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I haven't checked too closely, but surely the age distribution of conservative voters is such that if they are so callous as to treat corona as a convenient boo

I haven't checked too closely, but surely the age distribution of conservative voters is such that if they are so callous as to treat corona as a convenient boomer remover, they torpedo their own re-election chances. So, _even if_ you ascribe to the current UK government a conspiracy-esque, cold as nails approach to just effectively _murder whole boatloads of older folks_, it doesn't actually make sense: Who would they be so cold as to just casually acquiesce to a solution that results in a lot of death, but they are still human enough to care about the country first and are willing to sacrifice the electoral future of their party? I'm on 'do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity', modifying it slightly to 'incompetence'.

knzhou 7y ago
The Conservative party is fresh off one of the greatest electoral landslides in history, and is 5 years away from the next election. So perhaps they think that people will have come around to their point of view by then? I'm just grasping at straws here, it's almost incomprehensible.
toyg 7y ago
Replace “boomer remover” with “working-class-boomer remover” and the strategy makes more sense. Personally, I don’t think Johnson and his cronies are deliberately targeting this or that group. They just don’t care. They are scared like everyone else, and are prioritizing the survival of their immediate circles and their social status - i.e. they keep the economy working, keep an appearance of order, and ensure people they care about are “cocooned”, ready to come out when the worst is over. That is their priority. Working-class lives are not priority, that’s all. Health-service capacity woes are relatively unimportant, because people “who matter” will be prioritized anyway. If they go to full-lockdown, they risk upsetting the existing social order (economy tanks even harder, unemployed people start rioting, etc). That is their worst fear; consider that we’ve had actual riots in London only a few years ago. Saving a bunch of working-class grandpas is clearly not worth the risk of upsetting the current social order, from Johnson’s position. He’d rather have a functioning elite ruling over rubbles, than risk the very own existence of such elite just to save “nobodies”. Add to it a sprinkle of academic Strangeloves, and there you are.
- lngnmn1 7y ago
  > Saving a bunch of working-class grandpas The problem is there is currently no known way to save them.
MrPatan 7y ago
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistiguishable from malice
captainbland 7y ago
You really have to understand that this government hires "superpredictors". It's not malice, it's just incompetence. They're making decisions based on how "truthy" they sound to them.

knzhou 7y ago

The Conservative party is fresh off one of the greatest electoral landslides in history, and is 5 years away from the next election. So perhaps they think that people will have come around to their point of view by then? I'm just grasping at straws here, it's almost incomprehensible.

toyg 7y ago

Replace “boomer remover” with “working-class-boomer remover” and the strategy makes more sense. Personally, I don’t think Johnson and his cronies are deliberately targeting this or that group. They just don’t care. They are scared like everyone else, and are prioritizing the survival of their immediate circles and their social status - i.e. they keep the economy working, keep an appearance of order, and ensure people they care about are “cocooned”, ready to come out when the worst is over. That is their priority. Working-class lives are not priority, that’s all. Health-service capacity woes are relatively unimportant, because people “who matter” will be prioritized anyway. If they go to full-lockdown, they risk upsetting the existing social order (economy tanks even harder, unemployed people start rioting, etc). That is their worst fear; consider that we’ve had actual riots in London only a few years ago. Saving a bunch of working-class grandpas is clearly not worth the risk of upsetting the current social order, from Johnson’s position. He’d rather have a functioning elite ruling over rubbles, than risk the very own existence of such elite just to save “nobodies”. Add to it a sprinkle of academic Strangeloves, and there you are.

lngnmn1 7y ago
> Saving a bunch of working-class grandpas The problem is there is currently no known way to save them.

MrPatan 7y ago

Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistiguishable from malice

captainbland 7y ago

You really have to understand that this government hires "superpredictors". It's not malice, it's just incompetence. They're making decisions based on how "truthy" they sound to them.