psuhoffman

This is a very fair point...but let me explain where my "animosity" comes from. It's not the "view". But I can see how it could be interpreted that way. For me...I get snippy and hostile when someone is trying to BS me, and its insulting to my intelligence. I don't mind an opposing point of view...I do mind when that person is trying to manipulate facts to support their argument and thinks I am stupid enough to not realize it. I will give you a specific example. The other day someone was citing a New York study. But I had already read the same study. So when they intentionally manipulated the results to skew the argument I was aware of that fact. First they used the State level numbers for infections with the city numbers for fatalities to skew the mortality rate. Then they made a patently false statement about what statistical significance is. Then they used the absolute lowest estimated possible mortality rate for Covid along with the absolute highest possible flu mortality in a comparison. When people do stuff like that I do get hostile because its insulting. I am not stupid, and obviously they think I am if they think that kind of data manipulation will work. But my hostility is not towards their point of view, its towards their dishonest presentation of their argument. There have been others who have made arguments on that side of the ledger who I have not said a single hostile comment towards. So long as people are making their arguments with sound logic and with intellectual integrity I am open and willing to amicably discuss and debate any point of view. But when people are trying to "get one over" on me...I do become hostile.

If you want productive discussion post something substantive to reply too. Cite some evidence to support a claim and we can discuss. You will be allowed to make your case. Others might refute it with contrary evidence. That’s how it works. But there wasn’t much to discuss in your original post.

Oppositional defiance

So you went with “I know you are but what am I”...

So if every study and all data is useless what are you using to form your opinion?

Another solid contribution. We are lucky to have you.

So serious question...why is it being political to point out a lie or make fun of something stupid someone said if the topic isnt political just because the politics of the person who said it is known? By that logic EVERYTHING becomes political.

This was what you felt should be your contribution to this thread? Btw congrats on your promotion to being official VA spokesman.

I think saying it was a group is exaggerating. It was really only a couple contrarians like phin and golfsnow who said that. 2 people isn’t really a group.

Plus people aren’t doing most normal economic activity when they are sick. And the loss of much of entertainment and service industry is going to hurt bad no matter what we do. There are a LOT of factors people are failing to accurately incorporate into their theories. And that’s why it’s dangerous to think we know better than the experts. I’m sure there are factors I don’t know or am missing also but I’m not the one suggesting I know better than them.

Oh and one last thing...before the “but the economy” arguments start up again. The economy has already been tanked. It’s too late. There is no way to flip a switch and just undo what’s been done. And even if we open and go herd immunity the economy will be further damaged by the 200 million sick people and 25 million people that would end up hospitalized in the unmitigated spread scenario (again using best case scenarios) and the 1-2 million deaths. We are going to suffer economically for a while no matter what we do now. So that is a really crappy justification for accepting a strategy with higher projected fatalities.

It’s that some are taking a study that pretty much confirms how awful unmitigated spread would be and are somehow manipulating some numbers and ignoring others to twist it into a case for exactly that! Bottom line is even if we take the absolute best case pie in the sky estimate for each factor, lowest estimated Mortality, lowest possible herd quotient, we would still get well over a million deaths from a scenario of unmitigated spread. And that’s accepting the best case. But this game is getting exhausting. I’m sure once the efforts to spin the data get old the conversation will return to relativism and utilitarian arguments like, is a million people really that many in the grand scheme or libertarian ones like “but what about my personal rights”. It’s onviouslt not going to end no matter how much statistical evidence emerges because some people just don’t like it and that’s all that matters.

1. You conveniently didn’t factor in the people currently infected who will eventually die. 2. You used confirmed deaths not estimated total which skews the results. 3. You keep using the absolute lowest estimated end of the mortality range from the covid study along with the high end of the flu mortality range for your comp. That isn’t an honest comparison. 4. You clearly do not know what “statistically significant” means. 5. Even if we did accept your skewed comparison (and I’m not) .5 and .1 is VERY different in a huge population. And it can be statistically significant in a large enough study population size. You obviously missed my post about false equivalencies and data manipulation. When you do these “fun with numbers” games you aren’t fooling anyone, it’s just insulting. People on THIS board aren’t stupid. Maybe you should try your luck with those tactics somewhere like 4chan.

Something that irks me...after every story like that there is a comment like “they had a pre-existing condition”. What is their point? Did his death matter less because he had cancer as a child? Would me and my wife’s death matter less because we have asthma? Would my fathers because he has diabetes? Or my uncle and father in law because they have heart problems? How many people don’t have something? And something about “this isn’t killing young healthy people” irks me everytime. Yes so? What’s their point? Only slightly less annoying are the “omg were all gonna die from this” posts. Umm no but this is bad enough, you don’t have to exaggerate just because it’s not the apocalypse. You would think this would be that rare subject where people would put their dumb ass nonsense away just for a little while. Obviously that was too much to ask.

But what about the collateral damage?

fixed

I want to make something clear...I was in no way taking a shot at @showmethesnow. I do not wish to get into the details of everything in this post...and I respect and value all the work you put in H2O, but my post was about some of the really silly illogical comments that were made in the last few days. I do not consider showme's posts to fall in that category. Yesterday I made fun of two people for such arguments...one was liberal and one was conservative. I took a shot at Vice Regent and no one immediately said I was attacking libs. Frankly while I know some took issue with showme's posts I was not one of them. I never made a single derogatory comment about anything he said. I thought the pushback he got was a little harsh. Yea he may be biased and so am I and everyone else. But he was backing his points up with logical arguments. He was open to discussing those points in a civil way. I had no issue with anything he said, even if I didn't agree with all of it. But some people have been trolling, making ridiculous illogical statements and then backing them up with equally silly fallacies. Some people have been using false equivalencies as if we are too stupid to see through that. But if you look at the examples I called out yesterday a couple of those have been liberal arguments. Bad analysis is bad analysis regardless of ideology. My post was NOT an attack on conservatives, it was an attack on bad argumentation... I am a policy debate coach and I was coming at it from that lens.

This is one thing I don’t get...I can beat around Avant Regent all day like a piñata and no one ever says I’m attacking liberals. But when I point out something stupid said by someone who also just happens to be conservative “I’m attacking all conservatives”. And this does not only apply to here. This exact phenomenon is repeated at family functions and work. I have worked with both crazy nutball liberals and conservatives. For years I would point out the crazy from someone who just happened to be liberal and none of the other liberals ever made it a group thing. But one time I did something similar with one of the conservatives and the other conservatives suddenly took it as a personal attack on them also when they didn’t even agree with the crazy stupid thing I was making fun of. WTF???

@showmethesnow why would you equate what I said to an attack on conservatives? In the last week, on here and social media, there have been some really silly arguments made with some dubious logic and often false equivalencies or circular logic to support it. And they weren’t all made by conservatives. The most recent one being pandemic response policy should be a personal individual choice. Now I do suppose that would fall more on the right than left on ideology but most conservatives I know aren’t that far right and would shake their head at that suggestion. That’s more radical libertarian than conservatism. But that’s just one example. Avant-Regent-Intelligence-Hiatus is about as liberal as it comes and he has been fear monger int and spreading stupid around also. I don’t take an attack on his ridiculousness as an attack on all liberalism. If you took that as an attack on you in any way you misunderstood where that was coming from. You haven’t been a part of the conversation here recently and the comments that inspired that post were nothing close to anything you said!

This

I’ve really struggled to comprehend the mindset of some of the covid arguments I’ve been hearing lately. I try to be empathetic to all points of view so in an effort to better relate I have decided to stick my head as far up my own ass as possible.

But that comparison is flawed because most of those risks are to oneself. I ski but if I screw up doing some off piste run it’s only me that suffers. Sometimes it’s a risk involving a few others like driving. But in almost no cases does society allow individuals to accept risk for everyone or large populations. Where exactly the line is becomes murky and a huge debate sometimes but this is most definitely on the “not an individual choice” side. One person being a clown could infect 50 people. Those 50 people could then infect 500. This isn’t an individual risk/choice situation.

“There is always one”...or was it “there can be only one” I get confused.

RIP drought thread