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Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

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Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#111

Post by [deleted] »

yborg wrote: post #98
TheBlight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this won't be a popular take but I haven't seen any compelling data to indicate what we're dealing with is any more deadly than a cold. No one has any idea how many people have been infected by this virus. It is assuredly many many more than current tests have revealed as the only people being tested are healthcare workers and at-risk individuals. I wouldn't be surprised if over a million people in the U.S. ha…

So the dead piling up in Spain and Italy are apparently not compelling enough? I can't recall a common cold overwhelming medical facilities and emptying nursing homes like this. The thing that seems to elude the "it's just a cold" school of thought is that this is a cold for which there exists zero population immunity, unlike the existing coronavirus strains or even the flu.

[deleted]

Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#112

Post by siquick »

justchilly wrote: post #96
oulu2006 wrote: post #6

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Billionaires are billionaires because of the extreme disproportionate gains by the few at the expense of thousands/millions. They're used to seeing the many slave away for their interests. Not seeing that happening now is throwing their view of proper world order into chaos and they're not used to be back in a position without control.

Its not a zero sum game. Many billionaires - including the ones referenced in the article - got that way by executing on ideas/products that improve society. Think of all the ways companies created by billionaires progressed our quality of life (yes even Bezos, Larry/Sergy, Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg, not to mention industries like food, pharma, agriculture, construction, transportation). The way we get to version of so…

But the thing they all share in common is that at some point, they either have screwed over people or acted against the best interests of the general public.

Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#114

Post by cycrutchfield »

kvee wrote: post #31

This is a generally unpopular opinion, and I don't know that I agree with it, but it does appear that the billionaires might be logically right from an ethical perspective. It might cost more QALYs (quality-adjusted life years) to have an economic recession the size of 2008 than to have millions die from COVID-19: https://medium.com/@benfinn/coronavirus-how-much-is-a-life-w...

There is going to be an economic recession regardless of whether you lock things down or not. Nobody is going to buy plane tickets, go on a cruise, or eat at restaurants when their neighbors are dropping like flies around them.

This choice between "lockdown and recession" and "no lockdown and no recession" is a false dichotomy.

Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#115

Post by [deleted] »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #103
DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting takeout, encouraging other people to get takeout and I run r/Gigworks. (And I'm not a tech worker. I'm a dirt poor freelance writer, but I'm at least still working because I've done remote work for years.) I'm trying to light my teeny, tiny little candle rather than curse the dark. The pizza place I've been going to regularly for carryout is doing a bit better than they were two weeks ago. I've discussed…

Upvoted. I'm trying to light my teeny, tiny little candle rather than curse the dark Thanks for that. It's apparently frowned upon in the tech community to have a positive attitude, but I really hate negativity. Find the good in the situation and work with it.

[deleted]

Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#116

Post by cultus »

kvee wrote: post #107
cultus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making the very false assumption that we have a choice between deaths and economic collapse. Like it or not, we are seeing faster growth rates than Spain. With our awful response, we could be easily heading for 2+ million deaths if hospitals get overloaded as expected. Workers will not show up anyway because it is dangerous for them and their families (this is already happening). This will cause the economy t…

The calculations in the article I posted suggest "that if there’s a recession as bad as the last one, it could be even worse for well-being than tens of millions of deaths."

So you think that even tens of millions of deaths would not be associated with a depression? That is incredibly preposterous.

Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#117

Post by TeMPOraL »

scotty79 wrote: post #104
oulu2006 wrote: post #6

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Billionaires are billionaires because of the extreme disproportionate gains by the few at the expense of thousands/millions. They're used to seeing the many slave away for their interests. Not seeing that happening now is throwing their view of proper world order into chaos and they're not used to be back in a position without control.

Billionaires also know that work does some damage to the workers. So working during pandemic is not qualitative difference for them, just quantitative.

Yup. You can almost imagine the pandemic being interpreted as worker churn rate going up on some spreadsheet.

Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#118

Post by acqq »

cat199 wrote: post #23

have heard these sorts of statements privately, but not publicly yet - interesting that we're now hearing them from US elites just as the US starts to seriously shutdown - makes me curious if other elites making the same sorts of statments in other countries

From what I understand by trying to "read the signs between the lines" (which means it can be somewhat off) one of the reasons Germany is reporting much less deaths is some attitude there that only those who didn't have other illnesses and died now are to be reported as Covid-19 deaths (there is even some critique of Italy for reporting their immense surge of deaths as due to Covid-19!).

Of course, the number of deaths that they can't report so will nevertheless go up there too, but they will claim that they are so superior compared to those Europeans southern from them, and they could propaganda their own population that "it's not so dangerous" (by misreporting those with "other illnesses" like hypertension etc) to go back to work as their country and health infrastructure is so superior.

The German main advantage is most of their cities being relatively small, so everything is "spread" more than in many countries, less chance for news like in Spain or Italy where the army had to carry corpses because there are too many. It will be more "a few here" and "a few there" etc.

I can't quote you some specific news, except some articles in French writing about German view, that I remember reading recently (but haven't saved the links) but at least, as one additional example, if I understood correctly, something I've got delivered from somebody I know, there's some German doctor for which is claimed that he is "epidemiologist" who gets more media presence just recently, claiming that "it's not worse than flu" and that the number of deaths in Italy and Spain is only "because they have bad hygiene." Of course he ignores the fact that there was already a peak of flu season in Italy around two months before, and that now there are there 50 times more deaths per week than then, and hygiene certainly didn't get worse 50 times in so short time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Is_COVID-19_like_a_flu%3F...

So stay tuned, if I get more info, and there's some possibility to comment, I will... Or maybe some other person who reads the European news more carefully (best more than one language) will be able to write more. But as this whole topic is already flagged here, don't expect too much here.

Re: Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

#120

Post by mtmickush »

TheBlight wrote: post #26
asdfman123 wrote: post #7

Okay, so if we let the infection rip, what's their plan to deal with the massive wave of people suffocating on their own phlegm? Dig a trench?

I know this won't be a popular take but I haven't seen any compelling data to indicate what we're dealing with is any more deadly than a cold. No one has any idea how many people have been infected by this virus. It is assuredly many many more than current tests have revealed as the only people being tested are healthcare workers and at-risk individuals. I wouldn't be surprised if over a million people in the U.S. ha…

We do know though that the curve for number of infections is a logistic curve. And since we haven't hit the inflection point yet we know at a minimum (regardless of how many hidden/untested cases exist) we'll have twice the number of hospital cases than today (assuming action isn't taken to prevent it the current trajectory). Also the current strain is already a "massive wave" in locations hit by the virus longer. It's just that that massive wave is going to get worse https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-...
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