Just one person's opinion. A lot of it boils down to taste.

Some General. Peed his pants and pleaded guilty to something he didn't do because he was scared of the big, bad FBI. Not like he didn't have the President of the United States behind him the whole time.

I don't see how you could not be this with everyone. — ttjordy

That's where we differ.

It feels like you mistaks. Intimacy with a monogamous relationship. — ttjordy

No, no mention of monogamy by me. The "two people" is not exclusive.

Why are people self-obsessed if they talk about sex often? — ttjordy

Because they think everyone should listen to their

deep maybe dark details, thoughts, feelings and convictions — ttjordy

Not realising that many people not only don't care, they don't want to hear it. If those that were very open about sex were less self-obsessed that would be important enough for them to stop doing it. But they don't care because they think this stuff, because it's important to them, should be important to others.

Let's just take the mystery and fun out of everything by talking it to death. I demur. I think people who talk a lot about sex are boring, vulgar, and self-obsessed. There's enough talk about everything these days anyway and not enough doing, knowing, and being.

So, I agree (and then some) with @jamalrob @fdrake and @Ciceronianus the White.

The only caveat I would add, as others have, is that when two people are already intimate then there's no reason not to share intimacies, including sexual intimacies. That's what being intimate is about. But if you're intimate with everyone, you're intimate with no-one.

The fact that Ferguson's data led the UK to take actions that made it hard for the dude to get jiggy with it, if anything, makes him more credible. Working against his own interests. :lol:

Maybe the subway causes people to take on a larger viral load, so they get sicker before their immune systems kick in? The big question continues to be: why is Germany's mortality rate so low? — frank

The viral load question is interesting. I reckon that's why Boris got it so bad, running around rubbing his hands on every COVID patient he could get a hold of. And Germany, huge. Really don't know. Haven't had time to look into it.

Yes, it is. In fact, the figure was specifically mentioned in the second vid and as Ferguson mentioned fits with his calculations of a 0.66% mortality rate for NYC. This was based on 11,000 deaths in NYC at the time of the study. It's more now. And the mortality rate varies depending on the age of the population. His estimate for the UK as a whole, for example, is 0.8-9%. Anyhow, Gisecke reckons there's only a 0.1% mortality rate and bases his argument on that. If that were the case though then 120% of NY State must be infected already (and that's with no further deaths)! Go figure. (26,000/0.001 = 26,000,000).

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Well we will know soon — Punshhh

We won't know for absolute sure until after a year or so or unless there's a vaccine, whichever comes first. And Gisecke laid out a simple way for us to know. We compare Swedish mortality rates when they reach herd immunity and no longer are getting infections to everywhere else. Waiting for those magic millions of cases in China to show up. The CCP may be talented but not enough to hide that many COVID victims.

Basically a repeat of side 1 of the debate I posted a video of just above your post. Not surprising seeing as it's the same person who wrote this paper.

Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries.

Piffle. He picks the country who tried herd immunity/mitigation first, just like Sweden, as a comparison. That failed attempt is why they locked down too late and are in a worse position than any other European country now.

Measures to flatten the curve might have an effect, but a lockdown only pushes the severe cases into the future —it will not prevent them

Because he has a crystal ball and knows we won't get a vaccine in time? Because he thinks China has hundreds of millions secretly infected? Because he's absolutely sure NZ will go from 0% cases to herd immunity levels despite everything they've done? Because SK never happened; we can't effectively track and trace etc?

Loads of presumptions and sweeping statements. Unless there really are huge numbers of asymptomatic cases (like nothing even imagined until recently) this is trash. Otherwise, it's just misleading.

Ferguson: "If we can move case numbers down then we can look to the Korean model of how we sustain control of transmission long term [after lockdown]... It's not certain we can achieve it but... it's something we certainly need to try." [until we get a vaccine].

What I'm saying.

Straight from the horses' mouths. Suppression vs. Mitigation (Herd immunity). The two sides of the debate.

My hot button is when someone changes their avatar to a leprechaun. :rage: :rage: :lol:

Wasn't referring to you specifically but making the point that what's important is what a rational response is not what's 'authoritarian', 'panicky', 'being terrified' etc. These are efforts in my view to skew the debate.

Are people who wear seatbelts "terrified" of crashing their cars and people who don't just all relaxed and cool. You can take precautions because it's the rational thing to do without feeling much about it one way or the other and you can refuse to take precautions simply because you're ignorant. You realize that, right?

You're already living in it, I presume. Where are you located?

We talked about this. Part of the idea of the lockdown is to gain time to put more effective measures in place to deal with new infections e.g. track and trace, to train the population in social distancing, to stock up on PPE, to speed up and increase volume of testing etc. The "dance" part of the hammer and the dance.

Huh? They're not supposed to be sustained, silly.

I've been arguing consistently for a less panicky response — Isaac

The response I've suggested has zero to with panic or @NOS4A2's bogeyman authoritarianism and everything to do with being effective. I don't remember what your specific position is except you raised some interesting points here and there. So, yes, add as many caveats as you want.

So you do get that. Cool. — frank

The qualification is "at the very least". If China and NZ etc end up with 60% infected or any way near that ever, I'll eat your hat and if they don't, you can eat mine.

Proving we're benevolent, just, kind, and all that good stuff that you always knew we were. :halo:

I pose little risk to myself or those I'm around. — Hanover

Why? Have you bought a magic potion? Bojo nearly died and he was a could-care-less conservative too. Probably infected his wife too. What makes you special? Lack of friends?

Another example of the hammer applied well and working:

"Vietnam didn’t just flatten its coronavirus curve, it crushed it. No deaths have been reported, official case numbers have plateaued at just 271, and no community transmissions of the virus have been reported in the last two weeks. On 23 April, the nation eased lockdowns in its major cities and life is gradually returning to normal

...

Vietnam’s first two confirmed cases of Covid-19 appeared in late January. On 1 February, Vietnam Airlines ceased all flights to China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and the border with China was shut days later. After a fresh wave of new infections in March, all international flights were grounded and a nationwide lockdown commenced on 1 April. While other nations announced lockdowns to deal with existing crises, Vietnam enacted one to prevent one."

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/06/vietnam-crushed-the-coronavirus-outbreak-but-now-faces-severe-economic-test

You make decisions based on the best information available to you at the time. The best information available has been that in the absence of the type of voluntary cultural reaction (due to experience of previous pandemics) and track and trace mechanisms (not to mention the highly focused outbreak) that applied, for example, to South Korea, locking down hard and early is the most effective option available to save lives in, at the very least, the short term.

Analysing the situation critically and open-mindedly will get us there. — Isaac

I've been analysing the situation critically since day one and providing sources to back up my reasoning. Nothing I have seen has suggested there is a more effective approach (absent the very specific circumstances in S.K.) than an early and hard lockdown. I've got an open mind on it, but I think it's right to bat for the most likely approach to save lives rather than dither in the pursuit of an answer that isn't yet there while you're faced with arguments void of reason from extremes of the opposing side.

it may look like the US is heading in the right direction overall. But as this article shows, that appearance is mainly due to the decreasing cases in the New York City region. — Andrew M

A very salient point. Not that the Whitehouse won't pretend this isn't happening.

https://www.ft.com/content/b1d9a01d-01ba-4d75-899e-4ff04469a5b5

:lol:

I think Chester got frustrated at the idea of having to argue using facts and reality and decided leprechauns would work better. Each to his own.

I never specified a "two-week" lockdown and the article says a "few" weeks. New Zealand did five and did them early and there are no new cases today, so they can ease things off a bit. New York is on week 8 and had 3,500 new cases yesterday and has very little flexibility.

Here's what I said:

if you lockdown early and lockdown hard,less people die. And you don't fuck up your economy as much. — Baden

That's more or less obvious. What do you think the advantages of locking down later are?

The virus silently invaded Europe — frank

Did you expect it to show up at customs with a passport? It silently invaded everywhere. Europe knew it was coming as much as NZ did.

You still haven't read this right or you've just lost touch with reality?

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

"Summary of the article: Strong coronavirus measures today should only last a few weeks, there shouldn’t be a big peak of infections afterwards, and it can all be done for a reasonable cost to society."

No, the lesson is that if you lockdown early and lockdown hard, less people die. And you don't fuck up your economy as much.

Guess what? It worked. Just like we kept telling you it would. Early lockdown = less time needed on lockdown = less deaths + less economic disruption + shitloads more options to keep things as they are. Everybody wins.

Stick with it. It suits you. :up:

Nice avatar. Makes you look a lot smarter than your posts would suggest.

Holy shit, you mean vox got this wrong. :scream:

What are you going to do, force people to have kids? Below the replacement rate, the English are dying out. That's fine by me, but I thought for some odd reason it might bother you.

It's the demographics not the numbers.

E.g.
http://aei.pitt.edu/11030/1/20090203155203_SCOPE2008-3_2_JoanMuyken.pdf

You don't hit the replacement rate, you not only end up with a huge burden of economically unproductive elderly to pay for (especially with increased life-spans), you eventually just die out. You're currently below the replacement rate. You need immigrants to survive.

Seems to me the prevalent mood of philosophy is deflationism and silentism on the big questions rather than nihilism/relativism. "Whereof one cannot speak..." etc. Whereas the prevalent mood among the populace is a mixture of obliviousness, confusion, and cynicism. The attitudes occupy complementary sections of a landscape over which neither has control, and the type of mistrust is distinct from an epistemic point of view. It's access to knowledge that leads the philosopher to self-circumscribe away from big-picture answers, whereas its a perceived alienation from knowledge that leads the layman to a similar (but more disconcerting from their perspective) position.

@Chester

Without a lot of immigrants your country will die, not just economically, but in every way. Like most Western European countries, you're not reproducing yourselves enough to maintain economic growth. And the Tories know this. So, what's going to happen is simply that the immigrants you didn't like from Europe are going to be replaced by immigrants you don't like from somewhere else. Apart from everything else, you realize this, right?

Yes, our friends the insurance companies value FREEDOM too. All AMERICAN FREEDOM. :death:

Why wouldn't the PEOPLE want a healthcare system optimized to make profits for insurance companies that costs twice as much as one optimized for providing healthcare? The PEOPLE are smart. They value FREEDOM.

Yesterday, the IHME model (the one Trump keeps quoting) was predicting 75,000 total deaths in the US from COVID by August. Today, it's at 135,000.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

Then there's this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/04/coronavirus-update-us/

We couldn't work it out either.