4 ms·

> With an infection fatality rate of 0.5% (which is on the conservative side), resuming normal activity means between 1.5 and 4.5% of the population will likely

by bhupy 6y ago

> With an infection fatality rate of 0.5% (which is on the conservative side), resuming normal activity means between 1.5 and 4.5% of the population will likely die. This is not an insignificant risk at all. In contrast, 35,000 dead from traffic accidents is .01% of the US population. Right, so you are essentially making a tradeoff! You have decided that losing 0.01% of the US population is, to use your framing, an "insignificant risk". I don't disagree with that. Your original argument was that we simply do not have the right to promote or otherwise further actions that will unnecessarily cause the death of innocents, even if there is an economic tradeoff to be had. I argued that we absolutely have the right to make tradeoffs with lives, we do it all the time. Sometimes the tradeoff is worth it, sometimes it isn't. You have just argued to me that "the analogy is invalid" because in one case a lot of people die, and in the other case far fewer people die. You are essentially making the same tradeoff, under the same moral framework — only your boundary for what constitutes an acceptable number of deaths is different. This is a difference in degree, and not kind.

pmiller2 6y ago
> Right, so you are essentially making a tradeoff! You have decided that losing 0.01% of the US population is, to use your framing, an "insignificant risk". I don't disagree with that. I have not. I have stated that a moral framework that could theoretically justify driving cars does not also justify releasing lockdowns. I have made no normative statement about Americans driving cars. Please show me where I have, if you disagree.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > I have stated that a moral framework that could theoretically justify driving cars does not also justify releasing lockdowns It's the same moral framework, you're just coming out of it with a different decision based on the number of lives impacted. > I have made no normative statement about Americans driving cars. Please show me where I have, if you disagree. Your words: "resuming normal activity means between 1.5 and 4.5% of the population will likely die. This is not an insignificant risk at all. In contrast, 35,000 dead from traffic accidents is .01% of the US population." You've implicitly shown that there is a line you draw at the number of lives lost that you feel is unacceptable, and that's somewhere between 1.5-4.5% of the population. 0.01% of the population is acceptable to you (it is acceptable to me, too). Drawing this line is a normative point of view! And my fundamental argument is that different people have different "lines". Your "line" isn't magically the universally correct one. We need to have the discussion to understand all of the "lines" we might be able to draw (ie what are the varying degrees of lockdown), what everyone's personal "lines" are, and then try and come up with the acceptable "line" for society.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Where did I say 35,000 people dead was insignificant? The statement you quote literally does not say that. Again, I am claiming that even if you can justify .01% of the population dying in car accidents on the basis of "economic activity," then the same argument does not work for 150-450x as many deaths. You are putting words in my mouth when you say I claimed 35,000 deaths was acceptable. Again, I note that although you say there are LOADS of frameworks that could justify this, you have not yet even articulated one. Why is that?
    - bhupy 6y ago
      > Again, I am claiming that even if you can justify .01% of the population dying in car accidents on the basis of "economic activity," then the same argument does not work for 150-450x as many deaths. And I'm arguing that '150-450x as many deaths' is an arbitrary limit. If you can justify 0.01% of the population dying in car accidents on the basis of "economic activity", can you justify 0.02%? 0.1%? 0.3%? 0.5%? 0.9%? 1%? 2%? Where did it stop being justifiable by the same argument? My argument is that there is no objective line, it is strictly subjective. THAT is the moral framework.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        Your "slippery slope" justification literally does not work. I could use that same argument to say that anything that justifies one death justifies 90% of the population being killed. No sane individual believes that there's an argument for executing billions of people. And, what if I believe even one death for the sake of economic activity is too many? What of your argument, then?
        bhupy 6y ago
        First of all "capitalism" has nothing to do with this. Even a perfectly centrally planned socialist economy might come to the same conclusion. People need goods and services. Capitalism is one way to deliver them. Second of all, I'm not really sure where you got "5,250,000+ deaths per year", because current projections with reopening of the economy is about 161,000 by Aug 4[1], and that's about 5 months since the outbreak, so let's call that 386,400 annualized. Let's say we get a vaccine in 2 years, for a total of about 772,800 deaths. That represents 0.2% of US population. I want to make it clear that I, personally, do not think that it is acceptable for 0.2% of the US population to die, but I want to try and convey to you that it is entirely within the realm of possibility for REASONABLE people to conclude that 0.2% over a one-time 2-year interval is "okay", if they already think that 0.01% of Americans dying per year is already acceptable — because at that rate you reach the same 0.2% figure over 20 years, and it continues to grow unbounded. > And, what if I believe even one death for the sake of economic activity is too many? What of your argument, then? It's totally fair for you to have that opinion! But the vast majority of people do not believe that, and you absolutely cannot argue that people lack the moral right to believe that 1 death for the sake of the economy is acceptable. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-some-people-be-affected-badly-yes-trump-says-us-must-reopen-coronavirus-deaths-projected-to-hit-100000-in-weeks-2020-05-06 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-some-people-be-affect...

by bhupy 6y ago

pmiller2 6y ago

> Right, so you are essentially making a tradeoff! You have decided that losing 0.01% of the US population is, to use your framing, an "insignificant risk". I don't disagree with that. I have not. I have stated that a moral framework that could theoretically justify driving cars does not also justify releasing lockdowns. I have made no normative statement about Americans driving cars. Please show me where I have, if you disagree.

bhupy 6y ago
> I have stated that a moral framework that could theoretically justify driving cars does not also justify releasing lockdowns It's the same moral framework, you're just coming out of it with a different decision based on the number of lives impacted. > I have made no normative statement about Americans driving cars. Please show me where I have, if you disagree. Your words: "resuming normal activity means between 1.5 and 4.5% of the population will likely die. This is not an insignificant risk at all. In contrast, 35,000 dead from traffic accidents is .01% of the US population." You've implicitly shown that there is a line you draw at the number of lives lost that you feel is unacceptable, and that's somewhere between 1.5-4.5% of the population. 0.01% of the population is acceptable to you (it is acceptable to me, too). Drawing this line is a normative point of view! And my fundamental argument is that different people have different "lines". Your "line" isn't magically the universally correct one. We need to have the discussion to understand all of the "lines" we might be able to draw (ie what are the varying degrees of lockdown), what everyone's personal "lines" are, and then try and come up with the acceptable "line" for society.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Where did I say 35,000 people dead was insignificant? The statement you quote literally does not say that. Again, I am claiming that even if you can justify .01% of the population dying in car accidents on the basis of "economic activity," then the same argument does not work for 150-450x as many deaths. You are putting words in my mouth when you say I claimed 35,000 deaths was acceptable. Again, I note that although you say there are LOADS of frameworks that could justify this, you have not yet even articulated one. Why is that?
  - bhupy 6y ago
    > Again, I am claiming that even if you can justify .01% of the population dying in car accidents on the basis of "economic activity," then the same argument does not work for 150-450x as many deaths. And I'm arguing that '150-450x as many deaths' is an arbitrary limit. If you can justify 0.01% of the population dying in car accidents on the basis of "economic activity", can you justify 0.02%? 0.1%? 0.3%? 0.5%? 0.9%? 1%? 2%? Where did it stop being justifiable by the same argument? My argument is that there is no objective line, it is strictly subjective. THAT is the moral framework.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      Your "slippery slope" justification literally does not work. I could use that same argument to say that anything that justifies one death justifies 90% of the population being killed. No sane individual believes that there's an argument for executing billions of people. And, what if I believe even one death for the sake of economic activity is too many? What of your argument, then?
      - bhupy 6y ago
        First of all "capitalism" has nothing to do with this. Even a perfectly centrally planned socialist economy might come to the same conclusion. People need goods and services. Capitalism is one way to deliver them. Second of all, I'm not really sure where you got "5,250,000+ deaths per year", because current projections with reopening of the economy is about 161,000 by Aug 4[1], and that's about 5 months since the outbreak, so let's call that 386,400 annualized. Let's say we get a vaccine in 2 years, for a total of about 772,800 deaths. That represents 0.2% of US population. I want to make it clear that I, personally, do not think that it is acceptable for 0.2% of the US population to die, but I want to try and convey to you that it is entirely within the realm of possibility for REASONABLE people to conclude that 0.2% over a one-time 2-year interval is "okay", if they already think that 0.01% of Americans dying per year is already acceptable — because at that rate you reach the same 0.2% figure over 20 years, and it continues to grow unbounded. > And, what if I believe even one death for the sake of economic activity is too many? What of your argument, then? It's totally fair for you to have that opinion! But the vast majority of people do not believe that, and you absolutely cannot argue that people lack the moral right to believe that 1 death for the sake of the economy is acceptable. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-some-people-be-affected-badly-yes-trump-says-us-must-reopen-coronavirus-deaths-projected-to-hit-100000-in-weeks-2020-05-06 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-some-people-be-affect...