Coronavirus: Discussion and Information

[CopperLily]

Yeah, it was one of the articles on my Yahoo homepage yesterday I think that the approval might mean more mandates from employers.  Before people could argue that it's not fully approved.  Now they can't, at least for that one.

This is a big thing. A lot of employers, universities, etc. have been dragging their feet waiting for a official approval before breaking out "No seriously, do this or you're fired."

[CopperLily]

And yes - a Moderna approval should follow very shortly on the heels of the Pfizer decision.

[Annaamarth]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/21/mississippi-ivermectin-covid-surge-livestock/

Okay, so, people are refusing to take a vaccine that was tested for safety in humans, and designed for humans, but they'll ingest livestock worm medication.  Someone please explain this to me, because I don't even....

This is a little late and, now that he's gotten a lil more attention you might have already seen this, but ...

https://youtu.be/dByVMsE08FA

It should be noted that Beau's partner is a nurse in Florida, so ... he might have strong feelings about this.

[Humble Scribe]

Tested positive for covid yesterday. So far the symptoms are just like a bad cold, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping the vaccine does its job.

[Skynet]

I'm sorry to hear that. :( Sending positive thoughts and feels your way.

[Thufir Hawat]

Did anyone cover the Arnold Controversy?

https://www.menshealth.com/health/a37421870/arnold-schwarzenegger-mask-wearing-covid-comments-controversy/

What he said:
“People should know there is a virus here. It kills people, and the only way we prevent it is to get vaccinated, wear masks, do social distancing, washing your hands all the time, and not just to think about, ‘Well, my freedom is being kind of disturbed here.’ No, screw your freedom, because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities. We cannot just say, ‘I have the right to do X, Y and Z.’ When you infect other people, that is when it gets serious.”

What certain media outlets heard:
"Someone said 'screw your freedom'? How un-American!"

His retort:
“These are people who yell ‘FREEDOM’ in their American flag hats while not taking any time to study the history of our nation and how freedom and duty have ALWAYS gone hand in hand,” he writes. “They think being an American means not caring about their fellow Americans, and I’m sorry, I can’t accept that.”

[TheGlyphstone]

Arnold continues to be an awesome person in (almost) every way.

[Oreo]

That's the main thing with rules. They can be broken down to the simplest form of; Do What is Right, Care about others. When you do that you have Freedom.

[Oniya]

Freedom 'to' usually comes with an opposing freedom 'from'.  You are free to swing your arm, but I must also be free from getting hit in the nose.

[Oniya]

A number of Florida school districts issued mask mandates for students. 

Gov. DeSantis issued an executive order saying that they had to include a parental 'opt-out'. 

A judge told him he couldn't do that.  As Florida deaths from COVID surge, he's appealing it.

[BlueOrange]

Meanwhile, in Australia, the refusal of the most-heavily-populated state to lock down hard means that the other states can't keep it out anymore.  So much for our awesome track record :(

[Annaamarth]

Meanwhile, in Australia, the refusal of the most-heavily-populated state to lock down hard means that the other states can't keep it out anymore.  So much for our awesome track record :(

From Florida-man to the people of Australia.

You may want to share this with neighbours.

https://youtu.be/NzqstDcb44I

[BlueOrange]

Everyone I'm in contact with has already chosen a side.  I love Beau, and he's right.  But we're past the point where that matters :(

[Azy]

Because here in the US we're doing so well...  As he said, people are going to feed stores for livestock parasite medicine because a virus and a parasite are the same thing?  I know people are tired of the restrictions.  So am I.  But hell, I think if this had been handled correctly in the first place we wouldn't be where we are.  At the beginning of this we were told we may lose one or two hundred thousand people.  We are way past that.  I hate it when conspiracy theories are thrown around, but even I can't help but look at what is going on and think this is some kind of Eugenics experiment, or our leaders think there needs to be a significant reduction in the population.   

[Skynet]

Because here in the US we're doing so well...  As he said, people are going to feed stores for livestock parasite medicine because a virus and a parasite are the same thing?  I know people are tired of the restrictions.  So am I.  But hell, I think if this had been handled correctly in the first place we wouldn't be where we are.  At the beginning of this we were told we may lose one or two hundred thousand people.  We are way past that.  I hate it when conspiracy theories are thrown around, but even I can't help but look at what is going on and think this is some kind of Eugenics experiment, or our leaders think there needs to be a significant reduction in the population.   

This was definitely an intent, albeit in a far stupider fashion. The Trump administration, GOP, and Fox news deliberately downplayed the effects of the virus in the early months due to the belief that it would hit the cities hardest which have more Democratic voters on average. But they miscalculated that such voters don't trust anything the Trump Administration says, and their rabid followers would instead be their most ardent supporters. They tried to double back the rhetoric, but Tucker Carlson and others are more than eager to Jim Jones huge swathes of their own followers because they're a death cult who already views their constituents and viewers as expendable. More dead Republicans isn't as much of a loss when you install voter suppression measures that neuter the voting power of liberal and minority voters.

[stormwyrm]

I hate it when conspiracy theories are thrown around, but even I can't help but look at what is going on and think this is some kind of Eugenics experiment, or our leaders think there needs to be a significant reduction in the population.   

What a load of hogwash. The wealth and power of the elites depends on the stability of the global economy, and a significant reduction in the world population will result in economic collapse. If that happens their wealth and power will lose all meaning. They might be able to afford servants and mercenaries today, but with what coin will those people be paid should the economy of the world collapse? They could then just as easily turn on their former masters and seize whatever they wanted by force. Even with a 99% population reduction the masses will still outnumber the elites. An eugenics experiment is not something any of them will get behind if economic collapse is the risk it entails.

Look at what happened the last time there was a major population decline, during the Black Death. That disaster did the elites of the time no favours. The elites of the 14th century, the Church and the feudal lords, found themselves significantly weakened by the massive population decline. The peasants and serfs who survived the plague found that they were in a strong position to bargain with the feudal lords. They could just up and leave to go to some other lord who would give them better terms and no one would really be able to stop them. Of course, the lord could just kill such uppity peasants as he might have done in former days, but that would still leave him without anyone to cultivate his land, and certainly no peasants from elsewhere would choose to migrate to a lord who was so unreasonable and violent. The Church found itself unable to do anything to stop the plague, and as such faced a huge crisis in confidence that eventually led to the Reformation a century or so later. The Europe that emerged from the Black Death would never be the same again: it was ripe for sweeping social, political, religious, and technological revolutions.

On the other hand, overpopulation seems to be far more beneficial to the short to medium term interests of the global elite. They can leave the teeming masses fighting amongst themselves for what little scraps fall from the tables of their betters, leaving them so divided that they are unable to make any kind of meaningful united front for bargaining or rebellion. I think the global elites like things fine just the way they are, and if some of them are trying to work to change things for the better, they would prefer it happen gradually rather than suddenly.

[Azy]

What a load of hogwash. The wealth and power of the elites depends on the stability of the global economy, and a significant reduction in the world population will result in economic collapse. If that happens their wealth and power will lose all meaning. They might be able to afford servants and mercenaries today, but with what coin will those people be paid should the economy of the world collapse? They could then just as easily turn on their former masters and seize whatever they wanted by force. Even with a 99% population reduction the masses will still outnumber the elites. An eugenics experiment is not something any of them will get behind if economic collapse is the risk it entails.

Look at what happened the last time there was a major population decline, during the Black Death. That disaster did the elites of the time no favours. The elites of the 14th century, the Church and the feudal lords, found themselves significantly weakened by the massive population decline. The peasants and serfs who survived the plague found that they were in a strong position to bargain with the feudal lords. They could just up and leave to go to some other lord who would give them better terms and no one would really be able to stop them. Of course, the lord could just kill such uppity peasants as he might have done in former days, but that would still leave him without anyone to cultivate his land, and certainly no peasants from elsewhere would choose to migrate to a lord who was so unreasonable and violent. The Church found itself unable to do anything to stop the plague, and as such faced a huge crisis in confidence that eventually led to the Reformation a century or so later. The Europe that emerged from the Black Death would never be the same again: it was ripe for sweeping social, political, religious, and technological revolutions.

On the other hand, overpopulation seems to be far more beneficial to the short to medium term interests of the global elite. They can leave the teeming masses fighting amongst themselves for what little scraps fall from the tables of their betters, leaving them so divided that they are unable to make any kind of meaningful united front for bargaining or rebellion. I think the global elites like things fine just the way they are, and if some of them are trying to work to change things for the better, they would prefer it happen gradually rather than suddenly.

For one, this isn't fuedal Europe, and I think you give the elite more long term consequence understanding than they often seem to have.  Two, I wasn't saying that it was fact, just trying to make sense of things that don't make sense.  You say that a mass reduction in population doesn't serve the elites, but that is exactly what is happening here, planned or not.  Over six hundred thousand dead in this country.  Not a small number.  The fact remains though that the number would be much smaller if our leaders hadn't politicized it.  The right wing talking heads keep saying it's no big deal, and mask wearing and vaccines are suppression of rights.  That is leading to their followers dying in alarming numbers.  Unless these elite talking heads are truly idiots and know not what they do, what is the point and purpose of gambling with the lives of those who trust them?

[TheGlyphstone]

Wait, so you discount the possibility that the upper-class/elites are competent in matters of self-interest (i.e., not wiping out vast swathes of the peons that create their wealth and give it meaning), but are willing - even eager - to believe they are hyper-competent in matters of malevolence (willfully depopulating the planet or conducting some sort of bizarre eugenics experiment)? Deliberately engineering a plague, and then covering that up, is far more difficult and complicated and expensive than simply being selfish and short-sighted.

And that's why some right-wing leaders are still discounting the dangers, because the deaths of 'ordinary' people don't personally affect them, because they have access to top-quality medical care if they do get infected, and most importantly, because leashing the fear and anger of their followers is how they maintain power. It's just opportunism - note that the rhetoric being used about masks and vaccines is very similar to what was said about the Affordable Care Act, and about legalizing gay marriage, and presumably about letting black people vote way back when. New lyrics to the same tune, but it's how they stay in power - rally against what the other side wants, because the other side wants it so it must be bad.

Plus, as has been mentioned on and off, there are some right-wing politicians who have figured out they can't get elected if all their voters are dead, and are trying to reverse course; but it's too late in most cases and they can't chain the monster up again. Heck, Trump himself told people to get vaccinated at one of his recent rallies, and the crowd booed him for it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404

[Azy]

The elites are very competent in self interest.  They are just short-sighted a lot of the time.  Don't try to twist my words and accuse me of saying things I didn't say.  You've pretty much just said it all for me.  Right now capitalizing on anger and fear is benefiting them.  But then when this virus has done killed off at least a large chunk of those people they are trying to keep on their side, and those of us being sensible outnumber them, as you said earlier, that does not benefit  their interest.  And yet that is exactly what I see ending up happening.  Ergo, I don't know what they think they are trying to do exactly, but they are thinking about right now as usual, and not five or ten years down the road.  People of all walks of life are guilty of setting their sights on immediate gratification to the point that they really haven't thought the long term through.   

[Azy]

I should probably add that all of this is what we're seeing on the surface.  Can these leaders understand and invest in long term interests?  Probably.  And this is why I'm a little baffled.  They are telling the people who follow them to do the things that are going to put them in the most danger.  Why?  Conservatives have always held onto control using fear.  When my Psychology textbook got into personality traits and how they affect our lives, I don't remember the exact percentage it gave, but Conservative leaning people respond to fear much more easily than do liberal leaning people.  But it seems like right now they are biting themselves in the ass.  Perhaps in speculating that there was a bigger plan we didn't know about I gave them too much credit?  I really don't know.  I just feel like we're on the train headed straight for freaking Looneyville and Republicans have ripped out the breaks. 

[BlueOrange]

I don’t think Trump is anywhere near as smart as this thread makes him out to be. His playbook is always the same: claim that with him in charge, everything will be fine (or is fine), and insist loudly that he is infallible.

So in the early stages, he said everything was fine. Then he said that everything was fine due to whatever quackery he’d heard about the night before. Then that everything was going to be fine really soon, and that the problems were all someone else’s fault.

The idea that he had any plan at all is not consistent with the evidence.

[Azy]

Oh, I doubt Trump has a single thought in his head.  It's the other talking heads that worry me. 

[Oreo]

The thing is this is the behavior of all politicians, not just Trump. They play the blame game well....all of them. I'd have more respect if they owned their mistakes.

[Azy]

The thing is this is the behavior of all politicians, not just Trump. They play the blame game well....all of them. I'd have more respect if they owned their mistakes.

That would be awesome. 

[stormwyrm]

Unless these elite talking heads are truly idiots and know not what they do, what is the point and purpose of gambling with the lives of those who trust them?

There's the old adage called Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Based on what we know, I think many of the elites and political leaders really are idiots, Trump foremost among them, and that is a better explanation of their behaviour than 4D chess-style long-range planning. Postulating that runs afoul of another more famous philosophical razor, one attributed to William of Ockham.