Capitalism and Its Beneficiaries, Rich People, Are the Spreaders of Coronavirus

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by 3point14

**** Godwin. Seriously. When reasonable comparison can be made between a current event and actions of the nazi party in the 30s and 40s then such comparisons should and must be made.

Godwin can go **** himself with this made up, bollocks rule, it bugs the **** out of me.

Did you read dann’s comment which sparked mine?

That was not a reasonable comparison.

[dann]

I should probably have used the Gulf of Tonkin incident or the Bush administration's weapons of mass destruction lie instead. There are so many American lies to choose from so why give the prestige and xjx388 another excuse for misdirection:

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The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ), also known as the USS Maddox incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved one real and one falsely claimed confrontation between ships of North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. The original American report blamed North Vietnam for both incidents, but the Pentagon Papers, the memoirs of Robert McNamara, and NSA publications from 2005, proved that the US government lied to justify a war against Vietnam.

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The United States asserted that Hussein's frequent lack of cooperation was a breach of Resolution 1441, but failed to convince the United Nations Security Council to pass a new resolution authorizing the use of force due to lack of evidence. Despite this, Bush asserted peaceful measures could not disarm Iraq of the weapons he alleged it to have and launched a second Gulf War instead. A year later, the United States Senate officially released the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq which concluded that many of the Bush Administration's pre-war statements about Iraqi WMD were misleading and not supported by the underlying intelligence.

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by dann

I should probably have used the Gulf of Tonkin incident or the Bush administration's weapons of mass destruction lie instead. There are so many American lies to choose from so why give the prestige and xjx388 another excuse for misdirection:

This doesn’t help your argument.

[dann]

Originally Posted by 3point14

**** Godwin. Seriously. When reasonable comparison can be made between a current event and actions of the nazi party in the 30s and 40s then such comparisons should and must be made.

Godwin can go **** himself with this made up, bollocks rule, it bugs the **** out of me.

Your post made me realize that I had missed this xjx388 post:

Originally Posted by xjx388

Some people get it, some don’t. I would say my circle of friends and acquaintances is pretty evenly split. Even doctors, if you can believe it, want to open up. It’s human nature, for better or for worse. People want to gamble, so casinos exist. I’d rather live in a world where casinos are allowed than one where they aren’t.

And if "some doctors" (in your "circle of friends"?) want to open up, they must be right and the majority of people who don't must be wrong.
Some people do indeed "get it" and some definitely don't:

The Daily Social Distancing Show (May 20, 2020):
Standing Up for the Anti-Anti-Lockdown Movement

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

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I’d also like to live in a world where, when a crisis like this strikes, the government is strong enough to help people out. We’ve had mixed results and there’s room for improvement. But those problems would exist in any system. Unless we are talking about the fantasy utopia world described in that thread about a moneyless society.

What problems, exactly, would exist in any system? That people can't go see a doctor or get a test because they can't afford the former and the latter aren't available to them - two months after your dear leader said that everybody could get tested? No, you are as wrong as you could possibly be: Those problems wouldn't and don't exist in "any system". Your "fantasy utopia world appears the be the very real dystopi you're living in. You are just fooling yourself because you benefit from the system that ruins the lives of other people.

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If most people didn’t want to, the virus would have been stopped in its tracks. We would have all just stayed home, no leaving the house. But that isn’t happening and can’t actually happen. Because humans.

No, we wouldn't, and no 'we' couldn't! In your "fantasy utopia world unprivileged people can't afford to stay at home, so they go to work and get infected, not because they didn't want to stop the virus, but because they had no other choice. Or maybe you think that the people that you don't see every day in the subway are there because of human nature, because they "want to gamble" - with their health and with their lives.
They aren't.

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Right a people problem, not a systemic problem.

I think everybody is on to your favourite argument: Even the stockmarket isn't run by lizards, so "a people problem, not a systemic problem."

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Even they opened up to some extent and are now having a new round of cases. You can’t get around it. People, and the activities of people, is spreading Coronavirus. No one will actually shelter in place and the only way you can get it to work is through an authoritarian system. Which no one wants to live in.

Iceland, South Korea and China opened up? Iceland didn't, and they were down to four (!) active cases the last time I checked. China opened up in Wuhan too soon, apparently, and yet seems to be on top of it. All three countries have a fraction of the death toll that you are experiencing in the USA - and not because of "an authoritarian system" or because "no one" (No one??? Really?!) "will actually shelter in place". Apart from your idiots incited by Trump and their confederate-flag-waving buddies, people seem more than willing to shelter in place when the purpose of sheltering is explained to them and they see the point. Even your rebel rousing president and his staffers - who are tested on a daily basis in spite of tests (still!) being unavailable to the vast majority of people.

[/quote]I live in Texas. I see and hear it first hand. Beyond the protests, everyday people are saying that this whole thing is overblown, that we need to open up, that, “if you are scared stay home but let the rest of us live our lives.” [/quote]


Yes, your personal anecdote outweighs the polls showing what the majority of people think, because you talk to people who tell you, let the rest of us spread the virus! That you have co-morbidities and are therefore scared in this situation doesn't concern us!
That's not what I hear people say where I live, and I suppose you don't talk much to people who are self-quarantining.

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Why did you Godwin the thread?

Do you prefer my Tonkin and WMD analogies?

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It serves the interest of the people protesting.

It serves the interest of Trump and his despicable underlings who don't care what the majority of people think but who like to point to the protesting MAGA hats as an excuse for not protecting ordinary Americans and the hospital workers who have to take care of them from the virus.

[dann]

Originally Posted by xjx388

This doesn’t help your argument.

No, it just gives you an excuse for ignoring it:
My argument was that your beloved protestors aren't the reason why some local governments give up on trying to protect its citizens by trying to contain the coronavirus until a vaccine has been developed. The protestors are an excuse as in your case: 'But look! People (It doesn't matter how few!) are protesting so we must do something about it!'
Sometimes a few protesters are used as an excuse for what the people in power want to do. At other times hundreds of thousands of protestors are ignored because they don't represent the interests that the people in power want to promote.
That's one of the many techniques of political manipulation being used in this situation as in most others.

And it's very similar to the attention that you pay to the opinions of your circle of friends and don't pay to polls about the question. One suits you, the other one doesn't.

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by dann

Your post made me realize that I had missed this xjx388 post:




And if "some doctors" (in your "circle of friends"?) want to open up, they must be right and the majority of people who don't must be wrong.

It’s like you don’t even read what I write. You take certain words, italicize them and then come up with a strawman of epic proportions.

No. I think we should have stayed “locked down.” Many of my friends, which includes doctors, think we should open up. I do not think these people are right. I am saying that I don’t think a majority of people where I live want to stay locked down, even though it’s clearly the right thing to do.

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Some people do indeed "get it" and some definitely don't:

The Daily Social Distancing Show (May 20, 2020):
Standing Up for the Anti-Anti-Lockdown Movement

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

What problems, exactly, would exist in any system?

The inability to contain a deadly viral illness due to the various problems introduced by human nature.

The desire of people to peruse leisure activities.

The inability of people to properly assess risk and the severity of a problem.

The undercurrent of conspiracy theory that leads to the spread of misinformation.

The heightened risk of people in positions who must work to keep the society fed, supplied with necessities and keeping infrastructure operational.

The inability of a medical system to quickly and adequately cope with a new pathogen.

The infeasibility, in most countries, of enforcing a true lock down for a prolonged period of time without resorting to draconian authoritarian policies.

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That people can't go see a doctor or get a test because they can't afford the former and the latter aren't available to them - two months after your dear leader said that everybody could get tested?

That is the failure of a particular country’s leadership. Which is itself a very human problem, not a Capitalism problem.

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No, you are as wrong as you could possibly be: Those problems wouldn't and don't exist in "any system".

The exist in every actual system on the current planet we inhabit. Except maybe New Zealand. But they are Capitalist so that doesn’t help your argument.

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Your "fantasy utopia world appears the be the very real dystopi you're living in. You are just fooling yourself because you benefit from the system that ruins the lives of other people.

So do you. You have food because people risk their lives to produce it, ship it and sell it to you in a grocery store. You have medical care because people risk exposure to the disease in order to test and treat you. Your ability to type out messages to me across the world is provided courtesy of the evil Capitalist system you seem to despise and blame for all the world’s ills.

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No, we wouldn't, and no 'we' couldn't! In your "fantasy utopia world unprivileged people can't afford to stay at home, so they go to work and get infected, not because they didn't want to stop the virus, but because they had no other choice.

Medical workers, grocery store workers, meat packers, etc are necessary in any system and they can’t not be around other people. Society can’t afford for them to stay home, Capitalist or not. Unless your fantasy utopia world has robots to do everything we need.

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Or maybe you think that the people that you don't see every day in the subway are there because of human nature, because they "want to gamble" - with their health and with their lives.
They aren't.

They are there because they have to be. Those people who are forced to produce for the rest of society will exist in any system, Capitalist or not.

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I think everybody is on to your favourite argument: Even the stockmarket isn't run by lizards, so "a people problem, not a systemic problem."

And your favorite argument is vacuous. “Capitalism sucks,” is a hip thing to say maybe but you don’t have a replacement and there’s nothing that works better in the real world.

Capitalism sucks because people suck. Every system sucks for the same reason. Capitalism just sucks less than all the others.

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Iceland, South Korea and China opened up?

Uh, yes.

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Iceland didn't, and they were down to four (!) active cases the last time I checked.

Iceland, at this moment in time, is more open than Texas.

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China opened up in Wuhan too soon, apparently, and yet seems to be on top of it.

Sure they are...

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All three countries have a fraction of the death toll that you are experiencing in the USA - and not because of "an authoritarian system"

China doesn’t have an authoritarian system?

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or because "no one" (No one??? Really?!) "will actually shelter in place".

Yes, really. No country instituted an actual shelter in place order where no one was allowed to leave their homes for any reason. It was and continues to be a “shelter in place except for X, Y and Z activities.” Most countries are relaxing these “lock downs,” to some extent because they cannot continue even these limited policies forever. It’s not humanly possible. The disease continues to spread and will for the foreseeable future. Wednesday was the highest single day of new cases.

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Apart from your idiots incited by Trump and their confederate-flag-waving buddies, people seem more than willing to shelter in place when the purpose of sheltering is explained to them and they see the point. Even your rebel rousing president and his staffers - who are tested on a daily basis in spite of tests (still!) being unavailable to the vast majority of people.

Feel better?

You say that Capitalism is to blame for spreading Covid-19 and you seem to think that there is some system that would have not spread it. This is an easy argument to make because it is impossible to verify. You can just spin everything that happens into “see! Capitalism.”

You fail to consider that the virus spread outside of China due to their lack of transparency and a failure to contain the virus when they had every opportunity to do so. They acted too late. They let their citizens travel and spread the disease. A human failure in an ostensibly non-Capitalist system. Everything that happened after that was more human error. You cite two countries as having done a good job and fail to recognize that those are Capitalist countries too.

All the evidence we have is that the virus spread due to not locking down fast enough or hard enough. This happened in China and it happened almost everywhere else. This was pure unavoidable human error.

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Yes, your personal anecdote outweighs the polls showing what the majority of people think, because you talk to people who tell you, let the rest of us spread the virus! That you have co-morbidities and are therefore scared in this situation doesn't concern us!
That's not what I hear people say where I live, and I suppose you don't talk much to people who are self-quarantining.

What I hear people say is, “we can’t stay home forever. We have to start working again. The virus isn’t going anywhere. It’s like the flu.” If you didn’t hear that where you live, you should be proud of the people of your Capitalist country. And let’s be real, Denmark locked down early and has now allowed restaurants and such to open, so it’s not like there’s a need for much talk of that kind where you live. You are more open than Texas and most other States in the US.

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Do you prefer my Tonkin and WMD analogies?

It serves the interest of Trump and his despicable underlings who don't care what the majority of people think but who like to point to the protesting MAGA hats as an excuse for not protecting ordinary Americans and the hospital workers who have to take care of them from the virus.

Which has nothing to do with Capitalism.

[3point14]

Originally Posted by theprestige

It's never a reasonable comparison. That's the point.

That's utter bobbins. Of course it can be a reasonable comparison. You simply can't know until you look at each case.

One day some facist will gather an army, march across a continent, gas a people and be compared to Hitler and someone, somwhere would still claim you can't do it cos 'Godwin!'.

Utter bollocks. If people are acting like nazis in the 30's then comparison to nazi's in the 30 is appropriate.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by dann

And affluent tourists were the carriers of the capitalist virus.

Or maybe it's because rich people tend to travel more, so they're more likely to spread the virus.

I'm not sure what to add to this, but maybe an "ugh?". I suppose the well-paid researchers who will hopefully deliver the vaccine will be called "heroes of the proletariat"?

McHrozni

[Arcade22]

Originally Posted by dann

People in deprived UK areas 'four times likelier' to get COVID-19 (Al Jazeera, May 16, 2020)

I wonder if the Cuban people would prefer the economic deprivation of the UK to Cuban socialism. It's a shame that they live under a brutal corrupt dictatorship and are not allowed to decide for themselves, not that you seem to care about that.

[dann]

They have more to say about their society than you have about yours. Your willingness to listen to any puffed-up 'expert' and accept whatever they are saying even when they contradict themselves and present the samme message every week - 'next week the numbers will start to come down and next month we will have achieved herd immunity' - doesn't exactly make you appear to be an outstanding example of bravery when faced with authoritariansm.

The authoritarian tendencies of the majority of Swedes seems to make it impossible.

And no, Cuba is not a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, and it's definitely less so than Sweden.
And since this is a thread about how capitalism and its beneficiaries, rich people, have spread the coronavirus:
May 21, 2020
Sweden: 3,871
Cuba: 7

[dann]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

Or maybe it's because rich people tend to travel more, so they're more likely to spread the virus.

No, it's not because rich people tend to travel more. I've dealt with that misconception almost from the beginning of the tread and so no reason to start anew now.

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I'm not sure what to add to this, but maybe an "ugh?". I suppose the well-paid researchers who will hopefully deliver the vaccine will be called "heroes of the proletariat"?

Nobody has asked you to add anything. What you suppose is what I would expect you to suppose. It is not as if your comment is new in this thread.
In the USA, I assume that researchers delivering a vaccine would be accused of being Obama supporters trying to ruin the business of selling hydroxychloroquine ...

[dann]

Originally Posted by xjx388

It’s like you don’t even read what I write. You take certain words, italicize them and then come up with a strawman of epic proportions.

Your "circle of friends" was (and is) italicized because it was a quotation. It was a quotation to stress that your argument is anecdotal. I don't really care what your circle of friends think, and I don't really care about the proportion of them that are doctors. Much the same way that you don't care about what doctors or people in general say as long as you can point at a couple of idiots at a demonstration and say, Look, that's what people want ... because they are humans while completely ignoring the majority of people who don't want that and who stay at home or at least practice social distancing because they are ... inhuman, I guess?!

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No. I think we should have stayed “locked down.” Many of my friends, which includes doctors, think we should open up. I do not think these people are right. I am saying that I don’t think a majority of people where I live want to stay locked down, even though it’s clearly the right thing to do.
The inability to contain a deadly viral illness due to the various problems introduced by human nature.

Again many of your "friends, which includes doctors". Are you sure that they are a representative example of the people of Texas? Or of doctors? Another one of your anecdotes that I could counter with one of my own about people telling each other how fortunate they feel right now, in spite of the inconveniences, that they are not living in Sweden or the USA.
There is no inherent "inability to contain a deadly viral illness due to the various problems introduced by human nature." Replace inability with difficulty and human nature with capitalism, then you'd be on to something.

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The desire of people to peruse leisure activities.
The inability of people to properly assess risk and the severity of a problem.
The undercurrent of conspiracy theory that leads to the spread of misinformation.
The heightened risk of people in positions who must work to keep the society fed, supplied with necessities and keeping infrastructure operational.
The inability of a medical system to quickly and adequately cope with a new pathogen.
The infeasibility, in most countries, of enforcing a true lock down for a prolonged period of time without resorting to draconian authoritarian policies.

You guys always come up with the same false arguments: Every difficulty is turned into an impossibility (or infeasibility) when it's something that you don't really care about, in this case saving people's lives. For instance, one of the worst examples, you fabricate an "inability of a medical system to quickly and adequately cope with a new pathogen."
There is no such inability! It's one that you make up!
Even in the USA, you have Centers for Disease Control and Prevention! They know everything worth knowing about how to fight a virus. It's not a medical inability that is wasn't stopped, and it's not a medical inability that it isn't stopped at this stage.
It's an imaginary impossibility made up by you - and blamed on human nature. However, giving up on fighting the pandemic has nothing to do with human nature. Neither is letting people die because you care less about them than about Wall Street.

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That is the failure of a particular country’s leadership. Which is itself a very human problem, not a Capitalism problem.

No, that is the systemic failure of one particular capitalist country's leadership, economy and political culture. Most capitalist countries do much better than the one that represents capitalism in it's most raw and unadulterated form. Most capitalist countries have universal health care, most capitalist countries don't make it an insurmountable problem, finance-wise, to get tested.

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The exist in every actual system on the current planet we inhabit. Except maybe New Zealand. But they are Capitalist so that doesn’t help your argument.

It doesn't help your argument unless your claim is that New Zealanders are lizards. Besides, there are many other countries doing as well or almost as well as New Zealand. Look around! Don't rely on your friends to tell you.

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So do you. You have food because people risk their lives to produce it, ship it and sell it to you in a grocery store. You have medical care because people risk exposure to the disease in order to test and treat you. Your ability to type out messages to me across the world is provided courtesy of the evil Capitalist system you seem to despise and blame for all the world’s ills.

That is the favourite argument of all capitalists, isn't it? It's the one where you say to yourselves, 'We got them now - because they aren't living on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. And yet it does nothing but reveal the cynicism of your way of thinking:

Yes, people actually risk their lives to produce food! Is that a good thing? No, it bloody isn't! People shouldn't have to risk their lives in meat plants without proper protection against the virus but the capitalist economy forces them to do so. They depend on the money to pay the rent and feed their children, so they can't refuse.

Yes, people in the health-care industry "risk exposure to the disease" because they are forced to work without proper protective gear. Is that a good thing? Take a look at the anti-anti-lockdown protestors in the clip from The Daily Show!

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

You didn't, did you? No, I didn't expect you to because you are the one who wants them to expose themselves to the disease because it serves your purpose. You are the one who wants them to be self-sacrificing cannon-fodder in the pandemic. I'm not, and unlike you I don't consider the way they are treated an argument for the system that treats them this way.

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Medical workers, grocery store workers, meat packers, etc are necessary in any system and they can’t not be around other people. Society can’t afford for them to stay home, Capitalist or not. Unless your fantasy utopia world has robots to do everything we need. They are there because they have to be.

No, they are there because they can't afford not to be. And my "fantasy utopia world" (which has always been yours, by the way, because I prefer to think about conditions in the real world and leave it to you to indulge in your fantasies) doesn't have "robots to do everything we need." It has workers protection because it doesn't want them to die in the line of duty the way your version of the ideal world demands.

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Those people who are forced to produce for the rest of society will exist in any system, Capitalist or not.

No, they aren't "forced" to produce and cater to the whimsies of the hilariously rich. You confuse the conditions in your favourite society with the obvious necessity of having to produce food in order to live. That one is a given, but there is no reason to confuse it with the despicable conditions people are doing it under in your part of the world.

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And your favorite argument is vacuous. “Capitalism sucks,” is a hip thing to say maybe but you don’t have a replacement and there’s nothing that works better in the real world.

Capitalism sucks because people suck. Every system sucks for the same reason. Capitalism just sucks less than all the others.

Yes, when you have run out of arguments, you can always reduce the arguments of your opponent to: "Capitalism sucks." That is so mature of you.

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Uh, yes.Iceland, at this moment in time, is more open than Texas. Sure they are...China doesn’t have an authoritarian system?

Yes, Iceland is more open than Texas and the rest of the USA because they handled the coronavirus admirably well from the very beginning. The rest of Northern Europe should be grateful to them. South Korea and China are doing better than Texas. And China is actually going with the authoritarian version of capitalism. Weren't you aware of that?

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Yes, really. No country instituted an actual shelter in place order where no one was allowed to leave their homes for any reason. It was and continues to be a “shelter in place except for X, Y and Z activities.” Most countries are relaxing these “lock downs,” to some extent because they cannot continue even these limited policies forever. It’s not humanly possible. The disease continues to spread and will for the foreseeable future. Wednesday was the highest single day of new cases.

No, "most countries" aren't "relaxing these “lock downs,” to some extent because they cannot continue even these limited policies forever." That is a childish and probably deliberate way of denying that these countries are slowly coming out of lockdown because the lockdowns managed to reduce the outbreak to a level where it's more or less under control. The intention in Denmark is to keep an open eye at how the R₀ develops. It has nothing to do with what is "humanly possible." You are dishonest, and you are fooling yourself, but you are not fooling the rest of us.
In the meantime, you are so fond of Wednesday being "the highest single day of new cases" that you use it as an argument for giving up the fight - except, of course, for the hospital staff and the grocery workers, whom you expect to deliver their services to you as the cannon-fodder they are meant to be, in your opinion.

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Feel better?

You say that Capitalism is to blame for spreading Covid-19 and you seem to think that there is some system that would have not spread it. This is an easy argument to make because it is impossible to verify. You can just spin everything that happens into “see! Capitalism.”

You fail to consider that the virus spread outside of China due to their lack of transparency and a failure to contain the virus when they had every opportunity to do so. They acted too late. They let their citizens travel and spread the disease. A human failure in an ostensibly non-Capitalist system. Everything that happened after that was more human error. You cite two countries as having done a good job and fail to recognize that those are Capitalist countries too.

All the evidence we have is that the virus spread due to not locking down fast enough or hard enough. This happened in China and it happened almost everywhere else. This was pure unavoidable human error.

No, it's not at all impossible to verify that capitalism spreads the coronavirus. I have posted the facts to you from the beginning of this thread. That was the whole point of it from the OP and until now. And you haven't denied one single case. You have ignored most of them entirely and instead focused on your dystopian idea that in your imaginary alternative to capitalism everything would be worse because .... not animals, not aliens, not reptilioids, but humans!

And you still ignore the actual evidence that even in some capitalist countries, like Iceland, New Zealand, South Korea, Norway (I don't know all of them!), the virus has almost been eradicated. And other countries were later to the game of suppressing the contagion, like Denmark.

And, no, China's lack of transparency did absolutely nothing! Apparently China doesn't control the newsstream enough to prevent U.S. intelligence agencies from reporting about the virus in Wuhan from the very beginning. That your dear leader chose to ignore their reports isn't something that you can blame on China, which, by the way, is ostensibly capitalist! The lack of a proper and timely response to the outbreak in the USA is all made in the USA, not in Shanghai or Wuhan. It was back then, in December/January, and it still is now, in May:
Total deaths in the USA: 94,963
Total cases in the USA: 1,593,429 (and we all know that this number is based on tested cases only! The actual number of infections is unknown but probably several millions.)

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What I hear people say is, “we can’t stay home forever. We have to start working again. The virus isn’t going anywhere. It’s like the flu.” If you didn’t hear that where you live, you should be proud of the people of your Capitalist country. And let’s be real, Denmark locked down early and has now allowed restaurants and such to open, so it’s not like there’s a need for much talk of that kind where you live. You are more open than Texas and most other States in the US.

Yes, you clearly hear what you want to hear. No surprise there, really. And there's no reason at all why you should listen instead to people who actually know what they are saying: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention!. Let's listen to what your "circle of friends" are saying, let's pretend that it's like the flu, and let's swallow our daily dose to hydroxychloroquine just to make sure that people with Lupus, who actually need it, can't get any.

And, yes, Denmark now is probably more open than Texas. We weren't exactly early to the game, but when the politicians (most of them, anyway) finally sat up and took notice, they were pretty swift to take action. I wish they had listened to the Icelanders a little earlier, but, you know, you can't expect them to do anything about rich people going to the Alps to ski, can you?! That would be authoritarian tyranny and totally inhuman.

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Which has nothing to do with Capitalism.

It has everything to do with the hegemony of capitalism in both its fascist and democratic versions.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by 3point14

That's utter bobbins. Of course it can be a reasonable comparison. You simply can't know until you look at each case.

One day some facist will gather an army, march across a continent, gas a people and be compared to Hitler and someone, somwhere would still claim you can't do it cos 'Godwin!'.

Utter bollocks. If people are acting like nazis in the 30's then comparison to nazi's in the 30 is appropriate.

Do you actually know how Nazis acted in the 30s? Outside of some Islamofascist enclaves, and perhaps the interiors of China and North Korea (which are opaque to me), I'm not aware of anyone acting remotely like Nazis in the 30s.

Anyway, the point of the "Nazi" comparison isn't to make a rational examination of similarities and differences. It's to gain a rhetorical advantage without making a rational examination. You're trying to dismiss someone's argument or position as too obviously horrible to bother actually debating it.

And that's why Godwinning a discussion signals the end of fruitful debate. You're not interested in debate anymore. You just want to shut it down. And I'm not going to bother arguing with you about how the Nazis really acted in the 30s. It's a side track, in addition to being a waste of time. You're wrong, but more importantly, you've signaled that this conversation is over.

[3point14]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Do you actually know how Nazis acted in the 30s? Outside of some Islamofascist enclaves, and perhaps the interiors of China and North Korea (which are opaque to me), I'm not aware of anyone acting remotely like Nazis in the 30s.

Anyway, the point of the "Nazi" comparison isn't to make a rational examination of similarities and differences. It's to gain a rhetorical advantage without making a rational examination. You're trying to dismiss someone's argument or position as too obviously horrible to bother actually debating it.

And the cry of "Godwin" dismisses a possibly accurate analogy, just because it's been made before.

I accept that it sometimes, most times infact, not appropriate, but that should be decided on a case by case basis, not on a "You mention nazis, cos of Godwin, your point is invalid". That's the opposite of critical thinking.

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And that's why Godwinning a discussion signals the end of fruitful debate. You're not interested in debate anymore. You just want to shut it down. And I'm not going to bother arguing with you about how the Nazis really acted in the 30s. It's a side track, in addition to being a waste of time. You're wrong, but more importantly, you've signaled that this conversation is over.

See, that's the error. That blanket statement above is the opposite of critical thinking, "You said the magic, bad word, now you've lost the argument." doesn't sound like logic to me. "This is not an apt comparison and here's why" is much better.

"Godwin" has become just a refuge for those that can't argue their point. It's bollocks.

When actual nazis are doing actual nazi things they can be compared to nazis.

[dann]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Anyway, the point of the "Nazi" comparison isn't to make a rational examination of similarities and differences. It's to gain a rhetorical advantage without making a rational examination.

No, that may be the point in some cases, but it isn't necessarily the point.
I used it to describe how the anti-lockdown protestors are used by politicians an as excuse for reopening after (not yet successful) lockdowns. Politicians point at them as an excuse for reopening while ignoring the majority staying at home who don't want a hasty reopening.
But the Gulf of Tonkin lie and the weapons of mass destruction lie work just as well. The only problem is that people usually aren't as familiar with their as they are with Hitler's lies as an excuse to invade Poland.
But thank you for giving me an opportunity to point our U.S. American lies used to excuse making new wars.

By the way, crying Godwin is usually employed to dismiss obvious similarities between the tricks of National Socialism and the tricks of conservatives and alt-right fascists. Even when the similarities are as obvious as the similarities between USA's lies as excuses for war and Hitler's:
"Seit 5:45 wird zurückgeschossen"

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I AGREE

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by 3point14

And the cry of "Godwin" dismisses a possibly accurate analogy, just because it's been made before.

I accept that it sometimes, most times infact, not appropriate, but that should be decided on a case by case basis, not on a "You mention nazis, cos of Godwin, your point is invalid". That's the opposite of critical thinking.



See, that's the error. That blanket statement above is the opposite of critical thinking, "You said the magic, bad word, now you've lost the argument." doesn't sound like logic to me. "This is not an apt comparison and here's why" is much better.

"Godwin" has become just a refuge for those that can't argue their point. It's bollocks.

When actual nazis are doing actual nazi things they can be compared to nazis.

I have to agree with this. There is way too much comparison of everything under the sun to Nazis, and to the detriment of public discourse. But the problem, when it is a problem, isn't that a comparison was made to Nazis, it's that the comparison isn't fitting, the arguments don't actually follow.

A blanket rule "Don't compare things to Nazis" isn't a good idea, even if 99% of such comparisons shouldn't be made.

[Arcade22]

Originally Posted by dann

They have more to say about their society than you have about yours.

Thinking that Sweden is less free and democratic than Cuba is not normal. Except when you are high on communism. Hell of a drug.

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

I have to agree with this. There is way too much comparison of everything under the sun to Nazis, and to the detriment of public discourse. But the problem, when it is a problem, isn't that a comparison was made to Nazis, it's that the comparison isn't fitting, the arguments don't actually follow.

A blanket rule "Don't compare things to Nazis" isn't a good idea, even if 99% of such comparisons shouldn't be made.

I could go with this if the 99% didn’t exist. If something is used 99% of the time to the detriment of public discourse, I have no problem taking my chances when calling it out.

If it’s going to have any impact at all, it should be reserved for when it really applies, like crying wolf.

It absolutely does not apply here.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by xjx388

I could go with this if the 99% didn’t exist. If something is used 99% of the time to the detriment of public discourse, I have no problem taking my chances when calling it out.

Sure, but isn't 99% of all public discourse just bs? Anyway, I think we should call out the problem, not something adjacent to the problem, and the problem is:

Quote:

If it’s going to have any impact at all, it should be reserved for when it really applies, like crying wolf.

It absolutely does not apply here.

Which I agree with completely.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Arcade22

Thinking that Sweden is less free and democratic than Cuba is not normal. Except when you are high on communism. Hell of a drug.

Being high on Sweden doesn't seem to help addicts face reality, and the withdrawal symptoms make it almost impossible for many of them to kick the habit.
Sweden: 389
Cuba: 7

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by dann

Your "circle of friends" was (and is) italicized because it was a quotation. It was a quotation to stress that your argument is anecdotal. I don't really care what your circle of friends think, and I don't really care about the proportion of them that are doctors.

I know you don't care what actual humans have to say on the matter. You only care about one thing: Captialism sucks. I get it.

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Much the same way that you don't care about what doctors or people in general say as long as you can point at a couple of idiots at a demonstration and say, Look, that's what people want ... because they are humans while completely ignoring the majority of people who don't want that and who stay at home or at least practice social distancing because they are ... inhuman, I guess?!

See? You aren't listenting to what I am saying. I never said that every human was like this. But enough are and they are very vocal.

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Again many of your "friends, which includes doctors". Are you sure that they are a representative example of the people of Texas? Or of doctors?

Where did I say they were a representative example?

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Another one of your anecdotes that I could counter with one of my own about people telling each other how fortunate they feel right now, in spite of the inconveniences, that they are not living in Sweden or the USA.

Of course. People are all over the map on this. Which is my frick-a-frackin' point. In cultures and societies like Denmark or New Zealand, the people have done the right thing. In China, they appear to have done the right thing, but we know they didn't -they hid the truth until it was too late to contain it. They reopened too early. They are very likely underreporting the situation to this day. In the US, it's a mixed bag. Most of us were doing the right thing, even if very late, but now States are reopening due to pressure applied by the people and the economic difficulties they are suffering. So we are reopening too early.

Even so, I read that Denmark wants to start welcoming back tourists in June. Do you think that's a good idea? Why would they do that?

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There is no inherent "inability to contain a deadly viral illness due to the various problems introduced by human nature." Replace inability with difficulty and human nature with capitalism, then you'd be on to something.

Human nature makes it very difficult to control a viral outbreak. I can agree with that. I do not agree that Capitalism is something separate from human nature. I think it's the system that best reflects and accounts for human nature, flaws and all.

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You guys always come up with the same false arguments: Every difficulty is turned into an impossibility (or infeasibility) when it's something that you don't really care about, in this case saving people's lives.

This is a callous and disingenous statement, to say that I don't care about saving people's lives. It's offensive and ridiculous. And as long as we are being raw, you don't care about saving people's lives either. You only care about damning Capitalism and people who agree with it. I know this because you refuse to come up with an alternate system. You don't have any better ideas that would save more lives because that isn't your focus.

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For instance, one of the worst examples, you fabricate an "inability of a medical system to quickly and adequately cope with a new pathogen."
There is no such inability! It's one that you make up!
Even in the USA, you have Centers for Disease Control and Prevention! They know everything worth knowing about how to fight a virus. It's not a medical inability that is wasn't stopped, and it's not a medical inability that it isn't stopped at this stage.

But it is. Not one medical system in the world was capable of quickly and adequately coping with the virus. This is obvious because of the ventilator shortage fears, the complete lack of testing and the complete lack of treatment options. The only thing that saved the day was government action to impose mandatory lockdowns. And even that is imperfect in most places in the world.

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It's an imaginary impossibility made up by you - and blamed on human nature. However, giving up on fighting the pandemic has nothing to do with human nature. Neither is letting people die because you care less about them than about Wall Street.

There is no possible way we could have stopped people from dying. All we can do is reduce the number at this point. There are a lot of reasons why we won't do that to the fullest extent we could. Chiefly, the people will not actually stay at home without going anywhere for 2-4 weeks. You know why, even if you want to say it's only because capitalism sucks.

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No, that is the systemic failure of one particular capitalist country's leadership, economy and political culture.

All those words I struck out didn't change what I said. They add nothing useful.

Quote:

Most capitalist countries do much better than the one that represents capitalism in it's most raw and unadulterated form. Most capitalist countries have universal health care, most capitalist countries don't make it an insurmountable problem, finance-wise, to get tested.

Ah, so it's not capitalism that's the problem? Thank you.

Not much left after that is there?

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Yes, people actually risk their lives to produce food! Is that a good thing? No, it bloody isn't! People shouldn't have to risk their lives in meat plants without proper protection against the virus but the capitalist economy forces them to do so. They depend on the money to pay the rent and feed their children, so they can't refuse.

It's not the capitalist economy, it's the people's need for food and desire for meat in particular. Plain and simple. That is true in any system. Even if they didn't depend on the income because they got a UBI, we would still need people to work in meat plants, in grocery distribution centers, in prepared food dispensaries and everywhere else. There is no system that can afford to (financially, emotionally and sustainably) force it's people to remain locked up in their dwelling units until the virus dies out. Even the most successful countries right now in the real world haven't done that and will not do that. The virus isn't going anywhere.

Quote:

Yes, people in the health-care industry "risk exposure to the disease" because they are forced to work without proper protective gear. Is that a good thing? Take a look at the anti-anti-lockdown protestors in the clip from The Daily Show!

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I AGREE

You didn't, did you? No, I didn't expect you to because you are the one who wants them to expose themselves to the disease because it serves your purpose. You are the one who wants them to be self-sacrificing cannon-fodder in the pandemic.

There you go again, trying to paint me as some kind of sadistic monster. It's ridiculous.

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I'm not, and unlike you I don't consider the way they are treated an argument for the system that treats them this way.

So are you locked away in your home without a need to get food or supplies? I doubt it. I guess you are part of the problem too.

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No, they are there because they can't afford not to be. And my "fantasy utopia world" (which has always been yours, by the way, because I prefer to think about conditions in the real world and leave it to you to indulge in your fantasies) doesn't have "robots to do everything we need." It has workers protection because it doesn't want them to die in the line of duty the way your version of the ideal world demands.

And so where in the world has worker protection that will guarantee that the virus cannot be spread? Nowhere, because that's impossible.

Quote:

Yes, when you have run out of arguments, you can always reduce the arguments of your opponent to: "Capitalism sucks." That is so mature of you.

LOL, this is actually funny. Because you've been the paragon of maturity.

That is exactly your argument! "Capitalism sucks," is the perfect encapsulation of your OP and overall attitude.

Quote:

No, "most countries" aren't "relaxing these “lock downs,” to some extent because they cannot continue even these limited policies forever." That is a childish and probably deliberate way of denying that these countries are slowly coming out of lockdown because the lockdowns managed to reduce the outbreak to a level where it's more or less under control.

That can only be said, with a straight face, for a very few countries.

Quote:

The intention in Denmark is to keep an open eye at how the R₀ develops. It has nothing to do with what is "humanly possible." You are dishonest, and you are fooling yourself, but you are not fooling the rest of us.

Ah, and you have a big LED scoreboard with the R0 in real time in the center of Copenhagen or something? You can put whatever veneer on it that you like. The fact remains that Denmark is most certainly not doing better than Texas and it is more open than Texas. There is no doubt that Texas is opening way too early; it therefore follows that Denmark has opened way too early. So before you try and remove the splinter from our eye, perhaps you should focus on the plank in your Capitalist country's eye.

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In the meantime, you are so fond of Wednesday being "the highest single day of new cases"

What does this "you are so fond" nonsense even mean? Like I said, the paragon of maturity.

Quote:

that you use it as an argument for giving up the fight

Where the hell did I do that? You are just making up a straw effigy of me and lightin' it up, ain't ya? Bless your heart.

Quote:

- except, of course, for the hospital staff and the grocery workers, whom you expect to deliver their services to you as the cannon-fodder they are meant to be, in your opinion.

More straight up BS. Not surprising since this whole thread is just a forum for your BS argument that Capitalism Sucks the worst of all possible systems.

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No, it's not at all impossible to verify that capitalism spreads the coronavirus.

So then do it.

Quote:

I have posted the facts to you from the beginning of this thread.

No, you haven't. You've posted your spin, which is not "the facts."

Quote:

That was the whole point of it from the OP and until now. And you haven't denied one single case. You have ignored most of them entirely and instead focused on your dystopian idea that in your imaginary alternative to capitalism everything would be worse because .... not animals, not aliens, not reptilioids, but humans!

And in your opinion, it seems we are already in a Capitalist dystopia. So what's the alternative? You refuse to elaborate.

The funny thing is that I agree with you that we live in a dystopia. Human society, becaue of human imperfections, will always be some degree of dystopia. It will never achieve perfection. Of all systems tried so far, Capitalism is the best dystopia we've come up with.

Quote:

And you still ignore the actual evidence that even in some capitalist countries, like Iceland, New Zealand, South Korea, Norway (I don't know all of them!), the virus has almost been eradicated. And other countries were later to the game of suppressing the contagion, like Denmark.

So again, you make the excellent point that Capitalism isn't the problem. Thanks again.

Quote:

Yes, you clearly hear what you want to hear. No surprise there, really. And there's no reason at all why you should listen instead to people who actually know what they are saying: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention!. Let's listen to what your "circle of friends" are saying, let's pretend that it's like the flu, and let's swallow our daily dose to hydroxychloroquine just to make sure that people with Lupus, who actually need it, can't get any.

I told you what some in my circle of friends are saying. I didn't say I agreed with them. Again.

Quote:

And, yes, Denmark now is probably more open than Texas. We weren't exactly early to the game, but when the politicians (most of them, anyway) finally sat up and took notice, they were pretty swift to take action.

Yes and now you have opened up faster than we did, despite the fact that you are actually worse off. Are you mad at the Capitalst regime that threatens your health thusly?

Quote:

I wish they had listened to the Icelanders a little earlier, but, you know, you can't expect them to do anything about rich people going to the Alps to ski, can you?! That would be authoritarian tyranny and totally inhuman.

Iceland is a tiny island of about 340k people. Not to take anything away from their response, but if that's a measure of success, my home county in Texas is more than double that size in population, 1/3rd the size in land mass, borders Mexico and we have had about 460 cases and 10 deaths.

Quote:

It has everything to do with the hegemony of capitalism in both its fascist and democratic versions.

Maybe you should ask yourself why such a hegemony exists in the first place. Why do the people continue to want such a system if it's as bad as you say it is?

[Arcade22]

Originally Posted by dann

Being high on Sweden doesn't seem to help addicts face reality, and the withdrawal symptoms make it almost impossible for many of them to kick the habit.
Sweden: 389
Cuba: 7

Well forgive me for not trusting someone who genuinely thinks that freedom is slavery on what "reality" really is.

[Arcade22]

I wonder how many people in Cuba genuinely think they are more free than the people in Sweden. I mean people from all over the world are flocking to live in this diseased ice hole of a country, this unfree bourgeoisie hell where the proletariat are brutally exploited by capitalist slave drivers. Maybe I'm mistaken but i do not think many people are fleeing to Cuba compared with the ones fleeing from it.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by dann

Capitalism doesn't benefit the vast majority of Americans.

Of course it does. What a silly thing to say.

It benefits the vast majority of people more than another system would. That it benefits certain people more than others, to a point that you consider to be unacceptable, does not change that.

Originally Posted by dann

Even wealthy people without a yacht tend to fare much, much better than the working poor in the corona crisis:

Rich people tend to do better than poor people in general.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by dann

I'm sorry, but if you go back to the OP

Seems like you're intent on being not understood.

Apparently no one understands any of your posts. I think we all understood you pretty well, but even you don't like the implications. You can't even provide an alternative to the system you criticise, or an improvement, even when prompted to do so multiple times by xjx.

You're not here for discussion.

Originally Posted by dann

In this pandemic, it has become very obvious that some government are more concerned about business than about people's lives.

Not to sound callous, but people's lives have never been an absolute top priority, nor should they.

Quote:

Yes, the owner of the business is only in it for the money

What an ignorant thing to say. How would you know that? We're all in it for the money, but that doesn't mean it's the only factor.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Arcade22

I wonder how many people in Cuba genuinely think they are more free than the people in Sweden. I mean people from all over the world are flocking to live in this diseased ice hole of a country, this unfree bourgeoisie hell where the proletariat are brutally exploited by capitalist slave drivers. Maybe I'm mistaken but i do not think many people are fleeing to Cuba compared with the ones fleeing from it.

My favourite Cuban writer, Daniel Chavarria, was a refugee who became a citizen of Cuba. In his autobiography, Y el mundo sigue andando, he described his escaped to Cuba with his family by hijacking a small plane.
He died before the coronavirus, but there are several refugees in Cuba, and they didn't all flee from the oppression in Latin American banana republics.* I have no idea how many they are.
US fugitives say Cuba reassures them they are safe from extradition (The Guardian, June 10, 2020)

But let me remind you that this is a thread about capitalism's way of spreading Covid-19. It's not about your various delusions about capitalism as such or about Cuba as such.
If you like, we could compare Cuba's and Sweden's coronavirus strategies in the thread about how Sweden has let the coronavirus run wild.

And that goes for you, too. Belz. You don't have anything at all to contribute with to the theme of this thread, do you?

* Daniel Chavarria wrote a great novel about Latin American refugees and other anti-fascists in Cuba, Tango for a Torturer. Entertaining, lots of suspense and humor, and a good English translation. Great lockdown read!

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Arcade22

I wonder how many people in Cuba genuinely think they are more free than the people in Sweden. I mean people from all over the world are flocking to live in this diseased ice hole of a country, this unfree bourgeoisie hell where the proletariat are brutally exploited by capitalist slave drivers. Maybe I'm mistaken but i do not think many people are fleeing to Cuba compared with the ones fleeing from it.

I have it on good authority that undercover narcotics officers in the Miami police department regularly flit over to Havana in go-fast boats seized from drug runners, just for the excellent mojitos served on the island.

And for a while, the American naval base at the southeastern end of the island was such a popular destination for Islamofascists that they were literally fighting to get in.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Belz...

Rich people tend to do better than poor people in general.

For a non-capitalist* example, see the Soviet Union. Only there, being rich was illegal, so only the powerfully corrupt were able to be rich.

---
*Obviously it was still capitalist. Forcing people into black market capitalism isn't the same as magically making capitalism disappear.

[Arcade22]

Originally Posted by dann

But let me remind you that this is a thread about capitalism's way of spreading Covid-19. It's not about your various delusions about capitalism as such or about Cuba as such.

Delusions? You are the one who said that people in the communist dictatorship of Cuba are more free than the people of Sweden, not me.

[dann]

Originally Posted by theprestige

For a non-capitalist* example, see the Soviet Union. Only there, being rich was illegal, so only the powerfully corrupt were able to be rich.

---
*Obviously it was still capitalist. Forcing people into black market capitalism isn't the same as magically making capitalism disappear.

Congratulations, Belz. You have supplied theprestige with an excuse for more derail.

[Arcade22]

One of the reasons why authoritarian and totalitarian states are better equipped, at least in theory, to handle many national disasters is because they have little to no regard for individual autonomy, freedom and personal integrity.

They employ secret police surveillance and local "neighborhood watch" style organizations to keep track of potential dissidents, mounting discontent and rising civil unrest. Depending on the intensity of the surveillance they might have even gone as far as to record minute details of individuals sex lives, often for the purpose of blackmail and having them inform on their neighbors.There's no independent judiciary that can restrain what they do.

Ultimately the tools that better allow them to keep control of their people are the same ones that allow them to stop the spread of any contagious diseases.

Again this just in theory. A lot of the time authoritarian states are riddled with the kind of corruption, incompetence and severely inefficient bureaucracy that negate whatever advantages they theoretically enjoy.

Of course communists do not care about "bourgeois notions of legality, individual rights and freedoms", so none of this concerns them.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Arcade22

Delusions? You are the one who said that people in the communist dictatorship of Cuba are more free than the people of Sweden, not me.

No, I didn't. I said that ordinary Cubans have more to say about the direction that Cuban society takes than ordinary Swedes about the direction that Swedish society takes. They also tend to know much more about conditions in other countries than people in, for instance, Scandinavia know about conditions in Cuba. They tend to be well read and well educated.

Why don't you, and Belz and theprestige make a thread about that theme if it interests you so much? This is a thread about how Capitalism and Its Beneficiaries, Rich People, Are the Spreaders of Coronavirus. If you are interested in how Cuba handles the pandemic, you should start a thread about that theme. I have already supplied you with a couple of links. And we already have a thread about how Sweden lets the virus run wild, hoping that it will magically disappear when enough people have come down with Covid-19.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Arcade22

Again this just in theory. A lot of the time authoritarian states are riddled with the kind of corruption, incompetence and severely inefficient bureaucracy that negate whatever advantages they theoretically enjoy.

Yes, definitely "just in theory," since you also appear to know nothing whatsoever about how authoritarian states spread the coronavirus. If you want to know how authoritarian rulers spread the coronavirus, you could take another look at Sweden and maybe add Brazil as a country worth lookin into. (The latter is a latecomer.)
I can recommend these articles:
The Coronavirus Hits Brazil Hard, but Jair Bolsonaro Is Unrepentant (The New Yorker, May 22, 2020)
Coronavirus: Brazil headed for catastrophe (Deutsche Welle, May 19, 2020)
Brazil Is Starting to Lose the Fight Against Coronavirus—and Its President Is Looking the Other Way (Time, May 21, 2020)
COVID-19 in Brazil: “So what?” (The Lancet, May 9, 2020)
Sweden: 389
USA: 294
Brazil: 95
Cuba: 7

[Arcade22]

Originally Posted by dann

No, I didn't. I said that ordinary Cubans have more to say about the direction that Cuban society takes than ordinary Swedes about the direction that Swedish society takes.

Yes people in communists dictatorships are more free than those in liberal democracies, that's what i said that you said.

I'm not even going to bother anymore. Your very warped view of reality, as described in your own words, say enough. Freedom truly is slavery in your so called "reality".

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by dann

Congratulations, Belz. You have supplied theprestige with an excuse for more derail.

Not a derail. A rebuttal.

Soviet socialism is and will continue to be an excellent counterpoint to your deprecation of capitalism.

Of all the human flaws that free market capitalism tries to mitigate, soviet socialism does much worse at mitigating almost all of them. Even where it seems to succeed (e.g., by limiting and punishing rich people), it does so by causing much worse problems elsewhere.

For another example of how capitalism isn't the problem, see the difference in how industrial pollution was handled in the US and western Europe during the 20th century, versus how it was handled in the USSR and eastern Europe.

As long as your premise continues to be that capitalism is the problem, my rebuttal will continue to be that this is clearly not the case, as we can see from other systems that have the same problem to similar or worse degrees.

This isn't a derail. This is exactly the kind of spirited disagreement and debate that this forum was founded for.

For which this forum was founded.

Maybe you can blame capitalism for the "do not end a sentence with a preposition" rule.

[dann]

Nothing but a derail, nothing at all about spreading the virus, and this thread is about how capitalism and its beneficiaries, rich people, are the spreaders of coronavirus.
You, however, have nothing at all to say about this theme, and instead do your utmost to derail it by turning it into a Capitalism gooooood, socialism baaaaad thread.

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by dann

Nothing but a derail, nothing at all about spreading the virus, and this thread is about how capitalism and its beneficiaries, rich people, are the spreaders of coronavirus.
You, however, have nothing at all to say about this theme, and instead do your utmost to derail it by turning it into a Capitalism gooooood, socialism baaaaad thread.

I know you would rather not have people disagreeing with you, but this is a public forum. Maybe next time try a Medium article?

[dann]

It's been much too long, so ...

Originally Posted by xjx388

I know you don't care what actual humans have to say on the matter. You only care about one thing: Captialism sucks. I get it.

I know you don't care about distinguishing between anecdotal and proper evidence. I get it. And strawman arguments always come in handy, don't they?

Quote:

See? You aren't listenting to what I am saying. I never said that every human was like this. But enough are and they are very vocal.

You're not my dad! I read what you write very carefully, but I just won't let you get away with false arguments. Some idiots are very vocal, but that doesn't mean that I accept what they are saying or consider what "every human" says to be an argument.

Quote:

Where did I say they were a representative example?

I don't really care what three doctors say if what they are saying is stupid. Unless one of those doctors is my own, in which case I make sure to get a new one as soon as possible.

Quote:

Of course. People are all over the map on this. Which is my frick-a-frackin' point. In cultures and societies like Denmark or New Zealand, the people have done the right thing. In China, they appear to have done the right thing, but we know they didn't -they hid the truth until it was too late to contain it. They reopened too early. They are very likely underreporting the situation to this day. In the US, it's a mixed bag. Most of us were doing the right thing, even if very late, but now States are reopening due to pressure applied by the people and the economic difficulties they are suffering. So we are reopening too early.

Even so, I read that Denmark wants to start welcoming back tourists in June. Do you think that's a good idea? Why would they do that?

I am not sure that it would have been a good idea for the Chinese to tell the world about the outbreak at a point when they themselves weren't yet sure what was happening. When they did tell the world, most of the world didn't listen anyway even though it would have given most countries plenty of time to prepare for what was coming.

That countries are cautious about telling the rest of the world what is going on within their borders isn't limited to China. It didn't take the USA long to accuse Cuba of having attacked its diplomats, but so far, Cuba has asked for information in vain. The USA also hasn't wanted to share information about the activities of the guy who attacked the Cuban embassy in Washington recently.

Denmark will only reopen its borders to certain nationalities and on certain conditions, and that seems to be very prudent of them. The R₀ is a good deal below 1 at this point, and they seem to consider introducing new restrictions immediately if it begins to rise.
Without frequent testing and tracing there is an obvious risk that the frequency of transmission will increase again. Some Danish researchers warn against that: Dansk forsker efter yderligere genåbning: Der er alle chancer for at smitte spreder sig (BT, May 21, 2020)

But yes, you are indeed reopening too early, and it is beginning to become apparent. See videos at the end of this post. And why are you reopening too early? For the sake of the economy, for the sake of the economy in Trump's reelection campaign, a very short-sighted goal, which the economy already seems to regret.

Quote:

Human nature makes it very difficult to control a viral outbreak. I can agree with that. I do not agree that Capitalism is something separate from human nature. I think it's the system that best reflects and accounts for human nature, flaws and all.

I know you agree with that, which is why you made it up, but what I said was the opposite.
And economic systems aren’t 'human nature'. That you insist that anything involving people (except anti-capitalism) is just human and nothing else reflects badly on your ability to make proper distinctions in your thinking.

Quote:

This is a callous and disingenous statement, to say that I don't care about saving people's lives. It's offensive and ridiculous. And as long as we are being raw, you don't care about saving people's lives either. You only care about damning Capitalism and people who agree with it. I know this because you refuse to come up with an alternate system. You don't have any better ideas that would save more lives because that isn't your focus.

You know absolutely nothing about ideas of mine that I haven't presented to you. That you use this as an excuse to invent dystopian scenarios of socialism is as logical as when Fox insists that Denmark = Venezuela. In this thread, I don't think you have commented on a single case of the many that I have presented of rich people behaving recklessly and infecting local communities and their employees. You don't seem to care. To you they are just 'humans who infect other humans.' ('They're the most woooonderful humans in the world.') You haven't even considered how these humans act and why they do what they do. And it doesn't really matter because you have already convinced yourself that "it's the system that best reflects and accounts for human nature," so your imaginary human nature it is! You have liberated yourself from even trying to explain what is going on.

Quote:

But it is. Not one medical system in the world was capable of quickly and adequately coping with the virus. This is obvious because of the ventilator shortage fears, the complete lack of testing and the complete lack of treatment options. The only thing that saved the day was government action to impose mandatory lockdowns. And even that is imperfect in most places in the world.

You seem to know an awful lot about the totality of medical systems in the world since you claim that not one of them was capable of quickly and adequately coping with it. Some of the medical systems appear to have dealt with it much, much better than others, in particular some of the Asian ones that got the shortest warning. You can read more about the different strategies in this excellent article: Should we aim for herd immunity like Sweden? (Medium, June 9, 2020)
And you can rest assured: It’s not about rich people or capitalism at all. It’s about the most effective way to fight a pandemic like this. However, some countries took a very long time to begin doing it, which was often due to capitalist reasoning, business concerns. There is a reason why [url=https://www.firstpost.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-cubas-response-to-the-pandemic-is-a-testament-to-human-solidarity-in-a-global-crisis-8196961.html]a poor country[/i] has been doing so much better than a rich country like the USA. And I also don't see the USA sending medical brigades to other nations to help them fight the pandemic.

Quote:

There is no possible way we could have stopped people from dying. All we can do is reduce the number at this point. There are a lot of reasons why we won't do that to the fullest extent we could. Chiefly, the people will not actually stay at home without going anywhere for 2-4 weeks. You know why, even if you want to say it's only because capitalism sucks.

Of course, ‘we’ could have stopped people from dying! Could we have stopped everybody in our respective countries from dying? Maybe – maybe not. It would have required efficient measures implemented fast, but there is no law of nature that dictates that it couldn’t have been done. And the reason why it wasn’t done is neither humans nor people, your favourite scapegoats. And as always, you are the only one who use the words “capitalism sucks”. If you repeat them often enough, you may actually come to believe that it was me. Nobody else will.

Quote:

All those words I struck out didn't change what I said. They add nothing useful.

When I talk about “the systemic failure of one particular capitalist country's leadership, economy and political culture,” it is because the failure is not coincidental or due to one particular individual’s idiosyncrasy, and because the country is capitalist. That you want to ignore that and instead would have preferred to say errare humanum est would obviously make my words useless to you …

Quote:

Ah, so it's not capitalism that's the problem? Thank you.

Not much left after that is there?

… and that you would also prefer not to hear about the very specific problems that the USA ads to the fight against the pandemic is also no surprise.

Quote:

It's not the capitalist economy, it's the people's need for food and desire for meat in particular. Plain and simple. That is true in any system. Even if they didn't depend on the income because they got a UBI, we would still need people to work in meat plants, in grocery distribution centers, in prepared food dispensaries and everywhere else. There is no system that can afford to (financially, emotionally and sustainably) force it's people to remain locked up in their dwelling units until the virus dies out. Even the most successful countries right now in the real world haven't done that and will not do that. The virus isn't going anywhere.

Oh, isn’t that nice?! It's the “people's need for food and desire for meat” that's the problem. You deftly ignore that I wrote that “people shouldn't have to risk their lives in meat plants without proper protection against the virus but the capitalist economy forces them to do so.” People’s need for food doesn’t force anybody to work without proper PPE in a pandemic. People’s poverty combined with their employers’ greed and indifference to the plight of their employees does that. It has nothing at all to do with people’s unwillingness to “remain locked up in their dwellings” and you are fully aware that it hasn’t.

Quote:

There you go again, trying to paint me as some kind of sadistic monster. It's ridiculous.

What a Trumpian load of …

Quote:

So are you locked away in your home without a need to get food or supplies? I doubt it. I guess you are part of the problem too.

No, of course I’m not. In Denmark nobody (except inmates) was locked away and we could all go out and buy food – if we had the money to do so. And no, I’m not part of the problem because I’m not the one who makes workers work without PPE – in hospitals or in meat plants. You, on the other hand, is the one who pretends that the need for food is the driving force behind despicable working conditions, which makes you the problem. People who need to eat aren’t.

Quote:

And so where in the world has worker protection that will guarantee that the virus cannot be spread? Nowhere, because that's impossible.

No, it’s not. And by pretending that it is, you also pretend that sub-standard working conditions something that is unavoidable: humans!

Quote:

LOL, this is actually funny. Because you've been the paragon of maturity.

That is exactly your argument! "Capitalism sucks," is the perfect encapsulation of your OP and overall attitude.

Funny, , capitalism sucks. You are indeed the paragon of maturity!

Quote:

That can only be said, with a straight face, for a very few countries.

No, it can probably be said for a small [i]majority[/] of (developed) countries at this point. Even Sweden is coming along, now. Some countries have managed to hammer down the coronavirus to the extent where it is no longer there: New Zealand, for instance. Others are well on their way to hammering it down and are gradually beginning the ‘dance’. My own is one of them. Three of the other Nordic countries, Finland, Norway and Iceland, are others, and all three are doing considerably better than Denmark. Read Should we aim for herd immunity like Sweden? and weep!

Quote:

Ah, and you have a big LED scoreboard with the R0 in real time in the center of Copenhagen or something? You can put whatever veneer on it that you like. The fact remains that Denmark is most certainly not doing better than Texas and it is more open than Texas. There is no doubt that Texas is opening way too early; it therefore follows that Denmark has opened way too early. So before you try and remove the splinter from our eye, perhaps you should focus on the plank in your Capitalist country's eye.

Texas is a coronavirus-infested hell hole at this point. Denmark isn’t. Coronavirus cases are rising significantly in Texas and eight other reopened states (Fortune, June 10, 2020), and I don’t think the Trump rally is gonna help any.
If you were actually interested, I might explained to you about how to measure R₀, but since you aren’t, it would be a waste of time.

Quote:

What does this "you are so fond" nonsense even mean? Like I said, the paragon of maturity.

Yes, nothing signals maturity better than applecorped’s

Quote:

Where the hell did I do that? You are just making up a straw effigy of me and lightin' it up, ain't ya? Bless your heart.
More straight up BS. Not surprising since this whole thread is just a forum for your BS argument that Capitalism Sucks the worst of all possible systems.

Repetitive nonsense.

Quote:

So then do it.

Already did. Go back to the OP.

Quote:

No, you haven't. You've posted your spin, which is not "the facts."
And in your opinion, it seems we are already in a Capitalist dystopia. So what's the alternative? You refuse to elaborate.

No need to elaborate. You are doing such a fine job of it yourself.

Quote:

The funny thing is that I agree with you that we live in a dystopia. Human society, becaue of human imperfections, will always be some degree of dystopia. It will never achieve perfection. Of all systems tried so far, Capitalism is the best dystopia we've come up with.

It seems to serve you well – with all the human imperfections. That it doesn’t serve the majority of the population more than poverty and contagious working conditions do shouldn’t concern you.

Quote:

So again, you make the excellent point that Capitalism isn't the problem. Thanks again.

Yes, some capitalist countries are actually able to offer some modicum of protection from the virus and others are actually quite good at it, which makes it even more obvious when others pretend that it can’t be done because it would go against human nature: Texas has largest one-day rise in new cases (Financial Times, June 10, 2020)

Quote:

I told you what some in my circle of friends are saying. I didn't say I agreed with them. Again.

I don’t really care what some in your circle of friends are saying. They don’t sound too bright.

Quote:

Yes and now you have opened up faster than we did, despite the fact that you are actually worse off. Are you mad at the Capitalst regime that threatens your health thusly?

Yes, I was mad at the capitalist regime that threatened our health by not intervening against the ******** who insisted on their annual trip to Ischgl when they should have known better, as you know from the OP.
At this point, I think that the local health agency is doing fine, but 64 new cases today are a bit too much, but they seem to be doing enough testing and contact tracing to keep it down:
Texas: Total cases: 85,641; New cases: +1,755; Total deaths: 1,966; New deaths: 16; Active cases: 28,375.
Denmark: Total cases: 12,099; New cases: 64; Total deaths: 594; New deaths: 1; Active cases: 512.

Don't let it fool you that Texas is below U.S. average now. It's on the increase. Take a look at the increase in hospitalizations. That is one of the first numbers to rise. Deaths take a week or three.

Quote:

Iceland is a tiny island of about 340k people. Not to take anything away from their response, but if that's a measure of success, my home county in Texas is more than double that size in population, 1/3rd the size in land mass, borders Mexico and we have had about 460 cases and 10 deaths.

Congratulations! And how many did you have since then? You might also want to take a look at New Zealand. It’s much larger than Iceland and your county.

Quote:

Maybe you should ask yourself why such a hegemony exists in the first place. Why do the people continue to want such a system if it's as bad as you say it is?

A lot of the people don’t seem to be particularly content with the hegemony. They seem to have discovered how bad it is. Of course, it doesn’t help that it’s being run by a psychopath. And the new outbreak of the ‘rona ain’t gonna make them any happier with him:
CNN (June 13, 2020):
19 states see rise in Covid-19 cases amid reopening and protests

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

CNN (June 9, 2020):
New virus cases on the rise in almost half of US states

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

MSNBC (June 11, 2020):
Economic Shockwave Hits As Coronavirus Warnings Come To Pass

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[dann]

Originally Posted by Arcade22

Yes people in communists dictatorships are more free than those in liberal democracies, that's what i said that you said.

I'm not even going to bother anymore. Your very warped view of reality, as described in your own words, say enough. Freedom truly is slavery in your so called "reality".

I noticed that Sweden celebrated its freedom by forbidding a BLM protest, something the other Nordic countries would consider to be unconstitutional. Our march in Copenhagen last Sunday had 15,000 protesters.

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by dann

It's been much too long, so ...




I know you don't care about distinguishing between anecdotal and proper evidence. I get it. And strawman arguments always come in handy, don't they?




You're not my dad! I read what you write very carefully, but I just won't let you get away with false arguments. Some idiots are very vocal, but that doesn't mean that I accept what they are saying or consider what "every human" says to be an argument.




I don't really care what three doctors say if what they are saying is stupid. Unless one of those doctors is my own, in which case I make sure to get a new one as soon as possible.




I am not sure that it would have been a good idea for the Chinese to tell the world about the outbreak at a point when they themselves weren't yet sure what was happening. When they did tell the world, most of the world didn't listen anyway even though it would have given most countries plenty of time to prepare for what was coming.

That countries are cautious about telling the rest of the world what is going on within their borders isn't limited to China. It didn't take the USA long to accuse Cuba of having attacked its diplomats, but so far, Cuba has asked for information in vain. The USA also hasn't wanted to share information about the activities of the guy who attacked the Cuban embassy in Washington recently.

Denmark will only reopen its borders to certain nationalities and on certain conditions, and that seems to be very prudent of them. The R₀ is a good deal below 1 at this point, and they seem to consider introducing new restrictions immediately if it begins to rise.
Without frequent testing and tracing there is an obvious risk that the frequency of transmission will increase again. Some Danish researchers warn against that: Dansk forsker efter yderligere genåbning: Der er alle chancer for at smitte spreder sig (BT, May 21, 2020)

But yes, you are indeed reopening too early, and it is beginning to become apparent. See videos at the end of this post. And why are you reopening too early? For the sake of the economy, for the sake of the economy in Trump's reelection campaign, a very short-sighted goal, which the economy already seems to regret.




I know you agree with that, which is why you made it up, but what I said was the opposite.
And economic systems aren’t 'human nature'. That you insist that anything involving people (except anti-capitalism) is just human and nothing else reflects badly on your ability to make proper distinctions in your thinking.




You know absolutely nothing about ideas of mine that I haven't presented to you. That you use this as an excuse to invent dystopian scenarios of socialism is as logical as when Fox insists that Denmark = Venezuela. In this thread, I don't think you have commented on a single case of the many that I have presented of rich people behaving recklessly and infecting local communities and their employees. You don't seem to care. To you they are just 'humans who infect other humans.' ('They're the most woooonderful humans in the world.') You haven't even considered how these humans act and why they do what they do. And it doesn't really matter because you have already convinced yourself that "it's the system that best reflects and accounts for human nature," so your imaginary human nature it is! You have liberated yourself from even trying to explain what is going on.




You seem to know an awful lot about the totality of medical systems in the world since you claim that not one of them was capable of quickly and adequately coping with it. Some of the medical systems appear to have dealt with it much, much better than others, in particular some of the Asian ones that got the shortest warning. You can read more about the different strategies in this excellent article: Should we aim for herd immunity like Sweden? (Medium, June 9, 2020)
And you can rest assured: It’s not about rich people or capitalism at all. It’s about the most effective way to fight a pandemic like this. However, some countries took a very long time to begin doing it, which was often due to capitalist reasoning, business concerns. There is a reason why [url=https://www.firstpost.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-cubas-response-to-the-pandemic-is-a-testament-to-human-solidarity-in-a-global-crisis-8196961.html]a poor country[/i] has been doing so much better than a rich country like the USA. And I also don't see the USA sending medical brigades to other nations to help them fight the pandemic.




Of course, ‘we’ could have stopped people from dying! Could we have stopped everybody in our respective countries from dying? Maybe – maybe not. It would have required efficient measures implemented fast, but there is no law of nature that dictates that it couldn’t have been done. And the reason why it wasn’t done is neither humans nor people, your favourite scapegoats. And as always, you are the only one who use the words “capitalism sucks”. If you repeat them often enough, you may actually come to believe that it was me. Nobody else will.




When I talk about “the systemic failure of one particular capitalist country's leadership, economy and political culture,” it is because the failure is not coincidental or due to one particular individual’s idiosyncrasy, and because the country is capitalist. That you want to ignore that and instead would have preferred to say errare humanum est would obviously make my words useless to you …




… and that you would also prefer not to hear about the very specific problems that the USA ads to the fight against the pandemic is also no surprise.




Oh, isn’t that nice?! It's the “people's need for food and desire for meat” that's the problem. You deftly ignore that I wrote that “people shouldn't have to risk their lives in meat plants without proper protection against the virus but the capitalist economy forces them to do so.” People’s need for food doesn’t force anybody to work without proper PPE in a pandemic. People’s poverty combined with their employers’ greed and indifference to the plight of their employees does that. It has nothing at all to do with people’s unwillingness to “remain locked up in their dwellings” and you are fully aware that it hasn’t.




What a Trumpian load of …




No, of course I’m not. In Denmark nobody (except inmates) was locked away and we could all go out and buy food – if we had the money to do so. And no, I’m not part of the problem because I’m not the one who makes workers work without PPE – in hospitals or in meat plants. You, on the other hand, is the one who pretends that the need for food is the driving force behind despicable working conditions, which makes you the problem. People who need to eat aren’t.




No, it’s not. And by pretending that it is, you also pretend that sub-standard working conditions something that is unavoidable: humans!




Funny, , capitalism sucks. You are indeed the paragon of maturity!




No, it can probably be said for a small [i]majority[/] of (developed) countries at this point. Even Sweden is coming along, now. Some countries have managed to hammer down the coronavirus to the extent where it is no longer there: New Zealand, for instance. Others are well on their way to hammering it down and are gradually beginning the ‘dance’. My own is one of them. Three of the other Nordic countries, Finland, Norway and Iceland, are others, and all three are doing considerably better than Denmark. Read Should we aim for herd immunity like Sweden? and weep!




Texas is a coronavirus-infested hell hole at this point. Denmark isn’t. Coronavirus cases are rising significantly in Texas and eight other reopened states (Fortune, June 10, 2020), and I don’t think the Trump rally is gonna help any.
If you were actually interested, I might explained to you about how to measure R₀, but since you aren’t, it would be a waste of time.




Yes, nothing signals maturity better than applecorped’s




Repetitive nonsense.




Already did. Go back to the OP.




No need to elaborate. You are doing such a fine job of it yourself.




It seems to serve you well – with all the human imperfections. That it doesn’t serve the majority of the population more than poverty and contagious working conditions do shouldn’t concern you.




Yes, some capitalist countries are actually able to offer some modicum of protection from the virus and others are actually quite good at it, which makes it even more obvious when others pretend that it can’t be done because it would go against human nature: Texas has largest one-day rise in new cases (Financial Times, June 10, 2020)




I don’t really care what some in your circle of friends are saying. They don’t sound too bright.




Yes, I was mad at the capitalist regime that threatened our health by not intervening against the ******** who insisted on their annual trip to Ischgl when they should have known better, as you know from the OP.
At this point, I think that the local health agency is doing fine, but 64 new cases today are a bit too much, but they seem to be doing enough testing and contact tracing to keep it down:
Texas: Total cases: 85,641; New cases: +1,755; Total deaths: 1,966; New deaths: 16; Active cases: 28,375.
Denmark: Total cases: 12,099; New cases: 64; Total deaths: 594; New deaths: 1; Active cases: 512.

Don't let it fool you that Texas is below U.S. average now. It's on the increase. Take a look at the increase in hospitalizations. That is one of the first numbers to rise. Deaths take a week or three.




Congratulations! And how many did you have since then? You might also want to take a look at New Zealand. It’s much larger than Iceland and your county.




A lot of the people don’t seem to be particularly content with the hegemony. They seem to have discovered how bad it is. Of course, it doesn’t help that it’s being run by a psychopath. And the new outbreak of the ‘rona ain’t gonna make them any happier with him:
CNN (June 13, 2020):
19 states see rise in Covid-19 cases amid reopening and protests

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

CNN (June 9, 2020):
New virus cases on the rise in almost half of US states

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

MSNBC (June 11, 2020):
Economic Shockwave Hits As Coronavirus Warnings Come To Pass

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

Oh, dann...still repeating the same stuff.

You yourself have made the case that it isn’t Capitalism that’s the problem. The spread of coronavirus is down to normal human activity and the ability and desire of people to implement restrictions on that activity. That’s it.

Bottom line: Stupidity is responsible for the spread of Covid-19.