Help! I've made difficult political decision.

[Feeding Pigeons]

The Spanish Flu killed over 600,000 americans. Adjusted for population, thats over 2 million americans today.

Thats a silly adjustment. You're talking about individuals, you can't adjust for that like you can dollars.

 

[achilles]

Thats a silly adjustment. You're talking about individuals, you can't adjust for that like you can dollars.

600,000 is 0.6 percent of 100 million. 2 million is 0.6 percent of 300 million. It's an entirely reasonable "adjustment".
Of course the size of the population must be considered when measuring risks to the population, how else could
you do it?

BTW, not that anyone here (or anywhere for that matter) cares but....

I was sitting in a coffee shop today, June 15, 2022, and a masked woman came in with a masked toddler.
I said nothing, of course, it's her child, her life, none of my business, etc. But I did find the encounter very triggering.
I spent the rest of the day arguing with myself again over this question of whether or not a world full of people
who think forcing children to wear masks to keep adults marginally safer is a world worth living in at all.

Our general mandate is long gone now, but the fear and the Evil that inspired it remains, and still no one around me seems able to see it at all.
The masks signify neither civic virtue nor safety to me, they signal a loathsome cowardice and contempt for the autonomy of
others. I didn't feel it's my place to correct this woman's abuse of her child, but I wasn't comfortable ignoring it either.

I am sure I'll encounter this trigger again, and again, in the days and weeks to come.

 

[Alex6216]

600,000 is 0.6 percent of 100 million. 2 million is 0.6 percent of 300 million. It's an entirely reasonable "adjustment".
Of course the size of the population must be considered when measuring risks to the population, how else could
you do it?

BTW, not that anyone here (or anywhere for that matter) cares but....

I was sitting in a coffee shop today, June 15, 2022, and a masked woman came in with a masked toddler.
I said nothing, of course, it's her child, her life, none of my business, etc. But I did find the encounter very triggering.
I spent the rest of the day arguing with myself again over this question of whether or not a world full of people
who think forcing children to wear masks to keep adults marginally safer is a world worth living in at all.

Our general mandate is long gone now, but the fear and the Evil that inspired it remains, and still no one around me seems able to see it at all.
The masks signify neither civic virtue nor safety to me, they signal a loathsome cowardice and contempt for the autonomy of
others. I didn't feel it's my place to correct this woman's abuse of her child, but I wasn't comfortable ignoring it either.

I am sure I'll encounter this trigger again, and again, in the days and weeks to come.

People still wear masks?
almost everyone here stopped with covid restrictions since February 2022, thought the same happened in every first world nation.

 

[achilles]

People still wear masks?
almost everyone here stopped with covid restrictions since February 2022, thought the same happened in every first world nation.

The story about meeting the masked woman and child in the coffee shop is true. The masks were not required. None of the other people in the coffee shop were wearing them. There are still places around town people where some people can be seen wearing them, but the mandates are over.

 

[Niko66]

People who find wearing a mask oppression must have led very priviledged lives .

Also wearing masks is the least of children's problems at the moment. Calling it abuse is frankly a bad joke. There's so many worse things than being mildly inconvenienced while going out, going on in so many households, manipulation, emotional abuse, insults, invalidation, sexual abuse, beatings, families in poverty breeding children like rabbits who are completely unfit for giving them any quality of life, infant circumcision, being used merely for parents to try to live vicariously through them for the things they never could experiencie. Child trafficking, making Nike shoes for pennies, no access to clean water and food, the list could go on forever, if wearing a mask of all things is what broke the camel's back for you then you have been blind to the most of the world troubles, I'm going to guess from the comfort of a reasonably well off white household where money has never been a concern.
The irony of this is OP is living in a safety bubble completely detached from the daily problems people actually experience.

If a world where "children wear masks for the a marginal increase in safety for the adults" is not worth living is your criteria then clearly this world is not worth living in at all as there's hundreds of much more vile things going on daily. On a micro and macro scale.

 

[Feeding Pigeons]

600,000 is 0.6 percent of 100 million. 2 million is 0.6 percent of 300 million. It's an entirely reasonable "adjustment".
Of course the size of the population must be considered when measuring risks to the population, how else could
you do it?

I'm not saying your math is wrong, I'm saying you can't create human beings out of thin air to make an impressive figure, that doesn't make sense.

 

[Smart No More]

Can't help wondering what this guys opinion on the mandatory picking up of one's dog shit is. Not that I actually care. Just thought I'd drop by and feed the troll.

 

[achilles]

People who find wearing a mask oppression must have led very priviledged lives .

Also wearing masks is the least of children's problems at the moment. Calling it abuse is frankly a bad joke. There's so many worse things than being mildly inconvenienced while going out, going on in so many households, manipulation, emotional abuse, insults, invalidation, sexual abuse, beatings, families in poverty breeding children like rabbits who are completely unfit for giving them any quality of life, infant circumcision, being used merely for parents to try to live vicariously through them for the things they never could experiencie. Child trafficking, making Nike shoes for pennies, no access to clean water and food, the list could go on forever, if wearing a mask of all things is what broke the camel's back for you then you have been blind to the most of the world troubles, I'm going to guess from the comfort of a reasonably well off white household where money has never been a concern.
The irony of this is OP is living in a safety bubble completely detached from the daily problems people actually experience.

If a world where "children wear masks for the a marginal increase in safety for the adults" is not worth living is your criteria then clearly this world is not worth living in at all as there's hundreds of much more vile things going on daily. On a micro and macro scale.

Yes, I have been fortunate in life, unbelievably so, certainly undeservedly so. I am grateful for my good fortune.

The world contains many bad things and much suffering. The things you list are all terrible, but isn't that kind of the point.
People see them as evils, and so oppose them, to the extent they can.

The evils of the covid mandates are troubling to me because, rather than oppose the evil, the community supported it,
and even called it virtue. IMHO, it feels like a throwback to a pre-Enlightenment notion of morality. When scared, the community simply decides it's collective fear justifies forcing individuals to do pretty much anything. At the moment, I just don't see much limiting this
dynamic. As time moves on, our collective fear dissipates, I suppose.

I do think the danger of authoritarian orthodoxy is an important problem in the world. We have some notions of how to deal with war, poverty, capitalism, racism, environmental devastation, etc. and some consensus that these problems should be dealt with. But when the problem comes FROM our own earnest good intention, I just don't think people are smart enough, or brave enough, or wise enough to avoid doing terrible things when we think we're doing good.

 

[whatevs]

Yes, I have been fortunate in life, unbelievably so, certainly undeservedly so. I am grateful for my good fortune.

The world contains many bad things and much suffering. The things you list are all terrible, but isn't that kind of the point.
People see them as evils, and so oppose them, to the extent they can.

The evils of the covid mandates are troubling to me because, rather than oppose the evil, the community supported it,
and even called it virtue. IMHO, it feels like a throwback to a pre-Enlightenment notion of morality. When scared, the community simply decides it's collective fear justifies forcing individuals to do pretty much anything. At the moment, I just don't see much limiting this
dynamic. As time moves on, our collective fear dissipates, I suppose.

I do think the danger of authoritarian orthodoxy is an important problem in the world. We have some notions of how to deal with war, poverty, capitalism, racism, environmental devastation, etc. and some consensus that these problems should be dealt with. But when the problem comes FROM our own earnest good intention, I just don't think people are smart enough, or brave enough, or wise enough to avoid doing terrible things when we think we're doing good.

They wrap their molding, theft and degradation of the human species as 'protective or responsible', and with evil genius the very people they take freedom, knowledge and money from will solemn and proudly implement their own dispossession, their own curtailment.

Anyone know anything about parasites? Some of them are cunning enough to have evolved chemical ways to take complete control of their hosts, which will offer themselves as food for their offspring or work building a nest for them. What humans, or what's left of them, face is nothing else than a parasitic infection of an unknown species, speculated as spiritual or extraterrestrial. It isn't human in origin, as it uses inhuman means and has inhuman effects.

Why hasn't space travel progressed, but addictive technology that fits into our hands was devised? Powerful computing at your fingerprints, but my generation hasn't seen astronauts on the surface of anything extraterrestrial, while our fathers did. Isn't that strange? That all our technological progress seems fixated on simulations, fusing people and their wallets with their phones and improving monitoring devices?

 

[Alex6216]

Why hasn't space travel progressed, but addictive technology that fits into our hands was devised? Powerful computing at your fingerprints, but my generation hasn't seen astronauts on the surface of anything extraterrestrial, while our fathers did. Isn't that strange? That all our technological progress seems fixated on simulations, fusing people and their wallets with their phones and improving monitoring devices?

Doesnt mean demons or space animals are involved. Maybe space exploration is a massive pipe-dream/wont ever happen and the elite want themselves and others to be in fiction vr games + get money and control.

 

[achilles]

Doesnt mean demons or space animals are involved. Maybe space exploration is a massive pipe-dream/wont ever happen ...

There is something very dark indeed about saying exploration of the universe we actually live in is impossible, or even just abandon-able.
I think I'd prefer the space-demons, and I really don't like space-demons.

 

[whatevs]

Doesnt mean demons or space animals are involved. Maybe space exploration is a massive pipe-dream and the elite want themselves and others to be in fiction vr games + get money and control.

It's a possibility. But it's not the only strange thing going in our society. There's a large collection of things that seem nonsensical to me unless there's a higher power coordinating the entire planet.

Either way even if we had to stay within materialistic bookends it's quite sad where they are leading society to.

 

[achilles]

Mid July. I am still here. Still thinking about how this Leviathan of fear driven authoritarianism is lurking under the now apparently still waters of lake "compassion." But, the world has moved on to the next current thing. It's well into monkeypox season and I haven't even taken down my Ukraine decorations yet.

Thinking about this, it has occurred to me that I have been wrong about something important all along. I have imagined the response to both Covid and the hysteria surrounding Covid as problems of the collective psyche. This is a mistake. They're not.

The political system can pay for the developement and distribution of medicines. That is proper and good. But politics cannot fix personal ethics, fears or hysteria. It's the wrong tool for the job.

I've been hoping for a political shift to a less fearful world, but that shift simply isn't in the realm of politics. It's like hoping for a political shift to a more musical world. Fearlessness, like musicality, is an individual choice never a collective one.

 

[Adrenalineaddict]

Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if you had lived during polio when it was killing and permanently disabling millions of people before the vaccine was invented? Would you have supported mask wearing or keeping children inside like many parents did back then? I'm asking out of curiosity, I'm not angry just trying to understand different viewpoints on this issue

 

[Feeding Pigeons]

Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if you had lived during polio when it was killing and permanently disabling millions of people before the vaccine was invented? Would you have supported mask wearing or keeping children inside like many parents did back then? I'm asking out of curiosity, I'm not angry just trying to understand different viewpoints on this issue

If you want a legitimate answer, you'll never get one. Its impossible to ask what someone would've done during polio because the world was an entirely different beast then.

 

[Adrenalineaddict]

If you want a legitimate answer, you'll never get one. Its impossible to ask what someone would've done during polio because the world was an entirely different beast then.

In what way though? I mean, they didn't have the internet to share information about the disease but there was the news via tv/radio, sure it might have been economically and politically different, but people still cared about their children, and elderly loved ones surviving much like today, and people probably didn't think about ableism and the immunocompromised in the same way but they were probably still careful around the elderly or babies, and I think even in western or individualist societies back then people looked out for one another to a greater degree. I think they would care even more and be okay with stricter measures. They could understand at least on some basic level that some people had lower or impaired immune systems especially during winter with the flu being more prevalent. And mothers back then, like today, were by no means totally okay with their little ones getting dead or paralysed. We are not there but we can use what we know about human nature and the culture of the time to infer. Also talking to the elderly today about how they(and their parents/families at the time) handled it

 

[stoiccactus]

lol people in my ultra liberal blue suburb still wear masks *on the beach*

 

[achilles]

Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if you had lived during polio when it was killing and permanently disabling millions of people before the vaccine was invented? Would you have supported mask wearing or keeping children inside like many parents did back then? I'm asking out of curiosity, I'm not angry just trying to understand different viewpoints on this issue

Honestly, I don't know. Polio was certainly very scary. I doubt masking would have made any difference to the spread of polio, but who knows?
The original post for this thread, and all of the discussion within it, are from after the distribution of the Covid vaccine. So, I am not sure the question is really relevant.

BTW, according to Wikipedia -

"In the United States, the 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of the nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis."

So the number of people in the US killed or disabled by polio was tens of thousands, not millions, although the US population was smaller then.

 

[achilles]

Honestly, I don't know. Polio was certainly very scary. I doubt masking would have made any difference to the spread of polio, but who knows?
The original post for this thread, and all of the discussion within it, are from after the distribution of the Covid vaccine. So, I am not sure the question is really relevant.

BTW, according to Wikipedia -

"In the United States, the 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of the nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis."

So the number of people in the US killed or disabled by polio was tens of thousands, not millions, although the US population was smaller then.

----
Upon further consideration, the moral question is still not about how scary the disease is. The important question is still "what am I willing to force other people to do to keep myself safe?" And the answer, for me at least, is not much. Maybe the pro-madate crowd won't exterminate the infected just to keep themselves safe, maybe they would, I don't know. Nobody really does. I know I won't deny others the right to make their own choices. Others may chose differently, but I won't participate.

 

[LastFlowers]

----
Upon further consideration, the moral question is still not about how scary the disease is. The important question is still "what am I willing to force other people to do to keep myself safe?" And the answer, for me at least, is not much. Maybe the pro-madate crowd won't exterminate the infected just to keep themselves safe, maybe they would, I don't know. Nobody really does. I know I won't deny others the right to make their own choices. Others may chose differently, but I won't participate.

Aren't you tired yet?

 

[come to dust]

Mid July. I am still here. Still thinking about how this Leviathan of fear driven authoritarianism is lurking under the now apparently still waters of lake "compassion." But, the world has moved on to the next current thing. It's well into monkeypox season and I haven't even taken down my Ukraine decorations yet.

It really blows my mind that you live in the US, an extremely authoritarian country, but the one issue that is too authoritarian for you is a mere safety measure that has no adverse impact on people beyond mimor inconvenience.

How about any of the following reasons (that reflect the true authoritarian nature of the US) to be more concerned about?
- If you state you are suicidal, your are whisked away by an EMT to a hospital, without consent, and forced to PAY for it because healthcare exists solely for profit.
- You do not have the right to privately take drugs no more harmful than alcohol such as LSD, marijuana or ketamine which may improve your physical or mental wellbeing. Instead you get sent to jail.
- As of this year, in many places you can no longer get an abortion and are forced to go through the pain of childbirth
- Tax dollars are paid towards a police force that goes around acting like thugs, shouting, bullying, and physically assaulting people in a way not seen in any other western country
- The country is at present pretty much ruled by an unelected man named Clarence Thomas who, like a king, gets to hand out verdicts on any topic from abortion, to the environment, without question, stating whatever laws should be changed or repealed. The presidential election is a farce because the president has no real power in comparison

All the above issues to me seem like true authoritarianism, not the mask issue which is merely a health and safety request no more so than wearing a seatbelt in a car. It's also temporary. You also seem to complain about living in a blue state but I dont see any red people interesting in addressing these authoritarian issues.

 

[achilles]

It really blows my mind that you live in the US, an extremely authoritarian country, but the one issue that is too authoritarian for you is a mere safety measure that has no adverse impact on people beyond mimor inconvenience.

How about any of the following reasons (that reflect the true authoritarian nature of the US) to be more concerned about?
- If you state you are suicidal, your are whisked away by an EMT to a hospital, without consent, and forced to PAY for it because healthcare exists solely for profit.
- You do not have the right to privately take drugs no more harmful than alcohol such as LSD, marijuana or ketamine which may improve your physical or mental wellbeing. Instead you get sent to jail.
- As of this year, in many places you can no longer get an abortion and are forced to go through the pain of childbirth
- Tax dollars are paid towards a police force that goes around acting like thugs, shouting, bullying, and physically assaulting people in a way not seen in any other western country
- The country is at present pretty much ruled by an unelected man named Clarence Thomas who, like a king, gets to hand out verdicts on any topic from abortion, to the environment, without question, stating whatever laws should be changed or repealed. The presidential election is a farce because the president has no real power in comparison

All the above issues to me seem like true authoritarianism, not the mask issue which is merely a health and safety request no more so than wearing a seatbelt in a car. It's also temporary. You also seem to complain about living in a blue state but I dont see any red people interesting in addressing these authoritarian issues.

I no longer expect that the legacy of Covid to be temporary. I do not think the inconveniences are minor. I've lost my hope for a future civil society based on the principle of respectful tolerance of those whose beliefs are different. Some may still feel that way, most never will. As for the other atrocities you listed, I will agree they are all terrible. They just haven't affected me personally so much, yet.

I am not interested in political solutions. I haven't the slightest interest in conservative politics, or liberal politics. I do not want to save the nation, or the world, or the human race. I would not save the human race from extinction even if it were in my power to do so, even if it were as easy as clicking a seatbelt. Our species should not be allowed to survive, we should not be permited to survive. Frankly, CTB is looking better everyday. But, it appears I am a coward, as well as an heartless asshole.

Still I (quite sincerely) do enjoy these little exchanges. I thank you for your time and attention. It literally means the world to me, even when we disagree.

 

[achilles]

Aren't you tired yet?

Quite.

 

[whatevs]

Aren't you tired yet?

What does this mean? Tired of pumping up the thread or what?

Well @achilles, the question has ALWAYS been how dangerous the disease was, as the dictatorial atmosphere that we went through was instated on the grounds of health and safety, like those that have been fooled will repeat again and again.

Institutions and media propagated a sense of danger that was never confirmed by real life experience. I think, without having to resort to conspiracy theories, which are easily provable in this case, that we could characterize the false pandemic as a social phenomenon in the same category than witch-hunting: sanctioned and theorized by the intellectuals and the state, enforced by the people, but mostly delusional. Witches and satanism existed, just as the disease might been a more virulent strain of Coronaviri, but the small impact/frequency these things had was used to create a much larger, groundless, sense of threat.

In this second case I think the mass formation psychosis was engineered and planned by the wealthiest stratum of society, which means much worse things are to come, from the same source, until they feel satisfied with updated, more manageable, numbers and behavior in their cattle. Abuse tends to go further when it is uncontested and succesful. And when the abuser is a refined psychopath, the victim can become a collaborator in their own harm. The levels of malignancy displayed by the elite put the Ted Bundys or Charles Sobhrajs of the world to shame.

 

[achilles]

... I think the mass formation psychosis was engineered and planned by the wealthiest stratum of society, which means much worse things are to come, from the same source, until they feel satisfied with updated, more manageable, numbers and behavior in their cattle. Abuse tends to go further when it is uncontested and succesful.

I agree with you that there has been a mass formation psychosis. As a society we have all walked into a trap, made of fear and enforced authoritarianism. I agree that it appears likely much greater abuse is coming because we haven't mustered the ability to oppose this evil.

Humanity can't ever really muster that kind of opposition because authoritarianism, cruelty, and cattle-like docility are just the metals from which we are cast. Any path forward, as individuals, has to come from our individual quests for fearlessness, tolerance and kindness. Collectively, humanity has failed, and cannot and should not be redeemed.

But, I don't agree that there has to be a villain in this story. There are certainly those who have taken, or tried to take, the opportunity to profit from people's fear. Profit both politically and financially. I am still not convinced the pandemic was the product of anyone's conscious planning. But, then again, that hardly matters.

 

[whatevs]

But, I am still not convinced the pandemic was the product of anyone's conscious planning. But, then again, that hardly matters.

I actually agree with this. It doesn't matter if Google has a monopoly on search engines, Wikipedia on information or YouTube (Google again) and Meta (Facebook) on social media, or Amazon on e-commerce and cloud computing, or the power BlackRock, the Federal Reserve or GoldmanSachs have, because at the end of the day you only need to spend 5 minutes with a group of average people to realize they seem marginally sentient, shockingly selfish and insensitive and borrowing from your descriptor, quite irredeemable. These 'people', that are scarcely better than monkeys, are who put the elite in power and who have a toxic, eventually suicidal symbiosis with them.

The masses want to be fed filth and lies and the elite are happy to provide them. You just need to see what kind of music has exploded in the last 2 decades.

 

[come to dust]

I no longer expect that the legacy of Covid to be temporary. I do not think the inconveniences are minor. I've lost my hope for a future civil society based on the principle of respectful tolerance of those whose beliefs are different. Some may still feel that way, most never will. As for the other atrocities you listed, I will agree they are all terrible. They just haven't affected me personally so much, yet.

I am not interested in political solutions. I haven't the slightest interest in conservative politics, or liberal politics. I do not want to save the nation, or the world, or the human race. I would not save the human race from extinction even if it were in my power to do so, even if it were as easy as clicking a seatbelt. Our species should not be allowed to survive, we should not be permited to survive. Frankly, CTB is looking better everyday. But, it appears I am a coward, as well as an heartless asshole.

Still I (quite sincerely) do enjoy these little exchanges. I thank you for your time and attention. It literally means the world to me, even when we disagree.

To be honest if you dont care about saving anyone or anything, then covid regulations shouldnt matter to you.

 

[achilles]

To be honest if you dont care about saving anyone or anything, then covid regulations shouldnt matter to you.

Huh? It's not as if the cult of Covid has ever prevented me (and others!) from going to the grocery store, restaurants. bars, theaters, gyms, school, travel or holiday social gatherings, or that lockdowns forced the closing of businesses that formerly served any of those social functions.
Some lives were ruined and some people have died as a direct consequence of these restrictions. That's true even if the net effect was positive. Grow the fuck up.

But, after all, our earnest good intention and conformity to the official orthodoxy of "the Science" is what matters most right? It's not as if being able to actually live my own life is even important at all. Get bent. If your not going to place any value on my actual life, why the fuck should I listen to you at all?

Fine, if you like, I don't care about you, and you don't care about my life. Let us go our separate ways and ignore each other for the rest of our days. I am certainly cool with that.

Do you even understand what the word "regulation" means? Can you even imagine the possibility of someone wanting to live a life that is not entirely circumscribed by YOUR beliefs by default? Honestly, I really would rather die than live in a world controlled by people like you.

I don't give a fuck about Covid, never did, still don't, but I am terrified of people like you. You are loathsome, dangerous, and completely oblivious to why I might even think that way. Oh, how much I prefer the company of the virus to the company of people like you. I can't begin to explain.

 

[come to dust]

Huh? It's not as if the cult of Covid has ever prevented me (and others!) from going to the grocery store, restaurants. bars, theaters, gyms, school, travel or holiday social gatherings, or that lockdowns forced the closing of businesses that formerly served any of those social functions.
Some lives were ruined and some people have died as a direct consequence of these restrictions. That's true even if the net effect was positive. Grow the fuck up.

But, after all, our earnest good intention and conformity to the official orthodoxy of "the Science" is what matters most right? It's not as if being able to actually live my own life is even important at all. Get bent. If your not going to place any value on my actual life, why the fuck should I listen to you at all?

Fine, if you like, I don't care about you, and you don't care about my life. Let us go our separate ways and ignore each other for the rest of our days. I am certainly cool with that.

Do you even understand what the word "regulation" means? Can you even imagine the possibility of someone wanting to live a life that is not entirely circumscribed by YOUR beliefs by default? Honestly, I really would rather die than live in a world controlled by people like you.

I don't give a fuck about Covid, never did, still don't, but I am terrified of people like you. You are loathsome, dangerous, and completely oblivious to why I might even think that way. Oh, how much I prefer the company of the virus to the company of people like you. I can't begin to explain.

I don't understand why you expect anyone to care about you when you have repeatedly admitted that you don't care about consequences on anyone or anything besides yourself. You wouldn't lift a finger to save the entire world yet expect everyone to be sympathetic towards your minor inconvenience of wearing a mask.

 

[wait.what]

1) No one is going to burn you as a witch. That is not a thing.

2) Why on earth are you seeking validation from people who you know disagree with you? For that matter, if you don't care whether you're infecting me with a nasty disease, why should I care if you feel validated about it?

3) Intentionally maximizing others' risk of serious disease or death is idiotic. Don't.