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Humane treatment of animals isn't some feel good hippy thing. Animals raised in good conditions are less likely to be diseased and China's conditions are horrific. The wet markets are full of live wild animals from everywhere that would otherwise never meet cross infecting at absurd rates. Things like Ebola comes from bush meat and China keeps diving in head first. It's not racist when you are pointing out exactly what is happening. That poo poo isn't medicine, it belongs next to Voodoo, radium infused water and snake oil. You apprehensiveness comes from Chinese propaganda framing everything as racist.
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Mar 18, 2020 20:00
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LimburgLimbo posted:Noting the existence of some communities in China having exposure to more and a greater variety of wild animals (including known disease vectors) due to TCM, wet markets, etc. is a fact and not inherently racist, though certainly some people leverage that fact to make statements that are racist or racist dog-whistles. Nobody wants to talk about the vile virus-loving Europeans and their kiss-based handshake culture
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Mar 18, 2020 20:06
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my understanding is that the wet markets were permanently, not temporarily, closed? is that correct? just want to be sure
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Mar 18, 2020 20:12
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Guess we can be glad that this isn't birdflu.
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Mar 18, 2020 20:13
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oohhboy posted:Humane treatment of animals isn't some feel good hippy thing. Animals raised in good conditions are less likely to be diseased and China's conditions are horrific. The wet markets are full of live wild animals from everywhere that would otherwise never meet cross infecting at absurd rates. Things like Ebola comes from bush meat and China keeps diving in head first. Most of Traditional Chinese Medicine isn’t traditional and basically none of it is medicine. You’re right, though, that propaganda frames criticism of it as racist. Someone asked me what they use pangolins for when I mentioned they were a vector, and when I mentioned that they boil the scales in urine and prescribe that for skin conditions, they said I was being racist. That’s literally one of the things they do!
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Mar 18, 2020 20:17
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Mozi posted:my understanding is that the wet markets were permanently, not temporarily, closed? is that correct? Yeah, but that would require enforcement and I wouldn't hold my breath.
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Mar 18, 2020 20:22
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Even the Chinese recognize that the wet markets and consumption of wild animals are tied to the disease outbreaks that have occurred in recent years. https://www.nytimes.com./2020/01/25/world/asia/china-markets-coronavirus-sars.html quote:The flurry of government action came after an unusual outpouring of public sentiment against the trade of live animals. A campaign on Weibo, the social media platform, drew 45 million views with the hashtag #rejectgamemeat.
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Mar 18, 2020 20:28
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They have closed them before but after a bit of lobbying they opened back up. I don't expect this time would be any different.Ugly In The Morning posted:Most of Traditional Chinese Medicine isn’t traditional and basically none of it is medicine. You’re right, though, that propaganda frames criticism of it as racist. Someone asked me what they use pangolins for when I mentioned they were a vector, and when I mentioned that they boil the scales in urine and prescribe that for skin conditions, they said I was being racist. That’s literally one of the things they do! How are you meant to take that? In a suppository? Brewed? Powdered? Creamed? Eaten whole? I am guessing "all of above" as each conman "prescribes" it differently for whatever ills you.
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Mar 18, 2020 20:34
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Grand Fromage posted:Yep. It is a legitimate factor, though the majority of why China spawns diseases so often is that the southern half or so of China is an excellent climate environment for disease and China is crazy densely populated compared to most places. Outbreaks are also more dangerous in China because it's so well connected to the rest of the world. The Chinese zoonotic diseases are also usually respiratory, which helps them spread. Africa has a ton of helldiseases that come from animals, but they’re usually things that don’t have nice droplets to spread around. Ebola and Marburg also are basically crippling and when they’re most contagious they’re incredibly visible. You know, on account of the hemorrhages. HIV is probably the most transmissible thing to come from animals and leave Africa, and even that one requires exposure to bodily fluids.
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Mar 18, 2020 20:36
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I wonder why that is, I wouldn't think there's anything special about China's environment that spawns airborne diseases but I don't know enough to say.
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Mar 18, 2020 20:40
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Mozi posted:my understanding is that the wet markets were permanently, not temporarily, closed? is that correct? How could anyone know without independent inspections?
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Mar 18, 2020 21:04
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High population density and a high population of very poor folks living like renaissance peasants, in close contact with their animals. This combines with the attempts at social/economic mobility by going to the big city from the farm for the high paying jobs there, plus traditional Chinese familial obligations. Put simply, you get nasty bugs hanging out in close contact with animals for long enough periods of time. China has enough people doing that, such that “long enough” is a couple of decades. Some of these poor peasants try to make themselves a better life by going to the big city to work. Either they or their kids return home for holidays/CNY and are exposed to these infections, that they then take back to huge, densely populated cities. China is even worse in that it has appalling air quality in their cities making any respiratory disease harder on the patient (particularly more coughing), and that it is well connected to the rest of the world through modern rapid transit (jet travel in particular). So although poor Azerbaijani (for example) diet farmers might pick up a novel zoonotic virus, there aren’t enough Azerbaijanis for a low probability event to happen all that often. The very rare Azerbaijani who does pick one up doesn’t have any contact with seven or eight digit population concentrations to spread the infection to large numbers of people, and nobody spreads it to the rest of the world because only small numbers of folk travel to and from Azerbaijan. Although this doesn’t explain why India doesn’t generate plagues, since it has roughly equal numbers of people in soul-crushing poverty juxtaposed with rich city-dwellers. Maybe different internal migration patterns.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:07
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Grand Fromage posted:I wonder why that is, I wouldn't think there's anything special about China's environment that spawns airborne diseases but I don't know enough to say. Most of the Chinese ones come from bats with some kind of intermediate animal, most of the African ones are simian in origin. Why bats make so many respiratory viruses, that I don’t know.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:10
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Oberndorf posted:Although this doesn't explain why India doesn't generate plagues, since it has roughly equal numbers of people in soul-crushing poverty juxtaposed with rich city-dwellers. Maybe different internal migration patterns. My guess is because India is so heavily vegetarian. Something like 40-50% of the population is vegetarian (though some of those aren't strict and also consume dairy/eggs) and even the non-vegetarians don't consume a ton of meat. So I'd presume that means far less contact with animals.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:13
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Grand Fromage posted:My guess is because India is so heavily vegetarian. Something like 40-50% of the population is vegetarian (though some of those aren't strict and also consume dairy/eggs) and even the non-vegetarians don't consume a ton of meat. So I'd presume that means far less contact with animals. Also viruses don’t like to jump from bovines to people. They have tons of bacterial diseases over there, like TB (that one loves to go from cows to people) and various waterborne stuff but I can’t think of any major viruses from out of there. Usual virus reservoirs are bats, birds, and swine. I don’t think India has people surrounded by a fuckton of any of those like China does.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:18
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hakimashou posted:How could anyone know without independent inspections? i don't think they'd have to be independent inspections. anyone can go to these places, you don't need some secret handshake or something i was more asking about whether the shutdown was cast as something permanent or not
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Mar 18, 2020 21:22
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Mozi posted:i don't think they'd have to be independent inspections. anyone can go to these places, you don't need some secret handshake or something Well, when they shut down endangered species markets in Guangdong they all went underground and are hidden but still there. You can find videos of journalists going to try to check out the markets and once the word gets out there are doors and fences slamming down everywhere to hide what's going on. There's no way the local authorities don't know about it, they just don't enforce anything. Ugly In The Morning posted:Also viruses don’t like to jump from bovines to people. They have tons of bacterial diseases over there, like TB (that one loves to go from cows to people) and various waterborne stuff but I can’t think of any major viruses from out of there. I did not know cow to human was rare. That would explain it too, India has a shitload of dairy farms but not as much of other stuff. Chickens are the one animal all the non-vegetarians are allowed to eat, they're the other most common farm animal there. Not much pig farming in India considering its size.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:30
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Why bats make so many respiratory viruses, that I don’t know. They cluster together at night and some larger colonies are in the tens of millions of bats. Also they sleep above a gigantic pile of poo poo.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:38
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Grand Fromage posted:
I racked my brain and couldn’t think of a single viral disease of bovine origin. It’s the damndest thing, people keep so many cows and they have tons of bacterial diseases and even prion ones, but viruses... there’s some but they’re super rare ones like Rift Valley Fever and I didn’t even know that one was bovine until I got to near the end of a journal article. None of their big-ticket ones are viral. The article, if you’re interested. Dogmeat posted:They cluster together at night and some larger colonies are in the tens of millions of bats. Also they sleep above a gigantic pile of poo poo. Ugly In The Morning fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Mar 18, 2020 |
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Mar 18, 2020 21:40
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Cowpox is viral. Not a common disease at all, though important since the idea of vaccination came from observing people who'd gotten cowpox were immune to smallpox.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:42
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Grand Fromage posted:Well, when they shut down endangered species markets in Guangdong they all went underground and are hidden but still there. You can find videos of journalists going to try to check out the markets and once the word gets out there are doors and fences slamming down everywhere to hide what's going on. There's no way the local authorities don't know about it, they just don't enforce anything. i stand corrected! i think there must at least be a chance for them to be closed going forward - the cost of having them around is pretty obvious to everyone i would guess. but who knows
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Mar 18, 2020 21:44
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Grand Fromage posted:Cowpox is viral. Not a common disease at all, though important since the idea of vaccination came from observing people who'd gotten cowpox were immune to smallpox. You’re right, not sure how I blanked on that one given the etymology of vaccine... the vac part comes from “vaca”, meaning “cow”.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:45
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I would hope they do. It's just that having had experience with how laws work in China, I have zero faith that any sort of consistent enforcement will be done. But maybe this was a bad enough experience they'll take it seriously.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:46
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Grand Fromage posted:I would hope they do. It's just that having had experience with how laws work in China, I have zero faith that any sort of consistent enforcement will be done. But maybe this was a bad enough experience they'll take it seriously. While the authorities might not care about trafficking of endangered species or even propagation of disease, it might be enough of a face hit for Beijing to come down on local powers if they allow them- a top down move. But I don't know how the power structure works in practical terms.
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Mar 18, 2020 22:19
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Considering the propaganda arm (Not D&D/C-SPAM, the official arm) is currently claiming that the virus had nothing to do with China, wasn't China's fault, etc etc? I wouldn't hold my breathe on the 'taking it seriously' part.
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Mar 18, 2020 22:22
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Right now people are scared as gently caress and the pro-authoritarian narrative has fertile ground, but it doesn't have much mileage in the long run, and when this eventually dies down (either through the shrinkage of cases or people just deciding to accept it as a fact of life and move on) China spending this month making GBS threads on everyone else and generally being giant opportunist pricks is going to cost them. People are generally passive about most of China's other poo poo even if they condemn it, but the whole "inflicting a plague on the world and claiming its your fault your people are dying" is on another level. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Mar 18, 2020 |
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Mar 18, 2020 22:44
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You guys talking about enforcement doubts makes me think of that Ace Ventura scene where as soon as his landlord's gone a whole menagerie comes outta the woodwork.
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Mar 18, 2020 22:45
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Grand Fromage posted:I did not know cow to human was rare. That would explain it too, India has a shitload of dairy farms but not as much of other stuff. Chickens are the one animal all the non-vegetarians are allowed to eat, they're the other most common farm animal there. Not much pig farming in India considering its size. What group doesn't eat goats or sheep? My favorite Indian dishes use those.
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Mar 18, 2020 23:22
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WarpedNaba posted:Considering the propaganda arm (Not D&D/C-SPAM, the official arm) is currently claiming that the virus had nothing to do with China, wasn't China's fault, etc etc? I wouldn't hold my breathe on the 'taking it seriously' part. That's what I'm afraid of / most frustrated by - the political and propaganda aspect of this. None of this stops unless Big Daddy Xi decrees from on high that is absolutely must be stopped and prevented. Then the local officials have to feel the pressure to keep wet markets and the wild animal trade closed and that it significantly impacts their career in the party/bottom line. Unlike his purges for corruption or "corruption", this probably won't help him consolidate power and eliminate adversaries, plus vested interests want to keep it going. Local officials aren't going to change and combat it until it is very painful and untenable to do so. Xi and the CCP now playing triumphant Hero and doing victory laps that they've somehow defeated this instead of recognizing and addressing the part China as a culture played in this happening in the first place (I'm not even talking about the coverup and suppression because no way in hell that is ever acknowledged) is pretty troubling and a recipe for something hosed up to emerge from there again in 5-10 years (or possibly less!).
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Mar 18, 2020 23:27
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Face it Xi, China's the sick man of Asia.
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Mar 18, 2020 23:38
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Honky Dong Country posted:You guys talking about enforcement doubts makes me think of that Ace Ventura scene where as soon as his landlord's gone a whole menagerie comes outta the woodwork.  I hadn't considered that but it does describe that perfectly:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3faboOu1pM (1:40 if the time doesn't work) sticksy fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Mar 18, 2020 |
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Mar 18, 2020 23:38
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I would also point out that at the stage of the outbreak where they are respectively, every democracy has done better comparatively than China did at the same stage. Yes, even Italy. So far, hard lockdowns seem to be a worse strategy than soft lockdowns, although it's possible that this is because democracies have sufficiently strong civil societies and government engagement (as well as more wealth) to make soft lockdowns viable.
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Mar 18, 2020 23:39
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The only @gselevator tweet I can still remember is "It's hard to believe the Italians used to be the Romans" and that was about the sovereign debt crisis.
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Mar 18, 2020 23:49
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China is going to endure a heavy cost in 12 to 18 months from consumer pushback and multilateral governmental pressure, regardless of their level of guilt. Americans (and others) getting suppressed at home and having their economies taking a poo poo will not easily forget. This reads jingoistic, but my customers have always had a negative viewpoint on anything Chinese, and this is going to magnify it for all Americans tenfold. I'm frightened by the flack my Chinese American wife and mixed children may catch as we go forward.
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Mar 18, 2020 23:53
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Pham Nuwen posted:What group doesn't eat goats or sheep? My favorite Indian dishes use those. You're right, I think all the meat eaters are okay with those. Their numbers are vastly smaller than the chickens though. Fojar38 posted:Right now people are scared as gently caress and the pro-authoritarian narrative has fertile ground, but it doesn't have much mileage in the long run, and when this eventually dies down (either through the shrinkage of cases or people just deciding to accept it as a fact of life and move on) China spending this month making GBS threads on everyone else and generally being giant opportunist pricks is going to cost them. The argument I'm using is that the countries with the objectively best response so far are South Korea and Taiwan, both of which have their issues but are democracies. Germany is also handling it well.
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Mar 18, 2020 23:57
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Shumagorath posted:The only @gselevator tweet I can still remember is "It's hard to believe the Italians used to be the Romans" and that was about the sovereign debt crisis. Thank you for reminding me about that account, thought this would be well-received in China thread: 
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Mar 19, 2020 00:07
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TheBuilder posted:China is going to endure a heavy cost in 12 to 18 months from consumer pushback and multilateral governmental pressure, regardless of their level of guilt. Americans (and others) getting suppressed at home and having their economies taking a poo poo will not easily forget. This reads jingoistic, but my customers have always had a negative viewpoint on anything Chinese, and this is going to magnify it for all Americans tenfold. I'm frightened by the flack my Chinese American wife and mixed children may catch as we go forward. Their latest exports are taking our breath away and have people floored.
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Mar 19, 2020 00:56
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Honky Dong Country posted:You guys talking about enforcement doubts makes me think of that Ace Ventura scene where as soon as his landlord's gone a whole menagerie comes outta the woodwork. Pretty accurate considering it required two separate rounds of executions to stop companies putting melamine in baby formula, and the fact that babies were actually dying didn't even factor into the equation for the producers.
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Mar 19, 2020 01:04
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My impression about the wet markets is that the central government definitely wants them closed - direct and indirect messagjng is clear. But, apparently not enough to push the issue hard with local government, which wants to continue to get its cut. Well, I mean, specific representatives of local government, but whatever.
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Mar 19, 2020 01:59
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*The party official leaves after a lengthy inspection. Peeking around a corner to make sure he's gone, one worker spins their head back to the marketplace and cuts loose a shrill whistle. Instantly two hundred trapdoors and and tarps are drawn back by cleverly hidden mechanisms to reveal a vast stock of pangolins, bats, and other live exotic animals.* "Le-hew-se-hurrr!" the lookout calls in the direction of the departed inspector.
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Mar 19, 2020 02:01
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