America is giving up on the pandemic? • Hacker News Board

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#651

Post by staycoolboy » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:27 AM UTC

mythrwy wrote: post #442

wpietri wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And far more harm than just one year's worth. We've seen 400 years of structural anti-black racism here, with no end in sight. The USA has had more than 240 years to fix that. If people are finding the timing of the current protest inconvenient, well, they've had their whole lives to fix the problem. They shouldn't blame the protesters for their own lack of action. I'll note that in 1964, people were calling civil ri…

I'm not sure how much "structural" racism actually exists in the US at this point. There are no doubt pockets and they should be rooted out. Personal racism exists and will probably never go away. It would be nice if it did. I do think people get profiled and hassled because other people who look like that have done XXX and cops see a possible pattern. This isn't fair to innocent people at all but I suspect this has…

> I cut my hair back to military style, shaved, and it was back to letting me off with a warning and have a nice day.

You said this experience opened your eyes, yet you say structural racism doesn't exist. That was literally structural racism. Do you not agree? This is called white privilege; a black person can't change their skin color, but you can cut your hair.

> I'm not sure how much "structural" racism actually exists in the US at this point. There are no doubt pockets and they should be rooted out.

Well if you're "not sure", they why are you posting your own narrative without becoming sure? It's like if I said, "I'm not sure how cars work, but here's a theory that sounds good to me: it involves lasers and hamster wheels, and so I will now believe it."

This is the one of the biggest issues in America, would you consider attempting to GET sure about it?

Perhaps you should ask for clarity. Here, I'll go:

Structural [institutional] racism never left the US. That's what millions of people are protesting right now. It's not some vague notion.

Here are a few off the top of my head:

- Drug laws that target blacks (crack sentences are 10x longer than cocaine)

- Wealth accumulation that holds back black families (not getting loans means not getting houses means not passing wealth down to children; the GI bill that rejected nearly all black applicants and was primarily responsible for middle-class Boomer wealth accumulation)

- Education (poorer zip codes get less funding and end up less educated and poorer, a vicious cycle)

- Job applications (black sounding names get rejected more frequently)

- The vast sentencing disparity between whites and blacks committing the same crimes (blacks are guilty till innocent, and shot for being black in the wrong place or misdemeanours (jogging, selling loose cigarettes), whites are "good kids" who don't deserve to have their lives ruined by a felony rape)

All are structural, institutional racism that are alive and well today.

Do you think I am way off base, or do you reject what I'm describing as factually incorrect or politically motivated? Or anything other than examples of structural racism. I personally don't know anyone who believes structural racism doesn't exist so I'm in a totally different world here...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#652

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #304

Total deaths in US caused by police. (2019, full year): 1112 [1] Total deaths in US caused by coronavirus (last Friday, one day): 975 [2] [1] https://www.theroot.com/here-s-how-many-people-police-killed... [2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

I quite like it when someone drives by with a two sentence decontextualised comment that goes on to invoke hours of conversation.

Is your intentional action here to be purposely superficial in order to invoke to deeper discussion? It’s an interesting style that seems particularly suited to this forum.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#653

Post by shibeouya » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #435

jabedude wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That don't need to be armed with firearms You're asking police officers to be less armed then the general public. 43 states are "shall-issue" and allow residents to conceal carry a firearm after completing required training and submitting an application.

The obvious answer is to make the public less armed than police officers. The less obvious answer is to stop glorifying violence, including gun violence, war porn, drug kingpin lifestyles, cop/detective lifestyles, and other forms of abusive aggression in the media. Considering that the US seems to go insane when a nipple appears on TV without a formal invitation, it's really quite strange that you can watch dramatis…

This whole riots debacle being endorsed and justified by the media has done more for the cause of gun ownership that the NRA ever could.

I never ever considered owning a gun in my entire life, but I have one now and not afraid to use it if needed. Several friends have also done the same.

The debate for gun ownership is probably dead for 1 or 2 generations, and I do not want to see a single person blaming anyone about it when I was literally told by the police the other day that I am on my own during the night of looting in NYC.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#654

Post by sdenton4 » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

gwright wrote: post #606

01100011 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper incident from a few weeks ago was the most important 'teachable moment' that we've had in years. I am somewhat disappointed that it was overshadowed by protests against police brutality, because I thought it was a very 'teachable moment' that illustrated the type of racism that still exists behind a facade of tolerance. Police abuse is sort of a separate issue relating to train…

It is pretty clear that you and the parent's author aren't using the same definition of "systemic". It is very difficult to devise reasonable plans of action when the core terms in the dispute are ill-defined. There also seems to be a current of thought that any attempt to clarify or analyze the situation is an attempt to diminish the grievances. This anti-intellectualism coupled with the chaos and violence of a mob…

Instead of expecting every commenter to live up to your standard of evidence - lest the entire movement be labelled an anti-intellectual mob - why don't you go get educated yourself?

Here's a movie, Thirteenth, which VERY CLEARLY defines and examines structural racism in the criminal justice system in the US, and how it evolved directly from the systems of slavery and its sequel, Jim Crow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8

This analysis and conversation has been building for literally decades. It's like showing up for the fifth week of an algebraic geometry class and calling it 'anti-intellectual' because you can't be bothered to pick up Euclid...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#655

Post by rayiner » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #616

rayiner wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The letter is gobbledegook. Police brutality isn’t a “public health problem.” It’s a bad thing, and it may well be that reasonable people feel like protesting police brutality justifies taking the risk of increased COVID-19 transmission. (I certainly feel that way.) They’re deciding that “protesting police brutality is worth some excess deaths from COVID.” But the authors don’t want to own the fact that they’re makin…

According to what definition are you claiming that police brutality is not a public health problem?

Oxford Textbook of Public Health: https://m.oxfordmedicine.com/mobile/view/10.1093/med/9780199.... Do you see any sections on police brutality?

Not to mention, I have family in the field, I grew up with probably a dozen public health experts attending Thanksgiving dinner, and did my first internship at a public health company. At no point in hearing decades of shop talk did I ever hear police brutality being mentioned as a public health issue. Words have meaning dammit.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#656

Post by AmericanChopper » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #532

AmericanChopper wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really just makes it undeniable how political the official advice and accompanying commentary is. The slew of new rules put in place for BLM protests are incredibly dubious, from both a legal and safety perspective. It’s not up to the government to decide what speech or cause for assembly is important, and health officials should not have their risk assessments swayed by political considerations.

The lockdown policies inevitable have political component, because they are made by politicians and will be evaluated in a political framework. And for a politician it is always practical to err on the CYA side - one extra day of lockdown costs the politician very little, as the costs of it are not born by them personally and are largely very hard to quantify, they are distributed among the population and spread amon…

> The lockdown policies inevitable have political component, because they are made by politicians and will be evaluated in a political framework

This is true for the policies, but absolutely not true for advice from public health officials. Globally the policies made in response to this pandemic have been justified almost entirely by appeals to the authority of health officials. The supposed basis of these policies was that those officials were providing expert and politically neutral advice on risk management. Having the expert health and safety advice show a readily apparent political motivation undermines all of it.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#657

Post by shibeouya » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

jumelles wrote: post #268

neonate wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making my point. You politically support one side more than the other, right down to belittling the side you unsupport as "I need a haircut". Maybe I agree with you politically, but when arguments from principle pivot from one week to the next based on which way the politics point, it's not really about principle.

It's not belittling them - that was their argument.

So because one of the "protesters" for BLM was literally holding a sign and going on live TV threatening to put fire to property, should we be equating all of BLM to that?

See how a strawman argument works?

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#658

Post by natalyarostova » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

alkibiades wrote: post #602

smsm42 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They…

i’m 25 and this whole covid debacle and seeing how public health officials handle it has soured me on all “experts” for the rest of my life. no wonder people don’t believe in global warming, these “experts” prioritize politics over everything

Just learn to think for yourself by reading the classics and fundamentals. Read Karl Popper, study stats, read blogs like Andrew Gelman’s.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#659

Post by tartoran » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

skissane wrote: post #626

baddox wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a good argument to expand unemployment benefits during a global pandemic, and I suspect most public health officials would agree.

A number of countries have implemented wage subsidy schemes, in which the government pays employers to keep employees on payroll even while there is no work for them to do due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Those schemes are in some ways better than unemployment benefits, in that they maintain the employer-employee relationship which increases the odds the job will still be there to go back to when the crisis is over. UK:…

How does it work with workers in the food service industry where the workers are paid cash? Or maybe that’s not common outside the US

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#660

Post by danielam » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #373

metrokoi wrote: post #90

Quoted from a letter from 1,000 health professionals on the virus and protests [0] >However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from…

> However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They…

In other words, the number of black lives that may be lost during these protests from the virus alone is worth sacrificing because #blacklivesmatter. Meanwhile, anti-lockdown protests, which were much smaller, are nothing but a bunch of wreckless people protesting to be able to get haircuts. Nothing to do with all the other losses and risks that myopic, upper middle class "experts" can't seem to comprehend. Unemployed black people also don't matter, I guess.

I mean, really. How can people not see the writing on the wall? All of this is political finagling. Black protestors are merely convenient instruments. The political opportunists pushing this bland disingenuous crap don't care about George Floyd in the least.