COVID-19 III: No Politics For Thee

[Soulstation1]

Get Well Patrick !

[GA Russell]

I read today that the median age of US Wuhan virus deaths is 81.

[Justin V]

4 hours ago, GA Russell said:

I read today that the median age of US Wuhan virus deaths is 81.

The Wuhan virus? *sigh*

[JSngry]

Yeah, I'm picking up on a strain of thought that this is killing mostly really older people, so everybody else should just get back out there and get that economy pumping again, let the old people die, too bad about that, but, you know, we got to get on with our lives.

Which, you know, if that was the way it was going to work, I could almost see that as one of those "tough decisions" that we get called upon to make in life. Civilian Death Panels By Consensus, hey, sure, why not. I can see Alaska in my freezer.

But you know...that is NOT going to be the way it works.

[Dan Gould]

1 hour ago, Justin V said:

The Wuhan virus? *sigh*

Spanish Flu

MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome)

Lyme Disease

Ebola

Zika

All named for geographic locations of origin (Ebola named for a river rather than the village when it was first recognized.)

So FFS, yes it can be called the Wuhan Virus, no matter what you think about that fact.

 

 

[porcy62]

33 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

Spanish Flu

MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome)

Lyme Disease

Ebola

Zika

All named for geographic locations of origin (Ebola named for a river rather than the village when it was first recognized.)

So FFS, yes it can be called the Wuhan Virus, no matter what you think about that fact.

 

 

Actually Spanish Flu got the name from the fact that at times Spain had no censorship on newspapers because of neutrality in WWI so the first news about the flu came from Spain. There’s no consensus about its origins.

Btw I haven’t any problem to name it from its origin, virus don’t care about politic nor politically correct, we do.

Edited May 23, 2020 by porcy62

[Brad]

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t get caught up in a name but Asian Americans are being attacked verbally and physically. See this article for instance, The Slur I Never Expected to Hear in 2020, but do a search for “Asian Americans and Coronavirus” and you’ll find plenty of similar articles.

So, as a husband of a Chinese woman and father of an Asian American, when I hear the term that GA used — unintentionally I hope — I say, for fuck’s sake, stop using the term. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Brad

[sonnymax]

1 hour ago, Dan Gould said:

So FFS, yes it can be called the Wuhan Virus, no matter what you think about that fact.

Reports of Anti-Asian Assaults, Harassment and Hate Crimes Rise as Coronavirus Spreads

Asian American doctors and nurses are fighting racism and the coronavirus

Asian Americans describe ‘gut punch’ of racist attacks during coronavirus pandemic

Attacks on Asian Americans skyrocket to 100 per day during coronavirus pandemic

Words have consequences.

[Dan Gould]

22 minutes ago, sonnymax said:

 

Words have consequences.

How exceptionally woke of you. News flash: where it came from is long out of the bag. 

Facts are facts and the facts are that diseases have been named by place of origin (or supposed place, in the case of the 1918 pandemic) for a long long time and this disease's place of origin is a place called Wuhan.

 

[mjazzg]

But if moving away from that 'tradition' of naming meant pain and distress for people could be avoided I can't really understand why someone wouldn't choose to.

Plenty of things that have happened "for a long long time" don't happen now. 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by mjazzg

[sonnymax]

49 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

Facts are facts and the facts are that diseases have been named by place of origin...

Except when it originates in the U.S. Scientists believe the Spanish Flu jumped from birds to humans in the American Midwest. Another home-grown influenza is the H1N1, or theSwine Flu. So why don't we refer to these diseases as "America's Heartland Virus" or "Boy, those Americans sure love their pork Flu"?

Words are power. Words have consequences. Woke on that.
 

[JSngry]

We all know what we can do. Perhaps the consideration should be what we as individuals will do, and why we will insist on doing or not doing it.

For me personally, "Wuhan" sounds like the name of a old-fashioned restaurant that wasn't very good to begin with, A word seemingly more fitting for food blog-ish convos than a serious public health discussions.

Last time I looked, thee were plenty of words that meant the same thing, so it's not like there are no choices.

[Larry Kart]

Not political in the partisan sense, I don't think, but you be the judge. Makes some telling points IMO that underpin this ongoing thread:

An excerpt from Marilynn Robinson's piece in the current New York  Review of Books: 

”The theory that supports all of this [i.e. much of our nation's current thinking and behavior re: the virus and related matters] … is economic but its influence is broadly felt … because it is in fact an anthropology, a theory of human nature and motivation. It comes down to the idea that that the profit motive applies in literally every circumstance, inevitably, because it is genetic in its origins and its operations…. Behind every act or choice is a cost-benefit analysis engaged in subrationally. This is to say that thinking itself is the product of of this constant appraisal of circumstance that is is prior to thinking, and therefore not subject to culture, moral scruples, and so on, which are merely a scheme of evolution to hide this one universal intention from the billions of us who make up the human species…. By its nature, this worldview is based on the moment, in any new occasion to seek advantage.
“This view of things takes a cynical view of people as such, since no one’s true motives are different from those of the consciously selfish. Because there is only one motive — to realize the maximum of benefit at a minimum of cost — those who do not flourish are losers in an invidious Darwinian sense. Winners are exempt from moral or ethical scrutiny since advance of any sort is a good to be valued….
“This view of things has all the power among us of an ideology, though it lacks any account of past or future, any vision of ultimate human well-being. It promotes itself as nationalism, though its operations are aggressively global. The supposed nationalism plays on a nostalgia for the postwar decades, when the prestige of countries was measured by 'living standards.'"

[Big Beat Steve]

6 hours ago, Justin V said:

The Wuhan virus? *sigh*

Looks like sombody out there is afraid of alienating people from Corona, CA, or drinkers of a beer brand of the same name.
As if the virus went away if it was linguistically associated (by inference) with a foreign place (through such an artificially constructed "name") and not with a place that MIGHT (mistakenly) be understood to be "'murrican". Ho hum ...

In common lingo it's and remains the Coronavirus (or Corona virus, if you prefer). Covid-19 or whatever is the technical/medical term. That's all.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

13 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Not political in the partisan sense, I don't think, but you be the judge. Makes some telling points IMO that underpin this ongoing thread:

An excerpt from Marilynn Robinson's piece in the current New York  Review of Books: 

”The theory that supports all of this [i.e. much of our nation's current thinking and behavior re: the virus and related matters] … is economic but its influence is broadly felt … because it is in fact an anthropology, a theory of human nature and motivation. It comes down to the idea that that the profit motive applies in literally every circumstance, inevitably, because it is genetic in its origins and its operations…. Behind every act or choice is a cost-benefit analysis engaged in subrationally. This is to say that thinking itself is the product of of this constant appraisal of circumstance that is is prior to thinking, and therefore not subject to culture, moral scruples, and so on, which are merely a scheme of evolution to hide this one universal intention from the billions of us who make up the human species…. By its nature, this worldview is based on the moment, in any new occasion to seek advantage.
“This view of things takes a cynical view of people as such, since no one’s true motives are different from those of the consciously selfish. Because there is only one motive — to realize the maximum of benefit at a minimum of cost — those who do not flourish are losers in an invidious Darwinian sense. Winners are exempt from moral or ethical scrutiny since advance of any sort is a good to be valued….
“This view of things has all the power among us of an ideology, though it lacks any account of past or future, any vision of ultimate human well-being. It promotes itself as nationalism, though its operations are aggressively global. The supposed nationalism plays on a nostalgia for the postwar decades, when the prestige of countries was measured by 'living standards.'"

I think it's called "enlightened self-interest", and it's hardly a new concept, nor is it necessarily an "evil" one.

What should/could be examined is a determination of what has driven evolution (of every kind, especially cultural) in the direction it has gone all these eons. Seems to be that the there's a constant back-and-forth between what constitutes the "self" in "self-interest", to what, if any, extent the individual can be benefited by the collective. Does "self" = "me","us" or a combination of both to be determined at any given era?

Any attempt to determine how much the collective can be benefited by the individual inevitably/eventually fails unless/until the individual sees the benefit in belonging to the collective, and to what degree. Short of that, it takes coercion, and that is not a desired outcome...unless it is, in which case, BOOOOOOO!!!!!

We seem to be at a point where there seems to be a permanent (for now) division about how individuals feel about how much and what kinds of benefits they get from belonging to the/a collective. I think we all know how this ends, but we'll see, if we live long enough. It might take a while.

 

[ghost of miles]

The U.S. is on pace to hit 100,000 coronavirus deaths by Monday. Happy Memorial Day. 

 

[Brad]

3 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

The U.S. is on pace to hit 100,000 coronavirus deaths by Monday. Happy Memorial Day. 

 

I wonder where we will be Labor Day. I shudder to think. 

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I think it's called "enlightened self-interest", and it's hardly a new concept, nor is it necessarily an "evil" one.

What should/could be examined is a determination of what has driven evolution (of every kind, especially cultural) in the direction it has gone all these eons. Seems to be that the there's a constant back-and-forth between what constitutes the "self" in "self-interest", to what, if any, extent the individual can be benefited by the collective. Does "self" = "me","us" or a combination of both to be determined at any given era?

Any attempt to determine how much the collective can be benefited by the individual inevitably/eventually fails unless/until the individual sees the benefit in belonging to the collective, and to what degree. Short of that, it takes coercion, and that is not a desired outcome...unless it is, in which case, BOOOOOOO!!!!!

We seem to be at a point where there seems to be a permanent (for now) division about how individuals feel about how much and what kinds of benefits they get from belonging to the/a collective. I think we all know how this ends, but we'll see, if we live long enough. It might take a while.

 

I admit that 'enlightened self-interest' sounds better, cleaner -- the connotations, if not the literal meaning, of 'enlightened' function a bit disingeniously there IMO -- but I think that 'cost-benefit analysis' is a more accurate term for this rather cold-blooded, if not outright bloody-minded, approach to life. It is, for one, the term typically used in corporate boardrooms and in the halls of government. btw, I say 'bloody minded' because in this view of things the 'losers' always deserve it.

 

[JSngry]

8 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

I admit that 'enlightened self-interest' sounds better, cleaner -- the connotations, if not the literal meaning, of 'enlightened' function a bit disingeniously there IMO -- but I think that 'cost-benefit analysis' is a more accurate term for this rather cold-blooded, if not outright bloody-minded, approach to life. It is, for one, the term typically used in corporate boardrooms and in the halls of government. btw, I say 'bloody minded' because in this view of things the 'losers' always deserve it.

 

Yeah yeah yeah, but nobody makes a move for power without thinking they're "enlightened" in some form or fashion. Nobody.

And everybody makes a move for power, even if it's a move for the power to avoid power. Some moves work, some don't, but always, there's moves.

Besides, do you think anybody is capable of behaving without a "cost-benefit" analysis factoring in the mix somewhere? I doubt that any able-minded individual is, to be honest. It's just that some people set different acceptable margins than others.

We all make choices, simple as that.

What we might want to consider as a meaningful variable, though, is how different individuals measure. Metrics for everything, no room left for intangibles, if it's not measurable, it doesn't really exist. And/or if it exists but is not yet measurable, we've just not broken it down enough, it's there, we just need to keep analyzing until we find it.

And then, at some point, "man" can indeed begin to function as "god", not just in attitude, but in performance. Because the ability to define "is" is the very essence of ownership, and the very essence of ownership is absolute control. "Stewardship" is for suckers.

I suppose we can also look at what this whole concept of "binary choices" (i.e. - digital not just as technological tool but as essence of soul) is doing to us. But it's easier to just blame the boardroom.

Not that they don't deserve blame, but, really, they're not different than the rest of us, they are just burdened by fewer non-binary choices than the rest of us.

 

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Besides, do you think anybody is capable of behaving without a "cost-benefit" analysis factoring in the mix somewhere?

I guess  it depends on the 'where' and how much of 'somewhere.' Falling in love with your eventual spouse, proceeding to have a child or children? Do those things involve the sort of "cost-benefit" analysis that might now  be running through the mind of a Steve Mnuchin or that ran through the minds of  Kissinger and Nixon as they thought about bombing Cambodia?

[JSngry]

39 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

I guess  it depends on the 'where' and how much of 'somewhere.' Falling in love with your eventual spouse, proceeding to have a child or children? Do those things involve the sort of "cost-benefit" analysis that might now  be running through the mind of a Steve Mnuchin or that ran through the minds of  Kissinger and Nixon as they thought about bombing Cambodia?

At root, yes I do.

Gotta remember, some people go for pain, others go away from it, and most of us will take a mixture. But in every case, we go for what we want in the most efficient way we know -or have learned - how (and whether or not we realize that or not...people spend years in one kind of another of therapy figuring that out).

But let's look at this another way - if we know that there are people out there who have no compunction about hurting us, why do we let them do it anyway? If we are not willing or able to meet them on their own terms, cannot it be said that we do "deserve" what happens to us at their hands? If we know what's coming and just let it happen, and don't bother to resist, repel, revolt, and/or relocate, either them or us, whose fault is that?

I'm tired of blaming other people for simply being who and what they are. Making excuses is a waste of energy and a dangerous diversion, especially when it comes with a "value judgement".

We know who they are, and apparently they know who we are.They have done the math and are proceeding accordingly, why aren't we?

 

 

 

[Larry Kart]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

At root, yes I do.

Gotta remember, some people go for pain, others go away from it, and most of us will take a mixture. But in every case, we go for what we want in the most efficient way we know -or have learned - how (and whether or not we realize that or not...people spend years in one kind of another of therapy figuring that out).

But let's look at this another way - if we know that there are people out there who have no compunction about hurting us, why do we let them do it anyway? If we are not willing or able to meet them on their own terms, cannot it be said that we do "deserve" what happens to us at their hands? If we know what's coming and just let it happen, and don't bother to resist, repel, revolt, and/or relocate, either them or us, whose fault is that?

I'm tired of blaming other people for simply being who and what they are. Making excuses is a waste of energy and a dangerous diversion, especially when it comes with a "value judgement".

We know who they are, and apparently they know who we are.They have done the math and are proceeding accordingly, why aren't we?

 

 

cambodia cutoff love,

great to see paladin again. but doesn't a lot of this come down to "subject matter"? One can't decide to bomb Cambodia out of love, and while one could marry and have kids on a "cost benefit" basis, such choices if made are, given the subject matter or subject area,  not likely to lead to much satisfaction for anyone of those who are perforce involved, including oneself.

[ejp626]

50 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Falling in love with your eventual spouse, proceeding to have a child or children? Do those things involve the sort of "cost-benefit" analysis that might now  be running through the mind of a Steve Mnuchin or that ran through the minds of  Kissinger and Nixon as they thought about bombing Cambodia?

It may be more subconscious, but people definitely do consider all kinds of trade-offs, particularly in early stages of going out together.  Anytime you've heard someone say that X or Y is a "deal-breaker," then they are engaged in this sort of thinking.  Of course things change.  When I was a callow youth of 19, smoking was a deal-breaker.  In my mid 20s, I was hanging out with an "occasional" smoker.  Problem was she smoked under stress, and grad school was stressful, so there you go.  If she had decided to get more serious, it would have been a hard decision, and I probably would have waived my objections to the smoking... 

[JSngry]

Yeah, we definitely learn more by owning our decisions and their outcomes than by looking for justifications and other excusatory shit.

[Larry Kart]

maybe I've been lucky, but my choice of mate (if indeed she, or rather they, didn't chose me as much as anything   (btw my first wife of 36 years. passed away in 2007, so I've done this twice) involved virtually I think say I can say honestly no rational calculation.  it was like one of those cartoons where a safe falls on your head.