"I re-read the usatoday article and no mention of immune-compromised children."
I think it is a reasonable assumption that the children that died had compromised immune systems, but I'll admit that I must have not read the article at the time. I would happily wager it was definitely a majority, since in my country over 90% of deaths had comorbidities.
"there is a 33% chance your body won't produce any anti-bodies at all. Thus, no post-infection immunity"
Isn't that because the infection is so mild that your body doesn't even have enough time to spin up their identification and production before its eradicated? As in, pragmatically from the evolutionary perspective of conserving resources, it's so mild that it's not even worth developing immunity to.
"Anecdotal is the weakest form of evidence only useful for forming hypothesis not reinforcing."
I appreciate that anecdotal evidence is fallible, but this isn't merely any anecdote with respect to my choice and opinion, it is my own experience. You are literally telling me not to believe my lying eyes.
I personally am on the side of preserving humanity, to the point of having an aversion to those that aren't human-centric as being some degree of ill.
But with regards to god, didn't he flood the world and kill a detergent-certainty proportion of the population? Because they were degenerate? Even without the bible, there are numerous historical references to some sort of massive flood. And what, the only reason he won't do it again is because he promised not to? A promised signed by the rainbow, which we now flaunt in his face in provocation?
God absolutely will kill us, with another similar flood at that. Sooner than later if you believe in the climate apostles to the letter, to some even as early as 2013.
Irrelevant? I was agreeing with the person I replied to, and what I said in that particular comment supports your sentiments. Do you read anything?
I've had it twice now, it's extremely mild as I expected. The second time I only had a runny nose for 3 days. An utter non-issue to my health.
"Over 700 children have died from the disease"
Sure, I've seen data like that and there's an oversight; would those 700 immuno-compromised children have survived had they not caught covid or would they have gone on to die of a subsequent cold?
I'd generally agree with your conclusions, provided the premises you've gathered. But I'm questioning the premise of the power of the individual. What if this mass conformity is a recent development of say, the last 100 years or so? That would cover your examples of past disasters, but also covers the advance of socialism and other related collectivist ideologies.
The explosion of industrialisation, free markets, and for example the founding of the US are all hyper-individualist movements following the enlightenment that appear to be responsible as you note for lifting humanity out of the dark ages, but also needed enough popular support to overthrow their establishments of the time, so where did that support come from? Is it possible that the people during this period were independant liberal thinkers, or where they merely conforming to a new liberal ideology?
Our schools likely don't help in this regard either, kids sit in rows all doing the same thing, asking permission for all interactions. Most schools foster behaviour inclined towards collectivism, and many great inventors and businessmen specifically note particular dislike of schools, often dropping out completely. Is entrepreneurial living a skill we've lost or been subverted away from? Or was humanity always doomed to be sheep?
Also, I'd imagine nobody expects themselves to be a mindless unit of the herd even today (aside from the PoMos that literally believe that), so how can a herd exist nonetheless?
Dependence. To separate MSM and progressives from Trump is to separate Christians from God. Wherefrom will they get their morality without their anti-compass? What windmills will there be to slay? What outlet for their consuming hatred?
Until a substitute drug is found, these poor people will still be jittering about the cheeto fascist for years to come.
Your calls to tolerate Islam are what have led to Islam exerting its influence to repress tolerance itself. Why would you be intolerant in the name of tolerance? If you are to be intolerant either way, why fall in favour of Islam in your intolerance? Especially in response to barbarism such as beheadings in response to blasphemy, or the Bataclan theatre in France.
Both your claims are factually accurate.
I think per capita is sometimes misleading. A more useful metric would be fatalities per police encounter, and relating them by severity. This helps weed out other discrepancies such as black people committing more crime and the severity of crime.
Dunno really. On one hand the West is decelerating while China is accelerating, so maybe the west will be the next eastern Europe.
On the other hand, if we keep Africans countries dependent on handouts they'll never actually develop themselves. Their local businesses can't compete with free.
I don't think you read what I said, I basically just paraphrased Sowell.
Ah yes, good old regulation. Squashing the little guy since time immemorial. Starts with the public attempting to suppress businesses, then as the public goes to sleep the businesses swing the very same regulation to be used to suppress new competition.
It certainly is a political weapon. People go to companies and accuse them of racism, then offer themselves a job to fix the racism. Now there are 50-100k dollar positions with titles like "Diversity manager". It's literally someone who's job it is to discriminate based on race, sex, gender, and whatever else to fulfill arbitrary quotas. They also preferentially hire a bunch of critical theorists like themselves and minimise diversity of thought.
Because mask policy is distinctly political in that it is performative. It literally is 'my god didn't say so'. Because even judging by their merits alone, studies on masks are inconclusive on their effects, many supportive, many discrediting. Same for lockdowns.
These policies are based on what people believe to be true from here-say and surface-level plausibility, without considering things like the size of a virus particle relative to woven fabric, or how many particles it takes to infect someone. I wouldn't blame anyone for believing they work as prescribed, but prior studies and the data from this pandemic suggest otherwise. Our mental models of viral mechanisms is demonstrably insufficient.
Ha. His own administration treads all over him. "The President's use of the 'crisis' label doesn't represent the administration's official position". And they're at what, the 4h crisis now? Crises that he has either allowed or incited. The year isn't even half up.
I saw a checkmark saying they want to keep wearing a mask so that they don't get mistaken for a conservative.
Imagine your life revolving around what your enemies think, or more specifically being afraid of what your peers will think/say/do if they misidentify you. What a crazy world.
Because the meaning of marriage has changed. People don't get married to raise children anymore, they get married as a matter of course. As such, now that the purpose of marriage is novelty, when the novelty of the relationship fades the purpose of the marriage is lost.
It's simple boredom. It's on both sides, but it's largely women doing it and when men do it they have to pay child support. Women initiate divorce 69% of the time, typically at 45 with a 10 year old or so kid, and do so because they want to be single again.
It's part of hyper-liberalism to the point where you're liberated from all responsibility and reality itself.
If it's Trump fault, why didn't all this go to shit under Trump? If it's as you say, then the dominoes were lined up and the wind was blowing, so why the gust now?
Or are the hackers playing 4D chess and are secretly Trump supporter accelerationists or something?
With the way society is going I'd say it's empirically the case for the former. But perhaps that will change when people live in the hell they've created.
Kinda seems like saying that all the people that come to your house are good all of the time.
Yeah, sure, the people you invite and enter/leave your house respectfully are fine.
But surely the people you invite that rape your wife, kill your kid, steal your things, etc are an issue, even if you invited them.
And surely the people that are uninvited and break into your house and steal your shit are an issue.
As for the people that break into your house and do your chores for you, sure they're good from a utilitarian perspective, but they still should have waited for an invitation; breaking in is in itself a crime.
You must realise that if you advocate for socialist programs, the requirement of having a border is far more important in order to prevent people from taking advantage of them while they don't contribute to sustaining public welfare. You can't just give everyone free stuff, especially other people's stuff, if not on moral grounds then on the reality that you run out of stuff.
It's even more profound than just the raw stats:
80.3% of deaths are from people 65+ years old.
12.9% of NY state is 65+ years old.
20.9% of Florida is 65+ years old.
Florida had almost double the dry tinder, no firefighting measures, more idiots (just try it, Florida man) and yet still less of a fire.
If WHO recommendations against lockdowns, and the scientific studies saying they are ineffective weren't enough for you, perhaps the results will be.
Florida caused deaths in other states? Surely that would also apply from other states to Florida?
Yes, California shut down, Florida didn't. And this is evidence that it was for nothing.
You support government tyranny for the greater good of the collective, a greater good that amounted to literally nothing, because intentions do not translate directly to results. You advocated untested methods and got unpredictable results.
Someone will. The tools are now there, and nobody seems to have the moral sense to resist playing with them.
Careful mate. That's officially an anti-science position these days, and a hate crime depending on where you live.
That's easy, you are whichever level of sarcasm the offense archaeologist deems makes you the most racist and offensive, so that you may be most easily disposed of.
Did you forget that you were gaslighting on this? First they aren't riots, they're 93% peaceful. Now the riots work and there should be more?
Yes, terrorism works. That's why it's so important not to capitulate to it and mount artificial resistance despite people's fear.
And no, keep the confederate statues. I don't like that the democrats are scrubbing their own past.
Yeah. All the points in the article are typical reasons why people quit any job; personal issues, disliking their boss, seeking better opportunities, etc. It doesn't at all explain why there would be an increase in people leaving, generally or specifically to police, or why that would be happening now.
I would think it is obvious why they are recently leaving. The public narrative has completely turned against the police, they don't get the respect they used to. They're criminalised for doing their jobs. Their self-defence is being stripped from them bit by bit. State overreach is becoming more frequent. However these are all taboo to the racialised narrative; police cannot be allowed to become victims, else they do not fit into the prescribed oppressor role. Why would anyone want to be a policeman where they will be demonised for preventing crime? It's demoralising and infuriating.
For the UK I'd quit because I'd be ordered to enforce crazy laws. It's unacceptable for police to make personal visits to "check their thinking", enforce hate speech laws, or enforce lockdowns; they violate fundamental human rights.
Within the context of America, if I was a cop in a state that wants to abolish the police, I'd also quit. Because reality will correct the morons asking for their abolishment. Show these morons what happens in a world without police since apparently they won't understand no matter how many lives they ruin, they need to be directly affected.
I dislike the existence of the police, but I firmly understand the need for their presence; the incentive to revert from civilised means to force is impossible to live with in a civilised society. And as crap as the reality of the situation may be, good police that uphold individual rights and equal law deserve particular respect. And they certainly don't get that today from the public.
A cop shoots a kid that was about to stab someone, literally saving someone's life, though killing the aggressor. And apparently he's a racist evil pig.
American political terminology
The UK experienced unprecedented levels of excess mortality during the spring of 2020 and again in the autumn and winter of 2020 and 2021
That's manipulating the statistics. They've deliberately cut out the summer to make it seem worse, which is the only reason they're able to say that. But you probably already knew that, huh.
I don't trust ourworldindata because they don't match that of the gov.uk reports. They say 700,000 people died this year, whereas the gov.uk website says it was around 600,000. That's a pretty big discrepancy.
Absolutely not. Even the black people in the US these progressive lunatics pretend to speak on behalf of have been polled and the majority wants more police. They fear their gangbanging neighbour and they fear riots at least more than they do the police.
I couldn't care less if you want to pretend I'm an American Nazi. I'm a classical liberal/libertarian Brit.
A government has every right to protect its citizens from idiots like you
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis
The last time there was a pandemic of this scale, a third of the population of Europe died.
The mortality rate in the UK has been as high as it was in 2020 for every single year before 2003.
And covid has a 0.128% mortality rate whereas the black death (which I assume you are referencing) has a 45% or so mortality rate
The mortality rate of the black death is literally 350x higher.
I'm not American, nor a white nationalist, nor do I think Trump a hero, just a better politician than others I've seen.
actions taken to reduce a world death count
Like I said, that's not the government's choice to make. That's the individual's choice to make. Each and every person could have chosen whether or not they wanted to risk their own lives by going out. Just as they did every day before the pandemic, just as they have done for previous pandemics. If you want to protect yourself in every way possible from the virus, more power to you, but only within your means. The government should not be able to ban people from going out or seeing other people or destroy businesses. And as I said, the empirical result has been that this tyranny has had little to no impact as evidenced by the lack of differences between states, while having had a profound cost in excess deaths that aren't even related to covid, and a massive stall of the economy that has impoverished a lot of people all over the world.
It seems Trump was right about covid though. While the US failed to quarantine it before it developed as in places like Taiwan, it is going away so to speak, in part due to the vaccine for now, but natural herd immunity works too, especially since the main vectors aren't susceptible. States that went hard on authoritarian measures have not fared better than those that remained free.
Frankly it has been insane to see the hysteria surrounding covid, and the extent to which people were willing to be tyrannised, and to tyrannise each other. None of the measures were necessary. And even if the situation had been worse, people could still have adopted them voluntarily as they saw fit to their comfortability with their personal risk. Trump made no such demands of states; each state was free to be as autistic about covid as they wished.
Now we'll have to live with the excess suicides and poverty due to the excesses of a number of control freaks.
I didn't ask what the law in your country is, I asked you.
And as far as I know in America police typically let people smoking pot recreationally go, or just give them a warning. Same thing I've heard in the UK from friends of mine that have been caught.
I agree that putting pot smokers in jail is pretty shitty, and I'm not a fan of the whole war on drugs thing, but you're exaggerating.
And I think heroin is a lot more dangerous. I think it's a bit disgusting to have people like this advocating for people to get into heroin. "My heroin use is as recreational as my alcohol use," Hart wrote in his book. "Like vacation, sex, and the arts, heroin is one of the tools that I use to maintain my work-life balance."
I also don't like this modern fascination with mere hedonism. I think it will leave many unfulfilled and unhappy. I think they should be able to do so if they like, including in law, but simultaneously others shouldn't have to support a bunch of self absorbed addicts, and we live in a socialised market where everyone will be forced to.
Donald Trump he tried to unravel the democratic apparatus once he was in power.
Ok, so far so good, that's almost an answer. What did he do? Elaborate.
Ah yes, the fascist that was voted into and out of power.
What did Trump do that makes him a fascist from your perspective?
It isn't a real quote you fool.
So don't lie to me.
I'm saying the exception doesn't disprove the rule.
Half of those companies didn't fit the rule. Big companies fail all the time. It doesn't matter to me that other companies buy up the wreckage, the rulers are continuously and non-violently deposed so long as the basis for society is economical and not physical. No more bloody revolutions, thank you very much.
it certainly doesn't mean his money is ever going to reach the poor.
I'm trying to tell you that the wealth that these businesses are 'hoarding' isn't being hoarded at all. They make money by spending it, money circulates through big business like any other. They spend it on expansion, building new buildings, hiring new staff, funding new projects, etc.
So where does the money come from? The so called poor. The poor spend their money buying stuff that they need and want. The poor voluntarily give their earnings to amazon, to apple, to walmart, etc in exchange for goods and services.
The poor are exploited for labour.
The poor are exploited to the extent that they have needs and serve others to have those needs served in kind. Society works this way because it's more efficient to specialise than to do everything yourself. But if you really want to live in the woods alone where nobody will 'exploit' you, more power to you.
Nobody works because they want to work.
Well, if I wanted I could retire on my inheritance and my past earnings (while reducing expenses) and leech off the work of others for the rest of my life. But I don't. I work because I find satisfaction in doing good work. I also get to ask others to work to give me things I don't really need with my surplus earnings, like a takeaway meal, or a new phone.
Your description of that as a "voluntary" arrangement is so offensive and backwards
It's true that human existence in society is in part not a voluntary arrangement. But we are oppressed by nature as a part of reality, irrespective of the governing system. You need food. You need water. You need shelter. Etc. And you can't just force others to give you these things, you have to convince them to give you them in exchange for something else. It is not fair that they work for something and you just steal it, and if everyone did, what reason is there to work for anything to have it stolen by others?
These things don't just pop into existence. You have to work to produce and maintain systems that process, deliver, and provide these resources and products, as every communist country learns the hard way to horrifying consequences.
We don't. Not by the standard of poverty we used to have.
We've embraced the idea of relative poverty instead. Now the family that only has one tv, a mobile, a shared laptop, etc. is considered poor.
"Even the largest empires fall, so therefore fascism is great", reasoned Hitler.
I don't know the context, but I'm assuming he means that the idea of fascism will survive its hosts? In the context I said that, I'm describing fascism as the cancer that the host will survive - no one corrupt company can take control while the people, the other cells, disagree.
40 years ago there were fifty different media companies responsible for the total sum of information in America. Today it is six companies.
The media companies those 6 companies control are currently haemorrhaging money. I hear about layoffs every year.
Wealth does not get diluted and spread around to the poor in capitalism. That is an absolute fantasy with no relationship to the facts. It gets hoarded by the ultra wealthy.
Both happens. And even when the wealthy 'hoard the wealth' by voluntary exchange with the poor, the people collectively hold equal power in that exchange. You hold the power to dissolve Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceX, whatever; should the people agree they should be dissolved more than they want delivered goods, tech, space exploration, etc. People give these companies their wealth, and they can take it away at any moment.
Yes, and some of those companies are probably corrupt, along with the government that typically keeps them afloat. But you know what? Even the largest businesses fail, half of the top 500 businesses from 20 years ago aren't at the top anymore.
All the people need do is avoid a business and it will fail, and you hold a part of the power to do that. That a company exists, even a large one, is evidence that the people believe their infractions are lesser than their contributions. As that changes, the company will die.
The other issue is compared to what? You'd replace this inherently democratic system with a forcefully imposed communist one that would inevitably turn corrupt, impoverish hundreds of millions, kill tens of millions, and then fail, as the #NotRealCommunism wheel turns again.
Two different systems. Same bug. Same outcome. One is on the scale of a catastrophe, one is on the scale of a setback.
I'm not a utopian idealist and I recognise that all systems tend towards corruption. What capitalism has over communism is the inherent dissolution of economic power over each and every business. When a business grows too large and inevitably too corrupt, others can take it's place. When a communist state grows corrupt, tens of millions die.
When the cancer comes, as it always will, having more than just one cell makes the difference between life and death of the system.
Oh, and it's telling that all you have to say in response is "what about you".
I agree actually. I think the only merit to the concept of pursuing equity is to prevent the disenfranchised and the lazy using it as an excuse to take from the wealthy.
But it's a screwed up world where the solution to theft is fattening the thieves. Especially when the thieves are activists co-ordinating their movement with their iphones and marching around in designer clothing.
