American Politics Discussion Thread

[Gustaran]

And on Long Covid, there's this: https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/long...volume-one

Up to 40% of people reported long-covid symptoms... people that the researchers knew from antibody testing never had Covid in the first place.  Yes, it really is all in their head.  There was no statistical correlation at all with actually having had Covid, but high correlation with thinking you did.

I can see a few possible problems with your take:

- It is actually suprisingly difficult to exactly determine past Covid infections

- The positive group is very small compared to the total control group

- Range of symptoms unspecific and control group lives in a pandemic. Of course people are reporting symptoms such as fatigue, bad sleep, etc. I mean who is upbeat if you live in lockdown and read about overwhelmed hospitals?


It is helpful to check the original source and look at the comments by other scientists to see if there are possible problems with the study design. Just goes to show, that contrary to the belief of the average "It IS COMmoN SenSe" Facebook user, it is actually not that easy to determine if the results of a study are valid or not if you do not have a certain academic background:

The authors  claim that “persistent physical symptoms after COVID-19 infection may be associated more with the belief in having been infected with SARS-CoV-2 than with having laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection.” (1) They base this statement on the absence of a positive correlation between typical symptoms of Long COVID and serological proof of a past SARS-CoV-2 infection.
However, this conclusion may not be valid because the method used for ascertainment of past infection may not be accurate.

First, a significant portion – indeed, up to 36 % - of infected adults may not seroconvert after SARS-CoV-2 infection and therefore may not have been identified by the serologic antibody test used. (2) (3) It has also been shown that patients who go on to develop Long COVID symptoms may be more likely to be among those who do not seroconvert after SARS-CoV-2 infection. (4) Therefore, the study may have misclassified a significant portion of patients with past COVID-19 infection as not infected in the past.

Second, according to the manufacturer, the antibody test used in the study has a sensitivity of 87% and a specificity of 97.5 %. (1) This means that 13% of truly infected participants may have falsely been classified as non infected. The authors rightly assume that this may be a negligeable influence. However, what the authors - surprisingly - do not discuss, is the effect of the 2.5 % of possibly false positive results to be assumed. This fraction of false positive results in a study population of over 26,000 participants would amount to about 650 people who may have been classified as infected in the past when indeed they were not – and about half of those (49.6%, i.e. about 325 people) would have been included in the analysis.
Given the fact that there were only 453 people in the group of participants with an apparent infection in the past, these concerns raise questions about the study results.

In summary, the serological test used may be an unreliable marker for previous infection with SARS-CoV-2. This study therefore may not provide reliable data to support the authors' claims.


References

(1)
Matta J, Wiernik E, Robineau O, et al. Association of Self-reported COVID-19 Infection and SARS-CoV-2 Serology Test Results With Persistent Physical Symptoms Among French Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Intern Med. Published online November 08, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2021.6454

(2)
Pathela P, Crawley A, Weiss D, et al. Seroprevalence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Following the Largest Initial Epidemic Wave in the United States: Findings From New York City, 13 May to 21 July 2020. J Infect Dis. 2021;224(2):196-206. doi:10.1093/infdis/jiab200

(3)
Liu W, Russell RM, Bibollet-Ruche F, et al. Predictors of Nonseroconversion after SARS-CoV-2 Infection. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2021;27(9):2454-2458. doi:10.3201/eid2709.211042

(4)
García-Abellán, J., Padilla, S., Fernández-González, M. et al. Antibody Response to SARS-CoV-2 is Associated with Long-term Clinical Outcome in Patients with COVID-19: a Longitudinal Study. J Clin Immunol 41, 1490–1501 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10875-021-01083-7

[Jowy]

And on Long Covid, there's this: https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/long...volume-one

Up to 40% of people reported long-covid symptoms... people that the researchers knew from antibody testing never had Covid in the first place.  Yes, it really is all in their head.  There was no statistical correlation at all with actually having had Covid, but high correlation with thinking you did.

My take: These are the same people who think they're at the center of every trendy health fad.  Like gluten intolerance was around eight years ago.  They would believe they felt symptoms like gastric inflammation that were never physically present.  Actually true for a tiny minority, but any such claim without a real medical diagnosis is overwhelmingly likely to be full of shit.

The human urge to follow the collective herd mind really is that strong, that the brain will invent a perception of symptoms that never existed.

or you could just do a quick google search to fact check it. literally the first result:

https://www.reuters.com/article/factchec...SL1N2S728P

[Jowy]

deleted as requested

It's just the idea that people who wind up as wealthy professionals are on average more intelligent, that intelligence is to an extent heritable, and that the wealthy these days have fewer children than the poor. Sort of line of thinking which natural selectino tends towards

afaik intelligence is both nature and nurture, so lessening wealth inequality would lead to more intelligent people as living conditions are improved. i think you're right about the wealthy having less children though. the countries that are most well off tend to have their population growth stagnate or even go negative (immigration not withstanding). those who are best equipped to have the most children have the least. slowing the population growth on Earth is not really a bad thing, BUT capitalism relies on constant economic and population growth.

[Charriu]

Well population growth has to stop at some point. There's only finite space on earth

[Jowy]

Well population growth has to stop at some point. There's only finite space on earth

hence why a new economic system will be necessary at some point. unlimited growth is not sustainable when natural resources are limited.

[BING_XI_LAO]

Autocrat of the world?? Uh, I'd demote myself to a region to start off with. First thing has to be totally gutting all the garbage subjects from the educational system, making all subjects way more demanding and difficult (the only students matter are the ones for each subject who have talent and interest), and mixing it in with vocational training and manual labour. Well that is what the West needs anyhow, our curricula for 16 year old are like soviet curricula for 11 year olds.

[Bobchillingworth]

So the contradiction between "imperialists caused chaos by drawing borders across ethnic boundaries" and "diversity is our strength" is being resolved now in favour of the latter?

What's so unserious about calling India not a nation? Perhaps it's better called a federation; I'd rather reserve the term "nation" for states with a supermajority of the same race, religion or at least language. India has some multiple secessionist tendencies, and the Western liberal values of its elite prevents the religious and linguistic plurality from asserting itself as a binding force. What requirements does a state have to meet to be a nation in your eyes?

A "nation" in its most basic form is simply a community of people united by a shared identity based on one or more common factors. Said factors don't have to be some inborn quality like ethnicity, as you yourself acknowledge, as people can learn new languages and adopt or abandon faiths (also, India is majority Hindu, so would still count as a nation even if you only thought a handful of characteristics were relevant). For that reason, political values such as preference for a form of government, "Western liberalism", belief in inalienable human rights, etc. are valid bases for the formation of nations.

Ethnicity is a common grounds for the basis of a nation, both historically and contemporarily, both because it's an easy way for most people to sort themselves and there's widespread agreement that distinct ethnicities have some general right to self-determination. Nation states explicitly or effectively based on ethnicity tend to not be particularly stable however, both because there's incentives for them to undermine and/or engage in conflict with their neighbors, rather than seek mutually-beneficial collaboration, and they encourage separatist movements from members of other groups within their borders who obviously can't simply convert to a new ethnicity. Nations based on ideology can potentially absorb populations from across various ethnicities, religions, etc., and therefore have broader appeal while mitigating unnecessary strife and factionalism.

[BING_XI_LAO]

A "nation" in its most basic form is simply a community of people united by a shared identity based on one or more common factors.  Said factors don't have to be some inborn quality like ethnicity, as you yourself acknowledge, as people can learn new languages and adopt or abandon faiths (also, India is majority Hindu, so would still count as a nation even if you only thought a handful of characteristics were relevant).  For that reason, political values such as preference for a form of government, "Western liberalism", belief in inalienable human rights, etc. are valid bases for the formation of nations.

Ethnicity is a common grounds for the basis of a nation, both historically and contemporarily, both because it's an easy way for most people to sort themselves and there's widespread agreement that distinct ethnicities have some general right to self-determination.  Nation states explicitly or effectively based on ethnicity tend to not be particularly stable however, both because there's incentives for them to undermine and/or engage in conflict with their neighbors, rather than seek mutually-beneficial collaboration, and they encourage separatist movements from members of other groups within their borders who obviously can't simply convert to a new ethnicity.  Nations based on ideology can potentially absorb populations from across various ethnicities, religions, etc., and therefore have broader appeal while mitigating unnecessary strife and factionalism.

There is one case where I'd be okay with something like what you're saying, about a nation based on values - Switzerland (which of course has three languages and two sects of Christianity). But the reason I'm okay with that is because the Swiss civic and republican values are both specific to that country, and are extremely solid and well-established. Modern liberal ideology isn't specific to one nation and it isn't solid and well-established in any of its local manifestations (because it keeps changing dramatically). If the definition of the word "nation" were as you say, then I feel the term becomes too vague to be useful any more. A state based on ideology is more commonly characteristic of empires.

Also the states which I have citizenship in and feel I'm a member of those nations - well they have rejected having a state religion or an ethnic definition. So are they defined by liberal ideology? Then, as a non-liberal, I don't belong to those nations, but a total foreigner who imbibes lots of American political media does belong. I think this is a reductio ad absurdum.

Nations based on ideology can potentially absorb populations from across various ethnicities, religions, etc., and therefore have broader appeal while mitigating unnecessary strife and factionalism.

Sure, ideology is necessary and useful to keep multi-ethnic states together, but current-day egalitarian liberalism is completely useless for such purposes, since it promotes resentment and explicitly mandates racial discrimination by law (I'm referring to affirmative action measures). Most likely yesterday's Waukesha car attack was racial terrorism spurred by liberal media coverage of the Rittenhouse case. You also have a resilient Islamist presence among Europe's muslims, S.A.'s politicians singing "kill the boer", and so on (the last one interests me because I have relatives there, not just because it is a useful example). I think ethnic-based nations can still claim to be more stable, though it is a hard thing to quantify the comparative empirical evidence for.

[Mjmd]

Regarding the Waukesha incident; motive is unclear depending on news source its either unknown or as a vehicle fleeing another scene. As a reminder its dangerous to just assume things when making arguments. Especially when a lot of the other overall discussion is pretty good. I do find the overall discussion of what makes a nation fascinating.

[Charriu]

I think ethnic-based nations can still claim to be more stable, though it is a hard thing to quantify the comparative empirical evidence for.

Which countries would be ethnic-based nations in your opinion?