fujiwara79

of course, I'll be happy to take a social dynamics course from a dude who lives in Randolph, NH and has 27000 posts on a message board. I'm sure I'll learn wonders. LOL.

many of these anti-mask ragers are actually triggered that others are voluntarily wearing masks, without mandates. when the cdc came out with their new guidelines, these anti-mask ragers really thought people would treat this as the second coming of V-E day, and everyone would throw their masks in the air and start making out. Instead, all we saw was some reduction in mask wearing (especially in gyms) but otherwise it hasn't been a big deal. so now they obsessively go out and estimate the proportion of maskers vs. non-maskers at stores, gyms, etc. and then report their findings on a weather message board. the next step is they will make it a part of their culture war, saying that we are becoming a mask culture like Japan, or that we're becoming "weak", or some other nonsense. it's all very predictable.

i would expect a fall and winter surge, but hopefully it shouldn't cause as many deaths this time due to vaccinations. seasonality, variants, and vaccines will wear off in some people. at the same time, we'll have packed concerts, stadiums, bars. i'm curious if the flu will also make a return this fall. the 'twindemic' never happened last winter. i have a feeling fewer people will get their flu shot this fall.

LOL....yes i kind of agree with you there.

oh it's possible, but a totalitarian state is not going to arise from local mask ordinances or annoying regulations. the descent into totalitarianism almost always begins with the rise of a demagogue. look throughout history and this is the case. the fact that this country was capable of electing a demagogue shows that the conditions are present within society to take us there. the brazen attempt to steal an election by convincing your supporters that it was stolen is something you see in myanmar or the banana republics of latin america. i honestly never thought i'd see that stuff here. if you're truly worried about totalitarianism, worry about those things...not petty mask ordinances. ironically, george orwell was a democratic socialist. he was a bernie sanders kind of guy who cared deeply about the working class. he'd probably be horrified that his readership turned out to be paranoid libertarians. LOL.

it tends to come from those who were indoctrinated with Orwellian literature in school during their cold war upbringing. they tend to have paranoia issues. even a bureaucrat sneezing could be a "slippery slope" to totaliaranism. i just laugh at them. they are amusing

the indian variant is tearing through the AstraZeneca vaccine in india. i think it's offering pretty good protection against serious outcomes but it's not doing much to prevent spread. there are stories of entire families who were vaxxed who tested positive.

I just got my 2nd shot a couple days ago. so in a couple more weeks, i'll gladly take it off. I never wore it outside so no change there. and if mask mandates come back, i'll put it back on. no big deal. i don't think mask ordinances are a slippery slope to totalitarianism.

nah, i'm not part of the crossfit cult. that's a different type of indoctrination.

mask outrage is so May 2020. even those who find masks annoying don't care about them the way they did a year ago when the idea of wearing a mask was such a foreign and novel concept. 90% of people honestly don't care about this issue that much anymore. the remaining 10% appear to be triggered by the fact that the other 90% don't care about this as much as they do.

we were always destined for an economic boom post-ww2, but new deal policies were the reason workers enjoyed wage growth that was commensurate with productivity and economic growth. that linkage completely broke around the early 1980s, where suddenly productivity gains were all going to the ownership class. the elites in the ownership class hated the new deal policies. there were very few uber-rich people back then -- especially in comparison to today. reaganites tend to view the economy purely in terms of gdp, but not who actually benefits from economic growth. there's a reason why suicides and opioid overdoses have increased every year for the past twenty years -- even during years where we had high gdp. the good news is that reaganism is pretty much dead. but there are still zombie reaganites that are holding on.

the working class did very well from the 1940s through 1960s. very progressive tax rates, strong unions, anti-trust policy that was actually enforced against big businesses that become too large, and strong financial regulation was part of the new deal policies that were very good for workers. stagflation in the 1970s was the 'crisis' (never allow a crisis go to waste, i suppose) exploited by the reaganites to unravel all of that. i understand why those policies seemed like a good idea at the time, but 40 years of these policies have basically created a second gilded age, where we're governed by an oligarchy.

nearly 40 years of reaganomics destroyed the working class in this country. even republicans now disavow reaganomics, although now they worship an orange demagogue instead. it's nice to see workers have some leverage for a change. this leverage will be fleeting though. the zombie reaganites won't go away easily.

at least when you're driving a car, you're using energy to go from point A to point B. you're actually using energy to do something. with crypto, you're burning endless amounts of energy to generate a new hash function in your blockchain? it's stupid. hopefully crypto spectacularly collapses and puts an end to the nonsense.

crypto is terrible for the environment. it's best to stay away from it for that reason alone.

i hear wearing a mask outdoors helps with allergies. it might trigger some people, though.

i wish shirts and shoes were optional inside stores, and i could carry an open bottle of beer outside on my neighborhood sidewalk. why do people blindfully comply with these silly regulations?

I guess he's a hermit and an internet troll. i didn't know that combination was possible!

dude it says you live in randolph, NH? looks like a place only recluses or hermits would live. LOL yes, the 80% of us who prefer flexible work schedules are definitely recluses. stay cool, boomer.

suicides have been steadily increasing (with a slight dip in 2019) for the past twenty years, and i fully expect them to go back up to the pre-pandemic baseline. however, since they were already increasing for 20 years prior to covid, there isn't a way to show cause-and-effect if we see them begin increasing again.

here's another study from a medical journal, with "hardcore statistics", showing that suicides went down in the UK. their analysis extended through october 2020. enjoy. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00087-9/fulltext

as i predicted, people would come out with their personal anecdotes to affirm their debunked narrative.

the narrative was created by some of your fellow posters in this thread and others. ask them. this is what they predicted. they said people would be jumping off buildings because dine-in wasn't available at denny's. i always thought that was laughable but now the data backs me up.

interesting, suicides actually decreased across most countries during the lockdowns last spring. united states dropped about 10%. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/04/24/surprisingly-suicide-has-become-rarer-during-the-pandemic

well, look at this. suicides decreased across most countries during the heart of the lockdowns last spring. united states saw about a 10% decrease. one of the largest drops in 20 years in fact. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/04/24/surprisingly-suicide-has-become-rarer-during-the-pandemic i fully expect a rash of "wait 6 more months" or some other anecdotal stories to counter-refute this, but suffice to say -- another narrative has been busted.