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What we learned should be not to decimate small businesses like tossing leaves to the wind “don’t worry we’ll build back better!” and let people decide their ow

What we learned should be not to decimate small businesses like tossing leaves to the wind “don’t worry we’ll build back better!” and let people decide their own risk taking. I think that it’s almost more terrifying than the thing itself that more people aren’t mostly incredibly disturbed by the insane violations of privacy and speech. Literally you should not, in a free society, be able take such injurious actions based on something that the average person cannot even verify. It should never be that a tiny group of experts just have to be trusted to make decisions for everyone while the vast majority of the people are completely incapable of actually even seeing the threat. The vaccine thing too is absurd, amazing how quickly a public health crisis becomes an attempt at side stepping private health decisions. No amount of “but people could die” can justify this, that’s an irrelevant point, because there never a time when it was proper to remove autonomy for such a reason! It’s a total invasion of privacy that the government should even know where most people are at most times, what they are wearing or eating, or that private individuals should be corralled like cattle for the sake of “all cattle”, I just wish people could see what a huge privacy violation it is when a government decides that the most important thing above all else is to try and keep everyone alive as long as possible at the expense of each other and at the expense of freedom to avoid such an arrangement, privacy for bringing you into it in the first place, and opportunity cost of when you end up with no choice due to violent demands of state.

TheDong 6y ago
There's a massive difference between contagious diseases with exponential growth potential and the other freedoms you talk about. For a closer analogy than "what people are wearing or eating", what about "what people drive and how fast in public areas". The government introduced speed limits, regulations on vehicles, and driver licenses, all of which significantly limit who can drive what, and how fast. All of this is enforced by police. Why is it fair for the government to do that? Because dangerous driving kills other people too, not just you. It's not a personal choice in a vacuum to drive drunk at 100mph, but a personal choice that kills others. Covid is similar. Limits on gatherings, requirements to wear masks, etc are all because personal decisions also affect others at a larger scale. A pandemic, when it's not controlled, will spread exponentially and cause significant death and health problems. I think there might be a reasonable discussion to be had about the role of the government in this, but that reasonable discussion does not start with claims that the government is treating us like cattle or that "but people could die" is not a valid justification for government action. The chance of people dying is a valid justification. I think it was a valid justification for requiring a driver license, for making drunk driving illegal, and I think it's probably a valid justification for the current restrictions and regulations. You can apply this similarly to some of your other points: a tiny group of experts determine what standards make cars street-legal in the US and decide that drunk driving is dangerous, and their decisions impact everyone, etc.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  It's proven that speed limits save lives by 100% of scientists. There's absolutely no proof that quarantine or any of these Covid restrictions was effective. There's a study that masks might prevent spread by around 2%. That doesn't seem enough to enforce massive restrictions to me. Sweden and had less deaths per capita then most of Europe and they had minimal restrictions. Also the scale of the restrictions is different than speed limits. Quarantine and business shutdowns are massive changes to society and repressive restrictions on financial survival and affect just about every aspect of our lives versus just some targeted change like a speed limit. What if a vaccine had never been developed? Would you be okay enforcing these restrictions forever?
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    There's also no randomized trial proving that parachutes prevent death during skydiving. But it stands to reason that not slamming into the ground at terminal velocity is good for your health, and it stands to reason that preventing the spread of a deadly disease saves lives. Countries that have prevented the spread of the disease (China, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and others) have orders of magnitude fewer deaths, as a proportion of their population.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      The principles underlying gravity are well understood. Covid and everything about it is not.
      - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
        The germ theory of disease is also well established. For SARS-CoV-2, while there are still some uncertainties about precisely how important different modes of transmission are, it's clear that it's a respiratory disease. Quarantine works to stop transmission. Lockdowns like the one in Wuhan or those in Australia work, because they stop infected people from coming into close proximity with susceptible people. This much is understood, despite whatever other uncertainties there are.
tasogare 6y ago
> I think that it’s almost more terrifying than the thing itself that more people aren’t mostly incredibly disturbed by the insane violations of privacy and speech. Exactly this. I find myself very lucky to have avoided authoritarian measures by living in Japan, but I feel very sorry for my home country which multiplied freedom violations after violations. I find it very scary that nobody complained about it, despite the fact the lockdowns and curfews were stronger than any measures taken under Nazi German occupation. If the disease was actually very deadly I would understand, but in the covid case once the data were out after a few months, it was clear that elderly and obese persons were the only real at risk group. It thus make no sense to destroy economy, social, work and education lives of millions of people for this. And again, lot of countries dealt with it without heavy liberty privations and did fine (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan come to mind).
- rmk 6y ago
  Of course plenty of people complained about it and refused to give up their freedoms. Many states with Republican governors either refused to impose any mandates, or imposed very few that were never enforced. Democratic states, which generate a huge chunk of the money (and tax revenues), imposed draconian measures that essentially killed off thousands of small businesses and left millions unemployed. It's no coincidence that public schools in many of these states (CA notably; NY has succeeded in running public schools in-person for many students) completely abdicated their responsibility towards their students, shutting down in-person learning for the entire school year. Note that the 'follow the science' crowd is curiously silent on this: the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics emphatically argued against this injustice perpetrated on children to no avail. The children who suffered from this, and stand to continue suffering because of this even after the pandemic ends for most adults, will bear the cost for generations to come. Not only will they inherit a heavily indebted country, they will also be woefully unequipped for it because of the major hole this abdication of responsibility has blown in a critical period of their lives. Two years is a huge amount of time in a young child's life, and the callous indifference to their future shown by Democratic politicians (who draw the majority of their support from teachers unions, among other public employee unions) is just sickening. I sincerely hope that parents will wake up to the insidious damage public employee unions are doing, and move en masse to private schools or direct student funding for schools that they can choose, as a result of all this. Teachers unions have shown themselves to be completely unaccountable to the public and deserve their comeuppance.
viraptor 6y ago
> No amount of “but people could die” can justify this, that’s an irrelevant point, because there never a time when it was proper to remove autonomy for such a reason! Would you be interested in allowing unregulated tobacco adverts and smoking in any public spaces again as well?
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Shutting down all of society with a very little proof ..versus a small targeted change like a speed limit or tobacco restriction that both have pretty much scientific consensus and decades of proof. Those are not good comparisons.
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  I think making an addicting product and getting people hooked on it is another topic all together. Smoking is something you should be able to do, and not to do. If you are unable to move about without inhaling smoke that is injected into the scene by someone else it’s an active scenario. Getting sick is part of life, viruses and bacteria don’t have morals. You shouldn’t smoke around people who don’t want to smell it just like you shouldn’t set someone’s yard on fire. But literally controlling the movement and assembly of people because of microscopic organisms that have existed for millennia? That’s totally absurd and wholly different than intentionally burning chemical laden plant material around others.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    > If you are unable to move about without inhaling smoke that is injected into the scene by someone else it’s an active scenario. Walking around while infectious is also an active scenario. > Getting sick is part of life, viruses and bacteria don’t have morals. Part of death as well. Unless you're willing to get infected by anything and never seek healthcare, this stance is disingenuous.
hooande 6y ago
The problem isn't government tyranny. If half of the population decides it isn't safe to eat out at restaurants, then it won't make sense for restaurants to be open. Businesses and events are built on an assumption of a certain number of customers. If X% of the population decides to opt out of social life then it doesn't make sense for them to be open in the same way as before, government mandate or not. You can't go to a birthday party by yourself. Even if you're fully vaccinated or don't believe that the virus exists. As long as the public perception was that people should stay home you would get essentially the same outcome, no matter what the government did.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Most people can think for themselves though. We're changing society for the people who can't think for themselves.
  - luxuryballs 6y ago
    Yeah and it’s terrible. Lowest common denominator design makes everything worse.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Guns, Covid, spilling hot coffee...The government is there and ready to think for us to keep us safe!
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  Sure it happens naturally though, if suddenly people stop coming to your restaurant or bar and you can’t maintain it anymore, but that’s a different thing entirely from the government forcing you out of business. You are suppose to be free to move around and assemble, period. The idea that the governor or the mayor can just destroy an entire industry for the sake of another industry is pretty fucking bad. They caused waaaay more harm than good, and in many ways we haven’t fully seen yet.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

TheDong 6y ago

There's a massive difference between contagious diseases with exponential growth potential and the other freedoms you talk about. For a closer analogy than "what people are wearing or eating", what about "what people drive and how fast in public areas". The government introduced speed limits, regulations on vehicles, and driver licenses, all of which significantly limit who can drive what, and how fast. All of this is enforced by police. Why is it fair for the government to do that? Because dangerous driving kills other people too, not just you. It's not a personal choice in a vacuum to drive drunk at 100mph, but a personal choice that kills others. Covid is similar. Limits on gatherings, requirements to wear masks, etc are all because personal decisions also affect others at a larger scale. A pandemic, when it's not controlled, will spread exponentially and cause significant death and health problems. I think there might be a reasonable discussion to be had about the role of the government in this, but that reasonable discussion does not start with claims that the government is treating us like cattle or that "but people could die" is not a valid justification for government action. The chance of people dying is a valid justification. I think it was a valid justification for requiring a driver license, for making drunk driving illegal, and I think it's probably a valid justification for the current restrictions and regulations. You can apply this similarly to some of your other points: a tiny group of experts determine what standards make cars street-legal in the US and decide that drunk driving is dangerous, and their decisions impact everyone, etc.

nickthemagicman 6y ago
It's proven that speed limits save lives by 100% of scientists. There's absolutely no proof that quarantine or any of these Covid restrictions was effective. There's a study that masks might prevent spread by around 2%. That doesn't seem enough to enforce massive restrictions to me. Sweden and had less deaths per capita then most of Europe and they had minimal restrictions. Also the scale of the restrictions is different than speed limits. Quarantine and business shutdowns are massive changes to society and repressive restrictions on financial survival and affect just about every aspect of our lives versus just some targeted change like a speed limit. What if a vaccine had never been developed? Would you be okay enforcing these restrictions forever?
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  There's also no randomized trial proving that parachutes prevent death during skydiving. But it stands to reason that not slamming into the ground at terminal velocity is good for your health, and it stands to reason that preventing the spread of a deadly disease saves lives. Countries that have prevented the spread of the disease (China, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and others) have orders of magnitude fewer deaths, as a proportion of their population.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    The principles underlying gravity are well understood. Covid and everything about it is not.
    - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
      The germ theory of disease is also well established. For SARS-CoV-2, while there are still some uncertainties about precisely how important different modes of transmission are, it's clear that it's a respiratory disease. Quarantine works to stop transmission. Lockdowns like the one in Wuhan or those in Australia work, because they stop infected people from coming into close proximity with susceptible people. This much is understood, despite whatever other uncertainties there are.

tasogare 6y ago

> I think that it’s almost more terrifying than the thing itself that more people aren’t mostly incredibly disturbed by the insane violations of privacy and speech. Exactly this. I find myself very lucky to have avoided authoritarian measures by living in Japan, but I feel very sorry for my home country which multiplied freedom violations after violations. I find it very scary that nobody complained about it, despite the fact the lockdowns and curfews were stronger than any measures taken under Nazi German occupation. If the disease was actually very deadly I would understand, but in the covid case once the data were out after a few months, it was clear that elderly and obese persons were the only real at risk group. It thus make no sense to destroy economy, social, work and education lives of millions of people for this. And again, lot of countries dealt with it without heavy liberty privations and did fine (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan come to mind).

rmk 6y ago
Of course plenty of people complained about it and refused to give up their freedoms. Many states with Republican governors either refused to impose any mandates, or imposed very few that were never enforced. Democratic states, which generate a huge chunk of the money (and tax revenues), imposed draconian measures that essentially killed off thousands of small businesses and left millions unemployed. It's no coincidence that public schools in many of these states (CA notably; NY has succeeded in running public schools in-person for many students) completely abdicated their responsibility towards their students, shutting down in-person learning for the entire school year. Note that the 'follow the science' crowd is curiously silent on this: the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics emphatically argued against this injustice perpetrated on children to no avail. The children who suffered from this, and stand to continue suffering because of this even after the pandemic ends for most adults, will bear the cost for generations to come. Not only will they inherit a heavily indebted country, they will also be woefully unequipped for it because of the major hole this abdication of responsibility has blown in a critical period of their lives. Two years is a huge amount of time in a young child's life, and the callous indifference to their future shown by Democratic politicians (who draw the majority of their support from teachers unions, among other public employee unions) is just sickening. I sincerely hope that parents will wake up to the insidious damage public employee unions are doing, and move en masse to private schools or direct student funding for schools that they can choose, as a result of all this. Teachers unions have shown themselves to be completely unaccountable to the public and deserve their comeuppance.

viraptor 6y ago

> No amount of “but people could die” can justify this, that’s an irrelevant point, because there never a time when it was proper to remove autonomy for such a reason! Would you be interested in allowing unregulated tobacco adverts and smoking in any public spaces again as well?

nickthemagicman 6y ago
Shutting down all of society with a very little proof ..versus a small targeted change like a speed limit or tobacco restriction that both have pretty much scientific consensus and decades of proof. Those are not good comparisons.
luxuryballs 6y ago
I think making an addicting product and getting people hooked on it is another topic all together. Smoking is something you should be able to do, and not to do. If you are unable to move about without inhaling smoke that is injected into the scene by someone else it’s an active scenario. Getting sick is part of life, viruses and bacteria don’t have morals. You shouldn’t smoke around people who don’t want to smell it just like you shouldn’t set someone’s yard on fire. But literally controlling the movement and assembly of people because of microscopic organisms that have existed for millennia? That’s totally absurd and wholly different than intentionally burning chemical laden plant material around others.
- viraptor 6y ago
  > If you are unable to move about without inhaling smoke that is injected into the scene by someone else it’s an active scenario. Walking around while infectious is also an active scenario. > Getting sick is part of life, viruses and bacteria don’t have morals. Part of death as well. Unless you're willing to get infected by anything and never seek healthcare, this stance is disingenuous.

hooande 6y ago

The problem isn't government tyranny. If half of the population decides it isn't safe to eat out at restaurants, then it won't make sense for restaurants to be open. Businesses and events are built on an assumption of a certain number of customers. If X% of the population decides to opt out of social life then it doesn't make sense for them to be open in the same way as before, government mandate or not. You can't go to a birthday party by yourself. Even if you're fully vaccinated or don't believe that the virus exists. As long as the public perception was that people should stay home you would get essentially the same outcome, no matter what the government did.

nickthemagicman 6y ago
Most people can think for themselves though. We're changing society for the people who can't think for themselves.
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  Yeah and it’s terrible. Lowest common denominator design makes everything worse.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Guns, Covid, spilling hot coffee...The government is there and ready to think for us to keep us safe!
luxuryballs 6y ago
Sure it happens naturally though, if suddenly people stop coming to your restaurant or bar and you can’t maintain it anymore, but that’s a different thing entirely from the government forcing you out of business. You are suppose to be free to move around and assemble, period. The idea that the governor or the mayor can just destroy an entire industry for the sake of another industry is pretty fucking bad. They caused waaaay more harm than good, and in many ways we haven’t fully seen yet.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]