Observations From the Spectrum

Math for many is and always will be the challenge subject. The problem is that Math runs our lives in many ways especially as it pertains to logic. From my seat, it looks like many do not have a basic understanding of Math and more specifically, probability and percentages. Here are some thoughts on the matter of Math.

Everyone either loved or hated learning Math. I am pretty sure there was no middle ground past 7th or 8th grade once Algebra kicked in. Cos. Sin. Tan. I still have a hard time comprehending higher level Math and there is no blame.

My teachers were effective: my brain just didn’t get it. I think all of us have a few things that we just are not good at and that is okay. We need be open to learning and thinking outside the box. Rigid vs Creativity.

However, sometimes we need to revisit things of old and try them again. The Covid Era has taught me this. My interest in certain things have waned and others have gained steam. Thinking and learning are up there now almost like when I was in college. I want to understand and be able to interpret new data.

Covid is a virus like all other viruses in many ways. Like a gun or a car, it is what it is. It’s not new, just the name of it. Like going from a 6 shooter from the past to a Glock or a Model-T to a Ford Taurus. Not much different under the hood. Same science.

The difference between this pandemic and others is education. The education level of Western Civilization has been diluted. It serves only one purpose. To provide students an education in a content major that directly funnels them into a job or career.

This is not how it was. In the past, the most useful degree was a Bachelor’s in Arts. Why? It’s purpose was to teach those who studied it, how to think. Now, we are only taught how to do it. I am a teacher. I am a nurse. I am a paralegal. Doctor. Lawyer. 

We simply stopped teaching how to put the pieces together and this could be in fact our demise. Many people can’t make clear and logical predictions and inferences. Those who can are succeeding beyond measure. Those who can’t are dying off or falling into abject poverty which is new to modern day Western Civilization. The ghetto is a very different place than a slum, and we are clearly moving towards slums.

Why is this important to think about? It’s Math. Those who can apply it are winning. Those who can’t are losing. So here is a quick lesson on applied Math concerning a few topics.

Number 1: You can have a million dollars but not a million hugs from your mom or child. That is a fact. 10 hugs a day for 80 years only equals 292,000 hugs. That’s math.

Number 2: Trying to imagine how many stars there are is a full-time job. There are Infinite stars – 1. It’s a theoretical amount. Place a 1 on a piece of paper and start adding 0s on the page. When you get bored, you are at a fraction of 1%. A very very small number. 

Number 3: Thinking that you are the only satient being in the universe with an infinite amount of galaxies -1 is rigid thinking. It’s like gravity. It was there before it was discovered.

Number 4: Math is infinite. Wealth is infinite. Poverty is finite. As the wealthy continue to add 0s, the poor get closer to 0. 10,000 is 1% of 1 Million. $10,000 is 0.001% of 1 Billion. We were all on the playing field with millionaires. We are not with billionaires. Accept this as a truth and plan and predict accordingly.

Number 5: Datasets can be skewed to match a desired outcome. That’s the hubris of science. Scientists make an hypothesis. Then try to prove whether or not it is true. If the hypothesis is wrong, then the outcome is wrong also.

If you can Math in the world, this is as plain as day. Take Covid vaccine deniers. These are the people who don’t believe in the science behind the vaccine. Many of them are also those whose education failed or those who have a purpose to sell their voice or message. In other words, they don’t understand basic Math or are fabricating data to meet their needs. Either way, they are purposely trying to mislead the rest of us.

First, Covid is a virus like other viruses. It needs a host to survive. To survive, it needs to replicate or reproduce. This means when it enters our body, it goes to work trying to survive. Think of an infestation. Roaches. Termites. Fruit flies. You go from one to many in a NY minute.

So the virus enters and starts to replicate and when we test positive for Covid, we can also determine the viral load. How many of these Covid buggers are now trying to survive in your body. Few or many.

But, now here is the caveat, many seem to think the vaccine works like a condom. It does not. It is not a condom. Think of a condom as the windshield of a car but you are riding in a motorcycle without a windscreen. Eating bugs is part of the journey.

Just like those bugs entering your body on the bike, the body goes to work. It registers the bug as a bug and source of protein. Use the useful parts for energy and the rest is flushed as waste. Just like eating a banana. Your body registers. Use what it can. Sending the rest out in the morning.

Bananas we have been eating for milenia. Our DNA is coded to know what to do with them like breathing or pooping in fact. Two things we don’t have to learn to do.

When Covid enters the body, our bodies go to work first at identifying what it is and then what to do with it. At the same time Covid is doing what it does, which is trying to survive in its host by replicating. 

Remember, Covid has been around and known to man for quite some time as a virus in Bats. Bats know what to do with Covid. Covid doesn’t kill them. It lives symbiotically with its host. Like rats in NY. They exist. They rarely do harm.

But now Covid changed because we went down a road on our motorcycle without a windscreen in the perfect conditions for Covid to enter into our bodies and start reproducing. It found a new host and home. Billions of new homes in fact.

So Covid enters our body and our DNA doesn’t know what it is or what to do. It needs to learn what to do. This process is called evolution and takes millenia. Ultimately, we could allow, like AMerica did, for Covid to run rampant in the human population and eventually either we all die or our DNA for future generations will be coded to direct Covid straight down into the poop shoot.

Until then, 1000s of years, our best bet is to use a condom, in this case a mask, and a vaccine to help accelerate the process by removing 2 of the zeroes. 

Yet, many don’t understand simple Math and can’t see when results are being purposely skewed.

Efficacy is the rate at which a vaccine does its job of identifying and directing the virus to the poop shoot as waste. Few vaccines or medicines concerning viruses are 100% effective. What does this mean then?

If a vaccine has an 92% efficacy rate, this means that 92 out of 100 people will have a traffic cop directing the virus, once it is registered, straight through the tunnel and out the other end. It also means that 8 out of 100 people have traffic cops eating donuts on the job and not doing much. The virus gets by them and wreaks havoc. Death or extreme sickness.  

This is why we need almost all people vaccinated. Vaccines are our turbos for evolution. We are complicated mammals. Our evolutionary process takes 1000s of years. A virus does not. It is a small simple organism that can change to meet its host’s needs. 

There are two possible outcomes here. One, Covid learns to live in humans like it does in bats. Symbiotically like rats in NY. Or it could mutate to a worse from like HIV which doees not show signs of learnign to live symbioticlly like rats in NY but like a suicide bomber for a cell of a terrorist grooup. Eventually, that person will be sent to detonate its host. Us.

So what this means is that when a vaccinated person dies from Covid, they are, hopefully, just part of the unlucky 8%. Their traffic cops were eating donuts on the job. Or it means that the virus has mutated to be a skateboarder who sees the traffic but avoids, dodges and gets by them. 

Yet, given the headlines, it still seems like America is set in the past. America only represents 4% of the world population. If America disappeared, there would still be close to 8 billion people. The problem is that many believe being American makes them different. It does not. Covid is a virus. It does not differentiate between nationalities, but it does learn to evolve quicker in societies in which it is allowed to run rampant. America and Britain are among them.

So while many of us try to do what’s right for ALL, many still just try to do what is right for them. A pandemic is a Global problem, not a national one and will not go away until it is seen and solved as one or certain places because the biohazard wastes dumps of the sick and infirm who are unwilling to help. A modern day leper colony.

But as long as those who don’t understand Math and can’t see this as truth, humanity as we know it is in the balance. When Western Civilization should have put its differences aside and unified against a global threat, it decided not to because of a dumbed down education system that put at its helm Trump and Boris. Two of the worst possible people to be in charge during a global threat. Two men who care only about themselves and disguise it as patriotism and nationalism. 

The Covid Vaccines are not the perfect solution like a Crossing Guard is not the perfect solution for getting kids across the street to and from. Some will always get hit and die. But we can do our best to help all of us survive by spending more time thinking and applying logic and Math to uncover what is written between the lines.

• All works at Observations from the Spectrum written by Dylan Netter
• Observationsfromthespectrum.org
• OFTS.blog 
• On? a third point of view – book of Essays
• Marinehippie.com podcast w/ Docstodden.com – dialogue exploring politics and musings of life 
• Horizoncoaching.org – English Tutor and Guide