COVID-19 thread

[Nachtswalbe]

Unfortunately, Nortaneous is correct here. Ivermectin is a horse dewormer and a human dewormer. It is, however, not an effective antiviral, since the dose required for that simultaneously makes it an effective anti-human as well.

(I say ‘unfortunately’ here because ‘don’t take horse dewormer!’ would really be an excellent advertisement, were it true. Unfortunately, it isn’t, and claiming othewise just gives more ammunition to the committed lunatic, especially those of the big-gub’ment-is-lyin’-to-us type.)

Big gubmint literally is lying to us. "If we lie, people we don't like will be able to point out that we're lying" is not the most morally upstanding reasoning in the world, but it's still not as bad as the actual PR strategy of the actual regime.

But the wonders of meritocracy have given us a regime ruled by... people who've spent their whole lives reshaping themselves to please authority. If you're too much of an ornery bastard to get the Harvard admissions people to like you, you don't go to Harvard. Competition is fierce. Any deviation from the norm will be punished. And you end up with a class of ultra-conformists who've spent their whole lives in ultra-conformist bubbles and don't realize most people aren't like them.

I must admit to finding most of your political posts incomprehensible, and this one is no exception. What, exactly, is your point here?

The point that most elites and officials are conformist bullshitters so we don't trust them

[Travis B.]

The point that most elites and officials are conformist bullshitters so we don't trust them

And the people who are behind the likes of Fox News, the New York Post, and like aren't conformist bullshitters?

[Nortaneous]

The point that most elites and officials are conformist bullshitters so we don't trust them

And the people who are behind the likes of Fox News, the New York Post, and like aren't conformist bullshitters?

Who cares about them? Nobody in power listens to them.

(Except some elected officials, but who cares about them? Unelected officials can just wait them out.)

[Vardelm]

Who cares about them? Nobody in power listens to them.

(Except some elected officials, but who cares about them? Unelected officials can just wait them out.)

[Travis B.]

And the people who are behind the likes of Fox News, the New York Post, and like aren't conformist bullshitters?

Who cares about them? Nobody in power listens to them.

(Except some elected officials, but who cares about them? Unelected officials can just wait them out.)

You're obviously forgetting a certain orange now-ex-President...

[Nortaneous]

And the people who are behind the likes of Fox News, the New York Post, and like aren't conformist bullshitters?

Who cares about them? Nobody in power listens to them.

(Except some elected officials, but who cares about them? Unelected officials can just wait them out.)

You're obviously forgetting a certain orange now-ex-President...

Who cares? He's forgettable. The idea that elected officials can effect long-term changes in policy that run counter to the will of the state apparatus is one of those funny ideas that provincials get, like sovereign citizens or QAnon. Does the USA look like a country where Tucker Carlson had a direct line to the CEO of government? Of course not. Tucker Carlson had a direct line to some guy who didn't matter.

If you have a boss you don't like, but you know he's going to be gone within the decade and can't fire you, what do you care what he thinks? You can just manage upwards - stonewall, play shell games, whatever.

And if you think about it for a few minutes, it'll become clear that this is by design. The English language has no shortage of words for strong unitary executives and the systems of government that enable them, and they're all negative. There are no similarly negative words for rule by a class of unaccountable lifers following emergent career incentives, but in the long run that lexical gap is temporary - maybe the hunter-gatherers of the post-American wastes will borrow one from foreign historians, or something.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

"Bureaucracy" and "bureaucrat" tend to have negative connotations.

[Nortaneous]

"Bureaucracy" and "bureaucrat" tend to have negative connotations.

Bureaucrats are rule-bound automata who make you fill out forms in triplicate. Not quite the right connotation. It's accurate for the average person's interaction with a DMV clerk, but the country isn't ruled by DMV clerks - the agency of the humans who make up the system (within constraints that come from outside the formalized part of the system) is the point.

[Ares Land]

I work for the government and I can attest that there is some truth in what you say. Bureaucracies have a certain inertia.
Elected officials are often unaware of a lot of what happens down the civil service hierarchy. The upper echelons of the civil servants are generally, I'm sad to report, pretty nasty assholes.

On the other hand: some policies get implemented really quickly. It generally depends on how much the mayor/minister/whatever in charge is interested in it, and how good they are at follow through. Others can take years to filter down the chain of command.

It's worth keeping in mind that a certain number of campaign promises are impossible to implement: they may be way beyong budget, illegal or physically impossible, or all three. It is the function of the civil service to make sure these disappear down an administrative black hole. I must stress this is a feature, not a bug.

Again, elected officials don't have a mandate to implement every damn stupid idea that goes through their head. Had Trump decided to launch nukes at China or North Korea, it's likely true that his orders would probably not have been carried out. That's again a feature, not a bug.

In the case of Afghanistan, it doesn't look like any administration, from Bush to Obama to Trump had the slightest idea of what policy to implement in Afghanistan. That is a classic case of 'garbage in, garbage out.'

None of this is really new. This is at least as old as the XVIIIth century (French kings couldn't get their state apparatus to do anything useful) but I'm pretty sure it's older than dirt (I'm sure Egyptian scribes gave Pharaoh trouble on more than one occasion.)

Getting back to contemporary America: the problem you have is that getting every gun in a huge state apparatus pointed in the right direction is hard work. And, you know, none of the recent Republican presidents strike me as being hard workers.

All in all, the deep state thing was a very useful gambit for Trump. He could make any damn stupid promise he wanted, exert no effort whatsoever in checking that these were implemented and when people pointed out that he did not, in fact, make America any greater, he could blame the Deep State all he wanted.

You could contrast him to Reagan, who got a lot done.

Getting back to COVID-19... I don't entirely see how the argument holds. Heh, sure, maybe the government bureaucrat is shady is untrustworthy... But so is the weird doctor advertising for strange alternative medicine.

[Raphael]

Oddly enough, I actually kinda like bureaucracies, precisely because of the "rule-bound automata" thing. I often find rule-bound automata easier to deal with than regular human beings. But then again, I'm weird.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I think bureaucracy has a worse reputation than it probably ought to, but the word (and words connected with it) — which can, I might add, comprise quite a lot of both public and private administrative hierarchies (including individuals who may have some say in institutional policy) — do have negative connotations.

[Nachtswalbe]

Is this complaint parallel to “woke capital”?
The idea that corporations are pushing social liberal stuff through ads

[Nachtswalbe]

Is anyone here a Diversitarian as defined in Look to the West?

[zompist]

Is anyone here a Diversitarian as defined in Look to the West?

Nachtswalbe, please pay more attention to what thread you're posting in. This makes no sense in a Covid thread; nor does talking about Switzerland in the British Politics thread. Random thoughts can go in the Random Thread.

[doctor shark]

Covid-related: I just got back from a trip to the Grandest of Duchies (Luxembourg), and it's interesting how different the rules are in neighboring countries compared to the Netherlands, especially with regards to masking (only required here on public transport; required in a lot more places in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Germany) and access to restaurants (here, it's a lot of Covid Check pass checking for entry into restaurants; in Luxembourg, not yet, though that's on the near horizon; Germany's already implemented it, plus mandatory contact tracing). Also had to wear masks inside the venue of the Ph.D. defense I attended, which wasn't a big issue, but compared to the Netherlands when it was strictest, it felt strange (in the Netherlands, if you were stationary and not moving, you could remove your mask). Though, in general, everyone in Luxembourg appeared to respect the rules to a much greater degree than here in the Netherlands, with everyone properly wearing masks and all.

Numbers are starting to go up here, but that's not so surprising, especially if you look at where numbers are climbing (the "Bible Belt").

[Nachtswalbe]

Is anyone here a Diversitarian as defined in Look to the West?

Nachtswalbe, please pay more attention to what thread you're posting in. This makes no sense in a Covid thread; nor does talking about Switzerland in the British Politics thread. Random thoughts can go in the Random Thread.

Understood

[Rounin Ryuuji]

The Netherlands has a "Bible Belt"?

[Vardelm]

The Netherlands has a "Bible Belt"?

I think he's just comparing the Netherlands (with its relatively lax rules & climbing numbers) to the Bible Belt in the U.S., where the same thing is happening (but to a greater degree, I assume).

[Ares Land]

The Netherlands has a Bible Belt. Parts of the Dutch countryside is strongly conservative Protestant.

(And I just learned checking Wikipedia, their attitude to vaccines has been a serious concern for quite some time, even before Covid.)

87% of the adult population are fully vaccinated here in France. Pretty good news.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I suppose that isn't all that surprising, now that I think on it.