5 ms·

> 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, whils

> 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
        I think he's upset that we turned civilization upside down for a virus, which in the grand scheme of things is a moderate problem, but not for air pollution or climate change, which are cataclysmic problems.
        throwaway22032 5y ago
        Yeah, but it's worse than that. Most of the world's response to coronavirus, in my view, was and is about as sane as if we decided to like, live underground to combat climate change. Even if it works (why would it) you've lost, because now you live underground.
        ryan_lane 5y ago
        In 2020 we didn't know exactly what things would look like if we didn't do lockdowns. The situation looked dire, and we reacted the way we did to give ourselves time to protect people while we assessed the situation, and made proper protections available. The lockdowns weren't permanent (or even that long, to be honest). The protective measures we have in place aren't very stringent (in most of the world). If we hadn't done what we had done, the loss of life would have been considerably worse, and even with the choices we made, it was still quite bad. I understand that you're unhappy with having a couple years of your life inconvenienced, but you're very much not showing empathy with those who've lost considerably more than you, and aren't really putting much consideration into how much more could have been lost without your inconvenience.
  - chr1 5y ago
    > 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" And you are willing to risk lives of people living near poverty line in poor countries, because stopping the economy and printing money in 2020 increased the number of people in extreme poverty and caused many more of them to die than would die otherwise.
    - rrdharan 5y ago
      To that point: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56425115 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56425115 The QALY tallies are not pretty.
  - omginternets 5y ago
    How is it that you know exactly what the thinks? Your argument is exactly equivalent to me telling you that you don’t really care that much about the rights of the individual.
- ryantgtg 5y ago
  It’s easy to come to that conclusion from what you wrote. > 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". It sounded like you weren’t thinking how your behavior could result in spreading the virus to people who are more vulnerable.
  - throwaway22032 5y ago
    I'm (unfortunately!) not 20. I'm describing the sum total of all interactions, not just my own personal preference. I don't believe that "spreading the virus to people who are more vulnerable" is a meaningful concept for coronavirus. If you're immunocompromised (as, for example, my uncle is) then the outside world is now effectively a poison cloud and remains so regardless of what other people do in all realistic cases. It's theoretically possible of course that if everyone else isolated as well the virus could die out, but post-April 2020 this became a 'frictionless plane' style scenario that couldn't actually exist in the real world.
- Aqueous 5y ago
  I come to that conclusion as well. Literally millions of people died of this thing you called ‘minor.’ But those deaths don’t register because they happened out of view, in an overwhelmed hospital or out in the street or at home when capacity ran out. You don’t think about them because you didn’t see them. All you can see is the inconvenience to yourself. Let’s flip this conversation on its head. why is it that people are surprised that a failure to make a basic decision to protect both oneself and others from a potentially lethal illness is met with sharp criticism and scorn, as it should be?
  - throwaway22032 5y ago
    You're creating a strawman by claiming that people who do not believe in coronavirus restrictions are only interested in the inconvenience to themselves. It all registers. I could equally say that you're disregarding the other ~99.9% of people whose lives have been affected by lockdowns. I don't think that's true though - I expect that you think their sacrifice was minor in comparison. Is that right? We don't disagree that people should do basic things to prevent illness - what we disagree on is what a "basic thing" is.
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

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
      I think he's upset that we turned civilization upside down for a virus, which in the grand scheme of things is a moderate problem, but not for air pollution or climate change, which are cataclysmic problems.
      - throwaway22032 5y ago
        Yeah, but it's worse than that. Most of the world's response to coronavirus, in my view, was and is about as sane as if we decided to like, live underground to combat climate change. Even if it works (why would it) you've lost, because now you live underground.
        ryan_lane 5y ago
        In 2020 we didn't know exactly what things would look like if we didn't do lockdowns. The situation looked dire, and we reacted the way we did to give ourselves time to protect people while we assessed the situation, and made proper protections available. The lockdowns weren't permanent (or even that long, to be honest). The protective measures we have in place aren't very stringent (in most of the world). If we hadn't done what we had done, the loss of life would have been considerably worse, and even with the choices we made, it was still quite bad. I understand that you're unhappy with having a couple years of your life inconvenienced, but you're very much not showing empathy with those who've lost considerably more than you, and aren't really putting much consideration into how much more could have been lost without your inconvenience.
- chr1 5y ago
  > 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" And you are willing to risk lives of people living near poverty line in poor countries, because stopping the economy and printing money in 2020 increased the number of people in extreme poverty and caused many more of them to die than would die otherwise.
  - rrdharan 5y ago
    To that point: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56425115 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56425115 The QALY tallies are not pretty.
- omginternets 5y ago
  How is it that you know exactly what the thinks? Your argument is exactly equivalent to me telling you that you don’t really care that much about the rights of the individual.
ryantgtg 5y ago
It’s easy to come to that conclusion from what you wrote. > 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". It sounded like you weren’t thinking how your behavior could result in spreading the virus to people who are more vulnerable.
- throwaway22032 5y ago
  I'm (unfortunately!) not 20. I'm describing the sum total of all interactions, not just my own personal preference. I don't believe that "spreading the virus to people who are more vulnerable" is a meaningful concept for coronavirus. If you're immunocompromised (as, for example, my uncle is) then the outside world is now effectively a poison cloud and remains so regardless of what other people do in all realistic cases. It's theoretically possible of course that if everyone else isolated as well the virus could die out, but post-April 2020 this became a 'frictionless plane' style scenario that couldn't actually exist in the real world.
Aqueous 5y ago
I come to that conclusion as well. Literally millions of people died of this thing you called ‘minor.’ But those deaths don’t register because they happened out of view, in an overwhelmed hospital or out in the street or at home when capacity ran out. You don’t think about them because you didn’t see them. All you can see is the inconvenience to yourself. Let’s flip this conversation on its head. why is it that people are surprised that a failure to make a basic decision to protect both oneself and others from a potentially lethal illness is met with sharp criticism and scorn, as it should be?
- throwaway22032 5y ago
  You're creating a strawman by claiming that people who do not believe in coronavirus restrictions are only interested in the inconvenience to themselves. It all registers. I could equally say that you're disregarding the other ~99.9% of people whose lives have been affected by lockdowns. I don't think that's true though - I expect that you think their sacrifice was minor in comparison. Is that right? We don't disagree that people should do basic things to prevent illness - what we disagree on is what a "basic thing" is.

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