Political Roundtable Part XXXII

[Pointgod]

John Stewart ladies and gentlemen. One thing about the right, they don’t care about their lies, hypocrisy, stupidity and inconsistency. In fact they love it. Their main guiding principle is about power and creating rules for other people but not following those rules themselves.

Read on Twitter

[Zonkerbl]

John Stewart ladies and gentlemen. One thing about the right, they don’t care about their lies, hypocrisy, stupidity and inconsistency. In fact they love it. Their main guiding principle is about power and creating rules for other people but not following those rules themselves.

Read on Twitter

"This isn't an anecdote, this is a thing that happened."

Sir, that is what anecdote means. It's one cherry picked thing that happened. We had this conversation with Nate about ten years ago.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

I was just reading another article on some of the emerging science coming out regarding COVID, and damn, some of you who frequent this board need to go hat in and hand and say to Nate, maybe you had some really good points.

I read this thread often during the pandemic, and the vitriol thrown at him for having some really even-keeled, science-based takes was crazy. I wanted to jump in a couple of times, but I said there's no point, not likely going to change any hearts based on the reactions he got.

But had to come here and say good on you Nate.

[Zonkerbl]

I was just reading another article on some of the emerging science coming out regarding COVID, and damn, some of you who frequent this board need to go hat in and hand and say to Nate, maybe you had some really good points.

I read this thread often during the pandemic, and the vitriol thrown at him for having some really even-keeled, science-based takes was crazy. I wanted to jump in a couple of times, but I said there's no point, not likely going to change any hearts based on the reactions he got.

But had to come here and say good on you Nate.

lol, I'll bite, what conspiracy theory that Nate pushed turned out to be true?

[Zonkerbl]

So this is happening on twitter today:

Read on Twitter

The paid crisis actors are out in force, haha. One thing I will say about Nazis being allowed back on twitter is they are all dumb as hell and easy to trigger. I got lots of fun licks in on this one dude before he blocked me

Read on Twitter

[dckingsfan]

I was just reading another article on some of the emerging science coming out regarding COVID, and damn, some of you who frequent this board need to go hat in and hand and say to Nate, maybe you had some really good points.

I read this thread often during the pandemic, and the vitriol thrown at him for having some really even-keeled, science-based takes was crazy. I wanted to jump in a couple of times, but I said there's no point, not likely going to change any hearts based on the reactions he got.

But had to come here and say good on you Nate.

What points, be specific and cite the studies against the point(s) he was making.

[Pointgod]

I was just reading another article on some of the emerging science coming out regarding COVID, and damn, some of you who frequent this board need to go hat in and hand and say to Nate, maybe you had some really good points.

I read this thread often during the pandemic, and the vitriol thrown at him for having some really even-keeled, science-based takes was crazy. I wanted to jump in a couple of times, but I said there's no point, not likely going to change any hearts based on the reactions he got.

But had to come here and say good on you Nate.

What points, be specific and cite the studies against the point(s) he was making.

Right wingers when asked to cite sources:

[Wizardspride]

Unlike you I haven't said one thing that isn't true.
The Obama damage may take years to fix by DeSantis

Dude you just called me a liar. Name one lie ive said. You think you can just jump in here and commit libel and run away like a coward? Are you a chicken?

It's called having a life you should give it a try sometime
All democrats are racist and ignorant

Yep.

"The real racists"

Read on Twitter

?t=lCTByPQlmYYLvgZhGU7oog&s=19

Read on Twitter

?t=OR_FcoRlCdmTlPHI2ziOqg&s=19

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

I was just reading another article on some of the emerging science coming out regarding COVID, and damn, some of you who frequent this board need to go hat in and hand and say to Nate, maybe you had some really good points.

I read this thread often during the pandemic, and the vitriol thrown at him for having some really even-keeled, science-based takes was crazy. I wanted to jump in a couple of times, but I said there's no point, not likely going to change any hearts based on the reactions he got.

But had to come here and say good on you Nate.

What points, be specific and cite the studies against the point(s) he was making.

Right wingers when asked to cite sources:

Didn't realize I was on the the clock, but good to see I gave you enough time to use ad hominem attacks to call me a "right winger. For the record, not that it's any of your business, but I'll play along: I've never voted for a Republican in my life or anyone right of them, and I've voted for Biden, HRC, and Obama X 2 (I'm 34 years old).

Now, I consider myself more of a civil liberties liberal with a western libertarian-type streak and have voted for Dems because they have in my calculation been the lesser of two terrible choices, but listening to folks from the left getting baptized in group-think and their bubbles has me truly second guessing that logic.

What memory does serve me is Nate held positions that lockdowns were unnecessary, that vaccines weren't surefire by any means or the only solution, and that masks in most cases have low efficacies. I can't recall everything, but I know he was nuked by several posters, derided, and called this, that, and the other thing, because he held beliefs and presented data that didn't align with by-and-large dogma dished out by those left of the aisle.

Here are some example of recent work backing just that:

On herd immunity:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027

On masks efficacy:
https://reason.com/2023/02/07/masks-covid-dont-work-cochrane-library-review-mandate/

On impacts of lockdowns:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/01/pandemic-stress-aging-teen-brains/

These are just a few, from a variety of sources, many more exists but alas I don't have time to post every one of them. Also was talking with the OBGYN at my wife's doctor appointment the other day as we are expecting our first kid in about a month, and she was among just another doctor saying that studies are saying that Covid (my wife and I got for the first time this past December) has just about absolutely no impact on pregnancy other than if you have existing comorbidities, which in the case you are already at higher risk. Anecdotal, but goes to show how far we've come in our knowledge of Covid.

To add, my wife has been an RN for 10 years and worked the majority of here career in the ER at George Washington University Hospital during the height of the pandemic, and has here MPH in public health, so this is something that I care about and how it impacted and continues to do so with her as well as something that is a evergreen topic at our dinner table given her background.

Some Dems and those on the left seem to have adopted puritanical ideas of how people should talk about and think about Covid, and it is worrisome.

[popper]

What points, be specific and cite the studies against the point(s) he was making.

Right wingers when asked to cite sources:

Didn't realize I was on the the clock, but good to see I gave you enough time to use ad hominem attacks to call me a "right winger. For the record, not that it's any of your business, but I'll play along: I've never voted for a Republican in my life or anyone right of them, and I've voted for Biden, HRC, and Obama X 2 (I'm 34 years old).

Now, I consider myself more of a civil liberties liberal with a western libertarian-type streak and have voted for Dems because they have in my calculation been the lesser of two terrible choices, but listening to folks from the left getting baptized in group-think and their bubbles has me truly second guessing that logic.

What memory does serve me is Nate held positions that lockdowns were unnecessary, that vaccines weren't surefire by any means or the only solution, and that masks in most cases have low efficacies. I can't recall everything, but I know he was nuked by several posters, derided, and called this, that, and the other thing, because he held beliefs and presented data that didn't align with by-and-large dogma dished out by those left of the aisle.

Here are some example of recent work backing just that:

On herd immunity:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027

On masks efficacy:
https://reason.com/2023/02/07/masks-covid-dont-work-cochrane-library-review-mandate/

On impacts of lockdowns:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/01/pandemic-stress-aging-teen-brains/

These are just a few, from a variety of sources, many more exists but alas I don't have time to post every one of them. Also was talking with the OBGYN at my wife's doctor appointment the other day as we are expecting our first kid in about a month, and she was among just another doctor saying that studies are saying that Covid (my wife and I got for the first time this past December) has just about absolutely no impact on pregnancy other than if you have existing comorbidities, which in the case you are already at higher risk. Anecdotal, but goes to show how far we've come in our knowledge of Covid.

To add, my wife has been an RN for 10 years and worked the majority of here career in the ER at George Washington University Hospital during the height of the pandemic, and has here MPH in public health, so this is something that I care about and how it impacted and continues to do so with her as well as something that is a evergreen topic at our dinner table given her background.

Some Dems and those on the left seem to have adopted puritanical ideas of how people should talk about and think about Covid, and it is worrisome.

Well said. I believe Nate also warned that the Russian collusion narrative was contrived to frame Orange Man by his political opponents, FBI and DOJ.

[Wizardspride]

Right wingers when asked to cite sources:

Didn't realize I was on the the clock, but good to see I gave you enough time to use ad hominem attacks to call me a "right winger. For the record, not that it's any of your business, but I'll play along: I've never voted for a Republican in my life or anyone right of them, and I've voted for Biden, HRC, and Obama X 2 (I'm 34 years old).

Now, I consider myself more of a civil liberties liberal with a western libertarian-type streak and have voted for Dems because they have in my calculation been the lesser of two terrible choices, but listening to folks from the left getting baptized in group-think and their bubbles has me truly second guessing that logic.

What memory does serve me is Nate held positions that lockdowns were unnecessary, that vaccines weren't surefire by any means or the only solution, and that masks in most cases have low efficacies. I can't recall everything, but I know he was nuked by several posters, derided, and called this, that, and the other thing, because he held beliefs and presented data that didn't align with by-and-large dogma dished out by those left of the aisle.

Here are some example of recent work backing just that:

On herd immunity:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027

On masks efficacy:
https://reason.com/2023/02/07/masks-covid-dont-work-cochrane-library-review-mandate/

On impacts of lockdowns:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/01/pandemic-stress-aging-teen-brains/

These are just a few, from a variety of sources, many more exists but alas I don't have time to post every one of them. Also was talking with the OBGYN at my wife's doctor appointment the other day as we are expecting our first kid in about a month, and she was among just another doctor saying that studies are saying that Covid (my wife and I got for the first time this past December) has just about absolutely no impact on pregnancy other than if you have existing comorbidities, which in the case you are already at higher risk. Anecdotal, but goes to show how far we've come in our knowledge of Covid.

To add, my wife has been an RN for 10 years and worked the majority of here career in the ER at George Washington University Hospital during the height of the pandemic, and has here MPH in public health, so this is something that I care about and how it impacted and continues to do so with her as well as something that is a evergreen topic at our dinner table given her background.

Some Dems and those on the left seem to have adopted puritanical ideas of how people should talk about and think about Covid, and it is worrisome.

Well said. I believe Nate also warned that the Russian collusion narrative was contrived to frame Orange Man by his political opponents, FBI and DOJ.

Are you SURE it was contrived?

[Zonkerbl]

I don't know how you can read the Mueller report and conclude the whole thing was contrived. It said trump and family tried to collude w Russians but failed due to incompetence.

Manafort is currently in jail for this "contrivance."

The argument I remember nate making is people who are old and fat deserve to die so who cares if they do.

[Zonkerbl]

Also I think if you come in here and say "I believe everything this right wing extremist says" it's odd to get all huffy that people assume you are right wing.

[dckingsfan]

On herd immunity:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027

I'll just take on this first one. Who said that having Covid doesn't provide immunity? That was always the strawman.

The point way back then was that your chances of dying, adding to your comorbidities or getting long Covid were/are greatly reduced if you got the vaccine BEFORE you got Covid. And if you don't care about yourself, the point of the vaccine was to reduce the stress on our fragile healthcare system.

Those that tried to go the herd immunity route and endorsed skipping the vaccine were hardly prescient. It's almost like we haven't learned that lesson.

And a reminder, there were three phases to this pandemic. Before vaccine, after vaccine but before Omicron and Omicron. If someone doesn't want to get a vaccine now, fine. During the pre-Omicron days when the vaccine was available, not getting the vaccine was only hurting you and those around you.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[pancakes3]

imagine being a self-styled 34 year old libertarian in the year of our lord 2023.

The lib argument against going full open during pandemic was always that while most people will survive, (1) it would kill many elderly and those with comorbidities, (2) we didn't know what the long term impact of Covid is (long term impacts for no-vax full covid is a lot different than post-vax omicron), and (3) we didn't know the impact it would have on children (opening you're saying you're ok with risking 50 Million+ children growing up and living the rest of their lives with diminished lung capacity).

The republican stance on Covid took advantage of those with a narrower, more selfish world view by harping on the fact that most people will survive, and then burying their heads in the sand re: the unknown long term consequences of surviving covid. Yeah, sure, Nate may have been ok. Nate's parents wouldn't have. My parents would not have. Millions of older people would not have.

And re: the Cochrane Library study - the takeaway of the study isn't that masks don't work. The takeaway is that the network effect of masks matter more than the actual mask itself. The point of putting a mask on isn't to put up a force field that filters out Covid. The point is to catch sneezes and limit carriers from expelling it to others. When you sneeze, the mask catches your spit and keeps it from being aerosolized. An unmasked sneezer's spit gets out into the air and is aerosolized, is floating out there, and there are lots of ways to get around a recipient's mask that's not airtight around the wearer's nose/mouth. What I mean by network effect is that on an individual level, putting on a mask vs. not is not a measurable independent variable to measure. The value of putting on a mask vs. not contributes to the overall compliance rate for the population, which is a much more difficult model and one that the Cochrane Library declined to roll their sleeves up on. My personal infection rate of putting on a mask or not is affected by how many people around me also choose to put on a mask vs. not. That's why the result of mask efficacy (for an individual) returns the null hypothesis in the Cochrane study. To which I say, uh doi, Cochrane. What's your point?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

The pushback from credible non-maskers is that "if 99% of the population is healthy, why mandate it?" Well ok, if it's May 2020 and we had only a few dozen cases, no, we don't need mask mandates. But we need testing to find out who has it, so we can quarantine them, and everyone else can go about their lives. But without testing and without masks, a soft lockdown isn't going to do squat re: containing the disease.

it's weird that you remember it as just libs dumping on Nate's "even keeled, fact-based reasoning."

[Kanyewest]

Random- I should have been wearing a mask around my niece and nephew who were sick with a cold. Ended up getting a cold that lasted 2-3 weeks.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

imagine being a self-styled 34 year old libertarian in the year of our lord 2023.

The lib argument against going full open during pandemic was always that while most people will survive, (1) it would kill many elderly and those with comorbidities, (2) we didn't know what the long term impact of Covid is (long term impacts for no-vax full covid is a lot different than post-vax omicron), and (3) we didn't know the impact it would have on children (opening you're saying you're ok with risking 50 Million+ children growing up and living the rest of their lives with diminished lung capacity).

The republican stance on Covid took advantage of those with a narrower, more selfish world view by harping on the fact that most people will survive, and then burying their heads in the sand re: the unknown long term consequences of surviving covid. Yeah, sure, Nate may have been ok. Nate's parents wouldn't have. My parents would not have. Millions of older people would not have.

And re: the Cochrane Library study - the takeaway of the study isn't that masks don't work. The takeaway is that the network effect of masks matter more than the actual mask itself. The point of putting a mask on isn't to put up a force field that filters out Covid. The point is to catch sneezes and limit carriers from expelling it to others. When you sneeze, the mask catches your spit and keeps it from being aerosolized. An unmasked sneezer's spit gets out into the air and is aerosolized, is floating out there, and there are lots of ways to get around a recipient's mask that's not airtight around the wearer's nose/mouth. What I mean by network effect is that on an individual level, putting on a mask vs. not is not a measurable independent variable to measure. The value of putting on a mask vs. not contributes to the overall compliance rate for the population, which is a much more difficult model and one that the Cochrane Library declined to roll their sleeves up on. My personal infection rate of putting on a mask or not is affected by how many people around me also choose to put on a mask vs. not. That's why the result of mask efficacy (for an individual) returns the null hypothesis in the Cochrane study. To which I say, uh doi, Cochrane. What's your point?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

The pushback from credible non-maskers is that "if 99% of the population is healthy, why mandate it?" Well ok, if it's May 2020 and we had only a few dozen cases, no, we don't need mask mandates. But we need testing to find out who has it, so we can quarantine them, and everyone else can go about their lives. But without testing and without masks, a soft lockdown isn't going to do squat re: containing the disease.

it's weird that you remember it as just libs dumping on Nate's "even keeled, fact-based reasoning."

Obviously externalities mean nothing to you because the residual harm caused by lockdowns whether you talk about learning setbacks across young age groups, depression across all age groups, rise in homeless populations, crime going up, and inflation has been palpable and have been exacerbated by said lockdowns and other poor policies. As they say, the path to hell was paved with good intentions. You seem okay with that, because "we didn't know", that is was okay to undertake massive social engineering for a virus that you seem to want to act as if it is a modern day plague when it simply isn't. With that said, I'm also not saying one shouldn't be diligent with preventing said spread of Covid, but when it captures the entirety of society and peoples lives and causes catastrophic externalities, then you have a problem with your policy.

One of the biggest measurements of the pandemic from various organizations, institutions, and media were deaths attributed to Covid and even the methodology behind how those deaths were/are counted is shaky (i.e., someone already being very sick and also having Covid, but the death definitively being attributed to Covid).

But go ahead, continue opening your arguments with attacks on folks political philosophies like you did with me. Lest us no forget how enlightened you are with your tribalism and virtue signaling. You can't stand the fact that someone who has admittedly had long history of supporting Democrats, that they wouldn't subscribe to your group-think, foaming at the mouth mentality. I think the real illness we should be concerned with is the mental one which you so perfectly encapsulate, that those dissenting are bad or stupid and that being wrong, in your case, is some form of a psychic death to you, which it isn't. This exact mentality has part of the reason for my own personal political shifts, because your arguments and attitudes are scary looking at the long-term.

If you can't take a step back, and say hey, Democrats and their policies didn't handle this great either, and that maybe that the knee-jerk reactions to the pandemic were in part politically motivated to get Trump out of office, then you are living in a dream world. Again I voted against Trump twice, and would do so again, but don't sit here and act like Dems haven't been baited into doing the exact opposite of what Trump wants/says, even when it is probably isn't the best idea.

But continue to peddle out that I'm a right winger, or some dummy in the year of our lord 2023, you can only attack because you have nothing else to tread on.

[Fairview4Life]

imagine being a self-styled 34 year old libertarian in the year of our lord 2023.

The lib argument against going full open during pandemic was always that while most people will survive, (1) it would kill many elderly and those with comorbidities, (2) we didn't know what the long term impact of Covid is (long term impacts for no-vax full covid is a lot different than post-vax omicron), and (3) we didn't know the impact it would have on children (opening you're saying you're ok with risking 50 Million+ children growing up and living the rest of their lives with diminished lung capacity).

The republican stance on Covid took advantage of those with a narrower, more selfish world view by harping on the fact that most people will survive, and then burying their heads in the sand re: the unknown long term consequences of surviving covid. Yeah, sure, Nate may have been ok. Nate's parents wouldn't have. My parents would not have. Millions of older people would not have.

And re: the Cochrane Library study - the takeaway of the study isn't that masks don't work. The takeaway is that the network effect of masks matter more than the actual mask itself. The point of putting a mask on isn't to put up a force field that filters out Covid. The point is to catch sneezes and limit carriers from expelling it to others. When you sneeze, the mask catches your spit and keeps it from being aerosolized. An unmasked sneezer's spit gets out into the air and is aerosolized, is floating out there, and there are lots of ways to get around a recipient's mask that's not airtight around the wearer's nose/mouth. What I mean by network effect is that on an individual level, putting on a mask vs. not is not a measurable independent variable to measure. The value of putting on a mask vs. not contributes to the overall compliance rate for the population, which is a much more difficult model and one that the Cochrane Library declined to roll their sleeves up on. My personal infection rate of putting on a mask or not is affected by how many people around me also choose to put on a mask vs. not. That's why the result of mask efficacy (for an individual) returns the null hypothesis in the Cochrane study. To which I say, uh doi, Cochrane. What's your point?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

The pushback from credible non-maskers is that "if 99% of the population is healthy, why mandate it?" Well ok, if it's May 2020 and we had only a few dozen cases, no, we don't need mask mandates. But we need testing to find out who has it, so we can quarantine them, and everyone else can go about their lives. But without testing and without masks, a soft lockdown isn't going to do squat re: containing the disease.

it's weird that you remember it as just libs dumping on Nate's "even keeled, fact-based reasoning."

Obviously externalities mean nothing to you because the residual harm caused by lockdowns whether you talk about learning setbacks across young age groups, depression across all age groups, rise in homeless populations, crime going up, and inflation has been palpable and have been exacerbated by said lockdowns and other poor policies. As they say, the path to hell was paved with good intentions. You seem okay with that, because "we didn't know", that is was okay to undertake massive social engineering for a virus that you seem to want to act as if it is a modern day plague when it simply isn't. With that said, I'm also not saying one shouldn't be diligent with preventing said spread of Covid, but when it captures the entirety of society and peoples lives and causes catastrophic externalities, then you have a problem with your policy.

One of the biggest measurements of the pandemic from various organizations, institutions, and media were deaths attributed to Covid and even the methodology behind how those deaths were/are counted is shaky (i.e., someone already being very sick and also having Covid, but the death definitively being attributed to Covid).

But go ahead, continue opening your arguments with attacks on folks political philosophies like you did with me. Lest us no forget how enlightened you are with your tribalism and virtue signaling. You can't stand the fact that someone who has admittedly had long history of supporting Democrats, that they wouldn't subscribe to your group-think, foaming at the mouth mentality. I think the real illness we should be concerned with is the mental one which you so perfectly encapsulate, that those dissenting are bad or stupid and that being wrong, in your case, is some form of a psychic death to you, which it isn't. This exact mentality has part of the reason for my own personal political shifts, because your arguments and attitudes are scary looking at the long-term.

If you can't take a step back, and say hey, Democrats and their policies didn't handle this great either, and that maybe that the knee-jerk reactions to the pandemic were in part politically motivated to get Trump out of office, then you are living in a dream world. Again I voted against Trump twice, and would do so again, but don't sit here and act like Dems haven't been baited into doing the exact opposite of what Trump wants/says, even when it is probably isn't the best idea.

But continue to peddle out that I'm a right winger, or some dummy in the year of our lord 2023, you can only attack because you have nothing else to tread on.

If you don't like deaths attributed to covid or think doctors are lying on death certificates to get Trump out of office, then look at excess death numbers, which is a fairly common metric when looking at deaths during a pandemic. Turns out there were a whole lot of excess deaths that track exactly along with waves of different dominant covid strains. or compare US numbers to numbers from other comparable countries.

Saying that lockdowns caused bad thing A, B, C, D etc is nonsense. You do nothing to define what a lockdown is, how response policies actually varied a lot city to city and state to state or country to country, and spend no time thinking through the counter factual of "well, what if we just let it rip". For example, thinking that, pre vaccine, leaving schools open during a massive outbreak amongst students is a good idea just to prevent learning loss, is nuts. Do you really think schools full of sick kids and teachers would have been a good idea? Where I live, classes were half full when there were teachers available to teach, because a rolling list of kids were home sick after schools reopened.

Speaking of a dream world, do you think only democrat run cities and states implemented covid mitigation policies? Do you think Biden was in office in 2020? Do you think the US is the only country in the world? Hell, the broad strokes of "lockdown" pandemic response in the US, that wasn't actually followed that well or uniformly, was written up back in the Bush administration.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

imagine being a self-styled 34 year old libertarian in the year of our lord 2023.

The lib argument against going full open during pandemic was always that while most people will survive, (1) it would kill many elderly and those with comorbidities, (2) we didn't know what the long term impact of Covid is (long term impacts for no-vax full covid is a lot different than post-vax omicron), and (3) we didn't know the impact it would have on children (opening you're saying you're ok with risking 50 Million+ children growing up and living the rest of their lives with diminished lung capacity).

The republican stance on Covid took advantage of those with a narrower, more selfish world view by harping on the fact that most people will survive, and then burying their heads in the sand re: the unknown long term consequences of surviving covid. Yeah, sure, Nate may have been ok. Nate's parents wouldn't have. My parents would not have. Millions of older people would not have.

And re: the Cochrane Library study - the takeaway of the study isn't that masks don't work. The takeaway is that the network effect of masks matter more than the actual mask itself. The point of putting a mask on isn't to put up a force field that filters out Covid. The point is to catch sneezes and limit carriers from expelling it to others. When you sneeze, the mask catches your spit and keeps it from being aerosolized. An unmasked sneezer's spit gets out into the air and is aerosolized, is floating out there, and there are lots of ways to get around a recipient's mask that's not airtight around the wearer's nose/mouth. What I mean by network effect is that on an individual level, putting on a mask vs. not is not a measurable independent variable to measure. The value of putting on a mask vs. not contributes to the overall compliance rate for the population, which is a much more difficult model and one that the Cochrane Library declined to roll their sleeves up on. My personal infection rate of putting on a mask or not is affected by how many people around me also choose to put on a mask vs. not. That's why the result of mask efficacy (for an individual) returns the null hypothesis in the Cochrane study. To which I say, uh doi, Cochrane. What's your point?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

The pushback from credible non-maskers is that "if 99% of the population is healthy, why mandate it?" Well ok, if it's May 2020 and we had only a few dozen cases, no, we don't need mask mandates. But we need testing to find out who has it, so we can quarantine them, and everyone else can go about their lives. But without testing and without masks, a soft lockdown isn't going to do squat re: containing the disease.

it's weird that you remember it as just libs dumping on Nate's "even keeled, fact-based reasoning."

Obviously externalities mean nothing to you because the residual harm caused by lockdowns whether you talk about learning setbacks across young age groups, depression across all age groups, rise in homeless populations, crime going up, and inflation has been palpable and have been exacerbated by said lockdowns and other poor policies. As they say, the path to hell was paved with good intentions. You seem okay with that, because "we didn't know", that is was okay to undertake massive social engineering for a virus that you seem to want to act as if it is a modern day plague when it simply isn't. With that said, I'm also not saying one shouldn't be diligent with preventing said spread of Covid, but when it captures the entirety of society and peoples lives and causes catastrophic externalities, then you have a problem with your policy.

One of the biggest measurements of the pandemic from various organizations, institutions, and media were deaths attributed to Covid and even the methodology behind how those deaths were/are counted is shaky (i.e., someone already being very sick and also having Covid, but the death definitively being attributed to Covid).

But go ahead, continue opening your arguments with attacks on folks political philosophies like you did with me. Lest us no forget how enlightened you are with your tribalism and virtue signaling. You can't stand the fact that someone who has admittedly had long history of supporting Democrats, that they wouldn't subscribe to your group-think, foaming at the mouth mentality. I think the real illness we should be concerned with is the mental one which you so perfectly encapsulate, that those dissenting are bad or stupid and that being wrong, in your case, is some form of a psychic death to you, which it isn't. This exact mentality has part of the reason for my own personal political shifts, because your arguments and attitudes are scary looking at the long-term.

If you can't take a step back, and say hey, Democrats and their policies didn't handle this great either, and that maybe that the knee-jerk reactions to the pandemic were in part politically motivated to get Trump out of office, then you are living in a dream world. Again I voted against Trump twice, and would do so again, but don't sit here and act like Dems haven't been baited into doing the exact opposite of what Trump wants/says, even when it is probably isn't the best idea.

But continue to peddle out that I'm a right winger, or some dummy in the year of our lord 2023, you can only attack because you have nothing else to tread on.

If you don't like deaths attributed to covid or think doctors are lying on death certificates to get Trump out of office, then look at excess death numbers, which is a fairly common metric when looking at deaths during a pandemic. Turns out there were a whole lot of excess deaths that track exactly along with waves of different dominant covid strains. or compare US numbers to numbers from other comparable countries.

Saying that lockdowns caused bad thing A, B, C, D etc is nonsense. You do nothing to define what a lockdown is, how response policies actually varied a lot city to city and state to state or country to country, and spend no time thinking through the counter factual of "well, what if we just let it rip". For example, thinking that, pre vaccine, leaving schools open during a massive outbreak amongst students is a good idea just to prevent learning loss, is nuts. Do you really think schools full of sick kids and teachers would have been a good idea? Where I live, classes were half full when there were teachers available to teach, because a rolling list of kids were home sick after schools reopened.

Speaking of a dream world, do you think only democrat run cities and states implemented covid mitigation policies? Do you think Biden was in office in 2020? Do you think the US is the only country in the world? Hell, the broad strokes of "lockdown" pandemic response in the US, that wasn't actually followed that well or uniformly, was written up back in the Bush administration.

I love how you all pepper in untruths about the points stated previously in your posts to make my positions seem more extreme. When did I say doctors were lying? I simply said that the way in which Covid deaths are counted is flawed. Like if someone was already suffering from complications related to cancer congestive heart failure and got covid, they were likely to be determined as causalities of covid while ignoring they were already really sick.

In terms of lockdowns, without getting bogged down in minutiae (which everyone of these follow-up posts seemingly wants to do; death by a thousand data points), I think we can broadly define lockdowns as restrictions on normal day-to-day activities such as going to school, going out in gatherings, eating around others, shopping, going to work, etc. Do I have to tediously define every common sense definition?

[Fairview4Life]

Obviously externalities mean nothing to you because the residual harm caused by lockdowns whether you talk about learning setbacks across young age groups, depression across all age groups, rise in homeless populations, crime going up, and inflation has been palpable and have been exacerbated by said lockdowns and other poor policies. As they say, the path to hell was paved with good intentions. You seem okay with that, because "we didn't know", that is was okay to undertake massive social engineering for a virus that you seem to want to act as if it is a modern day plague when it simply isn't. With that said, I'm also not saying one shouldn't be diligent with preventing said spread of Covid, but when it captures the entirety of society and peoples lives and causes catastrophic externalities, then you have a problem with your policy.

One of the biggest measurements of the pandemic from various organizations, institutions, and media were deaths attributed to Covid and even the methodology behind how those deaths were/are counted is shaky (i.e., someone already being very sick and also having Covid, but the death definitively being attributed to Covid).

But go ahead, continue opening your arguments with attacks on folks political philosophies like you did with me. Lest us no forget how enlightened you are with your tribalism and virtue signaling. You can't stand the fact that someone who has admittedly had long history of supporting Democrats, that they wouldn't subscribe to your group-think, foaming at the mouth mentality. I think the real illness we should be concerned with is the mental one which you so perfectly encapsulate, that those dissenting are bad or stupid and that being wrong, in your case, is some form of a psychic death to you, which it isn't. This exact mentality has part of the reason for my own personal political shifts, because your arguments and attitudes are scary looking at the long-term.

If you can't take a step back, and say hey, Democrats and their policies didn't handle this great either, and that maybe that the knee-jerk reactions to the pandemic were in part politically motivated to get Trump out of office, then you are living in a dream world. Again I voted against Trump twice, and would do so again, but don't sit here and act like Dems haven't been baited into doing the exact opposite of what Trump wants/says, even when it is probably isn't the best idea.

But continue to peddle out that I'm a right winger, or some dummy in the year of our lord 2023, you can only attack because you have nothing else to tread on.

If you don't like deaths attributed to covid or think doctors are lying on death certificates to get Trump out of office, then look at excess death numbers, which is a fairly common metric when looking at deaths during a pandemic. Turns out there were a whole lot of excess deaths that track exactly along with waves of different dominant covid strains. or compare US numbers to numbers from other comparable countries.

Saying that lockdowns caused bad thing A, B, C, D etc is nonsense. You do nothing to define what a lockdown is, how response policies actually varied a lot city to city and state to state or country to country, and spend no time thinking through the counter factual of "well, what if we just let it rip". For example, thinking that, pre vaccine, leaving schools open during a massive outbreak amongst students is a good idea just to prevent learning loss, is nuts. Do you really think schools full of sick kids and teachers would have been a good idea? Where I live, classes were half full when there were teachers available to teach, because a rolling list of kids were home sick after schools reopened.

Speaking of a dream world, do you think only democrat run cities and states implemented covid mitigation policies? Do you think Biden was in office in 2020? Do you think the US is the only country in the world? Hell, the broad strokes of "lockdown" pandemic response in the US, that wasn't actually followed that well or uniformly, was written up back in the Bush administration.

I love how you all pepper in untruths about the points stated previously in your posts to make my positions seem more extreme. When did I say doctors were lying? I simply said that the way in which Covid deaths are counted is flawed. Like if someone was already suffering from complications related to cancer congestive heart failure and got covid, they were likely to be determined as causalities of covid while ignoring they were already really sick.

In terms of lockdowns, without getting bogged down in minutiae (which everyone of these follow-up posts seemingly wants to do; death by a thousand data points), I think we can broadly define lockdowns as restrictions on normal day-to-day activities such as going to school, going out in gatherings, eating around others, shopping, going to work, etc. Do I have to tediously define every common sense definition?

Cool, without any actual evidence, you think covid deaths have been over counted due to classification issues. So then look at excess deaths, which takes into account the baseline numbers year in and year out pre covid and then during covid. You'll tend to find that the number of deaths attributed to covid in most places undercounts excess death numbers. More people were dying than normal during covid than we can attribute to the supposedly overcounted official covid death numbers. Now what?

In terms of "lockdowns", if you're going to ascribe a whole bunch of social and economic problems to a general term for any restrictions on normal day to day activities, then you really should try and grapple with what would happen if there were no restrictions on day to day activities while a global pandemic is raging. Letting anyone and everyone go eat at packed restaurants would surely not cause any social and economic problems right? Lol. Like there is a wide gap between "all of these businesses must close" which didn't actually happen for very long in many places, and "you need to stand 6 feet away from someone in line at the grocery store", which stuck around for a lot longer. Both are "restrictions on normal day to day activities", but only one could be considered a "lockdown" in the colloquial sense.

I also love how you ignore when these supposedly terrible policies were developed and who implemented them and where, just so you could say that anyone who doesn't think democrats intentionally sabotaged the economy etc. in order to get Trump out of office is not living in the real world. Republican mayors and governors, all around the country, hell, even clowns like Desantis, "locked down" their states while Trump was in office. I'm sure they did that so he would lose an election, right?

Nah, what happened is a highly contagious and much more deadly than usual airborne respiratory virus spread rapidly across the world and a whole lot of people (well over a million in the US!) got sick and died, and if no one did anything, it would have been significantly worse. And there was a lot of bipartisan agreement on how to handle things, right up until the right politicized it. We have been at war with viruses forever and the playbook that works is always the same: stop the spread by limiting contact with sick people and get things under control until we can develop treatments and vaccines. Christ, the one good thing Trump managed to do was operation warp speed and now that's a liability because of right wing banshees AND that politicization has now killed significantly more people in states led by Republicans than democrats. The death rates were remarkably similar right up until the right began their anti vax campaign, and then they diverged dramatically. But sure, it was all democrat lies designed to gain power. Democrats criticized Trump for lying about everything related to covid repeatedly and making everything worse through inaction. Not the effects of actually taking action. The democrats passed an incredibly generous UI boost and child benefit and direct checks to people during the pandemic while Trump was in office! It's one of the reasons the US economy actually fared extremely well and didn't go into the toilet during 2020/21. That was good for Trump leading up to the election!