[xclite]

Splashsky, on 20 May 2020 - 03:27 PM, said:

But we already know that distancing didn't do anything significant. Sweden isn't significantly worse than its neighbors.

https://www.business...ferently-2020-4

[ge∅]

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Sweden isn't significantly worse than its neighbors

What????
Norway: 8,281 confirmed cases, 234 deaths
Finland 6,443 confirmed cases, 304 deaths
Denmark 11,117 confirmed cases, 554 deaths
Sweden 31,523 confirmed cases, 3,831 deaths

Sweden applied social distancing, they simply didn't want to enforce it by the police. People in Sweden distance themselves all year round anyway. They are introvert by culture, their place doesn't attracts so many tourists, it made sense... but it is not enough. They have the greatest death toll adjusted by population in Europe.

You know who is not as friendly as a cold bench in winter and did not want to apply social distancing? The UK. You know who refused to lockdown and took the US as an example? Brazil. You know who failed to respect lockdown long enough the first time? Russia. Now let's play a little game: can you guess who is in the top 4 of confirmed cases in the world?

[ArtificialSoldier]

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But we already know that distancing didn't do anything significant.

How do you know that? Your crystal ball shows you what the outcome would have been otherwise? You keep mentioning Sweden, why is that your only benchmark? How about we talk about Italy? Is Italy any less relevant than Sweden?

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From numbers I've read, including elderly homes, 66% of NY's cases are from those who were isolated.

If they were actually isolated, how do you think they got infected? Don't think about that too much, it's not a trick question. Go back to Star Wars where Obi Wan is looking for a planet that doesn't exist. What's the obvious answer? Paging Dr. Occam.

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Then how about the overreporting?

I don't want to sit here and debate various definitions that are being used, there's not much of a point. If you want to act like over-reporting is a major issue then I'll redirect that conversation to the person who just got fired in Florida because she refused to use doctored data with fewer deaths. I'll also, happily, point you to the multiple statements made by both Trump and Kushner saying that testing is bad because it makes the numbers higher and makes us look bad. If the only thing you see is over-reporting then you are not researching anything, you are conclusion-shopping for anything that supports what you already think. Your mind is already made and you're looking for supporting evidence, you are not looking at evidence and then making up your mind. This is going under-reported, not over-reported.

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I feel bad for those old folk. I don't want people to die. Which is also why I want life to continue.

...at the expense of the old folk. They, and the other vulnerable groups, are going to pay the price, right? Thanks for fighting the Nazis or signing up with the Marines even after seeing what happened at Guadalcanal, but I need a haircut.

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You all seem to still be convinced that 30 million lost jobs, increases in suicide and domestic abuse, the move towards a literal police state, and the push for untested vaccines that likely will cause the same issues they did when pushed in India a few years ago, will end up a better result than just ripping the bandaid off and getting over it.

Either result is shit. The PROPER solution is a social safety net, which is why you don't hear this same bitching and moaning from other countries, but we don't have a social safety net so our choices are lower economic output or more deaths. That's a really shitty choice. The solution is a social safety net. And if you think Americans would accept a "literal police state" then you're delusional and spending too much time on YouTube. And no one is pushing for untested vaccines, the delay in the vaccines is explicitly for testing. Only Trump decided to start popping malaria pills, the country is not pushing for untested anything. The country is letting scientists do their jobs.

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You seem to be willing to sacrifice freedom and your livelihood and the livelihoods of your fellows on the altar of unelected officials who've been wrong about COVID almost the whole time.

Not to beat a dead horse, but you don't really have the best track record to be accusing other people of being wrong about COVID.

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Yet you still lap up everything they say and push as gospel

You invoke a lot of religious imagery, is that intentional? Gospel, sacrificing on altars, etc. Is that some kind of appeal to emotion? This is not a religious issue, this is a scientific issue. Science is not religion. One of them relies on evidence, the other on faith.

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It's quite sad how quickly people will give up their rights when theyre told to be scared.

It's always a threat that governments might take away rights, I bought a shirt with that Ben Franklin quote on it so that I could wear it to the airport right after the PATRIOT Act passed and the TSA wanted to grab my nuts. I'm as much of a defender of constitutional rights as anyone else. And I see absolutely no rights being abridged here. I see a bunch of so-called patriots acting like they have a right to not be inconvenienced, but I don't see any actual rights being abridged. No one has lost anything, we are being told to do common sense things to protect the country until we have a more permanent solution and a small group of so-called tough guy patriots have decided that this is a great excuse to get out their guns and go act like they're some amazing American. It's real simple, it's common sense. The danger in this is in the legislation or other changes being passed under the radar, like all of those Senators who voted to let the government access your browsing history. That's an actual threat, being asked to stay home and wear a mask in public for a few months is not a threat. And, again, the problems in society caused by people staying home are solved by a social safety net, period.

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They have the key to all the control they've ever wanted.

WTF is "they?" You think the people with the ambition and means to control major sectors of the country didn't already control it, and just needed a virus to finalize their plan? Flush out your head gear, new guy, the shadow people controlling the country that you're so scared about finished their plan of control decades ago. They weren't waiting for this. Nothing has changed. Power is not being adjusted. The old boss is the same as the new boss.

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There's an insistence we won't go back to normal until an experimental, untested vaccine is delivered to the world.

No there's not. And you're showing yourself as delusional for even suggesting that.

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It's a very sorry thing to see.

Yeah, yeah, everyone is blind but only you can see the truth, right? Yeah, only you knows what's going on, because in your 23 or so years on this planet installing cable TV you've learned so much more than everyone else.

[ge∅]

Splashsky you don't respect the people you are talking to and you display all the signs of a brainwashed conspiracy theory guy.

- argumentative mille-feuille as we like to say in France: layers and layers of buttery bullshit which appeal to the lazy and take ages to debunk

- failure to acknowledge when you have been proven wrong: we've debunked the human-to-human transmission and Taiwan email the last time and you shamelessly repeat it here as if nothing happened. Every time we contradict you, you cary on with other delicious bits of your mille-feuille

- lies: we've provided you with a link to look up the figures of COVID cases just in case you were unable to use a search engine and you are still unable to read a simple chart

- appeal to emotions and fucked up poetry: "I don't want people to die. Which is also why I want life to continue" what does it even mean? You don't want people to die so you decide to kill them?

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Theyve been wrong again and again and again

That is called science dude. When there is a new thing you don't know the new think. You make models based on old things, you make predictions, you adjust the model, bis repetita.

[ArtificialSoldier]

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mille-feuille as we like to say in France: layers and layers of buttery bullshit

Here in America we prefer I Can't Believe It's Not Bullshit.

[macosxnerd101]

Splashsky, on 20 May 2020 - 01:27 PM, said:

I feel bad for those old folk. I don't want people to die. Which is also why I want life to continue.

The argument here is that old people should die so that we can go out to eat at an Applebees. Since Applebees has a limited menu right now, I have to wonder- what item did they have on their menu that Splashsky misses enough to sacrifice the old folks in our society?

This post has been edited by macosxnerd101: 20 May 2020 - 02:18 PM

[jon.kiparsky]

Gotta be the mozzarella sticks, right?

[ArtificialSoldier]

I'm willing to talk a lot of shit about the old people and their voting habits and how I think we would have better policies if they weren't a major voting block, but when it comes down to it I have to remember what these old people went through in their lives and what they saw. If they personally, or witnessed a sibling or parent, fought in WW2 then as an American I feel obligated to let them live out their life however they see fit even if I don't agree with their votes. I can spout a lot of political hyperbole about socialized medicine, but if they want to vote against it they've earned the right and I just need to wait and let them live out their life in dignity, not hoping for a respirator.

I'm in my 40s, watching WW2 documentaries is now required, and I don't forget it. It was an extremely brutal time for the world and during 1944 and 1945 there were still people ready to enlist as soon as they could even knowing what happened to our military, especially in the Pacific, from 1941 to 1943. They saw it and still signed up, and if the only thing I'm being asked to do for them is keep a respectful distance and wear a mask it's really not too much for me to do.

So there's an appeal-to-emotion bit of patriotism for you, make of it what you will.

[ArtificialSoldier]

I wonder where something like this fits in with the talking point about livelihoods being at stake.

[ArtificialSoldier]

In my current role in my company as Chief Meme Officer I occasionally run into quasi-relevant material.



OK, have a good night.

[ge∅]

I don't like appeal to emotion and poetry because when the argument is rubbish you can't see it.

You don't deserve to live. It's a right. As a French I have a lot of respect for the old American folks who once fought in Normandie but I grant the same right to live to the old Brazilian folks who were smoking pot.

This question is not even relevant.

When in Vietnam they were doing this with a record of 324 confirmed case and 0 deaths and only a small region of the country on lockdown for only 1 month, people in California were doing this with a record of 84,000 cases and 3,436 deaths.

I don't know how you call it. I call it a cluster during a pandemic for one thing, and I call it stupid. In Vietnam people respect social distancing, wear masks, comply, and share stuff like that whereas in western countries people like Splashky spread misinformation, distract attention by appealing to grand ideals, put other people in danger and make freedom happen later in the name of freedom.

[ArtificialSoldier]

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As a French I have a lot of respect for the old American folks who once fought in Normandie but I grant the same right to live to the old Brazilian folks who were smoking pot.

This question is not even relevant.

That's a good point. Incidentally, my wife's Brazilian sister is literally one of those people.

As far as America and France, I'm glad that we could help France in WW2 because we owed France a great debt.

Vive Lafayette, vive liberté, égalité, fraternité.

In other news, day drinking on low work days causes +200% appeal to emotion.

[jon.kiparsky]

Splashsky, on 20 May 2020 - 02:27 PM, said:

You all seem to still be convinced that 30 million lost jobs, increases in suicide and domestic abuse, the move towards a literal police state, and the push for untested vaccines that likely will cause the same issues they did when pushed in India a few years ago, will end up a better result than just ripping the bandaid off and getting over it. A good economist knows there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. You seem to be willing to sacrifice freedom and your livelihood and the livelihoods of your fellows on the altar of unelected officials who've been wrong about COVID almost the whole time.

This paragraph is almost perfectly fucked up. There are flat-out lies, brass-balled hypocrisy, a couple of own goals (who's pushing for untested vaccines, again? you better look that one up, try "operation warp speed". Who's the prominent public official who's been "wrong about COVID the whole time"?) and a lot of stuff that just literally makes no sense at all. "Literal police state" is a good one - sounds fancy. Means nothing, and has no connection to reality. But the best is the bit about "sacrifice freedom on the altar of unelected officials". That actually is word salad. Do you even read this stuff before you hit the "post" button, or do you just transcribe stuff from the radio when it sounds good?

Come on, man. At some point it's gotta start to be kind of humiliating to know that every sentence you write is completely wrong and more often than not pretty much incoherent. Who's feeding you this stuff, and when are you going to grow a pair and start thinking for yourself?

[DarenR]

you'll like this treat:

My link

[ArtificialSoldier]

I thought we were going to see something like this:

https://www.npr.org/...are-likely-bots

The polls showing huge support for the common sense rules, combined with all of these anti-lockdown Facebook groups and websites that were all using the same text, made it seem like someone was trying to amplify the opposition to the lockdown. It's straight out of Russia's playbook from 2015/2016, just identify any wedge issue, no matter how small, and amplify it. Not that there aren't 10 to 20% of people who don't think the lockdown is a great idea, but it feels like the pushes to protest (and that awesome MAGA boat parade in SC) just might be organized by someone who is not American but wants to make you think they are.