Negatory

It’s bad. I’ve heard many say that an “11/10” on the scale of how bad it is would be an understatement. Solarwinds stores network topology, configuration, and credentials for all of those organizations. The Air Force is also a prime user. If the network was a bank, the hackers would have access to floor plans, schedules, vault keys and maybe even have an inside man still depending on the level of compromise. CISA/DHS is saying that if you have Solarwinds installed (or Orion) that was updated since March of this year, you need to assume everything in your network is compromised. It’s actually insane how big of a deal this is. Many affected companies and organizations are literally talking about entire server rebuilds of everything. SIPR is just one example of a potentially entirely compromised network: https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-12-18-pentagon-orders-shutdown-classified-networks-solarwinds-orion.html#

It goes without saying that Sim would only post extremely biased, out of context, bullshit. But I went through the trouble of figuring out what was manipulated, so I might as well share it. The context that’s missing is that, immediately before this clip starts, he says “If we can not make significant progress on racial equity, this country is doomed...” He’s saying the country is doomed if the growing minority groups continue to be treated unfairly, and they need to work together if they want to fix it. If you want to check, watch the whole video. This is at ~1:14:30

I agree that it is a weird, mainly unfounded, dem talking point to say that requiring a voter ID is racist. There just really isn’t data to support that claim. Even Jimmy Carter headed a study back in 2005 that concluded that, while the actual tangible benefits of requiring IDs may be low, it would still be worth it from a “trust in the system” perspective, and it would not likely significantly affect voting turnout. Just phase in the law over 4 years and be done with it. It would probably help improve society’s perception of election integrity at a minimal cost.

You mean like Polio? For things like measles, you have to hit ~94% and somehow we did that back when people trusted science. Source: 1) https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/herd-immunity-and-coronavirus/art-20486808 First of all, Pfizer and Moderna are the only approved vaccines, so let's focus on those. We know for sure that, when it comes to COVID, it's way better than not being vaccinated at all (up to 95% effective) and that it has been proven to significantly reduce the severity of COVID infections when they do happen (almost all cases after vaccination are mild). Source: 2) https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201118005595/en/ It's not about you or me. It's never been about you or me. It's about the herd. While you guys love to quote death rates in a vacuum - and death rates are important- you have to know the assumptions. The current assumptions are that you get admitted to get care. This literally isn't true as of this week in highly populated parts of America. Without the ability to get in hospitals due to exponentially rising cases, folks that could have been cared for are going to die. Also, it's kind of funny to see that some of you literally last week pulled BS sources out that showed that we wouldn't have ICU capacity problems (you took overall US capacity in a vacuum or cherrypicked examples) and now they are manifesting in our most populated areas in America. Sources: 3) https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201218/covid-has-southern-california-icu-capacity-at-zero 4) https://abc7.com/health/what-happens-when-ca-icu-capacity-reaches-0%/8879527/ Also, why don't you all ever talk about how the hospitalization rate for COVID is significantly less biased towards old people when compared to the death rate? Younger people actually have a much higher, real chance of being admitted to the hospital and/or icu than death rates lead you to believe. For example, let's compare 30-39 year olds to 65-74 year olds. The average COVID patient who is 30-39 years old is on the order of 22.5 times less likely to die than a 65-74 year old. But they are only 2.5 times less likely to be hospitalized. Sources: 5) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/covid-data/hospitalization-death-by-age.pdf 6) https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_3.html So what? Normal average aged people have no real chance of hospitalization though, right? Wrong. A predictor was created using data from a cohort of studies to tell you the relative likelihood of hospitalization based on your age, bmi, race, gender, etc. Spoilers, it's greater than you think. For example, a 40 year old male with a healthy BMI who is white statistically has a 3.6% chance to be hospitalized from COVID-19. Sources: 7) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237419 😎https://riskcalc.org/COVID19Hospitalization/ Who cares about hospitalizations though? ICU admission is what matters, and that's probably not that bad, right? Wrong. Studies have shown that, when you take the population as a whole, generally ~24% of all COVID cases are admitted to the ICU. And that's not just old people, it's everyone. For example, out of the hospitalized young people aged 18-34, 21% ended up requiring ICU care. Look at the other age groups and you'll see the same trend. Source: 9) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2770542 Put it all together, and the hospitalization and ICU admission rate for 30-39 year olds is on the order of 3% and 0.8% respectively. For 40-49 year olds it's on the order of 5% and 1.5%. Unfortunately, these aren't just trivial numbers, although we all wish they were. When you look at 65+, you get to terribly high requirements when it comes down to hospitalization and ICU admission rates. When a portion of society takes hospital capacity away because they go to strip clubs to protest "liberty," you end up making it literally impossible for numerous people to get life-saving care: My hot take: If cases don't start to go down immediately, we are going to max out America's medical system from coast to coast. With this lack of access to care, significant amounts of people will die of treatable diseases - not just COVID. I mean, we've already had literally as many excess deaths this year as we did combat losses in WWII, so I guess this probably will fall on deaf ears. But no one's asking for permanent lockdowns or microchips or any changes to life that are long-lasting. Society is asking for you to be on the team that bands together for probably on the order of one year to take precautions, limit the spread, get vaccinated, and get through this. No one chose to have a worldwide pandemic that would unduly stress the entirety of the global human medical system. Everyone wants to get back to normal, and the only way to do that is to trust science and work as a team. Get on the team.

I did some more research, and it turns out that you probably did get a ballot. A real one, so my bad. My original skepticism came from all the “ballots” that were thrown away or burned that turned out to be samples. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2622SZ Also turns out it’s planned and normal and would require a proactive step from you or anyone else to commit voter fraud, so I still don’t see the issue. EDIT: Also, you have to be a registered voter to get a ballot. What’s the problem here? Registered voters shouldn’t get a ballot unless they specifically request one? This isn’t like dems are sending ballots to illegal immigrants.

Yeah I mean, honestly, I don’t believe you. If you have pics or proof I’d like to see it.

Sample ballots in states have bubbles for candidates. https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/voter-registrar/Documents/Sample Ballots pdf files only/2020/November/SAMPLEBALLOT.pdf In fact, sample ballots being burned accounted for a large portion of the fake voter fraud videos shared on social media.

🥃

The lawsuit reads very similar to many Jim Crow laws. They shouldn’t be able to vote my mail because I don’t like who they voted for!! It’s funny to see the disenfranchisers say that they are the disenfranchised. 3000 people died yesterday. Nothing, right? People voted by mail to try to stop that from happening. And, in the end, bipartisan councils in the vast majority of states agreed that 2020 was the most secure election in history. Maybe you think it’s cool that “I will die to stop the steal” is trending on Twitter. I think it’s sad.

I guess it’s just pointless to compare which president lied more. What’s probably more useful is actually calling out specific lies or patterns. I think the impact of some of the lies the last few years have been worse than usual when it comes to the future of America For example, Trump’s immediate “Fake News” response to any news that he didn’t like has done more to drive a wedge between this country than any other president in recent history. No one trusts anybody anymore. There’s some potential good in being skeptical of information, sure, but it’s not panning out that way. Now a higher than ever number of people enjoy calling themselves anti-vaxxers or conspiracy theorists. Dumbasses have a platform where they can get to an echo chamber (the Internet), which does much more harm than good. Also his recent inane rants on how he “won” the election are setting up a large portion of the country to not believe in democracy. Combining these with the Facebook propaganda machine are mobilizing a bunch of idiots, without any real evidence. Over the last month, I’ve seen multiple full militias (10-20 people) out eating with their guns to... intimidate the liberals? I’ve never seen that before. This is how home grown extremism/authoritarianism starts: with a healthy amount of disinformation and distrust of your fellow countrymen. You guys are gonna come back and say that the dems unfairly discredited the president the same way before his term, but that’s simply not true. I urge you to re-read (Or more than likely, read the first time, as I’m almost certain you got all your info from the news) the mueller report, specifically when it comes to “Individual-1.” I’m predicting Trump will pardon himself and his family before he’s gone, but this is another example of disinformation gone awry.

Retired majors make ~4200 a month or 50k a year under legacy. It’s closer to being the equivalent of 1.3-1.5M if you use a SWR of 3.5-4%, but close enough.

Valid points about low chances of death and life expectancy likely not changing significantly. But there are probably other costs than just deaths. What do you think about having our healthcare system maxed out for an indeterminate amount of time? Many states are projected to reach >100% bed capacity in the next 3 weeks, and that could just as easily affect your circle of people you care about.

I think you thought this was me lol. By the way, on the order of magnitude means something. You're kinda goin off the rails, man.

The posts flow together and are all related in reference to the paradox of tolerance. Feel free to address their merits when you have a second, although I know you won’t because you backed yourself into a logical corner. In regards to why I responded to the invalid post claiming zero excess deaths: If someone said something outrageous, and the forum agreed for some unknown reason, then a rebuttal is warranted as I assume people don’t have information. The solid truth is that there are COVID excess deaths on the order of at least 200k+. I looked into the claims, and they are invalid. She compares unchanging death percentages month to month when she should be comparing total deaths which shift based on time of year. She is misrepresenting facts, just like you guys did when you tried to claim that the CDC actually admitted that only 6% of COVID deaths are real: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/09/cdc-did-not-admit-only-6-of-recorded-deaths-from-covid-19/ Disinformation and Facebook is now even killing my peers.

We weren’t, but I award you two points for the undeserved smugness and skipping of the question. The point is that just because an opinion exists doesn’t automatically mean that it is worthy of consideration. An opinion that is so far outside of the realm of perceived truth (it goes against the CDC, it was literally retracted for inaccuracies, contradicts multiple governments and basically every scientific paper, etc) doesn’t need to be tolerated or put on the same playing field as ones that actual have any scientific backing.

So is your stance also that we can’t prove the terrorists were behind 9/11 or the Holocaust was real? Because, although the vast majority of society, historians, scientists, and the government hold those positions, they technically are unknowable. Just like almost every fundamental “truth,” if you ascribe to Fitch’s paradox.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

“Briand was quoted in the article as saying, “All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers.” This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. According to the CDC, there have been almost 300,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19. Additionally, Briand presented data of total U.S. deaths in comparison to COVID-19-related deaths as a proportion percentage, which trivializes the repercussions of the pandemic. This evidence does not disprove the severity of COVID-19; an increase in excess deaths is not represented in these proportionalities because they are offered as percentages, not raw numbers. Briand also claimed in her analysis that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may be incorrectly categorized as COVID-19-related deaths. However, COVID-19 disproportionately affects those with preexisting conditions, so those with those underlying conditions are statistically more likely to be severely affected and die from the virus.” This is your captain speaking, please return to your seats and remove your tin foil hats. Seriously? Like I’m legitimately flabbergasted that you guys are arguing that an article that says that there have been ZERO excess deaths this year is being shared and gawked over.

Maybe it was removed because it was bogus? That student article, produced by an undergrad with literally less qualifications than anyone on this forum, has no basis in real statistics. The TRUTH is that we’ve had over 300k excess deaths just until October, and probably tens of thousands since then. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm This is a bullshit quote from that article: ”All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded.” Wtf are you guys posting? Heres another dumbass quote: ”Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths.“ What? This article makes literally no sense. You guys really want to believe in the Illuminati and superhero’s and finding the “real truth.” Get it together. The truth is, excess deaths are calculated without any respect to cause of death. And every analysis of excess deaths - by the way, in dozens of countries - shows that there have been hundreds of thousands more deaths this year than there should have been, with a large portion being from folks 60+.

Totally possible for the EX, the C-model is kind of a lost cause for AGCAS.

This is the crux of the problem in current politics. We’re made to think we have significantly different views, but that’s because we basically have to choose one of two sides: 1) Dems: We aren’t doing enough and we need to lock everything down needlessly without considering one side 2) Repubs: We are doing too much and we need to remove everything we have done without considering one side In reality I think we probably look at the problem very similarly. We need more compromises. Honestly, this is where the president should “make his money,” by setting a national game plan and pushing down a path that hits both. Trump certainly didn’t do that well, and it doesn’t look like Biden’s going to, either. And when Biden encourages needless lock downs in cities with almost no one at risk, the cycle will continue.

First source I found said there were ~90k ventilators. Looked into it a bit more and it should likely be revised to 2-3 ventilators, as there are probably in the ballpark of 250k ventilators in America after the government bought some this year, although the exact number is unknown. https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0012-3692(20)34505-0/pdf

I don't actually understand your line of reasoning, although I tried. I'm definitely wrong on some other parts, but on this one (total hospitalizations and units) I'm pretty sure I've got it. To highlight the absurdity of 74,573 total hospitalizations over the course of COVID, there are 89,954 people hospitalized literally today, bro: https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-currently-hospitalized Also, the 228.7/100k is not the "will be hospitalized" figure. That is the current proportion of the total US population that has been hospitalized to this point. That number can and will only increase. For example, on August 22, it was 156.8/100k. On April 25 it was 40.4/100k. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/past-reports/05012020.html Agree. It's not 2.2M unless literally every person got it and they won't. That's a more fair way to look at it that doesn't include either bias, as you have to consider that the majority of the population won't get it. Although I will say that if we had gone with the "herd immunity" strategy that was initially touted as maximizing liberty, it probably would have been closer to 50-60%. And if we go with an open everything up now strategy, it will be a significant chunk, which I think 12% is maybe in the ballpark. I'm skeptical about your state info for the death rates for older folks being that low, as well. Hawaii has the absolute lowest overall death to covid ratio out of any state in America, and theirs is at 1.32%. Maybe you meant 4% and 9%? Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days

I like your way of looking at the problem and making it into a comparable scenario for a small city. It definitely highlights some of the absurdities, especially of how terrible stimulus bills are when it comes to actually helping out the people it's supposed to help: the American people. Other things that would be important, though, in that analysis would be that out of the 3300 people, 195 of them would be hospitalized at some point. 39 of them would need an ICU bed. There is only 1 ICU bed total in the town. 10 of them need a ventilator. There is only 1 ventilator. From this analysis, you can now see that there is a timing problem. And, for a slightly different opinion, I honestly think that we all should have to pay some money to get through this. Probably a couple grand. It sucks, but that's a small price to pay to ease the burdens of mother nature on society, in my opinion.

I found it, finally. But you have to calculate it yourself. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics That has total cases by demographics and total deaths so you can get death rate by dividing the two. 0-4: 0.03% death rate 5-17: 0.01% death rate 18-29: 0.05% death rate 30-39: 0.16% death rate 40-49: 0.41% death rate 50-64: 1.50% death rate 65-74: 5.59% death rate 75-84: 13.15% death rate 85+: 24.26% death rate So for your first statistic, that those under 70 had a 99.86% survival rate, I technically can't evaluate based on the ages. But we can look at 0-64 and 0-74 and see if you're somewhere in between. Turns out that there is a 0.47% death rate for the whole population 0-64 (or a 99.53% survival rate). 99.53% may look the same/insignificant, but it's actually a 230% higher death rate than your stat you threw out. If you go 0-74, then it's a 0.89% death rate for that population, which is a 530% higher death rate than your stat. It matters, because people throw out flu morbidity all the time, which is closer to 0.1%. Add in all the cases for the whole population of every age (as the flu's 0.1% does, by the way), and COVID, right now, today, has a 2.03% mortality rate, which is approximately 20 times higher than the flu. I totally understand that in the future they will say that this doesn't include all asymptomatic cases, so I expect this to go down, but there's the current "truth data" to go off of.