
Are Protests Dangerous? What Experts Say May Depend on Who’s Protesting What - Reedx
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/Epidemiologists-coronavirus-protests-quarantine.html
======
hpoe
>Those who protested stay-at-home orders were “rooted in white nationalism and
run contrary to respect for Black lives,” the letter stated.

I feel like we've gotten to a point where "white nationalism" has become a
code word for "anyone the disagrees with me" I agree white nationalism and
racial justice is an important topic, but by arbitrarily labeling everyone who
disagrees as a "white nationalist" it seems to be an intellectually dishonest
way of refusing to engage with their arguments and the ultimate example of an
"ad hominen" attack. Plus it makes it hard to figure out where to really focus
attention because to quote Syndrome "If everyone is a [white nationlist] then
no one is".

Am I alone on this, or do we really believe everyone that doesn't agree with
one side is secretly just trying to bring back Jim Crow?

~~~
MisterTea
Two sides of the same coin. They are the same as the highly vocal opposition
who use the same tactics. These are people who can't think for themselves and
are comfortable with herd mentality. They love the concept of teams and
beating the other team is the only goal, even if it means murder. They are
easily manipulated and social media has enabled these "teams" to get their
tentacles right into the pocket of every person on this planet. And you wonder
why we have a political cesspool.

> Am I alone on this, or do we really believe everyone that doesn't agree with
> one side is secretly just trying to bring back Jim Crow?

Watching a video of a black man being choked to death by a police officer, on
camera, certainly makes me feel that we haven't completely eliminated Jim
Crow.

~~~
rbecker
> Watching a video of a black man being choked to death by a police officer,
> on camera, certainly makes me feel that we haven't completely eliminated Jim
> Crow.

The USA is a big country, and you can have your pick of instances of police
brutality to support any conclusion you want to draw.

A white man choked to death, on camera, while police laugh? Here you go:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/01/police-
laug...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/01/police-laughed-
joked-he-lost-consciousness-handcuffs-minutes-later-he-died/)

A white six-year-old shot to death by two black police, one of whom only
served 21 months in jail for it? Coming right up:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jeremy_Mardis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jeremy_Mardis)

Multiple studies showing police killings (though not violence) are not, on
average, racially biased?
[http://jewishworldreview.com/0620/hughes061620.php3](http://jewishworldreview.com/0620/hughes061620.php3)

Will this change your mind? No it won't:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23757135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23757135)

~~~
mindslight
Yes, unaccountable police are a problem for _all races_. But if you're
actually concerned with reform, then you have to agree that Black Lives Matter
is doing a fantastic job leading the charge.

~~~
rbecker
Fantastic, as long as you ignore how whites are being cast as villains in a
country where they are becoming a minority, and anyone who brings up
statistics refuting this is denounced.

Historically, such a situation always worked out _great_.

~~~
mindslight
I do not agree that Whites are being "cast as villains" by a significant
portion of the BLM movement. I do agree that the few who _are_ doing so are in
the wrong. But it's all too easy to write off an entire group by focusing on a
few social-media-amplified outliers.

~~~
rbecker
True, it's hard to get an unbiased picture, especially from abroad - is "White
silence = violence" such an outlier?

But in either case, I wouldn't write BLM off - just because I think they're
wrong about _some_ of the racial stuff, doesn't mean I think the rest of their
platform is without merit.

------
at_a_remove
>"I certainly condemned the anti-lockdown protests at the time, and I’m not
condemning the protests now, and I struggle with that," Dr. Troisi said. "I
have a hard time articulating why that is OK."

and

>"But we have to be honest: A few weeks before, we were criticizing protesters
for arguing to open up the economy and saying that was dangerous behavior. I
am still grappling with that."

Sounds like "I do not yet have a justification for why that was okay in one
case and not in another." However, tune in later as the rationalization
machine grinds out a "reason;" I recollect it was a couple of weeks before the
memeplex came up with some kind of explanation for why Rachel Dolezal wasn't
trans-racial. Despite being told that singing and chanting for a religious
function was a great way to spread the virus, apparently protest yelling and
chanting carries no such risk. We're just waiting to hear _why_ , and at some
point you can be sure a meme/justification will be along to tell us.

Let's face it -- the messaging as to what was okay and what was not okay was
political, which has been par for the course for the whole COVID-19 response.
Masks are ineffective, don't buy masks, there's no human-to-human
transmission: we all remember these important messages delivered with surety
and gravitas.

I've heard a saying that goes "Never let a good crisis go to waste." I think
this particular crisis has not gone to waste, as various parties have made
quite a lot of hay.

No wonder people have so little faith in science. We've _earned it_.

------
ravenstine
If people can gather in the tens of thousands with masks on for a cause, then
why couldn't we celebrate July 4th with our masks on? Why does the state get
to sponsor a political movement? How dangerous can this virus be if we're
willing to allow mass protests, looting, and "autonomous" zones? All it can
take is <1% of a crowd to pull down their masks to sneeze to spread the virus
and kill more people.

> A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found _no
> overall rise in infections_ but could not rule out that infections might
> have risen in the age demographic of the protesters.

Funny, because that's definitely not what I see on the total infections chart
from JHU. How are everyday people supposed to interpret this?

EDIT: Retracted a part I misunderstood.

~~~
tych0
> So racism has been killing more than the 130,430 people who have purportedly
> died from COVID-19 in the United States?

Well, yeah.

> Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were
> shipped across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years. The number purchased
> by the traders was considerably higher, as the passage had a high death rate
> with approximately 1.2–2.4 million dying during the voyage and millions more
> died in seasoning camps in the Caribbean after arrival to the New World.
> Millions of slaves also died as a result of slave raids, wars and during
> transport to the coast for sale to European slave traders.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade)

~~~
voxic11
Yeah but that is 12 million over 400 years, which is a rate of 30,000 a year.
Covid is 130,430 in just over 4 months, which is a rate of 391,284 a year. So
covid is about an order of magnitude more dangerous.

~~~
rbecker
The 12 million is for both North and South America, while 130 thousand Covid
deaths are in the USA alone.

------
DubiousPusher
This just pretty much comports with what we're coming to understand to be the
case around the vast majority of human decision making. That is, we choose
first and then justify. The process we call "deciding" is really backfilling
with reason.

------
r00fus
One set of protests were against mask-wearing and another involved wearing
masks for the most part.

I think the consensus is that outdoor activity is ok if you're distancing or
wearing masks (preferably both) but as soon as you come indoors where there is
less ventilation, the aerosolization of saliva particles can create a vaporous
suspension that lasts a long time - if even 5-10% of the population isn't
wearing masks then it could be dangerous.

~~~
Miner49er
Don't forget that many of the anti-lockdown protests were also indoors.

------
chasil
In the United States, it doesn't make any difference if protests are
dangerous.

They are protected speech in freedom of assembly, end of story.

~~~
quicklime
From the government’s perspective, maybe. People still need to decide whether
they want to take on the risk of attending a protest, and they should be
informed (by experts) when doing so.

~~~
chasil
In 1789, the year of ratification of the U.S. constitution, smallpox was still
a lethal disease.

Preventative treatment for smallpox was a procedure named "variolation," which
involved purposeful infection with smallpox by a scratch.

Variolation had a 3% fatality rate; normal transmission of smallpox was
15-20%.

A person who had recently undergone variolation could transmit the disease
normally, and definitely required isolation.

George Washington required all members of the continental army to undergo
variolation in our rebellion against the British.

The United States has faced enormous pressure from disease, and no mark of
this is in the first amendment.

(p.s. I am surprised that we have not attempted the equivalent of variolation
with ancestors of the current corona virus.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation)

------
ulucs
Politics, not religion, is the real opium of people. If you have tried to
follow the process of the protests from a diverse set of sources, you might
have also seen how two parallel worlds exist in the same space. Banach and
Tarski would be proud.

~~~
Reedx
Politics have become religion.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
That explained a lot to me about America in 2020.

------
opwieurposiu
If the protest has a reasonable chance of increasing the fitness of your group
then it may be worthwhile even if it is risky for the individual.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection)

This logic applies to non-contagious, individual level, hazards such as this 8
year girl shot after her mom inadvertently drove into a mini-CHAZ
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTEemY1d0dc&t=338s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTEemY1d0dc&t=338s)

However in the case of contagious pandemic it seems to be risky for the group
to concentrate in one place. Is there a name for this effect? I can not find
any papers on it.

------
wisemanwillhear
Makes me wonder if the Supreme Court would have ruled differently in emergency
stay requests from churches had they seen the change in responses towards the
protest rallys by the same leaders who were restricting religious gatherings.

------
rnernento
In a world where global warming poses an existential threat to humanity, any
actions that devalue public perception of experts and scientists are
dangerous.

We are in big trouble, and if we don't collectively recognize that, put aside
our differences wherever possible, and start acting accordingly, a lot of
people are going to suffer.

