Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
InfamousKnight wrote:
I'm aware of that. Thank you anyways.
Think whatever you want as long as you're still following the guidelines. The most dangerous thing about your line of thought is the idea that you might not be taking it seriously. Wear a mask, social distance, sanitize everything, even if you don't think you're at risk. At this point, we don't need more people in the US who don't do the research and spread misinformation as a result.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 542
Location: Waterford, MI
Samsara wrote:
InfamousKnight wrote:
I'm aware of that. Thank you anyways.
Think whatever you want as long as you're still following the guidelines. The most dangerous thing about your line of thought is the idea that you might not be taking it seriously. Wear a mask, social distance, sanitize everything, even if you don't think you're at risk. At this point, we don't need more people in the US who don't do the research and spread misinformation as a result.
I understand that too. Where I live its a felony to not wear a facemask in a public building. At work I have to wear a mask for 8 hours a day. I'm used to it.
So yeah, I could go to jail if I dont follow the guidelines in my state(michigan).
So yeah, I could go to jail if I dont follow the guidelines in my state(michigan).
This is not true. There is no state that will arrest you for not wearing a mask, Michigan for example will only fine you $500 for not complying.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 542
Location: Waterford, MI
EZGames69 wrote:
InfamousKnight wrote:
So yeah, I could go to jail if I dont follow the guidelines in my state(michigan).
This is not true. There is no state that will arrest you for not wearing a mask, Michigan for example will only fine you $500 for not complying.
From what I heard, if you keep getting fined, you will eventually be arrested. But losing 500 dollars over a mask doesn't sound worth it to me. Sadly, my workplace doesn't take it seriously at all. I report a customer refusing to wear a mask to management and they make up some lie because they don't want to deal with it, Which is strange because they told me to report it. But everytime I do its always some lame excuse.
It's not going to protect you from Covid. Aside, you should only be having a common flu vaccine if you're an at risk group or a front line worker. You don't want to deprive people who need it more than you.
Aside, you should only having a common flu vaccine if you're an at risk group or a front line worker.
In the medical field, the "rule" (IDK if this is an actual law or just a policy where I work) is that you have to wear a mask through flu season if you don't get the vaccine. Since we're already wearing masks, I'll probably skip the shot, assuming that the policies haven't changed.
Our government in the UK has been planning for a second lockdown which would be a quick lockdown to slow the spread of the virus and they even had discussions of cancelling Christmas this year - I feel there's something else in the world going on that I been following since 2017 and then my laptop decide to give up booting from USB sticks after upgrading to 20H2 and now I have to send my laptop to an Aorus repair center and thanks to COVID there might be delays in repairing my laptop most of the IT repair shops have limited people working in them now.
Enjoys speedrunning, playing and TASing Oddworld games!
Has TASed:
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee in 12.06.13 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Adventures II in 20.03.78 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:08:28.4 (with Dooty)
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:05:01.65
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:18
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus in 37:15
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus 100% in 2:!5.44.12
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 13:01.3
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee any% in 12:59.95
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:16.27
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 100% in 1:04:01.07
Currently working on:
Waiting for Windows TAS Tools to work so I can TAS PC version of Exoddus.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
p4wn3r wrote:
The number of deaths, at least those evaluated here, includes anyone who test positive for COVID. I am fairly certain of that, because I know someone who died from a stroke, but because he had tested positive, he was counted as a COVID death, and there were sever restrictions on the mourning procedures.
I can't tell what happened to the person you knew, though if they tested positive for covid, keep in mind it's a strong stroke inducer.
Nevertheless, there is a difference in Brazil between the registration of a covid death at the obituary and how these deathes are actually counted. Most deaths that envolve someone who tested positive or who were suspicious of having covid are registred as covid deaths simply to ensure protective measures when moving the body and at the funeral conduction. However, these deaths aren't counted to the country numbers if there is no further confirmation.
p4wn3r wrote:
About this pandemic? I can say the hospitals are not nearly as chaotic as they were during some Dengue outbreaks we had in the past. I still cannot understand how this disease can need strict lockdown actions, while at the same time be very difficult to detect in your daily routine (except, of course, through the media, which has been airing COVID numbers nonstop for the last five months).
As opposed to Dengue, this disease spreads along crowds through human contact. Also, it's been killing at a 300x higher rate than Dengue was in it's worst years.
If our hospitals didn't get as bad as the ones we say in Italy, it might have been because authorities decreed lockdown measrures early enough.
Still, even if the deaths were suficientelly spread out (temporally and geographically) so that no particular hospital would find itself in a completely chaotic situation, the lives saved pay off enough for the unpleasant measures like social distancing.
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 542
Location: Waterford, MI
News, after getting sick in mid October, I got checked out after my symptoms didn't go away nor get better. It was a fever of 103, high blood pressure, fatigue, and coughing. No high levels of pain. Despite the symptoms, I tested negative. They assumed I may gotten false negative and offered me to get retested, but I didn't have any interest. Back at work, 2 people were exposed to have been infected. One of them was a pharmacy clerk and the other was the lead store manager. Both of them recovered.
Note to self: You will give af once you get it.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Although Brazil has only 2.7% of the World's population, we're responsible for almost 30% of the recent deaths for Covid. Meanwhile, our president insists in recommending miraculous medications for worms and malaria that, if anything, can increase Covid's mortality. Until a few weeks ago, he was still actively discouraging the usage of both masks and vaccines - this has only changed since a relevant political opponent has regained political rights.
The situation in hospitals is completely desperate. Doctors and nurses are crying while patients die on the floor. Oxygen is lacking in more and more hospitals, leading to massive deaths in entire floors or ICU sections. Some hospitals are getting out of intubation kits and sedatives - being intubated without these medications is an experience of immeasurable suffering and probable death. This chaos has worsened this year, but it's been so long since the situation is inconceivably bad. It still puzzles me how supposedly sane people in this thread have said some Dengue outbreaks were worse or that they don't understand why strict measures are necessary for fighting this disease. The insensibility I've been seeing in some people is very hard to not take as a trait of plain cruelty.
Vaccine hesitancy has become quite prominent lately, especially in some countries (such as France, oddly enough), and especially among certain political segments (but we should stay out of politics in this thread, so I'm not going there).
On one hand this is understandable. After all, these particular vaccines are not "normal" vaccines in that they have been rushed to the market significantly faster than normal. Normally a vaccine requires a testing period of 5 to 10 years before it's widely accepted by health officials, but these vaccines were accepted as an emergency measure in less than one year, which is a world record for a vaccine to be administered at this scale. Many people are wary in that long-term side effects of one or more of these vaccines is not known, for the mere reason that the vaccines have not existed but for less than a year. Who knows if they'll have some severe side-effects in 2 years or longer? Especially since several of these vaccines are not normal traditional vaccines, and need very special substances and conditions to be stored. People are weighing the relatively low mortality rate of the disease against a vaccine that has been rushed to the market with significantly less testing than normal.
On the other hand, the vaccines are surrounded by a lot of misinformation. Two of the vaccine brands are RNA vaccines, but they don't "change your DNA", they aren't "genetic treatment". The mechanism by which they work is complicated, but they do not change the DNA of any of your cells. (There's also the misconception that RNA vaccines are the only type of covid-19 vaccines that exist. In reality, there are two RNA vaccines, four conventional inactivated vaccines, four viral vector vaccines, and two protein subunit vaccines at this moment.)
All of this raises the question of morality of choosing not to take a vaccine. This is actually something I have been thinking for quite some time, since many years ago, not just in conjunction with this pandemic. More precisely about the influenza vaccine (and now about the coronavirus vaccine, of course):
If you get infected by the disease (eg. influenza, or the coronavirus) because you deliberately chose not to get vaccinated, and then you proceed to infect another person, who then proceeds to die from the disease, how much moral responsibility should you carry? That person effectively died because of your conscious deliberate choice. You may not have chosen to become sick, nor did you deliberately infect that other person, but you did deliberately choose to not get vaccinated, which then directly caused this chain of events.
This is a very difficult ethical dilemma.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Warp wrote:
If you get infected by the disease (eg. influenza, or the coronavirus) because you deliberately chose not to get vaccinated, and then you proceed to infect another person, who then proceeds to die from the disease, how much moral responsibility should you carry?.
In my opinion, you carry absolute moral responsibility. I'd go further: if you deliberately choose not to get vaccinated (without a decent justification, like allergy to some of the vaccine components) and you act as a vector of the disease, you are guilty of all the chain infections you cause. You may infect multiple people, or a particular person that then infects dozens of people, and any amount of deaths that follows from that is on you.
The covid vaccine should be absolutely mandatory. In countries using vaccines that have a lower efficacy, considering the virus has extreme transmission rates, it's necessary to vaccinate almost the entirety of the population to achieve heard immunity. People should not be allowed to put multiple others and the community health itself at risk due to their own superstitions or flawed beliefs.
Warp wrote:
On one hand this is understandable. (...) Normally a vaccine requires a testing period of 5 to 10 years before it's widely accepted by health officials (...) the vaccines have not existed but for less than a year. Who knows if they'll have some severe side-effects in 2 years or longer?
The main reasons these vaccines were developed much quicker than others were the immensely bigger amount of resources invested (which obviously can speed up research and testing steps without any damage to their integrity) and the reduction in bureaucracy (doing simultaneously tests that were previous required to be done one after the other [again, without any damage to their reliability], agencies centering all their attention on the vaccines development and giving quicker responses, etc).
It's true we aren't able to scientifically observe people that took the vaccine many years ago, but there doesn't seem to be theoretical reasons to be worried about that. The dangerous possible side effects that can be triggered by the vaccine components are short term (like an anaphylactic shock) and thankfully also very are. After a few months the vaccine shouldn't have any effect lasting on your body, except, of course, for the immunological memory acquired.
That's another ethical and socio-political dilemma that has no unambiguous straight answer. Can people be forced to take medicine, especially for a disease that has such a relatively low mortality rate?
It would be one thing if this were the end of humanity unless something is done. In that case the answer is much easier: Either we bypass all declarations of human rights and ethical questions and force-vaccinate all people, or else the entirety of humanity just dies. The temporary suspension of human rights is justifiable in such a case because without that action there would eventually be no humans to have those rights in the first place.
However, this is not such a case, not even close. Thus the ethical dilemma is much harder. It's not a black-and-white clear situation.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Warp wrote:
That's another ethical and socio-political dilemma that has no unambiguous straight answer.
I don't see such a difficult dilemma here. Saving people's lifes/preventing deaths are usually very broadly accepted reasons to restrict individual liberties or enforce obligations.
In practice, unfortunately, the State is not able to literally force anyone to take a vaccine. Instead, it conditions access to some public services (eg. schools) to vaccination. I think it's pretty fair to a social contract based State to condition citizenship to basic collaboration with pubic health.
I don't see such a difficult dilemma here. Saving people's lifes/preventing deaths are usually very broadly accepted reasons to restrict individual liberties or enforce obligations.
The problem here is that the death rates are low, and the vast, vast majority of people will not die of it. There are many things in this world that cause millions of deaths every year, but for practical reasons we can't just go and ban those things altogether, or force people into doing something that may avoid those things. For example, traffic accidents kill over 1 million people very year, but this is something we unfortunately have to live with, because it's not practical to, for example, ban cars completely.
Also, there's a general philosophical principle in human ethics that you cannot force a person to save his own life against his will. If, for example, a person is mortally sick and there is a medicine that could cure him, you cannot force that person to take the medicine if he doesn't want to. This is the principle of personal autonomy.
Of course the question becomes a lot fuzzier and complicated with infectious diseases, especially with ones with a low mortality rate. One problem is that vaccines are not 100% harmless to 100% of people. There exist contraindications to taking vaccines. For example, some people may experience allergic reactions to some component in the vaccine. But even then, it's a difficult moral dilemma whether you can forcefully inject someone with a vaccine against his will.
As said, if the fate of the entire humanity were at stake, and we were facing a total extinction event caused by a viral pandemic, the question would be simpler. However, we are not.
The problem is, when the disease has a relatively low mortality rate, where would you draw the line? If one person in a billion is likely to die from the disease, would you resort to forced vaccinations? If not, then what would be a death rate after which you would?
The problem here is that the death rates are low, and the vast, vast majority of people will not die of it.
There's other issues at play besides just death rates. You also have to consider the long-term negative health effects which are caused by COVID, especially in those who are part of the vulnerable population. Even if they don't die, it doesn't mean that everything is perfectly fine for them.
As an aside, I wouldn't call something which kills an additional 500K people in a year in the US compared to the normal yearly death toll to be a very low death rate. I mean, it's obviously not like the black plague or something where 25% of Europe's population was killed off, but it's still pretty bad compared to the baseline condition of there not being a current global pandemic.
Besides the impacts on people infected or killed, there's also broader societal issues caused by refusing vaccination. Namely, that while rates of infection are high, schools and various businesses will be forced to close or operate at severely reduced capacity. This has far-reaching negative impacts on society - enough so that anyone who has no contraindications towards being vaccinated and wants to enjoy the benefits of civil society (roads, schools, military, super markets, etc.) should be required to get the vaccine. Otherwise, they can go establish their own anti-vaxer community in the woods, and go build their own separate civilization from there.
For example, traffic accidents kill over 1 million people very year, but this is something we unfortunately have to live with, because it's not practical to, for example, ban cars completely.
No, but we do require licensing and testing of people before they can drive a vehicle, we investigate incidents and those responsible are held criminally liable.
Warp wrote:
Also, there's a general philosophical principle in human ethics that you cannot force a person to save his own life against his will. If, for example, a person is mortally sick and there is a medicine that could cure him, you cannot force that person to take the medicine if he doesn't want to. This is the principle of personal autonomy.
Your personal autonomy ends where someone else's begins. If you want let yourself die, fine. If your bad behaviour is dangerous to others, potentially resulting in death, you either need to be prevented from doing it or be punished for reckless behaviour. Our history here with diseases is very much not in this direction, but maybe it should be when we're talking about a virus that's killed over 2.7 million people in just over a year and the vaccination effort is downright epic. When I can get my shot you bet I'll be first in line.
For example, traffic accidents kill over 1 million people very year, but this is something we unfortunately have to live with, because it's not practical to, for example, ban cars completely.
No, but we do require licensing and testing of people before they can drive a vehicle, we investigate incidents and those responsible are held criminally liable.
What about smoking? It is estimated that more than 480,000 people die yearly in the U.S. due to smoking, yet no politician has ever remotely considered banning tobacco.
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
DeHackEd wrote:
Warp wrote:
For example, traffic accidents kill over 1 million people very year, but this is something we unfortunately have to live with, because it's not practical to, for example, ban cars completely.
No, but we do require licensing and testing of people before they can drive a vehicle, we investigate incidents and those responsible are held criminally liable.
What about smoking? It is estimated that more than 480,000 people die yearly in the U.S. due to smoking, yet no politician has ever remotely considered banning tobacco.
There are tons of impracticalities in banning cars. I can't see any in mandating vaccines. And there is, of course, a fundamental difference. Being an anti-vaxxer is not an 'activity', like driving a car or practicing a sport, that involves taking some risk. It's just a risk on itself without any action coupled.
Same goes to smoking tobacco, which also is much more of an individual risk than a risk to others.
But anyway, these decisions that can save or condemn hundreds of thousands of lifes MUST be based on some consequentialist utilitarianism, and I don't know why people try to avoid it so much. Banning tobacco not necessarily will reduce it's usage and might create other even worse social complications. Mandating vaccines will definitely save thousands of lifes and the only drawback is to get some antivaxxer fools mad.
[Same goes to smoking tobacco, which also is much more of an individual risk than a risk to others.
Not really. Almost all people who smoke, have started just because their parents smoke, or because their close friends smoke. Indeed, not everyone who has smoking parents or friends is guaranteed to start smoking, but on the other hand it's extremely rare to start smoking by yourself. So it's de facto a contagion in all aspects, even though it's not transmitted through a microbe, but through social conditioning and close air pollution.
Also, you can't just decide to quit smoking. For anyone who already smoked enough, it will be a long and painful process. And even then, most of those who attempt will fail.
Besides, passive smoking is reported to cause about 1.2 million deaths worldwide among non-smokers ( https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco )
I wonder how many people have already died from the day that tobacco was introduced to the masses, and how many will also die in the future. I'm serious when I say that I hope for tobacco to be banned.
I wonder how many people have already died from the day that tobacco was introduced to the masses, and how many will also die in the future. I'm serious when I say that I hope for tobacco to be banned.
I am opposed to banning any drugs for private use. For tobacco, this would be especially complicated since it's a plant that people can grow on their own, as opposed to a synthetic chemical (think about how many people grow their own weed... now imagine how many smokers will start growing their own tobacco when tobacco gets banned).
As an aside, tobacco is also probably one of the most addictive drugs, so this ban would be even less likely to work (how many other drugs exist where a person can't go 15 waking minutes without using it?)
In my view, the job of the government is to protect the people from external dangers, to protect the people from external tyranny, to protect the people from tyranny from within, to provide for justice, and to help to ensure that its citizens are free from hunger, thirst, homelessness, etc.
However, the government has neither the right nor the obligation to dictate that people can't make dangerous decisions which will only impact themselves. That decision rests with individuals alone.
Thus, government intervention on tobacco should solely focus on protecting other people from exposure to second-hand smoke (which laws in recent years in the US have done a relatively good job of in public buildings), not on stopping people from smoking altogether.
In order to stop people from starting to smoke altogether, the best strategy is to educate people about the harmfulness of smoking. Beyond that, whether or not a person smokes comes down to their personal choice.
I am opposed to banning any drugs for private use. For tobacco, this would be especially complicated since it's a plant that people can grow on their own, as opposed to a synthetic chemical (think about how many people grow their own weed... now imagine how many smokers will start growing their own tobacco when tobacco gets banned).
"Growing" a virus is even easier than growing tobacco: all you need is your body.
Lobsterzelda wrote:
As an aside, tobacco is also probably one of the most addictive drugs, so this ban would be even less likely to work
Replace "addictive" with "contagious" and replace "drugs" with "virus".
Lobsterzelda wrote:
However, the government has neither the right nor the obligation to dictate that people can't make dangerous decisions which will only impact themselves. That decision rests with individuals alone.
I literally explained in my previous post why I consider smoking to not be a choice. Please read that post and tell me if you find any faulty logic in it.
"Growing" a virus is even easier than growing tobacco: all you need is your body.
What kind of Typhoid Mary is out there turning their body into a Coronavirus farm to try to grow as much of the virus as possible?!?!?!?!?
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
Replace "addictive" with "contagious" and replace "drugs" with "virus".
This doesn't make any sense. There's no pill you can take that will prevent you from smoking or cure a smoking addiction. There is a shot you can take which makes it virtually impossible to develop a serious case of covid-19.
ThunderAxe31 wrote:
I literally explained in my previous post why I consider smoking to not be a choice. Please read that post and tell me if you find any faulty logic in it.
Peer pressure is not the same as having no choice. There is pressure, both from others and society (ex. ads, TV etc.), but people still ultimately have the choice to start smoking or not start smoking. Also, having COVID isn't addictive. No one can't go 15 minutes without inhaling a rag of fluid suctioned out of a COVID patient's lungs in order to reinfect themselves with the virus. Therefore, this comparison makes no sense.
