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It's funny (sad?), as an ex-pharma lab tech I was kind of baffled when many governments said:
"We don't recommend face masks to the general population, because they don't offer any protection unless used correctly"
I was confused. It's true they provide more protection for the environment against an infected wearer, than they offer protection for the wearer against the environment. But still, mask up the majority of the population, and it's a solution.
But then I realized, what governments really meant was:
"We don't recommend this to the general population, because people can barely wipe their own ass. Please keep the dimwitted apes locked in their cages"
And there might be some truth to that.
But then there are also many moments where I feel like:
"I kind of hope the virus mutates and rapidly kills off 95% of the population".
Maybe that includes me, I don't have strong lungs. But 95% less retards, and an empty planet... that would be kind of neat. 🤷♂ -
@Demolishun I small, stable world population would come with some economical drawbacks compared to the current situation, but also many advantages.
I'm not rooting for genocide or any increase in suffering. But I do think it would be good for humanity, long term, if the herd was thinned a bit, ecosystems could balance out, and the human species got a bit more breathing room.
Of course, even at 500m people would probably still find ways to fuck things up, fight over territory, create religious cults, torture each other, and spiral further towards stupidity. -
Yip, sums it up.
And even if they wear them correctly... Well. I'm just describing what happens here in Germany very often.
(Had to go out today, first time since ... Months?)
Way to supermarket. Noone wears a mask. Sitting in Bus. One person wears a mask (before entering the bus) everyone else... Well. They searched their pockets since mask is required... And after rummaging with their sweaty dirty filthy hands in their pockets, they put a mask more or less correctly on.
Busstop....
Leaving the bus.... most take off asap the mask. Around 5 mins to supermarket.
Oh... Supermarket. Mask is required, again.
Rummaging with their sweaty dirty filthy hands in their pockets... Most of the time when they got the shipping cart... (in germany you'll usually have to use a coin to get a shopping cart, they're chained together). So they've touched even more filthy things.
Most supermarkets require entering with a shopping cart to keep the distance.
Well. They didn't keep the distance before, why should they now.
Neck breathers. People who really go so far to be as obnoxious as possible to come as close as possible.
Private space? Naaaah....
I know why I'm staying at home.
It's a miracle it hasn't hit Germany that hard imho....
It was less than an hour... And I wanted to spank so many people. -
@bittersweet If we would fucking stop being dicks and GO TO SPACE this wouldn't be a fucking problem. Our future is not this planet. Seriously, one fucking rock and we are ALL DEAD. We need to spread out, and spread out fast.
-
@Demolishun Going to space is good for human survival, but not necessarily for the quality of life on Earth.
Bacteria which spread to a new petri dish don't stop consuming resources in the old one. -
@LesMore
The effects of pandemics are very much real though.
I worked as a lab tech / biochemist during Mexican flu. I was involved in SARS studies, I went through trials for antivirals as a volunteer myself, I injected patients in several trial programs, performed thousands of immunoassays, and saw a coworker breathe his last breath due to H1N1/09.
And this time around I have seen the effect on intensive care units in person as well — it's brutal.
That's not to say that it's not opportunistically used by governments to push some authoritarian shit through.
We should be vigilant not to permanently sign away valuable rights and protections.
But it's not like governments are pretending there's a pandemic when there is none.
The evil in the world is not that organized. It's chaotic, with individuals exploiting for their own benefit. If you look at historical confirmed conspiracies, it's usually more like a bunch of stumbling idiots rather than lizard people shadow governments. -
@LesMore Actually, that's the scary part! — There's usually no conspiracy, it's usually not evil masterminds pulling strings.
If it was, that would at least represent some competence — and it would also make it easier to fight.
The scary thing is that evil is usually an emergent effect from a whole lot of incompetent people doing tiny ignorant things. -
in the words of my current boss when a stupid request was sent to us: "we are not to cater to morons, else our job will never be done"
I feel you, because I feel this on a daily basis. I plan to move on to something that takes me away from the entire sentiment of people soon enough. You can make a big app with a big red button that says "This does what you want" AND they will still find issues with it. Technology, and its improvement is a fascinating metric in determining who is a FUCKING retard indeed and once you look through the numbers it is a very sad thing to look at indeed.
I fucking hate this field sometimes, and the users, and the workers etc. But I am in too deep to go do something else. Sometimes I wish I would have stuck with music, or just gotten killed somewhere through the military. Shit was simpler then. -
@FrodoSwaggins I'm not having an great knowledge of politics in America.
I think it doesn't apply only to America, it applies on a global level for many many many many countries...
Many countries had long standing issues - debt, unemployment, health care issues, drug war ...
And in history, either "too good" or "too bad" leads usually to the worst kind of things...
This has happened even before the pandemic in most countries...
Be it Trump, Bolsenaro, Erdogan, Duterte.... Many names. Many countries. All elected before corona.
Corona is for me not something that "covers" or "a reason to fuck it up even more". It's a pandemic.
And every mistake from every generation before the pandemic becomes now very evident.
Are many political parties misusing the pandemic for their agenda?
Yes.
But the political parties were elected before the pandemic.
And all the problems existed before the pandemic.
In testing, the pandemic is an integration stress test.
And it shows pretty much how brittle most of our economy / health care / ... is.
And I guess that will lead to way more trouble in the next dozen years. -
@M1sf3t That Kindergarten theater is pretty common.
In Germany there is a coalition agreement of the political parties when a government consisting of several parties is formed...
Reading that contract before new elections is... Very painful.
And yes, even with the chance to actually proof that a party didn't fulfill her election promises, people still elect them again.
And of course... The reason they didn't fulfill their promises was the other political party ;) -
I don't think its that people don't know how to use the masks. I think the problem is that the dumb fucks think they are soooo clever.
"Uuweee, Its slightly harder to breathe with a mask on, but hey! Im smart, I wont ever get infected because I have an antibacterial gel in my pocket!, Im clearly the exception and can get away with only wearing it on my mouth, it's the same thing anyway, I cought trhough my mouth in the end! Wow, Im so smart for figuring this out! Look at all those morons wearing it on the nose!"
Everytime I see someone wearing it like that that's what I imagine they think. I had a friend tell me, "well, It helps a little bit rather than not wearing it at all"
No, you dumbfuck, 50mil vs 80mil virus particles isn't any better, put your fucking mask on properly -
@bittersweet preach fam
the other thing is to meet with those fucks and wait until they decide what they fucking want just to come to the conclusion that they don't have a fucking clue how they want it and the parade starts all over again🤡 -
I agree somewhat but my approach is just completely different.
Not all users are stupid. But I love them stupid people. I find a joy in communication with them. It’s like talking to some creature that’s completely alien to my ways of thinking. It’s like interacting with another civilization, completely different but who am I to judge.
Talking to them is exploration. Exploration is always better for your brain than no exploration and being stuck inside your bubble of arch linux and tile managers. There is just no need to think that you and them are the same species and there is no need to worry about what they say. You don’t worry about a dog barking at you, so why worry now?
Users are adorable and their hideous mistakes only remind me of my own flaws and mortality.
I find their ways beautiful with all their imperfections. I specifically moved from C stuff to frontend just to be closer to the end user. -
The mask debate - I was thinking a lot of this lately. They are worn incorrectly, made of the wrong material easily contaminated but the wearer and not cleaned properly.
I think they work because that are the equivalent of a construction workers bright orange vest or Will Robinson’s robot.
It’s the visual eye level representation of the pandemic. I don’t see dots on the ground but I see people’a faces at eye level. -
The way 90% of the population wears their face masks really explains a lot about their approach to using software, apps & websites as well.
I feel like giving up.
I am not a developer for the salary, or just to solve analytical puzzles. Those are motivators, but my main drive is to make the world more comfortable and enjoyable, better optimized, build ethical services which bring happiness into people's lives. I want to improve society, even if it's just a tiny bit.
But if users invest absolutely zero percent of their limited brain capacity into understanding a product that already has a super-clean design and responds with helpful validation messages...
...why the fuck bother.
I used to think of the gap between technology and tech-incompetent people as an optimization problem.
As something which could be fixed by spending a fortune on UX research. Write tests, hire QA employees, decrease tech debt, create a bold but unified & simple design.
But the technologically incompetent just get more entitled with every small thing you simplify.
It's never fucking fool-proof enough.
Why can't I upload a 220MB PDF as profile picture? Why doesn't the app install on my 9 year old Android Froyo phone? Why can't I sign up if my phone number contains a  U+FFFC? Why does this page load so slowly from my rural concrete bunker in East Ukraine? WHY DO I HAVE PNEUMONIA, HOW DID I GET INFECTED EVEN THOUGH I WAS WEARING A MOUTH MASK ON MY FOREHEAD?
This is why I ran away from Frontend, to Backend, to DBA.
If I could remove myself further from the end user, I would.
At least I still have a full glass of tawny port and a huge database which needs to be normalized & migrated.
Fuck humans, I'm going to hug a server.
rant