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Post by K1power on Sept 25, 2020 7:12:16 GMT 1
They've been trying out a new way of testing, in Utrecht I believe.
You get your result within 15 minutes.
Not sure how reliable it is yet, but that's really fast.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 8:16:13 GMT 1
Yes, yes, yes. We are wasting our time trying to come up with a way to do like 10 million PCR tests a day. What a waste that is. It's just testing fetishism, and it MUST be a lot more efficient than that.
PCR tests are always more reliable (and too sensitive if you ask me), but speed, efficiency and convenience are far more important at this point.
Those quick tests or/and pool testing should be the way. The technology is already there.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 8:31:02 GMT 1
I said you shouldn't pay much attention to the new cases , but 16,000+ a day... damn.
That's a tad frightening. I'm talking about the French figure, and that's higher than the US record (78,000-79,000) from July on a per capita basis. Extremely hard to get it back under control once you start getting such numbers. The hospitalization rates in France are still interestingly and mysteriously and thankfully low, especially compared to Spain, but there isn't a convincing argument to suggest that it will stay that way, although there is some evidence that it will indeed remain relatively low.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 9:32:04 GMT 1
I've been bogged down with the issue of immunity and masks and social distancing and vaccines and all these things for so long that I've rarely mentioned the elephant in the room lately: LUCK.
Or randomness, if you prefer it. That plays a huge part in an epidemic/pandemic.
I'm not really talking about the issue of whether you get it or not, whether you are "lucky" or not; I'm talking about how the whole picture of this viral disease is one highly complex system, with lots of random parts moving in all kinds of directions.
Just because someone/some city/some country was fine without policy X doesn't mean you can argue comprehensively about the effectiveness of said policy.
Just because someone/some city/some country was hit hard by Covid-19 while implementing policy Y doesn't mean you can comprehensively argue that policy Y doesn't work.
Because A LOT of randomness is involved in this.
Empiricism and hard science must go hand in hand to prove something, anything. You need both. One piece of evidence is never enough. Japan's case alone wouldn't "prove" the efficacy of masks. There are also other reasons - hard science and other pieces of empirical evidence - to believe they work.
Luck/randomness plays a huge part in everything in life. It's always the huge gorilla in the room that we all pretend does not exist.
But in this pandemic, we should make it visible, and act accordingly.
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Post by K1power on Sept 25, 2020 10:32:42 GMT 1
Yes, yes, yes. We are wasting our time trying to come up with a way to do like 10 million PCR tests a day. What a waste that is. It's just testing fetishism, and it MUST be a lot more efficient than that. PCR tests are always more reliable (and too sensitive if you ask me), but speed, efficiency and convenience are far more important at this point. Those quick tests or/and pool testing should be the way. The technology is already there. |
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 14:32:03 GMT 1
Thanks for the link. I hope it will become the norm. People have been talking about quick saliva tests and pool testing for ages, but the governments and even private sector have been very slow to act.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 14:34:59 GMT 1
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 14:42:40 GMT 1
You must understand that it is HIGHLY UNUSUAL that they have to publish a letter like this:  Editor-in-chief of Science had to describe the statements (on... yes, that's right, "herd immunity") in the press Q&A by a White House adviser (Scott Atlas) as "a devious bit of misinformation." That's as unusual as the US president saying fuck you to a reporter in an official press conference. That's how low the US government has sunk. ZERO credibility. |
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 22:09:17 GMT 1
The extent to which this man ruined US politics, particularly on the liberal side, cannot be overstated.
Imagine being older than 22 and believing this crap. Imagine being a D.C. "insider" for more than 20 years and still expecting this from Republican leaders. What a galaxy brain.
American liberals from my generation were infected with the West Wing virus during their adult formative years. I went to school with those nerds. I kept telling them that it was a stupid feel-good jerk-off show that had nothing to with the reality of politics, a juvenile insult to the old Greek concept of politics even. They would say my kind of cynicism was so 20th century, and that idealism would have a huge comeback.
"What idealism?" I would ask. All I saw in that show was a silly late-stage-empire kind of masturbation.
You'd expect them to learn the hard way as they moved to D.C. and started working. I did. Nope, didn't happen. It turned out that feckless Democrats from older generations were also infected with the stupid virus, and tried to work with the youngsters to change the reality into the West Wing world.
You'd think they learned the hard way during the George W. years. No, they didn't.
And Obama won the election. Finally it was time for them to turn that fiction into reality.
Alas.
It's been more than a decade since then. That orange man bullshitting nonstop on your TV is the result of their "idealism".
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 26, 2020 8:50:04 GMT 1
Shut the fuck up. Enough is enough. Just get rid of the Senate. Both Montana (pop. 1M) and California (pop. 40M) have two representatives. What kind of a joke is that. You'd be hard-pressed to find ridiculously undemocratic shit like that in other democracies, and it's no House of Lords either because the power of the US Senate is fucking enormous.
Get rid of it.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 26, 2020 13:01:18 GMT 1
Folks... JP Morgan has done it again. They figured out the US election. Bow down and kneel down, this is the Chart of the Truth:  LOL, what the fuck is this, a drawing by Jenny the Elephant? Seriously, how the fuck can shit like this make it through editing? This chart is really on their latest report, I swear. Look! markets.jpmorgan.com/research/open/latest/publication/9002054 |
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 26, 2020 18:07:49 GMT 1
Yet another bunch of people are protesting for "freedom".
"Freedom."
They use the word as if they don't have to explain it.
What is it? What is the "freedom" that they speak of?
Well, if you apply the simple Aristotelian deductive reasoning to it, you'll realize that it comes down to a very simple one in this case:
Freedom to infect others.
That's what it logically comes down to, but those people have no idea. They don't know better.
"Freedom."
What a cheap word.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 26, 2020 18:29:40 GMT 1
In order of importance IMO:
Wear a mask indoors. And keep it on. No reason to take it off indoors unless you eat/drink.
Wear a mask in crowded outdoor spaces too.
Don't talk while eating.
Don't get anywhere near a person who is talking while eating.
Avoid unventilated indoor spaces as much as possible. Open the windows if allowed.
Wash your hands when you can.
If it makes you feel safe, do carry a small bottle of disinfectant and use it.
And remember: when you get it you get it. Sometimes you are just unlucky. Follow the local protocol if you think you got it.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 26, 2020 18:52:40 GMT 1
The latest hypothesis on why children are much better at dealing with SARS-CoV-2 is that they are better because their immune system is a lot less sophisticated than the adult one.
It's a lot less efficient, and tries to gang up on the invaders as soon as it detects them.
The adult one is calmer. It analyzes the invaders first, and then draws up a plan to deal with them.
But SARS-CoV-2 is new. You calm down, analyze, and then realize that you don't have it on your database. And the next thing you know, they are already everywhere, multiplying at the speed of light.
But a child's immune system is not calm, and goes berserk immediately. It's not efficient, but doesn't let the invaders in nearly as easily as the cocky adult immune system would.
That's why children are better, with one caveat: Their antibodies are of crappy quality. Older people produce a lot more powerful antibodies after the infection, if they survived the sickness that is.
I think I might have dumbed it down too much, but that's the gist of it. Fascinating, isn't it?
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bol
Novice Member
Posts: 70 
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Post by bol on Sept 27, 2020 2:12:51 GMT 1
3 weeks ago sadly the anthropologist David Graeber died. To my surprise he never came up in this thread or maybe he just was never directly named and therefore search showed nothing. I don't know that much about Graeber, but he was able to tackle important topics. He's credited with the 99 percent slogan and I really like his term "bullshit jobs" about a significant part of the economy. Here's an interview of his concept www.jacobinmag.com/2018/06/bullshit-jobs-david-graeber-work-serviceChecking out his work I also found this article of him www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/ about how many modern history books get the origins of mankind wrong, thinking that humans started as equals, that civilisation started with agriculture and and from there it's models of power just were bound to happen as only small groups could exist as equals. As Graeber explains cities did already (though in smaller numbers) exist before agriculture and people were moving through history back and forth between different political systems with nothing "bound" to be the end result. |
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