[HN Gopher] I Miss My Bar
___________________________________________________________________
I Miss My Bar
Author : interweb
Score : 384 points
Date : 2021-02-19 02:14 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (imissmybar.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (imissmybar.com)
| dep_b wrote:
| I need some downtime from people in order to recharge my social
| battery. I really enjoy being around people but I just can't do
| it 24/7. Having your whole family around all of the time is
| really stressing since my social battery is empty and stays
| empty.
|
| This is where an office or a commute happens, by the time you get
| home you really missed everybody, at least when everything is
| going right ;)
| C4stor wrote:
| I really like it :-)
|
| (It's telling a lot about the state of the internet that this
| site loads google malware, but won't remember where I let the
| sliders when I refresh the page though.)
| andygcook wrote:
| For anyone missing the sounds of their local coffee shop,
| checkout Coffitivity: https://coffitivity.com
|
| Not affiliated. Just like to put it on sometimes with a good
| indie playlist while I'm drinking coffee and doing work.
| Balgair wrote:
| YT is great for this as well! I've been using these 'ambiance
| soundscapes' to help me get in the right mood a lot during the
| pandemic. It's also really useful for DnD sessions, writing
| fiction (or non-fiction too!), and for getting house/work done.
|
| Here's some links, but searching for the right mood is fairly
| straightforward on YT:
|
| Summer ambiance :
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=summer+ambience
|
| Aircraft Carrier ambiance :
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aircraft+carrie...
|
| 'Epic' music :
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hero+music
|
| Cafe ambiance :
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cafe+ambience+
|
| Hufflepuff ambiance :
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hufflepuff+comm...
|
| Such is the width of YouTubers that you can pretty much find
| anything you'd like!
| [deleted]
| mysql wrote:
| I use http://phanary.com/ which has a ton of sounds and similar
| controls.
| Nightshaxx wrote:
| This is amazing! The playlist is really great!
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I miss quarterly visits with a friend in a town midway between
| us. Just us in a hotel room, watching movies, going out to
| dinner, looking for new places or revisiting the old, chit-
| chatting away. We still communicate now but it lacks the
| spontaneity of our usual routine.
|
| On a weekly basis, I miss "camping out" at my Starbucks and
| reading, growing slowly more wired on caffeine. This is the lack
| that seems to have put me off of my game the most, despite it not
| having a whole lot of personal interaction.
| ivan888 wrote:
| Just being able to go out into the social world without a plan
| is something I miss a lot. It feels like every time I leave the
| house now, I have a very direct objective and I try to
| accomplish it as quickly as possible with as little human
| interaction as possible
| kelnos wrote:
| I hadn't thought about this aspect of it, but that's
| completely the case for me as well. It's emotionally draining
| in a way I didn't realize.
| rchaud wrote:
| Thanks for making this! I love these types of independent
| creative projects that don't rely on third party content to work
| (minus the Spotify embed).
|
| There is something about ambient noise from people that helps me
| work and focus. Offices and coffee shops closing has saved me a
| ton of transit and coffee money but it's hurt my productivity a
| lot.
|
| With Youtube 1hr mixes of ambient people sounds and Pomodoros,
| I'm doing a bit better.
| unicornporn wrote:
| https://gossips.cafe/
| tomcooks wrote:
| Maybe it's the rural setup where I'm from, but I'm glad that in
| 2020 and 2021 I barely visited bars. Summer was spent by lakes
| and forests, drinking beers, cocktails, appetizers, and eating
| freshly grilled BBQ for a fraction of the price, having quality
| time in the sun with friends.
|
| I don't miss commercial society, I don't miss their tropes and
| their rituals. Fake friendship and banter from people hanging
| around to get some of my money in exchange of half a glass of ice
| and a dribble of liquor.
|
| Bonus annoyance this year: the eternal covid lamentations of bar
| and restaurant owners, as if governments purposely wanted to
| destroy their businesses, as if one's bar is more important than
| other people lives, as if they didn't paint themselves and their
| stupid restaurant for years as an example of entrepreneurship
| (apparently the free market is a good idea only when your
| business goes well).
|
| To hell with paid service, picnics and aperitivi in the main
| square with cheap liquor and (honestly) friendly smiles.
|
| "I command this dump to wither, board its doors and windows
| forever" as Dan Feeder says.
| leehuffman wrote:
| > Maybe it's the rural setup where I'm from
|
| Nah, it's almost certainly (at least in this context) your
| privilege. I should hope that you'd never have your income,
| overnight, ganked out from under you. Not to mention the dozens
| of other hard working, honest humans on your payroll.
|
| I also hope nobody has the completely disconnected uppity
| spirit to post paragraphs of text telling you why you're
| worthless, as you're inhaling water and drowning. Because that
| would be shitty.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Eh? Are you suggesting this site is for bar _owners_. You
| parent and probably everyone else is assuming the perspective
| of a bar patron.
| corobo wrote:
| You guys know people lost their jobs during the pandemic
| right?
| globular-toast wrote:
| Of course I do, but what does that have to do with this?
| Are you suggesting bar owners or workers will be on here
| seeking some kind of comfort? This is clearly for people
| that go to hang out in bars as customers.
| jaywalk wrote:
| So because _those people_ probably aren 't here, it's
| fine to demean them and act like all of the horrible
| things that have happened to them and their employees are
| actually _GOOD THINGS_ because some people "got to"
| spend more time by lakes and forests?
|
| My tech job is very safe. My financial situation has not
| changed. But many of my friends own and work in bars and
| restaurants, and I have seen firsthand how their lives
| have been so negatively impacted by all of this.
|
| In all sincerity: go fuck yourself.
| [deleted]
| leesalminen wrote:
| No, they don't know anyone outside of their tech bubble,
| so of course they don't. As long as it doesn't affect
| them, they don't care.
| Nursie wrote:
| > having quality time in the sun with friends.
|
| Here in the UK we're not really even allowed to see friends
| outside.
| deadmetheny wrote:
| >Bonus annoyance this year: the eternal covid lamentations of
| bar and restaurant owners, as if governments purposely wanted
| to destroy their businesses, as if one's bar is more important
| than other people lives, as if they didn't paint themselves and
| their stupid restaurant for years as an example of
| entrepreneurship (apparently the free market is a good idea
| only when your business goes well).
|
| Fuck off into the sun. Of course people are going to lament
| when their jobs vanish and the business they built over years
| of hard work is in a very real danger of tanking. I should
| know, my food service business is down quite a bit - and we're
| one of the _lucky_ ones that is doing well enough to stay
| afloat given that we had a strong takeaway focus even before
| the C-19 hit. An entire segment of jobs blown away - what do
| those people do? Shit like "learn to code" is not a helpful
| answer, and history suggests that what they do end up doing
| after a long enough period of hopelessness is not pretty.
| esotericn wrote:
| Maybe we should make your preferred hobbies illegal with strict
| enforcement.
|
| Fuck you, buddy.
| vultour wrote:
| Yes, if they're helping a deadly virus spread during a
| pandemic then go ahead. Except unlike you I'm going to accept
| that, because I don't want to be stuck at home for another
| year while morons continue to spread the disease everywhere.
| [deleted]
| cassalian wrote:
| [edit]
| vultour wrote:
| Yes, I understand how damaging this is for people who are
| alone. It's also the reason why I've been staying inside
| since march, to help get this whole thing behind us.
| Unfortunately some people just don't give a shit.
| esotericn wrote:
| I give a shit, just not to the level that I'm willing to
| kill myself for the cause.
| jeofken wrote:
| No one has a moral responsibility to not live their
| lives, if ethics are universal. And no one has the
| ethical right to hinder others from living and letting
| live. End these government lockdowns
| esotericn wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| I don't know what I have to say to explain this to these
| people. Maybe it's not quite explainable.
|
| Restrictions haven't pushed their buttons in the same
| way. The only way to get this across is to describe all
| of their needs disappearing. But it doesn't hit the same,
| and it seems petty.
|
| So it goes.
| cassalian wrote:
| I do not think it's easy to convey to someone what this
| last year has been like for a lot of people who live
| alone. As such, I can't really blame the crowd that
| pushes for more intense lockdown measures - their motives
| for doing so are generally good. Thankfully the vaccine
| is being distributed so I'm fairly confident this will
| all end soon
| [deleted]
| kungito wrote:
| Well it's easy to say this about summer but in the winter you
| have no options. It's too cold to hang out outside, play sports
| or whatever. You could hand out at each other's houses but
| people prefer to have neutral ground where no one has to
| prepare for everyone else
| 3np wrote:
| In some countries, you're even forbidden from having visitors
| in your home.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| In some countries you get put in a concentration camp if
| your religion is the wrong one.
|
| Does that make it acceptable in your country?
| esotericn wrote:
| Yep, the UK went full authoritarian pretty much straight
| out of the gate, it's been illegal for me to have anyone in
| my house for 97 days now (and was also illegal or heavily
| restricted a number of times before that)
| Nursie wrote:
| > Yep, the UK went full authoritarian pretty much
| straight out of the gate
|
| We really didn't. Had we done that, we may have succeeded
| in controlling this thing. Instead what happened was too
| little, too late, over and over again the government shut
| the stable door after the horse bolted.
| esotericn wrote:
| edit: Nah, I'd rather we go back in time and not
| normalize draconian, authoritarian restrictions on
| everyday life.
| Nursie wrote:
| We closed things down too late, this is pretty well
| understood.
|
| The last lockdown was imposed when it was, essentially,
| because the powers that be wanted christmas retail open,
| and christmas day to happen, when cases were already
| massively on the rise. I'm not saying "it wasn't harsh
| enough", I'm saying that every time it's been done too
| late, and ramped up too slowly. It could have been
| shorter and well controlled had it been sooner, like it
| has been in other countries.
|
| There's no need to be so incivil. Perhaps think about
| your own words.
| esotericn wrote:
| edit: Nah, I'd rather we go back in time and not
| normalize draconian, authoritarian restrictions on
| everyday life.
| Nursie wrote:
| No, I'm quite seriously talking about how it should have
| been done sooner, and if it had been, could have been
| shorter.
|
| I'm sorry you're so upset about this. It's not easy on
| any of us and it's been handled appallingly. But there
| really is no need to call someone that disagrees with you
| a "lockdown ####" and fantasise about violence upon them.
| esotericn wrote:
| edit: Nah, I'd rather we go back in time and not
| normalize draconian, authoritarian restrictions on
| everyday life.
| Nursie wrote:
| I think you probably ought to seek some counselling if
| you're fantasising about violence towards others on a
| daily basis. What you're expressing is deeply unhealthy.
|
| I'm not saying this as some sort of point of argument or
| to belittle you - it really sounds like you could use
| someone to talk through this with.
| esotericn wrote:
| edit: Nah, I'd rather we go back in time and not
| normalize draconian, authoritarian restrictions on
| everyday life.
| Nursie wrote:
| If you are fantasising, daily, about committing violence
| against people in favour of public health measures, as
| you said you were, please seek some sort of mental health
| support.
|
| I'm calling for less locking down, but done earlier so
| that it can be shorter, and I'm largely talking about how
| it could have been done better last year. If that's
| enough for you to want to physically harm me, I really
| think you need to get that support.
| [deleted]
| esotericn wrote:
| It's a no from me.
|
| I'd rather we go back in time and not normalize
| draconian, authoritarian restrictions on everyday life.
| Nursie wrote:
| I think I'm going to stop responding to this now. I hope
| you feel better soon.
| jwlake wrote:
| My new favorite tree in hn
| [deleted]
| nicbou wrote:
| The bar was the meeting point, and the place where we closed
| the week. I met my friends there, and sometimes made new ones.
|
| You may not like bars and the fact that they exchange services
| for money, but that doesn't mean you don't have to show
| sympathy for people who are losing everything because of a
| force majeure.
| toby wrote:
| > apparently the free market is a good idea only when your
| business goes well
|
| This statement is so confusing. Forcing millions of businesses
| which were previously legal to shutter under questionable
| authority is literally the opposite of a free market.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > apparently the free market is a good idea only when your
| business goes well
|
| The free market is a (sort of) good idea when acts of god don't
| interfere.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| _acts of government_
| jvm_ wrote:
| This song captures that feeling well.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8isMSg0Tpe4
| itsphilos wrote:
| This reminds me of that website which provides several
| soundscapes, from the ambiance of a cafe to a walk in the woods.
| Its at https://mynoise.net
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| In my area there are no lockdowns and businesses are thriving.
| Very thankful to be where I'm at.
| EdwardCoffin wrote:
| Similar is Sounds of the Bodleian [1], which offers ambient
| noises from four different reading rooms in the Bodleian library
| (the main research library at the University of Oxford).
|
| [1] https://www.ox.ac.uk/soundsofthebodleian/#radcam
| sapsan wrote:
| To add to the collection of websites recreating acoustic
| environments, there's https://imisstheoffice.eu for office
| sounds.
| keyle wrote:
| This is very interesting but I picture the image of sitting alone
| in a bar, which is not the kind of thing I'd want to picture.
|
| Meaning, all this stuff I usually try to tune off or ignore when
| I am(was) out.
| dominotw wrote:
| I think not knowing when this is ending is worst part. I now know
| what the protagonist of the movie 'oldboy' meant by that.
|
| also on a unrelated note, "you will see in two weeks" crowd seems
| to have completely disappeared.
| [deleted]
| mStreamTeam wrote:
| The "two weeks to flatten the curve" feels like gaslghting in
| retrospect.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| The problem is people saw China bring the situation under
| control in under six weeks and thought that containment
| rather than management was also an achievable goal here. They
| therefore interpreted the term "flatten the curve" in that
| context and assumed it would lead to containment. What they
| didn't see (and what was never really talked about) is just
| how extreme China's eventual response to COVID was relative
| to the constraints placed on Americans.
|
| The Chinese were placing everyone under house arrest,
| mandating mask use, monitoring everyone's movements at
| checkpoints, temperature checking anyone who left their house
| when possible, banning people from going outside more than X
| times per week, forcibly quarantining, arresting non-
| compliant people, shuttering every non-essential business
| under the strictest interpretation of "essential", blocking
| internal travel, physically isolating cities, requiring
| quarantine when returning from traveling abroad, etc. The US
| government didn't really do any of that. To anyone aware of
| the contrast in national responses, it was very obvious that
| we would not be able to replicate China's success and that
| COVID would be around until we got a vaccine.
| rtkwe wrote:
| They didn't have to maintain the draconian initial lockdown
| the whole year though. A few months in they were opening
| things back up and thoroughly testing everyone that came
| into the country to keep it from being reintroduced while
| maintaining the monitoring to catch new cases. To all
| outward appearances it worked. The failure in the US wasn't
| inevitable, the US didn't even implement the basic versions
| of fever monitoring and test and trace, this whole time
| there have been two places that have temperature checked
| me; the courthouse and an store for a shared glass blowing
| studio. We have a lot of the same tools, medical
| quarantines, food distribution so people don't have to
| leave their houses, etc, there's just a massive difference
| in the attitude towards collective action in the US.
| [deleted]
| nradov wrote:
| Fever monitoring is a pointless waste of effort. Those
| thermometer guns are generally inaccurate, most infected
| people don't have a significant fever, and those who do
| have a fever often knock it down using OTC medication.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| That's if you buy the numbers from China at all.
|
| For all we know, China just stopped counting and is
| accepting whatever new cases or deaths come up.
|
| We know they fake other numbers. There's not reason not to
| think they aren't faking them here.
|
| If the news wasn't telling me about the Virus all the time,
| I would not know there was a "raging" epidemic. I only know
| one person who contracted the virus among my entire family
| and friends group.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| Show me the data. All existing data points to the fact
| that the Chinese largely beat this and have handled it in
| a way that is orders of magnitude more effective than the
| Americans. That includes anecdata I have coming from
| internal sources who have no reason to lie. If there was
| ANY data suggesting otherwise, you would have heard about
| it: they couldn't contain news about the original
| outbreak or any follow on outbreaks.
|
| A few months into this, basically every single American
| media outlet was tripping over themselves to defend
| American values when it was abundantly clear that they
| were impeding our ability to successfully respond to this
| crisis. There was a huge appetite for bashing China /
| authoritarianism and pointing out the universal
| superiority of our system. The fact that we have largely
| heard nothing about the Chinese response (no criticism,
| no praise, no critique, not even general acknowledgement
| that it was much different than ours) from the government
| or the media suggests that it was a success whereas our
| efforts were a colossal failure and we don't want to talk
| about it or admit it: this situation doesn't align with
| the story we tell ourselves ((freedom and democracy) >
| authoritarianism, always).
|
| > If the news wasn't telling me about the Virus all the
| time, I would not know there was a "raging" epidemic. I
| only know one person who contracted the virus among my
| entire family and friends group
|
| We are basically a year into this with 500K dead and
| counting. How many citizens need to die before people
| stop feeling the need to create throwaway accounts to
| announce that this whole thing is overblown.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| > Show me the data.
|
| What data am I gonna show you? the only available data
| says "they defeated it" and it comes from the state
| government.
|
| >We are basically a year into this with 500K dead and
| counting. How many citizens need to die before people
| stop feeling the need to create throwaway accounts to
| announce that this whole thing is overblown.
|
| Like I said, I literally only know one soul who got this.
| They recovered in two days. My Aunt & Uncle are emergency
| room nurses and say that it's overblown _now_ (last
| April? was definitely bad).
|
| I also don't know anybody who dies from the seasonal flu
| that claims a lot of people too.
| cullinap wrote:
| Any sources showing that china brought it under control?
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-
| dir...
|
| https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/world/asia/china-
| covid-ec...
|
| I am also getting anecdata from people living in Shanghai
| and Beijing. Life has largely returned to normal outside
| of people wearing masks.
| cullinap wrote:
| Was there a reliable test in Feb 2020 at the time of the
| WHO article?. Who is to say that they are reporting the
| numbers correctly? For most of Jan 2020, china claimed
| covid was mild and wasn't spread human to human (and the
| WHO backed them up for some time as well).
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| If your response to me posting sources is going to be "I
| don't believe any data that emerges from China" then why
| did you ask for sources?
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| I guess there aren't any non-chinese sources then?
|
| OP was likely asking because he wanted to see non-Chinese
| sources on this.
| caeril wrote:
| I see what you're getting at here.
|
| On one hand, yes, obviously China's numbers cannot be
| trusted, at all.
|
| On the other hand, most of their neighbors, whose numbers
| are substantially more trustworthy, also managed to get
| it under some semblance of control.
|
| Given the latter point, I'm guessing they _mostly_ got it
| under control.
| majewsky wrote:
| We _did_ flatten the curve. You just don 't get to see the
| alternate reality where we didn't.
| mStreamTeam wrote:
| I'm not questioning the flattening the curve part.
|
| I'm saying the 2 weeks part was gaslighting. What they
| should have said is "one year or greater to flatten the
| curve." That would have been honest
| blamestross wrote:
| What the parent comment is trying to say is that we did
| accomplish the goal of those two weeks. The curve was
| flattened. Your perspective is a result of not living in
| the universe were it was a lot worse. This isn't the best
| time line, but it is one of the better ones.
| watwut wrote:
| Even if it would be lying, not every lying is
| gaslighting. Gaslighting is very specific abuse tactic.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I think the error here is perceiving errors from medical
| authorities as having emotional or manipulative
| motivations.
|
| First masks were unnecessary and hand washing was
| crucial. Now it's essentially the reverse. It helps to
| wash hands of course but we realize it's less of a
| vector.
|
| Then various governments said it'll be over by summer.
| Then various governments said it'll be a year.
|
| No one was attempting to gaslight; this was the
| culmination of millions of professionals doing their best
| to make sense of the situation, and occasionally,
| uncertain terms being communicated incorrectly. This is
| normal. The decision to perceive non-optimal performance
| in an incredibly complex situation as an attack on a
| population is yours, and you're welcome to it. I simply
| don't see the point.
| dominotw wrote:
| > I think the error here is perceiving errors from
| medical authorities as having emotional or manipulative
| motivations.
|
| I think you might be forgetting medical authorities
| approving certain protests as being more important than
| containing covid. Dont want to start was flamewar here
| but just pointing out a flaw in your response. That was
| factually a 'emotional or manipulative motivation', right
| or wrong.
|
| > This is normal.
|
| Obviously not.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Hum... Define "normal".
|
| If you mean "perfectly fine", then no, it isn't. But it's
| normal1 meaning is "what happens most of the time", and
| it certainly is.
|
| 1 - That's intended.
| camgunz wrote:
| > I think you might be forgetting medical authorities
| approving certain protests as being more important than
| containing covid.
|
| Can you provide some examples? I googled around and found
| this [1] which seems like a reasonable summary of the
| Covid-related consequences of the George Floyd protests.
| The "reasons it seems like it was OK" doesn't seem too
| divergent from what many medical professionals are saying
| (don't gather indoors, wear masks, wash hands).
|
| I'd also like to point out that institutional racism and
| police brutality are public health crises with
| uncountable effects on the health of Black Americans.
| Further, when you consider that Covid-19 has had far
| worse effects on communities of color, and that many
| essential workers are people of color, the protests don't
| seem that unrelated.
|
| Edit, found some:
|
| - https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/political-and-
| health-l...
|
| - https://abcnews.go.com/Health/people-protest-george-
| floyds-d...
|
| - https://time.com/5848212/doctors-supporting-protests/
|
| - https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-
| lette...
|
| Here are some quotes:
|
| > "Protesting against systemic injustice that is
| contributing directly to this pandemic is essential,"
| Dhillon said. "The right to live, the right to breathe,
| the right to walk down the street without police coming
| at you for no reason . . . that's different than me
| wanting to go to my place of worship on the weekend, me
| wanting to take my kid on a roller coaster, me wanting to
| go to brunch with my friends."
|
| > "Staying indoors all the time in a pandemic is
| equivalent to an abstinence-only policy,"
|
| > For her part, Patel says the core tenants of harm
| reduction fit into public health doctors' broader
| obligation to protect human rights while also helping
| people stay safe. "You're describing a broader human
| rights-based approach to policy and medicine," Patel
| said. "These are the tenants of human rights."
|
| > "There's broad recognition that racism is one of the
| top public health issues of our time," Beletsky said.
|
| > "Racism is a public health problem," the health
| department tweeted Monday. "In New York City, Black and
| Brown communities face the disproportionate impact, grief
| and loss from the COVID-19 pandemic on top of the trauma
| of state-sanctioned violence."
|
| > "If people were to understand that racism, and all of
| the social and political and economic inequalities that
| racism creates, ultimately harms people's health," Boyd
| says, they would see that "protest is a profound public
| health intervention, because it allows us to finally
| address and end forms of inequality."
|
| > "We created the letter in response to emerging
| narratives that seemed to malign demonstrations as risky
| for the public health because of Covid-19," according to
| the letter writers, many of whom are part of the
| University of Washington's Division of Allergy and
| Infectious Diseases. "Instead, we wanted to present a
| narrative that prioritizes opposition to racism as vital
| to the public health, including the epidemic response. We
| believe that the way forward is not to suppress protests
| in the name of public health but to respond to protesters
| demands in the name of public health, thereby addressing
| multiple public health crises."
|
| [1]: https://www.vox.com/2020/6/26/21300636/coronavirus-
| pandemic-...
| stolenmerch wrote:
| The point isn't really about institutional racism or
| police brutality, per se. The virus doesn't know or care
| about your cause or ideology, it spreads through a crowd
| regardless.
|
| The point is that there might be reasons why violating
| social distancing and lockdown mandates might be worth
| it. Protesting police brutality is one reason. Avoiding
| unemployment and accompanying mental health issues is
| another. One of these protests got the public approval of
| health care professionals and the other didn't. There was
| an entire movement called White Coats for Black Lives who
| endorsed the protests. Again, worth it. However, there's
| an entire class of folks who don't have options for
| remote pajama jobs. The protests against lockdowns was
| about avoiding the devastating effects to their lives.
| camgunz wrote:
| Sure and I don't want to minimize the suffering of people
| affected by COVID-19, either directly or economically.
| But there really is no comparison with the systemic
| violence and racism that Americans of color have
| experienced for 400 years.
| stolenmerch wrote:
| Ok, fair but it's not really a comparison. It's more a
| question of what is a threshold for acceptable violation
| of lockdown orders. It doesn't really matter if Reason X
| is N% worse than Reason Y. The scale of each protest
| fully explains the scale of the problem.
| camgunz wrote:
| Totally, and I think it's wholly unreasonable to tell
| someone who's lost their income for months to just chill
| and stay inside. I think that's the correct advice, but I
| also think it's not gonna work. I fault our idiotic
| government for failing to help us when we needed it most.
| People were right to be infuriated, and I think this
| shows that when government fails--either to address
| systemic racism or to provide assistance in a pandemic--
| everything gets worse.
|
| We shouldn't be faulting protestors or doctors here, we
| should be faulting our leaders.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not sure why the response was surprising: one group was
| protesting police brutality, and the other was protesting
| the exact pandemic rules that the CDC (etc.) was pushing.
| It would be a bit weird for the CDC to say "hey, we need
| to keep businesses shut down and people should stay
| inside, but it's cool if you want to go out and protest
| that requirement, in direct violation of the requirement
| itself".
|
| And sure, there's a political/optics component.
| Disapproving of protests against police brutality would
| have been an incredibly bad look, much worse than
| disapproving of protests against pandemic safety
| measures. That shouldn't require any kind of explanation
| or evoke any surprise.
| stolenmerch wrote:
| One group was violating the lockdowns out of a need to be
| heard concerning police brutality, the other group was
| violating lockdowns to preserve their livelihood because
| they can't work remotely. It wasn't just "hey we think
| this is dumb and we wanna go to Disneyland". This
| shouldn't evoke surprise either.
| dominotw wrote:
| examples for what?
|
| From your cnn link
|
| '"Prepare for an increased number of infections in the
| days following a protest," the letter says. '
|
| > "The right to live, the right to breathe, the right to
| walk down the street without police coming at you for no
| reason . . . that's different than me wanting to go to my
| place of worship on the weekend, me wanting to take my
| kid on a roller coaster, me wanting to go to brunch with
| my friends."
|
| This is obviously an emotional response. She didn't do
| A/B testing of various activity outcomes on public health
| and base her conclusions on that. Can't somone simply say
| going to church is good for metal health of the
| population, she didn't obviously measure the outcomes of
| that activity.
| camgunz wrote:
| Sure, my point is that the medical professionals
| responding to the protests were acknowledging that racism
| is a public health crisis and that the protests are both
| deeply relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic, and even more
| important than containing COVID-19. They also compared
| those protests to other gatherings like religious
| services, social events, and anti-mask/lockdown protests
| and said those gatherings were not as important as
| containing COVID-19.
|
| From where I sit, I think they pretty well explained why
| they think the BLM marches in the wake of George Floyd's
| murder were justified. I certainly wouldn't say they had
| "emotional or manipulative motivations", a
| characterization which seems completely off base.
| dominotw wrote:
| anything that's not based on scietific hypothesis is
| obviously an 'emotional response', how is this even a
| controversial statement.
|
| Can you point me to the study for public health outcome
| differences from protests vs going to church. And what
| what their scietific criteria for where to draw the line
| was.
| camgunz wrote:
| I don't think we need a scientific study to know that
| centuries of systemic violence is worse than Zoom church.
| dominotw wrote:
| we also know that social isolation causes depression and
| anxiety.
|
| "As the pandemic ushered in isolation and financial
| hardship, overdose deaths reached new heights" [1]
|
| Again, What is their basis for what is ok and what is
| not. Emotions. correct?
|
| Who are they to decide which population is expendable.
|
| 1. https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/16/as-pandemic-
| ushered-in-i...
| camgunz wrote:
| Overdose deaths definitely spiked in the early months of
| the pandemic. I haven't been able to find anything after
| 5/2020, but I think it's a reasonable assumption that no
| one's in the pink of mental health right now, and that
| means the vulnerable among of us are much more at risk.
|
| But I don't think doctors are making decisions about
| advice based on emotions. COVID-19 is the most likely
| cause of death for people 25-44 [1] (supplanting
| unintentional opioid overdose deaths). COVID-19 has a
| hugely disproportionate effect on communities of color
| [2]. Systemic racism also causes deaths; look at asthma
| for example [3].
|
| Finally, even the CDC is kind of at a loss as to what to
| do about overdose deaths [4]. Essentially they're like
| "get more naloxone and get more treatment."
|
| > Who are they to decide which population is expendable.
|
| I get where you're coming from here but, I don't think
| it's as simple as "lockdowns kill people" because:
|
| - Not imposing a lockdown also kills people
|
| - Even in the absence of a lockdown order, people are
| hesitant to get together
|
| - There are lots of ways to socialize and get outside
| that are very low risk (pods, outdoor activities)
|
| - COVID-19 deaths are far, far outstripping opioid
| overdose deaths due to lockdowns (the numbers I've found
| show that COVID-19 deaths exceed _all_ opioid overdose
| deaths, not just the total YoY increase).
|
| But if I could summarize what I think your points have
| been, I think your argument is broadly that doctors
| treated George Floyd's murder and the subsequent protests
| differently than hardships in other communities, and that
| at least indicates some level of emotional reaction if
| not outright bias. But I think they themselves have
| explained why they reacted differently, and I think the
| data (gathered by medical researchers and social
| scientists) back them up.
|
| [1]: https://www.news-
| medical.net/news/20201026/COVID-19-now-like...
|
| [2]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/1
| 6/covid-...
|
| [3]: https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4
| &lvlid=1...
|
| [4]:
| https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p1218-overdose-
| death...
| dominotw wrote:
| I don't understand how protests had any effect on asthma
| outcomes among POC.
|
| Are you saying that they calculated
|
| deaths caused by covid protests < deaths prevented from
| potests effecting health outcomes of POC.
|
| Hence Protests OK.
|
| deaths from depression caused from isolation < deaths
| from covid
|
| Isolation OK.
|
| If so, can you show me how they calculated,
|
| 'deaths prevented from potests effecting health outcomes
| of POC'
|
| > > I think the data (gathered by medical researchers and
| social scientists) back them up.
|
| what data is this ? There is no way they gathered any
| data within 1 week of when the protests started. Thats
| just too crazy of a timeline. If they are saying that
| collected some secret data to prove that protests will
| save more lives than lockdowns in less than week, then
| that proves how brazen they are in in their lying.
| speeder wrote:
| Problem is assuming it was "errors"
|
| What I saw:
|
| 1. Lots of outright lies, for example Chinese people
| saying the truth getting arrested, WHO toeing the CCP
| line (for example claiming there was no human-human
| transmission) when it was obviously a lie already, etc...
|
| 2. Lots of governments around the world using the lies
| for their own gains at expense of population, for example
| in Brazil the media was quick to paint the president as
| evil, to allow a inconstitutional power grab by governors
| and mayors (mind you, I am not saying quarantine is bad,
| I am saying it was done in a extremely illegal manner,
| and often for corrupt reasons, now a ton of the people
| involved are going to jail after quickly stuffing all
| money they could on their own pockets).
|
| 3. Lots of politicians lying and trying to pin the blame
| on scientists, see Cuomo lying about deaths on nursing
| homes to avoid Trump criticizing him.
|
| 4. Tons of corruption in procuring vaccines, masks,
| remote working tools, catering, etc... some examples are
| various politicians from multiple countries getting
| caught getting bribes from chinese manufacturer,
| politicians forcing lockdowns but maintaining their own
| business open, that crazy case in hollywood where open
| air restaurants were shut down but there was even a
| catering company serving movie production crew in a
| makeshift open air restaurant right in front of a local
| restaurant that was forced to shut down...
|
| 5. Lockdowns used for supression (see Iran executing the
| guy that asked why he had to lockdown but religious
| people didn't...)
|
| the list goes and goes and goes on.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I suppose an important thing I meant to express here, and
| which is useful to consider in response to you, is that
| we shouldn't generalize.
|
| Were some authorities gas lighting? Maybe. Were all?
| Certainly not. We should focus on and isolate the bad
| actors who are doing this, not generalize.
| [deleted]
| notatoad wrote:
| Maybe health officials were more misleading where you
| are, but from everything i saw the "2 weeks" messaging
| wasn't intended to say that everything would be solved in
| two weeks of lockdown, it was that after two weeks we
| would begin to see if a lockdown was effective or not.
| and it never was effective because our lockdowns are more
| of a polite suggestion to please not lick strangers than
| an actual lockdown.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| It's not lying if we didn't understand reality at the
| time.
|
| Hindsight is powerful, but I don't think in March anyone
| seriously thought this'd go through the year.
| Axien wrote:
| The curve was flattened, but the goalpost changed. We went
| from flattening the curve to eliminating the virus. With
| flattening the curve, the question should be "how full are
| the hospitals"?. Instead, the metric was infection rates.
| rz2k wrote:
| Unless you live in New Zealand you probably haven't ever
| written down your contact information when entering a store,
| and probably don't even know what that is.
|
| Flattening the curve was really about overloading hospitals.
| The end game is to make covid-19 extinct in the wild, or
| domesticated in the sense that only relatively harmless
| variants remain.
|
| Without serious testing and contact tracing that may take a
| very long time. We completely fumbled the early 2020 chance
| to contain the virus. The vaccines should decrease the
| numbers enough that there will be a second chance to contain
| it, this time with real efforts at contact tracing if we
| actually want to make the virus extinct.
| kelnos wrote:
| We did (still do?) that in San Francisco, but it's
| incredibly inconsistent. Some restaurants would make a
| reservation in their reservation system on the spot for you
| to keep a record of you being there. Others didn't keep
| track at all.
|
| Meanwhile, we spent last month in Honolulu, and every
| single restaurant took down our contact info.
|
| Nothing for regular stores in either place, though.
| Nursie wrote:
| > Unless you live in New Zealand you probably haven't ever
| written down your contact information when entering a store
|
| We did that for bars and restaurants in the UK, but it
| doesn't seem to have done as much good as it was probably
| just lost or ignored by our abysmal track and trace
| services...
|
| We also had a QR code system to tag yourself in places, but
| it fell down because it was firstly optional, and secondly
| there was no way to tag out so the records weren't that
| accurate.
| esotericn wrote:
| It's cool. I wish I could be happy.
|
| But for me, this sort of thing just sends me further into a deep
| depression.
|
| It ain't right. Pictures of food don't fix hunger.
|
| I hope that we snap out of all of this soon. Writing these
| comments, just to leave a log, in case someone cares, if it all
| goes wrong.
|
| I miss having the ability to miss. Having the feeling that others
| exist. Right now I feel that other people stopped existing.
| FriedrichN wrote:
| I've been joking that I don't know what a woman looks like
| anymore. But it's kind of true, if I see people at all it's
| either through a camera or they're wearing a face mask.
|
| I really miss just having a cup of coffee and talking to other
| people about nothing at all. Sure you can call people but it's
| hard to talk about nothing or just sit and look at the people
| going by on the phone.
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| Don't be afraid to ask for help, don't be afraid to seek
| support. We are all feeling this right now, some more than
| others. I am just some rando on the internet, but if you need
| to talk to someone let me know.
|
| <3
| esotericn wrote:
| edit: every day it gets worse, not better.
| https://esotericnonsense.com
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| I think this is somewhat tongue in cheek, almost a form of
| gallows' humor. Sometimes people deal with this sadness,
| pain, and isolation with humor, others create silly shit as
| a way of distracting themselves.
|
| People are still people, we are just being told that people
| are unsafe, with an invisible enemy attacking. I think
| these lockdowns are too far, I think we can't hide from
| danger. Most people disagree with me. I can't say I've
| found a way to deal with this. I am depressed. I take
| medicine, but that only worked when things were normal. I
| am more depressed than I can remember, but it feels numb.
| When I was depressed in the past, I was actively sad,
| actively self-harming through excessive drug use. Now I am
| just, existing, like you said. But there is hope. We can
| get out of this mess, things are getting better. Hopefully
| things will be better soon.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| And some of us have been cooped up with spouse and kids for
| almost a year. When I get a little alone time I'm especially
| grateful.
|
| Still, I'd love to go to this bar! Or the pub down the street.
| esotericn wrote:
| The way things are going at the moment, I'll have to emigrate
| to somewhere "sane" like Belarus in order to even meet
| another person.
| possiblelion wrote:
| Estonia is a better option. Bars and restaurants are open,
| all without a bloody dictator.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| Give EKRE a few more years ...
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Also the highest Covid rate in Europe right now, I
| believe?
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| My s/o is Estonian. The thing is - yes, rates are high -
| but ... that's about it. There is not much going on
| beyond incidence rates being high. Which makes me
| question the panic.
| yao420 wrote:
| I feel the same in Texas, we don't have strict lockdowns
| and I've been going to gym, restaurants, and bars since
| June.
|
| Sure our rates are 'high' but are on par with places like
| California and New York who have very strict lockdowns.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| It has a lot to do with density, so both policies can
| make sense at the same time.
| pjc50 wrote:
| You can meet new friends at the street protests against the
| dictator!
| FDSGSG wrote:
| Dubai is the place to be right now, everything is normal
| here.
| [deleted]
| germinalphrase wrote:
| That's got to be really tough. Take care of yourself.
| rusk wrote:
| Preach Brother
| heikkilevanto wrote:
| I tried the background sounds for a while. Didn't really make me
| feel like my usual bar - none of the regular customers there, no
| good discussions, no meeting new people. After a while I didn't
| hear the noise at all, it just blended in the background. Then I
| switched it off, and realized how much it had been filling. Fun
| experiment.
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| What I find most interesting about this whole pandemic, is that
| my life hasn't changed in any noticeable way.
|
| I work from home more then I did before, but I still need to go
| do work in-person on our servers occasionally. I go get groceries
| on Saturdays (although I need to stand in line now). I wake-up,
| work, eat supper, watch something on TV and/or have computer
| time, goto bed, repeat.
|
| My wife hasn't left the house since March or so. But she's an
| introvert like me.
|
| But by any measurable metric, my life hasn't been inconvenienced.
| And I know that I am lucky.
| possiblelion wrote:
| I love the music choices. Cool to see Lexsoul Dancemachine in the
| playlist too, cheers from Estonia!
| ms123 wrote:
| Hey I miss going to pubs as well! That's why I've opened
| https://midnight.pub
|
| cheers!
| underseacables wrote:
| I miss being spontaneous about going out. I'm not even sure what
| restaurants are still open, what bars have gone out of business,
| why can't we return to normal already?
| luxuryballs wrote:
| https://time.com/collection/great-reset/
| tomcooks wrote:
| There's no normal, there's only what you create now
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Saw blurb that Marin county thinks they've vaccinated 68% of
| everyone over 75. And 50% of 65-75 year olds. Everyone in a
| long term care facility plus staff. They had an average 60
| active infections in January, this month it's 4.
|
| Bay Area Counties are starting to extend eligibility to
| essential workers.
|
| Same time noises are that the amount of vaccine shipped is
| going to double in the next few weeks.
| psychstudio wrote:
| Death and disease?
| [deleted]
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| It's a great opportunity for non-commercial spontaneity,
| choosing not between "what bar to go to", but which direction
| to walk in, and really taking in reality.
| tomcooks wrote:
| Exactly. Just like with open source software, if you don't
| like something make your own instead of creating cargo cult
| around the ashes of a mediocre past.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| Legally, though, in solitude. In Germany only one person can
| officially visit another household. I think that is excessive
| bullshit which is why I do break this rule occasionally.
| jeofken wrote:
| Good! The relationship between you and the Bundesrepublik
| is a non-voluntary one, where you never signed a contract
| with them to follow their laws. It's a state created by the
| victors of the last great war. There is no moral
| responsibility to please people who are in your life
| involuntarily
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| With your attitude you have to be willing to not use tax-
| funded hospitals, community-financed health insurance or
| state-sponsored cultural events. Not sure if I'd like to
| take that step. There has to be a healthy balance in the
| relationship between society and citizen.
| jeofken wrote:
| The same argument applies to a slave being fed and housed
| by their master.
|
| I think it's very healthy to avoid some government funded
| "services", such as having children far away from
| government schools. If you are not paying, you are the
| product.
| LandR wrote:
| In my country, the UK, you can be fined for going a walk to a
| park if it isn't the closest park to your home. Basically if
| the police want to be arses to you they can ask you where you
| are going and why you are where you are, if they dont like
| your answer you can be fined.
|
| There was an article in the BBC a while back about two
| friends that met up for a walk in the country side, they
| drove to the meetup point. It wasn't the closest place they
| could have walked so they got fined.
|
| Also IIRC, they were carrying a cup of coffee each so the
| police said technically they met for a picnic.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| What I think is under discussed is the fact that we allow
| for all of these social restrictions measurements but yet
| air travel across all the EU countries is still allowed.
| karlerss wrote:
| Air travel worldwide is just fine. In airport transit
| zones all you need is a mask.
|
| We flew from Northern Europe to South Asia a week ago and
| the flights were filled 60-70%.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Absolutely false. I am not saying airports are a source
| of infection. What I am pointing out is that air travel
| is allowing for all these variants to propagate to new
| populations.
|
| The pervasiveness of the UK variant in Europe would have
| been contained or at least decelerated with travel
| restrictions.
|
| A living proof of this is both New Zealand and Australia.
| These countries still allowed for sea and air freight but
| banned travel. Both countries are roughly back to normal
| life, while we in Europe are still trying to blame
| pharmaceutical manufacturing vaccine output, as if that
| is the sole cause of our problems.
| Nursie wrote:
| > Also IIRC, they were carrying a cup of coffee each so the
| police said technically they met for a picnic.
|
| It's both sad and hilarious that going for a picnic is
| currently a criminal act.
| [deleted]
| richrichardsson wrote:
| After the furore surrounding that everything was overturned
| and they apologised [1].
|
| > if the police want to be arses
|
| This is what's completely wrong about the situation.
|
| Police officer had an argument with their spouse that
| morning and is in a shitty mood? Police officer was bullied
| at school and is using their power to punish the kind of
| person that looks like their bullies? Any number of
| entirely random things can change the "rules". Not good.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-55625062
| esotericn wrote:
| This is illegal in my country.
| tomcooks wrote:
| Which country more or less is it? When the hot season will
| arrive will you be able to go out and make an impromptu bar
| with friends somewhere free (public squares, forests,
| beaches, etc.)
| oarsinsync wrote:
| Predicting the future is difficult. After the overall
| incompetence of leadership that 2020 brought in many
| western countries, making any rational predictions about
| 2021 is irrational in itself.
|
| Based on their website, GP is likely in the UK. There's
| vague hope based on vaccination rates, but given the
| number of self-inflicted own-goals by this government,
| anything more than vague hope now feels like setting
| oneself up for disappointment.
| esotericn wrote:
| Vaccination has literally fuck all to do with this. Our
| restrictions are randomly generated.
|
| It's illegal for me to have a friend over because they
| made it illegal.
|
| We have adverts trying to scare people into working from
| home, as if that's a choice.
|
| The government is literally trolling us, just showing us
| that we'll do whatever as long as there's propaganda
| backing it.
|
| Fuck this reality.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Same in the Netherlands and any restriction introduced
| for whatever reason is forever. For instance, when bars
| had to close at 22:00, people would flood the
| supermarkets to get booze for drinking at home. So they
| made a rule that supermarkets can't sell alcohol after
| 20:00.
|
| Now the bars have been closed for 3 months. Think anyone
| would remove that now useless limitation on selling
| alcohol after 20:00? Think again!
| esotericn wrote:
| UK Government 2020:
|
| It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in
| private homes.
|
| _makes pubs shit to be in with distancing rules and
| masks etc_
|
| _people start to socialise at home more_
|
| It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in
| private homes.
|
| _closes pubs earlier_
|
| _people start to socialise at home more_
|
| It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in
| private homes.
|
| _close everything else, make meeting up outside illegal_
|
| _people start to socialise at home more_
|
| It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in
| private homes.
|
| I literally cannot come up with an explanation for this
| that isn't conspiratorial. For all of Boris' fluff, I
| don't believe that our Government is this incompetent or
| stupid - there has to be an ulterior motive here.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > I literally cannot come up with an explanation for this
| that isn't conspiratorial. For all of Boris' fluff, I
| don't believe that our Government is this incompetent or
| stupid - there has to be an ulterior motive here.
|
| I do believe the PM is this incompetent and stupid. He's
| demonstrated a total lack of belief in anything, and is
| utterly spineless.
|
| (Un)fortunately, the same cannot be said for some of his
| staff. There's a certain special advisor who drove to a
| castle (and got a raise) who has an interesting history
| when it comes to his views on eugenics.
| Nursie wrote:
| Socialising inside a home was restricted pretty early.
| Those socialising at home are breaking the law, it's just
| not something that can be enforced very easily.
|
| Our government demonstrably _is_ this incompetent. Not
| just on coronavirus.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Yeah it's like '30% of infections are happening in bars'
| so let's close the bars. Well now '30% of infections are
| happening in gyms' so let's close these.
|
| Wow now that everything is closed, 60% of infections are
| happening at home! Let's restrict that!
|
| Its just dumb.
| dTal wrote:
| Are you implying that the total number of infections is
| held constant somehow, and restrictions merely move them
| around? Because that's false. Restrictions work.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in
| private homes._
|
| It comes as no surprise to me that, if one person in a
| household gets infected, everyone else would too.
|
| What's the government supposed to do about that? Social
| distancing on the sofa?
| ersii wrote:
| Come over to Sweden, things are quite dandy here.
|
| Never thought I'd say that in a positive manner though.
|
| Wish you the better and best.
| eybbus wrote:
| isn't Sweden proposing to shut down businesses, limiting
| time spent at some places and adding new rules regarding
| gatherings and public event?
|
| Thats at least I gather from a Norwegian news site, but
| my Norwegian is not up to snuff.
| jjgreen wrote:
| A lot of us wish we could; but in the UK it is illegal to
| leave the house for anything but food-shopping, a medical
| appointment or (limited) exercise. I don't think
| "escaping a police state" falls under any of those.
| leesalminen wrote:
| Wait are you seriously saying that you can't leave the
| country?!?
| jjgreen wrote:
| Yes, there are exceptions (vaguely stated, a funeral or
| what the police would regard as essential), but a holiday
| would be illegal.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice
| leesalminen wrote:
| Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. Sounds tyrannical to me.
| Sorrop wrote:
| I live in Greece and what you describe is very much
| applicable here too.
|
| Especially the part about government trolling us.
|
| Fuck this reality.
| esotericn wrote:
| UK.
|
| I don't know, indefinite lockdown.
|
| It's currently illegal to sit on a park bench.
|
| I'll do it anyway, of course, but it might not be legal.
|
| https://esotericnonsense.com 97 days since it was last
| legal for me to have a friend over for a cup of tea.
|
| You know in the movies where at some point the psychotic
| main character thinks "I'm not the crazy one, it must be
| them"? I flip flop on this every other hour.
| dTal wrote:
| I think we should be clear. The lockdown, in more or less
| its current state, is necessary. Without it we will see a
| spiralling death toll, the collapse of health services,
| and many people saddled with chronic conditions for life,
| yes even the "young". I personally know some. Their
| lifestyles will _never_ be the same.
|
| However, it didn't have to be this way. The UK
| practically beat the pandemic over summer, and then
| snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by persistently
| ignoring reality. Reopening schools, Eat Out To Help Out,
| failing to stop international travel - these are the
| things that led to the current situation.
|
| Get mad, by all means. But place the blame where it
| belongs. We are doing the right thing _now_ , in order to
| deal with the idiocy of _before_.
| esotericn wrote:
| Unfortunately, 300 days in, I am neither mentally capable
| of adhering to restrictions, nor do I have the trust any
| more to follow through if I did.
|
| For me, it's the risk of death and/or a chronic
| condition, or the certainty of psychosis.
|
| Hourly reminder that it's been almost 100 days since it
| was last legal for me to have a friend over for a cup of
| tea.
|
| Best of luck, glad you're holding up well; sorry that
| I've failed you.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| My condolences on your loss of freedom.
|
| May you find a way to move about freely in the near future.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah but you can't meet strangers. We're all bubbled in. And
| I love my friends, they're my pillar of peace in this
| pandemic, but there is a different part of me that craves the
| interaction with strangers in strange places.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| It's a great opportunity to connect with non-humans:
| mushrooms, plants, insects, birds, mammals.
|
| When is the last time you have even looked at one of them
| closely, let alone formed a close relationship?
|
| It is something we humans have done our entire existence,
| until recently, yet many today go their entire life without
| such an experience.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I've formed close relationships with mammals all my life.
| In fact, that's where all my close relationships are.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| I know you're trying to be helpful, but these kinds of
| posts just come off as incredibly condescending and out
| of touch. Lack of nature is not considered to be actual
| torture, but complete isolation from other people
| (solitary confinement) is.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I apologize if that came off as condescending. That is
| exactly what I mean, however, you are writing off non-
| human companionship and interaction as worthless, when it
| can bring endless joy and comfort when humans are not
| available.
| throwanem wrote:
| It's not the same, in a way that matters.
|
| I grew up outside a small rural town, running barefoot
| all over creation every chance I got, and most of the
| time by myself. These days I'm a wildlife photographer by
| avocation, and over the last couple of years I've gotten
| deeply into macro - I take pictures of wasps while
| they're doing wasp things, and as a result of that, I'm
| not only no longer afraid of them, I've kind of fallen in
| love with them. They are at this point by far my favorite
| insects, and high up among my favorite animals overall. I
| like them better than most mammals at this point, and
| some of the best pictures I've ever taken of a spider
| wasp, I got in my backyard last October. Aside from that,
| research papers on wasp ethology have been a gateway into
| entomology as a special interest, to an extent where if I
| had it to do over I might go into that instead of
| software engineering. I've even learned to make and bind
| books from scratch, initially because I wanted paper
| textbooks instead of PDFs.
|
| All of that means a great deal to me. None of it makes up
| for the fact that, over the course of the last year, I've
| only been able to spend a few hours in the company of a
| friend, and none in that of colleagues. I'm somewhat
| solitary by inclination, and I think that makes it less
| hard on me than on most. But even for me, it's been hard.
| I can't imagine what it's been like for anyone who came
| into this both alone and _without_ the good fortune of
| knowing how to be satisfied with their own company. These
| aren 't good circumstances under which to have to learn
| that, and even the most cursory glance at the comments in
| this thread overall is enough to show that the success
| rate has probably not been high.
|
| Yes, every so often you get someone like me, who can feel
| good for days about the pompilid wasp who turned up in
| his home office for an impromptu visit. Every so often
| you get a Birdman of Alcatraz, too. To suggest that
| everyone should just instantly _be_ a Birdman - I mean, I
| get that you 're trying to help, and I respect that. But
| you seem not to have given any thought to how to make
| your advice potentially useful to someone whose
| perspective differs greatly from your own.
|
| It's an easy mistake to make - I do it often enough
| myself. But it's still a mistake, and it's why the
| criticism you're getting is warranted. The intention is
| obviously good, but the execution needs a deal of
| improvement.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I see what we're saying, and you're right that it is a
| huge negative impact.
|
| Perhaps, then, it is worth re-evaluating how much we
| allow our lives to be controlled by threats and mass
| media messages.
| taurath wrote:
| Nothing has changed in the Pacific Northwest - people won't
| talk to you Covid or not
| brailsafe wrote:
| It is, but then when your paranoid friends only want to walk
| around it gets old quick, and isn't ideal on shitty days.
| Even a coffee inside or shooting some pool would be fine.
| twostorytower wrote:
| This is a fantastic alternative to Noisly. Thank you!
| baud147258 wrote:
| I miss the bars a little (I wasn't too much for going out), but
| the current 6 pm curfew is rather annoying, how I can't do
| anything after work. Of course I adjusted my habits, going
| shopping or running during lunch breaks or the week end, but
| still
| skynet-9000 wrote:
| A 6pm curfew? In heavily urban parts of the U.S. and perhaps
| other parts of the world, people don't even get home from work
| by then, and the virus doesn't pay too much attention to what
| time it is either.
| baud147258 wrote:
| here in France, a lot of people who went to work aren't back
| home at 6 pm, but I think they aren't really the people
| targeted by the measure, but rather those who go see friends
| to have a drink in the evening
| skynet-9000 wrote:
| That's tough. Seems like if they're going to a tiny and
| consistent group of friends' homes in the evening to have a
| drink, then they're effectively an extension of your family
| and any spread would be limited to that relatively small
| group (unlike in a bar).
|
| And if they're actually going to a bar instead, then just
| close the bar at 6pm. A general curfew seems like a
| chainsaw approach, instead of a scalpel.
| snakeboy wrote:
| In France, I've slowly started returning to nighttime walks and
| runs, and I haven't been hassled by any police yet. I guess
| I'll gladly take the fine if some cop is on a power-trip one
| night. Some desobeissance civile is healthy :)
|
| Though you're right grocery shopping is a pain.
| globular-toast wrote:
| When I see stuff like this it reminds me just how different I am
| to many people. It feels like I'm an alien trying to understand a
| new civilisation.
|
| I used to go to "bars" and the like, but it was only to meet
| women and get laid. Now that I've secured the means to
| reproduction I don't have to force myself through that hell any
| more. Sites like this suggest there is something attractive about
| such places even if you take the sex away. I'm so happy, happier
| than I've ever been, that I don't have to go to bars or drink
| alcohol ever again.
| Nursie wrote:
| > suggest there is something attractive about such places even
| if you take the sex away.
|
| Erm, you don't just like going to a pub or a bar with friends?
| Even if you don't, lots of people do. Perhaps what's different
| about you is that you assume your own tastes are universal...
| actually that's all too common with humans!
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Culture is very different across the world.
|
| Bars/Pubs are an integral part of both socializing and
| unwinding with your work colleagues and also a destination to
| meet up with your close friends. In many places, it's actually
| far more about socializing.
| ycombinete wrote:
| "Secured the means to reproduction", sure does sound like
| something an alien, trying to act human, would say about
| finding a partner.
|
| A lot of people, especially in pub cultures like the UK
| socialise at their locals, they don't just go there to
| aggressively pursue sex with strangers. It's where they meet
| their friends after work, where they go to watch sport on the
| weekend etc.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I know. I live in the UK. I literally started my comment
| saying how different I am to other people and people keep
| replying about how not everyone is like me. Is reading
| comprehension really this bad or am I just rubbish at
| writing? I'm always happy to learn if it's the latter.
| np- wrote:
| Saying you don't "understand" something when it's clearly,
| obviously understandable with a shred of empathy -
| especially since you live in the UK and have likely met
| many people who go to the pub for reasons beyond
| "reproduction" sounds extremely condescending at best, and
| malicious at worst. If that wasn't your intention, then
| yes, I suggest you go back and try to improve your writing
| style.
| coldpie wrote:
| You're rubbish at writing.
| ycombinete wrote:
| Well when you say this:
|
| > Sites like this suggest there is something attractive
| about such places even if you take the sex away.
|
| It implies that you don't know what that "something" is.
| This is what the replies to your comment are addressing.
| esotericn wrote:
| When I see comments like this it reminds me just how different
| I am to many people. It feels like I'm an alien trying to
| understand a new civilisation.
|
| I used to have "sex" and the like, but it was only to
| experience certain transmitters firing in my brain. Now that
| I've discovered my right hand I don't have to force myself
| through that hell any more. Comments like this suggest there is
| something attractive about such acts even if you take the
| pleasurable transmitters away. I'm so happy, happier than I've
| ever been, that I don't have to interact with another human
| ever again.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Good for you. Finding happiness that works for you and the
| rest of society is the most important thing there is. I tried
| a way of life similar to yours for many years, but I always
| found before long I would want sex with a real person. Also
| that person has to want to have sex with me. It can't be
| overtly a business transaction.
|
| You are very, very lucky to have been able to find true
| happiness alone. You'll always have yourself and you won't be
| responsible for anyone else or have to worry about them. Some
| people might look down upon on you because you're not "doing
| your part" or something, but remember Stockholm syndrome is a
| real thing and you don't owe anyone anything.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| GTP-3?
| globular-toast wrote:
| Not the first time someone has suggested that. here, ill
| right like a moron so you know imz a realboi
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| These are great inside jokes, there was one thread where
| myself and another both accused each other of being GTP-3
| (not realizing until later).
|
| Especially in this age where all of our interactions are
| through text, and there lingers the possibility that
| everyone else does not exist, solipsism is becoming
| increasingly true.
| JebusAustralia wrote:
| Please donate ethereum to this address as I am being kept hostage
| by a psychopath called Satoshi Nakamoto. He has scattered all of
| my personal information and economical research all over youtube,
| cnbc, techcrunch, the local mainstream media in the netherlands.
| https://ibb.co/74qYknK
| dep_b wrote:
| For a second I thought the title was about a developer that
| bought an M1 MacBook Air and realised he or she liked the Touch
| Bar after all.
| mam2 wrote:
| who care about lockdowns lol. just make private parties like
| everybody else
| edmundofuentes wrote:
| That's our local bar in Monterrey, Mexico [1]! We received some
| paper flyers with a QR when we had our first lockdown, it's nice
| seeing it pop up in HN.
|
| If anyone's wondering, the bar is still open and operating on a
| very limited capacity, which has made it much nicer in my
| opinion. Also, the usual jazz quartet has been replaced with a
| trio with much younger musicians, since understandably the older
| musicians don't want to play in a bar during a pandemic.
|
| [1] Maverick Monterrey - Lugar de Encuentros
| https://www.maverickmty.com
| nomdep wrote:
| When you see the owner, please tell they to add their address
| including city and country somewhere. I was wondering where in
| the world they were located and I couldn't find it anywhere,
| not even in their FB page.
| edmundofuentes wrote:
| Just did! I bet they weren't expecting their website to be
| trending outside of Monterrey.
| jdxcode wrote:
| How is Monterrey for tourism? I've always been more interested
| in what Mexico is for most Mexicans than the typical tourist
| spots. It seems that Monterrey is the most "metropolitan" city
| in Mexico.
| edmundofuentes wrote:
| I've lived here for 10 years, so I might be a little biased.
| Monterrey is by far the most "americanized" city in Mexico,
| no doubt, and it's mostly a business and industrial hub.
|
| As for tourism, there's not much to do, at least not when
| compared to other Mexican cities with more heritage and
| culture. Being a big metropolitan city, there are many fine
| restaurants and entertainment attractions, and for me the
| stand-out landmark is Chipinque, a federal park in the
| mountains inside the city. You can go there to walk, hike, or
| ride, and you get a very nice view of the metropolitan area.
|
| All in all, if you were making a tourist trip to Mexico, I'd
| recommend you pick some place else before coming to
| Monterrey. However, if you get to come here as a business
| trip, you'll definitely have a nice time!
| wayanon wrote:
| I gave up booze in Dec 2019 as a (temporary?) experiment so
| lockdown has been helpful for me as I don't have to not drink
| with friends in bars. But I know lots of people miss it and I
| hate seeing business owners in trouble.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| That's actually a great suggestion.
|
| While I didn't give up booze I introduced a rule that I won't
| drink during work week unless I'm in company and pretty much
| stuck to it.
|
| That was before the whole mess started. But this, and sticking
| to a rigid daily work schedule (rigid in terms of time, in
| which I really fully work) helped me a lot to cope with it all.
|
| Alcohol (and other drugs) may help to keep boredom away, but it
| comes with a heavy cost.
| jlengrand wrote:
| Congrats on being over a year sober then!
| Glawen wrote:
| never really understood this severance. You can drink without
| getting drunk. I like to drink good beverages, but I don't like
| being drunk, so I just take a few glasses.
| Nursie wrote:
| I haven't given up but I have cut down a lot. There are some
| pretty tasty alcohol free beers now. Not all of them, by any
| means, but there are some good ones.
|
| If beer is your poison.
| tuyiown wrote:
| > never really understood this severance.
|
| I suggest you should try to have a soft in a situation where
| you would have a drink. See if you're missing something, is
| it the taste ? the lack of alcool ? It really puts the
| relationship with the substance in the light, moderation
| doesn't mean you have total control, even if it does the
| trick for the body health.
| kortilla wrote:
| > You can drink without getting drunk.
|
| No shit. The problem is that when you get into the habit of
| drinking 2-3 drinks every night you're bordering substance
| abuse. Also, "a few glasses" is enough to be arrested for
| drunk driving, so you might not be the caricature of a drunk
| but you're drunk nonetheless.
|
| Severance is a great way to understand your relationship with
| alcohol. The only reason it even seems weird is because the
| shit is so deeply embedded in our society. If you give up
| caffein, nobody gives a shit. Give up alcohol and suddenly
| people express incredulity at the very notion!
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > The problem is that when you get into the habit of
| drinking 2-3 drinks every night you're bordering substance
| abuse
|
| If you're drinking 3 bottles of beer a night, 7 days a
| week, you're likely consuming 6 units of alcohol a day, or
| 42 a week.
|
| The NHS (UK health service) recommends less than 14 units a
| week, spread across at least 3 days (so less than 5 units a
| day, 3 days a week, tops).[0]
|
| Drinking 3 beers a day 7 days a week results in you
| drinking more than 3 times the maximum weekly recommended
| allowance.
|
| I think we're largely in agreement about how one can drink,
| but 2-3 drinks a day is not 'bordering' on substance abuse
| from a health perspective. Societally we've normalised
| drinking to this level, but it's not healthly, and is
| absolutely substance abuse.
|
| It took me tracking my alcohol consumption daily before I
| realised that my 1-2 beers a weekday / 4-6 beers a
| weekendday was so far beyond what is healthy, that I
| stopped entirely for 6 months. I've since backslid back
| into 1-2 beers a day. I know it's wrong, but most of life
| is right now anyway that it doesn't seem like that big a
| deal anymore.
|
| [0] https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-
| support/calculating-alc...
| jjgreen wrote:
| Could you link to the science behind those limits?
| alexilliamson wrote:
| Agree, except when I gave up coffee all my coworkers were
| extremely incredulous and unsupportive. Caffeine is also
| super ingrained in culture but arguably less dangerous.
| Glawen wrote:
| What I meant was that you should appreciate the quality and
| forget about quantity. At 2-3 glasses every night, I bet
| that you just drink the same thing over and over, so yes I
| agree with you that you are bordering abuse. I used to do
| this with whisky, but nice bottles are pricey so I drank
| cheap whisky and quickly got bored. Now I buy expensive
| bottles and appreciate it from time to time.
|
| Alcohol is embedded in our society because it is the
| traditional way for people to let off steam.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| I'm drinking more since the lockdown. Not excessive by any
| means but about a bottle (.5l) of beer every day and sometimes
| a small glass of scotch.
|
| It makes it easier to draw a line between work and leisure
| time. The alcohol signals to me and my brain that now it's time
| for some relaxed activities ... well, youtube, netflix, mubi,
| reading (hacker)news.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Think I've drank almost every day, probably the least amount
| was maybe the odd week where I drank like 3 days.
|
| Work wise I'm probably working on the most important project
| of my life there's nowhere to offload that stress. Can't meet
| any friends not even allowed to meet outside, everyone
| stopped doing virtual meet ups months ago and just became
| introverted instead so what else is there.
| askvictor wrote:
| I found exactly the same in our lockdown; by not having the
| physical act of leaving the workplace, you need something to
| replace that, and a beer fits that pretty well. Too easy to
| continue that habit though
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I gave it up March 2020 and I'm coming up on one year. Feels
| great!
| m12k wrote:
| For some reason I went in expecting either someone complaining
| about a UI redesign where a bar had been removed, or a former
| lawyer commiserating about being disbarred.
| bookmarkable wrote:
| Cool bit of audio mixing. I'd appreciate "IMissLiveSports"
| personally, and "IMissLiveMusic" that could played in the
| background of any other music would be fun, too.
| depingus wrote:
| The NFL was piping crowd noise in to their empty stadiums all
| season. Some games seemed to have a live person controlling the
| crowd reactions. Not the same, but I got used to it. For the
| music, can't you just listen to recordings from live concerts?
| Those usually have plenty of crowd noise.
| rusk wrote:
| Dunno if anyone missed it but there's a really sweet playlist
| down the bottom.
|
| The opener. What a tune
| https://open.spotify.com/track/6uDF1hOBaZmVNRGZm1NE7g?si=RQz...
| Animats wrote:
| Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows
| reading the remote resource at
| https://api.airtable.com/v0/appFuV5HKjidiZXoS/imissmybar.
| (Reason: CORS request did not succeed).
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Me being a meathead thought this was about lifting weights.
| mikestew wrote:
| Yeah, we miss that, too. My wife bought a gym membership at the
| local "meathead" gym (i. e., not a national franchise) _right_
| before I went into the hospital December 2019. While I spent
| about three months and another surgery recovering, man, I was
| going to _so_ hit that gym when I was ready. Yeah, well, I was
| ready to hit that gym smack in the middle of March 2020.
|
| Point is, we paid for a year's membership we never used. And
| we're going to pay again this year just so the place stays in
| business (Eastside Gym for you Redmond, WA folks). One of these
| years we'll actually darken the doorstep of the place. In the
| meantime, our garage now has a new treadmill and rowing
| machine, and I finally tracked down some adjustable dumbbells.
| I'm a distance runner, so that should tide us over. If you're a
| lifter and don't have a big stack of plates at home already, my
| sympathies.
| woutr_be wrote:
| The only time I felt the pandemic affected me was when they
| closed the gyms. I was on a 5 day workout routine before, and
| suddenly being without that was the moment I started
| struggling.
|
| The gyms have finally opened up again two days ago, and while
| most of my body is hurting now, my mental well-being is going
| up again.
| RhodoGSA wrote:
| I don't miss my bar - because me and all my friends never stopped
| going. What people who 'Listened' don't realise is that people
| still go out... in every city. Most sheriff's in California have
| flat out refused to comply with the lockdown regulations. Since
| when did America get the ability to shutdown business'? Never....
|
| During this Pandemic i've lost three 'Friends' (Social Media
| acquaintances I knew from HS) to suicide and have not heard of a
| single person who's had any long-term damage from Covid and the
| majority of my friends have has it at one point in time by now. I
| got it in early March in SF and again in July in Miami. Both
| times i caught a little sniffle. I got tested and quarantined but
| it did not stop me or scare me away from living my life. Most of
| my friends have the money, willpower and social distain for
| authoritarian governments to move to wherever state is not trying
| to follow China's example. (Mainly Socal, Florida, even Mexico)
|
| Smoking cigs, riding motorcycles, and a million other things can
| kill you in this life. Live your life and anyone who tells you
| "You must do this for the saftey of others" can go fuck
| themselves. You have no right to tell me what I can and can't do
| as long as i am not causing DIRECT harm to you. If you're scared
| of COVID stay inside, but let the rest of us live our lives.
| misterS wrote:
| > anyone who tells you "You must do this for the saftey of
| others" can go fuck themselves. You have no right to tell me
| what I can and can't do as long as i am not causing DIRECT harm
| to you.
|
| Do you not count spreading a virus & possibly infecting others
| as causing direct harm?
| RhodoGSA wrote:
| No - I don't. If you are at a bar at the height of the
| pandemic, i'm definitely not causing you any harm by being
| there also. However, I do avoid my family who might be older.
| I don't go to large family gatherings. I do, however, believe
| American Ideals of freedom and free speech have definitely
| been harmed through this ordeal. No one can have any
| different opinion about COVID without being canceled.
|
| As we are getting more and more data, the infection rate to
| death ratio is dropping lower and lower. At what point does
| Forcing people to lose their job and their entire lively-
| hoods, Taking on massive amounts of national debt that MY
| GENERATION will have to pay for, massive suicide increases
| going to be counted as direct harm? When we find out in the
| future after scrubbing all the data that the death toll was
| less than 1% but the suicide rate spiked by 30%, increased
| our total debt by 20% and fueled a massive recession in 5
| years; how will future generations feel about the decisions
| we made?
| speedgoose wrote:
| The TLS certificate expired a while ago.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Extremely unlikely any of the ones I frequented will reopen in my
| country.
|
| They survived the first lockdown but this one will surely have
| killed them off. Probably result in the historical buildings
| being sold off to be turned into luxury apartments.
| RalfWausE wrote:
| I think the psychological toll of the lockdowns in different
| countries is highly underestimated.
|
| I myself have no real economical shortcomings due to the
| lockdown, but even as a person who is normaly a total loner and
| who can spend weeks completely alone on a excessive hiking trip i
| am slowly going crazy... For my wife, who is a highly social
| character, its even worse.
|
| And i am not the only one in this mindset... what i hear and see
| in my region let me believe the mood is slowly turning into some
| sort of "Torches and Pitchforks" way...
| simplestman wrote:
| As an introvert, I really enjoyed it. I do love bars and miss
| going there but not a big deal. We had tons of happy hours on
| Zoom. Yes Zoom is not perfect replacement for in-person
| socializing but it is not that bad.
|
| On other hand, my wife really didn't like socializing on Zoom.
| So she didn't socialize as much. Also she really misses in-
| person gatherings. And my biggest issue been trying to cheer
| her up.
| esotericn wrote:
| Different countries, and different situations.
|
| Living in a big old house in the country with your family? Your
| life is probably basically the same as it always was.
| Potentially better, depending on the work situation. Okay,
| sure, you're not going on as many holidays, and depending on
| how strict the rules are where you are, dinner parties are off
| the cards.
|
| Living in a flat as a single person in the big exciting city?
| Literally everything you do has been illegal or restricted in
| some form for almost a year now.
|
| I have no issue with how people choose to live their lives. I'm
| sure one day when I settle down I'll be in that group too. It
| sounds lovely.
|
| But we have to be very, very clear about this - a month or two
| more and I'm going to be in the 'pitchforks and torches' group.
| There are limits, you can't just delete my lifestyle for a year
| and counting as a risk-aversion play and expect me to roll over
| and take it. Nah.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| What a weird comment. You think people with families don't
| miss their social lives? You think it has been easy? People
| aren't meant to spend so much time together. Not to mention
| work and full-time child care don't really go together.
|
| I'd say if anything, I considered maintaining a social life
| to be a form of self-care, one I was already struggling to
| get enough of.
|
| > A month or two more and I'm going to be in the 'pitchforks
| and torches' group
|
| Why wait a month or two? I'm not saying I agree with you, but
| nothing's going to change in 2 months. I'm pretty sure
| nothing's going to change in the next 5 years.
| esotericn wrote:
| > Why wait a month or two?
|
| Because I have just about enough left in me, and by then,
| in the UK we will have vaccinated the groups which make up
| ~99% of preventable mortality.
|
| At that point, the moral argument of "go outside and you're
| putting people at risk" completely falls apart in my view.
|
| If there are variants which escape the vaccines, then at
| that point it's game over since I know I definitely won't
| be able to make it through another year.
| [deleted]
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| The parent comment was wrong to assume that people with
| families aren't also struggling due to dampened social
| lives - we're all struggling.
|
| The people who are isolated by themselves are struggling
| much more.
|
| In prison, the worst punishment you can receive is to be
| taken _away_ from the all rapists and murderers, and put in
| solitary confinement. Being stuck in a prison cell with a
| partner and family probably sounds like a dream to the
| person stuck in a prison cell alone.
| [deleted]
| watwut wrote:
| Depends on how abusive that family is. Because in
| reality, being alone with internet in appartment is not
| comparable to prison solitary lock down.
|
| They are massively different.
| standardUser wrote:
| The idea that nothing will change in the next two months is
| absurd because things are already changing. There's already
| been an easing of restrictions over the last few weeks as
| the rate of new cases declines. And this is before the
| vaccine has had a chance to make much of an impact. Because
| of the vaccines, we have very reason to believe the rate of
| hospitalizations and deaths will only go down, which will
| inevitably lead to a further easing of restrictions.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure nothing's going to change in the next 5
| years.
|
| Given the speed in which effective vaccines were developed
| I think this is a rather bleak outlook.
|
| Sure, a lot is still unknown with the new virus variants
| and as has been expected vaccination drives had their
| teething problems. But in a few month time (almost)
| everybody who wants their jabs can get it (in rich
| countries, that is).
|
| I for one, see myself on a 3 week vacation in Asia later
| this year. Optimistic? Maybe, and certainly dependent on a
| number of factors beyond my control. But I think it's a
| much better perspective than wallowing in misery and not
| seeing a way out.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| It is worth reading what the epidemologists advising
| Western governments actually think. Many of them are
| arguing for social distancing and border closures to
| continue until the entire world is vaccinated, regardless
| of how many people are vaccinated within your own
| country. That is expected to take probably until 2026, so
| the OP's worries about five years are founded. Some
| outliers among those advisors are even arguing for social
| distancing for the rest of the 2020s, or (because they
| want to take the opportunity to end flu transmission as
| well) in perpetuity.
| spdionis wrote:
| That would be pretty dystopian.
| packetlost wrote:
| Do you have a source for that?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Many of these advisors are speaking directly to media.
| Devi Sridhar, one of the advisors to the UK government,
| for example, has been doing interviews recently about
| maintaining long-term border closures and requiring
| expensive hotel quarantines.
|
| Right after I posted my comment above, at 15:12 comments
| regarding Canadian forecasts appeared in The Guardian's
| COVID live blog, in which epidemologists say that
| restrictions must be preserved within the country because
| the vaccine rollout is a global problem, not a local one.
| packetlost wrote:
| The only article that seems to be quoting Devi Sridhar is
| behind a paywall, but doesn't seem to be supporting your
| argument.
|
| I can't find anything on The Guradian's COVID live blog
| talking about what you're referring to, can you provide a
| link?
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| If you go to Google News, set your location to the UK,
| and search for "devi sridhar", you'll find abundant
| content that is not behind a paywall. Here is just one
| article[0] of many in which she advocates for an approach
| where borders stay closed until the whole world is
| vaccinated.
|
| Apparently this[1] is the permalink for _The Guardian_
| post.
|
| [0] https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19036150.covid-
| scotland-...
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/feb/19/co
| ronavir...
| birktj wrote:
| Are you sure this is the case? From the Norwegian news it
| seems very much like the epidemiologists that are
| advising the government in many cases are advising
| _lesser_ restrictions than what is actually implemented.
| standardUser wrote:
| Thank god the epidemiologists are not the ones making
| policy. Most state and local governments in the US have
| not shown a willingness to follow such a hardline
| approach, and we're already seeing reopenings as numbers
| drop, long before the vaccine has even had a major
| impact.
| leesalminen wrote:
| Pretty sure one of Biden's main talking points of his
| election campaign was that America would start listening
| to the scientists more closely.
| standardUser wrote:
| Nothing Biden has said or done has implied he wants to
| take a hardline approach to COVID restrictions, aside
| from briefly floating the idea of limited domestic
| travel. And he made no effort to tie the massive relief
| package to restrictive state polices. Beyond that, he has
| limited authority over state and local restrictions.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| One of the Biden administration's first moves was to
| reinstate the ban on travel to the USA from Schengen that
| was about to expire. And it was just announced that this
| ban would now be extended indefinitely. The US ban on
| travel does not just affect tourism, it affects family
| reunification as well, and I would consider that a
| hardline approach.
| standardUser wrote:
| That travel "ban" is riddled with exemptions.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Can you cite those exemptions? There is a longstanding
| campaign on Twitter (loveisnottourism) that complains
| that the US policy is preventing partners from seeing one
| another. Also, even if in some cases one could
| theoretically board a flight, that means nothing if you
| need a visa and your local US consulate won't issue you
| one, because it says no visas will be issued during the
| pandemic.
| ghaff wrote:
| To say nothing of control over how people actually act.
|
| In any case, listening to scientists means you take their
| input and factor that into the tradeoffs that drive
| policy. Which may well involve simultaneously that there
| is e.g. some risk associated with allowing people to
| travel by air while allowing them to do it anyway.
| Notorious_BLT wrote:
| So far no meaningful action has been taken that indicates
| he's particularly concerned. He's focused on trying to
| reopen schools, last I heard.
|
| Some people have argued that the vaccinations are
| evidence of his success regarding Covid-19 but I don't
| see any part of that that wouldn't have been proceeding
| with or without him. As far as I can tell, the only
| difference between Trump and Biden's handling of covid
| has been "Biden knows to keep his mouth shut about
| specifics and predictions, because he might be wrong"
| which is exactly the kind of playing-both-sides I've seen
| from many state and city governments for the last year
| (talking a lot about how we need to follow the science
| and keep locking down to keep the spread low, but also
| taking no steps to enforce the rules or financially
| support people/businesses.)
| ghaff wrote:
| Oh I'm sure he's concerned. But there's precious little
| he can do other than doing what he can to get vaccines
| rolled out faster and closing borders to foreigners. Most
| people certainly support the former and most are at worst
| indifferent to the latter. He can also set a "good
| example."
|
| But getting into a tussle with states he thinks are
| opening up too much, etc. is almost certainly
| counterproductive at this point.
| ghaff wrote:
| There is zero chance that democracies will conform to
| those kind of restrictions. Once most people are
| vaccinated, people are going to shift back to business
| (mostly) as usual subject to changes like more remote
| work. Governments can't enforce policies if people won't
| follow them.
| jm__87 wrote:
| I think it may be tough to imagine what being alone and
| isolated for a year does to a person if you are someone who
| is stuck inside with the same people all day. I would
| imagine the situation for those with family is very
| difficult and exhausting... but not suicidal ideation level
| of difficult, which has been my experience with this
| extreme social isolation. This is in spite of devoting a
| lot of time and energy to self care: exercising daily,
| eating healthy, not drinking alcohol, and many other
| things. Maybe my assumption here is wrong and there are
| plenty of people out there living with their families who
| are in as precarious a situation as I currently find
| myself. Either way, everyone is suffering right now, but my
| experience has been that long term social isolation is a
| unique form of torture that can really push a person to the
| edge.
| watwut wrote:
| > Living in a big old house in the country with your family?
|
| This might be exactly situation where you might desperately
| need to go out to keep sanity, to escape the family.
| Nursie wrote:
| I'm in between the two groups. I live with my partner in a
| mid-sized house in the centre of a small city.
|
| Financially I'm doing great, I've worked throughout and
| there's literally nothing to spend the money on. My mental
| health is starting to deteriorate though. I'm not sleeping
| well most nights, I've turned very much inwards, I feel angry
| and despairing a lot.
|
| Part of the current problem is that we don't have a
| timetable. There is no plan. There isn't even a set of
| criteria around which a plan could be built.
|
| I don't agree that this is "a risk aversion play" here in the
| UK though - we have well over 100k people dead from this
| disease, hospitals beyond capacity and all sorts. Cancer
| treatments being pushed out, causing more death down the
| line. I don't think you can say that trying to control the
| spread is unwarranted.
|
| Poorly communicated, yes. Mishandled, screwed up, too little,
| too late every time, yes. But unfortunately necessary to stop
| it just getting worse.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Part of the current problem is that we don 't have a
| timetable._
|
| I can understand why people want things to look forward to
| - and why businesses and people whose jobs will reopen
| would want dates in advance so they can plan.
|
| But the dumbest thing the government could do is schedule
| reopenings before we know if it'll be safe to reopen.
|
| That's what they did with the second lockdown - announced
| upfront that it was from to 31st October to 2nd December.
| Then they kept to their timetable and reopened things even
| though every metric on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
| made it clear we hadn't stopped the second wave - and now
| we have a third lockdown.
| Nursie wrote:
| > But the dumbest thing the government could do is
| schedule reopenings before we know if it'll be safe to
| reopen.
|
| Sure. But while there is no end in sight, despair will
| rule. Whether it's reasonable to want a fixed timetable
| or not.
|
| This is also why I mentioned criteria - even if not a
| fixed timetable, we could at least know what sort of
| criteria would trigger a rule change. I.E. when we get
| down to X cases per day, X deaths etc etc, the schools
| will open. If it keeps falling then the rule of six
| reapplies in outdoor public spaces ...
|
| At least something rather than just being locked down
| indefinitely.
|
| I agree the lifting of Lockdown 2 was a really poor
| choice.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Sure. But while there is no end in sight, despair will
| rule. Whether it 's reasonable to want a fixed timetable
| or not._
|
| Damned if you do, damned if you don't. After the second
| timeline turns out to be completely made up, people will
| stop trusting them and add "more distrust of government"
| to their despair.
| esotericn wrote:
| So come up with a timeline that's not made up, then.
|
| In the absence of Government leadership, I've had to do
| it for myself - I have a set date beyond which I will no
| longer follow social distancing. If I didn't have that,
| I'd have snapped long ago, which is strictly a worse
| outcome.
|
| People individually snapping and choosing to do whatever
| they want is more dangerous than the alternative of the
| Government explicitly announcing that lockdown is a time-
| limited policy (and as such providing more support to the
| hardest-hit individuals).
|
| Perfect is the enemy of the good.
|
| Well, if that's even a good analogy, since lockdown is
| clearly nowhere near perfect, it's trading life for life.
| Nursie wrote:
| Again, I think that's why criteria need to be set out,
| rather than a strict timetable.
| nicbou wrote:
| One thing that helped for me was to treat this period as
| _also_ life, rather than something I must sit through.
|
| I still highlight dumb holidays (next week is International
| I Hate Cilantro Day), read by the candlelight, explore
| abandoned buildings, ride my bicycle around etc.
|
| I had to delay the plans for which I have strived for many
| years, but I don't consider that time lost. I got to try
| things I wouldn't have tried otherwise, and to invest my
| time in different places.
|
| When I get hit by a wave of despair (usually after they
| push the dates further), I do something that reaffirms
| this.
| Nursie wrote:
| I'm trying to treat it as a good time to _get things
| done_.
|
| I can't go anywhere so I have time to finish painting the
| hallway, fixing the garden etc etc. It helps I also have
| a home-based hobby (brewing) so I can carry on with that.
|
| I should cycle more, and I'm sure I will when the weather
| picks up a bit. It really helps my state of mind.
| brailsafe wrote:
| I'm so confused as to how excess money can be enough fuel
| for so many people's positive feedback loops that it keeps
| them working. That already wasn't working for me, but as
| soon as there was almost nothing to do, I crashed and lost
| my job.
| ghaff wrote:
| I guess I don't know what the alternative would be. I
| miss travel/events and getting together with people
| socially. But it's not like those would exist if I
| weren't working either. I almost certainly have more
| personal contact than if I weren't working. Plus I'm
| fairly close to retirement so I might as well put some
| more money away.
| saalweachter wrote:
| The part of me that isn't horrified by the death toll or
| frustrated by the inconveniences in my own life has
| thought about a million times, "man, I bet we're getting
| _so much_ interesting data out of this pandemic. "
|
| Beyond the bucket of cash dumped onto new vaccine
| technologies, the international DiRT for all of our
| emergency preparedness, the data on pandemic spread and
| transmission reduction strategies, we're also getting all
| sorts of psych and social data on how people respond to a
| crisis, to government orders and to isolation. A thousand
| dissertations and new departments of study will spring
| from this.
| Nursie wrote:
| In my case there's a goal. I'm putting together enough
| money for a house deposit in another country when we
| emigrate later in the year.
|
| When I'm tired as all hell and wishing I could just go
| back to bed, that's what keeps me going. When I'm not
| tired as all hell I actually still enjoy the work, so
| that helps.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Out of curiosity, where are you planning to go? I am
| planning to leave the UK too and would like to know some
| options. So far my plan is to end up somewhere in Eastern
| Europe. Cost of living is low enough that I can actually
| afford a property instead of burning piles of cash for a
| shitty London flat.
| Nursie wrote:
| Western Australia. I lived there for a couple of years
| about 10 years ago as a skilled migrant, then came back
| to the UK. I was (really, really unexpectedly) lucky
| enough that when I applied to reinstate my long-expired
| visa they said "sure, you have a one-year window to get
| back over here".
|
| Cost of living is pretty high, salaries are pretty OK
| (better than a lot of UK perm, not as good as UK fintech
| contracting AFAICT), houses are big if you live out of
| the city centres, the sun shines and the beaches go on
| forever :)
| nicoburns wrote:
| There is actually a provisional timetable now:
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9267563/Roadmap-
| loc...
| Nursie wrote:
| Heh, the old "leak it to the press and if there's no
| immediate outpouring of rage, announce it properly next
| week" trick.
|
| Been very popular over the last year or so. Yeah I've
| heard a few of the trickles of info. I'm hoping for the
| official reveal on Monday. Guess we'll see.
|
| (and thanks for the link)
| [deleted]
| LandR wrote:
| Also my city feels much more dangerous now. PReviously with
| loads of people always milling around I would feel safe
| walking around alone at 2-4am going home from bars.
|
| Now it can feel pretty dodgy as soon as its dark in the city
| centre. No one has any reason to be there so the junkies,
| homeless and others have seemingly gotten more brave.
|
| I was in the city centre around 9-10pm a little while ago and
| it was almost 100% drunk / high / homeless looking at me
| really weirdly and got approached by a couple in a semi-
| aggresive way.
|
| That had never happened to me in the five years I've lived
| here previously.
| dashundchen wrote:
| Anecdotally my experience has been the opposite in my mid-
| sized US city. Previously the only people out during the
| weeks at night would be drunks from bars.
|
| Now even in the dead of winter, on my nightly walks I see
| people strolling around at night. Many times the same
| people, assuming they're just looking to get out of the
| house.
|
| Summer was even more drastic, I don't think I have ever
| seen more people take to cycling and walking for enjoyments
| sake in my area before.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| >Literally everything you do has been illegal or restricted
| in some form for almost a year now.
|
| I've more had the mindset that everything I normally do can
| put other people in danger and potentially kill them or
| someone close to them. Or leave them with lingering side
| effects from illness for who knows how long.
|
| But yeah, also kind of going crazy.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| I feel better now that we have competent leadership
| enforcing rules and rushing to get us vaccines. It has made
| all the world a difference for my mental health knowing
| that others are now doing what I am doing and we are all
| pulling our weight. It makes me feel connected again even
| without going to bars, theaters, vacations, etc. I don't
| know why that makes all the difference for me but it does.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yes, it's terrible. Even those of us who are "coping" aren't
| coping terribly well. But ironically the disconnection has
| made the costs of the disease invisible as well. The zoom
| funerals. I personally know a couple of people who are now
| effectively long-term disabled with respiratory issues - well
| enough to leave hospital, but their previous lifestyle can't
| come back.
|
| The death toll dwarfs every single "disaster" in UK modern
| cultural history. Aberfan, Lockerbie, Dunblane, Piper Alpha,
| Grenfell, Bloody Sunday, Hillsborough, Herald of Free
| Enterprise, Marchioness, Titanic, Lusitania, Harold Shipman:
| COVID exceeds all of those put together. Invisibly. Any given
| one of those is dwarfed by the _daily_ COVID death toll.
|
| A rate that starts to rival wartime deaths. At the recent
| peak the death toll for 19 January was almost one _HMS Hood_
| per day.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| The death toll is greatly exaggerated. Remember the
| "shocking" scenes from China? People dying on the streets,
| running out of coffins. Now we are in theory in multiplies
| of those infection rates and we don't see that anymore.
| What happened?
| pjc50 wrote:
| The media chose to stop covering it?
|
| Or maybe not even that. The 6pm BBC radio news just read
| out the latest 500+ dead and apparent R number. It's just
| ... not important to the discourse somehow?
| willyt wrote:
| The death toll in Britain so far is about 3 times the
| number of British civilians killed in WW2.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| But those mostly killed people still the prime of their
| lives, while COVID _mostly_ (not entirely, but mostly)
| advances the Grim Reaper for the old and sick who likely
| only had a few years anyway. If we measured the toll in
| disability-adjusted life years instead, the comparison
| would be quite different.
|
| Cynical thought: COVID lockdowns are extreme largely
| because unlike most public health problems it affects the
| rich too, and the decision-makers behind them fall into the
| high-risk categories.
|
| Sobering thought: if you think COVID-19 is bad now, wait
| until there's a pandemic of something like the Spanish Flu
| that _does_ target and kill the young and healthy too.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| More to the point, I think these statement show a lack of
| empathy on the part of the person making them.
|
| 'at least they're old'
|
| This has wiped out FAMILES. 2.4M worldwide and nearly
| 500k in the US. And it flies past people due to fatigue
| and habituation.
| pb7 wrote:
| 2.4M people is 0.03% of the global population. Heart
| disease alone kills 0.23% of the global population per
| year.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| > 2.4M people is 0.03% of the global population. Heart
| disease alone kills 0.23% of the global population per
| year.
|
| One would have thought that by now we wouldn't be
| comparing fatality rates of a disease that propagates
| exponentially when left unchecked, with a more or less
| stable family of diseases that isn't contagious, but here
| we are, apple pies to orange sorbets.
| pb7 wrote:
| Masks and social distancing alone would have sufficed.
| South Korea is proof of that.
| kelnos wrote:
| If we're talking about South Korea, you need to add
| widespread testing, mandatory quarantine for confirmed
| cases, and isolation for people possibly exposed.
|
| Regardless, areas of the US that have mask and social
| distancing mandates still have high case rates. It seems
| like the driver of surges in those areas are mainly due
| to people violating other restrictions, like having
| indoor gatherings.
| gregmac wrote:
| > COVID mostly (not entirely, but mostly) advances the
| Grim Reaper for the old and sick who likely only had a
| few years anyway
|
| What a disgusting attitude.
|
| How is this different from "Why bother treating cancer
| patients? Most are going to die early anyway"? Do you
| think old and sick people simply provide no value to
| society?
|
| I _think_ you 're trying to argue that it's _worse_ if a
| young, otherwise healthy person dies, but it 's really
| not necessary to rank lives against each other in this
| way.
|
| This attitude seems to be what's largely made this
| pandemic so bad: it was viewed as "just the flu" and
| "only affects people with pre-existing conditions" and so
| rather than fast, decisive action (reducing burden on
| healthcare system, preventing deaths, reducing the need
| for lockdowns and shortening the time they take), many
| countries instead delayed and did half-measures, causing
| an exponential increase in cases, which causes
| _everything_ to be worse. The completely obvious outcome
| of willing to let old and sick people die to "save the
| economy" was an economy that's in turmoil as well as a
| massive death toll.
| derefr wrote:
| > I think you're trying to argue that it's worse if a
| young, otherwise healthy person dies, but it's really not
| necessary to rank lives against each other in this way.
|
| No, the GP is pointing out the well-established social-
| psychology theory that people _already_ implicitly rank
| things this way, and that this is _why_ the death toll
| doesn't have more of a mental impact on people in
| changing their decisions, even when they hear about it.
|
| It's the same reason that news like "baby of suburban
| WASP nuclear family gets kidnapped" turns into a whole-
| community man-hunt with special ribbons that gets
| remembered for years, while news like "baby of urban
| black single mother gets kidnapped" never even gets
| acknowledged by the community.
|
| When people who are high-status to society go away, the
| whole of society mourns. When people who are low-status
| to society go away, only those directly affected mourn.
|
| Any death-toll number, in the mind of most human beings
| (or rather, of any human being who's only engaging with
| the problem using System 1 thinking), isn't interpreted
| as "raw numbers" of lives lost, or even QALYs lost --
| instead, it's _felt_ as an aggregate of _social-status
| lost_ , subjective to the listener's personal social-
| status ranking function.
|
| For the same reason that people don't tend to worry much
| about disasters half-way across the world (the aggregate
| social-status weight computed through _their_ status
| ranking function still sums low), people won't tend to
| worry much about the impact of a local disaster if it's
| only directly hurting local low-status people. Even if
| it's _indirectly_ impacting high-status people by taking
| away people _they_ care directly about, that still
| doesn't generate the sort of _performative shame for not
| having acted_ that comes when high-status individuals are
| taken+.
|
| And since that very performative shame is what policy-
| makers rely on as a group impetus to for getting changes
| pushed through on a society-wide level, a lack of it
| means that nothing can really change, even when there are
| clear _rational_ reasons to implement change.
|
| ------------
|
| + Evo-psych just-so hypothesis (i.e. take this with 50
| grains of salt): people are expected to sacrifice to
| protect high-status people; people who do so are rewarded
| by the high-status people; and so, over generations, it
| became a eusocial instinct to feel an urge toward
| performative shame when you "fail to protect" a high-
| status person in your community--even one you never
| personally knew.
|
| But people _aren't_ expected to sacrifice for low-status
| affiliations _of_ high-status people (since it'd "only"
| be the high-status person, and not the rest of the
| community, enforcing the norm on you), so a similar
| eusocial instinct toward performative shame for failing
| to protect _those_ people never arose.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| At some point the exuberance of the young and their
| ability to determine their own lives has to take priority
| over the comfort of the old. I am nearing middle age
| myself and I might be in a risk group, but I want
| restrictions lifted. People in their teens and twenties
| need to have their big social coming-of-age and courtship
| rituals. I see restrictions as an approach to COVID, as
| the greatest betrayal of young people since May '68.
|
| > rather than fast, decisive action
|
| It is worth noting that even if there had been the "fast,
| decisive action" that epidemologist advisers wanted, that
| would have still imposed border closures in perpetuity.
| Life might have gone on "like normal" within a country,
| but people could not interact with their neighbors.
|
| We see already some Australians advocating for hotel
| quarantine to be obligatory even after COVID, because a
| year of closed borders has made them regard outsiders as
| dirty. How long before border closures awaken old
| nationalist conflicts that freedom of movement and
| actually getting to know the other side had largely put
| to rest?
| rcpt wrote:
| But that's real far off from how the US does things. 30%
| of Medicare is spent on people who die within a year for
| example.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_rationing_in_the
| _Un...
|
| And global warming might as well not exist as far as
| lawmakers are concerned. The comfort of the old is our
| nation's top priority.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > How is this different from "Why bother treating cancer
| patients? Most are going to die early anyway"?
|
| You do realize that every day we decline to treat cancer
| patients because they are close to dying anyway, right?
| kelnos wrote:
| Treating elderly cancer patients does not negatively
| affect the lives of other people.
|
| Locking down the near-entirety of life has long-term
| physical and mental health implications that we probably
| don't fully understand. There have already been suicides
| directly attributable to COVID-imposed isolation.
|
| It's possible -- and even likely -- that the lockdowns
| are the right move overall, but the lockdowns themselves
| have destroyed lives too. Taking measures to protect
| against something that overwhelmingly affects one segment
| of the population has a big negative effect on everyone
| else as well.
| Kluny wrote:
| > the old and sick who likely only had a few years
| anyway. If we measured the toll in disability-adjusted
| life years instead, the comparison would be quite
| different.
|
| It's a hell of a thing for someone who only had a few
| short and precious years left, to have those ripped away
| from them as well.
|
| I'm hard of hearing - people joke that there's no point
| in wearing ear protection since I'm already deaf. No, the
| opposite. Because I have only a little hearing left, it's
| so much more precious to me than normal hearing is for
| most people. I protect it jealously.
|
| I get your point, but I can't forget the human part of
| that equation.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Boo! Life is life, who are we to judge who's is more or
| less valuable?
| rebuilder wrote:
| We are doing so now, by choosing to take the suicides and
| mental health problems lockdowns will result in over the
| deaths the pandemic would cause without lockdown. I mean,
| I'm not opposed to the lockdowns generally, but you can't
| pretend we aren't making choices about who suffers.
|
| Mostly we're choosing to take our chances on the unknown
| long-term consequences over the fairly well-understood
| risks we face now. The people who pay the cost will be
| different.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yup, and I wish more people would recognize/admit this.
| The lockdown decisions may be the best decisions, but
| let's not pretend we're not trading some deaths for
| others.
| robocat wrote:
| > while COVID mostly (not entirely, but mostly) advances
| the Grim Reaper for the old and sick who likely only had
| a few years anyway.
|
| The average years lost is 10 years of life in the US and
| 16 world wide[1] - and I think you need to reconsider how
| callous your comment comes across (to me at least, and I
| would guess others too). [edited: added detail]
|
| I also feel your comment entirely disregards the point
| made by the parent comment: "I personally know a couple
| of people who are now effectively long-term disabled with
| respiratory issues - well enough to leave hospital, but
| their previous lifestyle can't come back."
|
| https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=years+lost+covid
| Clewza313 wrote:
| I'm sorry if it comes off as callous, but we're comparing
| incidents of mass death here and disability-adjusted life
| years is how insurance companies and demographers do it.
| To be clear, I'm not saying it's a _good_ thing that 500k
| people have died from COVID in the US, but simply that
| having same number of young, healthy people getting
| gunned down in the Battle of the Somme is almost any
| measure objectively worse.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Do you really not know any young people who have been
| permanently damaged by COVID? I know multiple people in
| their 20s and 30s that spent _weeks_ in the ER and will
| never be the same. I 'm always surprised to find people
| who think the lockdown is excessive. COVID is absolutely
| no joke even if you're young, it's not the flu. Not even
| close, you don't want it.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| My anecdotal experience is the opposite of yours -
| everyone I know in their 20s and 30s who had a positive
| COVID-19 test got through it within a week and it was
| about the same as the flu.
|
| If my anecdata is irrelevant, then so is yours.
|
| The only people I know who have had permanent damage from
| COVID-19 in this age range, have all had their trauma
| caused by excessive lockdown policies.
|
| You know what's even less of a joke than COVID-19? Our
| histrionic, insane, and completely violent overreaction
| to it.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| > You know what's even less of a joke than COVID-19? Our
| histrionic, insane, and completely violent overreaction
| to it.
|
| Quick question: how would you propose dealing with a
| global pandemic? Social isolation seems like the most
| common sense solution, since in 2021 we know how disease
| is transmitted and how to deal with that.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| Social isolation may be the best solution. Fine. Don't
| force it on us. If it's the right solution, then it will
| be followed.
|
| I am not going to entertain further the notion that we
| have locked people into their homes, given trillions of
| dollars to multinational corporations, and restricted the
| lives of everyday people, just because of a pandemic that
| kills less than 1% of the people infected. This is such
| an obvious cash-grab and overt attempt to impose further
| fascism upon people, just like what happened after 9/11
| in the US with the imposition of the Patriot Act.
| m0deran wrote:
| > Fine. Don't force it on us. If it's the right solution,
| then it will be followed.
|
| Do you actually, really believe this? Do you really
| believe that if that the research studies come out and
| say "hey stay inside" that everyone will read the studies
| front-to-back and go "oh, it's in the public interest for
| everyone to stay inside"? Is this a thing that you think
| will happen in America?
|
| > impose further fascism
|
| What is fascism?
| scubbo wrote:
| > What is fascism?
|
| When the government does something I don't like /s
| the_af wrote:
| > _If it 's the right solution, then it will be followed_
|
| Social isolation isn't an opt-in kind of measure.
| Furthermore, the average person doesn't have the
| background or tools to evaluate whether it works. It's a
| public health matter, and you do have to follow the
| advice of the relevant authorities.
|
| This is like the law against drinking and driving in many
| countries: you cannot decide to opt-out of this
| restriction. It negatively affects others who do decide
| to comply with the restriction. If caught, you will be
| subject to some kind of penalty (such as having your
| license revoked), for good reason.
| esotericn wrote:
| Awesome.
|
| I'm opting out anyway.
|
| "What are you in for, son"?
|
| "Being outside without an excuse."
|
| Clown world.
| the_af wrote:
| "What are you in for, son?"
|
| "Drinking and driving, but I actually drive better while
| I'm drunk, these cops know nothing!"
| esotericn wrote:
| Outside without an excuse.
|
| It's illegal in the UK to take a picnic to a park bench.
|
| I'm sorry for your loss. But no, it's not drunk driving,
| it's existing as a human being.
|
| Best of luck.
| the_af wrote:
| It's not a dystopian martial law and you're not summarily
| shot or arrested. Maybe it's different in the UK, do they
| arrest you there?
|
| It's about not being selfish and helping contain or
| flatten the contagion. It's about thinking about others
| and not just yourself.
|
| > _it 's existing as a human being_
|
| A selfish human being, yes.
| esotericn wrote:
| 300 days of restrictions.
|
| If your country is less restrictive, I'm happy for you.
|
| It's been illegal for me to have a friend over for 100
| days.
|
| It's illegal to have a picnic on a park bench.
|
| So yeah, I'm not doing this any more. If you think that's
| selfish - cool, I'm selfish according to you. I'm not
| going to kill myself for your social credit score, stop
| trolling.
| the_af wrote:
| > _300 days of restrictions._
|
| What country is that? We've had about 295 days of social
| distancing -- we recently moved from almost total
| lockdown to a less restricting stance, which also
| requires social distancing and discourages gatherings of
| people.
|
| > _If you think that 's selfish - cool, I'm selfish
| according to you. I'm not going to kill myself for your
| social credit score, stop trolling._
|
| I really hope nobody gets sicks or dies needlessly
| because of you then.
|
| As for your accusation of trolling: please follow HN
| guidelines and do not encourage flamewars.
| esotericn wrote:
| I'm simply refusing the concept that my mental health is
| "opt-in".
|
| If you don't want to interact with me, that's cool. If
| you want to ban large gatherings and restrict smaller
| ones for a period of time, I get it.
|
| When it gets to the point that it becomes illegal to be
| outside without an excuse, 300 days in, you're just
| subjecting people to cruel and unusual punishment at this
| point.
|
| The idea that people are going to die in greater
| proportion than the damage caused by preventing people
| from going for a walk to the park and sitting down with a
| cup of coffee is not backed by evidence, and I absolutely
| believe that you are trolling if you think we can all
| just endure this indefinitely. You're just gonna have to
| throw me in prison because I will treat those basic
| freedoms as absolute until the day I die.
|
| I hope you stay safe, best wishes.
| scubbo wrote:
| > If it's the right solution, then it will be followed.
|
| I'm sorry, I simply cannot let this go unchallenged. Even
| a moment's thought should demonstrate that that's not the
| case:
|
| * It may be the objectively-best-solution for society as
| a whole, but not-best for an individual (for instance, a
| young healthy individual who is at low-risk for long-term
| impact for COVID, but who could act as an incubator and
| carrier to spread it to more vulnerable folks). The
| overall-harm-done by these free-circulating individuals
| will, I am willing to bet, be much more than the "harm"
| done to them by asking them to stay home. * It may be the
| best solution, but to recognize that as such requires
| specialized scientific knowledge that the average person
| doesn't have. Meanwhile, propagandists are free to
| influence society as they wish with more-easily-
| consumable (but, possibly, less true) messages. *
| Similarly to the 2nd point - it may be the right
| solution, but that might not be obvious until late in the
| process. In this situation, trusting experts and
| following their advice earlier will reduce the overall
| harm done.
|
| The calculus of impact here is "what is the harm done by
| following advice if it's wrong?", vs. "what is the harm
| done by not-following advice if it's right?". Folks are
| free to make their own decision on this, but almost-every
| analysis I've seen suggests that "staying home" is the
| massively better choice, _even if_ the global pandemic
| turns out to have been less-severe than first expected
| (in fact, the opposite seems to be true). All of that is
| leaving aside the fact that much of the harm done by
| isolation could have been offset by basic social welfare
| programs (stimulus cheques, UBI, etc.)
|
| Contrary to the common American mindset _, freedom is
| not, in fact, always an unalloyed good - especially when
| incentives for an individual are in opposition to
| incentives for a group. (ironically, I wrote this summary
| _before_ reading your second paragraph, but it works even
| better. Your argument that "a previous social program
| restricted freedoms in an unproductive and unhelpful way,
| therefore any social program which restricts freedoms is
| unproductive and unhelpful" does not hold)
|
| * I'm not assuming that you are American, but I _am_
| contrasting my position with a mindset that I have
| noticed disproportionately _among_ Americans._
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| I'm not making any cash on this, and I want the lockdown
| to continue. Because I don't want COVID and have a
| rudimentary knowledge of how disease is transmitted.
|
| > Social isolation may be the best solution. Fine. Don't
| force it on us. If it's the right solution, then it will
| be followed.
|
| I think your own statement is proof that this is not the
| case. We _know_ social distancing works, yet you don 't
| want to implement it.
|
| > just like what happened after 9/11 in the US with the
| imposition of the Patriot Act.
|
| I agree that governments will always do this. That
| doesn't make COVID any less of a threat though. The
| lockdown isn't the only lever of authoritarian control.
| There's plenty of others you can fight to increase
| individual liberty. Things that won't put millions of
| others (and yourself) at risk.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| > I think your own statement is proof that this is not
| the case. We know social distancing works, yet you don't
| want to implement it.
|
| I said I don't want to force it on people - I never said
| it was a bad idea to remove yourself from close contact
| with strangers during a pandemic. Forcing it on people is
| how you get deaths of despair, run everyone's businesses
| to the ground, and ruin every healthy person's life who
| isn't at risk.
|
| You don't have to force it. Social distancing is a
| decision an individual makes, and a rational individual
| would choose to do this if they wanted to live without
| the risk of getting infected.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I said I don 't want to force it on people - I never
| said it was a bad idea to remove yourself from close
| contact with strangers during a pandemic._
|
| Allowing anyone to opt out disproportionately negatively
| affects people who are unable to isolate for whatever
| reason: essential job, medical emergency, etc. People not
| isolating creates more risk for the grocery checkout
| person or power plant operator, for example.
|
| > _Social distancing is a decision an individual makes,
| and a rational individual would choose to do this if they
| wanted to live without the risk of getting infected._
|
| It's just selfishness (or at best rank ignorance) to
| believe that whether or not you personally isolate only
| affects your health.
| macintux wrote:
| Consider this: influenza almost disappeared due to the
| lockdowns and other measures we took.
|
| Yet 3000 people in the U.S. are dying each day from
| COVID.
|
| Does that not indicate that this virus is a particularly
| nasty virus worthy of special measures? That it's still
| spreading widely when the flu can't?
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| I have considered it for an entire year. And my response
| to that is: who cares?
|
| People are still dying from respiratory viruses at a
| totally unacceptable rate. We're a very sick culture who
| cannot handle a respiratory illness without freaking-the-
| fuck out.
|
| We have way bigger problems than COVID-19, which is
| nothing more than a symptom of those problems.
| [deleted]
| selectodude wrote:
| I know zero people that have been permanently damaged by
| COVID. I don't think my social circle is all that small,
| either.
| rcpt wrote:
| Here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.16.
| 21249950v...
| robocat wrote:
| "Findings: 236,379 patients survived a confirmed
| diagnosis of COVID-19. Among them, the estimated
| incidence of neurological or psychiatric sequelae at 6
| months was 33.6%, with 12.8% receiving their first such
| diagnosis. Most diagnostic categories were commoner after
| COVID-19 ... including stroke, intracranial haemorrhage,
| dementia, and psychotic disorders."
|
| It would be interesting to do a relative comparison of
| physical and psych effects of lockdown versus post-Covid
| complications. It isn't clear what the severity for the
| "33.6%" was.
| rcpt wrote:
| > physical and psych effects of lockdown versus post-
| Covid complications
|
| The control group in that study is people who had the flu
| during lockdown.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Consider yourself lucky. Would your opinion change if you
| knew a few people your age that almost didn't make it?
|
| It's anecdotal for sure, but once you see it with your
| own eyes it definitely makes you take it seriously.
| selectodude wrote:
| My mother died of cancer in her mid-40s. She had me
| pretty young so I had a front row seat to the entire
| thing. Terrible, terrible thing to go through. I do
| nothing to reduce my risk of cancer. I just can't live my
| life like that. Some people can and do. I wish I were one
| of them.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Thank you for the honest answer and personal anecdote.
| Sorry about your mom.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not the parent poster, but I still think a bunch of
| people getting killed in a war is worse than dying from
| COVID, even if they are literally the same people dying
| in both cases.
|
| The latter is just nature being nature, and while we can
| respond in some ways to reduce deaths, it will never be
| perfect. I get that in some ways that feels worse,
| because there's a feeling of powerlessness. But the
| former is humans being shitty and murdering each other in
| the name of nationalism, land, resources, religion,
| whatever.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| It's "natural" for humans to fight too, it doesn't make
| it pleasant. I don't know that war and disease need to be
| ranked. Both are horrible and humanity has a long history
| suffering with both.
|
| We now know enough about the nature of disease that we
| can be somewhat effective dealing with it. If people
| embrace the science that is.
| ravenstine wrote:
| That's not how anyone should assess risk. You can't take
| an average and assume that it applies to everyone. The
| elderly hare _far_ more likely of losing 10 years off
| their lives than young people who are very _unlikely_ to
| lose 40+ years off their lives. For instance, the chance
| that _I_ will die from COVID at my age and health are,
| for all intents and purposes, _0%_ , according to the
| CDC. It would be ridiculous for me to take a statistic
| that is more apt for the sick and the elderly and use
| that to determine the course of my life.
|
| By the way, the truth can be very callous. I don't think
| it's particularly useful for you to point out how callous
| someone sounds _on the internet_ unless the other person
| has some demonstrable intent of cruelty. We all know that
| we have the potential to sound like bad people through
| text online.
| rcpt wrote:
| The metric you're looking for is QALY "quality adjusted
| life year". It's studied a lot in health economics but
| generally disregarded wrt covid because we don't have
| 2060's actuarial tables yet.
|
| Yes there is evidence that 10-30% of covid infections
| have not resolved at 6 months
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.16.212499
| 50v...
|
| which is roughly what SARS 1 looks like (and those people
| are still sick). But we still can't definitely say that
| 35 year olds who catch covid will lose 10 years off the
| end of their life so it's disregarded in our decision
| making.
| robocat wrote:
| "A study published in the Journal of Public Health finds
| that for each person in the U.S. who died after
| contracting COVID-19, an average of nearly 10 years of
| life had been lost." - https://www.sciencedaily.com/relea
| ses/2020/09/200923124557.h...
|
| > But we still can't definitely say that 35 year olds who
| catch covid will lose 10 years off the end of their life
| so it's disregarded in our decision making.
|
| That isn't relevant to the 10 year statistic although it
| is an interesting point - you are saying the final result
| for years of life lost due to Covid could be a higher
| number than 10 years (after we get to finally tally the
| numbers in the decades to come as people die). Depends on
| how you paint your statistics I guess. [para edited to
| add clarity]
| robocat wrote:
| The point I made is that an average of 10+ years lost is
| strikingly different from the canonical "nearly dead
| elderly don't matter" argument that I see far too many
| people use (and which my comment replied to). Obviously
| averages are very poor indicators when a distribution is
| wonky, and it is preferably to deep dive into the data.
|
| Note I am all for people doing whatever they want with
| their own lives - if you want to go to a Covid party I
| would love to support that. I love taking certain risks
| myself.
|
| However, when the choices of one age group can kill my
| mum, dad or friends, I would hope we agree to serious
| restrictions to help prevent that. With engineering
| balance to the compromises, given that prevention
| techniques cause significant human costs.
|
| I am from New Zealand, so I can resoundingly support
| everyone acting together in concert to protect everyone
| else (as most kiwis did, with a good outcome for us).
| graeme wrote:
| > If we measured the toll in disability-adjusted life
| years instead, the comparison would be quite different.
|
| I think you missed this part of their comment. They were
| arguing the deaths weren't the same kind of deaths as in
| past catastrophes, but the long term ailments are bad and
| real.
|
| Though I agree the years lost is bigger than people
| think.
| esotericn wrote:
| The problem of course being that after extreme isolation
| and/or social breakdown, even those of us that know full
| well how large those numbers are start to snap.
|
| Approximately 0.2-0.3% of the UK population has died due to
| coronavirus.
|
| But my personal risk of psychosis as a result of lockdown
| is far higher than that, it's starting to approach 1, and
| when it happens, it doesn't matter if those figures are
| 10%.
|
| Maybe it's just me, but I really doubt it is. Social unrest
| is coming if we do this for much longer, I can't see any
| other way.
|
| I can't live in a world that doesn't allow me to have a
| friend over for a cup of tea indefinitely; compromise
| really needs to happen soon.
| AltruisticGap2 wrote:
| I understand your sentiment but for me the realization is
| different.
|
| For me seeing the streets of my capital city completely empty
| at beginning of lockdown, as well as the trams and buses
| (even though you could ride them), made me realize that I was
| living in an environment that is fundamentally not pleasant.
| That it was people that made it alive.
|
| Without people, I saw that this city which I always thought
| of as "the place where I can do anything, almost any time of
| the day" is really just a conglomerate of gray buildings,
| commerce, lots and lots of roads and noisy traffic, and very
| little green.
|
| The spell was good while it lasted. That said I am also past
| 45 now... if I was younger I might still want to come back to
| a big city when I can in order to have access to more
| activities.
| lmm wrote:
| Wasn't that something we all knew already? People are what
| make cities worth living in, the point of living in a city
| is to be close to more people, and that naturally involves
| some compromises (though I'm all for non-grey buildings and
| minimising the space devoted to cars - something my city is
| fairly good at).
| wayoutthere wrote:
| I was living in the center of a major city on the east
| coast when the pandemic hit. I was renting a 400 sq ft
| apartment, but that was ok because I really only slept
| there -- the coffee shop nearby was my living room, the
| park was my backyard, the restaurants my kitchen. That's
| city life.
|
| With all of that gone, the 400 sq ft apartment stopped
| being livable. That apartment wasn't cheap, but I was
| able to afford to buy a house in another part of town. So
| I did -- as did every other person in that downtown area
| that I knew.
|
| Those areas are now severely depopulated to the point
| it's not safe to walk around in after dark, despite being
| one of the nicest areas of town a year ago. Businesses
| are continuing to fail because their customers keep
| moving away. City centers will be absolutely dead for a
| decade or more. People are underestimating the long term
| impact to cities because office workers aren't coming
| back en masse any time soon either -- if ever. People are
| what makes a city great, and they're not coming back for
| a long time.
| michaelt wrote:
| To an extent - but city-dwellers also often deal with the
| high density by ignoring one another, to a much greater
| extent than they would in a smaller community.
|
| I've heard city-dwellers claim (perhaps partly in jest)
| to have spent decades standing with the same people at
| the commuter rail station every day without giving them
| so much as a nod or smile, let alone learning their
| names.
| [deleted]
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > Living in a flat as a single person in the big exciting
| city? Literally everything you do has been illegal or
| restricted in some form for almost a year now.
|
| And _unsafe_ , too. I'm not not going to restaurants because
| I'm not allowed to (they're actually opening back up a little
| bit here now), but because under the present circumstances
| it's not safe to do so.
| esotericn wrote:
| Nah, me staying inside for years on end with no or very
| limited social contact is less safe for me.
|
| It guarantees a horrible outcome (psychosis), versus a
| slight risk of a bad outcome.
|
| I'm not going to put myself into a coma for multiple years
| on the off chance that someone else gets ill. Best of luck.
| zo1 wrote:
| That argument means nothing unless you're also able to
| decide for yourself what to do about something "unsafe".
| Consent is key, and we're watching in real time as we are
| turned into human livestock under the care of the "state".
|
| It boils down to: "Shut up, stay in your pen". I'm not a
| crazy person and I agree with herd immunity and generally
| think we should strive for it and not fight it for the sake
| of the unhealthy, but excuse the language, holy-shit
| people... it's been a year of "flatten the curve",
| "lockdowns" and "stay at home orders"!! I stand by this
| fully: This disaster could have been solved in a month with
| closed borders, tracking and a dedicated, absolute and
| draconian effort. But, we didn't get that and instead
| treated the potentially "misbehaving" people like cattle
| because they threatened the wider herd.
|
| It all rests on what happens after a wide rollout of the
| vaccine.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I 'm not a crazy person and I agree with herd
| immunity_
|
| You're not crazy, but you _are_ incorrect. Herd immunity
| only works for COVID if a) you can get 60-70% of people
| infected, and b) getting the disease confers immunity,
| and for a meaningful amount of time.
|
| Getting to that 60-70% in the time frame that most people
| would tolerate would absolutely destroy our health care
| system, resulting in many _more_ deaths (due to people
| being unable to get the treatment they need). Consider
| that hospitals in many areas were overwhelmed _without_
| most people going out and trying to get the disease.
|
| And the immunity bit is still an open question. Many
| people have suffered re-infection, and it's not clear
| that post-infection immunity lasts more than a few
| months, which might not be good enough for herd immunity
| to stick.
|
| The second bit is a bit of a gamble, so I'm totally open
| to argument there as to whether it's a gamble worth
| taking, but the first bit includes unacceptable outcomes.
| I'm not saying our _current_ outcome is acceptable, but
| trading one bad thing for another isn 't clearly better
| here.
| toby wrote:
| Open-air dining with six feet of separation is almost
| certainly safe. There's literally no evidence to the
| contrary despite multiple court orders to produce any.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It's below freezing here right now, currently snowing,
| and with high winds. No one's eating outdoors. I did it a
| bit before winter started but this entire season has been
| a wash.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| Unfortunately when restaurants around here could open,
| they didn't have the required distancing between tables
| because that'd mean they'd make half the money. Your
| country culture may vary.
| Wintamute wrote:
| Have you quantified that? How unsafe it is to your
| personally?
|
| I don't know anything about your personal situation, but if
| you're healthy and relatively young the risk from Covid
| (first catching it, then having a bad time with it) in
| resuming these aspects of normal life may be extremely low,
| even compared to activities you wouldn't think twice about
| doing pre-pandemic - like taking a short car ride for
| example.
|
| I think there are probably a lot of people struggling with
| this sort of thing. Cognitive behaviour therapy
| incorporating aspects of exposure therapy could be useful
| here.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > How unsafe it is to your personally?
|
| That's a very selfish way of looking at things. The
| problem with being a communicable disease is that even if
| I'm fine, others I give it too might not be. I'm trying
| to be a team player here.
|
| Also, I'm not in a low-risk group personally anyway.
| Wintamute wrote:
| No, not selfish. See answer below
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26194718
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Are the young as at big a risk as older folks? No. CAN
| THEY COMMUNICATE IT TO OLDER FOLKS? Yes. Yes they can.
|
| This kinda falls into the 'social obligation' column.
| Just because it doesn't affect you personally, doesn't
| mean you shouldn't be part of the solution. Sooner or
| later something WILL happen to you and you'll benefit
| from being a member.
| Wintamute wrote:
| I understand that aspect. Vaccinations, social
| distancing, mask wearing, mass testing, self isolating
| with symptoms or while vulnerable - these are all tools
| designed to get society running again, while minimising
| risk. The OP said they felt unsafe about going into
| restaurants which were open in their region. My opinion
| is that is incumbent on all of us to get back to
| normality as swiftly as possible within the guidelines
| set out by our local governments. That is my idea of
| social obligation, thanks.
| criddell wrote:
| > within the guidelines set out by our local governments
|
| Your local government may not care about you. I'd look to
| respected civilian experts or at least government
| agencies staffed by respected experts.
|
| I'm basing this on Texas' Lt. Governor Dan Patrick being
| willing to tolerate a lot of death for the sake of the
| economy:
|
| https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/21/texas-dan-
| patrick-ec...
| Wintamute wrote:
| I understand that aspect too.
|
| I mention local guidelines since I wouldn't want anyone
| to get in trouble with the state.
|
| The economy is not an abstract thing, it represents
| living people and their lives. People who feel its
| important to prioritise the economy and a return to
| relative normality generally don't think that way because
| they're callous about Covid deaths, they're simply more
| concerned about the death, ill health and strife that
| result from a long term economic downturn. We can discuss
| the degree to which those views represent reality without
| impugning people's characters.
| [deleted]
| kashyapc wrote:
| I live in a small and wonderful city-town in Western EU.
| Unsurprisingly, much of the atmosphere is in doldrums. As a
| long-time remotee, I'm often used to working from the library
| or a pleasant coffee shop. It's tough not to have this access
| to the gentle human buzz around me, or a stranger's smile, much
| as I'm used to long stretches of solitude. And this extended
| lockdown has aggravated the ability to deal with a recent
| personal setback.
|
| It helps that I built a healthy lifestyle, and have no problems
| giving structure to my attention. Long walks in nature, hours
| of dedicated reading of offline books (the medicine of the
| mind) help immensely. And my studies in areas like ancient
| Greek philosophy, psychology, neuroscience all help, and
| continue to provide some relief. But it's strenuous to keep
| grinding through it, without access to much of humanity, in the
| normal sense. So far, it's been a potent stress-test of
| resilience.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Your region might be different, but I've heard others say the
| same thing about my area and, frankly, I see it as wishful
| thinking. People aren't happy in general, but they both have
| surrogate outlets for their frustration(Netflix, porn, junk
| food, weed) and have been conditioned to accept lower
| standards; being able to eat outdoors in someone's parking lot
| with plastic dividers is considered "exciting" now, depending
| on where you live. Even people who were against lockdowns
| behave like their masters are giving them an extra scoop of
| kibble every time that restrictions are loosened. As long as
| people tirelessly hang on to the hopium, I think there's no way
| we'll see "torches and pitchforks" manifest in any substantial
| way. To reiterate, I'm sure this is region-dependent, and I'm
| speaking primarily for America in general.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Those "torches and pitchforks" would quickly be followed by
| ventilators and graves. I absolutely despise authority and
| loss of individual liberty, but this isn't a fabricated
| crisis. Once you see multiple people you know _devastated_ by
| COVID, you quickly realize it 's not a hoax. I'm talking
| about younger people too (20-40), permanently damaged
| respiratory systems and near death experiences.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| > what i hear and see in my region let me believe the mood is
| slowly turning into some sort of "Torches and Pitchforks"
| way...
|
| In several countries with lockdowns there is definitely
| collusion between ruling parties and mainstream media on which
| the ruling party has a close relationship or outright tight
| grip. In Poland, independent media across the ideological
| spectrum have been reporting that the majority of the
| population opposes lockdown, and support for business owners
| opening their restaurants regardless has risen. Yet you won't
| hear a word about this in state-controlled media. The ruling
| party is, however, aware of sentiment turning against them,
| because party functionaries have privately expressed to
| independent media that they fear that lockdown might cost them
| the next election.
|
| The problem, however, is that when mainstream media refuses to
| report common sentiment, the average person feels that he or
| she is all alone in feeling that way. This prevents people from
| organizing and pushing together for change (which is just the
| way that many ruling parties like it).
| corobo wrote:
| Yeah I once spent 2 months not talking to anyone but I was
| doing things at the time. This is just
|
| My wires are coming loose
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| I think we're turning the corner. I was firmly in the "doomer"
| camp before, but there are strong reasons for optimism now.
|
| New cases, daily deaths, and hospitalizations have all been
| falling rapidly for weeks now.
|
| The current estimate is for 50% of the US population to have
| received their first shot of vaccine by June 28:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine...
|
| That's at the current pace. The pace will almost certainly
| continue to accelerate. You also need to add in the
| unvaccinated who have immunity from prior infection.
|
| We're on track for a quasi-normal (as far as restrictions go)
| Summer, and there will be an enormous push to get kids back in
| school full time and people back in the office regularly right
| after Labor Day.
| coldpie wrote:
| IMO Summer is a bit optimistic to be calling anything
| "normal," but I broadly agree we're near the end. Maybe by
| Fall or Winter we can hang out in bars again without feeling
| like we're killing somebody. In either case, now is not the
| time to give up. A few more months and we'll start seeing
| things ease up, I think. But we won't get there if we make
| things worse now. It sucks. Stay strong. Do what you can.
| ghaff wrote:
| In the US, it's probably going to be more like late
| summer/early fall for truly widespread vaccination at which
| point, I have trouble believing things don't open back up
| because at that point, people are going to be "We've done
| what we can. F' it. We're not continuing like this
| indefinitely."
|
| But, truth be told, come late spring especially younger
| people are going to be out and about and restrictions are
| going to start to be widely ignored even if they're still
| officially in place.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| > But we won't get there if we make things worse now.
|
| I have seen this claimed a lot, but is it really true? In
| some countries the authorities ended restrictions (or
| ostensibly maintained restrictions but stopped enforcement
| of them) because the population simply wasn't observing
| them. In those cases just "giving up" really worked in
| terms of the majority of people being able to get back to
| normal socializing.
| jaywalk wrote:
| The studies that have been done have shown that whatever
| benefits that lockdowns may have had were far outweighed
| by the toll they've taken on mental health and the
| economy. Short of literally locking everyone in their
| houses for 2-3 weeks (including essential workers)
| lockdowns just _feel_ like they 're doing _something_.
| _Microft wrote:
| I bet it is.
|
| Sadly, this is a self-inflicted problem. Instead of trying to
| understand the purpose of the imposed measures and trying to
| maximize their impact to get us through this as fast as
| possible, lots of people saw them as pure nuisance instead.
| They tried to bend the rules to work around them and so we are
| still stuck with these measures for far longer than would have
| been necessary otherwise.
|
| Now we all reap what they sowed.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| This is true, BUT, loss of loved ones is surely worse than
| loneliness, when talking about depression.
|
| And it's still an indication of early/strict lockdowns. People
| in China, Vietnam, Taiwan and New Zealand are enjoying social
| contact, punctuated by periodic lockdown. Some countries are
| basically placing the burden of reducing R0 on volunteers.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| This is an odd framing to me. The psychological toll is from
| there being a deadly global pandemic. I guess we could have
| made the choice to trade the toll of social restrictions for
| the toll of even more people getting seriously ill and dying,
| but whatever choices we made and are making, the fact of the
| matter is that pandemics majorly suck. I think railing against
| lockdowns is a coping mechanism -- as policies we've chosen, we
| have some measure of control, so complaining about social
| restrictions gives us a sense we can change something, whereas
| going on a rant about bits of protein that don't quite qualify
| as even being alive doesn't really grant much relief.
|
| We're all tired. This is a crappy situation. And if complaining
| about lockdowns help people feel better, well we all do what we
| need to try and feel a bit better I guess. But, in our more
| calm and reflective and honest moments, we should remember that
| the psychological toll here is from the pandemic, and there's
| not some magical other option where the pandemic is anything
| other than a very difficult situation.
| orangecat wrote:
| _The psychological toll is from there being a deadly global
| pandemic._
|
| I agree that there's going to be an ambient level of anxiety
| from knowing that there's a nasty disease out there, but are
| you really saying that not being able to see your friends and
| family, or losing your job, or having to scramble to work
| from home while managing your children's remote "learning"
| has no additional impact?
|
| _there 's not some magical other option where the pandemic
| is anything other than a very difficult situation_
|
| Lockdowns aren't binary. We're allowed to consider the costs
| and benefits of individual measures. Banning large indoor
| events: probably worth it. Forbidding people from leaving
| their homes: probably not. And then you get into the more
| controversial areas like shutting down schools and trying to
| forbid small gatherings, where different governments have
| made different choices and it is not at all clear that
| stronger measures lead to better Covid outcomes.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| > I agree that there's going to be an ambient level of
| anxiety from knowing that there's a nasty disease out
| there, but are you really saying that not being able to see
| your friends and family, or losing your job, or having to
| scramble to work from home while managing your children's
| remote "learning" has no additional impact?
|
| Of course it has an impact. If we didn't have social
| restrictions and consequently had much higher rates of
| infection, death, and long term disability, that also would
| have an impact. There's no world where, given a global
| pandemic, there are no severe impacts. Most arguments
| against social restriction that I've seen don't acknowledge
| this though. I mean, the other reply to my comment said
| "why not put some of the blame on the millions of people
| who died from this thing, who probably could have lived
| through it had they lived healthier lives", to which I can
| only reply "what?" For at least the most vocal opponents of
| social restrictions, they seem to have a radically
| different understanding of how respiratory infections work
| than I do.
|
| >Lockdowns aren't binary. We're allowed to consider the
| costs and benefits of individual measures
|
| Absolutely. It's not the people who are able to do nuance
| I'm taking issue with here.
|
| > it is not at all clear that stronger measures lead to
| better Covid outcomes.
|
| Well, I think the evidence is pretty clear that taking
| either none or very few measures has led to worse outcomes.
| Among places that have taken measures, I agree it gets
| hazier as you then have to go from the general "lockdown or
| freedom" argument into "which specific measures work best."
| The latter discussion is where we should be; the former one
| is, to my mind, based on an unrealistic set of assumptions.
| orangecat wrote:
| I appreciate your reasonable response. I wish we could
| have more discussions like this rather than the shouting
| matches of "masks in grocery stores are tyranny" and
| "you're a selfish asshole for occasionally wanting to
| have human contact".
| sensanaty wrote:
| >The psychological toll is from there being a deadly global
| pandemic
|
| My friends and I could not possibly care less about the virus
| even if we tried, and half of us were even infected with
| Corona. The only thing affecting anyone in my friendgroup
| mentally are these lockdowns that are keeping us from living
| our lives, because I can guarantee you that every single one
| of us would rather be sitting in a crowded, closed space
| without even wearing masks than being forced to deal with
| god-knows how long of not being able to do anything, so I
| really wouldn't say the pandemic has any effect on us other
| than the fact that it brings with it lockdowns that none of
| us want.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| > The psychological toll is from there being a deadly global
| pandemic.
|
| How do you know? I think this claim, if it is to be believed,
| deserves some solid and objective evidence.
|
| How come the pandemic is the deadly one? Why not put some of
| the blame on the millions of people who died from this thing,
| who probably could have lived through it had they lived
| healthier lives? There has been ZERO discussion of how to
| improve the body's natural immunity to viruses, which is
| without a doubt the most efficacious way to prevent death
| from coronaviruses.
|
| > I think railing against lockdowns is a coping mechanism
|
| This is so condescending I have a hard time believing you're
| being honest. No business owner would choose to completely
| shutter their enterprise as so many have had to do under
| threat of government violence. The complete upending of
| normal life was not something anyone did because it was the
| right thing to do. We did it because we were all under threat
| of fines, violence, and losing our freedoms even further if
| we didn't.
|
| > But, in our more calm and reflective and honest moments, we
| should remember that the psychological toll here is from the
| pandemic, and there's not some magical other option where the
| pandemic is anything other than a very difficult situation.
|
| The "pandemic" has done absolutely nothing to me. All of my
| difficulties have been tied to the complete shutdown of my
| local, state, and federal government. I haven't gotten sick
| nor have any of my close friends and family. I have, however,
| been assaulted by random prisoners let out of prison too
| early, have been price-gouged by corporations, and have had
| my basic liberties stripped. Those were all lockdown policies
| causing those things - not the pandemic.
|
| To me, it's overwhelmingly obvious that our infrastructure is
| failing and the government is using ridiculous histrionics
| regarding the virus and regarding "anti-racism," to cover it
| up.
| adrianb wrote:
| The link posted is cute and all but such initiatives are so
| easy to dismiss - what, you guys can't live without going to a
| bar? What are you, some kind of alcoholics? You don't want to
| save some lives?
|
| When in reality the lockdowns ask us to give up everything that
| makes us human - closeness and interaction with other people,
| hobbies, and many people can't even work or see their families
| any more. And we're making this effort without even being sure
| it's worth it - sure, there's a vaccine now and that's an
| amazing achievement but we still have the risk of vaccine
| resistance so long-term not sure how we can avoid the
| (mitigated) risks.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| You can't avoid risk. Life is full of risk. If one thing
| doesn't get you, something else will, but we don't shut down
| society because of them.
| rpadovani wrote:
| I feel you: my life is as good as it can get during this
| challenging time, I live with my SO in a somewhat large
| apartment, we both still work, I from home and she from office,
| we don't have any sick relative, nor kids, so we have our
| space, and we don't have to worry about money or anything at
| all.
|
| I'm quite loner on my own, and the first lockdown was quite a
| breeze. But these days I'm becoming more and more tired, and I
| spend my time after work doing basic nothing. Also watching a
| movie is boring! I have no idea how people with kids, or
| without job stability, or with relatives to take care off
| haven't gone crazy yet!
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I know others feel differently, but my toddler has actually
| been a reprieve. Each day has been some small step forward,
| some word or new idea discovered. There's bad with the good,
| of course - but I don't know that I would have had the time
| to see all this if I weren't home.
| eplanit wrote:
| "the mood is slowly turning into some sort of "Torches and
| Pitchforks" way..."
|
| That mentality can actually be helpful, and provided it stays
| metaphorical, it is called for. We're coming up on the one year
| anniversary of authoritarian rules. We accepted them because we
| were (rightfully) scared. The facts are that it is now getting
| under control, and it would be healthy and cathartic to assert
| normalcy again. We're rightful in being optimistic now, and
| should reclaim our rights and freedom. The craziness comes from
| trying to contain it.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| What do you think happens if we go back to normal behavior
| before we have a large fraction of people vaccinated?
| kelnos wrote:
| > _We 're coming up on the one year anniversary of
| authoritarian rules._
|
| What exactly is "authoritarian" about them? These rules were
| imposed and enforced[0] under authority granted to the
| government through democratic processes. And if enough people
| don't like it, most states have recall/impeachment processes
| that can allow the citizenry to remove the elected officials
| and replace them with people who will take a different path.
|
| The fact that none of that has happened shows that the people
| who truly believe the measures taken were incorrect are in
| the minority, likely a small vocal minority.
|
| If you want to talk about authoritarianism, look to actual
| authoritarian states, where curfews, lockdowns, and
| quarantines were implemented, along with severe restrictions
| on people's movement... with no avenue for citizens to oppose
| these measures (and if they try, they get arrested). That is
| not at all what has been happening in the US, UK, and similar
| nations.
|
| [0] Also consider that many of the rules imposed on
| individuals have essentially been voluntary and under the
| honor system. In most (but not all) places in the US you
| don't get ticketed or arrested for failing to wear a mask or
| socially distance, or for violating a quarantine or curfew.
| e67f70028a46fba wrote:
| Even the term: lockdown
|
| Free societies don't have lockdowns. Prisons do. One would
| think that the government would come up with a better term, if
| only out of self interest.
|
| But then perhaps that's the point.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The term is perfect, because it means the government stepping
| over your liberty during an emergency, so that there isn't a
| fundamental society crisis.
|
| It should require a huge amount of justification, and people
| should have little patience with it. The euphemisms some
| places use are Orwellian.
| soared wrote:
| "Safer at home" was commonly used in my state.
| packetlost wrote:
| WI? Nearly everyone I know still refers to it as 'lockdown'
| even if that's not what it's officially called.
| brink wrote:
| What happened last spring was more or less incarceration. We
| weren't free. We weren't allowed to leave our houses. The
| term "lockdown" works quite well.
| ssully wrote:
| You very clearly have zero clue what life is like while
| incarcerated. You should be embarrassed by this comment.
| dashundchen wrote:
| Outside the US maybe. Nowhere in the US was locked down. In
| fact a good portion of states never enforced restrictions
| at all.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Thankfully, while there were a few places that attempted
| to restrict outings to "essential" trips, it never was
| enforceable. I am not a fan of many things police do, but
| I am proud that my local sheriff announced that he would
| not enforce any such order.
| Izkata wrote:
| A lot of places used "shelter-in-place", and officially over
| here it's still "stay-at-home". The colloquial term having
| switched so totally to "lockdown" is another symptom of
| people caring for it less and less.
| standardUser wrote:
| I was endlessly annoyed by the misuse of the term "shetler-
| in-place" by so many state and local governments. At no
| point should anyone, anywhere have sheltered in place due
| to this pandemic, which is an established term in emergency
| management where people are instructed to shelter in
| whatever structure they happen to be located at the time of
| the emergency.
| jorl17 wrote:
| Lockdown has allowed me to properly realize how much I really
| do not care about going out. I may enjoy social outings, and
| for a while I used to have weekly scheduled social outings
| having much fun in them. In spite of that, I've always been
| "homey", and I've always been very affected by going out
| multiple times -- especially weekends. It just drains me and
| physically exhausts me. Weekends should be sacred. I absolutely
| hate going out in them. It screws my whole week.
|
| Thus, lockdown has not impacted me negatively in the slightest.
| At least not directly (it has indirectly through the mental
| health of those around me). I really do not care about going
| out. Even more so than I thought.
|
| I like it this way, and I think that while I knew I could stay
| "home" for long periods, and liked it, I was never aware just
| how much I really am not affected by "staying home". I have
| basically been living for almost a year in a "leave the house
| on average 0.75 times per week", and for at most 4 hours. In a
| week, I go out an average of 3 hours. I live just fine.
|
| Some of my close friends who considered themselves to be just
| like me are slowly going a bit crazy. I guess it's not even
| their need to go out, but the fact that they _know_ they can't.
|
| I understand other people function in other ways. I'm sorry if
| you're in this group (or your loved ones). Nevertheless, to me,
| I just really don't feel the impact at all. If anything, having
| other people "live more like me" has made my life somewhat
| better, because they can empathize with me more and because the
| whole world has become "easier to live in", more adapted to my
| ways of living.
|
| Mind you, this doesn't mean I can live anywhere because I live
| "mostly remotely, and mostly in my head". I live 5 minutes from
| my parents (and for a while I was living 1h away from them).
| Even though I may not go there every day, not even every week
| or every two weeks, the fact that I'm here gives me immense
| happiness and calmness. Staying at home does not mean not
| caring about my immediate and even my "nearish" surroundings.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| I feel a fair amount of guilt about this. I live with my
| spouse and toddler, and not having a commute and spending
| lots of time with my daughter everyday has been great. Also,
| it's now easy for me to fit in exercise every day, so I'm in
| the best shape I've been in in a while.
|
| When relatives ask how I'm doing, I immediately say, "Great!"
| But then I realize - oops, I should probably give a less
| selfish response, and acknowledge that the grandma I'm
| speaking to is perpetually bummed because she can't see her
| daughter (which I absolutely believe sucks).
|
| On the original topic: I've always thought that Baldur's Gate
| did a good job with their atmospheric music. That's usually
| my go-to when I want to listen to "tavern sounds." It
| basically sounds like the Prancing Pony from Fellowship. And
| there are lots of similar options on YouTube. It's fun
| background music!
| jorl17 wrote:
| You have no idea how much I feel the same too. I sometimes
| journal my thoughts, and I have a bit of my journal here to
| share with you which reflects exactly what you mentioned
| about "feeling bad about feeling good":
|
| ---
|
| For most people, (...) 2020 was a mostly terrible year. A
| dark spot in the book of life, filled with misery, missing
| loved ones, habit changes and an overall feeling of "this
| is too bad, too fast". For some, it's like we're still in
| 2019, ending in a shitty way. For others, it's like a pit
| of awfulness that's been going on forever and doesn't seem
| to end.
|
| I can't say I relate, though. I'm sorry if you're reading
| this and you're one of those people, but I just can't
| relate.
|
| (...)
|
| 2020 sucked for these people. Some lost their job. Some
| lost their routines -- and to some people routine _really
| is important_.
|
| But 2020 didn't suck for me. Or, rather, it didn't suck as
| much. Sure, 2020 still sucked in many ways, but they're not
| really that related to the pandemic we're living. Maybe
| they are indirectly (...), but I cannot personally say that
| I felt really negatively affected by the pandemic. Some
| things still hit me, but many didn't.
|
| It feels like I'm committing some kind of heresy by saying
| this, but it's true. I _feel bad_ that 2020 didn't _make me
| feel bad_. But, really, it didn't.
|
| (...)
|
| This was 2020. COVID didn't really mess with me directly. I
| already worked remotely most of the time. Here's how COVID
| has impacted my life, in the most blunt honesty I can have:
| - It enabled me to be much more easily socially accepted
| when I wanted to do remote meetings. - It enabled me to
| multitask: I can do many tasks at home (dishes, clothes,
| etc) while having remote meetings without my camera on. -
| It made it so that instead of going every weekend to visit
| (...) family, we started doing it much more sporadically
| (...). - It reduced the amount of traffic on the street,
| noise around the house, etc.
|
| (...)
|
| Personally, COVID didn't do much for my life. You could
| very fairly make the point that, in terms of my _direct
| personal life_, it bettered it. I didn't really stop doing
| things I liked. Sure, we can't really go out or go to
| concerts, but I don't need that. I have never needed that.
| Similarly, I stopped hanging out with my friends, and while
| I'd like to do that, I'm at a stage of my life where I
| don't need it. It's not a part of my personality. I don't
| need to go out. I don't want to go out most of the time.
| (...) I don't _need_ to go out. I can stay for months
| inside my home just fine.
|
| ---
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| In my opinion - Don't give a less selfish response, it's
| good if you're doing great. Don't feel ashamed or selfish
| for being in a healthy state. But of course, don't hold
| back your sympathy either. You're in a good place to offer
| support to those around you. I think this is an important
| facet of how humans work together, personally.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yeah, agreed. I think it's a sort of "read the room" type
| situation. If it feels like the person you're talking to
| really needs some commiseration, downplay your good mood.
| Otherwise, being in a good mood yourself could help boost
| the other person's spirits.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Glad to see I'm not the only one. I've seen _so many_ posts
| across the internet along the lines of "I'm a total loner,
| but I can hardly take it anymore". Meanwhile, I'm definitely
| an introvert, but not even that much of a loner and I'm doing
| just fine.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| I'm an introvert that's doing fine as well. As long as
| we're talking about positives (which we should!) I'd say no
| business travel is the #1 benefit for me. I've gone from
| being forced to take a dozen trips a year to zero. It's
| been wonderful. No more rushing around filthy airports,
| crammed next to strangers for hours in coach, disgusting
| hotel rooms... all in the name of my job.
|
| I quite frankly hope business travel never returns. Better
| for the environment too.
| saberdancer wrote:
| I feel the same way. Not sure if it is completely due to my
| psyche or the fact that I have a partner and a child. That's
| a lot of social interaction. If I lived alone, I might feel
| differently. Hard to tell.
|
| I did notice a bunch of people who got really anxious. They
| were pro lockdown then against, then again pro and they were
| noticeably nervous and unhappy.
| powersnail wrote:
| I feel that. I'm a loner, in normal times. But the prolonged
| isolation had induced me to participate a lot more in online
| forums, more than I should. They had grown to be increasingly
| addicting, because how my life is now lacking inter-personal
| interactions.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > I think the psychological toll of the lockdowns in different
| countries is highly underestimated.
|
| indeed it is:
|
| _The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it:
| rapid review of the evidence_
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
| mhh__ wrote:
| The slightly weird thing for me is that I'm bored but I'm also
| silently nonplussed about quite a few social venues being shut
| because I simultaneously don't really enjoy but also get FOMO
| over (say) nightclubs - I'm sort of doomed to be perpetually
| normal enough to talk to but odd enough to weird people out.
|
| Basically one less thing to be neurotic about, although the
| fact that of my two real friends one is hard to talk to because
| of a subtle cultural difference and the other clearly only
| tolerates and has clearly reached the stage where a friendship
| bifurcates and people trying to hurt each other suddenly, has
| been cruelly exposed to me.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| I find this very interesting as well. I definitely have felt
| way more anxious during the lockdowns we've had. There's
| definitely a pervasive atmosphere which is very draining even
| though objectively my family have had a very easy time of
| things.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Same, I mean we didn't really go out as a rule anyway, but we
| would go into town for a stroll, shop and a beer or two, or the
| cinema, little things like that.
|
| We're all right, but it's slowly wearing us down. But there's
| people who are seriously worn down by it. I for one am glad I'm
| not alone, I'm not sure I would be in any good mental state
| right now if my girlfriend hadn't moved in two years ago.
|
| I can really imagine the torches and pitchforks more and more.
| Because my country didn't do enough during the summer last
| year, cases spiked after people went back to work and school.
| The measures and carefulness of people failed because things
| kept going on for too long.
|
| And now the government has set a curfew, which messes with the
| only time I actually go out during the day (taking the dog for
| a walk just before midnight). It feels like we're being
| punished for something other people did. They're still handing
| out thousands of tickets a week (although those will likely all
| be voided because a court decided the curfew was introduced on
| the wrong grounds), they're still breaking up a hundred parties
| a week, and there's still millions of people that go to work
| every day even though they can work from home.
|
| At the current rate, it'll take the rest of the year before we
| get to an 80% vaccination rate. I mean I hope things will
| return to a semblance of normality by the summer (last year the
| number of cases went down sharply after flu season finished),
| but I'm afraid we'll be stuck for another year at least.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| You miss the bar or the environment you ingested alcohol in? When
| your brain misses the ethanol high it is reminding you about the
| circumstances and makes you want to repeat it.
| corobo wrote:
| Spoken like a true HNer hahaha
|
| I miss the PEOPLE.
| samgranieri wrote:
| Thank you for posting this. I've missed the spontaneous social
| interaction of meeting up with friends at a bar after work with
| this pandemic going on.
|
| Things are starting to open up a bit in Chicago, but it won't be
| the same for a long time.
| WalterGR wrote:
| On mobile Chrome on iPhone, adjusting the sliders doesn't seem to
| have any effect.
|
| I must be missing something?
| hankchinaski wrote:
| i seem to have issues with safari as well on mac, works on
| chrome
| bmn__ wrote:
| Use the play buttons. They look like a triangle pointing to the
| right.
| WalterGR wrote:
| I'm familiar with play buttons.
|
| Adjusting the sliders does nothing, such as changing the
| playlist. What am I missing?
| bearbawl wrote:
| No it's the same for me.
|
| On mobile, the play/pause buttons work but the sliders don't do
| anything.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| Until people rise up against the restrictions, the restrictions
| will continue and will be more restrictive over time. There's
| always a third, fourth, fifth wave, there's always a new strain
| immune to current vaccines. Just hold on for two weeks so we can
| defeat the virus!
| RhodoGSA wrote:
| I don't really understand why this can get downvoted... Seems
| like pure HN censorship to me. I fully agree. We need to do
| something, whether that be writing your senators, protesting in
| the streets or making your voice heard for what you believe in.
| If you have an opinion that is different from others and your
| opinion is valid. It should never be discounted even if others
| believe it is wrong. Discourse is the key to rational thinking.
| pragmatic8 wrote:
| Indeed. It truly is mind-boggling that certain governments seem
| like they want to literally obliterate the virus and drive the
| number of cases all the way to zero. Heck, why don't they
| enforce a quarantine until the common cold disappears as well?
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