rwcarlsen

12 ms·

61.
by rwcarlsen 6y ago
But what we are seeing here is deplatforming of organizations and people that represent the leadership of a much more mainstream movement that includes a huge fraction of the U.S. - half the country voted for trump! So this is one of those
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
There is clearly a large disenfranchised segment of the population. They have all kinds of reasons with varying degrees of veracity. Lots of people are trying to ignore it, sweep it under the rug, etc. But the real problem here is that a
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
I agree authoritarianism is dangerous. I also agree that authoritarian dystopias can be driven not just by governments, but also by powerful corporations. I don't really see too much of an important distinction between either. This
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
I think you meant - covid mitigations hit both of those.
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
I don't understand how the same people who said we should defund the police are forcefully suggesting that we need a strong police response here? I'm not going to take any sides. All sides are so rife with hypocrisy that I just
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
In the absence of evidence either way, I think it's a pretty reasonable assumption. Without some level of assumptions, we would be paralyzed and useless - never able to make decisions. Use the data we have - make reasonable assumptio
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
My entire take was explicitly _not_ based on discounting the value of older people's years. Also, the loss from death is felt by loved ones regardless and is approximately the same whether someone dies this month, next month or next y
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
I've done plenty of reading on keynesian economics. I understand that it's not always a zero-sum game, etc. etc. Also, I never advocated for ignoring the plight of humans. We should always strive to help and lift each other. B
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
What makes you think I'm refusing to take precautions? I take precautions consistent with how I perceive the risk to myself and others - just like I always have my entire life. Just like you have your entire life. Ebola is a comple
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
The pandemic doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's not as if we can ignore everything else and just mitigate for the pandemic at all costs. The economy and social infrastructure/interaction is extremely important to the physical
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
There are all kinds of rights that have nothing to do with what people can do on their own property. Read almost every amendment - many have to do with rights we have places outside our own personal property. The entire point of this di
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
These specific changes won't be permanent - I agree. But the precedent they set for the future will be. And, in the mean time - these mitigations have and are having a huge personal impact on me, my wife, and my children - among othe
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Yeah - And I should invest specifically in Mexico because my grandma happened to be born there. African Americans - are Americans. They often have their own American subcultures, but the U.S.A is their home. Sure they have history connec
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
It was so generous, in fact, that I personally know many people who purposely delayed getting a job in order to keep collecting the benefit.
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
But don't you realize it's completely circular? You have the right to have me not have the right to infect you. But don't I also have the right to have you not have the right to have me not have the right to infect you? Th
76.
by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Apparently it's not a trick unique to right leaning citizens. It works on all humans.
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
I'll try hard to keep the discussion nuanced. Governments are basically institutions that we allow to restrict our freedoms for some benefits - safety, various common-good things, etc. We all have our preference for where we draw thi
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
The war on freedom.
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Well - The hacker news community is not even remotely representative of the U.S. population (nor typical pops in other countries I suspect). If you thought it was, then you'd think 90% of everyone in America voted for Biden. But it w
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
So he draws his line in a different place. Perhaps he didn't do his full position justice. Maybe he feels like the lost human connection, dress code for your face, forced shutdown of certain businesses, school closures (and online le
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Let's not create an either-or strawman for either side on this issue. The fact of the matter is - there has always been and always will be a convenience/liberty <---> safety tradeoff. This is a spectrum. We can all disagr
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
That was a good rebuttal. My point, which apparently I didn't make very well, was that we accept some danger in order to avoid some limitations on liberty. It is not a binary tradeoff. We could choose to enforce those rules or make
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
It's a matter of extrapolating the fatality/damage rates out to everyone on the globe. We take that hit plus a bit of fallout - or we can try to continue dealing with things in the big, long, drawn-out, messy way much of the worl
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
I live in one of those "shitshow" states. And the vast majority of the population here is completely fine with how things are panning out - except maybe the reduced restaurant capacity and part-time schooling - those are pretty a
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
It's a problem that fixes itself quickly. Things suck for a few months, then it's done. Rip the bandaid off quick.
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Just because people drive like A -holes around me when I'm riding my bicycle on the road doesn't mean that I should try to get the government to take away their cars by force. Or to force them to never go over the speed limit. O
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
You tell them that it's in the noise w.r.t. the danger of being alive - because it is. But instead we have news and social media shouting from the rooftops that everyone is going to die or have some nightmarish long-term effects. All
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Nobody is invulnerable to anything. But we should never make generalized/universal policies to the detriment of the masses motivated by long-tail extremes. Just because we don't know how to reliably measure the (real and large)
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Why isn't it valid to acknowledge all the data/risks, and still feel like we should just let the virus run its course? I know of tons of people who feel this way. You are arguing against a straw-man. Yes, there are many conspir
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by rwcarlsen 6y ago
Not having vulnerable people close to you is not the only way you can hold my position/view. I have three grandparents who I love dearly in their 80s - one with diabetes, one with rheumatoid arthritis, and the other with lung scarring

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