The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[Prozac]

13 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Our primary mission sets are pretty well known things we practice for and singularly focus on learning TTPs. That’s a terrible analogy. 

So the President of the United States should be held to a (much) lower standard than an O6?  Really? Because an unexpected crisis happened? (That there absolutely are OPLANs in place for) I kinda thought that WAS the job. We expect military leaders at all levels to be able to lead effectively in combat, where, famously, no plan survives the first contact with the enemy. They typically do a far better job adapting to adversity than this President has. There are many, many O6s out there that I would trust to do a better job leading the country than this draft dodger in chief. Some of you guys are giving this guy a pass for shit you’d NEVER tolerate from a wingman, co-pilot, squadron mate, or Commander. I can only imagine the some of the comments here if a Democrat were pulling half the shenanigans you’re willing to let slide with this reality TV clown. Look, I don’t expect lifelong conservatives with some very valid opposing world views to all of a sudden start singing Nancy Pelosi’s praises. Lord knows the Dems have plenty of their own issues. But to continue to praise this sorry excuse for a human being as if he’s the second coming of Jesus and shrug off his obvious failures......sorry guys. I just don’t get it. 

[Homestar]

54 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Our primary mission sets are pretty well known things we practice for and singularly focus on learning TTPs. That’s a terrible analogy. 

Yes, and we don't get to vote for (or impeach) our Wg/CCs....it's a thought experiment.

[SurelySerious]

Absolutely everything about Covid has been an unknown, as evidenced by the wildly differing recommendations, forecasts, and results. Oh, don’t forget the disinformation China was running that helped obfuscate the threat. So yeah, plans to fight a known enemy you practice to and specialize against with intel channels on is a terrible fucking analogy. 
 

Show me anyone who would have made better decisions about Covid in that office, and I’ll show you someone who got lucky. You don’t seriously think Joe Biden would have somehow magically stopped it at patient zero, right? NY did more damage by sending those senior citizens back into nursing homes instead of appropriate care facilities than any national policy, terrible self-centered communication style or not. 

[Lord Ratner]

On 8/23/2020 at 9:11 PM, Homestar said:

Somewhere in this post there is logical fallacy....(Googles Reductio Ad Hitlerum or Godwin's law)

Am I asking too much when I wish a political party nominate a person of at least average moral character?  I'm not asking for a saint.  I'm asking for someone with average levels of human compassion and decency....and one who has the first idea of how to manage during a crisis.

The willingness of Americans to look past human decency in support of their (R) or (D) baffles me.

Standing by for the inevitable whataboutist post....

Republicans did. Twice. George Bush was easily a good man. They called him a Nazi.

So then, a few years later, they picked Romney. Maybe the most ethical person to ever run. Biden accused him of wanting to re-enslave black people (metaphorically), and then he was called a sexist for having resumes from females.

I believe that most politicians are corrupt, but the final straw was the Kavanaugh hearing. The (D) party tried to paint a good man as a serial rapist on absolutely zero evidence. I do not blame Democratic voters for buying into the bullshit; I expect no complex thought from the average voter. But the Senators and Representatives who knowingly participated in that smear campaign are evil people, who did evil things. 

So yeah, the Republican party is a bit tired of being lectured about "human decency." There aren't many parallels. The highest levels of (D) party leadership enthusiastically lied about the characters of good people. Not just one or two random representatives. The whole damn party. 

[war007afa]

On 8/25/2020 at 1:26 AM, Homestar said:

If Trump were your wing commander and managed your wing's primary mission as he's done COVID, would you approve of his performance?

We excoriate commanders on here for much, much more competent leadership.

OK. I’ll play. 
 

If he was my WG/CC, his performance is way better than you let on.

His GP/CCs (Governors) have received everything they needed* (important to distinguish between wants and needs) to conduct the mission. When they needed ventilators, hospital ships, etc, they received it. I’m not taking this down the rabbit hole of unemployment benefits given the shit show of shenanigans associated with the game. 

The benefit my WG/CC has is he can fire underperforming GP/CCs and SQ/CCs (governors and mayors). He has the ability to massage the leadership to manage the crisis, not stand there and take the mutiny. 

It is nothing short of absolute horseshit to vilify the “inaction of the administration” when local and state governments are putting condoms on the monkey to let it go fuck the football. Where is the outrage for cities and states not enforcing PPE and distancing requirements? 

It has somehow become popular for the federal government to be responsible for the failures of local-level officials. In all of the issues we see regularly, it’s mind boggling how little local communities are seen doing to improve their situations other than pointing the finger at the federal government. This is exactly why socialism fails, and for some reason a large portion of our nation can’t see this ugly truth staring them in the face because the glow of “free shit” is blinding them. 
 

FUCK!

Edited August 26, 2020 by war007afa

[Negatory]

2 hours ago, war007afa said:

It is nothing short of absolute horseshit to vilify the “inaction of the administration” when local and state governments are putting condoms on the monkey to let it go the football. Where is the outrage for cities and states not enforcing PPE and distancing requirements? 

I agree man, the Texas and Florida governors really did mess up.

[Negatory]

2 hours ago, war007afa said:

This is exactly why socialism fails, and for some reason a large portion of our nation can’t see this ugly truth staring them in the face because the glow of “free shit” is blinding them. 
 

!

Also, you realize your whole argument boils down to “Trump didn’t have enough power over states/localities to be effective, so it’s not his fault?“

You wanna know what type of government doesn’t have the problem of dissident government leadership?

Communism.

[dream big]

4 minutes ago, brawnie said:

Also, you realize your whole argument boils down to “Trump didn’t have enough power over states/localities to be effective, so it’s not his fault?“

You wanna know what type of government doesn’t have the problem of dissident government leadership?

Communism.

Federalism, 10th Amendment, these are all good problems to have! I don’t want Trump or anyone in the federal government have that much power.  You guys give him and the position way too much credit.  I’ll take decentralized federalism over the false security of centralized control found in other countries any day.  This is bigger than Covid with a less than 0.1% mortality rate. 

[SocialD]

I just wish commanders at the various levels of command would get "woke" on their quarantine requirements.  At the very least, the SECAF or CSAF need to throw down with a single measure rather than delegating it down...because right now, we're triple stamping a double stamp, and it's beyond ridiculous.  

 

 

[Homestar]

I don’t expect Trump and the governors to work perfectly together. But I do expect that Trump’s own executive branch operate coherently. Wishful thinking, I know. 

[herkbum]

I agree man, the Texas and Florida governors really did mess up.

But nowhere near the level of New York and New Jersey.


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[Negatory]

3 hours ago, herkbum said:

 

But nowhere near the level of New York and New Jersey.


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Texas and Florida both had 2 months of previous research and SA to make decisions to protect themselves, thanks to the outbreaks in NY and NJ. What did they do? Declared mission accomplished and did nothing. Currently they have literally 10 times the daily cases of NY/NJ who just happened to be the first place where the outbreak started. They didn’t have the luxury of knowing what was effective against the virus, but it’s easy with hindsight to say exactly what they messed up. Unfortunately, doesn’t make you smarter.

And it’s not over yet. I’ll bet you Texas + Florida will have more deaths than any other state combo when this is over. They already have significantly more cases.

Willful ignorance is the only way, really, to describe the states that spiked in June-August.

 

Edit: And just to be clear, I tie all the idiots in California in just the same.

Edited August 27, 2020 by brawnie

[FLEA]

7 hours ago, brawnie said:

Texas and Florida both had 2 months of previous research and SA to make decisions to protect themselves, thanks to the outbreaks in NY and NJ. What did they do? Declared mission accomplished and did nothing. Currently they have literally 10 times the daily cases of NY/NJ who just happened to be the first place where the outbreak started. They didn’t have the luxury of knowing what was effective against the virus, but it’s easy with hindsight to say exactly what they messed up. Unfortunately, doesn’t make you smarter.

And it’s not over yet. I’ll bet you Texas + Florida will have more deaths than any other state combo when this is over. They already have significantly more cases.

Willful ignorance is the only way, really, to describe the states that spiked in June-August.

 

Edit: And just to be clear, I tie all the idiots in California in just the same.

Ok man. You raise some good points but statistics and critical thinking. It should be of no surprise Florida will have a higher casualty rate than any other state with COVID. Let's look at the demographic mean of Florida and make some educated staff estimates. 

Casualties are a stupid metric to use in measuring the effectiveness in handling a crises. If that's tough for anyone on this forum to swallow they probably picked the wrong profession as military officers. 

[Negatory]

23 minutes ago, FLEA said:

Ok man. You raise some good points but statistics and critical thinking. It should be of no surprise Florida will have a higher casualty rate than any other state with COVID. Let's look at the demographic mean of Florida and make some educated staff estimates. 

Casualties are a stupid metric to use in measuring the effectiveness in handling a crises. If that's tough for anyone on this forum to swallow they probably picked the wrong profession as military officers. 

If that’s not a good metric, what is?

[Sim]

Remember that time when 5 liberal democrat governors forced infected with Chinese virus into retirement homes. And then they investigated themselves and claimed "we did nothing wrong" followed by boasting on news how awesome they are! 

Yeah...good times.   

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by Sim

[FLEA]

5 hours ago, brawnie said:

If that’s not a good metric, what is?

Depends what your goals are. Do you think nK is doing the best job in the world at handling the virus? They have "0 casualties."  

I can give you a national strategy that would give you 0 casualties too. Everyone stays in their house. Noone leaves. You have to farm your own subsistence in your back yard. Everyone essentially goes off grid for the next year. There you go. 0 Casualties. But were you successful? What happened to your stagnated economy and factories that just went empty for a year? How will your children compete in an increasingly technical world when they missed an entire year of fundamental education during some of the most important development years of their life. How will you justify the importance of free democratic principles when you clearly made an argument that they are flawed and not always appropriate. How will your adversaries react to those actions? How do you fix the wealth gap you created as the stalled economy barely had an effect on the super rich but disproportionately effected the disadvantaged? Are you just going to keep paying people stimulus checks? Where is the money going to come from? Noones working. Who's paying taxes? What happens to your infrastructures? Interstate commerce? Exchanges? Transportation? 

Its a poor measure. You can certainly find limited value in it but it is not  close to the best. 

Edited August 27, 2020 by FLEA

[DosXX]

8 hours ago, FLEA said:

Depends what your goals are. Do you think nK is doing the best job in the world at handling the virus? They have "0 casualties."  

 

Considering nobody goes there that would be a dumb argument to make. How about highly globalized democracies such as South Korea or Japan which have much higher population densities, much higher at risk population demographic makeup, and have less cumulative deaths than we have had in 1 day with a lower loss of GDP over the last two quarters. There's economic research that shows the fallacy of the trade-off  between economic outcomes vs preventative measures.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560

Our case fatality rate suggests our hospital system have done a good job at keeping people who are infected alive, but our casualty rate suggests we did not do a good job with preventative measures, and there was no economic trade-off in doing so as made clear by countries cited. It's not the end all be all of metrics but to say it's of limited value is disingenuous, especially considering we can compare economic and health outcomes to other countries.

There is certainly a debate to have regarding federalism and individual liberty here, with countries like Taiwan adopting extremely concerning  policies such as tracking people on quarantine via cell phone GPS and having officers search the public for citizens on quarantine. It is clear however this is not necessary to have an effective response, and the point stands that the leadership and messaging from the administration has been extremely ineffective. Examples include political pressure by tweeting to LIBERATE X state, endorsing mask use 5 months into the pandemic, budgetary cuts that eliminated programs dedicated to pandemic response from previous years, and a string of concerning tweets at the onset including "were going very substationally down, not up". And yes of course local leadership everywhere is also at fault, but I'm addressing the original issue of why we can't just ignore criticism towards the President because we have a federalist system.

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, DosXX said:

Considering nobody goes there that would be a dumb argument to make. How about highly globalized democracies such as South Korea or Japan which have much higher population densities, much higher at risk population demographic makeup, and have less cumulative deaths than we have had in 1 day with a lower loss of GDP over the last two quarters. There's economic research that shows the fallacy of the trade-off  between economic outcomes vs preventative measures.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560

Our case fatality rate suggests our hospital system have done a good job at keeping people who are infected alive, but our casualty rate suggests we did not do a good job with preventative measures, and there was no economic trade-off in doing so as made clear by countries cited. It's not the end all be all of metrics but to say it's of limited value is disingenuous, especially considering we can compare economic and health outcomes to other countries.

There is certainly a debate to have regarding federalism and individual liberty here, with countries like Taiwan adopting extremely concerning  policies such as tracking people on quarantine via cell phone GPS and having officers search the public for citizens on quarantine. It is clear however this is not necessary to have an effective response, and the point stands that the leadership and messaging from the administration has been extremely ineffective. Examples include political pressure by tweeting to LIBERATE X state, endorsing mask use 5 months into the pandemic, budgetary cuts that eliminated programs dedicated to pandemic response from previous years, and a string of concerning tweets at the onset including "were going very substationally down, not up". And yes of course local leadership everywhere is also at fault, but I'm addressing the original issue of why we can't just ignore criticism towards the President because we have a federalist system.

Wasn't meant to illustrate nKs travel habbits. It was meant to illustrate mortality is a dumb measure. Countries report their own mortality and do so by their own standards. It's more than likely not a priority of decision makers to save every last human being either. 

I don't give the President a pass on anything. But I expect peopled charged with making important decisions for our government should have a minimum of critical thinking skills. If you can't recognize that their are different social, cultural norms, testing procedures, kits, mortality determination criteria, or age demographics in a geographic region that are going to dismantle your criteria for measuring success you need to be called out for that. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by FLEA

[sixblades]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

Wasn't meant to illustrate nKs travel habbits. It was meant to illustrate mortality is a dumb measure. Countries report their own mortality and do so by their own standards. It's more than likely not a priority of decision makers to save every last human being either. 

I get it that we don't know with 100% certainty how other countries report their metrics, but with that line of reasoning how can you even trust the numbers that we report. It would be advantageous to under-report to reduce constrictive measures, so does the US just not get how to accurately attribute mortality to its real cause?  The US accounts for 24% of infections and 22% of deaths with only 4% of the world's population. We're not the only nation that has significant amounts of tourism, business travel, or transient citizens. Hindsight is 20/20, but this isn't a situation where we're surprised as we look back at how we got here. 

EDIT: Agree with you that different testing measures as well as geographic and demographic conditions should be considered when comparing metrics, but I do expect our medical and scientific experts to exhibit the type of critical thinking skills you refer to. Our elected officials are there to make tough decisions, and whether they make effectives ones are something we subjectively discuss, but our worldwide scientific community is there to objectively report the truth data. Whether sovereign nations are intentionally misreporting is up for debate, but I don't believe the world is playing a big game of "gotcha!" against the US because we just want to fall on our own sword.

Edited August 28, 2020 by sixblades
quoted post edited

[DosXX]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

Wasn't meant to illustrate nKs travel habbits. It was meant to illustrate mortality is a dumb measure. 

I'm well aware. Just wanted to point out it's an example of the "reduction to absurdity" fallacy where you mischaracterize an opposing argument to make it seem ridiculous.  It's only dumb if you only take it at face value to that extreme end, and nobody is saying that only deaths matter and nothing else.

When people argue that mortality is an important measure they do so under the context of other industriazed globalized countries that have fared better. Nobody who says mortality is the most important measure would argue NK is doing the best at managing COVID because it ignores the obvious point that NK has no COVID to handle in the first place (or that they lie and employ draconian policies). That's why I followed with countries that someone who highly values mortality would actually make an argument for.

[FLEA]

2 hours ago, DosXX said:

I'm well aware. Just wanted to point out it's an example of the "reduction to absurdity" fallacy where you mischaracterize an opposing argument to make it seem ridiculous.  It's only dumb if you only take it at face value to that extreme end, and nobody is saying that only deaths matter and nothing else.

When people argue that mortality is an important measure they do so under the context of other industriazed globalized countries that have fared better. Nobody who says mortality is the most important measure would argue NK is doing the best at managing COVID because it ignores the obvious point that NK has no COVID to handle in the first place (or that they lie and employ draconian policies). That's why I followed with countries that someone who highly values mortality would actually make an argument for.

Ah ok. Can you explain to me specifically what policies sK and JP implemented that you would have reccommended the POTUS implement? 

 

[brabus]

5 hours ago, sixblades said:

but with that line of reasoning how can you even trust the numbers that we report.

Good point; our’s are fucked, and not in the way that you probably think. The CDC has said our infection numbers are likely 10 times higher than reported (due to tens of millions having it, but not going to the hospital/getting tested). That significantly reduces the actual mortality rate. 

I’m hopeful that Japan and other nations aren’t paying hospitals more money for reporting cause of death as COVID vs. something else. So we have inflated numbers on deaths that aren’t valid...another thing that reduces mortality rate even further. And since this doesn’t support your opinion, you’ll likely come at me screaming “source!” Multiple family friends who work in hospital administration and deal with the government money directly, plus my own uncle’s death being a perfect example of this “money scheme” (because that’s what it is...hospitals are businesses).

 

[Negatory]

You’re right about infections, the scientific view now is COVID infections are probably on the order of magnitude 10 times higher than test results show.

But deaths are probably much closer than you or a random second hand source you know give credit. You can’t dismiss deaths just because doing so fits your narrative, either.

A relatively accurate way to determine COVID effect is to assume that, compared to previous years, any change in death rate is likely due to COVID. Just take the excess deaths over 2019, 2018, 2017, etc., compare it to 2020, and you have a pretty close estimate to its impact.

Since March, ~200,000 more people than usual have died in the US. So that’s our best estimate at actual impact. So if we say 10 times the confirmed cases, or 60 million cases, that means 0.3% mortality for the population at large. Doesn’t sound that bad, only like 5-10 times worse than the flu based on similar analysis.

Still doesn’t take into account the age based mortality, which really are where the hard questions lie. If 70+ year olds have an estimated 5-15% mortality rate that goes up the older you are, how does that change the calculus? People don’t like going down this path, because it’s easier to ignore that and focus on the fact that working age folks would probably be fine. But it should be the center of the moral question:

Is the economy worth a large amount of deaths of older Americans? That’s what the reopen/herd immunity plan does. Is there a way to effectively isolate them from the rest of society (would require social assistance never before seen in the US)? How do we pay for it? Who accepts the risk? Where do you draw the line?

The science is real and can accurately enough show death rates and infections to action on. Let’s stop arguing about CDC data for no reason and start arguing about the more important policy questions that must be answered.

Edited August 28, 2020 by brawnie

[TreeA10]

I'm not a big conspiracy guy and don't own a tinfoil hat but the reporting of cases and deaths has become suspect.  A guy in Florida had COVID and was involved in a fatal crash on his motorcycle.  Cause of death is listed as COVID.  Similar incidents have occurred in other states.  People have signed up to get tested for COVID and leave without being tested and are contacted later saying they tested positive.  What is driving the need to get numbers of deaths and positives tests up?  In the grand accounting scheme, the actual numbers falsely attributed to COVID is probably small in comparison to real numbers but why inflate the numbers?

[Clark Griswold]

I'm not a big conspiracy guy and don't own a tinfoil hat but the reporting of cases and deaths has become suspect.  A guy in Florida had COVID and was involved in a fatal crash on his motorcycle.  Cause of death is listed as COVID.  Similar incidents have occurred in other states.  People have signed up to get tested for COVID and leave without being tested and are contacted later saying they tested positive.  What is driving the need to get numbers of deaths and positives tests up?  In the grand accounting scheme, the actual numbers falsely attributed to COVID is probably small in comparison to real numbers but why inflate the numbers?

Money - Medicare pays 20% more if cause of death is listed as COVID

Not sure if the above listed example of suspicious relation to COVID would square with that but it seems like hospital administrators are gaming the COVID relief legislation and policies for additional funds


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