Covid, the "lockdowns" etc.

[jhkim]

Your position seems that you know for sure that the lockdowns don't work and do not save lives, and no country should use a lockdown.

Nope. My position is that lockdowns may save lives (in the short term, at least -- see the flatten the curve discussion) -- but lockdowns also cost lives. We need to stop counting lives lost in hospital beds, while ignoring all the deaths of despair and the shortened lifespans caused by the economic shutdown.

And it's become very clear, based on an overwhelming amount of evidence, that the shutdowns cost more lives than they save.

You say "nope" - but this is exactly what I meant. You claim to know for certain about the lives saved and cost from the lockdowns - that the sum effect of the lockdowns is "very clear". To you, the science is settled and that there is no question.

This is in contrast to our seeming agreement elsewhere that the disease is very new, and there is a lot of uncertainty about it. Furthermore, I don't think that the economic life cost is cut-and-dried either. There's considerable evidence that mortality is reduced in economic recession, which is lives *saved* rather than lives *lost*. I'll respond in more detail later, but I think this is the root of our clash.

[Pat]

You say "nope" - but this is exactly what I meant. You claim to know for certain about the lives saved and cost from the lockdowns - that the sum effect of the lockdowns is "very clear". To you, the science is settled and that there is no question.

This is in contrast to our seeming agreement elsewhere that the disease is very new, and there is a lot of uncertainty about it. Furthermore, I don't think that the economic life cost is cut-and-dried either. There's considerable evidence that mortality is reduced in economic recession, which is lives *saved* rather than lives *lost*. I'll respond in more detail later, but I think this is the root of our clash.

No again. Look, words matter. Certain means indisputable. I don't think any of this beyond dispute. I don't think the science is settled (incidentally, that's a very icky phrase). Those are your words, and I completely reject them. Science is based on evidence, not on inviolate beliefs. I think there's a lot of evidence against the lockdowns, especially given the weight of the burden of proof, but that doesn't translate into absolute surety. Taking what I say, and replacing the words with words with completely different meanings, completely transforms the meaning.

Nor does that conflict in any way with the idea that this is a new disease, and we're still in the early stages. But note I also qualified that. I also said that things have gotten better. We have more information, and there's more consensus. We're still at the beginning, but no longer completely in the dark. To adapt Rumsfield's construction, the number of unknown unknowns have diminished.

[Shasarak]

To adapt Rumsfield's construction, the number of unknown unknowns have diminished.

That seems like it would be a hard thing to measure.

[Pat]

To adapt Rumsfield's construction, the number of unknown unknowns have diminished.

That seems like it would be a hard thing to measure.

Not directly, but if we have a poor grasp on something, and then we start getting a handle on it, then by inference we can assume what we don't know has decreased.

[HappyDaze]

To adapt Rumsfield's construction, the number of unknown unknowns have diminished.

That seems like it would be a hard thing to measure.

Not directly, but if we have a poor grasp on something, and then we start getting a handle on it, then by inference we can assume what we don't know has decreased.

OK, but you have nothing to really use for measuring whether you now know enough for it to matter at all. If you increase your understanding by 1000% it sounds great...until you later discover you only started at less than 0.0001% understanding...and later still find out that figure was being extremely generous.

[Pat]

To adapt Rumsfield's construction, the number of unknown unknowns have diminished.

That seems like it would be a hard thing to measure.

Not directly, but if we have a poor grasp on something, and then we start getting a handle on it, then by inference we can assume what we don't know has decreased.

OK, but you have nothing to really use for measuring whether you now know enough for it to matter at all. If you increase your understanding by 1000% it sounds great...until you later discover you only started at less than 0.0001% understanding...and later still find out that figure was being extremely generous.

That's true in the abstract, but this is a disease. We have some knowledge of how they operate, so there's a framework in place we can use to assess what we know and don't know. It probably won't suddenly grow to kaiju size and stomp Tokyo, after all.

The trick with sars2 was twofold: One, a lot of politicians, public health officials, and the media gave the impression things were far more settled than they actually were. And two, it's a weird disease. A lot of initial assumptions were wrong, and some of the weird things got blown out of proportion. But we have a much better idea of how it's spread, the real (IFR) fatality rate, and so on; while there's still uncertainty about things like the long term effects and prevalence.

[Spinachcat]

I don't know if the 75k suicides in half of 2020 vs. 50k average annual is accurate, however I could see it being true for this reason alone: lockdowns caused social isolation, thus the breaking of people's formal and informal support groups.

Here's a bet. I suspect next year's national standardized testing will be ignored by the MSM, and only limited articles will exist. I'm also expecting teacher's unions to push for abolishing of all standardized testing because the massive damage to the nation's children won't be undone.

Most especially with the youngest students who have lost critical building blocks and will be forced to stumble grade to grade without fundamental tools. Combine that with vastly diminished special education and the problem escalates, which will result in further dumbing down of education standards to cover the asses of teachers.

Of course, the breaking of America's children is a grand boon to the Marxists.

[moonsweeper]

We could get lucky and the increased interest in alternative schooling may break the union's back.
People are starting to realize how garbage the public education system has become thanks to online schooling this year.

It may be the one positive thing to come out of the WuFlu lockdown...

[Kyle Aaron]

There's considerable evidence that mortality is reduced in economic recession, which is lives *saved* rather than lives *lost*.

If this is true, we should endeavour to be permanently in recession. Good luck taking that as your election platform

Of course, there's also quality of life...

[Shasarak]

If the Government takes away everyones car then there will be no more car deaths!

Genius!

[moonsweeper]

If this is true, we should endeavour to be permanently in recession. Good luck taking that as your election platform

Of course, there's also quality of life...

You are talking about leftists.  They want everyone to have equal quality of life...equally poor and miserable.

[Pat]

There's considerable evidence that mortality is reduced in economic recession, which is lives *saved* rather than lives *lost*.

If this is true, we should endeavour to be permanently in recession. Good luck taking that as your election platform

Of course, there's also quality of life...

Yep. jhkim is absolutely right that the overall deaths drop during a recession -- but nobody likes recessions. Which really highlights how we make decisions. We take risks every day, like driving to the restaurant and possibly getting in a car crash, instead of ordering delivery, because we value a good, interesting life with many experiences more than being safe shut-ins. So the argument that we need to take every measure possible to eliminate any possibility of death just isn't a choice real humans would ever make on their own.

[Pat]

We could get lucky and the increased interest in alternative schooling may break the union's back.
People are starting to realize how garbage the public education system has become thanks to online schooling this year.

It may be the one positive thing to come out of the WuFlu lockdown...

There's been a big surge in interest in home schooling. I don't have any direct experience, but from what I've heard, the tools for home schooling have really improved in the last few years. The resources and support available has gotten a lot better, so it's not as daunting as it once was.

[rgalex]

If this is true, we should endeavour to be permanently in recession. Good luck taking that as your election platform

Of course, there's also quality of life...

You are talking about leftists.  They want everyone to have equal quality of life...equally poor and miserable.

I don't recall where I heard it, but somewhere I saw someone claim that while capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth, socialism/communism is the equal distribution of poverty.

[Steven Mitchell]

We could get lucky and the increased interest in alternative schooling may break the union's back.
People are starting to realize how garbage the public education system has become thanks to online schooling this year.

It may be the one positive thing to come out of the WuFlu lockdown...

There's been a big surge in interest in home schooling. I don't have any direct experience, but from what I've heard, the tools for home schooling have really improved in the last few years. The resources and support available has gotten a lot better, so it's not as daunting as it once was.

I do have direct experience.  I've also been paying attention to trends in the movement for 20+ years now.  The moderate estimates by the various home schooling movements puts the increase this fall as about double compared to last year--from about 4 million students to about 8 million.  It is difficult to say for sure, because that estimate is trying not to count "pod schools", neighborhoods hiring tutors directly, and other such alternatives, but only true home schooling.  Nor is it counting virtual school that is still administered by public, private, or parochial schools.  Since the lines get blurry between true home school, pod school, and the like, it could be off.

Also, unlike true home schooling, we have no history of how permanent the interest will be.  Home schooling is not for everyone, but the rates across the country have been steadily increasing for longer than my family was involved, with retention rates that have been fairly steady.  No one really knows how the new alternatives will be received long term.

Finally, the one thing that has really sparked the huge explosion over the last decade or so is--funny enough--radical changes in the public/home school cooperation in a few states.  Florida is particularly notable for this.  There was a huge fight several years ago, legislature versus the teacher's union, that basically was won by the legislature.  They changed the law that meant a student did not need to withdraw fully from a public school to take advantage of home school.  If the parent wanted to teach their grade school kids English/reading, let the public school do the rest, it was allowed. If the parent wanted to do everything else but let the kids participate in sports or band or take the school's chemistry courses, that was allowed.  Funding was done in proportion.  It only took a couple of years for most administrators to discover that a partially participating kid with good grades and a lot of motivation to do well was an overall boon--versus not getting credit for the kid at all.  They also discovered that such kids were a good example to others.

Ergo, the battle is not just public school versus everything else but the wedges within the public schools over--well a whole lot but not least those in public schools that really do care about kids and those that don't.