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Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

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Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#301

Post by Will_Parker »

rumanator wrote: post #276
Will_Parker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission It's a disease spread by exhaled droplets. How the heck could masks _not_ work? Why has common sense, as an acceptable way to obtain knowledge, died in the general public?

> It's a disease spread by exhaled droplets. How the heck could masks _not_ work? You should really get some information on the topic you're discussing, because either you are oblivious to the point you're trying to argue against or are disingenuously misrepresenting what was actually and repeatedly said. The main argument against wearing any protective equipment, including latex gloves which you casually omitted, wa…

So how does it not work? I talk, mask gets wet. Doesn't it mean it's blocking some of the droplets from spraying out? Why not?

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#302

Post by Will_Parker »

bunje wrote: post #174
Will_Parker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission It's a disease spread by exhaled droplets. How the heck could masks _not_ work? Why has common sense, as an acceptable way to obtain knowledge, died in the general public?

It's explained in point two. We're talking about large quantities of people here. Technically mask blocks droplets. But if you tell everyone to use a mask, does it reduce transmission on average?

What's your plausible scientific reason that blocking droplets doesn't reduce the chance of spreading the virus? My prior is, it does, based on my experience of the mask getting wet when talking.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#303

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #297
StuntPope wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say classical liberalism of yore is closer to libertarianism today. The big difference is positive versus negative rights. Libertarians and classical liberals believe in the latter (the right to be left alone, to live your life as you please, to marry who you want, to be gay, to be straight, etc) Liberalism today, is all about positive rights, entitlements. But the objection libertarians have against positive…

> I would say classical liberalism of yore is closer to libertarianism today. Of course it is. But that's not what "liberal" means anymore in everyday speech in America. I'm well aware of Isaiah Berlin's delineation of negative and positive rights, of Robert Nozick's defense of property rights, and so on. I'm extremely well-versed in libertarianism. That doesn't make it any less extreme. Governments have redistribute…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#304

Post by tzs »

kelnos wrote: post #275
tzs wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about improving education, building functional (and trusted) institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media? They do not work, because the time and cost to create and widely disseminate falsehoods is much less than the time and cost to refute those falsehoods. See "Firehose of falsehood" [1], which is an apt name for what happens now thanks to the internet and social media greatly lowering…

> They do not work, because the time and cost to create and widely disseminate falsehoods is much less than the time and cost to refute those falsehoods. It's not about countering falsehoods, it's about giving people the tools to think critically and not be duped by falsehoods in the first place.

Don't they already have those tools readily available?

People don't believe QAnon, or that Bill Gates created COVID-19 as part of his secret plan to implant chips in everybody, or that 5G towers caused COVID-19, or that the earth is flat, etc., because they do not have access to the tools to find and critically evaluate the refutations of those idiotic beliefs.

All the necessary tools are readily available on the internet. But using them takes more effort than they want to put in. And if they do put in the effort to think critically about something they saw on social media, there are dozens more to take its place.

The falsehoods can be designed to be entertaining and to appeal to the fears and prejudices of their targets. This makes it easy for someone to get into it because they can start out just for the entertainment. They aren't going to seek out opposing views and critical evaluate them at that point because it is just entertainment. Somewhere along the line, it changes from being just entertainment to something they actually believe in.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#305

Post by searchableguy »

tzs wrote: post #247
JPKab wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of nothing that epitomizes privilege more than living in a society with free speech, and being so willing to embrace censorship of ideas, even when they are clearly dumb or even dangerous. Democracy was a dangerous idea one time. I get your exhaustion. My dad succumbs to dumb shit all the time. A lot of it is on the mainstream corporate news channels. Currently, there is some kind of information you and I…

> Currently, there is some kind of information you and I are both succumbing to coming from "legitimate" sources that you, me, and the authorities trust. The Iraq WMD fiasco was being reported by the New York Times. It's not accuracy that makes a source legitimate. Legitimate sources will publish misinformation. The differences between legitimate and illegitimate sources are that (1) legitimate sources make a conside…

Can you give me a list of few legitimate sources out of mainstream media?

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#306

Post by ceejayoz »

tzs wrote: post #193
rjkennedy98 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow...just wow. The only way to deal with people having bad ideas is censorship? Seriously? What about improving education, building functional (and trusted) institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media? It really bothers me that there is a group of people begging for corporate overloads to control and think for the population. Its literally the opposite of everything this country stands for.

> What about improving education, building functional (and trusted) institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media? They do not work, because the time and cost to create and widely disseminate falsehoods is much less than the time and cost to refute those falsehoods. See "Firehose of falsehood" [1], which is an apt name for what happens now thanks to the internet and social media greatly lowering…

AKA a "Gish gallop": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#307

Post by perl4ever »

JPKab wrote: post #162
nmakow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did we forfeit our ability to think critically and judge sources on our own?

In the minds of the political elites, when Trump won the 2016 election. I hate the guy as much as anyone. My wife was crying. It was a shock. The DNC could have examined why they lost the key swing states by the thin margins they did in a deep, meaningful way. But that would have required acknowledging mistakes made by their highly paid political consultants and their own power brokers. But who wants to be the person…

Do you currently think COVID-19 is a problem outside NYC?

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#308

Post by perl4ever »

akozak wrote: post #23
h2odragon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people are looking for any story they can find to make all this make sense. The stories they're hearing don't make sense and keep changing, too. I don't think doubling down on the parochial "we'll tell you what to think, you can trust us" is going to win back their trust or make them any more willing to embrace the complexities and uncertainties they face. It'll definitely confirm that there's "seekrits they'…

What stories don't make sense? A novel coronavirus caught fire in China, spread internationally, killed a lot of people, and some gov'ts fumbled the response and some didn't.

"some gov'ts fumbled the response and some didn't"

Who decided this is over and in the past tense? That's what troubling me, personally. I feel there's a point at which people are going to look down and realize we've run off a cliff into midair. We may not be in danger of having the hospitals overrun, so it could be ok, but it makes me nervous. If reopening goes well in the US and western Europe, what about the countries where the epidemic is spreading now at an ever increasing rate?

Daily new cases have been trending up for roughly a month, and daily new deaths have been declining, but may be turning a corner right now.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#309

Post by crazygringo »

StuntPope wrote: post #293
crazygringo wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's basically... "live and let live". That's about it. I don't know what's extreme about that. You don't? Live and let live means, in practice, let die. Libertarianism says, if you had bad luck and are poor and you get a disease you can't pay to cure, you die. Libertarianism is the extreme of selfishness. "Live and let live" means "I've got no obligation to anybody else, screw 'em." In modern society, that's incre…

I think you cared to have an open mind about it, you would find that in practice, libertarians will step up and help those in need just as much any anybody else would. The extent to which people will do so is more dependent on their own moral compass and ability to help others than by their political ideology. What libertarians are against is coercion and force. They don't want to be forced to do what somebody else t…

> libertarians will step up and help those in need just as much any anybody else would

There's just no plausible evidence that people in general are charitable enough to fund all the necessary hospitals and schools and so on that society requires. It's just not human nature.

So to the children who will go uneducated and die of sickness, that insufficient charity isn't going to mean much.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#310

Post by crazygringo »

jwallaceparker wrote: post #298
crazygringo wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's basically... "live and let live". That's about it. I don't know what's extreme about that. You don't? Live and let live means, in practice, let die. Libertarianism says, if you had bad luck and are poor and you get a disease you can't pay to cure, you die. Libertarianism is the extreme of selfishness. "Live and let live" means "I've got no obligation to anybody else, screw 'em." In modern society, that's incre…

> Live and let live means, in practice, let die. I don't follow your logic. The non-aggression principle is what's at the core of libertarianism. It's to never initiate violence against peaceful people. Helping others voluntarily is certainly in keeping with the philosophy. > Libertarianism says, if you had bad luck and are poor and you get a disease you can't pay to cure, you die. No it doesn't. It says we're going…

And what if it doesn't get done voluntarily?

Experience shows that not only is voluntary assistance deeply insufficient, but that it's also often extremely biased and prejudiced.

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