My argument that you missed, is that this is the poster's personal subjective opinion from the POV of someone who doesn't have skin in the game.
My "there are other people who disagree" happen to have skin in the game (US people on US soil who suffered the 9/11 attacks). Look up Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
If you're gonna say that US people's opinions are also subjective personal opinions, then I'd argue that their subjective opinion still has stronger claims that 9/11 is a national security issue, because they have concrete provable injuries. Compared to someone far away who doesn't have skin in the game and didn't lose anything.
Check your biases and conflict of interests, maybe.
p.s. Plenty others here have added well laid out arguments so I didn't want to just add more of the same.
You realize that there are countries that are in complete lockdown, right? These are not normal, but very serious times. If all a country had to do was pay for the use of 3 full 747s, for a mere 12 hour flight, to get a solution to save countless lives .. sounds logical to me that they'd expedite the delivery.
Due to the fact that is a very serious, urgent, global pandemic. <-- re-read the last four words in that sentence, but slowly.
It blows my mind that during this global crisis, you think that it would take a whole month just to transport life saving medical / health equipment. We're not talking about shipping handbag accessories on Amazon's third party marketplace here, Nancy.
Thanks for sharing your story. It's rough for immigrants and I can certainly sympathize. I've seen the news of extremely racist things done to Asians in America due to this virus.
Let's unpack what you said here:
"you're going to be treated just as badly as me, because they can't tell the difference between us"
1. That's an assumption of yours that I simply don't agree with. IDK where in the US you are, and it sounds like that's going on where you are, but I haven't seen it where I am and don't expect it. The US is HUGE and you can't just extrapolate like that.
2. I'd be careful about your usage of the word "they" and "us" in this sentence. Are you generalizing that most non-Asian Americans are racist ("they"), and defining "us" as the Asian Americans? Because if you start assuming that, that's just very negative and if Asian Americans ALL start acting that way, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's why I said I'm not on your "side", because I don't want to see sides.
I prefer thinking of us all (all Americans, regardless of race) as "we". Sure there are some racists, and I react accordingly, but I don't just assume that. Ultimately, if you are dealing with a bunch of legit racists and can't change them, then maybe you should ask yourself why you want to continue living and working where you are, and dealing with those. Lots of options in America.
Where I am, I rarely feel that I am mistreated and have no reason to expect it. That's my data point for you.
You realize that you're the racist here for pulling the race card, right? I'm not on your side just because you're Asian. I'm interested in the general well being of ALL people, Asian or not, in the US. I'm sorry you were mistreated, but you made a wrong assumption that I am, or that I will, and you're trying to get me to be on your "side"? I don't like presumptuous people.
Ok, so then you agree they need to be tested, we just disagree on how quantitatively extensive it needs to be. So you tell me then, what percentage of these 1M masks do we test?
Do we test 1% of it and say they're safe to use, or do we test 99% of it?
Either way, it sounds like to me, you agree you can't just overlook basic sanity checks.
Maybe we test 51% of it. I'm not sure where you draw that line. God forbid you or your immediate family member gets one of the 49% that didn't get tested, and get infected. Skin in the game.
So if you notice, you literally defended someone's "cmmon man" argument as NOT a waste of everyone's time. How about you think about this, for a second, hmm?
Studies as of now suggest that the virus can last for 3 days on a surface. So if you ship fly them over here from China, say a half a day flight, you have a good 2.5 days to potentially accidentally infect people.
I've said it repeatedly, but I'll say it again. Here's the logic for you to refute.
1. Mask / test kit made in China.
2. Presumably, it came in contact with the hands of the people making it, in China.
3. If any of those people making the masks and test kits were infected, then there's a chance that the virus itself will be actually sitting on the masks and test kits themselves.
You put words in my mouth. My concern isn't that it's not "good quality". My concern is, the thing is literally coming from the country where the virus originated from to begin with. Presumably, these things were made with human hands, of people in China, .. the country where this all started. So, ... you're telling me, you're just going to blindly assume these products have ZERO trace of the virus without any verification?
So, if you do the thing you suggested yourself, and NOT infer an assumption of a geopolitically motivated act coming from me, you will see that my logic as stated in point 1 and 2 is actually pragmatic and logical.
Assume no malicious intention.
How about we even assume that we paid for this stuff and Jack Ma didn't just hand it out for free. This is to remove your bias that a charitable gesture from someone, so that these products won't escape basic sensible scrutiny.
Are you seriously going to use the products to aid in this national emergency, that was literally made in the country that this virus originated from ... without testing it at all to verify that it is free of the virus that started it all?
I'd argue that that is better. Because if you're not tested, you know that you don't know. But if you get a false-negative (the test tells you're not infected, but you actually are), you think you're not infected, you may go about your daily life infecting other people.
My "there are other people who disagree" happen to have skin in the game (US people on US soil who suffered the 9/11 attacks). Look up Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
If you're gonna say that US people's opinions are also subjective personal opinions, then I'd argue that their subjective opinion still has stronger claims that 9/11 is a national security issue, because they have concrete provable injuries. Compared to someone far away who doesn't have skin in the game and didn't lose anything.
Check your biases and conflict of interests, maybe.
p.s. Plenty others here have added well laid out arguments so I didn't want to just add more of the same.