Coronavirus

[Mind Maverick]

VG is very civil and emotionally grounded in the way he presents disagreements, but I wouldn't mind an apology from rest of the less emotionally stable presenters on this forum who for whatever reason can't seem to have a conversation with someone they disagree with without blowing a gasket.

I apologize for nothing. I only get reactive when someone is a dick, intentionally warping logic, using personal attacks, being rude, etc.

EDIT:
Not to mention when I see someone accusing actual victims of just making up things to cry victim about it deeply angers me because those people tend to victimize people then fault them for being victims and it's something an abuser of mine did my whole life.

 

[Virtual ghost]

You're not wrong. But they don't care about 100k dead or a million dead or millions dead. They want you to arrive at the point where you also agree that it doesn't matter and that these deaths are acceptable losses.

As long as they have something to blame (China) and can go back to their comfortable world and income, none of the deaths or suffering makes any difference at all so why are you making such a huge argument about it? It's the identical argument the right makes on climate change or any other world wide crisis that they don't care about and are not about to fork over any money to improve.

Simple answer to this is that I can get hooked up over stuff I consider factually/scientifically wrong. While more complex answer is that I like that the argumentation is visible to everyone. Simple insults just don't do it for me and in my book I am still giving relatively simple answers. But I don't have unlimited time and therefore I at least aim that the basic skeleton or point behind the idea is clear. Especially if I sense that there is fair amount of doubt "in the air".



On the other hand I was indeed planning to quiet down in this "duel" and I never posted my next reply in the line. Since it is kinda obvious that something in real life struck the guy to behave this much over the line. Is it virus in "personal space", bad news at work or general atmosphere it is hard to tell. While if I am right the life as he knows it is possibly over, what isn't small thing. Actually for the sake of everyone here will be the best that I am at least half wrong. But when I see something that I register as wrong and it is publicly displayed I try to strike down the argument for everyone to see. This is just in me.

 

[anticlimatic]

I apologize for nothing. I only get reactive when someone is a dick, intentionally warping logic, using personal attacks, being rude, etc.

EDIT:
Not to mention when I see someone accusing actual victims of just making up things to cry victim about it deeply angers me because those people tend to victimize people then fault them for being victims and it's something an abuser of mine did my whole life.

We've all got our triggers. It's always tough to own them. We all make mistakes. None of that is any reason to give up on trying to be civil.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Here in Italy there's a debate going on about MOST of those people, even if they had other illnesses, wouldn't have died from them.

This would be my replay as well. It isn't that US isn't full of people who don't have the money for their chronic health problems.

 

[Mind Maverick]

We've all got our triggers. It's always tough to own them. We all make mistakes. None of that is any reason to give up on trying to be civil.

It's not a mistake. Not all of us value being 100% calm and controlled all the time or see it as taboo to express our feelings or think we have to be "civil" to the point of our voices being silenced, having no say in how someone treats us or others around. Anger exists for a reason and I won't apologize for getting angry when someone is a douche. When someone's a dick I'm going to speak up and say something about it.

I feel a sense of responsibility to call it out also, because not everyone will notice the infectious subtleties going on if someone doesn't.

 

[Red Herring]

Amazing.

Better view

COVID MAP 522B.pdf - Google Drive

Is this satire or are there people who genuinely believe this stuff? I am honestly confused here. I mean, I've heard of QAnon, but this is a bit much for anyone not currently under psychiatric treatment.

 

[anticlimatic]

It's not a mistake. Not all of us value being 100% calm and controlled all the time or see it as taboo to express our feelings or think we have to be "civil" to the point of our voices being silenced, having no say in how someone treats us or others around. Anger exists for a reason and I won't apologize for getting angry when someone is a douche. When someone's a dick I'm going to speak up and say something about it.

I feel a sense of responsibility to call it out also, because not everyone will notice the infectious subtleties going on if someone doesn't.

I consider this a bit of a childish sentiment. Not that you're not entitled to it, or entitled to see it differently. I just don't see how it serves anyone in an objectively positive way.

 

[Mind Maverick]

I consider this a bit of a childish sentiment. Not that you're not entitled to it, or entitled to see it differently. I just don't see how it serves anyone in an objectively positive way.

See it however you want to. Doesn't make it true.

Anger is best viewed as a tool that helps us read and respond to upsetting social situations. Research overwhelmingly indicates that feeling angry increases optimism, creativity, effective performance—and research suggests that expressing anger can lead to more successful negotiations, in life or on the job.

In fact, repressing anger can actually hurt you. Dr. Ernest Harburg and his team at the University of Michigan School of Public Health spent several decades tracking the same adults in a longitudinal study of anger. They found that men and women who hid the anger they felt in response to an unjust attack subsequently found themselves more likely to get bronchitis and heart attacks, and were more likely to die earlier than peers who let their anger be known when other people were annoying.

That's about as objectively positive as it gets.

When anger arises, we feel called upon to prevent or terminate immediate threats to our welfare, or to the well-being of those we care about. Altruism is often born from anger; when it comes to mobilizing other people and creating support for a cause, no emotion is stronger. It’s a mistake to presume that kindness, compassion, love, and fairness line up on one side of a continuum, and anger, rage, and dislike, on another side. Positivity alone is insufficient to the task of helping us navigate social interactions and relationships. A healthy society is not an anger-free society.

Caution around anger is certainly smart, as is the knowledge that it should not be overused, or used with everyone. With these reservations, the expression of authentic anger can be entirely appropriate with certain people in certain situations. The question is how you do that without letting it go too far. What is the right way to get mad?

And that last question is a part I'm still working on, as I am human and Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

[Vendrah]

VG is very civil and emotionally grounded in the way he presents disagreements, but I wouldn't mind an apology from rest of the less emotionally stable presenters on this forum who for whatever reason can't seem to have a conversation with someone they disagree with without blowing a gasket.

I guess the 100,000 US dead people wouldn't mind an apologize from your side too.

Thats the problem, these things are way beyond mere opinions.
It is these opinions that decides if people are going to live or die, because they will shape measures.
It is these opinions that decides if people lives are going to suck or not.

Your line of opinion pretty much resumes what Brazil is today.
People dying a lot and not much carehood.
Countries likely going to see here as the latest center of the pandemic.
And a lot of whatsapp fake messages with fake stuff daily.

 

[ceecee]

Is this satire or are there people who genuinely believe this stuff? I am honestly confused here. I mean, I've heard of QAnon, but this is a bit much for anyone not currently under psychiatric treatment.

I didn't think there was much to QAnon it until I went to a Trump rally back in 2019. I haven't though that since I saw them, how they talked, how they indoctrinate their children. I figured it was a matter of time before someone wove the conspiracy theories with Biblical insanity and here we are.

The Church of QAnon: Will conspiracy theories form the basis of a new religious movement?

Mark Taylor is a Trump prophet for lack of a better word. He has a huge You Tube following. He preaches about the Seven Mountains of Societal Influence. Incidentally this is the same thing Ted Cruz's father preaches, it's what Mike Pompeo believes, Betsy DeVos as well.

https://homecongregations.org/wp-co...The-Seven-Mountains-of-Societal-Influence.pdf

It's not just a conspiracy theory handful of crazies. It's worldwide and it's dangerous.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Here in Italy there's a debate going on about MOST of those people, even if they had other illnesses, wouldn't have died from them.

From a May 11th New York Times piece about the fatalities count:

The claim was tailor-made for President Trump’s most steadfast backers: Federal guidelines are coaching doctors to mark Covid-19 as the cause of death even when it is not, inflating the pandemic’s death toll.

That the claim came from a doctor, Scott Jensen, who also happens to be a Republican state senator in Minnesota, made it all the more alluring to the president’s allies. Never mind the experts who said that, if anything, the death toll was being vastly undercounted.*
​

It quickly spread to Fox, Alex Jones/Infowars, Qanon, and surfaced in countless memes (guy with coronavirus skydiving, parachute fails to open -> officially died from coronavirus; guy with coronavirus mauled by bear -> officially died from coronavirus; etc). It's just an unsubstantiated talking point that some people have latched onto and are determined to stick with it.

*U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported, C.D.C. Data Suggests

 

[anticlimatic]

I guess the 100,000 US dead people wouldn't mind an apologize from your side too.

Whose side do you think I'm on? The virus?

I care about people in general a lot more than most people around here, I can promise you that- but no amount of pearl clutching will inspire me to put critical thinking on ice.

The big debate: is lockdown wrong? | Spectator USA

The reason so many governments across the world decided to place their citizens under virtual house arrest is because the World Health Organisation praised China for doing that on January 29th. Worth noting that in Wuhan and neighbouring cities this involved mandatory testing of the entire population, with the imprisonment of all those who tested positive in purpose-built ‘hospitals’ and literally boarding up in their homes anyone who tested negative. This was a massive over-reaction by China’s Communist leadership, which was embarrassed because it had initially denied there was a problem and, after finally admitting it, only imposed a travel ban on January 23rd, after an estimated five million people had left Wuhan to fan out across the country to celebrate Chinese New Year.

So a knee-jerk response by a totalitarian dictatorship, which involved denying tens of millions of people their basic rights, was then mimicked by the rest of the world, thanks to the sage advice of the WHO.

The suspension of civil liberties across the world — in the UK, the right to trial by jury has been suspended, which dates back to the 13th century — might conceivably have been justified if there was compelling evidence that lockdowns suppressed fatalities, but there ain’t. Zilch, nada, bupkis.

Compare the deaths-per-100,000 in those countries that have locked up their citizens with the deaths-per-100,000 in those that haven’t and there’s no evidence that lockdowns have ‘worked’. Nor do you see a relationship between the severity of the shutdown and the deaths-per-100,000.

OK, comparing the course of the pandemic in one country to its course in another is hard, not least because they often count deaths differently. But compare the deaths-per-100,000 in those US states that issued stay-at-home orders, such as New York, with those that didn’t, such as Arkansas. No evidence lockdowns were effective. Delaying lockdowns, as in Georgia, didn’t result in a tsunami of deaths either, as Gov. Brian Kemp’s critics predicted. Nor have those states that have ended lockdowns early seen an uptick in infections, as JP Morgan has pointed out. The lifecycle of the pandemic wherever it’s broken out seems to follow exactly the same pattern, with no connection to the vast majority of the non-pharmaceutical interventions leaders have put in place.

The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life | TheHill

Our governmental COVID-19 mitigation policy of broad societal lockdown focuses on containing the spread of the disease at all costs, instead of “flattening the curve” and preventing hospital overcrowding. Although well-intentioned, the lockdown was imposed without consideration of its consequences beyond those directly from the pandemic.

The policies have created the greatest global economic disruption in history, with trillions of dollars of lost economic output. These financial losses have been falsely portrayed as purely economic. To the contrary, using numerous National Institutes of Health Public Access publications, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and various actuarial tables, we calculate that these policies will cause devastating non-economic consequences that will total millions of accumulated years of life lost in the United States, far beyond what the virus itself has caused.

Statistically, every $10 million to $24 million lost in U.S. incomes results in one additional death. One portion of this effect is through unemployment, which leads to an average increase in mortality of at least 60 percent. That translates into 7,200 lives lost per month among the 36 million newly unemployed Americans, over 40 percent of whom are not expected to regain their jobs. In addition, many small business owners are near financial collapse, creating lost wealth that results in mortality increases of 50 percent. With an average estimate of one additional lost life per $17 million income loss, that would translate to 65,000 lives lost in the U.S. for each month because of the economic shutdown.

In addition to lives lost because of lost income, lives also are lost due to delayed or foregone health care imposed by the shutdown and the fear it creates among patients. From personal communications with neurosurgery colleagues, about half of their patients have not appeared for treatment of disease which, left untreated, risks brain hemorrhage, paralysis or death.

Here are the examples of missed health care on which we base our calculations: Emergency stroke evaluations are down 40 percent. Of the 650,000 cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in the United States, an estimated half are missing their treatments. Of the 150,000 new cancer cases typically discovered each month in the U.S., most – as elsewhere in the world – are not being diagnosed, and two-thirds to three-fourths of routine cancer screenings are not happening because of shutdown policies and fear among the population. Nearly 85 percent fewer living-donor transplants are occurring now, compared to the same period last year. In addition, more than half of childhood vaccinations are not being performed, setting up the potential of a massive future health disaster.

The implications of treatment delays for situations other than COVID-19 result in 8,000 U.S. deaths per month of the shutdown, or about 120,000 years of remaining life. Missed strokes contribute an additional loss of 100,000 years of life for each month; late cancer diagnoses lose 250,000 years of remaining life for each month; missing living-donor transplants, another 5,000 years of life per month — and, if even 10 percent of vaccinations are not done, the result is an additional 24,000 years of life lost each month.

These unintended consequences of missed health care amount to more than 500,000 lost years of life per month, not including all the other known skipped care.

 

[Maou]

What the Coronavirus Revealed About Life in Red vs. Blue States - The New York Times

 

[Maou]

California budget cuts: CA Governor Gavin Newsom says first responders will likely be among '''first ones''' laid off under budget cuts - ABC7 San Francisco

Is California really trying to threaten laying off first responders to get bailed out? They have 100s of other shit programs they can cut instead. Grow the fuck up California, and learn to balance your checkbook instead of crying to daddy when you max out your credit card.

 

[Vendrah]

Whose side do you think I'm on? The virus?

I care about people in general a lot more than most people around here, I can promise you that- but no amount of pearl clutching will inspire me to put critical thinking on ice.

Search is broken and politics area has been cleaning, so lucky of you.
But in my first months after my 2nd post on the forum, you had a statement of an weird dream of yours of putting "sheeple" (and world is so full of them according to you) in something like a dumping ground, and that they even should pay you to dig the hole they deserve to be.
This sounds heavy but I am sure a few people here could remember that memorable post of yours. And based on that memorable post of yours I can say that it would be at least an inconsistency of you telling me that you care a lot about people in general whereas most of these people are the sheeple from that post.

And second here, let me hypothetically describe how a person that is on the side of the virus would behave alike.
- The person would be against measures that prevents the virus to spread - like quarantine. [check]
- The person would be against the masks and preventive stuff [check]
- The person would be against doing anything at all and be acting like nothing is happening [check]

So, yeah, you are acting and arguing like you are on the virus side. If I were playing a game where you infect all human population and use a virus to make humanity go to extinction (there is a game like that), you would be the "normal" kind of human in easy mode, where few people care, few people do something, easy game - for the player managing the virus.

The big debate: is lockdown wrong? | Spectator USA



The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life | TheHill

I want to know why the text is disappearing on the quote lol.
The first quote link is funny at the beginning. I just thought for two seconds that the first image was the flat earth
That claim seems to be based (since the source you had shows nothing at all) on a JP Morgan study. I go a little bit further on the link quoted on that news.
The big number of studies seems to be actually one (the JP Morgan), which the original source is not available.
The data shows confusing graphs that, instead of a R0 and daily deaths in time-line fashion is shown, its shown something that I believe are these rates after a week? Yeah "with a 7-day lag", it seems that it is a week, but the virus takes 7-14 days to act (as infection), plus a week or two to kill. Not only the 7-day scale is not enough, but the lack of showing this graph through time smells as manipulation, since the source is trying to not show me the big picture but rather only a part of it when showing the big picture is easy (two days compared when they have a sample for 8 days at least).
So, yeah, so far the statement "quarantines dont work, we have backup data" doesnt actually seem to have backup data.
Some people might forget the global picture - [MENTION=4347]Virtual ghost[/MENTION] might be tuned to it, me not that much - but as far as I know here in Brazil there was never really a quarantine, it was made in half thanks for the far right wing efforts (protesters included), which made the cases explode, and thats because they are masking numbers. And another thing, global picture is best, one of the reasons I dont like focusing too much on US is that I dont vote for or against Trump - I cant vote in the US elections.

About the second quote - well, I guess you consider yourself a "republican" , right?
Well, its extremely funny going for that consideration - that at least the source is "republican" and taking it as a far right view.
Protesters in Brazil against quarantine are pro military dictatorship (and mostly "republicans"). Yeah, with these words, they scream freedom and them screams "AI-5" and are super pro military dictatorship. What I take from this is that the word "Freedom" here is a big flat lie. They are not looking for freedom; They are looking for something else.

And things get a lot funny when a lot of democrats causes and demands - at least those on my local region - has everything to do with the arguments used by your second quote.
If the democrats demands of Universal Income was attended, nobody would "die" from unemployment. Yet, Republicans are traditionally against this. And now they are saying "Ooohh poor people dying from unemployment" like they care? Really?
It gets worse when I realize that in this piece of text they also mention loss of income.
Being poor is the pure definition of income loss. Poor people lose income every day in capitalism. Democrats stand against huge inequality because of this - it kills. Yet, republicans are against any measure of this sort of, support the inequality, and now they are saying "these poor people are losing income". Really?
And then goes the talk to small business. I bet that democrats on your country were against assisting the big business and were pro giving the money to labour and small business. The neoliberalist minister from Brazil had a saying about this last month: "Saving the big ones is the deal, supporting the small ones is losing money" [something like that].
And then comes the passage where goes to the missed healthcare - except that privatizing the whole health system is a republican measure that actuallys induce missed healthcare to be the status quo. Democrats are mostly for the public system of healthcare, to avoid the missed healthcare.

Let me do a recap:
- Against Universal Income, but now on Corona Virus say sorry for people who die from unemployment (I think blaming the democrats as happens on Brazil is not happening there - I hope).
- Against Public Health, but now say sorry that people are missing healthcare.
- Against better Gini (less income inequality), but now say sorry that poor people are missing money.
- Against giving money to small business and favour big business instead, yet saying sorry for the crash of small business.

My lesson and point here is: These are all like the argument of "Freedom" on the brazilian protest that supports military dictatorship and says that the quarantine is taking away Freedom: F-A-K-E. These are not the real intentions, and nor are what they truly stands for or want with quarantine ending.

Now you might say: I can turn that against democrats.
Let me anticipate that and give these points:
- If the Universal Income point were given before as democrats requested, no one would be "dying from unemployment" (because people were already dying from that before).
- If the Universal Public Health were given before as democrats requested, at least in the past, and also in the present, the missing healthcare would be at least reduced.
- If the income disparity were reduced as democrats requested, then people at bottom would be better "equipped" to deal with this.
- If the money were prioritized to small business, well.. Its already obvious, I think.

And anticipating another post: [MENTION=4347]Virtual ghost[/MENTION] "You are repeating me with other words".
My answer: I am, and clearer than this is hard. I am repeating the points we made before that free market wasnt ready for this and that neoliberalism destroyed the means to deal with this.

It is incredibly how all these losses are obviously screaming that neoliberalism doesnt work, yet they are using their own flaws to get these same flaws to get neoliberalism back running as quick as possible. I want to do this compliment: The manipulation that neoliberalism folk does is indeed ingenious. I would never be able to use flaws of my own approachs as an argument to keep my own approach and convince anybody out of that.

Aw, finally, end of post, I was getting tired of writing.

 

[anticlimatic]

Search is broken and politics area has been cleaning, so lucky of you.
But in my first months after my 2nd post on the forum, you had a statement of an weird dream of yours of putting "sheeple" (and world is so full of them according to you) in something like a dumping ground, and that they even should pay you to dig the hole they deserve to be.
This sounds heavy but I am sure a few people here could remember that memorable post of yours. And based on that memorable post of yours I can say that it would be at least an inconsistency of you telling me that you care a lot about people in general whereas most of these people are the sheeple from that post.

And second here, let me hypothetically describe how a person that is on the side of the virus would behave alike.
- The person would be against measures that prevents the virus to spread - like quarantine. [check]
- The person would be against the masks and preventive stuff [check]
- The person would be against doing anything at all and be acting like nothing is happening [check]

So, yeah, you are acting and arguing like you are on the virus side. If I were playing a game where you infect all human population and use a virus to make humanity go to extinction (there is a game like that), you would be the "normal" kind of human in easy mode, where few people care, few people do something, easy game - for the player managing the virus.



I want to know why the text is disappearing on the quote lol.
The first quote link is funny at the beginning. I just thought for two seconds that the first image was the flat earth
That claim seems to be based (since the source you had shows nothing at all) on a JP Morgan study. I go a little bit further on the link quoted on that news.
The big number of studies seems to be actually one (the JP Morgan), which the original source is not available.
The data shows confusing graphs that, instead of a R0 and daily deaths in time-line fashion is shown, its shown something that I believe are these rates after a week? Yeah "with a 7-day lag", it seems that it is a week, but the virus takes 7-14 days to act (as infection), plus a week or two to kill. Not only the 7-day scale is not enough, but the lack of showing this graph through time smells as manipulation, since the source is trying to not show me the big picture but rather only a part of it when showing the big picture is easy (two days compared when they have a sample for 8 days at least).
So, yeah, so far the statement "quarantines dont work, we have backup data" doesnt actually seem to have backup data.
Some people might forget the global picture - [MENTION=4347]Virtual ghost[/MENTION] might be tuned to it, me not that much - but as far as I know here in Brazil there was never really a quarantine, it was made in half thanks for the far right wing efforts (protesters included), which made the cases explode, and thats because they are masking numbers. And another thing, global picture is best, one of the reasons I dont like focusing too much on US is that I dont vote for or against Trump - I cant vote in the US elections.

About the second quote - well, I guess you consider yourself a "republican" , right?
Well, its extremely funny going for that consideration - that at least the source is "republican" and taking it as a far right view.
Protesters in Brazil against quarantine are pro military dictatorship (and mostly "republicans"). Yeah, with these words, they scream freedom and them screams "AI-5" and are super pro military dictatorship. What I take from this is that the word "Freedom" here is a big flat lie. They are not looking for freedom; They are looking for something else.

And things get a lot funny when a lot of democrats causes and demands - at least those on my local region - has everything to do with the arguments used by your second quote.
If the democrats demands of Universal Income was attended, nobody would "die" from unemployment. Yet, Republicans are traditionally against this. And now they are saying "Ooohh poor people dying from unemployment" like they care? Really?
It gets worse when I realize that in this piece of text they also mention loss of income.
Being poor is the pure definition of income loss. Poor people lose income every day in capitalism. Democrats stand against huge inequality because of this - it kills. Yet, republicans are against any measure of this sort of, support the inequality, and now they are saying "these poor people are losing income". Really?
And then goes the talk to small business. I bet that democrats on your country were against assisting the big business and were pro giving the money to labour and small business. The neoliberalist minister from Brazil had a saying about this last month: "Saving the big ones is the deal, supporting the small ones is losing money" [something like that].
And then comes the passage where goes to the missed healthcare - except that privatizing the whole health system is a republican measure that actuallys induce missed healthcare to be the status quo. Democrats are mostly for the public system of healthcare, to avoid the missed healthcare.

Let me do a recap:
- Against Universal Income, but now on Corona Virus say sorry for people who die from unemployment (I think blaming the democrats as happens on Brazil is not happening there - I hope).
- Against Public Health, but now say sorry that people are missing healthcare.
- Against better Gini (less income inequality), but now say sorry that poor people are missing money.
- Against giving money to small business and favour big business instead, yet saying sorry for the crash of small business.

My lesson and point here is: These are all like the argument of "Freedom" on the brazilian protest that supports military dictatorship and says that the quarantine is taking away Freedom: F-A-K-E. These are not the real intentions, and nor are what they truly stands for or want with quarantine ending.

Now you might say: I can turn that against democrats.
Let me anticipate that and give these points:
- If the Universal Income point were given before as democrats requested, no one would be "dying from unemployment" (because people were already dying from that before).
- If the Universal Public Health were given before as democrats requested, at least in the past, and also in the present, the missing healthcare would be at least reduced.
- If the income disparity were reduced as democrats requested, then people at bottom would be better "equipped" to deal with this.
- If the money were prioritized to small business, well.. Its already obvious, I think.

And anticipating another post: [MENTION=4347]Virtual ghost[/MENTION] "You are repeating me with other words".
My answer: I am, and clearer than this is hard. I am repeating the points we made before that free market wasnt ready for this and that neoliberalism destroyed the means to deal with this.

It is incredibly how all these losses are obviously screaming that neoliberalism doesnt work, yet they are using their own flaws to get these same flaws to get neoliberalism back running as quick as possible. I want to do this compliment: The manipulation that neoliberalism folk does is indeed ingenious. I would never be able to use flaws of my own approachs as an argument to keep my own approach and convince anybody out of that.

Aw, finally, end of post, I was getting tired of writing.

Very long post, I commend your efforts. You're right per cause and effect that if the US were different, things would have probably transpired differently. However, it is not. Nor will it be. Like a majority of Americans, I have no interest in completely reshaping the country the way that democrats want. Everybody wants some degree of small change, but most do not want to scrap the entire system. Using a pandemic to push a prior political agenda is pretty egregious. People like you accuse me of wanting to kill grandma, yet you celebrate her death as a means to your ends. Sorry, but no thank you. We will work with what we have, and we will be just fine.

 

[Mind Maverick]

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Comparing deaths per million. Link to interactive chart.

 

[Mind Maverick]

Top vaccine scientist: COVID-19 is 'almost perfectly human adapted'

 

[Vendrah]

Very long post, I commend your efforts. You're right per cause and effect that if the US were different, things would have probably transpired differently. However, it is not. Nor will it be. Like a majority of Americans, I have no interest in completely reshaping the country the way that democrats want. Everybody wants some degree of small change, but most do not want to scrap the entire system. Using a pandemic to push a prior political agenda is pretty egregious. People like you accuse me of wanting to kill grandma, yet you celebrate her death as a means to your ends. Sorry, but no thank you. We will work with what we have, and we will be just fine.

I phrased in a democratic VS republicans way to clear how "hypocrital" most of these far right wing websites against the quarantine are, since they are showing care for people they didnt cared before about the pandemic. But the core message is always towards what I and [MENTION=4347]Virtual ghost[/MENTION] discussed many pages ago on this thread: Its neoliberalism problems, and very few people are discussing it. As I mentioned in many pages ago, we have technology for high enduring food, for properly supplying and to keep society hibernation. US has structure to keep that for an year at least if they wanted to. This is not happening because the high society inequality combined with high marketing and consumerism influence prevented people from having savings to be able to pay for the costs and because of an inability to decrease both income and costs in the market side, with business being unable to cut temporarily their costs to near zero while the income is near zero as well. This is the basic resume, we had paragraphs of talking.

In the end, these deaths are indeed from neoliberalism consequences of the past, present and will be in the future. Cutting poor people´s income to increase the size of super rich success, privatizing the health care system, being against a Universal Income and not truly have an alternative for it, these are all neoliberalism traits and attitudes. That is the political agenda that pushes death, ruins people live, but also the one that assist some other few lives. I see that you are on the lucky ones that benefits from it. The quarantine are to prevent the death of Grandma's and the openings are sacrificing the Grandma's to push the neoliberalism back because, you know, somebody might be missing some profits.

If your political agenda already brings death in one way or another, my opposition to it is more related to an act of "humanity" than to really support a democrat party. If your political agenda takes deaths as a mean to an end - and, actually, that exactly describe your position and not mine - then my opposition is is an act of "humanity" as well.

Remember, Humanity.