Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[PDH]

Dorsey for Douche has gotta douche.

[Admiral Yi]

Because it isn't that bad and it is transparently being used to control behaviors by shrills and self important politicians.

Okay, I think that's a pretty definitive jump the shark moment.

You just lost me too Fredo. 

[mongers]

This is a national emergency, I don't know why so many pretend it isn't.

Because it isn't that bad and it is transparently being used to control behaviors by shrills and self important politicians.

...

[Valmy]

This is a national emergency, I don't know why so many pretend it isn't.

Because it isn't that bad and it is transparently being used to control behaviors by shrills and self important politicians.

Spend a few years fighting the nazis who are trying to take over europe? That makes sense. Endure a year of lockdowns so that we can stop the spread of a disease that kills less than 1% of the people it infects? That seems like bullshit to me, and in a society filled with morons that can only see things in extremes, you push too far in one direction and people will gravitate toward thinking everything is a sham and we need to go 100% the other way.

Less than 1% of a disease that is spreading rapidly is pretty serious. I think the excess death rates around the world speak to that. Why is that bullshit? And remember it is not 1% for everybody, some populations it is much higher than 1%.

But I can certainly see how some of the way people responded over-zealously. Fear mongering and over-reaction is certainly common in a situation like this. Bureaucracies over-reacting and human foibles abound. But that is part of humans running things. Why that means there is some conspiracy to control everybody is quite a leap...unless you consider all of human civilization, and plenty before civilization, to be a conspiracy to control everybody and fair enough. I had no idea you were an anarchist Dorsey.

I have often said what you are saying is not untrue. I just do not see the vast sinister evil of humanity being imperfect that you seem to. People are not all good or all evil. Fuckups will happen especially when infectious diseases are concerned.

[Josquius]

Err.... Yes?

Really not getting the logic on this one.
Do they seriously believe free means not paid for by anyone in any way?

Not wanting to look like I am defending these people, but i would prefer these were called "state funded" in common discourse because there ARE people approaching such things as nobody is actually paying for them.

From the Conservative side right?
As I really don't think anyone is dumb enough to believe  government services aren't funded in some way.

[Malthus]

I wonder what the generation in that second picture would think of people for whom wearing a piece of cloth over their face is too much of a sacrifice during a deadly pandemic.

The characters in that film aren't exactly the admirable sort.  Also, unless Syt's sister in in here late 80's it's not her generation depicted in that film.

I didn't think she was, and I wasn't speaking specifically of these two characters or actors.  I've just been thinking lately of all my grandparents, and what they lived through.  All of them either served and survived the war, or survived the civilian life during the war, which in Soviet Union wasn't that easy to do on starvation rations.  If any of them were still alive, I wonder what they would think about people finding it too hard to wear masks for a year or two.

I've thought about this as well, and even brought it up a few times on Facebook.  Never got a response from conservatives.  Obviously, your grandparents and my grandparents had different experiences.  Neither of my grandfather's served (one was too old and held draft exempt job and the other couldn't serve because of heart scarring something that later killed him),  My Grandmother worked in a boot factory and I don't know what my other grandmother did.  Still, nobody starved and nobody was in danger of starving.  There was rationing of food and gasoline, shortages of all sorts, higher taxes, on the coasts there were blackouts. People didn't starve, but the whole thing was very inconvenient.  Yet all of this was much more arduous than wearing a face mask.

To be honest, I don't know why so many modern conservatives took this course.  It makes no sense to me.  I don't understand why Trump starting undercutting the CDC or why Tucker Carlson comes on every night saying that vaccines are dangerous.  The WW2 analogies work for me, more people have died from Covid than did in WW2.  Hell, some of the people who survived WW2 have since died of Covid.  This is a national emergency, I don't know why so many pretend it isn't.

One thing that I noticed about my grandparents and what appears pretty common among my grandparent's generation - who experienced the dirty 30s and WW2 - is just how addicted to saving stuff they were.

My grandparents saved every damn thing - bits of string, rubber bands, rags. All neatly labelled and packaged, not in a chaotic hoarding sense. They kept large stocks of non-perishable goods on hand.

It was pretty clear they lived through a time when you could not get, say, a rubber band when you needed one, and that this left its mark.

[alfred russel]

Because it isn't that bad and it is transparently being used to control behaviors by shrills and self important politicians.

Okay, I think that's a pretty definitive jump the shark moment.

I just got back from my "bachelor party" in Las Vegas. The only other participant was my best man/climbing partner. We never ate in a restaurant, never had a drop of alcohol, didn't see a show. All we did was get up at 6am every morning to climb, and then climbed until the sun set and came home to get ready to climb the next day.

Yes we flew into Vegas and that had risk. But local climbing was closed last spring as well. Here are a couple of pictures I took while climbing--the open nature of the desert highlights just how stupid the panic was. The first picture is the climbing area from the parking lot. As you can see, it is a massive expanse of rock.

The second picture is when we topped out at about 4pm. I put an arrow to the parking lot--as you can see, the number of cars for the amount of climbing area is miniscule (there were probably more earlier in the day, but the ratio was always trivial). You can see Vegas in the background.

The place where we were climbing, like almost all climbing areas, was closed last spring. Las Vegas has a couple million people in its metro area: people who wanted to go climb were not allowed to enter the wide open space I was in, but confined to the metro area and presumably used parks and other open space there shared by all the other residents.

It isn't just about climbing of course. In rural Georgia I actually saw a police officer stationed at a trailhead to make sure no one accessed it. In many (most?) places boat ramps were closed, church services - even outdoors - were not allowed in some cases, and there were some interesting discussion of whether bird watchers should be arrested. You want to know why there is strong pushback against any type of restriction now, you should begin with this stuff.

[alfred russel]

Because it isn't that bad and it is transparently being used to control behaviors by shrills and self important politicians.

Covid isn't that bad? More than half a million deaths in the US isn't "that bad"?

The cost of the cure has to be measured against the disease. I don't think I'm out on a limb to suggest that the physical or emotional well being of most people the past year has been negatively affected by covid countermeasures.

[Grey Fox]

I hope one day you get over the fact you couldn't go climbing for ~6 months.

My daughter still can't swim.

[Berkut]

Jesus H. Christ.

Lets go out on a limb and suggest that the physical and emotional well being of half a million dead people has been negatively effected. Also the physical and emotional well being of about 90 million people who actually got COVID but did not die from it. And the physical and emotional well being of all the family of those people - which now we are talking about 100% of people.

And how much worse all that would have been if we had listened to people who really, really want to go rock climbing, and what....double? Triple? Quadruple those numbers of dead or seriously injured?

WTF?

[alfred russel]

Jesus H. Christ.

Lets go out on a limb and suggest that the physical and emotional well being of half a million dead people has been negatively effected. Also the physical and emotional well being of about 90 million people who actually got COVID but did not die from it. And the physical and emotional well being of all the family of those people - which now we are talking about 100% of people.

And how much worse all that would have been if we had listened to people who really, really want to go rock climbing, and what....double? Triple? Quadruple those numbers of dead or seriously injured?

WTF?

The 90 million that got covid and the half a million people that died are irrelevant--rock climbing was shut down and they still got covid and / or died. It seems highly unlikely those numbers could quadruple at least as they would then exceed the total US population.

The point isn't just rock climbing. It is rock climbing and all the other things that people care about that got shut down pointlessly, and the way that currently ties into people refusing to get the vaccine or wear masks.

I wonder if anyone back in March / April of last year was saying, "the rules that we are coming up with are not sustainable, and are not rational, and are going to result in people rejecting rational precautions down the road." 

[Berkut]

Jesus H. Christ.

Lets go out on a limb and suggest that the physical and emotional well being of half a million dead people has been negatively effected. Also the physical and emotional well being of about 90 million people who actually got COVID but did not die from it. And the physical and emotional well being of all the family of those people - which now we are talking about 100% of people.

And how much worse all that would have been if we had listened to people who really, really want to go rock climbing, and what....double? Triple? Quadruple those numbers of dead or seriously injured?

WTF?

The 90 million that got covid and the half a million people that died are irrelevant--rock climbing was shut down and they still got covid and / or died. It seems highly unlikely those numbers could quadruple at least as they would then exceed the total US population.

The point isn't just rock climbing. It is rock climbing and all the other things that people care about that got shut down pointlessly, and the way that currently ties into people refusing to get the vaccine or wear masks.

I wonder if anyone back in March / April of last year was saying, "the rules that we are coming up with are not sustainable, and are not rational, and are going to result in people rejecting rational precautions down the road." 

Horseshit.

You said, specifically, that "this isn't that bad". The "this" being the epidemic.

You keep referencing rock climbing, then immediately pointing out that it isn't about "just" rock climbing. This seems like a way for you to demand that anyone interested in controlling for an epidemic do so while comparing to your singular example of a lockdown that seems silly, while dismissing the actual millions effected adversely, since they would all be dead rock climbing or not.

I wonder if you can ever think about anything outside of carefully constructed strawmen that you can then crow about how brilliant you are for predicting that people don't like lockdowns?

[Zoupa]

You know Dorsey, it's actually good that you post your "thoughts". I always wondered about the inner working of covidiots and why they reach the conclusions they reach.

I guess in the end it's just lack of empathy/solidarity and selfishness. I figured as much, but it comforts my choice to leave retail pharmacy and just work from home. I've tried/given enough.

[Admiral Yi]

For the record Fredo, my objection is not based on your belief that emotional wellbeing/rock climbing is more important than deaths.  That's not a popular point of view, but it's a point of view.

Rather it's based on your statement about politicians wanting to control people.  That's verging right into QAnon/hoaxer/Karen territory.

[Jacob]

To be fair, I think shutting down things like rock climbing in the middle of nowhere and back-country trails and the like is pointless and just increases all around misery. Same thing with the reports we've heard of people getting in trouble for sitting by themselves on a park bench or whatever.

In the beginning of the pandemic when we didn't know much, I can see the point. And I guess in places where they lack the institutional wherewithal to deal in anything but absolute binaries (shut down everything or shut down nothing) it makes a bit of sense. But IMO at this point, when we know that the risk of transmission is very low outdoors when people are reasonably spaced out, I agree there's little to no point in shutting down places like that.

That doesn't change the fact that Dorsey presented his argument in a way seemingly designed to make him come across as extremely callous, self-centered, and ignorant.