The Cipher

15 hours ago, Aussieroaming said:

Bangkok - Rusted buses belching diesel fumes, broken footpaths, decaying buildings, rats crawling around rubbish, air quality that rivals New Delhi, terrible taffic congestion, drivers ignoring all road rules and without any common urtesy, stinking klongs, scooters on footpaths, fly blown wet market products, rip off taxis, poor english speaking skills, overpriced condos, corrupt cops scamming and shaking down foreigners......and thats the tip of the iceberg, welcome to your workation.

But....do you live or spend considerable time there anyway tho? ????

5 hours ago, Speedhump said:

I'd like to see how many studies show a SIGNIFICANT reduction in contracting the virus after vaccination. I believe that there are many studies already with no solid proof that any/all vaccines can give any 'worthwhile' protection against infection. The truth such as there is, will be in the numbers. 

Man, you can literally go to any database of academic publications and find population studies that show the benefits of vaccines against Covid. Here's a link. There are dozens, take your pick.

If investigating that link is too much work, here's a screenshot of a conclusion from one study.

Sometimes I feel like all I do on here is people's homework for them. Come on, guys.

Jeez, there are some insane takes in here.

5 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

It's great to hear about things getting back to normal.

It is, isn't it? You love to see it. ????

I did this for a few months! Had a blast until lockdown hit. I'll be back and expect that many others in similar positions will be too (I'm already recruiting some of my friends to fly in and visit next time I'm in town). Quite excited to see how the influx of this type of worker changes the social fabric of the expat experience.

4 hours ago, edwinchester said:

How many extra deaths and those suffering from long covid is acceptable?

Well, this is a subjective values judgment and everybody will disagree what an appropriate threshold should be (or if there should even be one). And any discussion on the topic would be uncomfortable for many people - particularly those whose inclinations are towards emotion over logic. But that doesn't mean the topic isn't worth of discussing.

As a practical matter, the implicit 'zero Covid before reopening' mantra that you see pushed by some regular posters isn't a viable solution out of the pandemic. When I see panic over stats like 9 kids out of 31,000 died from Covid - literally a rate of 0.00029 - it's pretty evident that a lot of people haven't reasoned through their positions on this issue.

There needs to be an acceptance of some amount of risk is the tradeoff for increased quality of life. Yes, there will be some amount of personal tragedy from the decision to reopen. And we should continue to pursue minimally disruptive actions to mitigate those impacts where possible (like getting vaccinated). But overall, my opinion is that accepting the risk and moving forward will be a significantly better path for humanity as a whole.

Quote

Then, we ran into the quandary where successful lockdowns provoked people to argue that lockdowns weren’t necessary because the Lockdown had mitigated community spread. Yeah, that is really stupid.

As a person who has argued against lockdowns myself, I want to make it clear that the quoted comment is not an accurate representation of my (and at least some other lockdown sceptics') views.

My argument against lockdowns isn't that they aren't effective at reducing spread, my belief is that they are. The argument is that if we take the actual outcome data for Covid cases and interpolate it across our populations, there is a very strong case to be made that the cost of lockdowns are disproportionate to the threat that we face from Covid.

The choice to lock down - and my opposition to that choice - are based on differences in values judgments, rather than any kind of real necessity of lockdowns to preserve the viability of our societies or species. And that's fine. I'm not here to argue that philosophical point. I just wrote this comment in response to the quoted comment, to show that while anti-lockdown positions might make some folks feel uncomfortable, they aren't necessarily hurr durr conclusions with no thought put into them.

40 minutes ago, connda said:

The only winners are the banks extending debt to keep these failing businesses operating.

Plz explain how banks win in a situation where large numbers of small-sized borrowers are unviable.

Great news. You love to see it.

13 minutes ago, madmen said:

You do realize all long term visas are now redundant and a push to drive all farang out of the country that was before covid so that's brutal communism for you and your bullish and want to spend time there.. How exactly? Very poor choice with poor research 

Darn bruh. Good thing I'm not a farang I guess ????✌️.

In any event, long-term farang visas to Vietnam are irrelevant to the bull case.

But without going into too much detail about how the sausage is made, I really only plan to spend a couple of months in Vietnam initially and then a few weeks a couple of times a year thereafter. I get the feeling I'll be able to manage that.

This is kind of irrelevant to the discussion, but I agonized about buying a floor Punk when they were 5 Eth (~$15,000) and then finally decided not to do it. God dammit.

Sorry. I just needed to unburden myself to cope, and this seemed like as good a place as any to do it.

4 hours ago, Eric Loh said:

Don’t need to be a economic expert to realize that Vietnam has a youthful and cheap labour force.

I am really bullish on Vietnam for this exact reason. Very favorable demographics, huge urbanization potential, lots of room for catch-up growth, and a population with a relatively more Northeast Asian work-ethic. I intend to spend more time there familiarizing myself with the country/culture once the pandemic situation normalizes. Pretty easy call for attractive long-horizon growth.

4 hours ago, Eric Loh said:

Thailand will need to move up the product value chain and use technology to replace the aging labour force rather than compete with Vietnam on low value products.

Conversely Thailand over the same horizon is facing the same intense demographic challenges of other Asian countries like Japan and South Korea, but without the deep capital reserves and advanced economy. And it seems too late to build up these buffers before the aging tsunami hits. I'm not sure that there's the appetite in Thailand for mass immigration either.

I think the country will still be a fun place for the next 10-15 years, but unless something radical happens in that time, stagnation/decline thereafter seems pretty inevitable.

14 minutes ago, Macrohistory said:

????  Says the guy who flew to Canada to get double-jabbed with Moderna or Pfizer.  Of course you're brave and dgaf!

It's true. I took off a couple of weeks ago. But, I just want to clarify - I flew back because the restrictions had made Thailand un-fun. Not specifically to get vaccinated. Now, I am going get vaccinated, but mostly to do that small act to help us put Covid behind us rather than out of any real concern about the pathogen. I do encourage everyone to get vaccinated whether or not they are concerned about Covid personally.

Also the 777 I took on the ICN->YVR leg was full af. Probably like 95%+ full. So sometimes I like to pretend that I am, at least, a little bit brave.

53 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

I would like to see a real use case, not the fake ones we are being currently promoted ????

 

when the web revolution happened, it took less than 5 years to take over the world, and that was 20 years ago, sans social media

 

credit card revolution, that was 40 years ago, and it took again less than 5 years to take over the world in the mid 80s

 

when it's truely a revolution, shifts happens overnight

 

here, f**ck all is happening for the last 12 years, except white papers, trading speculations, and stupid propaganda press PR by big corporations ????

 

it's not happening and it's not going to happen, there is simply no use case

I see. Well, ok then. Thanks for replying and sharing your perspective.

I'm not sure what qualifies as inexpensive, but I recently needed a PCR test to fly and used WellMed clinic on the recommendation of a couple of friends who also used them. Service is in English and I enjoyed a professional experience with my results delivered ahead of schedule.  Located in between the Phrom Phong and Asok BTS stations and walkable from either. ฿3,500 all in.

9 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

indeed, this is a religious thread, all based on beliefs, fairy tales an myths ????

Genuinely curious - what would the adoption threshold be for you to admit that you're wrong about this? Like, what would have to happen in the real world?

4 hours ago, mjnaus said:

Sigh.... there's no getting through to you, is there?

Now you're getting it ????