UKMT October 2021 - It's the Great Sewage Pump, Clifton-Brown

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT October 2021 - It's the Great Sewage Pump, Clifton-Brown

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Gonzo McFee: Jun 19, 2010

https://twitter.com/kennardmatt/status/1445810480954716160?s=19

Lol

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:39

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# ? May 20, 2024 21:02

ThomasPaine: Feb 4, 2009; We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.

Spangly A posted:

Mandatory vaccination is a dangerous precedent. First they made us get vaccines to eradicate dangerous illnesses. Then they made us get vaccinated to enter any given country with dangerous endemic diseases not found locally. Now they're making us get vaccinated for a dangerous pandemic whose predecessor had a variant strain with near 50% mortality. Where does it end???

I was more thinking about making any medical procedure legally compulsory, because you absolutely do not have to look too far back into the past to see how sketchy that can be, not even in the really obvious examples like WW2 - see the contagious diseases acts in 19th C Britain for one fun example. Even with the best will in the world no medication is without risk and you're always going to get your thalidomide experiences, there's a reason informed consent is such a huge deal in medical ethics and it's very dodgy to override that in 99.9999% of cases.

Now that doesn't mean I'm against vaccines being required to access certain public spaces or unis or workplaces or whatever else. You choose not to have it, you choose to isolate yourself, fine, but you can't have your cake and eat it. But that doesn't mean someone should be able to come round your house and insist on giving you an injection whether you like it or not.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:39

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Just Another Lurker posted:

as for two factor i'm not for giving them any more info.

That's not how 2FA works these days. Instead of a security question they send a token containing a code to an app. The app tells you it's received a token, and asks if you requested it. If you did you enter the code into the site and proceed; if you didn't you don't, and you are warned of an attempted intrusion. The company itself doesn't get any info that you haven't probably given them already when you created your account.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:40

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Gonzo McFee posted:

https://twitter.com/kennardmatt/status/1445810480954716160?s=19

Lol

He's the one that the Israeli Embassy offered Joan Ryan �1m to take down in the Al jazeera documentary.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:41

DaWolfey: Oct 25, 2003; College Slice

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

As a non-profit, we get Office 365 licences for free but apparently have to go through an MCP.

This is absolutely not true. An MCP is just a qualification you can get from Microsoft, and they do not restrict what software or services you're allowed to access based on that.

All that is needed is for a current Global Administrator (in Microsoft 365 parlance, this is the most adminy admin you can be) to give you the same Global Administrator rights, and you can do anything you need.
It's actually pretty easy to manage if your needs aren't complicated.

It's trickier if you also have a Windows Server at your office and you have it linked with Microsoft 365 though, but you may or may not have that.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:46

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

DaWolfey posted:

This is absolutely not true. An MCP is just a qualification you can get from Microsoft, and they do not restrict what software or services you're allowed to access based on that.

All that is needed is for a current Global Administrator (in Microsoft 365 parlance, this is the most adminy admin you can be) to give you the same Global Administrator rights, and you can do anything you need.
It's actually pretty easy to manage if your needs aren't complicated.

It's trickier if you also have a Windows Server at your office and you have it linked with Microsoft 365 though, but you may or may not have that.

Thanks. Shall look into that. Til now people have just accepted what they have been told.
We did have a server in the office but it self-destructed a couple of months ago. Fortunately almost everything was on Sharepoint (which I've also backed up as much as I have access to on an external harddrive in case sharepoint goes pop).

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:50

keep punching joe: Jan 22, 2006; Die Satan!

Very niche bit of UK political history happening today, first ever ministerial statement in parliament today by a Green MSP

https://twitter.com/STVColin/status/1446065357308014598

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:51

Pistol_Pete: Sep 15, 2007; Oven Wrangler

ThomasPaine posted:

Public health measures are by definition judgement calls that, yes, have to balance 'acceptable' deaths against wider social impact. It's not fun but it's absolutely essential. That doesn't mean every individual death isn't a tragedy, but if you follow your argument to its conclusion none of us leave the house ever again because absolutely everything we do has the potential to harm or kill someone else in the long-run. Short term draconian measures are sometimes acceptable, and I think in the context of covid they were, but maintaining them indefinitely is just completely unfeasible and, arguably, ethically wrong.

You seem to think this means I'm anti-mask, anti-isolation when sick etc, but that's not what I've said. What I'm frustrated at are they people arguing that we need to once again close everything, ban travel, etc etc, and do so potentially for years to come. Doing that would do far more harm to us as a society than not doing so would with the rates of vaccination that we have.

I agree with this tbh. I have to say, I've spoken to a wide variety of friends, family and work colleagues over the last months and while their perceptions of the continuing risk of Covid vary, there's not one (even the most cautiously-inclined) that want to see the return of any sort of national restrictions, except in the direst of emergencies. They, like me, now view Covid as one more risk among a multitude of risks, that should be acknowleged and reasonably mitigated for but not one that calls for continuing severe restrictions on their lives.

Fwiw, I think there's a valid case to make for making masks compulsory in enclosed spaces and on public transport again and probably the same for vaccine passports - I'd have no particular objections to either of those things.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:51

DaWolfey: Oct 25, 2003; College Slice

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Thanks. Shall look into that. Til now people have just accepted what they have been told.
We did have a server in the office but it self-destructed a couple of months ago. Fortunately almost everything was on Sharepoint (which I've also backed up as much as I have access to on an external harddrive in case sharepoint goes pop).

When you say self-destructed, do you mean it just failed and that was it, or it was properly removed?
Chances are your server and M365 weren't linked together (with what is called Azure AD Connect). But if it was, and the server just went off one day, you'll need some work done to clean up the remnants of that link because it will restrict what you can do in M365 directly.
You'll be able to find that out when you get global admin rights.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 13:58

Doctor_Fruitbat: Jun 2, 2013

Absolutely do not sleep on 2FA, it's quick, easy and standardised, and it adds an important layer of security that's difficult to circumvent. That's proper 2FA through an app though, SMS based 2FA is way too vulnerable.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:00

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

ThomasPaine posted:

I was more thinking about making any medical procedure legally compulsory, because you absolutely do not have to look too far back into the past to see how sketchy that can be, not even in the really obvious examples like WW2 - see the contagious diseases acts in 19th C Britain for one fun example. Even with the best will in the world no medication is without risk and you're always going to get your thalidomide experiences, there's a reason informed consent is such a huge deal in medical ethics and it's very dodgy to override that in 99.9999% of cases.

Now that doesn't mean I'm against vaccines being required to access certain public spaces or unis or workplaces or whatever else. You choose not to have it, you choose to isolate yourself, fine, but you can't have your cake and eat it. But that doesn't mean someone should be able to come round your house and insist on giving you an injection whether you like it or not.

Bodily autonomy is always a limited, socially mediated right. There are absolutely conditions and limitations put on a persons right to be and to do things with their body and that's not a bad thing inherently. Simply existing in a society means you have a impact on the collective and that should burden society with responsibility to the individual and the individual with responsibility to society. If a person is existing in a way to cause harm or risk to others then society at large is completely within its rights to force corrective action against the individual, the biological, unknowing nature of the threat doesn't change that.

There certainly can be other less intrusive methods to create safe collective areas and they should be considered first as well as the longer term view of uptake and attitudes to such measures (not to mention the obvious class dynamics of any such requirements) but i don't think mandatory vaccinations breach any sort of ethical line in principle.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:02

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

DaWolfey posted:

When you say self-destructed, do you mean it just failed and that was it, or it was properly removed?
Chances are your server and M365 weren't linked together (with what is called Azure AD Connect). But if it was, and the server just went off one day, you'll need some work done to clean up the remnants of that link because it will restrict what you can do in M365 directly.
You'll be able to find that out when you get global admin rights.

Motherboard and hard disk failure*. We had a tech guy in who confirmed it, and I had him take out the hard drive. I couldn't recover anything from it using various gadgets / software I have (I have recovered hard disks previously using the different cables and so forth, but this was definitely a dead parrott).

*trustees insisted we get reconditioned second hand computer for our server a couple of years ago rather than spend a bit more on a new one.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:03

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

I think when more than a hundred people die of a preventable disease every day that we should do something about preventing that disease.

"A bunch of people are bored of hearing about COVID and having restrictions" doesn't hold much water with me, a bunch of people vote Tory and I think they're wrong too.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:06

Barry Foster: Dec 24, 2007; What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)

namesake posted:

Bodily autonomy is always a limited, socially mediated right. There are absolutely conditions and limitations put on a persons right to be and to do things with their body and that's not a bad thing inherently. Simply existing in a society means you have a impact on the collective and that should burden society with responsibility to the individual and the individual with responsibility to society. If a person is existing in a way to cause harm or risk to others then society at large is completely within its rights to force corrective action against the individual, the biological, unknowing nature of the threat doesn't change that.

There certainly can be other less intrusive methods to create safe collective areas and they should be considered first as well as the longer term view of uptake and attitudes to such measures (not to mention the obvious class dynamics of any such requirements) but i don't think mandatory vaccinations breach any sort of ethical line in principle.

Could this line of argument be used re: drug use?

Not really taking sides, just thinkin' out loud

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:10

Lunar Suite: Jun 5, 2011; If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.

ThomasPaine posted:

In which way does this invalidate or even have any relevance to anything I said?

You only stated the health of the elderly as reasons to continue public health measures (which you characterised as "everyone stays home forever"). If you were considering a more broad or nuanced view, it may be helpful to communicate it in its entirety.
As it stands, the ongoing risk of Covid has shifted from "the old explode" to "your kid in school gets a surprise life-long chronic illness from this still rather badly characterised vascular disease". ACE2 is in the whole body, after all.

ThomasPaine posted:

I'm not constructing a strawman, this is an argument I have seen people make. I never said anyone ITT had done so.

It's a hyperbolic argument. If nobody in this thread has made it, why pull it in here, then?

Together, these two things mean your big walls of text give off strong self-justification vibes, whilst apparently being based on incomplete information.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:12

ThomasPaine: Feb 4, 2009; We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.

namesake posted:

Bodily autonomy is always a limited, socially mediated right. There are absolutely conditions and limitations put on a persons right to be and to do things with their body and that's not a bad thing inherently. Simply existing in a society means you have a impact on the collective and that should burden society with responsibility to the individual and the individual with responsibility to society. If a person is existing in a way to cause harm or risk to others then society at large is completely within its rights to force corrective action against the individual, the biological, unknowing nature of the threat doesn't change that.

There certainly can be other less intrusive methods to create safe collective areas and they should be considered first as well as the longer term view of uptake and attitudes to such measures (not to mention the obvious class dynamics of any such requirements) but i don't think mandatory vaccinations breach any sort of ethical line in principle.

This is of course a very very big topic in itself but when you boil it down while I'm not the biggest fan of foucault I share his instinctive caution towards anything that reinforces coercive power structures, and medicine absolutely counts as one of those. It's not the vaccination itself that's the issue, it's what making it mandatory represents at an ideological level.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:13

Spangly A: May 14, 2009; God help you if ever you're caught on these shores

A man's ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall

Barry Foster posted:

Could this line of argument be used re: drug use?

Not really taking sides, just thinkin' out loud

It is the main argument deployed against drug use, against harm reduction programs, and in favour of harsh penalties.

The important difference is that mandatory safe and effective vaccines is a policy with a public benefit, and all methods to discourage drug use are a public detriment. "You should be allowed to do w/e" would be a dreadful argument if prohibition actually worked

ThomasPaine posted:

This is of course a very very big topic in itself but when you boil it down while I'm not the biggest fan of foucault I share his instinctive caution towards anything that reinforces coercive power structures, and medicine absolutely counts as one of those. It's not the vaccination itself that's the issue, it's what making it mandatory represents at an ideological level.

It's not a big argument because the law isn't a big slider you have to pull down to "mandatory vaccines" while shrugging off all consequences. "what if bad people then do a thing" has never been a worthwhile argument because authoritarians don't care about excuses in the first place.

When that millionaire broke out of ebola quarantine and caused ~200 deaths I couldn't find a single person who didn't say some variant of "should've shot him tbh"

Spangly A fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Oct 7, 2021

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:15

Barry Foster: Dec 24, 2007; What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)

Spangly A posted:

It is the main argument deployed against drug use, against harm reduction programs, and in favour of harsh penalties.

The important difference is that mandatory safe and effective vaccines is a policy with a public benefit, and all methods to discourage drug use are a public detriment. "You should be allowed to do w/e" would be a dreadful argument if prohibition actually worked

Yeah, makes sense

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:22

ThomasPaine: Feb 4, 2009; We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.

Lunar Suite posted:

You only stated the health of the elderly as reasons to continue public health measures (which you characterised as "everyone stays home forever"). If you were considering a more broad or nuanced view, it may be helpful to communicate it in its entirety.
As it stands, the ongoing risk of Covid has shifted from "the old explode" to "your kid in school gets a surprise life-long chronic illness from this still rather badly characterised vascular disease". ACE2 is in the whole body, after all.

It's a hyperbolic argument. If nobody in this thread has made it, why pull it in here, then?

Together, these two things mean your big walls of text give off strong self-justification vibes, whilst apparently being based on incomplete information.

Schools are I admit a really tricky one. I personally would have suggested they stay closed longer, or reopened far more carefully. Same with the early easing of restrictions in England while the majority of the under 30s still hadn't been offered a vaccine, because of course you then get covid running through a largely unvaccinated younger population at school/going out to bars etc, who generally don't get super sick, but might have long-term complications. I guess until we see the long term data on long-covid we can't say what the impact has been. Really we should have started vaccinating kids too as soon as the resources were there. My overall point was about the vaccinated adult population though, and public spaces. I agree 100% that the government absolutely acted irresponsibly when it came to schoolkids.

Also as I said I have seen and met too many people who are seriously advocating for another complete lockdown and I only came here to complain about that dumb take. I know it's hyperbolic which is why I brought it up, in the same way people post insane tweets that they obviously don't think anyone ITT agrees with.

Spangly A posted:

It's not a big argument because the law isn't a big slider you have to pull down to "mandatory vaccines" while shrugging off all consequences. "what if bad people then do a thing" has never been a worthwhile argument because authoritarians don't care about excuses in the first place.

When that millionaire broke out of ebola quarantine and caused ~200 deaths I couldn't find a single person who didn't say some variant of "should've shot him tbh"

Informed consent in bioethics is absolutely a big topic jesus

That said I think we're arguing past each other a bit here. Making anything compulsory is by definition an authoritarian policy, and the potential danger isn't that some individual villain might abuse the power, it's the power itself

The Ebola example you use isn't comparing like for like - Ebola is insane transmissible and ridiculously lethal. Obviously you shoot that one person who is actively putting every single person around them in imminent danger. Covid is hardly the same thing, and the whole point of the vaccination programme is to achieve a certain threshold of collective immunity, not avert that kind of isolated high-risk crisis.

ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Oct 7, 2021

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:29

Necrothatcher: Mar 26, 2005

Doctor_Fruitbat posted:

Absolutely do not sleep on 2FA, it's quick, easy and standardised, and it adds an important layer of security that's difficult to circumvent. That's proper 2FA through an app though, SMS based 2FA is way too vulnerable.

I thought the same until my phone got nicked with an authenticator app on it and I was permanently locked out of a bunch of stuff - including losing access to all the Switch games I'd bought.

Now I'm SMS only.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:31

Nothingtoseehere: Nov 11, 2010

Frankly, the doctors and medics who make up the vaccination committees have decided that under-12s arn't at risk enough from covid to be worth jabbing. And I'm going to trust the judgement of the experts who have looked at all available evidence, rather than the wild speculation of a few news articles that "but there might be unknown long-term side effects!"

Every day children aren't in school, is more of their education they lose, more social isolation and bonding with their peers they miss, more stunting their generation receives for certainty. Against the hazy possibilities of something that might be an issue, the experts have made their choice and I see no reason to doubt them on it.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:34

Doctor_Fruitbat: Jun 2, 2013

Some good news on the schools at least:

https://twitter.com/pfizer/status/1446082946335715334?t=TwMF5iCnY771OG7E5slGWQ&s=19

Not for right this second of course, but going forward that's another major, major vector of transmission covered.

E: the risk with children is less to do with them getting covid symptoms, it's that they're as capable of transmitting it as anyone else, and crushing covid necessarily means vaccinating them.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:35

keep punching joe: Jan 22, 2006; Die Satan!

Probably some benefit in vaccinating kids 5 and up purely to cut down the risk of them spreading it around amongst each other, and then their parents/grandparents.

Even if the actual health risk from Covid is negligible.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:36

knox_harrington: Feb 18, 2011; Running no point.

Well a lockdown would be dumb but the UK is pretty weird for not requiring masks on public transport and shops, and not needing to prove vaccine status � la France for bars and restaurants.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:38

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Necrothatcher posted:

I thought the same until my phone got nicked with an authenticator app on it and I was permanently locked out of a bunch of stuff - including losing access to all the Switch games I'd bought.

Now I'm SMS only.

Maybe I'm being dense, but given how many people have their banking etc apps on the same phones that have a MFA app and also their SMS and emails, so if your phone gets nicked, then whoever stole it has access to everything. I just can't see how this is more secure than just having a simple password on your bank etc.

My main phone does nothing internet and so SMS come to a completely different device to the one I'm using to sign in to my bank etc so I think it is more secure.
If you steal my lovely Nokia 105 and get a text from my bank it won't get you very far because you'd have to steal my laptop too. Likewise if you steal the laptop you aren't going to get far without the phone. (Or I suppose you could guess what bank I'm with).

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:39

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Nothingtoseehere posted:

Frankly, the doctors and medics who make up the vaccination committees have decided that under-12s arn't at risk enough from covid to be worth jabbing. And I'm going to trust the judgement of the experts who have looked at all available evidence, rather than the wild speculation of a few news articles that "but there might be unknown long-term side effects!"

Not news articles, publications by subject matter experts in respected medical journals.

Nothingtoseehere posted:

Every day children aren't in school, is more of their education they lose, more social isolation and bonding with their peers they miss, more stunting their generation receives for certainty. Against the hazy possibilities of something that might be an issue, the experts have made their choice and I see no reason to doubt them on it.

The experts who don't have to answer to the government disagree with the ones who do have to. And given our current government...

The UK's position on covid re: children is an outlier amongst the rest of the world.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:40

Necrothatcher: Mar 26, 2005

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Maybe I'm being dense, but given how many people have their banking etc apps on the same phones that have a MFA app and also their SMS and emails, so if your phone gets nicked, then whoever stole it has access to everything. I just can't see how this is more secure than just having a simple password on your bank etc.

Well the banking apps on my phone need a fingerprint to access so anyone who stole it shouldn't be able to get in. Plus the phone's own security should theoretically keep them out unless they really really want to get it.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:42

Communist Thoughts: Jan 7, 2008; Our war against free speech cannot end until we silence this bronze beast!

Gonzo McFee posted:

https://twitter.com/kennardmatt/status/1445810480954716160?s=19

Lol

An independent inquiry lol

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:43

goddamnedtwisto: Dec 31, 2004; If you ask me about the mole people in the London Underground, I WILL be forced to kill you; Fun Shoe

Necrothatcher posted:

I thought the same until my phone got nicked with an authenticator app on it and I was permanently locked out of a bunch of stuff - including losing access to all the Switch games I'd bought.

Now I'm SMS only.

This is why you always set up recovery along with 2FA - both for the authenticator itself (Google Authenticator is pretty easy for this) and for the individual accounts, although that might be variable depending on the exact implementation.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:46

Gonzo McFee: Jun 19, 2010

https://twitter.com/BenInLDN/status/1446107271843368960?s=19

Lol imagine getting a lecture on impartiality the day it came out that the top BBC journalists were at a piss up with the tories.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:46

Spangly A: May 14, 2009; God help you if ever you're caught on these shores

A man's ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall

ThomasPaine posted:

The Ebola example you use isn't comparing like for like - Ebola is insane transmissible and ridiculously lethal. Obviously you shoot that one person who is actively putting every single person around them in imminent danger. Covid is hardly the same thing, and the whole point of the vaccination programme is to achieve a certain threshold of collective immunity, not avert that kind of isolated high-risk crisis.

Covid killed 3x the number of people in the UK, in one year, than ebola infected in the entire 2013-2016 West African pandemic.

People are annoyed at you minimising the impact of COVID because you very obviously don't understand the scale of it

# ? Oct 7, 2021 14:47

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

ThomasPaine posted:

but you're putting a lot of words into my mouth here.

[...]but if you follow your argument to its conclusion none of us leave the house ever again

gently caress off.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 15:03

ThomasPaine: Feb 4, 2009; We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.

Spangly A posted:

Covid killed 3x the number of people in the UK, in one year, than ebola infected in the entire 2013-2016 West African pandemic.

People are annoyed at you minimising the impact of COVID because you very obviously don't understand the scale of it

Where did I minimise anything? Stop putting words into my mouth. Weighing up current vs historical risk and the value of different public health measures is not minimising anything. The pandemic has been extremely poo poo. I have literally not suggested otherwise at any point.

Are you really telling me a known active carrier of ebola in an almost entirely unvaccinated population is even remotely the same thing as someone who might be active carrier of covid in an majority vaccinated one? You're comparing apples and oranges. Ebola and covid are completely different ball games, and the former might not have the staying power but it absolutely needs way more strict containment because it's exponentially more deadly to people unlucky enough to be in the vicinity.

Bobby Deluxe posted:

gently caress off.

Solid point well made.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 15:05

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

We're back for Season 3 of this here podcast and honestly, and yes I am biased, it's banger. So get in here!

https://twitter.com/PraxisCast/status/1446110118769139713?s=20

# ? Oct 7, 2021 15:05

Spangly A: May 14, 2009; God help you if ever you're caught on these shores

A man's ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall

If you get the idea that different things are different then stop trying to use slippery slopes and the spectre of ideology to criticise hypothetical vaccination policies fgs

# ? Oct 7, 2021 15:15

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

ThomasPaine posted:

Where did I minimise anything?

ThomasPaine posted:

Honestly I feel like one of the big takeaways from covid has been how much it has forced relatively privileged people in the west to acknowledge their own mortality, and scrambled their brains in the process.

Like, I get it, covid is scary. It can be a real bitch and yeah, it can kill you especially if you're old or otherwise vulnerable. But lockdown was always a public health measure designed to stop hospitals being overwhelmed. There was (is?) a lot of virus going around, and lots of people were always going to get sick as a result, but only a tiny minority died - numbers not really altogether worse than from other causes. It's poo poo but people die. But yeah, lockdown was necessary to stop the hospitals being overwhelmed, and I do understand the anxiety of the whole thing - I certainly felt it.

Anyway, what I'm getting to is that now we have a solid vaccine rollout and everyone who wants one has been offered one, but I know so many people who are still losing their minds about getting on buses or whatever. I genuinely don't get it! You've had a vaccine that reduces covid's likelihood of killing you from 'very unlikely' to 'almost zero'. And yet you're still refusing to leave the house you're so terrified of catching it? And you're getting mad at other people trying to get back to a semblance of normality? I just... if you've had the vaccine what more can you do? You're basically fine. It turns covid into a potentially unpleasant but basically harmless cold. I fundamentally do not understand why anyone is remotely worried anymore. Yes, it might still kill you if you're very unlucky. You can also just die from a thousand other things on a daily basis. You might get cancer or fall over or crash a car or whatever. But for some reason you obsess over covid and covid alone, and insist on this quasi-wartime attitude of stoic self-denial and permanent isolation until what, we have 0 cases globally, as if that's even possible. And all that for something that, assuming you're vaccinated, is less of a threat than slipping in the shower?

Idk, this just feels like a lot of people learning for the first time that you can just... die, and being completely unable to process the reality of that. Covid was what prompted that thought process, so covid will always be this terrifying existential thread. Maybe this attitude stems from the influence of a neoliberal ideology that holds the only important decision as one that directly affects you, the individual. They cannot recognise public health measures for the collective policies they are, and instead insist on perceiving them as there to protect them personally from this big bad evil, which persists now even as its actual threat dwindles.

I'm thinking out loud here I guess but it's interesting. Since having the vaccine I stopped giving a single poo poo about covid despite being technically considered vulnerable, and it's wild to me that there are people who still refuse to go to public spaces after nearly two years despite being at essentially no additional risk than they otherwise would be.

I'll stop putting words in your mouth when they stop coming out of it.

Also if you reply to me by attacking a position you have heard a 'bunch of people' saying (but notably that I have not), and then start accusing everyone else of strawmanning, then it was a good point well made and you can indeed gently caress off.

# ? Oct 7, 2021 15:21