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The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

economist.com

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Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#261

Post by starfallg »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #183
starfallg wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't asking for authoritarian restrictions. People have been asking for common-sense coordinated and effective measures that we can all rally around (like wearing masks). Instead we have ineffective politically driven responses marked by indecision and incompetence. People don't want lockdowns, but we recognise that because our containment measures have failed, we have no choice but to shut things. If you do…

> we have no choice but to shut things We have always had a spectrum of choices, and as time goes by we continue to develop new choices that will deliver better results at lower costs. Broad shutdowns have always been the bluntest possible instrument with the highest amount of collateral damage. This is why even the WHO is inveighing against shutdowns now, noting the increases in cancers left untreated, vaccines not…

The type of lockdowns we are seeing now (closure of nightlife and large events) is markedly different than before.

And those drastic measures from back in March and April were only because, at the time, hospital ICUs were being overwhelmed and doctors were dying of complication from SARS-COV-2. I don't think anybody is arguing for us to go back to that type of measure.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#262

Post by sharatvir »

whimsicalism wrote: post #211
shigawire wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a thirsty man in the desert, a muddy puddle is an oasis.

For many of the things that the EU is looked up to in (for instance, racism), the EU seems more like an oil spill. The idea that Europe is somehow much less racist than the US, for instance, is laughable.

Got to agree with this. You see European football fans make dehumanizing monkey sounds and gestures at black and brown players. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in American sports.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#263

Post by starfallg »

sethammons wrote: post #253
starfallg wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a prohibition of setting your neighbours house on fire an authoritarian restriction? How about a mandate to clear the pavement/sidewalk in front of your house of snow so that pedestrians don't fall and break their hip? Having laws doesn't mean you're being oppressed.

Except, by definition, you are. We, as a society, have determined that certain freedoms are given up for certain benefits. Is it age discrimination to prevent having a driver’s license before age 16? Yup! Is a freedom taken from you by having a law preventing arson? Yep, and we mostly all agree that is good. The important part of a new rule or law is that we accept the trade offs. I’m not convinced we’ve reached cons…

> The important part of a new rule or law is that we accept the trade offs. I’m not convinced we’ve reached consensus that we all need to be wearing masks but most are obliging.

The key factor here is that there are very good and obvious reasons to wear a mask, while the trade-off is a minor inconvenience. It's arguably less effort than shovelling snow from the front of your house.

If the vast majority of us are obliging due to the hope that it has an effect, with little to no negative effects, why are people making this a hill they want to die on? Worse still, why are people making this a hill for others to die on?

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#264

Post by learc83 »

Spearchucker wrote: post #257
learc83 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who learned the local languages, respected local cultural nuances and customs The US is the only country who requires every single Foreign service officer to learn the local language before being stationed in a country. The Foreign Service Language institute is the most prestigious language school in the world. US foreign policy has plenty of problems, but leaning the local culture and language is not one of them.…

My apologies if I got that wrong. Can you provide any references though? I understand from my own research that the ability to speak a foreign language is not mandatory for a posting. Wikipedia only mentions knowledge of a foreign language as influencing an applicant's chances of getting the posting he or she requested, not as a requirement.

Sorry the source is my brother who worked at the FSI, and every single is not really correct because of edge cases, but that's the officers and the people at the FSI talk about it. Some countries speak more than one language, some speak English (which all Foreign Service Officers are already required to speak), and in some countries there are many positions where you will be almost exclusively dealing with English speakers even if it isn't widely spoken there (some positions in Iraq). And finally not all postings are really what you'd think of as being a "diplomat" (dealing with Americans who lost their passport for example).

Each posting has a number of language designated positions, which range from 90% of the total positions in Columbia to 8% in a Iceland (where English is almost universally spoken).

In this example at least 90% of the officers in Columbia are required to speak Spanish (and it's likely that most of the other 10% do as well). If there aren't enough people proficient in a language they will train more at the FSI. In most countries language designated positions are the majority.

So yes it's not strictly required to speak Spanish to be posted in Columbia, but you're only going to be able to get one of the 10% of non language designated positions which aren't likely to be positions that we would think of as diplomatic work.

Additionally when you join the Foreign Service you have 5 years to become proficient in a Foreign Language before you get forced out, and during that time you can only serve in the limited non language designated positions.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#265

Post by burlesona »

smichel17 wrote: post #159
u801e wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every single time I was told that I was throwing my vote away or voting for one of the major party villains. The refrain essentially is that you must vote for the candidate we say is most likely to win and if you don't, then you're helping the next runner up. I believe that if we no longer reported polling results and had election results reported at the same time, then the problem I describe above would be signifi…

Reduced? Probably. Meaningfully? I don't think so. It's baked in to the system: if your equivalent (nth party voter) on the other side of the political spectrum switches their vote to the mainstream party and you don't, then the mainstream party you're more aligned with is disadvantaged. There's nothing subjective here; it's just how the system works. We desperately need a voting system that allows you to express you…

Thanks for sharing STAR, I hadn’t seen it before. How does that interact with proportional representation?

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#266

Post by starfallg »

cephy wrote: post #235
starfallg wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's "up in the air" in the same way that climate change is "up in the air". https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-f... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/ https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-abou... https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-0948_article

What a totally disingenuous comment your own links acknowledge the nuances about differences in effectiveness between the types of masks and how you wear them. To breakdown each of your sources. 1. It specifically notes the cloths masks are less effective and the cloth masks they tested were double layered and made from a water resistant material. It also discusses the need to wash them daily and not to take them off…

Your comment is a textbook example of moving the goalposts and muddying the waters.

No-one is arguing that cloth masks are better than surgical masks. Much of the effort in those studies was focused on how to protect staff in a clinical setting. No-one is recommending cloth masks for health-care workers.

However, the overwhelming conclusion from those studies is that that wearing cloth masks in almost all cases (one exception is fleece material) help. Thus cloth masks are recommended in non-clinical settings.

For example, take a look at this paper measuring droplet transmission through different types of masks (compared with none at all).

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#267

Post by starfallg »

treeman79 wrote: post #215
starfallg wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the vast majority of people agree that we should do something reasonable for the common good and you disagree loudly while flailing your arms about, then it doesn't make you a defender of liberty, it makes you an obnoxious moron.

[flagged]

Note the words "reasonable", here meaning "proportionate". We're not advocating mob rule here. We're asking you to wear a mask, not to kill your first-born.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#268

Post by jointpdf »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #260
jointpdf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of a few reasons: - 75% of Americans (incl. a majority of republicans) support mask mandates. (The US isn’t a direct democracy, but mask mandates have the green light from the general public). [ https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-understanding-the-out... ] - One of the main functions of any government is to mitigate the harm that people do to one another. This is the main thing that distinguishes it f…

75% of Americans believe there's an invisible man in the sky that grants you wishes if you pray hard enough. Not a good test for policy decisions....what about science instead? -"Not wearing a mask in crowded places causes harm to others. Not happening in Sweden. Maybe the people in Sweden have troll blood so they don't need masks. or maybe the jury is still out on that statement. - "Zero enforcement?" Half of the mu…

Sure, let’s talk about the science supporting mask wearing. Read these and come back with a good faith argument:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768532

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0203/v3

[Edit: removed “#ref-CR4” from end of first link]

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#269

Post by perardi »

refurb wrote: post #97
pbourke wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Isn’t Ontario and Quebec going through a massive 2nd wave right now? And there have been protests against the restrictions including one on Parliament Hill. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-19-rally-ottawa-1.570...

Canada has been going through a second wave. (Well, Ontario and Quebec are, with Winnipeg as a bubbling hot spot. But given most of the country lives in Ontario and Quebec…)

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/canada?countr...

The protests have been very, very small. The population, based on polls, supports masks.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/civic-duty-or-infr...

What’s going on in Canada is, I think, what’s going on in Europe: pandemic fatigue. It sucks to be socially distanced for this long, and people’s guards go down. I don’t think we are seeing the almost nihilistic denial that you see in parts of the States here; we’re just tired.

Re: The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

#270

Post by astrobe_ »

goatinaboat wrote: post #107
astrobe_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is quite telling that the economic aspects almost immediately pops up. I believe that over the decades we have shifted more and more from "people first" to "economy first", to the point that sometimes it feels like people exist only to serve economy.

people first" to "economy first", to the point that sometimes it feels like people exist only to serve economy. I don’t see these as mutually exclusive. The state of the economy dictates what we can afford in terms of healthcare, infrastructure, education, defence and much more. It is directly correlated with life expectancy and quality of life. Sure top-line numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they do tell a lot…

I am no economist, so I am probably wrong there: USA or China have a better GDP than France or Germany, yet the European countries have better healthcare, education systems and life expectancy. Different priorities?
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