COVID-19 - appropriate government response?

[teo123]

You, being a fraction of my age, presume to know some of these things.

Why would age matter? If you haven't studied something for years, you forget most of it or, even worse, misremember most of it.

Some of this may be a language advantage

And what is your native language? You do grammar mistakes from time to time, so I guess it's not English.

In most cases I also just look up and echo consensus.

But for most of the things in science, there are no studies measuring the consensus. Often you need to be an expert in the field to even estimate the consensus.
What percentage of computer scientists think antivirus programs do more good than harm? Is it 70%? Is it 20%? Even as somebody who has written a research paper about computer science, I have no perspective on that.
Even when you do have the information about what the consensus is, you can easily misinterpret it. There are studies that show almost all climate scientists agree te Earth is warming and that CO2 we emit is partly responsible for that. And I guess many people have the perception, partly based on those studies, that most climate scientists support the Green New Deal, when that's very far from the truth.
It's obvious that most nutritionists agree saturated fat causes heart disease and diabetes. But does that mean low-fat milk is less harmful? Most of the people would probably say yes, when quite a few nutritionists would argue the opposite.

Viruses are far too specialized to have popped into existence a few weeks ago, and then burn out after a finite number of transmissions as you believed.

OK, let's say you guessed it right. That viruses that invade us are related to the viruses that attack bacteria, and perhaps to each other, and that there are some complicated mechanisms by which they overcome the limitation of their genes, the fact that they are stored on an unstable RNA. But that's all you did, you guessed it, you didn't honestly study it and come to know it. Previously you agreed with me that there is no known mechanism by which the information on the RNA can be transcribed onto DNA, now you disagree with me on that.

Like with misunderstanding thermodynamics and bombs, this was the nature of your claim.

I don't really see much connection between the two. Are you saying thinking critically about political claims while applying the knowledge I gained at school is somehow a mistake? Is then writing and publishing research papers also a mistake?
To be fair, there may be some critical difference between what I was writing in the research papers and what I am writing here. In my, thus far the only, research paper about computer science, what I did was to propose three hypotheses that seemed reasonable to me and refuted two of them with, in total, 9 experiments. Here I am not doing the experiments to verify my claims. As for the papers I published about linguistics, well, the results of the crude computational models are verifiable in the same way those experiments are. But the other things I was writing in those papers about linguistics, well, they are simply my guesses based on what I know about linguistics, fundamentally not different from what I am writing now on this forum. And almost all historical linguistics is like that. If it's a mistake to do stuff like that, then almost entire historical linguistics can be rejected as a mistake, and that seems like an unacceptable conclusion.

We have a LOT of viral code in our DNA from retroviruses. Literal code that viruses have and are useful for viruses, in OUR DNA.

OK, let's say that, contrary to what we are taught at school, there is a way to transcribe the information on the RNA onto DNA.
Well, given what we are taught at school, that's obviously not enough to invade a cell, because not all genetic information is stored in the DNA, some is stored in the protein around the DNA, it's of the type "The information stored from the address A to the address B encodes a protein useful for this cell, copy that information onto the mRNA" (and the vast majority of DNA is not useful for any type of cell in the specie). So, that virus, in order to usefully store its genes into the cell DNA, it would not only have to copy its code onto the DNA, it would also have to modify the information stored in that protein around the DNA. And that is obviously true even for bacteria, since most bacteria have genes for antibiotic resistance, but they are not active.
And, given what we are taught at school, it seems to me that transcribing RNA to DNA and modifying the epigenetic protein may be enough to attack bacteria, but that it won't help the virus attack an eukaryotic cell, due to the difference between how prokaryotes and eukaryotes synthesize protein. Eukaryotic cells have two types of messenger RNA, nuclear mRNA and cytoplasmic mRNA. Nuclear mRNA doesn't leave the nucleus and it doesn't reach the ribosomes, instead, nuclear mRNA and cytoplasmic mRNA meet at the pores of the nucleus and the information on the nuclear mRNA (from DNA) gets transcribed onto the cytoplasmic mRNA. If I correctly understand it, the nuclear mRNA contains anticodones, just like transport RNA, rather than codones like the cytoplasmic mRNA does. So, even if a virus manages to insert the DNA with its genes into the DNA of the eukaryotic cell and modifies the epigenetic protein so that its genes get copied onto the nuclear mRNA, it wouldn't receive the copies of its genes on mRNA, it would receive gibberish (the anticodones stored on the cytoplasmic mRNA). And the ribosomes would simply ignore such mRNA in the cytoplasm, not all mRNA suffices to encode a protein. An mRNA, in order not to be ignored by the ribosomes, needs to be formatted so that it starts with a start-codone and ends with an end-codone. A virus, given what I know, may be able procreate inside of a eukaryotic cell by somehow inserting its genetic code into the mitochondrial DNA (since mitochondria are essentially simplified prokaryotic cells inside eukaryotic cells), but certainly not by inserting its genes into our DNA (which is in the nucleus). For the same reason, if I understand it correctly, you can't produce insulin by inserting the DNA code that humans use to produce insulin into a bacteria, because bacteria and eukaryotes, such as humans, use different genetic code on the DNA, even though they use the same genetic code on the mRNA. The DNA code that instructs the cells in our pancreas to produce insulin is gibberish to a bacteria, and it will get ignored in it. On the other hand, if you inserted the mRNA with codons needed to produce insulin into a bacteria, then the bacteria would produce insulin.

I don't think anybody but Croatians care about Croatia, most people couldn't point to it on a map or tell you if it's a country or a kind of ravioli.

What do you mean? Croatia is internationally well-known for its beautiful sea and for football, isn't it? And aren't Digitron calculators and digital clocks sold and considered high-quality worldwide? As well as Podravka spices?

What kind of persecution complex do you have?

I am not saying the international media are trying hard to make Croatia look bad, I am saying they have a strong incentive to make their home countries look better than other countries.

You have public access to view the legislation. Do so and shut up.

Why would they give ME the information about the case of Gordan Duhacek? What is my connection to the case? The social security isn't even letting me and my father view the documents related to the case in which my mother ended up in jail, they say it would violate the data protection laws. Those laws might make sense sometimes, but, if you ask me, I think they do way more harm than good because they make the government less transparent.
There is, as far as I know, no way for me to verify that the article you linked to is telling the truth, any more than that the article on MaxPortal (also something I've never heard of before) telling me the story isn't true is telling the truth.

Without a nationalistic delusion creating a strong cognitive bias in favor of Croatia I can be better informed on these subjects than you are, because your brain is loaded with misinformation that precludes you learning correct information.

You are basically saying, it seems to me, that the US media are trustworthy when they criticize Croatia, but that Croatian media aren't trustworthy when they criticize the US. How does that make any sense? Are you also willing to tell me US doesn't really have a problem with illiteracy and that 2% of the US population (more than of any other country, except perhaps North Korea) isn't in jail?
And how do you make your head less filled with misinformation? By not reading the news at all?

Keep doing that. Ramp up your criticism. Gain more of a following. Let's see. PLEASE do that.

I would do that if I had more time. But I am studying computer science at the FERIT university and it's very demanding. I am not sure if I can even afford to spend time on the Internet forums, yet alone recording, editing and posting YouTube videos.

So far I've only seen vegans talk about the animal farming aspect, and I've seen several pundits blame Chinese wet markets specifically.

As far as I know, factory farming is unlikely to cause virus pandemics. It's likely to cause superbacteria in the future, though, and that's way worse.

[teo123]

Also, what do you think the Croatian government should do now that an earthquake has damaged the capital city and some places in the eastern part of Istria, amid the epidemic of the Coronavirus? Do you think banning all inter-city travel was the right thing to do?

[brimstoneSalad]

After all is said and done, do you guys think this crisis will bring momentum to the vegan cause and put an end to factory farming sooner? Or will it just be chalked up to gross Chinese eathing habits?

So far I've only seen vegans talk about the animal farming aspect, and I've seen several pundits blame Chinese wet markets specifically.

Good question. I think it will be mostly a call against wild meats and hunting, and particularly in countries that are less developed. I can't see politicians in conservative states, for example, considering a hunting ban.

I think we will need to see more highly lethal viruses from farming, as if in the past few years swine flu and avian influenza weren't enough. Saw an infographic pop up on twitter a while ago that looked kind of catchy comparing them and coronavirus, but can't find it now.

[Red]

Good question. I think it will be mostly a call against wild meats and hunting, and particularly in countries that are less developed. I can't see politicians in conservative states, for example, considering a hunting ban.

I think we will need to see more highly lethal viruses from farming, as if in the past few years swine flu and avian influenza weren't enough. Saw an infographic pop up on twitter a while ago that looked kind of catchy comparing them and coronavirus, but can't find it now.

Aren't most deadly diseases from animals? Mumps, tuberculosis, Bubonic plague, measles, whooping cough, smallpox. It's just that most of us are immune to them or we have vaccines and treatments against them. We had no clue where these things came from when they were real threats to everyone on the planet, but now we do. So if we knew that if these diseases came from animals instead of God or the Jews or whatever, we would have been more cautious with them?

I'm sure you've read Guns Germs and Steel?

[brimstoneSalad]

@teo123 Age provides opportunity, not everybody forgets everything they learn, and it seems you misremember things instantly after learning them -- again, not everybody does.
Regarding the parallel you claim to linguistics: linguistics is a very soft science, WE HAVE DISCUSSED THIS BEFORE AND SHALL NOT DO SO HERE, guessing isn't so much a sin there as it is the status quo. You're commenting incorrectly on both hard science AND obvious and uncontroversial political facts that you could easily have looked up. In the very least you should have apologized for making those false political claims.

No, I'm not guessing about viruses. I answered something like *if that's true* regarding your RNA/DNA claim because I didn't want to look it up right then.

Regarding DNA integration, instead of typing an incoherent wall of text full of your bizarre half-comprehended hypotheses (and inflicting that upon others), why don't you just read about it?
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=retrovirus+dna+integration

No, I'm not going to explain it to you. Keep believing whatever you want if you're too lazy to do the research to understand it.

Croatia is internationally well-known for its beautiful sea and for football, isn't it? And aren't Digitron calculators and digital clocks sold and considered high-quality worldwide? As well as Podravka spices?

No. No. And also no.
Nobody knows what Croatia is so it doesn't make sense for them to choose that as a topic of disparagement. Countries like Russia and China are targets for political disparagement for nationalistic purposes.

Re: Gordan Duhacek, no, the LAW. Look it up.

And how do you make your head less filled with misinformation? By not reading the news at all?

That would help. Or read a combination of sources, like CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera, If they all agree on something it's more likely true.

[Jebus]

I think it will be mostly a call against wild meats and hunting.

China has made it illegal to eat wild animals. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/05/asia ... lNSEq8ly6M

I find it interesting how vegans are the only ones talking about how the virus spread to humans.

[teo123]

it seems you misremember things instantly after learning them -- again, not everybody does.

Look, saying stuff like that to somebody who has published research papers makes you sound rather silly. If I were misremembering things instantly after learning them, how would I ever publish research papers?

obvious and uncontroversial political facts that you could easily have looked up.

But isn't political science also a very soft science, even softer than linguistics?

instead of typing an incoherent wall of text full of your bizarre half-comprehended hypotheses

How are those "my bizarre half-comprehended hypotheses"? The simple truth, given what is taught in high-school, is that, while it may be useful for a virus to insert the genetic code stored on its RNA into the DNA of a bacteria or a mitochondrion, it would be useless for it to store its genetic code inside the DNA in the nucleus of a eukaryotic cell, because eukaryotes use different (the opposite) DNA code than do bacteria. Or is that also controversial, according to you?

and inflicting that upon others

What do you mean?

Nobody knows what Croatia is

Well, I am quite sure at least Americans know a few things about Croatia, because Croatia was the first country to recognize the independence of the US from the UK. Isn't that taught in schools in the US?

Countries like Russia and China are targets for political disparagement for nationalistic purposes.

Which is why you should assume life in those countries is a lot better than English-speaking media make it look, right?

Re: Gordan Duhacek, no, the LAW. Look it up.

OK, Gordan Duhacek was allegedly put in jail for "insulting the anthem" by posting the parody of old folk-song Vilo Velibita, first recorded in the 19th century. Here is the law that says what should be done to people who insult the anthem:

VII. Kaznene Odredbe
Članak 27. (NN 26/93)
Novčanom kaznom od u dinarskoj protuvrijednosti 50 do 300 DEM kaznit će se za prekršaj pravna osoba ako:
(...)
7. izvede himnu Republike Hrvatske protivno odredbi članka 19. ovog zakona.

You get to pay a fine, that's all. The law is quite clear that you can't get in jail for "insulting the anthem".
Second, "Vilo Velibita" is not an anthem, the anthem of Croatia is "Lijepa Naša". It's not even a patriotic song, as anybody who has studied Croatian literature will confirm you, "Vilo Velebita" actually means "Oh, beautiful tall woman!", it doesn't mean (as somebody who only speaks modern Croatian might guess) "The fairy who lives on the Velebit mountain.". The name of the mountain "Velebit" means "tall" or "high" (replacing the ancient name "Bebia"), the song doesn't refer to the Velebit mountain.
Third, what does the term "pravna osoba" mean? Well, the law later makes it clear:

Za prekršaj iz članka 27. ovog zakona kaznit će se novčanom kaznom od u dinarskoj protuvrijednosti 50 do 300 DEM osoba koja samostalno obavlja djelatnost sredstvima rada u vlasništvu građana...

But Gordan Duhacek wasn't using the tax money to post that things on Twitter, so that law doesn't even theoretically apply to him. End of story! It's obviously a lie you can get in jail in Croatia for posting a parody of "Vilo Velebita" on Twitter.
And what law makes it illegal to post an anti-police message on Twitter? Let's see:

Under a Croatian law dating back to the 1970s, which police quoted while explaining the “ACAB” arrest,

"Croatian law" dating back to 1970s? But Croatian Senate didn't even operate in the 1970s. Maybe it's referring to the (admittedly vague) law passed in 1990:

Član 1.
Prekršaji protiv javnog reda i mira su djela kojima se na nedozvoljen način(...)vrijeđa moral, ometa vršenje zakonitih mjera državnih organa i službenih osoba(...)
Član 14.
Tko na javnom mjestu vrijeđa ili omalovažava moralne osjećaje građana, kaznit će se za prekršaj novčanom kaznom u protuvrijednosti domaće valute od 50 do 200 DEM ili kaznom zatvora do 30 dana.(...)
Član 17.
Tko omalovažava ili vrijeđa državne organe odnosno službene osobe prilikom vršenja ili u vezi s vršenjem službe ili njihova zakonita naređenja, kaznit će se za prekršaj novčanom kaznom u protuvrijednosti domaće valute od 50 do 200 DEM ili kaznom zatvora do 30 dana.

Still, I don't think posting an anti-police message on Twitter violates that law. First of all, Twitter is hardly "javno mjesto". Second, "vrijeđa moral ili omalovažava moralne osjećaje građana" means "to make the civilians feel bad about themselves, make them think they themselves are bad people", it has nothing to do with criticizing the government. Article 14 would probably be broken by somebody who yelled, on a street, something like: "All Croatians are evil liars!". Apocalyptic preachers on the streets telling us we are all going to hell are probably also breaking that law.
Article 17, well, I think that refers to what you can say to a police officer face to face while he is doing his job, as in that you must not disrupt ("ometa") the police officers (or, for that sake, firefighters) with insults while they are doing their job. But it's obviously vague, what does "omalovažava" mean? Can you "omalovažava" somebody while you aren't talking to him or her specifically, but when talking to somebody else or publicly?
So, at best, you can say that posting an anti-police message on Twitter is gray area. So are much of the things we do. Posting a video explaining the lyrics of some song is also gray area thanks to the vague copyright laws. That's one of the problems with the laws in general. Copyright laws were probably supposed to make it illegal to claim you've written a song somebody else has written, but they've made a lot of things, that no normal person would consider immoral, gray area. And while it's very unlikely you'll end up in jail for doing something that's in gray area, it can cause you to end up in a court and cause a lot of unnecessary stress.

Or read a combination of sources, like CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera, If they all agree on something it's more likely true.

But, if you are reading about Croatia, you can't be objective unless you also read the other side of the story, that is, some Croatian media, right? Chances are, the journalists who write stuff about Croatia for BBC, CNN or Al Jazeera don't even speak Croatian to ask Croatians what they think.

[Jebus]

Croatia was the first country to recognize the independence of the US from the UK. Isn't that taught in schools in the US?

As usual, you pull things out of your ass without bothering to do any fact checking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_n ... ted_States

[teo123]

Croatia was the first country to recognize the independence of the US from the UK. Isn't that taught in schools in the US?

As usual, you pull things out of your ass without bothering to do any fact checking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_n ... ted_States

Well, that's what we were taught at school. I didn't know there was any controversy about that, though. Here is a short article in English about that: https://www.thedubrovniktimes.com/news/ ... dependence

[brimstoneSalad]

Look, saying stuff like that to somebody who has published research papers makes you sound rather silly. If I were misremembering things instantly after learning them, how would I ever publish research papers?

You could publish them easily, and no, constantly bragging about having published something makes you look very silly. Stop it, it's annoying and irrelevant.

obvious and uncontroversial political facts that you could easily have looked up.

But isn't political science also a very soft science, even softer than linguistics?

Teo, you were just explicitly forbidden from discussing soft/hard science in this very thread. And you may still be forbidden from doing it forum wide including in the topical thread (@Red, do you know when that expires? I think it was one year.)
The fact that Teo still does not understand or even consider the difference between a descriptive claim and a predictive one suggests that prohibition should be extended an additional year if @Red and @Jebus agree.

instead of typing an incoherent wall of text full of your bizarre half-comprehended hypotheses

How are those "my bizarre half-comprehended hypotheses"? The simple truth, given what is taught in high-school, is that, while it may be useful for a virus to insert the genetic code stored on its RNA into the DNA of a bacteria or a mitochondrion, it would be useless for it to store its genetic code inside the DNA in the nucleus of a eukaryotic cell, because eukaryotes use different (the opposite) DNA code than do bacteria. Or is that also controversial, according to you?

Teo, stop. Your school is either wrong or more likely you understood this about as well as you understood the second law of thermodynamics.
If you keep talking about this without reading up on retroviruses you're going to get yourself banned.

and inflicting that upon others

What do you mean?

It's very annoying. You're still trying to explain why bombs don't exist because you misunderstand the second law of thermodynamics.
The uncontroversial fact is that bombs exist, so clearly if you think 2LOT calls that a violation then your understanding of 2LOT is wrong.
Clearly retroviruses use this process in their reproduction, so if you think that can't work based on a misunderstanding of theory, then you are wrong.

A retrovirus is a type of RNA virus[a] that inserts a copy of its genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrovirus

So STFU about that being impossible or not useful or whatever you're saying.

Nobody knows what Croatia is

Well, I am quite sure at least Americans know a few things about Croatia, because Croatia was the first country to recognize the independence of the US from the UK. Isn't that taught in schools in the US?

@Red were you taught that in school?
Teo, give it a rest. Nobody knows about your country or cares. Literally Americans can not tell you anything about Croatia, even that it's a real country.

Countries like Russia and China are targets for political disparagement for nationalistic purposes.

Which is why you should assume life in those countries is a lot better than English-speaking media make it look, right?

No. It's why you shouldn't trust sources like "Fox news" or Republican politicians.
Mainstream media, which is not controlled by the government, still criticizes xenophobic Republican rhetoric against other countries. They have an unbiased bias, which is a bias to remain unbiased even in cases where the right side is obvious, so they typically stick to reporting on facts and dig for "both sides" even when there isn't another side.

You get to pay a fine, that's all. The law is quite clear that you can't get in jail for "insulting the anthem".

What happens if you refuse to pay the fine on ideological grounds, Teo? Do they just let you not pay it as conscientious objector and send you on your way? No, they put you in jail.

It's not even a patriotic song, as anybody who has studied Croatian literature will confirm you, "Vilo Velebita" actually means "Oh, beautiful tall woman!", it doesn't mean (as somebody who only speaks modern Croatian might guess) "The fairy who lives on the Velebit mountain.". The name of the mountain "Velebit" means "tall" or "high" (replacing the ancient name "Bebia"), the song doesn't refer to the Velebit mountain.

You realize I do not trust you on any subject, right?
Anyway, it doesn't matter way something means, it matters what people think it means.

Third, what does the term "pravna osoba" mean? Well, the law later makes it clear:

Za prekršaj iz članka 27. ovog zakona kaznit će se novčanom kaznom od u dinarskoj protuvrijednosti 50 do 300 DEM osoba koja samostalno obavlja djelatnost sredstvima rada u vlasništvu građana...

But Gordan Duhacek wasn't using the tax money to post that things on Twitter, so that law doesn't even theoretically apply to him. End of story! It's obviously a lie you can get in jail in Croatia for posting a parody of "Vilo Velebita" on Twitter.

It's a safe assumption that your interpretation is wrong, since you're wrong about pretty much everything.
Google says it means this:

For a misdemeanor referred to in Article 27 of this Law, a fine of between DEM 50 and 300 DEM self-employed persons shall be punished by means of labor owned by citizens

To me it seems to say that people who do not have a wage to garnish or money on hand "self-employed" will be allowed to pay in labor instead, which probably means community service.

And what law makes it illegal to post an anti-police message on Twitter? Let's see:[...]Still, I don't think posting an anti-police message on Twitter violates that law. First of all, Twitter is hardly "javno mjesto". Second, "vrijeđa moral ili omalovažava moralne osjećaje građana" means "to make the civilians feel bad about themselves, make them think they themselves are bad people", it has nothing to do with criticizing the government.

Your interpretation here, again, is likely very wrong. However, that doesn't matter: what matters is how the DA and court interpret it. If vague, it does give them that power. Vague laws are used in North America and Europe like that too, creating cases of overcharging people by applying laws that barely fit, and yet it can stick. It's the prosecution's job to argue that the law applies to the case, and it's the defense's job to argue it does not. If you're interested in this subject then become a defense lawyer and argue your interpretation before a court to see what it actually means.

So, at best, you can say that posting an anti-police message on Twitter is gray area.

You thinking something is a "gray area" isn't enough to keep people from going to jail over it with the right judge and prosecution. Again, if you have a problem with that and think people shouldn't be going to jail for stuff like that, then become a defense lawyer.

Posting a video explaining the lyrics of some song is also gray area thanks to the vague copyright laws.

Copyright laws are some of the most broad and ambiguous draconian legislation that exists in the developed world. If you're comparing laws restricting freedom of speech to copyright laws to justify their ambiguity then you've already lost.

That's one of the problems with the laws in general.

No, it's a problem with bad laws. Again, copyright laws are a poor comparison to legislation in general.

And while it's very unlikely you'll end up in jail for doing something that's in gray area

No, not at all unlikely, particularly in certain countries. Miscarriages of justice happen in the U.S. too, though. Look at Aaron Schwartz, who was facing inordinate jail time and there's a good chance he would have gotten a lot of it.

But, if you are reading about Croatia, you can't be objective unless you also read the other side of the story, that is, some Croatian media, right?

Not really, that's along the lines of reading Korean language North Korea state propaganda and thinking that's meaningfully contributing to your understanding of the issue. Or, say, reading Fox News in the U.S.
Some sources are so bad that they won't meaningfully contribute to getting an accurate picture. There are already NGOs and such collecting this information.