This has got to be one of the stupidest and most reprehensible statements I’ve seen on these boards. If someone dies from X, you don’t factor in a Y condition that they might have eventually died from, in theory.
That’s no different from saying “everyone dies of something, so why are we getting so upset if 60,000 people died in 60 days from X?”
Seriously, this kind of comment should be banned from these boards as “truther” talk.
This kind of talk is deadly. This attitude if it affects decision making in the real world may kill people. It’s sickening. It’s disgusting. It’s unconscionable. It shouldn’t be allowed on the boards.
I thought at first this was going to be a thread about banning statements that claim that Covid is a hoax, or that it comes from a lab in Wuhan, or is a deliberate Chinese bioweapon, or that swallowing bleach or injecting disinfectant are smart cures, or that it’s no more a big deal than the flu.
Instead, the OP is complaining about a statement that is by and large correct (those who are elderly, very young, obese, have a history of respiratory issues, etc. are indeed likelier to die.)
So I take it that the thing you want to ban is “truther” statements that minimize, as opposed to wanting to ban the act of minimizing someone’s “truther” statements?
Statements such as the one I quoted in the OP classify some people into an underclass, one whose deaths shouldn’t cause alarm.
Yes, old people, fat people, diabetic people, people with other illnesses that make them more vulnerable to the effects of a coronavirus infection. Those are the people whose deaths are being minimized by comments like that.
By disregarding their suffering and deaths, one makes it more likely that decisions will be made that result in more of their deaths.
And these statements amount to “why should we worry? They would have died anyway.”
It’s a disgusting attitude. And a person with that attitude, believing emself to be of a stronger constitution, may then fail to take steps that reduce the spread of the virus, putting more people at risk, encouraging more people to ignore such steps, putting even more people at risk.
It’s an attitude that disregards the value of some people’s lives based on whether they might be more vulnerable to suffer or die.
The poster in question’s various posts relating to the virus have … not exactly been covering the Board in glory, given their position here. But “truther” is a bit much.
That’s not what "truther"ism is. Maybe it would be more effective if you came up with a different word - dehumanizing, maybe? - and asked to ban that. I’m not saying you’d get the ban, but at least people would know what you were talking about.
Yes. “Truther”-ism usually means people who insist that the official story for something is false. The Moon landing was hoaxed, 9/11 was an inside job, etc. So in the instance of coronavirus, it would probably mean people who think Bill Gates created the virus on purpose, or that it is a deliberate Chinese bioweapon.
As I understood it, he was continuing to address the factual question he had raised earlier, of whether in fact a significant number of Bible Belt preachers were dying of Covid (which was the premise of the OP of that thread). In that context, it’s relevant whether the people dying were old or sick, since that would make the fact that “dozens” had died less of an indicator that a significant number had died, since dozens of deaths might be around the same amount that you would expect from that group.
There was nothing there about how big of a tragedy such deaths are, as I understood it.
I suppose he can clarify if this was in fact his intention. But that’s how I understood it, anyway.
Yes, of course every death is tragic. But with billions of people in the world, we can’t react to every single death that way. Note that I didn’t say anything about “should”: It’s simply not possible.
In the time it takes you to read this post, there will be dozens of people who die, even aside from those dying of COVID-19. Do you mourn them? Do you even consider that fact to be at all significant? Are the dozens of preachers who died of COVID-19 any more significant than those dozens who you’ve never even heard of? Are you somehow dehumanizing those whose deaths you never heard of?
Speaking as a Quarantine Zone moderator (and someone who is in a higher risk group due to age), this is an absurd over-reaction to the statement in question. As it stands, the statement is factual, and doesn’t have the implications you are projecting on it. (And I have no idea what you mean by “truther” in this context.)
It looks to me that he is questioning the cause and effect that was stated in the article since they only gave a couple of examples. There certainly doesn’t look like anything Truther which would imply it’s a hoax or conspiracy. To me (who is not a mod in that forum) it looks like a statement you should disagree with in the thread which you do not appear to have done.
I came in here because we *have had some trolls spreading Kremlin Covid lies. I am pretty sure none of them work for the kremlin directly of course. They are passing on secondhand, thirdhand or “morehand” disinformation.
What the OP is talking about is not one of them. Chronos statement- altho could have been worded better- is correct and not in any way shape or form “truther” or disinformation.
But- Nowadays, with medication and proper medical care, if you have high blood pressure- a common thing and something that leads to a higher % of Covid deaths- you can live a long and full life.
I think we need to shut down the trolls a little harder.
Are you suggesting there have been more, or worse?
This post is packed with so much fallacy, it should be embarrassing. People die from things every day that aren’t easily transmitted deadly viruses. They die from things that couldn’t be prevented by a reasonable public health policy and reasonable decisions. They die from things that aren’t caused by the carelessness and selfishness of others.
Should we not as a society have fought to reduce malaria, cholera, polio, smallpox?
But these conversations are about what are reasonable policies to prevent a catastrophe. And posts like the one I quoted amount to saying “this isn’t a catastrophe, because most of these people were vulnerable anyway.” Most of us are vulnerable in one way or another to something.
Every post that says “this isn’t a big deal because most of those people had health-related weaknesses” amounts not to “do you mourn them?” They’re about “let them die for my convenience.” That’s what those words mean.
Your perspective is bizarre. Of course not all lives have equal value. The life of a healthy 10-year-old is worth far more than an 85-year-old with dementia or a 50-year-old with terminal cancer. The sensible and ethical approach is surely to consider remaining life expectancy and the quality of life that is to be expected.
And no life has infinite value. We constantly make policy decisions that sacrifice lives for “convenience”. We can never make the world totally safe, and we accept that (say) driving motor cars is a convenience that justifies 37,000 deaths and 2 million injuries per year.
It certainly follows that our policy response will be different - and should be different - if the average victim of a disease is a person with a life expectancy of (say) 5 years, compared to a situation where children are particularly susceptible and the life expectancy of the average victim is 50 years.