Generally speaking, wearing masks and avoiding sustained contact, indoors or outdoors, with people outside your trusted zone -- this works.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 December 2020 03:20 (three years ago) link
Agree, but beyond that I'm not sure where the lines are. My family and friends are all thinking about this rationally but have come to different conclusions about how to act.
― Dan S, Monday, 21 December 2020 03:24 (three years ago) link
right, and about what the acceptable ways to act are, and how much one should criticize others for acting
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 03:37 (three years ago) link
iirc the real question during this crisis is whether or not it’s appropriate to eat shallot pasta
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 21 December 2020 03:55 (three years ago) link
I just don't know what all the rules are
Here is the crux. You expect rules in these cases, but rules require agreement. Because there is no agreement upon he rules among the people you are citing, there are no rules that apply consistently within those groups upon those subjects
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:01 (three years ago) link
it's the same people
who are they
― huge rant (sic), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:17 (three years ago) link
probably a lot of people you know
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:18 (three years ago) link
xp --
Here is the crux. You expect rules in these cases
yes, because whenever somebody screenshots a tweet of somebody who said something wrong, there is the implicit statement that they broke a rule about how to behave and are being punished for doing so
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:19 (three years ago) link
or the criticism that I am getting for saying anything is, itself, evidence that I broke a rule in bringing this up, which I apologize for
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:20 (three years ago) link
Ok here’s another questionHave you considered BDSM
― is right unfortunately (silby), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:20 (three years ago) link
what exactly makes you think that is an appropriate question to ask someone you don't know
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:21 (three years ago) link
agree with katherine in wondering about how to make decisions
who is in your trusted zone and how do you decide which friends/family are you going to let into your life?
what if your trusted friend has been really careful but now has an adult child visiting for the holidays, will you see them?
― Dan S, Monday, 21 December 2020 04:22 (three years ago) link
You should use your best judgment and not worry about whether the internet will approve one way or another
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:25 (three years ago) link
katherine, I notice you often post such anxious questions, but you never seem to pay attention to the answers you get.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:25 (three years ago) link
you never seem to pay attention to the answers you get.
allow me to amend this. rather, when it is pointed out to you that humans are seldom rational, but engage in large numbers of behaviors that are irrational, impulsive, greedy, thoughtless, or based in mistaken impressions, poor understanding, bad data, or plain impulsiveness - to mention just a few behaviors which cannot be explained as the result of a rational process - you seem incapable of incorporating this information into your assessment of the problem.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:39 (three years ago) link
wow fuck those guys!
no, that's idiotic.
― huge rant (sic), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:46 (three years ago) link
who is in your trusted zone and how do you decide which friends/family are you going to let into your life?what if your trusted friend has been really careful but now has an adult child visiting for the holidays, will you see them?
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:46 (three years ago) link
if “trust” is one of your variables you are doing it wrong.
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:48 (three years ago) link
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Sunday, December 20, 2020 11:39 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
because if I do something wrong and become a target, then trying to explain "please stop, humans are seldom rational so how was I supposed to know" is highly unlikely to go over well.
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:49 (three years ago) link
Has this thread been tested for lead paint?
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:51 (three years ago) link
how is trust not important? I guess I'm doing it wrong
― Dan S, Monday, 21 December 2020 04:52 (three years ago) link
if the problem is you getting shouted at for traveling during the worst part of the pandemic, then either a) don't travel or b) don't publicly announce that you are traveling
if the problem is you staying home and thinking the government sucks, then the people yelling at you are wrong
― huge rant (sic), Monday, 21 December 2020 04:54 (three years ago) link
because if I do something wrong and become a target
― pomenitul, Monday, 21 December 2020 04:56 (three years ago) link
you all make it seem so neat an uncomplicated, but it's not
― Dan S, Monday, 21 December 2020 04:59 (three years ago) link
^
it really is not uncomplicated, especially given the fact that "individual decisions don't matter and it's wrong to think they do" and "individual decisions do matter and it's wrong to make the wrong ones" are coexistent mandates
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 05:01 (three years ago) link
these are mandates that you are imagining, though. nobody with authority is issuing them, and you can dismiss literally every single nonentity issuing them by pointing out to each of them that they issued a contradictory opinion previously.
if you trust that someone has been safe, and that person has visitors who have spent days traveling across an infected planet to get to them, then you probably are trusting wrongly, yes
you can choose to take the risk that the visitors have not picked up an infection on the way, or the risk that if they have, you will not get it, or that if you do get it, you won't pass it on to anyone else. but the trust is irrelevant.
(I might catch it if I go to the shops and buy food! It's a risk. But not eating food also comes with a risk, and hanging out without a mask in the home of some rando I meet at the supermarket is a higher risk than passing them while masked and putting some vegetables and nuts in a basket.)
― huge rant (sic), Monday, 21 December 2020 05:04 (three years ago) link
if I do something wrong and become a target
when people are acting irrationally or selfishly you can just as easily do something right and become a target.
this is a common dilemma. it can only be resolved by making a choice that is within your power to enact and how others react to that is beyond your control. if you cannot choose until you can accurately predict with certainty that which is only in the control of often irrational actors, based on imponderable factors, then choice becomes impossible and so does action. if your perception is that it's possible you may be attacked for anything you do and this freezes you in fear and doubt, then that is going to shut you down entirely in every case and there is no solution for that until you find the courage to act in spite of fear and doubt. sorry. that's life as it is experienced by everyone.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Monday, 21 December 2020 05:06 (three years ago) link
the courage to act in spite of fear and doubt
this is extremely unhelpful language in the circs btw
― huge rant (sic), Monday, 21 December 2020 05:08 (three years ago) link
provide better words then. i'm doing my best.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Monday, 21 December 2020 05:09 (three years ago) link
"if you trust that someone has been safe, and that person has visitors who have spent days traveling across an infected planet to get to them, then you probably are trusting wrongly, yes"
I agree. I’ve had only one friend I’ve seen in person in the last ten months - only one - no spouse or child or sibling or parents or other family members or friends. and now I don’t feel like I can even see her. it feels harsh
― Dan S, Monday, 21 December 2020 05:11 (three years ago) link
If she's been also isolating in the last ten months, then that trust was probably warranted. If so, go see her again two weeks after her child leaves, if she tests negative. If she has been having other visitors, maybe don't.
― huge rant (sic), Monday, 21 December 2020 05:31 (three years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/BDit1i5.jpg
― huge rant (sic), Monday, 21 December 2020 07:56 (three years ago) link
a perfect example actually of "I doubt explaining that I converted to a religion would make people understand"
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 08:17 (three years ago) link
death comes at you fast
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 21 December 2020 12:05 (three years ago) link
wow, I know I've been away from ILX for many years, so I don't know the personalities involved, but I don't see why there was such a pileon in reaction to katherine's post-- isn't this supposed to be the place to vent both rational and irrational thoughts and fears about a reasonably unprecedented situation? Seems like a lot of unnecessary bullying for a question that's actually pretty reasonable.
But I guess that's exactly the kind of thing that made me stay away from ILX for years...
― colette, Monday, 21 December 2020 12:20 (three years ago) link
Yeah, I'm a little flummoxed by the vitriol, too.
Do your best to keep yourself and those around you safe, knowing what you know.
That's what I've been doing this entire time, as someone who is immunocompromised and who has a partner who works in a hospital. It truly isn't that difficult.
― "Bi" Dong A Ban He Try (the table is the table), Monday, 21 December 2020 12:29 (three years ago) link
Welcome back to ye both
― spruce springclean (darraghmac), Monday, 21 December 2020 13:47 (three years ago) link
This sounds like the title of a collection of Morrissey outtakes.
― Cortex the Killer (PBKR), Monday, 21 December 2020 13:54 (three years ago) link
― colette, Monday, December 21, 2020 7:20 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
because don't you know, once somebody is Bad(tm) then there is absolutely nothing that can be said or done to them that isn't justified
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Monday, 21 December 2020 15:14 (three years ago) link
Colette, Katherine is unwittingly answering your question here. People have exhausted themselves trying to disabuse her of this absurd notion—that there is some kind of public online tribunal that should dictate one's behaviors else be labeled "Bad(tm)."
I think what you are understandably reading as harsh is just cumulative fatigue.
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 21 December 2020 15:41 (three years ago) link
Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested by The Discourse.
― pomenitul, Monday, 21 December 2020 15:47 (three years ago) link
I haven't really seen vitriol directed toward people who disagree with the idea that asking people to take some degree of thought for the health of themselves/others is letting the govt. off the hook, but maybe I'm not in the correct online spaces. I'm sure it exists, but I'd write those opinions off.
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, 21 December 2020 15:48 (three years ago) link
― pomenitul, Monday, December 21, 2020 4:47 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Busted! You are NeinQuartely and I claim my reward of three tailor-made aphorisms.
― A Scampo Darkly (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 21 December 2020 15:56 (three years ago) link
Have to say I’m impressed (?) at people going straight to mock katherine, whose anxieties may be misplaced but are, I think, genuinely felt, when you’ve got this lad showing up in this thread a literal week after posting this to feign misunderstanding again!
I'm impressed by, and envious of, some of my friends' fearlessness in the face of this. They're not covid deniers at all, but they are able to live their lives with some semblance of normalcy, even extending to traveling with family and friends to holiday destinations with precautions but without worry. They are younger than me, so I can kind of get it. I would like to join them and feel like I'm missing out, but I can't.― Dan S, Sunday, 13 December 2020 02:45 (one week ago) link
― scampish inquisition (gyac), Monday, 21 December 2020 16:12 (three years ago) link
fair enough
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 21 December 2020 16:20 (three years ago) link
recency bias
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 21 December 2020 16:21 (three years ago) link
katherine, I take it that you’re mostly venting here and not in search of answers, per se?I mean, I understand the tightrope you’re outlining about how to present yourself in the public sphere, and I’d lean toward saying “honestly.” And a bit cautiously, which you get since you seem to have a strong understanding of how others have a poor idea of how they’re perceived
― mh, Monday, 21 December 2020 16:22 (three years ago) link
as for the topic at hand, I think it’s both true that individual actions don’t especially matter in the face of incredibly mixed signals from the government and at the societal level and that some individual actions are more egregious than others the difference is that individual actions wouldn’t happen if we had enforcement, and the moral justice types shaming others for their individual actions are wildly inconsistent due to a lack of consistent standards at a societal level. people are coming up with ad hoc moralities, and there are as many of those as there are peoplewhich is why I get the suggestions about finding a moral center (or even set of rules that guide behavior) that’s both non-governmental but consistent. those rules will fail us, at times, but having something you can always return to for moral guidance is a stabilizing force, and oftentimes you get a community along with
― mh, Monday, 21 December 2020 16:28 (three years ago) link
Suspicious that people get snippy because no one else understand what 'discourse,' 'rules,' 'Bad(TM)' actually mean, it's always devoid of specifics ("people are saying..."). I dunno, people have opinions. You don't have to care about anyone else's opinion.
― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Monday, 21 December 2020 16:31 (three years ago) link
Individual actions don't matter but still have meaning isn't contradictory - your personal recycling has a negligible effect on the world, but if you make it a point of pride to refuse to recycle you're probably an asshole.
― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Monday, 21 December 2020 16:33 (three years ago) link