Minhaj returns as this week’s rotating host of The Daily Show where he was a correspondent for five years.
He argues that rich people like Scott Adams end up saying awful things because they are bored with their lives.
Minhaj said Adams is a prime example of “a certain type of rich person.” They have no problems of their own, so they invent new ones just to make their own lives interesting.
“I can guarantee you: J.K. Rowling had zero opinions about trans people when she was on welfare,” he said. He suggested a wealth tax would solve the problem.
“Rich people, this is for your own good,” he said. “The wealth tax is actually a shut-the-fuck-up tax.”
“Spend more time working, kissing your loved ones, getting groceries ― y’know, being a normal person,” he said. “Because normal people don’t hate Black people. We’re all too busy hating that one squeaky wheel on the shopping cart.”
The CNN clip was absolutely appalling. First they explicitly say the DoE accepts the lab-leak story as fact, THEN they add that they accept it with “low confidence” — which, according to one definition I read, actually meant they DON’T accept it, due to lack of evidence, questionable sources, lack of corroboration, or the like.
Seriously, the DoE are NOT saying there’s evidence of a lab leak, they’re only saying “Yes, it’s been alleged, and no, it’s not physically impossible, but there’s insufficient evidence to support the claims.”
My impression of Scott Adams is that he has been in a bubble of his fans for too long. They generally agree with everything he says no matter what he says and encourage his extreme positions. If he says something a fan doesn’t like they just leave the group of close fans, making it more of an echo chamber. This leads people to become more extreme over time. You can see this with a number of famous people who don’t take care to get good information.
There was an episode of TWIV where they went through a paper that was a outbreak study of who came down with COVID when. It all surrounded the wet market. I suppose a conspiracy theorist would have the lab scientists injecting a bat in the wet market to simulate a zoonotic outbreak.
There is also the fact that the virus is a fairly typical (though novel) coronavirus, which mutates and is part of a broader family of coronavirus. It does not appear to have been gene edited. And -- why? Anyone who understands virology would not bother customizing a virus; they would find something nasty and force evolve it to infect humans. E.g: H1N1. Or Mpox. Speaking of which, why aren’t conspiracy theorists ascribing those to lab leaks? Or Ebola. Any of those could trigger a pandemic, with the possible exception of Ebola, which is so nasty it triggers a visceral response. Even trumpies would mask up and not he stupid around Ebola.
It seems to me that the forces of stupidity seek for a lab leak to blame because the reality of how they turned a pandemic endemic is too painful to contemplate. At some level they know how badly they fucked up -- not that it’ll stop them for a second from a repeat performance.
Scott Adams transformed slowly from dilbert into the pointy haired boss. Somehow he did not see it. I guess that in order to embody the pointy haired boss he had to inhabit that character in his mind and it slowly corrupted him. Or maybe he was the pointy haired boss all along…
While Minhaj was being funny, I think a more likely theory is that getting rich is the most validating thing that can happen in modern life. The newly rich and important then are surrounded with a cloud of fly-like sycophants drawn to the smell of money, who further ratify their new self-importance.
Eventually, media and advertising culture start probing their unprotected zones, and they start revealing things they maybe should have kept secret. Or they are asked for their opinions about things they know nothing about, and rather than saying “I dunno, I just write cartoons” or “I dunno, I write children’s fantasy fiction” they blurt out something stupid and regrettable. Then, their sense of new-found self-importance keeps them from backing down.
I suspect Minhaj is 100% right that Rowling was not worried about trans people when she was poor and unknown. But people asked her opinion once she got rich, so she had to figure out what she thought of that admittedly important topic.
I guess the lesson is: don’t ask rock musicians their opinion on race, equality, or gender. Don’t ask writers about their philosophy of life. Don’t promote people’s opinions just because they are rich. Shut up and mow their lawn if you must, but uninformed opinions are independent of one’s bank balance. I suspect the dynamic there is “oh that person wrote successful novels, that means they must be super smart so their opinion on nuclear fusion probably is valuable.”
@JM:
I used the line ‘ablative armour of yes-men’ in my comment on the previous post; I first came up with that line when talking about Michael Jackson and it definitely applies to a certain form of celebrity psychology where they get gradually isolated from reality.
That said, Adams started with the ‘I’m smarter than everybody else who’s higher up the chain than me’ idea in his head (it’s an integral part of the Dilbert humour), so his descent was a lot easier than for many other celebrities. He came pre-primed with the assumption of superiority even before he had the clout to insist on it.
@1:
Beau spends a productive 5 mins ripping into that in “Let’s talk about intelligence, confidence, and reports…”
Wealth is a type of social privilege. Like any privilege, it is based in power, rather than reflecting anything intrinsic to any individual’s character or social worth.
Source:
https://inequality.org/resources/quotes/
xohjoh2n: Thanks, I saw that video. He was more…polite…than I would have been.
“He argues that rich people like Scott Adams end up saying awful things because they are bored with their lives.”
He probably did, not that the video is available in my country.
But a better explanation, in my opinion, is that it’s far easier to ride out the consequences of saying awful things if one is rich. Anyone can say awful things.
That is to say, it’s a rather simplistic claim.
—
Tethys:
“Wealth is a type of social privilege.”
And therefore?
Terrible theory, and I don’t see any possibility that he is not aware of this. He is politically engaged and therefore certainly knows that racism is generally aligned with conservatism, and also that the rural poor are too.
The wealth may grant the luxury of excess idle time, but it doesn’t create the opinions. I think the more relevant thing is it grants undeserved attention, and a willingness in media to assist the person by spreading their words wide.
(Hit post too soon)
@10 And therefore?
Therefore read my second sentence, the multiple quotes about wealth inequity, and maybe click the link.
I read your entire comment, Tethys.
And the link is (presumably) to even more quotations.
So, let me rephrase: what’s the point of stating that “Wealth is a type of social privilege.”?
(Were I being snarky, I would suggest that “Therefore read my second sentence” does not follow from “Wealth is a type of social privilege.”)
@7 and @9
From The Hill (emphasis mine):
Does it make a difference to you that the agencies saying it wasn’t a lab leak were also designated “low confidence”?
As to Mr. Minhaj, I suspect his mocking the idea that a lab leak hypothesis is racist has something to do with the treatment his friend Jon Stewart received about it.
For me, neither position should be political and its sad that we’ve made it so.
marner: I’m not sure why those “four unnamed federal agencies” would conclude with “low confidence” that COVID-19 came from a “natural” source (most likely via that “wet market” everyone’s talking about). Unless they were called on to rule on a SPECIFIC trajectory — i.e., which species of animal or which region the animal had been brought in from. But in the absence of evidence pointing to any specific alleged trajectory, natural or not, I think we can safely, if tentatively, conclude that transmission via live animals or meat in a wide-open market is far more probable than transmission via a lab leak, simply because the former happens far more regularly and involves far more people who work under far fewer safety/security protocols.
because poor people are an homogeneous mass and are never bigoted about … race … colour … fat … ability … etc,etc,etc
@ Raging Bee
You might very well be right, but I am not so sure. I appreciate your arguments and while I could offer some counterarguments, ultimately, I don’t think we know enough to eliminate either hypothesis. And I guess my point is that it isn’t pernicious to lean either way.
#14 John
But you did suggest that. Right there, in that sentence, despite phrasing it as if you were not suggesting that. If you genuinely did not want to suggest that, you would not have said it even as a parenthetical aside.
___
#18 marner
When the evidence leads us to conclude one explanation is far more likely than the other, it starts to look a certain way when a person obstinately chooses the other explanation. Not pernicious, sure, but perhaps stubborn and contrarian.
marner: Actually, it can get a bit pernicious when one “leans” toward believing someone guilty of a serious crime or atrocious mistake without evidence. Believing a pandemic came from an accidental transmission from animal to human in a crowded open-air meat market, is to believe an accident happened. Believing said pandemic came from a government lab, is to believe someone committed a grievous mistake or act of negligence (or worse). The latter is a serious charge that should not be stated or implied without some sort of evidence greater than “it’s not impossible” or “that regime hasn’t been totally honest with us.”
@John
So, you are criticizing my comment based on faulty presumptions. Must be Tuesday?
@ 21 Tethys
I feel I must defend Morales from this blatant smear.
He does that shit every day.
# 19 Holms
Does anyone else sometimes get the impression Morales and Holms are in a competition to see who can employ the most childish reasoning, and the person who’s the most childish wins? 🙂
Here we have grown ass adult taking the time to type, “but in saying what you would have said if you had have said it, you said it, therefore I win, nyahh”. Boys, maybe go watch some cartoons or something and leave commenting to the adults?
Off topic, I guess, but to me the best part of this clip* was the long riff about racism at the end.
It’s chock full of racist jokes but the vibe is just entirely different when it’s two people of colour mocking racism. This is the whole point of the “punching up / punching down” analogy. It’s not the racism itself that’s harmful -- it’s whether it’s ridiculing racism, or promoting it. Racial jokes can work just fine -- but they have to come from the people affected.
* Yes, Morales, I was able to watch it despite it being, “unavailable in my location”, because it’s been explained to you a thousand times that you can easily and legally watch videos with geolocation restrictions with a few mouse clicks.
[melange, short shrift]
Heh. Wednesday, actually.
So, you are evading my question.
What a stupidly ignorant claim. I have made it clear many times on this site that I have no problem accessing such content, should I choose to do so.
Why should I watch it, since Mano handily adumbrated the issue to which he refers?
That’s the subject. I already addressed it.
Heh.
So, do you imagine it’s not something I would do were I snarky? 🙂
#23 sbob
You appear unaware that my post was critical of apophasis. Maybe go look that up so that you know what my #19 was actually saying.
JM, @ #2:
I refer to this sort of process as “self-radicalisation”, and it doesn’t just happen to famous people.
TWIV lab leak hypothesis gene lines episode
@19 & 20
The reason I posted about this in the first place was to point out that the American agencies that think it is a purely natural occurrence also rated their assessment as “low confidence”. A level which was being attacked when it leaned towards a lab leak.
Just today, the Director of the FBI is confirming that they believe with a moderate level of confidence that it came from a lab leak.
Again, you may be right, but it is not so one-sided as you are making it out to be.
The quote by Du Bois ( tethys @8 ) lines up closely with the consensus in the Scandinavian countries. Slums are a mark of failed societies.
Seth Meyers approaches the concept of taboo subjects with a bit of self-depreceating humor.
https://youtu.be/3M33Wnt_hrs
…and he is *not* staying away from black people.
@chigau, 17:
I can guarantee you JK Rowling had all the opinions about trans people when she was on welfare. It was just that nobody gives two shits about the opinions of people on welfare.
@Silentbob, 24:
For a really different vibe, get on Youtube and watch uber-Chad Colin Jost telling some properly racist jokes… the twist being they’ve been written for him by his comedy partner and person of colour Michael Che, AND he’s not seen the jokes before they come up on the teleprompter and he’s part way through them in front of a live audience. Then watch the camera cut to Che shaking his head and saying “that’s pretty racist”. Then watch Che have to do the same in reverse. It’s really good stuff.
…to point out that the American agencies that think it is a purely natural occurrence also rated their assessment as “low confidence”.
Did they specify WHY their confidence was “low?” Was it because they found the idea implausible? Or was it because they couldn’t pin down an exact track, i.e., “this person came in contact with that animal on such-and-such a specific date and became the first recorded case of COVID-19”?
@34
We don’t really know what they are saying as they’re based on media leaks. Which is why the FBI Director confirming that the agency has moderate confidence that it was lab leaked is especially significant.
In general, though, the complaint I see the most is that the Chinese government has not been completely open and that key pieces of data are missing.
Here is another example that there is genuine controversy. Last June, according to the AP https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-world-organization-government-and-politics-8662c2bc1784d3dea33f61caa6089ac2
marner: Thanks for the cite, but that article has nothing but the same rhetoric we’ve heard from anti-vax loons, global-warming-denialists, intelligent-design/teach-the-controversy creationists, and “race-realist” pseudoscience and conspiracy-mongering. Some examples:
WHO’s expert group also noted that since lab accidents in the past have triggered some outbreaks, the highly politicized theory could not be discounted.
True, but animal-to-human transmissions in live-animal markets have also happened — a lot — so that theory (“highly politicized” or not) can’t be discounted either, can it?
Jean-Claude Manuguerra, a co-chair of the 27-member international advisory group, acknowledged that some scientists might be “allergic” to the idea of investigating the lab leak theory, but said they needed to be “open-minded” enough to examine it.
Yeah, right — if you can’t get people to believe your batshit conspiracy theory, you can always fall back on calling your critics “allergic” to your brave iconoclastic new idea and labelling all questioning of said idea “closed-minded.”
This article is basically just saying “we have to keep up the controversy because people are saying there’s still a controversy!”
Um, of course it can’t be discounted. Do you remember when I told you that you very well might be right?
@ Raging Bee and marner
First the Wuhan market is not an open air market, which makes the probability of spread higher. See the photos in the first link below for what that means.
Secondly there is plenty of scientific evidence to support a wild spillover for an over view see https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/28/1160162845/what-does-the-science-say-about-the-origin-of-the-sars-cov-2-pandemic or go to the paper on which Worobey is the lead author for one example https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715
That is not to say a lab leak is impossible, it is just the evidence in the pubic sphere at this time supports a wild spillover.
@Bee, marner et al.
I don’t really want to join into a long-winded argument here, but just to attack a very specific thing marner has said or implied a couple of times, and I will take the sentence “Does it make a difference to you that the agencies saying it wasn’t a lab leak were also designated “low confidence”?” as the starting point.
(First, familiarize yourself with the interpretations that Beau places on confidence levels.)
If someone says a particular intepretation has “low confidence” does that mean “the other interpretaion” is right? Or if there are several alternatives, one of them *must* be right? Of course not, both could be low confidence. It just means we have no good reason to believe that particular outcome it right. If all are low confidence, we have no reason to select any of them as the truth. Maybe one it. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
If a particular organisation has “low confidence” and produces a conclusion that it says is “low confidence”, does that mean the conclusion is true? Jesus fuck me backwards, of fucking course not. It means very little at all can be read into that report one way or the other. I mean, if you’re actually producing that sequence of words as part of an argument your basically saying you should trust a know liar who says “and you can believe this because I’m saying it’s a lie and I’m a known liar!”
Low confidence is low confidence. If it is invoked at any part of the chain of reasoning, any part at all, it means you cannot draw any solid conclusions in either direction. None at all. Not based on that evidence. You need to completely ignore it, and make your argument based on entirely *different* evidence.
As for the actual issue at hand: zoonotic transfer happens regularly. Like, all the time. Not talking about COVID, *all the fucking time*. just counting influenza, that’s just what it does.
So you don’t really need any kind or report or analysis or research or even any evidence, it’s basically a very plausible source and should almost certainly be the default assumption, the null hypothesis, unless you can find something else with very high confidence.
Only have a “low confidence” report of zoonotic transfer? Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to prove it definitely did happen to assume it’s by far the most likely source because it usually *is* the most likely source. It’s what happens regularly with different diseases every year.
Have a “medium confidence” report of an alternative source? Well, that’s interesting but really not good enough. That’s basically “not batshit, but not proven”. There’s probably a million equivalent alternative hypotheses, and very nearly or actually 100% of them are wrong.
You’d need a very fucking high confidence report with an absolutely impeccable chain of evidence to defeat a null hypothesis of such overriding and complete plausibility as zoonotic transfer.
Why does everybody so consistently disregard the fur farm hypothesis, particularly when supported by the (apparent) evidence that mink/raccoon dog/civet/etc pelt production dropped dramatically not long before the c-virus broke out among humans?
Pierce: I, for one, consider that to be another subset of “zoonotic transfer” theories, which I find quite plausible in general. And no, I’m not disregarding this one, I just haven’t heard it specifically mentioned, until just now. Thanx for the link.
I don’t know of anyone denying that the Wuhan wet market was important in the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The question is: how did it get there? It could certainly have been brought in as part of the wildlife trade. But it’s a remarkable coincidence, if that’s what it is, that this wet market is a few kilometers from one of very few global centres of work on bat coronaviruses. There are lots of wet markets in China. As far as I can discover, there’s only one other significant centre of research into bat coronaviruses in the country (in Hong Kong). Try putting the terms “China”, “bat” and “coronavirus” into one of the databases of academic publications (Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed…). Unless things have changed considerably since I last looked, just about every paper listed will have at least one author from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Zoonotic transfers of pathogens without any lab involvement are not rare. But leaks of dangerous pathogens from labs are not all that rare either -- the original SARS virus has “escaped” several times, including more than once in China, and the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak and 2007 UK foot-and-mouth outbreak both resulted from lab leaks.
Personally, I’ll take more notice of the WHO than any of the US intelligence agencies, let alone random internet commenters:
I don’t know of anyone denying that the Wuhan wet market was important in the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The question is: how did it get there?
And the answer is easy: lots of animals brought there from many different places where germs spread in the wild.
It could certainly have been brought in as part of the wildlife trade. But it’s a remarkable coincidence, if that’s what it is, that this wet market is a few kilometers from one of very few global centres of work on bat coronaviruses.
It’s not that “remarkable” at all: bat coronaviruses find their way to wet markets, and a virology lab also took samples of the same bat coronaviruses for research — because they’d known for a long time already that they were out there and needed looking into. What would you expect such a lab to do — research viruses that had nothing to do with their own country?
There are lots of wet markets in China.
And lots of instances of zoonotic transfers and out of in China as well. Your point…?
…all hypotheses on the origins of the virus remain on the table.”
The lab-leak story really isn’t a “hypothesis,” it’s just a vague paranoid accusation. “It’s not physically impossible” + “we don’t know for sure” do not add up to a “hypothesis.” Just like “Biden stole the election” isn’t a “hypothesis.”
@44:
You have to see, shirley, what that statement says? If everything remains on the table, then nothing is proven. Basically all it says is: we know nothing.
Some might call it a useless statement for that reason. (I disagree: a level estimate of our lack of knowledge is always an important foundation.)
So: we have nothing specific in this instance to lean one way or another, all we can do is fall back to our general knowledge of our world. What is more likely? What has happened in the past? How often does that happen?
Mano: your spam filters appear to repeatedly can short corrective statements. This is unfortunate.
If everything remains on the table, then nothing is proven. Basically all it says is: we know nothing.
Republicans: “Therefore let’s accuse China of deliberate mass-murder and ignore everything they say in response (‘cuz they’re commies and they always lie anyway) and pretend it’s all necessary to get to the bottom of…whatever the fuck we’re digging ourselves into here…”
Raging Bee,
The desirability of the consequences of the truth of a statement has nothing to do with whether it is true.
Similarly, stupid people saying something stupid is not evidence that a related statement is false. Seems to be a kind of fallacy fallacy.
No, Gerrard, a preponderance of contrary evidence is evidence that the related statement is false.