This morning I attended a “Braver Angels” educational session about how to depolarize political conversations.

The acronym for the technique is “LAPP“:

• Listen to understand, not reload
• Acknowledge what you heard
• Pivot by assessing whether it’s OK to offer your views
• Offer your Perspective, rather the position that “they’re wrong.”

I wondered, can Google AI perform Braver Angels‘ depolarization technique?

• The answer is ‘yes,‘ Google Bard can perform the LAPP Technique.

Here’s a sample query:

1) Are you familiar with the LAPP Technique associated with Braver Angels, an organization working to depolarize America?

Yes, I am familiar with the LAPP Technique associated with Braver Angels, an organization working to depolarize America. The LAPP Technique is a four-step process for having difficult conversations across the political divide:

1. Listen to understand, not reload. This means paying attention to what the other person is saying, trying to see things from their perspective, and avoiding interrupting or preparing your own response.
2. Acknowledge what you heard. This shows the other person that you have been listening and that you respect their point of view, even if you don’t agree with it. You can say something like, “What I hear you saying is…” or “It sounds like you’re feeling…”
3. Pivot by assessing whether it is OK to offer your views. Once you have a good understanding of the other person’s perspective, you can start to think about whether or not it is appropriate to share your own views. If you don’t feel comfortable doing so, you can say something like, “I’m not sure I’m ready to share my own thoughts on this yet, but I appreciate you sharing yours with me.”
4. Offer your perspective (if the person has signaled a willingness to hear it). If you do decide to share your own views, be sure to do so in a respectful and open-minded way. Avoid using accusatory language or making assumptions about the other person’s motives. Instead, focus on sharing your own experiences and why you believe what you believe.

The LAPP Technique is a valuable tool for anyone who wants to have more productive and respectful conversations about politics. It can help us to build bridges with people who have different views, and to learn more about the perspectives of others.

Braver Angels recommends using the LAPP Technique in all of their workshops and events. They believe that it is essential for creating an environment where people feel safe and respected, and where they are able to listen to each other with open minds.

2) Are you able to apply the LAPP Technique if I give you a polarizing statement?

Yes, I am able to apply the LAPP Technique if you give me a polarizing statement. I can:

• Listen to understand, not reload. I will pay attention to your statement and try to see things from your perspective. I will not interrupt or prepare my own response.
• Acknowledge what I heard. I will show you that I have been listening and that I respect your point of view, even if I don’t agree with it. I can say something like, “What I hear you saying is…” or “It sounds like you’re feeling…”
• Pivot by assessing whether it is OK to offer my views. Once I have a good understanding of your perspective, I will think about whether or not it is appropriate to share my own views. If I don’t feel comfortable doing so, I can say something like, “I’m not sure I’m ready to share my own thoughts on this yet, but I appreciate you sharing yours with me.”
• Offer my perspective (if you have signaled a willingness to hear it). If I do decide to share my views, I will be sure to do so in a respectful and open-minded way. I will avoid using accusatory language or making assumptions about your motives. Instead, I will focus on sharing my own experiences and why I believe what I believe.

Here is an example of how I would apply the LAPP Technique to a polarizing statement:

Polarizing statement: “All gun owners are irresponsible.”

LAPP Technique response:

1. Listen to understand, not reload. I would listen carefully to the person who made the statement, trying to understand their perspective. I might ask clarifying questions, such as, “What do you mean by ‘irresponsible’?” or “Can you give me an example of what you’re talking about?”
2. Acknowledge what I heard. Once I have a good understanding of the person’s perspective, I would acknowledge what I heard. I could say something like, “What I hear you saying is that you believe that all gun owners are irresponsible because they pose a threat to public safety.”
3. Pivot by assessing whether it is OK to offer my views. I would then assess whether or not it is appropriate to share my own views. If the person seems open to hearing my perspective, I might share my own experiences with guns and explain why I believe that gun ownership can be a responsible and safe activity. However, if the person seems closed-minded or unwilling to have a respectful conversation, I might choose not to share my views at all.
4. Offer my perspective (if the person has signaled a willingness to hear it). If I do decide to share my views, I would be sure to do so in a respectful and open-minded way. I would avoid using accusatory language or making assumptions about the person’s motives. Instead, I would focus on sharing my own experiences and why I believe what I believe. I might say something like, “I understand your concerns about gun violence, but I believe that responsible gun ownership can be a safe and enjoyable activity. I’ve been shooting guns since I was a child, and I’ve always followed safety precautions.”

It is important to note that the LAPP Technique is not a magic bullet. It cannot guarantee that you will be able to change someone’s mind. However, it can help you to have more productive and respectful conversations about polarizing topics.

3) I am about to give you a polarizing statement. After I enter the statement, please apply the LAPP Technique ..

I am ready. Please give me the polarizing statement, and I will apply the LAPP Technique.

I will do my best to listen to your statement with an open mind, acknowledge what I heard, and then offer my own perspective (if you have signaled a willingness to hear it) in a respectful and open-minded way.

4) Conservatives say they are for limited government but what they really want is for the rich to get richer, and the best way to do that is to take from the poor and working-class people. They believe in a society of winners and losers, with the winners deserving most of the pie and the losers being blamed for their own misfortune — even though the winners usually start out with lots of advantages. Reds are basically heartless about the poor and would strip away the social safety net if they could get away with it. What amazes me is how many Americans get duped by this conservative approach to government.

LAPP Technique response to the polarizing statement:

Listen to understand, not reload.

Acknowledge what I heard.

Pivot by assessing whether it is OK to offer my views.

Offer my perspective (if the person has signaled a willingness to hear it).

>> Try Google Bard, yourself:

• https://bard.google.com/

The Public Health leadership may be well-meaning, but they sometimes conflate criticism of their leadership with criticism of “Science.”

• Dr. Anthony Fauci said: Attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science , and
• Dr. Peter Hotez escalated this type of rhetoric, describing what he calls: anti-science aggression,

Thesis:

• This post doesn’t criticize the science of vaccines, rather it argues that people have legitimate suspicions that American Public Health Leadership have made significant mistakes and covered them up.
• Rather than these cover-ups serving to protect the institution of “Science,” public health leadership has protected themselves, while perpetuating the very distrust of Science and frontline medical personnel their invocation of “authority” was seeking to dispel.

The Twitter Files showed that Establishment prefers to suppress opposition via censorship. This has resulted in Liberals and “the educated” being the people slowest to learn of contrary information, as it takes time for the information to surface in establishment media, if it ever does at all.1 
I compiled this list for those who are unaware of the legitimate critiques of the American public health leadership relating to Covid-19, with the hope that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Timeline: #

1) Ban:  “Gain of Function”

2) Ban Lifted:  #

• When this type of research is performed, it is supposed to be closely supervised to ensure adequate safety conditions are made, including that it be done in level 4 labs with extra precautions.
• It appears China performed some of this research in level 3 and level 2 labs. 5

3) Demagoguery #

4) How was Covid Started? #

Although it is not evidence of a lab leak, it is notable that:  By April, U.S. officials at the NSC and the State Department had begun to compile circumstantial evidence that the WIV lab, rather than the seafood market, was actually the source of the virus. The former explanation for the outbreak was entirely plausible, they felt, whereas the latter would be an extreme coincidence. But the officials couldn’t say that out loud because there wasn’t firm proof either way. And if the U.S. government accused China of lying about the outbreak without firm evidence, Beijing would surely escalate tensions even more, which meant that Americans might not get the medical supplies that were desperately needed to combat the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States.

What the Paper Said:

What the Scientists Actually Thought: #

• Shi Zhengli — known as the “bat lady” was the Chinese scientist with the most extensive experience studying cornonaviruses in bats:
  • when she was first told about the virus outbreak in her town, she thought the officials had gotten it wrong, because she would have guessed that such a virus would break out in southern China, where most of the bats live.
  • many of the scientists who spoke out to defend the lab were Shi’s research partners and funders, like the head of the global public health nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak; their research was tied to hers, and if the Wuhan lab were implicated in the pandemic, they would have to answer a lot of tough questions.
  • As for the “bat woman” herself, Shi didn’t think the lab accident theory was so crazy. In her March interview, she described frantically searching her own lab’s records after learning of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

• Privately in their email and especially Slack messages, the “Proximal Origins” scientists wrote the opposite of what the paper said.  Here are some of the comments found when their email and Slack correspondence was FOIA-ed under the Freedom of Information Act:  (Download Conversations)
  • Andersen: The lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario
  • Garry: “The major hangup I have is the polybasic cleavahe site… it’s not really a natural process.” Also: “It’s not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the GoF research we know is happening.”
  • Lipkin: “[A draft of the paper] does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture at the institute in Wuhan. Given the scale of the bat CoV research pursued there… we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.”
  • Holmes (replying to Lipkin): “I agree… Seems to have been pre-adapted for human spread since the get go. It’s the epidemiology that I find most worrying.”
  • Rambaut: “I am quite convinced it has been put there by evolution (whether natural selection or artificial).”

Scientists Mislead NYTimes Reporter

The Slack messages show that scientists conspired to mislead New York Times Reporter Donald McNeil.   (Feb 6, 2020 16:42-16:50 | page 17/140) [screenshot]

NYT serious – McNeil very credible by like every reporter can be mislead. [sic] screenshot | [page 17/140]

Conflict of Interest: #

• After the paper, suspicions arose that the authors had been awarded million dollar grants in exchange for a paper that exonerated a lab in Wuhan, China. (The appearance of a Conflict-of-Interest)

5) Suppressing “Lab Leak Theory:”  #

“Lab leak Covid-19 theory is like something out of a comic book, virologist says“

• • The scientist who was quoted is Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University, the second scientist quoted above, who said “it’s not really a natural process” .. “It’s not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the GoF research we know is happening.” and “It would be prudent to continue to pre-think responses” [to New York Times Reporter Donald McNeil].

6) Congressional Denial: Perjury? #

Congress held hearings, during which Dr. Fauci was asked about whether the NIH had funded “gain of function” research in Wuhan, China.  Fauci strenuously denied this, but his reasoning appears to have used the same technicality as former President Bill Clinton when Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman Miss Lewinsky.”

• Clinton was adopting a different definition of “sexual relations” than the questioner.
• Dr. Fauci seems to have been relying on a definition of “gain of function” research that only applied to humans, but he does not appear to have always made this distinction outside of his congressional testimony.9

The political drama raised Paul’s profile on a important issue, but such politicization made him less likely to gain scientific allies, willing to contradict Dr. Fauci or the scientists involved.

Legitimate Debate: #

However even amongst the scientists who published the Proximal Origins paper, there were skeptics that seemed afraid to speak out, which Ryan Grim at the Intercept suspects was due to Fauci’s power over funding of their life’s work. Here are quotations from the lead author of the “Proximal Origins” paper, Kristian Andersen, expressing doubt in the wisdom of “gain of function” research.

I thought it was really important that we understood whether e.g., avian influenza could be transmissible between humans and importantly which steps (and how many) would need to be involved -but honestly I’m not sure that type of knowledge is at all actionable, while, of course being exceptionally dangerous. It only takes one mistake.

Fauci was and remains an outspoken supporter of such research, even arguing a decade earlier that its benefits were worth the risk of a pandemic.

Ryan Grim, a reporter at the Intercept, laid out the career implications of Anderson expressing his GOF views:

If Fauci believed Andersen was a “crackpot” who was skeptical of gain-of-function, or GOF, research, it’s reasonable to think such a belief would influence Fauci’s pending funding decision. Fauci was and remains an outspoken supporter of such research, even arguing a decade earlier that its benefits were worth the risk of a pandemic.

Old Methodology: Pre-Internet #

The Public health methodology that Dr. Fauci was trained in took place in a pre-internet world, where information was more readily controlled.  If I assume the best of Dr. Fauci, he subscribes to the theory that  the public is best served by the “noble lie,” expressed with confidence.

But we are not living in a pre-internet age with only 3 television networks.  Critics noticed the inconsistencies in public policy; and the public is smart enough to realize that although they don’t have advanced science degrees,  their intelligence is not being respected.

Although many Liberals fail to see through the rhetoric, the people who are most distrustful have been further alienated. #

Can We Tell the Truth? #

Did the American Public Health Leadership ever consider coming clean and telling the truth?

Matt Taibbi said: It’s kind of like walking in on a spouse cheating now that people know how this research was released it’s hard to go back from that and it’s kind of destroyed institutional trust how do you see we move forward  productively”.

If the breach of trust isn’t addressed, it seems trust in science and institutions will degrade, as legitimate skepticism about deception, covid origins, gain of function research, inauthenticity, and conflicts of interest spread. 10

Proponents of the vaccine argued that the vaccine would stop transmission and that even those who had recovered from Covid-19, should still be required to get the vaccine.  If there is another pandemic in the next 10 years, government leadership will have to either come clean about the past or live with the distrust they earned.

Bonus Exercise: “How Could Facui Come Clean?” #

If you were the speech writer for Dr. Fauci and he tasked you with writing a speech to come clean about the past, with the goal of regaining public trust, what would you write?

or

Write: why “coming clean” is a bad idea.

or

What prompts would you give AI to answer these questions?

Sources:

• Doing Diligence to Assess the Risks and Benefits of Life Sciences Gain-of-Function Research, Obama Whitehouse, Oct 17, 2014.
• White House to Cut Funding for Risky Biological Study, Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times, Oct 17, 2014.
• Ban on gain-of-function studies ends, Talha Burki, The Lancet, February 2018.
• Feds lift gain-of-function research pause, offer guidance, Lisa Schnirring , CIDRAP News, February 2018.
• China admits that labs destroyed coronavirus samples on safety concerns: Reports, Matthew Amlôt, Al Arabiya, Feb 18, 2020.
• The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2, Nature, March 17, 2020.
• Calling COVID-19 the “Wuhan Virus” or “China Virus” is inaccurate and xenophobic, Marietta Vazquez, March 20, 2020.
• Covid: WHO team investigating virus origins denied entry to China, BBC News, Jan 6, 2021.
• In 2018, Diplomats Warned of Risky Coronavirus Experiments in a Wuhan Lab. No One Listened. After seeing a risky lab, they wrote a cable warning to Washington. But it was ignored. Politico, March 8, 2001.
• Lab leak Covid-19 theory is like something out of a comic book, virologist says, Maggie Fox, CNN, March 31, 2021.
• The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?, Nicholas Wade, Bulletin of Atomic Scientist, May 5, 2021.
• Fauci’s emails don’t prove a Wuhan conspiracy, but raise further questions: Why were U.S. scientists so quick to dismiss the possibility of bioengineering as the potential origin of the Covid-19 virus? Ken Dilanian, Amy Perrette and Denise Chow, NBC News, June 4, 2021.
• Fauci Responds To Attacks From Republicans, MSNBC, June 9, 2021.
• Jon Stewart On Vaccine Science And The Wuhan Lab Theory, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, June 15, 2021.
• China rejects WHO plan for study of COVID-19 origin, Gabriel Crossley, Reuters, July 22, 2021.
• Rand Paul’s Attack on Anthony Fauci Chills Scientific Debate Over Gain-of-Function Research, Robert Mackey, The Intercept. July 27, 2021.
• Why does the COVID-19 lab leak theory matter?, Antoni Worthers, Quora., August 4, 2021.
• China rejects WHO call for renewed probe into origins of Covid-19, France 24, Aug 18, 2021.

• Medical misinformation gone viral: The science of misinformation spread and how to combat it, Peter Hotez interview, American Medical Association, Oct 22, 2021.

• N.I.H. Did Not Properly Track a Group Studying Coronaviruses, Report Finds, Benjamin Mueller and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times, Jan 25, 2023.

• Matt Taibbi: Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex, Scheerpost, April 26, 2023.

• “So Friggin’ Likely”: New Covid Documents Reveal Unparalleled Media Deception, Matt Taibbi, Leighton Woodhouse, Alex Gutentag, and Michael Shellenberger, Racket News, July 18, 2023.

• Email and Slack Messages of Proximal Origins Authors (download Pdf), Public, July 20, 2023.
• Key Scientist in Covid Origin Controversy Misled Congress on Status of $8.9 Million NIH Grant, Ryan Grim, The Intercept, July 21, 2023.
• Interview: Matt Taibbi Reacts to “Proximal Origins” Testimony Bombshells, Matt Taibbi, The Hill, July 29, 2023.
• Why Science Fraud Goes Deeper Than the Stanford Scandal, Eric J. Vanman, SocialNeuro, YouTube, Aug 3, 2023.
• Fauci’s Deceptions: Emails, Slack Messages, Docs Reveal Behind-The-Scenes Involvement, David Zweig, The Hill, Aug 13, 2023.

Footnotes:

Every once in a while I see a YouTube video that I fear is significant enough that it may be censored or deleted at a future date.

Such is the case with my recent post about Jeffrey Sach’s interview with Bloomberg :

Interview:  Bloomberg “Surveillance” : Jeffery Sachs:  10/03/202

Interview Starts @ 1:51:21  | Read original blog post.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) IF NO TECHNICAL SKILLS:

• If you don’t have the technical skills, YouTube’s Premium subscription gives you access to do this.

2) IF SOME PYTHON TECH SKILLS:

• But if you have a little programming savvy, you can use a program that I’ve used to do my CiteIt transcripts.
• In this example we are assuming you have Python and pip installed. (pip is included in Python 3.4+)

[Read more…]

Yesterday, I found some really positive comments online about Glen Campbell and and saw a sad and inspiring movie about him:

1) Public Alzheimer’s diagnosis:

2) Talented Musician, admired by famous guitarists

• Read what other musicians thought of him:

One Quora poster said that Country music has a reputation for being “overly simplistic,” (as compared to rock) but commenters overwhelmingly replied that some of the most famous rock guitarists have been big fans of Campbell’s.

Here are examples of his guitar playing, including a performance in his later years.

3) Watch Documentary:

• Glen Campbell: I’ll be me.  1 hr 44 min (ad supported)
  •  NYTimes Review
  • IMDB
  • Amazon  (buy without ads)
  • Google    (buy without ads)