Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[DGuller]

Their deaths per capita have remained consistently at the threshold deaths per capita, so they must be doing something right.

What are acceptable losses?

To date, there is not a nation on earth that has a per capita death rate of even 0.1% of the population. If you want to shut down schools for a year, a previous study indicated that a year of education results in a 6 month change in a child's life expectancy. For kids that don't go to school, that 6 months is 0.6% of a life with a 80 year life expectancy. If this ruined two months of my life, you may say who cares, but that is 0.4% of my remaining life (assuming a remaining life expectancy of 40 years).

Michigan won't play football this fall. I don't know when the last time it took a fall off, but it certainly played during 1918 with World War I and the Spanish Flu - a far worse pandemic that actually had college age students in the at risk group for the disease.

Has there been a single nation where both the government and the people completely ignored the outbreak and let it happen unabated?  You can't really claim that Russian Roulette is not that dangerous just because most people have enough sense to not play it.

[The Minsky Moment]

The per capita death toll from terrorism is miniscule so I guess we can disband DHS now?

So a couple skyscrapers get blown up from time to time, just shrug it off.

[DGuller]

The per capita death toll from terrorism is miniscule so I guess we can disband DHS now?

So a couple skyscrapers get blown up from time to time, just shrug it off.

You can make an argument that the extent of our response to terrorism is indeed vastly counter-productive, and furthers the aims of terrorism rather than counter it.  We were caught with our pants down on 9/11, for whatever reason; any reasonable response to the lessons learned would've drastically reduced the chance of something like this happening again.

[crazy canuck]

...but I really can't emphasize how bitter I am that I was under a stay at home order in the spring.

Don't sell yourself short.  You have been telling us how bitter you are about good public policy since the beginning of the pandemic.

You think the US state of Georgia has had good public policy?

Fascinating.

Not sure how you inferred that from my post.  But that the fact you did is equally fascinating.

You said I've been bitter about good public policy. I've only lived in Georgia during this pandemic. I'm certainly not bitter about what is happening elsewhere. The only logical conclusion is that you think Georgia had good public policy, at least in part.

The good part of the policy was eventually locking down.  You have been critical of that for some time.  But I appreciate your mental gymnastics. 

[crazy canuck]

Their deaths per capita have remained consistently at the threshold deaths per capita, so they must be doing something right.

What are acceptable losses?

To date, there is not a nation on earth that has a per capita death rate of even 0.1% of the population. If you want to shut down schools for a year, a previous study indicated that a year of education results in a 6 month change in a child's life expectancy. For kids that don't go to school, that 6 months is 0.6% of a life with a 80 year life expectancy. If this ruined two months of my life, you may say who cares, but that is 0.4% of my remaining life (assuming a remaining life expectancy of 40 years).

Michigan won't play football this fall. I don't know when the last time it took a fall off, but it certainly played during 1918 with World War I and the Spanish Flu - a far worse pandemic that actually had college age students in the at risk group for the disease.

Has there been a single nation where both the government and the people completely ignored the outbreak and let it happen unabated?  You can't really claim that Russian Roulette is not that dangerous just because most people have enough sense to not play it.

Sweden?

[The Brain]

Their deaths per capita have remained consistently at the threshold deaths per capita, so they must be doing something right.

What are acceptable losses?

To date, there is not a nation on earth that has a per capita death rate of even 0.1% of the population. If you want to shut down schools for a year, a previous study indicated that a year of education results in a 6 month change in a child's life expectancy. For kids that don't go to school, that 6 months is 0.6% of a life with a 80 year life expectancy. If this ruined two months of my life, you may say who cares, but that is 0.4% of my remaining life (assuming a remaining life expectancy of 40 years).

Michigan won't play football this fall. I don't know when the last time it took a fall off, but it certainly played during 1918 with World War I and the Spanish Flu - a far worse pandemic that actually had college age students in the at risk group for the disease.

Has there been a single nation where both the government and the people completely ignored the outbreak and let it happen unabated?  You can't really claim that Russian Roulette is not that dangerous just because most people have enough sense to not play it.

Sweden?

[Oexmelin]

The per capita death toll from terrorism is miniscule so I guess we can disband DHS now?

Yes, please.

[The Brain]

That way they won't botch another home delivery.

[Tonitrus]

The per capita death toll from terrorism is miniscule so I guess we can disband DHS now?

Yes, please.

I was gonna say...can we please just do that anyway.

[merithyn]

The per capita death toll from terrorism is miniscule so I guess we can disband DHS now?

Yes, please.

I was gonna say...can we please just do that anyway.

[alfred russel]

Has there been a single nation where both the government and the people completely ignored the outbreak and let it happen unabated?  You can't really claim that Russian Roulette is not that dangerous just because most people have enough sense to not play it.

Right, but I also have never been an advocate of no response. Mask mandates? Go for it. Want to close gyms, dine in restaurants, night clubs, and bars? I was fine with that too (though at this point I'm skeptical of closing stuff down out of fear it is a step toward reimposing a lockdown, and these have reopened without overwhelming the medical system). I think schools for at risk students were too important to ever completely close except in areas that were in danger of overwhelming the medical system, there was never a reason to shut down most parks (especially in rural areas), and forcing people to stay at home without essential reasons to leave was beyond the pale (again outside of areas with a medical system that was in danger of being overwhelmed).

[DGuller]

Has there been a single nation where both the government and the people completely ignored the outbreak and let it happen unabated?  You can't really claim that Russian Roulette is not that dangerous just because most people have enough sense to not play it.

Right, but I also have never been an advocate of no response. Mask mandates? Go for it. Want to close gyms, dine in restaurants, night clubs, and bars? I was fine with that too (though at this point I'm skeptical of closing stuff down out of fear it is a step toward reimposing a lockdown, and these have reopened without overwhelming the medical system). I think schools for at risk students were too important to ever completely close except in areas that were in danger of overwhelming the medical system, there was never a reason to shut down most parks (especially in rural areas), and forcing people to stay at home without essential reasons to leave was beyond the pale (again outside of areas with a medical system that was in danger of being overwhelmed).

What I'm getting at is that you can't measure the deadliness of the virus by the actual death statistics, since those statistics are affected by government and personal choices meant to limit deaths.  It's like going "why do we need so much airline safety, just one person died in the last 10 years on US carrier flights".  It may be true that one person died in the last 10 years, but it probably had something to do with all that safety in the first place.  That's not to say that some safety measures are not cost-ineffective or even counter-productive, it's just that making a valid argument about cost/safety tradeoff is a lot trickier than looking at the number of people killed despite the safety measures.

[alfred russel]

The per capita death toll from terrorism is miniscule so I guess we can disband DHS now?

So a couple skyscrapers get blown up from time to time, just shrug it off.

Uh dude, I've thought the anti terrorism stuff was overblown for a long long time. What you people don't seem to see is that 9/11 and this are just two sides of the same coin.

Both were/are real and serious problems, that caused real loss, that came along in the 24/7 news cycle and internet age. Both have gotten massive media coverage, inducing a panic that created a massively disproportionate response. It is phenomenally difficult to push back against the scope of the response in either case: "Haven't you seen the twin towers falling?" "180k americans are dead, what is your problem" which isn't helped by the presence of 9/11 truthers or the people who argue it isn't worse than the flu/a hoax.

I think I'm the flip side of a person on a right leaning internet forum around 2003 who is arguing that the response to 9/11 is going way too far.

[alfred russel]

What I'm getting at is that you can't measure the deadliness of the virus by the actual death statistics, since those statistics are affected by government and personal choices meant to limit deaths.  It's like going "why do we need so much airline safety, just one person died in the last 10 years on US carrier flights".  It may be true that one person died in the last 10 years, but it probably had something to do with all that safety in the first place.  That's not to say that some safety measures are not cost-ineffective or even counter-productive, it's just that making a valid argument about cost/safety tradeoff is a lot trickier than looking at the number of people killed despite the safety measures.

First, I think we are only talking about government choices, because no one is proposing to force people to go to restaurants.

Second, no one is proposing a zero government response. My benchmark was the very worst situation in any country in the world. To use your plane analogy, there are an almost infinite number of regulations and the cost benefit of any one of them is very difficult to measure. But if you develop a rational set of rules, that are each within the parameters of other developed countries, and assume an outcome as bad as the worst measured third world country -- if the cost/benefit is still favorable compared to the current state, I think that is informative (at least for an internet forum).

[PDH]

Come on people, this was a sweet threat in which Syt posted stories and pictures from his family in the States.  Don't turn it into a flame war of half-baked assumptions and name calling.