The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#121

Post by jacobolus » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

austhrow743 wrote: post #119

jacobolus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it’s worth more than a million US deaths so people don’t have to wear masks at grocery stores, take online classes, or stop going to disneyland, movie theaters, concerts, and live sporting events for the next 6-12 months, I don’t know what to tell you. If you are planning to take no precautions because to do so would be mildly personally inconvenient, I sincerely hope you stay far away from my neighborho…

Do you have similar feelings about other convenience/death trade offs? Getting rid of soft drink, fast food, alcohol, all sorts of things would save so very many years while overall I would think impact lives less than corona virus measures do. Particularly quality adjusted life years.

You drinking Coke or eating fries will not directly lead to the death of your neighbor’s mother, and has no chance to start chains of infection that could kill hundreds or thousands of people.

I do e.g. feel pretty strongly that people who drive cars while drunk or high are being incredibly selfish and antisocial (not to mention breaking the law).

I do feel that cigarette companies doing their best to trick people into using products that directly lead to their deaths are unethical.

Likewise it is unethical for people to dump toxic sludge into the local river.

And so on.

In normal times, public officials should try to err on the side of letting people do things that are personally risky but don’t kill third parties (say, skydiving, participating in contact sports, drinking cocktails, or having casual sex), while trying to accurately inform people of the risks involved. During a pandemic, however, public officials must be willing to take more extreme measures when the public is not compliant with basic precautions.

Luckily this pandemic doesn’t actually require so strict a lockdown as was done in China. Getting everyone to wear masks while in public and dramatically reducing people’s indoor gatherings seems to be enough to get the reproductive number below 1. It seems that grocery store visits, take-out/delivery meals, exercise outdoors, limited social gatherings outdoors with reasonable precautions, etc. can effectively balance people’s basic social needs with controlling the epidemic.

Any workers whose jobs are not possible under such precautions should be paid by the state until the crisis is less acute.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#122

Post by tathougies » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:50 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #102

tathougies wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure.. Easy for you to say. You're likely white so statistically 'avoiding' it for most people on hacker news is simply existing as a white person. Try growing up in a poor minority neighborhood in Chicago... Not so easy.

I did grow up in a shitty neighborhood, I’m speaking from experience. Moving when I was in middle school changed my environment from seeing police responding to violence multiple times a month and watching friends getting pulled into gangs to seeing no violence at all without the city level stats changing. Being white does not help when you’re that poor. Anyway, you’ve missed my entire point. Even when you’re in the…

Sure, and that's true everywhere, but 'keeping your head low' often means neglecting the very activities that may bring you out of poverty. It's hard to 'keep your head low' if you wanna start a business, or another initiative to make the community better.

So, yes, certainly you can lay low and be safe, but this sense of safety comes at the price of prosperity.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#123

Post by DennisP » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

ptero wrote: post #28

> With the Spanish flu a century ago, people adapted their individual behavior, but social life proceeded more or less as before. “Public places of amusement” were shuttered, but work and business were little affected overall. This is a pretty telling difference with how we perceive the world today. During the last decades most people living in the "first world" (however you define it today) lost ability to rationall…

I'm currently reading 1918 by John Barry. People absolutely did not take the pandemic in stride. In fact, they "adapted their individual behavior" far more than people are doing today, because they were terrified. A large percentage of people simply stopped showing up for work, even in defense-related businesses during a world war. Social life "more or less" came to a halt, because people were afraid of each other. As for government actions, there were mask mandates, closures of businesses in some areas, and towns that posted armed guards at the borders to keep outsiders away.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#124

Post by Klinky » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #118

Klinky wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have been more impressive if it predicted demand in advance, so they were actually available when needed. It would have been more impressive if there was a domestic source, but that no longer made economical sense in the market. It wasn't 3 - 4 weeks for many, it was months for some. Likely healthcare workers could get them within weeks, but initial supplies ran out, likely costing lives. While government sh…

I agree with you, but I suspect you and the GP comment are referring to different things when you say "masks." I'm thinking of the N95 masks that are proven to offer pretty good protection from respiratory droplets. I believe the GP may be referring to either disposable surgical masks, or some sort of other mask that is not rated for any sort of specific protection.

They'd have to have had their head in the sand if they didn't understand all PPEs(N95/non-N95 masks, shields, gowns) were in short/critical supply. There were also shady deals being made at high prices, and counterfeits flooding the market. Once again the market optimized for the profit of a few and not preparedness or quality of life.

Re: The Great Pause Was an Economic Revolution

#125

Post by omosubi » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #124

pmiller2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but I suspect you and the GP comment are referring to different things when you say "masks." I'm thinking of the N95 masks that are proven to offer pretty good protection from respiratory droplets. I believe the GP may be referring to either disposable surgical masks, or some sort of other mask that is not rated for any sort of specific protection.

They'd have to have had their head in the sand if they didn't understand all PPEs(N95/non-N95 masks, shields, gowns) were in short/critical supply. There were also shady deals being made at high prices, and counterfeits flooding the market. Once again the market optimized for the profit of a few and not preparedness or quality of life.

Of course I understand that there was a shortage of N95 masks but much of the government isn't setup to buy enormous quantities of stuff in a few days in a market where there a lot of bad actors.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5x8WrjXmV9RnluuHr1ZOcR?si=F... Notice that this was made April 3rd