Comment by mherdeg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mherdeg | Hacker News Reader

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The article quotes someone who believes this is the right thing to do and explains their perspective. This isn't the only view (nor the one endorsed by the physicians I know) but it's worth understanding in order to understand the public health trajectory of the next few years:

> Steven, a North Paulding student who asked that only his middle name be used, said he felt safe going to school without a mask. Most of the hallways he encountered, he said, were far less crowded than in the one in the photograph. And the virus itself, he said, didn’t seem like “much of a problem” in Paulding County.

> “I’ve only known three people to get it, other than the football players, obviously,” Steven said. “If I get it, I get it. I believe that’s what most people in my area's ideology is — if we get it, we get it.”

> Steven said he didn’t want to let worries about spreading the virus to his family control his life.

> “Most of my family, including my grandparents, think the same as well,” he said. “We just go on about our business and keep it out of our mind.”

The problem with that logic, of course[1], is that "if we get it we get it" is a statement of personal risk assumption. It doesn't address the rights of the people you will then infect, who you didn't involve in the decision. Some of those people don't want to get sick! Realistically, some of them are going to die.

[1] Well, in addition to "Football player cases don't count" -- no idea what that's about. Was there a specific outbreak in that county on a team?

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Edit to add a grand-response to this comment (because HN's rate limiter has kicked in, sigh) that illustrates exactly the problem with reasoning I'm trying to point out:

> this logic [...] assumes somebody has a right to not be infected while in a public area.

It absolutely does not.

What if some sick kid comes home and unknowingly infects a grandparent who never left the house and never entered a public area? That's a routine kind of spread, in fact.

> The responsibility for the risk [...] cannot simply be laid at a different person's feet.

No, this is exactly the fallacy at work! There is no "responsibility" in a pandemic. There is no "fault". Those are abstractions dealing with INDIVIDUAL behavior, and we can't beat this with individual decisions, at all.

Yes. See the original linked article.

The problem with this logic, of course, is that it assumes somebody has a right to not be infected while in a public area. That "somebody" is also in a public area, so the risk is entirely by their own choice. They don't know who could be infected, but they're out in public anyways. The responsibility for the risk that "somebody" undertakes cannot simply be laid at a different person's feet.

The flip side of that argument plays out, at its worst, in what gets charged as 'negligent homicide', or even 'voluntary manslaughter'.

If you can take reasonable precautions that barely inconvenience you, but could easily prevent potentially fatal infections, what does it say about your morality that you choose not to?

It's a choice between doing small things that can easily benefit many more people than yourself, or deliberately choosing to risk others' health just "because".

If knowingly + intentionally spreading HIV isn't a felony (thanks, California [0]) why should not fully minimizing the risk of personally contracting and then spreading COVID be one? ("mandate condoms during anal sex to reduce the spread of HIV" is actually pretty comparable to "mandate masks when outside to reduce the spread of COVID", incidentally)

Not to say it's a good thing to do, but that doesn't mean it reaches the level of "crime".

0: https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/health/california-hiv-bill-si...

I meant to say something closer to 'should rise to the level of', I didn't mean to imply that it is a crime now.

I didn't know that about the California law... but I understand that treatment is much more effective so I can see why it's no longer at a felony level.

How about those not wearing masks or at least maintaining minimum recommended behavior to minimize transmission get a 'reckless endangerment' and/or 'child endangerment' instead, not quite so Heavy Felony but still a solid signal to others that NOT helping to stop the spread of this is morally incorrect.

Edit: to more closely convey my understanding of the CA bill changes.

>mandate condoms during anal sex to reduce the spread of HIV" is actually pretty comparable to "mandate masks when outside to reduce the spread of COVID", incidentally

One instance of unprotected anal sex does not have the chance to infect 50+ others. Anal sex is a pretty clear situation where both parties can make the choice to take the risk if they want, and not hurt anyone else.

If I go outside without a mask and have COVID and breathe on something, that has a chance of infecting lots of people

Ehhhh. I wouldn't be surprised if the average instance of "HIV+ person without PReP having unprotected anal sex" infects more people than "COVID-19 positive person visits a mall without a mask" does. The worst case of 50 people can be higher without the average also being higher, is what I mean.

Further... Everyone else at the mall can also choose to not take that risk, though it's not really true for students in high school.

> Further... Everyone else at the mall can also choose to not take that risk, though it's not really true for students in high school.

There's that fallacy again. It won't die. It's not just the people in the mall. It's everyone THEY will infect, and the next generation of infections, and the next.

A pandemic like this (contra HIV, which is very uninfectious and is transmitted almost exclusively by consensual 1:1 activities) just plain isn't susceptible to moral reasoning at the level of individual actions. There is NO feasible way an individual can make an informed choice to "accept" risk of covid infection that doesn't also increase (significantly!) the risk borne by the rest of society.

You can't do it. Any moral statement of the form "this infection risk is OK because I/he/she/they are OK with it" is just wrong, logically.

I think our disagreement here comes from a difference in axioms or moral systems, not arguments or data.

It does indeed, but (no, as it were, offense) yours doesn't work logically, at least not with the words you're choosing.

You can't wave away all the mall-goers risk-taking with "they chose it", because you're not including all their siblings and roommates and parents who they'll necessarily infect who did NOT choose that. You need to come up with another definition for "choice" than the one we conventionally understand.

Again, you're using language of individual risk. That doesn't work here.

I think you need to take a look at some other ethical systems. There's a famous example of Kant saying it's immoral to lie to prevent your friend from being murdered - that the consequences of the act have no bearing on whether the act is moral or not. The parallels here should be at least somewhat apparent. This isn't my code, but it's not exactly unheard of. (And a ton of people would argue that Kantian ethics are fucking stupid. In the end, all ethical systems lead to absurdity at the edges)

For the mall example... That other person, who chose to come there and be exposed? The one with roommates, and a grandmother living next door? It's not me - living alone, in this scenario - who chooses to expose them. It's the one who lives with them, if anyone. You're taking their responsibility and piling it on to me - but there's a lot of links in the causal chain before the harm comes to pass, and some of those links bear far more responsibility. It's like blaming the guy who goes to the bar after a long day for the actions of another guy who goes to the same bar and kills a family drunk driving home, because by being there he contributed to an atmosphere of heavy drinking.

The language of individual risk and responsibility isn't quite so limited in my mind as it is in yours.

The article says multiple players on that very school's team tested positive after crowding in a gym for a fundraiser.

And the school is opening anyway, even though it's confirmed that some staff are infected as well.

I don't understand how people can be so damn insensitive to how much damage they can cause.

> ... "if we get it we get it"...

This fatalism exemplifies the lack of viable options available to the town's populace. Parents can't homeschool and work at the same time in the absence of external support from state or Fed, combined with the cited lack of basics like computers and connection in family's homes for remote learning.

Is it attitude or ideology issue? To me this rings more like a social and economic disparity issue, not just in the given town/state, but on the nationwide scale.

Simply speaking, it's a fatalism that is driven by poverty.

> combined with the cited lack of basics like computers and connection in family's homes for remote learning.

I never would have considered this a potential issue in developed countries before, but recently I was talking to someone from rural Louisiana who noted when school tried launch online, many parents were up in arms because a lot of people just didn't have internet service.

Or maybe it's just an ideology "issue".

Maybe there's nothing "wrong" with these people. Maybe they just believe it's all in god's hands or whatever. We might not agree with it but it's not quantitatively wrong.

I dislike when people's reaction to an alternate viewpoint is to claim that the other side's judgement has been clouded by economic conditions, mental illness, or something else outside their control because it implicitly denies them agency.

Aren’t they denying themselves agency by saying its “in Gods hands” instead of taking the necessary precautions?

How is it any better for their judgement to be clouded by religious beliefs than economic conditions or mental illness?

It’s also hypocritical for them to say it’s “in Gods hands” according to the Bible instead of taking the necessary precautions.

I’m not saying anything about the veracity of the Bible, but if that’s what they believe in....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_4:7

> Ideology

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