RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/swans_of_a_different_color_.html

The next catastrophe might not be a virus

The advent of COVID-19 and the subsequent nation-wide lockdown amounts to a wake-up call of historical proportions. It has alerted us to the possibility of “black swans” swimming into our lives, or in the words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his bestselling The Black Swan, our susceptibility to “the role of the exceptional event leading to the degradation of predictability.”

A “black swan” is characterized by three attributes: “it is a rarity,” “it causes an extreme impact,” and we come to understand it only “after the fact.” The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 was such a “black swan” — a malign event we did not expect and plan for. At the same time, most beneficial discoveries and technologies did not come from design, planning or predictable outcomes but were rare events with positive implications; for example, Sir Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin. But what most concerns us is the negative “black swan,” with its destructive radius owing much of its malignity to the “built-in defect of conventional wisdom.”

Of course, the trope of the “black swan” is not Taleb’s invention but enjoys a long pedigree, going back to the Latin poet Juvenal’s sixth Satire against marriage, where the perfect wife is considered a disaster since she would be impossible to live with. In other words, something “good” = something “bad.”

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/18/a-deadly-if-dutiful-deference/

On March 14, when the current coronavirus hysteria was beginning to get going in earnest, I said “one of the silver linings” of this panic would be that “the people who will be blamed when it is over—which it will be, and soon—are the people who stoked the insanity.”

That was a little over a month ago and guess what? “Soon” is “now.”

I am not thinking primarily about the burgeoning protests against the draconian and largely pointless “lockdowns” and interdictions ordered by power-hungry governors and other high-handed politicians. Those have been gratifying, and I suspect that the protests against really egregious actors, like Gretchen “Cruella de Vil” Whitmer, the wretched governor of Michigan, at least for now, will only gather momentum in the coming weeks.

But I am hoping that the deeper and longer-lasting response will be a quiet revolution in sentiment against the people who abetted this wealth-destroying panic: against the media, first of all, but also the obscure bureaucratic elite that stoked the fear and helped spread the hysteria.

Every day, it seems, brings new reasons to distrust the models and projections that turned the American public into a fearful, quivering jelly. A month ago we were told that unless we turned our world into a giant condom and took care not to touch anyone or anything, millions would die. In recent weeks, those numbers have been revised downwards again and again, even as the strategies for counting cases and fatalities due to the insidious new virus have spiraled upwards. There is a great eagerness in municipalities thirsty for government funding to overstate the number of people affected by the virus.

In New York, the smoldering omphalos of the disease in America, with just over 40 percent of the cases nationwide, a third of fatalities were not even tested. Rather, they are said to have succumbed to “COVID-19 or an equivalent.” An equivalent, Kemo Sabe, like those generic drugs made in China that are supposedly the equivalent of the brand name varieties.

Things are moving quickly now. After losing some 10,000 points in a few weeks, the market has regained more than 5,000 points just as abruptly. Who knows whether that rally will continue. It’s pretty clear, though, that many of the 20 million jobs that evaporated and tens of thousands of businesses large and small that have been crushed will not be coming back. How do we deal with that?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15902/made-in-the-usa

Today, America must meet the challenge of the Coronavirus and Civilization-Abusers. We did it in years past, with patriotic Americans and a determined mobilized military against the Axis Nations — Japan, Germany, and for a time Italy — as well as against polio with the Salk and Sabin vaccines.

Whether it is in developing 5G or other technologies, America needs to mobilize and be the world’s leading export nation, the same way we became energy independent and a leading energy-exporting nation.

We have to grow our economy and not rely on enemies of democracies to import our essential goods, either medical or technological.

Kids are eager to soak up from television what people have done to make America great. Uplifting American “can-do” educational programming and documentaries could cheer them up and show them the way.

Eighty years ago, it was Hitler and Pearl Harbor, and more recently 9/11.

Today, America must meet the challenge of the Coronavirus and Civilization-Abusers. We did it in years past, with patriotic Americans and a determined mobilized military against the Axis Nations — Japan, Germany, and for a time Italy — as well as against polio with the Salk and Sabin vaccines.

https://blog.engati.com/chuck-brooks-ai-economy/

AI, the Economy’s Backbone | Chuck Brooks | Engati Engage

In the current digital era, Chuck Brooks reveals that technology defines who we are and what we do and AI will be the backbone of the Economy. We also discuss the emergence of digital in Customer Service and the growth of the remote economy.

Chuck Brooks is a globally recognized thought leader for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies. He is President of Brooks Consulting International and an Adjunct Faculty at Georgetown University. LinkedIn named Chuck as one of “The Top 5 Tech People to Follow on LinkedIn.” He was named by Thompson Reuters as a “Top 50 Global Influencer in Risk,” by IFSEC as the “#2 Global Cybersecurity Influencer,” and as a “Top 50 Global Marketer.” He is also a Cybersecurity Expert for “The Network” at the Washington Post, Visiting Editor at Homeland Security Today, and a Contributor to FORBES.

Summary of Interview on AI on the Economy with Chuck Brooks

We’ve summarized most of the answers to this interview in this section. But if you’d like to go through the full interview, there’s a link to the YouTube video below this section. 

How ready for a change do you think the customer service industry is and what role do you think AI plays in bringing about that change?

Chuck believes a technological transformation is already taking place. With or without COVID-19, the world has been progressing to digital in the last few years. He believes that tapping into Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning has the capability to reshape the landscape. According to Chuck Brooks, with AI and ML, one has the ability to analyze data to focus on trends. In fact, AI and ML has already been used in many industries- from medical to cybersecurity, to manufacturing and industrial. We’re using these technologies to even fight the virus!

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-4-15-what-is-the-proof-that-this-covid-19-thing-really-is-a-crisis

We are in the midst of an event that is completely unique in the history of our country, and as far as I can tell, in the history of the world: namely, the intentional suppression by governments (in the U.S., both federal and states) of a very large percentage of economic activity, in an effort to control a dangerous disease. There are estimates that the U.S. economy could decline by as much as 38% from its recent peak as a consequence of this great economic suppression. In a matter of just a few weeks, tens of millions of people, many of low to moderate income, have been suddenly thrown out of work; hundreds of thousands of businesses have closed, of which an unknown number may never be able to reopen; and trillions of dollars of value have been lost in the stock market.

Surely this kind of devastating government response would not be undertaken unless this disease represented a true crisis, and unless there was also solid evidence that the economic suppression would quickly end the crisis. But how do you distinguish what constitutes a “crisis” that warrants such a drastic response, versus something that is part of the normal and ongoing pain of human existence? And even if this is a bona fide crisis, why do we think that suppression of economic activity will improve the situation?

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

We are told we live in an era of science. Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote, “the good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.” But is that really so? Does not science change as new evidence is gathered? Statisticians use models to justify their findings. Yet models are only as good as their inputs. The epidemiologists’ models we have seen regarding COVID-19 have changed markedly over the past few weeks. In mid-March, Imperial College in London predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S., with no mitigation. By the first of April, modelers at Oxford saw that number drop to a range of 100,000 to 240,000, with some mitigation. Now the estimate is 60,000. A University of Virginia model shows COVID-19 will peak this summer, while Health Metrics Evaluation at the University of Washington suggests the virus will “peter out” in May. Models make assumptions about, among other factors, human behavior, the measurement of which is an art? What is a person to believe?

If we are to base our beliefs about COVID-19 on the basis of “evidence,” it is unsurprising that confusion abounds. We presume, with strong reason, that it came from the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China, but whether from a live bat sold for human consumption at a wet market or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control has never been made clear. We are told coronavirus is highly contagious. Ten days ago, the Los Alamos National Laboratory published an article in which they claimed that the transmission rate for COVID-19 is between 4.7 and 6.6. For comparison purposes, the seasonal flu, the transmission rate is 1.3. (The transmission rate is also referred to as the regeneration rate, or the R0.) At the midpoint, 5.7, over ten rounds, one person could infect 36 million people. The chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control in Beijing puts the transmission rate at between 1.0 and 5.0. At the midpoint of 2.5, and after ten rounds, one individual could infect 9,538 people.  Which are we to believe?

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/16/the-tyranny-of-scientism-and-the-subversion-of-science/

Let’s not pretend we’re being guided by “science.” It’s tyranny disguised as the common good to rationalize authoritarian tactics employed by politicians like Phil Murphy and his like-minded colleagues. And too many Americans are falling for it, no questions asked.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy unintentionally defined this critical moment in America’s history. “We weren’t thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this,” he explained about his draconian decrees, including a ban on religious gatherings, to fight coronavirus. “First of all, we looked at the data and the science and it says people have to stay away from each other.”

Murphy’s comments undoubtedly buoyed the egos of academic “experts” across the country. A leading politician boasted, without the slightest sense of remorse, that his fidelity to the almighty deity of “science” prevailed over protecting the rights of his state’s citizens.

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution? Meh. The six-foot distancing rule concocted by a handful of careerist bureaucrats in Washington? Bow and scrape.

“Science” is a one-word cudgel wielded by dishonest elected officials, journalists, and yes, scientists, to force us to conform to their political whims; this is particularly true of climate change. The Democratic Party, we are assured, is the “party of science.” Democratic lawmakers and candidates routinely promise that they “believe in science.” The idea that humans are the main (or sole) drivers of global warming is “settled science.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/relinquishing-personal-responsibility-warm-embrace-katie-hopkins/

“Get your bloody heads up! Get your heads up! Hopkins, you have a face that could melt glass, but I still want to see it – get your head up now!”

The Academy Sergeant Major at Sandhurst drilled this into us pretty hard. As the military knows well, if heads drop bodies do too, so they demand you keep your head up so the men you are leading will look to you and know it will be OK, that you have your eyes on the horizon.

But right now who knows what OK looks like? Like many others, my first concern is for my elderly parents and what would happen if they caught this thing. It’s all very well me being bolshy for my own health, but my heart is glass in their hands, waiting to be dropped.

When we do get our heads up, the faithful horizon is a blur, our path ahead is a jumble of unknowns and all the signposts, once so clear, seem to have been taken down.

Even the biggest billboard, the Presidential Election November 2020, is a little wonky with talk of a postal vote. Countless dates in our diaries – speeches and rallies, events to mobilize voters and bring in undecideds – have all moved from confirmed to pending, as if our email router had gone down. Such dates were our handrail to steady us through life.

It’s not just politically that we are untethered, but personally too. School end-of-term dates are meaningless when the term will not even begin. There are no exams for my teens to force their concentration. My eldest’s birthday surprise was cancelled by the venue, and our booked vacation now feels strangely wrong in a time of eternal holiday. These things were a gravity of our own making that kept our feet on the floor.

But the thing that has really kicked the legs from out underneath me is the willingness of the majority to swallow “news” as if they were hungry for more fear to amplify the panic, and to use it to make others more anxious. Why do people insist on sharing the worst of it by WhatsApp like cats bringing in their bird kill?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-racial-disparities-rhetoric-of-racism/

The virus has affected different groups at different rates, but the reasons are more complicated than the media are letting on.

I t’s hard not to notice the effort to place racism against black Americans at the center of the coronavirus story. In pursuit of its 1619 Project thesis, the New York Times has featured much coverage on the subject. In a front-page April 8 article titled, “Black Americans Bear the Brunt as Deaths Climb,” it highlighted black deaths in a number of cities. On an MSNBC telecast, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project’s coordinator, claimed, “It’s not surprising that black Americans are bearing the brunt of coronavirus.”

While it is unquestionable that black Americans have been disproportionately adversely affected, it is uncalled for to claim that they bear the brunt. Outside of urban central cities, white Americans account for an overwhelming share of deaths. For example, 30 percent of New York State deaths are outside of New York City. Among these, 60 percent have been white, while 17 percent have been black. In New York City, blacks make up 28 percent of coronavirus deaths, but all those over 65 years old compose over 70 percent. Indeed, nationally, senior citizens continue to bear the brunt of deaths.

Nor are black Americans the most affected by the economic effects of coronavirus. Immigrant communities bear much more of the economic impact of the lockdown. Latinos own 2.5 times as many businesses with paid employees as black Americans. Though only one-third of the black population, Asians own nearly five times as many businesses. And yet the national media has followed the Times’ lead. 60 Minutes and then Forbes highlighted the plight of the black owner of the Harlem restaurant Melba’s. Obviously this business and its pain are real, but using its singular struggles to try to make a broader point is misleading.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/04/roger-kimball-coronavirus-new-york/

This is supposed to be a New York letter, but since New York is closed for business, I am “sheltering in place” in a semi-secure undisclosed location wondering how long this nationwide wave of hysteria will last. As I write, Australia has but 61 deaths attributed to the new coronavirus that China bequeathed to the world, courtesy of a biological research laboratory in Wuhan. The United States has had about 20,000, nearly half in and around New York City.

That may seem like a lot, but let’s put that number in perspective. In the first place, the annual fatality rate in the US for the seasonal flu is anywhere from 25,000 to 80,000. Second, it is by no
means clear whether those 20,000 fatalities really count people who died from the effects the new virus (pneumonia, mostly) or merely people who, already serious ill with something else, died having also been infected by the virus. Fully 99 per cent of those who died in Italy had serious co-morbidities. Nearly 50 had multiple co-morbidities. Moreover most of those who become seriously ill are over 80. Many are over 90. It puts me in mind of the list Muriel Spark includes in her novel Memento Mori minuting the cause of death of various characters. “Lettie Colston . . . comminuted fractures of the skull; Godfrey Colston, hypostatic pneumonia; Charmian Colston, uremia; Jean Taylor, myocardial degeneration; Tempest Sidebottome, carcinoma of the cervix;” etc., etc.

This whole charade got going in earnest around Ash Wednesday, whose central ritual comes with the admonition that “Memento, homo, quiapulvis es et in pulverem reverteris.” Nevertheless, about a month ago the country began shutting down. Restaurants and bars were forced to close. So were schools and colleges. All “non-essential” businesses were shuttered. After a couple of weeks 3.6 million people had filed for unemployment benefits. Another week, and another 6 million had filed. As I write, the number is 16 million. In a month. Sixteen million people suddenly discovered that whatever their livelihoods were, they were deemed “non-essential” by other people whose putatively “essential” job is determining what is essential and what is not. Why is it, one wonders, that the bureaucrats who get to say what is and what isn’t essential
never seem to find their own endeavors declared “non-essential”?

People who know about radar and sonar often speak about the difference between “noise” and “signal.” You are trying to track that missile, plane, submarine, or whatever, and you need to be able to distinguish clearly between the signal the object of interest is sending back to you and the noise that accompanies that signal. Sometimes, some of the noise is deliberate, generated by people interested in keeping secret the location and movement of the object.