The woke intelligentsia seem to be all singing from the same hymn sheet with regard to the coronavirus outbreak. Here's half-interesting-but-ultimately-disappointing popular academic Steven Pinker tweeting on the "Big Lessons" of the present outbreak (profundity trigger warning):
The sad truth is that there are lots of midbrains desperate to signal how "smart" they are who will fall for this guff.
Pinker's tweet links to a New York Times article titled, "Here Comes the Coronavirus Pandemic," which pushes the same basic line that "we're all in it together, blah, blah, blah..." Key passage:
But this attempt by the woke intelligentsia to sound "rationally concerned" and "expansively capable" as a proxy for promoting globalism simply flies in the face of what is actually happening and what should be done to counter the coronavirus.
Sure this is a hard one to contain in absolute terms, but it is still a numbers game, i.e. the more you do to slow it down the less likely it is to do major damage.
Globalism itself is not a universal constant. It has patterns, flows, routes, vectors, networks, etc., that vary considerably from place to place. One of the main networks is the Belt and Road Initiative that underpins China's global expansion. Is it just a wacky coincidence that the main centres of the coronovirus outside China slot neatly into this pattern?
Here's a typical story from early last year:
What we are seeing here is a simple correlation between global interconnectivity and vulnerability to global pandemics, or more accurately a connection between vulnerability to global pandemics and the inability to disconnect from that global interconnectivity.
Global interconnectivity can be a good thing, as it allows countries to import cheaper priced goods that can raise living standards, while allowing those countries to concentrate their economic energies on doing what they do best. The downside is that this creates webs of interdependence that entangle us rather than empower us.
Here's Tucker explaining how some of this bad stuff works:
The trick then is to enjoy the benefits of global interconnectivlty without the extremely bad negatives that crop up from time to time.
Ocean-going ships long ago faced a similar problem: namely how to connect all parts of the vessel under normal conditions but to disconnect parts of the ship when the hull had been breached.
The solution was was to use watertight bulkheads that divided ships into several distinct watertight compartments. The Titanic was famously considered unsinkable because it was designed to stay afloat even if four of its 16 watertight compartments were breached.
The analogy between watertight compartments with well-maintained international borders is all too obvious. But, as we see with economic over-dependence, the analogy is not complete unless the other compartments can function independently after the damaged compartments have been isolated. This is not the case with much of the world now, which is overly dependent not only on Chinese supply chains but also on industries that involve mass numbers of people moving around for rather trivial reasons like entertainment, tourism, etc.
Also, some of you might be wondering about the Titanic comparison, and even checking whether it sank or not. It clearly did. Despite having sixteen watertight compartments it now lies at the bottom of the Atlantic. But this of course ignores all the times that bulkheads worked, all the times when thousands of passengers didn't drown, and so were not reported or made into films.
The captain's main error in the case of the Titanic was to try to minimize damage by spreading the blow or the risk along the length of the ship by swerving. Rather than just hitting the iceberg square on the nose and flooding the first and possibly second compartments, the iceberg struck the ship a long, glancing blow that buckled its hull plates along its side. This compromised six of the compartments, which all flooded, leading to the sinking. There is a lesson in that too.
The coronavirus is bad, but not as bad as it could be. In a way Trump is right to be more concerned about the economic fall out. But eventually something much worse will arise, either naturally or else concocted by evil state actors or terrorists. When that moment comes, we will need to seal off the world's watertight compartments at great speed. Having a world where everything flows back to China is obviously not an optimum survival strategy. A world shaped and defined by what Pinker calls "neo-nationalism" and a greater degree of economic autarky clearly is.
Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Affirmative Right and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the famous and the dead. Support his work by buying it here. He is also featured in Arktos's A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders.
"The Coronavirus Pandemic is one of many reasons neo-nationalism is destructive & ultimately futile. Viruses (like greenhouse gases, cybercriminals, dark money, terrorists, pirates, & technology) don’t care about lines on a map."The implication here is that because all these bad forces don't care about "lines on a map," we shouldn't either. This is exactly the same thing as saying "Burglars don't care about the locks on your door, so you shouldn't either. In fact just take them off right now, bigot."
The sad truth is that there are lots of midbrains desperate to signal how "smart" they are who will fall for this guff.
Pinker's tweet links to a New York Times article titled, "Here Comes the Coronavirus Pandemic," which pushes the same basic line that "we're all in it together, blah, blah, blah..." Key passage:
"In the meantime, this much is not in dispute: SARS-CoV-2 spreads easily — more easily than SARS or seasonal flu — and is tough to detect. It’s the kind of virus that would be extremely difficult to contain even in a best-case scenario, and the world is hardly in a best-case scenario now. Rising nationalism, waning trust and lingering trade wars have undermined cooperation between global superpowers. Rampant misinformation and growing skepticism of science are imperiling public understanding of the crisis and governments’ response to it.Yes, it's just another reiteration of "Orange Man Bad," allowing the usual NPC crowd to say that "Orange Man" is focused mainly on "stonks" and doesn't like what this virus is doing to his "record highs." I guess he'll be even more devastated if it hits record high Black employment rates!
In the United States, a coming general election has politicized what should be a clear public health priority. On Tuesday, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that a global pandemic was all but inevitable and asked the American public to brace itself for impact. That same day, her boss’s boss, President Trump, insisted that everything was well under control."
Sure this is a hard one to contain in absolute terms, but it is still a numbers game, i.e. the more you do to slow it down the less likely it is to do major damage.
Globalism itself is not a universal constant. It has patterns, flows, routes, vectors, networks, etc., that vary considerably from place to place. One of the main networks is the Belt and Road Initiative that underpins China's global expansion. Is it just a wacky coincidence that the main centres of the coronovirus outside China slot neatly into this pattern?
Here's a typical story from early last year:
Iran Ready to Join China’s Belt and Road InitiativeAnd you may still be wondering why Italy is so badly affected by coronavirus. I am not, as I still remember this story from last year:
A report by Iran’s government-affiliated Tasnim News Agency on February 20 stated that Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said his nation is prepared to cooperate with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Iran served as an important trading hub in the ancient Silk Road between East and West for millennia; it has far greater potential in the new Silk Road.
Larijani said, “On behalf of the Iranian nation and representatives of people, I express the Iranian parliament’s readiness for using the parliamentary potential of Iran and China for materialization of and mutual cooperation in the One Belt, One Road project.”...
President Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure project (now called the Belt and Road Initiative, bri) was launched in 2013. The $1 trillion project seeks to connect China to the global market by linking Asia and Europe via a set of land and maritime trade routes. Iran is at the geographic and logistical center of the new Silk Road trade route.
Italy became the first major Western power to endorse China's "Belt and Road" infrastructure project (BRI) on Saturday, as the country looks for ways to revive its struggling economy.Yes, Italy was the first and only G7 nation to jump aboard President Xi's Belt and Road train.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte shook hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a signing ceremony after a three-day trip for the Chinese leader.
Chinese and Italian firms also signed some 10 other deals in the energy, steel and gas pipeline sectors worth around €5 billion according to Italian media.
However, the deal has irked Brussels and some pro-EU figures like French President Emmanuel Macron who see it as helping one of the bloc's key economic rivals.
What we are seeing here is a simple correlation between global interconnectivity and vulnerability to global pandemics, or more accurately a connection between vulnerability to global pandemics and the inability to disconnect from that global interconnectivity.
Global interconnectivity can be a good thing, as it allows countries to import cheaper priced goods that can raise living standards, while allowing those countries to concentrate their economic energies on doing what they do best. The downside is that this creates webs of interdependence that entangle us rather than empower us.
Here's Tucker explaining how some of this bad stuff works:
The trick then is to enjoy the benefits of global interconnectivlty without the extremely bad negatives that crop up from time to time.
Ocean-going ships long ago faced a similar problem: namely how to connect all parts of the vessel under normal conditions but to disconnect parts of the ship when the hull had been breached.
The solution was was to use watertight bulkheads that divided ships into several distinct watertight compartments. The Titanic was famously considered unsinkable because it was designed to stay afloat even if four of its 16 watertight compartments were breached.
The analogy between watertight compartments with well-maintained international borders is all too obvious. But, as we see with economic over-dependence, the analogy is not complete unless the other compartments can function independently after the damaged compartments have been isolated. This is not the case with much of the world now, which is overly dependent not only on Chinese supply chains but also on industries that involve mass numbers of people moving around for rather trivial reasons like entertainment, tourism, etc.
Also, some of you might be wondering about the Titanic comparison, and even checking whether it sank or not. It clearly did. Despite having sixteen watertight compartments it now lies at the bottom of the Atlantic. But this of course ignores all the times that bulkheads worked, all the times when thousands of passengers didn't drown, and so were not reported or made into films.
The captain's main error in the case of the Titanic was to try to minimize damage by spreading the blow or the risk along the length of the ship by swerving. Rather than just hitting the iceberg square on the nose and flooding the first and possibly second compartments, the iceberg struck the ship a long, glancing blow that buckled its hull plates along its side. This compromised six of the compartments, which all flooded, leading to the sinking. There is a lesson in that too.
The coronavirus is bad, but not as bad as it could be. In a way Trump is right to be more concerned about the economic fall out. But eventually something much worse will arise, either naturally or else concocted by evil state actors or terrorists. When that moment comes, we will need to seal off the world's watertight compartments at great speed. Having a world where everything flows back to China is obviously not an optimum survival strategy. A world shaped and defined by what Pinker calls "neo-nationalism" and a greater degree of economic autarky clearly is.
______________________________________
Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Affirmative Right and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the famous and the dead. Support his work by buying it here. He is also featured in Arktos's A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders.
