Peikoff & Chayes: Two Years Later, Parler Vindicated
Write Objectivists Amy Peikoff and Benjamin Chayes:
This week marks two years since Amazon Web Services, following closely behind Google and Apple, took burgeoning Twitter competitor Parler—which had been number one in Apple’s App Store—offline. The reason given was the platform’s alleged contribution to the January 6, 2021 riot on the Capitol, via a supposedly disproportionate prevalence of violent and inciting content. The facts that, for example, #HangMikePence was trending on Twitter at the time, and that Parler had been referring examples of violent and inciting content to law enforcement in the weeks leading up to the 6th, fell on deaf ears.
That Parler was unfairly scapegoated quickly became apparent to anyone who bothered to follow the story. But what has become incontrovertible only recently, thanks to Elon Musk’s release of the “Twitter Files,” is evidence pointing to the actual motivation behind Parler’s deplatforming: the desire to bury all the uncensored content that Parler allowed to be shared on the web. Remember Hunter Biden’s laptop? The Wuhan lab-leak? The Great Barrington Declaration? Or maybe you missed all of that back then, exactly as an amalgamation of not-yet-fully-identified crony tech “leaders” and government agents intended.
Happy Second Birthday Great Barrington Declaration!
Two years ago today, Dr. Martin Kulldorff (professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations), Dr. Sunetra Gupta (professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases), and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations) authored the Great Barrington Declaration.
The Great Barrington Declaration argued for better protection of high-risk older people while keeping schools and society open to avoid the collateral damage now seen.
Focused protection instead of lockdowns to minimize both COVID-19 mortality and collateral damage on other health outcomes.
Over 930,000 people signed it. You can still co-sign.
Fossil Future: Yaron Brook Interviews Alex Epstein
Dr. Brook interviews Alex Epstein on “Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas–Not Less.”
Cost of Space Flight Before and After SpaceX
Visual Capitalist has a graphic showing the decrease in the cost of space flights before and after Elon Musk’s private initiative SpaceX.
The message:
“In the last two decades, space startup companies have demonstrated they can compete against heavyweight aerospace contractors as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Today, a SpaceX rocket launching can be 97% cheaper than a Russian Soyuz ride cost in the ’60s.”
Viral: The Origin of Covid-19
Issues covered include:
- What are the implications of the Lab Leak Theory?
- What is the probability the virus came directly from Nature?
- What are the implications for progress, human wellbeing?
- Does Gain Of Function make sense?
Yaron discusses this and much more with Matt Ridley, co-author with Alina Chan of Viral: The Search For the Origins of Covid-19.