loveistheanswer

>The benefits and strengths of this have so far completely outweighed the costs to the point where the argument against limited liability no longer has a leg to stand on.

What data points did you include in your calculation which led you to that conclusion?

It also helped that they banned reporting on covid deaths and dissapeared activists who were trying to do so on Github. Not pleasant, but it worked.

Anyone pushing a univariate theory of virology, sociology, and economics in the context of a globalized economy of 8 billion people is pushing simpleton pseudoscience

What does that have to do with the major socioecomic hardships that were created and exacerbated for millions of poor people around the world which are largely ignored by politicians and many other people as evidenced in this thread?

Members of the WHO covid team have estimated that lockdowns may well end up doubling world poverty.

Until you acknowledge these negative side effects, rather than narrow mindedly defaulting to american partisan politics, your response again further helps illustrate OPs point.

>But this article is about the US, where there have been no lockdowns. Only (mostly) unenforced stay-at-home orders, (mostly) unenforced business closures, and (mostly) unenforced mask mandates. I don't see the link.

Your privileged, pedantic ignorance of the major socioeconomic problems caused by the covid 19 response perfectly illustrates OP's point.

>The correct approach is to make a system that guarantees what we want and would be impossible for a bad actor to abuse.

No such system is possible

I first stumbled upon this theory in an Alan Watts lecture. Here is relevant clip from the lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2DbsuzTt6g

There are many quotes where Jesus spoke about the union of all people within him and within god. This is basically the same as the Buddhist concept of Indra's Net: the divine unity and mutual interpenetration of all things.

>"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus"

>"I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

>"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ."

This idea seems to be the logical basis for many of his more commonly known teachings:

>"Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you."

>“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

>"whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers and sisters, you do unto me"

This last quote seems to indicate that when people realized all of the above, they would also realize their equality with jesus as children of god; which is essentially blasphemy to the modern day mainstream interpretation of the King James translation.

>"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."

>I think of "supernatural" as something that is beyond any capacity to test or prove.

I agree. It's worth noting that the fundamental nature of our consciousness could fall into that realm, judging by how it is scientifically impossible to isolate and control for, and is thus seemingly indefineable.

Those are of course easy strawman examples of charlatans trying to make money.

This Carl Sagan quote is relevant:

>An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.

That's great hahaha. There are some who believe that's actually what Jesus was trying to say: the he was a son of god (there was no definite article "the" in ancient greek), and that everyone else is too (essentially what the Buddhists and Hindus claim); but that message was misunderstood, misinterpreted, censored, and modified to suit political ends.

There are a number of more esoteric quotes attributed to jesus like the one I posted above which make this case quite compelling

Indeed, I've known a lot of religious people like the ones you speak of. And I've known and read from many other "religious"/deist people who think those types of people are silly.

>If there was real compelling evidence of supernatural behavior I'd change my mind, but whenever it's been claimed and tested - it's bullshit.

How is it possible to test for "supernatural behavior"?

Jesus was the ultimate troll to the religious authorities, that's why they killed him.

Another great example of his trolling was when he was cornered by a bunch of people wanting to stone him to death:

>31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, 'I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?' 33 We are not stoning you for any good work,' they replied, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.' 34 Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are 'gods''? (He's quoting the 82nd Psalm of the Old Testament here)[1] 35 If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came--and Scripture cannot be set aside-- 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? 37

[1]82 Psalm if the Old Testament: I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’

>If they can’t get something basic right, why would they be right about something more complicated?

Can you steelman what the basic thing is that religious people get wrong?

Is it "totalitarian" for members of a society to socially castigate people who knowingly associated with child sex traffickers?

>But the right solution is still alternatives, not the government micromanaging and second guessing every single decision they make.

Agreed! Perhaps a publicly funded (not advertising funded) digital public square which protects lawful speech could be a potential solution?

>The difference is that slavery is inherently wrong, whereas deciding on your own internal membership policies for some club, or internet forum, or what have you, is not inherently wrong.

What is and is not "inherently wrong" is subjective and always changing.

Anyone who pretends that they do not believe in things which will be considered "inherently wrong" 10, 50, or 100 years from now has a god complex and is deeply ignorant of human psychology and history.

Carl Jung theorized that unconscious human psychology desperately needs a higher purpose to live for, and for most of human history that need has been filled by religion/mythology.

Our scientific revolution, which largely usurped religion, may have thrown the baby out with the bath water and has left many people with a deep unconscious void in their lives which has largely been filled by pious political ideology which echoes many of the same concepts and dynamics of human mythologies.

Are you implying we've reached the pinnacle of human rights, and can no longer progress or regress?

>How is this even a question?

>Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?

This is the same argument slave owners used to defend their "private property", and that business owners used to ban black people from their private property.

So, judging by the history of human rights, it's a perfectly valid question

Scientists claiming a lab leak is "extremely unlikely" are simply ignorant of the facts of how often lab leaks and protocol breaches occur:

>The CDC’s Select Agents and Toxins program requires that “theft, loss, release causing an occupational exposure, or release outside of primary biocontainment barriers” of agents on its watchlist be immediately reported. Between 2005 and 2012, the agency got 1,059 release reports — an average of an incident every few days.[1]

Soviet authorities covered up the Sverdlovsk lab leak by blaming it on local meat markets, and this exaplanation was investigated and validated by leading US scientists, only to be further investigated and invalidated years later[2]

[1]https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly...

[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

That's a great question. Even with our vast improvements in neuroscience no one can say for sure.

How can science isolate or control for a variable which cannot be isolated from the observer?

The nature of consciousness is elusive, almost like a dog chasing it's tail.

Laughing at people who are trying to be mean to you can be a more practical and healthy reaction than internalizing and mirroring their meanness.

Kevin Hart talked about how the comedians he came up with throughout his career would incessantly assault eachother with insults, and how this in turn gave him great self confidence and the ability to laugh off anyone who tried to insult him.

It's meditation; detachment from being completely possesed by your train of thoughts. There is plenty of scientific evidence that shows meditation can have psychological and physiological benefits for many people

Consciousness is inherently subjective

Research indicates the growing obesity epidemic likely plays a big role in this equation as well.

What makes you think I said it did?

>It seems to me that a lot of Americans have adopted the heuristic that all good Covid news is a trick to get people to "half-ass it", and see relentless negativity as the only responsible posture

I've noticed this as well among many in my social circles. Every time I discovered some new scientific study which helped to dispell some degree of the FUD surrounding covid, the people who had adopted that heuristic always responded with more negativity and FUD, and never relief.

A great example of this was how early on, when looking at data from Italy, there was FUD suggesting that the death rate could be 10-15%. When more data was collected which dispelled that great fear, Fauci said "It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death".

>In particular, he told one woman he would kill himself if she didn't date him.

>Depressed people should seek treatment. Being depressed doesn't excuse manipulation.

I've been on the receiving end of that same situation; and yet, I don't think inciting an internet hate mob to banish that person from their life's work indefinitely is the proper "treatment" I'd recommend to give that person.

Defenders of slavery used that same "private enterprise" line to assert their rights over people; as did restaurant owners 100 years after slavery was abolished to justify kicking out people with offensive skin color.

It was not an existing law, but the ideal "that all men are created equal" which abolishonists and civil rights leaders pointed to in their quest for equality.

Likewise it is the ideal of freedom of expression which we are pointing to now that should protect humans from being banned from the digital town square for expressing offensive ideas.

>I'm not a virologist but every TWiV episode I listened to, there was convincing talk about natural reservoirs being the most likely source of the virus.

In no way whatsoever does that detract from a potential lab leak. The vast majority of viruses used in gain of function research are taken from natural reservoirs.

>the former is more likely.

Is this likelihood differential being calculated using data, or is it just a hypothesis?