What kind of insanity have we collectively tolerated that “you can pay to be locked up in a ‘hotel’ tor two weeks” is seen as some kind of evidence that there is no compulsion?

That’s like saying people aren’t forced to vaccinate since you don’t “need” to work at that particular job and you don’t “need” to exercise in a gym or watch a movie in a theater.

Everything in history shows the slope is slippery. They will pass this on to everyone. It’s a blatant power grab. They want to spy on you and track you. They don’t care about your health.

If you decided to travel during the quarantine, you already agreed to this. If you were already stuck out of country when the quarantines were added, then you have a point. However, it makes sense if they want to control transmission and either lack vaccines or have a bunch of people who don’t want to get vaccinated.

> It’s a blatant power grab. They want to spy on you and track you. They don’t care about your health.

That sounds like a conspiracy theory.

The kind of insanity that has been the law for well over a year. Getting outraged at an effort to make that policy less draconian is pretty silly.

It can be a law for ten years. Doesn't make it less of a shitty law.

And I think the outrage is useful. It will mobilize people until it boils over into action, if enough people do it when it actually counts. This is when it actually counts. Everyone has spent all their Outrage Points on useless shit some actor or celebrity said about something no one will care about on their deathbed, but so few are saying anything about this totalitarian nightmare.

I was not defending the law.

But the App that is the subject of the article serves to reduce the severity of that law and thus reduces government overreach. To be upset about the App, rather than the original quarantine law, is to be focusing attention in the wrong place.

Tell me what about this reduces government overreach and the severity of the law.

Returning travelers quarantining at home will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-a...

It's a reduction in government overreach that you have a "choice" between one of their quarantine "hotels" or in-home surveillance? Is the part that is the lesser government overreach, the part where if you fail to address one of their random pings they'll send officers to your house to conduct an in-person check?

The app isn't the problem in itself. The problem is the enslavement. This is a system of enslavement.

Up until now you had no choice, when returning to Australia you had to pay to stay in a 2 week quarantine hotel.

Creating an alternative solution for home quarantine gives people more options.

You could argue that there was a better way to implement home quarantine. You could argue that the 2 week quarantine is goverment overreach. You could even argue that this option helps the government keep the 2 week quarantine in place longer by tempering its severity.

I don't see those sorts of rational arguments. I see a bunch of people making an irrational or uninformed argument that this extends government overreach by making the 2 week quarantine rule more severe.

I don't think you can argue with this subset of americans on this. I tried when this came up on hacker news last week, and they were adamant this was worse that going into a hotel, and that australians citizens were sleep walking into a totalitarian state for allowing this to happen. (And also that they only had second amendment rights like the USA this would never be allowed to happen).

It was a bit of a wake up call actually - the level of conversation was starting to feel more like reddit than what I'd always (until now i guess) expected from hacker news.