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>that all involved are trying to minimize general death and misery Unless the anti-quarantine events are organized by a hostile power. And this seems likely s

>that all involved are trying to minimize general death and misery Unless the anti-quarantine events are organized by a hostile power. And this seems likely since they are insanely harmfully, arose suddenly and with widespread and great organization and have a lot of precedent. [1][2][3] And especially since it's already been explicitly shown for at least some of the domains connected to the protests.[4] [1]https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/26/media/russia-trolls-facebook-events/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/26/media/russia-trolls-faceboo... [2]https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-backed-facebook-accounts-organized-events-on-all-sides-of-polarizing-issues-1509355801 https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-backed-facebook-account... [3]https://thehill.com/policy/technology/358025-thousands-attended-protest-organized-by-russians-on-facebook https://thehill.com/policy/technology/358025-thousands-atten... [4]https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-domain-surge/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-d...

p1necone 6y ago
Given this the number of people even on hacker news who are throwing very dubious arguments around and completely ignoring the fact that these protestors are obviously either acting in bad faith or very ignorant is a bit concerning too.
- gruez 6y ago
  examples?
  - p1necone 6y ago
    The biggest one is claiming that these people are protesting because they're actually in financial trouble - all the protestors I've seen seem to be well off people complaining they want to get haircuts or go out to eat... There's also a large number of conspiracy theorists in these crowds claiming that the virus doesn't exist, or it's some kind of hoax.
    - 52-6F-62 6y ago
      I've quite literally seen people waving around placards pleading with people to listen to "Q".
jerf 6y ago
I can tell you "from the field" that there are plenty of real people who really do feel the lockdowns are being overdone and doing more harm than good, yes, even accounting for the possibility of an increased infection rate. The damage being done by the lockdown is a big number, and quite concrete; the damage that would have been done if we didn't lock down is a widely variable number under any honest analysis and the minimum of that range quite likely extends below the concrete costs of the lockdown, even as the maximum dwarfs it. It's not a situation amenable to quite as easy a choice as many here seem to be implying. And those costs are bourne unevenly, which doesn't make the debate any easier. For those of who, like me, are nearly unaffected (so far), it's pretty easy to argue that the costs of the lockdown don't really matter. It doesn't have to be one or the other, of course. It would be far from the first time that a true grassroots movement was taken over by some non-grassroots group for their own purposes. I will point out that one of the reasons this may seem to be exploding suddenly though is that everybody is being exposed to the same conditions at the same time. Under those circumstances it should actually be expected that large social changes occur in relative lockstep at a pace that wouldn't have been possible during "normal" times. Mere speed of motion is not really a reason to be suspicious that the entire thing is being manufactured. And note I am specifically speaking about that argument and no other. There is plenty of evidence that the sites in question are too organized to be a simultaneous grass-roots effort springing up in multiple states at once at this speed with this similarity. That is also so unsurprising as to be something you should expect in advance. I'm just suggesting that it's not a good idea to therefore conclude there isn't a significant group of people who really do feel this way; marginalizing that group of real people will if any tend to empower these fake organizations by making them the only place those people feel like they can get any respect.
- reilly3000 6y ago
  Read Krebs' article, there is fairly clear evidence that there was a coordinated effort to create these groups and promote them. There was sentiments, but no grassroots movement that was co-opted, this started as astroturf and received coordinated support. Think about the implications of a foreign power being able to spread disease and death with disinformation. Is it 'war' if a million people end up dead, even if no bullets were fired? Who are the combatants, and how, as Americans could we win that war? There is a strong case for reopening ASAP and the pressure is becoming more real by the day. Its perfectly reasonable to be skeptical about the overreach of Government power, and even to take action against it. That said, in this time, with the scale of the infection in the US, opening too soon is an unnecessary danger to millions of people.
9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
BLM was also sabotaged by Russia (from Mueller report), would you ban black lives matter gatherings and protests because of that too?
downerending 6y ago
We should never discount the idea that a hostile state-level power could be involved in our politics. And we pay a huge number of people in government to be paranoid about that. That said, I doubt these protests have much effect. It's kind of like people standing on corners waving signs, or the pro-antifa vs anti-antifa stick-fests. Amusing or mildly appalling and worth a click-bait article, but does anyone really care? If there's any real effect, I suspect it'll be just to mark that there are people suffering, people who have lost their livelihoods, can't make their rent, and just want to go back to their okay-but-not-great jobs so they can live their lives.
j4kp07 6y ago
Seriously? Russia again? And the first article is 2 years old? I honestly thought people such as yourself would go in hiding by now.

p1necone 6y ago

Given this the number of people even on hacker news who are throwing very dubious arguments around and completely ignoring the fact that these protestors are obviously either acting in bad faith or very ignorant is a bit concerning too.

gruez 6y ago
examples?
- p1necone 6y ago
  The biggest one is claiming that these people are protesting because they're actually in financial trouble - all the protestors I've seen seem to be well off people complaining they want to get haircuts or go out to eat... There's also a large number of conspiracy theorists in these crowds claiming that the virus doesn't exist, or it's some kind of hoax.
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    I've quite literally seen people waving around placards pleading with people to listen to "Q".

jerf 6y ago

I can tell you "from the field" that there are plenty of real people who really do feel the lockdowns are being overdone and doing more harm than good, yes, even accounting for the possibility of an increased infection rate. The damage being done by the lockdown is a big number, and quite concrete; the damage that would have been done if we didn't lock down is a widely variable number under any honest analysis and the minimum of that range quite likely extends below the concrete costs of the lockdown, even as the maximum dwarfs it. It's not a situation amenable to quite as easy a choice as many here seem to be implying. And those costs are bourne unevenly, which doesn't make the debate any easier. For those of who, like me, are nearly unaffected (so far), it's pretty easy to argue that the costs of the lockdown don't really matter. It doesn't have to be one or the other, of course. It would be far from the first time that a true grassroots movement was taken over by some non-grassroots group for their own purposes. I will point out that one of the reasons this may seem to be exploding suddenly though is that everybody is being exposed to the same conditions at the same time. Under those circumstances it should actually be expected that large social changes occur in relative lockstep at a pace that wouldn't have been possible during "normal" times. Mere speed of motion is not really a reason to be suspicious that the entire thing is being manufactured. And note I am specifically speaking about that argument and no other. There is plenty of evidence that the sites in question are too organized to be a simultaneous grass-roots effort springing up in multiple states at once at this speed with this similarity. That is also so unsurprising as to be something you should expect in advance. I'm just suggesting that it's not a good idea to therefore conclude there isn't a significant group of people who really do feel this way; marginalizing that group of real people will if any tend to empower these fake organizations by making them the only place those people feel like they can get any respect.

reilly3000 6y ago
Read Krebs' article, there is fairly clear evidence that there was a coordinated effort to create these groups and promote them. There was sentiments, but no grassroots movement that was co-opted, this started as astroturf and received coordinated support. Think about the implications of a foreign power being able to spread disease and death with disinformation. Is it 'war' if a million people end up dead, even if no bullets were fired? Who are the combatants, and how, as Americans could we win that war? There is a strong case for reopening ASAP and the pressure is becoming more real by the day. Its perfectly reasonable to be skeptical about the overreach of Government power, and even to take action against it. That said, in this time, with the scale of the infection in the US, opening too soon is an unnecessary danger to millions of people.

9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago

BLM was also sabotaged by Russia (from Mueller report), would you ban black lives matter gatherings and protests because of that too?

downerending 6y ago

We should never discount the idea that a hostile state-level power could be involved in our politics. And we pay a huge number of people in government to be paranoid about that. That said, I doubt these protests have much effect. It's kind of like people standing on corners waving signs, or the pro-antifa vs anti-antifa stick-fests. Amusing or mildly appalling and worth a click-bait article, but does anyone really care? If there's any real effect, I suspect it'll be just to mark that there are people suffering, people who have lost their livelihoods, can't make their rent, and just want to go back to their okay-but-not-great jobs so they can live their lives.

j4kp07 6y ago

Seriously? Russia again? And the first article is 2 years old? I honestly thought people such as yourself would go in hiding by now.