05-09-2021, 11:23 AM
(05-09-2021, 07:52 AM)David Horn Wrote: You both missed the point: evidence abounded that their assumptions were wrong, and yet they persisted. This is the exact opposite of the scientific method, and a shameful example that cognitive dissonance affects even the best and brightest. Yes, there is always value in old ideas that have stood the test of time, but that is not the standard that applies to a new and emerging threat. The correct response: make some assumptions based on evidence at hand and collect data. If the assumptions prove wrong, abandon them and repeat step one. Hopefully, the researchers won't have to go through many bad ideas, but the process does lead to a real solution at the end.
BTW, some of that bad thinking is still standing in the way. A few trite but glaring examples are the CDCD's handling of vaccine passports (they should be encouraged and never illegal), mandatory vaccination of healthcare personnel (so far, only through individual employers) and widespread use of the passports to allow the vaccinated a return to normalcy (encouraging the reluctant to get them as well). Instead, Nero rosins his bow.
True. I may have been drawn to a side issue itself interesting. COVID-19, like AIDS, seemed to come from apparently nowhere, and huge (often with lethal consequences) came from mistakes involving responses to the two diseases. (They are of course very different in cause and consequences, so a perfect comparison is impossible. This said, there are parallels).
Wise people generally rely upon experiences and learning that can suddenly become irrelevant to a specific circumstance. Responses to AIDS were mixed at best, and so it was to COVID-19. People who had no problem with physicians taking greater care with "sharps" and those managing the supply of blood with blood potentially infected, but it could treat social pariahs such as gay men (they are not that anymore) and sex workers and IV drug users (who still are social pariahs), many could refer to AIDS as Divine Judgment. If the people dying from COVID-19 got no respect to begin with, then there might be more mass neglect. The victims at first were often people who were respectable before they got COVID-19 and were still respectable if they died. If they died, then assessments of respectability lost all relevance.
It is hardly news that people vastly misjudge risk. As an example, some people still smoke or otherwise use tobacco. Some people drink heavily and often or binge drink. Some people drive 20 or more miles above posted speed limits. Some people fail to heed warning signs. Some people use street drugs. Some people keep bears, Big Cats, or venomous snakes around. But all that is stupidity.
I accept that masks were the best defense against COVID-19, keeping people from spreading or contracting it. It is not quite sure whether masks did more to stop the spread by keeping people who already had it from emitting it or those who did not have it from receiving it. Cleaning surfaces and objects was a good idea, especially in the presence of people who had COVID-19, but not as strong. Social distancing helped. Deferring or denying large congregations of people really helped. This was before mass inoculations, and those seem definitive -- but not available for the critical months. At this point I see little cause for any adult to not have already been inoculated. Then again, I see no excuse for using heroin or meth... or messing with rattlesnakes.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.