So far Omicron seems like a big nothing? I mean it’s just preliminary but worst case it seems somewhat more transmissible and that’s about it, most likely case is that it’s somewhat more transmissible and less virulent, and best case is that it’s a lot more transmissible, much less virulent and the vaccines work roughly the same on it.

No reason to panic.

Goddamn I love having money. The mook who said money can’t buy happiness probably never had any money.

Money is like a magic wand for life. I am so, so lucky, and I realize this every day. I don’t take it for granted but I still love it.

Two week quarantines for international travel or whatever is effectively a travel ban, unless you are traveling to immigrate.

Quarantines are just pointless anymore. It’s all theater. This is just the left saying, “Only the rich should be able to travel.”

“We have the instruments to have safe travel,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Let’s use those instruments to avoid this kind of, allow me to say, travel apartheid.”

We do have those instruments. We got the vaccines, and then everyone pretended like they don’t work because they did not immediately solve Covid and all our other problems.

The people who want to take everything away have been around a long time, but with Covid they finally got their golden opportunity. They aren’t going to let go of that so easily.

Years ago, I had a girlfriend who was like Twitter: the most uncharitable possible interpretation of others’ actions and speech, and the most charitable possible interpretation of her own words and actions.

This was not good.

Thread, on pulling out of WorldCon.

(I'm going to be a virtual-only attendee this year, even though I'd hoped otherwise. Haven't had COVID, fully vaxxed, but getting to DC means 3 airports, 2 or more flights, 16+ hours door-to-door. It's just too risky. Maybe next year …!) https://t.co/keldEdc7WM

— Charlie Stross (@cstross) December 1, 2021

It is really sad to see so many living in fear. The vaccines should’ve stopped that, but the terror dwells in them, has been inculcated in their souls; it’s their world now. I think for many there is nothing now that could eradicate it.

The problem — at least a major one — with Zero Covid is that it likely sacrifices many more life-years of kids and younger people for much fewer of the same for older people. I know standard-issue liberals are just not equipped to think about things that way, but it is unfortunately true.

Is that sacrifice worth it? Is that a good trade-off? That’s not a question that can be answered with science, but rather with ethics and morality. I think the answer is “no” and have trouble understanding why others think the answer is “yes” even when they accept the premises — which many do, and still want to enact this vast harm.

Zero Covid will almost never be “done right,” which means the harms are just built in, ineluctably.

Very rough estimate of Nu variant mortality is 8X original variant based upon the current rough estimate of transmissibility, assuming they track each other.

Corrections welcome.

(Figure type labeled Nu) pic.twitter.com/PlTPgFArc9

— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) November 26, 2021

I hesitate to even put this up lest some of you think it’s in any way valid. But this is pure garbage alarmism, based on no data. It’s gutter trash analysis…and I’d say that even if it “demonstrated” lower mortality from Omicron.

It’s utter shit.

This performance, post-transition, is only 4% slower than best pre-transition time. Over 500 yards, it’s 6%. With further improvements likely. So, as per science, male advantages are retained, but the IOC have told us not to presume advantage as we trade fairness for inclusion. https://t.co/ADWR6ayOR6

— Ross Tucker (@Scienceofsport) November 30, 2021

I really like women’s sports, so it’s sad to see them destroyed by an absurd ideology.