I wonder how many of the thousands in the comments under this article have a clear understanding of what "gain of function" is & how it applies to this disagreement. I'm assuming that the majority fall along tribal lines or revert to trusting the speaker with more accreditation.
… Ignoring Hull's quip, here is the exchange in full. You know, I dunno. Paul is obviously fishing for ways to pin dirt on Fauci with weaksauce (a distraction?) but Fauci is probably wrong on the merits of the argument about gain of function~
… What Fauci should have done, is explain how the funded research was not gain of function, or how the funding was technically not going to gain-of-function research. Maybe Fauci should have just conceded the point with the qualification that his slip-up was largely irrelevant.
… but instead, it became a contest about who can sound the most respectable, fury not just around integrity vs. lies, but also about who was more knowledgeable about facts. It is to be assumed that an expert witness would be more knowledgeable than a senator, even an MD. …
… So that's kinda beside the point. Fauci needed to use his limited time to respond with medical arguments, not thumping on about who was smart and who was dumb, or even about who was a truth-teller & who was a liar.

OTOH Paul interrupted A LOT, but that's because he knows …
… the setup, and that there is not nearly enough time to have an honest technical conversation, so he needed to get his soundbites in.

Overall, a shitshow & I don't feel good about either guy.
… btw I saw someone praise this thread but to me, while there is insight in there, it sounds way too much like fanfiction~
… Eric also came up with the ridiculous handle, "Intellectual Dark Web." I don't understand how anyone with a lick of sense can use that term unironically.

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More from @CosmicRetroTech

20 Jul
I'm a great believer in understating the obvious instead of overstating the possible, just to be an ass, but also to always lean towards de-escalating conflict instead of escalating it.
… escalating antagonism with a few tiny steps is easy. This is the REAL-life natural law of humans, not that set of fictional niceties around rights & ethics that calls itself "natural law."

inb4 knowing the difference between law as legal regulations & law as observed facts~
… anyway, I'm all for being aware of such escalations and finding new & sometimes necessarily creative, even slightly deceptive ways to de-escalate instead.

I enjoy watching ill-will play out, but I don't like seeing it either, if that makes any sense~
Read 4 tweets
20 Jul
At first I was excited because I thought the text above her head was subtitles …
… oh thank GOD someone transcribed it …
… I don't get it. A room full of women (and one man) can get just as edgy, if not more so, if only because society won't be as quick to condemn them~
Read 4 tweets
20 Jul
Despite me ranting about other people who are like this, I don't spend much effort trying to come up with anything like a coherent theory about life. I feel things on my gut instinct, which (oh god no!) I tend to trust (probably too much).

Insurance tactic: "I'm a relativist."
… I stopped really caring about what a conservative is, or how other people define their conservatism. To me, there's virtue in being cautious. That's about the extent of my conservatism.

The other parts of me might have to do with being bored with all that caution (& inertia).
… That's not entirely fair. Life can be unfair. So I say suck it up and deal with it, or rather, don't whine about it (Look who's talking); do something about it. Which is what many activists think they are doing when others say they whine too much.

Life's complicated. …
Read 4 tweets
20 Jul
btw, when I was talking about the left using moral panic, I was not thinking of several of the measures taken against COVID. Maybe the wholesale closing & destruction of retail businesses? Schools? Not sure a reasonable cost/benefit calculation was ever done. …
… But masks, at least some social distancing, and ESPECIALLY VACCINES, seemed like reasonable responses to me.

When I was thinking of moral panic among the left, I was thinking more about demonizing "whiteness" & emphasizing "toxic masculinity," identity politics, …
… or demonizing conservatives, or Trump derangement, that sorta thing~
Read 4 tweets
19 Jul
Elon is being praised by some (& by himself) as being an environmental hero while he creates a small, low-speed, short-distance loop using high-powered cars that are vastly less efficient than public transit, in terms of both energy & passenger capacity …
lvcva.com/lvcc-loop/
… Elon tries to browbeat others for not owning electric cars while he takes his private jet from city to city. I read this article which tries to DEFEND Elon's private jet & I was gaping because the article's content makes Elon seem a hypocrite even more
forbes.com/sites/douggoll…
… inb4 "But time for a CEO like Elon is limited & precious; not even commercial flights save as much time as a private jet, & teleconferencing as substitute to being on-location is SF fantasy."

Sure. Speaking of SF fantasy: Mars colonies, Neuralink, & let's throw in Hyperloop~
Read 4 tweets
19 Jul
I assume there must be some sort of sophisticated pro-Palestinian (or Levantine Arab? I don't care all that much what any of you call yourselves) rationale but either I don't understand something about their local issues or the rationale makes no sense.
… ah ha, I'm slow & naive but sometimes persistent. There is clearly more to this (that must have been already obvious to those involved in that clusterfuck part of the world) than the B&J tweet let on, whether by neglect or design. …
… Yet another reason why Twitter is a TERRIBAD place to make any official statement about anything, even with an embedded graphic & a link. But still not clear to me whether they are talking about selling to (*mostly*) Jewish settlements or to everybody outside Israel *proper*~
Read 4 tweets

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