3 ms·

I was saying this early in the pandemic when lockdowns started to be proposed, and being aggressively shot down for it, even here on HN. I think once we have a

by jhugo 4y ago

I was saying this early in the pandemic when lockdowns started to be proposed, and being aggressively shot down for it, even here on HN. I think once we have a more full accounting of the true cost of the lockdowns, there will be no controversy about this. Missed medical screenings & care, delayed "non-urgent" medical procedures, higher rates of alcoholism & other substance abuse, less community cohesion and myriad other effects are surely far worse for society as a whole in countries that chose lockdowns than the direct impact of COVID was in countries that didn't.

komali2 4y ago
Perhaps because it was always possible to do tiered lockdowns in a way that avoided these negative side effects but the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." I'm not going to poke through your post history but on HN I never saw a good faith solutions-oriented criticism to lockdown measures. From what I saw of the rest of the world COVID lockdown responses were really weird, though. In Taiwan we also had lockdowns but they seemed quite sensible (though parts were absurd). For example, indoor dining was closed, but restaurants were able to stay open and serve food to go, or, offer outdoor dining if they could (this is rare in taiwan though, most just did to-go). That's a sensible covid measure as incidents of outside spread are rare and people can spread out easily outside, plus we have parks on like, every corner, so it's not a big deal. Public transit stayed open, but we had a mask policy, not that it was necessary since the population was happy to wear masks and continues to do so in situations not legally required here even today. So I don't think we'll have as bad of lockdown side effects as other countries, cause people were still going out and about, just, sensibly. (some of the stupid policies were the closing of outside exercise equipment. So dumb.)
- User23 4y ago
  > the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." I would encourage you to practice the intellectual humility required to consider the possibility the issue here was your lack of exposure to anything other than straw men.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    Usually I would consider your comment to be a tad too rude for these parts but, perhaps like me, you've encountered this particular person before and hence, I think your comment and any slight, intended or otherwise, is spot on and fully deserved.
- gruez 4y ago
  >but the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." Seriously? In the 3 years of the pandemic, the only criticism of lockdowns you heard was "covid was fake"? I'm not sure whether this was because you don't pay enough attention to current affairs, or you do but get it from such a strong filter bubble that all objections were rounded down to the crazies (for lack of a better word). For what it's worth, I did hear about the objections that the parent poster mentioned early in the pandemic. The problem I suspect is that the existence of crazies poisoned the well for the debate. Once being anti-lockdown was associated with the right and/or conspiracy theorists, anyone objecting to lockdowns must be secretly right-wing and/or a conspiracy theorist and their objections were just a cover for their crazy belief that the virus was fake or whatever.
  - komali2 4y ago
    Well that's more what I meant, I would be surprised if a non-crazies criticism of lockdowns was getting downvoted here, which was the key datapoint I was commenting on. If HN people are downvoting a normal concern about lockdowns I would be disappointed. On second reading that was the intent the OP was writing towards.
    - spookthesunset 4y ago
      > If HN people are downvoting a normal concern about lockdowns I would be disappointed Be prepared to be very disappointed then. Literally every platform out there quashed even a tiny trace of critisism.
- jhugo 4y ago
  > Perhaps because it was always possible to do tiered lockdowns in a way that avoided these negative side effects but the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." I'm not going to poke through your post history but on HN I never saw a good faith solutions-oriented criticism to lockdown measures. That's conflating wildly different/disjoint beliefs into a single bucket. I have always thought lockdowns (of the type done by some European countries, UK, New Zealand, Australia, China) were a wildly disproportionate measure, and were doing more harm than good, but I also never thought COVID was "fake", and enthusiastically got vaccinated as soon as I could. An overall reduction of harm would have been achieved by simply not doing those lockdowns, in my opinion. > From what I saw of the rest of the world COVID lockdown responses were really weird, though. In Taiwan we also had lockdowns but they seemed quite sensible (though parts were absurd). [...] Similarly in southeast Asian countries I was in during the pandemic, most of the time outdoor activities were possible with sensible precautions. But it's also the case that people tend to have a more cohesive community, with extended family around, etc, which makes lockdowns more tolerable (as long as they're not the extreme kind of "do not leave your house for any reason" lockdown). That kind of local community cohesion is often not there in larger cities in Europe/US, so if your usual social activities (pub, cafe, organised events) are banned, you might not be left with much.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  > lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated Then you are living in a massive information bubble. It is completely laughable that every single intelligent person in the world is automatically on board with some of the most dramatic and least thought through disease mitigations in history. Science is a process for disproving theories. It isn’t a book of facts and it doesn’t have the capability to set policies. Well meaning, intelligent individuals can look at the data and come to completely different conclusions than the widespread narrative. For three years these people have been intentionally silenced.
spookthesunset 4y ago
It’s just a matter of time and cooler heads before it is widely recognized that our reaction to Covid was a huge mistake. I hope future generations learn from how ill prepared society was to deal with 24/7 news and social media. None of this would have happened even 10 years earlier. It just wouldn’t have been possible.

by jhugo 4y ago

komali2 4y ago

Perhaps because it was always possible to do tiered lockdowns in a way that avoided these negative side effects but the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." I'm not going to poke through your post history but on HN I never saw a good faith solutions-oriented criticism to lockdown measures. From what I saw of the rest of the world COVID lockdown responses were really weird, though. In Taiwan we also had lockdowns but they seemed quite sensible (though parts were absurd). For example, indoor dining was closed, but restaurants were able to stay open and serve food to go, or, offer outdoor dining if they could (this is rare in taiwan though, most just did to-go). That's a sensible covid measure as incidents of outside spread are rare and people can spread out easily outside, plus we have parks on like, every corner, so it's not a big deal. Public transit stayed open, but we had a mask policy, not that it was necessary since the population was happy to wear masks and continues to do so in situations not legally required here even today. So I don't think we'll have as bad of lockdown side effects as other countries, cause people were still going out and about, just, sensibly. (some of the stupid policies were the closing of outside exercise equipment. So dumb.)

User23 4y ago
> the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." I would encourage you to practice the intellectual humility required to consider the possibility the issue here was your lack of exposure to anything other than straw men.
- brigandish 4y ago
  Usually I would consider your comment to be a tad too rude for these parts but, perhaps like me, you've encountered this particular person before and hence, I think your comment and any slight, intended or otherwise, is spot on and fully deserved.
gruez 4y ago
>but the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." Seriously? In the 3 years of the pandemic, the only criticism of lockdowns you heard was "covid was fake"? I'm not sure whether this was because you don't pay enough attention to current affairs, or you do but get it from such a strong filter bubble that all objections were rounded down to the crazies (for lack of a better word). For what it's worth, I did hear about the objections that the parent poster mentioned early in the pandemic. The problem I suspect is that the existence of crazies poisoned the well for the debate. Once being anti-lockdown was associated with the right and/or conspiracy theorists, anyone objecting to lockdowns must be secretly right-wing and/or a conspiracy theorist and their objections were just a cover for their crazy belief that the virus was fake or whatever.
- komali2 4y ago
  Well that's more what I meant, I would be surprised if a non-crazies criticism of lockdowns was getting downvoted here, which was the key datapoint I was commenting on. If HN people are downvoting a normal concern about lockdowns I would be disappointed. On second reading that was the intent the OP was writing towards.
  - spookthesunset 4y ago
    > If HN people are downvoting a normal concern about lockdowns I would be disappointed Be prepared to be very disappointed then. Literally every platform out there quashed even a tiny trace of critisism.
jhugo 4y ago
> Perhaps because it was always possible to do tiered lockdowns in a way that avoided these negative side effects but the only criticism I ever saw was "lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated." I'm not going to poke through your post history but on HN I never saw a good faith solutions-oriented criticism to lockdown measures. That's conflating wildly different/disjoint beliefs into a single bucket. I have always thought lockdowns (of the type done by some European countries, UK, New Zealand, Australia, China) were a wildly disproportionate measure, and were doing more harm than good, but I also never thought COVID was "fake", and enthusiastically got vaccinated as soon as I could. An overall reduction of harm would have been achieved by simply not doing those lockdowns, in my opinion. > From what I saw of the rest of the world COVID lockdown responses were really weird, though. In Taiwan we also had lockdowns but they seemed quite sensible (though parts were absurd). [...] Similarly in southeast Asian countries I was in during the pandemic, most of the time outdoor activities were possible with sensible precautions. But it's also the case that people tend to have a more cohesive community, with extended family around, etc, which makes lockdowns more tolerable (as long as they're not the extreme kind of "do not leave your house for any reason" lockdown). That kind of local community cohesion is often not there in larger cities in Europe/US, so if your usual social activities (pub, cafe, organised events) are banned, you might not be left with much.
spookthesunset 4y ago
> lockdown bad because covid is fake, don't get vaccinated Then you are living in a massive information bubble. It is completely laughable that every single intelligent person in the world is automatically on board with some of the most dramatic and least thought through disease mitigations in history. Science is a process for disproving theories. It isn’t a book of facts and it doesn’t have the capability to set policies. Well meaning, intelligent individuals can look at the data and come to completely different conclusions than the widespread narrative. For three years these people have been intentionally silenced.

spookthesunset 4y ago

It’s just a matter of time and cooler heads before it is widely recognized that our reaction to Covid was a huge mistake. I hope future generations learn from how ill prepared society was to deal with 24/7 news and social media. None of this would have happened even 10 years earlier. It just wouldn’t have been possible.