psuhoffman

Something that irks me...after every story like that there is a comment like “they had a pre-existing condition”. What is their point? Did his death matter less because he had cancer as a child? Would me and my wife’s death matter less because we have asthma? Would my fathers because he has diabetes? Or my uncle and father in law because they have heart problems? How many people don’t have something? And something about “this isn’t killing young healthy people” irks me everytime. Yes so? What’s their point? Only slightly less annoying are the “omg were all gonna die from this” posts. Umm no but this is bad enough, you don’t have to exaggerate just because it’s not the apocalypse. You would think this would be that rare subject where people would put their dumb ass nonsense away just for a little while. Obviously that was too much to ask.

But what about the collateral damage?

fixed

I want to make something clear...I was in no way taking a shot at @showmethesnow. I do not wish to get into the details of everything in this post...and I respect and value all the work you put in H2O, but my post was about some of the really silly illogical comments that were made in the last few days. I do not consider showme's posts to fall in that category. Yesterday I made fun of two people for such arguments...one was liberal and one was conservative. I took a shot at Vice Regent and no one immediately said I was attacking libs. Frankly while I know some took issue with showme's posts I was not one of them. I never made a single derogatory comment about anything he said. I thought the pushback he got was a little harsh. Yea he may be biased and so am I and everyone else. But he was backing his points up with logical arguments. He was open to discussing those points in a civil way. I had no issue with anything he said, even if I didn't agree with all of it. But some people have been trolling, making ridiculous illogical statements and then backing them up with equally silly fallacies. Some people have been using false equivalencies as if we are too stupid to see through that. But if you look at the examples I called out yesterday a couple of those have been liberal arguments. Bad analysis is bad analysis regardless of ideology. My post was NOT an attack on conservatives, it was an attack on bad argumentation... I am a policy debate coach and I was coming at it from that lens.

This is one thing I don’t get...I can beat around Avant Regent all day like a piñata and no one ever says I’m attacking liberals. But when I point out something stupid said by someone who also just happens to be conservative “I’m attacking all conservatives”. And this does not only apply to here. This exact phenomenon is repeated at family functions and work. I have worked with both crazy nutball liberals and conservatives. For years I would point out the crazy from someone who just happened to be liberal and none of the other liberals ever made it a group thing. But one time I did something similar with one of the conservatives and the other conservatives suddenly took it as a personal attack on them also when they didn’t even agree with the crazy stupid thing I was making fun of. WTF???

@showmethesnow why would you equate what I said to an attack on conservatives? In the last week, on here and social media, there have been some really silly arguments made with some dubious logic and often false equivalencies or circular logic to support it. And they weren’t all made by conservatives. The most recent one being pandemic response policy should be a personal individual choice. Now I do suppose that would fall more on the right than left on ideology but most conservatives I know aren’t that far right and would shake their head at that suggestion. That’s more radical libertarian than conservatism. But that’s just one example. Avant-Regent-Intelligence-Hiatus is about as liberal as it comes and he has been fear monger int and spreading stupid around also. I don’t take an attack on his ridiculousness as an attack on all liberalism. If you took that as an attack on you in any way you misunderstood where that was coming from. You haven’t been a part of the conversation here recently and the comments that inspired that post were nothing close to anything you said!

This

I’ve really struggled to comprehend the mindset of some of the covid arguments I’ve been hearing lately. I try to be empathetic to all points of view so in an effort to better relate I have decided to stick my head as far up my own ass as possible.

But that comparison is flawed because most of those risks are to oneself. I ski but if I screw up doing some off piste run it’s only me that suffers. Sometimes it’s a risk involving a few others like driving. But in almost no cases does society allow individuals to accept risk for everyone or large populations. Where exactly the line is becomes murky and a huge debate sometimes but this is most definitely on the “not an individual choice” side. One person being a clown could infect 50 people. Those 50 people could then infect 500. This isn’t an individual risk/choice situation.

“There is always one”...or was it “there can be only one” I get confused.

RIP drought thread

If you think pandemic response policy should fall under individual and not collective action we will have to agree to disagree. But the preponderance of evidence and public opinion is not on your side with that belief.

@SnowGolfBro here is the problem with a lot of your argument. You’re coming at the question of when to open backwards. Our best virology experts should use all the available relevant evidence to formulate a plan to reopen and a metric for when it is safe to do so. When a State meets that criteria then by all means they should begin to implement the plan to ease restrictions. But a lot of your policy advocacy is based on anecdotal things like “I know people are fed up”. What does those feelings of frustration have to do with whether it is safe to open? The virus doesn’t care about our feelings. Then you support that anecdotal based view with cherry picked data or speculation about the data with the obvious motive of validating your feelings. You aren’t letting logical scientific methodology drive your policy. Your preferred policy is driving your methodology.

The false equivalencies being made aren’t fooling anyone. People need to stop. It’s kinda insulting when you post something people would have to be stupid to believe. Examples I’ve seen lately Comparing the rate of “confirmed” covid infections to “estimated” flu infections. Comparing the spread of covid during extreme mitigation measures to the spread of other viruses during limited or no measures. Comparing the spread of a virus in one society to another with a completely different population density or culture. Projecting similar results of a policy from one culture onto another. Comparing the mortality of confirmed covid cases to the mortality of estimated cases of other viruses. Bringing up one variable to discredit one data set then ignoring its effect on the other you are comparing it too.

Fake news

That’s rhetorical right?

You’re being really generous there!

It had been a long season with a few bumps. I bet given a year off he at least starts off as a force. Whether he can make it through a whole season is a legit question though.

Just like your posts unfortunately...

The current measures are uneven and not enough. Some banks. Some landlords. Some utilities. It’s a patchwork incomplete system. But the bigger problem is this creates imbalances rage do threaten the system. Some debts do still need to be serviced. Some people still need to be paid. A total freeze of all financial obligations for a set period doesn’t create those same inequities and imbalances. There would still be some and it would require some intelligent monetary interventions by the government to mitigate but far less trouble than the crazy uncoordinated patchwork measures now. Yes it can’t last forever. Even the smaller imbalances and gaps would eventually create huge problems but it can be done for a while.

Ok so let’s try 90 days...so far we haven’t done it at all so not sure what your point here is. I never said freeze forever! And I never said there are no consequences but it’s a manageable problem. Lesser of evils and all that Jazz. But the main consequences of that policy would be the executives at these institutions would have to stop drawing multi million dollar salaries during the emergency freeze. I think most could live with that...the alternative on the other hand...

Oh really??? That’s news to me. I must have missed those clauses when I taught Constitutional Law. Must have been in invisible ink somewhere after eminent domain and double jeopardy. If you are referring to the procedural and substantive due process clauses you are “implying” a right that is not clearly expressed. As such the federal courts become the arbiter as with all implied powers cases. And the precedence is that the government has quite a wide berth when asserting emergency powers for the public health and safety. In those situations suspensions of most liberties has been deemed acceptable in the past. As for the points about businesses and financial institutions needing those payments...not if you freeze financial obligations on both ends. Both to AND FROM those institutions. They wouldn’t need to service their debt or obligations either until it’s over.

If that’s your justification why not advocate we freeze all debts/rents/utilities? That would accomplish the same thing without risking lives!

Maybe it will go smoothly but this assertion has huge holes. With everything shut down there is no pressure to go to work. Once things open many won’t have the ability to stay home if the boss says get back to work. And before you say “those people can’t afford to be home now, that’s only true because we chose not to freeze all debts, rents and utilities like some other nations did. Plus there would be no further assistance if things are declared “back to normal”. Finally if this does cause a flare up it increase the risk to the essential employees still working. Maybe it works but it’s not the “free choice” utopia you sell it as.