Well, that's where it gets sorta funny. I'm a citizen of more than one country, but I'm neither a resident, nor do I have any family in either country, so I'd be in the exact same situation over there.

In general, very good advice, though. :) Thanks.

I was mainly trying to not reply to every bit, save time....also I felt that bit seemingly contradicted your prior posts about people not needing to use their critical thinking, and didn't want to point that out/come off the wrong way by saying such.

(I didn't know how to word it the best way, in other words)

They do(by that I meant critical thinking and checking what one reads)....most are just too lazy to use it, but many still have the capacity to do so.

There is(see above on point A).

good number of people have plenty of time now(being mostly locked down and all), though.

Also google/bing/duckduckgo are things, and people likely know some good trustworthy alternative(yet official) sources or someone more knowledgeable to verify such with.

This is a somewhat reasonable stance(what you posted here in this bit).

I still think people should check and verify with other sources(good ones) when/if they can, though......we shouldn't encourage people not using their critical thinking skills, in general, after all.

Honestly asking: What if he is knowledgeable otherwise?

In such cases i'd say "consider the source" in such cases, and check what they said more thoroughly......but not discount anything they said entirely(well with some exceptions, of course).

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If you want some humor that relates to your situation in a touching/heart felt way, watch The Terminal with Tom Hanks.....it's about a foreign national trapped in an airport when his country locks itself down and "disables" his travel documents(and those of most others from his country). :)

https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2020/03/incels-celebrating-lockdown-casual-sex-chad-stacy-4chan-reddit

LOL.

I'm not sure if you understand. I'm saying even if you blindly believed a scientist's claim that was also peer reviewed, you'd still likely be fine and almost certainly correct, because of the scientific method. The peers did the work for you - they criticised, evaluated and tried to throw the claim to shreds unsuccesfully, so you wouldn't have to bother. You can't do that as a religious fanatic, and expect to be right, well, about anything really.

What do you think common sense is, how is it defined, and how does it manifest in people? You mention critical thinking and source critique I guess - is that really what is usually meant by common sense, or is common sense supposed to be something more akin to instinct instead of learned behaviour?

Common sense to me is, as someone else mentioned, completely useless in unintuitive matters or indeed in anything too complex. And covid19 and the response of the world to it, is anything but simple.

Do you see anyone arguing against this? If anything more can be done in this regard. But the whole point is that once you've done your incredibly rudimentary 'check and verification' of complex science with 'other good sources' whatever that means, it's completely fine to defer to the experts. And you don't really need to go even that far if you just do some basic source critique.

Why would it matter if he is knowlegeable about gardening, when he's giving out life and death medical information during a pandemic? With the power to influence millions?

(Though, given his history, and his position, he can safely be ignored not only in this matter, but most. That's called critical thinking and source critique.)

This bit(and the terminology used) make me want to toss all that person's articles into an incinerator/shredder(i.e. as nothing but trash not worth taking seriously) :

"But on Reddit, 4chan, and misogynistic online forums, incels have been celebrating the fact that attractive people are about to be stuck inside – living their lives just like incels, and crucially, unable to have casual sex. "

Lol....casual sex is CRUCIAL? Really?

I guess it's true: One DOES need the basics to live: Eating/drinking/sleeping/casual sex. *rolleyes*

Note the bolding.

As it's not 100% certain(just likely) I would still encourage people to bother and verify things(in general)....not put their brains on auto-pilot.

That's what I meant for the most part when mentioning common sense before. That is what I meant in some recent/prior posts.

Some posting here seemed to come off as saying such(I forget who[besides yourself, that is]...would have to look back). Some posts read(to me) as "trust only official sources and trust them blindly".

If I was wrong i'd welcome being corrected if I misread something anyone wrote.

If one does their homework first, though, I agree.

I meant if they have relevant/on topic knowledge that is valid/helpful.

Imo it's called being foolish....shutting down/dismissing EVERYTHING someone says is(imo) a foolish thing to do in many cases....just because someone says something "dumb"/not useful doesn't mean everything they say is "dumb"/not useful or will be "dumb"/not useful.

(To me doing so is almost as bad as those who blindly accept anything someone they trust/like says)

No, the sex part is crucial for the schadenfreude of the incels, they focus on that aspect since they think so much about sex themselves.

Thanks for clearing that up.

That said, I find that article and it's writer very cringe....almost as cringe as some they talk about.

I wonder what you think is 100% certain? Examples?

You realise gravity and tectonic plates are merely 'theories' still? They are well established theories that nobody has been able to refute for years and years, but even they are not 100% certain.

Nevermind something as recent as this pandemic, and what society's response to it should be like. You take the best available research at the time and work with it, given the time constraints. Ignoring the science, and listening to politicians who do not defer to the experts will result in tragedy.

You're far too generic and abstract, focus on specifics. For example, people questioned the Imperial college study because it was done by some experts in some university, and were basically saying people shouldn't believe them blindly and do some own research. Exactly what this means is beyond me. Maybe you can enlighten me? How would you disprove them, giving your limited resources and capability? What kind of research would cast doubt on their findings, and what kind of source critique and critical thinking did you apply on the ones who are refuting the study? I think that whole process would be wholly lacking, for most people, given that their only tools are google (and for a tiny fraction maybe google scholar), and the thought that you could truly 'verify and check' their findings is devoid of reality. That's my point - it's completely fine to defer to the experts in this instance, even if it were 'blindly' as many put it - that's just how it works.

How could you ever trust his word on the matter, after being so criminally ignorant and negligent in the first place?

I think you read far too much into what you thought I said. I said that guy has been so wrong on so many things on so many occassions, I said I would not trust him to say anything accurate anymore about anything.

Gross incompetence, especially during a crisis.

Which was what? In your own words?

That was your entire point that you were making - likely =/= 100% certain. So yes, it does invalidate what you were saying.

Ah, the classic and generic 'it's bad'. Didn't see that coming.

Ah ok, whoosh it went over your head. Maybe if you followed the trail from the chloroquine guy to the solar eclipse guy to gross incompetence guy to world leader guy, you might guess as to whom I'm referring.

But it doesn't really matter, as he is not solely the incompetent one on the whole leadership stage in the covid-19 response. He might be the worst one though.

Anyways, I think we've exhausted and eeked out any interesting conversation to be had between us on this topic. Far more important things to discuss, by far more interesting people than us.

All I'm gonna say is, 'your points are bad'.

I wanted to reply with(mainly) a few questions on people you brought up in this post, so here we go:
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I don't follow every bit of news on this....so it might help if you just said their name so I would know and could possibly reply to such.

Dunno who you mean(as said above)....I agree many of them dropped the ball, though.

(For example: The US congress is bickering on cash aid to citizens and has gone though afaik 2 votes already, and pushed a third vote back till tomorrow)

True enough
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All that said, I hope you and yours are staying safe and healthy during all this, and everyone else here as well....have a good one, all.

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(Also to everyone else: If anyone else knows who Ro was talking about and he forgets to/doesn't clarify i'd like to know who he likely meant with the bits I quoted)

The government here just shut down pretty much everything, even marriages are only allowed to have 5 people max (couple, celebrant, 2 witnesses).

There's news about a new/old virus in China.

Hantavirus. One person died from it today.

Seems like the immune system of people is weaker because of covid-19, and there's a possibility of old viruses infecting people easier then before.

Well, casual sex between strangers is a public health issue, that's a reality. STD's are mutating more often and becoming more resistant to anti-biotics because of it.