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our 'dear doctors I've been following
Jeffrey Miller's Twitter during the past
couple months and noticed that he his
that his worldview is trending to become
a little more conservative and
traditionalist in light of the
unprecedented level of social conflict
we are currently experiencing this is
something that resonates with me once I
began to understand the principles of
evolutionary psychology I began to see
the hidden wisdom in tradition
I noticed that dr. Lisle does not seem
to place much value on traditional
behaviors and I always thought this was
curious can you ask him to speak to this
well why ask me let's ask gen far better
to make observations on someone else's
thoughts and opinions and behavior well
I also follow Jeffrey Miller on Twitter
I don't I don't think you even are on
Twitter are you Doug no doesn't strike
me as a thing that you do so yeah I
follow Jeffrey Miller and have for some
time and I wouldn't say that he's he is
becoming more conservative or
traditionalist than he ever was I think
maybe with a lot of upheaval in the
world you sort of seen more of the core
of his worldview on display but I'm
assuming what this person is talking
about is he's you know he just got
married he's he's in a somewhat
non-traditional relationship himself
which is a little ironic but he's
adhering to traditional institutions and
he's interested in I think it's fair to
say that he's sort of interested in
upholding those institutions like
marriage
he's very pronatalist he believes that
you know people really should be having
children and investing in in
child-rearing he's interested in sort of
traditional forms of architecture and
domestic family arrangements and all
this kind of stuff and he also rails
more than than anybody else in the EP
world against you know what he and a lot
of us call virtue signaling so that
maybe also what this person is talking
about he's you know really upset about
the ways in which people mobilize around
flashpoints in the media and
in world events to satisfy their own
competitive avoidant goal which is not
much different than we're approaching
the world on this podcaster and the
other work that we're doing so I guess
if there's a divergence from his
worldview and and Doug's in the sense
that the he's putting more of a value on
traditional behaviors he might be
because he's not a clinician I think
he's less sensitive to the the variety
of life experiences that satisfy people
along different points on the bell curve
so he's a little more just like like
most academics are they sort of want to
triangulate in on the capital truth for
capital T truth for everybody for the
human experience and so it's like this
is what a cadet academic work is all
about you're trying to kind of identify
the the essence of the question that
you're you're looking at or the problem
that you're working on and there's not a
lot of interest in or sensitivity to the
fact that there's a different optimal
equilibrium for everybody depending on
who they are which is something that
we're up close and personal with working
clinically so you know maybe traditional
institutions and traditional values like
marriage like a single-family home like
having children whatever whatever else
that he might recommend or advocate for
that's a perfectly good life path for a
lot of people perhaps even most people
but it's not for everybody and so we're
always really sensitive when we're
talking to people or answering these
questions so like okay well yeah maybe
quote unquote society is telling you
something is the correct thing to do but
that may or may not be the the ideal
circumstances for you personally or for
your relationship so I can see that you
know if you listen to us for any amount
of time we're we're much more
open-minded about what kind of set of
circumstances might be best for you
which might look much less traditional
than and then whatever
Jeffrey Miller's advocating at any
particular point in time but that would
just be my guest based on peep in his
Twitter feed now and then
yeah I think that's that's a very very
insightful and I think like I don't know
what's strange to me though Jen is
Miller like I don't know what his
Twitter feed looks like and what it's
been looking like lately but you know
spent was pretty wild in other words the
second half of spent he just goes off
the rails in a I think he was
tongue-in-cheek you know I think it was
but but he he was really quite critical
of the current economic landscape in
other words his his attitude was it all
all ought to be run by Plato's social
scientists and like like we should have
social scientists figuring out what
really makes people happy and then
having them in jobs figuring out what
would be good for people to do I mean it
was really wacky it did it didn't have
any it it had zero correspondence with
any reality other than some bizarre top
down you know statist government where
the academics were in charge of
everybody's economic life it was it was
it was so out there and I knew that
Miller spent you know a couple of years
at the London School of Economics
and he and so he's well-versed he's
argued with free-market libertarians I'm
sure until four in the morning it's not
like he's not aware of the value of free
minds free markets etc etc that his
argument in spent was sort of
extraordinarily radical so it's
interesting that this person is saying
you know more conservative I don't know
if there is this deceased signal a hmm
does he signal a a right-leaning
libertarian esque political philosophy
is that kind of what he smells like yeah
I mean I think it's particularly if
you've been reading him recently
in light of protests and kovat and
everything else he he is very like you
could characterize him as sort of Pro
police you know if you had if you had to
really pigeonhole him yeah it's it's
right right
meaning you know patriotic yeah these
these protests are destructive um yeah
you know pro meritocracy um you know
very concerned about the the tyranny of
the minority um and yeah really really
interested in upholding long-standing
successful institutions of liberal
democracy but doing so doing so through
I mean I think he does remain really
very much an individualist yes and he
doesn't he would he would be very upset
if this were interpreted as me saying Oh
Jeffrey Miller you know thinks that
everybody should live their lives the
same way and do the same thing I don't
think he believes that at all I think
he's a champion for individual choice
and individual expression but within the
context of a certain constitutional
structure then that's you know proven
itself over the last couple of centuries
that's really interesting it's like it
is he gets older he gets a little more
like me yeah yeah the when whenever
anybody has a sort of pretty wild kind
of talk that he had at the end of spent
my first thought is always oh you
haven't made any money like you want a
you want to burn it down and reorganize
the whole thing which means you're
frustrated ok so I don't have any idea
if that's true or not but but yes it's
interesting because he certainly is
would strike me as at his core sort of a
classical a classical liberal pretty
open-minded you know academic and so
it's like as he as he's gotten a little
older and feeling you know sort of
feeling that age and sort of looking at
everything it's like listen we want
everybody to have free speech but we
don't want anybody burning anything he's
kind of that that totally that would
make sense to me you know please express
yourself and he would be I think
probably very I mean himself being you
know a recipient of being able to speak
up even under certain to some scary mild
oppression in academia which I think
hurt him I
I think that hurt his career in terms of
what what his what his career could have
been Jeffrey Miller for people reason
we've been talking about in this much is
he's brilliant he say it doesn't mean
everything he says is right but the guy
is flat-out brilliant and he and he's
he's been at the forefront of some
really striking new you know domains
have fought in evolutionary psychology
and so but at the same time he's not
he's not quote done that well in
academia according to you know his his
terrific pedigree and his his ingenuity
so that I think led him to be somewhat
bitter as of 2012 or whatever it is that
you wrote spent but now I feel like
maybe he's come full circle more success
more success personally and
professionally and now he's sort of
feeling like hey let's let's reel it in
and let's make it a little more
conservative let's not let's not be too
wild here everybody I that's what it
sounds like to me he said feel feel like
a good guess yeah I think that's totally
what comes across but yeah he's by all
rights the guy should be you know
teaching I think he some bitterness
about his lack of ascendancy in academia
is totally carries at the University of
New Mexico and he should be a you know
it's not quite that brilliant okay we
already have steven pinker anyway they
would be they be fighting all the time
yeah but yeah I mean he's certainly but
I think he's with Twitter and you know
just a general more public presence in
the world you know he's got I think he's
got like a hundred thousand followers on
Twitter and he's regular regular
presence I think he is able to feel like
he's got a little more status in the
village and let's put him in a better
position of power which is which is good
for evolutionary psychology and good for
them and um yeah it's he's I mean yeah
he's really a valuable voice get a
little bit of gray hair you get a little
bit more conservative
I understand makes perfect sense oh yeah
yes settled settled down
with Diana and they want kids and so
he's thinking about the future that his
kids are gonna inherit right all of
those things tend toward more more
traditionalism I think just naturally
sure makes sense all right
all great Nathan terrific all right dear
doctors what is the best way to deal
with sadness or grief sadness of grief
are there some basic things to do
specifically my mother died she was old
it was time but I'm still very sad and
has hit me harder than I expected hmm I
don't want to Jenna feel free to jump in
with anything but I I don't feel like
there's any great prescriptions that I
can give a person I can there was work
ten empirical work done I don't know
might have been 40 years ago and it's
probably still the industry standard in
grief it was done by Camille workmen at
the University of Michigan and what she
found was she sort of had these little
groups of people as she followed them
longitudinally after a grief incident
and she said well there's like four
categories of people and four sort of
four categories of responses and the so
some people were got over things very
quickly even major issues other people a
little bit longer and then typically
there was a grief reaction a more
extended grief reaction would go on and
say a couple of years and the it was
also interesting some other things that
she discovered in doing this
there was no theory behind it in other
words this was I think maybe some of her
evidence kind of exploded kubler-ross
'as you know stages of grief which turn
out to be just you know just sort of a
eyeball estimate by a by an armchair
observer that turns out to be you know
empirically worthless but it was not a
bad not a bad guess to just talk about
it so when it comes to grief it it would
appear that there's essentially a
continuum of how it is that people
respond
- grief reactions and of course the
nature of the research that Wortman did
we wouldn't have been able to study the
same person over time and doing this to
see whether or not this is effectively a
personality issue or whether it's
specific to the individual grief
reaction and probably the answer to that
it's probably an interaction so there's
probably gonna be individuals who have a
longer tail on grief reactions than
others and in addition to specific you
know grief circumstances that are more
difficult so you know that's a safe
answer to say and I don't know that
anybody knows how to tease that out but
what was interesting was pretty striking
differences were found you know in
individuals that had experienced major
losses where some people were were fine
right away and other people were you
know just coming out of it a couple
years later the now an additional
finding that workman found was that that
people that were experiencing a lot of
negative effect surrounding a grief
reaction would also experience
oftentimes a fairly normal amount of
positive effect so it's as if that what
happened in their life was - became more
emotionally turbulent so they still had
positives but then they also had periods
of of significant negativity associated
with the grief
another thing that she found was
sometimes people would have a lot of
guilt as a result of their positive
feelings that they would have so you can
sort of see how this works as people
people halfway extrapolate a loss a loss
where someone that they've lost as if
that individual is still alive so we
don't necessarily conceptualize them as
gone we we sort of hold them in our mind
as as if they're in some kind of state
where they might still be aware of us
and therefore sort of halfway living and
if they are gone and we are experiencing
some positive
they might be offended by this if they
were so this is sort of an internal
audience process so the we in our
imagination we can imagination that we
can imagine that this quote doesn't look
good and it's as if it's disrespectful
so the grief process now you know
there's individuals that may not ever
feel such a thing but that that's a
fairly common grief reaction for people
to have is to have that sort of
complicated bouncing around of guilt
depression as well as then positive
effect when other things in life go well
the so this specific individual is
saying it's hit her or him harder than
they thought to lose their mother yeah I
could see how that would that happens
not infrequently when someone actually
is very attached to something or someone
and then when they lose it they've been
so habituated to the existence of that
thing or person that they're actually
unaware of how important it was to them
this goes under this sounds a little it
sounds a little strange but it actually
goes back to an emotion theorist a
learning theorist by the name of Henry
Solomon and what's known as
opponent-process theory that that you
can you can actually be very attached to
something surprisingly and not know it
that much you can only sort of know it
and then when you lose it you can really
feel it and so that that's probably what
happened in this individuals case and so
when you're in the grief process all
that I can say is you know maybe the
maybe the awareness I'm not sure what
might be holding the person back or
holding them down one thing is is that
you have to go through a major
reorganization of the the CBE matrix
inside your mind the so many things
change and when you lose someone's super
important like your mother you you are
also getting a lesson in in things like
the mortality of yourself you're also
getting a lesson in
fact that our time with some people that
are precious to us is limited and
therefore maybe we miss invested our
time and didn't spend enough time or
energy with them over the time that we
had that we did have and that's very a
very easy thing for people to do and in
grief reactions this can be a sort of a
signal that there was a process of Miss
investment I can tell you that when I
reached my old age and I'm an and I'm in
in some trouble and I know I'm gonna be
gone I will probably look back at some
time that I spent with people that I
wasn't that Fonda doing things that I
wasn't that Fonda doing and wish that I
hadn't given them that time because at
that point I will be so aware of the
preciousness of the time that we do have
I am aware of it now I'm a lot more in
touch with my mortality now than I was
20 years ago
but I'm probably going to get a lot more
in touch with every succeeding year that
passes and so I think part of the grief
reaction is also a solemn reminder of
our own mortality and the importance of
really making superfine choices to
really spend our time and energy on the
people and things that matter to us and
to not give it away so so for this
person you know - it's a learning
process it's a grief process you will
come out of it and and all I can say is
you do all the things that would support
your life just generally you know you
eat healthy exercise get to sleep six
you know try to get some appropriate
balance of different things and it will
pass in its own time and it will pass
that's really what I know about it well
thank you dr. Lyle alright well we're
gonna change the topic a little bit do a
little bit less a little bit a little
bit different emotions come on which is
the current situation in
in today's climate so dear doctors why
is everyone so divided in today's
climate all the protests upset over
wearing a mask politics media hype I'm
having a hard time just being me while
being pressured to choose sides it
sounds like this is a job for a
sensitive psychologically minded
political scientist there are so many
different moving parts I will just
before I totally forget I wanted to add
to the last question to just really
quickly I think that you touched on the
idea of people feeling guilty about the
positive emotions when they're supposed
to be Mourning
and I think that's that is such a huge
component of people's experience
particularly highly conscientious people
where they're just they feel that
they're really betraying the person by
having any kind of positive experience
or by even by distracting themselves
when in you know distracting yourself is
is in some sense really kind of the
correct thing to do because you're
you're a cost/benefit analytic machine
and if you don't have anything else
competing for your attention the the the
death of the loved one is the most
relevant thing for your mind to fixate
on and to try to solve and to close any
open loops that you have around it and
so it's it's a gift to yourself to give
yourself something more relevant to
focus on and distract yourself with but
there's that feeling that you're you're
doing your you're betraying the person
and that is a that's a distortion and
something to kind of confront for the
more conscientious people among us
because it's you're sort of sacrificing
your own happiness in the moment through
this distorted lens that you're somehow
doing a disservice to the person who is
past and that's just not that's not how
it is it's not how it is with a loved
loved one and that your family or a pet
or any anything of that ilk so I just
you know have people sort of look at
that and not be afraid to experience joy
in their lives and lean into it when you
when you find it because that's really
the whole game yeah
so the current moment why are we so
divided so I think the just sum this up
you can sum it up no oh don't take two
or three minutes just yeah I'll be yeah
super quick I think there's so many
different angles into this question and
I don't want to you know necessarily
visit all of them I would say that the
the first thing that emerges when
anybody asks this question in any
context is that it's not as divided as
it looks on TV so or on social media so
I think if people are spending time out
in the world talking to other people
even people with whom they vehemently
disagree almost everybody has that
experience where if you actually you
know put put people together
I mean protests notwithstanding that
sort of its own unique political
situation but you know the the actual
overlap of confusion and perspective
among people is is much larger than it
looks in terms of what what gets
headlines and what what bleeds and
therefore leads people just really need
to remember that the social media and
popular media and any any form of
information that you were consuming
anywhere that you find it on TV or on
the web is is you know selling you
information for attention and eyeballs
on advertising and they're there
harvesting your attention there they're
making they're they're making their
entire business all about analyzing what
you're paying the most attention to what
gets you most frantic and riled up what
you're sharing on social media what
you're afraid of what what gets you
mobilized and then they're giving you
more of that they're the the whole media
experience now is silo silo in you into
whatever direction you've started to
head into and and so all of the the
analytic data processes that are
happening with tracking you not only
across the web but what you're buying
and where you're going and everything I
mean this is not tinfoil hat stuff this
is this is the world that we live in and
so you are a market of one that is being
marketed to Const
bye-bye advertisers who understand
impeccably well your Big Five far better
than you do and what you're most afraid
of and what's most mobilizing to you and
so you were receiving a view of the
world that is the most motivating for
you to take action around those things
and it is not actually out out there on
a day-to-day existence as polarized and
as terrifying as it looks from from that
perspective when you're behind the
screen so and that you just hear that
over and over again from experts in all
different realms who are you know
actually dealing with this and trying to
inform people that it's so easy to fall
into that trap that it's all this
us-against-them kind of thinking and
it's it's not that that's not there at
all I mean obviously there is with you
know certainly with kovat and with black
lives matter and I mean it's just it's
it's something new every day that there
is all there's a there's a confluence of
forces and incentives that are
reconfirming people's membership in
these you know tribal affiliations and
we've talked about a lot of these on the
podcast before I've written about them
and a couple of articles that you can
read on our website we we have other
other material we may talk about it
we're doing a live Q&A for the members
of our website this weekend I think on
Saturday right Doug yeah yeah so so if
people want to if you're a member of the
of the new website this Team Dynamics
comm or you want to sign up we'll
discuss some of this then as well
because we've been getting a lot of
questions about it but it's the the sort
of built-in intense incentives that we
have to spread bad news to take
responsibility for bad news because it
has this huge evolutionary advantage if
we can share it with other people first
and then the the way in which social
media has made I have just never seen
anything like it
that's that began with Cova didn't is
now you know sort of just the new the
new normal as far as spreading
information online where people are
asserting themselves as these arbiters
and entrepreneurs of information and
making themselves an X
in the place of other experts so it's
like oh I I have harvested all of this
data and I am I'm putting it together
for your consumption and you should
follow me and there's there's just so
much of that and it's so this false
equivalency that's happening in this
anti-establishment conspiracy thinking
and all of these different all of these
different things happening at once that
again are being funneled into your
individual experience of what is
happening in the world which is being
fed to you by the overlords of data
analytics so your reality does not look
like your neighbors reality because of
what you were because of the things that
you have already read and because of the
tracking that has already happened with
your activity on the web so I just want
people to kind of before they get too
concerned about the world being more
polarized than it has ever been in this
particularly dichotomous way just to be
aware that you are you are the product
you you are you are being created by
these processes and being sold your own
fear in a very real sense for the for
really the the first time in this kind
of significant way wonderful doctor
thank you
super super complicated in a little
chilling yeah it should be chilling yeah
you do I mean I don't want to be yeah I
don't want to scare monger about it but
I I think people need to be intensely
aware not like I mean we talk all the
time about controlling your environment
determining your own environment your
personal utopia but in and how a huge
piece of that is your information
environment but you are this is like the
nature of nurture that Plomin talks
about like you were creating that
environment through your own activity
and and really largely unaware of the
ways in which your the things that are
most salient for you to take action on
whether positive or negative but we know
from Kahneman and Tversky and others
that we're much more oriented toward the
threat than then gain something that is
threatening to our existence is way more
mobilizing than something that we could
maybe just benefit from because it's way
more important to take action against
that meant C Motown agrees with me it's
it's way more important to take action
against something that could pose some
sort of mortal danger to you that you
have to act on now then something that
has some uncertain benefit out in the
future that you know okay well yeah
though it would be nice to have the
extra points but it's not going to be as
immediately mobilizing to something
we're afraid of and Big Data understands
this completely modern politics
understands this completely and we are
all individually right in the in the web
of it and consuming it all the time
whether we're aware of it or not and it
doesn't mean that you need to be
terrified and paranoid and God knows I
don't want people to be even more
conspiratorial with everything about
them about the world but just be aware
that what you think is true is it's a
fractal of the truth that you have
consumed through your own your own
consumer choices on the web and in your
life yeah yeah I think I'm better off
sometimes when I'll just completely
ignore all news for a couple of weeks
just forget it and I find that my own my
own anxiety about whatever it is just
starts dropping within a matter of hours
you know and within a couple days it's
like oh no the world is pretty much the
way it's always been as long as I don't
turn into the news and but if I do tune
in to visit II and so now forget it yeah
here we are and pretty much the world is
you know more or less though close to
the way I left it in February it's not
that much different there's some
differences but it's not there's
differences in issues but it is it is 99
plus percent the same world we've always
had well here in here in Southern
California there was yeah most
incredible fireworks that I've ever seen
so I guess I guess the governor of our
state canceled the 4th of July and there
was a lot of people in protests that
were lighting off fireworks like we'd
like they've never been seen before so
I wonder if it's gonna be like this when
they cancel fourth of July maybe maybe
maybe a lot of people want fourth of
July to be canceled from now yeah I
think you see this exaggerated
exaggerated tribal behavior when people
are among like-minded try when you're
going to a protest and you know that
everybody's gonna basically be in
agreement with you and seeing the world
in a similar way then then it looks like
then you've got the the CB on expressing
yourself in that direction is so much
better because you have all of the
social insurance surrounding you but if
you put people in you know a mixed
situation like I just I just had to
travel last week so I was on a plane
wearing my mask and everybody else is
wearing their mask and some people are
clearly more you know grudging about it
than others but everybody's more or less
like cooperating and following the rules
and you don't you don't have you don't
have half the plane that's saying give
me you know no masks or give me death or
whatever it's like there's no there's no
giant protest there's no there's no
polarized environment when people are
sort of forced into a situation that has
a cooperative goal that is larger than
they are but if they're if they're
embedded in a group of people that is
amplifying their own self-interest in
their own worldview it's very easy to
move into that exaggerated position and
then it gets play on the evening news
because it's very it's it's got this
threat represent representativeness and
it's very it's gonna get more
advertising so it's we're just living in
this bubble of our own making where when
you really go out into the real world
whether it's the grocery store or an
airplane or you know just wandering down
the street it looks very much like
business as usual because people are
just cooperating like they always have
to cooperate to kind of just keep the
wheels on the bus thank you so I read in
evolution of desire by David buss and I
learned from you dr. Lisle early on in
the podcast that when men lose their
jobs and lose employment they're just
more like that's the most likely time
that the woman will either leave them or
cheat and so I'm curious if if they
we you know if damn right if you think
that there will be a CB a new CB that
you know women will start to leave the
non quote non-essential workers for the
more essential workers if if the
division kind of continues where are
they gonna go then I mean leave them
relationships like the the essential
workers are now employed and the
non-essential workers are under yeah
this is all ending pretty soon and so
you know they're the whatever the
controversies are and the the
difficulties there are trying to figure
out the best path for the economy it's
gonna come back together in in
relatively short order to relatively
normal there's just too much incentive
for that to happen so it'll be
interesting in retrospect whether or not
anybody can ever want to collect data
and track things like that and test
evolutionary hypotheses you know post
hoc and somebody might do that so we may
see something that looks like that once
again but we've seen it before in any
recession or we ready you could just
watch people with job loss specifically
without waiting for a crisis but we
could see a spike of disruption in
romantic relationships and you know pair
bonds wouldn't surprise me any economic
calamity is going to do that but yeah I
don't think it's anything new I think
this is you know the world's always had
waves of trouble and the waves of
trouble they they disrupt you know a lot
of the way systems are working there's
going to be poverty and and there's
going to be in this case relative
poverty you're not not poverty the way
the way I saw poverty when I was you
know if you're in the third world or the
way I saw it in nineteen sixty four but
you're going to see economic hardship is
what I would call it and you're going to
see and we've see some tragedy with
respect to people you know people's
health and we see some alarming
disruption in social processes so
there's trouble and there always is and
you
essentially have equilibrium and then
you have disruption and that's so we're
in a period of disruption now it will
pass and we will we will return to
equilibrium at some point probably you
know reasonably soon wonderful I guess
I'm showing my my where my data and my
phone and my it cracks me up every time
I see some reference to the all the
kovat babies that are gonna be born in
December and January it's like really
anything we're gonna see declining birth
right but all the relationships that
have hit the rocks
it's it'll it'll be very interesting to
watch like how how the data bears out
all these various hypotheses that people
have of you know whether whether people
are brought together like does the sort
of thing bring out the best or worst in
people or both and in what ways and so
there's a million different hypotheses
that will launch a million different
dissertations in the next decade but it
is yeah or cookies I guess yeah I think
women in with I mean the non essential
to essential worker I mean there's a lot
of the non-essential workers who are
unemployed are sufficiently high stat
like they they have high enough status
because of their their dismissal you
know it's there's too many too many
components of that CB for that female
leaving a high status male for an
essential worker who has a job for
example so I don't think you I think
it's gonna be way too noisy you'd have
to look at very very specific groups
under very specific yeah but it'd be
interesting it would be interesting
there's so many untested questions I
think I'm a little less optimistic than
Doug is in general of the of a return to
normalcy anytime soon I'm just well I'm
like not not in the next not in the next
year or so not not normal as we like to
think of normal just because I think I
mean we're watching I'm watching
academia in particular making big
decisions about the coming fall semester
and um you know all all the Harford's
classes for example I just got an email
today they're all going online
and some students will be back on campus
but they're not going to class on campus
and they have to sign like a social
distancing oath to be there so the whole
collegiate experience is is different
this fall and I think fall takes us into
flu season and we've got I mean you've
got a whole renewed season of of
distress and panic and renewed kind of
lockdown to some degree so I think you
know maybe by this time next year
we're emerging into some sunshine but I
don't know I like the the next few
months with the election and going into
the fall have me a little little bit
they have my political science hat a
little concerned hmm interesting
now I got I'm watching more news than
you are sure that's very true yeah I
I've sort of given up worrying too much
about kovat we haven't done a talk about
it in a while the the only things I'm
particularly interested in is I'm
interested in the in the death counts
and and I'm interested in one other
things so the death counts in the United
States are very low it's at the tail end
of a distribution just like we would
have expected it a little longer or for
the US then for other countries because
we're such a large country it's it's
sort of gone sideways as it's gone in
two different locations so it's as if we
were four countries in Europe not one
and so and we're so we're in a sort of a
sequence process but nevertheless we
still see our death rates very low even
as cases quote spike we're still seeing
the death rates low so the spiking is a
an artifact of a variety of factors
including more testing including
identification of you know maybe more
people that are not particularly ill
etcetera but the so I don't know if
we're gonna see a deathly rate rise or
not that substantial but but at any rate
I forget I'm sort of lost what was I
even saying yeah I I don't know what I
was saying and it was I think like how
worried am I in other words so I'm only
another thing that is caught my
attention is the
the stats from the CDC which indicate
how many deaths are expected on a weekly
basis in the United States in any given
week of the year and so it changes from
week to week it's somewhere between 50
and 60,000 important reference right and
so the I look at that and I see clearly
that that we see that covitz
extra deaths in the United States are
now a very small fraction and so the in
other words it's pretty well back to
normal with respect to health of people
in the United States and so and we can
also now we can look forward to of right
now it's more or less a hundred thousand
excess deaths even though that the
counts online might say 130 or 140 but
when you when you actually look at how
many deaths were expected as a result of
an average over the last three or four
years in the United States if it was
56,000 and two people on this week last
year and it's fifty-six thousand and
nine people this year then we know that
there's no excess deaths attributable to
covered and so that's how they can
that's how we can tease out this
mathematical problem and so it looks
like coab it's about done in the United
States and the death toll is about a
hundred thousand which is remarkably
similar to what the University of
Washington projection was two months ago
or so at ninety three thousand and so it
looks like in other words this is the
nature of this beast and we don't really
know how much any of the social
distancing and mask-wearing and anything
else has really had an influence on it
undoubtedly had an influence on this
spreading it out over time which is
caused the health systems to not be
overwhelmed which is terrific so but it
looks like this is kind of what the toll
was but we actually don't know about
what this really means for example if we
were looking at the end of year
statistics so yeah it looks like the
worst case scenario for this wave of
kovat is on the order of a hundred
thousand deaths excess deaths as opposed
you know instead of having 2.8 million
deaths this year at this moment we would
anticipate 2.9 but we mean
get 2.9 because it could be that 30 or
40,000 these deaths might have taken
place in the next 6 months by the end of
this year so it could be that at the end
of this year we look back over our
shoulders at Ovid and we find 2.85
in other words 2,850,000 us instead of
an expected rate of two point you know
two 2,800,000 then we'll know that kovat
really took 50,000 lives more than six
months to a year early and that was the
cost of coven so but anyway as I see the
kovat numbers fade to a very sane and
reasonable and reasonably predictable
level you know I I wonder at how much
hysteria we're going to be looking at 90
days from now maybe maybe we still will
as Jen's suggesting you know this is a
virtual reality program that's being fed
to people and they're pushing the
buttons and so yeah so the stakes are
very high and I say yeah to be clear
like I'm not it's two separate concepts
one is the empirical reality of kovetz
toll and the other is the the
risk-averse political matrix that
emerges to accommodate it and you know
that it's very much more sensitive to
threat than to gain yeah and so the
correct thing to do if you're a
politician is to overreact and to lock
down and drop people out and and so and
because that is such a reinforced
process through social media I just I am
not seeing that ending in the next you
know through next winter with with a
impending next flu season and a second
wave and everything else so yeah I would
like to think I would in the face of the
kind of you know actual death rate that
we're talking about and the reality of
it but I don't I'm not I'm not as
optimistic just for Pete for our
listeners that that may not be in touch
with this or not care or just have
shrugged their shoulders and aren't
listening
it appears that just as I was hoping
that our ability to deal with kovat went
once you're infected or you're seriously
ill appears to me much much better now
than it was 90 days ago so
this is this is actually striking in
other words I would have expected
chipping away at it in little chunks
that we might be ten percent better than
we were
you know after three months and another
10% better and I expected humanity over
the next two or three years to be very
effective at chipping this thing down to
do too much safer it turns out that
they've worked at warp speed they are
way that a retreating kovat now so
apparently the the risk factor is
dropped by maybe more than 50 percent
maybe 70 or 80 percent difference and so
this is extraordinary and so the so as
these realities you know of course
you're not gonna hear a lot of news
about it as Jen would say you know and
and so there there's I think that that
that reality is you know seeping its way
into the medical profession as people
understand now there's procedures for
managing this that are far far better
than they have been apparently the but
you know it's going to take time before
the before the obsessiveness and worry
you know fades for various reasons so
but I feel heartened I feel like it's
probably true that if you're 50 years
old and in recently good health and you
got Kovan and you have type A blood and
you've got a recently bad case of it you
know where your odds whatever your odds
were X percentage you know three months
ago those odds are now a lot less that
it would take your life so hey human
beings ingenuity progress we'll get
there
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