I really don't think that's a totally fair take on the situation. The theme of the BLM protests was people taking on huge personal risk to seize an opportunity for change that might not present itself again. I don't think anyone was trying to argue that joining a crowd in a pandemic and standing opposed to police in riot gear itching to use it was a safe thing to do.

And no one principled would object to that if the risk was indeed personal. It is not, obviously, and the people protesting surely know it, so if you have a shred of intellectual honesty that noble narrative cannot possibly hold. The real truth is that these people weighted the risk of infecting themselves and others and decided on behalf of us all, that it was worth it.

See that sounds good but that applies to everything anyone does right now. If you leave your home at all at this point you're making the choice that whatever you doing carries a risk of harming yourself and others. There's really no way to isolate the risk to just yourself.

And so yeah, that was a real choice that made. Like my friends and I had to decide if worth it to join the protests and we were pretty firmly on the side of this was too important to not do. And so you're absolutely right but I feel like it's hard to be measured when the argument is "look the left is going out to march in a civil rights protest but doesn't want hair salons or schools to open -- the hipocrits!"

There need to be some nuance here. I think most people agree that grocery stores and hospitals needs to be open and that chuck-e-cheese probably doesn't. I don't think it's at all hypocritical to take a stance in the middle. Of course there's going to be lots of disagreement about what falls on what side but that's the argument to have.

First of all let me say I appreciate your civility and candor and that I believe you, and your friends, truly believe that your choice is honorable and just. However, consider that many, many people do not have the same privileges of the typical young, affluent and still comfortably employed HN audience. Many people, who worked incredibly hard to buy their chuck-e-cheese franchise or their hair salon are middle aged, have a family to support and no way to do it. Many of them will never recover from this. They are too old, too broke, and do not have the sort of mind that can give them access to the highly paid jobs that we take for granted. Their protests strike me as at least equally noble and justified. Its a big country and tragedy abounds. You can weave true, heartbreaking narratives about almost any group. The question of which of those are worthy enough to justify spreading this germ seems to me, at present, ridiculous. None are. Protests in the streets now just increase our division, make it impossible to take appeals for a lock down seriously and will ultimately just plunge us, all of us, deeper into the hell we are already in.

> See that sounds good but that applies to everything anyone does right now. If you leave your home at all at this point you're making the choice that whatever you doing carries a risk of harming yourself and others.

It's a poor comparison: the risk of transmission when gathering huge numbers of humans together is exponentially higher than leaving your home to buy groceries.

Have you seen the fly-by drone footage of Hollywood Blvd on July 7th of the BLM protests [1]? It was outrageously reckless and not just to the lives of the people who took part.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/iSlH3SG.gifv

Of course the risk isn't equal, it's just that the argument "look at these people risking the live of others by going out" can't hold absolutely because even going groceries is risking the lives of others so the argument needs to take into the risks and reward to decide if it's reckless or not.

So yes BLM protests are high risk, but to the protesters they're also high reward if they manage to affect change which, largely, they are!

Reckless would be going to a music festival right now, and in my opinion, opening schools. The reward just isn't there. Kids will be happy to have an extra long summer break.