the morality of opening up ...

[Mountain Man]

You are clueless mm. All that shows is the effect of mitigation on the progress of the disease. The are based on current behavior. They show what happens if a trend continues. Mitigation changes the trend, which changes the projection.

Yes, our mitigation efforts made a huge difference in the outcome. And you are nuts to claim they were unnecessary. Those curves show you just how bad things would have even if we had not sheltered at home.

ETA: As for your second claim this rise and fall is independent of mitigation efforts, that's just more tobacco/anti-climate like denial. The inflection points in the logarithmic growth curves match the introduction of shelter in place if every country I've looked at. And there are very few places in the world stupid enough not to do that, but so far Mexico is one, and they are growing exponentially. So we'll see, if they do nothing you'll get to see what happens, and otherwise when/if they face where it is headed they too will introduce shelter in place, then we'll see that curve start to flatten when they do just like everywhere else.

The problem here is that to silence you we need some place in the world that is willing to let it go and do its worst. Frankly, the world doesn't need that sort of death on it's conscience just to show people like yourself the obvious.

IOW, there is a certain amount of 'herd immunity' regarding intelligence that at least sometimes protects the world from people like yourself

Your blanket denials of the facts I presented are not convincing.

[oxmixmudd]

Your blanket denials of the facts I presented are not convincing.

You presented graphs but did not understand their implications, and neither did the writers at breitbart (or maybe they did but just figured could fool you guys into thinking the way they want you to) I can't fix your lack of capacity to understand science and mathematics MM. You demonstrated those deficiencies many, many times here, and you blindly trust breitbart, and you don't trust me. The reality is, those are projections based on trends at the time the projection is made. If the mitigation has greater effect than the simulation expects, then the real values will be lower.

But exponential growth is exponential growth. Those curves show what would have happened if the trend in place when they were calculated continued taking into account known factors like population of the affected area. So what they show is the effect of shelter in place. They do not show that things would have been ok without shelter in place, nor do they show the original projections were themselves flawed.

[Mountain Man]

You presented graphs but did not understand their implications, and neither did the writers at breitbart (or maybe they did but just figured could fool you guys into thinking the way they want you to) I can't fix your lack of capacity to understand science and mathematics MM. You demonstrated those deficiencies many, many times here, and you blindly trust breitbart, and you don't trust me. The reality is, those are projections based on trends at the time the projection is made. If the mitigation has greater effect than the simulation expects, then the real values will be lower.

But exponential growth is exponential growth. Those curves show what would have happened if the trend in place when they were calculated continued taking into account known factors like population of the affected area. So what they show is the effect of shelter in place. They do not show that things would have been ok without shelter in place, nor do they show the original projections were themselves flawed.

Right... like I said, your blanket denials are not convincing.

[simplicio]

Starlight is welcome to his own opinion. We just don't like it when some troll pretends to be a Christian while condemning Christians and acting like an atheist. ahem.

Oh. An atheist objects to the "weed out the weakest", while the Christian accepts it?

I suspect that the atheist, Starlight recognizes how that view is generally seen as in opposition to the Christian ethic, even if he does not accept the Christian view. This is not about some political position, but about a central principles in Christian ethics. I have read enough of Starlight's posts that I would accuse him of being the troll if he couldn't explain why that position is opposed to the traditionally accepted Christian ethic.

I would see your point, and Chawnus', if Norrinrad was being facetious. But I don't think he is given his other positions. The silence of Christians here speaks volumes.

If starlight used a similar line, the condemnations would be swift. And appropriate.

And this is in a thread about utilitarianism!

[JonathanL]

and Chawnus'

My point, which I spelled out clearly enough that even a five-year old should have no trouble grasping it, is that I have no faith what so ever in Starlight's ability to suss out who's a genuine Christian or not. Whether or not NorrinRadd's stated position are consistent with being a Christian or not is a completely different beast altogether. I certainly have a hard time reconciling NorrinRadd's statement with a Christian worldview, but if all your beliefs need to be consistent with your stated worldview before you can lay claim to be a "true believer", then I doubt there's anyone on earth who genuinely holds to the worldview they claim to believe in.

[oxmixmudd]

My point, which I spelled out clearly enough that even a five-year old should have no trouble grasping it, is that I have no faith what so ever in Starlight's ability to suss out who's a genuine Christian or not. Whether or not NorrinRadd's stated position are consistent with being a Christian or not is a completely different beast altogether. I certainly have a hard time reconciling NorrinRadd's statement with a Christian worldview, but if all your beliefs need to be consistent with your stated worldview before you can lay claim to be a "true believer", then I doubt there's anyone on earth who genuinely holds to the worldview they claim to believe in.

I think the point is that the position NorrinRadd laid out is lightyear's from anything that could be derived from the teachings of Jesus or anything found in the New Testament. This isn't splitting hairs, no nuanced thinking is required, and a basic knowledge of the teachings of Christianity, not years of theological study, are all that is required to understand it is incompatible with Christian Faith.

[NorrinRadd]

My post on the first page was a bit hyperbolic, but I stand by it. If it is not properly "Christian," too bad. I set it forth even as I myself am one of the "weak" who would potentially be "weeded out."

[Chaotic Void]

I saw this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/23/us/re...ism/index.html

It discusses utilitarianism and the immorality of allowing a minority to die to allow the majority to prosper.

But that argument sort of ignores a certain elephant in the room.

Utilitarianism vanishes when the cost gets too high. If the economy collapses and we lose not merely wealth but necessity (e.g. not enough food, energy collapse due to cascading logistics collapse) then the argument actually become not wealth vs life, but life vs life.

It concerns me a bit that the arguments about reopening up I'm seeing the most often do not frame this third element: That economic collapse can also claim lives, and in one of the most unpleasant ways there is - starvation. So its not just a simplistic black/white good/bad sort of a situation.

So while I support the social distancing and the willingness to lose a certain amount of wealth to save lives, it is naive to say that has no boundary, and it is important to be very much aware of the fact that once enough wealth has been lost it is not longer merely about luxury and comfort, but survival. And that is a state we need to avoid in this. And unfortunately that state is reached all too quickly in the 3rd world.So It's not a black and white, wealth and luxury vs. lives, and if not handled wisely it can easily become lives vs lives.

On a relevant note, it's already happening in other Countries: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/w...er-crisis.html

...
Already, 135 million people had been facing acute food shortages, but now with the pandemic, 130 million more could go hungry in 2020, said Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. Altogether, an estimated 265 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by year’s end.
...
This hunger crisis, experts say, is global and caused by a multitude of factors linked to the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing interruption of the economic order: the sudden loss in income for countless millions who were already living hand-to-mouth; the collapse in oil prices; widespread shortages of hard currency from tourism drying up; overseas workers not having earnings to send home; and ongoing problems like climate change, violence, population dislocations and humanitarian disasters.

... And this is just a few months in. First-World Nations might be able to last a bit longer before they start feeling the impact, but unless people are able to get back to work (with proper safety protocols of course) this is guaranteed to get worse.

[Juvenal]

My point, which I spelled out clearly enough that even a five-year old should have no trouble grasping it, is that ...

... he called you Chawnus.