.

you know what i'm reminded of? chamberlin trying to argue with hitler. you know what flattening the curve is? it's giving hitler austria, hoping that's enough. but, this virus won't stop at the sudentenland, and it won't stop in poland - it wants lebensraum, and it will keep coming.

we need to ramp up spending. and we need to stop wasting time arguing about it.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

like i say: if i owned a bar or restaurant, i would keep it open and take the government to trial over it.

if you want to stay home, that's your choice. you do't have to come in.

and, if you're in a vulnerable group, you probably should.

but, the majority shouldn't have to put their lives on hold to protect a minority of seniors and smokers.

all hail reverend ford!

hallelujah!

banning bars and leaving grocery stores open?

not coherent. not evidence-based.

you're far more likely to bump into a vulnerable person in line at costco than you are at an edm show.

rather, that's a right-wing government targeting scapegoats and blaming sinners for the spread of disease in old testament fire and brimstone fashion, whether it's conscious or not.

so, an old person catches the virus in a hospital as a consequence of a sick person coming into contact with them - a situation we know is a problem.

and, instead of announcing measures to segregate and isolate old people, we announced a ban on the sinful behaviour that occurs in bars and restaurants.

because we're stupid.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/coronavirus-covid-19-ontario-tuesday-1.5500006

i got a lot of sleep this morning. maybe i did catch this thing, after all.

i don't feel sick enough to call anybody...

i want to be clear about what i'm saying about these border closures and bans on events.

these actions are not driven by the science. the science suggests that this disease is harmless for the vast majority of people, and any authoritarian action should be restricted to very specific groups. history also tells us that when you try to take broad actions like this to protect special interest groups like seniors and smokers, it always backfires.

so, we're not closing borders on the advice of science; the scientists would tell us to avoid doing that.

what the border closures are is a statement of nationalism, under the direction of donald trump, who sees the world with an us vs them mentality. we close the border to the asians and the europeans, because they're not like us; we keep them open to the americans and british because we're allies. this allows the president to blame the problem on foreigners, rather than on the inefficiencies of capitalism. our government is unfortunately towing the line on this, and what we've learned over the last few years is that this is what we should expect from the liberals, moving forward - they'll do everything right, until dipshit donald calls and ruins everything, at which point they will immediately fall in line and do what they're told. sadly, demands from the white house, no matter how stupid, seem to trump virtually everything.

likewise, the focus on bars is the kind of thing you'd expect from a fundamentalist government. it's the kind of logic you'd expect from somebody like mike pence. we're sick because of the sinners, and god is punishing us for it, so let's shut down all of this debauchery and go to church, instead. but, there's no actual evidence that bars or restaurants are spreading this at all - and quite a bit of reason to think that organized religion has already been a major problem, and will become an even bigger problem moving forward, due to it's tendency to coerce vulnerable populations in to give away their money. 

the science says we should be doing very specific, targeted things; we're not basing our reaction on the science, we're taking broad and often irrational steps, because we're basing it on concepts of ethnic nationalism and self-righteous religious retribution. 

and, most of us seem to be too stupid to realize it.

if we continue to ignore the science and give in to kneejerk authoritarianism that deludes us into feeling safe, or makes us feel like we made correct "moral" decisions, this is going to run out of control very quickly.

and, we will have the hamfisted authoritarians, who tried to take control of the situation and merely made it worse by doing so, to blame.

no, really.

i had a hearing request form down here for the court date on june 23rd. i don't need it for anything any longer because it's run it's purpose - the date is scheduled. but, i had some phone numbers on it for people in the divisional court office, so i left it beside my bed for easy reference.

why would they take that?

people are going to die because of this.

this isn't trivial. it's not patting dipshit donald on the head. it's not smiling and nodding. this is bad fucking policy, and it's going to have some bad fucking consequences.

you know what probably happened?

you've probably got dipshit donald calling trudeau up in a dejected rage, unable to even get boris johnson on the phone, and falling back on the only country that cannot and will not reject him, looking for some kind of ally in his attempt to blame the problem on foreigners.

and, we caved.

because we had to.

because nafta.

i can imagine it. trump looking for some kind of reassurance, somebody, anybody that will align in policy - trying to create a fortress north america, to wall itself off.

and, it no doubt came with a threat. because that's how you treat your friends, when you're america - you threaten them. canada can find itself in or out. 

so, we end up locked in the room with this contagious, dying patient that's running his mouth off and won't stop, because we know our finances depend on it....

how did we get ourselves into this?

and, canada?

how do we get ourselves out of it?

for canada to ban everybody except americans is basically equivalent to a healthy person locking themselves in a room full of sick people.

and, we no doubt had to do it to save the economy from a narcissistic idiot that destroys everything he goes near.

can we get a quadrupling of that spending on ventilators? if we're stuck with this...

i'm not calling for a ban on travel from the united states. i've been clear: i oppose travel restrictions as a means to slow the spread of viruses, because it's anti-science and it makes things worse. if you ban travel from america, they'll start sneaking in through the forests, instead. they'll drive to mexico and fly in. you laugh. but, if they need to get in, they will.

but, i'm fully cognizant of where the problem is right now, and it's inside of the united states, not outside of it.

you couldn't write a worse policy if you tried.

if we were going to ban anybody at all right now, about the only country it would make any sense to ban from entry would be citizens of the united states.

we may find out in the end that the countries that trump banned kind of fluked out. they're the lucky ones....

we have no sovereignty.

clearly.

should donald trump be charged with crimes against humanity for interfering in other countries' responses to this?

wait.

so, we're banning everybody except americans, where the spread of the virus is probably worse than anywhere else in the world?

now, i know why there's such a quick, irrational, anti-science, boneheaded u-turn.

our policies are no longer being written by one of the best science teams in the world, but are being written by one of the biggest idiots that's ever held public office.

if we see a spike in cases, we should blame it on donald trump.

what can we do in the face of this kind of unwanted foreign meddling? we'd better buy a lot of gear. we're going to need it....

it's still way too high.

but, why is canada tipping into nonsense when the rest of the world is waking itself up from it?

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/16/lower-coronavirus-death-rate-estimates/

so, i got the mock motion served.

we'll see what kind of reaction i get. let's just hope it's quick....

here's some clearer thinking.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/opinions/south-korea-italy-coronavirus-survivability-sepkowitz/index.html

unfortunately, and this is supremely moronic, but if i'm going to file a motion under 37 about 38, and do so in writing, i'd need to be denied consent first.

but, i can't file with consent, anyways.

this is so bafflingly daft....

so, if they give me consent to file, i'll need to file without notice. and, if they don't give me consent, i'll need to file in writing. alright...

that means i need to type up a mock motion and see how they react.

now, what to do about this second motion?

first, can i actually order the court to tell the registrar to find the damned affidavit? it's there. but, i don't fit the clause.

i'm going to make a request, with notice, in writing, to look at the specific subclause of 38.0.6. i feel there's time to work this through.

so, i got the first part done. and, i'm sure it's going to piss them off, but bring it on....

it's the churches and mosques that are going to end up being the problem and that are going to need to get shut down by force, not the concerts and bars.

we're stupid.

it's that simple.

what they're doing is scapegoating young people, with irreligious lifestyles. it's bizarre.

it's like something they'd do in iran. 

it's like public shaming. 

i've got my hands full. i hope that a few bars around town stay open in protest, and i hope there are civil rights groups pushing back on the fines.

if i had a bar, i'd stay open, get fined and take the government to court over it.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/27/coronavirus-south-korea-cults-conservatives-china/

khomeini, khamenei - i feel like that skit's been done.

well, there's some good news, anyways.

how old is khomeini, nowadays?

no, he's dead. the other one is 80. let's hope it gets him....

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/iran-reports-113-virus-deaths-containment-concerns-mount-200315180552632.html

if they were logical, the very first thing they would have done was put a total ban on all religious gatherings, period. that's where this is living.

but, they shut down the bars, full of healthy young people, instead.

because they're stupid.

'cause you know where all the lonely people (where do they all come from?) are going right now, don't you?

i shouldn't complain. good riddance to them. maybe this is the final nail in the coffin of the church, so to speak.

enjoy your diseased wafers; your magic water won't save you.

they should shut down every church, chapel, mosque, temple and synagogue in the country under the threat of heavy fines, until further notice.

listen, i can make you a promise.

i've got 90% of a 26er of vodka in my cupboard, and i won't touch until the bars open. i won't smoke, either.

you can be pretty sure i'll be pretty straight edge for as long as this goes on, because i hate being fucked up alone, and i only really enjoy marijuana in the presence of live music. if i get back to work soon, i'll be recording, and i am pristinely sober, then.

but, i really don't want to miss a 4/20 weekend that includes squarepusher and rachmaninov. that was fucking amazing.

again: if they wanted to cancel something, they should have canceled religious services. that's what happened in south korea, it was a church at the centre of the outbreak. that would have actually made sense...

but, we live in a supremely backwards culture that blames alcohol (a mild disinfectant) and provides exceptions for organized religion (the root of the problem).

we are, collectively, incredibly stupid.

and, we're about to pay for it....

no....i can't file a motion to put the thing aside because it doesn't fit the exact rules.

i'm going to try to file without notice first and see what happens.

yeah, i'm pissed off.

there's no logic underlying this, at all.

it's just panic-stricken, hysterical backwardsness.

welcome to the fucking third world, guys. it's here.

sorry. i meant to say...

let's just hope they fucking die fast so we can get on with this.

you have to have faith in something, right?

shutting down bars will have no effect.

let's just they fucking die fast so we can get on with this.

and, keep your fucking pot away from me, i don't want it.

so,

1) i need to file a motion to vary the order

2) i need to file a motion without notice to add the reply factum

that's the first part of this.

the motion itself just instructed me to ask for consent, implying i didn't need to file anything.

looking through the rules, the registrar can't file it (because reply factums aren't in the list of things she can do) and i can't file a consent motion because i can't sign a consent order.

so, i have to file it without consent.

even though i have consent...

rather than file without consent, which could take 14 days, i'm going to make a request to change the court's order, because i do technically have consent, i just can't sign a consent order. then, i'm going to file under 37.07 (2):

(2) Where the nature of the motion or the circumstances render service of the notice of motion impracticable or unnecessary, the court may make an order without notice.  R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 194, r. 37.07 (2).

that's what we need, here.

this is not science based.

i'm deeply embarrassed by this, but i didn't expect much from the province.

it's the feds that i'm more disappointed by.

*sigh*. it's going to be a shitty couple of months, i guess :(. with the bars closed, there's nothing to do except sit inside and read....

https://nationalpost.com/news/ontario-government-moves-to-protect-workers-affected-by-covid-19

so, i need to file a motion in writing, with the whole shebang.

this should be an administrative decision. but, whatever.

the consent motion needs to certify that no party is under any legal disability.

i live on disability. i can't do that.

it's more the context than anything else.

my draft order is going to be two lines. 

but, this is what the court is demanding.

this is so remarkably stupid.

i need to file a draft order, and get the parties to agree to it. why can't i just get a judge to make an order?

i'm suing these people. i'm not their friend. i don't want to agree with them on anything, i want to annihilate and destroy them. i want to argue. i want to fight...

this is supposed to be an adversarial process, but it's designed with this insistence on cooperation that is intensely pissing me off.

i hate being nice to people that i hate. it makes me uncomfortable. and angry.

actually, there's a list of specialized motions that might be useful, here.

but, if the fundamental problem is that the coordinator doesn't understand the rules, and i respond by producing more esoteric rules, don't i just run the risk of producing the same problem?

perhaps.

but, i feel the urge to double down, given that this is going to the appeals court now, anyways. i've made complaints about the coordinator, i've made complaints about the judge. i have leave to appeal.

so, i'm going to really fuck with them on this by being as obtuse as i can, in an attempt to embarrass them in the next court up.

they made this choice, it's their own fault.

so, i'm going to produce a series of ridiculous motions designed with the intent to make them look like idiots.

they weren't important, and they're digitized.

but, why?

that's three motions coming.

1) a consent motion to include the reply factum.

2) a motion to rule on the applicability of 38.06 (1) - the rule i filed under

3) a motion to order the coordinator to find the affidavit that was filed on or around feb 10th.

i will continue to escalate as is necessary.

and, i want to know why some cops came in here and stole some court documents.

to be clear about the complaint...

i filed a motion under 38.06 (1) back on january 31st:

38.06 (1) The notice of application shall be served on all parties and, where there is uncertainty whether anyone else should be served, the applicant may make a motion without notice to a judge for an order for directions. R.R.O 1990, Reg. 194, r. 38.06 (1) 

i was told i need to serve the respondents and file an affidavit. she was wrong, but i did it anyways.

then, she sat on it for months without scheduling it.

she eventually scheduled it on the 10th of march, and claimed there was no affidavit. but, she told me on the 10th of february that she received the affidavit.

so, the coordinator badly, badly fucked the thing up, to the point of lying to the justice. then, the justice responds to the motion by telling me to file an affidavit.

i filed a fucking affidavit; the coordinator refused to attach it to the motion.

so, i responded to the motion with the facts, expecting the coordinator to be forced to refile the thing.

initially, i was told that issue was before an administrative judge and to call back today. but, then i get a second ruling basically telling me to obey the ruling of the judge.

for the first run through, you can't blame the judge. if the coordinator files a false motion, you have to get the facts to the justice. but, when the justice refuses to listen to evidence and upholds the lie instead, that's a problem, and the basis of my claim of misconduct.

so, i'm going to also produce a motion to order the coordinator to find the affidavit.

so, i got the complaint about the justice in.

regarding the reply factum, i called them and asked them how to do this, and they told me to file a leave for appeal.

it finally gets in front of a judge and they're telling me to ask for consent to file. i got it, unexpectedly.

it's not clear in the order, but the coordinator doesn't return calls and seems to be rather brutally negligent in her responsibilities, and fairly classist on top of it, so i'm going to file a motion for consent and blame it on the coordinator if it's superfluous. she needs to be more reactive in her communication. i've been leaving repeated messages for weeks. yes, i'm demanding, and that's too fucking bad. do your damned job, or fucking quit, if you can't.

i'm also going to go ahead and file a motion with the justice asking for the validity of the rule i tried to file under before i try to file it again. i'll do that with notice. that's fine.

so, i need to get on that for tonight. i thought this was dealt with for a while...guess not....

bizarrely, somebody seems to have come in here and stolen documents that were sent to me from the divisional court.

i know exactly where i put them.

as mentioned: i don't understand what they're looking for. that's a clue, at least.

i'm going to have to file a complaint against the judge, next.

it is deeply disappointing to see this government abandon science in favour of an embrace of mass panic and backwards thinking. we were doing well on this. really.

but, we should expect this terrible decision to be followed by an increase in cases, as people seek ways around the restrictions, and evade the authorities in doing so.

when will we learn that banning things never works, but always makes things worse?

when will we learn that authoritative action and strong leadership is always ham-fisted, and always backfires?

when will we learn to stop buying into panic and listen to the science?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-airports-screening-trudeau-covid19-coronavirus-1.5498866

the feds didn't sink the market with a stimulus measure. 

stimulus is always good, but people are liquidating because they want cash on hand to spend, and there's nothing anybody can do but wait it out.

bernie sanders is often incoherent, as he will argue for an expansion of human rights and against "rugged individualism" in the same sentence, which makes absolutely no sense, and i've long deduced that he hasn't read much of this stuff, directly, but instead relies on colloquialisms and common sense fallacies to frame most of his arguments.

people tend to shrug it off because they haven't read any of it, either.

people that move too far towards collectivism, and reject the individual outright, are not anarchists (who seek a synthesis between individualism and collectivism via dialectical reasoning), but are rather called fascists - and include stalinists and nazis. they draw mostly from hobbes, ultimately. mussolini called himself a corporatist, and these words - corporatism, fascism, collectivism - are really all the same thing.

it's the exact thing you want to be very careful about, on the left; when you hear them start ranting against the individual, that's a red flag to step back and realize they aren't socialists, they're fascists. it's the exact thing you want to avoid; it's exactly when you know this is bad news.

the types of socialism that you want to associate with will not do that, but will insist on the concept of human rights, even as they reshape the discourse to include things like shelter and reject things like property. human rights are the pinnacle of liberal individualism.

marx followed bentham, a tory, in his rejection of human rights as "anarchistic". proudhon, bakunin and kropotkin did not. and, that is itself a key difference in their approaches to socialism.

marx was a liberal. that's how he self-identified. he was into rugged individualism as much as any other liberal. and, so was kropotkin.

but, these people didn't think in terms of contrasting individualism with collectivism, or in terms of opposites clashing against each other, at all. these people were hegelians, and they insisted on dialectics as the means of resolving contradictions in thought.

so, to talk of individualism as being in opposition to collectivism is language that would be very weird to any early socialist, including kropotkin. they would have all wanted to speak of a synthesis between individualism and collectivism, and find ways to resolve the contradictions through an application of dialectical thinking - following hegel, but stemming from aristotle.

the idea that you can line these ideas up in contrast with each other is really uniquely american, and comes right out of the cold war. it's vulgar. really.

actual leftists do not talk like this - they don't line up collectivism v individualism or socialism v capitalism or masculine v feminism or anything else like this but rather try to find ways to unite the ideas into holistic concepts that eliminate the conflict within them.

that insistence on dialectical thought is really the foundational point of socialism as a philosophical system - as mentioned, coming directly from hegel.

the closest thing to mutualism in the context presented is actually a labour contract. it's crude, because you're ramming the square peg of mutualism into the round hole of capitalism and coming up with a busted mess, but it's true.

it's broadly difficult to speak about mutual aid in the context of a capitalist society because it really provides very few opportunities for it. when people are in the position for a reciprocal exchange, it's almost always framed in the context of a market interaction; when people require aid, it's almost always charity.

as is so often the case, the difficulty is really rooted in the existence of property. mutual aid is usually spoken of in the context of societies that existed before property was invented (where everything was shared, collectively), or in the context of a future system where property no longer exists.

trying to just do mutual aid in the middle of all of these capitalist relations around us is rarely going to make any sense, for these reasons - you're going to end up doing charity work and/or are just going to end up taken advantage of.

the issue with service workers sharing wages in an economic slowdown works precisely because it breaks the market relation. all of a sudden, there's no labour and, for the proletariat, that means that the rules of capitalism are temporarily lifted.

but, helping wealthy old people walk their dogs or delivering them food for free doesn't fall into that paradigm. it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. but, you should avoid abusing the language, please.

the idea being expressed in that article is closer to the idea that young people should honour their elders by paying tribute to them than it is to a concept of mutual aid, which is historically closer to a type of conservative value system.

mutual aid is an anarchist term developed by kropotkin.

the scientific term, in english, is reciprocal altruism and came about a bit later, but does have origins in kropotkin's work.

i'm being lazy in sourcing from wiki, but this is fine for an easy concept like this:

In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time. The concept was initially developed by Robert Trivers to explain the evolution of cooperation as instances of mutually altruistic acts. The concept is close to the strategy of "tit for tat" used in game theory.

the reciprocity is key. if there is no expectation of altruism in return, it is not mutual aid, it is christian do-gooding.

and, what is the expectation that these people will receive something in return? there is not one. they're donating their time, in a market economy - and one in which labour is scarce. this is an affront against the working class!

if people are going to do these kinds of behaviours for strangers in a market system, they should expect a pay check for it. it is labour. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism

examples of mutual aid would include service workers pooling resources (money. shelter. labour.) to help each other get through the lack of work, or recovered patients donating resources back into the system to help the next wave of sick people.

and, there's a concept of mutualism attached to helping your parents or grandparents or other relatives, who raised you and fed you as children. 

but, "random acts of kindness" are not mutual aid and should not be confused for it. that's an abuse of the language that needs to be corrected immediately. anarchism will collapse under any kind of kantian system of ethics; it's not sustainable. and, i'd argue it isn't desirable, either.

this is one of the differences between christianity and socialism.

this isn't actually mutual aid, it's more like charity work. mutual aid is a type of reciprocity, and the people being helped here don't really have anything to offer.

as with any kind of charity, it also runs the risk of developing dependence. are you going to keep walking the dog when this is over?

anarchists should actually argue that many of these activities should really be treated as labour and associated with some kind of compensation, especially in a scenario where work is likely to be scarce for a while. mutual aid is not equivalent to free labour for the bourgeoisie.

so, don't confuse misguided christian do-gooding with socialism or anarchism. this is a co-option of the language that does not align with the theory and should be opposed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-campaign-launched-offering-help-to-those-self-isolating

i want the next "coronavirus myths busted" article that google tries to force me to read to include "flattening the curve", travel bans and "social distancing" as debunked concepts that won't work.

every moment spent distracting from the need to ramp up hospital capacity is a lost opportunity. and, when all of these hokey attempts at containment fail, these public officials are going to have to take responsibility for their refusal to properly look at the evidence and prepare when they had the chance.

and every moment spent talking about solidarity and sticking together is a moment distracting from the need to look at specific types of patients, and create policies that are properly targeted at the people that require them.

but, you can't convert a population of scientific illiterates on such short notice. and, ignorance and bad policy is likely to be the norm, moving forwards.

i'm not suggesting that canada is immune to anything.

i'm pointing out that, because we didn't restrict travel, and we offer easy access to free medical care, we probably have many fewer untraceable cases.

they are saying that there is some local transmission happening.

but, there is not currently any evidence of the kinds of things that are happening in the united states.

so, washington state and new york state just put a ban on congregating in bars. i need to present my own backlash - this is the kind of conservative scapegoating that makes me mad. no, boomers, the kids drinking at the bar didn't infect the people at the old folks home. this is a low impact, evidence-free step that makes conservatives feel safe, and has unfortunately become the norm as to how the democratic party acts and legislates, from outlandish conspiracy theories about russian election interference to anti-science, authoritarian reactions to pandemics.

but, is that going to work? no.

i would simply expect an increase in the number of house parties, or perhaps some gatherings in outdoor spaces. and, if the cops want to show up and shut them down, i'm actually in solidarity with the drinkers - because there's not any actual science underlying the dictate that they go home. it's panic. it's hysteria. it's control. and, it will backfire.

if people start drinking at houses or underground venues instead, they're going to end up drinking higher potency alcohol. nobody is going to refuse them service. and, they might end up driving home in situations where bartenders would have insisted otherwise. you're also likely to end up with people in closer contacts, people smoking indoors, people congregating in dirty basements and other various behaviours that will increase the spread of the virus, not decrease it.

you're releasing a string of expletives at the screen. you're shocked. why won't they stay home?

you're angry. but, there's no science underlying your anger - it's irrational panic that's been pushed down to you by the media.

so, how do you stop young people from socializing?

lol.

there is a long history in this world of governments fucking things up with boneheaded authoritarian responses that make things worse via micromanagement. 

and, there's usually a smart analyst around that explains why they're morons.

shows are indeed cancelling in michigan, but i had cleared out the month, anyways. i'm not missing anything. worse, i may find myself with an uncrossable border within a few weeks and find myself without any choice but to stay in. 

but, a large percentage of the cancelled shows are just moving to underground venues. and, i'll keep an eye out for that, as it happens.

i like house shows. they're cheaper...

i also watched evan solomon question trudeau before i left, and noticed the disconnect pretty staunchly.

trudeau has clearly been surrounding himself with supremely qualified people recently, and been fed a line that actually makes sense. evan solomon, less so.

i'm not trying to attack evan solomon's intelligence, exactly. i've sen enough of him to know that he's a moderately intelligent journalist that tries to follow the facts as best he can. he's not a demagogue; he's at least honest, whatever his defects. but, he probably never took a science course past grade 10, because the curriculum didn't force him to....and, he consequently has no ability to understand what he's talking about. like most people in his situation, he gets his information from cnn & cbc and takes it at face value. because what else do you do? you read what you understand.

so, he's legitimately concerned about the border, because he gets his information from shitty sources that tell him that you deal with this by shutting borders. why isn't canada shutting borders?

trudeau's response was surprisingly accurate, actually. we have to remember that trudeau, himself, isn't exactly a rhodes scholar....but he's got good people around him and it really does show. so, trudeau calmly explained that when the united states and italy clamped down on travel early (which is true.), it didn't work in stopping the spread. rather, people found ways around the barriers. in canada, we adopted a policy of accepting and documenting travel from hotspots, which allowed us to understand what was actually happening. as such, we think there's been much less random transmission.

so, the reason we're not shutting borders is that the science actually says that this makes things worse.

but, evan solomon kept pushing the point, because he didn't get it. and, trudeau started to get visibly frustrated - evan, why don't you fucking get it? it doesn't fucking work. lay the fuck off with the travel restrictions, k.

i just want to remind the government of something it knows - it has to stand firm on the science. it's going to run into a thousand evan solomons that want it to flex it's muscles and do something drastic, and they might even get a short term poll bounce if they give in, because people don't know, and don't care and don't want to learn - they want to follow their gut, they want to assert their male instincts to control, they want to take charge.

don't listen to them. hold your ground...

and, in the end, there will be data, and we can all hope the evan solomon's of the world learn the right lessons from it. most of them want to. really. they just don't have the tools to do it...

bernie seemed to be expecting an honest, gentlemanly debate on the issues.

it just demonstrates the point. 

bernie's platform slays. i've never denied that. but, he's a dope.

so, i got a pizza and tried to watch the debate, but cnn has made that somewhat difficult, unless you tuned in live (and i did not - i tuned in about 9:30).

i'm feeling fine.

the youtube streams were incomplete and shoddy, dropping audio, etc. but it's enough to get the point across.

it's virtually impossible for bernie to win a debate against somebody that successfully markets himself as a "decent guy" and yet is actually a pathological liar. biden would be absolutely devastated by a basic fact check, but the media won't bother with it.

so, biden's tactic is just to look you in the eye and lie his face off, which includes parroting certain positions that bernie has taken that he knows are popular. when trump & clinton did that, nobody believed them. biden seems to be more convincing for some reason. maybe it's because he's so "decent".

but, it's the same lies, and you're still stupid to fall for them.

bernie had to rip biden to shreds to have a chance. instead, he seemed perplexed by his dishonesty, and ultimately came off a little unprepared - he seems to have expected biden to show up and defend his record, rather than deflect or obfuscate it.

biden also seemed more in control of himself than we've generally seen recently.

i'm sorry, but i think joe won the match. and, bernie's about to get routed.

he'll probably win arizona, though.

actually, i'd like to see a random sample of people polled for testing for covid-19.

randomly generate 5000 numbers. make sure they haven't traveled. make sure they don't have symptoms, and make sure they don't have a history with the virus.

mail the tests out.

and crunch the numbers.

i'm curious.