Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I first started doing volunteer health assessments and triage at our local homeless shelter, I inquired if facial hair was an issue with PPE. The organization's initial response was no. I sent them a link to the CDC guidance[1] that includes this picture regarding facial hair styles that are ok[2]. I don't think the notice at the top of said article is helpful whatsoever saying that this isn't advice for covid-1…
What would someone find offensive about the picture?
America is giving up on the pandemic?
741–750 of 1001 posts
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#742Earlier quoted context omitted.
The (peaceful) protests aren't illegal so anonymity isn't a major concern. Police might be violent towards protestors in the moment, but there's zero risk of the government tracking down and punishing protesters after the fact.
> there's zero risk of the government tracking down and punishing protesters after the fact. ehhh I wouldn't be so sure about that.
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#743Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure how much "structural" racism actually exists in the US at this point. There are no doubt pockets and they should be rooted out. Personal racism exists and will probably never go away. It would be nice if it did. I do think people get profiled and hassled because other people who look like that have done XXX and cops see a possible pattern. This isn't fair to innocent people at all but I suspect this has…
I think the Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper incident from a few weeks ago was the most important 'teachable moment' that we've had in years. I am somewhat disappointed that it was overshadowed by protests against police brutality, because I thought it was a very 'teachable moment' that illustrated the type of racism that still exists behind a facade of tolerance. Police abuse is sort of a separate issue relating to train…
I think "structural racism" is one of the biggest branding failures of the whole movement.
To begin with, it uses the word "racism" to refer to something unintentional, when it normally implies intentionality. That needlessly makes people defensive. So then they want to deny that it's happening rather than admit there is a problem, which is the first step to solving it. Before even step one you've already lost.
Then the definition comes out as something like, structures that produce a racial disparity. But before controlling for confounders that's just everything. There are a slew of factors that correlate with race -- income, culture, in some cases biology (e.g. for Vitamin D). If lower income people get worse outcomes then all else equal, black people will get worse outcomes as a result of lower incomes. Which implies a poverty problem in those cases rather than a racism problem, which means you need anti-poverty solutions.
If you try to insist on a racism frame there, all you're doing is making enemies out of lower income white people who might've been your allies against the actual root cause which affects them too. And you make it all too easy for opponents to reveal the confounders and show that the "racism" isn't there, even though the problem is still there, because the problem wasn't "racism" (as it's commonly understood) to begin with.
It's easier to actually solve the problems if you stop having to constantly fight with people over calling it that.
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#744Earlier quoted context omitted.
A weasel in a cravat is still a weasel.
Observation: “weasel words” gets used a lot in HN comments as a cop out. I wish that phrase could be banned from this site because it is intellectually lazy. Commenters love to discredit articles and other commenters using that phrase rather than engaging in the actual effort to retort with facts. It’s the kind of broken culture that’s been turning HN into the same kind of cesspool that happened with slashdot.
>They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing.
Is there anything about that explanation which is unsatisfactory? It's not as if they simply condemned the statement to be weasel words without any explanation as to why they see it as such.
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#745Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is no5 in the world for police homicides, just behind countries like the Philippines, Syria, Brazil. Not a record to be proud of - 1,536 in 2019 according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... Other countries manage to achieve numbers like 2 for Japan, 3 for the UK, 11 for Germany which is nowhere near even adjusted for population. American police kill more people per ca…
To what do attribute the difference between US and UK police deaths? Do you think police brutality is the main factor?
In the long term that kind of doctrine is bound to have consequences on stats like deaths caused by the police, no matter how good / bad the intentions of individual officers are.
And it frames how the public reacts to events as well. Like if you are a cop and you shoot a person trying to rob a bank in the US your friends and family might congratulate you on a job well done, where as in europe you’ll be looked at with disdain by your loved ones.
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#746Earlier quoted context omitted.
1.) I don't agree with taking such "both sides" a view of equating the two: BLM protests are about protesting police brutality, religious congregations are not. Quarantine protests are underplaying the dangers of coronavirus: people participating in BLM protests, by and large, have no misconceptions of coronavirus. Whether or not you prioritize this above or below police brutality is of course something you place on…
> 1.) I don't agree with taking such "both sides" a view of equating the two: BLM protests are about protesting police brutality, religious congregations are not It isn't a matter of equating the perceived importance of the gatherings. It is a matter of the government not being content neutral in its actions. If the government is going to restrict public (and private!) gatherings for public health reasons, the restri…
> Additionally, what are you even going to do? Use the violence of the state to tell people not to protest against the use of violence conducted by the state?
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#747Earlier quoted context omitted.
@dang, Maybe the text in italics ("Be kind. Don't be snarky...") should be always shown above the HN comment box? It'd be nice to get the reminder every time we are starting to write something unkind or snarky...
Speaking as a frequent reddit user where various subreddits have added their versions of such an instruction, I think I've never really been reminded by them to behave a certain way. Parts of the UI like that can really only be seen once: once the user has seen that it is just a warning that is always there, it becomes an uninteresting piece of clutter that is zoned over and never again influencing the user. I think…
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose the dialogue in comments should be closer to two researchers thinking about a problem than lawyers cross-examining witnesses in court
Precisely. Your wording is reminiscent of an old thing pg wrote, which I love: Comments should be written in the spirit of colleagues cooperating in good faith to figure out the truth about something, not politicians trying to ridicule and misrepresent the other side. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#749Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those CDC numbers are really weird btw. 0.4% of symptomatic cases is like a 0.2-0.3% IFR. 0.3% of the New York City population has already died of corona-virus. So assuming everyone in New York was infected that gives us an IFR of .3%. But if a more realistic 20% of the population was infected then the IFR could be as high as 1.5%. I tried going through all the most recent research and almost all of it came up with a…
Influenza and pneumonia deaths by influenza season and age United States, 2008–2015: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pn...
Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?
#750Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1.) I don't agree with taking such "both sides" a view of equating the two: BLM protests are about protesting police brutality, religious congregations are not It isn't a matter of equating the perceived importance of the gatherings. It is a matter of the government not being content neutral in its actions. If the government is going to restrict public (and private!) gatherings for public health reasons, the restri…
See part 2: > Additionally, what are you even going to do? Use the violence of the state to tell people not to protest against the use of violence conducted by the state?