Aveling wrote:
What to do?
That’s up to each and everyone IMO. The news is also overflowing with “news” such as “New research shows…” citing some world’s top scientist and doctors. New research shows drinking coffee prevents cancer. The next day: New research shows drinking coffee causes cancer. Obviously at least half of this is pure nonsense, probably more like 70-80% of it is. Trump did have a point about “fake news”, the only problem were he had no clue himself which was fake and which wasn’t. The end result was more in the comic department, but it could easily end in the night mare department.
The only thing we can conclude from this is that 70-80% of the news we read from “the world’s top scientists and doctors” is in fact irrelevant nonsense. This is caused by the click philosophy of the media combined with PC hypocrisy. We have a situation today where we can pick and chose reality based on our current moods. We are all raised to believe we are free minds. We have to gather information around us and at some point chose who we want to be, what to believe in. I guess what was meant was to chose chose political direction, chose what person we want to be, chose religion even. I think very few envisioned this to include a choice about reality itself. This is however what has happened. Reality is after all nothing but the imagination of the human mind – for each individual. It’s not that long ago the official real reality consisted of gods and devils and Santa Claus, and it still do for the majority of people.
New research shows drinking coffee causes cancer
Not really. You won’t find a proper peer reviewed article saying that. The tabloid media, yes.
But articles in scientific journals are way too boring for 99% of the population to read. I am thus educated but I still don’t understand most of it; I read just the summaries.
Does anyone know of an authoritive site that responds to common beliefs including, but not limited to:
The govt is putting up a lot of stuff on facebook (and presumably tw*tter also; I am not on it) to counter this junk – presumably because that is where most of the said population groups hang out. After all, they don’t be getting that from any normal newspaper. FB is in some places almost 100% buy-in on this stuff; it is clearly a well organised movement.
In today’s news the vacc chief said they won’t be doing vaccine passports because it would disadvantage those who didn’t get vaccinated. Well, gosh, it’s called “reality”! I reckon they will just do it eventually, when it is a fait accompli, with all tourist destinations requiring it.
He said your GP will have a record of it. So what will happen is that all those wanting to travel will harrass their GP for a letter… GPs hate that, and most try hard to make it as hard as possible for patients to contact them, at the best of times. My GP cannot be contacted other than by post or fax. Phoning is generally useless – even if you want to waste time waiting in the queue.
BTW Italian ski slopes are said to open 15 Feb but Brits will have to quarantine for 2 weeks on arrival in Italy 
Also just heard that the reason why average hospital age is “young” is because they stay there for longer. The “oldies” die.
Peter wrote:
The tabloid media, yes.
That’s the whole point. Whether drinking coffee causes cancer or cures cancer is useless information. Some substance in coffee causes cancer, other substances prevents it. Everything you eat is like that, and the effect can be different form person to person, and highly dependent on how much of it you get etc. Unless you are working in some medical science field you don’t read scientific medical articles. At most you read some popular scientific exerts from the articles, “explaining” the stuff in “layman’s terms”. That’s one “click filter” already. Then some news media creates an article based on the popular scientific article, adding even more click filtering, and does so in the most peculiar ways.
I never forget an article in the newspaper about radiation from aerial high voltage power lines, which was popular news at the time. I worked as a scientist then, and a colleague got a call from the paper, they wanted him to verify explain this stuff a bit, fill in the blanks etc. So he told them that the radiation was minimal. There is no evidence it is dangerous at all etc. Then he also said, more of a joke at the end, how odd it is that people are afraid of this aerial power lines, but no one ever talks about all the lines buried a few feet under ground, where we walk every day. The journalist just laughed a bit, and said thank you.
Then in the news the next morning: “Scientist at XX says aerial lines are harmless, but there are live bombs buried just below our feet”. He never did that mistake again. Now, he never actually said that, bombs and stuff, and in no way meant that in any sort of way. The point is, in the media power lines are hugely dangerous, as a “fact”, it’s the “reality”. The journalist simply took what my colleague said, and fused it into her “reality” and used her own words for the readers to understand. This aerial power lines hysteria has since long ended, but in peoples mind a “fact” is a “fact”.
In many ways Corona is similar to this. Not that corona isn’t dangerous, but all the same concepts are at play wrt media and “the world’s top scientists and doctors”.
Aveling wrote:
The result will be tragic and unnecessary consequences, sometimes involving individuals close to us personally. What to do?
On a personal level? Stay away from people who subscribe to these kind of things. There is not much one can do to convince them, some would even continue spreading bs after they have been infected themselves but had a mild case, some will not even stop after a close family member or several have died and claim it was all the “guberments fault”.
I am starting to wonder if some of this FUD spreading does not go under the laws of “hate speech” which in some places is legally problematic.
It is in any case quite obvious that the press has a huge part of spreading fake news and of incensing the population against the government or each other. In recent weeks a good friend here started working in a vaccination station nearby and what she sais as compared to the scandal mongering press description of the same situation is quite enlightening. E.g. there was a massive outcry over “wasted” vaccination doses because people don’t show up, which she sais is total b.s. At the end of the day, if there are doses left which will expire unless used, they use them on their own staff and on basically anyone within reach and who qualifies, which makes sense.
On a disease control level governments will have to react and use their authority as well as counter bad information with good information as much as is feasible. This may well mean that people who explicitly are unwilling to do their share to stop this disease need to face consequences, be it travel bans, be it not being allowed things others are or, in extreme cases, being prosecuted.
What has to change in any case is the reporting of fake news, responsibility for it MUST be re-estabilshed to the point where spreaders of garbage can be prosecuted. Clearly this is a very thin line to cross and care must be taken, but maybe some goings on in the US (where major news outlets are being sued over slander regarding voting) may be a turning point in this whole story. Hate mongering and the spreading of provenly wrong garbage has poisoned the whole internet to an extent where instead of being the wealth of information it was supposed to be, it has become an exchange for hate and desinformation.
LeSving wrote:
The journalist simply took what my colleague said, and fused it into her “reality” and used her own words for the readers to understand. This aerial power lines hysteria has since long ended, but in peoples mind a “fact” is a “fact”.
Same thing with 5G and other such stuff.
I have noticed a huge change of policy regarding this kind of stuff in recent years. In the old days, people called our top shot scientists for advice on things quite openly. These days, we can not tolerate this anymore, for the said reason. So all the requests for information or interviews now need to be channeled through the PR departments who make sure, that no such incidents happen to the best of the prevention they can figure out as well as that at least 4 eyes or ears have heard what was actually said, so obvious distortions can be officially stopped. Even better, record the whole thing.
That is what I meant in my post above. This kind of behaviour by the press and by internet “influencers” (my favorite yuckspeak) undermines the basic trust necessary for people to be able to live as educated and rational citizens. Instead it incenses hate and distrust up to the point where societies get close to collapsing over certain issues. In the end, it is again the same discussion over democracy, free speech and freedom. None of the tree subjects mean “anarchy”. But that is something that lots of people have not understood or deliberately use the terms to justify their spewing of falsehood. Which, free speech or not, has never been something appreciated in any society, only today is much more difficult to counter.
No Covid passports for the UK much as I predicted (at least for the time being 
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No Covid passports for the UK much as I predicted
And the UK government has NEVER made a rapid U-turn, so that’s OK. It’s not up to the UK, it’s up to the places that demand them. If say Croatia decides you need one for a quarantine-free visit, people will want one regardless of what the government’s rule du jour is.
It’s a bit like aviation regulation in the US, which is largely performed by the insurance companies. As far as the FAA is concerned, there’s nothing to stop you buying and flying a Pilatus the day you get your PPL, but just try getting insurance for it.
johnh wrote:
It’s a bit like aviation regulation in the US, which is largely performed by the insurance companies. As far as the FAA is concerned, there’s nothing to stop you buying and flying a Pilatus the day you get your PPL, but just try getting insurance for it.
That is a very valid argument and rises the question, why it was allowed to deteriorate to a situation, where private entities actually have the bigger say about things than the regulative authority. I don’t agree with the fact that insurances would second guess the licensing system for aviation in a obvious and balant way clearly saying they do not believe its validity and I do not believe it should be up to the airlines, event organisations, theaters, restaurants, e.t.c. to actually having to cover their backsides by demanding vaccinations of their clients for the lack of proper rulemaking by the governments involved.
This has been ongoing for a while and has come to a peak in the Corona crisis, without any doubt. Governments run away from their responsibilities and hope that others will do the dirty work for them when it comes to regulation. In Aviation that has been a major hurdle in the US for pilots to exercise the privileges of their licenses, in the case of Covid however it has cost millions of lifes and has caused an economic disaster of never seen proportions. This will have to be a lesson learnt: Governments and authorities must never do this again. Otherwise we might as well get rid of them and let anarchy take over.
Aircraft liability insurance is not required in the US, and the only people who campaign for it to be otherwise are lawyers looking for deeper pockets.
A tremendously active day at the airport yesterday, everybody out having fun. So many interesting aircraft types in addition to routine training Cessna and Pipers etc that I couldn’t list them all. Here’s a few I remember: T34 formation, TB-30, Yak 52, Yak 50 formation, RV-3, RV-4, RV-7, RV-8, Marchetti SF260, Long Eze, Glasair, Citabria, Bonanzas, Chipmunk, C195, Extra 300 in single and two seat forms. At times like yesterday I’m glad I’m not trying to fly in Europe in its current state.
Aircraft liability insurance is not required in the US, and the only people who campaign for it to be otherwise are lawyers looking for deeper pockets.
Aircraft liability insurance is mandatory in Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina and Virginia.
California requires you to post bond or provide evidence of insurance post accident, so unless you have at least 150k USD set aside ready to post bond, it isn’t an unwise idea to have insurance.
