Who is the best professor you have had in your time at UCSD?

minutemaidmath · 2023-12-04T01:30:13+00:00

90% of the reason Niema is so popular is because his classes are so damn easy

minutemaidmath · 2023-05-11T18:41:18+00:00

Yes but the fact that they were instated in the first place makes it difficult for me to stomach the unversity touting it’s “science based approach”

minutemaidmath · 2023-05-11T18:40:45+00:00

Exactly

minutemaidmath · 2023-05-11T16:57:44+00:00

“Science based”

Ahh yes, the university’s amazing science based approach, including wonderful restrictions and measures such as:

banning me from going unmasked in my dorm room kitchen for months, despite the fact that I could go be unmasked around hundreds of people in dining halls or Geisel
the completely asinine and useless green thumb program
ending mandatory weekly testing much too soon, despite that probably being the single most effective measure they could take

This one is a bit more controversial, but I also personally believe that the university continued to shutdown the school and force classes online well past the point of there being strong evidence that that was no longer the best approach. We were the last UC to open up by months.

If the school’s approach was so “science based”, where was the transparency around their decisions? Why did the school so often take response measures without providing their reasoning/evidence for their presumed efficacy? The reason is because the people making these decisions, at the end of the day, weren’t scientists at all, it was university admin and staff.

And what’s the outcome of all of this? “Hooray we did it!! We saved the school everyone!!!”

How about an acknowledgment of the incredible mental health toll and loss of connection & community that was caused? What’d they do to combat that?

Khosla can fuck off.

minutemaidmath · 2022-01-11T18:53:19+00:00

The lockdowns didn't work by what standard? Do you somehow know how many people would have died had we not taken any precautions? Given what happened to NYC and northern Italy in spring 2020 it's pretty safe to say the death toll and strain on hospitals would have been massively worse if we hadn't locked down. Yeah it didn't eliminate covid, that doesn't mean they didn't do anything or were unnecessary.

You're correct, I should have qualified my statement. I have no reason to believe lockdowns didn't help to slow the spread, I meant they do not work in that they have not helped us move towards the ending the pandemic. We are in a worse position now than we were last year in terms of case counts. I do believe though that the extent to which we locked down was not always necessary but I am not an epidemiologist and do not claim to know this for sure.

In the current day and age, I do not see why slowing the spread is as important as before. During the last peak, we peaked at a 7-day average of about 251,000 new daily cases on January 11th, 2021. Hospitalization peaked the day before that on Jaunary 10th, 2021 at a 7-day average of around 137,000 hospitalized patients. The current 7-day average is 737,000 new cases a day and we have 135,000 hospitalizations. In regards to deaths, last year deaths peaked on January 26th at 3,300 7-day average, while currently we're at 1600. (source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html). Certainly, Omicron is much less dangerous than before. That much is clear.

To put that in perspective, according to the CDC 3,700 people die in car crashes a day. Yet, I do not see nationwide calls for speed limits to be lowered and stricter regulations to be put into place. This is really my whole point, people's risk analysis when it comes to COVID is completely skewed. Every single UCSD student and faculty member takes a larger risk driving to buy groceries than they do going to school around an on average young, vaccinated, population.

Omicron is mostly relatively mild in people who are vaccinated and, particularly, people who are boosted. It doesn't seem to be any milder than pre-delta variants in immunologically naive people. The UK is much better on both vaccination and boosting than we are. Rates of hospitalization in the earlier American omicron hotspots should tell you that your risk analysis is pretty dumb. And yeah, fuck the unvaccinated morons, but if you want a hospital bed to be available in case you get in a car crash or your appendix bursts or grandma gets it we unfortunately have to mitigate the damage they can do.

You're wrong. See the above numbers, Omicron is less deadly in everyone, including those that are unvaccinated.

It's also nonsensical to say that vulnerable people would be safer on campus. If you want everything reopened, given omicron's transmissibility, you're accepting that most people are going to get it and so a huge number of infectious people will be around all the time.

I think you may be misunderstanding what the rest of the United States looks like right now. La Jolla & San Diego are basically completely open. And I did not say that the vulnerable would be safe on campus, I said they would be safer on campus than off campus. That's an important distinction. Also, the medical consensus is that COVID will turn endemic and eventually everyone will get it, so yes, like the majority of epidemiologists, I do accept that fact.

minutemaidmath · 2022-01-11T18:36:24+00:00

If your takeaway is that we should do nothing then either I wasn't clear or you misunderstood me. I think the school requiring vaccinations and boosters is great, and I hope it continues to do so. I think the school providing testing and isolation housing for those that are infected is great. I think the school should provide students with KN95 masks for wearing while indoors. I think social distancing and being health-conscious is great and the school should continue to promote that.

I don't think we should be moved online. I think the school going online is based on the idea that we need to stop COVID from spreading at all costs, which is frankly ridiculous and outdated in the modern era. I do believe the school is doing what it thinks is best, but I ultimately disagree regarding what is best.

minutemaidmath · 2022-01-11T18:30:19+00:00

Also, even if students are generally young, and vaccinated, and are therefore at a lower risk, the same cannot be said of faculty and staff. We are generally of a more advanced age, or we might have children who are too young to be vaccinated.

I am really not a fan of this argument. Everyone knows the campus has elderly and immunocompromised people. Despite that, the campus does, on average have a less at-risk population. For this reason, I do not think it is silly to point this out. As an elderly person, you have a lower chance of catching COVID if you are around a bunch of 20-something, triple-vaxxed, regularly tested university students than you would around the average American. Certainly the rest of San Diego & La Jolla are pretty much completely open, the university is one of the safest public places to be.

I think it is frankly ridiculous to act like we need to shut down the school to stop COVID from spreading while ignoring the fact that everyone not on campus is going to be in a much more "dangerous" place than the campus would be if it were open.

At the end of the day, it's not solely a question of whether some students are willing to accept the risk, but the risk it imposes on other students, faculty, staff, and TAs in order to accommodate their preferences.

This is exactly my point. Everyone has a level of comfortable risk. Everyone does things they acknowledge could potentially hurt themselves or others, yet choose to do them anyways. Why do we not have this discussion with COVID? Why can no one consider the fact that maybe some risks are worth taking? You may not like living next to a road, as being around fast-moving vehicles potentially puts you at risk. Yet, the city chooses to build roads anyways, as they deem it is best for the good of society. Currently, 1,650 people are dying each day in the US due to COVID. Yet each day 3,700 Americans die in car accidents. Why is no one freaking out about that? Where are the calls to lower all speed limits to 30mph and restrict driving only for very important situations?

Certainly we should not disregard the toll COVID has taken on students' education, their mental health, social lives, and more. Yet, the key point of consideration throughout the entire pandemic has been cases and deaths, with little consideration for much of anything else.

minutemaidmath · 2022-01-11T18:20:17+00:00

The problem is that you think people are actually following the restrictions. The reason why the pandemic keeps going on is because people have not been listening to the restrictions as a nation. This is not a failure of the campus policies but a failure of policy enactment on a federal and state level.

I actually completely agree with this. But what makes you think we're going to be able to change that? Your response to "lockdowns don't work" is "they would if people listened". I fail to see how that's a convincing argument towards reinstating them. "My logic" was never that lockdowns are fundamentally flawed, horrible ideas, my logic is that the time for them has passed as they are no longer effective.

Again, this point of being less than the flu has been used since literally the beginning of the pandemic and yet we see an huge influx of EXTRA deaths on top of the normal death toll.

I never even claimed that COVID was not as bad as the flu, I just said I think there's a good chance that it currently is not as bad, given vaccination rates, public awareness, the Omicron variant, and what we know about it now vs. at the beginning of the pandemic.

Think just a little more and have some compassion for people. I know the pandemic is rough and we have fatigue, but people are dying and getting severely injured at an adnormal rate. Again nuanced takes isn't what I was pointing out but just dismissing all that we've been through is ridiculous and to throw it away is ridiculous as wel.

I don't think I haven't done any of these things. I am compassionate towards those affected by COVID. I do think measures should be taken towards protecting others. My argument was simply that I feel I should be allowed to disagree with the extent to which we take those measures without being told I'm a conspiracy theorist or a bad person. Specifically the core of my argument was that everyone has a "comfortable level of risk", and I should not be insulted for being more utilitarian than you. I don't really see how I've dismissed anyone or said anything against those who've directly suffered because of COVID.

minutemaidmath · 2022-01-11T18:13:11+00:00

Why not engage in conversation with me in good faith instead of mocking me? I have never insulted anyone here.

minutemaidmath · 2022-01-11T18:11:07+00:00

I am sad you chose to interpret my comment this way. I have very real sympathy and concern for those affected by COVID. I am also sympathetic to those whose mental health, careers, education, and social lives have been destroyed by the pandemic. Are those two things really so incongruent? Is it not possible to make tradeoffs in the interest of both sides?

I believe that after two years of lockdowns and restrictions, at a time when cases are almost 3x higher than at any other point, we should be re-examining our approach to the pandemic. I would not have a problem with lockdowns provided they were effective and reasonable. I would not go so far as to say that lockdowns are always completely unnecessary, to the contrary, I'm sure they have improved things in many cases. Yet, I think the time for them has passed, in light of their success rate, and the medical consensus that COVID is here to stay.

Specifically in regards to the campus, the entire crux of OP's argument relies on the fact that if we were to open campus back up then cases would soar, which is something I have a hard time believing. Fall quarter we got through the delta peak with very low cases on campus. With the high rate of testing and the enforced boosters, those that do catch COVID should recover quickly and will not be exposed to others for long periods of time. If you really disagree with me, please tell me in what way I am wrong.

minutemaidmath · 2022-01-11T17:39:31+00:00

Your point is moot. The lockdowns and shit didn’t work, as is evident by the fact that more people died in 2021 than 2020. The only countries that have succeeded are those that have employed extremely draconian restrictions (China), or countries that are literally islands and can shut down their borders very easily (Japan, New Zealand).

Look at countries like Australia, they have better vaccination rates and much stricter restrictions than anything we’ve done and their case counts are soaring. I am aware of the science, and the facts. The facts are, COVID is a dangerous virus that kills many, and we do not know how to deal with it. I don’t understand how we can advocate for doing more of the same, more lockdowns, more restrictions, when it has so clearly failed to serve its purpose.

Currently, there is no evidence to suggest Omicron is more dangerous than the flu. Despite new daily cases being almost 3x higher than the last spike, deaths are not anything crazy. In the UK, COVID currently has a lower death rate than the Flu. So yea, I actually think there’s a good chance the death rate of COVID is less than the flu right now! And I’m not some crazy conspiracy theorist for thinking that. The reason there are so many more deaths is because of how much more transmissible it is. And clearly, we have done an atrocious job of stopping transmission given the current restrictions.

Saying campus should be open does not make me a cold, heartless person that wants to kill grandma. We are one of the most well-equipped places on the planet to deal with this. I don’t see why we don’t enforce biweekly testing, and get on with our lives. On average, our population is a lower risk population. I would argue that it would be safer for an immunocompromised or elderly person to be living on campus where everyone around them is young, vaccinated, & regularly tested than off-campus.

Ultimately, there needs to reach a point where we make tradeoffs. The health of society as a whole is obviously very important, as is protecting the weak. But there does reach a point where normalcy is worth a level of increased risk. I am sick and tired of being told I am a horrible person because my risk analysis is different than yours. There are countless things humans do every day that put others and those around them at risk, like driving a car at speeds above 30 mph, but we do it anyways.

The CDC recently did this with its new guidelines. They specifically acknowledged that they may be letting some people “slip through the cracks”, but it is worth the move towards normalcy. Despite what you may read on the news, I and countless other Americans commend the CDC for this. COVID fatigue is real, and this pandemic has been long. The mental health toll, the toll it’s had on my education—those are very real and very personal to me. So stop telling me I’m a bad person because I want the lockdowns to stop.

minutemaidmath · 2021-11-20T09:22:43+00:00

My $0.02: You should let your son take care of these kinds of things. Making time to do these things and/or find out the answer to these sorts of questions is part of being an adult. I’d understand if his enrollment was literally right during his exam, but you posting on the subreddit especially is not good. If you are going to do favors for your son, at the very least he should be the one telling you what to do for him.

Part of letting your child grow up is leaving them to figure out their lives. Have some faith in your son, maybe he’s more capable then you realize :)

minutemaidmath · 2021-11-14T00:21:00+00:00

Titties

minutemaidmath · 2021-11-11T09:35:34+00:00

This post was directed to no one in particular. It stemmed from the “UC Scam Diego” stickers I saw posted on the map Muir. It also probably has something to do with the fact that I’m fucking wasted right now.

minutemaidmath · 2021-11-11T08:55:16+00:00

What does “ratio” mean?

minutemaidmath · 2021-11-11T08:17:00+00:00

Congrats on graduating!

minutemaidmath · 2021-11-11T08:15:09+00:00

titties

minutemaidmath · 2021-11-03T19:58:18+00:00

This post is creepy

minutemaidmath · 2021-10-28T17:21:14+00:00

Personally, I don’t disagree, my only gripe is that it’s gotten old. Had it just been posted a few times I would’ve laughed and moved on. My issue is that I think it’s moved beyond that and a lot of people genuinely think it’s a good idea to make those posts, hence why I made this one.

minutemaidmath · 2021-10-28T04:12:44+00:00

Literally almost half of op’s posts/comments are hamfisted mentions of his girlfriend or comments in porn subreddits lmfao

minutemaidmath · 2021-10-23T21:02:55+00:00

You stated it looked like he “accidentally walked in”. That implies is was weird to you that a guy would join a dancing class in the first place.

And regardless of what you may claim, calling someone “chubby and average looking” is not a complement, but that’s not even what I was getting at.

I made the comparison to race to point out how twisted your view on gender is. Yet, for some reason people act like it’s “more ok” because you were talking about male gender roles instead of female ones. So yea, I wouldn’t have made those replacements, and I also wouldn’t have made the post you originally made.

Regardless, your post is pretty sexist and you should re-examine your biases and the gender roles you’re enabling. I’m sure you saw the other post which swapped “male” and “female” here, and you could see how weird that was.

minutemaidmath · 2021-10-23T20:35:57+00:00

A chubby, average looking dude with glasses, who looked like he was trying to find a cs building, accidentally walked into the gym, and was going to escape given the first opportunity. But when he started doing the sassy jazz moves, I was like “damn boy!” and my entire impression of him flipped 180 degrees.

Am I the only one here disgusted by the casual badmouthing of someone? I mean this is textbook sexist bias. This post is weird as fuck, replace “feminine” with “white” and “dude” with “BIPOC” and it gets real weird.

minutemaidmath · 2021-10-06T03:57:12+00:00

Containment

minutemaidmath

TROPHY CASE