Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. I hope your week is off to a great start. And before I forget, I want to wish my daughter, my youngest daughter, who had a birthday yesterday, a very happy birthday, even though it's a day later. Also, my dad, who was born on this day, I'd like to wish him a happy birthday as well. And if his mom were still alive, she actually had a birthday on the second as well. So my youngest daughter and my grandma Reed share birthdays. So that was always kind of cool for her growing up, or at least I think it was. I do hope this week is off to a great start for each one of you, and I want to touch on my last episode. I was very passionate about the things that I was saying, and you might say that I was pretty harsh on the DOJ. And in my opinion, that's how it should be. They are part of the governmental apparatus and therefore are open to public criticism. And that's exactly how it should be. If we here in the United States cannot scrutinize or publicly hold elected officials as well as bureaucrats accountable, then what kind of government do we have? I'd like to reserve my remarks in this episode for academia, or at least a branch or an arm of academia, in this case, the Harvard Business Review. We're a solid year and a half into the COVID 19 way of doing things, if I could say it that way. Please understand that I have no doubts that COVID-19 was a serious virus, that it was deadly and highly contagious. I have no doubts about that whatsoever. However, the doubts that I do have stem from a host of players. There's a lot of people to blame. The government, academia, corporations, big tech, you name it. There's a lot of people we could point the finger at in terms of saying, hey, what are your motives? What's your objectives for the way that COVID numbers have been reported? In other words, what were the causes of death of those who contracted COVID? Was it actually COVID or was it some other underlying health concern, which in the large majority of cases of deaths, that is exactly the case. And unfortunately, we live in a time where it does depend on who's reporting the numbers because there is so much politicization of all the things that are happening in our society. And unfortunately, that does include the numbers for COVID-19. Enter Harvard Business Review. They did an article back in May of 2020, the title of which is Which COVID-19 Data Can You Trust? In the beginning, the article does refer to technology and how much easier that has made it for our ability to track this disease, to track the efforts to control it, and that in times of uncertainty like COVID has produced, that the data can provide comfort and tangible facts in the face of many unknowns. And I would tend to agree with that. However, it doesn't take the writer very long to get into the reasons why some data can't be trusted. And interestingly enough, there is no author for the title of the article. It just says Harvard Business Review Staff. So staff, if you're out there listening, pay attention. It only takes a couple of paragraphs for staff to get into the real objective of the article. I quote, unfortunately, many of these technological solutions, however well intended, do not provide the clear picture they purport to. In many cases, there is insufficient engagement with subject matter experts, such as epidemiologists who specialize in modeling the spread of infectious diseases, or frontline clinicians who can help prioritize needs. But because technology and telecom companies have greater access to mobile device data, enormous financial resources, and larger teams of data scientists than academic researchers do, their data products are being rolled out at a higher volume than high quality studies. Closed quote. Clearly, staff at Harvard Business Review seems to say that they know best. And talk about enormous financial resources. Last I checked, Harvard University has an endowment of some $35 billion. That's billion with a B. And not to mention the fact that the government seems to hand out grants to academia like it's candy. Please, don't give us a sob story that somehow there's not enough resources to produce the kind of data that is needed for something like this. That's bull. Apparently, though, there are those out there who seem to think that academia is being cheated when it comes to receiving grant money from the government. If only those in academia could receive more grant money, then we could have more idiotic studies like the mating habits of a frickin' tick or any other absolutely absurd, supposed scientific research. Come on. Well, it gets better. Listen to what staff says under the heading of common pitfalls, quote. While you may not be qualified to evaluate the particulars of every dashboard, chart, and study you see, there are common red flags to let you know data might not be reliable. End of quote. Well, you can think you're lucky stars because the rest of the article points out some of these pitfalls that they deem to be pitfalls. For example, under the heading data products that are too broad, too specific, or lack context, it says this quote, until we know more about how these changing movement patterns impact epidemiological aspects of the disease, we should use these data with caution. Simply presenting them or interpreting them without a proper contextual understanding could inadvertently lead to imposing or relaxing restrictions on lives and livelihoods based on incomplete information. Now, when it comes to trusting data, trusting a source of information, I think most lay people, myself included, want to be able to trust the numbers that we get, especially something as important as a, oh, I don't know, contagious disease, for instance. But if you're like me, I spend a lot of time sifting through information that I'm trying to find the truth. And in many cases, it's just difficult to do because of that all-important five-letter word, trust. And that brings us to the heading and the article that says read carefully and trust cautiously. They then proceed to give four reasons why you need to be careful and trust cautiously, based on their expertise, of course. The first is transparency, the second is thoughtfulness, the third, expertise, and the fourth, open platforms. I'm going to skip transparency, although if we look at data, for instance, from the Centers for Disease Control, how transparent have they been in the past since this epidemic started? I'll let you answer that question. What I want to do is go to this term thoughtfulness. Interesting. Staff makes this comment quote, look for signs of hubris, wanton disregard of privacy, civil rights, or well-established scientific facts, belie overconfidence at best, and recklessness at worst. End of quote. But does that not describe some of the actions of the government in violating the privacy of individuals, whether or not somebody is vaccinated, whether they can get on a bus if they're not vaccinated, or get on a plane if they're not vaccinated, or if they're not vaccinated, are they wearing a mask? Ladies and gentlemen, there are many, many examples like this that I believe are nothing more than a violation of our privacy. It's one thing to want to protect people, it's another thing to want to control their lives, and I think unfortunately the government has erred on the side of the latter. Number three, under Read Carefully and Trust Cautiously, is expertise. Staff says this, quote, look for the professionals. Examine the credentials of those providing and processing the data. We are facing a deluge of data and interpretation from the wrong kinds of experts, resulting in a high noise to signal ratio. Well, if it's academia that's examining the credentials of those who provide the data, we all know the way that most academicians lean politically. So we're supposed to just believe them because they have our best interests at heart? I don't think so. Now, if we could trust that the data that academicians actually provide is neutral and doesn't lean one way or the other, then yeah, maybe I could actually trust their credentials. But they've given me plenty of reasons not to trust it. Furthermore, did you catch their high noise to signal ratio? Do you know that this terminology is used in music? The meaning here is that the word signal is equal to useful information or the music that you're trying to listen to. Noise equals unwanted data. Again, in musical terms, we want to filter out the unwanted noise or static while enhancing the useful information, such as the music. It's interesting to me how they use this high noise to signal ratio as being analogous to data. In other words, we have to sift through the preliminary data or the undercard, if you will, to get to the main event, meaning those who know what they're talking about, of course, and who always have the people's best interest at heart. Finally, under the read carefully and trust cautiously heading, we have the fourth of four subheadings, which is open platforms. They, or shall I say, staff says this quote, look for collaborators. There are several data aggregators that are committed to supporting an ecosystem of communities, businesses, and research partners by sharing data or code in safe and responsible ways. Such open ecosystem approaches, while not easy to manage, can yield high dividends. Oftentimes, when I see variations of the word collaborate, I think it's a high-speed definition of group think. Oftentimes collaboration is just simply overrated. It's another one of those catchphrases that have been bastardized to fit a very refined narrative, in my humble opinion. Well, the end of the article has this to say quote, this pandemic has been studied more intensely in a shorter amount of time than any other human event. Our globalized world has rapidly generated and shared a vast amount of information about it. It is inevitable that there will be bad as well as good data in that mix. These massive, decentralized and crowdsourced data can reliably be converted to life-saving knowledge if tempered by expertise, transparency, rigor, and collaboration. When making your own decisions, read closely, trust carefully, and when in doubt, look to the experts closed quote. Now remember, this was an article written in May twenty twenty, truly the beginning of this COVID virus, and they want to say that it's been studied more intensely in a shorter amount of time than any other human event. Really? According to whom? Where is the evidence for this statement? Again, this is from May of 2020. And it's so charming they want to say that we should look to the experts, aka like the Harvard Business Review when it comes to viruses and how the data on viruses is collected? Please. We don't even have a so-called business review journal that isn't sucked into this unrestrained politicization culture. Simply stick to their supposed expertise. Why is the Harvard Business Review writing an article by staff about how data is collected for the virus? It seems to me that the Harvard Business Review ought to simply stick to their supposed expertise, which is apparently the promotion and improvement of how to do business better, I guess. Well, this one doesn't quite pass the smell test for me. Oh, sorry. It's my lack of being an expert that made me say that. Sorry. This is just one article of many by a multitude of different sources. And to me, it's a scary time in which we live because we're supposed to believe these so-called experts as opposed to what our very own eyes see and what our very own ears hear. And then we take that into our brain, we process it. We throw out that which we have confirmed is bad stuff, and we keep the good. What organization? Is it government? Is it big business? Is it academia? Who is telling us the truth? How are we supposed to find it? That is the question that I would ask. And I hope that that's the question that all of us ask, especially about something as significant as an epidemic like the COVID-19 virus and what it's turned into a complete and total politicization of a virus, of an illness. That's despicable. And on that happy note, let me just end with this wonderful quote by a man named Thomas Paine, written in a booklet called The Rights of Man. He said this quote, it has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles of freedom to say that government is a compact between those who govern and those who are governed. But this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause. For as man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist, and consequently, there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact with. The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government, and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist. End of quote.