4 ms·

It sounds like a good plan, but I can't see it working here. USA in general has strong individualism, I guess it's called. Basically the idea of look out for

by axaxs 7y ago

It sounds like a good plan, but I can't see it working here. USA in general has strong individualism, I guess it's called. Basically the idea of look out for yourself, and screw everyone else. It's why you still can't buy paper products, why we don't have universal healthcare, why we have so many homeless, etc. Heck, I remember when cases first started in KY, at least two people defied orders to quarantine even after testing positive, to the point they sent police to keep them indoors. There's no way enough people will self quarantine to make this plan effective. Now, if you can somehow force quarantine people, we'd have a fighting chance, but that makes a lot of people uneasy, perhaps rightly.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
I don't know if "screw everyone else" is fair. It's the idea that living freely is a sacred value; that we won't and shouldn't take the path of the fewest deaths, if that path leads to a society we don't want to live in. That's not to defend people who actually have the virus breaking quarantine. Limited quarantines have always been compatible with freedom, that's just dumb selfishness. But if the proposal is that the 30k new infectees a day* and all their close contacts should be forced out of their homes into quarantine camps, yeah, that's not going to work here. * I know the real number is likely much higher than this.
- lbeltrame 7y ago
  > It's the idea that living freely is a sacred value; that we won't and shouldn't take the path of the fewest deaths, if that path leads to a society we don't want to live in. And you can see in Italy how the (hoped) path for the fewest deaths as opposed to (rather than along with) freedom led to a horrible result. The current PM has basically trampled on every constitutional right with authority that he should not have, and the effects of the policy (besides locking up people for at least 75 days) aren't that great. And let's not talk about the social / economical aspect. The authoritarian aspect of these moves was clearly shown when he threatened closing things again if infections rise (as if it's the fault of the people he's supposed to protect).
- pjc50 7y ago
  > if that path leads to a society we don't want to live in. 1-2% of people will be unable to live in the unquarantined society due to dying, and a significant number more may never fully recover. It's more "live free AND die".
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    Sadly, yes, a free society sometimes demands a heavy toll. We should try our hardest to find ways to bring that number down, and when this is over we should work hard to improve our response tools so the price of the next pandemic isn't so high. I think you may be misunderstanding my perspective. When someone proposes remote quarantine of all contacts of 30k/day infected cases, or shelter-at-home for the next year, I react as if they said "forcibly infect everyone below 65". If you sit down and do the math, sure, these policies will significantly decrease the death rate below the baseline of an uncontrolled pandemic. But they have the critical flaw that they're weird authoritarian control fantasies, which fail to respect the general public as anything other than bodies which must be optimized for their own good.
unishark 7y ago
Individualism is strongest in areas where population density is the lowest. I would expect such people violating quarantines to not be a particularly big driver of the problem (despite being frontpage news, especially when a religion happens to be involved). By the way the hoarding of paper products is a worldwide thing. It was problem even in Japan far before the US.

by axaxs 7y ago

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

I don't know if "screw everyone else" is fair. It's the idea that living freely is a sacred value; that we won't and shouldn't take the path of the fewest deaths, if that path leads to a society we don't want to live in. That's not to defend people who actually have the virus breaking quarantine. Limited quarantines have always been compatible with freedom, that's just dumb selfishness. But if the proposal is that the 30k new infectees a day* and all their close contacts should be forced out of their homes into quarantine camps, yeah, that's not going to work here. * I know the real number is likely much higher than this.

lbeltrame 7y ago
> It's the idea that living freely is a sacred value; that we won't and shouldn't take the path of the fewest deaths, if that path leads to a society we don't want to live in. And you can see in Italy how the (hoped) path for the fewest deaths as opposed to (rather than along with) freedom led to a horrible result. The current PM has basically trampled on every constitutional right with authority that he should not have, and the effects of the policy (besides locking up people for at least 75 days) aren't that great. And let's not talk about the social / economical aspect. The authoritarian aspect of these moves was clearly shown when he threatened closing things again if infections rise (as if it's the fault of the people he's supposed to protect).
pjc50 7y ago
> if that path leads to a society we don't want to live in. 1-2% of people will be unable to live in the unquarantined society due to dying, and a significant number more may never fully recover. It's more "live free AND die".
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Sadly, yes, a free society sometimes demands a heavy toll. We should try our hardest to find ways to bring that number down, and when this is over we should work hard to improve our response tools so the price of the next pandemic isn't so high. I think you may be misunderstanding my perspective. When someone proposes remote quarantine of all contacts of 30k/day infected cases, or shelter-at-home for the next year, I react as if they said "forcibly infect everyone below 65". If you sit down and do the math, sure, these policies will significantly decrease the death rate below the baseline of an uncontrolled pandemic. But they have the critical flaw that they're weird authoritarian control fantasies, which fail to respect the general public as anything other than bodies which must be optimized for their own good.

unishark 7y ago

Individualism is strongest in areas where population density is the lowest. I would expect such people violating quarantines to not be a particularly big driver of the problem (despite being frontpage news, especially when a religion happens to be involved). By the way the hoarding of paper products is a worldwide thing. It was problem even in Japan far before the US.