S20.E31: Benjamin Netanyahu; Michael Smerconish; Neil deGrasse Tyson

[tessaray]

Air Date:  October 14, 2022

Bill’s guests are Benjamin Netanyahu, Michael Smerconish, and Neil deGrasse Tyson

[aghst]

More BS, they cite the Great Barrington Declaration and Sweden.

First of all, the notion of herd immunity is thoroughly discredited for covid.  People are getting reinfected multiple times so allowing it to spread was a horrible idea.  Sweden has much higher cumulative deaths than surrounding nations with similar demographics and population density.

Tyson wasn't strong enough on denouncing Bill's crackpot ideas.  It would have been worth to let children spread.  Countries which opened the schools saw surges in cases.

Deaths and cases could have been a lot worse and in the US, deaths are a LOT worse than a country like Japan, which has a huge elderly population and high population density in big cities.  They masked, kept distance, avoided crowed situations and they got vaccinated and boosted at much higher rates than the US>

So much nonsense.  What the supposed declines in learning is worse than even more people dying?  How would more kids seeing their parents die be a better outcome?

Then New Rules.  Bill is saying Republicans support shitty candidates like Herschel Walker because the liberal wokeness is so bad that they'd rather support bad people.  What a crock, their history is littered with shitty figures like McCarthy.  Where was the wokeness when they backed people like Nixon and Bush?  Or Palin or Quayle?  Completely unqualified people, but they didn't care, they could recite their own horrible dog whistles.

David Duke ran as a Republican, you twat.

Right, they're justified in running a bipolar, lying POS like Walker because what, liberals supported LGBTQ?  Because that is one of their biggest complaints, gay marriage.  It wasn't long ago that they were claiming homosexuals were turning children and they shouldn't be allowed to adopt.  In fact just this year they were spreading that grooming BS.

Bill so butthurt because young audiences won't laugh or actually have the gall to groan at some of this bad jokes.  Like that justifies laws like Don't Say Gay and accusing people of being pedophiles.

[sheetmoss]

New show10/28

On lastnight's(10/14) show, Bill announced he would be off the following week

[DoctorAtomic]

I was pleasantly surprised Bill pushed back on Tyson. And I don't necessarily agree much with Bill on his medical perspective. Tyson is just a boor and not nearly as smart as he thinks. He's completely devoid of any social context of science. There's not no radiation at all to tactical nuclear weapon. Yes, it isn't the Hiroshima style that people think of. That's not the point. A nuclear weapon is a social construct as much as it is about nuclear physics. It's just flat out myopic to separate the two. The real question they were asking on the show was 'Is Putin a rational actor?' Firebombing Tokyo wasn't entirely 'way worse' because of the chronic effects of the fallout.

It kind of frustrates me because when they criticize the response to covid, which is entirely fair, it's actually about risk communication and uncertainty and targeting risk mitigation. Bill is too much 0 and 1. Yes, they were wrong in saying that you can't catch covid if you get the vaccine. They should have said it's likely you won't but some will. But - if you do, you definitely won't go to the hospital. You can't pick out the one thing and paint the whole system as unstable. Though I was again pleased to see them say that a one size fits all response was not the right approach. On the other side, I don't agree with Bill's criticisms either.

5 hours ago, aghst said:

First of all, the notion of herd immunity is thoroughly discredited for covid.  People are getting reinfected multiple times so allowing it to spread was a horrible idea.  Sweden has much higher cumulative deaths than surrounding nations with similar demographics and population density.

I just wanted to point out I'm in agreement with the facts of what happened with covid in your post. I criticize the communication of risk and uncertainty.  As Bill was incorrect in calling out Sweden; Tyson was incorrect in saying 'we don't have any alternative realities.' Well, no, but we can look across the world to see what people did. Not a lot of it worked. Bill was also right in saying that Tyson might have gotten it an not known. 

I didn't really have much of an issue with the overall discussion. Tyson needs to know when to shut up though. 

[aghst]

The vaccine did slow down transmission until Delta and Omicron variants.

It didn't necessarily prevent breakthrough infections with the alpha and older strains.  But the neutralizing antibody response meant that when people with breakthrough infections shed virus, they were coated with antibodies so they shed a lot of "nonviable" viruses.

Then of course, around the world, not enough was done to prevent transmission, so the virus kept mutating.

Remember in the spring of 2021, as India gave the world Delta, you had pictures of people crowding along the Ganges.  It was outside but they were right up against each other and in some other parts of the country, there were similar crowding events.

They had low vaccination rates and didn't have access to MRNA vaccines.  

Then when they had their big surges, they were running out of oxygen and they were going around hoarding oxygen tanks.  People were driving from hospital to hospital to get their relatives admitted.

They cremated so many people that they ran low on wood.

The worst part of all this is that not enough is known about long covid.  People may not die in the first couple of weeks after infection but many probably have diminished health for weeks or months or years afterwards.

So to pretend like we're over it and now Bill wants to go on a "I told you so" victory tour, even though he has very unearned sense of vindication on this subject.

[The Solution]

51 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I was pleasantly surprised Bill pushed back on Tyson.

I'll start by saying that I love your posts, but I was pleasantly surprised when Dr. Tyson pushed back on Bill. We truly didn't have enough time to do well-vetted analysis, but we had to do something. To my mind, Bill is a nihilist who makes a living by Monday-morning quarterbacking people who do take action and positions. Nihilism leads to totalitarianism, which we are seeing in this country. Dr.Tyson did agree that we didn't get everything right and that our approach could have been more well-nuanced, but what else could we do? And now in retrospect, by nature of the situation itself, we don't have a control study to compare our actions against.

I also liked that Mr. Smerconish kept trying to keep the discussion going and pointing out that we needed to keep talking.

To his credit, Bill seemed to respond fairly well to both gentlemen.

[DoctorAtomic]

I should have clarified first about Bill pushing back when Tyson was going on with the nuclear weapons. Tyson was getting out of control. Tyson talking about population density and how you approach the response was kind of what I was getting at. Typically Bill let's Tyson just do his deal. I do think Bill was also correct to shut down his smugness about well; I didn't get it and you did. Bill retorted, oh you probably got it and didn't know, which I think might be more likely. I wonder if I got it myself. I have no idea how I would know. 

I do think Bill was correct in saying 'everyone has to do this,' nationwide was fair to criticize, but sure, we had to do something, but at the same time, public figures could have been better on communicating uncertainty too. 

Tyson just generally puts me off because I just don't like people who always have to have a sardonic comment on everything about anything. Sardonic isn't funny unless you're turning it in on yourself. 

I forgot to add before - I do generally agree with some of final New Rules to a point. Bill also pointed out many times on other episodes that a lot of it is just 'owning the libs'. With Walker, I think that's more of it. Warnok (Walker's opponent) isn't really the type of candidate Bill was describing. 

Does anyone listen to the podcast?

[The Solution]

4 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I should have clarified first about Bill pushing back when Tyson was going on with the nuclear weapons. Tyson was getting out of control. Tyson talking about population density and how you approach the response was kind of what I was getting at. Typically Bill let's Tyson just do his deal. I do think

I totally agree with you about this part of the conversation. WTF was that?

[ahpny]

22 hours ago, aghst said:

Bill is saying Republicans support shitty candidates like Herschel Walker because the liberal wokeness is so bad that they'd rather support bad people.

He wasn't speaking about why Republican politicians put up unacceptable candidates, but why otherwise reasonable voters on the right hold their noses and vote for them anyway as the lesser of two evils. His point wasn't that there is any good reason to vote for Walker-eque candidates, but that's why they get the votes they do and sometimes win. And if Democrats want to win, they need at least acknowledge this. Democrats can't be so convinced of their own infallible righteousness such that they fail to recognize that not all agree with them all the time. A little humility goes a long way. This should be about winning elections, not necessarily being right.

Quote

Tyson needs to know when to shut up though. 

I usually find Tyson both informative and amusing. Sadly, he was neither this time, and kind of just ran amok. The personal attack on Bill ("You got Covid, I never did") was way over the top and lacked both scientific rigor and, well, just good manners. As Bill pointed out, there's a decent chance Tyson was infected at some point without his knowledge, and as with Bill, had no symptoms whatsoever. To accuse Bill of getting it as a result of his different view of how best to handle the pandemic was way offensive. Bill was justifiable offended.

But what puzzled me most - and apparently Bill as well - was what the hell was Tyson talking about with the absence of radiation concerns with modern nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise? I'm not a nuclear physicist, though neither is Tyson. Nevertheless, I concede there may be a large overlap between astrophysics (the subject of his Ph.D.) and nuclear physics. But what he said about having no big radiation concerns with modern nuclear weapons was a head-scratcher. I get his larger point, that it is essentially irrational to put nuclear weapons in a wholly separate category and treat them as a completely different concern from "conventional" weapons. "Conventional" weapons have killed many, many, more people and continue to do so. Point taken.

But there's a reason why nuclear weapons are classified as "non-conventional" weapons. They cause damage differently and in ways that are not easily contained nor predictable. From the little I do know, Tyson was at least egregiously unclear to suggest that modern nuclear weapons have minimal radiation concerns. Maybe those concerns are less to some degree than with respect the Hiroshima/Nagasaki devices, and that was his point, but he never said that. He was correct to point out the the Hiroshima/Nagasaki devices were fission-based devices that relied on splitting uranium and/or plutonium atoms and produced significant amount of a radiation as a result. Fusion based devices, sometimes called  "Hydrogen" or thermonuclear bombs, don't rely on these same nuclear reactions, but instead fuse hydrogen atoms and don't release the same type of radiation as fission reactions. The sun and other stars shine from this same type of fusion reaction. But, as best I understand, in order to trigger fusion reactions in today's H-bombs, they begin with a fission-based nuclear explosion that releases the same type of radiation as from the Hiroshima/Nagasaki devices. That's where he lost me. The 1950's thermonuclear bomb testing done on various Pacific islands released enormous amounts of radiation. At least for those islands, that's still of concern today.

Thus, I'm still missing Tyson's point. That he never explained it to Bill even after being asked to do so several times suggests maybe he had no point on this at all.

[tessaray]

I get really depressed listening to Bill and his Covid rants. Covid isn't over for me as I'm caring for someone with half lung capacity as a result of MS and heart failure. So yeah, I'm usually the only one in the store still wearing a mask. 

I've read the educational statistics and they aren't great but kids are resilient.  Once we all figure out how to do normal things again, they'll go back up. Some extra studying, extra tutoring and things will bounce back.

What I'm afraid will get lost are the lessons in how fragile our infrastructure and systems are. 

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, ahpny said:

He wasn't speaking about why Republican politicians put up unacceptable candidates, but why otherwise reasonable voters on the right hold their noses and vote for them anyway as the lesser of two evils. His point wasn't that there is any good reason to vote for Walker-eque candidates, but that's why they get the votes they do and sometimes win. And if Democrats want to win, they need at least acknowledge this. Democrats can't be so convinced of their own infallible righteousness such that they fail to recognize that not all agree with them all the time. A little humility goes a long way. This should be about winning elections, not necessarily being right.

That's not otherwise reasonable. That's voting for the guy that represents your values. If you're, for instance, so infuriated by the existance of trans people that someone telling you their pronouns makes you vote for Walker, you're a standard Walker voter.

As you said yourself, it's the lesser of two evils. Better the clearly mentally unwell man who'll treat gay people like sexual predators and hold the life of a dead fetus over a living woman than the person who doesn't and you think they're snotty about it. 

Edited October 16, 2022 by sistermagpie

[DoctorAtomic]

8 hours ago, ahpny said:

Nevertheless, I concede there may be a large overlap between astrophysics (the subject of his Ph.D.) and nuclear physics.

There isn't. Though him talking any general knowledge of how things work is fine. That's why I was saying before that he doesn't grasp the social context of nuclear weapons. A PhD doesn't mean you know everything about anything. It means you know what you don't know. His comments were irresponsible.

[RealHousewife]

The Netanyahu interview was basically pointless. 

[ICantDoThatDave]

I thought the Covid-discussion was just a good back-&-forth among *rational* people with different perspectives.  No demonizing the "other side" because they respected each other [EDIT: meaning, so they would actually listen to each other].  I appreciated that they could even have the discussion.

Edited October 17, 2022 by ICantDoThatDave

[Hanahope]

Wow Bill, troll much?  you think the gop got Walker on the ticket because Warnock is "too woke"?  seriously?  Reverand Warnock is a pretty conservative democrat, he just doesn't impose his religious beliefs on everyone else, unlike most of the gop.  The gop chooses people like walker, moore and tuberville, because they are generally popular people, not necessarily good politicians.  in fact, they are pretty malleable and controllable people.  they will do what they are told by people like mcconnell.  walker and tubervill only got the nod because of popularity of football in those states, and walker because he's black.  the gop needed a black candidate they could control to run against Warnock.  Jones was pretty conservative as well, and most wouldn't call him "woke."  moore was very popular before his pedophilia came to light.

Quit using "woke" to describe every single democrat.  quit making a term that suggests one isn't living in the dark ages an insult.

instead of complaining that the left is 'too woke', you should complain that the gop sheep vote for these completely unqualified people solely because of single issues, like abortion (aka women's rights), stand your ground (for white people), immigration or fear mongering by the gop.  why is it the dems always have to move to meet the never ending moving right of the gop, but never the other way around?  why do the gop sheep get to keep women from controlling their bodies, keep minorities, poor and disabled people from voting, impose evangelical christianity as the only religion that gets to do whatever the hell it wants and everyone has to appease them, make lgbtq+ people have to go back into the closets, allow anyone to get a gun (then complain about too much violence) and stifle immigration except for huge corporations that oppress their workers?

and props to Tyson to keep pointing out that Sweden has a much smaller population density.  it is also a much smaller country and easier to get vaccines and other mediation to those that need it.  Sweden has 75% full vaccination rate, the US is 68% (states between 50 and 85%).

[Hedgehog2022]

On 10/16/2022 at 1:34 PM, tessaray said:

I get really depressed listening to Bill and his Covid rants. Covid isn't over for me as I'm caring for someone with half lung capacity as a result of MS and heart failure. So yeah, I'm usually the only one in the store still wearing a mask. 

I've read the educational statistics and they aren't great but kids are resilient.  Once we all figure out how to do normal things again, they'll go back up. Some extra studying, extra tutoring and things will bounce back.

What I'm afraid will get lost are the lessons in how fragile our infrastructure and systems are. 

Bill is still going on COVID rants??? Jesus...his obsession with COVID is really out of control. Were things perfect in dealing with this? No. It was a NOVEL virus...no one knew what to do since we hadn't ever seen a virus like this before. Scientists and health professionals did the best they could with the information they had. Wearing masks seemed to be the smartest thing to do to prevent the spread in public. Vaccines have been vital in getting the public to be protected from the worst of the virus. No parent wanted their kids to be home learning from a computer classroom...trust me...that was hell on earth...but for families that have other family members with autoimmune disorders or serious illness, having their children be home and not risking the exposure to the virus in a crowded classroom at the peak of the pandemic seemed like the only choice that would work. Now that kids have been vaxxed and boosted they can once again go to school and have a a normal life again. We've all had to make some sacrifices during this difficult time and some of us have lost loved ones to this awful virus but we now have ways to mitigate COVID and keep ourselves healthy. Instead of continuing to gripe and whine about the protocols that were in place two years ago before vaccines and boosters, how about focusing on something else like the midterms...sheesh...Bill is like a dog with a bone...move on Bill.