Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 350: TIME's Topic of the Year

(+) Yeah! (+)

Love to democratically vote out people who supposedly have demonstrated they will rig an election
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LordoftheMorons posted...

https://twitter.com/RobGeorge/status/1337633695826669568

One thing I never figured out is how Trump thinks quotation marks are supposed to work

I've noticed that it's a problem many old people in business have

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trump uses quotation marks like vlado.

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Jesus Christ, what a piece of shit..

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1337804907177512962?s=19

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Jesus Christ, what a piece of shit..

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1337804907177512962?s=19

...what

is he arguing that a homonym should only have one meaning?

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Surprised no one had a comment about Levine possibly being Surgeon General.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Jesus Christ, what a piece of shit..

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1337804907177512962?s=19

A special fuck you to this guy!

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Congratulations on ensuring that she will always be known as Dr. Jill Biden going forward!

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https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1337858218631065600

Disgusting

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Sorry to go back to an old issue, but I want to agree with Tony on Fauci. I think Fauci is untrustworthy and a failure of a leader, and the only reason people worship him is because he's the only one in that administration with even the slightest veneer of respectability. It's a bunch of centrist-liberal nonsense - he is as culpable as everyone else. Nobody in the Trump admin is clean. Fauci has completely fucked us.

I think it's incredibly disengenuous to call Fauci a member of the Trump Administration.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

I think it's incredibly disengenuous to call Fauci a member of the Trump Administration.

It is what it is. Everyone under Trump's compromised, period. I don't care if it's fair.

Paratroopa1 posted...

It is what it is. Everyone under Trump's compromised, period. I don't care if it's fair.

Just about every federal employee is "compromised"?
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Xeybozn posted...

Just about every federal employee is "compromised"?

The leadership is, yeah. Rank and file I don't care.

i mean fauci knew what he was doing and saying there, so calling it a lie is fair. under the specific nuance he was saying, probably true, but that's just a case of needing specific phrasing to be true when he knew better. was the surgeon general who was more blunt on saying no masks don't work, fauci had more caveats to be able to argue he didn't lie, issue is he didn't tell the whole truth either.

that said, i do also understand why the lie there was happening since people were hoarding masks and preventing doctors and nurses from having it. if he, surgeon general, etc all felt they needed to lie to be able to maintain some supplies, i totally get it. that's not a case of being untrustworthy or having completely fucked us, just a case where the way priorities were focused is rather mechanical.

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If the goal was to prevent people from hoarding masks, then they needed to say so. They didn't. The consequences of this were extremely grave.

Paratroopa1 posted...

If the goal was to prevent people from hoarding masks, then they needed to say so. They didn't. The consequences of this were extremely grave.

They absolutely did say so. To be fair.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

If the goal was to prevent people from hoarding masks, then they needed to say so. They didn't. The consequences of this were extremely grave.

If they had said that was the reason then people would have done it anyways. The people that hoard would under absolutely no circumstance avoided doing so because he told them not to.

Now, if you want to argue they should have made privately hoarding PPE illegal, full stop, I'd listen to that.

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they were saying that too but i agree. the method used was pretty different than either of us would've liked since it relies on zero trust or faith in the people; sacrifice the masses in the short term because those supplies will save significantly more people in the long term with doctors and nurses having it. strictly from a utilitarian perspective, it works. ...now a utilitarian doctor is also not what you want, ever, so that's a problem. but you know he at least isn't somebody who completely fucked us there, unless you believe that calculation is wrong and that there was a significantly better way to handle those limited supplies.


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There are people who are anti-maskers now because of Fauci's direction early in the pandemic. They needed to stress the usage of masks early and often, but early on NONE of us were clear on if we were supposed to wear masks or not. I figured it out; many didn't. The messaging was piss poor. And yes, of course hoarding PPE should be illegal.

Paratroopa1 posted...

There are people who are anti-maskers now because of Fauci's direction early in the pandemic. They needed to stress the usage of masks early and often, but early on NONE of us were clear on if we were supposed to wear masks or not. I figured it out; many didn't. The messaging was piss poor. And yes, of course hoarding PPE should be illegal.

The people who are anti-maskers now were always going to be anti-maskers regardless of what Fauci said. Him coming out right from the start saying everyone to wear masks wasn't going to stop Trump from saying you didn't need to and those people only listen to Trump.

The only thing that would have changed was their excuse for not wearing a mask.

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I can't disagree more. The message that we needed to be a mask-wearing culture needed to be seeded from the very beginning, in the brief window when the pandemic had not yet become fully politicized - during march and maybe the first week or april, or so. But during that time, even people who are staunch mask-wearers now were confused and felt like wearing masks would be weird. This absolutely did not help people get on board - by the time that the message about masks was made clear, the politicization of the pandemic was already fully underway and Trump voters weren't listening. There was a window of time to get a better outcome here and it was missed. Obviously, I blame Trump significantly more than I blame Fauci, but Fauci was not successful and he does not deserve praise.

Wasn't a big part of the backtrack on wearing masks that we learned more information on asymptomatic carriers? It seems really disingenuous to attack someone for changing what they say to do based on new information.

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So what, we were just taking our chances that asymptomatic carriers of the virus didn't spread it? Bullshit.

I dont buy at all that anyone is not wearing a mask right now because of Fauci. The people that refused to wear masks did so because Trump refused to tell them to wear masks. If Fauci had said where a fucking mask day one, Trump wouldve went naaah and the same things would have happened. Mask wearing is what it is because of the political nature Trump and the right made it, not because of Fauci.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

So what, we were just taking our chances that asymptomatic carriers of the virus didn't spread it? Bullshit.

I mean, didn't we not really know that there even were asymptomatic carriers?

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IIRC, another reason why mask wearing was discouraged early on was that since mask wearing is more about protecting others than protecting yourself, it should primarily be done if you yourself have symptoms. The only reason to support mass masking would be if serious community spread had been reached. The extent of asymptomatic cases was unknown at the time, but I feel like a bigger problem was the delusional belief that the situation could still be contained, and the refusal to accept that the tripwire of serious community spread that should trigger mask wearing had already been tripped.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

There are people who are anti-maskers now because of Fauci's direction early in the pandemic.

i can't see this.
the early on messaging was saying it either didn't work or it was one-way - protecting others from you. while that didn't make sense we kinda got stuck with both premises happening but i see anti-mask wearers that use Fauci as an argument as doing so because he's a person pro-mask people like.

my take to those people is just admitting that yeah, he and other officials lied about it and it sucks. however, we can see objectively that societies with widespread mask usage have performed better. it ain't perfect, distance is still king. some situations exist where mask wearing isn't useful or plausible, that's fine. but if you're going indoors to a store or something, just do it so others have peace of mind about it too.

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It actually was not clear back in March that cloth masks were that helpful. We knew that N95s were, but those needed to be saved for medical personnel.

It is clear in retrospect that they made a mistake and there's a good argument that they should have made a different choice based on the info they had at the time, but it was absolutely not nearly as clear as people are acting like it is today.

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TotallyNotMI posted...

I mean, didn't we not really know that there even were asymptomatic carriers?

known since either late Jan or early Feb.
a lot of the stuff we've heard of "well we didn't know that" was bullshit, we did. plenty of info out of China slipped through that revealed what we know now. we just weren't supplied.


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The thing is, EVERYONE believed in march that masks didn't help stop the spread of covid. Can we really be surprised that not everyone suddenly got on board with a total, sudden shift in direction? Can we really be surprised that a lot of people thought the entire thing was bullshit after that?

Of course we didn't know if there were asymptomatic carriers or not, but it should have been safe to assume that it was a strong possibility - and in that case it would have been far safer to mask up than to not. But we were delusional and believed this thing wasn't going to get big.

I know people who hate Trump and arent conspiracy-minded people who dont take mask wearing seriously specifically because they were told up front masks werent necessary for healthy people.

I dont know why people are acting like uncertain/conflicting messaging has no effect when thats contrary to human behavior.

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Thats why I call it a Trumper talking point. Anti-maskers use it as an excuse NOW when defending themselves since its an easy gotcha! It is not the actual reason theyre not wearing masks. That messaging went on for less than a month at the very beginning of this thing before people were glued to the tv for any messaging to begin with. Hell, I wouldnt be surprised if most people didnt know he said it until after the fact.

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The people who are anti mask now are anti mask because of Trump, not Fauci.

I can't even begin to entertain nor comprehend how you could think otherwise. This theoretical person simply doesn't exist, and no matter what Fauci said Trump was always going to be anti mask.

You're just wrong here.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The people who are anti mask now are anti mask because of Trump, not Fauci.

I can't even begin to entertain nor comprehend how you could think otherwise. This theoretical person simply doesn't exist, and no matter what Fauci said Trump was always going to be anti mask.

You're just wrong here.

I think it's completely absurd that you believe that inconsistent messaging from the person we are basically considering to be the de facto covid czar didn't have an impact on how people treated this pandemic. Yes, of course Trump is more to blame, as he always is, for everything. But there is just no question to me that Fauci's messaging was inconsistent, and that this hurt us. Not everyone who was confused is a Trump cultist.

It's not that I want Fauci's head on a pike. He made a mistake, not committed a crime, and I don't want him to be buried for this. But he shouldn't be put up on a pedestal either. Not in a country where we're approaching 280k cases with little hope of stopping the spread without a vaccine that may or may not even get distributed widely enough to work. Nobody in a position of leadership here deserves praise, is all I'm saying.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I know people who hate Trump and arent conspiracy-minded people who dont take mask wearing seriously specifically because they were told up front masks werent necessary for healthy people.

I dont know why people are acting like uncertain/conflicting messaging has no effect when thats contrary to human behavior.

Those people still wouldn't take mask wearing seriously even if it was made mandatory from day 1. It would just be a different excuse why they don't wear it.

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I just flat out dont believe that any noticeable number of people that arent Trumpers or conspiracy-minded are anti-mask now because of Fauci. That would require choosing not to believe them when they went we mess up, wear masks. That would require choosing not to believe all of the science and messaging since for the last 9 months. That would require choosing to not believe or learn from all of the cases and the deaths in the last 9 months.

If youre still refusing after all of that, you were never going to wear one.

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If you think every anti-masker is a Trumper you're not paying attention. Anti-maskers aren't just devoted cultists who are attending protests and calling it a Democratic conspiracy. Anti-maskers are also people who leave their masks at home and don't worry about it because they've heard they don't work before and aren't sure whether or not they're necessary, and that confusion started in march 2020.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Can we really be surprised that not everyone suddenly got on board with a total, sudden shift in direction? Can we really be surprised that a lot of people thought the entire thing was bullshit after that?

absolutely not surprised by it, which is why you've gotta just be up front that the lie happened. you've gotta validate the argument because it's more true than not and they saw it with their own eyes. the complete shift to "WEAR A MASK ALL THE TIME NO MATTER WHAT" is also nonsense, you've gotta make sure that in between is known. stuff like wear it in your own house, wear it while eating, wear it when nobody's around, etc are all things that'll make them balk, especially as they see people telling them to do that not do it at all.

Paratroopa1 posted...

But we were delusional and believed this thing wasn't going to get big.

no, this was another lie.
we - by we i mean officials and people keeping track of stuff going on in China - knew how fucked we were at the time. we just also knew there was nothing we could do about it so, to prevent a panic, people lied.

it was absolutely known, like we've gotten leaks from officials already proving they knew but honestly anybody who paid attention in Jan and Feb to China knew exactly what was coming and how fucked things were. people refuse to call it a pandemic despite having been one for months. to the extent that it turned into? no, but that we were completely fucked until fall where a risk of a second wave rising could occur? oh yeah, definitely.

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Do I really need to explain that the information on a virus that literally did not exist a few months prior wasn't immediately perfect? Are people in this topic really actually not comprehending that?
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Paratroopa1 posted...

If you think every anti-masker is a Trumper you're not paying attention. Anti-maskers aren't just devoted cultists who are attending protests and calling it a Democratic conspiracy. Anti-maskers are also people who leave their masks at home and don't worry about it because they've heard they don't work before and aren't sure whether or not they're necessary, and that confusion started in march 2020.

And that confusion ended by April and theyve had nearly 9 months of consistent messaging since, so if they still arent wearing a mask, its not because of a few weeks of conflicting messaging, its a personal choice rooted in something else.


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Paratroopa1 posted...

If you think every anti-masker is a Trumper you're not paying attention. Anti-maskers aren't just devoted cultists who are attending protests and calling it a Democratic conspiracy. Anti-maskers are also people who leave their masks at home and don't worry about it because they've heard they don't work before and aren't sure whether or not they're necessary, and that confusion started in march 2020.

It's been thoroughly explained why that information changed by those same sources. They were also recommending complete and total stay at home orders during this time. This demographic you've invented that were super-informed about one piece of information only about Covid and haven't learned anything else about it in nine months does not exist in any significant capacity.
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Paratroopa1 posted...

It's not that I want Fauci's head on a pike. He made a mistake, not committed a crime, and I don't want him to be buried for this. But he shouldn't be put up on a pedestal either. Not in a country where we're approaching 280k cases with little hope of stopping the spread without a vaccine that may or may not even get distributed widely enough to work. Nobody in a position of leadership here deserves praise, is all I'm saying.

this i'll fully agree with.
it is a notable step down from your initial claim too, which is the only thing i really objected to there since he's not as culpable and he didn't completely fuck us with what he did. still, there's a worship around him which exists and that worship is exactly why anti-mask people use his words. if that worship towards him didn't exist, the argument would be used significantly less.


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Paratroopa1 posted...

If you think every anti-masker is a Trumper you're not paying attention. Anti-maskers aren't just devoted cultists who are attending protests and calling it a Democratic conspiracy. Anti-maskers are also people who leave their masks at home and don't worry about it because they've heard they don't work before and aren't sure whether or not they're necessary, and that confusion started in march 2020.

Most anti-maskers are probably not Trumpers or conspiracy theorist I agree. Most are just lazy and don't like to wear a mask and use the laziest excuse they have to not wear one.

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Paratroopa1 posted...

Anti-maskers are also people who leave their masks at home and don't worry about it because they've heard they don't work before and aren't sure whether or not they're necessary, and that confusion started in march 2020.

how the fuck can anyone be confused about that?

yes, masks are necessary.

yes, you've been told in march that they're not necessary. that was wrong.

this isn't rocket science.

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The Venn diagram of people who arent wearing a mask and people who listen to the advice of doctors, professionals, and medically knowledgeable individuals are two separate circles and then the paper is ripped apart and one circle is sent to Australia.

People who arent wearing a mask because of what Fauci said dont exist because if theyre taking the advise of medical professionals they would listen to literally every medical professional saying the opposite now.

Youre just looking for a reason to be mad at neolibs which you dont because there are already thousands of legitimate not crazy reasons to be mad at neolibs.

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Suprak the Stud posted...

The Venn diagram of people who arent wearing a mask and people who listen to the advice of doctors, professionals, and medically knowledgeable individuals are two separate circles and then the paper is ripped apart and one circle is sent to Australia.

People who arent wearing a mask because of what Fauci said dont exist because if theyre taking the advise of medical professionals they would listen to literally every medical professional saying the opposite now.

Youre just looking for a reason to be mad at neolibs which you dont because there are already thousands of legitimate not crazy reasons to be mad at neolibs.

I disagree on that, Suprak.

I think if everyone agreed on it that more could be in the mask wearing circle. The fact there was disagreement and you could point to the literal CDC top pathologist as the source of it itself initially could create a crowd that says you can't believe what they say because they change what they say all the time.

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If people can't understand "our recommendations changed because we learned new information" then they're being willful ignorant because they don't want to wear masks.

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Ugh, sorry, Look, I apologize, I'm getting way too heated over this, and I genuinely didn't want to fight about this in the first place because it's basically over something that's already done and dead. I'm sorry for taking this too far. I just couldn't let it stand that people were calling Tony wrong for calling Fauci into question.

...jeez some of you expect people to be more logical than they really are.
there's a significant number of people who will believe the first few claims, see the significant whiplash to something else, and call bullshit on the second and not the first. this just creates a distrust that gets worse the more political something becomes and the influx of confusing data hits.

tony and para are both telling you this exists because they see it exist. i'm pretty sure corrik will know examples too (i know some myself but have effectively given up on trying in here). the answer to this isn't saying it's insignificant, saying they don't exist, or whatever else, it's revising what you think. you're otherwise just behaving in the same way as the anti-mask people being described.

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