4 ms·

Thank you. I honestly believe that there is a non-trivial percentage of the population that _likes_ the COVID world and wants to keep it going as long as possib

Thank you. I honestly believe that there is a non-trivial percentage of the population that _likes_ the COVID world and wants to keep it going as long as possible. Some may like working remotely, others may like the wider acceptance of meal and grocery delivery, others may prefer the reduction in greenhouse gases. That is the only way I can rationalize the insistence of lockdowns here on HN and elsewhere. Either that or COVID is another social issue that is being exploited by nefarious actors to divide western nations. Or both.

oceanplexian 6y ago
I would liken it to missing a day at the gym. Even if you regularly work out if you start missing 1, 2, 3 days eventually you stop going altogether. The same thing has happened with WFH. People have already gotten used to working at home 100% of the time. Even if COVID was wiped off the face of the Earth there will be a large number of people who have simply gotten into a new routine and will never go back willingly unless if they are forced to.
drcross 6y ago
I agree. I think it's a combination of factors- The people who are currently on a good WFH salary are seeing their savings grow thinking they are doing well for themselves because soon they will buy a house but what they don't realise is that eventually they will have to pay for the 400k people on the pandemic unemployment payment, the 5 billion that was lost this year in tourism, the 10 million we are spending weekly on PCR testing. This all adds up and with only 2.3 million wage earners in Ireland they are going to be stung for a lot of tax to pay for this. There are people with short term or part time jobs who are happier to be paid 350 per week for staying at home. Why would you want to work a menial job if you didnt need to? Like Prof. Johan Giesecke from Sweden said, the western countries got themselves into a lockdown without thinking of a plan on how to get out of it and no one wants to be seen as the person who made the decision to kill loads of people. There's also the vaccine angle which is sure to make those companies lots of money this year.
- discreteevent 6y ago
  They may not be stung for the tax. Zero interest loans with an infinite term are effectively being granted by the ECB.
  - drcross 6y ago
    Yeah I agree, but on that topic I think we're heading into completely unchartered territory with an event horizon beyond which I cannot see, the only wisdom I have that might prepare us for what might unfold is- "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "there's a time when you have to pay the Piper".
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> I honestly believe that there is a non-trivial percentage of the population that _likes_ the COVID world and wants to keep it going as long as possible. I believe two factors at play can be identified: 1) Among ordinary internet users, the “stay home and save lives” recommendation in spring of last year became highly memetic, and although the median age of death is now there for anyone to learn, the blanket admonishment continues to be rather unthinkingly repeated across society even though in many countries the lockdown is really starting to bite the economy. It is not that people consciously like the COVID world, they are simply perpetuating the social pressures that formed at the outbreak of the epidemic a year ago. (It doesn’t help that often one cannot public take an anti-lockdown stance and participate in street protests, because then one risks being lumped in with the anti-vaxxers and 5G crazies that tend to be so visible at those protests.) 2) Elected officials cannot ease off the restrictions, because the opposition will immediately accuse them of killing grandma or whatever. In this case, the opposition may in fact be acting much like a “concern troll”; they might not really care about the elderly (and deep down, they themselves might be thirsting for an end to lockdown), but they cannot ignore the political point-scoring that they could do with such a position.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  I don’t think “wanting to live and not spread around a deadly disease” is some overly-woke activist cause or concern-trolling. It’s ok to admonish people for drunk driving, which is a lot like “horsing around during a global pandemic”: optional, careless risk-taking behavior, that is risky for both you and everyone else. Why is it fine to shame people for drunk driving but not for spreading COVID?
ryandrake 6y ago
It’s pretty simple to me: I like being alive and want to continue living. I’m old, but not “will probably die next year” old, and I’m out of shape. I have a family and a kid who wants to keep her daddy around. The economy will recover. People will get back to working and shopping later. What we can’t do yet is come back from the dead.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  > People will get back to working and shopping later. Yes, but... We all have a small finite number of years on this earth, and even fewer when we're young. I'll never get 2020 back, and who knows how much of how many people's lives will be lived in poverty and other forms of misery because of the economic destruction we've opted into to slow the spread of the virus. Would you tell someone condemned to a prison term that it's not a big deal because they will eventually get out and go back to living normally?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > And who knows how much of how many people’s lives will be lived in poverty and other forms of misery because of the economic destruction we’ve opted into to slow the spread of the virus. Plenty of less-rich countries took much stronger steps to prevent economic destruction even with stronger control measures than the US took. We didn’t opt into poverty/misery to slow the spread of the virus, we opted into it because the federal administration wanted to use the pain to generate opposition to slowing the spread of the virus.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      We could have 1. Done a real lockdown, with strict, nationwide enforcement, trashing the economy for a few months but beating the disease. Or 2. Done nothing and saved the economy, shouldering massive loss of life as the virus ran unopposed through the population. But, no, we somehow managed to do the worst of both worlds: 3. we implemented uncoordinated, half-assed business closures and widely-ignored “stay-at-home” schemes which both trashed the economy and resulted in widespread death. Great job!
john_alan 6y ago
Totally agree. Weird stuff.

oceanplexian 6y ago

I would liken it to missing a day at the gym. Even if you regularly work out if you start missing 1, 2, 3 days eventually you stop going altogether. The same thing has happened with WFH. People have already gotten used to working at home 100% of the time. Even if COVID was wiped off the face of the Earth there will be a large number of people who have simply gotten into a new routine and will never go back willingly unless if they are forced to.

drcross 6y ago

I agree. I think it's a combination of factors- The people who are currently on a good WFH salary are seeing their savings grow thinking they are doing well for themselves because soon they will buy a house but what they don't realise is that eventually they will have to pay for the 400k people on the pandemic unemployment payment, the 5 billion that was lost this year in tourism, the 10 million we are spending weekly on PCR testing. This all adds up and with only 2.3 million wage earners in Ireland they are going to be stung for a lot of tax to pay for this. There are people with short term or part time jobs who are happier to be paid 350 per week for staying at home. Why would you want to work a menial job if you didnt need to? Like Prof. Johan Giesecke from Sweden said, the western countries got themselves into a lockdown without thinking of a plan on how to get out of it and no one wants to be seen as the person who made the decision to kill loads of people. There's also the vaccine angle which is sure to make those companies lots of money this year.

discreteevent 6y ago
They may not be stung for the tax. Zero interest loans with an infinite term are effectively being granted by the ECB.
- drcross 6y ago
  Yeah I agree, but on that topic I think we're heading into completely unchartered territory with an event horizon beyond which I cannot see, the only wisdom I have that might prepare us for what might unfold is- "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "there's a time when you have to pay the Piper".

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

> I honestly believe that there is a non-trivial percentage of the population that _likes_ the COVID world and wants to keep it going as long as possible. I believe two factors at play can be identified: 1) Among ordinary internet users, the “stay home and save lives” recommendation in spring of last year became highly memetic, and although the median age of death is now there for anyone to learn, the blanket admonishment continues to be rather unthinkingly repeated across society even though in many countries the lockdown is really starting to bite the economy. It is not that people consciously like the COVID world, they are simply perpetuating the social pressures that formed at the outbreak of the epidemic a year ago. (It doesn’t help that often one cannot public take an anti-lockdown stance and participate in street protests, because then one risks being lumped in with the anti-vaxxers and 5G crazies that tend to be so visible at those protests.) 2) Elected officials cannot ease off the restrictions, because the opposition will immediately accuse them of killing grandma or whatever. In this case, the opposition may in fact be acting much like a “concern troll”; they might not really care about the elderly (and deep down, they themselves might be thirsting for an end to lockdown), but they cannot ignore the political point-scoring that they could do with such a position.

ryandrake 6y ago
I don’t think “wanting to live and not spread around a deadly disease” is some overly-woke activist cause or concern-trolling. It’s ok to admonish people for drunk driving, which is a lot like “horsing around during a global pandemic”: optional, careless risk-taking behavior, that is risky for both you and everyone else. Why is it fine to shame people for drunk driving but not for spreading COVID?

ryandrake 6y ago

It’s pretty simple to me: I like being alive and want to continue living. I’m old, but not “will probably die next year” old, and I’m out of shape. I have a family and a kid who wants to keep her daddy around. The economy will recover. People will get back to working and shopping later. What we can’t do yet is come back from the dead.

umanwizard 6y ago
> People will get back to working and shopping later. Yes, but... We all have a small finite number of years on this earth, and even fewer when we're young. I'll never get 2020 back, and who knows how much of how many people's lives will be lived in poverty and other forms of misery because of the economic destruction we've opted into to slow the spread of the virus. Would you tell someone condemned to a prison term that it's not a big deal because they will eventually get out and go back to living normally?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > And who knows how much of how many people’s lives will be lived in poverty and other forms of misery because of the economic destruction we’ve opted into to slow the spread of the virus. Plenty of less-rich countries took much stronger steps to prevent economic destruction even with stronger control measures than the US took. We didn’t opt into poverty/misery to slow the spread of the virus, we opted into it because the federal administration wanted to use the pain to generate opposition to slowing the spread of the virus.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    We could have 1. Done a real lockdown, with strict, nationwide enforcement, trashing the economy for a few months but beating the disease. Or 2. Done nothing and saved the economy, shouldering massive loss of life as the virus ran unopposed through the population. But, no, we somehow managed to do the worst of both worlds: 3. we implemented uncoordinated, half-assed business closures and widely-ignored “stay-at-home” schemes which both trashed the economy and resulted in widespread death. Great job!

john_alan 6y ago

Totally agree. Weird stuff.