America is giving up on the pandemic? • Hacker News Board

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#411

Post by robocat » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #260

robocat wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One in every 1,000 Black men and boys can expect to be killed by police in this country". If we presume average years of life lost per black person’s death is 50 years, then Covid is less deadly. To lower risk, black people could stay at home and wait for better times...

That is so stupid. There are some 40 million black folks in the US. Assume half are men. 20,000,000 divided by 1,000 is 20,000. The actual number of unarmed blacks killed by the police per year is generally 20 or less. Last year it was like 10. You can look it up on the Washington Post database.

Perhaps you could rewrite that to avoid implying I am stupid?

Your facts don’t affect the argument.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#412

Post by braythwayt » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

sintaxi wrote: post #322

robbrown451 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Would you prefer that because someone is "professional" they discard all their personal ethics?

That is the very definition of professional.

So then, if I am a “professional” software developer, and my employer asks me to put a secret back-door in some code to be shipped to consumers... I should say nothing, because I’m a “professional?”

Or what if I’m doing renovations, and someone asks me to make something I know to be unsafe. I point that out, but they insist... Again, do I just do what they ask because, “professional?”

I suspect you are conflating “professional” with “mercenary.” To me, being a professional means approaching my work with a sense of ethics.

In fact, I suggest to you that saying nothing in these cases is also injecting ethics into my work, only it is my personal investment in “The Status Quo.”

You can’t escape ethics, you can only support the existing structure by pretending you are above petty “ethics” and “politics.”

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#413

Post by dang » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

daffy wrote: post #360

dang wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stub comment to collect replies in one place, so that it can be collapsed and prevent too much offtopicness at the top of the thread.

What's wrong with cross-examination?

airstrike answered this nicely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23451214.

In curious conversation, people want to know what the other person really thinks and what their experience has been like. In cross-examination, the goal is to defeat an enemy, so people are aggressive, try to make the other person seem as dumb or awful as they can, and generally seek to back them into a corner.

In one case the goal is to receive information from others' comments, in the other case it is to fire weapons into them. One can't do both at the same time. I think there are even physiological reasons for this: one is in a very different state when doing the one vs. doing the other.

Moreover, since curiosity evokes more curiosity and aggression evokes more aggression, the effects are systemic, meaning they apply to the site as a whole. We must choose which one we want, and we choose curiosity. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#414

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

vore wrote: post #369

twblalock wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just seem to think protesting America's rampant institutionalized police brutality is more worthy than protesting the lockdowns themselves That can’t possibly be a valid scientific opinion on the basis of public health data — until recently the virus was killing more people per day than the police kill in an entire year. It’s a political opinion and this was a political letter. From now on, when public health…

It is important to keep in mind that this is not about protesting just police brutality: police brutality is just one part of systemic inequality affecting POCs, especially black people, in the US. With that in mind, it is important to put an understanding of public health data in context with systemic racism, and why the data looks like it how it does.

[deleted]

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#415

Post by hobs » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #358

caconym_ wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where'd they "tell us there is no risk from these protests"? The letter you linked explicitly advises us to "prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest [and] provide increased access to testing and care for people in the affected communities, especially when they or their family members put themselves at risk by attending protests." They just seem to think protesting America's rampa…

> They just seem to think protesting America's rampant institutionalized police brutality is more worthy than protesting the lockdowns themselves That can’t possibly be a valid scientific opinion on the basis of public health data — until recently the virus was killing more people per day than the police kill in an entire year. It’s a political opinion and this was a political letter. From now on, when public health…

Worthy isnt the number of deaths involved, its the amount of justice it might achieve in response to.

Protesting the lockdown is not a just cause.

Saying "Well now anything doctors say is political!" does not show good intent or faith, but someone looking for a gotcha statement so they can say "See, they were political actors all along!"

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#416

Post by jtbayly » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

jdsully wrote: post #371

pstuart wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are screwed. Partisanship has been extended to such a degree that it guarantees that "both sides" remain opposed. Science should not be a partisan topic. Mistakes get made, but those should be learning opportunities rather than a chance to discredit your "opponent".

Science is partisan because its being misapplied. It cannot tell you what you should do, that is the realm of leadership. All it can say is whether a course of action may lead to a certain outcome. Whether such outcome is desirable vs the trade-offs is not a scientific fact as desirability only exists in the minds of each individual.

Your comment seems to actually mean that “science is partisan the moment it is being applied at all.”

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#417

Post by nikofeyn » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

ac29 wrote: post #22

Daily new deaths have been steadily falling even as states continue to ease or eliminate restrictions [0]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ This article seems to completely ignore that, instead focusing on positive test results, even though the vast majority of infections are mild or even completely asymptomatic. If anything, America is giving up on the breathless projections of mass die off that…

use that same site that you linked to and view countries like south korea. ask yourself, why are these graphs so different?

the answer is that america gave up from the beginning. that much is clear from the graphs. other countries, like south korea, didn't just flatten the curve, they eliminated it. a total of 100,000+ deaths is a mass die off.

in the united states, out of every 100,000 people, 35 have died. and it's likely more because the united states has manipulated death numbers by underreporting them.

in south korea, out of every 100,000, only 0.5 people have died. by those numbers alone, the u.s.' handling of the virus is 70 times worse. i'm sick and tired of people like you spreading misinformation and shrugging this thing off like it hasn't been a big deal. it hasn't been that big of a deal in countries that have handled it. that does not include the united states.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#418

Post by theduder99 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

newjersey wrote: post #380

jabedude wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That don't need to be armed with firearms You're asking police officers to be less armed then the general public. 43 states are "shall-issue" and allow residents to conceal carry a firearm after completing required training and submitting an application.

> You're asking police officers to be less armed then the general public. Can we at least agree that off-duty police officers working as security guards at a hospital or elsewhere should not under any circumstance carry a weapon (other than perhaps a stick or something) while on non-police duty? > Soon, from inside the room, there was shouting, sounds of a scuffle and a loud pop. During an altercation, two off-duty H…

imagine a day in the life of an inner city cop and then re-read your post to see how ridiculous it sounds.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#419

Post by zarathustreal » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

axguscbklp wrote: post #281

jddj wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're stopping short of spelling out your conclusion. The aims of the protests are to shine a spotlight on police brutality and qualified immunity / defund the police / ensure that killer cops are prosecuted / damage property in pursuit of anarchy / score a new TV / whatever. It's all fairly clear and makes enough sense. Your idea, however, leaves us with nothing but a knowing look and an appeal to not trust the nar…

>it's because all the "but what about white folks?" people in my social circle have been following the same playbook. Consider that maybe it's not a playbook. Maybe people look at the data and reach conclusions different from yours. Call to action: Let's work together to reduce police brutality. However, let's not sweep black-on-white violence under the rug while focusing narrowly on white-on-black violence. The prev…

Thank you for this thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion. I would also like to add a global take into the discussion. Who stands to benefit from the American people being both divided among white / black, male / female, old / young, and distrusting of the media? Certainly not anyone in America.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#420

Post by leeoniya » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

s3cur3 wrote: post #386

twblalock wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just seem to think protesting America's rampant institutionalized police brutality is more worthy than protesting the lockdowns themselves That can’t possibly be a valid scientific opinion on the basis of public health data — until recently the virus was killing more people per day than the police kill in an entire year. It’s a political opinion and this was a political letter. From now on, when public health…

I don’t have a particularly strong opinion here either way, but I think it’s worth pointing out that all medical advice is (or at least should be) sensitive to the broader context of a person’s life. Consider: is it safe to take morphine? If I’m a healthy 20-something looking for escape, absolutely not. On the other hand, if I’m an 85 year old hospice patient, anything harm morphine causes is vastly outweighed by the…

> is it safe to take morphine

it is safe for me if you take morphine; it is not safe for me if you spread an airborne pathogen. see the difference?