Covid-19 (Coronavirus)

[Deleted member 42253]

I did cite you the official stance of the Chinese government on Corona and Global health, didnt I? How about reading it and comparing it to what the US put out there over the last year.

There is a vast difference between offcial communication from the White House and the Chinese Government and it is clear as day, who is the reasonable one there.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

It's not like it's difficult to do better than the US did. We did sort of defund nearly every relevant government program, and just kind of pretend that hospitals weren't massively overwhelmed while people kept dying.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

Yeah, I remember the mass graves in NY ... the image is still haunting me.
Not the point though. Of course the Chinese Government can not be trusted, but at least they are upholding public appearances and are willing to put millions, if not billions, behind their official stance(Even though they got it under control locally and most likely dont give a shit for anything apart of that).
Meanwhile the US government defunded the WHO and went "Its all Chinas fault, make em pay!". Sure, thats gotten a bit better ever since the new regime, but considering that CNN has started talking about blame and responsibility, it seems they are still going to follow that line.

Double checked and China is actually putting its money were its mouth is:
- China will provide an additional 3 billion US dollars in international aid over the next three years to support COVID-19 response and economic and social recovery in other developing countries.
- Having already supplied 300 million doses of vaccines to the world, China will provide still more vaccines to the best of its ability.
- China supports its vaccine companies in transferring technologies to other developing countries and carrying out joint production with them.
- Having announced support for waiving intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines, China also supports the World Trade Organization and other international institutions in making an early decision on this matter.
- China proposes setting up an international forum on vaccine cooperation for vaccine-developing and producing countries, companies and other stakeholders to explore ways of promoting fair and equitable distribution of vaccines around the world.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

So ... if I claimed Trump was still president and was citing social media post for it, that would be enough for you, to consider it proven that Trump was still president?
Thats basically what the BBC did there.

And if you read carefully, they do not even claim that China was covering anything up, just that they were supressing information inside the country and blamed the Wuhan local authorities for acting too slowly and too late. Thats a far cry from what you said.

It's just one news report. Every news report is subject to criticism. I consider suppressing information to be a cover up. Every major news outlet in the world that I can think of has reported on China's coverup of the covid19 outbreak. This is what China does. They hide information and engage in censorship to try to avoid criticism.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

@Led Zeppelin You really need to pay more attention when you are reading something.
First of all, all news outlets that have some renown, make sure to give you an idea like that, while making it absolutely clear that they have no evidence for that, as to avoid to be sued into oblivion. Not even CNN or the BBC ever claimed that China covered up anything.
Second, you need to make a distinction between opinion and actual reporting. What you are talking about are opinion collums ... and thats just another term for "unfiltered bs".

Now, if you really want to continue to make strong claims like that(which actually could get you sued), you need one article to back that up, just one, that is citing 2 independent sources for that claim. Thats the bare minimum. And trust me, you wont find anything like that.

At best, you can claim that China was slow to share information with the world, but meh ... its the biggest country in the world and they had it under control locally, would have happened to anyone.
Hell, something similiar happened in the US .. with Ebola. Lets see ..

The Emergence of Ebola

Lessons from an outbreak.

www.newyorker.com

Funny how nobody knows about that one, even though they even made a Netflix series about it(The Hot Zone).

 

[Led Zeppelin]

What sort of question is that? It looks a lot like poisoning the well.

I'm starting to think that some time spent learning the rudiments of logic would serve you well here. If that sounds insulting, I apologise, but most people think they have a grasp of logic, and they're almost all entirely wrong.

Here's something on your current fallacy to add to your burgeoning reading list:

Don't Drink That!

That was probably a shitty question. I work with a lot of younger students and in Germany it not entirely uncommon for students to spend time working and studying there, especially in my line of work. They tend to come back with a sort of infatuation and views about China that does not with fit with much of what my family experienced, being born and raised there.

I would say one should take a mission statement made by any government agency with a grain of salt.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

Yeah, young people suck.
Gotta make sure to expose them to decades of propaganda and carve etablishment position into their bones, before you can take em seriously.

Btw. no one is claiming China does not suck. Suck just grades on a curve.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

At best, you can claim that China was slow to share information with the world

Yes, this is exactly what I am claiming. Not only that but they tried to suppress information. These are facts.

Second, you need to make a distinction between opinion and actual reporting.

What is important is whether or not they are factual.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Why do we still have to wear masks if we already have been vaccinated?

Just because you're safe, doesn't mean others are.

How do you know the guy standing next to you not wearing a mask has been vaccinated?

 

[Deleted member 42253]

What is important is whether or not they are factual.

It would not be called "opinion" if it was factual.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I guess we will just have to all where masks forever. Thanks China.

Why is China to blame?

Parts of the world simply have endemic pestilence and disease - it's not those nation's fault that this occurs naturally.

For example, for most of the wide, grassy Eurasian steppes, there's a small mammal called a marmot - a small generally inoffensive rodent. Unfortunately, it is also an endemic source of Yersinia pestis - the bacteria that caused the Black Death, or bubonic plague. Assuming that it's not the responsibility of eurasian nations with steppelands to exterminate the entire population of rodents in their natural habitat, then how would it possibly be those nations fault if another bubonic plague erupted? Absent complete eradication of signifcant chunks of the biota, there will simply always be natural sources of bacteria, viruses, and other diseases which will occasionally make the jump from another species to our own - that's just the way God made the world!

 

[Deleted member 42253]

I agree, lets blame God.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I guess my main problem with the covid19 is that I think we are all over-reacting a bit.

One of the most ignorant things I've seen you write.

Are you a virologist? No.
Are you an epidemiologist? No.
Do you possess ANY relevant knowledge or education that would make your pontification worth a wazz? No.

Learn what it takes to become an expert in these fields, and then shut up and listen to those people who are trying to use their knowledge to save your life and the lives of everyone else.

 

[Sparhafoc]

3.6 million deaths DESPITE the unprecedented response the world has engaged in.

What would that number have looked like if we hadn't reacted?

If anything, the biggest problem is that people like yourself, confident that their ignorance of everything relevant justified them to make pronouncements they had no business declaring, were in office in key nations like the US, US, Brazil etc. who made out it was all just business as usual, not giving two fucks until it affected them personally.

 

[Sparhafoc]

LZ

Straight question:

How many of your views on the coronavirus have you discovered by watching Fox News?

 

[Deleted member 42253]

@Sparhafoc The most relevant education would actually be that of a historian specialised in the feudal age, since that is exactly the situation we found ourselfs in.
New illness, no effective medication, no vaccine ...
So the go to should have been to shut down all travel and public life and waiting it out, while quarantining the sick, like we did for Cholera, Small Pox, Measles etc. over and over again till we finally got a medical solution. Hell, we could have completly squashed it, if we reacted a little quicker and a bit stronger.

Btw. some historic knowledge on that topic is also really helpful for putting things in perspective, during the heights of pandemics, especially Cholera, we resorted to burning sick people in their houses to hamper the spread of that deadly disease. And I do not even blame them for that, even with 20/20 hindsight. Meanwhile the black death is a good example for making bad decisions based on fear and lack of information, as in, killing all the cats and making it 10x worse. Nevermind that Measles and Small Pox actually did cut the global population in half .. not hard to imagine how many people that has killed over centuries, nevermind would have killed without an vaccine.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Just because you're safe, doesn't mean others are.

How do you know the guy standing next to you not wearing a mask has been vaccinated?

I have not been vaccinated either. But I am a normal, healthy human being and I know the risk of dying from an airborne virus is very small, so I don't expect everyone to where a mask when they are around me.

 

[Deleted member 619]

That was probably a shitty question. I work with a lot of younger students and in Germany it not entirely uncommon for students to spend time working and studying there, especially in my line of work. They tend to come back with a sort of infatuation and views about China that does not with fit with much of what my family experienced, being born and raised there.

I would say one should take a mission statement made by any government agency with a grain of salt.

You have to be careful about what you do with such 'genetic' factors as age (I'm using this term for a good reason). Funnily enough, my go-to exposition of the specific fallacy of assuming something based on age also involves Germany or, more accurately, a German.

"Our fallacy du jour is the genetic fallacy, of course. I've talked about it at length in various contexts hereabouts, including poisoning the well, appeal to authority and others (cf links), but here I want to talk about a more common and insidious commission, because it's one that pervades our society in a really quite pernicious manner. I have a favoured tale from the history of science that's a perfect exposition of this fallacy.

This tale involves a teacher who was having a bit of a lazy day. He wanted to have a nap at his desk, so he devised a task to fill up the lesson time so that he could rest. It was an extremely simple mathematical series problem but, he thought, sufficiently time-consuming that it would present him an opportunity for a good skive.

He asked the class to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. Before he'd even closed his eyes, so the story goes, one boy approached with his answer: 5050.

The teacher suspected a cheat, but it wasn't. The student, a seven year-old boy, had spotted a shortcut to the solution. So how did he do it?

His solution was simple and elegant.



Where n is our highest number and ∑ is the sum. This is a general solution to mathematical series and works for any series of numbers starting at 1. In the case of this particular problem, it looks like this:



Breaking it down using the BODMAS rules we learned in In On The Secret, we start with the brackets and sum 100+1, giving 101. Then we do the division by 2, giving us (50)(101). Finally, we multiply those together. 50 multiplied by 101 equals 5050.

Now it may well be that this story is apocryphal, and there are many variations on it, but what isn't in any doubt is that the student involved was a prodigious mathematical talent, even at a very early age.

The student's name was Carl Friedrich Gauss, and he went on to be one of the greatest mathematicians of any age, making huge contributions to mathematics and science, including many while he was still a teenager.

This should be telling us something important about how we associate competence with age, and it's a perfect illustration of why the genetic fallacy is the worst sort of shoddy thinking."

 

[Led Zeppelin]

LZ

Straight question:

How many of your views on the coronavirus have you discovered by watching Fox News?

I take pride in the fact that I have not owned a TV in close to 20 years. The last thing I remember actively viewing on a TV was Germany's World Cup Soccer Win or whatever it is called but this was at work. I used to buy a little TV each year for a while when I lived in the US so I could watch the NFL playoffs and then when they were over I would just give it away. I have not watched Fox News or CNN or HNN or any TV thing like that in close to 20 years.

How much TV do you watch each day?

 

[Deleted member 619]

Yes, this is exactly what I am claiming. Not only that but they tried to suppress information. These are facts.

If they're facts, you'll be able to provide substantive evidence in support of them. If you can't, you don't get to claim them as facts. At the moment, what they are is assertions.

What is important is whether or not they are factual.

Agreed, so let's deal with that. Evidence?