Corona thread. No politics please

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Post #790 folks! Discuss the cause more and less of this causality and effects which a few of you have embarked on! There is a nice and related thread in PA where some of you will find more sympathetic posters. Most of us like this thread and don't wish to see it locked.

#stillnotnathan
 
Interesting choice of words . . . "funding." I usually think of that word applying to things/people who get their money from the government. Like hospitals in Canada? I'm guessing (?) they receive "funding."

Most all hospitals I know in the U.S. are privately owned/managed. They don't receive funding - at least I don't hear of folks saying it that way. They receive income on bills/invoices they generate for patient services, which are paid by the patients and/or the patients' medical insurance company. Like any other private companies.

Anyway, you are absolutely correct that most/all US private hospitals receive a large portion of their income from elective surgeries that were cancelled due to Covid. Although I think that these surgeries are restarted in most states now - I know they have done so in the hospitals in Florida where my sister works. But hospitals were actually laying off LOTS of hospital staff at the height of Covid in the spring because they had so many empty beds due to the bans on elective surgeries.

Fun Fact: Elective surgeries are not all that "elective." I am naive, so I thought elective surgeries meant things like plastic surgery or the like. Not at all. Can't walk and need a hip replacement? That is an elective surgery. Torn ligament? Getting that repaired is an elective surgery! Elective surgery is any surgery that can be delayed by 24 hours without risk to the life of the patient. Colectomy, appendectomy (usually - not always), hernia repair, tonsillectomy, spinal fusion, hernia . . . elective, elective, elective, elective, elective, elective. So . . . most surgeries are elective. At least here in the U.S.

Yes I think you are correct when the word funding is used, as hospitals here are government funded it’s simplified or stated in a way that’s easy to comprehend from the local perspective as context, but I agree income is a better word.
 
^ there is a glaring problem with that theory:

In 2020 the U.S population is suffering from many more deaths, in fact a lot more excessive death not attributed to COVID-19 in comparison to the baseline deaths numbers from the prior years. If anything, the number of COVID-19 related deaths are UNDERREPORTED.

While it is probable that in a for-profit healthcare system there are more openings for the kind of malfeasances which you are referring to, I firmly believe that if the cases of fraud went head-to-head with the actual number of COVID-19 related deaths, I will win the argument and you will lose. I am pretty confident about that.

I don’t think the numbers are accurate, everything on that side of the border is so political in nature, nearly everything is in the media as blameworthy, I don’t think anyone will ever know the truth.
 
OT and I'm gonna say this once in my infamous #stillnotnathan persona but also reserve the right to keep repeating it:

Chip-Chipney has earned himself a special status around here, almost Lorienesque meaning that he's tight with the Boss. It is how it is and no one had ever said that this CPK sub was an egalitarian subforum much like anywhere else on this BF.com. Case in point, the Titanic post by Chip which got a rise out of a few leading to a mini flame-fest is something that mortals like yours truly and most others like me should not post in this thread. I happen to have found it funny and on point but some of you didn't; get over it.
 
OT and I'm gonna say this once in my infamous #stillnotnathan persona but also reserve the right to keep repeating it:

Chip-Chipney has earned himself a special status around here, almost Lorienesque meaning that he's tight with the Boss. It is how it is and no one had ever said that this CPK sub was an egalitarian subforum much like anywhere else on this BF.com. Case in point, the Titanic post by Chip which got a rise out of a few leading to a mini flame-fest is something that mortals like yours truly and most others like me should not post in this thread. I happen to have found it funny and on point but some of you didn't; get over it.

I’m over here in confused and distrustful land. I don’t outright trust what anyone says about it, unless we can get some results from some kind of verifiable, peer reviewed study.

I realize it’s new and we’re learning things all the time, but as soon as someone with a clear bias presents a narrative I immediately consider it suspect.

For the record, I never looked up what any Politician said about it because they aren’t qualified to speak on it, so why would I bother to look? Same goes for celebrities or athletes.

Locally our info comes from the Provincial Health Officer, at least she’s a Physician.

Edit: In Canada the virus itself isn’t even a political topic. Some of the responses are, in particular the fiscal situation so forgive me if i’ve proven to be naive regarding how political it seems to be down there.
 
His statistics are 100% accurate, and TOTALLY appropriate as a response to a post which compared the plights of Americans facing a Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, to pasengers on the Titanic facing an iceberg in 1912.

Wrong. The statistics would be accurate if the virus had gone through the entire population of the USA - i.e. 100% of the people had been infected; simple as that. It hasn't.

That picture applies to EVERY Country in the World, there are people like that literally everywhere, not just in the USA. You don't have to believe me, look it up.
 
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I'm a blue-collar guy. I work 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year on average, I have a long commute. When I come home, I play with my kids, I don't turn the TV on.

I don't have a PhD in Microbiology or Virology, maybe a Master's from the school of hard knocks.

I don't follow a leader who provides my opinion for me, and I don't have time to learn enough background on the necessary subjects required to make my own fully educated decision.

So where can a guy go to get easily digestible info on this topic, that isn't political bias or BS so that I can make educated decisions and keep my family safe?

School starts this week.
 
just to make it clear, in case anyone is curious- in Canada, the government is funded by taxpayers. Part of that funding goes toward paying for providing health care to everyone, and that means building hospitals and paying people to work in them etc. Because the government negotiates on behalf of Canadians with pharmaceutical companies, we pay a much lower rate than they'd otherwise, (and do) charge elsewhere. There are also plenty of private providers of various forms of healthcare, which operate under regulations built by the government. My hernia operation cost me nothing. I had to wait a bit, but if I wanted to, I could have paid a surgeon to do the work locally but like most people I don't have much in the way of disposable income. You can buy health insurance, or life insurance, or any other kind of insurance, if you want to

I don't doubt that our health care system up here is going to insulate us somewhat from this virus, but there may come a point when the system is simply over run and is unable to cope. That won't be a problem with the system, it will be the unprecedented nature of what we're about to really have to face in the coming months
 
I'm a blue-collar guy. I work 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year on average, I have a long commute. When I come home, I play with my kids, I don't turn the TV on.

I don't have a PhD in Microbiology or Virology, maybe a Master's from the school of hard knocks.

I don't follow a leader who provides my opinion for me, and I don't have time to learn enough background on the necessary subjects required to make my own fully educated decision.

So where can a guy go to get easily digestible info on this topic, that isn't political bias or BS so that I can make educated decisions and keep my family safe?

School starts this week.

here is a non political tidbit of advice; buckle up. Save, prepare. The experts say that preparing for the worst is the best course of action. I have a feeling that, generally, schools will shut down 4 weeks after opening

it's crazy, letting people out of jail because of covid, while putting kids back in school. There is a certain insanity we're all dealing with and we can call it politics, but I'm not convinced that's the right word at all
 
just to make it clear, in case anyone is curious- in Canada, the government is funded by taxpayers. Part of that funding goes toward paying for providing health care to everyone, and that means building hospitals and paying people to work in them etc. Because the government negotiates on behalf of Canadians with pharmaceutical companies, we pay a much lower rate than they'd otherwise, (and do) charge elsewhere. There are also plenty of private providers of various forms of healthcare, which operate under regulations built by the government. My hernia operation cost me nothing. I had to wait a bit, but if I wanted to, I could have paid a surgeon to do the work locally but like most people I don't have much in the way of disposable income. You can buy health insurance, or life insurance, or any other kind of insurance, if you want to

I don't doubt that our health care system up here is going to insulate us somewhat from this virus, but there may come a point when the system is simply over run and is unable to cope. That won't be a problem with the system, it will be the unprecedented nature of what we're about to really have to face in the coming months

Funny you mention that. We've got a Specialist appointment in 2 weeks give or take, to look at a symptom that has come back after a surgery that now appears to be unsuccessful. If another surgery is needed, I will be looking to come up with a bunch of cash quickly to do the surgery privately after dealing with the issue some 2 years though the public system. A serious downside of not having access to an objective way to measure the success of or pick your Dr/Surgeon, some of them barely passed and aren't as good as we would like them to be. Now the wait lists are probably way backed up given how many surgeries were cancelled in the spring/summer. Will be great to deal with a hospital just as the kids have been back to school for a few weeks, oh boy.

This year has been a doozy.
 
here is a non political tidbit of advice; buckle up. Save, prepare. The experts say that preparing for the worst is the best course of action. I have a feeling that, generally, schools will shut down 4 weeks after opening

it's crazy, letting people out of jail because of covid, while putting kids back in school. There is a certain insanity we're all dealing with and we can call it politics, but I'm not convinced that's the right word at all

How do you figure we best prepare from a fellow Canadian perspective? Don't tell me toilet paper....
 
A link where it's confirmed that THE ENTIRE POPULATION of THE USA had been infected with SARS COV2 and lived or died?

Until then, the CFR looks like this:

View attachment 1414146

CFR = 2.99%

p.s. for the people that do understand Statistics, yeah, the number of cases it's most likely highly underestimated. Probably the number of deaths as well ;(...
And it's actually even worse than that, particular, picture. Best way to get mortality rate is to use deaths vs RESOLVED cases, not total cases, because X percentage of the active cases are also going to die.
 
^ there is a glaring problem with that theory:

In 2020 the U.S population is suffering from many more deaths, in fact a lot more excessive death not attributed to COVID-19 in comparison to the baseline deaths numbers from the prior years. If anything, the number of COVID-19 related deaths are UNDERREPORTED.

While it is probable that in a for-profit healthcare system there are more openings for the kind of malfeasances which you are referring to, I firmly believe that if the cases of fraud went head-to-head with the actual number of COVID-19 related deaths, I will win the argument and you will lose. I am pretty confident about that.
Apologies for not having the time to get to this earlier before the topic got a little heated again.

Yes, I found Chip's meme amusing, simply as a general illustration of the different mentalities being so resistant to things.

But to get back to the point of the thread, which is to discuss data and information about this disease and pandemic:

To add to Matty's post:
1) Yes, the excess mortality in the US has spiked significantly from March onwards. ~235,000 excess deaths from March to August (i.e. over and above the average number of deaths due to all causes, when compared to the previous 5 years).

2) The thing is, there are a LOT of people who are unfamiliar with these subjects, and don't know how to parse the data, or understand what it means.

For example, there has recently been a claim/theory circulating from folks who say they have found proof that the CDC has been inflating the Covid-19 fatality numbers. The claim stems from not understanding how death certificates are filled;

"The CDC website just recently changed their reporting quietly, without telling anyone. They now state that ONLY 6% of the death certificates list Covid-19 as the sole cause of death. SEE?!!! 94% of the deaths attributed to Covid-19 aren't due to Covid-19, but are caused by other issues those people had!!! They're just pumping up the numbers to scare people!". ***which is a spurious claim in the first place. That comment has been there for months. Someone digging for confirmation bias only just recently noticed it, and began screeching about it***.

Standard practice is generally to list contributing causes of death, but also to list underlying conditions that may not have directly caused the death. Significant comorbidities are commonly listed (eg. Heart Disease, COPD etc.). Obesity has also been identified as a significant comorbidity for Covid-19, and guess what? In the US, obesity is over 42% as of the 2017-2018 data.

The other part that the overwhelming majority of non-medical personnel will be unaware of, is HOW the descriptions of the cause of death are entered in the death certificates. It's exceedingly rare to simply list the cause of death as "influenza".

A typical death attributed to a patient who's tested positive for influenza, and is due to influenza would be entered in a format something like;
'Cause of death' - cardiac arrest, due to acute bacterial pneumonia infection, resulting from confirmed infection with influenza Type A.

People don't tend to die OF the flu, but it kills thousands of people in the US anyway. They die from complications that arise from infection WITH the flu, and the death certificates are filled as such.

Yes, comorbidities, whether it's old age, immunocompromisation due to other health factors, obesity, COPD, diabetes etc. significantly increase an individual's risk of death from contracting an infection (whether it's influenza, or Covid-19 with its 20 - 30x higher CFR), and those things will likely be listrd in the death certificate as well.

The people looking for confirmation bias, with a lack of understanding, are the ones asking the equivalent of, "Yeah, but did they die OF the flu, or WITH the flu?". "Did all those people in the holocaust die FROM the concentration camps, or merely IN/AT the concentration camps?"

Another argument I've seen fairly often is, "Most of the deceased were going to die soon anyway. Look at the average age of Covid-19 deaths. They would've probably died within the next 12 months even without Covid-19".

This is another example of people misunderstanding the terminology, statistics and reality of the data/figures they're looking at. "See, the person was 77 y/o. Average life expectancy in the US is 78. They were likely going to die in the next year anyway".

No, that's not how it works. The life expectancy figure is from birth, and is simply a statistical mean. It does NOT mean that on average, 77 year old US citizens only have 12 months left to live. In general, people in the US who make it to the age of 77, can generally expect another 7-8 years of life, even WITH comorbidities.

When the statistics state that the average life expectancy in Europe in the 1700s was 30-40 years, it does NOT mean that finding 50 year old people was extremely uncommon and that folks rarely lived past 40-45. The life expectancy takes into account infant mortality.

In ANY region with little to no access to modern medical treatment/advancements (i.e. the entire planet in the 1700s, and many 3rd world regions even today), children die at exceedingly high rates. The probability of surviving to their 5th birthday was/is alarmingly low (compared to that same probability now, for regions with good access to modern healthcare).

The likelihood of surviving to adulthood in those times/regions was even lower. That significantly skews the life expectancy a lot lower, but it doesn't mean that there weren't a fair number of 60, 70 or 80 year olds regularly exceeding the 'life expectancy' numbers. It's just that most people don't really understand what the numbers mean/indicate.

To give another example of conspiracy theorists/confirmation bias types misinterpreting things they don't understand;
Years ago, there was a summit with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (and others, though it's been awhile and I don't recall all the details).

Antivaxxer conspiracy theorists posted a segment of the videotaped discussion, where they talked about increasing access to modern healthcare/medicine in 3rd world regions and how access to vaccines can help with population control in those areas. The antivaxxers immediately began screeching about "Proof that vaccines have ingredients to sterilize/kill people because they want to limit/cull undesirables!". No, it's just that the individuals in thr discussion are well aware of how access to modern healthcare affects population growth, so there was no need for the preamble of clarifying it.

Wherever infant mortality (and mortality in general) has been highest, birth rates are also significantly higher. The simple reason is that if the probability of a newborn dying before they reach adulthood is high due to disease and/or famine, people have more children to increase the chances that there will at least be a few surviving heirs. Even in the US, a few centuries back, bigger families were the norm.

As access to good healthcare improves and the probability of any newborn reaching adulthood increases significantly, people in the society naturally tend to choose to have fewer children. This is a pattern that has been seen in most developed nations, and is what they were referring to, but the uninformed misinterpreted what they heard, instead using it confirm their personal bias.

In regions of Africa, where high infant mortality due to disease and famine is common, reducing infant/child mortality with better access to modern healthcare and vaccines can help with the overpopulation that creates a downward spiral with famine.

Families are bigger due to the attempt to increase the odds of surviving heirs against the high death rates due to disease and famine, but feeding a bigger family from limited supplies/resources increases the likelihood of death from starvation. By reducing the probability of deaths due to disease, and potentially reducing the size of families when that concern is ameliorated, the reduction in family size and overall population can also reduce the risk of famine/starvation.

This holds true with how the information is dealt with in this pandemic. Some ill-informed folks are misinterpreting the data because they don't understand what it actually means or indicates.

The ones whom I consider even worse, are more insidious. They may actually know what the data and information indicates, but are counting on the masses being uninformed, and thus easily misled by skewing the way the information is interpreted or presented.

I've really come to dislike bloggers, because most of them are simply attention whores, opining/ranting about things they're generally clueless about. Very, very few have the integrity to just present information in an unbiased and fact-checked manner, but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff, when anyone with a computer/cellphone can decide to be a blogger? The folks who follow/listen to/read their stuff are generally similarly, or even more uninformed, so they're even more easily misled.

We can choose to be more careful about educating ourselves on specific topics, but as mentioned in this thread, it"s understandable that not everyone has the time, background or desire to do that. If it's important enough though...
 
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^ this is exactly why this thread should not be locked! Instead of locking the thread, Nathan can simply lock out the people who do not heed to repeated requests to keep the discussion as apolitical as possible. I don't know if Nathan has those powers as a red-banner Mod or even the desire if the push comes to show but please let's keep this thread open as long as most of us adhere to the spirit of the OP's request.

Thank you BM_1, another grand slam Doc :)
 
here is a non political tidbit of advice; buckle up. Save, prepare. The experts say that preparing for the worst is the best course of action. I have a feeling that, generally, schools will shut down 4 weeks after opening

it's crazy, letting people out of jail because of covid, while putting kids back in school. There is a certain insanity we're all dealing with and we can call it politics, but I'm not convinced that's the right word at all

It would be prudent to study history as things tend to repeat themselves: The 1918 "Spanish" Flu (If you have no idea as to how the poor bastid Spain got stuck with that dubious moniker, please look it up just to confirm that no good deed ever goes unpunished!) can be a very eyeopening case study because we collectively seem to be generally following the same pattern of behavior of that generation of 100 years past! I really don't want to get into the outrageous conspiracy theories of that time, the resistance toward wearing masks and other suppression / mitigation methods, the latency and the reluctancy of the then President Woodrow Wilson to take proactive measures at the expense of the economy, yada, yada... It's all there for those who care to research.

Crucially, the 1918 Spanish Flue (I know, different pathogen but IMO there are still some excellent parallels) did not cause a massive number of deaths in its first phase/wave here in the U.S. In fact the reported numbers back then here in the U.S were about 75,000 deaths attributed yo the Spanish Flu, very comparable to these COVID-19 stats of our era and also certainly the number of deaths due to other influenza related complications in the 5 years prior to that first wave. It was not until the fall/winter of 1918 when the massively deadly 2nd wave hit which took its most casualties followed by a 3rd deadly wave which lasted through sometimes in 1920.

Lorien is absolutely correct in citing the mentality of preparedness and being ready for the worst while hoping for the best. I am also very afraid that with the general public not heeding to the seriousness of this pandemic, we will be in for a long winter, other side-show factors such polidicks and elections notwithstanding. 100 years ago, the Earth population was about 1/3 of what it is today so the number of deaths from the Spring of 1918 through 1920, quoted anywhere from 15 million to 100 million worldwide, are still quite staggeringly astounding even by today's population levels.
 
Apologies for not having the time to get to this earlier before the topic got a little heated again.

Yes, I found Chip's meme amusing, simply as a general illustration of the different mentalities being so resistant to things.

But to get back to the point of the thread, which is to discuss data and information about this disease and pandemic:

To add to Matty's post:
1) Yes, the excess mortality in the US has spiked significantly from March onwards. ~235,000 excess deaths from March to August (i.e. over and above the average number of deaths due to all causes, when compared to the previous 5 years).

2) The thing is, there are a LOT of people who are unfamiliar with these subjects, and don't know how to parse the data, or understand what it means.

For example, there has recently been a claim/theory circulating from folks who say they have found proof that the CDC has been inflating the Covid-19 fatality numbers. The claim stems from not understanding how death certificates are filled;

"The CDC website just recently changed their reporting quietly, without telling anyone. They now state that ONLY 6% of the death certificates list Covid-19 as the sole cause of death. SEE?!!! 94% of the deaths attributed to Covid-19 aren't due to Covid-19, but are caused by other issues those people had!!! They're just pumping up the numbers to scare people!". ***which is a spurious claim in the first place. That comment has been there for months. Someone digging for confirmation bias only just recently noticed it, and began screeching about it***.

Standard practice is generally to list contributing causes of death, but also to list underlying conditions that may not have directly caused the death. Significant comorbidities are commonly listed (eg. Heart Disease, COPD etc.). Obesity has also been identified as a significant comorbidity for Covid-19, and guess what? In the US, obesity is over 42% as of the 2017-2018 data.

The other part that the overwhelming majority of non-medical personnel will be unaware of, is HOW the descriptions of the cause of death are entered in the death certificates. It's exceedingly rare to simply list the cause of death as "influenza".

A typical death attributed to a patient who's tested positive for influenza, and is due to influenza would be entered in a format something like;
'Cause of death' - cardiac arrest, due to acute bacterial pneumonia infection, resulting from confirmed infection with influenza Type A.

People don't tend to die OF the flu, but it kills thousands of people in the US anyway. They die from complications that arise from infection WITH the flu, and the death certificates are filled as such.

Yes, comorbidities, whether it's old age, immunocompromisation due to other health factors, obesity, COPD, diabetes etc. significantly increase an individual's risk of death from contracting an infection (whether it's influenza, or Covid-19 with its 20 - 30x higher CFR), and those things will likely be listrd in the death certificate as well.

The people looking for confirmation bias, with a lack of understanding, are the ones asking the equivalent of, "Yeah, but did they die OF the flu, or WITH the flu?". "Did all those people in the holocaust die FROM the concentration camps, or merely IN/AT the concentration camps?"

Another argument I've seen fairly often is, "Most of the deceased were going to die soon anyway. Look at the average age of Covid-19 deaths. They would've probably died within the next 12 months even without Covid-19".

This is another example of people misunderstanding the terminology, statistics and reality of the data/figures they're looking at. "See, the person was 77 y/o. Average life expectancy in the US is 78. They were likely going to die in the next year anyway".

No, that's not how it works. The life expectancy figure is from birth, and is simply a statistical mean. It does NOT mean that on average, 77 year old US citizens only have 12 months left to live. In general, people in the US who make it to the age of 77, can generally expect another 7-8 years of life, even WITH comorbidities.

When the statistics state that the average life expectancy in Europe in the 1700s was 30-40 years, it does NOT mean that finding 50 year old people was extremely uncommon and that folks rarely lived past 40-45. The life expectancy takes into account infant mortality.

In ANY region with little to no access to modern medical treatment/advancements (i.e. the entire planet in the 1700s, and many 3rd world regions even today), children die at exceedingly high rates. The probability of surviving to their 5th birthday was/is alarmingly low (compared to that same probability now, for regions with good access to modern healthcare).

The likelihood of surviving to adulthood in those times/regions was even lower. That significantly skews the life expectancy a lot lower, but it doesn't mean that there weren't a fair number of 60, 70 or 80 year olds regularly exceeding the 'life expectancy' numbers. It's just that most people don't really understand what the numbers mean/indicate.

To give another example of conspiracy theorists/confirmation bias types misinterpreting things they don't understand;
Years ago, there was a summit with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (and others, though it's been awhile and I don't recall all the details).

Antivaxxer conspiracy theorists posted a segment of the videotaped discussion, where they talked about increasing access to modern healthcare/medicine in 3rd world regions and how access to vaccines can help with population control in those areas. The antivaxxers immediately began screeching about "Proof that vaccines have ingredients to sterilize/kill people because they want to limit/cull undesirables!". No, it's just that the individuals in thr discussion are well aware of how access to modern healthcare affects population growth, so there was no need for the preamble of clarifying it.

Wherever infant mortality (and mortality in general) has been highest, birth rates are also significantly higher. The simple reason is that if the probability of a newborn dying before they reach adulthood is high due to disease and/or famine, people have more children to increase the chances that there will at least be a few surviving heirs. Even in the US, a few centuries back, bigger families were the norm.

As access to good healthcare improves and the probability of any newborn reaching adulthood increases significantly, people in the society naturally tend to choose to have fewer children. This is a pattern that has been seen in most developed nations, and is what they were referring to, but the uninformed misinterpreted what they heard, instead using it confirm their personal bias.

In regions of Africa, where high infant mortality due to disease and famine is common, reducing infant/child mortality with better access to modern healthcare and vaccines can help with the overpopulation that creates a downward spiral with famine.

Families are bigger due to the attempt to increase the odds of surviving heirs against the high death rates due to disease and famine, but feeding a bigger family from limited supplies/resources increases the likelihood of death from starvation. By reducing the probability of deaths due to disease, and potentially reducing the size of families when that concern is ameliorated, the reduction in family size and overall population can also reduce the risk of famine/starvation.

This holds true with how the information is dealt with in this pandemic. Some ill-informed folks are misinterpreting the data because they don't understand what it actually means or indicates.

The ones whom I consider even worse, are more insidious. They may actually know what the data and information indicates, but are counting on the masses being uninformed, and thus easily misled by skewing the way the information is interpreted or presented.

I've really come to dislike bloggers, because most of them are simply attention whores, opining/ranting about things they're generally clueless about. Very, very few have the integrity to just present information in an unbiased and fact-checked manner, but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff, when anyone with a computer/cellphone can decide to be a blogger? The folks who follow/listen to/read their stuff are generally similarly, or even more uninformed, so they're even more easily misled.

We can choose to be more careful about educating ourselves on specific topics, but as mentioned in this thread, it"s understandable that not everyone has the time, background or desire to do that. If it's important enough though...

Such an excellent post Max, thank you. I'm going to lock this thread for a little while and let folks cool down a little bit.
 
I locked this thread a while back and meant to unlock it.

It's interesting to look at this with some hindsight and see how thoughts and opinions have changed.

I expect many people's thoughts and opinions are deeply entrenched and probably didn't change much. Couldn't be changed with a bulldozer. But I wonder, if your thoughts and opinions have changed, how have they?
 
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