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> Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life. I'm sympathetic to your point (and I love

> Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life. I'm sympathetic to your point (and I love to play piano), but I can't help but ask, if we slightly reword your claim: would you be willing to take responsibility for spreading coronavirus to n other people so you can play the piano? Edit, to be clear: I'm not talking about the piano, or surface transmission; I'm talking about the values.

hammock 5y ago
48 million Americans get food poisoning every year, many dying. Are you going to stop cooking for your family and friends?
- gglitch 5y ago
  Yeeeaaah, I realize my point was easy to make a caricature of, but that's a pretty specious caricature. I'm talking about an effort to balance safety and freedom from a more collective and thoughtful perspective.
jaywalk 5y ago
How is him playing the piano spreading anything aside from possibly joy and happiness? What a ridiculous thing to say.
- gglitch 5y ago
  Yeah, sorry for not being more clear, but I wasn't talking about that person, or the piano, or about the odds of someone contracting COVID from surfaces. I was using the quote to illustrate what I see as a difficult pair of values to balance that situations like masks in classrooms, or other shared-space restrictions, really throw into painfully high relief: how do we collectively, as a society, balance our own personal inclinations (i.e., in this case, to play the piano, or in OP, to let our kids go unmasked) with whatever risks we impose on other people (i.e., in this case, which for the record I totally agree is excessive, that the shared piano will help spread disease; or in the outer case, that fewer masks in the classroom could lead to, e.g., more sick grandparents, or teachers)?
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    In the case of the piano, it's very simple: anyone who is worried about catching Covid by listening to the piano is free to not listen to the piano. There's really nothing to balance.
    - gglitch 5y ago
      Solid, got it. Next time I talk to criddell's kids' university's dorm administrators, I'll try to set them straight. Hopefully they'll be able to zoom out a bit from whatever conversation-impairing details they've latched onto.
      - spookthesunset 5y ago
        This myopic focus on exactly one specific illness to the literal exclusion of everything else is not healthy. People need to accept the risks and move on.
  - throwaway22032 5y ago
criddell 5y ago
> would you be willing to take responsibility for spreading coronavirus to n other people so you can play the piano? Would you be willing to accept responsibility for the increased depression and loneliness among the young people who live together in this building that could result from banning the piano?
- gglitch 5y ago
  Yes, exactly. We have conflicting values to balance. I hope most of us can do it most of the time from the goal, however quixotic, of doing the most good for the most people. I don't claim to know what that is, and I am not saying that the kid in the example shouldn't be able to play the piano (though, on that note, it seems to me that if a student's well-being depends that directly on being able to play the piano, the school itself is foundering). But I get you. It would be all too easy to settle for some sort of rhetorical first principle that abstracts away all the complexity: sharing things makes people sick, we shouldn't share things. Or, other people getting sick is their own problem, damn the torpedos, I'm jamming in the lounge.
  - criddell 5y ago
    > if a student's well-being depends that directly on being able to play the piano It's death by a thousand cuts. The piano policy isn't that devastating by itself, but it's one of 50 things that have been taken away.
    - gglitch 5y ago
      It's exhausting. And the piano policy in the example is totally absurd. I hope my remarks didn't come across as personal. I have kids in school too, and although I'm currently favoring masks, I'm also miserable about how my kids' early childhood social and academic development have been impacted.
      - spookthesunset 5y ago
        Why do kids even need masks? Like, they aren’t at risk… this is a known fact since like March of 2020. Why force kids to wear them? Who are they supposed to be protecting? Fully vaccinated teachers? Who?
spookthesunset 5y ago
There is more to life than a singular focus on spreading Covid. Life would be robbed of all that is worth living for if every action and encounter we take has to pass the “willing to spread Covid” question. There are countless more problems and risks in life than Covid. Many are much more important to individuals.
throwaway22032 5y ago

hammock 5y ago

48 million Americans get food poisoning every year, many dying. Are you going to stop cooking for your family and friends?

gglitch 5y ago
Yeeeaaah, I realize my point was easy to make a caricature of, but that's a pretty specious caricature. I'm talking about an effort to balance safety and freedom from a more collective and thoughtful perspective.

jaywalk 5y ago

How is him playing the piano spreading anything aside from possibly joy and happiness? What a ridiculous thing to say.

gglitch 5y ago
Yeah, sorry for not being more clear, but I wasn't talking about that person, or the piano, or about the odds of someone contracting COVID from surfaces. I was using the quote to illustrate what I see as a difficult pair of values to balance that situations like masks in classrooms, or other shared-space restrictions, really throw into painfully high relief: how do we collectively, as a society, balance our own personal inclinations (i.e., in this case, to play the piano, or in OP, to let our kids go unmasked) with whatever risks we impose on other people (i.e., in this case, which for the record I totally agree is excessive, that the shared piano will help spread disease; or in the outer case, that fewer masks in the classroom could lead to, e.g., more sick grandparents, or teachers)?
- jaywalk 5y ago
  In the case of the piano, it's very simple: anyone who is worried about catching Covid by listening to the piano is free to not listen to the piano. There's really nothing to balance.
  - gglitch 5y ago
    Solid, got it. Next time I talk to criddell's kids' university's dorm administrators, I'll try to set them straight. Hopefully they'll be able to zoom out a bit from whatever conversation-impairing details they've latched onto.
    - spookthesunset 5y ago
      This myopic focus on exactly one specific illness to the literal exclusion of everything else is not healthy. People need to accept the risks and move on.
- throwaway22032 5y ago

criddell 5y ago

> would you be willing to take responsibility for spreading coronavirus to n other people so you can play the piano? Would you be willing to accept responsibility for the increased depression and loneliness among the young people who live together in this building that could result from banning the piano?

gglitch 5y ago
Yes, exactly. We have conflicting values to balance. I hope most of us can do it most of the time from the goal, however quixotic, of doing the most good for the most people. I don't claim to know what that is, and I am not saying that the kid in the example shouldn't be able to play the piano (though, on that note, it seems to me that if a student's well-being depends that directly on being able to play the piano, the school itself is foundering). But I get you. It would be all too easy to settle for some sort of rhetorical first principle that abstracts away all the complexity: sharing things makes people sick, we shouldn't share things. Or, other people getting sick is their own problem, damn the torpedos, I'm jamming in the lounge.
- criddell 5y ago
  > if a student's well-being depends that directly on being able to play the piano It's death by a thousand cuts. The piano policy isn't that devastating by itself, but it's one of 50 things that have been taken away.
  - gglitch 5y ago
    It's exhausting. And the piano policy in the example is totally absurd. I hope my remarks didn't come across as personal. I have kids in school too, and although I'm currently favoring masks, I'm also miserable about how my kids' early childhood social and academic development have been impacted.
    - spookthesunset 5y ago
      Why do kids even need masks? Like, they aren’t at risk… this is a known fact since like March of 2020. Why force kids to wear them? Who are they supposed to be protecting? Fully vaccinated teachers? Who?

spookthesunset 5y ago

There is more to life than a singular focus on spreading Covid. Life would be robbed of all that is worth living for if every action and encounter we take has to pass the “willing to spread Covid” question. There are countless more problems and risks in life than Covid. Many are much more important to individuals.

throwaway22032 5y ago