ern

WHO changed its position on masks as late as June 2020. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200608/who-changes-stance-...

The US government changed its stance by April: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/08/why...

In much of the world, people who wore masks were subject to ridicule, especially on social media because of the cynical public health messaging, which seemed to be about preserving stocks of masks for healthcare workers by telling the public that “masks don’t work” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...).

The New York Times op-ed above, and efforts from the Czech Republic made discussing public masking more acceptable in the US, and then the rest of the world.

I am fairly certain that the US government reversed itself on masks before the WHO did (Wikipedia says WHO changed its advice in June).

Did it have to do with a lack of evidence, or was it a cynical ploy to preserve mask stocks for medical professionals? I recall it being the latter: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...

I am almost certain that they took a long time to recommend masking. I also am fairly confident that the WHO was/is opposed to lockdowns and it certainly still opposes travel restrictions.

As for your point about it being a trade-war tactic only goes so far when one realizes that Australia, which has China as its biggest trading partner, most vocally brought up the need for an investigation, and is being punished. Why would Australia start a trade war with its biggest customer?

I am not inclined to dismiss this entirely though:

1) There were concerns about Gain of Function research long before Covid-19. I recall it was discussed on HN even (but can’t find the exact link)

2) There have been outbreaks of SARS linked to labs.

3) China has been secretive and uncooperative with investigations and has turned its wrath against an erstwhile partner (Australia) after that country’s government called for an investigation into the origin of the virus (maybe a coincidence as well though).

I am not inclined to unquestioningly believe the same government that lied/erred terribly on WMDs in Iraq, but I also don’t think we can unquestioningly dismiss the idea that the virus escaped from a lab that was doing experiments that would be expected to produce a virus of this sort, rather than a random mutation that just happened to be in a market in the same city.

That doesn’t make it any less brutal or disturbing, but it serves as a reminder of how often we are willing to turn a blind eye to atrocities when it’s economically or politically expedient.

Regarding Roe v Wade (which I’ve read is widely seen as a bad decision) I agree that it’s unseemly. I also agree that in recent years too much social engineering has been routed through the Supreme Court.

I won’t dispute that most constitutional courts around the world are conservative or ideologically neutral, since they are aware that they can interpret the law as written, and not act as a pressure release valve against the dead hand of their “Founders” as they know that their populations can amend their constitutions if there is a pressing need.

No less a conservative jurist than Antonin Scalia repeatedly pointed out that he believed the US constitution was too hard to amend...amendments could be blocked by 2% of the population.

[https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/05/amending-the-con...]

To me, as an outside observer, it seems like the unseemly political shenanigans around appointments to the US Supreme Court are because the will of your Founders is too hard to override politically, and if the system of government was as great as it is made out to be, the philosophy and leanings of individual SCOTUS justices would not be such a huge deal.

I’d say that is strong evidence (Labour weakness aside) that the British public didn’t change their minds about Brexit.

Doctors I've seen don't really care about anything beyond parents and siblings for family history. They wouldn't bother with grandparents' siblings, as referred to by OP.

Has this changed recently, or is it different for some conditions?

From personal experience, Lightning already produces significant e-waste. The lack of strain relief means that my family experiences many broken Lightning cables each year.

His internal assembly designs for the Max, he said, still include omissions today, like not specifying which tools to use to install a certain wire, a situation that could lead to a faulty connection. Normally such blueprints include intricate instructions.

I hope that all these failures are investigated and addressed before the plane is allowed to fly again.

“Colonial rule” means British rule presumably. I always assumed the caste system long pre-dated it, considering how entrenched it seems to be.

Voters? I don’t mean to be snarky, but while Tweets, submissions and letters may inform the content of bills in democracies, but the counts of these are not numerically representative of much, apart from the feelings of people who feel strongly about an issue.

That said, these laws sound exceedingly stupid.

Have Amazon, Google, Twitter, Microsoft or Apple been on haveibeenpwned? That’s what I think of when I hear “big names”.

I suspect that the move to the current JavaScript-heavy ecosystem killed more careers.

WASM represents another potential shift. If one wants to survive, one has to prepare for these shifts, and not emotionally invest in a particular tech stack.

It's amazing that massive amounts of money are spent on election campaigns, precisely because candidates believe voters can be swayed. Similarly, massive amounts are spent on on online platforms, because businesses and organizations believe that it's an effective way to reach people.

But combine the two (use of online platforms to attempt to influence an election), and we hear confident pronouncements that it could not have had any impact. It simply doesn't add up.