A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

@marynelson8

This is spot on. I've made the decision here to disengage with people who don't follow anyone else and don't ever respond to people who reply to them.

@augieray @panamared27401

I appreciate that! It would have been pointless, I'm sure, so we just moved on. It is what it is in large parts of the nation.

@augieray @panamared27401 I've alluded to this a few times on here, but never told the story. Honestly, I don't tell it because I don't want to scare people away from masking, but, this seems like a good spot to drop it.

We live in an area that voted close to 70% for Trump. I've worked from home since 2015 and started grocery delivery long before the pandemic, so going to the local store isn't something we do regularly anyway, but, one day last year we needed something and my wife decided to throw on a mask and run over there. She was followed around by a woman who started yelling at her and threatening her unless she took her mask off.

The manager of the grocery store called the police. When the officer got there he told my wife that she looked like a bank robber and should get out of there before he threw her in jail. He thanked the woman who threatened her for her service to the community.

We haven't gone out in public in our town since.

@lindyli Mark Meadows lied to get into Congress, too, and then parlayed that into Chief of Staff.

@cp4ever

Really looking forward to your posts about your sustainable life! We have some acreage we're hoping to move to this next year. It's off grid and getting power has been an issue, but I think we have a plan in place. Looking forward to tapping maple trees for the first time in a few months, hopefully, and getting our garden and fruit trees going.

@jordinn@zirk.us @TransitBiker

I think it's actually a really helpful post. I'd never thought about it before and it's 100% worthy of further thought. Thanks for sharing!

@jordinn@zirk.us @TransitBiker

Totally fair! I was looking at my own profile and I've followed over 600 people in 6 weeks. I've definitely thought before "Huh, I thought I followed them" and hit it(again?). If I had done it before then the second was probably within days, not weeks

I definitely do it whenever I find a compelling post in my timeline from someone I notice I'm not following.

@TransitBiker @jordinn@zirk.us

Exactly. I was just thinking I've probably been guilty of this by mistake. Oops!

@yaneerbaryam

If only she would just go away...

@tomwatson

Yes, the Republican Party is the guilty party here.

However, this is not the first time this has happened in recent years. It used to be incumbent upon local reporters to vet candidates. What's the mechanism for solving this problem going forward?

@danhon

This article is one of the worst kinds of reporting. The headline doesn't match up to the story at all, even though the article makes very valid points.

"They were given to “paid collectors and employees” who signed written agreements acknowledging that they were sending data streams, including video, back to the company for training purposes. According to iRobot, the devices were labeled with a bright green sticker that read “video recording in progress,” and it was up to those paid data collectors to “remove anything they deem sensitive from any space the robot operates in, including children.” "

...

"While the images shared with us did not come from iRobot customers..."

Feel the need to make it clear that I don't own a Roomba, and I'm suspicious of all tech capable of recording my family, to a point I guarantee is beyond the average person. Without the misleading title it's actually a pretty good article.

@fitterhappierAJ

If only people were paying attention they'd be forced to realize that that's a very important data point. I'm guessing all the average person knows of Sweden's response, however, is hearing DeSantis say "Be like Sweden" over and over.

@JanArz @DeanObeidallah

Glad you understand my point!

@ct_bergstrom

There's lots to unpack here, but:

Question authority --> Critical thinking.

Teach people to question authority and they'll start learning critical thinking and stop believing everything they read on the internet.

@augieray

This is bordering on what I've been thinking about regarding @ct_bergstrom and his long form post on scientific education this morning, but, it's not a strength because it's not ever emphasized to people. It really is too late for many things because it'll take the decision to change it, followed by the decision to change how it's taught to the next generation after that. It's probably at least a two generation process, sadly.

@augieray

Long term thinking isn't really a strength of our society.

@augieray

There's a few larger political points here and I don't want to ignore any of them but the bottom line is that the country's beholden to a corrupt public health system that's more than willing to bend over for capitalistic short term interests. Where Biden failed was refusing to do anything about that and then doubling down with "it's over" messaging.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's a "moment" that anyone will remember. The vast majority of people believe it's over in the real world and the conversation that it's not hasn't even begun.

@informatik

I read all of their speculation and how they got there, but there's no world in which only 500,000 people legitimately die of COVID with a predicted 800,000,000 infections.

500,000 would require mass manipulation of data(likely) or some sort of treatment on a scale that's unknown to the rest of the world.

@DeanObeidallah

This is how others(Mark Meadows, for example) got into Congress, too.

Almost seems like there should be actual vetting by real local journalists *before* an election or something...

@daveleeFT

I both felt that it was nice that his mom felt a connection to "it" and that the corporate capitalism seemed gross.

Taking a step back to the larger point, I guess is my wife or kids wanted such an avatar like that of me, like a moving picture, after I were gone it could be OK. But if someone wanted to pimp out my likeness to sell something I think it'd be creepy. Could just be me, though.