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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

Let people worship as they choose. Adults have the right to choose their own risk.

After they leave the drum circle, they transfer the health risk to all the store clerks and medical personnel they approach. If they end up in the hospital, they transfer the financial burden to the insurance, hospital, and public aid systems, at a rate of however many thousands of dollars per day.

They have no right to do this to the rest of us.

I agree with you.

As a human rights advocate, though, curious: where is the line, in everyone's mind? Can we use the law on people who don't wash their hands after they use the restroom? Etc

Your response is to do nothing because of an extreme edge case?

A law that everyone has to wash their hands after using the restroom seems less severe, to me, than a law that nobody's allowed to gather in public.

I agree in principle. That said, a law about washing hands would be impossible to actually enforce without some kind of highly intrusive surveillance, which itself would be a severe downside. But a law that wasn’t actively enforced and only existed so posters could say “wash your hands - it’s the law!” would be… fine, IMO… though I doubt it would produce much if any actual increase in handwashing.

We’ve never thought that way about flu’s.

> We’ve never thought that way about flu’s.

We certainly did about the 1918 pandemic, where all kinds of limitations were imposed to attempt to control the spread. The cost/benefit with typical seasonal flu is, obviously, not the same.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for people that are afraid to stay isolated? Why force everyone to change their lives to keep them safe?

I don't care about their risk, but they don't have a right to put everyone else at risk.

Analogy: If you play with fire and get burned, that is up to you. If you play with fire and burn your neighbor's house down...

How are they going to expose you to a risk? Are they entering your home?

I'm pretty sure they're going to enter a store...

_so don't enter a store_

I shouldn't enter a store because they're being irresponsible? That seems like putting the burden where it does not belong.

Larger scale: Nobody else should enter a store, because these people should be able to do their thing without "putting anyone else at risk"? That's absurd. They are putting other people at risk, and everyone else shouldn't have to go ridiculously far out of their way to avoid the risk.

[Edit: Oh, yeah. What if I work at the store? At that point, "don't enter the store" is... somewhat lacking as usable advice.]

So we've established nobody is entering your home, and nobody is making you enter a store. So there's zero risk for transmission. Now you say what about the workers? Great! What percentage of stores aren't doing curbside delivery right now?

You have the right to determine your own fate. You can blow yourself up at home. Fine. Nobody cares. You don't have the right to come out and put everyone else at risk, esp. when it comes to a highly-infectious and potentially deadly disease.

> Let people worship as they choose. Adults have the right to choose their own risk.

This is inconsistent.

Either the risk is on them, in which case it doesn't just apply to religion, it should be anything.

Or you think it has risk to the community, but religion should get preferential treatment.

No they don't.

Worship what?

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