Funny Events of the "Woke" world

Silvanus

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And how often do these bad flu seasons happen? Also, that's exactly why we use excess deaths to see the differences and impacts of such things. Why can we use excess deaths for a bad flu season, but not the covid pandemic?
Severity of flu seasons fluctuates drastically and frequently. We can use excess deaths to give an overview of any particular period, but it will never be useful for pinning down a single specific cause.

That number doesn't make any sense. So the US experienced 400,000 excess deaths in say 2019 then? Well, in 2020, the US experienced 470,000 excess deaths. Does that mean covid didn't have much of an impact then? Because if you're gonna claim that, then that's the only logic to be gleamed from that.
I found the source of your stat: a regression model based on 2015 - 2019, so after the point most models already record a high excess death rate. Longer-range models tend to put the stat for 2020 at 600,000+.
 

Gergar12

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Leftists in media in a nutshell: Please give me money for my Patreon while I virtue signal, and get very little done.

Liberals: I get shit done, but sometimes I am indifferent to suffering that isn't related to me.

Socdems: Poor mix of both.

My theory: People/groups who don't want to put in the effort to get something done won't get something done. Look at Iran, those academics, women, and young people failed because they were not willing to do what every other civil war/revolution did. Grab an AK, and go to the countryside. You can't complain your way to a revolution.

Granted my views on this are mixed. If we get a degrowth government unless it's managed well and at the top, I don't want that revolution, if we get soviet Russia I don't want fascism even if I have healthcare. And there is no way in hell I am accepting a Maoist government having left China. Socdem countries have free speech barriers and play semantic games when discussing policies and also virtue signal.

Litrally all the left has to do is state (US)

Fuck your insurance premiums

Fuck your low wages

Fuck your COL cost brought by greed

Fuck killing people for no reason

And they would win in a landslide.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Your "real world" numbers have no information except for the number of people dead in a time period. But is this enough?

Let's test out your logic by comparing the periods January - March (Q1) 2020 and April - June (Q2) 2020. In Q1 ~10,000 people died in the USA. In Q2 ~120,000 died. By your logic, this is proof that in just one quarter, contracting covid became twelve times more likely to kill a person than the previous quarter. ...Or do you think there's maybe at least one really important piece of information that might be missing?



Right, but you're using a figure of 7-8 months to claim vaccine effectiveness drops to 83%. So with six-monthly boosters, it's never getting that low (except in a few that refuse a booster). Plus, the hypothetical situation we are using here also means that people are getting infected at least semi-regularly, so they are getting a "booster" of natural infection even more frequently. So, 90% is a reasonable figure.

Next, you're still running face first into the point I made in #6,527. The figure of "83%" includes and therefore is weighted with any lower protection in the clinically vulnerable. It's not 83% in the non-vulnerable and less in the vulnerable, it's 83% as a composite of the vulnerable and non-vulnerable. So arguing it is less than 83% in the vulnerable is entirely meaningless for the stats, because the vaccine saves 83% of people from dying of covid at 7-8 months post-vaccine and is the only number that matters. (Are you really sure you know maths? Because you seem not to.)
Covid like the flu comes in waves, usually cold season (you'd get the same drops and increases in flu numbers as well). Again, with 267,000 covid deaths in 2022, it would take 2,670,000 deaths in the first year (when the virus is novel) for you to have a 90% reduction in mortality. Even if everyone in the US hypothetically got covid in the 1st year, that would equal a 0.8% death rate, which we know is well above what it actually is. That is what is required for the vaccines/boosters/natural immunities to result in 90% mortality reduction (in every age group). How is 90% reasonable?

Nobody is getting 1 booster a year (let alone 2), literally more people got the flu shot this year vs the covid shot. Was the vulnerable group properly represented in all the studies? I'm guessing it wasn't, especially the original ones that they ran to get approval.

Severity of flu seasons fluctuates drastically and frequently. We can use excess deaths to give an overview of any particular period, but it will never be useful for pinning down a single specific cause.



I found the source of your stat: a regression model based on 2015 - 2019, so after the point most models already record a high excess death rate. Longer-range models tend to put the stat for 2020 at 600,000+.
Even with your numbers (which doesn't really matter honestly as long as we are consistent in using the same model), covid is obviously accounting for the majority of the change rather easy from 2019 to 2020. And regardless of whether you want to use excess deaths or covid deaths, I can say make the same argument that Japan (covid death metric) / Sweden (excess death metric) did great and didn't do all the covid restriction bullshit so what was the point of it? The fact that you can even make the argument TODAY shows how little all the restrictions did because the majority of the harm from the lockdowns will rear its head in the future vs today.
 

Silvanus

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Even with your numbers (which doesn't really matter honestly as long as we are consistent in using the same model), covid is obviously accounting for the majority of the change rather easy from 2019 to 2020.
Have you forgotten what you were arguing? That the public health response-- like lockdowns-- caused a higher excess death rate. And that's not 'obvious' at all; it's a fucking joke.

You gave a source that attempted to use overall excess deaths to point the finger at public health policies. The fact that excess deaths were in the hundreds of thousands before covid-- and varied dramatically from year to year-- makes that approach laughable. It shows you absolutely categorically cannot just point at higher excess deaths and conclude the public health approach to covid must therefore have been worse.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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Being a socialist is ripping someone off apparently.

When in reality...

It's Hasan "I'm a socialist by why should I pay my workers better when I pay the minimum going rate it's my business why should I practice what I preach when others under capitalism don't anyway" Piker, is anyone shocked?

The funny thing is in this Pokemaine is apparently actually better to her staff than Hasan. This cookies thing definitely is a mask slip moment where the super cute nice girl persona she's crafted though as to be clear while I don't think she's outright a malicious ***** she's definitely a more money driven creator than she'd like people to think and more some-one more actively taking advantage of her simps a bit more than she's like people to think.
 

Elijin

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The pokimane cookies thing is an excellent example of internet soundbytes. It looks and sounds outrageous, but any looking into reveals the price / cookie ratio is entirely in line with the gluten free market. Buying (brand name) cookies is just pricey if you're gluten free.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Have you forgotten what you were arguing? That the public health response-- like lockdowns-- caused a higher excess death rate. And that's not 'obvious' at all; it's a fucking joke.

You gave a source that attempted to use overall excess deaths to point the finger at public health policies. The fact that excess deaths were in the hundreds of thousands before covid-- and varied dramatically from year to year-- makes that approach laughable. It shows you absolutely categorically cannot just point at higher excess deaths and conclude the public health approach to covid must therefore have been worse.
We've been talking about whether excess deaths/covid deaths are the better metric for a starting point to see how well countries did during the pandemic. If you want to use covid deaths, there's Japan as an example in my favor; if you want to use excess deaths, there's Sweden in my favor (and Japan too but not as good as covid deaths). Also, I've said multiple times that lockdowns/restrictions will cause higher death in the future, that's why I was against lockdowns (not that lockdowns wouldn't or shouldn't lower deaths during the actual pandemic but in the long term, they wouldn't). Also, in America, lockdowns are doubly worse because people losing health insurance during a pandemic (because they got fired, laid off, furloughed) seems like a horrible public health policy. And the fact that some countries did as well or better or even close (in the present time) to countries with heavy restrictions shows how bad restrictions failed.
 

Silvanus

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We've been talking about whether excess deaths/covid deaths are the better metric for a starting point to see how well countries did during the pandemic.
Sort of, but not quite. We were discussing a source which attempted to use excess deaths as a measure of how dangerous public health policies were.

So when you say that covid was obviously accounting for the majority of the change.... yeah, but your source isn't laying the blame at the virus. It's laying the blame at the public health policies.

The rest of the post is unfocused ranting.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Sort of, but not quite. We were discussing a source which attempted to use excess deaths as a measure of how dangerous public health policies were.

So when you say that covid was obviously accounting for the majority of the change.... yeah, but your source isn't laying the blame at the virus. It's laying the blame at the public health policies.

The rest of the post is unfocused ranting.
What source are you talking about? Also, if the source did go into laying blame at public health policy, I'm pretty sure I only posted it as a source to the excess death number and nothing else. If covid restrictions worked at least just decently, you'd see major differences between countries that had restrictions and those that didn't, and that just doesn't exist. I never thought that we'd have basically no proof of lockdowns lowering deaths during the actual pandemic, I was concerned about the big picture and long-term impacts. Even if you find that lockdowns reduced deaths 5% or something like that, the long-term effects will be much higher.
 

Silvanus

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What source are you talking about?
The source you posted here:


Did you lose track of what you were actually defending?

Also, if the source did go into laying blame at public health policy, I'm pretty sure I only posted it as a source to the excess death number and nothing else.
You've been defending the source's conclusion that excess deaths must indicate a worse public health policy for over a month now.

It's a libertarian blog that attempted to argue that if a country had higher excess deaths, that means the public health response is to blame. I criticised the leap in logic. You then defended it to the hilt for so long you forgot what source it was.
 

Gergar12

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I litrally don't care unless it's a swing state, or somewhat of a swing state.
 

Phoenixmgs

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The source you posted here:


Did you lose track of what you were actually defending?



You've been defending the source's conclusion that excess deaths must indicate a worse public health policy for over a month now.

It's a libertarian blog that attempted to argue that if a country had higher excess deaths, that means the public health response is to blame. I criticised the leap in logic. You then defended it to the hilt for so long you forgot what source it was.
I posted that for the excess death statistic like I said. There's another way of calculating excess deaths where Sweden is not quite as good as it is in that one but it's still very good. If Sweden did just as good as the average country that imposed covid lockdowns and restrictions, what was the point of the lockdowns/restrictions? That forgoes whole argument about the overall (present and future) if lockdowns are good or not if even in the present you can't find a benefit.

Is the amount of deaths you can mitigate not about public health policy? If you went all in on covid via your public health policy and made it so people either couldn't or were too fearful to get general screenings for other diseases and those diseases end up taking more lives, that's due to your public health policy is it not? Same with people not going to the hospital in the US until they felt really sick because they didn't have health insurance because the lockdown caused them to get fired/furloughed/laid off thus losing their insurance. Is that not caused by the public health policy of locking down? Now in the US, covid is part of a kid's vaccination schedule and more kids are missing vaccinations because parents don't want their kids getting the covid vaccine. That policy is creating worse health outcomes, and the covid vaccine has shown no benefit for kids.
 

Silvanus

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I posted that for the excess death statistic like I said.
And then for several pages you defended its use of that metric to wholly blame public health policy.

Also, if you just want supporting stats, use an actual official source, not a dogshit libertarian blog.
 

Phoenixmgs

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And then for several pages you defended its use of that metric to wholly blame public health policy.

Also, if you just want supporting stats, use an actual official source, not a dogshit libertarian blog.
It was public health policy to do such lockdowns and restrictions and all the harms and benefits that come with them are due to the public health policy...

What was actually wrong with the article? Just because it's a libertarian article doesn't mean it's wrong. Just like just because FOX or CNN ran a story, doesn't mean the story is wrong but the story will probably be something that promotes their overall agenda. Again, this is why we have such a divide, people ignore facts just because those facts are presented on the news media they follow.
 

Silvanus

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It was public health policy to do such lockdowns and restrictions and all the harms and benefits that come with them are due to the public health policy...
The harms and benefits that are actually related are related. That's a tautology. The problem is that the article is attributing everything, whether a credible connection exists or not.

Imagine doing that for anything else. Say we were discussing whether public transport is safer than driving, and I pulled out an article that said Country A has more public transport, and also higher excess deaths. That proves nothing about public transport-- we know nothing about those deaths, the bulk could be completely unrelated. Yet that's the equivalent of what that blog was doing. Could be attributing excess deaths from a cold snap or a wildfire for all we know.

What was actually wrong with the article? Just because it's a libertarian article doesn't mean it's wrong.
All the problems with it have been patiently explained to you several times, before you forgot which source we were discussing and had to be reminded.
 

Phoenixmgs

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The harms and benefits that are actually related are related. That's a tautology. The problem is that the article is attributing everything, whether a credible connection exists or not.

Imagine doing that for anything else. Say we were discussing whether public transport is safer than driving, and I pulled out an article that said Country A has more public transport, and also higher excess deaths. That proves nothing about public transport-- we know nothing about those deaths, the bulk could be completely unrelated. Yet that's the equivalent of what that blog was doing. Could be attributing excess deaths from a cold snap or a wildfire for all we know.



All the problems with it have been patiently explained to you several times, before you forgot which source we were discussing and had to be reminded.
COVID lockdowns could have saved lives, by decreasing COVID deaths (and also incidentally decreasing some other deaths, for instance from auto accidents, from other communicable diseases, and the like). They also could have cost lives—for instance, through drug abuse deaths or suicides or homicides stemming from people being cooped up for months, drug abuse deaths or suicides or homicides stemming from economic damage and unemployment caused by the lockdown, cancers not caught early as people delayed early screening (even if such early screening would have been officially excluded from the lockdown), and so on.


What is so horrible and wrong that they linked lockdowns to? Everything makes logical sense. It's not healthy to tell people to not see other people, and stuff like drug increases, lower mental health, suicides, etc are all linked to that (Hell, just watch Errant Signal's covid video, it's super depressing just watching let alone living like he did). The one thing they are wrong about was that lockdowns caused traffic deaths to increase, not decrease. Then, you have stuff like people not seeking medical care and dying of heart attacks at home during the pandemic because of the general fear of covid and just not wanting to go anywhere. Covid lockdowns/restrictions had massive wide reaching effects, very much unlike your public transport analogy. I literally saw people turned away at health clinics because they had a headache (as that's on the list of covid symptoms) and were told to go to the hospital, which means maybe they didn't because of the extra cost or the longer wait (since everyone was being funneled there), not to mention funneling everyone to one place with covid symptoms is directly causing more covid spread (aren't policies supposed to be reducing covid spread?). According to you, this stuff isn't related to covid lockdowns and restrictions?


Back to the main point since you keep diverging. Why are excess deaths the worse metric over covid deaths? Also, kinda funny that you aren't arguing that Sweden's excess death rate stat (which is the main reason I linked to said article) is very good for the pandemic years, which is my point.