EmmaLiz @78, we didn't make them up, we've either lived or observed them. I don't think LTAF would have included "sex with strangers" in the list of problematic things her friend does if her having drunk sex with strangers was not problematic. I think the odds that someone who drinks enough to have multiple booze-related arrests in her past is highly unlikely to be observing consent and having safe sex when she is drunk. I just don't think you've known the kind of problematic drinking I have so I guess this is one of those times I'll have to ask you to take my word that LTAF may not have included "she has sex with strangers" as an irrelevant entry on the list of ways her friend has gotten herself into troubling situations while under the influence.

Also, not that it matters, but I did not get a hint of male from LTAF's letter.

EmmaLiz @82, again your experiences are causing you to state that drunk driving is "always intentional harm" while drunken casual sex is never a problem. I too am sorry for your loss, but someone without this experience might be just as blasé about driving under the influence as you are about hookups under the influence. Do you see this? A drunk person either getting behind the wheel or going home with a stranger is engaging in risky and reckless behaviour, not intentionally harming themselves or anyone else. Going home from a bar with a stranger is something that, like driving while intoxicated, every woman knows is a risk to her life. No, drunk hookups are unlikely to harm third parties, but other than that you could pretty much apply everything you've said about drink driving to drunk hookups and it would be true.

EmmaLiz @98, put me in the agree-to-differ column with Philo then, because if I haven't been able to express to you that drunken random sex is dangerous BECAUSE consent and judgment are just as impossible under conditions of drunkenness (as opposed to mere tipsiness) as safe driving, more words won't help.

Thanks, NoCute @99. Philosophy @102, I snark when it's deserved. EmmaLiz's argument, while I disagreed with it, was made thoughtfully and respectfully, therefore I responded in kind. Also, TELL ME WHY "INTACT" IS OFFENSIVE, SHEESH, unless that was just a troll?

Baby snark, do doo do doo do doo.

Thank you, Lava @108!
Philosophy School Dropout is male.
Indeed, Lava @111, snark is sometimes the appropriate response.
Fubar @113, yes please! Block, and also bold and italics if we are making a wish list.

And just for Philosophy School Dropout, a shift key. Hey! I haven't forgotten how to snark.

Fubar @97, aw. Hunter just has a crush. He hasn't yet learned that pulling a little girl's pigtails is not the right way to express it.

Me @114, actually it does matter, because some commenters have read LTAF as male and manufactured some sexual tension between "him" and the friend, which I just don't see at all.

BDF@118

I'm in the LTAF = male camp. It's not so much that there's sexual tension between them but that perhaps the friend had feelings for him and that being at his wedding - fuelled by alcohol - allowed her to disrupt it.

If LTAF = a woman, what bride would so simply brush off and forgive a friend for making a drunken scene and ruining HER BIG DAY?

In any case, it's another reason why LWs should identify if they're M/F/other descriptor at the beginning of each letter.

@BDF, yes you have expressed it to me repeatedly, I just disagree with you. Also we've had a long chat about sex while drunk before, and no I do not think that it's impossible to consent while drunk. It's impossible to consent while in a blackout or passed out. But even regardless, the LW did not say that the friend fucks people who are passed out and cannot consent. They said the LW fucks strangers while she, the friend, is drunk. I honest to god very clearly understand what you are saying. I do not agree with you is all. It makes zero difference to me in considering the quality of another person's character if they get drunk and fuck strangers. People can do what they want with their own bodies- it's none of anyone else's business in my opinion unless they are putting other's at risks they did not choose to share.

And yes, someone without experience with drunk driving might be blase about taking extreme risks with innocent bystanders' lives. I understand that perfectly. This does not change the fact that they are being thoughtless of others and taking extreme risks with innocent bystanders' lives. All you've done is described the REASON for their thoughtlessness of others. So what. Most people who hurt others don't wake up in the morning and say to themselves "today I'm going to inflict pain on other people". Most people are not psychopaths. Most people who beat their kids, kill others in a rage, are simply wrapped up in their own shit and are so focused on their own immediate circumstances to the point that they are completely disregarding those of other people. Yes that is what drunk drivers are doing, and yes those are exactly the sorts of people I don't want in my life. They know better. They just don't care.

"No, drunk hookups are unlikely to harm third parties, but other than that you could pretty much apply everything you've said about drink driving to drunk hookups and it would be true."

YES EXACTLY WHICH IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR LIKE THIRTY POSTS. (one of these things is not like the other)

If we're being meta about it (and thanks NoCute!) then I'd say I think there's a difference between the sort of discussion that goes like this: A) "your approach is different from my way of seeing things" and then you hash out those distinctions which are often about things like ethics or personal experiences, and B) "your approach makes no sense or is inconsistent or you are uninformed" and then you defend what you mean, often in an argument in which each person assumes the other does not understand them.

In this particular case, it's about the criteria for how you regard friend's with problems and their place in your life. So for example of A see my own, Erica's and Philo answer to this problem of messy friends, we have a very different approaches. But between BDF and myself (and Curious to the small extent that he participated) it feels a lot more like B. The argument gets crossed and murky and that's where the frustrating or blowhard nit picking comes in- the discussion becomes more like "no what I meant was this" and then the response is "you don't see what I mean, what about this" and it spirals out that way.

I find both scenarios to be an interesting way to learn something about human nature and also to just waste time in distraction, but I can also see that it can be annoying to people who are less obsessive. This thread seems a harmless place to indulge in that way though since, as Venn points out, the initial question wasn't that interesting in the first place and there were no other more interesting conversations coming out of it anyway since it's not really the sort of question on the surface that brings people to this forum.

Helenka @119, the alcohol alone + her history seemed enough background for the racist rant, in my book.
"what bride would so simply brush off and forgive a friend for making a drunken scene and ruining HER BIG DAY?" Lots of them actually, woman does not equal bridezilla by definition. She hasn't spoken to this friend in seven months; doesn't sound like she's brushed it off, and it also doesn't sound like it "ruined her big day." (We don't know how many people were within earshot but it could have been a perfectly lovely wedding for 96% of guests.) It just didn't feel like a male voice to me. "I love my friend"? This was said so innocently LW must have meant it in a platonic sense. No extra baggage.

@121 EmmaLiz
"Curious to the small extent that he participated) it feels a lot more like B"

It's true that I wrote @87 because I can't begin to imagine how harm could be done without harm occuring.

It seemed like such an illogical assertion I expected you to agree, and granting it's reasonableness would have felt obsequious.

Because as I understand it, harm is something that happens IRL, and my mind boggles at a lack of harm equalling harm.

If someone tells me "1 + 1 = 187" it seems like a lot to ask to expect people to know to say

"your approach is different from my way of seeing things"

Bur the door is always open in a discussion for an explanation, and I'd be curious.

Is there some definition of "harm" in which it need not occur in order for it to occur? Is it a definition that's just yours? Don't other people get confused too?

Curious, drunk driving is always directing harm at others (as opposed to just doing some harmful thing to yourself & willing participants.) A drunk driver is directing harm at others- whether or not they think about it that way, whether or not they intend to actually harm someone, and whether or not they make it home safely. It does not always result in causing harmful consequences. A drunk driver is make the choice to direct harm at others whether or not they get lucky and manage to not cause any harm. Just like I could shoot into a crowd and manage to not kill anyone- I'm directing harm at others, whether or not my goal is to shoot a squirrel or people, whether or not I think of it that way.

I understand why my words were confusing, saying the thing in a bad way, and I thought I clarified? I included our little confusing exchange as an example of how a conversation online can spiral into the territory of trying to explain and clarify rather than discussing the original premise. One way is because we misunderstand each other, as happened with us, due to a bad word choice on my part.

So the conversation could be about this Q:
What is a good criteria for determining if a messy friend is worthy of continued emotional effort / friendship?

I suggest a good first criteria is a distinction between a person who directs their harm at "others" ("innocent bystanders" as I said in my first post to BDF, "third parties" as she eventually restated) rather than at themselves.

From a point like this, there seems to be two tendencies online:

A) People have different input / perspectives on the original question. These often conflict with those of others. See Erica's response or Philo's or Fubar's, etc. We may never fully understand one another or agree with one another, but we are at least clear of the thing we are discussing.

B) People misunderstand the point others are making in the first place and the conversation spirals into a "what do you mean by this" or "you don't understand what I'm saying" and usually results in people doing a lot of backtracking and restating and clarifying and exasperation. I was saying that - in this particular conversation - your and BDF's responses to me are a good example of this. IN your case, due to my poor word choice causing confusion that then sidetracked the point of the conversation in needing to clarify. In BDF's case because she thought I was saying something other than what I was saying (in my first short response to her, I said "other people" and "innocent bystanders" which she eventually understood as "third parties" above- my guess is this is because my original point was so mundane, something I kept trying to tell her, that she thought I was trying to say something else?) and so we spent post after post with her talking about ways sex with strangers can be harmful and me explaining why that's irrelevant to my point - it's one thing to say "I disagree this distinction matters and here's why" and an entirely different thing to say "I disagree this distinction exists".

If we're being all meta about it (which is insane anyway but these are insane times) these tendencies are what fascinate me about these discussions- the way we see various situations, try to explain them, get confused, have moments of connection, get frustrated, articulate that frustration, etc. But it's an obsessive quality to engage hard in these things. I'm not sure what different folks get out of it, but there's definitely a spectrum of tolerance / interest in the more nitpicky ends of it with some of us more likely to carry on to an exasperating point than others, with some of us more likely to become uncivil than others.

I hope that clarifies- I was not saying that we can agree to disagree on a statement of objective fact. I mean, sure we could do that too but it's not very interesting.

@124 EmmaLiz
"drunk driving is always directing harm at others"

That is a wonderful wording.

Reminds me of me trying to direct an arrow at a target. I probably wouldn't hit it because I've got negligible archery experience and the wind etc. could make it worse. But that doesn't mean I'm not directing the arrow towards the target.

(I'm just a picky irritant unable to ignore very low hanging fruit like @82 "Drunk driving is intentional harm..." [even] "...if you are lucky and do not kill anyone." Because sometimes people [to me very interestingly] have very odd logical perspectives, and I love the opportunity to see one.)

In your wording the directing of harm needn't even be intentional, it's a simple fact.(1)

Another way I'm on your side is that I think one could make a great psychological argument that it is often subconsciously intentional. Probably far less often does someone consciously intend to harm everyone who ends up affected by the predictable crash.

"I thought I clarified?"

If you did I missed it. Which is possible; I swirled around in my head the comparison with sex with strangers and couldn't really engage with it enough for it to un-distract me from the crazy world (a pretty high bar lately). (Maybe the comparison isn't simple enough for me; I like simple.)

"being all meta about it (which is insane anyway"

Personally my insanity seems to love being as meta as possible.

"misunderstand the point others are making"

The ones that make me nuts are the ones who (C) always claim I've said something that has no relation to what I said. One of those apparently got booted months ago, thankfully.

(1) Because of how extremely dangerous it is. I was on a trip with someone once, and they were amazed after they had one drink with breakfast when I explained that either I was gonna be the driver of their car that day on our 6-hour trip home, or I'd take a bus. They are such a a terrible driver at best, that one /sip/ of alcohol and I'm not riding with them. Some people (like them) are unaware of how much alcohol impairs one's driving, and drive faster when they drink.

@125 p.s.
By "I'm on your side" I mean @125; I have almost no idea what went on in the other Comments of this thread.

I feel like BDF and Curious missed something about a nephew. I dropped this train of thought when I got that this was a SISTER thing. So risky driving is going to be harmful driving. Maybe I see an unattended, known to be unloaded, gun as a flaming hot threat, the same feeling as most people would have with a loaded gun aimed at them, because a young schoolmate of mine died like that. Risk that one person would consider fairly normal, becomes a searing screaming danger sort of inseparable from the actual harm we've witnessed. The marks of trauma. I have a lot of my own. If you're Curious about one's trauma, please be careful while mucking about.

I'm happy to start talking about how I think ineptitude and self harm is related to neglecting or hurting others if EmmaLiz would like me to try to distract Curious.

@127 Philophile
That whole Comment made me feel like a cat watching a ball of yarn bob in the air.

"Curious missed something about a nephew...SISTER"

Oh hell yes, I didn't pay enough attention this week to know there was a sister or a nephew involved in any column! I don't even know what Column /this/ one is.

"So risky driving is going to be harmful driving."

Hmmm. Can something be harmful without causing harm? To the harmer, sure, but to the harmee?

"I see an unattended, known to be unloaded, gun as a flaming hot threat"

I'm good with that as long as I don't have to see a loaded gun as necessarily having shot someone yet.

"ineptitude and self harm is related to neglecting or hurting others"

I'd probably agree but use words involving psychological health.

"to try to distract Curious"

That is /so/ easy, like a ball of yarn to a cat.

Ok Curious I think I was too subtle. My classmate shot himself when we were about 11 or 12. I see an unloaded gun and the feelings that only I am aware of in my brain say that is an intentional murder machine. I did a lot of treating guns with respect after that, exposure therapy worked. I don't have a problem going to the range, but the feelings I have when I see an accessible gun are not the same as you do unless you have some kind of personal experience with gun killings. I get the fuck away from people who don't treat guns with respect, and maybe some nasty part of me thinks that people who behave less cautiously are too dumb to live. It's not cool, my feelings hurt, they are not realistic and adaptive they are overly cautious and unrealistic because they flipping hurt like a broken heart. Nonetheless they are a part of me and I live fine, anyway. I never really think about it. Maybe I should back off because I said exposure therapy works. As long as everyone is being respectful.

(This is the part where you cluck comfortingly in my direction)

Did you find the nephew and figure it out yet? tickles Curious

I also feel vicious about bullies because that boy was bullied. But feeling vicious can make me act like a bully. How's that for a headfuck.

EmmaLiz @120, I already said I agreed to disagree, there was no need for you to shout at me. Yes, the whole debate arose because you claimed "one of these things is not like the others," a statement that is both true and false. Suppose you had said "an apple is not like a fire engine," because one is a fruit and the other is a man-made machine, and I'd replied "yes, they are both red." Both of these observations are valid. You might not have been thinking about colour when you made your comparison, perhaps you are colourblind, but if I am a children's book illustrator then perhaps the most important aspect to me of apples and fire engines is that both are red. The issue I see is that you've admitted your bias -- a relative killed by a drunk driver -- but you think that your bias makes your opinion more valid, while you think my bias (as a recovered alcoholic with quite a few sexual regrets) makes mine less valid. At any rate, I think everyone on this forum can agree that whether one can find similarities or not, driving drunk is -worse-, correct? Which I also already said, so now I am moving on.

Sorry, one more point, just to clarify (though I already said this too). My position is not that all intoxicated sex is non-consensual, but that the drunker you are, the higher the -risk- of impaired consent. LTAF's friend has already displayed in many other ways that alcohol impairs her judgement. So -in her case-, we can conclude from the evidence that alcohol is impairing her decisions with respect to driving, it is impairing her decisions with respect to personal conflict, it is impairing her decisions with respect to appropriate wedding conversation, so it would be highly unlikely that it is not impairing her decisions with respect to her sex life. And that, as I said way back in the beginning, is how this thing is like the others.

@129 Philophile
"My classmate shot himself when we were about 11 or 12."

Oh my, I'm so sorry.

"feelings...only...aware of in my brain say...is an intentional murder machine"

I can /particularly/ see how that would be if it was an accidental shooting.

(I'm guessing it wasn't a pre-teen suicide.)

"nasty part of me thinks that people who behave less cautiously are too dumb to live"

I've got a bit of that going on right now WRT the prospect of jailing (in a time of COVID!) the MAGA protesters undermining the public's sacrifices and welfare by clustering with their military weapons and without masks, spraying spit at poor police. I am not feeling patient with this.

@130 Philophile
"that boy was bullied"

Oh no, so it was a suicide! That must have been horrific bullying, I'm so sorry P!

"feeling vicious can make me act like a bully"

Yes, that's probably how I'm feeling about those ignorant protesters endangering everyone else's wellbeing/lives. At least I have realized it's probably good I'm not the governor of their states; but if I was I'd probably deal with it properly (not to say I'd be as indulgently patient as my governor is).

lol at the shouting BDF. There is no highlight or italics feature here.

Curious, regarding the friend who's had one drink, depending on the individual, time, what he's eaten, etc he might be alright to drive. But you know the person and know better so I'll take your word for it. I have a cousin who's tipsy after half a glass of wine. It works out well for me when we share a bottle. But when I've been in that situation, I just point out that regardless of if the person is impaired, the alcohol is on their breath and I want to avoid an escalation with the police if we should get pulled over. I've had cops use a field sobriety test as an excuse to search my car (I was stone cold sober) and I see no reason to give them a better opportunity. I find that especially with people who have a tendency to be belligerent, this approach works better since it removes their fragile egos from the situation (it's not your judgement I question, it's a desire to avoid those unruly police) and it's only half a lie.

Philo, sorry about your friend. But no I grew up with brothers and my nephew's mother, though a lovely person and tragically young, was my husband's sister-in-law and unfortunately she was not someone I had the opportunity to know very well though yes her death has altered my and my family's life.When you step on one person's toe, a lot of people scream. But to be analogous to your object sensitivity/aversion I'd need to avoid cars not drunken driving. Even if fully recovered from your object aversion, I'm sure you'd stay adamantly opposed to people leaving guns lying around the house, especially if they are easily accessible to those at risk of suicide (which isn't something we can ever fully know)? This is a rational response to a real situation. If the trauma of your experience highlighted it for you, that does not change how reasonable it is.

But being meta again, any time someone has a strong opinion, people like to say it must be a projection in one way or another- in this thread alone I've been told that my point of view is because I don't have certain experiences and that I've had too much of others, and while to a certain extent this is always true (we are all an amalgam of our experiences), I think it's far more convincing that I just have a very strong opinion on bodily autonomy and the right of people to take informed decisions about themselves- it's a common thread in most of my strong stances here. You don't get to fuck others then fuck your partner while lying about it- your partner hasn't made a decision to open themselves up to that risk. You don't get to make / support laws altering a person's access to insulin or contraception- they have the right to make medical decisions about their own bodies. You don't get to drink and drive- other people on the road have a reasonable expectation of safety.

My stance here could be more analogous to your feelings about bullies? I despise people who tell themselves stories about how they are justified in taking away other people's rights to know something, to act in a certain way- it's all window dressing for selfish convenience, egotism, thoughtlessness of others. It's at the core of fundamentalism as well. "I know better than these people what's good for them" or "I deserve to do these things because..." or "That doesn't apply to me since..." etc. You are probably right that my feelings on this matter come from personal places, but you can't point to any one incident, even the most upsetting, and say "this is why you feel that way". I've had decades on earth dealing with other people, thinking about them, judging their characters, just like you have.

@134 EmmaLiz
"I want to avoid an escalation with the police if we should get pulled over"

I guess I could pretend that's my primary concern next time. (Though it would take considerable effort for me not to be direct.)

Generally I think alcohol impairs people too much me to accept them driving, period.

General PSA: sudden, radical changes in mood or behavior without an obvious cause are a symptom of acute neurological problems, like trauma or stroke or damage from infections like tertiary syphilis or naegleria. There are other causes, but because they CAN indicate very serious neurological problems, they are not something that should be ignored to see if it goes away, they should prompt IMMEDIATE medical consultation.

Does CA have an aneurysm pressing on some part of the brain that results in persistent sexual arousal? I don't know, but that's a real possibity that should be checked and corrected before it fatally bursts if it is the case. Given the suddenness and extremity of the change, I'd focus more on the medical treatment route than the still-not-understood arousal disorder route.

@52: "I've never known an alcoholic who didn't drink and drive."

That's entirely a fucntion of your class and cutural background/position - you've apparently never known an alcoholic who couldn't afford a car and used feet/public transit to get around. Nor one who could afford a car but opted to not drive (like me - I bicycle everywhere). There are also probably some alcoholics who have access to cars but don't drive drunk, but even without counting any of them, we KNOW that your experience can't be universalized because of the existence of alcoholics who don't drive at all (and therefore don't drive drunk).

THAT said, heavy drinkers who do drive are, in my experience also, very bad at judging their own sobriety and ability to drive safely. I suspect it's some combination of being drunk so often that not driving in that condition is a more serious inconvenience than it is for people who aren't drunk every night and drunk being the baseline normal, making the impairment less obvious to the drinker.

Of course, I look at all of the injuries and deaths from sober driving and conclude that the primary problem with drunk driving is the "driving" part rather than the "drunk" part. I very seriously would like to categorocally ban personal motor vehicle ownership (perhaps with exceptions for self-employed people who need commercial vehicles and disabity considerations) and make driving licensing requirements significantly stricter (such that only a marginal percentage of the very best and most conscientious drivers would be licensed at all) to both minimize motor vehicle crash casualties (caused by sober or drunk drivers) and fight global warming (not only by limiting transit fuel use, but by forcing systemic changes in economic organization and supply chains and population geographies that are necessary once we drop the assumption that most people can transport themselves and material goods with a motor vehicle), but I still don't have many allies on that count (though WAY more than 20 years ago).

UGHS - DTMFA. It's not worth the energy to try to fix severely insecure, controlling people. YOU actually can't fix them, they have to be dedicated to fixing themselves, and trying to stay with someone like that who ISN'T making very serious efforts (with some progress already) is just going to destroy your own mental health without helping the insecure person at all. That kind of controlling behavior should be a categorical deal-breaker; one is very much NOT in good enough working order for intimate relationships if one is seeking to control someone else's relationships or behavior generally. And you haven't simply described red flags, you've described behavior that is ALREADY ABUSIVE.

People seem to be talking about PGAD as if it was something to do with sex and arousal. From what I've read I don't believe this to be the case, particularly because reports suggest it is seriously uncomfortable/aversive in a way that "unexpected randiness" wouldn't be. It's more like discomfort/itching.

Sexual arousal doesn't just occur in the genitals (consider how popular lube is, and how many people have good sex for other reasons than damp genitalia).

PGAD has been described as possibly caused by some weird neuro malfunction ("excitement" nerves switching on but not off?) or hormone thing, but it's almost always accompanied by reports that it either isn't sexual or appeared sexual only in the first few hours, because the discomfort is severe enough to make "sexiness" really unimportant.

The reply of one person here that they're merely "masturbating wrong" because of lack of build-up sounds way off this. I'm with Dan: she needs medical advice.

John Horstman @138 "That's entirely a function of your class and cultural background/position"

Agreed, and that's why I said in the very next sentence: "Perhaps that difference between us is why you can picture a harmless alcoholic and I can't."

And again @68: "Yes, it seems like our circles are very different. I know quite a few alcoholics, and, like everyone else where I live, they drive a lot."

I can imagine alcoholics who never drink and drive; I've just never known one personally (known to the extent of knowing both their drinking and driving habits). I'm not skeptical that they exist, but they don't come to my mind when I picture an alcoholic because I picture ones like the ones I know personally.

Re "make driving licensing requirements significantly stricter" -- perhaps in twenty years self-driving cars will be the norm and barely anyone will bother to learn to drive anymore.

Curious, do you think there is a difference between learning to be more patient, and learning to self soothe, to calm anxiety and/or anger?

"how I'm feeling about those ignorant protesters"
I'm glad that people are protesting instead of desperate enough to loot or riot. Not everyone can stop working for a few months or do their job from home or tolerate social isolation so well. It's both good and bad that so many Americans can, and those who want to fast track a safer way to work together again may be a minority here.

EmmaLiz - "This is a rational response to a real situation."
No, I had a traumatic response to a real situation, it is irrational to feel upset unless it is helping to solve problems. I do not have a calm pleasant safe respectful reaction to guns. I have a more intense, personally uncomfortable although I hope generally reasonable sounding position wrt guns. It's not like I could stop how that situation affected me emotionally, sure, but I can admit that it's been a problem and try really hard to handle gun topics well in the future while having patience with my humanity.

"was my husband's sister-in-law "
If it's not too uncomfortable for me to continue, then.. if you've driven drunk and got over it, why wouldn't you see if your friend could get over it before dumping them, especially if they're an old friend..

BDF - "At any rate, I think everyone on this forum can agree that whether one can find similarities or not, driving drunk is -worse-, correct?"
Than drunken sex? Er, not me. I've just seen too many shriveled souls from illegal sex, and there's something about my sister getting attacked after going to the bar that really twangs. It's more personal, but it can be deadly too. She's amazing to have survived. I also want to care just as much that people honor themselves as I care that they honor others.

@141 Philophile
"do you think there is a difference between learning to be more patient, and learning to self soothe, to calm anxiety and/or anger?"

Certainly.

"I'm glad that people are protesting instead of desperate enough to loot or riot."

Of course those really aren't the only two choices.

I know you're trying to be understanding here, and I agree that's good. But I'm mad as hell for reasons that are extremely important; I know you meant well, but you've touched on something I feel very strongly about.

The real problem is that the monster they're the puppets of has failed to do any of the things that could have avoided this mess and would now get us out of it safely.

Every epidemiologist worth half a damn supports the approach South Korea took to spectacular success(1): mass testing and high tech contact tracing. With them this holocaust never had to happen, and could be brought to a close systematically. At a tiny fraction of the cost of the ridiculously insane approach taken so far.

But the Trump monster doesn't care about mountains of bodies; authoritarian leaders thrive in chaos.

Given the above, the government should now be massively deficit spending to put the entire country on life support until this mess is resolved. Which could be just months, or could if continued to be managed insanely be a year.

(The above is occuring not just because caring about other people is beyond the level of development of a rightwing individual, but because the GOP wants the masses to be financially terrified enough to risk their lives right now.)

The misguided protesters are taking the failures above as a given; that is their ignorance. I'm not blaming them primarily, they're authoritarian followers following an evil leader. (Ignorance isn't a value judgement, it's a fact.) But they are part of the problem, the Trump monster wouldn't be in office without them following him.

They should be protesting (safely) the monster they choose to follow instead.

I would be ashamed it I were to be patient about the ongoing mass murder on a historic scale (which the protesters are misguided party to). I also got pretty impatient when Dubbya lied us into an invasion that cost a million Iraqi lives.

(1)
COVID deaths/1M population so far:
South Korea: 5
USA: 218
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

@142 p.s.
It is true that I'd be more relaxed if I didn't have to think about and say such things. But as a citizen of a democracy, I think it's one's responsibility to.

Philo, real quick- I was saying your post-exposure-therapy approach is reasonable (regarding a strong response now to guns handled irresponsibly / left out in the open but able to see/handle one yourself in appropriate conditions). If I've misunderstood your anecdote, please clarify- I assume it was meant as an analogy to my own feelings regarding drunk driving which doesn't really work, I have no aversion to either cars nor alcohol but rather to the combination of them which- like leaving guns lying about where they are easily accessible to struggling children- is wholly worthy of condemnation by any rational person.

Curious- the way I've been summing it up to Trump supporters is this- given a choice between destroying the economy and the lives of millions of people vs saving the economy but a couple hundred thousands die, I'm pissed off that this is the choice. If our economy & health care system requires that choice, then it's fucked in the first place. Don't misdirect your anger.

But mostly it's a pointless conversation and I don't bother. The fact is, the outcome is already fixed and there's nothing we can do about it. As a society, we will get used to people dying- it will perhaps ease up in the summer, come back in the fall- and we will continue to do nothing about it but it will seem normal just like all the other psychopathic crap in our country that we've gotten used to. But the economy will not recover, there is not a going back to normal, and I don't think most people realize it. There is no chance to save it- that opportunity passed- and frankly looting and rioting make more sense to me in this moment than anything else. But when that happens, it will likewise be squashed, and often by the same people storming governor's mansions right now. At this point, there's nothing doing but figuring out how to look after the people around you and finding ways to distract yourself during the day.

I think we'll see some semblance of normal over the summer which is going to allow people some breathing room, then when it returns in the fall and the economy doesn't recover (and regardless of the outcome of the elections assuming they even happen which is - for the first time in my own life- actually slightly possible that they won't), people are going to shrug off the deaths. 200,000 people a year until 2022? Meh. We got used to the idea that armed men walk into kindergartens and murder babies so why not. The real breaking point is going to be when the economy does not recover but whatever I've been saying this for five years and now that it's happening, I just find myself watching a lot of TV and working jigsaw puzzles with my in-laws. See you on the other side bitches!

EmmaLiz - I was under the impression that you considered my traumatic reaction to be a healthy reaction, or that the effects of the trauma are gone, and I disagree. If you are saying that I've managed to sound calm and reasonable about it now, then thanks for the reassurance. If you don't want to talk about your criteria for dropping friends anymore, that's fine.

Curious, what do you think the difference between patience and calming oneself is?

One problem is that some people are desperate for money/resources/food/shelter etc, sure you could say screw them, they can feed themselves, but the fact is their problem is important. Your problem is that you're part of the at risk population, I could say screw you, you can isolate yourself, but the fact is your problem is important. The government's problem is hospital beds, they want to provide adequate care for everyone who is ill, and since they still have a lot of hospital beds open, they will try to return to normal trade as slowly as possible, so that those who cannot isolate themselves effectively will at least have access to the level of care they expect in this country. There is no one "right" solution that solves everyone's problems. So I disagree that a leader is a monster because they didn't solve everyone's problems. I would think the answer to the protesters is to advocate for the prolific testing that has proven beneficial in other countries, for safety in reopening the economy rather than continuing the extreme shut down.

"I would be ashamed it I were to be patient about the ongoing mass murder on a historic scale"
Why? Why not just try to do what you can, calmly? Why does it help to be upset?

@144 EmmaLiz
"the outcome is already fixed and there's nothing we can do about it."

You could be right, but you also might not be so I believe it would be shameful for me to not make the little efforts that are in my power convince people--particularly elected officials--otherwise.

Honestly, I feel it is shameful to not have killed the person in the middle of the process of killing vast numbers of people.

"the economy will not recover"

I assume you mean not until some time after everyone gets vaccinated for COVID.

"for the first time in my own life- actually slightly possible that they won't"

Agreed not just on that, but for quite a while a degree of civil war has seemed possible.

@145 Philophile
"you could say screw them, they can feed themselves"

It seems like you didn't read my sentence@142:
"the government should now be massively deficit spending to put the entire country on life support until this mess is resolved"

...

"Why not just try to do what you can, calmly? Why does it help to be upset?"

I am doing what I can calmly. Oh, it's true, the thought of it raises my emotions at times. (If you can watch Donald Trump kill hundreds of thousands of people without becoming un-calm, my sincere congratulations to you.)

But most of the time I'm quite calm; like I will again be as soon as I finish writing this Comment.

Maybe you're conflating my message with my emotional state. Don't extrapolate from that I don't want people to simply accept and do nothing to oppose mass murder, with that I'm in state of continuous non-calm about it.

In my view, simply accepting and doing nothing to oppose mass murder makes one complicit, particularly in a democracy.

@Philo, it's not that I don't want to talk about it but rather that I've already addressed that twice in this thread. I think the response to Joe @22 covers that pretty well. But it seems obnoxious to tell you go to back and read that rather than type out a response to you personally since it's a slightly different question- it's not like I'd expect you to read everything I say to everyone, lol. But at the same time, it seemed tedious to me to type out the answer again now at this point. So I just ignored the question. ha ha

No Curious, I mean the economy is not ever going to recover. I think it might bounce back a bit after the crisis and we will see a new normal, but this is the decline of American global hegemony and the dominoes started wobbling some time ago and, as I've been saying for about five years to anyone who will listen, all it will take is some crisis to knock them down. As it 's all still hollowed out from the response to the 08 crash, there is no recovery.

BTW I'm not saying something as stupid as capitalism will fall, but our position as the global hegemonic power is shifting now and there's no going back. It will take our liberal democratic nation state with it- companies will continue to make money but the economy will not recover. It really makes no difference at this point if Trump is in the White House or not though sure I hope he goes.

Here Philo- cut and pasted the relevant bits from my response to Joe and to you which I think answer your question:

...I agree that we should all be careful not to pretend our shit doesn't stink or that we are full of shiny inner light while others are dark monsters, yes my inner swamp is less fetid than some others. Things can change, people can grow, inner swamps are a product of circumstances etc, so I'm not claiming there's some inherent filth in others to which I'm immune or from which they can't recover (but for the grace of god and all that) but absolutely the willingness to prioritize others or else remove yourself from situations in which you might cause harm to others does tend to make someone a better person than people who need to prove themselves and prioritize their own comfort with disregard for others- sober or otherwise...

...I never said that people are unchangeable or that they aren't worth saving or that you shouldn't offer forgiveness to people who have learned and grown. I'm not so jaded as that. In my own experience, people mostly stay who they are and past behavior is the best indication of future behavior, but sure people can change and if they do, I'm more than happy to offer them my own acceptance or forgiveness if that's something they need from me. Dan said as much in response to the LW btw...

@148 EmmaLiz
I think we probably discussed this a couple years ago, and my carpal tunnel is hurting, so I'll be brief-ish.

Economically the US has been declining for a half a century; I'd say it's about halfway through it's slow erosion to 3rd-ish world status (but far enough that some factories have moved back from offshore to states with the lowest wages, because it's worth it to save the money to ship products now from the places whose wages are no longer as much lower than ours as they were).. In other words I don't see why this long ski slope wouldn't continue; what's the cliff? (What's your "knock down"?)(Something to do with the stock market? Certainly it's rarely been more bubbled, and disconnected from the circumstances of nearly everyone.)

Anyway given the ski slope nature of our decline (unfortunately gradual enough few even have noticed how very poorly our economy has been mis-/un-managed), naturally we won't recover to where we were on the slope. But it's been a slope, and I'm curious what the the mechanism is of the sudden non-gradual vertical drop you envision.

We also agree that, as other economies eclipse ours, the US will no longer be strongest in any way including militarily (since money buys that); I think one of the many reasons Iraq got invaded was in hopes of securing it's resources before it was too late when we become a 2nd class power.

Honestly, all this I'm calm about: the American people let this happen with their votes. Their economic pain didn't have to happen, but it will probably benefit the other countries of the world that it has/will.

(I just can't seem to feel the same peaceful acceptance as I watch great mountains of their corpses stack up. I feel shame that it also bothers me in an additional way that it's happening all around me unlike when it happened elsewhere in our names in Iraq; not more, but there is an extra horror to it being so immediately local, just outside my door.)

US military hegemony is not going to decline to the point of second fiddle any time soon, IMO not even in our lifetimes. It's just going to continue to serve mostly private interests at the core of global capitalism which are going to be more and more disconnected from public interests. Which I think will slowly and increasingly lose way to other sphere's interests as we move into a multipolar world. But that's not going to happened rapidly without some major global catastrophe like a world war, and I don't see that happening either since economic interests are no longer tied as necessarily to the health of a nation state itself. In short, it's in no one's interest to rush this change.

What I think we will lose is domestic liberal democracy, basically the modern nation state as we know it. And I think it's going to happen fast.

Our economy domestically- it will not recover. It might recover a little here and there, then slump again, but the overall trajectory is a rapid decline. We will get used to massive high numbers of unemployment and the tension between federal & local governments- I don't know how these conflicts will be resolved. I suspect some amount of entitlements to keep some of the discontent from the streets combined with an increase in police militarism & vigilantism (militias, gangs) will respond to the rest of it. I don't think most folks have truly grasped the extent to which we are never going back to normal. If you've lived in a developing country with massive wealth inequality, a nonfunctional government, high unemployment and various levels of civil enforcement (some official, others shadow power) then you know what the future looks like.

There is no peaceful acceptance. I just feel that it is time we stop pretending that any official processes are in place to effect change- it's impossible at this point partially because paths we did have are closed, but mostly because circumstances have changed with the current crisis. As I said for years, there's still some possibility of keeping the ship afloat a little longer if we do massive structural reform AND if we don't have a massive global crisis. Then all at the same time, we rejected the first and the second happened. So what is there to do now? Pressure public officials? It might be a good way to make yourself feel better.

We must open up the economy because if people don't start consuming things again, returns on investments / debts will stop slipping and more importantly the oil industry will collapse, everything will spiral out of control. The economy requires people to keep shopping, driving, etc. Our health care system does not have the capacity to do the testing/tracking to which you refer. I agree that this is outrageous, but it is also a simple fact. And yes it's lack of political will to reform health care that put us in this situation but that does not change the reality of the system as it is- our health care system, by design, cannot manage a healthcare crisis AND there is no political will to change it. In Texas you can't even get the governor to admit that the state should track nursing home outbreaks even though that's the epicenter. Not even this very basic thing. And it's not a red state issue, as it's the same in Colorado, California, Washington. There is no way to pressure politics your way out of that- it requires toppling the health care industry- and there are no politicians who could be pressured to do such a thing anyway. We fought that battle and lost. It's admirable to keep fighting it of course, but it will require a strategy other than pressure politics- that is lost. I'm open to suggestions.

But even if, by some miracle, you could overhaul the health care industry so it could manage the epidemic, it can't be done quickly enough to prevent the economically existential need to open up at least the consumer sector- get people driving, shopping again, so that entire global power structures perched upon the need to keep oil flowing do not collapse in on themselves. Even a best case scenario, it would be years before we could design a healthcare system that could handle this crisis, and by then the economy would be a complete collapse so there'd be no money or infrastructure to put it in place.

But that's not even the bad news. Here's the kicker, even after we do what we are going to inevitably do- get used to the fact that 100 or 200 thousand people will die a year to keep consumer & rents/debt economy locally going just enough to keep US's dominance of global capitalism afloat, it's still not going to be enough to save our domestic economy & liberal democracy and make things "go back to normal". Because while we can make hairdressers and cashiers go back to work, while people can go out to eat again, we cannot simply flip a switch a return to a time when corporations that run the world continue to travel about wheeling and dealing- talk to your friends with high level professional jobs, even in the US most will not open up again for the rest of 2020 no matter what the working class is forced to do. And it will reverberate out, unemployment rates will stay high. Do you know people who work in airlines or academics? There are entire industries which were struggling before which will never return to normal again. Then, epidemiologists warn the virus will come back in the fall, make its way around the world again. Then what? Consider the rest of the world which - in the places that have dealt with it appropriately - are unlikely to allow business travel with the US.

All of this before we place it in context of the historical declining rate of profit and move towards financialization to which you refer regarding the general trajectory of the past several decades. This is a crisis on top of that historical tendency which exasperates the decline.

So what is inevitable- no fucking way around it- is that politicians and businesses will take advantage of this situation to restructure their power- you are seeing it happening right now with so many businesses using it as a way to lay people off, reorder their hierarchies, pad their own pockets, rearrange their investments- and the power play that's been happening right now between federal and state governments with all the hollowing of the public sector (first with funding in the Bush/Obama years, then with staffing under Trump) and the consolidation of the court system (all the judge appointments that the Dems have been handing Trump for four years) and that will turn to a necessity to privatize them (see the post office) and deregulate (see the fda) to keep the ship afloat. THat's a massive run on because I'm tired, I've been saying this for years.

And what can you do? Voting now revealed as the charade that it is under covid for anyone still too naive or hopeful to believe otherwise. State govts making alliances against the feds is a bad sign even though I think they were acting in the public interest- bad sign that we've come to that. I don't see a way out- what's happening before our eyes is the govt making it very clear that it exists only to facilitate capital and we are entirely on our own and there is no process forward either through any of the three branches for any other pressure on behalf of public interest.

There's no way out of it, and by the time there is a vaccine and the opportunity for global travel / global work goes "back to normal" these changes will be in place- because some reorganizing like this was necessary all along to deal with the contradictions in the more historical tendencies you mentioned.

The choice, in the last few years, was between a) governments that function to serve the facilitation of global capitalism (private interests that are aligned with certain global blocs' but not necessarily always aligned with any individual country's domestic interests) which inevitably (because of those historic forces we mentioned) requires giving up the domestic liberal democratic nation state in any meaningful way VS b) retaining the current system for at least as long as possible by moving towards social democracy via massive wealth redistribution- which to be fair was never going to last long term since to redistribute that wealth you have to generate it via imperialism in the first place, and the collapse of functioning nation states around the world is making that harder and harder to be profitable and the rise of other powers is making it more difficult for US to maintain hegemony, especially given future of oil industry- but at least this would've bought us some time to make those massive structural reforms that could be the foundation for a better world.

That was the battle before us, and we already lost it. There is literally nothing else we can do right now on a big scale through traditional procedures (elected politics, protest, etc).

So its not that I'm at peaceful acceptance, it's just that it feels like watching people toying about with fire extinguishers as they stand on ashes.

Curious, I'm happy that you are generally calm these days. But, I don't feel very persuaded by very emotional posts that aren't personal. I also respond to persuasive facts far better than emphatic opinions. I respond best to new ideas that seem to solve old problems even better. And I don't expect the government to save everyone, I expect it to provide infrastructure, and trade regulation that keeps predatory practices down. Anyway, I find you to be more persuasive when you seem calm.

EmmaLiz, It sounds like you're saying that you feel like a better person than those who have drank and driven more recently.. That you'd forgive them if they stopped. That you think they are worth saving but you don't talk about doing it yourself.. I asked my question because I was confused about how you would ideally dump a drunk driving friend, would you try to save them before dumping them? When would you dump them, as soon as heard that they had driven drunk? As soon as they told you they had? Would you try to explain why it means so much to you before you dumped them? Would you do it angrily, cutting off the friendship abruptly, or just sadly say that you don't want to see them again until they stopped driving drunk? Maybe I'm mostly curious about what saved you, when you were the drunk driver?

Someone being worth saving and worth forgiving, Philo, has nothing to do with whether or not I personally feel a responsibility to do so. I tend not to cast myself as someone's savor and save my own emotional investments in people for those with whom I am most intimate. And while I suppose it's always a possibility that those people could go off the rails and start driving drunk, assaulting people or behaving like bigots, I think that is highly unlikely for the catch-22 that my guiding criteria for which people are worthy of trust tends to be the extent to which they express compassion and concern for others. As I said, I drove drunk a few times when I was a very young person, as did my nephew recently in my charge. Young people need guidance- easy for them to end up getting swept into all sorts of bullshit, you have to constantly be vigilant for them, constantly talking to them, including them in things, sharing their interests, taking part in theirs. What turned me into a more thoughtful person? Partially it was the guidance of older people in my life who were gentle with me and who would be hurt if I harmed my life in some way, partially it was social ostracization from people I admired who considered that sort of behavior to be immature when I wanted them to think of me as mature, partially it was just luck. As for casual acquaintances, social friends who I just hang out with and enjoy their company and party with, my neighbors and such, I tend not to pry into their lives. If we were at some public place and they were ready to drive home drunk, I would tell them how foolish and inconsiderate they are and refuse to drive with them and then in the future refuse to be a party to drinking with them. This doesn't mean I'd erect a fence between their house and mine and refuse to attend social functions or speak to them again or anything so dramatic but I'd know they are not people I should trust or bring in close because- as I've tried to explain in excrutiating detail but don't seem to be able to get the point across- the issue is not drunk driving in itself which might have any number of possible causes/outcomes but rather that it is one example of many behaviors that indicate that the person making those choices does not prioritize concern for others over his/her own convenience and I have found that people who engage in behavior like that tend to be selfish and have an under developed sense of empathy and I just don't become intimate with people like that in the first place. I can't answer your questions assuming such a thing suddenly happened out of character with a good friend because I've never been in that situation and think it is unlikely that I ever will be. This is not to say that the people I love are all remarkably healthy. They are not. I love people with substance abuse problems, have a bit of one myself at times in that I do drink more than is likely healthy, i have had friends with mental illness and like you, a friend who has committed suicide, and people with various interpersonal problems or health problems- life is hard for most people. But I tend not to have friends who are inconsiderate of others- I suppose I naturally filter them out with my own personality and strong opinions no doubt. Just like I'm fully aware from these conversations that in general men tend to be more sexually dominant in both relationships and casual encounters but that has absolutely not been my experience, in fact it's the opposite and I've found men to generally be very happy to be passive and let a woman take the led. There must be something in my approach, my behavior, that filtered dominant men out. The same is true in friendships- I tend not to have friends that drink and drive and I really can't answer your question better than that.

@151 EmmaLiz
"It might be a good way to make yourself feel better."

Some things must be done because they are right even if they fail. I believe it is disrespectful to say they are only done to make oneself "feel better." No offense to you, it pisses me off when people IRL say that to my face.

"outrageous, but it is also a simple fact"

It's currently a true statement, but it all could absolutely be done if the people decided (however implausible given their current level of brainwashing) it should be so. In other words if they changed the fact that there

"is no political will to change it"
...

"overhaul the health care industry so it could manage the epidemic"

Even given Trump's prescient dismantlement of pandemic-response infrastructure, had the proper action been taken 3.5 months ago, what's necessary could have been done to have this clusterfuck either averted or (as in South Korea) basically over by now.

"epidemiologists warn the virus will come back in the fall"

Yes, but that'll be like the Nth wave since it's already surging back right now.

"what's happening before our eyes is the govt making it very clear that it exists only to facilitate capital"

Hey thank you. That's exactly the kind of statement that I said to start this comment I believe has to be said (regardless of it's probable futility]). That's all that I think is called for; so many can't/won't even name the problem and thus haven't even taken that first crucial step.

Thank you for the very interesting and sound analyses economic and otherwise. For all the economic peril, were the political situation not so hopeless (and as I've said before, it's only /almost/, not utterly impossible) I believe the US government has the economic tools which could get itself and the US economy and people through this healthy). But the opposition party is proving hopeless, perhaps worst of all Joe Biden.

@152 Philophile
Ultimately I believe it's up to people to persuade themselves. I'm just a person doing what I have to do and can do.

It's a lot to ask of me to persuade you of such things; that's not my job, it's yours. And the very fact that you call what I wrote opinions tells me I can stop now.

Hi EmmaLiz, I think you did answer my question, social ostracization helped or saved you and that's how you help others. And maybe you try to offer some guidance help with younger people too, since that helped you too.. although I don't think age and wisdom are so closely related.. I think we may agree it's a mistake to do these things harshly.. Thanks for the response..

Curious, I'm surprised we disagree about the nature of facts vs opinion, what fact did you think was important, that I didn't get? I wasn't asking you to persuade me, I'm simply trying to listen to you, why you seemed to value being upset. I thought that you were writing a persuasive piece to channel your frustration into positive changes? But I don't see how the government can both maintain infrastructure and feed the people and support the majority of the country who can't work from home for a year, I don't even understand how we've been operating with our "normal" deficit. People have to farm and manufacture and deliver, just to keep everyone fed and supplied, and we have to staff hospitals and make cleaning products and tests, and fuel our energy needs, provide emergency services, and maintenance services for roads, vehicles, buildings, etc.. We have to have people out working, the point should be to increase safety. I was watching FL testing for antibodies, those who have immunity can be identified and safely rejoin the normal workforce (until they get a mutation maybe). That is the way to go before a vaccine is released. I think the deadliest mutations have much shorter incubation periods so I'm hoping that they can be identified and eliminated quickly. New York seems to have had good results with police brutality persuading people to wear masks, unfortunate but remarkable.

@155 Philophile
(Warning much too long!)(1769 words.)(I start commenting on previous comments I'd kept my tongue about, but I finish embracing your wonderful @155.)
Hi Philophile. I admit I haven't been sure it would be a good idea for us to continue this. I mean, this is a relationship advice forum, and maybe we've strayed into an area in which getting to know each other in news ways won't be productive.

I'm also reminded that during the last week or so in which I've been mostly distracted, you've been commenting a whole lot more than I recall recently. I hope that that you've been doing so is only related to you being in a good place.

Next, I must say that since our exchange yesterday I've no longer been able to say(1) that I haven't been angry, and I'm really concerned that that is not a good thing for one's health and immunity. On top of that, while not here, I've been doing way too much typing lately and my carpal tunnel is threatening to flare into a crippling problem again.

(1) Like I did @146. I guess it's different for me if the person I'm angry with isn't communicating with me.

So I've been trying to be as concise as possible, and not engage in a debate my hands aren't capable of.

Next, I left a lot out when I wrote @154 that is was "the very fact that you call what I wrote opinion". It was also that nearly all of your Comment @144 was not just unresponsive to me, it was as if you didn't read (now quoting me @146) "my sentence@142:". What kind of a conversation was it for you to tell me about a bunch of problems /after/ I proposed a solution to them?

Oh, even more than that sentance of yours @154 I quoted above, it was about everything you said to me @152, most of all:

"I don't expect the government to save everyone, I expect it to provide infrastructure, and trade regulation that keeps predatory practices down."

If in this historical moment you can say that, I barely know how to react. I would like to think but I doubt that by "infrastructure" you mean a hell of a lot more than I think you mean, but if you don't I don't know what to say.

Because in my view a leader does what needs to be done in an emergency. But maybe that's what you meant, maybe by "infrastructure" you meant a plan other than Trump's documented plan to just let COVID wash over the country (because according to my readings he's a sociopathic narcissist who does not care about other people). Maybe by "infrastructure" you meant, once COVID predictably was in the wild here, the coordination of a proper epidemiological response of all necessary testing and contact tracing (as opposed to coordinated interference in such a response by the uncoordinated locals forced to separately). Maybe by "infrastructure" you meant, doing the opposite of these things they're doing: Fail to provide income support, so people have no choice but to return to work. Shield businesses against lawsuits for spreading the infection while not only not promulgating new regulations but removing existing regulations to protect lives. Then pretend it’s about "freedom" that the people are facing this.

I liked Governor Cuomo's response to the fundamental ethical choice that's been made; unlike for the GOP, Cuomo said human life is priceless. You should have noticed that the GOP's party line has been that people should be proud to and want to die so that to minimize economic impact.

I have gotten an idea where you stand on it from that ugly Libertarian-sounding sentence of yours I quoted from @152. I hope I am wrong, but if I'm not, I hope to every god I don't believe in that you never lead anything ever.

This doesn't mean I don't still want to be your freind; but it may mean there are some topics important enough that it's best we stay away from them. (I am perfectly capable of having friends with whom I disagree.) In which case we could stick to the kind of things we've talked about in the past; I've very much enjoyed talking with you about all of them. But while helping the individuals who write to Dan with their problems is important, and while I always enjoy a good debate, this new topic is so much more important that our previous discussions have all been trivial in comparison. This new topic is not a game; I am no more prepared to ask as little of government as it sounded like you are with that sentance, than I would've be happy to leave the Nazi Concentration Camps to government; in both cases the body count is plenty high for me to take it deadly seriously.

And then I come to your @155:

"what fact did you think was important, that I didn't get"

As I hope is clear now as I elaborated, that I was afraid you got every bit of it. I was afraid I didn't want to discuss this with you because it was too pointless and made me very angry at you.

In some of our more wonderful discussions, we've talked about the ideas of Dale Carnegie. It seems to me that neither of us are living up to those ideals right now. I admit I'm not even trying; for me this wasn't about convincing you of anything; I don't have healthy enough hands to, and even if I did you're a smart adult with access to media so I couldn't and wouldn't begin to produce the vastly complicated data and citations to prove my case, and even if I did what's the point if it doesn't stop people from being marched to the modern COVID-American version of Nazi gas chambers?

"why you seemed to value being upset"

I never said I valued it. I now say I am it though. I did say things about it being person's great ethical responsibility to do what one can to stand against attrocity; I respect that on the other side of the coin of my anger with you, might be your anger against such statements of mine.

"writing a persuasive piece"

No, just stating my truth to friends about this nightmarish moment no country is expeiencing as badly as my country the USA is, which I find difficult to bear.

"I don't see how the government can both maintain infrastructure and feed the people and support the majority of the country who can't work from home for a year, I don't even understand how we've been operating with our "normal" deficit."

That's a very reasonable observation; economics is something few understand. And it's not something I'm prepared or qualified to elaborate upon much. Except to basically repeat that the USA has immense capacity to come up with capital for emergiencies (and this is the biggest emergency since WWII). If I understand correctly, the word "borrowing" is the key. We incurred massive debt in WWII, we incur a lot of debt every time taxes on the rich are cut, and we could incure debt now to keep people alive who don't have to work (which while not the kind of ecomonic policy a conservative likes, is exactly the kind of progressive economic policy which proved effective [but unfortunatley FDR was persuaded to cut back on it too soon] in injecting money into the American economy to expand rather than contract economic activity during the first half of the 1930s).

One shouldn't borrow for all the bad reasons we have, but one also shouldn't resist doing it for a reason like a six or seven-figure number of human lives. One interesting fact I recall reading somewhere when I was a little tyke, is that the the reason that the USA's ability to borrow is far greater than one would suppose, is that the US Federal Government has vast assets to act as collateral, even compared to what is already a mind-boggling debt. Another odd thing about debt, IIRC, is that in the long term a country can tend to "grow out of it" due to economic growth and inflation.

Yes, as you say many people need to work "just to keep everyone fed and supplied" etc. etc., but other people don't (I don't know the relative numbers, but I would note that the people who need to work are working and there are a vast number people just amoung those the fraction of other non-essential workers who quality for unemployment). Who knows, maybe half the country does, maybe half the country doesn't, need to work; I guess I could google but this is already too long.

"the point should be to increase safety."

I couldn't agree more, unfortunately neither the protesters this whole discussion began with mention of, nor any of the 'leaders' (lol) they enable, have as I touched upon above demonstrated anything but hostility to increasing safety, quite the opposite. I'm glad we agree on this, Philophile! It makes me very happy to. I'm sorry we didn't get here earlier.

"testing for antibodies"
#
What I've read as recently as the last few days said that all available antibody tests are so wildly inaccurate as to be of negative value; one could as well save the money and just flip a coin for all the false positives/negatives the current antibody tests provide. I hope that changes soon. (Also critical is establishing how long one is immune if at all: there's a great range of immunity periods for different viruses. IIRC coronaviruses have shorter immunity periods than the majority of viruses.)

"New York seems to have had good results with police brutality persuading people to wear masks, unfortunate but remarkable."

OMG I don't know what to say. I agree unfortunate in the extreme; I primarily blame the alternative universe of rightwing newsmedia and the 'leaders' (lol) they serve. I also began this whole discussion by expressing a desire that such people be kept from harming others, so I can hardly disavow it. It sounds to me both like a nightmare, and no worse than what I've argued might need to be done and I was impatient about. But they're not blameless, they enabled and followed bad messages from bad leaders.

Anyway, I was happy to get to the end of @155, I think your heart is in the right place. I'm sorry I'd been angry with you for things you said before @155. Your @155 was a wonderful pivot I couldn't be happier about.

Curious, I'm handwaving the entire argument here to hone in on a simple misunderstanding- global capitalism, with the US dollar as the default currency, requires the sort of international debt arrangements that revenue hawks complain about. The US doesn't have such high levels of debt because it's irresponsible but rather because it's position at the center of global capital requires and permits it- this is the key of American exceptionalism. There is literally no other currency in the world in the same position, and the only alternative to joining this system is to close one's own country off to it (either through an alternative bloc like the USSR which no longer exists anywhere in the world or through a total closure like North Korea). I'm not making a moral argument here about when we choose to do revenue spending and when not, nor am I making a libertarian gold standard argument, nor something so simplistic as MMT which doesn't seem to consider imperialism and inflation etc. I'm talking quite simply about the way capital circulates in the world. It is impossible (this is just a fact) for the US dollar to be both the default currency in a unipolar world AND that the US could not be in debt. If you alter one, the other likewise collapses.

The arguments about the role of our government- the ethics behind it, etc- are irrelevant if you don't acknowledge the reality first. Our current system is based upon an internal contradiction between liberal democracy and global captitalism which was 'fixed' at Bretton Wood by capitalist border policy- namely that capital can cross borders in countries engaged in 'free trade' but that workers cannot. If you think through anyone's proposed solutions to the economy, you find this is what we are actually talking about when you get to the core of it, and it's the reason for US imperialism. The "fix" to this contradiction was social democracy in the states that benefit the most from this situation (such policies are impossible in other states) but as US hegemony starts to fade, this "fix" becomes more difficult to maintain in the benefiting states as well.

There are no sustainable solutions that maintain borders against workers but for capital that are compatible with liberal democracy. The best we could've done was extend it for a short time while we attempted to build a world order that is not based upon this contradiction in the first place as we move into a multi-polar world (in which trade is done increasingly in currency other than the dollar). We lost that battle, and now the solution will be the end of liberal democracy.

I understand the desire to talk about ethical arguments and discuss the purpose of government etc, and I embrace these conversations because without a shared vision it's difficult to know what to work towards, but we need to first have a clear understanding of the situation we are in- and there are objective realities involved that people are confused about in the first place.

I do not think the left has done a good job in articulating this. I do not know what else they could've done as we are dealing with a century of propaganda and mass media that obscure it.

@157 EmmaLiz
Wow I loved every drop of that. You obviously are more economically sophisticated than I am.

"such high levels of debt because it's irresponsible"

This is the only phrase I will quibble about in your first paragraph (which contradicts nothing I said). Just because I said we've borrowed for bad reasons (like tax cuts for the rich) doesn't not equate to my thinking our debt was all taken on for bad reasons. (I in fact have no idea how much of it we might end up agreeing was taken on for goods reason.[1])

As for the following paragraph's, I'm not sure I understand it's implications /or/ what it's relevant to.

As for the later: are you elaborating on your recently stated concerns about collapse (that's my guess), or are you pointing out a flaw in my idea of what the US gov't should be doing to economically sustain people?

As for the former: For starters, it seems like a far more sophisticated understanding of the half century of collapse I mentioned earlier (which the simple model in my head mostly boiled down to our capital going offshore where production went). And I guess you're pointing out that the ideals I have aren't feasible to implement in nations that don't (as will become the case here) "benefit the most from this situation". (That sounds right; I wish my country didn't choose decline; I think the global economy could have been called upon to lift other nations without most of this sacrifice the US chose politically.)

"the reason for US imperialism"

Yes; I hate to hear a POTUS talk about freedom in such contexts, since what it means is fighting to open markets so /our/goods/ are free to be sold there to benefit our companies.

[1] To go off on a tangent, I'm guessing that even if the structural considerations you cite weren't at play, the US government would be foolish to try to have zero debt. And on the other side of the coin, I heard Krugman tell an interviewer recently (in which he reminded me of that thing I mentioned about growing out of debt) something like that while there must be some theoretical upper limit to how much debt shouldn't be exceeded, that we've never, and even Japan a few decades back never, got anywhere near it.

/Break/
I feel positively guilty that anyone has or will read my giant Comment @156.

But still, I've been enjoying imagining being asked in response "who will be the people who need to keep working?". (I like thinking about such labor market questions, given my politics and experience in and study of the labor movement.)

Right now the reality is that there is competition for the jobs that must be done, because there are a far greater number of people facing extreme financial pain than there are jobs that must be done. This is an inhuman way to run a labor market in a deadly pandemic. People call them 'heroes' but that's the end of appreciation: not only have no regulations been promulgated specifying procedures to keep them safe, business incentive to protect workers has been removed by shielding them from lawsuits.

It is an interesting labor market question how jobs get filled if workers face the risk of a deadly pathogen, but non-workers are provided for during the pandemic. And that market issue isn't addressed by simply doing the humane thing of making the essential workers as safe as we can possibly make them with testing and PPE. And some method of certifying people as low-risk should also occur.

The simplistic answer is that it's appalling that the heroes doing the essential jobs now are only making the same insulting wages they always made (due to the competition for their jobs from all the other people facing starvation). I believe the appropriate concept is called hazard pay; some people will want to make more than guaranteed minimum wage even if the government has put all their risks on hold.

(Speaking of which, that putting all their risks on hold] would be a very complicated thing to do I imagine. Just for example people and employers owe rent, property owners are owed rent; I haven't seen a plan fleshed out: who would think time doing so well spent when it seems politically infeasible anyway? But some system could be devised to try to equalize the effects of a period of a pause in gain and loss throughout the system. It would be fair to see the greatest burden fall on those who could best afford it in the long run.)

But back to hazard pay. I've had to hire a couple people to do tasks that are far riskier than I should do. The first thing I did looking at their job listings was find someone who emphasized that they were doing everything they could to keep themself safe, because the last thing I want is for helping me to harm anyone. Then I paid them five times the rate they asked for.

Curious, " I've no longer been able to say(1) that I haven't been angry, and I'm really concerned that that is not a good thing for one's health and immunity. On top of that, while not here, I've been doing way too much typing lately and my carpal tunnel is threatening to flare"
I liked when you seemed to pay attention to being upset, and carpal tunnel pain as problems (try dvorak? helped a friend).

"I respect that on the other side of the coin of my anger with you, might be your anger against such statements of mine."
But I was sad when you seemed to continue to write when you were upset. I wish you'd blow me off instead of get upset, I agree anxiety is one of the worse dangers of covid isolation. I don't feel angry with you at all. A bit confused and worried about you. I thought it might help to say something like life sucks but we're all doing the best we can... It would be nice if the government could print out enough money to support the whole country during this crisis but I just don't think that's economically feasible. I'm not disagreeing to start a fight, I'm trying to say it'll be ok if we just do the best we can, it's what I gotta believe. Things have worked out so far. What is happening is important, but so is calmness, is my main idea I think.

Curious I have no problem with long posts. They help me clear out my own ideas which is my primary motivation (as selfish as that may be, this is the internet and people can easily skip my comments so I don't think I'm doing any harm and it is a need I have both to come to my only clarity without bothering people in real life and to sort of self-soothe a bit and to give me practice so that when I'm being strategic in my activism I can be more persuasive- to use a word of Philo's). I have no problem with other people's long posts either. I can see from Philo's that we have a fundamental difference of perspective that makes me just skim and not really respond. With your's, we're coming from a close enough place that it's interesting to me. But I know you didn't mean me specificallly- as for others, this is page two of a stale post, so I advice you not to feel bad about anything.

In response to your other question-- a bit of both. I'm saying that you have a fundamental lapse in terms of understanding why we are in the situation we are in, and I'm sorry that my own attempts to clarify (now and in our past conversations) have failed. This is partially because I havent' figured out how to explain it easily (though I've practiced several approaches here over the years) and partially because it's extremely complicated and while I understand it as I read books on the subjects or learn from better-qualified people, I have trouble articulating it later without those guides (another thing I've tried to do here over the years when the opportunity arose). So as I attempt to explain, I get some things wrong, make mistakes, draw conclusions that perhaps aren't airtight, and then it probably just confuses further as we are both learning. There are probably things that you too understand far better than I do which I'm not seeing, in addition to me seeing holes in your understanding which I know enough to see but not enough to fill. If that makes sense.

As for the other issue- what the government could've / should've done to respond directly to this moment, I agree with most of what you are saying but I disagree with your reasoning about why it was not done (which loops back to the first thing) as well what we, strategically as concerned citizens, can do about it in this moment.

In a lot of ways, watching these conversations over the last few years feels like watching people discuss whether or not we should do bloodletting or exorcism because they lack germ theory. And since I hardly have a grasp on it myself, it's been really hard to clarify anything to anyone else. In your case specifically it feels like watching someone discuss when to give the patient a soft bed and nourishing food- things that definitely will help the patient recover along with antibiotics but which are mostly irrelevant without them. So it doesn't interest me much to get into the details of what sort of soup to make the fellow, I want you to see there is bacteria in his body.

Doesn't anyone stop to wonder WHY it is that the US is the only rich developed country in the world that doesn't do those things you mention? That has a health care system like that? Like there are two possibiities- that we've just had a long series of really evil people in control and if we get rid of them we'll be alright OR being the hegemonic power at the center of this sort of global economic system by definition prevents those things.

I'd say if you are interested, then Varoufaki's Global Minotaur helped me see the big picture, as well as Dean Bakers Rigged (especially the charts at the beginning- it's free online), Arrighi's Twentieth Century, Paul Mason's Meltdown, and PIcketty's newest to the extent that I can read it, which isn't much. But just a close reading of the wiki page for Bretton Woods and the reason the US took the world off the gold standard and ushered in the neoliberal era is a nice place to start. I'm certainly not smart enough to really comprehend all these things- I tend to walk away with conclusions, sometimes I can feel the knowledge sliding out of my brain as I turn the page.

Also, government power is a tough question, should they have the power to arrest people for not wearing face masks, if it saves lives? Or should they respect individual freedom and simply call on compassion and spread the message that forgetting your face mask helps the virus kill people, so we should all rally against it, and rely on social stigma? Punish people who can't adapt or guard freedoms? Epidemiological policy reform is important too in the long term, in the short term I think they are simultaneously working on manufacture with testing to shorten time to access a vaccine.

@160 EmmaLiz
"Like there are two possibilities- that we've just had a long series of really evil people in control and if we get rid of them we'll be alright OR being the hegemonic power at the center of this sort of global economic system by definition prevents those things."

In this sentence I don't think you did a great job of outlining the "two possibilities". By which I mean the left side of the "OR" could be caused by (and have become increasingly impossible to change) by more than passing it off as a "we've just had" as though it was some sort of bad luck.

And I do think as I've said many times that it's become nearly impossible to change that; districts are gerrymandered so severely, and the electoral college and the Senate are so un-democratic, that the party less in thrall to business needs to win by a half dozen million votes or more to win congress or the Presidency.

And the media is so corporate, and has so indoctrinated the populace, that it's become nearly impossible for a candidate who isn't corporate to succeed. And if a historically attractive non-corporate candidate did come along, and did manage to withstand the assault they would get from the corporate media, they'd likely be killed.

In short I think that the real power isn't likely to be exerted by the people; I think the real power is corporate. And corporations are not interested in my principles of humanism, they're interested in the additional power they can get as defined as being humans themselves.

It seems to me that this all adds up to most of what's on the rightmost side of the "OR". Minus what you've been trying to make clear to me about a structural imperative due to the USA's position in the global economic system. Which seems like an additional but not necessary additional explanation on top of what I wrote above for the political situation.

@161 Philophile
You write a paragraph of questions, whereas I just wrote a billion words (in which I think my answers to your questions was discernible). So at this point I'll not restate my answers, perhaps even if you give yours.

@159 Philophile
"A bit confused and worried about you."

I feel the same way about you. The Philophile I knew wouldn't have tried to provoke me as I see you have.

"I just don't think that's economically feasible"

OK then fine we could have just agreed to disagree when you said that before @155. When you wrote @155:

"I don't see how the government can both maintain infrastructure and feed the people and support the majority of the country who can't work from home for a year, I don't even understand how we've been operating with our "normal" deficit."

I then trustingly took time and tried to show you how I "see" and "understand" those things. If you were really asking for an explanation with an open mind, that's cool, truly. I do hope you weren't just pretending to ask that time (unlike before and here @159), because I really did not want to spend time writing those long paragraphs of explanation if you were simply being diplomatic to say you "don't see...don't even understand" those things, when in actuality your position already was (as you'd said before that Comment @155 and are again saying now) that it's not "economically feasible". My hands and I didn't want to try to convince you for fun. But if you really were open, even though convincing you as one person would not change anything in the world, I was willing as your friend. In other words, it was absolutely not my desire to make that explanation for no real reason, and I only did it because that one time you seemed to be asking a question; please only ask me real questions; while that diplomatic statement might have consciously felt kind, I'm not happy that it seems to have tricked me into spending time on something for no reason.

In conclusion, as I explained at length, I think your belief that it's not "economically feasible" is dead wrong in every sense (figuratively, ethically, and pandemic-literally). And since you haven't given any explanation for why you believe it, I wonder if it's based upon anything but ideology. And I think both that belief and that ideology are not just wrong but have deeply evil effect upon the world.

Maybe we should try to be friends without treading on this topic further?

Curious, I'm sorry that my questions made you want to write more. I was trying to do the opposite overall, the questions were just to show what I had been wondering about and interested in, rather than arguing to open the economy based on open hospital beds, but I didn't mean to encourage you to type about it a lot! I'm glad that your response to me was shorter this time. I hope your carpal tunnel settles down. Thank you for your concern, I have emotional problems at the moment but practically I seem to be just fine, I feel very lucky. But I'm sure my bleeding heart is dripping around here, sorry about any mess.. (but you hurt me. please don't tell people that they provoke you. it's negative. I wasn't trying to hurt you and that made me feel bad. if someone is trying to provoke you, it's proof of their success and may encourage them to provoke further. likewise using language like I tricked you or I wasn't being sincere, it wasn't my intention so it seemed to be very aggressive and made me feel bad about our communication, but if it was my intention it would seem that advertising that you can be easily tricked into "spending time" is unwise.)

I don't really want to type a lot of economic debate, my sis studied poli sci and econ and it's really not my forte, and I really don't want to encourage you to write more on the topic. I would be interested in agreeing to be friends and dropping it. I hope you are well.

Dear Philophile, peace and love to you. My reluctance to get into it wasn't just about my hands, it was about hurting you. Namaste, from your friend,
curious

Thank you Curious, I appreciate your concern. Peace and love to you as well.