Elon Musk reopening Tesla factory despite Alameda County order
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Tesla's full list is available here: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/T...
A Tesla factory is a much safer place to be than a Home Depot or a Costco, and many other businesses open in California today. We aren't talking about sporting events here: we're talking about some of the lowest risk and unavoidable interactions.
Carmakers are also defined as a COVID19 critical industry, and every other carmaker manufacturing in the United States is either open, or capable of open today. This puts Tesla at a serious disadvantage.
This is locking down for the sake of locking down, not an evidence-first safety driven approach. That is something I cannot support.
Musk's previous defiance of the health order (without all these super-special controls) likely -does- encourage health officials to make extra-super-sure Tesla is in compliance, though.
Or it shows the governor and government officials that he is being serious about taking his ball and leaving the state.
As for the handful of Tesla employees that can't move, he can just leave them there in an office. Tesla's turnover is comically high, so within two years there would probably be no employees left and the office can be closed.
Those companies don’t manufacture shit and would not have any use for people trained in car assembly.
I think out of a bit of necessity you'll see them softening more than they would want. ie, they are health folks - their only analysis is health (ie, economy is irrelevant / financial impact is not their mental model). Obviously we are safer from covid in total lockdown. Can the world continue like that until a vaccine is ready in 12 months? I'm not sure.
They're publicly elected officials, get their salaries paid by taxes, and should deliver, same as anyone else. In the private sector "a little more time to review" can get you fired, why is it any different for the public sector?
A job is a job, get it done on time.
The reason the US lockdown was late is because the administration is incompetent. Why is it that other countries locked down as soon as possible, despite "lack evidence"?
It's because a default fail-safely system is better than a fail-deadly system.
In retrospect, in particular (to use an example from another area of the USA), the state of NY and NYC did not take COVID-19 seriously. Even while supposedly concerned about the spread of COVID-19, they were returning known-infected people to old folk homes. This was not a lockdown action...
The reasons that the USA response to COVID-19 was X and not Y are a lot more complex than the simple statement "because the administration is incompetent". The full history of how well the USA did (including internal geographic areas vs. others) vs. the rest of the world is still to be written.
> Bring and wear your personal protective equipment (PPE) – If Tesla has provided you with a face covering, you are required to wear it unless otherwise told by your local leadership. If Tesla has not provided you with one, you may bring or make your own following the Center for Disease Controls guidance
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/tesla-factory-employees-will...
If personal protective equipment is required, the employer has to provide it. It has to meet the usual NIOSH standards. Which means N95 or better masks for everybody. Hard to get, but if Tesla is "essential", they should be able to get them.
N95's often have yellow elastic bands, and we know Elon doesn't like yellow-colored safety things. This isn't ad hominem. He literally has endangered workers because he dislikes yellow. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/tesla-workers-gettin...
> Musk, apparently, really hates the color yellow. So instead of using the aforementioned hue, lane lines on the factory floor are painted in shades of gray. (Tesla denies this and sent Reveal photos of “rails and posts” painted yellow in the factory.)
While I don't know anything about this non-controversy, my suspicion is that their limited use of colour is based on sound UX principles. Car factories have nothing but dangerous equipment from one end of the room to another; placing lawyer-approved caution markings on everything ends up backfiring as workers start to tune it all out. So what was the point?
At the end of the day safety is all about good training, not how much yellow paint you apply to stuff.
That sentence was a lie. Touchscreens are less safe (read: more distracting, impose a higher cognitive load, lead drivers to veer while operating them) than tactile buttons. Touchscreens are excellent at reducing BOM costs, and they're excellent for glossy marketing pitches. Unsurprisingly, Tesla is big on touchscreens.
Finally, photos of "rails and posts" painted yellow doesn't contradict the fundamental assertions in the article that the color scheme of the factory floor is dominated by Elon's aesthetic sense. And it's not like Tesla has a strong record on safety in general: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-sa...
Also I don't understand what your point was. I don't disagree with anything you wrote in that post, nor does anything I wrote previously imply disagreement with any of that—which I suppose is unsurprising given that it was a non sequitur. For the sake of completeness, let me enumerate all our agreements:
1. Touch screens are bad interfaces for a car in motion.
2. Removing physical buttons saves money and is great marketing.
3. There was an aesthetic aspect to the choice of factory floor colours.
4. Tesla factories have a poor historical safety record.
Anything else?
None of that detracts from the fact your original post was monumentally stupid and (despite your pre-emptive assertion) an entirely ad homenim making conclusions about Elon's motivations and Tesla's decision-making processes based on nothing more than one link to a tabloid-quality sensationalist report.
We don't even know who actually designed the factory floor colour schemes—and I doubt some rando fired line worker knows either. I suppose we just have to assume that Elon is soly responsible for bike-shedding every single nuance at a 40,000+ employee company.
It's based on current and previous employees (at least at the time of writing), so you can put your concern that the source was a "rando fired line worker" to bed. :)
The quip about N95's having yellow bands was silly, but the problem is deep. N95 respirators are uncomfortable, hard to wear, and easy to mess up, and Tesla's well-documented (see, above) history of worker safety suggests they don't have the kind of safety culture required to actually keep their workers safe.
The tragic thing is it isn't actually hard, in the quantum physics/rocket science sense of the word. It's just a bunch of small steps that you can't mess up!
Q.E.D.
CDC guidance is that home-made masks aren't a replacement for social distancing. They are a risk mitigation technique for use in the handful of situations where social proximity is unavoidable.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...
Different approaches, maybe similar outcomes, but one involves much less economic activity.
I hope however you do support respecting the law even in cases where you disagree with a decision.
> so in free countries the law ought to be king;
> and there ought to be no other.
>
>-Thomas Paine
I listened to the interview and found Elon ridiculously dismissive of the risks and when he started arguing Shanghai's gigafactory not having any employees die of COVID-19 was proof of the shutdown being unnecessary, it became hard to continue listening at all. How many of those workers got infected and went on the increase community spread to non-employees? Why are we only considering employee deaths? It's as willfully ignorant as people saying things like "I don't wear a mask because I don't have any symptoms."
Read the federalist papers and the actual writings of our forefathers. You will be quite surprised. The constitution was framed to prevent the people from being stupid and killing the nation just as much as it was to prevent a monarchy.
> drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,
Setting speed limits based on political goals rather than engineering principles costs lives.
and that's perfectly fine, however, those disagreements happen in a court. I don't think disagreeing with a county order gives you the right to simply ignore it. If Tesla thinks this is wrong they can sue, which they did, and that should be it.
> California Governor Gavin Newsom said Thursday that state-level guidance allowing manufacturing to resume some production didn’t supersede county-level restrictions. The company had unsucessfully tried to argue that Tesla’s production should be considered critical infrastructure.[1]
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/9/21253127/elon-musk-lawsuit...
In other words that Vox article falsely attributes a quote to Newsom which he didn't say or at least their source doesn't support their claim.
> Nothing in this Order shall be construed to limit the existing authority of local health officers to establish and implement public health measures within their respective jurisdictions that are more restrictive than, or that otherwise exist in addition to, the public health measures imposed on a statewide basis pursuant to the statewide directives of the State Public Health Officer.
Tesla has simply had their lawyers argue nonsense in their filing. It’s a PR move to fool people into believing that they have any semblance of a case.
Is this somehow different? If so, how?
What is the ethical quandary here?
Take a step back, he's a troll juicing his stock price 80% of the time. Read elsewhere where he has a $700B bonus hanging in the balance here, and so how is that not the simplest explanation? There's your "good reason."
I believe the people who say it's still unsafe. If you don't and want or need the work, I think they're hiring in Fremont, or will be soon.
And Elon is not alone in this, he's joined by millions across the state and country that want - and need - to open up to counter the economic disaster that will create far more suffering and chaos. It's an absolute fact that this virus is nowhere near as fatal as first thought in March. Everything has a cost and risks must be weighed. The 3rd leading cause of death in the US is medical errors, but we don't shut down hospitals because of it, do we?
You're free to believe whoever you want and stay inside for your safety, but not everyone has that luxury as they face hunger, suicide, depression, overdoses, diseases, surgeries, domestic abuse and violence, and other life-altering stress that has nothing to do with covid19 and hasn't conveniently stopped because this virus came around. The people want choice, and I believe their freedom to make that choice is of utmost importance.
It seems the simplest explanation is that he really does care about the company and the people as evidenced by his continual investment into his ventures at the risk of bankrupting himself several times.
His care "about the people" is belied by his inability or unwillingness to care for "the people" as the union he is fighting so bitterly would do. Perhaps he really dislikes unions because they take too good of care for their members? Not to put too fine a point on it, but I can think of another prominent American who is proudly waving their negligence at the nation.
he's joined by millions across the state and country that want - and need - to open up to counter the economic disaster that will create far more suffering and chaos
"Want" doesn't protect people against viruses. "Should Elon incur liability for this?" is a question I want to see discussed. To be sure, there is chatter in DC about giving employers immunity for this, but nobody other than the Chamber of Commerce will associate their name with it, so I assume politicians know it might be a damaging issue to get behind.
But the virus is here, and again by force of personality this can't be changed. What people are clamoring for is some kind of a safety net, and they've been inculcated with the idea that a job is the only safety net they have, or can control. This is not the be-all end-all, because this is all the government's job, another aspect of the crisis in which they are being negligent (certainly the corporate 'stimulus' didn't involve complicated forms and crashing websites and time limits).
Yes, hunger, suicide, depression, and all the rest are due to the hopelessness that an ineffectual government, what some are calling a failed state, is declining to provide in an emergency. $1200 is a pittance.
The people want choice
There is no "choice" in virus exposure, it is not available. It is not subject to politics nor policies. That people believe that it is, is a travesty and I'd say a crime against humanity for convincing people to act against their own interests where their life hangs in the balance. In the service of capitalism, all because people in power don't want to use the tax dollars we pay to provide a less suicidal environment for us with our own money, within which to endure an extended quarantine. So we can stay alive.
Do you really think this should be portrayed as a luxury?
You're right that Elon being a jackass doesn't mean he has to close his factory, but at the same time it can be the reason why he wants to contravene public orders and policy to reopen it.
I have values and reasons that guide my own actions. There’s a much larger space of values and reasoning that I personally don’t adhere to, but consider valid for other people to choose for themselves. Anyone acting according to values or reasoning that falls outside this space is behaving unethically in my view. Whether or not something is ethical depends both on the internal motivation of the actor and the beliefs of the observer, but it’s still a useful concept as long as the relevant people in this formulation are properly udentified.
This variation makes it a shaky basis for law, which is a somewhat blunt instrument. It will inevitably allow some acts that some people view as unethical to go unpunished by the courts, and will probably disallow some acts that some people consider morally required: There’s too much variation in the personal beliefs of the populace for there to be a frontier that neatly encompasses all the guiding principles for their personal actions and also stays within the bounds of what people consider acceptable behavior from others.
>Whether or not something is ethical
You eating a hamburger when I think meat is murder doesn't mean you don't have any ethics.
>There’s too much variation in the personal beliefs of the populace for there to be a frontier that neatly encompasses all the guiding principles for their personal actions and also stays within the bounds of what people consider acceptable behavior from others.
You're describing morality, AKA a shared set of ethics, and people have been fighting to establish their preferred morality on other people (AKA "stop doing that thing I don't want you to do") for as long as people have had shared identities. Everybody who had participated in that history has acted according to a set of ethics, but the way you use the word, whether one of those people has any ethics depends on what side you're on. Not true.
I know I'm pissing in the wind here, but it's simply the wrong word to use.
In fact, deigning to judge an act as either ethical or unethical is implicitly admitting that the actor has agency and therefore reasoning powers: someone’s reasoning cannot be invalid unless it exists.
The fact that someone has questioned legal authority does not mean there is no law being broken. The existence of “freemen of the land”-style tax objectors doesn't mean no law is broken when you fail to pay federal income tax.
Also laws only work as long as the citizens believe in them and civil obedience is a thing. There needs to be good reason for the shutdown and its effects, and many do not agree with the county.
There has been no federal public health order (there's been a federal national defense order to keep meat plans open to promote the spread of the virus, but that's the opposite of a public health order), there are, relevant to the case at hand, state and county orders.
> They've since changed those orders.
Yes, both the state and county orders have been updated over time. What's your point?
> The county has even less authority, especially by a single individual and in contrast to the state.
No, actually, state law makes county public health officers the main authority to issue orders for the control of communicable disease.
> Also laws only work as long as the citizens believe in them and civil obedience is a thing.
Shutdown orders have overwhelming majority support; there is a very loud (predominantly elite) but small minority opposed.
Where do you see this overwhelming majority support? If that were true, there wouldn't be any news about so many violations of these lock-down orders. They would just be arrested and shutdown. But that's not happening is it?
The key issue is that you do not know you have it. And asking people to protect others as the main theme does not work.
The full mask on is important as it eliminates the incentive of not having the inconvenices. And stop the spread.
For work environment it is a risk and they should have some always on. Otherwise it will spread. In fact if one not on and start, the mask is the best collector of gems.
"Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials"
I summarized the heuristic in that discussion [2].
In the case of parachutes, that heuristic would (lead you to) say that, we know (from RCTs) that parachutes slow the fall of objects, we know humans suffer greater injury the faster they hit the ground, and parachutes are inexpensive relative to the potential risk, therefore you should believe they work in the absence of an RCT.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/04/14/a-failure-but-not-of-p...
https://www.thedrive.com/news/26727/tesla-had-3-times-as-man...
Tesla Had 3 Times as Many OSHA Violations as the 10 Largest US Plants Combined
CEO Elon Musk once called California OSHA the 'most stringent' safety organization in the US.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/1...
Federal OSHA is basically the bare minimum as to what can be implemented. Most states layer on additional regulations as they see fit. California's Department of Labor, "Cal/OSHA", has the most stringent standards beyond federal OSHA's standards.
Honestly the OSHA enforcement I've seen has been a joke. One summer when I worked a landscaping job, my employer was fined $5,000 because I was caught using a weed-eater while wearing shorts. (It was hot out and I didn't care if I got an occasional pebble flung at my shins.) My coworkers had similar stories.
That seems like the point. People learn what risks to take from experience; the employer has more experience than new/young employees, so you force them to care. I "didn't care" initially about breathing drywall dust, but later I changed my mind.
I'm an adult and I can accurately evaluate the risk of pebbles hitting my shins. Unlike dust or toxins, there's no lag between my actions and noticeable harm. Also, the maximum possible harm is limited. Nobody was ever crippled or killed by a weed-eater throwing pebbles at their legs. OSHA's action in this case was entirely unnecessary.
Stories from my coworkers were equally ridiculous. One time the company got fined because a worker was wearing earplugs instead of earmuffs. Both block sound just fine! If anything, the earplugs should work better because safety glasses can break the seal of earmuffs.
Plenty of people get lacerations and other injuries from weedwackers but your employer has a duty of care to you to prevent the possibility of that happening. This has been codified by safety laws.
If you're using a weedwacker in your personal life feel free to do it nude for all I care but as others have pointed out if it's optional and unenforced that effectively means that employers won't do it.
After the fine, I wore shorts for the rest of the summer. So did plenty of other workers. OSHA didn't seem to notice.
As it happened we were being sued by a welding contractor company who'd sent us unqualified personnel who were not making safe steam welds. We had to cut them all out and we all had them around the shop as "trophies". It was an expensive lawsuit -- hundreds of $K. Since he was a nice guy and clearly knew his stuff, when he asked about them we showed him some and told him about firing the contractor. He said, "give me a copy of that lawsuit". And a few days later that was the end of it!
Funny thing about steam pressure vessels: there's no safety barriers against them blowing up (just tons of rules to try to keep that from happening). If that vessel had exploded it would likely have taken out the entire city block, and possibly the elementary school across the street. So we were delighted to follow all the rules. When I was perched on a ladder tweaking some instrumentation I was comforted that that if anything went wrong I'd never know.
Some of the California county toxics agencies on the other hand....some too strict and some, IMHO, excessively lax. Word to the wise: f you want to run a (legal!!) drug lab do it in San Mateo county not Santa Clara County.
I mean crap like the Santa Clara County inspector insisting that our solvents go into metal secondary containment because they are potentially flammable. But they are corrosive and per the MSDS shouldn't be in metal, though plastic is safe. When I asked what she wanted she said, "Are you arguing with me?" In the end I put metal trays (turns out commercial pan pizza pans meet the spec) under the plastic bins.
When we moved in there was a copper pipe from one lab to another marked "nitrogen". The previous tenant had had the building declared safe (we had the paperwork) and moved out. When it was our time to move out (raised a large B round, were hiring like mad!) we couldn't get the facility cleared because of this damned copper pipe. Not only did they want it removed but they wanted remediation (I guess in case nitrogen leaked into the atmosphere). I am a packrat so had the previous tenant's paperwork and only that spared us the agony. We were manufacturing product for human clinical trials there -- the last thing we would want was anything toxic or dangerous around!!
(the city of Santa Clara had a nice map showing where the water came from and we were on well supply. For the reason you mention we had bottled water brought in, something I would normally refuse to pay for. If you live in Santa Clara don't worry -- only the industrial districts have this problem. The residences are on a safe supply, I think it's even hatch hetchy water).
The Musk apologists in particular are very keen to never talk about this, since based on documents produced under oath, Musk himself is extremely vengeful and personally oversees the retaliation.
E.g. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
There is more of this coming down the pipe in a few weeks, but it's not like the Tesla fans will care. I mean you can basically google "Tesla whistleblower" or "Tesla injury" and get hundreds of results of awful stories that probably don't even happen in sweatshops, but clearly if you're "saving the planet", destroying a few lives is excusable.
Like I've said before, Tesla is to EV what blood diamonds are to jewelry.
You shouldn't put it this way. The point is he was a dick when he didn't need to be. That's not okay. But if there was a button that said "save the planet but destroy a few (<50) lives," it wouldn't be unreasonable to hit it.
Of course, you are assuming the button actually does what it says. Maybe it just kills 50 people and saves a tree.
There mindset reminds me very much of religious men rolling into colonies and being ok with any kind of thing so long as they could maybe save a savages soul or two.
Once the argument hinges on grandiose intentions, damn near anything becomes "reasonable" and that is cause for alarm.
Seriously though, "the end justifies the means" is a perfectly valid argument, and there's no point thinking yourself in circles, trying to bend the rules of logic so that it stops supporting a conclusion you don't like.
Instead, it's better to investigate assumptions and applicability - and there you'll note that humans are far from perfect rational actors, that people plan badly, miscalculate and forget about past costs all the time, and that power corrupts over time - and with those assumptions, a flat-out ban on "the end justifies the means" is now absolutely reasonable. Not because it's not a rational view (it is), but because it doesn't work for humans, with our faulty, hostile wetware.
Do you believe there is a future of humanity in which we don't figure out how to handle this? Does this seem like the kind of thing that can be figured out through group discussion, or is it better approached by strong leadership?
My personal philosophy is that we should operate like a game with players and refs. The refs technically have power, but aren't allowed to tell the players what to do. The players do not get to make the rules.
I think people should very clearly delineate between phases of their life where they are taking responsibility and focusing on society (refing), and phases of their life where they're just enjoying it (playing). No mixing the two. Either serious mode, or fun mode, but the moment you mix the two you get a conflict of interest: players should not ref. Fun people have a hard time being taken seriously, serious people aren't much fun.. it's just a bad thing to mix.
At the same time, refs need to know how to play. If a ref hasn't played for a long time, then their heart can't really be in the game. So refs are somewhat obligated to just let go sometimes, and later maybe they'll come back, remembering that the power is not what's important; the game is what really matters.
Especially because nobody ever completes the original phrase...
"The ends don't justify the means, because the means make the ends."
If you use war to prevent suffering, you get suffering. If you use hate to stop hate, you get hate. etc.
This is a long way of saying, we become the very thing we fight. Humans aren't capable of using "the ends justify the means" without that happening, due to our faulty, hostile wetware... as you note!
Sure, it just tends to be incredibly destructive, like you imply at the end of your comment. For me, this makes it bad.
You really assumed the worst of me. Of course the button does what it says, that's the point of the thought experiment. The point is that it's _not_ what Elon is doing, and it shouldn't be put in that context. The point is, if Elon was doing that, then by all means please continue. The problem is people believe he is saving earth, not that saving earth is a bad idea (even at the cost of many, many lives).
Is this a jab at all immigrants, or only some of us?
Where is the balance ?
Individual not being able to work and feed his family vs some of society getting sick and those who had pre existing conditions sometimes dying.
How do you predict what is worse ?
If you read about the impact of the great depression it makes covid look rather trivial. Do we repeat the great depression and is that for the benefit of society as a whole ?
Beyond someone actively trying to get everyone to go outside at the same time and deliberately infecting people right now, I don't see what could pass the brandenburg test.
Imminent lawless action is a really high bar.
I guess I have a hard time believing either that the court would entertain the idea that the county has no legitimate interest in its residents’ welfare, that they would reject legal precedent older than the US constitution, or that they would take up a challenge based on a factual disagreement about epidemiology.
My mind is open to a reasoned legal argument!
When you tell everyone to stay home its not an individual you are impacting. You are damaging the entire social structure to prevent damage to the social structure.
Is the cure worse than the disease ? Prove the disease is worse because you are supposed to have due process to remove rights.
Let’s for the sake of argument say I thought that the county’s decision were silly. Governments do things that some people think are silly all the time. Yet, the court intervenes only in very few specific cases, under a very carefully chosen set of circumstances.
Also, while I've been happily self isolated for two months and plan to continue, I don't believe that many of these restrictions would be upheld if challenged in court.
Why can a Target stay open and sell non-essential merchandise while a competitor that doesn't also sell groceries can't? To be fair, Target and Wal-Mart would need to have ceased selling non-essentials.
But then the government is deciding what is and isn't an essential good...
Which is why I don't think it would/will hold up.
Thankfully, people with the jobs/means to stay home actually staying home has relieved some of the pressure, so restrictions can be lifted without actually causing everyone to rush to the bar or sports event.
The curves do intersect and likely already have
Specifically the fourth amendment stipulates that the application of the law must well-justified, well-focused, and procedurally sound. In addition the first amendment guarantees freedom of assembly, which makes orders to disperse unsound.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_Francaise_de_Navigat...
Courts have repeatedly held quarantine regulations constitutional within recent years both during Ebola and COVID-19 related cases.
Never mind that health departments regularly shut down restaurants and food industry operations when food-borne disease outbreaks occur.
I 100% support Elon here. The masterfulness of what he's doing is that over 10k employees are employed at that factory. If they can go to work - so can everyone else. He's essentially tossing a moltov cocktail at the whole house arrest bullshit.
Elon is a true patriot.
Grocery stores are orders of magniutde less safe and orders of magnitude more frequented than Tesla factories. Let's be VERY conservative and propose that the factory is a mere 10× less risk than a supermarket. Let's assume that grocery stores are used by 100× more people than Tesla factory employees. That means grocery stores represent a 1,000× higher risk than Tesla's factory. And that's conservative.
But it's actually worse than that. If working at the Telsa factory reduces the frequency in which these employees must visit a supermarket (reduced use of store-bought toilet paper, reduced consumption of store-bought food) then its opening could arguably lower the overall risk profile.
I was just responding to arguments with other arguments. That's how an internet discussion works. If you say I was "rationalising" Tesla's decision to open the factory, you were equally "rationalising" the County's decision to keep it closed.
That said, I think you're right about severing all edges we don't need. No easy way out of this unfortunately...
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The US has a lot to learn from both Australia and New Zealand.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By the way, I'm definitely not arguing with your conclusion. What we have to learn from Taiwan and Korea is that with a robust test and trace, we can go back to work. We just don't have it yet.
Alameda County is worse per capita than Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan. It's also worse in absolute numbers than New Zealand and Taiwan.
(Disclaimer: I also live in NSW and I wouldn't live anywhere in the USA even if you paid me a literal, tax-free million dollars.)
Also, please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, like this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23148744. We're here for curious conversation and can't have both.
"Support" is a bit of an overloaded word. I do agree with you that I do not support a government policy that isn't evidence-driven. But I do support the ability of the government to set policy without convincing every one of its constituents of the validity of its evidence.
As a simple analogy, perhaps the speed limits for highways in my state are capped at 60 mph, but there's evidence that the roads can safely accommodate drivers at 70 mph, they're well-maintained, they are built to appropriate safety standards, etc. I wouldn't support the government keeping the speed limit at 60 mph based on flimsy evidence. But I also wouldn't object to the government enforcing the speed limit as it is - because the end result of saying that every driver has the right to make their own private judgment of whether the speed limit laws are validly reasoned is that there is no speed limit anymore.
Prohibition is obviously a prime example of this, but if you consider various laws that once existed or are currently on the books but no longer enforced (think laws pertaining to racial segregation, sexuality, drug use, and such) you realize that being a law abiding citizen does not mean you are no longer allowed to think for yourself. Read up on "Jury Nullification" or "Jury Equity".
Instead, it seems that Musk is doing this just because he thinks he can get away with it, or because he is simply angry with the elected officials of his county. In such a situation, Tesla and Elon Musk should rightfully be punished for their actions.
There is also the question of which branch of government gets to have a say in the enforcement of a law. Consider California's approach to marijuana use vs the Federal government's. Or consider how there are numerous sanctuary cities that are in defiance of Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
These things are complicated.
After that it really depends upon how states respond and you could be stuck in a giant game of chicken. This is where it might get complicated and risky - mostly for people trying to abide by the law. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But in this case, the government wont' really arrest you for not opening your car factory. But the state might arrest you for doing it.
In the case of Marijuana, it's really quite simple: everyone in California using marijuana can be arrested by the federal government. They just choose not to, at least usually.
ICE is a bit more complicated. They are trying to compel cooporation from local law enforcement, who is not responsible for enforcing immigration law. They aren't asking them to enforce it directly themselves though.
> to make a political statement.
I see it as more a business decision, and only secondarily a political statement.
Same as a person is not a nazi just because someone disagrees with them.
Same as speech is not violence.
Etc etc etc.
EDIT> Speech is an act. That act can be violence.
A more interesting example would be giving an order to fire rubber bullets into a peaceable crowd. In the same sense that someone has committed murder if they hire a hitman, we could say that the speech act of giving the order, is a violent act.
Your example of a stream of abusive language, is not the equivalent of that. If someone is punished for such an act, they are not being punished for committing a violent offence.
I do wish people would stop trying to shift the definition of 'violence'. I don't want to have to make a habit of saying 'physical violence' just to close the door on it.
Cambridge Dictionary says: violence – extremely forceful actions that are intended to hurt people or are likely to cause damage.
Nowhere does it say these actions have to be carried out with the body (and if we are pedantic here, yelling into a room can be very physical as well as you are literally moving air with your breath).
Violence is a matter of communication. If your girlfriend accidentally turns around and hits you in the face with full force, it hurts, but that doesn't mean it was violent behaviour. If she however hits you on purpose with bad intent, it can be weak as hell and still constitute violent behaviour.
This means violence is not purely physical, but also an act of demonstrating/communicating power over the other. And as an act of communication there is more to it than it's pure physical components.
Disagree. That is a violent act, but one without violent intent.
Boxing is a violent sport, but isn't criminal.
> This means violence is not purely physical, but also an act of demonstrating/communicating power over the other. And as an act of communication there is more to it than it's pure physical components.
I don't think the word 'communication' is helpful here. I think what you're getting at is intent.
intent is in the dictionary definition of the term violence, which is my point. How do you know it is intent? It is beeing communicated (be it verbal, nonverbal or otherwise).
Defining acts like these as communication has a long tradition in system theory, which among other things is used in therapy of families and relationships, so this is not really a creative act on my side.
That people at times use actions (including violent ones) to communicate is nothing new, everybody who has a child knows this.
More than that though, I'm able to have my own take on the meaning of a word.
Philosophers have no use for dictionaries when exploring the meaning of 'free will', for instance. For someone already fluent in English, the dictionary contributes nothing.
> How do you know it is intent?
Ah, I wasn't clear. I don't think violence is a matter of intent, but I think 'intent' may be a better word for what you were referring to as 'communication', unless I misunderstood your point.
I can see that it makes some sense to view violence as 'communication', in the same way evolution is steered by 'communication' between species, but I don't see that this perspective is bringing much to the table in this context.
Violence, emotional violence, emotional abuse, abusive speech, etc.
EDIT> I don't find your example more interesting. The more clear-cut an example is the less interesting it is. blah blah entropy.
Problem with your example lies in the lack of context. On the more humorous side - maybe your wife is a cunt and your children are little bastards. If you percieve any kind of abusive expression, no matter of the context, as violence, then you're just done. There is no useful way that you can contribute to culture and society, because you cannot participate in discourse anymore.
On the more serious side - what about "psychological violence"? What about when your wife treats you like a slave and verbally abuses you on a daily basis? If your wife mistreats you, then just leave. Her words cannot stop you. What stops you is more likely the threat of being beaten, that she will make it impossible for you to see your kids and she will take your house. The violence is physical, economical and sociological, not verbal.
Going further - your comment disgusted me and I've felt that it violates some of the most important values I have in my life. Is this violence? Not at all, I will just shrug it off and continue to enjoy my day. I will get some downvotes and maybe be less frequent in visiting left-leaning websites. We lose the ability to talk to each other, but it's far from being violence. It's just stupidity on both sides.
> First of all, do not put equality sign between physical and being verbally abusive.
I am not, in general -- let's try to confine ourselves to my specific example.
> The first one is something external that you have no control over, no matter how much you fight, the second you can just shrug off and continue with your life.
This is a dogmatic assertion that is not supported by the evidence. If I were feeling less charitable, I could counter that of course you could do something about physical violence -- you just had to train harder, have better weapons, or build a coalition. People are emotionally abused. Stating that in some cases, some people can transcend that abuse is ... not really relevant. It's interesting, and should be studied so that perhaps we can confer immunity to more people.
> Problem with your example lies in the lack of context. On the more humorous side - maybe your wife is a cunt and your children are little bastards.
As soon as you admit context you admit that abusive speech could be an act of violence, as well as true speech. As you say, yourself, context matters. This is why dogmatic approaches to this issue are doomed to fail.
> If you percieve any kind of abusive expression, no matter of the context, as violence, ...
Let's just stick to my example. To disprove "speech cannot be violence", I only have to find one example of speech that is violence. I don't have believe or prove that all (abusive) speech is violence.
> then you're just done. There is no useful way that you can contribute to culture and society, because you cannot participate in discourse anymore.
This is nonsense. It's smacks of litany rather than logic. A person can be a productive member of society in many ways, yet hold beliefs that disturb you.
> Going further - your comment disgusted me and I've felt that it violates some of the most important values I have in my life.
I can't know, but your words suggest that you are looking to be disgusted. We all like to be self-righteous at times, but I doubt we are as far apart as you believe.
I have deep knowledge of computer science, artificial intelligence, biology, and emotional abuse. All of these areas teach that nature has no respect for our ontologies.
We may try to draw a hard line between violence and speech, but we mislead ourselves. Almost all of the cases worth debating occur at the fuzzy edges of these concepts.
Failure to realize this may result in the sense of having a crystalline framework, but ultimately it misleads.
Two punches, equal in their physical qualities and physical pain, one much more violent than the other. What hurts more or does more lasting damage depends on the context. There are people who have been hit as a child and have no problem with it. There are people who have never been hit physically but verbally abused who will have to deal with this their whole life.
To think violence is only violence when it is physical certainly has not much to do with how people exert force onto each other in daily life. Of course this doesn't mean that every communicative act that challenges your world view, critisises your actions, highlights you mistakes etc. automatically constitutes a violent act, although you certainly might feel bad afterwards. This is why the dictionary definition of violence has "intent" in it. If someone tells you your whole life was a lie they might not intend to hurt you with their words, even if you are devastated. If someone tells you, your hair looks shitty, they do.
Note: whether you feel hurt or not plays no role in the definition of the word violence.
"behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something."
Notice that word "physical". Liberals have tried to define the word to be associated with words or 'hate speech' in an attempt to shut down speech they don't want to hear. It doesn't mean they're correct.
1) Why is violence bad? What is it we're trying to prevent when we seek to prevent violence?
2) Are there instances of speech, which in specific contexts can, cause the same negative outcomes that we try to prevent when we seek to prevent violence?
3) Is it really true that physical violence is inescapable, while abusive speech only causes harm if the listener lets it?
Let go of left/right talking points, shallow pattern-matching, and groupism, and deeply consider these questions.
I'll take your Google result and throw you this Oxford English Dictionary result, which admits a more nuanced interpretation: https://www.oed.com/oed2/00277885
When I was growing up, we always had this phrase: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." It was usually the response to a kid complaining of being verbally teased at school, in the sense that he needed to ignore it - don't bother the teacher / parents about it unless the bullies start using their fists to hurt you.
The left has tried to redefine violence over the years in order to create the idea of "hate speech" which they want punished the same as violence.
I disagree with this idea.
FYI: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/03/31/co...
Fined, maybe, but even fines can be reversed by courts.
http://www.acphd.org/media/572718/health-officer-order-20-10...
To quote it: "Pursuant to Government Code sections 26602 and 41601 and Health and Safety Code section 101029, the Health Officer requests that the Sheriff and all chiefs of police in the County ensure compliance with and enforce this Order. The violation of any provision of this Order constitutes an imminent threat and menace to public health, constitutes a public nuisance, and is punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both."
Where they "get" you is if you blow off the court about resolving the fine which is contempt of court, which is a criminal offense.
It blows my mind how supposedly smart people know so little about the law. It's a lot like programming. The keywords are important and the logic used as well.
These businesses are facing criminal charges in Los Angeles for violating the Los Angeles county public health order:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-03/coronavi...
That link is paywalled, but the article title only refers to shutting off utilities.
It does not.
No, the code cited in the order is State (not municipal or county) code giving certain authority to county public health officers, neither municipal codes nor municipal officers are involved. Also, municipal codes in California can have criminal components, so the contrast drawn is false as well as not germane to the relevant facts.
> Like with a traffic ticket, they can fine for not complying. They cannot arrest you, however.
Being stopped and issued a traffic ticket is a non-custodial arrest and the “fine” people pay if they don't dispute tickets is legally forfeiture of bail. But, in any case, unlike minor traffic offenses, violating a county public health order issued to control communicable disease is a criminal offense punishable by fines, jail, or both; the Alameda County order cites the relevant state criminal law.
> It blows my mind how supposedly smart people know so little about the law.
Indeed.
26602. "The sheriff shall prevent and suppress any affrays, breaches of the peace, riots, and insurrections that come to his or her knowledge, and investigate public offenses which have been committed. The sheriff may execute all orders of the local health officer issued for the purpose of preventing the spread of any contagious or communicable disease."
41601. "For the suppression of riot, public tumult, disturbance of the peace, or resistance against the laws or public authorities in the lawful exercise of their functions, and for the execution of all orders of the local health officer issued for the purpose of preventing the spread of any contagious, infectious, or communicable disease, the chief of police has the powers conferred upon sheriffs by general law and in all respects is entitled to the same protection."
These 60 businesses in LA county are facing criminal charges:
https://www.lacityattorney.org/post/feuer-continues-filing-c...
The criminal statutes are cited earlier in the order, at the very beginning:
“Please read this Order carefully. Violation of or failure to comply with this Order is a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. (California Health and Safety Code § 120295, et seq.; Cal. Penal Code §§ 69, 148(a)(1))”
HSC 120295 is the key one (the others deal with resisting arrest and interference with executive officers): “Any person who violates Section 120130 or any section in Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 120175, but excluding Section 120195), is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than fifty dollars ($50) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment for a term of not more than 90 days, or by both. He or she is guilty of a separate offense for each day that the violation continued.”
The most key part of Chapter 3 for this purpose is HSC 120220: “When quarantine or isolation, either strict or modified, is established by a health officer, all persons shall obey his or her rules, orders, and regulations.”
Yes, all of it was. Or, more precisely, it was implemented under statutory authority of county and state public health officials whose orders are enforceable under preexisting criminal statutes and do not require additional criminal legislation for each new order.
In fact, Newsome's Executive Orders refer only to GOV § 8567, which only refers to procurement powers of state agencies. It specifically does not create any criminal statute, which in CA happens to be a very involved process including traversing multiple legislative committees.
In other words, he could trigger a process to confiscate your steel if he can establish urgent necessity for all of it, but he can't make it a crime to build a car. You're flat wrong on this.
This is both false and irrelevant; it's false because Newsom’s 39 (to date) executive orders relating to COVID-19 (they are almost daily) reference more than just that section—i.e, the first, EO N-25-20 (3/12/2020), references government code sections 8567, 8571, and 8572 [0]; but more to the point it's irrelevant because while the EOs have some importance in state COVID-19 response, they aren't the shelter-in-place order, which is a Public Health Order issued by the State Public Health Officer / Director of Public Health on March 19, 2020 [1], citing Health and Safety Code Sections 120125, 120140, 131080, 120130(c), 120135, 120145, 120175 and 120150, which pertain to the power of the Department of Public Health to issue such orders and the obligation of local officials to enforce them.
[0] https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.12.20-EO...
[1] https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20...
To be fair, you can't both commit a crime and pay other people to commit crimes and get them out of the legal consequences by tweeting that you are the only one who should be arrested.
Yes.
> Especially some national law and state law seem to allow it
State law makes it a crime to violate orders of county public health officers for the control of communicable disease.
The fact of the matter is that if a business feels it's time to reopen, it should do so, cautiously of course.
Neither the employees or customers are forced to go. They have a right to refuse. They don't have a right to dictate what others decide to do with their business
Can you provide a source for this?
I have no idea what (if any) compensation Tesla workers receive while not working during the pandemic, nor do I know if those workers will be penalized for not working - particularly for not working while the factory is open in violation of state restrictions.
Automobile manufacturing is not one of the listed exceptions, so it is illegal both to operate (for the owner) and to go to work at (for the employees) such a business.
Here is the thing about the Tesla culture, which is like a more subdued one then the one at SpaceX: some people are 'all in' about the cause and are putting their Lives at risk working 10+ hours everyday.
One of the reasons I decided to go work for Kimbal instead of Tesla was the mandatory Swing shift for Supply Chain (at the time) ahead of the Model 3 ramp. People were putting in 60+ hours in 4 day schedules. Burn out is not possible, its near exepected. They also offer really amazing Health Packages, like the best any other Multi-national corp ever offered me because they understood it as critical component to success in such an ambitious goal. At Kimbal's place I could do 60+ hours over 6 days, which if you've done either is taxing, but the former wipes you out and messes up your circadian rhythm, which as you get older is harder to re-adjust on the fly.
If you honestly think there aren't people waiting to just go back to work at the HQ factory to do what they joined up for int first place then you haven't met many Tesla people, let alone any SpaceX guys.
Is this fair? I think if Elon/HR has stipulated there are no consequences for those who can't or won't return, then, yes. The Factory has only just been able to recently turn things around after an amazing Manufacturing feat from the Fremont Team, only to have this stifled by the Local government, who oddly benefit a great deal from the revenue generated from Fremont.
If any of you have been to Fremont, you'll know there isn't much Economic activity there, even for the East Bay. Lots of local businesses, little restaurants and some fast food places rely heavily on Tesla employees. This is a lose-lose situation which may be due to political reasons, but if a fine is all the stands in the way of making the deliveries back-log get smaller, then its worth it. (Elon is saying he is willing to get arrested for it?)
People have paid in full for a Model Y, which has been refined due to Model 3's hard-earned lessons, the losses and missed opportunity costs are immense. If they have to move production of Y to Shanghai and re-import them to the US then not only is that a supply chain nightmare, but it completely undoes the cost-savings that made Shanghai imperative in the first place.
I don't blame him, this has also boosted the stock price above 800 again, too. So the Market agrees with his decision.
Jesus, the frickin Nazi Youth did the same thing!
Why don't people ever see the leader worship and authoritarianism (fascism) in corporations?
Personally speaking, I met a person that was Hitler Youth when I lived in Southern Germany; and for a majority it was less about a dark haired, dark eyed Austrian talking about the 'aryan master race' then you'd think, and more about not wanting to die of hunger as all the farms were Nationalized.
> Why don't people ever see the leader worship and authoritarianism (fascism) in corporations?
I've said before and I'll say it again: I'm not in the cult of Elon, I care what he enables not what he is/isn't. You cannot deny that EV has succeed in large part because of Tesla, I worked for all the major Car manufactures with a real EV program (BMW/VW/Nissan) and those are now completely shifting in large because Tesla succeeding in it's Mission statement.
SpaceX delivered on its promise of making Rockets re-usable and more affordable etc...
Those are his companies, which he founded and risked eveything to get to where they are, but its the People who work in them that I support and champion. I just find Elon funny in a meme troll-like way, especially towards those who seem to take offense to every action/indiscretion he makes.
As a teacher of American History I have read countless diaries of these kids, they were brainwashed while they were in the scouts. I do not blame them either.
>Those are his companies, which he founded and risked eveything to get to where they are, but its the People who work in them that I support and champion. I just find Elon funny in a meme troll-like way, especially towards those who seem to take offense to every action/indiscretion he makes.
You could have championed the people in Hitler's armies as well.
That's the issue with hyperbole, it tends to lends itself to extremes.
> You could have championed the people in Hitler's armies as well.
Back to the Nazi narrative, no I personally wouldn't have, want know why? During the (illegal) Iraq and Afghan Invasion I was in staunch opposition, and I went to a Pro-war University and come from a Military family. Both of my cousins were vets of both Iraq and Afghanistan, one with 3 tours in total. I was supposed to be the third, but realized in the 6th grade killing for the State is still Murder and that War is not a career--I wanted to help preserve Life, not destroy it.
I'm glad I got accustomed to having to do with less, as my family practically shunned me for this position and were aghast at my Anarchist leanings and didn't support me in anyway because of my refusal to accept the BS narrative that was sold to them.
So, having lived amongst and worked with said former Hitler Youth, something I'm sure even you as Historian probably cannot say, it was ultimately an experience that led to compassionate acceptance.
He didn't want to fight in Hitler's BS war of Genocide. He was hungry and did what he was told as a child from a rural farming family who had their land stolen from them and was subject to go days/weeks without eating.
He was the 'Opa' of the family I worked for on the farm, I would bring him coffee in the morning while he sorted through the potatoes we planted, harvested out of respect, and despite what you may want to think I never saw a blood-thirsty genocidal maniac.
Instead I saw a broken man who was forcefully inducted to march and sing to feed his Family, who later became a farmer himself after the war and inevitably lost his farm due to Chernobyl's fallout, and a Man who still suffered the affects of unfathomable levels of scarcity as he would regularly take whatever looked edible from our compost bin, despite having access to the store and the farms fresh produce.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you're an Educator you really should have better arguments to base your views/convictions on. Nazism was a horrible system, but there are more cogent ways to convey your position than resorting to 'well, Nazis...'
Elon provided the majority of Tesla’s series A, but he wasn’t a founder in the conventional sense of the word.
Granted, and you're right, his role as CEO would come after all of that.
Erica Pan received zero votes for her because she has never appeared on the ballot. She's an appointed not an elected official. This is her choice and the public has no possibility of direct electoral response to her decision to forbid Tesla opening.
You can believe that the county's rules are unwise, but they're in place in order to protect public health. Right or wrong, Musk is violating those rules and thinks he'll get away with it because he runs an important company. There has to be a clear message that he won't get away with it. Fining him won't make a difference. Prison time might.
So far, Alameda County officials have been very subdued in their response - too subdued, in my opinion. They're afraid of Musk moving his factory out of town. It's a terrible message to send that large businesses can ignore public health regulations, and avoid consequences by threatening to leave.
For example, look at the Logan Act and its justification for spying on politicians.
Things appearing as civil disobedience for money issue are virtually always terrible - as soon as "radicalism" or "iconoclastism" becomes a business, it's worst business.
Prohibition was a terrible policy but the people that fueled the defiance of prohibition were mobsters, scum that had a terrible and arguably on-going terrible effect on the country.
Even 1960s drug proponents became awful at the point they became drug dealers.
And it is absolutely the right of a government to prevent you from working.
Many jobs requiring government approval for example a doctor, lawyer, builder.
Governments have no rights. There is nothing that is owed to them due to their existence as governments. Were a particular set of people not to form a government, no other government could rightfully enter to assert their 'right' to govern.
The UNCHR has begged to differ since 1948. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human...
One could argue that putting yourself or others at risk of infection is not a “just and favorable condition”
What gives you the right to decide that?
Work is one of the main purposes and goals an individual may have, together with family. Denying that to anyone is simple and plain tyranny.
Human beings have rights.
I read an amusing analogy, we have what we call the "Schrodinger's disease".
The government tries to protect me from the disease and suspects me of spreading the disease - all at the same time.
Even though I don't want that protection and I am not sick. Doesnt' matter, I have to oblige.
Mature democracies should have the ability to carefully and responsibly limit some rights in times of great crisis, such as wars and pandemics.
It is really not how it should work at all.
Assuming everyone is infected at all times is both absurd and most importantly unworkable and counterproductive. The net effect is the opposite of what it wants to achieve.
[citation needed]
Why point the finger at California? The federal government has done so too.
* making it illegal for homeless people to exist in cities (loitering laws etc. when the homeless cannot help but break the law)
* taking away the right to bear arms as soon as black people started carrying firearms for self defense
* a long history of police brutality in the LAPD against minorities
* Los Angeles refusing to protect Asian Americans during race riots
* The California Dept of Labor refusing to enforce minimum wage laws regardless of the citizenship status of workers (only the federal government has to enforce border and immigration laws)
We're talking about California in this thread. If you want to talk about the federal government you're free to do so.
I'm not interested in casting Elon Musk as some sort of heroic figure, and if it turns out he has coerced his workers or endangered them in practice, not just theoretically, he should pay for that.
But the freedom to work is absolutely a human rights issue.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
What is described is something like the right to be considered for work if one is qualified. Maybe to the provision of work. But saying that this article guarantees a factory owner the right to restart that factory when they feel they'll be providing work along with making a profit, does not ring true.
[1]https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_C...
Your first example is also impacted by this. General advocacy of violence was upheld as constitutionally protected speech, it's very unlikely that hate speech could ever meet the brandenburg test.
That's not to say that your point about one person's right to work vs another person's right to live is wrong. In fact, I think the court would likely agree with you on that matter. I just think your first couple of examples are flawed.
Though suggesting that Musk's "human rights" are being violated through closure of his car factory in the middle of a pandemic is making a complete joke out of both his argument and out of the concept of human rights.
Anyway, I would think that being unable to open your own factory while your competitors are allowed to be open when you have done nothing wrong, would be quite "unjust and unfavorable". I mean it isn't like he can conduct this type of business from home instead.
Edit:
Here is the full sentence according to Article 23 from the Universal Declaration of Human rights:
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. [1]
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/en...
And just in case you're going to ask what proximity has to do with the matter of justice, it is because as his competitor's factories are located elsewhere than Alameda they fall under different jurisdiction, do his competitors ever have any regulation based on where they are located that they can then refuse to obey because Tesla's Alameda factory doesn't have to do it that way?
If there is unfairness here it is of the same sort of unfairness engendered by the world being a large globe with different climates, countries, governments, currencies, and cultures and where you choose to place your factory means your natural greatness of being must be hampered by the base restrictions of existence.
"Right to work" has a completely different meaning than "Right to work in just and favourable conditions".
The latter refers to the fact that IF you are working then it should be in a safe environment not that you have the right to work at all.
Here it is in full form under Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. [1]
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/en...
This nicely illustrates the folly of trying to reason about a situation from a pithy statement of some cherry-picked "right." Are we violating the "right to work"[1] of young children when we forbid them from quitting school getting a a factory job? Maybe, but it's pretty obvious that overriding factors are more important in that case. It's the same when we consider an employer who wants to "to work" employing his employees in conditions that some may consider unsafe.
I'm not sure what point that's meant to make, but it supports what I was saying. You'd never be able to derive that exception from:
>>> Well, the UN definition of "Human Rights" includes the "right to work"[1].
There's loads of different competing rights, exceptions to those rights, and other social practices that need to be weighed to make a judgement a situation like this. Focusing too closely on reasoning about this one "right to work" ignores all that, and thus leads to less than enlightening conclusions.
Billionaires are citizens too. They are bound (imperfectly) by laws. Therefore they too encounter situations where practicing civil disobedience makes sense.
The point of the essay is to exhibit disobedience to government when that government is perpetrating injustice. Somehow halting the production of luxury cars for a few more weeks, with the explicit intent of trying to save lives, doesn't seem like an injustice to me.
Forgive the cliche, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
"Trying to save lives" is the new "think of the children". It's the same mentality that gives us legislation like the EARN IT act.
--
The question we should ask is, (1) has the government provided a reasonable justification for placing such limits on commerce, freedom of movement, etc. And (2), is the strategy we're pursuing, from a public health perspective, the right one?
My answer to both (1) and (2) is "hell no". The rules our government has ruled out are arbitrary and capricious and are largely based on superstition. Case in point: closures of public parks and beaches.
Arguing (2) is out of the scope of this comment but suffice to say that my belief is the negative externalities introduced by our COVID-19 response are far, far worse than COVID-19 itself.
--
FWIW, I am not a fan of Musk in general. I am inherently suspicious of people that are trying to save humanity. As we have seen with Musk - for example, how Tesla factory workers are treated in the pre-COVID-19 era - because he is working tirelessly to save humanity, he is willing to sacrifice actual humans to achieve his goals. Because after all, in the scheme of things, if you're talking about fighting existential threats like climate change or being stuck on one planet, what's the cost of even 100,000 human-lives' worth of wellbeing in comparison? It's not even close.
But when it comes to COVID-19, I absolutely think Musk is right. Yes he has made some absolute asinine comments/predictions but his general points about suspension of civil liberties, and statements that COVID-19 is not nearly as lethal as we were told...all of that is totally true in my book.
This is an arbitrary goal post. There need not be any secret motive of the county officials to make their reasoning incorrect or the law not right. Their motives could be completely public and still scrutinized and found to be incorrect.
I think that they intend to save lives but that their understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the best way to address it is so overly simplistic that the myopic policies they are instituting are going to lead to larger mortality over the long-term. Which is the pattern we see at the broader scale as well when we examine the US' response to the pandemic.
So, like I implied above, their intentions are good, but intentions are largely worthless.
Is not "but what about my freedom" the same thing? This is a nonsense argument.
> But when it comes to COVID-19, I absolutely think Musk is right. Yes he has made some absolute asinine comments/predictions but his general points about suspension of civil liberties, and statements that COVID-19 is not nearly as lethal as we were told...all of that is totally true in my book.
Forget the nonsense and call it for what it is. It has nothing to do with civil liberty. It has to do with money, power, and influence.
People actually suffering and not knowing where their next check comes from, well, we don't really care about them. But when finally the rich software engineers get a little less comfortable, the screeches for freedom would make even the largest eagle blush.
This is quite literally about them. Knowledge workers and others sitting comfortably at home are the biggest opposition to opening up business.
I disagree. The rich people who can avoid the poor are the biggest proponents of opening up business. In fact, I see this sentiment on hacker news more than anywhere else- because software engineers are rich and benefit from the working poor everywhere, they want the economy to reopen so their portfolio grows again.
The problem is that govt is slow and payments by themselves are not effective because of the cascading effects of economic shutdown (you cant spend money when services aren't running in the first place). It's the lower and middle class workers that are suffering the most without a paycheck.
Also, in case you missed it, the stock market has been on a rapid rise for a month now and the NASDAQ is currently positive for the year. Portfolios are doing just fine.
In the US, the megacorps got theirs. Now the populace has to work. No tests, just work comrade. For Mother US!
If the stock market is doing fine then perhaps we don't need to rush to reopen. Or maybe it's completely propped up based on nothing, countless measures of pumping money into industry, and monetary policy.
> (you cant spend money when services aren't running in the first place). It's the lower and middle class workers that are suffering the most without a paycheck.
Aide shouldn't be for spending money on Tesla's and other junk. It should be for rent, food, etc, utilities, etc. So this argument is pointless.
The poor and middle class have already been suffering for years - expensive healthcare, lower wages, less pensions, regressive taxes. Yet now people suddenly care? It's basically all a lie. Just admit it - you don't want to lose money for yourself, and you don't care if other people you don't know die or get sick or work in poor conditions.
I'm a startup founder who has lost major revenue. I personally know dozens who have lost their businesses and jobs and a few who have gotten sick. More aid is not going to make any difference and the economic disaster is going to cause much more suffering and death. Supporting family isn't free. These are known effects and must be balanced against the new data we have about covid19.
But now you're resorting to baseless accusations and personal attacks so let's end it here.
I recommend learning more about these ideas before building them into your narrative. You may realize, for example, that the people who have been working on COVID response full time for months have put a lot more thought into it than you.
That's in the abstract. Let's take this concrete example. Say there is some worker in this factory. They don't want to go to work. They don't feel safe. Now they are torn between two authorities. What happens if they do show up? What happens if they don't show up? Will they be seen as "not a teamplayer"? Will their career stall out compared to their yes-men colleges? Maybe even get fired without any cause given. Half a year later so as not to make it obvious?
Yes, I think pretty much exactly that would happen. (I'm not super up-to-date on the CARES act or other legal measures that they might be able to take, or if unemployment pays out to people who "quit" their jobs currently, so there's a small chance that those are options)
However my conclusion is that's an example of why forcibly shutting down businesses was a terrible idea in the first place and never should have been done.
But yes I totally agree, our governmental systems are not set up to handle these questions.
I must confess that when the "flatten the curve" meme started spreading around and the initial 4-5% case fatality rate and 20% hospitalization rate numbers were being given, that I actually believed in flattening the curve and thus initially supported the lockdown. I should have known at the time that the goalposts were going to be moved. In retrospect it's incredibly obvious.
The math didn’t check out on “Flatten the Curve” from the very start. It is very, very hard not to get caught up in the panic response, and in that moment the sheer number of people who would accuse you of endangering lives for even doubting the response was necessary, correct, proportional, scientific, or even legal, was enormous.
In MA ~60% of COVID deaths have been in nursing homes. That’s 3,000 deaths in an extremely narrow population (< 50,000 people) and the state was busy shutting down life as we know it and totally failed the people actually at risk. In NY they sent known COVID cases into their nursing homes. In RI 70% of their total fatalities have been in nursing homes.
We need the end of lockdown, we need to halt the drift into totalitarian and draconian tracking measures, and we need strictly targeted and laser focused protections for the at-risk population.
As far as TFA, it’s the typical Elon lightning rod effect but the fact is all the other auto manufacturers have reopened, and Alameda County is no hotspot. It should be entirely uncontroversial that Tesla is reopening and in the meantime challenging any continuing shutdown order in court. I doubt a preliminary injunction would be granted based on the required legal standard, although judges have surprised me in the past!
The rallying cry around ending the lockdown is complete and utter bullshit considering other countries that have tried reopening (including South Korea and parts of Japan) were slammed by a second wave of infections.
Opening up won't stop the at-risk population from being afraid to work, nor will it stop people from getting sick and being unable to work.
We have over 20 million unemployed (probably a significant undercount) through a self-inflicted lockdown in just a couple months. Leading economic experts such as the US Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman of the Federal Reserve have warned strongly of “permanent economic damage” if we continue the lockdown. I would speculate this lockdown is firmly ushering in the next era of “essential” mega corporations and the utter destruction of small business.
And in New York, the majority of new cases in the last few weeks have been from people “strictly observing social distancing.”
Like focusing a laser increases the energy that can be brought to bear on a single point and magnifies the overall effect, so too can highly targeted common sense measures save more lives than this “utter bullshit” general lockdown.
I’ll give the specific example again. While we’re doing ~30k tests a day nationwide, we still haven’t tested every nursing home patient and worker. In fact, NY Times reports many nursing homes have not gotten access to barely any testing at all, even for their recently deceased. So a sub-population of 1.3 million residents is bearing 35% of total fatalities (in 14 states it’s more than 50% of all fatalities) and this lockdown diverts massive resources and energy away from saving those lives.
Do I have that right? 0.4% of the population has seen 35% of the total deaths? Over-represented by 87x. By the way that’s an undercount because only 33 states actually break out data for nursing home deaths. But instead the political response is fear mongering, preaching a new normal, and shaming people who go to the beach.
Exactly. And if we had been prepared with enough testing capability and protective equipment, that would have been the way to go. But we were not prepared. So we had to go with plan B. The US is not good at health care. There are consequences for that.
Those are the current stats I believe. The IFR is of course lower, but probably not wildly lower. As of yesterday the UK's chief medical officer was estimating it at 1% or a bit less.
Are you really going to pick height as a comparison point for being a billionaire? Did tall people take their height from short people? Is height taxed?
We're all closer to being millionaires than Jeff Bezos.
This is true in terms of orders of magnitude, but gets hilariously true when looking at the absolute numbers.
The difference in wealth of a homeless person and a (barely) millionaire is about a million ($1,000,000).
The difference in wealth of that millionaire and Jeff Bezos is about a Jeff Bezos ($138,999,000,000).
Why is that more important than any other moral axiom?
If he wants to sell $10M or so to buy a nice house and a new car, do you think he doesn't deserve to do so? Where do you draw the line?
So yeah. A line can and should be drawn somewhere.
How do you even picture that claim? Is it Bezos literally building every warehouse with his own two hands? Is it him being at a thousand places at once dealing with paperwork, marketing and packaging all by himself? For every billionaire out there there are thousands of workers that were denied their share of the success. I would say the only way someone could be a honest "self made" billionaire is by mugging an other billionaire in a dark alley.
Besides that, there are some billionaires that did get their wealth honestly in my estimation, like JK Rowling and Markus Persson.
A good point. I wasn't aware that she was a billionaire and she apparently gave most of it away by now, dropping her well bellow a billion again.
> Markus Persson.
I remember that there was a lot of controversy around Minecraft, but I can't accurately recall the details to counter that.
- Significantly higher marginal tax rates further up the income ladder. US high end marginal tax rates are historically and relatively low; at the same time the US runs an incredible deficit. It’s crazy.
- Increasing tax rates on dividend earnings for individuals, so that they converge to the income tax rates based on some income/earnings thresholds. Large share holders like Bezos can make millions via dividends, and get a far better tax rate than you or I. It doesn’t make any sense. For mutual funds and companies, etc., dividend taxation could be treated as now without much negative impact.
- Increasing tax rates on capital gains when realized. If Bezos wants to sell $10M of stock to buy a fancy new house and car, great, but at some level of capital gains it makes sense for the rates to rise as it otherwise becomes another kind of income tax dodge.
- Inheritance taxes increasing steeply with the amount of the estate. Sam Walton worked his ass off; his kids didn’t. It’s perfectly normal to want to leave your kids something, but after a certain point it seems rather a social anti-pattern to have a trust fund class, especially at extreme amounts of wealth (which is what we are talking here).
- Limits on loss depreciation for individuals. Perhaps not quite as important but also subject to a lot of abuse.
Of course, I also think there’s much that needs to be done with campaign finance reform, lowering corporate tax rates, automatic antitrust provisions that come into play when a company becomes relatively too big, and increased penalties for corporate externalities (like privacy violations, pollution, etc.).
Hope this helps. What do you think we should do?
Certainly with someone like Bezos, unless you take it all there is going to be a number that will still net him a billion after all of the taxes. And if you do "take it all", then maybe the next Bezos, Zuckerberg, or Gates starts the next company in another jurisdiction with less of an appetite for taxation, drawing away with it the capital and all of the follow-on effects it provides (jobs, spending in the community, etc.). And given the lengths we know that rich people will go to protect their money, that line has to be drawn at far less than "all" to keep them.
On the other end of the extreme, even if he never sells a share those shares still allow him to wield a tremendous amount of power. So in the short run, all the taxes in the world would change nothing (Amazon does not pay dividends). It would just give him more time to figure out how to evade the taxes in the long run. :)
I am moved by the argument that Walton's kids shouldn't get it all, but I'm not sure that transferring some or all of his property to the government is a good idea. You would then just have a "trust fund class" of politicians and bureacrats! (BTW your Walton comment has got me pumped for season 3 of "Succession")
I like your overall thesis, I just think we should be less punitive with those exceptional people who do indeed add tremendous value to our economy and society.
The accumulation of wealth by a single individual is not inherently harmful for society, it all comes down to the intention for which accumulation happens and how is that spent.
Edit: typo.
Present day accumulation of wealth creates a huge power imbalance, billionaires are citizens, just as I am, why should they have more power, as a citizen, than I do?
If you defend that billionaires should exist then, in my opinion, it's required to design a way to protect the rest of society from this class of people amassing more and more power.
The problem isn't money, it is our power structures. Right now, being a billionaire is almost inherently bad, every billionaire is a policy failure.
Besides that, hierarchies of power exist outside of realm of money. And they are a natural occurrence. You will not only find billionaires with more power than you, but also a lot of other citizens that belong to these other hierarchies that have achieved their power via their competence.
Power in itself is not dangerous or undesirable, power that becomes tyrannic is.
What is more dangerous is inequality, specially inequality of opportunities. Certainly some times of inequalities of outcome can also be dangerous in certain situations if not kept at check, basically because they may become a source of violence.
Lots if snark and point scoring and no charity any more.
Should never have given the unwashed masses internet access... /jk
It is one thing for Musk to publicly proclaim he is willing to go to jail, but are all the rank and file workers?
At what point does the civil disobedience become workers telling their employer they will not violate the law by returning to work and risk jail just to pump up the stock?
Having said that, I read somewhere that there are like 10,000 employees at Tesla's Fremont plant. Do we really think the County would actually follow through and arrest 10,000 people? Thank Goodness we do not live in such a society.. Perhaps they would arrest just the management, perhaps just Musk? Shut off the power instead? Ugh.
Or at least, that Musk has decided that it does.
The thing is that is how things are done legally, but Musk is putting the cart before the horse by breaking the order. In other words right or wrong say police show up to enforce the order and order the factory shutdown and musk/employees fail to obey...failing to obey the officers orders in generally a charge unto itself at that point never mind the violation of the county order.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23164535
You have an ugly habit of trying to silence critique by talking down to people using specific claims and relying on their inability to research when it is your claims that are false.
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23164535
I've responded directly to that post with direct links to the relevant orders, but it's funny that you make that claim and point to a post (of yours, I note) that is both derisive in tone and almost wholly unsupported by fact (making a claim that is both literally false and which refers to a set of state orders that isn't, and doesn't include, the only state order relevant to the discussion, the shelter-in-place order issued by the Director of Public Health.)
I've responded directly to that post with direct links to the relevant orders
"...the order, which cites its statutory authority (to shut down Tesla et al)"
And today's Wisconsin Supreme Court overturn of its Governor's shelter in place order clearly demonstrates that even a Governor can't exceed his authority, even if s/he thinks it well-intentioned.
Nope, I never said any of Newsom's orders did that; I said the state and, relevant here, Alameda County public health orders (neither of which was issued by Newsom) both cited the relevant statutory authority to criminal enforcement. I've even linked directly to both orders and reproduced the citations from both orders, and even pulled out and quoted the most relevant section from a broad chapter cited in the county order. You, on the other hand, have made an inaccurate description of the authority cited in the irrelevant governor's executive orders to support the rest of your unsupported inaccurate claims.
Newsom's 39 executive orders on this emergency (at last count, which was yesterday so I might have missed a couple) are waivers of state law under the governor's emergency powers which are separate from the public health orders that are at issue here. (They are only tangentially relevant in that one of them provides the authority for the 5/7/2020 revision to the State Public Health Order bypassing some usual procedural requirements.)
> And today's Wisconsin Supreme Court overturn of its Governor's shelter in place order clearly demonstrates that even a Governor can't exceed his authority, even if s/he thinks it well-intentioned.
That point was never in dispute, but sure.
> Please read this Order carefully. Violation of or failure to comply with this Order is a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. (California Health and Safety Code § 120295, et seq.; Cal. Penal Code §§ 69, 148(a)(1))
> UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF CALIFORNIA HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE SECTIONS 101040, 101085, AND 120175, THE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE COUNTY OF ALAMEDA (“HEALTH OFFICER”) ORDERS:
Nobody is at risk here other than Elon and executives, but there will be plenty of prosecutorial discretion used to settle this smoothly rather than cause more civil unrest.
That's an important point.
But is he paying them more to show up than they'd otherwise be paid if they didn't show up?
That would be reasonable, to compensate for risk and going above-and-beyond?
But if they're being paid nothing otherwise, one could make the argument that it's coercive. Still, this is the US, and it's arguably unfair to expect Tesla to pay nonworking employees indefinitely, even though Musk is a billionaire.
If giant companies like Ford and Boeing are having trouble, it's not hard to imagine that a new car company that just recently crossed profitability is going to have solvency issues by staying closed.
Car factories are much less immediately essential. I can't see how you'd begin to argue otherwise.
But it will surely gets noticed, who did show up and who did not and so anyone wanting a career at Tesla better shows up.
> Prohibition is obviously a prime example of this, but if you consider various laws that once existed or are currently on the books but no longer enforced (think laws pertaining to racial segregation, sexuality, drug use, and such) you realize that...
The thing is: public safety laws aren't like racial segregation at all. If they are, I look forward to stuff like "civil disobedience" against child labor laws, etc.
> ...being a law abiding citizen does not mean you are no longer allowed to think for yourself.
That's true, but it also means being accountable and not acting without regards to others. Musk is acting like a petulant brat here, and I hope the Alameda County sheriff talks some sense into him.
I mean, new fathers, even after the other six babies, still do pretty goofy things. However, it's more putting the milk in the pantry type stuff, or mixing up coffee grounds and water.
Not daring public officials to arrest you during a pandemic and all but demanding employees to work during said pandemic.
I feel for the guy, things are tough now. I hope he finds the peace that he seems to need.
And that’s before we even get to promising to send a submarine to save some trapped kids, and when the person who actually helped save them instead of the mythical submarine says it wouldn’t work calling him a paedophile.
Its even worser In Europe due to car complexity..
I reccommend people google these events rather than take thawaway1837's post at face value.
For example, Elon asked hospitals what they needed and plenty did want CPAP machines (which are a type of ventilator). A much smaller number of invasive ventilators were provisioned (more expensive and probably harder to acquire) as well.
That there are data collection issues that mean COVID19 deaths are inflated (or undercounted! There are factors pushing it both ways) is not a conspiracy theory, it is frequently discussed in mainstream media like the BBC.
For the cave thing, Musk did in fact send people and had them make some prototype mini submarines to help rescue the kids. It wasn't a bad idea (or so the diver who actually found the kids claimed), just not the one they actually went with in the end. The guy he got into a spat with was a British diver living in Thailand who helped recruiting the British divers who actually did the work. Musk won the resulting defamation lawsuit.
Basically all of the statements in the grandparent post omit any facts that get in the way of Musk looking bad.
> That there are data collection issues that mean COVID19 deaths are inflated (or undercounted! There are factors pushing it both ways) is not a conspiracy theory, it is frequently discussed in mainstream media like the BBC.
I have not seen anything remotely suggesting we're over-counting, and honestly the idea is silly. You can't just explain away the number of excess deaths we had in April.
> For the cave thing, Musk did in fact send people and had them make some prototype mini submarines to help rescue the kids. It wasn't a bad idea (or so the diver who actually found the kids claimed), just not the one they actually went with in the end. The guy he got into a spat with was a British diver living in Thailand who helped recruiting the British divers who actually did the work. Musk won the resulting defamation lawsuit.
Yeah but... He still called him a pedophile did he not? Just because he didn't win a defamation suit for a variety of reasons doesn't suddenly make it ok.
Regarding COVID 19, the BBC has been repeatedly telling me that most countries are counting deaths with COVID19 as COVID 19 deaths (resulting in an overcount) and has been telling me that the response to the virus itself is likely causing many deaths due to things like people being more reluctant to go to hospital, higher depression due to isolation/general climate of fear, no in person access to GPs and similar issues.
On a Human level, I would agree.
Selfishly and pragmatically, I hope he never does; who else has done so much to enable the progress that is needed in the World right now? People like him are a once in a generation, not because he's a Genius (which I think he is) but because of the amount of risk he is willing to absorb and keeping going at all costs and motivating more and more to the cause in the process.
I think Dr. Zubrin said it best: he's not motivated by Money, he's after Legacy and that draws the best efforts of Humanity forward in order to be a part of it. He is an archetype character out several Sci-fi books.
6 Kids is a good shot at Legacy on it's own, but perhaps setting the bar this high for them in his Lifetime and the opportunity to out-do each other after setting the bar so high was the goal.
Id include Nikola Tesla in there as well, just because something doesn't end in a happy contrite Disney-like ending doesn't mean that it wasn't a positive, or a Life well lived that would carry on and inspire so many more to contribute to that end long after either have died.
I personally moved to CO in large part because of Nikola Tesla, and was resolved to do so before Amendment 64 was even a real possibility.
That's an Americanism, right? Your milk isn't shelf-stable?
Some of them literally taste like arse (think they’re packaged with some funky protective atmosphere), others taste like fresh milk.
No milk, I'm fairly certain, is shelf-stable once opened; shelf-stable (until opened) milk is widely available but not as popular as milk that isn't in the US, and the “milk in the pantry” reference is implicitly in the context of having just poured from it, so it has been opened. So, while it probably doesn't reference shelf-stable milk, it wouldn't be any different if it did.
These attempts at "Americans do the darnedest things XD" comments always seem so forced to me.
How about "we need to monitor all your communications, for public safety reasons. And also in order to prevent children pornography, I guess". Would this also be a public safety law, and would any form of civil disobedience be unwarranted?
What makes Musk's gesture a form of "civil disobedience" rather than dumb disrespect of law is that he actually has reasonable arguments why it'd be safe in his case. It's not "I don't believe COVID-19 exists and I've screened the factory against 5G anyway". It may be more beneficial to start defining reasonable standards for reopening. rather than semi-arbitrarily declaring X or Y "essential" with no safety standards in place.
It’s not civil disobedience if you’re getting a bunch of other people to do it on your behalf.
Elon Musk is no Rosa Parks.
This is just greed and putting profits before people.
Less than one week ago we were all cheering for an high level engineer leaving Amazon against working condition in their center. And now we try to justify Tesla reopening a factory?
That said, I see a lot more reports about poor working conditions at Amazon than Tesla, so it's entirely possible to criticise Amazon but agree with Tesla.
Elon is just being a grandstanding idiot.
There's also the opposite example, of people showing more tolerance for arbitrary and authoritarian political decisions out of fear. It's very visible here in Europe right now and for the first time it seems like people didn't wise up since the 1930s at all, the mechanisms that convincingly explained how Nazi Germany and Austria could happen, still work.
Give me irrational civil disobedience over this any time.
Many people might look at 60 -> 70 mph and conclude something like a 16% increase in "danger". However, if we set m = 1 then 60 mph gives 1800 thingies and 70 mph gives us 2450 thingies or 36% "extra danger". I live in metric (with a sprinkle of extra units to taste land) hence: "thingies". I set m = 1 which should avoid problems.
Something as simple as speed is not as intuitive as someone might think. We look at the variable (speed) and it is obviously linear and so we think the implications of increasing it must similarly be linear. But it isn't. The energy in a speeding car is proportional to the square of the velocity of the car. This is a horribly simplistic model but the fundamentals are there.
Now virus propagation ... R is the rate of infection. If R < 1 then infections drop over time. If R > 1 then infections rise exponentially. I gather that R = 3 is the norm for SARS-COV-2 without controls. You can play with a spreadsheet for a simple model to scare yourself.
When the term exponential heaves into view then we should quite rightly shit ourselves and do as we are told. We are far away from worrying about 16:36 which is the result of a one off event but an exponential "thing" over time grows rather fast.
And yet we didn't collectively shit ourselves to nearly the same extent for any of the other novel viruses that have popped up in the last couple decades and spread exponentially.
Exponential spread is the default state of things. It's only when a virus becomes widespread in a population that the exponential spread ceases, as you indicated in your reference to R.
To use a contrived example: Imagine a new virus SARS-CoV-1337 with an R of 250 and an infection fatality rate of .00000001%. Would it warrant the response we've made to SARS-CoV-2? Clearly not.
Therefore we need to look at the actual outcomes associated with the virus, and then counterbalance those against the externalities introduced by suppressing spread. Implicitly everyone in favor of lockdown is assuming that the mortality avoided by hunkering down until a theoretical game-changer (vaccine, highly effective antiviral, monoclonal antibodies etc) is available at scale, is a bigger benefit than the negatives incurred by trying to prevent spread (lockdown/containment).
My personal opinion is that the externalities of our current approach (I'm speaking from a US-based perspective) far exceed the cost of COVID-19 itself.
How many lives would need to be saved to encourage the current lockdown, in your opinion?
(1) Containment lets you indefinitely avoid COVID-19-induced mortality in the short-medium term, at the expense of ongoing, mounting costs to wellbeing and the economy. These costs are certainly non-linear, for example businesses can generally only survive a given number of days/weeks based off their capital expenditure and thus it's not quite as simple as a linear relation. But for our purposes, it's easiest to think of the wellbeing and economic cost as being in direct proportion to how long we spend in containment.
The postponement of mortality only becomes the true avoidance of mortality when we get a "game-changer": a vaccine or a highly effective treatment that seriously improves outcomes.
Given that we must practice indefinite containment until we develop the "game-changer", we are executing a strategy which is based off a temporally unbounded future event. Therefore the potential drawbacks are unbounded given that the strategy involves waiting for a miraculous leap forward in COVID-19 vaccination or treatment.
(2) My proposal is an approach where we try to direct testing resources and governmental assistance to protecting the most at-risk members of society. These groups are encouraged to shelter at home and are supported in doing so.
Bans on freedom of movement, transaction, etc are lifted. Non-at-risk individuals are encouraged to return to work. Given that we inflicted psychological harm on millions of individuals, we also would probably want a policy where someone is allowed to not work, but they must formally quit their job in order to be allowed to collect unemployment for up to a year (we likely also need to adjust unemployment because it's just way too high relative to wage earners right now). What we need to avoid is a case where someone "chooses" (in scare quotes because we have done true psychological damage to people) not to work for a year but their company can't let them go, since otherwise the company cannot replace them with a working employee.
So in short, we let people do what they want, we strongly encourage the at-risk to shelter at home and put out appropriate public health messaging in proportion to the real risk (which means overall WAY less fearmongering since we're so out of whack currently).
The uncertainty benefit is something we should implicitly factor in as well. The ultimate end state of my proposal is much more "known" than with containment (because we have no bound on containment worst-case scenario but we can use Ferguson to get a decent bound for mitigation). We're not sure how much mortality we will see, but with a 0.9% IFR and 82% of the population being infected we get about 2.2 million deaths per Ferguson (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...). I think that's a great upper bound to use.
BTW I think once accounting for vector exhaustion (not everyone has the same risk of infection) and what I feel is a more realistic IFR, we'd be closer to 600,000 deaths in the "realistic" scenario IMO.
---
The last thing I want to say is that I actually think in terms of wellbeing-years or quality-adjusted-life-years, and not just "lives". My belief is that the life of a healthy 12 year old is several times more valuable than the life of an 80 year old with heart disease, to use an example.
So, while it's hard for me to give you a "real" number, I'd say if we could save 20 million wellbeing-years, then lockdown was probably worth it. But keep in mind that means that LOCKDOWN_COVID19_MORTALITY_REDUCTION - LOCKDOWN_EXTERNALITIES >= 20 million wellbeing-years.
This seems like a very strange take. This is a utilitarian perspective, but with a floor of 20 million years of utility before we take any action. Why shouldn't we take action if the mortality reduction years > lockdown externalities? You're essentially saying "we should take no action to prevent a disease from costing us 20 million wellbeing-years", which seems odd.
> BTW I think once accounting for vector exhaustion (not everyone has the same risk of infection) and what I feel is a more realistic IFR, we'd be closer to 600,000 deaths in the "realistic" scenario IMO.
Are you accounting for the other side effects of Covid? Life long lung capacity loss due to pneumonia side effects, weird not well understood side effects like strokes in young people etc? Most of the people I see minimizing the risk and saying we should reopen seem to entirely ignore those dangers.
> Given that we must practice indefinite containment until we develop the "game-changer", we are executing a strategy which is based off a temporally unbounded future event. Therefore the potential drawbacks are unbounded given that the strategy involves waiting for a miraculous leap forward in COVID-19 vaccination or treatment.
This isn't at all true. Look at China, Taiwan, and South Korea, which have all begun reopening, but with infrastructure in place to track and keep outbreaks contained even as they reopen. Some parts of the US are on track to do the same relatively soon (weeks, not months or years).
> My proposal is an approach where we try to direct testing resources and governmental assistance to protecting the most at-risk members of society.
You realize that this is what's being done now, essentially, its just that tests are so severely limited that that isn't useful. We can't, for example, consistently test employees at nursing homes to make sure that they aren't infectious. Until we can do that, returning to normal is asking nursing home employees to shelter even more tightly than individuals are now, or it's sacrificing lives.
It feels like you haven't looked deeply into the criteria that many metro areas (NYC, WA, and the Bay to name a few) have to reopen. They're specific and clear, and backed by reasonable thought.
You're right, that was my mistake. I got a rough 20 million life-years by taking Ferguson's worst-case scenario and then applying the "COVID-19 takes average 10 years of lives" claim (which is a false claim). Thus arriving at the implied scenario that lockdown proponents say could happen but that I think is an impossible to reach number.
(For context I use Ferguson's 2.2 million as an upper bound, but that 2.2 million scenario involves an overwhelming portion of the deaths being people who were already at death's door. Thus I think 2.2 million is possible but highly unlikely due to the other factors I mentioned, whereas the 20 million life-years figure I view as basically impossible to hit because it implies that same worst-case scenario but with the wrong distribution of age)
At that point I thought to myself "wait, I forgot to account for the negative externalities". But as you indicated, that logic was wrong.
So, allow me to retroactively change my answer to just 20 million life-years period.
Thanks for pointing that out.
> It feels like you haven't looked deeply into the criteria that many metro areas (NYC, WA, and the Bay to name a few) have to reopen. They're specific and clear, and backed by reasonable thought.
No, I understand their criteria but fundamentally disagree with the entire approach of containment, as I explained in the GP comment you replied to.
> This isn't at all true. Look at China, Taiwan, and South Korea, which have all begun reopening, but with infrastructure in place to track and keep outbreaks contained even as they reopen. Some parts of the US are on track to do the same relatively soon (weeks, not months or years).
I don't believe that the US can use the same strategy that China, South Korea, or Taiwan has been using. They have much better control of their borders and are a much more homogenous and compliant population.
I don't think this is correct. Every day that passes by, we learn a little bit more about this virus and get a little better at treating it. For example, in the past few weeks doctors have discovered better ventilator protocols [1] and potential benefits of anticoagulants [2] in treating Covid-19 patients.
None of these are "game-changers" but they incrementally improve patient outcomes and that's a good thing. The more time we buy to make discoveries like these, the better off we will be.
Put another way: would you rather have been of the first few patients in Wuhan when doctors had no idea what this virus was or how to treat it, or would you rather have it now? What about a few months from now?
Absolutely wrong. And you are missing:
- lockdown reduction in suffering, due both to the acute phase of the disease and after effects
- No-lockdown-externalities, including damage to the economy if the disease is allowed to spread through the entire population
And perhaps most importantly:
- the risk that a huge reservoir of infected people will lead to repeat waves caused by mutations, and even worse that cross-species infection occurs (we already know cats and dogs can be infected - pigs and poultry could be next); then we risk flu-like antigenic shifts.
Put all this into the equation and I think the only thing we should be contemplating is how to eradicate the virus as soon as possible.
Do you think that eradication is actually a possibility? Or are you using it as a metaphor for "contain it super well"?
There are a number of reasons why eradication is completely infeasible. In short, COVID-19 is a highly infectious respiratory disease and it came from a zoonotic origin. We know there are animal reservoirs at this moment.
Therefore eradication is impossible. We've only ever eradicated two diseases in all of human history.
I take it that your term "externalities" (I haven't heard it before) is referring to the side effects eg economic of our attempts to deal with it.
The cost of COVID-19 to an individual seems to range from "meh" to death by lung destruction. There are some identified risk factors - being male, smokers (some "initial immunity" but worse outcomes), skin colour (this looks like correlation rather than causality but needs working through), being old (70+ is the current threshold), diabetes.
Until you know (test, test, test again) that you have actually had the disease then I suspect you will be always looking over your shoulder. Once you know you've had it and hopefully survived then you can plan forwards. There are many reports of additional snags post infection eg renal problems and lung damage, not to mention the mental trauma.
I'm speaking as a UK bod with a small company to worry about that still has a few months left in the bank. I'm alright Jack but I worry about my fellow people.
Agree to disagree on that one :)
> and we did not really heed the lesson that SARS-CoV-1 gave us
Agreed.
> I take it that your term "externalities" (I haven't heard it before) is referring to the side effects eg economic of our attempts to deal with it.
Exactly, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative. Just keep in mind that the economy is not some abstract notion, but rather is you and me and everyone else. In other words, economic damage isn't something that just hurts rich shareholders, it hurts everyone because there's less wealth.
Suspension of elective surgeries, which happened all over the country here in the US, is one of the best examples of such externalities that were caused by panic and bad policy rather than reality. For example, here in California we suspended all elective surgeries for a month. But we never were close to being overrun, and given that the vast majority of these surgeries are out-patient, there was never a need to pre-emptively cancel them. Lastly remember "elective surgery" sounds a lot like "non-essential work" but basically any pre-scheduled surgery is elective: organ transplants, hip replacements, arthroscopic labral repair (I'm waiting on that one currently), etc.
> Until you know (test, test, test again) that you have actually had the disease then I suspect you will be always looking over your shoulder.
That's why the strategy I advocate for does not rely on the availability of testing capacity, because the goal is not to practice indefinite containment.
If you've decided that you want 80% of society to behave as normal and gradually become infected and recover, then PCR testing loses a lot of its utility. It's mostly useful for clinical diagnostic reasons, to get a loose handle on spread, and finally to use as validation for other tests like serological tests.
> There are many reports of additional snags post infection eg renal problems and lung damage, not to mention the mental trauma.
These post-infection snags are quite rare, based off the evidence I've reviewed. Personally I have observed that so many advocating for lockdown make references to the supposed widespread organ failure, strokes in young people, etc, and the evidence just does not support those claims. These outcomes do happen but they are incredibly rare and given that they are logical results of inflammatory cascades (cytokine storm for example), we see the same outcomes in disease like Influenza that we are not losing our collective shit about.
> not to mention the mental trauma.
I believe the mental trauma caused by the wide-spread panic and fear-mongering is vastly worse than the mental trauma of recovering from COVID-19.
25-50% of people that get COVID-19 are entirely asymptomatic or are paucisymptomatic.
For many, it's like getting the flu.
And for some - significant numbers, but not as many as we're led to believe - it is a horrendous disease that results in invasive ventilation followed by likely death.
---
Not quite mental trauma, but fear of going to the hospital has led to people who actually have COVID-19 to avoid getting treatment because they don't realize they have COVID-19 (yet are experiencing serious adverse conditions):
From https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009787?query=rec...:
"Social distancing, isolation, and reluctance to present to the hospital may contribute to poor outcomes. Two patients in our series delayed calling an ambulance because they were concerned about going to a hospital during the pandemic."
---
Now onto real mental trauma:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
* "Third, the COVID-19 epidemic has caused a parallel epidemic of fear, anxiety, and depression. People with mental health conditions could be more substantially influenced by the emotional responses brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic, resulting in relapses or worsening of an already existing mental health condition because of high susceptibility to stress compared with the general population."
* "Finally, many people with mental health disorders attend regular outpatient visits for evaluations and prescriptions. However, nationwide regulations on travel and quarantine have resulted in these regular visits becoming more difficult and impractical to attend.
And my favorite, a case study of COVID-19 related paranoid delusions in a schizophrenic:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7162758/
---
Sorry for the massive wall of text.
..because CA locked down in a timely way. How do you know hospitals wouldn't have been overrun otherwise? They were in some places (Italy). This is playing out in real time after all, and nobody has a crystal ball, especially not Elon Musk.
Now, there are early indications that reopening is resulting in new outbreaks, like at the night clubs in South Korea.
Well, New York is a great comparison, but let's pretend that the lockdown did avoid an overrun in California and that otherwise it would have happened.
As I indicated, given that the vast majority of these (highly important) elective surgeries are out-patient, there is not a huge need to plan ahead when it comes to suspending surgeries. On the contrary, when we do realize that we are at capacity we can suspend elective surgeries at that moment and no sooner.
BTW, the utility of elective surgeries should always be counterbalanced against the utility of extra beds for COVID-19 patients. Many of these elective surgeries are still more important than COVID-19 treatment even when we hit an overrun scenario. So it very much depends on the surgery in question, and such blanket suspensions are a very bad idea.
> Now, there are early indications that reopening is resulting in new outbreaks, like at the night clubs in South Korea.
Right, which is precisely why the practice of indefinite containment is so flawed. Once you start doing it you can basically never stop (until you've teched up to a vaccine / game changer treatment)
- worsened COVID-19 outcomes due to social isolation
- worsened COVID-19 outcomes due to fear of going to a hospital (this is a real effect)
- worsened all-cause mortality due to social isolation and a culture of widespread fear
- worsened mortality attributable to mass unemployment (note that some small portion of unemployment would have happened without lockdown but the vast majority of damage is self-inflicted and thus directly attributable to lockdown)
- worsened quality of life (the missing link that lockdown proponents tend not to address) amidst the entire population
- externalities that occur when suspending in-person education, such as the widening inequality gap between students whose parents can afford to buy them personal computers/laptops/tablets and those whose parents cannot.
- shifting to a global perspective, the impending global food shortage is predicted to make COVID-19's mortality look like a drop in the bucket
Finally, I'd like to point out that COVID-19 deaths here in the US are dominated by the extremely elderly which implies (but does not prove, of course) that our lockdown policies were ineffective at protecting the at-risk groups that we should have been focusing on the whole time
Now the job of the modellers is to predict COVID-19 mortality under various scenarios, and it's the job of policymakers to counterbalance those predictions against the economic realities, etc. So, it's not necessarily a problem that epidemiologists would focus on predicting just along the dimension of COVID-19 mortality.
But unfortunately our policymakers have completely disregarded that need to weigh both the positives and negatives and instead have talked about "following the science" and basically myopically parroted whatever these highly opinionated epidemiologists (Ferguson, everyone at the IMHE, etc) were saying, without mentioning the negative externalities associated with lockdown, except in passing in a way that implies that economic damage will be constrained to shareholder returns (which is completely false).
Do you have a source for this?
Here's Ferguson:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...
> We do not consider the ethical or economic implications of either strategy here, except to note that there is no easy policy decision to be made. Suppression, while successful to date in Chinaand South Korea, carries with it enormous social and economic costs which may themselves have significant impact on health and well-being in the short and longer-term. Mitigation will never be able to completely protect those at risk from severe disease or death and the resulting mortality may therefore still be high. Instead we focus on feasibility, with a specific focus on what the likely healthcare system impact of the two approaches would be.
(From Page 4)
Now let's shift to the IHME model. They do make passing reference to the econonic impact, same as Ferguson, but don't go any further:
http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/Projects...
> The overall financial cost over a short period of time is likely to be enormous, particularly when juxtaposed against the substantial reductions in revenue for many hospitals due to the cancellation of elective procedures and the broader economic consequences of social distancing mandates.
---
Now as I said, it's not necessarily their job to forecast the economic harm. But unfortunately we have created this notion that being pro-lockdown means "believing science" and therefore thinking that the lockdown is a bad idea is being "against science". Our politicians use these exact words, and as I said their actions show that they are not holistically evaluating the downside risk. On the contrary it appears to be a very simple game-theory type calculation where their incentive structures are leading them to make irrational decisions. COVID-19 mortality is much more "visible" than the fuzzier and longer-term mortality caused by our (IMO misguided) response to COVID-19.
It was in the cards, which makes it even more painful to see.
Testing EVERYBODY would be cheaper than what is happening now and an inspiration to the whole world, inspiring awe and respect.
This is literally situation in which everyone is in the same situation as you, you can call to people who are in the same situation all the time. If you work from home, then communication from work is almost the same as before. I can see this from someone who is old and can not use tech, but really, this is not what isolation is.
--
Finally, we need to examine the effects of social isolation itself. Beyond the fact that social isolation prevents the natural exchange of microbes that occur between humans engaging in social contact, it should be noted that social isolation is directly thought to lead to increased all-cause mortality due to worsened health outcomes across pretty much every dimension that we can examine. One review (https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/110/15/5797.full.pdf) of the impacts of social isolation and loneliness in older adults concludes that “mortality was higher among more socially isolated and more lonely participants. However, after adjusting statistically for demographic factors and baseline health, social isolation remained significantly associated with mortality (hazard ratio 1.26, 95% confidence interval, 1.08–1.48 for the top quintile of isolation), but loneliness did not (haz-ard ratio 0.92, 95% confidence interval, 0.78–1.09). The association of social isolation with mortality was unchanged when loneliness was included in the model”.
It’s now popular to refer to what was previously called “social distancing” as “physical distancing” to note the fact physical distancing does not necessarily lead to loneliness; this is because loneliness can (perhaps) be mitigated to a limited extent by usage of social media and videoconferencing. Troublingly, we can see that it is the social isolation itself, and not the emotional feeling of loneliness, that is associated with death, and thus we can surmise, at least in older adults (but almost certainly in the broader population as well), that the widespread recommendations of social isolation (“stay at home”, “social distancing”, etc) will lead to increased all-cause mortality.
Finally, we wish to highlight that a small increase in all-cause mortality amidst the general population due to social isolation could very easily dwarf COVID-19-associated mortality, which as we have discussed is primarily constrained to a very limited subset of the population.
To claim that the environment is unsafe (or safe for that matter) one must _test_ their beliefs against empirical evidence, not just _illustrate_ such theory with selected facts. Has the government done that in this case?
Show us please what law Elon Musk is going to break. Can a lawyer chime in please?
On the flip side I support the elected legislature's ability to do this, but if you read the legal arguments being made it's pretty unclear that the legislature has in fact passed any law doing so. Read paragraph 32 of the complaint for what I find to be the most convincing argument for this: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.359281...
In many places it's all governors' EOs and mayors' orders. Here in Texas, for example, no statutes have been passed enabling localities to dictate and enforce stay-at-home orders or wearing of masks, and the cities and counties thus lack the authority to do much of what they nonetheless have gone on to do in terms of ordinances and executive orders.
We're a nation of laws, and we have generally been very particular about process. Due Process, yes, but also all manner of procedure, from electoral, to parliamentary, and others. Besides that, the Constitution still applies -- no part of it has been suspended -- and much of it has been incorporated against the States (term of art for: "it wasn't clear before, but now is under Supreme Court precedents, that these various parts of the Constitution that talk of what Congress can't do apply to State legislatures too").
So around here, many people are wearing masks, but they don't have to, not legally, and those signs that say "customers must wear masks by order of the city and county" are correct but legally toothless. In fact, around here I see enough people not wearing masks at notable stores, like Central Market, and all the big box stores that are open, that I can only conclude there is no attempt even to enforce those unenforceable edits. If the county executive wants to require the wearing masks, they'll have to lobby the legislature for new statutes.
People will much more likely support their governors and mayors when the legislatures are also standing with them, and less so when they are not.
Given the speed limit analogy, the corresponding action here would be to allow all businesses to operate in distanced-mode (6ft, thermo guns, etc.) equally. Any business that cannot function in this mode would be at a disadvantage, but it wouldn't be because someone on a small government panel disliked their eggs.
My 2 cents -- I agree with OP, California apparently tends to exercise their power a bit too often at the expense of their constituents. I can't imagine how a black-and-white veto on businesses could be considered as sensible policy... The government should be more incremental in their decisions, i.e. with slow business-agnostic openings.
In all likelihood, these closures are a direct violation of the First Amendment. I think people are tolerant of these restrictions for limited periods of time, but when the emergency drags on forever and becomes increasingly arbitrary, it starts to lose credibility.
Politicians have limited power, even during an emergency. And especially when the emergency looks like it's going to be in effect to some degree for maybe a year.
Remember also that the people who go out are doing so by choice. And most people mostly choose to stay home. It's not clear that we need a big enforcement hammer here.
Being pretty sure it's not going to end too badly isn't sufficient reason to ignore either restrictions.
America is about freedom and limited government. That means some policy options are off the table or treated with extreme skepticism.
The current problem is a lack of clear guidelines. To me it seems that the plan is to not have one.
Now, I do condone Musk's. I think his 9yo tantrum throwing behavior is on par with the child king staying at the WH.
When I drive my car, I'm not worried about my ability. I'm worried about other's ability. Are they texting? Are they drunk? etc.
If everyone is capped at 50mph, then the potential for damage is much lower than if everyone was capped at 60mph. It's not about personal safety or whether your vehicle can safely operate at higher speeds under ideal conditions. It's about the potential to injure others (or others to injure you) if those ideal conditions aren't met for some reason (user error or extraneous conditions) and our ability to account for when those ideal conditions aren't met.
This is enough of a reason and unlike Costco, consumers are not going to Tesla factory to get infected and spread infection. I think Bay area counties are on a power trip right now and unable to provide reasons and rationals to keep things shut. It is not Tesla who needs to convince the county officials why they should be operating, it should be other way around.
And what about the reasons for restarting production? We all know this decision is being driven by Musk's misguided ideology.
No, Tesla has a history of higher injury rates than similar factories, and of trying to hide their high injury rates. There are multiple stories about this, very easy to find. Here is a podcast episode on injuries at Tesla[0]. Tesla has a history of being cavalier about worker safety.
[0] https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/working-through-the-pain...
We know that being in close indoor proximity to other people creates a risk of spreading infection (6 feet is just a guideline, it's not an impenetrable barrier). Therefore, opening a factory is not as safe leaving it closed. There's your "evidence".
So, no, that is not enough evidence that the degree of danger warrants the personal restrictions and power grabs happening all over the state -- almost all by governor decree and without any laws being passed.
Indeed, according to [0], as of mid-April (can’t find anything more recent), 30 grocery workers have died. This number is coming from a union representing 900K members. I don’t know how many grocery workers there are in the US, but obviously it’s at least 900K. To have only 30 die from that pool of workers in what could be argued as one of the most high risk jobs (coming into contact with huge numbers of people every single day) should probably say a lot about how much risk there is for the average Tesla assembly line worker. But as you said, evidence, or even common sense seems to go out the window here.
0: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/04/14/coronavirus-...
This virus has a low mortality rate in people younger than 60. Most UFCW workers are significantly younger than 60, so you wouldn't expect a high number of deaths.
The protections in place are not to protect 20-40 year old grocery store workers who would get this virus and likely handle it fine; they're to prevent spread to vulnerable age groups and those with pre-existing conditions, and to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.
conversely, Tesla defying the order and bypassing the courts is defying the rule of law which I have trouble supporting.
The lockdown is literally the opposite. Show me the numbers that prove that COVID-19 is going away. Seems much more likely we'll see another spike soon due to opening early _against all evidence_.
How many people at the lowest of the lowest rung on the ladder being pushed to famine and death because of disrupted supply chains does it take for you to start caring?
The global perspective of this disease is horrifying any way you turn it, and economy has a central part in managing it successfully.
Waiting until we execute a successful testing and tracing program. Even the federal government guidelines for reopening are clear on what the alternate suggestion is, despite what the figurehead of that government seems to want his followers to think.
If 5-10% has it you can essentially just assume everyone has been in contact within 1 or 2 steps with someone who has it, no need for fancy privacy invading tracing.
Testing is good to catch people early, but if the capacity isn't here 2 months after the Italian outbreak, when will it be?
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't push back on the claim that the only two options are uncontrolled spread and never ending lockdown. There is another way, it isn't hypothetical, it is being executed elsewhere. We just aren't taking that path.
Its likely there wont ever be an effective vaccine and folks seem to want to quarantine us until that happens.
At some point people are going to have to be exposed
The "they want to keep us locked down forever" talking point is a manufactured distraction.
A vaccine isnt likely
But your certainty of the unlikelihood of a vaccine is far too strong far too early. There are on the order of ten to a hundred promising efforts toward developing a vaccine well under way. It may very well be that a year or two from now, each of those will have failed. If that is the case I will be open to hearing about how best to manage this indefinitely, and you may be right that testing and tracing won't help that much (but it still seems like we may want to control the order and rate at which people are exposed).
But we're really far from having the evidence to support your claim with any certainty. We haven't run out of ideas for how to make a vaccine yet, we're just getting started.
Both are really new medical technologies in the scope of life.
1. https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/12599631214325555...
Test capability is not being ramped up as quickly as possible. Other countries with less wealth than we have are still able to test more people per capita. The federal government has been hesitant to use powers and financial capabilities that it uniquely has in order to ramp up testing more quickly. A lot is being left on the table here. But it's not what we're talking about because the distraction campaign is working. It's really a bummer.
We don't need to test everyone, just the subset of people who may have been exposed. And we need a lot more tracing to find those likely exposures from known positive cases.
I don't understand why people act like there is some law of nature that is forcing this to be so much worse here than in some other places. There are countries who are not struggling as much as us, we could be more like them, we just aren't doing the work to get there.
Provide masks and hand sanitizer to every citizen and at a minimum recommend usage at all times outside of the home.
Establish working contract tracing programs, so that spread can be limited.
Once those things have happened (they haven't), re-opening could start to be done safely. Until then, the government's role should be to provide financial, medical and food assistance to the fullest extent possible so that the people and companies who are twiddling their thumbs don't die or go bankrupt while they wait.
The government can literally print money. They could begin distribution tomorrow. They cannot print masks, tests, hand sanitizer, vaccines, gloves, food, etc.
Can someone enlarge on this a bit? I can see how auto repair can be a critical need, but I don't see why auto manufacture is critical during this phase of the pandemic.
Car makers are the biggest employers in states essential to the GOP's electoral chances so they were deemed essential by the current administration.
https://www.torquenews.com/1084/subaru-leases-airport-park-3...
https://www.torquenews.com/1084/subaru-leases-airport-park-3...
On the bright side, you can get an Aston Martin for $20k off, which is probably in the ballpark for my budget for my next car. ;)
Why is Tesla not allowed to be open, then? Is it classified differently somehow?
> This is locking down for the sake of locking down, not an evidence-first safety driven approach.
The problem is here, I think.
Let's say I never drink poison. I have no data supporting that poison does any harm at all, therefor my policy of not drinking poison is not evidence-driven.
If lock-in is successful it may very well look like it was unnecessary.
I also don't really see your point.
The point is that there has been no real social distancing for weeks in many places because most people are already in plenty of contact with each other.
People are together inside stores, restaurants, hospitals, and other buildings. Delivery services are driving hundreds of miles through many neighborhoods while handling food and packages which are taken inside and opened. Public transportation has full planes, trains, buses and even Ubers. People are breathing the same air and touching the same things like doors, benches, gates, chairs, signs, and many other surfaces. Many wear a flimsy mask, several wear it incorrectly, and almost nobody has gloves. Every day that goes by, people get more lazy, tired and complacent.
My UPS driver last week wore shorts, short-sleeve polo, no gloves, no mask, and directly handed me a package and the tablet to sign. The idea that a highly contagious disease is somehow still contained in such a populous area defies any rational explanation.
Absolutely. This is the curse of most public health programs, and indeed a lot of public programs in general: when they work correctly it looks like they're not needed. The Covid pandemic has just shoved this process front and center rather than leaving it in the background.
HN readers, of all people, should remember the Year 2000 bug: we heard dire, almost apocalyptic predictions of the havoc it could wreak; we spent extraordinary effort and money scrambling to fix as many date-handling bugs as we could find across countless systems and software packages; then the year rolled over and... nothing much happened. But, of course, the end state of "the Year 2000 bug was vastly overblown" and the end state of "all our painful work paid off and saved us" were effectively identical. So it is with the lockdown.
We’re dealing with peak information warfare here. Mobs of people echoing what their media sources project.
False. Most of car factories are still closed in USA. Source - https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/follow-latest-assembl...
Which is a tad irresponsible.
It's not based on safety, it's based on need. People need a way to buy food, so stores like Costco that sell food are still open, even though it puts people at risk.
By contrast, we do not need to be producing new cars right now, so putting people at risk in order to build them is unnecessary.
Not sure I agree with that. Covid or not, toilets will continue to break down, trees will continue falling on roofs, boilers, thermostats, ACs, stoves and fridges will continue to die. How's someone going to shelter in place if their shelter isn't habitable? Now, more than ever, people need their homes to be in good repair.
"Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory, Where Safety Violations Keep Rising" https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-sa...
"Tesla says its factory is safer. But it left injuries off the books" https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is...
Actually home is a much safer place to be.
"not an evidence-first safety driven approach."
Not true, staying home is why so many place have 0 new COVID-19 cases. That's evidence-first so Musk is selectively ignoring it because he wants to make his cars.
> This is locking down for the sake of locking down, not an evidence-first safety driven approach.
You are stating that like it was a fact. It's NOT. Where is the evidence to support that Tesla factory is lowest risk? Now perhaps if all of the original KUKA robots are on and assembly lines are automated then it would probably be a different story. But apparently it's not, is it?
We still haven't fully grasped the full cause and damages SARS-CoV-2 will bring to people (for instances, originally we thought children are extremely low risk, but they are NOT, they could be infected and DIE too!). We still haven't even near the order of magnitude of CODVID testing AND contract tracing programs needed to reopen economy, what on earth you think reopening is a good idea?
What about the healthcare workers sacrificing their lives to save selfish people like Elon Musk? Those ICU doctors and nurses are EXTREMELY fatigued. Premature reopening will most likely bring another big wave of infections and deaths, and then we are back to square one - wasting all these past 2 months of hard physical distancing measures.
As a long time EV driver and a big fan of Elon Musk, I am deeply disappointed at him on this.
PS: Tesla's Return back to Work playbook has no mention about doing daily testing for its employees, we do know asymptomatic transmission accounts for huge percentages. How does he plan to address that? What kind of hero he is to calling for his employees to go back to work and die for capitalism?
Not saying we should "reopen" ASAP but if we can identify and implement low-risk solutions that let people get back to work, then we should - and sooner rather than later.
So locking down is just "locking down", but arbitrarily classifying car building as essential during a massive economic downtown is a-okay with you? Seems reasonable.
>and every other carmaker manufacturing in the United States is either open, or capable of open today.
Wrong, many are opening on May 18th, which is when the government of CA would have opened Tesla. They couldn't wait 10 days.
>This puts Tesla at a serious disadvantage.
First of all, what does the health of the public have to do with the fairness of car competition?
Second, I thought Tesla had unlimited money and unlimited demand? What's the issue if they're closed for a few weeks?
If you think a few weeks is all its going to take you arent paying attention to the lack of testing capacity or the lack of a viable vaccine.
6 months minimum and likely 18 months is how long things will take to get testing or a vaccine in place ( if one is actually viable )
How many weeks have already passed ?
As soon as they start working, running, cycling, singing, etc the distance has to increase.
We've seen video of Tesla employees wearing PPE (the ventilator video) and every single person in the video made multiple errors.
(I don't hate Musk, and it is weird how he's so polarising).
Because that matters a lot more to the people that are inevitably going to be impacted than the statistics about how big the factory is.
The keyword here is "personal". Despite disagreeing with the policy, I don't gather parties at my properties and encourage public protests. What Musk is doing here is much worse, though, he blatantly says "fuck you" to the government and does it in maximally public way possible. If he doesn't get punished for that, it will be such a special attitude that I don't even know how to think about that. CA "authorities" should loose all authority after that.
Right now, the government has a simple story: essential businesses stay open, and everything else stays closed. It's quick to express and easily understandable.
But as soon as the government starts picking and choosing "nonessential" businesses to allow to open, every single nonessential business will be clamoring for an allowance and emboldened to present themselves as heroic frontline workers. You'll see every nail salon in the state market themselves as paragons of safety and virtue, professionally run, basically cleaner than the best medical facilities in the world. And if the government allows Tesla and refuses nail salons/meat packing facilities/hookah bars, you'll have a large constituency who'll be pushing duplicitous but superficially plausible arguments like "Newsom loves his BigTech buddies like Elon Musk but hates everyday regular businesses like Tyson."
The quarantine only has power so long as the public understands it and supports it, and the government has made the plausible assumption that picking and choosing nonessentials would undermine public understanding and enforcement of the quarantine more than the value that would come in allowing certain safe nonessential businesses to return to work.
I don't think the US, as a nation, has the capacity for self-sacrifice that's required to contain a pandemic. At least not anymore. This is in strong contrast to previous global crises, like WWII.
The cries of "if even one person dies, it's too many" ring hollow. We know large numbers will die. The question is how to minimize that number. There is no safety.
But that ignores the actual process of policymaking: imagine a program that consists of thousands of lines of nested if-else statements, that gets a hundred PRs per day from devs implementing requirements from a dozen different PMs who aren't even necessarily communicating with each other or that knowledgeable about the actual product requirements, who also might be getting bribes to put in buggy code that happen to favor certain actors.
Optimistically, even given all that you might be able to build a policy that generates more efficiencies than a whitelist of a couple sectors. Even if you can, though, you won't be able to effectively communicate the why of any particular decision to the public. So they get pissed off when you allow people to go to the beach on a sunny day to pop open a bottle of beer while you disallow in-person religious services.
In short, I understand the anger. I even understand the guy, who did not want to wear a mask out of spite at my wife's place ( more specifically, he did not want to wear it, because eff IL state government; he put it on when he was told it was office policy.. ). But it is getting messy and we better figure it out quick, before that powder cake gets lit.
The opportunity to contain it has passed and now we really need to think hard what to do next, because options are not great.
As for what now... unfortunately I don't think there's a good way out for the USA. Other highly developed countries have established a tenuous path toward controlling the virus (in different ways), but Americans seems intent on running headfirst into the abattoir.
There are few times to accept government restrictions, but I would say pandemic qualifies. Hell, I was almost ready to accept Trump's flimsy characterization of the pandemic as war with invisible enemy since I was half hoping he would impose stringent restrictions. But he chickened out. And now we have this wishy washy, no mans land, not quite quarantine re-opening.
To say that it is a cluster fuck is an understatement.
1) COVID-19 is a BFD
2) The PRC, in culture and governance, is exceptionally well-equipped to handle disasters of this type
3) The USA, in culture and governance, is exceptionally badly-equipped to make this pandemic unfold as anything except a giant clusterfuck
Those seem to have held up pretty well.
The law was applied arbitrarily from the beginning of the lockdown. There was never uniformity, and the decisions about which businesses are essential was arbitrary rather evidence-based. In what rational world is a marijuana dispensary considered more essential than a car factory?
The one they already have. How were they buying groceries and making deliveries before the pandemic? I understand where you are going with this, but that's not a good faith argument for keeping car factories open.
[0] Basically all of these include the federal governments list that can be found at the link below. This list explicitly includes the manufacture of solar panels amongst many other things.
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Versio...
The only one relevant legal definition that doesn't, is Alameda county. But even they say "Businesses may also operate to manufacture distributed energy resource components, like solar panels."
https://covid-19.acgov.org/covid19-assets/docs/5-4-20%20Alam...
I'd also point out that the federal list includes the following, so most of my point stands either way
> Workers critical to the manufacturing, [...] of vehicles
Also, at the top of the document:
> This list is advisory in nature. It is not, nor should it be considered, a federal directive or standard. Additionally, this advisory list is not intended to be the exclusive list of critical infrastructure sectors, workers, and functions that should continue during the COVID-19 response across all jurisdictions. Individual jurisdictions should add or subtract essential workforce categories based on their own requirements and discretion.
While the document says it is advisory, it was incorporated into the general California order as things that should stay open (and the orders in many other states).
It is advisory in nature because public health like this is a state matter not a federal matter.
This is the list that the state and counties are using. They have been picking and choosing who gets to open on a case by case and largely arbitrary manner since the beginning.
In a country of 330 million you’re bound to get edge cases, that doesn’t prove anything.
Examples of bad edge cases prove that bad edge cases exist. These too are arbitrary, but by definition, less commonplace.
You can still get your heart surgery if it cannot wait. I know this because my dad had to get a cardiac stent fairly recently. But if you're getting a pacemaker (or another elective surgery), that can wait, there's no reason to risk it.
And with regards to the liquor stores: there are a lot of alcoholics in the US, and I live in a state where the state sells everything strong. If they closed the ABC stores, you'd see the ERs fill up with alcoholics going through withdrawal.
Meat packing plants are essential businesses. They should be operating. State and local lockdown ordnances are not preventing them from doing so.
The issue about meat packing plants being closed is not that they are being forced to shut by overzealous Democratic governors. They are being shut by their owners, insurers, and occasionally government actors, when - while trying to operate as an essential business - an outbreak of Covid starts to affect their workforce and makes continuing to operate too much of a public health and private liability risk.
Everybody wants meatpacking plants to be open if it's possible to do so. The workers, the owners, the government, and people who like eating meat. But if it can't be done without exposing large numbers of meatpacking and meat supply chain workers to the risk of Sars-Cov-2 infection, then in spite of how essential they are particular plants are going to have to close.
Now it is possible that Tesla will be able to open up and operate and not become a Covid hotspot. But there's definitely a risk that they will, just like the meatpacking plants did. And is that risk worth taking for luxury cars, rather than food?
Do car parts in the supply chain go bad? What about livestock? Like can you literally just keep cattle and pigs and chicken alive longer if demand drops short term?
It's not really doable from what I've been seeing. The animals grow to big and living conditions worsen
Some vegetarians would prefer they close.
That ship sailed a while ago.
Home Depot is open and packed to the gills (literally people lining up to get in the front door at my neighborhood Home Depot which is about 20 minutes from the Tesla factory). Most of the people shopping there aren't doing anything essential -- their home improvement projects and gardens can wait.
Similarly, marijuana dispensaries are still open in California. They aren't really essential: unlike in the case of alcohol, withdrawal from marijuana is not dangerous and smokers could go without it. Yet dispensaries are "essential".
On the other hand, car parades and just "going for a drive" are officially discouraged even though there is no chance of contact with strangers when you are inside your car.
At this point, to say that those businesses are essential, and yet a car factory is not, is plainly ridiculous.
What kind of rational decision-making process results in marijuana dispensaries being more essential than car factories?
The government can't get out of this by claiming it can't pick and choose, because it has already been picking and choosing for a while. It has given the green light to more questionable cases than the Tesla factory.
Shops where I live mandate masks and either gloves or hand sanitizer. Also, people have to wait two meters from each other and only limited amount of people can be in at the same time.
It seemed reasonable to me to allow shops like Home Depot if the above restrictions are hold. You are more likely to get Covid by prolonged contact then by brief one. And if they expect people to stay at home, it makes sense to allow them to do something with that time so they dont go crazy.
Gardening and home restriction are reasonable, smart activities for lockdown.
That people go there for non-essential reasons – sure. I think it’s a sound policy decision to say that you do not investigate the reasons why people go shopping. That would create complicated overhead and be hard to enforce.
A Tesla factory doesn’t offer prescribed medicine or household items I may need while staying-at-home.
I would say it is highly evidence and data based and Musk is being a petulant child
> If Tesla has provided you with a face covering, you are required to wear it unless otherwise told by your local leadership. If Tesla has not provided you with one, you may bring or make your own following the Center for Disease Controls guidance.
Furthermore, while all of the above were his choice, reopening isn't. He's being a rich baby and whining because he's not allowed to do whatever he wants to do. I hope the county/state smacks him down.
>This is locking down for the sake of locking down, not an evidence-first safety driven approach
What is this well of coronavirus evidence that the state is rejecting or ignoring? People aren't using the word "unprecedented" just because it's hard to type.
>Tesla claims their plan will ensure 6 ft of distance for every employee, and PPE and masks are provided and mandatory. Even the HVAC is changed to optimise for fresh air turnover and filters are changed on a regular basis.
Where is the evidence that this is the (second) safest approach?
Elon is not complaining, he is reopening along with the other automakers. Workers for Ford, GM returned to work on the same day Tesla workers did (May 11) and the US Ford and GM factories will start running May 18.
Only some social media folks are enraged and freaking out about a business opening - they are the ones being petulant.
Of course this is going to be taken to the courts and we'll see how much a Governor's decree can accomplish when it comes to affecting critical industries that are supposed to remain open, of which auto manufacturing has been designated as one.
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/05/11/michiga...
Our doctors and nurses are just fodder.
All over North America, the food-related factories that have remained open have become cause for outbreak. Here's a shortlist of the breakouts in Canada [1].
Cargill plants alone are responsible for a material % of those infected in Canada.
"A Tesla factory is a much safer place to be than a Home Depot or a Costco"
First, where is the evidence, second our 'food supply' is definitely an essential service, wheras Tesla factories are probably last on the list of 'things we need to re-open' to get going.
From a PR perspective, Musk is setting himself up for big trouble - odds are there will be some kind of outbreak, and even if his decision is not a factor, some Tesla employee, somewhere may die from Covid and then he will get blamed.
The CNN headline will read: "Tesla worker dies of Covid-19 after Musk orders plant re-opened"
Musk already has enough bad news, this is going to be and existentially problematic meme.
Mabye Musk is not the great businessman they say, because if it was, he'd realize that his customers are highly motivated by his 'green' / 'good' cause and that there is an incredibly amount of goodwill in his customer base. Tesla would not exist without this kind of goodwill (i.e. celebrities waiting 18 months for delivery, bragging on Twitter about it).
Instead of playing the 'Trump Card' on Twitter and getting people back to work, using 'The Constitution' style rhetoric, he should be playing some other card, like signalling how much his workers are important to him, how he's going to have 'special healthcare' for all Covid-related issues, how he's going to provide full pay for anyone hit by Covid, and provide extra vacay days for those who have family members hit by Covid - etc..
Musk is burning a lot of goodwill here and for what potential upside? He can open a factory a few weeks early? The County has even indicated that they are 'ok' with the factory re-opening so long as they've approved his plan. So basically he's getting into an international war over whether or not county officials should have a say in his 'special COVID plans'? Where is the ROI on this action?
I think Musk might be starting to cave under the constant stress and constant grind.
[1] https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/these-are-the-meat...
Musk is starting to 'look bad' and he's burning political capital for no reason.
Conversely, there's a real opportunity to look like a hero and leader here.
I like Tesla but the world doesn't revolve around it.
That's not clear. To get infected you need to be exposed to a certain number of viruses. I don't think the number is known for sure for this one, but for similar viruses its something like 1000.
A sneeze or cough expels millions, which is why people who are sneezing or coughing are so good at spreading it. Someone who isn't sneezing or coughing but who has it expels much fewer, taking maybe an hour to expel by breathing enough to infect someone else. Talking would cut that down some, but still take a while.
An infected person shopping at Costco or Home Depot who is not coughing is very unlikely to infect other shoppers that they pass while shopping. It would only be in line to checkout where other people would be near them for longer times, but if the business is doing reasonable crowd control those times should not be long enough for anyone to get the 1000 viruses.
This is why churches and movie theaters are much more dangerous. There you are near the same people for an hour or two, so even staying 6ft apart you might get enough total viruses during your visit to become sick.
Is a Tesla factory more like a Costco or Home Depot, where everyone is moving about and most of your encounters with others only last a short time, or is it more like a movie theater or church, where you are fairly stationary as are those around you? If a work shift is 8 hours and people are mostly stationary, I'd not at all be surprised if you need them to be much farther apart than 6ft to make it safe.
Car factories like Tesla's are already very clean places. They're already dealing with physical and airborne dangers—robots need clearance and the air must be aggressively exhausted and scrubbed to deal with fumes from paints, plastics, solvents, welding etc.
Much of the physical part handling is performed by or assisted by robots. Much of the transport is performed by conveyors. Employees generally don't need to be in close proximity or touch the same surfaces as other employees. Unlike a consumer store, Tesla can effectively mandate 100% compliance around PPE, whereas hardware stores are full of self-entitled pricks who don't wear sufficient PPE and linger in aisles forcing people to regularly trespass the 6 foot buffer...
Especially if you are a business.
You could write a convincing argument for pretty much anything, that it is not the point.
German automakers were not Covid truthers claiming it is all hoax and what not. They did negotiated and so, but fundamentally cooperated.
Seems to be working pretty well.
Then work with Alameda County to give permission to Tesla to reopen. What Elon Musk did, however, is openly defying the law.
It is 100% evidence based. Reduction of gatherings = reduction in transmission. There's no way around this. People may be more likely to get covid from costco, but reducing interaction to only costco is still reduction of transmission.
This idolization of Elon Musk and contrarian logic that really doesn't even make common sense is getting on my nerves.
It's like one of those people who said that face masks weren't protecting people from covid using faulty but overconfident logic.
Uh hello? A face mask blocks light and slows down
It isn't just the car factory one needs to look at: Where are these employees eating lunch? Have they redesigned break rooms? How are employees getting to work - collective transport? Since employees are out more due to work, are they more likely to stop elsewhere or have small gatherings since everything feels like it is returning to normal?
And as you said, going to less places means there is less chance of getting infected.
Citation needed please.
Tesla's factories are the most dangerous car factories in the US by an order of magnitude more __than all other car manufacturers combined [0]__.
With such a bad safety track record, they must be completely high to believe that they are going to be doing significantly better with a pandemic going on.
Right now, not only the safety of their workers is at stake, but also the safety of the whole region around their factories.
Their track record proves that they cannot be trusted with the safety of their workers, what makes anybody believe that they can be trusted with the safety of whole regions instead?
Doesn't make any sense to me.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-sa...
I guess my point is it may not be true that "more Cal OSHA citations" == "less safe".
Which is short-sighted, since it undermines the rule of law, i.e. the very base upon which people can rich without being afraid of pitchforks.
There is no such thing.
There are federally-defined critical infrastructure sectors, which are independent of COVID-19, and may or may not be relevant to any state or county emergency order (many such orders have used the federal critical infrastructure sectors list as a baseline, with or without modification, either incorporating the list modified or in its original form or referencing it), but there's no such thing as anything defined (outside of particular state or county orders) as a “COVID19 critical industry”, and carmakers are not so designated in the only orders relevant to the Tesla case.
His fans seem to think he is some kind of genius, but based on what he has said about COVID he doesn't really seem that smart, or at least not well informed at all. Just by looking at the deaths year over year, it is clear that if anything, COVID cases are undercounted. And his claims that the shutdown of his factory are illegal are blatantly false. I don't know if he just doesn't know what he is talking about, or if he does and is just saying all this stuff for his personal gain. I suspect the former, but idk. This seems like a somewhat common pattern, where very successful and seemingly intelligent people have a few very obviously incorrect beliefs (ex. Steve Jobs and his fruit diet). Maybe they assume that success in one area implies knowledge in unrelated areas (I know I am guilty of this myself sometimes).
The entire concept of natural rights like the Bill of Rights means they pre-existed the government and society. You can only deprive a person of these rights through some lawful process. Society is still functioning; we’re not in martial law. Yes people should willingly comply but you can’t force them to.
(The parent comment is flagged. Truly amazing times we live in where simply reminding people of their rights is reason to censor.)
That's a far cry from uber-expensive luxury cars for the rich that Tesla sells.
Given that reality, it's strange to block Tesla from opening, especially when work is voluntary and with careful safety guidelines. What exactly is the continued shutdown of this facility accomplishing?
In any case, I question if you have any evidence of the claim there is no effective social distancing.
This may be a reference to the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [1] which may be protected by the 10th amendment to the US constitution [3] (reserving rights ... to the people) and the due process clauses [4] from the 5th and 14th amendments to the US constitution.
> Which right gives you the ability to operate your business during a pandemic?
Since "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" [4], the proper questions may instead be: What law gives government the power to close down businesses during a pandemic and was due process followed in the passage and execution of that law?
Arguably, the shelter in place orders may or may not be constitutional. Practically speaking, telling people to stay home for a few weeks using the threat of the shelter in place orders most likely helped the medical community get a grip on the situation, regardless of the constitutionality of those orders, which may explain the lack of resistance in passing those orders. However, at what point is "the cure ... worse than the disease" [5], i.e., at what point will the overall net net net effect of maintaining the shelter in place orders be worse than rescinding those orders?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_Liberty_and_the_pursuit_... (citing to [2])
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_right...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_Process_Clause
[5] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_cure_is_worse_than_the_di...
But then there was the case of the barber shop in Michigan which just today a judge denied a preliminary injunction where the state was trying to keep them closed.
https://www.michiganradio.org/post/judge-denies-state-reques...
The alternative is civil war.
We can make an argument about under reporting, over reporting and so on. I wouldn't call either conspiracy theory, clearly both is going on, the question is the relative numbers. I agree that under-reporting is probable higher.
If you listen to the totality of his comments on the Joe Rogan podcast it is quite reasonable. Yes, his is clearly more libertarian then most of the California but people who are totally over-reacting to a few tweets and are literally flipping out and writing comments of hate and insults about him are really the people making fools of them selves. Or comment that basically say all he does is just for greed, and the typical anti all rich people socialist rhetoric is not convincing to me.
As for me, I don't think he handled this COVID situation very well. And with the amount of Twitter follower he has, in this situation to tweet like that was guaranteed to cause a huge shit-storm.
I know he is a genius because he is the Chief Engineer on the most successful rocket company in the world. Those that call him a business man or a marking guy clearly have not payed attention to how SpaceX happened and what his role there is. Doesn't mean he is right on every issue.
He seems to have no problem trading his science geeks following for QAnon crowd. Rather than grasping at increasingly thinner straws I wish him luck and hope it works for him.
The over-under reporting issue is kind of a nonsense discussion in my opinion. Maybe it wrong but doesn't really change what should be done either way.
- Even if there is a risk, it’s minimal if they follow the guidelines
- without money, those workers are going to starve
- without cars Tesla goes bankrupt
- without Tesla those workers are going to starve
The reality is Elon is correct in his assessment. You either open the production in the safest way possible (minimizing risk) or you risk catastrophic loss of jobs and inevitably loss of life / livelihood.
Pretty sure that's the point. If Amazon can have warehouse workers delivering non-essential goods without restrictions, why can't Tesla be manufacturing without restrictions?
> What makes Tesla special?
Pretty sure that's what Elon is arguing. What makes Tesla special in that it's the only car manufacturer being restricted?
The workers should be getting Pandemic UI through the end of July 2020, so no starving would happen, the factory can stay closed for another two months (if solely considering the workers’ pay)
Tesla won’t go bankrupt if they wait 1-2 weeks to restart operations. They’re sitting on a huge cash pile and have other factories that aren’t closed anyway.
I don't think Musk is an evil person, but everything about his past actions and his personality has shown he is singularly focused on his big dreams: electrifying the automobile industry and getting to Mars. He sees these closures as a threat to his dream, not to his workers.
Again, I don't really think there is anything wrong with this. It takes people with unique drive like this to bring about big change. But it's important to not confuse his drive for something it's not.
I think he's probably considered some worker safety aspects of reopening production, and I also agree in reality with the precautions taken the risk is probably low. I also don't think worker safety is high on his list of priorities; more of a necessary thing that needs to be dealt with to get to his actual goal.
- without working, people cannot get money
This is not a physical law of nature, it's how American society has chosen to be, and if there were political will, society could choose to modify that "rule". We've just collectively convinced ourselves that it is axiomatic.
It's really too bad that this whole pandemic hasn't sparked much conversation about how we could structure things so people don't starve when they aren't doing this ritual called work.
Maintaining life at our current standard of living requires an extraordinary amount of work. And if you're going to use society's resources to survive then you should contribute back to society by working, its not a "ritual".
The idea that working is somehow an artificial constraint is completely wrong, and leads to utopian thinking, not actual possible policy alternatives.
But a possible underestimation of the severity of the virus and an extreme desire get to Mars might explain his actions. (I am not saying the order to keep the factory is closed is justified, more in relation to Elon’s Twitter views on the virus)
Big companies like Elon's will survive this. The small businesses won't. He's not greedy, I think the exact opposite.
He didn't say that. He said there's an incentive to doing it which is a fact and hospital administrators are pressuring physicians to do it:
> Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators
> Jensen said, "Hospital administrators might well want to see COVID-19 attached to a discharge summary or a death certificate. Why? Because if it's a straightforward, garden-variety pneumonia that a person is admitted to the hospital for – if they're Medicare – typically, the diagnosis-related group lump sum payment would be $5,000. But if it's COVID-19 pneumonia, then it's $13,000, and if that COVID-19 pneumonia patient ends up on a ventilator, it goes up to $39,000."
> Jensen clarified in the video that he doesn't think physicians are "gaming the system" so much as other "players," such as hospital administrators, who he said may pressure physicians to cite all diagnoses, including "probable" COVID-19, on discharge papers or death certificates to get the higher Medicare allocation allowed under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Past practice, Jensen said, did not include probabilities.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fac...
> predicted no cases by the end of April
This was when Dr Fauci, WHO etc were all giving away wrong info. Why are you trusting them but not trusting Elon?
Dr. Fauci:
> Top disease official: Risk of coronavirus in USA is 'minuscule'; skip mask and wash hands
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-di...
> Don't wear masks:
> Fauci told cruises were totally fine on March 10th.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/douggollan/2020/03/09/fauci-say...
People need top stop calling everything they don't like "conspiracy theories". They are often guilty of what they accuse others of 1000x.
Elon said on March 19 that cases would go to zero. WHO had declared a public health emergency in January and in February was warning publicly that western governments weren’t taking it seriously. WHO declared it a pandemic on March 11, eight days before Elon’s tweet. Here is what they were saying Feb 28, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/who-raises-risk-assessment-o...
Regarding your other quotes
1. This was February 17. Yes, the mask advice was wrong although in line with western medical establishment thinking.
2. Fauci did not say cruises were totally fine. he said not to go if you were elderly or had a preexisting condition. Which is probably the majority of cruise line passengers. Two days before he had already said “When I say protect, I mean right now. Not wait until things get worse. Say no large crowds, no long trips. And above all, don't get on a cruise ship.” (Dr Fauci, March 8)
Elon has repeatedly shown himself to not understand the threat of the virus.
Fauci said on March 10th "If you are a healthy young person, there is no reason if you want to go on a cruise ship, go on a cruise ship."
So how exactly is Elon opening his factory consisting of young employees with easy social distancing worse than what Fauci says? It's much easier to stay at a distance and wear masks at a factory than on a cruise ship. He even states that those who are afraid aren't required to come. Only those who want can come and work. How is there anything wrong? I just don't get it.
Here's CDC post from May 1st regarding how this is "comparable time period during a recent high severity flu season":
https://www.facebook.com/CDC/posts/10157900783181026
> According to the latest CDC COVIDView report, increases in hospitalization rates for COVID-19, which are cumulative, have started to level off. The hospitalization rate is highest among adults 65 and older and similar to what has been seen during a comparable time period during a recent high severity flu season
Fauci, WHO, modelers etc whose only job is to make predictions on these sort of things have been consistently wrong and yet people are willing to take their advice as gospel.
I’ve never heard anything about factories only employing healthy young people. That sounds like age discrimination, so if Elon is doing that he could also be reported.
The people who are staying home are being threatened with loss of pay and unemployment insurance. Have you read any of the news articles about the workers who have died at meatpacking plants because their managers pushed them to keep coming in and then the whole plant got infected?
> Fauci, WHO, modelers etc whose only job is to make predictions on these sort of things have been consistently wrong and yet people are willing to take their advice as gospel.
Wrong in the wrong direction. They underpredicted how bad this would be. The White House including Fauci was touting the IHME model of 60,000 deaths from the virus by august 1st, we are already at 80,000 deaths and rising fast. Same for other modelers, e.g. Imperial College who predicted 20,000 deaths in the UK with lockdown and the UK has already hit 40,000 deaths.
Doesn’t exactly cause me to think Elon is more trustworthy. Everything he’s sharing and pushing online has been to downplay the threat of the virus even more than our governments have. I think he obviously cares a lot more about his factory and making money than he does about the virus.
> I’ve never heard anything about factories only employing healthy young people. That sounds like age discrimination, so if Elon is doing that he could also be reported.
You are being disingenuous here because it's obvious that most employees are under 60-65 years old anyway in workforce. Age of Tesla and SpaceX employees is quite young:
> While the median age is also lower than the average though closer to the pack with 29 for SpaceX and 30 for Tesla.
https://electrek.co/2016/03/07/tesla-and-spacex-standout-in-...
While 80% of US coronavirus deaths have been among people 65 and older:
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-us-coronavirus-deaths-a...
> because their managers pushed them to keep coming in and then the whole plant got infected
Again, you are being disingenuous because neither Elon, nor my comment said he's pushing people to come in. In my parent comment I specifically stated this but seems like you either ignored it or are being insincere: "He even states that those who are afraid aren't required to come. Only those who want can come and work. How is there anything wrong?"
> Wrong in the wrong direction. They underpredicted how bad this would b
Again, being disingenuous. You specifically used the example of the revised IHME model of 60,000 deaths and not the one which they predicted before that where they predicted 510,000 deaths in G.B. and 2.2 million in the U.S. The 60,000 deaths prediction also stated the range to be between 31,221 and 126,703. Neil Ferguson, the modelers of the Imperial College model was recently caught and caused him to resign because despite being infected himself, he wasn't following his own quarantine guidelines and was sleeping with a mistress:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-govern...
The same Imperial College's Neil Ferguson has been consistently wrong about many predictions:
> [Imperial College epidemiologist Neil] Ferguson was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. There were fewer than 200 deaths. . . .
> In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.
> In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.
> In 2009, a government estimate, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths. In the end, swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K.
> Last March, Ferguson admitted that his Imperial College model of the COVID-19 disease was based on undocumented, 13-year-old computer code that was intended to be used for a feared influenza pandemic, rather than a coronavirus. Ferguson declined to release his original code so other scientists could check his results. He only released a heavily revised set of code last week, after a six-week delay.
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-rea...
CDC has specifically stated that this is similar to "a recent high severity flu season":
https://www.facebook.com/CDC/posts/10157900783181026
> According to the latest CDC COVIDView report, increases in hospitalization rates for COVID-19, which are cumulative, have started to level off. The hospitalization rate is highest among adults 65 and older and similar to what has been seen during a comparable time period during a recent high severity flu season
We cannot just keep everything shut down forever when a large majority of deaths are in older than 65 years and people with pre-existing health conditions. Because of these draconian lockdowns, the number of suicides, mental health related issues, suicide hotlines have exploded, child abuse and domestic abuse is skyrocketing, people with other health conditions including cancer diagnosis are going undiagnosed. Doesn't even mention the millions of people jobless, losing their business and unable to afford food. The UN says that 130 MILLION people worldwide could be on the brink of starvation by the end of 2020 due to coronavirus lockdown. They predict that 300,000 could die every day over a 3 month period if people are not able to get the help they need. Tell me more about why we need to stay locked down:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200501032211/https://www.wfp.o...
Have you looked at the numbers of how many deaths per year we have from cigarettes, flu and pneumonia, car accidents etc? Should we ban cigarettes and driving too until there are zero deaths?
Wrong. The numbers you are quoting are Imperial college predictions, not IHME. And those predictions are for a ZERO mitigation strategy where the disease runs through the entire population to achieve herd immunity (i.e. what humans used to do before disease theory was understood during smallpox epidemics or the Black Death). They are non-falsifiable because we didn’t actually try such a strategy. I’m wondering if you didn’t read the paper yourself because I’ve seen these numbers flying around and invariably people are getting the info from secondary sources who misrepresent it.
You can see the actual paper you’re referring to here (and have mistakenly cited as IHME). https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/m... “ In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.”
They go onto model interventions such as closing restaurants, schools, isolating over-70s, and so on, all of which they predict would lead to significantly less death toll - you can see the figures yourself.
And you can see from this early April article that their model in fact far underpredicted the number of deaths from an intervention strategy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britai...
> LONDON (Reuters) - UK deaths from the coronavirus could rise to between about 7,000 and 20,000 under measures taken to slow the spread of the virus, Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College in London who has helped shape the government’s response, said on Sunday.
The IHME model, on the other hand, never had these numbers. You can see the IHME model dating to March 25, 2020 at http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/research...
> We estimate 81,114 (95% UI 38,242 to 162,106) deaths in the United States from COVID-19 over the next 4 months.
In just two months, we’ve already passed over their prediction of 81k deaths in the USA.
You’ve posted a lot so I don’t want to respond to everything because I don’ think this will convince you, but if you actually look up the “predictions” referenced in that Telegraph article you’ll understand it misrepresents Ferguson’s quotes. For instance, the death estimate from bird flue was only if that strain jumped over to be easily human-to-human transmissible, which it never has. The prediction for BSE was 50 to 500k, which is admittedly a pretty large range but the final number of 177 fell within it. The “reasonable worst-case scenario” for swine flu was explicitly a worst-case scenario - not a prediction of what was actually going to happen. Obviously there were non-worst-case scenarios too. It turned out H1N1 wasn’t as dangerous as some early estimates predicted.
As far as Ferguson’s code having problems, seems like it. But again, his model significantly underpredicted how dangerous COVID-19 would be if we responded using NPIs, so pointing to it and other models as the problem makes no sense.
Cigarettes and driving aren’t contagious - cigarettes barely affect anyone else via second-hand smoke and we spend enormous sums of money on making driving safer every year.
Obviously there is a cost-benefit calculation to be made in everything. COVID-19 is getting a much stronger response than flu because it is so much more deadly than the flu or common cold viruses.
Let’s say that he’s right, it’s time for factories to open and he genuinely takes every step to protect his workers. And what if a worker gets sick anyways and sues? Could he really convince a jury that he took it seriously, after all the dumb things he’s said about the situation on twitter?
He would’ve been better off not weighing in on the situation before the shut down orders came down. Now that he’s a business owner hoping to re-open he has some stake, but he trashed a lot of his credibility before the shut down for no obvious benefit.
Tesla board members reportedly concerned about Elon Musk’s use of Ambien - CNBC Aug 2018
Smokes weed on a podcast - Joe Rogan Sep 2018
NASA reportedly paid SpaceX $5 million to make sure its employees didn't use illegal drugs after Elon Musk smoked pot on camera - Business insider Aug 2019
Elon Musk's tweet on taking Tesla private now dogged by drugs claim from rapper Azealia Banks - Dec 2019
This is an attempt to normalize the behavior.
I am not entirely sure how come he is perceived as some genius Tony Starkesque world savior figure.
I hope his silliness will come around and bite him in the * one day.
This is a weird part of our culture where celebrities are constantly pushed by the twitter-sized attention span of our current day and age to put out oversimplified, exaggerated, and often totally wrong memes.
I think this sentence really hits home at the problem. Elon is smart, but smart people make mistakes (Elon is definitely going off the deep end). The issue is that covid is a complicated topic with a lot of nuance. Elon is only paying attention to one part of the conversation but not to the rest. In science you don't only take one side of the conversation (HN actually is generally doing the same thing but from the other direction). The problem with science is that it is complicated and nuanced. If you ignore the nuance, it becomes much more complicated.
So it isn't that he is uninformed, it is that he is hyper hyper informed, but only from one perspective (and uninformed from the other). We could actually generalize that to a lot of conversations in the US (and world). If you turn a nuanced topic into a simple topic, there can be no discussion and everyone sounds like idiots, but that doesn't mean they are uninformed or didn't try to understand (which is part of the problem with a lot of our conversations, because people know they spent a lot of time trying to understand but that doesn't mean they got all points nor understand the deeper meaning).
Oh Christ don't remind me, Jesus the smell wow....
And I know it happen to me in the past. I guess it's a double edge sword.
'I would like you all to commit crimes, and I ask the government to not hold you responsible,' is so arrogant. He doesn't get to dictate how the law works.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duress_in_American_law#Require...
Elon is, by the book, refusing to shrug.
because people are defensive when their own character flaws are reflected back at them.
It usually (not always) happens that fair-minded users come along and give the unfairly downvoted comment a corrective upvote. That happened here. Complaints like this add noise to threads and don't garbage-collect themselves, hence that rule.
This does not match my experience
It sounds like you're saying she wasn't a libertarian because she labeled herself as an objectivist but a) it doesn't matter what she labeled herself as and b) it can be seen as just a subset, I struggle to think of any incompatibilities between the two, especially since libertarianism is used with much looser meaning.
The politics of Objectivism are basically Anarcho-Capitalism though, and you could think of Libertarians as more moderate, pragmatic Anarcho-Capitalists with achievable policy goals.
Basically, Objectivists largely support Libertarian policies, but argue that they don't go far enough.
Objectivist more than libertarian; Objectivism overlaps with (especially American) both conservativism and right-libertarianism, but is its own distinct thing.
> OP is suggesting that Musk is doing the same thing, but performatively, in other words he's pretending to be super concerned with "getting back to work" but really he cares about making profits.
Objectivists would, I think, reject the distinction between “getting back to work” and “makong profits” as goals. “Making profits” is the natural goal of “getting to work” (independently of the “back”) part, so to suggest that an expressed desire for the latter is “performative” because the ultimate goal is the “former” is failing to understand the basic nature of reality and, more specifically, work.
Framing work as only-profit-seeking encourages a viewpoint aligned with shareholder values, which I don’t think is a great idea.
The entire point of the book is that the world pushes the weight on them and they shrug it off. You can't just force a group of people to save the world.
I'm not really sure why that's a controversial idea. If you keep being a jerk to someone they won't want to help you.
Tesla is not even reasonably similar to many businesses that are truly at risk of never opening again. And to make this comparison is insulting to the hardworking business owners and employees that are in industries that will see massive amounts of bankruptcies in the coming year.
But forcing your employees to come to work when it’s illegal to do so was what we were talking about.
You cannot run a business if the local government is happy to put you out of business.
These aren't elon's friends. They're employees. There is a huge power dynamic
Translation: my employees now must weigh the consequences of losing their jobs on the one hand vs. being arrested on the other.
What guarantees, if any, has Tesla has given its employees in the event of prosecution and or other consequences of violating state law?
A lot of people aren’t putting many miles on their vehicles while all this is going on.
A lockdown that keeps Tesla closed is going to reduce demand for new cars for related reasons.
But more broadly, we can't centrally plan which things people do or don't need over the long term. It just isn't an effective economic strategy.
Also, I agree with Musk that an indefinite lockdown is unconstitutional. And if it's not, I want our laws changed so it is. It may be a good idea health-wise (or may not, see increased suicides) but that doesn't make it legal and letting an unelected official impose an indefinite lockdown is just bad policy. So if the local authority couldn't give a deadline, I'd tell them to piss off too.
So a lot will be different in two months.
This is entirely optional.
You're claiming it's definitely not true because MAYBE they might be punished?
How is that a logical statement?
"First, I’d like to be super clear that if you feel the slightest bit ill or even uncomfortable, please don’t feel obligated to come to work. I will personally be at work, but that is just me. Totally OK if you want to stay home for any reason."
https://electrek.co/2020/03/17/elon-musk-tesla-coronavirus-p...
The issue I personally have is that his personal comments, from twitter and from interview (Rogan) suggests that he is questioning how serious Covid is in general and that people have the right to do live how they choose with little regard for how that may affect those around them. He claims that patients with covid like symptoms, but without an official diagnosis, are being counted as covid patients, implying that they shouldn’t be (not true - most are designated under investigation until results are available or, in the early days, there simply weren’t enough tests available). Or that if one has covid, but also has another medical condition that was the cause of death, it should not be attributed to covid (again wrong, in many cases chronic conditions are controlled, until the virus wrecks havoc on the body).
Why would he be doing this? Because by questioning the seriousness of it, a push can be made to open the economy at large, which in many places and environments is still not safe. After all, what is the point of manufacturing Tesla’s if there aren’t enough people there to buy them?
I think it more has to do with the necessity of the service versus the risk undertaken. I don't think anyone is suggesting that a grocery store worker is at less risk than a Tesla factory worker - the suggestion is that perhaps people need the grocery store more than they need a new Model 3.
My understanding is to assume the premise you are trying to prove in the act of proving it.
The one being accused of begging the question said construction is a necessary activity because society says it is necessary. But that doesn't mean it is necessary, which is what the law would seem to require.
Construction being more valuable for society than a Model 3 was part of the premise.
You took them to mean "Construction is more valuable for society -> Construction is more valuable for society" but that was not the claim.
So no, that is not paradoxical, it is a feature of our system of government, and a very important one in my view.
It is not a system or an excuse to do things against the voters individual interest.
You can debate whether this is better than direct democracy (I think it is), but it is just the case that this is how our system works and how it was designed to work.
You seem to disagree with where they landed on this question. That's fine and great, you're entitled to your opinion and dissenting voices are important. But our system simply was not designed to place power directly in the hands of the masses, not even in spirit.
Are we talking circles around each other? Are you talking about how you think it should work? I'm talking about how it was designed to work, which remains closer to how it does work in practice than what you are describing.
And one of the reasons it was designed this way is right there in your comment: the government should not be unable to respond to new questions awaiting a vote on those questions by the electorate. The voters are instead expected to elect people they trust to act with good judgement when such new questions come up, and to boot out people whose judgement was shown to be unsound, the next time they have a chance. This is one of a number of reasons I prefer our system to the direct democracy you seem to be advocating.
Who says Amazon can run warehouses safely?
"There are COVID-19 cases in at least 129 Amazon fulfillment centers, according to an internal tally maintained by warehouse workers in a private Facebook group. Other estimates put the number closer to 150 warehouses." [0]
[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazon-engineers-react-colleag...
I think he is being incredibly ignorant and primed to buy into bogus narratives that support his agenda. Or he is willfully trying to manipulate public sentiment with bogus narratives.
Either way, his "style" of communicating with the "masses" seems more and more like a certain someone..
Your boss tells you to come to work, and the govt is saying your workplace should be closed.
Can you fire someone for refusing to report when the county is supposed to be closed?
What an awful spot to put your employees in. If you come in, you might get arrested, if you don’t, you might get fired.
You get unemployment if you're involuntarily out of work (laid off/furloughed/reduced hours). If you voluntarily chose not to work when offered, or at fault for termination, you're typically disqualified from unemployment.
Again, it’s a really terrible way to treat your employees.
All of my employees have been given the option to work, or be furloughed. Their decision. Two have chosen to stay home for their own personal reasons. They are on state unemployement and also collecting that weekly check from the fed. It's up to the fed when they stop doing that, but these people know we will work with them if/when that goes away.
Don't give Elon the benefit of the doubt for most things, but I think he's right on.
ETA: the conservatives are absolutely wrong, and the only way out of this is more help for those affected.
The tricky part is if you're willingly not working. "Staying at home because of COVID" is a valid reason that some state governments are accepting.
I think those still have exceptions for high risk individuals.
https://labor.vermont.gov/unemployment-insurance/refusal-ret...
I believe there was also an HN submission about a group of states doing these types of things to force people back to work even if they feel scared of catching the virus, or giving up their unemployment benefits, though I can't find it now, so Vermont isn't the only state doing this.
The worry isn't individual risk, it's systemic risk.
In California this is considered “ Wrongful Discharge in Violation of Public Policy” https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/2400/2430... but it’s illegal in most states
Of course, you still have to have a lawyer and be able to win your lawsuit so no idea how much protection this actually gives a worker.
I wonder if "from the archives" would be clearer?
<<
See also:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23145592
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23130674
...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23126517
>>
The links already indicate that the pointers are to previous Hacker News threads, so no need to specify that part. If you want to use you "from the archives" language it could be something like "see also from the archives"
Well, no, links to individual comments share the same format.
Beyond that, the way to make this a real feature would be to allow community members to craft the list of related links together. That's on the list too. And it could probably include related URLs that aren't just to past HN discussions.
Although maybe a bit too scifi, in my family we call these kinds of archival history factoids "the knowledge of the Krell" (from Forbidden Planet), in that if you absorbed it all, it would kill you.
Also, thank you for doing this, it's always appreciated from me! Super useful!
> Alameda County officials said they were "communicating directly and working closely with the Tesla team on the ground in Fremont" in a "collaborative, good faith effort to develop and implement a safety plan" to reopen while protecting workers' health. Meanwhile, Tesla sued the county, claiming it had no legal right to shut down the plant... Alameda County says it is expecting Tesla to submit its safety plan for approval, and that until that approval the company cannot resume normal production. [1]
On the one hand, at face value (and based on his previous words/actions), it appears like Elon's being uncooperative for the sake of it -- that he could have reopened anyways if he'd just chosen to work together with the county, instead of demanding his own way based on the principle of the thing. His stubborness is just a terrible way to do business.
On the other hand, we also don't know if the county was demanding unreasonable things, delaying re-opening as payback for Elon's previous tempertantrums (or other reasons), or why it's not just "going along" with the more general state-wide opening. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any reporting whatsoever at that level of nuance.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
To me, this suggests the opposite. They haven't enforced anything yet, but they still might
It is essentially the same as doing nothing.
"The economy" isn't some abstract thing that produces random stock market numbers. It's everyone's livelihood.
Which is not to defend the managers who are pushing for things to open when they don't have front-line exposure.
Thing that is most disturbing here is peoples desire for normalcy overrides their ability to do simple arithmetic.
> California Governor Gavin Newsom said Thursday that state-level guidance allowing manufacturing to resume some production didn’t supersede county-level restrictions. The company had unsucessfully tried to argue that Tesla’s production should be considered critical infrastructure.[1]
Musk is talking out his ass and undermining public safety. If this is also how he approaches product design I don't think I ever want to get into a Tesla again.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/9/21253127/elon-musk-lawsuit...
Gavin Newsom really is Gavin Belson...
A friend just got a job at a local city council working on their climate change action plan. There are ~20 people working on it, all making ~$80k a year. The city has 30k residents. Every single city of this size or larger in the entire country is going to duplicate this effort, and pay these salaries, and maybe even come up with different solutions to the same problem.
City A will ban the use of some chemical, and a handful of miles away a different city with different rules will rejoice in the use of the same chemical.
It all feels awfully redundant to me.
In the SF bay, SF itself is a city and county. The other counties have health authorities, but so does the city of Berkeley. All the health officers of the Bay Area counties are working together, so effectively creating a larger jurisdiction. But Los Angeles is 400 miles (600km) away and in a totally different situation, so it makes sense to do things locally in large states such as California. Different levels of jurisdiction allow for flexibility, so for example, the state may declare non-essential businesses closed, but the local health officer can define the list of essential businesses or activities--or issue exemptions.
It also allows some level of local control. Smaller less-populated counties in Northern California where the population is more against the quarantine rules, and where frankly there is less need for them, can have less enforcement, or change later if they find they need it.
For a different example, look at France, a highly centralized government. The central government makes all health decisions, but they they still divided the country into zones (Paris and the east were hardest hit by the virus). While all areas had restrictions, they were more strict in those regions, and now that they are starting to re-open, each department has a list of criteria. So each department will have different levels of openness, just like counties in the US.
1. The governments communication here is less extreme, and generally more reasonable. A few weeks ago a Dutch restaurant holder announced that he was going to open his restaurants regardless of the lockdown because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to handle it financially. This sparked a lot of debate and at some point, during a press conference, the PM was asked about it. He replied by saying he completely understood what the restaurant holder felt and saw it as a cry for help. He promised he would do anything to help restaurants survive. He wasn’t mad at the restaurant holder, instead, he showed seemingly sincere compassion. It defused the situation.
2. The Dutch government has said many times that everything they do is almost 100% based on their scientific advisory panel. They recently added some economic and behavioral experts to that panel to balance it out and we are slowly moving out of lockdown. Note that the approval rating of the Dutch PM has absolutely skyrocketed during the past couple of months and this makes it much easier to bring the bad news :)
3. There’s this Dutch tradition of late night shows that a lot of people watch. They all have basically the same format and the guests (during the past months) were mostly government people, virologists, doctors, economic experts etc. These shows are interesting in that it's just a few hours of talking, but they have millions of daily viewers. It creates sort of a common reference frame for the discussion to move forward. That restaurant holder for example was a guest that night, and asked to explain why he wanted to open up. 30 minutes of listening to a much more nuanced picture of how this has been for him, his staff and others in the food branch helps understand his motives. Also, because the same table hosts a government representative, a virologist and an ICU doctor you bet the guy had to walk back his earlier statement (at least partially) as it was carefully explained to him how opening up to soon might just make things worse. His position shifted from "I'll open up regardless" to "I'm asking the government for more relief money so we can survive this."
I probably oversimplified some stuff, and I'm not sure about these observations at all. There's a lot more at play most likely, anyway, this should give you some insight in how things are going elsewhere.
(Also are any of the shows you describe in #3 in English? Would love to check them out)
The only place I've ever been where a decent in-person political discussion was hard to find was the norcal tech bubble (not to bag on the left, I've just never spent time in any stereotypical right-wing stronghold).
There trick is understanding that most people use politics as either: a way to provoke a reaction out of the person they're talking to, and/or use politics as a proxy reason to hate others when the real reason is one that they can't admit outloud or even to themselves (e.g. class, subculture, race, sex (there's more, but those are the big ones)).
It may seem insane, but sudden parenthood can lead to weird behavior. All his recent Twitter insanity began right around the birth.
Just wow!!
I think he has become a victim of his own success. I just hope he is seeing a good shrink.
I imagine that there won't be a single date at which Bay Area counties let everyone out of sheltering at the same time. I think it will be phased based on multiple factors of essential-ness (where assembling cars may not be considered terribly "essential" by county health authorities).
I'm a huge fan of what Musk is trying to do, and I realize to accomplish the near-impossible like that takes someone a little crazy to begin with, but that doesn't give him a free pass to act like a total dick. Heck, I even support a lot of his gripes against California, but his behavior is leading me more towards a "despite my past excitement, I will never buy a Tesla" stance.
Checks and balances.
Regarding duty of care, 43 states are reopening already. Are they wrong? Can you prove they’re wrong to do so? Shouldn’t there be a burden of proof if you as the government require a business to remain shuttered when the vast majority of states are reopening?
“We were working on a lot of policies and procedures to help operate that plant and quite frankly, I think Tesla did a pretty good job, and that’s why I had it to the point where on May 18, Tesla would have opened,” Mr. Haggerty said. “I know Elon knew that. But he wanted it this week.”
so 1 more week beyond today is what the officials were planning on.
Then he should be the only one in the factory
>what about "duty of care" to his staff?
Its not like Elon harm his staff by opening,
>Also what other laws can he (or anyone else) choose to violate?
In general, every law can be violated, broken, bend. It boil down to the pros vs the cons for you.
Simply driving a car during normal situation can potentially expose you death as well.
As a Tesla investor, I support the relocation of Fremont production capacity out of California. If this speeds that up (even if it’s simply a public circus exercise), I have no complaints.
You've pinpointed the most important issue here. The health of your portfolio!
Which is strange, because coronavirus primarily impacts the elderly and those with higher risk factors, and the death rate increase is only slightly above the death rate floor, while climate change impacts all 7 billion+ world citizens, which will be closer to 10 billion by 2100.
Alameda County may win the battle but will lose the war —as an added insult, maybe the Raiders can break thru a big ribbon that says “Tesla Nevada” on it as they enter their new arena for the first time this Fall!
It's not clear to me how to balance those costs against the decisions made by public health officials who are experts. I'm certainly not a "even one death is unacceptable" believer, nor do I think we should unnecessarily expose large numbers of people to risk (especially in the case of highly infectious diseases).
Assuming Tesla made wise decisions, I'm sure only a small number of people more would provably get sick due to exposure at the factory. But it's not Elon's sole decision.
I don't think balance sheets and sensibility might be the main point here, Elon can and will conquer that hill he's willing to die on.
As companies become larger and more profitable, as a general rule they move as much of their workforce as possible to lower-wage locations, whether less expensive states or less expensive countries.
Business in California is booming, which is precisely what drives wages up. Companies leaving allows other new vibrant businesses to hire the old workers.
The state isn't losing out at all. Compared with other countries, California by itself would have the 5th highest GDP in the world. It's a roaring success.
I would say that California has a strong economy in spite of it's government. Not because of it.
Looks like yet again, Elon Musk will get special treatment. Small restaurants in Sutter and Yuba county were threatened with revocation of their liquor licenses for opening contrary to health regulations[1]. Yet Musk violates those regulations and the local officials express 'hope' that he will follow the rules?
Laws once again are for little people.
[1] https://la.eater.com/2020/5/7/21250785/california-restaurant...
"Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me."
At the same time, I know people in California who are building up debt they'll have to repay while not being allowed to work. That companies aren't paying them and for various reasons unemployment aren't an option. It's not much better in my state.
The biggest factor in if I would agree with Musk on this is if Tesla has been singled out. I'm a bit out of the loop on my ability to cross reference things here, but are there any other Automakers in Alameda county? Are they shut down as well? If no to either of those then I can see why it does seem like government overreach.
I say this as someone with preexisting conditions who is still working during the outbreak and has been deemed essential by Local, State, and Federal. I also say it as someone who works at a job site that had similar "Bring your own PPE" rules, and only put them in place last week despite us working non stop.
We've had around a dozen people in my office with scares who were tested, nobody has come back positive yet, at least by what is claimed. From my perspective, if that's true, it is possible to work safely. From reading other comments on the plans Tesla has it sounds like Musk will do more than my work about this...
https://i.imgur.com/ztaZbMZ.jpg
^ That's where that line of thought leads.
It looks like Tesla is actually complying with the law and the _County_ public health org is contradicting a strategic federal & state order. Specifically they are contradicting the Executive Order Gavin Newsom made which is what empowers and dictates which industries should close and which are strategically required to remain open.
If you look at this executive order which is both empowering the CA shutdown and dictates which industries are required infrastructure and MUST stay open, the rules and regulations to be followed are at the State level, and no additional empowerment to create superseding rules at the city or county level were created: https://covid19.ca.gov/img/Executive-Order-N-33-20.pdf
Relevant part of Executive Order (Bold): "On March 19, 2020, Governor Newsom issued Executive Order N-33-20 directing all residents immediately to heed current State public health directives to stay home, except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of essential critical infrastructure sectors and additional sectors as the State Public Health Officer may designate as critical to protect health and well-being of all Californians."
Furthermore, the State requirements for critical infrastructure that must remain open included "Workers at transportation manufacturing facilities": https://covid19.ca.gov/img/EssentialCriticalInfrastructureWo...
I don't see how Elon Musk is breaking the Executive Order, in fact based on these documents it looks like county officials are overstepping and illegally shutting down something that has been explicitly earmarked as strategically protected, can someone provide additional links or order I may not have been able to find?
Prediction: nobody gets arrested and production continues. Continued panic about the virus is driven largely by clickbait media and social media. These forces seem terrifying due to their volume and ability to cancel random individuals, but they wither in the fact of real threats to livelihoods. Sometimes, all that's needed to defeat a bully is standing up to him and saying "no".
If California arrests Musk, it'll be the starkest example yet of the state punishing ambition and success while rewarding fear and mediocrity.
Do you believe the law is 100% correct and just all of the time, and that is never proper to challenge said laws...
some times "breaking the law" is necessary for society to advance
California also breaks the federal marijuana scheduling.
Not saying I agree or disagree with either choice, but it seems we were already picking and choosing laws.
California Socialist seem to have overlooked that because he wanted to produce electric cars.
Now he is in the category of 'Evil Greedy Capitalist Robbor Barron Exploiter' for them.
Musk is absolutely right that the models we shut down over were based on were astrology.
One Alameda County supervisor implies that perhaps he could have gotten them open by May 18th. I doubt that because the power to do so is not directly invested in the board but rather the county health officer. The health officer is acting in concert with the other counties health officers.
The leader of this group is the Santa Clara health officer, Sara Cody, who has been credited with architecting the lockdown. The officer has been very vague about opening the counties up to phase 2, saying that it will be frustratingly slow (a).
The officer points to insufficient testing and insufficient numbers of workers to contact trace (b). The officer said that they are weeks away from having enough workers to contact trace and that tests are only 20-25% towards the goal.
My issue with the tests are that they are voluntary. There is probably no way to meet that goal unless you force people to test. You can tell by the number of tests in each county. It isn't really going up very fast (c). At present rate, you are talking about several months. The issue doesn't seem to be insufficient tests. It seems to be mostly that people aren't going in to get tested since the positivity rate is actually going down.
I also think that the health officers want to work in concert since one county moving faster than the others will create pressure on the other counties to move at that rate. There is already such pressure since the rest of the state is already moving faster.
A good percentage of the Bay Area is insulated from the effects of the lockdown since many can work from home. The big tech companies have been relatively unaffected by covid-19. Government employees are still being paid. However a good percentage are not insulated by the effects of the lockdown (although it has partly opened up).
So based on the above, I expect the shit to hit the fan.
(a) https://www.sfgate.com/news/editorspicks/article/Sara-Cody-B...
(b) https://www.sfgate.com/news/editorspicks/article/Bay-Area-re...
(c) https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ca...
I don't think this is true, at all. Would love to see a source that testing right now is constrained by people unwilling to get tested and not by capacity to test.
My ex works at an urgent care clinic where they literally put a big banner up saying that they do COVID-19 tests.
They have not run out of tests.
This strongly suggests that in Orange County, CA, the bottleneck is not enough people asking for tests.
the bottleneck is not enough people with adequate health insurance asking for tests
In my case, I couldn't get a test despite my wife getting one. I guess they only wanted me to test if she tested positive. Thankfully the test was negative.
the bottleneck is people not being able to access tests. you can't just "ask" for one and get one and if you think you can, you clearly haven't tried getting tested.
That reversed in the last week. She now has enough tests to give them to anyone who asks. Which is why they put the banner up.
You mostly can't get tested unless you have symptoms.
>Last Saturday was the first day of the testing blitz. The goal was to perform 10,000 to 20,000 tests statewide. But, as of Thursday, Arizona Department of Health Services data shows only around 5,000 tests were collected that day.
Maready Medical in Mesa had capacity to perform 500 tests last weekend, said business director Sonny Hastings but only around 200 people showed up. Most appointment slots at that site are still open for this weekend, he said.
https://kjzz.org/content/1560116/some-covid-19-testing-sites...
The word "cabal" generally has a very sinister undertone. I can't tell if it was intentional here. "Coordination between public health officials in adjacent locales" is generally not something that merits painting in sinister tones.
Came together on their own. Decide what to do together. Enforce each other's powers by acting in concert.
Public health, like viruses, is about more than arbitrary lines on a map.
> Enforce each other's powers by acting in concert.
Do you similarly complain that neighboring police departments have agreements in place to do the same thing? Fire/EMS mutual aid?
Perhaps we can go back to the days of the Dukes of Hazzard, and the Sheriff has to stop because they got to the County Line.
Not arbitrary at all. The eastern ridge of the coastal mountain ranges runs along the border, and the border region is far more sparsely populated than the borders between the more urban counties to the west. The closest city to the border, Livermore, has far more commuting traffic in normal times to the Bay Area counties than to San Joaquin county.
What is arbitrary is the border between Alameda and Santa Clara counties, which coincidentally runs right by the Tesla factory.
This virus travels primarily on humans, not goods. The vast majority of human travel is between Alameda and other Bay Area counties, not between Alameda and San Joaquin.
Just because most of the milk, produce, and nuts, and packaged goods come from that direction doesn't mean that it makes sense for Alameda county to be more tightly coordinated in public health policy with San Joaquin county than its Bay Area neighbors.
- Did you know that Tesla has a shuttle between San Joaquin valley and the Tesla factory? Did you know that Tesla has factories in the San Joaquin valley?
- Did you know about Tracy being a massive bedroom community into Alameda County and beyond? Those people are providing services for Alameda County and beyond. Do you really think that all your service workers can afford to live in the 'core' Bay Area? I personally knew someone with a family in Tracy who worked in the South Bay and sometimes stayed over at his mother in Dublin because the commute was so bad. He laid carpets.
Go ask your Uber or Lyft driver where they live. Multiple have told me Sacramento.
Go ask a car salesman/saleswoman where they live. I asked. Tracy.
Go ask cancer patients from the Sacramento area where they get treatment. Think Stanford.
- Where do you think those workers at your weekly farmer's market live? Most of them come from San Joaquin valley. Look closely at where they say their farms are. Guess.
- Did you know that there are San Francisco city employees that commute daily from San Joaquin valley?
- Did you know about the massive traffic jam that is I-580 in the mornings? It used to get crowded by 5:30 am from the masses of people commuting in from San Joaquin valley. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/I-580-home-to-3-of-Ba... BTW, the article is from 2005. It's much worse than that.
Did you know about the ACE station in Tracy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Corridor_Express
Do you know about the Amtrak train from Sacramento? I had two coworkers who took that daily into Contra Costa County. They lived in Roseville. Look up where that is located.
Ever wonder where multi-generational Bay Area families live? Do you really think that it is magically limited to the 'core' Bay Area? Think San Joaquin valley. I've got family there and I know several other 'core' Bay Area families who come from there and still have family there.
The entire western side of San Joaquin County is a de facto bedroom community for the 'core' Bay Area. Amazingly it even stretches into the Sacramento/Stockton area.
If your point is that mega commutes are inversely correlated with income, I agree, but not sure what that has to do with the public health policy coordination by counties during the pandemic.
The epicenter of every major outbreak of this disease is in dense urban areas like the Bay Area, so Alameda county is right to coordinate primarily with neighboring high density counties.
I agree that they are interconnected, but the places with higher population and population density (the 7 Bay Area counties) are even more interconnected on a human basis. The idea that Bay Area counties should compromise their lockdowns for San Joaquin county commuters makes no sense. Their policies should be driven by their shared public health priorities.
> You know nothing.
Vitriol is an ineffective argumentative technique.
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/take+things+out+of+cont...
Do you really think there is less movement of people between San Joaquin County and these counties versus Marin County and these counties? Marin County is one of this group. Do you really think that Marin County is a densely populated urban area?
Marin County has ~250K people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_County%2C_California
San Joaquin County has probably >700K people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Joaquin_County%2C_Californ...
Furthermore, San Joaquin County has a higher population density than Marin County.
I-580 has ~300K per day in the Tri-Valley area connecting San Joaquin and Alameda counties. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/A-year-later-I-580-pa...
The Golden Gate Bridge connecting Marin County to San Francisco County has ~112K a day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge#Usage_and_t...
The Richmond San Rafael Bridge connecting Marin County to Contra Costa County has ~80K a day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond–San_Rafael_Bridge
300 >> (112 + 80).
And don't give me BS about other means of transportation. Those ferries from Marin carry in the low thousands a day. The trains and buses running from San Joaquin Valley in carry far more. It will skew even further on the side of San Joaquin County.
Your argument is repeatedly repudiated by the facts, your logic is weak, you try to score points on irrelevancies, and yet you continue to try to argue. e.g. You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Here are the 2010 commute flows between the counties from the state of CA metropolitan transport commission itself.
http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/commute-patterns
Alameda county sees the greatest flow of commuters in the Bay Area. San Joaquin counties commuters are a fraction of those in and out of Alameda county. They are dwarfed by the flow from to/from SF, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties. If you have an issue with that study, take it up with the state MTA. I'm sure they'd love to hear your criticisms.
> Your argument is repeatedly repudiated by the facts, your logic is weak, you try to score points on irrelevancies, and yet you continue to try to argue. e.g. You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Right back at ya boss...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/tanzanian-president-bla...
SUPER annoying. Sometimes you are just under the weather, sore throat etc and want to do your part - you cannot do that in the bay area. LA area I hear has removed the gatekeeping.
You also have to have a doctors order.
However, you can pay for antibody tests out of pocket around here - that part seems to have escaped the lock down on testing they have going.
There's going to have to be a point at which they allow you to at least pay for your own test if you want - no certification or doctor referral needed. I don't know how we can take the idea that testing is a priority when they make it so hard to get tested.
Part of the trouble is that there seems to be a lot of variation in symptoms in people who test positive.
Too many people have said "I was tested, I don't have it", completely treating it as a continuum, not a point in time.
Here in NZ we've reached the point where random tests are finding nothing, we're contact tracing at least 3-4 deep (a friend's family was tested who's spouse worked with someone who had a contact who had tested positive). At this point we're getting a couple of new cases per day for a couple of weeks, all from known sources already locked down - we started opening up (from a much deeper lock down than California) about 10 days ago, in 2 days we'll be opening restaurants, schools, most stores (but not bars for a week) crowds will be limited to ~10 for a while
The real reason why the push for "tracing apps" is so massive is that many countries have "saved" money in public health for decades - not just the healthcare systems themselves but also the pandemic/epidemic response teams and other admin staff. Now, Corona bites our collective butts.
It sounds pretty clear that it was far less firm than the articles implied and this situation is every bit as messy and murky as has been implied by all implied parties.
When the lockdown happened which btw was only 4 days earlier than NYC's lockdown (late on March 16 vs. NYC's March 20th) everyone tries to capture how well prepared the bay area was but it was a total joke, there were no tests available, local stores were almost all closed and the ones that were open were sold out of all PPE(hand sanitizer masks etc). Store staff mostly did not have masks or were not asked to wear masks. Finally we were given out case numbers by cities but once again if you live in San Jose which is huge you have no idea where the cluster of cases are(should I walk my dog in this area of the city? etc) by zip code would have been preferable.
When the lockdown ends who will know? We have only vague ideas when things are opening up despite dropping covid-19 cases in the area[3] and measures we can see like workers taking down the tents for patients(never used) in the local hospital parking lots. I feel really had for people who have a physical job to go to as who can say when this ends.
Lastly its extremely frustrating that given months have passed testing is still non-existent, after a tele-chat with my health provider he says the tests he received were terrible (this was a 2 weeks ago) and he threw them all away. Also the county or cities have no large scale antibody testing in smaller cities to ascertain the true death rate of this virus given that it presents asymptomatic in a sizable % of patients.
[1] https://beta.trimread.com/articles/14684
So coronavirus decreases your life expectancy by 3 and a half days. For comparison, sitting in front of a TV for multiple hours a day (as many people have been relegated to doing) decreases your life expectancy by 6 years. Smoking is 8 years. Owning a car and driving it regularly is a few weeks IIRC.
For example, let's say the mean age was exactly 75 y.o., and that the coronavirus killed 100% of people 75 y.o. or older and 0% less than 75. By your logic, it would have no effect at all.
Another example, again with a 75 y.o. life expectancy, suppose it killed 100% of people 80 y.o. or over and none under. By your logic, being infected by coronavirus would add 5 years to your life expectancy.
And for your extreme example to be true, it would have to be the case that the disease doesn't discriminate healthy from weak. But still somehow only kills old people. Because if the disease does discriminate healthy from weak, all of the deaths would be those that would die soon anyway.
Then you must divide whatever estimate you get from that by one hundred. Assuming the highest estimates that it kills around 1% of the victims, which I think are bit high.
I don't see any possible way you could run the numbers and get more than 2 weeks lowered life expectancy. There just are so few young deaths, and the total death rate is very low.
> And for your extreme example to be true, it would have to be the case that the disease doesn't discriminate healthy from weak. But still somehow only kills old people. Because if the disease does discriminate healthy from weak, all of the deaths would be those that would die soon anyway.
You do realize these are contrived examples to show errors in your math? They aren't suppositions about the actual true death rate of the coronavirus.
> Then you must divide whatever estimate you get from that by one hundred. Assuming the highest estimates that it kills around 1% of the victims, which I think are bit high.
> I don't see any possible way you could run the numbers and get more than 2 weeks lowered life expectancy. There just are so few young deaths, and the total death rate is very low.
I don't think you can "run the numbers", because the data you're using isn't enough to come to any conclusion. Unless you have data that breaks down deaths by age group, and data that breaks down deaths by age normally, you can't answer this question, as far as I know. If you think there is only 2 weeks lowered life expectancy or less, you haven't shown that.
Not that this is anything new. Here's what Google says about the rule of law for Americans and Canadians. I didn't even need to click the results, just screenshot the result snippets. https://i.imgur.com/TO2XUco.jpg Somehow it magically becomes not difficult to define the moment you cross the 49th parallel.
Tesla and Alameda County agreed to a plan to re-open on May 18th.
Elon Musk should have stuck with that plan. Now he has increased the odds of his employees catching a deadly virus, getting the factory shutdown for longer, all while putting the company at increased legal risk.
- He has gone really, actually crazy
- He knows that Tesla is on the edge of bancruptcy and is intentionally trying to get kicked out of Tesla before it happens, while keeping the image of being a hero and avoiding the financial responsibility
I would be sure it is 2, except to a non-lawyer like me it seems he is doing things that actually can put him in jail now. So I don't know.
Makes you think how come such measured response is made to Elon flagrantly breaking the law, but wasn't shown to Oscar Grant:
According to court testimony and video of the incident, [officer] Pirone pulled Grant and his friends off the train so aggressively that other riders loudly objected. Pirone got physical at least two more times with Grant, kneeing him and pulling him violently to the concrete platform. At one point, apparently angry at being called a profane name, Pirone leaned in close to Grant and shouted back at him, “Bitch-ass n—, right? Bitch-ass n—, right?” https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/10-years-since-O...
It appears that that sufficient money and connections provide immunity from the law in America too.
The problem is that no one is willing to hear anything other than the narrative they've been spooned up over the last couple of weeks, and any attempt at resisting irrationality is met with hostility and accusations of extreme-conspiratorial thinking.
Yes, it's stupid to keep the lock down. Yes, it's stupid to wear masks if you're not feeling sick or you hang around people at risk. Yes, it's stupid to stop people from taking a walk in the park or going to the beach, or even having a party if that's what the heck they want to do.
Every new car, tesla or otherwise is killing the environment. Some more than others but the impact of creating new vehicles far exceeds that of alternative forms of transport.
That said, if Elon were arrested, he may actually spend some of his time and resources to affecting change in the legal/justice sphere that he has largely avoided/flaunted thus far.
Find a way to shut it down without the news images of Musk being carted away in a cop car - turn off the power or water or something.
Instead, cite them for the $1000 violation. Frequently.
This is instead on private property and probably protected under free assembly.
The free assembly clause is specifically to allow you to assemble in protest against your government.
It would be a bit of a stretch to call going to work a protest against your government.
In this case, if it were to go toward the interpretation as protest, it might actually not be that unreasonable. Musk in many ways views it as protest afaict.
All this said, IANAL.
Does logic / science no longer apply in public health?
So yes, logic does apply.
Seriously - I have always been a law and order person - but seeing acres and acres wide open space, that is totally uncrowded at all times (even weekends before covid) now off limits because of some bogus risk evaluation is ridiculous.
And no - I do not go grocery shopping AT ALL in two months. I ordered online very early, leave the food outside for 3 days after delivery, wash packages etc.
The govt has absolutely lost its mind with this horrendous logic. The reality - we have to believe there is some basis in the closure of things (clearly clubs / bars / social gatherings make sense) or people are going to stop putting up with 100% stupidity.
Shutting down huge outdoor spaces within walking distances of folks houses is the dumbest thing I've heard. Now we are all crowded on sidewalks.
And no - I cannot go and get tested even if I'm willing to pay because I can't certify I have the severity level of systems needed and a doctors order, and oh, the FDA and CDC blocked everyone from doing tests for a long time.
Let me give govt some suggestions.
Allow people to pay, out of pocket, with no doctors order for testing if they want to. Do free testing for folks who have a doctors order and meet your severe symptoms criteria.
Where is the contact tracing?
Focus the lockdown on high risk activities - not shutting down beaches. You are seriously going to lose the trust of folks with this stupidity.
It does not, it has become a political issue and the dominant people/politics of today are so stupid that they simply align as for or against something largely driven to oppose the other side.
In Czechia, there was stay-at-home order since half of march, but one of few exceptions was movement in parks or nature. But with face masks, no socializing and keeping 2m distance from others.
2. Putting them in jail is actually worse for their health than almost any other activity.
3. IANAL but I doubt many of the local orders would hold up in a higher court.
I see across the street from me many people in a park daily despite signs everywhere saying 'Closed due to COVID.' The selfishness is maddening.
Management should be held responsible--not the workers.
I don't want to live in a police state where local authorities can arbitrarily wield such broad powers.
People cheer for fascism when it aligns with their own ideas.
You can think that shutting most things down is a good idea and that it's a good idea for your government not to have that power at the same time. Not too many people do though.
You have to be aware that people are going to pick on this line.
If you think locking down during exceptional circumstances to save lives (and the economy) is Fascism then I have bridge to sell you.
Globally, politicians are not out to get you, frankly my prime minister was dead set against locking down (for economic reasons) but when the forecasts came in he relented very viscerally. You have to understand on some level that nearly every government (with the notable exception of Sweden) has reacted similarly to this pandemic.
The Economic impact of the increased deaths of this magnitude (and second factors such as normally preventable deaths which are not handled due to an over-capacity health system) would cause such economic upheaval that society might break down.
From the most self-serving politician to the most charitable; one thing they will agree on is to maintain the status quo in some form and that is put at risk if we reach 1918 levels of deaths (or higher).
I highly recommend the Dark Winter study by Johns Hopkins[0], it's exceptionally well researched and goes into detail about how fragile we've built the world to be.
For example: "Just-in-time" is the latest incarnation of capitalist efficiency that leaves very little capacity to function if there is a large disruption.
The test largely focused on an intentional outbreak of smallpox, but they wrote extensively about variable mortality and the r-naught value and how the effects work when you slide those scales.
I truly resent being told I’m cheering for fascism because I don’t want my friends or family, or myself, to die from a highly contagious disease. I can only imagine that the same people calling this collective effort against community transmission of this virus fascism would have also called the orientation of all industries to the war effort during WWII fascism.
Fascism to me is sending people to work during a pandemic because the bottom line is being affected. “We’re all in this together,” and the workers aren’t pulling their weight.
The power to deny an businessowner from forcing their employees to produce luxury cars during a pandemic is a reasonable government power that's far from fascism.
What about the current pandemic seems arbitrary? Things can be bad in one context and okay in another. Like freedom of speech, which is a fundamental right (except for things putting people in danger like falsely screaming fire in a crowded theater).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
> The original wording used in Holmes's opinion ("falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic") highlights that speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech that is dangerous but also true.
> The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
The atlantic has a decent write up https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim... or the ACLU https://www.aclu.org/other/speech-campus under the "Q: But isn't it true you can't shout fire in a crowded theater?" header.
The the advocation against war was deigned on the fact that you're "in danger". The fight against the government was about the sliding scale of the remit, not about the original statement being "legal" or not.
Incitement is a real crime, if you knowingly falsely shout "fire" or "he's got a gun" then you're guilty of inciting panic[0].
It is unequivocolly not legal to _knowingly_ and _falsely_ incite panic.
Though, proving that might be difficult, and it appears to be a misdemeanour charge, if it leads to death you can be sure you will be tried for manslaughter.
> Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action.
The point is that freedom of speech isn't universal and context matters.
The state putting the safety of their workers before its own strength, misguided as one may think it is, is one of the furthest things from fascism.
I want to see what everything Tesla is doing to protect their employees and if they are following a subset of the below guidelines that I've listed. Temperature check at entrance, mask requirement, strict hand sanitization, etc. Then let Musk commercialize the process of opening up businesses.
Some background:
I followed Corona (COVID19 now) from late January very closely and read most published papers. I strongly supported the "flattening of the curve" and encouraged the lockdown and we practiced/and practice strict social distancing. That being said, hearing countering arguments from various scientist (2013 Noble prize winner [0]). The Swedish epidemiologist [1]. That the lockdown makes no sense unless we are going to have a vaccine when we come out of the lockdown.
Remember, the initial lockdown was mostly argued for flattening the curve (in addition to maybe it worked in China lets follow them). If you look at the curves (flattened vs. spiked) they have near the same areas, meaning those original scientist who argued for it, never argued the lockdown was going to reduce the net infection by COVID but to slow it down to help the health care system gear up and also not get overwhelmed (lack of rooms, ventilators, etc.)
That being said, we can copy some smart and common sense stuff from places like Taiwan (I've spoken to people who live in Taiwan and life is almost back to normal but they just wear masks in public) that has allowed them open up and I'm hoping Tesla is learning from these practices.
What we have not heard from our governor (feels like many of his stuff is partially motivated by planning for a 2024 presidential run) or county officials a clear pathway to opening up.
Here's what I want to hear from them:
1 - we are distributing masks to every house. 2 - we are requiring mask in all public places or when you're passing by anyone within 1 car length (6 feet is hard to visualize) 3 - we are distributing hand sanitizers to every public facing business. 4 - we are requiring all credit card terminals to be touch-less or any customer using it, must apply hand sanitizer before and after using it. 5 - we'll start deploying IR thermometers to malls and large public facing businesses (Costco, Safeway ) and will test for temperature. 6 - Take extra measures to protect the seniors and elderly. Continue to have senior-only operation hours (at Costco, etc.) everyone working in adult care facility needs to be tested and monitored. 7- Daily PSA by local TV/radio in English, Spanish, Chinese...how to best sanitize your hands, how to best use mask and how to effectively maintaining social distancing even with mask. 8 - Ticket/fine those who are not wearing mask. Maybe the first offense is a warning if they don't have a mask and the police office will hand them a mask.
I've seen some of these, but not a in concrete single articulated plan of execution with timeline. Right now most policies are made with bad data. Not statical sampling of confirmed COVID (though it's changing [2]) but rather raw numbers. It's obvious the more you test the more confirmed cases you'll get. Everyday, you hear about how numbers are increasing (that might be true, but it's not really scientific) Where as statistical sampling would tell us what percentage of the population is infected and if the infection spreading or staying flat.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl-sZdfLcEk [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTXgbN6uB1I
* the mandated, Tesla-supplied masks and face shields;
* the 6 ft of social distance mandated across the entire process;
* the fact that it is opening at 30-40% capacity;
* the age of the factory workers, and the flu-like levels of CFR for young to medium aged workers
The virus is going to be here with us for a long time. A vaccine isn't happening this year barring a divine-like miracle; it may not even happen next year or even ever. Coronavirus vaccines are very new for us.
We cannot put the whole society, and the whole economy, on lockdown for 3 years. We need to reopen following all the safety protocols, but we need to reopen.
If someone dies despite all the safety protocols taking place, then, well, it sucks. But the virus is here already.
Id rather just assume I'm coming into contact with it when I leave my house, and then take necessary precautions.
Not sure that it should necessarily be done by apps. But if you can find someone who has covid, identify their close contacts, and have them tested - then you can still catch a significant number of cases and put a dent in the disease's spread. These are things that mitigate the spread and have a substantial impact at the margin.
I'd spend some time reading what the pros, like Trevor Bedford, are suggesting as a path forward, rather than just the headlines about Apple's new contact tracing app. Also, worth noting that other countries have successfully suppressed the virus.
Nope. "You are welcome to bring your own PPE. If Tesla has supplied you with some, you are required to wear it".
is quite different from "Tesla has supplied and required employees to wear PPE".
[0] https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/T...
Factory worker catches Coronavirus, shows no symptoms, passes it to their family, their elderly parent dies. Given that these factories employ thousands of people, it's actually not improbably that someone directly related to a Tesla employee dies of coronavirus after this re-opening. Whether it's due to the factory re-opening we'll never know, but I'm sure some lawyers can make a damn good stab at finding out.
How many times does someone have to be wrong before we can stop accepting their input on a subject?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/business/coronavirus-elon...
From Twitter on March 19:
> Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1240754657263144960?lang...
https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fkbw1c/elon_musk...
At that time, here's CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/app-news-section/quickly-catc...
Vox:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/16/21182247/t...
> You want to see him in jail even though you're not sure that he has done something that is both illegal and (ethically) wrong?
You missed the conditional "If".
> You want to see him in jail
I think a lot of people are sick of seeing companies that break the law get by with just paying fines. Frequently on HN you see comments calling for Mark Zuckerberg to face jail time over privacy violations. It's stated that jail time would change his stance, whereas fines do nothing to curtail Facebook's behavior.
The thought is that companies view fines as a slap on the wrist. Fines also tend to be smaller than the opportunity cost of making violations.
Now that there's a disease going around that kills our old folks, it seems appropriate to call for punishment of those in power that knowingly violate the orders. This disobedience could actually take lives. This is a time when health and local government officials should be able to wield power.
A guy just got killed near where I live by someone who was let out to reduce prison overcrowding during covid.
I expect we'll see it soon, considering how many thousands of workers there are.
Prediction: Elon gets arrested, Tesla keeps producing, Tesla comes out of this stronger than other automakers, mid-term move to Nevada or Texas, congressperson retires with pension.
Why? To me it is obvious that the pandemic won't stopping from spreading at the end of May. And the nation level self-quarantine/shelter-in-place order now, is now failed and discarded by the many state government and federal government alike.
Keep closing at this point feels pointless and endless, and it won't resolve the situation at all.
Will they be making cars, or will they be unbolting everything that moves and putting it on a truck so they can start making cars in a tent in another county?
This order is like saying anyone who is drives (at any speed) is automatically exceeding the speed limit. In our laws we have an officer make an observance and provide some data to back it up (radar reading). TSLA should have the right to operate in a safe manner. There's nothing special about walking outside or getting groceries that make's it more/less safe than building a car, when sufficient protections are in place.
Why should one group receive the right to continue operations while the other does not?
They would have to do that for every business in CA (or the county), and are clearly not staffed or prepared for that yet.
For example lets say, just for argument's sake, that every worker had some kind of full body hazmat suit and filtered positive pressured air supply. Would it still be not ok to build a car in such a condition? What makes it ok to operate a checkout stand (groceries) in not even close to such protections?
The problem is the assumption of guilt w/o any means to continue operations--a perfectly legal thing otherwise-- even with appropriate measures in place.
a factory area cannot be operated in a hygenic manner ? doesnt seem sensible offhand. Constant govt approval to operate? seems like a bad plan in the long run..
The first wave of the Spanish Flu killed less than 5 million; the second wave killed more than 20 million.
This part has yet to be proven though. If they're asked to do something unsafe then I think they should have the full weight of the government (OSHA) protecting their rights to a safe workplace and full strength of the legal community to do justice if TSLA fails to uphold their end of the bargain (kinda like asbestos lawsuits)
Not at all. This order is like saying “unless you have a driver’s license, you’re not allowed to drive.”
> There's nothing special about walking outside or getting groceries that make's it more/less safe than building a car, when sufficient protections are in place.
“As long as I have headlights, a seatbelt, and a backup camera, I’m safe! No need for the government to get in the way demanding a road test and a license!”
In many places food banks are already strained.
You're trivializing what happens when an economy en masse is unable to produce goods.
Keeping this in mind helps set a perspective for why he sees this as a mission. If you still think he is being irresponsible, consider the data he shared, and the larger picture. Maybe... just maybe... he has more information than you do.
Maybe he’s motivated by profit/success, I doubt he cares that much about the environment.
Also, misquoting is a thing. I don’t think you can find the original source of your quote. He did say something similar prefaced with “my best guess.” When I used the word “data” I did mean data, not misquoted guesses from months ago.
I'm just disappointed that Tesla is run by someone who I see as erratic and crazy. It's worked out so far, but it'd be a shame to see Tesla lose out because Elon finally snaps too far.