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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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What they meant was there wasn't an outbreak reported, not that there wasn't one. Here's a clearer source (same one as well) as long as someone else asked for one too.
The NPR article also has no evidence for an earlier outbreak. They just report what the North's government stated, and add that the reader shouldn't believe them.
Sure they share a border with China, but China had COVID pretty well controlled for a significant portion of the pandemic. That combined with the DPRK's survival strategy of self-reliance make it seem plausible to me that they were clear of it until the vastly more contagious variant became dominant.
So far, there doesn't seem to be any evidence to the contrary.
Let me ask you something for the sake of discussion. What do you consider evidence of an outbreak?
epistemology is a big topic and we're clearly operating on some contradictory premises/priors but I'll continue to engage in good faith.
I think I'd consider the following as evidence of an event: photos/video, eyewitness testimony, and measurement data; each provided with provenance/traceability through the entire chain of reporting. Each reporting agent's credibility on the topic plays a role in weighing the evidence.
Finally the believability (another big term) of the claim itself plays a important role in how much evidence is necessary for me to believe it. Here's where I put on my internet atheist hat and reference the "Sagan Standard": Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and it's corollary: a claim asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
The reason I asked is an outbreak is usually "in the shadows" until the community of medical professionals confirm it. And it's not this I intend to reference though, but the fact many would be quick to jump at one country falling under the definition but not another (as well as individual states, as different states handled it differently). However we define evidence (even witnesses are hard, many people will say people dying in front of you wouldn't be proof unless indicated by professionals), we'd have to apply it universally; the time period between the first suspected patient zero to the first confirmed case to the last confirmed case should be treated by the same rules in both countries, and in all countries. Depending on the standard, either you have both countries faring well or both countries not faring well.
Given North Korea is more private, that makes the latter the heavier choice, at least if you ask me.
It's always the same bullshit. If they are handling covid well "they're lying about their numbers". If they report high numbers it's "evidence they're incompetent."
What reason do I have to mistrust their numbers? They're not the ones having lied to me for decades.
And it's not like the US wasn't lying about its own numbers
Why would I trust the US to be honest about theirs? Why would I trust the US media in their claims about North Korea lying about its numbers?
The US had several whistleblowers like Rebekah Jones getting arrested/abused/harrased for their reporting on the state of the US obfuscating data.
The american media has been shown to lie time and again, especially when it comes to foreign matters - Most famously about Iraq. What reason do I have to trust it?
The United States has the largest prisoner population in the world and has a history of persecuting minorites and political dissidents like leaders of black lives matter. These dissidents are dissapeared at secret police blacksites where they are tortured. This prisoner population is used as slave labour, which is still legal.
Why would I trust the lies peddled by this authoritarian regime about a country whose population they relentlessly bombed until they'd murdered 20% of it.
...as opposed to?
This is your point? A snide one-sentence comment completely failing to engage with any bit of the argument? Do better. Interrogate why this is your reaction to being challenged
Those three words sum up every response I have for each point.
I wish I could go thru life line you, smooth-brained, unthinking, uncaring, perfectly safe in the belief that I am a special little boy. Sadly I have been cursed with the bane of Thought, and so I must interrogate my beliefs when I encounter that which conflicts with them.
I guess that's what makes me not a lib
“You must be a critical thinker.” ~ someone who then moons his opponent with a pig’s butt in graphic detail
I asked a simple question not anticipating they would be taken as ungenuine, I apologize if those three words offended you.
Yeah because you totally deserve to be taken seriously, when your response is some snide little smuglord gotcha. You get what you give
Is it answerable though? Because “snide” was not what I was going for.
:pigpoop:
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.