During all that time all I could think of was the shareholders.
Also would have accepted the meme with the Muppet like puppets being asked "and what did we learn?’ and they all scream “Nothing!!”
I wonder if it would’ve been on net better if COVID had been deadlier. Like if people had been dying from a new disease with blood gushing out of their eyes, would idiots have taken it seriously? Probably not.
I’ve given thought that covid was right in the bad spot of seriousness. If it was less deadly, it would be less of an issue. If it was more deadly, it would have been taken more seriously. But it was right at the point that people could say ehhhhhh (encouraged by their media of course).
Although I’m still amazed over a fucking million Americans dead and people are acting like it didn’t even happen.
The funniest thing is watching all those pandemic/deadly virus movies before 2021. In all those movies, governments, people, scientists, the military and world leaders all work cooperatively together in an orderly way to solve the problem and try to save people and in the end succeed because they worked together.
In reality, we had a world leader suggest that we could inject disinfectant or use UV light inside the body, panic buying for toilet paper and people in North America start near riots for being asked to wear a mask.
It was a lot more like Jaws where the mayor won’t close the beach to save lives because it will mess with the tourism business.
Not long before covid took off, the first case of ebola in the US was confirmed and people flipped the fuck out. I’m fairly certain that if ebola were actually spreading even a little, those same assholes who treated masks like some kind of human rights violation would have been more than ready to quarantine it, lock everything down, and burn the entire affected area to the ground.
Some of those people would have formed a militia to hunt down anyone who they suspected of being infected. It would have been a long, drawn out, paranoid massacre.
There actually were lots of people who started out being like “they are sweeping it under the rug wel are all going to die!” Only to turn around and become anti mask zealots when the public policy controls went into place. Some people really do just have a very childish take on authority of any kind, and I say that as a person who is very skeptical of authority myself.
Covid was the most terrifying time of my life (i know covid itself is still here). I have a severe health anxiety disorder and a single ache of spot on my body can instantly convince me i have a terminal cancer or illness and i WILL die. After about a year i finally build up all courage to go to the supermarket with my partner, wearing a good fitting mask. We stood at the checkout and this guy asked another guy who wasn’t wearing a mask, and standing waaaay to close to them, to please keep his distance and to please wear a mask. The guy instantly got aggressive and knocked the man out for asking him to please keep distance and wear a mask. I didn’t go anywhere again.
I still struggle with all of this. After 2016 it felt like people got a free pass for conspiracy and fascist shit. I’m from europe but the trump presidency had a big influence here too. So many conspiracies that trump shouted got popular over here and fascist parties got A LOT more popular. Hell, a fascist party won the election here less than a year ago.
I lost a lot of hope and love for humanity. But i also see smart and beautiful humans fight for us every day. Whether its with climate and antifascist protests or through videos i find on social media or the news. And i cant give up hope or stop fighting for them. I cant let those people down. Because if people like that exist, there is hope.
I felt the same way as you. I actually left America because of the crazies. During early covid, during the Delta phase. I had someone yell at me while I walked to my car because I was wearing a mask. Scariest shit I have ever felt.
I still see “heroes work here” banners outside of healthcare facilities and nursing homes. I imagine a number of the low-paid and overworked staff say “fuck you, pay me more” every time they drive by too.
I created an extremely awkward silence at work when someone was like “are you all clapping at 7pm?” (Because there was a thing where people could clap and cheer for workers at 7pm?), and I said “if you really care, you could give them money. They need that more than claps”.
Silence.
These were all software developers working safely from home making six figures.
They’ll all be there with thoughts and prayers… and apparently claps. I mean, I know that’s what “I” do whenever someone wants money from me… I’ll think about them, pray I’m never in that circumstance, and clap for them. Seems to help.
That’s sarcasm… for anyone instantly seething and spitting foam.
The awkward silence is because they know that clapping is not doing anything useful.
What was really annoying was other industries saying the same thing. There was a laundry that had “heros work here” on their sign, as if they were anywhere near the same level.
No. This is the wrong thinking imo.
I worked/work for a hospital Trust here in the UK. Any job that brings you within close proximity to other people had a quantifiable risk. Hindsight is great and all that, but in the early days of any pandemic you dont know what you can touch safely, where you can breath safely. Our Government tried to bail some out, but not everyone can get help or close shop. Anyone who was afraid and still struggled through it gets my respect.
That’s the thing everyone who had to stay at work in public took a considerable risk, liki the employees at the grocery store. They deserve a lot of praise, and no one cares.
They deserve praise and a living wage
Imagine having to go to work every day knowing you’re risking your life and making at best just above minimum wage.
I asked someone in the industry once that exact same thing, and the answer I got back was basically you don’t do this job for the money, you do it for the people.
Now granted, being able to pay your mortgage would take some stress off you, especially when you get so much stress at work, but still, a lot of people do it for non-income reasons.
And for the record, them (and teachers, while we are at it) should be paid a lot more than they do get paid.
Just the extra money on top of the standard unemployment was significantly more income than they made by saying at work too.
It’s got to be pretty god damn insulting for sure.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking true.
I agree with it, of course, but this oddly feels like a blatant internet friendly propaganda piece, it makes me a little uncomfortable.
The truth is uncomfortable
Hurts too much to make me laugh.
I’m just glad so many the ignorer’s died. 1/10th less idiots to deal with.
I lost more than a few friends, but illnesses hit the olds and conservatives hard. Illness cares nothing for faith or politics, it just wants to feed. Greed of southern politicians and priests kill their constituency higher than elsewhere.
Breaking the Deep South is important for the country continuing unified. The rest of the country won’t hold up Oklahoma to Florida otherwise. They are dead weight.
That escalated quickly.
They died cause it was politically convenient for the party in power at the time. And when the transition happened it was still convenient that they die.
They died since they were idiots and those in power benefited from their deaths. Ironically since the majority were those that wouldn’t engage in basic precautions the rest of us benefited as well as a species. Those with Genetic disorders got fucked, but they were already and will continue to be since our species tend to be stupid in large groups.
Yeah but have you heard Earthsong?
I gained the superpower of crippling anxiety, depression and panic attacks. I had very mild anxiety prior to Covid, but something broke in my brain after I got sick.
I am anxious and yet constantly tired. I can barely function before noon and can’t shut my brain off to sleep.
I hat every fucking person on Earth who said it was bs.
You sound a little like me.
Give liposomal C plus L-Arginine a try.
There’s been some studies showing it helps with long COVID.
I feel a little improvement. Not great. Some.
You might as well recommend some healing crystals or magnetic wristbands.
@Gerudo@lemm.ee should speak to a doctor about possible treatments and not take random unproven advice from the internet.
So, an innocuous supplement treatment, with multiple legitimate studies is the same as healing crystals? Got it.
Not everything in the world is horse parasite quackery.
My doctor did review the studies and agreed it was worth trying given the lack of known long COVID treatments.
an innocuous supplement treatment
Healing crystals are an innocuous treatment that have been involved in multiple studies also, so yes.
Let’s not dwell on the outcome or legitimacy of those studies at all, for either treatment.
Your doctor did a review? Such a nice claim to authority there with zero evidence. It is nice that everything and everyone on the internet can be trusted.
I stand by my statement. Anyone suffering medical issues should seek help from a medical professional and ignore random internet advice.
I’ve been feeling the same way. Some days I’ve felt better, but I don’t really get back to where I was. It feels like my discipline has broken down.
both sides, and I truly mean it
Sir you are being the idiot from the comic
Did you know that there was a specific pandemic response team established as part of the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit by the Obama administration in 2015? And that that team was eliminated and its staff reassigned by the Trump administration in 2018?
It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
In May 2018, the team was disbanded and its head Timothy Ziemer, top White House official in the NSC for leading U.S. response against a pandemic, left the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported ( here ). Some members of the global health and security team were merged into other units within the NSC, the article said.
[…]
There is disagreement over how to describe the changes at the NSC’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense in 2018. The departure of some members due to “streamlining” efforts under John Bolton is documented. The “pandemic response team” as a unit was largely disbanded.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN21C32C/
Since COVID-19 exploded in the states, both Vice President Mike Pence as head of the coronavirus task force, and Jared Kushner, have somewhat stepped into the role. But there has yet to be a whole-of-government mobilization, as Monaco described. Instead, the response has been ad hoc, shifting day to day depending on the mood of the president who has refused to accept that the buck stops with him.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/trump-obama-coronavirus-pandemic-response
The Democratic party established a team specifically intended to respond to crises such as COVID-19. The Republican party removed it to cut costs.
Sorry, what I mean is you’re all insufferable arseholes, and being right doesn’t change that. Just hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils without the smugness. Not to single you out especially, mind.
I’d rather vote for the candidate/party that has a demonstrated track record of trying to improve the functioning of the government and plan ahead for problems, rather than the candidate/party with a track record of obstructionism and no plans to improve anything.
And you should go ahead and do that, of course. Without the self-congratulatory webcomics. They aren’t helping matters.
So… does that mean you’re abandoning your original “both sides” position, or what?
The goalposts are moving a bit too fast for me to keep up.
They aren’t helping matters.
Neither is the Republican party.
I genuinely find “both sides” as annoying as each other. It pains me to technically be on one of those sides.
Don’t. They’ll just dogpile you. These are not deep thinkers here.
No, we just want to stop people from believing in witchcraft. There’s a difference.
That’s what every witchburner ever says. Every single one.
You think people who killed those accused of being witches didn’t believe in witchcraft? Really?
I think you need to read about the Malleus Maleficarum, the official witch-finding manual. It it says witches are able to do magic because they are in league with the devil.
Christ, you people will grasp at any straw, no matter how slim. You are shameless.
The official manual for finding and burning witches saying magic is real is grasping at straws when you claim that witch burners don’t believe in witchcraft? That’s a very strange claim.
I don’t usually do this, but…
In the context, “I know, over a million Americans have died” stinks nationalism from a distance - because it implies that the tragedy is not people dying; it’s only when those people pay taxes to the same government as you. (16~28M people died, regardless of country, by the way.)
Not sure if the author realises the nationalism in that. Probably not.
Seeing the worst meaning in everything, eh?
As a species we are more worried about things happening close to us. That’s how we work.
A kid dying in Uganda does not move you because why would it? A kid dying in your hometown is something else.
Don’t pretend to be superior about it.
The very conflation between “my hometown” and “the territory controlled by the government that I pay taxes to” is nationalistic in nature.
Your assumption that I’m seeing the worst meaning in everything is partially incorrect. Pragmatics taught me to look for the implicatures of what is said, but it is not just the worst. And the implicature is there, due to the maxim of quantity. (Note that not even in this case I’m “seeing” the worst meaning, as it wouldn’t be justified by the text.)
Regarding your Uganda example: if someone lives in, say, Texas, why would they care more about the deaths in Maine than the ones in Uganda? This gets specially nasty once you swap “Uganda” with “Coahuila”. I see the exact same thing where I live, by the way, before some assumer starts distorting this into a “y u bashin unired starians? i is so confyuzed…”.
Don’t pretend to be superior about it.
Yet another assumption: that I’m “pretending to be superior” about not feeling attached to a government or the concept of nation. Please distinguish between what’s implied by something said/written vs. what you assume from it. The former is to retrieve information; the later is to make shit up.
The main reason that I’m pointing this out is to highlight a specific right-wing discourse (nationalism) that is so ingrained into society that even us, at the left, give it a free pass. I’m focusing on the discourse, not putting myself on a higher ground.
[EDIT reason: clarifications + trying to be slightly less verbose.]
You often have the same relation to the kid in Uganda and the kid in your hometown. But they are still different.
This comic is probably made by someone American. They made it for a target audience. That’s why it’s specified. Making the message more targeted is an effective tool. It’s called pathos.
Believing people on the left care for everyone on the planet equally while people on the right only care for the nation they tax to is a strange take.
You’re allowed to be proud of your country or people without being a q-anon nuthead nazi.
Believing people on the left care for everyone on the planet equally while people on the right only care for the nation they tax to is a strange take.
Don’t be disingenuous (or worse), you’re distorting what I said. Refer to the first and third paragraphs of the very comment that you’re replying to.
Now, if you really want to pretend that your hometown should “magically” coincide with the territory controlled by your government, by all means, do it. But then let’s call a duck a duck - then you are a nationalist, and should be treated as one.
This comic is probably made by someone American. They made it for a target audience. That’s why it’s specified.
I’m not going to guess the author’s “intention”. I’m focusing on what the character says, on the light of the maxim of quantity (refer to this or this for further info).
If I told you “I have two books”, and I actually have three, you’d correctly point out that I’m saying something untrue, right? Because of that maxim - by saying “I have two books” I’m implying that I have no more than two books.
Now look at what the character says within that context:
- [A] “It’s the anniversary of a great tragedy.”
- [B] “I know, over a million Americans have died.”
The exact same maxim operates here; the implicature being created is that the tragedy does not include non-Americans dying. It’s probably an accidental implicature, but the very fact that people don’t pay attention to this shit is concerning.
It’s called pathos.
It’s pathos only in the original meaning. Because damn, it’s a really miserable discourse! /s
Etymology aside, “pathos” in the meaning typically associated with the usage of the word in English can be easily conveyed without that nationalistic discourse.
You’re allowed to be proud of your country or people without being a q-anon nuthead nazi.
Let us not fool ourselves that the only nationalists out there are the Q-Anon tier Nazi. In that situation you’re still a nationalist, and promoting a harmful discourse.
“Hometown” is not a metaphor. A country is not a hometown.
Absolutely radical.
I don’t see this as radical. Specially since, although I’m labelling it nationalism and saying that it’s bad, there’s no way that I’m seeing it the same as Nazi shit. The Nazi discourse relies on multiple
piles of shitpillars, only one of them is nationalism.I’m also making a distinction between a person voicing a nationalistic discourse and being a nationalist. Once we (all of us) analyse what each one of us says, we notice that we promote a lot of shitty causes, without even realising. That’s also why I’m not putting myself above the author.
Oh, this reminds me. I was asked to go to a Chiropractic “doctor” this weekend for a check up. That’s nonsense to begin with, but I went anyway.
She asked about my back hurting, and I mentioned that I threw it out really badly when I got COVID a year or two ago, and was stuck in bed coughing super hard for a week. Her immediate response was “I’ve heard the vaccine can do that.”
… Like, fucking what? How god damn stupid do you have to be to hear “I threw my back out coughing really hard.” and instantly try to insert your anti-science bullshit into the conversation?
I was super mad when I went to a new dentist after my last one retired and he prescribed me homeopathic medicine.
A chiropractor once gave my mom homeopathic pills. I was a kid and didn’t even know what homeopathy was at the time, but she gave me one and I said, “mom, this is sugar.” She tried to argue with me about it and I kept telling her I know what sugar tastes like.
Nicely done. The best case scenario is sugar. Most of the time, it’s nothing but water, and maybe a single drop of 100x already diluted more water, that maybe once had something non-water in it. That is, of course, assuming the machines doing the literal magic shaking didn’t spill the “active ingredient”.
I’m curious. What for? Something non-dental the dentist noticed or something dental-related?
No worries. The appointment was set for me by a local government agency. That’s about all I wanna say about it, though.
I have a perio and ortho, and the perio also was my hygienist; but the hygienist noticed something odd with a tooth, concerned about it, said I should consult a general dentist - due to having seen a perio, ortho and hygienist regularly I let my general dentist lapse, found they had retired and I wasn’t on books any more, went to the nearest dentist, in-network, 4* reviews - he looked at it, said, “ah yeah, i see the issue. use this mouthwash and gel on it once daily”
it was like $50
I happily used it for a week before I was standing there swishing and actually read the label and saw “not endorsed by the FDA” and was like “whattttt” then saw it was homeopathic
well you can imagine I spit that mouthwash straight out without swallowing
I don’t suppose you remember what the magical ingredients were in those products? Call it morbid curiosity.
You know now that I think about it, I’m not sure how much of dental products are actually FDA approved. I think they might fit into a weird zone where they’re not technically medication or food so FDA doesn’t really look too closely. Dental machinery and appliances for sure need to be FDA-approved, but mouthwash and toothpaste I’m not so sure about. I’m fairly sure the active ingredients within mouthwash and toothpaste, such as fluoride, need to have FDA approval before they can be used, but I don’t think the toothpaste or mouthwash itself needs FDA approval. I think for the most part the FDA oversees marketing claims and manufacturing standards for toothpaste/mouthwash, whereas the American Dental Association (ADA) is the body that “approves” them.
I hope you used homeopathic payment.
Shells and crystal rocks
Given them payment in diluted dollar water.
“I set this bottle of dasani by a bank for like three months so it would absorb the essence of currency. Don’t trust ‘big money’ out there with their ‘coke covered paper.’ This is organic! Water is natural!”
I don’t get why anyone would want to be a chiropractor.
Nurse: 4 years of schooling, high salary (yes it should be higher), useful to everyone around you in medical situation, good benefit packages, respected, and you can do so much with that degree.
Chiropractor: 6 years of schooling, salary is low, useless in a medical situation, terrible benefits, not respected, and the only thing you can do with that degree is what you “trained” for.
Become a nurse instead!
The fact that Chiropractic is pseudoscience; realigning your spine to allow magical spirit energy to flow better, because they think every single aliment from acne to cancer is caused by blocked chi flow, isn’t enough?
Are you saying a ghost can be wrong? ;)
😆
If you want a bone medic go to the traumatologist, not those shaman-like chiropractors
Trust me, it wasn’t my choice.
A shaman would be a step up because I don’t think shamans actively make anything worse.
You say they dont make anything actively worse, until you don’t pay attention to them for a split second and they all gather in one place, collectively and ritualisticaly unalive themselves to combine their souls to be reborn as a single entity, to then rise as a warlord to wage a brutal unification war on earth, announce themselves emperor and set out to conquer the galaxy only to be betrayed and killed by half his children wich leaves his empire and therefore humanity in shambles!!
And they have magic
Chiropractor. Stupid. Anti-science bullshit.
You repeat yourself.
Oh man it gets worse. Medicine is so fucked now.
My (telehealth) doctor noted my testosterone is a little low and suggested I use another online practitioner for testosterone replacement therapy since they can’t do that from their practice.
She gave me a few places to check out (from her companies list, she didn’t personally vet them).
They all have some anti-science bullshit or “As seen on JRE/Infowars”.
I’m like…yeah, I’m not doing any of that. I’ll try diet, exercise, and proper sleep first. I’m not giving any of them my money, patronage, or information.
Gross, definitely fuck them.
It makes total sense from a cynical profit-first standpoint though. Where can I get the best bang for my buck reaching damaged young men who desire so much to be manly and alpha, but feel so inadequate inside they must do something about it? And they have to be conditioned to eat up bullshit they want to hear.
I had the same thing except from an in-clinic consult about my general health.
Testosterone supplementing was presented like “Well levels vary to each man but some do a little better with more so it could help your endurance and energy levels.”
Ok sure, why not? They’re a doctor right? Trust experience? Trust science? All that?
I got a shot 2 or 3 times but then quit it. I’m so freaking glad I did, after I discovered all these accounts about it causing heart problems, possibly reproductive issues, and all this other crap. It was difficult to find someone who was actually glad they did it.
Happy with the hormone levels I’ve got, thank you very much.
I felt so scammed, like I was just used as some “lead” for another clinic to profit from me over something that potentially would cause a ton of long-term harm.
When looking for a pediatrician for my kid, we shopped around because we don’t want an idiot treating them. One doctor’s nurse looked us straight in the eyes and said “We follow a strict vaccine schedule for children, will you have a problem with that?”.
Yeah, we found our pediatrician that day.
How did you not just walk out of there?
I honestly thought I might have to, but it took months to get the appointment, and I didn’t want to have to wait all over again and just hope I got a better location next time.
I was a teenager and was having back issues. My mother sent me to a chiropractor, which I didn’t know was a bunch of bullshit back then. She took an X-ray of my spine (how is that legal?) and told me she’d fix the issue in my upper back. I told her the pain was in my lower back and she kept insisting that no, it was an upper back problem that I needed to be treated for.
And that was when I realized it was all bullshit.
Now I know that it was come up with by a guy who said he got the information from a ghost. Seriously.
Bootlicker vibes
Would it be funny if the race/gender was reversed? Would that cause outrage?
Comics rely on stereotypes a lot to provide context. It’d be less statistically likely to be set up the other way, so that’d be an artistic choice that needs some justification.
Sure, I could draw a black nazi instead of a white one, but it would need more explaining. Probably too much for a comic.
And speaking of nazis, they certainly like their stereotypes too. It’s an interesting parallel that you raise.
“The real Nazis are the guys unjustly stereotyping the Nazis.”
Everyone likes stereotypes. Human beings are just pattern matching machines with legs.
Yeah no a lot of people actively avoid stereotyping. Playing into negative stereotypes isn’t a good thing
Sure. But in short form content where it’s relevant to the point? It’s hard.
I don’t think so, if a comic is actually trying to make a point rather than appeal to ideological tribalism
I guess it’s possible they’re just being lazy or tribal. But since white guys in suits are also part of that tribe, I’m not sure how that works. To me it just seems they are simply drawing a likely scenario rather than an unlikely one.
It’s why Garfield is a cat and not a hyena. Because who has a hyena?
Hey, stop being ableist! Some of us don’t have legs, or are able to do pattern matching!
Ah, so everybody is like nazis? Possibly.
Tribal, reactionary, conforming, oblivious, obedient, hivemind nazis.
*gestures vaguely at imagined hypocrisy*
But… you know… liberals are just like Nazis…
It’d be less statistically likely to be set up the other way
Would it though? Just a quick googling got me this https://www.livescience.com/61305-most-online-anti-vaxxers-are-women.html
Published December 2017
No, it would just not change anything about the comic.
I don’t really think this comic is “haha funny”, but I think the comic would still have the same effect.
Worked through this myself. Not as a nurse or care assistant, but as an NHS binman. Still saw lots of shit I basically cant talk about (not due to emotion but due to Trust policy as its a bit too specific). Saw doctors, nurses, care assistants walking around like zombies after having worked 18 hours straight. Saw morons walk in and film them thinking there was some major conspiracy. Heard the lungs of patients rattling as they struggled to breath. Two workers I knew died. Heard from colleagues how some other morons had “served legal papers” on the staff (thats not how you get “served” here btw) and then saw it on the BBC 6 oclock news. I also saw the hard work of every delivery driver, supermarket worker.
What did I learn? That some people will fight to save your life, even if you’ve not taken heed of all the advice.
I have a two year old niece now. I’m reminded of when I was a kid in the early 80s and war veterans would come and talk to us about WW2 and Korea. I am thinking it would be good if some of us did the same for these kids in a few years. If we went and talked about what we saw, not the scary/nasty stuff, but the stuff that makes people hopeful for humanity.
I currently live in a province in Canada, that is currently ruled by a government that is governing under what’s basically an MO of Covid and vaccine revenge.
There’s no hope for humanity. Absolutely none. That’s my lesson from Covid. The majority of the people around me, my neighbours, etc, are basically all incapable of logical thought and highly susceptible to disinformation and rogue actors.
Ya that’s the lesson I took from the pandemic as well. At any given moment ~30% of the population is actively acting against the best interests of the whole, merely to be contrarian. We don’t have any hope as a species.
Covid awareness? On Lemmy? Getting over a thousand points? It feels like I’m in a dream.
Reminder to everyone that wearing a well fitting n95 mask in public takes very little effort but helps others (who may be immunocompromised, already battling long covid or other conditions, or otherwise vulnerable) and yourself avoid getting sick which can save people from chronic pain, disability, death, and more. Please do what you can to take precautions and prevent the spread of disease!
