5 ms·

When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy? When a doctor tells yo

When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy? When a doctor tells you to take an antibiotic until the bottle is empty, do you ignore them because you've started to feel fine after half the bottle? When a doctor tells you that you need to lose 50lbs, which will significantly change your lifestyle and in the short-term make you unhappy, do you ignore them? I don't ignore them. I listen to them, and follow their advice. Is this me merely marching to orders from strangers? Is this me taking "no responsibility for [my] happiness and life trajectory"? Why is this Covid situation any different?

blindmute 5y ago
> When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy? If X is 2+ years, and my feet feel fine, and being off my feet is miserable, then yes I do ignore them. At some point you are responsible for your own life, and that point was a while ago. I hope you realize this before you waste any more of it.
- yupper32 5y ago
  If a doctor tells me that I'm allergic to a bunch of foods, and I avoid them for years, I don't turn around and say "you know what, it's been 2+ years. I need to just live my best life. I'm just going to ignore the doctors now and eat those foods". It sounds like everyone is just desperately trying to make excuses to ignore the experts here.
  - blindmute 5y ago
    So I assume you don't eat red meat or butter? The experts always warn about the health risks of that, too. There's more to life. You don't need an excuse to ignore an expert. It's your own life. You have the full autonomous right and privilege to ignore any advice for any reason you deem worthwhile. I'm eating a sausage literally right now, despite every expert telling me not to. I made this choice. You are in a cage, but the door is open. We are outside the cage urging you to leave. The experts say not to. Will you live? Or remain locked away? I don't care which you choose, but please understand that the consequence of either action is yours. You lose the right to complain about the cage when you choose to be in it.
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    You keep comparing things of wildly different scales. Forgoing normal (i.e. unmasked, undistanced, etc.) social interaction is, for most people, a _much_ bigger sacrifice than giving up a few foods you're allergic to. On the other side, the risk of death or long-term life-altering consequences is _much_ smaller from ignoring Covid precautions than from eating foods you're severely allergic to. (If you didn't mean severely allergic, but only mildly intolerant, then, well, people can and do eat stuff like that all the time.)
ceras 5y ago
I think there are several differences here. Experts can give a ton of useful information, but they unfortunately can't answer everything for everyone for something as unprecedented and complex as Covid. In particular: 1. Experts speaking publicly are often warning of risks rather than saying "don't do X." It's a subtle but important distinction, and is very different from personal medical advice. Publicly stated guidance often leans very conservative, and there's more room for an individual to decide it doesn't apply to them than a doctor specifically telling you how to a heal your injury. 2. It's unclear which experts you're referring to and what exactly you're hearing from them. The restrictions in your original post aren't what I've been hearing, for example. Either we listen to different experts, or we're interpreting their words differently (per point 1) - or both! 3. Nobody is quite an expert in "solving Covid" the way they can be for healing an injury, and on top of that one can have reasonable yet fundamental differences with experts on Covid that don't exist for healing a broken bone (e.g. how you value the impact of mental health problems vs Covid illness; or what your level of risk tolerance is; or even the morality of potentially spreading covid, which is less bad than in 2020 since vaccines are widely available, but is it less-bad enough?). Experts can inform you of the risks of Covid, and how to reduce those risks, but it's much harder for them to tell you the negative consequences isolation: you know better than they do what those effects are on you, and so you have to weigh the risks yourself. 4. As you pointed out in your original post, there isn't a clear goal right now for Covid mandates. Healing a broken bone has an end goal that you and your doctor won't disagree about. But Covid currently doesn't, because there's sadly no expert with who has a really good answer to this: the vaccines worked, but not perfectly, so what's next? Nobody really knows, so you have to apply your own judgment (whether it's "lift mandates because we have vaccines and no clear next step" or "keep mandates to further contain Covid risks till we figure out a better strategy"), and hold your local politicians accountable to that.
- yupper32 5y ago
  > Experts speaking publicly are often warning of risks rather than saying "don't do X." > The restrictions in your original post aren't what I've been hearing, for example. "Avoid crowded, poorly ventilated spaces." - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/gatherings.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/gather... Not sure how you can misinterpret that. Indoor concerts, sporting events, bars, parties, etc. all fall into that category.
School-Cotton 5y ago
> Why is this Covid situation any different? Because the downsides of the things you listed are of a much smaller magnitude than the upsides. A much better example would be, for example, someone telling you "don't eat red meat, because it increases your risk of colon cancer". If you really like steak, and the risk of colon cancer is small, you might choose that the tradeoff is worth it. Health experts can only tell you whether a particular course of action increases or decreases the risk of health issues. They can't tell you whether that's worth the cost of that course of action, because that's subjective. Regular in-person social interaction is extremely important for most people's happiness, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to think that going back to 2019 normal is worth the risk of a slightly increased chance of being killed or maimed by Covid.
pb7 5y ago
For one, when I go to a doctor, it's to get their advice/treatment so yes, I will listen to them. Whereas I didn't really ask for experts' opinions on this, they just made it known because that's their job. I take it under advisement but will ultimately do what I think is best considering all the factors, not just the factor of catching the virus. They're not the ones that bear the cost of me wasting my life sitting around.

blindmute 5y ago

> When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy? If X is 2+ years, and my feet feel fine, and being off my feet is miserable, then yes I do ignore them. At some point you are responsible for your own life, and that point was a while ago. I hope you realize this before you waste any more of it.

yupper32 5y ago
If a doctor tells me that I'm allergic to a bunch of foods, and I avoid them for years, I don't turn around and say "you know what, it's been 2+ years. I need to just live my best life. I'm just going to ignore the doctors now and eat those foods". It sounds like everyone is just desperately trying to make excuses to ignore the experts here.
- blindmute 5y ago
  So I assume you don't eat red meat or butter? The experts always warn about the health risks of that, too. There's more to life. You don't need an excuse to ignore an expert. It's your own life. You have the full autonomous right and privilege to ignore any advice for any reason you deem worthwhile. I'm eating a sausage literally right now, despite every expert telling me not to. I made this choice. You are in a cage, but the door is open. We are outside the cage urging you to leave. The experts say not to. Will you live? Or remain locked away? I don't care which you choose, but please understand that the consequence of either action is yours. You lose the right to complain about the cage when you choose to be in it.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  You keep comparing things of wildly different scales. Forgoing normal (i.e. unmasked, undistanced, etc.) social interaction is, for most people, a _much_ bigger sacrifice than giving up a few foods you're allergic to. On the other side, the risk of death or long-term life-altering consequences is _much_ smaller from ignoring Covid precautions than from eating foods you're severely allergic to. (If you didn't mean severely allergic, but only mildly intolerant, then, well, people can and do eat stuff like that all the time.)

ceras 5y ago

I think there are several differences here. Experts can give a ton of useful information, but they unfortunately can't answer everything for everyone for something as unprecedented and complex as Covid. In particular: 1. Experts speaking publicly are often warning of risks rather than saying "don't do X." It's a subtle but important distinction, and is very different from personal medical advice. Publicly stated guidance often leans very conservative, and there's more room for an individual to decide it doesn't apply to them than a doctor specifically telling you how to a heal your injury. 2. It's unclear which experts you're referring to and what exactly you're hearing from them. The restrictions in your original post aren't what I've been hearing, for example. Either we listen to different experts, or we're interpreting their words differently (per point 1) - or both! 3. Nobody is quite an expert in "solving Covid" the way they can be for healing an injury, and on top of that one can have reasonable yet fundamental differences with experts on Covid that don't exist for healing a broken bone (e.g. how you value the impact of mental health problems vs Covid illness; or what your level of risk tolerance is; or even the morality of potentially spreading covid, which is less bad than in 2020 since vaccines are widely available, but is it less-bad enough?). Experts can inform you of the risks of Covid, and how to reduce those risks, but it's much harder for them to tell you the negative consequences isolation: you know better than they do what those effects are on you, and so you have to weigh the risks yourself. 4. As you pointed out in your original post, there isn't a clear goal right now for Covid mandates. Healing a broken bone has an end goal that you and your doctor won't disagree about. But Covid currently doesn't, because there's sadly no expert with who has a really good answer to this: the vaccines worked, but not perfectly, so what's next? Nobody really knows, so you have to apply your own judgment (whether it's "lift mandates because we have vaccines and no clear next step" or "keep mandates to further contain Covid risks till we figure out a better strategy"), and hold your local politicians accountable to that.

yupper32 5y ago
> Experts speaking publicly are often warning of risks rather than saying "don't do X." > The restrictions in your original post aren't what I've been hearing, for example. "Avoid crowded, poorly ventilated spaces." - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/gatherings.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/gather... Not sure how you can misinterpret that. Indoor concerts, sporting events, bars, parties, etc. all fall into that category.

School-Cotton 5y ago

> Why is this Covid situation any different? Because the downsides of the things you listed are of a much smaller magnitude than the upsides. A much better example would be, for example, someone telling you "don't eat red meat, because it increases your risk of colon cancer". If you really like steak, and the risk of colon cancer is small, you might choose that the tradeoff is worth it. Health experts can only tell you whether a particular course of action increases or decreases the risk of health issues. They can't tell you whether that's worth the cost of that course of action, because that's subjective. Regular in-person social interaction is extremely important for most people's happiness, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to think that going back to 2019 normal is worth the risk of a slightly increased chance of being killed or maimed by Covid.

pb7 5y ago

For one, when I go to a doctor, it's to get their advice/treatment so yes, I will listen to them. Whereas I didn't really ask for experts' opinions on this, they just made it known because that's their job. I take it under advisement but will ultimately do what I think is best considering all the factors, not just the factor of catching the virus. They're not the ones that bear the cost of me wasting my life sitting around.