The ultimate COVID thread

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nimbus said:
First graders back to school in China with social distancing headgear.

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My mind just keeps going here immediately:




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d9sccr said:
From those that want to continue these lockdowns despite the vast majority of health care systems coming nowhere close to capacity, test and trace is the fallback answer as to why we can’t open. My question is to what extent? There’s the Harvard study saying we need 30 million tests/day. I’ve seen others say 50 million and others around 1 million tests/day. There’s no consensus that I can find regarding where we need to be. While the 30 or 50 million would be nice, sheer cost of that is prohibitive. At current cost, you’re looking at $1 trillion for just tests every month. I’m sure tests would get cheaper in that quantity, but how much so? Maybe $1 trillion can get us through 3 or 4 months of testing. I don’t think that’s any more reasonable.

Are these testing models taking into consideration the inherent flaws of the tests? With the horrible sensitivities of these tests, you’re looking at needing to test everyone 3 times to confidently ensure a real negative patient. You can say “develop a better test” as easily as I can “develop a vaccine/cure”. Neither are plans. I doubt that every company would be putting out poor tests if it was easy to make highly sensitive ones. Over the next several months, I’m sure we’ll see better tests, but we have 20% unemployment now. I suspect that’s bound to get worse after the PPP reqs have been met unless the economy roars back (unlikely).

The ability to contact trace is the other big one people are throwing out there. S Korea keeps coming up. How many people are aware that when you test positive you’re removed from your home? There’s literally no chance that flies here. Most of the Asian countries are also using tech to assist contact tracing. I think there’s very little chance that flies here either. If this disease was super deadly akin to Ebola, MAYBE we’d be more likely to give up civil liberties, but that’s not the case. Without technology, for something that’s so covertly infectious and has the ability to live on surfaces for extended periods of time coupled with terrible tests, I think it’s fairly certain to say contact tracing is nearly impossible at this time.

As has been mentioned several times, there’s a very real chance we never develop an effective vaccine. Beyond preventing the overwhelming of hospitals, there’s not much else we can do at this point. It’s time to triage the economic damage while maintaining social distancing and enacting new stay at home orders when hotspots inevitably surface. For healthy people under 35 y/o, nearly everything you do outside your house carries more inherent risk than covid. Come fall, we’re going to want some immunity in the population to help hospital systems out.

And Trump is never going to have soaring high approval ratings in this divisive of a country. Theres a substantial portion of the population that will hate everything he does, just like with Obama. There’s very little difference between what he said and what Cuomo has said. Because this clearly has to be said, Trump didn’t handle parts of this well. I also don’t think there’s a substantial difference between how many if any others would’ve handled a lot of the pandemic. There’s also no state that handled this worse than NY who appears to have seeded the rest of the country. The media coverage has been vastly different and therefore a giant ratings gap. TO BE CLEAR, neither deserve soaring high approval ratings as they both have serious failings through this thing.
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Thanks for providing these insights. Maybe i'm being overly optimistic, but my idea was if governments are already spending trillion dollars on economic relief, i think a trillion dollar bill to scale up testing and reduce the fears of unknown infection that's hurting demand/spending is well worth it. Paul Romer actually suggested it and thought the cost is $100 billion. I know he's an economist but his daughter is an icu doc so he has a context to base his suggestions.

Also this is optimistic but i'm willing to bet Americans are willing to allow for surveillance through contact tracing to help fight the disease and practice safe distancing.

The whole testing/tracking/isolating is essential alternative to the lockdowns imo, not to justify keeping them.

If Trump took the virus seriously from the start and increased testing, his ratings won't be high? Because leaders from other countries like Britain, South Korea, New Zealand had increased popularity. Those who denied like Bolsonaro in Brazil had their ratings fall.
 
vector2 said:
I'll just keep repeating it like a hundred times just in case it might sink in for everyone who doesn't get it (it probably won't).

The CDC guidelines called for 14 days of declining cases along with a couple other reasonably achievable goals. The "indefinite closing" strawman you're railing against has been advocated by essentially no one in power.
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Tbh i tragically got the "indefinite closing" idea from the idiots actively pushing for it on reddit and social media and it stuck with me.
 
FFP said:
That headgear is pure genius, although it's incomplete.
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I’m advocating for the return of hoop dresses for women, hula hoops for kids.
Men just have to walk around arms out spinning constantly.
Pretty sure the only reason my plan fails is because it is sexist. Not the issues with doorways.
 
FFP said:
Before you become so keen on surveillance, some food for thought:
www.privateinternetaccess.com

Congress plans to expand Patriot Act with DOJ access to your web browsing and search activity without a warrant

The infamous Patriot Act, which uses the threat of terrorism to expand surveillance over American citizens, is up for renewal under the USA FREEDOM
www.privateinternetaccess.com www.privateinternetaccess.com
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I guess i don't understand the hesitancy in US when democratic countries like South Korea have no problems? The main reason to be skeptical is if the US government is inherently a lot more dysfunctional than South Korea. Which could be true seeing that South Korea was willing to impeach a former president and throw her in prison.
 
Lawpy said:
Thanks for providing these insights. Maybe i'm being overly optimistic, but my idea was if governments are already spending trillion dollars on economic relief, i think a trillion dollar bill to scale up testing and reduce the fears of unknown infection that's hurting demand/spending is well worth it. Paul Romer actually suggested it and thought the cost is $100 billion. I know he's an economist but his daughter is an icu doc so he has a context to base his suggestions.

Also this is optimistic but i'm willing to bet Americans are willing to allow for surveillance through contact tracing to help fight the disease and practice safe distancing.

The whole testing/tracking/isolating is essential alternative to the lockdowns imo, not to justify keeping them.

If Trump took the virus seriously from the start and increased testing, his ratings won't be high? Because leaders from other countries like Britain, South Korea, New Zealand had increased popularity. Those who denied like Bolsonaro in Brazil had their ratings fall.
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Aside from the Trump approval stuff, I wasn't responding so much to you, but voicing thoughts aloud.

Pretty much every news source opposing reopening is proposing for the test and trace needing to be in place as an alternative, but not defining what level of testing that requires. There are ranges from 1 million up to 50 million tests per day. I have no clue if these ranges take into account sensitivities of roughly 70% or not. I don't think anyone can answer that question at this point.

I don't disagree with that clip from Romer, but he makes it sound so simple. "We just need to isolate those that are infectious." Got it. Agreed. The problem is the only way to know who's infectious is to literally test everyone in the country over and over and over. You're talking maybe a billion tests off the bat for the first go around if you assume 70% sensitivity as every negative is going to require 3 tests to be reasonably certain of a true negative. Currently, the cheapest I've seen these tests going for is ~$110. Freakonomics had an economist on last week that said the average was about $125/test. The bulk required for that amount of testing would drive cost down. Let's say you can somehow drive costs down to $25/test (seems optimistic with given the reagents, test kits, and human labor required to perform these tests plus PPE on both ends), that first go around of testing is then $25 billion, but even then, infectious people are going to break free. I suppose that's where most people would institute contact tracing. What if that person is in NYC and rides the subway for one stop? You potentially would have to retest the entire population of NYC by the time you discover that one person turned positive and even then it's doubtful you can contain the spread w/o some sort of underlying herd immunity. Don't forget, people are most infectious prior to any symptoms and a significant portion of the population never show any symptoms at all. Please somebody interject if this is way off track.

I don't doubt testing is going to help limit control this thing, I just don't think it's the silver bullet it's being made out to be in the media. I don't think we should keep everyone sheltered in place while we wait for a miraculous test to be developed given the demographic data available on who this is actually killing. If we closed down nursing homes and implemented strict testing there, that would help immensely. Most states are recording nursing home deaths as comparing 40-60% of total deaths from COVID.

I don't think Americans are going to be real happy giving up civil liberties and think it's highly unlikely, especially with the current distrust in government as a whole. Regardless of where you fall in this whole Flynn thing, there's a significant portion of the country that's going to be looking at this as the government spying on a citizen and then setting him up with a perjury trap despite concluding there's no basis for the investigation (this is being pushed by Rush and Dan Bongino now)---and you want to suddenly openly give them the option to track everyone's movements? I don't see this happening.

And no, I don't think Trump will ever have soaring approval numbers regardless of what he does. He's a sleazy, grimy swamp monster. Some people will hate him no matter what, some people love him no matter what. I don't really think Cuomo vs Trump has a clear winner, but Cuomo broke 70% approval rating while sending COVID+ patients back to nursing homes and being the epicenter of the viral outbreak that seeded half the country. They both failed in their respective ways, it's just that one yelled at Trump and one yelled while being Trump.
 
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Southpaw said:
The country seems to be highly interested in what Arbery was doing. I hope we find out the whole truth. However, not enough people are asking the following:

1) why did two white guys show up to what wasn't even a shouting match with loaded weapons?
2) why did one of them raise their loaded weapon at Arbery, and why was another on higher ground with a handgun?
3) he was walking/jogging in broad daylight and lived close. He wasn't hard to find and he wasn't hiding. He'd be easy for the police to find and question. Why not let the police do their job?
4) why did the white men remain free until the video was released?

Put another way - we keep asking questions about what the black guy did to deserve such a grossly over exaggerated response. But why aren't we asking questions about the McMichaels? Their background? Their intent? Their criminal history? What were they doing 2-3 minutes before the video started? What was their mindset? Unless it comes out that Arbery had just left he McMichael's house where he killed someone inside, I honestly don't care much about what the rest of the video shows. I mean, I guess I do, but I highly doubt it'll matter much to how the scenario played out and the end result. In my opinion so many people just can't wrap their minds around the fact that they're looking at this situation completely backwards and asking the wrong questions. Just my opinion.

I'm a white male. I walk in my neighborhood daily. I often stop at construction sites. I'm interested. I don't walk inside. No one shows up with shotguns. No one calls the police. No one dies. No one remains free for months until video of my murder is released.

Do you know how you'd respond if someone raised what one can safely assume is a loaded weapon at you? I have no clue. It's never happened to me. But I hope in that situation my mind would quickly, in milliseconds, conclude the following:

'Holy ****, it's broad daylight and this guy has a loaded weapon pointing at me. What the **** is this ******* trying to do exactly? I'm unarmed. I'm in the middle of a public road. I have nowhere to run. I have nowhere to hide. No one is showing up to help me. I must fight!'

Any sort of alternative I don't think I could settle with myself. We will see how this all turns out. But right now people are looking at this wrong and asking the wrong questions.

Oh yeah, citizen's arrest in this scenario is complete and total bull****.
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You raise a list of great questions that need to be answered, and I'm sure there are dozens of more great questions needing answers. But then you draw a definitive conclusion without having those answers and a fraction of the total evidence.

I don't think anybody but hardened racists feels he deserved to die for the little bit of infraction we've seen. But that means zero. Did their "citizen's arrest" break the law, and did his "self defense" break the law? We don't have the evidence or legal expertise to answer that.
 
We'llBeDoneIn15Minutes said:
You raise a list of great questions that need to be answered, and I'm sure there are dozens of more great questions needing answers. But then you draw a definitive conclusion without having those answers and a fraction of the total evidence.

I don't think anybody but hardened racists feels he deserved to die for the little bit of infraction we've seen. But that means zero. Did their "citizen's arrest" break the law, and did his "self defense" break the law? We don't have the evidence or legal expertise to answer that.
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did his ‘self defense’ break the law? Please explain.
 
Also - SARS-COV2 and our opening isn’t about science anymore. It’s all about politics. Trump decided that for everyone when he tossed aside the CDC reccs.
 
FFP said:
Let me bring up again IQ, which is basically a measurement of intelligence by speed of association and pattern recognition (which has been outlawed in the US for employment reasons, basically because the *****s in the majority were afraid they would be unmasked).

Average IQ is about 100-105. Standard deviation is about 15. The army does not hire anybody under 85 (if I remember correctly), because they are so dumb they are dangerous with a weapon in hand. That's one standard deviation under the mean, i.e. 0.5* (100%-68%) = 16% of the population. So 1 in 6 is a ***** for military purposes, as dumb as a rock.

How do the rest of 34% under 100 fare? Well, it's not so good. Even the 100 IQ person is relatively dumb, as in good luck teaching them calculus, or any advanced mathematics. These are not logical beings. They are like some old slow counting machine, not like a modern CPU. To them, if A=B, B=C, C=D, and so on till Z, A will NEVER equal Z. They get lost. It's not that it will take them long time to get to A=Z, it's that they will never get there. Hence they HATE Math. Their power of association is weak, their pattern recognition is weak, their ability of deriving new thoughts by (correct) association is very low. They are the sheep, not the inventors or innovators. If their IQ is high enough, they become great at BS-ing, as a compensatory mechanism, especially when working among high IQ people.

So don't be surprised that there are *****s doing *****ic things and thinking everywhere. The average human is dumb and hateful. Do you still want that red pill?
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Great post. So true, watch your nightly cable shows which are all high BS/low IQ.

Also, to a relatively lower IQ person, a high IQ person is dumb.
 
Ronin786 said:
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Our federal government failed before the virus, they failed during the virus and they continue to fail. And their supporters keep rooting them on. It's horrible.
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Yet there are many clamoring for government to have a greater role in their lives. Go figure.
 
Southpaw said:
did his ‘self defense’ break the law? Please explain.
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Shotgun man I assume will claim self defense. Will self defense be a legally valid defense or will the court say no, your claim of self defense will not get you off. How we feel about it won't matter. It's what does the law say about this after all the evidence is presented.
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Yet there are many clamoring for government to have a greater role in their lives. Go figure.
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Why do people keep using this quip as if they think they’re saying something clever?


It’s like you getting food poisoning from eating 2 month old potato salad covered in a horribly toxic orange fungus and then I say to you, “stop eating ALL food, look at how sick you are!!!” And of course the appropriate response from you would be “how bout I just continue eating safe food and stop eating things covered in horribly toxic orange fungus?”
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Yet there are many clamoring for government to have a greater role in their lives. Go figure.
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You are implying that because of the failure and ineptitude of our government's response to this pandemic, then we should have less/minimal/no government involvement in coordinating a response to a pandemic, which is, to put it bluntly, idiotic.
 
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vector2 said:
Why do people keep using this quip as if they think they’re saying something clever?


It’s like you getting food poisoning from eating 2 month old potato salad covered in a horribly toxic orange fungus and then I say to you, “stop eating ALL food, look at how sick you are!!!” And of course the appropriate response from you would be “how bout I just continue eating safe food and stop eating things covered in horribly toxic orange fungus?”
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Clever? I dont know Vec, maybe the people clamoring for the govt to have more of a role in their lives are the ones eating the orange potatoe salad? Maybe? Maybe not. Govt doesnt do private sector stuff very well. Look at Covid testing, Obamacare website, etc. I dont have much faith in govt, I think they are there to enrich themselves first. They build roads and armies well, I agree. They keep us squabbling amongst ourselves as to not notice them fleecing us. Cronie capitalism, devaluing the dollar keeping wages low, insider trading, etc. Why would I want more of that?
 
vector2 said:
Why do people keep using this quip as if they think they’re saying something clever?


It’s like you getting food poisoning from eating 2 month old potato salad covered in a horribly toxic orange fungus and then I say to you, “stop eating ALL food, look at how sick you are!!!” And of course the appropriate response from you would be “how bout I just continue eating safe food and stop eating things covered in horribly toxic orange fungus?”
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American government has only showed me that it is all horribly covered in fungus - sometimes blue, sometimes red, sometimes orange. I’m not convinced this country is capable of making healthy government.
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Clever? I dont know Vec, maybe the people clamoring for the govt to have more of a role in their lives are the ones eating the orange potatoe salad? Maybe? Maybe not. Govt doesnt do private sector stuff very well. Look at Covid testing, Obamacare website, etc. I dont have much faith in govt, I think they are there to enrich themselves first. They build roads and armies well, I agree. They keep us squabbling amongst ourselves as to not notice them fleecing us. Cronie capitalism, devaluing the dollar keeping wages low, insider trading, etc. Why would I want more of that?
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It’s ironic that your position is that people in govt are there to “enrich themselves” when literally the only purpose of privatization of govt functions is to give the job to people or corporations whose only goal on planet Earth is making a profit. For all the weaknesses of the VA, ACA, or Medicare, have you ever stopped to consider how much money United Health, Cigna, Aetna, Humana, and Anthem extract from the US healthcare system in one year to pay useless administration fees, CEO bonuses, and shareholder dividends?

Congressmen and Senators make up a small part of govt. There are thousands of talented people in the Dept of Energy, Defense, HHS, USDA, FDA, CDC, NOAA/NWS and on and on who could be making much, much more working in the private sector, but believe it or not, some people actually feel the need to be of some service to the public and realize that a stereotype like govt only “builds roads and armies” is nothing more than some tired libertarian trope uttered by people who really don’t have a clue about 1/1000th of the things the govt does to keep the wheels turning.

As for the private sector....you remember that company Solyndra that was suuuuchhh a big scandal for Obama? It was part of a DoE loan program to encourage risky corporate innovation in alternative energy and energy efficiency. I’m sure everyone thinks the program was a failure, but it actually turned a profit on its loans. There are 35 viable, utility-scale, now privately funded solar companies in existence when before the program there were 0. Every Tesla on the road is there because their Fremont factory was able to get funded by the govt when the private sector turned up their noses. The program ended up funding a company that has a market cap bigger than Ford at its peak, but yet the program has been sitting frozen since Trump has been in office.

There are dozens and dozens of examples of how the government gets the private sector off the ground or lowers the cost for the private sector so they can continue doing what they do best. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water just because incompetence (primarily from people in govt whose main goal is to destroy govt) keeps making the headlines.
 
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FFP said:
You ain't seen others yet. 😉
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Oh I never said we were the worst - far from it, but we aren’t so great.

To me the biggest problem is 2 parties that have a stranglehold on the system, whose ideology is totally internally inconsistent, and whose main priority is not actually governing but instead sticking it to the opposing party.

I’d like to see at least 5 parties. There’d be a better chance of a party actually representing your beliefs, and nothing would get done without at least 3 coming together.
 
SaltyDog said:
Oh I never said we were the worst - far from it, but we aren’t so great.

To me the biggest problem is 2 parties that have a stranglehold on the system, whose ideology is totally internally inconsistent, and whose main priority is not actually governing but instead sticking it to the opposing party.

I’d like to see at least 5 parties. There’d be a better chance of a party actually representing your beliefs, and nothing would get done without at least 3 coming together.
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Two party system is a big problem. The other big problems are lack of term limits, gerrymandering, and the absolutely absurd amount of big money in politics.
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Yet there are many clamoring for government to have a greater role in their lives. Go figure.
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To apply that statement to the scenario we are currently in, I mean you gotta be kidding me. The lack of insight is astounding. All you need to do is look around the world to understand why you need a competent govt. Someone w a grade school education would understand this. There's so many garbage responses spewed around this forum that its not even worth discussion.
 
"This, then, is the state of things: The White House does not have a plan, it does not have a framework, it does not have a philosophy, and it does not have a goal. That is not because these things are impossible. At this point, there are dozens of plans floating around and dozens of governments offering models it could choose from. Germany’s response has been a success, and I’m sure officials would share the lessons they’ve learned. In South Korea, professional baseball is restarting, and in Taiwan, there have been about a dozen new Covid-19 cases in the month of May so far.

It is not that the president is doing the wrong thing — he is doing basically nothing. But he has combined a substantive passivity with a showman’s desire to dominate the narrative and a political street fighter’s obsession with settling scores, so he is making the job of governors and mayors harder, neither giving them what they need to beat the virus nor leaving them to make their own decisions free from his interference and criticism.

Americans have made tremendous sacrifices to buy their government time, and that time has been wasted. That is why we are left with an increasingly polarized, and polarizing, debate between endless lockdowns and reckless reopening: The government has failed to do what functional governments in other countries have done and create a better option.

“It’s like the Lewis Carroll line, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there,’” Osterholm says. “Well, I don’t know where we’re going.”
www.vox.com

America doesn’t have a president, or a plan

60 days into the coronavirus crisis, the White House does not have a plan, a framework, a philosophy, or a goal.
www.vox.com www.vox.com
 
Ezekiel2517 said:
To apply that statement to the scenario we are currently in, I mean you gotta be kidding me. The lack of insight is astounding. All you need to do is look around the world to understand why you need a competent govt. Someone w a grade school education would understand this. There's so many garbage responses spewed around this forum that its not even worth discussion.
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And that's what makes me a pessimist (beyond the 2016 electoral results and everything else). I have never put so many people on ignore (80+, and I'm not even a liberal).
 
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Ezekiel2517 said:
To apply that statement to the scenario we are currently in, I mean you gotta be kidding me. The lack of insight is astounding. All you need to do is look around the world to understand why you need a competent govt. Someone w a grade school education would understand this. There's so many garbage responses spewed around this forum that its not even worth discussion.
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I have an admirer! With that sparkling personality, you are a real charmer! Good to hear from you.
 
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Trump really said this today, among other unbelievable crap. And right before saying this, he called testing "overrated".
"When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing we would have very few cases."
 
vector2 said:
Why do people keep using this quip as if they think they’re saying something clever?


It’s like you getting food poisoning from eating 2 month old potato salad covered in a horribly toxic orange fungus and then I say to you, “stop eating ALL food, look at how sick you are!!!” And of course the appropriate response from you would be “how bout I just continue eating safe food and stop eating things covered in horribly toxic orange fungus?”
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When you can show me more than just a few percent of government isn't complete toxic fungus I'll be onboard with your Chavez/Castro Plan of total socialistic government control.
 
FFP said:
And that's what makes me a pessimist (beyond the 2016 electoral results and everything else). I have never put so many people on ignore (80+, and I'm not even a liberal).
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I'm not one to suffer fools either, but I have not put anyone on ignore to date. My feeling, is if you do, then you end up in an echo chamber listening to like minded people all the time. I would imagine it's hard to follow the conversation if many of the posts are labeled you are ignoring content from this person. I try not to let anonymous posters upset me. Sometimes you can learn something from a fool, even if it's the wrong way to do something.
 
Angus Avagadro said:
I'm not one to suffer fools either, but I have not put anyone on ignore to date. My feeling, is if you do, then you end up in an echo chamber listening to like minded people all the time. I would imagine it's hard to follow the conversation if many of the posts are labeled you are ignoring content from this person. I try not to let anonymous posters upset me. Sometimes you can learn something from a fool, even if it's the wrong way to do something.
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I have found it saves me a lot of headache, since I don't even see the posts, not even if addressed to me, unless I turn ignore off, like now.

To avoid the echo chamber, I read Drudge and various moderate right-wing sources. They are also easy to ignore, if too radical or cult-like.
 
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Ladies and Gentleman, our next president (He thinks Sweden and Switzerland are the same country so right there he's as qualified as Trump and Biden).

 
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We'llBeDoneIn15Minutes said:
Also, to a relatively lower IQ person, a high IQ person is dumb.
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There's a corollary to that - people with lower levels of education often think people with higher levels of education aren't smart or don't really know anything.

I often, often encounter people who certainly aren't dumb but for one reason or another haven't done any academic work beyond high school. Many are successful in trades, or the military, or have otherwise carved out solid blue-collar lives. They're not dumb, or lazy, but their contempt for education and the educated is palpable. They write words like "exspurts" and "educashun" with just open disdain for people with degrees who speak about things related to their area of expertise. It's their way of saying I'm just as smart as them and I don't need a degree to prove anything.

They mention how often those high-falootin' meteorologists get the weather forecast wrong and then skew off into some nonsense about epidemiologists are just "guessing" about COVID-19 with coin-toss accuracy. They say things like "just because they have degrees doesn't mean they're smart" almost as if they feel a need to be defensive about their lack of a degree. Which they totally could've done, if they had wanted to. But degrees don't mean anything so they didn't want to. School of hard knocks is enough.

Frankly, I prefer having conversations with dumb people. They tend to be more interested in honestly talking than buffing shoulder chips.
 
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CopaceticOne said:
Oh Salty, sometimes you speak the truth:
www.npr.org

FDA Cautions About Accuracy Of Widely Used Abbott Coronavirus Test

The test has been promoted by the Trump administration as a key factor in controlling the epidemic in the U.S. and is used for daily testing at the White House.
www.npr.org www.npr.org
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podcasts.apple.com

Up First from NPR

Daily News Podcast · Updated Daily · NPR's Up First is the news you need to start your day. The three biggest stories of the day, with reporting and analysis from NPR News — in 10 minutes. Available weekdays at 6:30 a.m. ET, with hosts L…
podcasts.apple.com podcasts.apple.com

Discussed here this morning too. This whole testing situation is just an absolute mess.
 
pgg said:
There's a corollary to that - people with lower levels of education often think people with higher levels of education aren't smart or don't really know anything.
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That's called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I often, often encounter people who certainly aren't dumb but for one reason or another haven't done any academic work beyond high school. Many are successful in trades, or the military, or have otherwise carved out solid blue-collar lives. They're not dumb, or lazy, but their contempt for education and the educated is palpable. They write words like "exspurts" and "educashun" with just open disdain for people with degrees who speak about things related to their area of expertise. It's their way of saying I'm just as smart as them and I don't need a degree to prove anything.
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There are Mensa-member truck drivers, because they don't want more from life, or just can't jump through all the hoops of protectionism that a better degree/job imply. It's not a free market out there. Also, many times, very high IQ goes hand-in-hand with low EQ/social skills (e.g. Asperger's).

Education-level doesn't always correlate with IQ, although it usually does. A degree requires much more than just passing a set of exams. There are also a lot of social skills involved, let's not mention personality traits, such as grit. Some of the best physicians I have met were "just" assistant professors, never to become more than that, because they despised the whole academic fake research and brown-nosing thing. But you could feel their IQ the same way you feel the Sun on a spring day. Sometimes it's enough to just look in such a person's eyes, and one can feel the intelligence behind them. Street smart (i.e. high "EQ") doesn't feel like that (neither do they invent or innovate or do things differently than the norm).

They mention how often those high-falootin' meteorologists get the weather forecast wrong and then skew off into some nonsense about epidemiologists are just "guessing" about COVID-19 with coin-toss accuracy. They say things like "just because they have degrees doesn't mean they're smart" almost as if they feel a need to be defensive about their lack of a degree. Which they totally could've done, if they had wanted to. But degrees don't mean anything so they didn't want to. School of hard knocks is enough.
Click to expand...
That's because the truly intelligent know that they are, that they have that power of association some would confuse with instinct or experience. Some things just make sense to them, that the average person misses. That's because they move from "if A=B, B=C, C=D... and Y=Z" to "then A=Z" very fast. Anybody highly intelligent can relate to that, or remember moments when some dumb person didn't understand something, and how tiring it was to deconstruct the thought process and explain it to them.
Frankly, I prefer having conversations with dumb people. They tend to be more interested in honestly talking than buffing shoulder chips.
Click to expand...
I prefer straight shooters, too. But that doesn't necessarily mean dumb, just usually blue-collar. It's a different culture.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I know everyone loves to bash Trump but are you guys aware of this?

www.nbcnews.com

At a NY nursing home forced to take COVID-19 patients, 24 residents have died

“It’s reckless and careless,” said the granddaughter of a 96-year-old man whose family withdrew him from a Long Island nursing home.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

www.wsj.com

New York Sent Recovering Coronavirus Patients to Nursing Homes: ‘It Was a Fatal Error’

The state reversed its policy after mounting criticism and deaths. The mandate is part of broader scrutiny of weaknesses at long-term care facilities that have made them hot spots for Covid-19.
www.wsj.com www.wsj.com
 
The numbers from the Seoul nightclub outbreak.
1 person in the club led to 153 total people infected so far. 90 club goers and 63 friends and family and colleagues infected from them. In response, S.Korea has already tested more than 46,000 ppl in connection with this case and traced and quarantined the appropriate ppl.
Their ability to test/trace/isolate is the reason S.Korea has been successful and is the only reason they have been able to keep their economy open this entire time.
Meanwhile, while much of the country prepares to reopen, Trump literally says in a press conference that he thinks testing is not important. He thinks testing "makes him look bad". What's gonna happen is predictable.
 
Ezekiel2517 said:
The numbers from the Seoul nightclub outbreak.
1 person in the club led to 153 total people infected so far. 90 club goers and 63 friends and family and colleagues infected from them. In response, S.Korea has already tested more than 46,000 ppl in connection with this case and traced and quarantined the appropriate ppl.
Their ability to test/trace/isolate is the reason S.Korea has been successful and is the only reason they have been able to keep their economy open this entire time.
Meanwhile, while much of the country prepares to reopen, Trump literally says in a press conference that he thinks testing is not important. He thinks testing "makes him look bad". What's gonna happen is predictable.
Click to expand...
If one person can spread it to 153 then this thing is not close to containable. Just get through it already.
 
dannyboy1 said:
If one person can spread it to 153 then this thing is not close to containable. Just get through it already.
Click to expand...
Then how have many countries contained it? Lol. I literally just told you how one country, S.Korea, contained it while keeping their economy open the whole time.
 
Ezekiel2517 said:
I literally just told you how one country, S.Korea, contained it while keeping their economy open the whole time.
Click to expand...

Even with robust testing, the S. Korea method won't work here. Look at the public backlash just from the shelter in place orders. Can you imagine if the government said they were going to start contract tracing and forced quarantines.



Meanwhile, in my community we've got a 5% asymptomatic positive rate and our hospitalizations are in the single digits.
 
SaltyDog said:
Even with robust testing, the S. Korea method won't work here. Look at the public backlash just from the shelter in place orders. Can you imagine if the government said they were going to start contract tracing and forced quarantines.



Meanwhile, in my community we've got a 5% asymptomatic positive rate and our hospitalizations are in the single digits.
Click to expand...

forced quarantines are for those who are infected though?

Also test/trace/isolate is a replacement for shelter in place and lockdowns.
 
Ezekiel2517 said:
Then how have many countries contained it? Lol. I literally just told you how one country, S.Korea, contained it while keeping their economy open the whole time.
Click to expand...
We are not south korea. Sometimes I wish we were given the amount of 150 + kg patients I take care of in the good old US of A but that’s a story for another time.....
 
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