The fact that people don't see this means they've grown too comfortable with modern society and how far we've become in preventing disease spread. Maybe it'll take a Black Death 2.0 for people to understand this.
So it wasn’t. We knew it was mild, certainly worse than flu, but still mostly killing the elderly above life expectancy.
- We knew newspapers were grossly exaggerating information to the point of saying obvious bait (“the vaccine enlarges the penis” — yup they said it),
- We knew newspapers were under gag order to publish misinformation.
- We knew that most governments declared the law of exception and state of emergency, so from that point, no information could be trusted.
We knew it was mild because everyone was in a state of hysteria, from “SO YOU WANT TO KILL ALL GRANDMOTHERS” to “IN NYC THEY USE GIANT DUMPSTER TRUCKS TO CARRY THE DEADS TO THE MORGUE, SO WHY ARE YOU AGAINST LOCKDOWNS”. We knew it was all a gross exaggeration.
What if Covid had a 50% mortality rate? Would that not have justified a lockdown?
No, not even a 100% mortality rate justifies a lockdown
Movement of individuals (as long as he/she is not moving into your home/territory etc.) is IMO a sacred 'right' that one must offer one's fellow humans. It's a slippery slope if a dire situation however real is used as a justification for a lockdown.
I disagree with the concept that individual freedoms trumps the safety of other's, as does society at large, which deems some level of negligence to be criminal.
I hope the next pandemic has a short incubation period and ultra-high mortality.
1. https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/05/fugitive-with-untreat...
See, you’re using the fallacy, right here. We can still do both.
I was hoping you'd explain in more detail, so I wont have to assume what your reasoning. By "do both", were you perhaps referring to measures like masks mandates while allowing people move freely? Unsurprisingly, some people felt mandates violated the sanctity of their individual rights too.
sangnoir, Think really hard and you will be able to come up with something (where 'both' can be done).
If you cannot come up with anything then I'd say that even having a discourse with someone who can potentially come up with something is pointless because of the wide chasm.
At least as far as COVID is concerned, and that's because COVID isn't a realistic concern for most children.
There are people (children, but also others) for whom it is a marked concern, and appropriate risk mitigation strategies should be taking. Working with the gung-ho assumption that all spaces are essentially risk free would represent a fail in your duty of care.
Some of us are more afraid of an all powerful state using any excuse to further their own interests.
No, certainly not. I want people to make their own informed choices. It can be heart-wrenching for oneself to observe people make (what you think) an obvious wrong choice, but if you had any any life experiences of substance, you will realize that all you can do is give people the most accurate information that you have, but you should never, ever impose your decision (even if it's for the person's good) if the person does not consent to it. One could probably make an exception for very young kids.
Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Side note: who exactly decides what is good for the individual?
These are two contradictory sentences. Wanting people to make their own informed choices unimpinged by government action while a virus with the transmissibility of COVID and a 100% fatality rate exists is definitionally being okay with the death of 99% of the human population. Like, that is the outcome so by definition if you're in favour of only dealing with pandemics through personal responsibility and you're saying that would be the case even with a virus with the transmissibility of COVID and a 100% fatality rate, then you are saying that the death of 99% of people in existence is an acceptable outcome. What I am asking is why you believe that.
>I am asking why you are okay with the outcome where 99% of people are dead.
Do you have any real life experiences? this happens all the time, why the fuck do you keep repeating that I actually _want_ people to die? Really evil things happen, when you try and help people even if it is for their own good without their consent. Often _more_ than 99% people will die if you do that. Let me repeat: you do not have enough life experiences. Let me also say another thing you do not read enough history especially of the 'extermination' kind. There is also a good possibility, that you are a nerd/sociopath if you do not understand the concept of live an let live.
*I've looked for this over and over since then and haven't been able to find it, I get the feeling it might have been taken offline.
Perfect eradication has to be the objective, not simply stopping it in its tracks. Otherwise, whenever you open up, you start spreading again.
It's also a rather offensive appeal to human superiority in as much as it totally ignores the various animal reservoirs.
I'd never mock the perspective, the situation is too serious.
When there was an active fire threatening my town a couple years, emergency issued an evacuation order and arrested people who came into the area. When I worked as a teacher in the 1990s, I had to get various vaccines as a condition for having a job. When I traveled in 2012, I also had to get some vaccines to visit various countries. Health departments have required restaurants to control the behavior of their customers including preventing them from coughing on the salad bar.
Covid involved the state using it's existing powers on a larger scale, no doubt. And how well it did that can certainly be debated. But all the powers the state used existed already.
So the arguments that try to put paint this situation as fundamentally new and wrong are incorrect. That they were accompanied by efforts to also falsify the nature of the illness itself reinforces the perspective that they were disingenuous. But I recognize people can convince themselves of a lot when it suits them.
if we can’t understand why those folks are really pissed off
As far as I can tell, the anger about state actions against and claims that it was some new are part of the generally polarized state of American politics. So, I think I understand. People are map 'cause they're convinced themselves of self-serving baloney. That's not an unusual source of anger for humans. But this doesn't make me "understanding" as you can imagine. Indeed, those people sure aren't the only angry ones and shouldn't be treat as special for their anger.
If you want something more related in 1948 or some such there was a small outbreak of smallpox in New York. And they vaccinated 80% of the city in a couple of months.
Speaks to me that while the state has and always had had these powers it's become loath to use them.
I think you’ll just have a natural disaster and a man-made disaster as people start shooting over toilet paper.
Look how they acted over haircuts. Look how 3 years later people are shooting folks who use their driveway to turn around.
Americans have a huge credibility issue, and act like god damn chimps flinging shit in the best of times.
You and too many others are afflicted with the idea you live in a vacuum. Your mind palace doesn’t exist to me.
Like outbreaks of:
- Smallpox
- Ebola
- Weaponized Anthrax
- Some other novel bug with high fatality rates.
You don't have to go very far back to figure out WHY the laws being used were put in place. Even in the 60's-70's, if someone had Measles they'd be in enforced quarantine in their house along with the rest of their family until it cleared. Because not doing that kills people. Innocent people. Often a lot more innocent people than the original infected, all because someone got selfish and couldn't control what they were doing.
Look at the number of people killed by Typhoid Mary [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/]
That people are angry is very true. But frankly they'd be angry regardless. It doesn't stop the very real reason why society needs to protect itself.
Then the discussion comes down to 'when is the societally acceptable threshold for measures to be taken'.
It’s not even a little bit about being inconvenienced, and anyone who says that is either a straw man or an idiot. It’s about the basic principle of the individual and their rights versus the group.
Of course it was a chaotic natural disaster. The question is, in the face of a natural disaster, do you or do you not want the ability to make your own decisions.
I’m no anarchist or libertarian, but if we can’t understand why those folks are really pissed off and why it has nothing to do with whatever the R-naught actually was, we’ll never make progress.