Free America Now (@elonmusk)
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HN is fragile. The idea here is to try to stave off the default fate of internet forums [2, 3]. The forces pushing in that direction are far stronger than the ones in our favor. It wouldn't take much to destroy this place, and a thread like this is a real dose of poison.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
His production operations are notoriously behind schedule and only accelerate by throwing more (literal) bodies at the problem.
"Many of you will die, but I am ready to make that sacrifice."
If the food supply chain gets disrupted, as many fear that it may, that could be a lot of people.
Now, does anyone care to address my point, rather than brigading down something because you actually don't have a response?
If we talk about the numbers then opening up a country runs a risk of even higher daily deaths and longterm economical damage due to lack of workforce after the disease passes.
Americans want to be South Koreans without taking South Korean measures. You simply cannot have a cake and eat it too.
Food supply chain disruption is known thing because populations without herd immunity that congregate together, if one person in that herd becomes ill, the disease will rocket through the population. It's happening already. It's really easy for Trump to sign papers to force a company to produce food. Trump can't sign papers to make individuals healthy enough to work or make individuals unafraid to congregate for work purposes.
Though Germany already has receding numbers for a while now, US is still a little behind. Total number of cases vs deaths is (if counted and reported correctly in worldometers) quite comparable (to my surprise). UK is way worse in this respect.
Difficult to say what he really wants as he does NOT communicate well in this respect. In longer interviews he is way more thoughtful.
edit: I'm dumb, he can't run for president of the US.
There are residence requirements for foreign-born US citizens to pass on citizenship to children born abroad, which already contradicts your statement. This applies to mothers and fathers (with a paternity test if not married). Furthermore, it hasn't been legally settled whether someone born a US citizen abroad counts in this clause, though personally I suspect anyone born a US citizen (not just, and not always, children of US mothers) would qualify if challenged.
Well, Tesla is selling cars, which is not exactly in high demand right now. At the very least, confinement has an impact on Tesla for that reason.
Basically, we may be seeing a car dealer complaining safety measures prevent him to sell his products.
But - and here is the rub - it will be because the lockdown interrupted person-to-person transfers, and not because the inert bases making up the virus suddenly decided all by themselves, and all over the world, to lower their R0 from > 3 to < 1.
The US already has over 1M cases, so 0.3%?
Where exactly do you see him saying that total prevalence would be 0.1%?
This would allow people their freedom to assemble.
Edit: No pun intended.
They aren't constitutional rights violations by definition. Congress (and, explicitly, as written, only Congress as a body) is prevented from passing laws at a national level forcing states to violate their citizens' right to speech and assembly, but states have the right to do so of their own accord (as states by default claim all powers not given to the Federal government), and precedent has allowed it under exigent circumstances, such as 9/11 and prior pandemics.
One could argue that the lockdown orders are unnecessary, but I think that would only be apparent in hindsight, and even then it would turn out to be a misuse of power that states legitimately have, but not abuse or an unlawful exercise of power, unless certain conspiracy theories about "globalist elites" turned out to be true (spoiler: they won't.)
IANAL, but pretty sure that’s not how it works. Articles incorporated against the State prevent the State from passing laws that violate the Article.
The Attorney General specifically has told the DOJ to be on the lookout for over-reach by the States in these lockdown orders.
IANAL either, but here are examples of legal decisions and opinions by the various courts including the Supreme Court which appear to disagree with you[0-2], as well as some articles [3-4] which provide a basis for a legal argument that states have the right to restrict the movements of citizens in the name of public safety, including the imposition of quarantine measures, and that these powers are not a violation of the constitution. What is not constitutional is a national quarantine enacted by Congress.
>The Attorney General specifically has told the DOJ to be on the lookout for over-reach by the States in these lockdown orders.
Indeed, here's an article on that[5] with the following quoted from a memo by AG Barr himself:
"If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate
exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing
infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department
of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach
in federal court."
[0]https://casetext.com/case/best-v-st-vincents-hospital
[1]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=538811625763396...
[2]https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/441/418/
[3]https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/yes-all-coronavirus-c...
[4]https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/04/19/protes...
[5]https://nypost.com/2020/04/28/barr-tells-prosecutors-to-look...
An example would be how children aren't allowed in establishments whose sole purpose is to sell adult restricted items like alcohol or pornography.
For the first time in history, everyone is locked down during a pandemic? Yes.
You can certainly make an argument that these measures satisfy "strict scrutiny" as being both necessary, as well as the least restrictive means possible to accomplish the goal. I merely hope we can agree on the correct framework for evaluating whether State and Local quarantine measures are constitutional or not.
To be clear, I believe any State or Local regulation limiting freedom of assembly (which necessarily involves freedom to assemble publicly) whether it be for health reasons or otherwise, has to pass "strict scrutiny" which is the legal term for how high the bar is set to prove the measure is Constitutional. In these cases it is incumbent on the government to prove the measure should be deemed Constitutional, which is flipped from how it normally is.
To quote Wikipedia;
1. that the law is necessary to a "compelling state interest";
2. that the law is "narrowly tailored" to achieving this compelling purpose;
3. that the law uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve the purpose.
The legal cases you link to are specific actions taken against individuals. An executive order ordering the quarantine of a single person. A mental health examination of a single person. None of them involve blanket orders against large populations.
The news articles are editorials, including the following quotes;
> "Pandemic is not a magic word that instantly negates all individual constitutional rights," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. "A pandemic gives states a compelling state purpose in the imposition of restrictions. But when the state denies or restricts constitutional rights, it must satisfy a balancing test." The orders can be challenged on the basis that they're overly broad, he said, or that they don't properly weigh the individual restrictions against public health threats. Turley pointed to Michigan, a state he thinks has an order broad enough that it could be challenged.
I used the latter as a means of criticizing the former - if these measures were unconstitutional by definition, it would be impossible for them to survive strict scrutiny even in theory. Even AG Barr's memo concedes their legality, while warning about the potential of abuse.
Otherwise I think we're in violent agreement.
Totally disagree with: "By definition, these aren't constitutional rights violations."
So I think we do probably violently agree, and I probably misinterpreted your: "These aren't constitutional rights violations by definition." statement.
Another way to think about it is that they obviously do violate Constitutional rights, but this is actually allowed only under very specific and limited circumstances, of which COVID may in fact be one of, but such a thing has never been tested in front of the Supreme Court as far as I'm aware.
Unfortunately, most governors made it a crime to not stay home.
Which raises the question, whether or not, this Tweet is similar to the going-private one.
If it’s illegal for Musk to make political commentary like this, then that doesn’t mean Musk broke the law, it means the law is unconstitutional.
Is that really not something they are prepared to do.
If so, maybe you could take your next several checks and send them to people who are out of work.
You should be willing to do your part, right?
Being antirepublican, antiTrump and antilockdown is a valid position.
I think that voluntary-only measures will cost a LOT of lives. I think everyone agrees more restriction == more lives saved, this is the classic argument for antiterrorism. Where people are diverging is where the best place to draw that line.
Maybe everyone should begin with a disclaimer of how many people they are willing to let die relative to essential-workers-only.
That human aspect doesn't seem to be figured in to the situation; as though it is a matter of only money vs life. But the collapse will kill, too.
Following, "We're working on ventilators, even though I think there will not be a shortage by the time we can make enough to matter"
I haven't checked recently, but I believe the vast majority of hospitals are not overwhelmed nor short of ventilators -- but is there any source of data on bed shortages or ventilator shortages? (That was the point of flattening the curve)
Prolong lockdown will reduce your immune system as well.
The solution is to risk even more lives by sending people back to work? Again, I’d like to see the data behind that calculation.
If you’re interested in people’s lives, maybe we can work on universal healthcare, increasing minimum wages, or guaranteeing sick-leave?
The thing about not working is that we have government mechanisms to help those people. We can beef up social security, unemployment benefits, or direct payments. Then people can go back to work afterwards. Work will always exist. It exists even now with a “closed” economy.
The thing about dying is that it’s pretty final.
If you give people money for not working, who are going to work then ? Money will become meaningless if you can't use to buy stuff.
I don't follow this line of thought. We already give people money for not working (examples are social security and unemployment benefits). None of that has made money obsolete. Why would a temporary measure in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic?
Why don't I see people make this same argument about businesses getting money from the government? Will money become meaningless for businesses? Do people stop trying to earn money once they reach a certain level? Elon Musk certainly hasn't.
Because I can show you lots of coffins from people in NY and Italy who went to work whilst the pandemic was raging.
So show us the model (we still do that right?) when the death by virus numbers are less than the death by poverty numbers.
But you can't becuase you didn't. You just "feel" its time.
So, when you help us all out with the model of deaths-by-lockdown that informed your decision, we can all benefit from it by comparing it against the latest, updated death-by-covid-19 models and making an informed choice about the degree (if any) of lockdown to pursue.
The lesser evil.
But of course no such model exists. Its all just emoting. Happy to be wrong.
And yes, it is forcing. Amazon, a fantastic example right now, is removing the ability for warehouse workers to stay at home, unless they take unpaid leave. No pay, no healthcare benefits, unless you go into a warehouse and risk your lives.
People can’t just say “it’s worth it if we save just one life”. Bullshit. Everything requires context, and being under lockdown has its own severe consequences. Including the loss of life.
Friday and Saturday saw the highest single day totals of new cases.
==ludicrously low infection and death rates==
Nobody knows these rates because we can’t test enough people to know infection rates. People are dying at home so it will be a while until we know actual death rates.
==speedy development of herd immunity==
You and your family should jump to the front line and help build this immunity. I’ll protect my 2 year-old and pregnant wife in our home.
All we have to do is look to the 1918 flu to see the danger of opening up too soon. Making up strawman quotes from your “opposition” doesn’t change the data on this virus or the history of past viruses.
This is exactly how the pandemic should have been handled. Personal risk should have been allowed to be determined by the individual, not the state, at the expense of personal rights.
This also can’t be done without significant testing which still isn’t available 9 weeks after declaring a public health emergency.
Welcome to civilized society, sorry it's such an inconvenience.
>The Patriot Act violates my personal right to secrecy. Stop lights violate my personal right to cross intersections as I please. And on and on.
You don't have those right because you fail to successfully fight and defend it
Thats why elon musk is making the tweet, to fight and defend his rights.
Welcome to society, sorry it work that way.
Yes by allowing people to go outside, work and do their normal activity. It builds their and other people immune system. Prolong lockdown will cause immune system to go down.
Either you are immunodepressed or you are not. Well, actually you can have an hyperactive immune system, that's what Dr house call a lupus, or a cykotine storm.
Really fast and with no details : You can boost your protective response going out and interacting with other people/kids but this will not boost your immune system. I understand this is an easy confusion as the protective response is caused by the immune system but i assure you, this is not the same thing.
(EDIT: also from what I’ve seen it is entirely possible that infection results in long term reduction in health like lung capacity. That’s super fucked if we infect everyone in that case!)
Hospitals are mostly empty in the US.
Antibody testing is showing that herd immunity is rapidly growing.
Persons who could be severely infected by COVID are generally not in the workforce.
Therefore, from his perspective, the current lockdown is putting a huge brake on the progress necessary to help humanity and eventually reach utopia. Of course, more concretely, it also endangers his fortune and life's work, but people don't tend to like thinking of themselves as selfish to the point of acquiescing to mass death, so I imagine he rationalises his opposition to himself in this greater-good sense.
In any way it was not deliberate
I meant that this looks like another weird Twitter UX decision. And it seems this is on Desktop (so FF, Chrome, Edge), I just looked on mobile and it was fine.
Also, yeah he really wants Tesla stock to tank today, huh?
Most of American production is automated. Its middle-level folk keeping America running. Cherry-picked examples notwithstanding.
That’s literally the point of shelter in place.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
The minimum-wage folks are in service industries, and have been for decades. There are only 13M Americans left in factory jobs total.
The most common job in the United States is retail salesperson, followed by cashier, office clerk, and food prep. Of those, only office clerk can reasonably be done from home. Maybe. In some cases.
Yes, those are considered "service" jobs. That doesn't change the fact that the chicken is only in the supermarket meat case because a person physically put it there. There's no big automated conveyor belt running from the chicken farm, through the slaughterhouse, and winding up in the meat case.
I got to believe we're not arguing in good faith here any more. Goodbye.
I'm surprised that it isn't clear why the left is in an extremely dangerous position. They can't win unless lots of people are dying. Otherwise, the non-zoom working class will vote in anyone who prioritizes the economy. Isn't wholesale economic collapse a much bigger civilization-wide existential threat than COVID19 itself?
I would have also thought that the left would be more scared of another 4 years of Trump (now with unlimited power and money) than his voter base dying in droves. Just surprising, that's all.
Luckily, the weather is nice, which generally puts people in good spirits.
In the US most blue collar work has been deemed essential anyway. Construction for example, is deemed essential. Layoffs are still happening like crazy, I suppose. I'd say the left generally wants to leave non-essential parts of the economy closed, and give people UBI or freeze rent, etc to help out the working class.
This does not seem accurate to me at all. The upper classes have fled the hot-spot cities. The upper-class-aspirant professionals are stuck in the cities working via Zoom. The risk of premature opening there is real, so they're not pushing for reopening.
The people pushing for re-opening are mainly non-Zoom non-essential working class people who are feeling the economic pain of the prolonged shutdowns in places where they're not needed.
Also, to a lesser extent, people who object to the restrictions on freedoms on cultural-ideological grounds, either on principle or on a cost-benefit basis.
The non-Zoom working class is also the group most impacted by the economic disruption of shutdowns, which in many (most?) places is needless and everywhere is having regressive economic outcomes, benefiting large companies at the expense of small businesses.
Actual lifes are on the line, Italy was a disaster. I totally get it why we should avoid sometihng similar at all costs.
Up to now, politics followed science, which is not a clear-cut balck-or-white thing. Science is ambigious, especially with stuff like a new virus. Now, I see a lot of movement against that. From the press, from politicians (predminantely, but not exclusively from the conservatives), from celebrities. I, for my part, would rather hear and read from epidemiologists and the like than from theater producers. One of the latter group got a huge article in Der Spiegel this week.
The dangerous thing is, as soon as discussions about easing restrictions started in Germany people got more mobile and started to care less. Germany got through all this rather well so far, due to a combination of reasonable actions, luck and a above average testing capacities and ICU beds. I hope the pro-opening people are right, and nothing will happen due to lifted restrictions. But if they are not we might regret the opining in a couple of weeks.
Either the economy opens and people die (trump loses), it opens and people don't die (trump wins), the economy stays closed and people die (trump wins) or the economy stays closed and people don't die (trump wins)
Does anyone remember Hunter S. Thompson?
But does anyone remember City Light Books? :hmm:
Were lockdowns done in vain? And have we set a dangerous precedent?
Bunch of questions. Don't flame him or me. Just participate in the debate.
That debate is already happening, so, no, shit posting like this isn't starting it and certainly not participating in it.
Don't pretend this tweet is what it isn't.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy-less...
https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3561560
To summarize, during the 1918 flu pandemic, American cities that implemented early and extensive non-medical measures (including quarantines) suffered no additional adverse economic effects due to implementing those measures when compared with cities that implemented measures late or not at all.
http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20150111194407/http://www.hist...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291414
Again, to summarize, American Samoa and New Caledonia succeeded in preventing even a single death from the 1918 influenza through effective quarantines.
Yes. Courts have historically granted a lot of deference to the government in crisis situations. Also, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" [0]
> Were lockdowns effective?
Yes. In pretty much every region, the flattening of new cases lined up exactly with the beginning of lockdown measures + incubation time, and this was also captured by unofficial measurements like smart thermometer data: [1]
> Could other measured responses have achieved similar outcomes?
Probably not. The aforementioned thermometer data showed no drop in fevers from the early half-measures like banning large gatherings, effectiveness was only from the lockdowns.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suic...
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-fever-...
I'm not sure he even noticed C19 in January or February.
virus OR coronavirus OR c19 OR covid OR covid-19 (from:elonmusk) until:2020-04-29 since:2020-01-01
Edit: Some people apparently need to be reminded that Europe is a place. Individual countries are reopening as they see fit based on how they are handling the virus. It honestly is starting to feel like some people prefer the pain than the idea of safely reopening certain states and regions.
So if you want to loosen up restrictions in California, it shouldn't be grounded in the fact that California seems to just be impervious. What you're proposing would be in direct contradiction with the reason why California has lower numbers. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, as there is an ideological case to be made for measuring liberty against security, but the lower number of cases is totally irrelevant for substantiating that position.
And please tell your joke to Europe, and Germany in particular.
Europe is a place?!
0. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/germanys-coronavirus-infecti...
But their actions are not being dictated by the situation in Italy or France. Likewise, Montana should not take action based on what is going on in New York.