Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

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@Kazapsky
Neither of those things is going to happen. The virus is not about to wipe out a big chunk of humanity because some people do not want to vaccinate.
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@Kazapsky
This is absolutely unhinged. You don’t “beat” endemic respiratory viruses: they just keep circulating, with the population gradually developing immunity to the older strains while the newer ones become less virulent. The 1918 flu is still floating around, albeit almost unrecognizably mutated into milder forms.
The only policy lever we have any control over is how rapidly it circulates. And since that’s a very expensive lever to pull, you need to have a realistic picture of what the potential benefits are.
Delaying the spread of particularly deadly viruses until vulnerable members of the population can be vaccinated probably makes sense. Locking down your society in perpetuity to put off the inevitable does not.
Some people are pretending that respiratory viruses are possible to wipe out like polio, or are just not imagining any kind of end state at all, because they just want to yell “THE ETHICAL APPROACH HAS FAILED!” and justify stomping their foot down HARD. The supposed goal of the stomping never gets explained–the important part is doing it.
“A big chunk of humanity” is not going to die, either now or when the next zoonotic virus emerges. Unless it can be contained at the source, it will become endemic and spread to the entire population over time. The most vulnerable .1-1% of the population will die from it, and it will get added to the burden on everyone else’s immune systems.
If you want to actually help rather than find excuses to STOMP, there are a couple of useful measures for the next time this happens.
  • General public health is the difference between a disease killing 1% vs 5% of a population: proper nutrition and reducing obesity will go a long way to reducing the impact of novel diseases. The 2nd plague pandemic and the ‘18 flu are the best examples of how poor general health can exponentially increase disease death rates.
    Unfortunately this is probably off the table given how unsuccessful government anti-obesity campaigns have been, and because we now have Fat Pride movements claiming that obesity doesn’t cause health issues.
  • Virome surveillance is expensive but probably vital going forward, making the big assumption that governments are actually able to use the data sensibly. Various projects like the Seattle Flu Study gave the earliest warnings of international cases while the WHO was still insisting there was “no evidence of human-to-human transmission”.
  • International travel is probably the easiest single point to “slow the spread” without abandoning ethics or accepting massive disruptions. It’s also something governments can do without seizing insane new powers over domestic life (cynically, this is why they won’t bother with it). Again, the ’18 flu shows what happens when you allow (or force) large global population transfers.
  • Finally, there’s a lot more we could be doing to help the elderly, who tend to be the biggest victims of novel diseases. Modern nursing homes are death traps, and isolating retirement communities while a vaccine can be developed is probably the single best intervention in terms of effort & disruption per life-years saved. This one is complicated and the least amenable to government intervention; the best we can probably do is help old people make lifestyle decisions for themselves. At the very least we should never repeat Andrew Cuomo’s much-lauded “let’s stick covid patients in nursing homes and see what happens!” stupidity.
(In before more “UR DEATHWORSHIPPER!” insults for caring about actually helpful policies, rather than excuses for vengeance against people you hate.)
CaptainXtra
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STOP KOSA!
How to beat the game?
Don’t invite more players to suffer in it:
Corporations reaction to hearing that they’ll have fewer wage slaves:
HorsesandMuchMOAR
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Gallusposting since 2019
I hope the Native Americans will have a chance to take back their homeland before China or Russia will, once the corporations collapse.
The declining population done by protests against corporate abuse could lead to:
Angry conservatives crying about “white genocide”, while they might start bigger families as they think that liberals will die out without kids
More immigration to this hellhole
Possible lobbying by despaerate corporations to force people to work?
Zincy
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In Vino Veritas
Population decline is natural for an industrialized nation. Though we ate facing a rather steep precipice when the boomers die.
But, there may be some interesting opportunities from such an event.
Zincy
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In Vino Veritas
Tbf, if we automated a significant portion of the menial labor, focused on high value jobs, and implemented a form of universal basic income and universal healthcare, we’d probably have quite the good thing going.
HorsesandMuchMOAR
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Gallusposting since 2019
No need for lower work, so a country might end up having plenty of resources and money to support a new society focused on art and higher pursuits.
Almost closer to what Marx imagined where people will spend most of their time on art.
CaptainXtra
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STOP KOSA!
I’ll just say this:
When fuckbags like Greg Abbott go even further and begin creating legislation that specifically discriminates against childless adults to such an extreme degree to where it’s next to impossible to maintain a living or even forces people to have kids outright, that’s when it’s time to revolt with guns against the system as whole.
No more question, it would be time to burn the whole thing down.
Make the BLM protests and even the Jan 6th storming look tame as fuck.
Ain’t gonna make babies just to have them be wage slaves and enlistment fodder to die in wars started by the elite.
Violet Rose in The Rain
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The CDC lists 17 categories, including cancer, pregnancy and chronic lung diseases. But otherwise healthy people can also become seriously ill from COVID-19, not to mention die from it. To claim that the novel coronavirus is “not dangerous” for anyone who isn’t obese or over 65 is wildly inaccurate. And focusing on obesity as though it were the only risk factor for severe COVID-19 is a trend among right-wing communities that combines two parallel threads in online subcultures: the anti-vax community’s belief that a healthy lifestyle and one’s natural immune system are as effective as vaccination in preventing disease and the right-wing troll culture’s long fixation on fat shaming.
In a press conference about the Twitter ban, Greene tried to clarify her statement, saying she “was talking about the highest amount of deaths, the highest risk factor” and that “78 percent of people that were hospitalized and died were obese.” That stat is based on a CDC study from March, but it comes with some caveats.
First, this figure includes people who are considered obese and people who are considered overweight. Second, 73.6 percent of Americans age 20 or over are considered overweight or obese, according to the CDC. While the numbers for people with obesity are still higher among COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died, the stat Greene cited is a bit like surveying COVID-19 cases at a sorority house and finding that 100 percent of the hospitalizations occurred among women. And that’s not even taking into account that the measurement used to diagnose obesity — the body mass index — is flawed, at best.
There is no denying that obesity is a risk factor for more severe COVID-19 infections. Compared with people with a healthy weight, obese people who contract COVID-19 are 113 percent more likely to be hospitalized, 74 percent more likely to be put in intensive care and 48 percent more likely to die, according to a meta-analysis published in August in the journal Obesity Reviews. But obesity is not the only, or even necessarily the highest, risk factor for more severe COVID-19 infections. Smokers, for instance, have a 40 to 50 percent higher risk of severe disease or death from COVID-19 compared with nonsmokers, according to the World Health Organization. People diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease who contract COVID-19 have a 30 percent higher risk of death than people without Parkinson’s, according to a University of Iowa study published in September. And pregnant women who get COVID-19 are 70 percent more likely to die than those who aren’t pregnant, according to the CDC.
But Greene didn’t tweet that people who don’t smoke, aren’t pregnant or don’t have Parkinson’s disease have nothing to fear from COVID-19. She specifically singled out obesity, something many right-wing communities online have done since the start of the pandemic.
There’s a long history of right-wing groups fat-shaming people online. To wit: An appreciable contingent of subscribers to the now-banned subreddit r/fatpeoplehate — which existed only to mock and criticize people who are overweight in the most vitriolic terms possible — moved over to the now-also-banned subreddit r/The_Donald, where Trump supporters posted right-wing memes and discussions. Of course, fat-shaming online is not limited to right-wing trolls. It’s incredibly widespread, and many on the left are just as guilty of it — consider House Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly fat-shaming Trump on live television, or the droves of internet users who have criticized measures to prioritize obese people for the COVID-19 vaccine, or reward vaccination with free goodies like Krispy Kreme doughnuts. But it does hold a particularly pernicious and prevalent role in right-wing communities online. The fixation on obesity as if it were the only, or most important, risk factor for severe COVID-19 infections is just the latest in right-wing trolls’ longstanding tradition of attacking overweight people online.
Violet Rose in The Rain
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Unfortunately this is probably off the table given how unsuccessful government anti-obesity campaigns have been, and because we now have Fat Pride movements claiming that obesity doesn’t cause health issues.
Could’ve focused on how anti-vax and anti-mask attitudes contributed to the mess you’re in but you took the opportunity to laser focus on fat people and obesity when it isn’t even the biggest factor in co-morbidity rates.
Really says a lot about you.
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@CaptainXtra
Don’t you? In some cases overweight or obesity is a bit more acceptable, the elderly are a good example. On the other hand younger people who are obese should be motivated by society to lose the weight. Shaming is one aspect of that, it shouldn’t be the only, but it should exist.
Violet Rose in The Rain
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People will never understand that the fat acceptance thing was never about “fat was healthy”, and was more about “don’t be assholes to overweight folks”. How do you expect someone at a healthy weight to ever lose it when they’re constantly being bullied and having their self esteem destroyed? It’s not exactly motivational.
And then you have the “well uhhhh being fat is unhealthy” people. Well if you’re one of those, congrats, you’ve successfully told overweight people something they already know and have shoved in their faces all the damn time. How is being told “you’re unhealthy” all the damn time motivational? It’s not.
If you actually want people to lose weight, then push for expanded welfare or a universal basic income, so that overweight folks have access to more, and healthier kinds of food. Maybe form a running/jogging/walking group to help yourself and others be healthy.
Or just keep being a negative sand sack on the internet.
HorsesandMuchMOAR
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Gallusposting since 2019
I would like to see what will the resulting society look like - will it become as socialist as Sweden or China?
At least the corporates and politicians responsible for turning the US into a hellhole will get what they deserve, so I’ll gladly watch the US burn.
Hopefully this will also influence Malaysia to become more caring to its people instead of useless racist politicians and greedy corporates.
As Violet Rose said - if you want to have less fat people, make healthy food more affordable so they won’t have to depend on cheap, unhealthy food.
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@Violet Rose in The Rain
Yeah, that’s BS on both points. Fat acceptance was never just about don’t be assholes to overweight people. Maybe some felt that way, but for a time the “healthy at every weight” and “all bodies are beautiful” lines were being pushed extensively. Initially this was just to counteract the unrealistic depictions of men and woman we saw in media, which is a noble cause, then people started taking it too far by implying genuinely overweight and healthy people are fine the way they are. That thankfully didn’t last long as people pointed out how stupid it is.
Secondly, shaming does work, though it shouldn’t be left to only that. People need positive reinforcement as well. I’m not advocating pointing and laughing at fat people on the street, I am advocating that we shouldn’t simply accept the obesity epidemic in the country and that pointing out someone’s size shouldn’t automatically be taboo.
Finally, no, we don’t need expanded welfare or universal basic income to solve the problem. Food is cheap in this country. It’s a longstanding farce that it is much more expensive to eat relatively healthy. You can make healthy food at home for cheap. The real problem is the time investment people need to make. Their are people who are working multiple jobs, struggling to make ends meet, and have a hard time finding the time to make food. Framing that as the cause is dishonest as well considering nearly 3/4 of the country is overweight or obese.
HorsesandMuchMOAR
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Gallusposting since 2019
Perhaps we should use a different term instead of “fat shaming”, if you didn’t mean bullying fat people to death.
It should instead be pointing out the harms of obesity.
For many US working-class people in cities, they have to overwork themselves in their jobs, and they might sometimes not be allowed to even run their own neighbourhood farms, or redevelop abandoned lots into more farms. Do you think America’s economy isn’t as horrible and impoverished as it seems?
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