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

821–830 of 1001 posts

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#821

Post by jorblumesea »

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…

You could and probably should argue that Americans should take the flu far more seriously as well. Think of the amount of people that come to work/the store sick, don't get their flu shots (yes I understand it's not 100% effective), don't wear masks, don't take even the most basic precautions.

Preventable deaths.

> American's can't have this discussion in a mature manner because it has been poisoned by politics.

I would say it's deeper than that. American society has been poisoned by individuality to the point where no one wants to do anything to help one another if it doesn't benefit them. It feels there's no concept of civic sense or societal good. Everyone just wants to do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences.

Ask me to inconvenience myself for someone else? Fuck you buddy I got mine /s

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#822

Post by flyGuyOnTheSly »

readingnews wrote: post #211

There is a crossfit gym that I pass by every morning on the way to work. It is full, and never stopped during this pandemic. Even at 7AM, it is full of patrons. I would call the "proper authorities", but since there is a State Police car parked outside every morning, and he is in there working out, just like before the pandemic, I doubt calling anyone would do anything. Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is…

>it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars.

We're not all satiated simply by popping pills and plugging into the cloud or whatever it is you do with your free time.

Most humans have a strong need for social interaction.

What is the point of preserving life if nobody is allowed to live theirs?

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#823

Post by austhrow743 »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #759
Khaine wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Sure, but how many of those people would have died from the normal flu? I’ve been comparing flu stats for Australia. 2019 a BAD flu season was over 400 deaths. A NORMAL season is roughly 150 deaths. I think 146 in 2018. 2020 has 36 deaths. Melbourne deaths peaked at 25 for a single day. The current outbreak in VIC totally blows past the flu death rate for the entire country. Total COVID deaths in Australia (450) al…

That's with the flu having been around the year before, the year before that, one before that, etc. In any given year the most likely people to die from flu have already died from flu, and the others have already had the flu when they were young and otherwise healthy.

Can't really make a comparison with a long standing disease when covid19 is still doing its first rounds.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#824

Post by porknubbins »

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…

I’ve heard the evidence is mixed for lockdown but I believe most of that evidence is very fuzzy comparing various (poor) degrees of compliance from ok to bad. Didn’t NYC peak almost exactly 2-3 weeks after the lockdown just as would have been expected? And at the extreme of everyone isolated in their apartment 24 hours a day the virus could not really spread.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#825

Post by skulk »

csomar wrote: post #657
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…

How is this different from the TSA for protecting you from terrorists? Or how is this different from the Internet and freedom of speech censorship for protecting you from child porn. Reality Check: It's not different. People should stop from thinking they have a higher moral ground. Nobody does. On the other hand, on a free society, you should not be able to strip people from their freedom, regardless. People should…

> People should be able to decide if they want to die from Coronavirus or live a semi-paralyzed life in fear. If you are that concerned, then you can confine yourself at home until everything is over.

The amount of nuance that you refuse to integrate with your worldview is staggering. I'm shocked to see people write comments like this on Hacker News of all places.

I know this point has been beaten to death already (which contributes to my surprise that you'd even make a claim like this), but have you entirely forgotten about people who rely on younger, more able bodied people AND probably wouldn't survive a full blown coronavirus infection? How do these people "decide if they want to die from Coronavirus"?

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#826

Post by richardknop »

cowpig wrote: post #375
andrelayer wrote: post #332

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 dou…

I don't think we are approaching the total death toll of World War II. Unless you mean only US casualties which were relatively small compared to other nations as US entered war very late when it was already decided (Soviet Union has already won decisive victories and lost tens of millions). Proclaiming that is actually arrogant, to use your own words.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#827

Post by WD-42 »

seizethecheese wrote: post #718
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…

Yes, I've contemplated death. Have you? Here are the chances of dying in a year, for a given age, from actuarial tables: 25 year olds: 0.16% chance of dying 35 year olds: 0.2% chance of dying 45 year olds: 0.3% chance of dying 55 year olds: 0.7% chance of dying 65 year olds: 2% chance of dying 75 year olds: 3.5% 85 year olds: 10% 95 year olds: 26% https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

This is abhorrently flawed logic. These mortality rates are a sum of your chances of dying from literally everything that can kill you, including cancer and heart disease. We're talking about a disease right here right now that has similar rates of mortality, that is currently active and being spread in our communities, could have even larger long term mortality rates and yet people are making excuses of why it's ok to possible expose other people so that they can avoid working out in their living room.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#828

Post by fraudsyndrome »

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…

> Now, which number applies to the vast majority of us? And this is not even controlled for anything but age.

How about instead of focusing solely on the IFR of young people - bring into the conversation how those same young people may not 100% recover.

What about discussing how those same infected young(er) people may not die but they may pass it to other people that aren't so lucky?

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#829

Post by zucker42 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #541
gmanley wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still surprised there is so much misinformation about this. There are two categories of masks. The first category only prevent you from spreading the disease. These include paper surgical masks, cloth masks and those blue disposable paper masks. These are only made to prevent you from spreading droplets in the air from your moth and nose. If someone with covid isn't wearing a mask this category won't do anything…

> I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals. Yeah, but instead of saying that they lied and said masks don't work. I wonder how much of the current anti-mask sentiments arise from these lies.

Which person lied? I did not hear the claim (from a public health authority) that masks were not effective in preventing transmission. I did hear the claim that we are unsure if masks provide protection for the user (rather than just protecting others from the user), which still reflects our current knowledge for most mask types AFAIK. I did hear the recommendation against buying masks early on to protect the supplies for more critical users.

I also don't see how you can blame the health authorities for this when half the political leadership in this country continually questioned (and in some cases still questions) the efficacy of masks and successfully politicized the issue.

Scott Alexander covers your point under this blog post https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t.... I believe at one point he felt similarly to you.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#830

Post by sneak »

renewiltord wrote: post #647
sneak wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working out in a mask is very tough. It is a difficulty enhancement. I bike 25km every day wearing a full P100 respirator, the kind with replaceable cartridges that catch organic vapors, like for spraying paint. It’s fine, and not a significant burden. People complaining about masks are just that: complaining. Respirators are built for doing hard, strenuous labor in hazardous conditions. If demo crews can manage it…

Haha, okay, you're very fit, clearly. People whose objectives don't prioritize hitting your cardiovascular fitness won't want to do that.

I am decidedly not “very fit”. I’ve a 33 BMI and a lung condition (hence my assiduous mask wearing).

Masks simply aren’t that big of an imposition.

Post reply on HN