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I can get onboard with most of this.. until the end. COVID deaths don’t just mean everyone losing 15 days of life. To me it meant multiple family members dying.

I can get onboard with most of this.. until the end. COVID deaths don’t just mean everyone losing 15 days of life. To me it meant multiple family members dying. It means my respiratory system has been absolutely wrecked, hopefully not forever but for at least several months now. It means my infant son is gasping for breath on my lap as I write this and there’s nothing we can do for him. Statistics in white towers are so decoupled from humanity they are worse than useless; these selfish attitudes cause real harm.

geiser 4y ago
That's exactly what I thought. We have to learn to live in a community, and that means sacrificing personal liberty for the benefit of others.
- azinman2 4y ago
  As the GP points out, long Covid isn’t factored into this, let alone the cruelty of averaging lifespans with death when we know it’s an inaccurate way to understand the effects.
- mijoharas 4y ago
  This was my thinking. From the way the author writes, they seem to say, "I would skip lockdowns, in exchange for giving up my 15 extra days of life". If that were the thing on offer, I think a lot of people would say "forget the extra 15 days, I'll not have a lockdown". That's not what it is though. The question is, would you go into lockdown to give everyone in the country 15 extra days of life. That's what you're trading. Personal inconvenience for strong positive externalities, you can't just think about the part of it that comes back to you. It's a general societal good that you're doing.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    It's not fair to frame this as just you not having lockdown vs. everyone living 15 more days. Frame it instead as everyone not having lockdown vs. everyone living 15 more days.
- btilly 4y ago
  And if we fail to be able to cope, what then? As https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2791544 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... and many other sources will attest, COVID and COVID lockdowns was TERRIBLE for mental health among teenagers. And yes, poor mental health is a communicable disease within a family. This is personal. 3/4 of my teenage children are receiving psychiatric care. Including a daughter who was temporarily institutionalized for being suicidal. Do you REALLY wish to repeat your position and explain why my children need to sacrifice their personal liberty, no matter the cost to their mental health, for the benefit of others? Or is it POSSIBLE that there is a tradeoff where my children's mental health is one of the benefits that society needs to consider in deciding what policies to follow? I've spent a lot of hours of my daughter explaining very calmly why we should stop caring about her so she can die in peace. I see this as a result of denying liberty. And so I put a very different value my family's liberty than you do. (This post revised for various reasons, such as avoiding swearing.)
  - geiser 4y ago
    So sorry about your family. I also started personally getting psychiatric care after all this happened, and continuing now. The situation is so complex, but definitely it should have been managed better overall. I'm no expert so can't comment.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    This though is another example of "people/society should do X because it has a potential negative impact on other people". Which I generally agree with. And it appears the person you replied to thinks like that as well. The article on the other hand is arguing that we shouldn't do things differently to avoid impacts on people, because that reduces 'freedom', and he'd rather be free to go out during a pandemic than prevent people dying. So he's only coincidentally on your side of this, because he opposes lockdowns and you feel the lockdown policies had an impact on your family that was negative. But if you asked him if he'd do some minor thing to avoid physical or mental harm like that to other people in future, then he's already clearly stated his position on that. No, even widespread death of other people is not a reason for people to collectively avoid potential harm to others. It just so happens that him not caring about other people's deaths coincides in this particular case with what you feel would have helped your family, but he's not arguing for what does the least harm overall. He's saying there's a principle at stake, and he's willing to let others die to uphold it.

geiser 4y ago

That's exactly what I thought. We have to learn to live in a community, and that means sacrificing personal liberty for the benefit of others.

azinman2 4y ago
As the GP points out, long Covid isn’t factored into this, let alone the cruelty of averaging lifespans with death when we know it’s an inaccurate way to understand the effects.
mijoharas 4y ago
This was my thinking. From the way the author writes, they seem to say, "I would skip lockdowns, in exchange for giving up my 15 extra days of life". If that were the thing on offer, I think a lot of people would say "forget the extra 15 days, I'll not have a lockdown". That's not what it is though. The question is, would you go into lockdown to give everyone in the country 15 extra days of life. That's what you're trading. Personal inconvenience for strong positive externalities, you can't just think about the part of it that comes back to you. It's a general societal good that you're doing.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  It's not fair to frame this as just you not having lockdown vs. everyone living 15 more days. Frame it instead as everyone not having lockdown vs. everyone living 15 more days.
btilly 4y ago
And if we fail to be able to cope, what then? As https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2791544 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... and many other sources will attest, COVID and COVID lockdowns was TERRIBLE for mental health among teenagers. And yes, poor mental health is a communicable disease within a family. This is personal. 3/4 of my teenage children are receiving psychiatric care. Including a daughter who was temporarily institutionalized for being suicidal. Do you REALLY wish to repeat your position and explain why my children need to sacrifice their personal liberty, no matter the cost to their mental health, for the benefit of others? Or is it POSSIBLE that there is a tradeoff where my children's mental health is one of the benefits that society needs to consider in deciding what policies to follow? I've spent a lot of hours of my daughter explaining very calmly why we should stop caring about her so she can die in peace. I see this as a result of denying liberty. And so I put a very different value my family's liberty than you do. (This post revised for various reasons, such as avoiding swearing.)
- geiser 4y ago
  So sorry about your family. I also started personally getting psychiatric care after all this happened, and continuing now. The situation is so complex, but definitely it should have been managed better overall. I'm no expert so can't comment.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  This though is another example of "people/society should do X because it has a potential negative impact on other people". Which I generally agree with. And it appears the person you replied to thinks like that as well. The article on the other hand is arguing that we shouldn't do things differently to avoid impacts on people, because that reduces 'freedom', and he'd rather be free to go out during a pandemic than prevent people dying. So he's only coincidentally on your side of this, because he opposes lockdowns and you feel the lockdown policies had an impact on your family that was negative. But if you asked him if he'd do some minor thing to avoid physical or mental harm like that to other people in future, then he's already clearly stated his position on that. No, even widespread death of other people is not a reason for people to collectively avoid potential harm to others. It just so happens that him not caring about other people's deaths coincides in this particular case with what you feel would have helped your family, but he's not arguing for what does the least harm overall. He's saying there's a principle at stake, and he's willing to let others die to uphold it.