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That's an overly-simplistic breakdown. Almost all campaigns I've seen, across political stripes, include an element of "don't let the other guys win!". After all, it was Hillary's main selling point.

Also, even those candidates widely regarded as "fearful" actually had campaigns based on hope, of bringing in a better world if only certain problems could be fixed. I'll leave you to fill in the obvious blanks.

>Google underestimates the value of data stored by users.

Of course they do. How can they possibly put any value on endless PB of holiday snaps? They only care that you are now reliant on them to store your memories.

Democracy is a popularity contest.

Once it becomes more widely accepted just how bad the continual dopamine drip of (especially mobile) social media is for individuals and society, it would be very interesting to find some research into the gender differences. My wife has a theory that, for a variety of reasons, women are more drawn into the online social world than men.

There'll be another Cash for Clunkers type program, and there won't be any cheap, reliable old cars.

> Most of that production is to US and Europe consumers.

This is such a tiresome argument. The West has mandated that we all buy EVs in the near future, while labour and environmental laws mean that it is basically impossible to manufacture them here. It's also relatively essential to buy laptops, computers, monitors, etc - all of which are not possible to make in the West.

It is 100% hypocritical to say that we are too conscientious to manufacture electronic goods in our own countries, while importing huge numbers of them from countries that we know are doing horrible things to their people and environment.

The only way to level the playing field is to impose an "environmental duty" on imported goods from places with lower environmental standards. Otherwise, all we are doing is transferring manufacture to countries with lower standards while pretending that we're doing something great for the world.

I just picked laptop as a convenient example, and because it might remind people that they probably have a house full of similar gadgets (and with a similar level of embodied energy).

Concrete takes 1.1MJ/kg to manufacture[1]. So, you get ~4000kg of concrete for one laptop's worth of embodied energy. Amortised over the expected lifetimes of the items in question, manufacture of high-density electronics still represents our greatest usage of energy.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy

>Making all this plastic stuff can't be energy cheap...

Plastic is relatively cheap, energy-wise. Your embodied energy usage is dominated by semiconductors.

Edit: Google tells me that a laptop takes 4500MJ to manufacture. If you were living in a 2kW society, you'd have to save up 1250kWh, or about a month, to get your laptop.

Obviously personal car ownership is right of the question.

In what scenario would it be useful to be able to carry your own copy of Wikipedia a short distance and be able to read it for a few hours before the battery dies?

I'm glad they will probably fail at that, as I absolutely do not want Facebook to be mandatory for regular life.

However, I hope that lessons about human nature have been learned, now that we have all lived through the pandemic. Whenever we look at history and ask "how could people buy such a flimsy story, and abandon all that they previously held dear?", the answer is "willingly, enthusiastically, and they will turn in previously good friends and family to further the supposed moral ends".

It's a bit old, but should give you some ideas to start your own research:

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2229029/computer-factor...

Where I live (Wales, UK), a recent report examined school attendance since the start of the pandemic. Not only does attendance continue to decline in the high single digits, the affect on the worst-off in society is truly devastating. The decline there is in the medium-high double digits (Table 3 in linked article).

https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-04/a...

Here in the UK, we effectively turned our nursing homes into COVID treatment facilities. Thanks to the global fear of Covid, we decided that the best strategy was to empty the hospitals (discharging many old folks back to their care homes in the process), in preparation for a huge wave of the young and old, all in a critical state with Covid.

That didn't happen, but what did happen is that all the old folks gave each other Covid and died anyway.

I don't understand your use of the word "triage". Unless I am mis-understanding, you are defining it as "we will triage unvaccinated Covid patients as "not needing care"". In which case - everything I've said still stands. Should we triage smokers with lung cancer as "not needing care"? You would also be conflating "triage a medical condition" with "make a moral judgement about deserving care".

Obviously there isn't a "bad choice" if the "right choice" has been forced on everyone (which is nearer the truth).

>I must have missed the huge numbers of lung cancer patients clogging up the healthcare system

You should look a bit harder.

https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2012/11/07/lung-cancer-uk-...

And that's just one of many largely self-inflicted but expensive conditions that people receive treatment for, and (at least in the UK) at huge amounts of expense to the taxpayer.

>Why don't you go find out? I think the answer will surprise you!

Just to be clear, you said that "the healthcare system [was] full of those who didn't get vaccinated".

Finding out the percentage of hospitalisations that were unvaccinated and Covid-related does require comparing a few data sources, so it's not a simple Google away. I'll focus on mechanical ventilation usage, as that was the easiest data to find, and use UK data as that's where I live.

First - the easy number to find is the percentage of Covid patients in ICU who are unvaccinated. It varied during the main pandemic months between 50% and 75%[1]. Let's call it 62%.

Next - how many patients is that? Picking the end of December, that's around 750[2].

Finally - how many mechanical ventilators are available in total? It varies, but 5000 is a good number[3].

Multiplying it all out, the percentage of ventilated beds that were occupied at the end of December 2021 by unvaccinated, Covid-positive people was 9%.

Who's surprised?

[1] https://fullfact.org/health/unvaccinated-icu-channel4-icnarc...

[2] https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas..., "Weekly Admissions and Beds from 1 October 2021 up to 31 March 2022 (XLSX, 2.6MB)"

[3] https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/1/e042945

>get the goddamn vaccine.

Yep, heard that one before. You realise you are taking part in a discussion on research into serious side effects of the Covid vaccines?

>There was a feeling that this was unfair to all those who got the vaccine and thereby had much better outcomes

But that's how healthcare works. How many other conditions do healthcare professionals have to treat, that are the result of people who made bad choices? Am I allowed to get salty about the number of lung cancer patients dying slowly and draining healthcare resources?

>the healthcare system wouldn't be full of those who didn't get vaccinated.

Full? What % of hospitalisations were unvaccinated and Covid-related, during a given time period?

I did not. I have a young child, and refused to follow the herd and just sit everyone in front of a tablet or Netflix. It made my life incredibly hard and lonely - have you tried occupying a 1-year-old for a year, when you are under effective house arrest?

However, I am not talking about my personal choices, or who needs to take responsibility for actions. I am just pointing out that certain people have benefited enormously from lockdowns.

I heard you. I prefer to work with hard facts, and not emotionally-laden scenes and imagery. What was the Covid death rate for your town?

Our city council commandeered a football stadium as an emergency Covid field hospital. It was practically unused.

>Do you believe health services didn't struggled to handle the massive inflow of COVID cases?

The data for the UK health service shows that, overall, hospital capacity was at around 70% for the duration of the pandemic.

>was something that affected only the poor?

You missed my point. The image used showed cheap caskets piled up, in they way that they are in the normal operation of a pauper's graveyard, and may have even been taken before Covid. The point was that the imagery was used for its emotional response, with no context given.

>I firmly remember all the army trucks sprinting around my home city carting dead bodies and healthcare professionals,

I also remember many media outlets using extremely emotionally appealing images of "scary" hospital scenes and the like (I assume, to prey on our fears and insecurities to drive clicks and ad revenue). I also remember a picture of a pauper's graveyard being used as a image of how "horrifying" the Covid death rate was, and other visceral but misleading stories.

How many people actually died of Covid in your home town?

>And I always think of that picture as an image of the 21st century’s first immunocapitalist.

I make the opposite argument - while huge numbers of ordinary citizens were kept under effective house arrest (or other restrictions), the wealthy and powerful became ever more wealthy and powerful while no-one was looking. We were turned into obedient, house-bound consumers of social media, low-grade TV, and mail-order rubbish.