Known Knowns and Known Unknowns

On May 27, 2022 , we heard the simplest possible explanation of what Covid does to our bodies and how to prevent the spread, but we gave a finger to that information in favour of business as usual. Change is hard. 

Between the time the CDC told people to unmask and Biden declared the pandemic over, and just a couple months after mask mandates were removed from the schools in Ontario, transplant surgeon and bioscientist (and LA Times owner and billionaire) Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong explained what was definitely known about Covid (h/t Jesse International - transcript abridged a bit further down):

Monbiot's Out of the Wreckage

The book cover says the book "provides the hope and clarity required to change the world." Well, he certainly tries. He's got a plan of action that's possible, but I didn't get the requisite hope necessary to be spurred to action. It's a bit of an overview of many ideas from different places, many of which are already in action somewhere in the world, and it left me with a solid  book list to peruse, but it also left me with a sinking feeling that this will never work. We're never going to get our shit together enough to do any of this. But I've been wrong before.

The first part is a mix of Charles Taylor's notion of social imaginaries, Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, Robert Reich's Inequality for All, and Noam Chomsky's talks on solidarity. Then he gets into specifics about our ideas around our communities, environment, economics, and democracy.

On Fostering Illusions and the Qualitative Leap

What do you do when well-meaning people dear to you advise you to ignore your doctors? (And what if the doctors are wrong?)

I generally rally against non-scientifically verifiable medical claims. I'm pretty open minded and willing to try anything, but I also scrutinize any available research before I write off some new thing as the next solution to everything, like coconut oil or vitamin D. A year ago I wrote about people trying to peddle naturopathic cures to me after I was first diagnosed, but more recently I've been challenged by some scientifically-minded friends and family over some of the changes I've actually adopted in my life after all that cancer stuff.