4 ms·

I have never understood the demand for timelines. Pandemics do not care about calendars, and expecting our response to a pandemic to have an expiration date str

I have never understood the demand for timelines. Pandemics do not care about calendars, and expecting our response to a pandemic to have an expiration date struck me as both folly and hubris of a lethal variety. Now if we expected our government to set conditions of the lock down ending, that would be better. Something based around the pandemic itself, such as new infections per day and test positivity would probably be best. But time? That’s not how this works.

nitrogen 6y ago
Timelines can have milestones instead of dates, as you say. It's still a "timeline" because it's a sequence of events ordered by (indeterminate amounts of) time.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>I have never understood the demand for timelines. Pandemics do not care about calendars, and expecting our response to a pandemic to have an expiration date struck me as both folly and hubris of a lethal variety. I'm sure the legislature will have no problem forgoing a game of golf with lobbyists in order to vote to extend a bill that gives government more power. They have no problem doing that every time the Patriot Act comes back up. There's no good reason emergency measures can't have sunset clauses.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Pray tell, what powerful special interests have long-term incentives to force people to wear masks and stay out of restaurants? Like, are you actually suggesting that Big Mask and Big Pre-Cooked Meal Co. are going to take mayors or lawmakers golfing? I genuinely don't understand this theory.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    I don't think you interpreted my comment correctly. I was insulting the legislature by pointing out that they have no problem showing up and voting to curtail people's freedoms for nefarious reasons without a pandemic so there's no good reason they can't vote every few months on whether or not to continue to curtail people's freedoms to mitigate a pandemic.
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      I see. That's not at all what I thought your comment was saying. Well, in a lot of states the legislature can do that today if they want. It's completely within state legislature's capacity to force action from municipalities, either directly or through the purse strings. Most don't want to because they're publicly supportive of shutdowns. Or because they're publicly courting anti-maskers but privately know shutdowns are necessary and therefore don't want to take responsibility.
  - ghthor 6y ago
    The mask wearing is some type of AB test by the CIA mind control team.
dfee 6y ago
You’re confusing a constraint of the granted power (time-duration for an emergency action within the social contract) and the constraint of the situation (time-duration of the virus). No one is arguing whether the virus is on our clock. The argument is whether we’ve granted our governments the right to indefinitely extend their emergency authorizations.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  No, I am not confusing the two. I am in fact arguing that limiting the governments powers to fight the pandemic based on time is bad, because it ties our ability to fight the pandemic to a metric that is completely unrelated to successfully fighting the pandemic.
  - showdeadtest 6y ago
    I think some would prefer standing up a more democratic process and putting time constraints on the undemocratic processes.
  - HideousKojima 6y ago
    That's why you leave it up to duly elected legislatures to decide whether or not to extend the shutdowns created in response to the initial emergency. The legislature could create a reopening plan with specific metrics to follow to determine when that should happen. But the emergency powers that continue to be wielded by executives are an usurpation of democratic rule. The legislatures can and should have formulated a proper reopening plan by May at the latest, and they could have continued to modify it as more information became available.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      That’s literally a different argument though. “After X days responsibility should transfer from the executive branch to the legislative” is completely different from “the governments ability to take X measures to stop a pandemic should be limited to Y days”. I am only responding to the latter. My fear about the former is the implicit assumption that the legislature won’t also close gyms, bars, and other businesses that a vocal minority want re opened immediately.

nitrogen 6y ago

Timelines can have milestones instead of dates, as you say. It's still a "timeline" because it's a sequence of events ordered by (indeterminate amounts of) time.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>I have never understood the demand for timelines. Pandemics do not care about calendars, and expecting our response to a pandemic to have an expiration date struck me as both folly and hubris of a lethal variety. I'm sure the legislature will have no problem forgoing a game of golf with lobbyists in order to vote to extend a bill that gives government more power. They have no problem doing that every time the Patriot Act comes back up. There's no good reason emergency measures can't have sunset clauses.

throwawaygh 6y ago
Pray tell, what powerful special interests have long-term incentives to force people to wear masks and stay out of restaurants? Like, are you actually suggesting that Big Mask and Big Pre-Cooked Meal Co. are going to take mayors or lawmakers golfing? I genuinely don't understand this theory.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  I don't think you interpreted my comment correctly. I was insulting the legislature by pointing out that they have no problem showing up and voting to curtail people's freedoms for nefarious reasons without a pandemic so there's no good reason they can't vote every few months on whether or not to continue to curtail people's freedoms to mitigate a pandemic.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    I see. That's not at all what I thought your comment was saying. Well, in a lot of states the legislature can do that today if they want. It's completely within state legislature's capacity to force action from municipalities, either directly or through the purse strings. Most don't want to because they're publicly supportive of shutdowns. Or because they're publicly courting anti-maskers but privately know shutdowns are necessary and therefore don't want to take responsibility.
- ghthor 6y ago
  The mask wearing is some type of AB test by the CIA mind control team.

dfee 6y ago

You’re confusing a constraint of the granted power (time-duration for an emergency action within the social contract) and the constraint of the situation (time-duration of the virus). No one is arguing whether the virus is on our clock. The argument is whether we’ve granted our governments the right to indefinitely extend their emergency authorizations.

ashtonkem 6y ago
No, I am not confusing the two. I am in fact arguing that limiting the governments powers to fight the pandemic based on time is bad, because it ties our ability to fight the pandemic to a metric that is completely unrelated to successfully fighting the pandemic.
- showdeadtest 6y ago
  I think some would prefer standing up a more democratic process and putting time constraints on the undemocratic processes.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  That's why you leave it up to duly elected legislatures to decide whether or not to extend the shutdowns created in response to the initial emergency. The legislature could create a reopening plan with specific metrics to follow to determine when that should happen. But the emergency powers that continue to be wielded by executives are an usurpation of democratic rule. The legislatures can and should have formulated a proper reopening plan by May at the latest, and they could have continued to modify it as more information became available.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    That’s literally a different argument though. “After X days responsibility should transfer from the executive branch to the legislative” is completely different from “the governments ability to take X measures to stop a pandemic should be limited to Y days”. I am only responding to the latter. My fear about the former is the implicit assumption that the legislature won’t also close gyms, bars, and other businesses that a vocal minority want re opened immediately.