Day of Chaos 2: a.Covid-19 thread.

[TordelBack]

I know it's a bit of a cliché, but never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

I'll take the middle ground: greed. I wouldn't ascribe homicidal motives, but the results wont be much different. Competence is provided to government in the public health team's advice, completely ignoring it is all about personal and professional gain.

[sheridan]

I know it's a bit of a cliché, but never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

I'll take the middle ground: greed. I wouldn't ascribe homicidal motives, but the results wont be much different. Competence is provided to government in the public health team's advice, completely ignoring it is all about personal and professional gain.

Ordinarily I'd assume incompetence, but the theory outlined above would help reduce the pensions crisis in this country (and our beloved government do keep banging on about the economy).

[IndigoPrime]

I think they're a combination of lazy and driven by economics. When you look at everything — COVID; Brexit — through that lens, most of the choices being made make a lot more sense. So they don't care for details, only listen to what they want to hear, and make decisions on short-term economic factors. Hence we have the absurd notion right now of thousands of people being packed into stadiums again, for potentially hundreds of weekly super-spreader events, shops reopening, and Christmas free-for-all, when there are vaccines on the way.

I also suspect the government needs to be setting expectations regarding vaccines a lot better. There's a lot of "we've got this under control" (half true—but that really means flattened rather than squashed) and "life will return to normal next spring". On the last of those, it just won't. We'll need to vaccinate something in the region of 30–40 million people for things to return to something approaching normal. Govt estimate—which, let's face it, was probably very optimistic—was one million a week. Unless that can be ramped up substantially, next Christmas could be normal again, but even next summer probably won't be for many.

(That said, some normalisation can occur with staggered rollouts. For example, if my parents got vaccinated, my kid could start seeing them again.)

[Jim_Campbell]

Spent most of yesterday battling with Covid conspiracy theorists and general-purpose anti-vaxxers on my home town's community Facebook page. The confidence with which they trot out astonishingly obvious falsehoods, utterly debunked 'sources', or fall back on "I'm not going to do your research for you — it's all on the internet" is terrifying and depressing in equal measure.

I'm increasingly coming to the view that, although I've found social media to be a net benefit in my life, in aggregate it's doing far more harm than good.

[TordelBack]

It's the manner in which parroted slogans and concepts proliferate over social media that really irritates me. Over and over again you see the same half-dozen nonsensical phrases thrown into every argument, each time as if they've just pulled a royal flush out of their arse and you're just too dumb to recognise the cards. "Great reset!".

I'd differentiate this from people who present complex arguments, with different priorities or weightings given to studies and projections etc. And thus different (wrong) conclusions.  It's frustrating, but they're at least trying to navigate this mess through observation and reason (and bias) same as the rest of us.

Or even perhaps those that present personal anecdotes as evidence (I'm thinking of anti-vax horror stories here): while it's unwise to place your individual experience ahead of the merciless number-crunching of science, I can still at least understand the impulse (having done a fair bit of it myself recently).

But chanting internet slogans in lieu of any argument, I just don't get.

[The Legendary Shark]

A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19.

(Note - the above link is to an archived version as the original was deleted by JHU, explanations here and here.)

[Funt Solo]

The article was removed because it was COVID-denial bullshit dressed up (poorly) as science and published in a student newspaper by some conspiracy twonk. Do you wonder how the writer sleeps at night, as they willingly provoke the death of others by spreading misinformation about the deadliness of a global pandemic?

Not something anyone around here would do, thankfully.

[The Legendary Shark]

If it was poor science, all it needed was some good science to balance it out, cast doubt, add to, or disprove it. The figures can be checked by anyone. Well, if they aren't deleted of course.

To simply remove it is politics, not science (in which we are supposed to trust).

[IndigoPrime]

If you want 'balance', perhaps read the retraction and why it was deleted: https://retractionwatch.com/2020/11/27/johns-hopkins-student-newspaper-deletes-then-retracts-article-on-faculty-members-presentation-about-covid-19-deaths/

The whole 'COVID hasn't made any odds' angle is baffling. Every single country has seen a massive spike in excess deaths this year. Sure, that _could_ in some cases be coincidence, but that it aligns worldwide with a pandemic suggests otherwise, even before you take into account death certificates.

And I'm tired of crackpot papers needing to be disproved by good science when there is a ton of good science out there. This is no different from people arguing the Earth is flat and yelling at people to prove it when we've had photos of our roundish planet for ages.

[Funt Solo]

There is good science to balance it out, already extant, which you didn't bother to link to (because you have an agenda, which has nothing to do with truth-seeking).

You're not suggesting that each article written with an agenda requires an equal amount of words in another article in order to refute it, I hope. Because that would be stupid, right? Arguments aren't see-saws.

(Your third link, anyway, does the disproving.)

Mind game: imagine I want to make you believe something. Apparently, all I have to do is dress up in a white coat, carry a clipboard, present some charts and (this is key) appeal directly to your prejudices, and you'll be entirely under my spell.

If it was poor science, all it needed was some good science to balance it out, cast doubt, add to, or disprove it. The figures can be checked by anyone. Well, if they aren't deleted of course.

[Funt Solo]

Covid: US doctor's video simulates what dying patient sees

Yes, but - aha! Who's to say he isn't part of the global governmental conspiracy set up to reset the economy in order to - YES - control the sheeple! If you think otherwise you are a sheeple person. I have other clever catch-phrases - like plandemic! AHA! Yes. And ... G5! To control us! Gates! Tin foil hats! Illuminatis! Mushrooms! Ahahahaaaaaa...

[The Legendary Shark]

If you want 'balance', perhaps read the
retraction and why it was deleted: https://
retractionwatch.com/2020/11/27/johns-
hopkins-student-newspaper-deletes-then-
retracts-article-on-faculty-members-
presentation-about-covid-19-deaths/

I posted two other links alongside the link to the article in an attempt to present balance and context.

Mind game: imagine I want to make you believe something. Apparently, all I have to do is dress up in a white coat, carry a clipboard, present some charts and (this is key) appeal directly to your prejudices, and you'll be entirely under my spell.

That's certainly at least a part of it. A very worrying part.


What to make of it all is for you to decide.

[Funt Solo]

All I'm doing is presenting a flame to this petrol that I've poured on the floor - whether it catches light is entirely up to the petrol.

[The Legendary Shark]

"All you're doing" is throwing fallacies about like confetti.

[Funt Solo]

Uhm ... I am rubber, you are glue?

---

Q. Why did you post up the first link? Was it to open up a free debate about the nature of truth? Was it to try to expose a deeper conspiracy? You must have had a motive. If you don't reveal it, I'm left with no option but to make assumptions based on the information I do have.

From what you've said before, it would seem that the motive is to tie in to your favored conspiracy theory about a secret global cabal with nefarious intent. Part of that is to suggest that Covid is less harmful than it actually is.

Sometimes you hide behind the false logic that if there are two sides to an argument, then it's fair to suppose that either could be correct. (See also: supernatural beings.) Thus, my response to your "balance and context" approach. It's still not a see-saw.