Since It's a Blue Moon…

…I must say something positive about Trump.

He hasn't been nearly as bad as I had feared. The borders haven't slammed shut; there's no trade war with China; and birthright citizenship is still the law.

A Few Notes on Masks

One possible explanation for the slowdown in COVID-19 outbreaks is that masks are unusually effective with this disease. When the pandemic started, masks were discouraged and the doubling time was measure in days. Now the doubling time is measured in weeks.

We see an interesting phenomenon: When the COVID-19 death rate gets higher than 3 per million per day, it tends to come down. The most plausible explanation is higher death rates cause people to wear masks.

There appears to be an anti-mask campaign going on. It's giving me a strange, new respect for the anti-lockdown conspiracy theories of a month or two earlier. After all, if this were a plandemic to ruin the US economy, the people behind that would not want public-health measures that are harmless to the economy.

One of the claims of the anti-mask movement (that they interfere with oxygen) can be easily disproved. I put a mask on and measured my blood O₂ with a pulse oximeter. It read 95%. I took the mask off and it still read 95%. I repeated the test a month or two later. My blood O₂ with the mask on was 96%. With the mask off the oximeter flickered between 96% and 97%. For some reason, not many of the people retweeting the anti-mask claim tried that. You can try it yourself. You can easily order an oximeter. Don't just take my word for it. Nullius in verba!

Pascal Was Right!

According to Blaise Pascal:

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room.

One of the effects of the lockdowns and the social distancing is that when people are sufficiently bored, they'll join pointless demonstrations and some will even do recreational looting.

Another effect is that people are using enough drugs for collectivism to make sense to them.

Yet another possible effect is that social distancing guidelines are simply ignored on the re-opening campuses.

Annoying COVID Takes

The most annoying COVID takes found on the Right:

1. The belief that the hysteria is being driven by the Left.
2. The belief that “nuking the curve” is a matter of “moving the goalposts.“
3. The belief that this is unprecedented.
4. The belief that wearing masks is an intolerable imposition.
5. The belief that masks both promote panic and give a false sense of security.
6. The belief that masks both obstruct oxygen and allow viruses.
7. The belief that dense neighborhoods are the problem.
8. The belief that this crisis is an argument for autarky.

Explaining the Two Sides in the Coronavirus Controversy

You can think of the coronavirus crisis as a drill.

One faction thinks of it as a drill for bubonic plague, coronal mass ejection, or an asteroid strike.

The other faction thinks of it as a drill for a possible future international conflict in which the Enemy releases a moderately-bad virus to interfere with the economy of any nation that's reluctant to sacrifice its citizens. It's similar to the reaction to Kavanaugh's accusers: “If we react the wrong way, we'll see more of this in the future.”

What Does and Doesn't Make the Coronavirus Problem Worse

Things we have reason to believe can spread COVID-19:

1. Airlines.
2. Subways.
3. Cool weather (5–11°C).
4. Lack of UV.
5. Large institutions (schools, prisons, nursing homes).
6. Large celebrations allowed by stupid mayors.
7. Lack of masks.
8. Languages with lots of vowels.

Things we have reason to believe that do not increase COVID-19 deaths:

1. Parks.
2. Beaches.
3. Walkable neighborhoods.
4. Ventilator shortages.
5. Global trade.

We still don't know if mandatory lockdowns are needed. We have reason to believe people were social-distancing themselves anyway. (This also implies that ending such lockdowns won't revive the economy.)

Since It's April 1

How long before there's a coronavirus comedy?

Let's see… A gang of lovable misfits is thrown together to take care of coronavirus patients… They're all trained medical professionals: a dentist, a psychoanalyst, and a veterinarian. At least one of the characters comes from a backwoods area and is preparing moonshine hand sanitizer.

The People Who Are Really behind the Coronavirus Epidemic

A conspiracy theory I haven't seen yet:
The coronavirus crisis was engineered by a gang of philosophers eager to see real-life examples of trolley problems. They infiltrated the FDA, Chinese government, and the city governments of NYC and New Orleans in order to bring it off.

Do Media People Really Believe in Exponential Growth?

The coverage of the coronavirus crisis includes an annoying phenomenon: On the one hand, the mainstream media ignored this in February and sometimes ridiculed the people worried even despite the fact that the danger could be easily predicted by anybody thinking about exponential growth. On the other hand, many people in the same group were concerned about exponential growth in the context of overpopulation.

It's as though the I-Bleeping-Love-Science people don't actually understand what they're spouting. It even looks like they were only “concerned” about overpopulation because it was an excuse for legalized abortion and free birth control.

But wait, there's more. The reason exponential growth is worrisome in the case of epidemics is that the time needed to react (months or more) is far greater than the doubling time (around a week). The time needed to react to problems caused by alleged overpopulation is usually less than a doubling time. (I've mentioned this before; it's not something I made up just now.)

Personal vs. Private

The Coronavirus crisis has caused me to re-evaluate one of my opinions: I used to think the left-wing distinction between “personal” and “private” was silly. I now think they have a point. They just had it backwards. The regulations that had to be repealed (e.g., selling unauthorized coronavirus tests) tend to be regulations of private property but the regulations that have to be added (e.g., against crossing borders or going out in public) are of personal behavior. The business regulations are a matter of using businesses to enforce the regulations of personal behavior.

Many people regard the Coronavirus crisis are a refutation of libertarianism (formerly known as classical liberalism). On the other hand, as I've said before:

Control of contagious disease was a traditional activity of classical liberal governments. I have seen complaints that such governments were more concerned about contagious disease than malnutrition.

As for the bailouts… the above-mentioned regulations are a taking of the value of private property for public use. Such takings must be compensated. On the other hand, in order to keep the economy going, the compensation has to be distributed faster than it can be aimed. I suppose we should figure out the proper compensation after. One way is to suspend taxes during the recovery period on those businesses that had to be shut.

Is the Coronavirus Crisis an Argument against Globalization?

I doubt it. The problem isn't globalization; the problem is single-sourcing. Getting all of your surgical masks from Wuhan is as bad as getting all of your cars from Detroit or all of your government from Washington.

Most of the time, anti-globalists are defending getting all of your cars from Detroit.

On the other hand… This particular crisis is not an argument against globalization but it is also not much of an argument for globalization. A typical crisis goes wrong in just one area, so it's possible for other areas to make up for the resulting deficiencies. When something goes wrong all over the world, you can't always do that.

Old-style Numerals in MathJax

This is a test of the effects of the \oldstyle macro in MathJax: \({\oldstyle 0123456789ABCDEF}\).

Strange… It doesn't act like that in \(\rm\TeX\)…

It's Been an Eventful Month

We see something that caused lots of trouble in the later stages of World War I—but was thought to have been defeated—spreading from human to human. In addition to the bizarre revival of Marxism, there's also the coronavirus crisis.

I must admit that the Never-Trump Republicans may have been responsible for the Sanders candidacy:
Never-Trump Republicans: “We will vote for anyone rather than Trump!”
Democrats: “Anyone?”
Never-Trump Republicans: “Anyone!”
Democrats: “Woo hoo! We can nominate a Commie!”
Never-Trump Republicans: “That's not what we meant…”

A President Sanders will fight the coronavirus by calling people on the verge of creating a vaccine “blood-sucking parasites.” He will next put price controls on face masks and have a public listing of the names and addresses of “hoarders.”

Meanwhile, the Other Ignorant Army claims that the shutdown of much of Chinese manufacturing is an argument against importing foreign goods. On the contrary, it is an argument against getting goods from just one area whether or not it crosses an ocean. This looks like the right-wing version of “global warming proves that we MUST do everything I already was in favor of!”

On the other hand, even I'm willing to admit that maybe we should not yet have a Constitutional Amendment banning immigration restrictions. Of course, if we're ever able to create vaccines in the proverbial jiffy, we can pass such an amendment safely.

Speculation: The coronavirus was an engineered plague designed for the purpose of shutting down protest demonstrations. (The news out of China now is completely different from the news of a few months ago.) Alternative possibility: It came from an unsanitized telephone.

Analogs of Donald Trump in Science Fiction

Aslan? He’s big and predatory and has a mane of golden hair. Difficulty: He's not the Son of God.

Hober Mallow? Some people might think so but he's not rich enough.

Henry Belt? He might look lazy and irresponsible and act like he's lazy and irresponsible but don't let that fool you. He really is lazy and irresponsible.

Zaphod Beeblebrox? Close, but he doesn't have two heads.

Lord Brodrig? Lord Brodrig had to be loyal to the Emperor because he was the most hated man in the galaxy. Trump has to be loyal to the right wing because they'll be the people keeping him out of jail, but only if he does everything they want. (Nixon forgot about that part.)

Hmmm…

We're Waiting

Nu?