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The "when you do $x, you drain society's emergency resources" is, IMO, an absurd argument. If this is true, then you need to point the finger at so many things

The "when you do $x, you drain society's emergency resources" is, IMO, an absurd argument. If this is true, then you need to point the finger at so many things. Rock-climbing. Mountain biking. And it progresses, to "anything even remotely risky", where "risky is now the absolute lowest common denominator". And of course, so many sports? Banned. This sort of "walking on eggshells" view of life is quite disturbing to me.

LeCow 6y ago
You've just described the world's attitude to Coronavirus.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  Not even remotely true. The world has responded with "lockdowns", "masks", and more, which is the result of an unprecedented, 100 year class event, that being a pandemic. Your comment isn't really about normality, but instead about an extreme edge case scenario. The only thing worse than a pandemic, might be nuclear war, a massive nuclear accident, or large-scale disaster. Normality need not be conflated with actions during emergency scenarios. Lastly -- imagine if people DID engage in more, "only affected themselves' risky behaviour. It would mean more hospital visits, therefore more hospital capacity, more doctors/nurses/etc etc, which would mean more ability to absorb and deal with large scale emergency issues.
- jen729w 6y ago
  Perhaps not the greatest example given that it’s killed one-point-six million people to date. That’s an awful lot of people, and if you don’t think that’s a terrible thing then I don’t know how you sleep at night.
  - bluecalm 6y ago
    It's terrible but similar number of people die every year in car accidents yet there is no moral panic. We can't even agree on finally enforcing speed limits but with the virus we closed the whole world. I mean pollution in major cities is a bigger health problem objectively than the virus and yet we still allow old diesels to drive in most of them. What I am saying is not that we shouldn't treat the virus seriously but that we really need a lot not urgency when dealing with topics like speeding and pollution.
    - jen729w 6y ago
      That “similar number of people” still die despite the enormous amount of work that goes in to road death reduction! We are doing things, and we are affecting the road toll. A quick look at Australia shows that from the worst years, 1970s, where ~3,500 died a year, we’re now down to ~1,200. That’s a 3x reduction because we did something. (Airbags, improved car design, improved road design, improved compliance, etc.) If only we had some sort of analogue for doing something vs. not doing something re: COVID. Oh wait, we do. - Number of Australians dead: 908. - Population adjusted, 13.1x: 12,000. - Number of Americans dead: 298,000. That’s 25x as many. We did something, America didn’t. Spotting a pattern?
jl6 6y ago
The key difference is that all of the things you’ve listed are legal. Society allows them because the risk comes with some reward, and we find it tolerable to accept or mitigate that risk. There are plenty of other activities like speeding where the rewards do not justify the risks, and the government has made laws to prevent that risk being taken. Unlicensed aviation, amateur gas boiler repair, knife-fighting...
- bbarnett 6y ago
  Legality is not relevant. Morality is. Do not conflate the two, for they are not the same. Example: society, and yes democratic ones, once told black people that they had no rights ; that they were animals; livestock. They also told Jews that they could not vote. Was society spot on there? What about the 1000s upon 1000s of examples of immoral laws which can be found, over time, and yes even now, which serves to invalidate the claim that following them is moral? From where I sit, each law must be measured against ones own morality. Failure to do so, is to cast the responsibility each human has aside, to instead wrap yourself in a shell of false righteousness! I am not claiming "ignore the law", but merely that you may not determine what is 'right or wrong', merely due to the opinions of others around you, nor due to a societal system which attempts to balance thousands of pressures, and then pass laws. Firstly, courts have repeated struck down sections of laws, or laws in their entirety, for this very reason. And often after those laws have stood for decades. By your logic, by your reasoning, to follow those laws is a moral requirement, yet one minute you are moral, the next immoral? The stroke of a judge's pen, an argument in Parliament/Congress, and your morals are now right, or wrong? No. Your morals must be crafted on your own, examined, re-examined, see battle against your own interpretation of the universe, and grow with time. Laws are not this. Laws are not morals. Laws are not to be followed blindly. To that end, I find your argument to be lacking. You assume that society is "better than the person" at determining "right or wrong". This is not so. The government is not papa, mama, to be looked to for advice. If you wish to discuss further, I am happy to, but I will not accept an argument that places legality on some sort of even keel, even subsuming morality. No. Never.

LeCow 6y ago

You've just described the world's attitude to Coronavirus.

bbarnett 6y ago
Not even remotely true. The world has responded with "lockdowns", "masks", and more, which is the result of an unprecedented, 100 year class event, that being a pandemic. Your comment isn't really about normality, but instead about an extreme edge case scenario. The only thing worse than a pandemic, might be nuclear war, a massive nuclear accident, or large-scale disaster. Normality need not be conflated with actions during emergency scenarios. Lastly -- imagine if people DID engage in more, "only affected themselves' risky behaviour. It would mean more hospital visits, therefore more hospital capacity, more doctors/nurses/etc etc, which would mean more ability to absorb and deal with large scale emergency issues.
jen729w 6y ago
Perhaps not the greatest example given that it’s killed one-point-six million people to date. That’s an awful lot of people, and if you don’t think that’s a terrible thing then I don’t know how you sleep at night.
- bluecalm 6y ago
  It's terrible but similar number of people die every year in car accidents yet there is no moral panic. We can't even agree on finally enforcing speed limits but with the virus we closed the whole world. I mean pollution in major cities is a bigger health problem objectively than the virus and yet we still allow old diesels to drive in most of them. What I am saying is not that we shouldn't treat the virus seriously but that we really need a lot not urgency when dealing with topics like speeding and pollution.
  - jen729w 6y ago
    That “similar number of people” still die despite the enormous amount of work that goes in to road death reduction! We are doing things, and we are affecting the road toll. A quick look at Australia shows that from the worst years, 1970s, where ~3,500 died a year, we’re now down to ~1,200. That’s a 3x reduction because we did something. (Airbags, improved car design, improved road design, improved compliance, etc.) If only we had some sort of analogue for doing something vs. not doing something re: COVID. Oh wait, we do. - Number of Australians dead: 908. - Population adjusted, 13.1x: 12,000. - Number of Americans dead: 298,000. That’s 25x as many. We did something, America didn’t. Spotting a pattern?

jl6 6y ago

The key difference is that all of the things you’ve listed are legal. Society allows them because the risk comes with some reward, and we find it tolerable to accept or mitigate that risk. There are plenty of other activities like speeding where the rewards do not justify the risks, and the government has made laws to prevent that risk being taken. Unlicensed aviation, amateur gas boiler repair, knife-fighting...

bbarnett 6y ago
Legality is not relevant. Morality is. Do not conflate the two, for they are not the same. Example: society, and yes democratic ones, once told black people that they had no rights ; that they were animals; livestock. They also told Jews that they could not vote. Was society spot on there? What about the 1000s upon 1000s of examples of immoral laws which can be found, over time, and yes even now, which serves to invalidate the claim that following them is moral? From where I sit, each law must be measured against ones own morality. Failure to do so, is to cast the responsibility each human has aside, to instead wrap yourself in a shell of false righteousness! I am not claiming "ignore the law", but merely that you may not determine what is 'right or wrong', merely due to the opinions of others around you, nor due to a societal system which attempts to balance thousands of pressures, and then pass laws. Firstly, courts have repeated struck down sections of laws, or laws in their entirety, for this very reason. And often after those laws have stood for decades. By your logic, by your reasoning, to follow those laws is a moral requirement, yet one minute you are moral, the next immoral? The stroke of a judge's pen, an argument in Parliament/Congress, and your morals are now right, or wrong? No. Your morals must be crafted on your own, examined, re-examined, see battle against your own interpretation of the universe, and grow with time. Laws are not this. Laws are not morals. Laws are not to be followed blindly. To that end, I find your argument to be lacking. You assume that society is "better than the person" at determining "right or wrong". This is not so. The government is not papa, mama, to be looked to for advice. If you wish to discuss further, I am happy to, but I will not accept an argument that places legality on some sort of even keel, even subsuming morality. No. Never.