How much damage did Covid do?

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by timun

Nah, I'll come to GreenLantern's defence here. One of the last words anyone would use to describe me is 'conservative', and I'll freely admit that my capacity to care about the well-being of strangers is exhausted too. You can only care so hard for so long until you hit a hard limit, and in the last three years my limit was reached.

Compassion fatigue is a real thing.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by timun

Nah, I'll come to GreenLantern's defence here. One of the last words anyone would use to describe me is 'conservative', and I'll freely admit that my capacity to care about the well-being of strangers is exhausted too. You can only care so hard for so long until you hit a hard limit, and in the last three years my limit was reached.

There's a big cohort of people out there whose drug of choice is propaganda, and it's going to result in material harm to themselves and to others, but I'm at a breaking point where as long as it affects them first? #### 'em. I am incapable of empathizing with them, I don't feel anger toward them, I don't feel sad for them: I feel nothing. They're lost causes that I don't give a #### about anymore.

People want to believe in conspiracy theories about Covid? As long as they don't come crawling for my help at any point in the future: fine, let 'em.

I'm so far past my capacity for compassion that it bleeds into my feelings about all sorts of societal ills. For example I couldn't care less about the junkies and alcoholics either. I don't feel pity or sympathy for the drug-addled zombies roaming the city. I've bought food for 'em and had it quite literally thrown back at me. If they're so far gone that all they give a #### about is their next hit, who am I to try to convince them otherwise? I'm not going to lift a finger to help them. At this point all I care about is not getting attacked or my car broken into.

I don’t think anyone is talking about compassion for anti vaxxers and far right conspiracy theorists. #### those lunatics.

It’s the people who were innocent and had their lives ruined that people should show compassion for. And not just because of covid. Even now we’re having a housing crisis and a huge chunk of society is at their breaking point. Wages are stagnant, profits are up. The richest man in the world literally uses his wealth and power to defend actual fascists and nazis. Our biggest corporations have paid off our elected officials and are happy to grind the rest of society into dust for an extra buck.

I mean, I get it. It’s dog eat dog out there. It’s hard to save anyone from drowning when you’re struggling to stay afloat yourself.

But I cannot believe that “if you can’t beat ‘em, join em” is the right outlook on the world right now. More than ever we need the opposite view.

[timun]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Compassion fatigue is a real thing.

Absolutely compassion fatigue is a real thing. I know you're a 9-1-1 dispatcher; I'm sure you see it all the time. I'm sure you're acutely aware.

For me it's a combination of me being burnt out with individual-scale issues and societal issues writ large. And the latter is kind of why I wanted to interject and reply to Agamemnon's post. I don't know if Agamemnon meant to be snide, but it came across that way. Is he wrong, in that "I don't care about the well-being of strangers anymore" could be "conservative ideology succinctly put"? No, but the point GreenLantern was making had nothing to do with political ideology. And I wouldn't describe GreenLantern as a conservative, or not that I've noticed, anyway.


Popular discourse over the last three years has consisted of a rapid-fire succession of causes célèbres, the volume and breadth of which has completely overwhelmed my capacity to engage anymore.

Deep down I think GreenLantern's remark was perfectly accurate. Everybody has problems; do I know or care about his? Honestly? No. I've had my metaphorical hand bit so many times that I'm not going to reach out anymore.

Conversely, does he know or care about my problems? No. Do you? No. And I've accepted that.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

But I cannot believe that “if you can’t beat ‘em, join em” is the right outlook on the world right now. More than ever we need the opposite view.

That's not what I said, at all. And what you're saying here in other words is "if you're not with us, you're against us." Nah man, I'm not against you and I'm not with you.

When it comes to e.g. Elon Musk and his bull#### I've already done my part: I will never buy a Tesla, and I don't use Twitter. You wanna make him go away? Don't buy Teslas and don't use Twitter. The more you engage in stupid ####ing debates with his idiotic sycophants over whatever dumb #### the guy says next, the more it gives him the means and the agency to keep on propping up those fascists and Nazis. Elon Musk has a paper net worth in the hundreds of billions because people talk about the guy all the time. The fact that you pay attention and care fuels his fortune. It'll disappear the instant he becomes just some dumb background noise, so start treating him as such.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Conservative ideology very nicely and succinctly put.

Yes.

I’m so conservative I’ve voted for Rachel Notley three times, the federal liberals twice, Nenshi every time and Jyoti.

Go back to Troy.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by timun

That's not what I said, at all. And what you're saying here in other words is "if you're not with us, you're against us." Nah man, I'm not against you and I'm not with you.

When it comes to e.g. Elon Musk and his bull#### I've already done my part: I will never buy a Tesla, and I don't use Twitter. You wanna make him go away? Don't buy Teslas and don't use Twitter. The more you engage in stupid ####ing debates with his idiotic sycophants over whatever dumb #### the guy says next, the more it gives him the means and the agency to keep on propping up those fascists and Nazis. Elon Musk has a paper net worth in the hundreds of billions because people talk about the guy all the time. The fact that you pay attention and care fuels his fortune. It'll disappear the instant he becomes just some dumb background noise, so start treating him as such.

This must be what having a ghostwriter feels like.

Go have a look in the “end of great films” thread and swing away 🍻

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by timun

Popular discourse over the last three years has consisted of a rapid-fire succession of causes célèbres, the volume and breadth of which has completely overwhelmed my capacity to engage anymore.

Yeah, you can’t hate bad actors out of being bad actors. People like Trump and Musk thrive on attention. The hatred of their enemies only grants them stature in the eyes of their supporters.

It’s a mistake to think the behaviours incentivized on social media - solidarity through denunciation - achieves anything positive.

[Locke]

How much damage did COVID do?

It found all of society's little cracks and fissures and hammered wedges into the them.

It did a ton of damage socially, fiscally and mentally and its going to take generations to recover from.

[Azure]

Like I said earlier, hindsight is easy. Easy to criticize decisions, easy to think said governments, public health bodies, corporations, etc should have done it different.

But COVID cost us hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions.....and people still want to 'thank' Pfizer for saving the world.

They have one hell of a PR team. Maybe the best ever in the history of mankind.

Its been a few crazy years, but I never thought we'd get the point where people would be so willing to bend over and accept such a massive transfer of wealth to the rich and powerful under the guise of 'they saved our lives' and we owe them our gratitude.

[iggy_oi]

COVID caused the massive transfer of wealth to the rich and powerful? Don’t get me wrong the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured the vaccines made out like bandits but it’s not as though they weren’t near the top of the financial food chain before all of this.

[Azure]

Over the last two years, the richest 1% of people have accumulated close to two-thirds of all new wealth created around the world, a new report from Oxfam says.

A total of $42 trillion in new wealth has been created since 2020, with $26 trillion, or 63%, of that being amassed by the top 1% of the ultra-rich, according to the report. The remaining 99% of the global population collected just $16 trillion of new wealth, the global poverty charity says.

“A billionaire gained roughly $1.7 million for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90 percent,” the report, released as the World Economic Forum kicks off in Davos, Switzerland, reads.

It suggests that the pace at which wealth is being created has sped up, as the world’s richest 1% amassed around half of all new wealth over the past 10 years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/16/rich...020-oxfam.html

Not exactly shocking, but still amazing to me that people are so willing to accept it.

Especially when its pretty clear that these companies manipulated governments in every possible way they could to get them to buy more vaccines and give more funding.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Azure

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/16/rich...020-oxfam.html

Not exactly shocking, but still amazing to me that people are so willing to accept it.

Especially when its pretty clear that these companies manipulated governments in every possible way they could to get them to buy more vaccines and give more funding.

The historical data suggests that the share of wealth accumulated at the top was going to continue to grow as it has been for decades. While COVID expedited that, for more reasons than just gains by pharmaceutical companies, to insinuate that it’s the only reason or even the biggest reason why their share grew distracts from the systemic issues that would have inevitably led to that growth anyways.

IMO it’s no more than a convenient talking point politicians use to distract voters who lap it up from the real issues and I find it quite fascinating that so many of the politicians who make that argument as if they care to address the issue also support policies that contribute to the problem like lower taxes for large corporations, lower minimum wages and otherwise restrictive labour rights that would do the opposite.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Azure

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/16/rich...020-oxfam.html

Not exactly shocking, but still amazing to me that people are so willing to accept it.

Especially when its pretty clear that these companies manipulated governments in every possible way they could to get them to buy more vaccines and give more funding.

Pfizer made somewhere around 50-60 billion off of Covid over the two years depending on data source. With some ongoing profits. It’s relatively insignificant it the grand scheme of what your numbers above are discussing. I think you are aiming in the wrong direction here.

In 2021 this study estimated that between 14 and 20 million lives were saved through vaccinations. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...320-6/fulltext

So 3k per live saved. That’s pretty cheap when a statistical life is worth about 10 million. They would pass regulations if it cost 3k to save a life.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by GGG

Pfizer made somewhere around 50-60 billion off of Covid over the two years depending on data source. With some ongoing profits. It’s relatively insignificant it the grand scheme of what your numbers above are discussing. I think you are aiming in the wrong direction here.

In 2021 this study estimated that between 14 and 20 million lives were saved through vaccinations. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...320-6/fulltext

So 3k per live saved. That’s pretty cheap when a statistical life is worth about 10 million. They would pass regulations if it cost 3k to save a life.

He won't see it that way, I guarantee that. His mind is made up due to algorithms.

[Regorium]

Also here's Moderna's stock graph.

https://www.marketwatch.com/investin...=search_symbol

It's about 5x since pre-covid. Which is pretty good, but then you look at what Tesla or Nvidia has done during that time.

The wealth going to the rich are not really the people in the pharma industry. It's been tech for a number of years. Though you could argue that Elon Musk really manipulated governments to basically allow his company to stay afloat purely via government subsidies until they started making real money.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by Azure

Like I said earlier, hindsight is easy. Easy to criticize decisions, easy to think said governments, public health bodies, corporations, etc should have done it different.

But COVID cost us hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions.....and people still want to 'thank' Pfizer for saving the world.

They have one hell of a PR team. Maybe the best ever in the history of mankind.

Its been a few crazy years, but I never thought we'd get the point where people would be so willing to bend over and accept such a massive transfer of wealth to the rich and powerful under the guise of 'they saved our lives' and we owe them our gratitude.

Catholic Church, Islam and a bunch of other religions say---hold my drink

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GGG

Pfizer made somewhere around 50-60 billion off of Covid over the two years depending on data source. With some ongoing profits. It’s relatively insignificant it the grand scheme of what your numbers above are discussing. I think you are aiming in the wrong direction here.

In 2021 this study estimated that between 14 and 20 million lives were saved through vaccinations. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...320-6/fulltext

So 3k per live saved. That’s pretty cheap when a statistical life is worth about 10 million. They would pass regulations if it cost 3k to save a life.

Not really talking directly about COVID.

You gotta be pretty ignorant (jayswin level, though that is hard to accomplish) to not see how much the last 3 years has hurt middle / lower level people. Just here in Canada we are heading into a full on crisis on many levels. Housing, immigration, jobs, health care, etc, etc.

Not that hard to understand how the system was manipulated to let the rich make off like bandits while others are now suffering.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Azure

Not really talking directly about COVID.

You gotta be pretty ignorant (jayswin level, though that is hard to accomplish) to not see how much the last 3 years has hurt middle / lower level people. Just here in Canada we are heading into a full on crisis on many levels. Housing, immigration, jobs, health care, etc, etc.

Not that hard to understand how the system was manipulated to let the rich make off like bandits while others are now suffering.

I’m just having a hard time figuring out how you’re only associating this with COVID. It’s been an ongoing issue for about a half century now.

[RyZ]

I know too many people who got "mind *ucked" so hard by the constant media fear mongering that they will likely never be the same people again. My wifes Dad is a shell of the man he was before he sat infront of CNN and didnt leave his house for a year while in full health thinking he and his family would die if they went out for groceries.... But Im sure we are having a soft CP struggle session in here so Ill show myself out and let you all keep on pretending the "cure" and coverage werent worse than the disease on the societal scale.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by RyZ

I know too many people who got "mind *ucked" so hard by the constant media fear mongering that they will likely never be the same people again. My wifes Dad is a shell of the man he was before he sat infront of CNN and didnt leave his house for a year while in full health thinking he and his family would die if they went out for groceries.... But Im sure we are having a soft CP struggle session in here so Ill show myself out and let you all keep on pretending the "cure" and coverage werent worse than the disease on the societal scale.

Blames his problems on the media

Complains about people being soft