Now that I am turning to Phase 2 of my COVID-19 project I make my blog useful by collecting all mottoes that I have noted. They are (in sequence of discussion):
- (source) … those who believe that science and journalism are necessary for their institutional structures to survive, feel inclined to hate populist factions. So much so that they start them themselves … and … that our conscious thinking is the result of a whole series of distinct types of stories that simultaneously compete for dominance and that can become more dominant through a history of prior selection …
- (source) … populist factions seeking protection against endemic risks may well be a necessary precondition for the emergence of collective hatred …
- (source) … networks are strange things … it seems as if there are two kinds … one for forest fires and one for logistics … the networks that arise when you aim for an average R0 value create the dynamics of the forest fire … a different kind of infectious network … much more dynamic and therefore much more dangerous in epidemics. This strain ensures that a new pandemic can spread around the world in a handful of weeks. Their architecture can be imitated by instilling a slight preference in the formation of the network by those seeking connection to aim for those with more connections (preferential attachment) … the logistics architecture is characterized by hubs that encourage uniformity, and are therefore efficient but also vulnerable. The forest fire architecture is less efficient, but also less vulnerable …
- (source) … information needed to model that state of nature … equal opportunities for individuals to claim an interest (necessity of life) despite individual differences in strength and intellect that are canceled out by: the ability to use (secret) tricks and coalitions with those who are in comparable situations … inequality in possibilities to act on the basis of scientific knowledge (based on general infallible rules) exists but is canceled out by a more important form of equality: the prudence – which can be offset by another form of equality, the universal human quality to overestimate one’s own wisdom when making behavioral choices … Hobbes’ (XIII: “Nature has made men so equal”; XIII: From equality proceeds diffidence; XIII: From diffidence war; XIII: Out of civil states (without sovereign the state of nature, constant fear); XIII: (homo homo lupus) The incommodities of such a war; XIII: sovereigns are in state of nature at the institutional level but constrained by their duties to their peoples)
- (source) We need individuals who inhabit a piece of land together and who may or may not create or abolish jurisdiction … individuals must therefore be able to (refuse) to enter into an agreement designating a sovereign (individual or institution) … individuals must have the freedom (and thus the ability) to form, join and leave groups – and to gain status in them … individuals must have the freedom to experience fear of arbitrary violence in the jurisdiction ( or situation) in which they live, in relation to the effectiveness of the laws (and enforcement practice), and to obtain security as (or in the shadow of) a sovereign legislator … individuals must have the freedom to build capital through their converting talents into products and making money from them in the marketplace … individuals should have the freedom to gain knowledge by participating in education, research and processing real-life experiences … individuals should have the freedom to apply their wisdom (i.e. to determine the expected dynamics in their ability by combining those in their status, security, capital and knowledge) in choosing a behavioral option in a situation … we need ideas about how often who contacts whom and what kind of transactions they carry out and how they change their assets at what time and under what conditions, to implement in rules … then we also need rules about what the conditions are to make a jurisdiction a state of war against everyone …
- (source)… based on the output of phase 1, estimates can be made of the characteristics of COVID-19 virus infections and disease courses, which can also be tested against the observations and compared with the official estimates of institutions (incubation times, contamination by whom no symptoms, vulnerabilities, age categories, etc.).
- (source) … conflicts take place in three types of networks: (i) of jurisdictions and heads of government, (ii) of institutions and companies and (iii) of citizens and communities … a cursory analysis of, for example, the trade war between the US and the PRC shows that it is a war between Trump and Xi that is mainly waged in view of the opportunities of mandate extension of the main characters. The size of the trade deficit has become irrelevant. Voter loyalty is what matters … the question is whether Trump can bring the story that his “make america great again” was conducive to the feasibility of “individual american dreams” …
- (source)… the reproduction rate of the virus in a still uncontaminated area (R0) is around 2… hygiene + lock-down + social distancing + quarantines + tests + masks are effective against the pandemic… so it is possible the virus is under control … even if asymptomatic infected people can occur … asymptomatic infected people can also spread the virus … there are large differences in vulnerability per age category … IC treatments (intensive care) often require ventilation machines … there are no effective medicines available (yet) …
- (source) … media reports indicate that the virus is highly contagious, that it travels with its carriers around the world and that it is characterized by local outbreaks of variable magnitude … and … that until policy in a jurisdiction has been determined, the first COVID-19 spread there is exponential, only then does the influence of the measures become visible, except where the fear is shared by the people and leads to spontaneous action … that the pandemic can occur in two gears, one way is the slow way, which jumps from person to person and seems to be able to be tamed through social distancing. The other, fast way usually takes place in poorly ventilated environments where people talk or sing loudly (super-spreaders).
- (source) … successful dream thinking in the long run often leads to a lust for power and narrow traditional thinking …
- (source) … we have now learned that the world is also a political arena for science that is partly populated by academic dream and tradition thinkers … and come to understand that rather than being a clear criterion, the concept of “knowing” rests at best on a diffuse collection of conjectures that are only very partly supported by facts …