Another Message Board
Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’ve moved my irregular email news from Mailchimp to Substack. You can read it here. You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin
I’m also trying out Substack as a blogging platform. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack.
John Quiggin 
The election result was enjoyable in itself. Good to see the coalition of liberal and national spread of COVID-19 was defeated. Also, they were the coalition of corruption and pork-barreling. However, the vote and the election after-parties are all likely to be COVID-19 super-spreader events.
Most people clearly still do not have the least understanding of what is happening on this planet. COVID-19 a global punctuated equilibrium evolutionary event for the pathogen and host. For the pathogen this means unprecedented numbers of potential hosts, 8 billion humans, since we have acted so foolishly as to overpopulate over-travel and mightily aid the pathogen’s spread. This means hyper-accelerated evolution of the pathogen, escaping all immunity and vaccines.
This profoundly changes the conditions of existence for the host and means we humans need to change everything about how we run our societies and political economies. If we don’t change these things we will mostly die. But that was already true because of climate change. People cannot comprehend the enormity of the natural changes and the enormity of the societal changes we need to make to survive. Only a full and final demonstration by nature will convince them.
Will an Albo government do anything substantial towards stopping climate change, COVID-19 and other emerging crises? My prediction is no. The Climate Change and Novel Zoonoses crises will continue until people realize real collapse is imminent. By 2025, it will be evident that global collapse is imminent. Will people start to act at 1 minute to midnight? That is the question. And will it be possible to save anything by then?
Soothing people with glozing lies has not worked. They do nothing to change. Terror is true perception. Until people are terrified one can be certain they won’t change, not one iota.
Appending to above:
“How Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-change-risks-infectious-diseases-covid-19-ebola-dengue-1098923/
One reality that the Federal election has franked and that Australia’s political class – participants and commentators alike – needs to come to terms with is that, if anybody can be said to be the face of the “average Australian”, it is a quiet woman in hospital scrubs in a metropolitan area rather than a loud man in fluoro in a regional area.
Iko: – “This profoundly changes the conditions of existence for the host and means we humans need to change everything about how we run our societies and political economies. If we don’t change these things we will mostly die.”
An interesting question on this issue on the ABC’s Q+A last Thursday (May 19) from GLENYS O’LEARY, NORMANHURST (per the transcript):
IMO, none of the panel members answered Glenys O’Leary’s question. 🙄
https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2022-19-05/13879188
I think people who only look at the death rate and not the more substantial ‘long-COVID’ numbers are not looking at the whole problem. With growing percentages of the population with ‘long-COVID’ it’s possible this could eventually be catastrophic for society – too many debilitated sufferers and not enough able-bodied healthy workers to maintain the economy, potentially in only a few years.
https://fortune.com/2022/05/08/surviving-pandemic-half-the-battle-long-covid-growing-public-health-crisis-could-affect-a-billion-in-just-a-few-years/
The kkkkkk’s at noozcorpse. Behind a pay scrawls.
Know nothing krokagandist knave Terry McCrann knives knashing krud;
“Australia is now embarked on a classic big-spending Whitlam-style Labor agenda mixed up with a new-age big-spending Dark Green agenda. It is not going to end well”
I’d suggest Albo do a Whitlam, enshine policy asap, to have 3 years for the waves to lift all boats, leaving the k’s quiescent.
twitter.com/roweafr/status/1528293249999581185/photo/1
“Stealth Covid variants able to evade vaccines set to become predominant.”
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/stealth-covid-variants-able-to-evade-vaccines-set-to-become-predominant/news-story/904d244dd91522867a9e96570b454c21
I hope people are ready for this. Boost up, mask up and stay safe as you can. This is going to be a very grim winter in Australia. These stealth variants will be all over Australia in next to no time after the election superspreader event. There will also be flu, maybe monkey pox and who knows what next.
“WHO official warns monkeypox could accelerate as cases spread across Europe
The virus has been found in an ‘atypical’ spread in several countries (in Europe) as well as in the United States, Canada and Australia.” – Guardian.
Meanwhile,
“A New Billionaire Has Been Minted Nearly Every Day During The Pandemic – CNN May 23, 2022
The Covid-19 pandemic has been good for the wallets of the wealthy.
Some 573 people have joined the billionaire ranks since 2020, bringing the worldwide total to 2,668, according to an analysis released by Oxfam on Sunday. That means a new billionaire was minted about every 30 hours, on average, so far during the pandemic.”
So heartening to know that 25 million global excess deaths contributed to making 573 new billionaires. I would hate it to be all for nothing.
Orwell would be proud of HSBC’s grasp of nuspeak….
The (im) Moral Money Summit.
Cory Doctorow showing HSBC’s [list of crimes and]
“…Stuart Kirk, global head of responsible investing for HSBC asset management, got HSBC’s approval to give his climate denial talk at the FT Moral Money Summit (I’m not making this up).
…
“[Kirk] We’ve got inflation coming down the pipes and I’m being told to spend time… looking at something that’s going to happen in 20 or 30 years. Hence, the proportionality is completely out of whack.
“Human beings have been fantastic at adapting to change, adapting to climate emergencies, and we will continue to do so.
“Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six metres underwater for ages and that’s a really nice place.”
…
“One of his slides read: “Unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong.” He compared the climate emergency to Y2K panic.”
[ft link]
“HSBC co-sponsored the Moral Money Summit, and Kirk’s talk title was live on its website. HSBC is under investigation in the UK for running misleading ads about its green investing.”
…
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/24/moral-money/#nutjobs-warning-about-the-end-of-the-world
Even dolphins maximise rewards and manipulate behaviour due to policy incentives.
And the “”bioeconomic” theory of collective violence.”
And thermoeconomics.
*
“Tursiops Economicus
…
“Spock hadn’t been trained to tear debris to pieces, and in doing so he was certainly maximizing his reward, Reiss writes. “And when he pushed the bag back behind the pipe when it came out in one piece, that certainly had the ring of deliberate action. Whether you can call it deliberate deception is a tough call.”
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2022/05/24/tursiops-economicus/
***
Peter Corning;
“I call it a “bioeconomic” theory of collective violence. I will explain why in due course.
“The Synergism Hypothesis
“The theory of collective violence that will be proposed here is derived from a broader, “bioeconomic” theory of cooperation and complexity in evolution that I refer to as the Synergism Hypothesis. The theory was first proposed in a book-length monograph more than 20 years ago (Corning 1983), but it has only recently begun to draw the attention of evolutionary biologists and evolutionary anthropologists (see especially Maynard Smith and Szathmáry 1995, 1999). …
Accordingly, I will outline only the essential points here.
…
https://complexsystems.org/publications/bioeconomic-theory-of-collective-violence/
***
Peter Corning also initiated;
“Thermoeconomists maintain that human economic systems can be modeled as thermodynamic systems. Thermoeconomists argue that economic systems always involve matter, energy, entropy, and information.[3][4] Then, based on this premise, theoretical economic analogs of the first and second laws of thermodynamics are developed.[5]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
ymmv on synergy, war & thermoeconomics.
Just about every paragraph replete with data and projections as the example below shows… “EVs are projected to account for about 4% of total final electricity demand by 2030. At 1 100 terawatt-hours (TWh), electricity demand from EVs globally in 2030 in the APS is equivalent to twice today’s total electricity use in Brazil.”.
Seems to me we are heading for slow EV uptake. And need more electricity. And lithium.
*
“Global EV Outlook 2022
Report extract
Executive summary
Contents
– Recommendations
– Electric Vehicles Initiative
– Trends in electric light-duty vehicles
– Trends in electric heavy-duty vehicles
– Financial performance of EV- related company stocks
– Trends in charging
– infrastructure
…
“Electrifying transport has multiple benefits. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the role of EVs in reducing oil demand to the fore; it is one of the 10 measures proposed by the IEA to cut oil use in the near term. EV deployment in line with the pledges and announcements in the APS suggests a displacement (excluding two and three wheelers) of 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) of oil by 2025, and 4.6 mb/d by 2030.
“In terms of climate change, EVs achieve net greenhouse gas emissions reduction of nearly 580 Mt CO2-eq in the APS on a well-to-wheel basis compared to an equivalent use of ICE vehicles – more than Canada’s energy-related CO2 emissions today. Electrifying transport naturally boosts electricity demand: in the APS, EVs are projected to account for about 4% of total final electricity demand by 2030. At 1 100 terawatt-hours (TWh), electricity demand from EVs globally in 2030 in the APS is equivalent to twice today’s total electricity use in Brazil.”…
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2022/executive-summary
Download:
Click to access GlobalElectricVehicleOutlook2022.pdf
Today (May 25), the ABS published an article headlined Measuring Australia’s excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic (doctor-certified deaths). It reviews the provisional mortality statistics for Australia for the period January to February 2022. It includes the summary:
https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/measuring-australias-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic-doctor-certified-deaths
Per covidlive.com.au, latest deaths from COVID-19 in Australia were:
Period _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Days_ Accumulated Total _ Total for Period _ Average deaths/day
2020, Mar 01 to Dec 31: 306 _ _ _ _909 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 909 _ _ _ _ _ _ 2.97
2021, Jan 01 to Dec 31: 365 _ _ _2,239_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _1,330 _ _ _ _ _ _ 3.64
2022, Jan 01 to May 25: 145 _ _ _8,218 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 5,979 _ _ _ _ _ _41.23
https://covidlive.com.au/report/daily-deaths/aus
IMO, these are some of the emerging consequences of a ‘let it rip’ attitude. 🙄
And there was 2GB broadcaster Ben Fordham two weeks ago alleging that it was “safe to say there is no bigger fearmonger than Dr Norman Swan, the ABC’s resident Covid bogeyman”.
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/radio/ben-fordham-rips-into-abcs-covid-fearmonger-dr-norman-swan/news-story/25049be8db9426ea001644a59a77e8f6
Geoff, very sobering figures for let ‘er RIP.
And long covid will cause pain, strain systems for the foreseeable future:
“Ms. Gelburd and other experts said the scores suggested that the repercussions of long Covid are not simply confined to increased medical spending. They signal “how many people are leaving their jobs, how many are being given disability status, how much absenteeism is there in school,” Ms. Gelburd said. “It’s like a pebble thrown into the lake, and these ripples circling that pebble are concentric circles of impact.”
“Because the study captured only a privately insured population, Dr. Ssentongo said, it almost certainly understates the scope and burden of long Covid, especially since low-income communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus and often have less access to health care. “I think it may even be worse if we added in the Medicaid population and all these other people that would have been missed” in the study’s data, he said.
…
“The new study adds to a growing body of evidence that, while patients who have been hospitalized are at greater risk for long Covid, people with mild or moderate initial coronavirus infections — who make up the vast majority of coronavirus patients — can still experience debilitating post-Covid symptoms including breathing problems, extreme fatigue and cognitive and memory issues.
“It’s generating a pandemic of people who were not hospitalized, but who ended up with this increased disability,” said Dr. Paddy Ssentongo, an assistant professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Penn State, who was not involved in the new study.
“The analysis, based on what the report calls the largest database of private health insurance claims in the United States, found 78,252 patients who were diagnosed with the new code from the International Classification of Diseases — diagnostic code U09.9 for “Post COVID-19 condition, unspecified” — between Oct. 1, 2021, and Jan. 31, 2022.”
https://www.nytimes
com/2022/05/18/health/long-covid-hospitalization.html
The COVID-19 pandemic “let it rip” policy (of having inadequate and leaky vaccinations only) is a signal failure of market fundamentalism. I mean “signal failure” in a couple of senses. It is a failure of market signals for sure. But it is also a failure which in turn signals something. It signals the overall systemic failure of our extant political economy system.
One thing I think it signals is the failure to still keep thinking economically when markets fail and where markets do not operate. Consider the following tweet.
“Very angry this evening… hospital I work at has decided to do away with n95 masking while half (I kid you not) the Drs are off sick with either covid or flu A.” – Dr Thomas J Janstrom, Brisbane, Queensland.
Let us for a moment hypothetically consider Health Staff, especially but not only doctors, as machines: specifically as very expensive, very useful, very flexible machines with advanced AI. Would you treat machines as badly as that? Such that you would let airborne particles damage such machines for want of a few $5.00 masks/filters (at bulk purchase prices) per day per machine (per person)? Would the Hospital leave its server room open to the elements for the servers to be brought down by dust or rain? Would the Hospital leave its CT scanner open to the elements to be destroyed? Of course not. So why would it leave its distributed, autonomous, super-AI capable fleet of advanced self-actuating biological robots (otherwise properly known as human beings) inadequately protected?
If they did proper internal and social costings, it would become clear that this is a very uneconomic thing to do, for the hospital and for society. Society has paid the cost of nurturing, raising and educating these staff persons; in the long view, each from conception, through school, higher education and on to advanced training.
“Based on international and Australian research a credible estimate of the value of statistical life is $4.2 million and the value of statistical life year is $182,000 in 2014 dollars.” [1] In today’s dollars that value must $5 million dollars at least. Do you risk taking out of service, let alone the possibility of deeper damage to it, a $5 million dollar machine for want of $20 worth of filters per day. Would you even drive a $50,000 car without an air filter? No good mechanic would let you.
These considerations alone, even before we get back to considering health workers as real, live human beings, demonstrate the absurdity of generic mangerialist neoliberalism (or we can call it simple penny-pinching because that is all it is) in a dangerous pandemic.
Note 1. – https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2019/07/09/value-of-a-life-in-australia/
Coal ‘\” recovery slope (down only slippery-dip) – with minor blip.
Coal updates.
1-4 below are the reports / studies all using “COALMOD-World” triggered by:
“‘Highly implausible’ that new Galilee Basin coalmines would be profitable, study finds” … “Report says Adani’s Carmichael mine in central Queensland seems ‘rather a political decision, not an economically driven one’”.
theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/27/highly-implausible-that-new-galilee-basin-coalmines-would-be-profitable-study-finds
The “\” shape coal decline will be confiunded though by; “The short-term market price of black coal (used for about 70% of coal-fired generation) is now about five times higher than its long-run (ten year) average. One coal miner, New Hope Coal, says these are “record highs”..
… ” The only good news in this is that surging generation prices will make investment in new generation much more attractive. As the saying goes, the best cure for high prices is high prices – though this is not a message any customer wants to hear, or any politician wants to say.”…
https://theconversation.com/expect-more-power-price-hikes-a-1970s-style-energy-shock-is-on-the-cards-183911
***
1. Adani & Galilee basin are stranded in May 2022 study, from German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) quoted in Guardian above.
2. Coal recovery curve shape “\” (not a U, V or J shape) against Covid19 shock from “The death valley of coal – Modelling COVID-19 recovery scenarios for steam coal markets”
3. Frank Jotzo et al using a two level game underpinned by “COALMOD-World” model, in “Market power rents and climate change mitigation: a rationale for coal taxes?”
4. Any comment on this model experts? Above use “COALMOD-World”
…”is a model of the international steam coal market that can be readily used to explore implications of climate policies and to analyze market structure or to investigate issue of supply security.”
^5. JQ: “A fair and orderly phase-out of thermal coal from Australia’s economy is both essential and economically feasible. Australia can end its production and use of thermal coal by 2030, while protecting the interests of workers and communities, at a very modest cost. The costs of not acting, by contrast, are both huge and obvious.” From “Getting Off Coal: Orderly, Early Transition to Minimise Impact for Australian Economy” 2020
****
^1. “Any new investments in steam coal supply in Australia and globally, and particularly in export-oriented coal supply, are at risk of becoming stranded assets” -“Stranded Assets in the Coal Export Industry? The Case of the Australian Galilee Basin” ^1.
^2. “The pandemic mostly reinforces already existing trends and market effects negatively affecting the coal sector. Consequently, false hopes for a “V” or “U” shape of the coal demand curve (assuming a recovery) will have to be replaced by an “L” or “\” shape demand outlook.”
And ^2. warns: “However, a careful classification of “green” investments is needed, to avoid the fossil fuel industry capturing a large part of the subsidies to subsidize continuation of their business (e.g. investments in marginal production efficiency) or using it as a fig leaf (e.g. investments into carbon capture (CCS) technologies) to protect their business.”^2.
****
^1.
“Stranded Assets in the Coal Export Industry? The Case of the Australian Galilee Basin
Posted: 18 May 2022
Christian Hauenstein
Franziska Holz
Lennart Rathje
Thomas Mitterecker
Abstract
“Steam coal exporters face increasing uncertainty about future coal demand and risks of asset stranding. Nevertheless, new export-oriented coal mine projects are still brought forward. In this study, we use the coal sector model COALMOD-World to assess the economic prospects of investments in the export-oriented steam coal sector, and in particular of coal mines in the Galilee Basin, Australia. We parameterize coal mining in the Galilee Basin based on the Carmichael coal mine and export project specifics. We construct three coal demand scenarios with varying climate policy ambitions based on bottom-up coal sector data of the major coal consuming countries in Asia. We find that, even under most optimistic assumptions, new coal mines in the Galilee Basin are not economically viable in the longrun and prone to become stranded assets. In other Australian basins only very limited investments are required in the most conservative demand scenarios and only to replace exhausted coal mining capacities. Australian steam coal production decreases significantly in all scenarios due to down-phasing domestic demand and shrinking export opportunities. Investments in other world regions are only viable in the most conservative demand scenario. Any new investments in steam coal supply in Australia and globally, and particularly in export-oriented coal supply, are at risk of becoming stranded assets.”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4112305
Click to access dp2003.pdf
***
^2.
“The death valley of coal – Modelling COVID-19 recovery scenarios for steam coal markets”
…
3. Results: A dim mid- and long-term outlook for steam coal markets
3.1. COVID-19 recovery: Avoid false hopes for a “V” or “U” shaped coal demand curve
“Following the decline in demand, global production volumes will observe a contraction of −20 to −60% by 2040 (compared to values of 2015) (see Fig. 3 )8 .
…
“False hopes for a “V” or “U” shape of the demand curve (assuming a recovery) consequently have to be replaced by an “L” or “” shape comparison. At best, global demand, and thus production, after the pandemic stays flat at 2020 levels throughout 2025 in case of broad recovery measures supporting coal-fired power production (brown recovery scenarios). However, even in the most optimistic scenarios from a coal perspective, demand starts to decline further after 2025.”
….
…”Indonesia and Australia, currently the two largest thermal coal exporters in the Pacific market would also be hit by reductions of around 20–40% and 50–80%, respectively, by 2040 (scenario dependent) due to such trade restrictions.
[Fig 5 showing the “” shape decline scenario, as opposed to a U, V or J shaped recovery]
“Fig 5. Steam coal exports by major exporters 2025 and 2040 in scenarios with and without Chinese and Indian import restrictions.”
…
“These results illustrate the risk for coal exporting regions such as in Australia, Colombia, Indonesia or South Africa – being dependent on coal policies in India and China. This highlights the importance and urgency of just transition policies in these regions, described in the following section.”
4. Discussion”
…
“However, a careful classification of “green” investments is needed, to avoid the fossil fuel industry capturing a large part of the subsidies to subsidize continuation of their business (e.g. investments in marginal production efficiency) or using it as a fig leaf (e.g. investments into carbon capture (CCS) technologies) to protect their business.”
…
Applied Energy
Published 2021 Mar 2.
doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116564
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8448487/#!po=0.349650
****
^3.
“Market power rents and climate change mitigation: a rationale for coal taxes?
Authors:
Richter, P
Mendelevitch, R
Jotzo, F
Year: 2015
Updated: 27 May 2022
…
“We construct and numerically apply a two-level game consisting of an optimal policy problem at the upper level, and an equilibrium model of the international steam coal market (based on COALMOD-World) at the lower level. We find that a unilaterally introduced Australian export tax on steam coal has little impact on global emissions and may be welfare reducing. On the contrary, a tax jointly levied by a “climate coalition” of major coal exporters may well leave these better off while significantly reducing global CO2 emissions from steam coal by up to 200 Mt CO2 per year. Comparable production-based tax scenarios consistently yield higher tax revenues but may be hard to implement against the opposition of disproportionally affected local stakeholders depending on low domestic coal prices.”
https://crawford.anu.edu.au/publication/crawford-school-working-papers/9782/market-power-rents-and-climate-change-mitigation
http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/eenccepwp/1507.htm
***
^4. The model.
“COALMOD-World is a model of the international steam coal market that can be readily used to explore implications of climate policies and to analyze market structure or to investigate issue of supply security. It features a detailed representation of both domestic and international steam coal supply, based on endogenously calculated Cost, Insurance, Fright (CIF) costs, and prices that take into account additional rents. It features endogenous investment into production, land transport, and export capacity, as well as an endogenous mechanism assessing production cost increase due to resource depletion.”
https://www.diw.de/en/diw_01.c.599753.en/models.html#ab_600578
*
^5. JQ’s…
“Getting Off Coal: Orderly, Early Transition to Minimise Impact for Australian Economy”
June 17, 2020
“… written by John Quiggin, Professor of Economics at The University of Queensland, found that a managed transition out of thermal coal, which is coal used for electricity generation, should be prioritised to reduce Australia’s carbon output and, if coordinated action is taken early, is achievable with relatively modest measures.””…
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/getting-off-coal-orderly-early-transition-to-minimise-impact-for-australian-economy/
I’d hazard a guess and say, JQ & Ernestine, when running a model, you have never:
– validated random number generator
– been able to know or weight data bias
– considered or tested for data order inout to algorithm.
Now it seems, you will have to do so.
“But if the [fund / government] chief buys a predictive policing tool that gives the same directive, it’s just math, and “math doesn’t lie”:”
*
Yikes says Cory Doctorow about;
“Now, “Manipulating SGD with Data Ordering Attacks,” … shows that validating a model is even harder than it we thought:”… “ML models are susceptible to “initialization bias” – whatever data they see first has a profound impact on the overall weighting of subsequent data”
***
“Attacking machine learning training by re-ordering data”
…
…”In April, a team from MIT, Berkeley, and IAS published a paper on inserting undetectable backdoors into machine learning models by subtly poisoning the training data:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/20/ceci-nest-pas-un-helicopter/#im-a-back-door-man
“The attack calls into question whether it’s possible to verify that an algorithm whose training you outsource to a third party can ever be validated. The bank that hires a company to ingest its lending data and produce a risk model can’t prove that the model is sound. It may be that imperceptibly subtle changes to a lending application would cause it to be approved 100% of the time.
“In part, the fiendish intractability of this attack stems from the difficulty of validating a random number generator. This is a famously hard problem. It the subject of Godel’s life-work, and it was how the NSA compromised an encryption standard:
https://www.wired.com/2013/09/nsa-backdoor/
“Now, “Manipulating SGD with Data Ordering Attacks,” a paper from researchers at the University of Toronto, Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh shows that validating a model is even harder than it we thought:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.09667
“In a summary of the paper on Cambridge’s security research blog, the researchers explain that even if you start with unbiased – that is, broadly representative – data, the order in which you present that data to a machine-learning model can induce bias:
https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2021/04/23/data-ordering-attacks/
“That’s because ML models are susceptible to “initialization bias” – whatever data they see first has a profound impact on the overall weighting of subsequent data. Here’s an example from the researchers’ blog:
“”[A]ssemble a set of financial data that was representative of the whole population, but start the model’s training on ten rich men and ten poor women drawn from that set – then let initialisation bias do the rest of the work.”
“As they say, the bias doesn’t have to be this obvious: subtle nonrandomness in the data ordering can poison the model. And as we’ve seen, validating random-number generators isreally hard. That opens up the twin possibilities of malicious model-poisoning to introduce bias, and of inadvertent bias in a model because of bias – not in the data, but in the data-order.
“This suggests that auditing a model for bias is much harder than we thought. Not only must you confirm that a model is free from bias, but also free from biased ordering. This is not something that regulators have really come to grips with – for example, the EU’s AI’s regs contemplate examining data, but not data-order:
….
“Yikes.
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/26/initialization-bias/#beyond-data
“Replicating patterns of prospect theory for decision under risk
…
“The results replicated for 94% of items, with some attenuation. Twelve of 13 theoretical contrasts replicated, with 100% replication in some countries. Heterogeneity between countries and intra-individual variation highlight meaningful avenues for future theorizing and applications. We conclude that the empirical foundations for prospect theory replicate beyond any reasonable thresholds. In a sample of over 4,000 participants from 19 countries, the core patterns from a highly influential study on behaviour and decision-making broadly replicate, with only minor exceptions and somewhat smaller effect sizes.”
https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/33354/
The Decision to Cease Infectious Disease Control.
Basically, our society and all Western societies have decided to stop doing infectious disease control. Prepare yourself. Infectious disease control will soon be a thing of the past.
“Too early to tell if monkeypox can be contained in U.S., health officials say ”
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article261824410.html
This is code for “We aren’t even going to try.” Now that letting COVID-19 rip has set the precedent it looks like we are not even going to try to stop monkeybox. Why? Because that would require not only vaccines (of a type which are more risky) but it would also require all the measures, TTIMQ, that we have already rejected for stopping COVID-19. So now we have become a society which is not interested in stopping any infectious disease. This a reasonable prediction based on current government and elite decisions.
CDC Director, Dr. Rochell Walensky has already sent the “othering” message out.
“All of the cases are within gay, bisexual men and other men who have sex with men.” – Walensky.
Then she covered herself by urging an approach that is “guided by science, not by stigma”. The fact is any close contact will spread monkeypox. It could easily spread through a child care center for example. It is not known to be highly contagious… yet. A known R0 of about 1.
So why would US health officials say “Too early to tell if monkeypox can be contained..”? I mean when it would clearly be relatively easy to control if we were committed to preventing infectious diseases. One can only assume that the commitment to prevent infectious diseases has been abandoned.
A first ever tweet from eminent virologist Laurent Kaiser, has just appeared on Twitter. Translated from the French:
“Monkeypox is not a tolerable companion of man: remember its cousin smallpox was a killer. Control will require uncompromising application of basic principles: wide screening, tracing, quarantine and isolation. Very quickly”
Clearly Laurent Kaiser is very concerned and has taken, for him, an unprecedented step to sound an uncompromising warning on social media. It could be that he has lost faith in official channels. Who knows. We should all be concerned about that and even afraid. There is something most troubling and bizarre going on in the global biome and in our society. Multiple diseases are rapidly arising or re-emerging and governments are refusing to take any control measures whatsoever for except leaky and very poorly distributed vaccines (on a global measure) and are holding back on other vaccines and medicines for unclear reasons. This is bizarre and disturbing.
Meanwhile the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia is out of control in just about every state. Cases continue to rise. Ambulances ramp and fail to arrive. Hospital code reds are called. W.A. Dept of Education has caleds on 500 admin. staff to attend schools and take classes. This is a shambles and it is shaping up to get much worse from here. Testing is a joke. We don’t even know how much respiratory contagion in the country is COVID019 and how much is flu. There are no dependable figures.
Long Covid is going to hit at least 10% of infected people. That’s already proven by recently published large studies. In Australia that already means we can look forward to over 600,000 cases of Long Covid already. Looks like we can add in monkeypox to our woes now. It seems unlikely that the authorities have the least interest in properly controlling it. One can only speculate as to why. I much doubt it will be controlled in the USA. I give it 50% chance of being controlled in Australia. All this isn’t over. Bad actors now have ample cover and plausible deniability to release multiple pathogenic strains on top of what is spilling over from the wild because of climate change and human incursions into wildlife refuges. We are uniquely unprepared to deal eith this with entire societies being in complete denial about the need to control infectious disease.
Prepare for 10 times, a 100 times, the current pain, unless radical changes are demanded by the public and occur.
Justice Delayed,
I will have to repeat myself a little here. You and I are both “conspiracy theoretic” in our own ways but I suspect at opposite poles with regard to infectious disease control, particularly for COVID-19. What will work is Vaccine Plus as laid out by Epidemiologist, Raina MacIntyre. This as a plan is completely within the ambit of received Social, Public, Preventative and Infectious medicine practice. it is Western Corporate / Oligarchic Neoliberalism which will not apply these precepts. For sure, Big Pharma distort the research and application of pure science for their own capital accumulation goals. And they are aided and abetted by Big Neoliberal government.
But I don’t expect to convince you, if you have a different conspiracy theory, so I won’t try. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. My “conspiracy theory” is based on factual analyses of how modern capitalism really works. Best sources are Capital as Power and Monthly Review in that order. Professor R. D, Wolff is not bad either.
No completely wrong. Vaccines are evil American corporate communist fraud. You are pulling that out of your butt with zero scientific merit. Zero. You haven’t even looked into it. Virology itself has been kept alive as corporate fraud, when the myth of the harmful virus should have been destroyed by about 1960. You can’t convince me otherwise because you have no science on your side.
Oh dear, the above abuse is so familiar as is the anti-science. I guessed as much. I won’t reply any more.
Justice Delayed: – “Virology itself has been kept alive as corporate fraud, when the myth of the harmful virus should have been destroyed by about 1960.”
So what’s causing all these excess deaths in Australia that the ABS is reporting for the period Jan-Feb 2022?
https://johnquiggin.com/2022/05/23/monday-message-board-555/comment-page-1/#comment-253199
Meanwhile, per covidlive.com.au, latest deaths from COVID-19 in Australia were:
Period _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Days_ Accumulated Total _ Total for Period _ Average deaths/day
2020, Mar 01 to Dec 31: 306 _ _ _ _909 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 909 _ _ _ _ _ _ 2.97
2021, Jan 01 to Dec 31: 365 _ _ _2,239_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _1,330 _ _ _ _ _ _ 3.64
2022, Jan 01 to May 28: 148 _ _ _8,422 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 6,183 _ _ _ _ _ _41.78
The COVID-19 average death rate appears to be increasing. If it gets above 45 to 50 deaths per day average then it could become Australia’s single biggest killer in 2022.
https://johnquiggin.com/2022/05/04/message-board-2/#comment-252664
What do you say, Justice Delayed, or is it really Birdy?
I’ve deleted a large number of comments from Graeme Bird (posting as Justice Delayed), who seems to have had another episode. If you are reading this Graeme, I urge you to find another outlet when you feel the need to express yourself. For example, Twitter is much less severely moderated than this blog, so you can say anything you need to there.
I could also be adjudged as “going off the deep end” for my post above, May 27, 2022 at 7:11 pm titled “The Decision to Cease Infectious Disease Control.” It is deliberately “a bit out there” as a performative rhetorical exercise. It’s also probably not so far from some of the terrible realities starting to emerge from this pandemic and the lack of elite political and economic response to it. We really should start wondering what is happening. That neoliberalism has led a major retreat from infectious disease control in favor of elite wealth accumulation and the creation of many hundreds of new billionaires since the start of 2020 is a matter of clear record; as striking as it is bizarre.
What is truly bizarre is that the health administrators and populace are enabling and acceding to this policy. In addition, it is not at all a stretch to suggest that monkeypox will not be controlled if control will require anything more than vaccines. This method may well have become the “new normal” for infectious disease control: vaccines and nothing. Too bad if the vaccines progressively fail as is happening right now with COVID-19.
That something terrible and even profoundly sinister is happening right now, is an hypothesis with a lot of legs to it: a veritable scuttling centipede in fact. Consider this:
“Here’s a stat that’s a bit politically
inconvenient for almost everyone:
Since 2020, there have been more
children killed by COVID-19 (~1,125) than
in all school shootings since Columbine
(169), over 20 years ago. – Dr. Mild Yet Still Mysterious @sammy4723 on Twitter.
For a huge and terrifying rabbit hole (it’s more a massive Dune Worm hole) consider this. I post it not for the recycling of the man-made COVID-19 conspiracy but for the hypothesis in the subtitle.
“Why understanding COVID-19 and Seasonal Influenza as Quasispecies Mutant Swarms reveals the Quantum Origins and Cryptic Fates of Human Pandemics.”
KT2, I dare you to read this paper in toto. Dare ya! 🙂 Then come back with thoughts. But please only attempt this if you are over any and all “Covid fog”.
This guy is on to something I believe (as an idea copyist, syncretist or original thinker, I am not sure). Evolutionary virology and epidemiology are at about the point physics was at with Einstein’s anuus mirablis (4 key papers in 1905). This is why a lot of older (and younger unimaginative) virologists and epidemiologists simply do not get (do not grok) what is happening. They also do not monistically consider the pandemic, the disciplines and the neoliberal political economy all happening and interacting in the same system at the same time. I contend that if you don’t do this you certainly cannot grasp what is happening. That is not to contend that if you do do this you can grasp what is happening but it may give you a better chance.
Sorry, I forgot the link promised above, Please read my little screed above too.
https://harvard2thebighouse.substack.com/p/understanding-covid-19-and-seasonal?s=r
“Golden Silkworms in Pandora’s Box:
Why understanding COVID-19 and Seasonal Influenza as Quasispecies Mutant Swarms reveals the Quantum Origins and Cryptic Fates of Human Pandemics.”
[…] Source […]
It’s becoming more and more obvious that the authorities (Morrison, Berejiklian, Perrottet govts plus Labor state governments from during/after Delta wave plus all their officials) have been knowingly LYING to us about COVID-19 or greatly MINIMIZING its real dangers in the face of known data. We absolutely cannot trust the official story.
The depths of this disaster are yet to be plumbed. The Australian death toll will soon be 10,000. I predict 100,000 dead from Covid-19 by the end of 2023 in Australia unless we radically change course. The link in above post is well worth reading: “Golden Silkworms in Pandora’s Box: Why understanding COVID-19 and Seasonal Influenza as Quasispecies Mutant Swarms reveals the Quantum Origins and Cryptic Fates of Human Pandemics.”
The current data, including of vaccines progressively failing, and no new variant vaccines or new generation vaccines appearing, indicate we are trending towards minimal or zero protection long term unless we implement full cordon sanitaires or unless some other breakthrough or circuit breaker occurs. This RNA pandemic will trend to greater lethality and near complete immunity vaccine escape under current settings. The above article explains why.
There’s a conspiracy all right but it exists at Neoliberal government and Corporate/Oligarchic levels. Will Albo’s government do anything? It remains to be seen but the US and UK will certainly pressure him and Australia very strongly to do nothing. How many adult deaths and child deaths plus all the Long Covid casualties (at least ten times the deaths) will it take before the people demand action and even start considering direct action?
The ABC’s The Virus episode titled COVID and flu to combine for a rough winter as Monkeypox spreads | The Virus, was broadcast on ABC TV channels 2 & 20 on Friday (May 27), duration 0:15:20.
Tom Symondson, CEO of the Victorian Healthcare Association (peak body for Victorian state public hospitals), says: “…so, we are absolutely in a perfect storm right at the moment, and we are only just starting to head into winter – so, it’s going to get worse.”
Professor Raina MacIntyre talked about the latest Monkeypox virus outbreak.