Other's Words

Here are some interesting things about a few matters that have shown up in the news recently:

-- Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, a frequent read for your humble blogger, lays out some of the realistic expectations behind the headlines that promise different quantum technologies to be the next best thing to actual magic. The unrealistic expectations seem to share an inability to realize that while different fantastic breakthroughs have been made in several fields thanks to the principles of quantum mechanics, the breakthrough still eluding most of them is how to make them happen at scales where they might be useful instead of interesting curiosities and plot hooks for sci-fi authors.

-- At National Review's blog The Corner, NR writer Jim Geraghty highlights how a headline that tells the reader a vaccine has been shown to be ineffective against a new strain of the COVID-19 coronavirus might be oversimplifying the matter. He notes the studies showed that one kind of vaccine did not prevent people from being infected by the mutated virus -- but it did make those infections much milder than many cases of COVID  have been. Geraghty quotes a New York Times piece on a similar phenomena which pointed out that of the 32,000 people who received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, only one developed a severe case of COVID. We live in the ironic time in which people need to spend even more time gathering news reports while phalanxes of news providers keep offering less actual news.

-- Economics professor Tyler Cowen writes at Bloomberg about the way that many of the people involved in the protests of recent months seem oblivious to the fact that saying who they are when interviewed by reporters and allowing their faces and phones to appear on social media puts them squarely in law-enforcement's crosshairs. The person who takes a selfie while rioting produces a case so simple even the Barney-est of Barney Fifes can find them and haul them in between donut runs. Cowen wonders if COVID isolation has bent people's perceptions so much they don't think about how laws apply to them. I agree many many people think this, but I think it was widespread well before COVID. That point of view might have been seen in a more limited fashion when it was the domain of the wealthy and the celebrity but judging by how many people will basically ride in your trunk when you drive the highway speed limit I think it's a longtime phenomena.