Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by treeman79 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

treeman79

It is a political decision. The kind leaders are supposed to make, the kind they don’t like making.

A leader has to decide on either pushing early and either saving/condemning hundreds of thousand of lives.

Or playing it safe and condemning/saving hundreds of thousands to death while we complete years worth of trials.

Oh because that’s not enough pressure the economy is burning, which will cost many lives as well.

It’s a horrible decision to make anyway you slice it.

Politician is going to be hated no matter what.

If it works, they are bad for taking so long, taking risk. If it goes south...

View on HN

I think the common understanding of a decision 'driven by politics instead of science' is making the choice in the way that most advantages your own political career, instead of the way that saves lives or the economy.

Aren't those two things essentially the same thing? The best way to advance your career is to make choices that benefit the most people. You're not going to get ahead if your decision fails to save lives or the economy.

The best way to advance your career is to make choices that benefit the most people.

You're not going to get ahead if your decision fails to save lives or the economy.

Is this satire, or simply your first brush with politics?

The subject of the vaccine is a tidy hypothetical example. Approve vaccine (with no actual regard to efficacy or safety). Bolster confidence in the status quo, reopen economy. People feel hopeful, things look up, re-elect current administration. Whoops, turns out the vaccine is actually poison. But it's too late to elect the other guy now, and the administration retains power four more years.

You are, if you manage to blame the other party for sabotaging you.

"political decision" in this context is making a decision to approve something to increase the odds of one candidate winning. It is not "a decision by a politician" but rather "a decision with the primary motivation being political gains only".

Are you sure the polled people interpreted it like that?

I for one read it as politicians pushing for a quick release because the effects of the pandemic are so bad while the risk of side-effects is difficult to predict.

In part.

Politicians pander to their people. Most often by promising take stuff from group A and give it to group B

Killing off your constituents is usually bad for re-election. So mutual self interest.

What you just described is a "policy" decision, one designed to optimize for good results. A "political" decision would be one designed to increase one's support among some sort of collective-decision-making class (voters, in this context). It's sort of the opposite, in context.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com