Oh wow, they did it!!! Freeloaders, you had a lot of upstanding citizens advocating that the lads free this up for broader distribution because they thought it was so important to hear. Not me, I still think you should pay, but I agree this is a top-tier episode.
As the ornery commenter quoted at the beginning of this episode, I quite enjoyed listening to this interview.
Zweig makes a very compelling and, in my opinion, eminently reasonable case. Picked up his book after listening and I'm looking forward to actually sitting down and reading it.
I have no kids but have kids in my environment and seeing what was done to them is infuriating. Contrary to DZ I don’t absolve Teacher’s Unions. On the contrary. They clearly used this once-in-a-lifetime situation to exert power.
Just finished this book last night. I highly recommend it. Zweig looks at the evidence at the time and what we knew and what public health officials ignored.
Like Matt and David, I was frustrated at covid guidelines by the schools, especially after knowing that children’s risk was extremely low and the quality of remote learning was awful. There was no reason just an appeal to fear.
One thing disturbing Zweig points out is that the CDC lacks a corrective mechanism. He writes about a journal by the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that “will only publish research that supports current CDC guidelines. You read that correctly: if an outside researcher conducts a study that finds results that conflict with what the CDC has been telling the public, MMWR-by design-will not accept or publish that study's recommendations. It is not hyperbole to acknowledge that MMWR is essentially a propaganda journal. Yet, to most of the public, when they hear ‘a study published by the CDC’ there is an imprimatur of quality and objectivity.” (pg. 335)
Well, I've got the Fauci virus right now. My brain is on fire and my sinus are about to explode, so this is a good time to relisten and join in the hate. Suck it fauci.
-I posted this in the comments the first time this episode came out, then the Batya episode dropped, so I don't think anyone had a chance to see it. So, re-posting here again. Just one mans opinion, I am sure many will disagree with a lot of it, feel free to roast me in the replies if you disagree
-I am someone who agrees with the letter writer that covid era complaining is my least favorite Fifth Column content. So I jotted down some notes as I listened. Please keep in mind these are my rambling thoughts as I listened, I don't think there is any coherent theme tying them together, just thoughts as they popped into my head.
-Humans are bad at statistics, tradeoffs, probabilities, and cost/benefit analysis. Even if its an extremely unlikely chance some people just cant resist thinking they could be the rare case where their kid died or passed it to an older family member who dies and that extremely small chance scares them.
-A missed libertarian opportunity to say F these government schools, we have always said they suck, and now that they are closed lets seize the opportunity to explore alternative methods instead of just complaining that the schools were closed.
-Its seems that families with 2 working parents and no other option but public schools suffered the most. I think this might be a good example that many critics say public school is really just government funded childcare at a mass level. There are multiple examples of people who switched to home schooling or learning pods, and it could easily be argued those kids ended up with better education than government schools.
-Re: Emily Oster - Interesting to hear you use her as an example to support your point, when she wrote an article in the Atlantic that contains the following:
"The standard saying is that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But dwelling on the mistakes of history can lead to a repetitive doom loop as well. Let’s acknowledge that we made complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty, and then try to work together to build back and move forward."
-There were places across the world that had same or worse policies than the United States, like Austrailia. Zweig makes it sound like it was unique to USA.
-Others in the comments have pointed this out, but Welch and Zweig experienced covid much different living in NYC. I am guessing Fifth column audience skews heavily toward people living in bigger metro areas, where it was more draconian. Many places across the country covid restrictions were over in summer 2020 and schools were completely open in Fall 2020.
-If we are to use this as learning experience for a possible future pandemic whats the threshold? You point to a lot of statistics that showed schools were safe, what would have been the rates where it would have been justified to keep them closed? What happens in the future if there is a much more deadly virus that also effects children? Just saying it is very hard to draw these lines.
-Need to be careful of the slippery slope of never trusting experts. Moynihan points this out often, but many times they can be right and if you question everything "experts" and "elites" say it can lead down a dark path and you end up turning into a deranged conspiracy theorist.
-Not the main theme of this pod, but one thing I always feel the need to point out. Everyone blames the left for covid policies, and it is pretty clear that they held onto their beliefs longer. But Trump was President when it started and supported the initial lockdowns, even had daily press conferences where he stood up on stage with Fauci by his side telling everyone he is an expert that should be trusted. I think many on the right conviently ignore this.
-I still find it hilarious how weird the politics surrounding the covid shots were and still are today. Trump said Operation Warp Speed was one of his best accomplishments as President, and has said many times he is fully vaxxed and also got boosters, but he had to just stop talking about it because he started getting booed at campaign rallies
"There were places across the world that had same or worse policies than the United States, like Austrailia. Zweig makes it sound like it was unique to USA."
Good point, and this is theme I notice in a lot of these U.S. Covid policy critiques. For that matter, one can point to East Asian countries, like S. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, where masking was pretty much universal until the very last days of the pandemic and they had super strict travel restrictions. I mean, Japanese public opinion was highly opposed to holding the Olympics in 2021, because they were worried about all those foreigners coming in and becoming superspreaders. These countries and Australia DID manage to keep their case counts down for a long time, pretty much until Omicron came around and raged through the population.
I'm not saying I would support those draconian restrictions or universal masking, and I'm mostly on Matt and David's side on these issues. I think those policies basically just served to delay the inevitable, because everybody was going to get Covid at some point, and when the outbreaks finally came, they spread through the naive population like wildfire. But it seems like these Covid policy critiques always just reference Sweden or some other European countries, when there were significant countries in other areas of the world that did seem to control the spread somewhat successfully, even if one might agree the cost was too high.
This whole thing was just an opportunity for hypochondriacs, power hungry people, and the State to exert more power & control through fear. A good friend lost his mother and neither him nor his siblings were allowed to see her in the hospital. She died alone, surrounded by strangers and though she died early on, in April, the couldn’t have a funeral for her until August and even then the powers that be wanted to control who went and the contact they had with each other.
Matt, you are a man of the proletariat. They will eat you last. 😂❤️❤️
I appreciate you doing interviews like this because this is a media literacy podcast. There is a lot of great information brought up by the both of you. I would not be upset if you did more like this.
This combined with the fact that US virology CREATED THE FUCKING VIRUS makes Covid a regime invalidating event an order magnitude worse than Chernobyl. I don’t care how down on the establishment you are it’s not enough. Nobody, not even the most fashionably libertarian or cynical, has comprehended the scale of this evil fuck up.
Once again I have to repeat: the only reason I still have NYT subscription is for the cooking section, games, and my husband is congenitally unable to break tradition. We’ve had a subscription for eons.
Oh wow, they did it!!! Freeloaders, you had a lot of upstanding citizens advocating that the lads free this up for broader distribution because they thought it was so important to hear. Not me, I still think you should pay, but I agree this is a top-tier episode.
As the ornery commenter quoted at the beginning of this episode, I quite enjoyed listening to this interview.
Zweig makes a very compelling and, in my opinion, eminently reasonable case. Picked up his book after listening and I'm looking forward to actually sitting down and reading it.
I have no kids but have kids in my environment and seeing what was done to them is infuriating. Contrary to DZ I don’t absolve Teacher’s Unions. On the contrary. They clearly used this once-in-a-lifetime situation to exert power.
Just finished this book last night. I highly recommend it. Zweig looks at the evidence at the time and what we knew and what public health officials ignored.
Like Matt and David, I was frustrated at covid guidelines by the schools, especially after knowing that children’s risk was extremely low and the quality of remote learning was awful. There was no reason just an appeal to fear.
One thing disturbing Zweig points out is that the CDC lacks a corrective mechanism. He writes about a journal by the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that “will only publish research that supports current CDC guidelines. You read that correctly: if an outside researcher conducts a study that finds results that conflict with what the CDC has been telling the public, MMWR-by design-will not accept or publish that study's recommendations. It is not hyperbole to acknowledge that MMWR is essentially a propaganda journal. Yet, to most of the public, when they hear ‘a study published by the CDC’ there is an imprimatur of quality and objectivity.” (pg. 335)
Well, I've got the Fauci virus right now. My brain is on fire and my sinus are about to explode, so this is a good time to relisten and join in the hate. Suck it fauci.
I hope you feel better soon.
-I posted this in the comments the first time this episode came out, then the Batya episode dropped, so I don't think anyone had a chance to see it. So, re-posting here again. Just one mans opinion, I am sure many will disagree with a lot of it, feel free to roast me in the replies if you disagree
-I am someone who agrees with the letter writer that covid era complaining is my least favorite Fifth Column content. So I jotted down some notes as I listened. Please keep in mind these are my rambling thoughts as I listened, I don't think there is any coherent theme tying them together, just thoughts as they popped into my head.
-Humans are bad at statistics, tradeoffs, probabilities, and cost/benefit analysis. Even if its an extremely unlikely chance some people just cant resist thinking they could be the rare case where their kid died or passed it to an older family member who dies and that extremely small chance scares them.
-A missed libertarian opportunity to say F these government schools, we have always said they suck, and now that they are closed lets seize the opportunity to explore alternative methods instead of just complaining that the schools were closed.
-Its seems that families with 2 working parents and no other option but public schools suffered the most. I think this might be a good example that many critics say public school is really just government funded childcare at a mass level. There are multiple examples of people who switched to home schooling or learning pods, and it could easily be argued those kids ended up with better education than government schools.
-Re: Emily Oster - Interesting to hear you use her as an example to support your point, when she wrote an article in the Atlantic that contains the following:
"The standard saying is that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But dwelling on the mistakes of history can lead to a repetitive doom loop as well. Let’s acknowledge that we made complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty, and then try to work together to build back and move forward."
Link to full article can be found here: https://archive.ph/ozjE5
-There were places across the world that had same or worse policies than the United States, like Austrailia. Zweig makes it sound like it was unique to USA.
-Others in the comments have pointed this out, but Welch and Zweig experienced covid much different living in NYC. I am guessing Fifth column audience skews heavily toward people living in bigger metro areas, where it was more draconian. Many places across the country covid restrictions were over in summer 2020 and schools were completely open in Fall 2020.
-If we are to use this as learning experience for a possible future pandemic whats the threshold? You point to a lot of statistics that showed schools were safe, what would have been the rates where it would have been justified to keep them closed? What happens in the future if there is a much more deadly virus that also effects children? Just saying it is very hard to draw these lines.
-Need to be careful of the slippery slope of never trusting experts. Moynihan points this out often, but many times they can be right and if you question everything "experts" and "elites" say it can lead down a dark path and you end up turning into a deranged conspiracy theorist.
-Not the main theme of this pod, but one thing I always feel the need to point out. Everyone blames the left for covid policies, and it is pretty clear that they held onto their beliefs longer. But Trump was President when it started and supported the initial lockdowns, even had daily press conferences where he stood up on stage with Fauci by his side telling everyone he is an expert that should be trusted. I think many on the right conviently ignore this.
-I still find it hilarious how weird the politics surrounding the covid shots were and still are today. Trump said Operation Warp Speed was one of his best accomplishments as President, and has said many times he is fully vaxxed and also got boosters, but he had to just stop talking about it because he started getting booed at campaign rallies
"There were places across the world that had same or worse policies than the United States, like Austrailia. Zweig makes it sound like it was unique to USA."
Good point, and this is theme I notice in a lot of these U.S. Covid policy critiques. For that matter, one can point to East Asian countries, like S. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, where masking was pretty much universal until the very last days of the pandemic and they had super strict travel restrictions. I mean, Japanese public opinion was highly opposed to holding the Olympics in 2021, because they were worried about all those foreigners coming in and becoming superspreaders. These countries and Australia DID manage to keep their case counts down for a long time, pretty much until Omicron came around and raged through the population.
I'm not saying I would support those draconian restrictions or universal masking, and I'm mostly on Matt and David's side on these issues. I think those policies basically just served to delay the inevitable, because everybody was going to get Covid at some point, and when the outbreaks finally came, they spread through the naive population like wildfire. But it seems like these Covid policy critiques always just reference Sweden or some other European countries, when there were significant countries in other areas of the world that did seem to control the spread somewhat successfully, even if one might agree the cost was too high.
This whole thing was just an opportunity for hypochondriacs, power hungry people, and the State to exert more power & control through fear. A good friend lost his mother and neither him nor his siblings were allowed to see her in the hospital. She died alone, surrounded by strangers and though she died early on, in April, the couldn’t have a funeral for her until August and even then the powers that be wanted to control who went and the contact they had with each other.
This is really why you all should just make me dictator. I would be the most benevolent dictator ever, guys. I promise.
No me
Matt, you are a man of the proletariat. They will eat you last. 😂❤️❤️
I appreciate you doing interviews like this because this is a media literacy podcast. There is a lot of great information brought up by the both of you. I would not be upset if you did more like this.
If there’s any hope it lies with the proles.
Are they not one and the same? Orwell popularized it of course, but I thought it was a slang term for proletariat?? 🤔🤷♂️
I believe I was quoting orwell, yes.
Ok, just checking. Sorry to derail your response…
The Masketarians are still out and about in NYC. It’s my policy to avoid them as much as possible particularly on the train.
Thanks for the interview. I’m off to buy the book because DZ is my spirit animal.
The wall is down. Communism is over.
This combined with the fact that US virology CREATED THE FUCKING VIRUS makes Covid a regime invalidating event an order magnitude worse than Chernobyl. I don’t care how down on the establishment you are it’s not enough. Nobody, not even the most fashionably libertarian or cynical, has comprehended the scale of this evil fuck up.
Once again I have to repeat: the only reason I still have NYT subscription is for the cooking section, games, and my husband is congenitally unable to break tradition. We’ve had a subscription for eons.