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I heard this phrased another way: a wealth adviser stated (roughly) that "The question each individual faces is 'Would you give up all the money in your IRA so

I heard this phrased another way: a wealth adviser stated (roughly) that "The question each individual faces is 'Would you give up all the money in your IRA so that some old person you don't know will not die?"' I think that question captures the essence of the situation better than the "haircut...lives" phrase.

spaginal 6y ago
The answer is no. Interacting with other humans inherently carries risk that you could harm others. I could get distracted by my children in the car and kill someone when I cross the center line. That doesn’t make me evil or selfish for wanting to own a car and drive it. It also doesn’t make someone selfish for wanting to support their family in normal commerce, in the rare chance that their very legal and very normal economic activity may inadvertently harm someone.
chrisjs96 6y ago
Nope because we're not saving any net lives. We're only exchanging lives during this whole thing. Exchanging mostly older folks for others. The whole quarantine can be described: If you have covid your life matters more than someone who has cancer or another illness. When all of our children become serial killers and cancer death rates rise we'll look back on this time as the worst decision the world has ever made. Being a human means excepting risk. You wake up everyday and take on risk. Yes some people are willing to take more risks than others. I'm an avid skydiver. To those people who don't like risk: Stay at home and get someone to deliver groceries and live your miserable life by yourself at home. Thanks.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  Don't you think that the people in Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, New Zealand, Portugal,etc, are better of for having accomplished an effective and relatively short-lived quarantine? In the US the choice did not have to be between indefinite home detention and 1/4 million excess deaths. We fucked this up.

spaginal 6y ago

The answer is no. Interacting with other humans inherently carries risk that you could harm others. I could get distracted by my children in the car and kill someone when I cross the center line. That doesn’t make me evil or selfish for wanting to own a car and drive it. It also doesn’t make someone selfish for wanting to support their family in normal commerce, in the rare chance that their very legal and very normal economic activity may inadvertently harm someone.

chrisjs96 6y ago

Nope because we're not saving any net lives. We're only exchanging lives during this whole thing. Exchanging mostly older folks for others. The whole quarantine can be described: If you have covid your life matters more than someone who has cancer or another illness. When all of our children become serial killers and cancer death rates rise we'll look back on this time as the worst decision the world has ever made. Being a human means excepting risk. You wake up everyday and take on risk. Yes some people are willing to take more risks than others. I'm an avid skydiver. To those people who don't like risk: Stay at home and get someone to deliver groceries and live your miserable life by yourself at home. Thanks.

zarkov99 6y ago
Don't you think that the people in Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Germany, New Zealand, Portugal,etc, are better of for having accomplished an effective and relatively short-lived quarantine? In the US the choice did not have to be between indefinite home detention and 1/4 million excess deaths. We fucked this up.