The Woke Left’s Ongoing Gain of Function Experiments

 

Gain of function. Unfortunately, by now everyone should know what it means. It’s the deliberate amplification of aspects of a pathogen that sensible (albeit nonexpert) people might consider undesirable. In particular, it includes efforts directed at making an infectious agent more communicable, more resistant to countermeasures, and/or more lethal to its victims.

As I type this, gain of function experimentation is going on in thousands of laboratories across the United States under the misguided supervision of people who often fancy themselves knowledgeable experts qualified to engage in such a dangerous project. The pathogen in question is racism, something to which humans are by nature susceptible but for which we have developed, over hundreds of years, fairly simple and effective preventative treatments.

It wasn’t easy. We fought a literal war within our own country, and then spent decades battling in the courts of law and public opinion, before we effectively put an end to the misguided notion that a man should be judged based on the color of his skin. There will always be a few still infected with the idea, but it no longer spreads — its R naught, as they say, is way below one: No one is likely to catch it from you if you’re one of the sad cases unable to shake this particular sickness.

Racism is a disease of childhood and relatively easy to prevent: Set a good example, avoid exposing your children to people who are infected, and promptly treat your kids when and if they show symptoms. Racism is stupid and ugly, and not something to which children are naturally attracted. It’s easy to raise children free of the disease.

Unfortunately, the people to whom too many of us have outsourced the raising of our children are investing a lot of energy in creating a strain of racism resistant to prevention by parents. They’re doing it by inculcating in our kids the idea that skin color really does matter and that people who say otherwise are, well, bad people. Far from being stupid and ugly, they are told, racism is something that good kids acknowledge and embrace, either as (usually symptomless) carriers or (usually symptomless) victims.

The very wise words of Martin Luther King Jr. will be no soothing balm for these afflicted children once they’ve been taught that the good doctor got it exactly backward. And social distancing your child from infected individuals isn’t practical when the school bus delivers them to contagion five days a week, nor when you send him or her off to incubate in college.


It will be ironic if America’s exposure to toxic classroom curricula, and our subsequent rejection of it, is a consequence of school shutdowns brought about by our exposure to an actual disease that itself benefited from misguided enhancement.

Published in Education
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  1. Addiction Is A Choice Member
    Addiction Is A Choice
    @AddictionIsAChoice

    “‘Weaponize’ is such an ugly word.  I suggest we go with ‘gain-of-function’ instead.”

    • #1
  2. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    VDH makes the point here that the same pathology that infected the Old South has infected Blue America.

    • #2
  3. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Very apt analogy. 

    • #3
  4. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    According to the federal guidelines on Dual-Use Research of Concern (DURC), which is the general category that includes Gain of Function research, these are the elements that constitute DURC:

    a)Enhances the harmful consequences of the agent or toxin

    The CRT variant acts like a retrovirus, possessing the ability to integrate into cultural DNA and permanently modify it.  No Coronavirus (or the social equivalent) could do that.  This poses a severe risk of transmission across generations.

    b)Disrupts immunity or the effectiveness of an immunization against the agent or toxin without clinical and/or agricultural justification

    This modification to the racism virus allows it to present as antiracism, evading most existing immunity.   Vaccination often tends to enhance disease, potentially inducing an autoimmune response.  (see f below)

    c)Confers to the agent or toxin resistance to clinically and/or agriculturally useful prophylactic or therapeutic interventions against that agent or toxin or facilitates their ability to evade detection methodologies

     As Henry said, most treatments are ineffective.  Moreover, the modification directly blocks methods for detecting racism.

    d)Increases the stability, transmissibility, or the ability to disseminate the agent or toxin

    With the widespread use of social media and the widespread adoption of this agent, racism is likely to reach exponential spread.   COVID-19 will be nothing compared to this.  In fact, the widespread, deliberate introduction of an agent with this level of virulence would violate the convention on biological warfare were racism a listed agent.

    e)Alters the host range or tropism of the agent or toxin

    As Henry mentions, this CRT modification moves racism into groups that were previously accidental hosts at most.

    f)Enhances the susceptibility of a host population to the agent or toxin

    This modification to the racism virus allows it to present as antiracism, inducing a paradoxical response where those with the most likelihood to be immune instead generate an auto-immune response, breaking down tolerance and becoming self-destructive (akin to lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.)   It is also notable that even a normal immune response to antiracism will increase the vulnerability of the host to other forms of racism (alt-white, identitarian, etc)

    g)Generates or reconstitutes an eradicated or extinct agent or toxin

    Definitely, to the point of paraphrasing John C. Calhoun.  As Henry stated above, this is bringing racism back into areas where it was sporadic at most, and is likely to remain endemic for a generation or more.

    Upon review, I move that we REJECT this research protocol, as not only are the defects far beyond what we could fix with conditions, the scientific and educational merits of the proposal are dubious at best.

    • #4
  5. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    What I do not understand is why even in states governed by Republicans we cannot get rid of teachers unions.  Charter schools shows we can do better but  are not a solution.   Union reform isn’t an option.  New Zealand fixed the worst schools in the west over night by turning schools over to parents and teachers and funds to parents.   To attract kids they had to get rid of lousy teachers, good teachers know who the lousy ones are and without unions and government control they can pick them    It was a market solution, funded by the state. 

    • #5
  6. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    I Walton (View Comment):

    What I do not understand is why even in states governed by Republicans we cannot get rid of teachers unions. Charter schools shows we can do better but are not a solution. Union reform isn’t an option. New Zealand fixed the worst schools in the west over night by turning schools over to parents and teachers and funds to parents. To attract kids they had to get rid of lousy teachers, good teachers know who the lousy ones are and without unions and government control they can pick them It was a market solution, funded by the state.

    It’s hard to have big, centralized businesses without unions.  And it’s hard to have big, centralized school systems without unions.  Even I can support unions in those circumstances, but what I’d really like to do is change those circumstances.  

    • #6
  7. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):

    This modification to the racism virus allows it to present as antiracism, evading most existing immunity. Vaccination often tends to enhance disease, potentially inducing an autoimmune response. (see f below)

    But they say the same thing about being colour blind about race  

     

     

    • #7
  8. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Actually, racism is hard-wired in humans. You are designed to like people who are like you, and dislike people who are not like you. It was an early survival behavior that helped early humans to remain alive. The reason humans developed culture was to enable them to form family and tribe groups. Now, it takes culture to instill in children the knowledge that racism is unwelcome, since all societies consist of many different groups who all have to get along. That is what parents and grandparents are for. It is a shame that today’s government schools are teaching children the opposite, and parents should fight back. 

    • #8
  9. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    I Walton (View Comment):

    What I do not understand is why even in states governed by Republicans we cannot get rid of teachers unions. Charter schools shows we can do better but are not a solution. Union reform isn’t an option. New Zealand fixed the worst schools in the west over night by turning schools over to parents and teachers and funds to parents. To attract kids they had to get rid of lousy teachers, good teachers know who the lousy ones are and without unions and government control they can pick them It was a market solution, funded by the state.

    It’s hard to have big, centralized businesses without unions. And it’s hard to have big, centralized school systems without unions. Even I can support unions in those circumstances, but what I’d really like to do is change those circumstances.

    Just let parents pay tuition directly.   

    • #9
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