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I think the point he's trying to make is, so what? The people will stop caring, they've already stopped caring. They're not the ones who are going to die. The

I think the point he's trying to make is, so what? The people will stop caring, they've already stopped caring. They're not the ones who are going to die. The realization is dawning that it's only the old that die. Much like the starving kids in Africa, it's rapidly becoming a "Well, it's tragic, but I can't see it" problem. Note I don't know how I personally feel about this, I think this is just the reality of what's about to happen in Western democracies. I think the old will ultimately be chucked under a bus. We'll get lots of tragic stories about care homes and a whole load of hand wringing, but no-one will actually care all that much to bring in another lock-down. Or, as you say, the other option is that we all throw 5-10 years of our lives away in a massive global recession for some old people who've already had the best years of their lives to live a couple of years more. I think we've got to start hoping beyond hope for a magic cure, or that basic social distancing kinda keeps r below 1, so we don't have to look ourselves in the mirror in 5 years time and have to face the reality of what we just did.

esotericn 6y ago
FWIW, I don't feel that way at all (re throwing old people under the bus). I think that what's happened is the opposite - the young have been thrown under the bus (even disregarding social activity we have things like school closures, university admissions, exams cancelled), and that economic activity is being hindered unnecessarily, which is having enormous knock-on effects already which will persist for a generation. I think that the appropriate response is for the vulnerable (old, immunocompromised, or really just anyone with low risk tolerance) to isolate and be given the resources to do so. Care homes, for example, should be dealt with via paying the staff much higher salaries and having them stay on-site, effectively 'sealing off' the care home and creating an isolated unit. If you're poor and have to go to work, you should be given enough money such that it's your free choice and you can stay at home if you want. My vulnerable friends and family are forced into doing this, lockdown or no lockdown, they're disinfecting packages, haven't been outside for months, and probably will be forced into a "new way of life" for the foreseeable future. This is the sort of thing that we should be using the severe lockdown time for - determining an appropriate way of protecting the individuals which we know to have very high fatality/complication rates - the people for whom we're bothering to do this at all. What I strongly disagree with is the idea that the lives of the healthy should be deleted in some asinine attempt to drag out the (in my view, inevitable) death toll over a multi-year period.
- mattmanser 6y ago
  But those things aren't in place and they won't be. Because our government sucks and are incompetent. So now you're in a place where you're intelligent enough, and aware enough, that you follow the rules or you play Russian Roulette with people's lives. Rage all you want about what could be and reality, the two rarely meet.
  - esotericn 6y ago
    Yeah, I'm doing everything I can personally at the moment, this is more a discussion around how in N months I feel hands will be forced. The current situation is some sort of distributed trade of mental health for physical health; the brains of the youth for the bodies of the old. It's not a stable state and will break at some point. Regarding "russian roulette": Everyone I know who feels at significant risk is doing the whole "don't leave the house" thing. Care homes are almost certainly fucked regardless. I tend to think the major impact is going to be amongst 50+ year olds who are in good health and decide that they can't be arsed with staying inside. We basically don't have a way to deal with this issue collectively.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
      >> The current situation is some sort of distributed trade of mental health for physical health; the brains of the youth for the bodies of the old. The young are the old, in due time. I'm guessing that the majority of young people today would prefer to grow old in a society that will care for them, that has demonstrated that it will care for them, rather than one that is prepared to "throw them under the bus" to "protect the young". All of us are young at some point and many of us will grow old. We must be treated fairly in both states. The sensible way to do that in the current situation is to establish some sort of protocol for interaction with each other that will allow economic life to go on, because obviously everyone wants that, but without exposing the vulnerable to the virus. And that doesn't mean locking them up until it's gone, because that is still throwing them under the bus. After all, there is a substantial minority of people with chronic diseases etc that are still young, and have many productive years of life ahead of them. But for the rest, also, there is what I say above: if we throw the old under the bus now, we'll throw the young under the bus also, when it's their turn to be old. And this protocol must necessarily be a strict form of social distancing and some measure to reduce transmission, like wearing masks. We know that works. Until there is a better solution, that's the best solution. So there's no point in saying "this can't be done, you'll find me at the pub". It has to be done. And it has to be done for the good of everyone, young and old, vulnerable and strong. There's no point in thinking that "I'm young, this doesn't affect me" and carrying on as before because "it only kills the old and sick". One day, you yourself will be old and sick. And whatever kills the old and sick at that point will get you, unless the young and strong around you take care of you, like we are asked to take care of the old and sick right now. And if young people don't care for the old and sick right now, they're digging their own graves.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lkrubner 6y ago
"The people will stop caring, they've already stopped caring." Who are you talking about? You and your circle of friends? Large majorities of the public continue to support lockdown measures, in both the USA and the UK. You should consider that those who are not in denial are looking at the situation with a risk assessment very different than your own, and such people as those currently constitute the majority.
- esotericn 6y ago
  The article here is describing a time-frame of years. Yes, most people are on board with a lockdown of a few months. Flattening the curve is a sane aim. If you persist with this idea of deleting social interaction for multiple years, people are going to rightly conclude that you're insane and just want to force your antisocial vision on them. That's what's causing the antsiness - there's no exit plan, it's all "oh, well, you might be able to have a normal life.. or perhaps post-2020 we deleted society". If you can't understand that, you're probably in a special situation (either very introverted, or living with family so you already have some social contact).
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    Who introduced the term "deleting social interaction" to the conversation? Right now, the talk is of "social distancing" and "self isolation". But "deleting social interaction"? That sounds like a contrived exaggeration.
    - esotericn 6y ago
      At the moment we _still_ have no date in the UK for when people will be able to visit their wives, husbands, partners or children if they're not cohabiting. If you're living alone, then you still have no idea when it will legally be permitted for you to embrace, play games with, spend the night with, kiss, hold hands with - experience humanity with - literally anyone else. If you're single, all of that _plus_ you now need to fight through a 2 metre social bubble in order to perform basic human functions like, for example, attracting a mate in order to perform sexual intercourse. All of the above is very silly to me. I honestly think the whole "let's wait for the science" approach misses the point. At an absolute minimum we need a hard deadline of something like "look, in N weeks/months you can go and be a husband again". People _will_ take a risk of death in order to do the above. If you think this is all about young individuals believing that they're invincible you've completely missed the point - the issue is that a life without those things is _not life_ - 1 year of being a hermit for many may as well just be a deletion of 1 year of the prime of their life, i.e. a >1% mortality rate imposed upon them anyway. The longer term view on this is people actually starting to worry that perhaps that's just it - their parents had a good life when you used to be able to go out, party, meet a girl, and so on and so forth - and now, oops, that's illegal, sorry, we're doing social distancing for the next 10 years. It's utter madness. If the Government refuses to address this, and they very much are refusing to do so, then the inevitable consequence will be that people just begin to wholesale ignore the guidelines. If I had children on the other side of the country I'm not watching them grow from age 5 to age 6 over a video link regardless of what the R number is. There's no political process to address these concerns, other than just doing it anyway, so people will do it anyway.
ken 6y ago
> Much like the starving kids in Africa, it's rapidly becoming a "Well, it's tragic, but I can't see it" problem. That's exactly how this is different. Most people in the UK or US don't have a starving African kid in their direct family. They do have people at high risk for COVID-19 in their direct family. > Or, as you say, the other option is that we all throw 5-10 years of our lives away in a massive global recession for some old people who've already had the best years of their lives to live a couple of years more. I must live in a weird bubble because none of my friends are willing to sacrifice their parents'/friends'/coworkers' lives for economic indicators. Besides, that is a false dichotomy: adapting to new circumstances is not "throwing 5-10 years of our lives away".
- black_puppydog 6y ago
  > adapting to new circumstances is not "throwing 5-10 years of our lives away". This really resonates with me. yet I've seen highly educated good friends go from "shit we need to do something about this" to "I don't care if people die, I want my summer vacation" within two months now. It's really depressing to see. It seems that for many people, changing anything about their previous lifestyle is already pain enough that they stop considering the impact on others. And this was a person who prides themselves in adapting and who constantly rants about how people resist change...
  - sdwa 6y ago
    But this isn't just "changing anything" about our lifestyles is it? It's a complete pause on life itself. I'm lucky to have a job that I can do from home but the depression is seeping in and some days I am just floundering. That's what I take issue with, that's why I hate lockdown.
    - black_puppydog 6y ago
      I'm talking about the time after the "real" lockdown. When we're supposed to "go back to normal." I don't think going back to normal is practical, nor desirable. Ref work-from-home, air travel, etc. But for many people, apparently the bar for acceptable is "everything is exactly as before or it's too much change."
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
From what I understand, the risk of dying starts rising at the age of 65. You don't have to be 80 to be thrown under a bus. Also, that's the risk of dying. Serious illness that can do long-term damage is another issue. I'm not sure how common that is supposed to be.

esotericn 6y ago

FWIW, I don't feel that way at all (re throwing old people under the bus). I think that what's happened is the opposite - the young have been thrown under the bus (even disregarding social activity we have things like school closures, university admissions, exams cancelled), and that economic activity is being hindered unnecessarily, which is having enormous knock-on effects already which will persist for a generation. I think that the appropriate response is for the vulnerable (old, immunocompromised, or really just anyone with low risk tolerance) to isolate and be given the resources to do so. Care homes, for example, should be dealt with via paying the staff much higher salaries and having them stay on-site, effectively 'sealing off' the care home and creating an isolated unit. If you're poor and have to go to work, you should be given enough money such that it's your free choice and you can stay at home if you want. My vulnerable friends and family are forced into doing this, lockdown or no lockdown, they're disinfecting packages, haven't been outside for months, and probably will be forced into a "new way of life" for the foreseeable future. This is the sort of thing that we should be using the severe lockdown time for - determining an appropriate way of protecting the individuals which we know to have very high fatality/complication rates - the people for whom we're bothering to do this at all. What I strongly disagree with is the idea that the lives of the healthy should be deleted in some asinine attempt to drag out the (in my view, inevitable) death toll over a multi-year period.

mattmanser 6y ago
But those things aren't in place and they won't be. Because our government sucks and are incompetent. So now you're in a place where you're intelligent enough, and aware enough, that you follow the rules or you play Russian Roulette with people's lives. Rage all you want about what could be and reality, the two rarely meet.
- esotericn 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm doing everything I can personally at the moment, this is more a discussion around how in N months I feel hands will be forced. The current situation is some sort of distributed trade of mental health for physical health; the brains of the youth for the bodies of the old. It's not a stable state and will break at some point. Regarding "russian roulette": Everyone I know who feels at significant risk is doing the whole "don't leave the house" thing. Care homes are almost certainly fucked regardless. I tend to think the major impact is going to be amongst 50+ year olds who are in good health and decide that they can't be arsed with staying inside. We basically don't have a way to deal with this issue collectively.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    >> The current situation is some sort of distributed trade of mental health for physical health; the brains of the youth for the bodies of the old. The young are the old, in due time. I'm guessing that the majority of young people today would prefer to grow old in a society that will care for them, that has demonstrated that it will care for them, rather than one that is prepared to "throw them under the bus" to "protect the young". All of us are young at some point and many of us will grow old. We must be treated fairly in both states. The sensible way to do that in the current situation is to establish some sort of protocol for interaction with each other that will allow economic life to go on, because obviously everyone wants that, but without exposing the vulnerable to the virus. And that doesn't mean locking them up until it's gone, because that is still throwing them under the bus. After all, there is a substantial minority of people with chronic diseases etc that are still young, and have many productive years of life ahead of them. But for the rest, also, there is what I say above: if we throw the old under the bus now, we'll throw the young under the bus also, when it's their turn to be old. And this protocol must necessarily be a strict form of social distancing and some measure to reduce transmission, like wearing masks. We know that works. Until there is a better solution, that's the best solution. So there's no point in saying "this can't be done, you'll find me at the pub". It has to be done. And it has to be done for the good of everyone, young and old, vulnerable and strong. There's no point in thinking that "I'm young, this doesn't affect me" and carrying on as before because "it only kills the old and sick". One day, you yourself will be old and sick. And whatever kills the old and sick at that point will get you, unless the young and strong around you take care of you, like we are asked to take care of the old and sick right now. And if young people don't care for the old and sick right now, they're digging their own graves.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

lkrubner 6y ago

"The people will stop caring, they've already stopped caring." Who are you talking about? You and your circle of friends? Large majorities of the public continue to support lockdown measures, in both the USA and the UK. You should consider that those who are not in denial are looking at the situation with a risk assessment very different than your own, and such people as those currently constitute the majority.

esotericn 6y ago
The article here is describing a time-frame of years. Yes, most people are on board with a lockdown of a few months. Flattening the curve is a sane aim. If you persist with this idea of deleting social interaction for multiple years, people are going to rightly conclude that you're insane and just want to force your antisocial vision on them. That's what's causing the antsiness - there's no exit plan, it's all "oh, well, you might be able to have a normal life.. or perhaps post-2020 we deleted society". If you can't understand that, you're probably in a special situation (either very introverted, or living with family so you already have some social contact).
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
  Who introduced the term "deleting social interaction" to the conversation? Right now, the talk is of "social distancing" and "self isolation". But "deleting social interaction"? That sounds like a contrived exaggeration.
  - esotericn 6y ago
    At the moment we _still_ have no date in the UK for when people will be able to visit their wives, husbands, partners or children if they're not cohabiting. If you're living alone, then you still have no idea when it will legally be permitted for you to embrace, play games with, spend the night with, kiss, hold hands with - experience humanity with - literally anyone else. If you're single, all of that _plus_ you now need to fight through a 2 metre social bubble in order to perform basic human functions like, for example, attracting a mate in order to perform sexual intercourse. All of the above is very silly to me. I honestly think the whole "let's wait for the science" approach misses the point. At an absolute minimum we need a hard deadline of something like "look, in N weeks/months you can go and be a husband again". People _will_ take a risk of death in order to do the above. If you think this is all about young individuals believing that they're invincible you've completely missed the point - the issue is that a life without those things is _not life_ - 1 year of being a hermit for many may as well just be a deletion of 1 year of the prime of their life, i.e. a >1% mortality rate imposed upon them anyway. The longer term view on this is people actually starting to worry that perhaps that's just it - their parents had a good life when you used to be able to go out, party, meet a girl, and so on and so forth - and now, oops, that's illegal, sorry, we're doing social distancing for the next 10 years. It's utter madness. If the Government refuses to address this, and they very much are refusing to do so, then the inevitable consequence will be that people just begin to wholesale ignore the guidelines. If I had children on the other side of the country I'm not watching them grow from age 5 to age 6 over a video link regardless of what the R number is. There's no political process to address these concerns, other than just doing it anyway, so people will do it anyway.

ken 6y ago

> Much like the starving kids in Africa, it's rapidly becoming a "Well, it's tragic, but I can't see it" problem. That's exactly how this is different. Most people in the UK or US don't have a starving African kid in their direct family. They do have people at high risk for COVID-19 in their direct family. > Or, as you say, the other option is that we all throw 5-10 years of our lives away in a massive global recession for some old people who've already had the best years of their lives to live a couple of years more. I must live in a weird bubble because none of my friends are willing to sacrifice their parents'/friends'/coworkers' lives for economic indicators. Besides, that is a false dichotomy: adapting to new circumstances is not "throwing 5-10 years of our lives away".

black_puppydog 6y ago
> adapting to new circumstances is not "throwing 5-10 years of our lives away". This really resonates with me. yet I've seen highly educated good friends go from "shit we need to do something about this" to "I don't care if people die, I want my summer vacation" within two months now. It's really depressing to see. It seems that for many people, changing anything about their previous lifestyle is already pain enough that they stop considering the impact on others. And this was a person who prides themselves in adapting and who constantly rants about how people resist change...
- sdwa 6y ago
  But this isn't just "changing anything" about our lifestyles is it? It's a complete pause on life itself. I'm lucky to have a job that I can do from home but the depression is seeping in and some days I am just floundering. That's what I take issue with, that's why I hate lockdown.
  - black_puppydog 6y ago
    I'm talking about the time after the "real" lockdown. When we're supposed to "go back to normal." I don't think going back to normal is practical, nor desirable. Ref work-from-home, air travel, etc. But for many people, apparently the bar for acceptable is "everything is exactly as before or it's too much change."

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

From what I understand, the risk of dying starts rising at the age of 65. You don't have to be 80 to be thrown under a bus. Also, that's the risk of dying. Serious illness that can do long-term damage is another issue. I'm not sure how common that is supposed to be.