Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Washington: high quality, rebuild, beauty)

[rach5]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

Too many people still think covid is a binary between dead or fully recovered after 2 weeks or maybe a month. The shades of grey in between are still, frankly, pretty untested territory.

Coincidentally, I just read an article in a European journal that had a diagnosis of covid now means that people face higher rates or even refusal for private health insurance (this in a country with a very good public health insurance system).

[rach5]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

So do you think my providing the video with the info from the Texas trauma surgeon is "fear mongering"? If so, please explain why you think that.

I don't see this as fear mongering at all. In fact, I think we have done a great job of actually hiding the extent of suffering in this pandemic (very few images from inside hospitals, pics of refrigerated trucks; local ER doc Meghan Ranney took a picture of herself in our field hospital - without patients, of course, just empty beds, etc.). All in the name of privacy, of course. On the other hand, plenty of scary images and videos of last week's devastating attack on the Capitol.
If the pandemic were more visible to us as a people, I wonder if our reaction would have been different. Many health care providers will be dealing with PTSD for years to come, as they describe war-like conditions.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

I understand we should question everything we are told and reach our own conclusions, but if I tell you the trees are green, you should be able to arrive at the same conclusion on your own without yelling fake news/conspiracy.

The trees around my house aren’t green. All the leaves fell off months ago.

An object lesson that there are few absolutes, I guess. With COVID-19, in February, we all thought it was droplet transmission and that masks wouldn’t do much. That was plausible using a flu virus as a model. Turned out to be totally wrong. Newtonian physics stood up for centuries. It falls over when velocity approaches the speed of light. I had a modern physics course as an undergrad. I couldn’t look at an exam question and approximate the expected answer like I could with Newtonian physics. I had to play chimpanzee and blindly do the math to calculate the answer. It didn’t fit into my known universe of how things work. That was probably the most enlightening course I took in college.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s purely an education problem. Sure, in some scenarios it is, but this individual holds a very high position at a local tech company. He wouldn’t be there without education.

I wouldn’t say it’s strictly a left vs right thing either. I describe myself (and most of my social circle) as right-leaning but even among my peers we’ve shaken our heads in disbelief at many of the events of the past few years.

I don’t know what to say really. This year has been very eye opening. We can build rockets that go to space and land vertically, electric self-driving cars, and develop vaccines in less than a year, but then have a segment of the population that thinks the world is flat, chemtrails, vaccines are really tracking chips, and that there is a world organization pulling the strings for everything. I understand we should question everything we are told and reach our own conclusions, but if I tell you the trees are green, you should be able to arrive at the same conclusion on your own without yelling fake news/conspiracy.

Nothing new about lies in politics and zealots. Everything has been amped up 10x though. There is a symbiosis between (a) the propagandists - who get money and influence by outraging people with fiction cloaked as "the real truth", and (b) their followers, who actively seek out these "revelations". Tucker Carlson has been a malleable and 99% reliable proponent of whatever Donald Trump wants to claim is true these past 4 years and he has a huge and loyal following on Fox News. But when he experimented with telling the truth, not even about the President, but about his legal team - specifically Sidney Powell, his viewers went ballistic and labeled him "a traitor". After losing many viewers overnight, he recanted the truth. So, even when the information comes from someone they trust, it's absolutely radioactive if it doesn't conform to what they want to believe. This is not just an academic problem, as we saw on Jan 6th, but I don't know what we can do about it.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

Nothing new about lies in politics and zealots. Everything has been amped up 10x though. There is a symbiosis between (a) the propagandists - who get money and influence by outraging people with fiction cloaked as "the real truth", and (b) their followers, who actively seek out these "revelations". Tucker Carlson has been a malleable and 99% reliable proponent of whatever Donald Trump wants to claim is true these past 4 years and he has a huge and loyal following on Fox News. But when he experimented with telling the truth, not even about the President, but about his legal team - specifically Sidney Powell, his viewers went ballistic and labeled him "a traitor". After losing many viewers overnight, he recanted the truth. So, even when the information comes from someone they trust, it's absolutely radioactive if it doesn't conform to what they want to believe. This is not just an academic problem, as we saw on Jan 6th, but I don't know what we can do about it.

It's a long term problem caused be decline of quality objective journalism, and the increase of reliance on social media for trash news. Not sure what can reverse that at this point.

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

The trees around my house aren’t green. All the leaves fell off months ago.

No pine or spruce trees near your house?

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by massnative71

It's a long term problem caused be decline of quality objective journalism, and the increase of reliance on social media for trash news. Not sure what can reverse that at this point.

I was going to suggest the same exact thing but with more emphasis on the social media element.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s purely an education problem. Sure, in some scenarios it is, but this individual holds a very high position at a local tech company. He wouldn’t be there without education.

Maybe I should clarify. I meant rational thought, not necessarily one's degree. One doesn't need to understand that the acceleration of gravity = 9.8 m/s2 to appreciate that it works and that it's a law of nature. Rational thought would point one toward understanding that hospitalization statistics, ICU utilization, and death certificates cannot be "faked" on a mass scale required to support a conspiracy.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Maybe I should clarify. I meant rational thought, not necessarily one's degree. One doesn't need to understand that the acceleration of gravity = 9.8 m/s2 to appreciate that it works and that it's a law of nature. Rational thought would point one toward understanding that hospitalization statistics, ICU utilization, and death certificates cannot be "faked" on a mass scale required to support a conspiracy.

You'd have to have many millions of scientists, public health officials and staff, doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, morgue workers, etc ALL in on the conspiracy, with no one talking, and no one getting caught. That can't possibly work, it's ridiculous to even propose. And that's just in the USA, because Covid-19 is recognized as a deadly pandemic and grave threat around the world. These delusions about the virus being only a minor problem (or even a complete hoax), about the death toll being highly exaggerated, about political conspiracies underlying the spread of the disease - these kinds of beliefs are only widespread in the USA. Why? Easy, the USA is the only nation in the world where the President himself, and legions of aligned media voices are promoting these lies.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by AtkinsonDan

I was going to suggest the same exact thing but with more emphasis on the social media element.

The two kind of go hand in hand. Quality journalism costs money, which people won't pay for if you can get it free elsewhere. Put that together with 2020 attention spans...