I realized that I left unsaid some context and things that should be said. Not all of those who have made mistakes regarding public statements about COVID are equal offenders. Some have been better on COVID than others. Venus did make a misstep when she supported Novak, but she has otherwise been really great in promoting vaccines. Her misstep in my view is relatively minor. Had there not been a huge controversy which Novak caused and if the Australian Open were not now taking place, I might not have mentioned it. That’s a counterfactual world. Again, she has promoted getting vaccinated even for the healthy. The careful reader will have noticed I said nothing about Serena at all. Therefore, the supposition that I simply dislike the Williams sisters is unsupported and completely untrue. They are two of my favorite all time athletes, not just tennis players. I called out Andy Murray for doing the same exact thing (supporting Novak) although he is less well-known. I didn’t realize until recently that Tom Brady is in the same place. LeBron James’ misstep on COVID in my view is worse. It’s not simply that he, KD, and the Beard were all asked if they would encourage Kyrie and other players to get vaccinated if they haven’t. They all demurred. The problem is that he MINIMIZED COVID IN A SOCIAL MEDIA POST AND THAT IS DANGEROUS. KAREEM called LeBron out as well. He said LeBron needed to be the leader on COVID that he has been on social justice. On the other hand, LeBron is vaccinated. KD and James Harden are both vaccinated and neither are spreading anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. While noticeable, these offenses pale in comparison to Rodgers, Novak, and Kyrie. All three of them are unvaccinated. Rodgers and Novak exposed others to COVID and lied. Kyrie has some strange beliefs. However, he has not to the best of my knowledge misled others. In general, the problem is white, rural, fundamentalist republicans. Most of us know this. However, wealthy American professional athletes are under consideration here and they should be. After all, they are fortunate to be able to amass huge sums of money while playing their support. Their career is something that they love to do and makes them millions or even tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. They garner this income from and because of people in this country supporting them and their team. As a result, it is not too much to ask that in a pandemic that has taken the lives of a million Americans, they lead from the front on the issue of the pandemic which affects all Americans instead .
Even those who made the right decision and got vaccinated are protecting or covering those who didn’t. It’s madness. LeBron won’t speak out and publishes a social media post minimizing COVID. Andy Murray says “It’s a mess !” and is sympathetic towards Novak the liar. KD and James Harden won’t say anything about Kyrie’s conspiracy theory based rejection of vaccines. The only thing I can get out of this is that a great many of our athletes are uneducated dolts. Education is second to political affiliation in vaccine attitude. They would rather support their fellow athlete and friend than help protect their fellow citizens and lead on the pandemic which has taken at least 875,000 lives in America.
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Howard Bryant has written a compelling article that exposes the privileged life that leaders in sports use which allow them a free pass to harm the very public that is responsible for their largesse. He has written the first sports article that those people who are not fans of sports will want to read. They don’t realize how truly privileged they are to be allowed to earn huge fortunes and garner accolades and supporter’s worldwide while playing games. They aren’t aware that with that privilege comes a responsibility to lead, especially in a time of crisis. Even those who lead on some social justice issues like Black Lives Matter are failing the public. Without the public, they would not be able to live the life they do. Their legacy has become one of selfishness at a time when the United States and the world most needed them to lead. We have a pandemic which has produced 61 million cases and almost a million deaths (or more likely based upon excess deaths more than a million) in the United States alone. We are seeing 1,200 people in this country die every day from the novel coronavirus. While omicron may be less deadly or virulent in individual cases, it seems likely to produce even more deaths and hospitalizations than all the other variants combined because due to how much more contagious it is, far more people will catch it. Yet this is preventable. If everybody who could got fully vaccinated which must include being boosted at this late date, wore KN-95 masks properly whenever indoors and avoided unnecessary crowds, the pandemic and its dominant hold upon every aspect of our life would be broken. Only a remnant of cases and deaths would remain. Because of the collective danger, the pandemic must not be minimized because while the risk to the individual might not be great, the risk to the public as a whole is tremendous . This is true because even if a lower percentage of those who catch the novel coronavirus die or are hospitalized, this reduction is overwhelmed by how many more people will catch it due to how much more contagious it is. Therefore, we need those who are privileged to live a life most people can only dream of to lead by not only getting vaccinated but imploring their peers and the public to get vaccinated as well.
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Their failures are our failures when they are allowed exceptions to rules set to keep us all safe , rules the rest of us must follow , without consequences. LeBron may have gotten vaccinated, but he minimized the danger of the pandemic on social media and refused to take a leadership position when he has accepted that role on other matters. KD and the Beard refused to push Irving to get vaccinated. The league as a whole refused a mandate. Irving was not going to be allowed to play at all because he would not follow local rules for COVID, but now the Nets will allow him to play on the road. Rodgers lied about his vaccination status. He intentionally misled others into believing he was vaccinated by using what is regarded as a synonym, immunized, and not following protocols for those who are not vaccinated. AB used a fake vaccination card, but was welcomed back by his team after missing only three games.
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Republicans have not only become the party of insurrection and against democracy, but also a pro-COVID and anti-vaccine political party . By not uniting and promoting vaccination to their colleagues and the general public, they are betraying the very public which enables them to enjoy the privileged life they lie.
www.espn.com/…
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With great power and fame and influence comes responsibility and accountability. American professional athletes who have become wealthy while getting to play a game benefit greatly from living in this country and having so many people in this country enable them to become wealthy while playing a game. And while some work very hard at their craft, they are still extremely fortunate and they owe a lot to this country and the supporters of athletics who have given them so much. As obvious as these truths are, the athletes seem oblivious to it. They are more likely to defend each other rather than take a stand on an issue that affects all Americans. Many African American athletes will step up and demand change and fight for social justice and they should. But they won’t call for adherence to a standard in regard to the pandemic which has taken over 875,000 lives in the United States. Even those who are vaccinated are protecting and by implication making excuses for those who aren’t.
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If you think that Omicron is simply a cold, you are very badly mistaken. Colds don’t take the lives of 1,200 people daily in the United States. If you look at the record of deaths as a 7 day rolling average, then over the last month or more it’s been that same rolling 7 day average, 1,200 daily deaths. On days after holidays or weekends, the reported total of deaths is lower because many don’t count the deaths over the weekend. That’s why it is so important to take the 7 day rolling average. Each new day they drop the oldest day in the 7 day period and add the brand new day in its place and then they add the total deaths from each of those days in the new 7 day period and divide by 7. And taking the average of the averages is much better although taking the median is I suppose somewhat acceptable. This is the thing about those of us who are progressive or liberal and who have graduate degrees in math or science like me. Uneducated republicans and especially fundamentalist conspiracy theorists tend to take a single piece of data and emphasize this one piece of data that they found to support their position. They ignore the huge context of data that argues against their position. It’s what they do with scientists. 96% of physicians are vaccinated. Almost all virologists and epidemiologists are vaccinated and support getting vaccinated. Yet, these largely uneducated buffoons find the one or few people who are exceptions and latch onto what they say. They find the one scientist in some related field who opposes the vaccines when almost all fellow scientists in the same field support getting vaccinated.
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As I have previously written, in 2022 it takes a lot to become the mainstream consensus view of science among a highly educated and intelligent scientific population. To replace what is currently accepted as the mainstream consensus view among scientists should be difficult because it was difficult for the current mainstream consensus view to achieve that status. What had to happen ? First, the new theory that would replace the current mainstream consensus view must be supported by original high quality double blind research studies and the data that comes from these studies. The proponent(s) must demonstrate using Occam’s razor that the best and most direct and obvious way to account for the data in the new studies is the new theory. Then the proponent(s) must go back and review the considerable evidence claimed to support the current mainstream consensus view and show that using Occam’s razor, the new theory better explains the old data. And if a new theory is introduced, but fails to become the mainstream consensus view, then it means that for most scientists the current mainstream consensus view better explains the data. Occam’s razor says that all things being equal, the theory that most directly and with the fewest modifications best accounts for the data is the better theory.
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As a simple example, somebody claims that there are little green aliens in their laboratory. The other person disagrees. Neither see the little green aliens. The first person admits that the they don’t see the aliens, but says that the reason for this is that green aliens are invisible to humans. The second person says that the reason the little green aliens are unseen is because they don’t exist. This shows how it is ALWAYS possible to modify a bad theory to account for the data. However, Occam’s razor says which theory most directly best accounts for the data with the FEWEST modifications. The answer is the second person’s theory.
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Fundamentalists are always able to manipulate their theories to force data to be consistent with their views that the Earth is only 10,000 years old, evolution isn’t true, the mean global temperature isn’t rising because of humans releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and so on. The theories that most directly best account for the data with the fewest modifications are not the theories that they push. I find it hard to argue that we should not apply Occam’s razor. Yet, fundamentalists can’t accept Occam’s razor or their views will have even fewer if any adherents. Fundamentalists argue that climate change isn’t real because it is much colder than normal on a particular day in one particular city. I have heard Rush Limbaugh do this many times as have other adherents to the scientifically absurd view that the global mean temperature is not rising.
But again, what does the theory of global warming or climate change say ? It doesn’t say that there are no exceptions on individual days in specific cities. It says that if you find the arithmetic mean of all the temperatures throughout the world and compare more recent years with less recent years, then in general you will find that the mean global temperature is rising and that the primary cause of that is the release of carbon dioxide emissions. That’s why it is not so simple to attack the theory of climate change as held by an educated adult. In general, all things being equal, provided the data is good and reliable, the more data that you have, the more likely you are to arrive at scientific truth if you apply Occam’s razor, all other things being equal.
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From my Facebook post tonight:
Progressives or liberals with graduate degrees in math and science like me favor the use of more good and reliable data as opposed to less data, all other things being equal, and we favor the application of Occam’s razor. We favor the current mainstream consensus view because as you can see from my writing above, it took an awful lot for that view to replace the previous view and become the consensus mainstream view. I don’t see how anybody can convincingly argue that the alternative approaches which tend to be favored by fundamentalist Christianist republicans are better than the approach supported by us.
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Tuesday, Jan 18, 2022 · 6:08:47 AM +00:00 · Dem
Late last night, I passed out again. I woke up four feet above the floor with nothing supporting me. I was just regaining my consciousness. I landed hard on the hard floor. It really hurt, especially my back and elbows. My right forearm hurts incredibly bad. I can’t leave my apartment. It’s surprising how much it hurts to land on the floor from four feet.
Tuesday, Jan 18, 2022 · 7:33:02 PM +00:00 · Dem
Venus supported Novak.
LeBron MINIMIZED COVID.
If you haven’t bothered to read about this, then perhaps you should refrain from posting about it.
We have a pandemic that has taken a million lives in this country which has enabled professional athletes to have wealth and live lives beyond their dreams. Being silent is bad enough, but when LeBron posts a Spider-Man post on social media minimizing COVID and Venus supports Novak after his lives then it’s beyond the acceptable.
I am stunned that some of you think it’s perfectly fine to back Novak who lied on his entry visa and exposed others previously to COVID in addition to not getting vaccinated and to minimize COVID. When LeBron minimized COVID, he is not on the good guys team.
Kyrie being good on social justice doesn’t mean he gets a free pass promoting anti-vaccine nonsense. Getting vaccinated is better than not getting vaccinated, but minimizing COVID is not only wrong, but dangerous.
LeBron may be a favorite of yours , but Kareem is right that LeBron needs to lead on the pandemic as he does on social justice.
This viewpoint seems okay with some of you:
Let’s get fabulously wealthy from this country, but watch silently as a million people die from COVID because some of our friends might get offended.
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I have written an introduction to this to address some of my mistakes. If you wish to see the errors corrected, I would ask you to read the new top section or top paragraph. I don’t wish to repeat what I already wrote above despite my proclivity towards redundancy. Still, some might not wish to read the top and so I will in a more concise fashion address what I see as my mistakes here.
First, I must have given the impression that I view all COVID missteps equally and view all who made a misstep as equal. I don’t. That would not be fair to those who have done better. Venus in particular has been an advocate for the vaccines even for the healthy. Her only mistake was to support Novak. If it were not the time during which the Australian Open takes place and if Novak had not generated so much attention and controversy by his more egregious behavior, then I should have been likely to not mention her at all. That’s her only offense. Yet, it did indirectly support lying (Novak lied on his entry visa) and exposing others to COVID (which Novak did) and Novak is famously not vaccinated. She has led on COVID. LeBron James was vaccinated . If it was only his refusal when asked directly to advocate for getting vaccinated, then his offense would have been one of omission. However, as Kareem said, LeBron should lead on COVID too. This country has enabled him to generate great wealth while playing the sport he loves because of the support he has from the people in this country. That privilege brings responsibility and accountability with it. I can’t separate the privilege from the responsibility. I won’t apologize for connecting the two. His greater fault was when he minimized COVID in a social media post and that is dangerous. Andy Murray’s offense was the same as Venus’ ; has he done the good that Venus has ? The more egregious errors were committed by Rodgers who lied and exposed others to COVID and Novak who lied on his entry visa, sought to be an exception to a rule that keeps all Australians safe, and he exposed others to COVID. Kyrie is not in my view as bad as Rodgers and Novak. He simply believes some false conspiracy theories . However, he does spread them. Still, he isn’t as bad as Rodgers and Novak.
Again, not all missteps are equally serious and some like Venus have only made the tiniest of errors and she has done so much good on COVID.
Compared to the others,