4 ms·

It's been 2 years, experts are speculating this virus is here to stay like the flu. I subscribe to https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ . If yo

It's been 2 years, experts are speculating this virus is here to stay like the flu. I subscribe to https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ . If you are at risk you should take precautions and maybe we should change society to help people at risk but forcing everyone to live in fear is not the solution. The past two years have been a dystopia for the entire planet and it is not clear it was even warranted

odonnellryan 5y ago
I'd hardly call it a dystopia... That's some hyperbole. It wasn't great for a lot of people but far from a dystopia. QoL went up in the US by many measures (I know the US is not the world).
- ghiculescu 5y ago
  It’s been a dystopia for the working class who can’t work from home. It has been very good for the rich and privileged.
  - lokar 5y ago
    That's not the entire planet. And we could have easily decided to help that group instead of giving billions to big companies that did not need it.
    - ghiculescu 5y ago
      I agree. Going back to work as normal and reopening society is helping them.
      - odonnellryan 5y ago
        This has already been done. I have friends and loved ones who never got to work from home. They were not living in a dystopia. You are just using extreme language to further a political point.
  - odonnellryan 5y ago
    No, it has not.
- throwaway743 5y ago
  Agreed. Personally, life has improved and been much happier these last two years. The deaths and suffering others faced doesn't justify that, but wfh has been the catalyst in this improvement.
sdoering 5y ago
> The past two years have been a dystopia for the entire planet I must be living on a different planet then. > but forcing everyone to live in fear is not the solution Nobody forced me. I could have gone into the office. But why should I have? Being vaxxed and boostered the risk is relatively low. Still I don't go back. The last two years were the most free of all in my career. I missed theater. And concerts. But regarding work. Or weekly food shopping with distance or click and collect were a boon. Do I expect that to be true for everybody? Hell no. Everybody has a different view. Projecting ones view onto the planet probably dies not help us discuss in good faith.
- 0des 5y ago
  I get what the kids mean about privilege now
  - sdoering 5y ago
    Am I aware that I am in very happy circumstances? Sure, absolutely. I am. I also worked hard to be were I am today. While I don't do everything for money I still worked very hard to be were I am today. Less than 15 years ago, I was well below the poverty line. In the meantime, I live well. And I can't complain. Still, I know that as the child of a middle-class single father, I am clearly counting as privileged.
    - 0des 5y ago
      > I also worked hard to be were I am today. Everyone worked their entire lives to get to where they are in this moment, whether that's rich or poor, privileged or not. Enjoy your blessings.
- jack_pp 5y ago
  The parent argument can be used for a lot of activities outside your own house. If you like WFH and not having any social activities then more power to you. Even if "only" 30% of the population had a very bad time during the lockdowns I would still call the last 2 years a dystopia.
mikeyouse 5y ago
The GB folks are charlatans who have been wrong at every stage of the pandemic and have been shown to be secretly paid for their ridiculous plans and “studies” (see JI and the JetBlue founder paying for the Santa Clara study in March 2020). There are plenty of trustworthy orgs recommending opening procedures and personal safety mitigations without the baggage of weird US “libertarian” think tank funding and completely ascientific calls for action. Pay-to-publish: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-coronavirus-neeleman-ioannidis-whistleblower https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-... Think tank Funding: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/13/koch-funded-pr-agency-aided-great-barrington-declaration-sponsor/ https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/13/koch-funded-pr-agency-aid...
paralelogram 5y ago
This Great Barrington Declaration is more restrictive than current laws in my Eastern European country. For example, it says "Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside" but in my country there is no such lockdown for any age group. It says "Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home" but in my country employers aren't required to stop allowing young people to work from home (before 2020 working from home without breaking laws was basically impossible in my country).
Izkata 5y ago
> experts are speculating this virus is here to stay like the flu. If they're only speculating it at this point, then they're way behind the times and shouldn't be called experts. Animal reservoirs were confirmed in 2020, and more found in 2021. Omicron may have been a jump back from rats to humans. We're way past the point of it being here to stay.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  I think he meant "here to stay like the flu". Obviously it's here to stay.
jupp0r 5y ago
You and the people who created the Great Barrington declaration make it sound like "being at risk" is a binary and rare condition. In fact, most people in the US have risk factors[1] like being overweight, physical inactivity, being pregnant (~5% of the total population is pregnant at any point in time), being over 65 (16% of the US population), and many others. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/people-with-medical-conditions.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precaut...
- sokoloff 5y ago
  > ~5% of the total population is pregnant at any point in time That seems (literally) unbelievably high. If you take an average life expectancy in the US of 78 years (it was 79 in 2019), assume roughly equal number of males and females, each female would have to be pregnant for 7.8 of the 78 average years, or 10.4 full-term pregnancies per woman in the US. That can’t possibly be the right figure. Total estimated pregnancies in US in 2009 (most recent figure I could readily find) was 6,369,000 (4,131,000 live births, 1,152,000 induced abortions, and 1,087,000 fetal losses). If you give all 4.1 M as full term and treat all the others as half-term (a gross over-estimate), you get around 5.2M full term pregnancies or 3.9M years of pregnancy against a US total population of 307M (person-years in 2009) or a bit over 1/4 of your figure.
somewhereoutth 5y ago
It could have been over within 6 months if we'd acted more decisively. It is not the flu. GB declaration supporters are part of the reason why so many are still dying. Nobody is forcing people to live in fear - we are just not pretending everything is ok when clearly it isn't. The most dystopian part of the last 2 years has been the loud voices of those who actually support the virus (for financial and ideological reasons)

odonnellryan 5y ago

I'd hardly call it a dystopia... That's some hyperbole. It wasn't great for a lot of people but far from a dystopia. QoL went up in the US by many measures (I know the US is not the world).

ghiculescu 5y ago
It’s been a dystopia for the working class who can’t work from home. It has been very good for the rich and privileged.
- lokar 5y ago
  That's not the entire planet. And we could have easily decided to help that group instead of giving billions to big companies that did not need it.
  - ghiculescu 5y ago
    I agree. Going back to work as normal and reopening society is helping them.
    - odonnellryan 5y ago
      This has already been done. I have friends and loved ones who never got to work from home. They were not living in a dystopia. You are just using extreme language to further a political point.
- odonnellryan 5y ago
  No, it has not.
throwaway743 5y ago
Agreed. Personally, life has improved and been much happier these last two years. The deaths and suffering others faced doesn't justify that, but wfh has been the catalyst in this improvement.

sdoering 5y ago

> The past two years have been a dystopia for the entire planet I must be living on a different planet then. > but forcing everyone to live in fear is not the solution Nobody forced me. I could have gone into the office. But why should I have? Being vaxxed and boostered the risk is relatively low. Still I don't go back. The last two years were the most free of all in my career. I missed theater. And concerts. But regarding work. Or weekly food shopping with distance or click and collect were a boon. Do I expect that to be true for everybody? Hell no. Everybody has a different view. Projecting ones view onto the planet probably dies not help us discuss in good faith.

0des 5y ago
I get what the kids mean about privilege now
- sdoering 5y ago
  Am I aware that I am in very happy circumstances? Sure, absolutely. I am. I also worked hard to be were I am today. While I don't do everything for money I still worked very hard to be were I am today. Less than 15 years ago, I was well below the poverty line. In the meantime, I live well. And I can't complain. Still, I know that as the child of a middle-class single father, I am clearly counting as privileged.
  - 0des 5y ago
    > I also worked hard to be were I am today. Everyone worked their entire lives to get to where they are in this moment, whether that's rich or poor, privileged or not. Enjoy your blessings.
jack_pp 5y ago
The parent argument can be used for a lot of activities outside your own house. If you like WFH and not having any social activities then more power to you. Even if "only" 30% of the population had a very bad time during the lockdowns I would still call the last 2 years a dystopia.

mikeyouse 5y ago

The GB folks are charlatans who have been wrong at every stage of the pandemic and have been shown to be secretly paid for their ridiculous plans and “studies” (see JI and the JetBlue founder paying for the Santa Clara study in March 2020). There are plenty of trustworthy orgs recommending opening procedures and personal safety mitigations without the baggage of weird US “libertarian” think tank funding and completely ascientific calls for action. Pay-to-publish: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-coronavirus-neeleman-ioannidis-whistleblower https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-... Think tank Funding: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/13/koch-funded-pr-agency-aided-great-barrington-declaration-sponsor/ https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/13/koch-funded-pr-agency-aid...

paralelogram 5y ago

This Great Barrington Declaration is more restrictive than current laws in my Eastern European country. For example, it says "Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside" but in my country there is no such lockdown for any age group. It says "Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home" but in my country employers aren't required to stop allowing young people to work from home (before 2020 working from home without breaking laws was basically impossible in my country).

Izkata 5y ago

> experts are speculating this virus is here to stay like the flu. If they're only speculating it at this point, then they're way behind the times and shouldn't be called experts. Animal reservoirs were confirmed in 2020, and more found in 2021. Omicron may have been a jump back from rats to humans. We're way past the point of it being here to stay.

IshKebab 5y ago
I think he meant "here to stay like the flu". Obviously it's here to stay.

jupp0r 5y ago

You and the people who created the Great Barrington declaration make it sound like "being at risk" is a binary and rare condition. In fact, most people in the US have risk factors[1] like being overweight, physical inactivity, being pregnant (~5% of the total population is pregnant at any point in time), being over 65 (16% of the US population), and many others. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/people-with-medical-conditions.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precaut...

sokoloff 5y ago
> ~5% of the total population is pregnant at any point in time That seems (literally) unbelievably high. If you take an average life expectancy in the US of 78 years (it was 79 in 2019), assume roughly equal number of males and females, each female would have to be pregnant for 7.8 of the 78 average years, or 10.4 full-term pregnancies per woman in the US. That can’t possibly be the right figure. Total estimated pregnancies in US in 2009 (most recent figure I could readily find) was 6,369,000 (4,131,000 live births, 1,152,000 induced abortions, and 1,087,000 fetal losses). If you give all 4.1 M as full term and treat all the others as half-term (a gross over-estimate), you get around 5.2M full term pregnancies or 3.9M years of pregnancy against a US total population of 307M (person-years in 2009) or a bit over 1/4 of your figure.

somewhereoutth 5y ago

It could have been over within 6 months if we'd acted more decisively. It is not the flu. GB declaration supporters are part of the reason why so many are still dying. Nobody is forcing people to live in fear - we are just not pretending everything is ok when clearly it isn't. The most dystopian part of the last 2 years has been the loud voices of those who actually support the virus (for financial and ideological reasons)