RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive354

You won't be seeing much of me for the time being
The laptop I've been using since 2011 has finally died. Until I get a new one, I'm not going to be very active here at all. I'm writing this at work, now that I've finished teaching for the day.. My hottible boss is around and making me feel uncomfortable. I want to sod off as soon as I can. See you all later. Spud (talk) 11:32, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Take it easy duderino. (p.s. in case you really need the equipment...my previous several laptops were all castaways from my friends installing Lubuntu (light ubuntu though I'm sure you knew that) and for the really crappy oldest one I installed Porteus (super ultra light weight....fastest system I'd ever used). I never ever had a problem finding someone wanting to get rid of an older laptop. Don't be a stranger to long-eroo. Shabi  DOO  12:41, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest vanilla Slackware over Porteus and especially Lubuntu, since Slackware has better native WM support than Porteus and is much lighter than Lubuntu. Though Spud might have unfixable hardware problems, so it might not be possible to fix it with a mere Linux install. 15:35, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

is this really about a broken laptop, or are you really going to prison? 19:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I've never done anything that would warrant sending me to prison. The problem really is a broken laptop. But it looks like I'll get given a second hand one soon. So fear not! Spud (talk) 11:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * And you call that living? ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 13:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I realize now that that could be taken wrong. I meant the not doing crimes is not living.  Having a second hand laptop is pretty reasonable.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:17, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I knew what you meant. And notice I didn't say I'd never done anything illegal. My horrible boss has just asked me how much longer I;m going to be. So it's time to sod off again. Spud (talk) 11:57, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Cosmos New Worlds
I found the 2014 Cosmos reboot (A spacetime oddesy) okay, beautiful cinematography and animation and some nice humanist stories though I'd have to say I didn't really learn much except a few unknown remarkable lives. I've been watching Cosmos: Possible Worlds (2020) and have to say I'm really impressed so far. Has anyone seen the first few episodes. Any comments? Shabi DOO  12:41, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Didn't even know they were doing more. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:48, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * They're only now releasing the final episodes. I'd highly recommend watching it. I honestly learnt quite a bit more from the episodes I've seen this series. You likely (or likely soon) will have the time in the world to watch it. Shabi  DOO  16:27, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Small Men on the Wrong side of History
The above subject is the title of a book by conservative journalist, Ed West. The "small men" refers to conservatives. This is a channel where right-wing or conservative writers are interviewed. The thumb-nail description is "The Decline and Fall, and unlikely Return of conservatism." The title of the video is, "Ed West: Why Conservatives have lost almost every Political Argument since 1945." I think it is refreshingly detached from a polarized sort of POV. The video is only 32 minutes.Ariel31459 (talk) 17:11, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Duolingo should give me a job
I can come up with strange sentences with what little Esperanto vocabulary I know. Example:

"La bebo manĝas lia porko kaj katoĵn".

Me being crazy would make me an excellent candidate for a job --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 18:48, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I assume you need an accusative in both places: La bebo manĝas lian porkon kaj katoĵn. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 13:44, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Media Bias Chart
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/?v=402f03a963ba

I think it's okay, but I really don't think Fox News should be on the same level as MSNBC, it's ridiculously rotten. Buzzfeed is also too high. Wonder where rawstory is, should be pretty low on this list. 19:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * What's Daily Mail doing in that spot? 20:05, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * MSNBC is pretty damn bad, like all 24 hours news services are, filled to the brim with constant opinion-as-entertainment. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 03:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Fox News is primarily problematic because of the talking heads who spread disinformation. If the chart is based on just the news part of Fox News, its probably technically accurate. The problem is that the Fox business model is to swamp the news with hours and hours of the far-more-lucrative disinformation. Bongolian (talk) 04:04, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You can find links to the reviews of individual sources here and you are correct. Assuming "quality" and "reliability" are the same metric, Fox News mostly gets dinged by their talking heads (on a 0-64 scale, one analysis of Tucker Carlson gets 9.75, one of Hannity gets 14.25) where anchors like Chris Wallace score in the 40s and most of the articles are okayish (if biased). For MSNBC, it's the same, though not all of their talking heads do badly on the quality department (Rachel Maddow and Morning Joe do decently), Al Sharpton (especially), Chris Matthews, and Lawrence O'Donnell get dinged. It still seems that individually there's more crap at Fox News from the individual tables so I'm not sure why they are rated equally. MSNBC though isn't that great overall, in my opinion no American cable news network is these days. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 17:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have come to learn in my life experience that no news source is free from bias. Honestly every major news source is just as bad as every other one. Whenever I read news on a given topic, whether it be the coronavirus or a presidential campaign, honestly the best thing to do is to read as many sources as you can and just decide what you think is true. There is no one news source, and chances are there never will be, that succeeds in putting all possible bias aside and running like a perfect logical/fact machine. Chances are everything I just said has already been said by someone else (even on this website probably), but that's honestly what I've learned from experience. Aaronmichael5 15:52 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You were with me until the "every major news source is JUST as bad as every other one". I'm sorry to say that this only works in the most narrow sense. I'd take the CBC over any American network when covering the American election. They're from a different country, their coverage will not affect their own bottom line, they are government protected and funded with a mandate to at least attempt to tone down the bias. And even within America I'd take NPR over fox news or MSNBC, both heavily biased in America's two party system. I'm with you when it comes to stories reported all by news sources within the same country which affect national narratives and the universal interests of its citizenry (that mostly dealing with international stories where power struggles are hypersimplified). But thats a pretty small portion of news in general. It's one thing to say that all major news sources do a fairly bad job at educating their readers, its another thing to say they are equally bad when it comes to bias in general. That's utterly false. Bias can and has been demonstrated to be more present or pernicious in some sources than others. There are no truly reliable news sources. But some are awfully unreliable on subjects spanning politics, the economy, society, crime, culture etc. Shabi  DOO  16:21, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * "honestly the best thing to do is to read as many sources as you can and just decide what you think is true"
 * Ideally you should be consuming all news sources as many as you can, BUT there's a whole "subscribe to us to unlock the article" begging from all those sites that's completely counterproductive to this. I guess this is on a tangent, but I think it's worth pointing out that this system makes it more annoying than it should to try to figure things out. 23:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Bernie Sanders dropping out
Is anyone getting refunds for the money they donated to his campaign? &mdash; Unsigned, by: 2001:8003:4085:8100:185A:67A5:9BA7:ED1D / talk
 * Is there a refund policy? If so please cite it. 01:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Highly doubt anybody who campaigned for politicians like John Kerry (2004) or Al Gore (2000) got their money back. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 02:05, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * found what I was talking about here.
 * another one here &mdash; Unsigned, by: 2001:8003:4085:8100:397c:8b73:a22c:9c6‎ / talk
 * So you have no actual citations to provide, only empty memes. Goodbye then. 01:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

UV wands and Covid 19
UV wands are claimed to kill all sorts of nasty things like this. But I'm a little sceptical. Anybody got any ideas? &mdash; Unsigned, by: Bob_M / talk / contribs


 * Short wave ultraviolet is ionizing radiation that really messes up nucleic acids and anything that relies on them, and viruses in particular don’t have room for radiation shielding. It’s super effective against microbes on otherwise clean nonporous surfaces or dispersed in air or water with a clear line of sight to the UV lamp. But it’s not effective against anything shielded by opaque material like dirt or the outer layers of a porous material. Germicidal UV is also dangerous to multicellular life, particularly to eyes, and it can break down many polymers and damage items being cleaned. As such, it can be useful, but only situationally. Great for sanitizing air, clear water, and nonporous inorganic surfaces, but incapable of sanitizing porous or dirty things


 * A proper UVC lamp like the kind used in HVAC or water systems is very good at what it does, but it will cause radiation burns very quickly (nearly instantly to unshielded eyes), and they’re not in a form factor as convenient as the one you linked. If the product details there are accurate, that would be marginally effective. If all the output light is focused evenly, it could deliver a germicidal dose of ultraviolet to about one and a half square inches per second. A few caveats: the listed wavelength is on the border of UVB and UVC, so it may be less effective than the somewhat shorter wavelengths preferred for germicidal use, though with viruses being more fragile than bacteria, that may not matter. Also, it just recommends against looking directly into the light. A germicidal light would be dangerous to eyes even in reflection, and should only be used openly like that while wearing something like polycarbonate goggles with tight, opaque seals at the edges, and clothing that doesn’t leave skin exposed.


 * TL;DR: Bleach, soap, and heat are probably more practical for most home use applications where you might use a UV light. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 11:47, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * OK. Thanks. That's really interesting. From the confident tone of your response would I be right in assuming that you have some special competence in this area?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 12:33, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Bob M - 'various scientists' have said soap and water etc are effective: can you give a more authoritative source for your UV lamp than 'item appearing on a well-known selling platform'? Anna Livia (talk) 16:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I was not suggesting for one moment it was an authoritative source. I gave it as an example, said was skeptical and I asked for information.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 17:55, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

As a 'bad syllogism'
 * This is a UV wand
 * Wands are used in magic
 * Therefore this is magical thinking.

Is this totally wrong? Anna Livia (talk) 16:27, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * We got a UV sterilizer a couple months before the outbreak to help sterilize baby bottle stuff. As such I've looked into the research on this question somewhat already.  UV light of this sort requires like 40 minutes of direct exposure to deactivate common viruses to conventionally sterile levels.  And this is a plugged in AC device that approximates the UV intensity of sunlight from all 6 sides of a cube.  I would suspect waving a wand over something for the duration of at most a minute or two would do next to nothing.  Don't still have the papers I read about it on hand though.  So... that syllogism might be questionable, but so is using UV wands to decontaminate.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:12, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Is it better as a summary of 'flawed logic' than as a syllogism? And is this the direct ancestor of the UV wand? Anna Livia (talk) 22:29, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * @Bob_M: I investigated the matter a few months ago while considering what measures to take in the upcoming pandemic, and I was already familiar with the risks of UV light from experience welding (germicidal lamps and welding arcs have comparable UV output). I eventually got an HVAC light and made a heated internally-reflective enclosure for sanitizing packaged items and other things that I don’t want to chemically treat but where I’m not concerned about polymer degradation.


 * @Anna Livia: Sometimes the form factor of a wand is useful for an application. Metal detectors and Geiger counters are often wands, for example. Violet rays produce their light via corona discharge. This can produce some UVC, but it’s generally not enough to matter. Low-end UV lights like the one Bob_M linked use ultraviolet diodes. Better UV lights like this use mercury vapor discharge tubes. Corona discharge can efficiently generate ozone, though, so it has its own use in sanitary applications.


 * @ikanreed: Germicidal effects from UVC (or other ionizing radiation) depend on the applied dose. In addition to time, this also depends on the power of the light and how it is applied to the surface to be sanitized. 2 millijoules per square centimeter (which is what I used to calculate the 1.5 square inches per second figure) is a standard figure for what it takes, though the mechanism is more a logarithmic reduction as dosage gets higher than outright complete sterilization as in an autoclave. Even a dinky wand like the one Bob_M linked applies UV light far more effectively than sunlight when used correctly (virtually no UVC makes it through the atmosphere, and UVB is much less effective at killing microbes), and the bulb I linked has about a thousand times the UVC output of the wand. Unshielded close-proximity exposure to a proper HVAC lamp will kill nearly all microbes (or scorch corneas) in less than a second. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 00:12, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * All very interesting. When you look on the net (or at least when I look on the net) I find: sites selling professional equipment with complex specifications which isn't of much interest to the home user; sites selling home user stuff which claim they are fantastic; and non-experts expressing mild skepticism.
 * Which all suggests to me that this would be a fine subject for an RW article which might turn out to be quite popular as I'm sure that many people are asking themselves the same question.
 * I would be happy to create the stub - but I lack the knowledge required to do more it.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:48, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I was referring to the use of wands in this particular context - rather than the 'technical and practical' uses. If a UV wand article is created - mention should be made of UV banknote checkers (probably cheaper than the woo-wands), being 'actually existing technology' and the Victorian 'violet-ray and electric shock machines' (see example on ). Anna Livia (talk) 16:46, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 denialists are officially the new HIV/AIDS denialists
With the way they are insisting that the number of deaths is overinflated, I think it's safe to say that COVID-19 denialists are just as bad as HIV/AIDS denialists. To bear this out, I've seen too many posts on social media where they claim that people who die from other "underlying causes" (e.g. heart attacks) who were infected with the novel coronavirus are ordered to be counted as deaths by coronavirus. G Man (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Those people deserve to punch themselves in the face repeatedly until the pandemic blows over. 08:01, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I do not feel it is as yet a fair comparison. there is so much about covid we just wont know for sure about till over, or at east being going on for a hell of a lot longer than mere weeks. death counts, death rates, infection rates, numbers of infected - these are things that we have to view for the time being as being provisional. there are many variables that that will effect the accuracy, and there is likely much variance between locales. testing for example is necessary for an accurate infection rate and we know there have been huge problems in getting that done. I read somewhere daily death counts are almost certainly higher than reported on the day when they are still rising, and almost certainly lower than reported when it is falling. something to do with when and how deaths are reported and collated. the claim of underlying causes and not covid being the cause of some of the deaths attributed may well have some truth to it. but we cannot know for certain if it is, or how significant an effect it might be having. and of course its likely be different in different regions.


 * when it comes to denialism of covid, much that could be labelled as such is simply down to a mixture of factors. uncertainty would a be one such factor. uncertainty of not yet knowing about so many things about the virus itself - the science stuff, uncertainty about our differing responses, their effectiveness, how long they will be necessary, and the impact on our lives, our jobs, our finances. and of course the uncertainty of how we would react to infection - wold it be mild? severe? will you die? will some of your loved ones die? there is nothing really to hold on to. nothing concrete to ground us and build our coping strategies. it all just feeds a sense of fear, of dread and anxiety about our health, our finances, our futures and ways of life. misinformation reigns with rampant speculation. claims are made then disproven later, some have a plausible logic but we just are not sure yet. some are simply wishful thinking. they are not lies as such, just we don't have all the facts. we want something certain some thing concrete. that would be progress, something to build on. even better if it means this upheaval can end. that's what most of the denialism has been. its been grasping at straws. hoping against hope this can all go away. even governments can fall prey to this, as in early on with the slow responses or possibly wrong tactics, and then as it drags on with consequences ever more catastrophic. most of us wont have the agency of governments, our wrong actions wont doom millions to bankruptcy or death. we likely have little agency at all. in lockdowns, with nothing to do or to distract us. nothing to do but watch it all play out and brood.


 * some denialism has been genuinely despicable. where it is not just from making wrong choices early on, or a reluctance or difficulty comprehending the significance of events or the severity or scale and where risks lay. this has been unprecendented and things moved so quickly. no time to see how things go, while a wrong or rash decision would hurt us and set us back. where its been dispicible is when as the tragedy escalated, some continued ignore what was happening. where misinformation was not mistaken assumptions but bare faced lies. where its purpose has been to cover backs and deflect blame rather than inform or correct early errors. to take credit for things not done, to sow dissent, to attack, to blame, to scapegoat, to sideline and discredit, not just perceived enemies but anyone and anything for doing their jobs or giving accurate and useful information. we know who these people are. its hampered any sense of a coordinated message or plan. it has us competing with each for vital supplies instead of pulling together. its always been bad since before the virus, now its costing lives and does not bode well for futures that require consensus, compromise, shared values, and alliances made for a common good. its a world that was already under assault, but now seems will spiral ever faster away to a world of petty squabbles and all against each other.


 * hiv/aids denialism is a little different. I cant really speak for the early days of the disease. it may well have had similarities. but in the developed world, has not been a disease that has  impacted us all equally, in a way that covid has or is doing right now. there have no lockdowns. no sense of all being in this together, or all needing to do our bit. certainly in the developing world, Africa especially might have been or is like that, but in the developing world its only really impacted certain communities and continues to do so. communities that have and continue to face prejudice. and the responses and effects are different in different communities. in gay communities for example its been apocalyptic. things like testing, when we were eventually able to have since become commonplace. done regularly. its what you do. in black communities, I still see periodic drives to try and get people to test. there are issues that some communities didn't or don't have, that need to be addressed in other ways. im not equipped to go into much of that, I know though that in America hiv infection is a hell of a  lot higher in black communities than any where else, in white gay communities its like we can start to believe it could almost be irradicated entirely. in gay black communities though its a far more bleak outlook. no one in the developed need die from aids any more. medication and prep have been nothing short of a miracle. but if you are gay and black in the us, infection rates and death speak to a disgusting injustice. hiv also is a feature amongst drug users, though i'm not sure how much we can speak of communities in that group. the commonality of prejudice amongst these groups, of varying degrees, means that for many it could be ignored. it was ignored. and even today for its an abstract threat where the actual likelihood of encountering is low enough its not a concern for most people. so denialism that arose has character of victim blaming. that the people who get it are dirty, living immoral lives, they brought it on themselves. some denialism sees it not as a disease at all, but the result of poor lifestyle choices specific acts like anal sex, associated  with some at risk groups, as inherently deadly in itself that has been labelled hiv. other denialism is centred around effective treatment. from early on when what are proven treatments now, were in there infancy had problems with dosage that lead to peoples death. your friends were dying, your lovers were dying, you were dying, and too many people had died. drs just killed you quicker. you'd consider anything and you cant trust anymore the drs who you would normally listen to so don't heed their warnings on dangerous or ineffective treatment. and the usual quack cures, divine retribution and dastardly cia programs are all present.


 * the real difference with hiv/aids denialism and the covid variety is time. hiv has been going for years. much progress has been made, in all areas social and scientific. medication has gone along way to remove stigmas surrounding it, infection isn't, or least shouldn't be, a death sentence. its not life altering, barely an inconvenience. its been going long enough that the uncertainty surrounding everything covid, that we more easily spot the charlatans and the bigots and we don't quite have the existential dread hanging over us that might make us make rash judgements or bury our heads in the sand. and we can more clearly see what kind of denials stuck, where they came from and motivations. its just easier all round to deal with and it feels like we got it licked. covid is all uncertainty and theres only a few short weeks to base assessments on. we wont know for sure about any of it till the fog has lifted, its run its course and we can do the post mortem on our whole experience. until then we all grasping aqt straws and condemning people for actions that may seem indefensible to us but are simply bewildered and frightened people desperately seeking something to hold onto. AMassiveGay (talk) 09:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * jesus Christ, I seem to be incapable of short and to point answers anymore. they start out that way then I just go on and on. I cannot even tell if I am even remotely coherent. sorry.AMassiveGay (talk) 09:49, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * From what I remember of the late 1980s scene (can't remember before that very well), HIV denialism in America was strongly aligned with the conservative / evangelical nutjob sect, and was (like it always is) often used to sell "alternative" treatments. Kind of like COVID-19 denialism. So in that sense, nothing has changed. However, I remember the pace of progress on HIV being a *lot* slower than what's happening with COVID-19 today (reading up on some HIV history seems to confirm this, it took a decade for a lot of the information to come together, where we know a heck of a lot about this virus in roughly 4 months). I also remember a *lot* more hem-hawing and holier-than-thou bullshittery since in America as you say this first affected marginalized groups (first homosexuals, than IV drug users as you mentioned) -- what that meant is that, even for those who knew it was a virus, way too many (right up to the top of the Reagan administration in the early 1980s, according to what I'm reading) dismissed it as a "gay plague" and wanted nothing to do with it other than preach how you will burn in hell or something. Even in the early 1990s -- ten years after the disease became first known to the American public, roughly -- I remember hysterics on both how the disease could be transmitted ("you can get AIDS from toilet seats!" type bullshittery), and "gay plague" type demonization. There are a few American idiots linking COVID-19 to "homosexual 'sexual' events" but such is even stupider than usual since it's obvious to anyone with an IQ over a doorknob that anyone can get this disease. Rather, a lot of the denialism is more of the "oh this is just the flu / lockdowns are for pansies" type of bullshittery, which, if it weren't for the collateral damage, I'd just say "let 'em crash!" Airplane style and be done with it. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 16:56, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * there also far right groups trying link muslims to covid. this isn't denialism its outright prejudice. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Those very frequently go hand in hand.   ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 13:28, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Prostitution should be legal
If two (or more) consenting adults are allowed to have a one night stand it is legal as long as money is not exchanged.......yet if money is exchanged sleeping with someone is wrong?

If adults give consent to the exchange of money and sex, so freaking what? Why send people to jail over screwing around as long as it is consensual? --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:53, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree but it's called 'sex work', cis scum. 2600:1004:B093:3F34:695C:FE20:86E4:FA96 (talk) 23:23, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Go fuck yourself IP address. VerminWiki (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Why the random flame toward cis people? 01:03, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a meme referencing the loonier parts of social media politics. 2600:1004:B093:3F34:695C:FE20:86E4:FA96's statement there is tongue in cheek. As for the topic, a further consideration is that it becomes legal again if it's filmed. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:35, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Prostitution should be legalized so it grants protections to sex workers. 03:06, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

May I ask how prostitution would be legalized in practical effect?-Flandres (talk) 03:38, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Clarify what you mean by that. — Oxyaena Harass  07:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I was referring to getting support amidst congresspeople and the white house, and eventually the court system. Of course this would mater a lot less if this became a "let the states decide thing" but while that avoids an ugly fight on the federal level you might lose it does mean you are allowing some states to not do it, which on a issue of extending rights to sex workers might be seen as a unsatisfactory middle ground half measure that allows abuse to continue.-Flandres (talk) 08:14, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know, how did Nevada manage to do it, out of all states in the union? 08:25, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Technically sex work is only legal in individual counties of Nevada rather than the entire state. In those cases it has been legal since the late 19th and early 20th centuries mostly because it boosts the local economy, so it suggests any movement to legalize sex work would have to focus on taxing it at least as much as the human rights of the people involved.-Flandres (talk) 08:34, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Only the counties with populations under 700,000 can allow it, which makes it illegal in Clark County (where Las Vegas is), which is where virtually the whole state lives. Of course as with the rest of the country it's in reality de facto legal for well-off people who just go to "escorts"; law enforcement only bothers going after "streetwalking" and the low-budget brothel operations ("massage parlors" and the like). --47.146.63.87 (talk) 17:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's legal in several European and South American countries (as well as a few other scattered countries across the world), the laws vary considerably. Even in America (which is more prohibitionist) it's possible for a wink-wink-nudge-nudge brothel to operate even in more conservative times of old (like the notorious "Chicken Ranch" in Texas if you are "connected with the right people". 72.184.174.199 (talk) 21:10, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not the sex that's the problem in prostitution. It's the power dynamic.  "Consent" gets real fuzzy when "or starve to death" is part of the question.  Albeit a rational person will recognize other fucked up sexual dynamics exist and are not illegal.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 03:49, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Like, don't go around busting everyone who does engage in it for starters. Legalization would also grant legal protections for sex workers so people can't just fuck them up and abuse them without legal consequences. 03:49, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The absolute priority and focus should be 1) vigorously fighting human trafficking and forced sex work 2) protection of voluntary sex workers (and non-criminalization obviously). Some crime agencies take these a little more seriously than others and are better funded and given man hours and expertise. Few are. The root of all problems lies in inadequate policing of forced sex work. Shabi  DOO  06:40, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * While I generally agree with the premise, a short drive through the Bronx at night (if you're leaving a Yankee game you do not want to be stuck on some of the highway traffic getting out, it's either that or the delightful neighborhoods around it) sure does make it hard to justify. Though it really should be legal, there's no way as a man I could bring myself to get involved in that "trade" or encourage anyone to do the same; I'll stay single my whole life before I have any part of that world, thank you. Though it'll never happen, I'd be perfectly happy in a world without this; there's no one I have a better relationship with because he/she is regularly fucking someone, but there sure are a whole lot of people I have a worse relationship because of the same (though I'm straight I generally soured on the idea young, sometimes wish I was religious because I'd probably make a good Jesuit). But since it won't, like pornography it seems to be a rather effective way for people to ease tension that they'd otherwise express via violence, so if it's a choice between them I'll take the former. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 07:34, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sometimes I think I'm lucky to simply not care if I ever get laid, as an asexual myself. *shrug* 07:36, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I can admit to taking after one of the not-so-subtle messages of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, that almost no one who plays the relationship game (be it romance or even friendship) learns a goddamn thing. No matter what scenario, I don't think so highly of myself as to imagine I'd emerge as the one out of 5. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 07:41, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I hve visions of the job centre with prostitution all above board. 'so madam, what have you been doing this week in your efforts to find work? you might need to start broadening your work search in these adverse conditions or it might affect your benefits. have you considered going on the game? you can work from home and would be considered self employed, so thered be some tax breaks. we are running a short on course on hand jobs and fellatio, i'll sign you up. will look good on the cv. what are your views on getting pissed on? its just a thought. you have to specialise these days. AMassiveGay (talk) 10:08, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

we have a page on prostitution that covers a lot the ground covered here. that page though I would consider dogshit and I would not recommend it. AMassiveGay (talk) 09:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

As an adjoiner to the original post, prostitution is not merely consenting adults + money. there is the question how the additional of money changes the power dynamics of such an encounter, and issues surrounding poverty, substance abuse and desperation, issues of physical and mental health, and issues concerning all this effects issue of coercion and consent for what is often a profoundly invasive act. such a profession can takes psychological toll, especially if circumstance, financial or otherwise, has pushed someone into it. it is not the same as consenting adults nor as is sometimes argued 'just another job' (our own page once compared it flipping burgers - a frankly disgusting notion). there are also moral arguments and what it means for a society as whole as a whole that condones payment for possession of anothers body. what does it say it about the people selling and the people buying?

simply saying prostitution should be legal is not enough without knowing what that means. these issues absolutely have to be addressed and in a way that addresses what it means for those working as prostitutes, not for the supposed benefits of those seeking their services. I believe it should be legal in some form, merely to better provide sex workers with rights and legal protections and allow for better access to physical and mental healthcare and benefits, and the grey areas of escorting must be clarified in any legalisation.

legislation is not a magic bullet. it will not fix all the issues surrounding prostitution. any rationale for making it legal that talks of empowerment or ignores or downplays what is an inherently risky profession that can be and often is to an overwhelming degree something forced upon people by others and/or circumstance is stillborn and fundamentally sick. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Circumstances are important and nuance is required. Am also pro-legalisation on account of prostitutes in Australia/Europe having better protection and healthcare. 86.14.252.201 (talk) 18:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The demand for street prostitution is not the demand for sex. The demand for street prostitution is the demand for CHEAP, FREQUENT sex.  A john that pays $20 for a blowjob from a drug addict 4 times a week isn't going to suddenly pay out $200 each time or reduce his frequency simply because the sex worker is now certified by the State of Illinois that she's organic fair-trade gluten free.  Nor are the women (and men) in prostitution going to charge $20 if they are able to pass inspection.  The only way to serve this clientele is with drug addictions, human trafficking, and worse.  Legalization, regulation, inspections, etc, aren't going to be able to do squat to help the people at the bottom. CoryUsar (talk) 20:57, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Forgive the youtube link
Yes... I know it's unforgiveable but considering the huge amount of time people have available it's a video worth watching. It's about 95% correct, leaves a lot out (how much can you really cover in this short time) and has a couple flaws, most especially in rule 0 at the end but I'd say, for a brief representation of how power structures work (how the world always has and does work) it does a pretty great job at explaining things. Watch this video. Think about it for a day before kneejerk reactions, watch it again a few days later if you have the time and give your thoughts. Again, forgive this rare unforgiveable posting of a youtube video.

Shabi DOO  10:01, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Eh. It's fine.  I don't like the authoritative factual statement style for explaining a singular theory of power, though.  Social dynamics as fact makes my skin crawl.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 13:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that those "rulers" would be better off playing with a Rubik's Cube in their office than fighting wars and supressing freedom. I know a thing or two about using Rubik's Cubes. After all... — Jeh2ow Damn son!  16:40, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah indeed he does talk with a lot of authority for a video that doesn't come with any references or sources. What I like about the video is how quickly and concisely it summarizes what a lot of political science, political philosophy etc has said for a long time and what a lot of people are very unaware of. Where power/political decision making actually comes from and that the "court" never disappeared even when democracy came along. I wish he had used a different metaphor than "key" cause i think its more confusing than having any explanatory power. What you'd replace that with...I don't know. Maybe it would have been better if it was narrated by Machiavelli. Shabi  DOO  08:47, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I have to wonder: how many people are fed up with the Stay In Place order?
There is actually a group on Facebook called "Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine". They are fed up with business closures, park closures and highly restricted shopping. Honestly I cannot blame them. Even with the order the virus is still spreading like wildfire. Seems that the Stay In Place order is irrelevant to the spread unless I am missing something. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 16:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The group is a collection of self-centred assholes who care more about their boredom and the illusion of freedom over the lives of others. I would call it collective scum-bucket thinking. Read up on "flattening the curve". If you go out and meet people or do unnecessary activity outside enough...you will be responsible for people dying. Third degree murder? Is your personal inconvenience, paranoia of government overreach and the illusion of freedom worth murdering people? Zheesh we are entering week 6 of a strict lock down in Spain, the daily body count is high and yet it still clearly helps, its widely supported and few pity the assholes who get 600€ fines for minor infractions. Its better than going to jail for manslaughter (as they are implementing in Russia). If we had done this earlier it wouldn't have been as horrid as it is now. Consider yourselves lucky enough that you have time to do it. Be grateful you have a Govenor who gives shit. Shabi  DOO  17:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this thing would be much, much worse if we weren't social distancing. The people complaining are selfish. 17:44, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * no one is happy with stay at home orders or lockdowns or whatever you want to call them. it doesn't trump necessity though.


 * I don't think it is fair to characterise everyone who are not on board with lockdowns as necessarily selfish arseholes. granted there are a lot of such arseholes but the financial repercussions of this thing are going to be huge for most of us, if not feeling them already. that said more should probably be done (if it isn't already) to help with the financial burden of people not being able to work. im guessing some places are better than others.


 * it is also the case that people would likely be more accepting of them if, like in the us, the official response from your government wasnt still even now absolute dogshit, and at local level responses have varied wildly. if trump was leading my country's response to this thing, I'd either shitting my pants while boarding up the front door less any germs break in, or just be running round the streets shouting 'its flu you pussies'.


 * lockdowns are an extreme response for an extreme situation. the us government needs to, and needed to far earlier to explain the severity and the need for what is necessarily. all the shit that boris has gotten, most of it deserved, I just look at the news to see how it goes across the pond. its quite calmly to see how much worse it could have been.


 * anyhow, ive been on the dole for bit. its not really been whole lot different to usual for me. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:17, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The virus has been a pretty big deal for my family, so not being in a job any more is a pretty big deal for the aftereffects of the stay in home order. That being said, the Facebook group isn't concerned about the loss of the availability of jobs, the loss of demand for the job to function, and the amount of people who are filed for unemployment but rather inconveniences, and to me, it just sounds like they reek of privilege when they complain about highly restrictive shopping. Yes, I do get it that humans are social animals and can get cabin fever as a result of being cooped up indoors all the time, but the way of coping with the loss of social activity is compounded by the internet nowadays. I would have been sympathetic to the group's cause if the stuff they were complaining about were actual, serious consequences as a result of the best solution against the virus rather than "derp I can't buy whatever garbage I like anymore". 18:44, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If you Google "Michigan covid 19 cases" it brings up a handy graph. Seems like there's a downward trend in new cases that's repeated in a few other states like New York. It might be a "spike" in the data of course but one can cautiously hope that this is a sign that the lockdown is working. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 18:47, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I looked up my state, California. We're still getting a lot of new cases but I think we peaked, hopefully. 18:53, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Kansas cases are still going up pretty quickly. 19:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, I can't emphasize this enough, but thank goodness Kansas elected a Democratic governor. I mean, holy shit. 19:31, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * From my understanding the main reason people are angry is how highly inconsistent the Stay At Home order is. You are able to buy lottery tickets yet you cannot buy gardening supplies. You can buy recreational weed yet you cannot buy entertainment such as video games nor DVD's. Pretty long list of inconsistencies that is frustrating. Because of it there is a protest planned in Lansing, Michigan soon (Lansing is the State capital). Have a feeling that this protest will not end well. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 19:38, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * @ being unable to buy video games and DVDs: Thank god for piracy . Yeah, but it's not something I'd still protest over, even though it IS stupid that you're able to buy a fucking gamble thing while you can't garden. 19:41, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I hate the lottery in general. 19:44, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * At least the protests have not reached the scale of what is going on in Brazil. The quarantine along with the horrible mismanagement of the situation by a President worse than Trump has drew large protest crowds- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7AR_g17e1w

Some sort of compromise must be made to prevent the spread of infection while lessening the economic damage. Once the situation blows over there will probably be a spike in the number of homeless people and or people needing government assistance. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:33, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, that opportunity was lost when Dearest Leader completely botched our response to this. Side note to the fact everything we're doing seems totally ineffective, that because you don't see the results quickly. There's a serious lag time on restriction being put in place verse restriction actually appearing to work biased off testing, due to how pisspoor the testing is in the USA. It's going to look totally ineffective for at least a week or two, longer if the measures were limited or poorly enforced. Further the fairly targeted nature of our testing means we'll see a decent number of positive cases against negatives, since anyone who is tested is generally tested for a reason, and not randomly. Additionally, someone ignoring the restrictions could completely fuck the thing up. To see that in practice, look at South Korea's Patient 31 (This is what worries me with states like Arkansas doing nothing and Florida half-assing it.) It sucks, I won't fight you there, but it's the reality of the situation now. There are no good options for us at this point, aside from just having to wait.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 02:07, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The governor of my state is really dropping the ball with inconsistencies and excessive overreach. Can you honestly blame people for being pissed? --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 16:07, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No...they are being pissy "freedom" babies. People who don't have the slightest clue what actual inconvenience means. I can understand their frustration (the world is) and wishing it would be over. But I cannot for a second commend their selfish bitch-fest. Grow up, be an adult. Stay home until its safe. Don't visit people. Do only the most necessary shopping in as few trips as possible. Exercise at home. Something a small number (though notable number) of Americans don't seem to understand is that we live in a society and that requires making sacrifices (sometimes notable ones including big chunks of your paycheck and dealing with inconveniences) to keep others out of misery and society and its streets safe. It is pretty unfair for the majority of Americans who would be happy to contribute to things like medicare for all and say...avoid thousands of pointless coronavirus deaths. Get over yourself and respect the rules like everyone else does. Shabi  DOO  16:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Think about it this way. This thing will be over a lot faster if you just stay the fuck home like the authorities are begging you to do. 16:39, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * are michigans rules really that inconsistent and is it really excessive over reach? your state has the 3rd highest cases in the us. that would suggest to me its all pretty necessary. I haven't been able see much that is inconsistent in michigans approach personally either. the us as a whole's approach has been inconsistent, but that's largely down to the federal government and whose running the show there. ive no doubt any anger over the lockdown stems from or is fed by that. inconsistent would be putting far to positive a spin on it. i'm trying very hard to not bang on about it all the time, but it really difficult not at the moment - everything happening in the us right now, is a direct result of trump - inconsistency, lies, contradictions, misinformation all majorly contributed by trump, exasperated by trump, with attacks on media so constant that by now, there cant be any source for info available to the us public that hasn't been labelled as hideous bias. anger at the states government for doing what is necessary is misplaced. it should be directed at the man whose ego and caprice is killing thousands of americans. every appearance he makes is more horrifying than the last, its incomprehensible to me that he has any kind of support left at all. hes killing people AMassiveGay (talk) 17:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * His base is so awful that anything positive that does occur during the pandemic, his base will believe it. Or that they will say that it's not as bad as it could have been or it would have been worse under Clinton. Or that none of the things he did was really his fault or that it's not to be blamed for the pandemic, just blame illegal immigration and China instead. I'll repeat what everyone else has been repeating for eternity, this man has a cult of personality, and if he were to propose to nuke California, his base would be fine with it. 19:10, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * As for the protest whether you support it or not- it will be an interesting situation. There are also protests due to lack of medical supplies and detention of immigrants while other prisoners are being let free. You already know my position but this will be an interesting turn of events. I am sure many of you would agree that this whole thing will be of interesting. This will certainly have an effect on the Presidential election. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:19, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Zombie could you please give me the formula? The acceptable thousands of people dying of covid (not just now but in the future) for each day the economy isn't inconvenienced? Are 1,000 grandmothers, grandfathers, babies, young people with lung problems and kidney problems, a couple people as young and healthy as you ... worth it for kick-starting the economy. 1,000 per day? Is that a fair compromise? Shabi  DOO  08:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)



bobvids on The Quartering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh4-Qq0vP-s

Might be useful for whomever is creating the page on The Quartering? Gunther8787 (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * May take a look but I think in order to get an accurate page, someone has to sit down and watch his videos. I haven't seen a second of this guy yet and the thumbnails and video titles tell me I'll be having a splendid time. 😒 18:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have watched some of his videos. He is into games, and YouTube drama. Right now some stuff about a person named Lucy Lu for using copyright material. Complains about anti-orangeman content, is " anti-woke", likes Tim Pool. Doesn't do a lot I would call significant. Mostly non political content (I think). Why bother?Ariel31459 (talk) 02:53, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I mean you also have slanderous pages on both Styxhexenhammer666 and Razorfist. So I don't see the issue.108.208.14.123 (talk) 15:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

101 pseudo-evidences
I wan wondering whether the classic response to '101 evidences for a young earth and Universe' be edited? Teerthaloke101 (talk) 09:35, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I would say no for two reasons. First of all, the things being refuted are literally the alleged 101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe.  Secondly, some YEC looking for the proposed "evidences" might accidentally end up here and learn something.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 12:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Correct, Bob. If you're talking about changing what the actual 101 evidences are, Teerthaloke101, we can't do that because this is a refutation of an actual document. Changing what we're quoting puts words in their mouths and therefore also degrades the rationale for our fair-use quoting of their possibly-copyrighted document. Bongolian (talk) 18:56, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I was talking about modifying our response to some particular 'evidence'. Specifically. the evidence about dinosaur soft tissue. There is continued doubt about whether the soft tissues found with dinosaur fossils belonged to the fossilized dinosaurs or had a recent separate origin. http://www.bristol.ac.uk/earthsciences/people/jakob-vinther/pub/197610079 Teerthaloke101 (talk) 08:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah. Sure, if you are confident you have found something wrong then go ahead and fix it.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

ContraPoints video from January
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8

This is apparently a video she made where she's explains the whole twitter shitshow that happened a few months ago. Yes, it's 1h40m. The first 20 min. is about this 18 year old that was being accused of being a rapist. Gunther8787 (talk) 12:09, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * a 1h40m video on a twitter shit show is 1h40m too long. summarise if yo want commentAMassiveGay (talk) 13:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * "Breadtube" becoming increasingly centered on drama was an easy prediction to make. And I'll predict that will continue.  I still like some of the content.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 13:30, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Footnotes version of the Contra video. Contra passive-aggressively responds to criticism of her making enby-phobic comments and generally having bad takes as well associating with and giving the impression of legitimacy to Buck Angel (who is a crappy person). Most of it is waffle and largely irrelevant crap. I can link transcripts to a at least decent series of response videos if anyone wants them. 13:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Context is important. Who is this "she" who has made a video?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * ContraPoints, AKA Natalie Wynn. A progressive trans youtuber of moderate fame.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Videos? I thought that only one person made a video response (based on her page)? Also, what's "enby-phobic"? Gunther8787 (talk) 10:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Bigotry and/or discrimination towards non-binary people based around their gender expression. 13:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes grammarcommie please link videos with well thought out responses that deal with the argument. I'd like to see them Shabi  DOO  13:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Part 1. (Transript.) Part 2. (Transcript.) Part 3. (Transcript.) Apologies for the delay. 15:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Peter's first video has more downvotes (1001) than upvotes (881) for some reason, unless Contra's fanboys jumped on that video... Plus, the Tati part makes you wonder why she'd (Contra) clip that out of her video...


 * Oh, and is Essence Of Thought (30,4K subs) on mission? Based on his videos, I think Peter needs a page. Gunther8787 (talk) 14:34, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Newest addition to RationalWiki (That I kinda need a little help with)
Louisiana Baptist University and Seminary!!

Took me an hour to create. Keep in mind that this is a mere start. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Can you format the sources? It's not hard, just time consuming. 23:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You should write this to the Draft namespace first and then build up on it there. I can't help at the moment because I'm busy writing up a draft myself and it's time-consuming. 23:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * How do I format links? Never figured it out. Please and thank you. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:28, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I've formatted one reference for you. Typically, the coding goes like this for web pages

23:46, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Do I add the web link to [htmldotcom Title of the webpage]. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:47, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Well, you have to know the citation format for Wikis. There's a documentation on cite_web, but just follow what the examples are. Last name, first name of author; publish date in parentheses, title of article, publisher in italics, date of source accessed. That's the general pattern I go with, but for other sources, you should check documentation. 23:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Check the coding for this page and how it's linked. You can get a good understanding of how titling your external links work. 23:54, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, by the way, if you want to make your article use multiple refs from the same source, use

and then use

for any subsequent uses of the same ref. 23:54, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Your questions about wiki markup and the structure of a RationalWiki article are summarized nicely in the style manual. You should read it, the community put an awful lot of effort into it. Cosmikdebris (talk) 01:20, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You can also use reference #9 as a template for the others. Bongolian (talk) 04:25, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Illusions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdWgXxGIS98

So I tried this out and very briefly I saw my vision distorted when I looked away, what is this an example of? Also are there any other things that have the same effect. I know there was one with a flag that you stare at and then look at a blank paper and you'll see it in different colors.Machina (talk) 00:57, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The vision network in your brain does not directly see images like a computer camera does with pixels. It would be far too much data for your brain to handle. So your eye and optical nerves simplify the image somewhat, then the optical center's of your brain divide it into "metadata" that is a vastly over simplified version of the image that gets the job done.  The thing is, this simplification procedure doesnt work on all images, especially images with many little highly contrasting lines or squares.  Your brain basically glitches out and sees them as moving or imprints colors over top of things.  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 12:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Might be tangentally connected, turn your volume down, there's little done to the audio here it peaks and has echo, But the color brown is not a point on the light spectrum - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4aWZRtTwU, a video on how Brown is contextual. I'm a big fan of brown also but now I know where it comes from.  It's kind of a tiresome video because it's made by an engineer, and the audio is awful and the jokes are bad, but the ideas are systematic and really good, that brown is contextual in vision and interpretation and not a point on the light spectrum, making brown a shade of orange with a broad context.  In some sense, an illusion.  Just really tough to listen to unless it's low volume, the audio problems are earnest, bad gear in the wrong room, can't be fixed in post, can't believe this guy also does videos on the engineering of audio equipment. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * if only there was an online encyclopedia where you could look up lots of stuff --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:05, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Very good, BoN, what was your favorite? Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I like the lilac chaser. Also I find it pretty remarkable to see how easy it is to demonstrate the blind spot. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I like that one too, thanks for sharing. I didn't notice I was seeing it until I knew what to look for, and then it was like "yeah, that's the motherfucker right there!" very funny to me.  I can't pick one, but I do like exploring the limits of our tools every now and again.  Enough adds up to a pretty loose grasp on reality, and I think that's important.  I've experienced things that can only be explained as "Ghosts did it or I'm broken, because I cannot recreate what I just saw."  It's why I'd make the most boring ghostbuster you'd ever see.  In a haunted house "I saw something out of the corner of my eye!  But that happened yesterday too, soooo, probably nothing."  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:04, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

thank you...
Thank you so much you rats for being a place I can come on the onlines and know I can pretty much trust yall, no matter how much you might bicker amongst yourselves. It is going to be a gnarly road forward for us all and I just want to express some admiration. Give yourselves an elbow bump. Whoever has been on point with the WIGO lately double elbow bump. I appreciate yall. 206.53.88.85 (talk) 03:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

WHO vs Trump
So I've heard anti-china corruption allegations for a while now, something along the lines of "China is buying out the top WHO officials rather than contributing fully to the budget and that's why they won't mention Taiwan etc.". I was always under the impression the WHO had been able to maintain a degree of political independence. Is Trump cutting the budget a stopped clock (because the protest over corruption is justified) or just opportunism and dangling the budget like a carrot to influence the organisation? Were the awkward interviews just Aylward being inoffensive to an easily antagonized China? Anyone have any insight here? McUrist (talk) 09:07, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell he just did it because they kept telling him that his "cures" were stupid. 13:46, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I've gotta disagree about the WHO maintaining a degree of political independence. They officially endorsed traditional Chinese medicine because of political pressures just 2 years ago.  The US leans on them equally as hard, and so do many other countries.  It's dangerous to discount the sum total of public health expertise they've gathered because of things like that, but it's also not right to think of them as insulated from political pressures.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 13:52, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, that Traditional Chinese Medicine endorsement is a real black mark against them and does raise some questions about their impartiality.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I always saw the endorsement of TCM as a problem not unique or limited to this year to WHO as other organizations we've held as science-based became susceptible to it. The WHO has been promoting supplements for a while, as far as in 2015. Nature caught promoting TCM back in 2011. Science also caught promoting TCM. Establishment of alt med agencies in government (by Democrats), such as the NCCIH. Universities having alt-med promotions anf treatments including hospitals. NatGeo touting benefits of TCM (ok debatable if NatGeo is science-based). Naturopaths fighting for licensure in states. What the WHO is doing, I see less of political pressure as it is marketing and people blind-sided by exotic mysticism and how dubious TCM is.  19:17, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's notable that different parts of WHO have held seemingly contradictory viewpoints at the same time. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of WHO, concluded in 2002 that Aristolochia species were carcinogenic to humans, and later strengthened their opinion in 2012. Yet in 2010, WHO released a publication recommending Ayurvedic medicine, including specifically Aristolochia indica. The latter document was produced based on a WHO conference on phytotherapy that exclusively included homeopaths, Ayurvedic medicine specialist and other alt-medicine proponents. As far as I'm aware, IARC is strictly science-based and includes advice from top scientific experts. Bongolian (talk) 20:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Which is consistent with a scientific organization being under political pressure. Science says X, politics says Y, publish both and assure all the Yists that you understand their concerns with X.  It's only when you're under direct political control that you start suppressing X in favor of Y.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:38, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Although the WHO has many faults including trying to make murderous dictator Robert Mugabe a goodwill ambassador it is, unfortunately, all we really have as a global health coordinator. Trump is probably not even aware of the TCM and Mugabe disasters. So I think he is wrong for him to cut funding.

At some point when the local political feuding has died down and the petty nationalistic fights have finished we are going to be looking for someone to coordinate the global response - define standardized testing, diagnosis and treatment protocols and manage the anticiupated immunization program. And the WHO is the only organisation in a position to do this. I just hope they don't recommend treatment with tiger gall bladder and immunization via acupuncture. (That last sentence isn't serious)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:47, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's hard to say though that it's entirely nationalistic fighting. It's maybe more focused on legitimizing TCM, with the WHO just being politically correct in order to maintain their position (eg. give some ground to stop some of the CCP's hostility to oversight). I'm consistently surprised at how how internally focused the Chinese government is, maybe because we're used to seeing the US trying to be world police. TCM "research" is such a big deal to the Chinese government and a point of national pride. I think the CCP's interest in the influence side is, again, internal: They don't want someone in a position to make them look bad or talk about Taiwan. All speculation though. McUrist (talk) 10:05, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh that wasn't a defense of trump's barbaric actions, just a warning against thinking that the WHO is truly independent. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 12:30, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand that. I just wanted to remind people that, for all its obvious faults, the WHO is what we have.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:23, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * as I understand it TCM is 90% boner pills AMassiveGay (talk) 22:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The probability of 0 isnt impossibility
https://youtu.be/ZA4JkHKZM50 Uuuuuummmmm eeeeee okayyyy, any probability nerds out there: is this true???

I'M BACK Blaze_Zero85.58.203.69 (talk) 09:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I’m probably not the nerd your looking for. But I think it’s attempting to explain how sometimes a mathematical proof involves disproving the assertion, reaching a contradiction.  E.g. “Thus and such must be evenly divisible by 3” and then when you throw a bunch of equations around you find a paradox where the end result cannot possibly be divisible by three.  Then when you marry calculus with sloped curves and things “approaching” infinity or approaching 0 there’s still that tiny bit of non absolutes involved that you cannot say 3=3, end of story.

Antigem (talk) 10:27, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Oh don´t worry, I´m just a guy with basic studies; pls bear with me xD. It´s just Youtube decided to recommend me this (for some reason) and I got a little curious.
 * So I got from this is that if you wanna ask the chances of getting (example) tails: it´s more correct to ask the probability of the probabilty or just the probability of it?
 * Or am I just making a mess of myself?
 * Blaze_Zero85.58.203.69 (talk) 12:14, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The terminology used in the video is terrible. It should be that an "Observed Sample Proportion of 0" does not mean a "Population Probability of 0 with 100% confidence".  Basically in the coin flip example, you would have to flip an infinite number of coins to be *truly certain* the probability of an event is 0.  This is why statisticians always talk about confidence levels in numbers.  After 30 flips if none came back heads, we could be 99% confident (roughly) that heads is an impossibility.  More flips would eventually lead to a confidence of say 99.9999% that heads is impossible.  But every flip only makes that 99% *approach* 100%, but it never reaches it.  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 13:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * God, he really used bad terminology didn´t he? Thank you, now I think I understand a little better! Blaze_Zero85.58.203.69 (talk) 19:25, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * A probability known to be zero based on a valid deduction in mathematics is in impossibility. A probability measured by way of sampling to be zero isn't.  This is really obvious stuff.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 13:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In mathematics, a probability of 0 means impossible. That is a certainty beyond dispute, a mathematical identity. In real life however (e.g., biology, sociology, physics, chemistry), probabilities are measured and never really absolutes. Hence, scientific papers will report for example, p<0.01 or p<0.00000001, the later case indicates that probability is remote but not impossible. Joe YouTube must be confusing "0" with "practically 0" or something like that. I can't be bothered to watch YouTube in general, but the probability that I will watch it is not zero. Bongolian (talk) 18:27, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Even in the world of pure mathematics, this logic breaks down when the possibility space is continuous. For example, if I pick a random real number between 0 and 1, what probability does it have to land on exactly 0.5? Well, there are an infinite number of real numbers available to choose, the probability is 1 out of infinity. If that has any well-defined meaning at all, it's got to be 0. This works for any arbitrary real number you might pick. And the probability of picking an arbitrary real number cannot be greater than zero, because it can trivially be proved that if the probability was greater than zero, the total probability of choosing any real number between 0 and 1 is infinity, which is obviously absurd. But then that means it is possible for a random event to land on some outcome that had probability 0; that this will happen is certain, in fact. This is the contradiction the video aims to explain, and this is why mathematicians say an event with probability 1 or 0 happens "almost surely" or "almost never" respectively. Also, the video is part 2 in a series about how to solve problems where the probability of an event is itself unknown, which is complicated by the fact that (as MirrorIrroriM correctly noticed) you cannot gain a sure answer to the state of that probability just by observing outcomes, and so you must instead produce a list of probabilities that the probability of the original event is any given real number between 0 and 1, thus producing the original paradox. I would recommend the first video in that series (and the Wikipedia page I linked earlier, plus its notes and references) if you want context on that, especially if you don't trust me, the guy who just created an account 20 minutes ago to disagree in a talk thread, to deliver that context unharmed. thecnoNSMB (talk) 08:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Nah, if you structure a question as "what's the probability of drawing 5 aces in a row from a standard deck without replacement mathematically, it's quite easy to prove the answer is absolutely zero. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 12:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * This reminds me of Zeno's stuff. @Bongolian: mathematically, zero probability of a set of outcomes does not necessarily mean impossible. Zero probability in mathematics means something like: the Lebesgue measure of a subset (desired outcomes) of the unit interval (all possible outcomes) is equal to zero.Ariel31459 (talk) 17:40, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * @ikanreed Yeah, because a standard deck of cards is a discrete possibility space, which is fundamentally different than a continuous or infinite one. I'm not saying "probability 0" never means "impossible," I'm just saying it doesn't automatically mean "impossible." It seems to me like you might be making a category mistake re: probability theory and its subfields. Ariel seems to be on the right track. thecnoNSMB (talk) 18:34, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

About Sanders
So, my father told me that he read somewhere (he's not telling me where he read this) that Sanders used to be a communist/radicalist. Now I know that he is subscribed to a click-bait newspaper, so I thought that those douchebags were at it again. Except I can't find anything on their site. So, I decided to google "communism Sanders" to see who wrote this tripe, and bumped against an article from a dutch clickbait newspaper called "De Volkskrant", were, according to them, Sanders defended Cuba. Just what did he actually say about Cuba? Gunther8787 (talk) 12:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * He said their healthcare and education system were good. Which is true. We even have a similar statement in one of our articles. 12:30, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't follow US politics that much, but I'm never impressed by any argument based on "Somebody used to be X", or "used to believe in X". I used to be a Christian. So what? It's what someone believes now that's important.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:21, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Meh, if someone changed their mind, that's fine, but I want to hear from them why. What new information made you reconsider your belief? If someone said "HIV was created by Muslims as a bioweapon", but now says it wasn't, I'd be interested in knowing why! But most of this stuff in politics is not about learning more about a person's beliefs. It's "X said A, which is Bad, and that means X is a Bad Person and you shouldn't support them". --47.146.63.87 (talk) 23:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Did you try a search for "sanders cuba"? It was all over the U.S. media a couple months ago. He made a statement that was strictly true but politically tone-deaf. His obvious point was "Castro's regime improved Cuba in some ways even as it did other things that are reprehensible, and this shouldn't impugn the good things", but it was easy to misconstrue him as "SANDERS LOVES CASTRO AND IS A COMMIE", which is what the whole right-wing media complex promptly did, followed of course by "establishment" media "reporting the controversy": "Some say Sanders idolizes Castro and will start executing landlords in Central Park if elected. Others disagree." --47.146.63.87 (talk) 23:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * "...Sanders used to be a communist/radicalist..." Excuse me, what planet is this? nobsFree Roger Stone!'' 18:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Well he never said it wasn't true! As I'm sure you know everyone to the left of Romney is a crypto-commie, and even he looks a bit pinko! Can't trust those heathen Mormons! ("Radical" is such a useful word because since your opinions are of course correct, anyone who disagrees is "radical". Like those "radical abolitionists" and their "agitation"!) --47.146.63.87 (talk) 20:19, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

The Lansing, Michigan Protests aka "Operation: Gridlock" is in full swing
Holy crap the protest is massive- https://news.yahoo.com/thousands-converge-protest-michigan-governors-191743463.html

When I first heard of it I honestly did not expect that many people. I was wrong. Guess that many people are pissed. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 21:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * These people are fucking morons and the cops should have arrested them. One of them even said, "I'd rather die from the coronavirus than see a generational company be gone." being so blatantly selfish of the damage he's instigating. 21:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * What do you say to people who need to work to get by and have no alternative though? Throw them in jail for being between a rock and a hard place?  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:34, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a real issue, but it's not something worth clogging the streets over, nor encouraging a mass congregation of people; there are people still outside on the sidewalks. Yes, the shut down stinks. Yes, it affects wages. However, this is the best response to curbing a pandemic, and the alternative is to let the virus run rampant and kill people, which I think would have worse long term economic ramifications than the shut does. 21:57, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * One model predicted that without social distancing, 40 million people would be killed worldwide this year. That would be roughly on par with the last big pandemic, the Spanish flu, which seems about right. One study of the economic impact of the Spanish flu suggested that cities that implemented "non-pharmaceutical interventions" such as social distancing, in the medium term, bounced back. Those that didn't suffered a greater spike in mortality, which created far worse economic problems in the long term. Right wing populists aren't known for looking at scientific data or thinking long term in general, but that's the data I see. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 02:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's amazing how crises underpinned by right wing ideology(no social safety net or other way to survive without constant work) create such effective populist right wing outrage. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:34, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I was about to mention this to, how a right wing response to this pandemic created this shitstorm in the first place. But of course, conservatives are too short-sighted to see it. 21:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * A social safety net can only do so much. People lose their businesses and even when this thing blows over, their income is gone. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * not just a right wing response making thinks worse. right wing populism AMassiveGay (talk) 23:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Nominally safety nets should help any business not over-leveraged to hell weather the storm and come back. They wouldn't have to worry about the biggest recurring bill at most businesses(payroll) and owners could survive.  If they're deeply deeply in debt with every inch of collateral dumped on loans for constant expansion, yeah, sadly that will bring you under.  And if we had a social safety net I'd think debt holidays for shuttered business was good policy to resolve that particular question.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 23:34, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's almost as if high density low income populations and low density high income populations are living in entirely different worlds. It's garbage thinking to say "I should be able to go to my lake house unhindered" and it's garbage practice to say "I can't afford to live in my apartment literally tomorrow if I can't go to work" and this fucking beautiful convergence of complaints is falling squarely on Michigan's governance and their inability to work on it from a locale to locale basis.  However, somehow the Federal government is off the hook for not wanting to try, and defunding the WHO (which I always pronounced as "whoa," saying "who" is like not even understanding the words World Health Organization or how they're pronounced)  From the same people who say it's all made up and the people who are most disproportionately affected do we see this complaint that government is fucking up the response.  It's not a fucking plot to destroy the economy for political gain, and not just a fucking difficulty in governing.  It's like people think the people they voted in are geniuses and it's not up to them at all to take part in their own societies.  I dunno, I've been pretty soaked in a bunch of people who have good arguments about avoiding a shutdown, a bunch of people who have good means of social distancing, and a bunch of people who can't make rent without a full paycheck.  And instead of cracking open the nut of "Poorly managed exconomic structure" this is either seen as "the people in charge don't care" or "the people in charge are trying to destroy the economy for political gain."  I would say the people in charge don't have a clue what they are doing, they are maintaining a system that they don't even care about.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:56, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Why do you assume the protestors' preferred policy is not "let the virus spread unhindered"? Are you still in denial that a good number of Muricans are totally in favor of killing Others if it makes them richer? (Or sometimes even if it doesn't.) Of course most of them find it distasteful or too much work to personally do the killing, which is why diseases are a good method. As is climate change. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No, that's pretty much how I feel about it, except for the assumed part. And I was full on Operation Ivy back in high school.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * What I find most demoralizing abut all this is that we have laid bare so much of what is wrong with "the system" during this pandemic, and there is a legitimate mass movement of popular anger and there is no shortage of articles on line saying this represents a historic turning point, a pendulum swing to the left where this crisis will make us all better people on issues like healthcare or neoliberalism or climate change, but when I look at the people in power, or the presidential choices, or the actions taken by various elites who ultimately shape policy across the world, I just don't see the necessary reforms being made. At best most people will have to settle for half measures and some countries are already using this to reinforce power like the aftermath of 9/11. This is like climate change in microcosm.Flandres (talk) 04:33, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Remember that for every left-wing person who sees this and thinks that it represents an opportunity to remake society along their desired lines, there's a right-wing person thinking the same thing. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Leftwing totalitarianism will be overthrown, beginning in Michigan. And yah, like the cops are going to arrest 100,000 protesters, some carrying arms, without using 100,000 masks and PPE, and throw the protesters in jails recently emptied of leftwing criminals to riot, loot, and burn because of coronavirus. nobsFree Roger Stone!'' 18:27, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * LOL, 81% agree on the need to keep on socially distancing. Only 10% think we should stop social distancing. 10%! How often do 80% of Americans agree on anything? Seriously, for the most part, the relatively uncontroversial notion of "staying safe" has bipartisan support. Certainly the rules could be tweaked in Michigan, but these idiots are advocating well beyond tweaking, to something most reasonable people know is stupid. As a result, they can yap all they want (and increase the risk of getting COVID-19, good on ya) but they can be safely ignored. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 18:37, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Is this SUPPOSED to be sarcastic, nobs? 18:44, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * My position is that the rules should be tweaked in a way that protects both health of people and the economy. Stemming the spread of the virus is needed but having a functional economy is needed. We could always go the way of Zimbabwe where currency is useless and epidemics of preventable disease are common. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * nobs cannot be defeated with numbers or percentages, I'm guessing he read a Chick Tract about the dangers of Communist propaganda or something and whiffed on all the context. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:49, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry Zombie. Nobody here is capable of letting you have you eat a whole cake and yet still have left-overs. The trade-off is a higher corpse-count. If your state honestly gave the slightest shit about unemployed people or homeless people then it would have even the most basic social security net for them...which is doesn't. The kind of people who magically suddenly care about raising homeless numbers (cause these strict covid rules are going to make more homeless people who I am for the first time in years actually worried about) are the same people who would vote against a political party that would slightly raise taxes to help build more homeless shelters. Michigan has next to no safety net for this and it stems from the kind of mentality that human beings should be expendable so that the economy could get going again [read so I don't have to waste my time cooped inside and/or have a lower paycheck because of other people's problems]. Shabi  DOO  07:54, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's also about minorities getting "handouts". Michigan is very rural, white, and bigoted outside of the urban centers (not unlike a lot of states). I saw something posted elsewhere recently that a lot of white Americans would gladly vote for someone who promised to put them and their family in a cardboard box with nothing but rats to eat by cooking over a fire as long as they also promised to make sure the black family next to them didn't have a rat to cook. Sadly pretty true. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 05:03, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Don't Be Like Belarus, Folks
They still refuse to quarantine anyone. The lesson learned is that Belarus is a horrible role model for other nations. — Jeh2ow Damn son!  22:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No offense to the fine people of Belarus, but since when has Belarus been a role model for, well, anyone? RoninMacbeth (talk) 22:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Belarus is not a role model for anything, I mean anything. Not sure what areas they would be role models unless countries want to a adopt a terrible human rights record? --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * burgeoning dictators may be AMassiveGay (talk) 23:09, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Lukashenko is the ur-Russia ass kisser, with a terrible porno mustache to boot. I was writing my senior thesis on the Belarusian independence movement when the 2011 Minsk bombing happened, too bad it missed him. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 01:05, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Belarus is a role model for tankies. Bongolian (talk) 01:49, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Why do you assume his death would make things better and not worse? A dictator's death frequently leads to chaos if there are no broadly-supported succession plans. In Belarus's case Putin would either install another puppet or gin up an invasion. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:08, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In 2011 I could've seen it working out better; this was right around the beginning of the Arab Spring, which looked promising and, if nothing else, worked out well for Tunisia. While assassinations generally aren't ideal (though it couldn't happen to a nicer guy), and there's definitely the devil you know versus the devil you don't, it would've been plausible that the rest of Europe could exert enough pressure on a country in their own back yard to get it to reform. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 13:28, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 and Eugenics, let's take this one slow
I have heard plenty of arguments that, "well, everyone is going to get it, some people are going to die, but we can't sacrifice the economic structure over this." But I would ask, why is an economic structure that fails at protecting its society especially more valuable than the society that makes it possible? Meanwhile, due to the limitations of our own optimized supply chain in our current economic system, the dairy industry is pouring out milk, the pork industry is discussing euthanizing baby hogs, and hospitals operate at {https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/rural/pubs/other/Primer.pdf small margins] because we, what, all are supposed to pay an insurance company some cost so that they can pay for the minimum expected number of people needing care, so that if we get sick, everybody else that pays for insurance shares the load for our treatment but we don't get a benefit higher than what we paid in for? Sounds like Communism with buy-in tiers of priority to me. This disruption is supposed to affect everyone and capitalism is supposed to thrive on disruption. Why are the markets crashing while hardcore capitalist cheerleaders are just pissed off?

But there are people who say "The economy must move on, and those too sick or poor or old to survive can suck the big one, they got left out and that proves that they were unfit to take part in this economy." Now, I don't want to Godwin's Law here, but I do want to point out that there is a certain attitude about protecting the economy and status quo that does not quite understand how anyone could find themselves in a disadvantageous position against some massive force like our current pandemic without it being an inherent personal and/or sub-societal fault that they have to own up to, and would rather blame those people than question whether any uses of structures as a means to their own position might be unfair.

Therefore, if someone will die from lack of ability to conform to the norms of who should physically or economically survive COVID-19, no big deal, it doesn't matter who is most affected, and the disproportionate negative effects the virus is having on communities of lower income an higher density is natural order and not an indication of systemic classism? Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Hypothetical question for you. What would happen to life expectancy if we were to cut all school budgets by 50%?  It's not "nothing", because without extra curricular activities, without adequate teachers and supplies, fewer children would graduate and the ones that do would have fewer options, people would make less money, crime would increase, etc etc.  Basically, Very Bad things would happen, from something that isn't directly a health issue.  Really, cutting most major functions of government would negatively affect life expectancy.  Cut the budget for the highways, and you have fewer safety measures and thus more deaths.  Cut the budget for emergency services, and that has a more direct effect on life expectancy.  Cutting the military, well, that depends on whom you ask.
 * Regardless, every government has to weigh the cost and benefits of every action they take, and that entirely depends on what resources they have available. Spend too much on one thing, and you don't have another.  Life is precious, but not priceless.  What is that price?  In the US, the average US citizen is worth around 8 million dollars.  That's average, by the way, actual values are going to vary, and I will be getting a little bit into that in a second.  What does this 8 million dollar price actually mean?  Well, if a project is expected to save one life per 8 million spent, it's a good use of money.  Perhaps it costs 80 million and is expected to save at least 10, perhaps it costs $80,000 and only has a 1 in 100 chance of saving a life.  If it costs more, tough shit.  It's terrifying, but bear in mind that every dollar spent on one project is one less dollar available for other projects.  Spending $400m on upgrading a new bridge means you can't spend that $400m on schools.  That 8 million is basically the amount we've been able to come to in order to save the most lives possible.  Poor countries don't have that kind of money to save one life, they are forced to choose between saving lives with building a water filtration plant or ensuring enough food for everyone, things which save lives for relatively cheap.
 * Why can't we just tax people to save more lives? If it comes out of taxes, bear in mind that poverty is indeed deadly.  A poor person in the US has a much, much lower life expectancy than a middle class person, and every dollar in tax reduces a person's health in some small way.  Maybe it's an extra shift worked, maybe it's one less home cooked meal that's replaced with fast food, something insignificant to a single person but when dealing with a population of 325 million, otherwise insignificant numbers add up.  How many people would die if every person replaced just one meal with a greasy burger?  It's more than 0.
 * In other words, you set the value of the human life too high, you tax people into poverty and you kill more people than you save. You set the value too low, and you fail to save more than you kill.  We may not have the right value, but there needs to be that value.
 * Now, what does this have to do with Covid? You can probably guess.  You shut the economy down, people have less money, their life expectancy falls.  You issue a stimulus to counteract this, that has to be paid back at some point with a combination of lower government budgets or increased taxes on the middle class (no, the rich aren't going to pay), and people die.  The question isn't "should we be more concerned with our money than our lives" but rather "how many lives will be lost through the shutdown versus doing nothing at all".
 * And even that question itself is wrong. Most people would agree that it's worse to let one baby die than two senior citizens, because that baby could live another 80 years while the seniors may have only 10 years between them.  Ignoring which years are worth what and assuming all years are equally valuable, we have to ask the question "how many life-years will be lost through the shutdown versus doing nothing at all", especially considering that the people dying from the virus tend to be the elderly or sick who have the fewest life years left while it's the young who lose the most lifespan from the shutdown.
 * And I will admit, I don't know the answer. But I can hope that the people at the CDC, WHO and so on, have asked this question and do have an answer.  Which is why we are doing what we are doing. CoryUsar (talk) 05:49, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The harshness is palpable, but I do agree on a couple points. One, it will have to be paid back, and I fully expect my rent to rise as I see some people just calling off their lease and moving out of my apartments, and I don't know how many of them are just defaulting to "sure, if my eviction is reported, my credit will die, but I don't want to be there for the 4 month cumulative bill."  But evictions aren't always reported, as that runs the risk of having to go legal as opposed to just being ok with the loss of one or two month's rent.  Most apartment complexes do kind of run with that capacity, I have no reason to ask if premature ending of a lease is available, I haven't saved up enough to buy a house yet, unless maybe I have because people are going to lose their mortgages, but I bet mortgages are going to be nasty shit over this, and prioritizing the economy doesn't stop people who pay rent or mortgage or are legally, contractual, actual factual facing massive consequences based on the current economic system from ever getting credit again.  It's not that I don't think the economy is all-connected, it's that I don't think it's all-important and that, more importantly, the economy doesn't survive disruption like we say it does.  I don't want to go full [assertion of Mammon] here, but there is a practical sense to life that is cost vs gain, sure.  So the second point, in natural predation it's the old and the young that get it the hardest.  I mean, there's a reason the pork industry wants to head off oversupply by euthanizing baby hogs, not young hogs.  A population can survive the death of the oldest and the newborns.  But epidemics, be they fungal, bacterial, viral, or parasitic, populations struggle and dwindle.  Also, I live in the Midwest, it was 65 degrees on Christmas and it snowed 4 inches today, viruses are not the only threat to a population, how hearty are all of our crops?  We are far too secure in "big business, tiny margins, big winning owners, and just enough to keep the workforce working" kind of explanations of why the economy "must press on" in a crisis.  Because nobody has any of this "credit" built up enough to stay home?   I'm not saying people don't need to go to work, I'm definitely not saying children don't need school as an important resource, I'm definitely not saying it would be solved if I was in charge, I'm saying we were not just unprepared for THIS crisis, the current economic system is wildly unprepared for the next crisis.  Water company forced to turn water back on In American cities for households that did not pay their water bills!?!  And the justification is that water is a tool in combating viral spread.  Well, yes, and thank goodness it is somehow that, too, great job America at noticing something vital.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:40, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Anyone Familiar with "Swiss Propaganda Research"?
Recently, came across this website and didn't know what to think of it. Seems to be some sort of 'anti-propaganda' site.

https://swprs.org/

How should one approach this?

dogman_1234 04:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)dogman_1234
 * According to them Wikipedia is some kind of western disinformation campaign. Wow!  I wonder what they would make of us?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:57, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Their COVID-19 page is full of statements ranging from complete bullshit (many of the unsourced statements can easily be countered with a simple Google search) to cherry-picking to "shit source reading" in order to promote the viewpoint popular among certain sides of conservatives (including the conspiracy side this person seems to be on) that COVID-19 is nothing and the economy should be re-started or something. Initial read is to treat this as a "fake news" site in the direction of, say, the better known Zero Hedge or Wikispooks -- way over the top conspiracy. It is probably one guy's personal yapping outlet. The analysis that negative media reporting on Donald Trump is because the Council of Foreign Relations rules the media and the world and he's not on it or something is a real hoot, that's a new one, he should add that to the QAnon conspiracy of everything graph. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 14:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

vitamin d and lockdowns
are we all going to get rickets if we not going outside much? AMassiveGay (talk) 13:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Lockdowns perfect to go run in circles in a field, provided you can. Realistically not going to infect someone. May as well use the extra time for something healthy. Personally going for 20km a week.McUrist (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Indeed - if you can go outside. Not all of us have that option.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:03, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Much as we shit on supplements here, and for good reason, they're an appropriate way to deal with an actual nutrient deficit. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:26, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Fortunately, I have a balcony and it has become something of a daily ritual for me to sit there for those roughly three hours when it’s in direct sunlight each day (work permitting). Having a cocktail and a cigar while doing so doesn’t detract from the experience, either. ScepticWombat (talk) 09:22, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * im still able to go for a stroll so not really a problem this end. plus I'm pale enough to burn in moonlight so im confident I could generate vit d in a pitch black cave a 1000 thousand feet underground. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Fuck fox news
They're now on national television, attributing to "sources" the conspiracy theory that coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab. Bomb shelter time? ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 13:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm reading the FOX news article and it's odd. It says "the virus sprang from Wuhan facility" but later says that the original infection was bat to human - and that the human worked at the lab. But those are not the same things.  The initial implication is that the lab created it, but then they row back on that in the body of the article.
 * Who would have expected doublethink from Fox?!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:01, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * We're brewing towards cold war 2. The doublethink is way less important than the consequences of the propaganda.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Bob, let's go slow on this. There's a difference between "made in a lab" and "came from a lab"; there a difference between "accidentally came from a lab" and "deliberately came from a lab"., Have we covered all subsets and contingent possibilities? Two things are certain, Coronavirus did not originate in the Wuhan wet market where no bats were sold, and did not originate from eating bats in the Wuhan wet market where no bats were sold. You are the victim of officially controlled CPP racist propaganda aimed at denigrating the cultural eating habits of the Chinese people when you repeat the those conspiracy theories. nobsFree Roger Stone!'' 18:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm quoting Fox news on the "came from a bat" thing. But as Fox is the most unreliable mainstream news source I am aware of there is a lot of doubt on that statement. Nevertheless you seem to have some additional certain information and perhaps you should get in contact with the CDC who I am sure would be happy to hear from you.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:16, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * First of all, instantly attributing this notion that "lol Chinese eat everything" is something you've brought up that no one else did and something only the racist morons bring up. Get your cultural facts straight: eating stuff like dogs and cats and bats isn't widely practiced in China, and people who claim that China needs to stop eating bats needs to get their facts straight before they act like racist buffoons. Spread of the virus is not as simple as consumption of a weird and strange meat. It's more of a problem with the practice of the wet markets in general than it is Chinese culture. 19:03, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * False dilemma:
 * P1: A place could only have been the origin of the disease if bats were sold there.
 * P2: No bats are sold in the Wuhan wet market.
 * C: The Wuhan wet market is not the origin of the disease.
 * Not to mention I've seen some reporting from reliable sources (i.e. not Murdoch's propaganda outlets) saying some experts think it may not literally have jumped to humans in the exact location of the wet market, but might have jumped to humans once or more in the Wuhan area and then circulated for a bit before starting to disperse to other regions. This is pretty much what happened with HIV. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 19:37, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Right, though that probably won't happen as long as Trump is in charge. "China is terrible and they're killing us but it's so great they're led by the tremendous President Xi who's a great guy, believe me." But under President Tom Cotton... --47.146.63.87 (talk) 19:37, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * China's track record of bad biosecurity measures could be a logical explanation. If it came from a lab (possible) the likely explanation would be cross contamination or animals being packed tightly together allowed zoonosis to happen. If it was a biological weapon it would be a pretty shitty way to kill. As for a bioweapon, why would China economically cripple its trading partners? That would be stupid. The bad biosecurity measures be it mundane, would be more logical than a bioweapon. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:08, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * SARS is known to have escaped Chinese labs on multiple occasions, and lab animals have been sold at local markets in the past, so an escape from a lab is entirely plausible. And the creation of potentially dangerous chimeric viruses has been going on for a while as a standard method of examining the infectious potential of nonhuman viruses. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 03:10, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Let us accept for a moment your three assertions. There are a vast number of facts in this world which can be combined in many ways to support any particular hypothesis (or for that matter conspiracy theory). What exactly are you claiming happened in the case of COVID 19 and, more importantly, how would you test that claim?  Remember the assertion that there is no evidence your claim is false does not make it true.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:25, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

With the bat thing, covid is not thought to have jumped from bat to human but rather to have jumped from bat to a third animal, a pangolin is thought likely, and then to have jumped to human from there.

As for speculation about mistakes in labs, I care not. while the virus still rages its an irrelevant distraction and in no way exonerates early mistakes nor the continued appalling handling of certain governments. what ever china's role in this ultimately in all this we have known of a threat like this for years. ours repsonses are entirely on us and our governments' responses are entirely on them. it seems that we will be unlikely to learn the lessons we are currently being taught in favour of who we can be blame. we don't need to ok to china for that when we can and should look closer to home AMassiveGay (talk) 12:41, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Some depressing news...
A high school friend that I had has just died from COVID-19. You can't deny how powerful a single virus is. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of climate change denialists could actually point to the disease as evidence that the earth is not getting hotter, but colder. Sadly, my friend will never cringe at those idiots ever again. — Jeh2ow Damn son!  16:14, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keats once said "Nothing is real until it is experienced". I'm sorry COVID-19 is real for you.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:25, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yesterday it snowed in mid-April: maybe because the planet is shut down and lower greenhouse gases are being admitted, global warming is taking a holiday and colder whether is in the wind. Conversely, the no reusable plastic bags order was rescinded and we're backing to destroying the planet to save ourselves from a loathsome disease. Oh. the dilemmas are becoming to much for a simple mind to bear. nobsFree Roger Stone!'' 18:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yesterday it snowed That's not how global warming works you idiot. 18:53, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I stopped using bags years before it was popular. Like the overwhelming majority of people, I have these amazing things attached to the end of my arms that enable me to pick up and carry things. If you're unfamiliar, they're called hands. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 19:05, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Pain in the ass to move thirty-forty items from conveyor (if the store doesn't bag for you) to cart to trunk to final destination, and hopefully you don't drop anything fragile. Harder for some people as well. Of course Costco and some other places have had this solved for decades: give the shipping boxes everything comes to the store in to shoppers. Other stores discard these instead and then give out bags because they would have to organize the boxes, and it's psychologically viewed as "cheap". Something something externalities. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 19:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * For sure. But in my case, I'm a tall, healthy, relatively young man, so I don't mind the extra trips. Not like I have anything so pressing that an extra 2 minutes a week will kill me. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 22:01, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * At least you're introspective enough to realize you have a simple mind. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 19:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * (trying to keep this discussion about Jeh2ow's serious loss) Oh god, how close is this friend to you? That's devastating. 20:16, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That’s awful. I’m so sorry that happened. 21:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I'm very sorry to hear of this incident. We're all doing our best right now to curb the spread of the disease so that no further tragic losses can occur. 21:49, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Would pseudo-academic accrediting agencies be missional?
Kinda curious on that one considering that there are some fake accrediting agencies that support creationism, woo and conspiracy theories. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure, the existing academic accreditation article already a section that deals with accreditation mills and could use expansion. Cosmikdebris (talk)
 * I agree with it being missional. These institutions are a key part of giving some of these cranks their 'credibility'. Feel free to continue full speed ahead --NavigatorBR (Talk) -  23:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, definitely missional as part of the sliding scale pseudo academia that begins with more or less legit institutions with faith statements and the like, shading into woo and nutty religious academies/universities whose only connection to academia is their branding, and finally end up with out and out diploma mills, usually of no fixed abode (i.e. online scams). ScepticWombat (talk) 09:16, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Hungary
So Hungary's "president" recently banned trans folk from transitioning. This is after Hungary's legislature gave him emergency powers. What do y'all think will come of this? RationalHindu (talk) 23:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * At this rate I will not be surprised if Hungary faces a credible attempt to kick it out of the EU by the end of this decade. Given its worsening human rights record and the fact it is now essentially an authoritarian state, if it were not already in the EU people would treat it like Belarus if it attempted to join. Granted, the EU is now in dire straits so they can bluster about universal rights but they can't really afford to kick it out just yet.-Flandres (talk) 23:34, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * More like the EU in its present form won't make it to the midpoint of the decade. Kicking out a member requires a unanimous vote of other members; Poland's ruling party is going down Hungary's path and will veto it. But Germany blocking any stimulus and enforcing crushing austerity for the second economic crisis in a row will tear it apart first unless they relent. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 01:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Shit. Hope Covid-19 takes him. Speaking of which, the guy who said SARS-CoV-2 is a divine punishment for Pride parades has got it.--Delibirda the Annoying Grammar Nazi (talk) 06:27, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hungary and to a lesser extant Poland are the total fucking embarrassments of the European Union (now that the UK is out). The only thing they listen to is having their EU funding cut (which the EU commission is slowly doing as much as the rules allow) and the EU court striking down laws like this. It will eventually lead to a show down where the EU can no longer allow them to operate with autonomy. If it were up to me they'd be out of the union at the snap of my fingers. But in the mean time the only tools that are available is cutting the funding they need because of their tanking economy because of the stupid laws they are enacting. anti-trans laws will never hold up in the EU-court. But in the mean time it certainly will make life miserable for trans in Hungary. AT least they can freely move to 27 other countries, many of which will be more than happy to support them. Though that certainly means leaving and losing the little support systems they have in the only home they know. Horrific really. Shabi  DOO  09:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * And of course, they may also face a language barrier. The majority of Hungarians only speak Hungarian, which is virtually impossible to use outside the country. 17:35, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * For now. Unfortunately as Britbongs should know a bunch of "foreigners" moving in tends to energize the bigots against the EU. "Get them out!" --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * So, do we know if the Hungarian legislator are a bunch of fucking idiots, or a bunch of fucking stooges for this fuckin' prick? (Also backing Delibirda the Annoying Grammar Nazi's hope. Scum who make the situation worse deserve to be cursed with this, as punishment for the harm they've inflicted. Since in reality, it's liable to be the only punishment these scum face for their actions. And no, I'm not apologizing for this statement.)--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 23:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hungary's ruling party is neo-fascist and just passed their Enabling Act last month. This is where I remind people that Hungary was a Nazi German ally. Obviously this is not to say that Hungarians are all Nazis, but that far-right politics has a history there and unlike in Germany was never really publicly discredited. Sebastian Gorka is ethnically Hungarian, and a number of other ethnic Hungarians have been paling around with the English-speaking far-right. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

HSUS
The article about Humane Society of the United States really needs to be edited. If they are not PETA-tier bad, then the article should be deleted. Deleted it.--Delibirda the Annoying Grammar Nazi (talk) 08:03, 17 April 2020 (UTC)