I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months • Hacker News Board

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#131

Post by mywittyname » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #70

Symbiote wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the bombs in London and Manchester were international news at the time, at least throughout the Western world? Next you'll tell me the average American is unaware of the 7 July bombs on the London Underground, the ETA bombs in Spain, Breivik in Norway or the sarin gas attacks in Tokyo.

The average American will have probably seen some coverage of those things, but for stuff that happened years ago that aren't closely tied to ongoing, present-day in-the-US issues, they won't recall many details.

Even "world news" segments in the American news largely involve America in some capacity. Maybe half of world news in the US is completely unrelated to the US.

That's part of why I read the BBC for world news.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#132

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

perardi wrote: post #94

zinekeller wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really quck edit: this is probably the most controversial comment that I have posted here. However, without a proper survey I am still not convinced that someone will associate "the Irish problem" with the violence there. Take the discussion below with a grain of salt and I hope that you, assuming that you are in the west coast or Atlantic coast, consider if someone (a random person) in the Midwest will know this. To…

I am a very average American, born in 1983, and I’ll admit that I have only the vaguest idea of The Troubles. My first real concrete memory of hearing of Ireland’s issues was the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. If you were born after 1990 in America, I am doubtful you have much knowledge of that era at all.

Probably that Jack Ryan movie with Harrison Ford was most people’s exposure of that era

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#133

Post by stretchcat » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

zinekeller wrote: post #122

stretchcat wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the [Provisional] IRA is well known in America. Every other American seems to think they are 'part Irish' and I think the average American's awareness of The Troubles is high, at least compared to other foreign conflicts (at least for Americans old enough to remember the 90s at least anyway.) Furthermore 'Irish car bombs' are a tactless but popular bar drink in America, which indicates an awareness of the con…

> Furthermore 'Irish car bombs' are a tactless but popular bar drink in America, which indicates an awareness of the conflict. In the Atlantic parts, sure. But someone saying that others knows the history of Ireland because they knew a drink is a stretch at this point.

Occasionally I've met people who wondered where the drink name came from, but everybody else in the room was always quick to explain it. Americans may not know all the nuance and details, but the basics ('there was a violent conflict between the British and Irish, particularly regarding Northern Ireland") really are widely known in my experience.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#134

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #32

I instantly read this title and assumed given the current political environment he was predicting an armed, IRA like insurrection in the US Phew he was just talking about the once in a lifetime pandemic shit show. Time for a break from the internet today.

Well we are already at the Armalite and the ballot box stage

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#135

Post by pimlottc » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

Atlantium wrote: post #5

When I read the headline I thought this article might be about domestic terrorism in the US. When I clicked on the article I saw it it was in fact about COVID-19. This is how I test my assumptions.

Same here. And it's a sign of the times that I felt relief that it was "just" about covid...

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#136

Post by azinman2 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

nickelcitymario wrote: post #116

Barrin92 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representative government caving to demands when the demands are terrible, like in this case, is not a good thing. In that moment what is needed is enough guts to see the measures through and fend interest groups off. Loss of leadership and movement towards "the customer is king" politics is responsible for a lot of mistakes in the response to this virus.

If we believe in democracy, we necessarily must believe that the crowd - the mob, if you're feeling less generous - is better at making decisions than any small group of people. Which means believing that it's better to implement a terrible but popular decision than to override the will of the people. So in this case, IF the majority supported lifting restrictions (and I'm not Irish so I have no idea what the public…

This is why democracies are usually republics versus direct vote democracies -- the will of the majority will always throw the minority under the bus. This is why you have laws, checks and balances against mob rule.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#137

Post by BillyTheKing » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #109

captain_price7 wrote: post #78

> Using data from flu monitoring programs in prior years, the CDC models project that 70 MILLION Americans have already gotten sick with symptomatic Covid, but decided to just write it off as a bad cold and never got tested. I am not making this up. In Bangladesh, a well-regarded study found that 45% of people in Dhaka, one of the most densely populated regions in the world, had antibodies. This study was conducted b…

A similar study in part of India found an antibody seroprevalence rate of 57% and a corresponding IFR under 0.1%. https://www.cnbctv18.com/healthcare/57-sero-prevalence-in-sl... There could be other explanations beyond widespread existing immunity. For example could diet be a factor?

the most likely explanation is just age-distribution. The vast majority of our covid-fatalities are older than 70, most are 80 or older. To make things worse, many of them live in retirement homes which turn into death traps once the virus entered. That's all fairly unique to Western societies and is definitely one explanation for vastly different IFRs.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#138

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

stretchcat wrote: post #35

hervature wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29

Potatoes, a new world food, were a monoculture in Ireland at the time. These days there are a huge number of potato varieties grown, so a devastating potato blight seems unlikely to occur again.

[deleted]

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#139

Post by rindalir » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

One technical point that I disagree with is his characterization of exponential spread. He is mentally modeling it like every person is the root of their own tree in a societal forest. While the number of infected nodes in an SIR model on a network does grow exponentially in early stages, at some point the growth slows as many of your contacts have already been infected. This may not happen until some constant fraction of the graph has been infected, however. Of course as we all have heard the equilibrium state is "herd immunity" when the infection dies out or remains contained to small components, but even before this I believe the growth rate slows. I should know more about this considering it is what i wrote my doctoral thesis on, but i've made room for other things.

Re: I believe US could see rolling series of “Ireland events” over next 2 months

#140

Post by pizza » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

nickelcitymario wrote: post #116

Barrin92 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representative government caving to demands when the demands are terrible, like in this case, is not a good thing. In that moment what is needed is enough guts to see the measures through and fend interest groups off. Loss of leadership and movement towards "the customer is king" politics is responsible for a lot of mistakes in the response to this virus.

If we believe in democracy, we necessarily must believe that the crowd - the mob, if you're feeling less generous - is better at making decisions than any small group of people. Which means believing that it's better to implement a terrible but popular decision than to override the will of the people. So in this case, IF the majority supported lifting restrictions (and I'm not Irish so I have no idea what the public…

One way I look at democracy is that it’s the will of the majority + the rights of the minority.

It gets a little.. speculative.. once that minority in this case is “(future) victims of covid”. Not sure how to fully and clearly articulate the principle behind why we should give up a little impatience now, in a somewhat unpopular way, and how that is compatible with democracy, but I believe it is.