IOM Covid removing restrictions

[pongo]

17 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

i agree entirely with what you say about Johnson. I would extend your diagnosis across the pond too

At some level, don't you rather fall into the same trap when personally blaming politicians and governments?  Isn't that just more of the same - everyone looking for someone to call out?

With the possible exception of maybe Trump who just seems to welcome controversy and division. I certainly don't believe that Johnson deserves to be lumped in with Trump in this context.

Politicians can't win. They either do too much or too little. Either way someone on Twitter .. etc

Edited September 25, 2020 by pongo

[pongo]

All of the British politicians who are not Johnson are likely very pleased that he is the PM atm and not them.

[tetchtyke]

3 hours ago, The Old Git said:

Wasn’t he meant to be isolating after coming back from holiday? 

I'll confess I missed that bit.

Moving on, the awkward truth about Trump and Johnson is that their supporters don't see the offensive remarks, the racism, the abuse of women, as an issue. Anything that annoys the woke liberals is music to their ears. In the US it's the hicks and the KKK supporters, in the UK it's those who rally round Brexit. 

Some say Johnson isn't as outlandish as Trump, but I don't agree. Only the other week he was calling Starmer a terrorist sympathiser and threatening to break international law just to look tough, not to mention his previous comments about letterboxes and picanninies and threatening journalists with beatings.

Johnson's trouble is his voter base is older people who want lockdowns as they're scared, but his backers are the hard right who want no lockdown at all as they see the carnage as an opportunity.

For all we whinge about our lot, I have to say I think the Manx government have got the balance right. Restrictions at the border mean fewer restrictions in day to day life. And as I can't afford to go away all the time, the latter suits me just fine.

Edited September 25, 2020 by tetchtyke

[Albert Tatlock]

10 hours ago, wrighty said:

I don't think it's a bad plan - it's an established fact that covid affects the young far less than the old, and the vast majority of 18-21 year olds will have a mild or asymptomatic experience.  There will be odd ones who have it bad - but each year there are odd cases of meningitis among returning students, and we don't lock down for fear of that (yes I know we're not in a meningitis pandemic, but the likelihood of a serious illness or even death is at least comparable). My son went back last weekend - I've no doubt he'll be fine, but in some respects he may as well have stayed here.

I do feel sorry for the students, and for those going away to uni for the first time having to isolate with people they don't know, and then to be told it's illegal for them to go home - they must be wishing they hadn't bothered or at least deferred.  A big part of wanting them to return must be economic, rather than the government covertly pursuing a herd immunity strategy.  Without the fees universities will go bust, and many (not just academics) would lose jobs.

I think as more and more online and verified training and examination takes route - a lot of Universities will die out over the coming decade in the their present form - many already have online courses available. Of course there are topics such as medicine where hands-on will still be required, but for the vast majority of subjects (and even many theoretical medical courses) online will likely be the route people take.

Online will also mean more choice and cheaper options.

This is most certainly the case for many IT degrees currently, but numerous other disciplines will follow quickly IMO.

It's a digital revolution that many chancellors and academic teachers are choosing to prefer to ignore currently - and are wriggling about - but it is already beginning to overwhelm them. Covid has done nothing but to speed that revolution up.

 

[TheTeapot]

57 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

 

This pandemic was an opportunity for the whole world to come together but instead it’s brought about more division than ever. Not just division over Covid but division over just about everything. Setting people against people to, as you have said, to deter them from looking at where the real issue lies  

 

This. It's absolutely ridiculous. Do any two countries actually have the same approach anywhere? The UK is anything but united, the EU disappeared early virtually abandoning Italy, the un has hardly been heard of, Trumps attacks on the WHO has had a bad effect globally, the fringe conspiracy people have become mainstream, there is no trust anywhere. It is total chaos. The weird thing is, that countries have spent years preparing for a scenario just like this, a global pandemic has been right up there as one of the biggest threats to everyone, yet there is very little evidence whatsoever that any of that work has been of any use. It is hugely depressing.

 

[slinkydevil]

17 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

This. It's absolutely ridiculous. Do any two countries actually have the same approach anywhere? The UK is anything but united, the EU disappeared early virtually abandoning Italy, the un has hardly been heard of, Trumps attacks on the WHO has had a bad effect globally, the fringe conspiracy people have become mainstream, there is no trust anywhere. It is total chaos. The weird thing is, that countries have spent years preparing for a scenario just like this, a global pandemic has been right up there as one of the biggest threats to everyone, yet there is very little evidence whatsoever that any of that work has been of any use. It is hugely depressing.

 

Or the shorter version that COD used in their promo video:
 

 

[TheTeapot]

14 minutes ago, slinkydevil said:

 

It's always the bloody Russians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Edit - cheers for that clip, I'd never seen that before

Edited September 25, 2020 by TheTeapot

[TheTeapot]

Woke as an insult means you're not a selfish prick and are someone who actually cares for other people.

Edited September 25, 2020 by TheTeapot

[thesultanofsheight]

3 hours ago, Roxanne said:

Just to point out that by making your observation you are guilty of exactly the same behaviour. Blaming a section of the population (the old people this time) in a somewhat hysterical way for making the rest of us starve. 

i would wager that very few if any of the old people or the general public are behaving in a way to injure others. In as unique situation such as this no-one actually knows how this whole thing will transpire but there’s always the sneaking suspicion and possibility that it may end very badly indeed. With that, the majority of people are following the rules, following the government, whether they know what they’re doing or not because that’s what we do. For now there is no alternative  

Be careful with your words. Seriously. 

Everybody is blaming everyone else. I think the focus on students is totally unfair. I agree with your comments on Stockholm Syndrome and NPD but there are so many people being brainwashed by the media on this and it is the older age group that proportionately seem to be the ones buying it the most. The worst of all are the Facebookers. The role of social media in all of this really needs to be analysed as social media platforms are being actively used to spread what is little short of mass hysteria. And whose share prices have gone up the most over this period? Facebook, Amazon, Apple. In China big platform providers like Tencent etc. They have killed the high street and are helping rip the old economy apart by spreading fake news and fear across various platforms that’s keeping people in their homes using their services more and more and even governments seem helpless to do much about it. If you think about who is profiting from this mass hysteria and social conditioning the most just remember Jeff Bezos is in-line to become the worlds first trillionaire within this decade. Mark Zuckerberg has seen his stock sky rocket since covid. Apple too. I’m not sure they’re even bothered if the old economy falls apart as that gives them an even bigger slice of the activity. A lot of control has even been wrestled from governments who are now doing what they think the (primed and near hysterical) people on social media want them to do despite the clear risks of complete economic collapse in their countries. Some sense of reality needs to emerge. If things don't get back to normal (not this hippy bollocks new normal some seem to think will exist) most people are largely fucked and will be living very different lives as relatively poor and compliant folk under some increasingly right wing governments who will be still claiming that they’re “protecting” them. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by thesultanofsheight

[P.K.]

9 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

Woke as an insult means you're not a selfish prick and are someone who actually cares for other people.

It means you're a liberal.

It's just another right wing attempt to demean those who are aware of social injustice and want to do somthing about it.

Other examples are " virtue signalling" and "champagne socialist" - you get the idea

[slinkydevil]

23 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

It's always the bloody Russians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Edit - cheers for that clip, I'd never seen that before

Look at the interference with US presidential elections / Brexit via vast amounts of Russian meddling on social media platforms. Great way to drive nations apart from the inside out. Anyway I'm going way off topic!

[HeliX]

1 hour ago, P.K. said:

It means you're a liberal.

It's just another right wing attempt to demean those who are aware of social injustice and want to do somthing about it.

Other examples are " virtue signalling" and "champagne socialist" - you get the idea

"Virtue signalling" is quite a telling one as it implies the person yelling it can't imagine a situation where they would care about anyone other than themselves.

[wrighty]

2 hours ago, HeliX said:

"Virtue signalling" is quite a telling one as it implies the person yelling it can't imagine a situation where they would care about anyone other than themselves.

I don't accept that definition.  It's more like the person yelling it can't imagine the particular person doing the signalling caring about the particular issue they're seeming to care about.  For example, if Jeremy Clarkson suddenly started tweeting about how terrible climate change was I'd accuse him of virtue signalling.  Or if a known racist was crooning that 'black lives matter'.

[P.K.]

31 minutes ago, wrighty said:

I don't accept that definition.  It's more like the person yelling it can't imagine the particular person doing the signalling caring about the particular issue they're seeming to care about.  For example, if Jeremy Clarkson suddenly started tweeting about how terrible climate change was I'd accuse him of virtue signalling.  Or if a known racist was crooning that 'black lives matter'.

So you get wankers everywhere. Not exactly 'news' is it?

You're intelligent enough to know that right wingers use it to disparage people actually trying to make a difference for the benefit of the less fortunate in society.

Personally I would describe it as sneering at them...

[Roger Mexico]

46 minutes ago, wrighty said:

I don't accept that definition.  It's more like the person yelling it can't imagine the particular person doing the signalling caring about the particular issue they're seeming to care about.  For example, if Jeremy Clarkson suddenly started tweeting about how terrible climate change was I'd accuse him of virtue signalling.  Or if a known racist was crooning that 'black lives matter'.

I think that's just straightforward hypocrisy though, rather than virtue signalling.  The idea behind virtue signalling is that the person doing it is more interested in how they appear than they are in the cause they are ostensibly advocating.  Whether they believe on the cause is irrelevant - the point is that they are more concerned with self-advertisement - literally signalling their virtues.

But as pointed out above, it's often an indication that those accusing others of it are unable to comprehend any 'virtue' other that short-term self-interest and so anyone advocating anything more altruistic must be either insincere or showing-off.  Which may say more about the accusers than the accused.  It also betrays arrogance in deciding that they know what other people's motivations are.

There's also the irony that those who use this sort of rhetoric are themselves often virtue signalling themselves, though they may not be aware of it.  They're trying to show how hard-headed and tough-minded and pragmatic they are, though in practice they're often just repeating insults they've seen elsewhere.  As David Shariatmadari put it in a very useful 2016 article (with some good links):

Quote

What started off as a clever way to win arguments has become a lazy put down. It’s too often used to cast aspersions on opponents as an alternative to rebutting their arguments. In fact, it’s becoming indistinguishable from the thing it was designed to call out: smug posturing from a position of self-appointed authority.