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??