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New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

theatlantic.com

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Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#71

Post by amylene »

danharaj wrote: post #24
DenisM wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>either bullshitting you or deluding themselves Was this the best possible way to treat an intellectual disagreement? Surely people can disagree with you without being liars or delusionary? Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Surely people can tell you the Earth is flat without being delusional or a liar. At some point, when the stakes are so high, willful ignorance is harmful and should be called out.

The difference is that flat earthers reject objective evidence. This is someone disagreeing over projections about the future. And, to be frank, nobody has a fucking clue how to estimate the medium term effects of this.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#72

Post by shahbaby »

swsieber wrote: post #32
frosted-flakes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would young families suddenly have more children?

There are various memes floating around about how there's going to be a surge of kids conceived during this quarantine/social distancing times. In short, it seems likely people are going to have more sex when they are stuck at home. OTOH, I know people with children who are going crazy. I don't they are encouraged to have more children.

Most people are desperately looking to the past for guidance on what the future will bring.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#73

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

amylene wrote: post #69
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully we'll discover the tradeoff is less severe than that, but if not it's going to have to be. I don't think you realize just how unhappy people are with being locked down; it's very likely we would see violent rebellions against an attempt to impose a second one.

When you say, very likely, can you put a percent on it so we know if you mean 20% or 80%?

I mean 80%, although I have a bias here because I'd be one of the people trying to make it happen.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#74

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

rootusrootus wrote: post #65
vanniv wrote: post #40

Now that governments have proven that people will let them imprison everyone at any time, just by saying "virus", they're gearing up to do it again, all the time, forever, whenever it would be convenient. After they've done it a few times, they'll just make it permanent. By everyone agreeing to huddle terrified in their homes over nothing, we have permanently ended free movement and free assembly in our societies.

This is voluntary. At least in the US, there is nowhere near enough police (including every last sworn officer and every single military member, police or not) to force people to stay at home. They are extremely outnumbered, both by population and by weaponry. Imagining this leading to an authoritarian state is fearmongering.

Multiple of my college buddies, who I know to otherwise be reasonable people, are calling for martial law so people will be forced at gunpoint to stay home for months. I agree that an authoritarian state is a low probability outcome, but the mechanism by which it remains low probability is people making it clear that we won't stand for it.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#75

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

patall wrote: post #54
alexandercrohde wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how many people copy-paste knowledge without doing the most basic logical checks on it. For example, nobody yet explained to me how flattening the curve is gonna make much difference when say NYC has 3,000 ventilators, and the average time on a ventilator is 20 days. If 1/100 of NYC's 8 million population need a ventilator that'd still be 80,000 ventilators needed. So flattening would reduce the deaths t…

8.000.000 by 100 is 80.000. And if the governor is able to somehow organize another 30000 ventilators in 3 weeks, your death count goes down from 77k to 44k. Or 11 times 9/11.

The improvement isn't quite that high, because people sick enough to need a ventilator are often going to die even if they get one, but I agree with your point that increasing medical capacity is the high-leverage play here.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#76

Post by amylene »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #73
amylene wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say, very likely, can you put a percent on it so we know if you mean 20% or 80%?

I mean 80%, although I have a bias here because I'd be one of the people trying to make it happen.

Super interesting, thanks for replying!

So you are aware that your estimate is biased because of your other beliefs, but you don’t try to fix that? Mind if I ask why?

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#77

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

amylene wrote: post #76
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean 80%, although I have a bias here because I'd be one of the people trying to make it happen.

Super interesting, thanks for replying! So you are aware that your estimate is biased because of your other beliefs, but you don’t try to fix that? Mind if I ask why?

Sorry, no, I may have been unclear. I don't know that my estimate is biased - I believe I've properly adjusted for my other beliefs and desires - but I can't know for sure I adjusted correctly so it would be misleading for me to present an estimate as though I'm a dispassionate observer.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#78

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

amylene wrote: post #68
izend wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a legitimate debate of: Cause an Economic Depression vs X times the number of yearly deaths. Note, the Economic Depression would indirectly cause deaths. For example everyone agreed that not shutting down the global economic was the correct decision in regards to the Swine Flu pandemic which did cause 100,000 or more deaths. What if it was 1 million projected deaths, 10 million or 50 million? I honestly do n…

Deaths would also worsen an economic depression. Why does everybody forget about this? Also, an economic depression reduces air pollution which would reduce deaths. There are lots of factors that would need to be considered. Most people I’ve seen advocating this pov are stopping at the first order analysis.

Because most people who don't advocate the POV are stopping at the zeroth order analysis, saying that you're a heartless killer if you want to consider any factors instead of just saving lives.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#79

Post by leesalminen »

amylene wrote: post #68
izend wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a legitimate debate of: Cause an Economic Depression vs X times the number of yearly deaths. Note, the Economic Depression would indirectly cause deaths. For example everyone agreed that not shutting down the global economic was the correct decision in regards to the Swine Flu pandemic which did cause 100,000 or more deaths. What if it was 1 million projected deaths, 10 million or 50 million? I honestly do n…

Deaths would also worsen an economic depression. Why does everybody forget about this? Also, an economic depression reduces air pollution which would reduce deaths. There are lots of factors that would need to be considered. Most people I’ve seen advocating this pov are stopping at the first order analysis.

> Also, an economic depression reduces air pollution which would reduce deaths.

In the immediate term, sure. In the medium term an economic depression would weaken investment, research & development in new green technologies which would increase deaths as the effects of climate change worsen.

Re: New restrictions in Hong Kong show that a single lockdown won’t be enough

#80

Post by bob33212 »

bawolff wrote: post #43
bob33212 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a first principal perspective there is no reason why anyone should think that it is impossible for China or another country to create 2 billion vaccine doses in the next 6 months. There are plenty of reasons to say this will not happen but it isn't impossible. If it does happen everything flips very quickly.

Huh? From first principles there is no reason why anyone should think that their won't be 2 billion vaccines tomorrow (perhaps via divine intervention). Heck, from first principles I'm not even sure Australia exists (Maybe Australia is a giant hoax. After all, i have never been there.) Proving things from first principles is really hard. The fact you weren't able to disprove a statement from first principles is not s…

Sorry, I don't believe in a magical skyman as a first principal.
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