5 ms·

Yup that was my understanding as well. Not sure why I'm being downvoted, it was a genuine question lol

by Insanity 7y ago

Waterluvian 7y ago
People are positively petrified of anything that even uses the same words as politically incorrect speech.
- Tade0 7y ago
  I wonder how well this approach is going to survive the current pandemic? I mean, is it me, or the amount of posts calling to get someone cancelled subsided?
  - alharith 7y ago
    Are you kidding me? Look at the current hash tags on twitter. Miserable people never stop.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    The canary I'm watching is the whole "Chinese" or "Wuhan" vs. "COVID" virus naming issue. I think it is very clearly not the right time to point fingers. But when this is all past us, a post-mortem and finger pointing is probably warranted. I don't think we need to resort to name calling, but I'm curious to see how much people bend over backwards to absolve China of responsibility.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      I think the most evenhanded answer would be to use the correct names (SARS-CoV-2 for the virus, Sars 2 for short, COVID-19 for the disease, Covid for short) while freely reminding people that China's initial cover-up was a necessary condition for the present global crisis.
      - zaat 7y ago
        While these are all correct and proper, everyone I know is on first terms with it and so we all call the virus and the disease Corona.
      - SCHiM 7y ago
        While I think that's a valid point to make. My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response in the total state space. Hindsight and all that. I think a much more powerful complaint is pointing out that, despite numerous warnings, studies, SARS, and having successfully isolated the root cause of the SARS outbreak (Civets). Only four months later these animals were back on the menu. The government made a rational choice to allow the conditions for the current situation to exist. The whole world is paying the price for this rational, prolonged and often pointed out mistake. That, I think, is a complaint we can lay wholly on the government.
        twomoretime 7y ago
        >My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response You can fault an authoritarian, oppressive regime for covering up the virus and suppressing whistleblowers. Now the world is paying for the CCP's SOP.
        throwaway894345 7y ago
        As an American, I was really disappointed in the CDC response. Even in the initial confusion, it's their fundamental job to prepare for and monitor these crises. Despite SARS and MURS, they still weren't prepared on a basic level to confront a respiratory disease (no meaningful stockpile of N95 masks or ventilators nor plans for ramping up production of the same) and then the whole debacle with the CDC vs WHO tests. The experts seem to be saying that tests are the most important aspect of the response and we botched that royally; only recently has our testing capacity begun to trend toward adequate (failing to address this sooner means the loss of life is exponentially greater). Note that these failures are independent of whatever initial confusion there may have been about this particular disease. And I don't think this is a simple case of hindsight: we've had several respiratory epidemics in the last couple of decades and we were still caught unprepared. I'm no expert and perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for all of this, but I suspect it was really negligence to the tune of thousands of American lives and who knows how much economic damage.
    - gowld 7y ago
      On our priority list, containing the virus is way higher than making sure China takes responsibility (how is this even a debate?), but the US Executive branch leader (and everyone who follows that lead) has a major priority inversion.
      - rootusrootus 7y ago
        The virus will be contained at some point, and then we can talk about responsibility. If China's policy on wildlife led to this pandemic, then they absolutely deserve to be shamed into changing their policies (permanently this time). They knew better.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Sure, but that shouldn't be used to dodge responsibility in other areas, like the abysmally slow response in many countries including the USA.
    - at_a_remove 7y ago
      Amusingly, if you look at the talk section [1] of the Wikipedia article on the Spanish flu, some folks really (suddenly, recently, completely by coincidence) want to call it the 1918 flu. There's no con job like a retcon job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spanish_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spanish_flu
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Seems fair enough: > To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu". Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic's geographic origin, with varying views as to the origin. It's not like we call syphilis "French pox" any more.
        at_a_remove 7y ago
        Lyme disease, Ebola, et al would like to have a word.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Ebola is actually named that to avoid naming it after a specific village, to reduce the stigma. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22704633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22704633 Lyme disease was around in humans long before its identification in Old Lyme, CT, so it too is an inaccurate name. (We've also learned a few things since the 1970s, let alone 1918. Now, we have a standard: https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-deadly-disease-is-covid-19/ https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-deadl...)
        at_a_remove 7y ago
        Marburg.
    - oh_sigh 7y ago
      I don't know, now seems like a great time to point fingers at the small percentage of the Chinese population that is obsessed with eating weird shit like pangolin(probably the same people who are driving certain African wildlife extinct as well). Or that the authoritarian government cover up of the virus helped take it from a local emergency to a global pandemic. No one has any issues saying that the US bungled the early stages of response for coronavirus.
    - aaron_m04 7y ago
      Let's not give racists any opportunities here. Calling it China virus or similar does exactly that, while confusing people with yet another name for this virus. The Chinese government needs to be called out, but specifically and unambiguously the government.
      - bobbydroptables 7y ago
        The government can only do so much to change culture, though, right? It needs to be made unambiguously clear that you do not eat or recreationally touch bat or pangolin. Government needs to outlaw it yes, and culture also need to shun it. As another example the Chinese slaughter of endangered species and sharks is a failure of both government and culture. I'm not sure there is a totally PC way to express that. All of this is done by a small percent of people but they need to be educated or shamed into compliance. We don't have to allow bad behavior because it could be un-PC to call it out.
        aaron_m04 7y ago
        Yes, that's true. There is a cultural element that is to blame as well. My point is that the term "China virus" is not the right way to place blame where blame is due. There will be a lot of collateral damage if it becomes popular.
        kd0amg 7y ago
        The government can only do so much to change culture, though, right? The Chinese government is famous for having done it.
- sdegutis 7y ago
  Explains the “playing the straight man” story recently in another thread.
- cheez 7y ago
  Is this going to go away with the virus?
gowld 7y ago
Often a valid tangentialy comment gets rightly downvoted simply because its current vote total puts it higher on the page than more relevant comments.
brlewis 7y ago
Don't read anything into downvoting, especially soon after your comment is posted. Give it time to settle out.

Yup that was my understanding as well. Not sure why I'm being downvoted, it was a genuine question lol

Waterluvian 7y ago

People are positively petrified of anything that even uses the same words as politically incorrect speech.

Tade0 7y ago
I wonder how well this approach is going to survive the current pandemic? I mean, is it me, or the amount of posts calling to get someone cancelled subsided?
- alharith 7y ago
  Are you kidding me? Look at the current hash tags on twitter. Miserable people never stop.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  The canary I'm watching is the whole "Chinese" or "Wuhan" vs. "COVID" virus naming issue. I think it is very clearly not the right time to point fingers. But when this is all past us, a post-mortem and finger pointing is probably warranted. I don't think we need to resort to name calling, but I'm curious to see how much people bend over backwards to absolve China of responsibility.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    I think the most evenhanded answer would be to use the correct names (SARS-CoV-2 for the virus, Sars 2 for short, COVID-19 for the disease, Covid for short) while freely reminding people that China's initial cover-up was a necessary condition for the present global crisis.
    - zaat 7y ago
      While these are all correct and proper, everyone I know is on first terms with it and so we all call the virus and the disease Corona.
    - SCHiM 7y ago
      While I think that's a valid point to make. My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response in the total state space. Hindsight and all that. I think a much more powerful complaint is pointing out that, despite numerous warnings, studies, SARS, and having successfully isolated the root cause of the SARS outbreak (Civets). Only four months later these animals were back on the menu. The government made a rational choice to allow the conditions for the current situation to exist. The whole world is paying the price for this rational, prolonged and often pointed out mistake. That, I think, is a complaint we can lay wholly on the government.
      - twomoretime 7y ago
        >My perspective on that is that, given contradicting reports and initial confusion, you can't fault any organization or person not picking out the correct response You can fault an authoritarian, oppressive regime for covering up the virus and suppressing whistleblowers. Now the world is paying for the CCP's SOP.
      - throwaway894345 7y ago
        As an American, I was really disappointed in the CDC response. Even in the initial confusion, it's their fundamental job to prepare for and monitor these crises. Despite SARS and MURS, they still weren't prepared on a basic level to confront a respiratory disease (no meaningful stockpile of N95 masks or ventilators nor plans for ramping up production of the same) and then the whole debacle with the CDC vs WHO tests. The experts seem to be saying that tests are the most important aspect of the response and we botched that royally; only recently has our testing capacity begun to trend toward adequate (failing to address this sooner means the loss of life is exponentially greater). Note that these failures are independent of whatever initial confusion there may have been about this particular disease. And I don't think this is a simple case of hindsight: we've had several respiratory epidemics in the last couple of decades and we were still caught unprepared. I'm no expert and perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for all of this, but I suspect it was really negligence to the tune of thousands of American lives and who knows how much economic damage.
  - gowld 7y ago
    On our priority list, containing the virus is way higher than making sure China takes responsibility (how is this even a debate?), but the US Executive branch leader (and everyone who follows that lead) has a major priority inversion.
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      The virus will be contained at some point, and then we can talk about responsibility. If China's policy on wildlife led to this pandemic, then they absolutely deserve to be shamed into changing their policies (permanently this time). They knew better.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Sure, but that shouldn't be used to dodge responsibility in other areas, like the abysmally slow response in many countries including the USA.
  - at_a_remove 7y ago
    Amusingly, if you look at the talk section [1] of the Wikipedia article on the Spanish flu, some folks really (suddenly, recently, completely by coincidence) want to call it the 1918 flu. There's no con job like a retcon job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spanish_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spanish_flu
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Seems fair enough: > To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu". Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic's geographic origin, with varying views as to the origin. It's not like we call syphilis "French pox" any more.
      - at_a_remove 7y ago
        Lyme disease, Ebola, et al would like to have a word.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Ebola is actually named that to avoid naming it after a specific village, to reduce the stigma. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22704633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22704633 Lyme disease was around in humans long before its identification in Old Lyme, CT, so it too is an inaccurate name. (We've also learned a few things since the 1970s, let alone 1918. Now, we have a standard: https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-deadly-disease-is-covid-19/ https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-has-a-name-the-deadl...)
        at_a_remove 7y ago
        Marburg.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    I don't know, now seems like a great time to point fingers at the small percentage of the Chinese population that is obsessed with eating weird shit like pangolin(probably the same people who are driving certain African wildlife extinct as well). Or that the authoritarian government cover up of the virus helped take it from a local emergency to a global pandemic. No one has any issues saying that the US bungled the early stages of response for coronavirus.
  - aaron_m04 7y ago
    Let's not give racists any opportunities here. Calling it China virus or similar does exactly that, while confusing people with yet another name for this virus. The Chinese government needs to be called out, but specifically and unambiguously the government.
    - bobbydroptables 7y ago
      The government can only do so much to change culture, though, right? It needs to be made unambiguously clear that you do not eat or recreationally touch bat or pangolin. Government needs to outlaw it yes, and culture also need to shun it. As another example the Chinese slaughter of endangered species and sharks is a failure of both government and culture. I'm not sure there is a totally PC way to express that. All of this is done by a small percent of people but they need to be educated or shamed into compliance. We don't have to allow bad behavior because it could be un-PC to call it out.
      - aaron_m04 7y ago
        Yes, that's true. There is a cultural element that is to blame as well. My point is that the term "China virus" is not the right way to place blame where blame is due. There will be a lot of collateral damage if it becomes popular.
      - kd0amg 7y ago
        The government can only do so much to change culture, though, right? The Chinese government is famous for having done it.
sdegutis 7y ago
Explains the “playing the straight man” story recently in another thread.
cheez 7y ago
Is this going to go away with the virus?

gowld 7y ago

Often a valid tangentialy comment gets rightly downvoted simply because its current vote total puts it higher on the page than more relevant comments.

brlewis 7y ago

Don't read anything into downvoting, especially soon after your comment is posted. Give it time to settle out.