> I blame technology for our current predicament. If we didn't have computers and a global internet, there's no way we would be shutting down everything. My ta

> I blame technology for our current predicament. If we didn't have computers and a global internet, there's no way we would be shutting down everything. My take on this is that, without the internet, we would (1) either still choose to lock down and cause much greater economic harm[^1], or (2) not choose to lock down and lose more lives. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that we still need to perform a cost–benefit analysis before going into lockdowns. But the internet has lowered the "cost" part of this analysis, by allowing most people to continue to work during lockdowns. [^1] Note that during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, there were also lockdowns: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-citie...