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Comment by freepor | Hacker News Reader

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Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please don't post like this regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Maybe you don't owe them better, but you owe the community better if you're commenting here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Maybe. I guess. I don’t think it’s incredibly controllable. It’s going to spread. We’ve never learned how to control the flu which is also deadly. I am limiting my social interaction with risk groups (working from home, cancelled trip to grandparents, etc). But I just don’t care if I get it by going in public. There are tons of people out in public in my city so an individual decision on my part isn’t going to change the macro.

It’s not just about you getting sick. By practicing social distancing you delay the spread of the virus. Even if the same number of people end up getting sick, distributing the sickness in time helps reduce the load on hospitals.

If you instead change no behavior, it is likely that when you get COVID-19 you will transmit it to more individuals before you realize you’re sick and need to stay home.

Depending on the rate of transmission, your individual actions can actually result in hundreds or thousands of people not getting sick (or getting sick later).

Make your own decisions here, but don’t hide behind “it isn’t going to change things”

While good points, I don’t think my decision changes the macro outcome. Over half the local population feels the way I do (if dining out today via Open Table in my metro is an indicator). That’s significant and if my individual actions changed, all else constant, my quote you used holds and nothing changes in the macro. Your points would inform government to issue more strict bans/regs that can actually impact the macro situation. Of course, I would comply if instructed.

> I don’t think my decision changes the macro outcome.

That's quite a selfish way of thinking about this. This is equivalent to an argument I've heard about global warming which is "if China/India aren't going to curtail their C02 emissions, why should the US?"

If everyone thought like you did, we'd all get infected.

China, India and the US aren't individuals, but countries.

Isn't the global warming personal equivalent "if the wealthy all keep taking lavish intercontinental vacations every other month, why do I need to switch from my car to the bus to get to work, even if it takes twice the time"? I find that a good question, and the usual answer "they're doing that to promote awareness" doesn't satisfy me, really.

Just wanted to say you're not a sociopath, these guys are being assholes and fear-mongering.

right. Sociopath is that guy who tested positive for covid-19 and still got on a JetBlue plane.

Actually that person had not yet tested positive when they got on the plane. They were awaiting the test result and found out when they landed that they had tested positive.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/jetblue-plane-passenger-diagnosed-...

Of course, you have to wonder what this person was thinking given they got tested for a reason, yet decided to go to an airport.

It is clear you don't care, and nobody cares about you either. But it isn't just your grandparents. Many young people are caretakers for their parents/grandparents and can't just "cancel the trip". You risk spreading it to them that way.

So they should probably stay away from restaurants?

All scenarios that support your line of thinking halt all human physical contact and presence in shared spaces. Does that sound feasible to you?

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