Elon Musk is a nice chap

[PlainName]

Dont know how US tax laws work but it sounds plausible.

That's how conspiracy theories get traction. So long as they sound good they must be right.

[wraper]

Other say only reason  Musk bought twatter was to be able to write off 400M USD in losses in various companies! Dont know how US tax laws work but it sounds plausible.
https://nypost.com/2022/11/04/elon-musk-slashing-jobs-at-twitter-to-avoid-700m-loss-next-year-sources/

Show me one billionaire or even budding billionaire tied to the US monetary system who doesn't tax-write-off their debt. "But it's OK when we do it!"

What "tax-write-off their debt" should even mean? Only creditor (not debtor) can write off the debt as losses. Which actually are losses never to be repossessed, creditor forfeits the money someone owes them, as they deem it impossible/not viable to get back. If you are in debt, you cannot write anything off unless filing bankruptcy. NYP article is not even about writing anything off.

[AndyBeez]

Twitter loses four million dollars a day. Just whose money have they been burning through? No wonder the investors wanted Musk's money as a bail out(?)

The validation blue tick will now become a subscription entity. So how will this work for people who do not/cannot afford ~$100/yr or, do not wish to connect a bank account to their status of political dissident.

Twitter will continue to evolve into a 'free speech' platform for PR companies with AZ cellebs, politicians and influencer clients. Opinion will be a press release.  And then Twitter will lose its final dollar. Sorry Elon, you should have built a moon base with the money instead.

[wraper]

The validation blue tick will now become a subscription entity. So how will this work for people who do not/cannot afford ~$100/yr or, do not wish to connect a bank account to their status of political dissident.

They could not get a blue tick before either. It was an elitist mark, not a mark you are a verified real person. For example it's not likely you could get it even if really tried, on other hand Dave could get as he's a public figure.

[tom66]

It never seems to be acknowledged when billionaires are reported to "write off $400 million", for example, this is only possible because they lost that money.   So they don't pay taxes on it.  You cannot write off debt from a company you acquired, it's not your debt, it's the company's debt.

This isn't some infinite money hack where if you lose 100% of something you don't pay 120% of taxes... it's more like losing 100% of something to avoid 25% of corporation taxes somewhere else... so reducing a loss from 100% to ~75%.

[Zero999]

Twitter does count, because the government forced them to censor content which they didn't like. Good quality, peer reviewed articles, in prestigious medical journals were deemed to be misinformation by journalists, "fact checked" and censored.

Can you provide a link?  I know there were many studies that came out over the past two years linked to the pandemic, but I'm not sure I've seen a decent one, in a decent journal that was completely wrong. There have been many trash studies - and even completely fabricated ones, just look at retractionwatch.  But I'm asking specifically for studies that were flagged as misinformation by the government. I'm not talking about censorship from journalists as they are not experts and aren't the best primary source.

You've missed the point. The government told the social media companies to not allow anything which they believed to be wrong about the pandemic. Anything disputing: the efficacy of the masks and vaccines at preventing transmission, that lockdowns did more harm than good etc., irrespective or whether it was a good quality study, or just some idiot ranting, shall be classified as misinformation and censored.

Governments relied on some pretty dodgy studies themselves i.e. computer simulations showing masks help stop the spread, without bothering to commission good studies and booster vaccines which only relied on antibody titres, rather than protection against disease.

Voting murderers out of office is not holding them accountable. Long prison terms is

You can't really elect someone to take charge and then criminalise them when they do so. There is a huge hurdle to cross, not least that they tend to still be in charge when they are taken to task. When it comes to the pandemic, it would be easy to suggest that they were following what they thought was appropriate practice - there were enough contrary views that they could pick and choose. Plus you have to weigh in everything else besides the pandemic that they have to deal with. The lock-down situation would be a good example: there is some thought that it should have occurred sooner, but against that is the downside of killing off the hospitality industry.

All they need to argue is that whatever they did they believed was in the best interest of the country. Easy bar to jump. The best you can hope for, realistically, is that they get barred from holding future office.

Those in power need to be punished because the policies implemented by them in response to the pandemic caused a lot of harm to society. Plenty of scientists believed they were doing more harm than good with lockdown, so why didn't they listen to them? The Hippocratic oath says firstly do no harm, should have been applied to public health and clearly hasn't been.

Twitter loses four million dollars a day. Just whose money have they been burning through? No wonder the investors wanted Musk's money as a bail out(?)

The validation blue tick will now become a subscription entity. So how will this work for people who do not/cannot afford ~$100/yr or, do not wish to connect a bank account to their status of political dissident.

Twitter will continue to evolve into a 'free speech' platform for PR companies with AZ cellebs, politicians and influencer clients. Opinion will be a press release.  And then Twitter will lose its final dollar. Sorry Elon, you should have built a moon base with the money instead.

Twitter isn't about making money but owning the public square. It doesn't matter if it loses, rather than makes money.

[PlainName]

The government told the social media companies to not allow anything which they believed to be wrong about the pandemic.

There were calls for blatantly wrong and misleading info to be removed after the fact. You make it sound like Twitter et al had to check with the government that stuff was OK before allowing it to be posted. A lot of conspiracy stuff was not just allowed by pushed to viewers, and left unchecked that was going to cause a fair amount of harm. What would have been your solution?

Plenty of scientists believed they were doing more harm than good with lockdown, so why didn't they listen to them?

Plenty of scientists believed lockdown was brought in too late. Who to listen to? A favourite anti-government crowd or some other cherry-picked selection?

Aside from which, what harm did those scientists say lockdown would inflict that was worse than being extremely ill, possibly fatally?

[Zero999]

The government told the social media companies to not allow anything which they believed to be wrong about the pandemic.

There were calls for blatantly wrong and misleading info to be removed after the fact. You make it sound like Twitter et al had to check with the government that stuff was OK before allowing it to be posted. A lot of conspiracy stuff was not just allowed by pushed to viewers, and left unchecked that was going to cause a fair amount of harm. What would have been your solution?

Define blatantly misleading information? The really harmful stuff i.e. the vaccine contains a microchip or it affects fertility was easily debunked, but there are plenty of legitimate concerns which were dismissed out of hand. It can be argued that some of the government narrative fell into the category of harmful misinformation.

The problem was legitimate studies were deemed to be misleading by journalists running social media and removed, purely through fear of government action.

Plenty of scientists believed they were doing more harm than good with lockdown, so why didn't they listen to them?

Plenty of scientists believed lockdown was brought in too late. Who to listen to? A favourite anti-government crowd or some other cherry-picked selection?

Perhaps the government cherry picked a selection of scientists to backup their policies. I forget the number of times their predictions were off by over 100%.

Aside from which, what harm did those scientists say lockdown would inflict that was worse than being extremely ill, possibly fatally?

A greater number of deaths due to: decreased physical activity, increased consumption of alcohol and junk food, poor mental health and economic downturn, as excess deaths generally rise during times of recession. They feared lockdown wouldn't save any lives. All it would do is push infections into the future, as it can't be sustained indefinitely: don't forget there weren't any vaccines back in 2020.

No proper studies have been done to prove that lockdowns work. There certainly isn't the level of evidence to justify the harms to society. I can live with something relatively harmless, yet unproven, such as wearing a mask, but the burden of proof should be much greater when it comes to more harmful measures.

Excess deaths have been running at around 10% above the pre-pandemic 5 year average, over recent months, which is unexpected as most of these are unrelated to COVID-19. What was predicted was there would be a fall in all cause mortality as COVID-19 killed those who were more vulnerable and most likely to die. Some of these deaths will be due to delayed treatment, but others will be down to the effects of lockdown and a small number could even be due to adverse effects of the vaccine.

[CatalinaWOW]

The government told the social media companies to not allow anything which they believed to be wrong about the pandemic.

There were calls for blatantly wrong and misleading info to be removed after the fact. You make it sound like Twitter et al had to check with the government that stuff was OK before allowing it to be posted. A lot of conspiracy stuff was not just allowed by pushed to viewers, and left unchecked that was going to cause a fair amount of harm. What would have been your solution?

Plenty of scientists believed they were doing more harm than good with lockdown, so why didn't they listen to them?

Plenty of scientists believed lockdown was brought in too late. Who to listen to? A favourite anti-government crowd or some other cherry-picked selection?

Aside from which, what harm did those scientists say lockdown would inflict that was worse than being extremely ill, possibly fatally?

All of this hindsight is wonderful.  At the beginning of the pandemic there was real reason for concern.  The death rate was unknown, possibly as high as 0.5%, which chances to go higher if unfortunate mutations occurred.  The mode of transmission was not thoroughly understood.  The negative affects of the lockdown were only qualitatively known, and still are not fully quantified.  Even now, with the benefit of a couple years of exposure to COVID it is still not possible to say what the optimum response would have been.

Your final sentence clearly identifies one of the points of contention, and the question is unanswerable.   Is there any limit to the costs to be expended to save a single life?   The answer to this question is not to be found in science, it is based on personal ethics and beliefs and varies widely across individuals and populations.

[PlainName]

I forget the number of times their predictions were off by over 100%

If their predictions worked, they would be off! Only if no action were taken would the predictions be actually likely to occur, and since the actions taken were based on the predictions, the predictions shouldn't occur.

Nevertheless, some predictions which were originally derided as over the top did indeed happen.

All it would do is push infections into the future, as it can't be sustained indefinitely: don't forget there weren't any vaccines back in 2020

The idea of lockdowns was two-fold. First to limit the spread so there wouldn't be high peaks that overwhelmed services. That is, similar number of infections but spread over a longer time. Second, to give a breathing space in order to develop vaccines, precisely because there were none at that time.

[coppice]

Plenty of scientists believed they were doing more harm than good with lockdown, so why didn't they listen to them?

Plenty of scientists believed lockdown was brought in too late. Who to listen to? A favourite anti-government crowd or some other cherry-picked selection?

The global consensus of researchers who studied previous pandemics was that heavy lockdowns were counterproductive. I haven't heard of a single pre-COVID plan for pandemics that included such lockdowns. Ringfencing the weak, like special care in care homes, was certainly part of long term plans. However, when COVID struck the knee jerk reaction was heavy lockdowns. This made no sense. None of the inevitable consequences were properly considered. Not the economic consequences. Not the non-COVID health care consequences. Not the educational consequences. Not the child development consequences. It takes time to research so many complex consequences. They had been looked at over decades, but were completely ignored in the panic.

[Zero999]

I forget the number of times their predictions were off by over 100%

If their predictions worked, they would be off! Only if no action were taken would the predictions be actually likely to occur, and since the actions taken were based on the predictions, the predictions shouldn't occur.

Nevertheless, some predictions which were originally derided as over the top did indeed happen.

All it would do is push infections into the future, as it can't be sustained indefinitely: don't forget there weren't any vaccines back in 2020

The idea of lockdowns was two-fold. First to limit the spread so there wouldn't be high peaks that overwhelmed services. That is, similar number of infections but spread over a longer time. Second, to give a breathing space in order to develop vaccines, precisely because there were none at that time.

The predictions were more wrong than right. It should have been obvious, by looking at what happened in other countries who did things differently. Sweden didn't impose such severe restrictions and none of the bad things which we were warned of happened. They did have more COVID deaths than their neighbours, but contrary to the propaganda by our mainstream media, it was mainly due to mishandling of the care homes, than the lack of lockdown. It was terrible the way patients were effectively euthanised, rather than treated.

This time last year, they were screaming about Omicron, yet the doctors in South Africa said it was nothing to worry about. It turns out they were largely right. Deaths were lower than previous variants, despite the number of infections being well over an order of magnitude greater. It's why I made the decision not to have the third dose. I could see the reason for the first two, but the data for boosters was flaky, the fact Omicron was milder and that they would only give me Moderna or Pfizer, when I'd previously had AstraZeneca and I didn't know how I would react, made me realise the risk wasn't worth the benefit.

The government told the social media companies to not allow anything which they believed to be wrong about the pandemic.

There were calls for blatantly wrong and misleading info to be removed after the fact. You make it sound like Twitter et al had to check with the government that stuff was OK before allowing it to be posted. A lot of conspiracy stuff was not just allowed by pushed to viewers, and left unchecked that was going to cause a fair amount of harm. What would have been your solution?

Plenty of scientists believed they were doing more harm than good with lockdown, so why didn't they listen to them?

Plenty of scientists believed lockdown was brought in too late. Who to listen to? A favourite anti-government crowd or some other cherry-picked selection?

Aside from which, what harm did those scientists say lockdown would inflict that was worse than being extremely ill, possibly fatally?

All of this hindsight is wonderful.  At the beginning of the pandemic there was real reason for concern.  The death rate was unknown, possibly as high as 0.5%, which chances to go higher if unfortunate mutations occurred.  The mode of transmission was not thoroughly understood.  The negative affects of the lockdown were only qualitatively known, and still are not fully quantified.  Even now, with the benefit of a couple years of exposure to COVID it is still not possible to say what the optimum response would have been.

Your final sentence clearly identifies one of the points of contention, and the question is unanswerable.   Is there any limit to the costs to be expended to save a single life?   The answer to this question is not to be found in science, it is based on personal ethics and beliefs and varies widely across individuals and populations.

The fatality rate was grossly overestimated, because selection bias meant a huge number of very mild or even asymptomatic infections were missed. This was partly known at the start, but the true extent of mild disease was unknown. It seemed to take a long time for the authorities to accept things which were pretty obvious to many doctors such as the virus being airborne, rather than spread by large droplets, it's unlikely to transmit via surfaces and WHO declared it to be a pandemic a month late.

Plenty of scientists believed they were doing more harm than good with lockdown, so why didn't they listen to them?

Plenty of scientists believed lockdown was brought in too late. Who to listen to? A favourite anti-government crowd or some other cherry-picked selection?

The global consensus of researchers who studied previous pandemics was that heavy lockdowns were counterproductive. I haven't heard of a single pre-COVID plan for pandemics that included such lockdowns. Ringfencing the weak, like special care in care homes, was certainly part of long term plans. However, when COVID struck the knee jerk reaction was heavy lockdowns. This made no sense. None of the inevitable consequences were properly considered. Not the economic consequences. Not the non-COVID health care consequences. Not the educational consequences. Not the child development consequences. It takes time to research so many complex consequences. They had been looked at over decades, but were completely ignored in the panic.

There was mass panic and hysteria. Being prone to anxiety I did fall for it at the start. My social anxiety went out of control. I got very uncomfortable when anyone came near. I would often become aggressive and even had a blazing row with a colleague over something silly. Fortunately I realised by the end of the summer, it had been overhyped and I gradually settled down.

The government wanted to seen to be doing something. Rather than following the previous pandemic preparedness plan, which didn't involve lockdown, they panicked and did what China did, along with many countries.  In hindsight, it probably would've been better to do nothing at all.

It's funny how those who oppose lockdown are branded as right-wing extremists, yet it's something one would think the left would also be against as it disproportionally affected the poor and ethnic minorities. The rich and privileged are more likely to be able to work from home and many of the poor work in the retail hospitality sectors and as taxi drivers, which were badly hit by lockdown.

[coppice]

It's funny how those who oppose lockdown are branded as right-wing extremists, yet it's something one would think the left would also be against as it disproportionally affected the poor and ethnic minorities. The rich and privileged are more likely to be able to work from home and many of the poor work in the retail hospitality sectors and as taxi drivers, which were badly hit by lockdown.

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

[vk6zgo]

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

Your comment is straight out of the Trump playbook!

The Democratic Party in the USA is labelled "the Left" by their opponents, although it is still the same stuffy old conservative bunch it has always been, but the other mob, who are well financed by "affluent" people has lurched to the Right,& in doing so, their extreme members are spouting all the silly "The WEF want to rule the world", "The Lizard people", "It's the Jews" stuff, the like of which, back in the 1970s/80s was the province of the nuttiest extremes of the Left.

For some reason, some working Americans are quite sure that an alleged billionaire is going to defeat all those imaginary foes, fix all the ills of society & usher them to the Promised Land.

In Oz, Rightwing crazies (many of whom have never raised a sweat working), love to characterise those that they disagree with as "latte sipping, smashed Avo (avocado, not the Model 8"), eating Leftist, inner city elites".

If the coffee shops had to rely upon "elites" for business, they would go broke!
Hell!--McDonalds sell latte!

Dismantling the "smashed Avo" thing a bit further, if I, or most other people want avocados, you can buy them pretty cheaply, make some toast smash 'em yourself, add salt & pepper, & there you go!----Hardly caviar or Pâté de foie gras!


Certainly in this country, the wealthy are solidly ensconced in the Right Wing of politics, but "Right Wing" comes in several flavours:-
Real, old style conservatives who are closer to what is laughingly called the Left these days, real, raving loony quasi Trumpists, & the "chancers", who are not beyond using the loonies to advance their agenda, only to drop them like a hot spud if things go the wrong way.

[eti]

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

Your comment is straight out of the Trump playbook!

The Democratic Party in the USA is labelled "the Left" by their opponents, although it is still the same stuffy old conservative bunch it has always been, but the other mob, who are well financed by "affluent" people has lurched to the Right,& in doing so, their extreme members are spouting all the silly "The WEF want to rule the world", "The Lizard people", "It's the Jews" stuff, the like of which, back in the 1970s/80s was the province of the nuttiest extremes of the Left.

For some reason, some working Americans are quite sure that an alleged billionaire is going to defeat all those imaginary foes, fix all the ills of society & usher them to the Promised Land.

In Oz, Rightwing crazies (many of whom have never raised a sweat working), love to characterise those that they disagree with as "latte sipping, smashed Avo (avocado, not the Model 8"), eating Leftist, inner city elites".

If the coffee shops had to rely upon "elites" for business, they would go broke!
Hell!--McDonalds sell latte!

Dismantling the "smashed Avo" thing a bit further, if I, or most other people want avocados, you can buy them pretty cheaply, make some toast smash 'em yourself, add salt & pepper, & there you go!----Hardly caviar or Pâté de foie gras!


Certainly in this country, the wealthy are solidly ensconced in the Right Wing of politics, but "Right Wing" comes in several flavours:-
Real, old style conservatives who are closer to what is laughingly called the Left these days, real, raving loony quasi Trumpists, & the "chancers", who are not beyond using the loonies to advance their agenda, only to drop them like a hot spud if things go the wrong way.

If you can’t see how wonderful Donald Trump is for America, you must be truly deceived. He’s an amazing president (And by the way, he’s still actually the president, unlike the fraudulent vote-rigging imposter in his zimmer frame.)

[wraper]

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

Your comment is straight out of the Trump playbook!

The Democratic Party in the USA is labelled "the Left" by their opponents, although it is still the same stuffy old conservative bunch it has always been, but the other mob, who are well financed by "affluent" people has lurched to the Right,& in doing so, their extreme members are spouting all the silly "The WEF want to rule the world", "The Lizard people", "It's the Jews" stuff, the like of which, back in the 1970s/80s was the province of the nuttiest extremes of the Left.

For some reason, some working Americans are quite sure that an alleged billionaire is going to defeat all those imaginary foes, fix all the ills of society & usher them to the Promised Land.

In Oz, Rightwing crazies (many of whom have never raised a sweat working), love to characterise those that they disagree with as "latte sipping, smashed Avo (avocado, not the Model 8"), eating Leftist, inner city elites".

If the coffee shops had to rely upon "elites" for business, they would go broke!
Hell!--McDonalds sell latte!

Dismantling the "smashed Avo" thing a bit further, if I, or most other people want avocados, you can buy them pretty cheaply, make some toast smash 'em yourself, add salt & pepper, & there you go!----Hardly caviar or Pâté de foie gras!


Certainly in this country, the wealthy are solidly ensconced in the Right Wing of politics, but "Right Wing" comes in several flavours:-
Real, old style conservatives who are closer to what is laughingly called the Left these days, real, raving loony quasi Trumpists, & the "chancers", who are not beyond using the loonies to advance their agenda, only to drop them like a hot spud if things go the wrong way.

[magic]

If you can’t see how wonderful Donald Trump is for America, you must be truly deceived. He’s an amazing president (And by the way, he’s still actually the president, unlike the fraudulent vote-rigging imposter in his zimmer frame.)

The TV comedian was a wonderful president for America, but I like the zombie too

Americans believe that they are free and the masters controllers of their own fate, so surely everything that happens to them is their own choice and exactly what's right for America. There was no cheating, it's a crazy conspiracy theory from http://patriots.fail and it belongs only there

In Oz, Rightwing crazies (many of whom have never raised a sweat working), love to characterise those that they disagree with as "latte sipping, smashed Avo (avocado, not the Model 8"), eating Leftist, inner city elites".

If the coffee shops had to rely upon "elites" for business, they would go broke!
Hell!--McDonalds sell latte!

That's why you will never get it.
Most people couldn't afford to spend their whole days in coffee shops, slacking off remotely.

The criticism is valid. The foot soldiers of "the Left" today are basically educated beyond their competence urbanites of questionable ethics, productivity and overall social worth, who make up for their deficiency by insisting that everybody has an inherent worth and then prove it by "speaking up" in defense of the most ugly, despised or abominable individuals they could find. And, I guess, proudly wearing their masks and eagerly taking experimental GMO treatments...

The whole movement is, of course, nurtured and sponsored by Reptilians.

Your comment is straight out of the Trump playbook!

The Democratic Party in the USA is labelled "the Left" by their opponents, although it is still the same stuffy old conservative bunch it has always been, but the other mob, who are well financed by "affluent" people has lurched to the Right,& in doing so, their extreme members are spouting all the silly "The WEF want to rule the world", "The Lizard people", "It's the Jews" stuff, the like of which, back in the 1970s/80s was the province of the nuttiest extremes of the Left.

For the record, everything with "Party" in its name is openly and proudly a bunch of grifters deep in the pockets of Reptilians, by definition.
And Trump belongs to the Republican Party.

Yes, times change. What used to be "the Left" in the past is "the Right" today, the labels change but it's all still the same. For over a century, those who are poor and uncertain of their future have been rallied up against the Reptilians and the New World Order, because being poorly educated, gullible and disorganized they pose no true danger to the Reptilians and conveniently make all NWO resistance look like a bunch of nutters by association. And even if they get out of hand like that spergy German dictator back then, defeating them is as easy as spilling enough blood of men, but not Reptilians.

The whole movement is, of course, nurtured and sponsored by Reptilians.

[tszaboo]

The global consensus of researchers who studied previous pandemics was that heavy lockdowns were counterproductive.

Who cares, WFH is finally normal, and work life balance improved tenfold.

[Zero999]

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

Your comment is straight out of the Trump playbook!

The Democratic Party in the USA is labelled "the Left" by their opponents, although it is still the same stuffy old conservative bunch it has always been, but the other mob, who are well financed by "affluent" people has lurched to the Right,& in doing so, their extreme members are spouting all the silly "The WEF want to rule the world", "The Lizard people", "It's the Jews" stuff, the like of which, back in the 1970s/80s was the province of the nuttiest extremes of the Left.

For some reason, some working Americans are quite sure that an alleged billionaire is going to defeat all those imaginary foes, fix all the ills of society & usher them to the Promised Land.

In Oz, Rightwing crazies (many of whom have never raised a sweat working), love to characterise those that they disagree with as "latte sipping, smashed Avo (avocado, not the Model 8"), eating Leftist, inner city elites".

If the coffee shops had to rely upon "elites" for business, they would go broke!
Hell!--McDonalds sell latte!

Dismantling the "smashed Avo" thing a bit further, if I, or most other people want avocados, you can buy them pretty cheaply, make some toast smash 'em yourself, add salt & pepper, & there you go!----Hardly caviar or Pâté de foie gras!


Certainly in this country, the wealthy are solidly ensconced in the Right Wing of politics, but "Right Wing" comes in several flavours:-
Real, old style conservatives who are closer to what is laughingly called the Left these days, real, raving loony quasi Trumpists, & the "chancers", who are not beyond using the loonies to advance their agenda, only to drop them like a hot spud if things go the wrong way.

If you can’t see how wonderful Donald Trump is for America, you must be truly deceived. He’s an amazing president (And by the way, he’s still actually the president, unlike the fraudulent vote-rigging imposter in his zimmer frame.)

Lol. Trump had his strengths and weaknesses, like any other president. The difference was he had no prior experience with politics and it showed. His biggest flaw was not thinking before speaking, which frequently got him in trouble. From a moral perspective he's no worse than any other politician. They're all A-holes, but the difference with Trump is he didn't try to hide it.

[tom66]

The global consensus of researchers who studied previous pandemics was that heavy lockdowns were counterproductive. I haven't heard of a single pre-COVID plan for pandemics that included such lockdowns. Ringfencing the weak, like special care in care homes, was certainly part of long term plans. However, when COVID struck the knee jerk reaction was heavy lockdowns. This made no sense. None of the inevitable consequences were properly considered. Not the economic consequences. Not the non-COVID health care consequences. Not the educational consequences. Not the child development consequences. It takes time to research so many complex consequences. They had been looked at over decades, but were completely ignored in the panic.

Whilst I agree to an extent it is worth noting that partial lockdowns are also a bit pointless.  The UK had a number of times where the policy was, "meet up but only 6 people, or go to the pub but only if you eat a meal" kind of policies.  Which of course still allows the virus to spread - and as the spread is exponential a hard lockdown will be eventually required, and that will lead to deaths. So if you *are* going to lock down, there's really no point in doing a half-hearted approach. Either lock down or don't. 

I would like to have seen more isolation of the most vulnerable but it's a lot harder than it seems, think of the 80 year old in the care home needing 24 hour staffing, that's 4-5 people that are constantly exposed to that resident, and they are out in the general population too.  Unless you completely isolated them, maybe gave them insane hazard pay for locking them up in a hotel for months on end so their connections were limited, I suspect you wouldn't have been able to achieve the isolation required. There's more difficulty for those who are vulnerable but have to go to work, or have family members living with them. No obvious answers for those guys.

I am really looking forward to the proper research coming out in the next decade analysing the response to the lockdowns and the consequences.  I've got a sickening feeling it was a terrible mistake but it did feel like the right thing to do in the moment.  There will be another pandemic, so let's hope we respond to it a little more competently.

[JPortici]

It's funny how those who oppose lockdown are branded as right-wing extremists, yet it's something one would think the left would also be against as it disproportionally affected the poor and ethnic minorities. The rich and privileged are more likely to be able to work from home and many of the poor work in the retail hospitality sectors and as taxi drivers, which were badly hit by lockdown.

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

True. Poor, undereducated, angry masses have turned once again to the far right (at least here). The left has done nothing but sabotage themselves in the last ten years or so

[T3sl4co1l]

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

Your comment is straight out of the Trump playbook!

The Democratic Party in the USA is labelled "the Left" by their opponents, although it is still the same stuffy old conservative bunch it has always been, but the other mob, who are well financed by "affluent" people has lurched to the Right,& in doing so, their extreme members are spouting all the silly "The WEF want to rule the world", "The Lizard people", "It's the Jews" stuff, the like of which, back in the 1970s/80s was the province of the nuttiest extremes of the Left.

For some reason, some working Americans are quite sure that an alleged billionaire is going to defeat all those imaginary foes, fix all the ills of society & usher them to the Promised Land.

In Oz, Rightwing crazies (many of whom have never raised a sweat working), love to characterise those that they disagree with as "latte sipping, smashed Avo (avocado, not the Model 8"), eating Leftist, inner city elites".

If the coffee shops had to rely upon "elites" for business, they would go broke!
Hell!--McDonalds sell latte!

Dismantling the "smashed Avo" thing a bit further, if I, or most other people want avocados, you can buy them pretty cheaply, make some toast smash 'em yourself, add salt & pepper, & there you go!----Hardly caviar or Pâté de foie gras!


Certainly in this country, the wealthy are solidly ensconced in the Right Wing of politics, but "Right Wing" comes in several flavours:-
Real, old style conservatives who are closer to what is laughingly called the Left these days, real, raving loony quasi Trumpists, & the "chancers", who are not beyond using the loonies to advance their agenda, only to drop them like a hot spud if things go the wrong way.

If you can’t see how wonderful Donald Trump is for America, you must be truly deceived. He’s an amazing president (And by the way, he’s still actually the president, unlike the fraudulent vote-rigging imposter in his zimmer frame.)

Alright well I take back my supportive comments in the other thread.

Also, no surprise this thread has gone on far too long...

[Zero999]

It's funny how those who oppose lockdown are branded as right-wing extremists, yet it's something one would think the left would also be against as it disproportionally affected the poor and ethnic minorities. The rich and privileged are more likely to be able to work from home and many of the poor work in the retail hospitality sectors and as taxi drivers, which were badly hit by lockdown.

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

True. Poor, undereducated, angry masses have turned once again to the far right (at least here). The left has done nothing but sabotage themselves in the last ten years or so

Why is that a bad thing?

Many policies, now considered to be far-right, are common sense: strong sense of family, adherence to traditions which have served well and opposition to mass immigration and gender ideology. There are elements of the far right, which are bad, such as treating ethnic minorities as inferior, but they don't represent the views of most working class people, who just want a chance to succeed.

[sarge]

This thread is a train wreck.

[coppice]

You are behind the times. The left is now the domain of the affluent. They couldn't give a damn about the underprivileged. They've redefined all the relevant terms, so they can feel good about their nasty ways.

Your comment is straight out of the Trump playbook!

Actually its straight out of looking at the people in supposedly left wing parties parties like the UK's Labour Party, and the reaction of the working class to them.