This is the US. Where for many not having a job is risking your health and your families health so it's a catch-22. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I’ve no idea how generations of politicians managed to convince so many people that rules of the game are in their favor when in fact they’re rigged mostly against them.

That's how you win elections. You tell (convince) people what to be afraid of, and who's to blame for it.

Many of us risk our health on a daily basis with long commutes, stress from unreasonable deadlines, lack of sleep, and of course the usual co-working with people who won't stay home when they're infectious (even with non-COVID). Unfortunately, we can't just quit our jobs "fullstop" whenever our health is at risk, or we'd have a much bigger problem of no income at all.

It is not easy to change jobs, and with COVID now it seems likely that engineer is out-of-work for a significant amount of time. I guess he made the right decision for himself (and getting press for it might actually make a difference), but really it's not about him individually, it's about all of society at this point. He personally could have taken the chance and "probably" been okay, but as he points out, it is completely irresponsible and pathological for Charter to behave as they are.

Honestly at this point I'm wondering if we shouldn't have roving bands of coughers going anywhere they see people and making a big scene of coughing into their hands and touching everything. Until people realize that you can't arrest or shoot a virus, and instead need to change the behavior of its potential hosts.