6 ms·

This completely specious position is useful for all arguments! Gun deaths, drunk driving, terrorism, opioid deaths, suicides -- just compare them to the natura

This completely specious position is useful for all arguments! Gun deaths, drunk driving, terrorism, opioid deaths, suicides -- just compare them to the natural death rate and call it a day. I mean, those ones all pale compared to COVID-19, so apparently they're complete non-issues.

randyrand 7y ago
That’s not a terrible argument. But people are more upset about murder drunk driving, terrorism, opiod, and suicide than dying of disease because it’s human caused. It would make most sense to compare CoVID19 to deaths caused by disease per year in the USA, as that is apples to apples. I don’t have those numbers off hand. Edit: https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death The overall rate is roughly the same as the death rate from disease.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  As I said in a previous comment, this is your fallacy: 1. "New thing X puts us at risk of losing Y lives every day." 2. "We lose Y lives to car accidents every day". 3. "Ergo, X is harmless!" Except you now have 2Y lives lost every day.
  - randyrand 7y ago
    Thats not a fallacy. Thats exactly my point. It's not worth decimating human rights over 1 year of 2x the human death rate. If it were 4x, 5x sure, but 2x is not worthy of banning nearly all physical human interaction for many months or more.
    - scrollaway 7y ago
      I don't like being locked down at home any more than you do. But right now, my freedom to go out impedes on my neighbour's freedom not to get sick. COVID-19 has spread father than you think. It is also more damaging than you think. I'm hopeful the lockdowns won't be too long, and countries will gradually open up rather than all-at-once.
      - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        I strongly suspect you do. Nearly 100% of the people I've seen argue in favor of indefinite lockdowns are white collar internet natives, capable of getting a reasonable amount of personal and professional satisfaction through a monitor. If you know anyone who works with their hands for a living, or whose primary social activity is having a beer with the bros, you understand why it's not as simple as just "it'll end when it ends".
        scrollaway 7y ago
        I don't know where you see me arguing in favour of indefinite lockdowns, and quite frankly, screw your shitty judgemental attitude. Not only am I low risk, but I've already had the virus and passed it nearly asymptomatically. I'm likely immune. This shit doesn't benefit me in any way. And while I may indeed, like most people on this site, make a living online; I've stopped working nearly entirely and have been donating my time to work on COVID-19 projects. In the mean time, I can't see my girlfriend, can't hang out with my local friends (sorry, "bros"), can't do my usual sports, and I still have to support the people in my life who have it much harder than me because they can't work. So no, I'm not in favour of indefinite lockdowns, but I'm also not in favour of ignoring the problem until it goes away on its own.
        SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        When I say "indefinite", I just mean that you don't seem to have a standard for how long the lockdown can be at maximum. The lockdown in my area, for instance, were imposed with no expiration date or even a clear explanation of when it'd start be lifted. (Which is why I'm very frustrated with people who seem to be siding with that kind of vague policy.) Maybe I'm mistaken and you're not on board with that. Is there some definite period of lockdown you're in favor of, where after that period we accept we've done what we can?
        scrollaway 7y ago
        I'm not the right person to ask. I'm not an expert. What I know is that I don't want to stay stuck in my house for the next few months, but I also want life to be normal when I do get out, and not turned into a "nobody can shake hands or kiss" movie. I'm also not in favour of vague policies but can you really blame politicians in this case? It's easy to make predictions but nobody really knows what things will be like three weeks from now. What's the point of saying things will return to normal in three weeks if it's not grounded in anything?
    - chillacy 7y ago
      > If it were 4x, 5x sure, but 2x is not worthy That seems like a normative judgement, there's no way everybody you talk to would agree with the exact place you drew the line.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
But I think comparisons to the natural death rate are correct in all of those cases. If someone proposed to solve the issue of drunk driving by closing all bars and banning all social gatherings, our response would be a lot closer to "come on man" than a detailed cost-benefit analysis.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  The death rates aren't the only thing that enter the equation, which is obvious if you think about it for a few seconds. Furthermore, and I can't believe I have to type this: Drunk driving isn't an airborne pathogen. You can't "catch" drunk driving after unknowingly breathing in alcohol fumes from someone in the subway, then suddenly, 10-14 days later, wake up in your car having an accident after having spread some more drunk driving to people you've been in proximity to. Why would it be "come on man!"? Because we have the ability to ban drunk drivers from the road, which we've done. We however don't have the ability to ban the coronavirus from our lungs, but I'm sure if we did have the ability to do that, we'd just do that instead of … you know, locking everything down. We're doing what we're doing because it's the only thing we can do. Some countries are trying other things. Some are better prepared than others and can afford to do less radical things. But what every country can pretty much (at this point) agree on is that, left completely unchecked, this will end us. Not just through the disease itself, but through the after-effects of the healthcare system collapsing.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I don't think every country can or has agreed on that. A lot of people argue that we shouldn't let the healthcare system collapse, that it's worth paying any cost no matter how large to prevent, but healthcare systems have collapsed in pandemics before and it's never been the end of the world. And to justify some of the proposals I've seen floating around, where we'll all be imprisoned at home for 3 or 6 or 18 months, "end of the world" is pretty much what you'd need to believe.
    - perl4ever 7y ago

randyrand 7y ago

That’s not a terrible argument. But people are more upset about murder drunk driving, terrorism, opiod, and suicide than dying of disease because it’s human caused. It would make most sense to compare CoVID19 to deaths caused by disease per year in the USA, as that is apples to apples. I don’t have those numbers off hand. Edit: https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death The overall rate is roughly the same as the death rate from disease.

scrollaway 7y ago
As I said in a previous comment, this is your fallacy: 1. "New thing X puts us at risk of losing Y lives every day." 2. "We lose Y lives to car accidents every day". 3. "Ergo, X is harmless!" Except you now have 2Y lives lost every day.
- randyrand 7y ago
  Thats not a fallacy. Thats exactly my point. It's not worth decimating human rights over 1 year of 2x the human death rate. If it were 4x, 5x sure, but 2x is not worthy of banning nearly all physical human interaction for many months or more.
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    I don't like being locked down at home any more than you do. But right now, my freedom to go out impedes on my neighbour's freedom not to get sick. COVID-19 has spread father than you think. It is also more damaging than you think. I'm hopeful the lockdowns won't be too long, and countries will gradually open up rather than all-at-once.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      I strongly suspect you do. Nearly 100% of the people I've seen argue in favor of indefinite lockdowns are white collar internet natives, capable of getting a reasonable amount of personal and professional satisfaction through a monitor. If you know anyone who works with their hands for a living, or whose primary social activity is having a beer with the bros, you understand why it's not as simple as just "it'll end when it ends".
      - scrollaway 7y ago
        I don't know where you see me arguing in favour of indefinite lockdowns, and quite frankly, screw your shitty judgemental attitude. Not only am I low risk, but I've already had the virus and passed it nearly asymptomatically. I'm likely immune. This shit doesn't benefit me in any way. And while I may indeed, like most people on this site, make a living online; I've stopped working nearly entirely and have been donating my time to work on COVID-19 projects. In the mean time, I can't see my girlfriend, can't hang out with my local friends (sorry, "bros"), can't do my usual sports, and I still have to support the people in my life who have it much harder than me because they can't work. So no, I'm not in favour of indefinite lockdowns, but I'm also not in favour of ignoring the problem until it goes away on its own.
        SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        When I say "indefinite", I just mean that you don't seem to have a standard for how long the lockdown can be at maximum. The lockdown in my area, for instance, were imposed with no expiration date or even a clear explanation of when it'd start be lifted. (Which is why I'm very frustrated with people who seem to be siding with that kind of vague policy.) Maybe I'm mistaken and you're not on board with that. Is there some definite period of lockdown you're in favor of, where after that period we accept we've done what we can?
        scrollaway 7y ago
        I'm not the right person to ask. I'm not an expert. What I know is that I don't want to stay stuck in my house for the next few months, but I also want life to be normal when I do get out, and not turned into a "nobody can shake hands or kiss" movie. I'm also not in favour of vague policies but can you really blame politicians in this case? It's easy to make predictions but nobody really knows what things will be like three weeks from now. What's the point of saying things will return to normal in three weeks if it's not grounded in anything?
  - chillacy 7y ago
    > If it were 4x, 5x sure, but 2x is not worthy That seems like a normative judgement, there's no way everybody you talk to would agree with the exact place you drew the line.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

But I think comparisons to the natural death rate are correct in all of those cases. If someone proposed to solve the issue of drunk driving by closing all bars and banning all social gatherings, our response would be a lot closer to "come on man" than a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

scrollaway 7y ago
The death rates aren't the only thing that enter the equation, which is obvious if you think about it for a few seconds. Furthermore, and I can't believe I have to type this: Drunk driving isn't an airborne pathogen. You can't "catch" drunk driving after unknowingly breathing in alcohol fumes from someone in the subway, then suddenly, 10-14 days later, wake up in your car having an accident after having spread some more drunk driving to people you've been in proximity to. Why would it be "come on man!"? Because we have the ability to ban drunk drivers from the road, which we've done. We however don't have the ability to ban the coronavirus from our lungs, but I'm sure if we did have the ability to do that, we'd just do that instead of … you know, locking everything down. We're doing what we're doing because it's the only thing we can do. Some countries are trying other things. Some are better prepared than others and can afford to do less radical things. But what every country can pretty much (at this point) agree on is that, left completely unchecked, this will end us. Not just through the disease itself, but through the after-effects of the healthcare system collapsing.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I don't think every country can or has agreed on that. A lot of people argue that we shouldn't let the healthcare system collapse, that it's worth paying any cost no matter how large to prevent, but healthcare systems have collapsed in pandemics before and it's never been the end of the world. And to justify some of the proposals I've seen floating around, where we'll all be imprisoned at home for 3 or 6 or 18 months, "end of the world" is pretty much what you'd need to believe.
  - perl4ever 7y ago