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Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away


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35 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Why? What does it matter that the soda industry is private? He was just giving a different way to think about priorities. If we're willing to spend 50 billion a year on producing soda as a society, maybe we should be willing to spend that on an important health function like testing. You may disagree, but I don't think it is inflammatory to make that suggestion. 

Society did not spend $50B on soda, corporations that get profits for doing so do.  It’s a dumb comparison, dumb comment and we are all dumber for having heard it. He should give back his noble prize and may god have mercy on his soul.

Edited by Enchubben
Gdamn punctuation
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Someone please catch me up here because I’ve spent less and less time following this thread, for obvious reasons, and have not been involved in the medical discussion thread.
 

The original fear driving the flattening of the curve was running out of ventilators. Am I correct? I’ve also seen several mentions of ventilators actually having adverse effects in the recovery of patients and doctors not universally prescribing this method. Is this accurate?

I’m too lazy to type my full thoughts on this and some will presume I don’t care about saving lives, but the truth is I’m honestly wondering what the benefit of continuing to flatten the curve is? Where will the bottleneck in our medical community occur if we open the gates? 
 

I say all this with the belief that we cannot possibly protect everyone with underlying conditions prior to a successful vaccine creation, necessary trials, and distribution. So, what causes more people to die at this point in the game by slowing it down, availability of medicine, doctors, knowledge? I’m truly ignorant on this and haven’t researched it.

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13 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

Society did not spend $50B on soda, corporations that get profits for doing so do.  It’s a dumb comparison, dumb comment and we are all dumber for having heard it. He should give back his noble prize and may god have mercy on his soul.

Corporations are part of society as are the people that work for them and the people that purchase stuff from them. Capitalism is a mechanism our society uses to allocate resources. I leave determining the state of your dumbness to you .  

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2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Corporations are part of society as are the people that work for them and the people that purchase stuff from them. Capitalism is a mechanism our society uses to allocate resources. I leave determining the state of your dumbness to you .  

Take the L, bro.

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9 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Corporations are part of society as are the people that work for them and the people that purchase stuff from them. Capitalism is a mechanism our society uses to allocate resources. I leave determining the state of your dumbness to you .  

Congrats on posting the most meaningless post of the day so far.

"Corporations are part of society" that's beauteeeeeeee-full.

 

I'm sure you are confused Hobs my man. You keep swinging for those fences though.

Edited by Onboard 2.0
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11 minutes ago, Casual Encounter said:

The original fear driving the flattening of the curve was running out of ventilators. Am I correct? I’ve also seen several mentions of ventilators actually having adverse effects in the recovery of patients and doctors not universally prescribing this method. Is this accurate?

Yeah, I think this is getting lost in the discussion. Our goal was never to "make sure nobody gets sick", it was to make sure supplies, doctors, hospitals, etc. were not overrun. 

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57 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

 How do you spend before hand for a test for a virus that has just burst on the scene ?  

What we should be spending on is a huge stock pile of masks, gloves, other viral protection equipment, and clothing, immediate care MASH style filed hospitals.  Those are things we can spend on (thru gov't resources).

Those are good.  Some other things to spend defense dollars on (I mean, defending against the things that are most likely to harm Americans seems like a good use of "defense" dollars):

- a robust, multi-national monitoring program watching for emergent disease threats.  Have real boots on the ground, coordinating with local health officials everywhere that emerging diseases may come from.  That definitely means Africa, South America, and yep, China.  We gather military intelligence in all of those places -- we need to gather communicable disease intelligence as well.

- implement real pandemic response protocols and run drills -- not just medical drills, but operational drills across the board (including things like travel restrictions, ramping up testing of people traveling from high-risk areas, etc.).

- spend government contract money to have essential chemicals (reagents, drugs, etc.) sourced and manufactured domestically.  It costs more to have them made here, but that ensures that we have a supply.  If bullets were something we didn't have a huge stockpile of, it would be madness to offshore all or our bullet purchasing -- the army would run out of ammo in a week when foreign sources shut down.  The same is true with pandemic response materials.

- have multiple factories set up to gear up production of infectious disease tests, and vaccines.  Spend the money to have them equipped and ready to switch over on short notice.  It's insurance money, well-spent.

51 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Yeah. So are air craft carriers and airplanes. Defense is defense. There's a fuck ton of energy plants in Texas that sit around on Standby all year till summertime as well. 

Yep.  Defense is defense, and you plan and prepare by having things relatively ready to go, not by reacting after the fact.  The state protecting the people from outside harm is a core part of the social contract. 

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10 minutes ago, Casual Encounter said:

Someone please catch me up here because I’ve spent less and less time following this thread, for obvious reasons, and have not been involved in the medical discussion thread.
 

The original fear driving the flattening of the curve was running out of ventilators. Am I correct? I’ve also seen several mentions of ventilators actually having adverse effects in the recovery of patients and doctors not universally prescribing this method. Is this accurate?

I’m too lazy to type my full thoughts on this and some will presume I don’t care about saving lives, but the truth is I’m honestly wondering what the benefit of continuing to flatten the curve is? Where will the bottleneck in our medical community occur if we open the gates? 
 

I say all this with the belief that we cannot possibly protect everyone with underlying conditions prior to a successful vaccine creation, necessary trials, and distribution. So, what causes more people to die at this point in the game by slowing it down, availability of medicine, doctors, knowledge? I’m truly ignorant on this and haven’t researched it.

Ventilators are one potential bottleneck, but not the only one. Other bottlenecks include: (a) the number of healthcare professionals and their available time to work with patients, (b) the number of hospital beds, (c) availability of protective gear for healthcare workers, and (d) the availability of testing and medication. And I'm sure there are others. Each of those has been stressed to varying degrees in the outbreak hot spots (e.g., NY, NJ, Italy, Spain). Some were more negatively affected than others. 

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2 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Yeah, I think this is getting lost in the discussion. Our goal was never to "make sure nobody gets sick", it was to make sure supplies, doctors, hospitals, etc. were not overrun. 

Oh sure, so you mean you aren't on team "If this can save just one life!".  uncaring capitalist!

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Those are good.  Some other things to spend defense dollars on (I mean, defending against the things that are most likely to harm Americans seems like a good use of "defense" dollars):

- a robust, multi-national monitoring program watching for emergent disease threats.  Have real boots on the ground, coordinating with local health officials everywhere that emerging diseases may come from.  That definitely means Africa, South America, and yep, China.  We gather military intelligence in all of those places -- we need to gather communicable disease intelligence as well.

- implement real pandemic response protocols and run drills -- not just medical drills, but operational drills across the board (including things like travel restrictions, ramping up testing of people traveling from high-risk areas, etc.).

- spend government contract money to have essential chemicals (reagents, drugs, etc.) sourced and manufactured domestically.  It costs more to have them made here, but that ensures that we have a supply.  If bullets were something we didn't have a huge stockpile of, it would be madness to offshore all or our bullet purchasing -- the army would run out of ammo in a week when foreign sources shut down.  The same is true with pandemic response materials.

- have multiple factories set up to gear up production of infectious disease tests, and vaccines.  Spend the money to have them equipped and ready to switch over on short notice.  It's insurance money, well-spent.

Yep.  Defense is defense, and you plan and prepare by having things relatively ready to go, not by reacting after the fact.  The state protecting the people from outside harm is a core part of the social contract. 

CDC is part of our national defense. I hope there's a  govt. agency somewhere watching all this, and beginning to create a plan going forward with this and future pandemics. 

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Just now, Onboard 2.0 said:

CDC is part of our national defense. I hope there's a  govt. agency somewhere watching all this, and beginning to create a plan going forward with this and future pandemics. 

I agree.  We can discuss this, but it will have to happen in the CR -- you and I both know that.

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1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Things take time regardless of the need.  Supply chains are physical things, not theoretical problems.  I'm sure people are moving as fast as they can.

Manufacturers that actually produce the products can’t get the materials to catch up with demand, so no amount of additional production capacity is going to fix the problem unless you start at square one. Square one tends to be in other countries which we don’t control. However, they are in the business of making money with less restrictions than we have, so if the answer was as simple as spinning up additional production it would have been done by now.

My actual point was that the hospital that administers/runs the test still has no idea when reagent will come available. They bought the equipment around the 25th of March with the understanding they would be able to start running tests that week. They have been told weekly it will be there soon, yet they still sit waiting on reagent. Ultimately, no one knows the timeline for same day testing nationwide at this point.

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15 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Corporations are part of society as are the people that work for them and the people that purchase stuff from them. Capitalism is a mechanism our society uses to allocate resources. I leave determining the state of your dumbness to you .  

**chef’s kiss**
 

corporations are people, just another part of society. Just like individuals, they can be counted to react in the best interest of the whole, not just themselves. They never fuck taxes, lobby for their own interests, etc. we can definitely expect and Clint on them to do the right Thing and pull their weight*
 

*the weight of only their owners and shareholders.

i guess you’re right back to “we should cure cancer” wishcasting bullshit while your head is buried comfortably in the sand and your ass is hoisted for this whole thread to see. 

Edited by SydneyCarton
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7 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Congrats on posting the most meaningless post of the day so far.

"Corporations are part of society" that's beauteeeeeeee-full.

He suggested that they weren't. We as a society spend resources on things. Most of those resources are allocated through markets, and by extension things like corporations. But not all of our resources are allocated that way. My original statement was that our society allocated $50 billion on soda production. That statement is correct. Again, y'all look for the weirdest things to be offended by. 

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2 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

**chef’s kiss**
 

corporations are people, just another part of society. Just like individuals, they can be counted to react in the best interest of the whole, not just themselves. They never fuck taxes, lobby for their own interests, etc. we can definitely expect and Clint on them to do the right Thing and pull their weight*
 

*the weight of only their owners and shareholders.

What does any of that have to do with anything? All I said was that our society (whether through the market or through government mandate) allocated $50 billion to soda production. That is demonstrably true. 

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27 minutes ago, Casual Encounter said:

I’ve also seen several mentions of ventilators actually having adverse effects in the recovery of patients and doctors not universally prescribing this method. Is this accurate?

Ventilators aren't what mess up your lungs and require lengthy recoveries - being sick enough to get put on one is what does.

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3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

 

He suggested that they weren't. We as a society spend resources on things. Most of those resources are allocated through markets, and by extension things like corporations. But not all of our resources are allocated that way. My original statement was that our society allocated $50 billion on soda production. That statement is correct. Again, y'all look for the weirdest things to be offended by. 

$50B over how many years ?  Product growth, development, acceptance, success.  

Who's offended ?  I'm just debating points instead of painting baseboard.

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7 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

 

He suggested that they weren't. We as a society spend resources on things. Most of those resources are allocated through markets, and by extension things like corporations. But not all of our resources are allocated that way. My original statement was that our society allocated $50 billion on soda production. That statement is correct. Again, y'all look for the weirdest things to be offended by. 

Take the mother fucking L, dude.

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8 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

i guess you’re right back to “we should cure cancer” wishcasting bullshit while your head is buried comfortably in the sand and your ass is hoisted for this whole thread to see. 

I've literally never said anything like that. I just think the idea of spending more on testing to get more testing isn't a crazy inflammatory statement. But, yeah, I'm the one showing my ass by trying to have a reasonable discussion with a bunch of emotionally unstable people. Sure. Y'all high five your own idiocy all you want. 

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2 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Kinda missing the point. Just ramping up an assembly line isn't something you do over night.  "We" so you think a company needs to create tests for random viruses that we don't even know exist yet ?  I don't know about you, but when I start a company I wanna make a dollar and a cent form it....

not surprisingly, you completely missed the point. 

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4 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

What does any of that have to do with anything? All I said was that our society (whether through the market or through government mandate) allocated $50 billion to soda production. That is demonstrably true. 

Nevermind. You’re clearly too dense to get the point that’s been hammered home repeatedly on th is thread by multiple posters. Enjoy being willfully obtuse, you’re not worth the bullet. 

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Just now, Dahobbs said:

I've literally never said anything like that. I just think the idea of spending more on testing to get more testing isn't a crazy inflammatory statement. But, yeah, I'm the one showing my ass by trying to have a reasonable discussion with a bunch of emotionally unstable people. Sure. Y'all high five your own idiocy all you want. 

Yes you have have you fucking knob, literally a few posts back when you said we should spend 50 billion by whatever method for testing development, while ignoring the difference of private companies versus government entities and public demand. Because “it’s all society.” It’s wishcasting. 
 

Yes. We’re the unstable ones. And you’re the one true person who just inexplicably only encounters assholes all day, everyday. You and Principle Skinner are definitely not out of touch. 

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1 minute ago, SydneyCarton said:

Nevermind. You’re clearly too dense to get the point that’s been hammered home repeatedly on th is thread by multiple posters. Enjoy being willfully obtuse, you’re not worth the bullet. 

Yeah, I'm the one being obtuse. 

Points I agree with: ramping up manufacturing isn't easy or cheap, it doesn't happen instantly, it doesn't happen magically, and is the type of thing the market isn't likely to address efficiently. Points I disagree with: suggesting that we spend more on testing is inflammatory, corporations aren't part of society. That is it. Everything else is y'all just projecting. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Yeah, I'm the one being obtuse. 

Points I agree with: ramping up manufacturing isn't easy or cheap, it doesn't happen instantly, it doesn't happen magically, and is the type of thing the market isn't likely to address efficiently. Points I disagree with: suggesting that we spend more on testing is inflammatory, corporations aren't part of society. That is it. Everything else is y'all just projecting. 

I'm sure all those companies that ramped up to make BetaMax players are happy they did.

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2 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Yes you have have you fucking knob, literally a few posts back when you said we should spend 50 billion by whatever method for testing development, while ignoring the difference of private companies versus government entities and public demand. Because “it’s all society.” It’s wishcasting. 
 

Yes. We’re the unstable ones. And you’re the one true person who just inexplicably only encounters assholes all day, everyday. You and Principle Skinner are definitely not out of touch. 

I never said we should spend $50 billion. That seems like a lot, although I don't think entirely unreasonable. But discussing spending more isn't bad, which is all I've really said. And I haven't ignored the difference between private or government spending, I just don't find it particularly relevant to answer the question of whether testing is something we should want to allocate more resources to generally. I see it has a two part discussion: (1) should we spend more, and then if yes (2) how do we do that (e.g., private vs public funds). Talking about (1) isn't bad and doesn't deserve the intense emotional reaction seen by those in this thread. 

 

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5 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Nah, not really. He should have said, "we can put a man on the moon, but we can't cure the common cold".

Just about as meaningful as what he actually said.

meaningful, huh? from the guy who posted this gem when i tried to point a month ago the tsunami headed his way:

Quote

You do understand that construction is one of THE major industries in the country ?  It crosses all socio economic worlds, but keep going this is fun.

i mean, how fucking insane do you have to be to believe that the construction industry is somehow impervious to a massive downturn in the economy?

 

the entire point of this back and forth y'all are having keeps getting missed. do we as a society believe that a healthcare industry almost entirely driven by profit is what is best for us. i don't know about y'all, but i've watched my costs skyrocket to keep myself and my family healthy in normal times and now i'm watching THE GREATEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD fall flat on its face. as some have pointed out, there is no incentive in a for-profit healthcare system to plan for the un-plannable. hospitals are run like hotels, occupancy rates trump all else. who does that benefit? not me, i'm paying out the nose for healthcare and if myself or one of my family members got Covid-19 we wouldn't even be able to get a test where i live.

maybe we should re-think this thing and decide what's a priority to us.

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10 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

 I'm just debating points instead of painting baseboard.

Same but cleaning out the garage....  and therefore all the little projects that I got the stuff for, but never actually did.  It's a .... lot. 

On the upside I find strange and wonderful stuff.  Today I found a Kenwood head unit new in box with receipt (circa 2015)  I think this was from the old Landcruiser...  but who knows?!

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away


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