@freemo dipshit.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe Ahh good, you forgot to throw in the personal insult to show your opinions are meaningless... glad you remembered to add that!

@freemo your ignorance offends me.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

I'm literally just repeating what you said as fact.. so if that seems like ignorance and offends you, imagine how I feel reading it when you said it?

@freemo you expect sane thoughts from a collectivist
@BetaCuck4Lyfe

@bonifartius

I dont expect sane thoughts from any human on the internet, and not too many of them in person either.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

@freemo that's the spirit :)

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

@freemo you're a native American?

Did you know that feom 2019 to 2021, the life expectancy for native Americans fell from 71.8 years to 65.2, with Covid largely to blame?

No real cost though, right, Tech guy?

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

Yes I am a native american. Penobscot tribe.

> Did you know that feom 2019 to 2021, the life expectancy for native Americans fell from 71.8 years to 65.2, with Covid largely to blame?

Sure did.

> No real cost though, right, Tech guy?

Huh, I never uttered those words... you are arguing with ghosts of things I never said.... YOU are the one who claimed all of our efforts were for nothing because COVID levels are exactly where they were... YOU.

I find it hilarious you are offended and fighting against your own words parroted back to you.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

Why would you say nonsense like that? I care deeply about them, which is why after you pointing out all those deaths would be exactly the same with or without the quarintines in the end, since eventually quarintines end and as you point out they changed and would change nothing...

The real question is why dont YOU care about all those dead people who have now died for absolutely nothing other than to be leveraged to bankrupt everyone? That sounds like a huge disgrace to those lives, to let them die for less than nothing.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

"No effect, yep. Perfectly sane thing to say. Tell me, where'd you get your virology diploma?"

I didnt say it had no effect... YOU are the one sitting here claiming that despite all that effort the levels are exactly the same... YOU said it had no effect... im just responding to what you are telling us.

So there real question is where did YOU get your degree?

@freemo we're done here, guy

@BetaCuck4Lyfe Thank god! Couldnt handle much more of that level of stupid...

@freemo fucking dumbass.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe Yup, pretty sure anyone who repeats what you said, like I did, will ultimately look like a "fucking dumbass".... seems you learned the point of this interactions afterall, wonderful!

@freemo the quarantines kept people alive until vaccines and treatments could be developed. It also provided time for the respirator industry to catch up to demand. The respirators, vaccines and treatments saved lives. Wouldn’t you say that was worthwhile?

@hozhoogoo

Yup sure was, which is why this thread is about me being upset someone implied all that effort had no effect on the numbers, particularly when its objectively a lie.

from where I stand, it looks like you misread the initial post. "Covid infection rates are near what they were in the initial outbreak." doesn't mean the measures had no effect as you took it, it just means that the risk is high *again*. and then, "But go ahead and see your movie. Send your kids to school unmasked. No problems there" is meant as ironic counter-advise, but you seem to have taken it literally. and then, once you signaled disagreement to each other, you both have been stabbing at each other as if the other was an irresponsible ignoramus, but what I get from both is violent agreement and misreading of each other. try to read it as if you'd written it yourself, maybe; there has to be some way for you both to see that you've been misreading each other

@lxo

Except that the current infection rates arent even half of what they were at the begining in the UK nor 1/10th of what they were in the begining in the USA.

So this is a lie that ultimately helps the anti-vaxxers since it suggests the vaccine did nothing, when in fact it made a HUGE difference in rates.

are you both talking about the same rates? infections/day, infections/exposures, or something else? also, how far back are you going when you say "the beginning". I insist, violent agreement, possibly with jargon getting in the way.

@lxo

I'd be happy to hear if the other party had some facts to back up their claims of course or if they meant something obscure...

but infections per day is what i was talking about with th enumbers I stated, though my statements would also be true if we talk about "total number of people infected at any one moment" and even infections per exposure... none of these even approach pre-mandate levels.

I am a COVID research scientist and am intimately familiar with the numbers around COVID and there is **nothing** about the current numbers to suggests they are at or near pre-mandate levels... not infection rate, nor infection count, nor any other metric... As a scientist I am happy to hear someone is making a fact based argument, but there is no indication of that being the case here.

Worse yet when called out for being wrong I saw no effort on their part to either correct themselves or clarify.

pre-mandate =?= initial outbreak

@lxo

The rates were even higher on day one since no immunity had formed in anyone yet... so even then they would be factually wrong.

erhm... there was a day very early in the outbreak when the rate was a few infections per day, before it spread and grew. it depends on how far back you go. I still recall the dread with which I heard of the first few cases in Brazil, then the first deaths in Brazil. it was no different elsewhere, except people weren't watching it as closely yet when it got to some other places. but it did go through a phase in which there were fewer infections per day than we have now, and there were times when they were much higher, therefore there was a time when they were about the same as today. and who are we to say that that wasn't just the time when someone started paying attention to it, and so refers to it as "the initial outbreak"?

@lxo Oh your talking about the total number of people in the world infected... In that case the number at the begining of the pandemic was 1... so at that point its just nonsensical a statement to make at all. So still not really a honest statement to make in any useful way.

That said the issue here is not if you can somehow twist what he said into something that can be technically true or not... its the fact that it is a harmful statment, misleading at best, flat out wrong at worst. And instead of making any attempt to actually discuss it they went straight to personal attacks...

It is their behavior and response to the criticism, very valud criticism, without any care for the facts, that leads me to have issue with this. Someone simply being mistaken or presenting misleading information unintentionally in and of itself isnt the issue.

I'm suggesting ways in which what is written there can be read in a perfectly reasonable way. your response made it clear you've done no such search, you jumped at one interpretation you disagreed with, and responded in a way, if I weren't familiar with your earlier stances, would have suggested that you were the one minimizing the harm brought about by covid-19. and that appears to be the way the interlocutor read it. and it went down the hill from there. thus my diagnosis of violent agreement, and that you're both talking past each other.

@lxo

The interpritations you offered is not a "perfectly reasonable way"... they are technically factually true, but still very unreasonable to compare where we are now with the start of the epidemic (which had a single starting case).

> your response made it clear you've done no such search

How ya figure, during my discussion I provided actual figures for various points of time and various locations... this shows quite the opposite that I did in fact did a search and made sure to speak from fact.

> you jumped at one interpretation you disagreed with, and responded in a way, if I weren't familiar with your earlier stances, would have suggested that you were the one minimizing the harm brought about by covid-19.

That is true, I mocked the original posted and responded sarcastically. I can indeed see how someone might miss that sarcasm and think I was being literal.

However, once that confusion was apparent I explicitly stated I was being sarcastic... at which point they no longer had any excuse to lean on a mistake in communication, because it was cleared up. Yet they continued to act the way they did.

So while this may excuse the initial response, it does not excuse the fact that, once corrected, they continued to respond the way they did.

> and that appears to be the way the interlocutor read it

Sure but when explicitly told they read it wrong and this was explained this excuse evaporates, and their behavior continued.

> and it went down the hill from there.

As one would except when the other party made an assumption about my stance and then ignored me when I clarified their mistake... you can blame them for the initial misunderstanding but not the continued behavior once thsi was clarified.

> thus my diagnosis of violent agreement, and that you're both talking past each other.

Im not sure its violent agreement, we have the same intent perhaps (we see covid as real and serious)... but that is not the same on agreeing that what he said wasnt massively harmful to the community. Intent only gets you so far. Suggesting we are in the same state now, by any objective metric, as we were before the vaccine is either highly misleading, and harmful, or blatantly wrong, and therefore just as harmful.

@TheGreatLlama

The point is, he is wrong.. the vaccines and mandates DID help. If it werent for them COVID levels would be much higher, and no, they arent at the same levels as before the vaccine.

Claiming the COVID levels are uneffected by the mandates and vaccine and after years of it we are exactly at the same levels as before is 1) anti-vaxx covid misinformation and 2) extremely harmful nonsense.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

@freemo @BetaCuck4Lyfe
Pretty sure you are completely misrepresenting the spirit of his initial post and you used it as an excuse to highlight all the unfortunate side effects of quarantine.

Maybe you really do need your ears checked out.

@TheGreatLlama

I am not saying the point of the post was to discourage people from vaccinating... I am sure he decided to make up that lie about the levels being uneffected by mandates cause he thought he was being clever.

But the truth is regardless of what he intended to say, the fact is he lied, and that lie is one that is extremely harmful to getting people vaccinated or addressing the issue of COVID.

People spouting nonsense about levels being uneffected by 2 years of vaccine and mandates is NOT what people need to hear right now regardless of how well intentioned such a lie may be.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

@freemo @BetaCuck4Lyfe
Seems like it's pretty easy to make a statement that is imprecise and vulnerable to misunderstanding. Perhaps you should reread what he initially posted and what you initially posted. He never said that covid levels were *unaffected*. Nothing of the sort in fact.

Knowing that Beta well enough to know his intent, I read your post as antivax/antimask/anti-lockdown and I'm quite sure he did as well. If it's still unclear, his point was that current infection rates are spiking and it would be good to take the kind of precautions you were early on. If you want to argue more specifically than that, maybe go find someone who actually is doing covid denial to fight with.

@TheGreatLlama

So a lot to unroll here....

> Perhaps you should reread what he initially posted and what you initially posted. He never said that covid levels were *unaffected*. Nothing of the sort in fact.

Yes you are right, his wording was something more like, the levels are the same as before the mandate (since he blocked me I cant actually see the original wording).

> Knowing that Beta well enough to know his intent, I read your post as antivax/antimask/anti-lockdown

Why are you trying to divine someones intent rather than trying to figure out which facts are accurate and thus enable us to address problems? I dont know what his intent is, but it doesnt matter, he lied and that lie is harmful, he was called out for that lie.

If his intent was as you say, his response would be "oh my bad, let me correct this information so i dont hurt people"... I dont care if his intent is good, if it leads him to hurt people its not right.

As for reading my post as anti-* I can get that, my post was (obviously, as can see by the thread) sarcasm and mocking him for his very harmful "fact" and showing how and why that is harmful. Sadly sarcasm doesnt always translate well on the internet. But thankfully my responses make it quite clear im not anti-vax and just mocking him. So even if he or you made that mistake early on, not a big deal since I explicitly clarify it later anyway.

So whats the problem, as long as you are engaging people honestly with the facts on hand, and not trying to read their mind to gather intent, then that misunderstanding doesnt seem like a huge problem int he end.

> If it's still unclear, his point was that current infection rates are spiking and it would be good to take the kind of precautions you were early on.

If that is what he wanted to say, despite the fact that he said something different, then once the error in his original post was pointed out why didnt he correct his wording to me more clear rather than doubling downa nd attacking someone for being called out on claiming harmful information?

Saying rates are spiking is fair and worth mentioning... But trying to say its at the level it was before th4e mandates is a harmful lie, especially when the levels now are not even close to those levels (in some of the worst places its still 1/2 the rate, and in places like the usa its much smaller, at least 1/10th the rate or less depending on which data you go by).

Saying rates are going up is good, saying rates are exactly the same as pre-vaccine pre-mandate, that is no ok, regardless of intent it is a lie, it is harmful, full stop. Anyone who cared would have corrected their wording.

> If you want to argue more specifically than that, maybe go find someone who actually is doing covid denial to fight with.

I had no desire to "fight" with anyone. My original post didnt attack him, it addressed the content. He came back with personal insults and a fight rather than a discussion, or **any** willingness to listen to why they are causing harm or any willingness to do less harm.

The problem is exactly what you pointed out earlier.. his goal is not and never was to help the COVID community, thats just his mask. He is here to insult people and start shit and just is looking for a way to justify that as morally right.

This is obvious because both him and you were more concerned with "whose side is this guy really on" rather than "Are the things i am saying helpful and correct, are the things he is saying factually correct"? When people deal with the person rather than the substance of an argument, then you probably never had any intent to care about the substance of the topic to begin with, you came here just to white knight and let of some steam.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

@freemo @BetaCuck4Lyfe
Whew... Got better things to do than dig into that. Think whatever you like bro.

@TheGreatLlama

Then why did you waste mytime and engage in a long drawn out discussion when your intent was to just refuse to actually have a discussion and waste my time giving you the respect of listening, considering, and responding, if your intent going in was to be offended you would even need to read my response?

You really dont see how your acting like a child right now I guess huh? I mean until this point you did seem represent and i had high hopes. But clearly I was mistaken.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe

@TheGreatLlama

He is literally going around mocking vaccinated people who get covid.

He did it in private cause he doesnt want anyone know his bs

But yea im sure he is totally acting in good faith

@freemo
Honestly, I said that I didn't have time for it because at the time, I literally had other things to do. That said, over the ensuing hours your posts lead me to believe that you are profoundly full of shit. I'll accept the possibility that I'm wrong about that, but the only alternative is that you're an enormous asshole who is childishly desperate to be right. Liar or honest douchebag, either way I'm done with you.

@TheGreatLlama I mean I am literally a published, public, vocal COVID research scientists... literally a few seconds of googling could have told you that... its very clear from my work in the field I have dedicated a huge amount of effort to addressing covid, and am both pro-mask and pro-vax.

So im sure you thinkk whatever you want.. clearly you care more about being toxic, than actually bothering to know the reality.

@BetaCuck4Lyfe
Jeeesus, this fucking guy. I honestly hope he advances the state of medicine by leaps and bounds, because he's got a lot to make up for in the personality department... though I'm pretty sure he's just a liar.