Category Archives: Economics

Economics, Health, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Herd Immunity

13 Comments

Thoughts from Arnold Kling.

We need to start testing as many as possible as soon as possible.

[Update early afternoon]

Ten ways the Left has politicized the pandemic.

Only ten?

[Update a while later]

The vast majority of spread has been coming from the asymptomatic. We need to start testing early and often.

[Update Tuesday morning]

Chloriquine continues to look promising, particularly if it really can be prophylactic.

Update a few minutes later]

No, China is not our friend. And I agree that media shills for it should be named as enemies of the American people.

[Mid-afternoon update]

I just asked my doctor if she could write a prescription for chloriquine. She couldn’t.

[Update a few minutes later]

Bob Zimmerman: The unwarranted panic.

[Update a while later]

Hitler isn’t happy about being quarantined.

Business, Economics, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation

8 Comments

More from Allison Duettmann, who is co-writing what looks to be an interesting new book with Mark Miller (who I haven’t seen in years).

If you have the time, the next in the playlist is a salon with her and Aubrey De Grey on the value of life extension, but it’s a little over an hour. Foresight has put a lot of videos on line recently from its Vision Weekend last year.

Business, Economics, Education, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

California

…is a cruel, medieval state.

As a resident, I can attest. Not sure how much longer we’ll stay here, though there are signs that perhaps the Democrats have overreached.

What they don’t tell you, of course, is that while the state is technically in surplus currently, it has unfunded liabilities of hundreds of billions in pensions. California is a poster child for what happens when you let uninformed innumerate idiots vote.

Business, Economics, Education, Health, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, Technology and Society

Covid Speculations

14 Comments

…and notes on the American response:

In the approval of new medical tools (drugs, laboratory tests, and medical devices), our system — including direct federal and state regulators and our civil liability regime — massively prefers safety (avoiding sins of commission, if you will) to the introduction of new technology that might save lives. We don’t put a feather on the “safety” side of the scales, we weigh it down with an anvil, and are thereby far more willing to commit the sin of omission (doing nothing) than commit the sin of approving a technology that is dangerous or ineffective.

Voters, politicians, government officials, and the press overwhelmingly favor the “safety paramount” approach of the United States. Unfortunately, the highly deliberative manner of the American approach becomes dangerous in a rapidly spreading pandemic. Much as the media and citizens wish it were otherwise, we cannot change our system, or even our bureaucratic impulses, suddenly. Even if lives depend on it.

There is no way to know how many millions of lives both the caution of the FDA in approving drugs (requiring “effectiveness,” and not just safety), and the federal junk-science approach to nutrition have cost us over the decades.

[Update a while later]

Related, and (speaking as a boomer) darkly amusing:

Good job, team! The FDA is forcing the CDC to double test for the virus. Because, you know, testing was going so smoothly and rapidly, and we knew who had it.

[Saturday-morning update]

She shoots, she scores.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Bernie: “We must seize the means of toilet-paper production!”

[Update a few minutes later]

Globalization may be the biggest victim of the virus. It was definitely insane to put China on the critical path of our drug production.