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If you can get people to agree on a what is a problem, it can get solved quite simply in many cases. For instance, illegal immigration could be solved triviall

If you can get people to agree on a what is a problem, it can get solved quite simply in many cases. For instance, illegal immigration could be solved trivially, but the bulk of the ruling class is in favor of it for various reasons, so it stays. This boring person is so short on details that I suspect he is pretty comfortable with the way things are. He mentions Covid. Okay--the solution to Covid was to wait until it evolved into a cold-like disease as Coronaviruses seem to do. The short term solution was to isolate at-risk populations. Instead, we be-masked five year olds. We're still be-masking five year olds. I would consider that a public problem, and I suspect professor Weiss would disagree. The CDC is right on top of a new public problem, however, and advises people to have clothes cover any rashes during sex and to clean their latex gear in between partners. https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/sexualhealth/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/sexualhealth/index.ht...

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> The short term solution was to isolate at-risk populations. We didn't know who they were. Even as it became clear, as with most things in life, it was gray, not black and white, and there was a gradient of risk, as well as pools of individuals who for reasons unknown were above-expected risk. Look at the death counts by age cohort. Sure, the elderly are up there, but it's not as if Covid killed just 1M old people in the US. Your position is essentially a cost-benefit analysis, just like all the others, with the difference that you think that the cost of attempted to limit disease spread throughout the entire population was higher than any benefits accrued. It's likely not just Weiss who might disagree with you, but most of the relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors of the million dead people. That doesn't mean you're definitively wrong (far from it), but the point is that nobody is "wrong" or "right" in this: everyone's doing cost/benefit analysis and coming to different conclusions.
adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
the main reason illegal immigration exists is because it's better for our country than not having it. increasing legal immigration is politically unpopular currently, but immigrants are (on net) a massive benefit to society. add a result, Democratic policy is try to expand legal immigration and don't try too hard to stop illegal immigration, while Republican policy is spend a few billion dollars on an art project (a giant wall) that won't stop pretty much any illegal immigration because almost all illegal immigrants enter the country legally.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

> The short term solution was to isolate at-risk populations. We didn't know who they were. Even as it became clear, as with most things in life, it was gray, not black and white, and there was a gradient of risk, as well as pools of individuals who for reasons unknown were above-expected risk. Look at the death counts by age cohort. Sure, the elderly are up there, but it's not as if Covid killed just 1M old people in the US. Your position is essentially a cost-benefit analysis, just like all the others, with the difference that you think that the cost of attempted to limit disease spread throughout the entire population was higher than any benefits accrued. It's likely not just Weiss who might disagree with you, but most of the relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors of the million dead people. That doesn't mean you're definitively wrong (far from it), but the point is that nobody is "wrong" or "right" in this: everyone's doing cost/benefit analysis and coming to different conclusions.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

the main reason illegal immigration exists is because it's better for our country than not having it. increasing legal immigration is politically unpopular currently, but immigrants are (on net) a massive benefit to society. add a result, Democratic policy is try to expand legal immigration and don't try too hard to stop illegal immigration, while Republican policy is spend a few billion dollars on an art project (a giant wall) that won't stop pretty much any illegal immigration because almost all illegal immigrants enter the country legally.