Commenter Archive

I think if one considers the slide as a stand-in for the general way in which modern playgrounds are designed the point stands. Playgrounds are much, much safer now than what they were in the 70's.

And did this piece bring back memories of my own 70's childhood Sundays - after church we'd pick up my grandmother and we'd have a Sunday picnic in this beautiful park. The grownups would have a post-lunch nap while we'd go play. There was a terrifying steel slide; staring up at it from below the precarious little platform would seem miles high, staring down from up there was even worse. I never could gather the guts to take it.

Years later, when my boys were 2 & 3, we decided for very nostalgic reasons to take them to the park again. I was wondering whether the slide would still be as tall, as imposing, a terrifying at 38 as what it was at 8.

It was. But I took the slide! Yeah! Perhaps the fact that my bum fitted the shape rather more snugly than 30 years before had something to do with having a more controlled decent than what I would have had earlier.

So ok, I'm reading the argument correctly.

I don't question that America is a good country with lots going for it. Net migration numbers don't lie; when more people are knocking at the doors to come in than packing up to leave then it's got to be a better place than many others.

It's just the confidence in being the absolute best ever and absolute most special ever that has a disonant ring. But perhaps after considering a wide range of national histories stretching over the past 4 millenia, and taking into account various aspects of specialness and 'bestness', one may indeed come to that conclusion.

It's possible, just not trivially obvious, in my opinion.

I'm not sure how to parse these:
"Sociology, in modern academia, is the undermining that America is special or better than any other country in the world. *America is special*."

If I drop the 'the' and add an object for 'undermining' I read it as
"Sociology, [...] is undermining _the idea_ that America is special or better than any other country in the world".
Is this the correct interpration?
Followed by the statement (opinion? trivially, obviously true fact?) 'America is special'.
The argument flows into 'Sociology is a science the same way creationism is science. ...It turned science into belief by hijacking the scientific method and reversing it."

So I read the argument as follows:
1) sociology is undermining the idea that America is special or better than any other country in the world
2) however, in fact, America is special
3) sociology came to this false conclusion regarding America's greatness because it's thrown the scientific method to the dogs

So do I understand correctly that, by implication, you recon it is scientifically provable that America is special and better than any other country in the world?

PS I happen to actually agree with your opinion on sociology throwing science to the dogs, it's just the wider argument I'm not sure about.

WW6: It has been a long time since I've had reason to be proud of my country. Not many countries have had the guts to sentence their previous heads of state to prison (outside of obvious political revenge, of course)

What would be cathartic is to actually see him in prison. If then only for one day before he's out for health reasons or something. If then only for contempt of court and not for the main case against him which is of course corruption. But 5 (by now, 4) days is still a long time... perhaps he's already in Dubai or eSwatini

Amen brother. *This.* I hear so much utopianism about remote working, and then I wonder how these sort of informal discussions are supposed to take place.

I think we are going to loose a good deal - a great deal - with remote working.

That's why I can't understand why so many people are absolutely ecstatic at the thought of permanent remote working. I mean yeah I don't miss my commute either, but frankly work has gobbled it all up in anycase. But if we study virtually, attend zoom gym and work remotely - where are we supposed to make friends? I seem to be holding a minority opinion on this.

PS I Like your qualifying criteria for a friendship... works for me.

Very special to have such a relationship with your boss.

My company is small, only about 40 people, and my team of 10 work very closely together. But we have the atmosphere of a corporate; the people are decent and ehtical and friendly and professional, but there are no personal relationships between employees, never mind between employees and managers.

The company was spawned from HP. Guess it shows even 15 years later...

No. Covid is not just killing the immunocompromised and the extremely old and frail.

My friend's cousin was a very active 45. My friend was 50, she was running an after care. My sister's mother-in-law was 78 - and still mowing her own lawn, cleaning her own house and having the family over for dinner every Sunday.

I don't know where the idea that the death rate is 'FAR less than 1%' comes from.

I understand the death rate to be over 1% - given good medical care is available.

But when huge swathes of the population is infected, health care facilities cannot cope with the influx. Then the death rate jumps to a 4% easily.

And that is without taking into account the effects of 'long covid' - people that have recovered from covid, but have serious long term health problems.

As a South African, I get that the Global North (if I can use that term in contrast to the Global South) has paid for the development of these medical miracles and has thus earned the right of first access to them. I get that charity starts at home. More fundamentally, the Global North have created societies where the development of these miracles is possible. Us Africans and Indians and South Americans have messed up our societies so we can't develop vaccines ourselves, so that's on us.

But that holds only up to a point. Canada has now authorised the Pfizer shots for 12-16 year olds. Seriously? To keep these life-saving medications for people at extremely low risk of harm, while the rest of us are desperate to even get our front-line health workers vaccinated?

It's like, imagine a bunch of rich kids decide to use their money to set up a kiosk at school selling food. Ok, they did the hard work and bought the stock so if at first they stand in front of the queue to buy it's understandable. But after a while the rich kids aren't really hungry any more, now they're just stuffing themselves. But they are still not allowing the hungry poor kids to buy food.

And please note; we do not ask for handouts. We will pay with dollars as good any other.

As I understand it, it is 1% under the assumption that the population has access to hospital care. If they do not, it turns into 4%. It seems India is at a point where their hospitals are so overburdened their death rate is going to climb to that 4%.

Absolutely horrific.

I know this is late to the party but - good lord, that quip was just excellent

Thank you. You have just increased the total amount of happiness in the world ;-)

A very special post. Thank you.

I could not have had a more different upbringing than yours; my childhood household was a very stable, very middle class, very proper matriarchy. For which I am thankful, because I don't know if I would have been as forgiving and understanding as you.

I sometimes tell myself that, doesn't matter how much I skrew up, as long as my boys know that me and their father deeply love them, they'll be ok. Because I really quite desperately need that to be true.

I really don't understand how one could interpret Fauci's words as dumb sloganeering. I see him trying to explain why Rand Paul was wrong. Paul interrupted him at least 3 times, and Fauci then refused to keep playing the game; he just gave up; stated that he disagreed and left the rest for people that actually knew what they are talking about. Because Paul doesn't.

Look at the South African numbers https://covid-19dashboard.news24.com/

That second wave burnt through sommunities as if this had been a totally naive population. As if there had never been a first wave that had infected up to 60% of some communities.

One thing should be understand very clearly: natural immunity acquired after infection with the original variant of covid-19 offers no - NO - protection against the South African variant. I have contact with people that work in South African hospitals. I personally know people that have seen the stats from South African medical insurance companies. The scale of reinfections they have seen is very clear; it's not just a handful here and there.

What Paul was saying about no studies being available is just. plain. wrong. But he had his agenda and was not there to hear facts. Who was grandstanding?

Thanks for a very insightful article. I've always found Brazil facinating and have wanted to visit since I was a child. The country shares many similarities with mine (South Africa) - including the corruption at high levels. Luckily Zuma never managed to get his tentacles into our judiciary, and that has saved us. Well, we're not saved yet but we've turned the tide, I hope.

And I can't agree with you more on boring presidents. Boring is good. Biden, Ramaphosa, Merkel and according to you Lula. But I did have the impression that Lula had a bit more fire in him than the other examples.

Of more pertinance than your own nearly zero chance of being killed, is the fact that you can pass this on to someone else with a very much more than nearly zero chance of dying from it.

So ja, vaccination is the Right Thing to Do.

I trust our hospitalisation numbers, and those are coming down very nicely. The infection rate numbers are off by a factor of 10 at least, but I think that is true world wide.

The new variant has already taken over here; there are indications that some of our poorer communities have a 60% infection rate. As long as we don't get a third variant to which exposure to the first or second doesn't provide immunity, we should be much better off going in to winter.

Interestingly, our schools managed to open last year, and again this year after the peak of our second wave, without an accompanying increase in infections or hospitalisations. So somehow the imperfect measures we have in place at our schools are quite effective in general.

I'm sorry if my post seems to communicate only that it's terrible here and you guys should be grateful for what you have ;-) I was more attempting to raise the issue of risk profiles, and how we make decisions based on the different circumstances that we have.

In the case of covid, for instance, we all know that the measures to control this virus inherrently hurts the economy. Because the majority of South Africans are poor, our government have had to drop our lockdown levels much faster than what they would have preferred or what is medically best practise.

But my social circle are middle class, with circumstances that enable us to isolate much more strictly than what the government requires. So our family could decide to home school, or not see friends at all, not see my 81- year old mother at all, only do online shopping. But we do all those things - carefully, with masks and social distancing where we can. But with the understanding that there is a risk.

So when I hear that American children have not been to school in a year, I am horrified. I know what our 12 weeks of remote learning did to our children's mental and intellectual health - to think Americans have been doing this for a year is mind bogling. To read the level of isolation that so many posters on this group is living under... it's terrible.

All this means that weirdly we actually have a much more normal life than what you do. But yes, it's a risk.

Part of the reason why we are willing to take that risk, is because we know we are in this for a much longer haul. If you're in the water when someone shoots at you, you can dive and hold your breath for a minute. But if you know the guy is going to be there for another week then at some stage you just have to take your chances with the bullets.

You guys function on a different planet from me.

Here in South Africa, I have no expectation of getting a shot in 2021. South Africa had to suspend our AstraZeneca shots because it's proven too ineffective against out variant of the virus. But I am extremely relieved to know that the 5 people I personally know that work in health care have been vaccinated with the J&J vaccine that our government managed to procure by scrounging around for unused testing stock. Yes, that is what we have been reduced to. Because all the rest have been taken.

For the rest of us? We just have to carry on.

Within a South African context, I am extremely lucky that me and most of my friends and family are members of the priviledged section of society. I do not mean that sarcastically at all. White. Middle class. Employed and in positions that largely allow remote working. Living in suburbs where social distanding is actually an option. So we can keep ourselves relatively safe.

Oh, the word 'relatively' works so hard: Our entire risk profile is just totally different from yours.

We have been shopping 'like normal' for months now. Masked, yes. Try to socially distance? yes. But what can you do if the guy at the counter wears his mask under his nose? He travels to work in a minibus taxi carrying 15 people for 1.5 hours from a township where multigenerational families live in a shack so he recons WTF with wearing a mask properly. And how can I blame him?

Our schools are open. Masked and no social activities and tempratures taken when the kids enter the school etc but seriously - how much can you really socially distance primary school kids? We just don't have a choice because more children are dying of malnutrition (missing government sponsored school meals) than of covid. My own children are in no such danger but our public school is also open so... what do I do? I send them there and hope they don't return with a virus that kills me or my husband.

We go to restaurants but we dine outside. And we tip double because we know business is bad for the waiters.

We see friends but outside and no hugs.

And the kids see grandma but we just... try not to think about the possible consequences.

Because we just don't know when that vaccine is coming, and we can't put our lives on hold indefinetely

Isn't 'Canada but with better weather' most people in the world's idea of the ideal country?

Astute observation

A collegue of mine did her master's degree in chemistry sometime in the 80s. The work envolved some programming which was of course quite new in the chemistry lab at the time.
Their professor insisted that the research students write their code by hand, to have the professional typists type it up. He would not allow the students to do the typing themselves, as it was beneath their education level to spend time typing.

As an aside, mr Cain - working at Bell Labs in 1978... wow. Now *that's* living the myth.

Inbetween all the doom and gloom this was just such a refreshing, enriching read.! Not that it's particularly uplifting, mind you. Anycase, I plan on settling in tonight to listen without distraction.
PS - as a South African I was indeed unaware of the story of John Henry.

I think this point deserves a lot of attention. It's as if there is a flippancy regarding American democracy; no awareness of how fragile it is and how easily it can be lost.