Working backwards:

If I lie to a corporation about my personal information, nothing happens. If I lie on the census, the penalty is $500. The census has a noble intent, but if I happen to believe public money won't in fact be more equitably and efficiently allocated based on my postcard, why must I be threatened to fill it out?

If you lie to a corporation about your personal information, that might be called "insurance fraud," for which there are absolutely ramifications. Much like an insurance company, the government compels us to pay a certain amount in to promote good behavior and indemnify against the societal risks of bad behavior. That's called social contract. "But what if I don't want to" has never been a compelling argument to me, which is one of the reasons I've never found libertarianism convincing. If you don't want to follow the social contract, then the social contract breaks down. When the social contract breaks down, and corporations (as well as individuals) are allowed to act in their own unfettered self interest, then you get the East India Company.

The East India Company may be a fair example of commercial abuse of power in the 1800's, but it basically was the government in India

That's the point. If you remove government oversight, you don't get better business. You get government by another name.. The difference between modern liberal democratic government and corporate government is that one is ostensibly using monopoly on power to enforce social boundaries and thereby uphold social order and manage use of national resources; the other uses that monopoly on power to maintain profit at all cost, no matter how brutal. I know which rubric of public management I'd be willing to trust more if I "followed the money".

Speaking of monopolies. You opened a previous portion of the discussion describing how Walmart might increase market share simply by improving their overall customer experience. The implication, I presume, was to illustrate how beautifully the market self-regulates through positive interactions to make both sides prosper. But it ignored malfeasance, because malfeasance illustrates how in the absence of regulation, the market cares only about profit by all available means. The means I supplied are absolutely tactics pursued by corporations to consolidate market share and increase profits without having to consider the quality of their product or user satisfaction. And the absence of end user harm cannot be conflated with the presence of end user benefit, especially if we recalibrate our idea of who the end user is. While I, some random Joe on the street might not care about corporate espionage so long as my computer still runs, if I was, say, the inventor of a certain kind of computer chip and I appreciated the revenue that my intellectual property generated, I might be kind of sore if somebody stole that intellectual property, and might appreciate the regulations that curb such bad behavior. As for monopolies, they decidedly don't result in cheaper diapers.

All this is to say, I really truly don't understand this dogmatic trust in corporation over governance. There's too much evidence being swept under the rug indicating how corporations would act in absence of regulation. In my eyes, mistrust is maybe the strongest regulatory weapon we as individuals have at our disposal. That goes for both government and the market. Why do we have to couch it as a binary choice between one or the other?

As for the opinion piece that we're discussing:

The purpose of the article is to ask if our mistrust in corporations is proportional to corporate misbehavior, compared to government or individual behavior.

Pish posh. The purpose of that piece is to present the author's opinion as common sense using a sort of gee-whiz, down-home-country-lawyer reliance on The People's love of a good, simple narrative. It opens:

I would initially expect most people’s attitudes to be pretty closely tied to their personal experience, more so than their book learning or what they hear on the internet.

And then expels paragraphs of hand-wavy opinion such as

I would not, and neither would most people. Maybe a few very unusual people would. But we can hardly be resentful and distrustful of someone for just behaving the way the vast majority of normal people would behave.

without ever relying on so much as personal anecdote. Even the portion on history doesn't refer to any particular historical example. The author practically begs his audience not to consider concrete examples or counterpoints lest it deflate the argument.

Never mind the fact that in the introduction, the author questions the sense of mistrusting the corporation over personal acquaintances, asserts that out of the three provided groups, the corporation is by far the most trustworthy, and then never addresses the enormity of that claim. I should trust the corporation more than my wife? My friends? My mother? It's an absurdity so enormous that the author seems to rely on us just kind of... accepting it?

And here's what I really don't understand. You're obviously very intelligent. And you're obviously well-attuned to historical precedent, and not afraid to buttress your opinions with examples. If I asked you not to consider history or legal precedent, you'd wonder why I'd redirected your attention. Moreover, you strike me as somebody who tailors his argument to the audience- the right tool for the right job to maximize efficiency. This opinion piece you posted- it bothers me because it asks its audience not to consider things too carefully. It requires tremendous faith not only in corporations, but in the authority of an entire stranger (not at all one of the "people I know in my personal life") without that stranger's ever having to demonstrate that authority. To whit, it's written for an audience of stupid people. And you chose this article over others to present to this audience on this site.

Then again, it generated discussion, so who am I to finger wag.

Walmart does not profit from Sears either, and how does Walmart destroy Sears? By providing customers with better prices and better service.

but if that doesn't work, there's always this

and this

and this

and this

...and so on.

Walmart doesn’t bomb its enemies or threaten customers, it lets customers decide which retailer treats them best.

That's cute.

But

Some

Might

Disagree

EDIT: I appreciate the irony of your using the U.S. Census as an example of hostile government overreach. Given that the point of the census is to figure out how to allocate public moneys most equitably and efficiently. And that the government is constitutionally bound to conduct census- that is, beholden to the people. And that incentives and disincentives to behavior are cooked into just about every corporation, public or private. Were you being ironic?

Man, bread and butter is the only right answer.

I'd love to contribute. I'm down to just my phone as a recording rig, so it might sound janky.

Boy, I wish I had a fancier answer than grilled cheese, but that's about all we have at hand these days.

I bought flour, too. What I didn't buy was bread flour. Rookie prepper move. How have you been???

People took everything here. Kroger, TJ's, Meijer... flour is straight up gone at every price point. Cake flour, even. Who uses cake flour? Do you even know what you're buying? Do you know what that's going to do to your recipes?

Things here are fine. Our governor did an incredible job of taking this seriously early in the game and then enacting incremental changes over the course of ten days to lessen the blow to quality of life. By all reliable accounts and metrics, it's made a difference. Our cases are still increasing across the state, but not exponentially. Our hospital is experiencing its projected peak right now, and we still have space in our ICU and inpatient areas. We'll see if that holds, but for the time being, it means we still have gowns, gloves and goggles. We're still recycling masks.

The joke about ER nurses is that we don't generally give a shit about precautions, so the biggest change has been going from laughing in the face of certain C. Diff to sob choke actually having to gown up to see patients. About 75% of what we see now is rule-out COVID, given that it's presenting as everything from SOA to broad abdominal complaints. And for the most part, that's fine. But it gets scary when you have to deal with a critical. Going into the negative pressure rooms wearing the garb plus CAPR feels like diving into the hot zone. It's eerie.

And then I go home and count out the days and look for symptoms. I was scared a month ago. I'm still scared, but now I'm used to being scared. So I've got that going for me. Humans are so resilient. We can get used to just about anything.

Can't argue with you. I've been thinking for weeks now that the current situation has really monkeywrenched conservative/libertarian arguments in favor of small government and free market capitalism. I've ALWAYS thought that libertarianism of all stripes has only ever come off as appealing in times of plenty. Which of course is self-defeating, since one of the points of modern liberal democratic government is to provide a safeguard against instability. Come to think of it, that's just about any government. And a government small enough to drown in a bathtub may look good as long as the boom times are keeping cash in your pocket, but as soon as an uncontrollable calamity hits and you realize you don't have the funds or the institutions in place to organize a collective, central response and states start to look like independent fiefdoms and local governments have to bid against each other and the federal government and private actors and extra-national entities for supplies and there aren't enough tests around to properly contain the spread of a deadly disease because the government couldn't or wouldn't get their shit together in time and now there is no standardized test but a balkanized system of six or seven tests all with their own flaws and wait times and people are dying like crazy... yeah. Maybe we should have a stronger federal government. In case something like that happens.

Fun anecdote. Last week we started a new policy at work. We're given one surgical face mask to use for the whole day; at the end of the day we drop our used mask into a box so it can be sterilized and recycled. We're now on the second cycle of masks. You can see smudges on some of them from the makeup of whoever wore them before. I have to take it on faith that they're actually clean. But the elastic on the ear bands? Already giving out. And the metal that shapes to the contour of your face is weirdly flimsy, so the masks hang loose now. And everybody is just glad that we haven't yet resorted to bandannas. Why does capitalism feel so much like one big Soviet workaround right now?

At a fundamental, Lockian level, the point of modern liberal democratic government is to address the externalities produced by capitalism. Collective security? Externality. Consumption or national resources? Externality. Rampant inequality? Externality. But shortsightedness is an externality as well. Maybe the biggest, least-addressed of a free market system. And unfortunately, shortsightedness feeds itself until we as a society convince ourselves that government isn't useful. And then when we're reminded again of the whole point, it's too late, and we are forced to eat each other to make it through the winter.

That said, I'd be interested to hear the stance of those here who are dyed-in-the-wool libertarians or conservatives. I know there are a few kicking around, and like you, am_Unition, I really want to understand the counterpoint.

Some day I'll work up the gumption to do a sourdough starter. Apparently it stinks to high heaven, but goddamn it would be worth it...

Runner-up: Mark Bittman, whose no-knead bread is as easy as he makes it sound, and also comes out as good as it looks in the NYT pictures. Just make sure to take the suggested amount of time. Good bread requires patience.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread

This is exactly what my wife heard from her old work cohort. This feels like a waking nightmare.

We're not yet out of surgical masks or respirators, but with conservative use we'll still be out by next week, just before the shit is really projected to hit the fan. The president of our ED physician's group has told us not to bother soliciting the community to sew masks, as there's essentially no evidence to suggest that they're at all effective.

CDC, as I'm sure you know, is recommending bandanas. It's like if we sent our soldiers to war without body armor. And then recommended that when they ran out of bullets they should just point their finger at the enemy and make a shooty sound.

The first cases are trickling into our hospital. Had one guy last week in a serious way and his chest CT was sobering. He's now on a vent and people are saying critical but stable, but given that average stay in ICU before death was something like 19-21 days in China, I'm betting his ticket comes pre-punched. Then two days ago we had two more like him. I'm off until Tuesday, and I have no idea what I'll go back to.

I'm a hundred percent gonna get it at some point in the following months. 35 is not young enough to feel like I'm gonna glide through. And I'm relatively healthy? But I've also had a chronic cough since I was about 15 and I'm betting my cilia are beaten all to hell. I've had at least one major panic attack per day, but I'm back on my anxiety meds so I got that going for me. But until they kick into full effect, I feel like I'm constantly progressing through finer and finer striations of dread. The dread of what work will be like when I go back. Dread of whether I'll be the one assigned to the COVID-heavy pod. Dread of what my PPE will be like. The dread of waiting for symptoms to kick in. When they inevitably do, eight to twelve days of dread waiting for my breath to get shorter and shorter until I can't talk in full sentences.

Man, I hate doing the line item thing, but I'm going to.

Any positive you can list for Biden is true of any of his political opponents within the Democratic party.

I fail to see the direct line of reasoning between this statement and your original statement ("there is no positive case for Joe Biden"). So what if a broad swath of the Democratic lineup shared some positives? How does that then translate to "there are no positives for Biden"?

Just like the last Democratic nominee for President, he comes with a ton of political baggage that can, has been, and will be leveraged against him.

Lemme FTFY:

Just like EVERY nominee for President, he comes with a ton of political baggage that can, has been, and will be leveraged against him.

I'll demonstrate:

Bernie Sanders is a Socialist, and Socialism is bad, mkay?

Oh, no! There are vague and unfounded rumors that Biden has dementia! Guess what is a perfectly well-founded fact? Bernie Sanders had a fucking heart attack! And now he refuses to share his medical records! Wonder what he's hiding about the state of his health?

Bernie Sanders is a fucking hypocrite.

None of this is to slag on your preferred candidate. It is only to demonstrate that there's no such thing as an unassailable frontrunner.

I am not making a 'both sides are the same' argument.

You opened with:

Is there a positive case for voting for Joe Biden?

Nah.

The sole reason to vote for Joe Biden is that he plays for the blue team, not The red team.

In doing so, you are absolutely making a "both sides are the same" argument. There are no benefits to voting for Biden over Trump? The only difference is the color of the team? Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.

I'm falling in line, isn't that enough?

No, it's not. And it's statements like this that demonstrate as much. If the last three years, the last three weeks have taught us anything, it's that messaging matters. Words and ideas, they're like memes, they're like viruses. If your message is "vote or don't, I don't give a shit because there's only one perfect candidate and he's no longer in contention," that message helps shape voter enthusiasm, and ultimately turnout. We saw that last election. And we've seen what the consequences have been. Why are you doubling down on the message? What's the value in ignoring every good reason to vote for the better candidate?

Are we still acting like things are normal? Like this is a normal election with normal stakes? Are we still entertaining some bygone notion of red versus blue?

The last three weeks. The last three weeks is why you vote for Biden. No, that's not fearmongering. Trump, and his supporters, and the sycophants he's surrounded himself with, have operated- always- under the notion that when it comes to governance, lack of experience is a virtue and those who are bureaucratically entrenched are THE ENEMY. The last three weeks have finally, maybe fatally, belied the strength of that philosophy. Do I have to enumerate the ways this administration has fucked up this response? I don't have the time or energy. Read the news. Do you want more of this? Because this administration isn't gonna get more nimble. There's nothing in our recent history suggesting that we're suddenly going to see a competent response. I can't wait to see how they respond to the economic depression that crashes down on us like a. Fucking. Tsunami. After the actual pandemic has receded.

Joe Biden is old. Joe Biden is white. Joe Biden is entrenched. I get it. Although come to think of it, Bernie Sanders is all that shit too, and somehow he gets a pass. But you know what else Joe Biden is? Experienced. And you better bet your sweet ass he'll surround himself with experienced folks, as well. And THAT'S what we need right now. Experience. Competence. Bureaucracy. Know what we don't need? Yes-men. Plutocrats. Spin doctors. Xenophobes. Take a look at the current administration. This is no longer a choice of red versus blue, if it ever was. This is a choice between whatever we have now and an actual government.

And you know what's sad? I, too, have flashbacks to 2016. I remember all these people whingeing about how if Bernie wasn't our man, then there was no point in voting because Trump and Hillary were the same package with different wrapping. And guess what, those people were fucking wrong. Hilariously, tragically wrong. Nobody seems to want to admit that Clinton probably wouldn't have thrown vital tax dollars at an honest-to-god wall between us and Mexico. She wouldn't have separated children from families. She wouldn't have enacted sweeping tax cuts for the wealthy at a time (hindsight twenty twenty, kiddos) when we probably needed to shrink our deficit in case of a national emergency. She probably wouldn't have seeded the courts with the most definitively conservative judges we've seen in our lifetime, thereby casting the future of, say, reproductive rights into doubt (you're calling that "fearmongering?" Really?). And she probably wouldn't have called the current pandemic a liberal hoax," a line which is still making the rounds in circles of conservatives who still resist efforts to flatten the curve. Among other things. So yeah, look back to 2016.

But stop it with this "Bernie is the only viable option" shit. It's not helpful. And it's not true. And if I have to hear it one more time I swear I'm gonna go and lick a subway pole and be done with it. There are some sobering fucking reasons to vote for Joe Biden and they go far beyond red versus blue.

What I like about this model is that it discusses what "effective measures" means, and offers a number of variables that we might tweak. Maybe it says much of the same, but it at least acknowledges that this is a complex and developing situation that will inevitably buck all current models.

Hey, I'll even take "not enough" at this point. But the numbers are selective. Ventilators are important, but actually not indicated or advised for all cases (some populations are at much higher risk for death by secondary VAP in these situations- early reports by professionals working with COVID patients recommend avoiding ventilation for certain populations). High PEEP devices such as BIPAP will also be used. As will ECMO.

The article also notes critical bed shortages, but ignores measures taken in already hard-hit communities re. expanding capacity by transforming non-essential facilities into more critical bedspace.

Is it enough? No. Is it still going to be totally overwhelming? Yes. But calling all efforts to lessen the impact "a deadly delusion," and then closing the argument by saying "but this is all back of the napkin stuff, please don't quote me" seems... unhelpful?

Not to mention, after all that, he says "you know what helps? Containment." Which last I checked was one leg of the curve-flattening stool. Is he NOT recommending hand hygiene and social distancing when isolation isn't possible?

What are this guy's qualifications to speak with authority on this? His bio at the bottom indicates that he specializes in "cognitive architecture and AI."

His articles prior to this one all address those subjects. Despite the addition of numbers, a lot of this article comes off as hand-wavey. Why does everybody get a say in this? How TF am I supposed to make any informed decision if every viewpoint on the internet is presented with equal ethos?

I've heard it further suggested that NYC public schools aren't closing because fully 113,000 of their students are legit homeless so the whole "your college food bank is unavailable because of pestilence" is just the tip of the Dickensian spear here.

When I think about it, this waaay more sad than funny? But gaddamn if I didn't laugh out loud. Which I've found myself doing at all the least appropriate moments in the last two weeks. Like all that's left for us is to dance in front of the fire.

I'm not worried about supply shortages or the logistics of tele-educating. The JCPS system is such a shitshow that my kids' school could burn down tomorrow and we wouldn't see a blip in either direction in their MAP scoring. Might go up, seems like they learn more on the weekends anyway.

I am absolutely worried about the fact that three weeks ago, our hospitals had no tele beds available, no ICU/CCU beds available, and we were boarding septic shock patients in ER overflow. That was BEFORE all this tomfuckery. I'm worried about the fact that our ER's plan for how to deal with COVID19 patients is to slap a mask on them and move them into one of our negative pressure rooms. Of which we have two. I'm worried that respiratory therapy's best estimate on how many vents our hospital has approaches 80, which is a far cry from, you know, building an entirely new hospital for COVID19 patients in a matter of a few days. I'm worried about the reports from medical staff in Italy which amount to "hey guys, so woah, we are way over our heads here and it's just spooling up for us, so y'all best pucker your butts." Meanwhile, Louisville is essentially a straight split between newlyweds and nearly-deads. We got old people for days. And I'm wondering what'll happen to all the really, really sick people we see NOW when our cup overfloweth with ARDS patients.

I'd appreciate updates on how things look on the ground in Seattle over the next few days. Kentucky is up to four cases now, one in Louisville that we know of. I'm thinking we're about twenty days behind Seattle, and given that I'm on the front lines, I'd like to know what I'll be up against. My immediate hunch is that our hospital is woefully unprepared for the next two months. Getting a little anxious.

Working next three days. Thinking on this. If I don't respond, bug me because I tend to let discussions and ideas dribble off the court.

I like to play a game sometimes where I imagine going back in time ten or twenty years and just reading current headlines to people to see how they'd react. Here's an excerpt from today's NYT:

Mr. Mulvaney’s performance headlined another extraordinary day in Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. Mulvaney made his remarks after he stepped before the cameras to announce that the leaders of the Group of 7 nations would meet in June at Mr. Trump’s golf resort in South Florida, even as he acknowledged the choice could be seen as self-enrichment. In Texas, Mr. Trump hailed a Middle East cease-fire that would cement Turkey’s goal of pushing Kurds from Northern Syria as “a great day for civilization.”

And on Capitol Hill, Gordon D. Sondland, the president’s ambassador to the European Union and a wealthy donor to Mr. Trump’s campaign, was implicating the president in the Ukraine scandal by telling lawmakers that Mr. Trump had delegated Ukraine policy to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.

What would somebody from, say, 2002 make of this?

"I have news for everybody: Get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy,"

- A totally unironic Mick Mulvaney

NO QUID PRO Q... wait never mind.

Dude, did you see the press conference last night? I'm not sure Pence is feeling all that chipper this morning.

I couldn't help imagining the interactions between congressional Democrats and Trump yesterday-

PELOSI: All right, boys, let's give him just enough rope to hang himse...

TRUMP: Is this all the rope you got? I need more rope. This knot only has seven coils, I need to make thirteen. Only the most beautiful knot. Hey, that guy doesn't have rope. Get that guy some rope, too.

I refer you to the Watergate impeachment proceedings..

Although many privately expressed doubts about Nixon’s innocence and criticized his handling of Watergate, congressional Republicans, with surprisingly few exceptions, publicly proclaimed Nixon’s innocence and opposed either his resignation or impeachment until nearly the end. Many congressional Republicans viewed Watergate as a political attack against Nixon and defended the president out of partisan considerations.

File under "nothing new under the sun." Also bear in mind: we like to think of the Nixon situation as a slam dunk in terms of public opinion, but there was little public enthusiasm for impeachment or removal from office even then:

despite the increasingly negative views of Nixon at that time, most Americans continued to reject the notion that Nixon should leave office, according to Gallup. Just 26% thought he should be impeached and forced to resign, while 61% did not.

-From today's Pew Research article.

Another interesting tidbit from that article:

By April, a resounding 83% of the American public had heard or read about Watergate, as the president accepted the resignations of his top aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman. And in turn, Nixon’s approval ratings fell to 48%.

Compare that to the present, when, as of August 5th- pre-all this shit- Trump's approval rating was 42%.

Now, I'm not Mister Sunshine about this or really anything. But there's a glimmer here. The true turning point in the Watergate proceedings was the recordings. I'm inclined to agree with mk; the transcript is pretty damning in and of itself, but if the White House offered it up this quickly when they offer nothing up without a fight, what else is waiting in the wings in terms of recorded evidence?

The minority leadership in the house has been conspicuously silent on the matter, as has the majority leadership in the Senate. Lindsey Graham being Lindsey Graham does not indicate that the President has the full support of his sucklings on this one. I'm very interested in the silence of Trump's minders-in-chief, and I'm curious to see how they respond after what these days counts as a stunningly long period of silence.

Again. It's way too early to determine the true fallout of this one. And God knows the sides are even more entrenched now than they were during Watergate. But this has got a different smell to it than the Russia investigation, the weight of which I was always skeptical about. There's very little plausible deniability here. We'll see.

From what I understand from all the talking heads, "quid pro quo" seems to be a construct- the most convenient one at hand for the White House at the moment- and doesn't really need to be established to underscore the severity of what's already come to light. Based on the most current reading, there seems to be a consensus (from everybody not on the right side of the congressional aisle) that a sitting president pressuring a foreign head of state to dig up dirt on a political opponent is... pretty dang bad.

As for Barr, at this point it's his word against the written transcript:

Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.

Whether or not Barr ever followed up is maybe immaterial. As the head of the department that would have to work hand in glove with Congress on an investigation of this magnitude, Barr is demonstrably compromised.

Holy cow. Even odds that Barr not only recuses himself but resigns by the end of the week.

Also: the White House agrees to release this transcript, but the DNI still holds fast (illegally, as it is, per whistleblower rules) to the original complaint. How much worse is the complaint? What more does it elucidate that the White House doesn't want touching daylight?

Did you play it on speakers and record it? I'd offer to send the actual .wav, but I actually like the quality the re-record gave it. Dark. I like it!

No, of course! Look forward to hearing it.

So here's a thought. The gist of the Mueller report: it's unclear whether or not Trump obstructed justice; since he ordered his administration to obstruct, but they didn't, the case for obstruction isn't as cut and dry.

Now there is, absurdly, new dirt. How did we get here oh my god. The acting director of National Intelligence presumably has the dirt. The acting director of National Intelligence has been asked by Congress to deliver the dirt: the acting director of National Intelligence refuses to give the dirt, citing orders from on high.

Mr. Schiff told CBS that Mr. Maguire had told him he was not providing the complaint “because he is being instructed not to, that this involved a higher authority, someone above” the director of national intelligence, a cabinet position.

-NYT

Is the director of National Intelligence then actually protecting Trump? Or, by following orders not to comply, actually providing grounds for unequivocal obstruction of justice charges?

BONUS QUESTION: does any of this matter, or will status quo be upheld no matter what this guy does? haha JK rhetorical bonus question

BONUS BONUS QUESTION: remember when a bunch of people decided they were gonna sit the last election out because Trump and Clinton were equally unpalatable and Bernie was the only reasonable choice and since it wasn't Bernie it didn't really make a difference? Remember that guys haha remember hahaha

I'm drunk but waaaaay not drunk enough. For the last three years and probably the next five

Everybody should listen to this series and spit on his name. I'm not one to wish ill on anybody, but I hope he chokes on a sharp chicken bone.

Haven't had time to make real music recently, but I've been puttering around on a new (to me) analog drum machine I bought myself for my birthday. So I've been making beats. Like so:

Soon I hope to have the requisite time again to make songs out of said beats. Until then, just beats.

"I am":

the shortest possible sentence,

succeeded closely by

"I was".