General Corona Virus Discussion

[vreihen]

As the same person gifted my daughter cereals from hell (with a sticker on it "makes dumb", have a photo of it), I think it is not bad intention. Just dumbness.

Speaking of pooping someone's brains out....

.

 

[DV52]

At least in my view from outside, I think that Ross-Tech demonstrates some of the finest ideals in how a small business should be run in this country.........................

@jyoung8607: well said - albeit I would extend the accolade to include comparison with businesses outside the land-of-the-free!

I'm not as familiar with Ross-Tech as you appear to be - but from the vantage point of someone from a far-away place, the corporate value-set is exemplary and it is regrettably rare amongst the business community..... and it is clearly driven from the top (notwithstanding the CEO's occasionally different views to mine - as evidenced in Uwe's bar )

Don

 

[Uwe]

We are both engineers - so we are well acquainted with sound scientific evidence that clearly demonstrates cause and effect. So I have absolutely no problem with the compelling conclusions in your response - I agree 101%

So rather than try to convince people that a virus with a 99+% recovery rate is not an existential threat to society, you'll accept government mandates for intrusive measures that you know do not really work?

-Uwe-

 

[Uwe]

In the meantime, I leave you with a bit of well-settled legislation known as 29 USC 654, the OSHA Act of 1970:

(a) Each employer --
(1) shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees;
(2) shall comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this Act.
(b) Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health standards and all rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to this Act which are applicable to his own actions and conduct.

I trust we're not going to have any serious discussions about COVID-19 not being a recognized hazard.

That might pass muster if the mandated measures were actually effective in reducing the recognized hazard. For example if OSHA mandated regular testing of all on-site employees. But that's not what we have here; the proposed mandates exempt vaccinated employees from testing, despite the fact that being vaccinated does not prevent people from getting infected or transmitting the infection to others.

Have a look at some of the most recent data out of the UK:

In the all age groups between 40-80 years old, the infection rate (per 100,000 people) is actually higher among the vaccinated than the un-vaccinated!
Source.

Now you won't see data like that out of the USA because the CDC stopped counting/reporting "breakthrough" infections in fully vaccinated people unless those infections resulted in hospitalization or death. But that count is very important because even Dr. Fauci has admitted that fully vaccinated people with breakthrough infections have viral loads just as high as the un-vaccinated. Given that the vaccinated ostensibly have good protection from "severe disease" and may even be free of symptoms despite a high viral load if they become infected, it seems to me that these mandates, as currently proposed are likely to be counter-productive in reducing the "recognized hazard".

Note: I am by no means advocating for mandated universal testing. I'm just pointing out that what's been proposed makes no sense given what we now know about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of these shots when it comes to actually preventing infection and transmission.

But by and large, those 100+ employee businesses are run by folks who live in the reality-based community, have been desperately trying to get back to normal, to get people back in the office, and trying to find a way to do it [...] They were looking for air cover, they were specifically lobbying for it, and now they've got it.

So you're telling us that the current administration is now doing "Corporate America's" bidding?

Gosh, I thought that was supposed to be the Evil Republicans' job.

-Uwe-

PS: I very much appreciate the kind words in your response to my daughter that I have not quoted here.

 

[DV52]

So rather than try to convince people that a virus with a 99+% recovery rate is not an existential threat to society, you'll accept government mandates for intrusive measures that you know do not really work?

-Uwe-

hmm...... that's not quite what I'm saying - What I'm suggesting is that the scientific facts in your previous response should work on those individuals in the community who can be persuaded by the razor-like precision of logic. Whilst it would fantastic if we lived in a community in which scientific facts were universally persuasive (a kind of societal pedagogy) - this ain't real.

COVID is a game-changer and communities are driven as much by emotion as they are by the medical science of the infection - in fact -probably more so!! Ain't nothing inferior about these "other" societal drivers - they are an essential part of the humans that make-up our communities - this is quite normal stuff and it should be expected (and in truth, the absence of non-scientific responses to such an important change-agent as COVID would probably indicate an unhealthy community).

So- my point is that it might be a tad unrealistic to expect that a community's answer to COVID will be based solely on hard clinical facts with the solution sold to citizens via pure rationalist logic. Instead, maybe a more realistic expectation is a societal response that has some medical drivers (to deal with the science of the disease) as well as some non-scientific drivers (to deal with the emotional part of the human condition which is an essential component of our communities)?

I'm suggesting that maybe the no-jab restrictions that appear to be a growing demand from sectors of both our communities serves the latter (read, human) needs of the whole community. And, I'm suggesting that there is already evidence of this dynamic in the rules for wearing face masks.

Moreover, I'm suggesting that it's futile to expect clean rationalist logic to deal with the human needs of our societies - it just doesn't work (no matter how compelling the facts might be) because the underlying problem has a very different cause

And yes, there ain't no free ride; each and every answer to COVID comes at a cost, and the price that is to be extracted for the "human-condition" solution is a diminution of a citizen's pre-COVOID personal freedom.

Now, some in the community might view this cost to be too high, and/or the problem that it addresses to be too small - maybe? But, the whole of society works as a single unit -so the views of the greater numbers will prevail!!

Alas, in this very unfair new-normal world, the only option for dissenters will be to accept the consequences of non-compliance, or re-calibrate the perceived value of their lost freedom!

Don

 

[Fred's Imports]

Sounds like Uwe will be in DC this weekend wearing his arrest Tony Fauci tee shirt.

 

[vreihen]

^^^^^^^^^^ Post # 666 ^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Uwe]

Sounds like Uwe will be in DC this weekend wearing his arrest Tony Fauci tee shirt.

Nope. I have not set foot in the District of Corruption in many years, and do not intend to do so again in this lifetime.

As for Fauci, he's got quite a history. Ask people who lost friends to AIDS in the 1980s what they think of him.

-Uwe-

 

[HMC]

Have a look at some of the most recent data out of the UK:

I won't waste forum space on why those statistics are incorrect and the truth is probably the reverse, but if you want to know listen to the start of this https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09vyy6h
Regards HMC

 

[rks]

I won't waste forum space on why those statistics are incorrect and the truth is probably the reverse, but if you want to know listen to the start of this https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09vyy6h
Regards HMC

You mean the government does not know how many unvaccinated people are in the country? This raises me the question, how the percentage of vaccinated people can be determined.

I do not know UK. In Germany and Switzerland it is quite difficult to live in the country without being registered in some way and I guess, the numbers of inhabitants are quite correct there.

https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/israel/
Assuming that older people got vaccinated first and because children do not really suffer of Covid, a very high percentage of the unvaccinated people in Israel should die now. Is this so?

 

[Fred's Imports]

Not to mention the data that OUR governments have been manipulating from the beginning. WHO, CDC, effing hogwash.

So garbage stats = garbage data.

At the race track we call this garbage in garbage out.

 

[jyoung8607]

That might pass muster if the mandated measures were actually effective in reducing the recognized hazard. For example if OSHA mandated regular testing of all on-site employees. But that's not what we have here; the proposed mandates exempt vaccinated employees from testing, despite the fact that being vaccinated does not prevent people from getting infected or transmitting the infection to others.

Vaccines have less than 100% effectiveness.

Testing has less than 100% effectiveness.

Your argument boils down to "condoms are useless because they're not 100% effective", a.k.a. patently absurd and unworthy of serious discussion.

Have a look at some of the most recent data out of the UK:

Now you won't see data like that out of the USA because the CDC stopped counting/reporting "breakthrough" infections in fully vaccinated people unless those infections resulted in hospitalization or death. But that count is very important because even Dr. Fauci has admitted that fully vaccinated people with breakthrough infections have viral loads just as high as the un-vaccinated. Given that the vaccinated ostensibly have good protection from "severe disease" and may even be free of symptoms despite a high viral load if they become infected, it seems to me that these mandates, as currently proposed are likely to be counter-productive in reducing the "recognized hazard".

Do you know why you had to cherry-pick viral load measurements as your hill to die on? I do.

It's because transmissibility measurements, the actual measurement of infecting other people, don't get you the answer you're shopping for.

Take your own source document, and read pages 5 through 8. Own your source and correct your position, or flipflop on your source's reliability.

Note: I am by no means advocating for mandated universal testing. I'm just pointing out that what's been proposed makes no sense given what we now know about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of these shots when it comes to actually preventing infection and transmission.

Trump-style "just keep repeating fantasy as fact" doesn't make it true. It just makes it sad.

So you're telling us that the current administration is now doing "Corporate America's" bidding?

Gosh, I thought that was supposed to be the Evil Republicans' job.

Have never and would never object to open and transparent petitioning of our democratically elected government for redress of grievances.

PS: I very much appreciate the kind words in your response to my daughter that I have not quoted here.

They were both sincere and heartfelt, and should I ever give you the impression I think you're an obstinate shithead, please know that feeling is precisely limited to two Bar threads and arises from frustration at my inability to reconcile your posts with the man of character and integrity I know you to be.

 

[JSWTDI09]

I absolutely refuse to base my life choices on what someone else tells me I should be afraid of.
I got my Pfizer booster jab yesterday (I'm an old fart). I based my choice on the science of immunology not on fear of same.

Have Fun!

Don

P.S. I don't do my research on the internet. Fear mongering is rampant there.

 

[Crasher]

They are lining up crusty old farts like me for our third jab in a few weeks, my first two were the Oxford but I am not sure what the third will be.

 

[PetrolDave]

They are lining up crusty old farts like me for our third jab in a few weeks, my first two were the Oxford but I am not sure what the third will be.

From the reports I'm seeing probably Pfizer.

I too had two Oxford jabs earlier this year, but won't be eligible for my booster until mid-November (6 months after second jab).

 

[Crasher]

Did you feel really ill for about six hours almost dead on 24 hours later, both times?

 

[PetrolDave]

Did you feel really ill for about six hours almost dead on 24 hours later, both times?

Not at all, just a slightly sore arm for 24 hours - the same as when having a 'flu jab.

 

[Sebastian]

Came across an article today, not so much about the scientific side but the moral of things. (German language, not sure if google translate etc. will convey the message but it may still be worth reading.)

Toxische Freiheit

Ein Leben ohne Freiheit ist ein unerfülltes Leben. Doch gerade in der Pandemie zeigt sich: Falsch verstandene Freiheit ist Gift.

www.republik.ch

 

[Crasher]

Not at all, just a slightly sore arm for 24 hours - the same as when having a 'flu jab.

Almost to the hour both times it hit me like flu but it only lasted until the evening so didn’t interfere with Vodka o’clock; when I have my flu jab I am fine. Late last year I was diagnosed with having long Covid and I know now it was in early February 2020 which I picked up at The Autosport show, after my second jab about a week later I started to feel better than I had in a year, nearly had a spring in my step which never happens and then I caught the cold from hell which is going around and that turned into an upper respiratory tract infection which needed steroids and antibiotics, only just getting over that.

 

[DV52]

Came across an article today, not so much about the scientific side but the moral of things. (German language, not sure if google translate etc. will convey the message but it may still be worth reading.)

Toxische Freiheit

Ein Leben ohne Freiheit ist ein unerfülltes Leben. Doch gerade in der Pandemie zeigt sich: Falsch verstandene Freiheit ist Gift.

www.republik.ch

Sebastian: Great link - thanks for posting

Love the opening sentence:

Toxic freedom​

A life without freedom is an unfulfilled life. But the pandemic in particular shows that misunderstood freedom is poison.​

My take-away extract:

"Perhaps one day we will look back on anti-vaccination with as much astonishment as we did at the fact that car drivers once thought the seat belt was paternalistic. Perhaps we will look at the past with incomprehension as we do now at the fact that we used to smoke across the board in restaurants, on trains and even on planes (including the author of these lines). Perhaps we will see legitimate interventions in the rules of the game that we impose on one another and that a state imposes on us to protect, especially in times of crisis, rather than illegitimate attacks."​

Don

PS: English translation for those interested in reading:

Toxic Freedom

By Jan Skudlarek 24.09.2021​

Jan Skudlarek (* 1986) is an author, speaker and lecturer. He did his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Münster with a thesis on “ collective intentionality ”. Since 2017 he has published popular philosophical non-fiction books, most recently « Truth and Conspiracy » in the Reclam publishing house.​

A life without freedom is an unfulfilled life. But the pandemic in particular shows that misunderstood freedom is poison.

When European countries introduced compulsory seatbelts in cars in the 1970s, there was a great outcry. Without a doubt: the seat belt saves lives. That much is clear. The question was rather: Can the state do that? Tell me what to do and what not to do? On pain of punishment?

The belt as an effective protective measure struck a citizen who, suddenly forcibly tied to the vehicle, conjured up the end of his freedom.

It wasn't the strap that bothered him. It was compulsory to wear a seat belt .

Mark Twain is said to have said: "History doesn't repeat itself - but it often rhymes." How much Twain was right with his diagnosis, how much the story rhymes, we can see again today at first hand.

While the seat belt issue has long been resolved, other, equally controversial obligations have been added. Mask requirement, distance requirement. And there is currently a dispute about the corona vaccination: should it at least be viewed as an informal, moral imperative , as a kind of ethical civic duty?

Behind all of this there are overriding questions of freedom - and the question of how the colorful word freedom should be interpreted.

How much individual freedom can there be in a society, especially in a crisis society? What only concerns me? What does the state have to do with? To ask Reinhard Mey: does freedom have to be limitless?

As is always the case with questions of ethical considerations, different objects of protection are opposed to one another and must be weighted in a specific context. The obligation to wear seat belts in the car relates above all to the obligated persons themselves: The protection item here is the personal health of the car occupant. Those who are buckled up are much less likely to be harmed in accidents. This self-protection conflicts with aspects of freedom of movement, whereby the psychological unease of being tied to the car for better or for worse played an immense role in the discourse of the 1970s .

The mask requirement in the supermarket or on public transport may seem a nuisance. After all, it is not an intervention in your own body. Vaccination, on the other hand, is exactly that.

While the mask requirement is a temporary inconvenience, a vaccination leading to immunization is a medical act and, to quote the German Ethics Council , «it must be taken into account that the vaccination is an interference with the physical integrity of a person, which is generally subject to a higher burden of justification ». Means: Interventions are not strictly prohibited, it depends on their justification.

In the vaccination example, the protective effect of the vaccination itself must be cited as an ethical burden of justification. While the seat belt in the car primarily protects me from the intensive care unit, a corona vaccination not only protects me from emergency medicine, it also reduces the spread of the virus and thus protects others as well . And in the event of an infection, vaccinated people are unlikely to have a serious course of the disease.

In other words: a car accident is not contagious (except for the cars involved). Corona does.

In a broader sense, these examples are biopolitics . The French philosopher Michel Foucault used this to describe the basic idea that the modern state is increasingly interested in the life (Greek bios ) of its citizens. The (post) modern state intervenes legislatively with the aim of obliging the citizen to live. Nowhere do we see this more clearly than in the current pandemic.

But is that already chicane?

An encroaching state should indeed be rejected. A state that regulates down to the most private levels. In a pandemic, however, which has cost more than four and a half million lives worldwide , which is ruining millions more lives (such as those who have recovered from long covid or people who left intensive care units as different people), the hospitals are chronically pushed to their limits and turns our world upside down as it was - in such a societal crisis situation the "politics of the first person" applies: the private is political.

Whether I get vaccinated or not has an impact on others. In this respect, it is morally understandable that people motivate each other to vaccinate - and the state helps where motivation and personal responsibility fail.

In the discussion about the question of what the state and civil society may legitimately enforce from the individual and what not, an old ethical dissent emerges. It is the dispute between utilitarians and Kantians.

As utilitarianism classically those on is Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill declining mindset referred that measures the ethical value of an action primarily on their (probable) consequences. Opposite her are the ethicists of duty in the succession of Immanuel Kant. They rate actions as good or bad, regardless of their consequences.

From the point of view of the ethic of duty, lying is not morally bad because you are deceiving someone, but wrong in itself. What you can find with the help of a cross check: I shouldn't lie because I don't want to be lied to myself. And because, beyond the personal level, we don't want to live in a society in which lies are considered normal or legitimate. In a somewhat more technical way: Lies violate the principle of universalizability. A society in which everyone lies about when they feel like it or when one takes advantage of it would not be desirable. Kant even goes a step further and says that a lie corrupts the principle of truthfulness.

Or more generally, in the words of the categorical imperative: "Act only according to the maxim by which you can also want it to become a general law."

Another component of this ethics is the so-called self-purpose formula . It says that people should always be an end in themselves for one another, never just a means to an end. In this sense, my request that the person next to me please get vaccinated can never be based solely on the conclusion that I am better protected as a result. Nobody is just the vehicle for someone else's good.

The utilitarian John Stuart Mill, in turn, formulates his so-called "damage principle" in " On Freedom " (1859):

The principle is that the only reason humanity, individually or united, is empowered to interfere with the freedom of action of any of its members is in self-protection. The only purpose for which one can rightly use coercion against the will of a member of a civilized community is to avoid harming others.

This shows an essential difference between duty ethics and utilitarian ethics. The evaluation of actions shifts from the action itself and its ethical nature (duty ethics) to the consequence of the action (utilitarianism). For Mill, what is bad is what looks bad, that is, has harmful consequences.

Duty ethicists and utilitarians set different priorities when assessing action. Whether wearing a mask, buckling up or vaccinating should be forced depends not least on the ethical model and its respective priorities.

To answer the Reinhard Mey question: No, freedom does not have to be limitless. She can't do it at all. However, different ethical evaluation systems come to a common conclusion at a crucial point: Individual freedom must stop at the latest where it causes damage. What you cannot raise to general law and what has foreseeable negative consequences, you prefer to leave.

What does that mean for current debates about vaccination and allegedly curtailed personal freedoms?

First of all, it becomes clear: what lateral thinkers , angry citizens and conspiracy theorists mean when they say "freedom" has little to do with the pluralistic solidarity community and their bourgeois understanding of freedom. A solidarity community in which everyone is for himself, but also for the others.

Such an understanding of freedom, which insists on being allowed to cause damage, could be described as "toxic freedom".

Toxic freedom is self-determination at any price, an individualistic elbow right of the fittest. Harmful effects are based on the principle of "bad luck!" accepted approvingly. There are good reasons to find this immoral.

It is no coincidence that the term “toxic freedom” is reminiscent of another concept: that of “toxic masculinity”. This includes, for example, the suppression of feelings, the fear of weakness and supposed femininity, the justification or even glorification of aggression. An ideal of masculinity that is understood to be toxic is often a breeding ground for violence and extremism .

One of the punch lines here is that misunderstood role concepts, combined with the unfavorable benefits of social networks, can even promote depression . Not only do fellow human beings suffer from stereotypes of roles that are interpreted as being aggressive and toxic, but the aggressors themselves are also harmed.

Just as the critics of toxic masculinity do not claim that masculinity is always toxic, just as little does a criticism of toxic freedom mean: "All self-determination is dangerous." The criticism is directed rather to negative designs and negative auslebungen, specifically: an intentional or unintentional misinterpretation of the concept of freedom. Freedom, like masculinity, can be lived out in a variety of ways, most of which are certainly not dangerous to the public. But a concept of freedom that only knows self-interest is literally unsocial: it ignores the social level and the equal interests of others.

Ironically, one can imagine what the question of vaccination is actually about socially with a philosopher who is generally (and wrongly) decried as a misanthropist: Arthur Schopenhauer .

In general, however, 9/10 of our happiness is based on health alone. With it everything becomes a source of enjoyment: on the other hand, without it, no external good, of whatever kind, can be enjoyed, and even the other subjective goods, the properties of the spirit, disposition, temperament, are downgraded and very stunted by sickness.

You don't need a pandemic to see how much truth there is in Schopenhauer's words.

One likes to argue about the nine tenths. On the other hand, it is fairly undisputed that being healthy is a good thing, being sick is a burden.

Perhaps one day we will look back on anti-vaccination with as much astonishment as we did at the fact that car drivers once thought the seat belt was paternalistic. Perhaps we will look at the past with incomprehension as we do now at the fact that we used to smoke across the board in restaurants, on trains and even on planes (including the author of these lines). Perhaps we will see legitimate interventions in the rules of the game that we impose on one another and that a state imposes on us to protect, especially in times of crisis, rather than illegitimate attacks.

In any case, when it comes to vaccination, Kantians would say: Vaccination is a moral imperative because I have to protect others, just as I want others to protect me when I am at risk. And as a utilitarian one could argue: It is advisable to have me vaccinated because a faster end to the pandemic causes less economic damage, causes fewer victims and so more restrictions can be removed for even more people more quickly. And both schools of thought together offer reasons why it makes sense if the healthcare system is not overloaded. Because we all have a responsibility for it. And because it benefits me and everyone individually.

In view of a global pandemic, ethical reasons could be given for compulsory vaccination, depending on the situation.

However: where there is insight, coercion is obsolete.

Our self-image as mature beings would be much more in line with the fact that each and every one of us asks ourselves over and over again using a free self-test whether our own way of life is still under the label of “freedom” - or whether there are good reasons for it to be considered toxic.

We can hope for this look in the mirror from each other. Voluntarily. Autonomous.