Comments

  • Bernie Sanders


    It's a little hyperbolic, but I take the attitude that you criticize decisions based on their content not who makes them. The bill is shit. Everyone who voted for it is responsible.
  • Bernie Sanders


    That's plausible. But he could have said:

    In Ireland by the way, anyone made unemployed by the pandemic is being given 5 grand over 12 weeks. No corporate pork attached.Baden

    "And you should get the same."
  • Bernie Sanders
    You have to be willing to slay your political Gods when they make a bad decision, folks.
  • Bernie Sanders


    Of course he had a choice.
  • Bernie Sanders
    In Ireland by the way, anyone made unemployed by the pandemic is being given 5 grand over 12 weeks. No corporate pork attached.
  • Bernie Sanders


    I'll give you a concrete example. My sister and her husband are looking at probably three months of lockdown or semi-lockdown and no work. They live in LA. Their rent is 3 grand, close to a grand for health, and another 2 for bills and food. Let's say 6 grand a month. How long do you think 1200 bucks each is going to last?

    In contrast, a treasure trove of $500 billion has been opened for big corporations to dig into.

    The bill is shit.

    A "no" vote would have demonstrated a "revolution" in your mind eh?Xtrix

    A "no" vote would have been in keeping with everything he says he stands for. A "yes" vote looks like capitulation.
  • Bernie Sanders


    "What we need is a revolution pragmatism."

    I'm still digging into the bill. But I really don't like what I see.
  • A question about certain sensitive threads.


    Given my experience, I presume it was because it was a random thought/question of no obvious philosophical import. But feel free to wait for a response from jamalrob.
  • A question about certain sensitive threads.

    If a random thought/question of no obvious philosophical import pops into your head, post it in the shoutbox.Baden
  • A question about certain sensitive threads.
    Had a look at the thread out of curiosity. If a random thought/question of no obvious philosophical import pops into your head, post it in the shoutbox.
  • A question about certain sensitive threads.
    I posted a thread about why Israel sends their children to concentration camps at such a young ageShawn

    :brow:
  • Coronavirus


    It may be they trust the population to implement social distancing themselves to a degree effective enough to flatten the curve, which seems not unfounded.

    "Although schools are open, many parents are keeping their children at home. Many Stockholm-based companies made an early decision to close offices and move to homeworking. And those who could afford it went to a self-isolation in their houses in the countryside."

    But it's a very risky strategy.

    "The number is very similar to the infection rate in Norway, yet twice as many people live in Sweden. While the infection numbers are difficult to compare, the difference in death rate is more clear-cut. By 1 April 230 people with coronavirus have died in Sweden. In Norway, that number stands at 44."

    "...members of Sweden’s scientific and medical community are already feeling panic. A petition signed by more than 2,000 doctors, scientists, and professors last week, including the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Prof Carl-Henrik Heldin, called on the government to introduce more stringent containment measures. “They are leading us to catastrophe"."

    https://europost.eu/en/a/view/who-will-finally-get-right-sweden-or-the-rest-of-the-world-27874



    I hope we at least get it right next time. Because it will happen again.
  • Coronavirus
    Speaking of about faces, WHO and the CDC said masks weren't effective, which was the apparent lie told because they feared doctors wouldn't have enough if the average citizen did. The net result of a lie is distrust, which isn't what you need when you're trying to get the public to do as you ask because you lack the means of meaningful enforcement otherwise.Hanover

    Not at all happy with that either. Needs to be investigated.
  • Coronavirus


    Oh, I'll take a look. Zizek, Chris Hedges, and Chomsky have all spoken on this. I'm on Chris Hedges now, which looks the most promising. I'll maybe link later.
  • Coronavirus


    The reality is we need a combination of things to get back to full freedoms. But we need to err on the side of caution. Take the video above and multiply that pain by a million and it should be clear why.



    Fines for bad haircuts?
  • Coronavirus
    Anyway, yes, I will support Trump whenever he does stuff I've been calling for him to do. Slow learning is better than no learning.
  • Coronavirus


    Here's what I want to see: Everyone getting a gas mask and it being made illegal not to wear one for a period of time, so we gradually wean ourselves off lockdown, something no-one wants, but is simply necessary to save lives. In Thailand, you get fined if you don't wear a mask. That's the way to go.
  • Coronavirus


    So, now that Trump has turned authoritarian, you're making a break with him?
  • Coronavirus
    Probably a whole bunch. For starters, everyone who signed off on those, what, 800 pages of pork that they all squeezed into the Corona emergency fund. Anyone who signed off on that atrocity, no matter what party, deserves your bonfire or the French solutionNobeernolife

    I fully agree with this. Metaphorically, of course.
  • Coronavirus


    I make my predictions distinct from my comments on what measures should be taken. And Trump has eventually fallen into line behind the likes of me and Street. Time for you to follow suit. There is no-one out there now arguing that measures aimed at enforcing social distancing are a bad idea.
  • Coronavirus
    They believe... the Politburo is a knight in shining armor.NOS4A2

    Just to squash another lie.

    It also plays right into the hands of PRC propagandists who would write off the protests as nothing more than an American neoimperialist plot.StreetlightX

    I hope they riot until Carrie Lam's head is on a stick.

    Or more probably, until she flees to the mainland licking the boots of her autocratic overlords.
    StreetlightX
  • Coronavirus


    Never forget that you are among those who opposed the measures that are now Americans' only hope of keeping the death toll under a million. Even Trump has come around on that. So, maybe show the proper level of humility at being hideously wrong and get in line.

    Getting back to more serious stuff. One reason there are those among us appalled at the minimizing of the importance of 100,000 or more dead to this disease is the horrible way people die. Slow suffocation and organ failure while isolated from their families. You won't even get a proper funeral.

  • Coronavirus


    Touché, frank.
  • Coronavirus


    I apologise for befuddling, nobeer. I didn't have an evil plan in mind, but I'll try to be more restrained the next time. On this thread anyway.
  • Coronavirus


    Copied to mod thread for discussion. Now let's get back on topic.
  • Coronavirus


    Lol. You got a regular PM warning for using a term with xenophobic/racist connotations.
  • Coronavirus
    Can someone explain to @Nobeernolife what a strawman is? I don't feel the ROI potential is there.
  • Coronavirus
    @StreetlightX Hey, only 3,000 Americans died on 9/11. Fuck all compared to Vietnam. Weird why Americans got upset about it... :chin:

    No, can't understand why they're ok with 100,000 dead either. Especially as it did not need to happen. China, 4 times the population, <10% that number of deaths.
  • Coronavirus
    the China virusNobeernolife

    Try saying that once more and see what happens.
  • Coronavirus


    Are you incapable of writing a post without a strawman based on an inability to read simple English? Please just go back to Reddit. You can't cut it here, honestly. You just don't have the capacity.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections


    Ok, I just don't want to have to clean up a fight again. There's always the report button for that anyhow.
  • Bernie Sanders
    Why did Bernie sell out on the corporate bonanza bill? Anyone?
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    I try to refrain from fortune-tellingNOS4A2

    It's not akin to fortune telling when there are scientific models to rely on. Looking at what I see, I predict 110,000 deaths within 3 months, presuming Trump remains on his recently corrected course.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    By the way, I would ask that we be conservative in accusations of anti-semitism, racism etc in-thread. At least require more than the mention of a commonly accepted phrase.

    (And such charges naturally tend to elicit strong reactions, which could fuck up this discussion).
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections


    So, what's your estimate then? 3-month timeline. Shoot.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections


    I accept that, but we're not going to get to the bottom of the exact death rate for a long time. Actual deaths, on the other hand, will be a lot easier to measure and they're what ultimately matters.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    Anyway @NOS4A2, seeing as you're a Fauci convert now, presumably you accept his estimate that even with current measures and on the low end 1-200,000 Americans will die of this disease in the coming months? And that without the lockdown 1-2 million deaths could be expected?
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2NOS4A2

    Supposing this is correct, that the fatality rate is closer to 0.1% than an average of 9, 10 or 36% does not mean it's more like 0.1% than 1% (implying less than 0.5%). The range of comparison here is completely different to the range fishfry gave.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections


    Seeing as you made an argument that relies on that data, you're obliged to make sure it's correct.

    Anyhow here:

    https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

    "The death rate from seasonal flu is typically around 0.1% in the U.S"

    "In the study published Feb. 18 in the China CDC Weekly, researchers found a death rate from COVID-19 to be around 2.3% in mainland China. Another study of about 1,100 hospitalized patients in China, published Feb. 28 in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the overall death rate was slightly lower, around 1.4%"

    So, our best estimates right now place the overall death rate from COVID19 at 14 to 23 times that of a seasonal flu. These rates shoot up when health systems get overburdened simply because a larger proportion of people can't get treated and just die because of that. Add to that the extreme virulence of COVID compared to the seasonal flu and that's why without strong measures you are guaranteed a break down in your health systems. And even with strong measures that can still happen. For example, even after a lockdown, the death rate in Italy shot up to 10% (100 times the flu death rate) because of this effect (combined with their older demographic). If they hadn't done anything, they could have easily been heading for half a million dead.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    even Dr Fauci is now admitting that the death rate could be more like 0.1%fishfry

    No, he never said that.