8 ms·

I find myself despairing that almost no lessons were learned, no clear institutional improvements came from these systems. The response to monkey pox is bearin

I find myself despairing that almost no lessons were learned, no clear institutional improvements came from these systems. The response to monkey pox is bearing that out. A subset of the left (my team) saying “asking gay men to stop having orgies is homophobic”, totally isomorphic to “being worried about COVID is racist against Chinese people”, one of the initial lines. Then you have the total failure to mobilize an institutional response for contact tracing. There’s not apparently any infrastructure for it, despite how monumentally useful such a thing could have been, would be now. I don’t want another endemic smallpox-related virus, and this virus having lots of hosts to evolve in has some clear second order risks. Likewise, the hostility towards masking is owing to some substantive inability to evaluate second order risks. The initial lockdowns, I think, hold up pretty well in retrospect. Closing schools never really made sense for the children once it was identified that the virus attaches via ACE2 receptors; keeping the schools open was a lot less clearcut for the teachers. You don’t become a schoolteacher because of your high appetite for risk.

dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago
> The response to monkey pox is bearing that out. A subset of the left (my team) saying “asking gay men to stop having orgies is homophobic”, totally isomorphic to “being worried about COVID is racist against Chinese people”, one of the initial lines. Asking gay men to stop having orgies isomorphic to asking people to put on masks.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On spends a lot of time on exactly this problem during the early days of AIDS. Closing the bathhouses was controversial and resisted for too long.
nradov 4y ago
Some countries did seriously try contact tracing for COVID-19 and it was generally a waste of resources. Most contact tracing programs have now been discontinued or scaled back. China is still doing it, but their approach requires an authoritarian surveillance state which is far worse than any virus.
- trention 4y ago
  >an authoritarian surveillance state which is far worse than any virus I'd take any authoritarian state over ebola, thank you very much.
  - adamiscool8 4y ago
    The irony of seeing this reply in a thread started with hope for "renewed appreciation for the second-order, systemic, and unintended consequences of any action" is darkly comic.
    - trention 4y ago
      The first-order effect of ebola is (almost) certain death. No need to consider anything of higher order.
      - nradov 4y ago
        The fatality rate for ebola is around 50%. https://www.paho.org/en/topics/ebola-virus-disease https://www.paho.org/en/topics/ebola-virus-disease Even at that rate, I would rather take my chances with ebola than live under a communist regime. https://victimsofcommunism.org/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/
      - adamiscool8 4y ago
        It's not, it's about a coinflip (as the sibling reply noted). But you're making a very salient point about the ease at which higher order thinking can be shut down en masse in a population through fear.
        trention 4y ago
        Is there an authoritarian government in the history of humanity that managed to kill 50% of its population? What's the average? Yes, there are situations in which "higher order thinking" doesn't matter.
matthewmacleod 4y ago
“asking gay men to stop having orgies is homophobic” Of course, nobody on your team said that, nor did they say "being worried about COVID is racist against Chinese people" Why did you choose to lie about this?
- Vecr 4y ago
  Okay, I'll say "I think unvaccinated people should not be having orgies", I'll wait to see if anyone says that's homophobic. Yes I actually think the statement is true, I'm not just making a point. Edit: I guess I should be more constructive, an action gay men could take is demanding their states order enough doses of ACAM-2000 from the Strategic National Stockpile to cover everyone who can take it in their community (so no HIV, skin disorders, heart disease, etc). Leave MVA-BN for people who can't take ACAM2000.
- zionic 4y ago
  I had an account on Reddit /r/news get banned because I said we should suspend all international travel to China at the start of COVID. This was when democrats were making apology tours telling everyone not to be afraid to go to Chinatown. There were several months at the start of 2020 where the “progressive” authority would systematically attack you as racist for being worried about COVID.
- roflc0ptic 4y ago
  I'm definitely not lying about this. See: https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1550856205706338305 https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1550856205706338305 Also see sibling comment. You can _also_ find people saying the lack of response is because of homophobia, and this is the thing that makes me want to flip a table: the WHO describing reality is morally culpable and causes homophobia per that tweet, the lack of effective response is homophobic, emphasizing the actual events that have had a causal role in the outbreak is homophobic. Homophobia/whatever flavor of the day is the a-priori conclusion, work backwards from there. When you bring up the excesses of this cultural movement, you're told 1. it's not really happening 2. you're just nut picking, or 3. it's actually good. and it's so often tied up with accusations of lying or dishonesty. Like, everyone is so mind poisoned at this point we can't just _disagree_, it's got to be an issue of mendacity or moral corruption.
FooHentai 4y ago
>Closing schools never really made sense for the children once it was identified that the virus attaches via ACE2 receptors After bemoaning failure to consider second-order effects this seems like making the same mistake - It was a good news that kids were less susceptible to severe infection but protecting children was not the sole purpose of closing schools. Kids were still susceptible to infection and could still spread the disease to adults. Schools were a mixing pot for kids to get infected and then go home to infect adults who might then suffer more severe effects. I think even in retrospect it holds up very well as an effective means (amongst many others) of slowing spread.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Real lesson to be learned is to open lockdowns and remove restrictions gradually. "Open schools and kindergartens" is not gradual.
- Fatnino 4y ago
  That first summer lots of kids went to sleepaway camp and caught the virus there. Then instead of just staying at the camp where it would be contained and burn itself out, the camps themselves shut down and sent everyone home on regular commercial flights. Completely inexplicable and inexcusable.
- roflc0ptic 4y ago
  I mean, I think my real complaint is that 1. humans are fuckin' terrible at thinking through second order effects, and 2. often they are simply unknowable a-priori so to the extent that I am doing the thing I'm unhappy with, it's less hypocrisy and more accidentally proving my broad point. At any rate, about kids: the same reason kids aren't especially susceptible to COVID seem to also substantially reduce their transmission of it. It might be the case that it's still worthwhile for the broader community, idk - I'm certainly default a little skeptical of anyone saying "think of the children!"
  - fragmede 4y ago
    > the same reason kids aren't especially susceptible to COVID seem to also substantially reduce their transmission of it In hindsight, maybe, but there were a lot of unknowns in March of 2020 and that was one of them.
MuchoMaas 4y ago
> Likewise, the hostility towards masking is owing to some substantive inability to evaluate second order risks. Funny, that's how I would describe the widespread insistence that we can indefinitely conceal half of everyone's faces in public (when the only effective masks are ones which create a large amount of plastics pollution), or assiduously suppress the spread of pathogens, without having some as-yet unknown knock-on effects. It's bizarre that so many treat these things as unalloyed goods with zero downside whatsoever.
- roflc0ptic 4y ago
  I don't view them as unalloyed goods, for sure - it's just that most of the hostility came pre-anyone having great arguments against them and struck me as fundamentally tribal - went into an ice cream shop with my girlfriend in Ocala, Florida, got glared down as the only people wearing masks. This wasn't well considered social pressure, it was most assuredly "we don't cotton to them types around here." I do think the arguments against wearing masks when interacting with children/making children mask have been quite strong, post ace-2.
hindsightbias 4y ago
We need a billionaire to start funding boarding schools, where the kids and teachers can be isolated from the rest of the public.

dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago

> The response to monkey pox is bearing that out. A subset of the left (my team) saying “asking gay men to stop having orgies is homophobic”, totally isomorphic to “being worried about COVID is racist against Chinese people”, one of the initial lines. Asking gay men to stop having orgies isomorphic to asking people to put on masks.

cratermoon 4y ago
Randy Shilts' book And the Band Played On spends a lot of time on exactly this problem during the early days of AIDS. Closing the bathhouses was controversial and resisted for too long.

nradov 4y ago

Some countries did seriously try contact tracing for COVID-19 and it was generally a waste of resources. Most contact tracing programs have now been discontinued or scaled back. China is still doing it, but their approach requires an authoritarian surveillance state which is far worse than any virus.

trention 4y ago
>an authoritarian surveillance state which is far worse than any virus I'd take any authoritarian state over ebola, thank you very much.
- adamiscool8 4y ago
  The irony of seeing this reply in a thread started with hope for "renewed appreciation for the second-order, systemic, and unintended consequences of any action" is darkly comic.
  - trention 4y ago
    The first-order effect of ebola is (almost) certain death. No need to consider anything of higher order.
    - nradov 4y ago
      The fatality rate for ebola is around 50%. https://www.paho.org/en/topics/ebola-virus-disease https://www.paho.org/en/topics/ebola-virus-disease Even at that rate, I would rather take my chances with ebola than live under a communist regime. https://victimsofcommunism.org/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/
    - adamiscool8 4y ago
      It's not, it's about a coinflip (as the sibling reply noted). But you're making a very salient point about the ease at which higher order thinking can be shut down en masse in a population through fear.
      - trention 4y ago
        Is there an authoritarian government in the history of humanity that managed to kill 50% of its population? What's the average? Yes, there are situations in which "higher order thinking" doesn't matter.

matthewmacleod 4y ago

“asking gay men to stop having orgies is homophobic” Of course, nobody on your team said that, nor did they say "being worried about COVID is racist against Chinese people" Why did you choose to lie about this?

Vecr 4y ago
Okay, I'll say "I think unvaccinated people should not be having orgies", I'll wait to see if anyone says that's homophobic. Yes I actually think the statement is true, I'm not just making a point. Edit: I guess I should be more constructive, an action gay men could take is demanding their states order enough doses of ACAM-2000 from the Strategic National Stockpile to cover everyone who can take it in their community (so no HIV, skin disorders, heart disease, etc). Leave MVA-BN for people who can't take ACAM2000.
zionic 4y ago
I had an account on Reddit /r/news get banned because I said we should suspend all international travel to China at the start of COVID. This was when democrats were making apology tours telling everyone not to be afraid to go to Chinatown. There were several months at the start of 2020 where the “progressive” authority would systematically attack you as racist for being worried about COVID.
roflc0ptic 4y ago
I'm definitely not lying about this. See: https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1550856205706338305 https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1550856205706338305 Also see sibling comment. You can _also_ find people saying the lack of response is because of homophobia, and this is the thing that makes me want to flip a table: the WHO describing reality is morally culpable and causes homophobia per that tweet, the lack of effective response is homophobic, emphasizing the actual events that have had a causal role in the outbreak is homophobic. Homophobia/whatever flavor of the day is the a-priori conclusion, work backwards from there. When you bring up the excesses of this cultural movement, you're told 1. it's not really happening 2. you're just nut picking, or 3. it's actually good. and it's so often tied up with accusations of lying or dishonesty. Like, everyone is so mind poisoned at this point we can't just _disagree_, it's got to be an issue of mendacity or moral corruption.

FooHentai 4y ago

>Closing schools never really made sense for the children once it was identified that the virus attaches via ACE2 receptors After bemoaning failure to consider second-order effects this seems like making the same mistake - It was a good news that kids were less susceptible to severe infection but protecting children was not the sole purpose of closing schools. Kids were still susceptible to infection and could still spread the disease to adults. Schools were a mixing pot for kids to get infected and then go home to infect adults who might then suffer more severe effects. I think even in retrospect it holds up very well as an effective means (amongst many others) of slowing spread.

AstralStorm 4y ago
Real lesson to be learned is to open lockdowns and remove restrictions gradually. "Open schools and kindergartens" is not gradual.
Fatnino 4y ago
That first summer lots of kids went to sleepaway camp and caught the virus there. Then instead of just staying at the camp where it would be contained and burn itself out, the camps themselves shut down and sent everyone home on regular commercial flights. Completely inexplicable and inexcusable.
roflc0ptic 4y ago
I mean, I think my real complaint is that 1. humans are fuckin' terrible at thinking through second order effects, and 2. often they are simply unknowable a-priori so to the extent that I am doing the thing I'm unhappy with, it's less hypocrisy and more accidentally proving my broad point. At any rate, about kids: the same reason kids aren't especially susceptible to COVID seem to also substantially reduce their transmission of it. It might be the case that it's still worthwhile for the broader community, idk - I'm certainly default a little skeptical of anyone saying "think of the children!"
- fragmede 4y ago
  > the same reason kids aren't especially susceptible to COVID seem to also substantially reduce their transmission of it In hindsight, maybe, but there were a lot of unknowns in March of 2020 and that was one of them.

MuchoMaas 4y ago

> Likewise, the hostility towards masking is owing to some substantive inability to evaluate second order risks. Funny, that's how I would describe the widespread insistence that we can indefinitely conceal half of everyone's faces in public (when the only effective masks are ones which create a large amount of plastics pollution), or assiduously suppress the spread of pathogens, without having some as-yet unknown knock-on effects. It's bizarre that so many treat these things as unalloyed goods with zero downside whatsoever.

roflc0ptic 4y ago
I don't view them as unalloyed goods, for sure - it's just that most of the hostility came pre-anyone having great arguments against them and struck me as fundamentally tribal - went into an ice cream shop with my girlfriend in Ocala, Florida, got glared down as the only people wearing masks. This wasn't well considered social pressure, it was most assuredly "we don't cotton to them types around here." I do think the arguments against wearing masks when interacting with children/making children mask have been quite strong, post ace-2.

hindsightbias 4y ago

We need a billionaire to start funding boarding schools, where the kids and teachers can be isolated from the rest of the public.