> it's clear that they aren't actually making rational decisions as much as rationalizing their decisions

Because one does not reach the same conclusion as you does not make their conclusion automatically irrational.

A very large part of the online community is irrational indeed. Irrational about the true danger of the virus.

I am not scared of the virus. I am scared of how scared people are of it.

All children who died of Covid-19 were already seriously ill https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/all-children-who-died-of-...

In Ireland: Median age of death is 84. 94% with underlying condition(s) https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronav...

54% of San Francisco storefronts have closed https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Half-of-all-San-Fran...

The lockdowns and doom seem 1000x more irrational to me.

> Because one does not reach the same conclusion as you does not make their conclusion automatically irrational.

I didn't, initially, fault their conclusion. However, I noted that their conclusions consistently and increasingly favoured their immediate self-interest, regardless of what else was happening.

Another thing I noticed, in the same people and the same situations, is a difficulty noticing any nuance regarding the issue. When I presented them with something, instead of addressing it, they would react to the threat they perceive.

To me, this also suggests that they are arguing from their thesis, rather than the situation.

bingo! I fear that people are encouraging and instilling agoraphobia.

There’s unmeasurable effects of all this hysteria and confinement. And if the over-cautious lockdown side is going to assume worst-case scenarios of covid, let’s assume worst-case scenarios for the cost and side-effects lockdown - the true worst-case is that the benefit is marginal and we suffer every drawback.

It's not clear that the current economic situation would be better if we let everyone out and suffered all the death and negative long term health outcomes that may still lurk in apparently benign cases.

I appreciate the side that has humility.

An ability to entertain that they're wrong.

It should be clear to people that at pretty much every stage, people have missed the mark massively on predictions.

The experts haven't been too helpful and really seem to be even worse than no advice.

The US regulatory state stood in the way of states offering testing as quickly as possible.

It's been a bungled mess and "but Trump" is all too easy and convenient.

Which people, which mark, have been wrong? What's happening (excepting the stock market) all seems to be pretty in line with the expectations I had around April.

I also don't agree that the experts have been unhelpful, and strongly disagree that they have been worse than no advice. They have been fought at every turn by people who don't understand epidemiology.

I think it's pretty clear that if we had actually listened to the public health experts, we (in the US) would be in much better shape. Trump (who you brought up) bears some of this responsibility for doing something so stupid as to politicize masks. He bears more blame because he appears to interfere with and try to adjust the science messaging to fit his narrative, which serves to confuse people.

So no - the experts haven't been wrong. We've just not spent much time listening to them.

> They have been fought at every turn by people who don't understand epidemiology.

Didn't Fauci discourage mask usage at the worst time to discourage mask usage?

Weren't the experts continuously downplaying the danger while Trump was shutting down flights?

Wasn't Pelosi, de Blasio and crew telling us to "hug asians" and jump on the subway?

I'm not claiming there's anyone who was right in this mess, but there's very little ground to say anyone managed this correctly or would have been better equipped.

The supposed Democratic utopias in this country (NJ and NYC) killed off the elderly. And people want Cuomo to run for president...

> Because one does not reach the same conclusion as you does not make their conclusion automatically irrational.

> A very large part of the online community is irrational indeed. Irrational about the true danger of the virus.

Pick one. It’s hard to be persuasive when you hold your critics to a higher standard than you hold yourself.

Your framing is interesting, as depending on the personality type you're talking to, you'll get the exact same words, but with the intent going in the opposite direction. There's the "right" and "rational" way (our way of thinking, naturally), and then the people who are emotional and rationalizing.

Yes, but there’s some asymmetry in this case because one side of the spectrum is reaching conclusions that are exceptionally inconvenient for them while the other end of the spectrum is reaching conclusions that justify as little personal sacrifice as possible. It proves nothing but there’s reason to be suspicious of people who always seem to reach a “rational” conclusion that directly benefits them.

> it's clear that they aren't actually making rational decisions as much as rationalizing their decisions

That's a human universal, no matter the situation.

We make up our mind, and then backfill an explanation.

I wouldn't argue that it's not a universal human behaviour.

I would, however, argue that there's lots of evidence that it is not evenly distributed.

The way I understand it, it's pretty much every person's brain all the time. We all, always, emotionally decide then rationalize. We can build systems that protect us from this inherent flaw, but that's different than not experiencing it.

Smart people are more susceptible to high impact biases though, which is maybe what you meant? Lower IQ people are experience this less?

It's not general intelligence per se. Self-awareness and objective decision making are skills: a result of environment as well as individual capability.

I know lots of very intelligent people who seemingly can't apply that intelligence any time they have strong emotions about an outcome. We also know that children can be inculcated with difficulties distinguishing fiction from fact (1).

IMHO, as you mention, it's a spectrum, perhaps the equivalent of the Autistic spectrum for Emotional Reactivity Disorder. Though unlike autism or borderline personality disorder, I believe that it's a skill deficit rather than an inherent disorder of personality.

I also believe that more than half this country is suffering much more profoundly from it than we are aware.

(1) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cogs.12138

I hope you're not thinking about that weird study trying to prove the "decide subconsciously, then backfill rationalizations" hypothesis by "demonstrating" it with fMRI; AFAIR that made about as much sense as saying that a CPU isn't actually working, but measuring potential on output pins and backfilling "computation" because you can measure voltage on the pins faster than you can measure temperature increase in the CPU...

No, I don't put much stock into fMRI results.