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Ancient History
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Post by Ancient History » Tue Mar 31, 2020 12:33 pm

Today in "eat shit and die":
https://thecritic.co.uk/has-the-governm ... us-crisis/

> Even if we accept the statistical modelling of Dr Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College, which I’ll come to in a minute, spending £350 billion to prolong the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people is an irresponsible use of taxpayers’ money. That may sound cold-hearted, but this isn’t a straightforward trade-off between public health and economic health. [...] Yes, I probably have at least 20 years of healthy living ahead of me, so my life is worth more than £500,000, but I’ll be the exception. In the unlikely event of the NHS being overwhelmed, the majority of people whose lives could have been saved only have one or two years left and those will not be good years. It isn’t worth spending £185 billion to save them, nor is it worth a 15% drop in GDP which will result in a greater loss of life. My death would be acceptable collateral damage.

Deep Cuts In A Lovecraftian Vein
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Tue Mar 31, 2020 1:46 pm

Wow.
No self awareness that he's saying the quiet part out loud nor how much panic doing so could trigger.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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The Adventurer's Almanac
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Post by The Adventurer's Almanac » Tue Mar 31, 2020 3:25 pm

I guarantee that he does not actually believe that his death would be acceptable collateral damage.
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Tue Mar 31, 2020 3:35 pm

Also the choice is not "keep the economy running and accept collateral damage or tank stocks to save lives" it is "how bad does that market crash when somewhere between 0.8% to 4% of your population and twice that number of your healthcare workers die of the same cause within an 18 month period? Is it worse than forcing people to stay home and shelling out some welfare bux?"
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Tue Mar 31, 2020 5:00 pm

Cuomo who has suspended Mortgage payments has not suspended rent. He now has issued a 90 day eviction moratorium. One of the reporters asked him what he will do at the end of 90 days when renters owe back rent despite mass unemployment and he said "We'll deal with that when we get to it." Love it when my Medicaid cutting savoir steps in to make clear that he has absolutely no plans to help poor people from financial troubles.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Maj
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Post by Maj » Tue Mar 31, 2020 5:44 pm

> Ancient History wrote:Today in "eat shit and die":
> https://thecritic.co.uk/has-the-governm ... us-crisis/

> > Even if we accept the statistical modelling of Dr Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College, which I’ll come to in a minute, spending £350 billion to prolong the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people is an irresponsible use of taxpayers’ money. That may sound cold-hearted, but this isn’t a straightforward trade-off between public health and economic health. [...] Yes, I probably have at least 20 years of healthy living ahead of me, so my life is worth more than £500,000, but I’ll be the exception. In the unlikely event of the NHS being overwhelmed, the majority of people whose lives could have been saved only have one or two years left and those will not be good years. It isn’t worth spending £185 billion to save them, nor is it worth a 15% drop in GDP which will result in a greater loss of life. My death would be acceptable collateral damage.

They're taking cues from US.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... re/609019/
My son makes me laugh. Maybe he'll make you laugh, too.
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RadiantPhoenix
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Post by RadiantPhoenix » Tue Mar 31, 2020 6:30 pm

> Kaelik wrote:Cuomo who has suspended Mortgage payments has not suspended rent. He now has issued a 90 day eviction moratorium. One of the reporters asked him what he will do at the end of 90 days when renters owe back rent despite mass unemployment and he said "We'll deal with that when we get to it." Love it when my Medicaid cutting savoir steps in to make clear that he has absolutely no plans to help poor people from financial troubles.

Note: the 90 day eviction moratorium was issued a week and a half ago. In case anyone's counting. [1]
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hyzmarca
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Post by hyzmarca » Tue Mar 31, 2020 7:19 pm

> Josh_Kablack wrote:Also the choice is not "keep the economy running and accept collateral damage or tank stocks to save lives" it is "how bad does that market crash when somewhere between 0.8% to 4% of your population and twice that number of your healthcare workers die of the same cause within an 18 month period? Is it worse than forcing people to stay home and shelling out some welfare bux?"

The stock market freefall could be easily mitigated simply be freezing all stock trading for the duration of the emergency.
The loss of institutional knowledge caused by mass deaths would take a generation or two to recover from.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Tue Mar 31, 2020 7:20 pm

The weirdest thing to me about the whole "deaths or recession" nonsense is that acting promptly and severely reduces the economic impact. The British government's decision to ride it out and rely on herd immunity (narrator voice: there is no evidence for the herd immunity hypothesis) necessitated an enormous shutdown when things inevitably got out of hand. In South Korea, the reaction was prompt and effective, and the economic disruption - while real - is much less severe.
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John Magnum
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Post by John Magnum » Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:04 pm

Wait, when you say "the herd immunity hypothesis" do you mean the existence of herd immunity generally, or specifically that relying on herd immunity would lead to a merely tolerable amount of pandemic deaths? Or some of the people saying that actually COVID has been so undertested that there are vast numbers of people who got it, were never very symptomatic, and are now immune and we've already reached the herd immunity phase of things?
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Tue Mar 31, 2020 9:23 pm

> John Magnum wrote:Wait, when you say "the herd immunity hypothesis" do you mean the existence of herd immunity generally, or specifically that relying on herd immunity would lead to a merely tolerable amount of pandemic deaths? Or some of the people saying that actually COVID has been so undertested that there are vast numbers of people who got it, were never very symptomatic, and are now immune and we've already reached the herd immunity phase of things?

The idea was supposed to be that when enough people were exposed, that it would literally stop being a problem. That there wouldn't be person to person transmission from people who had it to people who weren't already immune.
That's... extremely optimistic. SARS-COV-2 has a really big droplet transmission radius and it stays alive on surfaces for a long ass time. I don't know what percentage of the population has to get it before it "burns itself out" but it's an obviously society crippling amount. It was a really stupid plan.
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holzmodem
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Post by holzmodem » Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:20 am

Richard A. Epstein, whose views informed the White House about how to deal with Covid, gave an interview to the New Yorker.
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maglag
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Post by maglag » Wed Apr 01, 2020 8:32 am

An important lesson here is how easy it is to understimate a pandemic.
China took a lot of flak for taking their time to start taking measures, but then turns out that most other countries mostly just pointed and laughed even as COVID entered their populations despite already having China's situation as a preview of how dangerous the new virus was.
So in an alternate timeline where China took measures right away and stops COVID before it gets too big to fail then they would still be getting flak for overreacting "just because of some minor flu" because the only way this could've been contained at start would've been with a massive lockdown and that would've easily been painted as "the evil communist PRC is oppressing the people again!"

> FrankTrollman wrote: Actually, our blood banking system is set up exactly the way you'd want it to be if you were a secret vampire conspiracy.

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Blade
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Post by Blade » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:14 am

A few years ago, during the avian flu outbreak, the French minister of health ordered a shitload of vaccines. Eventually the flu didn't become pandemic and the health minister became a laughing stock and many people considered that she had just done this as a gift to her big pharma friends.
I still don't know if that was a good move or not. If I recall correctly, we weren't sure the vaccine was of any use against that particular strain. But it makes me wonder how people would have reacted if confinement had been done early enough so that the spread had been stopped before it became pandemic.
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Thaluikhain
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Post by Thaluikhain » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:26 am

Yeah, somewhat suspect that governments were a bit slow because of that, but OTOH, even somewhere goes all out and it's not such an issue there, surely they can point to Italy or Spain or somewhere and say it could have been?
Or would voters not realise that it could/could have happened locally?
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Koumei
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Post by Koumei » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:43 am

"Voters" include the brainless goo-people hoarding lavatory paper, who then say "I don't need to isolate" and hang out at the beach. Any action that is so successful it prevents catastrophe was therefore "a long of song and dance and inconvenience all about nothing" and any action that doesn't prevent complete catastrophe (or doesn't prevent the specific problems they happen to notice) was therefore "a waste of time because it didn't do any good". There are actual rocks in my garden that are smarter than some of these people.

> Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.

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Iduno
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Post by Iduno » Wed Apr 01, 2020 6:28 pm

> Ancient History wrote:

> > Yes, I probably have at least 20 years of healthy living ahead of me, so my life is worth more than £500,000, but I’ll be the exception.

It sounds like he's challenging people, or at least nature, to take him out yet this week.

> Koumei wrote:"Voters" include the brainless goo-people hoarding lavatory paper, who then say "I don't need to isolate" and hang out at the beach. Any action that is so successful it prevents catastrophe was therefore "a long of song and dance and inconvenience all about nothing" and any action that doesn't prevent complete catastrophe (or doesn't prevent the specific problems they happen to notice) was therefore "a waste of time because it didn't do any good". There are actual rocks in my garden that are smarter than some of these people.

It turns out, I'm related to 2 of those dipshits. They're sick now. It would bother me more at all if I hadn't cut them out of my life for being abusive assholes.
Edit: Also, 2 coworkers, one of whom is a pretty decent person.
Last edited by Iduno on Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Maj
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Post by Maj » Thu Apr 02, 2020 12:59 am

I FUCKING HATE THE TOILET PAPER THING!
I have 14 untouched mega rolls of Charmin. I have three partially used rolls. I DON'T NEED TOILET PAPER. But this thought is absolutely plaguing my brain. I can't stop worrying about running out. I keep looking for it at stores and freaking out when they [still] don't have any. I have no idea what will get me to stop obsessing over toilet paper. It's fucking stupid.
My son makes me laugh. Maybe he'll make you laugh, too.
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RobbyPants
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Post by RobbyPants » Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:47 am

> Maj wrote:I FUCKING HATE THE TOILET PAPER THING!
> I have 14 untouched mega rolls of Charmin. I have three partially used rolls. I DON'T NEED TOILET PAPER. But this thought is absolutely plaguing my brain. I can't stop worrying about running out. I keep looking for it at stores and freaking out when they [still] don't have any. I have no idea what will get me to stop obsessing over toilet paper. It's fucking stupid.

We're about three weeks from running out. The last time I ordered groceries, they were limiting one pack per customer. The order I just put in yesterday won't be coming with any.
Since we live in a remote First Nations community about 170 km away from the store, so our normal mode of shopping is to bulk buy stuff every month or two. I'm just hoping the store doesn't eventually run out of food.
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The Adventurer's Almanac
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Post by The Adventurer's Almanac » Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:21 am

> Maj wrote:I FUCKING HATE THE TOILET PAPER THING!
> I have 14 untouched mega rolls of Charmin. I have three partially used rolls. I DON'T NEED TOILET PAPER. But this thought is absolutely plaguing my brain. I can't stop worrying about running out. I keep looking for it at stores and freaking out when they [still] don't have any. I have no idea what will get me to stop obsessing over toilet paper. It's fucking stupid.

Perhaps buying a bidet or learning how to wipe with leaves will soothe your anxiety.
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Maj
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Post by Maj » Thu Apr 02, 2020 3:23 am

I cloth-diapered my kid. I know how to use a rag. It's purely psychological. I can't stand it.
My son makes me laugh. Maybe he'll make you laugh, too.
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The Adventurer's Almanac
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Post by The Adventurer's Almanac » Thu Apr 02, 2020 3:35 am

Well... shit. You might want to talk to a professional about that (preferably for free).
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phlapjackage
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Post by phlapjackage » Thu Apr 02, 2020 4:18 am

Reporters and news networks are starting to skip Trump's daily coronavirus briefings
Two thoughts came to me about this:
1. How crazy is it that reporters are choosing to not cover the US president during a global pandemic? What timeline is this?
2. I predict this will be used to cancel briefings or other types of press conferences in a spoiled "taking my ball and going home" tantrum. It would be a typical R move, do something badly then point to it as ineffective and use that as a reason to further reduce funding/do less.
Last edited by phlapjackage on Thu Apr 02, 2020 4:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
Koumei: and if I wanted that, I'd take some mescaline and run into the park after watching a documentary about wasps.
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erik
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Post by erik » Thu Apr 02, 2020 5:32 am

Trump is basically using these briefings as substitute rallies where he can get tons of free media and waste everyone's time. It's criminal what a narcissistic fuck-up he is.
I derailed a discord channel yesterday because someone said 2016 was lose-lose and that Hillary wouldn't be doing any better. Lost my shit.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Thu Apr 02, 2020 6:37 am

> Maj wrote:I FUCKING HATE THE TOILET PAPER THING!
> I have 14 untouched mega rolls of Charmin. I have three partially used rolls. I DON'T NEED TOILET PAPER. But this thought is absolutely plaguing my brain. I can't stop worrying about running out. I keep looking for it at stores and freaking out when they [still] don't have any. I have no idea what will get me to stop obsessing over toilet paper. It's fucking stupid.

The fact that governments haven't stepped in to level with people about toilet paper is deeply weird to me.
Here are the facts:

- There is a high chance that your family will be in home quarantine for between 2 and 5 weeks if you get a potential exposure or become ill.
- A lot of people who regularly pooped at work or the movie theater or whatever will now be pooping at home.

That's it. Those are the factors that mean people need to have somewhat more toilet paper than they might have historically. They are real issues, and people genuinely need slightly more TP than normal.
But the toilet paper panic buying is utterly pointless. There isn't a third thing where the world is going to stop making toilet paper. You just need a slightly larger reserve than you might be used to having. And the fact that neither the US nor the UK has had any kind of public advisory on this issue - despite it being very prominent in the public consciousness for over a month is a huge dereliction of duty by the chief executives of both countries.
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