fujiwara79

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

You might have to interact with humans in person again, man. Let me know if you need a refresher course in social dynamics. Reach out for help. 

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.

25 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's not -

There's a stenchy sort of image mystique in saying 'I was up skiing Tuckermen's

It's not absolute friend.

- "probably conform" is another way of just saying "tend" to do so. It's an assessment, done at time of foot-in-the-door, particularly in situations when conforming isn't really costing anything. 

I don't think that processing is happening when one shows up to a setting thinking it's okay to saunter their way in with no intent to evaluated what is/was happening before they arrived.  That's all.  We are talking almost about common mores and behavior decency at that point.  Gentile? 

And I think your missing the point on the virtue of not triggering others - maybe you just don't see that value. That's okay - we'll let that go.

I will add IMHO the world is way loaded with triggers and stimulus - WOKE this and 'cancel culture' are all recreational outrage, etc, that go too far. Obviously racism and prejudice are bad - but these cultural modes won't work frankly.  We have to educate, but not like showing people how to derive the Quadratic Formula, but to that kind of modality will come from ala mode spanning generations. That's what fixes that stuff -

But that's another rabbit hole. We need more patience and gentility. Less stick of one's personal doctrine space.  No one is that important and part of the decay of civility is actually defined by intolerance.

I like William Shatner's recent aphorism .. something like, 'Take it easy - because in the end, none of this matters'

 

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.

12 minutes ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

If your side would have put up an acceptable candidate, that so called demagogue would have never been elected. You could say your crew is more responsible for it than we were. 

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

8 minutes ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

Lol

 I assume you’re a pretty progressive/socialist type and really don’t care how much the government interferes with your rights. 
You need to worry about a government who makes you jump through  more hoops to get a carry permit than to vote. 
I hope your sake and my kids that we never get to a totalitarian state. It’s closer than you think. But folks from your age group can’t see it. I hope you’re right and it doesn’t come to it. But when a government can shut a business down, shut churches down and infringe on your 1st amendment rights and people see no problem with it, we’re pretty far down the road.

I’ll get a weeny tag for this from the usual suspects, but that’s ok. You younger guys don’t know what you’ve lost.

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.

4 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

I’m in the office for 8hrs two days/wk, no issue. No one else there complains either. I would hate to have you or Phineass in the same space...would be non stop bitching like old women about the same thing over and over again. Vomit. 

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.

1 minute ago, PhineasC said:

Luckily, you can take your mask off now. 

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.  

3 minutes ago, Go Kart Mozart said:

Try doing CrossFit with a mask on.

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.

25 minutes ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

The 40’s through the 60’s working class did well because of the end of WWII and the economic boom of people coming home and building modern society we know today. That was in spite of taxes. And for the record, nobody paid those high rates, and I mean nobody. There were so many deductions the actual tax rate was nowhere near 70%. 

6 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Have you considered that the 1940s through 1960s were a very unique time where the US was literally rebuilding Europe and Asia?

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.

45 minutes ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

It was so much better under Carter. Lol

But I suspect you weren’t born yet.

Reagan wasn’t  perfect, but the late 70’s were a hot mess economically.  Between ditching the gold standard, interest being 15% and inflation through the roof, there wasn’t much choice. And I’m afraid we will see inflation return just like the 70’s, only on a worse scale. Normally to curb inflation you raise interest rates. But that’s not a viable option at this point. We have 30 trillion dollars of debt to service. You can’t do that with a 5% plus prime rate.

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.

5 hours ago, Whineminster said:

Things have been going down for the middle class since him. Trickle down doesn't work. You used to be able to do a menial type job and support a family....not now.  And look at all the things we need now versus the 60s....two cars since everyone drives so far to work, a cell phone for everyone (yes you need a phone to live nowadays), and you obviously need the internet to look for jobs, pay bills, and basically do anything.  

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.

2 hours ago, Bostonseminole said:

Hopefully you drive a Prius


.

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?

1 minute ago, DotRat_Wx said:

Model member of the community here. No wonder you live in Randolph NH. 

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

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

I think he is a recluse like @fujiwara79. Definitely a class of introverts with anxiety disorders who have enjoyed the past year a lot. They are really concerned about a return to normal. 

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.

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

As someone with some experience in suicide attempts (unfortunately), it often takes a long time to get to such a desperate point in life... sometimes many years.  There are exceptions of course.  I hope the suicide numbers are not really above baseline in the coming years (not that the baseline is something to celebrate), but the jury is out as far as that goes.  

My position is that the closures were justified early on in the pandemic.  We were dealing with a brand new virus, learning as we go and with very limited ability to test, almost flying blind.  I think the risk of keeping everything open and then potentially getting a quick, overwhelming surge into the hospitals was too great.  I do think some things remained closed for too long, especially in certain states.  

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

2 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

I don't buy at all that suicides were down. Unless there are some peer reviewed studies with hardcore statistics that is a crock of crap. Numerous stories of people calling hotlines for help and not being able to get help and ending up taking their lives. Hell for those who had been doing meetings (such as AA, or psychologists, therapists, etc) there were no in-person meetings (obviously across some parts of the country where restrictions were less there were), or it was impossible to get a meeting. for those with mental health conditions this has been absolute hell and torture.

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

3 hours ago, White Rain said:

Who created this narrative in your view and what does it mean?  Should we encourage lock downs in pandemics to decrease suicide rates? Locking people in their homes is good for their health? 

FWIW, increased suicides from the pandemic was the prevailing view from medical experts, not some conspiracy theory.

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.