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If you weren’t old enough to live through 9/11 and witness the transformation of the country you are probably being naive about contact tracing today. At first

If you weren’t old enough to live through 9/11 and witness the transformation of the country you are probably being naive about contact tracing today. At first everyone was on board and patriot act was justified: we were under attack. There was no clear end of this attack, so the patriot act got renewed. We caught bin laden and killed him. Great! End of the patriot act? Nope, there was still a “threat”. 19 years later it’s normalized. I predict the same thing will happen here. There is no scenario in which this will not be abused.

noirbot 6y ago
I think some of the difference is that we went through all of that, and the NSA/Snowden leaks, and trust in the US government in general is at all-time lows. The fact that all that happened gives me hope and expectation that people are more suspect this time around.
- throwaway122378 6y ago
  This time around nothing will be different. Panama papers came out and nothing happened, Epstein was involved in who knows what with royals, politicians, and the wealthy and nothing happened, Assange is a prisoner for exposing the truth and even the surveillance that Snowden brought to light is still taking place today.
closeparen 6y ago
What do you propose we do about it? The response to 9/11 seems so disproportionate because it presupposed the existence of thousands more plots, which never materialized. Preserving civil liberties would have been free. The spread of the virus is not a conspiracy theory or a what-if/abundance-of-caution proposition. It is an observable fact. There is no way the public tolerates the devastation that will definitely materialize if we go back to making arbitrary, untraceable contacts. If contact tracing is intolerable, then so is contact. At some point, people are going to be ready to repeal the 4th amendment if it means seeing their friends again.
- xfitm3 6y ago
  People will just go out, which they're already doing. Nobody would ever agree to repealing the 4th amendment, they would challenge the government's authority to restrict their movement. The police can't arrest all of us.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    I think you overestimate your neighbors’ appetite to murder hundreds of millions of people, or to let others get away with doing so.
    - xfitm3 6y ago
      There is a whole group of people with an opinion thats different from yours. In my area nobody obeys lockdown or social distancing.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - bagacrap 6y ago
      heh, what? in what scenario does contact tracing save hundreds of millions of lives? I think if it were widely agreed upon that it would save hundreds of millions, folks would universally be on board. It's disingenuous to assert that people who are against contact tracing are murderers, because evidence is lacking that it will make the difference between peak caseloads exceeding or staying under healthcare capacity.
      - xfitm3 6y ago
        > It's disingenuous to assert that people who are against contact tracing are murderers Thank you. Unfortunately this is a heated / political issue now, it's going to take a long time to restart the economy.
        6y ago

noirbot 6y ago

I think some of the difference is that we went through all of that, and the NSA/Snowden leaks, and trust in the US government in general is at all-time lows. The fact that all that happened gives me hope and expectation that people are more suspect this time around.

throwaway122378 6y ago
This time around nothing will be different. Panama papers came out and nothing happened, Epstein was involved in who knows what with royals, politicians, and the wealthy and nothing happened, Assange is a prisoner for exposing the truth and even the surveillance that Snowden brought to light is still taking place today.

closeparen 6y ago

What do you propose we do about it? The response to 9/11 seems so disproportionate because it presupposed the existence of thousands more plots, which never materialized. Preserving civil liberties would have been free. The spread of the virus is not a conspiracy theory or a what-if/abundance-of-caution proposition. It is an observable fact. There is no way the public tolerates the devastation that will definitely materialize if we go back to making arbitrary, untraceable contacts. If contact tracing is intolerable, then so is contact. At some point, people are going to be ready to repeal the 4th amendment if it means seeing their friends again.

xfitm3 6y ago
People will just go out, which they're already doing. Nobody would ever agree to repealing the 4th amendment, they would challenge the government's authority to restrict their movement. The police can't arrest all of us.
- closeparen 6y ago
  I think you overestimate your neighbors’ appetite to murder hundreds of millions of people, or to let others get away with doing so.
  - xfitm3 6y ago
    There is a whole group of people with an opinion thats different from yours. In my area nobody obeys lockdown or social distancing.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    heh, what? in what scenario does contact tracing save hundreds of millions of lives? I think if it were widely agreed upon that it would save hundreds of millions, folks would universally be on board. It's disingenuous to assert that people who are against contact tracing are murderers, because evidence is lacking that it will make the difference between peak caseloads exceeding or staying under healthcare capacity.
    - xfitm3 6y ago
      > It's disingenuous to assert that people who are against contact tracing are murderers Thank you. Unfortunately this is a heated / political issue now, it's going to take a long time to restart the economy.
      - 6y ago