[PLUG-TALK] Terminator vs. Trump (and COVID)

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Jan 12, 2021, at 3:00 AM, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
> 
> https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/01/10/arnold-schwarzenegger-slams-trump-riot-wiel
> 
> Former Republican Governor of California Arnold
> Schwarzenegger compares Capitol attack to Kristallnacht,
> describing what it was like to grow up in Austria after
> World War 2, with an ex-Nazi father who got drunk and
> beat his children.
> 
> A decade from now, there may be millions of ex-Trumpies
> racked by guilt.  Ending this mess will be slow and
> painful, and it may take years for some Trumpies to
> acknowledge the pain they caused, then stop tormenting
> others... including their own children.
> 
> After we stop the terror, I hope we will graciously
> accept apologies, then help the ideologically damaged
> confess, heal, and learn to respect others again.
> 
> Keith


On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 12:41:11PM -0500, James Bertelson wrote:
> How about we don’t paint with such a broad brush as to infer that trumps supporters are equivalent to nazis who need to apologize for their sins for a start towards reconciliation? POTUS elect isn’t helping either by comparing sitting senators to Goebbels.
> 
> Let’s talk to each other and bridge the gap that divides us. Otherizing and other such psychological tricks only serve to further deepen the wound. 

-----------

Governor Schwartzenegger made the comparison. 

I responded with a call for compassion for the fraction
(perhaps small) of the Trumpies who become contrite and
willing to heal.  My "brush" is narrower than the
governor's ... and many Trump syncophants, apparently. 

If you read what I WROTE, it is about helping the contrite.
Help is damned difficult for those who refuse to change.

The etymology of "repent sinners" is interesting - a
"sinner" is an archer who misses the target, and "repent"
is changing your aim.  Not grovelling in front of a
priest; instead, an effort to pursue better results.

------

Some write that "very few died" in the insurrection.

So far.  While some of the rioters were masked, many were
not.  Statistically, we can expect hundreds of them to have
active COVID infections, of many different strains.  Tens
of thousands were exposed to them, contracting the fastest
spreading varieties from the super-spreaders among them.

SARS-COVID-19 is a fast-mutating, recombinant RNA virus -
it is modular, and the modules can swap.  So viruses Aa
and bB can combine in one exposed individual, resulting in
a new type AB ... which could evolve to become as lethal
as SARS-1, with 9% to 50% (over 60) morbidity, and spread 
throughout the country when the rioters return home.

The probability is the product of probability Aa and
probability bB, which is proportional to interacting
group size N *squared*.

The first AB will be only one individual ... but then 4,
then 16 ... assuming R0=4, like the COVID-UK variant.
It may be a couple of months before AB spreads enough to
be detected by the feeble US health monitoring system.

The more-distantly-related MERS coronavirus was 35% lethal
in the general population.  It is unlikely that COVID-19
will evolve that much, but that is the worst-case nightmare
possibility.  Try to explain that to people who "don't
believe" in evolution - as if reality gives a rats ass
about what you believe, rather than what you DO.

-----

In 2003, in Japan on a business trip, I got "pneumonia".
That was the symptom diagnosis at the Kyoto hospital were
I was /almost/ quarantined for two months.  Fortunately(?),
my wife (a medical doctor) was with me, and she helped me
get home to Oregon safely.  Weeks later, SARS-1 hit the
headlines.  Perhaps I had something worse than pneumonia,
and perhaps I spread it to others on the plane home ... 

And perhaps a few of those others were the opposite of
fortunate.  The plane hubbed in Vancouver BC, and some
passengers may have continued on to Toronto, where there 
was a SARS-1 outbreak.  Was that my doing?  Unlikely,
but not impossible.

That experience conditioned ME to be contrite (and very
concerned) about pandemic disease.  My wife and I spent the
years since preparing for the inevitable - which actualized
here in the US in 2020, and will likely persist through
2021 and beyond, unless its enablers change their ways,
or die.

------

Watching the president spread lies about COVID-19, and
watching so many of my conservative relatives cling to
those lies as if salvation itself ... is almost enough
to convince me that Lucifer walks the earth, wearing his
eponymous Signature Collection.  But I've met enough 
narcissist-wannabies to recognize another of their kind.
Just walk away, while they rant curses at you.

I'm not trying to make Trump supporters feel bad - I just
hope the virus-infected ones change their attitudes enough
to NOT infect the rest of us.  I tend to align politically
and socially with many Republicans, but my first loyalty
is to peer-reviewed, empirical science. 

That may be pure selfishness on my part; science-inspired
invention paid for my house ... and my computers ... and
tons of professional science books and journals.  No
"rare editions".  Thieves should bring a huge truck, and
know HUNDREDS book buyers.  But I have no fancy mansions
and suits and cars and bling - that's for rubes to impress
the other rubes they swindle.

Science also inspired those who invented the systems you
use to read this.  When Gates and Bezos and Zuckerberg and
Dorsey and Page and Brin and Moore pull the plug on Q-Anon
and the zealots, they are protecting science and rational
thought, the foundation of their enterprises.  If they 
don't, there are many Chinese entrepreneurs and scientists
preparing to take the lead.  I hope the United States
unites, so we can keep up with the rest of the world.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com