171–180 of 373 posts
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Do masks even work on things as small as viruses?
Masks contain spread. They do not protect from it. So if you are sick, wear a mask. Here in Germany you still get publicly ridiculed for it.
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Imagine a future where you do a swab test every morning while brushing your teeth. If you had any of thousands of infectious diseases, you're required to stay home. The test would take only 5 minutes, and you get fined if you don't do it, and receive sick pay if you test positive. I imagine that within a few years of rolling this out, common colds might be a thing of the past, and overall worker productivity higher r…
Imagine a future where you do a swab every morning while brushing your teeth and your testosterone and adrenaline levels are evaluated for likelihood of engaging in Anti-Social or Anti-Authority Activity. Individuals with high levels are locked into their apartments and subject to online training courses. Repeated violations result in a visit from the authorities. Yeah, no thanks. Not every solution to a serious prob…
I agree. The internet doesn't need to be a surveillance state dystopian nightmare, but the free market brought us that.
> How long immunity lasts for following covid-19 infection is the biggest unknown. Comparison with other Coronaviridae suggests it may be relatively short-lived (i.e. months). Anyone have sources for this? I've been skeptical of the rumors about reinfection, because they seem to be based on tests coming back positive after recovery, but the tests are rt-PCR based, and your body will be shedding leftover bits of RNA a…
It's probably accurate. But the assumption that this is a game changer is more questionable. This variant of CV is fairly infectious and makes some people very ill. It also kills a non-trivial percentage. So the worst case is an incredibly dangerous virus that mutates every season. We'd have to get used to taking extreme measures, or losing around 1% of the population every year. But the usual trend is for viruses to…
This trend is for viruses that are in danger of killing their hosts before spreading.
This coronavirus is so infectious that it's nowhere near that. Hence it can even mutate into more lethal form without risking its ability to spread.
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Tracking and testing doesn't destroy economic activity. Complete lock-downs, as we're seeing in China, Italy, Spain and soon elsewhere do. But it does let you get a grip on the situation when you have millions infected. However you're right that you can't maintain that long term, so what's the off-ramp? South Korea has proved you can do mass testing and tracking which, combined with voluntary and state-enforced contr…
South Korea has also shown that restrictions on movement don't need to be particularly draconian. The subway in Seoul is still packed with people every day, but I haven't heard of any mass infection related to the subway. Everyone cleans their hands and wears face masks, so it's okay to be out and about. Oh, and there's a clean bathroom in every subway station.
So this will never work in the United States.
Snark aside, every time I ride a BART elevator with a pool of piss on the floor I wonder about this country. Somehow the idea of someone peeing without paying is so offensive that we would rather stand in piss than provide public facilities.
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> scaling back shit that nobody needs The “shit” nobody needs is the main point of living: music, art, science, sharing, pets; the crap you desire versus the essentials. If we only got what we needed to survive (food, shelter) that would be a pointless and depressing life.
> music, art, science, sharing, pets; I don’t believe anybody is seriously arguing against any of those things.
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Oh come on! Hundreds of minor variations on the 'round blobby SUV with redundant angular surface forms' style; thousands of different variations on 'fat and water emulsified together with a dash of scent' for making your skin softer; fifty gorillion different types of shampoo - 'Because you're worth it!'. I'm all for a Hayek/Friedman approach to the markets, but I think even they would consider above trivialities in…
No-one should be deciding for others what should be important. If I were a dictator, maybe I would think pets are pointless. Another person may think science is pointless. I think the vast majority of what people want is wasteful, but who am I to tell others what their priorities should be?
And yet, Greta Thunberg.
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I don't think it is a good idea or good tool at all. I don't need or want some external authority to tell me if I'm allowed to leave my house. I used the example of "Anti Social" behavior as a joke and I thought that was obvious...but apparently not. The idea is entirely antithetical to a free society. As someone indicated in another comment, the proper way to do this is through personalized incentives and social enc…
Sure, but what do you have against a personal in-home test? The information should be available at least to the individual.
However, that wasn't the primary idea in the OP, which was specifically about tracking and restricting people based on their test results.
Is covid-19 the biggest world event since WW2?
This is probably the worst event since WW2, IMHO, yes. It is going to be as bad as the 1918 flu. Its effects will be more far-reaching. Unlike WW2, this will affect every single corner of the globe.
This will change society forever.
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Are you proposing a centrally planned economy, or how do you intend to ensure that people work only in allowable jobs and produce only acceptable products and services?
There's an alternative model: that people who do nothing productive don't work at all in producing silly products and services, and they can spend their time doing things they enjoy instead. https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/
I mean that with UBI you can fix the idiocy of creating real fake jobs to keep people busy, but you won't fix people wanting to buy silly things.
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Do masks even work on things as small as viruses?
Masks contain spread. They do not protect from it. So if you are sick, wear a mask. Here in Germany you still get publicly ridiculed for it.