Covid-19 (Coronavirus) - Please stay safe, y'all

[Robert Taylor]

Lol.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Fair enough, BUT, If it turns out those people are right and you are wrong, will you be kind enough to come back and acknowledge that you fell for this scam?

Thousands of people packed together burning themselves lobster red and leaving the beach strewn with rubbish is reason alone to call them out as idiots.

Regarding your comment, I am assuming that you are not acquainted with anyone who has been badly affected by or died as a direct result of coronavirus. Whether you believe it to be a scam or not, there's no harm in just being considerate of the people around you.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Thousands of people packed together burning themselves lobster red and leaving the beach strewn with rubbish is reason alone to call them out as idiots.

They're not all burning themselves or leaving thrash. Going to the beach can be very healthy; you can get loads of vitamin D, good exercise, quality time with relatives, and fun. IMO it's much better than staying at home cowering for some virus that you heard about on the news. I never did that for flu season either.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

They're not all burning themselves or leaving thrash

No. They do both. Denying something does not negate it.

I have two examples re leaving attitudes and trash. First was a lady in a queue for a bus who dropped an crisp packet. My partner, who is very polite, said "I'm sorry, I think you dropped something." "It's okay, it's empty" was her reply.

Another instance, recently in a local park. The bins get filled to overflowing with beer cans, dog poo bags, plastic bags, empty packaging, etc. There were bags strewn all around. A lady looked at us and complained how disgusting it all was before putting her dog poo bag by the side of it.

Edit: sorry, you said "not all" , and of course that is absolutely correct. It's just a shockingly high proportion that either add to the rubbish or ignore it. And I couldn't really care less if people want to burn themselves or not. That's their prerogative.

 

[ElPoco]

Well, as Obama and Trump agree, "healthcare is very complicated"...

It doesn't prevent many countries, including countries with far less means than the US, to have some form of healthcare that is far better than what they have in the US...

Don't know... I'm very confused on this whole matter. Clearly the numbers have been inflated. So you've had busy beaches, demonstrations, and yet deaths are dropping. Where are the spikes from these mass gatherings?

First of all, it looks like the risk of contamination is much lower outdoors than indoors.
Second, people still do things like washing their hands, trying to stay away from one another, wearing masks, etc. These things help.
Third, the virus takes time to spread and takes time before its effects are visible. The spike might come later.

EDIT: It's crazy how Marxists control everything but we still have a capitalistic-neoliberal economy.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

It doesn't prevent many countries, including countries with far less means than the US, to have some form of healthcare that is far better than what they have in the US

Absolutely.

However look up "nobody knows Trump" on youtube and prepare to be "humbled."

 

[HelenF]

Why face masks now, four months after the initial (known) outbreak? After them saying they're useless.

The people in charge changed their minds about the usefulness after further research had been done. But for some reason they don't want to be clear about that. There was somebody on the TV here trying to answer that question, claiming that we only need masks now because we've started easing the lockdown...

Edit: I suppose they are embarassed about saying masks are useless, and don't want to admit they were wrong before.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Edit: I suppose they are embarassed about saying masks are useless, and don't want to admit they were wrong before

Or concerned that potential voters would turn against them when they are suddenly told to wear masks with no prior precedent. That, plus masks were at first in limited supply, and essential workers needed them most.

 

[Robert Taylor]

It doesn't prevent many countries, including countries with far less means than the US, to have some form of healthcare that is far better than what they have in the US...

The only reason EU has any social programs including your type of healthcare is becasue America paid for it and continues to pay for it.

1) After WW2, America rebuilt Europe. American paid for a good amount of stuff but they also gave you access to cheap credit so you can borrow and rebuild on your own terms.

2) To help your economies grow, they gave you access to the ONLY consumer oriented market on the planet that had ANY money or capacity for consumption.

3) Most importantly, the ONLY reason EU, CA, AU and NZ can afford to have our healthcare systems is because America spends so much of its budget to guarantee all of the worlds trade routes (all trade routes are over the sea, over land all trade routes are geographically locked).

You know whats worse than not knowing your history, how the world works or being humble about which society guarantees your lifestyle?

4) ALL of the EU countries are broke, including France and Germany. Germany is the only society in the EU that has a value system that allows them to save and manage risk properly, and even they are have been suffering under rumours that German banks are effectively broke and doing shady stuff behind the curtain to keep things going.

The word is that the only way you guys are staying afloat is that there is secret cash infusion into the system by the central banks that are off the books, something similar to what is happening in the states right now with the stimulous stuff. The central bank is creating money out of thin air and is hoping that as long as the american economy in the states is in a deflationary period that inflationary pumping of cash cancels out.

The thinking is the EU has been doing this for quite a while and this stuff started to come to the surface around the time of the Greek economic collapse.

5) The EU member states cannot even afford to meet their NATO obligations, never mind fund their own militaries properly. You have AT LEAST two world style wars on your borders (one in Turkey one in Northern Africa) and perhaps a threat from Russia that you cannot even begin to address.

You don't have a health care system. What you have is an American credit card and no knowledge of your own history. The moment America pulls out of the world (unlikely right now but certainly possible), you will very quickly see how the world power balance re-arranges within months. You are too small, you are too old, your birth rate is too low, you are too lazy and satisfied in your ways to really have a clue about how much danger you are really in.

The dutch poster earlier made a great post about why you don't want America to impose right wing and capitalist policies and values on you. I agree, I used to have those same feelings about americans my self.

Unfortunately, all western living standards and health care systems are guaranteed by the American military expenditures.

Without them, all of use IMMEDIATELY enter economies similar to easter europe, balkans and so forth.

And, don't get too comfortable in thinking you will outlive this. America can pull out of the world far sooner than you think. Right now, we have the beginnings of a communist revolution in the states. Almost 100% of our youth have been indoctrinated into marxist ideologies and they will start voting more governments into power like the ones we have in Seattle, Los Angeles and New York.

Those cities are just the harbinger of what is to come, they have already started to flip Houston, which is in Texas, the most right wing state in the nation.

EDIT: It's crazy how Marxists control everything but we still have a capitalistic-neoliberal economy.

This isn't a bad argument actually. I have a counter, but I do think this is a fair way to start to think about the pros / cons about what is actually happening.

 

[Robert Taylor]

Just to add a bit of flavour to help my EU brothers and sisters understand how much danger they are in, do you know how easy it would be to make the European continent effectively uninhabitable?

It would be trivial for a non-nation state organization to Fukushima 5 or 6 nuclear reactors in France and Germany. State actors? Don't even think about that.

Do you know that there is a new arms race under way and the Americans are rebuilding their nuclear stock piles and China, Russia, USA and other countries are developing hypersonic weapons?

The EU is in a whole ton of trouble. Canada and USA are effectively on an island and we have Mexico that we can nuke out of existence as a buffer between us and South America. Other nations can hurt us, for sure, but any nation on earth can take out the whole of the EU.

You are too soft, too weak, too satisfied.

 

[ElPoco]

Maybe you should consider keeping some of the social program funding so that you could have some for yourselves, then? It shouldn't be too hard with all those Marxists you've got secretly controlling your state...

 

[Robert Taylor]

Maybe you should consider keeping some of the social program funding so that you could have some for yourselves, then? It shouldn't be too hard with all those Marxists you've got secretly controlling your state...

We agree my friend, 100%.

EDIT: Your point is probably more true than I would like it to be. This is exactly what will happen. They are starting to defund the police in cities fully under the control of Marxists already. Just wait to see what happens if this spreads and we don't manage to stop it.

EDIT: Oh, look:

 

[pyrat]

The people in charge changed their minds about the usefulness after further research had been done. But for some reason they don't want to be clear about that. There was somebody on the TV here trying to answer that question, claiming that we only need masks now because we've started easing the lockdown...

Edit: I suppose they are embarassed about saying masks are useless, and don't want to admit they were wrong before.

It's simpler than that. At the beginning of the outbreak there just weren't enough mask for everybody. They knew full well masks were needed but if they'd said so, there wouldn've been any masks for doctors and nurses, people would have get them all for themselves like crazy.
So they lied to the public and said masks were useless. Sad, but effective. Hospitals got masks (and yet not enough of them) and the rest got to stay home and wash hands.
Now that mask production is up they can tell ordinary people to wear them. That helps a little to pretend further than the economy still works a little.

 

[pmprog]

Third, the virus takes time to spread and takes time before its effects are visible. The spike might come later

I thought about that... however, the protests were now a couple of months ago IIRC, which is way longer than they talk about for incubation period. Though I could be wrong on that... my perception of time is utterly screwed up

Like I said though, I don't really know what to make of it all...

 

[Robert Taylor]

However look up "nobody knows Trump" on youtube and prepare to be "humbled."

Can I get a link? I don't see anything remotely close to what you are referring to.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Can I get a link? I don't see anything remotely close to what you are referring to.

/even-more-off-topic

 

[Robert Taylor]

Hah! That's funny.

Thx.

 

[ible]

I'm against my DNA being altered by other people because I'm too distrustful to let a bunch of strangers working for a likely psychopath rewrite what I am.

sorry i'm a bit late here - at what point is your distrust of others really just a reflection of who you are inside? you like to tell others how to live and eat, and consider yourself trustworthy but not others? are you projecting your own fears/insecurities on others? not everyone who tells other people how to live is evil... (genuinely concerned, not trying to throw daggers.)

also, @Robert Taylor, if the American health care system is so great, why is our life expectancy going down? we can learn things from other countries, we don't have to be the "best" at everything

 

[levi]

It would be trivial for a non-nation state organization to Fukushima 5 or 6 nuclear reactors in France and Germany. State actors? Don't even think about that.

I'm not sure how easy it is to make a tidal wave, and I'm not sure where the nuclear reactors actually are in France and Germany; they'd need to be quite near the coast for that. But there are other ways to break a power station, and it's fair to say that the US has quite a few, a lot of them quite near the edges.

 

[Robert Taylor]

sorry i'm a bit late here - at what point is your distrust of others really just a reflection of who you are inside? you like to tell others how to live and eat, and consider yourself trustworthy but not others? are you projecting your own fears/insecurities on others? not everyone who tells other people how to live is evil... (genuinely concerned, not trying to throw daggers.)

He said no such thing. Not in a single post have I seen him say anything that is even remotely suggests he wants to control anyone.

It's probably a good idea to keep the mind reading to a minimum if you are going to accuse anyone of anything.

also, @Robert Taylor, if the American health care system is so great, why is our life expectancy going down? we can learn things from other countries, we don't have to be the "best" at everything

The EU and CA health care systems aren't what you think they are either. Not only are our healthcare systems paid for by American military expenditures, our drug and healthcare supplies are subsidized by the American taxpayer that gets to pay full price while we get discounts for some reason.

Trumps most favoured nations executive order the other day is spot on. I don't know how EOs are implemented, but the basic idea is if Canada pays $1 for a pill and America pays $100, big pharma has to sell the same medicine to Americans at $1. This will either drive prices in America down or drive prices in the west up. Either way, a reconcilliation is coming for all of us.

So, overall, I think you have a valid point. But, we cannot compare our healthcare systems without comparing why all western countries are raping your country with impunity.

And beyond that, this is a conversation about tending our own gardens here in the west. We all have to be on the lookout for each other, if one falls so do we all. If America falls, so does Canada, this is something I care very deeply about. Americans are our neighbours, our friends, your well being is our own well being.