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I assign non-negligible probability to each of them. I don't know. But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. COVID-19 attacked every country. With the e

I assign non-negligible probability to each of them. I don't know. But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. COVID-19 attacked every country. With the exception of, like, New Zealand (but it affected them as well... had to shut down their borders, etc). These viruses are a threat to all humanity. I just want us to fight them better and help everyone. I think it's super important that we both simultaneously hold China accountable (rhetorically, in the social sphere at very least) for aggressive expansionary actions (i.e. vs Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines) and human rights abuses (Uighur, etc)... ...while simultaneously trying to help everyone do better, including the Chinese, to face common threats (like novel viruses, climate change, etc). And we must not start up a new Cold War with all its proxy conflicts, death, and unnecessary economic suffering and threat of annihilation.

krustyburger 6y ago
Unfortunately, avoiding a new Cold War is something that would take equal effort from both sides. If just one side is eager to wage such a battle, it will happen unless the other side acquiesces at every turn.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  Maybe. But annihilating isn’t really in anyone’s interests.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    Actually annihilating, no. But a Cold War isn't that - it's a constant threat of such. Which can be very useful to manipulate public opinion - and there are plenty of sociopaths in politics who deem the risks worth the reward.
spondyl 6y ago
> But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. COVID-19 attacked every country. With the exception of, like, New Zealand (but it affected them as well... had to shut down their borders, etc). As someone who lives in New Zealand, we were still "attacked" by covid all the same. The only difference arguably is the coordinated response from our government compared to others. Some of that is presumably culture too (we don't have a document held to a pseudo-religious standard ie the constitution for example) although being too laid back can have its consequences too if emergency health laws were to be abused in order to infringe on personal freedoms for example
- nyokodo 6y ago
  There was a lot of luck too. Not being a major travel hub meant the virus hadn’t become widespread. The New Zealand government dragged its feet at first and clamped down just in time to prevent a much worse outbreak. If they had waited a few more days the cases likely would have gone exponentially vertical, possibly made it into more vulnerable populations and the death toll would have then increased considerably. I’m very grateful for the luck!
  - jashmatthews 6y ago
    NZ has extremely high international air traffic. With 11M international passengers per year Auckland airport is comparable with the big US airports like SFO with 13.8M international. Even kiwis often don’t realize just how busy Auckland airport is!
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      Those who had planes flying over our homes know. The various trials the airport conducted with low A380s and other large plane were a nightmare. We aren’t in a typical flight path, but various trials put us in one. I’m not sorry to see that cease.
    - nyokodo 6y ago
      > NZ has extremely high international air traffic. Maybe per capita but not per se. The US had 241 million international air passengers in 2019[1]. The UK had >160 million[2]. The US has two land borders with significant traffic and the UK had 21.5 million Chunnel passengers in 2019[3]. The volume of passenger shipping is also vastly higher in both countries. NZ also has almost no illegal border crossings. NZ has a much smaller risk profile than these and many other countries. And this is born out by events. By the time the world became aware of what was happening the virus had already been spreading in Europe and the US for months. While it had been introduced to NZ it was still in much earlier stages. [1] https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/final-full-year-2019-traffic-data-us-airlines-and-foreign-airlines https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/final-full-year-2019-traffic-da... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/303654/number-of-arriving-and-departing-passengers-in-united-kingdom-airports/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/303654/number-of-arrivin... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/304968/number-of-passengers-travelling-on-the-eurostar-and-le-shuttle-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/304968/number-of-passeng...
nyokodo 6y ago
> But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. What is most astonishingly stupid about this particular racism is that while the CCP doesn’t come off looking great in significant ways, Taiwan comes away looking spectacular! Japan, Korea and Vietnam also have a lot to be commended for major aspects of their responses! Asians in the United States have on average done an excellent job of staying safe and therefore keeping our communities safer! The rest of us should be studying their policies and behaviors with a mind to adapt and emulate not having racist delusions.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  You’re delusional and bordering on full blown schizophrenia if you think white people being racist against asians is a real thing. It’s truly a shame that you’re such a retarded bitch.
- soonnow 6y ago
  Singapore and Thailand also have done quite well so far.
sigg3 6y ago
> must not start up a new Cold Way At least for now, the powers at be seem content just continuing the existing one.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
> These viruses are a threat to all humanity. I just want us to fight them better and help everyone. It would be more accurate to say: these viruses are a threat to the current socioeconomic and sociopolitical status quo. Take air travel for instance. It was key to spreading this and other pandemic viruses. Yet no one is questioning air travel. Note: I'm not suggesting it should be shut down, only that the idea of international flights being normalized should be revisited. Looking at Forbes latest list to the richest people in the world tells us 2020 was a great year for wealth redistribution (from the bottom to the top). It was a great year for the status quo, for the globalists. As for the rest of us? 2020 was not so good. Ultimately, the virus is a symptom.
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  Nitpick, but important: saying "wealth redistribution (from the bottom to the top)" implies there's a fixed amount of wealth, like a pie, and the "top" are getting a bigger and bigger slice. A lot of people actually think like this, and it's incorrect. It's more correct to think of e.g. Carlos or Elon as leading efforts to bake lots and lots more pie, and then keeping a lot of the pie for themselves. The dominant theme is that they're creating value that didn't exist before, not taking a larger proportion of already-existing value.
  - paledot 6y ago
    Not true. The people in the middle expand the pie, the people at the top (the 1% of the 1%) eat it. And the people at the bottom are indeed having a harder and harder time.
    - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
      I hear what you're saying, and I think it hinges on how you assign credit for making more pie. Did the employee make the pie, or did the person choosing deploying the capital that particular way make the pie? In any case, the point I think is important, and which I wanted to make, is "more pie, not dividing up the same pie" which works with both our stories. Edit: oh, and I think it's probably not true that the people at the bottom are having a "harder and harder time". It of course would depend on which metrics you pick, but I generally understand that sort of sentiment as popular in the media but wrong in a Better-Angels-of-our-Nature kind of way. I could believe that people at the bottom are getting a smaller share percentage-wise, but the actual amount of pie they're getting is growing. People are living longer, healthier lives, there's less food insecurity, etc.
Taniwha 6y ago
Despite what a lot of people think we had covid here in NZ too, people died - but like China we did a nationwide lockdown and people actually took it seriously, people only went out to buy food for 6 weeks. The government opened its pockets and made sure people, could live and still had jobs when it was over, and the economy was ready to be restarted.

krustyburger 6y ago

Unfortunately, avoiding a new Cold War is something that would take equal effort from both sides. If just one side is eager to wage such a battle, it will happen unless the other side acquiesces at every turn.

Robotbeat 6y ago
Maybe. But annihilating isn’t really in anyone’s interests.
- int_19h 6y ago
  Actually annihilating, no. But a Cold War isn't that - it's a constant threat of such. Which can be very useful to manipulate public opinion - and there are plenty of sociopaths in politics who deem the risks worth the reward.

spondyl 6y ago

> But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. COVID-19 attacked every country. With the exception of, like, New Zealand (but it affected them as well... had to shut down their borders, etc). As someone who lives in New Zealand, we were still "attacked" by covid all the same. The only difference arguably is the coordinated response from our government compared to others. Some of that is presumably culture too (we don't have a document held to a pseudo-religious standard ie the constitution for example) although being too laid back can have its consequences too if emergency health laws were to be abused in order to infringe on personal freedoms for example

nyokodo 6y ago
There was a lot of luck too. Not being a major travel hub meant the virus hadn’t become widespread. The New Zealand government dragged its feet at first and clamped down just in time to prevent a much worse outbreak. If they had waited a few more days the cases likely would have gone exponentially vertical, possibly made it into more vulnerable populations and the death toll would have then increased considerably. I’m very grateful for the luck!
- jashmatthews 6y ago
  NZ has extremely high international air traffic. With 11M international passengers per year Auckland airport is comparable with the big US airports like SFO with 13.8M international. Even kiwis often don’t realize just how busy Auckland airport is!
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    Those who had planes flying over our homes know. The various trials the airport conducted with low A380s and other large plane were a nightmare. We aren’t in a typical flight path, but various trials put us in one. I’m not sorry to see that cease.
  - nyokodo 6y ago
    > NZ has extremely high international air traffic. Maybe per capita but not per se. The US had 241 million international air passengers in 2019[1]. The UK had >160 million[2]. The US has two land borders with significant traffic and the UK had 21.5 million Chunnel passengers in 2019[3]. The volume of passenger shipping is also vastly higher in both countries. NZ also has almost no illegal border crossings. NZ has a much smaller risk profile than these and many other countries. And this is born out by events. By the time the world became aware of what was happening the virus had already been spreading in Europe and the US for months. While it had been introduced to NZ it was still in much earlier stages. [1] https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/final-full-year-2019-traffic-data-us-airlines-and-foreign-airlines https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/final-full-year-2019-traffic-da... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/303654/number-of-arriving-and-departing-passengers-in-united-kingdom-airports/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/303654/number-of-arrivin... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/304968/number-of-passengers-travelling-on-the-eurostar-and-le-shuttle-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/304968/number-of-passeng...

nyokodo 6y ago

> But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. What is most astonishingly stupid about this particular racism is that while the CCP doesn’t come off looking great in significant ways, Taiwan comes away looking spectacular! Japan, Korea and Vietnam also have a lot to be commended for major aspects of their responses! Asians in the United States have on average done an excellent job of staying safe and therefore keeping our communities safer! The rest of us should be studying their policies and behaviors with a mind to adapt and emulate not having racist delusions.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
You’re delusional and bordering on full blown schizophrenia if you think white people being racist against asians is a real thing. It’s truly a shame that you’re such a retarded bitch.
soonnow 6y ago
Singapore and Thailand also have done quite well so far.

sigg3 6y ago

> must not start up a new Cold Way At least for now, the powers at be seem content just continuing the existing one.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

> These viruses are a threat to all humanity. I just want us to fight them better and help everyone. It would be more accurate to say: these viruses are a threat to the current socioeconomic and sociopolitical status quo. Take air travel for instance. It was key to spreading this and other pandemic viruses. Yet no one is questioning air travel. Note: I'm not suggesting it should be shut down, only that the idea of international flights being normalized should be revisited. Looking at Forbes latest list to the richest people in the world tells us 2020 was a great year for wealth redistribution (from the bottom to the top). It was a great year for the status quo, for the globalists. As for the rest of us? 2020 was not so good. Ultimately, the virus is a symptom.

NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
Nitpick, but important: saying "wealth redistribution (from the bottom to the top)" implies there's a fixed amount of wealth, like a pie, and the "top" are getting a bigger and bigger slice. A lot of people actually think like this, and it's incorrect. It's more correct to think of e.g. Carlos or Elon as leading efforts to bake lots and lots more pie, and then keeping a lot of the pie for themselves. The dominant theme is that they're creating value that didn't exist before, not taking a larger proportion of already-existing value.
- paledot 6y ago
  Not true. The people in the middle expand the pie, the people at the top (the 1% of the 1%) eat it. And the people at the bottom are indeed having a harder and harder time.
  - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
    I hear what you're saying, and I think it hinges on how you assign credit for making more pie. Did the employee make the pie, or did the person choosing deploying the capital that particular way make the pie? In any case, the point I think is important, and which I wanted to make, is "more pie, not dividing up the same pie" which works with both our stories. Edit: oh, and I think it's probably not true that the people at the bottom are having a "harder and harder time". It of course would depend on which metrics you pick, but I generally understand that sort of sentiment as popular in the media but wrong in a Better-Angels-of-our-Nature kind of way. I could believe that people at the bottom are getting a smaller share percentage-wise, but the actual amount of pie they're getting is growing. People are living longer, healthier lives, there's less food insecurity, etc.

Taniwha 6y ago

Despite what a lot of people think we had covid here in NZ too, people died - but like China we did a nationwide lockdown and people actually took it seriously, people only went out to buy food for 6 weeks. The government opened its pockets and made sure people, could live and still had jobs when it was over, and the economy was ready to be restarted.