50 Laboratories

 

Back on February 7, 2017, I wrote about problem-solving using massively-parallel trial-and-error and suggested that this method almost always results in the optimal outcome, and gets very close to it when it misses the bulls-eye.

We just went through a period where this method was applied, and it has (apparently) worked as expected.  Fifty states each dealt with Covid-19 using a handful of models such that we now have several different solutions, each demonstrating different levels of success.

New York, New Jersey, and California, along with several others, went the 'hard lockdown' route, while others, notably Florida and Texas, eschewed mask mandates and forced isolation.  The results are in: lockdowns don't work if the desired result is the health of the populace; mask mandates seem to have no observable effect on infection rates; forced isolation is (as was predicted early-on) a recipe for economic catastrophe and very little in the way of 'preventing infection'.  The CDC is now admitting that the chance of acquiring Covid-19 from hard surfaces is approximately zero.  If only someone would have been aware of how useless most of these draconian non-solutions were earlier in the process!

Well, it turns out that someone was aware of how useless mask mandates, hard lockdowns, and economy-crippling isolation measures were.  By and large, what the mainstream media sneeringly refer to as 'right-wing media' was on this case within weeks of the initial outbreaks, and they warned whoever would listen that (a) Covid-19 was far less dangerous than 'the experts' were saying it was, and (b) that there was no reason to torpedo the economy in order to keep people healthy.  In fact, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo and NJ Governor Phil Murphy both sent infected seniors back into the nursing homes from which they had come, the better to infect any seniors who had thus far escaped the virus.  The instant this happened, 'right-wing media' was on the issue 'like white on rice' warning (as if no one could figure this out for themselves) that placing infected persons in close proximity to uninfected persons was an excellent way to infect the uninfected.  Those warnings were dismissed as conspiracy theories, but we now know that they were something else.

The left is keen on 'common-sense gun laws', but they're not quite as keen on common-sense health policies, and now I think we can speculate as to 'why'.  Common-sense gun laws (which are thoroughly divorced from common-sense) give them more power.  Common-sense health policies take power away.  The common denominator is that whatever gives the left power is good, and whatever takes power away is bad.

Let that sink in for a moment.