You and Bartricks claim that either you-all, or other people, are locked down. Maybe in China. But I am specifically unaware of anyone anywhere being locked down, I submit to you your florid language has contaminated your thinking, making of it a foul thing on a philosophy site. Or maybe you just plain do not know what "lock-down" means. So what is it? Ignorance? Or something worse? — tim wood

You're the one getting foul, as shown by your initial response. And if you don't think there have been lockdowns in the US in the past year you're either lying or ignorant. There haven't been lockdowns? We've seen people get arrested for surfing alone, hiking alone, driving alone, being too far from home alone in their car. We've seen multiple stories of cops beating people up for not wearing their mask or even for wearing their mask "improperly." I could link you a dozen such stories without trying very hard. Just this very morning a woman was arrested for refusing to wear her mask in a bank in Texas, which has just repealed its mask law. A 65 year old woman. It's beneath you to post in such a disingenuous manner. This conversation is not productive.

But here are some more links.

The WSJ thinks there were lockdowns, why don't you take your delusions and gaslighting to them?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lockdowns-werent-worth-it-11615485413?mod=djemalertNEWS

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/12/democrats-are-sacrificing-american-kids-lives-to-get-more-power/

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-lost-year-what-the-pandemic-cost-teenagers

https://reason.com/2021/03/11/stop-trying-to-create-a-zero-risk-society-covid-19/

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/11/one-year-later-vindication-for-lockdown-skeptics/

Do you even read your references? LIke this one?

'Democrats Are Sacrificing American Kids’ Lives To Get More Power
If a child doesn't have to die to save grandma from coronavirus, why would we ever let that child die? A heartbreaking longread from ProPublica challenges the nation.
Joy PullmannBy Joy Pullmann
MARCH 12, 2021
One year ago, when lockdowns began, Americans were told we had to make a terrible choice akin to the climax of the superhero movies in which a villain threatens two things the hero loves, forcing him to choose which to save and which to sacrifice. We were told that millions of Americans were going to die from a Chinese supervirus, and the only way to reduce that death toll from inflating even higher through overloaded hospital systems was to accept other kinds of suffering. Americans thus readily agreed to “two weeks to slow the spread.”

If you buy this, you're a whack-job. Let's start with "Democrats are Sacrificing Kids' Lives to Get More Power." Really? Is this you, fishfry? Good at math but otherwise completely tone deaf?

And continuing:
"As cases steadily rose over those two weeks, as predicted and normal with infection curves, we were told those two weeks needed to stretch into four, then six. Then the alleged Sophie’s choice shifted.

As data began to come in showing that the majority of those dangerously threatened by COVID-19 were in their last years and months of life, the equation turned into selflessly sacrificing the young and healthy to protect the old and vulnerable. People who showed any resistance to perpetual lockdowns and civil rights infringements against the healthy were told they were “grandma killers” and racist would-be “mass murderers.”

We were told the only way to save grandma was to sacrifice everything that makes life worth living for everyone else. But what if this is false? What if the equation has been different?"
-----
And by the way, The United States of America, pride of the planet and the greatest thing since sliced bread, in its handling of Covid came in a deadly last or next to last. And who was our fearless leader for all of that? If you're not a least a little sickened by this - and the same wind blows through your other citations - then there is something sick about you. I commend to you a careful, critical read of the materials you've cited. If you find anything at all that even seems like it might true, copy and paste it here.

And as to the "kids." I've done some research and listened to some interviews with mental health professionals. Near as I can tell, some kids are bothered. but what they're bothered by is that the world that was represented to them they're finding out is not the real world. I acknowledge that getting cross-checked by reality can be unsettling, and that those that are very bothered may need some attention, but it seems many of these are much overgrown infants who need some ego-strengthening, including being weaned.

Covid, imo, is best represented to people who cannot grasp what it is and what it means as a man with a gun who is shooting people in your neighborhood and even at the places you want to go. Except the reality is more complicated and worse. But stick with the man with a gun for simplicity's sake. He's at the grocery store when you are, shooting all the people he can hit. Are you going to that store? Now make it clear to me how this analogy fails, because I think it's a pretty good partial representation. The missing part is that if you get shot, then you become a shooter yourself and go home to shoot your family and neighbors.

But that aside, the people who know tell us one thing, and have been consistently. The fools, grifters, con-men, conspiracy nut-jobs, reality deniers, political opportunists, and plain liars tell us something opposite. Who are you going to go with? You recognize the authority of reason in math - but not anywhere else?

Consider: from 1939-1945 two of the most industrious peoples on the planet ground it out with the rest of the world in a world-wide war, eventually with little restraint on lethality of weapons, tactics or strategy. And about 425,000 American military killed. Covid, one year, 500,000+ killed. Are you able to process that?

Do you even read your references? — tim wood

This is not a productive conversation. "What lockdowns?" is not a serious response to any of the material in this thread. It'll take a few years before people start to get some perspective and see 2020 as the mass hysteria that it was. If only we could have found some witches to burn, but we'll have to settle for beating up people for not wearing masks.

https://reason.com/2020/05/04/a-new-york-cop-beat-someone-up-over-social-distancing-will-nypd-policing-finally-change-now/

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/27/939499357/french-police-officers-in-custody-after-video-emerges-of-brutal-beating-of-black

https://www.amny.com/new-york/brooklyn/police-violently-arrest-man-in-brooklyn-and-threaten-bystanders-for-not-wearing-masks/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/video-of-cop-beating-man-for-not-wearing-mask-goes-viral/articleshow/79784988.cms

I forgot that. For you a lockdown seems to be when a bar has to close its doors. For me a lockdown is a lockdown, like a curfew, but all day. That is, in a lockdown, you stay where you are or else. In your kind, there are simply places you cannot go, either at all, or only under certain conditions.

And what mass hysteria? Where I live, it took a while to evolve to the realization that many stores had to limit their business, in some ways scarcely at all; that people should wear masks in public, and that people should practice social distancing. The only people who went nuts were the nuts themselves. And observe the track of non-engagement of the troll. I ask you questions and challenge your citations and you are completely non-responsive. Whereas you posted garbage and I read some of it.

I ask you questions and challenge your citations and you are completely non-responsive. — tim wood

For the record I won't be responding to you on this issue. "What lockdowns?" Come on, man.

As pointed out previously, the forum has a rash of Sovereign Citizens. — Banno

Oxymorons, you mean. I've had a few brushes with members of the Posse Comitatus in my time. I particularly enjoy the statements such folk make about the law. It gladdens my heart to know there are people who can contrive such lunacy from it.

When I look at history and go way back, and see what humanity has went thru, these lockdowns are way down the list of tribulations that we have survived. If anyone follows the words of Marcus Aurelius, you can see that most of the modern comfort creatures that would dry up and blow away when the stores close, are purely humanists not interested in seeing the universe as a whole.

...mass hysteria... — fishfry

534,000 deaths in your country.

Less than a thousand in mine. Lockdowns work. Where yours went wrong was to lock down too late, and hence for too long.

Doesn't help when a self-obsessed narcist who knew the extent but purposely downplayed the severity of the situation to bolster his image and Wall Street numbers was in charge. To be fair, both sides were not at a mental place to do what it actually took to prevent it- stop all air travel from all countries immediately. One side would say overreaction and economic reasons, the other side would site xenophobia and also economic reasons.

To be fair again.. it was probably already in many countries prior to when it became considered a "pandemic".

534,000 deaths in your country.

Less than a thousand in mine. Lockdowns work. Where yours went wrong was to lock down too late, and hence for too long. — Banno

The pandemic is subsiding for us. The virus is on its way to becoming endemic on most of the planet.

Your battle has only begun.

The pandemic is subsiding for us. The virus is on its way to becoming endemic on most of the planet.

Your battle has only begun. — frank

How does that negate the 500,000 + people that died though?

534,000 deaths in your country.

Less than a thousand in mine. Lockdowns work. Where yours went wrong was to lock down too late, and hence for too long. — Banno

Remain humble my friend :flower:

534,000 deaths in your country.

Less than a thousand in mine. Lockdowns work. Where yours went wrong was to lock down too late, and hence for too long. — Banno

Idk why it takes so long for someone to say the most obvious points. Finally!

The claim would then have to be that lockdowns killed more than 40700-40800 Australians (adjusted for population, you can check the math yourself). I find that highly unlikely. Especially not due to the causes you mentioned such as domestic abuse or suicide. Domestic abuse death cases in Australia numbered 48 in 2020.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/48-women-have-now-been-killed-violently-in-australia-this-year/#:~:text=And%20it%20didn%27t%20make,recorded%20in%20a%20single%20day.

And suicide rates don't seem to have increased much either. There was no statistically significant increase at all in Queensland lockdown:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30435-1/fulltext

So you're still short over 40,000 deaths that were supposedly caused by this lockdown. Your claim that these deaths will come from "locked down kids killing themselves" is total bunk. And to say the Australian lockdowns caused 40,000 deaths in the 3rd world is a pretty big claim. And even if it were true, it could easily be argued that the Australian government is justified in favoring saving its own citizens lives over the lives of people in 3rd world countries that rely on its trade. What kind of government would not put its citizens first?

Not hubris; I'm well aware of the luck that played a great part in our avoiding the worst. That we have so far has such success is astonishing. The cogent part is that short, sharp, hard lockdowns have succeeded in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. We've avoided, for the most part, lockdowns of months on end, and the resentment they engender.

This in contradiction of the OP. A smaller discomfort spread across the whole has avoided a greater discomfort across the many. Adults accept responsibility beyond their own desires. THat's something that the myth of the individual hides from those who fall for it.

It doesn't, of course. I've noticed that @Frank has difficulty sticking with an argument, especially when it leads him where he would not go.

I'm interested in your thoughts on the first point though..
No one from either side of the aisle would have advocated mass shutdowns of international travel when it was most needed.. probably mid-February.. That would have taken foresight and wisdom no one had.

I'm interested in your thoughts on the first point though.. — schopenhauer1

Not sure what you mean. Shutdowns occur here when there are signs of local transmission.

Not sure what you mean. Shutdowns occur here when there are signs of local transmission. — Banno

I'm talking about when this first began.. the real shutdown that should have happened at the very beginning. I wonder if there was anyone advocating for complete shutdown of international travel

How does that negate the 500,000 + people that died though? — schopenhauer1

It doesnt. For the most part, lockdowns were used to reduce the load on healthcare systems. In Europe and the US, the virus was out of control before it was clear how dangerous it was. That's partly because it mutated in Europe early on.

It's really only in places like Australia that lockdowns were used to eliminate the presence of the virus. The notion that lockdowns are successful at saving Australian lives is myopic. Let's be optimistic and say vaccination programs keep it at bay for a century or two. The virus will be there eventually and it will kill a lot of Australians.

All that remains is to note that Australians can out-crass Americans. Impressive.

Australian borders were closed to all non-residents on 20 March.

For US that wouldn't have been early enough. Someone would have had to declare it before even the WHO did, and that takes real insight and wisdom that no one had. Imagine someone saying, "Hey let's lock everything down.. this shit is going to be ridiculously deadly.. here's the projection!!" And then having someone take them seriously. And then having people agree with this without someone saying, "You anti-(China, other country) xenaphobe! Or someone saying, "You fuckwit.. you are going to shut down the economy for speculation on this? Look it's way over there!" Well, hindsight is always 20/20 and no one is ever wrong on any of these critical decisions when they were made.

In Europe and the US, the virus was out of control before it was clear how dangerous it was. — frank

That's mostly because of the arrogance of an idiot who chose to wilfully ignore the scientific advice.

Australians can out-crass Americans. — frank

It's a fuckin' art form, mate.

That's mostly because of the arrogance of an idiot who chose to wilfully ignore the scientific advice. — Banno

That's incorrect.

That's incorrect. — frank

That's totally correct. To have the most narcissistic person in power of the executive branch during a pandemic that is about how others are affected.. Eek. There were no great decisions made.. He's lucky there were people willing to subvert him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html

That's totally correct. To have the most narcissistic person in power of the executive branch during a pandemic that is about how others are affected.. Eek. There were no great decisions made.. He's lucky there were people willing to subvert him. — schopenhauer1

I'm not defending Trump. I'm telling you it was too late to control the virus with contact tracing at the point NY knew the virus was present. That's just the facts.

Perhaps you would like to comment on this statement I was discussing with Banno:

For US that wouldn't have been early enough. Someone would have had to declare it before even the WHO did, and that takes real insight and wisdom that no one had. Imagine someone saying, "Hey let's lock everything down.. this shit is going to be ridiculously deadly.. here's the projection!!" And then having someone take them seriously. And then having people agree with this without someone saying, "You anti-(China, other country) xenaphobe! Or someone saying, "You fuckwit.. you are going to shut down the economy for speculation on this? Look it's way over there!" Well, hindsight is always 20/20 and no one is ever wrong on any of these critical decisions when they were made. — schopenhauer1

Anyway, this Trumpeting is off the OP.


The cogent point is that the ho-ha about rights ignores the converse responsibilities we have to each other. As i said before, those advocating rights over responsibility are selfish dicks.

For US that wouldn't have been early enough. — schopenhauer1

Yes. The US closed it's border to Europe on March 11. They had already closed the border to China. The virus had probably been in NY about two weeks before the first known case in Washington.

You're right that inexperience played a part in America's difficulty in dealing with it. One of the biggest problems early on was a delay in testing created by the CDC.

One of the biggest problems early on was a delay in testing created by the CDC. — frank

Sure..that didn't need to be in place for someone with balls to have said CLOSE THE FUCKN BORDER EARLY!