6 ms·

I recall the quote from Thoreau, saying we must also stand up to those "who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity." The poi

by j2kun 6y ago

I recall the quote from Thoreau, saying we must also stand up to those "who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity." The point of the essay is to exhibit disobedience to government when that government is perpetrating injustice. Somehow halting the production of luxury cars for a few more weeks, with the explicit intent of trying to save lives, doesn't seem like an injustice to me.

ryankemper 6y ago
> Somehow halting the production of luxury cars for a few more weeks, with the explicit intent of trying to save lives, doesn't seem like an injustice to me. Forgive the cliche, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. "Trying to save lives" is the new "think of the children". It's the same mentality that gives us legislation like the EARN IT act. -- The question we should ask is, (1) has the government provided a reasonable justification for placing such limits on commerce, freedom of movement, etc. And (2), is the strategy we're pursuing, from a public health perspective, the right one? My answer to both (1) and (2) is "hell no". The rules our government has ruled out are arbitrary and capricious and are largely based on superstition. Case in point: closures of public parks and beaches. Arguing (2) is out of the scope of this comment but suffice to say that my belief is the negative externalities introduced by our COVID-19 response are far, far worse than COVID-19 itself. -- FWIW, I am not a fan of Musk in general. I am inherently suspicious of people that are trying to save humanity. As we have seen with Musk - for example, how Tesla factory workers are treated in the pre-COVID-19 era - because he is working tirelessly to save humanity, he is willing to sacrifice actual humans to achieve his goals. Because after all, in the scheme of things, if you're talking about fighting existential threats like climate change or being stuck on one planet, what's the cost of even 100,000 human-lives' worth of wellbeing in comparison? It's not even close. But when it comes to COVID-19, I absolutely think Musk is right. Yes he has made some absolute asinine comments/predictions but his general points about suspension of civil liberties, and statements that COVID-19 is not nearly as lethal as we were told...all of that is totally true in my book.
- harikb 6y ago
  People who oppose EARN-IT act did provide their reasons. I get it that you don’t believe their intentions. Do you have any plausible theories on this supposedly secret motives of Alameda county officials? You say it isn’t saving lives, so what do you think it is? What do they benefit from keeping a factory closed unnecessarily?
  - tathougies 6y ago
    > supposedly secret motives of Alameda county officials? This is an arbitrary goal post. There need not be any secret motive of the county officials to make their reasoning incorrect or the law not right. Their motives could be completely public and still scrutinized and found to be incorrect.
  - denkmoon 6y ago
    It is simple cover-your-ass behaviour from low level bureaucrats.
  - ryankemper 6y ago
    > You say it isn’t saving lives, so what do you think it is? I think that they intend to save lives but that their understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the best way to address it is so overly simplistic that the myopic policies they are instituting are going to lead to larger mortality over the long-term. Which is the pattern we see at the broader scale as well when we examine the US' response to the pandemic. So, like I implied above, their intentions are good, but intentions are largely worthless.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  > "Trying to save lives" is the new "think of the children". It's the same mentality that gives us legislation like the EARN IT act. Is not "but what about my freedom" the same thing? This is a nonsense argument. > But when it comes to COVID-19, I absolutely think Musk is right. Yes he has made some absolute asinine comments/predictions but his general points about suspension of civil liberties, and statements that COVID-19 is not nearly as lethal as we were told...all of that is totally true in my book. Forget the nonsense and call it for what it is. It has nothing to do with civil liberty. It has to do with money, power, and influence. People actually suffering and not knowing where their next check comes from, well, we don't really care about them. But when finally the rich software engineers get a little less comfortable, the screeches for freedom would make even the largest eagle blush.

by j2kun 6y ago

ryankemper 6y ago

> Somehow halting the production of luxury cars for a few more weeks, with the explicit intent of trying to save lives, doesn't seem like an injustice to me. Forgive the cliche, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. "Trying to save lives" is the new "think of the children". It's the same mentality that gives us legislation like the EARN IT act. -- The question we should ask is, (1) has the government provided a reasonable justification for placing such limits on commerce, freedom of movement, etc. And (2), is the strategy we're pursuing, from a public health perspective, the right one? My answer to both (1) and (2) is "hell no". The rules our government has ruled out are arbitrary and capricious and are largely based on superstition. Case in point: closures of public parks and beaches. Arguing (2) is out of the scope of this comment but suffice to say that my belief is the negative externalities introduced by our COVID-19 response are far, far worse than COVID-19 itself. -- FWIW, I am not a fan of Musk in general. I am inherently suspicious of people that are trying to save humanity. As we have seen with Musk - for example, how Tesla factory workers are treated in the pre-COVID-19 era - because he is working tirelessly to save humanity, he is willing to sacrifice actual humans to achieve his goals. Because after all, in the scheme of things, if you're talking about fighting existential threats like climate change or being stuck on one planet, what's the cost of even 100,000 human-lives' worth of wellbeing in comparison? It's not even close. But when it comes to COVID-19, I absolutely think Musk is right. Yes he has made some absolute asinine comments/predictions but his general points about suspension of civil liberties, and statements that COVID-19 is not nearly as lethal as we were told...all of that is totally true in my book.

harikb 6y ago
People who oppose EARN-IT act did provide their reasons. I get it that you don’t believe their intentions. Do you have any plausible theories on this supposedly secret motives of Alameda county officials? You say it isn’t saving lives, so what do you think it is? What do they benefit from keeping a factory closed unnecessarily?
- tathougies 6y ago
  > supposedly secret motives of Alameda county officials? This is an arbitrary goal post. There need not be any secret motive of the county officials to make their reasoning incorrect or the law not right. Their motives could be completely public and still scrutinized and found to be incorrect.
- denkmoon 6y ago
  It is simple cover-your-ass behaviour from low level bureaucrats.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  > You say it isn’t saving lives, so what do you think it is? I think that they intend to save lives but that their understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the best way to address it is so overly simplistic that the myopic policies they are instituting are going to lead to larger mortality over the long-term. Which is the pattern we see at the broader scale as well when we examine the US' response to the pandemic. So, like I implied above, their intentions are good, but intentions are largely worthless.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
> "Trying to save lives" is the new "think of the children". It's the same mentality that gives us legislation like the EARN IT act. Is not "but what about my freedom" the same thing? This is a nonsense argument. > But when it comes to COVID-19, I absolutely think Musk is right. Yes he has made some absolute asinine comments/predictions but his general points about suspension of civil liberties, and statements that COVID-19 is not nearly as lethal as we were told...all of that is totally true in my book. Forget the nonsense and call it for what it is. It has nothing to do with civil liberty. It has to do with money, power, and influence. People actually suffering and not knowing where their next check comes from, well, we don't really care about them. But when finally the rich software engineers get a little less comfortable, the screeches for freedom would make even the largest eagle blush.