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Guess what? Everyone dies. And every day is a choice between things that increase that risk. Saying "no one wants to die, stop being greedy!" as if you can eli

Guess what? Everyone dies. And every day is a choice between things that increase that risk. Saying "no one wants to die, stop being greedy!" as if you can eliminate all deaths through a simple action is a nice low effort slogan that doesn't make any sense in the real world.

6510 7y ago
I don't know, an all out war on death could potentially work? We won't know until we try? It would have to involve a lot more than "just" living longer. We already have a lot of that effect. So much that migrants have to produce our food. shrug
jodrellblank 7y ago
> Guess what? Everyone dies The unpleasant part is not solely people dying, it's the volunteering of other people dying by people who assume they won't die from it, and not for their own survival but to keep a level of personal comfort and luxury. Assume you are in the group who would die, but economic sacrifice keeps you alive. Now, hands up if you are willing to trade that - to definitely die in April 2020, or suicide today, to prop the world GDP up for a few minutes. What, nobody? Now assume instead that you're definitely in the group who will be unemployed and bankrupted by the economic costs, but you get to survive COVID-19 and do whatever you can to survive after. Hands up if you would prefer this to the guaranteed death situation? What is that, basically everybody with their hands up? If you don't believe in the importance of GDP enough to die for it, only enough to support others dying for it, perhaps you really have different motives to the ones you're saying.
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  Economic conditions have real and immediate health consequences too. For example, in 2010 US unemployment briefly grew about 6% to a total of 10% in the US and there were 40,000 additional deaths from cancer alone[1]. When you consider heart disease, other illness, drug abuse, and suicide, the numbers are much greater. The often cited number of 40k for each percent unemployment may not be far off if these factors are taken together. We may have already volunteered hundreds of thousands of Americans to die from the economic fallout. If food scarcity becomes and issue, we may have already volunteered millions in the 3rd world to starve to death... I'm not saying that I know what the correct choice is here, but it isn't as simple as saving lives vs GDP. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)00577-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... This trend also holds true in the OECD where social programs are more common because there are still budgetary constraints on centralized healthcare. Here is a Meta-analysis showing that the risk of death was 63% higher among those who experienced unemployment in the US AND Europe https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Put "COVID-19 deaths" in "can't revive the dead" category, and put "helping people not feel suicidal" in "maybe possible to change" category. Your first link about cancer deaths and unemployment states "Access to health care could underlie these associations", that can go in "maybe possible to affect". "Budgetary constraints on centralized healthcare" - the UK NHS has just had 750,000 volunteers sign up to help out in one week which wasn't part of the budget, so that can go in "maybe possible to affect". The UK government spends £130Bn/year on the NHS and £120Bn/year on education. Half a year of no education for half a year of doubled NHS spending .. that isn't a trivial thing to do, but it's still more plausible than raising the dead, so put it towards the "could maybe affect that" side of things. Does it have to be "GDP falls and nothing can change to respond to that"? The UDSA says[1] the United States wastes 30-40% of its food each year - $100+Billion. This ought to mean the food supply could contract 30% and it would be conceivable for nobody to eat less at all, not even go hungry and save money not buying food to throw it in the trash. Most people are overweight, it ought to be possible that the food supply could contract a lot more than 30% for a short period, and not only could it still be enough food to keep everyone alive, many people would get healthier from it happening. Currently the poor would starve and the rich would thrive, but surely that isn't the only way things could be? It's imaginable that a skilled orator could convince people to not spend $100Bn on food to throw in the trash, but to donate it to disease response instead - that's the entire UK NHS budget for many months. That won't apply in developing countries, but plants don't have COVID-19, nor do most humans, and most humans who do, recover. Food scarcity issues are still going to be about resource distribution and logistics, not about actual scarcity of food; not trivial problems which can change with the snap of the fingers, but easier than raising the dead, aren't they? And even, even, if you don't like being alive in a poorer world, and wish you had died of COVID-19 instead, you can still suicide then, it isn't either-or. But you can't go the other way, regret dying of COVID-19 and then choose to try the alternative problems instead. [1] https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs
    - s1artibartfast 7y ago
      First off, I wanted to say thanks for the thoughtful response. Second, I wanted to clarify my position in light of your last line. >And even, even, if you don't like being alive in a poorer world, and wish you had died of COVID-19 instead, you can still suicide then, it isn't either-or. But you can't go the other way, regret dying of COVID-19 and then choose to try the alternative problems instead. I am in no way concerned about the outcome for myself of my immediate family. We are extremely low risk, have secure income, and savings in cash. I fully expect we will come out of this event better than we went in. In fact, the harder the crash, the better off we will likely be. That said, there are billions (literally) of people on this planet which were struggling and often failing to meet their basic health and nutritional needs. We should be mind be mindful of how our response will impact them. On to the rest of your comments, I see two main points. please let me know if I misstated them. 1) Covid deaths today are irreversible, future deaths can be mitigated I agree with this in principle, but in practice I am much more pessimistic that societies will mitigate the 2nd order effects of our response. People are notably bad at balancing highly visible costs today, with less visible and costs in the future. Societies could have come together with radical mitigations to reduce deaths from the 2009 global recession or any of the famines in recent decades[1], but they didn't because they were far away and not obvious. If I were to summarize my main point, it is that we need to have the right stakeholders considering the long and short term perspective crafting our response to this pandemic, and economic considerations are a valid part of minimizing the overall death toll. Doctors have moral obligation to look out for the best interests of their patients and do not take economic considerations into account, nor should they. We don't want them to decide if the cost of a cancer medication could be better spent feeding the poor, but that doesn't mean the tradeoff doesn't exist. When deciding how to manage this epidemic, doctors, economists, actuaries, and politicians all need to be involved in crafting the response. In order to minimize the death toll, you need to make accurate predictions of outcome and human behavior. Over-optimism or over-pessimism will lead to more deaths. 2) Existing food waste can be repurposed to feed the poor. I wholeheartedly agree that food scarcity issues are still going to be about resource distribution and logistics. There will not be widespread famine in the US or UK, but there could be in poor food importing countries sub-Saharan Africa or parts of Asia. Plants will grow and food will be still produced in other countries, but if their economies tank, they will not have the money to buy it. 3) Solving these problems later is easier than raising the dead. It all depends on how likely you think the solutions are and the death toll for each. If you risk 2 people tomorrow to save 1 more today, your solutions needs to be 50-50 to break even. There is obviously a point where this tradeoff results in more lost lives unless you believe you must always act to save every person you can today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
downrightmike 7y ago
No, you don't allow or push people to die just for a few extra greenbacks.

6510 7y ago

I don't know, an all out war on death could potentially work? We won't know until we try? It would have to involve a lot more than "just" living longer. We already have a lot of that effect. So much that migrants have to produce our food. shrug

jodrellblank 7y ago

> Guess what? Everyone dies The unpleasant part is not solely people dying, it's the volunteering of other people dying by people who assume they won't die from it, and not for their own survival but to keep a level of personal comfort and luxury. Assume you are in the group who would die, but economic sacrifice keeps you alive. Now, hands up if you are willing to trade that - to definitely die in April 2020, or suicide today, to prop the world GDP up for a few minutes. What, nobody? Now assume instead that you're definitely in the group who will be unemployed and bankrupted by the economic costs, but you get to survive COVID-19 and do whatever you can to survive after. Hands up if you would prefer this to the guaranteed death situation? What is that, basically everybody with their hands up? If you don't believe in the importance of GDP enough to die for it, only enough to support others dying for it, perhaps you really have different motives to the ones you're saying.

s1artibartfast 7y ago
Economic conditions have real and immediate health consequences too. For example, in 2010 US unemployment briefly grew about 6% to a total of 10% in the US and there were 40,000 additional deaths from cancer alone[1]. When you consider heart disease, other illness, drug abuse, and suicide, the numbers are much greater. The often cited number of 40k for each percent unemployment may not be far off if these factors are taken together. We may have already volunteered hundreds of thousands of Americans to die from the economic fallout. If food scarcity becomes and issue, we may have already volunteered millions in the 3rd world to starve to death... I'm not saying that I know what the correct choice is here, but it isn't as simple as saving lives vs GDP. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)00577-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... This trend also holds true in the OECD where social programs are more common because there are still budgetary constraints on centralized healthcare. Here is a Meta-analysis showing that the risk of death was 63% higher among those who experienced unemployment in the US AND Europe https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Put "COVID-19 deaths" in "can't revive the dead" category, and put "helping people not feel suicidal" in "maybe possible to change" category. Your first link about cancer deaths and unemployment states "Access to health care could underlie these associations", that can go in "maybe possible to affect". "Budgetary constraints on centralized healthcare" - the UK NHS has just had 750,000 volunteers sign up to help out in one week which wasn't part of the budget, so that can go in "maybe possible to affect". The UK government spends £130Bn/year on the NHS and £120Bn/year on education. Half a year of no education for half a year of doubled NHS spending .. that isn't a trivial thing to do, but it's still more plausible than raising the dead, so put it towards the "could maybe affect that" side of things. Does it have to be "GDP falls and nothing can change to respond to that"? The UDSA says[1] the United States wastes 30-40% of its food each year - $100+Billion. This ought to mean the food supply could contract 30% and it would be conceivable for nobody to eat less at all, not even go hungry and save money not buying food to throw it in the trash. Most people are overweight, it ought to be possible that the food supply could contract a lot more than 30% for a short period, and not only could it still be enough food to keep everyone alive, many people would get healthier from it happening. Currently the poor would starve and the rich would thrive, but surely that isn't the only way things could be? It's imaginable that a skilled orator could convince people to not spend $100Bn on food to throw in the trash, but to donate it to disease response instead - that's the entire UK NHS budget for many months. That won't apply in developing countries, but plants don't have COVID-19, nor do most humans, and most humans who do, recover. Food scarcity issues are still going to be about resource distribution and logistics, not about actual scarcity of food; not trivial problems which can change with the snap of the fingers, but easier than raising the dead, aren't they? And even, even, if you don't like being alive in a poorer world, and wish you had died of COVID-19 instead, you can still suicide then, it isn't either-or. But you can't go the other way, regret dying of COVID-19 and then choose to try the alternative problems instead. [1] https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs
  - s1artibartfast 7y ago
    First off, I wanted to say thanks for the thoughtful response. Second, I wanted to clarify my position in light of your last line. >And even, even, if you don't like being alive in a poorer world, and wish you had died of COVID-19 instead, you can still suicide then, it isn't either-or. But you can't go the other way, regret dying of COVID-19 and then choose to try the alternative problems instead. I am in no way concerned about the outcome for myself of my immediate family. We are extremely low risk, have secure income, and savings in cash. I fully expect we will come out of this event better than we went in. In fact, the harder the crash, the better off we will likely be. That said, there are billions (literally) of people on this planet which were struggling and often failing to meet their basic health and nutritional needs. We should be mind be mindful of how our response will impact them. On to the rest of your comments, I see two main points. please let me know if I misstated them. 1) Covid deaths today are irreversible, future deaths can be mitigated I agree with this in principle, but in practice I am much more pessimistic that societies will mitigate the 2nd order effects of our response. People are notably bad at balancing highly visible costs today, with less visible and costs in the future. Societies could have come together with radical mitigations to reduce deaths from the 2009 global recession or any of the famines in recent decades[1], but they didn't because they were far away and not obvious. If I were to summarize my main point, it is that we need to have the right stakeholders considering the long and short term perspective crafting our response to this pandemic, and economic considerations are a valid part of minimizing the overall death toll. Doctors have moral obligation to look out for the best interests of their patients and do not take economic considerations into account, nor should they. We don't want them to decide if the cost of a cancer medication could be better spent feeding the poor, but that doesn't mean the tradeoff doesn't exist. When deciding how to manage this epidemic, doctors, economists, actuaries, and politicians all need to be involved in crafting the response. In order to minimize the death toll, you need to make accurate predictions of outcome and human behavior. Over-optimism or over-pessimism will lead to more deaths. 2) Existing food waste can be repurposed to feed the poor. I wholeheartedly agree that food scarcity issues are still going to be about resource distribution and logistics. There will not be widespread famine in the US or UK, but there could be in poor food importing countries sub-Saharan Africa or parts of Asia. Plants will grow and food will be still produced in other countries, but if their economies tank, they will not have the money to buy it. 3) Solving these problems later is easier than raising the dead. It all depends on how likely you think the solutions are and the death toll for each. If you risk 2 people tomorrow to save 1 more today, your solutions needs to be 50-50 to break even. There is obviously a point where this tradeoff results in more lost lives unless you believe you must always act to save every person you can today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

downrightmike 7y ago

No, you don't allow or push people to die just for a few extra greenbacks.