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Priscilla
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PostSubject: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySat 28 Mar 2020, 18:08

This will be a vintage year for blame and hindsight which has already begun. Never comfortable about awarding or believing blame because one never has all the facts nor understands the full picture or circumstances... and blame is so detructive. I put this in the Res Hist ethics section for that reason.

Anyone have thoughts on blame in this or in other historical circumstances for a Res Hist chew rag?
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySat 28 Mar 2020, 18:47

It depends - for example if blame is attributed in hindsight to someone who others using foresight already knew would earn it anyway, what does that say about those who find that it is only with hindsight they can agree with them?

Unwarranted blame is terribly destructive, I agree, and depending on the motive can even be interpreted as malice or evil. Warranted blame however is a little of each - constructive if associated with measures taken to avoid repetition of that blame being earned again by another, destructive if undertaken for its own sake with no lesson learnt from the effects of the action for which blame was cast, either by the blamed or the blamer.

History suggests that blame, assigning responsibility to persons for actions deemed detrimental, plays a huge role when it is necessary as part of the process of establishing more equitable and just societies. If people are perpetually to be held blameless for their actions, even those which hurt or damage those around them, and even only if such blame is cast with the benefit of hindsight after the damage has been realised, on what principle then does any system of justice lie?
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySat 28 Mar 2020, 19:23

Priscilla wrote:
This will be a vintage year for blame and hindsight which has already begun. Never comfortable about awarding or believing blame because one never has all the facts nor understands the full picture or circumstances... and blame is so detructive. I put this in the Res Hist ethics section for that reason.

Anyone have thoughts on blame in this or in other historical circumstances for a Res Hist chew rag?

 
Yesterday, Priscilla, there was a question to the usual virologist appearing in the news. What about the youngsters, who have gathered to make an "lockdown party" just hours before the lockdown. Some have now the Corona virus and are in the hospital on the Covid section in which each hospital is now divided apart from the normal sections. They are, if you think about it, an unneccessary burden for the already exposed personel and as such one could nearly blame them for not only putting their own life in danger, but also the life of the personel, who are there to do their job. Buy the virologist replied that whatever their past they are just patients as others and thus treated as such.

As nordmann said: after the end of the recent pandemic there will be studies about what factors are to blame for the disaster and certainly the reaction of the goverments in the several countries will be a part of the study.

I suppose such leaders as a Bolsonaro from Brazil, who is in my opinion, in some fields even worser than Trump...
As I mentioned the guy to nordmann today...
"And then you have Bolsonaro, even compared with Trump...
https://time.com/5810902/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-governors-coronavirus/ "

If they don't blame him in the scientifical study after the end, I don't known anything anymore about independent research.
But I think, as nordmann replied:
"The Brazilian case is simply bizarre. This, as well as others like the USA and the UK, will probably finally seal the fate of overtly populist regimes as they recently manifested themselves once things get back to normal. But I am not so foolish as to think that populism itself has taken a hard knock. When global  economic depression becomes our new norm all the usual doors to such developments will have been flung wide open."


Such populists I add are that stupid that as in the time, they will never admit that it is their fault and their leader's one. They will flatly deny even that 1 and 1 makes 2...and in depression times as in the 1930 crisis the gates are open for a populist revival as we have seen in 1933 after an apparently first decline of the Nazi party in Germany...


Kind regards from Paul.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySat 28 Mar 2020, 19:27

Crossed posts nordmann.

I learned again from your message.

Kind regards, Paul.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 08:04

Paul, I think Priscilla was motivated to pose the question based on an earlier comment I made in another thread. If not, I apologise for my presumption, but her query certainly addresses whether my previously stated hope that certain people in authority are held accountable for their failure to properly address this current pandemic, or worse, those who actually chose to profit from it at the expense of remediating it should be identified immediately, constitutes prejudice or pre-judgement on my part.

In her question, posed under a title "2020 Hindsight" (clever title) she makes an ethical query regarding premature judgement made before one has all the facts or knows all the circumstances. And this is certainly a valid ethical query - one that courts of law address on a daily basis when preponderance of evidence often has to form the basis of a judgement because all the facts ideally required to form that opinion are not present for deliberation.

However her thread title and the query she poses are not the same thing of course. Hindsight is used to refer to when one, often belatedly, makes a judgement based on facts, though is normally used in situations where these facts were learnt too late to avert something injurious from having occurred. Premature judgement is the exact opposite, being made before one has learnt these facts, or even before the full extent of any crime has been committed or realised, let alone unequivocally proven. In terms of criminality one is judgement made long after the nature of the crime should have been reasonably understood and the activities of its agency equally well recognised, the other is acting when only the nature of the crime is fully understood but before that of the agency has been completely ascertained.

Both address wisdom and experience. The hindsight expression points to wisdom learnt too late despite the accruing evidence having pointed to a judgement that could, and by implication should, have been made earlier. The premature judgement concept points to unwisely forming an opinion, especially regarding guilt or blame and which carries consequences affecting the welfare of the person judged, before all pertinent evidence is sufficiently examined, and which therefore carries an unacceptably high potential for being incorrect.

But this is not an ethical query confined to these polar opposites. In fact so polar are these opposites that both in fact share the quality of advertising plainly where they lie in the ethical spectrum related to guilt and blame. However in the real world the wish to employ wisdom when judging such issues may indeed be a constant, but the actual ethical question, one that is so variable as to merit reassessment almost on a case by case basis, relates most often to the timing of an intervention based on ethical compunction. At what point, in other words, is seemingly prejudicial behaviour actually an astute application of wisdom, in fact a judgement undertaken justifiably early and knowingly without full contextual circumstances having been assessed, and then applied in order to prevent further injury being caused? And if this is to be allowed in our society (which it is of course - police who can intervene based on suspicion and legal procedures which assign a quality of verity to circumstantial evidence are predicated on this) then how do we guarantee as much as we can that "wisdom" has prevailed in the process?

The answer to this is almost impossible to narrow down to one distinct method, but one of these methods has to be the application of wisdom learnt from previous experience to a current situation. This is a completely normal function of intelligent human behaviour that, while not infallible, has proven itself more often than not to be so effective that it has become instinctive at an individual level and replicated through agreed process at a social level. Put simply, we allow ourselves to make valid judgements regarding blame and guilt based on factors outside those directly related to or unique to any one particular case in hand. In doing that we avoid having to tediously reconstruct and examine the entire personal context of the wrong-doer before making a judicial decision, and can pass that judgement with confidence if enough aspects to their behaviour are recognisable and accountable according to the wisdom we have accrued from prior experience.

There is a separate ethical consideration related to legality. Profiteering, for example, is often conducted quite legally, even if by all other ethical standards the behaviour may be regarded as generally reprehensible. Profiteering leading to unnecessary injury, if injury is proven, may even lead to an accordance between its perceived immorality and actual legal sanction. Profiteering leading to unnecessary death, one would hope, even more so. Profiteering involving wilfully causing death, one would sincerely hope, should never avoid legal sanction and punishment.

Which brings us back to hindsight versus "premature" judgement. At what point, based on unfolding evidence, are we ethically obliged to pass judgement as individuals, even long before any of the social processes we have devised can be called into play, or even in the knowledge that these processes may in fact never be invoked? This arises very often in fact, especially when the unethical behaviour is being exercised by those who also control those processes.

My own view is that we are in such a situation right now. People are dying. Many of these deaths, even without having to wait for the benefit of hindsight, were preventable. Those who could have prevented them chose courses of behaviour that contributed to these deaths, and even guaranteed these deaths. And some of those have even profited from their actions. And that's all occurring before even the full and terrible extent of the consequences of their actions has been realised. Is it pre-judgemental to acknowledge the identity of these individuals in the hope that at some future date they account for their actions? Personally, based on what I hope is the common wisdom underlying all matters of justice, I do not see it as prejudicial on my part to exercise personal judgement now, even if it is deemed "early" in terms of the extent of the consequences of their crime.

For what it's worth, the UK has already seen a vivid example of this ethical question being addressed outside the courts. Tim Martin, owner of Britain's largest chain of public houses, a man who shamelessly profited from social division caused by the Brexit debacle over the last few years to the extent that he very publicly encouraged and engineered it while seeing his clientele grow and revenues increase as a result, who then attempted to force his 43,000 employees and to encourage his millions-strong customer base into exposing themselves to potentially fatal harm in recent weeks until he was legally forced to stop doing so (and for a week or so capitalised hugely from this artificial near-monopoly), and who then announced that he was letting his entire work force go with no pay whatsoever, performed a spectacular U-turn a few days ago when his odious behaviour was called out almost unanimously (and most importantly for Martin even by his own customers) and "allowed" that his staff would indeed receive 80% of their salary. Technically Martin came close to but never quite broke the law throughout this. Technically those who vandalised his pubs and daubed slogans such as "Pay Your Staff" on them are criminally liable for their actions. However I am in no doubt as to which side holds the ethical ground here, and also that a failure to amass all the "facts and circumstances" that Martin may allude to later in his defence in no way invalidated such early judgement being exercised.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 12:19

nordmann, thanks for the reply. 
Not easy to read your essay. One has to be attentive to read your prose and many times reread the paragraphs (especially I Wink ) to catch the exact meaning and logic behind them. But as usual I haven't found a failure in your reasoning and logic. 

And yes as I see it, it will be a difficult question after the end of the pandemic to judge how well or not governments and their leaders have reacted in face of the upcoming pandemic. If you take now the example of Sweden that I read about today. With all the experience that we have till today, is it ethical...
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/health-52075983/coronavirus-sweden-s-life-as-normal?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld&link_location=live-reporting-map

And by the way, the granddaughter in Zurich says that it was perhaps not possible for governments to start immediately with a lockdown for sociological reasons, despite all the examples they had seen from China and Italy.

And by the way, in your last paragraph you point as an example, of all the culprits in the world, to a certain Tim Martin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Martin_(businessman)
Can it be that you have something against Englanders or is it against Brexiteers...?

Kind regards, Paul.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 12:26

Well, there's none so blind as those who won't see; even those who would appear - by dint of their intelligence and education -  to have "perfect vision". I often ask myself these days: "How can such an intelligent man - or woman - be so stupid?" But then, as ever, one should check one's own dungeon.

According to the psychiatrists who claim to know about these things, 20% of the human race are total bastards, being self-serving, manipulative and entirely without scruple. Bias of Priene was not so generous - pleistoi anthropoi kakoi - which I believe (I have no Greek) means "most men are bad". The Greek was right, I suspect: I suppose the trick is recognising one's own badness.

Are some nations worse than others in the badness/stupidity stakes or is the distribution pretty even world-wide? Answers on a disinfected postcard please.
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nordmann
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 12:33

PaulRyckier wrote:


And by the way, in your last paragraph you point as an example, of all the culprits in the world, to a certain Tim Martin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Martin_(businessman)
Can it be that you have something against Englanders or is it against Brexiteers...?

Kind regards, Paul.

I chose an example that the British here would readily recognise. And yes, the two debacles having come so close together in time within the UK are generally featuring the same cast of prominent public figures, with individuals behaving and speaking in remarkably similar ways regarding each of these existential crises (as I see them). Martin exemplifies this more than most, but he is by no means the only individual whose recent behaviour is not only characteristically the same in both sets of circumstances, but the potential ramifications of which have now become overtly deadly, rather than just injurious to the economic welfare of their fellow citizens.

I do not deny therefore that you have identified a prejudice on my part. However it is a prejudice I regard as justified, and for far more noble reasons than those who I willingly accuse could ever pretend to muster in their own defence. Were I English myself I imagine I would in fact be even more prejudicial in this respect, not less.

Temp, I think from your comment you are in danger of confusing "bad" actions conducted through ignorance and those performed intentionally for selfish gain and other base motive. Hindsight might well be the only prism through which we can fairly judge the former when all this is over, and we may even forgive those found to have been guilty of such deadly ignorance (history would suggest in fact that this may even be the most intelligent course of action for the sake of social cohesion and recovery afterwards). But hindsight is not necessary to identify the latter, they are evident from their actions right now, and the risk of being dismissed as "prejudicial" should not deter individuals from taking appropriate action to identify both the criminal and the crime before the consequences of their actions acquire even more deadly impact on those around them.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 14:07

Thank you nordmann for your clarification.

Kind regards, Paul.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 14:30

Temperance wrote:

Are some nations worse than others in the badness/stupidity stakes or is the distribution pretty even world-wide? Answers on a disinfected postcard please.

Yes, is the simple answer that I will gladly submit on my (probably pointlessly) disinfected postcard to both of those alternatives. While malice and stupidity are probably distributed in universal proportions throughout the world the potential for these human failings to corrupt an effective response to the pandemic has been markedly varied when looked at on a country by country basis. The more either has been seen to manifest itself within the higher echelons of power in any country the more disastrous and lethal that country's resulting maladministration has so far proven to be. Countries led by people whose primary motive in achieving power is amassing capital for themselves and their friends have been particularly exposed (in every sense of the term unfortunately).

The trick so far seems to have been to have enough selfless and intelligent people running the show so that Bias's "wicked" people have less opportunity to endanger the lives of others. No country has emerged with this ratio completely in place, but some certainly have already shown that they are hopelessly off the pace, an unfortunate equation at the best of times and a potentially lethal one in current circumstances.
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Temperance
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 17:14

nordmann wrote:
The trick so far seems to have been to have enough selfless and intelligent people running the show so that Bias's "wicked" people have less opportunity to endanger the lives of others.

Well, who would wish to argue with that - the view articulated by Cicero that "virtu" - vigour, courage, prowess - in a leader or indeed in a nation, consists especially of always acting honourably and morally?Integrity is always the wisest policy?

But has "the trick" ever worked? Who can find a virtuous politician? Has one ever been found? Surely that classical view - the "high Roman fashion" (hollow laugh) - was shattered by Machiavelli? "It is inconceivable that any ruler could actually be "virtuous" in a world dominated by men who are not good - and survive for long." The selfless and intelligent people are usually the first to be ditched.

You have misunderstood why I mentioned Bias, but no matter - I won't go down that road today. Maybe after another 10 days of house arrest.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 17:44

Temperance wrote:

But has "the trick" ever worked? Who can find a virtuous politician? Has one ever been found?

Ah, but selflessness and intelligence in our political leaders need only emerge at a particular moment of national need, and may indeed be motivated as much by a sense of bog standard self preservation on their part as by anything more classically altruistic. Distressed and dismayed that the politician is not also a paragon of virtue by nature is, as you say, rather like criticising the medic who has arrived to scrape your crumpled and bloodied form off the tar after being run over by the proverbial bus and being disappointed that they've worn black trousers with beige shoes.

Temperance wrote:

You have misunderstood why I mentioned Bias, but no matter - I won't go down that road today. Maybe after another 10 days of house arrest.

Please tell me it wasn't the standard undergraduate "joke" when the Seven Sages get their first mention on the Ancient Philosophy course ....
... no, I know you're made of better stuff than that.

Speaking of better stuff, one thing I am sure we will all only fully appreciate in hindsight after the pandemic is how the handicap of ignorance was so quickly overcome by people, regardless of formal education levels or lack thereof - in the sense that almost 8 billion people, once placed so suddenly and traumatically on an amazingly steep learning curve, and once given reliable information to process as well as the basic machinery of survival required to put into immediate practice what up to a few weeks ago had been so fundamentally and esoterically theoretical, applied common sense intelligently to solve a huge problem.

Or at least the portion of that 8 billion who weren't being led by donkeys, that is, which admittedly will more likely - in hindsight - have proved to be somewhat lower a total.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 17:58

I don't know the joke - I've never done an Ancient Philosophy course.

Being led by donkeys would be infinitely preferable to being led by jackals. I like donkeys - in their place.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptySun 29 Mar 2020, 18:04

I agree. But when jackals disguise themselves as donkeys and start doing the leading then things get rather nasty indeed ...

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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyMon 30 Mar 2020, 11:15

But, tactfully steering the discussion away from Perfidious Albion and her reprehensible response to just about anything, be it Bug or Brexit, what historical instances have there been of "I told you so!"? Did Winston Churchill, for instance, ever have a good old gloat at Chamberlain's disastrously idealistic "peace" policies - in public, that is?

PS I looked up "perfidious Albion" on Wiki as I was not sure where the expression was first used. I found this which made me laugh:



The catch-phrase was further popularized by its use in La Famille Fenouillard, the first French comic strip, in which one of the characters fulminates against "Perfidious Albion, which burnt Joan of Arc on the rock of Saint Helena" - carried away by his Anglophobic fury, the character mixes up Joan of Arc with Napoleon, who was exiled to the British island of Saint Helena.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyMon 30 Mar 2020, 12:39

What one learns here everyday, Temperance.

"perfidious Albion" never ever thinking that it could have been "such" an explanation...

Kind regards from Paul.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyMon 30 Mar 2020, 13:10

The expression has a long history, Paul. I just liked the idea of Joan of Arc being confused with Napoleon.

The coinage of the phrase in its current form, however, is conventionally attributed to Augustin Louis de Ximénès, a French playwright who wrote it in a poem entitled L'Ère des Français, published in 1793:


Attaquons dans ses eaux la perfide Albion.Let us attack perfidious Albion in her waters.



Someone recently said we are now "Perfidious Albion on speed" - not sure if the remark was made by a member of the Tory party (as a boast), or by a member of the EU (as an accusation). Alas, could so easily be either.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyWed 01 Apr 2020, 08:58

Nobody - here or elsewhere - mentions Sweden. Is the approach of that nation's government - no lockdown - irresponsible and foolish, a calculated risk, or simply the honest answer to what just cannot be controlled, however much we try to fool ourselves? The Swedes are carrying on regardless, and, so far, seem to be getting away with a very maverick policy which even Trump was warned to drop. Time and hindsight will tell whether Sweden was sitting on a timebomb which exploded with a vengeance during April 2020, or whether the  "let herd immunity develop policy"  advocated here by Dominic Cummings (who now, like the rest of us, is coughing badly at home, the virus being no respecter of "intelligence" and woolly hats) was actually the only answer. We are, as we arrogant humans hate to admit, probably quite helpless - hot, soapy water being our only friend. Just pray your immune system is firing on all four cylinders - even if you are young and apparently pretty fit -  and that you have survivor genes.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyWed 01 Apr 2020, 09:30

Sweden has been a real worry to all its neighbours, though in the last day or two has itself begun belatedly to apply the same social distancing and lockdown protocols. Its strategy was based on the fact that it had calculated it possessed, per capita, about three times the ICU capacity of Germany, about twice the laboratory testing facilities per capita of Germany, and by far the best doctor/patient ratio in Europe. It was gambling on a policy of macro-containment in that schools, kindergartens, workplaces etc - as long as monitoring and testing was thorough and immediate - were just as effective as households in quantifying spread, identifying cases, and imposition of extra controls.

They were probably correct in that bit of the calculation, but this commitment came with a presumption that other aspects of "normal" social behaviour could also be maintained for the sake of the economy and that people themselves would self-regulate to the extent that limitations would naturally develop without the need for official edict (an important part of Swedish society values). This didn't happen, and indeed couldn't happen in some crucial aspects such as use of public transport, natural congregation of people in urban areas, and other unavoidable consequences of keeping society mobile.

So very different from Cummings stupid "herd immunity" theory that required a tenth of the population to die for the rest to survive, or whatever the hell that genius was dreaming up for his subjects (Britain has become a really weird country in recent years - Cummings being something of a poisoned dwarf representation of its worst aspects at the moment). Sweden was gambling on being able to treat the 10% immediately with existing resources. They're in the process now of reversing that policy based on "new" medical advice from within, the numbers now known to be have been seriously flawed. Being Sweden, this involves rather more consultation and consensus in the decision making processes politically, but even this is going out the window this week, as far as I can tell from the daily news here.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyWed 01 Apr 2020, 09:53

Temperance,

learned again today about "perfidious Albion" from a source even less expected...that Ximénès...although all his setbacks, rolled from one role in another and nevertheless had "some" life?

Temp, I mentioned already Sweden to nordmann on Sunday...I, personally find it still not a good idea, while logically if you make closer contact possible the possibility of exposure to the germ is augmented. Perhaps reckons the Swedish government on self discipline...or thinking that restriction will fuel just the tendency to break the rules?
I prefer the rules from overhere and the control with fees for the offenders...as I know the unruly people from overhere, it is the best way...and as I know my compatriots, they are especially motivated if they have to pay money...it worked overhere for the speedcontrol, while the increase of the "pakkans" (chance of being caught) resulted after an end in less infractions...

Kind regards from Paul.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyWed 01 Apr 2020, 10:15

There is a marked difference between how the media here in Norway has portrayed Sweden's initial policies to counter the epidemic and how it has been reported elsewhere, and some countries - such as the UK and Ireland whose news I follow closely - have been guilty of some rather misinformed reportage, especially in neglecting to refer to Sweden's superior ability over many others to invoke a "rapid response" healthcare regime. This was the basis of its "macro-containment" strategy, and in Norway was being criticised more for its contagion vector effect on neighbours than for it having possibly miscalculated these vectors within its own society. Elsewhere it was being ignorantly portrayed as a version of the UK's horrendous policy of a few weeks ago of so-called "herd immunity".

As it turns out, miscalculation had occurred, especially with regard to contagion rates versus remedial case handling opportunities, and the initial presumed economic benefits of "macro-containment" have, as in everywhere else, therefore been rather suddenly abandoned as wishful thinking and quite drastically reversed, though as of today still not at quite the rate that many - even in Sweden - would wish.

We're all looking at the numbers in Sweden quite closely, not just to see what its perpetuation of relaxed mobility controls beyond the European standard reveals about community spread figures, but also what its superior testing and remediation figures reveal about countries' ability to manage the epidemic while at near-peak on the "flattened curve" we are all striving to achieve. Had other countries who also extended this period, such as the UK, also possessed this capability then the data would have been even more invaluable to epidemiologists, Unfortunately they didn't, so all we have learnt from them is what we already knew - that an unmanaged epidemic spreads at exponential rates.
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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyWed 01 Apr 2020, 12:00

Temperance wrote:
But, tactfully steering the discussion away from Perfidious Albion and her reprehensible response to just about anything, be it Bug or Brexit, what historical instances have there been of "I told you so!"? Did Winston Churchill, for instance, ever have a good old gloat at Chamberlain's disastrously idealistic "peace" policies - in public, that is?

PS I looked up "perfidious Albion" on Wiki as I was not sure where the expression was first used. I found this which made me laugh:



The catch-phrase was further popularized by its use in La Famille Fenouillard, the first French comic strip, in which one of the characters fulminates against "Perfidious Albion, which burnt Joan of Arc on the rock of Saint Helena" - carried away by his Anglophobic fury, the character mixes up Joan of Arc with Napoleon, who was exiled to the British island of Saint Helena.
Reminiscent of


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"Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain? Brave Hungarian peasant girl who forced King John to sign the pledge at Runnymede and close the boozers at half past ten! Is all this to be forgotten?"
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PaulRyckier
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PaulRyckier

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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyWed 01 Apr 2020, 14:28

Thanks Gil, for these quotes.

I had however to look, who Tony Hancock was...
I only know one Hancock and his "brother" Von Däniken...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock

but now I learned today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hancock

In the wiki I had some difficulties with the sentence:
"Freddie Hancock survived her broken marriage and resumed her career as a prominent publicist and agent in the film and television industry."


Asked myself: Who is that "Freddie Hancock" now again? But thanks to the addition in the sentence of "her" I could reconstruct the narration, after reading the whole paragraph two times anew...for people like I  Embarassed, it would perhaps better that one adds: Freddie Hancock (née Ross) and btw: I first thought that Freddie was a man...but thanks to the word "her"...


Kind regards, Paul.
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PaulRyckier
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PaulRyckier

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Location : Belgium

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PostSubject: Re: 2020 Hindsight   2020 Hindsight EmptyFri 03 Apr 2020, 11:20

I saw yesterday with "half" an eye some English language documentary with Dutch subtitles on my partner's TV set. It was on one of our "local" Dutch language channels. I thought it was a recent documentary about the Corona virus and a study about the rapid propagation of the virus in an English town and a mathematical study with volunteers and a "virtual" virus...

But no, I see now, it isn't a recent documentary, but one from BBC Four and in Haslemere by the mathematician DR Hannah Fry...
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/haslemere-site-simulated-virus-outbreak-13721264
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8219352/



Kind regards, Paul.
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