Not sure why this is getting voted down, this is absolutely the case. Either you kill exponential growth via isolation/inoculation or damn near everyone gets sick in an exponential explosion and the healthcare system is overrun. This is simple statistics.

I can't figure voting out on this site anymore. It used to work a lot like other spots, with primarily upvotes given to express general agreement or reward insight, and downvotes reserved for comments that got something factually incorrect. Now I'm seeing about a 50/50 split with downvotes, and it generally doesn't correlate in any meaningful way with either correctness or the status of the debate. It's routine to see discussions with reasonable participation on both sides gets a wildly asymmetric split in votes, with half of them grayed out entirely. And it kinda sucks.

In this particular case here in this topic: there's a voting (but seemingly not commenting) population that just really wants COVID-19 to be a flop. I'd be tempted to say that's a political position, but in fact politicians have largely unified on this (finally). Maybe it's a counterculture or conspiracy thing.

No one should be surprised. This site, and its moderation, has (possibly even unintentionally) favored a certain political ideology for years. I and others stopped maintaining accounts over it. Any economic discussion is inevitably political, but strangely only certain types of comments and discussions get slaughtered by public opinion or admonished by moderators. (Easy to see in each passing day as it becomes obvious that direct relief / UBI are necessary and the libertarians of this site realize that caring for fellow human beings might benefit them too!)

I mean in the last week, multiple legit stories have been flagged off the home page about Coronavirus. Go back and look at the comments on the story that hit the frontpage about Trump trying to buy exclusive rights to a vaccine... A story that was ultimately confirmed as true. But yet it was flagged off the frontpage by Trump supporters that denounced it as "fake news" of course, as if he doesn't regularly do things that would be unbelievable without video/audio evidence.

Meanwhile, any comment, like yours, that mention the BLEAK REALITY THAT THIS IS GOING TO LAST MORE THAN 3 WEEKS is getting downvoted. Systematically. As if downvoting you changes basic fucking maths.

Frankly, I think it's massive cases of denial. I think people are just starting to get an image of how bad this is going to be and how fucked our social structure is about to be. Especially if this drags on for many months (like those of us paying attention understand is likely).

HN has just generally been particularly insufferable the last week and a half, but at least the really obnoxious deniers have mostly ... stopped.

People always project whatever ideology they disagree with onto the moderators. C'est le job. Plenty of accusations go the other way—randomish sample:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22256458

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307915

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21588105

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325122

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BetterThanSlave

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16397133

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912334

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20742578

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21803541

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21907232

(sorry...hard to stop)

People also chronically overinterpret whatever they see on HN that they don't like—again, myriads of comments make the opposite generalization to yours. Randomness plus cognitive bias equals narrative.

Yet it wasn't like this in the past. And while I won't make the same accusations I do think it would be good for you guys to look at the culture that gets encouraged here. There is a viciousness to the voting here and an intolerance of opinion that just doesn't match the seemingly sophisticated comments.

You seem to be talking about voting patterns while I'm talking about cognitive biases leading to bogus generalizations. Those seem like two distinct "it"s.

As for voting patterns, I'm not sure I agree. For example, it's not true that downvotes used to be reserved for something factually incorrect. The voting mechanisms are subject to the same psychology as they always were.

Your comments often argue in edgy ways that are not exactly in keeping with the spirit of this site. From my perspective that's more likely why they're getting downvotes. I took a quick look and your comments that I saw which were upvoted don't seem to have this quality. Usually, when people complain about downvotes, there's something in their comments that they're not aware of, but which is apparent to readers. Of course there are also downvotes simply because of disagreement, but all comments get those, and they usually get fixed by corrective upvotes if there's nothing else in the comment that has a downvoteable quality.

I came to this thread for this comment. It’s a really unintuitive point, and I think someone needs to create some type of visual representation of it so it sinks in.

IMO, this thing is a trap for politicians. A true lose lose for them.

There has to be an endgame to these measures that's not 'wait for a vaccine'. A few weeks is tolerable[0], but what happens when early April comes around and new cases are still popping up? The provisions will have to start unwinding or this could go from an economic hiccup to an economic catastrophe.

[0] less so for some.

Everyone covers mouths to catch asymptomatic spread, cheap testing indicates those who should self-isolate, enforce against scofflaws, econ reopens.

These meassures are pretty much already happening here in Czech Republic - masks/respirators (of any provenience, even a scarf will do) are now mandatory to prevent you from easily infecting others. And a plane with 100k high speed tests just landed the other day.

This is correct.

Human life is more valuable than the economy. Governments can print arbitrary amounts of money and use monetary policy to soften the blow on people. We can sort the economy out later, right now we should focus on minimizing loss of life.

They're working on some pretty fast testing. Before being shut in for 18 months they'll probably develop a policy of weekly standard tests for the population, and require proof of a recent test to do anything in public.

Fortunately, a few measures have been mentioned here, but I like to address a more general point. You say there "has to be an endgame". My question is: Why? The virus is not something you can negotiate with, it's essentially a force of nature. As a more dire example, if a massive asteroid comes hurling towards the earth, we either get off this rock (rather unlikely), or we all die. Are you going to stand there and say "there has to be an endgame that is neither of those outcomes"?

The people ordering lockdowns only have limited tools in their arsenal.

We’re waiting for a lot of things- vaccines, respirators, treatments, the arrival of warmer weather, and social cooperation. We can’t plan for a month from now because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. All we can do is try to buy time.

I'm just a mere software engineer, so I have no idea about this stuff. But, I feel like this sentiment "has to be an endgame to these measures" feels like wishful thinking.

Why is it impossible that we're headed for an economic catastrophe until a vaccine is out? I can totally see it happening - something where we will have to ration out our basic supplies even. <-- already happening wrt some stuff.

That would just be the cost of saving a few million lives.

Yeah, and at least they won't have to endure the rationing, because they were on death's doorstep already. I don't think a lot of people saying this kind of stuff are considering the deaths from an economic catastrophe.

What's the alternative? Let 10M people die to get back 15% of world GDP? (Both reasonable guesses at pessimal death counts and recessions, IMHO).

The hope is that it will work everywhere like it seems to have in Hubei and Korea -- near-zero new case counts and a regime of continued care, a few extra regulations, and pervasive testing. And it might work. But if it doesn't, yeah: we should turtle, accept the economic catastrophe, and wait for a vaccine. Would anyone sane argue otherwise?

>Would anyone sane argue otherwise?

a. no need to be rude and b.

The same reason sane people drive automobiles which kill 40,000 people in this country a year[0]: the alternative can be worse.

How many people do you figure are going to get rolled back into poverty at 15% world GDP loss?

[0]Less this year I suppose.

> How many people do you figure are going to get rolled back into poverty at 15% world GDP loss?

A whole lot, but they'll get back to parity (on average) in about 6 years, assuming a 2.5% GDP growth. How many dead people do you think will come back to life after six years, in comparison?

I don't want to be glib, but I genuinely don't think you've thought this through. I just can't see a moral argument for allowing a 10M+ death count at the kind of economic impact we're talking about right now.

>I don't want to be glib, but I genuinely don't think you've thought this through. I just can't see a moral argument for allowing a 10M+ death count at the kind of economic impact we're talking about right now.

Then try thinking through the impact of what could become the biggest economic disruption since the great depression or the great leap forward. Those went well for people. 80 trillion GDP, down to 68, back to 80 in 6 years is a 36 trillion dollar loss in the next six years alone. That's 3.6 million per victim and to be frank, most people aren't worth 3.6 million dollars.

Look, this is a reasonable thing to disagree about but you aren't engaging in good faith.

edit: math

The endgame is to wait out the peak, which won't come until May. It's going to be an economic catastrophe.