Comment by ryankemper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryankemper | Hacker News Reader

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> 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.

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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.

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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.

> "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.

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.

> "People actually suffering and not knowing where their next check comes from, well, we don't really care about them."

This is quite literally about them. Knowledge workers and others sitting comfortably at home are the biggest opposition to opening up business.

If it was about them then the federal government would provide aide so that a proper response can be undertaken.

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 federal government is providing aid and today discussed a 25 trillion dollar deal. That is more than all the mortgage, auto, and student loan debt combined.

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.

The federal government discusses a lot of things - the large majority of which never get passed. This is not an argument.

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.

The stock market is not the economy. Also you can't selectively choose to only open certain businesses because they're all connected. Tesla alone has thousands of vendors and suppliers affecting hundreds of thousands of jobs.

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.

Phhft, some aid. The people get just crumbs under the table. In Europe, many countries pay 80% or more of furloughed salaries. This is how it’s done. (There is shenanigans there too, but less.) The cares act is joke.

In the US, the megacorps got theirs. Now the populace has to work. No tests, just work comrade. For Mother US!

People who oppose EARN-IT act did provide their reasons. I get it that you don’t believe their intentions. Do you have any plausible theories on this supposedly secret motives of Alameda county officials? You say it isn’t saving lives, so what do you think it is? What do they benefit from keeping a factory closed unnecessarily?

> supposedly secret motives of Alameda county officials?

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.

It is simple cover-your-ass behaviour from low level bureaucrats.

> You say it isn’t saving lives, so what do you think it is?

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.

I'm responding to how this all aligns with Thoreau's concept of civil disobedience. Billionaires more interested in the expansion of their own business at the cost of the lives of their workers is the exact opposite of what Thoreau considers justice.

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.

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