CNBC and others report that Pfizer estimates their vaccine is 90% effective. More study is on going, but this is great news; peer review awaits.
“The U.S. FDA set a threshold of 50% effectiveness for a Covid-19 vaccine to merit approval. A 90% effective vaccine would be extraordinary,†Dr. Peter Drobac, a global health physician and director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford, said via email.
“We’ll need to see the full results subjected to independent review. Let’s take a deep breath, but this is very promising news,†he added.
There are some downsides: like this vaccine needs to be stored at -94F. So it might be harder to handle than Moderna’s which only needs -4F. But, still. Yeah!
Good news on the vaccine front.
.
Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Proves 90% Effective in Latest Trials
Drugmaker and partner BioNTech could seek FDA authorization by end of November
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-from-pfizer-and-biontech-works-better-than-expected-11604922300
.
“The vaccine proved to be more than 90% effective in the first 94 subjects who were infected by the new coronavirus and developed at least one symptom, the companies said Monday.”
“The timetable suggests the vaccine could go into distribution this month or next, though U.S. health regulators have indicated they will take some time to conduct their review.”
.
This is very good news. This part is a bit strange, Trump conspiracy theorists are going to love this:
.
“Researchers originally planned for a first interim analysis after 32 subjects became sick. After talking with the FDA, Pfizer agreed to conduct the early peek after at least 62 subjects became sick, Dr. Jansen said.
By the time the two sides came to an agreement, the number of subjects who developed Covid-19 symptoms reached 94, Dr. Jansen said.”
Tom Scharf,
“Trump conspiracy theorists are going to love this”
.
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist. Any rational person can see that the FDA was dragging it’s feet to make sure nothing good would be announced before the election.
Since the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are both based on messenger RNA, the Pfizer results bode well for the Moderna vaccine trial results.
.
Unfortunately, the data is very sketchy. There were 94 total cases. “More than 90% effective” indicates 9 or fewer cased in the inoculation group (22,000 people), but they did not specify exactly how many in the inoculation group developed illness, it’s severity, nor whether or not the inoculation group members who developed covid did so after one dose or two, nor if any developed illness after two doses and sufficient time for full immune response.
.
Lastly, the naysayers demand that Pfizer prove a negative: “How can we be sure those who never developed illness didn’t become invective and spread covid to others in spite of receiving the vaccine.” That is the craziest idea I have ever heard proposed. The goal seems to be demanding destructive restrictions on personal behavior until every person in the world is inoculated…. which will be exactly…. never.
STeve
My question would be “Must we care?” I realize that herd immunity is the “gold standard”. But I don’t see why I should be deprived of a 90% effective vaccine just because I might continue to be potentially effective just as I already am.
.
As far as I’m concerned if the vaccine exists and some people elect to not take it, then they are taking that risk. Or they can stay home and protect themselves while those who are protected against severe illness get on with their lives.
.
I don’t think it’s remotely fair to allow their choice to keep me social distancing and wearing a mask forever just because the vaccine doesn’t achieve the “ideal” of conffering herd immunity.
.
Lots of vaccines haven’t achieved herd immunity. That’s no reason to not allow me to get protected.
Lucia,
“But I don’t see why I should be deprived of a 90% effective vaccine just because I might continue to be potentially effective just as I already am.”
.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you can’t get a vaccination… I think they are suggesting that we can almost never end all the draconian restrictions on personal behavior which have been put in place due to covid. IMO, that suggestion is evil and destructive, but not at all surprising when you recognize that the restrictions are mainly about power over the individual, with only minor benefits in reducing spread of the virus.
SteveF,
My view is that as soon as people can chose to get vaccinated and those who want to get it, we can end the draconian restrictions. Then those who elect not to get the vaccine can decide for themselves what to do. They can chose risk or not.
.
I’m not concerned about spread of virus. I’m concerned about people. If the vaccine means individuals can avoid being hurt by the virus, then as long as those who want it can get it we leave the rest to personal choice.
Lucia,
“My view is that as soon as people can chose to get vaccinated and those who want to get it, we can end the draconian restrictions. ”
.
I would go further: as soon as those at significant risk of death (say those over 65, or with other serious health problems) who want the vaccine can get it, all draconian restrictions should end. Even that puts ending the restrictions at least 5 or 6 months away. If the restrictions don’t end until the vaccine is available to everyone, then it could take until the end of next year.
.
I remain convinced reality on the ground is going to outrun most of the need for a vaccine by the time it becomes commonly available. I checked the trends for cases and deaths in the 27 individual states in Brazil (the totals for the country are here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil/). I had expected to see glaring differences between large/small populous/sparse states, which would suggest a low future slow drop in totals. Nope, the individual states all follow pretty much the same trend: both cases and deaths are falling rapidly most everywhere in Brazil. Unless something very strange happens, deaths per day due to coronavirus will likely be not more than a couple of percent of deaths due to all causes (~5,000 per day) by the time the vaccine becomes available to most people in Brazil.
.
The USA is more complicated because the spread has been variably slowed by lockdowns, closures, etc, but I will be surprised if the pandemic is not mostly over by the time the vaccine is available to everyone.
SteveF,
Agreed. Obviously, those who are cautious and don’t want the vacinne can still elect social distancing. But things should start to open up.
.
If the pandemic is over when the vacinne is available to me, I’ll still want to take it.
The markets are very happy. It was an open question how effective a vaccine would be. This puts a reasonable timetable in place (< 6 months?) for when things can return to normal safely. That number is way better than natural herd immunity, because we really don't know that number.
.
I expect there to be a lot fighting for vaccine priority and endless teeth gnashing by the usual suspects for "fair" access. Countries that paid for it should get it first, and those most vulnerable (age, healthcare industry, etc.) should be in front of the line.
.
The best way to convince people to take the vaccine is probably to tell them that they will be last in line to get it, ha ha.
Tom Scharf,
“The best way to convince people to take the vaccine is probably to tell them that they will be last in line to get it, ha ha.”
.
I think it will help if you tell people nobody will care much about anyone who gets very sick with covid if they have refused the vaccine. It will also (really) help motivate the reluctant if mouth bikinis and staying 6 feet away from others are no longer required.
Ok… I look into other cache plugins. (The save CPU.) I just sort of randomly turned things on and off. That one clearly was screwing something up.
Is that approx 94 or negative 94 for storage temperature?
MikeN, -94 deg Fahrenheit per this article. Presumably they actually specify -70 degrees C, but we stupid ‘Murricans can’t figger those centipede degrees.
It’s damn cold. The rival moderna vaccine doesn’t need quite as low storage. (I read -4F.)
.
I am a bit surprised by the very low storage temperature requirement. I have some personal experience with cold storage stability, and for most materials the formulation includes some “anti-freeze†type compound (eg sucrose) which prevents 100% crystallization of water when the solution freezes, leaving a small volume of non-crystalline phase where the structure of the particulate materials suspended in the liquid is not ruined by the physical stress of crystallization. The lower the storage temperature, the greater the fractional conversion of liquid water to ice. My understanding of the m-RNA vaccine is that the m-RNA is incorporated into small ‘lipid vesicles’ which enter cells via phagocytosis, and the RNA then starts producing virus protein which activates the immune response.
.
Lipid vesicles tend to be somewhat fragile, so I would expect very low storage temperature to be more physically stressful. I look forward to reading publications that explain why such low temperatures are needed.
The storage temperature specified is very close to dry ice temperature….. -109F (-78C). That may not be coincidence. A small, well insulated dry ice shipping package can last a week or more, and it is possible to add more dry ice if more time is needed. So the storage question is mostly “where is dry ice available?â€. Not everywhere, but it can be shipped in where it is not locally available.
Most labs store samples in -80 C freezers. Liquid nitrogen is usually the next step down.
I guess we can’t kick around the pharmaceutical industry anymore? Turns out having a bunch of highly profitable pharmacy mega-corps with vast R&D budgets can come in handy occasionally.
.
Frontline healthcare, essential industry workers, pharmaceutical industry looks to be the heroes here so far. The government response has been exactly as I expected, a bumbling incompetent start when faced with an unprecedented event, followed by slowly getting their act together.
Doesn’t “science†say people who have had covid don’t need to wear a mask? The NFL is fining coaches who have already had covid for mask violations which I think is a bit harsh (the behavior here is nutty, a lot of people pull their mask down to talk loudly to others, then put the mask back up, ha ha).
.
I understand a uniform policy makes things easier to enforce and might put people at ease, but things like wearing a covid positive armband could be substituted for a mask.
Tom,
It’s branding. They want a look that encourages masks to be normal behavior. Football is entertainment-theater. A special category of entertainment-theater, but still that’s the category. In that context enforcing rules about uniforms and costumes is entirely fair as long as the rules are communicated to those who might be fined.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193588): “The government response has been exactly as I expected, a bumbling incompetent start when faced with an unprecedented event, followed by slowly getting their act together.”
.
Governments have gotten their acts together? Not so that I’ve noticed. A few (Sweden, Japan, etc) had their acts together from the beginning, but the ones who didn’t largely still don’t.
.
The latest wave in New Mexico appears to have caught the health care system unprepared. The authorities seem to be in panic mode, with no idea what to do. Then can’t even engage in mask and lockdown theater since they never much let up on that stuff and know that the population is sick of it.
The latest outbreak in Europe has peaked, looks like the US is at a least a week or two away from peak in the Midwest.
I think testing is mostly under control, and they have figured out how to do partial lockdowns. Panic over respirators has stopped, PPE is generally available, hospitals aren’t overflowing. It’s gotten better. Government can’t stop this, only manage it.
Mike M,
“A few (Sweden, Japan, etc) had their acts together from the beginning, but the ones who didn’t largely still don’t.”
.
Those two countries are so far apart in policies that I don’t know how you are defining “having their acts together”. Could you explain?
.
Sweden has about 600 deaths per million population, Japan has 14. Japan is an island with relatively few foreign visitors and very high social homogeneity, Sweden has lots of visitors from other countries, and with the addition of many muslims, is much more socially diverse. The approach taken by Japan (voluntary limited social interactions, aggressive contact tracing, aggressive isolation/quarantine of contacts, etc.) would have been very difficult if not impossible for Sweden.
Tom Scharf,
“Government can’t stop this, only manage it.”
.
Sure, but I think what they can manage is very limited. I think that policies, especially the most draconian that have been adopted, can slow the spread of the virus, but not stop it. Or put another way, the speed with which the population approaches heard immunity can be modified, but not easily stopped.
.
Where I think policies could have made a difference is in the number of elderly who die from the virus. IMO, policies were not (and still are not!) appropriately focused on protecting those most likely to die from the virus. There are very big differences between deaths per confirmed case, ignoring the early part of the pandemic when testing was sparse and many cases (most!) were never confirmed. But even with widely available testing, there remain substantial differences in deaths per confirmed case, which suggest to me differences in how well the elderly are being protected from infection.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193595): “I think testing is mostly under control, and they have figured out how to do partial lockdowns. Panic over respirators has stopped, PPE is generally available, hospitals aren’t overflowing. It’s gotten better. Government can’t stop this, only manage it.”
.
Testing delays where I am are 3-5 days, compared to 2 days last spring. It is my impression that is normal.
Panic over respirators has stopped because (a) it was based on deeply flawed projections and (b) doctors have figured out they should put far fewer patients on respirators.
The PPE situation is indeed better, but is that government or the private sector?
In New Mexico, they are screaming that hospitals are at capacity. Many other places in the mountain west and north central states as well.
Yes, government can’t stop this. I see little evidence they can manage it, although some places (Florida?) seem to have had some success.
Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced he wouldn’t vote for court packing or eliminating the filibuster. Pretty much a defensive move for a Democrat from a state Trump won by 40 points, but rules out at least that episode of crazy from happening.
Joe Manchin voted to impeach Trump.
He will vote however Schumer tells him to vote.
This statement was just to try and win the Georgia Senate races by signaling the worst won’t happen.
He even gave that as his reason for making the statement, trying to find the word ‘allay’.
MikeN,
I note that no Senator has ever gone back on a promise, at least not over the last 20 seconds. Joe Manchin is 73, and does not face re-election until 2024, at 77. I doubt he could win re-election, and I doubt he will try, so he is essentially free from worry about the voters.
.
Manchin’s promise is worse than garbage, and specifically designed to depress Republican turnout in the Georgia runoffs. Even if Manchin were to not eliminate the filibuster and not pack the SC (which I do not for a second believe!) he could and would vote for all manner of destructive laws, just as he always has, via the “reconciliation†filibuster loophole: taxes would skyrocket, unlimited deductions for state and local taxes restored, the individual mandate would be put back in place at a punitive and ever rising level, and spending on things like bailing out Illinois, Connecticut, and a host of other blue states would be almost instantaneous.
.
The only way to keep the 100 members of the lunatic “progressive caucus†in the House from doing terrible damage to the country is for Republicans to hold the Senate. I am going to contribute to the two Republicans.
Joe Manchin voted for Kavanaugh (and against Barrett)
He voted against cap and trade
I doubted very seriously he would vote for this crazy stuff, his career would be OVER if he did this. However, I am surprised he would take a position this early.
.
You guys have no idea what you are talking about.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/joe-manchin-iii/
Tom Scharf (Comment #193629): “I doubted very seriously he would vote for this crazy stuff, his career would be OVER if he did this.”
.
He voted to convict Trump, which would seem to fall in the same category.
.
Tom Scharf: “However, I am surprised he would take a position this early.”
.
So there must be a reason. Like influencing the Georgia runoffs.
.
Yeah, Manchin voted with Trump 52% of the time. For perspective, Schumer voted with Trump 23% of the time.
.
Maybe Manchin means it, maybe he doesn’t.
I grew up there, and followed his career for decades. Guns, coal, religion, abortion all very important to WV, all things a packed court would threaten. He was governor, secretary of state, senator. Harry Reid hated him. My educated guess is that he will never go back on this, it is also my educated guess that he would have never said these things without some kind of implicit consent from leadership. It’s strategic, but that doesn’t make it untrue.
.
The left would give up court packing to win GA, and they probably made that calculation. I don’t think they are going to get packing through anyway, so this isn’t much of a sacrifice and packing hurts them politically with moderate voters. Only the very left have come out explicitly supporting this as far as I know.
.
There are political moderates, just usually only from “your state”, ha ha. There is no doubt things could change, but I don’t consider this an empty promise from what I know.
Happy Veterans Day all,
Anyone reading here who has served, thank you for my freedom. You’re all heroes in my book.
I wonder if Manchin would have voted for Kavanaugh if it were the deciding vote. He had permission to vote yes to get reelected. He held back declaring his vote until the last moment. If Susan Collins had announced she was a no, would he have still declared yes?
This is how it works for all of these Senators in Republican states. They are given passes by the majority leader to vote no on specific issues. Same with Collins and Gardner on the Republican side. I don’t know if Collins ever abandoned McConnell when they needed her vote. I was expecting her to vote yes on Barrett to balance off Republican Senators who couldn’t make the vote due to COVID.
I don’t think Manchin ever voted against cap and trade. It passed the House, but I don’t remember it being brought up in the Senate.
He did film an ad of him shooting the cap and trade bill.
Manchin did vote against eliminating the filibuster of judicial nominees and cabinet appointments in 2013, when Democrats had 55 seats.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193633): “it is also my educated guess that he would have never said these things without some kind of implicit consent from leadership. It’s strategic, but that doesn’t make it untrue. … The left would give up court packing to win GA, and they probably made that calculation.”
.
That makes perfect sense.
Tom Scharf,
“I doubted very seriously he would vote for this crazy stuff, his career would be OVER if he did this. However, I am surprised he would take a position this early.”
.
Seems to me that at 73, and not facing the voters until he is 77, his career is pretty much over anyway. He won his 2012 election to the Senate by 30+%, while 6 years later in 2018, in spite of relatively low Republican turn-out (the 2018 ‘blue wave’), he won with a 3% plurality. Chances are very good he would lose anyway in 2024. In addition, he has multiple times said that he is frustrated that he “can’t get anything done” in the Senate… no shock there, he has been in the minority for a while. He even suggested that he would prefer to run for Governor than continue in the Senate.
.
He probably does have permission from Schumer et al to announce his opposition to eliminating the filibuster and court packing, to make it easier for Dems to win the two Georgia runoffs. But from a practical POV, none of that matters much. If the Dems get to 50:50 (with VP tie breaker) they will do lots of very bad stuff. Manchin will vote for tax increases, spending increases, and ‘reallocation’ of spending to ‘better uses’ via reconciliation, where the filibuster doesn’t apply.
Ideology scores for Democrats
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2019/party-senate-democrat/ideology
Didn’t help Doug Jones much, and I think the chances of Jones voting on court packing was also exactly zero had he won.
.
So if your career is going to be over, you will plead fealty to a far left you never liked or supported … or would you stay loyal to the voters in your state? This guy is not a closet AOC.
.
It works both ways, you cannot demand a Senator take a career ending vote, they won’t do it, it’s just a dance in the end to minimize political damage. Leadership hands out committee chairmanships and so forth so that’s the type of leverage they have.
.
Almost everything that won’t pass never gets voted on, and court packing will very likely be one of those.
.
WV was Democratic for a long time based on (coal) unions and a desire for federal handouts to a poor state. The left’s culture changes drove them out. Narrowly divided Senate keeps most crazy out, but not all of it. I very much hope Republicans win at least one of the seats in GA.
.
If Manchin was a new Democrat without a long history in the state he would have no chance of winning in WV. The other WV Senator Capito (R) just won reelection in 2020 by a margin of 43%.
Senate now officially 50-48 for Republicans, not that this was a surprise. Not sure if getting Trump’s “help” in GA is a good or bad thing. The Libertarian isn’t on the ballot, and neither is Trump to vote against. Historically Republicans fare well in these type of isolated elections. One thing for sure, we can’t trust the polling.
Tom… yep. We’ll see. I can’t say I have any insight into GA.
I hope Trump limits his participation in the GA runoffs to a bit of lip service in support of the Republicans, and nothing more. The guy LOST GA; he is not going to be a plus in January, especially after all his escapades since the election. I think he should focus on his golf game between now and January 20. And drawing up a long list of people to pardon before he leaves office.
McConnell will have 50:48 until the GA runoffs are completed and the winners certified, which means the new Senate will start in early January with McConnell in charge.
Tom Scharf,
” I think the chances of Jones voting on court packing was also exactly zero had he won.”
.
Donno. Jones voted against most all of Trump’s appointees, including votes against both Kavanaugh and Barrett. Jones also voted for Trump’s impeachment at every opportunity… procedural as well as the final votes to remove from office, even though he knew it was never going to happen. I think, like Manchin, Jones understood he had no real chance to be re-elected, so he mostly voted his convictions….. dead man walking, as they say.
.
I have not found any indication Jones was opposed to court packing. Do you have evidence of that?
No insight on Jone’s actual intentions, only my assertion any Democrat voting for it would get eliminated in a Republican state. It’s way too important. I can’t even find a tally of where Senators stand on the issue. It seems nobody ever seemed interested enough to get those answers, not that I saw anybody actually ever answer that question when asked.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193651): “I can’t even find a tally of where Senators stand on the issue. It seems nobody ever seemed interested enough to get those answers.”
.
No, they just all followed Biden’s example and took the position that ther public has no right to know where they stand.
Yes, right. They all demurred. A sign that any answer was going to hurt them no matter what it was. What wasn’t helpful at all to the Democrats in my view is all the academics and media cheerleading this effort to pack the court. It will be interesting to see what the GA candidates have to say here, assuming the media even bothers to press the issue. They will probably go down the “have a non-partisan commission study the issue†non-answer. If this commission’s answer was to be close to binding, I think we better put together a non-partisan commission to determine who will be put on that commission. It’s useless, it’s an indicator that this idea is dead.
https://covidtracking.com/data/national
Looking at the difference between Nov 9 and Nov 8 in hospitalizations. Is there a way for the cumulative hospitalized to increase by less than the current hospitalized?
Tom Scharf, did you notice on election night, the name Don Blankenship kept coming up in the returns?
Even if Democrats take both Senate races, it is not clear that they can do much with it.
The Senate was split 50-50 in 2001, and Democrats demanded equal representation on all committees, co-chairmanship, and many other things. They got many of their demands, and Republicans would manage to get the same now that they have this precedent.
Democrats held up the Bush tax cut, until Senator Jeffords announced he was switching parties after the tax cut passed.
MikeN,
I didn’t hear the name Don Blankenship until your post. What would the relevance of that be?
MikeN (Comment #193657): “Looking at the difference between Nov 9 and Nov 8 in hospitalizations. Is there a way for the cumulative hospitalized to increase by less than the current hospitalized?”
.
I suspect that has to do with the two numbers not being updated at the same time in some states. Maybe get the all states file, sort by date, then look for states with zeros in the hospital_incease column.
MikeN,
Republicans were suckers to play by Queensbury Rules in 2001. Democrats won’t. My observation is they lust for power over everyone, by any means available: honorable, dishonorable, honest, dishonest, legal (or not, “dreamersâ€), and constitutional (or not, see subversive liberal SC rulings). It is the result of absolute belief that the ‘arc of history’, as Obama described it, bends their way. The grubby reality: the ends always justify the means.
Some say the left has ruined comedy, but it’s not true, it’s just a different kind of comedy: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8939755/Jeffrey-Toobin-fired-New-Yorker-weeks-masturbating-work-Zoom-call.html
.
The guy is an unhinged lefty. His political views become easier to understand when his overall poor judgement is taken into account. Then there is his blatant immorality in refusing to take responsibility for a child he fathered. He is a stinking worm, and never… ahem… ‘deviates’ from that.
.
I note he remains employed by CNN…. no surprise there.
SteveF, you should be proud that no media or politician types on your side of the fence ever get caught in sexual scandal. You could put it on a bumper sticker, or the Republican party platform, whichever has more available space.
Thomas Fuller,
“you should be proud that no media or politician types on your side of the fence ever get caught in sexual scandal.”
.
Actually I don’t give the tiniest sh!t what Jeffrey Toobin does to entertain himself, although the circumstances in this case qualify as hilarious. Lots of politicians (and others) become involved in scandals; sex scandals have no political POV. Besides, there is no real scandal here save for that the ever-sanctimonious-about-inappropriate-behavior CNN has not fired him. Their endless sanctimony is as dishonest as their reporting.
.
Toobin’s scandalous past is well documented; I don’t give the tiniest sh!t about those scandals either, save for one: He resisted supporting, or even acknowledging, his own son. He is utterly immoral, evil, and utterly dishonest to boot.
.
Anyone who figures sexual self-gratification during a business meeting on Zoom is a good idea has such poor judgement that it casts serious doubt on their judgement in everything.
.
But it does at least have a great deal of humor value.
Aren’t we supposed to get a litany of accusations of sexism, abuse, privilege, and patriarchy here? This is just a humorous incident in reality, but it does require some form of punishment. It’s likely going to ruin his career. I am kind of fed up with the “cross any line and your life is over” Twitter mentality, but there does need to be lines somewhere. They don’t seem to be evenly applied or especially easy to know where the lines are on any given day.
.
You won’t be able to look at this guy again without thinking of this.
The conflict I see is the incoherence of wanting to decriminalize a lot of bad behavior (drugs, shoplifting, property crime, protests, etc.) on the one hand and then being extremely unforgiving for Twitter/social crimes on the other hand.
.
There seems to be a separate social judiciary which can ruin your life quite quickly and it is unaccountable to anyone. I’d like to see this disappear.
Tom Scharf,
“There seems to be a separate social judiciary which can ruin your life quite quickly and it is unaccountable to anyone. I’d like to see this disappear.”
.
Name, shame, and drive out of their job is the primary tool used by the left to punish anyone who speaks against any of the things the left holds dear. It is not limited to Twitter, although that is the main medium for punishment. Anyone who says the wrong thing (AKA expresses anything but the most extreme left views) will be driven out of their jobs by the ‘woke’ at places like the NYT and Google… and for sure many other places.
.
If Twitter chooses to censor any views twitter disagrees with, then they should be held legally liable for all attacks carried out on their platform to punish individuals for wrong-think. Twitter, like Google and Facebook, will soon face a reckoning for the damage their platforms do to social discourse and to individuals, and I believe that reckoning will happen sooner rather than later.
There is no easy way to use the government to make Twitter behave and I’d rather it just die by the same public shame it allows to be used against others in an increasingly unbalanced way.
.
I doubt seriously Twitter wants to be put in this position as social arbiter, but they are increasingly embracing it. It’s poison, and Twitter has to know how fast things can turn (Blackberry? Nokia? Myspace?). The NY Post incident was a bridge too far in my view. It is seriously broken, no excuse for that.
Thomas Fuller,
You have to admit that masturbating on a work meeting zoom call is just weird. It’s not you normal garden variety sex scandal!
.
“Normal” zoom goofs might be something like… I’m tutoring a student who is particularly dense, and thinking I’m done, but still online I do something unforgivably rule like shout. “Oy! I’m glad the session ‘dum as a box of rocks’ is ! Get me a drink!”
.
That would likely make a parent dump me as a tutor. But it’s not remotely in the same class as: “Wow! I’m done. ” Then fling off all my clothes and dance the hoochie coochie in front of my camera!!” (Oh… oppsss…. That was live!)
For those of you who believe there was no large scale vote fraud:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/12/lawsuit-claims-40000-plus-fraudulent-ballots-pumped-through-detroit-for-joe-biden/
A dump of 40K mysterious Biden ballots in Michigan, plus all sorts of other shenanigans.
.
In both MI and PA, Republican poll watchers were prevented from observing the counting of large numbers of ballots. I can think of only one reason to do that.
Apparently he was on another live call that he was ummmm … a little more interested in … and thought his work call was blinded/ muted. Oops.
Tom wrote: “There is no easy way to use the government to make Twitter behave”
.
They don’t need to make them behave, they just need to make them accountable. A publisher is held liable for the things they print. A platform is not. A publisher holds editorial control over what is and is not published. A platform does not.
.
These companies only hold platform status because years ago it was argued a) There was too much stuff to censor so it was cost prohibitive and technologically impossible so they’d be buried in lawsuits and b) it was against free speech.
.
Clearly, the times have changed. They seem to have ample ability and desire to control what is published on their platforms. They do not uphold free speech. Remove their protections and let those wronged by them seek legal redress.
MikeM,
I will stipulate that there is voting fraud in the Detroit area as well as other large cities in competitive states…. lets assume double the 40K mysterious ballots. That still leaves Trump short by 70,000 votes in Michigan. The Democrats are going to cheat; it is almost a given (see my comment #193673 for further details). But in this case, Trump appears to have an insurmountable deficit.
.
More power to him, but the chance of success is minuscule.
SteveF,
It might be that Biden would have won without cheating. And it is very unlikely that there will be an effective remedy to the cheating that has occurred. But the fact that large scale fraud did occur is relevant to future election security.
Mike M. (Comment #193690)
November 12th, 2020 at 1:09 pm
For those of you who believe there was no large scale vote fraud:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/12/lawsuit-claims-40000-plus-fraudulent-ballots-pumped-through-detroit-for-joe-biden/
_____
I don’t know whether Trump’s lawyers can prove there were 40,000 or more fraudulent ballots in Detroit. But before giving Trump money for election lawsuits, better check to see if he actually has to use that money for those lawsuits.
MikeM,
I agree, the reality of widespread fraud by Democrats is a serious problem. It is especially serious because any effort to actually verify the legitimacy of an election (identification of voters, signature verification, requirement for in-person voting in most cases) leads to accusations of racism and “voter suppression”.
.
The only solution is to elect enough state representatives that the really corrupt stuff is blocked by law. The SC will probably throw out all the mail-in ballots in PA that arrived after the polls closed (as required by law), but that is not likely to change the outcome in PA, especially since it is almost certain that lots of places already mixed the late ballots with the rest. There will always be some Democrat voter fraud in big cities; hell it got Kennedy elected in 1960! All we can hope to do is minimize the fraud so that it doesn’t swing close elections, and not allow election laws be subverted in ways that encourage voter fraud.
.
It would help also to have a better presidential candidate than Trump. But that is a different subject.
Accusations are not evidence. Eyewitness testimony is a little dubious here unfortunately. You can probably get it for a ham sandwich in these corrupt areas. I don’t find it hard to believe there was some fraud, but it’s going to need something definitive and it needs to be enough votes. I think fraud is more likely targeted to local races for reasons discussed previously. Detroit and Philadelpia are cesspools of politics. It needs investigated but I think the election is over.
Tom Scharf,
“…need something definitive and it needs to be enough votes.”
.
There is no question about definitive… there are lots of documented cases of people voting after being dead for months to years… lots of cases of people voting who have not lived in the state for years. Mail-in ballots facilitate (and indeed encourage) fraud.
.
The problem is “enough votes”. The burden of proof falls on the wrong party; it is impossible to figure out if there were enough illegal votes once the votes are mixed into the pool.
.
The only answer is to have voting laws which demand that each vote be valid. But you may find that there is some resistance to actual validation of votes….. always by Democrats, shockingly enough.
SteveF (Comment #193701)
But you may find that there is some resistance to actual validation of votes….. always by Democrats, shockingly enough.
______
HA HA ! What a crock.
OK_Max,
Not sure I see the comedy. As far as I can tell, in every instance where validation of votes is the issue, Democrats do their best to ensure that validation is prohibited. Mailing absentee ballots to dead people? Ya, that is a really good idea.
SteveF, if you believe Democrats are less honest than Republicans, I don’t believe I can change you.
Let’s go ask all the Democrats about Russia collusion and Kavanaugh, shall we?
OK_Max,
I have 50+ years of careful political observation. For sure, there is nothing you have said so far that in any way changes my views. WRT honesty among Democrats, I suggest you consider the glaring example of Rep. Adam Schiff and whether or not he is honest. If you can’t state Schiff is utterly dishonest, then no discussion with you about honestly will be productive.
Would the hoochie coochie be more like Rumba or Mambo? Rhetorical, I know. Probably depends on personal taste.
😉
OK_Max (Comment #193710): “if you believe Democrats are less honest than Republicans, I don’t believe I can change you”.
.
Until recently, I’d have said there is little difference. But the Dems have certainly befouled themselves over the last 4 years.
.
But I think the issue here is election fraud. That is definitely much more a Democrat thing. Largely, I think, because of their history of political machines controlling major cities.
Evidently, it was whatever little egypt danced
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TiVKW9S174M
Of course she was clothed….
There you have it! lol.
MikeM, George W Bush nearly won Oregon in 2000.
My suspicion is they were sending people to the Democrats’ hand in your vote parties and walking off with ballots.
mark bofill,
Even if I was closed, I think it would probably be unwise to dance the hoochie-coochie after a student session while still on zoom.
As for whether this is more like rhumba or samba…. really neither. The music just isn’t latin. If I had to pick a latin dance, perhaps Merengue? But honestly, for all her fame, I think Little Egypt wasn’t much of a dancer. I suspect Belly Dancers would say she give Belly Dancing a bad name. It really was a “hoochie-coochie”!
Well, making viewers dizzy is probably a better goal than the nausea Mr. Toobin induced… Although we may have introduced a new vocabulary item as a result. Most of us will instantly understand what is meant by Toobin’ in the future…
Hope it doesn’t become a TikTok trend.
The thing with Toobin is that you just gotta wonder about the “separate call”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54912610
The report doesn’t tell us anything about who was on the other call. Is “Video-call sex” now a thing?
(Ok… I had to google….
https://www.jordangrayconsulting.com/video-chat-sex/
No photo-porn at the link… but the topic is sex. You’ve been warned!)
If video sex is now a “thing”, then how does being on a separate video call jibe with thinking he was off-camera? I mean… that ought to mean he knew he was on camera, just not the work call..
It is just the strangest thing.
Yes, video “sharing” is a thing. You can also pay for these services from professionals to help you along.
.
He probably had two windows up, one for his personal use, and one for his work use. Normally only one of those will get camera access. What might have happened was after he was … ummmm … finished with the personal window, he then closed it, and the work window grabbed the camera access immediately once it was available for the work meeting and showed the … ummm … aftermath.
.
Some scenario like this. A mistake. People do these things, it should be disciplined, but I’m inclined to believe it was unintentional and this punishment seems severe. It’s not like he was whacking off in the conference room during a real meeting.
Toobin was doing a conference where they were doing an election simulation, according to Vice.
I get that elections are exciting, but.
I thought I was a big political junkie. I clearly have no idea.
Tom….
.
Well…I’m also willing to believe it was a mistake. OTOH it likley also means he was entertaining himself while involved on a paid gig. I would assume he was probably being paid for his involvement in the election simulation between the New Yorker and WNYC radio. Tobin was supposedly representing “the courts”.
.
I guess the best defense might be he only entertained himself on a work break.
.
One problem with deeming the treatment “punishment”. The fact is: he is a tv personality on CNN and similarly a magazine personality. At least for the next 6 months or so, viewers and readers will just be distracted by the stupid incident when reading. He’ll probably return in some sense, but given the positions he held, anything that can interfere with ratings is a reason to fire him. It’s not entirely “punishment”. It’s just business.
Perhaps the media personality angle does change the required outcome. If it wasn’t public then maybe he would have survived.
I have seen belly dancers in Turkey (the strict Muslims in Turkey HATE that such dancers exist). They are a lot more talented than the woman in Lucia’s video.
.
In case you think the USA has deep cultural divides, I have seen that is it far worse in Turkey: The “relaxed” European oriented Muslims, who are mostly college educated and have higher income, and the “strict” Muslims who embrace Sharia law and all the horrors that flow from it. When I have been there, it seems to me two separate countries that happen to be occupying the same physical space.
I’ve seen belly dancers in Greek restaurants in Chicago who are better that “Little Egypt”. I’ve seen belly dancers at Rennaisance Faires who are better!
.
I suspect the level of social disapproval for female performers in general and anything remotely “sexy” resulted in really, really poor levels of performance in the “hoochie-coochie” dance niche.
On an aside from the terpsichorean discussion, here is an article about climate change disaster predicted by a model:
The writer spends 12 paragraphs before mentioning two scientists who demur to the study’s findings, one of whom is Michael Mann.
Readers might be forgiven for not reaching that point in the article.
[Note: I haven’t read the study (and given the reaction, won’t); this is just about the coverage.]
HaroldW,
Yep. I read people mentioning that article on Twitter! I hadn’t read the 1960-70 bit.
HaroldW,
The Greeks and Romans got to make up all the really cool words. 😉
.
When Michael Mann says your study is wacky, it has to be really wacky. Humanity’s capacity to address too much warming over the next 500 years is, of course, unknown, as is whether or not warming will really need to be addressed. But we might consider the state of human technology 500 years ago compared to today to get some idea of humanity’s future technological capacity.
HaroldW (Comment #193780): “here is an article about climate change disaster predicted by a model”
.
The predicted “catastrophe” is 3 C of warming over the next 500 years. I guess the authors will be safe from having to explain why their model was so wrong.
.
Scientific Reports? Never heard of that journal. From Wikipedia:
Megajournai?
In other words, the paper did not meet the “standards” of the journals that usually publish climate “science”.
.
Nature Research? Is it possible that is connected to Nature?. Sadly, it is:
HaroldW (Comment #193780)
November 14th, 2020 at 6:07 am
Harold, I believe models/predictions that show/state we are past a point of no return for global climate warming are not going to be accepted by activist scientists and activists in general for the obvious reason that such a state of affairs leaves no or little room for the major government initiatives that these groups are pushing. If these models and predictions had any credibility and all were convinced that the predicted global warming was going to be significantly detrimental, the logical place for looking for a solution would be geoengineering – an area with which these groups are not currently that much attuned.
I see this same attitude from these groups with reference to international plans like the Paris accords where the need to push these programs and meet the goals requires spreading alarm but not to the point of no return. They appear to have to walk a fine line.
I recently posted an analysis at Climate Etc. that I have talked about here concerning the use of negative aerosol/cloud effects in the Historical period scenarios for CMIP5 and CMIP6 models in ameliorating the models reproduction of the observed global mean surface temperature.
I was hoping to receive some constructive criticism and questions. So far I have received only two such replies. The remainder of the comments has been taken over by those posters who use the opportunity to discuss their favorite topics. I am not complaining but am a bit disappointed.
https://judithcurry.com/2020/11/11/disconnect-in-the-relationship-between-gmst-and-ecs/
“An analysis is presented of the disconnection between the CMIP5 and CMIP6 Historical and Future periods when considering the relationship of the individual model GMST changes and the climate sensitivity. I have included a simple model that can account for the period disconnection using the negative forcing of aerosol/cloud effects in the Historical period that is carried forward into the Future period. I attribute some of the uncertainty in simulations of this simple model to endogenous model decision (selection) uncertainty that leads to variations in the changes of the negative forcing in the Historical period carried forward into the Future period.”
Kenneth,
I read the post; you obviously put a lot of work into it. I concluded that you were able to show that the disconnect between 1) GCMs all reasonably matching historical temperature records and 2) their divergent diagnosis of ECS and warming projections, is due to models having a get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of the unconstrained top of atmosphere imbalance (delta-N) for the historical period, which is implicitly or explicitly linked to unconstrained aerosol and cloud effects. Please tell me if I got this wrong.
.
I rarely comment at Judith’s blog because it long ago turned into little more than a pissing contest between the crazies on both sides. No matter what you write in a comment, it will be attack by the crazies, and they never offer anything beyond lunatic theories of why radiative physics is wrong or mindless appeals to the authority of politically motivated climate “scientistsâ€, people who seem to me little more than hacks advancing a green agenda.
.
AFAICT, there are very few people reading Judith’s blog who want to learn, and even fewer who who can critically evaluate a fairly complicated technical argument.
Kenneth,
“ They appear to have to walk a fine line.â€
.
Yes that is the problem. The main stream alarmist movement (AKA climate science) must:
* reject obvious routes to reducing CO2 emissions like nuclear power and incentives for improved energy efficiency
* absolutely reject any technical solution (geoengineering) which would address future warming
* continue to make predictions of doom to maintain alarm
* while constantly moving the gol posts to keep Earth’s salvation just within reach…. but only if we agree to an extreme green agenda… and keep spending a fortune on climate scientists.
.
Unlike every other kind of scientist, the blatant political agenda places all kinds of burdens on climate “scientistsâ€.
Why Matthew Yglesias Left Vox
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/substack-and-medias-groupthink-problem/617102/
.
Yet another high profile journalist leaves their media company complaining about stifling attempts at thought conformity. This one didn’t light quite the bonfire some of the others did however. Joining Andrew Sullivan (NY Mag), Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept), and Bari Weiss (NYT). I’ve read all these people before this and it is amazing that they are unable to survive given they are ideologically 90% pure at these organizations, but that 10% independent streak apparently cannot be tolerated. Journalism is in it’s own identity crisis. I actually don’t know people who aren’t at least 10% crazy.
Yes, I can plot a temperature profile from this morning at 7 am to 4 pm and extrapolate that to the fact we will all be dead in a matter of weeks from warming. Fortunately this one will be falsifiable quite quickly. I don’t even read these articles anymore, and given the feedback provided in the article it is not clear why it was ever even printed to start with.
SteveF (Comment #193786)
November 14th, 2020 at 9:41 am
Thanks for reading, SteveF, and you have got the essentials of my analysis correct.
I have been doing quite a bit of literature searching and reading on this topic and see that a number of papers admit in general to what my analysis shows. What I find interesting and curious are papers concerning the CMIP6 models that approximate the observed GMST change by showing little temperature change in the 1st 100 to 120 years of the Historical scenarios and nearly all of the Historical change from 1970 or around that year to 2014. This deviation from the observed GMST change is best explained by the early period part having a high aerosol forcing that is leveling off in the later part. The authors of various papers realizing the models’ aerosol problem confine their model analysis to the later period.
What is not done is to compare the observed GMST changes to the models changes for the latter period where the comparison would be more in line with the differences between the observed ECS and TCR and those of the models.
Wow, the incoherency of recent Minneapolis police policy is amazing.
.
Minneapolis violence surges as police officers leave department in droves
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/minneapolis-police-shortage-violence-floyd/2020/11/12/642f741a-1a1d-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html
.
“Homicides in Minneapolis are up 50 percent, with nearly 75 people killed across the city so far this year. More than 500 people have been shot, the highest number in more than a decade and twice as many as in 2019. And there have been more than 4,600 violent crimes — including hundreds of carjackings and robberies — a five-year high.
Most of the violence has happened since Floyd’s death on Memorial Day”
.
From the “defund the police” city council come this:
.
“On Friday, the city council voted to allocate nearly $500,000 for the police department to temporarily hire officers from neighboring law enforcement agencies to help patrol city streets from Nov. 15 until the end of the year.”
Tom Scharf writes, “Yet another high profile journalist leaves their media company complaining about stifling attempts at thought conformity.”
Tom you don’t mention that the article makes clear that my fellow lefties failed to learn from the horrid example set by the righties. Why is that, I wonder?
Yglesias’ book ‘One Billion Americans’ is quite good. Bit of a slow start but gets better quickly.
Tom Scharf,
“On Friday, the city council voted to allocate nearly $500,000 for the police department to temporarily hire officers from neighboring law enforcement agencies to help patrol city streets from Nov. 15 until the end of the year.â€
.
That doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. The voters in Minneapolis need only elect a very different City Council to solve the problem. Unless the City Council is willing to pay super-premium hourly rates, I doubt they will get many takers…. the cops know who they would be working for.
Thomas Fuller,
” Why is that, I wonder?”
.
Unsure if you think the answer to that question is so obvious that it does not need to be answered, or if you are actually asking for an answer. If the former, please tell us what you think; nobody wants to take the time to answer if you are only posing a (very unclear) rhetorical question.
Tom Scharf,
The common thread in how all those journalists on the left were driven out is that they all actually insisted that factual reality be reported. For those who believe factual reality (including math, science, and engineering!) is nothing but a social construct by the powerful used to to suppress the disadvantaged, reporting factual reality is not allowed.
SteveF (Comment #193794)
November 14th, 2020 at 12:29 pm
Steve, I doubt very much that the voters of Minneapolis will vote out the current city council and if they did it would be only to replace them with a different name but a name with the same philosophy.
I have discussed political issues with some of these voters and more recently after the Floyd issue. I ask about accountability for the mayor, city council and the police chief. The implied answer is attributing problems like that one to some vague and general racism.
They are like most large city dwellers who vote for the Democrat party no matter what the circumstances. The politicians have somehow convinced some rather intelligent and educated people that their problems stem not from within their city governments but from state and federal governments not providing enough financial help or better from the greedy capitalist and the capitalistic system – even when the greedy ones are not capitalists and the system is not a capitalistic one or at least not sufficiently capitalistic.
Kenneth,
“I doubt very much that the voters of Minneapolis will vote out the current city council and if they did it would be only to replace them with a different name but a name with the same philosophy.â€
.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. My apologies to horses for comparing them to voters in Minneapolis.
Thomas
I read it and think I know what you are referring to. But I would hardly say the article makes it “clear” that righties did the same thing lefties are now doing. In fact: I don’t think they did the same thing. But perhaps you can elaborate.
Lucia, that RINOs get excoriated and then excommunicated is fairly common knowledge. In the article Mr. Scharf linked to there is a link to a NY Times story which elaborates on the phenomenon of epistemic closure. One quote from that article:
““Conservative intellectuals are in eclipse at the moment,†Steven F. Hayward, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said during a telephone interview.
Mr. Bartlett, who lost his job at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative research institute, after accusing George W. Bush of betraying the Reagan legacy, said in an interview: “Every intellectual movement needs to constantly question itself; otherwise it becomes stale. But conservatives have sort of reached a position of intellectual closure.”
Thomas Fuller,
“Intellectuals†like Steven F Hayward, remained true to their thinking: they rejected Trump because he fell short of their ideals of free trade, open borders, and not resisting corruption of the Constitution. Mitt Romney, OTOH, while utterly unelectable, was embraced by the same people, because he did (and does) represent those ideals.
.
That anyone imagines people like Hayward represent conservative intellectuals only suggests to me that they haven’t been paying much attention. To be disabused of that fantasy, I gently suggest reading the essay ‘Flight 93 Election’? Michael Anton is in fact a conservative intellectual, Hayward is not and never was. As Anton so clearly pointed out, Hayward was always just a player on the Washington Generals to liberalism’s Harlem Globtrotters. Anton pointed out Trump’s many flaws and failings, and wished there were a better vessel for conservative ideas, but accepted Trump as (by far) the lesser of evils. Hayward, to his discredit, could not bring himself to support a less than conventional conservative who would actually advance conservative ideas. He chose to focus on style over substance and was appropriately rewarded.
.
As surveys from places like Pew Research have consistently shown, the growing political divide in the USA is not because those who consider themselves conservative have moved right, but because those who consider themselves liberals have moved (on acerage) dramatically leftward over the past 20 years. People like Steven Hayward moved leftward with them… until he was no longer a conservative at all. Any suggestion that Conservatives have moved rightward is gaslighting.
Thomas,
Excommunicated from what? Jeb Bush was called a “rino”. He doesn’t seem to be kicked out of the GOP. Schwarzennegger is called a rino. Also not excommunicated.
Merely being criticized (which is all you seem to mean by “excoriated”) is not what Yglesias is describing at left wing publications or on the left.
But maybe you can point to specific incidents you are referring to as “common knowledge”.
Merely being “eclipsed” is also not what Yglesias is describing either. Sure, sometimes some people in a party grow stronger and some weaker– that’s what “eclipsed” means. But it’s not the same as the sort of “cancel culture” Yglesias is talking about.
.
So… you appear to be arguing that sometimes moderates get criticized by the conservative wing and a conservative got pushed out by more moderates… I’m not seeing how that is remotely similar to Ygglesias description of the extreme progressive side consistently pushing out moderates.
.
Yes: two sides of a party criticize each other. Sometimes one is in the ascendency; sometimes the other is. That is nothing like what Yglesias is describinb which is one side (the extreme left) is “cancelling” the careers of the other side (the moderate left.)
.
Lucia, I am aware of AOC and her compatriots criticizing more moderate Democrats. I’m not aware of any of them being canceled. Are we making the same argument for different sides?
Biden won the primary for two reasons: He got endorsed by Clyburn and he rejected the Sandernistas. He may well have won the general election for the same reasons.
Thomas,
We weren’t discussing AOC’s criticisms nor their consequence. We were discussing Yglesias criticisms.
.
You haven’t pointed to any right wing examples that parallel the left wing ones Yglesias alludes to. You’ve left us to guess which ones you think exist.
I think it’s worth elaborating on what the linked Atlantic article by Friederdorf” actually points to. The author alludes to prior changes in the GOP:
.
.
But does this means the
.
as claimed by Tom? Nope. Because however horrid the example supposedly set by the righties, it’s not an example of the same phenomenon Yglesias discusses in his resignation.
.
To see this, we only need to read the article and follow the links.
.
The Friedderdof article links to a NYT article by Cohen. Does it talk about the one branch of the right identifying and pushing out another? Nope. Not at all. It does discuss the notion that the intellectual branch of the GOP has weakened. So, in the first place: no pushing.
.
In the second place the venues are entirely different. To the extent that any possibly moderate GOP leaning person is said to have lost a job because of ideology it was at think tank. In contrast Yglesias is discussing writers being pushed from press outlets.
.
These are vastly different things since think tanks that work on political projects exist to a large extent to partisan ideas or lobbying, in contrast the press claims to exist to provide non-partisan news. No one, for example, would consider it remotely odd for the Mies institute to suggest an economist who was now promoting Marxism leave. These think tanks raise funds from donors and they admit they have a focus.
.
To see the difference in venues, we can see that Friedhorf describes what’s happening on the left. Sullivan (press opinion writer), Grenwalds (reporter), Yglesias (press opinion writer) all left press outlets.
.
Yglesias reason for leaving is given as
.
.
Tom you don’t mention that the article makes clear that my fellow lefties failed to learn from the horrid example set by the righties. Why is that, I wonder?
Yglesias goes on and it’s very clear that Yglesias is talking about a phenomena in journalism, not “think tankâ€.
.
This isn’t “like†a person no longer fitting into a particular “think tankâ€. So no, the article doesn’t make it clear the left “failed to learn a lesson from the rightâ€. So the there is a simple answer to Tom Fuller’s question
.
.
Tom Sharf doesn’t make that “clear†because he doesn’t share Tom Fullers vivid imagination about what the article says!
.
Original article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/substack-and-medias-groupthink-problem/617102/
Fuller seems disconnected from reality.
.
Elected officials often lose their jobs because of their political opinions. Sometimes that happens in a general election, sometimes in a primary. Both happen to both Democrats and Republicans. No big deal.
.
But what the Left does is a very different thing. They seek to suppress and/or cancel people with whom they disagree. Brendan Eich forced out as CEO of Mozilla. Curt Schilling being blocked from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Attempts to silence reporters like Yglesias and Greenwald. Any number of careers ruined because of a careless comment that could be interpreted as racism. Multiple professors forced out of the classroom for being politically incorrect. Those are the actions of would be totalitarians.
This is the more generalized issue Yglesias is referring to when discussing why he left Vox. Obviously, the specific with Yglesias and vox has to do with the press. But it falls in something broader. The right certainly has it’s faults. But idea this Dem behavior represents them failing to learn from the mistakes of the right is ludicrous:
https://fb.watch/1N0mfPCcxP/
Now, it may turn out that the right ends up imitating the left on this. I hope not. But this is not behavior first seen by the right.
Mike M,
“ They seek to suppress and/or cancel people with whom they disagree.â€
.
Yes, that is the real issue with the left, and always has been. Whether it is the Jacobins with the guillotine, Che’ with his pistol shooting anyone suspected of disloyalty, or Mao and the Cultural Revolution, the left never tolerates dissent. It stems from absolute certainty that they are right, so all acts, no mater how horrible, are acceptable to make ‘progress’ toward the ideal of public control of all private behavior.
SteveF,
To be fair, sometimes the right doesn’t tolerate dissent either!
.
But yes, recently, it’s been the left who has taken to stifling speech of others.
Lucia, I offer as examples in contention with your latest comment the Republicans sidelined for non-compliance, such as Senator Jeff Flake et al., including many who were ‘primaried’ as well as those who were shunned and discarded like yesterday’s news.
They spoke their minds. They got ostracized by Trump, more conventional Republicans were silent (all that is necessary for evil to triumph…) and they lost their jobs.
They were not members of the press. Except maybe Megan Whatsername from Fox.
The Left is actually (usually–not in the time of Trump) worse than the Right in suppression of internal dissent. I have no quarrel with that, just the hypocrisy of Republicans pretending they are pure.
I am a progressive liberal in a country that is neither progressive nor liberal. The sooner AOC and her compatriots understand that central truth, which it took me decades to learn, the better for Progressive Liberalism.
The key to our success (ssh! Don’t tell any Republicans.) is to focus on our policies, without using buzzwords.
Very large majorities of Americans support our policies on the minimum wage, expanded healthcare, a solution to the high cost of higher education, protecting a woman’s right to choose and more. You could look it up. Our policies are popular.
They just need to be presented without the rhetoric (and with plenty of pushback when the Right tars them with labels like ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ or ‘spawn of satanism.’
By “sidelined” you seem to mean primary voters didn’t vote for him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jeff-flake-fellow-republicans-theres-still-time-to-save-your-souls/2019/09/30/ade876f6-e2d3-11e9-b403-f738899982d2_story.html
Voters not voting for someone is not the same as what Yglesias is discussing. I’m astonished that you think this is remotely the same thing. Honestly, it’s anti-democratic to suggest voters don’t get to vote their preference. It’s seriously odd to liken this to journalists pressuring other journalists to toe the line or leave a publication!
Thomas
Well, Dems aren’t in on the secret either!
.
Perhaps that explains what appears to be the Dems non success. Yes. Biden won. But Dems lost seats in the house. Unless they get both seats in GA will not take control of the senate. Do not seize control of most states. And so on.
.
The only success seems to be a race whose main plank is “I’m not Trump!”. It’s true that’s not a buzzword. But really, Trump has an “awful factor”, that it really did help Biden.
It’s disingenuous as well as wrong to put Flake’s fall from grace down to voter dislike. He did not run in the primary as he had been sufficiently tarnished by Trump to discourage him from continuing.
Thomas Fuller,
Flake cast a series of Senate votes which were very unpopular with the voters in his state (and with Trump). Of course he could not be re-elected. I’m not sure why you find that shocking. Susan Collins in Maine cast some votes that Trump also didn’t like, but her voters did. Collins is still in the Senate.
Thomas,
I don’t think it’s disingeneous.
.
Flake himself says he didn’t run because primary voters weren’t going to vote for him. I’m not seeing how this is not “voter dislike” even if the problem was that voters liked Trump better than they liked him. That’s democracy.
.
I seriously don’t understand how you can consider this in remotely the same category as what Yglesias is describing.
Lucia,
“To be fair, sometimes the right doesn’t tolerate dissent either!”
.
Certainly in right wing dictatorships. But I don’t know of any instances in the states in the past several decades where conservatives drove people from their jobs.
.
“Trump has an “awful factor—
.
That is true, and probably cost him the election. He was just too offensive to plenty of people, and they simply wouldn’t vote for him, no matter his policies.
Sure. Until they hear about the economic downsides.
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-15-minimum-wage-waver-cbo-impact-democrats-poll-2019-7
Understanding Trump and where we’re at.
.
Charles Murray, a never Trumper who voted for Clinton and Biden, authored this in 2016, before Trump even won the R nomination:
.
https://www.aei.org/articles/trumps-america/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITHISWEEK&utm_campaign=Weekly021216
.
As mentioned in Murray’s book:
.
https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/030745343X/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1NILML023ENDV&dchild=1&keywords=coming+apart+charles+murray&qid=1605470429&sprefix=coming+apar%2Caps%2C234&sr=8-2
.
a huge problem is that there is now a class divide based on intelligence because of the acceleration of technology. It’s not clear to me there is a good solution.
.
I also just finished ‘The True Believer’ by Eric Hoffer(1951):
.
https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Perennial/dp/0060505915/ref=sr_1_1?crid=29HFMNAOOA02R&dchild=1&keywords=the+true+believer+eric+hoffer&qid=1605470902&sprefix=the+true+bel%2Caps%2C232&sr=8-1
.
Hoffer, writing aphoristically, states that mass movements flourish from a number of pre-conditions, one of them being a tendency for the ‘frustrated’ ( namely the economically unviable ) to ‘self-repudiate’ ( consider themselves worthless in the face of competition, such as from AI ). The ‘self-repudiating’ are attracted to groups which provide refuge from these thoughts by replacing the worthless self as a group instead.
.
This would seem to apply to the marginal Trump voter ( though perhaps not the the party line R ). But it would also apply to the collection of the marginalized of the Ds.
.
Further, mass movements occur when other identities, importantly family membership, are not present.
.
Given the abysmal and worsening children out of marriage statistics, it would appear that families haven’t been this weak since the 1960s and perhaps ever for America. Consequently, though we can hope otherwise, we may be ripe for dark times.
The very real class divide is not based on intelligence, but rather possession of a sheepskin and initials to put after one’s name.
The increase in out of wedlock childbirth is common throughout the developed world and cannot be laid at the doorstep of American policy, politicians or culture.
Contra Hoffer, there are also those who postulate that a surplus of those in the pseudo ‘elite’ class are competing for the positions they think are rightfully theirs and that this is a cause for much of the current unrest. Be a pity if both were right…
Thomas,
.
Increase in out of wedlock birth can certainly be put at the feet of culture. That cultures across the world may all be changing doesn’t mean its not affected by culture!
.
Sure. That could explain why a sizable number of Antifa are likely people who have or hope to earn sheepskins but who, despite that, are finding that they haven’t been vaulted into the class they hoped for by virtue of having a sheepskin.
.
Thomas Fuller,
“The very real class divide is not based on intelligence, but rather possession of a sheepskin and initials to put after one’s name.”
.
Not intelligence, but cultural/behavioral/social factors which lead to better or worse educational and employment outcomes. Yes, it is true that lots of very smart kids never got the training/skills needed to be successful. Most often that is because they were not motivated to learn, but sometimes it is a combination of factors like poor/violent/dangerous schools, lack of parental guidance, and more.
.
In any case, putting a document on the wall would not make someone a competent medical doctor, nor would a document on the wall make someone an engineer, or chemist, or attorney, etc. OK, maybe you don’t need a journalism degree to be a journalist, or a political ‘science’ degree to be a politician, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.
Thomas Fuller (Comment #193833): “The very real class divide is not based on intelligence, but rather possession of a sheepskin and initials to put after one’s name.”
.
Indeed. Advancement is not so much a meritocracy as a credentialocracy. And getting the credentials is largely a matter of income and connections. So it is really an oligarchy.
——
Thomas Fuller: “The increase in out of wedlock childbirth is common throughout the developed world and cannot be laid at the doorstep of American policy, politicians or culture.”
.
Nonsense. There is a general increase:
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/out-wedlock-births-rise-worldwide
But it varies enormously from country to country and by race and class in the U.S. I don’t see what can cause such variance other than policy and culture. That seems almost a tautology.
This is a little out of date, but I think it helps explain much of the “very real class divide”:
https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/percent_of_births_to_unmarried_mothers_by_education_1970-2012
SteveF (Comment #193836): “In any case, putting a document on the wall would not make someone a competent …”
.
The document is very often a necessary but not sufficient condition for advancement. And in many areas, competence is neither necessary or sufficient for advancement.
MikeM,
“Advancement is not so much a meritocracy as a credentialocracy. And getting the credentials is largely a matter of income and connections.”
.
I grew up quite poor. I haven’t been poor since I could work. My formal credentials (chemistry) do not even directly relate to my daily work (everything from engineering, to software development, to mechanical stress analysis, to industrial process analysis). Motivation is the biggest factor in success, unless you are talking about success in a large hierarchical organization, where political skills and weak morals are more useful.
MikeM, perhaps I should have said ‘specifically’ American policy, etc.
SteveF, I’m interested in hearing why you think that “Most often that is because they were not motivated to learn.” I have seen no data that supports that proposition.
Lucia, I have no doubt that there are plenty of leftist baristas (do you need to use ‘antifa?’ We see antifa driving down to Portland from Washington and the don’t look like they’re even able to pour an espresso) who think they’re just as savvy as AOC, just as I’m sure there are MAGA truck drivers who feel similarly slighted by society.
Thomas,
“need”? No. But we may, and I choose too. I hope you are not suggesting I am forbidden to refer to them.
.
I didn’t bring up baristas. If you think most antifa are not competent at pouring espresso I’ll take your word for it. But it has nothing to do with anything I wrote. If, as you suggest, a typical Antifa person isn’t even competent to pour coffee, that might in fact explain why they are out on the streets not pouring coffee and doing other things.
.
FWIW: I have no objection to your bringing up MAGA truck drivers. But I suspect that at a minimum, truck drivers are sufficiently competent to drive trucks and most earn coin driving them. That puts them a step up above people who are incompetent to pour coffee and also provides them something to occupy their time.
Thomas Fuller,
Well, there is the whole epidemic of truancy. For example, in the Chicago public school system, 32,000 students (out of ~320,000) were truant for more than 20 days during the school year. It is by no means only in chicago. Chronic truancy (defined as truant more than 15 days in a school year) averages 17% across the entire country, but with significant racial differences. Black Americans average more than 20% while whites average 14%; asians (no surprise) average 8%, and Hispanics 17%.
.
If you refuse to show up you can’t learn. If you refuse to study you can’t learn. I saw in my own kids a range of motivation levels which had nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with being willing to do the work.
Lucia, you’re splitting hairs. I mention that many people who consider themselves elite (by virtue of graduating from an elite schools) are embittered because they end up in jobs they don’t feel are worthy of their efforts. I mentioned it primarily because the concept has been mentioned prominently in the Economist and the Atlantic. I don’t think it is limited to either side. I don’t think it eliminates or even overshadows the very real concerns of an underclass that missed out on the validation we accord to university graduates. But I think it’s real.
Thomas Fuller,
” I mention that many people who consider themselves elite (by virtue of graduating from an elite schools) are embittered because they end up in jobs they don’t feel are worthy of their efforts.”
.
They should have studied things that almost always lead to skills-relevant gainful employment (Chemistry, engineering… many types, nursing, accounting, architecture, teaching, etc, or any of the fields that serve as entry into graduate training… medicine, law, etc.). Critical race theory, psychology, “polictical science”, and gender studies are not likely going to lead to a good job.
And I agreed with you.
.
I didn’t say it was.
.
But I am saying the existence of these embittered people who end up in jobs they feel superior to may explain why some people are rioting in the street.
I happened to mention a group people these embittered people, who earned college degrees and (evidently, according to you) aren’t even competent to pour coffee. These people populate antifa and are wrecking havoc– just as you warn they would. They happen to be left wing. But I’ve never suggested no right wing embittered college grads exist.
.
.
Not sure what this has to do with anything I wrote. But of course, the existence of embittered college grads does not eliminate the concerns of those who did not earn college diplomas. Specifically: the concerns of non-college grad truck drivers remain valid even if unemployable college grads are embittered, dress in black and go out in the streets and wreck havoc.
.
Yes. I think the idea that some people who earned college degrees are resentful and that might lead to them doing things like rioting in the street is very real. I would not have mentioned them if I thought they were not real
These people happen to not be MAGA truck drivers. They are more likely to be Antifa. But the riots in the streets are certainly real.
.
You seem to object to me airing that observation. You aren’t actually suggesting what I observe is untrue.
.
If you think it’s untrue, or… something, advance some position and support it. As for your saying I am splitting hairs: I have absolutely no idea what hair you think I am splitting.
Educational attainment is highly correlated with IQ.
There does seem to be inflation of credentials, but that may be an indicator of increased competition for jobs. It’s evidently illegal in the US to use IQ as a hiring qualification ( even though it’s highly correlated with job performance ). So employers use the indirect correlate of educational attainment.
.
I just read the Charles Murray monograph “Income Inequality and IQ”.
.
In the conclusion, he challenges liberals to reconcile income redistribution with the economic drag and unemployment.
.
Then, he challenges conservatives to justify growing inequality and class division.
.
What to do?
Turbulent Eddie,
“Educational attainment is highly correlated with IQ.”
.
There is correlation, but it is very far from fully determinant. I have one son, 14 years past his bachelor’s degree (in history) who is waiting tables as he studies to sell real estate; he’s been fired from at least three jobs for showing up late or badly hung over. I have another son 18 years past his bachelor’s degree (biology/biochemistry) who first got a PhD in molecular biology, then went to law school (on his dime), clerked for a state supreme court, and now is an intellectual property lawyer. Their income is different by factor of 6 or 7. The high achiever has a slightly lower IQ by standardized testing than the waiter. Success is driven first and foremost by dedicated effort and responsibility.
.
No matter a person’s intellectual capacity, and whether they are more suited to masonry or scientific research, everyone has the capacity to show up and work hard. I know lots of people who are far from geniuses but who have been successful in their job and in raising a family.
I had no idea what Tom Fuller’s original comment was referring to, but would appreciate if people would elucidate what is actually obvious when referring to something they think is so clear, it only takes a few extra words.
.
The further discussion here is just a big fat non-sequitur. Political infighting is not unique, nor is the concept of purity testing and ostracization for those failing to measure up.
.
This is a stream of high profile * journalists * from the moderate left outright quitting large news organizations that represent themselves as being non-partisan, or at a minimum of at least being capable of presenting fair and balanced arguments of the current issues. See explainers, fact checkers, et. al.
.
Accusations of bias in these organizations has been rampant from the right, and this serves as compelling evidence that these organizations cannot even tolerate the * internal dissent * of moderates from their group think.
.
As I have mentioned before this is why Fox News became so successful. The abandonment of fair representation of arguments by the MSM in order to nudge society to a preferred outcome has destroyed trust in journalism. These organizations have very little political capital left to use, see 2016, 2020. There aren’t any news organizations left that haven’t converted to ideology silos. We might as well be the UK, ha ha.
Credentialism and the cost of college education is in fact a huge problem, I will happily join Tom Fuller in the burning down of the ivory towers! I have a feeling we won’t be joined by too many on the mainstream left, but perhaps quite a few from the Portland left, ha ha.
.
The solution proposed by the cognitive elite is for the taxpayer to foot the bill and make an every more expensive college education “free”. Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?
The cognitive elite are working plenty hard on eliminating the jobs of MAGA truck drivers and a lot of other unskilled and semi-skilled jobs. Perhaps it will all work out according to free trade and free market theory, but if the cognitive elite become too greedy and self serving and decide they alone deserve all the rewards for this progress then I think they will find large groups knocking at their door with pitchforks and torches. I have become less and less confident this group understands this concept.
T Eddie: “Educational attainment is highly correlated with IQ.
There does seem to be inflation of credentials, but that may be an indicator of increased competition for jobs.”
People can be intelligent in a purely academic sense, but be very stupid in a practical sense. For instance, in 2010 the Yale Law School gave Hillary Clinton an award and a standing ovation. Undoubtedly, many of these people had a high IQ, but they are still practically stupid (what did Hillary ever do as a lawyer or politician to merit an award) and immoral.
A classic example is William Shockley. As a scientist, he was brilliant, but as a political commentator he was stupid. I, as a lawyer, see many lawyers who are academically smart and can dissect statutes skillfully, but who can’t solve practical problems of real people dealing with problems created by statutes.
Murray argues we have become too efficient at making sure the highly competent are properly credentialed and selected for highly compensated jobs. This group has become increasingly self sorted, they work at the same companies, they marry each other, live in the same neighborhoods, send their kids to the same schools, and have increasingly walled themselves off from the less skilled. It was not unusual 50 years ago for neighborhoods to have a large mix of IQ’s. There were plenty of high IQ people pushing plows 200 years ago. This is no longer true.
.
Matching high competence with difficult jobs is the explicit goal and obviously has many upsides, but we are going to need to deal with the unanticipated downsides of our great success in doing this. Trump and Sanders are big flashing neon warning signs that adjustments need to be made.
.
Out of wedlock births are extremely low in highly developed Japan and South Korea:
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/sites/default/files/images/chamie-chartPicture1-500px858.png
.
The relationship is far from perfect, but of course, these countries have among the highest IQs. And out of wedlock birth also correlates highly with IQ. IQ seems to be a long term versus impulsivity constraint.
.
To be sure, things are multifactoral and it would be a mistake to claim a single cause. Culture, religion, education, access to birth control all have a bearing on out of wedlock births. At the same time, Patrick Moynihan pointed out in 1965 how government programs were encouraging the cancer of fatherlessness:
.
.
AFDC paid for fatherless children. When the government pays for something, is it really a surprise that we get more of it?
.
So, yes, government has enabled, and to some extent, encouraged the breakdown of the family. Kindness that could kill.
.
And it’s not just fatherlessness. Jordan Peterson points out that the military, which has every incentive to recruit as many as possible, has a lower limit IQ of 85, because lower than that are dangerous and counterproductive. That effectively means the labor of these unfortunate souls in the modern economy is worth zero.
.
Now, consider somewhere up the IQ spectrum from this is labor priced at the minimum wage. By raising minimum wage artificially, we make the people between IQ 85 and people of IQ correlating with minimum wage also unemployable.
.
So minimum wage has pernicious effects and many advocate for the Earned Income Tax Credit instead. But that too has problems. Subsidizing low wages increases the number of low wage earners and adds friction to someone bridging that barrier between subsidized low wage work and higher wage work.
.
And the affordable care act which expanded medicaid to low wage workers has the pernicious affect of encouraging millenials to work less so that they keep their medicaid.
.
Old age care has similar ill-effects.
.
Like so much junk food, people are attracted to government programs. But can we blame the government for giving us what we want?
.
Kindness that could kill.
Turbulent Eddie,
Were Daniel Patrick Moynihan alive today, he would be accused of being a white supremacist, a racist, and a Nazi, and driven out of polite company on the left.
.
Yes, Moynihan understood the problem clearly. The left today refuses to admit a cultural problem exists, and blames everyone except those who behave in self destructive and self defeating ways. It is all rubbish, but It is not going to change.
Stephen Fitzpatrick (Comment #193840): “I grew up quite poor. I haven’t been poor since I could work. My formal credentials (chemistry) do not even directly relate to my daily work (everything from engineering, to software development, to mechanical stress analysis, to industrial process analysis). Motivation is the biggest factor in success, unless you are talking about success in a large hierarchical organization, where political skills and weak morals are more useful.”
.
You are absolutely right. I was unclear.
.
I was referring to advancement up the ladders of power to top positions in law, politics, government bureaucracy, corporate management, university governance (as well as other non-profits), mass media, and maybe some other such things I can’t think of off hand. In other words, the “elites” or “clerisy” or “ruling class” or “oligarchy” or whatever inadequate label you prefer. That type of success is based not so much on competence as on credentials, connections, political skills, and going along to get along.
.
For the large majority of people, success is still achieved the old fashioned way. But these days there is a huge disconnect between the people who succeed the old way and those who succeed the new way. And it is overwhelmingly the latter who set the rules for our society.
Much better reporting of data than Pfizer: https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/modernas-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-meets-its-primary-efficacy
.
94.5% best estimate of effectiveness (5 symptomatic cases after vaccination versus 90 symptomatic cases for placebo). There were 11 “severe” cases, all among the placebo group. The five cases in the vaccine group were mild.
It’s important to recognize that the issues occur within racial groups and births out of marriage seem to be increasing for all groups:
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/assets_c/2013/05/Screen%20Shot%202013-05-12%20at%2012.29.08%20AM-thumb-570×454-121210.png
I moved comments on the moderna vaccine to the new thread.
Stephen Fitzpatrick (Comment #193840)
November 15th, 2020 at 4:36 pm
SteveF, I had a start in life much the same as you described in the post above. I was raised on a farm without a lot of frills in a family of hard workers with parents who were voracious readers and realized the benefits of education – both formal and informal. I started my adult work career with an MS in chemistry and worked for large companies in R&D and engineering and then into management and finally into senior management. I worked in and with nearly all the departments of manufacturing concerns including R&D, production engineering, quality assurance and marketing. I had some colleagues along the way who did not want to work very far afield from their trained backgrounds, but I found working in diversified areas being much the same in that it required problem solving and people communication with some thinking outside the box. This lays the background for my view of corporate politics at the highest levels and which I have to say are very different than the politics in which government politicians engage.
I personally do not see the discussion or understanding value of using the term elites or elitism as it is frequently at this blog. It is much too general and appears as a strawman argument in some discussions. I suppose in my business career I could have considered the level of management above me as elites because many, but not all, had degrees from brand name schools and were practitioners of politics that I would better describe as being negotiators, agents of spreading good will and keepers of the corporate culture. They tended to be articulate and excellent public speakers but sometimes too stuck in past/present ways of doing things.
I rose to a level of management where I could avoid corporate politics and still be able to speak my mind to bosses who at various times in my career were directors, vice presidents and presidents. I never had the temperament required of those positions but I did obtain get pleasure in advising the people in those positions and sometimes getting them to change their views on corporate matters. I recall a conversation with my boss who was the division president when he asked me if I had any topics he could discuss at the corporate board meeting. When I gave him my ideas he told me that if he presented those ideas to the board he might be fired. The great pleasure from our meeting came when I read the board meeting notes where my boss had entered my ideas but in a softer terms than I would have used.
What I found in my career was that people at all levels of the corporations were much the same with the same positive and negative attributes. The most negative attribute I found was that of not wanting to change the way things were done at the current point in time and that went for workers in R&D, production, management, engineering and at the highest levels of management. I recall having to get production workers to change a process and their resisting and telling me that what they currently were doing was optimum and then going back at a later date with the new process in place and doing the convincing all over again with the workers giving me the same counter arguments about the current process being optimum. I could give similar examples of scientists, engineers and senior managers.
The only people who the term elite was applied was more self administered and those people were usually recognized as the axxholes they were.
Kenneth,
You clearly worked for a better organization than I did. I too worked in many different technical areas over a career of 20+years before I freed myself by going independent (and then founded several small enterprises).
.
The politics were bad, and the exchange of promotions for continuing sexual favors was obscene, but the last straw was being ostracized for noting the existence of a criminal conspiracy to hide environmental violations from the EPA. There were disappeared lab books later re-created without the offending data, including false signatures, widely distributed technical reports documenting the problems that were later collected and disposed of, paper process records showing the problems were “send to long term storage”, and implicit threats were made to anyone who dared even mention the violations.
.
They should all have gone to prison. For a very long time. So I walked away.
I have worked for a lot of different organizations, some of them near criminal, and some of them very forthright. The biggest difference here tended to be profitability, with companies living on the fiscal edge more prone to taking desperate measures to stay in business, while highly profitable companies having the “luxury” of being more careful. There are also dramatic differences between purely private industry and those living on the dole of government programs. Academics tends to be really, really bad at producing an actual product for consumers, for example.
I guess I had a sheltered corporate career. The worst cases that come to mind for me right now were where some corporate top executives wanted to conceal information from customers on low possibility problems with our products being shipped to them – not illegal just not ethical in my view. I told them that being completely honest in these matters and informing the customer would help our relationships with them. The counter was that we never did that communicating in the past and it would make our relationships worse. I would tell them that I would OK shipment providing they signed a waiver. That would cause them to defer and allow me inform the customer(s). The customers would invariably thank me for the information. There unfortunately was this old school adversarial relationship with vendors and customers that had to be changed and eventually was.
Very early in my career and with no authority in the matter I got wind of a problem we had with a possible non kosher food ingredient. I believe it was glycerin that was not known to be not from swine and was going to kosher markets in very low concentrations as byproduct of a manufacturing process. In turns out the division president, who was Muslim, and the R&D head, who was Jewish, made a joint decision to ship the product.
Kenneth,
“…who was Muslim, and the R&D head, who was Jewish, made a joint decision to ship the product.”
.
No virgins in heaven for the Muslim…. maybe hell for the Jew. 😉
Management definitely doesn’t like to hear about low probability / high impact problems, especially if you aren’t offering a solution to said problem. Maybe we shouldn’t launch that shuttle when it’s that cold outside? It is actually hard for them to judge what is engineering paranoia and what is an actual red alert warning. From the engineering perspective I always hated the “something bad happened during a test, we can’t reproduce it, and we have no idea what happened” scenario. Explain that to management. You tend to design a lot of instrumentation into things after a couple of those.
.
I always kind of laughed when NASA would sometimes come up with highly specific failure modes for a spacecraft failure in flight where basically it just stopped communicating. Yeah, right, the X56G valve failed.