4 ms·

I'd rather be sick for a week this is a completely absurd assumption, and not appropriate for the standard of serious discourse this site aims for. you could

I'd rather be sick for a week this is a completely absurd assumption, and not appropriate for the standard of serious discourse this site aims for. you could have no symptoms at all. you could die. you could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminate your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. you could get sick and stay sick for the rest of your life. we don't know the exact duration of long covid, but there are plenty of people who got sick in early 2020 and haven't gotten better yet. there's a huge range of symptoms. in the dreamworld you posit here, where getting sick for a week would be the worst-case scenario, your reasoning would make sense, but nobody lives there, because that place doesn't exist.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
But doesn't this apply to everything? When you crash your car, you could walk away unscathed. You could die. You could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminates your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. Should people be afraid to drive?† My question for you would be, when does this end? I'm vaccinated, and the vaccines are very effective. Should we all be practicing social distancing for the rest of our lives? --- † Actually, maybe yeah, I think the number of people who die in car crashes is reason enough to move away from them as a primary mode of transport, even putting aside environmental concerns. But the point is, we have decided to accept this risk.
- YZF 5y ago
  I think a better analogy is drunk driving because we are talking about risk to yourself and the risk you present to others. What about those people who really want to experience driving while high or drunk? What sort of freedom do we have where we prevent those activities? Should you be allowed to drive drunk on a private road? Well, as long as I'm not paying your health bills, you fully recycle your trashed vehicle, and there's no other externality - go for it... Is asking people not to drive drunk too much? Apparently it is because there are lots of people who do it. EDIT: You do make a good point re: what's the exit strategy. My personal thoughts are we take some reasonable measures, especially during times when the virus is very active, but we should resume a more normal life. The people who don't get to resume a normal life should be those that have made the choice not to get a vaccine. To continue on my analogy, you choose to get drunk at the party, driving home is not an option as much as you'd really like to do that.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Why do you bring up being drunk? The analogy is much more accurate if you question why we're allowed to drive at all, even when sober.
    - YZF 5y ago
      It has to do with your probability of causing serious harm to other people. ~40k deaths/year from driving (presumably some significant portion from drunk driving, texting, drugs etc.). (EDIT: this number is in the USA) The point I am making is that you are not free to do whatever you feel like you want to do. You wanna drive? Get a license. You wanna drive drunk? Not allowed. You wanna speed? Not allowed. There are people coming to this discussion from the perspective that their freedom to do whatever they want is absolute regardless of impact to others, but it's not. It's a balance. For sure the measures/restrictions on freedom need to be proportional to the risks but this is not about individual risks. If you drive a tank and there's zero risk to you you still can't drive drunk.
- jayd16 5y ago
  It only applies if you completely ignore the magnitude of the situation. Most US adults are exposed to cars on a daily basis. It doesn't overrun the hospital system like covid. Cars are dangerous but covid seems much more so.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    The hospital system is overrun by people who refuse to get vaccinated. If you're vaccinated, the risk is significantly lower than a car crash. And if you're not vaccinated, you should get vaccinated.
rkk3 5y ago
> you could have no symptoms at all. you could die. you could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminate your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. you could get sick and stay sick for the rest of your life. we don't know the exact duration of long covid, but there are plenty of people who got sick in early 2020 and haven't gotten better yet. Why just apply this to covid? 45,000 people a year in the US die when they get behind of a wheel of a car every year. Does that number need to be zero to be an acceptable level of risk.
- tessierashpool 5y ago
  at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake. that 45K is also the most popular argument in favor of self-driving cars. but none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a worst-case scenario was just wildly inaccurate.
  - rkk3 5y ago
    > at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake. Your math is wrong, 45 /1.5 = 30 But so what? 8,000 people tragically die a day in the US under accepted normal conditions and we move on. > none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a worst-case scenario was just wildly inaccurate Realistically if you are young, healthy, and vaccinated that is the worst case scenario.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    > at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake. I think your numbers may be a tad off in general, but regardless, I'm pretty sure you're including unvaccinated adults. While I absolutely don't want anyone to die, I don't feel a responsibility to protect people who aren't willing to take the most basic of steps to protect themselves.
cltby 5y ago
> this is a completely absurd assumption lol this "assumption" is empirically >99.9% true for vaccinated adults (which presumably describes the parent). Fear of covid appears to harm reason and numeracy far more than the disease itself.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

But doesn't this apply to everything? When you crash your car, you could walk away unscathed. You could die. You could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminates your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. Should people be afraid to drive?† My question for you would be, when does this end? I'm vaccinated, and the vaccines are very effective. Should we all be practicing social distancing for the rest of our lives? --- † Actually, maybe yeah, I think the number of people who die in car crashes is reason enough to move away from them as a primary mode of transport, even putting aside environmental concerns. But the point is, we have decided to accept this risk.

YZF 5y ago
I think a better analogy is drunk driving because we are talking about risk to yourself and the risk you present to others. What about those people who really want to experience driving while high or drunk? What sort of freedom do we have where we prevent those activities? Should you be allowed to drive drunk on a private road? Well, as long as I'm not paying your health bills, you fully recycle your trashed vehicle, and there's no other externality - go for it... Is asking people not to drive drunk too much? Apparently it is because there are lots of people who do it. EDIT: You do make a good point re: what's the exit strategy. My personal thoughts are we take some reasonable measures, especially during times when the virus is very active, but we should resume a more normal life. The people who don't get to resume a normal life should be those that have made the choice not to get a vaccine. To continue on my analogy, you choose to get drunk at the party, driving home is not an option as much as you'd really like to do that.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Why do you bring up being drunk? The analogy is much more accurate if you question why we're allowed to drive at all, even when sober.
  - YZF 5y ago
    It has to do with your probability of causing serious harm to other people. ~40k deaths/year from driving (presumably some significant portion from drunk driving, texting, drugs etc.). (EDIT: this number is in the USA) The point I am making is that you are not free to do whatever you feel like you want to do. You wanna drive? Get a license. You wanna drive drunk? Not allowed. You wanna speed? Not allowed. There are people coming to this discussion from the perspective that their freedom to do whatever they want is absolute regardless of impact to others, but it's not. It's a balance. For sure the measures/restrictions on freedom need to be proportional to the risks but this is not about individual risks. If you drive a tank and there's zero risk to you you still can't drive drunk.
jayd16 5y ago
It only applies if you completely ignore the magnitude of the situation. Most US adults are exposed to cars on a daily basis. It doesn't overrun the hospital system like covid. Cars are dangerous but covid seems much more so.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  The hospital system is overrun by people who refuse to get vaccinated. If you're vaccinated, the risk is significantly lower than a car crash. And if you're not vaccinated, you should get vaccinated.

rkk3 5y ago

> you could have no symptoms at all. you could die. you could suffer serious cognitive effects which eliminate your ability to work, read books, or even watch TV. you could get sick and stay sick for the rest of your life. we don't know the exact duration of long covid, but there are plenty of people who got sick in early 2020 and haven't gotten better yet. Why just apply this to covid? 45,000 people a year in the US die when they get behind of a wheel of a car every year. Does that number need to be zero to be an acceptable level of risk.

tessierashpool 5y ago
at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake. that 45K is also the most popular argument in favor of self-driving cars. but none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a worst-case scenario was just wildly inaccurate.
- rkk3 5y ago
  > at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake. Your math is wrong, 45 /1.5 = 30 But so what? 8,000 people tragically die a day in the US under accepted normal conditions and we move on. > none of this has ANYTHING TO DO with the argument I made, which is that the grandparent's estimate of a worst-case scenario was just wildly inaccurate Realistically if you are young, healthy, and vaccinated that is the worst case scenario.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > at our current covid death rate, that 45K people happens about every 10 to 15 days. call it two weeks for simplicity's sake. I think your numbers may be a tad off in general, but regardless, I'm pretty sure you're including unvaccinated adults. While I absolutely don't want anyone to die, I don't feel a responsibility to protect people who aren't willing to take the most basic of steps to protect themselves.

cltby 5y ago

> this is a completely absurd assumption lol this "assumption" is empirically >99.9% true for vaccinated adults (which presumably describes the parent). Fear of covid appears to harm reason and numeracy far more than the disease itself.