Ask Slashdot: What Are You Doing To Help? 251
Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: With all the news stories about how the pandemic is impacting our world, some of us have been just plain lucky. As an information worker, I was already working from home, so I still have my full-time job — and my full-time income. So my question is, if we really are all "in this together," then what can I be doing to help the others who need it?
Here's what I've done so far. First just by staying at home, I'm keeping myself healthy, while not adding to the burdens of medical workers, or spreading the virus to anyone else. But I'm also at least trying to place some food orders at local restaurants, having it delivered to my home (and also adding a big tip.) The post office will be sending me two sheets of "Forever" stamps that I bought to help pre-fund future postal services. And though I haven't bought any gift cards yet, I've ordered $40 worth of books to support my local bookstore, and placed a second order for a bunch of graphic novels from my favorite local comic book shop.
Bookstores do need our support. You can also try buying your books through BookShop.org, a new e-commerce site whose profits go to local independent bookstores while giving book-buyers an alternative to Amazon. But some stores are just turning to crowdfunding campaigns. When people heard that San Francisco's iconic City Lights Bookstore might be forced to close after 60 years, they contributed over $484,000 to its GoFundMe campaign to keep it alive.
In fact, there's now at least 30,000 coronavirus-related GoFundMe pages to choose from. If you want to do something more organized, the New York Times has launched its own fundraising page for "four nonprofit organizations that provide assistance to those facing economic hardship." The nonprofit-evaluating site Charity Navigator has also created a list of trustworthy organizations seeking donations to support communities affected by the pandemic.
Everyone's got their own ideas about how to help — so what are the rest of you doing? If you've been lucky, what ways have you found to give back, to pitch in, or just feel like you're connecting to the community beyond your door?
Leave your answers in the comments.
What are you doing to help?
Here's what I've done so far. First just by staying at home, I'm keeping myself healthy, while not adding to the burdens of medical workers, or spreading the virus to anyone else. But I'm also at least trying to place some food orders at local restaurants, having it delivered to my home (and also adding a big tip.) The post office will be sending me two sheets of "Forever" stamps that I bought to help pre-fund future postal services. And though I haven't bought any gift cards yet, I've ordered $40 worth of books to support my local bookstore, and placed a second order for a bunch of graphic novels from my favorite local comic book shop.
Bookstores do need our support. You can also try buying your books through BookShop.org, a new e-commerce site whose profits go to local independent bookstores while giving book-buyers an alternative to Amazon. But some stores are just turning to crowdfunding campaigns. When people heard that San Francisco's iconic City Lights Bookstore might be forced to close after 60 years, they contributed over $484,000 to its GoFundMe campaign to keep it alive.
In fact, there's now at least 30,000 coronavirus-related GoFundMe pages to choose from. If you want to do something more organized, the New York Times has launched its own fundraising page for "four nonprofit organizations that provide assistance to those facing economic hardship." The nonprofit-evaluating site Charity Navigator has also created a list of trustworthy organizations seeking donations to support communities affected by the pandemic.
Everyone's got their own ideas about how to help — so what are the rest of you doing? If you've been lucky, what ways have you found to give back, to pitch in, or just feel like you're connecting to the community beyond your door?
Leave your answers in the comments.
What are you doing to help?
Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:2, Insightful)
now celebrate me!
Re:Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's impossible to do anything altruistically now, any good deed will be met with accusations of virtue signalling.
Even the guy who coined the phrase thinks it has gone too far.
Re: Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought, like SJW, Virtue Signalling, was a handy filter phrase, to help ignore those who are all anger and no content.
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I wish I had mod points.
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Virtue signalling refers to acts of meaningless status display on social media, none of which has any actual effect. Remember when everyone turned their Twitter backgrounds green to support the Iranian students? That was virtue signalling. Remember Kony 2012? That was virtue signalling. Remember the Chibok girls and the bizarre #bringbackourgirls campaign? That was virtue signalling.
By the way, do you know why there was no #bringbackourboys movement as well? The boys were all murdered. The more yo
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Ironically, more often I find the complaints about "virtue signalling" to be all anger and no content. If somebody makes a moral claim, and you think they're wrong, then make an argument for why they're wrong. If you think they're correct but you dismiss their claim because you think their motivation is "virtue signalling", you're making a worthless ad hominem argument.
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I remember when "social justice warrior" was a thing people actually called themselves with pride as they fought in the great Tumblr and Twitter wars of the 2010s, working to deplatform anybody who misused a pronoun or culturally appropriated the word "juicy".
As for what I'm doing to help in this, our time of need, I am joining with millions of others to make sure that the blame for the pandemic rests solely on Trump. I don't like to call myself a hero, but I totally am.
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So, which do you work for.....MSNBC or CNN?
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It's pretty much the definition of virtue signalling isn't it?
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Originally the phrase meant not actually doing anything, just wearing a badge or using certain language to imply you were a good person without making any real effort.
While posting your good deeds on Facebook is a bit much at least they are doing something to make the world slightly better. If it encourages that, even for the wrong reasons, it's not entirely bad.
Doing the right thing, quietly (Score:5, Insightful)
It's impossible to do anything altruistically now, any good deed will be met with accusations of virtue signalling.
Millions of people - billions, more likely - are doing altruistic things. But it is only the bragging few who feel the need to show off about their small contributions.
Re:Doing the right thing, quietly (Score:5, Insightful)
People used to "show off" their good deeds in order to inspire others.
Sometimes they need to in order to make it work, e.g. fundraising.
Now it's all just virtue signalling. Same when a kid does something they should be encouraged for, the peanut gallery will find ways to complain about how basic it is and how they were a far greater child genius at that age.
It's almost like people hate to see others doing anything position for some reason, like it makes them feel worse about themselves. It shouldn't make them feel that way but they do seem awfully angry about it.
Re: Doing the right thing, quietly (Score:3)
Nobody puts on a purple ribbon for domestic abuse awareness, or a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness to impress you. Nobody puts an ash cross thingy on their forehead to impress you. Nobody is trying to impress you with a rainbow flag. Nobody changed their whatever background to green for Iranian whatever it means to impress you.
There's no point in denigrating anyone that does these things. Complaining about status symbols says a lot more about the person doing the complaining, than a flag, ribbon,
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It's impossible to do anything altruistically now, any good deed will be met with accusations of virtue signalling.
Millions of people - billions, more likely - are doing altruistic things. But it is only the bragging few who feel the need to show off about their small contributions.
Yep. It's even worse now because so many have nothing else to do, so they literally spend hours signaling their group membership, their supposed virtue. Ratting out their neighbors, saying all the right phrases (e.g. "stay safe!"), spewing hate at approved targets, etc.
It's ... literally virtue signaling. Sorry if some people don't like hearing that phrase.
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"It's impossible to do anything altruistically now, any good deed will be met with accusations of virtue signalling."
Exactly! People claim that they are ordering delivery sushi every day 'to support the economy' while they did the same for years.
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Most good deeds are so complicated now.
The virus got out of hand we can’t fix the economy too much now.
What we can do is care for the basic survival and safety for people.
Clean Water, Healthy Food, Comfortable Shelter, Healthcare and Communication.
When you buy your groceries get some extra product and give them to the food pantry.
Help your local homeless shelter.
Support services that may offer home fuel to cold areas for people who need it.
Be friendly to those in need and don’t try to judge them
Re: Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple solution: do good deeds and don't share it online. Why does eveyone need to know?
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I'll bite.
Because one person's own ability to help is simply too limited, it is only when large numbers of people decide to follow suit that real change starts to happen.
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Can you really not recognize, through all your sarcasm, an invitation to share ideas?
Nobody was asking to be celebrated.
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They provided concrete examples of things they believe are worth doing. Perfectly valid way to start such a discussion. There was no bragging or asking to be celebrated. There was no request for recognition of any sort. The only request was to reciprocate with some positive ideas, which is something that you certainly haven't done. You honestly believe that the only reason the submitter posted to Ask Slashdot was for recognition from a bunch of trolls like yourself? Talk about pathetic. Go back to your base
Re:Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like most disasters which hit the news in a major way, anything pandemic related is now likely to already be way overfunded by people compared to other charitable causes. So I think you can safely say that the thing to do to "help" financially would be to go donate some malaria nets, or visit GiveWell and ignore anything related to the current crisis.
In terms of the economy, if you still have a job or a business, then the most effective thing you can likely do is to continue doing that. Most people's jobs (especially now) contribute to everyone's well-being and presumably you're in that job because you're especially suitable for it compared to other jobs other people are performing with their own talents/experience. (If that's not true for you, then longer term, you need to go find a better job fit. :)
Otherwise, do the normal things you should be doing anyway. Take care of your family, your neighbors, friends, etc... all the people you know best and thus are in the best position to actually help with what they need. Use your local knowledge that way, because there are likely a limited number of people who have that same knowledge.
Re:Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:3, Interesting)
Virtue signaling is doing superficial things like ordering takeout and buying fucking stamps, then telling everyone how wonderful you are.
The people who are actually "doing something to help" are the millions of people who continue working to keep you fed and comfortable so that you can sit at home and write your little articles.
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Re: Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everyone is in a position where they are able to do those things. For example, some people have medical conditions making it more dangerous for them to be exposed. Others simply don't have jobs or expertise which would be relevant for doing that sort of thing.
That's as obvious as it is irrelevant. The fact that you can't do anything to help doesn't mean you need to make up useless shit to do and then tell everyone that you're helping. Just stay out of the way. FFS what would you do if you came across a car accident with paramedics alrwady in attendance? You can't help, so ... what? You're gonna move around a few random bits of wreckage and then Tweet about what a wonderful person you are?
Every little bit that each person does helps.
Right. Change the background on your Facebook picture; that ought to show everyone how helpful you are.
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Re: Look at me, i am behaving THIS GOOD! (Score:3)
Nah, what you seem to be confusing is people genuinely trying to do the right thing vs people trying to inflate their own ego/image by making sure they're seen to be doing anything which could even remotely be interpreted as helpful.
If you show someone a bit of kindness for it's own sake, good for you. If you go and tweet about it, you're probably a bit of a cunt.
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Wrong.
While a disproportionate majority of cases that have resulted in death are the eldery and those with other health conditions, it is still quite far from the only people who have died. Also, the most vulnerable are people with nearly *any* kind of preexisting health condition which might compromise their immune system, not simply those who are already enfeebled, as you sugges
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Nobody has accepted your "offer" because they know that you wouldn't pay up when you were proven wrong, so there is no point. More likely than not, you would immediately move the goalposts of your remark and suggest only that you didn't literally mean exactly what you had said, and might instead suggest that the counterpoint to your argument is an insignificant minority tha
Spending money like a drunken sailor (Score:5, Interesting)
I just buy expensive stuff with long supply chains. Thus far I have upgraded my espresso machine, installed a new fridge, replaced our aging dishwasher, upgraded my workstation, etc. We now also buy quite a bit more takeout than we did before, specifically to support local restaurants. When this is over I’m going to spend a ton of money on bathroom remodel, and replace our AC as well.
If you do have the money you wouldn’t mind parting with, I’d suggest you do about the same. Keep all those folks employed, and get something in exchange as well.
Re: Spending money like a drunken sailor (Score:2)
With my $1,200 check... (Score:3)
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You jest, but you did exactly the right thing and funneled money into production and the local GDP. But what did you do with the other $1150?
Re: With my $1,200 check... (Score:2)
My wife has been out on short term disability for the last 2 months because we just had a kid and her employer doesn't offer maternity leave. So our stimulus is going to be paying our mortgage, especially since my work cut our hours by 25%.
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You should go on unemployment, it's better income than work with the amount of money they put on top ($600/week). No reason to stay employed if the government just giving out UBI.
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You should go on unemployment, it's better income than work with the amount of money they put on top ($600/week). No reason to stay employed if the government just giving out UBI.
I actually thought about it, because my work was offering LOAs and several of my group took them. I didn't want to on the off chance that the state wouldn't approve unemployment (my company said they wouldn't contest unemployment applications, but I live in a red state, so you know how that could go), leaving us both with reduced income.
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On the other hand, the fact that your hours were cut by 25% means that you qualify for a measly amount on partial unemployment, and by extension, the added $600 per week.
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In a sensible country maybe. In extreme Capitalist pay for healthcare land you may want to keep your job since you life may depend on it for the insurance.
It's not a problem in civilized countries. Both the medical system and the virus is more under control.
My company is at least offering to cover premiums while people are on LOA so that they don't lose coverage, but I know most companies aren't so magnanimous.
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YEARS of voluntary self-quarantine. (Score:5, Informative)
I was anti-social before it was cool.
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I was anti-social before it was cool.
Yup. And I go to the store more now that many important things have become largely unavailable online. Sheesh.
Coding a GPLv3+ web application helpcovid (Score:5, Interesting)
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Thanks for sharing the link. I am aware of a related project that might go well with your service: https://github.com/code4moldov... [github.com]
It is a Telegram bot that notifies volunteers about a person in their area who requested assistance. The chat-based interface provides the ability to respond to such requests and submit some information about the beneficiary's status (whether they have any symptoms, what their mood is, etc.).
The benefit of Telegram is that it adds push notifications and gives you clients for iO
PPE and Robotics (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been WFH for about five years. During the quarantine, I've been working on PPE production. A lot of people have been 3D printing masks and face shields, but it's difficult to make an impact as an individual because an FDM printer takes ~10 hours to make a respirator mask. One of my hobbies is urethane resin molding, so I've been working with a local makerspace to make silicone molds to cast PPE at a rate of about 2/hour. It's slow going because I've had to order supplies and wait for deliveries, but I think I can do 30-60 respirators as a proof of concept this week. After that, I'll hand off the work to the makerspace, which will bankroll some larger-scale production.
I also coached a FIRST FTC up until the quarantine began, and I meet with my students once per week to discuss school, working from home, and anything they want to talk about.
I shared my netflix password (Score:5, Interesting)
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Did your neighbor let you use his Hulu account?
Serving both my own and other interests: (Score:4, Interesting)
In the absence of doing things that I normally do, I do them remotely but through services and suppliers who are seeking donations. One of the girls at work used to run yoga classes once a month at lunch time for free, she setup a yoga online session for 6EUR a go, every week, with all payments getting donated to yoga studios who aren't allowed to be open. Likewise pub quizzes. What I used to do incredibly cheaply at a pub once a month I now do weekly online and donate to the cause as well.
I also changed purchasing habits to funnel money previously given to Amazon to local smaller companies (costs a bit more + I pay for shipping now too)
I also stopped eating junk takeout and instead get takeout from restaurants that are not allowed to be opened and previously were dine in only in an effort to keep them afloat.
It's not much but every bit helps.
Had been mostly the same (Score:4, Interesting)
As another information worker, working from home in a pretty rural place, I was doing pretty much the same, which didn't require much change from my normal routine. Besides just sheltering in place, which meant more or less living like I already lived, I continued patronizing local businesses with take-out orders etc. Also helped my disabled mother and elderly neighbor with grocery pickup and such so they didn't have to go out.
Then my employer suffered such a huge loss of sales that I got cut to half time for a month and now laid off completely as the boss tries to salvage the company at all, and now I'm just crippled with anxiety barely able to function even though with the enhanced unemployment I'll actually be making slightly more money over the next three and a half months than I would have been at my job.
Bought a 3D printer to print PPE (Score:3)
Staying at home and bought an Ultimaker 2+.
My gf works in a nursing home, so I want to at least be able to supply her with PPE. Also setting up for 24/7 ops so that I can print PPE all day/night.
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A Startupper, Youtuber, IT help-desk, Diplomat (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a headmaster at a primary school and I've never been so busy (being the one with the IT degree kind of puts me right in the centre). We're doing loads of online lessons completely reinventing the school and the didactics.
So for one I've gone back to my startup experiences and reset a whole way of working, thinking and teaching.
I'm myself keeping kids involved and entertained posting regular youtube activities and challenges.
400 kids = 400 families = 400 logins and passwords (+25 teaching staff). That's a lot of accounts to set-up, especially over the phone (the shutdown was overnight)
Families are going crazy, stuck at home with their kids expecting us to take care of them 24/7. There's a lot of diplomacy and moral support to everyone
Overall, I'm enjoying it. While everyone is safe and free from the bug, that is.
Social distancing. Learning new things ... (Score:2)
... as to be prepared when things pick up again. Being nice an patient to the people I'm close to. Following experts advice and rulings.
A lot, but I'm tired. (Score:2)
we aren't (Score:2)
So my question is, if we really are all "in this together
Ok I think I can answer that one. We aren't. If you really want to help the world use your expertise in nuclear fission to publish detailed plans for a DIY suitcase nuke. There are too many people on the planet and almost all of them are assholes. We all deserve to die a horrible death . Something more horrible than drowning in our own juices.
Not getting hospital care (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently, I am helping freeing up health-care resources and staff for fighting COVID-19 by having a check to see if I have cancer or not being postponed indefinitely.
I'm not the only one. Hospitals all over the world have their normal routines upended. My mum works in a hospital, but not in intensive care -- and while she during normal times used to complain about an overly busy schedule, she now complains that she has no patients to examine. ... . The effect had in some cases been that more people not part of the event died afterwards for not getting normal medical care than who had died from the event directly.
I read an article today, about volunteers at Doctors Without Borders who had experienced the same effect multiple times at smaller scales during e.g. Ebola outbreaks and natural disasters
I'm not very hopeful for my future. I'm sorry if I come across as overly cynical.
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Apparently, I am helping freeing up health-care resources and staff for fighting COVID-19 by having a check to see if I have cancer or not being postponed indefinitely.
I'm not the only one. Hospitals all over the world have their normal routines upended. My mum works in a hospital, but not in intensive care -- and while she during normal times used to complain about an overly busy schedule, she now complains that she has no patients to examine. I read an article today, about volunteers at Doctors Without Borders who had experienced the same effect multiple times at smaller scales during e.g. Ebola outbreaks and natural disasters ... . The effect had in some cases been that more people not part of the event died afterwards for not getting normal medical care than who had died from the event directly.
I'm not very hopeful for my future. I'm sorry if I come across as overly cynical.
But don't worry; marijuana and abortion shops are essential and must stay open!
Yes, I share your cynicism, and feel badly for you :(
Here's what I'm doing (Score:4, Funny)
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did you use proper form, every little bit counts!
self isolating (Score:3)
follow the guidelines (Score:2)
if everybody would just follow the guidelines, that would be the bare minimum.
Donations to food banks, shelters (Score:2)
Some people have been fortunate during this crisis, and are experiencing no financial impact. In fact, social distancing and self-isolation may have created additional disposable funds (no sports, no dining out, no travelling, etc.).
Perhaps part of that "found money", in addition to supporting small local businesses, could be directed (by donating on-line) to the local food bank, homeless shelter, or any of the other worthy local charities who are struggling with greatly increased demand co
Lead, follow or get out of the way (Score:2)
I'm trying very hard to not be a hindrance. This is better than a lot of people are doing - from the idiot politicians to the conspiracy morons.
I assist local community (Score:2)
Doing what I'm told for a while! (Score:2)
What am I doing? I'm doing what I'm told for once. I'm not a huge fan of the UK gov but rather than bitch about them right now, I'm doing what I'm told for the general good of everyone else. I'm lucky my company is a financial services company so the whole company is working from home.
Same as the OP, I'm ordering food, goods and services from local business, sure I'm buying stuff from big names like TESCO and Amazon as well. I take my once a day exercise early in the morning, I go out before sunrise and wal
Loaning money (Score:2)
I have two friends who are self-employed and have lost most of their income in the last couple months. One of them runs a business that employs a number of other people. I approached each of them and offered to loan a few thousand dollars to be paid back within a year. One accepted, the other said thank you but they have enough savings already. Both were surprised by the offer, but extremely thankful. I did a bank transfer to the one who accepted.
I am normally very reluctant to loan money to people I know,
Working from the Fire Station (Score:2)
My day job is being a nerd, but I volunteer in my local community with the fire service. During the outbreak I've been working from the the fire station to improve my response time.
BTW, if your local fire department is a volunteer or paid on call department I would suggest you look into joining. The first year of training is rough to juggle with a work schedule, but after that it is a great thing to do in your community.
Helping (Score:2)
Staying home, continuing to work and pay my taxes. You're welcome. :)
- Necron69
I'm doing my part! (Score:2)
I didn't go full retard buying pallets of toilet paper.
Printing Masks (Score:2)
Self-Isolating and folding at home (Score:3)
The company where I work went 100% working from home just before the government announced the measures. I've been working my regular job since then and been staying at home. I'm part of the younger people with extra risk factors, so I'm getting everything delivered.
I'm also throwing as much resources as I can to folding at home. I've even rebuilt an older computer to bring up some older nvidia cards I had laying around and so far I'm at about 2 million points per day, when there are work units available. I'm also getting ready for when World community grid releases their open pandemic initiative.
I've been trying to convert a mining rig to folding at home, but the special 4 to 1 pcie port card doesn't seem to be compatible with the folding at home client.
well (Score:2)
Doing my best to take reasonable precautions, maintain social distance, wear mask (even while the official line was don't wear mask), etc.
Doing my best not to join any mob mentalities, not to rat out my neighbors, not to virtue signal, etc.
Keeping my eye on civil liberties. If we substituted "terrorism" or even "war" for "virus", my state would be in outright rebellion, from all sides of the political aisle, instead of all but forbidding protest and discussion and having scary lockstep thinking.
Running distributed computing programs. (Score:3)
Like anyone with two braincells connected, i maintain safe distances with others and i do not hoard. Difficult to achieve in a supermarket because i live i a state full of noisy morons.
I also do a few errands for older neighbours on occasion.
I run Folding@Home and Rosetta@Home depending on which project sends me work units. The calculations done are helping scientist understanding the virus better and find targets for medications. https://foldingathome.org/news... [foldingathome.org]
P.S. I skipped the first page of worthless political nonsense at the beginning of the thread.
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They already have the "breeding age" value attached to them. Thus, equal label rights.
Re:Nothing (Score:5, Informative)
At least 30 health care workers (and likely far more [theguardian.com]) have died from the virus so far.
I'm so sorry that people recognizing the sacrifices they and others have made annoys you.
Re:Nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly the difference people care about. People have a strong tendency to care most about things that happen close to home. Because those things are perceived to be greatest threats to them.
That's the same reason you care about the lockdown here so much while probably only tangentially caring about how people in Hong Kong are treated by the Chinese government. The former takes precedence over the latter to you, because you're experiencing it first hand. That's just how the vast majority of people work.
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So in other words people don't really give a shit about the medics , its all selfish concern about themselves. Thank you for proving my point.
He didn't prove anything. You just read what you wanted in an attempt to create a foregone conclusion while missing his point.
The key part of the parent's point is that people care what happens close to them. Kind of how like you complain about the lock-down being "politically motivated" primarily because you yourself seem hell bent on politicising it. Science and medicine doesn't give a shit about your politics.
Psychology however can explain the link between the desire to make something political, and bein
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"dealing with Ebola in Africa. "
Because it's included in our list of "shithole countries".
Re: Nothing (Score:2)
Wow you are truly horrible.
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They chose their careers and have to deal with many infectious diseases any one of which could potentially kill. I didn't notice anyone genuflecting and having virtue signalling clapping smugfests when medics were dealing with Ebola in Africa or cholera in south asia. Why is this virus different other than it infects people in the west?
Anyone else think of the Airplane Counter-Point bit when they read this comment?
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So the first statement is that he believes 99.9% do nothing. And then follows a different statement about personal motivations.
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Shitty community? ITYM a community that just gets on with life and isn't full not full of snivvelling bed wetters who run back home in their PPE gear to hide under the covers and cry like little girls.
Re:Nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to admit I'm finding it very hard to help anyone else at the moment too. Too many idiots not properly distancing themselves or observing the lockdown and thus extending it for all of us. Brexit made me a lot of cynical, if others are willing to strip away my citizenship and rights it's difficult to care about them.
I don't feel comfortable giving money to many charities either. Take the recent fundraising effort my "Captain Tom" for example. The money he raised is 0.16% of the annual budget so probably won't make much difference, but the bigger problem is that the NHS is supposed to be properly funded through taxation and propping it up with charity is a dangerous precedent to set.
The weekly clapping for NHS workers is similar. Makes us feel good for 5 minutes but it's just covering over the governments failures and utter incompetence. The future is very bleak with little prospect of getting rid of them for another 5 years, brexit coming to further destroy what's left of our economy and a population that seems to be hooked on fake news and selfishness.
Maybe the isolation is getting to me.
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At the risk of starting yet another tedious Brexit debate - there is no such thing as EU citizenship - you're a citizen of an individual member state. As for your rights - what rights would these be exactly? If its the old live and work in the EU trope then isn't it funny how plenty of non EU citizens live and work there and have done for decades.
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On the subject of citizenship there may well be something called EU citizenship and it may not be possible to take it away.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/... [crowdfunder.co.uk]
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"You just move, no visas, no fuss, automatic right to all the same benefits as citizens of that country."
Well I'm sorry if itinerants like you might be a little bit inconvenienced - tough shit. Self determination is a bit more important to some of us that you having the bother of filling out some forms so suck it up.
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If self determination is important then why throw it away? Now instead of determining for ourselves we are subject to whatever demands the big players make of us. A choice between poverty and compliance isn't really a choice.
Re: Nothing (Score:2)
Voted for non cooperation. We already had a parliament.
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Freedom from prosperity and cooperating with our friends and neighbours.
We could already trade with the world. Germany does more trade with the rest of the world than the UK does, clearly the EU is not holding it back. What the single market did was prevent a race to the bottom, prevent us having to compete directly with China and the US who have lower standards and thus lower costs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Nothing (Score:2)
That was troll
Re:Nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
I really hope 99.9% of people are not as dumb to think that the lockdown is politically motivated. Unless you think local politics transcends parties, nations, governments around the world, and the entire political compass.
Re: Sheltering in place (Score:2)
Not necessarily. My 80 something grandmother lives alone in a pretty rural area. She stopped growing her garden a few years ago because it just became too much work for her, so she still has to go into town to go to the grocery store.
And she is far enough out to not have a mailbox, which means going to the post office to get/pay bills. She isn't close enough to restaurants for delivery either. So, if there wasn't a lock down there she couldn't just self isolate, meaning she would have to go out in
Re: Sheltering in place (Score:3)
So, if there wasn't a lock down there she couldn't just self isolate, meaning she would have to go out in public and would inevitably get sick, and she is in the high risk demographic
Hang on ... so if she wasn't ordered to stay home she would have to go out or starve, but if she is ordered to stay home ... she somehow doesn't starve?
Re: (Score:2)
So, if there wasn't a lock down there she couldn't just self isolate, meaning she would have to go out in public and would inevitably get sick, and she is in the high risk demographic
Hang on ... so if she wasn't ordered to stay home she would have to go out or starve, but if she is ordered to stay home ... she somehow doesn't starve?
Nidi62's post is hard to follow, but I think it is saying she cannot self isolate either way, with or without lockdown, because she must go out to get food in the rural location; there is no delivery services.
With a lockdown, essential services such as grocery stores are still open, but they are safer than they would be without lockdown because the overall rate of infection in the community is lower in addition to safe practices such as distancing. So with lockdown she has less chance of getting covid-19 w
Re: (Score:2)
So, if there wasn't a lock down there she couldn't just self isolate, meaning she would have to go out in public and would inevitably get sick, and she is in the high risk demographic
Hang on ... so if she wasn't ordered to stay home she would have to go out or starve, but if she is ordered to stay home ... she somehow doesn't starve?
Nidi62's post is hard to follow, but I think it is saying she cannot self isolate either way, with or without lockdown, because she must go out to get food in the rural location; there is no delivery services.
With a lockdown, essential services such as grocery stores are still open, but they are safer than they would be without lockdown because the overall rate of infection in the community is lower in addition to safe practices such as distancing. So with lockdown she has less chance of getting covid-19 while doing essential tasks.
Yeah, that post was written on my phone at 5am taking my wife to have outpatient surgery while also dealing with a 2 month-old (who wouldn't fall asleep until 11pm and had us up at 3am for a feeding). Those factors are not conducive to coherent posting.
Re: (Score:2)
So, if there wasn't a lock down there she couldn't just self isolate, meaning she would have to go out in public and would inevitably get sick, and she is in the high risk demographic
Hang on ... so if she wasn't ordered to stay home she would have to go out or starve, but if she is ordered to stay home ... she somehow doesn't starve?
No. If people are ordered to stay at home except for essential purposes (going to work for essential jobs, going to the store to get food, going to the bank/post office,etc) then she can do the errands she needs to do with minimal risk. If there is no lock down and everyone is running around like normal (with the virus running around with them) then her risk of getting sick is much higher, and she is not self-sufficient enough (or close enough to delivery services) to self-isolate. And she is old enough