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This is a short-sighted view. If GameStop closes, they will go out of business. If they go out of business, these employees will lose their jobs. I see no reas

This is a short-sighted view. If GameStop closes, they will go out of business. If they go out of business, these employees will lose their jobs. I see no reason why a GameStop employee can't just quit or refuse to come to work if he/she fears getting infected.

braythwayt 7y ago
> I see no reason why a GameStop employee can't just quit or refuse to come to work if he/she fears getting infected. You see no reason? I'll give you one: In most jurisdictions, if your employer lays you off or closes their doors, you can apply for some kind of benefits, e.g. EI up here in Canada. But if you quit your job on principle, you don't get benefits and have to live on whatever savings you've amassed working a retail job. It seems you believe that everything should remain open, everyone should keep going to work, and hey, if you don't like it, quit your job and stay home. That is not how a society gets through a pandemic, no way, no how. If you were in charge, millions of people would die. But they'd "Have their freedom to choose for themselves." So there's that.
- ceilingcorner 7y ago
  Sure, this is a legitimate concern. But I don't think black-and-white thinking is really the answer here. There are solutions in between shut everything down and keep it all open.
edmundsauto 7y ago
Do you support unemployment benefits for employees who quit because of coronavirus?
- ceilingcorner 7y ago
  Sure, and that might have been a better solution than simply forcing everyone to go on unemployment, which is what will probably happen now.
  - edmundsauto 7y ago
    Can you explain your rationale behind your thinking? I assume you were being hyperbolic with "everyone", aka 100%. What percentage do you actually think will hit the dole lines? How confident are you in that prediction? What behaviors of yours have changed because of this confidence? I've seen a lot of "the economy will tank because consumers can't visit shops". I've seen a lot of friends in food & bev lose their jobs. I haven't seen much in the way of hard numbers. Seems to me that a huge increase in worldwide deaths and a huge increase in sick time absences would be economically worse than lockdown.
    - ceilingcorner 7y ago
      I'm not even necessarily arguing that not locking down is the right move, but rather that we should be able to have the conversation as to whether it's worth it or whether there are other, better solutions to this problem (like Taiwan or Korea managed to do.) In any case, as I mentioned before, the danger here is that the consequences are unknown. We really don't know what will happen, which in many ways is worse than a known danger like the virus itself. The complexity is rapidly spinning out of control and affecting trade, economics, other medical conditions, and virtually every job that isn't a remote programmer. As far as numbers go, Cuomo just ordered that 75% of people stay home from work in NYC. If you google around, unemployment applications are growing exponentially. It seems likely that a pretty significant portion of the population will apply for it. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/cuomo-orders-75-of-new-yorkers-to-stay-home-from-work https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/cuomo-ord...
      - edmundsauto 7y ago
        That's fair to ask for the conversation. However, the risk is that the conversation will prevent decisive action, which is what has occurred in the US for the past month. As a nation and collective of states, leaders are decisioning on events from a couple of weeks ago. Because we don't know the ground truth at the moment, we are working with stale information. Each pandemic period -- let's use OOM cases to define it quickly -- has different levels of response needed. The lockdown needs to happen now, then we can have the conversation around our options. As we discuss options while things spiral, the inputs are out of date, which is very very dangerous in a quickly changing exponential chart.

braythwayt 7y ago

> I see no reason why a GameStop employee can't just quit or refuse to come to work if he/she fears getting infected. You see no reason? I'll give you one: In most jurisdictions, if your employer lays you off or closes their doors, you can apply for some kind of benefits, e.g. EI up here in Canada. But if you quit your job on principle, you don't get benefits and have to live on whatever savings you've amassed working a retail job. It seems you believe that everything should remain open, everyone should keep going to work, and hey, if you don't like it, quit your job and stay home. That is not how a society gets through a pandemic, no way, no how. If you were in charge, millions of people would die. But they'd "Have their freedom to choose for themselves." So there's that.

ceilingcorner 7y ago
Sure, this is a legitimate concern. But I don't think black-and-white thinking is really the answer here. There are solutions in between shut everything down and keep it all open.

edmundsauto 7y ago

Do you support unemployment benefits for employees who quit because of coronavirus?

ceilingcorner 7y ago
Sure, and that might have been a better solution than simply forcing everyone to go on unemployment, which is what will probably happen now.
- edmundsauto 7y ago
  Can you explain your rationale behind your thinking? I assume you were being hyperbolic with "everyone", aka 100%. What percentage do you actually think will hit the dole lines? How confident are you in that prediction? What behaviors of yours have changed because of this confidence? I've seen a lot of "the economy will tank because consumers can't visit shops". I've seen a lot of friends in food & bev lose their jobs. I haven't seen much in the way of hard numbers. Seems to me that a huge increase in worldwide deaths and a huge increase in sick time absences would be economically worse than lockdown.
  - ceilingcorner 7y ago
    I'm not even necessarily arguing that not locking down is the right move, but rather that we should be able to have the conversation as to whether it's worth it or whether there are other, better solutions to this problem (like Taiwan or Korea managed to do.) In any case, as I mentioned before, the danger here is that the consequences are unknown. We really don't know what will happen, which in many ways is worse than a known danger like the virus itself. The complexity is rapidly spinning out of control and affecting trade, economics, other medical conditions, and virtually every job that isn't a remote programmer. As far as numbers go, Cuomo just ordered that 75% of people stay home from work in NYC. If you google around, unemployment applications are growing exponentially. It seems likely that a pretty significant portion of the population will apply for it. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/cuomo-orders-75-of-new-yorkers-to-stay-home-from-work https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/cuomo-ord...
    - edmundsauto 7y ago
      That's fair to ask for the conversation. However, the risk is that the conversation will prevent decisive action, which is what has occurred in the US for the past month. As a nation and collective of states, leaders are decisioning on events from a couple of weeks ago. Because we don't know the ground truth at the moment, we are working with stale information. Each pandemic period -- let's use OOM cases to define it quickly -- has different levels of response needed. The lockdown needs to happen now, then we can have the conversation around our options. As we discuss options while things spiral, the inputs are out of date, which is very very dangerous in a quickly changing exponential chart.