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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment Eight

Contrary to the imaginings of our recently relocated "friends" from the West Coast, Chicago has not been having a string of unusually harsh winters, lately. Quite the contrary, outside of a few episodes that didn't last for long, Chicago's recent winters have been bizarrely mild, by local standards. Usually, they are longer, darker and colder, helping to support the old joke that we are slowly, but surely mutating into Russians as the generations pass.

There are differences between those who suffer through such winters, not really living in each irreplaceable moment, but looking ahead, longing for the time when the Spring will return. One of them is the realization that the subconscious can be fooled into believing things that the conscious mind knows to be nonsense, driving away one’s instinctual (but now obsolete) fears of the lean times when the ground is frozen and nothing could possibly grow.

In saner times, we had places we could walk to and spend time in, in which the feeling of Winter would fall away from us, such as this conservatory in Lincoln Park. “Lincoln Park” meaning the park, itself, that seven mile long expanse of open land along the Lake, not to be confused with the north side neighborhood of the same name, which is not quite so open.

Photo by Dana Beveridge

Photo by Courtney Martin

Photo by Ben Miller

“The gang, at the conservatory“ by Benny Mazur

Finding oneself surrounded by green and growing things, one would lose one of the subconscious cues that Winter had arrived, and been hanging on like an unruly house guest for months. Even more so, had one the good sense to open up ones coat and take off one’s hat once in this well heated place, remembering that clothing is merely insulation and that keeping winter clothes on indoors achieves little other than keeping the outside cold on one longer as one enters, while undermining one’s acclimation to the cold after one leaves.

As the water from the sprinklers would hit the leaves, one might have noticed how much it sounded like a light summer drizzle would right as it started to fall, before it had time to soak the leaves and find its way down to anybody below. Which this “rain” blessedly never did, because wet clothes would have been a terrible parting gift for a visitor walking off into a Chicago snowstorm.

Having thus deceived one’s distressed inner self into believing that some of the leaves were still on the trees - suggesting that this was really just mid autumn, not that frightening time when the air itself could steal the life from one’s body - one would find that it wanted to believe, but still had nagging concerns. “But why have we not heard any birds,” it would ask the conscious mind. One only had to step through the gates to the Lincoln Park Zoo and walk a few hundred yards to hear some long missed songs. More or less.

“Red-capped Cardinal” by Amy Evenstad.

Wandering through the McCormick Bird House, one wouldn’t really be hearing the songs of Spring because devoting zoo space to a sparrow exhibit would be silly, but the birds were unmistakably birds and after a few months, something in you wasn’t all that determined to quibble. There was a large central enclosure in which a simulated river flowed through a small simulated forest and one did well to be a little alert, because the birds were flying overhead and perching on the handrails, separated from you by nothing but the air (and their quicker reflexes, if you happened to be a small child who wanted to pet them).

The fact that the “river” had a concrete bed and flows out of a pump, not out of some tropical highland, scarcely seemed to matter.

“American Avocet,” ibid

Pleased to see that the birds had not all flown south for the Winter, the inner voice still asked where the Sun had gone. But really, how finding that lost light wasn’t so difficult.

“Serenity Library Skylight Chicago Panorama at Harold Washington Library Winter Garden“ by Spiro Bolos

During the Summer, when nature gifted us with far too much of a good thing, we sought out the shade and deliberately missed out on the vast bulk of the sunlight available. When, in the Winter, we sought out places that had little to no shade, such as an atrium at the topic of our public library, a garden at Navy Pier

“Navy Pier Garden Palace, Flags and Fountains“ by ManoRegejimas

or just a chair on the second floor of a coffeehouse in which we could sit, eyes closed, facing directly into the Sun which was on just the other side of the window, in short order we would catch up on most of the light we had been missing because of the change of season, and the Winter would not seem so grey. “But why do you feel so cold walking from building to building if ...”

“Walk toward the light“ by Don Harder

The zoo was a mere two miles north of the heart of the Loop, only a few stops away on the El. Getting off the Red Line at Monroe, one would find an entrance to the Chicago Pedway directly under the Carson, Pirie and Scott building (designed by Louis Sullivan). Having entered the system, one could walk under (and sometimes over) the city for a considerable distance, going from warm building to war, building without ever stepping outside even once. Bars, restaurants and shops could all be reached along the way in this mostly underground city, not to mention the Chicago Cultural Center, the Civic Opera House, the Harold Washington Library (rather conveniently, had we just been getting some sunlight in its atrium, while reading), City Hall and the State of Illinois Center, along with much of the Loop. There was much room for improvement in the experience - the restaurants could have been better and the interior space less drab - but at least one could take a half decent walk without seeing one’s breath.

Thus reassured that that whole “Winter” business was nothing more than a cruel lie, one’s subconscious would leave one along, asking one few question about that strangely early and deep frost that had covered the ground to a depth of a few feet, as one went walking through the woods, having mentally prepared oneself to enjoy the harsh beauty of a winter day by denying its existence.

Seasonal affective disorder is a real thing, and a far more common thing than acknowledged, as one can see just by watching those who claim to be in good spirits but clearly are not. It is not a thing to be dismissed, not when it turns over a quarter of our lives into a thing to be endured rather than a thing to be experienced, but it is a thing that can be defeated.

These little urban perks that I described are not grand things. Sometimes, they are amusing things - as when, in walking through the garden in Navy Pier, one finds oneself walking under an arch of water as one fountains squirts into another - but really, they aren’t things beyond the financial reach of almost any city. That greenhouse has only three semi-large rooms for the public to walk through, and can be walked past in a minute. It is not vast. The atrium in the library is nothing more than a room on top of the building with a glass roof. Even the pedway, itself, as good an idea as it is, is little more than a connection of pre-existing basement space.

All people have to do to have these things for themselves, and things far better, is admit to themselves that they want them. In this country so many of us have become so focused on the Economy on its most inherently meaningless level - as a collection of numbers measuring the movement of goods and the making of profits - that we’ve forgotten that the entire purpose of the Economy is to make life possible and to make it enjoyable. We consume nearly joylessly for the sake of consumption, at times just to be seen doing so, but simple little things that bring a little added joy into our lives, like the ones I mentioned above, come to be seen as impossible extravagances, even though they really aren’t.

But for now, such subjects are difficult to discuss, because Covid is the only thing that many people want to talk about, as it has been for what is about to become two insufferable years. I’ve spoken about these sources of comfort in the past tense, because given the local response to the global drama, much of what I’ve described can no longer be done. Even on such a basic level as that of the enjoyment of these simple pleasures, ones that would have been of no concern to the KGB or even the Gestapo in times and authoritarian regimes past, we find that we are not truly free, and that we do not know when or if our freedom will ever return, because we don’t have a voice in the matter.

But at least the flu has been kept at bay.

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment Seven

In response to the article "Scientists Want to Make Pluto a Planet Again," which has been archived (1 2), as have its comments (1 2) ...

"We think there's probably over 150 planets in our solar system,' researchers say"

And others would differ, as one can find just by doing a little more reading. Or by noticing that these astronomers are trying to get the definition of "planet" changed. But, not being an astronomer, myself, and not being on Newser, at the time, I wasn't dealing with astronomers. I was dealing with midwits. Maybe I really need to stop doing that, but I kept going and wrote this reply, mainly directed at the other comments on the page, giving my semi-layman's explanation of the situation to ... who? Not sure that anybody read this.

Oh, please. Could this subject just die, already? Pluto is smaller than our own moon, so much so that if one could put the Moon out next to Pluto, Pluto would come close to going into orbit around it. https://www.universetoday.com/39565/how-big-is-pluto/#:~:text=The%20mass%20of%20Pluto%20is,x%20107%20square%20kilometers. Only 18% of a lunar mass. The barycenter would be outside of the Moon, but the barycenter for the Pluto-Charon system is outside of Pluto, and Charon is still considered a moon. Our little Luna, which is so small that it went geologically inert relatively quickly, would clearly be the primary in this new system we'd be setting up. It's a tiny little thing, far smaller than astronomers thought it was, initially, because it has a high albedo. I saw some odd comments about communist scientists who wanted to take Pluto's planethood away because it was the only American planet ... sigh, people ... why are you like this? Pluto's discovery was little more than an accident. There was an error in what the orbits of the outermost planets were thought to be, calculations were done based in that error, and not surprisingly (really) there was an object in the Kuiper belt in that general direction. That's all that happened. At the time, Pluto was thought to be more massive than Earth, but that was wrong. Pluto isn't massive enough to disturb either Uranus' or Neptune's orbit, and, as I said, the discrepancy in those orbits went away with better measurements. So, why are you clinging to this old mistake for dear life? This makes no sense. Yes, Pluto is a lot more interesting than the Moon, it has some fascinating cryovolcanic activity, but is that enough to make something into a planet? .067 g surface gravity - does that sound more like the gravity on the surface of something that one would seriously call a world, or like something one would associate with a large, icy asteroid? Compare that to .03g for Ceres, a place that nobody has thought of as a planet for a long time. Let it go. Let's move on. Pluto will be OK. Nobody is going to hurt it, I promise.

At this point, if comments were open on this post (as replies are at the original location of the comment I just reposted), I'd no doubt hear from somebody who'd smugly ask "are you an astronomer," which brings us to an eternally frustrating behavior I keep seeing out of the "I f--king love science" crowd. They'll take the first thing they read on a subject to be dogma, and then go tirelessly on the attack when it is disputed. This is not a good way to behave, if one really wants to learn anything, and it does raise questions about the rationality of those such behavior is seen out of. If two sources differ on a subject, why does the chance event of reading the first before the second (instead of the other way around) make the first source a better one? Do these people imagine that fate will put the better work in their hands, first? Why would their hands be any more blessed by fate than anybody else's? How is this approach any better than flipping a coin to choose whose work to make into dogma in one's mind? It's absolutely crazy, but it's behavior that so far the scientific community hasn't managed to educate these people out of, and that gets to be a persistent problem. We've seen this during Covid, with disastrous results. While the stakes in the labeling of Pluto are much lower, the same frustrating pattern is being seen - having heard Pluto is a planet, some people will spend years refusing to accept that views have changed, and that there are good reasons for the change. In addition to being a chance to end a lot of annoying prattle, once and for all, a contentious non-issue like Pluto might be able to serve as a valuable learning experience for some people, if they can be reached, because if they understand how their thinking went wrong on this issue, they might be able to think more clearly on others. But so far, reaching this crowd has been like pulling teeth. I don't know what is wrong with some people.

(*) which Newser puts on a completely seperate page, one which doesn't link to the article the comments were posted on, for reasons I wouldn't even try to guess. It does seem like a pointlessly evil thing to do to the reader, who isn't going to have any context to put these comments in.

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment Six

The second avatar for my account on Disqus (which I uploaded after a censorship incident mentioned in an earlier post) is a download I found here

https://pixnio.com/food-and-drink/cheese/mozzarella-cheese

while doing an image search for "California cheese." Feel free to read your own meanings into that choice.

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment Five

I posted a reply to a comment on an article on Newser on the 2nd, as did maybe a few dozen other people . Let us see how long it stays up. Permanently, I hope, but given that I just got done writing about a censorship incident carried out by an employee of Disqus, I think that my concern is a reasonable one. The article was about the New Year's Eve celebration in New York for this year, how it had been scaled back in response to Covid, but thar hardly seemed to matter, at times. "Duxburian" replied with some scolding toward the unvaccinated, making a familiar (and thoroughly unreasonable) demand. He wanted them to go into exile where they would await what he would have us believe would be their impending doom, away from the rest of Humanity.

You're welcome to refuse to get vaccinated. Tell yourself your natural immunities and your immune system are nice and strong.. Whatever. Just do it elsewhere while the rest of us are trying to ensure the least number of people die.

I then posted a rebuttal. The format is a little different, but the words are the same.

Meanwhile, back in the real world ... Some of us live in densely populated major city neighborhoods and have already been exposed to Covid, repeatedly, because there was no way to avoid that. Especially in our neighborhood on the near north side of Chicago, where some of the people we met were deliberately trying to infect others. It's a long and really discouraging story. There are some truly psychotic people out there. But there is a bright lining of the dark cloud that is the realization of just how many of my neighbors would kill us all just for their own amusement. We know exactly what Covid-19 would do to us, and in most cases, the answer is "nothing at all." This discovery was made informally way back in early 2020, and was quickly confirmed up by medical research. The risk factors have long been known - old age, obesity and immuno-compromised status - as have the generally low risk levels for those lacking any of those factors.

"You're welcome to refuse to get vaccinated."

How gracious of you.

"Tell yourself your natural immunities and your immune system are nice and strong.."

Except that we're not just telling ourselves that. The evidence is telling us that, and it has gone on telling us that for almost two years, now. That's two years of people like you trying to gaslight people like me, telling us that the Reaper was going to drop by any day, now. At what point does somebody like you break down and accept the reality that he's been full of c--p for two years? When will you get over yourself? You do realize that after two years, just about everybody is going to figure out that this isn't really the Black Death and that we're not about to drop?

"Whatever."

Pretty much what I'm thinking whenever a doomer starts ranting.

"Just do it elsewhere while the rest of us are trying to ensure the least number of people die."

No. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life hiding in corners just to cater to the fears and desires for control of a pack of neurotic f--kwits. Life will go on for the rest of us, whether people like you can cope or not. Somehow, right now, you're making me think of something I heard of, as we celebrated New Years. It's something called "Sneezing for Freedom." Ever hear of this? It's a wild idea. What these guys are going to do is make a point of "accidentally" sneezing on as many people as they can (while unmasked). "Won't that spread disease?", I asked some of the enthusiasts, who didn't seem altogether sober at the time.

"That's the idea." "Beg pardon?" "These guys have taken two years of our lives from us without our consent because they wanted to stop the spread of disease. They've acted like spoiled brats when others have said no. What do you do to a small child when he keeps acting up?" "You sneeze on him?" "No, you give him the opposite of what he wants. Our dictators want less disease spreading around, so I say let's give them more!"

Things got kind of gross in there, after that. Sticky. Had to wash my hair twice, but if that's the price we have to pay for freedom, I guess I'll have to accept it. At least until I run out of clarifying shampoo. I hope I got my point across to you, whatever it was supposed to be. Think I'll go take a few megadoses of vitamin C. Later. Be well. Oh, and please calm the H--- down. Seriously, this has gotten old.

Two days later (I'm editing this on January 4), he has still not replied, even though (as we can see) he has been quite active on Disqus since I replied to him. Given the formulaic one to two liners which show up in such numbers on his profile, I suspect that "he" might really be an it - an AI that posts talking points while replying to the structure rather than the substance of the comments posted by others. This is a very simple sort of AI that has been around since the late 1960s (eg. Prof. Joseph Weizenbaum's Eliza program), simple enough to run quickly enough on late 20th century hardware to simulate participation in a somewhat normal conversation. If my suspicions are correct, there are potentially amusing ways to trip up such a bot, if one wishes to bother. Regardless of where his (or its) talking points are coming from, the viewpoint that they express is a Utiliarian one. This might seem to be a benign position, this idea that the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few or the one, but is in fact a deeply problematic thing to assert, for reasons I'll discuss later.

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment Four

I see that USA Today has listed our riverwalks as the ninth best in the country. I would question that ranking, and indeed the very concept of the ranking. "Ninth best" leaves us with the question "best at what."

Let's take a look at some shots taken along Chicago's riverwalk. The photos I've found on Flickr are used under a common creatives license given by the photographer, and link back to the locations I found them at.

"Awed by Chicago" by Chris O' Brien.

“Chicago Riverfront” by R Boed

Another photo, same title, same photographer

“Chicago - Centennial Fountain ‘Water Arc’“ by David Ohmer

There is an older riverwalk in Naperville, a sort-of suburb of Chicago, that was set up way back in 1981. (*) If I told you to go out to it, and you did, you'd probably be disappointed and feel that your trip had been wasted. While the place has a mild, pseudo-historical charm, there's nothing so distinctive about it as to justify a trip out from Chicago to it, much less a trip from another state. Yet ...

If you live or are staying nearby, the riverwalk in Naperville offers an experience that almost anybody would probably prefer to the one offered by the Chicago riverwalk, after a similarly brief hike over. This assertion might astonish many of our visitors, who've enjoyed walking along that path, and looking up at the buildings around them. For a first visit, our riverwalk holds a visitor's interest in the way a suburban walk can't, because what is one seeing on the suburban one? Trees of a sort probably not so different from those one sees at home, and a shallow river of no great power, crossing a landscape only a little hillier than that of Chicago. Which is to say, slightly bumpier than a pool table.

Why, then, would I say that our little Western neighbor has a better riverwalk than we do? Because as a local resident, the typical resident had his first day in town a long time ago, often as his parents pushed him around in the stroller. Those huge buildings looming overhead are big - and there's some pleasure to be found in the little bit of drama the look of a structure can get just from rising so high above us - but big is really all that most of them are. That breathtaking, distinctive, creative architecture you see in old photos of our city was almost all demolished a long time ago, and replaced with non-descript glass blocks, downtown. There are a few stetches that are still worth looking at, along Michigan and La Salle, but most of the Loop and a great deal of River North just looks like urban everywhere, USA.

This is not like wandering through an intact historical city like Rome, where you can walk through again and again, and always find something new to see. If you're living here and the novelty of seeing something that big, that close has worn off, the Riverwalk has a way of turning into something you use as a shortcut to get to the Lake, while silently cursing your ancestors for leaving you stranded in this drab place. They could have stayed in Europe, with all of its history or gone out West, where there is some real nature to see, but no, they stopped here, in the middle, and so in this area you were born.

When one takes away interest, which isn't going to be maintained on this river that nobody would ever mistake for the Tiber or the Seine, all that remains is comfort, and in this, the Chicago river walk fails, miserably for the locals. Let us consider the so-called "River Theater," seen in the second photo from the top. A tourist might sit on one of those steps, and watch the river traffic go by. A local knows that if he gets in the habit of doing that, he's going to wear a thin spot in the seat of his pants very quickly. Notice how the seating doubles as the walking surface on each of those steps? The city can squeeze more people in that way, which perhaps was the idea, but in order to be safe to walk on (especially when wet), that surface has to be a little rough, so people don't slip and fall.

If the city would have been willing to reduce capacity, perhaps they could have placed some wooden seating on a number of those levels, but they didn't, so those who would rest there are left sitting on concrete, without much shade during the summer, or any real windbreak during colder weather. There is nothing comfortable about this. I've never seen that "theater" ever approach even 10% occupacy, which under the circumstances is not surprising. Aside from the discomfort and damage to our clothing, we've seen the boats. We seem like seeing the boats, but not so much as to spend much time doing so. As for activities that might hold a crowd, like say an actual theater event, one can see the river right at the bottom. To hold a play there, one would need a floating stage, which would be expensive and would get in the way of river traffic.

We do not linger there, very often. Why would we? The street noise from Wacker is reason enough to flee. We are left with an attraction that somebody was able to make look good on paper, but does little for us. Now, let's take a look at that other, smaller riverwalk, the one that the tourists probably won't go to.

"Shepherd's crook streetlight 1" by Brendan Riley

"Geese on the Path," ibid

"Sunday Morning" by David Jakes

Looks a little more peaceful, doesn't it? Picture sitting on a relatively soft wooden bench, down by the softly roaring rapids undeneath a wooden covered bridge. You're not worried about falling in, because you've seen a duck standing at midriver without gettings its feathers wet. You're not right on top of the water, there's a deck stretching out about 15 feet, giving you a little added peace of mind about the book you brought to read, and the journal into which you are writing. No sound of traffic, just the ducks, the sound of some birds singing as they fly over the tops of the trees that shade this place, a thick canopy of leaves shielding one from the Sun, with only a few small bits of sky showing through. You look to the small sandbar under the bridge, on which has grown a miniature forest only a few feet across, and see a family of raccoons leaving, splashing across the river and scampering up the trunk of a tree behind you. They are neither fearful nor aggressive, because the thought of giving them a reason to be never occured to the local people and probably never will.

The dining choices aren't as extensive as on the Chicago riverwalk, because there is just one little place that sells something that is really not much more than fast food, but just north of the middle of the walk, not so far away, are a few affordable restaurants, if you're hungry. If you feel like hiking, there are no skyscrapers to see, but there is another forest, a real one if a small one, a short distance down the path, with a tiny marsh and more benches, these made of metal, but relatively soft metal that yeilds a little as one sits.

If one sees a storm coming, not to worry. There are solidly (but not massively) built rectangulae gazebos with ample seating underneath in which one can ride out the storm, remaining dry while staying outside and listening to the sound of the rain. When the clouds break, perhaps somebody might be playing in the tiny ampitheater located in a dip in the bank, or perhaps in one of the shelters, not because the city hired anybody, but because unlike Chicago, the city of Naperville will let people gather in these public places without dispersing them for "loitering." Left in peace, they are free to be their own spontaneous, amateur selves.

Which group of local residents sound like they're having a better experience? Fodors will probably never write about the Naperville Riverwalk, but so what? Is the true purpose of such a place to be somewhere tourists will walk through, once, usually to never return, or to be a place where the people of a city can escape the confinement of their homes and simply relax?

What we're seeing in this comparison, in part, is a cultural difference. The Naperville Riverwalk was created with the quality of life of the people living in that city, in mind. The Chicago Riverwalk would seem to have been a resume building exercise for former mayor Rahm Emanuel, the same mayor who was in the habit of merging the already crowded public schools in his city, shutting down mental health centers and even going so far as to end the Independence Day fireworks in Chicago, pleading the poverty of the city as an excuse for these unpleasant and unpopular actions, yet managing to find the funds for projects like this, that never live up to their hype, because they're done without any real love for those who would supposedly benefit from them, or for the projects themselves. What results is far more striking, likelier to stick in the memory of a one time visitor, but it's soulless. Which is to say, a reflection of the spirit in which it was created.

This is why I question the entire concept of such a ranking of riverwalks. Such a ranking inevitably turns into an apples and oranges comparison, that fails to take the desires of the differing groups of visitors into account.

(*) Not a lot of history in this area, I'm afraid.

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment Three

I find that as a resident of the near north, that I can't quite get people outside of the Chicago area to understand that when the riots came through in 2020, that there was nothing normal about them. That when stores were being smashed, and guns stuck in the heads of unfortunate (and imprudent) friends who chose that particular night to go out shopping, that this was not everyday life for us.

Photo: "Ring Around the Rosie" by Michael Curi, taken outside of Navy Pier, 2014. If you click on the image, it links to the original on Flickr.

In their minds, in Chicago there is O'Hare Airport, there are the museums, and then everywhere else is a raging gun battle that never stops. I don't get that. Do they really think we'd never have to stop to reload?

The notion that there could be a peaceful neighhorhood in this city never seems to occur to people, not even people one might think would understand that. Like a particular aunt who has a panic attack whenever I'm out after 9 pm, as if I wasn't a grown man. The same aunt who will ask "when are you going to get married, when are you going to start a family," and yet wants me tucked into bed (with a warm cocoa, no doubt) before anybody is getting home from work. While I'm finding my future wife and mother of my children, who might have a job at this point.

Wondering how that's supposed to work after I find steady work. Do I roll a cot into the lab and ask my supervisor to read me a bedtime story? Try to convince him that my pajamas (probably decorated with little choo choos) meet the dress code? "You know how people get when their kids move into the city," somebody will start. "They've lived all their lives in the same little farm town ..." She lives in New York. Freaking New York. I think she's been in a city, before.

But sure, aside from that, this all makes perfect sense.

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment Two

I can't just have a page of empty posts. That's just ... no, not liking that idea, at all. So I'll replace some of the original emptiness with a few photos that caught my eye, today, showing places on the near north side of Chicago.

Photo: “2011-10-09 Chicago Walk 006.jpg“ by the user “atramos” on Flickr. This copy links back to the original upload.

Yes, I know - there's no connection between the title and the content of the post, or between the post and the comment below (which is described by the title of the post). Sometimes, that's going to be the whole idea. A post will have a little surprise for the visitor. If Disqus and its community give me a good reason to want to stay, and this blog sees more activity, the little surprises will take the form of original content, as opposed to the downloads I'm doing. Right now, I'm in a little bit of a rush to get content in place for a few reasons, one of which is that I'm worried that a Tumblr admin might look in on my blog and not be convinced that it is just that - a blog and not just a gateway to my profile on Disqus, something that obviously would be inappropriate.

Enhanced bookmarking (bookmarking with commentary) is a legitimate part of blogging. It's something I can do relatively quickly, because I have a backlog of bookmarkable material, links that I haven't gotten around to sharing, yet, so this seems like a good place to start, if I want to convince my host that I'm dealing with the company in good faith.

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion / Disqus Posting Installment One

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svbd7574ebrywev4fntr4ebftyje6dnf · 4 years ago

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The Covid Censorship Discussion

Now that I have my screenshots up, both here on Tumblr and over on Disqus, it’s time for as brief a summary of what happened as is possible, made possible through the magic of cut and paste, and non-refreshed window that has made my life easier by staying open for a few days, now.

First, Shaky posted a suggestion.

Title: Bug Reports & Feedback: Is it time Disqus offered a 'False and or Misleading COVID Info' option to Comment Reporting Text: "As the Title asks, Is it time Disqus offered a 'False and or Misleading COVID Info' option to Comment Reporting? The Anti-Vaxers are rampant on Disqus. Facebook and Twitter now deals with COVID lies and misinformation on their platforms. Isn't it time Disqus does also?"

Harveyrabbit supported it.

"Great idea. Although I could see Covidiots abusing the system and flagging legit info on the virus and prevention."

logansteele1 showed signs of starting to see what the problem with this suggestion was, but didn't quite get to the point of understanding it fully.

"Maybe what Harveyrabbit means is most of us don't have a working knowledge of what is and what isn't misinformation and may end up flagging things just not agreed with, rather than untrue. At this point, it would almost take a true viral researcher to assess the value of any covid related statement, and it would be a Herculean task. I believe most posters are sharing from the almost too much, and ever changing information and research on covid.. Perhaps we read what people have to say, then browse it and look for whatever information we can find to attempt to get to the truth of the matter. It's early days and there is so much not yet studied and so much more to learn.

Shaky then pushed back against the idea of would-be censors showing any signs of humility."

"Na, that's not how _I_ read Harveyrabbits reply. To the contrary of what you implied there. We know. This isn't rocket science anymore. Masks, distancing and "vaccinations' work. For a commenter to imply otherwise is false and misleading. Same with becoming "vaccinated' causes the human body the ability to stick eating utensils to it, magnetically. That, likely would not get flagged, only because it is downright hilarious to anyone with a lick of common sense between their ears. A poster who is a Rand Paul believer saying do not follow CDC Guidelines, ..... Buh-Bye Covidiot. You're outta here. Or, this. Posted just now on TheHill:

Best you rely on your own immune system, stay healthy, get the components for the early treatment therapeutic kits (listed, explained on Dr John Campbells site). Quercetin is acknowledged as a good zinc transporter, too.

I don't see it a herculean task, nor one requiring the accreditation of a Virologist to deem that to be misinformation."

Little things can be so strangely helpful. Have you ever noticed that when somebody starts by saying "Na" instead of "No," maybe about 90% of the time the person speaking is a complete idiot, and the other 10% of the time he's gotten exasperated after talking with a complete idiot, and is mocking him? So much insight packed into one little vowel.

What you see above is what I saw when I came in and started reading this thread, about a day later. (I'm seeing comment ages being listed in days, without a time and date being attached, so a little guesswork is involved in doing the chronology on this). Properly horrified by the casual dogmatism being offered as a basis for policy, I spoke up. Replying directly to the proposal, starting a new thread, I wrote

"That's a horrible idea that needs a lot of unpacking. Who decides what is "Covid misinformation" and what is not, and on what basis do they do so? What qualifies anybody at Disqus to step in and fill that role? What qualifies you to do so, OP?"

Shaky responded with his usual smug dismissiveness and a bit of deflection. Watch how he acts like he'd only have clearly insane comments removed, when that's really not the case.

"Pardon me if I *seem* sarcastic, I'm not being. It's not a hard call. Quite simple, really. Prime examples of misinformation: Torches crammed up ones heiney Mainlining Clorox Anti-Larval medication #MagicDirt .... and whatever comes next that someone can make a buck from those lacking mental acuity."

I replied to this, pointing out the absurdity of what Shaky had just said.

"Pardon me if I *seem* sarcastic, I'm not being."

Pardon me if I seemed to be accusing you of sarcasm. I really meant to accuse you of pushing for censorship, and after what I saw above, of straw manning.

"It's not a hard call. Quite simple, really."

You think that separating real science from pseudoscience is so easy, that any random self-appointed layman can do so and just never be wrong? I think anybody who has ever really been to graduate or professional school is rolling his eyes when he reads that. We've all seen the general public aggressively push some amazing BS in our respective fields.

"Prime examples of misinformation: Torches crammed up ones heiney Mainlining Clorox"

I've never heard either of these suggested, and I'm not convinced that you have, either. One thing I've noticed over the last few years is that your faction lies effortlessly. You might try to salvage the second with this glorious moment of Trumpish fumbling at the podium

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but if you actually listen to what the man said, instead of just hearing what you wanted him to say, you'll find that even the Donald did not advocate any such thing. He just said that he wondered if there was something that could be injected under the skin that would be as destructive for the virus inside the body, as bleach was for it outside of the body. It was an off the cuff question asked by one person, and not much more than that.

"Anti-Larval medication"

Ivermectin, to be exact. I can top that story. There's this absolutely mad physician who made his sick patients eat moldy bread. How could such a lunatic be allowed to practice? And, of course, I'm having a little fun with you, because what I'm alluding to is the discovery of Penicillin. Things that actually do work can sound absolutely insane to a layman. That's why peer review is supposed to be done by actual professionals in the actual field, and not just by any random loudmouth with an opinion. Is Ivermectin a good choice for Covid-19? I wouldn't pretend to know, because I wouldn't be in my academic lane on that one. But I'm very sure that you're not, either, and at least I do have an academic lane (and a scientific one, at that). When I talk about how Science is or is not done, I know whereof I speak. Looking at your ramblings, I seriously doubt that you've even been to college. So, if one physician wants to come onto Disqus and talk about the merits of Ivermectin as a treatment with another physician, why should he need your approval to do so? What is this great base of expertise that you draw from, which you somehow gained along the way to getting that GED you no doubt proudly display that qualifies you to screen medical research? Do you honestly believe that reading a newspaper article qualifies you to do that? A newspaper article written by a reporter who maybe had a bachelor's degree in Journalism? I know this is a hard one for somebody with such a blatant case of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome as your own, but in matters of current research, experts can (and often do) disagree, and one can't tell which of the experts is right just by putting blind faith in the first one that one hears from, which is what you yahoos have been doing. You'll find one expert who says something that you like hearing, and then when others dissent, you'll try to get them silenced. That's what you're doing here, using the usual methods: the sharing of non-verifiable anecdotes and the straw manning of dissent. If you can find one person who said something silly, you'll put his words in the mouths of your entire opposition. If you can't, you'll just make stuff up. The proper role of a layman in a discussion like this is to stand back, let the real experts talk without interference from the unwashed masses (that means you) and let genuine, untampered with peer review do its work. In any genuine scientific field, that's how real work gets done.

"#MagicDirt"

Again, sounds like something you made up.

"... and whatever comes next that someone can make a buck from those lacking mental acuity."

And that's really what this is all about for you, isn't it? You've gone through life always wanting to be one of the smart kids and you never were. Then along came Covid-19, and by jumping onto the right bandwagon and regurgitating the right talking points, you could feel like you were intelligent, too. Then along come these awful dissenters who are ruining that moment for you, a moment you waited for, for so very long. So you try to bluster your way back to credibility, and if you have to tell a few fibs to get there, no problem. For you. But for the rest of Humanity, that's a huge problem, because in the process of getting your good feels, people like you have been hijacking Science in a matter of literal life and death, and you've been doing so with the help of some shady tech companies that have proved all too willing to play to the Mob, for the sake of easy popularity and quick profits. This has worked for your crowd over on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, and now you're trying to get it to work for you on Disqus. You're hoping to sidestep the question I put to you with a few tall tales and an attitude, but it stands unanswered: what qualifies you or any of the employees at Disqus to screen scientific or medical claims? Your personal incredulity is not an argument that should persuade anybody anywhere outside of a bar room, so let's see if you can do better. As for the mods: This whole discussion is being archived, and Archive Today doesn't honor takedown requests. Whatever happens here will be a matter of public record, so you might want to consider the optics, not just for the short term, but in the long run. Maybe you don't really care that much about Disqus, but if the company gets sued, later on, it's going to have to surrender your real names to whoever brings the lawsuit. Your anonymity might not be as guaranteed as you think. If Disqus becomes one of the reasons why medical progress stalled, wrongful death suits are likely to follow. If Disqus is found to have acted more like a publisher than like a neutral platform, say because it adopted non-neutral content policies, its safe harbor protection could evaporate quickly. I know cronyism can be fun, and I do see what's going on in the comments, but you might want to think about your next step, carefully."

Shaky (the original poster, the one with the suggestion) then came back with something that was barely above the level of elementary school playground taunting.

"You just tipped your hand, didn't you? .... Yeah, you did. And, having a sock with which to post with. How quaint. #MagicDirt #BOO #DrinkBlack #BooTime Are you done? .. Good. Later."

I asked a few more simple questions

"What sock would that be? And how did I "tip my hand"? Do you have a real answer, or is bluffing (and trying to change the subject) the best you can do?"

and got no real answer, just more posturing. I'll get back to that later.

At this point, the moderator (who usually posts as "CaliCheeseSucks" but lately has been calling himself / herself "⚾🧢 Catch Nats Fever ⚾🧢" decided to dive into a discussion that s/he was moderating, and what I'll take to be an attempt at a witty conversation followed.

CaliCheeseSucks: "Also: Anything that begins with, 'According to Joe Rogan... '" Shaky: "ahahahahaha ..... Or Herman Cain, among others .......... :)" CaliCheeseSucks: "That reminds me, gotta get my morning fix seeing who the newest Herman Cain Award winners are." Shaky: "Good morning, C..er... somebody Queso . ;)" Shaky: "Darwin's Theory has a Reverse. Who knew??"

For those who don't know: Herman Cain was a Republican politician who died at the age of 74 on July 30, 2020. He allegedly died from Covid. Shaky and CaliCheeseSucks, the company representative that Disqus chose to put in charge of the forum in which users talk about their concerns, were dancing on an old man's grave, just a year and a half after his death. While hostility in response to that would certainly have been called for, it would also probably have been what these two individuals were hoping for, because it would have sidetracked the discussion away from an inconvenient subject.

I stayed on point. I'd like to thing that's what Mr. Cain would have wanted me to do, but it's hard not to feel a little heartless for having done so. Which, of course, is the whole idea when this game is played. This is what I wrote in reply to CaliCheeseSucks.

"'Also: Anything that begins with, 'According to Joe Rogan... ' Yeah. Now let's try this one on for size, Catch Nats Fever. Go over to Youtube, and you can find people who will passionately argue that the Earth is flat and stationary, capped over with a crystal dome, and that the Sun is a 32 mile wide light that circles over it. I think we can all agree that that's ridiculous. Therefore, by the OP's logic, random laymen are qualified to screen research papers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, and their dictates should determine what can or can not be said about these subjects on Disqus. Sounds really stupid when I put it that way, doesn't it? Because it is really stupid. Seeing why isn't difficult: the existence of blatantly stupid comments about a subject does not demonstrate the non-existence of errors that a layman would not pick up on. You understand that, presumably, because you know that you're not an astronomer or an astrophysicist, and yet this very same understanding fails your when the subject of Medicine comes up. Why is that? Yes or no. Do you feel that Medicine is a trivial topic, one in which expertise is of limited value? If the answer is "no," then what's with the swaggering response? If the answer is "yes," then would you mind if our gardener practiced open heart surgery on you? He seems convinced that you need it, and he did visit a few websites and read a few newspaper articles. I hear that's all one needs to do to be an expert on the subject of Medicine, now, so should we set you up for late March? Any objections? Do you sort of understand, now? Have I managed to get through to you?"

Harveyrabbit made a bizarre attempt to declare victory.

"Thanks for helping us make our point. <rolleyes>"

In response to that semi-coherent outburst, I posted the comment I was in the middle of editing when CaliCheeseSucks decided to ban me from the company forum for daring to disagree with him / her.

"'Thanks for helping us make our point.' No, I really didn't, and the fact that you don't understand that is kind of sad. I get the impression that it went way over your head, and that amazes me, because this is simple stuff. Watching the news and believing everything you hear dogmatically does not make you into a physician or a scientist. Why do you not understand that? Peer review is a process of critique. If nobody is speaking against pre-existing work, then peer review is not happening and what results is not Science. Do you really not get that?"

I then tried to save my comment, having appended to it, and (as I said before) ran into the fact that I had just been banned from the forum by none other than CaliCheeseSucks, who had been a participant in the discussion, and a childishly disruptive one at that. At about the time I was trying to update that last comment, CCS wrote

"Found Joe Rogan's sock!"

and in reply to Shaky's comment on the bottom of the page, the one is which he claimed that I had tipped my hand and asked if I was done, CCS wrote

"He is done."

eliminating any reasonable doubt as to which mod had banned me. CCS knew this instantly, showing that s/he was the one who had taken what can easily be seen to have been a completely indefensible action as a moderator. Continuing the theme of childish acting up, Harveyrabbit posted a picture of a tombstone with my display name at the time ("Opting Out") posted, with the inscription reading "I chose the worm paste, 2021." The wit was as weak as usual, my point entirely missed, and it was snark at the expense of somebody who the troll in question knew wasn't free to defend himself, rendering the act a cowardly one.

I had violated not even a single rule in that forum. I had simply argued more persuasively than his her side had, because I had argued more rationally. No surprised there, because as I keep saying, I really am what I claim to be, and CaliCheeseSucks is the kind of person who would choose the name CaliCheeseSucks. This had not been a meeting of intellectual equals, by any stretch of the imagination.

My banning from that forum was nothing more than the act of a petulant child throwing a tantrum over the fact that his / her side had lost an argument. But it was also the act of an appointed representative of Disqus, a company that a great many people have entrusted with the storage of the comments on their websites and blogs. Judging from the comments I saw during a search under "CaliCheeseSucks" and "censorship," it was far from being an unprecedented act on CCS' part, the complaints about said person's abusive moderation appearing to go back for years. Yet, year after year, Disqus has continued to choose to leave CCS in charge of that forum, the one in which s/he just engaged in censorship in support of a call for further censorship.

This leaves us with an uncomfortable question: what does that choice tell us about what we can expect from Daniel Ha (the CEO) and Disqus? If he is comfortable with the idea of one of his own employees tilting the field of debate by making inconveniently persuasive arguments for the other side vanish in the company forum, then would he be equally comfortable with the idea of an employee making them vanish out of the comments on somebody's blog?

Find an answer to that question was as simple as doing a search under "Disqus" and "censorship," and noting the comments about Disqus having served as a "Leftist back door into conservativw websites." Doing another search inspired by those comments, one quickly finds this report on Reddit (of all places), which I made sure to archive just now, because Reddit hasn't been at all above censorship, itself. Qoting the author (LilyBegonia),

"I knew I'd been censored on Disqus for a long time, and even posted it in Disqus comments, my posts being removed quickly for the most part, until one got through long enough to draw this response: …you are 100% correct. This is a EUTimes moderator you are talking to. I have investigated what you said and we have just discovered that your comment was lost in a black hole. We knew the exact date of your comment because it was synced with our own database yet it was nowhere to be seen inside the Disqus dashboard. it wasn’t under Approved comments, not in Spam and not even in Deleted as we assumed you might have deleted your own comment. And definitely it wasn’t under Pending either. The comment was literally in the abyss, nowhere to be found. I imagine we lost dozens if not even hundreds of comments this way. Disqus most likely took the liberty to delete comments on our website as if it was theirs. As it is already stated clearly in our TOS, we DO NOT CENSOR any kinds of comments whatsoever. Here you have total freedom of speech, you can be a leftist communist, SJW, progressive, nazi, whatever you want. If anyone believes someone is wrong, engage in debate and disprove with arguments. Furthermore at least 300 comments were found not to be SYNCED with our website. After this discovery we have permanently removed Disqus from our website and we will NEVER EVER install any 3rd party apps that would act as a intermediary with our comments. At this point Disqus has blacklisted me on every conservative site that uses their software. I had just set up a new account, but now if I try to use it I get a message that the site requires validation of my email, which they never did before, and to click here to request it. I clicked there on 8 different sites using Disqus, and never got verification email from any of them. I am left to conclude that Disqus has blocked my IP from commenting anywhere they are in charge of comments. Disqus personnel will falsely claim that it is the sites using their software doing this, and this is what they want you to think, even if you have given no reason at all for those sites to do this. Disqus is a Leftist backdoor into conservative websites for the purpose of censoring conservative views, plan and simple."

As one can easily see for oneself, just by doing those searches and reading through the results, Disqus does this sort of thing, a lot, and has been doing it for at least four years, so by now, Daniel Ha would have to know about this. As he is running Disqus, we can reasonably conclude that when his company becomes known for engaging in a certain practice, and remains known for it for over four years, that he personally finds said practice to be an acceptable one.

As for Cali's motives, as if there could be any doubt at this point, one need go no further than his / her profile on Twitter (which I definitely made sure to archive) and read the description.

"I take no responsibility. For anything. Ever. Vote Joe 2020. MAGAS and BernOuts Are Blocked."

There's your motivation and there's CCS' attitude as a mod, proudly wxpressed. S/he sees power, not as a responsibility to be borne, but as a privilege to be enjoyed. Power without responsibilty is power on its way to being abused, over and over, and as we can see, abused with the approval of Daniel Ha and Disqus. Neither the CEO nor his staff are likely to ever object, because CCS' political motivations (and, apparently, attitude) are their own.

This becomes a solid argument, not just against conservatives installing Disqus on most of their blogs, but against anybody doing so, because no two people will ever have political positions that match, perfectly. Let us note CaliCheeseSuck's openly stated hostility toward supporters of Bernie Sanders, who is certainly no conservative, himself. Intolerant people like Cali don't really have friends, because they can't. They just have co-conspirators in an endless series of almost comically graceless mini-conspiracies, who have to always wonder whose knife will end up in whose back, next, because not a one of them stands for anything at all, other than his own desire for validation and self-gratification.

One has to wonder how many of them will have moved beyond the parallel play stage of child development when they enter their middle years, some day. The motivation in CaliCheeseSuck's abuse of power becomes clear, when one looks at that Twitter bio and the comment about my having "tipped my hand," posted by his / her "friend" Shaky. There is an assumption, a truly bizarre assumption, floating around that to be less than 100% fanatically on board with the Covid-19 mandates, their rationales and censorship in support of the same is proof of one's status as a MAGA ("make America great again"), as a supporter of Donald Trump and therefore (in their minds) a "Nazi." Somebody to ... well, you know ...

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People without drug habits might find this point of view somewhat difficult to fathom. How, exactly, does one infer the presence of support for white nationalism from the presence of support for the preservation of peer review? Does this mean that my Indian immigrant thesis advisor is now a white supremacist, and has been plotting to oppress himself?

This, of course, is absolute nonsense. Somebody who quite rightly called "Operation Warp Speed (*)" an irresponsible idea and rejected Mr. Trump's vaccine could do so before 3 November 2020 without any such accusations being lodged. As one would expect, given that Pelosi and other members of the Democratic Party had expressed concerns about the whole idea - concerns which went away, with no real explanation given by them or demanded by their supporters, after Mr. Biden was sworn in. One could even see Politifact attempt to spin doctor the entire dispute away, rewriting History in a positive Orwellian manner. Those who've dared to read 1984, even though its' author is a dead white male, know what I'm referring to.

"Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and itt followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible. The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he forced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands on hips, they were gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be good for the back muscles) -- the frightening thing was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death? The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'"

1984 is a work of fiction, but the warning in it of what might come to be was all too real, as we should all know, because we're living through something all too reminiscent of that novel's nightmare, already. In the past, the Press could (and often would) lie, but it would get caught in its lies, because there were many competing media sources, and because the past words and images of that same press lived on, most inconveniently, in hard copy form in the libraries. But then came the Covid panic, and libraries were declared "inessential" and shut down. To this day, I still can't access the research libraries in Chicago as a visiting scholar, because that use is still felt to lack the vital necessity associated with cannabis dispensaries and liquor stores.

We were left with a world in which the only record available to us was the easily doctored electronic one of the Internet, opening the door to Orwell's horror, a door that people like CaliCheeseSucks and his / her coworkers at Disqus would gladly drag us through. The logical inconsisteny of saying that opposition to the whole idea of Donald Trump's Operation War Speed, the clear deliberate insanity of such a claim, is damnable but not at all surprising, because as we should have all realized as we watched Antifa turn on and batter journalists on camera, the Left that we are getting isn't Progressive. It can't be, because in the absence of any generally agreed up moral standards, there no longer is a standard by which Progress will be judged by those who might be expected to try to achieve it.

The Left we are getting, this burner of cities and imprisoner of the masses, is totalitarian to its very core, and the absurdity of its positions is no measure of failure on its part. That absurdity is essential for its most basic goal. Think about the playground bully who made the other kids eat dirt on the playground. Do you think that he thought that eating dirt was a good idea. When he stuck a smaller kid's head in the toilet, do you think he was doing that because he thought that the kid would benefit from the washing of his hair in recently defecated in toilet water? No, he knew these were horrible idea, and that was the point. By imposing them on others, he established his power over them, drawing pleasure from their pain.

The same principle applies here. At the grassroots level, our present day Left is little more than a pack of overgrown playground bullies, sadists who never outgrew their own childhoods. Such a crowd has been seen before, and in a context which should give decent people some real concern - as Hitler's Sturmabteiling (SA), the thugs he sent out to wreak havoc, until he betrayed them and had them slaughtered during the night of the long knives. In this, a prudent man will see a warning of what awaits us all if we do not push back now, before these more recent Fascists of the Left gain so much power that they can not be resisted. Looking at the casual way in which formerly unimaginable acts of brutality (eg. the murders of nursing home residents) have been accepted by so many, one can see that that time might not be so comfortably far off.

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two and two make four." As a mathematician and a scientist, I can only come down in one way on the question of whether or not to oblige the Totalitarian Left, and go along with the idea that scientific theories are to be driven by political demands. I reject it completely, yielding no ground to it, as I must, because to do any less would be to make a mockery of the most basic standards of academic ethics. This is absolutely the hill I choose to fall on, if I must fall on any. But I hope I won't be standing alone on it, because if we lose sight of Reality, what does anybody have left to him?

If a man loses his sense of honor, in what sense is he even a man?

(*) The initiative started by Donald Trump to get Covid-19 vaccines to market more quickly by cutting "red tape," the so-called "red tape" being cut being the requirement that these vaccines be properly tested before release.

One might remember an earlier right wing drive to have substances assumed benign until demonstrated to be harmful, a suggestion which (if acted on) would have opened the doors to the marketing of unsafe, inadequately screen goods. Horrible ideas never really die in Washington. They just get recycled.

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