12 ms·

And yet we still have idiots here in the UK saying things ranging from: * coronavirus is invented as a government power grab * the government locking down is

by jpxw 6y ago

And yet we still have idiots here in the UK saying things ranging from: * coronavirus is invented as a government power grab * the government locking down is a deliberate ploy to kill small businesses * the government should just let this run its course, it’s Just A Flu TM * hospitals are actually empty (the “proof” being people recording empty waiting rooms in outpatient departments on bank holiday weekends) * coronavirus doesn’t exist (!) Maybe this will be a bit of a wakeup call.

pjc50 6y ago
It's not a wake-up call until protestors storm the government buildings. Apparently.
- backWardz00 6y ago
  Brains, amirite? With the masses sedate at their screens, the bureaucracy has no cognitive experience or expectations for anything different. Decades of headlines being fed to Main Street going on about growing inequality did not really motivate Main Street to do much but shuffle back into the office. Relativity pervades all experience. Reading about history in books is not exactly experiencing history.
labster 6y ago
Or maybe these people will keep believing the lie, even after they die from COVID, like the Calormen at the end of CS Lewis’ The Last Battle. Everyone else will be in Heaven, and they’ll be all like, “Let me out of the hospital, corona is a lie!”
- fsdfgsfsdfsdfsd 6y ago
  People die from all sorts of diseases. Someone dying from Corona doesn't prove that he died from a pandemic level disease. (I'm not saying it is not a pandemic, just that that kind of logic is bullshit). Even the nurse reports about "patients being in disbelief about dying". I would imagine lots of people who are about to die are in disbelief. A friend of my mother died from the flu. He called her shortly before that. I think he probably also was in disbelief. Do you expect to die from the flu?
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-dakota-nurse-jodi-doering-covid-19-patients-denial/6330791002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-...
- penteract 6y ago
  Sorry to be pedantic, but you may be thinking of a group of Dwarves, not Calormenes. There was a Calormene at the end, but he did "see the light".
  - labster 6y ago
    Nah, pedantry is fine, good sir. I need to reread those books, it’s been like a decade for me.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Unfortounately it is more complicated than that, Odds are 1000:1 that when when they get it the symtoms will be "just a flu" and they will tell their famly and friemds their experience
stogxx 6y ago
NHS is overwhelmed every winter if the hyperbolic headlines are to be believed
- notretarded 6y ago
  They are https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/critical-care-capacity/critical-care-bed-capacity-and-urgent-operations-cancelled-2018-19-data/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Just to flesh this out, the NHS could use more money, but it's worth saying that it's the only European healthcare system I'm aware of so fragile. If you ask a lot of British people they seem to think that the only alternative is the wild west found in the US, rather than the other healthcare systems in Europe. There was a good piece in the private eye a few years ago listing headlines saying the NHS is doomed tomorrow going back to before Blair.
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    >There was a good piece in the private eye a few years ago listing headlines saying the NHS is doomed tomorrow going back to before Blair. https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641 https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641 >Just to flesh this out, the NHS could use more money, but it's worth saying that it's the only European healthcare system I'm aware of so fragile. You've fallen for the very "NHS is more fragile than systems in other countries" mantra that the Private Eye piece mocks. COVID19 has overwhelmed the French, Belgian, and Italian systems too. >If you ask a lot of British people they seem to think that the only alternative is the wild west found in the US, rather than the other healthcare systems in Europe. The NHS is unique in being so unified. I'm not sure there's another European country in which one government entity runs insurance, billing, and delivery. Because the UK is the foreign country Americans are most exposed to (Canada doesn't count), this results in both Americans and Britons thinking that all healthcare plans outside the US are like the NHS, when actually the norm is something closer to that of France, Germany, or the Netherlands. Government running every aspect of healthcare means that every aspect of healthcare is a political issue. The consequent level of weaponization of the NHS in British political rhetoric is flabbergasting. It's said that Social Security (the US version of UK National Insurance) is the "third rail" of American politics—any politician that touches it gets electrocuted—but there is no comparison. I, for one, have no desire whatsoever to ever experience the US equivalent of how in the UK the NHS is always, Always, ALWAYS the #1 or #2 topic of every single election, with every candidate competing to outdo the others in promising that the NHS will "always be free" and that he is the only candidate who can make sure that the local GP's surgery hours will widen and that the A&E will no longer be "the worst in England" or "the second-worst in Yorkshire". The Private Eye piece is the result of the above. (Canada, also with a single-payer system, sensibly divorces billing from providers. As in the US private entities deliver most healthcare, and in both countries if one's doctor has inconvenient hours or if the local hospital has substandard care, one simply goes to another as opposed to having this being something politicians are expected to fix.)
e40 6y ago
A colleague made the point that we need more pictures of overflowing morgues and ICUs and (like is happening in LA) people waiting in an ambulance for 7-8 hours (and some of those people dying because of it). Just like the US government banned (discouraged?) pictures of caskets coming back from war. These images need to be on the news and on news websites 24/7.
- jpxw 6y ago
  I agree that this would be effective against most people. But when this happened in Italy, a large number of the conspiracy crowd just said the photos were faked.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Life was easier when it wasn’t so easy to fake a photo...
    - asdff 6y ago
      When was that, 1880? You can do some pretty funky stuff in the darkroom when you are making your prints.
    - intended 6y ago
      Modern conspiracy has nothing to do with facts, but entirely to do with the shape, rate and self forming nature of modern human communication networks. I'll argue, strongly, that right now - everything regarding Social Media misinformation is an epiphenomena of those factors. To illustrate - Misinformation based communication travels differently than "Fact" based information https://www.pnas.org/content/113/3/554.full https://www.pnas.org/content/113/3/554.full. People assign truth value based on heuristics, one of which is how many times information is repeated. If you self select a network of people who believe the same things and repeat it, with slight modifications - you can ensure people will believe conspriacies. With the ability to self select nodes/people who tend to be conspiracy inclined you will easily cross the number of people needed to make an idea seem socially valid. The pace and size of our information networks naturally supports the evolution of highly viral content - not truthful content.
andrewclunn 6y ago
What "normie" people think "crazy conspiracy people" believe: "COIVD isn't real!" What we actually believe, "Governments have proven they cannot effectively contain this, so if the choice is between security theater or freedom, obviously take freedom." Go back to guzzling down the mainstream media propaganda that's "informing" you.
polote 6y ago
> the government should just let this run its course Isn't it just an opinion? I personally think that way. Why wouldn't I be allowed to think that?
- simonbarker87 6y ago
  You’re totally allowed to have that opinion and other people are totally allowed to think it’s idiotic, unless I’m missing you’re point?
  - dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
    The other points you made are near or actually conspiracy theory level. His is just an opinion on how it should be handled.
    - simonbarker87 6y ago
      Not the OP - just chiming in
  - regularemployee 6y ago
    one feels like a personal attack and the other seems like an opinion.
  - polote 6y ago
    Well then why do some people think it is idiotic?
    - shawabawa3 6y ago
      Because it would result in hundreds of thousands dying, complete overcapacity of hospitals increasing the death rate of covid and all other injuries and illnesses, and cause even more damage to the economy as a result than lockdown
    - patrec 6y ago
      Speaking only for myself, I think your opinion is idiotic based on some simple back of the envelope math I did many months ago (when the UK announced its herd immunity plan), relating to hospital capacity, likely peak case numbers, proportion of cases that would need hospital treatment or die and some simple minded guesses about knock-on effects for the rest of the health system. I have not bothered to redo these calculations in the light of current evidence (some things have gotten better, others have gotten worse), but I remain sceptical that anyone numerate who spent one or two hours trying to work out the likely results of your advocated policy would arrive at similar conclusion as to the best course of action as you did. So let me ask: on what basis did you arrive at your opinion? [Edit: HN comment from 10 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22578742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22578742]
krona 6y ago
No doubt the NHS in London is close to capacity, perhaps even more so than it usually is this time of year. It's hard to know for sure. It doesn't help, however, when activist NHS nurses lie on (and abetted by) national media; imagining bed occupancy and oxygen supply levels out of thin air, implying the mutant strain is more virulent among children etc. causing panic, confusion, and supplying fuel to the very people you're trying to lampoon.
dandellion 6y ago
What do you gain by insulting them and calling them idiots? What if it just makes them even worse? Not saying they don't fit the definition... but maybe the reaction doesn't actually help.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- titzer 6y ago
  In every society since the dawn of man, certain things carried a social cost. In our society, advocating idiotic conspiracies should carry, IMHO, a social cost of feeling embarrassed and stupid. Frankly.
  - dandellion 6y ago
    At this point I'm not sure they're capable of feeling embarrassed or stupid. They get all riled up and start acting out, but it doesn't look like insulting and embarrassing them is working...
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Surprise surprise, amplifying division just further amplifies division. We're hearing this: A: "I'm dying inside because of lockdown. I can't work and I'm this close to the end of my rope." Should the response be this? B: "People are dying outside because of COVID. I don't care about your pain. You are an idiot." A: [storms capitol] Or this? B: "This sucks all around for sure. Your pain is real, and I feel it too. The tradeoffs made by society as a whole based on available data are X Y and Z, but here's a list of things you can do for now to help make ends meet and keep it together...." A: "Thanks, I'm glad we're able to help one another out."
      - dandellion 6y ago
        Of course, some people can't be reasoned with and others will just go off the handle because they're crazy. There's no point in being nice to those, but people forget about all the others that are not far gone and we could help them to understand. That's never going to happen if we start every sentence by calling them idiots right off the bat.
andred14 6y ago
The scam has been revealed in many ways: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoNewNormal/comments/kl15z4/italian_scientists_test_a_kiwi_fruit_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoNewNormal/comments/kl15z4/italian...
Aeolun 6y ago
> the government locking down is a deliberate ploy to kill small businesses I’m not sure I see what kind of upside they see for anyone if this happens, much less the government.
- daenz 6y ago
  The supposed goal of a malicious government is to make everyone entirely dependent on it, for everything, even the basics. Small business represents independence to a large degree. Destroying small business means everyone turns to the government to survive. Having everyone dependent on you means you can enact any law with little resistence.
Isamu 6y ago
I know I shouldn’t think this but I’m relieved to know that all the crazies aren’t exclusively in the US right now.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
I believe we should have let covid run its course whatever the cost. Not because I think it's a hoax but because the alternative violates the non aggression principle. Is freedom more important to me than 1% of the population dead? Sure. I don't necessarily think the government is doing it on purpose and colluding with big businesses that are profiting from the situation, I think it's more likely that politicians are just incompetent (they need to save face with people who are pro and against a lockdown) and that big companies are better positioned and can push the government a bit to get what they want. As usual. If you fear for you life isolate yourself. If you can't afford to isolate ask for charitable donations (even if the more preferred approach has been to just give taxpayers money, taken with force from everyone). I isolated myself and my family 2 weeks before the government forced a lockdown on us, because there was no data and I was scared of the mortality rate. After seeing the mortality rate and the age range, I stopped caring but I started keeping a distance from old people. I still led a pretty isolated life for personal reasons - and wore my mask to avoid fines and to respect my social contract with society, which took this decision against my will. I'm genuinely curious to see if the doomsday is going to arrive or not in 2-4 weeks time. If it does, I hope it will crash the economy and that I'll make a profit or that house prices will go down (assuming I don't die, given my kids go to nursery and are probably spreading all kind of viruses). If it doesn't, your argument won't look very good and you'll regret calling idiots those with a different opinion. And I guess there is still a chance of an economy crash, given the lockdown. Maybe this will be a bit of a wakeup call.

by jpxw 6y ago

pjc50 6y ago

It's not a wake-up call until protestors storm the government buildings. Apparently.

backWardz00 6y ago
Brains, amirite? With the masses sedate at their screens, the bureaucracy has no cognitive experience or expectations for anything different. Decades of headlines being fed to Main Street going on about growing inequality did not really motivate Main Street to do much but shuffle back into the office. Relativity pervades all experience. Reading about history in books is not exactly experiencing history.

labster 6y ago

Or maybe these people will keep believing the lie, even after they die from COVID, like the Calormen at the end of CS Lewis’ The Last Battle. Everyone else will be in Heaven, and they’ll be all like, “Let me out of the hospital, corona is a lie!”

fsdfgsfsdfsdfsd 6y ago
People die from all sorts of diseases. Someone dying from Corona doesn't prove that he died from a pandemic level disease. (I'm not saying it is not a pandemic, just that that kind of logic is bullshit). Even the nurse reports about "patients being in disbelief about dying". I would imagine lots of people who are about to die are in disbelief. A friend of my mother died from the flu. He called her shortly before that. I think he probably also was in disbelief. Do you expect to die from the flu?
lazyasciiart 6y ago
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-dakota-nurse-jodi-doering-covid-19-patients-denial/6330791002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-...
penteract 6y ago
Sorry to be pedantic, but you may be thinking of a group of Dwarves, not Calormenes. There was a Calormene at the end, but he did "see the light".
- labster 6y ago
  Nah, pedantry is fine, good sir. I need to reread those books, it’s been like a decade for me.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
Unfortounately it is more complicated than that, Odds are 1000:1 that when when they get it the symtoms will be "just a flu" and they will tell their famly and friemds their experience

stogxx 6y ago

NHS is overwhelmed every winter if the hyperbolic headlines are to be believed

notretarded 6y ago
They are https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/critical-care-capacity/critical-care-bed-capacity-and-urgent-operations-cancelled-2018-19-data/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...
mhh__ 6y ago
Just to flesh this out, the NHS could use more money, but it's worth saying that it's the only European healthcare system I'm aware of so fragile. If you ask a lot of British people they seem to think that the only alternative is the wild west found in the US, rather than the other healthcare systems in Europe. There was a good piece in the private eye a few years ago listing headlines saying the NHS is doomed tomorrow going back to before Blair.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >There was a good piece in the private eye a few years ago listing headlines saying the NHS is doomed tomorrow going back to before Blair. https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641 https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641 >Just to flesh this out, the NHS could use more money, but it's worth saying that it's the only European healthcare system I'm aware of so fragile. You've fallen for the very "NHS is more fragile than systems in other countries" mantra that the Private Eye piece mocks. COVID19 has overwhelmed the French, Belgian, and Italian systems too. >If you ask a lot of British people they seem to think that the only alternative is the wild west found in the US, rather than the other healthcare systems in Europe. The NHS is unique in being so unified. I'm not sure there's another European country in which one government entity runs insurance, billing, and delivery. Because the UK is the foreign country Americans are most exposed to (Canada doesn't count), this results in both Americans and Britons thinking that all healthcare plans outside the US are like the NHS, when actually the norm is something closer to that of France, Germany, or the Netherlands. Government running every aspect of healthcare means that every aspect of healthcare is a political issue. The consequent level of weaponization of the NHS in British political rhetoric is flabbergasting. It's said that Social Security (the US version of UK National Insurance) is the "third rail" of American politics—any politician that touches it gets electrocuted—but there is no comparison. I, for one, have no desire whatsoever to ever experience the US equivalent of how in the UK the NHS is always, Always, ALWAYS the #1 or #2 topic of every single election, with every candidate competing to outdo the others in promising that the NHS will "always be free" and that he is the only candidate who can make sure that the local GP's surgery hours will widen and that the A&E will no longer be "the worst in England" or "the second-worst in Yorkshire". The Private Eye piece is the result of the above. (Canada, also with a single-payer system, sensibly divorces billing from providers. As in the US private entities deliver most healthcare, and in both countries if one's doctor has inconvenient hours or if the local hospital has substandard care, one simply goes to another as opposed to having this being something politicians are expected to fix.)

e40 6y ago

A colleague made the point that we need more pictures of overflowing morgues and ICUs and (like is happening in LA) people waiting in an ambulance for 7-8 hours (and some of those people dying because of it). Just like the US government banned (discouraged?) pictures of caskets coming back from war. These images need to be on the news and on news websites 24/7.

jpxw 6y ago
I agree that this would be effective against most people. But when this happened in Italy, a large number of the conspiracy crowd just said the photos were faked.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Life was easier when it wasn’t so easy to fake a photo...
  - asdff 6y ago
    When was that, 1880? You can do some pretty funky stuff in the darkroom when you are making your prints.
  - intended 6y ago
    Modern conspiracy has nothing to do with facts, but entirely to do with the shape, rate and self forming nature of modern human communication networks. I'll argue, strongly, that right now - everything regarding Social Media misinformation is an epiphenomena of those factors. To illustrate - Misinformation based communication travels differently than "Fact" based information https://www.pnas.org/content/113/3/554.full https://www.pnas.org/content/113/3/554.full. People assign truth value based on heuristics, one of which is how many times information is repeated. If you self select a network of people who believe the same things and repeat it, with slight modifications - you can ensure people will believe conspriacies. With the ability to self select nodes/people who tend to be conspiracy inclined you will easily cross the number of people needed to make an idea seem socially valid. The pace and size of our information networks naturally supports the evolution of highly viral content - not truthful content.

andrewclunn 6y ago

What "normie" people think "crazy conspiracy people" believe: "COIVD isn't real!" What we actually believe, "Governments have proven they cannot effectively contain this, so if the choice is between security theater or freedom, obviously take freedom." Go back to guzzling down the mainstream media propaganda that's "informing" you.

polote 6y ago

> the government should just let this run its course Isn't it just an opinion? I personally think that way. Why wouldn't I be allowed to think that?

simonbarker87 6y ago
You’re totally allowed to have that opinion and other people are totally allowed to think it’s idiotic, unless I’m missing you’re point?
- dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
  The other points you made are near or actually conspiracy theory level. His is just an opinion on how it should be handled.
  - simonbarker87 6y ago
    Not the OP - just chiming in
- regularemployee 6y ago
  one feels like a personal attack and the other seems like an opinion.
- polote 6y ago
  Well then why do some people think it is idiotic?
  - shawabawa3 6y ago
    Because it would result in hundreds of thousands dying, complete overcapacity of hospitals increasing the death rate of covid and all other injuries and illnesses, and cause even more damage to the economy as a result than lockdown
  - patrec 6y ago
    Speaking only for myself, I think your opinion is idiotic based on some simple back of the envelope math I did many months ago (when the UK announced its herd immunity plan), relating to hospital capacity, likely peak case numbers, proportion of cases that would need hospital treatment or die and some simple minded guesses about knock-on effects for the rest of the health system. I have not bothered to redo these calculations in the light of current evidence (some things have gotten better, others have gotten worse), but I remain sceptical that anyone numerate who spent one or two hours trying to work out the likely results of your advocated policy would arrive at similar conclusion as to the best course of action as you did. So let me ask: on what basis did you arrive at your opinion? [Edit: HN comment from 10 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22578742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22578742]

krona 6y ago

No doubt the NHS in London is close to capacity, perhaps even more so than it usually is this time of year. It's hard to know for sure. It doesn't help, however, when activist NHS nurses lie on (and abetted by) national media; imagining bed occupancy and oxygen supply levels out of thin air, implying the mutant strain is more virulent among children etc. causing panic, confusion, and supplying fuel to the very people you're trying to lampoon.

dandellion 6y ago

What do you gain by insulting them and calling them idiots? What if it just makes them even worse? Not saying they don't fit the definition... but maybe the reaction doesn't actually help.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
titzer 6y ago
In every society since the dawn of man, certain things carried a social cost. In our society, advocating idiotic conspiracies should carry, IMHO, a social cost of feeling embarrassed and stupid. Frankly.
- dandellion 6y ago
  At this point I'm not sure they're capable of feeling embarrassed or stupid. They get all riled up and start acting out, but it doesn't look like insulting and embarrassing them is working...
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Surprise surprise, amplifying division just further amplifies division. We're hearing this: A: "I'm dying inside because of lockdown. I can't work and I'm this close to the end of my rope." Should the response be this? B: "People are dying outside because of COVID. I don't care about your pain. You are an idiot." A: [storms capitol] Or this? B: "This sucks all around for sure. Your pain is real, and I feel it too. The tradeoffs made by society as a whole based on available data are X Y and Z, but here's a list of things you can do for now to help make ends meet and keep it together...." A: "Thanks, I'm glad we're able to help one another out."
    - dandellion 6y ago
      Of course, some people can't be reasoned with and others will just go off the handle because they're crazy. There's no point in being nice to those, but people forget about all the others that are not far gone and we could help them to understand. That's never going to happen if we start every sentence by calling them idiots right off the bat.

andred14 6y ago

The scam has been revealed in many ways: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoNewNormal/comments/kl15z4/italian_scientists_test_a_kiwi_fruit_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoNewNormal/comments/kl15z4/italian...

Aeolun 6y ago

> the government locking down is a deliberate ploy to kill small businesses I’m not sure I see what kind of upside they see for anyone if this happens, much less the government.

daenz 6y ago
The supposed goal of a malicious government is to make everyone entirely dependent on it, for everything, even the basics. Small business represents independence to a large degree. Destroying small business means everyone turns to the government to survive. Having everyone dependent on you means you can enact any law with little resistence.

Isamu 6y ago

I know I shouldn’t think this but I’m relieved to know that all the crazies aren’t exclusively in the US right now.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I believe we should have let covid run its course whatever the cost. Not because I think it's a hoax but because the alternative violates the non aggression principle. Is freedom more important to me than 1% of the population dead? Sure. I don't necessarily think the government is doing it on purpose and colluding with big businesses that are profiting from the situation, I think it's more likely that politicians are just incompetent (they need to save face with people who are pro and against a lockdown) and that big companies are better positioned and can push the government a bit to get what they want. As usual. If you fear for you life isolate yourself. If you can't afford to isolate ask for charitable donations (even if the more preferred approach has been to just give taxpayers money, taken with force from everyone). I isolated myself and my family 2 weeks before the government forced a lockdown on us, because there was no data and I was scared of the mortality rate. After seeing the mortality rate and the age range, I stopped caring but I started keeping a distance from old people. I still led a pretty isolated life for personal reasons - and wore my mask to avoid fines and to respect my social contract with society, which took this decision against my will. I'm genuinely curious to see if the doomsday is going to arrive or not in 2-4 weeks time. If it does, I hope it will crash the economy and that I'll make a profit or that house prices will go down (assuming I don't die, given my kids go to nursery and are probably spreading all kind of viruses). If it doesn't, your argument won't look very good and you'll regret calling idiots those with a different opinion. And I guess there is still a chance of an economy crash, given the lockdown. Maybe this will be a bit of a wakeup call.