The thing that really gets me about the pro-censorship argument is that they utterly fail to comprehend that Donald Trump is President? Who do they think will be deciding what counts as false information?
Free speech is a good idea, not because misinformation is benign, but because governments cannot be trusted to adjudicate what information should be permitted in the public square.
Under level 4 it was illegal to leave your home except for: 1) Work (if you are an essential services worker and can't work from home, you had to carry a letter from your employer in case the police stopped you) 2) Buying food / medicine or going to medical services. 3) Exercise, but you had to stay in your local area. Our police are significantly less stormtroopery than US police, but people were still being fined.
As of this morning, New Zealand has dropped down to Alert Level 3. This is still a pretty tight lock-down, but we'll be able to buy takeaways and any business can operate delivery-only with proper precautions is allowed to open (for the last 5 weeks, the only business that have been allowed to open are essential services).
We'll be at Level 3 for at least 2 weeks, at that point Cabinet will look at dropping us to Level 2, which is the point where things start to look more like normal life, except for travel.
Here in New Zealand, I think things are looking up. We're going to dropping down an alert level next week (this means non-essential business can open so long as they don't have customers in-store), and our cases have dropped off sharply - the government has started doing random community testing and this testing isn't finding any cases - all our new cases are coming from clusters we already know about.
Supermarkets have adjusted too - the queues have shrunk rapidly and the supply of nearly all goods have rebounded (not all brands are available, but you can find alternates for sale).
We have a ways to go yet, and things could yet go bad, but so far we're weathering this reasonably well. The economic consequences are not going to be good, but that wasn't something we had any real control over.
No, you have it backwards. Facts don't drive political positions, political positions drive (acceptance of) facts. People deny climate change because they object to the political solutions. If different solutions were in play, climate change denial would be much less of a problem.
I think you're being too binary. Maintaining full lock-down isn't sustainable for long, but lesser lockdown will be sustainable for longer. This is the strategy New Zealand is running. Our current lockdown rules are very harsh, but the government will be relaxing them soon - perhaps a soon as next week. Then we'll be under a less-restrictive lockdown. And then a while after that the rules well be relaxed again, so long as the disease remains under control.
Yes it may be some time before all restrictions can be lifted, but so long as the harshest measures aren't in place for too long the whole thing may be sustainable for long enough to do the job.
I doubt handshaking is going anywhere. Shaking hands is an old greeting, it has survived plagues and epidemics before, I suspect it will survive this one.
Yeah, I know what you mean. The way school.works is that it tends to promote being "smart" as an all-purpose characteristic. But out in the world expertise matters a lot more than raw intelligence and expertise is inherently domain-specific and "smart people who don't know what they're doing can do a lot of damage.
This is where I think New Zealand has done well with our alert levels - it gives the government the ability to scale the response up and down in a easy-to-understand way.
And yes, people often get angry when humans fail to behave like mindless automatons, I'm no longer surprised by it, just irritated.
Gentlemen, you're both right. Jay, it's not that you're wrong about the science of this, but people's behaviour is a fact that has to be considered too. The fancy term for it in government circles is "Social Licence". Basically, you can't make a whole lot of people of something unless you can convince that bulk of those people to go along with it.
New Zealand is in a very harsh lockdown right now (basically no one is allowed to leave their homes except for buying food brief stints for exercise and, if your'e an essential service, to go to work), and will be for another 2 weeks at least. I very much doubt such measures would have been possible, if it wasn't for the death toll in Italy, and I don't think New Zealanders will tolerate these conditions for very long, public support is high for now, but there's simply no way New Zealanders would tolerate being in Level 4 lockdown for 18 months, even if our economy could survive it.
The behaviour of COVID-19 is a matter of fact. The way humans behave is also a matter of fact. Neither will bend to your will, no matter how much you might want them to.
My inner social scientist is glad so many countries are handling this differently, it will give us a lot of information on what approaches work.
As for our response, I think we benefited from seeing what happened to Italy, plus our isolation makes controlling this easier. I'm also pleased with how our government responded constitutionally. Parliament has been suspended, replaced with a special Select Committee, but National is leading that committee and have a majority on it. Emergency powers are very dangerous for democracies, and I'm glad that solid safeguards are in place.
There's a shortage of flour in New Zealand supermarkets right now because we have a shortage of the 1kg bags that flour is sold in for retail - all the cafes and bakeries that normally buy all that flour buy it in 20kg bags, so some supermarkets have started selling those.
Honestly I don't think most of this has to do with the economy at all - Trump has decided that the country shutting down would make him look bad, and all this talk about "the economy" is smokescreen for not making Dear Leader look bad.
The Trumpism that has devoured the Republican Party has transformed into a death cult.
New Zealand is under full lockdown so my my only option for weekend plans is staying at home. The new Stellaris expansion has come out and I took a few hours to reset my copy of Gloomhaven, so playing those games will occupy much of my time.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Star Wars And the Rule of Cool”
Although eh Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies do employ a similar concept.
On “Coronafather: An Offer They Can’t Refuse”
For a long time the Mafia was basically the government in Southern Italy, except more likely to solve your problems than the actual government was.
On “Star Wars And the Rule of Cool”
Oh man Farscape was brilliant. By the way, have you watch The Expanse, that handles spacecraft very realistically as well.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Gaming Orc-Controlled Castles”
If you want any advice with DLC, I'd be happy to assist.
On “Never Let a Crisis or Conspiracy Theories Go to Waste”
Our media seems more fixated on the personal charisma of our leadership, but I agree with your point.
The Chinese government's early reaction to COVID makes me think of Chernobyl: "This is how the infected population explodes - lies."
"
Imagine if the Koch brothers actually controlled the Republican party - they would have been able to block Trump's nomination.
"
The thing that really gets me about the pro-censorship argument is that they utterly fail to comprehend that Donald Trump is President? Who do they think will be deciding what counts as false information?
Free speech is a good idea, not because misinformation is benign, but because governments cannot be trusted to adjudicate what information should be permitted in the public square.
On “Italy Looks to Ease Lockdown As Others Debate Next Steps”
Under level 4 it was illegal to leave your home except for: 1) Work (if you are an essential services worker and can't work from home, you had to carry a letter from your employer in case the police stopped you) 2) Buying food / medicine or going to medical services. 3) Exercise, but you had to stay in your local area. Our police are significantly less stormtroopery than US police, but people were still being fined.
"
As of this morning, New Zealand has dropped down to Alert Level 3. This is still a pretty tight lock-down, but we'll be able to buy takeaways and any business can operate delivery-only with proper precautions is allowed to open (for the last 5 weeks, the only business that have been allowed to open are essential services).
We'll be at Level 3 for at least 2 weeks, at that point Cabinet will look at dropping us to Level 2, which is the point where things start to look more like normal life, except for travel.
On “Unbreakable Bonds”
Also, the US government remembered it had airplanes.
On “Harsh Your Mellow Monday: Problems, Progress & Progressive Edition”
Here's hoping North.
"
Here in New Zealand, I think things are looking up. We're going to dropping down an alert level next week (this means non-essential business can open so long as they don't have customers in-store), and our cases have dropped off sharply - the government has started doing random community testing and this testing isn't finding any cases - all our new cases are coming from clusters we already know about.
Supermarkets have adjusted too - the queues have shrunk rapidly and the supply of nearly all goods have rebounded (not all brands are available, but you can find alternates for sale).
We have a ways to go yet, and things could yet go bad, but so far we're weathering this reasonably well. The economic consequences are not going to be good, but that wasn't something we had any real control over.
On “A Climate Hawk Laments: I Was Wrong About the Environmental Left”
No, you have it backwards. Facts don't drive political positions, political positions drive (acceptance of) facts. People deny climate change because they object to the political solutions. If different solutions were in play, climate change denial would be much less of a problem.
On “Wednesday Writs: Mandatory Vaccination Edition”
I think you're being too binary. Maintaining full lock-down isn't sustainable for long, but lesser lockdown will be sustainable for longer. This is the strategy New Zealand is running. Our current lockdown rules are very harsh, but the government will be relaxing them soon - perhaps a soon as next week. Then we'll be under a less-restrictive lockdown. And then a while after that the rules well be relaxed again, so long as the disease remains under control.
Yes it may be some time before all restrictions can be lifted, but so long as the harshest measures aren't in place for too long the whole thing may be sustainable for long enough to do the job.
On “I Predict 2021”
I doubt handshaking is going anywhere. Shaking hands is an old greeting, it has survived plagues and epidemics before, I suspect it will survive this one.
On “Andrew Yang, Bringer of Pestilence”
Yeah, I know what you mean. The way school.works is that it tends to promote being "smart" as an all-purpose characteristic. But out in the world expertise matters a lot more than raw intelligence and expertise is inherently domain-specific and "smart people who don't know what they're doing can do a lot of damage.
On “Hammers and Hangnails”
This is where I think New Zealand has done well with our alert levels - it gives the government the ability to scale the response up and down in a easy-to-understand way.
And yes, people often get angry when humans fail to behave like mindless automatons, I'm no longer surprised by it, just irritated.
"
Gentlemen, you're both right. Jay, it's not that you're wrong about the science of this, but people's behaviour is a fact that has to be considered too. The fancy term for it in government circles is "Social Licence". Basically, you can't make a whole lot of people of something unless you can convince that bulk of those people to go along with it.
New Zealand is in a very harsh lockdown right now (basically no one is allowed to leave their homes except for buying food brief stints for exercise and, if your'e an essential service, to go to work), and will be for another 2 weeks at least. I very much doubt such measures would have been possible, if it wasn't for the death toll in Italy, and I don't think New Zealanders will tolerate these conditions for very long, public support is high for now, but there's simply no way New Zealanders would tolerate being in Level 4 lockdown for 18 months, even if our economy could survive it.
The behaviour of COVID-19 is a matter of fact. The way humans behave is also a matter of fact. Neither will bend to your will, no matter how much you might want them to.
On “Ten Things I Think I Think About COVID As of April 3”
My inner social scientist is glad so many countries are handling this differently, it will give us a lot of information on what approaches work.
As for our response, I think we benefited from seeing what happened to Italy, plus our isolation makes controlling this easier. I'm also pleased with how our government responded constitutionally. Parliament has been suspended, replaced with a special Select Committee, but National is leading that committee and have a majority on it. Emergency powers are very dangerous for democracies, and I'm glad that solid safeguards are in place.
"
There's a shortage of flour in New Zealand supermarkets right now because we have a shortage of the 1kg bags that flour is sold in for retail - all the cafes and bakeries that normally buy all that flour buy it in 20kg bags, so some supermarkets have started selling those.
"
That comic was exactly what I need right now.
On “Joe Biden: Staying Alive”
Agreed, Biden blandness is one of his best features. It'll be really nice to not have to deal with a President's fanatical followers for a while.
On “The Enneagram Broke Me”
In all seriousness, I used to work with a psychologist and she told me that personality tests are about as useful as horoscopes.
On “The Free Market Case for Staying the Eff Home”
Honestly I don't think most of this has to do with the economy at all - Trump has decided that the country shutting down would make him look bad, and all this talk about "the economy" is smokescreen for not making Dear Leader look bad.
The Trumpism that has devoured the Republican Party has transformed into a death cult.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Stay At Home”
New Zealand is under full lockdown so my my only option for weekend plans is staying at home. The new Stellaris expansion has come out and I took a few hours to reset my copy of Gloomhaven, so playing those games will occupy much of my time.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.