Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

741–750 of 1001 posts

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#741

Post by nradov »

rootusrootus wrote: post #699
djsumdog wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varied and we're seeing more cases in the EU coming out of the lockdown. Hell, NZ went for total elimination and they got more cases (possibly due to freight?) When this is over, I bet the entire planet will have rates similar to Sweden. My theory is lockdowns delay the inevitable. We should protect the most at risk (95% of fatalities in the US are ages 55+), but we also need to realize there is no way to really s…

> there is no way to really stop a virus in circulation Sure there is, a vaccine.

A vaccine will be nice to have but it won't be sufficient to eradicate the virus. Some people won't be vaccinated. No vaccine is 100% effective. And there are animal reservoirs; we obviously can't vaccinate wild animals.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#742

Post by hadleybelter »

sneak wrote: post #540
hadleybelter wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I also don’t want them to shut down gyms, or voting, or churches, or any other peaceful reason (dumb) people wish to assemble. You are attempting to equate assembly for the purpose of fighting racism or exercising vitally important activities like voting, with "assembly" for the purpose of "sick gainz bruh". This is such a false equivalency that it's laughable, and honestly also a little insulting.

The right to peaceful assembly is not conditional on legitimate purpose; same as the right to free expression. Free speech means freedom to shitpost, not just write literature. Correspondingly, freedom of assembly is for stupid and pointless things like church, moderately important things like gym, and not just critically important things like insurrection. The proliferation of “illegal” gyms suggests that many peopl…

>The right to peaceful assembly is not conditional on legitimate purpose; same as the right to free expression.

Yes it absolutely is. I have no idea why you think otherwise. The right to "free expression" is conditional as well. We prohibit certain "peaceful assembly" and "free expression" every single day and have done so for centuries. The classical example: you do not have the "right to free expression" to go into a crowded place and falsely yell "fire", because that would be a public danger. Similarly, going to a gym during a pandemic causes a public danger. "Right to peaceful assembly" doesn't apply.

"Peaceful assembly to work out" is in no way similar to "peaceful assembly for protesting". It's ridiculous of you to claim otherwise. It's so ridiculous that I can only believe you're trolling or trying to make an argument in bad faith.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#743

Post by matz1 »

bluGill wrote: post #308
hammock wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you plan to avoid COVID forever? Do you believe you will never get it? Do you expect to isolate yourself until an effective and reliable vaccine is available to you? How long can you do that for? Are you most concerned with not getting it yourself, or with reducing the overall death count by not overloading the healthcare system?

I'm most concerned with my family not getting it. I have no interest in attending another funeral for a child in my life and I would not want my kids to grow up missing a parent. We miss friends dearly. I'm hoping that the early vaccine trials go well and are approved. There is promising progress there but who knows.

There are very very small chance that your kid will negativity by covid let alone death.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#744

Post by mandeepj »

cm2187 wrote: post #706
svnpenn wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has twice the population of the United States. Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day. Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control. The US never did that, most states (like my home state of Texas) did a half-assed closing for 3 weeks, so the numbers never really got under control.

It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there. I have seen recently that serology tests in Italy have shown the same outcome for people who were locked down than essential workers who were not locked down (and mortality stats in the UK told a sim…

> WHO does not support lockdowns.

WHO is corrupt, and has been politicized. They were also against masks at the beginning, and also said COVID does not transmit from human to human.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#745

Post by p1necone »

Khaine wrote: post #735
WD-42 wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s still whole numbers for anyone over 60, and significant numbers still for anyone below it. Have you ever seriously contemplated death? If you have, those numbers don’t seem very good, not at all. Not to mention these are stats for DEATH. Meaning these are the worst case scenario. Dead. The chances of getting seriously ill, like major suffering, are much higher. Would you want to experience that? Would you wish…

Sure, but how many of those people would have died from the normal flu? I know this is a morbid topic, but it gets to a fundamental truth. How valuable is a human life? Is it worth significantly damaging the future of the young through economic depression and increased social isolation and mental illness to extend the life old old people by a year, 5 years? There is no easy solution. We can hibernate as much of the n…

Why are you so certain that hundreds of thousands of deaths are not going to seriously affect the economy either?

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#746

Post by rocha »

helaoban wrote: post #701
rocha wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also congratulations for not caring about a 1 in 200 chance of death. >> Where's the data to back up any close to an assertion like this? Latest IFR estimates are between 0.5% and 1.0% (1 in 200 to 1 in 100). https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/estimating...

An almost meaningless number when not controlled for age, ethnicity, general health etc. I don't understand how this number can be reasonably used to say anything about basically anything. From the document you site: > Many such serological surveys are currently being > undertaken worldwide [10], and some have thus far > suggested substantial under-ascertainment of cases, with estimates of IFR converging at approxima…

You said there was no data available, and I provided a reference.

The data you cite has a large age group as well (0-69), which has the same problem you describe. See the comment by user kmm below for a reference with a better breakdown of estimated IFR by age groups. The reference also shows how the IFR increases exponentially by age.

If you want to see what number applies to you in particular, then you need an specific breakdown. But if you need to see what is the risk for the population in general, then the estimated total IFR, sampled from that same population, is valuable. Think of individual risk vs systemic risk.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#747

Post by enraged_camel »

cm2187 wrote: post #706
svnpenn wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has twice the population of the United States. Yet despite this, United States has 4 TIMES the cases per day. Europe can relax because they worked hard in the beginning to get everything under control. The US never did that, most states (like my home state of Texas) did a half-assed closing for 3 weeks, so the numbers never really got under control.

It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there. I have seen recently that serology tests in Italy have shown the same outcome for people who were locked down than essential workers who were not locked down (and mortality stats in the UK told a sim…

>>It's not that clear that a lockdown helps. NY closed the earliest in the US but was the hardest hit nevertheless. It has now mostly reopened and cases aren't going up. Chances are we may have reached herd immunity there.

No, this is absolutely wrong, every single sentence. Lockdowns definitely help. New York was hit hardest because, despite closing the earliest, they still closed way too late. Cuomo resisted calls from his health experts for almost three weeks. By the time he gave the order, there were 5,000 daily cases reported and the virus was practically out of control.

New York doesn't have herd immunity - not even close. Majority of New Yorkers were not infected. https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-hasnt-built-her...

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#748

Post by [deleted] »

johnwalkr wrote: post #543

Wow with these comments. You going to the gym is not saving the economy. Yes, we can't shut everything down but you'd think the article was about shutting down grocery stores or the stock market. And by not doing your part, your whole community could be stunted for 2 years. Also congratulations for not caring about a 1 in 200 chance of death (pretty high by the way) because you're healthy and passing on the risk to s…

[deleted]

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#750

Post by showdeadtest »

duderific wrote: post #594
cloakandswagger wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As most authoritarian-collectivist movements go, the "Stay the fuck home" crowd took no time at all in destroying all goodwill towards their worldview. Had its tone been more educational and pleading instead of arrogant, shaming and outright threatening they could have avoided polarizing the conversation and creating a contrarian counter-movement that resists even sensible compromise.

Lives are at stake here, so the "Stay the fuck home" crowd, as you put it, has a right to express feelings that may be stronger than "educational and pleading."

People aren’t staying home, so it seems like that didn’t work.
Post reply on HN