6 ms·

Imagine what it would do if we put heavy restrictions on borders and travel and there was a massive drop in demand from, something like a terrorist attack, or m

Imagine what it would do if we put heavy restrictions on borders and travel and there was a massive drop in demand from, something like a terrorist attack, or maybe a virus. It would snuff out all industry. Impossible to cope.

npc54321 4y ago
My whole family went from just plain d poverty to extreme poverty thanks to the lockdowns....
- nslzk 4y ago
  - salawat 4y ago
    Not everyone here is ignorant or unwilling to think of second order effects. You can't really do programming/networks/tech as a career and not get it after a certain point. These problems are hard as hell, and yeah, being paid well insulates one from a lot of problems if that's what you set out to do. Not everyone sets out to do that though.
    - yonaguska 4y ago
      It's hard to understand being poor unless you've been there though. You can acknowledge it, yes, but that's usually as far as most people will go.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Sorry that your family had to go through that, and all the people in affected industries, but the lockdowns also saved a lot of lives. Probably millions. Thousands of 9/11s. Worldwide. A lockdown "here" prevents covid spreading both here .... and there. The main topic of this thread is saving humanity from adverse man-made climate change. We are also talking about saving millions here.
  - yata69420 4y ago
    I was in favor of aggressive lockdowns at the time, but I live in a part of the US that proudly does not lockdown or wear masks. I think we had 2 weeks of total "lockdown" when people were legitimately scared. We haven't had significantly more deaths per capita than other stricter parts of the country. We now have examples from all around the globe. China's super strict approach seems like it sort of worked for a while, but even they had cases.
    - drekk 4y ago
      Really disingenuous to compare the US to China in this way as if they are comparable failures. We're talking about under a million cases and 5,000 deaths. In the US we had 91 million cases and over a million deaths. Especially embarrassing for the US to loudly proclaim how impossible it is to do anything in a country this size when China's mainland is about the same land area with 3x the population. China's "super strict approach" didn't "sort of work for awhile". If they had taken a US approach millions more people would be dead. The US is 91 million of the 584 million cases identified so far. It's ~5% of the global population with pretty low density outside of, what, 3 cities? Truly embarrassing that one of the wealthiest G8 countries can't handle outbreaks of any sort — to the point that NY has identified hundreds of polio cases for the first time in a decade. It's not going to be pretty if the US faces another outbreak of something that kills and cripples the way that polio did just a few generations ago. I'm not convinced the answer then won't be the same, except now instead of sacrificing grandma we can place anyone on the altar of capital.
      - emkoemko 4y ago
        are you really going to take CPP numbers as fact? and even right now they still locking cities down in authoritarian ways that is killing people.... their approach has not worked... they are still living in lock downs who knows what the real numbers will be
        quickthrower2 4y ago
        Good point, better to compare US against Australia and NZ. The UK was sort of in between Australia and US in terms of lockeddown-ness. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality Click on deaths per 100,000 Draw your own conclusions.
- drekk 4y ago
  It would be more correct to say "thanks to two pro-austerity political parties" — neither of which "listened to the science" or offered a solution more substantial than "sacrifice grandma for the GDP". Public health measures didn't put your family in poverty. The lack of any social safety net in the US did. Stimulus should have gone to people directly and not companies, but that's communism or something. Maybe in hindsight the pandemic could get us thinking about why it’s a bad idea to tie health insurance to employment? Or the idea that shelter is contingent on laboring. It costs more to have people suffering and it makes everyone less safe needlessly.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    I thought COVID would show the huge cracks in the US healthcare system and safety net, but nothing changed, except a temporary stimulus check, which was nice. This stimulus didn't cover the missing income from the lockdowns for many people. The greatest burden was put on people who rent properties and mortgage holders (banks) with the eviction moratorium. This was deemed unconstitutional, was given a month to rectify by passing a law, and yet congress did nothing. Everything you said was absolutely true, but nothing was done about it, even with a 2+ year plague that killed over a million people in the US. The only person with a plan was not elected; he didn't even win the primary. I'm not overly optimistic about change.
  - patrick451 4y ago
    > Public health measures didn't put your family in poverty. The lack of any social safety net in the US did. Stimulus should have gone to people directly and not companies, but that's communism or something. No. If the government had not locked down, their family would not have slipped into extreme poverty. Simple as.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      As Sweden's example shows, no. The economic downturn was due to the pandemic (people being sick and isolating, other people preferring not to travel/go out to avoid getting sick with associated risks for them and friends/family, etc.), not actions trying to combat it.

npc54321 4y ago

My whole family went from just plain d poverty to extreme poverty thanks to the lockdowns....

nslzk 4y ago
- salawat 4y ago
  Not everyone here is ignorant or unwilling to think of second order effects. You can't really do programming/networks/tech as a career and not get it after a certain point. These problems are hard as hell, and yeah, being paid well insulates one from a lot of problems if that's what you set out to do. Not everyone sets out to do that though.
  - yonaguska 4y ago
    It's hard to understand being poor unless you've been there though. You can acknowledge it, yes, but that's usually as far as most people will go.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Sorry that your family had to go through that, and all the people in affected industries, but the lockdowns also saved a lot of lives. Probably millions. Thousands of 9/11s. Worldwide. A lockdown "here" prevents covid spreading both here .... and there. The main topic of this thread is saving humanity from adverse man-made climate change. We are also talking about saving millions here.
- yata69420 4y ago
  I was in favor of aggressive lockdowns at the time, but I live in a part of the US that proudly does not lockdown or wear masks. I think we had 2 weeks of total "lockdown" when people were legitimately scared. We haven't had significantly more deaths per capita than other stricter parts of the country. We now have examples from all around the globe. China's super strict approach seems like it sort of worked for a while, but even they had cases.
  - drekk 4y ago
    Really disingenuous to compare the US to China in this way as if they are comparable failures. We're talking about under a million cases and 5,000 deaths. In the US we had 91 million cases and over a million deaths. Especially embarrassing for the US to loudly proclaim how impossible it is to do anything in a country this size when China's mainland is about the same land area with 3x the population. China's "super strict approach" didn't "sort of work for awhile". If they had taken a US approach millions more people would be dead. The US is 91 million of the 584 million cases identified so far. It's ~5% of the global population with pretty low density outside of, what, 3 cities? Truly embarrassing that one of the wealthiest G8 countries can't handle outbreaks of any sort — to the point that NY has identified hundreds of polio cases for the first time in a decade. It's not going to be pretty if the US faces another outbreak of something that kills and cripples the way that polio did just a few generations ago. I'm not convinced the answer then won't be the same, except now instead of sacrificing grandma we can place anyone on the altar of capital.
    - emkoemko 4y ago
      are you really going to take CPP numbers as fact? and even right now they still locking cities down in authoritarian ways that is killing people.... their approach has not worked... they are still living in lock downs who knows what the real numbers will be
      - quickthrower2 4y ago
        Good point, better to compare US against Australia and NZ. The UK was sort of in between Australia and US in terms of lockeddown-ness. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality Click on deaths per 100,000 Draw your own conclusions.
drekk 4y ago
It would be more correct to say "thanks to two pro-austerity political parties" — neither of which "listened to the science" or offered a solution more substantial than "sacrifice grandma for the GDP". Public health measures didn't put your family in poverty. The lack of any social safety net in the US did. Stimulus should have gone to people directly and not companies, but that's communism or something. Maybe in hindsight the pandemic could get us thinking about why it’s a bad idea to tie health insurance to employment? Or the idea that shelter is contingent on laboring. It costs more to have people suffering and it makes everyone less safe needlessly.
- Clubber 4y ago
  I thought COVID would show the huge cracks in the US healthcare system and safety net, but nothing changed, except a temporary stimulus check, which was nice. This stimulus didn't cover the missing income from the lockdowns for many people. The greatest burden was put on people who rent properties and mortgage holders (banks) with the eviction moratorium. This was deemed unconstitutional, was given a month to rectify by passing a law, and yet congress did nothing. Everything you said was absolutely true, but nothing was done about it, even with a 2+ year plague that killed over a million people in the US. The only person with a plan was not elected; he didn't even win the primary. I'm not overly optimistic about change.
- patrick451 4y ago
  > Public health measures didn't put your family in poverty. The lack of any social safety net in the US did. Stimulus should have gone to people directly and not companies, but that's communism or something. No. If the government had not locked down, their family would not have slipped into extreme poverty. Simple as.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    As Sweden's example shows, no. The economic downturn was due to the pandemic (people being sick and isolating, other people preferring not to travel/go out to avoid getting sick with associated risks for them and friends/family, etc.), not actions trying to combat it.