COVID-19 / Coronavirus Pandemic

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Humans can get used to anything. It’s how we survive.

But it is not how we thrive. Thriving can only be done with basic freedom and human rights.

 

[netcat]

Humans are optimists.... we adapt our priorities and definitions of basic freedoms, rights, thriving, etc.
No clue what thriving means to you actually.
I would probably classify most of us as prisoners - in the best of times.
My life is miserable by my previous standards (societal indoctrination)
I just focus on a small number of things that I'm not a total failure at.
Oh wait.. maybe I'm just brainwashed into being happy i'm still alive..

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

We have been not thriving for a long time. Thriving to me at least involves humans being as free and independent as the wild animals are. Not necessarily living primitively; living primitively is not what I mean. For a long time humans have been like domesticated pets in the sense that they would die if released in the wild. Even our cats are less dependent on being taken care of than we are. In that sense we are more like pets than some of our pets are. This is true to the extend that if SHTF then a viable option for people who care about their cats might be to just release their cats so that at least the cats will probably not have to starve with them. Thriving requires being independent of the grid.

 

[ElPoco]

I like the quote attributed to Margaret Mead that says that the firsts sign of civilisation is a healed femur: the sign that someone "who would die if released in the wild" survived because there was a support system around them.

 

[Phlyra]

We have been not thriving for a long time. Thriving to me at least involves humans being as free and independent as the wild animals are. Not necessarily living primitively; living primitively is not what I mean. For a long time humans have been like domesticated pets in the sense that they would die if released in the wild. Even our cats are less dependent on being taken care of than we are. In that sense we are more like pets than some of our pets are. This is true to the extend that if SHTF then a viable option for people who care about their cats might be to just release their cats so that at least the cats will probably not have to starve with them. Thriving requires being independent of the grid.

Are you kidding? If the SHTF you preserve the cat meat and eat it when you need to!

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

To call the epidemic fictitious could be incredibly offensive to anyone here who's lost someone close to them with the disease.

During 2016, was there a worldwide flu pandemic going on?

BTW, because you do not answer, I will finish my line of reasoning here by covering all possible answers:

- If yes, then we have a reductio ad absurdum. There was no mention of any worldwide pandemic and there was no large excess of deaths known, so the claim that during that time there was a flu pandemic going on is ridiculous.

- If no, then according to your logic that would could be very offensive to people who had loved ones that died to flu during that year. People dying to flu happened worldwide, after all. This would make you a hypocrite for calling me out for something that you do as well.

So pick your poison, do you acknowledge a ludicrous statement as being truthful or are you being a hypocrite? The problem with your reasoning is that people die to many viruses outside of pandemics of those respective viruses, therefore saying that there is no pandemic of some virus X during some time period is not equivalent to making claims about people who supposedly die to that virus X during that time period nor about their deaths. You are assuming that there is such an equivalence and that false assumption leads to problems when followed to it's logical conclusion. If your sensitivities force you to either be a hypocrite or to make ludicrous claims in order to be logically consistent with yourself then that is a good indication that the problem lies with you.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

If only I could think of some aspect in which Covid19 differs from the annual flu wave, we expect and know to prepare for.

 

[FBnil]

Thriving requires being independent of the grid.

If so, we are woefully unprepared. We do not know of the seasons. When to plant seeds, how to tend the soil; how to rotate so that the soil can rest. We do not know of the wind, all the information it carries. How to smell the rains to come. How to find water. How to find ore and smelt it to make nails and axes.
We also lost knowledge. When people did not write, their memory was trained to retain as much as they could. Like a muscle that you use and gets strong, the memory was very good. And we rely on $internet, so our memory gets lazy. So, we do not even know the constellations. (And that two of them have pointy things and pointed to the Galactic Center.)

So pick your poison, do you acknowledge a ludicrous statement as being truthful or are you being a hypocrite?

I think there is also a mental self-defense mechanism at play. I mean, I know about the raping of an 11 year old by 50 lightly tinted men in the UK. But Brits don't care, they just go about their business and stuff. When there's something so horrible and getting worse and worse (the link is only statistics) most just shut their eyes to it (sadly, myself included).

saying that there is no pandemic

Ah, but that is YOU having the OLD definition of pandemic, not the NEW definition of pandemic. See? Fixed that for you. Everything is a pandemic now. Common cold? Seasonal pandemic. Natural Herd immunity? Does not exist anymore. Even Mer.Webster/Wikipedia changes their definitions on-the-fly and nobody notices.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Even Mer.Webster/Wikipedia changes their definitions on-the-fly and nobody notices.

Merriam-Webster apparently changed the definition of "vaccine" too, according to archive.org.
- Old definition
- New definition
The old definition is very old and it's only other change was removing a redundant alternative definition about cow pox specifically.

In other words, since the beginning of it's recorded history in 2006-02-12 up until now, the only major change to their definition of "vaccine" happened during the period between 2021-01-18 and 2021-01-26.

I am not saying that this change is nefarious, but it is interesting nonetheless that dictionaries are changing their definitions seemingly because of the current situation.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

it is interesting nonetheless that dictionaries are changing their definitions seemingly because of the current situation

This always happens with any language in day-to-day use.

 

[levi]

Merriam-Webster apparently changed the definition of "vaccine" too, according to archive.org.
- Old definition
- New definition
The old definition is very old and it's only other change was removing a redundant alternative definition about cow pox specifically.

I can only find cow pox in that page in the etymology section, and it's the same in both. The previous definition precludes things like the moderna vaccine from being properly called a vaccine, which doesn't strike me as right, so it's a good thing they modified their definition to also allow this type of vaccine I say.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

I didn't realize how antisocial my wife and I were until lockdown came and literally nothing in our lives changed.

 

[netcat]

This always happens with any language in day-to-day use.

Agree - we are constantly being reprogrammed.

Thriving requires being independent of the grid.

Ok Mowgli.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Agree - we are constantly being reprogrammed

We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave.

 

[FBnil]

You can check-out pre-order any time you like,

 

[ClockworkCoder]

You can check-out pre-order any time you like,

Thanks for the correction

 

[ible]

just got my first shot yesterday, will get the next one in a couple weeks.

 

[netcat]

the grid means something different to everyone. I began to thrive when I started living outside of the financial system. I recommend it.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

So instead of getting paid, I give my employer a shopping list?

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Or maybe using real money as opposed to fiat currencies. Bitcoin makes that easier than ever.