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Both, but also with including the time spent under house arrest in life expectancy with full weight, disregarding the side-effects and tail risks of such isolat

Both, but also with including the time spent under house arrest in life expectancy with full weight, disregarding the side-effects and tail risks of such isolation imposed on everyone, both social and economic. Most of all, with the irrationality and cowardice of risking everything for a few months (weeks?) of average life expectancy.

cycrutchfield 6y ago
I'm glad that you are comfortable making that choice for other people. After all, it's most likely not you that will have to bear the consequences.
- mathdev 6y ago
  Likewise.
  - cycrutchfield 6y ago
    I'm sure your social life will recover just fine. After all, you seem to value it more than human lives.
    - logicchains 6y ago
      Do you drive a car? If so, by your logic you value your own convenience more than human lives, because driving kills over a million people and maims tens of millions more people every year.
      - cycrutchfield 6y ago
        Oh my god. And I suppose my flatulence contributes to global warming, therefore I am ultimately responsible for killing the entire human race. Is this honestly what passes for reasonable debate on this forum?
        logicchains 6y ago
        Is it any less reasonable than accusing somebody of valuing their own leisure more than human lives? The only difference between banning private cars to save lives and quarantining everybody to save lives is quantitative. Banning private cars saves fewer lives, but also causes much less economic damage. Opposing either implies some unwilligness to save life at all costs, some preference for economics/convenience over human lives.
        cycrutchfield 6y ago
        It's absolutely less reasonable. Since you want to make it quantitative, let's go ahead and do that: If everybody drives cars for the next year in the US: 35,000 human lives lost If no quarantine is in place for the next 2-3 months in the US: 2,200,000 human lives lost
        logicchains 6y ago
        Let's try to quantify the economic loss. US GDP is ~$20 trillion. 3 months of that is ~$5 trillion. Assuming a drop of 25% in output from completely locking everyone down (Goldman predictions), that's ~$1.25 trillion. Add the current bailout package of $2 trillion, gives $3.25 trillion. Assume near-complete economic recovery after that, most businesses successfully reopen, for the rest of the year output only falls 5%. 5% * 15 trillion gives $0.75 trillion, for a total cost of $4 trillion. With 2,200,000 lives lost, that works out to a cost per life saved of around $2 million. With that money, for 35,000 lives we could spend $70 billion. If we multiply that by e.g. 5, to get $350 billion, that seems like a reasonable number for building enough public transport infrastructure that cars were not needed, especially since it could be spread out over years (because we'd save 35,000 people every year, unlike corona where the saving of lives only happens in one year). Hence in this case the value of dollars per life is on a similar order of magnitude for both the private car bans and the mandatory lockdowns. The above is a conservative approach: it would be more ideal to look at expected-life-years saved rather than just lives saved, and banning cars would do way better here because the majority of car fatalities are young people, whereas the majority of coronavirus fatalities only have a few expected years of life left.
      - Der_Einzige 6y ago
        The response to coronavirus also nearly eliminates automobile fatalities. Try again
        logicchains 6y ago
        The point is that most people generally don't consider a response like this is justified for the sake of reducing deaths from automobile accidents (I've never seen anybody argue that everyone should not leave their houses, to prevent auto accidents).

cycrutchfield 6y ago

I'm glad that you are comfortable making that choice for other people. After all, it's most likely not you that will have to bear the consequences.

mathdev 6y ago
Likewise.
- cycrutchfield 6y ago
  I'm sure your social life will recover just fine. After all, you seem to value it more than human lives.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    Do you drive a car? If so, by your logic you value your own convenience more than human lives, because driving kills over a million people and maims tens of millions more people every year.
    - cycrutchfield 6y ago
      Oh my god. And I suppose my flatulence contributes to global warming, therefore I am ultimately responsible for killing the entire human race. Is this honestly what passes for reasonable debate on this forum?
      - logicchains 6y ago
        Is it any less reasonable than accusing somebody of valuing their own leisure more than human lives? The only difference between banning private cars to save lives and quarantining everybody to save lives is quantitative. Banning private cars saves fewer lives, but also causes much less economic damage. Opposing either implies some unwilligness to save life at all costs, some preference for economics/convenience over human lives.
        cycrutchfield 6y ago
        It's absolutely less reasonable. Since you want to make it quantitative, let's go ahead and do that: If everybody drives cars for the next year in the US: 35,000 human lives lost If no quarantine is in place for the next 2-3 months in the US: 2,200,000 human lives lost
        logicchains 6y ago
        Let's try to quantify the economic loss. US GDP is ~$20 trillion. 3 months of that is ~$5 trillion. Assuming a drop of 25% in output from completely locking everyone down (Goldman predictions), that's ~$1.25 trillion. Add the current bailout package of $2 trillion, gives $3.25 trillion. Assume near-complete economic recovery after that, most businesses successfully reopen, for the rest of the year output only falls 5%. 5% * 15 trillion gives $0.75 trillion, for a total cost of $4 trillion. With 2,200,000 lives lost, that works out to a cost per life saved of around $2 million. With that money, for 35,000 lives we could spend $70 billion. If we multiply that by e.g. 5, to get $350 billion, that seems like a reasonable number for building enough public transport infrastructure that cars were not needed, especially since it could be spread out over years (because we'd save 35,000 people every year, unlike corona where the saving of lives only happens in one year). Hence in this case the value of dollars per life is on a similar order of magnitude for both the private car bans and the mandatory lockdowns. The above is a conservative approach: it would be more ideal to look at expected-life-years saved rather than just lives saved, and banning cars would do way better here because the majority of car fatalities are young people, whereas the majority of coronavirus fatalities only have a few expected years of life left.
    - Der_Einzige 6y ago
      The response to coronavirus also nearly eliminates automobile fatalities. Try again
      - logicchains 6y ago
        The point is that most people generally don't consider a response like this is justified for the sake of reducing deaths from automobile accidents (I've never seen anybody argue that everyone should not leave their houses, to prevent auto accidents).