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Check out my Livestream TONIGHT, 8PM Central: Is #dnd Twitter Worse Than the Coronavirus?

Starting in 11 minutes from posting!



[video=youtube_share;RtOwIOW6RIQ]https://youtu.be/RtOwIOW6RIQ[/youtube]

Sorry, new video here:

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SJWs are a disease.

Speaking as a nurse, your advice regarding the uselessness of unfitted N95 respirators is spot on. If it hasn't been fitted properly, it's useless.

Twitter is cancer. (This is a literal statement, not allegory, analogy, simile, or other figure of speech.) Coronavirus is not cancer.

On that basis, Twitter is worse.

No one ever died of Twitter so Chinese Corona Virus is worse.

Quote from: Shasarak;1123303No one ever died of Twitter so Chinese Corona Virus is worse.

I know two cases where someone was driven to suicide. Does that count?

Quote from: Shasarak;1123303No one ever died of Twitter so Chinese Corona Virus is worse.

Agreed. Call me a stick in the mud but I don't feel comparing people being shitty to each other to an epidemic that has killed a bunch of people.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123304I know two cases where someone was driven to suicide. Does that count?

Suicide is never a nice thing to happen and on the other hand it is something that you can take or leave if you please.

Chinese Corona virus does not care what you feel about it.

Are you more likely to get Lyme disease along with the Corona virus?

BTW, if you or anyone you know is crapping themselves about the Coronavirus, please visit the Johns Hopkins website and read the Lancet article. The media is so laughably full of shit, and intentionally so. So in that respect, it's just like DnDTwitter.

Fortunately Johns Hopkins has real data, real facts and real science.

Quote from: DocJones;1123307Are you more likely to get Lyme disease along with the Corona virus?

OMG, that's awesome! I am totally spreading this information!

Twitter has certainly killed many more people in the UK than Coronavirus, and has ruined countless lives.

I don't really accept the idea that suicide is a free choice while dying of a virus is not. Cartesian Dualism isn't real, the mind is an emergent process of a physical organism, and when vulnerable people are driven to kill themselves, those who harassed them into suicide deserve blame at least.

The possible good news is Trump supporting billionaire has bought a chunk of Twitter and now is trying to out Jack Dorsey the CEO and put his own CEO at the helm.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-republican-donor-elliott-management-paul-singer-trump-a9366881.html

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/twitter-paul-singer-republican-jack-dorsey

While I don't know exactly how this new CEO would change Twitter, I imagine the shift would cause mass leaving of SJWs from the company ranks and perhaps even a crackdown on their bizarre rules.

I don't want to dream, but it would be cool if Twitter became a free speech site.

My local chemist had a sign on the door, provided by the NHS, that stated that anyone who had travelled recently to a list of countries on the card should not enter the building. Instead they should go home and call. Something like this.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4186[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Shasarak;1123303No one ever died of Twitter so Chinese Corona Virus is worse.

Agreed and seconded.

I can't believe thAt is even up for debate. Virulent, fatal, disease vs posts online that I don't agree with. The first is infinitely more worse than the second.

I guess it's a slow start of the week for interesting topics for Pundit to use as discussion topics.

Quote from: S'mon;1123321Twitter has certainly killed many more people in the UK than Coronavirus, and has ruined countless lives.

I don't really accept the idea that suicide is a free choice while dying of a virus is not. Cartesian Dualism isn't real, the mind is an emergent process of a physical organism, and when vulnerable people are driven to kill themselves, those who harassed them into suicide deserve blame at least.

That is why the UK has their police chasing after "hate speech" offenders rather then the obviously less dangerous to your mental health knife attackers that prowl the streets of London.

All because no one ever told young UKers that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".  Sad.

Quote from: Shasarak;1123360That is why the UK has their police chasing after "hate speech" offenders rather then the obviously less dangerous to your mental health knife attackers that prowl the streets of London.

All because no one ever told young UKers that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".  Sad.

He he he :D

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123309BTW, if you or anyone you know is crapping themselves about the Coronavirus, please visit the Johns Hopkins website and read the Lancet article. The media is so laughably full of shit, and intentionally so. So in that respect, it's just like DnDTwitter.

Fortunately Johns Hopkins has real data, real facts and real science.



OMG, that's awesome! I am totally spreading this information!

Real Data, and Real Facts, and Real Science: Coronavirus kills about 2-3% of those infected (flu kills 0.05-0.10%) and transmits at roughly double the rate of the flu. Which means if it spreads at just the same rate as the flu, you have a pandemic which exceeds the 1918 pandemic.

I am not saying panic. I am however saying this "I am too cool to worry and all of you are suckers if you are concerned" attitude will look like shit if it spreads like the flu. There is a rational position between "Panic" and "Meh no worries".

No matter how bad it is, panic will not help, it will always make things worse.

Quote from: Mistwell;1123371Real Data, and Real Facts, and Real Science:

Source?

Death rate is higher for people with cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. Also higher the older you are. As a 48 year old with cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes, yeah I'm worried. Am I panicked? Nope. But I am working from home, stocking up on shit, and taking precautions.

Also, every info source is saying that we don't know exactly the current spread, nor will we know the current fatality rate until we know the rate of infection, nor will we have a vaccine soon, nor do we fully understand how the virus works. Yet. So, I would be skeptical of any "news" reporting that someone now magically knows all this.

I'm also pretty sure Jim Baker's magic Jesus juice won't prevent infection.

Some useful information sources that I've seen:

World Health Organization report on Joint Mission with China:
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf

China CDC paper on the outbreak (with estimates on mortality):
http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51

Quote from: trechriron;1123375I'm also pretty sure Jim Baker's magic Jesus juice won't prevent infection.

Certainly not with that attitude.

Quote from: trechriron;1123375Also, every info source is saying that we don't know exactly the current spread, nor will we know the current fatality rate until we know the rate of infection, nor will we have a vaccine soon, nor do we fully understand how the virus works. Yet. So, I would be skeptical of any "news" reporting that someone now magically knows all this.

Yup.

Quote from: trechriron;1123375Death rate is higher for people with cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes.  (snip)

Imagine the coronavirus hanging out with other viruses and looking at pictures from gaming conventions in the USA, in particular: "That's where I'm going! That's the promised land!"

Quote from: Mistwell;1123371Which means if it spreads at just the same rate as the flu, you have a pandemic which exceeds the 1918 pandemic.

LOL. It's not 1918. I'm sticking with "meh no worries".

By the summer, the MSM will be telling us of a new, dire world ender BUT THIS TIME ITS 4 REALZ!!!!!

Sorry, just too many vested political interests in promoting panic, with the MSM being the first and foremost culprits. "If it bleeds, it leads" is not just their motto, its how they pay their salaries. Keeping viewers scared (and dependent) is good business.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123406LOL. It's not 1918. I'm sticking with "meh no worries".

By the summer, the MSM will be telling us of a new, dire world ender BUT THIS TIME ITS 4 REALZ!!!!!

Sorry, just too many vested political interests in promoting panic, with the MSM being the first and foremost culprits. "If it bleeds, it leads" is not just their motto, its how they pay their salaries. Keeping viewers scared (and dependent) is good business.

From personal reflection - I've just been on a work trip to South Korea, where I left on February 17th, and got back to the U.S. on March 1st. (I returned 3 days early because of the epidemic.) At the time I went over there, there were only 30 confirmed cases of covid-19 within the whole country, and no deaths yet reported. When I left, there were over 3000 cases with over a dozen deaths.

That's over just two weeks. This is not a world-ender by any stretch, but it's a very serious situation.

I'm fine with ignoring sensationalist media, but in this case it's not just a media thing. The governments of many countries are taking many extreme measures to contain or at least reduce the spread, based on the health agency reports.

Twitter is definitely worse than Coronavirus in the literal sense; one will just kill you, the other will rot your brain and morph you into a blob of stupidity.

That said, cases around here are already cropping up because people are fucking morons. Some lady went to the mall after being quarantined, tested twice for no virus, leaves, then tests positive after she went to the food court. Like, wtf...so now that mall is closed, of course. Also, everyone in my family got sick for a week with all sorts of weird flu-like symptoms that matched up to what the virus was supposed to do, both kids and my wife were on antibiotics (like that'll do anything), and are now finally feeling better. I just drank a lot of whiskey, which seems to have done the trick. Dunno if it's Coronavirus, but there is some serious shit going around.

Yes, this is way overhyped, but overhyped crap causes legitimate problems like runs on food (local Costco was pretty bare when I went, Walmart is barely keeping stuff on the shelves), so I stocked up with a month of water and beans and rice just in case. It doesn't really matter how real the threat is, the perceived threat is what causes issues, so honestly just be prepared. Also, this is a REALLY good time to work on your RPG campaigns. Not supposed to be going outside and mingling so much, work on your game and play with your family.

Quote from: Brad;1123418both kids and my wife were on antibiotics (like that'll do anything).

Assuming that what they had was a viral infection, the antibiotics will do nothing directly to help with that, but they might be used to treat a concurrent bacterial infection that's taking advantage of a besieged immune system. They could even be given prophylactically to guard against potential bacterial issues, but the benefits vs. risk there is somewhat more questionable.

Quote from: jhkim;1123417From personal reflection - I've just been on a work trip to South Korea, where I left on February 17th, and got back to the U.S. on March 1st. (I returned 3 days early because of the epidemic.) At the time I went over there, there were only 30 confirmed cases of covid-19 within the whole country, and no deaths yet reported. When I left, there were over 3000 cases with over a dozen deaths.

South Korea also has cultural habits like communal meals. Sharing a spoon to eat soup out of the same bowl type of communal meals. Takes a lot of government advertising to tell people to stop doing stupid things, especially when everyone understandably considers government advertising to be inherently untrustworthy.

I feel extremely safe in Hong Kong because everyone around me is wearing surgical masks, so there is no danger of them spraying me with bodily fluid. You can buy surgical masks again if you're willing to pay profiteers' prices (and if you are delusional enough to think they will protect you from the virus). The toilet paper panic has now subsided and supermarkets are struggling to find room for their overstock, especially with everyone now having enough supply to last the rest of the year. There is a general fear that your office building or the country you just went on holiday to becomes labelled a "risk" because then you get sent to a concentration camp (a.k.a. recently completed public housing development) with no internet or TV and meals that make hospital food look like Michelin Star cuisine. Nobody quarantined there so far has actually been infected.

I've been working from home since Chinese New Year, which is great because even with having to learn a whole bunch of new software so we can keep teaching online I am saving massive amounts of time by not having my Dean and other hangers-on randomly wandering into my office and wasting my day with pointless discussion and make-work. My RPG productivity has shot up. Not looking forward to going back to campus next week - especially as students are still not coming back, but hey, according to Admin a university runs much more smoothly without all those pesky students getting underfoot. My main take-away from this is that university campuses are obsolete and we should have been doing all this online decades ago.

Covid 19 is bad in the sense of people reacting like headless chickens and causing a zombie-apocalypse without actual zombies, but hopefully it will blow over when the virus inevitably dies out. #DnD Twitter is worse because it will only mutate into an even more harmful form of social media when Twitter inevitably dies out.

A friend from the UK was surprised about the panic in the USA. I assured her that Americans - because our lives are so easy in the modern age - just LOVE to panic and LARP that the world is ending, but there's no need to worry because Americans also don't have any attention span.

Quote from: jhkim;1123417That's over just two weeks. This is not a world-ender by any stretch, but it's a very serious situation.

How many people died of the flu in South Korea in those same two weeks? Or from car accidents?

And were these elderly people? Immocompromised people? AKA, how many of the South Korean deaths were outside of the vulnerable population? That's the number that would matter.

I agree its a "serious situation" from the standpoint we are getting to see how far and wide a bioweapon could spread. We're just lucky that this time its just a +1 Flu. However, the next time we see a virus spread this far and this fast, it might actually be a nasty killer.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123511How many people died of the flu in South Korea in those same two weeks? Or from car accidents?

The problem is that mortality rate is relative, and this damn virus could bring about an organizational collapse of the healthcare system.

In Italy we have so far approx. 4% mortality (148 out of 3858), with the "average" profile of the dead being 81 years old and with 2 or 3 preexisting conditions. So, from this point of view it should look "safe enough".
However, we also have approx. 10% of cases which need hospitalization in intensive care units. Those are obviously quite limited in number. If the virus spreads, those units will all become full. At that point, the mortality could quite easily jump to 9% since, realistically, most of those requiring intensive care would die without access to it.

Then of course you have ALL OTHER CAUSES of being sent in intensive care which jump up in lethality, as well. You just got a stroke? Oops, sorry, all intensive units are full with virus patients. Sucks to be you.

And this is just from an healthcare point of view. Let's start talking about the economic damage. Tourism is down by over 70%. Hotels, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms, bars, pubs, clubs etc. are all experiencing massive downturns. It's a fucking disaster.

It's interesting and both funny to see Pundit complain about the popularity of Critical Role wishes he had the same amount of viewers then decides to post truly stupid shit like this where Twitter is worse than a fatal virus. Essentially condemning himself to eventual obscurity as gamers won't take someone like that seriously. I'm not a fan of D&D twitter by any means you know I'm also not comparing it say to Stage 4 Cancer.

Quote from: Luca;1123520The problem is that mortality rate is relative, and this damn virus could bring about an organizational collapse of the healthcare system.

In Italy we have so far approx. 4% mortality (148 out of 3858), with the "average" profile of the dead being 81 years old and with 2 or 3 preexisting conditions. So, from this point of view it should look "safe enough".
However, we also have approx. 10% of cases which need hospitalization in intensive care units. Those are obviously quite limited in number. If the virus spreads, those units will all become full. At that point, the mortality could quite easily jump to 9% since, realistically, most of those requiring intensive care would die without access to it.

Then of course you have ALL OTHER CAUSES of being sent in intensive care which jump up in lethality, as well. You just got a stroke? Oops, sorry, all intensive units are full with virus patients. Sucks to be you.

If that's how your system fills ICUs, then healtcare in Italy has some problems that are quite independent of the virus.

Quote from: sureshot;1123521It's interesting and both funny to see Pundit complain about the popularity of Critical Role wishes he had the same amount of viewers then decides to post truly stupid shit like this where Twitter is worse than a fatal virus. Essentially condemning himself to eventual obscurity as gamers won't take someone like that seriously. I'm not a fan of D&D twitter by any means you know I'm also not comparing it say to Stage 4 Cancer.

Greetings!

Sureshot, I think it helps to see Pundit as having a sense of humour. Of course there's no comparison, and it is something of a ridiculous comparison at that. Isn't that ok, though? Part of Pundit's appeal is his humour, his sometimes over-the-top titles and framing and so forth.

*shrugs* I laughed with Pundit about it. His main discussion points are about the toxicity of Twitter.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1123528Sureshot, I think it helps to see Pundit as having a sense of humour.

I think this is the trick to looking at anyone on the internet and not exploding with unnecessary outrage. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and I don't expect everyone to be deadly serious at all times (or at any time, really) while on a gaming forum or while making gaming posts. I likewise don't try to be all that serious most of the time in such places either because I'm in them to have fun.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1123558I think this is the trick to looking at anyone on the internet and not exploding with unnecessary outrage. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and I don't expect everyone to be deadly serious at all times (or at any time, really) while on a gaming forum or while making gaming posts. I likewise don't try to be all that serious most of the time in such places either because I'm in them to have fun.

Greetings!

Exactly, HappyDaze! After all this time knowing Pundit, don't we expect Pundit to say some outrageous, exaggerated things to make us laugh, or think? I expect some of his video titles to be crazy, so as to gain attention. That's the internet baby! You know? That's how you grow an audience, gain fans, members, and *customers*. Pundit *must* be provocative and a bit crazy all the time to keep the train moving.

Pundit is reasonable, rational, and is also quite funny. I suppose it requires one to watch and listen to his videos and livestreams to get a sense of this.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: HappyDaze;1123558I think this is the trick to looking at anyone on the internet and not exploding with unnecessary outrage. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and I don't expect everyone to be deadly serious at all times (or at any time, really) while on a gaming forum or while making gaming posts. I likewise don't try to be all that serious most of the time in such places either because I'm in them to have fun.

Greetings!

Exactly, HappyDaze! I wrote a response earlier, and it seems to have vanished. Well, I agree entirely with you. Gotta have fun, and be a bit crazy!:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Shasarak;1123306Suicide is never a nice thing to happen and on the other hand it is something that you can take or leave if you please.

Chinese Corona virus does not care what you feel about it.

Which has nothing to do with the point I'm challenging, does it?

Quote from: S'mon;1123321Twitter has certainly killed many more people in the UK than Coronavirus,

Sources?

Quote from: S'mon;1123321I don't really accept the idea that suicide is a free choice while dying of a virus is not. Cartesian Dualism isn't real, the mind is an emergent process of a physical organism, and when vulnerable people are driven to kill themselves, those who harassed them into suicide deserve blame at least.

Careful there. Almost sounds like you're calling words violence.

Quote from: Shasarak;1123360That is why the UK has their police chasing after "hate speech" offenders rather then the obviously less dangerous to your mental health knife attackers that prowl the streets of London.

What's worse, the UK Police are also #TERFs!

Quote from: jhkim;1123417From personal reflection - I've just been on a work trip to South Korea, where I left on February 17th, and got back to the U.S. on March 1st. (I returned 3 days early because of the epidemic.) At the time I went over there, there were only 30 confirmed cases of covid-19 within the whole country, and no deaths yet reported. When I left, there were over 3000 cases with over a dozen deaths.

That's over just two weeks. This is not a world-ender by any stretch, but it's a very serious situation.

I'm fine with ignoring sensationalist media, but in this case it's not just a media thing. The governments of many countries are taking many extreme measures to contain or at least reduce the spread, based on the health agency reports.

South Korea and Japan are the only places I trust for accurate numbers at this point.

Quote from: Vile;1123432I feel extremely safe in Hong Kong because everyone around me is wearing surgical masks,

To be fair they got a head start :D

Quote from: Luca;1123520The problem is that mortality rate is relative, and this damn virus could bring about an organizational collapse of the healthcare system.

In Italy we have so far approx. 4% mortality (148 out of 3858), with the "average" profile of the dead being 81 years old and with 2 or 3 preexisting conditions. So, from this point of view it should look "safe enough".
However, we also have approx. 10% of cases which need hospitalization in intensive care units. Those are obviously quite limited in number. If the virus spreads, those units will all become full. At that point, the mortality could quite easily jump to 9% since, realistically, most of those requiring intensive care would die without access to it.

Then of course you have ALL OTHER CAUSES of being sent in intensive care which jump up in lethality, as well. You just got a stroke? Oops, sorry, all intensive units are full with virus patients. Sucks to be you.

And this is just from an healthcare point of view. Let's start talking about the economic damage. Tourism is down by over 70%. Hotels, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms, bars, pubs, clubs etc. are all experiencing massive downturns. It's a fucking disaster.

#This

Quote from: HappyDaze;1123526If that's how your system fills ICUs, then healtcare in Italy has some problems that are quite independent of the virus.

Hate to break it to you, but that's how ICUs will be filling up everywhere.

Quote from: sureshot;1123521It's interesting and both funny to see Pundit complain about the popularity of Critical Role wishes he had the same amount of viewers then decides to post truly stupid shit like this where Twitter is worse than a fatal virus. Essentially condemning himself to eventual obscurity as gamers won't take someone like that seriously. I'm not a fan of D&D twitter by any means you know I'm also not comparing it say to Stage 4 Cancer.

What's even funnier is this thread really belongs in The RPGPundit's Own Forum as it has little to do with RPGs.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123576Which has nothing to do with the point I'm challenging, does it?

To your point, no it does not count.  2 people out of all the people you know is statistically insignificant.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123576Hate to break it to you, but that's how ICUs will be filling up everywhere.

Not trying to be funny here, but you're wrong. I say this as someone that has been lead bed manager for an entity (single hospital), alternate lead for a system (five hospitals), and trained up to state-level responses in natural disaster, mass casualty, and epidemic situations.

Quote from: Shasarak;1123585To your point, no it does not count.  2 people out of all the people you know is statistically insignificant.

That's also not the point, as your statement was...

Quote from: Shasarak;1123303No one ever died of Twitter so Chinese Corona Virus is worse.

...bold mine.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1123597Not trying to be funny here, but you're wrong. I say this as someone that has been lead bed manager for an entity (single hospital), alternate lead for a system (five hospitals), and trained up to state-level responses in natural disaster, mass casualty, and epidemic situations.

I truly hope you're right, especially when it comes to NY.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123601That's also not the point, as your statement was...



...bold mine.

No one has died of Twitter.

Early in the week, my local Trader Joes' grocery market got featured in one of those "behold all the shelves are empty!" apocalypse news stories. LA won't have food or water!! Oh noes!!! So I went there yesterday and the shelves were full and it was a nice shopping trip since I'd estimate we had 20% less retarded customers.

So the virus is already paying me dividends. If the panic keeps going, I'm thinking a Disneyland day would involve barely any lines!

Quote from: Luca;1123520Let's start talking about the economic damage. Tourism is down by over 70%. Hotels, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms, bars, pubs, clubs etc. are all experiencing massive downturns. It's a fucking disaster.

That's far more the MSM pushing the panic narrative than any actual damage from the virus.  

We will see how mighty this virus remains when flu season ends. Maybe it will be the MSM's wet dream and keep rocking the numbers, or not. Either way, Americans are gonna get bored with it in a couple of weeks.

In regards to DnDTwitter, can someone link or post tweets that give us a feel for why its a total dumpster fire?

Outside of meme compilations, everything I've seen on Twitter has been a laughable dumpster fire so I'm unsure what makes the DnDTwitter world even worse.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123576Which has nothing to do with the point I'm challenging, does it?
What's worse, the UK Police are also #TERFs!

I am sure Kate Scottow would disagree with that.

Quote from: SHARK;1123528Greetings!

Sureshot, I think it helps to see Pundit as having a sense of humour. Of course there's no comparison, and it is something of a ridiculous comparison at that. Isn't that ok, though? Part of Pundit's appeal is his humour, his sometimes over-the-top titles and framing and so forth.

*shrugs* I laughed with Pundit about it. His main discussion points are about the toxicity of Twitter.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

If it was anyone else I might think it was a joke. Knowing Pundit and his view. He seriously might think that D&D Twitter is worse than a fatal disease.

He is not doing himself any favors with trying to get more subscribers. I'm not politically correct by any means yet review games and get over the fact that D&D Twitter is not the place for him. I'm pretty sure we will probably see in a few months Story Games are worse than Stage 4 Cancer or something similar.

It stops being funny when the person posting topics uses the same posting tactic over and over.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123612In regards to DnDTwitter, can someone link or post tweets that give us a feel for why its a total dumpster fire?

Outside of meme compilations, everything I've seen on Twitter has been a laughable dumpster fire so I'm unsure what makes the DnDTwitter world even worse.

I can think of one. Ever heard of Zweihander? The guy in charge of the Twitter handle for it is a good indication of how much of a dumpster fire it is. The ones supporting his behavior in the comments below this tweet are much worse.

https://twitter.com/ZweihanderRPG/status/1235562042116931585

Also, when OneAngryGamer covered what that company was doing, a bunch of TTRPG hashtag squatters and ZH 'players' came and said more companies should act like this, I.E. outright tell potential customers to get lost and that they don't want their money. (Look for the ones with more Likes on their comments.)

EDIT: I look forward to the moment when these folks attempt to shame Billy and the other commentators on the site itself. They'll run away crying relatively quickly.

https://twitter.com/OneAngryGamerHD/status/1236283076973678592

Quote from: SHARK;1123560After all this time knowing Pundit, don't we expect Pundit to say some outrageous, exaggerated things to make us laugh, or think? I expect some of his video titles to be crazy, so as to gain attention. That's the internet baby! You know? That's how you grow an audience, gain fans, members, and *customers*. Pundit *must* be provocative and a bit crazy all the time to keep the train moving.

I would agree that the Internet is full of people who say over-the-top idiotic shit and get rewarded for it.

I personally see this as a trend to oppose, though, rather than something to defend.

Apropos the original topic, I haven't looked at the DnD Twitter channel, but from my little experience with Twitter in general, I have an extremely low opinion of it as a mode of communication. I'm against the trends of clickbait, outrage, emotion, and sound bites.

Quote from: jhkim;1123629I would agree that the Internet is full of people who say over-the-top idiotic shit and get rewarded for it.

I personally see this as a trend to oppose, though, rather than something to defend.

Apropos the original topic, I haven't looked at the DnD Twitter channel, but from my little experience with Twitter in general, I have an extremely low opinion of it as a mode of communication. I'm against the trends of clickbait, outrage, emotion, and sound bites.

Greetings!

Well, of course you are against such techniques and marketing, Jhkim. You and others have that luxury. Pundit however, isn't merely engaged in discussing his or other's opinions to pass the time of day. Pundit is running an online, digital business. If you are not provocative and attention-getting, you go fucking broke, Jhkim.:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1123631Greetings!

Well, of course you are against such techniques and marketing, Jhkim. You and others have that luxury. Pundit however, isn't merely engaged in discussing his or other's opinions to pass the time of day. Pundit is running an online, digital business. If you are not provocative and attention-getting, you go fucking broke, Jhkim.:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

So it's basically, "Become a joke or go/remain broke" then?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1123632So it's basically, "Become a joke or go/remain broke" then?

Greetings!

Well, HappyDaze, I wouldn't characterize Pundit as doing that. I can appreciate a sense of humour. There's a tenuous analogy between Twitter and the Corona virus, or any virulent disease. I see that connection that Pundit is highlighting, even if others do not. It's just being provocative, and amusing. I'm not seeing what the whiners are crying about. I listened and watched Pundit's video. Pundit talks about how crazy Twitter is, and so on.

There seems to be a cadre of people that like to whine and criticize Pundit's videos or his subject titles, whatever they are and whatever they happen to be on. It doesn't matter what Pundit is talking about, these people seem to think that Pundit is some hateful, crass and stupid buffoon no matter what he does or says. I think that such knee-jerk criticism is baseless and shallow. It is just being obtusely critical because these people don't like Pundit in general.

As I mentioned, I watched Pundit's video. He is spot on in everything he discusses, and is pretty funny as well. In that light, I just see his title comparing the two as exaggerated and provocative, and humorous.:D

From a business perspective, I am familiar with at least some of the elements that go into building a digital business. There is definitely a strategy and market to being provocative, and attention-getting. And yes, Twitter is a significant part of that. Along with Facebook, You-Tube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Discord. I imagine there are some more I am not aware of or familiar with. Video length and run time, bold titles, constant interaction in these mediums, being provocative, attracting viewers and "eyeballs" to your products, website, and brand is a constant mission, and hugely important. From what I have seen, if you do not maintain a visible, active, and even provocative presence and identity, yeah, you significantly increase the likelihood of being swallowed up into obscurity and going broke. That is just the dynamic reality of the digital marketplace.:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1123639Greetings!

Well, HappyDaze, I wouldn't characterize Pundit as doing that. I can appreciate a sense of humour. There's a tenuous analogy between Twitter and the Corona virus, or any virulent disease. I see that connection that Pundit is highlighting, even if others do not. It's just being provocative, and amusing. I'm not seeing what the whiners are crying about. I listened and watched Pundit's video. Pundit talks about how crazy Twitter is, and so on.

There seems to be a cadre of people that like to whine and criticize Pundit's videos or his subject titles, whatever they are and whatever they happen to be on. It doesn't matter what Pundit is talking about, these people seem to think that Pundit is some hateful, crass and stupid buffoon no matter what he does or says. I think that such knee-jerk criticism is baseless and shallow. It is just being obtusely critical because these people don't like Pundit in general.

As I mentioned, I watched Pundit's video. He is spot on in everything he discusses, and is pretty funny as well. In that light, I just see his title comparing the two as exaggerated and provocative, and humorous.:D

From a business perspective, I am familiar with at least some of the elements that go into building a digital business. There is definitely a strategy and market to being provocative, and attention-getting. And yes, Twitter is a significant part of that. Along with Facebook, You-Tube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Discord. I imagine there are some more I am not aware of or familiar with. Video length and run time, bold titles, constant interaction in these mediums, being provocative, attracting viewers and "eyeballs" to your products, website, and brand is a constant mission, and hugely important. From what I have seen, if you do not maintain a visible, active, and even provocative presence and identity, yeah, you significantly increase the likelihood of being swallowed up into obscurity and going broke. That is just the dynamic reality of the digital marketplace.:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I agree. I didn't mean to imply that Pundit's points are necessarily foolish or inaccurate, just that he has to build up a sensationalized online persona to peddle those points to internet audiences. I would image that outside of environs where he has to maintain such trappings, he may convey the same views without the over-the-top sensationalism. I'd be interested in taking part in such conversations, but I'm not really in the core target audience for most media presentations.

Quote from: Shasarak;1123604No one has died of Twitter.

Guns don't kill people, it's the people using them.

Am I doing it right?

Quote from: AgentBJ09;1123625I can think of one. Ever heard of Zweihander? The guy in charge of the Twitter handle for it is a good indication of how much of a dumpster fire it is. The ones supporting his behavior in the comments below this tweet are much worse.

https://twitter.com/ZweihanderRPG/status/1235562042116931585

#Twitter considers the #Tweet he's #Retweeting as potentially sensitive content. So I clicked, and found #Twitter also considers the #Tweet that #Tweet is #Retweeting to be potentially sensitive content.

Apparently discussing #Zweihander is potentially sensitive.

Quote from: AgentBJ09;1123625Also, when OneAngryGamer covered what that company was doing, a bunch of TTRPG hashtag squatters and ZH 'players' came and said more companies should act like this, I.E. outright tell potential customers to get lost and that they don't want their money. (Look for the ones with more Likes on their comments.)

EDIT: I look forward to the moment when these folks attempt to shame Billy and the other commentators on the site itself. They'll run away crying relatively quickly.

https://twitter.com/OneAngryGamerHD/status/1236283076973678592

Even r/KotakuInAction blacklists OAG, and with good reason.

Sorry but the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and overlooking genuine racism/antisemitism just because someone aligns with you in other areas is a huge part of the problem.

This isn't RPGPundit's first (or last) clickbait title. That's how the internet rolls, especially on YouTube.

People aren't clicking on your BBQ Chicken recipe. It's gotta be "Easiest, Most Mouthwatering BBQ Chicken EVARRRRR!!!!" or "You will NEVER eat BBQ chicken after viewing this secret!" Then you gotta tag it for the ASMR weirdos.

It's the nature of competition for eyeballs. Hyperbole and outrage elicits emotional response and thus, draws interest.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123649Sorry but the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and overlooking genuine racism/antisemitism just because someone aligns with you in other areas is a huge part of the problem.

You're right that "enemy of my enemy =/= friend"

But in 2020, words like "racism" and "antisemitism" are nonsense noise. It's just "I don't want that person to speak".

I don't know OAG, but he can't be any more despicable than the clowns the MSM celebrates.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123649Even r/KotakuInAction blacklists OAG, and with good reason.

Sorry but the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and overlooking genuine racism/antisemitism just because someone aligns with you in other areas is a huge part of the problem.

A quick look at https://www.oneangrygamer.net/ doesn't reveal any racism/antisemitism. Maybe it's well hidden.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1123645Guns don't kill people, it's the people using them.

Am I doing it right?

So now DnD Twitter = Guns?

I would have believed you if you had said that DnD Twitter = Fully Automatic Armour Piercing Round Autocannon = Kill People.

Quote from: jhkim;1123629I'm against the trends of clickbait, outrage, emotion, and sound bites.

I agree with you, but it's not a trend. It's been with us since newspaper headlines, maybe since town criers. Can you imagine teens and young criers trying to compete for bigger crowds with more girls listening to their daily town cries? And knowing young guys, its easy to imagine the news of the day getting massaged to maximize the crowd.

Look at the tweet as a concept of communication. It's got 280 characters. AKA, a space too small for nuance, but just right for an outrage bomb. And you want your tweet to gain more attention than any other tweets in people's feeds. In fact, your prime goal is re-tweets in order to gain more followers. Thus, its in your best interest to go for maximum effect with every tweet.

Social media is a symptom of our diseased civilization. It's perfect for our zero attention world.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1123649Even r/KotakuInAction blacklists OAG, and with good reason.

Sorry but the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and overlooking genuine racism/antisemitism just because someone aligns with you in other areas is a huge part of the problem.

Not my concern frankly. If what gets posted there is too reactionary by your view, then start a similar blog and try to do their job without what you find objectionable. Keep in mind though, even if you try to play neutral, as KIA as found by being on Reddit, you'll always have a target on your back.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123651You're right that "enemy of my enemy =/= friend"

But in 2020, words like "racism" and "antisemitism" are nonsense noise. It's just "I don't want that person to speak".

I don't know OAG, but he can't be any more despicable than the clowns the MSM celebrates.

They aren't. The only reason they get that reputation is because, unlike other blogs, they don't censor because someone got their feelings hurt, and Billy tends to fight back instead of stay quiet, which I prefer to see.

Matter of fact, as some have pointed out, OAG is close to the only independent blog that keeps consistent track of the infiltration of SJWs into the anime and gaming spheres, among others.

As a Jew, I gotta say too many jews throw around antisemitism as a quick way to shut people down. I find it disgusting. Its like using your mother as a human shield.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1123744As a Jew, I gotta say too many jews throw around antisemitism as a quick way to shut people down. I find it disgusting. Its like using your mother as a human shield.

Agreed, but even though we may find it abhorrent, the fact that, like those other words, it's so useful at killing conversations is all that tends to matter these days.

Hyperbole is apparently a sin in the eyes of several people in this forum.

There's a very real discussion that could be had on whether or not Social Media has been worse for the world than Coronavirus, but at this point, I don't think anyone saying "Twitter is worse than the Coronavirus" actually means that. It's the same as saying "X is the Cancer that is killing Y". It's Hyperbole. It's fun, and it has more of an impact than saying, "Gee whiz golly, that D&D Twitter sure is the pits, ain't it?"

Getting huffy about it, and going "Oh well, how dare you say it's worse than the Coronavirus! How can you be so insensitive!" is just another form of Virtue Signaling.

I have told you a million times that I just can not stand hyperbole.

Quote from: Orphan81;1123779There's a very real discussion that could be had on whether or not Social Media has been worse for the world than Coronavirus,

Please start that thread in RPGPundit's forum!

Quote from: Shasarak;1123780I have told you a million times that I just can not stand hyperbole.

In the Munchkin game, some cards grant you +1 Level. Shasarak's post is what that looks like in real life.

Kudos you glorious kiwi weirdo!

Quote from: AgentBJ09;1123625I can think of one. Ever heard of Zweihander? The guy in charge of the Twitter handle for it is a good indication of how much of a dumpster fire it is. The ones supporting his behavior in the comments below this tweet are much worse.

https://twitter.com/ZweihanderRPG/status/1235562042116931585

Also, when OneAngryGamer covered what that company was doing, a bunch of TTRPG hashtag squatters and ZH 'players' came and said more companies should act like this, I.E. outright tell potential customers to get lost and that they don't want their money. (Look for the ones with more Likes on their comments.)

EDIT: I look forward to the moment when these folks attempt to shame Billy and the other commentators on the site itself. They'll run away crying relatively quickly.

https://twitter.com/OneAngryGamerHD/status/1236283076973678592

The best part is how many supporters of acting like a dumbass (trying to lose money on a game) do not actually have a copy of the book themselves....His cheerleaders have given him zero dollars, and the guy who feels trying to make real world sjw claptrap into game is a bad idea is the only one on the thread who I think has ACTUALLY BOUGHT THE GAME....

This thread is not aging well.

Erik Tenkar in the hospital on oxygen with pneumonia, from what he thought was con crud from TotalCon in Massachusetts but which may turn out to be Corona Virus. Waiting now for his test to come back but he's in the ICU and in isolation.

But you know, it's all media hype, right?

Quote from: Mistwell;1123975...

Erik Tenkar in the hospital on oxygen with pneumonia...

Damn. My thoughts go out to him, his friends, and family. May he roll a critical success and defeat this thing!

Quote from: Mistwell;1123975This thread is not aging well.

Erik Tenkar in the hospital on oxygen with pneumonia, from what he thought was con crud from TotalCon in Massachusetts but which may turn out to be Corona Virus. Waiting now for his test to come back but he's in the ICU and in isolation.

But you know, it's all media hype, right?

Greetings!

OMG! I hope he gets better fucking soon! ICU and isolation? Geesus. That's terrible, Mistwell. I shall pray for Erik tonight.

Damn. That's so fucked up. I hope the doctors are doing everything they can!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Mistwell;1123975But you know, it's all media hype, right?

1000 cases with a 98% recovery rate in a nation of 350 million?

Yeah, it's unbelievably overblown media hype.

I hope Erik recovers quickly and pneumonia is absolutely no joke (it killed my dad last year), but there's plenty of ways to get pneumonia without the Wuhan bat soup special. In fact, the current flu season in the USA has whacked between 20,000 and 50,000 people with more than 350,000 hospitalizations. That's not me pulling numbers out of my ass. That's the CDC talking.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

Quote from: SHARK;1123979ICU and isolation?

That's standard for pneumonia.

Hospitals don't fuck around with pneumonia because you can easily become septic, and swiftly go from sick to dead. Isolation is required because pneumonia is highly contagious and people in hospitals are already sick with weakened immune system so "hospital acquired pneumonia" is extremely common. As for ICU, that's because pneumonia patients are put on 24/7 heart monitors and the nurse's station has a RN doing nothing but watching screens for weird blips that might warn about a pneumonia patient going septic.

Fortunately for Erik, pneumonia treatment has advanced tremendously in just the past two decades.

Here's some nasty facts about hospital acquired pneumonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital-acquired_pneumonia

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123988That's standard for pneumonia.

Hospitals don't fuck around with pneumonia because you can easily become septic, and swiftly go from sick to dead. Isolation is required because pneumonia is highly contagious and people in hospitals are already sick with weakened immune system so "hospital acquired pneumonia" is extremely common. As for ICU, that's because pneumonia patients are put on 24/7 heart monitors and the nurse's station has a RN doing nothing but watching screens for weird blips that might warn about a pneumonia patient going septic.

Fortunately for Erik, pneumonia treatment has advanced tremendously in just the past two decades.

Here's some nasty facts about hospital acquired pneumonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital-acquired_pneumonia

Only some forms of pneumonia are contagious, just as only some forms of meningitis are contagious. It all comes down to the causative agent. Hospital acquired pneumonia is not always one of the contagious varieties; quite often it is simply related to prolonged immobility (from bedrest and lack of ambulation) resulting from other diagnoses, and thus is something that is considered a fully preventable condition through proper care.

Also, in a full service range hospital, a pneumonia patient would typically requires ICU when needing a ventilator. If all they need is remote telemetry monitoring, they can be kept on PCU or med-tele floors with considerably less costs and personnel requirements. Of course, some smaller hospital systems lack such intermediate levels of care and suffer for it by having to send patients to unnecessarily higher levels of care (with associated higher costs too).

I keep hearing of cases of Con crud. WTF is is with gamers and basic hygiene. Wash your fucking hands you lazy bastards/bitches!

It makes me not want to go to conventions. Then again in the West it seems we have a very naive attitude when it comes to this kind of thing "nah  everyone else but me will get sick am I right".

Quote from: Mistwell;1123975But you know, it's all media hype, right?

100% media hype with the intent to induce mass hysteria. Erik Tenkar already had health problems from what I understand and he's not exactly a young guy; the poster case for coronavirus. He should recover in a week or two.

People are so stupid they've turned what is really just a bad flu into a Black Plague-level disease in their minds but won't do simple things like stay home if they're sick or wash their fucking hands. I can't buy toilet paper but the shelves are stocked with food. Do any of these morons realize you're not going to be taking a dump when you're starving? Idiots.

Quote from: Spinachcat;11239871000 cases with a 98% recovery rate in a nation of 350 million?

That recovery rate is garbage. The median time to death from someone first showing symptoms is 14 days, and 14 days ago, the US had less than 20 infected. Even 7 days ago, the number was under 200. There's no way to measure a recovery rate because most of the initial wave are still fighting the disease.

Yes, China contained it. But they used draconian measures, and we're seeing community spread in many other nations, who have not imposed similar controls. The WHO's case fatality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4%, and the Spanish flu affected 27% of the world's population in 1918. If a similar spread is reached, we could be looking at worldwide fatalities in the 70 million range, or about 3 million in the US, which is century's worth of typical flu seasons. The one promising piece of evidence is South Korea, where they tested the hell out of everyone and ended up with a CFR of 0.8%. It's quite possible that they were better at catching all the people who were asymptomatic or had milder cases, and the CFR is higher in other countries because they're missing all those cases. Which is good news for the final death toll (drops to 15 million worldwide, or 700K in the US), but bad news because it means for every case we've identified, there are another 4 or 5 unidentified people out there spreading the disease.

Still off topic, but this may be of interest to people.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0309-covid-19-update.html (https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0309-covid-19-update.html)

This is a gaming related review of the spread of the Wuhan Virus:


[ATTACH=CONFIG]4204[/ATTACH] (https://www.zmescience.com/other/pieces/the-weird-world-of-warcraft-pandemic-of-2005/)

Oopsie-poopsie! Looks like the almighty world-shaking virus is already flopping out in Wuhan.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/03/11/when-can-we-expect-travel-to-return-to-normal-apple-reopens-90-of-china-stores-and-wuhan-closes-the-last-temporary-coronavirus-hospital/#3dbea3e45bc5

But I must agree with the MSM that the coronavirus will have long reaching effects.

As of tonight, the USA has 40 dead and 1660 cases. In the face of these teeny tiny numbers, we have curled into the fetal position as a nation. The long reaching effect is that we have shown every terrorist and enemy government the USA is a nation of emasculated cowards who will piss themselves over a minor event. We've shown everyone that even a minor bioweapon would collapse our nation.

Quote from: Shasarak;1123360That is why the UK has their police chasing after "hate speech" offenders rather then the obviously less dangerous to your mental health knife attackers that prowl the streets of London.

All because no one ever told young UKers that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".  Sad.

And this was an emotional serial rapists flunkies defense of their actions. "Words cant hurt you!"

Problem is. Words can hurt you in various ways when used by someone malicious. Especially those that predate on the trust or affections of others just so they can destroy a person. For fun.

And "cancel culture" is all about harming people with just words.

Storygamers and SJWs have been ruining things and people for years now just with words.

And thats how we ended up with our x cards and safe spaces where no one could hurt us with their dirty dirty words.

Quote from: Shasarak;1124076And thats how we ended up with our x cards and safe spaces where no one could hurt us with their dirty dirty words.

if only those did any good against real threats. There is a difference.

Quote from: Shasarak;1124076And thats how we ended up with our x cards and safe spaces where no one could hurt us with their dirty dirty words.

Despite what other places like TBP and similar places try to push as the narrative. No gamer is going to show up at most other gamers houses and using X-cards routinely. While expecting everyone else at the table to just put up with the game also continually crashing to a halt. Imo 99% of the time they will be politely or not so politely shown the door or told to mention why the card was used and what is bothering them. Failure to do so and they are shown the door.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124064Oopsie-poopsie! Looks like the almighty world-shaking virus is already flopping out in Wuhan.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/03/11/when-can-we-expect-travel-to-return-to-normal-apple-reopens-90-of-china-stores-and-wuhan-closes-the-last-temporary-coronavirus-hospital/#3dbea3e45bc5

But I must agree with the MSM that the coronavirus will have long reaching effects.

As of tonight, the USA has 40 dead and 1660 cases. In the face of these teeny tiny numbers, we have curled into the fetal position as a nation. The long reaching effect is that we have shown every terrorist and enemy government the USA is a nation of emasculated cowards who will piss themselves over a minor event. We've shown everyone that even a minor bioweapon would collapse our nation.

You do realize that Wuhan has been under 24/7 military curfew for several weeks now, don't you?
And as for "only 1660 cases"... you also do realize what a 30% average daily increase means if it doesn't change, don't you?

In case you don't...

Day 0 - 1600
Day 1 - 1600 * 1.3 = 2080
Day 2 - 2080 * 1.3 = 2704
Day 3 - 2704 * 1,3 = 3515
Day 4 - 3515 * 1,3 = 4569
Day 5 - 4569 * 1,3 = 5940
Day 6 - 5940 * 1,3 = 7722
Day 7 - 7722 * 1,3 = 10.039
Day 8 - 10.039 * 1,3 = 13.051
Day 9 - 13.051 * 1,3 = 16.967
Day 10 - 16.967 * 1,3 = 22.057
Day 11 - 22.057 * 1,3 = 28.674
Day 12 - 28.674 * 1,3 = 37.276
Day 13 - 37.276 * 1,3 = 48.460
Day 14 - 48.460 * 1,3 = 62.998

I'll leave to you the fun of going on for another two weeks (hint: it's over 2 millions. It reaches 100% infection after 33 further days).

In Italy, we're seeing what the virus can do. If you think it's just a slightly nastier flu, you're in for one hell of a rude surprise.

So if I follow your math, and I'm not sure that I did, you're saying that (barring some unforeseen change) in 33 days, or maybe a bit longer depending on where you live, everyone on Earth will be infected by the virus?

So far here, it's just been some mess of people acting like idiots, starting yesterday, after the news reported the crap happening in New York, which on the one hand, reassures me that nobody actually gives a shit about what happens in Washington state, but on the other, depresses me because they care what happens in New York :(

Has it done worse to you, in Italy, personally, or just a larger amount of people acting like idiots?

I think it's just like the flu, but I guess we'll see in 33 days or so, so maybe I'll eat my words then. Comparing it to DnD twitter, I'd say about the same thing, yeah exactly the same thing.

In fact I can't distinguish where something like 'DnD twitter' ends and 'Corona Virus' begins.

Quote from: yancy;1124088I think it's just like the flu, but I guess we'll see in 33 days or so, so maybe I'll eat my words then. Comparing it to DnD twitter, I'd say about the same thing, yeah exactly the same thing.

I assume you've heard the term "going viral"?

This is the old school version. It's a novel disease, so there's no natural immunity to check its spread in the wider population. It's highly infectious -- the Chinese study released earlier in the week showed cases where people were infected by someone 4.5 m in front of them, and 2-3 hours after someone left. It has a relatively long incubation period with no symptoms, so people can spread the disease without they or anybody else knowing. That means it spreads exponentially. Small numbers rapidly grow large, and keep growing until enough of the population has been infected for herd immunity to kick in. While the chance of any particular person dying is small, the fatality rate is maybe a 100 times higher than the normal flu, so the potential death toll is very large. The 1918 flu might have been less deadly, and killed an estimated 50-100 million people. Today's population is 4 times higher.

It can be contained, but only at the very early stages, and it requires strong measures. China succeeded, by locking down entire regions, forcing people to stay home, bundling up medical and sanitation workers in full-body suits, and using trucks and planes to spray down entire cities. In much of the world we're seeing widespread community transmission, where cases are popping up without any direct link to an infected person or cluster, which indicates it may be too late to fully contain in those areas. But a significant portion of those infected will require medical intervention like ventilators to survive, and the numbers can easily overwhelm any medical system in the world, so flattening out the exponential curve can still save lives.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124064Oopsie-poopsie! Looks like the almighty world-shaking virus is already flopping out in Wuhan.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/03/11/when-can-we-expect-travel-to-return-to-normal-apple-reopens-90-of-china-stores-and-wuhan-closes-the-last-temporary-coronavirus-hospital/#3dbea3e45bc5

But I must agree with the MSM that the coronavirus will have long reaching effects.

As of tonight, the USA has 40 dead and 1660 cases. In the face of these teeny tiny numbers, we have curled into the fetal position as a nation. The long reaching effect is that we have shown every terrorist and enemy government the USA is a nation of emasculated cowards who will piss themselves over a minor event. We've shown everyone that even a minor bioweapon would collapse our nation.

Greetings!

Very true, my friend! It is mind boggling how our entire country is on the edge of societal collapse. While it is always good to be prudent, the hysteria that is being pushed in this country is not good.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Luca;1124083In Italy, we're seeing what the virus can do. If you think it's just a slightly nastier flu, you're in for one hell of a rude surprise.

This has more to do with a shitty socialized heathcare system totally unequipped to deal with the demand for treatment than the virus itself.

Quote from: Pat;1124091I assume you've heard the term "going viral"?

This is the old school version. It's a novel disease, so there's no natural immunity to check its spread in the wider population. It's highly infectious -- the Chinese study released earlier in the week showed cases where people were infected by someone 4.5 m in front of them, and 2-3 hours after someone left. It has a relatively long incubation period with no symptoms, so people can spread the disease without they or anybody else knowing. That means it spreads exponentially. Small numbers rapidly grow large, and keep growing until enough of the population has been infected for herd immunity to kick in. While the chance of any particular person dying is small, the fatality rate is maybe a 100 times higher than the normal flu, so the potential death toll is very large. The 1918 flu might have been less deadly, and killed an estimated 50-100 million people. Today's population is 4 times higher.

It can be contained, but only at the very early stages, and it requires strong measures. China succeeded, by locking down entire regions, forcing people to stay home, bundling up medical and sanitation workers in full-body suits, and using trucks and planes to spray down entire cities. In much of the world we're seeing widespread community transmission, where cases are popping up without any direct link to an infected person or cluster, which indicates it may be too late to fully contain in those areas. But a significant portion of those infected will require medical intervention like ventilators to survive, and the numbers can easily overwhelm any medical system in the world, so flattening out the exponential curve can still save lives.

Greetings!

Well, the question arises--seeing that the Corono-virus seems to be growing into a significant threat--and that China successfully dealt with the problem--why don'y we get with the program and do the same thing that China did?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1124094Well, the question arises--seeing that the Corono-virus seems to be growing into a significant threat--and that China successfully dealt with the problem--why don'y we get with the program and do the same thing that China did?

We should have done it last week, and it's a lot harder to impose draconian measures that require widespread public compliance on a democratic nation that celebrates individuality.

Quote from: yancy;1124088So if I follow your math, and I'm not sure that I did, you're saying that (barring some unforeseen change) in 33 days, or maybe a bit longer depending on where you live, everyone on Earth will be infected by the virus?

It was actually "33 further days" and I was talking about the US population (350 million) starting with day 0 = 1600, but the calculation is easy enough to do for any country.

In Italy we have one of the best universal healthcare systems in the world. It has suffered in recent years due to budget cuts (hence the current lack of ICUs in the most heavily affected regions, and the current Lombardy's political head honcho is one of the main culprits so now his crying and barking on TV about even stricter measures being necessary is particularly annoying), but it's still top-notch. You can receive top-rate, up to date treatment worth hundreds of thousands of bucks for free. Do not believe what others will tell you to try and minimize the reality of the situation.

The virus is dangerous to old people. There's no two ways about it. It won't bring any apocalypse because, in 80% or so of the cases, the infection is either asymptomatic (you don't even realize you've it) or mild (flu-like symptoms). But the remaining 20% of the cases is problematic, especially since approximately half of them require hospitalization in ICUs. As I said before, if you allow it to spread, it will quite quickly saturate the capability of the healthcare system. And it doesn't really matter how many ICUs/inhabitant your country has: at a 30%/day increase rate, having the best ratio in the world can buy you one more week, if even that.

I think the choice here, for any country, is quite clear: you can either

A) wreck the economy of your country for 6/12 months to try and save as many as possible
B) shrug and accept you'll lose a lot of elders and a few young ones

I mean even case B won't bring about any particular doom: even if you lose people in the millions, with 90%+ of them being old people in retirement, the production lines won't suffer much, if at all.
Of course, if you happen to be a son of one of the affected elders, or one of the unlucky young ones who draws the unlucky lottery ticket, you might still object to it...


Luca

Quote from: Omega;1124078if only those did any good against real threats. There is a difference.

If there even is any real threat to begin with.

Welp, market back up 10% after Trump gave a strong statement and had a bunch of business leaders talk instead of slimy bureaucrats.

The US will be fine, but I am starting to wonder about countries with large populations and bad healthcare like India, Nigeria, etc...

A whole lot of denial going on in this thread.

That's OK, we all cope differently.

Quote from: Mistwell;1124118A whole lot of denial going on in this thread.

That's OK, we all cope differently.

Well we'll just see if that denial is still helping the deniers 'cope' in 33 days, when 100% of humanity is infected, and they didn't even bother to stock up on toilet paper.

Me, I'm stocking up on toilet paper.

Quote from: yancy;1124123Me, I'm stocking up on toilet paper.

I'm just buying stuff from Best Buy and getting all the warranties and rebates...which gives you just as much paper to wipe your ass with.

Quote from: yancy;1124123Me, I'm stocking up on toilet paper.

Not water and canned goods or propane or fuel or medicine?
Or would eating food make your toilet paper run out faster?

The disease isn't airborne nor is it fatal in most cases. Get over yourself.

Quote from: Brad;1124112Welp, market back up 10% after Trump gave a strong statement and had a bunch of business leaders talk instead of slimy bureaucrats.

The US will be fine, but I am starting to wonder about countries with large populations and bad healthcare like India, Nigeria, etc...

Hope it holds (the stock market rebound, that is), but it's been trending badly down and very volatile. Trump's comments haven't been consistently helpful either! Fingers crossed the worst of the losses have happened. On the health front, I doubt the US will be "fine". I suspect most people will be (most people get no/mild symptoms), but there will be a rush of very ill (mostly older) folks that will overwhelm the hospitals (temporarily). Although the numbers aren't settled yet (and won't be for ages), it's looking like it's 10-20 times more lethal than the flu. (Mortality 1.0-2.0% vs 0.1%). That's a lot of people requiring urgent care in ICUs and the like. It's not the EOCAWKI, but a lot of people will lose a loved one.

I cannot imagine how awful it might get in India - but apparently viruses prefer colder weather, so maybe that might mitigate the effect in warmer countries?

Panic buying of toilet paper, though. WTF? I can understand hand gel, acti-bacterial spray & face masks. But toilet Freakin' paper!!!

Quote from: spon;1124140Panic buying of toilet paper, though. WTF? I can understand hand gel, acti-bacterial spray & face masks. But toilet Freakin' paper!!!

It's definitely a CYA approach.

Quote from: spon;1124140Hope it holds (the stock market rebound, that is), but it's been trending badly down and very volatile. Trump's comments haven't been consistently helpful either! Fingers crossed the worst of the losses have happened.

It's only a loss for people who sell. The rich are getting richer, as in any disaster.

Quote from: Luca;1124083In Italy, we're seeing what the virus can do. If you think it's just a slightly nastier flu, you're in for one hell of a rude surprise.

The only "rude surprise" is how cowardly the Western world has become.

Italy has lost less than 1500 people. How many does Italy lose each year from the regular flu? And you have the second oldest populace in the world, aka the second most old people per capita behind Japan.

The USA death rate is an average of 36k each flu season...any nobody blinks an eye during even a bad flu year. Back in 2009, the swine flu (H1N1) killed 12k in the USA and it was barely a news story. We certainly didn't shut down the country.

And who mostly dies each year? The old and the infirm. Why? Because that's how being human works. Winter kills. That's been a maxim with humanity long before the first spoken word.

Quote from: Pat;1124091While the chance of any particular person dying is small, the fatality rate is maybe a 100 times higher than the normal flu, so the potential death toll is very large.

Who hacked your account?  

South Korea has 7300 active cases with 1% severe. 72 dead vs 8100 total, so less than 1% fatalities.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/

Quote from: SHARK;1124092It is mind boggling how our entire country is on the edge of societal collapse. While it is always good to be prudent, the hysteria that is being pushed in this country is not good.

In the USA, over 100 people each day are killed in car accidents, but we haven't banned cars. Oh why oh why haven't we forced car makers to limit engines to a maximum of 10 miles per hour???

While the media hysteria is disgusting, what is FAR worse how the alleged "home of the brave" are shitting themselves. What happened to "Nothing to fear but fear itself"???? Oh, wait. The generations of our fathers are gone. What we have left can't walk and chew gum at the same time without someone changing their diaper. "Home of the bitches" is more like it.

My fun question is whether a terrorist organization or China weaponizes this knowledge first.

You're a historian Shark. Tell us how long a nation of cowards lasts.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124174My fun question is whether a terrorist organization or China weaponizes this knowledge first.

My bet is on the Chinese. The original outbreak was in a city Wuhan in Shenzen province, a place well known for its Bioweapons Research Laboratories. a coincidence this outbreak originated there? ... mmm well, remotely possible.

A couple things for you on this. This virus is extremely lethal for the elderly, and it seems to have a preferential target in terms of genetics. I'll let you know more as I learn more. The Chinese government and our government have been lying about the means of transmission, and have displayed a superbly poor response, not even being able to adequately test for the transmission and presence of the virus (Not entirely their fault as every single president since GW Bush Jr. has significantly cut the annual budget for the National Health Service and the Center for Disease Control, the two major american government organizations responsible for controlling the outbreak of contagions).

I'll be very happy if this is a minor blip of an outbreak, or has been over-hyped by the media, however am of the conservative opinion that we should take aggressive action to slow down or minimize the actual health impact of this virus, until we can determine the best course of action to proceed (while not counting on our government or business leaders to be truthful with this, since their credibility is very sketchy with everything else at the moment).

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124174South Korea has 7300 active cases with 1% severe. 72 dead vs 8100 total, so less than 1% fatalities.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/

I covered that. Read my post here: https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41782-Is-DnD-Twitter-Worse-Than-Coronavirus&p=1124036&viewfull=1#post1124036

The WHO's official case fatality rate (CFR) is 3.6%. It's higher in some countries like Italy. South Korea is the exception, with a CFR that was 0.7%, though now it's up to 0.8%. The difference is South Korea was testing everybody, whereas the Europe and the US are being far less aggressive, and only testing people who display symptoms. We've known for months that some people are completely asyptomatic. It was estimated this latter group might account for 20% of those infected, but South Korea suggests that this number might be much larger, several multiples of those who display symptoms.

This is good, because it means the overall fatality rate is reduced by a factor of 4 or 5, but it's bad because it means there are far more people are infected than suggested in the official numbers. And all those people are spreading the disease in their communities. That's one of the reasons why estimates in the last week of the number of people infected have started to really jump. They were talking about hundreds of thousands of people already infected across the US, and some states were using much higher estimates (Ohio is estimating 100,000 in their state alone, which has relatively few confirmed cases).

These are guesses, not solid numbers. Those will never be available at the start of a pandemic. In fact, we might never know for sure. But we still have act in that realm of uncertainty. It's true we tend to normalize and trivialize regular forms of death, and public debate often focuses on trivialities instead of the real killers. But with the higher CFR, we're potentially looking at millions of fatalities in the US alone, though with the lower rate, that might slip under 1 million. Either way, those are still huge numbers, and well beyond even big killers like the 30,000 or so flu deaths per year, or 40,000 or so car accidents. It's far more than 7,000 Americans who died in 20 years of war against Iraq and Afghanistan, or the 3,000 who died in the 9/11 attacks.

It's said that the people who push for stronger action at the start of a pandemic are always dismissed as alarmists, but after the pandemic is passed the question is always why didn't we do more, and sooner.

Quote from: Pat;1124181(Ohio is estimating 100,000 in their state alone, which has relatively few confirmed cases).

The Ohio clowns already admitted they used moron math in a "guesstimate", and Kent State's Dept of Public Health put out a 1,000 estimate instead. However, Ohio certainly did their share to promote media panic. Or maybe the governor owns stock in toilet paper?

But it's America 2020 where the New York Times's best and brightest tell us Bloomberg's $500 million ad spending could have instead given $1 million to every American...all 350 million of us!!!

Math apparently isn't our national specialty.

Quote from: Pat;1124181These are guesses, not solid numbers. Those will never be available at the start of a pandemic. In fact, we might never know for sure. But we still have act in that realm of uncertainty.

Americans aren't acting with any rationale. They're panicking like blind mice.

Thanks entirely to a highly motivated media hype machine.

Quote from: Pat;1124181But with the higher CFR, we're potentially looking at millions of fatalities in the US alone, though with the lower rate, that might slip under 1 million.

Millions dead? Not gonna happen. At most, we'll see the H1N1 numbers nobody cared about in 2009.

Wuhan is at the end of their infection arc, and all of China will be ending their arc soon. Even with their draconian measures, all the realities of China (overpopulation, tight living quarters, large elderly population, bad air quality, poor hygiene) didn't change during the arc so China's numbers give us a good look at a "worst case" scenario.

Quote from: Pat;1124181It's said that the people who push for stronger action at the start of a pandemic are always dismissed as alarmists, but after the pandemic is passed the question is always why didn't we do more, and sooner.

Most people don't even remember the 2009 swine/avian flu. It had zero impact. As a nation, we didn't blink at 12,000 dead because that's just 240 per state. AKA, most Americans don't know anyone killed by H1N1, or even remember someone who got sick back then.

But now we're shitting ourselves into oblivion over 50 dead.

Quote from: Pat;1124181It's said that the people who push for stronger action at the start of a pandemic are always dismissed as alarmists, but after the pandemic is passed the question is always why didn't we do more, and sooner.

That old curse: "When you've done [pandemic prevention] right, no one will know you've done anything at all"

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124186The Ohio clowns already admitted they used moron math in a "guesstimate", and Kent State's Dept of Public Health put out a 1,000 estimate instead.

The best I can say about your statement is that it's sort of vaguely related to what happened.

Of course it's a "guesstimate". That's not an "admission" or a valid criticism, it's the whole point. We have no way of knowing for sure, but we have to make projections about uncertain future event, so we can plan and take action. We don't know if she's right, but Dr. Acton provided her methodology, and it's reasonably sound. And the second number wasn't from some "Department of Public Health", which implies an authoritative governmental source. A random professor from Kent State said she thinks the number might be too high, though her actual statement was "at least" 1,000 cases. She provided no methodology, though it is in her general field of expertise (she's a professor at their College of Public Health). For what it's worth, the "hundreds of thousands" from the federal government (across the US as a whole) falls in between those two estimates.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124186Millions dead? Not gonna happen. At most, we'll see the H1N1 numbers nobody cared about in 2009.

Wuhan is at the end of their infection arc, and all of China will be ending their arc soon. Even with their draconian measures, all the realities of China (overpopulation, tight living quarters, large elderly population, bad air quality, poor hygiene) didn't change during the arc so China's numbers give us a good look at a "worst case" scenario.

China isolated all cases and ended up containing it one region (all new cases outside the province have been "backflow" from other nations), and they did by locking down entire cities, imposing strong social isolation rules, performing city-wide disinfection, and bringing in massive amounts of advanced medical aid, including setting up temporary hospitals. Aside from the slow start, it was close to the best possible conditions, not a worse case scenario.

I hope this does turn out to be fairly minor, but none of that's happened in the West, and doesn't seem too likely. Instead of being contained, we're seeing widespread community infection in Europe and the US, which suggests its spreading unchecked through the general population.

Well if the Wuhan Flu does nothing else at least we get a wake up call on having all of our trade routes running through a corrupt communist (but I repeat myself) country.

Quote from: Pat;1124193We don't know if she's right, but Dr. Acton provided her methodology, and it's reasonably sound.

Her math was abysmal and utterly irresponsible. [Total population in state x 1%] isn't useful math. Based on her math, 350 million Americans means 3.5 million cases right now. That's absurd beyond absurd.

And it reeks of the same intentional promotion of panic we're seeing across the media.

BTW, Dr. Tara Smith isn't a random professor of public health at Kent State. Check out her background.
https://www.kent.edu/publichealth/profile/tara-c-smith-phd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_C._Smith

But you're right that I should have clarified "college dept" not "state dept" of public health. Mea culpa.

Quote from: Pat;1124193China isolated all cases and ended up containing it one region (all new cases outside the province have been "backflow" from other nations), and they did by locking down entire cities, imposing strong social isolation rules, performing city-wide disinfection, and bringing in massive amounts of advanced medical aid, including setting up temporary hospitals. Aside from the slow start, it was close to the best possible conditions, not a worse case scenario.

We're supposed to believe that (1) the magic virus has a very long silent contagion period, and (2) it was contained in one region of China? That doesn't compute.  

I fully agree China took massive actions (though not at the beginning of the virus arc) BUT that doesn't change the underlying major issues in China. We're talking about a respiratory illness in a city with incredibly bad air quality, so bad that Wuhan even had protests last summer. Protests...in mainland China...aka, the air situation was so bad, common folk risked the wrath of Beijing to beg for help. This ain't a USA Earth Day protest with funny signs, balloons and a facepaint contest.  Thousands in Wuhan risked imprisonment (or worse) just to protest.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48904350
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/asia/china-wuhan-pollution-problems-intl-hnk/index.html

Wuhan was having a high death rate just from the air. It's not surprising that [bad air + bad flu = many deaths of old people]. What's notable is how quickly the virus crisis died out in a city with so many underlying issues.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124196Her math was abysmal and utterly irresponsible. [Total population in state x 1%] isn't useful math. Based on her math, 350 million Americans means 3.5 million cases right now. That's absurd beyond absurd.

And it reeks of the same intentional promotion of panic we're seeing across the media.

BTW, Dr. Tara Smith isn't a random professor of public health at Kent State. Check out her background.

1% was the conclusion, not the method. She explained it based on the known R factors and how fast the number of cases seemed to be doubling, based on a median of the credible sources. Not that you'd find that in the any of the news articles, they're terrible. But I actually listened to the press conference.

Agree that Smith is a credible source, as well. Though I'd like to know if it was more than a gut feeling.

But this really highlights the main point -- we don't know. And we won't, until it's too late. We can hope for the best, but we have to plan for the worst, and then make decisions based on incompletely understood risks and potentially high costs. In general, the sooner we react the easier (cheaper) it is to contain, but early strong actions are unpopular. It doesn't help that nobody alive remembers a real pandemic, and the natural wait and see reaction when it comes to uncertainty doesn't work well with geometric growth. But China did contain it with overwhelming force, while the authorities in the West didn't even try. It's out there, spreading, uncontrolled. The social distancing and restrictions on large groups are just attempts at mitigation, i.e. slowing the spread or flattening the curve, rather than trying to stop it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124196We're supposed to believe that (1) the magic virus has a very long silent contagion period, and (2) it was contained in one region of China? That doesn't compute.  

Once they started taking it seriously, they tracked down and investigated every contact every infected person made. The study released earlier in the week had them tracking individuals across their security cam network, identifying exactly when and by who the disease was spread to other people.

And the dismal conditions in Wuhan might have impeded the spread, if people were already self-isolating to some degree.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124196I fully agree China took massive actions (though not at the beginning of the virus arc) BUT that doesn't change the underlying major issues in China.

Question for you: do you think chinese leadership is weak and/or stupid?
Because if they aren't, then they must have had some pretty good reason to react to the pandemic with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Quote from: Mistwell;1124118A whole lot of denial going on in this thread.

That's OK, we all cope differently.

Amazingly enough, some of us already have enough food and ammo for a year. How many rolls of toilet paper did you buy before you decided to buy any food? Apparently, the retards were out in full force the past couple days because they finally figured out food is more important than fucking hand sanitizer when you're quarantining yourself off from everyone else.

The only denial going on is people who think this is anything but manufactured hysterics. I am 100% sure China lied about how many people were infected, thus the lethality rate is greatly overblown. They seriously fucked up handling this, and now Europe is paying the price. The only way the US will be impacted to the same degree is if people keep acting really stupid. Which they might if the MSM keeps making up bullshit...

So, it's not cope, it's merely remaining calm in a crisis situation because I'm a good boy scout and am prepared. Other people, apparently, are not.

Quote from: Brad;1124247Amazingly enough, some of us already have enough food and ammo for a year. How many rolls of toilet paper did you buy before you decided to buy any food?

Zero. I've always had plenty of toilet paper. I did see Walmart restock Toilet Paper and declined to buy more. And I did see the mini-mart at the local gas station have shelves full of toilet paper at normal prices.

QuoteApparently, the retards were out in full force the past couple days because they finally figured out food is more important than fucking hand sanitizer when you're quarantining yourself off from everyone else.

The only denial going on is people who think this is anything but manufactured hysterics. I am 100% sure China lied about how many people were infected, thus the lethality rate is greatly overblown. They seriously fucked up handling this, and now Europe is paying the price. The only way the US will be impacted to the same degree is if people keep acting really stupid. Which they might if the MSM keeps making up bullshit...

So, it's not cope, it's merely remaining calm in a crisis situation because I'm a good boy scout and am prepared. Other people, apparently, are not.

Italy's death rate (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/) has already shown you're wrong. But again, denial is a coping mechanism. I suspect you will catch up eventually.

Quote from: Brad;1124247The only denial going on is people who think this is anything but manufactured hysterics. I am 100% sure China lied about how many people were infected, thus the lethality rate is greatly overblown. They seriously fucked up handling this, and now Europe is paying the price. The only way the US will be impacted to the same degree is if people keep acting really stupid. Which they might if the MSM keeps making up bullshit...

Even if we accept the fact that China lied, that does not explain how Italy is having such a bad time of it.

All the believable estimates that I have been seeing predict that the Wuhan Flu is going to be about 10 times worse then your normal Flu.

Remember when the world's economies collapsed and the media ran around screaming "EVERYBODY PANIC!" during the H1N1 outbreak on Obama's watch?

Yeah, neither do I.

For the record, about 500,000 deaths worldwide were attributed to it, 12000 in the US alone, and 60 million people (including yours truly) were infected.  

I'm not suggesting Corona-19 isn't dangerous, I'm suggesting there's an agenda at work here to make something that is provably less dangerous than H1N1 into a global disaster, and a disaster especially for the US.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1124272Remember when the world's economies collapsed and the media ran around screaming "EVERYBODY PANIC!" during the H1N1 outbreak on Obama's watch?

Yeah, neither do I.

For the record, about 500,000 deaths worldwide were attributed to it, 12000 in the US alone, and 60 million people (including yours truly) were infected.  

I'm not suggesting Corona-19 isn't dangerous, I'm suggesting there's an agenda at work here to make something that is provably less dangerous than H1N1 into a global disaster, and a disaster especially for the US.

This "It's all about Trump" is fucking idiotic and needs to stop. Italy is suffering horribly right now. France and Spain shut down, and Germany is about to. China is devastated. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU. THIS IS NOT ABOUT SOME FUCKING PRESIDENT. Wake the fuck up already - this is a real thing that's happening. It's not fake news, it's not about your politics, it's not some conspiracy or an election. It's time to look around and accept the possibility this isn't what you thought it was.

I know Conservatives tend to be conservative (small c). But this inability to adapt to change is going to be deadly. Snap out of it.  This is the hospital tent city popping up outside of Italian hospitals unable to handle the influx of patients. They're having trouble disposing of the bodies  (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/12/coronavirus-bodies-italy-quarantine/)and doctors are having trouble with the triage of patients. This isn't lesser than H1N1 it's way worse. Figure it out already, cause shit got real without you noticing!

(https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/03/07/23/25675952-8087213-image-a-2_1583623182963.jpg)

Quote from: Mistwell;1124253Zero. I've always had plenty of toilet paper. I did see Walmart restock Toilet Paper and declined to buy more. And I did see the mini-mart at the local gas station have shelves full of toilet paper at normal prices.



Italy's death rate (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/) has already shown you're wrong. But again, denial is a coping mechanism. I suspect you will catch up eventually.

Italy's death rate shows a bunch of really old people will die if they get the flu. You've bought into the MSM, lies, so who is coping?

I can see by the post after this one that you’re just parroting the hysteria, so I’ll stop responding.

Quote from: Brad;1124286Italy's death rate shows a bunch of really old people will die if they get the flu. You've bought into the MSM, lies, so who is coping?

I can see by the post after this one that you're just parroting the hysteria, so I'll stop responding.

Dude, you're in denial. Italy's death rate is not flu level death rates. It's about 10 times higher than flu death rates. Their hospitals are completely overwhelmed. People are taking to Twitter crying that they are stuck in their apartments not allowed to leave WITH A DEAD RELATIVE IN THE ROOM. Wake the fuck up, this isn't the main stream media posting this, this is ANY SOURCE ON THE GROUND IN ITALY. ANY.

But yeah, you flee from the conversation. Just like you're fleeing from reality while calling it bravery. This is what denial as a coping mechanism looks like...fleeing being confronted with uncomfortable reality which doesn't match with preconceived notions.

Quote from: Mistwell;1124288Dude, you're in denial.

Or come from a different logical perspective. Can you believe that not everybody in the world is literally the same as you and are just pretending they're not because they're stupid?
I mean other sources charge Italy with massively mishandling the disease, and not managing its healthcare or social services well. Twitter or "SOURCE ON THE GROUND" are not renown sources.

Like if this truly is some world-ending epidemic Il apologize to you and sing your praises.

But if its not will you eat crow and admit to being paranoid?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1124292Or come from a different logical perspective. Can you believe that not everybody in the world is literally the same as you and are just pretending they're not because they're stupid?
I mean other sources charge Italy with massively mishandling the disease, and not managing its healthcare or social services well. Twitter or "SOURCE ON THE GROUND" are not renown sources.

Like if this truly is some world-ending epidemic Il apologize to you and sing your praises.

But if its not will you eat crow and admit to being paranoid?

If the conservative estimates are correct and we get a 1% fatality rate, is that an world ending epidemic or just normal flu levels of illness?

Quote from: Shasarak;1124295If the conservative estimates are correct and we get a 1% fatality rate, is that an world ending epidemic or just normal flu levels of illness?

Il put that under "World Ender" level. Maybe I should have called it "Catastrophic!". If it kills 1% of the world population Il consider that enough to accept my folly. (I mean Il bow down if it reaches 100,000)


I just feel I had been hearing enough "Conservative" estimates from "The worlds top science-tists" about so many criseses over my relatively short life that all didn't come true or where grossly overstated that Im just spectical about the whole thing.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1124292Like if this truly is some world-ending epidemic Il apologize to you and sing your praises.

But if its not will you eat crow and admit to being paranoid?

From what I can see, Mistwell isn't saying it will be world-ending. He's saying it will be much worse than the flu -- including the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. Ignoring any news outlets, what I see out of health organizations like the CDC and WHO agrees with this.

As thedungeondelver said, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic killed about 500,000 people worldwide over the course of a year. And covid-19 has the potential to be much worse than that, killing millions, which is why countries are taking such extreme measures to deal with it. There is plenty of scare-mongering, but all the health experts that I've seen say that this is much worse than H1N1. That doesn't mean it's the end of the world, but it is a very real and serious threat - which is why health organizations are recommending much more extreme measures to deal with it than was done for H1N1.

Quote from: jhkim;1124301From what I can see, Mistwell isn't saying it will be world-ending. He's saying it will be much worse than the flu -- including the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. Ignoring any news outlets, what I see out of health organizations like the CDC and WHO agrees with this.

As thedungeondelver said, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic killed about 500,000 people worldwide over the course of a year. And covid-19 has the potential to be much worse than that, killing millions, which is why countries are taking such extreme measures to deal with it. There is plenty of scare-mongering, but all the health experts that I've seen say that this is much worse than H1N1. That doesn't mean it's the end of the world, but it is a very real and serious threat - which is why health organizations are recommending much more extreme measures to deal with it than was done for H1N1.

Thats reasonable. Yeah I can see that happening.

Quote from: Mistwell;1124276I know Conservatives tend to be conservative (small c). But this inability to adapt to change is going to be deadly. Snap out of it.  This is the hospital tent city popping up outside of Italian hospitals unable to handle the influx of patients. They're having trouble disposing of the bodies  (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/12/coronavirus-bodies-italy-quarantine/)and doctors are having trouble with the triage of patients. This isn't lesser than H1N1 it's way worse. Figure it out already, cause shit got real without you noticing!

You obviously did not read the article you linked too https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/12/coronavirus-bodies-italy-quarantine/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/12/coronavirus-bodies-italy-quarantine/).  The reasons some bodies were not getting immediately removed was not because of vast  numbers but was because of screw ups and people complicating things because they refused to go to hospital.

Quote"Unfortunately, we have a security protocol we must follow," Canepa said.

The man, who has not been publicly identified, tested positive for coronavirus before he died, but refused to be taken to the hospital, Canepa told CNN. After he passed away, quarantine measures prevented anyone from entering the house and collecting his body.

Leftest (small l or large  L like you ) always  weaponize crises for propaganda.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1124272Remember when the world's economies collapsed and the media ran around screaming "EVERYBODY PANIC!" during the H1N1 outbreak on Obama's watch?

Yeah, neither do I.

For the record, about 500,000 deaths worldwide were attributed to it, 12000 in the US alone, and 60 million people (including yours truly) were infected.  

I'm not suggesting Corona-19 isn't dangerous, I'm suggesting there's an agenda at work here to make something that is provably less dangerous than H1N1 into a global disaster, and a disaster especially for the US.

Erm .. according to WHO estimates H1N1 killed 20,000 worldwide, with 3,500 dead in the US. Where are you getting your numbers from? This virus looks nastier if you don't control it (so your respirators aren't all in demand at the same time). South Korea got their act together immediately, so the vulnerable are not as exposed to the virus. Most people will probably get it eventually, but only at a slow rate, so there will be enough emergency beds for everyone (ish). Italy didn't put controls in early enough and now they are in triage mode - with the most vulnerable not given the care they need, because the system is overloaded.
Most people show only mild symptoms, but the vulnerable get very ill (pneumonia usually) and this kills people with underlying issues.

On a sad note, looks like Africa has been affected too. Bugger, I was hoping some sort of "doesn't like heat" feature of the virus would give us some safe places.

DL;TR
Don't panic, but this will be bad for a portion of the population if you don't take action to slow the spread of the virus.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1124292Or come from a different logical perspective. Can you believe that not everybody in the world is literally the same as you and are just pretending they're not because they're stupid?
I mean other sources charge Italy with massively mishandling the disease, and not managing its healthcare or social services well. Twitter or "SOURCE ON THE GROUND" are not renown sources.

Like if this truly is some world-ending epidemic Il apologize to you and sing your praises.

But if its not will you eat crow and admit to being paranoid?

For some reason, certain people get really pissed off when you don't freak out about the current manufactured crisis. It never crosses their mind that some of us really just don't give a fuck and are capable of dealing with whatever problems arise. I will say, however, that if this is the apocalypse, it's the lamest apocalypse ever. I was hoping for a nuke or meteor strike, not some annoying slow-roll of things getting shutdown and people quarantining themselves off, everyone eventually dying of pure boredom. Pretty hard to start a biker gang in that environment.

There's a difference between a lot of people dying, and the end of the world.

Case fatality rate in Italy keeps rising, and hospitals are using churches to store the corpses. Cases are rising dramatically in Spain and France, with numbers doubling every 3 days. Satellite images showing mass burials in Iran. Not proven yet, but taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatories to reduce fevers, like aspirin, ibuprofen, or cortisone, seems to increase the chance of dying, though one company who makes it is denying it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-14/satellite-images-could-show-mass-coronavirus-burial-pits-in-iran/12053030
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/03/13/churches-chaplains-nuns-have-unexpected-role-covid-19-crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuWo5lmWuZI
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-reckittbenckiser-product/no-evidence-ibuprofen-bad-for-covid-19-patients-nurofen-maker-idUSKBN21327P

Quote from: Gagarth;1124316You obviously did not read the article you linked too https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/12/coronavirus-bodies-italy-quarantine/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/12/coronavirus-bodies-italy-quarantine/).  The reasons some bodies were not getting immediately removed was not because of vast  numbers but was because of screw ups and people complicating things because they refused to go to hospital.

For perspective, here's the current deaths per day from Italy from covid-19:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4211[/ATTACH]
Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

So they're at 200 to 300 deaths per day at present. Now, bear in mind that Italy has around 1700 deaths per day under average circumstances. I get that from death rate of 10.6 per 1000 and a population of 60 million. ( Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ITA/italy/death-rate )

So at this point, covid-19 deaths are about 15% of average daily deaths. The system can handle some variation, I'm sure - but pure statistical variation would be just +-3%, so it may be straining things. Also, there are a lot of people in ICU and there are complications of handling both patients and bodies because of quarantine. So while I buy that there have been screw ups, they seem like understandable screw ups.

There's definitely potential for even higher death rate, though, given the trend. Hopefully the extreme isolation measures they're taking will slow that growth rate.

By contrast, South Korea has been more successful in containing the spread and keeping people alive. They have only had 75 deaths, with a daily death rate at under 10. I was there during the initial spread, and people took it very seriously. My lesson from that is that the measures can work, but we should be implementing them early and sticking to them.

Quote from: jhkim;1124364So at this point, covid-19 deaths are about 15% of average daily deaths. The system can handle some variation, I'm sure - but pure statistical variation would be just +-3%, so it may be straining things. Also, there are a lot of people in ICU and there are complications of handling both patients and bodies because of quarantine. So while I buy that there have been screw ups, they seem like understandable screw ups.

You're assuming the cases are evenly distributed across Italy, and they're not. I don't know the current numbers, but roughly 2/3rds of the initial cases were in Lombardy.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1124292Like if this truly is some world-ending epidemic ...

I said it is worse than the Flu and H1N1. I never said or implied it was the end of the world. I think you were one of three people who took my comment that it's worse than the Flu and H1N1 and strawmanned it to claim I was saying it was the end of the world.

Quote from: Pat;1124366You're assuming the cases are evenly distributed across Italy, and they're not. I don't know the current numbers, but roughly 2/3rds of the initial cases were in Lombardy.

Right now, approximately half the total cases (14649/27980), and 2/3 (1420/2158) of the deaths, are in Lombardy.
The photos of churches used to held the dead and the news of cremation chambers being overloaded come from the most heavily hit areas of Lombardy. The city of Bergamo is one of those.

Quote from: Pat;1124366You're assuming the cases are evenly distributed across Italy, and they're not. I don't know the current numbers, but roughly 2/3rds of the initial cases were in Lombardy.

Good point. It is for certain greater than the standard capacity of local resources in the hardest-hit areas, and will need national resources -- that hopefully are coming, but will take some time to set up.

Quote from: Brad;1124342It never crosses their mind that some of us really just don't give a fuck and are capable of dealing with whatever problems arise. I will say, however, that if this is the apocalypse, it's the lamest apocalypse ever.

So if you have a heart attack or get pneumonia in the next year, and the hospitals can't deal because they're in crisis mode coping with COVID patients, you'll just deal with it?

It sounds like you're a lone wolf, but most of us have loved ones who we care about.

Quote from: Haffrung;1124385So if you have a heart attack or get pneumonia in the next year, and the hospitals can't deal because they're in crisis mode coping with COVID patients, you'll just deal with it?

It sounds like you're a lone wolf, but most of us have loved ones who we care about.

What should I do..? Freak out and worry about stuff that hasn't happened? "This too shall pass".

There are two different things going on here, and they can both be true independently of each other:

1. The virus is some level of threat not yet fully understood, such that it is possible measure are overblown or inadequate. Also entirely possible there isn't a lot we can do about certain aspects of it except cope.

2. There are a lot of idiots in the world that will do all kinds of stupid stuff, that even common sense should tell them not to.  There are also a subset of them, many of them employed in the media, that would sell their grandmother to a Wuhan brothel to get Trump.  Anyone that can't see that is a fool.  They were this way before the virus was here, and they'll be that way when it is gone.  That means that for the average person in the public, getting useful information is more difficult than it should be.  This will contribute to the chaos of the moment.

Quote from: Brad;1124387What should I do..? Freak out and worry about stuff that hasn't happened? "This too shall pass".

Nobody is asking you to not freak out. Maybe just try a little harder to be less of a dick to those dealing with it differently than you, taking it more seriously than you, taking more steps than you? You know, be a little more human and a little less Internet Badass for shits and giggles?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1124392There are two different things going on here, and they can both be true independently of each other:

1. The virus is some level of threat not yet fully understood, such that it is possible measure are overblown or inadequate. Also entirely possible there isn't a lot we can do about certain aspects of it except cope.

2. There are a lot of idiots in the world that will do all kinds of stupid stuff, that even common sense should tell them not to.  There are also a subset of them, many of them employed in the media, that would sell their grandmother to a Wuhan brothel to get Trump.  Anyone that can't see that is a fool.  They were this way before the virus was here, and they'll be that way when it is gone.  That means that for the average person in the public, getting useful information is more difficult than it should be.  This will contribute to the chaos of the moment.

Common Sense.   There is no such thing for it was common, everyone would have it ;)  Call it Uncommon Sense instead :p

Anyways, as far as COVID 19 goes, no one where I work is freaking out about it but we are taking it seriously.   All freaking out gets you is high blood pressure and empty store shelves.....first it was the toilet paper, now its ammo!   Good thing my wife always stocks up on both because when the shit hits the fan, your going to need them both :)

Quote from: Krugus;1124405Anyways, as far as COVID 19 goes, no one where I work is freaking out about it but we are taking it seriously.   All freaking out gets you is high blood pressure and empty store shelves.....first it was the toilet paper, now its ammo!   Good thing my wife always stocks up on both because when the shit hits the fan, your going to need them both :)

So when the shit hits the fan, you're going to sit around and shoot the shit? :D

Quote from: jhkim;1124408So when the shit hits the fan, you're going to sit around and shoot the shit? :D

Ha!

That is only one possibility of unknown future events :p

Quote from: Mistwell;1124394Nobody is asking you to not freak out. Maybe just try a little harder to be less of a dick to those dealing with it differently than you, taking it more seriously than you, taking more steps than you? You know, be a little more human and a little less Internet Badass for shits and giggles?

I'm more prepared than most, and probably more real badass than a lot, but everyone is welcome at my place to drink and eat bbq and shoot as long as you hit something. I have the SJGames giant pocket box of games, and a thousand RPGs, so if you need a place to chill I'm cool, just bring some whiskey because tomorrow is saint Patrick's day and I started early.

Just wait until the civil unrest hits the USA.

You really think every teenager is just going to lay there in the fetal position before the screeching TVs like their drooling parents? No school. Nothing to do. Mostly single moms. Being told they can't do anything. Hearing nothing but no, no, no all day...but with cell phones to rally their friends in every pocket.

Anybody else here remember being young, dumb and full of cum?

I'm sure it will be fine.

Quote from: Gagarth;1124316Leftest (small l or large  L like you ) always  weaponize crises for propaganda.

It's not just leftists. President Cheney weaponized 9/11 to get the USA into the Iraq and Afghani quagmires that cost us so dearly in blood and treasure.

Americans must beware EVERY politician (and media outlet) trying to weaponize a crisis.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124425It's not just leftists. President Cheney weaponized 9/11 to get the USA into the Iraq and Afghani quagmires that cost us so dearly in blood and treasure.

Iraq and Afghanistan killed fewer Americans than the flu. Why so panicky?

Very sorry to hear the news about Tenkar! I hope he recovers. But I will ask that people on this thread only talk about the coronavirus in the context of the hobby...

Man this question has not aged well.

Incidentally, it appears that Tenkar had plain old pneumonia, not the Kung Flu.

Tenkar's not a big enough celebrity to get Flu Manchu. Unlike Tom Hanks who magically spent 12 hours a day on a crowded movie set, but only Tom got blessed with the Wuhan magic, such an amazing and beautiful coincidence. Even more amazing when you calculate the population of celebrities versus the general populace.

As for Tenkar, may his recovery be swift and uneventful.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124683Unlike Tom Hanks who magically spent 12 hours a day on a crowded movie set, but only Tom got blessed with the Wuhan magic, such an amazing and beautiful coincidence. Even more amazing when you calculate the population of celebrities versus the general populace.

This has a lot to do with the fact that, when/where access to testing was limited, a disproportionate share of those tests went to celebrities and politicians.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124683Tenkar's not a big enough celebrity to get Flu Manchu. Unlike Tom Hanks who magically spent 12 hours a day on a crowded movie set, but only Tom got blessed with the Wuhan magic, such an amazing and beautiful coincidence. Even more amazing when you calculate the population of celebrities versus the general populace.

As for Tenkar, may his recovery be swift and uneventful.

Adrenochrome, my dear fellow.

Probably the best CT ever for an RPG.

Spinachcat - I'm curious, has your opinion changed at all since the start of this thread at the beginning of March?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124683Tenkar's not a big enough celebrity to get Flu Manchu. Unlike Tom Hanks who magically spent 12 hours a day on a crowded movie set, but only Tom got blessed with the Wuhan magic, such an amazing and beautiful coincidence. Even more amazing when you calculate the population of celebrities versus the general populace.

So is the implication that Hanks isn't infected and it's just a publicity stunt? Is this also be true of Senator Rand Paul?

*tumbleweed*

Quote from: Nerag;1126203*tumbleweed*

I am now satisfied that coronavirus is worse than D&D Twitter.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11341414/boris-johnson-coronavirus-sitting-in-bed/

Quote from: S'mon;1126206I am now satisfied that coronavirus is worse than D&D Twitter.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11341414/boris-johnson-coronavirus-sitting-in-bed/

Sorry to hear that, S'mon. I'm glad that he is recovering, at least.

Also, I noticed this from earlier in the thread, less than a month ago:

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1124296Il put that under "World Ender" level. Maybe I should have called it "Catastrophic!". If it kills 1% of the world population Il consider that enough to accept my folly. (I mean Il bow down if it reaches 100,000)

I just feel I had been hearing enough "Conservative" estimates from "The worlds top science-tists" about so many criseses over my relatively short life that all didn't come true or where grossly overstated that Im just spectical about the whole thing.

Sadly, today confirmed deaths have passed 100,000.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/coronavirus-worldwide-death-toll-passes-100000

When it is all over, i will be curious to see how they qualify deaths being caused by covid.  Right now i would not be shocked if some places could have a guy fall 10 stories, test him positive for covid and put coronavirus on the death certificate.  I also would not be surprised if some places have a hospital full of covid fatalities calling the deaths heart failure.  I feel there should be a uniform standard for hospitalizations and fatalities.  Regardless of its actual fatality, its social effect is between disastrous to apocalyptic.

Greetings!

Perhaps I am a jaded, cynical Tyrannosaur, but it strikes me that there are more than a few politicians, medical officials, various activist-types, as well as media entities that deep down inside them, they are eager to see as many people as possible die from the virus. They want those virus death tallies to keep spiraling upwards. In some macabre way, they hope for the more dying, the better. I don't suppose there is a conspiracy, or any single reason that such people embrace, but several diverse reasons. I think some of them are really hoping for a huge catastrophe.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon;1126206I am now satisfied that coronavirus is worse than D&D Twitter.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11341414/boris-johnson-coronavirus-sitting-in-bed/

Funny, after my week I'm less convinced than ever.

Quote from: SHARK;1126442Greetings!

Perhaps I am a jaded, cynical Tyrannosaur, but it strikes me that there are more than a few politicians, medical officials, various activist-types, as well as media entities that deep down inside them, they are eager to see as many people as possible die from the virus. They want those virus death tallies to keep spiraling upwards. In some macabre way, they hope for the more dying, the better. I don't suppose there is a conspiracy, or any single reason that such people embrace, but several diverse reasons. I think some of them are really hoping for a huge catastrophe.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Nothing wets the media entity's panties like a global catastrophe to get the easily panicked public glued to their respective mediums giving them clicks. And the political class is working overtime to see how many civil liberties they can get way with restricting--and the media-controlled public is begging them for it! And just like the Patriot Act any powers they write for themselves aren't going away, but people will convince themselves it's only temporary and that thinking otherwise is paranoid conspiracy nonsense.

People are reacting as if the only the lives lost to the virus matter, and the jobs, growth, opportunities, liberty, and yes, lives, lost due to the overwhelming governmental response don't exist. It's a classic example of Bastiat's seen and unseen.

Dr. Birx even admitted the death toll is bullshit. She said "If Someone Dies With COVID-19 We Are Counting That As A COVID-19 Death". What a joke!

100,000 dead worldwide! Oh noes! Gotta shut down the world!!!

In October 2019, the Journal of Global Health told us a fun fact. The average annual worldwide death toll from the flu is 389,000 which makes CoronaChan a lame media SHAMdemic.  
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/

Quote from: Pat;1126455People are reacting as if the only the lives lost to the virus matter, and the jobs, growth, opportunities, liberty, and yes, lives, lost due to the overwhelming governmental response don't exist.

Don't forget kids from K-12 just lost a year of education.

But wait, aren't the kids only losing a couple of months and doing online school?

LOL.

"Online school" is fine for highly self-motivated learners, AKA the kids who barely need the teacher and can learn from the book themselves. AKA, the honor students. Also, some autistic kids benefit from the lack of distraction.

For the rest of the student body, "online school" is a fucking disaster. Even if they do the work, retention of concepts learned is remarkably poor. And let's be honest, unless a parent is on top of them, most aren't going to do the work.

And let's not even discuss kids with special education needs. They're fucked with fuck sauce.

But its only a couple of months! Why would they lose a whole year of education?

Here's a dirty little secret in education. Summer vacation DESTROYS retention of concepts for kids. Kids' brains aren't adult brains. In general classes, the assumption is teachers spent August/September to December refreshing and reinforcing the concepts of the previous year. Then, teachers spend January to May teaching that grade year's work...knowing most of it will be half-forgotten over summer.

Now we have nations of kids whose year ended in March and won't restart until August/September.

If we gave a shit about education, we'd institute mandatory summer school this year. Personally, I would just have everyone redo the entire 2019-2020 school year.

Quote from: jhkim;1124779Spinachcat - I'm curious, has your opinion changed at all since the start of this thread at the beginning of March?

Nope. Laughable bullshit remains laughable bullshit.

However, I am impressed by how happily and easily Americans have thrown away their rights. The Constitution got erased by the sniffles!!!

Quote from: jhkim;1124779So is the implication that Hanks isn't infected and it's just a publicity stunt? Is this also be true of Senator Rand Paul?

I'm no fan of Rand Paul. He's a pale imitation of his father Ron Paul. No idea what's up with his health.

As for Tom Hanks, I've been on many movie sets. Dozens of staff are in constant close interaction with actors. Many of those staff are touching the actors, or touching their clothes and other articles the actors have been touching. Makeup, hair, wardrobe, catering, props, camera, lighting, etc. There's a lot of people and when you have a movie star on set, there's always even more people.

Oh noes! Here comes the super contagious Flu Manchu onto the movie set!! Booga-booga-booga!!!!

Did dozens or hundreds got sick? Did they spread it thousands? Nope. Just the movie star. Nobody else.

It's a Tom Hanks miracle!!!

We all have to remember that, like Rappers, Twitterati are vincible and have feelings too:

[video=youtube_share;VJhnRQAkTC4]https://youtu.be/VJhnRQAkTC4[/youtube]

Quote from: Spinachcat;1126465Dr. Birx even admitted the death toll is bullshit. She said "If Someone Dies With COVID-19 We Are Counting That As A COVID-19 Death". What a joke!

100,000 dead worldwide! Oh noes! Gotta shut down the world!!!

In October 2019, the Journal of Global Health told us a fun fact. The average annual worldwide death toll from the flu is 389,000 which makes CoronaChan a lame media SHAMdemic.  
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/

You do realize that coronavirus reached the 100.000 mark in a much shorter time than a year, and with the world basically shutting itself down explicitly to stop it from spreading further, don't you?
Do you seriously think the whole fucking planet is wrecking its own economy just to make Trump look bad? Here's a shocking reveal: he isn't that important!

Quote from: Luca;1126510You do realize that coronavirus reached the 100.000 mark in a much shorter time than a year, and with the world basically shutting itself down explicitly to stop it from spreading further, don't you?
Do you seriously think the whole fucking planet is wrecking its own economy just to make Trump look bad? Here's a shocking reveal: he isn't that important!

You realize that the very post you quoted mentions the fact that they're counting every single death of people that happened to have the virus as having died because of it regardless of their actual cause of death, making the death estimates fundamentally suspect and flawed?

They're not wrecking the world economy just to make Trump look bad. They're doing it because people are dumb panicky animals who are easily duped and mislead, and have been misinformed with contradictory information by the media since day one. And with the advent of the internet and 24/7 "news" media people are oversaturated and bombarded with misinformation all the time to the point of generating mass panic.

People are also very dumb in general and politicians are no exception. I mean Democrats were willing to agitate a nuclear power (Russia) over loosing an election, you think politicians care about what they wreck when the public and future generations are the ones who're gonna have foot the bill? Fucking things up and making the public pay for it is what the political class does best.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1126518You realize that the very post you quoted mentions the fact that they're counting every single death of people that happened to have the virus as having died because of it regardless of their actual cause of death, making the death estimates fundamentally suspect and flawed?

I'm with you on this. Not many people know this, but I have a superpower. And that superpower is 'Having a Memory for past events'. And while the coronavirus is worse than previous spoopy outbreaks in the past, just like them it's being overblown.
A year later we will get the more accurate results and then we will be told how so much of what we did was super wasteful, and how there were much better intermediate alternatives, and how irrational people acted.

While 'economy' has become a buzzword, its still a real thing. People will end up starving or sick from other diseases because they could not accrue resources. I'm not saying we should run kissing competitions, but at least some intermediate solution must be reached.

Quote from: LucaYou do realize that coronavirus reached the 100.000 mark in a much shorter time than a year, and with the world basically shutting itself down explicitly to stop it from spreading further, don't you?
Do you seriously think the whole fucking planet is wrecking its own economy just to make Trump look bad? Here's a shocking reveal: he isn't that important!

Quote from: VisionStorm;1126518You realize that the very post you quoted mentions the fact that they're counting every single death of people that happened to have the virus as having died because of it regardless of their actual cause of death, making the death estimates fundamentally suspect and flawed?

Conversely, there are claims that China is *undercounting* its death rate, with thousands of deaths unrecorded.

But let's suppose that it's all overcounting. We can engage in some math here. I'll take the official counts at first as a baseline -- but we'll also shift the numbers if those official counts are wrong.

Over the past 10 days, officially from 0.7 to 1.2 million people were confirmed actively infected, and around 50,000 people have died. (ref) (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

In ordinary times, the world death rate is about 7.5 per 1000. That is, out of a thousand people, about 7.5 will die every year. Given that rate, out of a million people over ten days, we'd expect about 200 deaths. That would indicate that out of 50,000 deaths, they might have overcounted by 200 (i.e. overcounted by 0.4%).

But let's suppose that the official estimates are wrong - and I hope they are. Say the infection counts are wildly off - and there are ten times as many active cases, so 10 million active infections. That population would have 2000 expected deaths over 10 days. That's still just a small fraction of 50,000 (4%). Even if there were 100 million active infections, that's still only has the potential to move the needle from 50,000 to 30,000 - which is pretty similar.

These 50,000 deaths are over 10 days -- during a period when most of the world is taking extraordinary measures to control the disease. I think there's good reason to think that if we hadn't had social distancing, then there would be even more deaths, and the economy would be disrupted anyway because of the disease spreading wildly and a much higher death rate.

Quote from: jhkim;1126527These 50,000 deaths are over 10 days -- during a period when most of the world is taking extraordinary measures to control the disease. I think there's good reason to think that if we hadn't had social distancing, then there would be even more deaths, and the economy would be disrupted anyway because of the disease spreading wildly and a much higher death rate.

Thing is we don't know. One example I heard was that we have extreme social distancing....except at a generally regular basis when people are getting food....Which would make the whole thing rather redundant.

It's important to not fall into the pattern of 'Well we know its working because the bad thing didn't happen', otherwise you can attribute any sort of scam as working. Correlation =/= causation.

But as I said, il be the first to say I don't know.

Quote from: jhkimThese 50,000 deaths are over 10 days -- during a period when most of the world is taking extraordinary measures to control the disease. I think there's good reason to think that if we hadn't had social distancing, then there would be even more deaths, and the economy would be disrupted anyway because of the disease spreading wildly and a much higher death rate.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1126537Thing is we don't know. One example I heard was that we have extreme social distancing....except at a generally regular basis when people are getting food....Which would make the whole thing rather redundant.

It's important to not fall into the pattern of 'Well we know its working because the bad thing didn't happen', otherwise you can attribute any sort of scam as working. Correlation =/= causation.

But as I said, il be the first to say I don't know.

We have a lot of data on different countries/states that implemented social distancing at different times in the infection curve. For example, the virus spread and death toll has been very different in South Korea, Italy, Spain, California, and New York. Those differences are being studied hard by experts in infectious disease, but just from a layman's point of view, it seems like California's early social distancing is having better results than New York's later distancing. Right now, I don't know of anyone in New York who is thinking "Oh, damn. I'm glad we're not like California." (Note: I grew up in New York and my parents are there, but have been living in California since 1998. So I have a bunch of connections in both of those. I am quite concerned for my parents in New York especially.)

I believe there are scams. I avoid social media and television news especially for solid information. However, I think scientific and health organizations like the CDC are reasonably reliable, at least far more reliable than their general opposition like anti-vaccination organizations or Youtubers and similar.

Quote from: jhkim;1126556We have a lot of data

We have allot of estimate data on information thats really hard to track, with billions of other factors that we won't even start guessing at until years later. For instance California is allot less population dense then New York (The center of the world economically). And Japan is a tiny island with much stronger border control and a culture that very much shuns contact.

I just hear 'Experts think' so much every minute of every day. Experts think one thing one day and another another. Because there are 1,000 experts and each has a different spin.
What counts as an expert really only depends on public opinion.

Im just DONE trusting 'Expert Data'. Again not saying that I know or don't know whats helping. But at a time like this when there is pressure to say things to make you sound important (more than usual) , I just don't trust 'Experts'.

You don't have to be a scammer or a bad man. You can make an informed decision based off improper information.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1124392...
2. There are a lot of idiots in the world that will do all kinds of stupid stuff, that even common sense should tell them not to.  There are also a subset of them, many of them employed in the media, that would sell their grandmother to a Wuhan brothel to get Trump.  Anyone that can't see that is a fool.  ...  That means that for the average person in the public, getting useful information is more difficult than it should be.  This will contribute to the chaos of the moment.

Truth.

Quote from: From a Blog I Follow:...
The Fake News has been attempting to retroactively establish a fake narrative about President Trump's robust response to Corona-chan:

Full article: https://theothermccain.com/2020/04/10/jan-30-we-still-believe-the-immediate-risk-to-the-american-public-is-low/

Highlight Summary:

One of the repeated lies of the anti-Trump media is that the president failed to do what was necessary to prevent the spread of this disease. We are told, by Democrats and the media, that President Trump "wasted" six weeks during which he should have been . . . Well, doing something more than what he did, which was actually quite a lot.

On Jan. 29, Trump announced the formation of his Coronavirus Task Force, headed by HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and including the CDC director Dr. Redfield, who retired from the Army medical service with the rank of colonel, and whose medical specialty is viruses. On Jan. 31, Trump announced a ban on travel from China, which was controversial at the time. The same day Trump announced the ban, Joe Biden, campaigning in Iowa, accused the president of "hysterical xenophobia," saying Trump was leading with "fearmongering . . . instead of science."

The claim that Trump is "anti-science" has become part of the media's narrative about the COVID-19 outbreak. Supposedly, a bias against science explains why the president didn't do whatever it was that his critics, with the benefit of hindsight, say he should have done. What he actually did, however, was entirely in keeping with what the medical experts would have advised, given the circumstances. With only six known coronavirus cases in the U.S., five of them were people who had just returned from Wuhan, and the sixth was a household member of one of these travelers. So the first thing to do, obviously, was stop the arrival of more infected people from China, where the pandemic began and at the time had just been recognized as a "global emergency" by the WHO.

OK, so what happened next? As of Feb. 26 -- nearly a month after Trump had created the coronavirus task force -- there were still only 15 known cases of the disease in the United States. It was on Feb. 28 that Case No. 16 was identified in Santa Clara County, California:

At that point -- where the 16th case had just been identified -- there was not a single known COVID-19 case in New York or New Jersey. The only known case on the East Coast up to that point, was a man who had recently arrived in Boston from Wuhan, China, in late January. At that time, Boston Public Health Commission director Rita Nieves said, "The risk to the general public remains low." And this continued to be the case throughout February, so that if you want to cherry-pick quotes by President Trump during that time saying that he believed we had the problem under control, and that the Wuhan coronavirus posed no serious risk to Americans, so what? This was the consensus of the medical community at the time.
...

Quote from: From a Blog I Follow:...
Let's not forget that when Trump declared the China travel ban nearly a month before the medical community decided that the virus posed a serious risk to Americans, he was castigated for doing this by the very same people who are criticizing him for not having done enough now..

Virtually every country got this wrong because China was, and still is, lying out of it's ass about their real numbers.

Quote from: Jaeger;1126581Virtually every country got this wrong because China was, and still is, lying out of it's ass about their real numbers.

While this is true for more or less everyone, all of you who weren't Italy also had our warnings and our data. But you chose to ignore them...

Quote from: Spinachcat;1126465Dr. Birx even admitted the death toll is bullshit. She said "If Someone Dies With COVID-19 We Are Counting That As A COVID-19 Death". What a joke!

100,000 dead worldwide! Oh noes! Gotta shut down the world!!!

In October 2019, the Journal of Global Health told us a fun fact. The average annual worldwide death toll from the flu is 389,000 which makes CoronaChan a lame media SHAMdemic.  
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/

Oh man, you look so ridiculous right now. Denial is not a pretty outfit for you, my pirate friend.

But again, we all cope differently. You do you.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1126518You realize that the very post you quoted mentions the fact that they're counting every single death of people that happened to have the virus as having died because of it regardless of their actual cause of death, making the death estimates fundamentally suspect and flawed?

They're not wrecking the world economy just to make Trump look bad. They're doing it because people are dumb panicky animals who are easily duped and mislead, and have been misinformed with contradictory information by the media since day one. And with the advent of the internet and 24/7 "news" media people are oversaturated and bombarded with misinformation all the time to the point of generating mass panic.

People are also very dumb in general and politicians are no exception. I mean Democrats were willing to agitate a nuclear power (Russia) over loosing an election, you think politicians care about what they wreck when the public and future generations are the ones who're gonna have foot the bill? Fucking things up and making the public pay for it is what the political class does best.

Ah, the cry of the conspiracy theorist since the days of yore. That they are just smarter than everyone else. That everyone else is sheep and only they have seen The Truth!

So sad. So, so sad. Going down the rabbit hole which, at best looks silly, and at worst is the heart of pretty much every mass atrocity ever.

China's certainly guilty of suppressing information, and the WHO is complicit in supporting their narrative. But what did you expect? It's a totalitarian government, and an international body composed of many totalitarian states. There is exactly zero reason to suppose either would behave in a beneficent and transparent manner, instead of covering their ass and bowing to political pressure. But while China did conceal important data, the spread of information about the severity of the disease was only delayed for a bit. The world, including Italy, still had enough time to react.

Yet everyone except Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and belatedly China reacted poorly. That's not China's fault. It's because the rest of the world had no experience with this kind of thing, so there was no public or official will for draconian measures, very early on. And since diseases spread at an exponential pace, that's exactly when an overwhelming response is needed. The "wait and see" attitude doesn't work, because by the time it feels like a real threat, it's far too late for containment. This was and is a learning experience both for governments and the populace at large.

So if you blame any of the governments who failed at containment, you have to blame them all. And that's ridiculous, because it requires assuming that governments can and will react with perfect wisdom and paternalistic foresight, even against the wishes of the people they supposedly represent. It's really bizarre how many people seem to implicitly accept that.

Quote from: Mistwell;1126606Ah, the cry of the conspiracy theorist since the days of yore. That they are just smarter than everyone else. That everyone else is sheep and only they have seen The Truth!

So sad. So, so sad. Going down the rabbit hole which, at best looks silly, and at worst is the heart of pretty much every mass atrocity ever.

Ah, the cry of the willful sheep--lots of pointed jabs, but no actual argument.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1126621Ah, the cry of the willful sheep--lots of pointed jabs, but no actual argument.

The argument is your position reflects 100% the conspiracy theory pattern. It lacks any evidence, it adapts around any evidence presented, it depends on elements which cannot be disproven with evidence, it twists all arguments to be spun to your benefit, etc..

It's the same strategy used in history to, for example, dehumanize Jews. It's a very dependable, predictable strategy. And it deserves to be called out every time it's seen. Because it's shitty unethical and reckless behavior.

Quote from: Luca;1126591While this is true for more or less everyone, all of you who weren't Italy also had our warnings and our data. But you chose to ignore them...

Actually, New York, New jersey, and Detroit followed a similar philosophy to some regions in Italy early on:
https://in.news.yahoo.com/italy-launched-hug-chinese-campaign-065339340.html

Luckily, the rest of my country listened more to Trump and was a bit more proactive and prudent.

Nobody got it perfect.

Quote from: Pat;1126609So if you blame any of the governments who failed at containment, you have to blame them all. And that's ridiculous, because it requires assuming that governments can and will react with perfect wisdom and paternalistic foresight, even against the wishes of the people they supposedly represent. It's really bizarre how many people seem to implicitly accept that.

I don't completely agree with this. Yes, the situation is unprecedented, but it had been foreseen previously. Maybe those who reacted so well started with previous experience due to the SARS outbreak of a few years ago, but the thing is: they were far better prepared.

Had western countries prepared themselves by building strategic stockpiles of face masks to distribute to the population, proper ways of tracking contacts (like phone apps who can anonymously track proximity by numeric IDs and "deanonimize" once it is found you have had close contact with an infected by warning you and the government), places to send people for mandatory quarantine (with all incurred expenses paid by the government) etc., the spread could have been contained much better and without needing such draconian measures as to destroy the country's economy. Of course, not having done that beforehand, once the first person was infected, it was already too late and countrywide lockdown became the only realistic response.

Hopefully at least *some* of the countries will learn from this. I'm not holding my breath for mine, given the pathetic state of our politics, but we'll see.

Quote from: Luca;1126632I don't completely agree with this. Yes, the situation is unprecedented, but it had been foreseen previously. Maybe those who reacted so well started with previous experience due to the SARS outbreak of a few years ago, but the thing is: they were far better prepared.

Had western countries prepared themselves by building strategic stockpiles of face masks to distribute to the population, proper ways of tracking contacts (like phone apps who can anonymously track proximity by numeric IDs and "deanonimize" once it is found you have had close contact with an infected by warning you and the government), places to send people for mandatory quarantine (with all incurred expenses paid by the government) etc., the spread could have been contained much better and without needing such draconian measures as to destroy the country's economy. Of course, not having done that beforehand, once the first person was infected, it was already too late and countrywide lockdown became the only realistic response.

Hopefully at least *some* of the countries will learn from this. I'm not holding my breath for mine, given the pathetic state of our politics, but we'll see.

Sure, it had been foreseen. But there's a difference between having a few experts working on plans and models, and the occasionally national drill; and the political and public will for a concerted response. Which was entirely lacking.

And your solutions sound horrific. Perpetual government tracking of its citizens, having to carry digital papers at all times, and concentration camps is about 3 Orwells beyond a dystopian nightmare. Not to mention, it's completely unnecessary.

What if a conspiracy theory is later proven true?  There are lots of things that were conspiracy theories, and the curtain came back and....turns out they were true, for example the claims the NSA is spying on everyone..sounded nuts...but..

Quote from: Mistwell;1126623The argument is your position reflects 100% the conspiracy theory pattern. It lacks any evidence, it adapts around any evidence presented, it depends on elements which cannot be disproven with evidence, it twists all arguments to be spun to your benefit, etc..

It's the same strategy used in history to, for example, dehumanize Jews. It's a very dependable, predictable strategy. And it deserves to be called out every time it's seen. Because it's shitty unethical and reckless behavior.

You're still not addressing or refuting a single actual thing I said, but are instead dismissing it as "conspiracy theories" while accusing me of engaging in rhetoric comparable to anti-Semitic propaganda without basis. You're not "calling out shitty unethical and reckless behavior" you're just declaring it to be so from the comfort of your high horse without so much as pointing to a single specific example of it.

Meanwhile most of the opinions I had the audacity to "recklessly" and "unethically" express--apparently in a manner reminiscent of "dehumanizing the Jews" (a people mentioned nowhere in my post)--are actually based on facts. The number of deaths does include anyone who has been infected regardless of actual cause of death, which is a non-controversial statement that has been admitted by the authorities. That fact does put the actual death toll in question. The media has misinformed the public with inaccurate and contradictory information since day one--first downplaying the virus and calling anyone who took it seriously a conspiracy nut then ramming up the panic with questionable figures that include anyone who might have been infected regardless of how they died. None of these are controversial statements, but apparently I'm calling for the death of the Jews.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1126641The number of deaths does include anyone who has been infected regardless of actual cause of death, which is a non-controversial statement that has been admitted by the authorities.

Not true.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-reported-11585767179

Quote from: Pat;1126642Not true.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-reported-11585767179

There can be both undercounting and overcounting going on at the same time & place.

Quote from: Pat;1126642Not true.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-reported-11585767179

That doesn't actually contradict what I said. It merely speculates that the actual death toll may be higher because hospitals are over capacity and many people who die aren't being reported, which may well be the case. But the article itself mentions at some point that not everyone who has died is being tested because the hospitals are over capacity as it is. So we don't know.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1126641You're still not addressing or refuting a single actual thing I said

It's grouping all your arguments and addressing them all with one refutation - the basis of everything you said is an unproven, unsupported conspiracy theory which is flawed for the same list of reasos I gave for all conspiracy theories.

It makes you look foolish. Like you're one of those guys who thinks he's smarter than everyone else when he's actually dumber.

Clear enough? It's impossible to respond to a conspiracy theorist. For example, if given a list of 10 things the media says, if you show 1 is wrong then the fact that 9 things they said are correct gets warped into "If 1 was wrong, how do we know the others are not also lies just cleverly disguised". If I say, "the people who died who had the virus almost entirely died from the virus and all medical sources say they did" a conspiracy theorist just claims those medical sources are lying. See, that's how conspiracy theories work - they are based on assumptions which cannot be disproven while demanding 100% proof for any claims made against the theory.

It's foolish thinking. Smart people don't base their beliefs on conspiracy theories and then find vague allegations to support those theories while ignoring anything which runs counter to the theory. You are behaving like a fool.

Quote from: S'mon;1126644There can be both undercounting and overcounting going on at the same time & place.

That's the point. It's not an uncontroversial statement to say they're counting everyone who's been infected. In fact, it's just flat out wrong. They may be overcounting where there are relatively few cases, but they're also undercounting where the system's under stress. In many cases, they're having to make clinical diagnoses without benefit of tests, and since it shares many symptoms with the seasonal flu, it's impossible to be conclusive. Pretending these numbers are exact and certain is silly, and claiming they're being deliberately fudged is an extraordinary claim that requires, well, at least some evidence.

Also, the argument that some people will die of other things while they just happen to be sick with COVID-19 is true, but largely irrelevant. If someone fell off a cliff while coronavirus positive, the doctor will probably correctly attribute the cause of death to falling off a cliff. But if that person is dying of cancer, then it's probably the coronavirus that killed them because the disease is acute, with a mean time between infection and death of roughly 2 weeks. If the expect time to death while suffering from another terminal condition is longer, it's a safe bet to say the novel coronavirus is the cause.

Quote from: Mistwell;1126646It's grouping all your arguments and addressing them all with one refutation - the basis of everything you said is an unproven, unsupported conspiracy theory which is flawed for the same list of reasos I gave for all conspiracy theories.

It makes you look foolish. Like you're one of those guys who thinks he's smarter than everyone else when he's actually dumber.

Clear enough? It's impossible to respond to a conspiracy theorist. For example, if given a list of 10 things the media says, if you show 1 is wrong then the fact that 9 things they said are correct gets warped into "If 1 was wrong, how do we know the others are not also lies just cleverly disguised". If I say, "the people who died who had the virus almost entirely died from the virus and all medical sources say they did" a conspiracy theorist just claims those medical sources are lying. See, that's how conspiracy theories work - they are based on assumptions which cannot be disproven while demanding 100% proof for any claims made against the theory.

It's foolish thinking. Smart people don't base their beliefs on conspiracy theories and then find vague allegations to support those theories while ignoring anything which runs counter to the theory. You are behaving like a fool.

You have nothing, so are instead appealing to a hypothetical straw man of what you speculate I might say and are calling that a "refutation" cuz you don't know the difference between making wild accusations while misrepresenting what people said and actually refuting their stated points. Got it.

Quote from: SpinachcatDr. Birx even admitted the death toll is bullshit. She said "If Someone Dies With COVID-19 We Are Counting That As A COVID-19 Death". What a joke!

Quote from: Pat;1126649Also, the argument that some people will die of other things while they just happen to be sick with COVID-19 is true, but largely irrelevant. If someone fell off a cliff while coronavirus positive, the doctor will probably correctly attribute the cause of death to falling off a cliff. But if that person is dying of cancer, then it's probably the coronavirus that killed them because the disease is acute, with a mean time between infection and death of roughly 2 weeks. If the expect time to death while suffering from another terminal condition is longer, it's a safe bet to say the novel coronavirus is the cause.

I'm with Pat here. Spinachcat and VisionStorm are describing this as if it is laughable overcounting. Given a new disease and limited resources, it's not like we can do exhaustive autopsies on all covid-19 deaths. Under the current circumstances, it's a clear and reasonable simplification. If someone who dies has both heart disease and covid-19, or both cancer and covid-19, then it's quite reasonable to count that as a covid-19 death.

I gave a specific analysis before about expected deaths, in Post #164 (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41782-Is-DnD-Twitter-Worse-Than-Coronavirus&p=1126527&viewfull=1#post1126527). If there are a million people actively infected, we'd expect roughly 200 deaths over the last ten days from other causes in that group. That's an insignificant correction on the 50,000 deaths we have actually seen, and still is even if twenty times as many people are actively infected.

Plus, as others have noted, there are also known sources of undercounting because of limited testing.

Greetings!

I'm not sure where the deep passion comes for conspiracy theories. The Chinese government knew X, the American government knew X but failed at Y. Geesus. It is non-stop on the internet and sub-news, like every other day. So many of these fucking journalists speculating on a thread of puffy maybe evidence, if this, maybe that, they should have known X, blah, blah, blah.

I am far more confident of Occam's Razor at work. People--and governments--are full of fear, anxiety, greed, ambition, and sheer incompetence and baseless, career-saving smug arrogance--all eager to say the right things to the throne so as to secure their career and make themselves otherwise look good, smart, and deep. I think lots of things--like the virus we have here--takes them all by surprise, blows their smug models down the shitter, and makes them all feel powerless and stupid as fuck, as most of them don't have a fucking clue what to do about the virus. It's all a big clusterfuck, with them groping in the dark in the shower room, trying to find the bar of soap that fell on the floor.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Also, a bit about Italy.

Quote from: Jaeger;1126630Actually, New York, New jersey, and Detroit followed a similar philosophy to some regions in Italy early on:
https://in.news.yahoo.com/italy-launched-hug-chinese-campaign-065339340.html

Luckily, the rest of my country listened more to Trump and was a bit more proactive and prudent.

Nobody got it perfect.

I agree that no one got it perfect. But I think you're mischaracterizing Italy here. This was a singularly ill-considered campaign in the city of Florence, but it doesn't represent national Italian policy. On the national level, Italy instituted a travel ban to China earlier than the U.S., and it was more complete.

QuoteItaly imposed a ban on flights from China on 31 January, immediately after a Chinese couple in Rome tested positive for the virus. The U.S. began to restrict flights from China four days later. But while Italy enacted a full ban, the U.S. policy was only a restriction, with wide exemptions.

On February 4 the U.S. State Department issued a level 4 travel advisory mandating that foreign citizens who had been to China be turned away, and Americans who had been to China must undergo screening and possibly be put in quarantine for 14 days. But the restrictions contained wide exemptions, largely because of fears over the economic impacts of a full ban. Flight routes between the U.S. and China have been steadily cancelled over the past month, but in a piecemeal fashion and at the discretion of airlines.

By contrast, the Italian ban four days earlier was complete, with no exemptions. Italy was the first and only EU country to have a flight ban from China, and yet the country is now the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak in Europe with the highest number of cases outside China.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-banned-flights-from-china-before-americait-didnt-work/

QuoteItaly was one of the first nations to quickly impose a travel ban on all flights from China after detecting its first case of the novel virus on January 29, 2020. The following day, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte declared a state of emergency for a minimum period of six months. But within 20 days, that single case had ballooned into more than 12,000.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/worse-than-war-how-coronavirus-in-italy-proliferated-to-a-breaking-point

Given that Italy had an earlier and more complete ban, it seems to me that the travel ban is clearly not key to fighting the virus. It seems more like a Maginot line to me -- largely ineffectual.

Quote from: Pat;1126634And your solutions sound horrific. Perpetual government tracking of its citizens, having to carry digital papers at all times, and concentration camps is about 3 Orwells beyond a dystopian nightmare. Not to mention, it's completely unnecessary.

Ehr.. what? The government tracking is already happening. Cell phones lock on a transmitter cell and the police can request the relevant data from the telco companies. In Italy, a cell phone to be homologated must keep the lock even when it's turned off. Meaning the only way to not be tracked is to leave your cell phone at home. Even if in the US this is not the case, the point stands: if you're carrying around an active cell phone, you're essentially broadcasting your position at all times, and the government can access that data.

The "dystopian nightmare" is what they're using in South Korea. There's an app there which will track if your position is coming close (within 100 meters) to the path of someone else who became a confirmed COVID case and warn you if this is the case. As for "concentration camps", once again, that's what they're using in some of the countries which better controlled the virus spread: they will *enforce* quarantine (rather than trusting people to voluntarily self quarantine) by moving them in a previously prepared site (generally similar to an hotel, a building with lots of single rooms) and forcing them to stay there for 14 days. Meanwhile, they will provide food and basic necessities for free.

I get that basically being forced to house arrest in a room which is not even in your home is annoying, but I think calling being forced to this for 14 days "a concentration camp" is overstating things. Besides, it's obvious that these measures are only going to stay in place until the virus is under control.

Quote from: jhkim;1126666Given that Italy had an earlier and more complete ban, it seems to me that the travel ban is clearly not key to fighting the virus. It seems more like a Maginot line to me -- largely ineffectual.

Italy's travel ban was put in place for people with direct flights from China, but guess what: you can start from China, travel to one or more intermediate destinations, then go to Italy!
Travel bans, for a virus with asymptomatic spreaders, are utterly useless unless they're total i.e. you ban travel from everywhere to your country. And that should also include ground and ship travel. Essentially you'd need to completely close off the borders because anyone who comes in is a potential vector and they might not even know it. It's a lot easier for islands, but even then, it's not easy at all.

Quote from: Luca;1126673Italy's travel ban was put in place for people with direct flights from China, but guess what: you can start from China, travel to one or more intermediate destinations, then go to Italy!
Travel bans, for a virus with asymptomatic spreaders, are utterly useless unless they're total i.e. you ban travel from everywhere to your country. And that should also include ground and ship travel. Essentially you'd need to completely close off the borders because anyone who comes in is a potential vector and they might not even know it. It's a lot easier for islands, but even then, it's not easy at all.

Yes, the only travel ban that works is a complete ban on travel. Either before there are any infections, or combined with effective contact tracing of all current infections.

Re undercount/overcount; the 'excess deaths' figures (all-cause mortality over typical for month) numbers are a good indicator, and are what convinced me the virus is pretty lethal. Hard hit places are seeing substantial increases on expected monthly mortality.

(https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-10-at-5.56.48-PM.png)

Quote from: Luca;1126672Ehr.. what? The government tracking is already happening.

That's also horrific, but treating it like a fait accompli is why it was so easy to erode those basic rights, piece by piece, over the years. Each new abrogation needs to be fought, tooth and nail.

Quote from: Luca;1126672I get that basically being forced to house arrest in a room which is not even in your home is annoying, but I think calling being forced to this for 14 days "a concentration camp" is overstating things. Besides, it's obvious that these measures are only going to stay in place until the virus is under control.

Fair enough. While the privacy rights are likely to be lost permanently, it is unlikely they'll keep people in camps indefinitely. But we need to take a hard look at any sweeping new powers supposedly aimed at giving the government the right to do that kind of thing.

Quote from: S'mon;1126676Yes, the only travel ban that works is a complete ban on travel. Either before there are any infections, or combined with effective contact tracing of all current infections.

The reason the new coronavirus is so difficult to contain is because of the lengthy asyptomatic period during which those infected are still shedding the virus, as well as the carriers who never develop symptoms buy are still infectious. One person can pass the disease to a lot of people in that time, and may never even realize they were doing it, which makes contact tracing far more difficult. And since it's impossible to diagnose without tests, and there was both a shortage and many tests had a high percentage of false negatives, the net became a sieve.

Quote from: Luca;1126632I don't completely agree with this. Yes, the situation is unprecedented, but it had been foreseen previously. Maybe those who reacted so well started with previous experience due to the SARS outbreak of a few years ago, but the thing is: they were far better prepared.

Had western countries prepared themselves by building strategic stockpiles of face masks to distribute to the population, proper ways of tracking contacts (like phone apps who can anonymously track proximity by numeric IDs and "deanonimize" once it is found you have had close contact with an infected by warning you and the government), places to send people for mandatory quarantine (with all incurred expenses paid by the government) etc., the spread could have been contained much better and without needing such draconian measures as to destroy the country's economy. Of course, not having done that beforehand, once the first person was infected, it was already too late and countrywide lockdown became the only realistic response.

Hopefully at least *some* of the countries will learn from this. I'm not holding my breath for mine, given the pathetic state of our politics, but we'll see.

PPE has a shelf life if vast amounts of it had been ordered and stored it would have been declared a waste. Likewise if plans had been put in place for mass tracking  and  mandatory quarantine they would have  been condemned . If Trump had done it the media and the rest of the leftists  would have had a fit and it would have been challenged in Federal court.

Quote from: Gagarth;1126684PPE has a shelf life if vast amounts of it had been ordered and stored it would have been declared a waste. Likewise if plans had been put in place for mass tracking  and  mandatory quarantine they would have  been condemned . If Trump had done it the media and the rest of the leftists  would have had a fit and it would have been challenged in Federal court.

U.S. exports of surgical masks, ventilators and other personal protective gear to China skyrocketed in January and February, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in the country where it began and as U.S. intelligence agencies warned it would soon spread.
American companies sold more than $17.5 million worth of face masks, more than $13.6 million in surgical garments and more than $27.2 million in ventilators to China during the first two months of the year, far exceeding that of any other similar period in the past decade, according to the most recent foreign trade data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

He was warned by his intel. He did not listen. He let America sell PPE to China. America first. America first. Please stop the winning I can't take it.

Quote from: Luca;1126672The "dystopian nightmare" is what they're using in South Korea. There's an app there which will track if your position is coming close (within 100 meters) to the path of someone else who became a confirmed COVID case and warn you if this is the case.

Not just that, but it appears that carrying your phone at all times for tracking purposes is effectively (and perhaps literally) mandatory for anyone under specific quarantine rules, as they're also making use of bluetooth-enabled bracelets which will cause your phone to send an alert to the police if you go out without it:

Quote"After deep consideration, the government has decided to put electronic wristbands on people who violate self-isolation rules, such as going outside without notice and not answering phone calls," Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Saturday, according to Yonhap.
- https://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-wristbands-coronavirus-catch-people-dodging-tracking-app-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

I'd call that a dystopian nightmare of at least 0.75 Orwell in magnitude in and of itself, even without taking any other South Korean measures into account.

Quote from: Luca;1126673Italy's travel ban was put in place for people with direct flights from China, but guess what: you can start from China, travel to one or more intermediate destinations, then go to Italy!

While that's true, I don't think it completely negates jhkim's point.  Even though Italy's travel ban from China isn't entirely watertight, it's tighter than those in the rest of Europe, and yet Italy is still being hit harder than other European nations.  On the surface, at least, this seems to imply that a stricter travel ban does not improve outcomes.  (If you dig deeper, there may be explanations other than travel which prove to be more significant, but I haven't done that digging myself, so I can't say how accurate the surface interpretation actually is.)

Quote from: nDervish;1126698While that's true, I don't think it completely negates jhkim's point.  Even though Italy's travel ban from China isn't entirely watertight, it's tighter than those in the rest of Europe, and yet Italy is still being hit harder than other European nations.  On the surface, at least, this seems to imply that a stricter travel ban does not improve outcomes.  (If you dig deeper, there may be explanations other than travel which prove to be more significant, but I haven't done that digging myself, so I can't say how accurate the surface interpretation actually is.)

That could simply be bad luck. Disease spreads at an exponential rate, which means the final result is highly sensitive to the initial conditions. If the number of cases doubles every 5 days, then a country where the first cases appear 20 days earlier than in other countries will always have 16 times as many cases, at least until the number of cases peak due to slowing, herd immunity, or a vaccine. And if one of those early cases is a super-spreader (as happened in the US), and ends up tripling the number of early cases, that x3 multiplier will also persist until the peak.

Quote from: Nerag;1126690American companies sold more than $17.5 million worth of face masks, more than $13.6 million in surgical garments and more than $27.2 million in ventilators to China during the first two months of the year, far exceeding that of any other similar period in the past decade, according to the most recent foreign trade data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.
.

If Trump had invoked the Defence Production Action at that time to prevent these sales he would have been condemned and labelled a racist. Or maybe you missed the whole "Modern Piracy" screeching recently.

Guys, please stick closer to the actual topic, which is really D&D Twitter.

Quote from: Gagarth;1126787If Trump had invoked the Defence Production Action at that time to prevent these sales he would have been condemned and labelled a racist. Or maybe you missed the whole "Modern Piracy" screeching recently.

These liberal alternative fantasy scenarios are tiresome. If Trump were any good he would have made the tough decisions. But he can't because he's weak and can't lead because you say he scared of being called a racist. So according to you he is a coward.

In related news Mexico is calling for Americans to be barred from the US by Trump's wall.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52053656

Hilarious. I have sen adventures in Ravenloft go better.

Quote from: Nerag;1127119These liberal alternative fantasy scenarios are tiresome. If Trump were any good he would have made the tough decisions. But he can't because he's weak and can't lead because you say he scared of being called a racist. So according to you he is a coward.

No what I am saying is that no matter what decisions he made the leftest including  the biased media would have screeched he should have done the opposite.  Since the start of this they have been saying that Trump should have lockdown the whole country from...  well who  knows from when was supposed tohave done this  probably January. Hindsight is wonderful .

But being the true hypocrites they are they now saying he has no control over lockdowns . https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-explain/explainer-trump-has-little-power-to-restart-u-s-economy-idUSKBN21B3F5 (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-explain/explainer-trump-has-little-power-to-restart-u-s-economy-idUSKBN21B3F5)

#orcs blew up today.

I'll summarize:

Person 1: "hey guys! the description of orcs in the monster manual bears eerie similarity to generic racist propaganda."

Person 2: "so you're saying orcs are black people?"

Person 1: "no, I'm just saying that--"

Person 3: "yeah, so what? That description is painfully outdated. In modern fantasy, orcs are whatever we want them to be. Very few writers actually depict them as generic evil mooks anymore, for obvious reasons. Have you ever heard of Warcraft, Warhammer, or--"

Person 2: "you're the real racists! Reeeee!"

Person 1: "Reeeee!"

Person 3: "Reeeee!"

Edit: relevant video:
https://youtu.be/0F1NL4vRCpw

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1127962#orcs blew up today.
Person 1: "hey guys! the description of orcs in the monster manual bears eerie similarity to generic racist propaganda."

Any idea where the description in the tweet that flared this up actually came from as I can't find it in the core books?

I believe (but could be wrong) it was in Volo's Guide to Monsters, not any of the core books.

Also, more accurately, the "Person 1" who started the whole thing said:

QuoteCW Blatant Racism
I'm in genuine awe that this shit came out for THIS edition of D&D holy shit.
[pic of the text of Roleplaying an Orc section]

So not quite as benign as BoxCrayonTales put it.

Quote from: rgalex;1128014So not quite as benign as BoxCrayonTales put it.

Volo literally describes orcs, sapient beings, as being "domesticated." I shouldn't have to explain why that sounds disturbing.

Yes, orcs, gnolls, trolls, blah blah don't exist and don't represent any particular real group of people. The whole concept of evil races of sapient beings with cultures and families and blah blah blah inherently displays parallels with the racist propaganda used by all human groups throughout history. You dehumanize your targets so that you don't feel guilty for killing them and their families. The same rhetoric was used to justify genocide by colonizers.

The game world is contrived so that humanoids really are subhuman scum you can mass murder and "domesticate" with impunity, rather than people being brutally exterminated by sociopathic "adventurers."

There's nothing wrong with playing violent genocide fantasies. Cowboys & Indians is a children's game about genocide and nobody denies that it's fun as heck. We shouldn't pretend that they're not violent genocide fantasies, though.

For that reason, I advocate playing Violence: The Role-Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed. http://www.costik.com/Violence%20RPG1.pdf

I wasn't making a single comment on the whole orcs=racist discussion.  I was saying that your "summary" of the original tweet as:

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1127962Person 1: "hey guys! the description of orcs in the monster manual bears eerie similarity to generic racist propaganda."

Person 2: "so you're saying orcs are black people?"

Person 1: "no, I'm just saying that--"

isn't nearly how the original tweet was phrased.  With a content warning and Current Yearism it was a much more in your face "Reeeeeee!" right from the start.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1128029Volo literally describes orcs, sapient beings, as being "domesticated." I shouldn't have to explain why that sounds disturbing.

Yes, orcs, gnolls, trolls, blah blah don't exist and don't represent any particular real group of people. The whole concept of evil races of sapient beings with cultures and families and blah blah blah inherently displays parallels with the racist propaganda used by all human groups throughout history. You dehumanize your targets so that you don't feel guilty for killing them and their families. The same rhetoric was used to justify genocide by colonizers.

The game world is contrived so that humanoids really are subhuman scum you can mass murder and "domesticate" with impunity, rather than people being brutally exterminated by sociopathic "adventurers."

There's nothing wrong with playing violent genocide fantasies. Cowboys & Indians is a children's game about genocide and nobody denies that it's fun as heck. We shouldn't pretend that they're not violent genocide fantasies, though.

For that reason, I advocate playing Violence: The Role-Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed. http://www.costik.com/Violence%20RPG1.pdf

You're willfully trying to find "racist propaganda" where there is none. Describing a race that in the context of the game world happens to literally be vile and destructive subhuman scum (often as a result of not even being natural creatures, but creations of magic that are made vile destructive and "domesticated" subhumans by some outside force) does not reveal some need to dehumanize your enemies to justify slaughtering them. That is simply a description of reality. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a race of evil subhumans bent on destruction about to kill you is really a race of evil subhumans bent on destruction about to kill you.

The fact that people in real life may have used racist propaganda to dehumanize other ethnic groups to justify trying to kill them does not mean that actual vile evil subhumans cannot exist in some hypothetical reality. It's not like we don't have animals in real life that can sometimes become a destructive invasive species and have to be exterminated or hunted to manageable levels so they don't fuck up the entire ecosystem for everyone else. Or is trying to reduce deer overpopulation racist propaganda as well?

And stop lying to us and to yourself every time this subject comes up by constantly bringing up how it's totally 100% OK to play racist murder simulators after going on a histrionic rant about how portraying orcs as the vile destructive monsters that they actually are is somehow "disturbing" racist propaganda that apparently needs to be examined. If it's real so OK then WTF is there to examine or be distributed about? Contradicting yourself to try to "soften" the blow from essentially calling people unconscious racists that need to get their murder grove on does not make your argument easier to swallow. It just makes you sound passive aggressive, delusional and dishonest about what you're actually trying to say.

Dress your orcs up in Nazi iconography. That will blow their tiny minds. They won't know whether to punch them or have a parade.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1128036You're willfully trying to find "racist propaganda" where there is none. Describing a race that in the context of the game world happens to literally be vile and destructive subhuman scum (often as a result of not even being natural creatures, but creations of magic that are made vile destructive and "domesticated" subhumans by some outside force) does not reveal some need to dehumanize your enemies to justify slaughtering them. That is simply a description of reality. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a race of evil subhumans bent on destruction about to kill you is really a race of evil subhumans bent on destruction about to kill you.

The fact that people in real life may have used racist propaganda to dehumanize other ethnic groups to justify trying to kill them does not mean that actual vile evil subhumans cannot exist in some hypothetical reality. It's not like we don't have animals in real life that can sometimes become a destructive invasive species and have to be exterminated or hunted to manageable levels so they don't fuck up the entire ecosystem for everyone else. Or is trying to reduce deer overpopulation racist propaganda as well?

And stop lying to us and to yourself every time this subject comes up by constantly bringing up how it's totally 100% OK to play racist murder simulators after going on a histrionic rant about how portraying orcs as the vile destructive monsters that they actually are is somehow "disturbing" racist propaganda that apparently needs to be examined. If it's real so OK then WTF is there to examine or be distributed about? Contradicting yourself to try to "soften" the blow from essentially calling people unconscious racists that need to get their murder grove on does not make your argument easier to swallow. It just makes you sound passive aggressive, delusional and dishonest about what you're actually trying to say.

To quote someone else who put it sagely:

QuoteAccording to what I have seen, the entire thing *started* because someone said it *had* something in common with racist propaganda

QuoteThere are *at least* three separate issues here:
1 - If the depiction of "Always Chaotic Evil" races is morally repugnant, and that discussion is as old as Tolkenian Orcs themselves, given that the Professor himself was troubled over the issue of how to present them, given that the idea of an inherently evil race is unacceptable for him.
2 - If Orcs (And other Always Chaotic Evil races) in general standard medieval fantasy settings (as well as in other settigns) are supposed to be stand-ins for non-European cultures and/or vehicles for subtle and/or subconscious racism against "non-white" people, and *this* debate is way mroe complex and intrincate that number 1, and anyone pretending it's clear cut has an angle, IMO.
3 - If this kind of deep analysis is warrated because, really, some people just want to dungeon delve and get shiny loot. To some people, the entire thing is about debating if the minions in League of Legends, whose entire point is be killed for the advancement of player characters, are helpless victims; or if Battleship players are guilty of multiple homicides because of the poor crews they so thoughtlessly blow out of the water.


Number 3 itself could be folded out into yet another debate - is a roleplaying game more morally demanding of its player than *Battleship*? Does the fact that you are playing a character, isntead of an abstract fleet admiral, grant more weight to how you have your character behave? Are some games immoral by their very natures? Does playing *Monopoly* stain your soul with disgusting greed? And the thing is - this is Twitter. There is no space (and no time!) to *think* and write about it. There are only so many characters and so long an attention span, so all you can get in is a couple of soundbites designed for maximum outrage or applause, IMO. The entire thing is a sham. Outrage/drama porn, basically.

QuoteAlright, I'm gonna bite: *in this particular case we are talking about*, the accusation is that the depiction of orcs is racist. Thus, indirectly, the claim is that these popular games and authors are racist. Thus, again indirectly, the claim is that people who enjoy these games and authors are racist.
In fact, sometimes it is insinuated, or even stated outright, that people like these games and authors *because* they are racist.
Which is to say, the entire thing is an attack on the character/morals of a very broad set of people, and the most natural thing to do when your character/reputation/morality is attack is to react.

Quote

QuoteI think some of these fears rest on an assumption that we're all completely passive consumers of media

So do I, to a point. But if I may, I think what drives some of these concerns is not so much the idea that people could be *influenced* to think in this way (some races/people are inherently evil/inferior) but that people *already think like that* and these media could be indicators that they do and something must be done about it.
Not a causal relation, but a... I don't know, expression relation.

Quote from: mightybrain;1128047Dress your orcs up in Nazi iconography. That will blow their tiny minds. They won't know whether to punch them or have a parade.

Stormboyz?

Greetings!

Yes. Kill them. Kill them all!

There is only War!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1128060To quote someone else who put it sagely:

All these quotes are nothing but mental masturbation used to sidestep the fact that this ENTIRE topic hinges on making wild leaps of logic that frame contentious opinions based on out of context hasty generalizations as self-evident established fact based on 1 on 1 comparisons, when objectively they're not.

You're just taking something that exists on a COMPLETELY different context, circumstances and even REALITY, comparing it something else, and insisting that they're exactly the same thing because some superficial similarities incidentally exist--not even causally, but based on pure happenstance. Someone somewhere in real life once made racist propaganda depicting some ethnic group as inherently evil and irredeemable, therefore ANY depiction of imaginary monsters that actually are literally inherently evil and irredeemable in the context of the actual world and circumstances that they exist in is also (somehow) racist propaganda. Kinda like saying that the news media lies (because it demonstrably does!) now makes you a Nazi, because once upon a time Nazis called the media the Lying Press, therefore pointing out that the media literally does lie makes you a Nazi because that sounds exactly like Nazi propaganda, despite it also happening to be true.

It's the kind of logic that goes up its own asshole like a human centipede ouroboros.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1128066All these quotes are nothing but mental masturbation used to sidestep the fact that this ENTIRE topic hinges on making wild leaps of logic that frame contentious opinions based on out of context hasty generalizations as self-evident established fact based on 1 on 1 comparisons, when objectively they're not.

You're just taking something that exists on a COMPLETELY different context, circumstances and even REALITY, comparing it something else, and insisting that they're exactly the same thing because some superficial similarities incidentally exist--not even causally, but based on pure happenstance. Someone somewhere in real life once made racist propaganda depicting some ethnic group as inherently evil and irredeemable, therefore ANY depiction of imaginary monsters that actually are literally inherently evil and irredeemable in the context of the actual world and circumstances that they exist in is also (somehow) racist propaganda. Kinda like saying that the news media lies (because it demonstrably does!) now makes you a Nazi, because once upon a time Nazis called the media the Lying Press, therefore pointing out that the media literally does lie makes you a Nazi because that sounds exactly like Nazi propaganda, despite it also happening to be true.

It's the kind of logic that goes up its own asshole like a human centipede ouroboros.

Okay.

We have two threads on this now!

Quote from: mightybrain;1128047Dress your orcs up in Nazi iconography.

I'm so utterly done. We're going with your idea now. All my Orcs are Nazis who speak Jive.

Fuck these Twitter clowns. Anyone on the "orcs = blacks" bandwagon needs to be booted from the hobby.

We should have dropped the gates on these assholes a decade ago.

How much more bullshit and division are we going to tolerate? Zero good comes from tolerating these shitbags.

There's a legitimate discussion to be had regarding "inhuman sapients as kill fodder" and the need/desire/choice to replace humans with non-humans in the "evil being to kill" role. I'm cool with that discussion, but arguing that "orcs = blacks" is the domain of overprivileged honky simps and blue haired fuglies, neither of which we need in the hobby.

It's high time for gatekeeping...with archers at the wall.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1128101I'm so utterly done. We're going with your idea now. All my Orcs are Nazis who speak Jive.

I want a campaign sourcebook right now...get writing dammit!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1128101It's high time for gatekeeping...with archers at the wall.

Nah...let 'em get close and use boiling oil...It'll be more entertaining. :D

Greetings!

*Laughing* This is such a stupid and pathetic REEEE! by the SJW's.

Many years ago, in a strange land, there was a campaign that featured an evil, tyrannical wizard, and a beautiful vampire queen, who together ruled over a powerful kingdom of orcs and other populations of savage monsters. The evil kingdom had many legions are fierce, bloodthirsty orcs, all preparing for war. The evil wizard had experimented with mystical gates, and had managed to open a gateway to our own world of Earth, during World War II. Some time passed, and the player characters discovered that the evil wizard and his vampire queen had brought several regiments of the 1st SS Liebstandarte Panzer Division from World War II Earth into their own world. There were years of war that raged across the land, with hundreds of thousands of people and creatures dying. Dragons and giants alike chose sides, and the battles were epic. There was a terrible series of battles in an allied Elven kingdom, and a long and savage battle in the streets and palaces of the elven kingdom's capital city. The players went apeshit when they witnessed several battle-hardened Orc warriors, armed with Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles. scale the highest tower of the elven palace, and raised a giant swastika banner in savage triumph. Below, columns of grim Orc warriors, dressed in black leather armour, steel breastplates, and armed with scimitars, daggers, Sturmgewhr-44 Assault Rifles, fragmentation grenades, and flame-throwers, marched in long files through the streets, chanting ancient war chants of glory. The fierce orcs marched in good order, and had fought with savage ferocity, discipline, and ruthless determination. The orcs and monsters had been powerfully united like never before. Amongst the vast companies of orc warriors, strangely dressed humans were alongside them, urging them onwards. The orc kingdom was on the march!

Jackbooted battalions of half orcs became a new cadre of shock troops amongst the orc kingdom's armies. Wearing fine, black leather boots, heavy, wolf-furred overcoats, black leather gloves, and armoured in black and silver scale mail. These battalions of half orc shock troops were armed with a Schmeisser MP-40 submachine gun, a battle axe, dagger, and several fragmentation grenades.

Elite companies of highly trained Minotaurs, dressed in black and silver scale armour, and splinter-forest camouflage cloaks, armed with battle axes, fragmentation grenades, and flame-throwers provided lots of fun for the players.

This new kingdom served as an entirely new threat to the player characters, and likewise to everything they valued. The players eagerly vowed to resist the evil kingdom to their last breath, ready to fight against them street by street, and from house to house!

That campaign was crazy and wild fun! The players loved every minute of it.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1128029For that reason, I advocate playing Violence: The Role-Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed. [urlhttp://www.costik.com/Violence%20RPG1.pdf[/url]

Yeah right, NPC gamers like you should stick to My Little Pony (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263319/My-Little-Pony-Tails-of-Equestria--The-Storytelling-Game)

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