Hello,

I am motivated to create this blog since I do enjoy writing and want a vehicle to share my musings, thoughts, impressions, understanding, and interests so I can flesh them out through this projective vehicle and share them for what's they are worth. Now retired and social distancing I have time to read, play the piano, talk with Rebecca my wife and my friends, catalogue my many photographs, and attempt (since Hawaii has lock down the use of our many beautiful trails preventing access) to walk in our mountains, forests, and lush trails. 

So what's up with our pandemic. As a vulnerable candidate for severe illness from COVID-19 I am social isolating, wearing masks when out, placing the mask on when hiking when someone passes me by, and reluctantly obeying the no trail hiking rules on public lands. These societal rules here and on the mainland are followed by many but ignored also by many since the U.S.A. is so high in new infections, total infections and deaths and morbidity statistics. Our responses to this epidemic is interesting to me in some ways since as a physician and psychiatrist I see so many examples of how irrational our human species thinks and behaves. Some believe the infection statistics and morbidity fears are way overblown. Along this vein of thinking these are conspiracy theories reported as real news that the virus is a human intervention to further nefarious political ends. The experts in the field of epidemiology and virus transmission are disparaged by many distractors as agents of a political agenda since they are experts and experts cannot be trusted. But even more some in this group are so emotionally invested that they are threatening the life of the person reporting the facts and methods to control the pandemic (recently Anthony Fauci received death threats). Justin E. H. Smith wrote an interesting book Irrationality (ISBN 978-0-691-17867-7 published 2019). He gives examples from ancient Greece such as the drowning of Hippasus of Metapontum, a Pythagorean philosopher because he revealed the mystery of the diagonal of the square (the two side of the square is designated a x the diagonal is the multiple of x by the square root of 2). One version of the story is that Hippasus revealed the truth of this mathematical trigonometric function which enraged some pythagorean sect members so they invited him to go fishing and while in the boat they attacked him  drowned him. Smith gives another example, in Stanley Kubricks 2001 the ape human picked up a bone used it as a tool to bash the heads of others. So the tool becomes a means of dominating and conquering. We have many groups who believe all sorts of debunked world views such as that the world is not round but flat, the world started 6000 or so years ago created by god believed in the old testament so archeological evidence and the understanding of the water erosion resulting in the creation of the grand canyon regardless. What is believed is to be defended and proselytized while science be damned. So back to our pandemic. Some young people act invulnerable, enjoy social discourse with the more the merrier. Some like the social lubricants of alcohol and other substances which result in the loosening of our rational minds so we are less able to inhibit our desires. Not a good mix for preventing the spread of a virus. Some years ago I gave a talk about alcohol drinking at a conference more a book report about a psychological study showing how drinking in alcohol prone to becoming alcoholic people at a bar or social drinking gathering feel energized, bolder, and more self assured in their sexual pursuits as they congregate and then consume. Now add to this is our economic and social problems associated with outsourcing of our manufacturing, resulting loss of jobs such as in steel and coal mining etc. and job offering as a substitute requiring specialized skills and relocating to other areas which means these jobs are not available to those unemployed due to outsourcing.We have then large groups of people who have descended into poverty (see Thomas Freidman The World is Flat ISBN  0-374-29288-4 published 2005). This group of people have less invested in governance and holding to rule behaviors. Add to this mix fracking with uncapped gas wells, increased population of the world, and continued degradation of the environment due to economic pressures to clear land for profit and population expansion, and consumption of carbon from coal, wood, and oil to carbon dioxide for more energy consumption and  we have temperatures rising, more extreme weather patterns, and ice melting in Arctic and Antarctic regions with release of methane from lost tundra etc. So many problems which groups have taken positions on contrary to information and strategies for redress. 

So I just described how some groups have unproven beliefs about the virus and now this same distain for science and expert opinions applies to the other issues I just mentioned. Climate change deniers are alive and well. The media industry capitalizes on these controversies so they create news and report unproven and often false information that many of our world leaders then echo and use for their political ends. Pseudoevents (Daniel Boostin in The Image published 1962) are media created events to announce and then popularized a news story created wholey for consumption without real world issues, to sell the story. Celebrities are more important and heroes no longer are popularized in our media world. So how do we get real events reported without some embellishments that may obfuscate or change the facts? So media then is suspect. Even scientific pursuits now are very suspect in some quarters so that researchers who are discovered to have fudged or misrepresented their data are used to show that science is wrong and misleading! Don't trust the reports and the experts! 

Well, my training has been in science. I enjoy reading studies and attempting to understand difficult concepts arrived at through experimentation and then understanding of the data. I understand that data must be objective, independently verified, and then conclusions are open to revision and debate. Theories to be accepted must have statistical verified studies to show their validity and we must be open to further study and interpretation. Examples of these processes have resulted in our technological wonders and progress in our health care. So obviously, I'm less prone to accept conspiracy theories, faked data and false information provided to us by proponents of various power groups. But also I'm human so flawed probably in some of my own opinions. That's where discourse comes in. So I welcome your feedback.

Leonard