4 ms·

No one is denying the negative effects (economic, educational, mental) of such serious lockdowns. It seems that this group is making a claim that if we just tak

by glasss 6y ago

No one is denying the negative effects (economic, educational, mental) of such serious lockdowns. It seems that this group is making a claim that if we just take extra caution with the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, the rest of us can get back to relatively normal. I think this claim is reasonable and I would normally agree. The issue is that it is very clear, at least in the US, this just is not reality. We would absolutely screw this up and kill way more people if we didn't have these training wheels on.

pdonis 6y ago
> We would absolutely screw this up and kill way more people if we didn't have these training wheels on. Who is this "we" you speak of? Do you include yourself in this group of people that need training wheels? Or do you think you yourself are perfectly capable of doing it right but those other deplorables are not? I don't need training wheels, and I don't expect any adult citizen of a free country to need them either. I think the majority of people have far more common sense and desire not to hurt others than they are being given credit for. Unfortunately, the media focuses on the outliers that don't have those qualities and makes everyone think everyone else is like that. That is doing our society a serious disservice.
- glasss 6y ago
  Oh yea I absolutely need these training wheels. I am fully aware that if all of the restaurants, bars, or other activities that I love going to were open and operating that I probably wouldn't be able to resist going "just this once". The issue is not people's common sense or desire to not hurt others. The nature of this issue doesn't lend itself to being stopped just through common sense - you can transmit this disease for days without realizing it. Common sense says don't play with fire. It doesn't say maybe you shouldn't go see grandma after the pumpkin patch for 7 days.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Oh yea I absolutely need these training wheels. Well, I don't, so please don't say "we" need them. > The nature of this issue doesn't lend itself to being stopped just through common sense Maybe I should have said "common sense and discipline". Apparently you are aware that you shouldn't do certain things, but you don't have the discipline to not do them. This is going to sound harsh, but discipline is part of being an adult just as much as common sense is. If it is really true (I'm not sure it is, but let's assume it is here for the sake of argument) that most people in the US are more like you than like me, unable to exercise the required discipline in a situation like this, then that is a very, very bad thing for the US, because you can't have a free society if its citizens lack the discipline to do what they know is the right thing to do. And that puts all of us at the mercy of whatever the idiots in positions of power want to do to us in the name of "protecting our safety". I don't want to live in that kind of country. Do you? Think carefully.
    - design-material 6y ago
      I'm not sure if you're being somewhat ironic but your hypothetical scenario is of course today's reality, where large parts of the US have put someone in power primarily in the name of 'protecting their safety / way of life / jobs' (i.e. making themselves great again). It's hardly, then, a stretch to postulate that many would lack the discipline to do the Right Thing without stricter measures incentivising them
      - pdonis 6y ago
        > I'm not sure if you're being somewhat ironic I'm not. But the kind of "protecting safety" I am talking about is narrower than what you appear to be assuming. > large parts of the US have put someone in power primarily in the name of 'protecting their safety / way of life / jobs' (i.e. making themselves great again) I'm not talking in general terms about things the government does that affect people's safety, way of life, jobs, etc. (At least, I'm not talking about such general things in this particular discussion.) I'm talking about a specific thing that many people appear to want the government to do: dictate what individual people can and cannot do, at a very detailed level, in the name of "protecting safety", instead of allowing individual people to use their common sense and discipline, which is what is supposed to happen in a free country. Lockdowns in response to COVID-19 are just one example of this thing; the US is full of nanny-state laws that micromanage people's lives in all kinds of ways in the name of "protecting safety". (Actually, as P. J. O'Rourke pointed out many years ago, "nanny state" is much too charitable a term, as "nanny" implies at least some amount of actual empathy and compassion; a better name would be "Nurse Ratched state".) All of those laws have as an underlying assumption that people in the US do not have the common sense and discipline to act in their own best interests. That assumption is incompatible with a free society. If the assumption is actually true for a majority of people in the US, then it is a very, very bad thing for the US, since the benefits that everyone wants will also go away if the US is no longer capable of being a free society. For example, as the events of 2020 have starkly shown, many people in the US are harassed, or worse, by cops and other government officials for no good reason. But the only reason the cops and other government officials even have the ability to harass people that way in the first place is all those nanny state laws: any cop that wants to mess with a citizen is going to be able to find some law that citizen is violating. Giving the government the power to micromanage people's lives, whether it's in the name of "protecting safety" or anything else, is giving government officials the power to mess with citizens, and that power will inevitably be abused. The only way to avoid the abuse is to not give the government that much power in the first place. And that means that every adult citizen needs to take responsibility for having the common sense and discipline to do the right thing without having to be micromanaged into it.

by glasss 6y ago

pdonis 6y ago

> We would absolutely screw this up and kill way more people if we didn't have these training wheels on. Who is this "we" you speak of? Do you include yourself in this group of people that need training wheels? Or do you think you yourself are perfectly capable of doing it right but those other deplorables are not? I don't need training wheels, and I don't expect any adult citizen of a free country to need them either. I think the majority of people have far more common sense and desire not to hurt others than they are being given credit for. Unfortunately, the media focuses on the outliers that don't have those qualities and makes everyone think everyone else is like that. That is doing our society a serious disservice.

glasss 6y ago
Oh yea I absolutely need these training wheels. I am fully aware that if all of the restaurants, bars, or other activities that I love going to were open and operating that I probably wouldn't be able to resist going "just this once". The issue is not people's common sense or desire to not hurt others. The nature of this issue doesn't lend itself to being stopped just through common sense - you can transmit this disease for days without realizing it. Common sense says don't play with fire. It doesn't say maybe you shouldn't go see grandma after the pumpkin patch for 7 days.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Oh yea I absolutely need these training wheels. Well, I don't, so please don't say "we" need them. > The nature of this issue doesn't lend itself to being stopped just through common sense Maybe I should have said "common sense and discipline". Apparently you are aware that you shouldn't do certain things, but you don't have the discipline to not do them. This is going to sound harsh, but discipline is part of being an adult just as much as common sense is. If it is really true (I'm not sure it is, but let's assume it is here for the sake of argument) that most people in the US are more like you than like me, unable to exercise the required discipline in a situation like this, then that is a very, very bad thing for the US, because you can't have a free society if its citizens lack the discipline to do what they know is the right thing to do. And that puts all of us at the mercy of whatever the idiots in positions of power want to do to us in the name of "protecting our safety". I don't want to live in that kind of country. Do you? Think carefully.
  - design-material 6y ago
    I'm not sure if you're being somewhat ironic but your hypothetical scenario is of course today's reality, where large parts of the US have put someone in power primarily in the name of 'protecting their safety / way of life / jobs' (i.e. making themselves great again). It's hardly, then, a stretch to postulate that many would lack the discipline to do the Right Thing without stricter measures incentivising them
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > I'm not sure if you're being somewhat ironic I'm not. But the kind of "protecting safety" I am talking about is narrower than what you appear to be assuming. > large parts of the US have put someone in power primarily in the name of 'protecting their safety / way of life / jobs' (i.e. making themselves great again) I'm not talking in general terms about things the government does that affect people's safety, way of life, jobs, etc. (At least, I'm not talking about such general things in this particular discussion.) I'm talking about a specific thing that many people appear to want the government to do: dictate what individual people can and cannot do, at a very detailed level, in the name of "protecting safety", instead of allowing individual people to use their common sense and discipline, which is what is supposed to happen in a free country. Lockdowns in response to COVID-19 are just one example of this thing; the US is full of nanny-state laws that micromanage people's lives in all kinds of ways in the name of "protecting safety". (Actually, as P. J. O'Rourke pointed out many years ago, "nanny state" is much too charitable a term, as "nanny" implies at least some amount of actual empathy and compassion; a better name would be "Nurse Ratched state".) All of those laws have as an underlying assumption that people in the US do not have the common sense and discipline to act in their own best interests. That assumption is incompatible with a free society. If the assumption is actually true for a majority of people in the US, then it is a very, very bad thing for the US, since the benefits that everyone wants will also go away if the US is no longer capable of being a free society. For example, as the events of 2020 have starkly shown, many people in the US are harassed, or worse, by cops and other government officials for no good reason. But the only reason the cops and other government officials even have the ability to harass people that way in the first place is all those nanny state laws: any cop that wants to mess with a citizen is going to be able to find some law that citizen is violating. Giving the government the power to micromanage people's lives, whether it's in the name of "protecting safety" or anything else, is giving government officials the power to mess with citizens, and that power will inevitably be abused. The only way to avoid the abuse is to not give the government that much power in the first place. And that means that every adult citizen needs to take responsibility for having the common sense and discipline to do the right thing without having to be micromanaged into it.