421–430 of 521 posts
The reasoning against wearing masks -- is that wearing masks and social distancing - hurts more than it helps.
Covid is turning out to be a disease of culture. The same virus hit the East and the West. The East got through it, the West is on its knees.
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The cost is the alarming sight, causing the economic crisis. In Santa Clara/CA so far only some 400 people died of COVID-19, i.e. about 2 a day, while some 40 a day die of unrelated causes. Yet, if you step outside, you might think the Zombie apocalypse is happening.
If you let COVID run rampant, you will see higher death rates. It's not much of an argument to compare the death rate while mitigating practices are in place.
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To choose not to wear a mask is not like your other examples, because it increases not only the risk to yourself, but to those around you. I don't necessarily think your posts should be getting flagged, but you seem to be arguing in bad faith.
As another mentioned, its easy to make arguments for several of those having extended effects on others. And we legislate around that, we legislate those things to generally be allowed but socially engineered to bias away from with things like "sin taxes" In the same way, it may be a lot more palatable to have such laws around covid, (higher tax on businesses which refuse to require masks for customers, but they're a…
I somehow doubt it! I can hardly imagine a smaller burden to place on a person than to compel them to wear a mask, and yet look at the endless bickering it's caused. The idea that the people protesting mask mandates would find this tax more palatable seems completely implausible.
The whole idea about taxing away undesirable behavior is fine in general I guess, but if you think of the major effect as reducing the R0 of the virus, then why not just go further and make a full mask mandate? The smoking thing for example might have secondary effects, but not the way a /virus/ does. Is there no burden so small, no benefit to society so large, as to justify a mandate?
You might be quick to argue that these patients aren't smart, and there will likely be a correlation, but being smart does not protect you from delusion.
This is evidenced by a number of Nobel prize winners who have gone on to peddle pseudo-science. E.g. Kary Mullins, 1993 Nobel prize in chemistry for the PCR technique, went on to deny the link between HIV and AIDS [1]. This New York Times article has more examples [2].
So there is a non-zero chance that you and I might find ourselves in similar situation of denial, and we shouldn't be too quick to judge.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Contrarian_scienti...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/weekinreview/28johnson.ht...
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This is a harsh thing to say, but I understand where you're coming from. We....all of us, all human beings...need to be very patient and merciful with each other. My wife and I know good, honest and smart people who are fully convinced that Covid19 isn't that dangerous, that it's a hoax, etc. I'm not saying "smart" lightly. All humans...even the best of us...are at our core deeply irrational most of the time. Differe…
I appreciate this. It says to me that we humans are very emotional beings, whether we want to admit it or not. I think many cultures have a tendency to forget that emotions drive our behaviors, or are afraid to admit—feeling about feelings :-) I wish we would spend more time talking about what people were feeling more so than what they were believing. Like you, I know many people whom I admire for their intelligence…
> How we feel can really distort how we think and what we believe.
Have you seen this book? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave
Not only do our feelings distort how we think and what we believe, they (along with our personal background, evolutionary history, etc) also pretty much transparently and automatically create the foundational reality upon which we stand, moment by moment.
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Also, nonsensical restrictions mixed in with reasonable restrictions in a seemingly ad hoc way have eroded trust in local leadership. Around here, government construction projects were allowed to continue while private ones were halted. Outdoor walks encouraged, but fishing disallowed. And plenty more. Now, indoor dining and gyms are closed again even though they are not contributing to the recent spike. Also, don't…
Fishing was not allowed? Ok now I am curious, what area are you talking about?
I don’t envy legislators the task of having to drill down into every aspect of human behaviour and make ongoing risk assessments for it. For Level 5 restrictions in Ireland, a huge amount of effort went into determining what goods should be considered as “essential” so that shops selling them could stay open. Needless to say, they didn’t get it right and there are inconisistencies. However, legislators have to react quickly to changing circumstances while maintaining the requirement that their work be legally sound. Under such circumstances, I don’t expect the new (and temporary) rules to be perfect in every way. The best we can hope for is that they get the big picture right.
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Your view of "mainstream" news does not fit at all with what I have seen.
Progressives, specifically progressives focusing on class and economics (as opposed to culture and identity) and conservatives tend to see "mainstream" news the same way: aligned with Democratic establishment, wholly center-left and actively hostile not only to their political goals, but hostile to them personally through actions like pushing social media to ban their speech. Is that not how you see it?
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> I guess Snow Crash is out in the wild. I had to look this up, I presume this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash If you have a minute, can you please expand on your statement? It seems very interesting! > Did he seem "normal" outside the covid stuff We have yet to correspond extensively, but so far it's been pretty typical catching up after 25 years stuff, except as noted. I'm going to try to very carefully g…
Snow Crash refers to a virus, that in the book, only works on "hackers", since their brains understand code, and just need to see the raw bitmap of it for their brain to stop working. The book contains alot of analysis on the nature of information and how it spreads, and the methods in which you can literally re-program a person with language. I think its an apt analogy, your buddy is a programmer that has been expos…
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I appreciate this. It says to me that we humans are very emotional beings, whether we want to admit it or not. I think many cultures have a tendency to forget that emotions drive our behaviors, or are afraid to admit—feeling about feelings :-) I wish we would spend more time talking about what people were feeling more so than what they were believing. Like you, I know many people whom I admire for their intelligence…
Thank you for the kind words. > How we feel can really distort how we think and what we believe. Have you seen this book? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave Not only do our feelings distort how we think and what we believe, they (along with our personal background, evolutionary history, etc) also pretty much transparently and automatically create the foundational reality upon which we stand, moment b…
Yes. So much yes.
No, I hadn't heard of the book, but I'm excited to check it out more. I'll add it to the queue! Hopefully I start reading from the queue soon lol. Thank you for recommending it.