Some Britons crave permanent pandemic lockdown | Hacker News Reader

Some Britons crave permanent pandemic lockdown

economist.com

47 pointsedward68 comments

I have another personal angle on this: I'm not very social. I do enjoy conversation or dinner or visits with friends or coworkers, occasionally, but not the constant barrage of invitations, events and obligations that was normal before the pandemic. So while I understand things will eventually go back to that normal for the obvious benefit of the majority, personally it feels like the end of a long, quiet vacation that I will remember and miss.

So I'm pushing back on people that want me to meet or party too soon. I'm writing this minutes after my second vaccine dose so it won't be long before my own kind of freedom runs out.

I personally didn't feel much like it was a vacation since I still had to go into the office[0], but I will miss the way the default behavior was for people to avoid each other on the street and absolutely no one attempted to start an impromptu conversation with me.

[0] except for the brief period where basically every employee had COVID, gee, how did that happen?

I've no idea why 18% of people think a permanent 10pm curfew regardless of COVID is a good thing.

But to add some perspective on the situation in the UK here is our (surprisingly good) government data website: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

As you can see, infections/day have been ~doubling every ~2 weeks for the last ~6.

And here is a letter in The Lancet from scientists opposing the imminent end of all restrictions: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

18% seems high but don’t underestimate paranoia and/or selfishness.

A lot of older people aren’t ever out past 10pm (I’m in my late thirties and I rarely am!) and have been convinced by tabloid newspapers that youths/immigrants/criminals/[delete as applicable] are doing all kinds of awful things at night time. Best to keep everyone indoors so that we’re all safe, eh?

If you go to bed at 10pm, why would you not want a curfew? For many people, 'back to normal' also means drunk people shouting under their windows in the middle of the night.

Now, a curfew sounds drastic, and I suspect many people are saying they are for it tongue in cheek. However, what's wrong with wanting to keep some of the positive aspects of the last year? Why go 'back to normal' when we can go forward to something better?

Having everyone home by 10pm would automatically curb a lot of anti-social and gang behaviour. Especially with a police blitz, scooping up anyone without a good excuse.

Not saying it's really desirable, worthwhile, or even feasible... But that's probably why some want it. Some places get pretty unpleasant after dark.

Over 18% supporting permanent curfew can’t be true, right? What’s going on in Britain?

1) People love drama 2) People say stuff they don't really mean just to perpetuate a drama in their otherwise predictable lives 3) Social media is a cancer on society 4) Statistics are sometimes nonsense

Whether it's people trolling or not understanding the question you can end up with some nonsensical percentages when you poll the public at large. I don't know if this effect has a name but I remember my statistics professor talking about this.

There's another cute (if unofficial) name for this that is slightly more specific than just "selection bias" which is (likely) what your professor was talking about: it's called the "lizardman constant"

The name is originally based from the polling "results" of this article: https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...

And (imo, aptly) named by Scott Alexander in https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...

Lizardman's Constant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...

The name of one of the factors is "selection bias". The type of people willing to take the survey may be those that already feel strongly on the topic, meaning you get results that favor one or both extremes, with fewer in the middle. Or the survey delivery mechanism makes response from some population segments less likely:

Results collected purely online may not get as maney older people less comfortable with technology (although that's a dwindling group).

Results collected through email solicitation may not get as many younger respondents who don't use email as much.

A phone survey sent out during the day will miss many people who aren't home, which will skew the results by excluding many people who are already comfortable going out, shopping, back to work, etc and move results towards "permanent lockdown".

Assuming there actually is a survey and people are actually being asked. 87% of the time it's people pulling numbers out of their ass.

If you want fake stats to support a specific viewpoint it's much less risk and very easy to simply phrase everything as a leading question directed towards certain answers. Like an uncentered Likert scale:

1) Perfect 2) Great 3) Very Good 4) Good 5) Okay 6) Neutral 7) Poor

5 out of 7 options are positive and only 1 is negative. As a bonus, the neutral & negative are listed last so you have to read through lesser positive options and the neutral before you get to the negative.

"3) Social media is a cancer on society"

Yessir.

Hacker News sometimes too.

Brit here.

I can't read the OP: paywall. Does The Economist literally say that? I don't know how they came up with that - I don't believe anybody here is in favour of "permanent curfew" (a curfew is a ban on travelling during the hours of darkness; I guess they were referring to lockdown).

I imagine there is significant opposition, however, to the government's plan to lift lockdown more-or-less completely, in a couple of weeks, against the advice of his own scientific advisers. Maybe that's what The Economist is trying to say.

Results are here: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/...

"To what extent, if at all, would you support or oppose each of the following rules being in place permanently, regardless of the risk from COVID-19?"

"Having a curfew against leaving home after 10PM without a good reason": 19%

How many of them supported a curfew before 2020?

> I can't read the OP: paywall.

It's not a real paywall. Just disable javascript and it's fine to read.

Or, you can read it here:

https://archive.is/emQBV

Thanks. I'm currently using an adblocker, but not a JS blocker. I'm pretty sure that's the wrong way round.

> A quarter say nightclubs and casinos should never reopen; almost two in ten would support an indefinite ban on leaving home after 10pm “without good reason”.

Would it really be that surprising that there's that many people who don't go to nightclubs or casinos? If it doesn't affect you after all.

https://archive.is/emQBV

Sure, it is not surprising that so many people don’t go to nightclubs, but it would be surprising that so many people without any empathy are ready to ban anything that doesn’t affect them.

Small casinos are pretty quiet.

Noisy nightclubs shouldn't be allowed in residential areas (oh, really??!!)

People with a bad attitude about other people having fun don't have any reasonable complaint, unless the fun-lovers are causing them a problem. Then the fun has to stop, or go somewhere else.

This isn't hard.

There's not really much point replying if you didn't read the article. Especially if you're trying to correct someone else. But yes, they did say that.

https://archive.is/8xmAd

I don't think I tried to correct anyone; I just asked some pretty open questions.

I've had a look at the Ipsos Mori results.

I can't find any information here...

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/...

... about how many people they interviewed, exactly what questions they were asked (or whether these were open interviews), or how the sample were selected.

18% doesn't seem all that high. Wouldn't be surprised if you'd find a similar percentage that would support it in the US.

I attribute it mostly to a noise issue: Those who live the closest to pubs/clubs and other high noise generation venues noticed the quiet difference during lockdown and wistfully wish for more.

Don’t forget that a significant fraction of them voted to leave the EU as a way of sending a message, not expecting that it could result in actually needing to leave the EU.

How many people just want to remain remote?

Yeah exactly, this is glossed over. The UK govt and many CEOs have been erring on the side of wanting "work from work" to come back. The choice for workers then is: continue restrictions and get remote working or end restrictions and be forced back into commuting etc. In this light 18% doesn't seem as high.

Old people. We are turning into a gerontocracy. This is what gave us Brexit.

Curfews cut down on crime and antisocial behaviour, even noise levels.

Curfews prevent important positive social behaviour and incubate a fearful mindset that increases anxiety and depression. Animals are happiest when they are free even if it means risk. Take a look at caged animals, they lose their shit. Locking people inside is a net negative experience and detrimental to a healthy society.

You could extend this logic to other things that are forbidden. Some people want to slap women's butts on the street (very common in Eastern Europe) but if we outlaw that are we treating people like caged animals and increasing anxiety and depression?

For the majority it cuts down legitimate activities and a healthy social life, though.

Smells a lot like older people who have their families and personal networks and have had their fun thinking that young people should stay inside and not be a bother. Thing is, young people need to socialize in order find a mate, build their social circle, establish their careers and engage with formative experiences. It's unjust for old people to decide they should be locked up after dark.

So what? So do lobotomies