No mate, they stated that they needed to scare people so they would go along with their proposals. That is disingenuous. I donât need to tell you whose playbook that kind of tacticcomes out of.
Also, fear and the worry index have been the levers gone back to again and again for compliance. Itâs actually not helpful.
Do you not agree that telling people the truth in December and January was automatically scary?
Youâve gone away from the point. The point was the ISAG guys explicitly saying they needed to scare people so that they would accept their proposals. Thatâs not cool. You know the types that use those kind of tactics.
If the Gript story was broke by UCD politics society and related to right wing economists pushing arguments on austerity that âmay or may not be trueâ but allign with âour way of thinkingâ people would be singing a different tune.
The next two weeks are criticalâŚ
But the truth was automatically scary. Very scary. And not telling the truth was even scarier. ISAG havenât lied about the situation. Theyâve simply told the truth. Thatâs all thatâs needed.
I honestly donât see how people donât get this.
I mean with all messaging from the Government at the real crisis points, that was framed with a healthy dose of fear. It had to be. Because it was imperative that cases were reduced. But it was also the truth. Go back to the posts on this forum early on, from last January and February and March, these posts were laced with fear. Why? Because the dawning reality was scary.
But it wasnât that.
When Greta Thunberg was doing her school strikes and speeches in 2018 and 2019, was she attempting to scare people?
Of course she was.
Why? Because sometimes people need to be scared into realising the true extent of a problem.
The problem comes when people are whipped up into fear on matters which do not justify it, or in order to whip up hatred. Gript are experts at doing that, itâs their whole reason for existence.
As regards Covid, instilling a healthy dose of fear into people was absolutely justified. The alternative was to fiddle while Rome burns.
This isnât like you mate to be honest. If a group sets out scare people in order to advance their agenda or convince people of their cause, that is wrong. And you would usually be the first to spot that.
You are correct that the situation was grave and frightening. Presenting it is scary in and of itself. But this is not what these guys said. They not set out to present sobering and frightening facts to people, they set out to scare people. Thereâs a big difference. Again, youâd usually be the first to spot it.
But they told truths which were scary. Thatâs exactly what you want from people in the public eye who are advocating. They deserve praise for that, not criticism.
When Boris Johnson told the UK public in March 2020 that many people would die, he was deliberately scaring people. And he was a telling a truth. Did Gript go after him for doing that?
New poster @Cheasty is a breath of fresh air
Agree with him or not, itâs nice to have a debate, the OUUTF massive majority viewpoint here had gotten stale
With respect, youâre avoiding the point again mate. They said they needed to set out to scare people. That is an entirely different thing than presenting information that is scary.
In this case both are true. They did need to scare people and the truth was scary.
But the government also needed to scare people. Because how else can you get people to behave in a way that is necessary for public health?
Again, I simply fail to see any problem here. In fact itâs exactly how I would have advocated framing public communication.
Have Gript answered how they would have framed public communication in this scenario were they an advocacy group or the government?
Presumably it would have been âget the pints in!â?
Sure the only reason you think sheâs a head banger is coz you donât agree with her
Its a pity you werent articulate enough yourself to put your LIDTF viewpoint on here.
Definitely. I agree with some of his points disagree with others but at least heâll provide balance. All the posters who make thousands of posts and think theyâre right on everything and never change their mind were on the one side at least they have a LIDTF equivalent now to keep them honest.
Iâve never been of that viewpoint, Iâm somewhere on the middle, have been from day one,
Thereâs merits in most arguments I find, people are affected in different ways and become quite emotional
I like reading good debate, there hasnât been any here on this topic in many months
Thereâs no such thing as truth. Certainly not in science anyway, thatâs not what science does.
While thereâs merit to your argument weâve continually seen the goal posts being moved all over the place when we were getting the âtruthâ.
You simply canât deny thereâs agendas among all the groups involved, then youâve policitics with the other lot. Our lockdowns and restrictions were based on the fact that weâve a woeful health service and inept political leaders⌠That has to be the starting point for any conversation, not science.
I gave up watching RTE last May⌠But how many alternative voices were sought for their nightly debates? How many alternative scientific Voices did the gov seek? Iâm sorry to break it to you but science doesnât deliver truth, it gives us evidence which is deciphered and interpretaed by men. Your truth is merely one opinion over another.
I canât read your mind pal, but I think youâre being disingenious there saying youâre in the middle. There has been good debate on here for the last number of months maybe you havent been following it closely.
Even amongst the perceived OIUTF posters views on here, they diverge quite a good bit.
Agree with you re @Cheasty , its good to have him back.
One of the most interesting questions is why western governments didnât take the threat seriously. The contrast between Asian countries that responded immediately and decisively long before being advised to by the WHO, and the western response is staggering. Europe, North America and South America utterly failed in their response, by March 15th when measures started to be taken, there were likely 2 million infected in the US and the same in Europe.
But you canât attribute it all to Trump and Boris, as the answer to this question isnât political ideology. Liberal and conservative governments were all guilty of the same inaction. The leading advisors in the US held a meeting in Colorado in mid February and Fauci was adamant that this was nowhere near the threat of flu and the American public should not take it seriously. He was on TV saying the same thing a week later, and resisted any efforts to shut down travel. All of the major US news outlets were warning not to take the threat seriously, the flu was worse. How did they fail to notice how Asia was responding?
I think the failure was mainly due to fear of being wrong, fear of losing credibility, fear of losing the next election, fear of public opinion turning against them. It needed a war time response, with generals in charge, and instead we have a bunch of academics who wanted everything modelled and proven before taking action. Looking back on it Mike Ryan was right in his impassioned speech calling for decisive action in early March, but nobody in the west was listening. Or maybe they knew at that point it was already too late.
Itâs been a monumental cluster fuck.