He got into an argument with Saifedean about Covid and then that heavily contributed to Taleb changing his view on Bitcoin (he previously wrote the foreword to Saifedean’s original Bitcoin Standard).
Discussion
Oh I wish I could read that argument.
It might still be on Twitter somewhere. Probably around spring 2020. Not sure.
it may well be he merged Saifedean and Bitcoin into one constellation in his mind but really, that is the utter opposite of both generosity and intellectual rigor
also this confirms what i'm saying
someone persuaded him to believe that masks actually work
this is unscientific bullshit, masks are there to reduce the chance of surgeons putting bacteria inside a person before stitching them back up, end of, that's all they are for
i know this because i got proper medical training around this subject in 2007 and that's precisely what the trainer told me, that's what masks are for, and she said to me that for piercing (it was a piercing course) it had nearly zero chance of an infection transiting from this, because of how short the window of time and how small the holes are, and to do it "for the comfort of the client" only and not for medical reasons
and she also said it was only for BACTERIA not viruses
lol that’s a thing I wish someone said to me back in 2020 😂
i remember some time back reading about some virus that was infecting abbatoir workers who were killing pigs using a device that caused a blood spray in the air
they specifically said that it was because it got in their eyes and thereby transited into the blood
respiratory viruses generally transit via goop that you have spat on something and then someone touches that goop onto a mucus membrane, usually the nose, it can be the eyes too, but that takes a LOTTA snot getting in your eyes to transit effectively
the virus has a narrow time window as well, because the moment your immune system starts to notice something it has whole range of responses that make further exposure less effective, enzymes that break its attack vector and so forth
the virus doesn't survive long without replication, so the main way you incubate colds and flu viruses is with limited ventilation indoors with infected people spitting into the air, this is why coughing is one of the most common vectors, sneezing less so because sneezing tends to be heavier and drier and once the virus is dehydrated its chances of transit are nearly zero, it will be wrapped in a coating of dried snot at that point
and think about how all the mucus membranes work
every single one is constantly pushing fluid outwards to stop ingress
and blood itself is pressurised for the same reason, in addition to moving it around, when the blood vessels are broken the pressure ensure that blood goes out, not stuff goes in
same reason also why first thing you do as soon as possible after breaking your skin, cut or whatever, is to flush it with water, this helps ensure that nothing gets inside your skin
I deleted my twitter acc and I prefer not having to browse through the dumpster again.
Saifedean later apologized for letting him write the forward because it wasn't pro Bitcoin. At the very best Taleb was fence sitting in his forward.