Steph:
22:15 – “I have found it exasperating trying to express an opinion or proffer any contribution here. I think this is, as we may probably all agree now, because I have misread the intention and purpose of the thread.”
15:26 – “SA […] when you say ‘We can argue as to whether the lockdown is appropriate or has been carried out appropriately but that is another discussion’ I have to say that this is the only discussion I have ever been trying to have!”
Steph, the problem you’re having is that you’re picking up your anti-lockdown arguments from sites that have been promoting conspiracy theory, so you’ve been asking questions about all the same non-issues as they do. This is why I’ve been trying to warn you about conspiracy theory, there really is such a thing, it’s a hopelessly flawed style of thinking and a complete waste of time. No wonder you’re frustrated.
I regret what happened to your neighbour and I apologise for overlooking that in my reply to your description of your personal situation days ago. That reply was difficult to write the first time, worse the second time when my first attempt was lost, and it really hurt and disheartened me that you found it patronising because I tried to write it with compassion.
The lockdown restrictions were crap. What we needed to do was compartmentalise, and thereby prevent the infection from spreading. We had the whole of February and most of March to prepare. We could have beaten this, and we still could.
Compare the current paltry efforts of our government against the sweeping changes made for WWII – conscription, rationing, evacuation of children to the countryside, commandeering of resources, blackout, re-purposing of industry; not a single aspect of life was left unchanged. The essential problem is that this government is trying to change things as little as possible. Neoliberalism had won, or so they thought, and they were very happy about that. Then suddenly this virus came along… Heck, they’re the Brexit party, that was the mandate they were elected on, and they didn’t even close the airports! The virus was obviously travelling the world by airliner; more and more politicians, celebrities and sports stars were reported as having it every day. Why didn’t the “Control Our Borders” party control the borders? Because they and their buddies are the bloody Jet Set!
SA, ET, Dr Edd, myself – obviously we’re not the scientific community, but that domain is certainly where we’re most at home. If you stop trying to promote the nonsense coming from sites like Swiss Propaganda Research, OffGuardian and UK Column, and just start discussing with us instead, we should all get along fine. Commenters like Duck really have nothing to offer but strife because they’re at odds with reality itself.