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Zenofex
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Kreegan-atheist
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posted June 23, 2020 07:56 AM |
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Labeling something a conspiracy theory is the easiest way to escape argumentation nowadays, following the old maxima that if you can't disprove something, you should ridicule it instead - it's far more efficient anyway.
By assuming that we didn't know something of this kind then you're simply saying that nobody had the slightest idea of how the virus behave and when do they spread, which is... medieval. How efficient are the face mask is still very much debatable (I have not seen a serious study on the matter, but if you have something - do link it please, I'd seriously like to read it) but everything else is a well-known ever since virology exists as a science field. Most interviews and articles from virologists which I have seen state that the response has been seriously overblown and the "restrictions were rightly measured" come mostly from members of the national "commissions".
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted June 23, 2020 08:37 AM |
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But there are conspiracy theories and what identifes them is how they keep broadening the circle. Whatever counter empiric data follows, “it’s because they are all in on it” and that is the “unfalsiable” eternity.
Not that I’m suggesting this is the case when it comes to this epidemic but you do have a tendency to mistake conspiracy for skepticisim.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
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posted June 23, 2020 09:03 AM |
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Here is an article that links to studies as well.
We also had the situation in Germany that towns, counties and fedgov made masks mandatory at different times. Mandatory masks were introduced first in Germany by the town of Jena (pop of 111.000) on April, 6th. Some counties followed on April 20th, the rest of Germany on April 27th. The university of Mainz initiated a study due to that and came to the comclusion that Jena without Masks (compared with the developments in other cities should have gone from 142 to 205 within the next 20 days, but had only 158 (This is in German)
The WHO has been confirming all that (but I am too lazy to look for it).
Mind you, I'm not saying things were done right. As I said, IN HINDSIGHT, face masks, distancing and abolishing mass events, especially in closed and semi-closed rooms would have done the trick without lockdown, but people had no idea, actually. Hand-washing, for example, doesn't actually do much, it seems.
Also, if you remember - there were no or not enough face masks initially, not even for doctors.
That's why this was important.
I've watched a lot of stuff, and scientists have said, that until now funding the kind of studies and research necessary has been a problem, because theye things have been seasonal, so research haven't been funded long enough (SARS, for example). It basically came and went, no cure necessary anymore, funing stopped.
That's different now, and as a consequence we will learn so much about these kind of virusses, what it does, how to stop it and so on, and for that reason it's good.
It's also good because we have seen that the world doesn't stop when it comes to a voluntary standstill for a time.
What we also see is, that people are somewhat reluctant to simply start falling into their old habits again, as long as the situation is still somewhat unsolved, which is one of the main reasons, why things are stuttering right now.
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Zenofex
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Kreegan-atheist
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posted June 23, 2020 01:59 PM |
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Quote:
But there are conspiracy theories and what identifes them is how they keep broadening the circle. Whatever counter empiric data follows, “it’s because they are all in on it” and that is the “unfalsiable” eternity.
Not that I’m suggesting this is the case when it comes to this epidemic but you do have a tendency to mistake conspiracy for skepticisim.
The second paragraph has two contradictory statements in it - you don't know what the case is, but I have a "tendency" (not sure where it showed, but whatever) to mistake one for the other? And empiric data can be used to prove something or disprove it - in both directions - not as the one or the other only. I'm not sure where you found the "they are all in it" nonsense in what I've written so far either. It's not serious to label anything you don't adequately understand as a "conspiracy theory", especially given that quite a few people who are not at all predisposed to conspiracy theorycrafting have solid arguments about it - in the current situation it sounds a bit like "God of the gaps" kind of argument to be honest.
Quote:
Here is an article that links to studies as well.
I have (obviously) not read all of these studies but the summarized one says that only N95 masks can generally be considered reliable enough and everything of lower quality offer "some" protection at best. This is also visible in the graphs. Most of the data is from previous infections and it's gathered from hospitals and other such controlled environments, not from the mass usage of such things which was not possible until recently. None of the studies seems to research the side effects from the usage of the masks among groups like people with asthma, panic attacks, claustrophobia, etc. which significantly reduces the likelyhood such people will keep a mask on their faces for long and wear it properly. The availability of masks, especially of those with good protection characteristics, is not taken into account, nor is the feasibility of wearing a mask above certain environmental temperatures (the summer is here). And so on. From these you can conclude that some masks help in general but not automatically that the usage of masks in the "pandemic" situation has helped reduce the number of sick and dead people significantly or that the population is equipped or has the means to get equipped with masks which offer more than cosmetic protection. At least that's what I read. By the way, I'm not against wearing a mask when in shops or other confined spaces - which probably I would have been if I had any sort of breathing problems with a physical or psychosomatic cause - but I'm certainly against forcing people wear them absolutely everywhere except at home, which was the case here for around two weeks.
Hopefully you're right that all further actions will be taken based on what the science says and what the science recommends - so far this has not happened.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 23, 2020 11:33 PM |
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Maybe Germany is more rational than other countries in this regard, but in my country things are totally clear: wear a mask - any mask - in closed rooms; do what you want outside, especially when you keep a distance; avoid mass events in closed donfined rooms.
We are also down to local measures mow. We have a case now with a meat-processing plant with basically all 1500 workers being infected (all are basically Eastern European cheap workers living together in cheap flats). Has led to a whole county on lockdown again (all shops open, but no bars and restaurants, no team sports and so on).
Makes sense. I think, most European countries are now at that point.
That's one thing. It will be interesting to see, whether this will bring the EU countries closer together or whether we'll disband.
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted June 24, 2020 08:29 AM |
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@zenofex
It’s not a contradiction. I was referring to how quick you are, for instance, to label medical boards of a dozen countries as puppets who follow orders from the government, when in fact, they do have some level of autonomy when it comes to medical decisions, at least in developed countries. It’s not like some president calls them on the phone and orders them to “carry on with the lockdowns for another month.”
We can question the policy itself, of course, I was the one who shared the link that does. But looking for a deliberate sinister plan behind it is a little off. There is no united power big enough to affect so many decision making processes.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Zenofex
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posted June 24, 2020 11:04 AM |
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You are making wrong assumptions here and prefer to extrapolate them into a "sinister plot" where I have stated multiple times that it doesn't take anything like that to get what you get. The chronology of the events is - a government decides on whether to declare a state of emergency and THEN it creates a board to consult it what to do, not the government creates such a board and asks it whether to declare a state of emergency + what to do after that. You have the panic spreading through the media and the politicians act according to it, however since the partial or full quarantines cause a lot of collateral damage themselves, no politician in his right mind will assign people who say "look, it's really not as bad as the media claims, look at the numbers, explain them to the people, don't shoot flies with a bazooka but address only the vulnerable cases, etc.", but people who speak in line with the introduced measures. Those who oppose them get little to no publicity and in this case we are not talking about a small bunch of basement conspiracy-weavers but for other physicians and medical scientists who in some cases (I don't know how many but Bulgaria is one of them) have significantly greater competence about viruses and epidemics than the people in the board.
Not quite sure what's so hard to grasp - following the information flow from the media many people wanted to be quarantined and they got what they wanted, along with everybody else. Quite a few still do as the media bill**** has not stopped (for example, the number of new infections is counted daily as "troubling statistics" but not the number of people who are actually sick or what part of the hospitals' capacity has been utilized). Each government can gain benefits from such a situation but that's the only common part, the benefits themselves are individual per government. The greatest benefits are for the unpopular governments of those having problems with the opposition and/or the popular support for re-election, corruption scandals, public protests and such. There has been a study which I can't browse at the moment, stating that the support for the local governments has increased dramatically since the declaration of the emergencies, which is unsurprising given that people consolidate around the "big guys" from the state to get protection. The downfall for these same governments will start when the critical mass of unemployed and frustrated people exceeds the number of those asking for heavy restrictions and it's in each such government's interest to delay that moment.
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted June 24, 2020 11:58 AM |
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But your scenario still doesnt explain why this many medical boards keep on suggesting the lockdowns, does it? Do they make their decisions by reading the media? Without the sinister plan, the only other explanation would be that they are all imcompotent at their profession.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Zenofex
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posted June 24, 2020 12:08 PM |
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Why not? The board, assigned by the government, says something which is in favour of a policy which is beneficial for the government, keeps it in power, deviates attention from other majors issues (including those with the sorry state of the healthcare system, which is a problem in many states and for which the current government is usually at least partially responsible for) and allows for all sorts of policies which in a "normal" situation would be impossible to implement to be introduced nearly free of charge and would get the support of many of the people who would stand openly against them a few months earlier. I'd agree with you if there was an universal or at least almost universal consensus among the physicians and the medical scientists that what the boards (meaning those who favour heavy restrictions, not all) suggest is the right way but there isn't and on top of that the available data is not in favour of the full-scale or highly restrictive quarantines at all.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 24, 2020 02:04 PM |
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There are no winners here, though, only losers, no matter how you turn it. (Or, in other words, no one knows whether they are winners because they would have died without lockdown.)
For every government it's been a lose-lose situation:
Don't lockdown -> people die -> should have gone into lockdown
Lockdown -> economy sags -> lockdown was unnecessary
Lose-lose, because the benefit is in all variations an option NOT becoming reality.
See that? Cou can go into lockdown or not. If you go, some people will die and there will be some economic damage. People will ask themselves, if there hadn't been a lockdown, there'd be no economic damage, and maybe a couple of dead more.
If you don't go into lockdown, you'll have some dead and still some economic damage (because people will avoid danger), and people will say, we could have had a lot less dead and the economic damage wouldn't have been a lot bigger.
Nightmare for all politicians - lose-lose.
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Neraus
Promising
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Pain relief cream seller
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posted June 24, 2020 02:57 PM |
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artu said:
@zenofex
It’s not a contradiction. I was referring to how quick you are, for instance, to label medical boards of a dozen countries as puppets who follow orders from the government, when in fact, they do have some level of autonomy when it comes to medical decisions, at least in developed countries. It’s not like some president calls them on the phone and orders them to “carry on with the lockdowns for another month.”
We can question the policy itself, of course, I was the one who shared the link that does. But looking for a deliberate sinister plan behind it is a little off. There is no united power big enough to affect so many decision making processes.
In Italy the reverse happened, the medical board dictated policy, enforced a lockdown so strict it even shot ourselves in the foot since it closed down industries that made components for medical machines. And every time, it wasn't the medical board that made us get a leeway, it was the constant protests from the businesses that made us give exceptions and come to the eventual lifting of the lockdown.
Indeed, the government was a puppet of the medical board to the point that it wasn't political power that swayed the decision making process.
Also some really bright doctor scared our minister of health into not doing autopsies, research on therapies and what not, actually, even the breakthrough of plasma therapy was initially turned down as "alternative medicine that will do more harm than good".
A sinister plan does make sense actually, as I always say the handling of this crisis is the perfect soil for conspiracy theories, luckily or not, knowing who were the ones handling it, I bet they tried becoming dictators, but were too incompetent for it anyway and instead sincerely botched it all.
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Noli offendere Patriam Agathae quia ultrix iniuriarum est.
ANTUDO
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted June 24, 2020 03:41 PM |
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Edited by artu at 15:41, 24 Jun 2020.
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Well, in here we had full lockdown during weekends but then Erdogan cancelled them due to reactions, despite the medical board. Most of the time it is the medical boards that insist on the lockdowns, not the politicians. The lockdowns arent popular and they became even less popular as time went by. And I’m assuming the medical boards arent completely clueless about their policy.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted June 24, 2020 03:44 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
There are no winners here, though, only losers, no matter how you turn it. (Or, in other words, no one knows whether they are winners because they would have died without lockdown.)
For every government it's been a lose-lose situation:
Don't lockdown -> people die -> should have gone into lockdown
Lockdown -> economy sags -> lockdown was unnecessary
Lose-lose, because the benefit is in all variations an option NOT becoming reality.
See that? Cou can go into lockdown or not. If you go, some people will die and there will be some economic damage. People will ask themselves, if there hadn't been a lockdown, there'd be no economic damage, and maybe a couple of dead more.
If you don't go into lockdown, you'll have some dead and still some economic damage (because people will avoid danger), and people will say, we could have had a lot less dead and the economic damage wouldn't have been a lot bigger.
Nightmare for all politicians - lose-lose.
It is lose-lose either way, but it's a lot worse for politicians to not lockdown, because then COVID deaths will be directly blamed on them.
The consequences of lockdown are much more indirect (personal finances, economics, logistics, psychological damage, disruptions in good and services, etc.) and it is harder to blame. Nevermind that in developing countries, the lockdowns will lead to millions dead. It's almost impossible to accurately calculate the damage/deaths of a lockdown because of the variables.
A few leaders were against lockdown either way but they were in the slim minority. Almost everybody locked down and on the same token the leaders saved their career.
This is why some countries that were already passed the window of being able to isolate early outbreaks did a soft lockdown.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Zenofex
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Kreegan-atheist
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posted June 24, 2020 04:07 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 16:10, 24 Jun 2020.
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JollyJoker said:
There are no winners here, though, only losers, no matter how you turn it. (Or, in other words, no one knows whether they are winners because they would have died without lockdown.)
For every government it's been a lose-lose situation:
Don't lockdown -> people die -> should have gone into lockdown
Lockdown -> economy sags -> lockdown was unnecessary
Lose-lose, because the benefit is in all variations an option NOT becoming reality.
See that? Cou can go into lockdown or not. If you go, some people will die and there will be some economic damage. People will ask themselves, if there hadn't been a lockdown, there'd be no economic damage, and maybe a couple of dead more.
If you don't go into lockdown, you'll have some dead and still some economic damage (because people will avoid danger), and people will say, we could have had a lot less dead and the economic damage wouldn't have been a lot bigger.
Nightmare for all politicians - lose-lose.
Well, it's a lose-lose only if you view it as a choice between these two but if you pick the safer options ("we are doing it to protect the people"), it's only a win-win after that. At the moment for example, the main claim is that the lockdowns helped achieve the goals of reducing the death toll of the virus but nobody explains why and how - this is literally presumed as a fact. Even though some of the restrictions make sense in general, making such a conclusion outside of any real context is somewhere between a nonsense, manipulation and propaganda. If you don't know when the virus has first appeared among the population in the given country - and so far there have been multiple indications that it has been there much earlier than any sort of restrictions have been introduced - you have no baseline to use for your claims and with no baseline, you can come up with anything and call it The Truth. Still, this is exactly the kind of claims which are officially being made for months now but they are not questioned enough through the media and the politicians keep making them. The economy suffers and you've lost your job? Well, it's not just us, you know, many countries are like us and that's why our economy suffers too - deal with it. A relative of yours died because he couldn't get to the hospital which was locked because a sanitary was tested positive? That's bad but we couldn't put everyone there in danger - see what happened in Italy. Etc. Questions of this kind get easy answers because the people keep being scared by the bombardment with unexplained numbers from the TV and that helps the current governments sweep under the carpet other - including related - problems and pursue their agendas with less social pressure. What's not to like about this? Of course, it cannot be maintained indefinitely but no electable government thinks beyond the next elections. "Saviors of the nation" makes a good election slogan too.
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JollyJoker
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posted June 24, 2020 04:15 PM |
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If it was a win-win, everybode would be happy.
As it is, you don't see many happy faces, the most you see is grudging acceptance. There is no unified front among scientists, there is no unified front among politicians and there is no unified front in the population. Naturally, the farer you away from "risk groups" and the more you lost or have to lose through lockdown the more unhappy or even aggravated you are.
Conversely, the nearer you are the "risk group" and the less you lose or lost, the more careful you are and the more happy you will be with the lockdown.
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Neraus
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posted June 24, 2020 06:42 PM |
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Zenofex said:
The economy suffers and you've lost your job? Well, it's not just us, you know, many countries are like us and that's why our economy suffers too - deal with it. A relative of yours died because he couldn't get to the hospital which was locked because a sanitary was tested positive? That's bad but we couldn't put everyone there in danger - see what happened in Italy. Etc. Questions of this kind get easy answers because the people keep being scared by the bombardment with unexplained numbers from the TV and that helps the current governments sweep under the carpet other - including related - problems and pursue their agendas with less social pressure. What's not to like about this? Of course, it cannot be maintained indefinitely but no electable government thinks beyond the next elections. "Saviors of the nation" makes a good election slogan too.
Oh yeah, that madness, the entire infectious disease division of the hospital of Catania was occupied by a single covid patient. No one else due to national guidelines, despite you know, being a division that is made especially to treat a multiple number of those kind of diseases.
The economy. This was the last blow, but "everyone was affected" yeah, too bad our economy was already in shambles and now our politicians are begging for money, no matter the cost.
This is untapped political capital, our government can accept even the most humiliating conditions and just say it was an emergency.
They are already counting the money and planning expenses without even having a confirmation.
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Noli offendere Patriam Agathae quia ultrix iniuriarum est.
ANTUDO
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fred79
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posted June 24, 2020 09:47 PM |
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I work at a high-risk job. That none of the people i work with have gotten sick, and that none of us, or anyone we know personally, knows of anyone getting sick, leans REALLY hard to this all being bullsnow.
I've said before, that i didn't know anyone's motivations for all the restrictions if there WEREN'T any cause for concern; but something occurred to me the other day, and i think i have it figured out. I don't think the restrictions themselves were the point of the whole thing; i think it's a forced DEPENDENCY on our governments. What dawned on me, is the overwhelming feeling of everyone under lockdowns to be able to go back to the way things were previously. Meaning, we will all be RELIEVED for things to get back to normal. That, i think, was the plan all along: to use power and propaganda to restrict people(essentially putting their lives on hold), and then for people to WELCOME BACK their subservient societal lives, where our governments control us through supposed "benevolence".
If you give this idea much thought, you will not be able to deny it makes sense. It is CONTROL our governments strive for; what better way to control a people, than to trick them into thinking they NEED you? That their very lives, and their comforting lullaby existence, DEPEND on you?
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted June 25, 2020 11:28 AM |
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fred79 said:
I don't think the restrictions themselves were the point of the whole thing; i think it's a forced DEPENDENCY on our governments. What dawned on me, is the overwhelming feeling of everyone under lockdowns to be able to go back to the way things were previously. Meaning, we will all be RELIEVED for things to get back to normal. That, i think, was the plan all along: to use power and propaganda to restrict people(essentially putting their lives on hold), and then for people to WELCOME BACK their subservient societal lives, where our governments control us through supposed "benevolence".
Exactly.
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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FirePaladin
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted June 25, 2020 11:33 AM |
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This sounds like an intelligent plot.
And I'm out again.
____________
Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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Neraus
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posted June 25, 2020 01:03 PM |
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I like to give the benefit of the doubt and not attribute malice to stupidity.
However, it's not that far off to think that some politicians got drunk with power, our prime minister held the etats general, in a luxurious villa, closed to journalists, with the upper classes and disregarding various covid norms (funniest of which being that buffets are currently outlawed), he went on public TV saying things like "I allow" "I concede", and he now seeks to be elected, despite him being a foil first for a Lega-5 stars government and later PD-5 stars who wasn't elected.
And then the theatrality, his favourite courtesan image manager being on par to a minister, the personal attacks to the opposition, the disregard of parliament, and on, and on.
He's incompetent at seizing power, but saying he didn't attempt to is disingenuous,he clearly tried to capitalise on this as much as possible.
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Noli offendere Patriam Agathae quia ultrix iniuriarum est.
ANTUDO
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