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The entire point of civil society is to allow people to exist with one another. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that wearing a yellow shirt in public insta

The entire point of civil society is to allow people to exist with one another. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that wearing a yellow shirt in public instantly kills 5% of the population. I think that anyone would agree that it would be a good law to make it illegal for someone to wear yellow shirts. In fact we would probably make it just as illegal as pointing a gun at someone and shooting them in cold blood. Because, well, that's what you would be doing wearing a yellow shirt (except even more people would die from the shirt). So if society's main goal is to make it so that we can live peacefully amongst each other. Then by golly we should have the ability to make it illegal to walk around with a yellow shirt on. In fact it would be so insane to put on a yellow shirt we should have no fear in telling cops (the ones that survive the yellow shirt murderer) to arrest, incarcerate for life said person. Now, I get that society is hard to change. In this so called Yellow Shirt Means Death world, the meaning and outcome of wearing a yellow shirt has existed forever. So it would be ingrained in everyone. Yellow shirts = fucking bad news. So let's alter this and present a challenge: Yellow shirts didn't start causing this problem until March of 2020. And to make it even stranger, the death happens 30 days after being in the presence of a yellow shirt. But still 5% die. And now you have all sorts of wacko people that don't fucking care and put on yellow shirts anyway. Some percentage of society has never seen one of these people die, so they don't believe the yellow shirt causes it. Some of them wearing yellow shirts may have killed people but the person that died 30 days later so it has no effect on them. They don't even know they killed someone. Anyway, if you didn't read between the lines, I'm saying arrest and jail those that don't wear a mask - because at this point, everyone knows what happens.

anoncake 6y ago
It's more like 0.5% if everyone gets infected and a large chunk of them will die anyway. Might as well arrest everyone who drives a car. The virus really isn't that deadly.
- coding123 6y ago
  Well, don't know what we don't know. We DO know that 10M people have had it, and 500K have died. That's 5%. We're still guessing everything else.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    This is nonsense. There have been multiple studies where everyone in a place was tested to eliminate the dark figure.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - umvi 6y ago
    > We DO know that 10M people have had it, and 500K have died. That's 5%. We're still guessing everything else. No, the only thing we know is that 500K have died. At least 10M people have had it. 10M is the lower bound. The upper bound could be 30M+. How many cases are asymptomatic, or otherwise just untested/unreported? 5% is the upper bound for the mortality rate. Actual mortality rate is going to be significantly lower, perhaps even <1%.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Before callously assuming the victims will die regardless of the virus, consider that many more may have permanent lung damage for life.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    I've already heard that rumor. Numbers would be more interesting.
ScottFree 6y ago
Your premise is flawed. Yellow shirts don't kill people. Not wearing a mask does not kill people. Letting a TSA officer fondle your groin doesn't save people's lives. It's all security theater. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  >> Not wearing a mask does not kill people. This is demonstrably false, as we now know for a fact that wearing a mask does reduce the risk of both catching the virus yourself and transmitting it to other people. Even if you don't care about your own well-being, common courtesy dictates you should care about the well-being of others. Failing to do so may indeed get them killed.
  - ScottFree 6y ago
    https://imgur.com/a/Q8KemVp https://imgur.com/a/Q8KemVp
- oblio 6y ago
  It's a mask! Not handcuffs! Cut the clichés.
  - ScottFree 6y ago
    One of the core foundations of our entire civilization is a cliche to you? And it is handcuffs. Literally. It's a judicial order.
    - krapp 6y ago
      It's not a core foundation of our entire civilization, it's a quote by Benjamin Franklin and the actual context in which it was said doesn't even support your argument[0]. I guarantee that if a plague were spreading through early America (in an alternate universe where they knew what epidemiology was, obviously) Ben Franklin wouldn't be on the side of people protesting quarantines and masks. [0]https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-benjamin-franklins-quote-on-liberty-vs-security/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-be...
happytoexplain 6y ago
I don't like the analogy or the oversimplification of 5% @ 30 days, but I absolutely agree with the general notion. A person could be forgiven for not wearing a mask under innocent circumstances, but if somebody is willfully not wearing a mask due to identity politics, then not only are they are willfully endangering people, they're also doing it for incredibly petty, hateful reasons. There's not much worse behavior than that in civilization.
roenxi 6y ago
There is an important distinction to be made between 'should' and 'must'. A lot of laws are written around what people should do, then have unintended consequences because laws aren't advisory, they are requirements. So in this case; I totally agree on what should happen. Everyone should be wearing a mask until there isn't a risk of hospitals being overrun. But it is extremely reasonable to push back when something transitions from "should do" to "must do". Particularly when the decision is precisely that the government is telling people how to dress. And your analogy isn't a particularly good one, because the risks there are all substantially higher than the risks surrounding COVID-19.

anoncake 6y ago

It's more like 0.5% if everyone gets infected and a large chunk of them will die anyway. Might as well arrest everyone who drives a car. The virus really isn't that deadly.

coding123 6y ago
Well, don't know what we don't know. We DO know that 10M people have had it, and 500K have died. That's 5%. We're still guessing everything else.
- anoncake 6y ago
  This is nonsense. There have been multiple studies where everyone in a place was tested to eliminate the dark figure.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- umvi 6y ago
  > We DO know that 10M people have had it, and 500K have died. That's 5%. We're still guessing everything else. No, the only thing we know is that 500K have died. At least 10M people have had it. 10M is the lower bound. The upper bound could be 30M+. How many cases are asymptomatic, or otherwise just untested/unreported? 5% is the upper bound for the mortality rate. Actual mortality rate is going to be significantly lower, perhaps even <1%.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
Before callously assuming the victims will die regardless of the virus, consider that many more may have permanent lung damage for life.
- anoncake 6y ago
  I've already heard that rumor. Numbers would be more interesting.

ScottFree 6y ago

Your premise is flawed. Yellow shirts don't kill people. Not wearing a mask does not kill people. Letting a TSA officer fondle your groin doesn't save people's lives. It's all security theater. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

enraged_camel 6y ago
>> Not wearing a mask does not kill people. This is demonstrably false, as we now know for a fact that wearing a mask does reduce the risk of both catching the virus yourself and transmitting it to other people. Even if you don't care about your own well-being, common courtesy dictates you should care about the well-being of others. Failing to do so may indeed get them killed.
- ScottFree 6y ago
  https://imgur.com/a/Q8KemVp https://imgur.com/a/Q8KemVp
oblio 6y ago
It's a mask! Not handcuffs! Cut the clichés.
- ScottFree 6y ago
  One of the core foundations of our entire civilization is a cliche to you? And it is handcuffs. Literally. It's a judicial order.
  - krapp 6y ago
    It's not a core foundation of our entire civilization, it's a quote by Benjamin Franklin and the actual context in which it was said doesn't even support your argument[0]. I guarantee that if a plague were spreading through early America (in an alternate universe where they knew what epidemiology was, obviously) Ben Franklin wouldn't be on the side of people protesting quarantines and masks. [0]https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-benjamin-franklins-quote-on-liberty-vs-security/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-be...

happytoexplain 6y ago

I don't like the analogy or the oversimplification of 5% @ 30 days, but I absolutely agree with the general notion. A person could be forgiven for not wearing a mask under innocent circumstances, but if somebody is willfully not wearing a mask due to identity politics, then not only are they are willfully endangering people, they're also doing it for incredibly petty, hateful reasons. There's not much worse behavior than that in civilization.

roenxi 6y ago

There is an important distinction to be made between 'should' and 'must'. A lot of laws are written around what people should do, then have unintended consequences because laws aren't advisory, they are requirements. So in this case; I totally agree on what should happen. Everyone should be wearing a mask until there isn't a risk of hospitals being overrun. But it is extremely reasonable to push back when something transitions from "should do" to "must do". Particularly when the decision is precisely that the government is telling people how to dress. And your analogy isn't a particularly good one, because the risks there are all substantially higher than the risks surrounding COVID-19.