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[RedKing]

Since QAnon has essentially become a hybrid Imperial cult/millenialist cult, I'm more fascinated to see what happens after Trump is gone and whether it'll be King-Under-The-Mountain shit like "He faked his death and lives in cryogenic suspension in an underground military base in Kansas, where he will come again when the US needs him most..."

[wierd]

Kansas is a poor choice for an underground base.

The bedrock is porous limestone, and the water tables tend to be fairly shallow.  All those derelict missile bases have filled in with water.
Any such installation would have to have regular maintenance crews sent to them to assure that the sump pumps are working, as failures would result in flooding.

What you really want to say, is that he has been installed in the Cheyenne Mountain installation.  That's inside a mountain, far above a water table.

[RedKing]

Kansas is a poor choice for an underground base.

The bedrock is porous limestone, and the water tables tend to be fairly shallow.  All those derelict missile bases have filled in with water.
Any such installation would have to have regular maintenance crews sent to them to assure that the sump pumps are working, as failures would result in flooding.

What you really want to say, is that he has been installed in the Cheyenne Mountain installation.  That's inside a mountain, far above a water table.

No, Yucca Mountain! All the talk about nuclear waste was just a cover story to keep people away, and they've been working on it for decades.
EDIT: Also explains why Harry Reid was so opposed to the project, since he was one of the baby-eating lizard Jews or whatever the fuck it is they're supposed to be. And why Trump was so vehement about the Democratic governor of Nevada when he was there recently.

Man, I wasted an opportunity by not getting in early on the whole Q thing and engaging in some fucked-up worldbuilding.

[Maximum Spin]

Yeah, uh, Maximum, you know that there's more than one explanation for covid deaths disproportionately hitting minority communities, right? Not just vitamin D, but the fact that minorities tend to work more "essential" jobs and are much less likely to be able to work from home - in addition, higher poverty rates result in worse care, generally speaking, compounding the issue. It's telling that a bunch of boomers wanted to re-open, but it's minorities getting disproportionately sick serving them at restaurants and such.

There are other explanations beside vitamin D, which is why I said that it was the best one I had heard by that point for explaining why the effects on people of African descent, specifically, are clearly correlated with latitude. The explanations you offered can, actually, be securely ruled out for this particular effect because it shows up even if you control for all those things. Furthermore, it doesn't explain the huge divergence between African-descent and Latino populations, where Latino populations also frequently work in face-to-face service jobs (and are less likely to work in the public sector, which correlates with having many more distinct interactions a day) and have the same problems with higher poverty rates, yet suffer markedly less, proportionally speaking, from coronavirus once location is controlled for (eg, there were many more Latino cases when California was getting hit hard, but that's purely because California has an extremely small black population and a huge Latino population).

It is important to be aware of what data actually exists.

ETA: To put this in perspective, compare the coronavirus death rates in Africa, where, I can assure you, poverty rates and healthcare availability can be far, far worse than anything anyone in the United States will ever experience, while interpersonal contact rates are if anything higher.

ETAA: Let me explain something else. The first two quotes and the last three quotes in that hit piece were from two completely different conversations. The second part is unrelated to the first; the second part was talking about how the largest effect of the virus has been on elderly, relatively wealthy white people of the general class that RedKing would refer to as "vittles". Possibly you guys don't all actually know this? The death rates for minorities overall have still been tiny, just as the death rates for whites overall have - "disproportionate" is relative. It's far from great, but it's a hell of a bright side that the biggest impact of a global pandemic has been to reduce the population of rich white boomers drawing down social funds that already can't afford to pay for them and will not be available for the rest of us. The hilarious thing is that I think RedKing would agree with that completely, if he bothered to find out what was actually said.

[Dostoevsky]

No, Yucca Mountain! All the talk about nuclear waste was just a cover story to keep people away, and they've been working on it for decades.
EDIT: Also explains why Harry Reid was so opposed to the project, since he was one of the baby-eating lizard Jews or whatever the fuck it is they're supposed to be. And why Trump was so vehement about the Democratic governor of Nevada when he was there recently.

Man, I wasted an opportunity by not getting in early on the whole Q thing and engaging in some fucked-up worldbuilding.

Funnily enough, from what I've read studies more recent than the congressional law on Yucca have raised significant concerns about seismological activity and other, er, geological insecurities when it comes to secure storage. I guess a better choice than porous limestone, at least.

[Starver]

I wonder what the Inverse Seismometers say about the area?

(Not really Ameripol, but I never actually finished my havering over whether to post that to the Science/Tech threads, yesterday, so I'll use this hook to share it, instead.)


Also: With all this underground bunker stuff, suggesting various locations, there's very likely an easy pun on the Deep State that I can't be bothered to make.

[Dostoevsky]

That is a pretty neat concept, thanks for sharing. (No idea on an answer unfortunately, and not my area of expertise.)

[RedKing]

To combat the Deep State, we became the Deepest State. All hail Morlockia!

[Maximum Spin]

So, to re-interpret, black people in america are disproportionately affected by COVID not because they're poor, but because they're black in a northerly latitude, and consequently this displacement, once they all die, is evolutionarily good for the population of the country because this genotype, I dunno, shouldn't be up here, or am I reading too much into it?

No?

Black people in America are disproportionately affected by covid-19 for a lot of reasons. The specific reason why this effect stratifies by latitude is unclear, but may be due to vitamin D deficiencies, caused by eating a normal western diet (low in vitamin D) while, yes, being black in a northerly latitude, which is an unfortunate reason to have a health issue but not exactly something you can do anything about. It is extremely unlikely that they will all die. Whatever deaths do occur are not particularly likely to be evolutionarily "good" or "bad", which aren't really valid concepts except in the extremely attenuated sense in which all deaths are "evolutionarily good" because... people dying is how evolution works. Nevertheless, I certainly don't think these deaths are good at all and you are being intentionally obtuse. The whole conversation about some deaths being relatively better for society than others was separate and wasn't about minorities at all.

Am I also reading into it too much that it reads like they, having higher death rates, are therefore 'lower value individuals?' I'm not sure if you're positing about their race, or maybe this is a hamfisted pass at how modern medicine enables the average person to subvert genetically weaker human traits? Is it race? Eugenics? What keeps you safe from the standards you set?

Yes, you are reading into it too much because those things weren't related, and also, you are committing a basic logical fallacy (affirming the consequent) in the first sentence here. 'Lower-value individuals', meaning elderly boomers who are consuming a disproportionate share of society's resources out of an apparent sense of entitlement (and therefore literally have a lower value to society, in fact a negative value because they consume more than they produce), have higher death rates than anyone else. It does not follow that anyone with higher death rates is part of that group. I do not believe that you are really stupid enough that you can't understand this. The rest of this quote, therefore, is as irrelevant as it is obnoxious.

Ooooor do we bring this all the way back around to the old fart baby boomers that want to eat at their open buffets and determine that they're lower value people that purging is a good outcome for because they can no longer contribute as effectively to the growth of the economy?

Yes. Or, to be more precise, it's not a "good outcome", but it's a "bright side of everyone dying". This is exactly what this was about all along. I'm not going to quote the rest of your paragraph because it was irrelevant and dumb, but the fact is: we are running out of money to pay for them already because they use it all up and don't care. If a few more of them die off thus freeing up a little more resources for everyone else, no, I'm not going to be especially sad.

(ETA: You could also read my most recent edit on my previous post before this, which I'm guessing you missed, for more about how two different conversations were dishonestly munged together there, or, you could just, like, read the actual context.)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You do understand you can just eat vitamin D no matter what the sun is like, yes? We'd have a hell of a lot more cases of rickets if the problem was as bad as you claimed.

And it is you who is being at best obtuse and at worst disgusting brushing up against Social Darwinism like this.

[Maximum Spin]

You do understand you can just eat vitamin D no matter what the sun is like, yes? We'd have a hell of a lot more cases of rickets if the problem was as bad as you claimed.

...Modest vitamin D deficiency is common among all races at latitudes of around 35-40°+, because a western diet does not provide very much vitamin D; and it is more common in A) people who don't get much sunlight, and B) people with darker skin. This is a known, confirmed medical fact. In fact, people with darker skin do have a lot more cases of rickets. My own vitamin D level has tested dangerously low, and I have been making an effort to fix this, so I am quite familiar with the subject. See for example: https://universityhealthnews.com/daily/bones-joints/rickets-on-the-rise/

It's a real thing, man.

And it is you who is being at best obtuse and at worst disgusting brushing up against Social Darwinism like this.

I disagree that it is obtuse or disgusting to "brush[] up against" an ideology, and I think it's stupid to cut off a line of discussion because it vaguely reminds you of something someone Bad might say.

[Maximum Spin]

Look, I get that minority-specific health outcomes are something nice white liberals can afford not to know. It doesn't affect you and your family the way it does mine. I respect that.

But when you dismiss as racist the idea that different groups of people might need different medical care, without even bothering to check the data, your piety is contributing to unnecessary deaths of minority members.

[WealthyRadish]

Let me explain

I'm glad you feel a need to, really.

The first quote saying that the pandemic hasn't been as bad in the US as in Europe (because to make a fair comparison you need to exclude all non-white deaths) and then in the same post saying that the pandemic killing people "has been good, especially from an evolutionary perspective" is the sort thing we see actual neo-Nazis write. I don't actually think you're a neo-Nazi, but I remembered that unfortunate conversation because it certainly seemed to be the sort of thing scientific racism types would put together.

If I'm following your new logic, it's that the pandemic killing older white people frees the system to better address the needs of minorities (needs incidentally caused by their unfortunate genetics), and that's what you meant by "good for human evolution"? It sounds like libertarian and "race realism" wires are getting crossed in unfortunate proximity, but it's certainly a better position. Diversity (genetic included) is generally a strength, and if there is a real vitamin D link I'd like it to be used to improve treatment of people who suffer from deficiency in it (I personally do as well). I'm not sure why boomers need to die for it. If these are unrelated concepts, what did you mean by the "especially human evolution" angle?

Also, I don't think anyone here has claimed to want old white boomers to die in the pandemic (well, except you I guess). There's a lot of anti-boomer vitriol, but that's a line that I don't think has been crossed. The closest I can think of is some saying that the eventual loss of boomers as a voting bloc will be good politically, but that was before the pandemic which I think has chilled most of that.

And finally, only the last quote was from a slightly different conversation 15 minutes later about whether stupid people deserve to die from it (after spreading it to their family, coworkers, service workers...). The second quote was needed context for what "controlling for demographics" meant.

[Maximum Spin]

If I'm following your new logic, it's that the pandemic killing older white people frees the system to better address the needs of minorities (needs incidentally caused by their unfortunate genetics), and that's what you meant by "good for human evolution"?

Wtf, no. Why can you not separate the two conversations? First of all, I do not believe I ever said the words "good for human evolution", and it does not apply in any way to the argument I was making.

The epidemic killing older white people has nothing to do with the needs of minorities or of anyone else (because it was part of a separate conversation with a different person), and is purely about "as the deaths are predominantly affecting elderly people who consume a disproportionate amount of social resources and especially of medical resources, it leaves the survivors in a better position going forward to survive future epidemics". This is not complicated.

I also think it's funny how you say "their unfortunate genetics" like it's some kind of slur when, in fact, having dark skin in a high latitude is unfortunate, just as having Irish or Nordic pale skin at tropical latitudes is unfortunate. This works both ways; remember how Europeans in central Africa just straight-up died until the invention and widespread distribution of effective antimalarials? That was also because of "their unfortunate genetics". It is also due to your unfortunate genetics that you can't enter a state of torpor and survive hard vacuum like a tardigrade.

The first quote saying that the pandemic hasn't been as bad in the US as in Europe (because to make a fair comparison you need to exclude all non-white deaths) and then in the same post saying that the pandemic killing people "has been good, especially from an evolutionary perspective" is the sort thing we see actual neo-Nazis write. I don't actually think you're a neo-Nazi, but I remembered that unfortunate conversation because it certainly seemed to be the sort of thing scientific racism types would put together.

How the hell is that something a neo-Nazi would say? The point isn't "you need to exclude all non-white deaths" because somehow they don't count, it's that nowhere in Europe has any comparable amount of demographic diversity as America has, and the parts that are closest are also the parts that have been hit hardest by the epidemic. It is, in fact, necessary to compare similar populations if you want to say one region has done better than another region; otherwise the regions are being compared unfairly.

Also, I don't think anyone here has claimed to want old white boomers to die in the pandemic (well, except you I guess).

Well, I didn't say that, but at the same time, at least one other person (weird) agreed with what I did say...

[WealthyRadish]

First of all, I do not believe I ever said the words "good for human evolution", and it does not apply in any way to the argument I was making.

Here's the "human evolution" quote:

From a long-term and especially from an evolutionary perspective, the epidemic has been good for the population of the country as a whole.

They were absolutely the same conversation, except the last quote (if that's really what this is about, it's just incorrect):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Voting isn't a particularly social activity, and the incidental contact it involves should be of minimal concern to people who are being careful and not doing something especially stupid.

If the US in general wasn't constantly doing especially stupid shit in relation the covid, there wouldn't be 170 thousand and rising new corpses in this country.

That's simply objectively false. The US has a death rate on par or below that of demographically similar countries, compliance rates for precautions are extremely high (the 'Americans won't wear masks' meme is simply a lie, or at best a failed extrapolation from specific outlier regions), and QALYs lost have been low. There is no statistical basis to think that America has done significantly worse than any other country relative to its population base, and it's clear that, for example, it is doing much better than the European average. There have been a few mistakes — "stick 'em in the nursing homes" comes to mind for me, a New Yorker — but this is an inevitability in all cases where humans are allowed to make decisions, and there have been mistakes everywhere else too. Nevertheless, to drill down more specifically to whether there should or shouldn't be 170k corpses lying around, all the evidence is that the majority of deaths in America are simply statistically 'carried forward' from the next five to ten years; by any model, normal death rates will be suppressed over the near term due to the slight but significant 'youngening' of the population. From a long-term and especially from an evolutionary perspective, the epidemic has been good for the population of the country as a whole.

From a long-term and especially from an evolutionary perspective, the epidemic has been good for the population of the country as a whole.

whatthefuckamireading.png

The first quote is absolutely the case. Epidemics in general are beneficial for the survivors for a variety of reasons, of which the most important is freeing up resources that would otherwise be consumed by relatively low-value individuals.

The pandemic being good "especially from an evolutionary perspective" is here in the same post of the same conversation about higher minority death from the disease being attributable to genetics (and requiring non-white deaths to be excluded in judging government response).

So then I asked:

If these are unrelated concepts, what did you mean by the "especially human evolution" angle?