Georgia governor signs sweeping election regulations into law. There are even restrictions on snacks.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T20:29:01+00:00

I'm not calling you a liar; I'm saying that even if you're telling the truth, in absence of evidence of significant voter fraud, what happened to you in no way justifies this legislation. Also, I'm still waiting on that scholarly source.

Campaigning at the polls and vote buying are already illegal - the only reason to prevent handing out water is to further disincentivize people from standing in line for hours after you've already ensured that a) there's only one place to vote in huge urban Atlanta districts with hundreds of thousands of people b) there are no ballot drop-off boxes to alleviate the ridiculous volume, c) there are no absentee ballots to alleviate the volume, and d) there's no Sunday voting to alleviate the volume.

None of these are warranted, of course, and in comparison, giving out water hardly warrants fearmongering about voter intimidation, unless, y'know, that's not really why you're fearmongering about "voter intimidation". I've never found water to be that scary, myself.

It has nothing to do with being physically or mentally fit, and everything to do with systematically reducing access to voting in the most populous Georgia districts, which are all overwhelmingly black.

And, this is all beside the point anyway, since, once again, all available evidence unanimously points towards the fact that US elections are already among the most secure in the world. These measures will have zero effect on voter fraud (since, again, it's already effectively nonexistent), which makes me wonder why all of the Republican states would suddenly be so intent on forcing these bills through their legislatures after enormous losses in the presidency and Congress.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T19:52:54+00:00

Nope, it's a .5% decrease in daily case rate, which is enormous and incredibly effective.

After just one month, that's a 14% total decrease in cases, for example.

I will absolutely continue to "parrot" the truth, and your inability to read statistics won't stop me.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T19:07:44+00:00

Anecdotes aren't data. If you have a reputable scholarly source that shows that voter fraud is a significant enough problem to be worth denying water to people waiting in line to vote (not to mention the whole "disenfranchising millions of voters" thing), I'd like to see it.

Everything in this law is designed to make voting orders of magnitude harder for minorities that overwhelmingly vote Democrat, and to act otherwise is transparently disingenuous, especially when all available evidence unanimously points towards the fact that US elections are already among the most secure in the world.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T18:46:09+00:00

Sounds like Sen. Tammy Duckworth might be a little racist.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T18:44:11+00:00

An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19. "The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact." Also notable is that, as their name would imply, N95 masks are up to 95% effective at blocking transmission, with surgical masks hovering around 60-70%.

Not to mention that masks can decrease the severity of a COVID-19 infection.

Also, it's good practice to actually cite your sources.

Also also, if you're going to go through someone's comment history trying to "gotcha" them for everyone to see, posts from 8 months ago aren't usually the best approach.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T18:35:21+00:00

Since actual cases of voter fraud are practically nonexistent, there's really no other conclusion than voter suppression.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T18:10:00+00:00

Bring it on. ;)

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T18:07:12+00:00

Regulation at the state level is always preferable to federal mandate, but it's clear that the nationwide violations of voters' rights have gone too far at this point, and I'm looking forward to the impending federal regulations making this sort of blatant voter suppression illegal once and for all.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T18:00:13+00:00

Make me. I'm here to stay, and I will continue to call out all of the bullshit here. SaidIt has a lot of potential as a platform, and I won't let its decline go uncontested.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T17:57:07+00:00

Respecting the the pyramid of debate isn't whining, especially when this person called me an idiot in two different threads in less than five minutes for no reason, entirely unprompted.

I do note that "whining" is all that you've gotten out of the exchanges on this thread though.

in the same thread freely toss around insults...

Source?

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T17:45:14+00:00

Citations please! Also, which side is "my side"? I'm on the side of the preponderance (or in this case, unanimity) of evidence.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T17:44:18+00:00

How does your lack of understanding of legal proceedings make me the resident idiot?

Also, we can have debate without name calling. Quit dragging down the pyramid of debate for no reason.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T17:05:15+00:00

If Dominion had anything to hide that could come out in discovery, they never would have sued in the first place.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T15:54:07+00:00

LOL. At least the current administration knows how to actually communicate at all.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T15:50:31+00:00

It's better than writing up a list of sourceless conspiracy Youtube video-approved talking points.

it doesn't change the fact that four years ago you were probably frothing at the mouth about "Russian Collusion"

I was trying not to laugh at the Shillary voters I was watching the election with who were literally crying, which goes to show how little you know about me. I had faith in our elections then, and I still do now, especially since in neither case was there any evidence of fraud.

It is telling that you are so eager to believe the fraud in one case, but not the other though. Might wanna think on that for a bit.

It is precisely this kind of vacillation that has fostered peoples' skepticism.

And the fact that it's all baseless and being hyped solely for ragebait clicks is what makes it so sad on both sides.

People are ditching "authoritative" sources by the 10's of millions. You can't stop it. All you can do is repeat your approved talking points ad nauseum.

He says as he repeats his own approved talking points ad nauseam, only without any authoritative sources or scientific support.

You can hide in your house with your mask on while real men and women are making the changes they wish to see.

The only "change" you'll be making is the change in the quality of life your loved ones as you stubbornly and ignorantly kill them with easily preventable diseases.

It's not going away.

Your elderly and immunocompromised loved ones will though.

There is no point in arguing with you if you are just going to repeat oligarch-funded propaganda.

And there's no point in arguing with you if you're just going to repeat Youtube conspiracy nut-funded propanganda with absolutely zero basis in reality.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T14:56:18+00:00

The election was abnormal due to multiple states illegally changing their laws to allow for mail in votes.

These changes were all legal, and all challenges were struck down by the Supreme Courts of the states in question. The more people that have access to easy mail-in voting (which has been shown time and time again to be incredibly secure, by the way), the better.

Swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania had very suspicious statistical anomalies.

Nope, they didn't, and why it appeared that way to the fearmongers and the uneducated has been explained, very clearly, time and time again.

Vote counting took weeks and was very suspicious.

It takes weeks literally every single election to count mail-in votes, and no, it wasn't suspicious at all.

The MSM colluded with the political establishment to bully and gaslight the entire nation into accepting the results the elites found to be favorable.

Nope, that's just what a landslide victory (or loss, in your case) looks like.

The accusations about Dominion were never fully investigated.

Yup, they were, hence this very lawsuit now that they've been fully exonerated. Just like with the election, "the investigation didn't come to the conclusion I wanted it to" is not evidence of a lack of investigation.

The 2021 election was a sham.

The 2020 election was the most secure and fraud-free election in US history. This has been decisively shown time and time again, and at this point willful ignorance of the facts is a shameful display of the dangerous cult of ignorance currently sweeping the country.

As time goes on and this election is further scrutinized and studied, I am certain more inconsistencies pointing to fraud will arise.

Since there have been zero inconsistencies so far, I wouldn't hold your breath. Time will continue to show that these ridiculous, baseless concerns are entirely unwarranted, and it's good to see that the perpetrators of the intentional misinformation and fearmongering that causes gullible people to spout such inane nonsense may finally be seeing at least the slightest bit of accountability for their actions.

I think it is safe to say that the federal government has crossed the threshold into tyranny.

Of course you do.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T13:26:45+00:00

Good to see blatant misinformation finally having consequences. We need more cases like this for the rest of the MSM.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T13:25:54+00:00

As opposed to your critical thinking skills of apparently not even reading the article at all? The entire point of the article is that yes, 1000 people died after taking the vaccine, but that there is no evidence tying those deaths to the vaccine.

The original "source" even included a post-vaccine car accident in their numbers for deaths due to COVID, so we see how much they care about good faith with their reporting numbers.

Face it - unanimous scientific consensus is that vaccines are perfectly safe, and that you have literally zero reason not to get one other than selfishness and willful ignorance.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T12:47:59+00:00

Probably spryly, just as he did after bouncing up after he tripped like a man half his age.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T12:46:53+00:00

That article literally says that "it is false to say that COVID vaccines have caused 966 deaths", and concludes that there is no reason to doubt the safety of the vaccine.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T12:45:05+00:00

Glad you agree. Now go get vaccinated.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T12:05:42+00:00

Why lie when you already don't believe the truth?

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T11:56:05+00:00

Seems like the right call in this case, given the wording of the statute.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T11:54:15+00:00

That's weird - I haven't seen him anywhere near a golf course.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T11:52:45+00:00

Science trumps luck everytime. Antivaxers are the only ones who need luck. Well, them and their elderly and immunocompromised loved ones, at least.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T11:49:47+00:00

Because even if you don't die yourself, you can transmit the virus to someone who is elderly or immunocompromised, and who is much more likely to die.

Getting vaccinated makes it less likely for those around you to contract the disease. And, since evidence currently unanimously points toward all types of the vaccine being perfectly healthy, there's literally zero reason not to get the vaccine other than selfishness or willful ignorance.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T02:35:07+00:00

Yes, it would be much better if the world's most infamous dictators supported him.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-26T02:02:47+00:00

What is being proposed is everyone can vote regardless of residency and citizenship

Imma need a source on this, because citizenship is still absolutely required to vote under the new proposals.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T21:46:50+00:00

Yes! Yes it is! "We should make more mental health resources available for helping people stay psychologically healthy in lockdown" is a completely separate issue from "we should do nothing and just let all of our grandparents die an easily avoidable death."

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T21:19:24+00:00

There's no drug quite like confirmation bias, eh?

A bit of advice: if your beliefs are non-falsifiable, and you have an answer for every possible question against your position, what you believe is fantasy, not fact.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T21:09:48+00:00

The irony of you railing against "MSM propaganda" and then citing them instead of citing the actual science is absolutely hilarious, and incredibly telling. Then again, presciently, I did note that we both already know the science doesn't actually matter to you.

Even so, here you go - I've done your homework for you:
An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19. "The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact"

The physiological effects of face masks during exercise. "Heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and time to exhaustion did not differ significantly."

Effectiveness of Government Policies in Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak. "Using daily data for 32 countries and relying on the stringency of the conducted policies, we find that the greater the strength of government interventions at an early stage, the more effective these are in slowing down or reversing the growth rate of deaths."

Also, from here, showing how many more lives could have been saved in Sweden, tellingly, "Yet the size of the lockdown effect suggests that there is a non-trivial infection externality – people fail to internalise the costs they impose on others as they become infectious and, hence, voluntary social restraint fails to deliver the same extent of social distancing that we observe for the lockdown scenario."

They're talking about you, by the way. You're the reason lockdowns have to be mandatory, and are are less effective than they should be. "Selfish and ignorant indeed."

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T20:51:10+00:00

Hey, at least you've got the self-awareness to recognize it.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T18:18:49+00:00

This entire article is a perfect example of Brandolini's Law at work.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T14:09:29+00:00

Wow, nearly 10% of the population - it's a good thing vaccine rollout has been as quick as it has.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T14:03:09+00:00

Wait, what? This is literally just a self post - was there supposed to be an article attached to it? It is nice to see a headline we can all get behind though.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T14:02:05+00:00

This has nothing to do with history.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:58:45+00:00

Since there are currently literally zero confirmed vaccine deaths, despite all of the unsourced anecdotes in the "article", I'm not sure that's anything we need to be worried about.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:54:04+00:00

The more the better. The amazing developments that have come out of the vaccine field in the past year have been awesome to watch.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:52:46+00:00

If you want a non-iPhone (and you should), Linux phones are literally your only choice.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:48:17+00:00

Here's the text of the amendment in question, in its entirety. Literally nothing in there about conservatives at all, and there is zero evidence that the NIS or CIA will declare conservatives "domestic terrorists".

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:42:31+00:00

I can't stand Chuck, but he's not wrong this time, unfortunately. States are infringing on the right to vote just like the courts are infringing on the right to bear arms.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:38:11+00:00

Of course it does. Nothing says "shall not be infringed" like infringement. At least the judge didn't dismiss the suit challenging the ban though.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:25:35+00:00

People that think for themselves

Got news for ya, champ: watching nothing but poorly sourced and even more poorly produced Youtube videos on the frontpage of /s/conspiracy does not constitute "thinking for yourself".

They should be wearing that muzzle 24/7(proper breathing is overrated)

Study after study has shown that masks in no way impair gas exchange or proper lung function, even with high levels of athletic activity, and that they demonstrably reduce COVID transmission, but we both already know that the science doesn't matter to you. Once again, your conspiracy Youtubers aren't "free thinkers" - they're just exacerbating the culture of willful ignorance and misinformation that's so ubiquitous on places like SaidIt these days, and unfortunately you're not enough of a free thinker to do your own (actual) research.

a vaccine that isn't really a vaccine

Is it a preparation that causes your body to produce antibodies against future infection? It's a vaccine. A vaccine based on tech that also seems likely to provide further benefits against cancer in the near future, so the more research seen in that area, the better.

a virus with a 99.6% recovery rate

Thanks to lockdowns demonstrably slowing the rate of infection, increased availability of specialized medical equipment despite the best efforts of the prior administration to kill as many people as it could, and the countless hours of work in hazard conditions by the medical professionals that you're disgracing with your antivaxxer bullshit.

Selfish and ignorant indeed.

You've done an excellent job demonstrating that you belong in this category as well. Try being an actual free thinker, for once. Oh, and don't forget to wear a mask and get vaccinated - it saves lives.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T13:09:15+00:00

Looks like somebody failed high school biology.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-25T01:26:21+00:00

Good for her. Hopefully your selfishness and willful ignorance doesn't get anyone elderly or immunocompromised killed.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-24T14:45:13+00:00

I don't think feminism is an argument for more conservatives at all - more just an argument for alternative approaches to equality like egalitarianism. Not identifying as a feminist doesn't mean you automatically identify as a conservative.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-24T14:42:18+00:00

I agree with you in that I think SaidIt should stay English only for now, but I think the main issue is one of moderation and avoiding spam. Eventually I think it would be great for SaidIt to become a multilingual online forum, but that will only work once the infrastructure to support it is in place.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-16T20:51:12+00:00

Note that this report only claims that foreign governments tried to interfere with election results more than ever before, not that the results of the election were in any way in question or that there was any voter fraud.

In fact, they specifically went out of their way to deny these concerns:

We—the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, including CISA—have no evidence that any foreign government-affiliated actor prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit election results in a timely manner; altered any technical aspect of the voting process; or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information of any ballots cast during 2020 federal elections.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-13T12:15:46+00:00

But I thought republicans liked spending money on fences?

rdh2121 · 2021-03-13T00:03:46+00:00

I tried, but it doesn't seem like any files are available that I could find.

The game had a super limited run in Japan and now the cards go for hundreds of dollars online, and it's practically impossible to assemble a complete set.

I even tried to get scans from the video game itself, but the assets were so low quality that I finally decided it wasn't worth the effort.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T23:57:46+00:00

Triple Triad from Final Fantasy VIII. A few years ago I looked for some scans of the cards online to make my own deck, but could never find any good enough.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T23:46:25+00:00

Hi, just a reminder that if you're not going to allow debate (or men, for that matter), per Saidit rules you have to enable the option to remove your sub from the frontpage.

I saw this post from New, so you may have already done so, but I wanted to send a quick reminder just in case.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T18:50:08+00:00

No more so than we should have questioned Trump's. It is high time to start electing 40-somethings instead of 80-somethings though. Same goes for Congressmen. We're a generation and a half past where we should have stopped letting Boomers control politics.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T18:29:10+00:00

Gun rights are human rights. That amendment needed to be blocked.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T18:22:57+00:00

In a vacuum, I'd say you're right, but the way Reddit and other private platforms have been treating unpopular speech for the past decade or so is representative of a troubling cultural shift in the mainstream that is definitely worth talking about just as much as joblessness and the general economic downturn.

Full disclosure, I'm not a superstraighter, but I am enjoying the shit they're stirring up.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T18:17:50+00:00

I mean, it's pretty par for the course at this point. The Republicans have been the party of "socialism for Congress and billionaires, feudalism for everyone else" for at least three decades now.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T18:15:21+00:00

Why is this on /s/WikiLeaks?

rdh2121 · 2021-03-12T18:14:23+00:00

Oh, he definitely hasn't personally, but that seems kinda beside the point. Health-related nonprofits lobbying for government funds to replace unexpected additional costs due to a pandemic in a bill specifically for pandemic relief seems pretty reasonable.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T21:07:29+00:00

Even assuming I voted for Biden, he's the one in the White House, so what's to seethe about? Sounds an awful like impotent projection on your part to me.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T21:04:38+00:00

Not personally, but six of his businesses did. What did he have to say as a result? "I do play with the bankruptcy laws—they're very good for me."

Who's the shill again?

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T20:58:29+00:00

None of what you said has anything to do with the article or my response to it, which is about Covid relief money going to care organizations negatively affected by the pandemic. I'm not sure what you're smoking, but I definitely want to try some.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T20:38:24+00:00

"To mitigate the impact on such programs from the coronavirus."

That's why. It's literally in the same paragraph in the bill. The "article" even has a screencap of where it says it! This is never even mentioned by the "article", of course, which then proceeds to baselessly fearmonger for ten paragraphs before calling it a day.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T20:33:24+00:00

Good to hear they're following the science. According to the CDC, cloth masks over surgical masks block significantly more particles - from 50% with one mask alone to more than 85%.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T20:22:34+00:00

Seems like a good idea. According to the article, switching to LED lights and improving climate control systems "would save 2.1 megatonnes of CO2e, or 1.3 per cent of the state’s total emissions."

Also, I'm not sure why the article is comparing weed production to coal mining. The problem with coal isn't mining it - it's unnecessarily burning it for energy in the first place when better alternatives exist.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T19:19:28+00:00

I just happened to see this post scrolling through New and have no idea what this sub is about, but that makes a lot of sense to me.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T12:30:40+00:00

More like:

LibLeft: Clearly doesn't believe in the sanctity of marriage

LibRight: Just declares bankruptcy over and over again to never have to pay his bills

AuthLeft: literally a gun grabber

AuthRight: resorted to a coup when an election didn't go his way

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T02:14:11+00:00

Definitely better safe than sorry. Hopefully they can quickly rule out the vaccine as a possible cause and get those doses back into circulation.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-11T02:09:08+00:00

Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776, laying the groundwork for the modern understanding of capitalism. He's effectively the inventor of the free market economy as we understand it today, and is probably the biggest name in the history of economics.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T23:24:58+00:00

Same here. Do reporting options differ by sub?

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T23:17:08+00:00

It's funny how Trumpets are suddenly starting to care about migrant children all of a sudden...

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T23:14:33+00:00

Can confirm that neither button changes at all for me when I vote. I've started using whether or not the number changes as my indicator for whether a vote went through.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T21:33:45+00:00

That's an excellent, valid criticism, but it's not what my comment was addressing. I was pointing out that the title and vast majority of the article aren't valid or good criticisms.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T14:41:18+00:00

Pretty sure that if he held church services online, he wouldn't have been jailed. Which means, of course, that he wasn't jailed for church services.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T13:07:31+00:00

How else will they justify their continued militarization of police?

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T12:57:56+00:00

Always remember that if a headline is a question, the answer is "no".

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T12:41:11+00:00

Lol, no it won't. It will remove your freedom to be your own boss if you don't treat your employees like people though, as should be the case anyway.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T12:37:19+00:00

Lol, heaven forbid companies actually provide a living wage and benefits to their employees, amirite?

If your business model relies on withholding benefits from your employees to survive, then your business should fail.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T12:34:24+00:00

I think libertarianism while championing individual rights, should mandate tighter corporate regulations as to prevent corporations from amalgamating themselves into monopolies or oligopolies leading to price-fixing and having a stranglehold in a sector of a market.

I agree completely. Adam Smith himself recognized that both parties to a contract have to have equal knowledge and standing for the free market to actually work, and I think the widespread lack of awareness of this fact has been incredibly damaging for the supposedly "pro-free market" crowd. The (non-natural) monopolies that inevitably result from lack of anti-union legislation prevent the free market from functioning as intended.

rdh2121 · 2021-03-10T12:12:50+00:00

...the thin-skinned bully sputtered as he literally ran away from ten seconds of criticism.

To be fair, there's a pitiful lack of standing by what you say nowadays, so I can respect him for that at least, but Piers Morgan is still a piece of shit.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-26T16:54:57+00:00

Good! Seems like masks and social distancing measures are working in the parts of the country that are actually performing them! Just compare how deaths are sharply increasing in Texas and Florida, states whose governments and citizens have acted irresponsibly in response to the virus, with states like New York, which have actually y'know, responded to the pandemic. Think of how much lower your own death data could be if not for people acting like irresponsible idiots.

Also, remember that due to CDC's collecting methods, deaths are higher than they report at any given time. In fact, deaths are currently increasing, and are the most they've been since early June. Note that the CDC states at the bottom of the page with your chart that full numbers are delayed by multiple weeks, so in the most recent few weeks of data deaths are largely underrepresented, which is why you see such a huge drop-off in the week ending 7/18. The numbers for those same weeks, especially the most recent one, will noticeably increase over the next month or so, and I'd be very surprised with all of the new deaths coming out of idiot states the past couple weeks, if 7/18 doesn't surpass 7/11. I'll try to remember to post this chart again in a few weeks when the death data for these periods of time are more complete, to show how misleading this post was.

Also, Imma need a source on your claim about "mainstream media fear propaganda rapidly increasing"? Also, source on your claim of "government and corporate draconian measures rapidly increasing"?

Drawing bad conclusions from incomplete good data, and then mixing those bad conclusions with baseless assertions is a bad look. Your post reflects your username, at the very least.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-26T16:12:09+00:00

Oh, I'm not saying you said they were a hoax at all. I'm talking about the users of this sub in general, who seem to think mask regulations are some sort of government conspiracy.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-26T16:05:08+00:00

And yet these masks are somehow a government hoax? Seems a bit counterproductive to me.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-26T06:49:02+00:00

This is entirely false, according to the CDC, which clearly states that the current test is specifically for COVID-19.

You're absolutely right that your attempts at distraction and misinformation are not my concern, though, and you following me around the sub trying to muddy the waters with ridiculous assertions and accusations won't stop me from debunking the pathological science and conspiracy theories this sub is sadly currently full of.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-26T06:37:35+00:00

Except for the fact that I'll be wearing a mask when I go to McDonald's, and you two will apparently only be going places that don't require masks.

Good riddance to both of you, I guess. Hopefully you learn to make better choices in the future.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-26T06:34:12+00:00

I mean, yeah. I can't very well draw any of the lines from the comic, since all of those lines are nonsense, so I figured I'd draw a real line instead.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T20:59:05+00:00

Now now, let's have proper discourse. None of this dragging down the Pyramid of Debate with ad hominem just because your argument is bad and you have no other recourse. That's what Saidit is designed to avoid, remember? Be better, /u/tseug.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T20:23:35+00:00

I am immunocompromised(lupus, sjogrens, RA, and FMF) so.....not the asshole you think I am.

Fair enough. I apologize for my tone - I just have to wade through so many conspiracy theories and so much science denial on this sub that I think I may have stopped giving people the benefit of the doubt, but that's on me.

If I feel unsafe or that I might get infected I don't go somewhere. It's called being responsible for your own health.

Absolutely, and this is, of course, best practice. But, not everyone in that position has the social support network to go into public in their place, and so have no choice but to take those dangerous actions for necessities like food and medical care, not to mention the fact that any spread of the virus makes it more likely that immunocompromised people will come in contact with it.

Wearing a mask and social distancing is such a small thing, and can help so many people, that it boggles my mind how so many people are so resistant to it. I agree that it shoudn't be mandated by law, but it should be mandated out of respect for your fellow man.

We don't require people to wear masks for any other disease. Why not the flu?

For multiple reasons, but the biggest one is the fact that we have a vaccine for the flu that millions of people get every year, which provides a degree of herd immunity that reduces the transmission rate and deadliness of the flu.

Another reason that might be just as big is the fact that we've known practically everything about the various strains of flu for decades, and have expectations for both the numbers and symptoms of people that have to be treated. The Novel Coronavirus, on the other hand, is, well, novel, and so we still know surprisingly little about it, both the virus itself, its symptoms, and the way it kills. Even now, we're still discovering new info, like how it can cause permanent lung damage. Plus, since we have no herd immunity, the chances that medical facilities will be overrun with its rapid spread are greatly increased, so people who should have lived through the virus with appropriate medical attention will instead die due to lack of capacity (this is why New York's death rate is so much higher than every other state's, and many, if not most of those deaths were preventable if people had taken proper precautions with masks starting much earlier).

These are just a few of the reasons.

Last year I had the flu for three months. Literally three months of illness. It sucked, but I'm not about to require that every other person in my general vicinity wear a hot uncomfortable mask when it is 95 degrees outside.

I had the flu for the first time this year too, and can definitely vouch for it sucking. But, again, our medical facilities are prepared for the seasonal flu; we haven't had time to get the infrastructure in place for a rapidly-spreading pandemic, even if its symptoms and death rate look similar to that of the flu (with the very limited amount of info we have about the virus so far).

I am against legally mandated mask wearing, but I absolutely believe in extreme social shaming for assholes who are willing to trade others' lives for a tiny bit of discomfort when they go outside (which they shouldn't be doing anyway unless they have to! double assholery!).

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T19:50:50+00:00

doesn't the cartoon present a valid point about government overreach and the destruction of civil liberties?

Absolutely not. Brandolini's Law is in full effect here, but I guess I've got nothing better to do with my afternoon than break down just a bit of how biased and misleading this comic is.

rant about globalist Illuminati

This is absolutely misinformation, but it's critical to note that the comic assumes the existence of the Illuminati and their responsibility for mask policies as a presupposition. This starts off the entire argument on a false premise, and by setting it up as a presupposition, it makes the false premise more difficult to target with a rebuttal (check out the semantics of presuppositions for how they can't be targeted by negation).

The comic has started off with a false assumption, and we haven't even started talking about the content of the comic yet. This comic is already clearly conspiracy theory nonsense, and yet here I am still having to spend my time debunking it on a Subsaidit with like 10 users.

Citizens drawing the line (this isn't your quote, but this is how I'm quoting the comic)

What citizens?? The vast majority of citizens supported mask regulations until talking heads started making it a political issue that the sheeple were too stupid not to fall in line with. Even now the majority of citizens want mask requirements, at least by private businesses. The comic has started off by misrepresenting the number of people who agree with its premise, which is disingenuous and troubling.

Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of the country has no legal requirement to wear masks, and private businesses are well within their rights to require mask use, just like they can require shirts and shoes. Some of the larger, more troubled cities do have regulations (which I agree is an unconstitutional overreach), but for the slippery slope argument presented in the comic to hold water, its initial premise should have to hold for at least a bit more than a tiny percentage of the country, don't you think? Especially since its endpoint is so dire, far-reaching, and dystopian?

Mandatory vaccines

This is already a bridge too far, and the slippery slope has already broken down. There has been zero indication that Covid vaccines will be mandatory - this is pure speculation and fearmongering, and we're only in the second panel of the comic so far. It's not looking good for the "valid point about government overreach and the destruction of civil liberties". Not to mention that the step of mandatory vaccines depends on the prior step of mask regulations, which as we've already shown is entirely blown out of proportion by the assumptions of the comic, which are hyperbolic, purposefully exaggerated, and overwhelmingly false.

This step along the slippery slope is already unwarranted and we can safely ignore the rest of the comic (though we should have ignored all of it the moment we saw "Illuminati").

Biometric ID chip

2 huge problems here.

Yet again, there has been zero indication that "biometric ID chips* will ever be mandatory, and since this step along the slippery slope is based on the already flawed prior step of mandatory vaccines, which also has zero evidence in support of it, this panel can be rejected out of hand. You've already mentioned how ridiculous any assumption of Bill Gates' involvement in any of this is.
The government already has all of this information!! A "biometric ID chip" would give the government practically zero information that they don't already have. Your cell phone tracks your location to within one meter at practically all times. All of your medical information, personal information, relationships, fetishes, etc. have already been leaked online, and you have literally nothing left to lose. So, if you want to do something useful, stop fearmongering about conspiratorial what-ifs with literally zero support, and start advocating for the consumer and citizen privacy and information rights that we've already lost as the Information Age has so quickly outpaced the (purposefully) slow progress of our judicial and legal processes.

quarantine camps, I guess? or something??

I have literally no idea where in his ass Ben pulled this from, so based on the complete lack of support for literally anything else he's said in the entire comic, I'm going to assume that the US probably isn't Nazi Germany.

There. A full half hour of my life wasted debunking idiotic shit that nobody should have spent more than 2 seconds looking at before they rejected it out of hand. Ben Garrison is a hyperbolic, fearmongering hack, not only profiting off of, but stoking the fear and doubt that surrounds an international pandemic, and helping to ensure that our response to the virus is disunified, insufficient, and partisan, so that he can profit even further off the spiraling cycle of fear. Some in this sub will likely call this an ad hominem, but as the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me tens of thousands of times, in a row, with literally everything that has come out of your mouth for decades being an incendiary lie, shame on me".

Maybe I should thank him for keeping my expectations about my species nice and low.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T19:05:52+00:00

On no a plague exactly like the cold or the flu.

Neither of those are a plague, and neither of those are like the Coronavirus, which has been shown to cause semi-permanent lung damage, for just one example of how it's different, so...

How will we ever survive this pandemic?

Masks and social distancing. Or sacrificing the elderly and immunocompromised if you're an asshole, like the majority of the country seems to be, I suppose.

Oh wait I know probably the exact same way we survived all the other ones.

Yeah, with MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DYING. How about we, y'know, try to AVOID THAT THIS TIME, especially since the effort it takes to do so is so incredibly minimal (and yet somehow so difficult for some people)?

Welcome to Earth. You are guaranteed no safety here.

This is a retarded argument, and you know it. The entirety of human history has been about decreasing the inherent risk of human life on Earth, and I guarantee that you take countless anti-risk precautions both for yourself and others every single day without even thinking about it, so you can take your hypocritical bullshit somewhere else.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T16:42:16+00:00

Yeah, "science denier" sounds pretty appropriate as well, now that you mention it. Add that to the list.

... Did you know the majority of studies published in scientific journals aren't reproducible?

Yes. Did you know that a) determining which studies aren't reproducible is a good thing, and entirely appropriate for rigorous scientific inquiry¹ and b) that doesn't mean all of the numerous studies overwhelmingly showing the efficacy of masks and vaccinations specifically are among the unreproducible studies?

Got any more dumb non sequiturs to continue your attempts to distract and misinform?

¹ You know what kinds of claims are never reproducible, because they have no basis in the scientific method? The misinformation, pathological science, and conspiracy theories this sub is constantly being spammed with. Remember that the first sign of a conspiracy theory is always having a ready answer for any and all criticism of your ideas.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T14:09:07+00:00

Literally no one said any of that. This is Saidit, and nobody can silence you here.

But, I think adding "victim complex" to misinformation and fearmongering sounds appropriate.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T02:47:39+00:00

The more people refuse to wear masks, don't follow proper social distancing procedures, and go out in public when not necessary, the more cases you'll find as well. ;)

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T02:45:51+00:00

That's because you're part of the problem. Good riddance, I guess.

rdh2121 · 2020-07-25T01:54:28+00:00

We all already knew this, of course, but it's nice to see it confirmed by research.

rdh2121