5 ms·

I hadn't considered it this way, but you are correct in that the COVID-19 crisis has been putting a lot of stress on the limits of government in the constitutio

I hadn't considered it this way, but you are correct in that the COVID-19 crisis has been putting a lot of stress on the limits of government in the constitution. It also seems clear that federalism and individual liberty are at odds with the effective fighting of highly contagious diseases in a coordinated fashion. I do not want to give the government power because they have a track record of abuse, but how does a society fight something communicable like this?

dariusj18 6y ago
Not to be overly dramatic, but the US has been on a recent "You die for My freedom," kick.
cma 6y ago
Even Hayek said epidemics were an obvious exception to most of his economic ideology and called for government planning: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1274130684337172481 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1274130684337172481 Mostly we just have had anti-biotics, effective vaccines, etc. for everything deadly and have basically forgotten how to govern in the face of the massive externalities presented by communicable diseases. Whether someone thinks covid is severe enough to justify which particular actions is one thing, but if we had something like an incurable smallpox or measles going around there would be a lot more consensus on government action.
- vladus2000 6y ago
  Would we? I am not convinced the amount of idiocy would be low enough to prevent problems. Most of the arguments I have seen have been "this is a hoax" type or other arguments not based in reality. I agree there is an arugement to be made over whether or not to close based on death rates and whatnot, but I do not hear those arguments that much. The people screaming that it is a hoax and its their freedom I generally assume would react similarly to a even more severe crisis. Maybe I am over estimating their numbers based on the fact that they are loud, but assuming they will realize it is really serious in the cases you describe is a leap I am not willing to make.
  - cma 6y ago
    There would be many more people with personal experience of death of loved ones young and old and I think that would mean less deniers.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "...but if we had something like an incurable smallpox or measles going around there would be a lot more consensus..." so, working as designed. our government was never designed to be highly mobilizable, except in the face of extraordinary threat (because then it would be too easy to mobilize for "evil"). while covid may seem to be a massive existential threat to those of us who've never faced anything more dangerous than the flu, it's a minor blip relative to the rest of human history. covid is serious but not extraordinary, which is why there isn't extraordinary concensus (and why everyone thinks it's handled all wrong).
  - cma 6y ago
    It would have been so cheap to handle early with more strict policies.
    - clairity 6y ago
      that's hindsight bias at best. strict policies are not cheap by any measure. the best we could have done cheaply was distancing (and self-quarantining when sick), and drilling that singular message everywhere and all the time. instead, we got lost in the weeds of what-ifs, symptoms, masks, death counts, lockdowns, etc.
      - cma 6y ago
        It's been obvious from observation, no hindsight needed, since S Korea's outbreak and handling. And again once you had Italy to compare.
CptFribble 6y ago
> how does a society fight something communicable like this? Probably like all the other societies around the world who have fought it: have a citizenry that generally accepts collective action for the public good. South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, many others - all the countries with the best response have a relatively high percentage of their populace who are willing to accept restrictions and "do their part" for their fellow citizens. This requires, among other things: - high trust in government - low levels of misinformation - robust education system that teaches the populace to think both critically and empathetically Unfortunately, the USA has none of these. Distrust in government is at all-time highs, misinformation is at an all-time high (frequently to specifically cause distrust in government), misinformation is also funded with multi-million dollar campaigns. And in 2020 we still have problems deciding on how much science to include in our school curriculum. I think some of these problems are particular to the USA because of our status as a global superpower (reserve currency, global military presence, etc), so there are many tier-2 nations with a strong interest in taking a piece out of the USA specifically, to make space on the global stage for themselves (Russia, Iran, China over the last decade, etc). This leads to well-funded and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and meddling arriving at our shores. I would include all the industry-related misinformation and meddling from mega-corps here too, as many are rich & powerful as some small nations at this point. These actions, combined with the political brinksmanship from both major parties (though the red side seems to have a stronger grasp on the major media outlets in terms of total viewership, so I place more blame at their feet), and further combined with our cultural history+tendency to individualism and the "rugged rebel" archetype, has created the current "COVID is a hoax, masks are tyranny" crowd. These are the reasons why collective action, while not impossible, is extremely unlikely to succeed in the USA at present. I have no idea how to even begin fixing these problems, other than reversing Citizen's United and trying to reduce the amount of money in politics, which even then would be a decades-long process that takes further decades to produce measurable results. Even if we started now we MIGHT see positive change by the end of the century.
tzs 6y ago
This isn't the first epidemic to hit the US. Besides the well known 1918 flu, the US has had numerous cholera, typhus, yellow fever, bubonic plague and probably other epidemics in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The state and Federal governments aren't really exercising any powers or imposing any restrictions on individual liberties that weren't used in past epidemics.
mindslight 6y ago
The NIH and CDC have been around for quite some time. We're only seeing so much federalism because the federal government has refused to act on this topic. We've ended up with the worst of both worlds - the federal government is consuming a massive amount of our resources (income tax and money printing tax), while doing little or even actually undermining the states' responses.

dariusj18 6y ago

Not to be overly dramatic, but the US has been on a recent "You die for My freedom," kick.

cma 6y ago

Even Hayek said epidemics were an obvious exception to most of his economic ideology and called for government planning: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1274130684337172481 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1274130684337172481 Mostly we just have had anti-biotics, effective vaccines, etc. for everything deadly and have basically forgotten how to govern in the face of the massive externalities presented by communicable diseases. Whether someone thinks covid is severe enough to justify which particular actions is one thing, but if we had something like an incurable smallpox or measles going around there would be a lot more consensus on government action.

vladus2000 6y ago
Would we? I am not convinced the amount of idiocy would be low enough to prevent problems. Most of the arguments I have seen have been "this is a hoax" type or other arguments not based in reality. I agree there is an arugement to be made over whether or not to close based on death rates and whatnot, but I do not hear those arguments that much. The people screaming that it is a hoax and its their freedom I generally assume would react similarly to a even more severe crisis. Maybe I am over estimating their numbers based on the fact that they are loud, but assuming they will realize it is really serious in the cases you describe is a leap I am not willing to make.
- cma 6y ago
  There would be many more people with personal experience of death of loved ones young and old and I think that would mean less deniers.
clairity 6y ago
> "...but if we had something like an incurable smallpox or measles going around there would be a lot more consensus..." so, working as designed. our government was never designed to be highly mobilizable, except in the face of extraordinary threat (because then it would be too easy to mobilize for "evil"). while covid may seem to be a massive existential threat to those of us who've never faced anything more dangerous than the flu, it's a minor blip relative to the rest of human history. covid is serious but not extraordinary, which is why there isn't extraordinary concensus (and why everyone thinks it's handled all wrong).
- cma 6y ago
  It would have been so cheap to handle early with more strict policies.
  - clairity 6y ago
    that's hindsight bias at best. strict policies are not cheap by any measure. the best we could have done cheaply was distancing (and self-quarantining when sick), and drilling that singular message everywhere and all the time. instead, we got lost in the weeds of what-ifs, symptoms, masks, death counts, lockdowns, etc.
    - cma 6y ago
      It's been obvious from observation, no hindsight needed, since S Korea's outbreak and handling. And again once you had Italy to compare.

CptFribble 6y ago

> how does a society fight something communicable like this? Probably like all the other societies around the world who have fought it: have a citizenry that generally accepts collective action for the public good. South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, many others - all the countries with the best response have a relatively high percentage of their populace who are willing to accept restrictions and "do their part" for their fellow citizens. This requires, among other things: - high trust in government - low levels of misinformation - robust education system that teaches the populace to think both critically and empathetically Unfortunately, the USA has none of these. Distrust in government is at all-time highs, misinformation is at an all-time high (frequently to specifically cause distrust in government), misinformation is also funded with multi-million dollar campaigns. And in 2020 we still have problems deciding on how much science to include in our school curriculum. I think some of these problems are particular to the USA because of our status as a global superpower (reserve currency, global military presence, etc), so there are many tier-2 nations with a strong interest in taking a piece out of the USA specifically, to make space on the global stage for themselves (Russia, Iran, China over the last decade, etc). This leads to well-funded and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and meddling arriving at our shores. I would include all the industry-related misinformation and meddling from mega-corps here too, as many are rich & powerful as some small nations at this point. These actions, combined with the political brinksmanship from both major parties (though the red side seems to have a stronger grasp on the major media outlets in terms of total viewership, so I place more blame at their feet), and further combined with our cultural history+tendency to individualism and the "rugged rebel" archetype, has created the current "COVID is a hoax, masks are tyranny" crowd. These are the reasons why collective action, while not impossible, is extremely unlikely to succeed in the USA at present. I have no idea how to even begin fixing these problems, other than reversing Citizen's United and trying to reduce the amount of money in politics, which even then would be a decades-long process that takes further decades to produce measurable results. Even if we started now we MIGHT see positive change by the end of the century.

tzs 6y ago

This isn't the first epidemic to hit the US. Besides the well known 1918 flu, the US has had numerous cholera, typhus, yellow fever, bubonic plague and probably other epidemics in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The state and Federal governments aren't really exercising any powers or imposing any restrictions on individual liberties that weren't used in past epidemics.

mindslight 6y ago

The NIH and CDC have been around for quite some time. We're only seeing so much federalism because the federal government has refused to act on this topic. We've ended up with the worst of both worlds - the federal government is consuming a massive amount of our resources (income tax and money printing tax), while doing little or even actually undermining the states' responses.