newacct583 (u/newacct583)

newacct583 commented on The Weirdness of Government Variation in Covid-19 Responses richardhanania.substack.c... · Posted by u/_xnmw

chrisco255 · 4 years ago

The thing to takeaway from COVID-19 policy responses is that there is no clear success in any strategy whatsoever. The virus has confounded and mutated and spread in the face of masking, social distancing, triple vaxxing, lockdowns, and medical apartheid.

We are two years into this. It's clear that Covid is endemic and here to stay. That its rate of mutation and spread is too high to contain. Antiviral treatments and therapeutics should be given more heavy support and research. People also need to move on, and live freely, because life is too short to live in a bubble of fear and dreariness. How many high school graduations, proms, death bed visitations, dance recitals, wedding receptions, music concerts, games and sporting events have been ruined by these awful and ineffective government responses? How much life and joy has been sucked out of the world to stave off the inevitable?

newacct583 · 4 years ago

South Korea certainly seems like a success, with a per capita death rate about 3% of what the US saw. In fact contrary to your point, there is a very wide spread in covid impact from nation to nation. Here's a graph of all nations with 10M+ populations (scaled to eliminate Peru, which is a significant outlier that makes the graph hard to read):

https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...

And while there's lots of confounding issues here, like developing nations or autocracies with underreported or suspect data, it's pretty clear that some countries are doing a ton better than others. And it certainly looks to my eyes that among developed democracies, the nations with stronger popular adherence to mitigation strategies (in particular vaccination rates, but distancing and mask-wearing too) are the ones who are winning.

(And needless to say, the US is pretty much at the bottom of the list of industrial democracies.)

newacct583 commented on China's Foreign Ministry 'not aware' of situation of tennis player Peng Shuai espn.com/tennis/story/_/i... · Posted by u/bryan0

arvigeus · 4 years ago

She is probably in custody. I am very anti-CCP, but I don’t believe they are that plain evil (or stupid) to simply kill someone - mafia style. Especially someone with such high profile.

Look at what happened to Jack Ma - he was also “disappeared”, but he showed couple of times since. Such a flamboyant persona like him to turn into a “monk” in just couple of months shows that CCP knows how to shut people up without harming them.

When they release her she will also be put on a short leash and try staying lower than grass.

newacct583 · 4 years ago

To be clear: "safe" in this context generally implies more than merely "physically unharmed". It's quite clear that Jack Ma was coerced into giving up control of Alibaba. It seems likely that Peng Shuai is being similarly pressured.

Having authorities (for example) scream in your face about their ability to wreck your career and that of all your friends and family is not what most people would consider "safe".

newacct583 commented on Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink wsj.com/articles/woke-is-... · Posted by u/dandotway

newacct583 · 4 years ago

The first example cites what I guess is an attempted cancellation of Peter Thiel:

> In his recent book “The Contrarian,” journalist Max Chafkin assigns an ideology to Mr. Thiel, then defines it as “fascist” and even tries to blame this concocted “Thielism” for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. There is little doubt that the book would never have come to be had Mr. Thiel not supported Donald Trump in 2016.

I mean, OK. I guess it's probably unfair. But... to cite this kind of thing as an example of censorious excess and the decline of society and not at least nod to Thiel's own successful cancellation and destruction of Gawker media seems... logically suspect.

I mean, who is it not OK to destroy for ideological reasons and who is fair game?

newacct583 commented on Instead of cheques to fight climate change, billionaires should just pay taxes cbc.ca/radio/day6/fightin... · Posted by u/colinprince

GenerocUsername · 4 years ago

Taxes REGULARLY go towards things that will not help the climate.

newacct583 · 4 years ago

Obviously true, but still on balance government-directed spending (especially outside the US, but even here too) is more likely to take long term goals like climate mitigation seriously. And the big picture changes, at the level of serious regulation, can only be done by governments.

If you have $20 to spend and want to do the least damage, give it to the government as tax, basically.

newacct583 commented on Metallurgist admits faking steel test results for US Navy subs bbc.com/news/world-us-can... · Posted by u/croes

tyingq · 4 years ago

"she thought it was "stupid" that the Navy required the tests to be conducted at -100F (-70C)"

I'd be curious to know what that requirement is for too, though I'd likely not just ignore it.

newacct583 · 4 years ago

Which is sort of the same thing. "I don't want to run this expensive or complicated test because it's stupid" is certainly a kind of cost cutting.

newacct583 commented on NFT's aren't the answer to the problems of digital art jacquescorbytuech.com/wri... · Posted by u/iamacyborg

dnautics · 4 years ago

So is money (or else it wouldn't work)

newacct583 · 4 years ago

Only in a specious sense. The point to money isn't "scarcity", the point to money is TRUST. You trust that $1 is going to be worth $1 tomorrow, and that it will be worth $1 to the shopkeeper and the bank and your family and everyone else. So anywhere you want to trade for something, you can do it in dollars. It's true that to provide that stability you have to control the supply, so money is "scarce". But only in the sense that the economy it represents is finite.

NFTs don't provide that, therefore they aren't a good medium of exchange. They aren't "scarce" in the way that money is or has to be.

They're also a Tulip bubble, but that's a different thing.

newacct583 commented on Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware frontlinedefenders.org/en... · Posted by u/bjourne

Vervious · 4 years ago

To be fair, it is quite murky to what extent groups like Al-Haq are associated with the PFLP (which, with its history of aircraft hijackings and suicide bombings, is undoubtedly a terrorist group). There is plenty of purported evidence of financial and personnel links out there, and I really doubt HN is the right forum to decide either way (unless someone is an expert).

newacct583 · 4 years ago

This seems like an attempt at misdirection. In a lawful society, the reason for surveilling suspected terrorists is because you actually suspect them of terrorism, not because they're currently your political opponents.

If you ran with a gang in your 20's, that doesn't give the government permanent access to a wire tap when you start doing social justice advocacy in your 40's.

newacct583 commented on Appeals court blocks Covid-19 vaccine mandate for large businesses latimes.com/world-nation/... · Posted by u/rsj_hn

rsj_hn · 4 years ago

The court responds to the arguments made before it. This was a motion for a temporary injunction so all the court said was "there are grave statutory and constitutional concerns" and so the relief was granted.

By the way, no one on the defense was foolish enough to make the kind of arguments you made - e.g. "The Federal Government has a history of regulating medicine, so this executive order is constitutional".

The real debate is whether it is in OSHA's purview to do this, which of course it's not, but with a sympathetic judge and lots of smoke being thrown in people's eyes, there is a hope that courts will overlook that. Most commentators predict this will not be found constitutional, just like the executive order banning evictions -- I mean, seriously?? And notice that there were no arguments saying that CDC actually had the authority to ban evictions, it was just emotionalizing at what bad things evictions are and so of course we should give the CDC this extra-legal authority.

And each time, people on the left are just shocked when the courts strike this down.

Look, you can stay in this bubble and be constantly surprised yourself, or you can dig into the legalities of executive orders on your own as well as this dirty legal history of OSHA. It's not a pretty picture, and you should not support using executive orders to change the scope of authority of regulatory bodies, because one day a President of the other party will be in charge and then you really don't want extra-judicial decrees to carry the force of law.

newacct583 · 4 years ago

> This was a motion for a temporary injunction so all the court said was "there are grave statutory and constitutional concerns" and so the relief was granted.

That's right. And two months ago, with a case that had clear and obvious "constitutional concerns" (seriously, it undermined Roe!) they said "Nah, we're good" and refused to stay it. That's the problem here. They aren't making a legal finding at all, they're making a political finding. And you know it.

> The real debate is whether it is in OSHA's purview to do this

Not in this case it isn't. That hasn't even been heard yet. The question is whether or not to stay the mandate only.

newacct583 commented on Appeals court blocks Covid-19 vaccine mandate for large businesses latimes.com/world-nation/... · Posted by u/rsj_hn

rsj_hn · 4 years ago

> medical practice regulation like this has been done by the federal

Yes, by law, but not executive order. OSHA was established to limit workplace injury. There is a long history of trying to use OSHA to regulate workplaces in ways that exceed the authorizing legislation, and each of them have been ruled unconstitutional.

> medical practice regulation like this has been done by the federal government for centuries

You know who doesn't do medical regulation? OSHA. Because they are not authorized to do it. You want to use "The Federal Government" to mandate a vaccine -- then pass a law.

> Note that this is exactly the same panel of the same circuit court that found two months ago that the Texas abortion law

You know the difference between the Texas abortion law and this executive order? One was a law, the other a decree.

Don't try to excuse rule by decree on the grounds that vaccines are good. Pass a law requiring them, but don't try to impose them via executive order. Respect the law.

> This is just lawless.

The executive order was lawless. If you want to mandate a vaccine, then pass legislation. If you think you can ban increases in rent, then do that via legislation. If you think CO2 should be regulated as a pollutant under the EPA, then pass legislation.

Stop trying to rule via executive order, and you can start moaning about lawlessness when actual laws, rather than decrees, are dismissed in the courts.

newacct583 · 4 years ago

You're making up arguments that the fifth didn't even bother to, though. If that was their reasoning, then why didn't they say so?

newacct583 commented on Appeals court blocks Covid-19 vaccine mandate for large businesses latimes.com/world-nation/... · Posted by u/rsj_hn

nickff · 4 years ago

The ninth circuit gets far more cases reversed than the fifth, and the sixth has the worst record upon review (though they don’t get many reviewed).

https://ballotpedia.org/SCOTUS_case_reversal_rates_(2007_-_P...

newacct583 · 4 years ago

This isn't about getting it Right or Wrong though. This is about making pre-trial injunction decisions based on baldly partisan reasoning. The 9th and 6th may have a "partisan" view of jurisprudence, but they're consistently so. The fifth is making shit up. That's the lawless part. They don't care, they just want their side to win.