6 ms·

Because those other things haven't been dealt with via massive overbearing state intrusions. Climate change is a far far graver threat than coronavirus. But w

• ilitirit 5y ago
  > That's why I'm upset, anyway, because my life was turned completely upside down for something that's actually quite minor in the grand scheme of things, whilst we're leaving the big stuff alone. I'm going to be frank - I don't think you care about the bigger stuff that much in comparison. You just care that your life was affected. Just like you don't care that much that some random civilians in another country were killed because of <insert injustice>. Am I wrong? EDIT: I'm not saying I'm any different. But I have experienced the effects of COVID19, so to me it's not a "small" thing. I'm still living with the effects every day.
  • throwaway22032 5y ago
    Yes, completely wrong. I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that I only care because it affected me. Coronavirus has affected and still does affect me. I know people who have suffered and died from it.
    • ilitirit 5y ago
      No, I said you don't care that much about bigger things in comparison. Think about it - you cared enough about this "small thing" to make a throwaway account. When last did you do that about anything else? In any case, I'm not here to preach. I would just like people to have some honesty and perspective in their opinions and arguments. You're willing to risk the lives of the elderly and people with people with a less-effective immune response if you think the lives of the general population would be "better off"? Just say so. If people feel uncomfortable doing this realise that part of that discomfort is called "cognitive dissonance" (and realise that decision-makers have to do the same thing). Have a serious conversation with yourself before you decide that you need to create anonymous accounts on the internet to air your views.
      • throwaway22032 5y ago
        You've created a strawman of my position. I don't believe in risking the lives of the elderly and those with a less effective immune response, I have friends and family members in those positions.
        • amilios 5y ago
          What is your point then?
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
          • throwaway22032 5y ago
            The dichotomy being presented (e.g. "state intrusion" vs "vulnerable people die") is not a genuine representation of the choice we have/have had. There are far more variables involved than that. The most obvious counterpoint is that after about March 2020 (e.g. zero-covid off the table) there is no realistic situation in which 80 year olds can just go to the pub and not be at high risk.
          • Eric_WVGG 5y ago
  • throwaway194523 5y ago
    I got rid of my social accounts a while back, including the one I had here. My enjoyment from using this site has risen considerably since doing so. I am someone different than who you are talking with, but I felt compelled to make a single-use account to say this: This line of commentary, in the context of conversations like these, reminded (really, triggered) a strong feeling of conviction that it was a wise decision to leave. For me personally, receiving comments of this nature from strangers on the Internet just began to feel wrong. It epitomized the general noise of the pandemic that has made it all that much worse. Insinuations and "gotcha's" abound! Anyways, it just didn't feel emotionally healthy over the long term to regularly subject myself to these modes of discourse. For what it's worth, in person these types of conversations seem more palatable; perhaps it has something to do with higher bandwidth and trust between friends conversing in person? Now then, back to lurking. Thanks for listening. :)
    • labrador 5y ago
      I can relate with what you wrote. I felt ilitirit tyring to be mean telling throwaway22032 who they are and what thier motives are without knowing them, probably to make themselves feel superior. It's a very junior high kind of show. And it's always usually wrong to ascribe motivations to someone you don't know. So the above makes it really easy for me to ignore and discount ilitirit. But still it can hurt and illitirit knows that. That's the game and often I don't want to play either.
      • throwaway22032 5y ago
        First throwaway, not other throwaway that you're responding to. Personal attacks don't really hurt me. "Someone is wrong on the Internet" hurts me more. That's probably a character flaw I should work on. :)
        • labrador 5y ago
          I'm glad to hear that throwaway22032. throwaway194523 seemed to have more of a problem with it, which I sometimes share but I'm overcoming it. Yes, I have your character flaw too, but there's only so much time in the day!
  • wey545 5y ago
• BoysenberryPi 5y ago
  > But it'd really not be that big a deal compared to stuff like saying "healthy 20 year olds in their prime at near zero risk from this virus are now legally forbidden from dating". This idea that young people are at near zero risk is not true. Pro athletes in their prime have gotten covid and suffered terrible side effects. Jayson Tatum is 23 and needed an inhaler after getting covid because he couldn't keep his wind. Tom Sweeney got myocarditis and had to end his football season early. Several young MMA fighters and pro wrestlers have nearly died. These are all people in their fitness prime.
  • throwaway22032 5y ago
    Near zero is not zero, I agree.
  • Ntrails 5y ago
    More young people die or are horribly injured in the years of "normal" living than would have died or suffered long term consequences from covid. Indeed the typical death spike in young people from normal risk taking was essentially removed by keeping them locked away. Covid can and does have consequences for everyone. Look at the charts for actual rates and tell me with a straight face any healthy 20 year old needed to have their freedoms removed for that level of risk.
    • solarengineer 5y ago
      Given that we all live together and can be carriers and spreaders even if we are not ourselves individually impacted, it should be acceptable that regardless of age a person/family stay isolated or take measures to distance themselves and reduce the chances of inhaling or exhaling a virus. Jointly taking such measures for the greater good - ending the spread of a virus - is not a "taking away of freedom".
      • Ntrails 5y ago
        > Jointly taking such measures for the greater good - ending the spread of a virus - is not a "taking away of freedom". It absolutely is taking away freedom. It is also taking away opportunity, damaging mental health, and stunting progression. The trade off being made is that young people suffered so the old would die slightly later. I was fine, I had it easy, I am not young. The pretence that we are all doing this for the "greater good" is wild. The Quality Adjusted Life Year outcome from most lockdowns was negative imo. It is just coincidence that the active voting population was the segment of society being prioritised eh?
• DantesKite 5y ago
  > That's why I'm upset, anyway, because my life was turned completely upside down for something that's actually quite minor in the grand scheme of things, whilst we're leaving the big stuff alone. How is Covid-19 minor?
  • throwaway22032 5y ago
    "In the grand scheme of things" contains things like 3C above pre-industrial if we keep burning shit.
    • azinman2 5y ago
      I wouldn’t call losing close to 1% of the population (or more if fully unchecked and without health care capacity) minor. That’s pretty damn major. Multiple things can be bad all at the same time and at different scales without making one of them minor.
      • nradov 5y ago
        So far we've lost about 0.3% of the US population. That's a major public health crisis but nowhere near 1%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
        • azinman2 5y ago
          Nice link. I appreciate that page, actually. Hadn't seen it. However, this is with all of the interventions, plus vaccines in. It's with the curve flattened as much as all of the interventions allowed. What you don't have is the counterfactual of what would have happened with no intervention of a highly contagious air-borne virus, and a matching health care collapse. In the beginning we were closer to 1% and higher in some places. This is US stats, where people have access to higher quality healthcare than much of the world (and vaccines), plus mixed interventions (since local/state dictated much of that).
• wesleywt 5y ago
  • throwaway22032 5y ago
    I think it's a minor event (the virus, not the response) overall, this isn't about individualism. For some people (the immunocompromised, hospital workers) it's obviously a pretty massive thing. But averaged over the population? In the UK people are probably struggling more with like, their heating bills at the moment.
• Aqueous 5y ago
  Please tell me the way in which a virus that swept the globe and killed nearly 6 million people (and those are just the deaths we counted) in 2 years is ‘minor in the scheme of things.’
  • throwaway22032 5y ago
    <0.1% of the population in 2 years is quite minor in the context of the response in my view. It justifies things like washing your hands and getting vaccinated. It doesn't justify lockdowns and things like making it illegal for family members to visit each other. That's a net loss on all of society.
    • Aqueous 5y ago
      So what's the line?? Is it 10 million? 1% of the human population? If so, why should it be 1% and not 0.1%? Because it seems more significant?
      • throwaway22032 5y ago
        Depends on the situation. If we're faced with a situation in which we can collectively give up 1% of our lives to save 5%, I'd say that's worth mandating. 1% for 2%, I'd grit my teeth and say we need pretty solid data on that 2%. 1% for 1%, nah. I don't think coronavirus was even close to that, if you just look at the full lockdown and the reduced ones (e.in the UK and ignore all of the associated mitigations, that was ~1% of our collective lifespan given up. Did it save 1% of people? I don't think it was even close. And that's not even taking into account opportunity cost. Most of the 'savings' here comes from the fact that by locking down you're also barricading the vulnerable away.
        • TheGRS 5y ago
          On the outset I think the ability for it to spread and cause general mayhem in the population was good enough reason to shut things down. The main cause for concern was overwhelming emergency systems. We need to remember that death is only one statistic. You would still visit the hospital as an alive, infected individual and put a strain on that system even when you fully recover and go home. Or to put it another way, even if the virus was not deadly at all, but it could take people out for a few weeks at a time, that would be reason enough to impose mask mandates, get a vaccine rolled out, tell people to work from home for awhile. Especially if people needed hospital services.
• ricardobayes 5y ago
  Not downplaying covid, but diarrhea kills 10M+ people globally. I also find turning a blind eye to other important topics and media laser-focus on covid a bit upsetting. But also understanding how media is profiting from it. Further on that, big pharma lobby is huge on boosters for young people. There is very little benefits for boosters for under 40's. You are talking a 0.1% decrease of hospitalization (from 0.2%). Countries like Spain didn't even roll them out until very recently for this reason (although last October they said they will not roll it out at all for under 30s).
  • throwaway22032 5y ago
    I figure it's a loss aversion thing. Coronavirus is new and therefore feels like a loss we can revert, whereas solving diarrhea or other issues would feel like a gain. It's irrational but then, we be meat bags innit.