Victor Davis Hanson: the strategic advantage of erring on the side of caution for epidemiologists - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15083258
On today’s episode, Victor discusses the gloomy Eeyore-channeling prognosticators and the strategic upside of their being always pessimistic; the sheer amount of deaths from other diseases — and how they prompt no America shut-down; South Dakota governor Kristi Noem’s bucking the one-size-fits-all epidemic-policy response; how COVID-19 has achieved Advantaged Disease status; the EU’s failure to bear its rightful burden for global safety and security; and President Trump’s favorable/unfavorable numbers.


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#15083339
Yeah, I think there is going to be quite a reckoning for the so-called scientific community, as well as the Chinese Communist Party. Their projections here are even worse than their global warming predictions. They clearly panicked and overshot for reasons that are not entirely clear, and they've done tremendous damage to people's finances. This is the scientific-technological elite that Eisenhower warned us about.

Army field hospital for Covid-19 surge leaves Seattle after 9 days. It never saw a patient

This is a similar story with the Navy hospital ships. The hospitals didn't turn over non-infected people (paying customers) to the navy hospital ships. So now the hospital ships are treating patients with coronavirus.

Hospital ship Comfort to take coronavirus patients; crew member tests positive
The ship had originally been set to take only noncoronavirus patients as a way to ease pressure on overwhelmed city hospitals. But New York's strict social distancing measures have caused a drop in routine accidents and crime, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.

I guess the criminals don't have as many reasons to shoot each other.

A temporary hospital built by the Army Corps of Engineers at the city's Javits Center has also been approved to treat coronavirus patients.

So yet another one is going to be used for coronavirus.

We’re Owed an Explanation
Rush Limbaugh wrote:The doomsayers get to get away with everything. “Fauci Slashes U.S. Death Projection, Raising Hope for Reopening.” What is wrong with this headline? Does Dr. Fauci have anything to do with reopening? Yes. That’s what’s wrong with the headline. This is a Bloomberg News story. “Top infectious disease official credits social distancing.” I’m gonna start calling BS on this.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying it’s not important. I’m not saying it’s not relevant. But there is no way social distancing has made the difference in 2.2 million down to 60,000 dead. There is no way that social distancing made the difference from 240,000 dead projected now down to 60,000 dead. And what do you bet that number gets revised down in the coming days? There has to be something else going on here, and it has to be the projections were wrong in the first place because of the models, and we know that they were wrong.

But these guys get to revise their projections and hold on to their expertise status throughout the entire process. I just don’t believe social distancing has suddenly changed the data that lowers the forecast death toll from 240,000 to 60,000. We’re not stupid here.

Some of the best statisticians in the world don't work in the scientific community--even though they often have the education for it. They work for Wall Street firms in high finance. They understand modelling very well. Early in my career, I did a lot of that sort of thing. This is why I became a skeptic of the global warming doomsayers. It wasn't hard to find holes in their models around the time of the TAR, and they simply attacked the character of anyone who challenged their assumptions. Yet, they still get held up as experts, even when they fail miserably. Very few enterprises can sustain themselves when being led by people who fail chronically.

Rush Limbaugh wrote:California, oh, man, is this a huge See, I Told You So. Stanford researchers are now thinking, you know what, maybe it was herd immunity. Maybe the virus has been in California since last fall, and maybe in California they’ve developed an immunity to it, herd immunity. Most of the people that have been exposed to it got antibodies ’cause it makes no sense that in a state of 40 million the death toll is still under – I forget what it was — 750 a few days ago. It’s phenomenally low.

Limbaugh may be right. I think I may have had coronavirus in December. When I turned 50, I started getting flu shots. I got a boost in May, and this season's flu shot in December. Yet, around Christmas eve I came down with fever and a persistent, dry, utterly unproductive cough that lasted like two weeks. Nobody gives too much of a shit about flu deaths, so they probably didn't know what was killing people in December.

Rush Limbaugh wrote:In the state of Oregon practically statistically zero deaths. And it’s not because of social distancing. They told us, they tried to tell us that social distancing is what made the difference in California. California had a two-day head start on social distancing over New York. New York has more deaths than Italy. Are you telling me — see, we’re not stupid here. And you aren’t, either. You’re telling me that a two-day head start on social distancing in California is the reason why there are so few deaths in California compared to New York?

I think to a lot of people, this is just non-intuitive. It likely ran through California and nobody picked up on it.

WHO head cries racism to cover for his enabling of China’s lies about coronavirus
That’s right: WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is complaining that Taiwan is fostering supposedly racist attacks against him, and even death threats.

But he can’t even offer details beyond saying he’s been called names, “black or negro.”

Par for the course.

Here's another interesting one from Limbaugh: Stanford Researchers Looking at Herd Immunity in California
He cites two news articles: one from SFGate and one from the San Francisco Chronicle. Both have been taken down. Seems our news outlets aren't much more reliable than the Chinese Commmunist Party. Here's one article that survives: New study investigates California's possible herd immunity to COVID-19
Don't be surprised if this gets erased.

"Something is going on that we haven't quite found out yet," said Victor Davis Hanson a senior fellow with Stanford's Hoover Institute.

Hanson said he thinks it is possible COVID-19 has been spreading among Californians since the fall when doctors reported an early flu season in the state. During that same time, California was welcoming as many as 8,000 Chinese nationals daily into our airports. Some of those visitors even arriving on direct flights from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

"When you add it all up it would be naïve to think that California did not have some exposure," said Hanson.

For years California has been the No. 1 travel destination for Chinese tourists in the United States. Even after the U.S. halted flights from China this winter Chinese travelers were still able to come to California on flights from Europe and Canada.
#15083340
blackjack21 wrote:
1) Yeah, I think there is going to be quite a reckoning for the so-called scientific community,

2) Their projections here are even worse than their global warming predictions.

3) They clearly panicked and overshot for reasons that are not entirely clear

4) and they've done tremendous damage to people's finances.

5) This is the scientific-technological elite that Eisenhower warned us about.


6) Some of the best statisticians in the world don't work in the scientific community--even though they often have the education for it. They work for Wall Street firms in high finance.







You really ought to do stand up comedy.

1) There is a reckoning coming, for the idiots that said this was a hoax. For the idiot leaders that ignored the problem and suppressed the science. It would be crazy to stop the distancing without mass testing. But for some crazy reason, Trump doesn't want to.

2) Do you keep a running total of how many scientific disciplines you are smarter than? I'd like to know, we can call it the Delusion Quotient.

3) They know what they're doing, and they're sane.

4) The disease did that, and most economists think the economic damage would have been worse if we had let the disease kill as many as it wanted to.

5) It was the "military industrial complex". He was a fiscal conservative that didn't want to see military spending go crazy.

6) Even more of them are in insurance. The money is good. Your implication is deliriously silly...
#15083350
late wrote:For the idiot leaders that ignored the problem and suppressed the science.

The Chinese Communist Party won't go quietly.

late wrote:It would be crazy to stop the distancing without mass testing. But for some crazy reason, Trump doesn't want to.

It's not about distancing, it's about getting people back to work. Face masks will be common in the near future.

late wrote:2) Do you keep a running total of how many scientific disciplines you are smarter than? I'd like to know, we can call it the Delusion Quotient.

I didn't say I was smarter than anyone. The point is that the so-called experts predictions are consistently wrong, such that we can question whether or not they are as smart as they say they are.

late wrote:3) They know what they're doing, and they're sane.

Then why are their prognostications changing by a factor of five? That's way beyond ANOVA. Clearly, once again, there is something wrong with the models, and something wrong with their understanding of the problem.

late wrote:4) The disease did that, and most economists think the economic damage would have been worse if we had let the disease kill as many as it wanted to.

No. Quarantines did that. Most people are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. Some people develop SARS from coronavirus, usually old people already retired and those with chronic health conditions. If anything, those deaths would probably reduce the strain on Social Security, Medicare and health systems. So I rather doubt that most economists can be polled accordingly.

late wrote:5) It was the "military industrial complex". He was a fiscal conservative that didn't want to see military spending go crazy.

That was one of his warnings. The other was a scientific-technological elite. You wouldn't know about that, because you get your information from non-primary sources. Of course, you can always check for yourself.

Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It's an important element of scholarship to check sources; otherwise, you only know what people want you to know.

late wrote:6) Even more of them are in insurance. The money is good. Your implication is deliriously silly...

Insurance is high finance. In fact it is critical to it. Try getting a home loan or a car loan without insurance, and see where that gets you.
#15083352
"Stanford researchers are now thinking, you know what, maybe it was herd immunity"; well, no, not "Stanford researchers", just a Stanford expert on ancient Greek and Roman military history. And I can't see why the military historian thinks California is somewhere special when its deaths per million population have been 14, to today - the same figure as for Tennessee, Virginia, Arizona, South Carolina, Idaho and Kansas. Or why, if he thinks it did get to California last fall, there wasn't a big upturn in severe illness and death at the time - as Wuhan noticed.

Or maybe that's because he's a military historian, not a researcher in any relevant field. I notice that when the Stanford Daily did an article on the antibody testing, they didn't go to Hanson for any quote - because they actually realise he has no knowledge in this field at all.

blackjack21 wrote:He cites two news articles: one from SFGate and one from the San Francisco Chronicle. Both have been taken down. Seems our news outlets aren't much more reliable than the Chinese Commmunist Party. Here's one article that survives: New study investigates California's possible herd immunity to COVID-19
Don't be surprised if this gets erased.

Well, the SF Chronicle has a story on the testing: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/art ... 180786.php . Nothing about it arriving in the fall, of course, because they don't think a military historian has anything to add to the story either. SFGate has taken down their copy of the Caitlin Conrad story - in the Google cache at the moment: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/ ... clnk&gl=uk

I'll go out on a limb and predict they took it down because it's a steaming pile of shit that fails to mention the "researcher" is an ancient military historian who is trying to hijack the story of the study by his medical colleagues. Which is pretty much what everyone who has replied to her on Twitter says:



But go ahead, indulge your paranoid fantasy that there's some cover-up of the great truth uncovered by the bold Classics professor on the subject of epidemiology.
#15083353
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:"Stanford researchers are now thinking, you know what, maybe it was herd immunity"; well, no, not "Stanford researchers", just a Stanford expert on ancient Greek and Roman military history.

He's not the one conducting the research. They are using tests to check for the presence of antibodies. I'd happily test for that, because it ruined my Christmas/New Years holiday. My thought at the time was "So much for flu shots," but it well may not have been the flu.

Prosthetic Conscience wrote:Or why, if he thinks it did get to California last fall, there wasn't a big upturn in severe illness and death at the time - as Wuhan noticed.

Wuhan didn't notice. A Chinese doctor did, because there was no obvious cause of pneumonia in the patients treated. The doctor was silenced by the CCP, and later died--ostensibly coronavirus.

Prosthetic Conscience wrote:I'll go out on a limb and predict they took it down because it's a steaming pile of shit that fails to mention the "researcher" is an ancient military historian who is trying to hijack the story of the study by his medical colleagues.

At no point does anybody say that Victor Davis Hanson was conducting the research. He just made a comment about it.

Prosthetic Conscience wrote:But go ahead, indulge your paranoid fantasy that there's some cover-up of the great truth uncovered by the bold Classics professor on the subject of epidemiology.

They sure don't like any political commentary. China has certainly gone to great measures to cover up the pandemic in China.
#15083354
blackjack21 wrote:
1) The Chinese Communist Party won't go quietly.


2) It's not about distancing, it's about getting people back to work. Face masks will be common in the near future.


3) I didn't say I was smarter than anyone. The point is that the so-called experts predictions are consistently wrong, such that we can question whether or not they are as smart as they say they are.

4)No. Quarantines did that. Most people are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. Some people develop SARS from coronavirus, usually old people already retired and those with chronic health conditions. If anything, those deaths would probably reduce the strain on Social Security, Medicare and health systems. So I rather doubt that most economists can be polled accordingly.


5) That was one of his warnings.


6) Insurance is high finance.



1) Don't forget Trump. For once.

2) Back away from the crazy.

3) You are consistently wrong, and not just with science.

4) You keep making assertions without anything to back them up. It would be annoying if I took you seriously. I've seen a number of economists argue that a kill all you want policy would cause more economic damage.

"While this might sound like an economic argument, it enjoys little support among economists. In a recent University of Chicago survey of dozens of prominent economists, almost all of them agreed with the idea that the economy would suffer if the U.S. abandoned “severe lockdowns” while the infection risk remained high."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/new-laws-pandemic-economics/609265/

Like I said, back away from the crazy.

5) No, that was 'THE' warning, the one that's famous, and that's famous for a reason.

Ike was quite conservative. He didn't like big budgets or big science. Problem is, if you want corona vaccines, or a thousand other new things, somebody has to pay the bill. Big Science is routine now, look at the fight over 5G, or solar panels, etc.

6) Doing actuarial work for a life insurance company is not high finance...
#15083357
blackjack21 wrote:Rush Limbaugh wrote:

There is no way that social distancing made the difference from 240,000 dead projected now down to 60,000 dead.


It's a fact that it hasn't. The 240,000 projection was accounting for the lockdown.

And what do you bet that number gets revised down in the coming days?


They have to fraudently inflate the death count just to get to 60,000.

But these guys get to revise their projections and hold on to their expertise status throughout the entire process.


Neil Ferguson has caused three retarded panics in the last 20 years. The first one he caused was foot and mouth which led to the destructions of tens of millions of head of cattle and cost the UK billions of dollars. The second one was 2009 H1N1 hoax that again cost the UK billions of dollars in wasted pharmaceutical stockpiles, and this latest on which destroyed the global economy and is going to kill millions of people. And I have no doubt that he will survive this professionally, he'll probably even be knighted or something, and he'll be back in a few years causing another massive retarded panic.
#15083375
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:"Stanford researchers are now thinking, you know what, maybe it was herd immunity"; well, no, not "Stanford researchers", just a Stanford expert on ancient Greek and Roman military history. And I can't see why the military historian thinks California is somewhere special when its deaths per million population have been 14, to today - the same figure as for Tennessee, Virginia, Arizona, South Carolina, Idaho and Kansas. Or why, if he thinks it did get to California last fall, there wasn't a big upturn in severe illness and death at the time - as Wuhan noticed.

Or maybe that's because he's a military historian, not a researcher in any relevant field. I notice that when the Stanford Daily did an article on the antibody testing, they didn't go to Hanson for any quote - because they actually realise he has no knowledge in this field at all.

Well, the SF Chronicle has a story on the testing: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/art ... 180786.php . Nothing about it arriving in the fall, of course, because they don't think a military historian has anything to add to the story either. SFGate has taken down their copy of the Caitlin Conrad story - in the Google cache at the moment: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/ ... clnk&gl=uk

I'll go out on a limb and predict they took it down because it's a steaming pile of shit that fails to mention the "researcher" is an ancient military historian who is trying to hijack the story of the study by his medical colleagues. Which is pretty much what everyone who has replied to her on Twitter says:



But go ahead, indulge your paranoid fantasy that there's some cover-up of the great truth uncovered by the bold Classics professor on the subject of epidemiology.


Your arguments pertaining to Hanson would have been valid if he indeed pretended to speak from a position of authority, but in reality he was merely conjecturing, making references to the work of his fellow Stanford alumni or joining in on the ongoing discussion about the epidemiological doom-and-gloom models constantly being revised and downgraded in severity.

This isn't a blood sport. Your haughty disdain just makes you tiresome. Also, you're including things that I already referenced in other threads. Not impressive, even in the slightest.

There were by the way more flu fatalities in California in early 2020. But apparently they try to identify the responsible viruses early on for the flu shot industry, which means that it's unlikely that they didn't detect it. But who knows, can't say that I read all of it.
#15083379
@The Sabbaticus
"Your arguments pertaining to Hanson would have been valid if he indeed pretended to speak from a position of authority"
He did - he got himself called "a Stanford researcher". He is not a researcher in anything remotely relevant to Covid-19, only to ancient history. None of the actual researchers hold this unfeasible "it's been in California over 6 months, but no one noticed, and it didn't spread across the USA either" bullshit. The Caitlin Conrad article is complete bollocks, thanks to him.

"This isn't a blood sport."
I agree. Any idiot trying to get quoted as a "researcher" in the media, when he isn't, should be condemned. I think Stanford need to reprimand him for misrepresenting himself. Ethically, he's a turd.

"Your haughty disdain just makes you tiresome."
I think this is the first time I've talked about Davis Hanson on this board. He needs to be exposed.

"Also, you're including things that I already referenced in other threads. Not impressive, even in the slightest."
Oh no, you mean you've admitted VDH is full of shit somewhere else, but forgot to mention it in this thread? Well, that's your fault.

"State public health officials noted that influenza activity remains high statewide and that the influenza B (Victoria) and the influenza A (H1N1)pdm09 viruses are both circulating widely in California."
So the flu deaths were identified as known flu variants. Which means there wasn't a secret killer virus causing them. So that is more reason to see VDH is stupidly wrong.

@blackjack21 ,
"He's not the one conducting the research. They are using tests to check for the presence of antibodies."
Yes, I said that already, though you didn't. You were the one who repeated great screeds of Rush Fucking Limbaugh (I really didn't think anyone here was gullible enough to think he knows what the fuck he's talking about, but, there you go) using VDH's "it's been here since the fall!!!" crap. That included "Stanford researchers are now thinking, you know what, maybe it was herd immunity". That's the lie; the reporter did indeed say "that Victor Davis Hanson was conducting the research." Only he was thinking that.

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