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On March 25 2020 16:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:
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Not only is it really short sighted - the economy will completely collapse anyway if you let that thing run amok - but it's also borderline psychopathic.
nothing borderline about it
I do not get it. Do people really not get businesses and jobs come and go? death is kinda permanent.
and no way the USA will stop at such a low figure
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And meanwhile Pompeo blocked the final declaration of a G7 meeting, because the others did not want to use the term "Wuhan Virus".
The level of pettiness and asslicking for his boss is unbelievable...
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On March 25 2020 11:45 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Car accidents would be a much better example in this case. You're not going to stop people dying from smoking by not going to work. We're marginally past that point already for COVID deaths per day. Maybe once we're at 1000 instead of just 100. There is also a propagation issue with things. Most of the deaths are clustered in certain areas so you've got huge potions of the US that have no idea what is coming yet. Optimism bias is a problem, especially when it isn't your area that has the cases.
On March 25 2020 11:48 BigFan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Smoking won't infect you like corona unless you are talking about getting sick from second hand smoke, but point is that it's not a similar example.
I think I wasn't clear?
The point was just that I don't think anyone is going to do anything but keep working as long as the people dying can be forced to fit the typical explanations. I mentioned.
The question was how many people dying from CV-19 before people are willing risk their jobs and homes by refusing to keep working while vulnerable people are dying.
I picked smoking because the connection between the profit and the death is very direct and been legally and scientifically established. Like I said, we're all used to thousands of people dying to keep the economy churning as it is, so long as they are relegated to far away people, impoverished people, etc.
Frankly I don't think it is a number issue, 1k/day or 10k/day I think most Americans will just accept the idea that there's nothing they can do to stop the death and the best they can do is just keep going to work, vote for Biden/Trump in Nov, and hope things get better.
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IMO we need that emotional hook that resonates widely, throughout the world. Like, idk, Michael jackson dying (if he weren't so already) or the Pope.
Our own species' equivalent of a straw through the turtle's nose.
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On March 25 2020 18:23 Artisreal wrote:
IMO we need that emotional hook that resonates widely, throughout the world. Like, idk, Michael jackson dying (if he weren't so already) or the Pope.
Our own species' equivalent of a straw through the turtle's nose.
Yeah, I think COVID killing Betty White and Chuck Norris would be more likely to result in a general strike/work stoppage than 10k regular people a day.
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On March 25 2020 17:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 11:45 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Car accidents would be a much better example in this case. You're not going to stop people dying from smoking by not going to work. We're marginally past that point already for COVID deaths per day. Maybe once we're at 1000 instead of just 100. There is also a propagation issue with things. Most of the deaths are clustered in certain areas so you've got huge potions of the US that have no idea what is coming yet. Optimism bias is a problem, especially when it isn't your area that has the cases. Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 11:48 BigFan wrote:On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Smoking won't infect you like corona unless you are talking about getting sick from second hand smoke, but point is that it's not a similar example. I think I wasn't clear? The point was just that I don't think anyone is going to do anything but keep working as long as the people dying can be forced to fit the typical explanations. I mentioned. The question was how many people dying from CV-19 before people are willing risk their jobs and homes by refusing to keep working while vulnerable people are dying. I picked smoking because the connection between the profit and the death is very direct and been legally and scientifically established. Like I said, we're all used to thousands of people dying to keep the economy churning as it is, so long as they are relegated to far away people, impoverished people, etc. Frankly I don't think it is a number issue, 1k/day or 10k/day I think most Americans will just accept the idea that there's nothing they can do to stop the death and the best they can do is just keep going to work, vote for Biden/Trump in Nov, and hope things get better.
I don't really like the smoking comparison on a bunch of levels. Smoking is mostly voluntary (though marketing does tend a bit towards mind control), and most importantly, the people dying of smoking are also the ones who would most oppose any attempts to fight smoking deaths, because they are smokers and don't like being told that they cannot smoke anymore. Smoking is a weird issue due to the addiction involved, but also due to the psychology of the smokers. That is not to absolve tobacco companies of their responsibility. (I am also pretty sure that smoking is on average a huge net negative for the economy, considering how much the cancer treatments cost). It is, however, a problem which is not easy to solve, because the people who are most impacted by it don't want it solved.
But I generally agree with the scary sentiment that the US might be heading towards a huge catastrophe through badly handling this crisis. I, too wonder what the willingness of accepting human sacrifice on the altar of "the economy" are. I find this a very scary spin.
Also, who is willing to take a bet that the people who push for "keep working" will never have the problem that there is no respirator available for them? I am pretty sure that the availability of respirator slots will be directly linked to the money you can afford to offer for one.
One important thing you need to remember here is that all of the actions taken today will only effect the numbers in 1-2 weeks, when the people infected today start becoming symptomatic. And people are really bad at dealing with exponential growth apparently. Numbers are not huge today, but if they double every 5 days, they will be 8 times a large in 2 weeks (And that is something we cannot influence, because those people are already infected right now).
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On March 25 2020 19:00 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 17:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 11:45 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Car accidents would be a much better example in this case. You're not going to stop people dying from smoking by not going to work. We're marginally past that point already for COVID deaths per day. Maybe once we're at 1000 instead of just 100. There is also a propagation issue with things. Most of the deaths are clustered in certain areas so you've got huge potions of the US that have no idea what is coming yet. Optimism bias is a problem, especially when it isn't your area that has the cases. On March 25 2020 11:48 BigFan wrote:On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Smoking won't infect you like corona unless you are talking about getting sick from second hand smoke, but point is that it's not a similar example. I think I wasn't clear? The point was just that I don't think anyone is going to do anything but keep working as long as the people dying can be forced to fit the typical explanations. I mentioned. The question was how many people dying from CV-19 before people are willing risk their jobs and homes by refusing to keep working while vulnerable people are dying. I picked smoking because the connection between the profit and the death is very direct and been legally and scientifically established. Like I said, we're all used to thousands of people dying to keep the economy churning as it is, so long as they are relegated to far away people, impoverished people, etc. Frankly I don't think it is a number issue, 1k/day or 10k/day I think most Americans will just accept the idea that there's nothing they can do to stop the death and the best they can do is just keep going to work, vote for Biden/Trump in Nov, and hope things get better. I don't really like the smoking comparison on a bunch of levels. Smoking is mostly voluntary (though marketing does tend a bit towards mind control), and most importantly, the people dying of smoking are also the ones who would most oppose any attempts to fight smoking deaths, because they are smokers and don't like being told that they cannot smoke anymore. Smoking is a weird issue due to the addiction involved, but also due to the psychology of the smokers. That is not to absolve tobacco companies of their responsibility. (I am also pretty sure that smoking is on average a huge net negative for the economy, considering how much the cancer treatments cost). It is, however, a problem which is not easy to solve, because the people who are most impacted by it don't want it solved. + Show Spoiler +
But I generally agree with the scary sentiment that the US might be heading towards a huge catastrophe through badly handling this crisis. I, too wonder what the willingness of accepting human sacrifice on the altar of "the economy" are. I find this a very scary spin.
Also, who is willing to take a bet that the people who push for "keep working" will never have the problem that there is no respirator available for them? I am pretty sure that the availability of respirator slots will be directly linked to the money you can afford to offer for one.
One important thing you need to remember here is that all of the actions taken today will only effect the numbers in 1-2 weeks, when the people infected today start becoming symptomatic. And people are really bad at dealing with exponential growth apparently. Numbers are not huge today, but if they double every 5 days, they will be 8 times a large in 2 weeks (And that is something we cannot influence, because those people are already infected right now).
We agree on the spoilered which is the meat of it. Just for clarity sake on the smoking part I'd put your argument in the "these people made poor personal choices" bucket.
"they should have stayed in"
"they should have had better hygeine"
"they should have better managed their underlying conditions"
"they should have been able to afford healthcare"
"they shouldn't have licked stuff for clout"
"they shouldn't have partied on the beach"
"they shouldn't have kept hanging out in parks"
The list goes on interminably and is ingrained in the US culturally. All misfortune of others is filtered through this rationale of "how is their suffering their own fault"
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The major problem i see is that it is very hard to save people against their will. I am not really talking about the attribution of the damage due to tobacco per se, but about the way to solve the problem.
The business model of tobacco is disgusting. It preys on people who are teenagers and thus stupid, and makes them addicted. I very much see tobacco companies as evil and do agree that they are at the root of the problem. I cannot understand how a person can work for a tobacco company and still feel good about their life. But we still have the problem that the people who are suffering the most due to smoking are also the people who oppose any attempts on solving the problem.
If i were to set up a plan for dealing with smoking, mine would be mostly centered on complete bans on advertisements for smoking in any forms, removal of the automated cigarette sellboxes on the street, and a huge sin tax on tobacco in all forms. Possibly some regulations on who gets to legally sell tobacco, too. Good, free programs to help people quit smoking. Another important, but hard to do thing is to make smoking less cool for teenagers. That last part is already being done and sees some effects in reducing the overall amounts of smokers.
COVID-19 doesn't have this problem, because no one sees being sick as a major part of their identity, or is addicted to viruses.
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On March 25 2020 19:35 Simberto wrote:The major problem i see is that it is very hard to save people against their will. + Show Spoiler + I am not really talking about the attribution of the damage due to tobacco per se, but about the way to solve the problem.
The business model of tobacco is disgusting. It preys on people who are teenagers and thus stupid, and makes them addicted. I very much see tobacco companies as evil and do agree that they are at the root of the problem. I cannot understand how a person can work for a tobacco company and still feel good about their life. But we still have the problem that the people who are suffering the most due to smoking are also the people who oppose any attempts on solving the problem.
If i were to set up a plan for dealing with smoking, mine would be mostly centered on complete bans on advertisements for smoking in any forms, removal of the automated cigarette sellboxes on the street, and a huge sin tax on tobacco in all forms. Possibly some regulations on who gets to legally sell tobacco, too. Good, free programs to help people quit smoking. Another important, but hard to do thing is to make smoking less cool for teenagers. That last part is already being done and sees some effects in reducing the overall amounts of smokers. COVID-19 doesn't have this problem, because no one sees being sick as a major part of their identity, or is addicted to viruses.
The problem with the COVID-19 situation is that people very much do see their job and wealth as a foundational part of their identity (lots of people addicted to their jobs too) and the choice is between preserving that identity or risking it to stop the massive deaths from COVID-19.
So it becomes a question of how many people (really it is which people imo) have to die/suffer for it to be worth risking that part of oneself for people that are unable to adequately protect themselves from the people willing to keep shoveling them into the furnace to keep the train moving.
The whole history of capitalism is shoveling slaves, immigrants, third world residents and others into the furnace, COVID-19 has added a lot of working class whites in Europe and the US into the mix and I'm afraid working class white people don't realize how deeply ingrained sacrificing people to feed the economy already is, especially in the US.
Kinda feels like when Trump was rising and people thought the US couldn't possibly be that racist, sexist, stupid, etc. BIPoC have been telling folks for a long time that it most certainly is.
"The US couldn't possibly let a bunch of seniors die in a flailing attempt to save some money and re-elect Trump". Yeah, yeah we can.
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On March 25 2020 19:35 Simberto wrote:
If i were to set up a plan for dealing with smoking, mine would be mostly centered on complete bans on advertisements for smoking in any forms, removal of the automated cigarette sellboxes on the street, and a huge sin tax on tobacco in all forms. Possibly some regulations on who gets to legally sell tobacco, too. Good, free programs to help people quit smoking. Another important, but hard to do thing is to make smoking less cool for teenagers. That last part is already being done and sees some effects in reducing the overall amounts of smokers.
I feel like I'm advertising for Australia lately, but we've made committed effort to kick tobacco's ass for the last 20-30 years and seen reasonable success.
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/S2MgqwQ.png) I'll note that the US is actually doing much better than I'd expected, and the nordics' percentage change is higher than ours, to the surprise of no-one.
We've done pretty much everything you listed plus huge public advertising campaigns, banning it in nearly all public spaces, and requiring that in order to buy it you have to ask the cashier to go unlock a special cabinet and get it for you while giving you the judgiest stare possible.
Arguably the most important was plain packaging, removing all branding from the boxes and replacing them with this:
+ Show Spoiler +
Would highly recommend it.
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On March 25 2020 20:09 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 19:35 Simberto wrote:
If i were to set up a plan for dealing with smoking, mine would be mostly centered on complete bans on advertisements for smoking in any forms, removal of the automated cigarette sellboxes on the street, and a huge sin tax on tobacco in all forms. Possibly some regulations on who gets to legally sell tobacco, too. Good, free programs to help people quit smoking. Another important, but hard to do thing is to make smoking less cool for teenagers. That last part is already being done and sees some effects in reducing the overall amounts of smokers. I feel like I'm advertising for Australia lately, but we've made committed effort to kick tobacco's ass for the last 20-30 years and seen reasonable success. + Show Spoiler +I'll note that the US is actually doing much better than I'd expected, and the scandi's percentage change is higher than ours. We've done pretty much everything you listed plus huge public advertising campaigns, banning it in nearly all public spaces, and requiring that in order to buy it you have to ask the cashier to go unlock a special cabinet and get it for you while giving you the judgiest stare possible. Arguably the most important was plain packaging, removing all branding from the boxes and replacing them with this: + Show Spoiler +Would highly recommend it.
Nothing wrong with being proud of the stuff your country does well.
Sweden also seems to be doing well there, does anyone know what they are doing? What Germany is doing doesn't seem that impactful. Probably at least partially because we still inexplicably allow tobacco ads on billboards, but not on TV. I love the completely unbranded tobacco boxes.
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Norway28751 Posts
Yeah Norway has taken pretty much all those steps too, and seen a very stark reduction. In 1973 42% of norwegians smoked, in 2009 it was about 20%, in 2015 slightly above 10%. Combination of banning advertisements, public health campaigns, big tax increases, banning from bars and restaurants seem to be the primary reasons.
Looking here, we seem to have the lowest cigarette consumption per capita of any western country, at 552. (Which is about a third of Germany, 60% of Australia's, 55% of USA's numbers.)
'
edit: I think Sweden has taken much the same steps as Norway, although prices aren't equally high. both countries do also, to be fair, have a considerable amount of people who use 'snus' instead, and while this is also addictive and somewhat harmful, it's considerably less harmful than smoking cigarettes.
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That's interesting, I didn't realise our per capita was less impressive. I guess that makes sense, most of our measures are targeted at making smokers feel ostracised so there will be a certain percentage that just flip the bird and buy more.
Considering how heavily it's tied to SES I suspect a strong welfare state helps a lot as well.
Norway has an even bigger drop than Sweden, but I cut you off the graph because it was getting cluttered and Sweden was lower overall. Originals are here.
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On March 25 2020 20:24 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah Norway has taken pretty much all those steps too, and seen a very stark reduction. In 1973 42% of norwegians smoked, in 2009 it was about 20%, in 2015 slightly above 10%. Combination of banning advertisements, public health campaigns, big tax increases, banning from bars and restaurants seem to be the primary reasons. Looking here, we seem to have the lowest cigarette consumption per capita of any western country, at 552. (Which is about a third of Germany, 60% of Australia's, 55% of USA's numbers.) ' edit: I think Sweden has taken much the same steps as Norway, although prices aren't equally high. both countries do also, to be fair, have a considerable amount of people who use 'snus' instead, and while this is also addictive and somewhat harmful, it's considerably less harmful than smoking cigarettes.
That numbers page, though.
6000 cigarettes per person per year is 17 cigarettes per person per day, IF everyone smokes. At 5 minutes/cigarette, those are 1.5 hours a day spent smoking. And every person who doesn't smoke increases the amount of cigarettes other people need to smoke. What is going on in Andorra and Luxembourg?
If only half of the people smoke, the smokers need to spend 3 hours a day just to keep up with their quota.
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On March 25 2020 19:00 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 17:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 11:45 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Car accidents would be a much better example in this case. You're not going to stop people dying from smoking by not going to work. We're marginally past that point already for COVID deaths per day. Maybe once we're at 1000 instead of just 100. There is also a propagation issue with things. Most of the deaths are clustered in certain areas so you've got huge potions of the US that have no idea what is coming yet. Optimism bias is a problem, especially when it isn't your area that has the cases. On March 25 2020 11:48 BigFan wrote:On March 25 2020 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 25 2020 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm for not going back to work and being homeless if that means I don't have to suffer more idiocy from people like that. I have no problem whatsoever waiting this out in the wilderness of midwest north some place.
If the youth of today really wanted to send a message, not showing up for work until medical professionals deem it safe to do so, and foregoing careers to protect the people they say they care about, would send a pretty strong message to a lot of people.
While I am loathe to agree with GH, I have little faith in the intelligence of the American masses. Question is; what is people's number. 100/day 1000/day 2500/day? How many will be too many to just keep showing up to work and one of the reasons I mentioned before (or one I didn't) isn't enough to keep them showing up? Not sure we ever get to that number for many people, even with the random deaths accompanied by horror stories about how they could have been saved were it not for the hospitals being full from COVID-19. For some context/scale: Smoking kills more than 1,000 people a day (in the US) and none of us has probably ever thought about missing work to stop it. Smoking won't infect you like corona unless you are talking about getting sick from second hand smoke, but point is that it's not a similar example. I think I wasn't clear? The point was just that I don't think anyone is going to do anything but keep working as long as the people dying can be forced to fit the typical explanations. I mentioned. The question was how many people dying from CV-19 before people are willing risk their jobs and homes by refusing to keep working while vulnerable people are dying. I picked smoking because the connection between the profit and the death is very direct and been legally and scientifically established. Like I said, we're all used to thousands of people dying to keep the economy churning as it is, so long as they are relegated to far away people, impoverished people, etc. Frankly I don't think it is a number issue, 1k/day or 10k/day I think most Americans will just accept the idea that there's nothing they can do to stop the death and the best they can do is just keep going to work, vote for Biden/Trump in Nov, and hope things get better. I don't really like the smoking comparison on a bunch of levels. Smoking is mostly voluntary (though marketing does tend a bit towards mind control), and most importantly, the people dying of smoking are also the ones who would most oppose any attempts to fight smoking deaths, because they are smokers and don't like being told that they cannot smoke anymore. Smoking is a weird issue due to the addiction involved, but also due to the psychology of the smokers. That is not to absolve tobacco companies of their responsibility. (I am also pretty sure that smoking is on average a huge net negative for the economy, considering how much the cancer treatments cost). It is, however, a problem which is not easy to solve, because the people who are most impacted by it don't want it solved. But I generally agree with the scary sentiment that the US might be heading towards a huge catastrophe through badly handling this crisis. I, too wonder what the willingness of accepting human sacrifice on the altar of "the economy" are. I find this a very scary spin. Also, who is willing to take a bet that the people who push for "keep working" will never have the problem that there is no respirator available for them? I am pretty sure that the availability of respirator slots will be directly linked to the money you can afford to offer for one. One important thing you need to remember here is that all of the actions taken today will only effect the numbers in 1-2 weeks, when the people infected today start becoming symptomatic. And people are really bad at dealing with exponential growth apparently. Numbers are not huge today, but if they double every 5 days, they will be 8 times a large in 2 weeks (And that is something we cannot influence, because those people are already infected right now).
Smoking is also a poor example because smoking doesn't kill people daily.
Smoking causes a variety of medical conditions that, years down the line, kill many people daily if you add them up.
It's a very poor comparison.
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Norway28751 Posts
I do wonder if there's something wrong with Luxembourg and Andorra, tbh. They seem to be too big outliers for it to really make sense.
The numbers are taken from https://tobaccoatlas.org/topic/consumption/ , 'Number of cigarettes smoked per person per year: age ≥ 15, 2016; estimates are of legally-sold machine-made and roll-your-own cigarette consumption'.
Maybe it could be that both countries have a lot of daily commuters who come from neighboring countries who buy cigarettes there but who aren't living there? Tbh - this could also be a factor that makes Norway's numbers artificially low, because I know that Norwegians who smoke cigarettes do tend to buy from duty free shops while travelling and from Sweden if living reasonably close to the border- to an extent where I can easily picture our real number being ~20% higher than what is sold in Norway.
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Yeah, i think most people here agree that the US healthcare system is shit, and don't quite understand why the population is so opposed to getting a less shitty system.
Edit: Also, it is nice to talk about something that is not Covid19 once in a while, too.
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On March 25 2020 20:30 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2020 20:24 Liquid`Drone wrote:Yeah Norway has taken pretty much all those steps too, and seen a very stark reduction. In 1973 42% of norwegians smoked, in 2009 it was about 20%, in 2015 slightly above 10%. Combination of banning advertisements, public health campaigns, big tax increases, banning from bars and restaurants seem to be the primary reasons. Looking here, we seem to have the lowest cigarette consumption per capita of any western country, at 552. (Which is about a third of Germany, 60% of Australia's, 55% of USA's numbers.) ' edit: I think Sweden has taken much the same steps as Norway, although prices aren't equally high. both countries do also, to be fair, have a considerable amount of people who use 'snus' instead, and while this is also addictive and somewhat harmful, it's considerably less harmful than smoking cigarettes. That numbers page, though. 6000 cigarettes per person per year is 17 cigarettes per person per day, IF everyone smokes. At 5 minutes/cigarette, those are 1.5 hours a day spent smoking. And every person who doesn't smoke increases the amount of cigarettes other people need to smoke. What is going on in Andorra and Luxembourg? If only half of the people smoke, the smokers need to spend 3 hours a day just to keep up with their quota.
The wiki preempts that question in the last line of the intro. Presumably the numbers are based on sales, and Andorra and Luxemburg get a lot of people who come over to purchase cigarettes due to lower prices (and high per capita tourism).
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On March 25 2020 20:37 Simberto wrote:Yeah, i think most people here agree that the US healthcare system is shit, and don't quite understand why the population is so opposed to getting a less shitty system. Edit: Also, it is nice to talk about something that is not Covid19 once in a while, too.
I was saying it is because we are addicted to/dependent on keeping it. Our country has always sacrificed vulnerable populations for profit and balanced it by bribing enough of society with enough QoL changes for them to turn a blind eye or adopt a motto of learned helplessness about the suffering and death it takes to maintain it. *(EDIT Segregation and The New Deal is a historical example for which we still see the impacts (particularly around suburbs, property ownership, and the wealth attached to it)* .
We're also dependent on using that same population to police and shame/blame those beneath them on the socioeconomic ladder in exchange for petite bourgeoisie status. Think "tough on crime" Dems as an example
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/FfL7Cfo.jpg)
