I want fewer people to die or suffer from the coronavirus. If a lockdown stops transmission, then this is what I want.
Saying I shouldn’t want to tolerate a lockdown is akin to saying, after FDR responded to Hitlers declaration of war by (among other measures) instituting rationing, saying, “look! You can only get gas and meat via ration cards!Is this what you wanted?”
It isn’t the rationing I want; it’s the purpose that it serves.
If hanging from the chandelier for a week SAVED LIIIIIIVES, I think I’d do that, too. Thankfully, I have managed to observe surrounding reality and concluded that it doesn’t. I highly recommend this activity. Observing reality, not hanging from chandeliers, I mean.
–I want fewer people to die of or suffer from type II diabetes. If forcing the entire population onto a tightly controlled diet and state-mandated treadmill time prevents diabetes, then this is what I want.–
–I want fewer people to die of or suffer injury from car accidents. If banning the entire population from driving private vehicles prevents deaths from car accidents, thent this is what I want–
As long as your end goals are pure, they justify absolutely anything you want to do to achieve them. But I’m sure as long as your motives are pure, nothing bad could possibly happen to folks as a result of your plan.
What I will never understand is why the fans of lockdowns just don’t go into a personal lockdown that can last as long they want. It’s very doable. Lock the doors and never leave. Have groceries delivered. You will be completely safe. And if the rest of us choose to perish as we march outside, that’s our misfortune. I swear to God, I don’t want police to drag anybody out of their homes. Why do they want to rob us of our lives to service their neurosis?
I’ve asked this so many times but there’s never an answer.
Everybody who has a functioning brain has observed that harsher lockdowns equal exploding COVID mortality. People who are still saying “but lockdowns save liiiiiives…” shouldn’t be argued with. They are religious fanatics. I usually leave the room before they start speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor.
I have my own inner totalitarian. It insists on proper spelling and gets absolutely livid when people use “impact” as a verb. In public. The nerve! I try to keep it on a short leash.
Yes, sort of. When I was growing up, the only real uses of the word were noun and adjective: the impact site: a place where some large object has collided with another large object, and there is visible damage. He died on impact. The impact left a mile-wide crater. It was also used as an adjective for unpleasant medical conditions: I had surgery to remove impacted wisdom teeth. Elvis died of an impacted colon. More metaphorical uses were acceptable: the impact of zoning on the real estate market. The impact of the Great Depression on the educational achievement of people growing up in the 30s. That’s legit.
But then, after I reached adulthood, people suddenly, and without cause decided it was OK to use “impact” instead of “affect”. I think it is because our language education sucked, and few people in my generation can tell the difference between “affect” and “effect”– so they don’t risk it. They substitute “impact” in a completely inappropriate way, and go around talking about how they’ve impacted the lives of others. And they mean it in a positive way. But I can only hear it in a glass-filled-crater, or Elvis’-colon way. Please do not go impacting my life. I do not want my life to be impacted. It was bad enough when it was just my wisdom teeth.
As of late October, COVID has killed more people than influenza the last 5 years combined. So people who were saying “it’s just a flu” have clearly been proven wrong. How many deaths will be enough before we realize serious measures are required? 300k? 500k? 1 million?
I don’t know about lockdowns, but if we get to the point where ICUs start to become overwhelmed, I don’t see another way. I’ll listen and follow expert advise on that.
Who is this “we” that will be ensuring the masking? Should the military be deployed? The police are a little too busy with the wave of murders around the country. So who is going to be enforcing this proper mask usage on 320 million people?
Little inner totalitarians are very strong, I know.
Actually, I heard this identical argument about the kidney from the komsomol leader who was making us attend a subbotnik back in the USSR. 🙂 He also used the “we” a lot. “Are you juxtaposing yourself to the collective??” he asked.
Thirty years later in America, it’s the exact same thing.
I really don’t get what the big deal is. Masks are required in the stores I go to, and customers comply with this requirement. Do I want to wear a mask? No. But the overwhelming consensus among the experts is that masks mitigate transmission of the virus.
The experts also say that common vaccines for children don’t cause autism. I choose to believe the experts, but there will always be those who don’t.
Forget about the stores. Do you know that they are required in daycares on kids as young as two? Do you know that they are required in schools at all ages? A kid at 8, who’s at zero risk of getting it or transmitting, spends all day without access to normal rates of breathing and then after school spends three more hours in a mask dancing at her dance lesson or doing her sport. And the parents can do nothing because they have to work.
But there’s so much more. Yesterday I witnessed two young, healthy guys who are at zero risk from COVID trying to deliver two large chests up my staircase. The masks shift and go into their eyes. They begin to stumble and almost fall off the stairs. I asked, they said it happens every time. Why are we doing this? Neither they nor I have chosen this. Why can’t we be left alone to deliver our furniture in peace?
In a mask, I’m constantly on the verge of an accident because I don’t see where I’m stepping. I teach half-blind because glasses don’t fit under the shield and it’s not that clear to begin with. Students who are at zero risk sitting there in masks.
And the worst part is that all of us, the kids, the furniture guys, the kids are doing this useless and often detrimental thing because we are forced to. We didn’t choose this. My body, my choice has gone out of the window.
They are not required here, and a lot of people, including myself, have stopped wearing them. But I stopped in at the upscale grocery today to pick up some snacks for the kids, and boy was that a creepy experience! Nobody said anything, but I was seriously the only maskless person there. It felt dangerous, like perhaps the Karen mob might descend on me and cut me apart with shells at any moment.
I now have nightmares about walking into a grocery store without a mask and everybody staring at me like I’m an evildoer. It’s not normal for people to be terrified of showing their face and feeling like it’s repellent to others. It messes with our brains.
I was very careful to think happy thoughts and smile pleasantly at everyone. Particularly the employees: I know they don’t belong to the same income strata as the shoppers, and they’re required by store policy to wear masks whether they want to or not. The patrons, though– they’re all doing it voluntarily! Super creepy! Some poor dude in the checkout next to mine (clearly out of place, in his construction-site work clothes), had gotten the vibe and was pitifully trying to stretch his dusty T-shirt up over his nose.
I want fewer people to die or suffer from the coronavirus. If a lockdown stops transmission, then this is what I want.
Saying I shouldn’t want to tolerate a lockdown is akin to saying, after FDR responded to Hitlers declaration of war by (among other measures) instituting rationing, saying, “look! You can only get gas and meat via ration cards!Is this what you wanted?”
It isn’t the rationing I want; it’s the purpose that it serves.
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If hanging from the chandelier for a week SAVED LIIIIIIVES, I think I’d do that, too. Thankfully, I have managed to observe surrounding reality and concluded that it doesn’t. I highly recommend this activity. Observing reality, not hanging from chandeliers, I mean.
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Let’s try it on a much more common malady:
–I want fewer people to die of or suffer from type II diabetes. If forcing the entire population onto a tightly controlled diet and state-mandated treadmill time prevents diabetes, then this is what I want.–
–I want fewer people to die of or suffer injury from car accidents. If banning the entire population from driving private vehicles prevents deaths from car accidents, thent this is what I want–
As long as your end goals are pure, they justify absolutely anything you want to do to achieve them. But I’m sure as long as your motives are pure, nothing bad could possibly happen to folks as a result of your plan.
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What I will never understand is why the fans of lockdowns just don’t go into a personal lockdown that can last as long they want. It’s very doable. Lock the doors and never leave. Have groceries delivered. You will be completely safe. And if the rest of us choose to perish as we march outside, that’s our misfortune. I swear to God, I don’t want police to drag anybody out of their homes. Why do they want to rob us of our lives to service their neurosis?
I’ve asked this so many times but there’s never an answer.
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Because agoraphobia isn’t rational. That’s why shrinks deal with it.
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… because that was so great for the economy last time…
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Everybody who has a functioning brain has observed that harsher lockdowns equal exploding COVID mortality. People who are still saying “but lockdowns save liiiiiives…” shouldn’t be argued with. They are religious fanatics. I usually leave the room before they start speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor.
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I dread having my life saved by one of these fanatics. I’d be asphyxiated in bubble wrap for my own protection.
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There’s a little totalitarian living inside many people, and this situation is letting them unleash that totalitarian on all of us.
This scares me because COVID is a pretext. Tomorrow there will be something else. Another crucial goal that justifies hurting people.
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I have my own inner totalitarian. It insists on proper spelling and gets absolutely livid when people use “impact” as a verb. In public. The nerve! I try to keep it on a short leash.
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But isn’t impact both a noun and a verb? I just looked it up—it does have a definition as a verb as well.
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Yes, sort of. When I was growing up, the only real uses of the word were noun and adjective: the impact site: a place where some large object has collided with another large object, and there is visible damage. He died on impact. The impact left a mile-wide crater. It was also used as an adjective for unpleasant medical conditions: I had surgery to remove impacted wisdom teeth. Elvis died of an impacted colon. More metaphorical uses were acceptable: the impact of zoning on the real estate market. The impact of the Great Depression on the educational achievement of people growing up in the 30s. That’s legit.
But then, after I reached adulthood, people suddenly, and without cause decided it was OK to use “impact” instead of “affect”. I think it is because our language education sucked, and few people in my generation can tell the difference between “affect” and “effect”– so they don’t risk it. They substitute “impact” in a completely inappropriate way, and go around talking about how they’ve impacted the lives of others. And they mean it in a positive way. But I can only hear it in a glass-filled-crater, or Elvis’-colon way. Please do not go impacting my life. I do not want my life to be impacted. It was bad enough when it was just my wisdom teeth.
LikeLike
As of late October, COVID has killed more people than influenza the last 5 years combined. So people who were saying “it’s just a flu” have clearly been proven wrong. How many deaths will be enough before we realize serious measures are required? 300k? 500k? 1 million?
https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/no-covid-19-is-not-the-flu.html
Listen to the experts.
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Could you please explain what those serious measures would entail?
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We could start with ensuring proper mask use, since that has now been conclusively proven to work in slowing down the spread of the virus:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
I don’t know about lockdowns, but if we get to the point where ICUs start to become overwhelmed, I don’t see another way. I’ll listen and follow expert advise on that.
LikeLike
Who is this “we” that will be ensuring the masking? Should the military be deployed? The police are a little too busy with the wave of murders around the country. So who is going to be enforcing this proper mask usage on 320 million people?
Little inner totalitarians are very strong, I know.
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We’re talking about asking people to temporarily wear a face mask, not about forcing people to give up a kidney.
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Actually, I heard this identical argument about the kidney from the komsomol leader who was making us attend a subbotnik back in the USSR. 🙂 He also used the “we” a lot. “Are you juxtaposing yourself to the collective??” he asked.
Thirty years later in America, it’s the exact same thing.
LikeLike
I really don’t get what the big deal is. Masks are required in the stores I go to, and customers comply with this requirement. Do I want to wear a mask? No. But the overwhelming consensus among the experts is that masks mitigate transmission of the virus.
The experts also say that common vaccines for children don’t cause autism. I choose to believe the experts, but there will always be those who don’t.
LikeLike
Forget about the stores. Do you know that they are required in daycares on kids as young as two? Do you know that they are required in schools at all ages? A kid at 8, who’s at zero risk of getting it or transmitting, spends all day without access to normal rates of breathing and then after school spends three more hours in a mask dancing at her dance lesson or doing her sport. And the parents can do nothing because they have to work.
But there’s so much more. Yesterday I witnessed two young, healthy guys who are at zero risk from COVID trying to deliver two large chests up my staircase. The masks shift and go into their eyes. They begin to stumble and almost fall off the stairs. I asked, they said it happens every time. Why are we doing this? Neither they nor I have chosen this. Why can’t we be left alone to deliver our furniture in peace?
In a mask, I’m constantly on the verge of an accident because I don’t see where I’m stepping. I teach half-blind because glasses don’t fit under the shield and it’s not that clear to begin with. Students who are at zero risk sitting there in masks.
And the worst part is that all of us, the kids, the furniture guys, the kids are doing this useless and often detrimental thing because we are forced to. We didn’t choose this. My body, my choice has gone out of the window.
LikeLike
They are not required here, and a lot of people, including myself, have stopped wearing them. But I stopped in at the upscale grocery today to pick up some snacks for the kids, and boy was that a creepy experience! Nobody said anything, but I was seriously the only maskless person there. It felt dangerous, like perhaps the Karen mob might descend on me and cut me apart with shells at any moment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I now have nightmares about walking into a grocery store without a mask and everybody staring at me like I’m an evildoer. It’s not normal for people to be terrified of showing their face and feeling like it’s repellent to others. It messes with our brains.
LikeLike
I was very careful to think happy thoughts and smile pleasantly at everyone. Particularly the employees: I know they don’t belong to the same income strata as the shoppers, and they’re required by store policy to wear masks whether they want to or not. The patrons, though– they’re all doing it voluntarily! Super creepy! Some poor dude in the checkout next to mine (clearly out of place, in his construction-site work clothes), had gotten the vibe and was pitifully trying to stretch his dusty T-shirt up over his nose.
LikeLiked by 1 person