Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds • Hacker News Board

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#91

Post by markdown » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:47 AM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #14

markdown wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though? > Is it still ethical? No, it wouldn't be. All young people, regardless of race, deserve equal protection from their own stupidity. > Legal? No, it wouldn't be. > Effective? For those lucky young people, it would be. But that screws all the young people of other races/religions.

At 21 I was out of university with master's degree in physics, working full time and providing for my family (however small) and making all kinds of life choices. Where would I be in your book?

I wouldn't drive past a school at a 100 miles/hr if the law allowed it, but others would.

Laws aren't targeted at people who do no wrong, but those people still get protection from those laws.

> Where would I be in your book?

You're safer because the idiots around you who would be doing stupid things have a lower chance of infecting you and your grandma.

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#92

Post by cbsks » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:48 AM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #83

It's pretty disgusting the amount of additional powers we're allowing the government to take during this pandemic. You might may something to the affect "desperate times call for desperate measures," but have no doubt, the next 'emergency' is right around the corner. Once you give government power, it's quite difficult to take it back. People will be toeing the lines for years on what an emergency is, until it simply…

What new powers are being granted to the government? The authority to order a quarantine is not new.

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#93

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

djhaskin987 wrote: post #24

A waste management map from my county (Utah County in Utah) reveals that the three waste management districts that were servicing the two universities in the area were absolutely the red hot spots for covid-19. The two University presidents wrote a letter jointly telling the college students if they did not shape up The universities would be closed. Our governor applauded the letter and I don't think he was wrong. I…

I cant make sence of this post - Waste as in household rubbish? What relevance does it have? How are students meant to "shape up" and what means were they given to do so?

To me this "adult" here reads like "old enough to be thrown under the bus"

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#94

Post by Dfol » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

DetroitThrow wrote: post #37

nugget wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does the responsibility shift to the University Presidents if they can predict with confidence (and then confirm with data) that their students will never comply with their directives?

>wrote a letter jointly telling the college students if they did not shape up The universities _would be closed_ I think from this we could infer that they will take responsibility when they think it becomes clearer that students will not sufficiently comply with the public safety directives.

It just so happens that in your scenario the college makes more money by 'taking responsibility'.

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#95

Post by slaymaker1907 » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #87

InTheArena wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace it with Christian. Churches have been shut down for the duration in many parts of Colorado including boulder.

Clearly closing church is not the same as banning all gatherings of christians, in the same manner as chosing pubs is not a ban on drinking

Actually, it’s worse since the ban is on any gathering including 18-22 year olds

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#96

Post by enjeyw » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

marcell wrote: post #55

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #21

This is evil. This strategy, ignoring human rights for a second, increases the proportion of at-risk individuals who must get sick before herd immunity is reached. If you have a population of 100 people, and the HIT is 20% (assume homogenous mixing), of which half your population is high-risk and half is low-risk, you can enforce universal lockdown and end up with 10 high-risk and 10 low-risk infections, or you can e…

One thing that amazes is me is how the individual rights objections to these orders get so little credit. People go into deep discussions of whether the cost/benefit makes sense (do you save sufficient lives with a measure to offset the cost of the restrictions). As you point out, this is collectivist, utilitarianist thinking, and it gets us to a bad place. There is a very simple reason why these restrictions are out…

>There is a very simple reason why these restrictions are outrageous: individuals have a right to gather with their friends if they so choose.

I agree that "being able to gather with your friends" is a great thing, but I don't see why it's a sacred right that is "outrageous" to restrict no matter the consequences.

Like a lot of these debates, this sort of things comes down to your personal beliefs in the relative importances of: - "The right as an invididual to do X" - "The right as an individual to not be negatively affected by someone else doing X"

Most actions all on the spectrum somewhere:

"Society has decided it's acceptable for me to drive a car, even though it puts pedestrians at risk of being run over"

"Society has decided that it's not acceptable for me to drive a car when intoxicated, even if's really inconvenient for me to get a taxi home, because the risk of me killing a pedistrian is too high"

"Society isn't quite sure what the maximum speed that I can drive a car at on a surban street (and get to my destination faster, while increasing the risk of killing someone), but it's not 'as fast as I can go', and it's not '2 MPH'".

Its the same with "the right to gather with friends, and in the process increase the chances that I'll get COVID and pass it on to someone who dies from it". Simply declaring it "outrageous" not to maintain that right is overly simplistic, and I think that actually, some form of utilitiarian thinking is very helpful.

In short, you can't just reject utilitarian thinking just because your utility function is different to that of society's.

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#97

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:54 AM UTC

cbsks wrote: post #92

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #83

It's pretty disgusting the amount of additional powers we're allowing the government to take during this pandemic. You might may something to the affect "desperate times call for desperate measures," but have no doubt, the next 'emergency' is right around the corner. Once you give government power, it's quite difficult to take it back. People will be toeing the lines for years on what an emergency is, until it simply…

What new powers are being granted to the government? The authority to order a quarantine is not new.

The authority to order quarantine for every member of a specific demographic group is... well, not exactly new, but the historical instances of it are pretty roundly condemned today. How would you feel if Boulder had selectively imposed this order on all unmarried people, or all Swedish people?

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#98

Post by __blockcipher__ » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:55 AM UTC

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #82

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a human rights issue regardless of the data, and your assertion that “the virus needs to be quashed” goes against reality. We’re not practicing containment in the US, therefore this virus WILL diffuse through the population. All we can choose is how many lives we want to destroy before we accept that reality. (By the way, even if we were practicing containment - which we’re not - it would still eventually spread…

It is a public health issue. What about the rights of people that are vulnerable. Why would public policy risk fatality of the vulnerable population over restricted movement of a few targeted populace in an emergency. The reality is that compared to March New York city in September has quashed the virus, per data.

Yes, COVID is basically over in New York. You know why? Because it passed the real herd immunity threshold. (Simplistic models overestimate the true HIT due to not accounting for heterogeneity across the dimensions of genetic susceptibility, genetic transmissibility, and social contacts).

Ironically, the hysteria is partially why New York’s IFR is the highest in the world; fears of hospital overrun scenarios that never materialized (and in retrospect never could have, but we didn’t have good data at the time) led to Cuomo sending infected into nursijg homes. And a doctrine of early invasive ventilation led to iatrogenic harm and therefore death. And deprivation of sunlight/exercise/sleep all serve to destroy the body’s natural immunoregulatory mechanisms.

Unfortunately, Jacobson v Massachusetts has given legal precedent for forced sterilization and forced detention based off of race, so I’m sure Jacobson can be used to justify these mortality-inducing lockdowns from a legal standpoint. That neither makes it ethical nor good for public health.

What arrogance to think that New York is not experiencing cases because of the interventions taken. Is it just a coincidence that Sweden, which never locked down nor mandates masks, is also done with COVID? No, it’s all just seroprevalence. Which so many of us have been trying to tell you guys for half a year now. Meanwhile the third world is about to experience an unprecedented mass starvation that will eclipse the COVID mortality by far.

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#99

Post by mikem170 » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 1:59 AM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #64

eplanit wrote: post #34

The Boulder hospitals are full, or strained? Flattening the curve was about keeping the hospitals from being overrun. Putting the strictest measures on the segment of the population that is least likely to get ill seems questionable (testing positive does not necessarily mean one has symptoms). Granted, spread to more vulnerable populations must be minimized -- but I wonder about the real science behind this policy (…

> Putting the strictest measures on the segment of the population that is least likely to get ill seems questionable It's less questionable when you look at it a different way: this is one of the segments of the population most likely to behave irresponsibly. It's a common observation that people in this age range often unjustifiably act like they're invincible. Those feelings can lead to bad results for others, like…

>this is one of the segments of the population most likely to behave irresponsibly

#1, I don't think it's relevant that you think that segment of the population is irresponsible. We are talking about adults and taking away their freedom. I personally would rather see objective facts, not opinion.

>people in this age range often unjustifiably act like they're invincible

#2, I think you are wrong about their invincibility in this case. 330 people under 25 died of covid as of August 20 [0] (most with comorbidities), out of a population of 104 million in the U.S. [1], that is 1 out of 346,000 (edit). This is not high on the list of dangers for that age group.

You should attempt to justify your imposition on them without smearing them. Young people are not in danger from this disease are being forced as a group to make significant scholastic, social, and economic sacrifices for those who are too afraid to self-isolate on their own.

EDIT: Maybe the focus needs to be on vulnerable populations, and not young people? What is the goal here? Are Colorado hospitals overwhelmed? There's no proof that lockdowns otherwise make a difference.

[0] https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/new-cdc-report-shows-94-of... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

Re: Boulder prohibits gatherings of any size for 18-22 year olds

#100

Post by __blockcipher__ » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 2:00 AM UTC

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #86

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They've excluded people at work, so I suppose this allows people in this age range to provide childcare for essential workers, work in health care or at grocery stores, etc. How kind of our benevolent overlords. We can still partake in the economic machinery! Just none of that pesky “living your life” stuff. I’m surprised they haven’t banned laughter yet. It spreads SARS-CoV-2-laden respiratory droplets like nothin…

Roseanne Barr and Tim Dillon did a podcast recently and there was a part I loved so much, “at this point anyone who can’t laugh - you gotta go.” You want to find the authoritarians among us? Find the people who are unable to laugh and make it known that no one else should.

Oh believe me, I have found the authoritarians. I did not realize how many of my friends would callously and unquestioningly swallow the narrative and obey.

(Many of my closest friends see through the narrative, partially because I wouldn’t shut up about it once I started reading the research and really realized how big of a mistake we’d made as a society)

It’s kind of like how everyone thinks that they would have opposed the Nazis because they grew up being taught that Nazis were bad. The truth is, this experiment in mass collective delusion has made it very clear which among us would have spoken out.

The ones reporting their neighbors for having a gathering or not wearing a mask while watering their lawn would have happily helped participate in genocide. Don’t doubt it.