Coronavirus thread

[greg]

There is nothing in any way resembling the paranoid conspiracy fever dreams of an Alex Jones on CNN or similar. Suggesting there is is utter ridiculous. Instead of taking some youtubers word for it turn it on right now and see for yourself.

No, I'm not talking about conspiracies, I'm talking about narratives in reference to the stochastic terrorism you are talking about. They are both doing the same thing- selling stories/narratives. These narratives can end up in real world damage.

Last year, for example. Who do you think is responsible for the narrative that the cops are all out to get minorities? George Floyd was not a common occurrence, and they didn't even show the first video to give context to the whole story. So people get mad and cause riots and people even died. Imagine if it had not been on mainstream news, what the difference would have been. They didn't even have the full videos yet their narrative was set and before they were released harm was done. Sounds like stochastic terrorism to me.

Ah, utterly ridiculous suggestions: I see you've met our greg.

You can sit there and pretend you don't understand what I'm talking about, that's fine I guess.

[71 dB]

George Floyd was not a common occurrence,

It was a common occurrence. Mistreatment of blacks and racism is commonplace among police, unfortunately. Before the age of smartphones police got away by saying ALL blacks are lying. Nowadays it is more difficult.

[Spotted Horses]

Last year, for example. Who do you think is responsible for the narrative that the cops are all out to get minorities? George Floyd was not a common occurrence, and they didn't even show the first video to give context to the whole story. So people get mad and cause riots and people even died. Imagine if it had not been on mainstream news, what the difference would have been. They didn't even have the full videos yet their narrative was set and before they were released harm was done. Sounds like stochastic terrorism to me.

This is an absurd comparison. CNN and other news network produced stories reporting the fact that a man was murdered in the street, the people at the scene, including a fireman, call 911 to report a police murder in progress. The cop was eventually convicted of murder.  If any deadly violence was incited (and there was relatively little) it was incited by the true circumstances of the case. Alex Jones reported that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged by the government to support a liberal political agenda, that the children supposedly murdered never existed and that the families of supposed victims and the local authorities were "crisis actors." There was not a shred of evidence to support any of it, and his followers proceeded to harass and physically threaten the parents of the murdered children.

Mainstream media may produces opinion pieces and commentary that are distorted by their political agenda, but they can't "lie" because they would be subject to libel suits, with punitive and compensatory damages. The only reason Alex Jones recanted of his Sandy Hook claims is he is under thread of libel suits which would levy heavy damages, such that all future earnings could be seized by the victims.

[Spotted Horses]

It was a common occurrence. Mistreatment of blacks and racism is commonplace among police, unfortunately. Before the age of smartphones police got away by saying ALL blacks are lying. Nowadays it is more difficult.

There racial spin involved. American police kill four times as many people as the police in comparable developed countries (such as Canada). Black people are disproportionally represented, but people of all races in the U.S. are vulnerable to police violence. It is related to police training that emphasizes a militaristic attitude and dominating a situation rather than deescalating a situation.

Activists who want to reduce police violence would do well to emphasize that everyone is subject to this.

[Karl Henning]

It was a common occurrence. Mistreatment of blacks and racism is commonplace among police, unfortunately. Before the age of smartphones police got away by saying ALL blacks are lying. Nowadays it is more difficult.

I have to applaud you, a Finn, for knowing the subject far better than greg, an American who appears to keep his head lodged in some close, insufficiently ventilated space.

[71 dB]

I have to applaud you, a Finn, for knowing the subject far better than greg, an American who appears to keep his head lodged in some close, insufficiently ventilated space.

Thanks Karl!  0:) This feels nice, because I have used to being seen as a clueless troll. 

[MusicTurner]

Thanks Karl!  0:) This feels nice, because I have used to being seen as a clueless troll. 

That was merely a verbal strategy. And of course, the Finns have the sisu ... 

[71 dB]

And of course, the Finns have the sisu ... 

Sisu! Hell Yeah! 

[greg]

It was a common occurrence.

Depends on how you want to define "common," I guess. The odds of anyone getting shot and killed by the police while unarmed are very low.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/03/police-black-killings-homicide-rates-race-injustice-column/3235072001/

Such self defense may be understandable if the police were engaging in an epidemic of shooting unarmed Black men and women, as we now hear daily — but there is no such epidemic. For the last five years, the police have fatally shot about 1,000 civilians annually, the vast majority of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. Black people account for about 23% of those shot and killed by police; they are about 13% of the U.S. population.

As of the June 22 update, the Washington Post's database of fatal police shootings showed 14 unarmed Black victims and 25 unarmed white victims in 2019. The database does not include those killed by other means, like George Floyd.

Ideally, officers would never take anyone's life in the course of their duties. But given the number of arrests they make each year (around 10 million) and the number of deadly-weapons attacks on officers (an average of 27 per day in just two-thirds of the nation's police departments, according to a 2014 analysis), it is not clear that these 1,000 civilian shooting deaths suggest that law enforcement is out of control.

So it doesn't mention non-white or black, but we could probably guess around another 20 people.
~59 or so unarmed people total out of 10 million arrests is not great, but I wouldn't call this "common" from that perspective.

If you are expecting like 0-5, I think those are just unreasonable and idealistic expectations. Cops are scared and do stupid things while in possession of guns. It's inevitable this stuff is going to happen given 10 million arrests involving officers handcuffing people or whatever the interaction may be.

If any deadly violence was incited (and there was relatively little) it was incited by the true circumstances of the case.

And how would you know that? How would you know that mainstream media didn't fan the flames? That's what stochastic terrorism is referring to. The narrative they put out inciting the rage. It's not just the story itself, it's also what they choose to report on. I shared around that time a videocam of a white man being shot in cold blood by a police officer, people here just said that guns are bad and cause the trouble. The mainstream media didn't report on it, and protests were very local and short-lived. Because the narrative was that he was white, so it didn't matter. Only black lives matter, I guess. It's racially charged stories that are the biggest rage-bait and profit-maker. So there is less incentive to report on that type of stories. Black lives matter to the mainstream media because it gives them more attention and money when these stories are published.

The difference between this and Alex Jones is that Jones is wrong, while this is misleading. That's not what I'm aiming to compare. What I'm saying is that both can contribute to "stochastic terrorism."

For years, they only hyperfocus on the stories where black men are shot and killed by the police.
That creates the narrative of this:

Black people are disproportionally represented

See my above statistics.
14 unarmed black people and 25 unarmed white people killed by police in 2019.
Okay, so yes, technically it should be 6 black people if you want to be proportional.

But 1) that's a small sample size and 2) that alone disregards the reasons.


The reasons could possibly be explained by the disproportional amount of murders and robberies committed by black offenders compared to white offenders. In a more high pressure situation, even if the offenders are unarmed, it could lead to these situations.

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2

However, that is a guess and that alone doesn't matter. It's just 8 people over the statistical average in that year.


And this misleading narrative lead to this:

By the end of June, at least 14,000 people had been arrested[3][36][37] and, by November 2020, 25 people had died in relation to the unrest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests


Not to mention this:

Nevertheless, arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.[5][40]

In summary, if there still more existing stories to report on of unarmed white Americans murdered by the cops, then why does the mainstream media exclusively focus on stories of black victims? Money. And what does this cause? Stochastic terrorism.

[SimonNZ]

Got any black neighbours? I suggest talking to them for what I can only assume will be the first time and ask their opinion about this. I suspect they will tell you the issue was not the murder in isolation but the culture of racist attitudes from the police that has had every one of them treated as potential/probable criminals for their whole lives and they always feel just one comment away from being hurt by police in any encounter.

What added fuel to the fire of the George Floyd issue was not the fact of reporting on it but Trumps refusal to calm tensions with empathy or tiny talk of removing bad apple cops but antagonizing thesituation seemingly in the hope of being granted emergency powers from a crisis situation.

[71 dB]

Depends on how you want to define "common," I guess. The odds of anyone getting shot and killed by the police while unarmed are very low.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/03/police-black-killings-homicide-rates-race-injustice-column/3235072001/

The odds of getting shot is one thing. Another thing is what skin color does the people who get shot have? Your link says:

The African American community tends to be policed more heavily, because that is where people are disproportionately hurt by violent street crime. In New York City in 2018, 73% of shooting victims were Black, though Black residents comprise only 24% of the city's population.

The goal should be zero deaths by police. Unfortunately this is not always possible. In some situations police has to use leathal force to protect others. The police culture in the US is to shoot first and ask questions later, especially when encountering black people.This is a clear fact and I won't "debate" over it any further.

Also, police killings is not everything. Racism also shows in how police treads black people compared to white people. Police harrashing black people for no good reason is common.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Dutch 12 year old boy goes to court to get judge to cast deciding vote as to whether or not he can get a Covid vaccine shot.  His mother wants him to get it, but her ex-husband said no.  He (the boy) really wants to spend time with his dying grandmother.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58669918

Surprised to see that there is increasing vaccine skepticism in the Netherlands.   

PD

[71 dB]

Dutch 12 year old boy goes to court to get judge to cast deciding vote as to whether or not he can get a Covid vaccine shot.  His mother wants him to get it, but her ex-husband said no.  He (the boy) really wants to spend time with his dying grandmother.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58669918

Surprised to see that there is increasing vaccine skepticism in the Netherlands.   

PD

It says the boy WON in the court and can have the jab. 

[Que]

Dutch 12 year old boy goes to court to get judge to cast deciding vote as to whether or not he can get a Covid vaccine shot.  His mother wants him to get it, but her ex-husband said no.  He (the boy) really wants to spend time with his dying grandmother.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58669918

Surprised to see that there is increasing vaccine skepticism in the Netherlands.   

PD

I don't think it is in creasing. Full vaccination is now over 82% and expected to go up to around 90% in the weeks to come.

The issue is that now almost everybody around them is vaccinated and social pressure is rising, the stance of antivaxers and the social debate are hardening.

[71 dB]

Now 60 % of Finns are fully vaccinated. They say in the end of October enough people will be vaccinated to "open" the society, but we'll see. All we need is a new variant and we are back in square one. 

[71 dB]

I don't think it is in creasing. Full vaccination is now over 82% and expected to go up to around 90% in the weeks to come.

The issue is that now almost everybody around them is vaccinated and social pressure is rising, the stance of antivaxers and the social debate are hardening.

These numbers are for adults, right? With delta-variant that is deceiving, because also children are affected easily. I believe the Netherlands is around 71 % ref whole population for at least one shot.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

It says the boy WON in the court and can have the jab. 

Yes, and I'm happy for him.  Sorry for the confusion, but the "frowny face" was for the news in the article about the number of anti-vexers increasing in the Netherlands.

I don't think it is increasing. Full vaccination is now over 82% and expected to go up to around 90% in the weeks to come.

The issue is that now almost everybody around them is vaccinated and social pressure is rising, the stance of antivaxers and the social debate are hardening.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, the minority is getting more vocal?

PD

[André]

I don't think it is in creasing. Full vaccination is now over 82% and expected to go up to around 90% in the weeks to come.

The issue is that now almost everybody around them is vaccinated and social pressure is rising, the stance of antivaxers and the social debate are hardening.

I agree. We see a hardening of positions from both sides here, too. A law has been passed yesterday to prevent anti-vax manifestations around schools and hospitals (they would gather around students with megaphones and harass them). Lots of tensions as anti-vaxxers see their options running out...

[greg]

but the culture of racist attitudes from the police

This is certainly a problem. But also there is also a problem with the hypermasculine gangster culture in black communities which glorifies running from the police and resisting arrest. Also a problem is the narrative of the cops being racist by default- it's going to lead to a defensive reaction, leading to more likelihood of escalation.

There was story I heard on NPR years ago about a young black man driving on a country road and the cops tried to pull him over. He got scared because he was hearing stories about what cops have done before when pulling people over on country roads. So he drove a while to get to a safe place, a gas station or something. By then, the cops thought he was trying to run away from him and treated him aggressively. So you see how the situation is not exactly one-sided and having a certain narrative in mind makes things more complicated. The cop could have been bad. But also could have been just fine, you really don't know.

that has had every one of them treated as potential/probable criminals for their whole lives and they always feel just one comment away from being hurt by police in any encounter.

Not necessarily the case, people's experience varies. This is narrative, not actual fact.

I suggest talking to them for what I can only assume will be the first time

Probably about a third of my childhood friends were black, the environment I grew up in wasn't exactly the ghetto, but it was much closer to what we're talking about then people from places like New Zealand or Finland.

[Brahmsian]

I agree. We see a hardening of positions from both sides here, too. A law has been passed yesterday to prevent anti-vax manifestations around schools and hospitals (they would gather around students with megaphones and harass them). Lots of tensions as anti-vaxxers see their options running out...

Same thing here, André.