https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/el-salvador-inmates-c...
In India in particular, the lockdown has so far caused more misery than the virus itself:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/india-covid-19-lockdo...
...although it's an impossible equation, because letting it turn rampant would also cause death and destruction.
I mean, that's the point, right?
Heart surgery hurts more than chest pain, but it's intended to prevent the heart attack.
Answer: In the cities they chose to leave.
And the idea that mass lockdowns can stop the spread of virus is itself a radical, new idea that's never been tried, and which has its own cadre of experts saying it hasn't been working or is making little difference.
Given what we know now, extending a shelter-in-place order through all of May is catastrophic. It will likely trigger mass civil unrest. The virus just isn't that dangerous.
You probably could say "has not been tried recently", but mass quarantines has been tried since time immemorial.
And I think your second statement is false, preventive isolation en masse was practiced (to the extent possible) during bubonic plague.
But lockdowns during pandemics have been practiced occasionally, but always at the city level, due to the nature of governance during past pandemics. Famously Newton and Shakespeare did work during London lockdowns, and some Italian city states distributed fixed rations to peasants to help them stay at home.
What’s new isn’t preventative quarantines, what’s new is global travel and communication.
The heart surgeon is booked out for a few months. Avoid strenuous exercise until they're available to fix you.
I also forwarded it to my network - maybe this helps at least a little bit more in terms of donations.
People first started living in the Galapagos a long time ago, in the 1950s they consolidated everyone into the islands they live today. Interesting history for a place that you’d think was purely natural, but human civilization finds a way I suppose.
Surely they should just be put to sleep, no?
Following this we could say: As there are always young able people in need, why care for old or disabled people who doo not contribute to society and only cost society's money?
Why "donate" taxes for care facilities and such unnecessary stuff?
There is an island on which there are hungry people and hungry dogs. There is a limited pool of donor funds.
The fact that there are people asking for money for the dogs before all the people on that little island have full bellies is just sad.
The dogs will feel no pain from being put to sleep.
Nobody can, will, or wants to even suggest that the children be put to sleep. We will let the children suffer horrible pain before we ever even consider suggesting such a thing.
So every dollar spent on the starving dogs is a dollar that could have prevented some pain for the humans there. It would cost no money and no pain to put the dogs to sleep and ease the pain of some children.
So stop trying to bring the rest of the world into this to win the argument. This is a localised problem on one island, and every dollar spent there should be spent on reducing harm.
A lot of charity donation is based on feelings rather than calculations about saved lives. Otherwise there would only be one charity, and it'd be distributing malaria nets and deworming tablets in Africa.
In my experience, if someone donates $20 to animals in response to lowpro's post, that's not money subtracted from their fixed charity budget that would otherwise have gone to humans. That's money subtracted from their household budget, that otherwise would have been spent on hobbies and bills. People who have fixed charity budgets simply don't donate from them in response to social media posts.
> Nobody can, will, or wants to even suggest that the children be put to sleep. We will let the children suffer horrible pain before we ever even consider suggesting such a thing.
Sounds like the proper solution is to convince people that putting kits to sleep is OK, then...
(Not really, but it does seem to follow from your statements)
You're operating on the assumption that the people with the means to donate prioritize human life over a dog's life, which isn't always the case.
By extension of your statement: Given that there are always people starving somewhere on Earth at all other points in time too, isn't it immoral to feed pets at all? They should be put down and that food should go to people! Dog food in general is immoral, because it could instead be given to someone starving somewhere.
There are many criteria you could use for making such ranking of problems (a popular one is minimizing dollars per lives saved, or dollars per QALY added). Living in a free society means people are free to decide how much (if anything all) they want to spend on charitable causes, and on which ones. But in one's individual spending, it's worth to think about how to get maximum "bang for your buck", in terms of alleviating suffering.
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[0] - By coincidence, this is on the front page right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993486.
And the people running this shelter, knowing that donor funds are limited, are asking for it to be spent on keeping unwanted dogs alive when there are people starving. It's more humane to put the dogs to sleep. They will feel no pain.
But nobody is going to even begin to consider putting the children to sleep are they? Those kids are going to suffer badly, and you're here arguing that the dogs are more important?
These are unprecedented times, and you can't just waste money.
Exactly. Most of my old team is simply floating on what savings they had, partner's salaries and any money from the family funds we are offered (small grants of $1200 depending on need and availability for FT employees). Some don't qualify for unemployment, as they're just furloughed waiting for a re-open date, or are still dependents and got screwed out of the $1200 checks sent out.
I stepped down from my role as a chef in late January to focus on SpaceX interview(s) and had budgeted accordingly and was ok with passive income sources, but those dried up as the Market tanked, so I had to get really creative this month to make ends-meet because I thought after my interview in February I'd be employed by May. My landlord has made it clear he still expects payment on the 1st, which made me ask serious questions about my current situation.
Ultimately, I have realized I have to go back to tech now as these past years in culinary to get to this point have been incredibly financially precarious, so I took some refresher classes on Coursera and sent out some CVs.
I've heard back from one potential employer so hopefully that pans out as our stay at home requirement is being lifted at the end of this month in CO. My family in CA is still required to stay at home and less than half can work remotely so its putting a strain on things.
The US is struggling in many ways, but I can't help but think many other less fortunate nations are struggling even more. But the US doesn't show international news so you wouldn't really know unless you go looking for it.
[0]: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&busines...