8 Comments
Aug 1, 2022Liked by Philosophy bear

You left out the possibility that the way the U.S. tests or records cases as a whole is significantly different. I don't pretend to know why this would be, but it's not inconceivable, right?

By the way, I haven't had the chance to dip into this blog too often, but whenever I do I'm truly impressed by the level of analysis and insight, and your candor. Not to mention, your generosity in sharing your writing for free. It's a terrific Substack and I always mention it to friends when I'm in the business of making recommendations. Thanks for all the effort you put in!

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Aug 2, 2022Liked by Philosophy bear

Brazil also had a huge anti-vax movement, did it not, just like the US? It seems plausible that both just have much lower compliance with public health measures than Euro countries, for reasons of national character.

Also, both have highly emancipated gays with big party scenes. Other countries that have low compliance with public health measures might tend to repress their gays a lot more.

Seems to me it's the intersection of highly liberated gays and low general compliance with public health measures that most plausibly explains the disease spreading in both the US and Brazil, but not Europe or the far East.

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Why would Google searches reveal anything on the topic? It's hardly acceptable, even now, for public figures to say aloud that Monkeypox is sexually transmitted, and they certainly can't say the word 'gay' except to preemptively shield gays from criticism; instead they say 'men who have sex with men.' If the truth is not politically correct, you're not going to see it in your Google search results.

Of course, Fauci and the rest of the old guard who were around for GRID, plus anyone who's read the infamous Salo thread, know exactly why the virus is disproportionately an American phenonemon: we are ranked number one in gay orgies. This is not rocket science. I confess I'm wondering if this post is just a cynical virtue-signal against the evil right-wing theory that Monkeypox is mostly a gay man disease; were you really not sure?

I'll be like Chris Schuck, impressed by your analysis and insight et cetera, when you learn the rule about "it's" vs "its." I tend to see it, like all spelling mistakes, as a proxy for attention to detail generally, and more generally as a proxy for soundness of thought. If I write down such dull thoughts on my blog, will someone suck my dick over it? How does this work?

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Couldn't there just happen to be more of an outbreak in the US? Like why did NYC have way more covid cases earlier than the rest of the country? Not because it had an unusually bad response or was uniquely vulnerable, that's just where the disease made landfall and got started.

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