How can there not be a COVID-19 thread?

P_X said:
Great analogy...and sadly legitimate.
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It’s the opposite of educating yourself. It’s pulling contrary opinions out of your ass, sharing them on the internet and finding enough like-minded gullible rubes to make it a known group think.

We also live in a time when notorious bullshit spreader is actually a compliment and something to strive for, for some people. There’s no better example of this than Marjorie Taylor Green. She really couldn’t give less of a shit about the validity of what she says, only that it will hit well for a certain group of people and she’ll get national recognition for saying it.
 
Chew Toy McCoy said:
It’s the opposite of educating yourself. It’s pulling contrary opinions out of your ass, sharing them on the internet and finding enough like-minded gullible rubes to make it a known group think.

We also live in a time when notorious bullshit spreader is actually a compliment and something to strive for, for some people. There’s no better example of this than Marjorie Taylor Green. She really couldn’t give less of a shit about the validity of what she says, only that it will hit well for a certain group of people and she’ll get national recognition for saying it.
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2020 really changed my view on fake news. Before that year, my basic philosophy was that people sharing misinformation may be misguided but not malevolent, so if you put in time and effort to highlight falsities and factual errors could correct these issues. Last year what I've seen is that people spreading verifiably false information do it with an agenda now, and since it takes 100x more effort to debunk stupid shit appropriately, part of that agenda is to ensure I expend more effort than they do. Like it was really eye opening seeing Sedulous dropping clear lies over and over and over, about vaccines, about shootings, about influenza. He never backed up his statements just went somewhere else dropping more lies. This takes us to an era which I really dislike, but the only viable way to fight disinformation is to identify and discredit disinformers themselves.
 
P_X said:
2020 really changed my view on fake news. Before that year, my basic philosophy was that people sharing misinformation may be misguided but not malevolent, so if you put in time and effort to highlight falsities and factual errors could correct these issues. Last year what I've seen is that people spreading verifiably false information do it with an agenda now, and since it takes 100x more effort to debunk stupid shit appropriately, part of that agenda is to ensure I expend more effort than they do. Like it was really eye opening seeing Sedulous dropping clear lies over and over and over, about vaccines, about shootings, about influenza. He never backed up his statements just went somewhere else dropping more lies. This takes us to an era which I really dislike, but the only viable way to fight disinformation is to identify and discredit disinformers themselves.
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I was talking to somebody on another forum and they insisted that Snopes was just liberal nonsense; I countered that Snopes was never considered “liberal” by anybody until Trump showed up. They insisted that Trump was so (awesome?) that it caused the closet liberals at Snopes to lose their minds and attack him… and when I asked for any evidence, they pointed to a short, poorly written opinion piece in the Washington Times. Just utter nonsense coming from the right these days.
 
SuperMatt said:
I was talking to somebody on another forum and they insisted that Snopes was just liberal nonsense; I countered that Snopes was never considered “liberal” by anybody until Trump showed up. They insisted that Trump was so (awesome?) that it caused the closet liberals at Snopes to lose their minds and attack him… and when I asked for any evidence, they pointed to a short, poorly written opinion piece in the Washington Times. Just utter nonsense coming from the right these days.
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My MR frenemy also considered Snopes biased/propaganda. The guy eventually ran out of legit references, but he kindly used "liberal media" like the Hill to prove points.
 
SuperMatt said:
I was talking to somebody on another forum and they insisted that Snopes was just liberal nonsense; I countered that Snopes was never considered “liberal” by anybody until Trump showed up. They insisted that Trump was so (awesome?) that it caused the closet liberals at Snopes to lose their minds and attack him… and when I asked for any evidence, they pointed to a short, poorly written opinion piece in the Washington Times. Just utter nonsense coming from the right these days.
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I'll expand on my previous thought, because it is a long chess game and it kinda goes like this:

1. Disinformer makes up new shit (the more novelty the better as long as it blends a little with the current news)
2. Spreads it
3. Gets away with it a few times, until somebody fact checks them
4. They retreat and either spread the same disinfo elsewhere, or make up new stuff.
- A few people eat the disinfo up.
- A few people start focusing on the disinformer themself after debunking them the nth time
5. The critics amass and unite in calling out the disinformer
6. Disinformer pulls cancel culture card
7. This feeds into the confirmation bias of gullible/malevolent people who interpret this as not only the disinfo being true, but also important enough to spark a backlash.

Cycle restarts with a positive feedback loop.
 
SuperBillionaire said:
Republican governors are now imploring their residents to get vaccinated. After you spend months claiming the virus isn’t dangerous, or doesn’t exist, you have a hard time convincing those same people to follow you when you make a 180-degree turn?

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Sadly no surprises. Ironically these people not getting vaccinated are the "welfare queens/kings" of the situation, reaping the benefits from others being vaccinated.
 
Potatoes FTW

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theSeb said:
It seems that the UK government is going to simply scrap all restrictions in two weeks time and see what happens, whilst reminding the public about their personal responsibility.

An interesting take on this that I just read:

apple.news

There could be 15,000 unnecessary Covid deaths by January – and Boris Johnson will blame you — The Independent

Whenever we’ve relaxed restrictions prematurely it’s been said that the public didn’t obey the guidance – so it’s your own fault
apple.news apple.news
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It's gonna be a clusterfuck by September. This issue is, Israel is facing an uptick in cases because they vaccinated a great deal of people 6+ mo ago, and well, the Phase 3 efficacy number was based on data captured in a ~4mo period. So we are heading into an uncharted territory. Expect lower number of deaths, milder disease etc, but if the virus can spread it can mutate further and can be pushed to evolve to be more resistant to immunity induced by the current vaccines.

It is what it is, we'll need a booster at one point and probably before COVID season returns in the fall.
 
theSeb said:
I think it's going to become something that we have to live, to paraphrase Boris. I am expecting a large clusterfuck now that clubs, concert halls, sports venues and everything else can fully reopen and people can start to hug and lick each other as much as they want. It will be interesting to see how many people continue to use masks after the 19th of July.
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In my state they lifter indoor mask requirements (AFAIK) but the majority of people still wear it in the grocery store. It's ironic that I don't know about the updates anymore. I'll just keep on wearing a mask to indoor spaces where I go without the intent to socialize.
 
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