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Comment Re:too late for that (Score 1) 208

That would be a silly thing to do for the chinese government. The lockdown on the economy hurts china as much as the rest of the world. Also, it would be a very stupid thing to to to start your outbreak in your own province, when you don't know if you can contain it and you don't know whether it will mutate.

As you already kind of admitted. If covid-19 is a bioweapon, it has to be one of the crappiest ones ever developed. It specifically does not target young people, which are your prime adversaries in an army, and it also does not really weaken the work force.

Most likely, it evolved by jumping from a bat or some other animal to a human (to my knowledge, that is the current hypothesis), Since China doesn't want to loose face, and has some of the crappiest animal markets on the planet, they are very reluctant to focus the world's attention on it. That sounds like a much more logical explanation than some mad chines scientists playing high-risk gambles with a virus that is just not suited for bio-warfare.

Comment Re: Dont forget (Score 2, Insightful) 443

Great, so there is not a problem. There are no people dieing now. The hospitals aren't overwhelmed and treatment of patients without life-threatening diseases aren't suspended. There are also no people who had limbs amputated or a untreated heart-attack because they were turned away from hospital because their symptoms didn't look serious at the time (source was from a dutch documentary, who interviewed several doctors from different hospitals). Also, the idea of keeping distance, and society trying to help with it, does nothing into reducing the spread of the disease.

Even if you were right (pleas provide links to actual studies), only reducing symptoms would have a huge benefit into diminishing the load on the hospitals and going back to a more normal society. The latest number that I have is that about 13% of the dutch have had the corona virus. It would definitely take a few years to build up herd-immunity (it can go faster, but then you accept thousands of deaths as hospitals and IC-units cannot treat the patients. A hospital and IC does help). A vaccin would give a tremendous boost to that immunity.

I think Dr Reis and Dr Bhakdi should go to hospitals and tell the patients that COVID has already passed. If these patients realise it, they can pack their stuff, start breathing again, and go home. Problem solved.

Comment Re:It's a joke, goddammit! (Score 1) 404

I can see that you might interpret it as a joke.

But then again, what's the problem? I is not censured. It is tagged as manipulated media. Which is exactly what it is. Some people think that it is serious. For them, it is good that twitter has a label on it. I'm sure that president Trump will agree. It would be bad if he got misunderstood. The others can laugh, or just ignore it as being unfunny.

Now move along, stop arguing, and enjoy the sun.

Comment Re: How do they know? (Score 1) 266

Your data set is skewed: the only vegans you know you have met are the ones who are loud about it, so you think they are all loud about it. But you actually have not done a controlled test.

True, but that still does not explain why LHBTQ's fear for their safety. I might determine someone gender from their nickname, but sexual orientation?

What seems more likely to me, is that toxic behaviour is mostly seen on controversial topics. If I add something to the Wiki fo Trump's page, or to a page about gender inclusion*, it will be quite likely be a heated battle. I would understand (but not condone), that I receive some insults. Part of it, is that it is very hard not to write anything about those topics that is not-controversial.

Not sure how to solve it. Partly, it seems to me that you 'agree to disagree' and just put up different pages or sections about supporters and opponents of Trump or gender inclusion.

Comment Re:Trump Squandered a political moment to shine (Score 1) 382

>Disasters are often a chance for politicians to shine.

You must have missed the rise in polls when he started his daily corona press briefings and then the media decided to ignore them because they were too popular and helping Trump too much.

Did I miss something? I am not from the USA. I have seen a quite a few of these corona briefings... and I saw Trump making groundless accusations, quarrelling with reporters, or saying stupid things. Now it is certainly possible that I was watching a cherry picked selection of these briefings. The point is: As a president (of any country), you should never say stupid things, make groundless accusations, or quarrel with reporters during a crisis. Not even one time.

Comment Re:To give email new life, you'd really have to... (Score 1) 45

I believe hard anonymity is the thing that destroys email for me. Everybody can email me with a personalised email claiming to be a Nigerian prince, my girlfriend who needs money, the perfect solution for penis enlargement, or my bank. It would help me a lot if I only got emails that were sent by verified identified people who really took effort to get in touch with me personally.

Comment Re:What "misinformation"? (Score 3, Insightful) 275

Nobody denies the climate changes. It's always changed. Part of the problem is the totalitarian tactic of labeling people who disagree with the causes as "deniers" to suggest they are aligned with Nazis and holocaust deniers. Those zealots don't want any discussion.

A holocaust denier is not by definition a nazi. A holocaust denier is someone who, in spite of tons of evidence, denies a thing that has happened, without stating an opposite consistent believable theory (except for some crazy conspiracy theories who are taken for granted without any critical thinking)..

A climate denier is someone who, in spite of tons of scientific evidence, denies a thing that is happening, without stating an opposite believable theory. In this case, the warming is real, the CO2 pollution is real, and several models have been made that, using current data, describe the globale warming effect.

You're free to be a skeptic and to study those models and data and come up with a believable scientific theory that explains why the current Co2 production cannot cause a greenhouse effect and that the current warming is caused by something else.

But if you don't come up with a believable alternative and simply deny..... Yes, then you're not a skeptic. You're a denier, just as the holocaust ones.

Comment Re:Portman Petrified? (Score 1) 86

I don't see it as a problem when someone creates a porn scene with a deep-fake Natalie Portman for personal use. I do see it as a problem if Natalie Portman has to defend herself and cannot prove that she wasn't really involved in that particular scene.

I also suppose she has some copyrights on her face and name, Although I wonder what happens if software exists that lets people create their deep-fakes on the fly for personal use.

Would it actually be legal to create a porn scene with a Nathalie Portman lookalike while stating beforehand that it this is not her. What about the rights of the look-alike?

Comment Empty gesture (Score 1) 463

The end result is that taxes are raised as the ICE now has to pay someone to code that part of their system (or has to pay the company more), I really don't see the point if the developer is a USA citizen.

The government is an organisation everybody pays for. It has a monopoly and is supposed to work for the people. The ICE is executing the will of the majority of the people. It makes more sense to try to change the general opinions on immigration than trying to sabotage a government. You might even want to change the political system, if you feel the current government does not represent the people.

Also, I think we just should stop developing Linux, apache, KDE ets, as I have strong indications that tt is being used by the evil North Korean, Russian and Chinese governments (yes they are more evil. There is a reason immigrant flee to the USA and Europe, instead of Norh Korea, China or Russia),

Comment Examples? (Score 2) 468

Is there any evidence of twitter deleting accounts where a person politely argued for a well-researched reasonable point-of-view without inciting hatred, using swear words, or using facts that aren't based on anything?

If not, I would think that right-winged persons would be happy to have the nut jobs filtered out from their point of view. Sure the others might dominate in numbers, but it would also show that right wing are, on average, more reasonable than their unfiltered counterparts.

I'm seriously interested. Can someone point at examples?

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