Interesting use of cute quotation marksā( ādeadly pestilenceā)
So you are mocking the severity of a virus thatās killed 450,000 Americans?
Actually, āDeadly Pestilenceā sounds like a kewl teevee-movie.
Or a āBarnaby Jonesā ep.
A first hand report here worth reading:
I donāt see a point of this thread if only certain viewpoints are permitted to be discussed. I feel bad for SB, not an easy situation to deal with. I appreciate that thereās at least one place on this global forum to talk about a thing thatās disrupting everyoneās lives, but if only certain people get to share their grievances, experiences, concerns, fears, or even opinions, I begin to have issues with it. I feel like there is justification for banning the topic entirely under the premise of it being BudgetLightForum, and the long standing rules prohibiting controversial topics. If milk toast and regurgitation of mainstream news stories is all thatās allowed, I feel like we donāt need it here.
I know I should just continue to keep my mouth shut and not share my 2 cents. Iāve ignored this thread about 85% of the time, and when Iāve indulged, it never seems to be a beneficial exercise.
I share this with respect for everyone and their individual experience and perspective. I wish this wasnāt so difficult.
Yeahā¦ā¦ Sb is definitely underpaidā¦. tough jobā¦ā¦
I believe the idea behind the rule, if Iām not mistaken, is to prohibit certain topics, not to prohibit any viewpoints about each topic that is permitted.
Thankless job it is too. Sbās done a great job IMO keeping the peace and still allowing us to mostly express our opinions. When he asked some time ago if we should eliminate this thread, I had mixed thoughts. Now Iām glad we didnāt. I like this thread as a place to blow off a little steam about what can be a volatile subject. Better here than buttin heads with somebody out in the street, donāt you think? JMO
Wellp, problem is that there are a lot of people (and make no mistake, on both sides), who simply Must Be Right, and will dog you ātil you drop. And aha!, you made a spelling error, so obviously your whole point of view is thus wrong and can be dismissed in its entirety, etc.
And like a dog with a chew-rag, they Just Wonāt Let Go. If they ācorrectā the slightest detail to try to poke holes in your arguments, that can descend into calling The Other Side things like idiots, evildoers, conspiracy theorists, Nazis, whatever.
And thatās just toilet-paper over vs under, crumple vs fold, āLaurelā vs āYanniā, you name it. Doesnāt need to be politix or religion or anything.
And this is why we canāt have Nice Things.
Not likely weāll ever get over that hump. you think?
+1, just gotta luv Bender bringin the Light.
Believe it or not, some people die every year from complications of the common cold.
I mock fear itself.
Isnāt that special.
I honestly haven't had to intervene as much as expected here. But just to reiterate:
So it's not that I allow certain viewpoints and not others. I'm not trying to promote my personal feelings on the above issues, and as a matter of fact I haven't even mentioned my viewpoint. I'm simply pragmatically broad-brush prohibiting anything that leads to controversy, whether it's purportedly based on science, conspiracy, opinion, ineptitude, or otherwise.
WOW! SB you nailed it once again. I have enormous respect for how well you have handled this forum!
Looking at your reasoned list of rules breaks my heart as I realize the reality of their inherent truth. Every point is a significant issue in our shared experience of a truly exceptional and profound event. Our society is currently in a state where such things simply can not be discussed without the discussion becoming corrosive rather than constructive.
Thanks for the all the effort you put in here SB. I appreciate and recognize how hard you try and I think youāre doing as well as anyone can a ask of one human being. I really donāt mean to insult your efforts with my comments. Itās my personal frustration with the concept of a growing list of things you shouldnāt talk about. It happens naturally, and predictably over time. Itās a futile fight against entropy IMO. I know itās not your intent, but if one strips all the red lettered subpoints of the pandemic from the discussion, thereās not much meat left to work with (again, YMMV). Thatās really my contention I suppose. And any bias present in this thread is not due to your interventions IMO, but rather the common viewpoints of a handful of participants that regularly feed it.
I hope my point is coming across clearly. Itās not really a call to any action, but more of a statement of how I view the current situation.
@JaredM: I understand, no offense taken. Maybe we should tweak the title of this thread then. Something like āCoronavirus news and experiences threadā. Any thread on BLF should serve the overarching goal of contributing somehow to this forum, and I still believe that there are enough commonalities in this worldwide issue to allow us to simply post our personal experiences and bring us together as a community. But thereās a fine line between ātellingā a personal experience and pontificating in favor of or against governmental measures that are anything but āpersonalā.
I feel like many people I meet are living in great fear of catching this thing, because they keep hearing how deadly it is supposed to be, and it seems like we are bombarded with a ton of fear-promoting news coverage every day. People shouldnāt have to live in fear all the time.
The odds of an individual dying of heart disease greatly exceeds the odds of dying from Covid-19, but we donāt live every day dreading it. Same with cancer, accidents, and a host of other more-likely-than-Covid causes of death. We put those things to the back of our minds; we might take normal precautions (eat right, look both ways at the intersection, etc.) but we donāt dwell on them daily. Yet we are virtually forced to dwell on Covid fear daily because the new number of cases and the latest death stats are always included in the daily MSM news. I think itās a harmful overreaction, and it strikes me as fear mongering on the mediaās part. Thatās why it is important to put the risk of Covid death in better perspective, so we can live our lives joyfully and to the full.
When I talk to people and they find out I had Covid over Christmas, their reaction is something like, āOMG, thatās horrible? Are you okay???ā Iām happy to tell them that it was no big deal, it felt like having flu and I recovered in short time, I was never afraid; I didnāt die from it, and even if you catch it, chances are that you wonāt die, either. Life is too short to be fearful day after day of āmaybeā and āwhat if.ā
With regard to the risk of dying from Covid-19 compared to other causes [EDIT: I just realized that this is arguably on the list of prohibited topics, so rather than respond on the topic introduced by another member, I will delete the rest of my post to comply with forum rules].