Apropos of everything lately: to be happy and avoid despair, you must first let go of the fantasy that justice/goodness will grow in the world on its own, or that time materializes it. Having to fight for justice isn’t a sign of a doomed world. It is our world’s normal state. 1/n There were brutal struggles and sacrifices in the 20th c. that made the world more just for many, in limited but vitally important ways, and that carried forward with some inertia for a few decades. But justice isn’t a perpetual motion machine. 2/n

Having our first real Halloween at home in ages. Last year was too sad/stressful for holiday stuff but we are making up for it this year. Pro tip: KN95 + Sharpie/crayon = spooky mask in 30
seconds for greeting the kiddos.

This is just embarrassing. If you read it and thought ‘yes, how could anyone disagree?,’ please look again: “The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure...” We KNOW this is false. Vaccine/COVID conspiracy theories are KILLING people because it is false. 1/n harpers.org/a-letter-on-ju… Also, after giving a list of vague, unspecified examples of ‘mob’ silencing, the authors say “Whatever the arguments around each particular incident...” NOPE. Stop right there. If the arguments around that incident establish it was justified, you don’t get to wave them away. 2/n

Thoughts on the growing debate over whether COVID-19 illustrates the moral necessity of using AI and other tech for more expansive and intrusive forms of public health surveillance: a thread. 1/n

https://twitter.com/shonaghosh/status/1242025836993265667

First and most urgently, we need to consider what sources of data we already had and simply failed to use or act upon effectively; creating new surveillance data streams doesn’t help if the human and institutional failures that underlie the present pandemic remain unaddressed 2/n