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There are both good and bad arguments for ending the lockdown. The better arguments tend to focus, as this one does, on the fact that a lockdown does not come

by jawns 6y ago

There are both good and bad arguments for ending the lockdown. The better arguments tend to focus, as this one does, on the fact that a lockdown does not come without its own harmful ramifications: delaying health interventions, increases in spousal/child abuse, increase in depression/suicide, loss of income/insurance, loss of financial stability, etc. I'm not necessarily saying that these arguments are or are not persuasive, but they're looking at the right things. The worse arguments tend to focus on the lockdowns depriving Americans of their God-given freedom to attend pool parties and political conventions, regardless of the epidemiological data. Unfortunately, many of the people who are really motivated by the latter tend to use the former as cover. (This doesn't just pertain to COVID-19, but to a lot of controversial issues.) Generally, when you can reasonable predict that your argument may invite some unwanted bedfellows, it's nice to toss out a disclaimer -- something like, "Now I know some people will seize on my argument to advance X, which I reject, so let's talk about the limits and bounds of what I'm arguing." That way you can make it clear that you're not willing to let your remarks be used in ways that you don't intend.

tengbretson 6y ago
> lockdowns depriving Americans of their God-given freedom to attend pool parties and political conventions, regardless of the epidemiological data I think your interpretation of that perspective is as shallow as saying that the Boston Tea Party was just just a bunch of people mad that tea had gotten more expensive.
- jupp0r 6y ago
  The difference is motivation. Nobody profits from lockdowns in the narrow sense that Britain profited from restricting Americans rights. Lockdowns intention is to save peoples lives and allow for a less restrictive reopening later, by regaining the missed ability to do proper contact tracing.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Lockdown proponents have consistently said that it's not about reopening later as such; it's about reopening safely, and we mustn't reopen at all if it's not safe.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      In my view, the two biggest factors driving lockdown resistance are 1) the pivot from 'flatten the curve' to 'lockdown until the virus is gone', and 2) the open-ended plans to ease the lockdown 'when it is safe' without defining that. It would be easier for people to endure the lockdown requirements if there were clear metrics, plans, and communication.
  - jerf 6y ago
    I live closer to this sort of thing than the HN gestalt does. There are a handful of people who are indeed just upset about their freedoms in that sense, but they are a fringe. The vast majority of people concerned about the lockdown in real life are concerned about the costs greatly exceeding the benefits, about the lockdowns being used as an excuse to grab power by power-hungry politicians, beliefs that the people advocating endless lockdowns are the ones who still have jobs and aren't experiencing the costs themselves, and disbelief at how clumsy it is to apply the same policies in your large and diverse state to counties with single-digit numbers of cases total vs thousands of cases weekly. These are not my opinions; this is what I hear. I do not hear all that much about "muh freedoms". Dismissing all disagreement that way is not a path to understanding what is really going on out there. If you don't care about that because you're happy with your view of the world, fine, but don't whine when you get blindsided about what America really believes about things in November.
    - jawns 6y ago
      > There are a handful of people who are indeed just upset about their freedoms in that sense, but they are a fringe. I live in a blue state, but I am seeing SO MANY PEOPLE ignoring sensible, low-effort preventive guidelines, such as social distancing and wearing masks when in close contact with others. My best guess is that it's a mix of: 1. freedom / civil liberties / not wanting the government to tell them what to do, and 2. the shortsighted view that just because they're of an age unlikely to be hit hard by the virus, they shouldn't need to mildly inconvenience themselves to prevent the spread to more vulnerable populations.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to take social distancing guidelines seriously at this point. My state purports to have an order to stay at home, but as more and more businesses reopen, they've still offered no guidance on when it'll be permitted to see friends and family again. It seems increasingly clear that there's a hidden "unless you really want to" clause, and all of us who were strictly obeying the rules just got tricked.
      - 6y ago
kspacewalk2 6y ago
The arguments made should stand on their own, regardless of motivations. If I'm a selfish prick who wants to attend pool parties but I'm giving valid reasons for ending the lockdown, it does not follow in any way that the lockdown is justified. So, who cares what my motivations are? The bedfellows argument can be made about both sides of the equation and we can just go ahead and consider it implied, to dispense with legaleze-like formalities and focus on what truly matters, which, to put it crudely is: will the lockdown save more people than will die as its consequence? The answer is far from obvious to me.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  Suppose you are the world's best rhetorician, and can create convincing arguments to support any conclusion. To exercise this skill, each day you pick a topic, roll a die to determine what position to support, and argue for that position. These arguments are clear, concise, self-consistent, grounded in concrete observations, and emotionally persuasive. However, you could have created similarly effective arguments for another side of the debate, had the die roll gone a different way this morning. Examining somebody's motives is a way of having a meta-debate. The quantity and quality of arguments on different sides of a topic is a function not only of the correctness of one side, but also of the time invested into coming up with those arguments. If somebody has an ulterior motive to their arguments, then they may be arguing in bad faith, attempting to persuade with arguments they know to be false, in order to gain support.
  - riskneutral 6y ago
    You need a refresher on logical fallacies from debate class.
    - MereInterest 6y ago
      I chose my words rather deliberately here. This is not about the world's greatest logician, the person who can best determine true statements about the world. This is about the world's greatest rhetorician, the person who can best convince others of a statement, regardless of the veracity of those statements.
frobozz 6y ago
I agree with most of your points, but I'm a bit puzzled by this one: > a lockdown does not come without its own harmful ramifications: delaying health interventions, The other harms make sense, but as I understand it, the main point of a pandemic lockdown is to ensure that the healthcare system can cope. During a pandemic, the lion's share of medical resources are dedicated to dealing with the pandemic. Making the pandemic worse by prematurely easing lockdowns will further delay health interventions. Hospitals are currently postponing even life-saving procedures if they think their patients can survive a bit longer without them, because they don't have enough intensive care capacity in case things go wrong. That won't get better just because of a policy decision to return society to BAU. I can have a phone consultation with my GP if I have any health concerns, and if he has concerns, arrangements can be made for an in-person consultation. I am likely to miss my next regular dental checkup due to the pandemic, and that may mean that what could have been a filling might now be a crown. However, given the proximity of dentists to people's breathing holes, opening them up too early is likely to cause more problems than it solves.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  >Hospitals are currently postponing even life-saving procedures if they think their patients can survive a bit longer without them, because they don't have enough intensive care capacity in case things go wrong. That won't get better just because of a policy decision to return society to BAU. There is very little stress on the intensive care capacity in most locations. If you are shutting down hospitals that don't have covid-19 cases because you might need capacity at some unspecified time in the future, you are doing it wrong.
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    > If you are shutting down hospitals that don't have covid-19 cases because you might need capacity at some unspecified time in the future, you are doing it wrong. Disagree. Being proactive rather than reactive is how many other places have managed to have much better outcomes with this virus thusfar.
    - 6y ago

by jawns 6y ago

tengbretson 6y ago

> lockdowns depriving Americans of their God-given freedom to attend pool parties and political conventions, regardless of the epidemiological data I think your interpretation of that perspective is as shallow as saying that the Boston Tea Party was just just a bunch of people mad that tea had gotten more expensive.

jupp0r 6y ago
The difference is motivation. Nobody profits from lockdowns in the narrow sense that Britain profited from restricting Americans rights. Lockdowns intention is to save peoples lives and allow for a less restrictive reopening later, by regaining the missed ability to do proper contact tracing.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Lockdown proponents have consistently said that it's not about reopening later as such; it's about reopening safely, and we mustn't reopen at all if it's not safe.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    In my view, the two biggest factors driving lockdown resistance are 1) the pivot from 'flatten the curve' to 'lockdown until the virus is gone', and 2) the open-ended plans to ease the lockdown 'when it is safe' without defining that. It would be easier for people to endure the lockdown requirements if there were clear metrics, plans, and communication.
- jerf 6y ago
  I live closer to this sort of thing than the HN gestalt does. There are a handful of people who are indeed just upset about their freedoms in that sense, but they are a fringe. The vast majority of people concerned about the lockdown in real life are concerned about the costs greatly exceeding the benefits, about the lockdowns being used as an excuse to grab power by power-hungry politicians, beliefs that the people advocating endless lockdowns are the ones who still have jobs and aren't experiencing the costs themselves, and disbelief at how clumsy it is to apply the same policies in your large and diverse state to counties with single-digit numbers of cases total vs thousands of cases weekly. These are not my opinions; this is what I hear. I do not hear all that much about "muh freedoms". Dismissing all disagreement that way is not a path to understanding what is really going on out there. If you don't care about that because you're happy with your view of the world, fine, but don't whine when you get blindsided about what America really believes about things in November.
  - jawns 6y ago
    > There are a handful of people who are indeed just upset about their freedoms in that sense, but they are a fringe. I live in a blue state, but I am seeing SO MANY PEOPLE ignoring sensible, low-effort preventive guidelines, such as social distancing and wearing masks when in close contact with others. My best guess is that it's a mix of: 1. freedom / civil liberties / not wanting the government to tell them what to do, and 2. the shortsighted view that just because they're of an age unlikely to be hit hard by the virus, they shouldn't need to mildly inconvenience themselves to prevent the spread to more vulnerable populations.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to take social distancing guidelines seriously at this point. My state purports to have an order to stay at home, but as more and more businesses reopen, they've still offered no guidance on when it'll be permitted to see friends and family again. It seems increasingly clear that there's a hidden "unless you really want to" clause, and all of us who were strictly obeying the rules just got tricked.
    - 6y ago

kspacewalk2 6y ago

The arguments made should stand on their own, regardless of motivations. If I'm a selfish prick who wants to attend pool parties but I'm giving valid reasons for ending the lockdown, it does not follow in any way that the lockdown is justified. So, who cares what my motivations are? The bedfellows argument can be made about both sides of the equation and we can just go ahead and consider it implied, to dispense with legaleze-like formalities and focus on what truly matters, which, to put it crudely is: will the lockdown save more people than will die as its consequence? The answer is far from obvious to me.

MereInterest 6y ago
Suppose you are the world's best rhetorician, and can create convincing arguments to support any conclusion. To exercise this skill, each day you pick a topic, roll a die to determine what position to support, and argue for that position. These arguments are clear, concise, self-consistent, grounded in concrete observations, and emotionally persuasive. However, you could have created similarly effective arguments for another side of the debate, had the die roll gone a different way this morning. Examining somebody's motives is a way of having a meta-debate. The quantity and quality of arguments on different sides of a topic is a function not only of the correctness of one side, but also of the time invested into coming up with those arguments. If somebody has an ulterior motive to their arguments, then they may be arguing in bad faith, attempting to persuade with arguments they know to be false, in order to gain support.
- riskneutral 6y ago
  You need a refresher on logical fallacies from debate class.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    I chose my words rather deliberately here. This is not about the world's greatest logician, the person who can best determine true statements about the world. This is about the world's greatest rhetorician, the person who can best convince others of a statement, regardless of the veracity of those statements.

frobozz 6y ago

I agree with most of your points, but I'm a bit puzzled by this one: > a lockdown does not come without its own harmful ramifications: delaying health interventions, The other harms make sense, but as I understand it, the main point of a pandemic lockdown is to ensure that the healthcare system can cope. During a pandemic, the lion's share of medical resources are dedicated to dealing with the pandemic. Making the pandemic worse by prematurely easing lockdowns will further delay health interventions. Hospitals are currently postponing even life-saving procedures if they think their patients can survive a bit longer without them, because they don't have enough intensive care capacity in case things go wrong. That won't get better just because of a policy decision to return society to BAU. I can have a phone consultation with my GP if I have any health concerns, and if he has concerns, arrangements can be made for an in-person consultation. I am likely to miss my next regular dental checkup due to the pandemic, and that may mean that what could have been a filling might now be a crown. However, given the proximity of dentists to people's breathing holes, opening them up too early is likely to cause more problems than it solves.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
>Hospitals are currently postponing even life-saving procedures if they think their patients can survive a bit longer without them, because they don't have enough intensive care capacity in case things go wrong. That won't get better just because of a policy decision to return society to BAU. There is very little stress on the intensive care capacity in most locations. If you are shutting down hospitals that don't have covid-19 cases because you might need capacity at some unspecified time in the future, you are doing it wrong.
- nucleardog 6y ago
  > If you are shutting down hospitals that don't have covid-19 cases because you might need capacity at some unspecified time in the future, you are doing it wrong. Disagree. Being proactive rather than reactive is how many other places have managed to have much better outcomes with this virus thusfar.
  - 6y ago