I was a sailor, spent a few years participating in the search for axions, and had a pet guinea pig as a kid. I don’t know what any of that means (more evidence I’m in hell?), but I enjoyed your article, thanks!
When we find out how sars ncov2 causes long covid probably a whole lot of illnesses will turn to be post-viral: MS, alzheimers, coeliac, parkinsons, schizophrenia, etc.
They'll fall into a neat paradigm alongside AIDS and polio and cervical cancer and this interstice where some post-viral diseases are obvious and others are a fucking mystery will disappear into a neat sentence about how 'In the late 20th century and early 21st century Science continued to learn about how infections cause disease.'
I don't pretend to know how it works (viral reservoirs in some tissue that is so obviously virus free that we never looked there? Some immune system function we don't even know exists that hasn't turned off?).
Very well done! I think you'd find David Deutsch's work focusing on explanatory knowledge interesting. Seems like some of the paths to Hell are paved by mistaking correlations for actual knowledge (always tentative) about how the world works.
Great work! I hope more people discover it.
thanks :)
This is great. You are so smart and probably very handsome. Thank you.
I would go so far as to say that it is a brilliant essay. Thank you.
:)
Fantastic essay. Also really scary
Fascinating essay, thank you.
Great analysis. I wrote a post that focuses on different emphases and examples, but shares the look at the tradeoff between skepticism and blind adherence: https://whitherthewest.substack.com/p/the-heterozygote-advantage-and-the
I was a sailor, spent a few years participating in the search for axions, and had a pet guinea pig as a kid. I don’t know what any of that means (more evidence I’m in hell?), but I enjoyed your article, thanks!
When we find out how sars ncov2 causes long covid probably a whole lot of illnesses will turn to be post-viral: MS, alzheimers, coeliac, parkinsons, schizophrenia, etc.
They'll fall into a neat paradigm alongside AIDS and polio and cervical cancer and this interstice where some post-viral diseases are obvious and others are a fucking mystery will disappear into a neat sentence about how 'In the late 20th century and early 21st century Science continued to learn about how infections cause disease.'
I don't pretend to know how it works (viral reservoirs in some tissue that is so obviously virus free that we never looked there? Some immune system function we don't even know exists that hasn't turned off?).
Very well done! I think you'd find David Deutsch's work focusing on explanatory knowledge interesting. Seems like some of the paths to Hell are paved by mistaking correlations for actual knowledge (always tentative) about how the world works.
Big Deutsch fan :)
Maybe we are on the cusp of (easily) treating mental disorders.... https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00135-8
interesting...
I think the wildest part of that whole scurvy story was the fact that copper tubing stripped out whatever Vitamin C was in the lime juice anyhow.
Imagine that we finally discover the fruit from the Tree of Immortality and neutralize it by using the wrong knife to peel it! (Or something.)
History is a whole lot more *contingent* than academics (and people more generally) would prefer to acknowledge.
yup lol