Facebook censoring in favor of Trump. strange days
Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
461–470 of 595 posts
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always remember that "the NSA is spying on everybody" was "conspiracy stuff" too. Right until it wasn't. And regarding Corona: Sweden never introduced a quarantine, and they seem to be in good shape compared to others. Not saying I agree with that policy, because I don't. But the topic isn't as "black and white" as it appears. Here in Germany, as of today, many of the already few restrictions where lifted as well.
Sweden has considerably more total deaths and deaths per capita than their neighbours Norway and Denmark. Sweden is currently seeing an increase in both confirmed cases and deaths. The only reason things aren't worse in Sweden is that they've implemented a mild form of lockdown. There's a lot of debate in Sweden about their approach, and plenty of people think they need to be on tighter lockdowns.
The tally is not properly done yet.
There is still great difference in how deaths are counted between countries. For instance, Italy mostly counted dead at hospitals. In Sweden, if someone dies, it's up to the doctor in charge to call for a post mortem test or not. There has been quite a lot testing in homes for the elderly.
What all of this means, is that it's very difficult to compare between countries. I think it will be much clearer in retrospect, but maybe not even then.
And this mild lockdown is the point - no tracking of citizens with apps, no quarantine orders, no Police and Military (Finland!!) or closed roads. People are changing their behaviour without all of that. The politicians in charge are worried that a hard lockdown will create fatigue - and they want us to be able to keep up mitigations for a long time, because the virus may be with us for a long time.
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know that this is a shocking idea, but you can, in extraordinary circumstances, use a variety of government measures, including dipping into reservers to ensure that people don't starve and that businesses aren't forced to lay off people that they will need when businesses restart. Yes, government isn't some omnipotent god but neither is it some helpless pathetic entity that can't sort things out at a time of extra…
> dipping into reservers My assumption is that governments are taking on some sort of debt here.
When you control the mint, it's basically the same thing. Doubly so when its the USD and the rest of the world has exactly the same problem you do, so you hardly need to worry about the depreciation vs other currencies.
(Even if you hardly needed to before just by sheer size.)
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#464I usually stay out of the political/topical threads on HN but this is personal to me. From my point of view few if any of us commenting here are knowledgeable enough to connect all the disparate data points we keep snatching at and synthesize them into conclusions that are likely to be correct. The people who can do that are working on it, and generally too busy at the moment to post on forums or give interviews. The…
There are increasing reports that ventilators are doing more harm than good, that in fact the way this virus starves the body of oxygen isn't pneumonia, but rather in the blood. It's like a reverse survivorship bias - most patients vented die.
Sounds crazy - even if it was something in the blood, if you are oxygen starved, how can it be worse to flush your lungs with pure oxygen than not?
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#465I usually stay out of the political/topical threads on HN but this is personal to me. From my point of view few if any of us commenting here are knowledgeable enough to connect all the disparate data points we keep snatching at and synthesize them into conclusions that are likely to be correct. The people who can do that are working on it, and generally too busy at the moment to post on forums or give interviews. The…
"Someone mentioned quarantining the "vulnerable" people and letting everyone else get back to work" I am one of those, who think that way, as a preferred solution. Now there are of course many problems with this approach, because who is "vulnerable"? Who decides on that. Because it also means, that those categorized as not vulnerable, would be expected to go to work etc. and those who do get quarantined should get co…
What you're suggesting probably will happen, just not right now. As people go back to work, most high-risk people will continue to stay home (hopefully with government support). But as OP points out, we don't even have a full understanding of who's high risk. Every day we lockdown we're buying time to figure it out. We're also buying time to develop medications, manufacture equipment, study immunity, ramp up testing, and so on. It can't go on forever, but these are valuable days.
Several European nations have already started to ease lockdowns. High risk people still stay home, but a lot of people get to go back to work. If the US gets it's shit together, that can happen here too.
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something I've been wondering for a while is how long Facebook et al would let conspiracy stuff run wild once it came close to damaging their own interests. It's one thing to look at a forest fire from a distance and say "it's people's right to play with matches", quite another thing when it reaches your own office. Neither Facebook staff nor management are immune to the consequences of a pandemic. There is a legitim…
Always remember that "the NSA is spying on everybody" was "conspiracy stuff" too. Right until it wasn't. And regarding Corona: Sweden never introduced a quarantine, and they seem to be in good shape compared to others. Not saying I agree with that policy, because I don't. But the topic isn't as "black and white" as it appears. Here in Germany, as of today, many of the already few restrictions where lifted as well.
Sweden is still too early to call but my money is on the pandemic.
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very little about this feels like the Patriot Act. I also don't really see why the government would want to tank its economy. I mean, I can think of some really out there reasons, but I don't really feel it's worth entertaining given the far more reasonable reason for lock-in during a pandemic. edit: When I say 'this' I mean enforced lock in, specifically.
Nobody wants to “tank the economy”, but lots of panicky people are on HN and reddit, every day, calling for extensions of these lockdowns “because people are dying!” , even though the original pretense was quite different (“flattening the curve” doesn’t change the area under the curve). The premise of the thing is shifting, and censorship of contrary opinions is growing (as you can see from reflexive downvoting of co…
Lots of panicky people are on HN and reddit, every day, calling for extensions of these lockdowns “because people are dying!”, even though the original pretense was quite different (“flattening the curve” doesn’t change the area under the curve).
How was it different? One of the main points of flattening the curve was to minimise the risk of overwhelming (particularly) health services by ensuring that pressure was spread out over time. Overwhelmed health services = people dying, and not just because of the virus.
Now you may think that argument is wrong, but if so it would be better to understand the reasoning (or if you understand it then at least respond to it, rather than misrepresenting it) before dismissing people who argue it as "panicky".
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that's why government action to shut down businesses, should absolutely be coupled with action to protect workers salaries. In the UK, government is paying 80% of furloughed workers pay up to a certain amount, and there is relief on property taxes etc for businesses. In my opinion the two (shutdown and relief) go hand in hand.
Some people think the richest country in the history of the world could figure something like this out, but those people don’t seem to understand how it became the richest country to begin with. The United States was built on laissez faire exploitation and that is not going to change overnight.
Nonsense. Laissez faire exploitation results in banana republics.
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something I've been wondering for a while is how long Facebook et al would let conspiracy stuff run wild once it came close to damaging their own interests. It's one thing to look at a forest fire from a distance and say "it's people's right to play with matches", quite another thing when it reaches your own office. Neither Facebook staff nor management are immune to the consequences of a pandemic. There is a legitim…
Always remember that "the NSA is spying on everybody" was "conspiracy stuff" too. Right until it wasn't. And regarding Corona: Sweden never introduced a quarantine, and they seem to be in good shape compared to others. Not saying I agree with that policy, because I don't. But the topic isn't as "black and white" as it appears. Here in Germany, as of today, many of the already few restrictions where lifted as well.
Just pointing out to you and people replying that you guys have already degenerated into just the sort of data-point-cherry-picking-with-no-comprehensive-knowledge-base debate that HN User markbnj was talking about.
We don't have the data was markbnj's point. (I'd go even further and say most of the people on HN don't even know what data would be good to have, and wouldn't have the capacity to comprehend the full meaning of those datasets even if we did have them.) He's also correct when he posits the very strong likelihood that the people who do have the data and the capacity for actionable understanding thereof, don't spend their days on trivialities like posting to HN right now.
He's right, they are busy. They're doing the real work of extricating us from this situation and they need a bit of space. Adding more pressure on them right now is not necessarily going to help. In tech terms, it's like working on a giant software release with features that have never before been implemented, (coronavirus), and telling your boss, (the people), you're not sure you can hit the release date 4 weeks from now.
Then your boss decides to help you by only requiring you implement the most difficult features, and moving the release date up to friday.
Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events
#470I guess it is easy to dismiss the message from ordinary people, since they do not express themselves as well as the professional speakers we are used to listen to. If instead of saying "I want a haircut.", they would say like Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." would they be taken more seriously? In the movie versio…
> The most accurate data about the fatality rate of covid-19 may come from the Diamond Princess cruise boat where everyone has been tested. The 60-to-80 year old infected passengers had a fatality rate of ~2%. There was no fatality among the infected much younger crew.
The trouble with this assertion is that we don't know if it is statistically valid. Consider the number of crew to the number of passengers on a typical cruise ship. If there were only 20 crewmembers, is that enough to form a valid conclusion of "young people don't die from this disease"?
Furthermore, were emergency services able to help every infected passenger on board? Yes, the fatality rate was 2%, but how many were infected and required treatment?
The big issue in the states is that if enough people (just 1% in some areas) require treatment, the hospital systems will be overwhelmed and people who have a treatable illness will die due to lack of available resources. So the best thing society can do is either self-isolate to prevent the spread of COVID-19, or hospitals can somehow advocate for legislation to refuse patients with COVID-19 symptoms to prevent their resources from being overwhelmed.