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CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

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Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#391

Post by thegrimmest »

brewdad wrote: post #295
thegrimmest wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as every branch of "Government" has the authority to escalate to forcible imprisonment for noncompliance with their policy, I will be equally mistrustful of all of them.

Do you live off the grid and grow all of your own food? If not, then the "government" keeps you alive. You don't have to give them a free pass on everything but you can't pretend it serves no purpose but to oppress you.

I'm not pretending that at all, all I'm suggesting is that the government be entrusted with the least amount of authority it requires. I also think that the model for our collective action should be much more consensual, rather than enforced.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#392

Post by thegrimmest »

mhh__ wrote: post #232
thegrimmest wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as every branch of "Government" has the authority to escalate to forcible imprisonment for noncompliance with their policy, I will be equally mistrustful of all of them.

Sure but sometimes you just want to get the pothole outside your house fixed, which requires being able to construct (even for just the short term, privatise that road if you) systems and incentives that work for real problems, which in turn requires people to (regardless of trust) get their arms dirty which I think is unlikely if you have everyone trying to propitiate to the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

Systems of incentives are just fine, as long as they're voluntary. My objection is with forced participation in these systems. If you want to get that pothole fixed, and a few of your neighbours don't consent to contribute, then we should be able to deal with that in a way that doesn't involve handcuffs and prison sentences.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#393

Post by thegrimmest »

woodruffw wrote: post #352
thegrimmest wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an enormous difference between a corporation "nudging" me to buy something with an ad, and a government body using the full weight of its authority to force my compliance with their policies. I'm much more comfortable being nudged than I am being forced .

There is indeed an enormous difference, but I find this reasoning funny: when a government issues an order by fiat, there is no ambiguity with regards to your consent. You can either be on board or not; either way, there is a clear line between your opinion (and therefore what you will) and what is dictated to you. This can’t be said for nudges: the entire point of an effective nudge is that you can’t be certain that…

> You can either be on board or not

Not exactly, you can be on board or suffer whatever punitive action is designed to "incentivize" you. You can't just politely decline to comply or participate.

> not only are you controlled, but you don’t even know it

I don't think we should equate "being controlled" - which is a rather horrific thing when done directly with the threat of violence - with being nudged. When you are nudged, you are in fact acting of your own volition. If you disagree you have to define what "your own volition" means exactly. To me it means acting in the absence of a threat of violence.

> the government’s ability to force you to do anything w/r/t public health is mostly hollow

Plenty of business owners were arrested and imprisoned for refusing to comply with public health measures. Many, many more suffered the closure of their business and the loss of their livelihoods by complying.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#394

Post by zdragnar »

sfink wrote: post #320
zdragnar wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to maximize privacy here, then let's pass laws to prevent doctors from knowing the gender, age, and weight of any of their patients. I am fine with my doctor knowing this about me. I am not fine with any doctor who does not see me as a patient knowing anything at all about me. > This is an excellent use of the data, a proof that it is worthwhile for the data to exist The use of the data is fine, but as…

>> If you want to maximize privacy here, then let's pass laws to prevent doctors from knowing the gender, age, and weight of any of their patients. > I am fine with my doctor knowing this about me. I am not fine with any doctor who does not see me as a patient knowing anything at all about me. I am ok with my doctor knowing there was a 12% chance that I broke curfew during a pandemic lockdown, given my zip code or wh…

> I am ok with my doctor knowing there was a 12% chance that I broke curfew during a pandemic lockdown, given my zip code or whatever

I am asking this out of genuine curiosity: Why? What actionable information does that tell your doctor about you, specifically?

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#395

Post by niij »

drekk wrote: post #365
niij wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That _should_ be their role, but unfortunately they overstepped. The CDC implemented an eviction moratorium for around a year (September 4, 2020 through August 26, 2021). That had very real, negative impact on landlords during that time. I doubt those effected would call it toothless. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/04/2020-19...

Those landlords should get a real job in that case. They chose to treat housing like a speculative asset and it didn't go their way. Makes zero sense to me that our pandemic response was about "keeping small businesses afloat" rather than keeping transmission low for a few weeks. I guess besides sacrificing grandma to the economy for $2 margaritas at Applebee's we should have evicted millions during winter so that la…

Stealing/nationalizing property, even for a year, results in higher costs to do business in the future due to the assumed risk. So I agree with you that this may have helped the single metric in the short term; there are long term consequences.

That means as an individual you will either pay higher rent or be forced to buy. Many people would rather have the flexibility and no maintenance that renting provides.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#397

Post by brimble »

JaceLightning wrote: post #206
brimble wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vaccine mandates We've had those for decades. > vaccine passports These must not be a federal thing, because I still don't really know what people mean by this. Is it a state thing? > and CDC surveillance Private surveillance that the CDC and anyone else can buy. I agree that collecting this info in the first place, let alone selling it, should be very, very illegal.

We have had federal vaccine mandates to hold a job before? I've never had to provide proof of vaccination.

There are ways around it (as there are with Covid vaccine requirements), but most folks are subject to vaccine mandates for school attendance (though, sure, those are state-level rules). IIRC I had to provide vaccination records for college, too. Plenty of states require vaccination to teach in a school (so, to hold a job).

What's different about this isn't the presence of mandates, but that it was a novel virus so mandates were applied to (a small set of) adults rather than mainly to kids.

In fact, the set of people to whom Covid vaccine mandates apply is surely way smaller than the set to whom a variety of others do. I'm pretty sure most states aren't requiring Covid vaccination for school attendance, for instance.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#398

Post by modriano »

chaps wrote: post #105
modriano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have a long and storied record of using tools and information to do malicious things. But we also have a long and storied record of using tools and information to produce the incredible advances of the past few centuries, where the median life expectancy has nearly doubled from the baseline over the past 50k years. Personally, I would really prefer a system where health information was centralized and easily t…

Are you suggesting that this location information is "health" data and is okay for them to use and store?

As a data scientist, I am oriented towards mining data for valid insights that allow us to answer important questions, such as

* "Who was in close proximity (~15m) of this known COVID superspreader event?" or * "Who has spent a large amount of time in this region where the rate of cancer is 6 standard deviations above the statewide rate?"

So yeah, I'm firmly asserting location data enables us to explore a lot of important problems that negatively impact people's health, and I think learning from the past (ie from data) is how we improve the future.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#399

Post by 10amxn10 »

drekk wrote: post #366
jtbayly wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. The group that is willing to illegally order you to do things they have no right to order is also tracking you. But no biggie.

Say the thing they ordered. They didn't allow evicting millions of Americans during winter in a global pandemic. They're also tracking people to make sure lockdown guidelines were followed. Of course Americans could not follow a guideline to save their lives, and now over a million preventably dead Americans get to be summarily forgotten because the real victim was your ability to go to a bar or concert when hospital…

No post body was provided.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#400

Post by Soapysmith »

sofixa wrote: post #378
briantakita wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great argument against the lockdowns, considering that the root of the problem was the lockdowns.

No, the root of the problem was the pandemic.

No, the root of the problem was death.
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