OT: World Politics

[zeke]

Altair laughs at everyone who pays attention to outbreaks but can run down every last detail of every outbreak on the last 50yrs if asked.

 

[Altair]

I have no problems with serious vigilance. Have border agents do additional screening, have health care professionals prepared to quarantine people.

My issue lies with the media and how they present this, and how they have presented avian flu, swine flu, mad cow, SARS and yes, Ebola, in the past.

I think everyone knows that baring some serious mutation, this thing won't harm a lot of people. Its in China, as you said, the most populous country on the planet, 1.4 billion, with very dense population centers and it has killed 9 people. That is unimaginably small. The common flu has likely killed more people in Canada than this virus has killed people in China.

Yet, as always, news networks live off trying to scare the shit out of people, panels of experts, 24 hour news coverage, as if this is the Spanish flu of 100 years ago. Its blatantly dishonest journalism, creating a narrative to hook people in, have them follow the progress of this "deadly" illness for fear of the worst when, again, baring some sort of crazy mutation will likely flame out in a few weeks to a few months with minimal fatalities worldwide.

One day people will grow very cynical (if that hasn't happened already) and when there is a very serious virus out there that wants to actually murder us all, people will have tuned out these "experts" because nobody is going to believe its worst than swine flu, avian flu, SARS, whatever until scores of people start dropping dead in the streets at which point it might be too late.

Yeah, I'm just going to quote me, because so much this.

 

[MindzEye]

It's weird that you continue to reference swine flu like it was no big deal.

 

[Altair]

Altair laughs at everyone who pays attention to outbreaks but can run down every last detail of every outbreak on the last 50yrs if asked.

I personally freaked out about swine flu. I bought the panic. I was following the news religiously with "experts" taking about the spread of this, how many millions could(and they made it sound like would) die. And then, as it turns out, with health authorities going through the proper measures, these things get stamped out.

Its the news networks that get a high off of this shit. Its all about ratings. People are scared, they freak out, they follow the news to digest every detail of a disease they think is going to kill them and everyone they know. They gloss over things like the actual authories saying that this likely won't effect first world countries that have proper hygiene and world class medical facilities that can handle this shit. Or that they have learned from past experiences. They freak out because 1 person took a plane.

I'm personally done with freaking out over the flu on steroids. Maybe if I was 80 with a compromised immune system, but by that age, grativy is out to kill you as much as any virus.

 

[zeke]

 

[Altair]

It's weird that you continue to reference swine flu like it was no big deal.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Children infected in last year’s swine flu pandemic were no more likely to be hospitalized with complications or get pneumonia than those who catch seasonal strains, according to a study that challenges previous reports.

About 1.5 percent of children with the H1N1 swine flu strain were hospitalized within 30 days, compared with 3.7 percent of those sick with a seasonal strain of H1N1 and 3.1 percent with an H3N2 virus, researchers said today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report compared outcomes in Wisconsin of 545 patients with swine flu versus 853 patients with seasonal strains beginning in 2007.

So scary.

 

[MindzEye]

I'm just going to leave this here for you

I mean, it's not like we spend 10's of millions of dollars annually fighting the seasonal flu or anything. So clearly there is nothing to worry about when black swan event type flus pop up out of nowhere.

 

[Altair]

I'm just going to leave this here for you

I mean, it's not like we spend 10's of millions of dollars annually fighting the seasonal flu or anything. So clearly there is nothing to worry about when black swan event type flus pop up out of nowhere.

The pros should fight any outbreak, as they should, as is their jobs.

But would people be freaking out about this if the media wasn't going on about it for 20 minutes of every hour on the news?

The easy answer here is no.

 

[zeke]

Ban

 

[Altair]

Ban

 

[Preston]

This is so weird even for me. Pick your battles, man. This one isn't worth playing contrarian over.

 

[MindzEye]

But would people be freaking out

Why do you result to ridiculous hyperbole when you get going on this shit? Nobody is freaking out. I was just at the grocery store and I only had to stab two people to get the last few bottles of water and only one aisle was on fire.

Motherfuckers should be concerned. But nobody is freaking out.

 

[Altair]

Why do you result to ridiculous hyperbole when you get going on this shit? Nobody is freaking out. I was just at the grocery store and I only had to stab two people to get the last few bottles of water and only one aisle was on fire.

Motherfuckers should be concerned. But nobody is freaking out.

Stores are running out of masks for people to wear. (Despite all the evidence pointing towards masks not being able to prevent contracting it)

That goes beyond being concerned IMHO.

 

[MindzEye]

So the line between concerned and freaking out is a paper mask?



that didn't seem at all ridiculous to you when you just typed it down?

 

[MindzEye]

What's next? Someone wearing nitrile gloves is on the edge of harming themselves in a fit, and needs to be restrained?

 

[Altair]

So the line between concerned and freaking out is a paper mask?



that didn't seem at all ridiculous to you when you just typed it down?

But one example of people doing stupid stuff about something that won't kill them and likely won't spread in this country.

If you want more examples of stupid shit, I'll gladly start sharing what people are saying on Facebook.

 

[aniablue]

I just did something silly, and its working out very well. I went pretty deep on the Russian kid Medvedev. Against maybe, my favourite player of all time, Stanislaw Wawrinka.

Its working out very, very well.

I love Stanimal, but this Medvedev kid, is special, he deserved a large bet.

Medvedev, just has to too much youth and massive power. I could lose a fortune here. But I don't think I will. I went in, after Stanimal won the first set.

And corona? Virus? Lol, get some high qualtiy nano colloidal silver, Been banging that drum even on the previous site.

 

[MindzEye]

But one example of people doing stupid stuff about something that won't kill them and likely won't spread in this country.

We take all sorts of precautions every day against things unlikely to kill us...that's kind of the nature of being a meat bag with one chance at sentient existence in a universe grand beyond human comprehension...we kind of want to stick around and shit.

If trivial bullshit like "buying facemasks" is what you mean by "freaking out", you might be a jackass who needs to question why he's so judgemental of people for taking base level precautions.

 

[Altair]

We take all sorts of precautions every day against things unlikely to kill us...that's kind of the nature of being a meat bag with one chance at sentient existence in a universe grand beyond human comprehension...we kind of want to stick around and shit.

If trivial bullshit like "buying facemasks" is what you mean by "freaking out", you might be a jackass who needs to question why he's so judgemental of people for taking base level precautions.

People doing pointless, useless things, following this virus as if it is coming to kill them specifically is simply a result of media telling people what to be scared of.

This is the same thing that happens after a mass shooting. Media force feeds it on the public, public freaks out, public follows the story more, media gets their ratings.

Same thing is happening. Virus infects thousands in a country of 1.4 billion, 1/3 of the news coverage is about it, people start reacting in very irrational ways about something that is very unlikely to effect them, follow the story more, media gets their ratings.

Would people be reacting the way they are if the news had a brief 1-2 minute segment as opposed to 20 minutes of a 60 minute broadcast about it? No.

 

[aniablue]

Medvedev? Heh? Very much enjoying the match financially. He is beating a guy I like a lot more than him. But gotta bet on the right horse, at the right time.