6 ms·

> He's behaving entirely consistently with how he always has: deny everything, project perfection. > There's no signal here of a secret weapon, it's a complete

by xienze 7y ago

> He's behaving entirely consistently with how he always has: deny everything, project perfection. > There's no signal here of a secret weapon, it's a complete shit show. Can't really disagree, but I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with the way people in the US are talking about the response now. Was the US MSM not spending all of January and February telling us "calm down, you know the common flu kills WAY more people than this thing and we don't freak out about it!" and complaining how Trump's proposed Chinese traveler ban was both a) racist and b) would have little to no effect?

sciinfo 7y ago
The vast majority of people don't have an intuitive understanding of exponential growth. People not trained well in math and science don't even have/know the tools to help them understand it analytically. We need (much) better math education for people studying all majors.
- hurrdurr2 7y ago
  One of our older neighbors are inviting everyone on the nextdoor app to go to their house for movie night to prove that this is just a flu. The entire thread is people making fun of covid19 and how they are angry their retirement accounts are getting hit. I wish I was making this up.
  - newtoday 7y ago
    Geez, what part of the country if you don't mind me asking? Arrogance, ignorance, and disinformation is literally going to kill us. Thanks for sharing that.
    - hurrdurr2 7y ago
      Bay Area, CA
      - newtoday 7y ago
        Thanks for the reply. I guess I'm not surprised. What movie? ;)
  - pengaru 7y ago
    "there's no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated" - NOFX The whole song is disturbingly accurate/prophetic. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nofx/idiotsaretakingover.html https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nofx/idiotsaretakingover.htm... I'm completely unsurprised by what you're describing. I observed similarly disturbing behavior waiting in line @ Home Depot the other day. A customer was excited to find they had hand sanitizer in stock, and another customer told him there's a whole aisle full of the stuff and that all the covid stuff is fake news which devolved into nonsensical madness between yokels I had to just walk away from. Of course our Home Depot had some in stock, we're in rural bumblefuck middle of nowhere. Our stores only run out of things when the employees forget to do their jobs.
    - hef19898 7y ago
      The last sentence applies to all stores, so. Unless people freak out and stock up for the apocalypse, in which case resupply might take a couple of days.
    - hurrdurr2 7y ago
      Yeah it's crazy. I suggested in the thread that they should take this a little more seriously and was immediately attacked for being a doom mongering idiot. Oh well, I tried.
  - markvdb 7y ago
    Darwin will solve this irresponsibly stupid behavior. Causing a lot of collateral damage unfortunately.
    - wooger 7y ago
      No, old people have likely already re-produced, and will not be prevented from reproducing if they die now.
      - markvdb 7y ago
        I have to concede you're partly right. Darwin will solve more than you think though: - Some old irresponsibly stupid males are still sexually active. Darwin would stop them reproducing. - The old irresponsibly stupid neighbour is still a magnet for younger, sexually reproductive irresponsibly stupid people, probably more so than for others.
      - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
        Please live "social darwinism" to 4chan. Ignorance is not transmitted genetically.
  - chinathrow 7y ago
    It might help telling him that in some regions of northern Italy, patients over 65 with arrests are not assessed any longer and are not treated in an ICU, they are left to die. I wish I was making this up. Edit: Source added. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538 https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753...
- baddox 7y ago
  The whole “people don’t understand exponential growth” thing isn’t a very good explanation, considering that it applies to any contagious disease for which every person tends to infect some constant number of other people.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Which there are few in circulation, thanks to vaccines among other reasons (which lower effective transmission rate), so most people haven't really experienced it working. Somebody mentioned noroviruses the other day as probably the closest relevant thing people may have experienced - let someone with one loose on a cruise ship, and shit literally hits the fan very fast.
gran_colombia 7y ago
You talk about the MSM as if it was a thing, and not a term of propaganda. It may explain the confusion.
- allovernow 7y ago
  You seriously don't think that modern news outlets don't have a consistent, left-leaning, anti-Trump agenda? Perhaps you've been drinking too much of their coolaid. "Mainstream media" was a term long before people on the right started complaining about it.
  - bdamm 7y ago
    Mainstream media tends to target their audience. Their audience is Americans who by popular vote are left of the government on average, and a higher percentage of them that live in cities, which adds to the left bias yet again. So no big surprise that most of the big MSM outlets appear left-leaning if you personally are right of center at all. That doesn't mean Trump is doing a good job.
  - tehjoker 7y ago
    Mainstream media has a blinkered center-right bias that on CNN and MSNBC rewards the center-right democratic party and punches left. They don't care about the well being of the population, only about selling ads and preventing reform. On Fox, it's borderline fascist, actually fascist if you think about immigration and the concentration camps. I don't actually know why the ruling class in the US is taking this so easy. There's some kind of brain disorder they have that is located between American exceptionalism, raw stupidity, and a complete disregard for the welfare of the people. I hope they all shake hands with a COVID patient like they did at CPAC.
    - greedo 7y ago
      People don't realize that FoxNews IS mainstream media. They're the #1 news channel...
      - 7y ago
burkaman 7y ago
I don't remember much opposition to that order and I can't find any now.
- xienze 7y ago
  You must not have been paying much attention then. > The Trump administration’s quarantine and travel ban in response to the Wuhan coronavirus could undercut international efforts to fight the outbreak by antagonizing Chinese leaders, as well as stigmatizing people of Asian descent, according to a growing chorus of public health experts and lawmakers.[0] > The Trump administration’s decision to severely restrict travel from China to the US and to implement a mass quarantine, the first in the US in more than 50 years, could be an overreaction that causes unnecessary fear and weakens the global response[1] I can provide more if you’re not convinced that, just like every single other thing Trump does, right or wrong, he was attacked for actions related to the Coronavirus earlier this year... 0: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/04/coronavirus-quaratine-travel-110750 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/04/coronavirus-quarati... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/04/coronavirus-us-quarantine-travel-ban-response https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/04/coronavirus-...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - makomk 7y ago
    Yes, and this is a huge problem. Countries like Singapore which have managed to control the coronavirus have done so using travel restrictions much stricter than the US ones. The Washington Post found a solution to this though. They ran an op-ed "Coronavirus testing might have stopped it early. Now it's too late." pointing to Singapore's success as proof the coronavirus could've been contained, but completely omitting any mention of its use of border controls and pinning it entirely on aggressive testing. This went viral on social media, turning Singapore's success into a confirmation of people's existing belief seeded by the media that Trump's obsession with travel restrictions had screwed up the US coronavirus response.
  - moultano 7y ago
knzhou 7y ago
It just turned out that being wrong was a political universal... when you have two parties that are completely set on disagreeing on a matter of fact, then it's guaranteed that at least one will have it wrong, at any given time. This doesn't change the fact that Trump is currently being more wrong.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
toyg 7y ago
The two statements don’t need be false or contradict the fact that it was mishandled. A flight ban simply makes traceability harder, as people reroute through multiple hops. Victimizing Chinese communities is bad and will only make things worse (as people start hiding from authorities). And in the end, the virus was in Germany already in January, according to the tracing, so focusing on China would have helped little. BUT they could have mandated self-isolation for two weeks for all flight passengers disembarking, regardless of provenience. You get a tourism hit but slow down infection rates substantially. They could have ensured better procedure for care in death. Those elderly people dying in high number right now, have probably infected hundreds of others already; they should have been tested weeks ago, and handled as infection carriers. They could have prepared temporary field hospitals to spike capacity like the Chinese were forced to do. Chances are they will need them anyway, might as well do it advance than later under pressure. They could have started shutting down large gatherings and prepare for curfew measures. They’ve done none of that - and I say “they” as in US administration, UK administration, Australia (where they’ll even host a F1 GP with crowds this weekend!), France etc... They all hoped it would go away “on its own” like SARS did. Sadly, SARS was a lucky strike, this is the real deal.

by xienze 7y ago

sciinfo 7y ago

The vast majority of people don't have an intuitive understanding of exponential growth. People not trained well in math and science don't even have/know the tools to help them understand it analytically. We need (much) better math education for people studying all majors.

hurrdurr2 7y ago
One of our older neighbors are inviting everyone on the nextdoor app to go to their house for movie night to prove that this is just a flu. The entire thread is people making fun of covid19 and how they are angry their retirement accounts are getting hit. I wish I was making this up.
- newtoday 7y ago
  Geez, what part of the country if you don't mind me asking? Arrogance, ignorance, and disinformation is literally going to kill us. Thanks for sharing that.
  - hurrdurr2 7y ago
    Bay Area, CA
    - newtoday 7y ago
      Thanks for the reply. I guess I'm not surprised. What movie? ;)
- pengaru 7y ago
  "there's no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated" - NOFX The whole song is disturbingly accurate/prophetic. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nofx/idiotsaretakingover.html https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nofx/idiotsaretakingover.htm... I'm completely unsurprised by what you're describing. I observed similarly disturbing behavior waiting in line @ Home Depot the other day. A customer was excited to find they had hand sanitizer in stock, and another customer told him there's a whole aisle full of the stuff and that all the covid stuff is fake news which devolved into nonsensical madness between yokels I had to just walk away from. Of course our Home Depot had some in stock, we're in rural bumblefuck middle of nowhere. Our stores only run out of things when the employees forget to do their jobs.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    The last sentence applies to all stores, so. Unless people freak out and stock up for the apocalypse, in which case resupply might take a couple of days.
  - hurrdurr2 7y ago
    Yeah it's crazy. I suggested in the thread that they should take this a little more seriously and was immediately attacked for being a doom mongering idiot. Oh well, I tried.
- markvdb 7y ago
  Darwin will solve this irresponsibly stupid behavior. Causing a lot of collateral damage unfortunately.
  - wooger 7y ago
    No, old people have likely already re-produced, and will not be prevented from reproducing if they die now.
    - markvdb 7y ago
      I have to concede you're partly right. Darwin will solve more than you think though: - Some old irresponsibly stupid males are still sexually active. Darwin would stop them reproducing. - The old irresponsibly stupid neighbour is still a magnet for younger, sexually reproductive irresponsibly stupid people, probably more so than for others.
    - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
      Please live "social darwinism" to 4chan. Ignorance is not transmitted genetically.
- chinathrow 7y ago
  It might help telling him that in some regions of northern Italy, patients over 65 with arrests are not assessed any longer and are not treated in an ICU, they are left to die. I wish I was making this up. Edit: Source added. https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538 https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753...
baddox 7y ago
The whole “people don’t understand exponential growth” thing isn’t a very good explanation, considering that it applies to any contagious disease for which every person tends to infect some constant number of other people.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Which there are few in circulation, thanks to vaccines among other reasons (which lower effective transmission rate), so most people haven't really experienced it working. Somebody mentioned noroviruses the other day as probably the closest relevant thing people may have experienced - let someone with one loose on a cruise ship, and shit literally hits the fan very fast.

gran_colombia 7y ago

You talk about the MSM as if it was a thing, and not a term of propaganda. It may explain the confusion.

allovernow 7y ago
You seriously don't think that modern news outlets don't have a consistent, left-leaning, anti-Trump agenda? Perhaps you've been drinking too much of their coolaid. "Mainstream media" was a term long before people on the right started complaining about it.
- bdamm 7y ago
  Mainstream media tends to target their audience. Their audience is Americans who by popular vote are left of the government on average, and a higher percentage of them that live in cities, which adds to the left bias yet again. So no big surprise that most of the big MSM outlets appear left-leaning if you personally are right of center at all. That doesn't mean Trump is doing a good job.
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Mainstream media has a blinkered center-right bias that on CNN and MSNBC rewards the center-right democratic party and punches left. They don't care about the well being of the population, only about selling ads and preventing reform. On Fox, it's borderline fascist, actually fascist if you think about immigration and the concentration camps. I don't actually know why the ruling class in the US is taking this so easy. There's some kind of brain disorder they have that is located between American exceptionalism, raw stupidity, and a complete disregard for the welfare of the people. I hope they all shake hands with a COVID patient like they did at CPAC.
  - greedo 7y ago
    People don't realize that FoxNews IS mainstream media. They're the #1 news channel...
    - 7y ago

burkaman 7y ago

I don't remember much opposition to that order and I can't find any now.

xienze 7y ago
You must not have been paying much attention then. > The Trump administration’s quarantine and travel ban in response to the Wuhan coronavirus could undercut international efforts to fight the outbreak by antagonizing Chinese leaders, as well as stigmatizing people of Asian descent, according to a growing chorus of public health experts and lawmakers.[0] > The Trump administration’s decision to severely restrict travel from China to the US and to implement a mass quarantine, the first in the US in more than 50 years, could be an overreaction that causes unnecessary fear and weakens the global response[1] I can provide more if you’re not convinced that, just like every single other thing Trump does, right or wrong, he was attacked for actions related to the Coronavirus earlier this year... 0: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/04/coronavirus-quaratine-travel-110750 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/04/coronavirus-quarati... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/04/coronavirus-us-quarantine-travel-ban-response https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/04/coronavirus-...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- makomk 7y ago
  Yes, and this is a huge problem. Countries like Singapore which have managed to control the coronavirus have done so using travel restrictions much stricter than the US ones. The Washington Post found a solution to this though. They ran an op-ed "Coronavirus testing might have stopped it early. Now it's too late." pointing to Singapore's success as proof the coronavirus could've been contained, but completely omitting any mention of its use of border controls and pinning it entirely on aggressive testing. This went viral on social media, turning Singapore's success into a confirmation of people's existing belief seeded by the media that Trump's obsession with travel restrictions had screwed up the US coronavirus response.
- moultano 7y ago

knzhou 7y ago

It just turned out that being wrong was a political universal... when you have two parties that are completely set on disagreeing on a matter of fact, then it's guaranteed that at least one will have it wrong, at any given time. This doesn't change the fact that Trump is currently being more wrong.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

toyg 7y ago

The two statements don’t need be false or contradict the fact that it was mishandled. A flight ban simply makes traceability harder, as people reroute through multiple hops. Victimizing Chinese communities is bad and will only make things worse (as people start hiding from authorities). And in the end, the virus was in Germany already in January, according to the tracing, so focusing on China would have helped little. BUT they could have mandated self-isolation for two weeks for all flight passengers disembarking, regardless of provenience. You get a tourism hit but slow down infection rates substantially. They could have ensured better procedure for care in death. Those elderly people dying in high number right now, have probably infected hundreds of others already; they should have been tested weeks ago, and handled as infection carriers. They could have prepared temporary field hospitals to spike capacity like the Chinese were forced to do. Chances are they will need them anyway, might as well do it advance than later under pressure. They could have started shutting down large gatherings and prepare for curfew measures. They’ve done none of that - and I say “they” as in US administration, UK administration, Australia (where they’ll even host a F1 GP with crowds this weekend!), France etc... They all hoped it would go away “on its own” like SARS did. Sadly, SARS was a lucky strike, this is the real deal.