Such a weirdo take. If you follow the same logic, if all of the people in China die from this (or even just most of them) after the economic restructuring think about the opportunity for American workers and business. And think how removing 1/8 of humans on earth might mitigate climate change, and how removing China’s influence in other parts of Africa and Asia could help endangered species. You just have to be willing to be analytical...
Also, let the record reflect that it's gross that economics has anything to do with any of this, but that's how we've decided to run our societies. If you use resources in one place, they aren't available in another. That's what it boils down to, but again, this conversation is better served for a general healthcare discussion, not this thread (but it's going to be really interesting seeing how this thread shifts in the coming days and weeks from what it's been).
That's not the argument at all (limited resources in healthcare), but please, continue with this logical continuation.
Honestly no way of knowing. If it pops off in Japan the way it has popped off in South Korea, you'd think they would have to either move the games or cancel them (maybe reschedule for next year). BTW is there any precedent for rescheduling / canceling the Olympics? Besides maybe WW2?
My wife is at DFW taking a flight to Corpus Christi, and they put her in the international terminal. Currently writing her obituary.
It has to do with the way that we treat death as a society. The argument isn't culling the elderly, but taking it to that extreme makes it a very simple thing to argue against. I can see how it's confused, given the impetus for this side discussion, but that initial sentiment is just a starting point for the conversation. This argument, or at least my part of it, is all about moving, as a society, to being more accepting of our mortality and thus, not spending the vast majority of our resources on saving a few more years of low quality life. We can then invest those saved resources in those who can contribute much more to society, who have many more years to spend with loved ones, and who can have a truly enjoyable quality of life. Of course, if it's your friend, loved one, etc. who is on the death bed, it's really difficult to support such a sentiment.
not sure how to multi quote from the phone, but below is an earlier post from you. See the bolded. The clear implication is that old people one doesn’t know dying en masse is good(or at least not all bad) because it frees up precious resources to do other things. By that logic- anyone dying en masse will similarly free up resources. The more people that die the more precious resources come free. We spend a lot of money keeping corpses alive (to put it bluntly). If you don't have a connection to those affected, it's easier to follow the numbers and also promote palliative care. End-of-life care is a pretty big drain on our resources (as a planet) and will only get worse with an aging global population. We don't cope well with our own mortality, and it arguably leads to even more people dying in the long run due to strained resources.
The initial post you stuck up for wasn’t about the way healthcare robs old people of their savings on the way out, it was that a pandemic that killed a bunch of oldsters wouldn’t be all bad edit- the post said that pandemic would be a good thing
If you have a connection to someone who is on their deathbed, it's next to impossible to not think emotionally. Thus, it is easier to start to look at the numbers and also realize that saving one subset of the population might lead to a lack of care for another that either leads to that subset's dying or greatly reduced quality of life if you're detached from a direct connection. There's a real inability to sift through macro and micro applications of this situation, which is inherent in the problem. Everything is very very personal...as personal as it gets. It's not "anyone" en masse. That's a completely ridiculous framing, considering even at worst, this all started with talking about a percentage of a weakened elderly population being wiped out by a pandemic.
I didn’t realize people disagree that we pay far too much for end of life healthcare. Like BWC said we should probably take it to the healthcare thread.
Not sure why this thread is only focusing on the older 15%. I have a 2 month old infant and this is just as real for them if not worse.
I happen to know Ron fairly well, at least in the e-friend sense, so I guess I interpreted what he was getting at in a way others might not have.
For sure...fortunately, so far, this seems to not impact younger populations as much as other viral infections like the flu. That can, and likely will, change though. It's one of the stranger data points on this thing so far.
with most illnesses that’s true, we haven’t seen the same for COVID. Mortality rates have been low for kids so far thankfully.
You don’t have to disagree with this to think that a disease that propagates itself broadly enough to kill 15% of the elderly would not, in fact, be good for the economy
everyone is cool with saying the elderly are dying. I don’t think there’s one confirmed child death. That just doesn’t make sense.
When TMB first started and Powe was prank calling Rivals Radio, I bet we never thought there’d be a lively Euthanasia debate
Life comes at you fast. Hard to believe I've been on TMB almost 11 years and I wasn't here at the beginning. Edit: Also TMB has a pretty serious case of ADD
Obviously there aren't published stats on it, but one of the bigger surprises in my time over there so far is colleagues and friends (our age to slightly older) having siblings, some even coming from families of 4-5 kids. With my students, ~20% have siblings. A lot of families get around it by having "cousins" to register the additional children under. Others just don't register the kids and then it depends on the local governments whether to allow those kids back into the system or not, but seems like they do grant that "clemency" more often than not.
PSA: The U.S. is more of a police state than China. There's a bunch of rules, but they're not really enforced until they are, and they might change tomorrow. That's the tricky part and the end of things you don't want to find yourself on, but as a foreigner, you have to really stir up some shit to get on that side of things. Day-to-day, don't have to worry about getting shot, don't have to worry about getting shit stolen if you leave it out for 30 seconds. You do have to keep your head on one hell of a swivel when crossing the street though. Or walking down the sidewalk.
uh, where exactly would you like them to host it? is there a magical place that expects to not be affected by a pandemic?