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Comment by kvee | Hacker News Reader

This is a generally unpopular opinion, and I don't know that I agree with it, but it does appear that the billionaires might be logically right from an ethical perspective.

It might cost more QALYs (quality-adjusted life years) to have an economic recession the size of 2008 than to have millions die from COVID-19: https://medium.com/@benfinn/coronavirus-how-much-is-a-life-w...

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You are making the very false assumption that we have a choice between deaths and economic collapse. Like it or not, we are seeing faster growth rates than Spain. With our awful response, we could be easily heading for 2+ million deaths if hospitals get overloaded as expected. Workers will not show up anyway because it is dangerous for them and their families (this is already happening). This will cause the economy to collapse at least as bad.

Sacrificing grandma to Mammon is not the answer.

That really makes me think. What kind of fucked up third world country do we live in where all these apathetic people are willing to consider sacrificing their grandmothers just so they can have work to do in order to get by living?

What happened to revolution and eating the rich? Have we lost to the Mr. Money Mustaches of the world?

The United States of America

now (more) americans get to experience to misery, terror, and death that the u.s. has exported to to rest of the world in order to fuel its economic "growth"

It cuts both ways though. Mortality rates from unemployment are no joke.

That's so plainly a much, much smaller cause of death. I'd encourage you to examine evidence more in the future. Besides, mortality rates actually tend to decline during recessions. While the causes of this are still debated, it has been observed for a century [0].

Besides, as I was saying, we don't have a choice between deaths and collapse. You get collapse and fewer deaths or collapse and more deaths. We are choosing the former.

[0] https://fortune.com/2019/01/25/economic-downturn-mortality-r...

Please cite your sources. I'm not sure that historical analysis of the data supports your opinion. For instance: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290

The calculations in the article I posted suggest "that if there’s a recession as bad as the last one, it could be even worse for well-being than tens of millions of deaths."

So you think that even tens of millions of deaths would not be associated with a depression? That is incredibly preposterous.

As I said in the original comment, I don't know that I agree with the article. I'm just trying to engage with it logically.

I would imagine tens of millions of deaths might trigger a recession, but it's hard to say.

It seems that throughout history some pandemics have wound up being good for the economy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22572317

Also, note that the quote "if there’s a recession as bad as the last one, it could be even worse for well-being than tens of millions of deaths" is not saying that there will be tens of millions of deaths. It's instead saying that the hit to well-being, quantified in QALYs, is greater than tens of millions of deaths.

This comment made my day, thanks.

There is going to be an economic recession regardless of whether you lock things down or not. Nobody is going to buy plane tickets, go on a cruise, or eat at restaurants when their neighbors are dropping like flies around them.

This choice between "lockdown and recession" and "no lockdown and no recession" is a false dichotomy.

I understand this argument, but the logical fallacy of emotional appeal is too strong on this one. It can't be the case where millions are better off dying. It feels so unjust. Even if the rest of us are slightly worse off, the lockdown means more life lived for all. I'm nowhere near crossing the bridge, but I imagine the last weeks or months of lives greatly matter to those who know their time is short.

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/12297/how-many-p...

apparently outside suicides, deaths reduced overall

Recession in what? You can have recession in yaht and dog stylist industries without many ill effects.

Many businesses will be booming in pandemic. Just not the usual ones and that pains the owners of usual ones greatly.

This is not true, and is why the markets are crap. Everyone is buying much less. This means there is less demand still. Thus the economy contracts like dominos. This is literally how every recession in history has worked.

I know people are buying way more delivery services.

There's always certain industries that do well in every recession. That doesn't mean it's not a recession. North Dakota had something like a 1.8% unemployment rate in the depths of the Great Recession because the high oil prices (which otherwise exacerbated the recession) allowed the shale oil and gas boom. They were doing great, but the national rate was around 10%.

True. That's why we need basic income, because recession defined as more industries becoming more useless and less becoming more useful will occasionally happen for whatever reasons and hoping it never ever happens is not the best social harm mitigation strategy.

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