That's a fine stance if staying home is an option for you, but many people are not that fortunate with their logistical and financial situation.

Meanwhile, it transpires that the outside world is full of people who I am sure are upstanding and willing to self-sacrifice for their fellow man in theory, but will point blank refuse to bear the mild inconvenience of a piece of cloth over their face in shared spaces for the comfort of those around them in practice.

I mean, it's not news; most humans have never cared much about the welfare of strangers; people doing what they want and ignoring the externalities happens all the time - smoking in public spaces, drink driving... the pandemic simply served to viscerally ram home just how self-centered we all are.

And thus we come full circle to the start of the thread. Hell is other people. The more we interact with other people, the more obvious this becomes. As our world becomes more connected, no room is left for illusions on the subject; it's little wonder teens end up holing up in their rooms avoiding everyone.

I think this view sucks. A core part of being a functioning human being is being able to interact with others whose views differ from your own.

The core problem is the ostracization of opinion on social media. It also doesn't play very well when social isolation has had other consequences, such as the proliferation of viruses and the broad economic impact. Plus, COVID is now integrated in our society, thus giving more ammunition to those who thought that social isolation was pointless (even if it wasn't at the time).

We need to move on from the isolationism and vitriol of others with differing opinions.

Personally, I think gp's "If you stay home and others don't, it doesn't affect you" sucks, but YMMV.

You're responding to GP.

Brandolini's Law also comes to mind. Countering bullshit takes more effort than creating it. It's an understandable self-defense mechanism for an individual or even a community to just isolate and quarantine the source of a problem than to engage with them in earnest discourse. Trolling, astroturfing, and propaganda are real things, no amount of engagement will sway the opinion of bad-faith actors.

This is still too cynical. A large majority of people are not bad-faith actors but rather normal people who simply want to live their lives.

To be clear, I'm not arguing whether the lockdowns were good or bad. I do think they were necessary. I'm more arguing that we shouldn't suppress and ostracize people who disagreed with them. It's okay for people to disagree.

i think THIS view sucks. some things are objectively true. why should we have to tolerate people who literally don’t understand basic statistics and harm reduction? at all?

There are 2 contexts for speech, and within each different forces change the outcome of the same conversation. This is why I can say your analysis is resulting in erroneous outputs.

For arguments sake, let’s call it - individual only scenarios vs collective scenarios.

Individual only: What thoughts you say at home in the privacy of your house.

Collective: The vote.

In collective scenarios, the median/average choice dominate.

Eg: The chemical expert knows that chemical X is going to kill humans and avoids it.

The collective votes Yes to elect a representative who advocates for chemical X to be added to all food packaging.

——-

This is a very common trick question where Free Speech argument proponents falter.

Free Speech is a principle for ordering the world. With the internet, this principle needs to be applied to people who would skew or influence collective decisions.

People should not go out when they are sick. That they do so because of a logistical and financial situation, trading other peoples health for economical gain, is a very bad situation for everyone involved. A piece of cloth over their face may be a symbol for "better than nothing" solution, but it is a very problematic starting point for a discussion regarding pandemics.

The best solution to this problem in general is social welfare. One such choice that countries did during the pandemic was to encourage or force work-from-home, and reducing the economical friction of sick leave. When the situation is so bad that people have to choose between externalities and major negative personal impact, society can help by stepping in by pushing the right choice while at the same time reducing that negative personal impact. It is a social solution to a social issue.

People as a group can be good and evil, just as an individual. Society can choose to ignore those logistical and financial problems while at the same time expect people to act altruistic. A major reason for that will ironically also be the logistical and financial situation of that country, so they may as an alternative choose an better than nothing solution to it. Sub-optimal as it is.

It does, because the hospital is overloaded and I cant get access for unrelated health condition.

It does, because there are places I have to go to and I am at higher risk there.

It seems you are a good example of what they were talking about. Not understanding cause and effect such as using up medical resources that could otherwise be used for regular emergencies.

> If you're isolated and safe, why would you care if others go out and do what they want?

Because they'll get sick and fill up the emergency room. If I have a heart attack or stroke at home, that's a problem for me now.

> If you're isolated and safe, why would you care if others go out and do what they want?

To answer this question:

Because almost nobody was isolated. Most people couldn't stay at home exclusively and indefinitely. You gotta get groceries, lots of people have to go to work, lots of people have partners and family members that can't work from home, you gotta receive parcels, you had to receive food deliveries, and some people had to be the ones delivering parcels and food, some people could get OTHER diseases. The list goes on.