111–120 of 363 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
I'm not sure how Hitler winning 1932 German elections improved human rights in Germany and overall Europe. Instead it turned into dictatorship, tyranny and mass murder. And you can not say that Germany at the time was not rational and not educated populace. It was a Physics mecca of the world with people like Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein. My point is education does not equal to…
Human rights in Germany improved as a result of WWII because Germany - unlike any other country - has seen first hand what will happen when you let human rights slide.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
I'd argue there's no direct correlation. There are societies with lesser regard for rationality doing just fine too. Several countries not in "the path of the storm" can claim credit for anything they did and didn't do as having stopped covid to the point of superstition. Id credit Germans' preference of beer just as much as their February/March response or their penchant for rationality. It's a form of collective su…
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The reality is, most people are going to get the 'rona. Germany for example; they didn't get it as much last spring; they're getting it now. NZ, same thing's going to happen, unless they develop North Korea style immigration policies or 12 monkeys style lifestyle. They're better off in general because they have healthier populations than, say, the US or the UK, but putting it off isn't going to work forever. I don't…
> they didn't get it as much last spring; they're getting it now That are lives saved. The more knowledge we have about the disease the easier is to treat it. Also, that measure has extended the lives of all the people that would have died months ago. Gaining time has a lot of value. > Sweden did; they're doing fine, and are basically over with it No. A second wave is starting in Sweden. And, the father of a colleagu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd argue there's no direct correlation. There are societies with lesser regard for rationality doing just fine too. Several countries not in "the path of the storm" can claim credit for anything they did and didn't do as having stopped covid to the point of superstition. Id credit Germans' preference of beer just as much as their February/March response or their penchant for rationality. It's a form of collective su…
> Rational, educated populace doesnt explain away the difference between Italy vs Austria, Belgium & Netherlands vs Germany, the US vs Canada In the case of US vs Canada, perhaps it does. Canadians have a high level of trust in expert civil servants, including public health officials. There is also a general Canadian pragmatism that kicks in: politicians from across the country and across the political spectrum have…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure how Hitler winning 1932 German elections improved human rights in Germany and overall Europe. Instead it turned into dictatorship, tyranny and mass murder. And you can not say that Germany at the time was not rational and not educated populace. It was a Physics mecca of the world with people like Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein. My point is education does not equal to…
World War II has been over for a while and Germany has a scientist as the leader of the country. Human rights in Germany improved as a result of WWII because Germany - unlike any other country - has seen first hand what will happen when you let human rights slide.
My conclusion was that education does not equal to rationality with regards to human rights and that democracy is not good but it is the best system we had so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reality is, most people are going to get the 'rona. Germany for example; they didn't get it as much last spring; they're getting it now. NZ, same thing's going to happen, unless they develop North Korea style immigration policies or 12 monkeys style lifestyle. They're better off in general because they have healthier populations than, say, the US or the UK, but putting it off isn't going to work forever. I don't…
> they didn't get it as much last spring; they're getting it now That are lives saved. The more knowledge we have about the disease the easier is to treat it. Also, that measure has extended the lives of all the people that would have died months ago. Gaining time has a lot of value. > Sweden did; they're doing fine, and are basically over with it No. A second wave is starting in Sweden. And, the father of a colleagu…
This. For all the debate about the Swedish approach, Sweden isn't really any better -- or worse -- off than comparable countries.
The one thing that could improve the situation is social distancing for an extended period of time, in combination with contact tracing and compulsory quarantining of contagious individuals. In that regard, Sweden dropped the ball completely along with the rest of the EU, when the EU decided tourism was more important than containing the pandemic.
The pandemic is the match, but I’m going to blame the pile of kerosene soaked rags.
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
World War II has been over for a while and Germany has a scientist as the leader of the country. Human rights in Germany improved as a result of WWII because Germany - unlike any other country - has seen first hand what will happen when you let human rights slide.
I was referring to the guy who said "Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights." My conclusion was that education does not equal to rationality with regards to human rights and that democracy is not good but it is the best system we had so far.
So the whole link between the pandemic and political systems is mostly nonsense, the countries where the impact is least are simply the ones that reacted fastest and most decisive. Everybody else is playing catch-up and they may have to substantially pause their 'freedoms' and 'democratic rights' to get through to the other side.
This is a simple result of early incompetence and refusal to assign sufficient gravity to the situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights.
You literally can't go 5km from your house in Australia. How exactly is that "fine wrt respect for human rights"? More people have died in a few months from Covid in the US than the entire 5 years of WWI Again, how is that just plain old dandy and nothing to think about?
Also, the US declared war in 1917. Spool through the main battles of WW1, when and where they occurred and who was in them.
Also, put bluntly, age matters. Wars are fought mainly between young men, and women and children don't exactly get off lightly. France lost ten percent of its active male population. Death, eventually, is inevitable. Death in a field, often over a period of days, when you should have lived another 40, because some ####### ##### of ######### ##### with the collective brains of a ######### #### couldn't do their jobs right, isn't.
In summary, you may not be wrong but its utterly sensationalist to compare the toll of WW1 to covid.