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Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

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Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#881

Post by jameshart »

neolog wrote: post #873
jameshart wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age is not the only thing that could raise an individual's risk factor to 10%. There is no reason why individuals not in their 80s might, for some other reason, be in a category with higher mortality risk. Honestly, we don't know that much about this disease yet - but we do know that the outcomes for different people can be very diverse. One problem with age-based stats like this is that it gives the impression that…

> But what if the die was already rolled for some individuals? Why does the timing of the roll matter?

Well precisely, it doesn’t actually matter. I’ll let you into a secret: there isn’t even really a dice.

The point is more to get people to think about the difference between aggregate average mortality, vs the individual prognosis of one unlucky COVID patient.

This winds up being a trolley-problem kind of reframing of a moral argument. Philosophically, should you change your behavior between the following two scenarios:

- a group of 100 people all have a 1 in 100 chance of dying of a disease

- a group of 100 people contain one person who will definitely die if they get the disease

?

Does your answer change if you are the one person?

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#882

Post by [deleted] »

centimeter wrote: post #876
johnwalkr wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things and make minimal efforts to ride this out, and by not changing our lifestyles, we are passing the risk on to others, some of whom may be vulnerable and some of whom don’t have any option to not go to work (for example) to reduc…

> we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things The "more trivial things" like normal social interaction, employment, and healthy exercise? I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. If you think causing at least tens of thousands of suicides since the start of the lockdowns, impoverishing millions of people for years to come, a…

[deleted]

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#883

Post by patrick451 »

Uehreka wrote: post #732
csomar wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Also humanity and evolution has a coping mechanism called natural selection. So the phrase "Survival of the Fittest" refers in the abstract to the idea that, given fitness function F, members of a species who pass fitness function F will out-survive members who fail function F and then reproduce in higher numbers. But natural selection itself does not define any fitness functions, and makes no mention of a "univers…

This isn't really true. Try surviving 40,000 years as a 600 lb diabetic. Yet modern medicine asserts "that fitness function is dumb". In fact, modern medicine asserts __all__ fitness functions are dumb. I can't name a single one where modern medicine says "Yeah, that looks good. Kill them off."

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#884

Post by matz1 »

p1necone wrote: post #754
polote wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to sacrifice a lot of my freedom to prevent unhealthy or old people to die. You could tell me that I'm wrong, but as far as I know, I'm the only one able to know how I want to live my life

Oh come on. How is just wearing a mask or working out at home during a global pandemic that's literally killing millions "sacrificing a lot of my freedom". You're selfish, and kids in history classes are going to look back on people like you forever and question why people were so selfish and stupid.

Likewise, wanting other people to sacrifice their interest againts your interest is selfish too.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#885

Post by patrick451 »

_coveredInBees wrote: post #653
zozin wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lock downs were premised upon preventing hospital systems from being overwhelmed. We accomplished that relatively easily, at least in the United States. However, politicians and bureaucrats, unwilling to let a good crisis go to waste, have moved the goalposts so much that now the unspoken policy seems to be that a single infection/death is anathema and that everything should be done to prevent it. I don't remembe…

Your views seem completely detached from reality. The only reason hospital systems were not overwhelmed was due to the continued lockdown + social distancing policies. Every state that went ahead and tried to ignore reality and open up for business rapidly found itself facing the very same issue again with hospitals being near full and in some cases having to turn away patients. Some sources: https://www.azfamily.com…

This is not categorically true. E.g., South Dakota is doing fine and never locked down. Same with Wyoming.

Personally, I think the federal administration has done a fine job--most, if not all, of dealing with this situation should be up to the states, not the feds.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#886

Post by therealdrag0 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #747
cm2187 wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Majority of New Yorkers were not infected" is not enough to say they don't have herd immunity.

Wasn't there a study showing 40% of people have generic coronavirus anti-bodies from prior colds and it is believed that these help? Though the extent might not be known.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#887

Post by throwout_covid »

centimeter wrote: post #876
johnwalkr wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things and make minimal efforts to ride this out, and by not changing our lifestyles, we are passing the risk on to others, some of whom may be vulnerable and some of whom don’t have any option to not go to work (for example) to reduc…

> we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things The "more trivial things" like normal social interaction, employment, and healthy exercise? I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. If you think causing at least tens of thousands of suicides since the start of the lockdowns, impoverishing millions of people for years to come, a…

Wow. I think you're political leanings have beaten out utilitarian reasoning.

10k suicides We certainly have the money to support millions of people losing payroll, but stimulus payments to give people room to properly isolate are a bargaining chip.

Quality of life in a crisis??? Are you kidding me? How far from the "Greatest Generation" can you get when you can't ask people to wear a mask and skip the gym for a while to save lives?

An extra few months for geriatrics??? Again, wow. I'm sorry you hate your gramma. But, we still don't understand the long term consequences to people to have been sick, or the lasting effects it will have on children that contract it.

You're the one that's not rational, and I expected the HN crowd to be better at digesting statistics.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#888

Post by laurex »

centimeter wrote: post #876
johnwalkr wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general reply, not only to the parent comment. I’m indeed cherry-picking though I didn’t carefully check the numbers. My point is we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things and make minimal efforts to ride this out, and by not changing our lifestyles, we are passing the risk on to others, some of whom may be vulnerable and some of whom don’t have any option to not go to work (for example) to reduc…

> we need to sacrifice some of the more trivial things The "more trivial things" like normal social interaction, employment, and healthy exercise? I've never seen a more pointed example of most people's abject inability to perform utilitarian reasoning than this pandemic. If you think causing at least tens of thousands of suicides since the start of the lockdowns, impoverishing millions of people for years to come, a…

Where are you getting your data about suicides? My impression is that an increase of tens of thousands is quite an overstatement. See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/health/pandemic-coronavir...

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#889

Post by Cd00d »

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…

I doubt your sincerity. This is obviously different from the seasonal flu.

However, I do want to address the young and increased social isolation and mental illness. Took my toddler for an annual checkup recently and asked about all this as he's been out of daycare since March and had concerns about development.

The pediatrician's answer, which I found compelling was: this is a big deal, and it's going to have an impact, and therefore we should be a little lax to help create some comfort around the house. That said, all the psychologists in the world are looking at this and starting to work on the impact and how we get kids back to "normal" or ease the harm this has on them. There is going to be expertise and guidance on this.

Of course, that likely doesn't apply to the anti-science crowd.

Re: Secret gyms and the economics of prohibition

#890

Post by therealdrag0 »

artursapek wrote: post #858
lazide wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best data I've seen is 6x (.63% IFR). And due to lack of existing immunity from the Flu which keeps the flu at less than 10% of the population/yr, we're looking at a dramatic death toll. That people don't want to believe it, without evidence to the contrary, just makes them solidly into the wishful thinking category - and likely spreaders that will inevitably get someone killed.

How do you think we're going to get immunity like we have with the flu, if everyone is hiding in their basement?

You don't need immunity if you exterminate the virus, which some countries have done..
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