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It seems to me that Berenson didn't "fall" for Simpson's paradox. He's a smart person. He peddles inflammatory rhetoric to build an audience. For example, he p

It seems to me that Berenson didn't "fall" for Simpson's paradox. He's a smart person. He peddles inflammatory rhetoric to build an audience. For example, he portrayed New Zealand's 2-week quarantine requirements for incoming travellers to New Zealand as "indefinite confinement for New Zealanders". When people pointed out the gulf between what he was saying and what the law was, he doubled down. I'd share the exact tweets, but unfortunately his account is now suspended. Twitter really needs a way to access tweets from banned accounts in a way that removes their virality but preserves them for posterity.

OJFord 5y ago
What's the motivation for that? Infamy?
- cldellow 5y ago
  I don't know his motives. The most charitable interpretation is he believes he is seeing something that the rest of us aren't, and he is willing to nobly risk his reputation in order to warn us and, thus, protect us. He is doing us a service at great cost to himself. That is certainly possible. I think it is more likely that he likes attention and money. This isn't an insult to him - I also like money, and sometimes, attention. For only $29.99, you may buy his new book, "Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives". The link is available in his Substack. (And presumably would have been available in his Twitter account, had Twitter not suspended it.)
- geofft 5y ago
  Since it's Sunday morning and my religious tradition is on my mind, I hope you won't mind me posting a theory based in that tradition. The response to the pandemic has reminded me of nothing so much as the demons in C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Their goal is not simply for people to die - if they die innocent, they haven't gained anything. Their goal is for people to die while being culpable of great evil. At one point, the trainee demon Wormwood is excited to hear that his target might be called up to fight in the front lines of World War II, but his mentor Screwtape warns him that this might not work out the way they want. A pandemic, by itself, would be a tragic loss of innocent lives. A pandemic where half the people involved are telling each other to make themselves more likely to die, and then they all die as a result - now that's a plot Screwtape would love. Remember Satan's original plan. Are you such a sheep that you're going to be afraid of one fruit because you were told to be afraid of it? Why live in fear? Look how good the fruit is, and make use of the freedom you have to eat it. "You will not surely die." For me, the response to the pandemic - and especially the extent to which the pandemic is much worse because of the human response to it, from so many different politicians and business leaders in so many places - just confirms that human evil is real.
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    PDF copy of The Screwtape Letters for those who need it: http://www.preachershelp.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/lewis-screwtape-letters.pdf http://www.preachershelp.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/lewi...
- tehwebguy 5y ago
  An audience is an audience.
- hedora 5y ago
  It would make burning your credibility more permanent. Deleting banned accounts whitewashes the history of the person that got banned, allowing them to repeat the cycle without changing names/pseudonyms. That’s probably a win for engagement and trolls, but a loss for everyone else.
paganel 5y ago
I mean, from outside of New Zealand that country does look like a "reverse" open-air prison, so to speak. Granted, the policies put in place have resulted in almost no covid-related deaths, but the reality it is what is, that country is very, very difficult to come back into (or to return), and because of that most of the New Zealanders looked trapped in their own country (at leats that's how it looks to a person like myself who lives more than a half a world away).
- cldellow 5y ago
  That sounds to me like a reasonable criticism and discussion to have. That wasn't the argument Berenson was putting forth. He was saying that some large number of New Zealanders would be detained indefinitely in congregate settings purpose-built by the government. Again, I wish I could cite the specific things, but I cannot. I was left with the very strong impression that Berenson did not care about facts.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  Beautiful country to be “trapped” in. Lots of amazing parks and mountains and caves and beaches and volcanos everywhere. I’ve been tempted to “trap” myself there for a couple of decades now. It’s such a prison that billionaires are voluntarily securing land and building mansions in case the whole world goes tits up. Such a terrible place. /s https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val... (Note: I’m aware it’s not some perfect utopia and one of its issues is things can be expensive to live there, especially housing)
  - paganel 5y ago
    I didn't say anything about New Zealand being ugly or whatever, I did say that (from my perspective) the freedom of movement of its citizens across the border was severely limited, hence the "prison" term. Yes, I know that (most probably) New Zealanders were perfectly free to go out to another country had they wished to do so, but once there they couldn't have come back (unless they were a multi-billionaire like the Google guy), I regard that as a prison-like system, because it majorly forces you to remain put (most probably your family, your job, your everything are located in New Zealand, you don't want to give them away). Yes, it is a system that saved lives, but nevertheless it is a system that restricted the freedom of movement of its citizens for almost two years now.

OJFord 5y ago

What's the motivation for that? Infamy?

cldellow 5y ago
I don't know his motives. The most charitable interpretation is he believes he is seeing something that the rest of us aren't, and he is willing to nobly risk his reputation in order to warn us and, thus, protect us. He is doing us a service at great cost to himself. That is certainly possible. I think it is more likely that he likes attention and money. This isn't an insult to him - I also like money, and sometimes, attention. For only $29.99, you may buy his new book, "Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives". The link is available in his Substack. (And presumably would have been available in his Twitter account, had Twitter not suspended it.)
geofft 5y ago
Since it's Sunday morning and my religious tradition is on my mind, I hope you won't mind me posting a theory based in that tradition. The response to the pandemic has reminded me of nothing so much as the demons in C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Their goal is not simply for people to die - if they die innocent, they haven't gained anything. Their goal is for people to die while being culpable of great evil. At one point, the trainee demon Wormwood is excited to hear that his target might be called up to fight in the front lines of World War II, but his mentor Screwtape warns him that this might not work out the way they want. A pandemic, by itself, would be a tragic loss of innocent lives. A pandemic where half the people involved are telling each other to make themselves more likely to die, and then they all die as a result - now that's a plot Screwtape would love. Remember Satan's original plan. Are you such a sheep that you're going to be afraid of one fruit because you were told to be afraid of it? Why live in fear? Look how good the fruit is, and make use of the freedom you have to eat it. "You will not surely die." For me, the response to the pandemic - and especially the extent to which the pandemic is much worse because of the human response to it, from so many different politicians and business leaders in so many places - just confirms that human evil is real.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  PDF copy of The Screwtape Letters for those who need it: http://www.preachershelp.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/lewis-screwtape-letters.pdf http://www.preachershelp.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/lewi...
tehwebguy 5y ago
An audience is an audience.
hedora 5y ago
It would make burning your credibility more permanent. Deleting banned accounts whitewashes the history of the person that got banned, allowing them to repeat the cycle without changing names/pseudonyms. That’s probably a win for engagement and trolls, but a loss for everyone else.

paganel 5y ago

I mean, from outside of New Zealand that country does look like a "reverse" open-air prison, so to speak. Granted, the policies put in place have resulted in almost no covid-related deaths, but the reality it is what is, that country is very, very difficult to come back into (or to return), and because of that most of the New Zealanders looked trapped in their own country (at leats that's how it looks to a person like myself who lives more than a half a world away).

cldellow 5y ago
That sounds to me like a reasonable criticism and discussion to have. That wasn't the argument Berenson was putting forth. He was saying that some large number of New Zealanders would be detained indefinitely in congregate settings purpose-built by the government. Again, I wish I could cite the specific things, but I cannot. I was left with the very strong impression that Berenson did not care about facts.
cableshaft 5y ago
Beautiful country to be “trapped” in. Lots of amazing parks and mountains and caves and beaches and volcanos everywhere. I’ve been tempted to “trap” myself there for a couple of decades now. It’s such a prison that billionaires are voluntarily securing land and building mansions in case the whole world goes tits up. Such a terrible place. /s https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val... (Note: I’m aware it’s not some perfect utopia and one of its issues is things can be expensive to live there, especially housing)
- paganel 5y ago
  I didn't say anything about New Zealand being ugly or whatever, I did say that (from my perspective) the freedom of movement of its citizens across the border was severely limited, hence the "prison" term. Yes, I know that (most probably) New Zealanders were perfectly free to go out to another country had they wished to do so, but once there they couldn't have come back (unless they were a multi-billionaire like the Google guy), I regard that as a prison-like system, because it majorly forces you to remain put (most probably your family, your job, your everything are located in New Zealand, you don't want to give them away). Yes, it is a system that saved lives, but nevertheless it is a system that restricted the freedom of movement of its citizens for almost two years now.