> Putin claims the goal is to ‘de-nazify’ a country whose elected president is Jewish.
This is crazy sounding on its face, but I wish people would make a cursory effort to look past the word salad that people throw out there. It often seems like a conscious refusal to engage on the substance of issues.
In this case, we all know perfectly well that slurring a group as "nazis" has come to mean that group are bad authoritarian figures, and not that they're specific adherents to Nazi theories of racial superiority.
But, this common knowledge is turned on and off to suit us. When the mood suits you, you point out it's not literally true. But in other situations, you use the term loosely and call people you don't like nazis (or racists etc etc).
This tic of modern Western thought mostly just harms the ability of people who do it to think clearly. You aren't fooling anyone, but rather just signaling everyone your position and opposition to that group. None of which gets us any closer to understanding or solving a problem.
With respect to Putin, he's obviously slurring the small but real minority of Ukrainian nationalists who have, in fact, done some pretty shitty stuff. And tying them to the historical fact that there was a significant element of Ukrainian nationalists in World War II who literally collaborated with the Nazis.
Now, that doesn't mean 1) the current Ukraine is controlled by "Ukrainian Neo-Nazis". It doesn't seem to be, although there are some legitimate concerns about the behavior of Ukrainian nationalists and some of their political goals 2) that Putin is the good guy here (he's obviously not) or that Russian invasion is justified (again, obviously not).
But what it does mean is that we do ourselves no favors by dismissively treating our enemies as crazy or consciously refusing to understand what they're trying to say. This is obviously true, and no different than how the political "discussion" surrounding everything works right now. Opposing points of view are dismissed out of hand and the mere statement of such a view is treated as a reason to utterly refuse to deal with a person. This in turn, leads everything to conflict because no compromise is possible. That's stupid.
I have updated to remove the language here because this is supposed to be a Covid post yet I've gotten multiple big complaints about that line and don't want it to be a distraction - it's not worth it. I do think the complaints are 'wrong' but the fight isn't worth it.
Putin has shown complete disregard for truth. By default his language needs to be interpreted at 'simulacra levels' 2 and 4 - he speaks purely in ways the he believes will advance his own objectives. If his utterances line up with base reality or even his own beliefs, it is simply a coincidence that those utterances are most advantageous to his goals.
With that in mind, it's not obvious he's slurring anybody. He's calling to de-nazify Ukraine because he believes that in general this will provoke a response which is advantageous to him. Tying yourself in knots trying to understand what he has to say is not a useful exercise - unless your goal is to understand what is current objectives are.
"trying to understand what he has to say is not a useful exercise - unless your goal is to understand what is current objectives are."
Well... obviously. It's unfortunate so few have the willingness to understand the objectives of our opponents.
The fact that our opponent is an inveterate liar is largely irrelevant. Politicians are almost always inveterate liars, but calling them a bunch of lying liars doesn't get anyone anywhere. Understanding their objectives, on the other hand, does.
The child development changes are unconnected to COVID and were in the works for years. They were not done just by the CDC and the work was led by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP addressed not just speech, but a number of other development targets - following commands, walking, motor skills, etc. And note that the item that has been seized on is number of words known, not how well they are pronounced.
This change was made because studies showed that at 24 months, 50% of children met that standard. Only 50%. By moving it to 30 months, the percentage is 75%. That makes an intervention much more likely to be effective.
In addition, they added benchmarks at 15 months, where there had been none before.
Thanks for the great analysis every week. I am less worried about severe illness and death now that all the adults are vaccinated and boosted and all my kids are vaccinated. However I'm still worried about long covid. I see studies that say to to 30% of people could have long covid. I'm waiting a few more weeks to see if any data comes out about people who developed long covid after omicron. I'd like to see more days in kids with long covid. And I'd like to see if there are any updates on if vaccination effects your ability to get long covid. Long covid is holding me back from eating indoors at a restaurant or removing my mask in a store.
I wrote about nuclear power from a health/eco point of view. I suspect we will come to view the geopolitical consequences of abandoning Nuclear as equally horrific. https://www.sierradescents.com/2021/11/nuclear-did-we-make-a-huge-mistake.html
> Putin claims the goal is to ‘de-nazify’ a country whose elected president is Jewish.
This is crazy sounding on its face, but I wish people would make a cursory effort to look past the word salad that people throw out there. It often seems like a conscious refusal to engage on the substance of issues.
In this case, we all know perfectly well that slurring a group as "nazis" has come to mean that group are bad authoritarian figures, and not that they're specific adherents to Nazi theories of racial superiority.
But, this common knowledge is turned on and off to suit us. When the mood suits you, you point out it's not literally true. But in other situations, you use the term loosely and call people you don't like nazis (or racists etc etc).
This tic of modern Western thought mostly just harms the ability of people who do it to think clearly. You aren't fooling anyone, but rather just signaling everyone your position and opposition to that group. None of which gets us any closer to understanding or solving a problem.
With respect to Putin, he's obviously slurring the small but real minority of Ukrainian nationalists who have, in fact, done some pretty shitty stuff. And tying them to the historical fact that there was a significant element of Ukrainian nationalists in World War II who literally collaborated with the Nazis.
Now, that doesn't mean 1) the current Ukraine is controlled by "Ukrainian Neo-Nazis". It doesn't seem to be, although there are some legitimate concerns about the behavior of Ukrainian nationalists and some of their political goals 2) that Putin is the good guy here (he's obviously not) or that Russian invasion is justified (again, obviously not).
But what it does mean is that we do ourselves no favors by dismissively treating our enemies as crazy or consciously refusing to understand what they're trying to say. This is obviously true, and no different than how the political "discussion" surrounding everything works right now. Opposing points of view are dismissed out of hand and the mere statement of such a view is treated as a reason to utterly refuse to deal with a person. This in turn, leads everything to conflict because no compromise is possible. That's stupid.
I have updated to remove the language here because this is supposed to be a Covid post yet I've gotten multiple big complaints about that line and don't want it to be a distraction - it's not worth it. I do think the complaints are 'wrong' but the fight isn't worth it.
Putin has shown complete disregard for truth. By default his language needs to be interpreted at 'simulacra levels' 2 and 4 - he speaks purely in ways the he believes will advance his own objectives. If his utterances line up with base reality or even his own beliefs, it is simply a coincidence that those utterances are most advantageous to his goals.
With that in mind, it's not obvious he's slurring anybody. He's calling to de-nazify Ukraine because he believes that in general this will provoke a response which is advantageous to him. Tying yourself in knots trying to understand what he has to say is not a useful exercise - unless your goal is to understand what is current objectives are.
"trying to understand what he has to say is not a useful exercise - unless your goal is to understand what is current objectives are."
Well... obviously. It's unfortunate so few have the willingness to understand the objectives of our opponents.
The fact that our opponent is an inveterate liar is largely irrelevant. Politicians are almost always inveterate liars, but calling them a bunch of lying liars doesn't get anyone anywhere. Understanding their objectives, on the other hand, does.
I definitely consider understanding his goals and next actions to be one of my key current objectives in the this matter.
Probable typo: "using this to hard tests." hard -> hoard?
The child development changes are unconnected to COVID and were in the works for years. They were not done just by the CDC and the work was led by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP addressed not just speech, but a number of other development targets - following commands, walking, motor skills, etc. And note that the item that has been seized on is number of words known, not how well they are pronounced.
This change was made because studies showed that at 24 months, 50% of children met that standard. Only 50%. By moving it to 30 months, the percentage is 75%. That makes an intervention much more likely to be effective.
In addition, they added benchmarks at 15 months, where there had been none before.
Here is a paper that outlines the work.
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2021-052138/184748/Evidence-Informed-Milestones-for-Developmental
I rally appreciate your continuing Covid commentary notwithstanding the compelling need to address the war.
Thanks for the great analysis every week. I am less worried about severe illness and death now that all the adults are vaccinated and boosted and all my kids are vaccinated. However I'm still worried about long covid. I see studies that say to to 30% of people could have long covid. I'm waiting a few more weeks to see if any data comes out about people who developed long covid after omicron. I'd like to see more days in kids with long covid. And I'd like to see if there are any updates on if vaccination effects your ability to get long covid. Long covid is holding me back from eating indoors at a restaurant or removing my mask in a store.