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May 12, 2020 at 10:48 pm in reply to: Study Shows One Thing [masks] Could Cause 80% Decrease In COVID-19 Cases #114852
Billy_TParticipantAlso, for all of the people who want to say this is the same as the seasonal flu . . . a comparison I see all over the web . . . it’s obviously not. The seasonal flu never wipes out entire nursing homes, as it’s done in America and elsewhere. And when people get the flu, they don’t feel like an elephant is on their chest, and they rarely need ventilators.
Also, if we really did an apple to apple comparison on total deaths for Covid-19, we’d have a range, right now, between 240K and 560K. Roughly.
The folks saying we don’t shut things down for the seasonal flu should consider the above. If we use the same formula for Covid-19, we’d have to multiply known cases by roughly three to seven times to get that range. Roughly . . . and the seasonal flu totals are for an entire year. We’re still some nine months away from that for Covid.
May 12, 2020 at 10:42 pm in reply to: Study Shows One Thing [masks] Could Cause 80% Decrease In COVID-19 Cases #114851Billy_TParticipantA Dr Gupta — not the one who appears on CNN — said today that a recent Berkeley model shows a 12-fold reduction in transmission if 80-90% of the country wore masks.
12-fold.
Hindsight is 20/20, etc. . . . but I did say this back in March: If we had all been told to wear masks back in January, and there was a national buy-in, we wouldn’t have had all of these tragic deaths. As in, they were preventable. It’s just common sense. It’s not that the wearer gets fool-proof protection, though there is some, depending on the grade. It’s that he or she is largely prevented from spreading disease, by the mask. Again, common sense.
The N95s do both. They protect the wearer and the patient. But all of us should have been wearing the basics months ago.
And right off the bat, as I said here, I think we should retrofit all public buildings to be touch-free at any points of (human to surface) contact — to the degree technically feasible. Motion-sensors or voice activation everywhere. Doors, cupboards, elevators, bathrooms, desks, computers, etc. Especially bathrooms. We should automate our hygiene as much as we can.
Make it a habit. Every flu season. Donn the masks. Get our flu shots, wash our hands like crazy. Just expect this as the new normal. Yearly. And during any outbreak. Habit. Routine. No big deal.
If it saves even one life . . . why would anyone have a problem with it?
Billy_TParticipantA sidebar:
The other day — may have been yesterday; the days are a blur for me lately — Trump and some of his minions visited an N95 mask factory, but didn’t wear masks. And this, of course, will spur on more Americans to refuse to wear them, which will literally kill their neighbors and their friends.
(Or they’ll just kill them anyway, as happened recently to a Dollar General employee who had the nerve to ask a woman to wear a mask)
Will they stop to think beyond the Dog and Pony show and realize that they can’t do what Trump does, when it comes to this virus? As in, Trump and his cronies are tested hourly, and anyone who believes that factory wasn’t disinfected to the nth degree and beyond . . . well, I got some great beach front property in Afghanistan to sell them. No “social distancing” and no masks on the truly odious Trump and his crew. But they’ll always be protected.
99% of the nation can’t say that.
Billy_TParticipantWV,
Preaching to the choir, I know. Adding a bit to Saager’s comments: we’re in for Disaster Capitalism on a global scale. Not just in the way Naomi Klein wrote about about it, when individual catastrophes occur, like earthquakes and tsunamis. This is going to be the Third Gilded Age for global oligarchs, and we’re still in the Second one. Unless We the People fight back, our already record levels of inequality will go into warp drive . . . and perhaps my darkest thought, which I try to chase away (but can’t) . . . is this:
The already poor, and the newly poor, will be the new sacrificial lambs. They’ll be given their starkest choice since the Great Depression, but with an additional burden that literally could kill them. It won’t just be obscenely unjust exploitation and appropriation of their labor. Their labor will be done on the front lines of a global pandemic, while the rich stay safe and sound in their pristine mansions. They can’t “work from home.” They have to go into work daily, on the front lines. And it’s going to kill record numbers of them.
Btw, looks like the Dems did try for something better. But it got crushed. Don’t know why, or how hard they tried, etc. etc.
Billy_TParticipantI’m good with the Akers pick. Though I would have been disappointed if Jonathan Taylor had been on the board and they chose Akers instead.
I’m still on the fence about Van Jefferson, though. I think he’s going to be a really, really good receiver for the Rams. It’s just that I think they should have addressed other positions of need at that point. He was kinda sorta a “luxury” pick in a way.
IMO, a starting three of Woods, Kupp and Reynolds was good enough. Plus, it was such a deep receiver draft . . . they actually found some solid prospects after it ended. I would have gone for the best available center, guard or tackle at that point, or best available edge, ILB, safety or corner.
Not “upset” with the Jefferson pick. I just think the Rams had bigger needs elsewhere.
Well one argument is that they need a pro-ready 4th receiver. For a coupla reasons. First, if you play 3 receivers, you need a 4th or you are one injury away from playing 2 receivers. Second, both Reynolds and Kupp are FAs next year, and they certainly won’t keep both. Obviously it’s an advantage to get next year’s 3rd receiver now, in advance.
Either way, the Rams lost 2 offensive starters, Gurly and Cooks, and with an offense-oriented head coach, the priority was always going to be to replace those 2 losses.
And as long as I am discussing el draft, with the Burgess pick, the Rams may now have the best and deepest secondary they have had the entire time I’ve followed them (I started in the late 70s). The “Snead plus both head coaches” Rams have a brilliant record drafting and finding DBs. I say “finding” because it’s not just draft picks, it’s UDFAs and “ronin” cast-off types too.
….
I can see the injury and the FA rationales. They make sense. And I can also see the rationale that they’ve already drafted for those other positions I mentioned, in previous drafts. I get that. Also, it’s always a crap shoot anyway, so no guarantees a pick for “need” works out any better than a Van Jefferson, etc. Could be worse and so on.
Just sayin’ . . . along the lines of our exchange the other day about those great Rams lines of the past . . . I want them to build that kinda thing again. It doesn’t have to be through the draft, of course. But that is one of the best ways, especially under the Cap. I know you know this stuff . . . rookie contract advantages, etc. etc. But, that’s what I’d be thinking about on Draft Day.
Billy_TParticipantGlad to see he’s gone.
Lack is the guy who transformed MSNBC from a (at least temporarily) moderately “liberal” network to a haven for Republican Never Trumpers. He fired most of the moderate liberals onboard and replaced them with serious conservatives who just happened to (rightly) despise Trump.
I mentioned earlier — can’t remember when, exactly — that it was going to be interesting where they’d go as a network after Trump departs the scene.
Without Trump, what good are those Republican Never Trumpers to an audience that trends more left of center? Would they tune in to watch the Nicole Wallaces, the Joe Scarboroughs, the Steve Schmidts and Bill Kristols talk about their (right-wing) social and economic views, sans Trump?
And, of course, the parent company, Comcast, has long been quite “conservative.”
In the long run, it matters little, one way or another. Perhaps it matters not a whit. But cuz I want some distraction from a sense of overall doom and gloom, I think about stuff like that now and then.
Billy_TParticipantIt would be surreal to watch an NFL game without fans in the stadium. It would be a real disadvantage to teams that seem to rely on crowd noise like the Seahawks and Saints, so I’m all for it.
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And it would be an advantage to teams like the Rams who have…ya know…LA fans.
w
vAgree with both of youze. Last year was my first season in a long time without the NFL Ticket, so I didn’t watch that many “live” broadcasts. Had NFL Pass, but am not sure how closely it aligns with live sound, etc. But it still seemed, as usual, that Rams Home Games were basically a split when it came to fan support. And, at times, it sounded like the Rams were the Away Team.
Since the age of nine, I’ve been rooting for them almost entirely from my house. If only they could factor us “nomads” into the sound system at the stadium!!
Billy_TParticipantCan they just do what they should have done in the last Labor Agreement?
Shorten the regular season to 14 games, eliminate the pre-season entirely, keep the old playoff format, and re-do the divisions along geographical lines?
Oh, and then keep that forevah?
Billy_TParticipantI’m good with the Akers pick. Though I would have been disappointed if Jonathan Taylor had been on the board and they chose Akers instead.
I’m still on the fence about Van Jefferson, though. I think he’s going to be a really, really good receiver for the Rams. It’s just that I think they should have addressed other positions of need at that point. He was kinda sorta a “luxury” pick in a way.
IMO, a starting three of Woods, Kupp and Reynolds was good enough. Plus, it was such a deep receiver draft . . . they actually found some solid prospects after it ended. I would have gone for the best available center, guard or tackle at that point, or best available edge, ILB, safety or corner.
Not “upset” with the Jefferson pick. I just think the Rams had bigger needs elsewhere.
Billy_TParticipantI should do that, WV.
Lately, I’ve been borrowing e-books from the library via the Libby App. Never thought I’d read e-books, evah, cuz, well, I’m kind of a book snob. But that’s what I’m doing now.
So haven’t been writing stuff down before I send them back.
Recently finished a Man Booker prize winner, The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, which had a few sections I could have posted. Strange novel, in a way. Didn’t think much of it until near the end, and then, bam!! A coupla gut punch/emotional wallops, which were twists as well. I think Barnes made the prose “average” on purpose, to make his narrator seem “average.” But the revelations were extra-ordinary . . . reflections on the past and how we get so much of that wrong . . . not only in the midst of that time, but in our memories (much later) of that time . . .
I also have a feeling that our current age is the best time to read a novel like that. I don’t know if I would have “got it” had I been younger.
Reading Amsterdam now, by Ian McEwan. Will try to remember to note great sections. Should have done that for the bio of Montaigne, How to Live, by Sarah Bakewell . . . another recent read, and The Weil Conjectures, by Karen Olsson. That latter is a dual bio of Simone and Andre Weil. Excellent books. Fascinating, brilliant siblings. Simone died much, much too young, tragically, indirectly via her own actions. To radically oversimplify matters, she died out of profound empathy for the suffering of others.
May 2, 2020 at 9:54 pm in reply to: Great article on the massive difference between Covid-19 counts and the flu. #114535Billy_TParticipant(Breaking this up a bit to make it easier to deal with . . . for those who can’t get to the article online)
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May 2, 2020 at 8:51 pm in reply to: Great article on the massive difference between Covid-19 counts and the flu. #114538Billy_TParticipantTrying for my own summary of the above:
It looks as though in a typical year, flu-death (guesstimate) totals, as given, are anywhere from three to seven times greater than actual confirmed cases.
If we were to do the same for Covid-19 deaths — and we’re only two months into this, roughly — an apples to apples total would be roughly 210K to 500K. Again, after just two months.
One death is one death too many. But this just isn’t even in the same universe as the seasonal flu.
May 2, 2020 at 8:45 pm in reply to: Great article on the massive difference between Covid-19 counts and the flu. #114537Billy_TParticipantMore from the article:
Using an apples-to-apples comparison, we can say that the coronavirus and the disease it causes, covid-19, have already killed eight times as many people as the flu. By the time we get data for the entire season, the difference appears likely to be at least tenfold, or a full order of magnitude.
The coronavirus, Faust writes, “is not anything like the flu: It is much, much worse.”
One of the most challenging things about this pandemic is making sense of the profound uncertainty surrounding the many quantities that might appear, at first glance, to be rock solid. On the surface, comparing flu and coronavirus deaths seems like a simple proposition: dig up the official numbers of both and see which is greater.
But that effort gets complicated as soon as you realize that flu mortality is not reported as a tally but as an estimated range, which is far different from the individual counts, based on testing and diagnoses, used for covid-19. And because we can’t test and diagnose everyone, those covid-19 deaths are probably undercounted as well. Soon, what once appeared to be a simple mathematical exercise turns into a mess of algorithms, estimates and uncertainty.
People encountering that uncertainty for the first time, as many of us are during this pandemic, are likely to react in one of two ways. Some cherry-pick a single number that comports with their biases, creating an artificial certainty to score political points or avoid upsetting their preconceptions. That’s what the politicians and talking heads using faulty flu data to downplay the outbreak are doing. Others throw their hands up and declare the truth to be unknowable, indulging in the cynicism that believes you can “make statistics say whatever you want.”
But rather than try to make sense of this uncertainty ourselves, there’s a third option: turning to the experts who’ve devoted their entire careers to these questions. We can listen to the epidemiologists and physicians, people like Faust and his colleagues, who are trained to draw the best possible conclusions out of uncertain data, understanding that those conclusions may have to be updated as new information comes in.
And while the experts might not all agree on some points, something like a critical consensus emerges if we listen to enough of them. Then, that consensus can be used to inform policy that helps save lives and protect the economy.
May 2, 2020 at 8:39 pm in reply to: Great article on the massive difference between Covid-19 counts and the flu. #114534Billy_TParticipantFrom the article:
May 2, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Months into the coronavirus pandemic, some politicians and pundits continue to promote ham-handed comparisons between covid-19 and the seasonal flu to score political points.
Though there are many ways to debunk this fundamentally flawed comparison, one of the clearest was put forth this week by Jeremy Samuel Faust, an emergency room physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School.
As Faust describes it, the issue boils down to this: The annual flu mortality figures published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are estimates produced by plugging laboratory-confirmed deaths into a mathematical model that attempts to correct for undercounting. Covid-19 death figures represent a literal count of people who have either tested positive for the virus or whose diagnosis was based on meeting certain clinical and epidemiological criteria.
Such a comparison is of the apples to oranges variety, Faust writes, as the former are “inflated statistical estimates” and the latter are “actual numbers.”
To get a more accurate comparison, one must start with the number of directly confirmed flu deaths, which the CDC tracks on an annual basis. In the past seven flu seasons, going back to 2013, that tally fluctuated between 3,448 and 15,620 deaths.
Note that these numbers are very different from the CDC’s final official flu death estimates. For 2018-2019, for instance, the 7,172 confirmed flu deaths translated to a final estimate of between 26,339 and 52,664 deaths. Again, that’s because the CDC plugs the confirmed deaths into a model that attempts to adjust for what many epidemiologists believe is a severe undercount.
Billy_TParticipantI know that testing isn’t playing the game on Sundays. The NFL is littered with examples of great athletes (and/or great testers) who just never developed into good football players.
That said, it’s interesting to compare Hopkins — and I liked the pick — to another recent draftee, Mike Gesicki . . .
If a mad-scientist could create a TE in a lab, I’d bet he or she would want the end result to be this guy:
Height Weight Arm length Hand size 40-yard dash 10-yard split 20-yard split 20-yard shuttle Three-cone drill Vertical jump Broad jump Bench press
6 ft 5 1⁄2 in
(1.97 m) 247 lb
(112 kg) 34 1⁄8 in
(0.87 m) 10 1⁄4 in
(0.26 m) 4.54 s 1.56 s 2.65 s 4.10 s 6.76 s 41 1⁄2 in
(1.05 m) 10 ft 9 in
(3.28 m) 22 repsBilly_TParticipantIf memory serves — and it often doesn’t these days — back in the day the Rams generally had several Pro Bowl linemen at the same time. I can’t remember a season in the late 60s, 70s or 80s when they didn’t have at least one . . . and it seemed like the norm was three or four.
As it happens I looked that up once, long ago.
Here;s the details. All I had to do was search, cut, and paste.
***
There is at least one Ram lineman in the pro bowl every single season from 1967 until 1990. In fact the 68 line had 4 pro bowlers, as did the 78 line and the 85 line.
That’s 12 different pro-bowl lineman across <span class=”d4pbbc-font-color” style=”color: red”>24</span> <span class=”d4pbbc-font-color” style=”color: blue”>consecutive</span> years.
Doug Smith went to 6 pro bowls starting in 84, continuing through 89. Dennis Harrah went to pro bowls in 78-80 and 85-87. Jackie Slater went to pro bowls in 83 & 85-90. After the 79 superbowl, John Madden said Slater’s performance in that game was the finest he had ever seen from a right tackle. Kent Hill went to pro bowls in 80 and 82-85. Newberry had 2 pro bowls–88 & 89. Irv Pankey never went to a pro bowl. Doug France went to pro bowls from 77-78. Rich Saul went to pro bowls from 76-81. Charlie Cowan went to pro bowls from 68-70. Tom Mack went to pro bowls from 67-75 and 77-78. Tom Carollo went to 1 pro bowl (68). Same with Joe Scibelli (68). Bob Brown had 2 pro bowls as a Ram (69-70).
Thanks, ZN.
That makes me feel a lot better on several levels.
;>)
Pretty amazing, isn’t it? The team-building they did back then. The ability to find and/or mold so much talent! In my not so humble opinion, that’s the way to do it, too. O-line and D-line first, and then outward from there.
Billy_TParticipantIf memory serves — and it often doesn’t these days — back in the day the Rams generally had several Pro Bowl linemen at the same time. I can’t remember a season in the late 60s, 70s or 80s when they didn’t have at least one . . . and it seemed like the norm was three or four.
Dickerson was amazing. Loved watching him play the game. But, yeah, his line was superb, and the Rams haven’t had that same scenario for a while.
Also, Dickerson seemed not to like the gym all that much. I often wonder how much better he could have been if he had been a gym rat. I’m guessing he would be today, plus the available computer/kinetic/dieting stuff, given the different norms in place in this era. He was HOF without it. But he may have set the record for career totals if he had added the weight training, etc. etc.
Billy_TParticipantAkers and Jefferson offer another interesting aspect/advantage/difference, etc. . . . at least to me:
All things being equal, it’s better to draft younger players (IMO) — and 21 is pretty much as young as they get. Akers will be 21 (like Gurley) as a rook. Jefferson will be 24 (like Kupp).
All kinds of other factors kick in, obviously. Injuries, playing time, maturity, ability to pick up plays, schemes, etc. etc. But, on balance, if I’m a coach/scout/trainer, I’d rather have a younger player to work with, coach up, build up, etc. Akers is young enough that he hasn’t even fully grown into his body. He’s a likely candidate for “natural” weight gain. Jefferson? Not so much. He’s likely where he’s supposed to be, sans additional weight training. Akers also likely has more years of peak physical performance ahead of him than Jefferson. But the latter’s age may well be seen (by the Rams) as a major advantage. I think they drafted Kupp in large part because they saw him as already mature, NFL-ready, and their passing game needs that. They may not think the same thing is as necessary for their running game.
Thoughts?
Billy_TParticipanthttps://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241784446.html
Florida isn’t reporting Covid-19 data any longer, apparently, and my guess is that few states are giving us the correct totals, even when they do make their reports public. Two major reasons for this (IMO):
1. They aren’t doing postmortems of people outside hospitals, for the most part. So even if they wanted to tell us the absolute truth, they don’t have the data.
2. There is little incentive for those in charge to be absolutely honest — in the private or the public sector. The higher the totals, the worse they look. The more they look like failures, etc. Dangerous failures.
This is why it strikes me as bizarre, not to mention dangerous, when the right pushes the idea that the numbers are over-hyped. And I’m beginning to see that go somewhat mainstream. Caught a bit of Smerconish (CNN) this morning, which even under the best of circumstances is really bad TV. He was hyping the overhype garbage too, via a guest from the Hoover Institute at Stanford (a decidedly right-wing think-tank).
Took me all of two seconds to see the logical mistakes being made. Basically, highlighting studies that tell us that infection rates are much higher than we’ve been told — which is true — without addressing the undercount for deaths. As in, concluding that the mortality rate is far lower than we’ve been told, cuz the actual infection numbers are much higher.
Again, unless (at least) the same scrutiny is paid to the death totals, such a deduction is patently absurd — and dangerous. And it still doesn’t tell us we shouldn’t “social distance” or take serious preventative measures. A higher infection rate actually tells us we’re not doing enough of that.
Billy_TParticipantI like her take on things, WV. Thanks for posting that. I think she especially gets the difference between progressives and leftists.
Good stuff.
She’s “one to watch.” Hope she moves beyond the NY state legislature quickly, though, and becomes a national figure.
In general, I like the way Cuomo has handled the pandemic, at least watching this from the outside . . . but he’s got a reputation for center-right governance, especially on economic issues . . . and has never been seen as a friend to progressives within the state, much less leftists. As in, I’m guessing he’s blocked Salazar’s attempts at much needed radical change, whenever possible. From what I’ve read, Cuomo’s far more likely to side with Republican state reps, if he thinks this will hamstring actual left of center agendas. His way of “balancing” things (as he sees them), perhaps.
Tis hard enough being a leftist in any state. But in Republican-led, or Republican-Lite led . . . well, it’s gotta be hell.
(To make this all the more hopeless sounding? New York is likely one of our most “left-leaning” states. That its Powers That Be structure is mostly center-right . . . depresses the shiite out of me)
Billy_TParticipantI try to steer clear of debates with right wing Libertarians now. They live in a world of complete fiction. I really don’t know of a single principle of theirs that is actually true. Their premises are all wrong – demonstrably wrong – and consequently every policy they support on the basis of those premises is absurd. And there is just no talking to them. They think Ayn Rand is the Enlightened One, and they are holders of the sacred economic texts. They are out of their minds.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
[Kung Fu Monkey — Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
― John Rogers
That is a great quote. It has the ring of something older, though, doesn’t it? Like wisdom from at least a few decades prior to the aughts.
Preaching to the choir, but the thing right-libertarians so obviously miss is this:
“Tyranny” exists in the private sector too. They seem to think it can only happen via Gubmint.
I lean strongly left-anarchist. Aspirationally, that’s where I am. I want as close to no hierarchy, anywhere, in any form, as would be humanly possible. No centers of power, at all. None. Zip. Zilch. Any form of “power” would have to be (legally, constitutionally) temporary, on loan from We the People, leased, provisional, radically dispersed, radically decentralized, etc. etc.
What we leftists know — and to me, this is beyond self-evident — is that concentrated power in the private sector is every bit as dangerous and “tyrannical” as concentrated power via Gubmint. Under the capitalist system, of course, it IS the gubmint. The Gubmint does its bidding, etc. etc.
In short, right-libertarians are either dupes of Corporate America/billionaires or they knowingly egg on those dupes. Which means they really don’t care about “tyranny” at all. They just want to be tyrants themselves, or on the side of tyrants.
May 1, 2020 at 5:58 pm in reply to: armed protestors i Michigan’s State House — & sources of lockdown protest #114473Billy_TParticipantCanada banned military-grade weapons last week — finally. If we were sane — and we’re not — we would have done that generations ago.
Trump does appalling things several times a day, but his calling for the “liberation” of several states recently was among his worst. He included “2nd amendment” scare tactics when he called for the liberation of Virginia. He’s actually egged on gun-toting morons who will end up killing innocent people, either via those guns or Covid-19.
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Speaking just for myself: I detested Trump prior to his election, and was absolutely baffled that he had any supporters at all. Could only think of three possible rationales, give or take:
1. Sheer ignorance of his past, his long history of criminality (including Mob ties), sexual assaults, endless/serial lying, grifting, self-dealing, thuggish intimidation of others, his seven bankruptcies, etc. etc.
2. White supremacist leanings or outright embrace of that ideology
3. Vicarious enjoyment of another’s repeated cruelty
Now that we’ve all seen him in action, as president?
I can’t give anyone a pass for ignorance at this point. So it’s down to #2 or #3 for me.
In short, if someone is a supporter of Trump, now, in 2020, that’s a dead-on deal-breaker for me. No excuses. I have nothing but contempt for them and want nothing to do with them. Life is far too short.
Of course, the power to actually harm others is key to the level of that contempt. But it’s a matter of degrees, regardless.
Billy_TParticipantThe human population has doubled since 1970, the period of time over which wildlife populations have been reduced by half. It took humans 200,000 yrs to reach a population of 1 billion, and then only 200 years to reach nearly 8 billion. The rate of growth is beginning to slow, and eventually we’ll reach a point where births <= deaths, but living on this planet will be pretty miserable for everyone but a select few by then. Different modes of production would impact the environment to different degrees, and the less damaging ones must be pursued, but wherever humans go, we change the environment. It’s unavoidable. That was true even when our population was limited to small bands of hunter gatherers. If we’re going to really stop the continued degradation of the environment, we need to halt population growth.
Nittany, I didn’t know the exact numbers regarding population change. Had a rough idea. But didn’t know the escalation was that pronounced. Thanks for posting that. As in, I sit corrected.
How about we do both? Stop growing the population and replace capitalism with economic democracy, in the most eco-friendly mode possible?
Better yet, find a way to reverse some population gains over time, as we shift to that sustainable economic system as rapidly as possible. To the degree possible. Democratically. Non-violently, etc. Minimizing disruption as much as we can.
I won’t live long enough to see any of that. But Millennials and Gen Z better start the process, and soon. From the books I’ve been reading on Climate Change and the Sixth Extinction, etc. etc. . . . if they don’t, Homo Sapiens won’t make it all that far into the 22nd century.
April 30, 2020 at 12:18 pm in reply to: America’s abject ignorance is alive and well on football boards. #114428Billy_TParticipantSorry for the rant last night Billy. Your post addressed the football board and I read what I believe you read-except I read all the posts, unfortunately. For all the reasons I posted above it is my “opinion” that if you took all die hard football fans you would find a significantly higher
- percentage
of “right wing” conservatives than basketball, baseball, or any other sport for that matter. Those people will take a seemingly apolitical issue-a virus-and use it as a vehicle to express a political point of view. And of course they will vote for the idiot child in the WH. Fauci says stuff they don’t want to hear and furthermore is in contrast with what their hero in the WH says. Their thinking is akin to recency bias. If they don’t feel sick and they don’t see sickness around them then COVID-19 ain’t such a big deal-so lets get our football back so we can act like real men not like weak sickly people stuck in a quarantine. To hell with Fauci-who the hell does he think he is anyway. It’s all rather easy to understand.
No worries, W.
To me, having different visions of how the world should be is one thing. Left, right, center . . . Makes the world go round, etc. etc.
But actively promoting dangerous misinformation (in the middle of a pandemic) is an entirely different matter. It literally kills. That’s not hyperbole. And that’s what’s happening on that other board right now.
It pisses me off to no end when I think about it, which I’m trying not to do, but that’s difficult these days.
Billy_TParticipantwv’s video
Overpopulation.
The simple fact is there’s way too many people. There are over 7 billion hairless monkeys flinging feces out there today, and there’ll be 10.5 billion by 2050.
Just about every environmental issue we are dealing with including climate change is rooted in overpopulation, but that isn’t being talked about any more as the video points out.
Until we face that issue, all the environmental ‘fixes’ being discussed now are only addressing the symptoms, not the cause, and are therefore inherently limited and ultimately doomed to fail.
I don’t know, Nittany. We’ve had billions of humans on the planet for some time now. But in just the last 25 years, we doubled the amount of emissions in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. And just since 1970, we’ve wiped out half of all wildlife.
If overpopulation were the reason, and not our particular mode of production, wouldn’t there be a more gradual trend of destruction and pollution? Wouldn’t it track population growth more closely?
April 30, 2020 at 9:31 am in reply to: America’s abject ignorance is alive and well on football boards. #114412Billy_TParticipantIn roughly two months time, we’ve lost, via the “official count,” some 61,000 Americans. That number is most certainly grotesquely under-counted. Why? Most of the people in charge of the count have very little incentive to give the correct count, even if that were possible, which it isn’t. The higher the count, the more it hurts the political prospects of those in charge, and these counts almost never include people who die outside of hospitals.
In the private sector, the same thing applies. People are fools if they think Senior Care homes and private prisons, for instance, are telling us the truth, and that’s just two of the most obvious industries impacted. Plus, America isn’t doing postmortems for everyone, obviously. They can’t, even if they wanted to. We generally find out about scattered examples of the undercount in gruesome reports of bodies discovered in abandoned trucks, as was the case this morning in New York.
We have 4% of the world’s population, but a third of the “official” infections, at a bit over a million. Those are wildly undercounted too, as has been proven by antibody testing in New York and California. In both those cases, roughly 20% of the surveyed populations had the antibodies, which means, with near-certainty they had Covid-19. If 20% of NYC has already been infected, that’s roughly 2 million people. It’s likely, of course, that all metro areas have a much higher rate of infection than less densely populated areas, but since most of America lives in those metro areas, we’re still likely close to the 20% figure after just two months. Go “conservative,” make it just 10%, and we’re at roughly 32 million.
The political right is literally putting tens of millions of Americans at risk of death, pushing its “it’s all a hoax,” or “workers should gladly die for capitalism!!” agenda. I have always despised right-wing ideology, for a thousand and one reasons. This latest iteration of their deadly ideology sets a new record for toxic insanity.
Billy_TParticipantIMNSHO, Ball is an obvious example of this, working as she does for a Trump-supporting, right-wing political power-broker (owner of The Hill). Given that she spends pretty much all of her time tearing into the Dems for being “corporatists,” and barely says a word about the far, far worse GOP and their corporatists, this leftist no longer cares what she has to say. Nor do I care any more what others like her say . . . . the Mates, the Greenwalds, the Dores, et al. .
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Well, as you know, I agree with the Mates, Greenwalds, Dores, and Krystal Balls, so we just disagree. At least no-one can call leftist ‘monolithic’ 🙂
The film is an awful ‘film.’ I agree with the film’s message, but its just a disjointed, amateurish film. And whats weird is the film points to the problem of Corporate-Capitalism. It points right at it. But it never comes out and names the problem. The C Word is absent. I thought that was a strange choice by the director.
Also, the point the film is making is pretty mundane for Leftists. I mean, we constantly talk about how the system commodifies EVERYTHING, and how the system domesticates-tames all serious dissent. It turns Che into a T-shirt, in other words. So naturally it does that to the ‘Environmental Movement.’ I mean, why wouldnt it. Duh.
So yeah, a lot of ‘environmentalism’ is really just corporate-bullshit dressed in Green.
w
vWV,
As always, I appreciate your civility, your take, your great points. Che and the T-Shirt is perfect. Kinda says it all, right?
And thanks for your own review . . . I sincerely respect that and wish you’d post more.
If Moore’s film is along these lines . . . then its message is needed:
Billy_TParticipantZN,
Looks like I got stuck in purgatorio again. Included a link to a truthout article about green capitalism, the god that failed. So it wouldn’t post. Thought it was relevant.
And I said some nice things about WV. Perhaps too sentimental? Is there a censor for mushy stuff?
;>)
Billy_TParticipantAn asterisk to my asterisk. Tried to fit it in on the edit but it failed:
Emma Goldman too. And not just cuz of this quote:
If there won’t be dancing at the revolution, I’m not coming.
We need to take the whole damn thing down, non-violently, democratically. Capitalism — globalist or nationalist. The whole enchilada. Left, center or right versions. Doesn’t matter. All of it needs to go. I just don’t see the point in narrowing things down to food fights within one party, and that’s too much of what niche media gives us, from what I’ve seen. They see fixated on that, even in the midst of the Trump horror show.
It all has to go, to be replaced with economic democracy, in real terms. The real thing. Not theoretical.
Billy_TParticipantAgain, won’t judge it until I see it. But I can judge some of the judging without seeing that. Please don’t judge me too harshly for my own hypocrisies. At least I cop to ’em.
;>)
IMO, we leftists have a tendency to eat our own (or those relatively nearby), and it really, when all is said and done, aids and abets the enemy. They (righties) love it. Which is why they often fund it, via . . . wait for it . . . their corporations. IMNSHO, Ball is an obvious example of this, working as she does for a Trump-supporting, right-wing political power-broker (owner of The Hill). Given that she spends pretty much all of her time tearing into the Dems for being “corporatists,” and barely says a word about the far, far worse GOP and their corporatists, this leftist no longer cares what she has to say. Nor do I care any more what others like her say . . . . the Mates, the Greenwalds, the Dores, et al.
My POV basically boils down to this: Calling someone a “corporatist” when that’s all there is in DC, with rare, rare exception, is pretty much a waste of time. And when all of the criticism is directed at just one wing of the Money Party, it actually skews reality to a potentially dangerous degree. OTOH, a critique of the entire system, its movers and shakers, its power dynamic, its effects . . . which is something that used to be what leftists did best . . . that’s truly necessary, especially now.
In short, if the choice is between an AOC* and a Clinton, give me a 100 AOCs and no Clintons. But if the choice is between a Clinton and a McConnell — which is what we’re usually stuck with — give me a 100 Clintons and no McConnells. Aspirational versus existing. We leftists need to do a much, much better job dealing with the given, so we can get to the aspirational.
*I’d go further than AOC, of course. Would prefer something like a 21st century Kropotkin, if I had my druthers.
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