Aesculapius

themeatbridge, 6 months ago

Conservativism has evolved over the last 40 years, but at its core, it has remained consistent in having precisely one priority: the self. Conservatives define the self, and conversely the other, and then determine which policies and priorities benefit the self. The other is anything that stands in opposition to the promotion of the self.

There is no foundational ideology and no inherent identity of the self. It is simply whoever the conservative wants to include on their team.

Viewed through this lens, every decision or statement made by conservatives is entirely rational. There is no requirement to remain internally consistent views. The only consideration for a conservative is “does this benefit me right now?”

Demonizing Biden is best for conservatives because hate is a powerful motivator for voters. Their base does not need reasons to hate the other, regardless of their choices or beliefs.

There is no hypocrisy in conservativism because there is no objective standard or ideology beyond protecting and promoting the self, and the self is whatever conservatives decide exists within the self. The self is good, and the other is bad. Everything else is negotiable.

To someone who is not conservative, this looks like hypocrisy. See: The only Moral Abortion is My Abortion, or The Card Says Moops, or Gun Control for Black Panthers, or My Daughter is a LGBTQ+ so now LGBTQ+ are People, or It isn’t “Drag” when I do it, or But my state deserves FEMA Funding, or Regulate this industry because it is a threat to me, or My sex scandal is a private matter so please respect my privacy, or Election fraud exists and I’ll prove it, or I’m a job creator so please bail me out, or just take literally any conservative talking point and you will find conservatives who are suddenly the exception to their own rule.

That’s the feature of conservativism that is so appealing. It’s like having a personal God that will forgive any transgression as long as you believe and pray for forgiveness. Being part of the self is like a warm blanket, and as long as you agree to maintain the farce, you get to stay under its protection.

This isn’t new information. Conservatives have always existed, under different banners and with different definitions of the self. Trump has laid bare the grift, abusing it past the point of credibility. That’s his hold, that to oust Trump is to abandon the ruse, and conservatives can’t do that. That’s why they will try very hard to make him a member of the Other. They will claim they were duped, that he was a secret Democrat, that he was never one of them. But he was always one of them, even when he was a Democrat.

Aesculapius, 9 months ago

Physician here. Masks absolutely reduce transmission and the chance of contracting COVID.

Here is the definitive study on the subject.

Here is a video of a presentation by one of the authors along with some demonstrations and explanations.

TLDR: Here is the Abstract:
There is ample evidence that masking and social distancing are effective in reducing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. However, due to the complexity of airborne disease transmission, it is difficult to quantify their effectiveness, especially in the case of one-to-one exposure. Here, we introduce the concept of an upper bound for one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles and apply it to SARS-CoV-2. To calculate exposure and infection risk, we use a comprehensive database on respiratory particle size distribution; exhalation flow physics; leakage from face masks of various types and fits measured on human subjects; consideration of ambient particle shrinkage due to evaporation; and rehydration, inhalability, and deposition in the susceptible airways. We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3.0 m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes. If only the susceptible wears a face mask with infectious speaking at a distance of 1.5 m, the upper bound drops very significantly; that is, with a surgical mask, the upper bound reaches 90% after 30 min, and, with an FFP2 mask, it remains at about 20% even after 1 h. When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1 h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%. We conclude that wearing appropriate masks in the community provides excellent protection for others and oneself, and makes social distancing less important.

IHeartBadCode, 11 months ago

All of this article completely ignores why manufacturing left in the first place. By the 1970s Japan's manufacturing quality revolution put financial pressures on American corporations to become more competitive. As more globalization occurred, the ability to economically compete with foreign economies became more prominent in management philosophy. Pair this with the invention that corporations exist to drive shareholder value, increasing shareholder value became the primary concern driving corporate strategies.

Companies who listen to shareholders and not markets become asset-light with high risk aversion. Few companies want to weather a storm not because the employees don't want to work there, but because any slight can be perceived in the market as a weaken position. There has to be a fundamental disconnect from the companies and the investors. We cannot be a stable manufacturing economy if the primary driver is speculation.

With weak labor protections currently prevalent in the United States, there's little possibility to buy the notion that employees and their product will be placed higher than speculative investors who are completely disinterested in the particulars themselves. So long as boards listen to financial gurus who prognosticate from their Excel tea leaves and market models, and less to middle management who just want the company to do well, there's zero ways manufacturing will attract the numbers required for a complete return to domestic production. If we want the people to work, we must give the people the power to dictate that work. Anything less is sure fire means for a return to whence we came.