Coronavirus - the new pandemic

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Globally stocks have dropped 5 trillion dollars. At least a few days ago they did.

[J!!]

Regarding the Corona beer thing

OK, now that we've had our fun imagining that 38% of Americans are fucking idiots...let's realize that we're all idiots for believing that CNN would check the source on this before tweeting out clickbait that makes us think less of our neighbors.

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1233406525491814400

The source? It's a press release from a PR company. They did a survey. They did not release the methodology of the survey, but here is the only parts of it they shared.
Saying, "38% of Americans would not by Corona under any circumstances now" intentionally implies "now that Coronavirus is a thing." But it does not actually mean that.
If you ask, "Would you buy Corona under any circumstances now" you get the same result as saying "Would you buy Corona under any circumstances."

The only reason to add the "now" is to imply "now that Coronavirus is a thing" without actually asking that.
Second thing...4% of current Corona drinkers are going to stop drinking Corona. So...ok, maybe 4% of people are idiots...but WE KNEW THAT ALREADY, and that's very different from
And finally, 16% of Americans are "confused about" whether the beer and the virus are related. That could be everything from "DID THIS BEER GAVE PEOPLE A VIRUS?!" to "I do not know the etymology of the word 'corona'"

It is a /nothing/ question. It means nothing.
My first thought when I saw this stat was "UGH that is UNBELIEVABLE" but then I was like, "Oh...is it actually?"
And guess what, it was...follow that instinct.

I know that this maybe is just a dumb joke, but I think it's pernicious for two reasons.
First, because we need credible news sources in the world, and if they same news organizations who cover Covid and global warming and anti-democratic sentiment in the US are also churning out buzzy, inaccurate, manipulative clickbait...that is very bad.
Second, because it shows that we have a strong bias toward wanting to believe that other people are stupid. I think we want to believe that everyone else is idiots. That's a terrible bias, it's self-centered and self-aggrandizing, and it belittles whichever out-group you dislike.
The fact that I believed this was true says something bad about me.

It's a comfortable simplification that lets me believe that other people are almost inhumanly dumb. And it's one more way in which we lose faith in humanity.
And almost no one will ever see that the source was crap, and so people now will walk around really believing that 38% of people really are /that dumb./

That's actually harmful, and every news outlet covering this story should be ashamed, and their brands deserve to suffer.

https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1233436098266726400

I don't think it speaks well of us as a species that so many are so eager to believe that everyone else is so dumb.

[Darth Wedgius]

Regarding the Corona beer thing

OK, now that we've had our fun imagining that 38% of Americans are fucking idiots...let's realize that we're all idiots for believing that CNN would check the source on this before tweeting out clickbait that makes us think less of our neighbors.

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1233406525491814400

The source? It's a press release from a PR company. They did a survey. They did not release the methodology of the survey, but here is the only parts of it they shared.
Saying, "38% of Americans would not by Corona under any circumstances now" intentionally implies "now that Coronavirus is a thing." But it does not actually mean that.
If you ask, "Would you buy Corona under any circumstances now" you get the same result as saying "Would you buy Corona under any circumstances."

The only reason to add the "now" is to imply "now that Coronavirus is a thing" without actually asking that.
Second thing...4% of current Corona drinkers are going to stop drinking Corona. So...ok, maybe 4% of people are idiots...but WE KNEW THAT ALREADY, and that's very different from
And finally, 16% of Americans are "confused about" whether the beer and the virus are related. That could be everything from "DID THIS BEER GAVE PEOPLE A VIRUS?!" to "I do not know the etymology of the word 'corona'"

It is a /nothing/ question. It means nothing.
My first thought when I saw this stat was "UGH that is UNBELIEVABLE" but then I was like, "Oh...is it actually?"
And guess what, it was...follow that instinct.

I know that this maybe is just a dumb joke, but I think it's pernicious for two reasons.
First, because we need credible news sources in the world, and if they same news organizations who cover Covid and global warming and anti-democratic sentiment in the US are also churning out buzzy, inaccurate, manipulative clickbait...that is very bad.
Second, because it shows that we have a strong bias toward wanting to believe that other people are stupid. I think we want to believe that everyone else is idiots. That's a terrible bias, it's self-centered and self-aggrandizing, and it belittles whichever out-group you dislike.
The fact that I believed this was true says something bad about me.

It's a comfortable simplification that lets me believe that other people are almost inhumanly dumb. And it's one more way in which we lose faith in humanity.
And almost no one will ever see that the source was crap, and so people now will walk around really believing that 38% of people really are /that dumb./

That's actually harmful, and every news outlet covering this story should be ashamed, and their brands deserve to suffer.

https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1233436098266726400

I don't think it speaks well of us as a species that so many are so eager to believe that everyone else is so dumb.

That's a good analysis, and somewhat reassuring. Having seen AYDS diet candy spin in after a certain disease hit the news may have made me too willing to give credence to CNN.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1233436098266726400

I don't think it speaks well of us as a species that so many are so eager to believe that everyone else is so dumb.

Most anybody introspecting on society is getting ahead of themselves. Human beings are innate to commerce with each other, but not with simply knowing how everybody commerces with everybody. A lot of the time people conflate those two outlooks.

[AlucardNoir]

It's not all bad news. It may have reduced China's CO2 emissions, and has caused them to move to outlawing eating cats and dogs in some regions.

Ok, I officially give up.

[Darth Wedgius]

That's what drove someone out? I thought it was pretty innocuous.

[Darth Wedgius]

By the by, people with diabetes or cardiovascular disease might want to take extra precautions (frequent hand-washing, maybe masks if you can find a medically effective one). Those are tied to a worse prognosis.

According to one study of 45,000 confirmed cases in China, fewer than 1.0% of healthy people who contracted the COVID-19 virus died from the disease. But that percentage was around 6.0% for people with cancer, hypertension or chronic respiratory disease, 7.3% for those with diabetes and 10.5% for those with cardiovascular disease. Patients who were 80 or older were also at increased risk, with 14.8% dying.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

That's what drove someone out? I thought it was pretty innocuous.

Yeah well there were some people that thought that what they were doing was pretty innocuous. They were called Nazis.

[Robovski]

It has a lipid outer shell so soap does kill the virus. Wash your hands, clean surfaces. It can take 1-14 days for you to show symptoms so be careful.

From 3 days ago, some questions answered: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/as-coronavirus-spreads-many-questions-and-some-answers-2020022719004#q9

[Darth Wedgius]

You can try these two tricks to boost your immune system -- doctors hate these, but they really work!

(1) Exercise
(2) Getting enough sleep

Actually, doctors seem to like those.

I know we're mostly nerds here, but for the time being I think we can loosen our standards and actually do these. I promise to vote against taking away your nerd card at the next meeting, as long as you don't get a fashion sense or something.

Te number one key to surviving an infection seems to be not be 80 years old or older, but you really have to plan ahead for that.