Absolutely. I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world. They will never even know what was taken from them.
I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.
I don't understand why people still blame the lockdowns. When the lockdowns started, it was unknown how dangerous Covid actually was. It could have killed 20%, or reduced lifespan by 30%, or something. Nobody knew. It takes 20/20 hindsight to blame lockdowns for what was a generational catastrophe. It's like blaming shelter in place requirements instead of the bombing of the reich.
To be fair to the parent, despite what they think about the lockdown decision now, it says nothing about whether or not they thought it made any sense then.
It's perferctly possible to believe that the lockdown was a reasonable decision with what was known then, and still believe that the lockdown is to blame for certain unavoidable consequences down the line. Again, the parent might not believe this as well but their point can be taken separately fron your complaint.
Since several generations of Americans are not familiar with a drawn out sustained attack on acceptable cost-of-living parameters, the observation that "people are more awful" should be familiar to many people who lived and endured in places that have had decades-long deteriorating econonmies. If the economy or subjective economic perception had not tanked post-lockdown, the awfulness of people would be much less pronounced I believe.
Nobody knew, that is true. But not everyone was in agreement, it only seemed that way because dissenting voices were silenced. Do some research and you’ll find that there were plenty of people predicting bad outcomes from the lockdowns. I was not one of them, but they exist for sure.
From day one, I was hearing about suggestions of social distancing and NK1 masks would do 80% of the work for you. It took waaay to long for that information to disseminate.
My standing statement is: The idea of a pandemic was so well established that Hollywood made multiple bad movies about the idea.
The other key piece that gets magically brushed aside is that there was a pandemic during the Obama administration. Obviously not as severe, but nonetheless a warning.
Yet we were somehow unprepared just a few years later? And those same incompetent entities and experts were the source of our inflation understanding and response to COVID?
I think not. Very little passes the smell test. It didn’t them. It’s even less so - if you look & listen - now.
What you’re failing to acknowledge is the public was right. It was “leadership” across the board that failed. It’s been documented and continues to be documented. It’s simply not advertised, else the lack of trust gap would widen and be more than justified.
The failure(s), we are worse off for it at this point. The handling of the COVID 19 pandemic was as misguided and anemic as Bush’s “Keep shopping” (i.e., his advise to the country in response to 9/11).
Blaming those without power for the shortcomings of those with power is revisionist history bullshit. T
It’s not anti-social, it is pro-social. To stand for the right of people to live freely, for children to get an education and to socialize with their peers, for businesses to serve their communities and provide jobs for people to feed their families.
You are the anti-social one, who would condemn entire populations to house arrest based upon dubious-at-best ideas. In my city, even outdoor gatherings of more than five people were prohibited. It was so absurd as to be almost comical, if the consequences weren’t so tragic.
Are you truly blind to the damage wrought by shutting down the entire world at the flip of a switch? Children are in crisis, inflation skyrocketed, people cannot afford to live, buy homes, start a family, get an education… and you have the nerve to call me anti-social?
And what did it accomplish? Did it actually save lives? I think not, especially when compared to targeted protection and support of vulnerable populations (elderly, immune compromised) rather than a blanket shutdown of the entire country.
Once this issue became a red vs blue thing, everyone collectively turned their brains off. The above commenter is a prime example.
Basic logic here: the things you’re defending only work when the people who make them possible aren’t getting knocked out by uncontrolled spread.
Kids don’t get an education if teachers and staff are sick. Businesses don’t serve communities if workers are out in waves. Families don’t stay afloat if workplaces shut down because too many people are ill.
You can absolutely critique the execution and the results. Plenty of it was messy. But pretending that doing nothing was somehow pro social ignores the obvious: collective safety is what keeps all those freedoms functioning in the first place.
Early on , it was clear the rate of covid complications did not merit the lockdowns. I was an early supporter of lockdowns and an even earlier supporter of ending them. It was a cold... Can we say that now? A relatively moderate flu like cold for the vast majority of people. It did not merit shutting down or slowing global trade
Early on, there wasn't any lockdown, so instead we could see whole villages and regions being in emergency state, with the military handling the logistics of moving coffins around, because there were so many. The lockdowns after 2 years were avoidable, but the first one absolutely wasn't. I'm quite content with my governments actions in the beginning and I'm not alone, the governmental approval during the first lockdown absolutely skyrocketed (>10%).
When did I say that doing nothing was the correct course of action? Oh wait - I didn’t! But it sure makes a convenient straw man for you to argue against since you are incapable of addressing my actual position, which I contrasted hamfisted lockdowns against: the targeted protection of vulnerable groups such as the elderly or immune compromised people, rather than the blanket shutdown of the entire country.
> Kids don’t get an education if teachers and staff are sick. Businesses don’t serve communities if workers are out in waves. Families don’t stay afloat if workplaces shut down because too many people are ill.
Do you not realize that the virus is still out there in the world? And that we’re not locking down? And hardly anyone is wearing a mask, social distancing, or getting vaccine boosters?
And yet, somehow, we don’t have piles of dead bodies being cremated in the streets by FEMA workers in hazmat suits. Curious, isn’t it?
It couldn’t be any more obvious that the lockdowns were totally unnecessary and a giant mistake. Just take a look around.
It almost seems like the truly dangerous epidemic is of people forming such strong attachments to emotional dogma and propaganda that they are unable to perform kindergarten-level logical deduction.
Being against lockdowns from day 1 wasn’t some principled pro social stance. Day 1 was when we had no vaccines, no immunity, no treatments, and hospitals were already buckling from basic spread. Opposing mitigation at that moment wasn’t foresight, it was ignoring exponential math.
You can absolutely argue the execution was messy and the fallout was real. Lots of people agree with that. But holding up early blanket opposition as if it was the reasonable position is just rewriting the conditions we were actually in. The only reason things look manageable now is because immunity and treatments exist. Day 1 without them didn’t magically support the world staying fully open.
> Being against lockdowns from day 1 wasn’t some principled pro social stance.
As much as people like you want to position yourselves as objective arbiters of morality, you’re anything but.
> we had no vaccines, no immunity, no treatments
So? Covid is simply not that dangerous for otherwise healthy people.
> hospitals were already buckling from basic spread
That speaks more to how brittle, under-resourced, and plagued by perverse incentives our healthcare system is, than to the threat posed by covid.
> But holding up early blanket opposition as if it was the reasonable position is just rewriting the conditions we were actually in.
You’re saying that opposing the total annihilation of societal norms, behaviors, and patterns is… unreasonable? Do you hear yourself? It’s so painfully obvious that your “thinking” is purely motivated by your desire to be morally and intellectually superior than those you bitterly attack. I can’t fathom how your self awareness is so poor that you can’t see it.
> The only reason things look manageable now is because immunity and treatments exist.
Pure bullshit. The virus was simply never that big of a threat to a healthy person, full stop. You live in a filter bubble-fueled alternate reality where you indulge your most basic and animalistic emotions of fear, anger, and hatred of “others”.
Get a grip! Practically nobody is getting vaccine boosters or any other anti-covid measure. If your fallback is to point to herd immunity, then you’re effectively aligning yourself with the Swedish approach.
Your comment above was sufficient, nothing here added additional meaningful information, it's not worth your time or the parent's to go down this road. It wasn't believed to be a flu in the beginning and I think the excess death stats bear that out. Once the people tracking it think it's equivalent to the flu, rigid policy makes less sense.
I wish people would just accept that public policy need not align with what's right for them personally based own their health own situation. I can simultaneously understand why a public policy of lockdowns on Day 1 makes sense, while at the same time fight for exceptions to the rules due to my personal situation. Everyone I think is aware that the future is personalised medicine, that we're at the very beginning of that awareness, and that the current state of the art in medicine is very crude from that perspective.
Hell, if we had infinite money we should have just sent anyone 60 plus or in ill health to Florida, Texas, SoCal and Mexico for a 6-months/year vacation and mandated that they try to spend most of their time outdoors.
This isn't about the later stuff. My statement was that being against lockdowns is an anti-social viewpoint and that you were rightly attacked for being against them. Nothing you've written challenges that. In a spherical vacuum of a society with no left right blue or China, no Epstein files, a pathogen has been introduced to your society. You don't know anything about it at all. It could be Ebola, it could be a total nothing buger. What do you do in response? Do you stay open and infect your populace, or do you lock down? It's a huge disruption, to everything and everyone. In the face of the unknown, what do you chose to do?
In the face of not knowing something, do we try and be safe, or do we say YOLO and fuck everyone who's role puts them in harms way?
> Nothing you've written challenges that
Apparently your reading comprehension is low
> You don't know anything about it at all. It could be Ebola, it could be a total nothing buger.
Except that’s just not true. You’re just inventing scenarios to scare yourself and others. Covid is a respiratory coronavirus, they are extremely thoroughly studied and well understood. We didn’t “know nothing” about it. That’s just a total fabrication that you invented because you’ve been thoroughly trounced in this debate.
> What do you do in response?
For the last time, TARGETED PROTECTION OF VULNERABLE POPULATIONS.
> Do you stay open and infect your populace, or do you lock down?
False dichotomy, see above paragraph where I once again spoonfeed you basic common sense.
Locking down is the extreme position, and should require an extreme amount of evidence advocating for it.
Don’t bother responding. You’ve made zero interesting points, and rely solely on sensational rhetoric, accusations, false dichotomy, straw men, and ad hominem. There isn’t an ounce of logic or maturity in any of your comments. Thus, I’ve grown bored of walloping you.
But you must admit it was a gamble at the time. My mother got Covid early, before lockdowns. She spent a week in the hospital and almost died. She then had a stroke, she can no longer walk. She also got cancer, and now can barely talk. Please don't tell me it was not deadly dangerous to older folks.
If the bird flu comes, and with it a mortality rate of 50%, and there is a vaccine, everybody will be locked down and forced to take the vaccine. It wont matter what anybody's opinions are about the possible harmful effects of lockdowns or vaccines.
I seem to remember that Sweden applied the WHO recommendations as they were written and didn’t lock down because the damage of locking down is huge and everybody dog pilled on them about how it was stupid.
Turn out their excess mortality was quickly better than the other Nordic countries and their economy and mental health did better if I remember correctly.
People should complain more about the lockdowns. Most of them were extremely poorly implemented and stupidly managed.
Norway and Sweden took opposite approaches in 2020—Norway used strict lockdowns, tight border controls, and intensive outbreak tracking, while Sweden kept society largely open. The results weren’t subtle. As the Juul paper puts it: “That resulted in 477 COVID-19 deaths (Norway) and 9,737 (Sweden) in 2020, respectively.”
Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8807990/
You are only looking at 2020 and posting a source from 2021. Now look at 2021, 2022 and 2023. That’s the whole point. Sweden had slightly more excess mortality the first year especially amongst the elderly but they ended up doing similar or slightly better than their neighbours if you look at the whole pandemic.
They did significantly better on other metrics however like youth mental health and education.
I posted a ton of sources in another comment.
It’s not that surprising anyway. It’s not like Sweden did a weird and surprising experiment. They just stuck to the already existing plans designed to contain influenza while everyone else freaked out after Imperial College published their dubious models and started acting irrationally.
That’s not what the Nordic data show. Sweden didn’t “end up doing better.” It had by far the worst COVID-19 mortality in 2020, because it kept society open while its neighbors used strict controls.
The only reason Sweden’s later all-cause mortality looks “similar” is mortality displacement: COVID killed so many frail, high-risk people in 2020 that Sweden had fewer dementia and respiratory deaths in 2021–22. Nordic registry papers explicitly note this. Sweden didn’t outperform anyone. Its early losses were just so large that later excess deaths looked artificially low.
> That’s not what the Nordic data show. Sweden didn’t “end up doing better.” It had by far the worst COVID-19 mortality in 2020, because it kept society open while its neighbors used strict controls.
> The only reason Sweden’s later all-cause mortality looks “similar” is mortality displacement: COVID killed so many frail, high-risk people in 2020 that Sweden had fewer dementia and respiratory deaths in 2021–22. Nordic registry papers explicitly note this. Sweden didn’t outperform anyone. Its early losses were just so large that later excess deaths looked artificially low.
Exactly, that's exactly what I said and what the data show. We do agree except obviously there is absolutely nothing artificial about it. You can't discount the data because you don't like what it shows.
So, indeed, what the data show is that other countries barely postponned death despite Sweden having a dry tinder effect in 2020 - plenty of people vulnerable to respiratory diseases - following two years of mild flu. Sweden has indeed less excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 and tellingly the overall number is in every way comparable when it's not slightly better than the other Nordic countries. Sweden early losses in 2020 weren't even that large by the way.
To which I reach the inevitable conclusion, lockdowns were entirely useless, massive distruption of society - disproportionately impacting the youngest with schools closure - to gain mere weeks of life for the most vulnerables. Focusing on shielding the most vulnerables and putting in place containment habits were totally adequate counter measures. Once again, this is not in any way surprising, these were the WHO recommendations for containing an influenza pandemic.
To the people downvoting me, you are welcome to actually look at the numbers. [1]
Feel free to read about what it shows about lockdowns. [2] [3] [4]
I understand that the US has somehow turned this topic into a political debate and people hate facing that they might have been wrong but I am thankfully not from this part of the world and the evidence is not in favour of lockdowns ever being such a good idea. If you read the BBC article, you will see that we have reached such a polarised and abusive moment in time that even some experts are scared commenting on the available data.
When I was younger, I thought of dems as the party of logic and reason, and repubs as bible-thumpers. I don’t think this was entirely wrong, but the unthinking dogmatism of left-leaning people about lockdowns did a lot to disabuse me of that notion.
Anecdotal, my uncle, several friends' relatives died from COVID during those lockdowns. I don't know / heard anyone died because of flu (in my extended circle of people I know)
Most people are not a "hospitalized older adult". Yet they treated everyone, regardless of age, gender, health as if they were on death's door. The lock downs were absolutely overkill and went on far, far too long.
Propaganda? COVID was the third most common verified cause of death in the US in the first 18 months after the lockdown started in March, and that's despite the lockdown. That's 10x more deaths per month than the particularly bad flu last year. Do you not remember the morgue trucks? The whole health system was overwhelmed.
Too many people either never saw or forgot about the morgue trucks. Or the footage that showed flocks of vultures circling over south american cities from afar. Desperate people coughing and dying in their own cars in hospitals' driveways. Body bags littering the floors of hospitals in third world countries.
All of that happened, but it went right over a lot of people's heads, and nobody talks about it anymore because it became such a sore and divisive topic and we're all glad it's over.
I remember well the video showing a whole column of military trucks transporting bodies out of the city of Bergamo, Italy, on March 19th, 2020. I took a screenshot because the magnitude of what this meant gave me shivers. It was one of those moments when the world seemed to stop for a minute and was changed forever like on 9/11, to me at least.
Ever since, I can't find much common ground for discussion with people claiming it was just a flu. You either acknowledge the difference or you don't.
So then why isn't it happening now? Why did Israel not fare better despite their much higher vaccination rates than Gaza without any vaccinations? It was never a pandemic and never anything more than a severe flu.
Yep, mock it all you like but it's because you can't explain it and it would make you too uncomfortable too acknowledge you don't know what you're talking about at all. Follow the school of fish into the net. Have at it.
Real people, citizen journalists documented empty hospitals and ERs with no activity while the mass media tried to sell you on "morgue trucks" lol. Trump got that whole ship sent to NYC and they never used it.
I walked by the morgue trucks, so no. You've been blinded by propaganda made by the same people who "document" alien encounters. If hospitals were actually empty the rates of healthcare worker burnout and subsequent shortage wouldn't have happened.
Maybe, outside the nursing homes that racked up tons of excess deaths due to Andrew Cuomo's policies and later cover-ups.
But at hospitals? I'm sure you can point out a few specific times and locations but on the whole, they simply were not overwhelmed with Covid deaths to the point where anything like "morgue trucks" were needed.
For me yes. I'm not the same, much more depressed. I was already prone to it but two years of home imprisonment while living alone really damaged me. I also have a really bad reaction to the masks due to a youth trauma where I nearly choked. Being forced to trigger that memory daily was terrible. I did wear them of course (I'm in Europe so we had quite heavy restrictions). Maybe it was necessary for society but for me personally the damage was much higher than the benefit. On the bright side when it was over in 2022 it did make me go out again and I go out partying every weekend until 6am still. That probably wouldn't have happened because I'm in my 50s.
I think the measures were a bit overblown though some were necessary. But shit like curfews was ridiculous. It made contagion worse because the shops were only open during the day so everyone had to go there during a much shorter time. So they were always chock full of customers, exactly the thing you don't want during a pandemic.
It can be that social order is partly maintained by conformance and a bunch of people found out that there aren't consequences for choosing not to conform.
In the local facebook rants group, any time someone posts about someone doing something that is mildly antisocial (a reasonable thing to rant about), there's always several comments saying "So what, who cares".
Like sure, it isn't the end of the world to park like an asshole, but it would suck if everybody did it, so it's better if no one does it. And it's the same for dozens of other minor little things you might encounter in a given week.
Normal people were shown that they had no real bearing on the world, and were forced to live without being rushed for a year or in some places two. Without the need to constantly look over their shoulders for encroaching crises people started to examine the world around them. They had time to enjoy things without constantly battling with mental, emotional, or physical exhaustion that lead to procrastination just to recover a little bit. So many realized they were being deprived of not only recreation, but fulfilling their basic needs outside of food and sleep. So they shifted from fearing the systems that deprived them to loathing them and the people who administrated them, and resolved to deny contributing to those systems as much as possible. That's why there were so many sweeping changes starting in May of 2020, not in the way the systems of the world were run, but in the way the public at large engaged with them.
Much of what's been happening over the last five years can be compared to the behaviours of those suffering through trauma after long term abuse. Some continued the cycle against new targets, ignoring a collective truth. Others realized they were victims of the cycle and chose to work towards safeguards that would prevent it from continuing. Another group learned about the cycle and thought they would benefit from being new instigators for it.
That's like asking "why would one car crash that lasted a few seconds change your driving habits for years?" - or perhaps your entire outlook on life, the consequences of not appreciating the things around you in the moment, the realization that life is fleeting, that maybe "getting to work on time" shouldn't be as high a priority as it once was, etc, etc. All it takes is one major shake-up for people to be changed, often for life.
It wasn't a few months, it was a few years of back-and-forth political and corporate shenanigans with a new narrative every few months that the $CURRENT_THING crowd happily ran along with.
January 2020: there is nothing to afraid of, the new disease is mostly harmless and affects only the elderly and immunocompromised. Closing down borders is xenophobic. March 2020: do not go outside unless critically necessary and if you violate the rules, we will severely punish you May 2020: it's fine to have large public gatherings for BLM protests.
February 2020: masks do nothing and actually are harmful unless you are trained to use a mask, do not buy any masks. April 2020: wear a mask if you go outside, or you kill everybody else. Your own fault that you don't have a mask.
Summer of 2020: look, it's actually so great that we are all working remotely now, the nature is healing, all the emissions are so much reduced, this is the new future! Summer of 2023: everybody back to the office, real estate is suffering. People who joined during COVID time? Your contract is now altered, pray we do not alter it any further.
The promises around vaccines, printing money and "loans for struggling businesses" are even more stories of their own. Beats me why after a few years of these kind of shenanigans people would generally get tired of other people.
I certainly got tired of the people who decided the answer was to become antisocial and not even try to mitigate the risks, and then shame anyone who did. Lost a bit of my faith in humanity. Well, more than a bit, I think.
And all those years could have been avoided by treating a new unknown disease as it should have been treated instead of trusting China's word on it. Go figure.
>I certainly got tired of the people who decided the answer was to become antisocial and not even try to mitigate the risks, and then shame anyone who did. Lost a bit of my faith in humanity. Well, more than a bit, I think.
The masks didn't do shit and neither did vaccinations. It was all scaremongering. Don't you get it? Israel had nearly 100% vaccination rate but didn't do any better than Gaza which had none. Masks don't prevent the spread at all. The 6 foot distancing rule was just made up. Why do people not understand this? Is it willful ignorance?
I think it might be. In my experience, the ignorance goes together very closely with political ideology. That also ends up being a pretty good predictor of who thinks masks were supposed to protect the wearer versus who thinks they were to try and slow down the transmission rate from infected people.
Anyway ...
West Bank and Gaza: 941.84 deaths per million people, 29% vaccination rate by end of 2021.
Israel: 887.20 deaths per million people, 64% vaccination rate by end of 2021.
>That also ends up being a pretty good predictor of who thinks masks were supposed to protect the wearer versus who thinks they were to try and slow down the transmission rate from infected people.
You're projecting. I fully understand the goal, but all the evidence shows they did nothing (air still escapes, people wear them incorrectly, the virus was never even proven to be airborne). They were telling people to take their masks off between bites/eating at restaurants. It was security theater. People who don't understand this just take safety in following the herd. They certainly aren't exhibiting critical thinking skills.
You also don't understand how to compare apples to apples. How did those death rates change from 2021 compared to previous years? I bet it was virtually unchanged. That's the point. Compare Palestine 2021 to Palestine 2015 and Israel 2021 to Israel 2015. The vaccine saved no one. If the vaccine was truly effective, you would see Israel vastly outperforming Palestine starting in 2021. Did it? And how is 63 per 1,000,000 a statistically significant number even if your argument were true? I would likely attribute that to other conditions like lack of resources compared to Israel. Otherwise, you're telling me Israel vaccinated more than 2x as many people and only saved 63 people per 1,000,000 and you think that proves your point?
Saying "google them yourself" removes the ability for people to refute you and your stated position here.
A surgical mask is most often used not to protect the surgeon but rather the patient from transmission from the surgeon to the patient.
I would suggest by refuting Unmasking the surgeons: the evidence base behind the use of facemasks in surgery - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4480558/ which describes several studies about transmission from the surgeon to the patient.
Face masks were suggested not only for protection of the individual wearing them, but also as a layer of defense for transmission from someone who may be asymptomatic at the time. As such, face masks were in part to prevent transmission from someone who is in public and might be contagious and not know it in addition to than preventing someone wearing it from contracting an airborne disease (though this may require a higher grade of filtration).
> Wearing a mask can help lower the risk of respiratory virus transmission. When worn by a person with an infection, masks reduce the spread of the virus to others. Masks can also protect wearers from breathing in infectious particles from people around them.
> ...
> Generally, masks can help act as a filter to reduce the number of germs you breathe in or out. Their effectiveness can vary against different viruses, for example, based on the size of the virus. When worn by a person who has a virus, masks can reduce the chances they spread it to others. Masks can also protect wearers from inhaling germs; this type of protection typically comes from better fitting masks (for example, N95 or KN95 respirators).
Note that the first point is that the mask is to prevent the spread from the individual wearing the mask.
> Reducing disease spread requires two things: limiting contacts of infected individuals via physical distancing and other measures and reducing the transmission probability per contact. The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high. Given the current shortages of medical masks, we recommend the adoption of public cloth mask wearing, as an effective form of source control, in conjunction with existing hygiene, distancing, and contact tracing strategies. Because many respiratory particles become smaller due to evaporation, we recommend increasing focus on a previously overlooked aspect of mask usage: mask wearing by infectious people (“source control”) with benefits at the population level, rather than only mask wearing by susceptible people, such as health care workers, with focus on individual outcomes.
> Johnson et al. (70) found that no influenza could be detected by RT-PCR on sample plates at 20 cm distance from coughing patients wearing masks, while it was detectable without mask for seven of the nine patients. Milton et al. (71) found surgical masks produced a 3.4-fold (95% CI: 1.8 to 6.3) reduction in viral copies in exhaled breath by 37 influenza patients. Vanden Driessche et al. (72) used an improved sampling method based on a controlled human aerosol model. By sampling a homogeneous mix of all of the air around the patient, the authors could also detect any aerosol that might leak around the edges of the mask. Among their six cystic fibrosis patients producing infected aerosol particles while coughing, the airborne Pseudomonas aeruginosa load was reduced by 88% when wearing a surgical mask compared with no mask.
No, I have no burden of proof because I'm not writing a scholastic paper and I made my argument using critical thinking that you can easily infer if you just think about it.
People aren't wearing masks anymore, do you see a dramatic increase in COVID deaths? Then your point is self-evidently wrong--no further analysis needed.
You're conflating so many different things. Surgery with an open wound is not the same as spreading COVID which was never even proven to be spread airborne. You're either intellectually dishonest or naive. Either way this is pointless. You clearly just like being told what to think. I get it, there's safety in feeling like if you just follow the rules you'll be safe. You can follow the school into the net, because freedom is not what you actually want.
They just wanted to sell you masks. Don't you get it? It's just about the money.
> I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.
Possibly true in some places. I think it very likely did in the UK.
> I feel bad for young people growing up in this broken world
The world has always been broken. Look at the 20th Century, two world wars, multiple smaller wars, Gulag, great leap forward, cold war, genocides.....
In many ways the world is better than its ever been.
What is true is that the golden age the west had from the end of the cold war until the early 21st century has come to a close, but that was an exceptional time for people in a small proportion of the world.
> I realize that I’m probably going to get dogpiled for saying it, but I think that the response to COVID (ie lockdowns) did far more damage than the disease itself.
You're going to blame Covid and/or Covid response for the fact that monopolies can jack up prices without consequence? That's your conclusion? Seriously?
What's happened is that McDonald's assumed they were a monopoly supplier like everybody else and jacked prices. McDonald's unfortunately discovered that "not eating out at all" is a viable substitute to their monopoly. Whoops.
However, if you want to fix the enshittification that is going on, you need to aggressively break up the monopolies everywhere in order to insert slack back into the system to re-enable competition.
On top of that, basing everything around "Always Late(tm) Inventory" (aka "Just In Time Inventory") means that there is zero slack in the system so even IF you want to compete, there is no upstream provider that can supply you with enough material to make a meaningful difference.
Want to fix modern capitalism? Bust monopolies. Over and over. At all levels. In all fields (not just tech). Aggressively.
That’s not a conspiracy theory. Anyone who doesn’t realize at this point that online discourse is heavily engineered and manipulated is an unthinking rube.
This is totally unsurprising, given that, in some parts of the country, public schools teach controversial ideas about gender.
Also, I see a lot of people arguing that exposure to “bad” kids is a point in favor of public schools, which seems insane to me. Growing up with a friend group of good kids is probably the biggest predictor of what a child’s adult life will look like.
I have a counter view. I think a parent needs to educate their kids as well. So, while kids may learn about controversial gender topics one needs to be able to have an intelligent discussion on why as a family don’t subscribe to those. Encourage children to have a mind of their own and argue intelligently and hold their ground. It doesn’t come from shying away from public forums.
As to the last point - one of the biggest benefits of exposure to “bad” kids is knowing whom to stay away from and making independent decisions on that. Parents are not going to be around to guide children forever. They need to learn to make their own choices.
Unless you live in a school district that’s really not that great I would never recommend homeschooling. Cloistering into echo chambers is not healthy.
Whenever I read a comment like this, I’m always curious if the commenter did some basic searching of their own. Just searching “chemical imbalance debunked” yields a wide array of sources. So why ask? It seems almost like a form of Socratic questioning. You want to debate the point, but for whatever reason, are not doing so directly.
I'll take this sincerely, and ask you, is this really something you've a continuing curiosity about? I have a suspicion you understand what is taking place, but for whatever reason, are not expressing so directly. Are you asserting there is nothing more to discuss after one parses the search results for “chemical imbalance debunked”. The parent is quite clearly, at the minimum, meeting their parent's level of input, which essentially amounted to "this thing is debunked". As an onlooker and after a quick skim of the search query you suggested, I am still not exactly clear on what "neurochemistry issue [theory]" entails. What would help, is a more clear underpinning for what is being discussed, which your parent is suggesting, through question, before attempting to respond. I appreciate this personally!
Ah, well-put! I think we may be reacting differently to the same articles. My understanding is that while various neurochemical theories have not been proven as the general public seems to think, they have also not necessarily been disproven or debunked. Certainly it has not been proven that neurochemistry has no role at all.
I wouldn't recommend searching for "chemical imbalance debunked" unless you intend to confirm an existing bias. The internet will show you whatever you want, and there are enough people who distrust medical professionals that any search for "debunking" will be a minefield of fringe theories and grifters. I'd recommend someone start generally, searching for information about clinical depression, and then build on that to look at root causes and how the medical understanding of those root causes has changed over time.
One of the first search results for me was a paper published in Nature. Other top results were from respected institutions like the NIH and Harvard University. Hardly grifters or crazies.
The caveat you cite applies to basically any and all internet (or even media) consumption, and is therefore a non-argument.
Maybe chip on their shoulder, but the claim of conspiracy theorist is completely unwarranted. The impression you give off is that you decided upfront their sources are bad and you're going to knee-jerk reject their evidence no matter what.
Sad how people start frothing at the mouth during a relatively anodyne conversation. You don’t see it often on HN - more of a Reddit thing - but apparently it does happen.
drugging society is a method of proxying community responsibility , I personally completely understand why people react vitriolically to being told that drugs are not the solution , because without drugs we would have to help each other , and most people dont realize that cooperative multi tasking is the most efficient solution , or they give up because bad actors easily ruin functional cooperative societies , or they are lazy
I think their rhetorical approach to this subject is bad and I have no respect for someone who tries to lead someone to a conclusion while being circumspect about their own biases. This is the internet; one should assume negative intent in these cases.
This all started with someone asking for their sources, and the person hasn't given any except to say to Google... which means for all we know the person who then googled ended up in a situation with lots of conspiracy theories. Google famously gives personalized results to an extreme degree especially when you add in differences in search terms.
I will say if you search for "chemical imbalance debunked" as discussed, the first result for me is a paper that also says dyslexia cannot be proved to be a disorder. Which just from vibes feels really conspiratorial, even without making comments on the veracity of the academic paper.
The person who was asked for sources was a different person than the one who quipped that finding said sources yourself is trivial.
> Google... which means for all we know the person who then googled ended up in a situation with lots of conspiracy theories.
If people have low enough media literacy that they cannot distinguish between scientific research published in refereed journals and conspiracy theories, then I cannot help them and it is not my responsibility to pander to their lack of competence.
> just from vibes feels really conspiratorial
Just from vibes? Clearly you are a scientific luminary.
Yeah, the person making the claim never responded. But I was more responding to your comments, specifically:
"Just searching 'chemical imbalance debunked' yields a wide array of sources. So why ask?", and "One of the first search results for me was a paper published in Nature. Other top results were from respected institutions like the NIH and Harvard University. Hardly grifters or crazies."
Those both trivialize the process of finding sources and interpreting them. I picked my top result which was from nih.gov and gave an example of why it's hard for a lay-person to interpret journal entries because it uses field specific terms that come across as wrong or conspiratorial. Heck the paper itself references other papers on other journals that appear legitimate that argue for the chemical imbalance theory, eg an article from JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) from 1993. Just because the source has NIH in it or is in a journal does not guarantee correctness or reliability because time passes and new science is done. The link in question was of a paper from 2006, which we are now further from than the 2006 paper was from the 1993 paper.
I am not claiming to be a scientific luminary and even agree that the chemical imbalance theory that was espoused for years was probably incorrect for many issues. I was just arguing against thinking it's easy to investigate and source claims. It's much easier for the person who is making the claim to provide their sources, and preferably they have a large body of evidence behind them and are recent or even better a source that has done that leg work of reviewing it and distilling it down.
Argue? I considered it a conversation, before your very rude and unwarranted ad hominem.
It seems that you really have no clue what you’re talking about, and are merely lashing out due to your own immaturity and insecurity. Maybe you can find a doctor who will prescribe you a pill that will fix your personality defects. It would certainly be easier than acknowledging your (massive) intellectual and emotional deficits.
Probably because the commenter is not a medical professional and isn't qualified to judge the veracity of anything they find. "Do your own research" is a fucking plague on our modern world and is why the internet is like wall to wall grifters now.
By all means, Google whatever you like, but if you show up to a doctors office waving WebMD sheets in a medical professionals face, you are going to be mocked and you deserve it.
I witnessed a pair of doctors prescribe a family member an incredibly dangerous drug for an off label use. The company had been fined $500 million dollars for various illegal schemes to convince doctors to write such prescriptions, but I’m sure the doctors in question were unaware of this. When this family member began to exhibit textbook symptoms of an extremely dangerous (life threatening) condition which could only be caused by the drug in question, the doctors failed to notice, and in fact repeatedly increased the dosage, and added more drugs on top to treat the symptoms caused by the initial drug. It was not until I accompanied my relative to a doctor’s appointment and delivered a carefully designed incantation that they made the correct diagnosis and halted the prescriptions.
>Probably because the commenter is not a medical professional and isn't qualified to judge the veracity of anything they find.
The average medical professional is worst-placed to judge the veracity of any studies they find than the average engineer or mathematician who's done a solid statistics and probability course. Medical students are assessed on their ability to memorise and regurgitate facts, not on their ability to conduct statistical analysis.
I both agree and disagree. The issue is not independent thinking and research - it’s the low media literacy of the average person that makes them vulnerable to frauds, grifters, and crazies.
With that said, the first few search results for the query were from the journal Nature, the NIH, and Harvard university. Hardly the loony or malicious caricature that you attempt to paint.
Concerns about financial confidentiality. The new AI features are a form of third-party disclosure that would have to be permanently and irrevocably disabled. I couldn't guarantee those features would never activate (as indicated by Microsoft enabling them with updates even after being disabled), and it rightly spooked the owner.
> For example, there is a housing crisis. Not enough trades persons, building supplies, capital to solve that problem.
That has pretty much nothing to do with available supply of materials or labor. It has everything to do with burdensome zoning and permitting processes.
They’re marketed that way, but there’s a giant asterisk. They’re biodegradable in an industrial composter, and similar conditions are incredibly unlikely in nature. So they are, effectively, not biodegradable.
There is a new manufacturer called Terra that has apparently made “true” biodegradable Airsoft pellets
> They’re biodegradable in an industrial composter, and similar conditions are incredibly unlikely in nature.
Thinking of PLA, for me at least, it's fine if it takes years instead of weeks, as long as it's fundamentally vulnerable to common bio-chemical attack and the monomers aren't toxic. That's not the stuff that's causing issues, I think.
I would accept "Can be depolymerized, and absorbed by the biosphere or water table or bonded to alkaline rock, when suspended in normal soil in a temperate climate in less than 100 years" as a victory here.
> They’re biodegradable in an industrial composter, and similar conditions are incredibly unlikely in nature. So they are, effectively, not biodegradable.
Just like every plastic marketed as biodegradable. I feel like most of the "biodegradable"/"eco-friendly" products rushed to the markets in the wake of stricter regulations are worse for the environment since they either require significantly more resources (especially water) to produce, extremely complicated special setups to dispose of, or even both.
…why not?