Bullshit is useful

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Seabass
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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Seabass » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:11 pm

Sean Hayden wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:42 pm
Seabass wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 8:28 pm
JimC wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 8:06 pm
So Trump's ignorant statements, speaking as President with all the influence that implies, should attract no blame whatsoever?
It's not only that. Imagine all testing & tracking we could have done by now, and all the equipment and supplies our manufacturers could have produced for our hospitals, if he'd acted quickly instead of gaslighting and lying and pretending there was no problem. I think by the end of this he will have the blood of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands on his hands. We're about to blow by Italy and China within the next week or two.
You just invented a perfect solution in hindsight, irrespective of any practical considerations and possible complications at play at the time, and then proceeded to use this "magic solution" --which is how we must think of it at this time-- as the basis for blaming Trump for killing possibly hundreds of thousands of people.
So you still haven't read those articles I linked on S Korea?

I didn't invent it. It's what several actual countries did in the real world because they learned from past outbreaks like SARS and MIRS. If only we had something like, say, a pandemic response team, maybe we could have done what SK, Singapore, Japan, and several others did...
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Sean Hayden » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:19 pm

You did invent it because you haven't provided a shred of context for the decisions made here. Until then it remains your fantasy solution mentioned in hindsight like most perfect solutions are.

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Seabass » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:29 pm

Sean Hayden wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:19 pm
You did invent it because you haven't provided a shred of context for the decisions made here.
What does that even mean? I didn't invent jack shit. All I did was point out the fact that several other countries handled this outbreak much better than we did because they learned from past outbreaks. Well, we learned from them too, during Obama, but then Trump dismantled all that because that's what Republicans do.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Scot Dutchy » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:30 pm

laklak wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 8:53 pm
L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 8:09 pm
laklak wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:18 pm
Can't fix stupid.
Nope. Half-clever can be even worse.

I had a programmer who would write these completely indecipherable recursive subroutines in Assembler that he'd call from a C shell out of COBOL Said they were "elegant" algorithms.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, save me from elegant algorithms.
I did learn Assembler. Quite amazing as you could blow up computers. I used it for speeding up things.
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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Sean Hayden » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:31 pm

Seabass wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:29 pm
Sean Hayden wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:19 pm
You did invent it because you haven't provided a shred of context for the decisions made here.
What does that even mean? I didn't invent jack shit. All I did was point out the fact that several other countries handled this outbreak much better than we did because they learned from past outbreaks. Well, we learned from them too, during Obama, but then Trump dismantled all that because that's what Republicans do.
It means you're operating without context.

For example, here is just a bit of context: a team was created shortly after the first US case was identified. What were they working on? Why did they make the decisions they did? Travel bans were put in place fairly quickly. What was the reasoning behind them and did they influence the overall approach?

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Sean Hayden » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:35 pm

If we just did what Korea did is perfect hindsight reasoning man.

The context may show why we didn't, and it may be more than just that Trump did a naughty. That's important to me when thinking about this stuff.

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Seabass » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:41 pm

Lmao. He put the creationist Pence in charge. What is clear is that they were more concerned with optics and "keeping the numbers low" than dealing with the actual problem. No testing. No ramping up manufacturing hospital equipment and supplies. Way too late on locking things down and encouraging/mandating social distancing. Travel ban may have helped slow it down a bit, but the virus was already here by that point.
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"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Seabass » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:44 pm

Sean Hayden wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:35 pm
If we just did what Korea did is perfect hindsight reasoning man.

The context may show why we didn't, and it may be more than just that Trump did a naughty. That's important to me when thinking about this stuff.
Well, of course it's more than just Trump. It's all the idiots who voted for him, all the idiots he surrounds himself with, and the Republican ideology in general. Do I really need to list ALL of them every time I criticize the Trump administration?
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Sean Hayden » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:49 pm

You could start by stopping pretending to have explained things you clearly haven't.

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Seabass » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:56 pm

I give up. You're in Forty Two territory here...
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Sean Hayden » Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:59 pm

That's fine. I'm asking a lot here. I don't really expect us to have it yet.

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:10 pm

Seabass wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:56 pm
I give up. You're in Forty Two territory here...
I think that's a bit disingenuous Seabass. Sean's quite willing and able to hold Trump to account for what he's responsible for. What he's talking about is how some people blame Trump reflexively, not only because they fundamentally object to the man and his politics, but because they're also in the habit of it; the habit of blame. When something happens it must always be someone's fault. This is no more a Trump Pandemic that it's a Chinese Virus. To blame specific parties in that way suggests there is, was, and always had been an optimal response to the spread of Covid-19 which if implemented should have completely mitigated it's impact. That's unrealistic imo - the system is too chaotic.

Nonetheless, we can still hold Trump to account for the systemic failing in his administration and his personal response. He did "lie, gaslight, and pretend there was no problem" - he even called it a hoax. And he still seems to be lacking a full grasp of the situation with his "this'll all be over by Easter" nonsense. I really hope that they haven't picked Easter as some sort of arbitrary cut-off after which they'll order everybody back to work and just let it be whatever it is. Regardless of whether that was an attempt to bolster the stock market, or to inspire Americans to take measures straight away, or just wishful thinking on the president's part, it nonetheless does seem to fit into the category of "bullshit" at least...

"Well, I thought the same as everybody else. Everybody said ‘It’ll be over by Christmas and you’ve got to get out soon, otherwise you won’t see anything’. But I don’t know if it was my opinion, or if everybody was saying it. One certainly changed one’s mind when we found how well-organised Jerry was compared with us for instance. And how thinly we were on the ground, of course."
-- Voices of the First World War: Over by Christmas, Imperial War Museum: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-o ... -christmas
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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by Seabass » Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:20 pm

Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:10 pm
Seabass wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:56 pm
I give up. You're in Forty Two territory here...
I think that's a bit disingenuous Seabass. Sean's quite willing and able to hold Trump to account for what he's responsible for. What he's talking about is how some people blame Trump reflexively, not only because they fundamentally object to the man and his politics, but because they're also in the habit of it; the habit of blame. When something happens it must always be someone's fault. This is no more a Trump Pandemic that it's a Chinese Virus. To blame specific parties in that way suggests there is, was, and always had been an optimal response to the spread of Covid-19 which if implemented should have completely mitigated it's impact. That's unrealistic imo - the system is too chaotic.

Nonetheless, we can still hold Trump to account for the systemic failing in his administration and his personal response. He did "lie, gaslight, and pretend there was no problem" - he even called it a hoax. And he still seems to be lacking a full grasp of the situation with his "this'll all be over by Easter" nonsense. I really hope that they haven't picked Easter as some sort of arbitrary cut-off after which they'll order everybody back to work and just let it be whatever it is. Regardless of whether that was an attempt to bolster the stock market, or to inspire Americans to take measures straight away, or just wishful thinking on the president's part, it nonetheless does seem to fit into the category of "bullshit" at least...

"Well, I thought the same as everybody else. Everybody said ‘It’ll be over by Christmas and you’ve got to get out soon, otherwise you won’t see anything’. But I don’t know if it was my opinion, or if everybody was saying it. One certainly changed one’s mind when we found how well-organised Jerry was compared with us for instance. And how thinly we were on the ground, of course."
-- Voices of the First World War: Over by Christmas, Imperial War Museum: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-o ... -christmas
Well, disagree with me if you like, but I'm not being disingenuous. I say he's in 42 territory "here" because unlike 42, he's usually pretty reasonable. Sean's usual reasonableness is why I'm baffled by his defense of what is plainly a catastrophic failure by the Trump administration. We are on course to make Italy look like a cakewalk. I fear that after the dust has settled, this will be considered one the worst presidential failures in US history, and it didn't have to happen this way.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by JimC » Thu Mar 26, 2020 1:53 am

Without disputing the poor display of leadership by Trump which has contributed to your coronavirus woes, I think that making him the virtual sole target of criticism obscures the structural failings in the US system of government and some aspects of the "personal freedom at all costs" ethos that seems to permeate American society. Now, systematic failings have clearly occurred in countries all over the world, including Australia, so I'm not indulging in anti-American rhetoric for the sake of it. However, there is a spectrum of pandemic response competency, and the undeniable fact is that currently, the mathematical rate of increase in the US is the highest in the world:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/ ... d/12089028

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/ ... s/12088076
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Re: Bullshit is useful

Post by pErvinalia » Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:56 am

And without UHC and mandated sick leave they are in a whole different level of shit.
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