Hacker News Reader

Comment by iso1631 | Hacker News Reader

> Are you volunteering to die a painful death?

We don't shut down the road network despite the number of deaths that causes.

How many lives would a lockdown really save? And how many years of life will it save? If it kills people now that would die of Flu next winter that is different than if it kills someone in their 20s. Nobody really knows the answer. How many road deaths will be saved due to lockdown? How many extra deaths from heart failure due to people not exercising? How many fewer deaths from people not eating junk food?

How much is the economic cost of that lockdown? Again nobody really knows - without a lockdown people are still likely going to be more subdued in their economic activity from a social point of view.

One thing that is sure is that healthcare systems will collapse without a lockdown. How many lives do hospitals save each year?

View on HN

The comparison to road deaths is flawed logic. We are not all forced to travel against our will - we travel because it adds massive economic benefits to our GDP.

What benefit does the Covid-19 epidemic confer that you can compare it to road travel?

We go out and don't shut down because it adds massive economic benefits to our GDP.

We accept the deaths that travel and activity cause

> What benefit does the Covid-19 epidemic confer that you can compare it to road travel?

Well, going out and working has rather large economic benefits.

Going out and working is not the only way to catch Covid-19. You are refuting a straw man here.

And driving isn't the only way to die in an auto accident. What's your point?

Look, driving kills people, and we accept it because it brings huge benefits. Going to work as normal in the current environment would ALSO bring huge benefits, and kill people. We don't know how many, but we think it's a few million in the US. This is probably not worth it, but if it were a few thousand people instead it WOULD be worth it.

That's the comparison here.

Actually you're peddling bad logic, comparing apples and oranges.

Road deaths involve humans undertaking an action (driving) for a particular benefit (transport) that involves risk (accidents).

You cannot compare driving to the 'covid-19 epidemic', because driving is an action, and the covid 19 epidemic is not. You can't compare the epidemic to driving. You must compare action to action.

A more apt comparison is that humans go out of their home (the action) to work and be productive (the benefit) while understanding they may catch disease when with other humans (the risk).

You are not forced to leave your house against your will -- that is slavery, and is illegal. Anyone can stay home. Leaving your home has the benefit of both enriching you and your neighbor, and collectively, the country. Thus it is a very apt comparison.

The fact of the matter is we don't close roads because we judge them too important to merit doing so, and we decide to accept the risk (deaths). We have decided now against leaving homes because some states judge it too dangerous to do so and is unwilling to accept the risk (deaths), but that is not constant, and will likely change quite fast. I would not be surprised if many of those who called for a lockdown, start calling for it to end quite soon. Most people are only principled up until it starts actually affecting them.

contrary to what thatcher says, there is such a thing as a society. if you catch the disease, you risk not only your death or permanent disability, but also that of your family and neighbors, and in case of asymptomatic transmission, you have no idea you are a risk.

roads are a bad analogy because you don't spread crashes if you crash yourself or get crashed into. car crashes do not follow an exponential curve and aren't contagious. you always know you've been in a crash (except if you die). somebody's always at fault if there's a crash. pretty much none of these are true in case of a plague. we close roads and quarantine people because diseases are contagious and kill people or leave them disabled more or less randomly.

You are giving an argument as to why coronavirus is more threatening to society at large than crashes. That is not relevant to the discussion at hand, which is about whether or not allowing road travel means being complicit in deaths.

Your argument is that, yes, road travel means we choose more deaths (thus implicitly validating the argument you're trying to critique), but that because the deaths don't spread exponentially, this is okay. That is a fine viewpoint, but it relies on the premise you're trying to disprove (that we are in fact okay choosing more death in order to facilitate unnecessary human interaction).

And frankly, Thatcher has nothing to do with this, so you should probably stop bringing her up.

I would understand if you were trying to do a cost benefit analysis between saving lives versus saving the economy but it sounds like you're trying to frame this to focus on semantic differences between closing roads vs closing the economy temporarily. Baq's point is that mortality rates from the covid 19 grow at exponential rate compared to car fatalities which are flat YOY. If you let covid 19 continue to spread, about everyone will be infected, of which 1% will die - young and old - because we will have overwhelmed our healthcare system. This is why the road analogy is flawed.

I was with you on comparing action to action even though I could quibble with your trifurcation of action/benefit/risk because all frameworks are instantly valid and fictitious ;)

Lets go with it. Now is going out of your home and being productive the only way to catch Covid-19? What about going for a walk, a meal, shopping, hanging out in the park, a theater, concert......I think you are setting up a strawman here.

> What about going for a walk, a meal, shopping, hanging out in the park, a theater, concert

All these things have been deemed non-essentials in large parts of the world, and the government is enforcing it. Clearly if preservation of life is goal #1, the government can certainly shut down most life to pursue that goal. In reality, the government -- and by extension the people -- make the decision to value life in quality of life terms -- in other words, money. Thus, while I don't think people who say we should open the economy up right now are correct, I don't fundamentally disagree with their premise that human life is valued monetarily by governments all the time when deciding what policies to enact. And that is okay.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com