throwmeaway_pls (u/throwmeaway_pls)

throwmeaway_pls commented on The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights economist.com/internation... · Posted by u/lxm

sanp · 5 years ago

OK, don't trust the numbers from China. Do you trust the numbers from South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, NZ?

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

I definitely do not believe NZ’s claim they eradicated COVID with “95% probability.” [1]

I do not trust that number at all.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/world/australia/new-zeala...

throwmeaway_pls commented on Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic? science.sciencemag.org/co... · Posted by u/HarryHirsch

pmoriarty · 5 years ago

"Instead of acting with compassion and trying to convince people of the dangers of this disease"

Like that hasn't been done non-stop since the world heard the term "coronavirus"?

A significant percentage of the population prefer not to listen to the science and instead believe in conspiracy theories. Science literacy in the general population is abysmal. That's just a fact.

Many people prefer to listen to what their morning talk show tells them than listen to the CDC.

This kind of ignorance could be overcome to some extent through massive information campaigns, but so far the US government at least is incapable or unwilling to do that. If anything, on some of the highest levels it's doing quite the opposite.

That kind of obviously harmful attitude is not just ignorant, it's borderline malicious.

People certainly have and will probably continue to die because of it.

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

I think people can tell that bullshit has been spewed in all directions. Nobody is looking good here. Nobody is above reproach.

throwmeaway_pls commented on Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic? science.sciencemag.org/co... · Posted by u/HarryHirsch

alex_young · 5 years ago

If that drops r below 1 long enough it would have to right?

This seems especially hard to do though, since compliance would need to be nearly universal. You could potentially wipe out influenza and the common cold at the same time too though potentially.

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

What about viral reservoirs?

throwmeaway_pls commented on Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims bbc.com/news/technology-5... · Posted by u/nkurz

quantummkv · 5 years ago

Keep aside the accuracy of the NYPost story for a moment. With this move, Facebook and Twitter have effectively backed one political side over the other. Even if in the nitty-gritty they might not have, this is the perception that is sent out and is the perception that will be played to the hilt by the Trump camp. And timing of this is damning as well, with distrust of big tech and social media rising even before this on all ends of the political spectrum.

If by any chance Trump wins next month, this will be the end not only for Facebook and Twitter, but for the wider Internet in general and Social Media in particular. Because if Trump wins, he is not going to let it slide. The destruction of Facebook and Twitter will most certainly done by removing the safe harbors by citing this incident in particular. That will be a bloodbath with a lot casualties of innocent bystanders in Silicon Valley.

And the knock-off effects of this will be even more damning. Even if Trump loses, many other countries will take a big, hard look at the possibility of regime change and political interference being done by a bunch of Western Activists. Especially in Asia and Africa, where the memories of Western Imperialism have not yet faded and the wounds are still raw.

I am really surprised by the fact that the shareholders, investors and the board of Facebook and Twitter haven't stepped in to stop this or at-least deescalate this, considering they will be loosing a whole lot in this scenario. Or is everyone in Silicon Valley just too drugged out with activism to care about even themselves?

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

They’ve certainly changed my vote. Wow.

throwmeaway_pls commented on YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation reuters.com/article/us-he... · Posted by u/finphil

taf2 · 5 years ago

I think it’s risky to believe something is a war. It’s too often this line of thinking that is used to remove civil liberties.

I take a different view. We are actively having an open debate and that is a good thing.

YouTube is not part of our government, they are like a magazine or tv station of the past and they can and IMO have the right to choose what content they allow or disallow and this is totally fine and has nothing to do with free speech (in the legal sense)

Now if we past a law that stated I can not speak my mind about covid that would be a law that IMO violates the 1st amendment.

But what is happening today is not bad it’s just one company making a decision on it’s own.

A separate question for the legal system to probably decide is whether YouTube as part of Google is acting as a monopoly to abuse its power. But I do not think anything about YouTubes decision as a business to not allow certain content published is anyway a matter of our 1st amendment rights... hopefully my perspective isn’t too poorly received - but thankfully you can down vote me, or up vote me and I don’t have to worry about being throw in jail for posting - happy hacking

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

That’s an overly simplistic and reductive view of free speech rights. Can my internet service provider shut off my access if I spend too much time reading “misinformation”? Can they give the government a list of all the people reading “misinformation”? Can they require I attend a reeducation program before restoring my access?

throwmeaway_pls commented on Why the Swedish Model for Fighting Covid-19 Is a Disaster time.com/5899432/sweden-c... · Posted by u/T-A

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

The medical chauvinism on display here is the real disaster. We need to have a broader conversation.

throwmeaway_pls commented on San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S. bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/pondsider

justchilly · 5 years ago

Wearing masks won't make this end any sooner. Reducing transmission rates flattens the curve meaning smaller spikes but likely longer presence of corona virus.

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

Unfortunately when rationality and ideology conflict, ideology tends to win.

throwmeaway_pls commented on Zoom and Gloom economist.com/special-rep... · Posted by u/lxm

djsumdog · 5 years ago

> It's looking more and more like this deadly virus is going to be part of our lives for months or years to come, if not decades

I don't understand this attitude. No, we will go back to normal. This cannot continue forever. We cannot live the rest of our lives in fear. This is not how we evolved and I'm honestly sick of it.

There is growing evidence that there is immunity out there beyond antibodies; including memory T-cells. It's likely we'll be fine long before a vaccine is produced, through a combination of herd immunity and just better therapeutics (there are some big studies on inhaled steroids right now that are promising).

Mississippi, Florida and other states are starting to go back to normal without any increase in fatalities (and don't go on about cases, because there is no distinction between people who test positive and people who test positive because they've actually been sick). Fatalities are going down across the board. Exponential growth does not go on forever. It ends.

Things should have been back to normal months ago. All these lockdowns have just delayed the inevitable. When this is over and we can prune all the data, I expect to see the same fatality rates between countries that did and didn't lock down, excluding places like NYC, northern Italy, Michigan and other places where we put all the elderly people together.

In 2030, we'll look back at this as a time of overreaction and mass hysteria.

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

Agreed, we are living through a mass hysteria event. The shared delusion is that through moral acts one can somehow avoid exposure to an endemic human coronavirus.

throwmeaway_pls commented on Harvard, Oxford, Stanford doctors among leaders of global anti-lockdown movement mercurynews.com/2020/10/1... · Posted by u/rllearneratwork

carapace · 5 years ago

Has it? You're not being very clear.

throwmeaway_pls · 5 years ago

Yes. Look up the “Declaration of Helsinki.”