After everything that has happened I know of a trained medical professional who is still dismissing COVID as just "the flu".

Like sure...if you ignore that it is twice as infectious, twenty times as deadly and there is no established vaccine or treatment protocol and even just the testing protocols are spotty...then yes. Just like the flu...

Whilst commonplace usage of "flu" to mean "bad cold" makes that really awful, the current plague has a mortality of about a third the rate of actual influenza across the entire population, and a tenth that of virulent strains like the Spanish Flu; I think the statistic you have is specific to individuals of 60+, who don't often die of normal flu, but are dying relatively often of this thing because we don't have an effective treatment yet.

Your medical acquaintance needs a slap, though, for sure. They do not sound competent and are clearly causing people fear and alarm, which makes them do dumb things like cram themselves into shops to hoard stuff and spread viruses faster than hospitals can cope.

Twice as infectious and twenty times as deadly. While younger people are not dying at the same rates they are still being hospitalized and taxing the system.

Looking at NYC numbers, 10% of people 0-44 get hospitalized and 20% of people 45-64 identified are hospitalized.

Now granted those numbers are biased because it's only people with serious symptoms getting tested but that hospitalization rate is what is really concerning. Yes it isn't as fatal as 1918 flu but we also have a LOT better medicine now. Looking at what is happening in Italy when their medical system gets taxed makes you realize this could be as bad as 1918 but we have a 100+ years of medical knowledge and tech under our belts.

Remember that any numbers you see only include the people who actually get tested, aka at best usually only those who present severe symptoms, and in time to seek help.  I wish stats by country also showed the total population of the country, and percentage of that population that are getting tested, besides whether that country has any shortage of tests, as so many of them do.

There isn't all of it obviously, but the most complete stats (as far as I know anyway) can be found here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Look, you can't have it both ways, boss.

I'm a shift supervisor at work, but I'm basically just a regular employee with a pay bump for taking some administrative tasks off of the salaried supervisor's plates.  Said supervisor (called a team coach) has been hounding me for a few weeks about a relatively new employee to our group, saying that he wants her working independently of her trainer as soon as possible.

I'd be delighted to do so, but our training was shot all to heck during the initial pandemic panic (training was suspended for several weeks), then we were all furloughed for three weeks, then they wouldn't let us train for another two weeks.  Now that training has resumed, but due to availability of material to run, we haven't been working on the same machine for more than three days in a row.

It takes a week or more to train someone on a position on these machines, because even if the job is very similar, the machines were built at different times and thus have have different controls, different specs, and different quirks.  Spending two days at one machine, and then two days at another doesn't suddenly mean our trainee is ready to go solo on either!

On top of that, because our trainee has the lowest seniority, she keeps getting pulled from our work group to go do jobs in other groups she was in previously if those groups have higher priority.

Golly gee, team coach, I can't imagine why our trainee can't manage to sign off on any one job if she can't work on the same machine more than three days in a row once every two weeks!

Write down the trainee's work schedule for the past X weeks showing which task s/he did. Keep it current. Show it to shift supervisor at need. Mention, it true, that trainee is standing up well to all this moving around.

We've got our training recorded in the system, but the team coach thinks because he used to work on the floor 30 years ago that he knows everything about training and running the machines, etc, despite the fact that our products and industry standards have changed drastically in three decades. *le sigh*

You know how when you go to delete a game here you have to check off “I have given all my players due notice.“?

There is a certain GM (I won’t publicly shame him) on this site that just deletes without any notification. Didn’t post a message about it, didn’t PM, didn’t rmail, nothing.

I’m sorry that’s been your experience. We don’t don’t do public shaming here regardless.

In reply to Harley Quinn (msg # 1563):

That's rough, I hate it when that happens. If I know a game is ending, I want to be able to say my goodbyes and maybe make plans with the other players to move to a different game.

At least you can still rMail the other players from the cast list, although I don't think there's a way to get in touch with them as a group rather than individually.

NOTE: While this is ABOUT politics I will not be talking ABOUT politics

So I think I just lost a group of friends I've had for nearly 30 years. We have been on the opposite sides of the political spectrum but it rarely was an issue for us because we would just talk about other things. Given the state of the world however it has been harder and harder and despite several arguments in the past and everyone agreeing to keep politics out of the discord several of them have continued to post inflammatory things and then get upset when I disagreed and critiqued their posted blogs/videos/whatever. I try to be respectful but I also don't believe in staying silent as for me, silence is acceptance. If you post X and I stay silent, it's implied that at least have a neutral opinion about it.

The problem is that I LOVE good political discourse. I chat with other friends all the time about politics and in fact I have several friends with advanced degrees in economics and political science so it's all just a big intellectual thought exercise to me. I believe the things that I believe and will say so but I hold no expectations that I will ever get to execute those beliefs on any scale beyond the voting booth.

That being said I also think that if you post something political, you should expect to get challenged on it and be respectful of contrary views. There are political views I hold in very low esteem but I try to treat the speaker with respect. I believe that all my friends are, fundamentally, good people and we are all just computing machines so they have received a different set of inputs than I. If I had lived their life I would probably believe the same things they do.

My goal isn't to convert or preach but just to have a fun discussion, or at least a thoughtful one. I love it when people point out flaws in my ideas and I try to return the favor.

The problem though is that they repeatedly post...less reputable sources that are difficult to talk about without bringing it up. I typically post works by well-respected scholars IN THEIR FIELD OF STUDY while they usually respond with random youtubers or blogs with questionable sources, or if there is an advanced degree than in something other than the topic at hand. For example, if you have a PhD in Chemistry, great you're a smart dude, but that doesn't mean you're automatically an expert on theoretical economic systems or the use of political currency in an system of power. Now they might be right but their opinion is not an expert one. If I post information by several leading world renowned economists and they post a blog about economic theory from a psychologist you is basically just a professional streamer, those are not equally weighted opinions.

Anyway so they would post a video and I would critique it. Point out that the author has strong financial ties, demonstrates logical fallacies or their non-expert opinions run contrary to a lot of expert research and consensus and they would get mad about it. We would fight, things would cool off, apologies all around and we would swear off politics.

And then THEY would post again. THEY would be the ones to violate the cease fire but when I would respond, I'm the bad guy. I'm the one bringing politics into things. Now I admit it is my fault for taking the bait but I do think it is unfair that I am being blamed for REACTING to what they are SAYING.

Anyway I critiqued one of their sources because the author was attacking political group X by completely mischaracterizing it. I argued against it and they said "Well what do you know?" and I said "Well I identify as group X. I think they are right." and they LOST. THEIR. SHIT.

Calling me evil. Saying I hate my country. Saying that this means I want them dead. On and on and on. I kept saying "No, that isn't what I believe" but it was like talking to a brick wall. All of them just started ganging up on me attacking me with some strawman of my beliefs. They showed ZERO interest in actually letting me explain further but were just focusing on this propoganda strawman they had built up. It was all ad hominems too. I wasn't the person they thought I was. I was a dirty rotten <expletive> for even saying that.

So I tried reaching out to individual people and some of them actually gave me a chance to speak. Within 5 minutes of me clarifying that political group X is not a boogeyman but is very simply this this and this, they were like "ohhh, okay." and it was fine. But some of them weren't. They just dug their heels in and their logic was "X is evil. I believe in X. Therefore I am evil." I told them REPEATEDLY that I didn't actually believe in the things they said I did but they wouldn't budge.

They called me ignorant and naive, saying I didn't know what I was talking about. It took everything in me not to respond "I LEARNED THIS DIRECTLY FROM SOMEONE WHO THIS WAS THEIR PHD DOCTORAL THESIS. YOU LEARNED THIS FROM A WORLD RENOWNED CONSPIRACY THEORIST." but it was too late. Because they had been primed, PRIMED to respond with absolute revulsion at a single word they immediately shut down all discourse. Their minds were shielded, absolutely bulletproof when I tried to point them and show them that what they thought X was, wasn't true.

Finally the ones that wouldn't listen just told me to leave them alone. They had the AUDACITY to call me disloyal and a bad friend even though I was soaking up horrible horrible things from them and all I was asking was a 5 minute conversation to explain myself where they would listen. Again things I wanted to say to them but couldn't was "YOU'RE THE ONE CRAPPING ON OUR FRIENDSHIP BECAUSE YOU WON'T LISTEN. YOU'RE THE ONE WALKING AWAY, NOT ME!! DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME A BAD FRIEND OF DISLOYAL."

/sigh. I just...it sickens me. Not that they have their beliefs and they are different than mine. That's fine. That's normal. No ideology has all the answers and if you approach it with an open mind and deep research you'll find that it can be a little like a buffet. I'll take a little of this economic policy, a scoop of that social policy, a side of this legal framework. One size does not fit all.

But to be so close minded. To be so willing to trash almost THIRTY YEARS of friendship over a label? If it were me I would at least say "Well, we've been friends for 30 years. Help me understand your positon." But nope. One word. One label is all it takes to make them think that I am going to break down their doors and drag them into the street. That isn't even hyperbole. They BOTH told me that's what I was going to do to them because I believed in X.

So that stings, that after all this time I don't get any shred of credibility. That some random youtuber carries more weight in telling me what I believe in then I do. Then on top of that you're going to insult me to? Tell me I'M BEING THE BAD FRIEND? I AM THE ONE BEING IGNORANT?

Please. I've got like 30 Nobel Prize winners in my camp. You've got anonymous web trolls. And I'm the one that is being naive.

UGGGGHH.....

I'm sorry that was your experience, prague. That sucks.

Sometimes, with friends, the most shocking thing with politics is when you didn't realize that your friend was part of Politic Group Whatever You Don't Like, and then find it out at a later date. Now, you'd think that most people would be able to (it seems in this day and age) pretty reliably guesstimate where people stand, but sometimes they can't. Sometimes they're willfully ignorant. Sometimes, they convince themselves otherwise, and when informed in no uncertain terms that they were wrong - they lose it.

I'm not saying that makes it right to treat you the way they did, because that's just plain wrong, but maybe I can understand the being upset. Once upon a time, I had a group of close friends - good friends, people who hung out with me on my birthdays, babysat my kids, those folks that you talk to every day about every thing. We shared similar hobbies, similar lifestyles, and I thought, similar ideals...and then I found out, practically en masse, that all - ALL - of them were part of a group that I consider myself diametrically opposed to. It was a shock. Like being punched in the gut. And while we had no large falling out (thank goodness), the truth was - I could never look at them the same way again. Because I *hadn't* seen it for so long, once I knew, it was all I *could* see.

Some people react badly to that, because it makes them feel foolish, or stupid, so they lash out.
This message was last edited by the user at 13:38, Sat 11 July 2020.

Okay but 2020, is just getting stranger and stranger. Locally we had a naked lady running around and biting people. Who has zombie apocalypse for July ?

In reply to belovedshadows (msg # 1568):

I’m just waiting for the 2020 boss level. Going to be freakin’ awesome!!!

Aliens were scheduled for August. I don’t know if that has changed. Tough to keep track with nonstop rewrites.

In reply to praguepride (msg # 1570):

Local Aliens or Extra Terrestrial Aliens ?
Locals can include supernatural types, just to be clear.

For sure. The core of the matter is that one has to be very, very lucky to be so unaffected by politics as to treat it all as a logic puzzle. Sometimes it's less Politics You Don't Like and more Politics That Will Get You Killed, and some people don't want to reckon with their own place in an unfair world that doesn't have to be if they'd just put their backs into changing it.

As a non-political example, the linguistic bias of the English language that enshrined an official male default in certain Anglophone countries in the 1930s/40s led to no-one ever thinking to make female-shaped crash test dummies or bulletproof vests, causing a higher percentage of female-shaped human beings to subsequently be killed in crashes/shootings. That's no one person's fault, no grand conscious conspiracy to murder that category of person, just a lot of men unconsciously spending their lives cradle to testing-room thinking 'he' was the default state of a human with nothing to snap them out of it, due to a language and culture that prioritised their bodies and their participation in nascent automobile safety. Those car-crashed or war-shot women who might have been anything had they lived no longer exist, and didn't have to die. Passive bias doesn't make those people any less dead than someone with active hatred and an axe, though.

So social bias is a variable one has to take into account here, like...does this chemistry teacher have a lifetime's experience of being born a [person type] if they're talking about policy that disproportionately affects that type and the "reputable" sources are all [other person type with typically greater access to academia] taught on books written by [that type] with 0 years experience being [affected type]. If so, the decades of practical rather than merely theoretical experience needs factored in above all else. If not, then they're just a chem teacher spouting off.

With apologies to praguepride if those ex-friends were terrified to a truly remarkable extent by the big S, it's just that I've met an awful lot of bad faith "debate lovers" who can't apply that bit of basic scientific rigour, and thus can't actually be politically debated any more than someone who's looked at lots of pictures of cars driving around can be trusted to fix one, and had to add that.

Also, that if someone wants other people to cease to exist for how they were born - actively or passively, axe or deliberately cultivated ignorance - then they cannot and should not be respected or tolerated. Desiring harm to others, no matter how nebulously, for nothing they have done or chosen to be - that is, deliberate and baseless cruelty - is incompatable with being a good person.

While things have been fairly civil and not too insulting, let's move the topic back off politics, please.

Let's keep this a politics free zone.

I shudder to imagine. I mean it really is like a game of Jumangji

Close the door!

I work in an un-air-conditioned factory that, in summer, frequently reaches to over 100 F on the floor, oftentimes with fairly high humidity.  There are air conditioning units in the offices and break rooms, but I swear some people think they are trying to cool the great outdoors.

My shared office is not even ten feet square, and contains a mini fridge, large office printer, and two computers (in addition to the two people who use it at any given time).  So the AC unit had plenty of heat to battle already, in addition to the general heat outside.  And yet a shocking amount of people, ranging from the supervisor, crew members looking to ask questions, or my co-worker, will just open the door and stand there with the door open nice and wide, the AC merrily chugging all the cold air directly out the door onto the sweltering factory floor.  They seem completely oblivious to the fact that they just turned the nice cool office into a barely tepid room, rapidly turning into one as hot at the outside while they stand there and blab.

Now, they could be sharing the nice cool office while they talk to me if they'd just shut the ding-dang door, but no, it seems that many of them were born in a barn and think nothing of leaving the door gaping wide.  I've taking to snapping out "shut the door!" almost as soon as they get inside, if it looks like they're going to keep it open while they talk "just for a minute".  It's never a minute.  Between the mandated masks, the loudness of the factory floor, and that at least one of the talkers is usually wearing earplugs, there's always a lot of "What?" going back and forth before we understand what's being asked.

Take the full step inside, shut the door, talk in the quiet cool.  Don't talk through the open door while the AC struggles to cool planet Earth!

In reply to Isida KepTukari (msg # 1575):

They don't care of how much electricty is being used or that the company has to pay for it either. Allot of people are just oblivious to the world around them.
Stuff like that makes me want to put those hydrolic door arms on the door, to pull the door closed automatically. Set it strong enough and maybe someone will get a clue.

It's not even the electricity (goodness knows we waste more running the machines than we could ever use up on the AC units), it's the fact that they blatantly let the office get warm.  If someone did that in the break room or their personal offices, they'd raise heck, but because it's my office, for some reason they seem to think because it's small they can just open the door and leave it open to talk.

It actually takes a bit of time to cool it down again, and the heat is punishing enough that I don't want my cool-down room to be constantly lukewarm.

It's the discourtesy more than the energy consumption I find particularly maddening.

Can you lock your door?  I imagine that would learn 'em right quick.

Can't. They don't give us keys, and the office is shared by eight people over four shifts. I just have to drill common courtesy into these AC-wasting fools.