The Covid-19 thread.

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The difference between the infection/death rates here and the countries that take it seriously couldn't be more striking... and its good advice about where to get one's information. The charts that compare the US to other developed countries are astounding. I don't think I've ever seen a chart about ANYTHING where one element was such a crazy outlier.

It's just not tangible for a lot of people, Americans for whatever reason have lost the ability to imagine any experience outside of their own day to day existence. so if they don't know anybody who has died then nobody has died. Is it selfishness? There's so MUCH evidence around the world of how to beat or at least better control this thing but no, we know better...except obviously we don't, we're failing in a cosmically embarrassing way. We look like utter fools on the world stage.
 
The difference between the infection/death rates here and the countries that take it seriously couldn't be more striking... and its good advice about where to get one's information. The charts that compare the US to other developed countries are astounding. I don't think I've ever seen a chart about ANYTHING where one element was such a crazy outlier.

It's just not tangible for a lot of people, Americans for whatever reason have lost the ability to imagine any experience outside of their own day to day existence. so if they don't know anybody who has died then nobody has died. Is it selfishness? There's so MUCH evidence around the world of how to beat or at least better control this thing but no, we know better...except obviously we don't, we're failing in a cosmically embarrassing way. We look like utter fools on the world stage.

I'm starting to think it's a result of our education system. People are no longer taught to think. They seem to be taught how to look up an answer instead of laying out all the factors and reasoning their way to a conclusion.
 
I'm starting to think it's a result of our education system. People are no longer taught to think. They seem to be taught how to look up an answer instead of laying out all the factors and reasoning their way to a conclusion.
I think you’re onto something. Perhaps we should teach people reason and logic before we move onto parallelograms.
 
I think you’re onto something. Perhaps we should teach people reason and logic before we move onto parallelograms.

America has, for longer than any of us have been alive, harbored a deeply anti-intellectual streak. It mixes with our individualism and pride, and the outcome is an attitude that goes beyond the oft posited “my ignorance is as good as your expertise” to “my ignorance is better than your expertise, because it’s mine - fuck you.

It’s completely toxic, and it’s no surprise that the death of the monoculture that kept us on the same page - a semi-homogenous filter of two daily newspapers per city and three networks - has led to the waning of American civic strength and the shitshow we see now with COVID. Without those bumpers on discourse, however exclusionary and morally dubious they were, we’ve headed straight for the ditch. America’s greatness has always been more fragile than the world at large was ready to recognize until the cracks started showing.
 
I admit to being a bit addicted to those “Karen” no-mask videos of people losing their shit over being asked nicely to endure the absolute bare minimum of inconvenience to get us through this mess. The entitlement of people, their selfishness, their sheer lack of any class is incredible. The last one I watched was on a site with a lot of commenters from other countries... all shocked, confused, and embarrassed for us. The confusion is the most telling ... how has this possibly become a political thing? How??? And yet these mask-deniers think they’re bringing back America as some bastion of strength by being dipshits. We’re the laughing stock of the world right now. You can’t hide the results of their behavior. Everybody else in the world sliding down their declining infection rates and we’re staring up at a mountain.
 
I was very surprised to read this morning (didn't really read much of it as too angry to want the story in my head) a headline regarding a bus driver in Paris that was beaten to death by men not wearing masks and not allowed on his bus.
 
America has, for longer than any of us have been alive, harbored a deeply anti-intellectual streak. It mixes with our individualism and pride, and the outcome is an attitude that goes beyond the oft posited “my ignorance is as good as your expertise” to “my ignorance is better than your expertise, because it’s mine - fuck you.

It’s completely toxic, and it’s no surprise that the death of the monoculture that kept us on the same page - a semi-homogenous filter of two daily newspapers per city and three networks - has led to the waning of American civic strength and the shitshow we see now with COVID. Without those bumpers on discourse, however exclusionary and morally dubious they were, we’ve headed straight for the ditch. America’s greatness has always been more fragile than the world at large was ready to recognize until the cracks started showing.
Excellent thoughts. I couldn't agree more.
 
I was very surprised to read this morning (didn't really read much of it as too angry to want the story in my head) a headline regarding a bus driver in Paris that was beaten to death by men not wearing masks and not allowed on his bus.
Were they the same type of “I’m too tough to wear a mask” types? So tough they kill a bus driver? This moronic movement of dumb selfishness is global I guess.
 
America has, for longer than any of us have been alive, harbored a deeply anti-intellectual streak. It mixes with our individualism and pride, and the outcome is an attitude that goes beyond the oft posited “my ignorance is as good as your expertise” to “my ignorance is better than your expertise, because it’s mine - fuck you.

It’s completely toxic, and it’s no surprise that the death of the monoculture that kept us on the same page - a semi-homogenous filter of two daily newspapers per city and three networks - has led to the waning of American civic strength and the shitshow we see now with COVID. Without those bumpers on discourse, however exclusionary and morally dubious they were, we’ve headed straight for the ditch. America’s greatness has always been more fragile than the world at large was ready to recognize until the cracks started showing.

Agreed - very well put.

I've been a member of Nextdoor.com for about a year - just checking in once in a while to see how the neighborhood is doing - people needing help/advice - any alerts etc - thought "this is neat" - until yesterday when I finally deactivated my account. I don't want to know this much about my neighbors - ignorance is bliss - I prefer to walk the neighborhoods with my own ideas on how we all are - friendly wave here and there.
 
Were they the same type of “I’m too tough to wear a mask” types? So tough they kill a bus driver? This moronic movement of dumb selfishness is global I guess.
Yep - just sickening.

"Monguillot’s death prompted outrage in the community, as he left behind his wife and three children."
 
I just looked up the French bus driver. He was a father of 3, the two charged with his murder were 22 and 23 years old. 6000 people turned out in the town this happened in to demand justice be served and the nations bus drivers stopped service for a minute of silence for him across France. At least people are standing up and uniting around denouncing this behavior there.
 
America has, for longer than any of us have been alive, harbored a deeply anti-intellectual streak. It mixes with our individualism and pride, and the outcome is an attitude that goes beyond the oft posited “my ignorance is as good as your expertise” to “my ignorance is better than your expertise, because it’s mine - fuck you.

It’s completely toxic, and it’s no surprise that the death of the monoculture that kept us on the same page - a semi-homogenous filter of two daily newspapers per city and three networks - has led to the waning of American civic strength and the shitshow we see now with COVID. Without those bumpers on discourse, however exclusionary and morally dubious they were, we’ve headed straight for the ditch. America’s greatness has always been more fragile than the world at large was ready to recognize until the cracks started showing.
I have often wondered if the fundamental problem with the internet is that it destroyed the "two newspaper, three networks per city" model that allowed for consensus in our society. Never heard them referred to as bumpers on discourse but that seems to be an excellent description. Of course they were tainted but rarely were they so divisive and extremist as is available on every form of media today. And we trusted them for the most part as being at least somewhat unbiased.
 
I have often wondered if the fundamental problem with the internet is that it destroyed the "two newspaper, three networks per city" model that allowed for consensus in our society. Never heard them referred to as bumpers on discourse but that seems to be an excellent description. Of course they were tainted but rarely were they so divisive and extremist as is available on every form of media today. And we trusted them for the most part as being at least somewhat unbiased.
The Internet definitely has. Though I have made a career out of it.
 
Agreed - very well put.

I've been a member of Nextdoor.com for about a year - just checking in once in a while to see how the neighborhood is doing - people needing help/advice - any alerts etc - thought "this is neat" - until yesterday when I finally deactivated my account. I don't want to know this much about my neighbors - ignorance is bliss - I prefer to walk the neighborhoods with my own ideas on how we all are - friendly wave here and there.
"The only thing worse than not knowing everything that is going on, IS knowing everything that is going on".

-
Me
 
I have often wondered if the fundamental problem with the internet is that it destroyed the "two newspaper, three networks per city" model that allowed for consensus in our society. Never heard them referred to as bumpers on discourse but that seems to be an excellent description. Of course they were tainted but rarely were they so divisive and extremist as is available on every form of media today. And we trusted them for the most part as being at least somewhat unbiased.
Where's Walter Cronkite when you need him.
 
I have often wondered if the fundamental problem with the internet is that it destroyed the "two newspaper, three networks per city" model that allowed for consensus in our society. Never heard them referred to as bumpers on discourse but that seems to be an excellent description. Of course they were tainted but rarely were they so divisive and extremist as is available on every form of media today. And we trusted them for the most part as being at least somewhat unbiased.
I think this is at the root of so many of our problems as a society. We used to have a common touchpoint for what was 'news' and then everybody would kind of pivot one way or another off of them. But there was at least a common starting point. Then news shifted to entertainment-news with the 24 hour news cycle not having 24 hours of actual news to discuss, and then with the migration of everything online, this ability to curate your own person world made up of only the news-tainment you want to here. This idea that you don't live in a reality, but instead you make the reality you want to live in...regardless of whether or not its based in fact. Somebody on the right and somebody on the left, and even somebody in the center, can't even have a conversation because they exist in entirely different worlds tailored largely to the fact that people want to hear what they already assume things to be.

If we taught critical thinking/logic to people they'd maybe be more aware of it but I think society coasted along for too long assuming that logic was inherent in people, instead of something that needed to be learned. It bleeds through everything, not just news and politics but even to innocuous things like our hobby where cherry picking of advice, appeals to authority, ad hominem attacks, confirmation bias... its just part of every day life.
 
Agreed - very well put.

I've been a member of Nextdoor.com for about a year - just checking in once in a while to see how the neighborhood is doing - people needing help/advice - any alerts etc - thought "this is neat" - until yesterday when I finally deactivated my account. I don't want to know this much about my neighbors - ignorance is bliss - I prefer to walk the neighborhoods with my own ideas on how we all are - friendly wave here and there.
I lasted about 3 weeks on next door before I asked them to delete my account. For the same exact reason.
I only want to know about people’s politics when I ask them or we are discussing it. I don’t need opinions jammed down my throat no matter what the subject is.

But I do know which lawns my dog should pee on.
 
I think this is at the root of so many of our problems as a society. We used to have a common touchpoint for what was 'news' and then everybody would kind of pivot one way or another off of them. But there was at least a common starting point. Then news shifted to entertainment-news with the 24 hour news cycle not having 24 hours of actual news to discuss, and then with the migration of everything online, this ability to curate your own person world made up of only the news-tainment you want to here. This idea that you don't live in a reality, but instead you make the reality you want to live in...regardless of whether or not its based in fact. Somebody on the right and somebody on the left, and even somebody in the center, can't even have a conversation because they exist in entirely different worlds tailored largely to the fact that people want to hear what they already assume things to be.

If we taught critical thinking/logic to people they'd maybe be more aware of it but I think society coasted along for too long assuming that logic was inherent in people, instead of something that needed to be learned. It bleeds through everything, not just news and politics but even to innocuous things like our hobby where cherry picking of advice, appeals to authority, ad hominem attacks, confirmation bias... its just part of every day life.
Teaching people logic and how to think is the subject - Philosophy. They don’t teach that in schools anywhere really. They should. As a subject it gets mocked and derided by people who don’t really understand what it is. Perhaps ethics gets taught on occasion. But that is about it.
 
Teaching people logic and how to think is the subject - Philosophy. They don’t teach that in schools anywhere really. They should. As a subject it gets mocked and derided by people who don’t really understand what it is. Perhaps ethics gets taught on occasion. But that is about it.
I remember freshman year walking into my intro to philosophy class and the chalk board was covered with formal logic problems all diagramed out filling up every inch of the board. My very awesome professor, to this day my favorite professor, turned to me, "Hey John, you taking this stuff next semester?" "Um, I think I'll stick to Taoism."
 
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