I get it, Trump doesn’t speak well. He fumbles his words, contradicts himself, exaggerates and uses “salesman rhetoric”.

Is speaking well and using the right combinations of words in the correct order leadership to you? Because any actor, any lawyer, any speech writer, any talking head can do that.

Talkers are a dime a dozen. Meanwhile, Trump was quarantining foreign nationals, barring Chinese entry into the country, evacuating Americans from Wuhan, and started developing vaccines back in January while he was in the midst of a fake impeachment scandal—back when Italy, with it’s eloquent law-professor of a PM, had its first 2 coronavirus cases. Around the same time, Germany, France, and Spain had their first few cases, all led by people who can speak with eloquence and gravitas. And now Europe is the epicenter of the Coronavirus.

Just to be clear, I do not think their leadership led to the spread of the virus in their countries—it’s no one’s fault—but look what their political niceties and placating lullabies got them. Nothing.



We can debate the “implications” of Ziemer leaving until the cows come home. I’m well aware that a “critical thinker” would imagine a bureaucrat leaving out of some sense of a higher calling, quitting because of Trump’s mismanagement. All bureaucrats have a sense of duty and principle. Isn’t it that so? But often the story isn’t as romantic as we make it out to be.

At the time, critical thinkers read their Twitter tea-leaves and suggested Ziemer’s departure would lead to a reduction in global health security, especially with the Ebola virus picking up steam in Africa around the exact same time. Unfortunately for the nay-sayers the United States stepped up to the plate on that one; and guess who was involved in the administrations efforts there? Ziemer, in his brand spanking new position with USAID, and working with the same NSC officials he was with before. All that funding that was supposed to fall into Trump’s corrupt hands went to combat an Ebola crisis in Africa, much to your chagrin I imagine.

While Trump was being falsely impeached he was reacting swiftly to the coronavirus, back in January, before Italy, France and Germany’s cases reached past 5. This is public knowledge. So the schadenfreude isn’t necessary because your prediction has already been proven false.

But you’re right. This pandemic will be a good test to the various systems in place designed to protect citizens. I think you should be thankful to find yourself in a Nordic country.

As countries enact strict lockdowns and quarantine, the world should keep a watchful eye how they do it.

According to the WHO the Chinese efforts were particularly effective, but another human toll arises in such strict conditions.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/12/human-toll-chinas-coronavirus-control-efforts

I hear you, but I differ in my reading of the situation in No10.

When I described the political reaction to Johnson's strategy, I was not supporting it, only describing it. In my opinion the team managing the government's response is developing this strategy, they do have some strategic thinking going on, but they are lazy and naive about the magnitude of the crisis. As usual with a Conservative government, they are naive and live in an ivory tower. Their raison d' etre is to keep the privelidged classes in power and generate enough wealth to support their privileges. But the current government is the Vote Leave campaign, they are ideological fundamentalists and their doctrine is to leave the EU and become a Singapore on Thames. In this they have left behind the moderates in their party and are recklessly pushing forward the implementation of their ideology.

This being the case, what is most likely to be going on is that they are in a chaotic mess, with a fundamentalist driving forward their agenda come what may, which will include the calculation that the economy must be protected, or all is lost. That a lot of old and poorly people will die, which will actually bail them out of the healthcare and care home crisis. They will now have to formulate someone, or some process to blame. For this because the public would not tolerate such ruthless plans in government. All they need to do is say that the UK situation is different and the virus was to blame for the million or so deaths. And any flack that comes their way will be blamed on the expert advisors and the previous Labour government of 1997-2010, for bankrupting the country(not true by the way). It doesn't matter how bad it gets, they will still get Brexit done.

I get it, Trump does it speak well. He fumbles his words, contradicts himself, exaggerates and uses “salesman rhetoric”. — NOS4A2

Did you know that Trump also makes decisions that affect how events actually unfold? And that when he sells decisions using fumbles, contradictions, exaggerations that are bad decisions, the consequences that follow might also actually be really bad?

Is speaking well and using the right combinations of words in the correct order leadership to you? Because any actor, any lawyer, any speech writer, any talking head can do that. — NOS4A2

No, it's making good decisions for the collective good that is good leadership of an entire society. Boris Johnson does "good speak" but has also made poor decisions that I have been criticizing.

Trumps incoherent speech, on this occasion, represents incoherent policy decisions.

Meanwhile, Trump was quarantining foreign nationals, barring Chinese entry into the country, evacuating Americans from Wuhan, and started developing vaccines back in January while he was in the midst of a fake impeachment scandal—back when Italy, with it’s eloquent law-professor of a PM, had its first 2 coronavirus cases. Around the same time, Germany, France, and Spain had their first few cases, all led by people who can speak with eloquence and gravitas. And now Europe is the epicenter of the Coronavirus. — NOS4A2

Yes, Europe's response as a whole I've been criticizing as well. I have been mostly referencing "Western leaders", UK, US and all of Europe.

However, Europe has, ultimately, less to fear from this pandemic because socialist institutions are in place to more easily deal with it. The reason why the US previously put a lot of investment into pandemic prevention -- the program that was cut 80 percent that the Fortune article talks about -- was not out of the goodness of America's heart but because previous administrations understood that a pandemic going out of control in the US would be a catastrophe. I'm not going to explain why the US system is particularly vulnerable to this sort of event, you'll get to see first hand! so best talk about it after.

Just to be clear, I do not think their leadership led to the spread of the virus in their countries—it’s no one’s fault—but look what their political niceties and placating lullabies got them. Nothing. — NOS4A2

Yes, this is the lie the right wing propagandists want desperately for you and others to believe. Ahhh, phooey, pandemic, but it's no one's fault guys; decisions couldn't have been better, they were the best, if anything it's Obama's fault.

It's for sure people's fault. Had a containment strategy been effectively implemented, the same strategy that worked for Sars-1 and Ebola, the pandemic, in the least, would have been significantly slowed. Instead, journalists could fy right from endemic epicenters right through international airports without any testing, questions or quarantine measures. This policy has ensured that the outbreak is everywhere in Europe and US simultaneously. The debacle of the testing in the US means that social distancing, i.e. lockdown, in combination with downplaying the threat of the virus, means that the virus was able to go through many more doubling times than had social distancing been put into place early. A single doubling time means double the problem is "in the pipe" when the system gets overwhelmed, two doubling times means 4 times the problem etc. and the virus can double in normal social circumstance in 3 days, sometimes it seems less if a few super spreaders in key points.

Had the pandemic been slowed as to not overwhelm healthcare systems or, failing that, at least not overload all the major health systems simultaneously representing most of the global economy, yes there would be inconveniences to travelers and some stocks taking a little dip, but 90 percent of the global economy would be working as normal at any given time. Slowing things down buys time to understand the virus and effective measures better, even develop new measures, produce and stockpile critical equipment, optimizing resources for when the virus does hit.

We can debate the “implications” of Ziemer leaving until the cows come home. I’m well aware that a “critical thinker” would imagine a bureaucrat leaving out of some sense of a higher calling, quitting because of Trump’s mismanagement. All bureaucrats have a sense of duty and principle. Isn’t it that so? But often the story isn’t as romantic as we make it out to be. — NOS4A2

So, your response to my comment wasn't supportable, so now you think "debating until the cows come home" is a good place to move the goalposts.

Rear Admiral Ziemer quitting is just one data point we have. Another data point was his program was defunded and his team disbanded. What was the purpose of that team? To prevent a pandemic. What's happening now? A pandemic. If you want to live in a conceptual world where those things are completely unrelated, and even if they are related, no reason it's due to a corrupt and incompetent management of those institutions. Since previous administrations, as I mention above, weren't so corrupt as to not see it's in the self interest of even the most lugubrious plutocrat to prevent a pandemic, most likely they didn't put "just some bureaucrat" in charge of the program, but someone actually competent, actually called by some higher purpose to prevent needless deaths due to a pandemic. It was in Trump's self interest to try to keep someone who had a track record of success with previous pandemics on the team, or, if Ziemer quit to go fishing or something, then make sure there is a proper handoff to someone up for the task, and failing that, cause those fish won't catch themselves you know, then keep that team together to lose the minimum in organizational competence. Trump didn't see it was in his self interest because he's that stupid, and now he's paying the price for wanton firing of those selfish bureaucrats that are certainly not moved by a higher calling for the public good.

As I thought, you don't know what leadership is.

When I described the political reaction to Johnson's strategy, I was not supporting it, only describing it. In my opinion the team managing the government's response is developing this strategy, they do have some strategic thinking going on, but they are lazy and naive about the magnitude of the crisis. As usual with a Conservative government, they are naive and live in an ivory tower. Their raison d' etre is to keep the privelidged classes in power and generate enough wealth to support their privileges. But the current government is the Vote Leave campaign, they are ideological fundamentalists and their doctrine is to leave the EU and become a Singapore on Thames. In this they have left behind the moderates in their party and are recklessly pushing forward the implementation of their ideology. — Punshhh

Yes, I had understood you weren't supporting the decision. I could have made it more clear that my position is simply they are "more incompetent" than your position.

My point was the framing of your original comment as a "strategic choice".

However, we are pretty close. I am sure the exact details of how decisions were made will come out in various investigations, "telling the inside story" and so on, once the crisis is ended. Health professionals know starting such disputes now won't help the situation, but, to me at least, it's transparently clear the "learning curve" of out leaders was far behind the growth curve of the virus and now they are trying to pretend they had actually listened before but made a strategy.

But we seem to be in agreement on the essential aspects.

What I have been trying to make clear is that this situation is a rare instance where what "they think is economically good", however they define that, spectacularly backfired. Obviously whatever economic pain they were contemplating 2 months ago as "too painful" is essentially insignificant to the economic pain now.

That they were "making decisions for the economy" but we're in a phase of capitalism where decisions are so short sighted, the risk of catastrophic events mere months away is ignored. So it's a mix of fanatical ideological devotion to the stock market as well as unmitigated incompetence, and it's difficult to tease those things apart; but is the philosophically interesting thing from my point of view.

Yes, I agree, all these notions they had about protecting the economy will backfire. The only way to protect it would have been to ban flights in December. Although, I doubt that would have been sufficient, because the virus will become endemic across most of the world anyway, so you would have to close your borders permanently and hope a vaccine is forthcoming.

That a lot of old and poorly people will die, which will actually bail them out of the healthcare and care home crisis. — Punshhh

Also, dead pensioners don't vote, so the policy is admirably Machiavellian.

they are "more incompetent" — boethius

My analysis is that you cannot call a government incompetent when they have managed to push through an unpopular and damaging policy by winning an election. "competent criminality" is more the mark.

The danger of the coronavirus pandemic is not individual chance of death, as this article attempts to portray to try to calm people down, but the systemic effects of overwhelming health systems and governments forced to act to lower the infection rate to something manageable. — boethius

Thanks to the mass hysteria the media is causing, people are unecessarily flooding the healthcare system. When 95% of the tests are negative for corona, which means that they have a different respiratory illness, the stats aren't a necessary cause for people to worry that they have corona at the first sign of a sore throat.

If the govt wants to has to continually prop up industries that fail during a crisis with my taxpayer dollars, then I want some consequences laid on the corporate heads of these industries. The way you change behavior is to make sure there are some negative consequences to the behavior, not rewards. Every bailout should require a restructuring of the corporate environment that needed the bailout.

Yes, it's the ideology spectacularly backfiring that my purpose here is to document in real time.

In December, containment was possible.

In January I agree containment was no longer possible globally, but it would have still been possible to "stagger the peaks" from one region to another, which would have been difficult but way more manageable both in terms of organizing the worlds health resources as well as not disrupting all economies simultaneously.

In February, yes, it's everywhere basically, but the social distancing measures are inevitable and the sooner they are put in place the better the health system will manage. Banning flights is no longer a game changing social distancing measure, but is just one of many.

Thanks to the mass hysteria the media is causing, people are unecessarily flooding the healthcare system. When 95% of the tests are negative for corona, which means that they a different respiratory illness, the stats aren't a necessary cause for people to worry that they have corona at the first sign of a sore throat. — Harry Hindu

I can assure you that "too many calls" is not the definition of "overloading the health system".

You'll see what it means in a week or two, and we can continue this discussion then.

If the govt wants to has to continually prop up industries that fail during a crisis with my taxpayer dollars, then I want some consequences laid on the corporate heads of these industries. The way you change behavior is to make sure there are some negative consequences to the behavior, not rewards. Every bailout should require a restructuring of the corporate environment that needed the bailout. — Harry Hindu

Isn't bailing out a reward full stop? Is "restructuring" really a negative consequence to the business?

What about individuals? I also asked about them, isn't any assistance simply a reward?

In both cases, how do you ensure there's a "negative consequence" worse than the reward. If the negative consequences you talk about are't worse than the reward, then why would those consequences change behavior?

If I steal from you 10 dollars, and as a punishment I need to pay a 3 dollar fine, how does that incentivize me not to steal?

How do you make your scheme actually change behavior unless for every dollar of your tax money the government gives away there is actual pain valued in some way more than a dollar.

You seem to be negotiating with your belief system in a way that doesn't pass a cursory surface level criticism. Could be your belief system is wrong. Think about it over the next few weeks.

Also, dead pensioners don't vote, so the policy is admirably Machiavellian. — unenlightened

Yes, the policy literally kills their core base. They may very well have thought is was noble of them to sacrifice a big part of their base like that. But I think they really did believe the right wing down-playing propaganda just long enough that it was too late. I think the "it kills old people, good for the economy" was a sort of "backstop" position of them thinking "hmm, even if I'm wrong, it's not so bad for Queen and country! For the Queen!".

My analysis is that you cannot call a government incompetent when they have managed to push through an unpopular and damaging policy by winning an election. "competent criminality" is more the mark. — unenlightened

Completely agree. Criminality is a drop in for ideology as I am using it. That they weren't concerned about so many deaths is criminal, but that they didn't realize the deaths would be so high as to crash the system is the incompetence.

Isn't bailing out a reward full stop? Is "restructuring" really a negative consequence to the business? — boethius

Should we be punishing the workers along with the corporate heads? I think it was quite clear that the negative consequences will be brought upon those making the corporate decisions.

I think your emotions have an major influence on how you read into things.

Should we be punishing the workers along with the corporate heads? I think it was quite clear that the megative consequences will be brought upon those making the corporate decisions. — Harry Hindu

How so? No one forces an individual to work for a given corporation, they should have picked a winner or then be an intrepid self employed entrepreneur hopping valiantly from gig to gig.

No one forces an individual to not succeed and not build up a "rainy day fund" for things like pandemics, that any reasonable person knows are a guarantee "happened before, will happen again" as you've taught us.

Why should your tax dollars help out these fools that didn't see this coming and prepare accordingly?

I think your emotions have an major influence on how you read into things. — Harry Hindu

Are you talking about my emotions personally, or is this just some general observation that conservatives and liberals just have a different emotional view of the wold, that leads to a different factual view of the world, and both, when a liberal has a point a conservative has no rational answer to, are very valid and understandable in their own way?

Maybe if we "feel" for the worker in your example we might be tempted to do something.

But isn't helping people deal with a pandemic just going to teach the wrong lesson, the lesson to look for the government to solve your problems rather than solving them yourself. If people get bailed out from this pandemic, how will they learn to prepare for the next pandemic?

Seems that, if the market is efficient, we should let the market sort it out, and it is only by allowing those unprepared for this situation to feel the "negative consequences" that they will learn. That by not helping, we are actually helping them to become better by learning from their mistakes or then, at least, removing them or their business from the market place to let more competent entities take their place. Wouldn't you agree that if the market is efficient, it needs to be let to work, regardless of what anyone "feels" about the short term consequences?

That one is funny. Guys lets stop pointing fingers please, lets all point them to China. Let's castigate the Spanish for the Spanish flu and the Mexicans for the Mexican ones, lets point to the gays for aids and the Napolitans for the ubiquitous pizza hut. — Tobias

Apples and oranges.

You're comparing diseases prior to the advent of genetic engineering with those after, where viruses are created intentionally for scientific research or as a weapon, and possibly to control your population. India has a comparable sized population and geographic location with China, but most of these viruses are coming out of China.

Are you talking about my emotions personally, or is this just some general observation that conservatives and liberals just have a different emotional view of the wold — boethius

I wouldn't know, I dont see the world through some political ideology. I view human nature scientically, not politically.

I wouldn't know, I dont see the world through some political ideology. I view human nature scientically, not politically. — Harry Hindu

So what does the science say?

That by accompanying a benefit with a negative that is less than the benefit, scientifically, this changes behavior to try to avoid that negative?

You've made a claim about changing behavior. Perfectly verifiable and scientifically valid claim. What data or supposed mechanism supports your claim?

Where I live in southeastern Connecticut we haven't been hit too hard by the corona virus yet, but we are surrounded by New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island which haven't been doing so well and there is at least a dozen cases on the western side of the state near New York City that have popped up over the last couple of days.

My sister just called a few minutes ago that the sub/military base in Groton is closing due to a sailor stationed there tested positive for the virus, which is the first case on this side of the state. I can not find any news reports about it so I can't be 100% that it is true.

..she also mentioned that some stores and restaurants are closing their bathrooms due to too many people stealing the toilet paper in them.

Had a containment strategy been effectively implemented, the same strategy that worked for Sars-1 and Ebola, the pandemic, in the least, would have been significantly slowed. — boethius

I would say that there is a learning process here: SARS, MERS, Swineflu etc. Now countries are taking a concentrated and drastic measures. If we would be living in 20th Century, this would be like "a nasty flu". That's it. Old people die of flu, that's just a given. It tells something of the times.

The thing is these pandemics and the one we have now could have been equivalent to Spanish Flu or to mid-20th Century pandemics like the Asian flu and Hong Kong flu, but they weren't. And likely the outcome of this one will be far less also. It doesn't mean that this is at all less dangerous.

One thing is if we start to take "seasonal flu" the same way.

I would say that there is a learning process here: SARS, MERS, Swineflu etc. — ssu

The learning process from SARS, MERS, Ebola is that containment avoids this sort of situation. What we learned from Swineflu is that if something really is not "much worse than the normal flu" turns out people then downplay the next thing.

Probably lesson from swine flu is the current pandemic system is inappropriate to apply to a new flu strain, if it can't have the effects we're seeing now. That "pandemic" should mean for people something extremely disruptive, not a technical thing that can include something bad but not terrible. And another rating system is used for the flu, which only reaches the pandemic official classification if it really is an order of magnitude worse than previous flu strains.

Containment was simply never seriously implemented in a globally coordinated manner this time around -- for reasons that have been clearly communicated by our leaders as "needing to balance with economic interests"; as shutting down too much air travel, lowers air line profits, lowering air line stocks and related stocks, which means the economy isn't "doing as great" which in turn means re-election is less certain.

People just flew all over. In SARS the quarantine and contact tracing measures were serious. 40 000 people where quarantined in Toronto. In ebola, strict travel restrictions allowed containment to a single region that then resources from outside could be poured in.

The current situation exemplifies ignoring all the lessons we learned for SARS, MERS and Ebola.

The thing is these pandemics and the one we have now could have been equivalent to Spanish Flu or to mid-20th Century pandemics like the Asian flu and Hong Kong flu, but they weren't. And likely the outcome of this one will be far less also. It doesn't mean that this is at all less dangerous. — ssu

Here, I agree with you. If people had the attitude "old people die all the time of pneumonia" then the disease could just burn through the population, a lot of old people die at home, get buried and that's it. some young people die too, and that's unfortunate.

The "problem" in terms of disruption to our lives and the economy, is indeed psychological. People are no longer accustomed to their loved one's dying for preventable reasons in rich countries, and of course only the middle and up classes in the States -- if it was a disease of the poor it wouldn't be a problem there. Of course, this "privilege" is due to global institutions previously working pretty well; now that they've failed to manage this, each government in turn is simply unable to just "let it burn" whether they want to or not, people just don't accept it. It is too great a trauma to see people in the West die of a disease without even getting to see a doctor; therefore, governments are compelled to act. That they all act, like clockwork, too late, reveals that policy is setup to prefer those people just die and be done with it, but capitalism has reduced it's decision foresight capacity to literally month long timescales.

As I mention earlier, if the economy is primarily "that which keeps people alive", it's impossible to argue you need to die to live.

Apples and oranges.

You're comparing diseases prior to the advent of genetic engineering with those after, where viruses are created intentionally for scientific research or as a weapon, and possibly to control your population. India has a comparable sized population and geographic location with China, but most of these viruses are coming out of China.

Ohhh you are a it is a Chines complot kind of guy... It is all an attempt at population control. I should have suspected that all along... Well, I have secret information. It happened to be an Indian ploy, in order to blame the Chinese to disrupt their reputation for technology and thought, paving the way to win the race to produce the strongest chess team in the word.

Containment was simply never seriously implemented in a globally coordinated manner this time around - — boethius

At least actions taken now are dramatic. And China did at first respond badly, that's true.

The "problem" in terms of disruption to our lives and the economy, is indeed psychological. People are no longer accustomed to their loved one's dying for preventable reasons in rich countries — boethius

I agree with you. Time's really are changing. Just like 9/11 changed the whole attitude towards terrorism, we might have here a dramatic change on how we handle epidemics. In the 70's security was lax even if in Europe there was a lot of terrorism.

Thank's for the comments.

We are here in Finland living at the start or "take off" stage of the pandemic with 210 cases and going up (equivalent by population size to 12 000 cases in the US) with no fatalities yet. The government is contemplating emergency laws and deciding next Monday if to keep schools and daycare centers open. Likely that happens when they loose track of epidemic (meaning there isn't a clear history and a path from where everybody has gotten the virus). Now at least officially all cases have been visiting China, Northern Italy etc. with no "domestic" cases.

My son's school informed today that they had a case of a corona-virus infected person being for one day (9th this month) at the school. One class plus teachers have been quarantined from next Monday for 9 days. Any students coming from abroad have to take a two week leave before coming to school. And then yesterday, after school my daughter (who is in a different school from his big brother) felt bad and had fever :yikes:. So girl into bed. Now the fever has subsided and she has no cough, no running nose etc. Although the vast majority of diseases that cause fever aren't this ugly virus we are all excited about, one has to take of course precautions, so no school for her on Monday and a consultation with the teacher when to come. And the family isn't going to meet grandfather for a while. But anyway, there's no meetings next week and work is only from home. Guess the family stays at home for a while and enjoys the drama of a pandemic.

At least actions taken now are dramatic. And China did at first respond badly, that's true. — ssu

Yes, dramatic action is in the end inevitable.

It is very possible China made sure it "was let loose globally" either by reflexive cover-up of inept mandalorians or then by design once it was clearly going to have massive implications in China. Obviously, China is first to fail to contain.

However, the rest of the world failing to implement any serious containment, means now it's exploding in all the major countries simultaneously (that naturally have the most air travel). Serious containment effort would have displaced peaks, which significant benefits.

No major economy wanted to stop the planes, but what they didn't realize is that "do nothing" meant going towards "planes and everything else" not working. It is an incredible failure in policy, and that the consequences were clearly mere months away, for me anyway, shows that the "brain trust" of capitalism now truly thinks only on time scales of one, maybe two, news cycles.

However, Europe has, ultimately, less to fear from this pandemic because socialist institutions are in place to more easily deal with it.

“Socialist institutions” are gulags, breadlines and collective farms. Europe has no such institutions. But then again, stealing liberal innovations and stamping it with the “socialist” label is par for the course.

As for the rest, point taken.

It is very possible China made sure it "was let loose globally" either by reflexive cover-up of inept mandalorians or then by design once it was clearly going to have massive implications in China. Obviously, China is first to fail to contain. — boethius

You think so?

When one option for reasons for bad political decisions is ineptness, I know for what option I'll go for.

When one option for reasons for bad political decisions is ineptness, I know for what option I'll go for. — ssu

I'm not so confident. National security decisions do get made by shadowy figures around round tables.

It's pretty well documented that China covered things up as long as possible; we needed a Chinese doctor to warn us (which is risking one's life in China ... and he died, but we're told it's just coincidence).

I haven't gone into the exact timing of events, so don't have an opinion of what's the more plausible cause of the cover up.

However, it's only Trump, among the leaders of great powers, that doesn't care in the slightest about "the Great Game", it's unwise to extend that assumption to the leadership of the other great powers. Having a situation where China is locked down and the rest of the world isn't is a national security disaster for the PRC; setting things back 1, maybe even 2, five year plans. And time is of the essence, since with proper containment strategy, even if the pandemic was simply mismanaged at first and is already inevitable, maybe a simple cure is found between the highest economic damage in China and the rest of the world, so even measures that effectively slow the virus globally would be a threat to national security.

There is no way to prove such a theory at this time, but there is no way to exclude it either.

The whole saying "never attribute to malice what is explainable by incompetence" or however it goes, isn't really informative. Society rarely accepts the defense of "I accidentally pulled the trigger" ... unless it's a police officer, naturally, but even then sometimes society does decide it was malice, and maybe it even was; both explanations are possible, and humans have survived so far by being clever, not by being inept, so that maybe some evidence that a priori malice is a better explanation if there are only those two options available.

Cases of Coronavirus are rapidly spreading in Africa, which could be the big tragedy of this pandemic given the lack of health services there.

Europe has no such institutions. But then again, stealing liberal innovations and stamping it with the “socialist” label is par for the course. — NOS4A2

Oh boy. Here we go again. What liberal institutions are you talking about?

Oh boy. Here we go again. What liberal institutions are you talking about?

“Liberal innovations” such as Keynesian economics and the modern welfare state.