Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

It’s also that dumb fuck boomers only know how to collaborate by walking around the office scratching their nuts. They don’t care about collaborating. Only keeping tabs on the people with ideas.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Denmark has over an 80% vax rate. Likely highest vax rate in the world.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

We still have people advocating for Covid zero.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Hey, come on, I really didn't need the image of so many of my partners scratching their nuts. We try to keep that shit below where the zoom camera sees.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

And now that I think of it, that article is retarded. Now, with vaccines and no lockdowns we have nearly 20x the number of cases and the nearly 2x the of deaths as we did with lockdowns and no vaccines.

For example, 4/8/20 30k cases, 2k deaths. 1/26/22 678k cases and 3500 deaths.


https://usafacts.org/visualizations/...-19-spread-map

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

But we are number 1

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm in favor of copying Denmark on many things, but we aren't anywhere near their vaccination rates, unfortunately.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You do realize I'm not talking about lawyers?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Less's article is a Johns Hopkins study. You do know current dogma is ignoring science is dumb? Maybe you didn't get the memo?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

But I am talking about lawyers.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Lawyers aren't supposed to collaborate: it interferes with the churning.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Les's article is the Washington Times (what, Breitbart wasn't available?) citing a bunch of Johns Hopkins economists who say "The economy!!!"

There isn't a single MD anywhere in the article. Maybe you didn't get the memo that PhDs aren't medical doctors.

I have spent the last two years dinging defendants' experts. That report gets dinged in a one sentence affidavit.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That's my fucking point, or if you are in the plaintiff's world, it interferes with digging up fossils to make people Billions. I don't need someone in my office coughing his lungs out, spitting all over the place to do my job.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

First off, I am sorry you have to go through that. And I don't say this lightly, as I've got a six month checkup soon to make sure something isn't problematic myself. "Let's watch it" kind of thing.

I'm happy to wear masks anywhere people want me to do so. But from what I'm seeing, the policy is no longer defensible except as to the minority of people who are uniquely susceptible to Covid. (I won't address the people who refuse to get vaccinated as they deserve no deference.) So what is now occurring is what Hank described: Performative behaviors that don't help the vulnerable.

I was just in a state where almost all of the doors had prominent signs on them requiring masks, but when one walked inside, the staff weren't even seriously wearing masks, and most of the patrons weren't. (Not in the South. Not an impoverished state. Quite the opposite.)

The same thing is occurring around me. There's confusion, and a feeling that omicron is a nothing burger (which, if you're not vulnerable, and vaccinated, it is).

This confused muddle, where people are eating w/o masks but told to wear masks when walking about restaurants, is basically an admission that masks needn't be worn by 95% of people. And people being eager to shed Covid restrictions, they're increasingly going to stop wearing masks.

There appear to be two ways to respond to this:

1. Remind people that there are still a lot of vulnerable around us, and we should try to distance and reasonably mask in crowded areas until omicron has cycled through and become endemic. This is a decent and reasonable proposition everyone should follow.

2. Stick to the strictest mask mandates we can, reasoning that something close to a zero tolerance policy will result in enough mask wearing to protect the vulnerable.

The first treats people like adults, the second like children. And while I sympathize with the notion that many Americans need to be treated like children, I also recognize that almost all Americans can spot when they're being treated like children, and they resent it and will therefore defy or ignore such directives.

A lot of the dysfunction in this country comes from troglodytes who think a cabal of "elites" are telling them how to live. But the other half comes from the fact that many of the policymakers and rigid policy followers/enforcers who fit the category of "elites" (or would like to think they do) aren't elites at all. They're not as dumb as the troglodytes, but they're equally as deluded in assuming they know what's best and have a right to compel others to strictly follow it.

The "adults in the room" who fall into neither category, and will and do compromise to try to protect the rights of all groups - the vulnerable and the non-vulnerable - would follow the first option of the two I listed above.

If we can't do nuance anymore, turn out the lights and a close the fucking republic.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

2!

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/07/stan...home-soon.html

"Most larger companies are led by older, white men – the group that least values working from home and has been the most vocal about the need to return to office, according to Bloom’s research.

A June 2021 report from Deloitte shows that white men make up about 62% of the boards of Fortune 500 companies. Other research — including a May 2021 report from Future Forum, Slack’s research consortium — has shown that white men are the most enthusiastic group to return to the office.

“If you look at who the decision makers at the big firms are, they are usually older, non-minority men who have no young kids in the house,” Bloom explains. “If you’re a 55-year-old man that’s a CEO, it might be hard for you to understand how many of your employees really need hybrid/remote work.”

People of color and employees with young children tend to value flexible work arrangements at much higher rates, according to Bloom’s research. There’s several factors driving the gap between executive and employee perceptions on in-person work."

Let's unpack this, cause it's a rich fucking vein...

A lot of old white men are feeling their virility ebb. But they're silverbacks in the office. So a big part of the reason people have to commute is because fragile male egos desire to have their serfs around them. (And they hate their wives, and their wives and kids hate them.)

So... We're wrecking the environment, hampering productivity (WFH is 5% more productive), and torturing workers with needless commutes to satisfy boomers who can't deal with the fact that they can't turn a young woman's eye anymore and need Viagra to get a hard-on stiffer than a bratwurst?

I hate identity politics. But I'm going to make an exception. And I think it's an exception on which almost all people, from all political views, can agree:

Fuck Male Egos.

If you look at every unforced error, political, economic, international relations, through history, you will find one common malignant thread: The Fragile Male Ego.

From the walking sexual harassment suit down the hall who's still wearing monogrammed shirts, to the bankers in 2008, to the testosterone depleted neocons and their foray into Iraq, if you find a Giant Fuck-Up - I mean a seriously unnecessary, foolish, gratuitous, and monumentally damaging disaster - you will find... drum roll... White Male Boomers.

Fuck them. Their season is up, they've had a run they never deserved (on the backs of the Greatest Generation that gave them a great situation, which they've in turn made a shit show), and they need to go. If WFH takes their precious little fiefdom, where they can feel important, away from them, pushing them into retirement, well then the rest of the country needs to band together and in one voice demand:

No More Office! No More Appearances Just for Appearance's Sake! WFH For Good!

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

OR as my buddy Avon said,

https://j.gifs.com/36Vrlr.gif

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think a rephrasing might bring some clarity.

Now, with vaccines and no lockdowns, we have 20X the number of cases and nearly 2x the number of deaths (90% of which are among people refusing to get vaccines).

If we had no lockdowns now and everybody getting vaccinated, we'd still have much wider spread, but of a weak strain, and far fewer deaths.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Since today is 2-2-22, it seems like a particularly good day to remember Desmond Tutu.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

WTF? Many people are selfish and self-centered, including restauranteurs, and don't wish to be inconvenienced for the benefit of other people. But the reason to wear a mask is to protect other people from the person wearing the mask.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

100% of the deaths in 2020 were of the unvaccinated. So 2x the deaths of the unvaxed now versus unvaxed then demonstrates the lockdowns were effective in reducing deaths.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

A policy of requiring masks while walking but not while seated (as if the virus doesn't transmit while one is non-ambulatory) protects no one. You might as well not have anyone wearing masks.

And currently, given omicron's low kill/hospitalization rate, which is almost laser-like focused on the uniquely vulnerable and unvaccinated (the first of which which I estimate at roughly 5% of the population), 95% of people could sit around in a restaurant w/o masks without any problems. (Screw the intentionally unvaccinated. No one should change behavior to suit them.)

Society makes decisions based on balancing of interests. The interests of 95% of people, including restaurateurs, must be balanced against those of the others.

I think you've highlighted a point of friction that's remained from the start of Covid. One view is that is there's any chance of harming others, all people must behave in a manner that ensures against that harm, no matter how small it is. A competing view, more broadly accepted, is that the amount of vigilance required/observed should be related to the amount of possible aggregate harm.

The latter sounds selfish. But it's not, really. It's the accepted cost/benefit analysis of most of the things society does.

We could build skyscrapers in a manner that absolutely guaranteed no worker deaths, but we don't because it would be cost prohibitive and slow things down to an unacceptable extent. Instead, we factor a few into cost. We could build all cars with alcohol monitoring systems to eradicate drunk driving, but we don't because this is a cost that would drive up car prices and infringe on individual rights. We could force everyone to wear masks on airplanes or public transportation all the time, as vulnerable people are harmed by the flu and common colds, not just covid, but we haven't do so to date.

The former view I cited seems to be that any number of deaths that can be prevented are too many, and all precautions to avoid them, whatever the impact of such precautions on broader society, must be accepted by broader society. That's a very idealistic approach that alienates people and is counterproductive to its own aims, as evidence by how is has been received throughout Covid. The officious, scolding, and extreme have seen their political futures pretty well screwed (Newsome), while the reasonable have navigated Covid pretty well (DeWine, a conservative Republican in Ohio, is a good example of a gov who balanced the need to protect with the needs of broader society).

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Lockdowns will always be effective at tamping death rates. But they're also a blunt instrument that one only uses when one doesn't have a vaccine. The whole purpose of the vaccines was to allow society to resume functioning, which it cannot do in lockdown.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Let's look back at the original goalposts again.

Article title:
Lockdowns had little or no impact on COVID-19 deaths, new study shows

Narrator voice: the article is wrong.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

We've got examples of a whole bunch of countries, mostly in Asia, that pretty effectively contained the pandemic through lockdowns. Taiwan, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea...

Set aside the overwhelming data that show even half-hearted lockdowns have an impact.

The article isn't just wrong, it's Trump-level wrong.

Fuckin morons.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

My family were NYC Ironworkers for multiple generations. Safety first. Virtually no deaths in building all of Manhattan's skyscrapers once they were unionized. The union makes you strong.

Keep well.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

But thowz cuntrees are sMal eYelanz.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Well, sure, if you consider the Northeast small and a peninsula an island.

But then Vietnam, with 100 million people, has had as many total COVID cases in the whole pandemic as the US had in the average half-day during the last week. That two-week quarantine.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That was my sarcasm font. Thought it was obvious.

You can add that even when these countries didn't lock down, they just practiced reasonable mitigation.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Unions are fine.

Unless they are public sector. The CPS routinely holds the City of Chicago hostage "for the children."

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Sample size of one, but the 2 year old had a few days of being tired, stuffy, and getting all the ice cream she wanted, and then was fine.

(Same with the triple vaxxed 82 year old, for that matter.)

I'm going to be super vigilant with the newborn, of course, AND the children's hospital is pretty full, but MOST kids seem to be ok. Hopefully the Pfizer vax is approved for the little ones soon, and in six months and 4 weeks, the newborn can be vaxxed.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

After the initial getting used to it, I haven't seen too many problems with remote work at all. We kicked off our implementation of a new EMR in March 2020 with go live of May 2021, and that went amazingly well considering it was entirely remote. Our researches don't seem to have had too much of a problem with staggered lab use, and they're still publishing. The IRB, Sponsored Projects, and Tech Transfer offices are all super busy. Some offices / departments are sticking with remote work entirely. Some (like ours) is going to be hybrid unless someone tells us to do something else entirely. Obviously, most (but not all because of telemedicine) of the clinical work has to be done in person, and teaching hands on care has to be in person. But I don't think we'll ever go back to 100% on campus for everyone. Maybe some of the other institutions out there are doing things differently--I think Rice wants everyone on campus--but this seems to work for us AND I think employee recruitment/retention is going to drive a lot of the decision-making in the years to come.

I do this silly scavenger hunt every year. To do well, it's a good idea to have a fairly diverse team in terms of skill-set and locale, so the whole project is remote. I had no idea how well those skill sets would translate to an entirely remote workforce, but they're invaluable. I also teach appropriate use of social media to students and faculty. I've had grumbling from older faculty on how they don't use it so they don't have to know it. Very shortsighted. The people who bitch about not being able to have a firm culture through zoom clearly have never spent a lot of time developing relationships, interacting, being actual people online. Those of us who have been fucking around on the internet for years haven't had a problem with it.

This place, almost 20 years on this site, most definitely has a culture, shared values, and if we had to collaborate on something, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have too much of a problem doing so.

On a totally different note, I'm really sorry to read that you're having to go through chemo again. I'm feeling a little raw since I lost a friend yesterday to cancer, so I'm as sincere as I can possibly be when I say I hope you kick its ass and these six months are not too painful/onerous. I want you around for a long time.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Innovation (or at least invention) happens best when you're not trying. A lunch room chat between two engineers about a TV show somehow leads in to an answer for a problem. Now those two engineers are on Zoom with their cameras off. without even seeing each other you miss a lot of nuance- "Joe, looks like you're thinking about something?" That is gone.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Cool story.

https://mississippitoday.org/2022/02...l-race-theory/

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I agree. Do you really think I was advocating for that sort of policy?

Well, that's not quite true. For example, I'm not willing to do that because I'm not willing to expose my wife, and jeopardize her ability to go to work.

Also, I don't think we know enough yet about long-term effects of COVID.

I guess you're not a libertarian. Or maybe you are, but really bitter?

No, that's horseshit. If you want to try to justify the way that a bunch of selfish, misguided, irrational and performative people have acted, go nuts. But at least acknowledge that's what you're doing.

The number of people in this country actually trying to assess the costs benefits of, e.g., wearing masks, is mind-numbingly small. The number of people who believe they are qualified to make that decision is immense.

The thing that you said in your previous post, the thing I specifically copied and objected to, was the suggestion that people wear masks to protect themselves. I said no, they wear masks to protect other people from themselves. Hey, selfishness works in a lot of contexts (remember a few posts ago, when I criticized socialists from a capitalist perspective and you leapt to their defense?). But not so much when there are externalities, when other people bear the costs of your choices. That's what a pandemic is about. When R > 1, the choice you make to bear the risk is going to make other people sick. Selfishness there is part of the problem.

As you and I both know, people decide whether or not to make masks for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with balancing aggregate costs and benefits. Tribal affiliation. Desire to troll. Irrational fear of getting sick. Social pressure. Let's not pretend that we live in a Eden of utilitarians.

No one actually thinks this, which you know ("seems" is one tell).

Not sure why you think that about Newsome. You should maybe reconsider whatever source you got that from. Also, he is neither officious, scolding nor extreme. I'm not a Newsome stan, but it wouldn't surprise me at all for him to be President one of these years.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

For some strange reason when I had a prostate exam, I had to wear a mask but when I had a dental checkup I had to take one off.

WAT AbUOt MAH FReDumZ??

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The last two years have been a joy. Unfathomable joy of not having some retarded subhuman last in his bottom tier law school class walk into my office, ask a stupid question, pick his nose, scratch his balls, pick his nose again and do whatever he wants anyway.

My office arranged an in person steakhouse dinner just preOmicron (which I politely and immediately declined) but on the date of canceled in "an abundance of caution." I thought "well that's progressive" and then two minutes later got the "someone in this group has tested positive" email.

Remote court hearings and depositions are going to be a thing going forward even if we are in an office coughing in each others' mouths. I can't justify two weeks and 4 grand in travel expenses to do what I can do over zoom and I am a plaintiff's lawyer with no one to really report expenses to except the client. Defense lawyers are pretty much never going to attend something live again.

OTOH, I had to cancel premium airline credit cards and give up any hope of status with any airlines other than via gift or gimmick. Cards with club access were justifiable when you traveled 2x a week. They are not when you travel 2x a year.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Sorry, Alex Jones and Les were both already running with your analysis, I had to at least try to nip it in the bud.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I personally would like a world in which day to day work is remote but international travel still ok.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I suspect we all agree that there is not just a necessary but an inevitable and unavoidable balancing act. We're lawyers, we're comfortable with balancing acts.

What I can't figure out is why wearing masks is some awful imposition rather than a petty annoyance. Sure, I don't like wearing masks, but you know what, I wore a tie to work for years for absolutely no good reason and that was a bigger imposition, but I never screamed "FREEEEEEDUUUUUMMMMBBB!!" I mean, simmer down children, clues are free.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

If I'm in the office, wearing a mask, I am wearing track pants and a #RememberTheCant T shirt.