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“I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

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Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#81

Post by skrebbel »

black_puppydog wrote: post #15

I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…

> There you go, I guess I just pissed on every holy cow this crowd has. You know where the downvote button is.

Your comment would've been stronger without this line.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#82

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

tomp wrote: post #71
netsharc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sane/benovelent governments will probably switch to universal basic income, i.e. go deep into debt and just pay everyone money to live. And no, actually going into debt is not a huge problem, ask Keynes, or what happened in WW2; it was an emergency and governments borrowed and borrowed with no fear.

I never understood this logic, and I understand it even less now. If we have the industrial / economic capacity to provide everyone with necessities of life (food, water, heat, shelter, ...), why not just provide that directly?! No need to go via the "money -> essentials" route... that way you're only indirectly making landlords and grocery store owners rich. For this crisis, people are saying, give $1000 to everyone…

I don’t see there being any material difference in providing cash vs providing food stamps / rent amnesty.

Either way, government money (ie. tax money) will be funnelled to, in your words, “already rich people”.

Your way is probably worse, because it forces governments to pick winners, which they are notoriously bad at doing.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#83

Post by [deleted] »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #39

Some solutions that already exist, are already in use and could be firmed up: 1. Working from home. 2. Ordering online and getting takeout. 3. Using self checkout. 4. Collaboration and socialization via phone and internet. You can't get sick if you aren't exposed. People don't get sick due to some random number generator. You have to have a vector. We already know a great many ways to disrupt the spread. The antidote…

[deleted]

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#84

Post by jnwatson »

black_puppydog wrote: post #15

I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…

You’re essentially asking for the end of capitalism, and a restructuring of the economy we haven’t seen since the Great Leap Forward and the Maha Lout Ploh.

The bullshit jobs are mostly the good jobs right now. The travel, restaurant, and entertainment industries are filled with non-bullshit jobs that are going away in the next week.

In other words, you’re asking for half the world to get a different job.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#85

Post by mcsb4 »

I don't understand why we are not trying to interrupt the transmission vectors with masks and hand sanitizer like the Chinese do. They ramped the daily production from 10M to 100M and even advised the use of make-shift masks.

The reaction in the west: masks are not protecting 100% and also we don't have any and we are too lazy to produce them, although they are much cheaper than the economic impact covid-19 has.

1. you go out, you wear a mask

2. you are not allowed into a super market without hand sanitizing

3. you clean your hands when coming home or going into your office

4. wear any kind of glasses

We know the transmission vectors but the whole response in the west is solely based on quarantaine - like we would still not know what viruses are and how they are transmitted.

Reducing social contact is one thing, reducing virus dispersion is the other and it is cheap.

You have a sewing machine? Go start making masks.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#86

Post by grandinj »

roenxi wrote: post #19

> The correlation between per-capita GDP and health (life expectancy) is essentially perfect. I've seen this said before; this is not considering correlation vs. causation. High per capita GDP correlates exceedingly well with technological and scientific mastery. A global economic collapse would lead to some lives lost and be very painful, obviously. But if the economic damage is in the tourism industry or entertainm…

Exactly. Also, that scatter has very high variance. I feel a lot less confident about the authors conclusions if they call that a "perfect" correlation

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#87

Post by kijin »

londons_explore wrote: post #27
jonrimmer wrote: post #12

In this event, the solution will be the creation of a permanent, South Korea and China inspired infrastructure for testing, tracking and constraining infectious citizens by all developed countries. Regardless of the privacy and civil liberty concerns, I think that's where we'll eventually end up, and to your children it will one day seem crazy that a person with an infectious illness was once able to freely walk the…

Imagine a future where you do a swab test every morning while brushing your teeth. If you had any of thousands of infectious diseases, you're required to stay home. The test would take only 5 minutes, and you get fined if you don't do it, and receive sick pay if you test positive. I imagine that within a few years of rolling this out, common colds might be a thing of the past, and overall worker productivity higher r…

Here's a less dystopian variation of your idea.

Everyone has access to those swabs, either for free, included with their health insurance plan, or at a marginal cost. It's not mandatory to use it every day, but there are incentives such as automatic sick pay and discounts on health insurance. On the other hand, there will be serious legal consequences if you test positive, decide to go to work anyway, and end up infecting other people. If it was your employer who told you to come in, your employer bears those consequences instead.

Money speaks louder than common sense. One of the reasons law exists is to tweak the incentive structure so that they align better with common sense.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#88

Post by redis_mlc »

rapsey wrote: post #75
redis_mlc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I would say no, since there were multiple famines since then. 1) Post-WW2, most of the Eastern Hemisphere experienced famine and underemployment for a decade. (Britain had food ration coupons for 9 years afterwards.) 2) The Cold War was pretty scary and greatly impoverished the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, N. Vietnam and N. Korea. China had the Great Famine from 1959 - 1961, killing "tens of millions." 4) Polio was a sc…

Sounds cruel but famines are localised suffering that have little effect on the rest of the world. Of course if you measure deaths it is not anywhere close to anything. If you measure global life impact it is surpassing everything since ww2.

I suggest you read my comment again.

Famine due to global warfare is not localized, and each one listed had tens of millions of fatalities.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#89

Post by jstummbillig »

black_puppydog wrote: post #15

I don't agree with the conclusion. We can scale down our economies and still maintain production of essentials by ` `drumroll` ` scaling back shit that nobody needs. Starting with an overblown healthcare admin system in the US, IMHO, but also including less inflammatory non-essential things like yet another range of plastic toys and luxury perfumes and and and. Essentially in this scenario, we should take this as an…

I have zero strong feelings about anything you wrote, no holy cows, no anything else – but I do despise downvote-martyrdom. Please, let's not make this place reddit.

Re: “I'm not sure there is an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing”

#90

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #77
netsharc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sane/benovelent governments will probably switch to universal basic income, i.e. go deep into debt and just pay everyone money to live. And no, actually going into debt is not a huge problem, ask Keynes, or what happened in WW2; it was an emergency and governments borrowed and borrowed with no fear.

The real bullshit is the idea of debt in the first place. There is no debt. There's only the use of "debt" and "lending" as a thinly disguised pretext for feudal tribute used for political advantage. If we don't work through this it's going to kill us as a species. Doing strategically useful stuff that generates invention and opportunity instead of making plastic toys that end up in landfill is a different but not en…

The fact that we have collectively chosen to prioritise designing, manufacturing, distributing, promoting, and selling, the volume of plastic bullshit that we do, surely says something about us that warrants deep collective reflection.
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