‘Cave Syndrome’ Keeps the Vaccinated in Social Isolation | Hacker News Reader

‘Cave Syndrome’ Keeps the Vaccinated in Social Isolation

scientificamerican.com

22 pointsLinuxBender23 comments

People born in the West after the near total eradication of Small Pox, Polio, Mumps, Marlia etc. have never really dealt with a disease that could be an existential threat. In fact, outside of being in the military or acting recklessly (both within control of the actor), most people born post-1970 have never really faced an external existential threat.

I believe this lack of threat has warped our ability to calculate risk properly. We underestimate the risk posed by threats within our control (diet, drinking heavily, excessive drug use, driving dangerously) and greatly exaggerate the risk of external threats (pandemics, terrorism, being murdered randomly).

I wonder if children in their formative years right now will be better at calculating external risk as they lived through what is ostensibly an existential risk that hasn't been experienced in decades. Or did the (arguable) overreaction of society screw their risk tolerance up more than ever?

> believe this lack of threat has warped our ability to calculate risk properly. We underestimate the risk posed by threats within our control (diet, drinking heavily, excessive drug use, driving dangerously)

The generation that grew with those existential threats drunk more, drove more dangerously, generally risked more and looked at healthy food as on something feminine and weak.

> healthy food as on something feminine and weak.

Did they? It is also only within the last 100 years that we really had any _choice_ at all of what to eat. Before transportation revolutions, food was what was grown or slaughtered locally.

> drove more dangerously

Again, did they? Cars we more dangerous, no question there. But they were also made of steel that had no crumple ability, with terrible suspension and steering that was more akin to a boat than a modern, nimble car.

> drunk more

I don't know on this one. I think binge drinking is more prevalent now, as opposed to good ol' functioning alcoholism of days gone by. I am not sure which is more "dangerous". I think binge is more near-term dangerous while long-term abuse is more long-term dangerous (liver disease etc)

Yes they drove more dangerously. As in, taking risks while driving was cool fun thing. Not taking them made you look bad. As in drinking and driving was cool manly fun thing.

Yes, they were more likely to be alcoholics. As in, drinking whole salary worth of alcohol and not functioning. As in, your health being affected by it severly. Actual alcoholism.

As with food, 1921 was right after WWI. Food options were limited more by consequences of war and pauvrety, technologically you could eat basically whatever. But, ex soldiers treated the whole "I won't eat fat, sugar and what not, just to be healthy" as unmanly and spoiled.

I honestly have no basis to agree or disagree with you. I know plenty of 16-28 year olds who drive dangerously and drive drunk/stoned these days too. That is all anecdotal evidence and thus I can't really use it as a basis for arguing _against_ what you say. But likewise I can't just take your claims at face value.

I can easily drink my whole salary if I only drink 25+ year old single malt :)

Alcoholism rates are well studied. There is nothing anecdotal about it. Youth alcohol consumption is well studied. There are many studies on that too - youth now are drinking less then they used to.

Google any of those.

Youth deliquency rates are also not just subject of anecdotes. War generations had ... issues. They were violent way more among other things.

The face value here is ideology: some people realy like to believe that wars and danger makes people better. They don't in reality. They traumatize people, desensitivise them, make them have issues.

Oh oh oh I was never intending to imply war and danger makes people "better" at all. As subjective as that is. My argument was directly relating to existential threats posed by disease and how removed those born in the past 60 years are from those dangers. This has undoubtedly changed our risk tolerance _for disease_ and arguably (and I don't have the answer at all) for other external factors.

War is not the answer for building a resilient society at all, and my apologies if it seemed I was implying that it was.

> “Even though a person may be vaccinated, they still may find it difficult to let go of that fear because they're overestimating the risk and probability.”

Even if they're not vaccinated. Yes, it's a serious illness. But if I meet another young healthy person who acts like it's guaranteed to kill them, I think I may weep. There are young adults in their 20s and 30s cowering at home in complete disproportion to the risk. There are a few in my extended social circle who refuse to go outside at all, even one who is fully vaccinated.

But it's like my own GP commented at one point during this. You're still far more likely to die of a heart attack. I'm pretty sure that on average, a year of heavy stress, social isolation, junk food, booze and TV for a young person is certain to knock more years off their life than COVID-19 would. Personally, I've been going for daily runs in my low-density suburban area throughout this all. Some have reacted to this like it means I'm suicidal, but even if the estimates on outdoor transmission are like 10x too low, it's still likely the better choice for my long-term health.

I see two problems with what you've said.

Firstly - the long-term effects of Covid aren't fully known. What is known is... bad. There are plenty of people - young people - who have permanently lost lung function, or struggling with CFS now. It can really mess you up and make your quality of life worse, forever. I don't think it's irrational to be scared of that, and I think your off-the-cuff assertion that the ravages of lockdown are more dangerous is questionable.

Secondly - as long as the virus circulates, we have a serious problem. Going out and doing whatever because you're not worried about yourself is a supremely selfish act, even if you're correct in your assessment. Not only because you might give the virus to someone else who might fare poorly, but because this kind of transmission is why we have a problem. We could end this virus in weeks if we all somehow mustered the collective will to stay home and isolate properly, all at the same time. But we don't. Don't blame people for trying to do their part.

First - Yes. Valid enough. Any infection can kill you or leave lasting damage if you're unlucky. It's best to avoid them altogether. Still, the vast majority of young people will clear this one without problems.

Second - I did not say it explicitly, but maybe in these crazy times it has to be said? It is, obviously, profoundly wrong to selfishly risk the lives of others like that.

But are you suggesting that even going for a jog is supremely selfish? Stuff like that is actually recommended by the health authorities where I live, as it is very low risk and people need exercise. That's sort of my point.

Fear, in disproportion to the risk, can cause people to take "doing their part" too far. Some people are refusing to go outside to exercise. There are stories of people not getting injuries like broken limbs treated at the hospital, over fear of COVID-19. Stuff like that is fear driving people to irrational calculations on risk-benefit.

No, of course going for a jog outdoors is fine, especially in a sparsely populated area. The point was simply that the more socially minded you are, your less relevant is your own personal risk. You'd know your friends better than I, but all I'm saying is that what could easily be taken for "fear" might, in fact, be "duty".

Speaking for myself - I have been more careful than anyone in my social group, to an extent that many would call excessive, and I've been viewed as fearful for that. But my motivation runs much deeper - this is the first time in my entire life that society has had a singular, overarching goal that every person can contribute towards with their own behavior. It's the closest thing to a war footing since WW2. And my job, as a citizen, is very simple: Do Not Transmit Covid. You bet your ass I'm going to throw everything I've got into that.

Not going to the hospital for a broken bone is stupid though.

> Going out and doing whatever because you're not worried about yourself is a supremely selfish act

and that’s OK because expecting someone else to change their life because of your own fears is far more selfish and what many people seem to be overlooking here in all of this is the further societal disintegration of privacy, what we do with our own time, where we decide to go, what our health status is, all of these things are private matters, that’s a big part of what it means to have freedom, personal responsibility, free agency, and privacy all go hand in hand

> as long as the virus circulates, we have a serious problem

Sorry this is ridiculous. The coronaviruses that surfaced in the 20th and 19th c. are not as dangerous as they once were. And if they are, they're part of the array of viruses that we were able to handle before even though they're dangerous to the immunoincompetent (senescence, etc).

Many of the young people I interact with are not really afraid for themselves, but that they will end up killing their grandparents or even just strangers.

Gen Z is very socially minded and concerned with doing the right thing for society at large, and that's motivating their isolation more than fear for their personal safety, I believe.

Various polls throughout the pandemic have shown that both zoomers and millenials have been terrible on average estimating their personal risk as well as the risk of the other age groups. Believing they have at least a 2% fatality risk, and a 7.5% chance of hospitalization. Which is wrong by several orders of magnitude. Source: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/21/young-pe...

Social media has magnified the natural fear and anxiety that many of us naturally feel surrounding disease. The generations most exposed to it are the least able to accurately estimate risk associated with Covid as a result.

I personally believe that historians will look back on this period as one driven by panic and extreme emotion. Social media is to blame for this, and will continue to magnify these kinds of events.

I looked up the stats and for someone under 35, they are more likely to die of murder than of Covid-19, in the United States and much more likely to die of suicide or car accident.

I take steps to avoid dying from a car accident (wearing a seatbelt and not drunk driving) and, hopefully, am not suicidal. I also try to eat healthy and exercise to avoid the many ways your diet and lack of exercise can kill you.

So why is it weird to take steps to avoid dying of a preventable deadly pandemic?

For the same reason that it's weird to wear a bulletproof vest everywhere you go: it makes life less lively and enjoyable and it makes human contact less fulfilling. Your focus becomes staying alive rather than being alive. You lose out on social serendipity. You rob yourself of fulfilling experiences like dancing with someone you just met, singing karaoke with strangers, smiling at a boy or girl you're into getting smiled back at, smelling the roses, and taking in the here and the now.

You can look behind every bush for a killer, maybe it will save your life, but it's no way to live life.

Yeah it's sort of silly because the reason the risk of car accidents is low is because you take steps to avoid them.

Of course. The kind I was describing is definitely a minority. I'm an older millennial, myself. I've been socially distancing since last February. But my fear and worries have been largely for my friends with chronic conditions, my older relatives, my community, and humanity in general. I haven't had much fear for my own personal health, and I do think that's a reasonable feeling given the odds for me. But it is jarring when contrasted with people in the same situation who are terribly worried.

> I'm pretty sure that on average, a year of heavy stress, social isolation, junk food, booze and TV for a young person is certain to knock more years off their life than COVID-19 would.

Honestly, it was neither the most stressful nor most isolating year of my life. In fact, it was pretty low stress. Everyone I know went through the same experience which made communication easier. And I took covid seriously and followed all precautions.

I slept more. I eate healthier food. I do more sport. I spend more time with kids. The worst was home school, the rest was fine.

The comon mistake of anti-covid people is that they assume that if I have mask and socially distance, that I am super stressed whole time. It is just not the case.

Risk = probability x severity. Probability is low but severity is very high: you die. Staying home and taking precautions like wearing a mask is essentially zero cost, zero effort, so why not do it? It’s like wearing a seatbelt. Cost is zero and it saves lives.

I don’t want to die. Sorry if that makes me a scardy-cat. I can live with that.

> In May 2020 researchers at the University of British Columbia published a study in the journal Anxiety

I dunno why, but it cracks me up that there’s a journal called Anxiety. Do they poach their editorial staff from Mad?

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