Back to the idea that public servants are indeed servants to the public, and their entire purpose is to spend the public's money in a way that benefits the public.
I've heard horror stories on HN which would justify your cynicism, and agree that corruption is a problem. See also issues with police and accountability.
You might be surprised, however, at what percentage of federal bureaocracy does see themselves as civil servants.
The culture shift can be done. And it is well worth it, for everyone's sake. Corruption represents a Nash equilibrium, once rooted it is very hard to remove.
That's why I'm defending government workers here. We want good, effective government. This requires good, effective people to carry out the work. Making this respectable and letting those people do their job is pretty key to getting that good government.
The principles aren't so different from managing a team of software engineers. Would you enjoy working (in software) in a company where sales and marketing was always blaming the engineers, and HR was always calling the engineers lazy, and management was constantly shifting priorities while blaming engineers for not hitting targets, etc...
So why create the same environment for government workers? Why not treat them with the same professional respect you'd expect/hope for in your job?
And why not call out the politician as the a*hat when he insults the people trying to get the job done?
1. Electronic devices have varying degrees of embodied energy and resource usage - it is incumbent on the end user to justify that usage
2. Electronic devices are designed as attention-sucking devices for selling advertising, and as such, have more negative uses than positive, which makes controlling them as an end user more difficult.
I completely agree with your second point, but nevertheless we should recognize the ease that these electronic devices offer us to train, communicate and also develop profitable businesses.
Training - eh, maybe. I ditched my Garmin and Strava, and have never been happier with my cycling. Some people seem to like the Zwift thing though.
"Ease of communication" - I now consider that a downside. I don't want to be distracted by the possibility of getting a notification at any second, with information of any level of severity.
"Develop profitable businesses" - yes, there is a lot of money to be made selling people shiny things.
My family hasn't yet, and we're far from cave hermits — we just pretty consistently do smart, reasonable things.
Around 25% of children and adolescents who get COVID-19 will get long COVID, the long-term effects of which are not well understood. I have no plans to surrender to "fate" and to stop doing smart, reasonable things.
I don't think the rate is that high. I think it's closer to 3%, give or take a few, right now, with an order of magnitude more cases of partial recovery of acute symptoms over time.
Which IMO is still insane, but I don't think it's 1 in 4 level of bad.
We're only, what, two years in? Give it a couple more. "Doing smart, reasonable things" only reduces the odds, not put them at zero. Iterate enough times, and the cumulative odds approach 1.
FWIW I predicted that would be the situation in like March 2020. This isn't some new forced narrative, at least for me.
There is not, and it pains me to hear people reinforcing that narrative. There are immunocompromised individuals within my family that have significantly higher risks of complications than the next person. For this reason, we take every precaution to avoid exposure and transmission. We have been fortunate to remain COVID-free so far, but please remember that there are lives hanging in the balance.
But… they did. It effectively keeps most of the vaccinated out of the ICU.
> 4 in 5 COVID-19 patients in intensive care are not vaccinated against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The chance that a fully vaccinated person will end up in ICU due to COVID-19 is 33 times lower than for a non-vaccinated person. : https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/4-in-5-covid-19-patients-in-icu-...
> n this cross-sectional study of US adults hospitalized with COVID-19 during January 2022 to April 2022 (during Omicron variant predominance), COVID-19-associated hospitalization rates were 10.5 times higher in unvaccinated persons and 2.5 times higher in vaccinated persons with no booster dose, respectively, compared with those who had received a booster dose. Compared with unvaccinated hospitalized persons, vaccinated hospitalized persons were more likely to be older and have more underlying medical conditions. : https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
And I could link up a dozen similar studies and reports that all say the same thing: the risks from vaccination are low, the risks from Covid are an order of magnitude greater.
You have made this fraudulent claim twice. Along with, it appears, promoting a conspiracy theory that renegade researchers developed it as a bio weapon. You are, in my opinion, a terrible person, worthy of condemnation and dismissal.
>And I could link up a dozen similar studies and reports that all say the same thing: the risks from vaccination are low, the risks from Covid are an order of magnitude greater.
Without absolute numbers, your "analysis" is meaningless. We're talking about seven deaths amongst teens.
>The study noted that about three-fourths of the teenagers in the study had other medical conditions, such as obesity
Not being fat is an excellent way to avoid having a bad time with Covid. Shame that the official advice caused many people to spend the last two years sitting on the couch, eating pizza.
It is undeniable that the vaccine kept the most vulnerable out of the ICU. It is also very true that healthy people under about 45 were at minimal risk from Covid.
It is not my analysis. Every damn research paper shows that the unvaccinated are hospitalized and dying at rates many multiples higher than the vaccinated.
As for the sin of being fat that you find so unforgivable, if the goal is to reduce hospitalization and death, that is going to be infinitely easier to accomplish through vaccination than by trying to convince the country to get fit.
If you're at risk of a bad time with Covid, get vaccinated. Simples.
>As for the sin of being fat that you find so unforgivable
Simple cause and effect. The study you linked said so - if you're obese, you're much more likely to go to the ICU with Covid. It is strange that all of the public messaging designed to "keep us safe" did not include any component to look after our bodies, which would have significant benefits when it comes to fighting disease.
Open discussion was never acceptable, even here on HN. I was quickly downvoted for saying anything against masking and vaccinations. Not even objecting, mere questions elicited this reaction.
It was pretty ridiculous. Anyone who’s interacted with health policy at the national level knows it’s just a big power game. Anthony Fauci doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking “what can I do for the American people?”—he wakes up thinking “Todd from the VA was an asshole at that budget hearing. What can I do about that?”
It's very true. The most efficient speed of a car is the point where the increasing engine + drivetrain gearing efficiency meets wind resistance, and is typically 10-15mph higher for ICE cars.
