Bay 12 Games Forum

Assuming the worst case scenario, doing 15 million tests and finding 1.7 million infections is terrifying because it would mean we actually have that sort of ratio of infections/total population.

The good news, of a sort, is that what it really means is that we're testing way too many people who obviously are infected.

That downside of that good news is those numbers are then useless for getting an accurate sense of how far it has spread through the population.

Test everybody, 330 million~ people, find 1.7 million cases, you found everyone and it's under control by definition.
Test 1 in 10, 33 million~ people, find 1.7 million cases, assuming you randomly sampled the population you would want to assume you have 17 million cases floating around, worst case scenario, it's in no way close to controlled.
Test 1 in 20, 16.5 million~ people, find 1.7 million cases, again assuming randomly sampled scenario with no weighting, there might be 34 million cases, which is pretty fucking bad, but we can't even make that sort of guess because we're weighting the testing towards those with obvious symptoms, and these results would only be useful if we were actually being proactive and doing contact tracing to determine possible infections and spread, but we aren't doing that so it's like quickly turning the lights off in a dance club and taking a flash photo of the people around you so you can try to figure out what song is playing.

Trump trying to postpone the election, is, again, a hilarious outcome: he gets Uncle Phil'D the fuck out when his term expires, the presidency devolves to the next available and qualified officeholder. Most likely the president pro tempore of the senate, possibly the speaker of the house.

Someone as charming and motivating as Obama, with all the evil devious bullshit knowledge of how to buttfuck democracy you could find if you for some awful reason combined McConnell and Cheney, the cooperation of a supermajority in both chambers of congress, plus something like 67% of state governors/congresses MIGHT be able to push through something as extreme as a mere extension to three terms, OR finagle a way to remain in office until a delayed election can be held assuming they started early enough and any court challenges were defeated early enough.

Trump and the party of nope? Hah! While it is causing unfuckingbelievable amounts of damage long term, the only thing someone as blatantly evil as McConnell has been able to do--despite briefly having had control of the house, senate, and presidency--is push through conservative justices by the truckload.

There are lots of laws they'd like to pass, tax changes they lust after, and much more but they managed to get in their own way the first time they tried, barely squeaked out anything the second time, and it took a global pandemic for them to manage to sneak anything else through in the rush.

There's a reason they've started pushing for this ridiculous idea that the government doesn't have the authority to delegate responsibilities for enacting legislation so the courts should strike all sorts of shit down--though the entire constitution is a document describing how the government has authority to delegate responsibilities for enacting legislation--it's because they know their hold on power is delicate to say the least, and any efforts to allow more people to actually engage in dangerous shit like voting are going to end up screwing over their ability to serve their masters.


As for other political parties, the difference in votes between Hillary and Trump in key states was in many cases smaller than the number of third party votes, so while many of those voters may have been trying to register some sort of protest or "god these are both awful but Trump is obviously going to lose" mindset, they didn't do anybody except Trump a favor. Realistically no, third party votes aren't a step towards change or a better option, at best they're wasted, at worst they're helping the bad guys win.


Now, can we knock off the fucking equivocation? Biden sucks, but unlike Hillary people will probably vote for him, and hey with the right VP pick and a sudden keeling-over-behind-the-resolute-desk we could end up with a much better president.

Is Biden going to magically make shit better? Nah, but know what else he isn't going to do? Make things catastrophically worse like Trump will, because the big fat turdbaby coasted on three years of smooth sailing before his passengers started pointing out some speedbumps that somebody tried to warn them about years ago, so he called them nasty and drove into a wall before flooring it and smoking the tires... still driving into a wall.

We didn't just get fucked over here by this pandemic, this is the sort of situation which we would normally have prepared for and even under someone like Dubya we would have taken charge helping the rest of the world weather this shit and the whole thing would have been less devastating than it has been and will continue to be. Turns out massively incompetent cunts appointing massively incompetent cunts in an incestuous cycle of moronic nepotism isn't just harmful locally, or harmful globally, it can actually be fatal for lots of people.

Hate her for being such an amazingly shitty candidate all you want, Clinton would have handled this shit like someone who spent her whole career learning how to govern, and we'd be watching hotspots around the world for flareups instead of trying to figure out which state actually has the worst situation because we're still not really sure what's going on in our own backyard despite testing 15 million+ people and finding 1.7 million cases of which 100k have died so far.

Trump's incompetence harmed everyone, not just in his party, not just in this country, but worldwide, and our weakened role in future global interactions does not bode well for anybody alarmed at the idea of Putin or Poohbear taking up our slack.

[Are they right of Trump: A Flowchart]
[When asked softball questions about actual goddamn neonazi protests, do they]
| |      | |
| |      >>>[rattle off a rehearsed answer about nazis being garbage-baby losers that need to fuck the hell off or grow up?]
| |                                                                                                                     | |
>>> [blame people getting mad about nazis for starting it because some of those nazis are cool dudes?] | |              | |
                                                                                                       | |              | |
                                                    [no, because Trump isn't further right than Trump] <<<              | |
                                                                                                                        | |
                                                            [no, while dems are in no way benevolent, they ain't nazis]<<<


Just to clarify: I wasn't talking about kicking individuals in the nuts, I was talking about kicking the framework of late stage capitalism and our american prosperity gospel bullshit infected version of it in the nuts.

Back up to 5 days in a row with 1k+ deaths, it's probably safe now guys, let's go back to work!

Close enough to just call it 1.5 million cases and 90k deaths now, still holding steady around 33% of global caseload and 28% of global deaths.

We're number 1, we're number 1!

Oh, Naxza, at the current rate we'll be over 100k deaths next week assuming it holds around the 1.5k/day number it did this week.

Quote from: Max™ on May 15, 2020, 11:08:31 am

Why the fuck would anyone in their right mind wish to go back to an unfulling and tedious grind so they can devote huge portions of their life to making a few assholes a tiny bit richer?

This is such a generational difference in world view.

I'm gonna be 40 this 9/11 you know, I'm what they call a tail-Xer, my mom was one of the first Gen X kids, there aren't many of us, and our politics got skipped over by boomers hogging everything. When you grow up watching Reagan suck corporate balls on national tv, learn what "deregulation" implies by the time you're 11, and were actually young enough to be happy about getting a minimum wage job just when it was getting raised to $5.15 an hour--where it remained for the next ten years--you don't suddenly become a big fan of bootstrap arguments when they're presented unironically.

How about seeing the unfulfilling and tedious grind as a way to enable yourself to do something less tedious and more fulfilling, despite the fact your employer may profit?  That's the worldview I was brought up with...  yeah maybe you make your employer some profit, but you give yourself enough profit to quit that job and do what you want, or if the job is what you like, then enjoy it!

Oh hey, look, an unironic bootstrap argument!

Incidentally, when your labor is sold below market rate* and you accumulate savings here and there by sacrificing whatever you can do without, that isn't called profit and getting ahead, it's called earnings and trying to catch up.

*As in, a hypothetical ideal market that doesn't exist would value it at a certain amount, while the real market is manipulated and controlled to disproportionally reward those who helped/encouraged/paid for said manipulation and control.

And I find the argument that "it just costs too much, you can never save enough to get out" to be hollow.  There are always ways to pool expenses - live at home, get roommates.  These options are part of the "unfulfilling and tedious" I know.  You don't have to sacrifice that many meals to afford a $40 bus ticket after all.  I bet you can probably find a religious organization in any area that is willing to give you a bus ticket out of dodge.

Ultimately the only reason oppressive regimes remain is because people end up being more comfortable with the status quo and complaining about it than ultimately risking their own well being (yes, even up to the point of death) to change it.

If you are wanting a "leader" or "law enforcement" or someone else to change society without you participating at all - then you are asking those people to, in some way, risk their own well being to bring about the change.  This feels inconsistent to me.

Put another way: it's fine to risk your own well-being for some cause.  But any time you are asking (or even forcing) someone else to risk their well-being for your cause instead of you... that just doesn't sit well with me.

What if the only well-being I'm asking others to risk is the financial well-being of those who by definition are already well-off but continue insisting that they're being terribly hurt by everyone else trying not to die?

I don't seriously expect this to kill off the bullshit prosperity gospel infected version of capitalism we suffer under here in the US, but I'm damn sure not going to clutch my pearls when it gets kicked repeatedly in the balls because it fucking deserves it and we'll all be better off the weaker it gets.

I mean, I'm not likely to GET access to a proper N95 or whatnot if I was regularly risking interactions with folks in TN who are far too easy for loud obnoxious orange turds to disinform (misinform suggests an error, while uninform suggests lack of effort) and would be more likely to wind up in a plague doctor mask I made myself anyways if I were going to to do so.

Naturally I would incorporate a neck cuff and whatnot so I could snug my bandholz length mane down into it.

Chin mane only, head is buzzed because fuck all that shit, I hate caring for hair that just wants to tickle my ears and neck making me think a mosquito or something got inside the house, my beard is cooperative now and only occasionally tries to partake in my soup or cereal if I'm not careful or forgot the regular chipmunk feeding required to keep it full and lush.

So we dipped under 1000 deaths a day... for a day, and we're heading back towards 2k again--fully 1/3rd of known cases globally are right here, but we're still getting positive results from around 1/7th of the OVER TEN MILLION tests we've done, and we recently rolled over 85k known deaths here, which is a bit under 1/3rd of all known deaths worldwide--with everyone talking about reopening and lifting restrictions like it's over when it wouldn't even be feasible to reopen without a catastrophe IF we had handled it properly months ago.

If you're in a country with leaders actively trying to reopen fully before South Fucking Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, or New Zealand... be careful and remember that at best they don't care if you die, at worst they're looking forward to certain segments of their population getting thinned out.

Anybody remember the brief period a couple months ago when it seemed like Trump was actually starting to give a fuck and take shit seriously?

Not long after that he learned that a disproportionate number of the sick and dying were... well... several shades darker than his own horrific orange coloration--which in hindsight was clearly an aposematic warning indicating extreme toxicity--and he suddenly stopped pretending to consider if he could convincingly act like he might have any fucks to give with his nubby little orange bits.

But seriously though, fold that shit up into the mask, extra layer of filtration I say!

All that compass reminds me of is that I really need to find my Tendskin so I can start shaving regularly again.

I look forward to beards going out of style among young hipster dudes, you can pry mine from my cold dead jawbones, I'm growing silver streaks in goddammit! Like Garfield had, dude was epicbearded!

We're still at too high a ratio so far on positive/tested with 1.3/9.3, still seeing spikes in states with protests, and over 80k known deaths now.