Common Prosperity
August 30, 2021 3:33 AM Subscribe
Vaccinated Democratic Counties Are Leading the Economic Recovery - "The 520 counties Biden won account for fully 71% of U.S. gross domestic product, while the 2,564 that Trump carried produced just 29%. In other words, America's economic engine is bluer than ever."
"The anti-vaxxer movement and white people denying science because of their 'freedoms' is a time-honored American tradition."
--@michaelharriot
political...
-Trump and other Republicans are effectively killing their base
-All maps of America look the same
-Development Theory[2]"A lot of us have a real American Dream that our families immigrated here for. A lot of us grew up with a hope for a better life for ourselves and our people. Don't give up because of your lack of imagination. Fight with us to make things truly great for everyone."
--@NickCho
--@michaelharriot
political...
-Trump and other Republicans are effectively killing their base
-All maps of America look the same
- What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State - "An updating tracker of proposed congressional maps — and whether they might benefit Democrats or Republicans in the 2022 midterms and beyond."
- Which States Won — And Lost — Seats In The 2020 Census? - "Republicans will control the redrawing of 187 congressional districts (43 percent) — or 2.5 times as many as Democrats (who will redraw 75 districts, or 17 percent). There are also 167 districts (38 percent) where neither party will enjoy exclusive control over redistricting (either because of independent commissions or split partisan control). And, of course, there are six districts (1 percent) that won't need to be drawn at all (because they are at-large districts that cover their entire state)."[1]
- Where America Lost And Gained Population Could Help Democrats In Redistricting - "Overall, the average county that voted for Biden boosted its population by 3.4 percent between 2010 and 2020, while the average Trump county grew by just 0.2 percent. Strikingly, 370 out of the 538 Biden counties (69 percent) gained population, while 1,468 out of the 2,574 Trump counties (57 percent) lost residents... the population trends from the 2020 census are not enough to cancel out any gerrymandering efforts. Rather, the census numbers are merely a silver lining for Democrats. They still remain at a serious disadvantage in the 2021 redistricting cycle simply because Republicans will control the redrawing of more congressional districts."
-Development Theory[2]
- Why the World is Going Insane - "Inequality is the prime mover of today's problems. Inequality within countries has skyrocketed globally. As inequality jumps, social distance grows. Rich and poor share little in common, and so a society begins to corrode from within — it loses trust."[3]
- Nothing will fundamentally change - "Chinese policymakers are reassuring rich people that their push for greater equality will in large part be through voluntary charity encouraged with tax incentives, not government handouts."[4]
- China's cyberspace watchdog, the CAC, just published a long (and unprecedented) set of draft regulations for recommendation algorithms - "As far as I'm concerned, this policy marks the moment that China's tech regulation is not simply keeping pace with data regulations in the EU, but has gone beyond them."
- Have property rights gotten complicated? - "Today, every time you use your smart phone you probably are encountering a situation in which property rights are unclear. Who owns your email archive? Your location data? Is an app that you 'own' something you can sell of give away at will? Think about all this. Clear, straightforward property rights are probably a necessary condition for a libertarian utopia of minimal government and maximum voluntary exchange. 21st century society requires a lot more governance..."[5]
- Civil vs. Common Law Systems - "It's a big omission in transit costs analyses not to consider the role of common law systems (which are famously disputatious, property-protective, and costly) in infrastructure costs. The high-cost pole (NZ, HK, SG, UK, US) is common law while the low-cost (ES, FI, PT) is civil."
- Why does it cost so much to build things in America? - "This is why the US can't have nice things."
- It's a shame - "Economies of agglomeration could have made California more populous, prosperous, and politically powerful at the national level--but California is mostly wasting those by refusing to build more housing and increase density."[6]
- Microcities - "Copenhagen's Nordhavn neighborhood is the future of urban planning."
- Disutility and Stigma - "Any system of subsidy that requires people to be identified as poor and that is seen as a special benefaction for those who cannot fend for themselves would tend to have some effects on their self-respect as well as on the respect accorded them by others. These features do, of course, have their incentive effects as well, but quite aside from those indirect consequences, there are also direct costs and losses involved in feeling–and being–stigmatized. Since this kind of issue is often taken to be of rather marginal interest (a matter, allegedly, of fine detail), I would take the liberty of referring to John Rawls's argument that self-respect is 'perhaps the most important primary good' on which a theory of justice as fairness has to concentrate (see Rawls 1971, pp. 440-46, where he discusses how institutional arrangements and public policies can influence 'the social bases of self-respect')."[7]
- Economics can be progressive sometimes - "'The dismal science' was coined as an insult by a pro-slavery racist, infuriated at economists such as JS Mill for their insistence that if capitalists wanted work, they should pay people in exchange for labour."
--@NickCho
It's as if the herd culls itself.
I have less patience than most mefite ghouls, and have long since stopped having pity for self destruction. Particularly since the self destructive would be more than happy to drag the rest of us down into oblivion too. And they may still get their wish.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:43 AM on August 30, 2021 [29 favorites]
I have less patience than most mefite ghouls, and have long since stopped having pity for self destruction. Particularly since the self destructive would be more than happy to drag the rest of us down into oblivion too. And they may still get their wish.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:43 AM on August 30, 2021 [29 favorites]
I don't think anti-vaxxers, etc., do what they do because of some espoused, incoherent ideology of "muh freedoms", but fundamentally because of the social, political, and economic conditions of the urban-rural divide. And as long as capitalism concentrates power into the hands of elites, there will always be reactionaries. Reactionaries are mistaken, but mainstream Democrats refuse to see the bigger dynamic and rather create this Other to disown and blame, see the twitter quote, the bloomberg title, etc.
posted by polymodus at 4:44 AM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 4:44 AM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
That's a fine example of Murc's law in action, polymodus.
I think Democrats are generally well aware of the issues created by concentration of power/wealth. Unfortunately, every damn time there's an attempt to do something progressive, it gets blocked by the "muh freedoms" group.
Yeah, Democrats could certainly be even better than they are, but blaming them for not understanding the plight of the poor reactionaries who blow up every attempt at making their lives better is tiresome.
posted by Ickster at 5:03 AM on August 30, 2021 [106 favorites]
I think Democrats are generally well aware of the issues created by concentration of power/wealth. Unfortunately, every damn time there's an attempt to do something progressive, it gets blocked by the "muh freedoms" group.
Yeah, Democrats could certainly be even better than they are, but blaming them for not understanding the plight of the poor reactionaries who blow up every attempt at making their lives better is tiresome.
posted by Ickster at 5:03 AM on August 30, 2021 [106 favorites]
Stephenson's "Ameristan" concept from his novel "Fall" feels truer and truer every month.
posted by hearthpig at 5:08 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by hearthpig at 5:08 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
Every damn time there's an attempt to do something progressive, it gets blocked by the "muh freedoms" group
This is willfully ignorant of the role of centrist/donorclass actors within the democratic party. Having the senate at the current balance articulates this culpability with crystal clarity.
(Not to diminish the fervent neolilberal feathers in the republican plume, but rural republicans are not wrong that the policy center of gravity, even among the democratic party, is firmly neoliberal)
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:49 AM on August 30, 2021 [18 favorites]
This is willfully ignorant of the role of centrist/donorclass actors within the democratic party. Having the senate at the current balance articulates this culpability with crystal clarity.
(Not to diminish the fervent neolilberal feathers in the republican plume, but rural republicans are not wrong that the policy center of gravity, even among the democratic party, is firmly neoliberal)
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:49 AM on August 30, 2021 [18 favorites]
It's high time Democrats stopped conceding Republican claims that their policies lead to prosperity.
That message resonated during the Reagan era -- and Democrats got beaten like a gong for nearly a decade because of it -- because we were emerging from the various crises of the 1970s.
Democratic polices simply work better than Republican ones, which don't foster prosperity at all except for a favored few. Democrats need to say so, and the so-called "liberal media" needs to stop letting Republicans claim theirs do against all evidence.
posted by Gelatin at 5:51 AM on August 30, 2021 [49 favorites]
That message resonated during the Reagan era -- and Democrats got beaten like a gong for nearly a decade because of it -- because we were emerging from the various crises of the 1970s.
Democratic polices simply work better than Republican ones, which don't foster prosperity at all except for a favored few. Democrats need to say so, and the so-called "liberal media" needs to stop letting Republicans claim theirs do against all evidence.
posted by Gelatin at 5:51 AM on August 30, 2021 [49 favorites]
This is willfully ignorant of the role of centrist/donorclass actors within the democratic party.
No, it's not. I'm aware that Democrats are flawed.
However, having a small section of centrist/donorclass Democrats blocking things uniformly opposed by Republicans does not make Democrats solely responsible, or even majority-responsible.
Othering Republicans doesn't help (even when it feels good), but pretending that our woes are the fault of Democrats not understanding Republicans helps even less.
posted by Ickster at 5:56 AM on August 30, 2021 [38 favorites]
No, it's not. I'm aware that Democrats are flawed.
However, having a small section of centrist/donorclass Democrats blocking things uniformly opposed by Republicans does not make Democrats solely responsible, or even majority-responsible.
Othering Republicans doesn't help (even when it feels good), but pretending that our woes are the fault of Democrats not understanding Republicans helps even less.
posted by Ickster at 5:56 AM on August 30, 2021 [38 favorites]
small section of centrist/donorclass Democrats
This probably isn't the place for it, but I do think it's a structural weakness of the progressive economic agenda: the Democratic party hates its progressives. Consequently, the progressive wing is only present because there is no where else to go.
Bernie's supposed role as policy consultant within the larger power of the party is novel and still relatively unproven.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:01 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
This probably isn't the place for it, but I do think it's a structural weakness of the progressive economic agenda: the Democratic party hates its progressives. Consequently, the progressive wing is only present because there is no where else to go.
Bernie's supposed role as policy consultant within the larger power of the party is novel and still relatively unproven.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:01 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
polymodus: "I don't think anti-vaxxers, etc., do what they do because of some espoused, incoherent ideology of "muh freedoms", but fundamentally because of the social, political, and economic conditions of the urban-rural divide. And as long as capitalism concentrates power into the hands of elites, there will always be reactionaries. Reactionaries are mistaken, but mainstream Democrats refuse to see the bigger dynamic and rather create this Other to disown and blame, see the twitter quote, the bloomberg title, etc."
Maybe the New York Times should go interview more anti-vaxers in rural breakfast spots to really get to understand them.
posted by octothorpe at 6:06 AM on August 30, 2021 [61 favorites]
Maybe the New York Times should go interview more anti-vaxers in rural breakfast spots to really get to understand them.
posted by octothorpe at 6:06 AM on August 30, 2021 [61 favorites]
Bernie's supposed role as policy consultant within the larger power of the party is novel and still relatively unproven.
Bernie Sanders's Third Campaign - "As chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders's big-government message has found its moment."
@NicholsUprising: "With two campaigns for president, @BernieSanders reshaped the national debate and built a movement to remake American politics. Now, as Senate Budget Committee chair, he is writing the roadmap for our future."
posted by kliuless at 6:14 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Bernie Sanders's Third Campaign - "As chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders's big-government message has found its moment."
@NicholsUprising: "With two campaigns for president, @BernieSanders reshaped the national debate and built a movement to remake American politics. Now, as Senate Budget Committee chair, he is writing the roadmap for our future."
posted by kliuless at 6:14 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
I don't think anti-vaxxers, etc., do what they do because of some espoused, incoherent ideology of "muh freedoms"
Watch this harrowing NYT video "Dying in the name of vaccine freedom," in which a man hospitalized with COVID states that he specifically didn't get the vaccine because he enjoys his freedom.
Spoiler alert: he died.
posted by msbrauer at 6:26 AM on August 30, 2021 [32 favorites]
Watch this harrowing NYT video "Dying in the name of vaccine freedom," in which a man hospitalized with COVID states that he specifically didn't get the vaccine because he enjoys his freedom.
Spoiler alert: he died.
posted by msbrauer at 6:26 AM on August 30, 2021 [32 favorites]
I came across this thread from Brooke Harrington which i think is quite relevant for the discussion, especially with two potential strategies:
THREAD:
As news stories drop about COVID+ pandemic deniers & anti-vaxxers ranting defiantly from ICU beds, let's review what fraud research suggests abt the responsibility we should attribute to them for their condition & the ms they send.
Are they victims we should pity? 1/x https://t.co/jrmo6zQ7BL
Both the RW & LW absolve pandemic deniers & anti-vaxxers of responsibility for harming others (& themselves) on the premise that they are "victims"--either of "disrespect" or of a "con" perpetrated by RW media, Trump, etc.
Both approaches treat these individuals as helpless.
7/x
Here's where social scientific research on fraud becomes very useful. Among other things, it allows us to detail the experience of the "marks" (people who get conned) in such a way that we don't flatten them into helpless paper dolls, robbing them of agency & motive.
10/x
Goffman's key observation, kind of obvious when you see it in B&W on the page, is that eventually all marks come to understand they've been conned.
Then what?
As Goffman explains, they almost never complain or report the fraud to the authorities. Why? Bc it's humiliating.
12/x https://t.co/Idei1yUtKi
So humiliating, in fact, that Goffman describes it as a form of social death: the body survives, but the person-in-society is destroyed by the admission of having been conned. It's a condition Goffman likens to being laid off, deported or dumped.
Very relatable, & pitiable.
13/x https://t.co/Yxx2fxnOq2
Goffman's work, along w/100s of articles that have built on it, suggests that many victims of con artists make a conscious choice to protect themselves socially & emotionally at the expense of others.
"Be kind" does not require that we accept this unkind, even deadly choice.
16/x
posted by cendawanita at 6:27 AM on August 30, 2021 [49 favorites]
THREAD:
As news stories drop about COVID+ pandemic deniers & anti-vaxxers ranting defiantly from ICU beds, let's review what fraud research suggests abt the responsibility we should attribute to them for their condition & the ms they send.
Are they victims we should pity? 1/x https://t.co/jrmo6zQ7BL
Both the RW & LW absolve pandemic deniers & anti-vaxxers of responsibility for harming others (& themselves) on the premise that they are "victims"--either of "disrespect" or of a "con" perpetrated by RW media, Trump, etc.
Both approaches treat these individuals as helpless.
7/x
Here's where social scientific research on fraud becomes very useful. Among other things, it allows us to detail the experience of the "marks" (people who get conned) in such a way that we don't flatten them into helpless paper dolls, robbing them of agency & motive.
10/x
Goffman's key observation, kind of obvious when you see it in B&W on the page, is that eventually all marks come to understand they've been conned.
Then what?
As Goffman explains, they almost never complain or report the fraud to the authorities. Why? Bc it's humiliating.
12/x https://t.co/Idei1yUtKi
So humiliating, in fact, that Goffman describes it as a form of social death: the body survives, but the person-in-society is destroyed by the admission of having been conned. It's a condition Goffman likens to being laid off, deported or dumped.
Very relatable, & pitiable.
13/x https://t.co/Yxx2fxnOq2
Goffman's work, along w/100s of articles that have built on it, suggests that many victims of con artists make a conscious choice to protect themselves socially & emotionally at the expense of others.
"Be kind" does not require that we accept this unkind, even deadly choice.
16/x
posted by cendawanita at 6:27 AM on August 30, 2021 [49 favorites]
Can we not devolve into "let 'em die and let God sort 'em out" sort of rhetoric? Because being passionate to the point where you don't care whether people die isn't really moving dialogue and comes off as internet tough guy.
Maybe blue states need to step it up a notch because the corruption I've seen seems to have originated from the blue states. Local newspapers bought out by private equity firms in the blue states have lead to more information and echo chamber from blue state firms like Twitter and Facebook. I see more of the same: capitalism taking money from the poor and destitute, sneering that they're staying poor and destitute, then congratulating themselves for being progressive and not understanding why people don't see things their way. Blue states so-called high output is from using algorithms, engagement experts and charlatans to rile up the population in a Hunger Games frenzy to elect people like Trump and push anti-vax claims. That's no different than pushing Oxycontin on people and then saying, "Well I didn't get you addicted, you chose to take it!"
I also recoil at the premise that GDP is a determination of success. The accumulation of vast amounts of capital to me is a glaring sign of the weakness of capitalism. At best it is funny money on paper.
posted by geoff. at 6:45 AM on August 30, 2021 [26 favorites]
Maybe blue states need to step it up a notch because the corruption I've seen seems to have originated from the blue states. Local newspapers bought out by private equity firms in the blue states have lead to more information and echo chamber from blue state firms like Twitter and Facebook. I see more of the same: capitalism taking money from the poor and destitute, sneering that they're staying poor and destitute, then congratulating themselves for being progressive and not understanding why people don't see things their way. Blue states so-called high output is from using algorithms, engagement experts and charlatans to rile up the population in a Hunger Games frenzy to elect people like Trump and push anti-vax claims. That's no different than pushing Oxycontin on people and then saying, "Well I didn't get you addicted, you chose to take it!"
I also recoil at the premise that GDP is a determination of success. The accumulation of vast amounts of capital to me is a glaring sign of the weakness of capitalism. At best it is funny money on paper.
posted by geoff. at 6:45 AM on August 30, 2021 [26 favorites]
-Trump and other Republicans are effectively killing their base
I can guarantee they have done the math on what their approach is doing to their voters, and that they are continuing down their horrible path suggests that in fact other people (like, say, people of color, non-voters, elderly Democrats, or whomever) are dying at a faster rate, or that the total deaths aren't expected to be enough to shift things in key electoral areas.
Also, it seems like every day brings another "anti-vax activist/politician hospitalized with (or dead from) covid" headline, but that isn't causing enough people to rethink their stance.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
I can guarantee they have done the math on what their approach is doing to their voters, and that they are continuing down their horrible path suggests that in fact other people (like, say, people of color, non-voters, elderly Democrats, or whomever) are dying at a faster rate, or that the total deaths aren't expected to be enough to shift things in key electoral areas.
Also, it seems like every day brings another "anti-vax activist/politician hospitalized with (or dead from) covid" headline, but that isn't causing enough people to rethink their stance.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
The 520 counties Biden won account for fully 71% of U.S. gross domestic product, while the 2,564 that Trump carried produced just 29%. In other words, America's economic engine is bluer than ever.
It seems to to me that rather than was cause for celebration, this may be part of the problem. If the people in the red counties feel more and more left out, they could turn to more and more extreme solutions.
It reflects the increasing wealth gap rather than a strong middle class where everyone benefits.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:57 AM on August 30, 2021 [21 favorites]
It seems to to me that rather than was cause for celebration, this may be part of the problem. If the people in the red counties feel more and more left out, they could turn to more and more extreme solutions.
It reflects the increasing wealth gap rather than a strong middle class where everyone benefits.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:57 AM on August 30, 2021 [21 favorites]
I disagree that they're okay with the math. Very briefly, there was a surge in "Just get vaxxed" messaging that even got time on Fox News. Governors were, and are, pushing vaccinations.
That the various talking heads and politicians in Congress have moved on to me isn't an acceptance of the margins but that there were politically fruitful developments (Afghanistan, etc) that they could bleat about instead.
It's a grim race between voter suppression laws and COVID killing their base faster than the Dem base.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:58 AM on August 30, 2021
That the various talking heads and politicians in Congress have moved on to me isn't an acceptance of the margins but that there were politically fruitful developments (Afghanistan, etc) that they could bleat about instead.
It's a grim race between voter suppression laws and COVID killing their base faster than the Dem base.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:58 AM on August 30, 2021
The new census figures already showed that the rural areas of the country are in a steep decline and Covid is only accelerating that.
posted by octothorpe at 6:59 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 6:59 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Another way of looking at this data is that, for instance, in Kentucky, the 800,000 people who did not vote Republican, in addition to an out of control plague, also get a shitty economy. So that's fun for the folks back home.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:01 AM on August 30, 2021 [22 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:01 AM on August 30, 2021 [22 favorites]
If the people in the red counties feel more and more left out, they could turn to more and more extreme solutions.
It's not that they feel left out, it's that they view America as a white Christian ethnostate under siege from others and everything flows from that. Rural white people are the single most over represented group in America.
I simply cannot muster sympathy for people who don't care if anyone besides themselves is exposed to a deadly virus.
posted by Ferreous at 7:05 AM on August 30, 2021 [87 favorites]
It's not that they feel left out, it's that they view America as a white Christian ethnostate under siege from others and everything flows from that. Rural white people are the single most over represented group in America.
I simply cannot muster sympathy for people who don't care if anyone besides themselves is exposed to a deadly virus.
posted by Ferreous at 7:05 AM on August 30, 2021 [87 favorites]
California is mostly wasting those by refusing to build more housing and increase density.
California advances zoning measure to allow duplexes: On Thursday the Legislature took a big step toward rewriting that bargain, advancing a bill that would allow two-unit buildings on lots that for generations have been reserved exclusively for single-family homes.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:06 AM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
California advances zoning measure to allow duplexes: On Thursday the Legislature took a big step toward rewriting that bargain, advancing a bill that would allow two-unit buildings on lots that for generations have been reserved exclusively for single-family homes.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:06 AM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
Seriously though, the right wing in America wants anyone that isn't like them dead or disenfranchised. The sooner mainstream democrats realize that and fight them on similar ground the better. There is no compromise, there is no middle ground, the only way to win is to fight them the way they fight us.
posted by Ferreous at 7:10 AM on August 30, 2021 [23 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 7:10 AM on August 30, 2021 [23 favorites]
It's not that they feel left out, it's that they view America as a white Christian ethnostate under siege
Cause or effect? I recall Obama suggesting they were clinging to guns and the Bible because they had nothing else.
Also, I was viewing that purely in politico-economic terms. I, too, have a very low tolerance for vaccine deniers.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:11 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Cause or effect? I recall Obama suggesting they were clinging to guns and the Bible because they had nothing else.
Also, I was viewing that purely in politico-economic terms. I, too, have a very low tolerance for vaccine deniers.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:11 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
"rural republicans are not wrong that the policy center of gravity, even among the democratic party, is firmly neoliberal"
And yet they vote for people who are even less progressive than the neo-liberals... It's not like there are out there voting for the Greens. They don't want programs that are progressive, they want regressive policy.
posted by MrBobaFett at 7:13 AM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
And yet they vote for people who are even less progressive than the neo-liberals... It's not like there are out there voting for the Greens. They don't want programs that are progressive, they want regressive policy.
posted by MrBobaFett at 7:13 AM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
It's one hundred percent the cause. The right has been a reactionary revanchist party since Goldwater. Acting like it's liberals fault for just being too mean to the poor overlooked rural whites is naive at best.
posted by Ferreous at 7:14 AM on August 30, 2021 [43 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 7:14 AM on August 30, 2021 [43 favorites]
This is the party that will fight any social safety net that would vastly help them because it might also help non white people. Alabama is ultra fucked because it has a serious shortage of hospitals and doctors that could have been helped by Medicaid expansion. They did not expand Medicaid.
posted by Ferreous at 7:17 AM on August 30, 2021 [35 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 7:17 AM on August 30, 2021 [35 favorites]
The accumulation of vast amounts of capital to me is a glaring sign of the weakness of capitalism.
How to Fix Economic Inequality - "This guide draws together research from the world's leading experts on inequality trends and causes within countries and a list of available policy options to mitigate the growing gap (mostly for the United States, with lessons applicable to other advanced countries)."
posted by kliuless at 7:17 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
How to Fix Economic Inequality - "This guide draws together research from the world's leading experts on inequality trends and causes within countries and a list of available policy options to mitigate the growing gap (mostly for the United States, with lessons applicable to other advanced countries)."
posted by kliuless at 7:17 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
In other news, the senators-per-population ratio is set to shift even further in favour of the red states.
posted by acb at 7:22 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by acb at 7:22 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
the policy center of gravity, even among the democratic party, is firmly neoliberal
I've often wondered how much of that is a side effect of the Democratic party trying to pander to rural whites for decades. Lot of good that did them.
posted by Ickster at 7:24 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
I've often wondered how much of that is a side effect of the Democratic party trying to pander to rural whites for decades. Lot of good that did them.
posted by Ickster at 7:24 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
If the people in the red counties feel more and more left out, they could turn to more and more extreme solutions.
I fully expect, esp. as climate change leads to more and more disasters that there will be only partial or no real recovery from, that we will see genuine cargo cults emerge in the US.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:28 AM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
I fully expect, esp. as climate change leads to more and more disasters that there will be only partial or no real recovery from, that we will see genuine cargo cults emerge in the US.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:28 AM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
-All maps of America look the same
This (From the FPP) links to a Krugman-tweet that specifically points out that its the racism. Ten years ago I would've denied that and pointed at economic issues and whatever. But I have changed my mind. It's just the racism. I have sort of followed Krugman for 20 years, and I think he has gone through a similar proces. I guess that if Trump was good for anything it was for bringing the reality of all-pervasive racism out in the daylight where even middle aged white academics can see it.
posted by mumimor at 7:34 AM on August 30, 2021 [47 favorites]
This (From the FPP) links to a Krugman-tweet that specifically points out that its the racism. Ten years ago I would've denied that and pointed at economic issues and whatever. But I have changed my mind. It's just the racism. I have sort of followed Krugman for 20 years, and I think he has gone through a similar proces. I guess that if Trump was good for anything it was for bringing the reality of all-pervasive racism out in the daylight where even middle aged white academics can see it.
posted by mumimor at 7:34 AM on August 30, 2021 [47 favorites]
There is a subreddit called the Herman Cain Award that consists of posts of anti-vaxxers/conspiracy theorists/etc who catch COVID and die. I imagine many people go there for a dose of schadenfreude but if you spend enough time scrolling, it's just a parade of needless suffering and death.
posted by gwint at 7:38 AM on August 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
posted by gwint at 7:38 AM on August 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
Every media story about right wing voters is better if you find+replace "economic anxiety" with "virulent racism"
posted by Ferreous at 7:38 AM on August 30, 2021 [26 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 7:38 AM on August 30, 2021 [26 favorites]
I've often wondered how much of that is a side effect of the Democratic party trying to pander to rural whites for decades
One of the failings is that democrats pander to almost anyone. But the policy execution is all because of corporate funding. This has accelerated under CitzUnit.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:39 AM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
When Trump cultists have shiny new dually pickups in their driveways, fly to their terrorist attack on private jets, taking selfies in $$$ military cosplay, and get a slap on the wrist from federal judges for open and violent sedition, I am less sympathetic than ever to pleas of economic woe.
White supremacy costs money and these fascists have enough of it to wage war on the rest of us, as they are doing in various ways. Including getting 630,000+ Americans killed from a virus, and counting.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:47 AM on August 30, 2021 [39 favorites]
White supremacy costs money and these fascists have enough of it to wage war on the rest of us, as they are doing in various ways. Including getting 630,000+ Americans killed from a virus, and counting.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:47 AM on August 30, 2021 [39 favorites]
This (From the FPP) links to a Krugman-tweet that specifically points out that its the racism.
This is America; It's always the racism.
posted by octothorpe at 7:52 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
This is America; It's always the racism.
posted by octothorpe at 7:52 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
I wonder how the ability to continue working through the lockdowns correlates to the economy of these counties?
posted by torii hugger at 7:58 AM on August 30, 2021
posted by torii hugger at 7:58 AM on August 30, 2021
METAFILTER: This probably isn't the place for it, but
posted by philip-random at 8:06 AM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 8:06 AM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
When Trump told people at a rally in Alabama to get vaccinated, he was booed.
What do you think is going on?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:19 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
What do you think is going on?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:19 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
It's not that they feel left out, it's that they view America as a white Christian ethnostate under siege from others and everything flows from that. Rural white people are the single most over represented group in America.
This. White people have long been used to having social hegemony over society. If you were the poorest, shittiest white person at least you had the cold comfort that you were still better than any black person. The problem for them today is that large swaths of America have basically cast that aside, at least on a surface level. There's no doubt that systemic racism permeates the entire American nation from top to bottom but at least more people are rejecting the notion that they're better just because they're white.
And that scares the fucking shit out of a segment of white America. They've long been insulated from their own failings. Racism was like a security blanket and a shield that they could use to fall back on. Without it, what do they have? Nothing. They're just like every other sucker in this god forsaken country walking the tightrope without a net. And that fear turns to rage at everything that took that social hegemony away from them. Progressivism, multiculturalism, scientific progress. All of them are valid targets. And the end result is that you get a segment of the population who when they can't get regressive policies will just act out of spite.
This whole anti-vax/dying to own the libs/"my freedumbs" is them looking to recapture just a bit of that unquestioned control over society that white people once automatically had. If nothing else, they're going to fuck over as many people as possible with whatever little sliver of power they have so that those liberals will have to come crawling, begging for them to stop.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:22 AM on August 30, 2021 [45 favorites]
This. White people have long been used to having social hegemony over society. If you were the poorest, shittiest white person at least you had the cold comfort that you were still better than any black person. The problem for them today is that large swaths of America have basically cast that aside, at least on a surface level. There's no doubt that systemic racism permeates the entire American nation from top to bottom but at least more people are rejecting the notion that they're better just because they're white.
And that scares the fucking shit out of a segment of white America. They've long been insulated from their own failings. Racism was like a security blanket and a shield that they could use to fall back on. Without it, what do they have? Nothing. They're just like every other sucker in this god forsaken country walking the tightrope without a net. And that fear turns to rage at everything that took that social hegemony away from them. Progressivism, multiculturalism, scientific progress. All of them are valid targets. And the end result is that you get a segment of the population who when they can't get regressive policies will just act out of spite.
This whole anti-vax/dying to own the libs/"my freedumbs" is them looking to recapture just a bit of that unquestioned control over society that white people once automatically had. If nothing else, they're going to fuck over as many people as possible with whatever little sliver of power they have so that those liberals will have to come crawling, begging for them to stop.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:22 AM on August 30, 2021 [45 favorites]
We can vax if we want to,
We can leave red states behind
'Cause your friends don't vax,
And if they don't vax,
Well, they're no friends of mine.
We can vax, we can vax,
Some of us are takin' the vax,
We can vax, we can vax,
Believing in science and facts...
posted by snofoam at 8:27 AM on August 30, 2021 [43 favorites]
We can leave red states behind
'Cause your friends don't vax,
And if they don't vax,
Well, they're no friends of mine.
We can vax, we can vax,
Some of us are takin' the vax,
We can vax, we can vax,
Believing in science and facts...
posted by snofoam at 8:27 AM on August 30, 2021 [43 favorites]
At what point can we acknowledge that voting Republican means that person is at least partially responsible for murder? This isn't (just) rhetoric, but a genuine question I think we should be examining.
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a single transgender individual commits suicide because of Republican oppression and assault on freedoms?
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a single woman does giving birth to a child she didn't want to have, where an abortion could have saved her life, or even access to better medical Care?
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a police officer kills another unarmed child? Abuses another prisoner to death?
At what point are Republican voters responsible for plague deaths? We can't trust people to avoid the plague! I've been to the ER recently, I've seen confirmed covid patients sitting in the waiting room for hours. I've seen the beds in the hallways, the standards of care slipping because the hospital systems are just completely overwhelmed.
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a single person dies because of covid negligence? Anti masking and anti-vaxxing? Or if there is a single preventable death due to healthcare cuts, social net cuts, the hospital being overwhelmed because of avoidable Idiocracy.... The hospital, which normally allowed 24/7 access banned visitors. How many people lost time with their loved ones because of Republican policies? How many families ruined by Republican economic bullshit and death cultism?
At what point can we acknowledge that while the Democrats aren't perfect, by any means, they aren't trying to murder half the country?
I think we're well past that point, both where we can throw very well deserved stones at the poor white people who are so scared that their majority is decreasing, and will do anything in their power to preserve that power, and where we should be acknowledging that republicanism is murder. All of it.
posted by Jacen at 8:30 AM on August 30, 2021 [21 favorites]
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a single transgender individual commits suicide because of Republican oppression and assault on freedoms?
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a single woman does giving birth to a child she didn't want to have, where an abortion could have saved her life, or even access to better medical Care?
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a police officer kills another unarmed child? Abuses another prisoner to death?
At what point are Republican voters responsible for plague deaths? We can't trust people to avoid the plague! I've been to the ER recently, I've seen confirmed covid patients sitting in the waiting room for hours. I've seen the beds in the hallways, the standards of care slipping because the hospital systems are just completely overwhelmed.
At what point are Republican voters responsible if a single person dies because of covid negligence? Anti masking and anti-vaxxing? Or if there is a single preventable death due to healthcare cuts, social net cuts, the hospital being overwhelmed because of avoidable Idiocracy.... The hospital, which normally allowed 24/7 access banned visitors. How many people lost time with their loved ones because of Republican policies? How many families ruined by Republican economic bullshit and death cultism?
At what point can we acknowledge that while the Democrats aren't perfect, by any means, they aren't trying to murder half the country?
I think we're well past that point, both where we can throw very well deserved stones at the poor white people who are so scared that their majority is decreasing, and will do anything in their power to preserve that power, and where we should be acknowledging that republicanism is murder. All of it.
posted by Jacen at 8:30 AM on August 30, 2021 [21 favorites]
At what point can we acknowledge that while the Democrats aren't perfect, by any means, they aren't trying to murder half the country?Well, not their country at least.
posted by fullerine at 8:40 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
Well, not their country at least.
Centrist Democratic compromise: "We put BLM and the rainbow flag on all the bombs we're dropping!"
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:42 AM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
Centrist Democratic compromise: "We put BLM and the rainbow flag on all the bombs we're dropping!"
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:42 AM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
while the Democrats aren't perfect, by any means, they aren't trying to murder half the country?
IF we take summary of the thread and choose a hierarchy of ideology something like this:
Power>Race>Economy (...the right'r being the means to the left'r ends)
...Then I still choose to indict the Democratic Party (obviously not its voters) for reinforcing an economic system that puts corporate power above human rights. It's really that simple.
This whole 'come together' to oppose Trump/Rs/fascists under the banner of Biden/Clinton/X is such thinly veiled pap. The party is only a difference of degree from the alternatives, not a difference of kind. Exhibit A: Manchin and Sinema, who are really just trolls in D clothing. That the Democratic Party couldn't figure this out in time to salvage their agenda and future electoral prospects isn't because they couldn't, it's because they didn't care to.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:51 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
IF we take summary of the thread and choose a hierarchy of ideology something like this:
Power>Race>Economy (...the right'r being the means to the left'r ends)
...Then I still choose to indict the Democratic Party (obviously not its voters) for reinforcing an economic system that puts corporate power above human rights. It's really that simple.
This whole 'come together' to oppose Trump/Rs/fascists under the banner of Biden/Clinton/X is such thinly veiled pap. The party is only a difference of degree from the alternatives, not a difference of kind. Exhibit A: Manchin and Sinema, who are really just trolls in D clothing. That the Democratic Party couldn't figure this out in time to salvage their agenda and future electoral prospects isn't because they couldn't, it's because they didn't care to.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:51 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
With regards to Covid and vaccine pushback, I think there's also a social factor innate to some forms of conservatism—the idea that disease is a moral failure. If you get sick and die, you clearly did something to deserve it. Anti-vax and anti-mask nonsense plays right into this. These sort of conservatives don't think they're at risk of Covid, because they're morally upstanding. The vaccine—more specifically the governmental and societal pressure to get vaccinated or wear a mask—is an affront to their moral purity.
You do see some of this on the left as well, but it's more of the shaming people's idiocy for not taking the reasonable, and easy precautions of, say, wearing a mask, or getting a damn vaccine that is being given away, or not going to Sturgis.
posted by SansPoint at 8:56 AM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
You do see some of this on the left as well, but it's more of the shaming people's idiocy for not taking the reasonable, and easy precautions of, say, wearing a mask, or getting a damn vaccine that is being given away, or not going to Sturgis.
posted by SansPoint at 8:56 AM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
I'm going to offer the theory, that I've expressed before, that Republicans are literally trying to make their states unlivable in order to drive out as many people as possible. Those who remain will be firmly bound to the state's business interests (Big Oil, Big Ag) and the survivors will live only as long as they continue to pick cotton for their masters.
posted by SPrintF at 8:59 AM on August 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 8:59 AM on August 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
You do see some of this on the left as well...
Yeah, you see a lot more than "some" of this on the left. Not denying the conservatives who do it, but liberals are also very enthusiastic participants in our "blame the sick" culture.
posted by cinchona at 9:01 AM on August 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
Yeah, you see a lot more than "some" of this on the left. Not denying the conservatives who do it, but liberals are also very enthusiastic participants in our "blame the sick" culture.
posted by cinchona at 9:01 AM on August 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
Not to diminish the fervent neolilberal feathers in the republican plume, but rural republicans are not wrong that the policy center of gravity, even among the democratic party, is firmly neoliberal
Admittedly, I am not following this issue, but why aren't Democrats going after hidden offshore bank accounts? Because their rich donors won't allow them to.
posted by Beholder at 9:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Admittedly, I am not following this issue, but why aren't Democrats going after hidden offshore bank accounts? Because their rich donors won't allow them to.
posted by Beholder at 9:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Maybe stop trying to bring up the fairly bullshit statistic of obesity vs the clear and overwhelming statistical difference in vaccination
posted by Ferreous at 9:12 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 9:12 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Is it possible that more prosperous areas have a higher incidence of vaccination/education/trust in government?
Correlation != causality.
posted by amtho at 9:13 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Correlation != causality.
posted by amtho at 9:13 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Admittedly, I am not following this issue, but why aren't Democrats going after hidden offshore bank accounts?
AFAIK they are working on it.
Political change is slow and boring. And if you have a democracy, you have to listen to the others and deal with them, even the idiots. I agree that it seems like an alarmingly large element of the Republican Party are moving towards fascism, which needs to be fought down with all means. Listening doesn't make sense with people who don't respect the norms and rules of society. But we can't scream or fight our way out of the fact that a lot of not-racist people have not yet understood the urgency of the need for change, and we have to negotiate and enlighten.
posted by mumimor at 9:15 AM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
AFAIK they are working on it.
Political change is slow and boring. And if you have a democracy, you have to listen to the others and deal with them, even the idiots. I agree that it seems like an alarmingly large element of the Republican Party are moving towards fascism, which needs to be fought down with all means. Listening doesn't make sense with people who don't respect the norms and rules of society. But we can't scream or fight our way out of the fact that a lot of not-racist people have not yet understood the urgency of the need for change, and we have to negotiate and enlighten.
posted by mumimor at 9:15 AM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
Um, I get that people are sensitive (rightly so) about obesity being a false target, but it's also reasonable to care about improving the food landscape, mental health, and social welfare in rural locations (along with other major causes of obesity) in order to improve public health generally.
posted by amtho at 9:16 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by amtho at 9:16 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Including getting 630,000+ Americans killed from a virus, and counting.
Can we stay on Earth One and not blame every covid death on the cultists? Yes they caused unnecessary death. Yes they are basically horrible people. But 100,000s of thousands of Americans would still have been killed even had the government's response been perfect.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 9:17 AM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Can we stay on Earth One and not blame every covid death on the cultists? Yes they caused unnecessary death. Yes they are basically horrible people. But 100,000s of thousands of Americans would still have been killed even had the government's response been perfect.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 9:17 AM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Correlation doesn't equal causation but one party has been clearly anti safety measures to the point of barring them barring them being implemented on a local level. It logically makes sense that areas that aren't ravaged by covid can actually function and get back to a degree of normalcy faster. Or to put it more simply gop policies produce worse economic outcomes on all but the highest wealth levels.
posted by Ferreous at 9:19 AM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 9:19 AM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
But 100,000s of thousands of Americans would still have been killed even had the government's response been perfect.
Nope. I tried to calculate the numbers of deaths in countries where the response was smart, and compare to the US numbers. I am not an epidemiologist, but as far as I can see, there would have been less than ten thousand deaths in the US if the government had had a similar approach as that of New Zealand.
One interesting thing about corona is that it has clearly demonstrated that government is useful.
posted by mumimor at 9:24 AM on August 30, 2021 [45 favorites]
Nope. I tried to calculate the numbers of deaths in countries where the response was smart, and compare to the US numbers. I am not an epidemiologist, but as far as I can see, there would have been less than ten thousand deaths in the US if the government had had a similar approach as that of New Zealand.
One interesting thing about corona is that it has clearly demonstrated that government is useful.
posted by mumimor at 9:24 AM on August 30, 2021 [45 favorites]
Thank you, amtho, I've been trying to make the same point, but my comments keep getting censored. Seems I'm not the only one to bring up causation.
posted by torii hugger at 9:33 AM on August 30, 2021
posted by torii hugger at 9:33 AM on August 30, 2021
I came across this thread from Brooke Harrington
Thank you. This is really a good analysis, though one with inevitably pessimistic conclusions: we have two "coolers" working right now, and they are being denounced as RINOs for that. Without a critical mass of coolers, there will be no cooling.
And in the mean time, fuck empathy. Fuck all the people who "feel left out" because a black man's former sidekick is now the president and his spokeswoman is a non-rhotic Bostonian. Let's deal with the people who really are left out, and let the MAGAs suffer some social death.
posted by ocschwar at 9:41 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
Ferreous, what's the "bullshit statistic of obesity" ? Are you talking about the prevalance of covid-related suffering and deaths in countries with high rates of severe malnutrition ?
posted by torii hugger at 9:43 AM on August 30, 2021
posted by torii hugger at 9:43 AM on August 30, 2021
[discussing "red counties"]
It's not that they feel left out, it's that they view America as a white Christian ethnostate under siege
Cause or effect? I recall Obama suggesting they were clinging to guns and the Bible because they had nothing else.
Can we, can we please, here in 2021, try to remember that many red counties have substantial non-white populations, usually suffering from heavy voter suppression, and not talk as if "red counties" were all or mostly white?
And then can we try to remember that the under-$50K household income demos voted Democratic in 2016 (and 2020)? That the average 45 voter had a higher income than the average Clinton voter?
How are we possibly having this version of the conversation again, where everyone assumes that the white working class is the only working class, and that it's "working class" economic frustrations driving populism?
posted by praemunire at 9:47 AM on August 30, 2021 [37 favorites]
It's not that they feel left out, it's that they view America as a white Christian ethnostate under siege
Cause or effect? I recall Obama suggesting they were clinging to guns and the Bible because they had nothing else.
Can we, can we please, here in 2021, try to remember that many red counties have substantial non-white populations, usually suffering from heavy voter suppression, and not talk as if "red counties" were all or mostly white?
And then can we try to remember that the under-$50K household income demos voted Democratic in 2016 (and 2020)? That the average 45 voter had a higher income than the average Clinton voter?
How are we possibly having this version of the conversation again, where everyone assumes that the white working class is the only working class, and that it's "working class" economic frustrations driving populism?
posted by praemunire at 9:47 AM on August 30, 2021 [37 favorites]
And then can we try to remember that the under-$50K household income demos voted Democratic in 2016 (and 2020)? That the average 45 voter had a higher income than the average Clinton voter?
I certainly have not forgotten. The only Trumpets I encounter are people who are wealthier than I am (and I am high enough in the tax brackets that my bitching rights are forfeit), less educated than I am and whose place in our class system is inherited, and whose only grievance is that their kind is not in charge.
These are the people who run red counties outright, and yess, the poor bastards who live there and don't vote as often need and should get our help.
posted by ocschwar at 9:52 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
I certainly have not forgotten. The only Trumpets I encounter are people who are wealthier than I am (and I am high enough in the tax brackets that my bitching rights are forfeit), less educated than I am and whose place in our class system is inherited, and whose only grievance is that their kind is not in charge.
These are the people who run red counties outright, and yess, the poor bastards who live there and don't vote as often need and should get our help.
posted by ocschwar at 9:52 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
The reason I lean away from empathy for many of the anti-vaxxers is because this argument for empathy always comes down to either "anti-vaxxers have been fed misinformation/conned into thinking this way" or "they've committed so hard to this that now that they want to come around, they have too much shame to admit it."
When people say those things, ostensibly from a place of empathy, they're saying "these anti-vaxxers are either too stupid or too emotionally immature to be treated like adults." Which to my mind means that they shouldn't have a say in whether we allow a pandemic to kill another half-million people.
It's the same kind of liberal feel-good bullshit like the "In this house, black lives matter" etc posters that white people put up in their yard when they gentrify a neighborhood and price out all of the poor people who lived there, but hey, they See You and they support you and they will continue to tweet that support so. hard.
posted by nushustu at 9:55 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
When people say those things, ostensibly from a place of empathy, they're saying "these anti-vaxxers are either too stupid or too emotionally immature to be treated like adults." Which to my mind means that they shouldn't have a say in whether we allow a pandemic to kill another half-million people.
It's the same kind of liberal feel-good bullshit like the "In this house, black lives matter" etc posters that white people put up in their yard when they gentrify a neighborhood and price out all of the poor people who lived there, but hey, they See You and they support you and they will continue to tweet that support so. hard.
posted by nushustu at 9:55 AM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
The 520 counties Biden won account for fully 71% of U.S. gross domestic product
They also account for (by my math) 60% of the population, so this isn't quite as dramatic a difference as it seems. Also, this ignores the fact that, while Biden won LA county, for example, he didn't win 100% of the vote. A significant number of Trump voters live in these industrial powerhouse counties (don't forget that Trump got more votes in California than in any other state).
Honestly, any analysis that talks about counties can probably be discarded without further thought. LA County has a bigger population than Michigan. It's bigger than the ten smallest states combined. By contrast, I attended college classes with more people than live in Loving County, Texas.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:00 AM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
They also account for (by my math) 60% of the population, so this isn't quite as dramatic a difference as it seems. Also, this ignores the fact that, while Biden won LA county, for example, he didn't win 100% of the vote. A significant number of Trump voters live in these industrial powerhouse counties (don't forget that Trump got more votes in California than in any other state).
Honestly, any analysis that talks about counties can probably be discarded without further thought. LA County has a bigger population than Michigan. It's bigger than the ten smallest states combined. By contrast, I attended college classes with more people than live in Loving County, Texas.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:00 AM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
When people say those things, ostensibly from a place of empathy, they're saying "these anti-vaxxers are either too stupid or too emotionally immature to be treated like adults."
It seems fairly obvious that this is true for a certain segment of Americans. The only question is whether it is true for only them, or whether we should generalize this conclusion to all humans.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:01 AM on August 30, 2021
It seems fairly obvious that this is true for a certain segment of Americans. The only question is whether it is true for only them, or whether we should generalize this conclusion to all humans.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:01 AM on August 30, 2021
MetaFilter: just a parade of needless suffering and death
posted by kirkaracha at 10:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
(don't forget that Trump got more votes in California than in any other state)
When saying things like this, remember that just the difference in population between California and Texas is larger than the population of 40 individual states.
posted by LionIndex at 10:05 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
When saying things like this, remember that just the difference in population between California and Texas is larger than the population of 40 individual states.
posted by LionIndex at 10:05 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
cinchona which segment of the left blames the sick?
posted by MrBobaFett at 10:06 AM on August 30, 2021
posted by MrBobaFett at 10:06 AM on August 30, 2021
Can we not devolve into "let 'em die and let God sort 'em out" sort of rhetoric?
How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
posted by kirkaracha at 10:13 AM on August 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.Sauce for the goose.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:13 AM on August 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
It seems we have these discussions every so often. The core issue is a combination of the racism (which is only treatable over generations) & those susceptible to authoritarianism (genetic) being taken advantage of by the billionaires (who are few, and creatures of mere flesh) in order to further wealth inequality.
WYD.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:21 AM on August 30, 2021
WYD.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:21 AM on August 30, 2021
Empathy isn't a favor you do for other people that should be rescinded if not reciprocated. It's something you do for yourself. It helps you better understand your opponents, or even enemies, by remembering that they are human, no matter how monstrous their choices. And it helps keep your eyes and mind open so you aren't blinded to unexpected opportunities by a simplistic narrative about the evil of your enemies. When your empathy fails, the ones who pay the price are not the ones from whom you have withheld it: they usually do not know or care. The only one who suffers when your empathy fails is you.
I have certainly struggled with empathy over the last few years, something that has felt like a terrible change for me. I cannot extend it to moral monsters like Trump, and I find it very difficult to empathize with Trumpists and people fighting against even minimal public health measures like mask wearing, let alone quarantines and vaccines. I do not like being in this place, because this loss of empathy is a loss of myself. It limits my ability to understand the people and the world around me, and leaves me feeling more powerless and at sea in a senseless world. When I am able to reclaim my empathy for them, even when it's sometimes limited or fleeting, I feel more whole, and while I may have no more control over this senseless world, its senselessness is at least more sensible when seen through the eyes of others. Having empathy for these others doesn't make me less angry, or hold them less responsible for their wrong or evil choices. But it gives me a window outside myself, and gives me hope that these misguided people, who believe out of their fear, ignorance, and prejudice that they are making the right choices for themselves and their loved ones despite what seems to me to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, might someday be reached, and that we're not doomed to these stupid culture wars forever. The direct assault on my capacity for empathy by the far-Right machine is one of the things I hate about it the most.
The idea is frequently expressed on Metafilter that some people don't deserve our empathy. I believe this gets things entirely backwards. It is not that people who have done and continue to do terrible things to you and your loved ones deserve your empathy. It is that you deserve to have empathy for everyone.
posted by biogeo at 10:28 AM on August 30, 2021 [99 favorites]
I have certainly struggled with empathy over the last few years, something that has felt like a terrible change for me. I cannot extend it to moral monsters like Trump, and I find it very difficult to empathize with Trumpists and people fighting against even minimal public health measures like mask wearing, let alone quarantines and vaccines. I do not like being in this place, because this loss of empathy is a loss of myself. It limits my ability to understand the people and the world around me, and leaves me feeling more powerless and at sea in a senseless world. When I am able to reclaim my empathy for them, even when it's sometimes limited or fleeting, I feel more whole, and while I may have no more control over this senseless world, its senselessness is at least more sensible when seen through the eyes of others. Having empathy for these others doesn't make me less angry, or hold them less responsible for their wrong or evil choices. But it gives me a window outside myself, and gives me hope that these misguided people, who believe out of their fear, ignorance, and prejudice that they are making the right choices for themselves and their loved ones despite what seems to me to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, might someday be reached, and that we're not doomed to these stupid culture wars forever. The direct assault on my capacity for empathy by the far-Right machine is one of the things I hate about it the most.
The idea is frequently expressed on Metafilter that some people don't deserve our empathy. I believe this gets things entirely backwards. It is not that people who have done and continue to do terrible things to you and your loved ones deserve your empathy. It is that you deserve to have empathy for everyone.
posted by biogeo at 10:28 AM on August 30, 2021 [99 favorites]
I have empathy for anti-vax people.
I just don't have sympathy for them.
There's a difference.
posted by SansPoint at 10:31 AM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
I just don't have sympathy for them.
There's a difference.
posted by SansPoint at 10:31 AM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
The Black Mortality Gap, and a Document Written in 1910
Some clues on why health care fails Black Americans can be found in the Flexner Report.
NYTimes, by Anna Flagg
Some clues on why health care fails Black Americans can be found in the Flexner Report.
NYTimes, by Anna Flagg
In 2019, the most recent year with available mortality data, there were about 62,000 such earlier deaths — or one out of every five African American deaths.posted by mumimor at 10:32 AM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
The age group most affected by the inequality was infants. Black babies were more than twice as likely as white babies to die before their first birthday.
The overall mortality disparity has existed for centuries. Racism drives some of the key social determinants of health, like lower levels of income and generational wealth; less access to healthy food, water and public spaces; environmental damage; overpolicing and disproportionate incarceration; and the stresses of prolonged discrimination.
But the health care system also plays a part in this disparity.
Research shows Black Americans receive less and lower-quality care for conditions like cancer, heart problems, pneumonia, pain management, prenatal and maternal health, and overall preventive health. During the pandemic, this racial longevity gap seemed to grow again after narrowing in recent years.
The direct assault on my capacity for empathy by the far-Right machine
You make an interesting point. As my own empathy has dwindled, I'd originally considered it a casualty of Trump -- a knee-jerk "OK, screw you guys then" type of thing. Lately, I've come to think that it was actually a consequence of my vastly improved financial security ("the more money you have, the less you care about other humans" and all that). I hadn't previously contemplated that it may be due at least in part to a concerted effort by the Right to diminish the role of empathy in general.
Huh. Sort of an odd feeling, this.
posted by aramaic at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
You make an interesting point. As my own empathy has dwindled, I'd originally considered it a casualty of Trump -- a knee-jerk "OK, screw you guys then" type of thing. Lately, I've come to think that it was actually a consequence of my vastly improved financial security ("the more money you have, the less you care about other humans" and all that). I hadn't previously contemplated that it may be due at least in part to a concerted effort by the Right to diminish the role of empathy in general.
Huh. Sort of an odd feeling, this.
posted by aramaic at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
I am not an epidemiologist, but as far as I can see, there would have been less than ten thousand deaths in the US if the government had had a similar approach as that of New Zealand.
FWIW, New Zealand being an island contributed considerably to their ability to secure borders and pursue an effective lockdown strategy. I think the particulars of their economy and internal geography also might've helped in keeping shutdowns going and being able to isolate and target outbreaks. A lot of elements of the New Zealand approach could work to some degree elsewhere and indeed were implemented in other countries, but their extraordinary success was a combination both of effective response and circumstances which allowed that response to be particularly effective.
(Granted, there are plenty of other good example countries illustrating that better management in the US absolutely could've done a better job flattening the first-peak curve — Vietnam, for instance. Under 10,000 sounds optimistic to me even if we did everything right, but it's absolutely true that catastrophic mismanagement is responsible for at least six digits worth of deaths.)
posted by jackbishop at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
FWIW, New Zealand being an island contributed considerably to their ability to secure borders and pursue an effective lockdown strategy. I think the particulars of their economy and internal geography also might've helped in keeping shutdowns going and being able to isolate and target outbreaks. A lot of elements of the New Zealand approach could work to some degree elsewhere and indeed were implemented in other countries, but their extraordinary success was a combination both of effective response and circumstances which allowed that response to be particularly effective.
(Granted, there are plenty of other good example countries illustrating that better management in the US absolutely could've done a better job flattening the first-peak curve — Vietnam, for instance. Under 10,000 sounds optimistic to me even if we did everything right, but it's absolutely true that catastrophic mismanagement is responsible for at least six digits worth of deaths.)
posted by jackbishop at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
Hold Trump and his administration accountable for the decisions they made to exacerbate the pandemic and it'll be much easier for me to spare a little empathy for anti-vaxxers.
Until the mendacious ringleaders are facing real, criminal consequences for their actions, I just don't have anything to spare for the unwitting followers.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Until the mendacious ringleaders are facing real, criminal consequences for their actions, I just don't have anything to spare for the unwitting followers.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Why Are Republicans Eating Horse Paste?
Resistance to pandemic containment measures has developed into a tenet of white identity politics. With a vaccine available, this resistance is now suicidal. COVID-19 deaths are soaring again and those exposed are overwhelmingly white and Republican. Republican Governors aren’t just killing off random citizens, they are murdering their own voters. Those voters, at least the ones who survive, are congratulating them for it. Republicans don’t seem to find any of this odd.posted by overglow at 10:43 AM on August 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
Beneath the inevitable outrage lies a curiosity. Why?
... Here's why. We’ve lost our ability to share a reality and build on that reality, because we’ve lost the mythology, the shared narrative, that defined “us.” People will engage in remarkable acts of courage and sacrifice to protect “us.” Likewise, they will commit thoughtless atrocities against a perceived “them.” Building a successful civilization requires more than the negotiation of narrow personal interests. It demands a definition of “us” upon which all else rests. A shared narrative, or mythology if you will, that defines “us” is the foundation on which all successful collective action is built.
Our “us” has been lost. It’s been lost because we wrecked it. We wrecked it because it was cruel, stupid and no longer effective. We find ourselves in this dilemma because the power of white supremacy to act as the glue holding our society together has fallen below critical mass and a new unifying mythology has yet to emerge.
there would have been less than ten thousand deaths in the US if the government had had a similar approach as that of New Zealand.
OTOH, New Zealand is relatively small, a long distance from other population centres and easy to isolate, and a big part of its strategy was isolating itself. Cutting the US off from the rest of the world in this way would not be possible.
posted by acb at 10:45 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
OTOH, New Zealand is relatively small, a long distance from other population centres and easy to isolate, and a big part of its strategy was isolating itself. Cutting the US off from the rest of the world in this way would not be possible.
posted by acb at 10:45 AM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Cutting the US off from the rest of the world in this way would not be possible.
Imagine though if each region had done that though? What doomed us was the whole 50 states, 50 plans approach.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
Imagine though if each region had done that though? What doomed us was the whole 50 states, 50 plans approach.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
OTOH, New Zealand is relatively small, a long distance from other population centres and easy to isolate, and a big part of its strategy was isolating itself. Cutting the US off from the rest of the world in this way would not be possible.
Well, New Zealand is definitely an outlier. But my own country, Denmark, had under 3000 deaths, and the US equivalent would be under 20.000. South Korea is closer in population to the US, they have till now had less than 3.000 deaths.
posted by mumimor at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
Well, New Zealand is definitely an outlier. But my own country, Denmark, had under 3000 deaths, and the US equivalent would be under 20.000. South Korea is closer in population to the US, they have till now had less than 3.000 deaths.
posted by mumimor at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
Our “us” has been lost. It’s been lost because we wrecked it. We wrecked it because it was cruel, stupid and no longer effective. We find ourselves in this dilemma because the power of white supremacy to act as the glue holding our society together has fallen below critical mass and a new unifying mythology has yet to emerge.
That the party of McCarthy has been so quick to get into bed with certain Russian interests seems to illustrate this point. There is a vein of authoritarian, strong-man ethno-nationalism in Russia today that provides quite a few US Americans with something to identify with. I mean, pull at any thread and you will unravel base greed and money but some millions of voters would happily persist in their irrational fear and hatred of Russia if it continued to serve their belief in racial superiority. As far as I can tell, anyhow.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
That the party of McCarthy has been so quick to get into bed with certain Russian interests seems to illustrate this point. There is a vein of authoritarian, strong-man ethno-nationalism in Russia today that provides quite a few US Americans with something to identify with. I mean, pull at any thread and you will unravel base greed and money but some millions of voters would happily persist in their irrational fear and hatred of Russia if it continued to serve their belief in racial superiority. As far as I can tell, anyhow.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:53 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
"I hadn't previously contemplated that it may be due at least in part to a concerted effort by the Right to diminish the role of empathy in general."
That's surprising to me, because I have literally griped for years that the raging right-wing machine literally forces you to be like them. Resources become scarce as the world dries up and you as an individual don't have the charisma to become a leader and organize people, and so you end up doing what the people who caused all this did: you begin to scrape and save for yourself and your loved ones, hoping at the very least to save yourselves a little bit of suffering before the end. Like them, you put yourself and your loved ones lives before the lives of others, not because you want to, but literally for the sake of survival. This process accelerates as fascism accelerates.
The most brutal part of fascism is that it is so unnervingly good at forcing you to give in to the same processes and become a part of the fascist machine yourself, for the sake of survival. It knows our hearts are weak for our loved ones, and it exploits that endlessly. It actively uses our empathy against us, and teaches us to develop in-groups and out-groups.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:54 AM on August 30, 2021 [40 favorites]
That's surprising to me, because I have literally griped for years that the raging right-wing machine literally forces you to be like them. Resources become scarce as the world dries up and you as an individual don't have the charisma to become a leader and organize people, and so you end up doing what the people who caused all this did: you begin to scrape and save for yourself and your loved ones, hoping at the very least to save yourselves a little bit of suffering before the end. Like them, you put yourself and your loved ones lives before the lives of others, not because you want to, but literally for the sake of survival. This process accelerates as fascism accelerates.
The most brutal part of fascism is that it is so unnervingly good at forcing you to give in to the same processes and become a part of the fascist machine yourself, for the sake of survival. It knows our hearts are weak for our loved ones, and it exploits that endlessly. It actively uses our empathy against us, and teaches us to develop in-groups and out-groups.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:54 AM on August 30, 2021 [40 favorites]
OTOH, New Zealand is relatively small, a long distance from other population centres and easy to isolate, and a big part of its strategy was isolating itself. Cutting the US off from the rest of the world in this way would not be possible.
Nah, while I don't blame the medical and service workers for the pandemic response, I don't think we should defend the terrible US systemic response at all. And while it's true the US is more connected to the world, it works both ways. The country can't shutter itself away as easily, but the US should have used it's connections much better to do things like alert the world and to coordinate response.
posted by FJT at 11:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Nah, while I don't blame the medical and service workers for the pandemic response, I don't think we should defend the terrible US systemic response at all. And while it's true the US is more connected to the world, it works both ways. The country can't shutter itself away as easily, but the US should have used it's connections much better to do things like alert the world and to coordinate response.
posted by FJT at 11:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Can we, can we please, here in 2021, try to remember that many red counties have substantial non-white populations, usually suffering from heavy voter suppression, and not talk as if "red counties" were all or mostly white?
We can try, certainly. To borrow a context from elsewhere on thread, here's a map of Kentucky demographics by county. Most of the counties are less than 5 percent black if you click on the corresponding tab. I don't know of any agreed upon threshold for 'mostly white' is, but from what I see, most counties are mostly white. The data also shows that no county is only white, but that seems like a particularly imflammable strawman.
To me, the question is why we care about red counties. Kentucky's governors are elected by direct popular vote. Counties are influential in state legislature district composition, but I think the purpose of county is to delineate rural vs urban areas. 'red county' then means 'counties that are rural and strongly lean republican'. And I don't know Kentucky overly well, but it awfully looks like rural Kentucky counties are overwhelmingly white and Republican.
None of this should imply that any person living there "deserves" to die of COVID-19, regardless of race or vaccination status.
posted by pwnguin at 11:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
We can try, certainly. To borrow a context from elsewhere on thread, here's a map of Kentucky demographics by county. Most of the counties are less than 5 percent black if you click on the corresponding tab. I don't know of any agreed upon threshold for 'mostly white' is, but from what I see, most counties are mostly white. The data also shows that no county is only white, but that seems like a particularly imflammable strawman.
To me, the question is why we care about red counties. Kentucky's governors are elected by direct popular vote. Counties are influential in state legislature district composition, but I think the purpose of county is to delineate rural vs urban areas. 'red county' then means 'counties that are rural and strongly lean republican'. And I don't know Kentucky overly well, but it awfully looks like rural Kentucky counties are overwhelmingly white and Republican.
None of this should imply that any person living there "deserves" to die of COVID-19, regardless of race or vaccination status.
posted by pwnguin at 11:02 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
So NZ isn't completely isolated .... people still come and go, we have Covid incursions ... the entire country is currently locked down at a level much higher than anywhere in the US does, I haven't been more than a block from the house in 2 weeks, and this after we found just 1 case of delta in the community (now 500 cases). Starting today some parts are starting to gently back out of full lockdown (contactless take-away food).
Prior to this latest outbreak we'd been more than 6 months without a case in the community, but daily cases in quarantine (people entering the country).
Sure we're an island, but then so is the UK ... what I think our government has done mostly can be put down to incredible messaging - daily public press briefings, science!, explaining what's happening in plain language, no secrets, no blame, and on top of that serious duty contact tracing.
posted by mbo at 11:29 AM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
Prior to this latest outbreak we'd been more than 6 months without a case in the community, but daily cases in quarantine (people entering the country).
Sure we're an island, but then so is the UK ... what I think our government has done mostly can be put down to incredible messaging - daily public press briefings, science!, explaining what's happening in plain language, no secrets, no blame, and on top of that serious duty contact tracing.
posted by mbo at 11:29 AM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
Also, this thread has taken some turns, so might I just take a moment to say bravo to kliuless for yet another really good post? There is so much good stuff here, I will be digesting for some time.
The direction of the thread (of which I have been a part) suggests to me that we need another mega-thread location to just scream at the heavens a little bit...
posted by nushustu at 11:29 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
The direction of the thread (of which I have been a part) suggests to me that we need another mega-thread location to just scream at the heavens a little bit...
posted by nushustu at 11:29 AM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
Sure we're an island, but then so is the UK
Except the UK shares a land border with the EU, and you can literally drive from France to England. But sure, they definitely also handicapped themselves by electing Boris.
posted by pwnguin at 11:43 AM on August 30, 2021
Except the UK shares a land border with the EU, and you can literally drive from France to England. But sure, they definitely also handicapped themselves by electing Boris.
posted by pwnguin at 11:43 AM on August 30, 2021
Mumimor, I think your math is way off. The US has 50 times more people than Denmark.
posted by starfishprime at 11:43 AM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by starfishprime at 11:43 AM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mumimor, I think your math is way off. The US has 50 times more people than Denmark.
Yes, I'm sorry. I just realized that and I feel like a fool. The US equivalent would be 129.000 deaths.
posted by mumimor at 11:48 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Arithmetic mistakes happen. Real foolishness would be not acknowledging it. Regardless, it's clear the US covid response has been abysmal, just fortunately about an order of magnitude less abysmal than you first thought!
posted by biogeo at 11:55 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 11:55 AM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
FWIW, New Zealand being an island contributed considerably to their ability to secure borders and pursue an effective lockdown strategy.
Agreed. Germany is probably a better choice for comparison. Their death rate is about 1/2 the US.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:05 PM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
Agreed. Germany is probably a better choice for comparison. Their death rate is about 1/2 the US.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:05 PM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
If you look at the EU as a whole, the death rate is about 20% less than the US, not nearly as good as Germany. Of course Italy and Spain were hit hard early on, before we had good information on dealing with it. But if we'd even done that well, that's 120,000 lives saved.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:11 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:11 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
cinchona which segment of the left blames the sick?
Well, there are the many liberals seriously proposing that if anyone at this point in the pandemic develops life threatening complications of Covid, they brought it on themselves by "denying science" and should be left to die in the hospital parking lot so that the "innocently" sick and injured can be treated first. I could say that this is just a example of a extreme situation bringing out some pretty untypically callous attitudes, but it honestly isn't. Even during "peacetime," many of these liberal individuals call for the same treatment of sick people who ate too much, or ate the "wrong foods," or smoked, or didn't move enough, or didn't visit the doctor enough, or who didn't follow their doctor's advice, or who did follow their doctor's advice instead of first seeking out multiple other doctors' opinions, etc.
posted by cinchona at 12:12 PM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
Well, there are the many liberals seriously proposing that if anyone at this point in the pandemic develops life threatening complications of Covid, they brought it on themselves by "denying science" and should be left to die in the hospital parking lot so that the "innocently" sick and injured can be treated first. I could say that this is just a example of a extreme situation bringing out some pretty untypically callous attitudes, but it honestly isn't. Even during "peacetime," many of these liberal individuals call for the same treatment of sick people who ate too much, or ate the "wrong foods," or smoked, or didn't move enough, or didn't visit the doctor enough, or who didn't follow their doctor's advice, or who did follow their doctor's advice instead of first seeking out multiple other doctors' opinions, etc.
posted by cinchona at 12:12 PM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
should be left to die in the hospital parking lot so that the "innocently" sick and injured can be treated first
Hospital bed capacity is very low in unvaccinated regions of the country. People with other ailments are being turned away for needed care, including cancer patients.
If it comes to rationing care — and in some places, it is getting to that point — I would absolutely hope that hospitals prioritize those who are vaccinated (of those who can get vaccinated; not all can) and send those home, who could have worn a mask or vaccinated but made a positive choice not to.
Those who are vaccinated are likely to have much less severe symptoms and allow hospitals to provide care to more patients. They are also more likely to wear a mask and are less likely to pass the virus on, in the first place.
It's not about "innocence" or "guilt", nor about "left" or "right" politics, but about responsibility for one's choices, in the face of ever-shrinking resources caused by those choices. It is a moral imperative that the freedom to infect others should come with responsibility for consequences.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:29 PM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
Hospital bed capacity is very low in unvaccinated regions of the country. People with other ailments are being turned away for needed care, including cancer patients.
If it comes to rationing care — and in some places, it is getting to that point — I would absolutely hope that hospitals prioritize those who are vaccinated (of those who can get vaccinated; not all can) and send those home, who could have worn a mask or vaccinated but made a positive choice not to.
Those who are vaccinated are likely to have much less severe symptoms and allow hospitals to provide care to more patients. They are also more likely to wear a mask and are less likely to pass the virus on, in the first place.
It's not about "innocence" or "guilt", nor about "left" or "right" politics, but about responsibility for one's choices, in the face of ever-shrinking resources caused by those choices. It is a moral imperative that the freedom to infect others should come with responsibility for consequences.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:29 PM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
the per capita US covid death rate is two to three times higher than Canada. And that includes a province like Alberta that seems to have tried to do everything as stupidly as the Trump driven America did.
posted by philip-random at 12:38 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 12:38 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Yes, Canada's response to COVID has been far, far from perfect, but by my back-of-the-envelope calculations, if the U.S. matched the Canadian death rate, about 235,000 people would have died as of today, instead of 637,000.
posted by Epixonti at 12:46 PM on August 30, 2021
posted by Epixonti at 12:46 PM on August 30, 2021
If it comes to rationing care — and in some places, it is getting to that point — I would absolutely hope that hospitals prioritize those who are vaccinated
I feel the same way: if you expect access to critical resources, you should be doing all you can to ensure they are being used the right way. In a way this is similar to receiving an organ donation: if they don’t think you’re going to be a good patient for it, you don’t get it.
Unfortunate, I have a hunch that, if it came down to rationing and vaccination would become a criteria, the anti-vaxxers will sue to get in. Today, just north of Cincinnati, a patient sued to have ivermectin administered.
I confess I have a severe deficit of empathy/sympathy for the anti-vaxxers. Going to such extremes as to not just refuse the vaccine but push for bans to mask mandates and comparing having kids wear masks to child abuse makes it hard to feel it when they will then turn around to get maximum treatment for what they had been calling “the flu” for the past year.
posted by MrGuilt at 12:46 PM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
I feel the same way: if you expect access to critical resources, you should be doing all you can to ensure they are being used the right way. In a way this is similar to receiving an organ donation: if they don’t think you’re going to be a good patient for it, you don’t get it.
Unfortunate, I have a hunch that, if it came down to rationing and vaccination would become a criteria, the anti-vaxxers will sue to get in. Today, just north of Cincinnati, a patient sued to have ivermectin administered.
I confess I have a severe deficit of empathy/sympathy for the anti-vaxxers. Going to such extremes as to not just refuse the vaccine but push for bans to mask mandates and comparing having kids wear masks to child abuse makes it hard to feel it when they will then turn around to get maximum treatment for what they had been calling “the flu” for the past year.
posted by MrGuilt at 12:46 PM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
It logically makes sense that areas that aren't ravaged by covid can actually function and get back to a degree of normalcy faster."It logically makes sense" without actually measuring and proving causality -- without giving serious thought to counterhypotheses -- is the opposite of science. It's exactly the kind of thinking you are fighting against when facing down "why not inject bleach".
posted by amtho at 12:47 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
cinchona, ok so it doesn't sound like there is a specific subset of the left but a vaguely nebulous idea that some people who identify as left-leaning seem to say some not nice things on message boards?
But also there is a vast gulf between people who blame individuals for their obesity because of bad diets driven by capitalism paying them substandard wages and making junk food more convenient and affordable for those people and blocking them from access to health care needed to manage their conditions, and blaming people for rejecting a widely and freely available vaccine that we have made doubly and triply clear is free to anyone, we will even entice you with free junk food and cash lottery tickets, hell we will even have people drive to your house outside of business hours if needed to give it to you. This lacks the complex externalities the block access to things that seem so easy to the privileged few. It's not like we're talking about people in countries where there is a shortage of the vaccine, hell we're hoarding vaccine for anyone that lives here. Homeless people can get this vaccine and we all kinds of fuck over homeless people all the time.
Hating people for eating "the wrong foods" sounds like pretty solidly neo-liberal crap to me, more so than "left".
posted by MrBobaFett at 12:47 PM on August 30, 2021
But also there is a vast gulf between people who blame individuals for their obesity because of bad diets driven by capitalism paying them substandard wages and making junk food more convenient and affordable for those people and blocking them from access to health care needed to manage their conditions, and blaming people for rejecting a widely and freely available vaccine that we have made doubly and triply clear is free to anyone, we will even entice you with free junk food and cash lottery tickets, hell we will even have people drive to your house outside of business hours if needed to give it to you. This lacks the complex externalities the block access to things that seem so easy to the privileged few. It's not like we're talking about people in countries where there is a shortage of the vaccine, hell we're hoarding vaccine for anyone that lives here. Homeless people can get this vaccine and we all kinds of fuck over homeless people all the time.
Hating people for eating "the wrong foods" sounds like pretty solidly neo-liberal crap to me, more so than "left".
posted by MrBobaFett at 12:47 PM on August 30, 2021
Tolerance of anti-mask and anti-vax attitudes is killing people. Not figuratively. Literally. Because we need to have empathy with assholes who make a positive choice to believe in eating deworming paste or pool cleaner, or make one excuse after enough for not doing what they have to do. I have no time or patience for the unending stream of bullshit, any longer, and I simply don't care if that makes me a "terrible" person. Everyone needs to mask up and get the shots, who can. Enough, already.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:48 PM on August 30, 2021 [24 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:48 PM on August 30, 2021 [24 favorites]
Yeah, torii hugger -- talking around trigger words is what you learn to do when dealing with any kind of reactionary administration.
posted by amtho at 12:49 PM on August 30, 2021
posted by amtho at 12:49 PM on August 30, 2021
We can try, certainly. To borrow a context from elsewhere on thread, here's a map of Kentucky demographics by county. Most of the counties are less than 5 percent black if you click on the corresponding tab.
10 states, including D.C., have more than 20% Black population in 2019 estimates. Every single one southern. This includes largely rural states like Mississippi and Alabama.
I'm sorry, this is not obscure trivia. The rural South has a significant Black population, and that's before you consider any other racial minorities. It always has. That means any comforting theories of red areas being red because they're just soooooo frustrated by the ills of capitalism rather than because the local whites are racist and have worked darned hard to cut off the access of everyone else to power are pablum.
posted by praemunire at 12:50 PM on August 30, 2021 [30 favorites]
10 states, including D.C., have more than 20% Black population in 2019 estimates. Every single one southern. This includes largely rural states like Mississippi and Alabama.
I'm sorry, this is not obscure trivia. The rural South has a significant Black population, and that's before you consider any other racial minorities. It always has. That means any comforting theories of red areas being red because they're just soooooo frustrated by the ills of capitalism rather than because the local whites are racist and have worked darned hard to cut off the access of everyone else to power are pablum.
posted by praemunire at 12:50 PM on August 30, 2021 [30 favorites]
Medical professionals swear an oath to do no harm, or at least as little harm as possible. When considering triage, your prior stupidity doesn't have a whole lot of weight. The sickest people get the help. It sucks when those people have been wilfully horrible to themselves and everyone else, but anything else is straight up fascism. The only salient difference between the right and the left is how big the tribe of compassion and empathy is. If you're making your tribe smaller, you're moving yourself further right.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:06 PM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:06 PM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
"Many liberals are victim blamers, look.. I know, I had an uncle.. He used to say these liberals, they don't know.. My uncle was a rocket scientist, very intelligent man, NASA would ask him for advice.. Now liberals, they blame you for things.."
posted by elkevelvet at 1:08 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 1:08 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
you can literally drive from France to England
Only if you're a train driver.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:13 PM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
Only if you're a train driver.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:13 PM on August 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
When considering triage, your prior stupidity doesn't have a whole lot of weight. The sickest people get the help.
As it was explained to me, it's not that the sickest people get the help, it's that the people most likely to benefit from help get the help. The "three" in "triage" is from the three cases: will get better without the limited resource, will get better only with the limited resource, will not get better even with the limited resource.
(Probablistic cases, of course, which just makes it harder.)
posted by clew at 1:22 PM on August 30, 2021 [24 favorites]
As it was explained to me, it's not that the sickest people get the help, it's that the people most likely to benefit from help get the help. The "three" in "triage" is from the three cases: will get better without the limited resource, will get better only with the limited resource, will not get better even with the limited resource.
(Probablistic cases, of course, which just makes it harder.)
posted by clew at 1:22 PM on August 30, 2021 [24 favorites]
I'm reminded of how I feel about the death penalty. It's not that I'm so tender that I don't believe some people deserve death; it's that our death penalty system is inefficient and inequitable, and there's no way to restore life to the innocent.
That's how I feel about the idea of refusing care to the unvaccinated. It wouldn't just be to the "guilty," the richly deserving. It'd be to someone who got fucked over, who didn't have time off work to get it or to finish it, who couldn't get it for health reasons and can't prove that's why -- hell, even somebody who lost their card. And that would be too high a price to pay.
... If you're making your tribe smaller, you're moving yourself further right.
We're getting close to the paradox of tolerance, though. I just saw a news story about an innocent news anchor giving an update on the hurricane when some thumb-faced white dude pulled over to run out of his car and assault him, yelling about "reporting accurately." That's a sickness. A deep sickness. What do we do with these people?
posted by Countess Elena at 1:26 PM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
That's how I feel about the idea of refusing care to the unvaccinated. It wouldn't just be to the "guilty," the richly deserving. It'd be to someone who got fucked over, who didn't have time off work to get it or to finish it, who couldn't get it for health reasons and can't prove that's why -- hell, even somebody who lost their card. And that would be too high a price to pay.
... If you're making your tribe smaller, you're moving yourself further right.
We're getting close to the paradox of tolerance, though. I just saw a news story about an innocent news anchor giving an update on the hurricane when some thumb-faced white dude pulled over to run out of his car and assault him, yelling about "reporting accurately." That's a sickness. A deep sickness. What do we do with these people?
posted by Countess Elena at 1:26 PM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
Yeah, it's some real "if you're so tolerant why won't you invite the Nazis to the table" shit.
posted by Ferreous at 1:31 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 1:31 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Regarding empathy for those who deny the science and the collective need, adrienne maree brown writes:
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:31 PM on August 30, 2021 [29 favorites]
I find it hard to love those who hate science, and hate me…not impossible, at least in the big picture setting. But working to actively love those who hate me is immense labor, and if I am honest with myself, it’s generally not something I’m even interested in cultivating in the irreplaceable hours of my remaining life.A small part of an excellent piece. She refers to Prentiss Hemphill’s excellent wisdom: boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously. The empathy I hold for the anti-maskers anti-vaxxers and revanchists does not mean I must engage with them, read another profile about them, or let them into my life. In fact holding boundaries is what makes my empathy still possible, and let’s me keep a small fire of hope lit for humanity.
Because my love feels rooted not just in myself, but in myself as a fragment of the miraculous natural world, I notice the patterns of hate at the interpersonal, interspecies and global level. There is an undeniable overlap between this resistance to science and the resistance to wear a mask, socially distance and/or vaccinate, in spite of data that affirms the life saving impacts of each choice. And all of that overlaps with the resistance to do right by the earth. The resistance to move beyond capitalism to economic models that allow shared abundance. And the resistance to give up patriarchy and white sociopathy. And national supremacy.
How do I love this vast diversity of human beings, beloved and stranger, who are currently toxic to our collective survival?
I only see one way. If I define love as the willful extension towards spiritual growth that bell hooks and M. Scott Peck told me about, then when I come across all this resistance to the miraculous and collective aspects of our species, I willfully extend my energy towards the necessary and inevitable growth evidenced by that resistance.
It liberates my love to see the resistance to science and nature and interdependence as a cry for help, a sign of how important it is that we grow our capacity to act as collective beings.
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:31 PM on August 30, 2021 [29 favorites]
The paradox of tolerance is about as real as Santa Claus. Tolerance is a peace treaty not a suicide pact. If we tolerate each other it means we both leave each other in peace. You don't have to tolerate people that won't stop actively harming. If one side is refusing to stop spreading disease and pestilence they're not tolerating you, therefore there's no bilateral co-operation that's required of tolerance.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:32 PM on August 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:32 PM on August 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
That's how I feel about the idea of refusing care to the unvaccinated. It wouldn't just be to the "guilty," the richly deserving. It'd be to someone who got fucked over, who didn't have time off work to get it or to finish it, who couldn't get it for health reasons and can't prove that's why -- hell, even somebody who lost their card. And that would be too high a price to pay.
You don't even have to go that far down the chain. Giving health care only to the "deserving" will surely be used to withhold care from marginalized people in all sorts of situations. It's not a judgment doctors should be making. The average urban ER on a Saturday night is full of unlikeable people, including people who started gunfights, people whose abused girlfriends cracked open their heads, people on their third extreme intoxication admit of the week. You treat them anyways.
There may be some narrow and extreme circumstances in triage where vax status may affect likelihood of survival such that the probabilities indicate rationed care should go to this specific vaxed person rather than that specific unvaxed person, but that should be a very rare case. It should be clear, though, that that's not a question of merit.
posted by praemunire at 1:51 PM on August 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
You don't even have to go that far down the chain. Giving health care only to the "deserving" will surely be used to withhold care from marginalized people in all sorts of situations. It's not a judgment doctors should be making. The average urban ER on a Saturday night is full of unlikeable people, including people who started gunfights, people whose abused girlfriends cracked open their heads, people on their third extreme intoxication admit of the week. You treat them anyways.
There may be some narrow and extreme circumstances in triage where vax status may affect likelihood of survival such that the probabilities indicate rationed care should go to this specific vaxed person rather than that specific unvaxed person, but that should be a very rare case. It should be clear, though, that that's not a question of merit.
posted by praemunire at 1:51 PM on August 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
You don't have to tolerate people that won't stop actively harming
Spreading hate, repeating misinformation, shouting epithets, threatening people, running a political campaign to prevent other people from protecting themselves == actively harming
not wearing anything, not allowing a medical procedure, not believing whatever you believe; these can be very very harmful, but they are not active, and they are not a reason to hate.
posted by amtho at 1:58 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Spreading hate, repeating misinformation, shouting epithets, threatening people, running a political campaign to prevent other people from protecting themselves == actively harming
not wearing anything, not allowing a medical procedure, not believing whatever you believe; these can be very very harmful, but they are not active, and they are not a reason to hate.
posted by amtho at 1:58 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
I would argue that not allowing medical care for transgender children one of the current Republican pet projects, is actively harmful to one of the most vulnerable populations.
posted by Jacen at 2:00 PM on August 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 2:00 PM on August 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
Why Are Republicans Eating Horse Paste?
Soundtrack for the thread
posted by flabdablet at 2:14 PM on August 30, 2021
Soundtrack for the thread
posted by flabdablet at 2:14 PM on August 30, 2021
Not wearing masks or getting vaccines is active harm. Giving someone else covid because you choose not to do those things is active harm. Navel gazing about that fact is useless
posted by Ferreous at 2:28 PM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 2:28 PM on August 30, 2021 [28 favorites]
I'm certainly past the point of appreciating the philosophical distinction between active and passive harm. I had a sister recovering from open heart surgery when COVID-19 struck, I can tell you that the impact to the healthcare system goes far beyond ICU beds. I have a friend suffering from a degenerative muscular disease.. in addition to the long period where the closure of the public swimming pool resulted in real lost ground for him, the long delays in specialist appointments did not help either.
A global pandemic will cause stress to any social systems. The added layer of stress caused by the willful ignorance and performative anger that uses this crisis as a means of showing one's tribal colours.. well, I've framed it that way, you know how I feel.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:37 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
A global pandemic will cause stress to any social systems. The added layer of stress caused by the willful ignorance and performative anger that uses this crisis as a means of showing one's tribal colours.. well, I've framed it that way, you know how I feel.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:37 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
There are some back-of-napkin calculations upthread, but research & analyses concerning the botched response to COVID-19 in the US is available:
October 13, 2020: Per capita deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 and other causes are 85% higher than in countries like Germany and Israel. (NPR, from
JAMA research)
October 22, 2020: 130,000 – 210,000 AVOIDABLE COVID-19 Deaths – And Counting – in the U.S., Columbia University report (article)
January 17, 2021: 'Blood on his hands': As US surpasses 400,000 COVID-19 deaths, experts blame Trump administration for a 'preventable' loss of life (USA Today)
February 11, 2021: Trump’s Policies Resulted In The Unnecessary Deaths Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of Americans: Lancet Report; includes the Administration's COVID-19 response. "The US could have averted 40% of the deaths from Covid-19, had the country’s death rates corresponded with the rates in other high-income G7 countries, according to a Lancet commission tasked with assessing Donald Trump’s health policy record." (The Guardian)
March 11, 2021: How the U.S. Pandemic Response Went Wrong—and What Went Right—during a Year of COVID (Scientific American)
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:41 PM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
October 13, 2020: Per capita deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 and other causes are 85% higher than in countries like Germany and Israel. (NPR, from
JAMA research)
October 22, 2020: 130,000 – 210,000 AVOIDABLE COVID-19 Deaths – And Counting – in the U.S., Columbia University report (article)
January 17, 2021: 'Blood on his hands': As US surpasses 400,000 COVID-19 deaths, experts blame Trump administration for a 'preventable' loss of life (USA Today)
February 11, 2021: Trump’s Policies Resulted In The Unnecessary Deaths Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of Americans: Lancet Report; includes the Administration's COVID-19 response. "The US could have averted 40% of the deaths from Covid-19, had the country’s death rates corresponded with the rates in other high-income G7 countries, according to a Lancet commission tasked with assessing Donald Trump’s health policy record." (The Guardian)
March 11, 2021: How the U.S. Pandemic Response Went Wrong—and What Went Right—during a Year of COVID (Scientific American)
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:41 PM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
Effective Oct. 1, 2021, Dr. Valentine will no longer see patients that are not vaccinated against COVID-19 (Birmingham News, al.com, Aug. 17, 2021) Valentine [a physician at Mobile, Alabama’s Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health] said he is currently in the process of mailing a letter to patients about his decision. He posted a copy of the letter online. “We do not yet have any great treatments for severe disease, but we do have great prevention with vaccines. Unfortunately, many have declined to take the vaccine, and some end up severely ill or dead. I cannot and will not force anyone to take the vaccine, but I also cannot continue to watch my patients suffer and die from an eminently preventable disease,” the letter said. “Therefore, as of October 1st, 2021, I will no longer see patients that have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. If you wish to keep me as your physician, documentation of your vaccination will suffice. If you wish to choose another physician, we will be happy to transfer your records.”
Since posting the sign, Valentine wrote that three unvaccinated patients asked where they could get a vaccine. “No conspiracy theories, no excuses. Just where do they go.”
NBC article, Aug. 24's If Covid vaccine refusers are turned away at hospitals and doctor offices, is that ethical?: [A] leaked memo indicated that the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force was considering whether to take Covid vaccination status into account in deciding who gets ICU beds when more of them are needed than are available. [...] The memo says the expectation of better outcomes in vaccinated patients is a reason to consider vaccination status in allocating ICU beds. As a general principle of medical ethics, when there’s not enough of something for every patient in need, those who are most likely to survive and live the longest are generally given higher priority. (After the memo was reported in The Dallas Morning News, its author reversed course and said vaccination status shouldn’t be a factor in assigning ICU beds.) [...]
Pediatricians, reacting to the acceleration of anti-vaccination campaigns during the last decade, have become particularly accustomed to dismissing families that refuse vaccinations, often over concerns about the preventable spread of infections in their facilities. A 2019 survey of 303 pediatric practices showed that about half of them adopted management policies permitting the dismissal of families that refuse routine childhood vaccinations. The survey also reported that 18 percent of parents who refuse vaccinations often or always changed their minds and agreed to be vaccinated. Half sometimes did.
Five Florida Hospitals Issue Dire Plea For COVID Vaccination, Masks (MedPage Today reprint at TechLive, Aug. 24, 2021)
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:04 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Since posting the sign, Valentine wrote that three unvaccinated patients asked where they could get a vaccine. “No conspiracy theories, no excuses. Just where do they go.”
NBC article, Aug. 24's If Covid vaccine refusers are turned away at hospitals and doctor offices, is that ethical?: [A] leaked memo indicated that the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force was considering whether to take Covid vaccination status into account in deciding who gets ICU beds when more of them are needed than are available. [...] The memo says the expectation of better outcomes in vaccinated patients is a reason to consider vaccination status in allocating ICU beds. As a general principle of medical ethics, when there’s not enough of something for every patient in need, those who are most likely to survive and live the longest are generally given higher priority. (After the memo was reported in The Dallas Morning News, its author reversed course and said vaccination status shouldn’t be a factor in assigning ICU beds.) [...]
Pediatricians, reacting to the acceleration of anti-vaccination campaigns during the last decade, have become particularly accustomed to dismissing families that refuse vaccinations, often over concerns about the preventable spread of infections in their facilities. A 2019 survey of 303 pediatric practices showed that about half of them adopted management policies permitting the dismissal of families that refuse routine childhood vaccinations. The survey also reported that 18 percent of parents who refuse vaccinations often or always changed their minds and agreed to be vaccinated. Half sometimes did.
Five Florida Hospitals Issue Dire Plea For COVID Vaccination, Masks (MedPage Today reprint at TechLive, Aug. 24, 2021)
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:04 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
If you want to compare more racially uniform areas, look at Oregon. NPR reports that the southern half of the state is getting reamed.
Now look at an election map. It's only the NW quarter of the state that went blue and where the vaccination rate is high: Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:12 PM on August 30, 2021
Now look at an election map. It's only the NW quarter of the state that went blue and where the vaccination rate is high: Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:12 PM on August 30, 2021
cinchona: Even during "peacetime," many of these liberal individuals call for the same treatment of sick people who ate too much, or ate the "wrong foods," or smoked, or didn't move enough, or didn't visit the doctor enough, or who didn't follow their doctor's advice, or who did follow their doctor's advice instead of first seeking out multiple other doctors' opinions, etc.
But those choices are of a fundamentally different character than vaccine/mask refusal. They don't endanger other people.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:18 PM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
But those choices are of a fundamentally different character than vaccine/mask refusal. They don't endanger other people.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:18 PM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
I meant not allowing a medical procedure to onesself. And I will work hard to encourage, convince, persuade everyone I meet or talk to to get vaccinated, but I keep thinking: what it some group decided that I should get an injection to prevent depression (which would be awesome), but I didn't think that group respected me or took my concerns seriously? It would be a hard call.
posted by amtho at 3:20 PM on August 30, 2021
posted by amtho at 3:20 PM on August 30, 2021
That's a very false equivalency, depression isn't transmissible.
posted by Ferreous at 3:25 PM on August 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 3:25 PM on August 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
But those choices are of a fundamentally different character than vaccine/mask refusal. They don't endanger other people.
Not according to the US liberals who blame people with sinful health habits—such as"junkies" and "gluttons"—for the absence of a universal health care system that more virtuous people could benefit from.
posted by cinchona at 3:35 PM on August 30, 2021
Not according to the US liberals who blame people with sinful health habits—such as"junkies" and "gluttons"—for the absence of a universal health care system that more virtuous people could benefit from.
posted by cinchona at 3:35 PM on August 30, 2021
That Texas task force's "vaccinations should not be among the factors hospitals should consider when making critical care triage decisions" is more cosseting bullshit. Unvaccinated people are already about 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 than those who are fully vaccinated, they are 15x more likely to die, and all patient factors need be evaluated for proper care, especially when resources are scarce in overstressed hospital systems. Previously in this hideous pandemic, before the miracle of vaccines:
'All is well'. In Italy, triage and lies for virus patients (Reuters, March 16, 2020) Every time a bed comes free, two anaesthesiologists consult with a specialist in resuscitation and an internal medicine physician to decide who will occupy it. Age and pre-existing medical conditions are important factors. So is having a family.
“We have to take into account whether older patients have families who can take care of them once they leave the ICU, because they will need help,” says Marco Resta, deputy head of Policlinico San Donato’s Intensive Care Unit. [...] Doctors have warned that northern Italy – where the universal healthcare system is ranked among the world’s most efficient – is a forerunner of crises that the disease is bringing around the world.
Who gets a ventilator? Hospitals facing coronavirus surge are preparing for life-or-death decisions (NBC, March 18, 2020)
A Framework for Rationing Ventilators and Critical Care Beds During the COVID-19 Pandemic (JAMA, March 27, 2020)
El Paso, Texas nurse describes ‘The Pit’ in one Covid-overrun hospital where patients go to die (The Independent, Nov. 16, 2020; Twitter threadreader link). This was during a spike that saw the city using 10 'mobile morgues' to store the deceased, and paying inmates $2/hour to load the refrigerated trucks; El Paso also ran out of personnel to staff intensive-care units.
In LA, ambulances circle for hours and ICUs are full (STAT News, Jan. 15, 2021) The National Guard has arrived, not to help treat patients, but to manage the flood of bodies. As Los Angeles County approaches its millionth case of Covid-19, doctors describe their wards as war zones.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:47 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
'All is well'. In Italy, triage and lies for virus patients (Reuters, March 16, 2020) Every time a bed comes free, two anaesthesiologists consult with a specialist in resuscitation and an internal medicine physician to decide who will occupy it. Age and pre-existing medical conditions are important factors. So is having a family.
“We have to take into account whether older patients have families who can take care of them once they leave the ICU, because they will need help,” says Marco Resta, deputy head of Policlinico San Donato’s Intensive Care Unit. [...] Doctors have warned that northern Italy – where the universal healthcare system is ranked among the world’s most efficient – is a forerunner of crises that the disease is bringing around the world.
Who gets a ventilator? Hospitals facing coronavirus surge are preparing for life-or-death decisions (NBC, March 18, 2020)
A Framework for Rationing Ventilators and Critical Care Beds During the COVID-19 Pandemic (JAMA, March 27, 2020)
El Paso, Texas nurse describes ‘The Pit’ in one Covid-overrun hospital where patients go to die (The Independent, Nov. 16, 2020; Twitter threadreader link). This was during a spike that saw the city using 10 'mobile morgues' to store the deceased, and paying inmates $2/hour to load the refrigerated trucks; El Paso also ran out of personnel to staff intensive-care units.
In LA, ambulances circle for hours and ICUs are full (STAT News, Jan. 15, 2021) The National Guard has arrived, not to help treat patients, but to manage the flood of bodies. As Los Angeles County approaches its millionth case of Covid-19, doctors describe their wards as war zones.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:47 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
blame people with sinful health habits—such as"junkies" and "gluttons"
Word for word this sounds way more like the garbage I hear from conservatives all the time than anything I hear from lefties, even moderates generally seem to lean away from that
It certainly does not sound like language that comes from any particular lefty organization loosely affiliated or official. Of course not claim that some individuals might not say this. It just does not sound like a systemic issue among the left. If there are such groups I'll be very disappointed and have a lot of questions about their "left" ideals
posted by MrBobaFett at 4:33 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Word for word this sounds way more like the garbage I hear from conservatives all the time than anything I hear from lefties, even moderates generally seem to lean away from that
It certainly does not sound like language that comes from any particular lefty organization loosely affiliated or official. Of course not claim that some individuals might not say this. It just does not sound like a systemic issue among the left. If there are such groups I'll be very disappointed and have a lot of questions about their "left" ideals
posted by MrBobaFett at 4:33 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
"lefties" ≠ "liberals", which might make this conversation a bit less confusing for some of the respondents?
posted by sagc at 4:46 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by sagc at 4:46 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
cinchona: "But those choices are of a fundamentally different character than vaccine/mask refusal. They don't endanger other people.
Not according to the US liberals who blame people with sinful health habits—such as"junkies" and "gluttons"—for the absence of a universal health care system that more virtuous people could benefit from."
Which US liberals exactly said that?
posted by octothorpe at 4:50 PM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
Not according to the US liberals who blame people with sinful health habits—such as"junkies" and "gluttons"—for the absence of a universal health care system that more virtuous people could benefit from."
Which US liberals exactly said that?
posted by octothorpe at 4:50 PM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
There's some confusion going on here: most people aren't saying "let the unvaccinated die." They're saying "sure, fine, treat everybody, but if your hospital is full and you have one bed and you have one guy with a bad gall bladder and another who's unvaccinated and has covid, treat the gall bladder." And honestly, that already happens most of the time anyway. People who smoke don't usually get the lung transplants. Alcoholics don't get the liver transplants. The people who didn't actively do things to destroy their body do. It's been that way pretty much forever.
It's a little weird to see people on here anxious to defend people who refuse to help themselves, particularly since those people's choices are literally responsible for the deaths of others.
posted by nushustu at 6:14 PM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
It's a little weird to see people on here anxious to defend people who refuse to help themselves, particularly since those people's choices are literally responsible for the deaths of others.
posted by nushustu at 6:14 PM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
It's a little weird to see people on here anxious to defend people who refuse to help themselves,
The principle is exceptionally easy to deploy against disfavored groups. Do I really have to bring up the example of the last really scary epidemic in the United States?
posted by praemunire at 6:30 PM on August 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
The principle is exceptionally easy to deploy against disfavored groups. Do I really have to bring up the example of the last really scary epidemic in the United States?
posted by praemunire at 6:30 PM on August 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
nushustu, are you referring to Army veteran Daniel Wilkinson, who died from treatable gallstone pancreatitis in Texas b/c of Covid-swamped ICU unavailability? He lived three doors down from Bellville Medical Center's E/R, and spent seven hours there, waiting for an ICU bed to open up in a different facility equipped to perform the procedure to resolve the blockage:
Finally, a bed opened up at the V.A. hospital in Houston. It was a helicopter ride away. [Belville emergency room physician Dr. Hasan] Kakli recalled Wilkinson saying, "Oh, man, I promised myself after Afghanistan I would never be in a helicopter again! … Oh, well, I guess." Wilkinson was airlifted to Houston, but it was too late. [...] Roughly 24 hours after he walked into the emergency room, Daniel Wilkinson died at the age of 46. Kakli told [reporter David] Begnaud that if it weren't for the COVID crisis, the procedure for Wilkinson would have taken 30 minutes, and he'd have been back out the door. "I've never lost a patient from this diagnosis, ever," Kakli said. "We know what needs to be done and we know how to treat it, and we get them to where they need to go. I'm scared that the next patient that I see is someone that I can't get to where they need to get to go.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:42 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Finally, a bed opened up at the V.A. hospital in Houston. It was a helicopter ride away. [Belville emergency room physician Dr. Hasan] Kakli recalled Wilkinson saying, "Oh, man, I promised myself after Afghanistan I would never be in a helicopter again! … Oh, well, I guess." Wilkinson was airlifted to Houston, but it was too late. [...] Roughly 24 hours after he walked into the emergency room, Daniel Wilkinson died at the age of 46. Kakli told [reporter David] Begnaud that if it weren't for the COVID crisis, the procedure for Wilkinson would have taken 30 minutes, and he'd have been back out the door. "I've never lost a patient from this diagnosis, ever," Kakli said. "We know what needs to be done and we know how to treat it, and we get them to where they need to go. I'm scared that the next patient that I see is someone that I can't get to where they need to get to go.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:42 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Mod note: Just FYI we are done with 1) the derail about the definitions of "left" and "liberal" and 2) the derail about whether liberals like to "blame the sick." Haven't deleted anything but will from here on down.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:49 PM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 6:49 PM on August 30, 2021 [14 favorites]
People who smoke don't usually get the lung transplants. Alcoholics don't get the liver transplants. The people who didn't actively do things to destroy their body do.
This is not true. Active smokers and alcoholics will not get transplants, but solely on the theory that they are less likely to survive. People who've destroyed their lungs or liver through past behaviors doctors disapprove of are absolutely eligible though, and in fact make up probably a majority of the transplants. See here for example:
This is not true. Active smokers and alcoholics will not get transplants, but solely on the theory that they are less likely to survive. People who've destroyed their lungs or liver through past behaviors doctors disapprove of are absolutely eligible though, and in fact make up probably a majority of the transplants. See here for example:
Reliance on potentially injurious behaviors for transplant listing decisions must be evidence-based [. . . ] By contrast, mere history of potentially injurious behavior . . . should not, on its own, disqualify persons from access to transplantation.posted by mark k at 7:16 PM on August 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
I'm reminded of an old Dr. Kildare episode I saw on TV several decades ago. Two patients in the hospital need a life-saving organ transplant but only one organ is available. One patient is an older man near retirement but still working, a scientist who had made many important discoveries. The other is a young man who has shown promise in some field. Dr. Gillespie argues for the older man as he is a known quantity; Dr. Kildare argues for the younger man as he has potentially many more years ahead. Who do you invest your limited resources in? I can't remember the outcome (and it was only a TV show.)
posted by binturong at 7:40 PM on August 30, 2021
posted by binturong at 7:40 PM on August 30, 2021
March 25, 2012: ... former vice president Dick Cheney, 71, who received the new heart Saturday at a hospital in Falls Church, Va., has been on the cardiac transplant list for more than 20 months.
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:47 PM on August 30, 2021
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:47 PM on August 30, 2021
I am admittedly low on patience and charity these days. I confess I have yet to put so much as a dollar in a GoFundMe linked at the bottom of a COVID obituary, but as a religious person I probably should, without auditing the worthiness of the beneficiary. And I have admittedly stopped trying to reason with people who have exempted themselves from reason. But I cannot stop feeling compassion for those who have exempted themselves from compassion. Trumpism runs on both exemptions.
biogeo does a far better job of examining this than I ever could, upthread. What I keep coming back to is the Westboro Baptist church, throwing veritable tailgate parties at the funerals of anyone whose “sinful lifestyle choices” they blamed for an untimely, horrific death. And make no mistake — I think deliberate virus denialism is sinful. I think toxic individualism is sinful. And I think a society allowing people to finish secondary school without requiring them to learn any critical thinking is sinful.
I want nothing in common with the movement that relies on just-world fallacy to excuse bad things happening to Those People, and on the self-serving bias to explain whatever bad things happen to itself. That simply doesn’t fit in my understanding of progressivism, and I don’t think my undergrad bioethics professor would be impressed, either.
posted by armeowda at 7:49 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
biogeo does a far better job of examining this than I ever could, upthread. What I keep coming back to is the Westboro Baptist church, throwing veritable tailgate parties at the funerals of anyone whose “sinful lifestyle choices” they blamed for an untimely, horrific death. And make no mistake — I think deliberate virus denialism is sinful. I think toxic individualism is sinful. And I think a society allowing people to finish secondary school without requiring them to learn any critical thinking is sinful.
I want nothing in common with the movement that relies on just-world fallacy to excuse bad things happening to Those People, and on the self-serving bias to explain whatever bad things happen to itself. That simply doesn’t fit in my understanding of progressivism, and I don’t think my undergrad bioethics professor would be impressed, either.
posted by armeowda at 7:49 PM on August 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
That's a very false equivalency, depression isn't transmissible.
Ugh, you guys. I admit, I carelessly did not spend the extra time to think of a PERFECTLY EQUIVALENT situation. (Depression does cause a lot of harm to others -- just ask anyone with a long-term depressed parent or partner -- and can, in a way, definitely be transmitted, but whatever).
EVEN IF the injection were for something transmissible -- maybe especially if, since the potential for self-interest in the people wanting me to get this hypothetical hypodermic would be higher, and the fear factor/emotional angle would be more extreme and make me feel more peer pressure, and peer pressure automatically makes me more suspicious -- if the people urging me to get this theoretical chemical compound injected into my body did not like me, did not respect me, did not care about my objections, did not care whether I trusted them, and seemingly did not care about the same things I cared about, and if they told me that it was obviously logical that I should take this drug into my veins because of some abstruse system of belief that was, like science to some, utterly opaque and shame-associated, I might look around and take a minute before I smiled and bared my arm.
Or I might want to at least do whatever I could to make sure society didn't FORCE me to take chemicals intramuscularly or intravenously.
We have lots of tools, expertise, systems, and people with the potential to build trust and knowledge. So much potential: new kinds of art, new distribution methods, pedagogical science and marketing channels and behavioral and social sciences, all very much reinvented since the last time the US was as focused on fighting fascism (I'm talking about since we were focused on it, not since the threat existed). We haven't even really tried, in any concerted, careful, deliberate, creative way, to use these tools -- we're just going straight to calling people idiots or evil and throwing up our hands.
At least most of us are.
If you're just plain tired or out of ideas personally, fine, I don't expect you to contribute. If your life is all you can handle, please, focus on that -- you being OK is important! Just don't keep repeating and repeating and repeating the same old dirges of despair, disdain, and impossibility.
If NOTHING else, think of the old Sun Tzu fad of the 90's and try to really KNOW your "enemy". You can't understand someone, not well enough to affect their views, without knowing why they feel as they do.
posted by amtho at 8:00 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Ugh, you guys. I admit, I carelessly did not spend the extra time to think of a PERFECTLY EQUIVALENT situation. (Depression does cause a lot of harm to others -- just ask anyone with a long-term depressed parent or partner -- and can, in a way, definitely be transmitted, but whatever).
EVEN IF the injection were for something transmissible -- maybe especially if, since the potential for self-interest in the people wanting me to get this hypothetical hypodermic would be higher, and the fear factor/emotional angle would be more extreme and make me feel more peer pressure, and peer pressure automatically makes me more suspicious -- if the people urging me to get this theoretical chemical compound injected into my body did not like me, did not respect me, did not care about my objections, did not care whether I trusted them, and seemingly did not care about the same things I cared about, and if they told me that it was obviously logical that I should take this drug into my veins because of some abstruse system of belief that was, like science to some, utterly opaque and shame-associated, I might look around and take a minute before I smiled and bared my arm.
Or I might want to at least do whatever I could to make sure society didn't FORCE me to take chemicals intramuscularly or intravenously.
We have lots of tools, expertise, systems, and people with the potential to build trust and knowledge. So much potential: new kinds of art, new distribution methods, pedagogical science and marketing channels and behavioral and social sciences, all very much reinvented since the last time the US was as focused on fighting fascism (I'm talking about since we were focused on it, not since the threat existed). We haven't even really tried, in any concerted, careful, deliberate, creative way, to use these tools -- we're just going straight to calling people idiots or evil and throwing up our hands.
At least most of us are.
If you're just plain tired or out of ideas personally, fine, I don't expect you to contribute. If your life is all you can handle, please, focus on that -- you being OK is important! Just don't keep repeating and repeating and repeating the same old dirges of despair, disdain, and impossibility.
If NOTHING else, think of the old Sun Tzu fad of the 90's and try to really KNOW your "enemy". You can't understand someone, not well enough to affect their views, without knowing why they feel as they do.
posted by amtho at 8:00 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
try to really KNOW your "enemy". You can't understand someone, not well enough to affect their views, without knowing why they feel as they do
What is there to understand about the 'enemy' in this situation? We're not talking about traditional anti-vaxers (I can't believe that's even a thing, but whatever) who I could sort of understand even if I couldn't possibly agree with them--we're talking about people who have so sold their soul to a toxic miasma of racism and hating libs that they have deliberately rejected any reality that doesn't conform to what their hate requires them to believe.
What messaging do you think these people will respond to? You know, the ones who booed their own demigod when he suggested vaccines are good? There's some kind of propaganda poster or Voice of Reason broadcast we can do?
Seriously, I'd love to hear suggestions about how to break through, but have no patience for being lectured about my failure to try to understand people who are acting, ya know, evilly.
posted by Ickster at 8:50 PM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
What is there to understand about the 'enemy' in this situation? We're not talking about traditional anti-vaxers (I can't believe that's even a thing, but whatever) who I could sort of understand even if I couldn't possibly agree with them--we're talking about people who have so sold their soul to a toxic miasma of racism and hating libs that they have deliberately rejected any reality that doesn't conform to what their hate requires them to believe.
What messaging do you think these people will respond to? You know, the ones who booed their own demigod when he suggested vaccines are good? There's some kind of propaganda poster or Voice of Reason broadcast we can do?
Seriously, I'd love to hear suggestions about how to break through, but have no patience for being lectured about my failure to try to understand people who are acting, ya know, evilly.
posted by Ickster at 8:50 PM on August 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
It's hard to see scenes like you describe, Ickster. I feel anger and even panic when I see them, until I remind myself that the loud, extreme people are just the ones that are impossible to avoid hearing. Most people are not that loud, or that closed off, or that irrational.
I have looked at a lot of articles and information about how to actually persuade people, and how to specifically persuade them on this issue. Googling "how to persuade vaccination" -- which I just tried -- looks like a great place to start.
Unfortunately I didn't save this link, but I recently saw an interview (CNN? Maybe?) from someone knowledgeable -- maybe he wrote a book or a NYT article recently -- who talked to a number of people across several months who initially refused to be vaccinated. A lot of them changed their minds, between the first interviews and the last, and he asked them why. Why the first no, why they changed their minds, why some of them didn't change their minds. I think a lot of the conversation was over group Zoom calls with 20-25 people, and excerpts of the group calls (with everybody's face on the screen at once) were included in the interview time. It was quite interesting.
Spoiler: nobody sounded crazy. One or two were irritatingly self-centered (which is the closest to evil), but most weren't.
Honestly, I've been collecting information like this, anecdotes like this, for years. I think it's extremely important not to regard masses of other people as homogeneously intractable or evil, and when someone disagrees with me, to start out by asking why.
posted by amtho at 9:04 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have looked at a lot of articles and information about how to actually persuade people, and how to specifically persuade them on this issue. Googling "how to persuade vaccination" -- which I just tried -- looks like a great place to start.
Unfortunately I didn't save this link, but I recently saw an interview (CNN? Maybe?) from someone knowledgeable -- maybe he wrote a book or a NYT article recently -- who talked to a number of people across several months who initially refused to be vaccinated. A lot of them changed their minds, between the first interviews and the last, and he asked them why. Why the first no, why they changed their minds, why some of them didn't change their minds. I think a lot of the conversation was over group Zoom calls with 20-25 people, and excerpts of the group calls (with everybody's face on the screen at once) were included in the interview time. It was quite interesting.
Spoiler: nobody sounded crazy. One or two were irritatingly self-centered (which is the closest to evil), but most weren't.
Honestly, I've been collecting information like this, anecdotes like this, for years. I think it's extremely important not to regard masses of other people as homogeneously intractable or evil, and when someone disagrees with me, to start out by asking why.
posted by amtho at 9:04 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
So it's the job of people of color, women, LGBTQ folks to do the work of coddling the tender feelings of people who want them dead or oppressed. Got it, right wing chuds need to be told how much they're understood by people they actively oppress so maybe they'll feel respected enough to not actively kill people via covid.
posted by Ferreous at 9:04 PM on August 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 9:04 PM on August 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
I'm a Marxist so the sociological understanding is pretty straightforward, that right wingers are basically a toxic reaction to capitalism, which means they're not the real enemy, actually-existing capitalism is.
Now whereas if the intention is interpersonal/individual understanding, then actually get to know some people who are more right than yourself. The dynamic is fundamentally the same, just a matter of magnitude. I don't call my somewhat conservative Asian relatives evil; they're just have neo-conservative ideological tendencies and indeed vote against their own interests, and so forth.
Understanding one's opponent can be done by building what in psychotherapy and psychology called a theory of mind. It's the ability to put oneself in the other person's shoes. So as per John Rawls' veil of ignorance, if you were born in a very conservative environment, what would that be like?
And that process isn't so much about emotional labor as ultimately the responsibility of a left movement of gaining a sociological understanding of what's going on, in order to formulate political questions and a political movement. Whereas if you internalize the neoliberal mindset, of course one might conceive all forms of understanding as only trying to sympathize with the oppressor or waste one's energies, when the opposite is the case: this is about politics.
posted by polymodus at 9:09 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Now whereas if the intention is interpersonal/individual understanding, then actually get to know some people who are more right than yourself. The dynamic is fundamentally the same, just a matter of magnitude. I don't call my somewhat conservative Asian relatives evil; they're just have neo-conservative ideological tendencies and indeed vote against their own interests, and so forth.
Understanding one's opponent can be done by building what in psychotherapy and psychology called a theory of mind. It's the ability to put oneself in the other person's shoes. So as per John Rawls' veil of ignorance, if you were born in a very conservative environment, what would that be like?
And that process isn't so much about emotional labor as ultimately the responsibility of a left movement of gaining a sociological understanding of what's going on, in order to formulate political questions and a political movement. Whereas if you internalize the neoliberal mindset, of course one might conceive all forms of understanding as only trying to sympathize with the oppressor or waste one's energies, when the opposite is the case: this is about politics.
posted by polymodus at 9:09 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Ferreous, nobody said that and nobody believes that.
Understanding people is how you change things -- they don't necessarily ever have to know that you understand them.
Reducing complex issues to an attack on one's self or one's group is how you get... you know.
posted by amtho at 9:11 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Understanding people is how you change things -- they don't necessarily ever have to know that you understand them.
Reducing complex issues to an attack on one's self or one's group is how you get... you know.
posted by amtho at 9:11 PM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
if the people urging me to get this theoretical chemical compound injected into my body did not like me, did not respect me, did not care about my objections, did not care whether I trusted them, and seemingly did not care about the same things I cared about,
If I believed all of these things because they were associated with a government that had the total audacity to sometimes, on occasion, treat people of a different race or religion as deserving of the care of society, they would not make my behavior any less culpable or more understandable.
These beliefs don't come out of nowhere. I know I said this in another post, but I feel like a lot of people in this discussion simply don't know any of the anti-COVID vaxers more than casually, and so struggle to grasp the whole ugly complex of beliefs. You don't pick up vicious conspiracy theories without already having the vicious priors in place.
posted by praemunire at 9:15 PM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
If I believed all of these things because they were associated with a government that had the total audacity to sometimes, on occasion, treat people of a different race or religion as deserving of the care of society, they would not make my behavior any less culpable or more understandable.
These beliefs don't come out of nowhere. I know I said this in another post, but I feel like a lot of people in this discussion simply don't know any of the anti-COVID vaxers more than casually, and so struggle to grasp the whole ugly complex of beliefs. You don't pick up vicious conspiracy theories without already having the vicious priors in place.
posted by praemunire at 9:15 PM on August 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'm sorry--did you seriously just suggest that we all try Googling "how to persuade vaccination"?
I'm sure that there are--per your anecdote--people who are skilled enough at persuasion to have an effect, but I personally know a dozen people whose families are being damaged by people going down this bizarre anti-anti-Covid path, and vanishingly few people report any success in persuading people to come back from the brink.
Again, I'm all ears on methods to break through, but telling us to Google it doesn't quite count.
posted by Ickster at 9:21 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
I'm sure that there are--per your anecdote--people who are skilled enough at persuasion to have an effect, but I personally know a dozen people whose families are being damaged by people going down this bizarre anti-anti-Covid path, and vanishingly few people report any success in persuading people to come back from the brink.
Again, I'm all ears on methods to break through, but telling us to Google it doesn't quite count.
posted by Ickster at 9:21 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Yep, the anti vax/mask things are entirely extensions of rage at the sense of America no longer being "by whites, for whites". That's it's, there's no amazing insight you need into the minds of these people. And as many in the thread have said before this isn't simply a class thing, it's not just a reaction to capitalism. Lots of the most ardent anti vax people are well too do white people. They're living well but are still in constant seething anger about "their county bring taken away."
posted by Ferreous at 9:26 PM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 9:26 PM on August 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
That's a fine example of Murc's law in action, polymodus.
I think Democrats are generally well aware of the issues created by concentration of power/wealth. Unfortunately, every damn time there's an attempt to do something progressive, it gets blocked by the "muh freedoms" group.
Yeah, Democrats could certainly be even better than they are, but blaming them for not understanding the plight of the poor reactionaries who blow up every attempt at making their lives better is tiresome.
Where did I say I blamed Democrats? Democrats are predominantly neoliberals, which constitutionally prevents them from understanding the reactionary phenomenon because doing so would go against their material interests in maintaining neoliberal hegemony. That's not blaming them, that's sociologically describing the role of the American neoliberal Democrat in politics. Murc's law claims that the right also has agency, but it is already a neoliberal logic: I am saying also that Democrats of the sort being demonstrated by the Bloomberg piece and OP's twitter quotes have a wrong understanding of political economy.
I'm sure that critique of Democrat positionality may feel like blaming, but that doesn't make it so, for precisely this reason. Saying that a political faction has demonstrated a wrong understanding of something is not blaming them, it's pointing out a truth.
posted by polymodus at 9:29 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think Democrats are generally well aware of the issues created by concentration of power/wealth. Unfortunately, every damn time there's an attempt to do something progressive, it gets blocked by the "muh freedoms" group.
Yeah, Democrats could certainly be even better than they are, but blaming them for not understanding the plight of the poor reactionaries who blow up every attempt at making their lives better is tiresome.
Where did I say I blamed Democrats? Democrats are predominantly neoliberals, which constitutionally prevents them from understanding the reactionary phenomenon because doing so would go against their material interests in maintaining neoliberal hegemony. That's not blaming them, that's sociologically describing the role of the American neoliberal Democrat in politics. Murc's law claims that the right also has agency, but it is already a neoliberal logic: I am saying also that Democrats of the sort being demonstrated by the Bloomberg piece and OP's twitter quotes have a wrong understanding of political economy.
I'm sure that critique of Democrat positionality may feel like blaming, but that doesn't make it so, for precisely this reason. Saying that a political faction has demonstrated a wrong understanding of something is not blaming them, it's pointing out a truth.
posted by polymodus at 9:29 PM on August 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
And as many in the thread have said before this isn't simply a class thing, it's not just a reaction to capitalism. Lots of the most ardent anti vax people are well too do white people. They're living well but are still in constant seething anger about "their county bring taken away."
I politically disagree with many in the thread, most of whom are non-leftists (i.e. Marxist, Socialist, Communist, Anarchist, etc.). Actually-existing capitalism is entwined with race issues, and all serious leftists know this. It is anti-leftists who refuse to see the neoliberal moves that their explanations subtly employ. The fact that Rich White Man is anti-vax (I speak as an nonrich, LGBT Asian American myself) actually lends in favor of actually-existing capitalism reactionism, not disproves it.
posted by polymodus at 9:34 PM on August 30, 2021
I politically disagree with many in the thread, most of whom are non-leftists (i.e. Marxist, Socialist, Communist, Anarchist, etc.). Actually-existing capitalism is entwined with race issues, and all serious leftists know this. It is anti-leftists who refuse to see the neoliberal moves that their explanations subtly employ. The fact that Rich White Man is anti-vax (I speak as an nonrich, LGBT Asian American myself) actually lends in favor of actually-existing capitalism reactionism, not disproves it.
posted by polymodus at 9:34 PM on August 30, 2021
So it's the job of people of color, women, LGBTQ folks to do the work of coddling the tender feelings of people who want them dead or oppressed
...
Understanding people is how you change things
One of the biggest points of contention in these discussions is the totalizing narratives around strategy that we all seem to jump into. Guess what: if you believe understanding, discussion and empathy for the "other side" is the most valuable route to change, you can go do that. If you think ignoring the assholes and working in your community to build resilience and political power is the most valuable path go do that. Even if you think yelling at anti-vaxxers is the best thing we can do, GO DO THAT.
But somehow in these conversations a lot of people end up fighting as if the most important thing is to get everybody in the room to agree on the right frame, the right way to understand things, and the right path forward. Sure that's important in some limited situations — when it's in an organization with an explicit mandate to achieve some goal — but that doesn't describe the Blue by any stretch of the imagination.
I think we end up in these fights because there's a deep belief that if we all just agreed on the one way to fix we'd be able to put it into effect and — like *that* – our future would be safe. So the most important thing to do is convince the person next to you of the One Right Way. It provides a feeling of control in the face of the real uncertainties of it all, an immediate thing to do that feels like it's helping. In the end tho I think we're just channeling our understandable and undeniable rage and fear into whatever's nearby and it ends up pushing us farther apart.
I'm not sure how to get out of these moments (threaded conversations might help lol) other than just not engaging, but it may help if we at least acknowledged that here on MeFi we are not an activist organization with a mandate but a bunch of individuals in community struggling through some of the most difficult and complex issues humanity has ever faced. And if you want to talk strategy, go find like minded folks and start doing the work.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:37 PM on August 30, 2021 [36 favorites]
...
Understanding people is how you change things
One of the biggest points of contention in these discussions is the totalizing narratives around strategy that we all seem to jump into. Guess what: if you believe understanding, discussion and empathy for the "other side" is the most valuable route to change, you can go do that. If you think ignoring the assholes and working in your community to build resilience and political power is the most valuable path go do that. Even if you think yelling at anti-vaxxers is the best thing we can do, GO DO THAT.
But somehow in these conversations a lot of people end up fighting as if the most important thing is to get everybody in the room to agree on the right frame, the right way to understand things, and the right path forward. Sure that's important in some limited situations — when it's in an organization with an explicit mandate to achieve some goal — but that doesn't describe the Blue by any stretch of the imagination.
I think we end up in these fights because there's a deep belief that if we all just agreed on the one way to fix we'd be able to put it into effect and — like *that* – our future would be safe. So the most important thing to do is convince the person next to you of the One Right Way. It provides a feeling of control in the face of the real uncertainties of it all, an immediate thing to do that feels like it's helping. In the end tho I think we're just channeling our understandable and undeniable rage and fear into whatever's nearby and it ends up pushing us farther apart.
I'm not sure how to get out of these moments (threaded conversations might help lol) other than just not engaging, but it may help if we at least acknowledged that here on MeFi we are not an activist organization with a mandate but a bunch of individuals in community struggling through some of the most difficult and complex issues humanity has ever faced. And if you want to talk strategy, go find like minded folks and start doing the work.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:37 PM on August 30, 2021 [36 favorites]
wemayfreeze, I absolutely do not want people to work on persuasion or empathetic strategies if they're not feeling it. Just stop repeating and reinforcing the idea that it's useless or impossible; just don't make things harder for those who are trying to keep their energy and focus up.
Ickster, yes I totally did tell people to Google "how to persuade vaccination". Did you already do that? Did you think of it already? I guarantee you that a lot of people here haven't done that exact specific thing yet. I mean, if the real problem is closed-minded intransigent hateful idiots, then why would you?
I actually did it just before I typed it, and it was good. I suppose I could have copy/pasted the results links instead of just saying to Google this, but I figured a) it was just super easy for anyone else, b) someone with a specific situation could refine the search to customize it for themselves, c) finding current information in the future is important, so actually going through the steps now might make that more cognitively prominent in the future, and d) have you actually tried this yourself before talking about how impossible everything is? Because if not, that's really my point.
If you have already looked around, then I hope you'll give a little more context so I can understand your point better.
Presented here, in the worst and least-organized format possible, are random quotes from the first five articles on the first page of Google results. If you want coherence, you can read for yourself.
Honestly, the thought landscape on vaccinations is probably shifting day-to-day, so being specific and up-to-date is better than focusing on any of the following anyway.
posted by amtho at 9:49 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Ickster, yes I totally did tell people to Google "how to persuade vaccination". Did you already do that? Did you think of it already? I guarantee you that a lot of people here haven't done that exact specific thing yet. I mean, if the real problem is closed-minded intransigent hateful idiots, then why would you?
I actually did it just before I typed it, and it was good. I suppose I could have copy/pasted the results links instead of just saying to Google this, but I figured a) it was just super easy for anyone else, b) someone with a specific situation could refine the search to customize it for themselves, c) finding current information in the future is important, so actually going through the steps now might make that more cognitively prominent in the future, and d) have you actually tried this yourself before talking about how impossible everything is? Because if not, that's really my point.
If you have already looked around, then I hope you'll give a little more context so I can understand your point better.
Presented here, in the worst and least-organized format possible, are random quotes from the first five articles on the first page of Google results. If you want coherence, you can read for yourself.
Honestly, the thought landscape on vaccinations is probably shifting day-to-day, so being specific and up-to-date is better than focusing on any of the following anyway.
“The effort is worthwhile,” said Stacy Wood, a professor at North Carolina State University who has studied coronavirus vaccine promotion. “A lot of people are convinced over time from small bits of information that trickle in.”If I'd had more time, I would have written something shorter; sorry :)
“Realize that all the different reasons for why people aren’t currently vaccinated are diverse and various,” Wood said. “You can’t start persuading someone unless you know what reason is the real hurdle.”
“Don’t make assumptions about what the barrier is. Listen to them and hear where they are. There could be a reason that surprises you.”
Those who distrust the vaccine because they think it was approved too quickly or wasn’t properly vetted may be more difficult to convince. For them, a logical appeal may carry more weight, according to Wood. She proposed framing the decision as a choice: “Should you take a chance on the vaccine or should you take a chance on covid?”
People who oppose vaccines for political or identity reasons can be the hardest to approach.
Dr. Rita Burke, an assistant professor of clinical preventive medicine at USC Keck School of Medicine, said the chief concern she heard was about the vaccines’ safety...“In that case, it’s really important to explain to the person that the technology that’s enabled us to develop a vaccine so quickly has been in place and was in development many, many years ago,” she said in an interview with The Times. “So the safety of the vaccine was in no way compromised in order to deliver it so quickly.”
“The thinking has been that the more you shame people the more they will obey,” says Giovanni Travaglino, an assistant professor of social psychology at Kent University. “But this turns out to be absolutely wrong.”
In a 2015 study published in the PNAS, volunteers took a survey on their attitudes about vaccines and were then divided into three groups, each given one of three things to read: material showing that autism and vaccines are not related; a paragraph of a mother describing her child’s bout with measles; and material on an unrelated science topic. When the subjects took the vaccine survey again, all were more pro-vaccine than before, but the ones who read the mother’s account were dramatically more so, with an increase five times as great as that of the group that had read the material on autism and six times that of the control group.
“Mum was convinced by a combination of data about the likelihood of the vaccine causing clotting compared with the relative chance of serious complications from Covid. It was the science that swayed her.”
“I think the way you have conversations with loved ones and family members is perhaps more important than the arguments. With my dad it took three or four serious conversations and it was very important to go slowly because he was hesitant to engage with me. I very clearly said things like ‘I don’t want to judge or lecture you, I just want to understand where you’re at with it all’ or ‘tell me what you understand about the vaccines. I want to listen’. I think this is incredibly important because most people who are hesitant are not devoutly against vaccination but are scared and vulnerable and need our support and love, not our judgement.”
“When I decided to be immunised a lot of people around me jumped on board too. I didn’t realise I had that influence. I’m the matriarch of the family so I suppose it’s to be expected. Get the family matriarchs on board, in all ethnicities.”
“My husband was shocked when his parents said on the phone they weren’t going to get vaccinated: ‘We don’t go anywhere, we don’t see anyone. He said, ‘But what about my brother? He lives nearby and visits you often. He goes to work with dozens of other people. And what about his children? They go to school with hundreds of other kids plus the teachers, and then they visit you.’ They said, ‘Oh. We hadn’t thought of that.’”
Nobody likes to be forced into making a decision — which is how some people feel about getting this vaccine. However, research shows that if you can reduce the external pressure to do something, people actually become more likely to do it...To help alleviate these feelings, try to emphasize how the person has control over which vaccine they’d like to get.
Rather than try to convince ...with statistics, it can actually be more effective to share positive anecdotes of your own. For example, you can share instances of people who had mild to no side effects from the vaccines, or stories about vaccinated people who didn’t catch COVID-19 in groups where it was otherwise spread.
Increase Awareness of Others Who Are Vaccinated
Remind Them of Possible Regrets
posted by amtho at 9:49 PM on August 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
I don't know very many anti-vaxxers, but I don't think I can reach them, even a little. They seem to have trusted sources of information that I can't maneuver around. They have an event horizon of known facts that could split apart any argument I make no matter how well formed or much they respect me. I think we're in an epistemological split where whatever splinters of credibility reach across the gap are no match for the pull of the different realities.
One's a long-time friend, who's full Infowars now. I thought chemtrails were dark, and maybe having to stop taking one of the heavily-hawked supplements after getting slightly poisoned would pull them back. But it's just black as hell now: "the vaccinated shed spike proteins to kill off humanity" is an opener to the Jews. Haven't talked in months, but when I think about calling I know he'd talk to me, but only to pump the darkest shit ever into my ears for an hour or two.
Another's a co-worker who's quitting instead of getting the mandatory shot. A nice, positive, practical and productive person, but not going to take any shit from anyone, including the vaccine. Zero questions or discussion about it, so I don't see any openings to talk about it. They saw the hand and folded, and that's that.
Ivermectin is the latest fad: Fox has been all over it, and Milo Yiannopoulos had a semi-credible thread about taking the bovine injectable this week for his COVID. Reddit has a board about it, which was all about the "unproven" vaccination and it's amazing alternative, even in its veterinary forms. But they're getting shitposted to hell right now, so it's just pages of porn. It's likely extremely unhelpful in persuading people away from these ideas... but nobody's going to fall into that echo chamber for few days.
posted by netowl at 10:53 PM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
One's a long-time friend, who's full Infowars now. I thought chemtrails were dark, and maybe having to stop taking one of the heavily-hawked supplements after getting slightly poisoned would pull them back. But it's just black as hell now: "the vaccinated shed spike proteins to kill off humanity" is an opener to the Jews. Haven't talked in months, but when I think about calling I know he'd talk to me, but only to pump the darkest shit ever into my ears for an hour or two.
Another's a co-worker who's quitting instead of getting the mandatory shot. A nice, positive, practical and productive person, but not going to take any shit from anyone, including the vaccine. Zero questions or discussion about it, so I don't see any openings to talk about it. They saw the hand and folded, and that's that.
Ivermectin is the latest fad: Fox has been all over it, and Milo Yiannopoulos had a semi-credible thread about taking the bovine injectable this week for his COVID. Reddit has a board about it, which was all about the "unproven" vaccination and it's amazing alternative, even in its veterinary forms. But they're getting shitposted to hell right now, so it's just pages of porn. It's likely extremely unhelpful in persuading people away from these ideas... but nobody's going to fall into that echo chamber for few days.
posted by netowl at 10:53 PM on August 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
In Victoria, Australia, a state where we haven't had a Covid death since November 2020, Pfizer is in critically short supply but it's interesting to see just how much demand there is for it: when the government announced they got about 150,000 doses of almost expired Pfizer from Poland and opened up bookings, 1.5 million people called within the hour to book an appointment.
I can't understand a world where Pfizer exists in abundance but people don't want to take it.
The funny thing is, unintentionally or not, the vaccine technical group painted the AZ vaccine as being dangerous and could kill you with blood clots, and then, relatively speaking, Pfizer was then viewed by the public as the holy grail of vaccines that everyone was competing to get the moment any supply becomes available. It's like how if there are two political parties, you are willing to overlook any flaws in your party because the other party is evil.
Also similar in marketing where companies will often create a "bad" default option (expensive, poor spec, etc) that isn't meant to be sold, but just exists to make a more limited option look better. Like the wisdom behind how restaurants best profit is from their mid-ranged wines, the wines on the low end (poor quality) and high end (high price) just exist to bracket customers into seeing the mid range wine as far more desirable.
posted by xdvesper at 11:00 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
I can't understand a world where Pfizer exists in abundance but people don't want to take it.
The funny thing is, unintentionally or not, the vaccine technical group painted the AZ vaccine as being dangerous and could kill you with blood clots, and then, relatively speaking, Pfizer was then viewed by the public as the holy grail of vaccines that everyone was competing to get the moment any supply becomes available. It's like how if there are two political parties, you are willing to overlook any flaws in your party because the other party is evil.
Also similar in marketing where companies will often create a "bad" default option (expensive, poor spec, etc) that isn't meant to be sold, but just exists to make a more limited option look better. Like the wisdom behind how restaurants best profit is from their mid-ranged wines, the wines on the low end (poor quality) and high end (high price) just exist to bracket customers into seeing the mid range wine as far more desirable.
posted by xdvesper at 11:00 PM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Hey Kliuless interesting link about the economic cost of common law via civil law but the example of expensive railways doesn't hold for why maintenance of railway lines is so expensive in New Zealand. NZ has a low population and is long narrow country with many mountains and tunnels.
Washouts and slips require many reworkings of the line. Only coal, lumber, fertilizer and bulk cargoes make any money...........
NZ does have common law but in certain jurisdictions such as planning and family law the movement is to a more inquisitorial system such as in French Civil law.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:09 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
Washouts and slips require many reworkings of the line. Only coal, lumber, fertilizer and bulk cargoes make any money...........
NZ does have common law but in certain jurisdictions such as planning and family law the movement is to a more inquisitorial system such as in French Civil law.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:09 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
Boyd: Anti-vaxxers are incredibly vocal, and because of that, they’ve been a disproportionate focus of our vaccine outreach. But I think that they represent a small part of people in this country, and especially in our communities of color, an irrelevant part. In our work, we haven’t given much credence to their bluster. But the rampant disinformation that’s put out by this minority has shaped our public discourse, and has led to this collective vitriol toward the “unvaccinated” as if they are predominantly a group of anti-vaxxers. The people we’re really trying to move are not.America Is Getting Unvaccinated People All Wrong, The Atlantic July 22
posted by polymodus at 12:25 AM on August 31, 2021 [5 favorites]
Vaccine-hesitant people can be reached with empathy, absolutely. My younger co-worker who wasn't sure they wanted it because they had heard some things was very open to a discussion about how I'd had some of the same fears, but here is what had reassured me. I watched my mother deal similarly with my Aunt.
The two real anti-vaxxers I've known, on the other hand? One has delusions, anti-vax is only one of many ways their views are detached from reality. I do have sympathy because it's somewhat out of their control, but the best tactic is to just not engage. The other had a tough year and seems to have gone down the rabbit hole of every conspiracy theory out there. The conversation started with 'why did you get vaxxed, don't you know vaccines are killing people' and ended with Aliens. I don't think this person is going to be reached by empathy either. They have rejected reality because they don't want to live in a world where bad things can happen at random to 'good' people, they prefer the idea it's all controlled behind the scenes. Personal anecdotes are not going to cut it and result in a lecture about how you are wrong. This person will probably only be reached by a serious wake-up call or serious therapy.
Of course, I'm not in the US, I'm in Scotland where around 90% of adults have had their first shot, so the demographics are gonna be different.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:09 AM on August 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
The two real anti-vaxxers I've known, on the other hand? One has delusions, anti-vax is only one of many ways their views are detached from reality. I do have sympathy because it's somewhat out of their control, but the best tactic is to just not engage. The other had a tough year and seems to have gone down the rabbit hole of every conspiracy theory out there. The conversation started with 'why did you get vaxxed, don't you know vaccines are killing people' and ended with Aliens. I don't think this person is going to be reached by empathy either. They have rejected reality because they don't want to live in a world where bad things can happen at random to 'good' people, they prefer the idea it's all controlled behind the scenes. Personal anecdotes are not going to cut it and result in a lecture about how you are wrong. This person will probably only be reached by a serious wake-up call or serious therapy.
Of course, I'm not in the US, I'm in Scotland where around 90% of adults have had their first shot, so the demographics are gonna be different.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:09 AM on August 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
The unvaccinated in my life run the gamut, from the crystal energy faith healer, to a person who's father died of an ill timed blood clot, to someone with poor executive function (they got it as soon as being unvaccinated meant they couldn't go into the bars/clubs/see the people they wanted to). And then there are the fervent believers. /r/QAnonCasualties is heartbreakingly full of stories of them. That last group may be unreachable through normal means, but not all of the unvaccinated are actually in that group.
posted by fragmede at 3:22 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by fragmede at 3:22 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
But the rampant disinformation that’s put out by this minority has shaped our public discourse, and has led to this collective vitriol toward the “unvaccinated” as if they are predominantly a group of anti-vaxxers.
OTOH (from a comment I posted in another thread), here's an NBC News poll from August 24 - and the unvaccinated clearly lean white, suburban and rural, Republican.
While not denying the US should be moving heaven and earth to get shots in the arms of minority and underserved communities, at this point it does seem that the evidence suggests that "America" may be getting the unvaccinated more or less right - taken as a whole they're unvaccinated for political/tribal reasons.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:14 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
OTOH (from a comment I posted in another thread), here's an NBC News poll from August 24 - and the unvaccinated clearly lean white, suburban and rural, Republican.
While not denying the US should be moving heaven and earth to get shots in the arms of minority and underserved communities, at this point it does seem that the evidence suggests that "America" may be getting the unvaccinated more or less right - taken as a whole they're unvaccinated for political/tribal reasons.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:14 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
polymodus, I have a question. Cultural conservatives with modern representatives like Reagan, Gingrich, Dubya, and Trump have formed the base of the kyriarchy since the formation of the United States. Neoliberalism as an actual political and economic force emerged in what, the 90s? But by your comments across the site it's the neoliberals who are the boogeymen of the ages, the root of all evil, and the conservatives and neoconservatives are the product and require our endless consideration and the development of a "theory of mind" and all of that. Neoliberals believe a better world will come through varying degrees of capitalism. Cultural conservatives believe a better world will come through varying degrees of genocide. Why do you find the latter easier and more pleasing to negotiate with than the former?
posted by Anonymous at 5:23 AM on August 31, 2021
posted by Anonymous at 5:23 AM on August 31, 2021
The latter are easy to negotiate with in that you can't. The former are more difficult as you can negotiate a much needed infrastructure bill with them and then have the things they didn't like still start to die by a thousand cuts during the legislative process.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:09 AM on August 31, 2021
posted by Slackermagee at 6:09 AM on August 31, 2021
The one anti-vaxxer Internet friend I have is straight up living in a different reality in her head. There is nothing you can do when someone is doing that, and at this point I am about ready to let this one go. It's really sad, but also scary when someone goes beyond all logic and reason.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:09 AM on August 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:09 AM on August 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
This Kaiser Permanente chat bot designed to walk you through talking to hesitant people about vaccination is interesting. I think it clearly illustrates the function of compassion in persuasion.
posted by chrchr at 7:22 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by chrchr at 7:22 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
I feel tons of anger and disdain towards the unvaccinated and really appreciate amtho and others providing some thoughtful perspective.
posted by lumpy at 7:38 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by lumpy at 7:38 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
I can't understand a world where Pfizer exists in abundance but people don't want to take it.
For what it is worth, the US is giving about 900,000 vaccinations per day currently (which is down from the peak, but up from the lowest point as well). So while there is definitely a core group of loud and visible people who are in the "never" camp, there are still millions of people willing to be vaccinated. It's way slower than would be ideal and we're going to hit a ceiling of willing uptake sooner than we should. But most of all, the uptake at the national level hides huge disparities at the local level, where some areas have very low vaccine acceptance and others very high, and where difficulties in access can be seen in the numbers as well.
There's a similar (but not identical) situation in the EU, where they have excellent aggregate numbers across the EU and have solidly passed the US after their poor start, but those aggregate numbers hide that there are EU countries with vaccination rates as low as 20 percent.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 AM on August 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
For what it is worth, the US is giving about 900,000 vaccinations per day currently (which is down from the peak, but up from the lowest point as well). So while there is definitely a core group of loud and visible people who are in the "never" camp, there are still millions of people willing to be vaccinated. It's way slower than would be ideal and we're going to hit a ceiling of willing uptake sooner than we should. But most of all, the uptake at the national level hides huge disparities at the local level, where some areas have very low vaccine acceptance and others very high, and where difficulties in access can be seen in the numbers as well.
There's a similar (but not identical) situation in the EU, where they have excellent aggregate numbers across the EU and have solidly passed the US after their poor start, but those aggregate numbers hide that there are EU countries with vaccination rates as low as 20 percent.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 AM on August 31, 2021 [9 favorites]
Poland recently sent Australia half a million or so of its Pfizer doses. The country is about half-vaccinated, and appears to have hit a ceiling, apparently due to the febrile strain of paranoia that undergirds its populist-right government. The vaccines were there, but those who wanted them had already had theirs.
posted by acb at 8:14 AM on August 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 8:14 AM on August 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
lumpy, I have those feelings too. This is how I deal with them: more information.
posted by amtho at 8:40 AM on August 31, 2021
posted by amtho at 8:40 AM on August 31, 2021
Example: anti-vax uncle. Homeschooled his kids because local Catholic school was "too liberal." Disowned one of his daughters for having premarital sex. Own priest got a restraining order on him. Blames state's bad weather this summer on purported lesbian witch governor. As believer in just world, never recovered from the "judgment" of having a kid with Down Syndrome twenty-plus years ago.
Example: anti-vax aunt (not married to anti-vax uncle). Insisted on texting her teenage grandkids awful anti-gay opinions despite requests to stop, to the point that her daughter had to block her. Hasn't set foot in majority-black big city nearby in decades; you never know what might happen. The greatest evil in the world is abortion, but that doesn't mean you should encourage those loose girls out there by supporting the kids once they've arrived. Shares home with son who doesn't see a new baby as a reason either to cut down on the gun collection or to get vaccinated.
Anti-vax aunt will speak to you perfectly pleasantly until you get onto one of her pet topics, unlike anti-vax uncle, who spews venom pretty much 24/7 from what I can tell. But to the extent these people believe disinformation, it's because that disinformation corresponds to their assumptions derived from racism, homophobia, misogyny, and general nastiness. They, especially anti-vax uncle, are people who couldn't pass as normal in a social context outside their own, but there are plenty more like them who are just less obnoxious and outspoken about their beliefs and so seem nice enough, especially in their little worlds where their interactions with the Other are infrequent and shallow.
posted by praemunire at 8:44 AM on August 31, 2021 [19 favorites]
Example: anti-vax aunt (not married to anti-vax uncle). Insisted on texting her teenage grandkids awful anti-gay opinions despite requests to stop, to the point that her daughter had to block her. Hasn't set foot in majority-black big city nearby in decades; you never know what might happen. The greatest evil in the world is abortion, but that doesn't mean you should encourage those loose girls out there by supporting the kids once they've arrived. Shares home with son who doesn't see a new baby as a reason either to cut down on the gun collection or to get vaccinated.
Anti-vax aunt will speak to you perfectly pleasantly until you get onto one of her pet topics, unlike anti-vax uncle, who spews venom pretty much 24/7 from what I can tell. But to the extent these people believe disinformation, it's because that disinformation corresponds to their assumptions derived from racism, homophobia, misogyny, and general nastiness. They, especially anti-vax uncle, are people who couldn't pass as normal in a social context outside their own, but there are plenty more like them who are just less obnoxious and outspoken about their beliefs and so seem nice enough, especially in their little worlds where their interactions with the Other are infrequent and shallow.
posted by praemunire at 8:44 AM on August 31, 2021 [19 favorites]
That sounds like trial after trial, praemunire. It's so upsetting when people are inflexible in such hateful ways. I'm very glad that most people, even most unvaccinated people, aren't like that.
posted by amtho at 9:21 AM on August 31, 2021
posted by amtho at 9:21 AM on August 31, 2021
so is it late to invoke Godwin's Law? go ahead
Most Germans were not inveterate, hateful racists. Most Germans did not put on the brown uniforms in the early 30s and participate in visible displays of violence that contributed to the rise of the 'legitimate' Nazi party.
We know that major turns in history sometimes have nothing to do with most people, insofar as the truly awful elements simply need to get most people onside, or at least keep them quiet or complacent enough, till it's too late. Does that help in reframing things? Personally, this is where I'm at. I see signs that resemble signs from before, and "trying to understand murderous bastards" is my framing of the situation. I'm not trying to understand them, I am thinking how to resist them.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:58 AM on August 31, 2021 [11 favorites]
Most Germans were not inveterate, hateful racists. Most Germans did not put on the brown uniforms in the early 30s and participate in visible displays of violence that contributed to the rise of the 'legitimate' Nazi party.
We know that major turns in history sometimes have nothing to do with most people, insofar as the truly awful elements simply need to get most people onside, or at least keep them quiet or complacent enough, till it's too late. Does that help in reframing things? Personally, this is where I'm at. I see signs that resemble signs from before, and "trying to understand murderous bastards" is my framing of the situation. I'm not trying to understand them, I am thinking how to resist them.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:58 AM on August 31, 2021 [11 favorites]
I know someone who's unvaccinated. They have "concerns" about the vaccine's safety and are "hesitant" to get it. Yet they'll still still go out to dinner at a restaurant, attend a concert, and spent time maskless indoors around other people's small children despite the obvious, undeniable risk of contracting Covid or spreading it.
Don't want to get the vaccine? Fine. Continue behaving like it's 2020: wear a mask, maintain social distancing, and stay home. Don't freeload off what little herd immunity the rest of us have achieved by doing our part and getting the vaccine. Don't pretend that your vague, selfish "concerns" about the vaccine somehow absolve you from having to be concerned about contracting the virus or passing it on to others. If you are truly concerned about the safety of the vaccine, you should also be concerned about getting Covid.
The overall problem has never been about vaccine hesitancy because it's always been about Covid denialism.
I highly doubt the majority of vaccine-refusers are taking any precautions at all against getting infected.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:11 AM on August 31, 2021 [23 favorites]
Don't want to get the vaccine? Fine. Continue behaving like it's 2020: wear a mask, maintain social distancing, and stay home. Don't freeload off what little herd immunity the rest of us have achieved by doing our part and getting the vaccine. Don't pretend that your vague, selfish "concerns" about the vaccine somehow absolve you from having to be concerned about contracting the virus or passing it on to others. If you are truly concerned about the safety of the vaccine, you should also be concerned about getting Covid.
The overall problem has never been about vaccine hesitancy because it's always been about Covid denialism.
I highly doubt the majority of vaccine-refusers are taking any precautions at all against getting infected.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:11 AM on August 31, 2021 [23 favorites]
Neoliberalism as an actual political and economic force emerged in what, the 90s?
No. Mont Pelerin society is from the 1940s and it's major anti-worker application starts from the 1970s. Reaganomics and Thatcherism are just names for neoliberalism.
Neoliberals believe a better world will come through varying degrees of capitalism.
No. Neoliberals believe that the restructuring of all facets of society as a competition is the path towards ultimate prosperity, and it is the role of government to shape society in this manner. This differs from the original "invisible hand" type of liberal capitalism which expected economics to be a self-adjusting system.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:43 AM on August 31, 2021 [7 favorites]
No. Mont Pelerin society is from the 1940s and it's major anti-worker application starts from the 1970s. Reaganomics and Thatcherism are just names for neoliberalism.
Neoliberals believe a better world will come through varying degrees of capitalism.
No. Neoliberals believe that the restructuring of all facets of society as a competition is the path towards ultimate prosperity, and it is the role of government to shape society in this manner. This differs from the original "invisible hand" type of liberal capitalism which expected economics to be a self-adjusting system.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:43 AM on August 31, 2021 [7 favorites]
I'm very glad that most people, even most unvaccinated people, aren't like that.
I think most unvaccinated people who aren't white aren't like that. I think most unvaccinated people who are, are, or else are their apparently kinder and gentler cousins who've not yet been mobilized to say the quiet part loud. So I personally have no interest in attempting to address the latter, and think our public persuasion attempts are better invested in trying to move the former, who whatever the basis for their beliefs aren't usually delaying out of bigotry. Anyone who individually wants to take on my uncle or (especially) my aunt living with a newborn, though, God bless you and prosper your work.
posted by praemunire at 10:52 AM on August 31, 2021
I think most unvaccinated people who aren't white aren't like that. I think most unvaccinated people who are, are, or else are their apparently kinder and gentler cousins who've not yet been mobilized to say the quiet part loud. So I personally have no interest in attempting to address the latter, and think our public persuasion attempts are better invested in trying to move the former, who whatever the basis for their beliefs aren't usually delaying out of bigotry. Anyone who individually wants to take on my uncle or (especially) my aunt living with a newborn, though, God bless you and prosper your work.
posted by praemunire at 10:52 AM on August 31, 2021
Trump and the huge voter turn out for him in 2020 proved that the single biggest draw for the right is cruelty above all else. There isn't principled resistance to vaccines, it's a means of exerting cruelty and disregard for others. Mandates are the real answer, take the choice away from them and we don't have this problem.
posted by Ferreous at 11:01 AM on August 31, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 11:01 AM on August 31, 2021 [10 favorites]
The headline of this Axios article is hopeful, at least, and a good reminder that these attitudes are not locked in place for everyone: Axios-Ipsos poll: Vaccine hesitancy may be crumbling
posted by Dip Flash at 11:19 AM on August 31, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 11:19 AM on August 31, 2021 [5 favorites]
Along with mandates, doctors openly refusing to allow very high-risk visits from unvaccinated patients offer another good solution, I think.
With very narrowly-defined medical and age conditions, practically all excuses for not getting shots are now gone: the vaccines are FDA-approved, are free, are widely available through the same neighborhood drug stores distributing horse dewormer paste, and the very small risk of side effects is significantly eclipsed by the deadly short- and long-term consequences of getting infected.
Reaching out to those who can be reached is one thing, but we cannot let "hesitancy" or "tolerance" become a socially-acceptable part of the discourse. Every excuse is just that.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:30 AM on August 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
With very narrowly-defined medical and age conditions, practically all excuses for not getting shots are now gone: the vaccines are FDA-approved, are free, are widely available through the same neighborhood drug stores distributing horse dewormer paste, and the very small risk of side effects is significantly eclipsed by the deadly short- and long-term consequences of getting infected.
Reaching out to those who can be reached is one thing, but we cannot let "hesitancy" or "tolerance" become a socially-acceptable part of the discourse. Every excuse is just that.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:30 AM on August 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
Regarding attitudes toward anti-vaxers, before I consider how much I know or should understand about them, or try to practice my empathy or sympathy toward them, I must protect myself from them because their behavior is dangerous and harmful to the rest of us.
I support vaccine and mask requirements, etc., simply because they are the best measures that we collectively have to protect ourselves from an organism that is killing us in large numbers. The feelings of people affected by fairly mild public health and safety requirements really are beside the point. People are preventably dying; when that is greatly mitigated or stopped, I'll start worrying about anyone's feelings on the matter. Otherwise, I believe it is a fundamental obligation we have to one another in a peaceful society, that we collectively work to face threats to our population.* We've tried the carrot, persuasion, and now it's time for the stick, requirements and mandates and penalties for non-compliance.
* - of course, that's precisely what we totally suck at, so yeah.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:27 PM on August 31, 2021 [7 favorites]
I support vaccine and mask requirements, etc., simply because they are the best measures that we collectively have to protect ourselves from an organism that is killing us in large numbers. The feelings of people affected by fairly mild public health and safety requirements really are beside the point. People are preventably dying; when that is greatly mitigated or stopped, I'll start worrying about anyone's feelings on the matter. Otherwise, I believe it is a fundamental obligation we have to one another in a peaceful society, that we collectively work to face threats to our population.* We've tried the carrot, persuasion, and now it's time for the stick, requirements and mandates and penalties for non-compliance.
* - of course, that's precisely what we totally suck at, so yeah.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:27 PM on August 31, 2021 [7 favorites]
I think there would be a little more slack in the US on getting vaccinated if the US didn't falter or faceplant in every other mitigation plan or measure. Things like, if masking levels were higher and if people were able to suppress their physical movement levels and keep away from indoor crowds. And bigger things like if we implemented a national travel plan that included testing and sequestering travelers once they arrive at their destination or we were able to somehow rapidly build an effective national contact tracing infrastructure.
Instead throughout 2020 the US wasn't able to put together a coherent anything at all and got stuck in lockdown and masking and all that fun stuff. So this increased the role of vaccines as THE last backstop solution that people were pinning their hopes on. But some of the reasons why those previous things didn't work out are similar to why there are issues with the vaccines: distribution issues, lack of national records/tracking, and general mistrust of other people/institutions.
And I think that's why there's more frustration this time. There's no additional solutions on the horizon, so we have to work with what we have.
posted by FJT at 12:50 PM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
Instead throughout 2020 the US wasn't able to put together a coherent anything at all and got stuck in lockdown and masking and all that fun stuff. So this increased the role of vaccines as THE last backstop solution that people were pinning their hopes on. But some of the reasons why those previous things didn't work out are similar to why there are issues with the vaccines: distribution issues, lack of national records/tracking, and general mistrust of other people/institutions.
And I think that's why there's more frustration this time. There's no additional solutions on the horizon, so we have to work with what we have.
posted by FJT at 12:50 PM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's not so much that the US wasn't able to put together coherent plans... We had plans. Even Jared kushner made a reasonable plan. The people at the top chose not to implement plans. Entirely different. Literally willing to sacrifice people for politics.
posted by Jacen at 1:00 PM on August 31, 2021
posted by Jacen at 1:00 PM on August 31, 2021
Re: economics and the pandemic. The gross domestic product (GDP) of California was about 3.09 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020, meaning that it contributed the most out of any state to the country’s GDP; runners-up are Texas, at 1.75 trillion, NY at 1.699, Florida at 1 trillion, Illinois at 860 billion. If California was a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth largest economy. California's feared $54.3 billion budget shortfall (May 2020; for comparison, the prior year saw a $21 billion surplus) is now an estimated $76 billion budget surplus (June 2021, updated, August 2021). An additional $25 billion in federal stimulus funds are en route. An economic recovery package, the $100 billion California Comeback Plan, was signed last month.
Governor Gavin Newsom, a self-described "pro-business, progressive Democrat. And that's not changed in 20-plus years," faces an election recall on Sept. 14, only the fourth gubernatorial recall election in U.S. history (and the second for California: less than 20 years ago, Gov. Gray Davis was recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger). Republicans, trusting Newsom's mixed performance reviews amid pandemic turmoil offer a solid chance at the executive office of the largest money-making state in the union, plump for a conservative talk-show host who has never held office and skips debates. Larry Elder’s California recall rise has even Republicans uneasy (Bloomberg News via Mercury News, Aug. 28, 2021)
Bonus: It's the Democrats' doomsday scenario: California Gov. Gavin Newsom loses his recall race this fall, and a Senate vacancy is later filled by a GOP governor. (CNN, Aug. 13, 2021) And the 50-50 Senate, currently controlled by Democrats, is run again by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. [...] California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 88, is less than half-way through her six-year term [and] made clear the recall election won't affect her plans to serve out her full six years -- no matter the outcome of the race.
Internationally: Think California’s recall election doesn’t affect you? It really does, I’m afraid (The Guardian, The Week in Patriarchy, Aug. 28, 2021) The election is a depressing reminder that Republicans are incredibly good at finding sneaky ways to get into power and hold on to it. Perhaps you don’t live in California or the United States. Perhaps you think none of this really affects you. It does, I’m afraid. It really does. California is the fifth-largest economy in the world: the person running it matters immensely. While a replacement governor would serve for just over a year (Newsom’s term ends in January 2023), that’s still enough time for someone to do a lot of damage.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:26 PM on August 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
Governor Gavin Newsom, a self-described "pro-business, progressive Democrat. And that's not changed in 20-plus years," faces an election recall on Sept. 14, only the fourth gubernatorial recall election in U.S. history (and the second for California: less than 20 years ago, Gov. Gray Davis was recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger). Republicans, trusting Newsom's mixed performance reviews amid pandemic turmoil offer a solid chance at the executive office of the largest money-making state in the union, plump for a conservative talk-show host who has never held office and skips debates. Larry Elder’s California recall rise has even Republicans uneasy (Bloomberg News via Mercury News, Aug. 28, 2021)
Bonus: It's the Democrats' doomsday scenario: California Gov. Gavin Newsom loses his recall race this fall, and a Senate vacancy is later filled by a GOP governor. (CNN, Aug. 13, 2021) And the 50-50 Senate, currently controlled by Democrats, is run again by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. [...] California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 88, is less than half-way through her six-year term [and] made clear the recall election won't affect her plans to serve out her full six years -- no matter the outcome of the race.
Internationally: Think California’s recall election doesn’t affect you? It really does, I’m afraid (The Guardian, The Week in Patriarchy, Aug. 28, 2021) The election is a depressing reminder that Republicans are incredibly good at finding sneaky ways to get into power and hold on to it. Perhaps you don’t live in California or the United States. Perhaps you think none of this really affects you. It does, I’m afraid. It really does. California is the fifth-largest economy in the world: the person running it matters immensely. While a replacement governor would serve for just over a year (Newsom’s term ends in January 2023), that’s still enough time for someone to do a lot of damage.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:26 PM on August 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
But some of the reasons why those previous things didn't work out are similar to why there are issues with the vaccines: distribution issues, lack of national records/tracking, and general mistrust of other people/institutions.
Oh, and the absolute sociopath who was on television each and every night congratulating himself for knowing more than doctors and recommending bleach while thousands were dying didn't help. Neither did telling states they were on their own to acquire PPE and then literally stealing it out from under them. Nor did encouraging armed insurrection against various states which tried to impose restrictions.
But yeah. We're just going to ignore all that and focus our efforts on figuring out why the vaccine has hurt some people's feelings.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:42 PM on August 31, 2021 [12 favorites]
Oh, and the absolute sociopath who was on television each and every night congratulating himself for knowing more than doctors and recommending bleach while thousands were dying didn't help. Neither did telling states they were on their own to acquire PPE and then literally stealing it out from under them. Nor did encouraging armed insurrection against various states which tried to impose restrictions.
But yeah. We're just going to ignore all that and focus our efforts on figuring out why the vaccine has hurt some people's feelings.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:42 PM on August 31, 2021 [12 favorites]
Reaganomics and Thatcherism are just names for neoliberalism
Well, this is new. It is now so necessary for neoliberalism to be the real root of all evil that we are now blaming it for conservative ideology. Let me guess: the KKK was actually a group of neoliberals in disguise, right?
posted by Anonymous at 4:27 PM on August 31, 2021
Well, this is new. It is now so necessary for neoliberalism to be the real root of all evil that we are now blaming it for conservative ideology. Let me guess: the KKK was actually a group of neoliberals in disguise, right?
posted by Anonymous at 4:27 PM on August 31, 2021
Anti/Vax: Reframing the Vaccination Controversy by Bernice L. Hausman (review), 2020
At the heart of Bernice Hausman's Anti/Vax is a call to take vaccination skeptics at their word, to take their stories seriously. Drawing from her experience at Virginia Tech's Vaccination Research Group (VRG) interviewing people who do not vaccinate or only partially vaccinate, Hausman argues that while vaccination controversy is understood within popular discourses to be a problem of science denial, it is in fact a problem of social and political disagreement. She proposes that "vaccine skepticism is linked to various beliefs and practices that are actually not unusual in American society, and that such skepticism is sustained by popular suspicions of government, sponsored scientific research, and pharmaceutical companies" (13). This reality, however, is buried under a stalemate in public debates that is only further entrenched by contemporary media and popular literature that groups vaccine skeptics together with climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists. Anti/Vax is Hausman's attempt at moving beyond this impasse, offering a varied history of the particular material conditions that result in the modern vaccine skeptic, alongside a focus on narrative storytelling that highlights the centrality of individual health experience in understanding such subjects.also very short readable pdf in an critical education theory journal by the same author:
An analysis of ‘misinformation’, a primary framing for vaccination dissent, illuminates weaknesses in understanding vaccination controversy and the dissemination of false beliefs. Rather than approaching vaccine dissenters as misinformed, we can identify how untruths circulate in good-faith efforts to identify facts and clarify the challenges that the Internet poses to elites’ control of information. When we shift our view, we can see how narrow social networks and lack of empathy for others drives polarized perceptions of “fake news” and threatening cultural trends. The antidote to these problems is education in empathy, enhanced identification with others different from ourselves. Examples from the Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. provide illuminating perspectives about how the humanities can be harnessed to solve persistent social problems.posted by polymodus at 4:32 PM on August 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
The history of reading and anxieties around developing technologies reveal that elites are interested in the control of information. That suggests a need for greater empathy toward the views and experiences of nonelites. This exercise underscores the importance of understanding different points of view and different experiences – in other words, empathy. One place to start is to emphasize learning about others and the plurality of human beliefs and practices. Perhaps combatting the creeping tribalism and its attendant narrowing of social networks offers a way to embark on this project. In this sense, the problem is less misinformation than our own narrow social connections, our growing mistrust of those different from ourselves, and the increasing inequality that further differentiates professional and educated elites from others.
...
All of which is to say that those fields that contribute toward empathetic understanding of others – sociology,
anthropology, and the study of literature, for example – provide epistemological grounding for revising our current educational emphases on STEM fields.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s office announced Tuesday that a woman from New Jersey was charged with selling around 250 fake vaccination cards online, including the sale of forged papers to 13 “public-facing” employees in the New York area who work in medical facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes.
According to the complaint, Jasmine Clifford — who went by the name @AntiVaxMomma online — sold fake vaccination cards for around $200, payable on CashApp or Zelle. For an additional $250, she also allegedly employed a medical clinic worker named Nadayza Barkley to enter the information of at least 10 clients into the state immunization database from Barkley’s workplace in Patchogue, Long Island. The co-conspirators were caught when an undercover agent purchased a card and had it mailed to an address in Manhattan; another agent paid to have the false proof of vaccination submitted into the database and received a screenshot to show when it was completed. (NY Mag, 8/31/2021)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:03 PM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
According to the complaint, Jasmine Clifford — who went by the name @AntiVaxMomma online — sold fake vaccination cards for around $200, payable on CashApp or Zelle. For an additional $250, she also allegedly employed a medical clinic worker named Nadayza Barkley to enter the information of at least 10 clients into the state immunization database from Barkley’s workplace in Patchogue, Long Island. The co-conspirators were caught when an undercover agent purchased a card and had it mailed to an address in Manhattan; another agent paid to have the false proof of vaccination submitted into the database and received a screenshot to show when it was completed. (NY Mag, 8/31/2021)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:03 PM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
For an additional $250, she also allegedly employed a medical clinic worker named Nadayza Barkley to enter the information of at least 10 clients into the state immunization database from Barkley’s workplace in Patchogue, Long Island.
Ahhhhhh, I was wondering about this. The card will get you into the club or the movies (though it's offensive to spend $200 for it), but if your employer gets suspicious and wants you to show the Excelsior pass...
posted by praemunire at 5:57 PM on August 31, 2021
Ahhhhhh, I was wondering about this. The card will get you into the club or the movies (though it's offensive to spend $200 for it), but if your employer gets suspicious and wants you to show the Excelsior pass...
posted by praemunire at 5:57 PM on August 31, 2021
Florida's lying about COVID-19 deaths.
Yes,
again.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:31 PM on August 31, 2021 [8 favorites]
Yes,
again.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:31 PM on August 31, 2021 [8 favorites]
The Miami Herald broke the story about the "statistical sleight of hand"; Yahoo News reprint: Florida changed its COVID-19 data, creating an ‘artificial decline’ in recent deaths. ...the Florida Department of Health changed the way it reported death data to the CDC, giving the appearance of a pandemic in decline, an analysis of Florida data by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald found. On Monday, Florida death data would have shown an average of 262 daily deaths reported to the CDC over the previous week had the health department used its former reporting system, the Herald analysis showed. Instead, the Monday update from Florida showed just 46 “new deaths” per day over the previous seven days.
The dramatic difference is due to a small change in the fine print. Until three weeks ago, data collected by DOH and published on the CDC website counted deaths by the date they were recorded — a common method for producing daily stats used by most states. On Aug. 10, Florida switched its methodology and, along with just a handful of other states, began to tally new deaths by the date the person died. If you chart deaths by Florida’s new method, based on date of death, it will generally appear — even during a spike like the present — that deaths are on a recent downslope. That’s because it takes time for deaths to be evaluated and death certificates processed. When those deaths finally are tallied, they are assigned to the actual data of death — creating a spike where there once existed a downslope and moving the downslope forward in time [...] on Aug. 10, without warning or any explanation from the health department or the CDC, the data for nearly every day of the previous year changed. Neither agency immediately explained the changes.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:42 PM on August 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
The dramatic difference is due to a small change in the fine print. Until three weeks ago, data collected by DOH and published on the CDC website counted deaths by the date they were recorded — a common method for producing daily stats used by most states. On Aug. 10, Florida switched its methodology and, along with just a handful of other states, began to tally new deaths by the date the person died. If you chart deaths by Florida’s new method, based on date of death, it will generally appear — even during a spike like the present — that deaths are on a recent downslope. That’s because it takes time for deaths to be evaluated and death certificates processed. When those deaths finally are tallied, they are assigned to the actual data of death — creating a spike where there once existed a downslope and moving the downslope forward in time [...] on Aug. 10, without warning or any explanation from the health department or the CDC, the data for nearly every day of the previous year changed. Neither agency immediately explained the changes.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:42 PM on August 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
Florida's lying about COVID-19 deaths.
DeSantis should be rotting in a prison cell for contempt of court and manslaughter.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:22 AM on September 1, 2021
DeSantis should be rotting in a prison cell for contempt of court and manslaughter.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:22 AM on September 1, 2021
This is just to say
that Joe Rogan
just got covid
so help me
the schadenfreude
is so sweet
posted by ishmael at 4:16 PM on September 1, 2021 [5 favorites]
that Joe Rogan
just got covid
so help me
the schadenfreude
is so sweet
posted by ishmael at 4:16 PM on September 1, 2021 [5 favorites]
This is terrible: Rogan told his 13 million followers (on Instagram alone; his podcast is the most-streamed program on Spotify) he took ivermectin for it.
NBC, today: Rogan [...] posted a video to Instagram explaining he tested positive for the coronavirus following his return from a live show Saturday. He said he had “fevers and sweats” and that he “threw the kitchen sink” at the illness. His treatments included monoclonal antibodies and ivermectin, Rogan said. Ivermectin, which is not an anti-viral drug, is generally used to treat or prevent parasites in animals such as horses. [...] Rogan later said he was not anti-vaccination and added that he should not be the source of medical advice, as he isn’t a doctor.
The FDA warning, from May 5: Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19. The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:27 PM on September 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
NBC, today: Rogan [...] posted a video to Instagram explaining he tested positive for the coronavirus following his return from a live show Saturday. He said he had “fevers and sweats” and that he “threw the kitchen sink” at the illness. His treatments included monoclonal antibodies and ivermectin, Rogan said. Ivermectin, which is not an anti-viral drug, is generally used to treat or prevent parasites in animals such as horses. [...] Rogan later said he was not anti-vaccination and added that he should not be the source of medical advice, as he isn’t a doctor.
The FDA warning, from May 5: Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19. The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:27 PM on September 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
New deworming treatment now available for horses
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:42 PM on September 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:42 PM on September 2, 2021 [2 favorites]
There has never been a safer time in America to be a horse worm.
posted by acb at 3:48 PM on September 5, 2021
posted by acb at 3:48 PM on September 5, 2021
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posted by rongorongo at 4:09 AM on August 30, 2021