Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#541

Post by sethammons » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

phakding wrote: post #88

chrisco255 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not astroturfing. I saw the protest in Austin this weekend. 22 million people have been laid off in the last 4 weeks. I've seen the footage of tens of thousands lining up at food banks across the country. This is just getting started.

I don't see the link here. Yes there are 22 million laid off. But given a choice between being alive and being jobless, I think people would choose being jobless. The people protesting are not the same people lining up at food banks. I have seen wapo video of Michigan protest. People there were angry because they want to get their hair done or buy paint and fertilizer. They want others to go to work to they can stay…

> But given a choice between being alive and being jobless, I think people would choose being jobless.

That is not the choice. The choice is between some uncertain chance of death plus a chance to spread the infection and a certain lack of income.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#542

Post by aclsid » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

downerending wrote: post #126

aclsid wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Nobody has excluded Taiwan from anything, but they are not a member state of the UN and therefore not part of the WHO. Speaking from the cheap seats, Taiwan is obviously a sovereign country. They'd like to be in the UN. The UN apparently excludes them because of the influence of mainland China. So yes, they are excluded.

There are areas of Colombia that are a sovereign country because they are controlled by guerrillas. The same goes for Russian controlled areas of the Ukraine and Georgia.

What makes them sovereign countries with a right to be in the UN is the amount of recognition they get from their peers. I don't have anything against the Taiwanese, but they are embroiled in a conflict just like the previous regions I described. Until they solve those issues one way or another and gain more international recognition they will not be able to participate in the UN, the Olympics or other places as a country.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#543

Post by htfu » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #525

htfu wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[3] says 1000+ ICU beds needed and capacity 79 (!?) when actual numbers are 1000+ beds, of which about half are in use. So I would heavily discount its conclusion that deaths in Sweden will somehow surpass Germany (!?). In any case be mindful of the confidence intervals, they are huge and the projections seem much more volatile in general than local ones.

Agree this is far from an exact science and these estimates are adjusted as information and situations change. Still the much higher deaths expected per capita is shocking. One days passing has new info, higher deaths for Sweden than Sweden (185 vs 7) and also in new positive cases (545 vs 129). It's just one day but the trend is terrible. It's far worse in the us where I live, with multiple states about to open up a…

Right, I'm saying these expectations - and evidently some of the source data - are a bit out of sync with the ones in play on the ground. Any model is only as good as its inputs, after all.

Daily numbers made me react as well, they say it's a post-weekend thing. Perplexing to me but then that's what rolling averages and trends are for, I suppose.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#544

Post by pacala » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #277

megavolcano wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that the more data we get with regards to fatality rate, it's looking more and more along the lines of the seasonal flu (which has a vaccine, generally). The drastic measures taken to protect a tiny minority of people are looking to be more and more pointless. We would not tolerate shutting down the world economy to protect people from the seasonal flu, and we should not tolerate it for this.

How do you reconcile this argument with the hospitals being full and morgues overrun? Do you think that happens every flu season?

[Not the person you addressed this question to].

I don't. Do you? We are 3 months into this mess and have wildly divergent facts that can't be reasonably reconciled.

Some attempts:

* The regular flu season uses 75% capacity of the system. A disease that's 3x worse will lead to 225% capacity needs.

* Maybe this disease is remarkably more contagious than the flu. In a tightly packed place like NYC, you might get all the cases that you're ever going to get flowing through the system within x weeks, whereas a less infectious flu season might trickle the same caseload within 2x weeks.

* This is out of the ballpark deadly, 10x-100x worse than the flu.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#545

Post by aclsid » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #255

aclsid wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Nobody has excluded Taiwan from anything https://mobile.twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1243949792985...

I saw that video and it proves my point. Taiwan is not recognized as an independent country, and the reporter, which is from a Hong Kong network, knows perfectly well that situation and wanted to ask a pointy question, so don't be surprised by the result. The staffer just did not know how to answer that well without getting into political issues since he's just trying to do his job.

But if you think this is definitive proof of a conspiracy, then you should check where the financing for the WHO comes from (China is nowhere near the top list), and second China actually ignored some recommendations from the WHO during the initial stage of the outbreak.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#546

Post by camgunz » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

modzu wrote: post #522

camgunz wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be best if we avoided engaging in the despicable, ghoulish practice of valuing one life over another.

is a classic moral dilemma. a train heading for some people on track a or you can pull a lever and send divert it to track b where there is one person. if you do nothing, many die, if you pull the lever, one dies, but you killed him because he wouldn't have died otherwise. what would you do? there isnt one right answer, but our world is complex and we are always making decions that affect everyone else. it turns out…

This isn't the trolley problem. We have tools to address the economic destruction, but we only have 1 tool to address coronavirus: shelter in place. It's not any more complicated than that.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#547

Post by zarkov99 » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #503

zarkov99 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is relying on FB as the arbiter of truth. Ideas that sounded insane a few weeks back, and might have been censored for the sake of the confused masses, like the possibility the virus escaped from a bio-lab or that masks really help, are now respectable. FB, Google, Twitter, etc, will, by default, protect the status quo, the safe, consensual views, and censor anything else. This is very dangerous.

Like the physical epidemic, there will be false positives and false negatives. The idea that masks would help was never ludicrous, but it was disreccomended for bad reasons. The "virus escaped from a bio-lab" theory is still rather lacking in evidence, which may be very hard to find, but that doesn't actually affect how to treat it. The "virus is spread by 5G" is both wrong and getting masts burnt down. The "virus is…

The point is that FB has a disproportionate influence over speech and it should not be trusted with that sort of power (no one should really, but least of all an unelected, unaccountable, for-profit organization).

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#548

Post by megavolcano » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #277

megavolcano wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that the more data we get with regards to fatality rate, it's looking more and more along the lines of the seasonal flu (which has a vaccine, generally). The drastic measures taken to protect a tiny minority of people are looking to be more and more pointless. We would not tolerate shutting down the world economy to protect people from the seasonal flu, and we should not tolerate it for this.

How do you reconcile this argument with the hospitals being full and morgues overrun? Do you think that happens every flu season?

Not all hospitals and morgues are overrun, a lot of them are actually massively under capacity. The media hysterics about this is complete nonsense for the majority of hospitals. NYC is not the US. Hell, NYC is not New York STATE.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#549

Post by clairity » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

Faark wrote: post #489

clairity wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the collection of arguments being made by the protesters (as reported) mostly seem farcical and incoherent, but we should very much support their right to protest and challenge the authoritarian-prone position that we must be locked down indefinitely to beat this pandemic. administrative directives need to convince a (super-)majority of the populace with evidence to gain trust and compliance. antagonistic pressure ne…

An interesting aspect: Protesting a law should be possible without disobeying it. But the usual mass gatherings are kind of a problem in this specific situation. Thus how to protest responsibly? Holding a "Its just a Flu" poster while wearing a face mask might not be that ridiculous after all.

it's not clear that these protesters are being unlawful by disobeying rules implemented via emergency powers rather than legislation. while there's force of law behind emergency powers, it's not concrete who might be harmed by the protesters (other than themselves, and they're unlikely to sue each other given the nature of the protest).

with that said, yes, it's prudent to wear a mask around random strangers in close proximity while shouting (spitting) a lot, to keep from infecting each other. note that the flu is deadly too (30-60K/yr in the US), we just don't shut down the economy for it.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#550

Post by AdrianB1 » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #500

AdrianB1 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people sensibly realize that a lock-down in the face of a pandemic is not a regression in our fundamental rights as US citizens, but just a temporary measure to save lives. This way many of the rights in the Constitution and Amendments were slowly eroded (reduced), permanently. Technically, it is a slippery slope even if it is driven by good intentions. One day there will be nothing left, because this is how l…

> think of the children, How is this any different than "think of our freedoms!" which has been used endlessly to oppress other nations and peoples, and, ironically, our own.

Can you please provide a such example? I really have no idea what you are talking about.