Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
71–80 of 109 posts
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
A loud minority of twitter mob participants shouted "You want to kill grandma!" every time anyone tried to discuss the full costs of the lockdowns. People don't want to risk their careers saying things that are unpopular with twitter mobs (especially in academia). So now we're effectively governed by emotional neurotics and government can no longer make reasonable decisions based on a dispassionate cost-benefit analy…
There is no such thing as dispassionate cost benefit analysis (or at least, there isn't outside of a very narrow range of specific cases). Cost benefit analysis for big complex issues like coronavirus requires the identification and quantification of things that are really difficult to identify and quantify, and there's no easy way to do that without some form of subjective value judgement. CBA done properly is a goo…
The entire point of a republic and bureaucracy is to have that dispassionate cost benefit analysis. It's to be done by people that shouldn't be subject to the mob mentality.
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#73Oy. This article is silly. In March of 2020 when schools started to close we did not know the full impact of COVID. decisions were made with the best knowledge AT THE TIME. Also we still don’t know the full impact of COVID. This article has a sample size of 1 year. As a parent of 3 with a child who started Kindergarten in September and did the entire year virtually—I’d rather deal with the fallout of having to “catch…
This yes. Though, I'm still mad that they vaccinated old people first instead of children so that they could return to school sooner. Old people are retired and can stay at home. Yes it sucks, they're lonely yada yada but ffs they already lived their lives, why should the next generation botch their edication just so the old people can travel again sooner?
Please give an example of a nation which was highly successful in isolating old/at-risk people during COVID, while letting the epidemic run wild.
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#74> But few governments have weighed the costs and risks carefully. I'm not entirely comfortable with the narrative that the costs and risks weren't weighed carefully. It wasn't that the pros and cons weren't weighed. Every human decision involves the weighing of pros and cons. For every decision that harms someone, a person decided that the harms were justified because of some other goal they deemed necessary. The sol…
> the costs and risks weren't weighed carefully It's just getting harder and harder, as more and more is revealed, to believe that the costs and risks weren't weighed based on what harm or benefit would come to specific individuals instead of how specific policies would help or hurt specific politicians and political interests. Schools were closed even though children were at the least risk, but nursing homes were fo…
> but nursing homes were forced to accept COVID-positive transfers even though the elderly were at the greatest risk.
Yeah. Remind me who ordered that, and whether they're out of office over it? That's so blatantly wrong that it should rise to the level of criminal endangerment, even if nobody died from it. And I'm pretty sure that people did die from it, at which point it's at least manslaughter. Yes, I want that politician charged, because that was the clearly predictable result of that insanely wrong-headed decision.
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was entirely the correct decision given that old people are often at substantial risk from Covid, and children almost none. "Old people are retired and can stay at home" betrays huge ignorance of differing socioeconomic conditions as well as social needs of the elderly.
But old people can self isolate. How are they at risk if they stay at home? Children might not be affected that much, but still spread it, and apparently much harder to keep inside 24/7. Playgrounds were as crowded as always. My neighbor told me that her daughter was one of five children from the entire class staying at home, for the remaining 20 kids, their parents got a written confirmation from their employers sta…
Can they self isolate? Do old people not need to go to the grocery store, doctor's offices, the hardware store to get parts for their broken toilet, etc?
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. There is an opposing argument that we need to accept the risk of death as a part of life. When does a population decide the risk has been reduced enough? I could argue we are well past that point. As a culture we have completely lost touch with the natural cycles of life. The boomers in positions of power have clearly prioritized their own safety at the expense of the upcoming generations. That's pro…
This is a population that would have decided their own risk. A great many of them simply would not have shown up, and quit or be fired.
Right. And there are many who would have kept showing up, but policies mandated they could not.
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no such thing as dispassionate cost benefit analysis (or at least, there isn't outside of a very narrow range of specific cases). Cost benefit analysis for big complex issues like coronavirus requires the identification and quantification of things that are really difficult to identify and quantify, and there's no easy way to do that without some form of subjective value judgement. CBA done properly is a goo…
The entire point of a republic and bureaucracy is to have that dispassionate cost benefit analysis. It's to be done by people that shouldn't be subject to the mob mentality.
The point of a republic is to limit government, not ensure technocrats can never get fired.
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#78This is crazy. No. Lack of school doesn’t create harm. Attempting to shoehorn traditional schooling into an online form certainly can.
Lack of School can cause harm. We know there is a fairly limited window in which learning is significantly easier and more effective.
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The entire point of a republic and bureaucracy is to have that dispassionate cost benefit analysis. It's to be done by people that shouldn't be subject to the mob mentality.
The point of a republic is to limit government, not ensure technocrats can never get fired.
It's not about not getting fired. It's about having the person that can make the cold dispassionate, but ultimately best choice. If we are still getting decisions based mostly on emotion the usefulness is vastly diminished.
Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm
#80What's most annoying in this situation is that this conclusion was clear from the very beginning, and we hear it only now, when it is too late. And should you have brought this up when it should have been brought up, you would have been branded as insensitive murdering killer Trump supporter. Good job journalists speaking out when it doesn't matter.