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lopatir2-Feb-20 5:27

2-Feb-20 5:27

BillWoodruff wrote:
Mutations can and will happen

As was predicted for SARS, as was predicted for bird flu, as was predicted for Ross River, as was predicted for AIDS, as was ....

the only reason "over-hyped news" sells is because people buy it.
- is that a Philbiner, or is it a true 'viral' sickness that over half the world has contracted.

after many otherwise intelligent sounding suggestions that achieved nothing the nice folks at Technet said the only solution was to low level format my hard disk then reinstall my signature. Sadly, this still didn't fix the issue!

Mark_Wallace2-Feb-20 5:56

2-Feb-20 5:56

lopatir wrote:
the only reason "over-hyped news" sells is because people buy it.

And the only reason SARS, etc. halted was because correct actions were taken.

If the result of taking the correct actions is that you have a load of otherwise useless medicine left over, you don't say "What a waste!", you say "Thank f*** for that!"

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

lopatir2-Feb-20 5:18

2-Feb-20 5:18

Probably should be in the [no-more] soapbox .. I didn't start it though

Cp-Coder wrote:
About 36,000 people in the USA die every year from flu

more than that die on the roads, yet there's not even an inoculation for that being considered let alone developed.

but seriously it's all about "what's new," flu is old, corona is new. (it's also a flu variant)
SARS is still out there, but that's yesterdays "epidemic." Ebola too - still very real, still very deadly.

reminds me when corona beer came out Aus/NZ - [had to be served "authentic" - in the bottle with a small slice of lemon jammed in the neck] - not because it was a good beer, it was "new" ... it was a fad, it was stupid (and too is still available though requests are uncommon).

We've been polluting the sea, rivers, forests for how long?
- Back in the 70's was a big thing; Earth was at most a couple of decades away from point of non return.
Global warming: it's also becoming a cold case, (govts as usual years behind are still talking it up.)
- Early 00's we were given MAX 10 years to fix it or hit non-return.
- apparently now we've ~~still~~ ONLY got 12 years left to fix it
-- clearly climate scientists are not just lousy liars, they're crap mathematicians too
--- (apart from counting the good money idiots threw at them to ~~find answers~~ sell more doom stories).

Now it's all about data protection / privacy, govt's after us, even the other govts are after us too
...alternating with electronic election ~~tampering~~ hacking when in season.

BillWoodruff2-Feb-20 5:25

BillWoodruff

2-Feb-20 5:25

lopatir wrote:
it's also a flu variant

It is not. I suggest you drink less conspiracy cola.

«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali

lopatir2-Feb-20 5:41

2-Feb-20 5:41

OK, accepted it's not a flu. I accept I made a mistake (over simplification.)

as to conspiracy - not me - in fact that's my point: the "news" is way larger than the truth.

Eddy Vluggen2-Feb-20 5:52

2-Feb-20 5:52

lopatir wrote:
in fact that's my point: the "news" is way larger than the truth.

There's video's on youtube where people claim to have a cure. Anything to get a few clicks so the ads keep showing. News has a financial incentive to turn everything into the end of the world. The millenium-problem wasn't, but it did a lot of damage, and might have done more damage without the alarmist kind of media.

Did you ever expect a serious headline of a government warning that something does NOT turn you into a zombie? Well, looks like that was actually required.

Coronavirus won't turn you into a 'zombie', says Malaysia - CNA[^]

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Mark_Wallace2-Feb-20 6:05

2-Feb-20 6:05

Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Coronavirus won't turn you into a 'zombie', says Malaysia - CNA[^]

From the article:
Police have arrested six people for spreading misinformation about the virus, a Malaysian Communications and Multimedia statement said.

Now there's a precedent that I'd like to see followed! Especially for people in public office, who should be above reproach.

Western "Abuse of Office" laws used to be enough, when the word "honour" was in the vocabulary of public officials, but they just don't go far enough, any more.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Eddy Vluggen2-Feb-20 6:57

2-Feb-20 6:57

Mark_Wallace wrote:
when the word "honour" was in the vocabulary of public officials

In a free market, honour is for sale.

But yes, you're right.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Greg Utas2-Feb-20 10:40

Greg Utas

2-Feb-20 10:40

Eddy Vluggen wrote:
In a free market, honour is for sale.

As opposed to where, a socialist paradise or dictatorship? A truly free market doesn't even have many "public officials", and those that exist don't have any favours to sell.

Eddy Vluggen2-Feb-20 10:46

2-Feb-20 10:46

Greg Utas wrote:
As opposed to where, a socialist paradise or dictatorship

You're acting as if politics and economic models are interchangeable. They're not. A dictatorship may have a free market, where democracies may have a heavily (state)controlled market.

Greg Utas wrote:
A truly free market

Exists only in theory, as should be. Some things, like humans, are not acceptable to be traded.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Greg Utas2-Feb-20 11:01

Greg Utas

2-Feb-20 11:01

The main point I was trying to make is that honour can be for sale anywhere. Utopia is not an option.

I think you meant to say that politics and economics are interchangeable, because you gave examples of a dictatorship/free market and a democracy/controlled market.

If a market is free, then a dictator cannot restrict any voluntary exchanges within it, so that leaves the dictator little scope. And if a market is free, each person must own themselves and their labour, so talk of trading humans is a red herring.

Eddy Vluggen2-Feb-20 11:20

2-Feb-20 11:20

Greg Utas wrote:
The main point I was trying to make is that honour can be for sale anywhere.

It is, but in the modern market money is cheap, and thus is honour.

Greg Utas wrote:
I think you meant to say that politics and economics are interchangeable, because you gave examples of a dictatorship/free market and a democracy/controlled market.

No, they're not interchangeable. The examples include combinations of politics and market-mechanics that disprove the idea that everything socialist is bad, as well that "free" isn't.

Greg Utas wrote:
If a market is free, then a dictator cannot restrict any voluntary exchanges within it

Most dictatorships have a more "free" market than Europe. We regulate the market, and do not allow for the sales of people; -edit- or if you find that a herring, then drugs, medicine, wildlife as pets, guns, cigarettes, anything we call "illegal". -/edit-

..and the US, with its sanctions, tries to regulate the global market; including deciding for us from where we buy our gas and oil.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Greg Utas2-Feb-20 11:36

Greg Utas

2-Feb-20 11:36

Eddy Vluggen wrote:
in the modern market money is cheap

It sure is, when central banks can create it virtually without limit.

Eddy Vluggen wrote:
and the US, with its sanctions, tries to regulate the global market

Because of this hubris, they are slowly losing the privilege of having the world's reserve currency, and rightfully so.

Eddy Vluggen2-Feb-20 5:39

2-Feb-20 5:39

lopatir wrote:
Ebola too - still very real, still very deadly.

Didn't cause a city of 11 million to be quarantained.

lopatir wrote:
Earth was at most a couple of decades away from point of non return.

That hasn't been proven wrong yet Suspicious | :suss:

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

lopatir2-Feb-20 6:12

2-Feb-20 6:12

Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Earth was at most a couple of decades away from point of non return.

Nobody's asking the second* most important question.

If Earth has at most 2 decades left what's going to be first to fulfill it:

1. pollution
2. global warming
3. epi/pandemic
4. nuclear winter
5. global ice age
6. Bruce Willis fails to divert that pesky asteroid
... (c'mon, he's got to be getting too old for that sort of carry on?)

Sub question: excluding #6 will humankind achieve it with AI or without AI.
Bonus Sub Question: is Bruce Willis an AI?
Disclaimer: Ape evolution theory soundly rejected - my question, my rules!

* the first-most important question was asked in the HHGTTG

Eddy Vluggen2-Feb-20 6:55

2-Feb-20 6:55

lopatir wrote:
If Earth has at most 2 decades left what's going to be first to fulfill it:

There's no "first"; we're already facing multiple problems as a species.

Reuters[^] wrote:
Tepco, has collected nearly 1.2 million tonnes of contaminated water [..] The water is stored in huge tanks that crowd the site.

..and they plan to dump it in the ocean. I assume we can afford that bit of pollution Smile | :)

Next to pollution, there's a global economy that's rather sickly. The virus-outbreak will have an economic impact. If we have less money, we will spend less on things that seem to influence us little, like protecting the environment from pollution.

One problem makes the other problems worse. It's not one thing that Bruce Willis faces, but movies cannot have the required ending if they depict a convergence of things we don't want to hear.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

dandy723-Feb-20 9:01

dandy72

3-Feb-20 9:01

lopatir wrote:
more than that die on the roads, yet there's not even an inoculation for that being considered

That's because you can't fix stupid.

lopatir wrote:
let alone developed.

Some people are presenting self-driving cars as the (long-term) solution for that.

Eddy Vluggen2-Feb-20 5:30

2-Feb-20 5:30

The flu has been with us for a long time, and our immune-system can often handle it. The death-rate is low; the number of deaths in the US is large, because a lot of people are infected with the flu, multiple times a year. It's only a threat to people with a weak immune-system, which is why I get a free vaccine each year.

There's no such vaccine for the corona-virus, and it is something new for our immune-systems. One would also not expect a city of 11 million to be quarantined for something like the flu. Still, that happened.

Selina Wang on Twitter: "Latest #coronavirus stats: 11,949 cases, 259 deaths. Still too early to gauge death rate, but this @businessinsider chart puts #CoronavirusOutbreak into perspective. The 2009 H1N1 flu eventually became one of the seasonal flu[^]

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Mark_Wallace2-Feb-20 5:50

2-Feb-20 5:50

Now, now. Don't play the first-year student telling the 30-year veteran programmer he's not doing his job properly.

The WHO has a huge number of highly experienced medical scientists on its roster -- not just doctors (a large proportion of whom are as thick as two short planks), and not just politicians (who will say, naysay, or gainsay any kind of bollocks, just to get votes).

There are times when you have to trust that professionals have done their due diligence.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

lopatir2-Feb-20 6:21

2-Feb-20 6:21

Mark_Wallace wrote:
There are times when you have to trust that professionals have done their due diligence.

Packed the contents of their safes* ready to move into the heavily guarded underground shelters.

* diamonds, US$ and Euro's for those pretentious frogs - money will still matter among their peers.

Mark_Wallace2-Feb-20 6:53

2-Feb-20 6:53

I know that you follow people who can't be trusted, but you have to remember that the vast majority of people are not like them.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Gerry Schmitz2-Feb-20 6:32

Gerry Schmitz

2-Feb-20 6:32

This has the potential to overwhelm ALL health systems with sheer numbers.

It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food

RossMW2-Feb-20 7:19

RossMW

2-Feb-20 7:19

Quote:
36,000 people in the USA

The big heal is for two reasons.
- The figure you quoted is the outcome after vaccination
- The death rate for the flu is roughly 0.2% of the infections. Coronavirus is averaging about 2.5 to 3% death rate and this figure would be a lot higher when it gets to 3rd world countries

Hence, as there is no vaccination yet for coronavirus the death rate in USA would be significantly higher, if it is left to chance.

A Fine is a Tax for doing something wrong
A Tax is a Fine for doing something good.

Cp-Coder2-Feb-20 10:07

Cp-Coder

2-Feb-20 10:07

Your point is well taken. But I guess my point is that we should take flu in all its forms more seriously. It can kill in any variant. And the current flu shots here in the USA are not very effective. My entire extended family of 7 people got their shots a couple of months back. And 6 of the 7 came down with the flu a couple of weeks ago. Mad | :mad: