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

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

You can walk into pretty much any drug store and get it, so it isn’t access. And all resistance is fear; thinking Bill Gates puts chips in it is fear. Undocumented fear might explain some, but Detroit is heavy majority African American. For the total number to be so low, the % of vaxxed black people has to be quite low. They’re citizens.

We have a lot of variation by city here that people worry about. Boston is actually pretty good, the burbs, both inner and outer, are excellent but the smaller cities, Springfield, Lowell, and Worcester, are not so good and the truly rural areas' rates kind of suck.

At least here, access does seem to matter, in terms of where cities have gone out of their way to do outreach and let people know of how to get the vaccine - where there is local leadership in Churches and among politicians we do better. And in Boston the local hospitals have been doing great outreach for years, giving them a lot more credibility.

In the rural areas, it isn't just the conservatives who are problems, there are hippy anti-vaxxers as well.

All in all a complex scene, but anyone working against vaccines, which includes virtually the entire Republican party (except our Republican, health-care experienced governor, who is actually pretty good on them). But on the left it's the Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy types and in the black community here it really isn't the Boston leadership (leadership in places like Lowell among the Hispanic community is much more suspect).

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

We have a lot of variation by city here that people worry about. Boston is actually pretty good, the burbs, both inner and outer, are excellent but the smaller cities, Springfield, Lowell, and Worcester, are not so good and the truly rural areas' rates kind of suck.

At least here, access does seem to matter, in terms of where cities have gone out of their way to do outreach and let people know of how to get the vaccine - where there is local leadership in Churches and among politicians we do better. And in Boston the local hospitals have been doing great outreach for years, giving them a lot more credibility.

In the rural areas, it isn't just the conservatives who are problems, there are hippy anti-vaxxers as well.

All in all a complex scene, but anyone working against vaccines, which includes virtually the entire Republican party (except our Republican, health-care experienced governor, who is actually pretty good on them). But on the left it's the Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy types and in the black community here it really isn't the Boston leadership (leadership in places like Lowell among the Hispanic community is much more suspect).

Our rural counties are also way worse than even Detroit.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

A jaded, world-weary fellow like you needs to call other people idealists.

The Galbraith quote didn't there. I don't know that the sushi shop owner is a conservative at all. He's just behaving selfishly.

And "selfish" is not the best description of the conservatives who have decided that having to wear masks or get vaccinated is an intolerable threat to civil liberties they hadn't thought about a few years ago -- the point is that they way they define their self-interest is malleable, not a simple fact in the way that an economist would think, but a posture they'll change for other reasons.

Man, I never knew you were so high handed and pompous.

The sushi joint owner is just trying to economically survive. He's a small businessperson who is willing to put himself at risk to stay afloat and inviting others who are willing to put themselves at risk to do so. Caveat emptor. (Particularly now, as omicron is a variant so weak the only thing he's likely to give patrons is an annoying cold-like experience.)

Do you really think this little guy was supposed to just roll over and watch his business get hammered?

I'd say your high-handed elevation of what you think is most important over his, and the temerity to judge the guy on top of it, demonstrates exactly the voice that needs to be eliminated from policy discussions.

And it's also worth noting the sushi restaurant owner isn't much different than Jeff Bezos, who invited me into his store every day thru the pandemic, and whose invitation I accepted - Daily.

I wore a mask, I distanced, and I warned anyone who visited me: "I go out every day, to buy all sorts of things." If they were scared, they could avoid me. I gave them the option. (I had to tell my in-laws to stay away because I found their devil-may-care attitude a bit scary for folks their age.)

There's How Reasonable Sane People Really Dealt With This Pandemic, and there's How Utopians Think Everyone Should Have Dealt.

You're in the latter camp - fucking loony.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I’m a conservative? Sad. Read harder.

In Tyland, it's all binary. Ye shall be made a member of a group.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

And then there's Sebby, who apparently has no problem with the infringement on his freedoms so long as his municipal government or school district is requiring vaccination, but sees an intolerable threat to his conception of federalism if the national government should do the same thing.

If your kid doesn't get vaccinated, it's because you're a shitty or delusional parent. The state has an interest in making sure you don't harm your kids.

If an adult doesn't want to get vaccinated, at this point, the overwhelming majority (like 90:10) of the harm is going to come solely to the unvaccinated moron.

If you wanna die because you believe in some lunatic conspiracy theory, I say have at it. I say the state has no interest in keeping alive fools who'll needlessly put themselves at high risk of death for no discernible benefit. One could make a good argument that, when they die, society benefits from their deaths.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

I love your conceit that conservatives don't mind vaccine requirements, they're just all stoked up about federalism and the idea that the national government is taking a power that ought to be reserved to the states. And you say I'm tone deaf? Get real.

I cited the HPV vaccine controversy for the position that conservatives have previously been anti-vaccine.

A vaccine requirement reflects that you don't let people choose some things for themselves, like whether to get vaccinated, when their choices impose costs (deathly illness) on others.

Except now, that's not the case. Omicron is killing unvaccinated and uniquely vulnerable. And here's the thing about the vulnerable. You or I, vaccinated people, can carry the virus and kill them just as easily as the unvaccinated.

I'm old enough to remember when conservatives thought that people who might have been exposed to Ebola did not have civil rights and should be locked up to prevent exposure, which shows a strong commitment to contrary principles. Obama was the President then, and they were committed to saying he wasn't exercising enough federal power to protect everyone, not that those decisions should be made by local government or that people who might carry Ebola should just decide for themselves. Can you see why HPV is similar? It's not about the vaccination there.

Many "conservatives" are hypocrites. Are you expecting me to dispute that?

In other words, "petulant little children" fits the bill much closer than your effort to put lipstick on a pig.

My critique wasn't so much the accuracy of your assessment. It of course holds some accuracy. It's also the sort of haughty comment that winds these fuckers up and makes things worse.

It isn't terribly hard to manipulate these new "conservatives." It's all about showing them respect (they hold vestiges of honor culture). You can bend them to your position if you can make it anodyne, or if you can describe it in a way that makes it seem an independent decision they reached without pressure or cajoling.

Treating them like children doesn't work. (This is a strange facet of progressive thinking. They dig in, as stupidly as conservatives, and speak in a manner that alienates others. And all the while they could have been manipulating their enemies.)

< It's also really easy to manipulate progressives. Pretty similar tactics. You just have to listen and elevate empathy above everything else you display. >

No, that's not a corollary, logically, but it does tap into the aggrieved conservative mindset and the fact that the conservative "principles" are more about some sort of resentment about what the rest of the country might be thinking about them than any kind of abstract commitment to libertarian ideals.

The first thing about Conservative Club is there is no Conservative Club. Most of them are, like progressives, people who want everyone else to behave they as they think is best. They're assholes who think they ought to be in charge. A million miles from Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine.

In a pandemic, I'm not the best person to tell these people what to do. Public health professionals are, because they have training and expertise in this area. Similarly, when I board a passenger jet plane, I do not insist that every person on board has the independent right to determine safety protocols, but that does not mean that I think I'm the person to tell them what to do. I put on my seatbelt and listen to the crew's instructions, even if I think I think some of them are stupid.

Yeah, except this isn't a five hour trip from NY to LA. People did that. Then they started saying, wait a minute... these "experts" sound like they're making it up as they go along.

If these "experts" had all stayed off the TV (I blame Trump for starting the daily news spectacle), and issued directives impersonally, by some form of press release every week, I think the directives would have been given a lot more respect.

But we can't have that. Our media had to give Fauci his 15 minutes of fame, and that Orange Imbecile had to politicize it all.

Yes, yes you do. If someone runs a red light and hits you, because they think they have the right to decide for themselves whether or not traffic laws apply to them, you will absolutely think they are a selfish idiot and an asshole, and should not be allowed to act that way without consequences.

This analogy fails for the reasons I cited in response to your first analogy.

What's the chance of compromise with people who are, fundamentally, oppositional? How does that work?

Manipulation. I've had to deal with tea party people. You manipulate them. The same way the moderate democrats manipulate progressives to shut them up. The same way the GOP manipulated the pro-life lobby for decades.

Whatever Gavin Newsome does will be opposed by the conservatives here, and then thoughtful people like you will tut tut that Newsome's choices have made compromise impossible. Compromise is fundamentally impossible by people who form their "principles" by acting oppositional, and that is who most conservatives are now, on any issue that becomes politicized.

The hysterical focus from CA was virus paranoia w/o a balancing message on the need to protect economic interests. That's what one gets when one has govt run by people most of whom never held real jobs. They focused exclusively on the HC aspect and conveyed an attitude that the damage to businesses was of very minor secondary concern. That was a colossal fuck-up.

eta: BTW, I understand your wistful desire for some sort of compromise, that everybody just find a way to get along. That would be awesome. The problem is the significant minority of the population that forms their political views oppositionally, not those of us who point it out. The throughline of conservatism is greivance and trolling libs.

That's a tango. Cue Stealers Wheel...

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Man, I never knew you were so high handed and pompous.

Well, since you've been arguing with me here for years and you seem to have just figured it out, I guess I can't be *that* high-handed and pompous.

The sushi joint owner is just trying to economically survive. He's a small businessperson who is willing to put himself at risk to stay afloat and inviting others who are willing to put themselves at risk to do so. Caveat emptor. (Particularly now, as omicron is a variant so weak the only thing he's likely to give patrons is an annoying cold-like experience.)

Do you really think this little guy was supposed to just roll over and watch his business get hammered?

First of all, pretend I work in an industry severely impacted by the pandemic, and have just spent the last two years surviving an existential threat to our business. I don't have to pretend it, but apparently you do. There is a difference between surviving, and surviving by doing things that will make other people sick and threaten their life. The sushi owner is choosing a path that hurts other people, and that's what makes it selfish. Not all of us impacted by the pandemic did that. But he didn't stop there -- he went on TV to bitch about the hospitals, as if it's their fault, some imaginary mistake in hospital management that is killing people, not the fact that jackasses like him are making selfish decisions that are putting people in this hospital. Sure, blame the nurses.

I'd say your high-handed elevation of what you think is most important over his, and the temerity to judge the guy on top of it, demonstrates exactly the voice that needs to be eliminated from policy discussions.

Are you shitting me? What about that guy's viewpoint needs to be represented in policy discussions?

If someone built a business picking up garbage in your neighborhood and dumping it in your yard instead of taking it to the landfill, you wouldn't say we need a policy discussion that reflects all viewpoints. You would say, fuck that.

And it's also worth noting the sushi restaurant owner isn't much different than Jeff Bezos, who invited me into his store every day thru the pandemic, and whose invitation I accepted - Daily.

There is a big, big difference between following the rules, flawed as they may be, and going on television to bitch about the rules and blame things on the hospitals. I like restaurants. They're not typically run by public health professionals. They shouldn't be making the rules in a pandemic.

What I don't get is why you think there's something "pompous" about not wanting people to sick, go to the hospital, and die. Like good health is something that only pointy-headed intellectuals should care about? Why is it "high handed" for me to want people not get sick, but not for Mr Sushi not to care? WTF is wrong with you?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If your kid doesn't get vaccinated, it's because you're a shitty or delusional parent. The state has an interest in making sure you don't harm your kids.

If an adult doesn't want to get vaccinated, at this point, the overwhelming majority (like 90:10) of the harm is going to come solely to the unvaccinated moron.

If you wanna die because you believe in some lunatic conspiracy theory, I say have at it. I say the state has no interest in keeping alive fools who'll needlessly put themselves at high risk of death for no discernible benefit. One could make a good argument that, when they die, society benefits from their deaths.

IT IS NOT TRUE that when an adult doesn't get vaccinated, they pose a risk solely to themselves. They infect other people. They demand health-care resources. THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT. That's why I said, the problem with your little spiel about wearing a mask was missing the point -- you wear a mask to protect other people. Pull your head out of your libertarian ass and accept that the decisions people make about their health affect other people too -- you can't just wave your hands and imagine it away.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

First of all, pretend I work in an industry severely impacted by the pandemic, and have just spent the last two years surviving an existential threat to our business. I don't have to pretend it, but apparently you do. There is a difference between surviving, and surviving by doing things that will make other people sick and threaten their life. The sushi owner is choosing a path that hurts other people, and that's what makes it selfish. Not all of us impacted by the pandemic did that.

Without saying what industry you pretend work in, I'm going go out on a limb and call bullshit that you ever turned work down. I felt for you, as I know you were impacted, but that was outside your control.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

They demand health-care resources. THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT.

I have heard so many horror stories about having to go to an ER for non-covid reasons. In fact my local hospital has stated (a few months ago, probably no longer true) don't come to the ER unless you've something life threatening. Otherwise go to Urgent Care clinics.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I cited the HPV vaccine controversy for the position that conservatives have previously been anti-vaccine.

That's like saying that if I root against the Cowboys, I'm opposed to football.

Except now, that's not the case. Omicron is killing unvaccinated and uniquely vulnerable. And here's the thing about the vulnerable. You or I, vaccinated people, can carry the virus and kill them just as easily as the unvaccinated.

No, that's false. If you are vaccinated, you are much less likely to develop the load of vaccine that can infect others. Also, a uniquely vulnerable person who gets hit by a truck is dead, and would not have been if the truck had been parked. It's a cute little rhetorical trick that you're pulling, but it's a lie.

Many "conservatives" are hypocrites. Are you expecting me to dispute that?

If you think that, then why would you take their "principles" seriously?

My critique wasn't so much the accuracy of your assessment. It of course holds some accuracy. It's also the sort of haughty comment that winds these fuckers up and makes things worse.

I'm not talking to them, so how am I making anything worse? Other than confusing Hank, I mean.

It isn't terribly hard to manipulate these new "conservatives."

A second ago, you were bitching at me for calling them petulant little children. Pot, kettle, black.

Treating them like children doesn't work. (This is a strange facet of progressive thinking. They dig in, as stupidly as conservatives, and speak in a manner that alienates others. And all the while they could have been manipulating their enemies.)

I'm not treating them like anything. I'm talking to you on an internet chat board.

Yeah, except this isn't a five hour trip from NY to LA. People did that. Then they started saying, wait a minute... these "experts" sound like they're making it up as they go along.

If these "experts" had all stayed off the TV (I blame Trump for starting the daily news spectacle), and issued directives impersonally, by some form of press release every week, I think the directives would have been given a lot more respect.

But we can't have that. Our media had to give Fauci his 15 minutes of fame, and that Orange Imbecile had to politicize it all.

You go to pandemic with the public health officials (and President, and media) you have, not the ones you wish you had. But I'm not talking about any of that.

Manipulation. I've had to deal with tea party people. You manipulate them. The same way the moderate democrats manipulate progressives to shut them up. The same way the GOP manipulated the pro-life lobby for decades.

That's lovely. You're so smart. How do you do it?

The hysterical focus from CA was virus paranoia w/o a balancing message on the need to protect economic interests. That's what one gets when one has govt run by people most of whom never held real jobs. They focused exclusively on the HC aspect and conveyed an attitude that the damage to businesses was of very minor secondary concern. That was a colossal fuck-up.

Another rhetorical trick you have is to call people to the left of you with whom you disagree "hysterical". Are there people who find it convincing?

California's death rate from COVID is well below states like Florida and Texas. (You seem to find mortality statistics irrelevant when talking about the pandemic. I would be more impressed with your talking about balancing people's health with the economy if you cared at all about people's health.) Since you seemed convinced that it was too expensive to save all those lives, what was the cost? The site I'm looking at says California's mortality rate has been 204/100,000, and Florida's has been 325. If California had matched Pennsylvania, that would be about another 50,000 deaths. Why do you think saving those people was too expensive?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Without saying what industry you pretend work in, I'm going go out on a limb and call bullshit that you ever turned work down. I felt for you, as I know you were impacted, but that was outside your control.

What the fuck is your problem? As you know, I'm a C-suite executive at a start-up in an industry particularly hit by the pandemic. We went from hiring to RIFs almost overnight, and we survived largely because we happened to be very well capitalized. Did I turn work down? No, I worked on firing people and cutting costs. So what if it was outside my control? That's the whole point?

You don't see me telling everyone that they ought to be going on trips, or complaining that the CDC is making it too hard for the cruise ships to sail.

Mr Sushi's restaurants are still open, by the way.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I have heard so many horror stories about having to go to an ER for non-covid reasons. In fact my local hospital has stated (a few months ago, probably no longer true) don't come to the ER unless you've something life threatening. Otherwise go to Urgent Care clinics.

It's a huge staffing problem at Ms Slothrop's hospital and ICU, and most of the patients there don't have COVID.

I will tell you the most heartbreaking thing, though, is the restrictions on visitors to the ICU. We are talking about family members of people who are dying, who are limited in getting to see them for the last time, because COVID. The people who want to pretend that the unvaccinated are only harming themselves should have to sit in on those conversations.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It's a huge staffing problem at Ms Slothrop's hospital and ICU, and most of the patients there don't have COVID.

I will tell you the most heartbreaking thing, though, is the restrictions on visitors to the ICU. We are talking about family members of people who are dying, who are limited in getting to see them for the last time, because COVID. The people who want to pretend that the unvaccinated are only harming themselves should have to sit in on those conversations.

Get used to staffing issues. They’re bad everywhere. But if we’re the old Soviet Republic, your state is Pripyat.

The delta between transmissible load among unvaccinated and vaccinated is minimal. Right now, as to B.2 and Omicron Classic, it’s a difference of 29% household infection and 39%. And B.2 is even weaker.

The rest of humanity is moving on. And I’m closer to HC management than you (I was in a HC office dealing with non-mask wearers back in 2020, and I got the fucking thing, so sing your song elsewhere). You’re free to stay nuts, and good for you. You do you, the rest of us will do us.

And we don’t care about your judgment. No one does. But you. There. Which is partly why everyone is leaving.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I have heard so many horror stories about having to go to an ER for non-covid reasons. In fact my local hospital has stated (a few months ago, probably no longer true) don't come to the ER unless you've something life threatening. Otherwise go to Urgent Care clinics.

Exactly why a mandate is a back asswards way of handling things.

Hospitals should instead ban intentionally unvaccinated Covid patients. And the states should pass laws to shield them from liability from the turds among us who’d sue them for turning away those people.

And HC insurers should be allowed to cancel plans for the intentionally unvaccinated. And states, under McCarran Ferguson (No Feds needed) could grant them immunity on that.

That which cannot be done by mandate (almost everything) can often be done by punishment for refusal. Sure, they’re the same in effect. But the difference is, punishment allows for a game of good cop/bad cop. The state and corporate interests get to blame each other, and the nitwit who’d prefer to be unvaccinated never has a clear enemy upon which to fixate. The anger is diffused, confused, and he’s manipulated.

It’s kinda like the “That was done by committee” explanation for atrocious corporate behavior.

Much more effective than setting up a “We’re the incompetent ‘Eat Your Peas, Peasants’ State, and we’re going to tell you you’d better follow our confused ‘experts’ from week to week or you’re a bad person who is selfish and killing others.”