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Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

npr.org

371–380 of 1001 posts

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#371

I think a lot of people in this discussion are pitting the argument at people prioritizing their individual choices over the collective health of the community. I think that is a very singular framing from one side. A lot of people I know just believe that the virus itself is not as deadly as the reaction warrants. The infectious mortality rate of Covid is at best twice that of the normal flu, which isn't nothing and…

To amplify this, while I appreciate the passion some people have for community health, there has been a pattern of bald-faced lying that is unsustainable and potentially counterproductive. I can see somebody going to the gym and not feeling bad about it for that reason alone.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#372

I think a lot of people in this discussion are pitting the argument at people prioritizing their individual choices over the collective health of the community. I think that is a very singular framing from one side. A lot of people I know just believe that the virus itself is not as deadly as the reaction warrants. The infectious mortality rate of Covid is at best twice that of the normal flu, which isn't nothing and…

Not "possible depression". Depression. The economy crashed. It's over. The government's been buying the stock market to prop everything up. All the numbers you see are fabricated. The market never recovered from the initial crash. Last I checked a 3rd of Americans aren't paying rent now? It's going to explode dude.

AFAIK global capitalism has been in an over production crisis since at least 2008. So it's not a depression due to covid-19, but a worsening of the existing depression due to covid-19.

Still, those on top are still raking in profit - arguably the crisis isn't that we suddenly are running out of energy, food or housing - just that we're distributing it so badly that we've created poor living conditions for a lot of people.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being down-voted because snitches get stitches. Don't be the neighborhood rat.

> You're being down-voted because snitches get stitches. Don't be the neighborhood rat. That ethic is really counterintuitive to me. I'd be really interested if you want to expound on it a bit. E.g., Are there limits to where you'd apply it? Does it apply to laws that you (personally) do want to have vigorously enforced?

Yes of course there are limits, nothing should be held as an absolute. I also don't think it's a very complicated ethic, you follow it until it's no longer the right thing to do. As another commenter noted, rape and murder etc. obviously don't apply.

Most people can come to decisions like this without the mediation of a legal system. In this particular case, I don't think that ratting on gym owners who are trying to salvage their livelihoods by serving willing customers is worthy of reporting to the authorities.

Never thought I'd see the day where Americans turn in their neighbors to the state.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid strikes me as a unique situation that doesn't come up that often. It is a longer term threat than most "emergencies", but still fundamentally a temporary concern. One way or another, it will be resolved within a few years (hopefully sooner); and the facts on the ground still change relatively quickly. It may last for a longer term than most emergencies; but still operates on a smaller timeline than legislatures…

Michigan Rs are working to revoke the governor's authorities. https://apnews.com/b59e940736457cd98d73436be1a1d68a

They're doing that in Minnesota too. But that's it. Just removing the emergency declaration. No other solutions to what to do are being proposed, just removing the declaration.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#375

I think a lot of people in this discussion are pitting the argument at people prioritizing their individual choices over the collective health of the community. I think that is a very singular framing from one side. A lot of people I know just believe that the virus itself is not as deadly as the reaction warrants. The infectious mortality rate of Covid is at best twice that of the normal flu, which isn't nothing and…

> It's pretty rational for someone to understand that and make personal choices...

No, it's not; it's arrogant.

All of the epidemiologists and experts seem to think otherwise. What do you know that they don't?

So far 172,000 people have died in the US due to Coronavirus, directly[1]. The actual number of people who have died, if you factor in the effect of the virus on infrastructure and missed diagnoses is about double that[2].

We're approaching the total death toll of World War II[3].

Your claim that it's comparable to lightning, which kills about 50 people per year in the USA, is completely inaccurate and displays a grandiose arrogance. An arrogance that, nationwide, has resulted in a staggering number of tragedies this year.

[1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Total_...

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#377
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US didn't have a federal strategy to deal with the pandemic. They shot at their own foot and didn't give themselves a chance to be successful. The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm watching Champions league finals on TV and Wuhan pool party clips on twitter, thinking wtf went wrong here.

> The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm not really sure on that, lets take greece, which was praised for their strategy (I was in greece during the lockdown). They didnt have a strategy, they just locked down before there was an outbreak and blocked flights, so no spread. Now they have an outbreak because they stopped all there restrictions. They were just luc…

>The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning

I keep seeing this narrative but I can never find the data to support it. When you look at the data, Sweden has the worst of both worlds.

1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.

2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.

There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#378
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you know that you can be a carrier and infect less healthy people right?

Then lets lockdown and force people who are less healthy to take all the steps to protect themselves, and leave alone the healty ones ?

Vulnerable people have needs that are supplied by the broader community (food, medicines, medical care, etc) so it's impossible to fully isolate vulnerable populations.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Introverts vs extroverts. Humans are social animals. Socialization is a basic human need. It is much harder for some people to stay inside and not socialize than others. We are now on month 7 of being told to not socialize or see or do anything. I continue to obey the orders, but I totally get why some people are starting to crack.

...We are now on month 7... And if people had actually sheltered in place back in March, we might be opening back up (or opening with fewer COVID clusters).

I don't believe this for a second. The total number of people that managed to contract it in New Zealand within the last week was under 10, and they locked down an entire city because of it.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#380

It's not just gyms. It's underground bars, hair salons, hot stone yoga joints, and all kinds of things. While the hair salons were closed, my wife's hairdresser was texting her every three days to get her into her underground makeshift totally illegal hair place. And slightly realated, quarantines don't work when people aren't actually quarantined. There was an article in the newspaper last week or the week before ab…

"Totally illegal underground makeshift hair place" I'm confused, if the participants wear a mask, will the virus be transmitted or not?

What evidence from the US can you present that people will universally wear masks or that they'd wear them correctly? It's far easier to accept that they won't correctly wear masks and this path of exploration fails at step 0.
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