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The Team Apocalypse Playbook
Or
How To Defend the Indefensible:
A Guide for Aspiring Charlatans and Hysterics in Six (and a half) Steps
1) Cherry Pick Data Freely: Bring up New Zealand at every opportunity. Hawai’i too. Ignore counter-examples.
Or
How To Defend the Indefensible:
A Guide for Aspiring Charlatans and Hysterics in Six (and a half) Steps
1) Cherry Pick Data Freely: Bring up New Zealand at every opportunity. Hawai’i too. Ignore counter-examples.
If that doesn’t work, just insist that wherever lockdowns led to bad outcomes, it’s because they didn’t lockdown hard enough or early enough. This has the added benefit of being unfalsifiable. And unfalsifiable claims are the best ones to make.
2) Shift the burden of proof to the opposition. Just demand “Can you prove reopening the economy or schools is safe?” That way, you can avoid having to provide any evidence for your position. And, of course, reject any evidence they do offer. Call it “fringe” and “discredited”.
3) Ignore confounders: For whatever policy you are defending, just say “it worked in Asia!” Ignore any important differences within Asia or between Asia and Europe, or wherever.
4) Use ad hominem arguments at all times! As in, “you must be funded by the Koch brothers!” Or, “Admit it, you just want to kill granny!” This will throw them off, and put them on the defensive.
5) When you don’t have evidence for you position, substitute model forecasts. The IHME and Neil Ferguson are wonderful resources, as in “Without lockdowns we would have had 2.2 million deaths, according to experts.” Or, “Sweden is headed for disaster, projections say.”
5.5) Note, it’s generally best to pretend Sweden doesn’t exist. Ignore it, altogether. If that doesn’t work, just assert “Sweden has been a cautionary tale”. Or “Sweden is going to have to lockdown soon”. Don’t bother with evidence.
6) Lastly, never ever talk about the costs of the suppression policies. Ignore them, or dismiss them as irrelevant: “How can you talk about the economy when people are dying?!?” That usually works.
If you follow this playbook, you can often give the appearance of having won the argument on behalf of lockdowns, school shutdowns and universal masking. And you too can be a Champion Horseman for Team Apocalypse.
***Also, remember to mute or, preferably, block, anyone against whom these tactics don’t work. That’s critical.***