I understood what you meant the first time. It’s like me saying “I told you it’d rain today!” and trying to say because I was right about this I am therefore right about which horse will win the Grand National - there is a slight connection between the two given that the weather will determine the running, but neither hold any weight if we haven’t examined the facts.

Clearly you haven’t examined the facts because you don’t understand how mathematical modeling works and use this as an excuse to dismiss the science behind the modeling (which is your uninformed choice). Dismissing the science because it is inconclusive is to dismiss science completely. It’s ridiculous.

As fro WMD very few people believed the government. In the UK public opinion was against the war and parliament debated the point too.

My agenda here has been announced several times! I am concerned about how this plays out in developing countries and whether or not lockdowns helps or hinders them in the long run.

I’ve steered well clear of politicizing this or pointing to any particular leader/government to blame. Nature is worse than any government in terms of death counts.

Of course? That was the point.

I can only assume you’ve not looked at the links I’ve provided.

Here they are:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

If you still don’t understand the nature of mathematical modeling I cannot take your comments seriously. If you refuse to believe the governments statistics regarding the number of registered deaths (for all causes) that just makes me think you’re part of the tinfoil hat brigade or here purely to troll, and therefore cannot take your comments seriously.

Everything I can see is pointing to a Trump win. The democrats keep backing the person and remained focused on playing a game Trump is much better at rather than focusing on actual policies that address the countries problems both present and future.

Sanders is the only candidate I’ve seen over there that isn’t completely full of shit and/or under the thumb of the puppet masters. You get what you deserve most of the time. In a country built on manufacturing and exporting hysteria what did you really expect your president to look like? ;)

What you’ll find is at the end of the year more people will have died from the common flu (hopefully). This will lead some people to imagine there was never a problem in the first place. The very same people would likely have been those dead without the restrictions being put in place.

When a plan is put into place and works, those opposed to it can always turn around and say it wouldn’t have mattered if no plan was used.

Peter Hitchens is one of these. He is worth listening to just to get an idea of how well articulated someone can be without any actual expertise in the field - by making comparisons with hie he was right about the Iraq War (which is mere rhetoric as that had no real scientific basis whatsoever).

Regardless, an above average number of deaths registered in the last official figures in the UK (50% above average) requires some kind of explanation. I imagine some of those deaths were due to people scared of visiting a hospital, but 6000 seems far too many for that to be the only reason.

The problem is the politicking. The science is consistent but the models, because they’re models, are never ever 100% accurate and the very same computer model ran twice will never give out the same result.

The general population’s mistrust of scientists, and politician’s lack of scientific understanding, are the main factors. The Iraq War wasn’t anything to do with science on the scale the pandemic does. People just want to be told when, why and how and certainly don’t like the honest scientific opinion of ‘we can only give you rough estimates, so we err on the side of caution or millions could die’.

Interesting. From the statistics I've seen, the global death totals as projected annually for this year do not mark an anomaly. — Merkwurdichliebe

Because, depending on where you are, the deaths haven’t happened yet and/or haven’t been officially registered. I did post the official figures from the UK government on the previous pages to highlight this - the official figures in the UK only run up to April 3, the next update (which will show the real effect) will be in a few days.

Go back a few weeks and people in the US were saying ‘no problem here!’ Because once you’re infected you don’t drop dead on the spot. There is a substantial lag between infection and death in most cases - we’re talking in excess of a month in some cases.

Given that the figures that they are working with are the official figures (officially registered deaths), and that the data is old, it still doesn’t say much other than to make the problem look better than it is - because most people have no idea how to interpret statistical mathematics!

Note the difference between flu and flu & pneumonia. Something I found out several weeks ago was that in the West deaths from flu and death from flu & pneumonia were counted as flu deaths, whilst in the East many countries ONLY counted flu deaths as flu deaths and pneumonia deaths as pneumonia deaths.

You’re just talking about what language does. We know what it does. Rather than having ‘knowledge’ embedded in our genes it allowed us to pass on information more quickly.

You really don’t need that many words to say something ‘generalised’.

Why did human language evolve? How was this process affected by natural and social selection pressures? What was the sequence and combination of mutations/cognitive features that produced its modern forms? What impact did language have on the character of human behavior as well as our rationality and irrationality? Along more philosophical lines, what is the relationship between language and logical thinking? — Enrique

To sum up ...

1) Our capacity for language evolved because there was an evolutionary benefit in communicating internal ideas.
2) It wasn’t effected by social pressures any more than legs or eyes are.
3) That is a question that neuroscience has shed light on. Other animals share communicable capacities with us. None have them all in the combination we do though. The ‘sequence’ they evolve in may not matter at all.
4) Without the capacity for language we wouldn’t be ‘human’ so that question doesn’t work. If you’re talking in broader terms with the term ‘language’ - extended into communication (as in shared capacities we have have that are present in other species) - then you should say so.
5) That is like asking the relationship between science and language. Again, language allows for knowledge to be passed on more quickly than genetic evolution (something you may be confusing with Dawkins’ ‘memes’?).

When it comes to looking at logic and language in combination with consciousness I’d recommend Husserl’s “Logical Investigations”. Another recommendation, if you’ve not read it already, would be Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations”.

Note: I really think you need to be more frugal with your words in places. I suffer the same disposition often enough when I write ... see ;)

That sentence makes no sense. @IvoryBlackBishop

Agreed. The capacity of WHO is very limited. Individual governments shouldn’t rely only on one source when it comes to such a crisis - and many didn’t.

Clearly you don’t know what I’m talking about given that the figures I’m referring to were only released a couple of days ago. Prior to that the number of deaths (all deaths from all causes) were nothing out if the ordinary. My point in posting this was to reveal the now official numbers rather than focus on rough estimates without any clear comparison.

There were huge civilizations across the americas. Disease wiped them off the face of the planet. I thought you were talking about the transition to sedentary life? Technology came hand in hand with changing to day-to-day living. Larger populations survived by storing information - hence the use of quippos in the Incan empire. In Australia and Africa there is some theories surrounding mnemonic techniques and ritual as means of passing information on.

Cannot for the life of me recall the name of the woman who makes a case for that - I’ll look it up tomorrow.

Neither conflict nor cooperation alone beget technological advancements. I cannot imagine a matriarchal society to have ever existed - in the sense of female domination - because men would just just say ‘no thanks’ when they disagreed and the women could do what? Nothing.

An egalitarian society in the past? Sure! There is evidence of this today in hunter gatherers and suggestions of large settlements in the Ukraine that were recently discovered where there doesn’t appear to be any tell tale signs of a ruling body.

I’d recommend looking at Renfrew. He’s a pretty solid source, but I’ve no idea if he’s focused on gender roles in any of his research papers.

I want to be sure you noticed I said there is a relationship between creation stories, gender dominance, and technological advancement or lack of it. — Athena

I don’t see any evidence - at least you haven’t presented any. If we’re talking purely about mythos there are enough instances of goddesses giving knowledge to humans to make your claim a questionable one.

If I were you I’d be saying ‘Oh no!’

Just wait 3 more days and look at the official figures:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommunity%2fbirthsdeathsandmarriages%2fdeaths%2fdatasets%2fweeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales%2f2020/referencetablesweek142020.xlsx

The last official figures show that there were 6000 deaths registered above average. That is around 50% above average so hard to ignore without a damn good explanation.

I forgot my main reason for arguing why I do not believe matriarchies would develop technology. When reading different creation stories it became evident that those with developed technology began with a creation story of male gods killing each other, and killing mankind, not a mother goddess who gives life and nurtures it. There appears to be a link between those creation stories war and technological advancement or living cooperatively and not developing technology. — Athena

I have no idea how you came to that conclusion from mythological references. The big step was sedentary life.

Not really. I don’t know of any matriarchal societies full stop - at least not on a scale that would compare to a ‘civilization’.

Testosterone is apparently linked to an explorative function. There are more men with low IQ’s than women, and more men with higher IQ’s than women - it’s far from hard evidence though because it depends on interests and societal expectations and individual choices.

Hypothetically if women were physically stronger than men, but otherwise the same, I still think civilization would have advanced in pretty much the same manner it has (men and women are far more alike than different compared to literally every other primate).

The burden of pregnancy and child birth is by far the biggest difference. Other than that it’s just brute strength (which it not necessarily a tool of oppression or war; yet undeniably came into play during the birth of inequality).

Many, many people have written, studied and researched about how humans developed technologies. Technology accelerated as we found better means of storing and distributing knowledge.

Not unlike his move to blame the WHO for his own shitty job. — StreetlightX

To be fair the WHO fucked up in a huge way:

In this case, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus specifically discouraged any such measures.

“The WHO doesn’t recommend and actually opposes any restrictions for travel and trade or other measures against China,” he said, while praising China’s response to the outbreak. “If anyone is thinking about taking measures, it’s going to be wrong.”

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1848369/china-travel-bans-spread-despite-who-advice

None of that is to say each government shouldn’t do their own investigations into the matter. That was the WHO’s position late Jan, early Feb - luckily many countries ignored them. I seem to remember China saying to Italy something along the lines of ‘Lockdown now. What you’re doing isn’t enough’.

That said, mistakes happen. When mistakes lead to tens of thousands of deaths then it seems tame to call it a ‘mistake’ given that the WHO should’ve been on top of this.

I think that’s sound enough. I wonder what @IvoryBlackBishop makes of this?

Destruction of agency is a nice way to put it. I’m certainly more inclined to go with virtue ethics than side with strong subjectivity (I by no means dismiss highly nuanced scenarios though).

This sums it up the nuance for me: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/63?fbclid=IwAR1Of9Panlkd4jPstu31iRYemGijUF1Goc--eFq6MVdE-a18HDO0upUIIfU

It would probably be helpful to distinguish between ‘bad’ and ‘evil’.

Replace the ‘why’ with ‘how’.

To focus in on a particular area I suggest this for reading:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/

You’re asking too many big questions - meaning each require more than a brief response.

One more thought. It seems to me only male-dominated cultures developed technology. Ones with more female influence may have failed to develop technologically? — Athena

You’ll have to explain further where you’ve pulled that from?

I guess I don’t understand your point. Either way the next set of figures will give a clearer picture.

(1) No idea what that means or how it counters anything I said? The figures give are for week ending April 3. Clearly there is a spike in deaths.

(2) I know what ‘crude’ means. Look back several pages where I mentioned this. The figures for deaths (ALL deaths) are not ‘crude’. The deaths for last week ARE crude - meaning they are not official figures because it takes time to account for all deaths.

(3) No, it’s not. I said that we’ll have a better picture soon enough. An extra 500 cases is a significant rise though.

The data is there is black and white: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

Maybe you’re comparing April to Dec and Jan. That is faulty because the death toll during the winter months in the UK is always significantly higher - there is certainly room to question the event of respiratory illness being particularly worse in April for some reason? Perhaps hay fever plays a role in this? Honestly, I’ve no idea. It seems like a reasonable thought to assume that people suffering with respiratory problems may be effected more in hay fever season (I guess looking up the pollen count would clear that up quickly enough - the season falls from March to May, so there may have been a spike in the pollen count that week?)

points (4) and (7). There stats are out for deaths in UK up until April 3rd - they are not crude estimates.

The death rate clearly spiked in the last reported week. I guess it could be argued that this is due to other causes but they’ve clearly marked respiratory problems and Covid.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommunity%2fbirthsdeathsandmarriages%2fdeaths%2fdatasets%2fweeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales%2f2020/referencetablesweek142020.xlsx

6000 deaths above usual rate PLUS above average deaths due to respiratory disease being the ‘underlying cause’. When the next set of figures are out the picture should be much clearer.

I am curious about how air quality plays into this. Not really spent much time looking into that. Anyone found info in that area?

There is some information in here explaining the difference between ‘relapse’ and ‘reinfection’ (from leading expert in South Korea):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QwoNP9QWr4Y

It’s about 45 mins long, but hopefully people here aren’t looking for soundbites.

This is false. They just didn’t take the risk seriously due to the previous scares of SARS and such - which were taken seriously in the East.

The only use in discussing this is to set up better systems to prevent this from happening again. And to repeat, this is a global issue not an east versus west issue. The better it is dealt with everywhere the better for everyone.

Note: Germany, China and other countries are providing assistance to other countries. The sooner developed countries get past the worst of this the sooner they can assist others and prevent a needlessly fatal cycle.

Nice trolling! Have fun :)

I missed out the ‘NOT’. Have edited that post.

I believe the subject matter of the thread is in the OP. I’m suggesting government policies don’t matter, only that the actual short and long term effects are of more importance on a global scale rather than a national one.

To repeat, my concern is with developing nations and how developed countries can help once they are able to.

My humblest apologies for NOT wishing to focus my attention on party-based political wrangling.

I’m just some duped nobody :)

Another brief report on the situation and struggles in India:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tpST8TNcAKI

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.

It simple terms, we have vague concepts because we have limited information. Our conscious recognition of ‘being wrong’ or ‘novel events’ allows us to adapt. Adaptation is only possible if some of the tools in use are capable of being repurposed.

Masculine qualities are pretty essential in terms of discussion and approaching uncomfortable ideas. There is a certain degree of combat when ideas are laid out. Feminine qualities are also essential in discussions, for remaining open minded and explorative.

One without the other is a disaster.

If women wish to compete with men then they either have to bring men to where they are or meet them head on. Either way, as above, one without the other is a disaster.

The major change for women came into play with family planning. Things have shifted.

Well, you’re missing the chaotic environment out. The world is part of how we think. GABA neurons inhibit, but if only some fire then they don’t impact the next neurons. The reasons they fire or not are due to ‘external’ conditions.

Thinking requires constant input. We’re not brains in vats. Also, what exactly do you mean by ‘thinking’? Some people regard thinking as ‘worded thought’ only. That could also be a confusion.

When it comes to words like ‘tall’ and ‘fat’ it probably helps if we assess the different types of antonyms involved.

Note: People can only come to disagree from some conscious point of agreement (eg. That we’re awake and conscious of each other as human beings with different views and beliefs).

Here’s some further reading:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/anci-mod/

Ethics is more rooted in the principles of a ‘natural law’ whereas morality is more rooted in choice rather than subscribing to there being an actual law - as far as I can tell.

In modern parse they are used interchangeably, and in philosophical discourse these terms have been used in different ways over the centuries.

Personally I find it most useful to view ‘ethics’ as more or less what is deemed lawful or abhorrent by most people, where morality is more about acting as you see fit regardless outside pressures. At the end of the day they are chained together because we cannot act against ethical ideologies without being influenced by them in the first place.

In this sense I view sticking to an ‘ethical’ position as being to adhere to what others deem fit, whereas to be truly ‘moralistic’ is to do something unethical and suffer the consequences knowingly because you have the conviction to see past the use of adhering to some ‘moral code’ that fits all.

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

Brief report on the situation in India: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JIhNKZOHJ74