Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kagus]

China

Code: [Select]

You have embarked on the Falun Gong Organ Harvesting Trail!

...

You have died from dissentery.

[coalboat]

A week ago rumors said Lihonzi (the head of the cult) died in US, from this virus... Probably just rumors though.

[mko]

This is exactly the same shit as the wave of bigotry against Muslims that happened after 9/11, based off half-truths stretched into madness and fervor.

And that is exactly the strawmanism that precipitates all the cries of "ANTI-SEMITISM!!" every time someone says maybe it's bad when Israel murders a dozen Palestinians.

I have nothing against the Chinese people. They are the victims at the forefront of the Chinese state's oppression.

I'm not the one taking instruction from the government on what to believe. You and all the rest are suddenly activated on China now for a reason, and it's not your own reason.

I "activated" because you started trolling/lying about how USA and China has the same level of human right abuse against their own citizens. What is blatantly false. China is doing nearly all evil things done by USA government against their own citizens and adds many seriously evil things on top (censorship, religious persecution, unelectable leaders without term limits, destruction of Uyghurs culture, organ harvesting and many more).

Also, daily reminder that not everyone on the Internet is from USA.

(hint: if you want to argue that USA is as evil as China then do not restrict it to "own population[0]" - this will include hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, treatment of immigrants etc. And that may allow you to claim that they are in the same class as far as caused evil goes. But claiming that human right abuse of China citizens by China government is on the same level as human right abuse of USA citizens by USA government is extremely dumb claim or quite efficient trolling.)

[ 0 ] http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175464.msg8132911#msg8132911

States do evil, inherently.

Similarly humans, but you can be more or less evil. Ending analysis at "both A and B do evil things" is how you end with very stupid results.

[McTraveller]

I'm not in US so what I see may be wrong but I think US spreads the risk across the whole population to avoid the damage of quarantine while favoring the richer people to some extent.

This is an interesting observation.  Specifically - most things in the US do "favor the richer people" but this isn't really due to an intentional coordinated action.  It's an emergent phenomenon of many many influences.  When you get past the hyperbole of the US leaders and corporate fat-cats "focusing only on the rich at the expense of the poor, and laughing with glee because they are getting away with stealing from the poor" you are left with reality, which is much closer to this:

The US is hyper-individualistic and is generally "pay your own way."  This implicitly favors "the rich": if you have money, you can buy stuff.  It's not so much "let's screw the poor people", the average mentality of 90% of the US population is just "why don't those people pay for it? Why don't they just work harder, stop wasting money on drugs, and buy the necessities they need?"

We just don't have a culture of "the community should have priority over the individual" - our culture is steeped in "do what makes you feel good" (rather than "do what is good for the community").  Almost all tension in the US is the battle between this individualistic worldview and the movements to try and be more community focused.  It's really interesting though because there are bifurcations in this - especially in "liberal" leaning philosophies.  What I mean is there is a weird mix of "person first" like in gender identification and "community first" like in environmentalism and social programs.

This shows up in the US virus response attitudes - people in the US have a mental fitness function that is "yeah I don't see the benefit in sacrificing 90% of my income for an expected personal return of 5%.  I also don't even see the benefit in sacrificing 10% of the entire country's economy for 1% of the population - even if that is 3 million people".  For that's essentially what is being asked:  "saving COVID lives should be done, no matter the cost!" is how it sounds, and most people are like "no man I don't want to pay that much."  Where the ire comes in the US is when leaders say "sorry we know you don't agree with action X but you have to do it anyway." We just don't have a culture of deferring to leaders without question - we relish at least the ability to complain about it (while generally acquiescing most of the way).

[coalboat]

Very insightful analysis.

While not individualistic, China is neither a community driven society. Community gives way to centralized national power. Civil organisations are not prosperous.

[Doomblade187]

The vast majority of the US favors staying closed:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/poll-dont-stop-social-distancing-coronavirus-spread-187290

It is not an exaggeration to say that the push to reopen is largely coming from corporations. Yes, it sucks to lose your job, but what sucks more is that the federal government has done nothing substantial to make quarantine measures financially sustainable for the working class. All that they did was give everyone a $1200 bribe and call it a day, alongside an unemployment benefits expansion. The USA has horribly messed up the response, and is already trying to bow to the whims of corporate profit to undo what little it did.

This hurts the working class, too. Let's say, like my partner, you don't want to go back to work at Starbucks yet. However, because your state has said that they're ending social distancing measures, you not showing up to work is now voluntary - you then don't get unemployment benefits. As such, you go back to work, and expose yourself to a neurotoxic (loss of sense of smell sensitivity in many patients, full effects unknown) disease.

Edit: it should be noted that many "anti-lockdown" protests to date tend to focus on wanting to be able to use services, as opposed to going back to work to perform services. This is inherently selfish.

[McTraveller]

Eh I don't trust any poll - polls have questions worded so poorly they can say anything you want them to say.  "Do you prefer polls that aren't specific in their questions or have better wording? Answer on a scale of 1 to 10."

Of course people poll they prefer staying at home - the media has made this look like if you get it you have a death sentence.  And I do mean that - people are so afraid of this thing it's madness.

Oh yeah I see the edit about wanting to use services but not provide them.  Absolutely - that's part of the absurdity of the whole situation. I'd say it's worse than "selfish" - I'd say it's just plain ignorance of how the universe works.

[nenjin]

And I do mean that - people are so afraid of this thing it's madness.

With how many people that have died who were young, and in good health, I don't think it's madness. It's fear and uncertainty. No one knows if they contract it if they will be a) asymptomatic b) mildly sick c) really sick or d) need to be on a ventilator or choke to death on their own fluids.

That's why people are scared. They simply don't know how it will effect them, if it does effect them. Broad based testing so people could see "You have covid antibodies, so you had it but you didn't realize it" would go a long way to chilling people the fuck out as the realize the virus isn't necessarily a death sentence but a natural phenomena with unfortunate but ultimately manageable consequences.

[ChairmanPoo]

Broad based testing so people could see "You have covid antibodies, so you had it but you didn't realize it" would go a long way to chilling people the fuck out as the realize the virus isn't necessarily a death sentence but a natural phenomena with unfortunate but ultimately manageable consequences.

Chilling the fuck out is exactly the wrong thing to do if you want the consequences to be manageable. Again: this was never about the virus' lethality for any individual person (although it's probably high enough to want to avoid catching it on principle). It's about healthcare collapse. No one is immune so if you don't do social distancing everyone catches it, and the IFR, however relatively low it is, quickly translates into hundreds of thousand dead and millions requiring hospital attention (which in turn means that you can be an asymptomatic covid carrier and STILL DIE due to covid, if you get something else that goes untreated due to healthcare collapse)

[McTraveller]

Yes we know it's about healthcare collapse - but the general public doesn't know that.  The general public thinks they are locked up because if they catch it they will die, or because the government is installing surveillance, or whatever.

Chilling out is actually very important - where "chilling out" here means "don't be so afraid you don't even go outside."  I know quite a few people who literally have not been outside their house since mid-March.  They are that worried.  It's a mental health disaster - the anxiety is ridiculous and probably could have been mitigated to some extent.

There's a difference between chilling out and not practicing social distancing and hygiene practices.

[andrea]

What kind of news are you listening to?
At least over here in Italy the danger of overwhelmed hospitals is widely spoken about. Then again, we have first hand experience.

[ChairmanPoo]

Yes we know it's about healthcare collapse - but the general public doesn't know that.  The general public thinks they are locked up because if they catch it they will die

Well if they catch it there is a chance of dying. Most people who catch it wont, in fact, die. But 1 in 200 are still nasty odds which is better to avoid. I don't think they are insane.

And social distancing is, in fact, about staying home as much as possible, among other things. Really, it's the easiest way to avoid contact with other people

[McTraveller]

I mean understand what healthcare collapse means,  not that the public doesn't hear about "healthcare collapse" in the news.

For instance, healthcare collapse doesn't mean zero healthcare - it really just means that resources are exhausted so triage will have to take place and people will be turned away for certain conditions.  It also probably means lower total capacity because some of the health care providers are "out of service" due to illness or refusal to work. 

But the public hears "collapse" and I guarantee many of them think it's like a bridge that collapses and can't be used at all until it's entirely rebuilt.

What I mean is the term "collapse" itself causes anxiety.  If they would have just said "reached its capacity" or something less alarmist, the anxiety could be reduced.

[Teneb]

I mean understand what healthcare collapse means,  not that the public doesn't hear about "healthcare collapse" in the news.

For instance, healthcare collapse doesn't mean zero healthcare - it really just means that resources are exhausted so triage will have to take place and people will be turned away for certain conditions.  It also probably means lower total capacity because some of the health care providers are "out of service" due to illness or refusal to work. 

But the public hears "collapse" and I guarantee many of them think it's like a bridge that collapses and can't be used at all until it's entirely rebuilt.

What I mean is the term "collapse" itself causes anxiety.  If they would have just said "reached its capacity" or something less alarmist, the anxiety could be reduced.

Look, in my state here in Brasil the state gov has outright stated that the hospital system is now in full collapse. As in, people are straight up dying because there are not enough chairs (not even beds, chairs) to put them in. It's a fucking collapse. The state health secretary has estimated that for each confirmed case, there are 15 to 20 unconfirmed cases. Saying it's needless anxiety is outright irresponsible.

Hell, even drug trafficker factions are enforcing lockdown because they realize how bad things are. Meanwhile, the militias (read: paramilitary mafias with links to the president and his family) are using this opportunity to do turf wars vs the traffickers.

People are sleeping outside the public banks in order to get their measly R$600 assistance checks.

Meanwhile, president bozo in a live interview was informed of the death toll so far and has answered, and I quote: "So what?"

[coalboat]

This "so what?" summarizes the attitude of many governments.