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No, he's actually right. When you are in a situation that requires action the last thing you want is for everyone to stop, have a cigarette and debate the issu
by bborud 4y ago
No, he's actually right. When you are in a situation that requires action the last thing you want is for everyone to stop, have a cigarette and debate the issue while nothing gets done. You can't wait around for a consensus to form - you will have to risk being wrong. Because you will be wrong much of the time regardless of what you do. And you will be criticized later. By people who themselves contributed nothing and know nothing because they weren't where the decisions had to be made.
Fear, confusion, inaction and people taking advantage of the situation for political purposes are dangerous when faced with an immediate threat. Why do you think these elements are have been part of how people have waged war for thousands of years? These factors make populations incapable of coordinated response.
Your mistake is to think that responding to a time-critical threat is scientific debate. It isn't and it is really dangerous when people with the power to influence others don't actually know the difference.
- gilded-lilly 4y agoWell yes, China agrees with you. That’s kind of how they run their whole country.
- bborud 4y agoNo, this isn't a good comparison. A good comparison is following the orders of firefighters when your house is on fire. They'll have experience with fires. You won't. Their judgements in a situation *where nobody has all the information* is very likely to be much better than any guesses and assumptions you are going to make. This may mean that your Pokemon cards go up in flames when there was a chance you could have saved them by running into the house to save them. But by doing so you would have endangered the people responsible for saving you. After the fact it might turn out that there was time to save your pokemon cards. But when the house is on fire, nobody is going to put their neck on the line to take that risk. And you shouldn't expect them to. The time to make democratic decisions are before something happens. And the time to alter policy is when the data is in. When the house is on fire it is too late. You have to fight the fire with the fire department and the procedures you have. And pray that not too many idiots sabotage the effort because they labor under the delusion that they know better. If you have a hard time accepting this it is at least important that you understand that the rest of society will experience you as an added burden. If you expect to make up your own rules, based on considerably less knowledge, and in the absence of clear information, you are an extra drain on resources that ought to be focused on solving problems. Not catering to people who feel entitled to endangering people because they don't know the difference between making their bed and lying in it. I think it is in poor taste to make comparisons to dictatorships when hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been avoided if people had been better at taking direction that would have saved lives. I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere near you in a crisis.
- gilded-lilly 4y agoI think you’re making a bit of a false comparison here. How about this. Your house may be on fire. But no one knows. So we’re going to install martial law, and silence anyone who is of the camp who believes the house is not on fire, for two years. When it finally transpires that those people who believed the house was not on fire were right all along, and they knew it, then we will issue no apology, or acknowledgement.
- bborud 4y agoIf you have ever seen a fire department work: if there's ANY doubt, you do not get to enter the house.