[kahnjw]

Not sure why this is getting voted down, this is absolutely the case. Either you kill exponential growth via isolation/inoculation or damn near everyone gets sick in an exponential explosion and the healthcare system is overrun. This is simple statistics.

[ajross]

I can't figure voting out on this site anymore. It used to work a lot like other spots, with primarily upvotes given to express general agreement or reward insight, and downvotes reserved for comments that got something factually incorrect. Now I'm seeing about a 50/50 split with downvotes, and it generally doesn't correlate in any meaningful way with either correctness or the status of the debate. It's routine to see discussions with reasonable participation on both sides gets a wildly asymmetric split in votes, with half of them grayed out entirely. And it kinda sucks.

In this particular case here in this topic: there's a voting (but seemingly not commenting) population that just really wants COVID-19 to be a flop. I'd be tempted to say that's a political position, but in fact politicians have largely unified on this (finally). Maybe it's a counterculture or conspiracy thing.

[coviduser2020]

No one should be surprised. This site, and its moderation, has (possibly even unintentionally) favored a certain political ideology for years. I and others stopped maintaining accounts over it. Any economic discussion is inevitably political, but strangely only certain types of comments and discussions get slaughtered by public opinion or admonished by moderators. (Easy to see in each passing day as it becomes obvious that direct relief / UBI are necessary and the libertarians of this site realize that caring for fellow human beings might benefit them too!)

I mean in the last week, multiple legit stories have been flagged off the home page about Coronavirus. Go back and look at the comments on the story that hit the frontpage about Trump trying to buy exclusive rights to a vaccine... A story that was ultimately confirmed as true. But yet it was flagged off the frontpage by Trump supporters that denounced it as "fake news" of course, as if he doesn't regularly do things that would be unbelievable without video/audio evidence.

Meanwhile, any comment, like yours, that mention the BLEAK REALITY THAT THIS IS GOING TO LAST MORE THAN 3 WEEKS is getting downvoted. Systematically. As if downvoting you changes basic fucking maths.

Frankly, I think it's massive cases of denial. I think people are just starting to get an image of how bad this is going to be and how fucked our social structure is about to be. Especially if this drags on for many months (like those of us paying attention understand is likely).

HN has just generally been particularly insufferable the last week and a half, but at least the really obnoxious deniers have mostly ... stopped.