Some Covid-19 thoughts

POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Monday, September 29, 2025 18:59
VIEWED: 301579
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SECOND

Sunday, March 29, 2020 5:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I know what continuum means, idiot.

But your scenario here shows two distinct extremes. Every single post you make does. Your brain is incapable of comprehending nuance, and bereft of any possible shades of grey...

Black and White. Day and Night. Democrat and Republican. Good and Evil. Ann Frank and Ted Bundy.

Your poorly programmed NPC brain is only capable of Binary. Ones and Zeros.

I'll state it again because you're stupid. You are Ted Bundy in an either/or situation.

'Cause let me tell ya... You are no Anne Frank, buddy.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Let us see if 6ix can be haughty and display his superiority complex ("an attitude of superiority which conceals actual feelings of inferiority and failure") about this comparison:

Why virus denial resembles climate denial.

Let me summarize the Trump administration/right-wing media view on the coronavirus: It’s a hoax, or anyway no big deal. Besides, trying to do anything about it would destroy the economy. And it’s China’s fault, which is why we should call it the “Chinese virus.”

Oh, and epidemiologists who have been modeling the virus’s future spread have come under sustained attack, accused of being part of a “deep state” plot against Donald Trump, or maybe free markets.

Does all this give you a sense of déjà vu? It should. After all, it’s very similar to the Trump/right-wing line on climate change. Here’s what Trump tweeted back in 2012: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” It’s all there: it’s a hoax, doing anything about it will destroy the economy, and let’s blame China.

And epidemiologists startled to find their best scientific efforts denounced as politically motivated fraud should have known what was coming. After all, exactly the same thing happened to climate scientists, who have faced constant harassment for decades.

So the right-wing response to Covid-19 has been almost identical to the right-wing response to climate change, albeit on a vastly accelerated time scale. But what lies behind this kind of denialism?

Climate denial is supported almost entirely by fossil-fuel interests. As Upton Sinclair put it, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” It’s less obvious who gains from minimizing the dangers of a pandemic. Among other things, the time scale is vastly compressed compared with climate change: the consequences of global warming will take many decades to play out, giving fossil-fuel interests plenty of time to take the money and run, but we’re already seeing catastrophic consequences of virus denial after just a few weeks.

But I suspect that the disastrous response to Covid-19 has been shaped less by direct self-interest than by two indirect ways.

First, when you have a political movement almost entirely built around assertions than any expert can tell you are false, you have to cultivate an attitude of disdain toward expertise, one that spills over into everything. Once you dismiss people who look at evidence on the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, you’re already primed to dismiss people who look at evidence on disease transmission.

Second, conservatives do hold one true belief: namely, that there is a kind of halo effect around successful government policies. If public intervention can be effective in one area, they fear — probably rightly — that voters might look more favorably on government intervention in other areas. In principle, public health measures to limit the spread of coronavirus needn’t have much implication for the future of social programs like Medicaid. In practice, the first tends to increase support for the second.

As a result, the right often opposes government interventions even when they clearly serve the public good and have nothing to do with redistributing income, simply because they don’t want voters to see governmen

CAPTAINCRUNCH

Sunday, March 29, 2020 6:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Does all this give you a sense of déjà vu? It should. After all, it’s very similar to the Trump/right-wing line on climate change. Here’s what Trump tweeted back in 2012: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” It’s all there: it’s a hoax, doing anything about it will destroy the economy, and let’s blame China.

And epidemiologists startled to find their best scientific efforts denounced as politically motivated fraud should have known what was coming. After all, exactly the same thing happened to climate scientists, who have faced constant harassment for decades.

So the right-wing response to Covid-19 has been almost identical to the right-wing response to climate change, albeit on a vastly accelerated time scale. But what lies behind this kind of denialism?

Similar:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fiona-hill-trumps-coronavirus-talk-sound
s-a-lot-like-russias

Trump’s Coronavirus Talk Sounds a Lot Like Russia’s

"Now back at the Brookings Institution and an expert on Russian disinformation, she talked to The Daily Beast about how Russia and China are exploiting the coronavirus pandemic. She (Fiona Hill) began by noting, “The way the president refers to the ‘Chinese virus’ is not helpful. It’s a way of deflecting responsibility for the outcome, and that’s exactly what the Chinese and Russians are doing themselves.”

China’s goal is to head off a huge public backlash in which countries might even try to sue China for reparations. “The Chinese bear a great deal of responsibility for covering up and trying to deny the early outbreak,” she said. “China should be the skunk at everybody’s party. They don’t want to take responsibility for letting a localized virus become a global pandemic. And now with the United States in a prostrate position, they can step in and take on a leader’s role.”

Turning to Russia, Hill said its behavior fits into a longstanding pattern that began with the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Back then, the KGB launched a fairly successful covert disinformation campaign dubbed “Operation Infektion” to convince people that the virus was really a U.S. biological weapon. That was easy for people to believe because they knew governments experimented on vulnerable people.

“We’ve been in this space a long time where there is a lot of misinformation that takes on a life of its own, and governments use it for propaganda purposes, to deflect from their own shortcomings, and to mobilize the population against an external enemy,” said Hill.

“We’ve been in this space a long time where there is a lot of misinformation that takes on a life of its own, and governments use it for propaganda purposes.”

“We continue to see accounts aligned with Russian State media work to sow discord in the United States by amplifying divisive content,” explains Daniel J. Jones, founder of the non-profit public investigations group, Advance Democracy, Inc. (ADI). “We typically track these efforts to exacerbate tensions in the context of elections, but we’re now seeing these accounts amplify divisive content relating to the COVID-19 global pandemic, to include offensive content relating to race.”

Jones pointed to how Russia’s English-language state-media outlets have played up both sides of the debate over whether to label the coronavirus by its official name, COVID-19, or the racially charged “Wuhan virus” preferred by the Trump administration. State-backed TV channel RT has blown off criticism of the “Wuhan virus”-style branding and wondered aloud whether the debate is “just media-manufactured outrage?” while the Russia-funded In the Now outlet highlighted the racist attacks on those of Asian descent that have taken place since the outbreak.

The European Union’s strategic communications division, which monitors Russian and other disinformation narratives, released a report in mid-March that found Kremlin propaganda was identifying and amplifying coronavirus

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, March 29, 2020 8:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I know what continuum means, idiot.

But your scenario here shows two distinct extremes. Every single post you make does. Your brain is incapable of comprehending nuance, and bereft of any possible shades of grey...

Black and White. Day and Night. Democrat and Republican. Good and Evil. Ann Frank and Ted Bundy.

Your poorly programmed NPC brain is only capable of Binary. Ones and Zeros.

I'll state it again because you're stupid. You are Ted Bundy in an either/or situation.

'Cause let me tell ya... You are no Anne Frank, buddy.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
Let us see if 6ix can be haughty and display his superiority complex ("an attitude of superiority which conceals actual feelings of inferiority and failure") about this comparison:

No. That's alright. We can go right back to the conversation we were already having without you trying to derail it.

Try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SECOND

Sunday, March 29, 2020 9:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No. That's alright. We can go right back to the conversation we were already having without you trying to derail it.

Try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

You've told us what you feel about Covid-19. What are your feelings on climate change? Is it no big deal, can't do anything about it anyway, shutting down coal will kill industry in Indiana?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, March 29, 2020 9:55 PM

No. That's alright. We can go right back to the conversation we were already having without you trying to derail it.

Try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SECOND

Sunday, March 29, 2020 10:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No. That's alright. We can go right back to the conversation we were already having without you trying to derail it.

Try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

You mean the "conversation" where you're threatening people with jail for what they wrote about you? You're getting more like Trump everyday. I look forward to you calling the police and that November election. I really want to know if 6ix can get his "enemies" jailed and how many people approve of the job Trump is doing. Will they have forgotten he ran his mouth for months about Covid-19 being nothing and will they fondly remember his sales and marketing tactics and his self-help tips from The Power of Positive Thinking?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, March 29, 2020 10:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No. That's alright. We can go right back to the conversation we were already having without you trying to derail it.

Try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
You mean the "conversation" where you're threatening people with jail for what they wrote about you?

Nope. The I'm referring to the conversation that we were having before T came in and told me to kill myself.

Either go back to that conversation, or fuck right off with your simple-minded bullshit.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

THG

Sunday, March 29, 2020 11:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No. That's alright. We can go right back to the conversation we were already having without you trying to derail it.

Try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
You mean the "conversation" where you're threatening people with jail for what they wrote about you? You're getting more like Trump everyday. I look forward to you calling the police and that November election. I really want to know if 6ix can get his "enemies" jailed and how many people approve of the job Trump is doing. Will they have forgotten he ran his mouth for months about Covid-19 being nothing and will they fondly remember his sales and marketing tactics and his self-help tips from The Power of Positive Thinking?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Correct Second. Can't wait till election day myself.

tick tock

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

THG

Sunday, March 29, 2020 11:56 PM

U.S. could face 200,000 coronavirus deaths, millions of cases, Fauci warns

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u-s-virus-deaths-could-reach-200-000
-fauci-warns-as-medical-supplies-run-short/ar-BB11S5uv?ocid=msedgntp

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

SECOND

Monday, March 30, 2020 12:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Correct Second. Can't wait till election day myself.

tick tock

It might be as historic as Herbert Hoover vs FDR in 1932 with FDR being steadily smarter than Hoover. Or it might be Bush vs John Kerry in 2004 where an incompetent President was reelected. It was pretty obvious that Bush would get stupider the longer he ruled. Remember second term Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq Insurgency and the Financial Crisis of 2007–08? Trump will get stupider the longer he rules, same as Bush did.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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