America is giving up on the pandemic? • Hacker News Board

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#271

Post by bsder » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

alchemyromcom wrote: post #66

nr2x wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not getting a haircut won't kill you, the police will. Also, for the most part, anti-racism protestors are wearing masks, anti-lockdown people, for the most part, are not.

Losing your livelihood can kill you, however. If you are a small business owner, for example, and it's illegal to operate that business, your life is also in danger and your situation deserves empathy. Empathy is not finite resource. We can extend it to all people in bad situations, not just people we prefer.

> Losing your livelihood can kill you, however.

Why is "Reopen all the things!" the only solution, though?

Part of the reason why people got angry is because none of the people involved around the cosplaytriots wanted to consider any other options, and there are many.

1) The fact that losing your job costs you your healthcare is a political problem. The government can decide to extend healthcare by fiat, expand access, or several other choices.

2) The fact that people weren't getting paid unemployment that they filed for is a problem.

3) If you really believed in choice, give people $2,000 per month unconditionally but allow them to choose whether they wish to go back to work. Now we can see the free market in action.

Instead, the only thing on the cosplaytriot protest agenda was "Stay home and die or get back to work and possibly die". That's not exactly a protest sentiment that's going to get much grass roots support.

Putting a gun to people's heads is going to make them angry.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#272

Post by DeonPenny » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

The point of the lockdown is to prevent overloading the medical infrastructure. No one agreed to stop being around each other until the virus is gone. Since the overloading doesn't seem to be happening no one cares anymore.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#273

Post by sadsadsadsad » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #2

Why shouldn’t they? People were browbeaten for having the audacity to want to return to work. Now politicians are out marching shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other people. We also were told that Georgia was going to be a disaster for reopening too soon and that has not come to pass. It’s good to know that “believe science” and “stay home stay safe” are completely negotiable based on what is politically expedi…

GA is one of the ~10 or so states that has gone above 1.0 rt again, lol.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#274

Post by neonate » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

jumelles wrote: post #268

neonate wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making my point. You politically support one side more than the other, right down to belittling the side you unsupport as "I need a haircut". Maybe I agree with you politically, but when arguments from principle pivot from one week to the next based on which way the politics point, it's not really about principle.

It's not belittling them - that was their argument.

That might have been what one sign said, but picking that as if it were "their argument", let alone the best argument, is sample bias and clearly intended to belittle. That's politics: build up your own side as much as possible, smear the other side as much as possible. If someone actually wanted to be fair, they'd reference a stronger case for protesting the lockdown, such as the economic pain it has inflicted and the case that it also leads to deaths, such as by suicide and addiction, as well as social ills like increased child abuse and domestic violence. I'm not trying to take that side, just pointing out that intellectual honesty is the first casualty of politics, just like truth is the first casualty of war.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#275

Post by matwood » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

realtalk_sp wrote: post #251

eganist wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a certain misery that comes with [...] watching 10,000 people pack together downtown exercising their right to free assembly, and likely undoing all those months of progress. Yep, that's called privilege. And I'm not even trying to be snarky. From the perspective of the protesters, taking this opportunity to protest and possibly achieve change means hopefully lowering the general mortality risk for generati…

This is a baffling argument. Far more lives are threatened by coronavirus today than will be threatened by police brutality over the next several decades [1]. You're basically saying that immunocompromised and elderly persons are acceptable collateral damage. One thing that's been lost in the noise is that death by police brutality is a vanishingly small problem: less than 0.0003% of the population per year (and most…

I think it's incorrect to only count deaths as the fallout from police attitude towards minorities. An entire group of people is effectively controlled and held back my the police. As we have already seen, the impacts are generational and have gotten us to where we are today. COVID-19 is the thing will most likely be forgotten next year with some sort of vaccine or herd immunity arising. Even if the protests are successful, it will still be only another step on a long road of equality.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#276

Post by zarathustreal » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

chipperyman573 wrote: post #248

turndown wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one will take you seriously as a new user with the name "throwmehaweh". If you actually believe the things in your post, I recommend you use your actual account to state your beliefs. Your description of the protests as going downtown to riot is the type of misrepresentation we expect from children, not adults.

The account someone posts something from has nothing to do with the validity of their argument.

I second this sentiment. I would even take it a step further and say that "throwaway" accounts are a good thing, it allows a poster to give a less-than-politically-correct take on a topic and actually encourages candid conversation.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#277

Post by achenatx » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #235

neonate wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is the double standard with which some protestors were condemned while others were lauded based solely on which causes (and which classes of people) the commenters happened to politically support. It's transparently unprincipled, to the point of being a sad joke.

That's not a double standard. That's just a standard. When one group of people is holding signs that say "stop murdering people" and the other group is holding signs that say "I need a haircut," and you're mad that "the commenters" are not treating them the same, the problem is not with the commenters.

neonate I agree with you. "I need a haircut" is a proxy for economic freedom of choice and freedom of movement, regardless the purpose. Freedom of movement only for the causes you believe in is not freedom at all.

They want to be the judges that get to determine which movement is worthwhile and which movement is not worthwhile.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#278

Post by meritt » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

metrokoi wrote: post #90

Quoted from a letter from 1,000 health professionals on the virus and protests [0] >However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from…

> Don't tell us there is no risk from these protests, but there is a risk from stay-at-home protests.

The difference is the stay-at-home protesters overwhelmingly didn't wear masks [1] and the BLM protesters are overwhelmingly wearing masks [2]. Hong Kong has proven it's possible to have massive protests while wearing masks and not being vectors of infection. [3]

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

[2] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/protesters-aim-to-bring-one...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/world/asia/coronavirus-ho...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#279

Post by GuB-42 » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

metrokoi wrote: post #90

Quoted from a letter from 1,000 health professionals on the virus and protests [0] >However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from…

Also in the letter

> Prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest. Provide increased access to testing and care for people in the affected communities, especially when they or their family members put themselves at risk by attending protests.

The sentence "we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission" is a bit ambiguous, maybe on purpose. The idea is that they won't use the risk of COVID-19 transmission as a argument to disapprove of the gatherings.

They cannot say the gatherings are safe, because they aren't, but they also want to support them. That's how you get such an ambiguous message. I would have preferred a clearer stance as well like "We, as health professionals, recognize the risks, however, blah blah blah. You can minimize these risks by doing blah blah blah".

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#280

Post by realtalk_sp » Sun, Jun 07, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #275

realtalk_sp wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a baffling argument. Far more lives are threatened by coronavirus today than will be threatened by police brutality over the next several decades [1]. You're basically saying that immunocompromised and elderly persons are acceptable collateral damage. One thing that's been lost in the noise is that death by police brutality is a vanishingly small problem: less than 0.0003% of the population per year (and most…

I think it's incorrect to only count deaths as the fallout from police attitude towards minorities. An entire group of people is effectively controlled and held back my the police. As we have already seen, the impacts are generational and have gotten us to where we are today. COVID-19 is the thing will most likely be forgotten next year with some sort of vaccine or herd immunity arising. Even if the protests are succ…

I'm so flabbergasted by this argument on behalf of killing innocent people I barely even know where to begin. In my mind, there is almost no cause that warrants the avoidable death of even a single person, let alone tens of thousands. Clearly you have a very different morality.