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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

#81

Post by op03 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #66
cactus2093 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why we need police or national guard to enforce lockdowns. And to charge people spreading the virus with felony murder and manslaughter charges, like they seem to be doing in extreme cases in Italy. I’ve seen some toxic comments on this site before, but nothing like someone blatantly saying “I’ll happy kill those around me to avoid any inconvenience to my daily routine”.

This kind of attitude is exactly my concern. You don't seem to have a shred of sympathy for the rights or motivations of the people who don't want to be locked down; you're talking about them as though they're cattle, and they'll be prodded into compliance no matter what they have to think about it. Every advocate I've seen of months-long lockdowns has had this kind of authoritarian power fantasy.

It works when people are afraid. We do have a Negativity Bias [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias] that gets amplified under stress.

You have to understand what you are trying push back on before telling someone who is scared - deal with it. It never works. Fears will just increase.

How else do you think we end up with 20 year wars, wall st bailouts, the TSA, the NSA, drone strikes, metal detectors at schools etc etc?

Dealing with people who are worried or panicking requires more imagination.

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

#82

Post by rootusrootus »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #74
rootusrootus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree, there are definitely some people panicking and advocating for completely disproportionate responses to the pandemic. I see it in my own circle, I see it on HN.

Hopefully we can do enough to dampen the death count so that people don't freak out any further.

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

#83

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

op03 wrote: post #81
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of attitude is exactly my concern. You don't seem to have a shred of sympathy for the rights or motivations of the people who don't want to be locked down; you're talking about them as though they're cattle, and they'll be prodded into compliance no matter what they have to think about it. Every advocate I've seen of months-long lockdowns has had this kind of authoritarian power fantasy.

It works when people are afraid. We do have a Negativity Bias [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias ] that gets amplified under stress. You have to understand what you are trying push back on before telling someone who is scared - deal with it. It never works. Fears will just increase. How else do you think we end up with 20 year wars, wall st bailouts, the TSA, the NSA, drone strikes, metal detectors at sc…

I agree with what you're saying. It's very important to send positive messages: we'll get through this, we'll soon have enough medical capacity to treat everyone who falls sick, we've weathered worse crises in the past and this one won't be the one that beats us. I try to do that and encourage other people to do it.

But it also needs to be made clear to people who propose to build a dystopian society that this is not okay. No amount of fear makes it justifiable or understandable to propose that your fellow citizens should be rounded up at gunpoint.

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

#84

Post by danharaj »

amylene wrote: post #71
danharaj wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If nobody has a fucking clue then anyone who is certain that the economy will recover in 2 months is either deluded or bullshitting themselves.

But we do know certainly that we will only be hitting the peak of infections sometime in April in states that were much more proactive than the median. It is extremely unlike that things will clear up, say, by Easter. Those who are so optimistic are innumerate and don't understand exponential functions.

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

#85

Post by pinkfoot »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #35
tomatocracy wrote: post #30

The political acceptability of releasing then locking down again is likely to be very low in my view. Friends and colleagues I speak to who haven’t followed the modelling papers etc think the point of a lockdown is to eliminate the virus entirely - not contain, not delay but eliminate entirely. There is also a very strong fear of getting the virus (many of the same people are convinced that it’s a death sentence almo…

Right, if there's a resurgence I'm not participating. The cure would be worse than the disease. I encourage susceptible populations to quarantine themselves, rather than everybody quarantining. We must work, date, and life must go on.

This is of course why curfews are enforced by the military.

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

#86

Post by jariel »

bilbo0s wrote: post #33
chinathrow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: HK did in fact not effectively contain the virus. "In recent days, this semblance of normalcy has vanished. The number of confirmed cases here has ticked upward at a much quicker pace than before, worrying health experts. The government reversed course on its easing of restrictions, sending workers back home, closing parks and city facilities, and reiterating calls for social distancing."

It's actually even worse than that on the ground in HK right now. Ban on non-residents. Groups of more than 4 people are broken up. A growing skittish-ness about "foreigners", (thought to be the people who brought the second wave of infections to HK). Etc etc. HK and Tokyo are not examples to be emulated, they are examples of what we should be trying to avoid.

"HK and Tokyo are not examples to be emulated, they are examples of what we should be trying to avoid."

???

Japan has one of the lowest rates of infection/million and data shows that spread is considerably slower.

Assuming the data is not fiction, obviously, we should be emulating them, not ignoring them.

FYI they also have not 'locked down'.

They're literally stopping the virus while not destroying their economies, while we are putting millions out of work while the virus expands.

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

#87

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jariel wrote: post #86
bilbo0s wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually even worse than that on the ground in HK right now. Ban on non-residents. Groups of more than 4 people are broken up. A growing skittish-ness about "foreigners", (thought to be the people who brought the second wave of infections to HK). Etc etc. HK and Tokyo are not examples to be emulated, they are examples of what we should be trying to avoid.

"HK and Tokyo are not examples to be emulated, they are examples of what we should be trying to avoid." ??? Japan has one of the lowest rates of infection/million and data shows that spread is considerably slower. Assuming the data is not fiction, obviously, we should be emulating them, not ignoring them. FYI they also have not 'locked down'. They're literally stopping the virus while not destroying their economies,…

It's likely, unfortunately, that the Tokyo data is fiction. There's been a significant spike in new cases starting immediately after the Olympics were officially delayed.

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

#88

Post by chiefalchemist »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #44
chiefalchemist wrote: post #28

But of course. If you intentionally prevent ppl from being infected then they remain susceptible. Short of a vaccine, you can't put it off forever. Those ppl can't hide forever. This is an expected - or should be - result of "flatten the curve." FTC is not about the virus per se, it's about the healthcare system. That is, to not exceed the volume the healthcare system can handle. Put another way, an increase in the n…

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…

What are you saying was copy and pasted? I'm suggesting what you're suggesting: better details, not aggregates that are meaningless.

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

#89

Post by clairity »

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.

no authoritarian state has ever had enough police and military to come close to outnumbering the citizenry. numerical equivalency is not a necessary condition for the exertion of power and coercion.

we must remain vigilant in protecting our rights and maintaining the dispersion of power while we get through this pandemic.

part of that is keeping fear responses in check by putting our rational powers to use discerning facts, accepting uncertainty, rejecting falsehoods, and collectively yielding the time needed to compile valuable information, rather than getting frothed up by the frenzy.

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

#90

Post by op03 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #83
op03 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works when people are afraid. We do have a Negativity Bias [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias ] that gets amplified under stress. You have to understand what you are trying push back on before telling someone who is scared - deal with it. It never works. Fears will just increase. How else do you think we end up with 20 year wars, wall st bailouts, the TSA, the NSA, drone strikes, metal detectors at sc…

I agree with what you're saying. It's very important to send positive messages: we'll get through this, we'll soon have enough medical capacity to treat everyone who falls sick, we've weathered worse crises in the past and this one won't be the one that beats us. I try to do that and encourage other people to do it. But it also needs to be made clear to people who propose to build a dystopian society that this is not…

First part is good. Second part of "needs to be made clear" is where you will run into issues.

We have this need to get everyone to agree with our views. But firstly it's not important to get things done and secondly it's not possible because of the variety of different needs and personality traits in the population.

It's a possible approach only on Putin or Xi planet . But it breaksdown in democracies (esp given the propaganda these days) people just harden their positions(they hear your view as an ultimatum or a demand), get defensive, react, attack etc. Trust breaksdown and then there is no hope for anything nuanced.

Better option is to give people something else to focus on, something to do etc while doing everything you doing well in your first para.

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