Speaking of drunks, I've either started drinking at work or I haven't. — Michael

Drinking at work, working at home, what's the difference?

There are other places where you can partake in serious discourse. This site certainly shouldn’t be your first choice.

Got any recommendations?

Doing a collection now for @Hanover's paper bag. Might help his love life. Please give generously.

A bottle of bourbon would be a good start.

A copy of How to win friends and influence people, might be useful.

Drinking at work, working at home, what's the difference?

I think the point is he's working from home.

Breitbart's comments section.

Max Richter, The Consolations of Philosophy

Nice track.

I just wanted to say that I offer you my philosophical and moral support for the work you are doing in this time of existential uncertainty. I think many are thinking of the difficulties being faced now by health workers and how they are now in the front line of a struggle for our world, our way of life. A life which many of us were questioning, before this happened, but which I expect they would take back in a heartbeat, in the newly dawning knowledge of our vulnerabilities. But to then do things differently.

Is this our wake up call?

There are already news reports appearing about violence and riots around food distribution in undeveloped countries. Countries where many millions of people are at risk of starvation imminently.

Going back to your thoughts, I have sympathy with your sentiment, but as I said before I don't think the developed countries would come to the assistance of these undeveloped countries now due to their own existential crises, even if they had somehow averted the worst effects of the lockdowns and managed to maintain some semblance of normality in their economies. The international community responded in a remarkable way to the last Ebola outbreak. But this was only possible in a normal world, disrupt that and such a response is quickly lost. This crisis is global and catastrophic to our way of life globally, we are struggling to offer assistance to ourselves, let alone anyone else.

Being serious about any topic seems to me to require at least three deliberate actions or stances to take wrt to the topic.

1) To learn about it, or be receptive to competent opinion that in itself seems reasonable and knowledgeable.

2) To act in accord with that knowledge, or what seems knowledgeable, wrt & etc.

3) To treat the topic with appropriate respect.

Corollary: To avoid ignorance and applied ignorance (i.e., stupidity), and to try not to be either. — tim wood

The problem is that it now days everything becomes political and too many people see a political / ideological agenda in everything. This is one of the most unfortunate issues as the situation is new for us. Yes, we have had corona-viruses a long time. But we have not responded to anything as we have done now since perhaps the Spanish flu. And this situation is totally different. The "Asian flu" or the "Hong Kong flu" pandemics were not tackled like this. Yes, a big part of it is the present media environment which instantly reports everything. We are also very intolerant to deaths from pandemics. We don't accept that many people die of infectious diseases, when we could avoid them.

The inflamed political environment also makes even the scientific discourse difficult. We know that scientist don't always agree on things and those minority views don't have to be trolls or paid to promote disinformation. Because what to do in the pandemic isn't so evident. The "herd immunity" policy isn't totally crazy and we cannot now just brush aside the path that Sweden has opted with it's chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell as utterly wrong. Countries cannot stay up to 18 months in lock down and really how it goes when countries ease those lock down measures is the real question. In my view it's likely that countries having "flattened the curve" will opt for the Sweden-lite option. But this we will see only when that time comes. In my view perhaps the best policy is first containment, the lockdown once the containment isn't possible before the first deaths and then once the 'curve is flattened', the Sweden option. But of course I could be wrong.

Here's one those 'contrarian' views, professor Knut Wittkowski, who explains herd immunity and isn't a great from of the mainstream policies against the pandemic. Interview done April 1st and 2nd.



And to give another perspective, here's the more conventional view from Dr John Ioannidis.



To say that one is "right" and the other "wrong" is itself the wrong way to look at it.

Anyone who doesn't see these issues as immediately political is a dupe, and all the more a victim and willing participant of shitty politics for it.

es, a big part of it is the present media environment which instantly reports everything. We are also very intolerant to deaths from pandemics. We don't accept that many people die of infectious diseases, when we could avoid them. — ssu

I'm sure you already know this, but regardless of media reporting, healthcare systems would have been way more likely to fail, and even more people would have died, if their intake wasn't controlled through quarantine measures.

The "herd immunity" policy isn't totally crazy and we cannot now just brush aside the path that Sweden has opted with it's chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell as utterly wrong. — ssu

Eventually people will recover or die. The reason "herd immunity" was wrong wasn't because eventually the majority of the population (albeit an ageing one) will adapt and what's the point, it's because people advocating herd immunity explicitly did not want the economic risks of quarantine measures, despite the massive death toll and healthcare system failure that recklessness would have caused.

The problem is that it now days everything becomes political and too many people see a political / ideological agenda in everything. — ssu

The reasons people resisted quarantine measures were purely ideological, it isn't just the discourse, it's, unsuprisingly, policy being politically/ideologically motivated rather than just looking to the epidemiologists and scientists for cues on how best to manage the pandemic. The delays and resistance from our politicians to implementing quarantine measures were ideologically motivated, later they conformed because they realised they must.

So it is absolutely bonkers to claim that the issue isn't a political one, when the management of a pandemic is an economic, scientific and political project.

You would not be saying "it's all so difficult now that politics is in the mix" if your reference points were Indian police beating the shit out of Muslims breaking quarantine for worship, or the use of a state of emergency for Orban to seize power indefinitely. How it's managed and responded to is political from the get go, unless somehow the world lives inside an epidemiology journal or WHO bulletin.

The reasons people resisted quarantine measures were purely ideological, it isn't just the discourse, it's, unsuprisingly, policy being politically/ideologically motivated rather than just looking to the epidemiologists and scientists for cues on how best to manage the pandemic — fdrake

It goes beyond this even - a pandemic like this is immediately political not only because of politically and ideologically motivated responses - responses ought to be politically and ideologically motivated - but because the virus's effects are immediately deferentially socially distributed along class and even racial lines. Aside from the fact that - in the US at least - CV has killed disproportionately more black people than others (because less likely to have access to good healthcare, because more likely to work in so-called 'essential jobs', because less able to have the privilege of self-isolating) the virus kills the poorest of the population at incredibly high rates:

"The coronavirus has taken a particularly vicious toll on paraprofessionals, who represent just 19% of the workforce but more than 44% of deaths. The statistics mirror a stark reality across the city: that the virus has fallen disproportionately hard on low-income communities of color... Paraprofessionals, who often work intimately alongside students with disabilities, earn salaries starting around $26,000."

Anyone who says that this virus 'hasn't exposed the cracks in American society' is either not looking, or a deliberate hack. As Jodi Dean says aporpos 'opening up' again:

The various discussions of return and re-opening are misleading. They proceed as if the primary differences that matter are in terms of region, geographical location. But this prevents us from seeing the class character of re-opening: who is returning to what and under what conditions?

If we think about the 50 deaths in the NYC public school system, does return mean increasing the exposure of teachers' aides, teachers, cafeteria workers, janitors? Does it mean increasing the risks to children who will then take the virus back to their families living in close quarters? Are the decision-makers thinking about the over-crowded and under-served public schools?

I expect that the goal is letting the top 10 percent live good lives while continuing to sacrifice the warehouse workers, delivery personnel, grocers, food processing workers, farm workers, etc. Already the food supply is taking hits as large scale food processing plants are closing down (rather than take appropriate precautions to make the factories safe, provide the workers adequate space and PPE, and pay them overtime and health benefits). Already agricultural workers are being infected, transmitting the virus to each other, and then ultimately being left to die. Return to normal is the name for legitimating this condition.

Re-opening the economy appears to be focused on the privileged. If the economy is opening the workers continue to die, while high income people can go on like before. The media and the politicians will move on, talk about the stock market, and let a death rate of 500 or so per day in New York state be the new normal. The more the focus is on re-opening, the less visible will be the necessity of a rent, mortgage, and debt jubilee, the violence and cruelty of employer based health insurance.

Normal = class war.

This event is political all the way down. It is not the crust on some perfectly apolitical cake. Anyone who doesn't see it, or denies it, is complicit with the way in which the politics of this is current, actually, playing out.

Of course, that's not to say that ideological responses ought to be discounted. They should be put front and centre too. Like the fact that the bailout tax benfits will overhwelmingly be geared towards helping millionaires - i.e. "80 percent of the benefits of a tax change tucked into the coronavirus relief package Congress passed last month will go to those who earn more than $1 million annually,"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/14/coronavirus-law-congress-tax-change/

It goes beyond this even - a pandemic like this is immediately political not only because of politically and ideologically motivated responses - responses ought to be politically and ideologically motivated - but because the virus's effects are immediately socially socially distributed along class and even racial lines. Aside from the fact that - in the US at least - CV has killed disproportionately more black people than others (because less likely to have access to good healthcare, because more likely to work in so-called 'essential jobs', because less able to have the privilege of self-isolating) the virus kills the poorest of the population at incredibly high rates: — StreetlightX

:up:

Anyone who wants to keep responses to this 'apolitical' is doing nothing but endorsing the hyper-politicised situation that exists on the ground at it stands. It's as stupid as those liberal fucks who say "I don't see color" while vast racial injustice bleeds out of every corner of the world. It's not by avoiding politics that one sees reality for what it is; it's by avoiding the reality of politics that one avoids reality entirely. It's wilful, harmful ignorance.

I watched a programme about Bergen Belsen las night. film of the bodies being buried by the thousand in mass graves when it was liberated, and the place being burned to the ground to disinfect it. Over 14,000 inmates died after the liberation.

I also heard that UK policy has been to send recovering CV patients to care homes and hospices. You know, those care homes and hospices that were being shielded and so didn't need PPE or tests. It's odious to make any comparison.

I am odious.

Today there is a new policy to test in care homes. But there are still not enough tests for the hospitals, so they might as well have a policy to send the virus to the moon. or shoot it on sight, like that chap in the Philippines.

I have a sore throat and a cough, so I am using a non-touch screen and wearing gloves to post. You should probably still cover your eyes before reading this - duct tape is good.

I don’t agree. The world can act together. The quicker the developed countries get sorted out the sooner they can ship supplies and equipment to help out.

The whole reason I am posting anything anywhere is to keep this in the minds of those who are focused on what is happening in their own doorstep. The point being, once the restrictions start lifting and cases go down, there needs to be a public voice pushing to put a plan in place to help other countries.
That voice is already getting louder.

I assume that state governors don’t have access to the intelligence resources that the White House has, for one thing. Also, the criticism isn’t just about not closing things down. — praxis

:roll:
This doesn't answer my question. If the governors don't have access to the intelligence resources that the WH has, then why are they saying that they have the power (which would include the resources) to re-open their own states, and not the WH?

If they have the power bestowed by the Constitution, then it would imply that they would have set resources in place for them to carry out their powers. If not, then shame on all the governors for not being prepared to take on the responsibilities dictated by the Constitution since the founding.

Amazing. — boethius

Not the term I would choose to describe the inconsistency of political partisans - those who see life through the prism of politics. The term I would use is, "pathetic".

But, as to your question, if I hold a beer fest in the park with 500 of my friends, I will be charged with a state crime. I will not be charged with a federal offense. The states are the ones imposing these restrictions. But Trump could have closed the country down by just saying it must be done, as he has that level of influence, regardless of whether his decree was made enforceable by federal marshals. — Hanover

Blasio tried to shut down NYC schools for the rest of the school year but was blunted by the NY governor. The governor has control of the school system, the local police force, state and local government offices. They don't have control over the national borders or even their own borders. The president only has the power to close down the national and state borders.

I suspect that Trump could take full charge and declare a national emergency — Hanover

This only gives the president power to provide federal funds to the states to handle their emergencies, not the power to tell them when to close things down and reopen them.

Trump yesterday:

“Today I’m instructing my administration to stop funding of the WHO while a review is conducted to assess the WHO’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the Coronavirus”.

There should be an investigation. The failures are unforgivable.

The reason "herd immunity" was wrong wasn't because eventually the majority of the population (albeit an ageing one) will adapt and what's the point, it's because people advocating herd immunity explicitly did not want the economic risks of quarantine measures, despite the massive death toll and healthcare system failure that recklessness would have caused. — fdrake

I acknowledge that there is the crowd that put basically the economy before anything, but I don't the chief epidemiologist Tegnell in Sweden had (and has) that in mind. Or Wittkowski above. Even my little country, which now has emergency laws and has quarantined the whole Capital region from the rest of the country doesn't have a curfew in place. To argue that people should stay inside their homes and not venture out is dismissed as humbug by doctors here. You can choose something between a) doing nothing and b) having a curfew.

And should be remarked here that people aren't against quarantining those that have the disease, it's simply how drastic quarantine measure of everybody are you talking about.

The reasons people resisted quarantine measures were purely ideological, it isn't just the discourse, it's, unsuprisingly, policy being politically/ideologically motivated rather than just looking to the epidemiologists and scientists for cues on how best to manage the pandemic. — fdrake

My old father, who's a professor of viriology, said to me that we'll find out after summer or so if Sweden's option was better or not. Herd immunity isn't a fabrication or nonsense, on the contrary.

There are those who do indeed think from purely ideological stance about this, even in this forum, NOT from an epidemiological view point at all. This I do admit. My only point is that there really is the medical/health policy discourse on the subject, something that you seem to deny.

The delays and resistance from our politicians to implementing quarantine measures were ideologically motivated, later they conformed because they realised they must. — fdrake

It wasn't that. It wasn't about implementing quarantine measures, but any kind of response to the pandemic. Basically it was about denying there to be any serious pandemic at all. That's a huge difference.

So it is absolutely bonkers to claim that the issue isn't a political one, when the management of a pandemic is an economic, scientific and political project. — fdrake

I'm not saying that the decision wouldn't be political, because it naturally inherently is political. What I'm just arguing is that it is bonkers to think uttering something about herd immunity or that a severe "lock down" wouldn't perhaps be best course of action is just based on ideological stance of a person. That's my point. But for you it seems so when you say: "The reasons people resisted quarantine measures were purely ideological".

So what's the "purely ideological" reason for Swedish social democrats to choose the more lax measures?

Anyone who says that this virus 'hasn't exposed the cracks in American society' is either not looking, or a deliberate hack. As Jodi Dean says aporpos 'opening up' again: — StreetlightX

It hasn't. Even should I assume your assessment is correct, it's not like I've not heard it before, meaning nothing new has been exposed. I disregard your concerns because they're agenda based, and it's an agenda I don't agree with, which is that the impoverished you identify are not benefited better under the current system more than they would be in whatever alternative you're envisioning.

And I do find this all sidetracking and politicizing, which serves no purpose other than to hijack this crisis to promote your political agenda. The predictable result will be that those opposed to your agenda will fight you every step of the way, even when some of the healthcare measures proposed might be objectively valid. That is what is happening, by the way.

You've sort of taken on this idea that anything less than a vitriolic diatribe is cowardly, like the time for rebellion is NOW! It's entertaining, but I can't imagine it moves your opponents any closer to your position. Maybe your objective isn't to persuade, but just to rally the troops. I really haven't figured it out.

I disregard your concerns because they're agenda based, and it's an agenda I don't agree with, which is that the impoverished you identify are not benefited better under the current system more than they would be in whatever alternative you're envisioning. — Hanover

What could this possibly mean as a response to the fact that the poor and the non-white are being infected and killed off at higher rates? Does reality have an agenda? Is reality an agenda for you? If you disregard reality, then so much the worse for you, not reality.

I dunno, the death of the poor and the marginal doesn't seem like a sidetrack. It makes me wonder how it could seem that way to anyone. Actually scratch that. They've always been ignored - dismissed, 'disregarded', in your words, as a sidetrack - precisely by people like you.

The problem is that it now days everything becomes political and too many people see a political / ideological agenda in everything. This is one of the most unfortunate issues as the situation is new for us. — ssu

It's useful, imo - ultimately necessary and essential - to establish some bounds on what is political and what is not political. An absurdity or two to make the point: can murder be (just) political? Can genocide be political? Can any crime be just political?

I am not going to define crime, here. The word itself has broader meanings than just violation of a statute. I hold that the actions of Trump and his and people like him are crimes. As such they are not politics. It is a cardinal error to call them politics, because that instantly corrupts politics. And that is the art of these people. The label of "politics" legitimizes their actions - and they know it. It is our business, the business of the people, to a) not be confused by the deception, and b) hold people to account. In these last two, the American people - a stunning number of them - are failing utterly. And that's serious business, even in the midst of all of our other serious business.

and it's an agenda I don't agree with, which is that the impoverished you identify are not benefited better under the current system more than they would be in whatever alternative you're envisioning. — Hanover

Poor people wouldn't be better off if you gave them free healthcare and raised the minimum wage? That's not going to fly. You might argue that the country as a whole wouldn't be better off, and that is the usual argument, but you can't argue that certain sectors would not be better off when you redistribute money their way. Just like you can't argue that the rich are not better off when you give them tax cuts. It's literally nonsense.

The response is basically: there is no better world than the one we currently inhabit, and any effort to make it better will end in disaster. This, even as disaster is all around. Instead, what is happening right now - the death of the poor and the black and the old - is the best possible outcome. The most just deserts have been meted out by the best possible world, which just happens to be this one. It's perverse in a way that words don't quite do justice to.

I acknowledge that there is the crowd that put basically the economy before anything, but I don't the chief epidemiologist Tegnell in Sweden had (and has) that in mind. Or Wittkowski above. Even my little country, which now has emergency laws and has quarantined the whole Capital region from the rest of the country doesn't have a curfew in place. To argue that people should stay inside their homes and not venture out is dismissed as humbug by doctors here. You can choose something between a) doing nothing and b) having a curfew. — ssu

You're right, there were multiple ways of impeding the spread of the virus. The less socially intrusive ways were less effective. The European countries that I'm aware of (except Italy and Hungary) have taken to politely requesting people to adhere to social distancing and increased hygiene, mandating businesses to close to remove central hubs etc.

I am not disagreeing that there were multiple ways of responding to the virus; corresponding to a trade off between social intrusion/impediment and decreasing growth rate.

It wasn't that. It wasn't about implementing quarantine measures, but any kind of response to the pandemic. Basically it was about denying there to be any serious pandemic at all. That's a huge difference. — ssu

This is precisely what the use of "herd immunity" by politicians was for. It was not used as a statement of the uncontroversial fact that eventually populations will immunise. The fact was used rhetorically as a stalling tactic. Eventually all countries effected which used the rhetoric have responded somehow, because they needed to.

My only point is that there really is the medical/health policy discourse on the subject, something that you seem to deny. — ssu

Nah. I've helped a couple of doctors I know understand their epidemiology bulletins due to the virus and have been studying the global case records personally occasionally, also keeping somewhat up to date with stats papers on it. I'm sure that fellow statisticians will be working on the data set for years to come. The discourse within epidemiology (as far as I am aware) is not about the plain fact that decreasing social connectivity decreases growth rate. It's about using the data to quantify the hows and whys and to track and predict spread.

I'm not of the opinion that curfews and using the military to keep people in their homes is particularly desirable, even though it would obviously make the transmission rate go down. (Edit2: even if middle road measures need not decrease the total number of infected long term, it will decrease the mortality by not overloading the bandwidth of healthcare systems by even more)

The use of "herd immunity" by politicians was a stalling tactic against every response. Any stalling is well understood to lead to inflated death tolls; it's killed people who would not have died otherwise, and that number is increasing with time due to how the growth works. It took catastrophic economic circumstances to be likely, like global economic collapse, to get these people's heads in gear and actually take the situation seriously.

I'll put this numerically; politicians advocated a strategy (non-response) that their intelligence networks and consultants must have informed them would yield up to 2% of their populations dying. Because they did not want to risk a big recession that would come from curtailing the loss of life. If at the end of the pandemic, you piled all the bodies that would have come from the advocated non-response strategy, that number would have been bigger than political north troop deaths in Afghanistan (using just UK figures, that would have already been passed a while ago). That was seen, at the time, as an acceptable risk to prevent a recession.

To make matters worse; right news media in the US and UK has reported to support this interpretation; portraying it as patriotic to die to save the country from a recession; there are internal memos from the UK Tory party being nonchalant about killing off all the old people.

Until the global economy started shuddering, all of the above were acceptable risks.

Edit:{

The pandemic would have been forecasted to overload the healthcare system by so much it would increase the death rate beyond that, especially for risk groups (if schmucks like me could see it coming, I'm sure people who know more than a university course dealing with some epidemiology models and related private study would have done so and passed it on) and cause untold more losses if responses were not taken to mitigate the risks. This was seen as an acceptable risk.

When it actually started happening, they finally responded "Oh no! All the things we were obviously told beforehand in intelligence briefings confidently by consultants are actually coming true, let's start doing something about it!"

So consider; what made the politicians more afraid of a predicted recession than more predicted deaths of their own citizens than your average war?

}

So what's the "purely ideological" reason for Swedish social democrats to choose the more lax measures? — ssu

I can understand attributing a view to me I don't actually hold in these circumstances.

It's perverse in a way that words don't quite do justice to. — StreetlightX

So I've been looking for a song, and I think this is a near as I can get to it, from, appropriately, Planet Waves.

If the governors don't have access to the intelligence resources that the WH has, then why are they saying that they have the power (which would include the resources) to re-open their own states, and not the WH? — Harry Hindu

They do have the power, regardless of der Führer’s claim of “absolute” power in the matter. The framework they’ve outlined is based on “principles that residents' health comes first, health outcomes and science dictate decisions and states need to work with local and community leaders.” Would it make more sense for the White House to dictate how and when restrictions are rolled back in each state?