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After seeing that woman in LA who had her restaurant shut down while there was a giant tent being erected across the street for Hollywood elites to eat in my di

After seeing that woman in LA who had her restaurant shut down while there was a giant tent being erected across the street for Hollywood elites to eat in my disgust for the entire industry has increased ten fold. These people have too much power in our society. The gall of them to get up and lecture us....

isoskeles 5y ago
I'm more disgusted with state and local governments in CA, and Gavin Newsom in particular, but that event was quite illustrative of the problem.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Well yes he/the government deserves a lot of the blame but he's bowing to an industry with so much wealth and power that they have more sway over politics than the average citizen. The obvious fix is to not vote these people in to office but I realize that's not so easy as it sounds.
kurthr 5y ago
I kinda agree... but to be fair, her business customers are random people from a huge reservoir of untested individuals who will come and go as they please, while the production business is a smaller group of regularly (daily) tested individuals who will be yelled at and possibly delay production, if any of them test positive. I wish that LA/CA/USA had bothered to actually mandate contact tracing, and that "outdoor" dining had been given more priority. LA at the time was suffering a huge wave of infections that literally overwhelmed their hospitals, although most of them were from more densely housed "essential" workers (factories, farm, cleaning). Also, Americans suck at masking... pretty much all them, maybe because culturally they are taught to only care about themselves and not anyone else.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Do you have any documentation that shows these production people were tested regularly? Mandated tracing of individuals gets a big no from me, it opens the door for too much abuse. I dislike that sort of authoritarianism and I think the proof that it would actually be helpful to stopping the spread of COVID is pretty minimal. The type of person that'll be into paying attention to that in the first place is less likely to put themselves in a position of getting infected anyway. Additionally, I'm not sure masking in a place where you're eating/drinking is really useful anyway. Masking was initially only for places indoors where you couldn't separate more than 6ft. Transmission outdoors is extremely rare. I think its less about caring only for themselves and more about distrust in officials to be putting these rules in place for altruistic reasons. Americans in general don't automatically trust their government to do what's best for them and for good reason. "LA at the time was suffering a huge wave of infections that literally overwhelmed their hospitals, although most of them were from more densely housed "essential" workers (factories, farm, cleaning)." I feel like if that's truly the case then Hollywood should have been given an exception no matter what. I understand the overwhelmed hospital argument but aside from that I have the opinion that people should get to make their own decisions on going out and being exposed.
  - kurthr 5y ago
    It was all over the news at the time... and when production in LA restarted (it was closed for months) all of them were rapid tested with nasal swabs daily. I think County mandate was 48-72hrs for full PCR, but once you buy the $10k machine you just run it constantly to get results every 4 hours. The cost of having to shut down over a single case is too high not to. Tom Cruise's crazy rant was partly show, but a LOT of people would be out of work, if anyone tested positive. Are the servers or the kitchen staff (essential employees) going to do that? Nope, too expensive for a low margin kitchen. They're the ones really at risk. The outdoor part (in the sun particularly) really reduces risk, while fully enclosed tents greatly raise it. The problem is the "people should get to make their own decisions" to bring it back to their entire extended family. Will they take responsibility for the death of their family or room mates? "No way man... it wasn't me I just had a cold and a headache". Sorry, you're just another likely carrier of a potentially deadly disease. It's not better than sleeping with your unsuspecting wife after going bareback to glory holes on Mission in 1982 when AIDS was killing.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  > maybe because culturally they are taught to only care about themselves and not anyone else. This is an enormous crock of bullshit. Americans are some of the most generous people in the world, regularly giving more to charity than most of the entire world, and not just in a pure dollar amount, but as a percentage of their income. > https://nonprofitssource.com/online-giving-statistics/#:~:text=Total%20charitable%20giving%20grew%204.1,12%25%20of%20all%20donations https://nonprofitssource.com/online-giving-statistics/#:~:te...). > https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-the-most-generous-country-but-americans-say-debt-is-keeping-them-from-giving-more-to-charity-2019-10-18 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-the-most-generou... And as you can tell by the headline of the second link, not only are Americans the most generous people in the world, they would give more money away if they could afford to.
  - lupire 5y ago
    > 31% of all donations, or $127.37 billion, went to Religious organizations. Much of these contributions can be attributed to people giving to their local place of worship. aka club memberships, and advertising spend to push their preferences on other people.
    - thepasswordis 5y ago
      What do you think those churches do with the money?
      - breakingcups 5y ago
        This sort of thing: https://www.aircraftcompare.com/blog/american-pastors-with-private-jets/ https://www.aircraftcompare.com/blog/american-pastors-with-p...
        CountDrewku 5y ago
        The reason something like that makes the news is because it's not the norm. The Christian charities and missions going on worldwide far outweigh any other organization and regardless of your opinion it's far more than most people do to help anyone in 3rd world countries.
philjohn 5y ago
Can you expand on them having too much power?
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  They get to bypass laws or get exceptions while the average citizen does not. This is mostly due to the massive amount of wealth they inject into the political system. Small business owners in that area didn't get the privileges they did and many were forced to close.
thepasswordis 5y ago
Here's the video if anybody wants to watch it (I couldn't find the original video on youtube): https://twitter.com/Nicole_H_Lee/status/1335170687670087680 https://twitter.com/Nicole_H_Lee/status/1335170687670087680 Pretty heartwrenching. Even more heartwrenching when you find out that the governor of California got to keep his own personal family winery open. https://plumpjackwinery.com/our-vineyard-team/ https://plumpjackwinery.com/our-vineyard-team/
- Alt-ThrowAway 5y ago
  > Even more heartwrenching when you find out that the governor of California got to keep his own personal family winery open. I realize the rampant hypocrisy of politicians and other elites isn't new or even surprising anymore but when the governor's non-essential business gets to stay open and the school his kids go to magically stays open for in-classroom learning, it's clear the "rules" were crafted with arbitrary loopholes for the convenience of elites while retail, food service and other lower-wage jobs were decimated and the vast majority of California's kids are still only receiving a couple hours a day of remote "Video Daycare" via Zoom that now passes for 'education' here. California now has the lowest percentage of kids in-classrooms of any state in the country.

isoskeles 5y ago

I'm more disgusted with state and local governments in CA, and Gavin Newsom in particular, but that event was quite illustrative of the problem.

CountDrewku 5y ago
Well yes he/the government deserves a lot of the blame but he's bowing to an industry with so much wealth and power that they have more sway over politics than the average citizen. The obvious fix is to not vote these people in to office but I realize that's not so easy as it sounds.

kurthr 5y ago

I kinda agree... but to be fair, her business customers are random people from a huge reservoir of untested individuals who will come and go as they please, while the production business is a smaller group of regularly (daily) tested individuals who will be yelled at and possibly delay production, if any of them test positive. I wish that LA/CA/USA had bothered to actually mandate contact tracing, and that "outdoor" dining had been given more priority. LA at the time was suffering a huge wave of infections that literally overwhelmed their hospitals, although most of them were from more densely housed "essential" workers (factories, farm, cleaning). Also, Americans suck at masking... pretty much all them, maybe because culturally they are taught to only care about themselves and not anyone else.

CountDrewku 5y ago
Do you have any documentation that shows these production people were tested regularly? Mandated tracing of individuals gets a big no from me, it opens the door for too much abuse. I dislike that sort of authoritarianism and I think the proof that it would actually be helpful to stopping the spread of COVID is pretty minimal. The type of person that'll be into paying attention to that in the first place is less likely to put themselves in a position of getting infected anyway. Additionally, I'm not sure masking in a place where you're eating/drinking is really useful anyway. Masking was initially only for places indoors where you couldn't separate more than 6ft. Transmission outdoors is extremely rare. I think its less about caring only for themselves and more about distrust in officials to be putting these rules in place for altruistic reasons. Americans in general don't automatically trust their government to do what's best for them and for good reason. "LA at the time was suffering a huge wave of infections that literally overwhelmed their hospitals, although most of them were from more densely housed "essential" workers (factories, farm, cleaning)." I feel like if that's truly the case then Hollywood should have been given an exception no matter what. I understand the overwhelmed hospital argument but aside from that I have the opinion that people should get to make their own decisions on going out and being exposed.
- kurthr 5y ago
  It was all over the news at the time... and when production in LA restarted (it was closed for months) all of them were rapid tested with nasal swabs daily. I think County mandate was 48-72hrs for full PCR, but once you buy the $10k machine you just run it constantly to get results every 4 hours. The cost of having to shut down over a single case is too high not to. Tom Cruise's crazy rant was partly show, but a LOT of people would be out of work, if anyone tested positive. Are the servers or the kitchen staff (essential employees) going to do that? Nope, too expensive for a low margin kitchen. They're the ones really at risk. The outdoor part (in the sun particularly) really reduces risk, while fully enclosed tents greatly raise it. The problem is the "people should get to make their own decisions" to bring it back to their entire extended family. Will they take responsibility for the death of their family or room mates? "No way man... it wasn't me I just had a cold and a headache". Sorry, you're just another likely carrier of a potentially deadly disease. It's not better than sleeping with your unsuspecting wife after going bareback to glory holes on Mission in 1982 when AIDS was killing.
cbozeman 5y ago
> maybe because culturally they are taught to only care about themselves and not anyone else. This is an enormous crock of bullshit. Americans are some of the most generous people in the world, regularly giving more to charity than most of the entire world, and not just in a pure dollar amount, but as a percentage of their income. > https://nonprofitssource.com/online-giving-statistics/#:~:text=Total%20charitable%20giving%20grew%204.1,12%25%20of%20all%20donations https://nonprofitssource.com/online-giving-statistics/#:~:te...). > https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-the-most-generous-country-but-americans-say-debt-is-keeping-them-from-giving-more-to-charity-2019-10-18 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-the-most-generou... And as you can tell by the headline of the second link, not only are Americans the most generous people in the world, they would give more money away if they could afford to.
- lupire 5y ago
  > 31% of all donations, or $127.37 billion, went to Religious organizations. Much of these contributions can be attributed to people giving to their local place of worship. aka club memberships, and advertising spend to push their preferences on other people.
  - thepasswordis 5y ago
    What do you think those churches do with the money?
    - breakingcups 5y ago
      This sort of thing: https://www.aircraftcompare.com/blog/american-pastors-with-private-jets/ https://www.aircraftcompare.com/blog/american-pastors-with-p...
      - CountDrewku 5y ago
        The reason something like that makes the news is because it's not the norm. The Christian charities and missions going on worldwide far outweigh any other organization and regardless of your opinion it's far more than most people do to help anyone in 3rd world countries.

philjohn 5y ago

Can you expand on them having too much power?

CountDrewku 5y ago
They get to bypass laws or get exceptions while the average citizen does not. This is mostly due to the massive amount of wealth they inject into the political system. Small business owners in that area didn't get the privileges they did and many were forced to close.

thepasswordis 5y ago

Here's the video if anybody wants to watch it (I couldn't find the original video on youtube): https://twitter.com/Nicole_H_Lee/status/1335170687670087680 https://twitter.com/Nicole_H_Lee/status/1335170687670087680 Pretty heartwrenching. Even more heartwrenching when you find out that the governor of California got to keep his own personal family winery open. https://plumpjackwinery.com/our-vineyard-team/ https://plumpjackwinery.com/our-vineyard-team/

Alt-ThrowAway 5y ago
> Even more heartwrenching when you find out that the governor of California got to keep his own personal family winery open. I realize the rampant hypocrisy of politicians and other elites isn't new or even surprising anymore but when the governor's non-essential business gets to stay open and the school his kids go to magically stays open for in-classroom learning, it's clear the "rules" were crafted with arbitrary loopholes for the convenience of elites while retail, food service and other lower-wage jobs were decimated and the vast majority of California's kids are still only receiving a couple hours a day of remote "Video Daycare" via Zoom that now passes for 'education' here. California now has the lowest percentage of kids in-classrooms of any state in the country.