Apropos of Cyberpope Google, this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal from April 13th reporting that YouTube took down a public debate between scientists on masking for children “because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/masks-for-children-muzzles-for-covid-19-news-11618329981?st=slhpyxdh59bttb1&reflink=article_email_share There are no legitimate sciences without debate.

Hi Riley, My first thought was that this comment came from a spambot, but there's no link so that can't be right... did you post this in the right post? Or are you a spambot that failed to post a link...? On the subject of 'a bug in its indexing', though, whatever Google's spiders are doing automatically, it is clear that Google itself is also guiding search results through manual adjustments. The boundary between a search engine and a propaganda machine is very narrow indeed. If you are a human, best wishes. And if you are a robot, sorry, 'we don't serve your kind here'. Chris.

Hi Nathan, While I certainly appreciate continuing our discussion, the suggestion that we ought to silence Australian Aboriginals because their claims are "not factual" is, I contend, an extremely disturbing idea, one that is based upon the concept of a singular view of fact that is either not credible or tacitly oppressive. The concept of 'first find the facts, then enforce them' is the imperialist's credo par excellence, and has always suffered from the problem that in such an arrangement the imperialist's metaphysics are unchallengeable, and therefore colours everything claimed as 'fact' such that great harm can then be caused in the name of truth. I speak as a British citizen who has never forgiven his nation for its abuses of power. I am very glad to hear you say that "censorship too high a price to pay for tamping down pseudoscientific discourse in the largest social media forums" It is even more problematic when legitimate scientific work is censored by social media giants because they have decided they don't want to listen to disagreements. How are we to get to scientific truth at all when discourse is being suppressed...? To my mind, this is an epistemic crisis the likes of which has never been encountered before. But then, this is precisely the problem in a nutshell: the desire for a singular account of truth, and then (inevitably) for its enforcement. This was a disaster when the Catholic church administered a magisterium for knowledge, amazingly it is even worse the way we wish to enforce it today. To place Google in the equivalent role of arbiter of truth is much more dangerous, and in part because Google can exercise this power behind the scenes, which the Catholic popes have never had the option of doing. In this regard, please see the piece I will be running on the 13th April for further discussion. On masks, I have literally no problem with you or anyone else choosing to wear a mask. Yet this is not an option in my country, where fervour in your nation for community masking has led to my being required by law to undertake an intervention against my will here in mine. This would be bad enough from a civil rights perspective if it was not also the epicentre of a scientific disaster of epic proportions. Full story here: https://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2021/02/a-case-study-in-pseudoscience.html "But even then, I agree that all such disagreement would ideally be done respectfully; lack of respect benefits almost no one in the long run." This is by far the most important point in this piece, and perhaps in my political philosophy in general. Thank you for assenting to this point - it means a lot to me! I welcome your intermittent interlocutions, and hope that you are well, and will continue to engage in respectful discourse wherever you may visit. With unlimited love, Chris.

Hi Nathan, This is a wonderful counterpoint... I think it true that libraries are terrible sources of information next to the internet (and share your disdain at the video as a horrifically inefficient conduit for information). For knowledge, however, books are infinitely superior to the internet in my view. I am so glad I am not dependent upon on the internet for my knowledge, since to be so - as so many are today! - is to allow oneself to be (if you'll forgive the euphemism) 'programmed by Google'. This is an ever-growing cause of concern for me. I would be the first to admit that I have been able to write complex philosophy books in the fraction of the time it would have taken me if I had not had access to the internet. But that ease has come at a price. I did not build my own knowledge half as effectively as when I was working with a library to write philosophy books. Caveat emptor. "All that said, your claim that libraries promote civility more than the internet is, I think, pretty much beyond dispute, and I make no claims that my anecdotal experience generalizes." I appreciate this endorsement! For me, it is an aspect of libraries that is too often overlooked, because we have learned to view everything - including knowledge - as merely a resource, and therefore the more efficient conduits of those resources seem superior. This narrowing of values is the disaster the 20th century bequeathed us. Chris.

Hi Nathan, Many thanks for your continued engagement with #100Cyborgs! I hope it's clear I'm not advocating for human servants! But I am sceptical of your claim that they are "much more environmentally costly than our collection of robots". I wonder if you are only counting the environmental cost of providing power to them robots in our houses... there are also the environmental costs of constructing the robots (long-lasting batteries in particular cause tremendous harm to the environment) and the environmental costs of the backend computers the robots use (the "cloud"). Indeed, the question of the environmental costs of the cloud is a live research topic given that those who operate their data centres won't allow their practices to be examined, and we are forced to take on trust the idea that they are as environmentally wondrous as has been claimed. I am also uncertain of your basis for lessening global economic inequality... I assume you mean the difference in wealth between nations. Economic inequality has only intensified in the last century if you ignore nations; wealth is concentrated in an ever-smaller circle of people, and the proportion of wealth they hold increases. It is true the wealth of nations is rapidly dwarfed by the holdings of the wealthy elite. I am not sure what comfort we are supposed to take from that... Chris.

Many thanks for the comments, Anwen, Rob, and Chris, and apologies for taking nearly a week to reply... things have been hectic! Anwen: It is always great to hear from you, and yes of course you are correct in understanding my need to identify with five religions as a manifestation of the Law of Fives. :) I very seriously considered Druid/Pagan as one of my religions, having spent a great deal of time with the pagans of Tennessee and Georgia - but this crowd is really a grab-bag of different traditions that share in common only that they practice religion outside of the orthodox boxes of where they live. I realised that, as a Discordian, I already had an identity that could express solidarity with the pagans. I also realised that many of them were still practising Christianity but as pagans. I learned a great deal from my time with them, and even more from the sweat lodge a Lakota led us on one Samhain. But that's another story! :) Rob: I too was a "hyper-bowl" for many years, but on this I have alas conformed. "Muh-lee" is the last bastion of my childhood pronunciations I have not given up - and I notice that, by playing D&D with them in the lockdown, I have passed it onto my children. I think perhaps this was the reason that I decided to 'come out' about it... and to take the opportunity to reflect on coming out as a phenomena, as it is a strange yet important one. As for pronouns - I think it a fine thing to show support for others, by any means. It only becomes problematic when pressure begins to be placed to force people to do so, as happens all too often in the US... For me, being asked to choose pronouns is being asked to express who I am in terms of gender; that's just not right for who I am. You, and everyone else, should do what is right for you. Chris: I think I was already at peace, but thank you! :) In this case, the desire to come out was as much as anything the acknowledgement that I had resolved all these fragmentary identity issues in my own head, and that the process of doing so felt like a reflection I ought to share with others, if only because I had not seen anyone talk about coming out like this, and I hoped that someone, somewhere, might see another path in the ones I had or had not taken. "I’d encourage you to cultivate the emotional aspect of this new recognition by just being with it. Don’t over-analyze this." You are often cautioning me not to over-analyse things... but over-analysing is what I do! What's more, I am very well paid for doing it. (I just finished a doozy for work, but I can't discuss it, alas.) I do not personally think this is disconnected from my emotional side; it is for the tranquillity of my heart that I organise the furniture of my mind so meticulously! :) As for 'Yos-a-mite', my late father had a number of purposefully mispronounced words he delighted in saying, and I have carried on several of his traditions. My personal favourite by far is 'yatch-it'... I do so love to be on the coastline watching the white sales of the yatch-its sailing by... Many thanks to you all for engaging! It is greatly appreciated.

Dear Psuke, I get nervous when I write a personal reflection like this, but this has been burning a hole in the back of my psyche for a while and I really needed to let it out to breathe. English is full of such wild pronunciations! I actually kind of love it for it - and I greatly appreciate your tale of 'echinacia', which is about as resistant to logical pronunciation as they come. Although slightly worse in my head is the UK pronunciation of 'lieutenant' as 'left-tenant', which still sets a new unbeatable target for having no connection to the letters as written at all! :) Many thanks for your supportive comment! Chris.

Dear Cocomere, Thank you for this warmly personal and frankly intimate message! I am greatly touched by your words and your story. As I have said many times, I believe Ghost Master is my magnum opus as a game designer, and it broke my heart that it fell into oblivion almost as soon as it was released. Knowing that there are people who found it - and more than that, loved it! - has been a constant blessing in my life. All the very best, Chris.

Hi Nathan, Thank you greatly for returning to continue our discussion here! Let me start my reply by saying something that I may already have mentioned: I wrote this piece out of frustration for the way 'opinion' is used to shut down discussion; it wasn't my intent when I started it to argue for sortition (although I do favour exploring these avenues!) and never in a thousand years would I have expected to be engaged in such a thoughtful and penetrating discussion of the issues as a consequence. In that sense, I am ill prepared for the level of thought you have put into considering this topic, but still extremely grateful to you for taking the time to do so. "However, I must confess I'm still mostly unconvinced." Good, that means we can continue to explore the issues. :) I myself am not wholly convinced this is the democratic reform to favour, but the pool of options is slim and at this time I see this as at the very least a viable choice worthy of our consideration. "The modern politician (or CEO) barking an order is important -- the buck has to stop somewhere, and direction in ambiguous circumstances must be set by someone." Aye, but I am not convinced that the CEO's contribution to their organisation is proportional to their salary differential! :p But this general question of the need to have somebody 'in charge' is an important one. I do not see these 'strike forces' as possessing an executive role, merely a legislative role. Executive reform is another issue I should like to look into at some point, but I am rather tied up with trying to 'repair science' in the short term, and reimagining IP law in the medium term - I hope I can get to the question of executive reform before I die! :) At the very least, though, I hope you can see that legislative decisions currently conducted by career politicians could be conducted by sortition, at the very least in principle. "Long-term corruption of career politicians might be replaced by short-term corruption of the 'strike teams'. After all, such bribery from the perspective of a 'strike team' member would be a one-time payoff; why would these payoffs be easier to mitigate than longer term bribery? The career politician accumulates risk with each corrupt act; the random person need get away with it just once -- and the press would have to focus on each 'strike team' as it comes into being, which may be more difficult than tracking a more stable set of politicians." This is a fascinating argument! The obvious comeback is: why are we so convinced that juries do not suffer bribery? After all, organised crime is rampant in some jurisdictions; surely if it was possible to bribe juries it would happen...? Maybe it does. But I have not seen it reported very often. Indeed, organised crime when it is caught trying to bribe is usually caught working elsewhere in the legal system (the police mainly, occasionally judges). If the jury system works we at least hurdle the minimum bar for this being workable in the legislature. Because a jury can be sequestered for the entire process, we have scrutiny over access here in a way that is denied to us in politics. I am intrigued by the idea that there are cumulative risks to corruption in politics. I think the trouble with this is that what the law allows is sufficient that politicians can manipulate the process without ever once breaking the law. It is surely undeniable that this happens. And it is fairly implausible that it will happen with a 'strike team', although not impossible, of course. If I am correct that the harms introduced by career politicians 'playing their hands' do not need to cross the boundary of criminal act to be problematic, that somewhat sets aside this idea of 'cumulative risk' - although I think this an interesting argument, and one that I will continue to ponder... "In matters of diplomacy these strike teams seem like they probably wouldn't work; how could a coherent foreign policy be maintained over time by a constantly shuffling set of decisionmakers, where we now define 'constantly' to be on the span of months, rather than years?" Aye, but diplomacy is conducted by diplomats and the horde of civil servants behind them. And this would still be the case even via sortition. The question here is: what circumstances would prompt a decision to need to be made? And in this, there are basically three options: politicians with an agenda pursue that agenda, diplomats report a need for a decision on a current issue, and the populace via referendum chooses a political action. Politicians with an agenda are not, in my experience, a good source of foreign policy decision - my experience in the UK, is that letting them do so has proved a disaster. The referendum example would absorb into sortition rather better than actual referendums have (I speak as a victim of an ill-advised referendum in the UK that obscured rather than engaged with debate over the relevant issues). Diplomats reporting a need for a decision could be handled by sortition. I'm not convinced this is as big a problem as you are. At the very least, I am reasonably convinced that British and US foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster for most of my lifetime, to the extent that I would be willing to entertain an alternative approach here. The question of when a 'strike force' has to be assembled is separate from the question of whether the strike forces can handle the decision-making. I believe the first question is ambiguous, because neither you nor I really know how that would work yet. An ambiguity to be resolved, certainly... Again, I will ponder this further. "We could carve out some time for citizens to do their strike team duty (be it a day or a month) like we do jury duty, but finding this time is often difficult or undesirable for many strike team candidates. However, you may be right that, like a jury, a strike team might be able to consider a given issue more deeply due to its singular focus." I appreciate this concession, and in return I concede that giving your time to such a democratic service could be onerous, as indeed is jury service. I don't personally view that as enough to shut down this approach, though. I doubt that we should use laziness and apathy as an excuse to accept laziness and apathy! :D Also, if we ditch the career politicians, we can afford to pay everyone for their service (which doesn't happen with jury service). That could make it a less unattractive service to be picked for! "I think there's a lot to be said for coherence of policy over time; the decisionmakers may end up constantly undoing one another's decisions on the span of months rather than years." This already happens under politics-as-usual, so is this really a concern about sortition? Does not the US' policy landscape basically flip flop between two incompatible notions of the United States every 4-8 years...? You seem to have made a choice to see the sortition as an always-on, always-available decision making process, rather than something that is 'called up' when needed. If the mechanism for activating this process happens too frequently, it could certainly be problematic - but it does not need to be. Decision, review, limitation on revisit... that's actually something that already happens (sometimes informally, sometimes as part of due process) in politics-as-usual. I view this as transposable onto sortition. "Still, this is a fascinating idea I would also like to see implemented -- at a local level, at first. (Though I fear these strike teams may be more effective at the smaller neighborhood level than at city scale, let alone scale to a state/province or nation)." Here we are very much in agreement! The obvious place to experiment with this is at a local level, indeed, this is surely the best place to trial the approach. It is also where you would expect sortition to have the least gap between the understanding on the ground and the decisions to be implemented. "Finally, your recent writings on the philosophy of science are brilliant; I may not engage much there, since I feel I have so little to add to your insights" You're very kind to say so... alas, I feel that most people just take what I'm saying in this vein, and thus that I am having no effect by doing so! But I have to write, so I do. Any effect it might have is really beside the point in that respect. Many thanks for your time and engagement - it is greatly appreciated! Chris.

Hi Sébastien and Yehuda, Thanks for continuing this discussion. Yehuda: The issue is a mess, and that's why I felt it would be helpful to look at a specific incident of how the issue has been discussed in the scientific community, and the problems that this exposes. Have you seen the ECDC report? This is the most recent summary to be published: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-face-masks-community-first-update.pdf Here's the overall statement of findings from the report: "The evidence regarding the effectiveness of medical face masks for the prevention of COVID-19 in the community is compatible with a small to moderate protective effect, but there are still significant uncertainties about the size of this effect. Evidence for the effectiveness of non-medical face masks, face shields/visors and respirators in the community is scarce and of very low certainty. Additional high-quality studies are needed to assess the relevance of the use of medical face masks in the COVID-19 pandemic." That's consistent with what I found in my investigations; there is evidence that masks can provide a prophylactic effect, but the evidence is still scarce and needs some robust high-quality studies. Any country - such as the UK - that mandates masks and does not conduct research as to effectiveness cannot reasonably claim, as our prime minster likes to put it, to be "following the science". Rather, they are refusing to engage in scientific activity at all. :( I hope the situation is not as hopeless where you are! Sébastien: I don't know whether to be heartened or depressed by the news that the situation in France is similar to that in the UK! And I agree with your assessment that the skills required to become elected as political leader of a nation do not in fact prepare you to deal with these situations where the ambiguities are enormous and the risks significant. My overall impression, though, is that the method of having a think tank of scientific advisers attached to government is problematic because the power of scientific work is a product of cybernetic connectivity between researchers who must be free to disagree and argue their positions. Since political rhetoric requires taking up a position and staunchly standing behind it there is a serious problem when we try to integrate the sciences with politics - a theme that your fellow French citizen Bruno Latour warned us about a few years back. Alas, very few people seemed to pay much attention to that part of Latour's work, and although I did (it influenced my work in Chaos Ethics) even I did not anticipate the scale of the problem this issue could represent in a time of declared crisis. Many thanks for your continued support! Chris.

Hi Sébastien, Thanks for your words of support! Greatly appreciated. And yes, it is not so fashionable to rely upon an education for your understanding, alas. But it beats the alternatives! :) All the best, Chris.

Hi Matt and Yehuda, Matt - I really don't know how it was that Greenhaigh et al's case was taken up by the government, but I know that after they took it up, they didn't do any of the things that their original paper implied. Reading between the lines, the admissions in that first paper were the result of input from their peers, and were included on that basis. As such, ever since the decision was made to adopt community masking in the UK, the topic was treated as closed. As this piece explains, this was wildly shy of responsible scientific behaviour - much less "following the science", which has been Boris' wildly dishonest mantra... Yehuda - Last year, I spent 120 hours researching community masking (although some of that time was also researching influenza-like infections and the polymerase chain reaction); I believe I have read everything that was published up until November 2020, and most of the key publications since (I am still waiting on the results of one major study, the Guinea-Bissau research, due this Summer). It is certainly possible that community masking could be conducted in a way that would be effective (the lab studies hint at this possibility), but it's also possible that it could make matters worse (the field studies warn of this risk), and the body of research so far does not allow this issue to be resolved definitively, as this piece states. Now the fact that you begin your rebuttal by saying "Um, 10 seconds review of Google found..." tells me two things: (1) that you come to this piece having already made your decision as to the truth about community masking and (2) you think there is some epistemic weight to the top search results on Google. I would definitely discourage you in respect of (2); on (1) that's your own business. As for the specific papers you found, I've seen all of these, and quite a lot more, many of which get very low search engine rankings on Google. Now I can't know that I haven't made a mistake doing my research, of course... but uncovering any mistake I may have made will involve much deeper engagement with this topic than a quick search on Google, especially since whatever the truth on community masking may transpire to be, it will not change the essence of this essay one jot. If you actively wanted to investigate this topic further, I would be glad to share my paper trail and how I ran my research programme (I started by looking at the disagreeing sides and the papers each was citing, and then expanded the references from there) - but if I am correct that you have already made your decision on the efficacy of community masking, there really would be no point, would there? For you, the matter is already closed. "I think there is plenty to question and debate, but in the middle of a pandemic, urgent action is required to save lives, and in that case you error on the side of most likely science, you don't wait for settled science. " If you (or anyone else) wants to rush to a conclusion based upon an incomplete evidence base, you can certainly do that; it's a perfectly human thing to do, and we've all done it for something I'm sure. What we ought not to do, however, is use the legislature to impel everyone to do what we have decided and then perform absolutely no research to verify that this was the right course of action. That's what the British government did. And it is an unforgivable disgrace. I am aware that masking opponents have said some bizarre things. But the truth of any claim is never determined by establishing the insanity of some of its opponents' claims, and any attempt to walk this path becomes rapidly problematic. From my vantage point, both sides in the public non-debate have said some truly bizarre things. But I do not discount either claim on this basis. To do so would be irresponsible. My interest is the state of the research and the surrounding discourse, not the general insanity of humans, which was never in doubt. This piece traces the research discourse on community masking in the UK, and its descent into what I call 'pseudoscience'. The conclusions I make here do not obviously seem to depend upon what is eventually determined about community masking once the research community as a whole returns to conducting scientific work collectively (which I hope and trust it eventually will). What is at task here is what was done in the UK and why. If you, or anyone else, come at this piece from the position of 'the likely interpretation of the evidence is that community masking works therefore the British government were right not to conduct any research on the efficacy of community masking after enforcing it by law', then I must point out that this is an extremely bizarre position to take up, and asserting crisis-conditions only makes it more strange, not less! Do you not think it an odd kind of scientific position where what must be done is avoiding conducting the research that might establish the truth of the matter...? I believe this unfathomable doctrine of intentional ignorance is the one that bests deserve the name 'pseudoscience'. Thanks for your comments, Chris.

Hi Matt, "The spy you would want to tangle with" is a lovely way of putting it! Of course, like you, the 70s and early 80s sets a lot of my expectations - Baker and Moore being our shared points of reference, you and I... Almost nobody thinks of Bond as science fiction but it is so much more this than it is espionage while Moore is in the role. I think it interesting that the third Doctor Who serial The Ambassadors of Death (1970) is criticised for being more like a spy thriller than a Doctor Who story, because the third Doctor (whom you largely introduced me to) is very Bond-like in its frequent use of gadgets and chases... there was definitely something of a zeitgeist at work here - similar influences bearing down on different franchises. Although I have read parts of the Flemming novels, I have spent very little time with them, and I find it fascinating that you suggest he is more "uncertain, emotional, and complex" in the books - that does pique my interest! But the beauty of the films is that they are less of an adaptation of the novels (the titles and a few character names are the main points of contact) than they are set of alternative realities. In this respect, Bond and Doctor Who are very much alike. Many thanks for your comment! Chris.