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Discuss anything Huey Lewis related in this thread.

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lorcan_nagle wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

If you follow that to an extreme basically you have to stay quarantined, wrapped in plastic for the rest of your life

Good thing nobody actually suggested that

It’s an exaggeration of course, but this is pretty much what China does, minus the plastic I guess. When there’s a single case in any city, everybody has to quarantine. And there has been a lot of praise for China.

 

I am not sure we are over it, all it takes is one new dangerous variant and the circus starts all over again, complete with the demonization of everyone who has a different view.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

And there has been a lot of praise for China.

Where? Apart from loonies.

I read a fair degree of mainstream press and this doesn’t exist. You need to be careful of going too far into the rabbit hole because every opinion exists if you want to look for it. Are press or TV  in the Netherlands asking for police to wear hazmat suits or lockdown any cities today?

One interesting aspect is China has largely been vaccinated with Sinovac which clinically isn’t very good. It has an efficacy rate of around 55% which is significantly lower than the 90%+ from the likes of Pfizer and AZ. Regional pride means they won’t use foreign developed solutions, something 99% of countries don’t care about.

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[Sean Robinson]

No matter how unpopular it is, I do think we dropped the restrictions too soon.
I still wear a mask in stores and enclosed spaces/offices, and don’t go out much.
I’ve limited my list of friends that I would allow in my place (some were a very easy decision).

But most do not wear a mask, even though it’s highly suggested from every respected medical professional.
We’re told that modelling shows if you can get 80% of the population to wear a mask, you would free up 56,000 hospital beds across Canada.
This is an easy decision for me.

Canada is in a triple threat. The Covid pandemic is ongoing, we are officially in a Flu epidemic, and children are getting hit hard with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). Hospitals are heading towards danger territory as we head into the holidays.

I have a hard time hearing of a child under the age of 4 being on a ventilator, and what the family goes through.
I think they will probably live through it (didn’t research the numbers), but also a good chance of long term repercussions (we won’t know the full extent for years).

What also hurts is the extreme ones that just DO NOT GIVE A FUCK about anyone they’ve never met, and even a lot they have met.
When they go off on a tangent being so damned proud of their views (and most liking trying to provoke a response) is my cue to turn around a walk away, making sure people know why.

Of course I don’t like wearing a mask, but when I listen to the pros, like a said, it’s an easy decision for me.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. It’s just a frickin’ mask! Sometimes during the day! Not the worst thing that’s been asked of me.
____________________________

Almost forgot, part two.

Some are kind of losing it, or maybe they just can’t hide things anymore.
People I wouldn’t think it are spouting off shit about the “poison” vaccine, and how it’s “changing our DNA”!
When you think it’s maybe a joke, the not stopping and the look in their eyes says they’re serious.

Are they for fucking real? Are they thinking alien/human hybrid? Reptilian? Superpowers?
I for one look forward to breathing underwater.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Sean Robinson.

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lorcan_nagle

I can tell you right now – biological 6G is fantastic.

More seriously, the UK stopping testing in the way it has was dumb. If you don’t know where the virus activity is high, you can’t respond to it.

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lorcan_nagle

garjones wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

And there has been a lot of praise for China.

Where? Apart from loonies.

I read a fair degree of mainstream press and this doesn’t exist. You need to be careful of going too far into the rabbit hole because every opinion exists if you want to look for it. Are press or TV  in the Netherlands asking for police to wear hazmat suits or lockdown any cities today?

One interesting aspect is China has largely been vaccinated with Sinovac which clinically isn’t very good. It has an efficacy rate of around 55% which is significantly lower than the 90%+ from the likes of Pfizer and AZ. Regional pride means they won’t use foreign developed solutions, something 99% of countries don’t care about.

Not anymore, the narrative shifted I think about the time the Ukraine war began. But I remember articles in the media here from 2021 gushing over China’s discipline etc Then suddenly in 2022 you started seeing articles popping up about lockdowns not being the answer and things in that vein.

 

From my view the only country in the world that did this right was sweden. Zero restrictions and they did beter in terms of excess mortality than many other countries that had severe restrictions.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

From my view the only country in the world that did this right was sweden. Zero restrictions and they did beter in terms of excess mortality than many other countries that had severe restrictions.

I read that statement, wondered whether it was actually true and took a look. Turns out that none of it is actually quite true, according to the Swedish National Commission evaluating their covid strategy.

How Sweden approached the COVID-19 pandemic: Summary and commentary on the National Commission Inquiry

Key notes
– Swedish society has been under severe stress from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Swedish Government appointed a Commission to examine how the country has handled the crisis.
– The Commission suggested that voluntary measures had allowed Swedish people to keep their personal freedom during the pandemic.
– However, the Commission also suggested that earlier and more extensive measures should have been taken against the virus, especially during the first wave of the pandemic.

h

During spring 2020, COVID-19 death rates in Sweden were among the highest in Europe. Overall, excess mortality in Sweden in 2020–2021 was 0.79 per 100 inhabitants, compared with 2015–2019, which was lower than in many other European countries.

And more specifics:

In spring 2020, Sweden chose a different path from other countries, by mainly focusing on voluntary measures and personal responsibility for COVID-19, rather than a stricter lockdown. However, there were early compulsory measures that limited the size of public gatherings, banned people from visiting most elderly care residents and introduced distance learning for those aged 17 years or more. Most other countries imposed stricter lockdown measures.
Compared with other European countries, Sweden had a high number of deaths per 1000 population after people developed COVID-19 during the first wave. COVID-19 mortality rates were slightly below average during the second wave, and Sweden fared better than most other European countries during the third wave (Figures 1 and 2).

So no, not zero restrictions even at the beginning.

Also, even when it comes to restrictions, let’s remember that few restrictions didn’t necessarily mean less measures – it meant that the measures were voluntary and not mandatory. Which is a different and maybe better approach, but the result if people follow the advice is pretty much the same when it comes to what you can or can’t do.

But more importantly, let’s repeat: Swedish covid death rates were worse than in other European countries in the first wave. The overall better result is du to the second and third wave, during which they adopted the kind of measures everybody else had:

3.2.5 Measures during the second and third waves
During the second and third waves, the Government and its agencies launched several new and robust measures (which they had previously rejected or refrained from using), to reduce the transmission of the virus. These included restrictions in restaurants and commercial areas, household quarantine if a family member had COVID-19 and wearing facemasks on public transport during the rush hour. The latter applied between 7 January and 28 June 2021 for individuals aged 17 years or more. The changes between the first and second waves were not based on any new knowledge. Some measures in late autumn 2020 were initiated by the Government rather than requested by the PHA. These included no alcohol in restaurants and limits on the number of people allowed at public gatherings.

The Commission said the new measures were reasonable, but suggested that introducing them late during the second wave, without motivation, may have created confusion and lowered compliance. They said that using facemasks on public transport and indoors (but outside peoples’ homes) should have been recommended earlier. Of note, none of the Nordic countries encouraged the public use of facemasks during the first wave.

Sweden’s measures were not as strict as comparable countries in late March to May 2020, but did not differ after that period (Figure 3).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.16535

I am sure that there are things to be learned from the Swedish approach – I think all things considered, a comprehensive approach based more on good communication and voluntary measures and less on enforced restrictions might have worked better – but it’s not quite as simple as “zero restrictons, and it’s great!”

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Todd, Daniel R, Christian, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Then suddenly in 2022 you started seeing articles popping up about lockdowns not being the answer and things in that vein.

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Daniel R, Todd

This is a good one:

You’re gonna lose https://t.co/IBnsoEqScp

— Mitch Benn 🇬🇧🇪🇺 (@MitchBenn) November 26, 2022

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Christian wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

From my view the only country in the world that did this right was sweden. Zero restrictions and they did beter in terms of excess mortality than many other countries that had severe restrictions.

I read that statement, wondered whether it was actually true and took a look. Turns out that none of it is actually quite true, according to the Swedish National Commission evaluating their covid strategy.

How Sweden approached the COVID-19 pandemic: Summary and commentary on the National Commission Inquiry

Key notes
– Swedish society has been under severe stress from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Swedish Government appointed a Commission to examine how the country has handled the crisis.
– The Commission suggested that voluntary measures had allowed Swedish people to keep their personal freedom during the pandemic.
– However, the Commission also suggested that earlier and more extensive measures should have been taken against the virus, especially during the first wave of the pandemic.

h

During spring 2020, COVID-19 death rates in Sweden were among the highest in Europe. Overall, excess mortality in Sweden in 2020–2021 was 0.79 per 100 inhabitants, compared with 2015–2019, which was lower than in many other European countries.

And more specifics:

In spring 2020, Sweden chose a different path from other countries, by mainly focusing on voluntary measures and personal responsibility for COVID-19, rather than a stricter lockdown. However, there were early compulsory measures that limited the size of public gatherings, banned people from visiting most elderly care residents and introduced distance learning for those aged 17 years or more. Most other countries imposed stricter lockdown measures.
Compared with other European countries, Sweden had a high number of deaths per 1000 population after people developed COVID-19 during the first wave. COVID-19 mortality rates were slightly below average during the second wave, and Sweden fared better than most other European countries during the third wave (Figures 1 and 2).

So no, not zero restrictions even at the beginning.

Also, even when it comes to restrictions, let’s remember that few restrictions didn’t necessarily mean less measures – it meant that the measures were voluntary and not mandatory. Which is a different and maybe better approach, but the result if people follow the advice is pretty much the same when it comes to what you can or can’t do.

But more importantly, let’s repeat: Swedish covid death rates were worse than in other European countries in the first wave. The overall better result is du to the second and third wave, during which they adopted the kind of measures everybody else had:

3.2.5 Measures during the second and third waves
During the second and third waves, the Government and its agencies launched several new and robust measures (which they had previously rejected or refrained from using), to reduce the transmission of the virus. These included restrictions in restaurants and commercial areas, household quarantine if a family member had COVID-19 and wearing facemasks on public transport during the rush hour. The latter applied between 7 January and 28 June 2021 for individuals aged 17 years or more. The changes between the first and second waves were not based on any new knowledge. Some measures in late autumn 2020 were initiated by the Government rather than requested by the PHA. These included no alcohol in restaurants and limits on the number of people allowed at public gatherings.

The Commission said the new measures were reasonable, but suggested that introducing them late during the second wave, without motivation, may have created confusion and lowered compliance. They said that using facemasks on public transport and indoors (but outside peoples’ homes) should have been recommended earlier. Of note, none of the Nordic countries encouraged the public use of facemasks during the first wave.

Sweden’s measures were not as strict as comparable countries in late March to May 2020, but did not differ after that period (Figure 3).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.16535

I am sure that there are things to be learned from the Swedish approach – I think all things considered, a comprehensive approach based more on good communication and voluntary measures and less on enforced restrictions might have worked better – but it’s not quite as simple as “zero restrictons, and it’s great!”

Thanks for that extensive answer. Still voluntarisme measures is a whole different deal. At a basic level I just fundamentally disagree with everything that went on. I mean we arrested kids for playing outside.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I mean we arrested kids for playing outside.

Did we? The best I can find is a parent arrested for leaving two kids on their own in a playground during the lockdown in the US, but that was for negligence, not for breaking COVID rules.

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Christian

Mm Well I guess not arrested but in many places kids were stopped from playing with other kids.

 

I agreed with some of the measures in the first lockdown but disagreed with pretty much everything after that.

I could see the sense in the covid restrictions originally (even though I hated them), but as time went on, at least in the UK, the government rules around them became even more stupid and arbitrary, undermining my confidence in the whole point of them. Like how I could sit in a pub and get rat-arsed with my mates but I couldn’t sit in a group of people quietly enjoying live music. Like how, if I was in that pub, I could drink without my mask but as soon as I stood up I had to put it on. Because obviously the virus floats at the five-foot level and you’re fine if you stay below that (do I need a mask if I crawl instead of walk? Never could find a clarification on that.) How I could go outside to exercise, but only for an hour because, I dunno, maybe a 70 minute walk would make me breath to hard on people or something. But I could walk to the Indian takeaway to collect dinner, even if I’d already had my hour’s quota for the day.

These and other senseless breaches of logic and common sense exponentially increased my inclination to just forget all of it.

By the end, I was only wearing a mask because I knew it truly bothered some people and I was raised to be polite and respect their feelings. I had zero confidence that the government’s stupid and arbitrary mask and exercise rules actually had any point.

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Arjan Dirkse

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I agreed with some of the measures in the first lockdown but disagreed with pretty much everything after that.

And I think that’s absolutely fine, and I probably agree with you at least to an extent, but it’s a far better statement than the two hyperbolic ones you first made. I just… I think it’s important that especially when it comes to these things we stick to the facts because there are people out there stoking the hyperbole who have aims that are quite dangerous to our democracies.

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For what it’s worth, I still wear a mask when I’m riding the subway or bus, in a crowded elevator, or entering a busy museum or a mall. I do it because it’s a minor inconvenience to me, because it’s still recommended by my personal hero Dr. Fauci, and because I still have not gotten COVID yet so I must be doing something right.

To each his own.

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I can’t believe this is getting worse

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-missed-payroll-for-some-european-staff-this-month/

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njerry wrote:

For what it’s worth, I still wear a mask when I’m riding the subway or bus, in a crowded elevator, or entering a busy museum or a mall. I do it because it’s a minor inconvenience to me, because it’s still recommended by my personal hero Dr. Fauci, and because I still have not gotten COVID yet so I must be doing something right.

To each his own.

But in the UK we were told that wearing a mask is to protect *others*, not to protect yourself. If that is true then you wearing a mask and you not catching covid are two unrelated things.

I’m not trying to talk you out of wearing a mask – just highlighting how much illogic the government has been spewing out for the last three years.

It depends on the mask – whether it’s a normal medical mask or an FFP2/FFP3 one. The latter also protect you, the former only the people around you.

Here the mask is pretty much gone for now. We’re all maskless like Stacey Abrams in a school full of masked children.

Over here, we still have to wear them in public transport, and in the winter season now like half to two thirds of people or so use them in the supermarket. Me, too, mainly because… look, you know who you never see in the supermarket without a mask on? People who are around eighty years old. Because they’re still fucking terrified of the virus, and rightly so. Even with vaccinations, they’re the ones at risk. So not wearing a mask in that kind of situation is kind of a fuck you to helpless old people. Which people can do if that’s what they feel like, but… let’s remember that your freedom still comes at the price of endangering others.

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Christian wrote:

let’s remember that your freedom still comes at the price of endangering others.

That’s a risk far too many people are willing to take.

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Todd

Old people here don’t wear masks either. Really nobody does.

 

I almost never see old people with masks. Probably more old people than young people, but still a very small number.

Old people also die of flu in disproportionate amounts, so regardless of covid we all ought to be wearing masks to protect the old during flu season. But that’s never happened, even though we’ve understood the risk and how to mitigate it for decades.

 

The truth is that we are largely now being allowed to make our own judgement on these things, and everyone will evaluate risk – to themselves and others – differently, and act accordingly.

I rarely wear a mask these days because my circumstances don’t tend to demand it: I’m rarely in busy and enclosed public spaces where I could expose others to significant risk, and my own personal worries about covid aren’t huge given that me and my immediate family have all had it (some multiple times) and we are up to date with our vaccinations.

But when I am going to be in a situation that could expose others to risk (for example, I have extended family members who are immunocompromised and others who are in their mid-90s – all of whom obviously still take the threat of covid very seriously) I take greater precautions. My family all do covid tests before visiting these relations, and some of my extended family still wear masks in any indoor environment other than their home.

And in certain other circumstances – having my hair cut, say – I still wear a mask, in that case as a courtesy to a person who is working in a small enclosed environment and who is seeing a large volume of different people on a daily basis.

So it’s different approaches in different situations. And maybe it’s not perfectly consistent but it’s what I feel is most appropriate.

We are all affected differently by covid now so I don’t tend to jump to any conclusions about what precautions others are taking, because they will have thought about it and taken the approach they think is most appropriate for them. But by the same token I would hope that everybody else would do the same, and not rush to judgement based on whether people are wearing masks or not.

Societies are weighing how much risk is acceptable. The ironic thing about the criticism towards China right now is they are actually showing they care about every death. That’s what zero covid is, locking people up for their own good. They do seen to be messing up with the vax though.

DavidM wrote:

I’m not trying to talk you out of wearing a mask – just highlighting how much illogic the government has been spewing out for the last three years.

So, are you opposed to wearing a mask because the government is illogical and therefore you don’t want to follow their illogical rules/recommendations? Or is it because you personally don’t feel that wearing a mask is an effective way to prevent the spread of the vaccine, either for yourself or for the people you come into contact with?

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I can’t believe this is getting worse

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-missed-payroll-for-some-european-staff-this-month/

And the hits keep on coming: Half of Twitter’s top advertisers have left the platform since Elon Musk’s takeover, report says

The list of brands pulling ads from Elon Musk’s Twitter appears to be growing.

Half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have halted spending on the platform since Musk took over the company at the end of October, according to a report by liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America published last week.

The 50 brands, the report said, have spent nearly $2 billion in advertising on the platform since 2020 and more than $750 million in 2022 alone as of Nov. 21.

Seven additional advertisers that have spent more than $255 million on Twitter ads since 2020 have significantly slowed advertising to almost nothing, according to the report.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What brands have stopped advertising on Twitter?

Some companies such as Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ford, Jeep and Merck have issued statements or have been reported as pausing Twitter ads and confirmed doing so, the report said.

The majority of advertisers on the list, however, have stopped spending on the platform for a “significant period of time following direct outreach, controversies, and warnings from media buyers,” according to a Media Matters analysis of data from ad analytics firm Pathmatics.

An analysis by The Washington Post found more than a third of Twitter’s top advertisers have not advertised on the platform in the two weeks before Nov. 22. Jeep and Mars didn’t have advertisements on the site since at least Nov. 7 as of last week, The Post reported.

General Motors was among the first companies that announced it was pausing advertising on Twitter shortly after Musk closed the $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform. Volkswagen Group also recommended its brands suspend advertising.

General Mills confirmed this month that it has paused its Twitter ads.

“We have paused advertising on Twitter,” General Mills tweeted. “As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend.”

It’s hard to pay down debts when your revenue streams are drying up.

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lorcan_nagle

DavidM wrote:

Old people also die of flu in disproportionate amounts, so regardless of covid we all ought to be wearing masks to protect the old during flu season. But that’s never happened, even though we’ve understood the risk and how to mitigate it for decades.

We always manage risk, that’s just life. You run the danger of crashing every time you sit in a car. There’s a slight risk of falling and breaking your head every time you get into the shower. The question when a risk becomes to high to tolerate and has to be mitigated will always remain one to be negotiated. The flu never had the kind of incidence rates that covid is having again right now, that’s the biggest difference.

Plus, here’s one thing: I’m certainly going to wear a mask in the future every time I feel some kind of symptom of an illness.

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Dave wrote:

The truth is that we are largely now being allowed to make our own judgement on these things, and everyone will evaluate risk – to themselves and others – differently, and act accordingly.

100%. I understand the issues about government mandates but also get quite annoyed at people having a dig at anyone who chooses to wear one after those mandates were lifted.

Here all mask mandates (apart from in healthcare settings and public transport) were ended a few months ago but a lot of people still choose to wear them – I’d add that many east Asians wore them at places like airports where bugs are easily transmitted before Covid. It’s not my problem or any of my business, I don’t know if that person has weak immunity or has someone at home who does. In Vietnam all motorbike riders have always worn them because the streets have a lot of air pollution, that is true of European cities too and it causes deaths (London has a very bad record for this) so maybe wearing a mask in hotspots like that isn’t a bad idea.

David has a valid point that at various times in the process we had regulations that weren’t very logical, like at one point you could go maskless in a snug pub but not attend a football match outdoors even wearing one.  There can be a case sometimes of clashes of logic vs commerce and practicality and performative gesture but as I said all along they were temporary. I live in a country with more of an authoritarian bent than anyone else here, I have to manage how I speak and behave to a degree because while light years better than China I can’t be guaranteed the freedom of expression or due process you get in western Europe or north America. However I was always confident the pandemic restrictions were not some exercise in public control but something that would be eased when deemed safe enough and that’s what happened.

China I’m not so sure.

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Ben, Dave

Wouldn’t it be funny if this was what brings Xi Jinpin down?

Won’t be, of course. The question is rather, how much will they amp up the violence to shut down protests.

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Ben

Good news, everyone!

Jury convicts Oath Keepers leader, 1 other of seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 trial

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Todd

njerry wrote:

DavidM wrote:

I’m not trying to talk you out of wearing a mask – just highlighting how much illogic the government has been spewing out for the last three years.

So, are you opposed to wearing a mask because the government is illogical and therefore you don’t want to follow their illogical rules/recommendations? Or is it because you personally don’t feel that wearing a mask is an effective way to prevent the spread of the vaccine, either for yourself or for the people you come into contact with?

We wore masks. Thousands of people died.

 

Christian wrote:

look, you know who you never see in the supermarket without a mask on? People who are around eighty years old. Because they’re still fucking terrified of the virus, and rightly so.

I was at a Rick Wakeman concert last night. I am literally one of the younger people in the audience at a gig like that. Wakeman is 72. Most of the audience are over 60, probably closer to 70. I saw one person wearing a mask, in a theatre with very cramped seating.

I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, but in the UK “old” people seem to have decided the odds are in their favour. We’re all vaccinated to the eyeballs, most of us have probably had it and survived, and most of us probably know people who did die while we were all wearing masks.

 

We also got vaccines and people are still dying. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a useful and effective tool to reduce severity and transmission.

I know it’s tempting to see all of this in simple either/or terms, but I don’t think anybody is saying that wearing masks solves the entire problem. Just that it can help reduce/slow the spread. Which isn’t the same thing as ending it entirely, but it’s also better than nothing.

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That’s fine, and I get it, I understand how it can make a small difference. But if I’m in a crowd of 500 un-masked people, I’m not going to wear a mask. They’ve made their personal risk-assessments, and if they are happy with me breathing on them then I’m ok with that too.

I would never try to talk anyone else out of wearing one, though I actually go out of my way to avoid them if I see them, because if they are genuinely worried then it’s just polite to be considerate of their feelings.

Incidentally, I did have somebody fairly aggressively try to talk me out of wearing my mask when the mandate was first lifted and I continued wearing one on public transport for a while. I took it off to explain to him that I was wearing it because I had just tested positive. A lie, but I was mildly amused by how quickly he moved away.

 

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Arjan Dirkse

On the politeness thing: there’s a local shop that has kept its “Please wear a mask” sign up long after it’s no longer law. So after I stopped carrying my mask, I stopped shopping there. Because that’s just good manners, if they politely request I wear one.

A while ago, I happened to see someone go in un-masked. So I had a good look through the window and realised nobody in the shop was wearing one, including the staff.

So now I still don’t shop there. I might if they ever take the hypocritical sign down.

I would add that because of wearing a mask and sanitising my hand entering places for two years a side bonus was I never got a cold, I usually get 2 or 3 a year.

DavidM wrote:

But if I’m in a crowd of 500 un-masked people, I’m not going to wear a mask.

Isn’t that the point of what we’re saying though? You don’t have to, the mandates were removed many months ago. You can if you want, you don’t have to if you don’t.

Except in China.

DavidM wrote:

On the politeness thing: there’s a local shop that has kept its “Please wear a mask” sign up long after it’s no longer law. So after I stopped carrying my mask, I stopped shopping there. Because that’s just good manners, if they politely request I wear one.

A while ago, I happened to see someone go in un-masked. So I had a good look through the window and realised nobody in the shop was wearing one, including the staff.

So now I still don’t shop there. I might if they ever take the hypocritical sign down.

I see signs like that all over town here. I honestly think the staff/management are too lazy to take them down or just plain forgot they’re up.

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Todd

Yeah, they’re still all over the place – along with long since abandoned hand sanitiser stations – to the point that they’re just ignorable background matter now. So I was a bit wrong-footed when I went into a small shop recently(ish) that had one up and they did actually ask me to wear a mask inside. Thankfully I had one on hand and did so.

Chris D wrote:

I honestly think the staff/management are too lazy to take them down or just plain forgot they’re up.

100%. It’s like those shops you used to see with an ad on the back wall for a product discontinued in 1976 or never properly change the open and closed signs. I suspect David is vastly overestimating the political statement over laziness.

DavidM wrote:

On the politeness thing: there’s a local shop that has kept its “Please wear a mask” sign up long after it’s no longer law. So after I stopped carrying my mask, I stopped shopping there. Because that’s just good manners, if they politely request I wear one.

I don’t get that part. Was the point that you didn’t want to shop there on general principle if it meant you had to wear a mask or is it that you don’t carry one around anymore?

There are a few shops here where the employees are still wearing masks, so I’ll put one on if I’m shopping there, even if they don’t have a sign up.

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Christian wrote:

I don’t get that part. Was the point that you didn’t want to shop there on general principle if it meant you had to wear a mask or is it that you don’t carry one around anymore?

I don’t carry one around any more. And for all I know, the shop owner is in a high-risk category and is in genuine fear of his life, so I’ll obey his sign. Maybe I should carry a mask for just such a situation, but honestly it’s probably safer for the high-risk owner if I just go to an alternative shop, as masks aren’t 100% effective anyway.

 

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I can’t believe this is getting worse

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-missed-payroll-for-some-european-staff-this-month/

And the hits keep on coming: Half of Twitter’s top advertisers have left the platform since Elon Musk’s takeover, report says

The list of brands pulling ads from Elon Musk’s Twitter appears to be growing.

Half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have halted spending on the platform since Musk took over the company at the end of October, according to a report by liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America published last week.

The 50 brands, the report said, have spent nearly $2 billion in advertising on the platform since 2020 and more than $750 million in 2022 alone as of Nov. 21.

Seven additional advertisers that have spent more than $255 million on Twitter ads since 2020 have significantly slowed advertising to almost nothing, according to the report.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What brands have stopped advertising on Twitter?

Some companies such as Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ford, Jeep and Merck have issued statements or have been reported as pausing Twitter ads and confirmed doing so, the report said.

The majority of advertisers on the list, however, have stopped spending on the platform for a “significant period of time following direct outreach, controversies, and warnings from media buyers,” according to a Media Matters analysis of data from ad analytics firm Pathmatics.

An analysis by The Washington Post found more than a third of Twitter’s top advertisers have not advertised on the platform in the two weeks before Nov. 22. Jeep and Mars didn’t have advertisements on the site since at least Nov. 7 as of last week, The Post reported.

General Motors was among the first companies that announced it was pausing advertising on Twitter shortly after Musk closed the $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform. Volkswagen Group also recommended its brands suspend advertising.

General Mills confirmed this month that it has paused its Twitter ads.

“We have paused advertising on Twitter,” General Mills tweeted. “As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend.”

It’s hard to pay down debts when your revenue streams are drying up.

That’s interesting how that works. You’d assume Musk with all his money has a lot of power, but all these companies easily have more power than him. Do something naughty and they take away your streams of revenue.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

That’s interesting how that works. You’d assume Musk with all his money has a lot of power, but all these companies easily have more power than him. Do something naughty and they take away your streams of revenue.

Yeah the ads are more important to Twitter than Twitter is to the advertisers, they have plenty of places to spend and Facebook and Instagram have a lot more users.

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Todd

Some not-so-good news:

Mistrial declared in Danny Masterson rape case after jury is deadlocked

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Todd

garjones wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

That’s interesting how that works. You’d assume Musk with all his money has a lot of power, but all these companies easily have more power than him. Do something naughty and they take away your streams of revenue.

Yeah the ads are more important to Twitter than Twitter is to the advertisers, they have plenty of places to spend and Facebook and Instagram have a lot more users.

And Twitter is pretty terrible for click-through on top of being relatively small. It’s very easy for advertisers to walk away when they feel like staying on Twitter will be bad for their brand.

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Todd

Yeah and Twitter in truth is a bit of a weird zone. Journalists love it and are obsessed with it because it allows direct access to the thoughts of celebs and politicians, they run thousands of articles just copying and pasting Twitter threads,.  but generally the public aren’t as interested. It’s much smaller than other social networks and massively biased to the US and then UK. Its impact in the rest of the world is very small.

It’s a terrible investment really because like a lot of web and app platforms it is easily copied and makes no money. That Musk is making it worse and less attractive is the icing on the cake. You let the likes of Katie Hopkins back on and realise why she got kicked off in the first place because yes we all get free speech but not without consequences and someone will screenshot your ad for a Ford Focus next to a tweet laughing at dead kids in a small boat. Ford will go somewhere else.

 

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Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Musk should just have started a message board where he could make up all the rules. Or maybe twitter will turn into that. Not Millarworld but Muskerworld.

So having had his account restored, Ye has got his arse permabanned on Twitter.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

I truly think Kanye is seriously mentally ill. He needs therapy, medication, and possibly to be institutionalized till he can stabilize. He appears to be spiraling, and probably has for some time. What I fear is that sometime in the near future, he will have a serious mental breakdown and that he will become violent and kill some innocent people (maybe his own kids) before he kills himself.

What is espcially troubling is that the right are clearly exploiting him because he is parroting their bullshit (bonus points because a black man is saying it!) and when he is no longer useful (in whatever form that may be), they willl discard him like a used tissue. They will then clutch their pearls while sayin, “How was I supposed to know he was mentally ill? I mean, no one could have possibly seen that coming!!!”

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Al-x, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Well he has a diagnosis for bipolar disorder. His tweetstorms could be made during a manic episode. I watched his appearance on Rogan and he seems to be susceptible to extreme ideas…not just far right, but unusual ideas of a diverse nature, like spiritual and artistic ideas, and also paranoid ideation. I am not bipolar, but I have a history of mental illness and recognize the tendency in myself.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Well he has a diagnosis for bipolar disorder. His tweetstorms could be made during a manic episode. I watched his appearance on Rogan and he seems to be susceptible to extreme ideas…not just far right, but unusual ideas of a diverse nature, like spiritual and artistic ideas, and also paranoid ideation. I am not bipolar, but I have a history of mental illness and recognize the tendency in myself.

Bipolar disorder is an interesting one, isn’t it? Terrible disease to have, and it’ll destroy your life if you don’t manage it really well with drugs, but for some artists it seems like it also allows them to be incredibly productive in their manic phases.

Todd wrote:

I truly think Kanye is seriously mentally ill. He needs therapy, medication, and possibly to be institutionalized till he can stabilize. He appears to be spiraling, and probably has for some time. What I fear is that sometime in the near future, he will have a serious mental breakdown and that he will become violent and kill some innocent people (maybe his own kids) before he kills himself.

Trevor Noah talked about this recently:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Well he has a diagnosis for bipolar disorder. His tweetstorms could be made during a manic episode. I watched his appearance on Rogan and he seems to be susceptible to extreme ideas…not just far right, but unusual ideas of a diverse nature, like spiritual and artistic ideas, and also paranoid ideation. I am not bipolar, but I have a history of mental illness and recognize the tendency in myself.

Being bipolar isn’t an excuse and I don’t think it’s even an explanation. Plenty of people are bipolar without saying they like Hitler. Kanye is just an arsehole and always has been. Using a medical condition to explain it is just a smokescreen that waves away bad behaviour. I was at school with a kid who had ADHD – and this was back when it was relatively new and not well publicised – and it just became a catch-all excuse for him to be a twat and escape most of the consequences.

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Al-x, lorcan_nagle

Martin Smith wrote:

Being bipolar isn’t an excuse and I don’t think it’s even an explanation. Plenty of people are bipolar without saying they like Hitler.

A lot of bipolar people have believed and said quite a lot of weird shit though, during some phases. Discounting mental illness and the effect it has on people’s personality and behaviour on general principle is a pretty inhuman position to take. It’s quite possible that Kanye was always just an asshole and it has nothing to do with his illness, but I doubt that – and either way I don’t know the guy, so, you know, in dubio pro reo and all that.

And yeah, the same goes for ADHD. Sure, diagnosis and treatment can lead to the kind of situation you’re describing and also, having a disorder doesn’t mean you can’t also just be an asshole.
But: I see kids having to deal with this every day and the opposite is true in most cases that I’ve known: These kids suffer immensely under their condition – far more than their classmates or us teachers do, though their behaviour can be challenging for everybody concerned – and I’ve seen many make the decision to take drugs to alleviate that suffering in spite of the side effects and consequences of being medicated in that way.

Any of us who do not suffer from any mental conditions can count our blessings, and we should be careful not to discount the harships that people who do have to endure.

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Ben, Todd

[Arjan Dirkse]

But delusional thinking patterns can be a part of bipolar disorder.  Not saying it is completely caused by his condition but there could be a link. In a state of mania or psychosis as can be caused by bipolar disorder your judgment is impaired.

 

edit: this was in answer to martin, not christian

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Arjan Dirkse.

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Todd, Christian

Added to this discussion, I believe it is hard for the very rich to find adequate help for something like this because they get into contact with cynical greedy doctors who tell them what they want to hear, reinforcing their delusions.

 

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Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Added to this discussion, I believe it is hard for the very rich to find adequate help for something like this because they get into contact with cynical greedy doctors who tell them what they want to hear, reinforcing their delusions.

 

That’s an interesting point. It’s what happened with Michael Jackson really isn’t it? Being pumped with ever higher dosages of drugs at his request, you’d never get a doctor at your local hospital to agree to that.

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Todd

Christian wrote:

Any of us who do not suffer from any mental conditions can count our blessings, and we should be careful not to discount the harships that people who do have to endure.

Well I do suffer from some mental health issues, Christian, and while I’m not saying that lets me understand everyone else who has one, it doesn’t mean I can suddenly spout anti-semitism (or in the case of my ADHD afflicted classmate, squirts pipettes of acid around in a science lesson) and blame it on the condition. The lack of social filter that creates the desire to talk about his love for Hitler maybe be due to bipolarity – I can even see how it would contribute to convincing him it would be a great idea to make a music video death threat to Pete Davidson – but that anti-semitism has to come from somewhere to start with. Going “oh but he’s mentally ill” is just a slap in the face to all the other mentally ill people who aren’t shithead racists. It’s a contributing factor to his behaviour but not the cause of his beliefs.

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Al-x, Ben

No matter what the cause is for his offensive messages, I think it’s perfectly justified to limit his ability to spread them (eg. by banning his Twitter).

In the same way as it wouldn’t be sensible to let someone drive a car if they had regular seizures, it’s probably not sensible to give West a platform to spread racist hate speech if his condition encourages him to do that regularly.

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Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Yes I’d say even more than justified, as the Noah clip suggests, it’s better for all parties to keep him out of the public gaze.

If he is a rampant fascist by choice that doesn’t need to be promoted, and if it’s a mental breakdown neither does that (I suspect it’s a bit of both).

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lorcan_nagle, Ben, Dave

Eh, I can’t diagnose Kanye, maybe he is just an asshole. However I think certain delusional beliefs can be caused by mental illness.

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Todd

What can be said about Kanye that isn’t the title of a certain Richard Pryor album?

garjones wrote:

it’s better for all parties to keep him out of the public gaze.

Unless your last name is Trump…

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Todd

Tangentially o this discussion I just listened to a very grim podcast about the lack of mental healthcare for refugees who were tortured in thecountrythey fled. It was mostly abou Syrians but it also applies to other countries. There is no care for these people until they flip out and something goes wrong.

 

Mental healthcare is just very badly managed.

 

Wether his antisemitic outbursts are part of his condition or not, Kanye is seriously ill and he deserves compassionate treatment.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Kanye is seriously ill and he deserves compassionate treatment.

That is true to a certain point; but when the man has his erratic and inappropriate statements and actions pointed out to him, and chooses to double down rather than seek medical or psychological help, my sympathy for him is diminished.

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Al-x, Dave, lorcan_nagle, Todd

Martin Smith wrote:

but that anti-semitism has to come from somewhere to start with. Going “oh but he’s mentally ill” is just a slap in the face to all the other mentally ill people who aren’t shithead racists. It’s a contributing factor to his behaviour but not the cause of his beliefs.

Anti-semitism comes from a lot of places, really, it’s not like Kanye invented it. And yes, again, we can’t tell how much of his mental is a contributing factor and yes, it’s also tricky to talk about because you run the danger of reducing people to their illness. But not all mental issues are the same and it’s worth repeating what Arjan says, paranoid delusions can indeed be caused by bipolar disorder, so yes, that may well be the cause of what we’re seeing.
Talking more generally about mental disorders, obviously you can’t paint everybody with the same brush, not even when it comes to the most common ones like different forms of ADHD, depression or phobias. But it’s pretty obvious that there are mental illnesses that seriously affect what we see as people’s personalities, their belief systems, view of the world and behaviour. I don’t know if you have ever known anyone with an actual full-blown psychosis, but to suggest that people who suffer from this only have themselves to blame for the things they believe and act upon just doesn’t fit the reality.

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Todd, Arjan Dirkse

It’s times like this I really miss Miqque’s presence. He would have had a diagnosis with treatment plan options, while condemning the current mental health care system and Republicans in one massive post.

❤️

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Al-x, Daniel R, DavidM, Christian, Sean Robinson, Ben

Well whatever happens I hope Kanye finds a good doctor and gets over this bullshit.

 

Preferably a doctor who doesn’t believe his patients are just being arseholes… ;)

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Todd

Dr Miqque’s first prescription for Kanye would be: No phone for you!

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Todd

This was THIRTEEN YEARS AGO

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Christian, garjones, Sean Robinson, Daniel R, Todd

I have to say Biden coming out and having to say “Hitler was bad” is something I did not expect to see. I’m sure this must be terrible for the Jewish community in the US.

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garjones

WNBA star Griner freed in swap for Russian arms dealer Bout

Good news for Brittney, I guess.

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Al-x, Todd

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I can’t believe this is getting worse

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-missed-payroll-for-some-european-staff-this-month/

And the hits keep on coming: Half of Twitter’s top advertisers have left the platform since Elon Musk’s takeover, report says

The list of brands pulling ads from Elon Musk’s Twitter appears to be growing.

Half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have halted spending on the platform since Musk took over the company at the end of October, according to a report by liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America published last week.

The 50 brands, the report said, have spent nearly $2 billion in advertising on the platform since 2020 and more than $750 million in 2022 alone as of Nov. 21.

Seven additional advertisers that have spent more than $255 million on Twitter ads since 2020 have significantly slowed advertising to almost nothing, according to the report.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What brands have stopped advertising on Twitter?

Some companies such as Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ford, Jeep and Merck have issued statements or have been reported as pausing Twitter ads and confirmed doing so, the report said.

The majority of advertisers on the list, however, have stopped spending on the platform for a “significant period of time following direct outreach, controversies, and warnings from media buyers,” according to a Media Matters analysis of data from ad analytics firm Pathmatics.

An analysis by The Washington Post found more than a third of Twitter’s top advertisers have not advertised on the platform in the two weeks before Nov. 22. Jeep and Mars didn’t have advertisements on the site since at least Nov. 7 as of last week, The Post reported.

General Motors was among the first companies that announced it was pausing advertising on Twitter shortly after Musk closed the $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform. Volkswagen Group also recommended its brands suspend advertising.

General Mills confirmed this month that it has paused its Twitter ads.

“We have paused advertising on Twitter,” General Mills tweeted. “As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend.”

It’s hard to pay down debts when your revenue streams are drying up.

But wait! There’s more!

Twitter disbands its ‘Trust and Safety Council’ that tackled harassment and child exploitation

Twitter is pretty much dead app walking at this point.

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lorcan_nagle

Further in things are going really well at Twitter, they’re selling off office equipment

https://boingboing.net/2022/12/12/twitter-is-auctioning-off-its-espresso-machines-office-chairs-and-memorabilia.html?_ga=2.85988568.1130638008.1670786670-583769432.1655221935

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Todd

My favourite Twitter thing in recent days is Musk doing the Boo-urns routine from the Simpsons completely straight.

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Martin Smith, Chris D, lorcan_nagle, Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Further in things are going really well at Twitter, they’re selling off office equipment

https://boingboing.net/2022/12/12/twitter-is-auctioning-off-its-espresso-machines-office-chairs-and-memorabilia.html?_ga=2.85988568.1130638008.1670786670-583769432.1655221935

And to top that: How Elon botched his war on bots

On Sunday, Elon Musk tweeted a vague warning: “the bots are in for a surprise tomorrow.” He didn’t say what the surprise was. But in the hours that followed, Twitter blocked traffic from roughly 30 mobile carriers around the world, effectively cutting off access to hundreds of thousands of accounts, primarily in the Asia-Pacific region, including vast swaths of Russia, Indonesia, India, and Malaysia.

The project was part of Elon Musk’s attempt to rid Twitter of spam. But rather than work to remove individual offenders, the company identified mobile networks associated with large spam networks in specific countries, and blocked users who relied on those networks from receiving SMS messages from Twitter, impacting people with two-factor authentication. Then it blocked traffic from those carriers completely.

From 5:35 AM to 6:45 AM PT on Sunday, Twitter shut down access to the primary telecom providers in India and Russia, as well as the second biggest telecom company in Indonesia, Platformer has learned.

Almost immediately, complaints started to roll in, as legitimate users found they were unable to access Twitter.

In Slack, a Twitter engineer shared an email from one telecom provider who said users were complaining that Twitter had stopped working. “I expect more emails like this to hit our peering queue tomorrow,” an employee said. “We blocked a fair few [sic] huge carriers, so I would expect so,” another responded.

The company quickly unblocked the carriers, and told them the service issues were due to “routing configuration changes.”

The incident highlights growing confusion within Twitter as the company struggles to carry out Musk’s erratic commands with his ever-shrinking pool of engineers. In some cases, as with the telecom issue, the company has been charged with making huge changes without doing due diligence on their potential consequences.

In others, employees are being asked to scramble to answer questions about individual tweets.

Over the weekend, Musk asked Twitter employees to explain why a tweet about a crypto scam, shared from an account impersonating him, had not been identified as such by the company’s systems. “I believe it is because this account is legacy verified,” an employee explained in Slack. They later added: “The legacy verified account was hacked” and noted the account was now locked and “EM’s image has been removed from the profile.”

“Is it safe to let Elon know that we are making modifications that will downrank these kind of accounts/situations in the future?” asked Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin. An employee responded that Smyte, a content moderation tool that Twitter acquired to identify abnormal behavior, “has been unstable for at least a week now.” Irwin thanked the employee and said that the fact that an account was verified under the old system “should not be an exception criteria for taking action fast.”

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published today, Irwin tried to spin Twitter’s increasing reliance on automated systems as “biasing towards moving quickly and figuring out the details in some of these areas after.”

But the truth is that Twitter has little choice but to rely on automated tools: it continues to fire employees seen as insufficiently loyal to Musk, even if they do crucial work for the company.

On Friday, Musk sent an email to Twitter employees threatening to sue people who leak confidential information to the press, Platformer was the first to report. “If you clearly and deliberately violate the NDA that you signed when joining Twitter, you accept liability to the full extent of the law and Twitter will immediately seek damages,” he wrote. Employees had until 5 PM PT on Saturday to sign a pledge indicating they understood.

Some Twitter employees failed to respond because they were not checking their email over the weekend. On Sunday, they found their access to Twitter’s systems had been cut off.

Then a second email went out: this time, employees were asked to email the people team reaffirming their commitment to stick to their NDAs by December 15, 2022.

By Sunday afternoon, more than 100 employees had been deactivated from Slack.

The company also on Monday disbanded its trust and safety council, which once advised Twitter on content moderation issues, according to an email shared with Platformer.

“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” the unsigned email to council members read. “We will also continue to explore opportunities to provide focussed and timely input into our work, whether through bilateral or small group meetings.”

It continued: “Your regional points of contact will remain the best people to contact to escalate concerns, please let us know if you need reconnecting.”

Three members of the council quit last week in response to Twitter no longer engaging with their requests.

The email was sent to members less than an hour before they were scheduled to have their first meeting since May.

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lorcan_nagle

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Dave wrote:

Is, not was.

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Dave, lorcan_nagle

I knew a few things about it. Some of the famous like Tom Brady were endorsing it.

But now:

https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/12/13/former-ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-fried-arrested-memes/amp/

Al-x wrote:

I knew a few things about it. Some of the famous like Tom Brady were endorsing it.

That’s how pyramid schemes work — by convincing your first group of investors to tell their friends and colleagues how great this thing is.

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Al-x, Todd

When crypto currency first started, a lot were buying/hoarding all the graphics cards to mine the crypto. It drove up the prices of the graphics cards and they were in short supply. Pissed me off at the time, but I still built my PC.

Now, that market got structured with this exchange, commercials , etc. And now… BOOM!

Love the way the guy says about the billions gone:

I had no idea… I have no knowledge… I was trying my best… 🤣🤣🤣

Okay, now that they’ve pulled the curtain back on the crypto currency scheme, can we start working on exposing NFTs for how worthless they actually are?

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Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle, Al-x

njerry wrote:

Okay, now that they’ve pulled the curtain back on the crypto currency scheme, can we start working on exposing NFTs for how worthless they actually are?

Well, Dan Olson released that one YouTube video and the value of NFTs dropped massively the next day and have yet to recover…

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Todd

njerry wrote:

Okay, now that they’ve pulled the curtain back on the crypto currency scheme, can we start working on exposing NFTs for how worthless they actually are?

Depends on your perspective really. If you’re looking to launder money, they’re perfectly fine.

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njerry, lorcan_nagle

I posted a pic of this Luke Paul guy from YouTube who bought an NFT for
few hundred thousand and now it is just worth $10.

On a more serious note, there is news of crypto billionaires and their suspicious untimely deaths:

Death In Crypto: People Want To Know Why 3 Top Crypto Execs Died Just Weeks Apart

njerry wrote:

Okay, now that they’ve pulled the curtain back on the crypto currency scheme, can we start working on exposing NFTs for how worthless they actually are?

All art is worthless.

Speaking of NFTs, guess who’s getting in on the action?

https://boingboing.net/2022/12/15/trump-just-made-his-major-announcement-and-it-really-is-unbelievable.html?_ga=2.135578801.1806063918.1670939097-583769432.1655221935

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Todd, Sean Robinson

I bet Joe Biden is sorry he didn’t think of that first.

Oh, wait, Joe Biden is a mature, intelligent and caring adult who is busy trying to dig our country of the deep hole that Donald Trump put us in. Never mind.

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DavidM, lorcan_nagle, Todd

The value of your NFTs can go down as well as up.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

So much for “free speech” at Twitter…

Elon Musk’s Twitter bans CNN, NYT, WaPo journalists without explanation

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lorcan_nagle, JRCarter

Todd wrote:

So much for “free speech” at Twitter…

Elon Musk’s Twitter bans CNN, NYT, WaPo journalists without explanation

Looks like they were banned for fact-checking Musk’s claim that a car carrying his youngest child was assailed by an alleged stalker. Which coincidentally happened the same day he dumped like 3 billion in Tesla stock…

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Todd, JRCarter

Some predictions are now saying hundreds of thousands of deaths expected because of higher energy prices. Interesting dilemma about who to blame, Putin for starting the war or our own leades for their sanctions which caused the price rise.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Interesting dilemma about who to blame, Putin for starting the war or our own leades for their sanctions which caused the price rise.

No, it’s Putin’s fault. Clearly.

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DavidM, Todd, Ben, Sean Robinson, Uncle Retrospective

It’s Putin’s fault and unfettered capitalisms fault. At least in the US (can’t speak for how energy companies are regulated around the world). But there’s little doubt that major corporations, for example, are taking advantage of the situation and using it as an excuse to ramp up profits

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Sean Robinson, Christian, Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Chris D wrote:

It’s Putin’s fault and unfettered capitalisms fault. At least in the US (can’t speak for how energy companies are regulated around the world). But there’s little doubt that major corporations, for example, are taking advantage of the situation and using it as an excuse to ramp up profits

When I’m posting, assume a critique of Capitalism is in there too. it’s easier then me typing it out every time.

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DavidM, Uncle Retrospective, garjones, Todd, Ben, Dave

In the UK the situation is definitely exacerbated by historical approaches to privatisation, but it feels like one of those things that everyone’s too embarrassed to discuss openly, like an STD or Brexit.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

I want to know what Vlad has on Arjan. He’s been dying on that hill for nearly the entire year.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Well, we can all still blame our leaders for getting more and more dependent on Russian gas even after the Russia invasion of Crimea.
Or on getting more and more dependent on fossil oil at all instead of expanding alternative energies. More than enough blame to go around.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

I don’t think it is so easy. It was the sanctions against the Russian energy sector that especially made natural gas through the roof. You could say there was no choice, we had to do those sanctions, but then it becomes like a trolley problem: do we sanction Russia, and accept that people here die from the cold, or do we refrain from sanctions, thereby continuing to make Russia richer.

Nevertheless, Putin is a psycho, I’m not defending him.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I don’t think it is so easy. It was the sanctions against the Russian energy sector that especially made natural gas through the roof. You could say there was no choice, we had to do those sanctions, but then it becomes like a trolley problem: do we sanction Russia, and accept that people here die from the cold, or do we refrain from sanctions, thereby continuing to make Russia richer.

The thing you walk past is the thing you endorse.

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Christian