The viral load being exhausted into the air makes it more infective. — Book273
I have many times on this thread and others. It’s all over the papers and polling. Republicans, Trump voting districts, evangelical Christians, etc — all much more likely to refuse the vaccine. — Xtrix
A majority of Republicans believe these things, yes. — Xtrix
Why do you think doctors are recommending the vaccines so much? We're in a pandemic and we have safe and effective vaccines, and so those who are eligible should take them. Fairly simple — Xtrix
If the inflation persists and the economy tanks (stagflation), it might result in an out of control monster. We have to understand that the actions taken against the pandemic have been taken in the economic realm.Does that sound like an out of control monster? — Isaac
I don't think it's inappropriate to caution other posters about hyperbole and misinformation, especially wrt a public health issue — frank
If the inflation persists and the economy tanks (stagflation), it might result in an out of control monster. — ssu
We cannot just think of the pandemic as a health or medical issue and then assume that other things, like the economy or economic policy, are totally separate from it. — ssu
If you could provide evidence that the covid response was the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history, that would be much appreciated. — frank
Billionaire wealth surged over $584 billion as $6.5 trillion in household wealth vanishes during first Quarter.
As the Federal Reserve reported during the week of June 10th, more than $6.5 trillion in household wealth vanished during the first three months of this year as the pandemic tightened its hold on the global economy. — IPS
This is the biggest economic shock in the U.S. and in the world, really, in living memory — Fed Chair, Jerome H. Powell
Oh no worries, economists themselves have very different ideas about how the economy functions. As the saying goes, when two economists meet three alternative and opposing views of how the economy works are presented.Yes, I completely agree, though I suspect you and I have very different ideas about how that economy functions.
I'm sorry, I mean... I suspect I have some misinformation about how that economy functions... — Isaac
You don't have free markets anywhere. Didn't have much even before the pandemic. Especially what isn't tolerated at all is that the market would correct it's excesses, which has created the current economic situation we live in.Unfortunately, these aren’t market forces at work here, but legislation that favors those who can afford to adapt to capricious government policy, those who who can afford to work from home, those who work on the internet, and so on. — NOS4A2
Notwithstanding the evidence of transfer, the point I was making was simply that it's absurd to suggest the corporations have 'created a monster'. They've created the exact thing they intended to create - a distraction from their continued oppression of the working class. Same old... — Isaac
Incidentally, Americans who have not read this article are bad people — StreetlightX
I disagree. I think it's come from those institutions themselves being demonstrably untrustworthy. — Isaac
suggest that this crisis is a 'monster out of control' — Isaac
When called upon to believe that Barack Obama was really born in Kenya, millions got in line. When encouraged to believe that the 2012 Sandy Hook murder of twenty children and six adults was a hoax, too many stepped up. When urged to believe that Hillary Clinton was trafficking children in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor with no basement, they bought it, and one of them showed up in the pizza place with a rifle to protect the kids. The fictions fed the frenzies, and the frenzies shaped the crises of 2020 and 2021. The delusions are legion: Secret Democratic cabals of child abusers, millions of undocumented voters, falsehoods about the Covid-19 pandemic and the vaccine.
While much has been said about the moral and political stance of people who support right-wing conspiracy theories, their gullibility is itself alarming. Gullibility means malleability and manipulability. We don’t know if the people who believed the prevailing 2012 conspiracy theories believed the 2016 or 2020 versions, but we do know that a swath of the conservative population is available for the next delusion and the one after that. And on Jan. 6, 2021, we saw that a lot of them were willing to act on those beliefs.
[...]
Though when we talk about cults and conspiracies we usually look to more outlandish beliefs, climate denial and gun obsessions both fit this template.
Both originated as industry agendas that were then embraced by both right-wing politicians and the right-leaning public. For decades, the fossil fuel industry pumped out ads and reports, and supported lobbyists and front groups misleading the public on the science and import of climate change. The current gun cult is likewise the result of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry pushing battlefield-style weapons and a new white male identity — more paramilitary than rural hunter — along with fear, rage and racist dog whistles. I think of it as a cult, because guns serve first as totems of identity and belonging, and because the beliefs seem counterfactual about guns as sources of safety rather than danger when roughly 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides and self-defense by gun is a surpassingly rare phenomenon.
[...]
Issues from climate to Covid are anathema to the right because solving them would require large-scale cooperation, in conflict with the idea that individual rights should be paramount. That may be why conservatives framed all Covid precautionary measures as violations of individual freedom. Dying for your beliefs has taken on grim new meaning: Since vaccines became widely available, counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump have had nearly three times the Covid-19 death rate as counties that voted for Joe Biden.
So science is untrustworthy. — Xtrix
But it’s been undermined for political reasons. — Xtrix
No one once said that “this crisis” (here I assume you’re referring to th pandemic) is a monster out of control. — Xtrix
it is a symptom — along with election fraud and other instances you want to ignore — Xtrix
That underlining problem is a systematic, deliberate erosion of trust in science and expertise. — Xtrix
No. — Xtrix
When called upon to believe that...
Both originated as industry agendas...
...vaccines...
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