3 ms·

It isn't about you, especially if you're healthy and below 50. I do care about the people you'll help infect, including my wife who works in a hospital, the eld

It isn't about you, especially if you're healthy and below 50. I do care about the people you'll help infect, including my wife who works in a hospital, the elderly in my home, my colleagues, my elderly parents, and plenty of other people I care about. I and others should absolutely go to bat for the health of their loved ones and dependents. It's disappointing technologists interested in building things doesn't get the community aspect of that, but not my fight.

logicchains 7y ago
What about the people you care about who lose their jobs, get evicted, lose the businesses they spent years to build, suffer the permanent long-term effects of impoverishment (even temporary periods of unexpected unemployment still have a lasting negative effect on health outcomes)? Or maybe you're in the upper middle class, like most readers here, and don't know what life's like for the restaurant workers, hairdressers and the like who are about to lose their livelihoods. The lockdown is essentially asking the younger generations to make a massive sacrifices to support the older generation that has demonstrated very little willingness to make sacrifices to support the younger generation (accept a slightly lower standard of living to fight climate change).
- BuckRogers 7y ago
  Without locking down the community early they’ll lose their livelihoods anyway. You can’t create a holocaust and expect there to be no forced shutdown.
- jlokier 7y ago
  The older generation is not one homegeneous group. There are a lot of impoverished older generation people. No cash, no house or no liquidity, tiny pension if that. Those people are seriously at risk, and there is nothing they could have done for younger people along the lines you have described. Do we treat the impoverished old like their lives don't matter as much, let them die because they happen to be in the same arbitrary statistical grouping as other, unrelated old people you feel could have sacrificed more? Couldn't you come up with a fairer statistical grouping for "could have sacrificed more" at least, e.g. the rich? The younger generation is not a homogeneous group either. Among them are a lot of vulnerable young. People with respiratory problems, reduced lung function, among many other conditions, or lacking physical or mental capacity to look after themselves. Also every young person who needs hospital care for things like dialysis, when hospitals are unable to provide it. Do we just not care about the physically vulnerable young either? The lockdown is about protecting an extremely large number of vulnerable or unlucky people of all kinds. It's that simple. Some of those are children, some young, more middle-aged, and most old, although we are currently not sure how the statistics pan out for middle-aged and below when hospitals are severely overrun.
  - logicchains 7y ago
    >Do we treat the impoverished old like their lives don't matter as much, let them die because they happen to be in the same arbitrary statistical grouping as other, unrelated old people you feel could have sacrificed more? Something used in public policy is Quality Adjusted Life Years. An 80 years has a much smaller expected lifespan than a 10 year old, so something that reduces the 80 year old's expected lifespan by e.g. 2 years could be compared to the effect that poverty or environmental damage has on the 70+ expected years of the 10 year old's life. >Some of those are children, some young, more middle-aged, and most old, although we are currently not sure how the statistics pan out for middle-aged and below when hospitals are severely overrun. We have this from the Wuhan numbers, where hospital beds were completely insufficient at least for the first month.
- lmeyerov 7y ago
  I'll ignore the suggested ad hominem (which was pretty off the mark.) 1. You've got it flipped. I'm totally for everyone slowing down, some more than others, in exchange for saving lives. Most of the jobs going away will be back soon after - people will eat out again etc - so that is not much in the longview compared to family members needlessly dying. There are fragile companies going bust -- for example, in the bay area, restaurants need to perform well to survive, so this accelerated the death of a few already. For most small businesses, a slow downs for a few weeks isn't that bad or uncoverable by emergency loans... unless you were already doomed. There'll be all sorts of other effects, like many VC-fueled co's not being able to use the sales/marketing $ injection to artificially increase q2 growth as much, but no tears here. 2. Fed gov can & should be doing more than giving money to oil companies to temper indiv + SMB effects of the freeze. The continued shitty federal gov response here has meant random rushed local county decisions. In contrast, other nations have mandated things like rent pauses as part of their enforcement. I've worked where a lot of business is effectively barter - there's surprising slack in the US business world with landlords and other obligations in practice. That's not guaranteed, and megacorps, banks, and some individuals (I'm guessing like those on this thread advocating breaking the community isolation) can be inhumane, so important for strong govs to address. Not too late, and you'd be surprised.

logicchains 7y ago

What about the people you care about who lose their jobs, get evicted, lose the businesses they spent years to build, suffer the permanent long-term effects of impoverishment (even temporary periods of unexpected unemployment still have a lasting negative effect on health outcomes)? Or maybe you're in the upper middle class, like most readers here, and don't know what life's like for the restaurant workers, hairdressers and the like who are about to lose their livelihoods. The lockdown is essentially asking the younger generations to make a massive sacrifices to support the older generation that has demonstrated very little willingness to make sacrifices to support the younger generation (accept a slightly lower standard of living to fight climate change).

BuckRogers 7y ago
Without locking down the community early they’ll lose their livelihoods anyway. You can’t create a holocaust and expect there to be no forced shutdown.
jlokier 7y ago
The older generation is not one homegeneous group. There are a lot of impoverished older generation people. No cash, no house or no liquidity, tiny pension if that. Those people are seriously at risk, and there is nothing they could have done for younger people along the lines you have described. Do we treat the impoverished old like their lives don't matter as much, let them die because they happen to be in the same arbitrary statistical grouping as other, unrelated old people you feel could have sacrificed more? Couldn't you come up with a fairer statistical grouping for "could have sacrificed more" at least, e.g. the rich? The younger generation is not a homogeneous group either. Among them are a lot of vulnerable young. People with respiratory problems, reduced lung function, among many other conditions, or lacking physical or mental capacity to look after themselves. Also every young person who needs hospital care for things like dialysis, when hospitals are unable to provide it. Do we just not care about the physically vulnerable young either? The lockdown is about protecting an extremely large number of vulnerable or unlucky people of all kinds. It's that simple. Some of those are children, some young, more middle-aged, and most old, although we are currently not sure how the statistics pan out for middle-aged and below when hospitals are severely overrun.
- logicchains 7y ago
  >Do we treat the impoverished old like their lives don't matter as much, let them die because they happen to be in the same arbitrary statistical grouping as other, unrelated old people you feel could have sacrificed more? Something used in public policy is Quality Adjusted Life Years. An 80 years has a much smaller expected lifespan than a 10 year old, so something that reduces the 80 year old's expected lifespan by e.g. 2 years could be compared to the effect that poverty or environmental damage has on the 70+ expected years of the 10 year old's life. >Some of those are children, some young, more middle-aged, and most old, although we are currently not sure how the statistics pan out for middle-aged and below when hospitals are severely overrun. We have this from the Wuhan numbers, where hospital beds were completely insufficient at least for the first month.
lmeyerov 7y ago
I'll ignore the suggested ad hominem (which was pretty off the mark.) 1. You've got it flipped. I'm totally for everyone slowing down, some more than others, in exchange for saving lives. Most of the jobs going away will be back soon after - people will eat out again etc - so that is not much in the longview compared to family members needlessly dying. There are fragile companies going bust -- for example, in the bay area, restaurants need to perform well to survive, so this accelerated the death of a few already. For most small businesses, a slow downs for a few weeks isn't that bad or uncoverable by emergency loans... unless you were already doomed. There'll be all sorts of other effects, like many VC-fueled co's not being able to use the sales/marketing $ injection to artificially increase q2 growth as much, but no tears here. 2. Fed gov can & should be doing more than giving money to oil companies to temper indiv + SMB effects of the freeze. The continued shitty federal gov response here has meant random rushed local county decisions. In contrast, other nations have mandated things like rent pauses as part of their enforcement. I've worked where a lot of business is effectively barter - there's surprising slack in the US business world with landlords and other obligations in practice. That's not guaranteed, and megacorps, banks, and some individuals (I'm guessing like those on this thread advocating breaking the community isolation) can be inhumane, so important for strong govs to address. Not too late, and you'd be surprised.