Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

storiesfromthestateofexception.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 295 posts

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#181

Post by gpm »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #168
gpm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's been working, both from an economics and health perspective, and the locals seem to be in support of it, except for in Shanghai Here's a well known person in Shenzhen discussing it. Obviously be aware that any source in China can't speak too directly against the government, especially the central government. However I feel rather confident that this thread is a pretty good representation of her actual op…

"working" ? ...as in just pushing some deaths a few months in the future while being extremely inconvenient for everything and everyone and damaging to the global economy to an extent that might be more than the price of those lives

> ..as in just pushing some deaths a few months in the future

I don't get the impression that the people in charge, or the people not-in-charge in China, agree with this assessment.

I.e. to quote from the thread

> If you're telling Chinese "Omicron can't be beaten" it's a hard sell because the West has been telling us COVID can't be beaten for two years- and most provinces here already have beaten Omicron.

...

> being extremely inconvenient for everything and everyone and damaging to the global economy

As above, to again quote from the thread I linked

> Most Chinese have experienced few significant restrictions in the last two years due to COVID-Zero, fast lockdowns, and mass testing done at under 100 cases. The first time we hear about something new being tried- straying from that, it's an unforgivable human rights catastrophy.

> We've been basically living a normal life for two years while we watch the rest of the world meltdown in a furnace of exceptionalism, overconfidence, and science denial. It's going to very, very hard to convince Chinese that we're doing it wrong.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#182

Post by TMWNN »

munk-a wrote: post #145
version_five wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think your comments about moving to China are at all productive to the dialog though. I want to address this. Why is it not productive? One great thing about the world is that we have different jurisdictions that value different things, so they can compete and like minded people can potentially get together somewhere and live as they want. Many people are moving to Florida e.g. because of its approach to co…

Oh, mostly because I'm a Canadian and the Canadian response to everything is dictated by its citizens determining what the government does in reaction to various stimuli. I'm not going to execute a violent coup to overthrow the Canadian government to force my personal ideals on everyone else but me expressing my ideals and trying, within the system, to tilt the responses to what works for me is, in fact, the Canadian…

>Canada is an abstract concept - just like Florida

Ah, the same mindset that caused Justin Trudeau to say

>There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada ... the first postnational state.

in a New York Times interview (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/magazine/trudeaus-canada-...>). If he hadn't been explicitly quoted, his supporters would say that attributing such words to Trudeau is actually an alt-right white-nationalist Trumptard conspiracy theory to make him look bad.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#183

Post by rmbyrro »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #172

...the Chinese seem to ignore the global play here: as Covid is endemic in the rest of the world and variants will keep emerging just like they do for common cold (it's basically just a new addition to the bundle of viruses that give the "common cold", but unfortunately with higher mortality since humans haven't been exposed to it), they'll have to isolate themselves from the rest of the world FOREVER! How about all…

For a second I wondered whether this was GPT-3

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#184

Post by alephnan »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #165
hedgehog wrote: post #97

While China's approach is heavy-handed it also has saved a lot of lives, even assuming some fudging of the data their death rate is the lowest of any large country. Countries like Japan and Thailand have managed to avert nearly as much death as China with very different approaches so there's a good argument that there are good alternatives. Countries like Sweden, England, or especially the US have done so much worse…

The only real measure of success is "customer satisfaction", and I'd dare to say that the majority of the people of Sweden, UK and US are quite satisfied and some would have preferred even less measures to be taken...

> majority of the people of Sweden, UK and US are quite satisfied

Did that include the people who died ?

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#185

Post by dragonwriter »

TMWNN wrote: post #182
munk-a wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, mostly because I'm a Canadian and the Canadian response to everything is dictated by its citizens determining what the government does in reaction to various stimuli. I'm not going to execute a violent coup to overthrow the Canadian government to force my personal ideals on everyone else but me expressing my ideals and trying, within the system, to tilt the responses to what works for me is, in fact, the Canadian…

>Canada is an abstract concept - just like Florida Ah, the same mindset that caused Justin Trudeau to say >There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada ... the first postnational state. in a New York Times interview ( https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/magazine/trudeaus-canada-... >). If he hadn't been explicitly quoted, his supporters would say that attributing such words to Trudeau is actually an alt-right wh…

Nah, I'd just say it was historically ignorant, because lots of superstates without a strong uniting identity have been formed, especially as part of decolonialization, but most of them have at some point (not always immediately after independence) viewed the lack of uniting identity as a problem to solve.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#186

Post by somewhereoutth »

spookthesunset wrote: post #164
whimsicalism wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's worked for them for a few years now and they have successfully mitigated what would have been millions of deaths. Your claim that it doesn't work because of the "nature of viruses" seems belied by the facts on the ground.

I don’t think it matters at all if it works or not. It shouldn’t be done. It’s basically a violation of basic human rights. I’d like to think even in our worst of times, we’d respect basic human rights…

But it isn't a violation of basic human rights. It is a community working together to protect itself from an 'invader' - much as we would see in places under attack by less invisible threats.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#187

Post by oska »

munk-a wrote: post #116
version_five wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not global lockdowns would have worked, I prefer a world in which you can get covid to one in which the government can confine you to your house. You're welcome to move to China if you prefer the latter approach - or just confine yourself to your house yourself...

In fact I have mostly confined myself to my house. I can work remotely and we have an income sufficient to rely on instacart and delivery for food. We go out for walks in the neighborhood but we avoid going in stores or restaurants except on rare occasions. We've taken one vacation (during the lull before omicron became a thing) and we'll try and take another vacation this summer but, otherwise, we're trying our best…

> I think if the world had been on board with a zero covid policy

and

> I can work remotely and we have an income sufficient to rely on instacart and delivery for food.

Quite obviously only a minority of the population shares your personal situation. And yet you are calling for global lockdowns, which would include lesser developed countries where a vanishingly small percentage of the population is in this situation.

I shouldn't even be having to point this out. It's been a continuous theme that office-workers and IT workers have been self-indulgently calling for economies to lockdown because "Hey, why not just work from home?". And people have made the response I have above many times, which kills this dumb argument. So why is it still being made?

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#188

Post by memish »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #173
memish wrote: post #15

Why are they still pursuing Zero Covid? I know the article includes some speculation on this, but what's the best explanation?

Authoritarian regimes benefit from cultivating fear of death and disease in their people, it makes them more manageable... Similar to not allowing regular people to own guns etc. etc. Once you become willing to die, to let others die if needed, and to kill, for freedom or other purposes, you're no longer an "easy to manage sheep" ;)

I hadn't thought about it that way. We're seeing some resistance in Shanghai, but not enough to stop it. Even when killing pets and separating children from parents. Lack of grocery deliveries. It's scary.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#189

Post by [deleted] »

ttybird2 wrote: post #180
version_five wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, I'm canadian and the same reason I haven't moved to Florida is because I'd rather stay and try to fight people like you than just give up and move somewhere else. I think the difference is that all I want is to be left alone, while a you want is for the government to force people to do what you want (because anything else would somehow harm you and your fellow citizens), but that's a pretty classic strug…

"our constitution and history make liberty and minimal government power the default here, so all of the authoritarianism that's come with covid is an attack on what was once a free country" I usually see Canada being described the other way around, and to be honest if someone asked me for the most free countries Canada would not be the first in my list.

[deleted]

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#190

Post by Bayart »

dqpb wrote: post #19
jaqalopes wrote: post #8

I lived in Shanghai for 5 years and have many friends and business connects there. I would never, ever want to be seen as carrying water for the CCP--the day they abolished term limits for Xi was the day I started planning my exit. I've been following this situation for almost a month now and in one sense it's every bit as bad as it looks. An inadequate and inhumane policy being enforced by an out of touch, or perhap…

> An inadequate and inhumane policy being enforced by an out of touch, or perhaps even uncaring, government The inevitable result of centralized control.

Centralism worked well enough in Europe. The problem is counterpowers and rule of law, not the structure of government.
Post reply on HN