4 ms·

Thank you for your take on this. My reaction is that you are of course right that this is not affecting everyone equally. Certainly the CCP is not starving out

Thank you for your take on this. My reaction is that you are of course right that this is not affecting everyone equally. Certainly the CCP is not starving out all 26 million people in Shanghai. But I think this is the exact fear most of us have of authoritarian governments, that minority voices get silenced or worse and that justice is not equally distributed.

whimsicalism 5y ago
- rrsmtz 5y ago
  "We" didn't kill anybody, they died of a highly transmissible and novel disease for which there was no cure and no vaccine for over a year. There was no possible way that death could have been completely averted. Yes, there were policy choices that could have been made differently, that would have potentially slowed the spread. We implemented many, decided not to implement others, and had a difficult time enforcing the policies we did enact. But using the language of murder when talking this, and arguing using an implied base rate of zero, is hardly good faith.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > There was no possible way that death could have been averted. Respectfully, I disagree. If there was no possible way to avert it, how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths? The action/omission distinction is for judging who started a fight in a schoolyard, not for judging the actions of nation-states.
    - QuikAccount 5y ago
      I'm not taking a side on whether or not deaths could've been averted but I would be very skeptical of data coming out of China.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        So the argument is that the lockdown secretly failed, but we somehow missed in all antibody tests from travelers in China the widespread covid infection and we also missed all the 3 million deaths? Data from China is how we even got the sequence for the virus in the first place.
        QuikAccount 5y ago
        You are taking an extreme "trust everything or trust nothing" position that I didn't make. I'm saying China has in the past spread misinformation about covid even denying that it even existed when in the first place. People should be skeptical about data from China regarding the situation. I'm not saying disregard it just give it extra consideration before accepting it as gospel.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        I am not accepting it as gospel, just saying that it is exceedingly likely that china did avert 3 million deaths. The only counter suggestion is that they somehow managed to cover up these 3 million deaths and the associated covid spread.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Chinese local authorities will lose their jobs if they report any COVID deaths to the central government, so they don't report any (and why the central government was slow to be notified of the first Wuhan COVID cases in the first place). It isn't very complicated, that's how an authoritarian government works. They might actually be doing a good job, but the net effect to those of us on the outside is the same as if they were doing a bad job.
      - munk-a 5y ago
        I don't think that's a very productive line of reasoning at this point. It's extremely likely that Chinese COVID deaths have been fudged, but that fudging still places them pretty close to the top of the list in terms of proportional COVID deaths. China isn't able to cover up two large metropolises disappearing off the face of the earth - I'm almost certain there is a fair amount of statistical fudging but I think we can be confident that the numbers are in the same ballpark. So, at the end of the day, I think the rest of the discussion remains unchanged.
    - ejb999 5y ago
      >>how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths? Do you really believe they 'averted 'the deaths? or is it more likely they hid the truth. I vote for the latter; they don't have a good track record.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        > Do you really believe they 'averted 'the deaths? or is it more likely they hid the truth. I vote for the latter; they don't have a good track record. They would not be able to hide infection on the level that the US has had it - antibody tests from travelers from China would show it trivially, social media would show it. The idea that China has secretly had 3 million covid deaths and widespread infection without anybody realizing is a conspiracy theory.
        tjs8rj 5y ago
        It’s hard to give China credit for anything on Covid when their decisions led to it being a world wide pandemic in the first place. You’re saying the firefighters (WHO and the Western response) didn’t do enough to put out the fire burning down their houses (western countries), while simultaneously praising the neighbor (China) who found the fire, lied about the fire, “disappeared” people who attempted to report the fire, delayed response to the fire, spread the fire, but FINALLY at the eleventh hour made sure their own house didn’t burn from the fire.
        east2west 5y ago
        Anyone can look up The Great Leap Forward and official coverup of ZhengZhou flood death this year to know that CCP covering up death is NOT a conspiracy theory.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        That's covering up 300 deaths, not 3 million. As I've said, it would be obvious from antibody tests if they did this. Not going to keep responding, you are letting your feelings about China's government cloud your judgement on the facts.
    - afiori 5y ago
      > If there was no possible way to avert it, how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths? By being ready to lock people in their homes and preventing them to even go buy groceries. Are you proposing that western countries should/could do this? We could also ban all sugar/sweeteners, alcohol, driving and sitting still for more than 6 hours a day; this would also save a lot of lives. You can tune a Paperclip Optimizer to any single good metric, it does not mean that it is a good idea.
    - lambdaba 5y ago
      Well, the US does top the world in obesity and other comorbidities that increase frailty. I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese has overall better immune system function. On a related note I've just learned that one of the reasons they are more affected by the lockdowns is that the culture much prefers fresh food. And no, there was no way most or any Western nations could have managed lockdowns of the sort that would have the necessary impact (of which I'm highly doubtful), for numerous reasons. The consequences of the so called "soft" approach on lockdowns are and are going to be massive anyway. And probably for naught.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        > I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese has overall better immune system function. I would disagree with this, especially in Southern China in the winter. The lack of indoor heating has a huge impact on your immune system, to the point that it is extremely easy to get sick. There is a reason a bunch of old people die in Hong Kong whenever the temperature drops below 5C, which is much more developed compared to the rest of southern china.
        lambdaba 5y ago
        Yes I'm sure there are other factors, including pollution etc. But wrt. to Covid the main risk factors seems to be blood sugar / blood pressure problems. Possibly because these are most correlated with immunosupression, various deficiencies, possibly immunosupressive medication (to mitigate chronic inflammatory conditions) etc.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Actually, the main risk factor seems to be age, which is also why Hong Kong was hit so hard. Otherwise, I don't think we can say much about the difference between Chinese and western comorbidity risk factors...not without data anyone we are not likely to get access to.
        5y ago
    - rrsmtz 5y ago
      China and the USA are vastly different countries, in almost every single way that modern states can be different. You're comparing apples to oranges.
- kccqzy 5y ago
  There are so many news reports of people dying of non-Covid, treatable diseases because of lockdown. Something as simple as not getting prescriptions filled (can't leave your home to get prescriptions, delivery services also shut down), or not being allowed to go to the hospital for routine procedures like dialysis. Starvation is but one way people die in a strict draconian lockdown. The article is full of harrowing stories unrelated to starvation. China has successfully used this lockdown to make sure no one dies of Covid in Shanghai; but no one is keeping track of the deaths caused by lockdown.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I'll bet you that it is fewer than 3 million deaths.
- chefandy 5y ago
  Yeah— examples of centralized authority being very bad at some very important things doesn't automatically mean centralization is the the problem, that those defects aren't present or worse in power structures that form in less centralized systems, or that the drawbacks of decentralization don't outweigh the benefits. Doesn't mean the opposite, either. Politicization has a way making complex problems appear to have simple solutions.
- east2west 5y ago
  This is the standard line from 50-cents (五毛). US and CCP counts deaths differently. One needs only to compare flu statistics to know they are not comparable. US counts anyone with virus at the time of death while CCP releases no data and on rare occasion they publish statistics, the numbers are several orders of magnitude lower than US numbers.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I am not using any standard lines, I am an internet commentator from the US. If China were lying about it's numbers, it would be obvious from antibody tests of people traveling from China. It is clear that they are not undercounting deaths by millions.
    - philliphaydon 5y ago
      if a person has a heart problem. In the US it would be something like. “Died of heart problem bought on by covid”. Or “died of covid due to complications caused by heart problem”. So covid is a causing or contributing factor. In China. It’s recorded as “heart problem”. We know this because they do it with seasonal flu. America gets like 20m cases of seasonal flu a year. And like 30k deaths. China gets like 50 cases. China said that if someone has covid in the family. That’s counted as 1, even if the whole family/household has it. And back in 2020 they leaked a document saying if someone tests positive but doesn’t show symptoms then it’s not recorded as a covid case.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        Even if all of that is true, China has had so few covid cases that even that wouldn't explain the difference.
        philliphaydon 5y ago
        Sure they did aggressive lockdowns. Welded people into apartments and buildings. Etc. and that absolutely contributed to lower covid numbers. But it doesn’t change the fact the reported numbers are massively censored and doctored.
qiskit 5y ago
> But I think this is the exact fear most of us have of authoritarian governments, that minority voices get silenced or worse and that justice is not equally distributed. How is that an authoritarian government problem? You do realize that minority voices get silenced in every government and justice is nowhere equally distributed. Unless you are asserting the US, Canada, Australia, etc are/were authoritarian governments. The mindless propaganda when it comes to china is laughable.
- munk-a 5y ago
  The degree to which voices are silenced is definitely quite different. Canada has recently been having a very difficult discussion on Native American deaths and disappearances at residential schools - this is a discussion that could never happen under the Chinese government. Yes, it's wrong to say that voices are completely silenced in China and completely free in Canada - but it's pretty disingenuous to suggest they're on equal footing.
  - qiskit 5y ago
    > Canada has recently been having a very difficult discussion on Native American deaths and disappearances at residential schools - What difficult discussion? The natives were exterminated and have no power or recourse. How "difficult" can the discussion be when there is nothing at stake. How about this, lets have a discussion where china or russia or the UN takes half or more of canada, forms a new native nation and returns it to the native canadians. Lets see how warm canada will be to such discussions. The only thing canada is good at is superficial virtue signaling "discussions" when there is nothing at stake. > this is a discussion that could never happen under the Chinese government. That's cause china didn't go to the other side of the world and exterminate a continent full of nations. What is there to discuss? > Yes, it's wrong to say that voices are completely silenced in China and completely free in Canada - but it's pretty disingenuous to suggest they're on equal footing. No more or less they are. There are things you'll get punished for saying in china and canada. It's disingenuous to pretend one is better than the other. The only country in the world that is genuinely better than china, canada and everyone else when it comes to free speech is the US. But even here free speech is under attack both by internally and externally.

whimsicalism 5y ago

rrsmtz 5y ago
"We" didn't kill anybody, they died of a highly transmissible and novel disease for which there was no cure and no vaccine for over a year. There was no possible way that death could have been completely averted. Yes, there were policy choices that could have been made differently, that would have potentially slowed the spread. We implemented many, decided not to implement others, and had a difficult time enforcing the policies we did enact. But using the language of murder when talking this, and arguing using an implied base rate of zero, is hardly good faith.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > There was no possible way that death could have been averted. Respectfully, I disagree. If there was no possible way to avert it, how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths? The action/omission distinction is for judging who started a fight in a schoolyard, not for judging the actions of nation-states.
  - QuikAccount 5y ago
    I'm not taking a side on whether or not deaths could've been averted but I would be very skeptical of data coming out of China.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      So the argument is that the lockdown secretly failed, but we somehow missed in all antibody tests from travelers in China the widespread covid infection and we also missed all the 3 million deaths? Data from China is how we even got the sequence for the virus in the first place.
      - QuikAccount 5y ago
        You are taking an extreme "trust everything or trust nothing" position that I didn't make. I'm saying China has in the past spread misinformation about covid even denying that it even existed when in the first place. People should be skeptical about data from China regarding the situation. I'm not saying disregard it just give it extra consideration before accepting it as gospel.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        I am not accepting it as gospel, just saying that it is exceedingly likely that china did avert 3 million deaths. The only counter suggestion is that they somehow managed to cover up these 3 million deaths and the associated covid spread.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Chinese local authorities will lose their jobs if they report any COVID deaths to the central government, so they don't report any (and why the central government was slow to be notified of the first Wuhan COVID cases in the first place). It isn't very complicated, that's how an authoritarian government works. They might actually be doing a good job, but the net effect to those of us on the outside is the same as if they were doing a bad job.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I don't think that's a very productive line of reasoning at this point. It's extremely likely that Chinese COVID deaths have been fudged, but that fudging still places them pretty close to the top of the list in terms of proportional COVID deaths. China isn't able to cover up two large metropolises disappearing off the face of the earth - I'm almost certain there is a fair amount of statistical fudging but I think we can be confident that the numbers are in the same ballpark. So, at the end of the day, I think the rest of the discussion remains unchanged.
  - ejb999 5y ago
    >>how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths? Do you really believe they 'averted 'the deaths? or is it more likely they hid the truth. I vote for the latter; they don't have a good track record.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      > Do you really believe they 'averted 'the deaths? or is it more likely they hid the truth. I vote for the latter; they don't have a good track record. They would not be able to hide infection on the level that the US has had it - antibody tests from travelers from China would show it trivially, social media would show it. The idea that China has secretly had 3 million covid deaths and widespread infection without anybody realizing is a conspiracy theory.
      - tjs8rj 5y ago
        It’s hard to give China credit for anything on Covid when their decisions led to it being a world wide pandemic in the first place. You’re saying the firefighters (WHO and the Western response) didn’t do enough to put out the fire burning down their houses (western countries), while simultaneously praising the neighbor (China) who found the fire, lied about the fire, “disappeared” people who attempted to report the fire, delayed response to the fire, spread the fire, but FINALLY at the eleventh hour made sure their own house didn’t burn from the fire.
      - east2west 5y ago
        Anyone can look up The Great Leap Forward and official coverup of ZhengZhou flood death this year to know that CCP covering up death is NOT a conspiracy theory.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        That's covering up 300 deaths, not 3 million. As I've said, it would be obvious from antibody tests if they did this. Not going to keep responding, you are letting your feelings about China's government cloud your judgement on the facts.
  - afiori 5y ago
    > If there was no possible way to avert it, how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths? By being ready to lock people in their homes and preventing them to even go buy groceries. Are you proposing that western countries should/could do this? We could also ban all sugar/sweeteners, alcohol, driving and sitting still for more than 6 hours a day; this would also save a lot of lives. You can tune a Paperclip Optimizer to any single good metric, it does not mean that it is a good idea.
  - lambdaba 5y ago
    Well, the US does top the world in obesity and other comorbidities that increase frailty. I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese has overall better immune system function. On a related note I've just learned that one of the reasons they are more affected by the lockdowns is that the culture much prefers fresh food. And no, there was no way most or any Western nations could have managed lockdowns of the sort that would have the necessary impact (of which I'm highly doubtful), for numerous reasons. The consequences of the so called "soft" approach on lockdowns are and are going to be massive anyway. And probably for naught.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese has overall better immune system function. I would disagree with this, especially in Southern China in the winter. The lack of indoor heating has a huge impact on your immune system, to the point that it is extremely easy to get sick. There is a reason a bunch of old people die in Hong Kong whenever the temperature drops below 5C, which is much more developed compared to the rest of southern china.
      - lambdaba 5y ago
        Yes I'm sure there are other factors, including pollution etc. But wrt. to Covid the main risk factors seems to be blood sugar / blood pressure problems. Possibly because these are most correlated with immunosupression, various deficiencies, possibly immunosupressive medication (to mitigate chronic inflammatory conditions) etc.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Actually, the main risk factor seems to be age, which is also why Hong Kong was hit so hard. Otherwise, I don't think we can say much about the difference between Chinese and western comorbidity risk factors...not without data anyone we are not likely to get access to.
        5y ago
  - rrsmtz 5y ago
    China and the USA are vastly different countries, in almost every single way that modern states can be different. You're comparing apples to oranges.
kccqzy 5y ago
There are so many news reports of people dying of non-Covid, treatable diseases because of lockdown. Something as simple as not getting prescriptions filled (can't leave your home to get prescriptions, delivery services also shut down), or not being allowed to go to the hospital for routine procedures like dialysis. Starvation is but one way people die in a strict draconian lockdown. The article is full of harrowing stories unrelated to starvation. China has successfully used this lockdown to make sure no one dies of Covid in Shanghai; but no one is keeping track of the deaths caused by lockdown.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I'll bet you that it is fewer than 3 million deaths.
chefandy 5y ago
Yeah— examples of centralized authority being very bad at some very important things doesn't automatically mean centralization is the the problem, that those defects aren't present or worse in power structures that form in less centralized systems, or that the drawbacks of decentralization don't outweigh the benefits. Doesn't mean the opposite, either. Politicization has a way making complex problems appear to have simple solutions.
east2west 5y ago
This is the standard line from 50-cents (五毛). US and CCP counts deaths differently. One needs only to compare flu statistics to know they are not comparable. US counts anyone with virus at the time of death while CCP releases no data and on rare occasion they publish statistics, the numbers are several orders of magnitude lower than US numbers.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I am not using any standard lines, I am an internet commentator from the US. If China were lying about it's numbers, it would be obvious from antibody tests of people traveling from China. It is clear that they are not undercounting deaths by millions.
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
    if a person has a heart problem. In the US it would be something like. “Died of heart problem bought on by covid”. Or “died of covid due to complications caused by heart problem”. So covid is a causing or contributing factor. In China. It’s recorded as “heart problem”. We know this because they do it with seasonal flu. America gets like 20m cases of seasonal flu a year. And like 30k deaths. China gets like 50 cases. China said that if someone has covid in the family. That’s counted as 1, even if the whole family/household has it. And back in 2020 they leaked a document saying if someone tests positive but doesn’t show symptoms then it’s not recorded as a covid case.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Even if all of that is true, China has had so few covid cases that even that wouldn't explain the difference.
      - philliphaydon 5y ago
        Sure they did aggressive lockdowns. Welded people into apartments and buildings. Etc. and that absolutely contributed to lower covid numbers. But it doesn’t change the fact the reported numbers are massively censored and doctored.

qiskit 5y ago

> But I think this is the exact fear most of us have of authoritarian governments, that minority voices get silenced or worse and that justice is not equally distributed. How is that an authoritarian government problem? You do realize that minority voices get silenced in every government and justice is nowhere equally distributed. Unless you are asserting the US, Canada, Australia, etc are/were authoritarian governments. The mindless propaganda when it comes to china is laughable.

munk-a 5y ago
The degree to which voices are silenced is definitely quite different. Canada has recently been having a very difficult discussion on Native American deaths and disappearances at residential schools - this is a discussion that could never happen under the Chinese government. Yes, it's wrong to say that voices are completely silenced in China and completely free in Canada - but it's pretty disingenuous to suggest they're on equal footing.
- qiskit 5y ago
  > Canada has recently been having a very difficult discussion on Native American deaths and disappearances at residential schools - What difficult discussion? The natives were exterminated and have no power or recourse. How "difficult" can the discussion be when there is nothing at stake. How about this, lets have a discussion where china or russia or the UN takes half or more of canada, forms a new native nation and returns it to the native canadians. Lets see how warm canada will be to such discussions. The only thing canada is good at is superficial virtue signaling "discussions" when there is nothing at stake. > this is a discussion that could never happen under the Chinese government. That's cause china didn't go to the other side of the world and exterminate a continent full of nations. What is there to discuss? > Yes, it's wrong to say that voices are completely silenced in China and completely free in Canada - but it's pretty disingenuous to suggest they're on equal footing. No more or less they are. There are things you'll get punished for saying in china and canada. It's disingenuous to pretend one is better than the other. The only country in the world that is genuinely better than china, canada and everyone else when it comes to free speech is the US. But even here free speech is under attack both by internally and externally.