Live data from Hacker News

Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

buzzfeednews.com

791–800 of 954 posts

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#791
post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so certain. There is extreme political polarization, yes, but I don't think we can honestly look at the situation at hand and not see the giant Trump shaped elephant in the room. He hasn't ever governed as a "unity" president. That has worked for him when things were generally humming along but it fails catastrophically in times of crisis. Lots of people (myself included) simply don't believe he can put aside…

What I'm saying is that if Sec. Clinton were in office the red states would be doing exactly what they're doing now. It wouldn't have made a lick of difference. I should have been more explicit on that. > Contrast this with Andrew Cuomo of New York... Exactly. I think this is part of the problem on the left. The desire to do something , anything, when sometimes doing nothing, or less, is the right thing. And then if…

> What I'm saying is that if Sec. Clinton were in office the red states would be doing exactly what they're doing now. It wouldn't have made a lick of difference.

Sure it would. Heck if a Republican that wasn't Trump was in office now, there wouldn't have been the White House bully pulpit being used against basic safety measures and White House emergency powers abused to block states from getting PPE and other emergency supplies. We'd probably have a state aid bill, too, though probably a less generous one than a Democratic Administration and Senate would have been on board for, but probably more than nothing. Which make it financially more viable to do lockdowns (states often can't, Constitutionally, borrow for no capital expenses, and procedurally have a difficult process to approve new debt and have a high cost of borrowing, the Feds have none of those problems). Leadership matters and there's a reason Trump's numbers are falling even among Republicans.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. And maybe we shouldn't trust China's reported data, but Europe is almost doing miraculously well if you compare to the USA. Not going for eradication, but containment. With containment, everything else is possible (healthcare system not overloaded, economy can be opened up, schools can reopen, etc.). The US has capitulated completely, and even containment isn't really on the table nationally; on a state-by-stat…

> but Europe is almost doing miraculously well if you compare to the USA. This is totally at odds with the data. The UK, France, Spain, and Italy, among others, have higher deaths per capita than the US.

Older populations?

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#793
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you're from, but in many places, "society and government" has not failed people the same way it has in the US. Even within the US there are some places where local and state government have performed much better than places like Florida or NYC. That is to say, the problem is not, conceptually, "society and government", but instead, the American society and American government we have today. Don't give…

It's my conclusion that the system has failed as well, and it comes from things that are intrinsic to the system itself. Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. When "success" and "wealth" is determined by how much resources you can extract from the land and people, and how much control over access to those resources, it incentivized centralization and control over basic necessities. This would be food,…

Thanks for your comment. To expand on your point, a healthy society has a good mix of subsistence, volunteer/gift, exchange, and planned transactions. And when those are strong, theft is reduced.

I made a video about that about a decade ago: "Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

Hoping more people understand that over time.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very pleased by the decision from the top in California today about keeping schools remote until things get better. The only complaint I have is how long it took to get there. Tons of people at hundreds/thousands of school districts and private schools throughout the state have spent incredible effort debating and planning and so much effort could have been saved if the decision from the top was made earlier.

I share your pleasure in the decision, but staunchly disagree with you about the method used to reach it. The correct decision was reached, in time (before the start of the school year) for it to make a difference. Tons of people and thousands of schools vigorously debating is the democratic process. A decision handed down from "the top" is authoritarianism, and as we've seen repeatedly this year, authoritarian decis…

> A decision handed down from "the top" is authoritarianism

Actually not so; it is only centralised. The democratic process is pretty clear that the people want education decisions handed down by an authority "at the top".

A decentralised approach to eduction would let parents make on-the-day decisions about where to send their children and probably have some sort of market-based approach to how education was funded (maybe even parent-pays). That approach has been mostly rejected politically.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#795
post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is unconvincing and really annoying. I don’t care about the calculus other people had to go through to have children in other times because I’m not them . Every human makes decisions based on the pressures they experience in their own life, pointing out that times were worse elsewhere is just annoying pedantry. And of course, part of my point was I’m dubious about having a kid in America . As in, I’d be…

I had no intention of being annoying. Apologies for that. I only meant to offer some optimism. I understand your point of view, and I respect it.

No worries, it's a common response and I clearly have a knee-jerk reaction to it.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#796
post #778
post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think you misinterpreted what he was suggesting - it is meaningless to say that Hillary won the popular vote because neither party were trying to win the popular vote - you win the presidency by winning the electoral college. This is a non-sequitur. Whether or not that metric (popular vote) has a bearing on the results of presidential election is irrelevant to the statement of whether he won in that metric. Furthe…

You don't win a metric.

Maybe with a definition that you can only "win" a competition that was agreed upon ahead of time. However, a quick search on hn shows that "win" colloquially also can mean beating everyone else at some metric (or in some cases, on a subjective basis). eg.

"Chrome won" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14420972, despite the lack of an actual competition for internet browser market share

"Linux and open source have won, get over it" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23673867

"Teenage Engineering has won over kids and professionals with a synthesizer" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20527069

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#797
post #358

What we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point. Heres the thing: even if you believe people are being irrationally afraid, telling people they are stupid and should just suck it up isn't going to get people to cooperate. Do you want to be smugly right, or do you want thin…

> we didn't follow through with the lockdown nationally to actually stomp the virus This statement implies that there's a way to completely eradicate the virus, eg. if everyone in the world stays locked in their homes for 6 weeks, then the virus will be eradicated. That's not realistic, the level of coordination required to make that happen does not exist. So eradicating the virus was never on the table, no matter ho…

Other countries have done far better than the US. We could have done the same.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#798
post #758
post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually chose stomp over eradicate because I wanted to imply that there would still be some left but that it would be a manageable amount. That's interesting that you took it the opposite way; I'm sorry for the confusion. I agree, eradication was probably impossible in the United States. What I thought we all agreed on at the start of this thing was to lock down so we could "flatten the curve". Remember that? Whil…

We didn't snuff out hot spots. The virus was/is still in NYC and Washington. No matter how long we locked down for it would still be there waiting to emerge after the lock down ended. That was the problem with the lockdown. It was touted as a solution when its just a delaying tactic. Schools are the same. Keeping them closed is just a delaying tactic. And like the lockdown, unless we delay until a vaccine then it's a…

What are you suggesting is a delaying tactic? What is the thing being delayed?

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your only example here is 'masks'. The rest of your comment could equally be applied to the american left or right, depending on your perspective.

Masks were also protested in 1918, so this isn’t a post-WW2 phenomenon.

There were pockets of resistance to mask wearing in the 1918 flu pandemic, but it was not widespread.

https://www.history.com/news/1918-spanish-flu-mask-wearing-r...

Also, they didn't have government leadership publicly questioning the wisdom of mask wearing.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#800
post #358

What we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point. Heres the thing: even if you believe people are being irrationally afraid, telling people they are stupid and should just suck it up isn't going to get people to cooperate. Do you want to be smugly right, or do you want thin…

“What we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point.“ That’s what happens when political parties and now the president and his administration are spreading misinformation as long it helps their short term needs. Nobody believes anything anymore. I am already worried about the…

They will trust it if Fox News/OAN reports it. And that remains to be seen.
Post reply on HN