There are no such things as old people.
There are only frequent voters. 
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You could honestly apply this statement to the entire maritime industry in general. Shriveled old men far past their prime dominate huge sections of the maritime industry, hell the captain on my last ship was so fat he couldnât even climb the stars to the bridge and had to use an elevator just to get down to the galley.
Logically it would have been far smarter when international trade took a nose-dive at the start of the pandemic to downsize the maritime industry so that when the re-opening began you could fill the vacated positions with fresh, young mariners, far more suited to the rigors of sea life. But instead we waste millions and hundreds of man hours compensating for the declining health of mariner population.
Not that anything can really be done about it since those same old men occupy nearly 90% of all the authority positions in the industry. Case in point, on that same ship I was on, only around a quarter of the entire crew were old enough to be considered in the danger bracket for COVID. None of them should have even been on that ship in the first place during the pandemic. But they just donât retire.
Tbh this is kinda like a microcosm for our entire society.
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The disease affects more than sailors. And it affects more than the USA.
Rorschach19 math:
Amount spent cope with the disease in the USA: $2,000,000,000 (Two trillion dollarsâa wild guess)
Estimated number of U.S. deaths if no precautions had been taken : 5,900,000 ( a very reliable estimate).
Cost per victim to avoid those deaths: $338.98.
The Rorschach Test: is it worth it?
The U.S. population 65 or older is about 54 million. About 20% of those work, according to AARP. So, about 10 million. If you take 10 million people out of the work force they will need still need shelter and food. That means taxpayer provided benefits.
Otherwise you will need to convince 10 million frequent voters to spend their life savings to sequester themselves. The trouble is, most donât have life savings, which is why they are working. You could try to convince those people to starve themselves to death and lose their mortgages, for the good of everyone else. But that 's a tough sell. Right up there with butt-flavored beerâyouâre never going to sell it. Which brings you back to taxpayer provided benefits.
Take $2 trillion dollars and divide it between 10 million people. That comes to $200 per old personâoops, I meant frequent voter. How do you feed/house those 10 million people who have stopped working, in order to sequester themselves, on $200? Not $200 a day, or month. Just $200. For a whole year. Change the numbers by a magnitude of 10 and you still come up with only $2000.
So you spend $338.98 a head to save maybe 5.3 million frequent voters. Or you let maybe 5 million frequent voters starve to death. Which do you think American society is going to vote to do?
Trick question: they already voted.
Thereâs been more than two trillion just authorized in government spending, without even beginning to account for private business costs and losses and the associated drop in tax revenue.
I applaud you admitting that Donald Trump saved 5 million American lives through his excellent handling of the pandemic. Perhaps you should write him a letter to thank him. He lives in Florida now.
ETA: After giving you some time to correct what I had hoped was a typo, two trillion divided among ten million is $200,000. This is why we bemoan the gray tyranny of the old.
Covid affects people of all ages. Even young people who do not get sick enough to require hospitalization often have long term consequences.
New variants are affecting younger people. Allowing Covid to continue to circulate produces more variants.
Covid may be more or less under control in the US in another couple of years, or itâs new variants many not be under control at all.
In the Third World, Covid will not be under control for at least 10 years, if then. Look forward to many years of international travel restrictions.
Look at the death toll in India and Brazil. Look at the wide age range being affected. Will the next wave of variants be worse? Who knows.
The youngest mariner on my boat is 52. Several are over 60. Why? Because younger âMarinersâ today do not want to live the Mariner lifestyle. Most young âMarinersâ are not mariners at all, they are just opportunists trying to make a quick buck until they can afford to pursue their dreams onshore.
In a time of scarce US deep sea jobs (itâs a dying sector ), itâs interesting to hear the desperate young punks whining and wishing that all the older mariners would die of Covid so the punks can have their jobs. Stop and listen to yourself for a minute.
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The data does not support your claims. Random anecdotes of young people being affected by Covid-19 are not data. Theyâre stories.
I donât need you to die of Covid to take your job. Iâm smarter, faster, more highly skilled and in better health. Iâll get your job anyways. This is the way of the world. Always has been. Someday soon it will be my turn. I just hope I retain the balls not to whine about it.
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On the union side deep sea I see senior officers in their 30s and 40s all day long and a board full of opportunities for advancement, most people seem to be at pretty career-appropriate ages.
That Trump has moved from New York to Florida probably improves the average IQ of both States. If you are a resident of Florida, then you are probably better, faster and more talented but it could be youâre starting from a very low bar.
I spent many years at sea waiting for the junior officer who knew everything, perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.
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Which generation was it that viewed letting the elderly die to save a buck as heroic?
There is tons of data. Just do a little reading. Perhaps Bloomberg, Nature, etc.
Veterans who got Covid are 39% more likely to develop diabetes 6 months afterwards, according to a VA study.
There is a lot we donât know about Covid, but one thing is certain: itâs much more serious than most people think it is.
The Government cannot print and giveaway money forever. Unless we take Covid seriously, and do not tolerate obstruction of effective measures by anti vaxers, Covid is eventually going to collapse the economy.
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For everyoneâs sake, just get vaccinated. It is not that hard. We were vaccinated for polio, measles, whooping cough and other diseases as children. Why adults now refuse to get vaccinated is beyond my comprehension.
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When EU set rules for BMI of seafarers the Danish Shipowners Association complained that they would not be able to find Danish crews for their ships
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If we really want to save lives and improve the overall intelligence level of the population, it is easy - make a âshot cardâ and Covid vaccination a legal requirement for access to any facility that receives any amount of federal funding. This means schools, airports, government buildings or offices, seaports, and military bases or recruiting offices. Make it mandatory for all military personnel and civilian federal employees.
You canât fix stupid but you can prevent stupid from destroying society.
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Look, the COVID Vaccines are still in trial phase that were approved for emergency use, the American with Disabilities Act does allow for medical exemptions to a vaccine mandate, and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act gives workers the right to seek an exception based on religious beliefs. The Emergency Use Authorization goes back to the Project Bioshield Act of 2004, passed largely in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Congress recognized that the FDA might need to approve drugs quickly in the event of a biological or nuclear terror event. The statute does say conditions can be placed on a drug granted an EUA, including informing the recipient of the drugâs status and advising them that the choice is theirs. However, private employers could still go around this, by stating the vaccine is a condition of future employment, especially in at will states.
Considering that the FDA has given approval to a huge number of drugs that have side effects far worse than the problem they are supposed to cure - just read the fine print that flashes beneath the horde of drug commercials that clog television - grant full approval and impose the conditions I listed.
You canât cure stupid but you can prevent it from contaminating society. Remove the religious beliefs thing, if some god wants its cult members to survive that god will prevent harm from the vaccine. Their mythology doesnât give them the right to spread a pandemic disease.
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âI donât need you to die of Covid to take your job. Iâm smarter, faster, more highly skilled and in better health. Iâll get your job anyways.â
With that ego Iâm sure youâll be running a ship single-handedly very soon.
Never understand people that spout this kind of garbage. Youâre stating facts, not opinions, about your perceived prowess, but how are you actually measuring any of it? Or are you just making that shit up? To some HR people & people in supervisory roles blanket statements like this are immediate admissions that the subject is actually none of the things theyâve just stated.
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They probably stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
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Smarter, faster, more highly skilled maybe if the bar is not too high. More intelligent? Doubtful. Living long gives one certain advantages in experience and education.
The statement was about the young inevitably overtaking the old, not about me or him personally. Youâre showing some insecurity by taking it that way.
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Genus, Karma is a bitch