In my observation this is just the way that people debate these days. They know that there are one or more contenders in the room but at least one that is in stark contrast to their view. They arrive at the most maximal conclusion possible, apply a moralistic impetus (everyone will die because of you and your ideas), we accept the proverbial threat and move on. If someone who isn't in stark contrast to their opinion continues to object then they just find a way to shove them in the box of whatever that stark contrast group is and follow the normal rules. The really creative part is when their contender also does this. At this point it's a race to the bottom of describing their opponent with various pejoratives and unrelated adjectives or sometimes it's as simple as having the best meme.
Pretty good description of the internet circa 2020
Sad days
Re:The Covid Science Wars
by mattigames on Tuesday December 01, 2020 @01:41AM
(#25262994)
As in biology systems societal systems also become more resilient to the difficulties they encounter, so to put it in your own words is completely possible for Safety Sally to enforce restrictions that do kill more people indirectly in the next 10 years but at the same time save way more people in the next 100 years...
To put some examples in the current context: The speed at which medical facilities are researching this virus has never been seen before in the history of mankind, and many of the findings are shreding light on understanding how viruses work (not only this one), including knowledge for when (_not if_) a virus much stronger and infectious that coronavirus pays us a visit.
Every dissent winds up getting framed this way. The numbers don't matter. The way you win is by having "your side" be the side who's policy kills people less directly. When you take it to extremes like "make everyone do backbreaking labor and all the health problems that comes with that to save a few dozen kids with cancer" the absurdity becomes obvious. It's maddening but this is the nature of a lot of arguments we have in society today. For example you have Safety Sally wanting to do something that will crush an industry in order to save a few dozen workplace injuries. How many years of life will be lost from all those people's reduced standard of living? Hard to tell. But Safety Sally always wins because she can argue that anyone arguing against her policy is killing people more directly, numbers be damned. Sometimes (e.g. coal industry) the numbers do work out in her favor. Often times it's hard to tell and then you get into arguments about who's analysis is more accurate