Greg

I’ve seen this argument over and over. “You’re assuming that they are rational.” What is required for analytical purposes is a very weak form of rationality: the politician or the military man wants to win, wants an advantage; not that he is not going to make serious errors. More importantly, assuming irrationality is an analytical cul-de-sac. As a piece of rhetoric, it is no better than a get-out-of-jail-free card. What analytical purchase do you get by assuming any actor is irrational? To get analytical traction, you need a model of their irrationality. You can say that such and such is ideologically-motivated to do such and such. Eg, the Nazi regime poured scarce resources into the liquidation of European Jewry because it was consumed by the idea of a world Jewish conspiracy. My biggest disagreement with Gopal was precisely on this question of irrationality. Specifically, he was worried about US and/or Israeli first use. I explained that this worry was unwarranted. Not because the Bibi and Trump governments are rational, cunning actors; although they are. But rather because the threshold for first use is so high. At the minimum, the decision-maker must ask: what happens if we do this? how will the enemy respond? how will others respond? Can we get away with it? The answer to that is very clear. Iranian retaliation with dirty bombs on Tel Aviv cannot be prevented. Hormuz cannot be reopened by first use. The gulf cannot be saved in the event of first use. A great depression becomes a certainty with first use. The end of Israeli nuclear monopoly in the region becomes a certainty with first use. The use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine becomes a live possibility. Diplomatic isolation becomes a virtual certainty with first use. It’s not a solution, and certainly creates a lot more problems than it solves. In order to argue that first use was a real possibility, you need to provide a picture whereby the decision maker considers first use to be the least bad option in a difficult situation. Fighting for a bully boner does not cut it. There is a reason why all attempts at nuclear coercion have failed. There is not a single case, just as there is no case of a state capitulating under aerial bombardment. To his credit, by the time we finished the whiskey, Gopal came around.

BREAKING: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth calls out America's allies: "The time for free riding is over." "America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal, and who understand that being an ally is not a one way street." "We barely use the Strait of Hormuz as a country. Our energy doesn't flow through there, and we have plenty of energy." "We are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and getting a boat."

Science needs open source and open data now more than ever

🚨 Must-watch testimony from a former chief toxicologist for Pfizer in Europe, saying with certainty that the COVID vaccine was not properly safety tested and is DANGEROUS. “No, the carcinogenic risk was not investigated due to time constraints.” “A study on rats… was inadequately conducted.” “No reliable assessments… on pregnancy or development of offspring were possible.” “Essential toxicity studies were sacrificed for the sake of speed.” “Comirnaty should not have been approved at all under the regulations.” “Mortality rose significantly from 2021 to 2022 compared to 2020.” “The result is significant contamination with bacterial DNA.”

The following statements are true. 1 — P(BOMB | DEAL) < P(BOMB | WAR) < P(BOMB | FROZEN). 2 — E(PAIN | DEAL) < E(PAIN | WAR) < E(PAIN | FROZEN). 3 — P(RISK | DEAL) < P(RISK | FROZEN) < P(RISK | WAR). Where, BOMB = Iran gets the bomb, PAIN = global economic pain, DEAL = a negotiated peace agreement, WAR = large-scale hostilities, RISK = destruction of the gulf, FROZEN = long low-intensity conflict. By weak rationality, one simply means that the decision maker is directionally pain-averse and risk-averse. A weakly rational decision maker prefers DEAL to both FROZEN and WAR. A risk intolerant decision maker is one who prefers FROZEN > WAR. A pain intolerant or impatient decision maker is one who prefers WAR > FROZEN. A crazy decision maker is one who prefers WAR > FROZEN > DEAL. With these definitions, we can say that Bibi is crazy. Trump is not crazy but weakly rational, and he cannot convince Iran that he is crazy. In fact, by chickening out his escalation threat, suing for peace, walking away from Islamabad, and then trekking back to Islamabad, he has signaled that he is a risk intolerant decision maker, FROZEN > WAR. WLOG, we can model the armed bargaining as a costly process where the Iranians make offers that the US can accept or reject but each rejection increases the cost to Trump by a small amount (equivalently, the price of rejection is a small probability of war). Iran’s problem is to offer the most advantageous DEAL such that Trump still prefers DEAL > FROZEN. Trump has an incentive to pretend that FROZEN > DEAL is he thinks that Iran’s next offer will be so attractive that it makes up for the cost of one rejection. What is the equilibrium? One thing we can say for sure. The equilibrium is costly not efficient bc at least one offer has already been rejected. Can FROZEN obtain in equilibrium? Yes, if, for whatever exogenous reasons, Iran cannot afford to make an offer such that Trump prefers DEAL > FROZEN, we get FROZEN in equilibrium. Can WAR obtain in equilibrium? That’s unlikely given the revealed preferences. If it does obtain, it would signal that Trump has been outmaneuvered by the crazy lobby. —— P(X | Z) is the probability of X conditional on Z and E(X | Z) is the expected value of X given Z.

Former NIH Director Bernadine Healy (1991): "The gov't has said in a report by the Institute of Medicine—and by the way, I'm a member of the IOM, I love the Institute of Medicine—But a report in 2004 basically said 'do not pursue susceptibility groups'. 'Don't look for those patients, those children who may be vulnerable'. I really take issue with that conclusion. The reason they didn't want to look for those susceptibility groups was because they were afraid that if they found them, however big or small they were, that that would scare the public away."

Only the lowest IQ president to ever serve, or a man completely compromised, or someone deeply consumed by evil, would look at this woman and call her his “pastor”, and chose her to lead the White House “faith” office.

I’ve seen this argument over and over. “You’re assuming that they are rational.” What is required for analytical purposes is a very weak form of rationality: the politician or the military man wants to win, wants an advantage; not that he is not going to make serious errors. More importantly, assuming irrationality is an analytical cul-de-sac. As a piece of rhetoric, it is no better than a get-out-of-jail-free card. What analytical purchase do you get by assuming any actor is irrational? To get analytical traction, you need a model of their irrationality. You can say that such and such is ideologically-motivated to do such and such. Eg, the Nazi regime poured scarce resources into the liquidation of European Jewry because it was consumed by the idea of a world Jewish conspiracy. My biggest disagreement with Gopal was precisely on this question of irrationality. Specifically, he was worried about US and/or Israeli first use. I explained that this worry was unwarranted. Not because the Bibi and Trump governments are rational, cunning actors; although they are. But rather because the threshold for first use is so high. At the minimum, the decision-maker must ask: what happens if we do this? how will the enemy respond? how will others respond? Can we get away with it? The answer to that is very clear. Iranian retaliation with dirty bombs on Tel Aviv cannot be prevented. Hormuz cannot be reopened by first use. The gulf cannot be saved in the event of first use. A great depression becomes a certainty with first use. The end of Israeli nuclear monopoly in the region becomes a certainty with first use. The use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine becomes a live possibility. Diplomatic isolation becomes a virtual certainty with first use. It’s not a solution, and certainly creates a lot more problems than it solves. In order to argue that first use was a real possibility, you need to provide a picture whereby the decision maker considers first use to be the least bad option in a difficult situation. Fighting for a bully boner does not cut it. There is a reason why all attempts at nuclear coercion have failed. There is not a single case, just as there is no case of a state capitulating under aerial bombardment. To his credit, by the time we finished the whiskey, Gopal came around.

How much DNA is allowed in each vaccine dose? How much is actually found?? What???