The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown • Hacker News Board

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#231

Post by cmarschner » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:45 AM UTC

jsiaajdsdaa wrote: post #153

cryptonector wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there were many preppers in Shanghai. I wonder if how many new preppers there are now throughout China. Of all the reasons people prep, "long lockdowns" was never one until very recent times.

They definitely do not prep in that city. Maybe you can survive a year on a sack of rice and potatoes, if your utilities aren't cut off. But without guns and land, prepping becomes "hiding until the situation hopefully goes away"

The body also needs some other nutrients than the carbs you‘d find in potatoes and rice…

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#232

Post by robjan » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:55 AM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #87

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But on the other hand, my friends who are quarantined and didn't get it are just bored to death, drinking and gaming and working from home, just treading water until this "ends." From what I've been hearing, the big problem for lots of people stuck under lockdown is simply getting groceries/food deliveries at all. The government isn't letting delivery people work, and the military response to distributing food isn'…

I wonder if there were many preppers in Shanghai. I wonder if how many new preppers there are now throughout China. Of all the reasons people prep, "long lockdowns" was never one until very recent times.

In many large Asian cities the average person has little space to store food and often no cooking appliances and minimal fridge space, this is especially true of younger people who are stuck in the rent trap and spending US$1k+/month on a shoebox. This is becoming increasingly true as people start to rely on takeout food delivery which is quite convenient when you work 12 hours per day.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#233

Post by munch117 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:56 AM UTC

lobocinza wrote: post #224

jtc331 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming their reported death numbers are accurate. You are also assuming the deaths caused by these policies won’t end up exceeding that number. Neither assumptions are backed by evidence.

Exactly. CCP stats doesn't pass Benford's law.

Source? First hit on DDG, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7487520/, says:

  We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford’s Law and are similar to that seen in the U.S. and Italy.

That's infections, not deaths, and so doesn't necessarily disagree with what you said. But I still need your source.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#234

Post by watwut » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 6:58 AM UTC

version_five wrote: post #41

watwut wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I just want to point out that I have the exact opposite perception, that the majority viewpoint on HN is very pro-authoritarian measures (though I think whether they work or not is immaterial, its a silly side discussion to avoid talking about whether a government should be able to impose them or not) Anyway, I think the way you and I perceive HN is shaped by our initial bias. Knowing the "reality" is a lot tougher

It is not "immaterial" given that I was responding to this:

> Given the other stories posted on this site (universally claiming lockdowns were pointless and no medical reason for them), makes me question whether these stories are representative.

The topic was whether they work and what kind of stories show up on HN.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#235

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:20 AM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #210

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is not a technological thing...and it isn't CPC driven (rather, private companies are supposed to self censor inside China, via manual inspection or increasingly via AI). The Great Firewall specifically is package filtering technology installed at ISPs with out-of-china links. China can't use it against internal traffic because it would basically shut the internet down completely in the entire country (given…

> it isn't CPC driven (rather, private companies are supposed to self censor The CCP dictates what gets filtered, so not sure what you mean by them not 'driving' it. Are you saying that because they don't own the hardware? If so, that's rather pedantic, given that the party has effectively unlimited power to dictate how any given resource is used, and is doing so in this case. > The Great Firewall specifically is pac…

> The CCP dictates what gets filtered

That isn’t accurate, the CPC (let’s use the correct acronym at least, even if the word order is different in Chinese) doesn’t dictate, they just tell the private companies “don’t allow anything that will make us mad”, and they then have to enforce rules that aren’t dictated, but are left intentionally very vague.

The internet companies would of course be in a much better place if the government just did all the filtering for them. Unfortunately they don’t get off that easily. The GFW is another matter altogether: the government simply maintains a list of what to block that all ISPs (most state owned) plug into.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#236

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 8:15 AM UTC

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…

Shanghai has always been a mixed pot. I have seen people selling live turtles for food at the door of a skyscraper in the business quarter. Gave off major cyberpunk/Blade Runner vibes.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#237

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 8:47 AM UTC

Bayart wrote: post #190

dqpb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Where were these checks and balances when Europe decided to rob and enslave the whole world? (British, Spanish and Belgian colonies)

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#238

Post by the_omegist » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 8:56 AM UTC

open-source-ux wrote: post #7

According to this BBC video report, more Shanghai residents are venting their anger and frustration by posting videos on social media. Such videos are normally censored by China's 'Great Firewall'. The BBC website states: "...the sheer volume of the clips has made it difficult for censors to keep up. Many are also being passed around in private group chats, which has made them harder to catch." Shanghai lockdown: How…

Can anyone explain how an automated filtering/censorship system can't "keep up" with this, technically? Even with a tiny delay, it seems to me the problematic videos or posts could be taken down easily. It's not like every Chinese citizen is posting terabytes of data daily...

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#239

Post by the_omegist » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 9:07 AM UTC

danlugo92 wrote: post #169

wonnage wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the reasoning at the top isn't anything near what the drones implementing said policy at the bottom are doing. There's like a hundred layers of people between Xi and the dudes beating dogs. It's like a game of telephone where some medical experts speculate about animal reservoirs, and somebody in the mayor's circle hears about it, and next thing you know they're giving covid tests to chickens. It'…

People here in Venezuela used the same excuse, "Oh Chavez doesn't know about it", it being corruption etc, as if there weren't hundreds of reports/testimonies appearing in newspapers/etc every single day. What's next, Xi doesn't know about the organ farms? Hah.

What the parent comment said was that not every little detail is decided at the top.

Chavez knew the country was corrupted but do you think he was behind every clerc or doctor that asked for a bribe?

Dictators are not superior beings able to manage a country : they are just good at keeping hold and at hiding their mistakes.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#240

Post by Izkata » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 9:28 AM UTC

gyf304 wrote: post #16

We must protect human lives at all costs, even at the cost of human lives. Jokes aside, what we really want to know is that - what are the human lives lost lockdown v.s. no lockdown, maybe also factor in the possible economic downturns. The government did a not-so-good job convincing people that doing a lockdown is indeed better than the alternative - "We ran the numbers, it seems like doing a lockdown at this stage…

Five days ago this was posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984108

Basically, there is no correlation between lockdowns and health outcomes. It's a pretty consistent finding, they reference a few others who found the same with different ways of measuring it in there.