BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

Jay wrote:

Again, you're not offering me anything. Please come up with an example of a government agency that is competent, and performs a job with efficiency equivalent to the private sector.

the post office is more efficient at a lower cost than every other logistics company. You don't like them though because the government imposed a financial rule on them that no other player in the industry has.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Jay wrote:

Again, you're not offering me anything. Please come up with an example of a government agency that is competent, and performs a job with efficiency equivalent to the private sector.

the post office is more efficient at a lower cost than every other logistics company. You don't like them though because the government imposed a financial rule on them that no other player in the industry has.

Are they? I mean they're pretty awesome at filling my mailbox with junk mail. They are definitely cheaper than shipping with UPS, I'll grant you that.

Jay wrote:

Larssen wrote:

Larssen wrote:

Your estimate is off by a factor of 10. The number, at least in the US, is closer to 0.2%. Not 2%.

I don't know where you get your number but it doesn't correspond with literally anything published by the scientific community thus far. Lowest estimates I've seen were 0,7% BUT with 1% of those under 30 needing hospital admission, up to 20% if 80 and older. So even then the number hasn't been controlled for all the cases that can't be treated once some 3-4% of the population requires medical aid. You keep glossing over this fact. Even IF the current death rate is low, it's low because pretty much all critical cases are treated.

Because most places have incomplete data and the media is only publishing confirmed case numbers. As I've said repeatedly, confirmed case numbers are going to be heavily biased towards the most severe and wildly undercount the carriers and people with minor cases.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/corona … 60406.html
Here, they found 6% of Miami county already had virus antibodies as of late April. 165,000 people were infected already, but only 10,000 or so officially at the time. New York has had 20% of its population infected based on randomized antibody testing. LA County came up with a 0.1-0.2% death rate. Miami was around 0.2%. New York City was higher, at around 0.7%, but that may be because of how they were classifying deaths.

This is not hard math larssen. As the number of people tested continues to widen, you're going to see that many, many more people have been exposed than the official tallies currently indicate.

So you're linking me a study of 1400 participants vs national testing databases & mathematical modelling on those numbers? Literally everything I've read on China indicates between 0.7-1.5%. Those are academic papers by the way. We also know the strain in Europe/the USA is more problematic than the one in China.

Wasn't that 2m if we didnt do anything?

SuperJail Warden wrote:

8,500 people died from COVID yesterday and the virus is actually picking up steam. A major mess.

What?

RTHKI wrote:

Wasn't that 2m if we didnt do anything?

yeah he still can't seem to get his head round that...
as we've seen he likes to talk about "MATH" but just seems to pluck random statistics out of the air and use them how he see's fit.

Jay wrote:

But your central thesis is correct though. People have become soft, and society has become fragile because of it. Life has become too predictable, and some people are actively trying to undermine society because of it. I mean look at this very forum. Uzi and macbeth have probably had the easiest lives here and they do nothing but complain. They're bored. They hate the world. They want some big seismic shift so they can live in more interesting times. They're not unique in this either. Look at the spawn of the wealthy and you'll see roughly the same pattern play out. They don't want the revolution to save the poor, they want the revolution because they think it will be more interesting than whatever it is they're doing to pass the time in this existence. There's a reason the revolutionary fervor tends to fade as soon as people settle down and have kids; those of us who do have an external locus and something to live for besides ourselves.

Couple all this with narcissism and you end up with a situation like this. It is narcissism to think that you are special enough to be witnessing an End of Days event, but we seem to have people actively wishing for them every few years. An event that wiped out 2% of the global population really would be something special. It would be life altering. On par with one of the World Wars even. I'm sorry you're going to be disappointed.

what are you prattling on about you daft cunt?

you're like the even more retarded version of david brooks. filing your 500 word column every day and jerking off into a handkerchief.

those two paragraphs are some of the vaguest, random broadsides i have ever read. 'they hate the world'. 'revolutionary fervor'. ffs you really do love the sound of your own voice, don't you?

i guess because i know what socialism is and can tell the difference between 'left and right' that now i'm some sort of revolutionary. read a fucking book for christ sake, you are embarrassing.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-11 12:02:02)

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

But your central thesis is correct though. People have become soft, and society has become fragile because of it. Life has become too predictable, and some people are actively trying to undermine society because of it. I mean look at this very forum. Uzi and macbeth have probably had the easiest lives here and they do nothing but complain. They're bored. They hate the world. They want some big seismic shift so they can live in more interesting times. They're not unique in this either. Look at the spawn of the wealthy and you'll see roughly the same pattern play out. They don't want the revolution to save the poor, they want the revolution because they think it will be more interesting than whatever it is they're doing to pass the time in this existence. There's a reason the revolutionary fervor tends to fade as soon as people settle down and have kids; those of us who do have an external locus and something to live for besides ourselves.

Couple all this with narcissism and you end up with a situation like this. It is narcissism to think that you are special enough to be witnessing an End of Days event, but we seem to have people actively wishing for them every few years. An event that wiped out 2% of the global population really would be something special. It would be life altering. On par with one of the World Wars even. I'm sorry you're going to be disappointed.

what are you prattling on about you daft cunt?

you're like the even more retarded version of david brooks. filing your 500 word column every day and jerking off into a handkerchief.

those two paragraphs are some of the vaguest, random broadsides i have ever read. 'they hate the world'. 'revolutionary fervor'. ffs you really do love the sound of your own voice, don't you?

i guess because i know what socialism is and can tell the difference between 'left and right' that now i'm some sort of revolutionary. read a fucking book for christ sake, you are embarrassing.

Did you know David Brooks divorced his old wife to marry a 20-something year old. I think he got her knocked up too which means he owns her now.

the US needs to vastly increase testing and the turnaround time for results before any serious conversation about "reopening the economy" can take place. The federal government is not reacting fast enough, and limited or removed any proactive measures prior to the pandemic. Now they are mobilizing, but only through the lens of crony capitalism where politically connected entities are able to profit immensely due to artificial market conditions.

It's a Republican strategy - eliminate the political will to accomplish a task, constrict the ability of federal programs, cite the failures of the government as evidence that private sector can do it more efficiently, funnel those federal resources to the private sector, then profit and champion the private sector as the most efficient solution.

Regardless of what you think Democrats or Republicans want out of government, the facts are clear that this current administration is FAILING at dealing with this pandemic, AND enriching people who 6 months ago had zero biomedical experience or business acumen.

it's all projection. People against welfare will talk about how we need to drug test those welfare queens, and that they just take their EBT card and buy 24" rims while their baby daddies smoke crack and shoot dice in the stairwell. We just need to hold them accountable, damnit! Make them have to fill out 'x' number of applications a week, so we know that $600/week check is not being exploited by lazy, good-for-nothing lowlifes.

Meanwhile they want to give tax subsidies in the billions to a company who promises to employ a bunch of people with high paying jobs, with no strings attached, because capital = jobs = rising tides.

Which one is the bigger net transfer of wealth? Which wealth transfer do people who pretend to be concerned with these sorts of things constantly attack? It's why I cannot take Jay's position seriously wrt to social safety nets and his constant claims of socialism. The arguments are built on foundations of lies and obfuscations, and they would rather just look at a pie chart and carve out "social welfare programs" instead of taking the time to unravel where tax payer money goes, and how corporations use subsidies to hide government-sponsored corporate welfare. Nope, just blame the poor!

It's also why i refer to people like jay as bootlickers. He allows himself to be spoon-fed gerbers baby food in the format of NR and OAN, then turns around and parrots that narrative like the good little foot soldier he is. And then pretends someone like Tom Steyer or Jeff Bezos is indicative of "leftists", when they are billionaire capitalists who profited on the backs of workers and very much want to protect their capital, albeit through a tinge of neoliberalism instead of old-fashioned colonialism.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

it's all projection. People against welfare will talk about how we need to drug test those welfare queens, and that they just take their EBT card and buy 24" rims while their baby daddies smoke crack and shoot dice in the stairwell. We just need to hold them accountable, damnit! Make them have to fill out 'x' number of applications a week, so we know that $600/week check is not being exploited by lazy, good-for-nothing lowlifes.

Meanwhile they want to give tax subsidies in the billions to a company who promises to employ a bunch of people with high paying jobs, with no strings attached, because capital = jobs = rising tides.

Which one is the bigger net transfer of wealth? Which wealth transfer do people who pretend to be concerned with these sorts of things constantly attack? It's why I cannot take Jay's position seriously wrt to social safety nets and his constant claims of socialism. The arguments are built on foundations of lies and obfuscations, and they would rather just look at a pie chart and carve out "social welfare programs" instead of taking the time to unravel where tax payer money goes, and how corporations use subsidies to hide government-sponsored corporate welfare. Nope, just blame the poor!

It's also why i refer to people like jay as bootlickers. He allows himself to be spoon-fed gerbers baby food in the format of NR and OAN, then turns around and parrots that narrative like the good little foot soldier he is. And then pretends someone like Tom Steyer or Jeff Bezos is indicative of "leftists", when they are billionaire capitalists who profited on the backs of workers and very much want to protect their capital, albeit through a tinge of neoliberalism instead of old-fashioned colonialism.

I don't think I was on this forum when the financial crisis happened. If I had been, you would've seen me bitching about the bailouts and saying that the banks should've failed rather than being propped up and allowed to make themselves even bigger. It was ridiculous.

I am not in favor of corporate welfare, and I never have been. I have never taken that position. I think I could dig up posts here where I too bitch about low interest rates leading to corporate buybacks and the complete lack of investment by corporations in stuff like R&D. I don't think large corporations should've been bailed out with this pandemic. They were borrowing left and right before the pandemic, they can borrow now. Small and medium sized businesses? That's a bit different.

But if you deny the large corporations, they and their army of lawyers are going to hit you with the takings clause. You should down their business, you denied them a living, and they will call that a taking.

I look at Congress and I see corrupt pieces of shit that have enriched themselves off of us their entire lives. I look at Biden and I see the millions he and his family made in Ukraine, and in Florida and god knows where else. Pelosi has made herself quite rich as well. McCain made a shitload of money in Ukraine too. These people are all corrupt. Do you really think Obama's presidency was full of any less cronyism than this one is? If anything, his was worse. The cost of living in NOVA skyrocketed under him. A large part of the reason that Trump is so hated is because it meant the gravy train and good times were over. It's not because Trump is any less personally corrupt, but because he was an outsider that might question the games they play.

So no ken, I'm not your bogeyman on this issue.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Hmm, i guess you missed the part where i called you the bootlicker, not the bogeyman.

A rational, logical person would look at the numbers, realize 80% of wealth distribution is from the middle class to the upper class, and attune their grievances accordingly. Jay, you spent pages this morning on these unfounded, overarching but rarely overlapping theories on why people act the way they do without turning the magnifying glass to people you admire and aspire to be.

Look at your response - Trump is draining the swamp! Obama was bad!

Trump literally held up deployment of PPE so that people close to him and his political allies could enrich themselves, and you are calling out Obama and Biden.

Are you insane?

No, I'm trying to point out that there are no good alternatives. I'm not pro-Trump. I didn't vote for the guy. I didn't vote for Clinton either.

And you are right about a few things. There is a tremendous amount of wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy, but it comes in the form of Medicare and Social Security. People in retirement had decades of peak earnings to save. Why does some kid in his 20s need to pay FICA so some 85 year old can have the government spend millions to extend his life to 85.5? What if that guy is a multimillionaire and could pay for himself? The government is just funding his offsprings' inheritance.

You wanna talk about the military industrial complex? I'm down. That was one of my big arguments back in the day, and I got shit on by uzique and dilbert for daring to reduce opportunities for the poor, because apparently the military is workfare or something. You wanna talk about how all the military contractors have gotten smart and distributed their factories across the country in key districts so they can exert maximum political pressure? It would be easy to fight them if there was one big factory in Detroit or something. Harder when they're spread across 50 Congressional districts. You wanna talk about the waste I saw while I was deployed? About the civilian hummers that were ordered and delivered to Iraq so that the officers didn't have to ride around in military hummers? Or KBR (Haliburton) making hundreds of millions of dollars to import pakistanis to run our dining facilities?

But here's the thing, not every wealthy person is making money off the government. Not every corporation has government contracts or has been bailed out. You're painting with a very broad brush. And I'm not defending the extremely rich, I just don't care about them. Did you get worked up and burn your Trout jersey when he got his $330 million dollar contract? He should be your enemy now. Or is it only Arte Moreno that is the evil one? Oh, that's a good subject, let's talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars that sports franchises rake in from stadium deals with cities. That's a fucking awesome deal for the taxpayers. Not one of them pays back, did you know that? Same thing with the Olympics.

I'm not your enemy just because I don't want to nationalize the economy or stick it to the rich with punitive taxes. I hate the same shit you do. I just don't think more government is the solution to bad government.

Last edited by Jay (2020-05-11 16:30:02)

we shat on you not because we want to see military workfare continue, but because you are a creation of that wealth/opportunity transfer to the poor, and now you're the most vociferously against any sort of workfare. it's always the zealous recent convert.

your leadership are inept. 80,000 deaths, no sign of the death toll abating nationally, and he's declaring it a 'victory'.

this has bad echoes of bush on an aircraft carrier.