221–230 of 381 posts
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Pointing out that someone is not an expert at something is not an ad hominem.
Arguing against someone's position by simply stating (truthfully or not) that they are not an expert is textbook ad hominem .
I'm not sure how much stock I would put into this type of claim in an opinion article, but anecdotally, I've been tracking the daily new cases and percent positive in my area very closely for a while. Especially in the last couple of weeks the percent positive & new cases has fallen dramatically. Seemingly for no good reason. In my state, we are now consistently seeing percent positive less than 10%. After the holida…
It's important to remember that the positivity rate is a measure of how much testing you're doing, not a measure of how much virus is around. Unless you're reading articles about the politics of rapid tests or the like, you should mostly just ignore the pos rate, it doesn't tell you anything useful otherwise.
If you're only testing people in hospitals and reporting systems, you're going to have a much higher positivity rate.
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What about the old adage of "fear sells"? Do doomsday predictions no longer generate clicks?
I agree that "fear sells". Usually there is a "them" to be afraid of. Not sure the media has figured out who we're supposed to be afraid of in this pandemic.
At this point the divisions have been potentially driven to a point where each individual is atomized. Of course that it is the extreme case, but you needn't look far if you are looking to personify the target of the fear campaign.
I really don't think lockdowns have helped a ton in the US. Look at Florida's winter wave of Covid cases vs Massachusetts. The curves are basically identical, despite vastly different pandemic policies. In other countries yes, but in the USA, are there any real data points that can argue that states with strong lockdowns did better than states without? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/massachusetts-co... h…
I don't think we should be giving hot takes on the pandemic with cherry-picked news articles. I knew someone that said COVID wasn't a big deal in March 2020 because 5% of people died on an isolated cruise ship. The curve may be similar, but unclear to conclude that lockdowns didn't affect absolute numbers. Compare Oregon and Washington vs Arizona and Utah. Also account for rural vs urban counties. Is it that controve…
The lockdowns that each state imposed were largely ineffective at a macro level in my opinion.
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It's pretty weird actually. The news desk for the WSJ is among the best out there. Their news stories tend to be really dry in a good way - full of facts and figures, with very little in the way of click bait hyperbole. Their subscriber model is all about business people who want the details and not opinion... Which then makes the opinion desk at the WSJ a real oddball. It's consistently right-leaning, sometimes to t…
IMO, the Financial Times is a good alternative to WSJ. Global perspective but still does deep dives into American issues; not owned by Murdoch; opinion desk not insane; soothing peach background color in both paper and online editions.
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News firms in USA optimize for audience size. Most Americans would rather listen to Pollyanna bullshit than uncomfortable truth. So, the news firms mostly publish wishful thinking. According to some of these shallow beings, we were supposed to have "herd immunity" by last April. Here in the real world, it's still not clear that this concept is even possible with the covid virus.
What about the old adage of "fear sells"? Do doomsday predictions no longer generate clicks?
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You're acting like there were parts of the US in 100% lockdown vs 0% lockdown, when the difference is a lot more like 20% (max) vs 10%, and it's a lot harder to suss out any difference in result when the difference in practice is that small.
If lockdown explains most of the variance between Australia's 1k deaths and America's 500k deaths, then the difference between 10% and 20% lockdown should still be very visible.
" Amid the dire Covid warnings, one crucial fact has been largely ignored: Cases are down 77% over the past six weeks. " Yes, we are down to the level we were...last fall.
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Arguing against someone's position by simply stating (truthfully or not) that they are not an expert is textbook ad hominem .
Arguing against their position by saying that they kick puppies is textbook ad hominem. Saying that they are not an expert isn't a strong argument, but it is a valid criticism.
Assertion: "That apple will fall on your head"
Appeal to authority: "You're not a physicist! Show me your PHD."