Comment by throwawaylinux | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaylinux | Hacker News Reader

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Are you really puzzled why acute changes to people's lives get attention and response, in some cases more than arguably deeper problems that they've lived with for much longer and are harder to notice the impact of?

I see this kind of alleged puzzlement a lot here and on the internet in general. I'm not puzzled by it though, I think it's usually insincere and simply used as a cheap rhetorical device to dismiss people's feelings and reactions without actually making an argument.

For the very few people who genuinely don't understand: this is part of the human condition. People aren't "rational" according to a text book. People's happiness and feelings depend hugely on contrasting situations. Whether it is your situation now compared to your situation before, or your situation compared to your neighbor's situation. In many cases this has a bigger impact than the "absolute" situation. And the misunderstanding or disregarding of other people's feelings does not invalidate them.

I agree with this.

I think we also need to examine the notion of what is "rational".

Even if we were truly rational beings (in the sense of being something like utilitarian happiness maximisers with an omniscient view and amazing central planning), we have value functions that don't solely revolve around "be alive and make more life".

My grandmother's response to coronavirus was to continue and crack on with her life as usual. Some of her friends did the same and died. Was this irrational? Her reasoning: we weren't put on this earth to sit indoors staring at the TV.

She's still out there rolling the dice every day, it's not like this is a one-and-done. What is the value of a few months of freedom to an 80-year-old?

If you are 80 years old and vaccinated against COVID, there are a lot of other things that are more likely to kill you. So she should be out living her life.

At the outset of the pandemic it sounds like irrational behavior, knowing what I did at the time. After vaccination though and assuming she's wearing a mask in crowded areas its a pretty calculated risk and one she should be comfortable with.

> I see this kind of alleged puzzlement a lot here and on the internet in general.

Same. Easiest way to fish for upvotes.

Yeah, this is a kind of trolling/flamebaiting behavior. Even if we assume good faith, ilitirit is at best bragging that they are so galaxy-brained that they can't understand why everyone isn't making a bigger deal about Real Issues. It's not cute and it's not interesting.

It's more than that I think. It's boasting about selfishness and a lack of empathy in a way.

I also have a "side" in the general covid individualism vs collectivism debate, but I can absolutely see the issues people on the other side have. Even the ones I don't think are all that reasonable or valid, I can empathize with how others feel and understand how they could feel that way without being "bad people".

Unfortunately I see a lot of this selfish rhetoric from both sides but particularly from the collectivist side, the ones who have said we're all in this together and have asked others to make sacrifices, to summarily dismiss the concerns of others, remain totally closed to any of their opinions or concerns, and even outright making fun of them and bullying them ("poor baby"). It's really quite an astounding about face and I can't quite fathom the blatant hypocrisy and hatefulness of it.

I'd offer that many in the more collectivist mindset were shocked by the response to: incoming scientific data and recommendations, vaccinations, and vilification of certain leaders in science. So you have an escalation of rhetoric to balance that, to the point where it starts to drown out real, debatable concerns from the other side.

I know there's a bit of a chicken/egg problem here in who to point fingers at on who started what rhetoric, but I do feel strongly that the individualist response that came out of the gate was very naive and often continues to be. If people are still bringing up the initial guidance on mask wearing from early 2020, it tells me they had zero empathy or understanding of what the situation was at the time.

Sure, and the other mindset was shocked by the response to the incoming scientific data as well. Can you not empathize with that or understand it? You don't have to agree with it, but if you believe they must be "bad people" or have zero empathy to hold those views, then it may not be them who have the empathy deficiency.

The policies and government responses to the pandemic is not "science". They say it's science or evidence based, which is fine it takes that into account. But the actual policies and tradeoffs themselves are not. You could say that some restrictions and medical coercion placed on people would prevent 10,000 deaths. But even if that was true, the tradeoff is not "science". Somebody else could call you a hateful grandma killing science denier for your preference and say they would rather forcefully isolate every person and prevent all movement or travel and save 20,000 because health systems are still collapsing under your scheme.

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