The gong-show of flexible numbers: Donald J. Trump, the commander in chief, began his day on the Fox News Channel.
Later, he staged his regular daily briefing concerning the year of the plague. He began in the same old way, in the manner of a wartime president:
TRUMP (3/24/20): Let me provide you an update on critical preparations and supplies in our war on the virus. Through FEMA, the federal government is distributing more than 8 million N95 respirators, 14 million surgical masks and many, many millions more under order and there’ll be arriving soon.Many, many millions more will be arriving soon. It doesn't get much more specific than that!
2.4 million face shields, 1.9 million surgical gowns, 13.5 million gloves and more than 4,000 ventilators to the areas of greatest need have already been sent and we have 4,000 being delivered to New York. The federal government is using every resource at its disposal to acquire and distribute critical medical supplies.
Meanwhile, is that 13.5 million gloves, or is it 13.5 million pairs of gloves? Ironically quoting Wittgenstein, to whom we expect to return next week:
No such thing was in question here, only how the [words "13.5 million pairs of gloves" were] used.Here again, the nation was subjected to the gong-show of large numbers. The commander's very large numbers put the nation's hearts as ease. No attempt would ever be made to compare the very large numbers he recited to the substantially larger numbers which define the nation's apparent needs.
So it goes as we, the rational animal, negotiate our year of the plague.
But then, it wasn't just the commander who offered large numbers yesterday! Later in yesterday's session, Field Marshal Birx offered this:
BIRX: Thank you, Mr. President. I think those of you who heard at the town hall, we are continuing to accelerate testing at a record rate. We now have 370,000 tests that have been done. The majority of those—over 220,000 in the last eight days—which, those of you who have been tracking the South Korea numbers, put us equivalent to what they did in eight weeks that we did in eight days.Say what? Birx was now producing large numbers too. But what exactly had the trusted field marshal said?
She clearly seemed to make these statements:
1) We've now conducted 370,000 tests.She'd clearly made those statements. But she also seemed to have made these claims:
2) We conducted 220,000 tests in the last eight days alone.
1) We've done more tests, overall, than South Korea has.That's what the field marshal seemed to have said. But uh-oh! Later in the important briefing, the commander took her overall statement and may perhaps and possibly have embellished it just a tad:
2) The number of tests we did in the last eight days equals the numbers of tests the South Koreans have done in eight weeks.
TRUMP: One of the things that’s happened, that we’ve done, I think, a really good job on it. I think that it’s something special what’s happened, is, I learned from Dr. Birx a little while ago when she said—Something special had occurred. The commander had learned it that afternoon, plus, we have the best test.
I learned it actually this afternoon. In eight days—because we kept hearing about South Korea. They had a very tough time at the beginning if you remember. In eight days, we’re doing more testing than they’ve done in eight weeks. That’s a tremendous turn and with our testing it’s going exponentially it’s going up, up, up every day. So we’re going to be able to do things with this very highly sophisticated testing and it’s also, the test itself is considered the best test.
"We kept hearing about South Korea," the embattled commander said. But in the past eight days, we've done more testing than South Korea had done in eight weeks!
Just like that, we'd gone from matching the ballyhooed South Koreans to outperforming them! We'd now done more testing in eight days than they did in eight weeks. The numbers were no longer "equivalent," which seemed to be what Field Marshal Birx had said.
Such is the never-ending gong-show of flexible numbers. Trump embellished the apparent statement by Birx. But even as this gong-show unfolded, another problem was lurking:
Unstated at any point was the relative size of the two nations in question. Just consider this:
According to the latest fake news from NPR, South Korea's population is 51 million. Our own population is said to be larger—327 million.
No one believes those numbers, of course. But if those ridiculous numbers were accurate, that would mean that South Korea has still bigly out-tested us on a per capita basis:
MONTANARO (3/24/20): South Korea has a population of just 51 million people; the United States has 327 million.No one believes those crazy numbers. But that's what NPR said.
At about 300,000 tests in each country, that means South Korea has tested 1-in-170 people; the United States: 1-in-1,090.
That's more than six times less, per capita, than South Korea.
In closing, let's return to what Field Marshal Birx seemed to have said. She seemed to say that our 220,000 tests in the past eight days were equivalent to the number of tests the Koreans had performed over the past eight weeks.
According to NPR, even that apparent statement was false. Because it wasn't quite false enough, the commander came along and, eternally selling the car, embellished it a bit.
(According to the Statista site, South Korea had conducted 348,000 tests as of yesterday afternoon. That would be substantially more than 220,000 tests.)
The commander and his top field marshal handed yesterday's flexible numbers to a grateful nation. NPR performed a fact check, but very few others did. Jealousy about basic facts is still a hit-or-miss proposition within our upper-end press corps and its gong-show culture.
Even this late in our species' career, this is the way information flows at the top of our floundering culture.
We humans! We've long believed that we're "the rational animal." In his later work, Wittgenstein sketched a remarkably basic way our reasoning tends to go astray, especially at the highest intellectual levels.
According to Professor Horwich, the academy threw that work away. In this and in other ways, the academy, over the past many decades, helped pave the way to our own Donald J. Trump.
According to Somerby, Trump is mentally ill, so there isn’t much value in parsing anything he says.
ReplyDeleteBirx, on the other hand, has actual credentials, and so her muddled and/or inaccurate statements are more problematical.
Does everyone who works with Trump sacrifice their competence and integrity?
We threw competence and integrity out the window long, long time ago. Decades. Now we just reap the whirlwind.
DeleteThat doesn’t explain why Birx specifically, a woman with a fairly impressive record as a serious medical expert, fails to state things clearly or accurately. Whoever “we” are that threw out competence and integrity, individual actors in Birx’s position cannot be given a pass when they have the duty and seemingly the ability to tell the truth.
DeleteWho said anything about giving a pass? Any competence or integrity would not be understood or appreciated, if she ever had any to begin with. Any competence or integrity would be either discarded or received and promptly morphed into incompetent and dishonest propaganda, junk food for our rotted minds. Stop talking about competence and integrity. There is no more competence and integrity.
DeleteSo, that is supposed to absolve Birx from doing her duty? Obviously, many of us still value these things, including Somerby. Restoring competence and integrity starts with leaders like Birx trying to restore those things in their own personal, individual behavior, rather than aiding and abetting the mentally ill Trump, and the dishonest propaganda of Fox News.
DeleteDr. Brix's duty is as a doctor, not as a PR flack.
DeleteCorby, Anonymices, does Biden seem up to the task? Is going to be up to the task and what we need? Is he contrasting well with the president right now, with the opportunity to be looking like FDR/Schweitzer from the sidelines?
DeleteBest thing Democrats could be doing is to be talking with Gov. Cuomo.
Gavin Newsom is doing a good job too, in my opinion.
DeleteBiden is a total joke. An obvious has been with barely marginal marginal capabilities.
DeleteDon't talk to me about duty. There is no duty anymore. We swept duty off the rug a long time ago.
We are just reaping the whirlwind now.
We don't know what it even looks like when a confident, moral leader comes along to save us. We just read our blogs and watch our news and believe whatever they tell us.
Look at how Yang was blackballed and ignored. Information power structures totally blocked him because he interfered with their entrenched biases and power dynamics. There's no objectivity anywhere. It's just a show now. Don't talk to me about duty or competency. Just shut up and watch the show.
The description of Dr.Birx as “field marshal” is not at an apt description.
DeleteThere’s going be varying opinions on her competency, but grandmama with a PhD is her vibe.
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DeleteBirx, I am told, has a reassuring style:
ReplyDelete“Of course you’ve noticed Deborah Birx’s style. That’s why it’s so reassuring.” (by Robin Givhan)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/03/25/course-youve-noticed-deborah-birxs-style-thats-why-its-so-reassuring/
TDH, I'm pretty sure Wittgenstein has no relevance at all to the imprecise and faulty way information is conveyed by politicians and the media. I really doubt that there is any useful purpose in bemoaning Wittgenstein's inability to get to the bottoms of what words mean, if anything. It wouldn't hurt if you had a little more insight that this concern you have, relating to Wittgenstein, and the reaction to him of some other philosophers, bears no relationship to the shortcomings of rationality that we can see now. I think if you looked into it more, you'd see that there never has been a surplus of rationality, e.g., why all these terrible wars we've had over the centuries?
ReplyDeleteYou don't think it was a rational response to stop Hitler in WWII?
DeleteCorby - one of the other commenters here has commented that you don't read that well for comprehension. I didn't say there has never been a rational response to anything. I said there hasn't been a surplus of rational responses. (I didn't make any reference to stopping Hitler). I probably should have said that non-rational responses have not been uncommon. All in all, another disappointing
Deleteresponse, reason-wise, from someone who is said to be a tenured perfesser.
Corby makes a decent point. I suppose we could have laid down our arms in 1861 and we would have slavery now instead of worrying about unemployment. Also it seems Bob's point sailed over your wig, experts should apply their expertise in helpful and meaningful ways, and not expect enrichment in return. "Give it all and ask for no return" someone once sang. It's alright.
DeleteYou need to calm down, dear Bob.
ReplyDeleteIn my humble opinion, you sound like a nutcase again, like a cranky old man in a supermarket. Take a Prozac or valerian root or something. Please.
"Meanwhile, is that 13.5 million gloves, or is it 13.5 million pairs of gloves? "
ReplyDeleteNitrile exam gloves, of the kind used by medical personnel for protection against infection, are sold in boxes of 200, not in pairs.
Somerby doesn't seem to ever consider the function of language. Trump included those millions to build a picture of a massive response. The numbers themselves are meaningless, since, as Somerby pointed out earlier, the value of those gloves depends on the magnitude of need. But to Trump and his supporters, those millions of gloves will sound like a big response. Language isn't always about the specific meanings of the words, but about what those words evoke in the audience, impressions, the picture pained of an earnest president working hard to meet a need. So, it isn't about whether those are pairs or individual gloves.
Technically speaking, which seems to be the only mode Somerby can handle, Trump was right about the gloves. They don't come in pairs and he didn't call them pairs.
Based on Trump's previous brags about $ sent to Puerto Rico or contributions made to veterans groups, I doubt any gloves are being sent. It has been a long time since Somerby talked about anything relevant, such as the president's tendency to over-promise and under-deliver. Given that words have a function, one might think that Somerby doesn't want us to think about that, and that this is another distraction, just like conservatives, Russian bots and similar trolls tend to engage in. Except Somerby refers to himself as a liberal, so he might actually catch a fish with his nonsense.
"That’s a tremendous turn and with our testing it’s going exponentially it’s going up, up, up every day. "
ReplyDeleteDoes Somerby think that Trump knows what "exponentially" means?
I suspect that Dr. Brix was reading from something prepared by Trump's staff. But doctors aren't literature majors, typically, and if she said some self-contradictory things while praising Dear Leader, it was in service of keeping her job. No one will want to follow Dr. Fauci into disgrace, so they will say whatever Trump's PR team want them to say, whether it makes sense or not.
Is anyone surprised that we cannot believe or trust anything said by this administration? Why then is Somerby pointing to this stuff, which is trivial on the scale of lies and nonsense? Does he think anything that comes from Trump or his staff counts as evidence in support of Wittgenstein? I don't. Philosophers talk about philosophy with other philosophers, not with children or incompetents or doctors (who are trained in an entirely different, very difficult field of expertise no matter what they sound like at a podium).
I suppose you can make the case that Birx feels that she needs to stay on for the good of the country, or some such thing, and that justifies her making inaccurate or unclear statements that Trump may have told her to say. But where is your integrity when you’re willing to do that? Even doctors have a duty to tell the truth, and not lie, particularly in a serious crisis like this one. Her credibility suffers when she stands beside Trump and says these kinds of things, and it further enables Trump’s assault on truth and good governance. It just gives in to the nihilism of anon 2:08 and thereby ultimately helps Trump and the GOP.
DeleteThere is that phrase about choosing what hill to die on. I don't think this statement was anything important enough to take a stand about. Like most of Somerby's complaints, this is a triviality.
DeleteEvery person who has ever held a job for any amount of time knows that you have to butter up your boss. You try to do it in ways that are not too soul-crushing. This just isn't a big deal. Fauci's corrections were about information that would be harmful to people. This doesn't fall into that category, in my opinion.
Wall Street Journal reporting a 0.01% death rate. This is going to blow up in Democrat faces and Trump's "flu" predictions will turn out to be prescient.
ReplyDeleteWishful thinking?
DeleteNo, this rate is based on a lack of testing. Once widespread testing starts, the rate will go up and we will get a more accurate estimate.
DeleteNo, the rate would go down from what it is now. These figures are based on hypothetical results of widespread testing based on transmission models.
DeleteDeath rate that is. you might be referring to infection rate, apologies
DeleteIn an exercise of wishful thinking, anon 3:29, I hope you are right.
DeleteNo one actually experiencing the virus has a death rate of .01%. I can't say it cannot happen, but considering that we are worse at controlling this, there is no reason to expect that low a death rate. I haven't seen that article and I don't plan to read it, but I believe that someone has their thumb on the scales. Conservatives want to believe this virus is going to be nothing, so they have cooked up a model to support that assertion. It isn't consistent with experience anywhere else in the world.
Delete0.01% seems too low.
DeleteMortality rate in the US, based on the official number of infected, appears to be under 1.5%
It seems reasonable to surmise that the real number of infected must be about one order of magnitude higher, and therefore the real mortality rate would be somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2%.
...but then I suppose it is possible, depending on how many cases manifest very mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, that the real number of infected is about two orders of magnitude higher. Not 70K, but 7 million. Then indeed the mortality rate could be 0.01%. It's a possibility.
DeletePeople sometimes screw up percents. I wonder whether WSJ intended to say the death rate might be 1% or .01, rather than say it might be .01%.
DeleteRemember when Trump wasn't going to allow socialism on his watch?
DeleteGood times!
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