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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

Whether or not you agree if these particular lockdowns were needed, I can't believe anyone would argue there is NO situation where a government should have the legal authority to order a lockdown.

What if Covid had a 50% mortality rate? Would that not have justified a lockdown?

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It wouldn't have been needed. Nor was the one we did have. The huge amount of fear in March 2020 resulted in evidence of that*: Cell phone tracking data in the US showed people were staying home about a week before a single lockdown started. The lockdown orders had no effect, no additional people stopped moving around, and movement started creeping back upwards only a few weeks later while the lockdowns were still in full effect.

*I've looked for this over and over since then and haven't been able to find it, I get the feeling it might have been taken offline.

This simply isn’t true. If every single person had stayed fully locked down, the pandemic would have stopped in its tracks.

Source?

But that simply isn't true either.

Perfect eradication has to be the objective, not simply stopping it in its tracks. Otherwise, whenever you open up, you start spreading again.

It's also a rather offensive appeal to human superiority in as much as it totally ignores the various animal reservoirs.

Yes because everyone would have died of starvation, problem solved right?

> Would that not have justified a lockdown?

No, not even a 100% mortality rate justifies a lockdown

Movement of individuals (as long as he/she is not moving into your home/territory etc.) is IMO a sacred 'right' that one must offer one's fellow humans. It's a slippery slope if a dire situation however real is used as a justification for a lockdown.

After reading your comment, I have a better understanding of the thoughts that may be going through the mind of "Tuberculosis Tammy", who has infectious TB and has been on the run from isolation/treatment since January 2022[1].

I disagree with the concept that individual freedoms trumps the safety of other's, as does society at large, which deems some level of negligence to be criminal.

I hope the next pandemic has a short incubation period and ultra-high mortality.

1. https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/05/fugitive-with-untreat...

> individual freedoms trumps the safety of other's

See, you’re using the fallacy, right here. We can still do both.

> We can still do both.

I was hoping you'd explain in more detail, so I wont have to assume what your reasoning. By "do both", were you perhaps referring to measures like masks mandates while allowing people move freely? Unsurprisingly, some people felt mandates violated the sanctity of their individual rights too.

>I was hoping you'd explain in more detail, so I wont have to assume what your reasoning. By "do both",

sangnoir, Think really hard and you will be able to come up with something (where 'both' can be done).

If you cannot come up with anything then I'd say that even having a discourse with someone who can potentially come up with something is pointless because of the wide chasm.

I think it is a slippery slope to say that freedom of movement trumps all other rights. No one has the right to kill me and my children just so they can exercise their right to go wherever they want whenever they want.

You can lockdown your children and not expose them to the ones who choose risking being exposed. Can’t you?

But freedom of movement does trump your right.

At least as far as COVID is concerned, and that's because COVID isn't a realistic concern for most children.

There are people (children, but also others) for whom it is a marked concern, and appropriate risk mitigation strategies should be taking. Working with the gung-ho assumption that all spaces are essentially risk free would represent a fail in your duty of care.

I was not necessarily talking about Covid, but about a hypothetical worse pandemic with a much higher fatality rate. The person I replied to said there would be no situation worth restricting freedom of movement for, no matter how deadly the disease.

If you're of child rearing age your risk of dying was like driving 10,000 miles. Also, you're delegating your responsibility to the "other". As other posters mentioned if that level of risk is unacceptable you can choose to take measures that bring the risk more inline with whatever tolerance you have.

Some of us are more afraid of an all powerful state using any excuse to further their own interests.

I was not talking about Covid, the person I replied to said there would be no possible disease that would justify lockdowns.

This is really interesting. So you would genuinely be okay with with the death of something like 99% of the human population, because government imposed lockdowns are worse? Because that's what a 100% mortality rate COVID means without NPIs, 90-95% of people dead from the virus directly and almost all of the rest dead because society had collapsed around them. I am absolutely fascinated by the kind of person that can genuinely believe that, is it a sort of extreme libertarianism? Or maybe an ecological thing, you think the death of humanity would be a genuinely good thing and this 100% mortality COVID would just be a means to an end?

>okay with with the death of something like 99% of the human population

No, certainly not. I want people to make their own informed choices. It can be heart-wrenching for oneself to observe people make (what you think) an obvious wrong choice, but if you had any any life experiences of substance, you will realize that all you can do is give people the most accurate information that you have, but you should never, ever impose your decision (even if it's for the person's good) if the person does not consent to it. One could probably make an exception for very young kids.

Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Side note: who exactly decides what is good for the individual?

>No, certainly not. I want people to make their own informed choices.

These are two contradictory sentences. Wanting people to make their own informed choices unimpinged by government action while a virus with the transmissibility of COVID and a 100% fatality rate exists is definitionally being okay with the death of 99% of the human population. Like, that is the outcome so by definition if you're in favour of only dealing with pandemics through personal responsibility and you're saying that would be the case even with a virus with the transmissibility of COVID and a 100% fatality rate, then you are saying that the death of 99% of people in existence is an acceptable outcome. What I am asking is why you believe that.

What? are even _trying_ to understand me? People can stay at home and impose their own 'lockdown' and save their own lives. The one's that venture out should know that they will die, it's their choice.

The obvious outcome of that is that 99% of existing people will die. I am not asking about and do not care about whether they're "choosing to die" (an absurd thing to say about the need for food and water, anyway), I am asking why you are okay with the outcome where 99% of people are dead.

So you assume that people are too stupid (a fair assumption) to know the correct decision to take . Who is to say that you (or the govt) are not stupid, in the eyes of others? The arrogance here that you actually think you know better than others (again a fair assumption) and you want your way to be the only way(the really evil part).

>I am asking why you are okay with the outcome where 99% of people are dead.

Do you have any real life experiences? this happens all the time, why the fuck do you keep repeating that I actually _want_ people to die? Really evil things happen, when you try and help people even if it is for their own good without their consent. Often _more_ than 99% people will die if you do that. Let me repeat: you do not have enough life experiences. Let me also say another thing: you do not read enough history especially of the 'extermination' kind. There is also a good possibility, that you are a nerd/sociopath if you do not understand the concept of live, and let live.

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