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Keep in mind that when you take these calculated risks, there are actually several types of risks involved. There's personal risk: What are the chances that I

• just-juan-post 6y ago
  > There's direct social risk: What are the chances that others involved in the encounter will suffer direct personal harm? Why do people always assume that if someone is anti-mask or anti-lockdown that they didn't think about others before they made their decision? That they are selfish and dumb? Stop making that assumption. People do think it over. They do consider all points. And just because they come to a different conclusion than you doesn't make their conclusion invalid. > What are the chances that because of this encounter, the pandemic grows more severe or goes on longer than it otherwise would have, extending the length of time before we can truly return to normal life? ICUs are still fine. It is killing the elderly and those with co-morbidities. Any "spike" is barely a blip. The economy continues to crumble as days of social restrictions and lockdowns build up. You think we don't consider the lives of others with our decision. We do. You simply put too much weight on the perceived danger of this almost-at-this-point-not-a-pandemic-anymore. We simply don't agree on how dangerous it is. PS: If you want to talk direct social risk and safety then it's time to ban alcohol for the greater safety of society.
  • majormajor 6y ago
    > People do think it over. They do consider all points. And just because they come to a different conclusion than you doesn't make their conclusion invalid. ... > You simply put too much weight on the perceived danger of this almost-at-this-point-not-a-pandemic-anymore. We simply don't agree on how dangerous it is. Something to reflect on here is that (a) the person you're replying to didn't accuse anyone of not taking others into account and (b) you invalidate their conclusions in the same way you believe they invalidated yours. In my area, there were two points where ICUs got dangerously full. At the start, and then shortly after initial restrictions had been loosened. Fortunately, the spikes in case counts had been seen before, and restrictions were ramped up in response both times, and the hospitalization numbers flattened and then dropped. It certainly looks like a case of those restrictions being massively helpful, which you're discounting out of hand.
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > Why do people always assume that if someone is anti-mask or anti-lockdown that they didn't think about others before they made their decision? That they are selfish and dumb? At least for me, the kind of people I know directly (in meatspace) with this attitude are the kind of people who decided the middle of the pandemic is the best time to make social visits to the elderly (for little other reason than being bored with the lockdown). And I know these people don't secretly want to murder their elders. After seeing plenty of that first and second-hand, it's kind of hard to not suspect motivated reasoning when someone goes out and says "sure I've considered the risks, there's no harm in 50-ish me dropping by my 80 years old mother on my way back from the private health clinic I work in" (real example I know, and that same clinic is staffed with people who consider the pandemic overblown and do the absolute minimum to protect themselves and their patients from it). > PS: If you want to talk direct social risk and safety then it's time to ban alcohol for the greater safety of society. It's been tried and decided against, but in this comparison, it's worth noting that harms caused by alcohol don't grow exponentially.
    • majormajor 6y ago
      > It's been tried and decided against, but in this comparison, it's worth noting that harms caused by alcohol don't grow exponentially. Yeah, we also have tried it with other drugs, we've been spending several decades ramping up regulations on automobiles to try to make them safer, and we have an emerging national debate about prescription painkillers as well.