8 ms·

Not sure where you're from, but in many places, "society and government" has not failed people the same way it has in the US. Even within the US there are some

Not sure where you're from, but in many places, "society and government" has not failed people the same way it has in the US. Even within the US there are some places where local and state government have performed much better than places like Florida or NYC. That is to say, the problem is not, conceptually, "society and government", but instead, the American society and American government we have today. Don't give up! Don't withdraw! Organize and fight to improve the systems that are exacerbating this crisis.

antepodius 6y ago
Withdrawing and becoming independent from state systems isn't giving up; it's probably a first step towards a more organic, liberated society.
- clairity 6y ago
  the action can have a variety of impetuses, but @eaandkw literally stated they're giving up.
  - antepodius 6y ago
    Giving up on one approach vetsus another, because the incentive balance has shifted. From a consequentalist point of view, the impetus is secondary- if you think people would be better off being less reliant on the state, then any time they take actions towards that, it's good.
  - eaandkw 6y ago
    The context of what I mean by saying that I am giving up is that institutions, government, and corporations are unreliable. I can't make decisions based on conditions as they are today because as soon as I do the rug will be pulled out from under me and leave me on my butt. This means that if I had a great idea for a business I will decide not to start that business. That vacation that I was planning won't happen anymore. Certain cities I may have been inclined to visit I won't enter anymore. Heck I even have to self-censor myself now for any thoughts I have because who knows who is going to get offended and try to prevent me from having a job, credit card, or even an opinion. That is mostly what I mean.
hosh 6y ago
It's my conclusion that the system has failed as well, and it comes from things that are intrinsic to the system itself. Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. When "success" and "wealth" is determined by how much resources you can extract from the land and people, and how much control over access to those resources, it incentivized centralization and control over basic necessities. This would be food, water, shelter, warmth and clothing. Every one of those require money and participation in the economy. There is no fixing it, as every single possibility moves us towards eventual collapse. The alternative is having the basic needs (food, water, shelter, warmth, clothing) be met by being a participant in the ecology. Where these things can be provided through decentralized means as part of regenerative processes. When these things are provided by regenerative cycles, families can live off of that across many generations provided that they are wise stewards of the land. This is better than Universal Basic Income. You can't eat money, and UBI still relies on the fragile global supply chain to meet basic needs. Furthermore, because these systems are decentralized, it does not require collective action. It does not require organizing, or fighting against the system. It does not require waiting for leaders to Do Something About It. It is more like letting the weeds grow. Pioneering into depleted soil with tenacity and resilience. It requires a mindset shift, and connecting with the local ecology and local community.
- vlunkr 6y ago
  This argument really doesn't work for me because you have nothing to compare the system to. > Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. > fragile global supply chain Fragile compared to what? > Every one of those require money and participation in the economy. Sorry, but this is just the reality of being a living creature. You can go fully off the grid if you want and make all those things for yourself, but most people don't do that, because, spoiler alert, it sucks. It's more work than participating in an economy. > There is no fixing it, as every single possibility moves us towards eventual collapse. Citation needed. You can point out problems with economies, government, etc. all day long, but if the system you're comparing it to is pure fiction, then what's the point?
m0zg 6y ago
> has not failed people the same way it has in the US Not yet. It ain't over yet though, even though it might seem like it elsewhere. Basic facts are: herd immunity is prohibitively expensive from the fatalities perspective (although it may be our only long term option), a vaccine is not guaranteed to ever exist, and C19 is now endemic, so it will come back. Oh and also, for the society to function people must be able to work. To poster below who said that no vaccine == no herd immunity. That's actually not true. For a vaccine to be approved it needs to be safe. Herd immunity will just happen eventually, no approval needed as the virus itself doesn't care if it's "safe" or not. Paradoxically, the society will likely prefer to tolerate higher body count due to not having a vaccine at all, rather than smaller body count for a vaccine that is unsafe in a small, but not completely negligible percentage of cases.
- ben_w 6y ago
  If a vaccine cannot happen, neither can herd immunity. I read it has been eliminated in New Zealand, so elimination is possible with good government: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/new-zealand-coronavirus-level-one-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/new-zealand-coronavir...
  - twblalock 6y ago
    > elimination is possible with good government Good government, plus living on a small island that can close itself from the rest of the world. Most countries aren't in that situation.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Most of the vectors of COVID spread in the US have little to do with failing to close itself off from the rest of the world. If you have the political will, you can implement quarantine for international travelers, which will catch the overwhelming majority of externally-sourced cases. The US did not do so, because it was too disruptive to business, and because good, sober governance has been an explicit non-goal for the past few decades, on both state and federal level - but especially in the last few years.
jt94mf90d 6y ago
How did nyc mess up? I can just think of the nursing homes, but that was due to cdc guidelines, which coumo had to implement additional guidelines.
- jackcosgrove 6y ago
  It was the subway. Extensive use of the subway is what sets NYC apart from all other cities in the US, and it was the main vector. NYC should have been much more diligent about cleaning the subway and limiting concurrent access. I understand due to the sheer volume and necessity of subway use the chosen policies may have been the best. But the subway has been overcrowded and near the breaking point for years and little was done to maintain the system before COVID.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I've been in a lot of subway cars where you're so packed in, you can't move an inch. Even if the NYC subway was twice its capacity, I don't think you would have had the level of social distancing necessary to do much about COVID. Maybe it would have been less bad, but I think it's hard to say. And remember, if the subway capacity was increased, subway ridership would likely increase as well, as it becomes a more appealing mode of transport. What NYC really should have done is shut down businesses on March 1 instead of March 15. But... I don't know, I think that's a lot to ask of politicians. The public would not have responded well to schools being closed and restaurants being shuttered. We needed a wake-up call. By contrast, I feel like Florida, Georgia, etc have really had that wake-up call, and have chosen to flout it anyway. I don't have much sympathy.
    - jt94mf90d 6y ago
      "If transit itself were a global super-spreader, then a large outbreak would have been expected in dense Hong Kong, a city of 7.5 million people dependent on a public transportation system that, before the pandemic, was carrying 12.9 million people a day. Ridership there, according to the Post, fell considerably less than in other transit systems around the world. Yet Hong Kong has recorded only about 1,100 COVID-19 cases, one-tenth the number in Kansas, which has fewer than half as many people. Replicating Hong Kong’s success may involve safety measures, such as mask wearing, that are not yet ingrained in the U.S., but the evidence only underscores that the coronavirus can spread outside of transit and dense urban environments—which are not inherently harmful." https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/612979/ https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/612979/
dlivingston 6y ago
What we need is a plan and a leader that will pull us out of this gridlock and death spiral that we're in. We need a diagnosis of what exactly is going wrong, a concrete plan of action, and mass participation. My diagnosis: - Hyper-partisanship is causing politicians and the electorate to harden into uncompromising tribes. This hyper-partisanship also serves to increase the size and scale of the fringe wings of both parties, leading to events like the infamous white-supremacist Charlottesville rally. The cause(s): - 1. News as a business, particularly if that business is publicly traded, is not in the 'truth-telling' business. It is in the 'maximizing profits' business, as all (publicly traded) companies are. - 1.1. Therefore, truth is ancillary to any for-profit news business. This will manifest itself in different ways depending on the monetization scheme of the business. - 1.2. In the case of 24-hour news networks, like Fox and CNN, they are advertisement driven and therefore seek to maximize 'eyeballs'. Therefore, a constant stream of engaging content must be produced: for both Fox and CNN, the result is hyper-sensationalism. The creation of outrage, controversy, and even facts that don't exist. Further, because Fox is so partisan, it has effectively forced CNN to become partisan too. - 1.3. The above is also true, and *especially* true, for ad-driven online news sources. Clickbait is a well-known phenomenon for, again, maximizing outrage and controversy for ad impressions. Visit an average article on CNN, Fox, or Breitbart and count how many ads you see. Now ask yourself: is it *really* in their best interest to be partial and nuanced? - 2. Twitter and Facebook allow us to create echo chambers of politicians, pundits, news organizations, and peers. - 2.1. The 'like' and 'share/retweet' mechanisms incentivize divisive, emotional, and simplistic posts/tweets. - 2.2. And given that a small subset of users actually tweet or comment or post, those that do tend to be more radical, which lead people to believe that the majority opinion for ${POLITICAL_PARTY} is reflected in the comment section. This leads to a true 'Overton shift' for those in ${POLITICAL_PARTY} and opposite polarization for ${OTHER_POLITICAL_PARTY}. There are another dozen reasons, I'm sure, including: money in politics, constant campaigning, a genuine uptick in racism/anti-semitism, and many more. I think exploring the idea of a crowd-sourced website listing these reasons and proposed solutions would be quite valuable.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > I think exploring the idea of a crowd-sourced website listing these reasons and proposed solutions would be quite valuable. 100% agree...a crowd-sourced website that does this and a whole bunch of other things is desperately needed. I believe with strong certainty that the current state of affairs (in Western countries at least) is that our political, corporate, and media structures, combined with the "collective consciousness" of our population, have basically brought us to a point from which these same organizations haven't a hope in hell of undoing the mess they've put us in. I think something outside the current system, a completely new grassroots approach to decision and sense making is required to get us back onto a sustainable path. How might we get such an initiative underway?
RestlessMind 6y ago
Let's see - US government instituted reasonably prompt lockdowns. They mailed one-time stimulus checks to everyone, gave 600$ unemployment insurance boosts, ramped up hospital capacities, opened up other support measures for businesses and allowed 50 parallel experiments (at state level) to see what works and what doesn't. Was the response perfect? Certainly not. Did some other countries do better? I'm sure we could find a handful. Does this make the US a "totally failed shit-hole state"? HELL NO!! And in case you think that the US is indeed one, it just means that you have only been exposed to Scandinavia and/or Singapore, or you have consumed too much of biased media which wants to maximize your anxiety and partisanship for their profits, or you are just trolling here to intentionally sow divisions. Assuming you are not in the last category, please go and learn about how things are in Brazil or India or sub-Saharan Africa. You will realize that the US is in a much better shape and things are handled far better than the media narratives.
- jimbokun 6y ago
  The US has handled the pandemic worse than any country in the world, except maybe Brazil. Otherwise, I can't think of a country that has handled it worse. Which countries are doing a worse job than the US in handling Coronavirus, in your opinion?
  - RestlessMind 6y ago
    Apart from Brazil (which you mentioned), the US is doing a far better job than India and Bangladesh in terms of supporting the economy and social safety nets like one time stimulus payments, boosting unemployment benefits, aid to businesses etc. [Source: close families / friends living in those two countries].
    - nine_zeros 6y ago
      The fact that US being compared with India and Bangladesh should already give you a hint about where the US stands.
  - int_19h 6y ago

antepodius 6y ago

Withdrawing and becoming independent from state systems isn't giving up; it's probably a first step towards a more organic, liberated society.

clairity 6y ago
the action can have a variety of impetuses, but @eaandkw literally stated they're giving up.
- antepodius 6y ago
  Giving up on one approach vetsus another, because the incentive balance has shifted. From a consequentalist point of view, the impetus is secondary- if you think people would be better off being less reliant on the state, then any time they take actions towards that, it's good.
- eaandkw 6y ago
  The context of what I mean by saying that I am giving up is that institutions, government, and corporations are unreliable. I can't make decisions based on conditions as they are today because as soon as I do the rug will be pulled out from under me and leave me on my butt. This means that if I had a great idea for a business I will decide not to start that business. That vacation that I was planning won't happen anymore. Certain cities I may have been inclined to visit I won't enter anymore. Heck I even have to self-censor myself now for any thoughts I have because who knows who is going to get offended and try to prevent me from having a job, credit card, or even an opinion. That is mostly what I mean.

hosh 6y ago

It's my conclusion that the system has failed as well, and it comes from things that are intrinsic to the system itself. Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. When "success" and "wealth" is determined by how much resources you can extract from the land and people, and how much control over access to those resources, it incentivized centralization and control over basic necessities. This would be food, water, shelter, warmth and clothing. Every one of those require money and participation in the economy. There is no fixing it, as every single possibility moves us towards eventual collapse. The alternative is having the basic needs (food, water, shelter, warmth, clothing) be met by being a participant in the ecology. Where these things can be provided through decentralized means as part of regenerative processes. When these things are provided by regenerative cycles, families can live off of that across many generations provided that they are wise stewards of the land. This is better than Universal Basic Income. You can't eat money, and UBI still relies on the fragile global supply chain to meet basic needs. Furthermore, because these systems are decentralized, it does not require collective action. It does not require organizing, or fighting against the system. It does not require waiting for leaders to Do Something About It. It is more like letting the weeds grow. Pioneering into depleted soil with tenacity and resilience. It requires a mindset shift, and connecting with the local ecology and local community.

vlunkr 6y ago
This argument really doesn't work for me because you have nothing to compare the system to. > Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. > fragile global supply chain Fragile compared to what? > Every one of those require money and participation in the economy. Sorry, but this is just the reality of being a living creature. You can go fully off the grid if you want and make all those things for yourself, but most people don't do that, because, spoiler alert, it sucks. It's more work than participating in an economy. > There is no fixing it, as every single possibility moves us towards eventual collapse. Citation needed. You can point out problems with economies, government, etc. all day long, but if the system you're comparing it to is pure fiction, then what's the point?

m0zg 6y ago

> has not failed people the same way it has in the US Not yet. It ain't over yet though, even though it might seem like it elsewhere. Basic facts are: herd immunity is prohibitively expensive from the fatalities perspective (although it may be our only long term option), a vaccine is not guaranteed to ever exist, and C19 is now endemic, so it will come back. Oh and also, for the society to function people must be able to work. To poster below who said that no vaccine == no herd immunity. That's actually not true. For a vaccine to be approved it needs to be safe. Herd immunity will just happen eventually, no approval needed as the virus itself doesn't care if it's "safe" or not. Paradoxically, the society will likely prefer to tolerate higher body count due to not having a vaccine at all, rather than smaller body count for a vaccine that is unsafe in a small, but not completely negligible percentage of cases.

ben_w 6y ago
If a vaccine cannot happen, neither can herd immunity. I read it has been eliminated in New Zealand, so elimination is possible with good government: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/new-zealand-coronavirus-level-one-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/new-zealand-coronavir...
- twblalock 6y ago
  > elimination is possible with good government Good government, plus living on a small island that can close itself from the rest of the world. Most countries aren't in that situation.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Most of the vectors of COVID spread in the US have little to do with failing to close itself off from the rest of the world. If you have the political will, you can implement quarantine for international travelers, which will catch the overwhelming majority of externally-sourced cases. The US did not do so, because it was too disruptive to business, and because good, sober governance has been an explicit non-goal for the past few decades, on both state and federal level - but especially in the last few years.

jt94mf90d 6y ago

How did nyc mess up? I can just think of the nursing homes, but that was due to cdc guidelines, which coumo had to implement additional guidelines.

jackcosgrove 6y ago
It was the subway. Extensive use of the subway is what sets NYC apart from all other cities in the US, and it was the main vector. NYC should have been much more diligent about cleaning the subway and limiting concurrent access. I understand due to the sheer volume and necessity of subway use the chosen policies may have been the best. But the subway has been overcrowded and near the breaking point for years and little was done to maintain the system before COVID.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I've been in a lot of subway cars where you're so packed in, you can't move an inch. Even if the NYC subway was twice its capacity, I don't think you would have had the level of social distancing necessary to do much about COVID. Maybe it would have been less bad, but I think it's hard to say. And remember, if the subway capacity was increased, subway ridership would likely increase as well, as it becomes a more appealing mode of transport. What NYC really should have done is shut down businesses on March 1 instead of March 15. But... I don't know, I think that's a lot to ask of politicians. The public would not have responded well to schools being closed and restaurants being shuttered. We needed a wake-up call. By contrast, I feel like Florida, Georgia, etc have really had that wake-up call, and have chosen to flout it anyway. I don't have much sympathy.
  - jt94mf90d 6y ago
    "If transit itself were a global super-spreader, then a large outbreak would have been expected in dense Hong Kong, a city of 7.5 million people dependent on a public transportation system that, before the pandemic, was carrying 12.9 million people a day. Ridership there, according to the Post, fell considerably less than in other transit systems around the world. Yet Hong Kong has recorded only about 1,100 COVID-19 cases, one-tenth the number in Kansas, which has fewer than half as many people. Replicating Hong Kong’s success may involve safety measures, such as mask wearing, that are not yet ingrained in the U.S., but the evidence only underscores that the coronavirus can spread outside of transit and dense urban environments—which are not inherently harmful." https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/612979/ https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/612979/

dlivingston 6y ago

What we need is a plan and a leader that will pull us out of this gridlock and death spiral that we're in. We need a diagnosis of what exactly is going wrong, a concrete plan of action, and mass participation. My diagnosis: - Hyper-partisanship is causing politicians and the electorate to harden into uncompromising tribes. This hyper-partisanship also serves to increase the size and scale of the fringe wings of both parties, leading to events like the infamous white-supremacist Charlottesville rally. The cause(s): - 1. News as a business, particularly if that business is publicly traded, is not in the 'truth-telling' business. It is in the 'maximizing profits' business, as all (publicly traded) companies are. - 1.1. Therefore, truth is ancillary to any for-profit news business. This will manifest itself in different ways depending on the monetization scheme of the business. - 1.2. In the case of 24-hour news networks, like Fox and CNN, they are advertisement driven and therefore seek to maximize 'eyeballs'. Therefore, a constant stream of engaging content must be produced: for both Fox and CNN, the result is hyper-sensationalism. The creation of outrage, controversy, and even facts that don't exist. Further, because Fox is so partisan, it has effectively forced CNN to become partisan too. - 1.3. The above is also true, and *especially* true, for ad-driven online news sources. Clickbait is a well-known phenomenon for, again, maximizing outrage and controversy for ad impressions. Visit an average article on CNN, Fox, or Breitbart and count how many ads you see. Now ask yourself: is it *really* in their best interest to be partial and nuanced? - 2. Twitter and Facebook allow us to create echo chambers of politicians, pundits, news organizations, and peers. - 2.1. The 'like' and 'share/retweet' mechanisms incentivize divisive, emotional, and simplistic posts/tweets. - 2.2. And given that a small subset of users actually tweet or comment or post, those that do tend to be more radical, which lead people to believe that the majority opinion for ${POLITICAL_PARTY} is reflected in the comment section. This leads to a true 'Overton shift' for those in ${POLITICAL_PARTY} and opposite polarization for ${OTHER_POLITICAL_PARTY}. There are another dozen reasons, I'm sure, including: money in politics, constant campaigning, a genuine uptick in racism/anti-semitism, and many more. I think exploring the idea of a crowd-sourced website listing these reasons and proposed solutions would be quite valuable.

mistermann 6y ago
> I think exploring the idea of a crowd-sourced website listing these reasons and proposed solutions would be quite valuable. 100% agree...a crowd-sourced website that does this and a whole bunch of other things is desperately needed. I believe with strong certainty that the current state of affairs (in Western countries at least) is that our political, corporate, and media structures, combined with the "collective consciousness" of our population, have basically brought us to a point from which these same organizations haven't a hope in hell of undoing the mess they've put us in. I think something outside the current system, a completely new grassroots approach to decision and sense making is required to get us back onto a sustainable path. How might we get such an initiative underway?

RestlessMind 6y ago

Let's see - US government instituted reasonably prompt lockdowns. They mailed one-time stimulus checks to everyone, gave 600$ unemployment insurance boosts, ramped up hospital capacities, opened up other support measures for businesses and allowed 50 parallel experiments (at state level) to see what works and what doesn't. Was the response perfect? Certainly not. Did some other countries do better? I'm sure we could find a handful. Does this make the US a "totally failed shit-hole state"? HELL NO!! And in case you think that the US is indeed one, it just means that you have only been exposed to Scandinavia and/or Singapore, or you have consumed too much of biased media which wants to maximize your anxiety and partisanship for their profits, or you are just trolling here to intentionally sow divisions. Assuming you are not in the last category, please go and learn about how things are in Brazil or India or sub-Saharan Africa. You will realize that the US is in a much better shape and things are handled far better than the media narratives.

jimbokun 6y ago
The US has handled the pandemic worse than any country in the world, except maybe Brazil. Otherwise, I can't think of a country that has handled it worse. Which countries are doing a worse job than the US in handling Coronavirus, in your opinion?
- RestlessMind 6y ago
  Apart from Brazil (which you mentioned), the US is doing a far better job than India and Bangladesh in terms of supporting the economy and social safety nets like one time stimulus payments, boosting unemployment benefits, aid to businesses etc. [Source: close families / friends living in those two countries].
  - nine_zeros 6y ago
    The fact that US being compared with India and Bangladesh should already give you a hint about where the US stands.
- int_19h 6y ago