8 ms·

Sweden flattened the curve and did it without authoritarian lockdowns. So of course lockdown proponents are upset. This desire to have the government force peo

by cwhiz 6y ago

Sweden flattened the curve and did it without authoritarian lockdowns. So of course lockdown proponents are upset. This desire to have the government force people and businesses to shut down is unnerving. Are people seriously this susceptible to authoritarianism when they are scared? The goal is to flatten the curve. We did it. Sweden did it. Why are people so happy to dunk on Sweden because Sweden didn’t follow authoritarian ideas?

libraryatnight 6y ago
Your interpretation of the world is fascinating.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  I find it fascinating that people are happy to dunk on Sweden for NOT imposing authoritarian rules on their citizens. Are we not free people?
  - libraryatnight 6y ago
    We are. Free people that consent to laws in the interest of the public good. Ideally anyway.
    - rhino369 6y ago
      In the US, most of rules have been propagated by fiat, not lawmaking.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      >We are. Free people that consent to laws in the interest of the public good. Ideally anyway. Not necessarily. Optimizing the for the public good is a social utilitarian argument[1]. Absolute utilitarian is incompatible with personal freedom and justice, so most people put limits on it. Reasonable and moral people can differ on where this limit should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
Klinky 6y ago
"Mission Accomplished" - The banner behind George W. Bush in 2003. There are still US troops in Iraq to this day, 17 years later. This just seems like an extreme case of premature celebration. We have the winter ahead, and are still many many months from a widely available vaccine. Sweden's methodology has yet to be fully tested, and they also don't live in an isolated vacuum, immune from actions taken by their neighbors and the world. Let's wait until Spring 2021 before we start handing out trophies.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Perhaps, in the end, it will turn out that Sweden made an unwise choice from a medical perspective. As of today, the USA and UK have more deaths per million than Sweden. Even in some unknown future where it is determined that Sweden took the "wrong" path, it will always be true that Sweden allowed the citizens the freedom to make their own decisions instead of imposing decisions on them through force of law.
  - Klinky 6y ago
    I am sure the dead will value their freedom.
    - cwhiz 6y ago
      A common defense of authoritarianism. It's for your benefit, silly! We know the risks of Covid. We know who the at-risk population is. Adults can make their own decisions. If you don't think free people deserve their freedom, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
      - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
        These are generally the same people that call Trump a fascist/say democracy is dead. Paternalism and authoritarianism is alive and well on the left too. And it's generally worse cause they act like they have the certainty of science, academia, etc. to justify however they abuse power. See how that played out in the Progressive era...eugenics, central planning, corporations...the list goes on.
tsbinz 6y ago
Maybe your goal was to "just" flatten the curve which, even if you don't overwhelm hospitals, still leaves a lot of people dead or with permanent damage. Others think the best strategy is (and some other countries' stated goal was) to push cases down to a number where containment strategies (tracing contacts and wiping out infection chains) work again. Some countries got too lax after the lockdown and let cases rise above tracing capabilities again, in other countries that still works.
- ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
  But you’re pretending like all people are equally vulnerable to the virus. What if Sweden had not ducked up their nursing home response? A lot of illnesses leave people dead or with serious damage. Why Lockdown for only COVID then?
  - alexanderchr 6y ago
    Sweden's problem was not "ducking" up its nursing home response, this has been debunked over and over. The problem was wide-scale community spread, making spread to nursing homes inevitable. As a data point, Norway's nursing homes were actually hit harder proportional to the total number of deaths, but as a country they got away with 1/10 per capita deaths of Sweden thanks to limiting community spread.
    - ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
      Spreading to nursing home doesn't have to be inevitable. Swedish government has admitted they could have handled this a lot better. I think this time around they will not duck it up again, making the strategy look even better

by cwhiz 6y ago

libraryatnight 6y ago

Your interpretation of the world is fascinating.

cwhiz 6y ago
I find it fascinating that people are happy to dunk on Sweden for NOT imposing authoritarian rules on their citizens. Are we not free people?
- libraryatnight 6y ago
  We are. Free people that consent to laws in the interest of the public good. Ideally anyway.
  - rhino369 6y ago
    In the US, most of rules have been propagated by fiat, not lawmaking.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    >We are. Free people that consent to laws in the interest of the public good. Ideally anyway. Not necessarily. Optimizing the for the public good is a social utilitarian argument[1]. Absolute utilitarian is incompatible with personal freedom and justice, so most people put limits on it. Reasonable and moral people can differ on where this limit should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

Klinky 6y ago

"Mission Accomplished" - The banner behind George W. Bush in 2003. There are still US troops in Iraq to this day, 17 years later. This just seems like an extreme case of premature celebration. We have the winter ahead, and are still many many months from a widely available vaccine. Sweden's methodology has yet to be fully tested, and they also don't live in an isolated vacuum, immune from actions taken by their neighbors and the world. Let's wait until Spring 2021 before we start handing out trophies.

cwhiz 6y ago
Perhaps, in the end, it will turn out that Sweden made an unwise choice from a medical perspective. As of today, the USA and UK have more deaths per million than Sweden. Even in some unknown future where it is determined that Sweden took the "wrong" path, it will always be true that Sweden allowed the citizens the freedom to make their own decisions instead of imposing decisions on them through force of law.
- Klinky 6y ago
  I am sure the dead will value their freedom.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    A common defense of authoritarianism. It's for your benefit, silly! We know the risks of Covid. We know who the at-risk population is. Adults can make their own decisions. If you don't think free people deserve their freedom, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
    - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
      These are generally the same people that call Trump a fascist/say democracy is dead. Paternalism and authoritarianism is alive and well on the left too. And it's generally worse cause they act like they have the certainty of science, academia, etc. to justify however they abuse power. See how that played out in the Progressive era...eugenics, central planning, corporations...the list goes on.

tsbinz 6y ago

Maybe your goal was to "just" flatten the curve which, even if you don't overwhelm hospitals, still leaves a lot of people dead or with permanent damage. Others think the best strategy is (and some other countries' stated goal was) to push cases down to a number where containment strategies (tracing contacts and wiping out infection chains) work again. Some countries got too lax after the lockdown and let cases rise above tracing capabilities again, in other countries that still works.

ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
But you’re pretending like all people are equally vulnerable to the virus. What if Sweden had not ducked up their nursing home response? A lot of illnesses leave people dead or with serious damage. Why Lockdown for only COVID then?
- alexanderchr 6y ago
  Sweden's problem was not "ducking" up its nursing home response, this has been debunked over and over. The problem was wide-scale community spread, making spread to nursing homes inevitable. As a data point, Norway's nursing homes were actually hit harder proportional to the total number of deaths, but as a country they got away with 1/10 per capita deaths of Sweden thanks to limiting community spread.
  - ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
    Spreading to nursing home doesn't have to be inevitable. Swedish government has admitted they could have handled this a lot better. I think this time around they will not duck it up again, making the strategy look even better