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It is amazing how the whole society can spiral into madness almost overnight. The COVID histeria reminds me of descriptions of the mood among the Hutu people in

It is amazing how the whole society can spiral into madness almost overnight. The COVID histeria reminds me of descriptions of the mood among the Hutu people in Rwanda in 1994, also driven by fear instilled by the media. We still have some window left to turn back from the brink.

maest 7y ago
Do you disagree with the estimated mortality rates or with the tradeoff between economic and human loss?
- tlear 7y ago
  It is not the economic loss that is the problem, it is the totalitarian control that is now being advocated with foam in the mouth all over the place. “Those damn neighbors let kids out! Put them in prison” PRC is new model of what we should aspire to.. because they stopped the pandemic(after covering it up and letting it spread first)
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Imagine equating "quarantine" with "totalitarian control". When your parents put you in timeout did you equate it with being imprisoned?
    - logicchains 7y ago
      >When your parents put you in timeout did you equate it with being imprisoned? That attitude that the government is like a parent and the citizens its child to be disciplined, as opposed to a humble servant to the citizens, is exactly the kind of totalitarianism the poster was referring to.
      - cycrutchfield 7y ago
        Actually, my point was not to draw a metaphor between the two scenarios I described, although that's a nice little gotcha I walked into. My point was that equating quarantines with totalitarianism is the kind of superficial and querulous comparison that a child might make about timeouts.
        logicchains 7y ago
        >My point was that equating quarantines with totalitarianism is the kind of superficial and querulous comparison that a child might make about timeouts. My point is that it's generally accepted that children have less rights than adults. E.g. it's accepted for parents to lock their kid in a room for hours for swearing, but it's not accepted for the government to do the same thing. The fact that it's socially accepted to treat a child a certain way doesn't mean it's socially accepted for the government to treat adults the same way.
        cycrutchfield 7y ago
        So you simply disagree with the concept of quarantines in general? Based on what, exactly? Like, specifically cite some case law that demonstrates that quarantines are unconstitutional.
        logicchains 7y ago
        I'm not American, so I'm not sure the relevance of case law here, but legality is not the same thing as morality. The idea of natural rights upon which the US constitution was built is that these are not granted by the state or some document, they are inherent to being human; "inalienable rights". Now if you're an at risk category you could argue that somebody coming near you and potentially infecting you is a violation of your rights similarly to how somebody punching you is, and that seems reasonable to me. But I think it'd be too much of a stretch to argue "those people spending time together at a bar might increase my chance of being infected, so they shouldn't be allowed to congregate", especially when this very directly violates their rights of movement and association. Similarly for the argument about not having enough hospital beds due to other people getting infected: the classical idea of rights was as "negative rights", not "positive rights". A negative right means you have the right that somebody else will not do something to you, whereas a positive right means that you have the right for somebody else to do something to you (or, somebody else has the obligation to do something for you). Positive rights necessarily impinge on negative rights. Since requiring hospital care is a positive right, not a negative right, approaching it from a system of negative rights one wouldn't have any right to restrict other peoples behaviour under the justification that it would improve your access to hospital care.
      - scotty79 7y ago
        If one side behaves stupidly and the other has power and motivation to stop it, then parent-child dynamics is unavoidable. And government will never be your humble servants no matter how much literature you will produce on the subject. They have tanks, you do not. Shepard is never a servant of the sheep. Even though he feeds them and keeps them safe and healthy. The best government is the one that harms the citizens as little as possible in the process of taking value from them to give it to the people that sit on all the weaponry, so they don't take whatever they want with that weaponry. Everything else is a sideshow aimed at improving the stability of this setup.
        logicchains 7y ago
        >If one side behaves stupidly and the other has power and motivation to stop it, then parent-child dynamics is unavoidable. It's not as simple as stupid. Humans have different values and risk preferences, and all values are ultimately arbitrary so there's no objective way to say some values are better than others (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument). In that case people have highly conflicting values in terms of weighing up loss of life against destruction of peoples' standards of living. People also have conflicting estimates about how much economic damage the shutdowns will cause, so even if they did have the same values they wouldn't necessarily agree. >And government will never be your humble servants no matter how much literature you will produce on the subject. They have tanks, you do not. Shepard is never a servant of the sheep. Even though he feeds them and keeps them safe and healthy. This isn't exactly an argument that governments aren't behaving in an authoritarian way..
        scotty79 7y ago
        stupidly = contrary to knowledge Most relevant knowledge at the moment comes from epidemiology. The most important value we have to take into account at the moment is that suffocating to death is very bad and we want to inflict this upon least amount of people possible. Money is just a way of keeping tabs of to how much of the output of our civilisation every entity is entitled to. We did it sort of dilligently in hopes of encouraging people to increase the output of civilisation. It kinda works but also led us to dog tailors, Jeff Bezos private wealth and cruise ship industry and various other crap so there's definitely room for improvement. Lots of people hope that economy won't crash but will be knocked out of this local optimum it sits stuck in for at least few decades. > This isn't exactly an argument that governments aren't behaving in an authoritarian way.. This is an argument that they always behave in authoritarian way. The only thing you can hope for is that they bother you the least amount possible while doing their thing which is taking part of your output. You had rights because it was beneficial for the government to give you rights. Epidemic changed that. When it subsides if it will still be beneficial for the government to give you rights back, you'll get them. If government fails, army will step in to take what they want from you more directly.
- mathdev 7y ago
  Both, but also with including the time spent under house arrest in life expectancy with full weight, disregarding the side-effects and tail risks of such isolation imposed on everyone, both social and economic. Most of all, with the irrationality and cowardice of risking everything for a few months (weeks?) of average life expectancy.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    I'm glad that you are comfortable making that choice for other people. After all, it's most likely not you that will have to bear the consequences.
    - mathdev 7y ago
      Likewise.
      - cycrutchfield 7y ago
        I'm sure your social life will recover just fine. After all, you seem to value it more than human lives.
        logicchains 7y ago
        Do you drive a car? If so, by your logic you value your own convenience more than human lives, because driving kills over a million people and maims tens of millions more people every year.
        cycrutchfield 7y ago
        Oh my god. And I suppose my flatulence contributes to global warming, therefore I am ultimately responsible for killing the entire human race. Is this honestly what passes for reasonable debate on this forum?
        7y ago
jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
Yes, people have ignored it and now suddenly people read the NYC news and get crazy. That's definitely true, but it is not like we didn't know about it... It has been 3 months since we were warned about this.
pjc50 7y ago
That's a particularly offensive comparison given that the outcome was mass murder. But it is useful to recognise that media have a responsibility in their distribution of fear.
cycrutchfield 7y ago
I'm sure you know better than the epidemiologists. What, pray tell, would you do differently?
- mathdev 7y ago
  It's an ethical, not epidemiological question.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Ah, OK, my apologies. Generally people with your opinion are also skeptical of the epidemiological models that are driving policy decisions. Putting that aside, let's assume that the epidemiology of this disease is settled. What would you do differently policy-wise to address this, given that you seem disinclined to favor suppression methods?
    - mathdev 7y ago
      Voluntary isolation and support system for at-risk people (and possibly denial of care to those who choose not to isolate). Something along the lines of what the UK had been planning to do.
      - cycrutchfield 7y ago
        Given that assumption I mentioned above about the epidemiological model (this would be the Imperial College London study that resulted in the UK changing its mind about going for herd immunity), how do you feel about your policy proposal resulting in 510k deaths in the UK and 2.2m deaths in the US? Just curious to know your thought process for the ethical issues in a policy decision like that.
        mathdev 7y ago
        The 510k deaths figure assumes 80% get infected (upper bound given by models and no mitigation whatsoever) and 1% mortality. The actual mortality is almost certainly significantly lower - the Oxford's CBM estimates 0.2% [1], so twice as bad as flu. Let's even assume incorrectly that all COVID deaths are on top of the 600k normal deaths. So in 2020 85% more people die of natural causes than normally. Almost exclusively very old and already ill people. It's just not a big deal and it's crazy that people think it is. Now let's say that the death rate is 0.2% as the Oxford institute estimates, 20% of COVID casualties would have died anyway, and that isolating the at-risk people further reduces the casualties by half. We end up with 40,000 extra deaths, 7% more deaths than normally. A non-event. If you think that the death toll of the lockdowns will be lower than that, then I hope you are right. I expect not. [1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-...

maest 7y ago

Do you disagree with the estimated mortality rates or with the tradeoff between economic and human loss?

tlear 7y ago
It is not the economic loss that is the problem, it is the totalitarian control that is now being advocated with foam in the mouth all over the place. “Those damn neighbors let kids out! Put them in prison” PRC is new model of what we should aspire to.. because they stopped the pandemic(after covering it up and letting it spread first)
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  Imagine equating "quarantine" with "totalitarian control". When your parents put you in timeout did you equate it with being imprisoned?
  - logicchains 7y ago
    >When your parents put you in timeout did you equate it with being imprisoned? That attitude that the government is like a parent and the citizens its child to be disciplined, as opposed to a humble servant to the citizens, is exactly the kind of totalitarianism the poster was referring to.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      Actually, my point was not to draw a metaphor between the two scenarios I described, although that's a nice little gotcha I walked into. My point was that equating quarantines with totalitarianism is the kind of superficial and querulous comparison that a child might make about timeouts.
      - logicchains 7y ago
        >My point was that equating quarantines with totalitarianism is the kind of superficial and querulous comparison that a child might make about timeouts. My point is that it's generally accepted that children have less rights than adults. E.g. it's accepted for parents to lock their kid in a room for hours for swearing, but it's not accepted for the government to do the same thing. The fact that it's socially accepted to treat a child a certain way doesn't mean it's socially accepted for the government to treat adults the same way.
        cycrutchfield 7y ago
        So you simply disagree with the concept of quarantines in general? Based on what, exactly? Like, specifically cite some case law that demonstrates that quarantines are unconstitutional.
        logicchains 7y ago
        I'm not American, so I'm not sure the relevance of case law here, but legality is not the same thing as morality. The idea of natural rights upon which the US constitution was built is that these are not granted by the state or some document, they are inherent to being human; "inalienable rights". Now if you're an at risk category you could argue that somebody coming near you and potentially infecting you is a violation of your rights similarly to how somebody punching you is, and that seems reasonable to me. But I think it'd be too much of a stretch to argue "those people spending time together at a bar might increase my chance of being infected, so they shouldn't be allowed to congregate", especially when this very directly violates their rights of movement and association. Similarly for the argument about not having enough hospital beds due to other people getting infected: the classical idea of rights was as "negative rights", not "positive rights". A negative right means you have the right that somebody else will not do something to you, whereas a positive right means that you have the right for somebody else to do something to you (or, somebody else has the obligation to do something for you). Positive rights necessarily impinge on negative rights. Since requiring hospital care is a positive right, not a negative right, approaching it from a system of negative rights one wouldn't have any right to restrict other peoples behaviour under the justification that it would improve your access to hospital care.
    - scotty79 7y ago
      If one side behaves stupidly and the other has power and motivation to stop it, then parent-child dynamics is unavoidable. And government will never be your humble servants no matter how much literature you will produce on the subject. They have tanks, you do not. Shepard is never a servant of the sheep. Even though he feeds them and keeps them safe and healthy. The best government is the one that harms the citizens as little as possible in the process of taking value from them to give it to the people that sit on all the weaponry, so they don't take whatever they want with that weaponry. Everything else is a sideshow aimed at improving the stability of this setup.
      - logicchains 7y ago
        >If one side behaves stupidly and the other has power and motivation to stop it, then parent-child dynamics is unavoidable. It's not as simple as stupid. Humans have different values and risk preferences, and all values are ultimately arbitrary so there's no objective way to say some values are better than others (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument). In that case people have highly conflicting values in terms of weighing up loss of life against destruction of peoples' standards of living. People also have conflicting estimates about how much economic damage the shutdowns will cause, so even if they did have the same values they wouldn't necessarily agree. >And government will never be your humble servants no matter how much literature you will produce on the subject. They have tanks, you do not. Shepard is never a servant of the sheep. Even though he feeds them and keeps them safe and healthy. This isn't exactly an argument that governments aren't behaving in an authoritarian way..
        scotty79 7y ago
        stupidly = contrary to knowledge Most relevant knowledge at the moment comes from epidemiology. The most important value we have to take into account at the moment is that suffocating to death is very bad and we want to inflict this upon least amount of people possible. Money is just a way of keeping tabs of to how much of the output of our civilisation every entity is entitled to. We did it sort of dilligently in hopes of encouraging people to increase the output of civilisation. It kinda works but also led us to dog tailors, Jeff Bezos private wealth and cruise ship industry and various other crap so there's definitely room for improvement. Lots of people hope that economy won't crash but will be knocked out of this local optimum it sits stuck in for at least few decades. > This isn't exactly an argument that governments aren't behaving in an authoritarian way.. This is an argument that they always behave in authoritarian way. The only thing you can hope for is that they bother you the least amount possible while doing their thing which is taking part of your output. You had rights because it was beneficial for the government to give you rights. Epidemic changed that. When it subsides if it will still be beneficial for the government to give you rights back, you'll get them. If government fails, army will step in to take what they want from you more directly.
mathdev 7y ago
Both, but also with including the time spent under house arrest in life expectancy with full weight, disregarding the side-effects and tail risks of such isolation imposed on everyone, both social and economic. Most of all, with the irrationality and cowardice of risking everything for a few months (weeks?) of average life expectancy.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  I'm glad that you are comfortable making that choice for other people. After all, it's most likely not you that will have to bear the consequences.
  - mathdev 7y ago
    Likewise.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      I'm sure your social life will recover just fine. After all, you seem to value it more than human lives.
      - logicchains 7y ago
        Do you drive a car? If so, by your logic you value your own convenience more than human lives, because driving kills over a million people and maims tens of millions more people every year.
        cycrutchfield 7y ago
        Oh my god. And I suppose my flatulence contributes to global warming, therefore I am ultimately responsible for killing the entire human race. Is this honestly what passes for reasonable debate on this forum?
        7y ago

jfkebwjsbx 7y ago

Yes, people have ignored it and now suddenly people read the NYC news and get crazy. That's definitely true, but it is not like we didn't know about it... It has been 3 months since we were warned about this.

pjc50 7y ago

That's a particularly offensive comparison given that the outcome was mass murder. But it is useful to recognise that media have a responsibility in their distribution of fear.

cycrutchfield 7y ago

I'm sure you know better than the epidemiologists. What, pray tell, would you do differently?

mathdev 7y ago
It's an ethical, not epidemiological question.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  Ah, OK, my apologies. Generally people with your opinion are also skeptical of the epidemiological models that are driving policy decisions. Putting that aside, let's assume that the epidemiology of this disease is settled. What would you do differently policy-wise to address this, given that you seem disinclined to favor suppression methods?
  - mathdev 7y ago
    Voluntary isolation and support system for at-risk people (and possibly denial of care to those who choose not to isolate). Something along the lines of what the UK had been planning to do.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      Given that assumption I mentioned above about the epidemiological model (this would be the Imperial College London study that resulted in the UK changing its mind about going for herd immunity), how do you feel about your policy proposal resulting in 510k deaths in the UK and 2.2m deaths in the US? Just curious to know your thought process for the ethical issues in a policy decision like that.
      - mathdev 7y ago
        The 510k deaths figure assumes 80% get infected (upper bound given by models and no mitigation whatsoever) and 1% mortality. The actual mortality is almost certainly significantly lower - the Oxford's CBM estimates 0.2% [1], so twice as bad as flu. Let's even assume incorrectly that all COVID deaths are on top of the 600k normal deaths. So in 2020 85% more people die of natural causes than normally. Almost exclusively very old and already ill people. It's just not a big deal and it's crazy that people think it is. Now let's say that the death rate is 0.2% as the Oxford institute estimates, 20% of COVID casualties would have died anyway, and that isolating the at-risk people further reduces the casualties by half. We end up with 40,000 extra deaths, 7% more deaths than normally. A non-event. If you think that the death toll of the lockdowns will be lower than that, then I hope you are right. I expect not. [1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-...