But for neighbors etc that were in the same social bubble observing the same careful restrictions it seems too much. I think the government has been well within its rights in certain mandates that ensure careless people don't inflict their negligence on other people, but in some cases I think it went too far.
On the other hand, especially at the beginning, everyone was dealing with incomplete and imperfect information. It was not an easy time to be a decision maker on such issues especially when people's actions became expressions of political affiliation. Masks are a perfect example:
Resistance started as a rallying cry to allow people take personal responsibility, a mindset I can understand. But it then morphed into a refusal to take some precautions-- essentially a refusal to consider personal responsibility issue-- due to the politics involved instead of a reasoned & informed stance on the risks. (PLEASE note that I'm not making a statement about masks themselves one way or another-- just pointing out that choices influencing medical issues became driven by political affiliation. I saw extremes of this behavior on different ends of the political spectrum, substituting critical thinking with selectively listening only to experts that were aligned with a given political stance.)
Also, could you please not post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments generally? We're trying for something a bit different than internet default here, to the extent possible.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
You can and you ought to when damn fools put lives of others at stake. This not the time for niceties or political correctness. We're in a war, the next life could be mine—and I'm not suicidal.
Incidentally, many seem to forget the a priori reason for government is to keep the citizenry safe—safe from the threat of outsiders, and safe from insiders who wish to harm their fellow citizens, they're justification for the military and law enforcement respectfully.
I expect Government to keep my fellow citizens and me safe; if it doesn't then it has failed in its mission.
"<...> could you please not post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments generally? We're trying for something a bit different than internet default here,<...>"
If you took the time to read a few of my posts then you would realize that I'm probably too polite on most occasions, also I have never criticized a HN poster directly—and in this instance I was making a general comment with no particular name in mind. Moreover, I go to considerable lengths to ensure that I do not post hearsay or unsubstantiated fact.
_
Edit: "regardless of how bad another comment is or you feel it is" I made no criticism of other posts including the person to whom I was replying. Saying that his criticism perhaps wasn't strong enough given the dire circumstances isn't flaming, rather it's debate.
Sorry, but there's always a version of this argument to be made and people always make it to show that this time is different and their comment is justified. You can justify anything that way, and mostly what people use it to justify is just regular old internet flamewar, which is never very interesting. So I don't see any reason to change HN's rules; if anything, they become more important, not less, as the stakes get higher.
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Thus, I'll graciously accept the fact that I'm a damn idiot for doing so.