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>> An economy is not something that one should have to shovels lives into to keep going. I mean I want to agree in principle, but this is just an incorrect sta

>> An economy is not something that one should have to shovels lives into to keep going. I mean I want to agree in principle, but this is just an incorrect statement. It's a matter of what is a good-enough tradeoff of risk and reward. If you make people drive to work, some will die. If you want to mine lithium, some people will die in industrial accidents that wouldn't have died if you never built a lithium mine. If you are only willing to accept 0.000% risk, then we have to respond with a full economic shutdown whenever there is a flu outbreak, or even a common cold outbreak, because people will die if we don't stop the spread. All economic activity leads to deaths, most of the time the deaths are less obviously linked, and at a much lower rate, so we don't connect the fact that people commute to work in trains, and so the economic activity they are commuting into work to engage in directly causes their death in the form of the flu, train crashes, pedestrian accidents, and so on. There is also a question of net lives lost, or harm minimization. Economic activity also leads to resources which can be used to tend for the sick and elderly, or better nutrition, or education, and to sum up everything that isn't eating acorns you can find on the ground (except even that is a form of economic activity). I would assume that just letting covid run free would be dramatically worse than shutting down the economy for a few weeks, but then what the endgame is I'm not sure, it really does depend on the death rate in an ICU vs with limited medical support, and the amount of economic harm this causes. However, I think we can learn a lot from this outbreak. I was very, very embarrassed to wear my filter mask when I went to the store, so I only wore work gloves up until yesterday. Now I'm sitting in bed with a fever wondering whether I'm about to start coughing up blood (probably not, it's still more likely to be the flu). Next flu season (or, sadly, next covid season) I think I will wear my mask, though. If people start wearing fashionable masks and gloves in the winter, we can virtually eliminate lots of communicable diseases.

BlargMcLarg 7y ago
> It's a matter of what is a good-enough tradeoff of risk and reward. This also sounds very short-sighted. Yes, people die in a lithium mine, but in most countries, I'm the one taking the risk to become a miner or not. Understandably, the situation isn't that easy: in some countries, you may indirectly or directly be forced to risk your life for the economy. Yet often, I don't see the physical risk-takers being particularly rewarded for their risk-taking either, with few exceptions. Miners are definitely not one of them. Its a difference between who is taking the risk and who's life is on the line: I don't mind risking my own life. I do mind the government toying with it while a prime minister is sipping tea in his comfy seat. Reality is, the current economy is maintained through exploitation in one way or another, and its fragile balance is now attacked by a force that doesn't care about our economy. Every time people bring up the economy as an argument, its abundantly clear the people in trouble either can't make a buffer, or don't have the discipline to make a buffer. It wasn't that long ago we were forced to go through harsh winters using the harvest of a possibly failed summer and autumn. Yet today, the economy is in jeopardy if a quarter of all activity is told to shut down temporarily. Why can't make people a buffer? Why aren't people making a buffer? Why aren't governments prepared for this? Something unexpected can always happen, we're not gods nor do we have crystal balls. In a competent software industry, you'd be summoned for making a fragile software system where traffic stops coming through. Yet now we tolerate the same in regards to our economy. It really is time we take a step back and go on the defense rather than looking no further than 3 months.
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  > It wasn't that long ago we were forced to go through harsh winters using the harvest of a possibly failed summer and autumn. Well, not really. Lots of people would fail to prepare and rely on their community, and during times the community couldn't afford to help them, they would starve to death. Lots and lots and lots of people just starved to death. They didn't prepare enough, and then they slowly and painfully died from not eating anything. Lots of rich people said "they should have prepared", but it's hard to imagine what it's like to have to decide whether your children will have to be barefoot all winter, or just not go to school at all this year if you don't decide to sell a few extra potatoes instead of saving them.
wegs 7y ago
There is no trade-off. Exponential functions are pretty binary. We contain this (R0<1) or we let this kill 3.6% of the population, and likely permanently harm the lungs of many more. A core problem is that we're not looking at how to mitigate damage to the economy. We can handle a month or two of the economy shutting down, no problem. You'll get your new car 2 months later. Most of the damage is auxiliary: businesses going bankrupt, people defaulting on mortgages, etc. All of that can be mitigated with the right measures. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YbtJGn7ida2IYNgwCFk3SjhsZ0ztpG5bMzA3WNbVNhU/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YbtJGn7ida2IYNgwCFk3Sjhs... The economic harm of losing 2 months of production -- or even a year of production -- is much smaller than the economic harm of supporting people disabled by coronavirus for the rest of their lives. That is assuming we mitigate the economic fall.
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  >> The economic harm of losing 2 months of production -- or even a year of production -- is much smaller than the economic harm of supporting people disabled by coronavirus for the rest of their lives. That is a tradeoff? I don't understand how you are disagreeing with what I said. You are literally spelling out what we are trading off, the fact that its a very good trade (in your opinion, which is based on expert advise and almost certainly correct, but there are no guarantees) doesn't make it stop being a trade. In fact, that is how all tradeoffs work, one option is better than the other so you pick it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

BlargMcLarg 7y ago

> It's a matter of what is a good-enough tradeoff of risk and reward. This also sounds very short-sighted. Yes, people die in a lithium mine, but in most countries, I'm the one taking the risk to become a miner or not. Understandably, the situation isn't that easy: in some countries, you may indirectly or directly be forced to risk your life for the economy. Yet often, I don't see the physical risk-takers being particularly rewarded for their risk-taking either, with few exceptions. Miners are definitely not one of them. Its a difference between who is taking the risk and who's life is on the line: I don't mind risking my own life. I do mind the government toying with it while a prime minister is sipping tea in his comfy seat. Reality is, the current economy is maintained through exploitation in one way or another, and its fragile balance is now attacked by a force that doesn't care about our economy. Every time people bring up the economy as an argument, its abundantly clear the people in trouble either can't make a buffer, or don't have the discipline to make a buffer. It wasn't that long ago we were forced to go through harsh winters using the harvest of a possibly failed summer and autumn. Yet today, the economy is in jeopardy if a quarter of all activity is told to shut down temporarily. Why can't make people a buffer? Why aren't people making a buffer? Why aren't governments prepared for this? Something unexpected can always happen, we're not gods nor do we have crystal balls. In a competent software industry, you'd be summoned for making a fragile software system where traffic stops coming through. Yet now we tolerate the same in regards to our economy. It really is time we take a step back and go on the defense rather than looking no further than 3 months.

ltbarcly3 7y ago
> It wasn't that long ago we were forced to go through harsh winters using the harvest of a possibly failed summer and autumn. Well, not really. Lots of people would fail to prepare and rely on their community, and during times the community couldn't afford to help them, they would starve to death. Lots and lots and lots of people just starved to death. They didn't prepare enough, and then they slowly and painfully died from not eating anything. Lots of rich people said "they should have prepared", but it's hard to imagine what it's like to have to decide whether your children will have to be barefoot all winter, or just not go to school at all this year if you don't decide to sell a few extra potatoes instead of saving them.

wegs 7y ago

There is no trade-off. Exponential functions are pretty binary. We contain this (R0<1) or we let this kill 3.6% of the population, and likely permanently harm the lungs of many more. A core problem is that we're not looking at how to mitigate damage to the economy. We can handle a month or two of the economy shutting down, no problem. You'll get your new car 2 months later. Most of the damage is auxiliary: businesses going bankrupt, people defaulting on mortgages, etc. All of that can be mitigated with the right measures. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YbtJGn7ida2IYNgwCFk3SjhsZ0ztpG5bMzA3WNbVNhU/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YbtJGn7ida2IYNgwCFk3Sjhs... The economic harm of losing 2 months of production -- or even a year of production -- is much smaller than the economic harm of supporting people disabled by coronavirus for the rest of their lives. That is assuming we mitigate the economic fall.

ltbarcly3 7y ago
>> The economic harm of losing 2 months of production -- or even a year of production -- is much smaller than the economic harm of supporting people disabled by coronavirus for the rest of their lives. That is a tradeoff? I don't understand how you are disagreeing with what I said. You are literally spelling out what we are trading off, the fact that its a very good trade (in your opinion, which is based on expert advise and almost certainly correct, but there are no guarantees) doesn't make it stop being a trade. In fact, that is how all tradeoffs work, one option is better than the other so you pick it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]