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> If you believe that it is the governments duty to extend lifespans and prevent illness at literally any cost I do not. The cost of fast and strict lockdowns

> If you believe that it is the governments duty to extend lifespans and prevent illness at literally any cost I do not. The cost of fast and strict lockdowns is very minimal. It's when you wait to enact a proper lockdown that it becomes very very expensive, because it suddenly takes six months to finish instead of six days. > More people die every year from making those choices [diet, exercise] badly than anything else. Yep, which is most countries tax things like sugar more heavily than they do vegetables, and why your health insurance is cheaper if you're in good physical health. We already have restrictions to incentivise good habits there. > If you believe liberty is important on any level, then you would believe people should generally be able to decide for themselves what risks they want to take with their lives. I'm fine with people deciding what risks they want to take with their own lives, I'm not fine with them deciding what risks they want to take with the lives of anyone who happens to come into contact with them.

AmericanChopper 5y ago
You might not believe that the government must preserve life at any cost, but that is the only argument you have put forward. People will die, so it must be illegal to go outside. You might actually have a more nuanced perspective on why this particular risk warrants the criminalization of going outside (or you might not), but you haven’t made any attempt to express that. But if you chose to, then surely somebody with a different perspective to you should equally be allowed to express their opinion? I honestly can’t think of a more important issue facing society today, and even if your perspective isn’t the one being suppressed, you must think that it’s harmful to disallow debate on the topic? I also think that the argument you’re putting forward here shows close to zero regard for the welfare of other people. Perhaps the lockdowns are inexpensive to you, but they are life-changingly devastating to others. Perhaps you have a comfortable living arrangement, and the ability to work from home. Perhaps you haven’t had to attend a parents funeral over FaceTime. Perhaps you haven’t lost your career. Perhaps you haven’t been confined to a dormitory for months on end. Perhaps you haven’t been stuck at home with a domestic abuser. Perhaps you haven’t had to liquidate your business. Perhaps you haven’t been driven to suicide by having your entire life taken away. But many people have. Surely we must be allowed to debate the indiscriminate costs of the measures you demand to increase your own personal safety. Your argument for controlling others to protect your own safety can also be extended without limit. Most of the things that can kill you outside are the decisions of other people. Why should they be allowed out for non-essential purposes when they are clearly imperilling you for their own leisure? I’m going to cook dinner tonight, why should I be allowed to do that when I might burn my house down, and your house too, killing both of us and our entire families? Surely some laws are necessary, but surely we must be entitled to debate them to figure out which ones are reasonable.
- sellyme 5y ago
  > I also think that the argument you’re putting forward here shows close to zero regard for the welfare of other people. Perhaps the lockdowns are inexpensive to you, but they are life-changingly devastating to others. So let's minimise how devastating they are by doing them hard and early, so that they don't end up lasting for months. Or is your proposed alternative not doing them at all? Because dying is a hell of a lot more devastating than a lockdown is. > Perhaps you haven’t had to attend a parents funeral over FaceTime. Letting thousands more parents die so that someone can attend a funeral seems rather counter-productive. > Perhaps you haven’t been stuck at home with a domestic abuser. Even the harshest lockdowns I'm aware of have explicitly allowed for accommodations in these types of situations, and I've never seen a single person arguing that they shouldn't. > Perhaps you haven’t been driven to suicide by having your entire life taken away. But many people have. Bullshit. Here's a direct quote from the AIHW: "Since 2020, suicide registers in Victoria and New South Wales have regularly published data on suspected deaths by suicide in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The Suicide in Queensland: Annual Report 2020 (Leske et al. 2020) included data on suspected deaths by suicide from January 2015 to July 2020. In all cases there is no evidence of any increase in 2020 or 2021 relative to previous years." Source: https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/covid-19 https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/co... This is an extremely common blatant lie perpetuated by the exact kind of disinformation merchants this thread is about. COVID-19 related restrictions and lockdowns have had no effect on suicide rates. > Surely some laws are necessary, but surely we must be entitled to debate them to figure out which ones are reasonable. You're absolutely entitled to debate them - you're doing that right here. No-one's getting banned for posting "I think this lockdown is unnecessary". They're getting banned for spreading false information and advocating for people to actively break said laws, creating major health risks in the process.
  - AmericanChopper 5y ago
    Then discussion of any form of civil disobedience should be banned. All of it is by nature illegal. A sit in is a mass trespassing event. A march illegally shuts down traffic and critical infrastructure. Having a loose association with groups that promote civil disobedience, or even directly promoting it is clearly not the reason that Facebook is banning these accounts. Because Facebook doesn’t do this with any other cause that promotes or associates with the promoters of civil disobedience (in democratic jurisdictions at least). You also can’t make the case that civil disobedience during the pandemic is disallowed. Because the promotion of civil disobedience and mass gatherings was very clearly allowed, depending on the cause that was being promoted. I also find the suggestion that one of the least trusted companies in the world should be entrusted with the authority to police “false information” to be completely laughable. Your own interpretation of what constitutes “false information” is clearly rather inadequate. I made the claim that people who would not have otherwise committed suicide did as a result of the lockdown. Something I know for a fact to be true. Your claim is that this is not true because you claim that the total number of suicides hasn’t changed. Which, even if true, doesn’t refute my point in any way. Which demonstrates perfectly why preserving democratic principles is so important.
tasogare 5y ago
> The cost of fast and strict lockdowns is very minimal. Thanks for your opinion Kim. I'm always impressed by the diversity of Hacker News poster, I didn't know the website was popular in NK. And by the way the cost is not just economical but also social, pedagogical (remote learning is still in a joke stage), psychological, sentimental (like marrying without proper event) and those are hard to quantify yet are the salt of human life.
- sellyme 5y ago
  > And by the way the cost is not just economical but also social, pedagogical (remote learning is still in a joke stage), psychological, sentimental (like marrying without proper event) and those are hard to quantify yet are the salt of human life. I think you've misunderstood my comment. All of these costs are significantly greater if you do not enact a fast and strict lockdown. If you lock down at a single digit case count, you can be out and free with no restrictions by the end of the week, as the virus can be quickly eradicated in those conditions. The costs of that are very minor, and mostly amount to annoyances in rescheduling things. I've gone through this twice. It's not ideal, but it's pretty easy to cope with. If you wait for cases to balloon to the tens of thousands, you will have to outright cancel events instead of rescheduling them, lest you want your wedding guests to die from preventable illnesses. Those are the kind of extremely heavy social costs you're describing, and I 100% agree that avoiding them is extremely important.

AmericanChopper 5y ago

You might not believe that the government must preserve life at any cost, but that is the only argument you have put forward. People will die, so it must be illegal to go outside. You might actually have a more nuanced perspective on why this particular risk warrants the criminalization of going outside (or you might not), but you haven’t made any attempt to express that. But if you chose to, then surely somebody with a different perspective to you should equally be allowed to express their opinion? I honestly can’t think of a more important issue facing society today, and even if your perspective isn’t the one being suppressed, you must think that it’s harmful to disallow debate on the topic? I also think that the argument you’re putting forward here shows close to zero regard for the welfare of other people. Perhaps the lockdowns are inexpensive to you, but they are life-changingly devastating to others. Perhaps you have a comfortable living arrangement, and the ability to work from home. Perhaps you haven’t had to attend a parents funeral over FaceTime. Perhaps you haven’t lost your career. Perhaps you haven’t been confined to a dormitory for months on end. Perhaps you haven’t been stuck at home with a domestic abuser. Perhaps you haven’t had to liquidate your business. Perhaps you haven’t been driven to suicide by having your entire life taken away. But many people have. Surely we must be allowed to debate the indiscriminate costs of the measures you demand to increase your own personal safety. Your argument for controlling others to protect your own safety can also be extended without limit. Most of the things that can kill you outside are the decisions of other people. Why should they be allowed out for non-essential purposes when they are clearly imperilling you for their own leisure? I’m going to cook dinner tonight, why should I be allowed to do that when I might burn my house down, and your house too, killing both of us and our entire families? Surely some laws are necessary, but surely we must be entitled to debate them to figure out which ones are reasonable.

sellyme 5y ago
> I also think that the argument you’re putting forward here shows close to zero regard for the welfare of other people. Perhaps the lockdowns are inexpensive to you, but they are life-changingly devastating to others. So let's minimise how devastating they are by doing them hard and early, so that they don't end up lasting for months. Or is your proposed alternative not doing them at all? Because dying is a hell of a lot more devastating than a lockdown is. > Perhaps you haven’t had to attend a parents funeral over FaceTime. Letting thousands more parents die so that someone can attend a funeral seems rather counter-productive. > Perhaps you haven’t been stuck at home with a domestic abuser. Even the harshest lockdowns I'm aware of have explicitly allowed for accommodations in these types of situations, and I've never seen a single person arguing that they shouldn't. > Perhaps you haven’t been driven to suicide by having your entire life taken away. But many people have. Bullshit. Here's a direct quote from the AIHW: "Since 2020, suicide registers in Victoria and New South Wales have regularly published data on suspected deaths by suicide in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The Suicide in Queensland: Annual Report 2020 (Leske et al. 2020) included data on suspected deaths by suicide from January 2015 to July 2020. In all cases there is no evidence of any increase in 2020 or 2021 relative to previous years." Source: https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/covid-19 https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/co... This is an extremely common blatant lie perpetuated by the exact kind of disinformation merchants this thread is about. COVID-19 related restrictions and lockdowns have had no effect on suicide rates. > Surely some laws are necessary, but surely we must be entitled to debate them to figure out which ones are reasonable. You're absolutely entitled to debate them - you're doing that right here. No-one's getting banned for posting "I think this lockdown is unnecessary". They're getting banned for spreading false information and advocating for people to actively break said laws, creating major health risks in the process.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  Then discussion of any form of civil disobedience should be banned. All of it is by nature illegal. A sit in is a mass trespassing event. A march illegally shuts down traffic and critical infrastructure. Having a loose association with groups that promote civil disobedience, or even directly promoting it is clearly not the reason that Facebook is banning these accounts. Because Facebook doesn’t do this with any other cause that promotes or associates with the promoters of civil disobedience (in democratic jurisdictions at least). You also can’t make the case that civil disobedience during the pandemic is disallowed. Because the promotion of civil disobedience and mass gatherings was very clearly allowed, depending on the cause that was being promoted. I also find the suggestion that one of the least trusted companies in the world should be entrusted with the authority to police “false information” to be completely laughable. Your own interpretation of what constitutes “false information” is clearly rather inadequate. I made the claim that people who would not have otherwise committed suicide did as a result of the lockdown. Something I know for a fact to be true. Your claim is that this is not true because you claim that the total number of suicides hasn’t changed. Which, even if true, doesn’t refute my point in any way. Which demonstrates perfectly why preserving democratic principles is so important.

tasogare 5y ago

> The cost of fast and strict lockdowns is very minimal. Thanks for your opinion Kim. I'm always impressed by the diversity of Hacker News poster, I didn't know the website was popular in NK. And by the way the cost is not just economical but also social, pedagogical (remote learning is still in a joke stage), psychological, sentimental (like marrying without proper event) and those are hard to quantify yet are the salt of human life.

sellyme 5y ago
> And by the way the cost is not just economical but also social, pedagogical (remote learning is still in a joke stage), psychological, sentimental (like marrying without proper event) and those are hard to quantify yet are the salt of human life. I think you've misunderstood my comment. All of these costs are significantly greater if you do not enact a fast and strict lockdown. If you lock down at a single digit case count, you can be out and free with no restrictions by the end of the week, as the virus can be quickly eradicated in those conditions. The costs of that are very minor, and mostly amount to annoyances in rescheduling things. I've gone through this twice. It's not ideal, but it's pretty easy to cope with. If you wait for cases to balloon to the tens of thousands, you will have to outright cancel events instead of rescheduling them, lest you want your wedding guests to die from preventable illnesses. Those are the kind of extremely heavy social costs you're describing, and I 100% agree that avoiding them is extremely important.