Motus Mentis

12 Comments

1. Phil Carson says

   The fact of clear thoughtful thinking in itself is refreshing.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 2:01 pm | Permalink
2. Whitewall says

   Interesting blog. I’m not familiar with it so more study is needed. From the looks of things, I’ll have it.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 5:40 pm | Permalink
3. Dave says

   Not impressed by this soporific essay. Conservatives are the liberals’ camp-followers, never far behind in the leftward march, more concerned with not being seen as racist, sexist, or whatever-phobic than with actually conserving anything.

   Ideology is useless against a virus. We don’t know if any particular germ is the next Black Death or the next seasonal flu. With the chloro/zithro cocktail widely available, this one’s probably the latter.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 7:01 pm | Permalink
4. Malcolm says

   Gosh, Dave, the way things are going lately I’m getting the feeling I’m going to have to give you a refund.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 7:04 pm | Permalink
5. Another Dave says

   I’m the Dave from the other thread, not the one commenting above.
   Sailer,Derb,Cochran,etc., abandoned reason.
   Those gentlemen all fall into the subset of the population most likely to be negatively affected by the virus, and I think it scared the crap out of them, to the point of abandoning reason.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 8:37 pm | Permalink
6. Malcolm says

   Oh! It’s hard to keep track.

   I dunno. I was surprised by how compliant Sailer was, but I thought Derb’s long analysis from his Radio Derb of 2/28 was hardly irrational. (I know Derb personally, and he’d have to go pretty far off the deep end for me to think he could really “abandon reason”.)

   My own position right now is that while I of course see all the conflicting political agendas in play, this is a thing so unprecedented in the modern era, and the data so iffy in the early going, that it is a thing about which reasonable people can come to differing conclusions. Though I’ll be 64 in about two weeks myself, I’m hardly in the tank for these extreme measures – but if I were in charge of making the decision at the highest level of public office, I’m not sure which call I’d make myself.

   Anyway, we can comfort ourselves with the thought that it’s all out of our hands anyway, and which side of this question each of us comes down on won’t make the least difference to anything. With long-term social trends I think small-bore, independent writers and thinkers can in fact have some influence, but this thing is a tidal wave. All we little fish can do is ride it out.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 8:59 pm | Permalink
7. Jason says

   Yes, ICUs around the world are breaking down for no reason at all. Move along please, nothing to see here. Nor will there be over the next month. Cochran, jayman, razib khan, hbdchick, and others: yes, morons that any sensible person should just ignore.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 9:00 pm | Permalink
8. Another Dave says

   Jason, I never said those folks were morons, but there is a growing chorus of heavyweight experts in all the relevant fields that are calling into question the draconian measures that have been taken, and they deserve our attention.
   Even Fauci is now quietly admitting this will be more akin to a bad influenza outbreak.
   There will be regional hotspots, like northern Italy and Wuhan, but one must not ignore Japan and other nations that did not institute drastic measures and have seen much lower fatality rates.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 9:47 pm | Permalink
9. Jason says

   Fair enough Another Dave about Sailer et al. Just very quickly though, one reason that Asian countries except China have done so well was that they were out of the starting gate fairly quickly: testing, masking, quarantining, and engaging in surveillance practices that we probably don’t have the stomach for. Alas we Americans are about a month behind where we should be; we have an enormous deficit now to deal with.

   Posted March 29, 2020 at 11:52 pm | Permalink
10. bob sykes says

    Perhaps we need some calm. From Dr. John Lee, an English physician and epidemiologist writing in the Spectator:

    https://spectator.us/deadly-coronavirus-still-far-clear-covid-19/

    “Statistically, we would expect about 51,000 to die in Britain this month. At the time of writing, 422 deaths are linked to COVID-19 — so 0.8 percent of that expected total. On a global basis, we’d expect 14 million to die over the first three months of the year. The world’s 18,944 coronavirus deaths represent 0.14 percent of that total.”

    That does not sound like justification for pushing the World’s economy into a full-blown second Great Depression, fully the equal of 1929. Nor does it sound like justification for putting whole cities and states under house arrest.

    Posted March 30, 2020 at 9:10 am | Permalink
11. JK says

    There will be regional hotspots, like northern Italy and Wuhan, but one must not ignore Japan and other nations that did not institute drastic measures and have seen much lower fatality rates.

    https://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2020/03/leading-covid-19-expert-from-south-korea.html

    Sorry ’bout y’all having to read captions.

    Posted March 30, 2020 at 11:01 am | Permalink
12. JK says

    In response to Friday’s post about the different emotional reactions of Democrats and Republicans to the Wuhan-virus pandemic …

    Just personally speaking I don’t recall seeing any media reports until after Bernie won New Hampshire. Not gonna bother to look it up but I believe that was February 11. (Somebody correct me if I’m in error?)

    https://www.cotton.senate.gov/files/documents/200122_Cotton%20HHS%20Letter_Wuhan%20Coronavirus%20FINAL.pdf

    Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told POLITICO that the intelligence briefings and warnings from the CDC and World Health Organization led him to become “alarmed that more was not being done to prepare the U.S. for the spread of this virus.”

    Schiff had begun hearing directly from constituents on the issue starting around February 12. …

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/how-coronavirus-shook-congress-complacency-155058

    Not that any of this matters much particularly now.

    Posted March 30, 2020 at 11:14 am | Permalink