Glass houses.

Sounds like you want Israel to start illegally assassinating random internet critics as well?

I’m sure they could stretch their definition of “self defense” that far with sycophants like you protecting them

Racist and incoherent.

Living in America is an exercise in developing psychological coping mechanisms to deal with the continuous horrible events over which you have no control.

You adopting a particular attitude doesn't really affect anything (again, no control) so just go with what makes you sort of happiest I guess?

And, if you think that the moral weight of an action comes from its effect on the world, then no political attitude you adopt has any particular moral value, good or bad.

I'll check it out. I really don't know if I'll run out of schadenfreude for these anti-vax ghouls.

It's a bit grim, because many of the posts are just average joes. Not AM radio pundits, but still, we've had well over half a year to get it, and these fucks have kept the pandemic going.

Yeah, I’m sick of schadenfreude. Greg Prentice appears to have been a turd. Does that mean his wife deserved to be widowed, his daughter to lose a father? (And they’re both sick too.)

I dunno, you can always Get Vaccinated, wear a mask in public spaces, & stay from large groups of dumb asses.

My 2 doses of Moderna have served me well...

Reading the Herman Cain Award subreddit has made me loop back around back to sympathy. There are 30-year-old guys with kids dying for Facebook memes about "alpha wolves" the GOP's dark experiments with anti-rationalism. These people have been tricked. And under different circumstances, I could see the same thing happening to the more head-in-the-sand elements of my own social group.

People believe what they want to believe. The truth is out there.

I was wondering when people would tire of the schadenfreude. Listening to QAA podcast paints them in the pathetic light they deserve. It's not black and white. Everyone does have the personal responsibility to ensure their epistemology is not dogshit. Some however, are taught from birth that a totally separate set of values are important. Faith over proof. This permeates their lives and leaves them vulnerable to rhetoric. Very few things are totally black and white. I have more pity for those duped, less pity for those knowingly leaning into it.

I have plenty of family and friends who aren't vaccinated. I'll hate to see them die. I'll be sad and angry. Angry at them and angry at every fuck publicly posting anti-vax nonsense.

OF COURSE his wife doesn’t deserve to be widowed, but that’s not anybody’s problem here in this lighthearted curation forum.

I did my part, essential worker, wearing masks every day since this started, vaccinated soon as I was eligible, convinced my mother to get the shot after a lot of fighting because of Facebook disinformation.

I’m just tired. I don’t care anymore about these people. I don’t get any joy out of dumb schmucks dying because of disinformation, but everyone is screaming at them that they’re wrong and their own hubris is doing them in.

I save my limited schadenfreude for the pricks peddling disinformation to make money. Whether they know better or they were fooled themselves, I don’t care. They deserve the worst that covid can give them and zero medical care.

My second cousin died recently of covid, she was a "Christian" anti-vaxxer. Posted "hilarious" anti-mask skits and shit on her facebook. Her dad was a Christian minister and author, very smart man. Vaccinated. She had told him her doctor had advised against her getting the vaccine, obviously bullshit given her facebookery.

Anyway her obit said she died peacefully in her sleep, no mention of covid whatsover, I guess so people can't go on her facebook and post stuff about how people should GET THE FUCKING VACCINE ALREADY.

For what it’s worth I’m sorry to hear about your cousin. Both how she lived and that she died.

I have been frequenting the HCA subreddit a lot over the last few days.

I don't like the making fun of the dead. Never have, really. I say let them rest, because they've paid the last price to pay, and they have gone where none of us can understand. And I am old enough now to be well-aware of the black hole death leaves in people's lives. There are always others to consider, family and friends, who aren't the dummy that avoided every measure and way out of this ongoing garbage pile.

But at the SAME TIME, God, am I sick of antivaxxers. God, am I sick of the memes. The poisonous misinformation. The horrible, horrible comment threads. The Twitter buzzwords. The "I'll take my 99% survival rate, lol." The "hashtag Proudly Unpoisoned, rofl!" The comparisons between wearing a piece of cloth over your stupid face at Walmart and the goddamned Holocaust.

There is a reason why the HCA subreddit is growing in subscribers.

***** ghost stars to Q9D

There's a humor element, in the whole "anti-helmet law crusader dies in minor accident" sort of way, but that's News of the Weird-level stuff. If you can't laugh at some of that, your sense of humor may be lacking. I'd be very different person if I were to tell you that sort of thing should never be funny.

But it's harder to laugh when we're back to losing 2,000 people a day just in the US. That's a 9/11 ever thirty-six hours. The Reddit group is the tip of the iceberg.

Honestly, before they started censoring the faces, I found it oddly therapeutic. I mean, you hear the stats, and you read about these anti-vaxxers, but the Herman Cain Award actually put faces to all of that. It really brings home the fact that these people could be anyone. Me, you, just anyone waiting at the corner for the bus or shopping at the pharmacy. It gives me a "there but for the grace of God go I feeling," which is both calming and frustrating, all at the same stupid time.

Of course, keep in mind that I'm not in the States and haven't been back in forever, so your reactions may be different on this particular point.

Isn't schadenfreude immoral? When isn't it?

It's natural to feel a Schadenfreude at first, because these people have been fucking up everything for everybody. It's not just the lies about covid and vaccines. It's the lies about the election, the lies about climate change, the lies about Critical Race Theory, everything that's truly terrifying about America right now. The frustration and anger are real, and warranted, and they don't go away, so when you see the progression of Facebook posts (most of the posts in r/hermancainaward are galleries of screenshots) from belligerence to defeat, and you find your empathy, it combines with the frustration and anger, and the resulting brew doesn't feel good at all.

And there's also the realization that this is the only way they're ever going to get it... and not right away, either. When your husband is intubated, and he can't even lie on his back, messages from provaxxers are not appreciated.

>>>Isn't schadenfreude immoral? When isn't it?

When it doesn't involve death.

Those deaths were quite preventable.

2 shots, wear a mask & avoid large crowds.

It's not like they had to offer up their first born to Cthulhu.




Unfortunately, they Are furthering Papa Nurgle's grand goals...

JHM, I noted that the shift to utter, spineless acceptance is a real noticeable at the end of a lot of these things. There's often a blasé "well, I guess that's it and what God wanted" that sounds a lot less like making peace with things and more like utter passivity. You'd think that some people would be angry, but very few are, even at random targets.

I'm not a psychologist, and don't know all that much about the thought processes of American Evangelical Christians, who seem to make up the majority population here. Is this, like a typical Evangelical reaction when things go terribly, horribly wrong, or is something more broadly human happening here?

Same as every other fanatical religion.

If you believe in god, you are untouchable.

If you die early it’s because god wanted you to die early in service of some glorious plan and you’re going to heaven.

You could convince some of them to be suicide bombers

Joy Reid was a moron for saying that. I've heard right wingers bring that up as a way of saying both sides have been the same, but they aren't. Joy Reid is just one moron. The anti-vax bullshit on the right is huge and organized.

"Hey Everybody!! There was a break in the sewer main outside the office. Please Be Careful. The City says it's going take 3 -5 days to replace the ruptured pipes. Again, please don't fall into the wide open rancid mess out there."

Later at Bob's funeral; "Damn, how do you miss a gaping, reeking, open crater of human waste in the street? He should have put down the cell phone & heeded my announcement..."

If you ignore blatant warnings & die of your own stupidity then expect chuckles over your obituary.

None of the examples you gave are ACTIVELY KILLING hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Yeah, but one guy said that he wouldn't take the detour if the current mayor fixed the pipes.

Pillager talks a big game, but if he were actually at Bob's funeral facing Bob'a grieving widow and children he'd quickly change his tune. His kind are only tough guys online.

His wife & daughters drowned trying to rescue him.

Whoa, I stand corrected, you’re clearly one big tough dude!

I laugh at people who trust a con man over doctors and scientists mainly because the con man told them it was okay to be racist.

>>>Joy Reid was a moron for saying that.

Yeah, but not such a moron that she kept saying it over and over again in the face of mounting evidence. That's a big distinction. I can forgive prople for being wrong in the past, like that whole thing where someone trots out a prolife Biden quote from 1974.

Nom is way too pure of heart to donate or volunteer. Only mocking the dead is good enough for him.

Give me a break, this is something we can't change. The morons are brainwashed. The best we can do is try to convince our family and friends, but we're fighting against billion dollar companies and people with huge influence. Who are we compared to Joe Rogan and Tucker.

Of course you'd use your billionaire cock-holster of a mouth to denounce the Herman Cain award.

Nom is making the world a better place by hating on dumb poor people online. Really making a difference there dude.

If it’s any consolation, the fact that you still care makes it suck a little less.

This is like saying people should die for believing weird JFK assassination theories.

The government lies to us so often. Moreso if your poor or not White.

And so many times, things that seemed to outlandish to be true turned out to be totally true.

Who can blame some people for embracing conspiracy theories.

Don't give me the "poor" shit. Like Jan 6, so many of these people are not poor.

The thing is these people have chosen to believe this shit because it reinforces their pre-existing conditions of being resentful mean-spirited pricks.

Seriously IF Trump had NOT gone up to the fucking podium and said Covid was a hoax and he wasn't gonna wear a mask, literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people would still be alive.

Imagine if he had said we all need to wear masks and get vaccinated and work together for the good of the country. It may not have made a difference. It may have. Who knows, it's a hypothetical that did not happen.

They died to own the Libs and if the situation were reversed and Covid were a hoax and the vaccines were killing people they would be fucking celebrating in the goddamn streets.

A good friend of mine is unvaccinated. She’s Black and quite left wing, and her argument is that the medical establishment has lied to the Black community many times before. I sympathise but also want her to live so I’ve tried to convince her to vaccinate, even to the point of damaging the friendship.

If she dies, Nom and Pillager and SolRo will celebrate and pat themselves on the back for being such good virtuous people. I on the other hand will be miserable and wish I’d done more.

And you should feel bad. You should do more, up to and including ruining your relationship if you actually care about them.

Because I won’t care about them. I’m all out of my covid-based caring after using it up fighting with my family, employer and online. I don’t care anymore. I convinced the people I care about to get vaccinated and I put myself under way to much stress to try protect other people.

If people still refuse to take it after such overwhelming evidence of safety and efficacy then I refuse to care anymore. If the people that care about them don’t want to put in the effort to convince them then it sure as hell isn’t my responsibility.

I am doing more. And I don’t blame anyone for being too exhausted to care. I’m only grossed out by those who applaud themselves for not caring or outright applaud the death and suffering.

I work in a hospital that we've colloquially nicknamed 'Covid City'.

Walking through an ICU is hell on earth. Especially a Pediatric ICU.

Adding to our misery is the supply chains snafus & drug shortages.

We're having trouble getting Dilaudid, sutures & even other meds needed for surgery.

And now I can't get Cytarabine. Sorry patient of a leukemia patient. We don't have a viable alternative.

This nightmare won't end until people take their jabs & mask up. Sadly, the cretin population stands in the way of my utopian dreams going to concerts & running RPGs at my local gaming store.

These supply problems have been going on for like 18 months... at what point do we decide that these are not "supply problems" but rather the nature of unregulated capitalism? There's no problem with the supply. This is the level of supply that is maximally profitable. The government could have done something about it but chose not to.

On the other hand, some people are partisan to the point of retarded:

"I ain't taking that sh*t. I ain't taking it!" Bland said. He didn't want to detail why until he was pushed to explain why he'd trust drugs like Regeneron's antibody cocktail but not the vaccine. He turned to Rodebush and asked, "Am I going to have to tell her?" Rodebush laughed and shrugged.

"They shafted my President," Bland said. He thought the vaccine was delayed intentionally to hurt Trump, a baseless claim. "They wouldn't give it to him because they know damn good and well he'd be reelected, and there'd be nothing nobody could do. So, they had to swindle around and scheme around and keep it from him, and just as soon as the election was over, Bam! There we got it."

"I'm so bullheaded. You shafted me out of my President. I ain't taking your medicine," he said. "I'll take what they gave him, but I'm not taking yours."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/09/us/ozarks-missouri-covid-vaccin e/index.html

American obesity rates among adults are up 20% from the 70's. It's not like a bunch of people individually decided to get fat. They systems that structure people's behavior pushed us to eat more bad stuff. Getting pissed at individuals misses the point.

Same here. The anti vax stuff is symptomatic of larger social disfunction in our medical, political, and media ecosystems. While it's understandable to be angry at people, individualizing this problem is a way to avoid looking at the painful, large scale reforms that are needed to fix it.

Also, run on a slogan of "Nationalize Big Pharma."
Aside from being a good idea, see how many of these same folks would come on board.

"The anti vax stuff is symptomatic of larger social disfunction in our medical, political, and media ecosystems. While it's understandable to be angry at people, individualizing this problem is a way to avoid looking at the painful, large scale reforms that are needed to fix it."

So how do we reform the Republican party, the party that's pushed anti-vaxx conspiracy theories, downplayed the pandemic and safety measures from the beginning, and the conservative media institutions that have been complicit in promoting and perpetuating misinformation? Let's get a brainstorm going.

Yes the partisanship is a good point. It works both ways; it's not hard to find examples of libs who last summer condemned "Trump's rushed/unsafe vaccine" that are now demanding that the unvaxxed be left to die outside of hospitals. The worst, most destructive aspects of this are stemming from the reactionary nature of partisan retards. It's not just the Republicans. We have two parties that are identical on this one issue (as well as many more).

The way to solve this has to be to restore the credibility of the medical establishment. We need to turn American medicine into something other than this Rube Goldberg contraption that, at it's best, economically ruins people in exchange for treatment. Something has to be done about the out of control profiteering. There has to be mea culpas from the worst offenders (pharma companies) or flat-out nationalization. In other words, don't hold your breath.

Crackersmack, it's not just Republicans, but support for Trump correlates very well with vaccine refusal. Trump didn't invent that conspiracy mindset, but he certainly profited off it and served as its loudest microphone. It doesn't help that he hasn't played up his role in vaccine development like he could have and essentially got vaccinated in secret. It's doubly strange, because he could have counted it as one of his administration's few true successes. Also, he refused to wear a mask in public. That didn't help.

There are populations -- black Americans, for one -- who really do have historical reasons to distrust the medical establishment, but I've known people in far more dysfunctional third world medical systems that were far more trusting of their country's medical system. Most of the vaccine refusal we're seeing goes hand in glove with right-wing conspiracism in general, the hippie types on the left being a contributor here, but not a driver.

Also, I think there's a real divide here between big and small: in the same way that people hate Congress but like their representative, I think a lot of Americans hate the medical system and are okay with their doctors or pharmacists. Hostility to medicine is not exactly evenly distributed here.

Trump was encouraging people to get the vaccine and liberals were resisting it, saying it was rushed, not FDA approved, etc. It was a mirror image of what is happening now. I have to imagine that if Trump had won in 2020 we'd be in a similar situation with shitlibs resisting the vaccine and maga chuds demanding that they be denied care because of it. The factions here are two sides of the same intensely retarded coin.

I wish I could find the source to cite but I read an article a few weeks ago that showed vaccine hesitancy was much higher among uninsured people, even though insurance isn't necessary to get the vaccine. Almost as if the people most neglected and abused by medical profiteers are the least likely to blindly trust them. Made sense to me. To be entirely honest I was very hesitant at first because in my direct experience any medical treatment that preserves life costs an exorbitant amount of money, and this being free made me suspicious.

So I googled the Joy Reid quote, and I'm calling bullshit.

The date is September 16, 2021. That's just TWELVE DAYS AGO!

REID: And, listen, I understand the hesitancy. Listen, I was hesitant when Donald Trump was out there controlling the CDC and controlling the FDA and manipulating them and making them put out falsehoods.

DYSON: Right. Right.

REID: Anybody rational was hesitant.

DYSON: You`re right.

REID: But the reality is now what we -- what I really fear is masses of -- more masses of people dying; 666,000 people have died.

DYSON: Yes.

REID: And, disproportionately, they look like you and me, Michael.

DYSON: Yes.

REID: And what scares me is that people are creating a cultural imperative to set themselves up for death, when the people pushing them to do it, like Tuckums, are vaccinated and safe, and, even if they got COVID, are going to get all the monoclonal antibodies.

Sorry, no, Crackersmack. Not buying it. Negative partisanism is a thing, but the thirty-point difference between D's and R's when it comes to getting (or intending to get) the vaccine doesn't happen overnight just because of a change in administrations. It's part and parcel of a long-term exercise in ignoring basic facts. People who are willing to believe that more people showed up at Trump 's inauguration than Obama's and that Hilary Clinton is a pedophile crime lord are, at this point, more willing to believe that Covid-19 isn't a big deal after it's killed something like 700,000 Americans.

Of course, you're right. Americans who have had numerous negative interactions with the country's health system and do not have a regular doctor that they can trust may be more hesitant to get vaccinated, but what you're reaching for is a systemic response to a problem that may exist but may not account for everyone's behavior. These sorts of sociology-heavy analyses tend to look great on paper and have a lot of good points, but they frankly fail to account for the fact that humans are not always rational and not all historical periods are equally rational. We do not live in rational times. Trumpers aren't fascists, but I do think that most of them are profoundly, dangerously antirational.

You'd like to excuse the good, honest, hard-working economically disadvantaged. It's not their fault that they've been treated so badly! It's reasonable for them to be so untrusting of Big Pharma! Wouldn't it be nice? But excuse me if I'm through giving out free passes to anyone. The people who made Donald Trump president may have some legitimate complaints, but their votes are indefensible and their worldviews wholly skewed by a phenomenon they've chosen to participate in. I'm not shocked that they'd jump at a chance to participate in any conspiracy theory that the teevee put in front of them right now. It goddamn figures. People are going to look back and wonder how so many otherwise decent Americans could go so nuts all at once. I won't have any sort of answer for 'em if they ask me.

Nah there is no way I'm buying the idea that there would still be a huge margins of liberals getting the vaccine over chuds getting the vaccine if this was still "Trump's vaccine". Maybe the difference wouldn't be quite as dramatic, but it would still be substantial.

You lose me with the hyperbole. Trump was a regular mainstream racist abhorrent Republican with regular mainstream racist abhorrent Republican views. Voting for him isn't some uniquely indefensible act any more than voting for GWB or Mitt Romney was. *Especially* given the choice in 2016. Regardless of what you think of HRC she is an extremely divisive figure with as many detractors as supporters, and nominating her was insane. The Democrats gambled on a vanity candidate for wealthy white women and it backfired. And it made a big portion of the Dem electorate lose their minds in the process.

Jill Stein is the first person I heard make the prescient "crisis of credibility" argument with regards to antivaxxers like ten years ago, and for it she was labeled an antivaxxer herself. But the fact is that this is a problem that predates covid and will kill far more people in the future if it is not addressed.

Oh but hey did you hear that LIbErALs and FaSciSTs aRE ThE sAmE?

everything you don't like is "fascist"

>>>You lose me with the hyperbole. Trump was a regular mainstream racist abhorrent Republican with regular mainstream racist abhorrent Republican views. Voting for him isn't some uniquely indefensible act any more than voting for GWB or Mitt Romney was..

So how is the weather up your own ass, Sugarsmacks?

Is there anyone else in here who believes that Trump was just another Republican? Do we really need to talk about this?

>>>Yes the partisanship is a good point. It works both ways; it's not hard to find examples of libs who last summer condemned "Trump's rushed/unsafe vaccine" that are now demanding that the unvaxxed be left to die outside of hospitals.

The first vaccine for Covid19 was available in December of 2020. Can you please give us an example of liberals against the vaccine, before the vaccine existed? As long as they're "easy to find" And now they're in favor of letting the unvaccinated die? If this is really happening, I can see how the hyperbole would be painful for you.

Okay, you're halfway there. Where's the statement from Biden saying that sick people should be denied hospitalization and permitted to.die?

JHM, when I'm your age I can only hope I can move goalposts half as well as you.

Here's Trump's scorecard with politicifact. Biden's score is not at all where it should be, but no one lies like this.

https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

Trump's willingness to lie outrageously is not a conspiracy theory. If the vaccine had been released under Trump, he would have made it about himself amd.talked it up like.it was hydroxychloroquine. He had fired health officials for not supporting hydroxychloroquine, if you'll remember. I hadn't thought about it, but it is absolutely fucking true that I would be wary of a vaccine promoted just before the election by President Clorox.

And I think I've said this before, if you can't see the difference, you can't see much.

Sugar, readers of English will note that the claim:

>>>it's not hard to find examples of libs who last summer condemned "Trump's rushed/unsafe vaccine" that are now demanding that the unvaxxed be left to die outside of hospitals.

was originated by you, repeated by me, only to be disregarded and denied by you.

And THAT is moving the goalposts.