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Osmosisch
Sep 9, 2007

I shall make everyone look like me! Then when they trick each other, they will say "oh that Coyote, he is the smartest one, he can even trick the great Coyote."



Grimey Drawer

Lord Stimperor posted:

This country was faced with killing off its old and immunocompromised and just shrugged its shoulders, never thinking about it again.

I guess every ten years or so you need a reminder that no, your government, state and society do not in the least care about anyone's fate and you can really only rely on yourself to keep you and your loved ones healthy.

I used to be proud of our forward-thinking approach to euthanasia. Now I'm a lot more cynical about the reasons behind it. Cheaper to kill off people when they're done.

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Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Osmosisch posted:

I used to be proud of our forward-thinking approach to euthanasia. Now I'm a lot more cynical about the reasons behind it. Cheaper to kill off people when they're done.

Hard same. I can't ignore that it's the neoliberal parties most heavily pushing for it. The same parties that keep defunding elder care.

I think we should absolutely have euthanasia as it would be an achievement in human rights, dignity and self-determination. I am not sure we should have euthanasia in a capitalist context, as it would take all those things and twist them to fit economic logic. Commodifying not just human beings, but every individual year of their lives.

100YrsofAttitude
Apr 29, 2013




Cat Mattress posted:

Did you miss when a bus driver was beaten to death because he told people they had to wear masks to climb aboard?

Yes I did. That’s unbelievable. I thought stuff like that was only happening in the Americas.

PederP
Nov 20, 2009

Nothingtoseehere posted:

Unless you are spending long periods of time within enclosed spaces (eg: public transport) wearing a mask is less effective than just keeping your distance from people, since coronavirus doesn't seem to spread off short contacts.

This is little evidence of this, even though it's clear that prolonged exposure increases risk of infection. There have been numerous documented cases of infection from relatively brief contact. Some public health authorities are downplaying the risk of infection from short contacts - in Denmark it's being used as an excuse for staff not wearing PPE around vulnerable individuals if the contact is less than X minutes (can't remember if it's 5, 10 or 15). But I think this is yet another case of opportunistic optimism.

Keeping in mind the studies showing airborne transmission being possible from suspended virions in poorly ventilated enclosed spaces, keeping your distance is not necessarily sufficient. Especially if said distance is less than 2 metres.

Wearing a mask in any kind of public/crowded enclosed space is a good idea. You can rarely completely avoid passing in close proximity of other people temporarily (e.g. doorways, aisles, corridors). In particular because of the effect it has on infected individuals. Avoiding the accumulation of suspended virions should be a top-priority. Reducing unnecessary occupancy of enclosed spaces (by capping occupancy counts and preventing group shopping) is a good way to reduce the risk of transmission spiraling out of control and creating a situation where a lockdown/shutdown is required.

The above-mentioned transmission characteristics is also a reason that I think in-door nightclubs and bars (possibly other similar businesses) simply aren't feasible until the pandemic is properly over. Adapting to a situation where such activity needs to happen outdoors is better than cycling between shutdown and reopening. But too many politicians and health officials are afraid of accepting semi-permanent transmission reduction measures because of the impact on the tourism/leisure economy. Which is unfortunate, because new full outbreaks are going to have a much higher overall economic cost for society than limiting the damage to specific sectors.

It's perfectly viable to contain while having society function relatively normally - but it does require use of masks, temporary shutdown of certain businesses and encouraging use of working/studying from home. It's frustrating to witness this stubborn insistence on return to full normalcy. We'll see after the round of new full outbreaks if attitudes change, or whether we need several outbreaks before the lesson is learned - because this is not just a second wave before it's all over.

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



Cat Mattress posted:

Did you miss when a bus driver was beaten to death because he told people they had to wear masks to climb aboard?

Yes. What the gently caress?

Kassad
Nov 12, 2005

It's about time.

Phlegmish posted:

Yes. What the gently caress?

A bus driver in Bayonne (in southwest France) refused to let a man board his bus because he wasn't wearing a mask. The driver also told four passengers who weren't wearing masks to get off his bus. Things got heated to the point that those passengers ganged up on the driver. He was badly hurt in the head and he was taken to a hospital but he was already brain-dead by then.

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



Good job brutally murdering a man just doing his job, and giving the RN a nice little boost in the region on top! :thumbsup: I hope it's life.

PederP
Nov 20, 2009

Kassad posted:

A bus driver in Bayonne (in southwest France) refused to let a man board his bus because he wasn't wearing a mask. The driver also told four passengers who weren't wearing masks to get off his bus. Things got heated to the point that those passengers ganged up on the driver. He was badly hurt in the head and he was taken to a hospital but he was already brain-dead by then.

Wasn't there also a lack of willingness to pay for tickets involved? Not that this makes the murder any less appalling and tragic, but from I've read this wasn't so much about anti-mask sentiment, as it was about criminal thugs who acted with extreme violence due to being challenged regarding their actions and behavior in general. For some absurd reason, bus drivers and firefighters are often targeted by violent thugs. Maybe it's because they are uniformed and sort of in position of authority.

I think that particular tragedy should taken as a result of socio-economic and criminal problems, rather than anti-mask sentiment.

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



Yeah it's the same poo poo as always, probably happens at least once a week somewhere. Sometimes they go a little too far and the target ends up dead instead of 'just' beaten up.

e: this got me paying more attention to the news, and I found this article:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-53500449

lol good job taking back control, and good luck with your Special Relationship. Americans can murder British citizens and get away with it.

e2: I have no problem with the UK but I can and will be dunking on them as Brexit is becoming even more hilarious as time goes by, even when we thought it wasn't possible

Phlegmish fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Jul 22, 2020

oliwan
Jul 20, 2005

by Nyc_Tattoo
i guess this is the return to the VOC mentality that Rutte so desperately wanted, letting other people die so that the netherlands can get even richer.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!
It was Balkenende who famously appealed to the VOC mentality.



Both Rutte and Balkenende hold history degrees from Leiden university.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

Orange Devil posted:

It was Balkenende who famously appealed to the VOC mentality.



Both Rutte and Balkenende hold history degrees from Leiden university.

The University of Suffering? How apt.

Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

oliwan posted:

i guess this is the return to the VOC mentality that Rutte so desperately wanted, letting other people die so that the netherlands can get even richer.

Not other people, poor people that no one wants to imagine they're part of

An insane mind
Aug 11, 2018

Libluini posted:

The University of Suffering? How apt.

Sadly leiden would translate to lead in this instance. They're both still absolute scumbags though, because in my opinion Balkenende started this poo poo.

Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

I wanted to make a joke about the Dutch confronting their history of racism and colonialism but then I remembered how I came across a photoshoot with models dressing up as American natives and thought ah gently caress it, I don't wanna anymore

JordanKai
Aug 19, 2011

Get high and think of me.


Lord Stimperor posted:

I wanted to make a joke about the Dutch confronting their history of racism and colonialism

The mere idea of this ever happening is already a joke in and of itself.

:smith:

oliwan
Jul 20, 2005

by Nyc_Tattoo

Orange Devil posted:

It was Balkenende who famously appealed to the VOC mentality.



Both Rutte and Balkenende hold history degrees from Leiden university.

Well yes Balkenende started it, but Rutte also specifically appealed to the Dutch to "start a new Golden Age"

From: Wat Rutte wil: nieuwe Gouden Eeuw, nieuwe mensenhandel

quote:

Toen het Amsterdams museum de term ‘Gouden Eeuw’ besloot niet meer te gebruiken, leidde dat tot grote verontwaardiging. Hoe durven jullie onze trots zo te beledigen?!
Rutte deed er een schepje bovenop, en niet voor het eerst: “Laten we onze energie vooral richten op het creëren van een nieuwe #GoudenEeuw”, zo valt te lezen op de facebookpage van de VVD.

An insane mind
Aug 11, 2018

Could you imagine how much growth we'd have to go through as a country to at least acknowledge that our ancestors were pieces of poo poo who didn't care about what they did as long as they made money? Exploitation of indigenous people and slavery were only the tip of the iceberg.

As long as we conflate our country and who we are now with those racist slave traders and the V.O.C. dutch people will keep throwing hissy fits about Zwarte Piet because to do otherwise would be to acknowledge we need to change and be better.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

An insane mind posted:

Sadly leiden would translate to lead in this instance. They're both still absolute scumbags though, because in my opinion Balkenende started this poo poo.

Heh, interesting. "Leiden" literally means suffering in German. We have a similar word that's pronounced differently, "leiten", which means something like "to lead". (A "Leitung" is a pipe which leads to somewhere, for example, or a wire. But it can also mean the leadership of an organization.)

Strange how close and yet so far our languages can be.

nimby
Nov 4, 2009

The pinnacle of cloud computing.



Libluini posted:

Heh, interesting. "Leiden" literally means suffering in German. We have a similar word that's pronounced differently, "leiten", which means something like "to lead".

Leiden is leading.

Lijden is suffering.

They're pronounced the same way.

Entropist
Dec 1, 2007
I'm very stupid.
As far as I know it comes from Old Dutch 'leithon', by the waters. Like 70% of all places in the Netherlands derive from some form of a water related word, and there were many such words.

An insane mind
Aug 11, 2018

We are the Inuit of water but more racist.

e-took out the racist word.

An insane mind fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Jul 23, 2020

Junior G-man
Sep 15, 2004

Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma


Interesting analysis by Sandbu in the FT - I think his positivity over federalism in the long run (whatever you think about that personally) is probably correct, but it's still decades off and at the current state I don't know whether the EU has that time before poo poo goes bang.

quote:

EU crosses the Rubicon with its emergency recovery fund
European federalists have more reason than frugal northerners to be pleased

Now the dust has settled, let us acknowledge how remarkable it is that European leaders required only four days and nights to agree an unprecedented common economic programme. They overcame resistance from the small but rich “frugal” countries and permanently shifted the politics of the EU’s future economic decisions. Many reactions to the European Council’s decision on a recovery fund and a long-term budget focus on the ways it fell short. But too often, they look at the wrong thing.

The common EU response was never going to carry the bulk of the fiscal effort to pull the bloc’s economies out of their Covid-19 slump. For that, it is neither sufficient nor necessary. The output loss and required fiscal response are much bigger than the recovery fund, so, as usual, national budgets will do the lion’s share. But they will have no difficulty doing so, since the European Central Bank is ensuring very favourable financing conditions and the EU has set up big crisis lending programmes for governments.

The agreement struck on Tuesday is nevertheless a big deal, even economically. It roughly doubles the regular EU budget’s size for the next three years. Some recipients stand to receive significant transfers. Italy can hope for a total award of perhaps 5 per cent of its annual national income, smaller and poorer countries quite a bit more. Loans of a similar magnitude, if not larger, will come on top.

But the real importance of the deal is how it reshapes the EU’s political economy.

First and most obviously, the bloc has crossed the Rubicon of debt-financed deficit spending at union level. As the frugals knew and feared, what can be done once can be done again. Less remarked upon but equally important, a market and a “yield curve” for all maturities of EU debt will be established because the leaders agreed a very long repayment schedule for the common loans that will extend to 2058.

When people ask whether this was Europe’s “Hamilton moment”, they are referring to the first US Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and the decision to mutualise the states’ debts. The EU has not done that. But a more sophisticated reading is that by creating a market in US debt, Hamilton assured the new federal government permanent access to affordable market credit. In this sense, Tuesday’s deal is Hamiltonian indeed.

Second, while leaders dodged the question of how to raise money to service the common debt, they committed themselves to increase the EU’s revenues. Now they must find new common tax bases, albeit modest ones. They only agreed on a plastic tax, but committed to considering proposals for carbon border fees and expanded carbon taxation in Europe. Whatever solutions they choose, they have boarded the train towards more common taxation and cannot get off and turn back. 

Third, the governance mechanisms for the new spending contain more than meets the eye. The leaders compromised between the Dutch demand for a national veto and the purely administrative controls sought by the European Commission. There is a requirement for leaders to endorse countries’ spending plans (but by qualified majority, not unanimity) and a national right to delay, but not stop, a commission decision to grant money. This reintroduces a role for cross-border politics in what the EU has fruitlessly tried to codify in rigid rules. But they have avoided the political hold-ups and policy extortion that made rescue loans so toxic during the eurozone debt crisis. If managed well, the new governance structure could be the embryo of truly pan-European economic policymaking.

The agreement also subjects transfers to a “regime of conditionality” with respect to the rule of law — code for northern states not wanting to give money to illiberal rulers such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Poland’s Law and Justice party. Many have dismissed this provision as too vague. But it will be the first time leaders empower the commission to come up with sanctions for rule of law breaches that they will pass by qualified majority. Anti-democratic misbehaviour of the Hungarian and Polish kind will become more central to the politics of the European Council, which will have a nimbler tool to deal with it.

The flip side of these changes is that what was not changed will become more entrenched, in particular the normal budget’s size and structure. EU money will continue to be spent mainly on agricultural subsidies and “cohesion fund” aid to poor regions. 

It is puzzling that the frugals, who care the most about this, did not pick their battles accordingly. Instead they fought successfully to trim the recovery grants and their own budget contributions, choosing short-term savings over long-term reprioritisation. Yet they have not stopped the move towards more common fiscal policy. Their victory is mostly Pyrrhic. European federalists have the most reason to be pleased.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!
Balkenende should've been prosecuted for war crimes for supporting the Iraq invasion, but in its infinite wisdom my country decided not to even investigate the political decision making process which lead to that decision. Making us somehow worse than the UK, which did investigate, but then obviously didn't prosecute anyone.


An insane mind posted:

We are the eskimos of water but more racist.

Case in point: eskimo is a racist word, the word you're looking for is Inuit and/or Yupik.

Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jul 23, 2020

JordanKai
Aug 19, 2011

Get high and think of me.



(Dutch original + my HTML translation)

This man is the head of the Dutch crisis council. He thinks people wearing masks will lead to them flouting the 1.5m social distancing mandate...which people already do anyway.

Please, I just want my country to be healthy again. :negative:

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



lol are people just little babbies or what, I've had serious (self-inflicted) breathing issues in the past and I still don't think it's a big deal to have to wear a mask for 20 minutes

I just ordered a custom one, if you see a nerd on the street with a punk's not dead mask, it's probably me.

Junior G-man
Sep 15, 2004

Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma


I'm always saddened when you meet foreigners who go 'oh you're Dutch, bastion of cool liberalism" and you have to explain that the country took a hard-right turn and is a shithole.

Very happy to live in different rightwing shitholes at the moment.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Junior G-man posted:

Interesting analysis by Sandbu in the FT - I think his positivity over federalism in the long run (whatever you think about that personally) is probably correct, but it's still decades off and at the current state I don't know whether the EU has that time before poo poo goes bang.

quote:

It is puzzling that the frugals, who care the most about this, did not pick their battles accordingly. Instead they fought successfully to trim the recovery grants and their own budget contributions, choosing short-term savings over long-term reprioritisation. Yet they have not stopped the move towards more common fiscal policy. Their victory is mostly Pyrrhic. European federalists have the most reason to be pleased.

It's not puzzling at all, their commitment to frugality is paper thin and mostly exists to pretend their short term FYGMism is something more than short term FYGMism.

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



Junior G-man posted:

I'm always saddened when you meet foreigners who go 'oh you're Dutch, bastion of cool liberalism" and you have to explain that the country took a hard-right turn and is a shithole.

They were never a bastion of 'liberalism' and tolerance unless you count making GBS threads on the street while doing drugs, and vulgarity in general, which they've just been doing as an act of defiance towards their metaphorical Calvinist dad since the 1960's. Actually now that I think about it, it makes sense that Americans would view it that way

oliwan
Jul 20, 2005

by Nyc_Tattoo

Phlegmish posted:

They were never a bastion of 'liberalism' and tolerance unless you count making GBS threads on the street while doing drugs, and vulgarity in general, which they've just been doing as an act of defiance towards their metaphorical Calvinist dad since the 1960's. Actually now that I think about it, it makes sense that Americans would view it that way

this is true but doesn't paint the whole picture, because holland was also always a front runner when it came to progressive social policies such as gay marriage, euthanasia, abortion and decriminalization of drugs. the same goes for social security, worker's rights and free healthcare. sadly most of this has been systematically eroded during the last 12 years or so.

it has always been racist though.

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



That's true too, just being facetious because the Dutch always make me feel like a repressed, inhibited bourgeois in comparison, and I kind of resent that feeling.

SplitSoul
Dec 31, 2000

Well, at least it's perfectly clear why people keep confusing you with us Danes and vice versa, beyond the horrible garbled noises we both consider language.

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



Orange Devil posted:

Case in point: eskimo is a racist word, the word you're looking for is Inuit and/or Yupik.
Edit: I discovered that what I said was incorrect, and finally people've have started referring to it as the Inuit-Yupik-Unangan languages.

BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Jul 23, 2020

Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

JordanKai posted:


(Dutch original + my HTML translation)

This man is the head of the Dutch crisis council. He thinks people wearing masks will lead to them flouting the 1.5m social distancing mandate...which people already do anyway.

Please, I just want my country to be healthy again. :negative:

Remember when several weeks into the pandemic RIVM reported that they had underestimated the Covid hospital stay by a factor of 2 or 3 because apparently all the information collected in other countries was not taken into consideration


Remember when Rutte told the public That in case their employer wouldn't let them social distance to talk to their boss like grown ups, surely that would convince them

Phlegmish
Jul 2, 2011



Lord Stimperor posted:

Remember when several weeks into the pandemic RIVM reported that they had underestimated the Covid hospital stay by a factor of 2 or 3 because apparently all the information collected in other countries was not taken into consideration

Yeah, see, this is why you have to be sceptical when comparing non-standardized statistics, and why for once I'm defending Belgium which has fairly reliable numbers. Yes, it did gently caress up with its policy on residential care centers, but also that is actually reflected in the statistics and they didn't go 'dying is just what olds do lol'. Journalists have always been notorious for not understanding methodology, but in this case they're basically rewarding governments that are actively manipulating the numbers to make themselves look more favorable, Soviet-style.

Phlegmish fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Jul 23, 2020

Osmosisch
Sep 9, 2007

I shall make everyone look like me! Then when they trick each other, they will say "oh that Coyote, he is the smartest one, he can even trick the great Coyote."



Grimey Drawer

oliwan posted:

most of this has been systematically eroded during the last 12 years or so.

Try since the 70s. Basically the brief progressive period is the anomaly, not the fygm liberalism.

An insane mind
Aug 11, 2018

Well gently caress, I meant Inuit but wanted my dumb joke out there so quickly I was a dumb racist. I feel so stupid.

Also yeah, we had a purple (it was called purple right) cabinet for the longest time that amounted to a left right and centrist party working together to slowly erode progressivism.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!
It's incredible how inwards the Netherlands is as a culture. During the initial covid wave and ensuing crisis, Dutch experts just flat out did not consider what was (and had been) happening abroad. It felt repeatedly like everything had to be observed, studied and invented in the Netherlands by Dutch people or otherwise it couldn't be true to both our experts and our government. And not like Dutch journalists would ask any questions about "hey so if like 80% of the rest of Europe is choosing for this different approach then how come all their experts are coming to different conclusions than ours?"

So you see this again now, while the vast majority of European countries have made masks in public spaces mandatory and have been living like this for months now, Dutch experts have concluded that making masks mandatory in public spaces is not realistic, actually. So too bad rest of Europe, but your lived experience isn't realistic enough for us.


The only foreign countries Dutch journalists and politicians are actually aware of are the United States and the United Kingdom, and it shows. Conversely in Dutch politics it has been true for decades now that if you propose to do something because another country has done it and it works well there you will be met with incredible skepticism. But if you propose to do something because the US has done it you have an acceptable argument... You don't even have to demonstrate that the results in the US have been posititive, just, the US did this = good argument.


Also yeah, from all the European countries, Belgium from very early on in the crisis up until today has had the most reliable reported statistics by far. The entire Dutch response, modelling and statistics completely ignored everything that went on in care homes for example. Which means our actual deaths (and thus likely also infections etc) were twice the official numbers. A proper evaluation of the government decsision making process is, as far as I'm aware, still not underway, but it looks very, very much like the Netherlands was caught completely unprepared, didn't have even remotely enough PPE, decided to use all the PPE purely for medical staff, and due to the decentralization in the Dutch healthcare sector (gotta privatize don'tcha know?) care homes and their staff (who are nurses for fucks sake) were not considered medical facilities and medical staff. So they got ignored completely in the entire planning and response. For months. The government which did this has sky high approval ratings for its solid and decisive leadership.

Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Jul 23, 2020

An insane mind
Aug 11, 2018

Will we ever see a dissection of the Dutch government's handling of Covid you think?

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Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

An insane mind posted:

Will we ever see a dissection of the Dutch government's handling of Covid you think?

No. Media has decided that the government handling was excellent and all that could have been done, no one could have known etc. etc. You can see how no one cares about this topic anymore except disgruntled nerds like us.

There will be some documentary in a year or two on TV about how this could have actually gone much better but everyone will agree that they acted on the best information available (demonstrably false) and that's it.

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