If we're picking sides, i am definitely not on the side that wishes Joe Rogan get more sick or (even better) die so they can win an arguement on the internet. So I wish him a speedy recovery.

When he does recover, because he's a white American multimillionaire who can afford the best healthcare that money can buy, it will be attributed to the horse worming tablets.

Medicine has intended and unintended benefits and side effects. nothing new, except the political smear on EVERYTHING making it hard do believe or trust anything.

And if he gets worse or dies it will be attributed to whatever the other side wants to push. "See, your conspiracy theory hero is dead! Now you will accept defeat and vaccine mandates. My treatment wins, your treatment loses!"

If he dies, it will clearly be a result of his recent interviews involving UFOs.

Oh gee, like, maybe we'll see something horrible and dramatic... like... hmm... let me exercise my imagination here... like a kid taking a gun to school and shooting up the place!

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's far too dark. Obviously nothing that terrible like that will happen.

But yeah, gotta look out for them kids, our concern for them is totally about our concern for them. We're not suddenly worried cause it fits with a narrative that's giving us warm fuzzies.

When my kid says "I'm sad I can't see my friends." I tell her she's perpetrating damaging COVID misinformation.

It's amazing the amount of Americans that will miss this fact. Similar to how Trump got better, and covid was nothing.

I wonder what you'd tell her if a friend died from COVID. If you were expected to send her to school after one of her friends there had died.

That's what a lot of kids face right now. Some with full awareness that decisions adults are making could lead to their own deaths, or that of someone close to them.

That's one way to raise psychopaths. Teach them there are more important things than remaining alive. Like being true to your tribe.

It'd be tragic and I'd help her manager her grief. Same way I'd send her to school on the bus even if one of her friends died in a fiery bus crash on the way to school.

Yes, life is precious, and living is precious. There's always risk.

How would you manage her anger and disgust at adults sending her into risky circumstances?

Would you be like "Yes, I know the bus driver is drunk half the time, but they mostly don't crash! There's always risk, kiddo!"

The thing that worries me the most about COVID - subjectively for me and my loved ones, not society as a whole - is the way long COVID seems to be basically catchable Alzheimers. Brain fog, memory problems. FUCK that shit.

To the extent she can grasp it, yeah it might go something like that. And that fear will be handled similarly when swimming in the ocean with sharks, crossing the road, eating food without chewing 20 times, running with scissors, et al. She needs my guidance with all of it, so if I betray her on any of it she will blame me.

If I explained to her that every person -- stranger or person she knows and trusts -- could be carrying the COVID lurgy, her distrust in everything would be assured.

You're treating all risk as equal with all efforts to mitigate risk as equally burdensome. Equating the random and unpredictable with much more known concerns.

What we teach our kids and what our kids learn are two different things. I think your kid is going to learn Daddy is afraid.

You may be right about that. In 2021 anyone who isn't afraid is doing very well.

Have you ever seen the movie Life is Beautiful? That's what you got me thinking about.

Watched it many years ago. Now, as a parent, I'm not going to subject myself to that story.

I'm not suggesting The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas!

I was thinking about the bravery, love and fun a father showed during a time of abject horror.

Once when I was very young, I remember walking into the kitchen as my mum was making dinner with 6 oclock news on. A story came on about how Australia was shrinking because of ocean levels rising. A big graphic showing how big Australia will be when the ocean was finished consuming it. My little brain took that information to mean that this was the end of the world, instantly burst into tears.

I despair for kids who are tuning into any news these days. Hour after hour of updates on a killer virus ravaging the planet. News reporters literally saying the world is ending, prepare for new world order. Being reminded constantly of the clear and present danger.

Our house has a zero COVID policy. That is to say we don't talk about it, we don't look at the news, no case number, nothing. Life is much happier this way.

Wasn't aware you were an ostrich, to bury your head in the sand. Surely it would be a better to have a conversation about the context? Sure don't cling to the stats, but to completely wilfully ignore seems as bad?

Having a conversation about it gives critical thinking tools that could shape understanding of conversations that your family can and will hear outside your home.

Man, wait until they hear about vacuum decay, they’ll shit bricks.

Well if they reported on it every hour we'd be convinced that is how we'll die.

I'm gassed out, man. My depression grows with reading more on this mess we're in. My happiness returns if I spend time looking after myself and family. We're in a small community, risk is minimal out here... I can safely ignore the pandemic.

From Florida Man hisself to Australia: Don't do a USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzqstDcb44I

My sympathies mate, I can understand running on nothing in the tank - been there, burnt the t-shirt, all very shit.

I think that last statement is not quite correct though: You can't safely ignore the pandemic. You've been lucky enough so far, but Delta only needs one case to get into your community from a delivery driver or similar then everything goes to shit.

YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, all that shit… quit it.

Good guy Seymour politicizing things & throwing Maori under the bus.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/polit...ne-access-code

Someone's got to pick up those voters National's shedding.

hard to argue with that

It's just one tool in the toolbox. It's not the best tool, but the best tools are for those with money.

Maori have a lot of good reasons to be unwilling to engage with government services. If we're going to get everyone vaccinated, with the limited resources available for those of us who aren't bright and shiny, we're going to need every tool we have, however clumsy they are.

Seymour is just doing his part to pit tribes against each other to generate political support.

If anything you could call it out for virtue signalling. It's a nice show that the government is doing their bit to help Maori out.

Although then again, how does the government make more substantive efforts while dodging the Mob? Cause that's not allowed, right?

Not hard at all. It's the same unscientific conservative rhetoric you see when Maori don't do as well in education or voter participation and the like. You can't just set a system up that ignores a groups unique cultural needs and then blame this group for not engaging.

It's sick. It's some Dom Brash Orewa shit.

"Dom" Brash... bad mental images.


Not only ignores the cultural aspects, but also ignores the lack of privilege (eg education) and bias (and yes, bigotry) that often hinders or outright prevents Maori from EG taking advantage of easier access to vaccines.

Now I'm feeling the whitely guilt because I selected weeks ago to book (with my middle aged man heart condition escalation, not the Seymour code) both of my appointments at the local marae, because at the time, it was the closest, and gave me an opportunity to have a look at a place I don't normally get to.

Now it turns out I may have stopped a vulnerable person who may have felt more at home, and should have driven across town to the other side of the tracks to the mass vaccination centre at the airport. Or heaven forbid, my local GP.

For what it's worth, both of my appointments ran like clockwork - extremely well organised, plenty of information, and really friendly staff. A++ would get booster.

Being ignored or getting special attention because an ideology has determined you are special needs. Both approaches are equally repulsive.

An ideology hasn't determined anything it's called looking at outcomes. Or reality if you like.

Also equality is not the same as equity. Some people have unequal access to different systems because of different needs. There's nothing repulsive about having different needs and using a different approach to accommodate for these needs.

If, for example, I - a middle-class university-educated professional - am able to jump a vaccination queue and get medical assistance ahead of a poor pakeha because I can play the brown card and she can't, that's a problem with the queue.

The government initiatives to address inequality are always born in a boardroom with someone’s shitty powerpoint presentation of cherry picked research. Then the initiative becomes a reality when it goes out to tender and some subcontractor’s spiffy proposal is picked because its very convincing in its methodology to address cultural inequality.

Budget spent, job done.

We arent allowed to come up with the solution without government getting in the way. Non sequitur but bringing back to COVID: Rapid at home test kits are banned for private sale and use in Australia. I personally would prefer to test myself in the safety (safer than meeting someone in a tent who has been greeting sick people all day) and privacy (more private than my details stored on a subcontractor’s database) of my home, then make an informed decision on leaving the house to risk infecting others. But no, the government needs to centralise all initiatives, data and decision making

Special attention in this case being about equality of outcome, not necessarily equality of opportunity.

Because the Maori are more vulnerable on a harm-per-infection basis AND have lower vaccination rates (and there's a lot to unpack as to why, but that's a separate topic) it's a move toward equality of outcome to promote - via code or otherwise - Maori to the head of the queue.

Equality of opportunity (despite there being no actual such thing) is the angle Seymour is coming from - who cares if the outcomes are fair, as long as the opportunity initially is fair.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders have similar issues with Covid - statistically worse outcomes - which is why (surprisingly) there are Aussie government initiatives to proactively get them vaxxed down to (currently) age 12 & similar promotion within the communities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kagHipSkuuI

Looks like Henare has thrown Maori leaders under the bus for the lack of uptake of getting their shots for their people.

@StN, go pay them a koha if you're feeling guilty. 2k should be enough to absolve you of your white guilt.

If you're playing the brown card because it makes you statistically more vulnerable (just like I played the diabetic card) vs a poor but white person that is otherwise healthy? That's actually sensible. Being in a more vulnerable group should cause your vaccination to be prioritized.

Now if there were issues with the poor white person that puts them in a vulnerable group - heart issues, diabetes, etc - then they should be equivalent in priority, and it then becomes an issue around equality of opportunity because there is equality of outcome.

If given the above, but their being poor means less likely to receive the vaccination due to opportunity (knowledge, time, availability etc) versus you being middle class, educated and also brown, then there is no equality of opportunity once again, so things targeting them to redress that lack of opportunity are appropriate, and in that area, that is where NZ is dropping the ball on an otherwise pretty fair and balanced response.

All this wrangling of course is because we're not willing to invest in our communities, so those in need are expected to fight each over who is most deserving of the scraps.