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Every year, 37,000 Americans die in automobile accidents, yet we don't set the country's speed limit at 25mph even though doing that would save most of those 37

Every year, 37,000 Americans die in automobile accidents, yet we don't set the country's speed limit at 25mph even though doing that would save most of those 37,000 lives. We tolerate --- even demand --- higher speed limits because the time saved by driving faster outweighs the additional deaths caused. It may sound callous to put the trade-off in those terms, but it's true. And I bet you, personally, would absolutely hate it you weren't able to drive more than 25mph ever. Why should COVID be different? When you optimize for "safety" to the exclusion of all other considerations, you create a dystopia. A non-zero number of COVID deaths is a fair price for restoring our society to normality. The weird refusal of people to apply cost-benefit analysis to COVID mitigation is gravely concerning. Without cost-benefit analysis, we can't make good decisions.

chii 5y ago
so where is your evidence that the cost-benefit-analysis of covid deaths is in the favour of opening up? We don't drive above 25mph because there is already cost benefit analysis done, at the governmental transportation department level. The average person assumes this analysis is mostly correct, and thus agree (implicitly) to follow the rules. How come all of a sudden, people stop believing that such analysis wasn't done for the actions undertaken for lockdown? How come, conveniently, that people who oppose such lockdown are claiming that their preferred option - that of opening up - is somehow a better trade?
tendimensions 5y ago
It's a false comparison for two reasons: 1) You leave out the long list of ways we've tried very, very hard to make driving as safe as possible while not sacrificing the entire point of the car, to get somewhere faster. There is a trade off, but the equation isn't nearly as callous as you make it seem. 2) The equation for Covid isn't "live free or die" either. There's a lot of middle ground that mostly involves taking up limited medical resources for something that could have been avoided while still conducting your normal day to day activities with some minor modifications. That trade-off is a simple one.

chii 5y ago

so where is your evidence that the cost-benefit-analysis of covid deaths is in the favour of opening up? We don't drive above 25mph because there is already cost benefit analysis done, at the governmental transportation department level. The average person assumes this analysis is mostly correct, and thus agree (implicitly) to follow the rules. How come all of a sudden, people stop believing that such analysis wasn't done for the actions undertaken for lockdown? How come, conveniently, that people who oppose such lockdown are claiming that their preferred option - that of opening up - is somehow a better trade?

tendimensions 5y ago

It's a false comparison for two reasons: 1) You leave out the long list of ways we've tried very, very hard to make driving as safe as possible while not sacrificing the entire point of the car, to get somewhere faster. There is a trade off, but the equation isn't nearly as callous as you make it seem. 2) The equation for Covid isn't "live free or die" either. There's a lot of middle ground that mostly involves taking up limited medical resources for something that could have been avoided while still conducting your normal day to day activities with some minor modifications. That trade-off is a simple one.