I was reviewing this old interview with Australia’s Paul Monk, covering Coronavirus, China, conspiracy theories, reckoning, and risk to Pax Americana, as they looked to him in late April.
If nothing else, listen to him open by quoting Thucydides.
tl;dr Monk reviews key plagues from Athens to now, discusses the situation in April, and assesses three different China-did-it theories, and closes by arguing that the West must reckon with China, and it’s behavior during COV-2 has been a wake-up call.
I’ve had the pleasure to work briefly with Paul on argument mapping and critical thinking, and this is a good example of weighing plausibility and evidence.
It’s probably better to listen or read the interview, but here’s my summary of key points.
Plagues
I’ve summarized Paul’s summary in a table, filling in numbers from Wikipedia or Ancient.edu (example). It seems the Roman plagues are hard to estimate because they lasted so long.
| Plague | When | Where | # Dead | % Pop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athenian | 4th C BC | Athens | ~100K | ~1/4 - 1/3 |
| Antonine | 2nd C | Roman | ~5M | ~1/3 |
| Justinian | 5th C | Roman & Persian | ~25 - 50M | ~1/4 - 1/3 |
| Black | 14th C | Eurasia+ | ~75 - 200M | ~1/4 - 1/3 |
| Smallpox | 16th C | Americas | ~60M | ~95% |
| Great | 17th C | London | ~100K | ~1/4 |
| Spanish Flu | 20th C | Global | ~50-200M | ~2-3%, but young |
Conspiracy Theories
Monk does a nice job separating and assessing the China theories for the origin of SARS-COV-2. As of April, but it seems a solid assessment.
First, there’s the utterly mad theories: 5G and control chips. The China theories aren’t like that. That’s key.
-
Unrestricted War: deliberate leak. This gains plausibility from the 1997 book Unrestricted War by two Chinese colonels who suggested this possibility. So, it’s a viable theory - and important to note it was sensible for people to draw the connection. So, two avenues of assessment:
a. Sanity Check: Why would the Party agree, given grave risks? (a) How could they guarantee they could control it in China? (b) How could they be confident the outside world wouldn’t figure out whodunnit and “there would be hell to pay”? (c) To control in China you’d have to shut down the economy. Why? When you’re trying to dominate economically? Okay, so it would be hugely risky.
b. Evidence: None. [In the meantime we learned a bit more about how sus' they were acting, but Monk was pretty clear on that already. And their actions are pretty likely on the other China theories too. OK, what about biology? A Taiwanese dissident published a paper saying it was a deliberate release … but her claims for that fell apart. Her publishing circumstances were also dodgy. -And as I try to remind people, evidence is a ratio: to count for this theory, it has to be more likely on this theory than on its contenders. -ed]
c. Meta Evidence: some serious right-wing analysts looked at and dismissed this claim. You’d expect them to jump on it if they could. The intelligence communities in AU, NZ, CA, UK, and US all concluded this looks unlikely. Again, being their key job, you’d expect them to jump on it if they could - at least confidentially. But there’s no evidence in leaks or actions that this is considered remotely plausible.
-
Unintentional Escape A - It came from Wuhan or another lab, but the usual sort of leak. (Hi, I live in Reston. Ebola anyone?) In this variant, the party simply doesn’t know how it got out, takes awhile to figure it out, and when they do realize “Wow, this is serious”, they say so. If the Party had a history of acting responsibly, this might be more plausible. It doesn’t.
-
Unintentional Escape: B - As before, but once it leaks they think, “This looks bad” and conduct a propaganda campaign to suppress & whitewash. Evidence: they’re definitely conducting a propaganda campaign, including failed attempts to bully Australia and the rest of the WHO into not investigating.
Reckoning
Yes trading with China helped them prosper. Yes, that was good for us too. Yes, it’s middle class grew, and wanted more liberty. No, the Communist Party did not become more tractable. There was a glimmer of hope, and it was quashed.
Monk says it’s time to get consensus of Western & African countries, and tell China, “This cannot work. It can’t work for us and because it can’t work for us, you’re going to realize it cannot work for you. …there’s no other choice."
Risk of Nationalism
1918 and WWI led to the Great Depression, which ushered in reactionary politics around the world: Germany, Japan, Italy, El Salvador. We’re seeing signs now, and that threatens the Pax American that made possible “the greatest expansion in average human wellbeing across the planet … over the last [30-70] years ever in history.” To the extent that other countries follow China to say “Our interests are paramount … then we’re back in the 1930s.”
Silver Linings
Paul thinks people have become more reflective, and the pandemic has highlighted the need for global solutions and clear thinking. I suspect it’s just Paul.
He has a nice analogy to The Martian though.