Did you catch it ?

Everskyward said:
Protests and disruption do nothing to convince people on the other side
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Agree. Unfortunately in todays culture is more about getting on the evening news than convincing anyone. Which is only what mainstream media will cover. And the more outlandish the better. How many BLM or Antifa protests did not make the news at their height? Now strap on a few guns and legally invade the capital building........ Regardless, are stay at home orders the right move? Depends on which report you read. What will be interesting is if they reissue these orders when the "predicted" 2nd SARS-2 wave hits.
 
Palmpilot said:
I wonder if showing up armed-to-the-teeth at and INSIDE the Michigan legislative chamber counts as "coercive." ;)
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Well, some would argue there are levels of coercion, from offering candy as a reward to using violence. I tend to be most concerned about those, normally propagated by criminals and the government, involving the use of force or threats thereof. Clearly these protestors made no direct threats.

It certainly was legal as firearms carriage is legal in the statehouse there. I always say better to show tyrants the weapons which will be used against them before it becomes necessary to use them.

I have a rather different reaction than that mentioned by MuseChaser to seeing protestors. If they are protesting the government I almost always have an initial reaction in favor of them and their position. Then I sometimes have to stop and think more carefully if what they are saying is actually pro-freedom (which many times it is not). So I guess individual reactions vary. But then I had very positive experiences with protests during the Vietnam and civil rights era as a youth.
 
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Bell206 said:
Regardless, are stay at home orders the right move? Depends on which report you read. What will be interesting is if they reissue these orders when the "predicted" 2nd SARS-2 wave hits.
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I will re-iterate and I suspect you know what is coming. There is NO empirical evidence that the coercive lockdown measures have decreased Covid-19 deaths or cases. Please show me a preprint or paper that says it does. I do not know what "reports" you are referring to but would be happy to see any serious study (not some talking head) which shows that coercive lockdowns help here.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
There is NO empirical evidence that the coercive lockdown measures have decreased Covid-19 deaths or cases. [...] but would be happy to see any serious study...
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Of course theres no current evidence. How can you have a "serious study" when the data is still being collected and quantified? Will there be? Yes. And it will be sooner than later with all the resources being thrown at all factions of the SARS pandemic. Just look at the number of prelim studies coming out of major universities and think tanks. As to the stay at home orders, once they determine their controls/knowns I'll bet a dollar you'll have your empirical evidence one way or another as there are a lot of people who want to ensure the next crisis point is handled better. I just wonder where we would be today had we known last December what we found out about in March?
 
Bell206 said:
Of course theres no current evidence. How can you have a "serious study" when the data is still being collected and quantified? Will there be? Yes. And it will be sooner than later with all the resources being thrown at all factions of the SARS pandemic. Just look at the number of prelim studies coming out of major universities and think tanks. As to the stay at home orders, once they determine their controls/knowns I'll bet a dollar you'll have your empirical evidence one way or another as there are a lot of people who want to ensure the next crisis point is handled better. I just wonder where we would be today had we known last December what we found out about in March?
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Well, the one serious study we have looking at the data through last week, so about 8 weeks, by Reilly shows there is no effect of coercive lockdowns on Covid-19 deaths or confirmed cases, after controlling for population and population density (available here: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/22/there-is-no-empirical-evidence-for-these-lockdowns/).

So one study says no effect. No studies say there is an effect. So I don't think this is well described as "some reports say one thing, others say another". The preponderance of the present evidence indicates no effect.

Definitely agree that better knowledge earlier of what was going on would have helped. The communist government of China may have done some significant harm there.

Another note on the lack of this kind of study. I have been searching pretty hard for references of studies where they empirically looked at whether interventions have slowed down epidemics. They have been surprisingly difficult too find. So far nothing but I am continuing the literature review.
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
Well, some would argue there are levels of coercion, from offering candy as a reward to using violence. I tend to be most concerned about those, normally propagated by criminals and the government, involving the use of force or threats thereof. Clearly these protestors made no direct threats.

It certainly was legal as firearms carriage is legal in the statehouse there. I always say better to show tyrants the weapons which will be used against them before it becomes necessary to use them.

I have a rather different reaction than that mentioned by MuseChaser to seeing protestors. If they are protesting the government I almost always have an initial reaction in favor of them and their position. Then I sometimes have to stop and think more carefully if what they are saying is actually pro-freedom (which many times it is not). So I guess individual reactions vary. But then I had very positive experiences with protests during the Vietnam and civil rights era as a youth.
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In many places, it's become a dangerous game fueled mainly by unreasonable dictates by leaders who so obviously are on power trips that any semblance of reasonableness -- which really is all the other side wants -- has been lost.

I don't know anyone who objects to wearing masks and practicing good hygiene. Most people go well beyond what's minimally required, actually. When I go grocery shopping, my routine is something like this:

1. Go at an odd time to minimize contact. Usually it's during the early shopping hours because I get up early anyway.
2. Wear a mask.
3. Wipe down my hands and the cart handle before shopping.
4. Follow the directions of the one-way aisles, if so marked.
5. Maintain some distance from other shoppers.
6. Wipe down my hands before checking myself out with the bar code reader.
7. Check myself out so I have no contact with a cashier.
8. Wipe down my hands after putting the stuff in my trunk.
9. Wipe down the cart handle again after putting it in the corral, for the benefit of the next user.
10. Wipe down my hands again while returning to the car.

I go through a lot of hand wipes. But I'm not unusual. Everyone else around me is going through the same ritual. It just makes sense.

Other than the same worn joke from people who say they feel like they're at a bank robbers' convention, I haven't heard any complaints about the masks and distancing. It's a minor bother that most people willingly accept, and would accept regardless of whether Big Brother enforced it. It just makes sense, and most people intuitively realize that.

The problem arises when politicians feeding their sociopathic power trips do things that make no sense, and then double down on those things when people point out that they make no sense. Like that dingbat in Michigan who banned planting vegetable gardens, or the moron in New York City who ordered the cops -- in person -- to arrest Jewish mourners at a funeral procession in Brooklyn.

To their credit, the NYPD didn't issue a single citation or make a single arrest at the funeral. They knew de Bozo had gone way off the rails. He's freeing violent criminals from Rikers Island so they don't get sick, but he wants the cops to lock up Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn because they conducted a funeral procession? That wouldn't go over well. So the NYPD handled the problem in a peaceful, respectful, and skillful manner, basically just reminding the mourners to increase their distance from each other. And the world didn't end.

People may blame the protesters for being aggressive, but the real fault lies with leaders for whom dominating the people has become masturbation fodder. Coming up with dumb rules is one thing. Doubling down on dumb rules and extending them as punishment for people who oppose them is tyranny. And when leaders becomes tyrannical, they themselves are fomenting the people's response.

They really need to back off. Otherwise the protests are only going to get worse. All they have to do is be reasonable

Rich
 
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In Wickenburg AZ today we had several businesses opening. Police visited and showed the governor's order and said they had to clear the dining area. The owner said "I will not comply" and the police left. So far no arrests, 90 days in jail sentences, or big fines which Governor Ducey threatened last Wednesday. The sheriffs in Pinal and Mojave county said they will not permit and legal action to be taken in their counties based on his order. Several reasonable size protests about it over the last several weeks.
 
Bell206 said:
I guess you didn't look enough. The one below is from MIT. Do I think the stay at home orders in their current form were correct on face value? No. But we wont know until all the data is in.
http://news.mit.edu/2020/new-model-quantifies-impact-quarantine-measures-covid-19-spread-0416
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Actually I have seen that paper before. I suppose it may be a bit unreasonable to expect pilots generally on a pilot's board to be able to read these very technical papers (and forgive me if you specifically are comfortable reading and interpreting this type of study).

If you read the paper itself (available here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.03.20052084v1.full.pdf), rather than the summary at the news site, you will see that it is not an empirical study examining growth of the rate of cases with and without coercive lockdowns and comparing them statistically. (Little news snippets written by press agents or reporters often overplay the meaning or significance of a study and contain somewhat overblown and misleading quotes.)

Here is a brief overview of what the authors did. They tried to fit the rate of cases with two standard epidemiological models and it didn't fit so well. That was because of a commonly observed downturn in the growth rate of cases of Covid-19. They then added an additional 'quarantine' function which was learned from part of the data and showed that it gave a better fit to the data than the older models. Though they did not quantify the improvement in fit in a statistical sense relative to the noise in the dataset, but the improvements certainly look good.

This modeling study is not empirical evidence that the quarantine worked in the real world. It does claim that an additional function, beyond the classical models, is needed to fit what is going on with reported cases in those regions. But the effects which give rise to that function could be due to a whole bunch of possible causes -- could be the coercive lockdowns, could be voluntary social distancing, or could just be the natural course of this particular illness operating on a susceptible population which is smaller than the entire population.

I will also note that the data in the US does not show a difference in the level of this downturn between states with and without coercive lockdowns -- it seems to be there for both types of states. I have looked and this may form part of an upcoming preprint.

I do agree that a casual reader of the news release would conclude that this was a study which showed that quarantines work. However, I would still say one serious study showing that coercive lockdowns don't work and none that show they do. If you are comfortable critically parsing this type of work, happy to discuss its strengths and pitfalls in terms of attributing causation to coercive lockdown measures.
 
Palmpilot said:
Here's a poll taken from April 24th to 26th.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/29/poll-voters-second-wave-coronavirus-216165
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One way to interpret these results is that yes US citizens have been persuaded to buy into a very ill-advised and counter-productive lockdown strategy. The government went on a big PR blitz on this back in March to try and get people to comply with what they thought was the only way to deal with this. Given their resources, I am not surprised it was a successful PR campaign. "flattening the curve" and all that. Every person on my neighborhood board had suddenly become an expert on epidemiology and the need to "flatten the curve".
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
If you are comfortable critically parsing this type of work,
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First, be careful who you call a "pilot" on PoA. As not all of us here have to deal with that handicap. ;)

While I don't necessarily have extensive experience in this particular field, I have delved into the the depths of risk management which is very similar when it comes to statistics and empirical results. To use a singular "study" to quantify a complex and currently ongoing situation does not do anyone any good. If the NYC-Tri-State transportation system was shutdown (quarantined) the 1st week in February, how would that have affected your study? Until SARS as run its initial course, no study is valid across all demographics. Same as any risk management conclusion or recommendation. Perhaps you are validating a specific point that I'm missing. But until all the data is in, validated and peer-reviewed, it's nothing more than opinion. The other side of the equation away from the medical side involves how the stay at home orders interact with the Constitution and B of R. From a legal stand point it's this route that will make it to court vs your study.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Well, some would argue there are levels of coercion, from offering candy as a reward to using violence. I tend to be most concerned about those, normally propagated by criminals and the government, involving the use of force or threats thereof. Clearly these protestors made no direct threats.
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Yeah see here's what you and most other gun nuts don't ever seem to be able to comprehend. What is or is not perceived as a threat by others has absolutely nothing to do with what the law says you can or cannot do.

If you show up brandishing a gun in a public place where brandishing a gun is not the norm, there will be people who will perceive that as a threat. Not talking about law here, not talking about what's right here, just talking about reality. It is what it is and their perception is just as valid as yours.

I always say better to show tyrants the weapons which will be used against them before it becomes necessary to use them.
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I get how someone could feel that way. But probably worth while to remember that those who feel differently have exactly the same number of votes as you. If you think scaring the sh*t out of them is the best way to get you where you want to go, so be it. History will decide how that works out for you I suppose.

I have a rather different reaction than that mentioned by MuseChaser to seeing protestors. If they are protesting the government I almost always have an initial reaction in favor of them and their position.
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Wow no bias there. :rolleyes:
 
Palmpilot said:
I don't remember if this has been posted here or not, but it's a ray of hope. (Human trials began a week ago.)

6 monkeys given an experimental coronavirus vaccine from Oxford did not catch COVID-19 after heavy exposure, raising hopes for a human vaccine
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Of even more interest here is the fact that human trials have begun. However, if this is a Phase 1 trial, I would guess that its purpose is not to test effectiveness but rather to determine safety and the side effect profile. (The article does not say, I am only surmising here, and I could be wrong.)

When candidate vaccines are ready for effectiveness testing, the idea has been floated of trying to accelerate the process by exposing inoculated volunteers to the virus. As far as I know, that has never been done before because of the obvious ethical implications. The fact that it is being discussed now speaks volumes about just how desperate the situation is.
 
Bell206 said:
To use a singular "study" to quantify a complex and currently ongoing situation does not do anyone any good. If the NYC-Tri-State transportation system was shutdown (quarantined) the 1st week in February, how would that have affected your study? Until SARS as run its initial course, no study is valid across all demographics. Same as any risk management conclusion or recommendation. Perhaps you are validating a specific point that I'm missing. But until all the data is in, validated and peer-reviewed, it's nothing more than opinion. The other side of the equation away from the medical side involves how the stay at home orders interact with the Constitution and B of R. From a legal stand point it's this route that will make it to court vs your study.
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Agreed that the legal issues will need to be decided in court. Empirical evidence could play a part in it depending on the judge as the question will inevitably arise of what sort of evidence is required to suspend rights.

I think there is a meaningful distinction between "just opinion" and reasonable studies in preprint form. Clearly peer-reviewed is the standard (though still far from perfect) but it is possible to judge the quality of studies to a fair degree in preprint form. And a serious scholar going to the trouble of writing something up and posting it publicly with their name attached is better than "just opinion". Unfortunately Reilly's study is the only one to look at empirical data on this question so far. I am actually surprised that is the case as I would think that epidemiologists would be all over it. A bunch of modeling studies but I imagine we might agree on the limitations of those in inferring causality.

So based on the data which is presently available I think it is fair to say that a preponderance suggests that at least in the US coercive lockdowns have not decreased Covid-19 deaths or slowed their growth.

Of course that may need revision based on further data and analysis. I would be pleasantly surprised if such future studies arrive, but I do wonder if they will. I have not been able to find such a study of SARS or MERs. Maybe this time will be different as you suggest -- I hope so.

Sadly I think public policy is often driven primarily by things other than facts and analysis. And certainly in the case of Covid-19 the government made recommendations based on little to no actual data. I am not aware of any formal cost-benefit or risk analysis for the lockdown which were performed in the state of Arizona before the order came out. And Ioannidis at Stanford warned that politicians were making decisions based on inadequate information.

And fun about don't assume people are pilots ;) I would not have expected that but I suppose maybe there is a different connection to aviation?
 
azure said:
Of even more interest here is the fact that human trials have begun. However, if this is a Phase 1 trial, I would guess that its purpose is not to test effectiveness but rather to determine safety and the side effect profile. (The article does not say, I am only surmising here, and I could be wrong.)

When candidate vaccines are ready for effectiveness testing, the idea has been floated of trying to accelerate the process by exposing inoculated volunteers to the virus. As far as I know, that has never been done before because of the obvious ethical implications. The fact that it is being discussed now speaks volumes about just how desperate the situation is.
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More information on the human trials:

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage
 
Palmpilot said:
More information on the human trials:

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage
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Thanks. Sounds like it is looking for both the side effect profile and effectiveness at the same time. Interesting and rather aggressive approach, but relying on community transmission rather than deliberate exposure. The irony here is that the very measures being taken to reduce community transmission are likely to prolong the time before useful results from the study are known.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
<deleted ad hominem attacks> What is or is not perceived as a threat by others has absolutely nothing to do with what the law says you can or cannot do.

If you show up brandishing a gun in a public place where brandishing a gun is not the norm, there will be people who will perceive that as a threat. Not talking about law here, not talking about what's right here, just talking about reality. It is what it is and their perception is just as valid as yours.
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Please let's avoid the personal attacks, ok? (I don't imagine you meant any offense and were excited.)

What you say is true and I understand this perfectly well actually. Some people are threatened by or are afraid of guns per se. I don't think that is necessarily a reason to refrain from the use of firearms to make a point about the government. It sounds like we agree that the Covid-19 protestors had the right to carry their long guns.

Whether such protest with long guns makes the point effectively I view as a matter of tactics which is actually debated extensively within even the open-carry community. I suspect that such carriage does serve to remind our elected officials that American citizens are armed, they are armed for a reason, and that does serve as a deterrent to unjustified seizures of power.

I could go on but fear this is treading on exclusively on political ground. If you want to discuss gun politics with me, happy to do so, but let's do it in PMs here or another forum.
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
And fun about don't assume people are pilots ;) I would not have expected that but I suppose maybe there is a different connection to aviation?
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I think most people here are pilots of some sort.

I was a XC solo and a checkride away when the old lady and I split, and I wanted to move before she changed her mind. I intended to finish up after I moved, but I got into ultralights and found I enjoyed them more. More fun, less bull****.

I may finish my ticket at some point just to say I did it. But I may also start over again, sort of, and go SP Weight-Shift-Control (aka "trikes"), just so I can carry a passenger if I find someone silly enough to want to do that. I enjoy trikes more than airplanes, and I already know how to fly them (there's not a whole lot to it), so it would probably be pretty easy.

Rich
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
I would think that epidemiologists would be all over it.
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Key words. They're not. There are a lot of people looking for their 15 seconds right now. Outside of PoA who else publically promotes this study?
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Of course that may need revision based on further data and analysis.
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More key words. This is my entire point. Cant count the chickens until they hatch.
PeterNSteinmetz said:
I have not been able to find such a study of SARS or MERs.
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The damage they caused was miniscule compared to SARS-2. There will be people writing their doctoral dissertations on SARS-2 for the next 50 years across all disciplines.
PeterNSteinmetz said:
don't assume people are pilots ;) I would not have expected that
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You need to get out more. There's more to PoA than COVID discussions and flying somewhere for breakfast.
 
Bell206 said:
Key words. They're not. There are a lot of people looking for their 15 seconds right now. Outside of PoA who else publically promotes this study?
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You are correct, perhaps the exposure has been limited. A few sites have picked it up. I know he is publishing a follow-on for Spiked.

This is my entire point. Cant count the chickens until they hatch.
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I guess we disagree a bit there. I think given the enormous ongoing damage, we need to count'em now as best we can and act. And I regard repealing coercive actions as something that can be justifiably done on the basis of much less complete information than enacting the coercive actions in the first place.

The damage they caused was miniscule compared to SARS-2.
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Good point.

You need to get out more. There's more to PoA than COVID discussions and flying somewhere for breakfast.
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Do tell. What do you suggest to also look at that might be of interest.
 
I don't post much, but figured I'd toss one into this thread. Peter, I hope you're right, and that "coercive" government measures make no difference. Because if you're wrong, about half the states in the US have just screwed themselves. And I fear they may have.

I've got a semi-pertinent background (not worth going into details on) and the only insight I can provide is that the data is crap. The case counts all seem to be testing limited, with inconsistent selection of who gets tested. Even the death counts show suspicious signs of being crappy - are states counting all deaths preceded with flu-like symptoms as COVID-related? Some seem to. Others seem to only count those fatalities that had been tested (and tests have been scarce). So at a minimum both death and case counts are systematically biased (but in a so-far-unknown way), and there may be a significant undercount of deaths. If the latter is the case, then we may be about to really be hosed with the many state reopenings.

If Peter is right, the states that continue to hold on to stay at home orders will fare about the same as those that don't, and maybe things will pan out about how they have in Washington state (picked as an example because they got it early, so may be further along - they also shut down early and continue to be mostly shut down). Washington seems to be leveling out at a lowish new case and death rate. So if the deaths cap out in this first wave somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000, Peter probably wins the internet.

If Peter is wrong, then most other states will fare worse -- and maybe far worse. Based on the sorry state of the data, my fear is that the total deaths may be passing through 200,000, and climbing, by mid / late summer. In that case, Peter loses, but so do the rest of us.

So, I'm rooting for you, man.
 
TonyG said:
I don't post much, but figured I'd toss one into this thread. Peter, I hope you're right, and that "coercive" government measures make no difference. Because if you're wrong, about half the states in the US have just screwed themselves. And I fear they may have.

I've got a semi-pertinent background (not worth going into details on) and the only insight I can provide is that the data is crap. The case counts all seem to be testing limited, with inconsistent selection of who gets tested. Even the death counts show suspicious signs of being crappy - are states counting all deaths preceded with flu-like symptoms as COVID-related? Some seem to. Others seem to only count those fatalities that had been tested (and tests have been scarce). So at a minimum both death and case counts are systematically biased (but in a so-far-unknown way), and there may be a significant undercount of deaths. If the latter is the case, then we may be about to really be hosed with the many state reopenings.

If Peter is right, the states that continue to hold on to stay at home orders will fare about the same as those that don't, and maybe things will pan out about how they have in Washington state (picked as an example because they got it early, so may be further along - they also shut down early and continue to be mostly shut down). Washington seems to be leveling out at a lowish new case and death rate. So if the deaths cap out in this first wave somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000, Peter probably wins the internet.

If Peter is wrong, then most other states will fare worse -- and maybe far worse. Based on the sorry state of the data, my fear is that the total deaths may be passing through 200,000, and climbing, by mid / late summer. In that case, Peter loses, but so do the rest of us.

So, I'm rooting for you, man.
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And then we have this...

front-cover.jpg


which isn't the kind of thing that lends itself to epidemiological modeling in any sane world.

Rich
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Please let's avoid the personal attacks, ok? (I don't imagine you meant any offense and were excited.)
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There was NO attack in anything I wrote. I'm a gun owner myself. If the words 'Gun Nut' in and of itself comes across as an attack to you, well there's probably not much you and I are ever going to see eye to eye on. Which kind of explains a lot about why you seem to be so up tight about some government actions actually.

What you say is true and I understand this perfectly well actually. Some people are threatened by or are afraid of guns per se. I don't think that is necessarily a reason to refrain from the use of firearms to make a point about the government. It sounds like we agree that the Covid-19 protestors had the right to carry their long guns.
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Absolutely they had the right. Similarly I have the right to be an a**hole anytime I want. Doesn't mean anyone else, public or government alike, will be persuaded to see things my way just because I exercise that right. Food for thought that, don't you think?

I suspect that such carriage does serve to remind our elected officials that American citizens are armed, they are armed for a reason, and that does serve as a deterrent to unjustified seizures of power.
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Just like you I don't want to get into such discussions on this forum nor in this context but I would offer that its entirely possible that you suspect wrong. All that you are doing by storming the capital with your guns out is showing those who are like minded that you are indeed like minded and showing those who are not like minded how effing stupid you are. And if that is your goal, then by all means carry on.
 
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Very good points about the limitations of the data and I suppose it is possible we will never know how badly the data was messed with and then maybe I can never win the internet thanks.

I suspect a real possibility is that none of the coercive interventions have mattered but that people voluntarily choosing to distance, especially those who are vulnerable, will have a useful impact.

This would mean that things will go along at some sort of tolerable level from a resources perspective and we will never see a difference between states with coercive and non-coercive measures.
 
TonyG said:
I don't post much, but figured I'd toss one into this thread. Peter, I hope you're right, and that "coercive" government measures make no difference. Because if you're wrong, about half the states in the US have just screwed themselves. And I fear they may have.

I've got a semi-pertinent background (not worth going into details on) and the only insight I can provide is that the data is crap. The case counts all seem to be testing limited, with inconsistent selection of who gets tested. Even the death counts show suspicious signs of being crappy - are states counting all deaths preceded with flu-like symptoms as COVID-related? Some seem to. Others seem to only count those fatalities that had been tested (and tests have been scarce). So at a minimum both death and case counts are systematically biased (but in a so-far-unknown way), and there may be a significant undercount of deaths. If the latter is the case, then we may be about to really be hosed with the many state reopenings.

If Peter is right, the states that continue to hold on to stay at home orders will fare about the same as those that don't, and maybe things will pan out about how they have in Washington state (picked as an example because they got it early, so may be further along - they also shut down early and continue to be mostly shut down). Washington seems to be leveling out at a lowish new case and death rate. So if the deaths cap out in this first wave somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000, Peter probably wins the internet.

If Peter is wrong, then most other states will fare worse -- and maybe far worse. Based on the sorry state of the data, my fear is that the total deaths may be passing through 200,000, and climbing, by mid / late summer. In that case, Peter loses, but so do the rest of us.

So, I'm rooting for you, man.
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What about the states that never closed?

my biggest problem is the one size fits all slash and burn to our entire economy. What’s right in NYC is very different from what’s right in any town Montana. The policies have been sort of guided by science but mainly have been driven by political agendas.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
There was NO attack in anything I wrote.
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I’m glad to hear you did not intend it that way.

well there's probably not much you and I are ever going to see eye to eye on.
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I would hope not but that could be true. Very different perspectives may explain some of the apparent difficulties we have had with communication here as of late. I actually enjoy discussing with people with very different perspectives to expand my horizons a bit so long as it is done politely and respectfully.

Food for thought that, don't you think?
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Yes definitely. Just let me know if you like to discuss off forum.

but I would offer that its entirely possible that you suspect wrong.
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Certainly, my level of confidence when I say I suspect something is much lower than when I say something like “it is probable” or “likely” or “there is no empirical evidence”. A much softer call.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
What about the states that never closed?

my biggest problem is the one size fits all slash and burn to our entire economy. What’s right in NYC is very different from what’s right in any town Montana. The policies have been sort of guided by science but mainly have been driven by political agendas.
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But this is a straw man because states made their own decisions. I would agree that some states with both rural and densely populated areas should have treated those areas differently. Some states and counties did.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Yes definitely. Just let me know if you like to discuss off forum.
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Thanks for the offer. But I don't enjoy discussions of politics with my wife who is like minded and who loves me. So I definitely don't enjoy them with people who aren't like minded and who don't love me.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Thanks for the offer. But I don't enjoy discussions of politics with my wife who is like minded and who loves me. So I definitely don't enjoy them with people who aren't like minded and who don't love me.
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I respect your desires. People differ a lot in this. I enjoy political discussions and always have. Picked it up at home as a kid I think. My parents often engaged in these and had many very enjoyable guests with whom they would discuss. Have to restrain myself here lest the moderators boot me
 
Tarheelpilot said:
What about the states that never closed?

my biggest problem is the one size fits all slash and burn to our entire economy. What’s right in NYC is very different from what’s right in any town Montana. The policies have been sort of guided by science but mainly have been driven by political agendas.
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All I can say is it would be really tough being a governor right now - in any state. You'd be faced with the most significant decision of your life - with no good options and very little solid information to base it on. You could gripe about the lack of testing, but it is now what it is. So you'd know you were screwing up - that it would only be luck that let you get the "perfect" balance between killing people and keeping the economy going.

Go too far on the lockdown side? You crush the economy, causing all sorts of real damage to people's lives. But the estimates on how bad - how much damage you'll cause - will also be "noisy". But maybe you save lives. But you don't know.

Go too lax and let the virus run too free and you kill a crap-ton of people. Maybe. You overrun the hospitals, killing more and crushing the economy. Maybe.

And there's no definitive guide or really solid information for sorting out the "best" decision. Maybe the data is better than what I believe, but these folks making decisions are in a tough spot. And they'll only know how right or wrong they were after things settle out (a year from now? two?).

So no sir, I wouldn't want to be a governor right now.
 
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