ViperMan
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Posts posted by ViperMan
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11 hours ago, di1630 said:
Anyone here sell back leave vs going terminal? True it’s capped at 60 days limit sell back?
5 hours ago, SocialD said:Unless you're starting a new job while on terminal, you'll certainly make more by selling it. I've seen it done both ways, depends on what you want, time off or more money to pad the coffers before doing 1st year pay. If you're leaving AD, then the 60 day limit (in a career) applies. But a FYI, assuming you're going into the ANG/RES, and may spend time as a part-timer. This limit does NOT apply to orders less than a year, you can sell back as much of that as you want.
I fail to see how this is ever the case. If my calculations are correct, you ALWAYS make more money by taking it as terminal leave and collecting BAS + BAH + Base Pay > Base Pay. Am I missing some detail?
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@Negatory @Prozac : Now that we have more data, I would like to close out our conversation from back in late December/early January re: how bad Omicron was going to be, how worried everyone needed to be (i.e. panic, NOW), and what our society's response should have been going forward. The Science™️, is in, and it is settled: there weren't ~15K deaths per day from Omicron. Deaths did not exceed the 4x multiplier cited as panic porn - which is what was predicted for you guys on this very thread, since we knew then from South Africa that it was 70x more contagious than Delta. So I hope this can be at least one data point that you should be careful which "experts" you trust and who you outsource your thinking to. There's my credentials. I should now be more credible than Fauci in your eyes. It turns out out that my non-expert opinion was better than all the other "experts" out there that were cited by you guys.
What's more? The "news" cycle this morning: "We may not have reached the peak, yet, but let's go ahead and drop all the mask mandates." So says Phil Murphy and other democrats (NJ, RI, NV, IL). I'm sure that has everything to do with the fact that it's as deadly as you all said, and nothing to do with the fact that the midterms are pending...yeah, couldn't be. I'm personally wondering why they're not sticking to the CDC's advice, which is "not so fast" when it comes to dropping the masks. What about the experts!?! LOL. The cognitive dissonance is so loud I can hear it outside their own rattle cans. Our response was and still is almost wholly subject to political calculation at this point. I can't wait for all those Dems to be taken to task on NBC/ABC/CNN/MSNBC next week for 'bucking' the experts as the R's were. I won't hold my breath though.
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/02/the-end-of-mask-mandates-sheneman.html
CA, WA, OR, and a bunch of other Dem states to follow: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/covid-19-more-states-end-204102454.html
Anyway, now that the data is there to support it and none of us needs to hypothesize (or appeal to the authority of so-called "experts") anymore, I thought it was important to publicly state, for the record, that I was right and you were wrong.
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I would like to take a moment to note that NBC, this morning, is choosing to carry coverage of curling and ski-jumping on fake snow instead of covering the pending war that's about to break out in Europe.
To be sure, Chuck Todd is a complete tool, but for one of the networks (and anchors) that couldn't stop squawking about Russia for four long years, you would think that this story would be right up their alley. Instead, they are making a conscientious choice to cater to their funding stream to serve advertisements to us in lieu of informing the public about the most consequential foreign disaster since Vietnam or maybe even Korea or WWII.
At least on CBS I can witness Jake Sullivan stating for a second time in only a few months that "Americans should go ahead and evacuate themselves from harms way." What a great look. Here's a story about Russia and China using the Olympics as a platform to "partner up" against the West. And no one finds it odd that NBC is airing this event instead of putting Putin on "blast"?? Who's side is NBC on again??? JTFC.
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1 hour ago, Prozac said:
My bet is conservatives would be using the exact same tactics if the tables were turned. Both parties seem to be more than willing to use “nuclear” options these days. Your argument is valid but I doubt you’d be making it if the shoe was on the other foot.
Maybe this will help refresh your memory; I don't think it's a smart bet for ya...here's Mitch imploring his colleagues to not change the rules, in no uncertain terms, lest they come to regret it.
So no, Rs have not been the ones in recent memory changing the rules of the game to suit their position - that is a distinctly democrat mode of operation. The whole reason for the filibuster is precisely so you don't have a group of 51v49, puffed chests, running amok with a "mandate" to "get things done." The Ds have 0 mandate. They need to govern with this as their reality - because if they do change the rules, you better believe it's gonna come back on them - hard.
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5 hours ago, skibum said:
When did we move past the binary system? Let's not get complicated - she's a 1.
Let's be honest, they're all 1's. The x/10 scale is just how close she is to "1".
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5 hours ago, Prozac said:
So do tell us, with your obviously superior intellect and statistical analysis skills, how many Americans have died from Covid-19? Also, go with creds that prove you are qualified to determine the official numbers are pure propaganda. I’m sure they’re very impressive.
If you scale the populations of Japan and South Korea to make them equivalent to the US, you would get deaths in those countries to be about 50,000 and 38,000, respectively (they're actually 18,600, and 6300). This is minuscule when compared to the "850,000 OMG" deaths in the USA. Like 20x more people are dying from this thing on this side of the Pacific because...because...why, again??? In statistics class, we call this an outlier, and it points to something significant going on.
Why, WHY are there so many fewer deaths in those countries when compared to ours?
Do you not find this curious? No wonderings at all?
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@nsplayr: first, I didn't, and I'm not, writing off old people. COVID kills people. Duh. Also, COVID has not killed everyone that the PTB say it has. If you can't see the distinction, that's fine with me. I don't really care. But there it is for you in black and white if you care to read it. If you also think that counting people as COVID deaths has not been incentivized, then I don't have much for you. The point of this discussion in my view, is to discuss all things related to the COVID pandemic - that includes what is counted as a COVID death, because, news flash: the more people the PTB tally up as COVID deaths, the more money they get. A few of these things smell suspicious to a lot of people who are voluntarily engaging in this conversation. Some of those are
- Why it took the WHO so long to declare the outbreak a pandemic, considering it had met the book definition LONG before it was actually declared as one publicly.
- Why it was verboten to question the origin of the pandemic.
- Why shutting down borders in some cases is ok, but not in others.
- Why our death rate is apparently worse than many other countries.
I could go on. In short, though, the point is that the political response to this mess has been undeniably, nakedly, political. What has been acceptable for one party has not been acceptable for another - for reasons which are clearly political. If you've got space in your queue for a podcast, I recommend this one with Bari Weiss (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bringing-sanity-to-the-omicron-chaos-three-doctors-weigh-in/id1570872415?i=1000547881659). It was excellent.
I don't care to make this personal, but if someone is in a hospital getting treated for lung cancer and they get COVID, did they die of COVID? Maybe, but not in my opinion. What about someone who is obese? Did they die of COVID? Maybe, but not in my opinion. Probably need more detail in most cases. I'm certain we disagree on these points. But to be clear, I don't dispute that it's a bad disease. I dispute that it's as bad a disease as those who are benefiting from it being the worst thing ever are calling it. ~850K people are dead. Ok. There are a lot of people in that group who had underlying conditions for which COVID was the straw that broke the camel's back - it was not the root cause. Here's a couple (https://www.kmov.com/news/colorado-coroner-calling-out-how-state-classifies-covid-19-deaths/article_297e3550-4131-11eb-9f01-ffe3e11d0f46.html, https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/nypd-man-shot-officers-dies-coronavirus-70941694).
It sucks people die. It sucks worse when their memories are dishonored by using them as pretext and justification to implement whatever policy goals they wanted anyway.
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7 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
I will never understand the 98% survival rate statement.
340,000,000 Americans x .02 death rate = 6.8 million dead Americans, you are ok with that?
To address your quote directly, not every American has gotten, or will get, COVID. So 6.8 million Americans aren't going to be killed by COVID. You can multiply that by 340M, but you're going to get a ridiculous upper bound on how many people will die. And no, I'm not ok with that, but it's also not something that's going to happen. I hadn't even read Buddy Spike's comment about 98%. Whatever. But to do the math, if you get 2% "death rate" X 9% as deadly Omicron variant, you get .0018. Multiply that by 340M, and you get 612,000. That's how many people would die if every American got Omicron. 1/10 of your quoted rate. BL, I was only critiquing the propaganda that 850,000 Americans have died FROM COVID. That's a BS statistic used to fear monger, and is the only thing I was pushing back against.
1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:It is not true to quote his death rate statement? GTFOH.
He said 98% survival rate NOT ME so I did the math.
I guess I'm not sure what you're saying or what point is being made. IF 840,000 Americans have been killed by COVID, then out of 340M total Americans alive, you get a 0.2% COVID "death rate" - which to be clear, is completely invalid math. My point was that the government's figures re: COVID deaths have marked everyone who has died with COVID as a COVID death. This includes people who were likely to die anyway from whatever condition they had, or because they were in a nursing home and were part of an extraordinarily vulnerable population.
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2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
We got lucky, so far it has killed 849,000 Americans and world-wide it has killed 5.5 MILLION People.
In no universe is this statement true. Deaths due to COVID or dying with COVID is undifferentiated in our tracking, which to be clear, is a feature for the PTB, not a bug. It has allowed them to propagate a narrative to justify all manner of policy-making that would be otherwise impossible. It's a bad bug that takes advantage of comorbidity. Now that Omicron is on the set, it's only a matter of time before the inevitable happens - that being the left in this country wakes up and admits the game is over. The new variant (and its derivatives) will be endemic, forever. It's breaking through three shots, masking, and everything else. Even they are going to have to wake up and realize that all the restrictions they're trying to implement are futile.
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On 1/8/2022 at 9:47 PM, Danger41 said:
So here’s a view that will probably get me crucified but I think this letter without no shit proof is a big foul. You know the whole community and all the fan boys are all boned up on the macho culture of being a CCT and think women can’t hack it*. These assertions feed exactly into that and it’s easy to get the masses worked into a froth with a “told you so” attitude. Same with all the “golden child” comments about her being a minority and fitting a woke agenda. I view this as the same view as a innocent until proven guilty type thing, hence the lack of proof.
*my personal opinion is that women don’t belong on front line infantry (03xx/11 series) or front line SOF units (SF, SEALs, CCT, PJ, Raiders, Rangers) beyond a support capacity. But Congress didn’t ask me so we’re where we’re at now.
Here's the thing. If it was total bullshit, it would have warranted and received zero response. Absolutely zero response. The fact that it has received a major response, being addressed by the man himself, and also is now "under investigation" is all you need to know that the allegations are fully credible. And you know what? Someone acting with integrity in the face of other people acting with none is never a foul.
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1 hour ago, Pooter said:
It is a small nuisance. So much so that multiple Asian cultures (specifically Japan and Korea) have been diligently masking for decades without grave social damage. And guess what, it helped them be more prepared for this pandemic where they have had significantly lower case and death rates than the western world.
Dude, I'm sorry, but no. Just no. The obesity rate in Korea and Japan is approx 4% and 3% respectively. The obesity rate in the USA is 10x those numbers. So no, I'm sorry, it was not diligent masking that resulted in less death in those cultures. It's the fact that they weren't twinkied tinderboxes.
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/14321/?ln=en
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/health/covid-fat-obesity.html
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20211020/even-with-mild-covid-obesity-may-mean-worse-symptoms#1
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html
Occam's Razor suggests that this is the, or close to the, root cause of why our populace has had a relatively hard time with this disease when compared to other cultures. Standing by for correlation does not equal causation flags.
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10 hours ago, Pooter said:
@ViperMan I think people are calling it "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" because it is the unvaccinated who are actually ending up in the hospital and dying from this thing.
In a pandemic I don't care how many people get the sniffles. I care about hospitalizations and death, which are happening in disproportionate numbers to the unvaxxed.
Similarly, you could call it a "pandemic of the obese" or a "pandemic of the elderly" as they're the ones getting the full brunt of the effects.
On mask mandates, I honestly think any tiny shred of efficacy could justify a mandate. Wearing a mask is not an undue burden on you, and mandating you put a tiny piece of PPE on your face is a very far cry from mandating you to get an injection. Hell, we all wear flight suits that have been washed thousands of times and have long since lost their fire resistance so apparently you guys are okay with some useless PPE but not others.. I guess as long as it looks cool.
Well fine, @Pooter, but to be clear, a pandemic is defined as spread of a disease affecting a large population over multiple geographic areas. If you're just going to willy nilly change the definition to mean a pandemic equals people dying, then yeah, sure, you can argue anything you want. But over here in my world, words mean things, and those meanings are imbued with importance, especially when you're arguing or debating a point. It's fine if you don't care about people getting the sniffles, but I assure you, infectious disease experts care about the uncontrolled spread of disease, not solely those diseases which are killing people.
And to your point about mandates, this is where we depart ways. YOU don't think it is an undue burden on SOMEONE else? So therefore it isn't? That's our logic now? My, how bourgeois and enlightened of you.
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On 1/4/2022 at 8:38 AM, Negatory said:
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/04/us-global-record-more-than-1m-daily-covid-cases
@ViperMan et al? Looks like your feelings based argument that we would never go a multiple above 250k isn’t panning out. Just like COVID going away on its own, ending when it heats up, disappearing, etc…
It seems you skipped over my first attempt to provide you clarification.
Please post my statement where I said cases would not exceed 250K per day. You know what, nevermind. I'll do it for you.
On 12/22/2021 at 2:30 PM, ViperMan said:We locked down when this thing first began, and at its absolute worst, we were seeing ~250K/ cases per day with ~3-4K deaths per day (if you subscribe to the notion that COVID was the sole cause of death, which I do not; https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html). Now, you're telling me that this thing is going to imminently peak not only to that level, but at a rate (mathematical certainty) that will top it by 4X!!! Are you kidding me? And all we get from #1 is a statement that if your vaxxed, you can go on vacation, but if you're not, you're gonna die??? Mkay. I don't believe you. I don't believe that these people actually think we're heading to a space where 12,000-16,000 people are going to be dying every day. I don't believe they believe that. If they did, they'd be taking different steps. It's fear porn in order to justify expediency that there is otherwise no appetite for. If they do believe that, and that's all they're doing, then they're even more cynical people than I already think.
Here's the first re-attack again if you choose to read it. From this point forward, I'm going to have to defer to someone else on this forum to help explain to you that I was doubting the sincerity of the people in charge given the assumptive death-rate you panic-stricken posters seem to think is imminent. Not that we would get to some arbitrary number of infections per day.
On 12/28/2021 at 6:56 PM, ViperMan said:I'm not surprised by this. Omicron is like, what, 70x as infectious as the other variants? And it can break through multiple shots? My point - which I include again below for your convenience, so you can read it again - is to say that I don't believe the HYPE around this next variant.
All I'm saying is that they are either:
- Lying about what they think will happen re: the death rate.
- So cynical that they are right about impending doom and don't have the balls to act, or just don't care.
It's one of those two things. Neither one is complimentary to the administration. Now, if they suspect that literally a 100,000 people will be dying every week with this thing and they don't lock down? Hmmm...I'll be looking for LOTS of resignations from the people in charge of this thing. They have the power, and if they don't exercise if for political reasons, then they are done. More than they already are.
Thus far, Omicron has not been the scourge it could have been. It's highly infections, but not very virulent.
14 people have died in the UK (https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-says-14-deaths-129-hospitalised-by-omicron-2021-12-22/) as of a couple days ago, and more will.
Here are some unavoidable facts:
- This bug is EXTRAORDINARILY transmissible. Regardless of vax status.
- This bug is highly likely to infect you. Regardless of vax status.
- If you get it, you are highly likely to spread it. Regardless of vax status.
- If you wear a mask, you're probably doing something, but not much to help avoid spreading or catching it.
So, with that established, what is the point of all the panic? What is the point of mandates? What is the point of calling it a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"? How about we just let people be educated about the disease and their options, and call it a day? That's my vote.
Anyway, I guess the big guy (and maybe #2 also?) is giving some speech right now about how Jan 6th was supposedly the end of America as we know it. I think you should keep screaming from the mountain tops, @Negatory, because it's not possible in my world for them to be so highly dedicated to political theater in the face of impending doom. I feel like you know something they don't. Hell, you probably do, and if so, you really need to be spending your time reaching out to people who can make some substantive change, rather than enlightening all of us air force pilots on this small corner of the internet called baseopsforums.com because I really feel that we're not your intended audience. You have received knowledge that needs to be delivered to the people at the top of our government, because it's obvious to me that they don't have the same information you purport to have. No one here is going to be able to implement any further societal restrictions, or enact a lock-down that will save us from the tidal wave of death that is headed our way. You're really wasting your time with us. Sorry to say, you have been standing in the wrong line at the DMV.
By way of implication, you seem to believe that for a few weeks starting in ~ mid-January the USA is going to experience about 300-500K deaths, right? This approaches Civil War deaths. They PTB cannot both know that we're going to experience that level of pandemic death and destruction, and simultaneously be placing focus on a riot that got out of control a year ago to make a political stump speech. Or hell, maybe they can because they are that cynical. I guess we'll see. In the meantime, I'll continue to scoff their sincerity, competence, and your reading comprehension.
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8 hours ago, Negatory said:
This is ironically great because it’s how it should work, but doesn’t. Reference the 2 bros I’ve seen get Art-15d by the group commander for drunken sexual jokes they made in front of the wrong person.
What platform?
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2 hours ago, Prosuper said:
I wonder if moral waivers were being issued then.
LOL
"Hey, 2...what the hell's with all the bbq sauce in your helmet bag???"
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19 hours ago, Prozac said:
I think there’s a realization, a political realization, that there is only so much people will put up with. If I had to hazard a WAG it would be that the public health officials are urging more stringent measures than the current administration is willing to implement. This decision may be based on political expediency, considerations of second and third order effects of strict lockdowns, or most likely a combination of the above. In any case, it seems to me that the government is acting in an entirely expected way, which is to say they are taking data from public health, political, cultural, and economic sources and attempting to consider all of the above when creating policy.
Fine. But are YOU ok with those things I've listed, and if so, why? If not, why not? What is your opinion?
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6 minutes ago, Prozac said:
Again, they’re being cautious by reacting but not overreacting until they have real data. Remember, the simplest answer is very often the correct one. Put yourself in the shoes of the policy maker where the whole country is on edge waiting for your decision & half of them are likely to lambast whatever policy you decide on. Now add in the fact that you might want to be re-elected someday and it’s really not that hard to understand where this (or any) administration is coming from.
So in-restaurant dining, football games, and the like are all ok with you then? Football playoffs are all good? If so, what is the big deal then and what is this conversation even about anymore? I'm just so confused at the apparent inconsistency between what we have seen thus far, and what the prediction is, and the difference between the two.
I'm not an idiot, and I just can't reconcile it. Also, I'm not predisposed to giving these people the benefit of the doubt anymore just playing my violin and being polite to all the other people who seem content to just go down with the ship.
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6 minutes ago, Prozac said:
Or, and here me out here, it COULD be that they are still unsure about how dangerous the variant is (yes we have preliminary data that symptoms are mild, but it takes time for real, actionable data to be verified) and are simply playing it safe until we know for sure that it is less severe. Why do we have to go straight to conspiracy when there is a far more likely, simple explanation?
Mmmmmm...I think they know, because it's what the preliminary data shows. If it was 70x as infectious with the same death rate (or worse, possibly) do you think they'd be justified in not locking down again? Would they be justified to allow college football to continue? How about in-restaurant dining? Seems to me that it was all well and good to lock down last year, but now for some reason it's unacceptable. Why is it different now? Why aren't we locking down? Not why won't we lock down in a week or two, why haven't we already locked down? Ask yourself that.
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5 hours ago, Negatory said:
We just got to 2X on confirmed cases. Probably 1.0M a day if you include unreported literally now. I’m not kidding you!
I'm not surprised by this. Omicron is like, what, 70x as infectious as the other variants? And it can break through multiple shots? My point - which I include again below for your convenience, so you can read it again - is to say that I don't believe the HYPE around this next variant.
On 12/22/2021 at 2:30 PM, ViperMan said:And all we get from #1 is a statement that if your vaxxed, you can go on vacation, but if you're not, you're gonna die??? Mkay. I don't believe you. I don't believe that these people actually think we're heading to a space where 12,000-16,000 people are going to be dying every day. I don't believe they believe that. If they did, they'd be taking different steps. It's fear porn in order to justify expediency that there is otherwise no appetite for. If they do believe that, and that's all they're doing, then they're even more cynical people than I already think.
All I'm saying is that they are either:
- Lying about what they think will happen re: the death rate.
- So cynical that they are right about impending doom and don't have the balls to act, or just don't care.
It's one of those two things. Neither one is complimentary to the administration. Now, if they suspect that literally a 100,000 people will be dying every week with this thing and they don't lock down? Hmmm...I'll be looking for LOTS of resignations from the people in charge of this thing. They have the power, and if they don't exercise if for political reasons, then they are done. More than they already are.
Thus far, Omicron has not been the scourge it could have been. It's highly infections, but not very virulent.
14 people have died in the UK (https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-says-14-deaths-129-hospitalised-by-omicron-2021-12-22/) as of a couple days ago, and more will.
Here are some unavoidable facts:
- This bug is EXTRAORDINARILY transmissible. Regardless of vax status.
- This bug is highly likely to infect you. Regardless of vax status.
- If you get it, you are highly likely to spread it. Regardless of vax status.
- If you wear a mask, you're probably doing something, but not much to help avoid spreading or catching it.
So, with that established, what is the point of all the panic? What is the point of mandates? What is the point of calling it a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"? How about we just let people be educated about the disease and their options, and call it a day? That's my vote.
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49 minutes ago, pawnman said:
In your opinion, does this mean we should lift all the other health mandates? Polio, MMR, etc vaccines?
Would you go further... no FDA did inspections. If a company makes tainted goods, people just won't buy them?
No, to answer your question directly, but please don't miss the point of mine. There is an important distinction to be made here.
All those vaccines have been around for years (decades), they are well-understood, old technology, and most importantly, they have become part of the array of things the public accepts (see: seatbelts, no-smoking in public places, airplanes, catalytic converters on your car, etc.). There is a long list of things the American public finds acceptable that could be construed as restrictions on muh'freedom. For some reason, all those things are cool. The difference, though, is that our government has done an absolutely first rate job over the last two-ish years, giving people all manner of reasons to be suspy of what the hell is going on and in many cases to not accept the COVID vaccines as part of that "array" of things.
For example:
- Democrats feigning suspicion of a vaccine having anything to do with Trump
- Republicans feigning suspicion of a vaccine having anything to do with mandates
- Our whole-of-government response to any discussion surrounding the origin of COVID (i.e. our attraction to the natural-origin story sans evidence)
- The PTB labeling anything suggesting a lab-leak to be "conspiratorial"
- Our holyamazeballz! response to the initial reports of 94-95% vaccine effectiveness!
- Our subsequent lack of an accountable discussion that recognizes these vaccines function more as therapeutics, rather than as vaccines as we all traditionally understood them
- Our initial government response to call travel restrictions 'racist'
- Our later governmental response to not call the same travel restrictions 'racist'
- The initial edict to not mask up - the later mandate to do so
- The encouragement to go eat out in China town, followed by silence two weeks later when COVID exploded in NYC
- The focus on passing BBB with all manner of social hand-outs and goodies, as opposed to you know, focusing on this disease that is supposedly going to destroy the world
- The contrast between what was considered "ok" last year (BLM protests, tearing down statues, rioting, calling racism a 'public health crisis, etc) and what "wasn't ok" (going to work, going to school, going to visit your family at Thanksgiving)
In short, our collective response to this situation has been fully inept from the word "go" and it has continued to be inept. Worse yet, in the backdrop, there has been a constant drone of misinformation and a steady unwillingness of people on both sides of the isle to fairly address critiques coming from the other. All that to say I'm not anti-vax. I'm merely saying that when you take the sum total of the above self-contradictory set of environment variables, you are creating and enhancing the conditions that give people legitimate reasons to push back - and not all of those people are tin-hat types. Moral of the story, we screwed up, and now we need to eat our humble pie. Which in this case, means you encourage people to get vaxxed, while the rest of us move the F on with our lives.
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And as far as the FDA is concerned, they have a very important role to play, but I also think their function has been largely co-opted by other industries in our corporatist society. For example, in order for something to be considered "food" in America, it can't be shown to cause harm. For something to be included in food in European societies, it must be shown to contribute nutritional value. Forgive me, because that is a complete paraphrasing of something I was made privy to a long time ago, but it stands out in my mind as an important contrast between how our society functions vs how others' do. Why is our system like this? Probably because our governmental organizations are run by industries that write rules to benefit themselves (see Agit Pai as the FCC chairman). That's a huge problem. So yes, while a properly sanctioned FDA would and can serve a vital public health function in the USA, ours currently is functioning sub-optimally. For example, we should probably have laws that preclude high-fructose corn syrup from being in everything, but we don't.
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22 hours ago, Majestik Møøse said:
That dude is a total douchebag, no different than the people who would yell shit at Trump. Disagree vehemently, ask hard questions at Town Halls, sure, but when you’re talking directly to the President of the United States, don’t be an ass.
Douchebags often serve an important roll in our society. Here's one saying the emperor has no clothes, and even though it's offensive and uncouth, it does a great job highlighting the lengths to which the rest of the establishment is failing to hold power accountable and failing to have important conversations. But yeah, it's probably more important that we all just continue playing our violins.
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14 hours ago, Negatory said:
Here’s a more pointed devils advocate question, because you’re not actually answering my questions. Let’s imagine there is a new disease that just came out. You’re in charge of figuring out the response. Here’s the question:
How many excess deaths should we accept? And the answer is not any unless you’re an anarchist, because I’ll just pose a hypothetical illness that kills 320M Americans as my example. Where obviously something like that would necessitate an extensive government reaction to stave off total societal collapse.
The questions get a lot harder when they’re posed like this, which is why skeptics love to do it. Is it 1M excess deaths? Because we just got there. Is it 10M? Is COVID specifically okay because it just doubles to triples the mortality of old people? They are unanswerable, and asking people to describe very specific “lines in the sand” is unreasonable.
When it comes down to it, it’s all based on feelings on both sides.
Dude, this is the prototype of an ill-formed hypothetical, meaning: it has to intentionally side-step and ignore other 2nd and 3rd order things that would happen in such a situation in order to produce its "point."
Ok, so in your construction here, you posit a virus that will kill 320M Americans? Meaning it is going to both infect, AND kill EVERYONE? Ok, I can roll with that. Mandates still aren't required. If such a disease arrived on set, you'd have people locking themselves down, and killing each other to get the vaccine. You think you'd need to mandate it at that point? Lol. Move down the continuum from there, and people's collective behavior appropriately balances it all out. No one is "accepting" any excess deaths.
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10 hours ago, Prozac said:
So your retort basically boils down to “waddabout the WHO?” and doesn’t address the shaky credibility of the organization actually in question? All while making assumptions about my own views on the WHO (which I have made zero comments on). Got it. This is how dumbed down debate has become in our society.
I guess, but not really? I was really just making a point about how people love to discredit a person or a group of people vs. engaging with the idea and addressing it directly - something I think you were doing by referencing that website. Boy cries wolf. Broken clock is right twice per day. The emperor is wearing no clothes. Whatever. Plenty of allegories illuminate our tendency to miss the truth intentionally or accidentally. Either way, I think a better way to engage is to look at the object, vs look at what someone else is saying about the object because no matter what, you're taking it through their filter.
Honestly, I think we have all lost the thread of what we're talking about. What are we all even arguing about anymore?
6 hours ago, Prozac said:Cool. And here are some scientists that believe in creationism:
I could also point you in the direction of some pilots who believe the earth is flat, biologists who believe in Bigfoot, astronomers who believe the moon landing was faked, etc, etc. Do they have equal credibility because of their credentials? Look, I’m not saying there aren’t issues with mainstream science and/or media. But when someone is arguing outside of what is generally accepted by the mainstream, that tends to be a red flag and they better back it up with some extraordinary proof. The chances that you’ve stumbled upon some brilliant doctor on social media who spews truth and is too base for the “lame stream” are pretty slim.
People are right/wrong about different things to varying degrees. Bottom line, proof is proof. Calling it "extraordinary" is much more a statement knowledge state of an individual, rather than a statement about the evidence itself. Plenty of good pilots have crashed good airplanes - you know this. Does that make them bad pilots, or people who made a mistake? Again, it's just better to address the topic rather than the person/group.
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1 hour ago, Prozac said:
Ah yes, the “Canadian Covid Care Alliance”. With an innocuous name like that, they must surely be a credible organization. Or not: https://factcheck.afp.com/canadian-doctors-make-inaccurate-covid-19-claims-video
I know nothing of the CCCA, but if we're attacking organizations based on who they are vs what they're saying, we are probably masking a weak position. Remember, the WHO is not allowed to acknowledge that Taiwan is an independent nation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM). That in and of itself means they have at least some level of inside political discourse - which indicates their positions and policies are beholden to those same politics. I suppose that discredits them in your eyes, right?
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COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)
in General Discussion
Posted
Mkay. I'm glad you never said it directly. I suppose you're unfamiliar with the concepts of implication or multiplication. You did strongly suggest those numbers, however, with the 5-15% death rate you quoted numerous times. Sooooo, 5-15% of 1.0M people per week is 50K - 150K. Since approx 16% of people in the US are over 70 yrs old, that means we should have seen approx 8K - 24K people (only those older than 70!) dying every week. We didn't see that. And many of us knew we weren't going to see that. And the actions our government took during those early weeks of January reflect their knowledge that we weren't going to see that, either. Some on this board are overly disturbed by others' lack of faith. Your numbers were and are wrong.
So sure, you can state under oath that you didn't say it, but you said it.
Anyway. The point is some of us knew this wasn't going to be as big a problem. Many others were running around freaking out and imploring everyone to share in their panic. I just felt like it was worth invalidating some of the previous BS on this thread a little bit more neatly now that we do know for sure.