English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2020-07-05 (page 1 of 3)

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1:02 AM

> Although Paris’s official Pride march was postponed until November because of the pandemic, several organizations planned to hold a smaller version in the French capital on Saturday. Organizers said they intended to give it a political tone and speak out against the “silent capitalization” of Pride events.

So should it instead be the silent capitalization of pride events?

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> Students learning about hand washing in Bangkok on Wednesday.Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times

Can you imagine our kids going back to school with a setup like that?

Can you imagine them doing so without one?

Also: sure a lot of English on the walls for a Bangkok classroom, no?

@Robusto Naw, three of them are wearing whiteface, doncha know.

3 hours later…

3:55 AM

@tchrist In Holland, children no longer need to keep any distance from each other.

So I suspect we'll have full classrooms again come September.

@Cerberus And who shall lead them? :)

The national institute of health has decided, based on experts, that children infect relatively few others—the younger, the fewer.

@tchrist Children still need to keep their distance from teachers.

Noöne knows yet how (and if) it will work.

Luckily, our space in school is very large.

@Cerberus I did see some early suggestions that this might be true, but no explanation for it.

With few children.

I mean "indications".

3:57 AM

So we will easily be able to keep our distance. The only thing I'm not sure about is ventilation.

So, this is a problem.

They have done some research.

I just read something about it a couple hours ago. Lemme see if I can find it.

Including contact tracing.

The large majority of sick children were infected by adults. Vice versa, very few adults were infected by children. I think this was all within families.

So they figure chances are small enough that it's worth a try.

I suspect schools will still institute various measures to minimalise contact and maximalise distance.

And, the older the children, then less this research applies.

But it's bed-time again.

past

but things are going bang in the night here

pyrotechnics

4:02 AM

Still that stuff?

That's terrible.

I don't remember the reason, something about protests?

Well, I hope you and your animals can get some sleep.

No, it's the FOURTH OF JULY!!!

And all official fireworks displays have been cancelled.

And so everyone has their own little D.I.Y. project.

It's still going off very, very close to me. A hundred feet or two.

The Denver cops have confiscated literally TONS of this stuff in the past week.

It's everywhere. Because Wyoming is only two hours away.

It's a full moon, too!

Long night.

Too loud for earplugs even.

Lorin is sitting on the stone wall out back being very alert at all the explosions everywhere.

They call this one the Thunder Moon.

Or Buck Moon. But tonight it is like thunder.

Unending explosions.

I'll take melotonin.

I've never in my entire life heard so many do-it-yourself fireworks going off. It started at dusk. Seldom do 10 seconds pass in silence.

@Cerberus FOUND IT: nytimes.com/2020/07/04/health/…

> 239 Experts With 1 Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne

The W.H.O. has resisted mounting evidence that viral particles floating indoors are infectious, some scientists say. The agency maintains the research is still inconclusive.

The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby.

5:05 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer (87): Is "uncarefully" a word? by toop on english.SE

5:19 AM

@Cerberus Forgot to say, that's the exercise if you want to get shapely(er) buttocks.

Maybe there's a way to do it without hurting your knees.

As it happens, there is:

How To Squat Without Knee Pain (4 Mistakes You’re Probably Making)

5:40 AM

@Robusto Cracked me up! But I wonder who was it that was nicknamed the Deporter in Chief, and why.

1 hour later…

6:50 AM

@Robusto I mean I thought that was the recurring theme in the book as well, so the movie was merely being faithful? I haven't read the book though personally

@tchrist Tom Hanks roles?

@Færd Never been to Arak. I just know it's one the industrial centers. So . . . polluted?

@Færd Dayum, wallpaper material

@tchrist This is a Pride:

Iranians love these cars. Just ask @Færd

Violating eighty percent of car safety protocols is so hip

7:43 AM

@Færd @tchrist

Sorry tried to upload a pride of lions on the highway but it didn’t work.

1 hour later…

8:58 AM

@M.A.R. everywhere is polluted

@M.A.R. it was not until a few years ago that I realized the make of this car is actually the English word pride. It made it uglier than before.

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There you go

9:30 AM

@Færd Well me too, but my excuse is I was too young :p

@Færd But some areas are more polluted than others. Animal Farm

9:47 AM

@Færd All I keep wondering is how did the Benz get there? Had it stopped on the road?

To have that car be called Pride, as if it's the Iranian Pride, I dunno, it's so ironic it feels like a sick joke.

You couldn't have insulted worse if you tried.

Holy crap

I didn't expect I'd be saying this this far into the pandemic, but these astronomical numbers are truly otherworldly

worldometers.info/coronavirus

11.5 M cases, holy crap

2 hours later…

11:26 AM

0

Q: When do you call it when someone gets benefit (direct or indierct) to be biased

It's not a conspiracy since they all act in their individual self-interest. What is a saying to describe this? I recall hearing "He is on the books" but that doesn't sound right. It's not like you get a direct bribe. Rather you get other indirect benefits that make you bias i.e. a job, network. E...

expressions popular-refrains

Why is the writing on the Internet so helpless.

It's just sad.

@Robusto O, M, and furthermore: G.

Weather forecast for hell: blizzard.

I may be avalable later tonight.

Not that I will be of much help, it's been like twelve years since I last watched the film. I can only really weigh in on a handful scenes, a handful camera angles, the overall vibe of the cinematography and direction.

And of course I always fondly remember Philip Seymour Hoffman in every role of his.

But can't remember a single note of the soundtrack, say.

I think there were some strings swelling to the silhouette scene.

2 hours later…

1:22 PM

@Færd Ehh so you need gym materials for this.

People are approaching this stuff rather (semi-?)scientifically!

@tchrist Hmm buildings have been thinking about the importance of ventilation here for some time.

The evidence has been mounting for a while.

Supported by studies that show very, very few people are infected indoors.

The cruise ships.

But larger droplets may still be a far more important factor?

I haven't heard anything about a comparison.

We don't need 100% security indoors.

We don't know.

Well, I don't know.

I think, without any government measures, the average infected person infected 2 to 3 others.

With moderate measures, without any mouth caps, we've brought it down to well below 1, emptying hospitals.

Unless that person is in a choir.

1:28 PM

So perhaps we don't need to prevent all infections.

@tchrist Yeah, anything with groups shouting or singing is thought to be high risk.

By the way, I had no idea about this: did you know more people sing in a choir in Holland that play football, the world's (and the country's) most popular sport? Also @RegDwigнt. I think it's rather nice.

Comforting, somehow.

@tchrist I have a suspicion that places like night clubs, mass festivals, and church services where people touch each other and sing—that those might be the most infectious events.

Combined with poor ventilation, those could be cesspools of virus.

Oh, and of course slaughter houses.

Places where people work packed together with poor hygiene, being brought to and fro packed in vans or buses.

And sleeping in dormitories.

I don't think tightly packed factories can be run that way without being full of infections.

College kids in dorms have always had runs of disease.

@tchrist It may be difficult. But slaughter houses seem to be worse than others.

We could close those and suffer no real consequences.

I haven't heard about any outbreaks in other kinds of factories.

That's my thinking, but I do not consume their output.

And of course, people have no jobs to replace that with.

1:36 PM

@tchrist Do they have large dormitories where many people sleep in the same room?

And very large numbers share sanitation?

Here, each student has his own room.

And sanitation may be shared by 15 people if it is a very large student house (we don't really have dormitories).

But we haven't seen any large outbreaks among students.

@tchrist All lost jobs have been paid by the government so far, at least here, and I think in most of Europe. But, sure, if that isn't possible, it's tough for those people. Here, they are mostly Poles or Romanians.

But in any case their numbers are comparatively small—compared with all the other jobs lost.

@Cerberus It's two per sleep-room. My nephew has just begun staying there. Two sleeping rooms each with two boys, and a shared livingroom-type thing between them. Not a setup I'm familiar with. Of course, there will be one large shared bathroom with toilets and showers for the entire floor of many such foursome suites.

There was another food-prep factory where a bunch of people got sick that wasn't a slaughterhouse. I think it made small pastries or sweets.

@Cerberus We have tens of millions of people who although promised unemployment compensation, simply have not received it. Something of a mass-disaster in its own right.

Our government sent out $1.4 billion worth of checks to dead people.

The administrative incompetence is stunning.

@tchrist How many people live on a floor?

@tchrist Yikes.

@Cerberus Forty or fifty.

Oh, that is a large number.

One person could easily infect 40 others.

Yes.

1:51 PM

Have there been many large outbreaks in dormitories?

Not to my knowledge. They closed them all in spring.

Oh, I see.

But now they'll be coming back.

It's amazing how different student life must be.

We've had no outbreaks here, that I know of.

Students have their own place here like any other person, they can't be evicted during an epidemic.

So it has been normal life in student houses.

The evictions are no longer suppressed here.

1:54 PM

I think some of your students are also evicted every summer?

And winter?

I suppose it might help with hygiene...

Well, eviction as in kicked out for lack of payment is different.

Do most students stay in their dormitories all through summer?

But all the colleges closed in spring, and students were told to take all their stuff home over spring break and not to return.

And no, they do not. A few do, normally.

Are they allowed to stay?

The summer between my first and second years at college, the dorms were not open.

2:01 PM

So sometimes they're allowed to stay, sometimes they're evicted for the summer?

It's probably the same in England?

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of the anglosphere operated in much the same regard in this.

But I have no direct knowledge.

@Cerberus I don't understand why there haven't been outbreaks at other factory/assembly line work spaces. I mean a slaughterhouse would probably have lots more hygiene practices in place.

anyway, like under-five day care, and really elementary school for those who didn't do daycare, school (and snot-nosed kids) is the primary vector of everything.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in body, mostly punctuation marks in body, repeating characters in title (186): Remove..........ooooooooooooooooo ✏️ by Alias on english.SE

Parents with kids that age can expect to have at least the sniffles off and on for the first few years.

@Mitch Apparently not!

@Mitch For the common cold, yes.

For the corona virus, as I explained above, apparently not.

2:12 PM

@Cerberus Oh. well not knowing exactly everything, it's very plausible that kids would be a vector.

@Mitch I explained it above.

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So this doesn't look too terrible.

It is going down more slowly than in other countries.

still, the (grade school) teachers are the most vulnerable if kids are nonsymptomatic carriers.

Apparently not.

If it is college age kids that are the most carrier-like, then college profs.

@Cerberus yes. but this is a lagging indicator (or rather daily infections are a leading indicator of deaths. It takes a few weeks to die from it.

True, but the lag should be about 2 weeks between positive tests and deaths?

2:18 PM

I'm sure this has been addressed elsewhere, but why are the US stats so week-based periodic (weekends low) but all the other countries seem to gather daily data smoothly? Is it an administrative construct (US hospitals reporting less on weekends? the national collection of data only reporting on weekends?) or is this weekend artifact universal and the US is not doing a moving 7 day average? or what?

So I would expect we're looking back two weeks in the past?

@Mitch In Holland, deaths may be reported more often on Mondays, but the date of death is independent of the date of reporting.

It looks like maybe those American statistics are only about date of reporting?

It's a well-known phenomenon. That's why you should only look at the moving seven-day average.

Since we're not in a position to change anything, I'd would give it a couple more weeks to see what the pattern is. If deaths saty level over July, then this is a new thing, that lots of people can be infected without dying.

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If we -were- in a position to do things, in the US, it would be "SHUT ALL THE THINGS DOWN" (in California Texas Arizona and Florida).

2:20 PM

So this is different from the official statistics.

Looks like World of Meters ignores date of death, only collects dates of reporting?

> By the Memorial Day holiday Californians “thought they were safe to just have parties, go to overcrowded beaches, to get close to other people and take off their masks”, said Lee Riley, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “People began to fixate on individual liberties without understanding that one of the most fundamental civil liberties in the US is the right to health – the right to stay alive.”

@Cerberus weird

@Cerberus but at least the phenomenon is not totally US.

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These are the official statistics.

So it's World of Meters that is doing something different.

There are not as many typing in data on the weekends.

Perhaps they just take the number of reported deaths of each day and put those into their own database.

2:22 PM

so they should be tallying data of death, not date of reporting of death

Yeah.

And the official statistics do the former.

and maybe there's a lag time before reporting of actual day of death that for some reason is not included in the first available data source reporting death.

There definitely is.

Deaths trickle in up to a week later.

yuck.

When the epidemic was still less under control, we would see the late-reported deaths in a different colour in the graphs.

Hmm I can't get at the old graphs any more, because they are auto-updated.

2:44 PM

@Roberto - I'm glad to hear that.

I hope it stays that way!

3:29 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted user (71): What case is used for pronouns in the vocative? by Ruud on english.SE

@M.A.R. I'd heard about some pollutants special to Arak from its industries. The visible pollution is not drastically different than that of other bigger cities tho, AFAIC.

@M.A.R. They say 18 million have been infected so far in Iran alone.

@Cerberus I don't know how scientific this one is, but I just tried it and it works: I pin my heels to the ground and the pressure shifts from my knees to my hips. Makes all the difference.

No gym materials needed.

*AFAIAC lol

4:03 PM

What happened on the Fourth of July, Seventeen Hundred and Seventy?

4:23 PM

@Færd I'll certainly keep that in mind!

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The 4ᵗʰ of July 1770 saw HH Clemens Quatorze confer the honor of a papal knighthood in the Ordo Militiae Auratae upon Chrysostomus Theophilus, age fourteen, for his memorious transcription of Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus.

@Færd That I've also heard. It sounds like BS. Official stats report that around 20 out of every 100 people that take the COVID test are COVID-positive. However, extrapolating this data to the entire population is obviously incorrect since it's definitely not a random sample (N.B.: Survivorship bias)

Hence the matter of the vocative of Deus. :)

@M.A.R. True.

@tchrist That kind of makes sense.

latin.packhum.org/…

I couldn't find anything else either.

I see.

4:34 PM

But I remember learning that deus could be used as a vocative.

But that article already sums it up.

Not even Jupiter had a special vocative, by Jove, being third declension.

Perhaps in proto-Latin.

IIRC the German declension for Jesus/Jesu/Jesum is also a little weird.

Deus/divus/Jup-/dies are all the same word.

In origin or in practice?

4:39 PM

@tchrist I always thought it was a translitteration of the Greek, but there was a recent discussion that made me doubt it.

Sometimes, Latin u nouns get a genitive on -u.

@tchrist Origin.

I would expect the German to be more influenced by the Latin Rite than by the Greek.

So a vocative may be found in proto.

@tchrist I believe Luther studied Greek very closely.

Probably made a new translation.

This is true.

And he did.

Quite famously, in fact.

And even influenced German, or so I've heard people claim.

I'm sure.

I don't really care about religions myself.

I find their texts rather uninspiring and cliché.

One studies these things when taking courses in Western Civ or the Humanities.

Greece, Rome, the Fall of Rome, the breakdown of civilization, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment.

The terrible wars of religion. All the schisms. The refugees.

The Rise of the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither.

4:44 PM

Hey Deus, wanna hang out?

Hey Dee us wanna hang out with Dir.

The Justinian Code.

Who's Dir, the German guy?

Duh!

Marco Polo. The ever-recurring pandemics.

That guy must be British

Right, he has noah.

4:47 PM

The pandemics are China's fault of course.

@tchrist Yes, but one doesn't have to read much of the actual texts.

Some excerpts are enough to catch the gist.

@M.A.R. Taiping Rebellion.

That one wasn't religious

. . . Right?

Oh

> The Taiping Rebellion, which is also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion or civil war that was waged in China from 1850 to 1864 between the established Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

If you're in heaven why are you rebelling.

Maybe they wanted that apple.

With all four apocalyptic horsemen at large..

Studying their history of uprisings, you come to appreciate the current regime's fear of civil unrest howsoever much you justly despise their methods of preserving domestic tranquility.

List of rebellions in China

This is an incomplete list of some of the rebellions, revolts and revolutions that have occurred in China. == Zhou dynasty == Rebellion of the Three Guards (late 11th century BC) was a three-year rebellion of the Shang and three uncles of King Cheng of Zhou against their nephew and his regent, the Duke of Zhou. Compatriots Rebellion (842 BC) was an uprising against King Li of Zhou, ending with the King's exile, establishing the interregnum Gonghe Regency until King Xuan of Zhou took the throne. == Qin dynasty == The Dazexiang Uprising (simplified Chinese: 大泽乡起义; traditional Chinese: 大澤鄉起義; July...

I cannot help but wonder what Iran will do with so many fluent speakers of English today. Also whether this will be supplanted by Chinese.

> Until recently, English and Arabic were the two mandatory foreign languages
taught in the Iranian schooling system. English was chosen due to its
status as an international language and Arabic is included into the
curriculum as the language of the Quran, the Holy book of Muslims. As of
2015, students are no longer obligated to study English and are also given
the option to choose from among German, French, Spanish and Chinese as the
second foreign language studied alongside Arabic. In spite of this, English

> Foreign language education begins from seventh grade. English and Arabic have been
traditionally taught in Iranian schools for the past three decades. Today, while Arabic remains a
compulsory foreign language, students are now given the option to select one language from
among five options (English, German, French, Spanish and Chinese) as their second foreign
language. Despite this new rule, English still remains the most widely-selected option.

From Shahriari, Hesamoddin. (2017). The Status of English in Iran.

> It is very common for Iranian students to attend extracurricular English courses at one of the
many private language institutes. In fact, for many young Iranians, attending English classes is
considered to be a recreational activity similar to arts, music or sports classes. Perhaps due to
their commercial nature, private language schools offer classes that are very different from what
is found in schools. First of all, with only a few exceptions, the textbooks used are by
international publishers. The classes are very student-centered and communicative, and a greater

> Until recently, the teaching of English in Iranian high schools followed the traditional grammar
translation method, focusing heavily on the memorization of vocabulary and grammar rules. In
general, Iranian classrooms are teacher-centered and English classes are no exception. The low
level of student involvement in the classroom is partly cultural and partly due to the crowded
nature of most classrooms.

5:02 PM

@tchrist sure it does. They need to add "chatting" to the list of things you can do with English

heh

> In contrast, in private language schools, classes are on average less
crowded and follow a system of instruction and classroom management that more closely
resemble those of classrooms in Western countries (some classes in private language schools are
even co-educational).

Coeds isn't a word I've heard for a long time.

I don't find any statements quite objectionable, just a few quibbles and addendums

Firstly, let's not idealize these private recreational activities. The furthest most go is only slightly better than the furthest most go with apps like Duolingo etc.

Second, I think that school language classes suck is the understatement of the century.

I wouldn't have minded much if it was just a few rules of grammar and some vocab to memorize, but it tried to deviate from that, and somehow ended up being something less, however that's possible.

And not just of this century, either.

Ditto

> In the prim 1950s, college dorms were off-limits to members of the opposite sex. Then came the 1970s, when male and female students started crossing paths in coed dormitories. Now, to the astonishment of some Baby Boomer parents, a growing number of colleges are going even further: coed rooms.

Funny how being off-limits to the opposite sex did little to interfere with sex.

5:09 PM

I dunno, I'd say we're still rather reserved compared to countries without this restriction

I didn't say straight sex. :)

Just kidding.

That's what the article was focusing on.

But well, what do you expect? The universities are mixed, and that's kinda when it matters if you wanna be such a religious pain

@tchrist Haha

But I think my freshman nephew has taken up residence in a boys' dorm. Not sure.

in Language Overflow, Jun 1 at 19:52, by Cardinal

I now realize how the mandatory English courses taught in Iran suck to the core!

You can read my rant here if you're interested

I especially ranted rather verbosely about the Arabic 'taught' in our schools

This seems commonplace.

5:12 PM

in Language Overflow, Jun 1 at 20:00, by M.A.R.

Now if you can't picture that, don't worry, I can't either. And I already passed 6 years of Arabic courses.

Here's a very RegDwighty sentence.

He's a bad influence

in Language Overflow, Jun 1 at 20:02, by M.A.R.

@ColleenV But this one's especially bad. There's no focus on conversation. I have done it for 6 years and I can't have a single simple conversation with an Arab, even though I know more grammar than most native Arabic speakers

in Language Overflow, Jun 1 at 20:02, by M.A.R.

There's zero listening. Not a single exercise in 5 textbooks with an audio image beside it.

in Language Overflow, Jun 1 at 20:04, by M.A.R.

And it's almost the same letters in both alphabets. Like half of Persian's vocabulary is distorted or undistorted Arabic words.

Can't learn but to read that way, if that.

in Language Overflow, Jun 1 at 20:05, by M.A.R.

It's like teaching a Berlin German Swiss German. For five years. And failing at it.

I rest my case

It is, however, possible to become proficient at reading and writing a language absent the ability to apprehend or reasonably generate its spoken form.

Well don't worry. I'm not proficient at either

Is Farsi overlaid with imported vocabulary from Arabic?

5:16 PM

I know it's certainly possible, and one common course of action for self-learners

@tchrist Yep

Very much so.

To the degree that absolute nonsense like "Persian is considered Arabic's Xth accent", uttered by ignorant jingoistic Turks, circulates as a common hoax

I don't even know what accent enumeration would mean, but that doesn't stop them

Of course, quite a few words, especially those easier to pronounce, were inherited from Middle Persian, some words going as far back as Old Persian, almost invariably evolved through time

@M.A.R. eeek!

That's like calling English a Romance language, but worse!

Nov 3 '19 at 20:37, by RegDwigнt

English is just German with no grammar and French vocabulary.

Low.

As I said, he's a bad influence

He's mostly right.

It's a dialect of Low German whose formerly synthetic inflectional morphology has been mostly replaced by analytic grammar, with a lexis bearing a small infusion of Norse and a much larger infusion of Latinate terms whether via French or borrowed directly by scholars.

Old English looks much more like Old Norse. It had only a few terms borrowed from Latin.

5:28 PM

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But the declensions of Old English had different endings than those of Old Norse. So when you had both languages coëxisting in close contact with one another, it may have eased communication simply to drop those case endings.

Unclear whether that's quite what happened though.

I think Loki just disillusionized Englishmen

The peninsular Nordic tongues also lost most of their nominal inflectional morphology, while the insular ones, for whatever reason, preserved them more. And Scandinavia was ever in contact with the many German dialects to the south, as well as with the unrelated but strongly inflected Finnish to its east.

So maybe they were going to get worn away anyway.

@CowperKettle Oh! That's better than I realized at first!

> My son kept chewing on the electrical cords so I had to ground him, he’s doing better currently and conducting himself properly

3

Earthy.

> As Russia begins a week-long nationwide vote on constitutional changes that could keep President Vladimir Putin in power until 2036, the official line is that the coronavirus pandemic has retreated, Russia’s health system coped just fine, and that it is now safe to vote and go to gyms, restaurants, shops and hair salons.

Ahah, now we know where Trump got all that nonsense from.

5:42 PM

It's horrible. The healthcare system here in Yekaterinburg seems to be overwhelmed

People say that you have to wait many days to get tested for COVID even if you have symptoms.

The same with with CT scanning.

Even CT scanning? You could at least find the pneumonia cases.

> New data suggest Russia may have a lot more COVID-19 deaths than it says it has

And yet they have opened many shops and allowed cafes to start catering to patrons on the streets.

Yes, it's hard to have a CT scan.

Don't go inside. Don't go within ten feet of others.

3

People wait for several hours to get scanned.

I'm to understand that Russian healthcare workers have it really bad.

5:45 PM

Commercial firms have stopped scanning. You cannot just go out and take a scan on a whim. They say that their scanners are under maintenance and stuff.

But secretly they say that the authorities said that they should not allow scanning.

Yes, healthcare workers. More than 500 have died.

We have private, commercial "medical imaging" sites/labs.

And an official said a day ago that only 50 healthcare workers have died.

@tchrist We have a lot of them, but they have stopped voluntary scanning.

I also have come to understand that the voices of healthcare workers are being squelched to suppress shock and panic.

I've bought a pulse\oxygen meter, the kind you put on your finger to measure oxygenation. From AliExpress

We have scanning available to anyone who thinks he might be infected or shows any cold-like symptoms at all, and for healthcare workers, and probably for those whose contacts have been traced to an infected person.

But we used to have far too few tests, all through April and possibly May.

5:48 PM

And the common folk thinks that COVID is just panic-mongering. A lot of people flaunt any measures, going without masks, having parties.

But I'm confident that all countries will get through this eventually!

My friends are regularly having parties and call me a scaremongerer

@CowperKettle Here, nobody wears masks except in public transport and Asians.

@CowperKettle That's just like in our red states.

Because I keep away from them.

5:49 PM

My friends are in their forties or older, so this makes them less cavalier. No parties here.

Amongst them.

But the kids are doing their summer parties.

And infecting one another.

We can see the price of widespread stupidity, but can its purveyors?

And one weird thing is that Putin signed a decree calling for a 2-week training of reserve servicemen. Which is all males aged up to 55 years. Of course, only some of them will get drafted for the training. But - in the midst of an epidemic?

What we're seeing at this moment in time is but a small down-payment on the final price of those stupidities.

Or, perhaps even, on the ultimate price.

@CowperKettle To what real purpose? To stir up patriotic sentiment? To distract them? To prepare to deploy them domestically?

There's a vaccine being developed in Russia. And dozens of researchers and personnel working at the state biotech center and involved in development have "voluntarily" injected themselves with the vaccine.

Ahh.

@tchrist It's usual practice, just to refresh the skills. But everybody assumed that this year there would be no reserve training.

5:54 PM

And subsequently voluntarily exposed themselves to the virus?

@Cerberus I hope not. ))

Why not?

It would be an efficient way of testing a vaccine.

They might even be given money.

Because a vaccine can turn out to enhance the damage.

Who cares?

It's only the population.

@CowperKettle Our National Guard and Reserve are all required to attend one drill weekend each month plus one annual training period, usually two weeks in the summer.

5:55 PM

I've read that it is considered unethical to do this in medical research. Only ethical in extreme cases where the disease is extremely lethal

@CowperKettle That's correct. A vaccine can very much also make infection worse.

That's why they test them so carefully.

@CowperKettle Of course it is unethical.

But how many governments has that stopped?

@tchrist In Russia, where the majority of male population have had military service at age 18, there are no drill weekends. But people say that this 2-week training in many cases mainly consists of boozing and pranking.

People call middle-aged reservists on training "partisans" (guerillas).

@CowperKettle Vaccine researchers have, at least historically, from time to time throughout history always turned to themselves as the very first guinea pigs. But using your own unproven vaccine on yourself is a dramatically different ethical decision from forcing its use upon others.

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