Comment by ipython | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ipython | Hacker News Reader

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Geez, because there are more than first-order effects from the person who contracts the virus... this argument ticks me off so much, as if the only concern is "well, I don't die/get sick/have lasting effects, so what is the big darn deal?"

Let me tell you what the big darn deal is, from the perspective of someone who likely won't get sick either.

My wife just suffered through sepsis from a previous surgery. She ended up being admitted into the ICU for three days. I learned after the fact that there are roughly 40 staffed ICU beds in the entire county, population ~400,000. Those beds could easily be taken by COVID patients in a situation where you have uncontrolled community spread, and the hospital is now making difficult choices of who deserves those beds.

Now as she recovers her immune system is still fragile. In her normal condition, she probably would be OK after contracting COVID-19. Now, perhaps not so much. If others around me assume that contracting COVID-19 is "no big deal" and end up transmitting it to her, that may not be a problem for those people. It would be a huge deal for me.

What's missing in these rosy pictures of COVID-19 is the lack of awareness that... gasp... we live with other people, and that we all have a duty to protect each other, not just ourselves! What is so wrong with that? If wearing a mask helps me protect others around me, then why not do it? Honestly, if that's the worst encumbrance you've encountered in your life so far, then you've had quite the privileged experience, and as I'd say to my children, you're damn spoiled.

If you don't want to listen to me, listen to the people who have taken an oath to protect my life and yours: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-enraging-deja-vu-of-a.... It's absurd the entitlement that some people display, thinking "well, if something bad happens to me, there will be someone to save me". At the end of the day, the nurses and doctors that treat you are people too. Respecting them means more than sending flowers or banging on pots, it means doing your part to help ensure they can care for the true emergencies and not just idiots who can't be bothered to follow some simple rules to help out the greater good.

Just because people drive like A-holes around me when I'm riding my bicycle on the road doesn't mean that I should try to get the government to take away their cars by force. Or to force them to never go over the speed limit. Or to force them to only drive smaller cars with better visibility out the windows. Sure it would be nice if people did all these things. But I don't think it's right to force any of it. I'm sorry about your wife - that would be really scary and suck. I hope that both of you are able to stay safe and healthy.

You've made your own argument against your point. There are rules about all those things. You speed too much or in the presence of a cop, you'll get pulled over. In my state, you go more than 20 over and you have a mandatory jail sentence. There are strict rules and crash tests from insurance associations for all vehicles to reduce the risk from car crashes.

Furthermore, as a bicyclist you can manage your own risk and the risks aren't correlated. Viruses don't listen to Fox News or MSNBC. You can't wish away exponential growth. Just because a car crashes into your bicycle, doesn't mean that three other crashes occur in close proximity. I'm sorry, but your comparison doesn't make any sense.

That was a good rebuttal. My point, which apparently I didn't make very well, was that we accept some danger in order to avoid some limitations on liberty. It is not a binary tradeoff. We could choose to enforce those rules or make them more strict and save even more lives potentially, but we don't. Because society has decided to draw our line in a certain place on the liberty/safety spectrum. You and I and many others draw our lines in different places on this spectrum. That's fine. I don't dismiss other arguments against my position as being made by dumb, uninformed people. We need to be careful to avoid judging all the sides by their "worst" proponents.

I think we can find some common ground here. For example, I find 'helicopter parents' to be very frustrating. I am closer to (but admittedly still fall short of) the "free range parent". On the whole, our society overemphasizes "zero risk" policies of which I am not a fan, especially when it comes to children. In summary, I am not a fan of the "nanny state". So perhaps you find my vehement defense of masks incongruent.

However, I have a strong sense of duty to a cause larger than myself. So when there is a tradeoff between a minor inconvenience to myself (say a vaccine or in this case a mask in public places), I tend to err on the side on a minor personal inconvenience to help out the larger whole. When it comes to matters of personal responsibility that have consequences limited to the individual engaging in the activity, I tend to say that is their choice.

I'm curious - you haven't mentioned any concern with other communal health mandates. After all, clothing mandates for private businesses aren't even all that crazy. Have you tried entering a restaurant--or indeed any business--without a shirt or shoes? (I have) You'll be politely asked to leave. Why should your freedom to wear (or not wear) clothing of your choice be infringed by the proprietors of these establishments?

BTW- I used to think that these requirements ("no shirt, no shoes, no service") were part of local health codes, but as I was researching my comment here I came across this: https://people.howstuffworks.com/where-did-shirt-shoes-requi.... I have no idea if that's true or not, but I find it even more interesting that nobody has a problem complying with that rule but when it comes to reducing the risk of a highly contagious airborne virus, wearing a face covering is suddenly a huge imposition.

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