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You’re missing the forest for the trees. It’s not about if the lockdowns were better or worse, not even a bit. It’s about whether or not governments should have

You’re missing the forest for the trees. It’s not about if the lockdowns were better or worse, not even a bit. It’s about whether or not governments should have the power and ability to enact lockdowns in the first place. This was a somewhat mocked perspective when the general idea was the lockdowns were absolutely necessary. Now that the data, retrospectively, seems muddled and unclear, the conversation can recenter on if the government we want should even have the power to do what they did. It’s not even a little bit about being inconvenienced, and anyone who says that is either a straw man or an idiot. It’s about the basic principle of the individual and their rights versus the group. Of course it was a chaotic natural disaster. The question is, in the face of a natural disaster, do you or do you not want the ability to make your own decisions. I’m no anarchist or libertarian, but if we can’t understand why those folks are really pissed off and why it has nothing to do with whatever the R-naught actually was, we’ll never make progress.

discreteevent 3y ago
It depends on what you mean by "your own decision". For example: If someone wants to smoke in the office that should be their own decision.
fzeroracer 3y ago
I mean ultimately the answer is yes. People look at COVID and say it's not a big deal, but I look at it and say that we're lucky it wasn't something far worse. We're not at all prepared if we have something like a Black Death 2.0 and ultimately your ability to function as an individual depends on society's ability to actually function. Even the half-assed measures we took against COVID helped prevent our hospital systems from completely collapsing which would've led to far more deaths. The fact that people don't see this means they've grown too comfortable with modern society and how far we've become in preventing disease spread. Maybe it'll take a Black Death 2.0 for people to understand this.
- eastbound 3y ago
  > but I look at it and say that we're lucky it wasn't something far worse So it wasn’t. We knew it was mild, certainly worse than flu, but still mostly killing the elderly above life expectancy. - We knew newspapers were grossly exaggerating information to the point of saying obvious bait (“the vaccine enlarges the penis” — yup they said it), - We knew newspapers were under gag order to publish misinformation. - We knew that most governments declared the law of exception and state of emergency, so from that point, no information could be trusted. We knew it was mild because everyone was in a state of hysteria, from “SO YOU WANT TO KILL ALL GRANDMOTHERS” to “IN NYC THEY USE GIANT DUMPSTER TRUCKS TO CARRY THE DEADS TO THE MORGUE, SO WHY ARE YOU AGAINST LOCKDOWNS”. We knew it was all a gross exaggeration.
doug_durham 3y ago
Public Health == Police == Fire fighting. They all exist to protect the population. They are peers. That some how Public Health would occur outside of the government is truly odd. Would you be in favor of Fire Departments being left up to individuals?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- viraptor 3y ago
  Slight tangent but that's an interesting example, because while healthcare and police have (at least in theory, not the point here) training/accountability requirements, there are many places with locally organised fire response units alongside of the gov organised ones. Especially in areas far away from larger towns, communities pick up a lot of organisation and responsibility for practical reasons. In extreme cases of very isolated farms, it's literally the individuals that deal with the problems unless it's likely to becomes a widespread issue.
pupppet 3y ago
I would argue it is the government’s job to ensure there is room in our hospitals.
cortesoft 3y ago
Whether or not you agree if these particular lockdowns were needed, I can't believe anyone would argue there is NO situation where a government should have the legal authority to order a lockdown. What if Covid had a 50% mortality rate? Would that not have justified a lockdown?
- dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
  > Would that not have justified a lockdown? No, not even a 100% mortality rate justifies a lockdown Movement of individuals (as long as he/she is not moving into your home/territory etc.) is IMO a sacred 'right' that one must offer one's fellow humans. It's a slippery slope if a dire situation however real is used as a justification for a lockdown.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    After reading your comment, I have a better understanding of the thoughts that may be going through the mind of "Tuberculosis Tammy", who has infectious TB and has been on the run from isolation/treatment since January 2022[1]. I disagree with the concept that individual freedoms trumps the safety of other's, as does society at large, which deems some level of negligence to be criminal. I hope the next pandemic has a short incubation period and ultra-high mortality. 1. https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/05/fugitive-with-untreated-tuberculosis-continues-to-stump-law-enforcement/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/05/fugitive-with-untreat...
    - eastbound 3y ago
      > individual freedoms trumps the safety of other's See, you’re using the fallacy, right here. We can still do both.
      - sangnoir 3y ago
        > We can still do both. I was hoping you'd explain in more detail, so I wont have to assume what your reasoning. By "do both", were you perhaps referring to measures like masks mandates while allowing people move freely? Unsurprisingly, some people felt mandates violated the sanctity of their individual rights too.
joe_the_user 3y ago
It’s about whether or not governments should have the power and ability to enact lockdowns in the first place. This was a somewhat mocked perspective when the general idea was the lockdowns were absolutely necessary. I'd never mock the perspective, the situation is too serious. When there was an active fire threatening my town a couple years, emergency issued an evacuation order and arrested people who came into the area. When I worked as a teacher in the 1990s, I had to get various vaccines as a condition for having a job. When I traveled in 2012, I also had to get some vaccines to visit various countries. Health departments have for a long time required restaurants to control the behavior of their customers including preventing them from, say coughing on the salad bar. Covid involved the state using it's existing powers on a larger scale, no doubt. And how well it did that can certainly be debated. But all the powers the state used existed already. So the arguments that try to put paint this situation as fundamentally new and wrong are incorrect. That they were accompanied by efforts to also falsify the nature of the illness itself reinforces the perspective that they were disingenuous. But I recognize people can convince themselves of a lot when it suits them. if we can’t understand why those folks are really pissed off As far as I can tell, the anger about state actions against and claims that it was some new are part of the generally polarized state of American politics. So, I think I understand. People are map 'cause they're convinced themselves of self-serving baloney. That's not an unusual source of anger for humans. But this doesn't make me "understanding" as you can imagine. Indeed, those people sure aren't the only angry ones and shouldn't be treat as special for their anger.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  My early memory is when I was a kid they were drafting 18 year olds and sending them to Vietnam. 15 years before that they were sending young men to Korea. And before that 10 million men to Europe and the Pacific. If you want something more related in 1948 or some such there was a small outbreak of smallpox in New York. And they vaccinated 80% of the city in a couple of months. Speaks to me that while the state has and always had had these powers it's become loath to use them.
poorUs 3y ago
You think you’ll have freedom to make your own decisions when millions of others are doing the same? I think you’ll just have a natural disaster and a man-made disaster as people start shooting over toilet paper. Look how they acted over haircuts. Look how 3 years later people are shooting folks who use their driveway to turn around. Americans have a huge credibility issue, and act like god damn chimps flinging shit in the best of times. You and too many others are afflicted with the idea you live in a vacuum. Your mind palace doesn’t exist to me.
lazide 3y ago
The assumption here though is that there is not a situation where lockdowns are not only entirely appropriate, but would be uncontroversial except for a tiny majority. But there are trivial examples where it would be. Like outbreaks of: - Smallpox - Ebola - Weaponized Anthrax - Some other novel bug with high fatality rates. You don't have to go very far back to figure out WHY the laws being used were put in place. Even in the 60's-70's, if someone had Measles they'd be in enforced quarantine in their house along with the rest of their family until it cleared. Because not doing that kills people. Innocent people. Often a lot more innocent people than the original infected, all because someone got selfish and couldn't control what they were doing. Look at the number of people killed by Typhoid Mary [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/] That people are angry is very true. But frankly they'd be angry regardless. It doesn't stop the very real reason why society needs to protect itself. Then the discussion comes down to 'when is the societally acceptable threshold for measures to be taken'.

discreteevent 3y ago

It depends on what you mean by "your own decision". For example: If someone wants to smoke in the office that should be their own decision.

fzeroracer 3y ago

I mean ultimately the answer is yes. People look at COVID and say it's not a big deal, but I look at it and say that we're lucky it wasn't something far worse. We're not at all prepared if we have something like a Black Death 2.0 and ultimately your ability to function as an individual depends on society's ability to actually function. Even the half-assed measures we took against COVID helped prevent our hospital systems from completely collapsing which would've led to far more deaths. The fact that people don't see this means they've grown too comfortable with modern society and how far we've become in preventing disease spread. Maybe it'll take a Black Death 2.0 for people to understand this.

eastbound 3y ago
> but I look at it and say that we're lucky it wasn't something far worse So it wasn’t. We knew it was mild, certainly worse than flu, but still mostly killing the elderly above life expectancy. - We knew newspapers were grossly exaggerating information to the point of saying obvious bait (“the vaccine enlarges the penis” — yup they said it), - We knew newspapers were under gag order to publish misinformation. - We knew that most governments declared the law of exception and state of emergency, so from that point, no information could be trusted. We knew it was mild because everyone was in a state of hysteria, from “SO YOU WANT TO KILL ALL GRANDMOTHERS” to “IN NYC THEY USE GIANT DUMPSTER TRUCKS TO CARRY THE DEADS TO THE MORGUE, SO WHY ARE YOU AGAINST LOCKDOWNS”. We knew it was all a gross exaggeration.

doug_durham 3y ago

Public Health == Police == Fire fighting. They all exist to protect the population. They are peers. That some how Public Health would occur outside of the government is truly odd. Would you be in favor of Fire Departments being left up to individuals?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
viraptor 3y ago
Slight tangent but that's an interesting example, because while healthcare and police have (at least in theory, not the point here) training/accountability requirements, there are many places with locally organised fire response units alongside of the gov organised ones. Especially in areas far away from larger towns, communities pick up a lot of organisation and responsibility for practical reasons. In extreme cases of very isolated farms, it's literally the individuals that deal with the problems unless it's likely to becomes a widespread issue.

pupppet 3y ago

I would argue it is the government’s job to ensure there is room in our hospitals.

cortesoft 3y ago

Whether or not you agree if these particular lockdowns were needed, I can't believe anyone would argue there is NO situation where a government should have the legal authority to order a lockdown. What if Covid had a 50% mortality rate? Would that not have justified a lockdown?

dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
> Would that not have justified a lockdown? No, not even a 100% mortality rate justifies a lockdown Movement of individuals (as long as he/she is not moving into your home/territory etc.) is IMO a sacred 'right' that one must offer one's fellow humans. It's a slippery slope if a dire situation however real is used as a justification for a lockdown.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  After reading your comment, I have a better understanding of the thoughts that may be going through the mind of "Tuberculosis Tammy", who has infectious TB and has been on the run from isolation/treatment since January 2022[1]. I disagree with the concept that individual freedoms trumps the safety of other's, as does society at large, which deems some level of negligence to be criminal. I hope the next pandemic has a short incubation period and ultra-high mortality. 1. https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/05/fugitive-with-untreated-tuberculosis-continues-to-stump-law-enforcement/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/05/fugitive-with-untreat...
  - eastbound 3y ago
    > individual freedoms trumps the safety of other's See, you’re using the fallacy, right here. We can still do both.
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      > We can still do both. I was hoping you'd explain in more detail, so I wont have to assume what your reasoning. By "do both", were you perhaps referring to measures like masks mandates while allowing people move freely? Unsurprisingly, some people felt mandates violated the sanctity of their individual rights too.

joe_the_user 3y ago

It’s about whether or not governments should have the power and ability to enact lockdowns in the first place. This was a somewhat mocked perspective when the general idea was the lockdowns were absolutely necessary. I'd never mock the perspective, the situation is too serious. When there was an active fire threatening my town a couple years, emergency issued an evacuation order and arrested people who came into the area. When I worked as a teacher in the 1990s, I had to get various vaccines as a condition for having a job. When I traveled in 2012, I also had to get some vaccines to visit various countries. Health departments have for a long time required restaurants to control the behavior of their customers including preventing them from, say coughing on the salad bar. Covid involved the state using it's existing powers on a larger scale, no doubt. And how well it did that can certainly be debated. But all the powers the state used existed already. So the arguments that try to put paint this situation as fundamentally new and wrong are incorrect. That they were accompanied by efforts to also falsify the nature of the illness itself reinforces the perspective that they were disingenuous. But I recognize people can convince themselves of a lot when it suits them. if we can’t understand why those folks are really pissed off As far as I can tell, the anger about state actions against and claims that it was some new are part of the generally polarized state of American politics. So, I think I understand. People are map 'cause they're convinced themselves of self-serving baloney. That's not an unusual source of anger for humans. But this doesn't make me "understanding" as you can imagine. Indeed, those people sure aren't the only angry ones and shouldn't be treat as special for their anger.

Gibbon1 3y ago
My early memory is when I was a kid they were drafting 18 year olds and sending them to Vietnam. 15 years before that they were sending young men to Korea. And before that 10 million men to Europe and the Pacific. If you want something more related in 1948 or some such there was a small outbreak of smallpox in New York. And they vaccinated 80% of the city in a couple of months. Speaks to me that while the state has and always had had these powers it's become loath to use them.

poorUs 3y ago

You think you’ll have freedom to make your own decisions when millions of others are doing the same? I think you’ll just have a natural disaster and a man-made disaster as people start shooting over toilet paper. Look how they acted over haircuts. Look how 3 years later people are shooting folks who use their driveway to turn around. Americans have a huge credibility issue, and act like god damn chimps flinging shit in the best of times. You and too many others are afflicted with the idea you live in a vacuum. Your mind palace doesn’t exist to me.

lazide 3y ago

The assumption here though is that there is not a situation where lockdowns are not only entirely appropriate, but would be uncontroversial except for a tiny majority. But there are trivial examples where it would be. Like outbreaks of: - Smallpox - Ebola - Weaponized Anthrax - Some other novel bug with high fatality rates. You don't have to go very far back to figure out WHY the laws being used were put in place. Even in the 60's-70's, if someone had Measles they'd be in enforced quarantine in their house along with the rest of their family until it cleared. Because not doing that kills people. Innocent people. Often a lot more innocent people than the original infected, all because someone got selfish and couldn't control what they were doing. Look at the number of people killed by Typhoid Mary [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/] That people are angry is very true. But frankly they'd be angry regardless. It doesn't stop the very real reason why society needs to protect itself. Then the discussion comes down to 'when is the societally acceptable threshold for measures to be taken'.