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The difficulty with issues like masking and social distancing is that viruses could care less about political ideology. If people aren't wearing masks they can spread coronavirus even to those people who are wearing masks. If mandates do not exist for mask wearing, I cannot shop in a grocery store for food with some reasonable degree of safety. If employees cannot be required to wear masks than I cannot even pick up my groceries without some concern about who has been handling them.
The problem with mask mandates is that they're "easy". That is, easy to implement and/or obey, and virtue-signal about it everywhere. When in practice, they're dehumanizing and create a false sense of security. I'd rather let my immune system, instead of a face condom, protect me. This includes boosting my immune system with a vaccine on taxpayers' dime, although I think it can do just fine naturally. But masks and social distancing? Puh-leeeze! The former is dehumanizing. The latter does more damage to mental health than it adds to physical health.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
That's not collectiveness or socialism. Its common sense tempered by a working knowledge of science.
It's the same "science" that insists the world is turning into a hot inferno during a -25*F cold snap. I only trust science from conservative sources or from centuries-old common knowledge. Covid may be real, but it's a glorified flu virus, and doesn't deserve the attention the blue states give it. Why can't all states be like South Dakota, 'Rona-wise!
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 01-14-2021 at 06:27 PM..
Unfortunately in a truly individualist system we would have some harsh and unpleasant results. One is that if the full cost and effort of raising children would be left to the parents, then many (most?) intelligent people would refuse to have children. We would have a combination of "idiocracy" style reverse-evolution, and considerable suffering amongst the poorly-raised children, who do manage to get born.
Nature itself is harsh; evolution and all that. But is this condign with our ethical sensibilities as humans? In other words, must we have a suboptimal and potentially unfair situation, where the strong are taxed and saddled with a responsibility to provide for the weak, while amongst the weak, parasitism is enabled? I think that to some extent we must. To be sure, this is unfair, and to some degree outright stupid. But can we really countenance the alternative?
The implicit assumption here is that people will do things that are heavily penalized the same way they do when they are not. If the cost of a decision was starvation and suffering, and it actually was a real thing that was a certainty to happen, decision making would be far more careful. And more rational. And you wouldn’t have any of thIs mass suffering that you are simply asserting as inevitable. People will conform to reality. But they have to actually face the consequences of reality to adapt to it.
It should be the commonest of common sense that becoming a parent is a decision that should be accompanied by having sufficient wherewithal to pay all the expenses for raising that child. Including education. Or else don’t have one. Just like a car, a boat, or a dog, or a house. You can’t pay? You don’t have.
The problem with mask mandates is that they're "easy". That is, easy to implement and/or obey, and virtue-signal about it everywhere. When in practice, they're dehumanizing and create a false sense of security. I'd rather let my immune system, instead of a face condom, protect me. This includes boosting my immune system with a vaccine on taxpayers' dime, although I think it can do just fine naturally. But masks and social distancing? Puh-leeeze! The former is dehumanizing. The latter does more damage to mental health than it adds to physical health.
It's the same "science" that insists the world is turning into a hot inferno during a -25*F cold snap. I only trust science from conservative sources or from centuries-old common knowledge. Covid may be real, but it's a glorified flu virus, and doesn't deserve the attention the blue states give it. Why can't all states be like South Dakota, 'Rona-wise!
At this point, people who don’t “believe” in masks are not going to be convinced. So private companies have to just exercise their private property rights and restrict entry to those who wear masks. If one doesn’t “believe” in masks, their option is to stay home. Fairly simple. Anyone forcing the issue and insisting on entry should be arrested. You can’t argue with irrational people. But you can bar them from entering your private property. So let’s just keep it simple and do that.
The implicit assumption here is that people will do things that are heavily penalized the same way they do when they are not. If the cost of a decision was starvation and suffering, and it actually was a real thing that was a certainty to happen, decision making would be far more careful. And more rational. And you wouldn’t have any of thIs mass suffering that you are simply asserting as inevitable. People will conform to reality. But they have to actually face the consequences of reality to adapt to it.
It should be the commonest of common sense that becoming a parent is a decision that should be accompanied by having sufficient wherewithal to pay all the expenses for raising that child. Including education. Or else don’t have one. Just like a car, a boat, or a dog, or a house. You can’t pay? You don’t have.
Being pretty far along the antinatalist spectrum, and child-free myself, I very much support your viewpoint on a personal level. But the unfortunate consequence is that we’d have as a society far fewer children, and therefore, far fewer workers and consumers in the next generation. I’m of an age, where today’s pre-schoolers will (one hopes) be paying for my eventual Social Security. Is that collectivist? Maybe. But those same current preschoolers will be buying cars (or not?) and using electricity and so forth, supplied by companies in which I invest. I need future profligate consumers to keep profligately consuming, so that my stocks would keep rising.
Society is structured to bribe people to have kids, and to rather viciously penalize those who don’t. This is inevitable. I much resent my tax-dollars going to failing (and costly) local public schools! But I fear the alternative even more.
So whereas I personally am thankful for being child-free, and even encourage my younger friends to eschew parenthood, nevertheless, I can’t help grudgingly supporting pro-natalist policies that encourage the – shall we say? – marginally competent, to produce more babies, who will become the janitors or burger-flippers (or maybe even cannon-fodder?) of the future. That is, until we can grow Epsilon-minus semi-morons in Bokanovsky groups.
Being pretty far along the antinatalist spectrum, and child-free myself, I very much support your viewpoint on a personal level. But the unfortunate consequence is that we’d have as a society far fewer children, and therefore, far fewer workers and consumers in the next generation. I’m of an age, where today’s pre-schoolers will (one hopes) be paying for my eventual Social Security. Is that collectivist? Maybe. But those same current preschoolers will be buying cars (or not?) and using electricity and so forth, supplied by companies in which I invest. I need future profligate consumers to keep profligately consuming, so that my stocks would keep rising.
Society is structured to bribe people to have kids, and to rather viciously penalize those who don’t. This is inevitable. I much resent my tax-dollars going to failing (and costly) local public schools! But I fear the alternative even more.
So whereas I personally am thankful for being child-free, and even encourage my younger friends to eschew parenthood, nevertheless, I can’t help grudgingly supporting pro-natalist policies that encourage the – shall we say? – marginally competent, to produce more babies, who will become the janitors or burger-flippers (or maybe even cannon-fodder?) of the future. That is, until we can grow Epsilon-minus semi-morons in Bokanovsky groups.
That is a cynical, cynical outlook. And coming from me, that’s saying something!
At this point, people who don’t “believe” in masks are not going to be convinced. So private companies have to just exercise their private property rights and restrict entry to those who wear masks. If one doesn’t “believe” in masks, their option is to stay home. Fairly simple. Anyone forcing the issue and insisting on entry should be arrested. You can’t argue with irrational people. But you can bar them from entering your private property. So let’s just keep it simple and do that.
As a staunch conservative, I agree with this. A private business has a right to do what makes its owners and staff comfortable. If it wants its customers to wear an "elephant's trunk" gas mask and stay 50 feet apart (rather than a face condom and 6 feet apart), I support their decision to require it, even if my right to a bare face ends at their door. At the same time, I have a right not to patronize it, and to review it harshly but fairly on Yelp.
The problem is that "they" treat masks and social distancing as a cure-all, and coerce private businesses into doing the same. Well, states with the strictest mask and social distancing mandates still have longest-lasting Covid rates. By contrast, South Dakota and Florida, where you can show your face and hug people, only had high spikes that were a flash in the pan. Covid simply burned out through natural herd immunity not found in a syringe.
The implicit assumption here is that people will do things that are heavily penalized the same way they do when they are not. If the cost of a decision was starvation and suffering, and it actually was a real thing that was a certainty to happen, decision making would be far more careful. And more rational. And you wouldn’t have any of thIs mass suffering that you are simply asserting as inevitable. People will conform to reality. But they have to actually face the consequences of reality to adapt to it.
It should be the commonest of common sense that becoming a parent is a decision that should be accompanied by having sufficient wherewithal to pay all the expenses for raising that child. Including education. Or else don’t have one. Just like a car, a boat, or a dog, or a house. You can’t pay? You don’t have.
This may seem to be true in theory, but do you have any real-world evidence that it is true in practice? The real world seems to go the exact opposite way from this. People in lower classes and poorer countries have *more* children on average. What is your justification for ignoring this reality and making decisions based on a fictional idea that people will just not have kids if they can't afford them?
As a staunch conservative, I agree with this. A private business has a right to do what makes its owners and staff comfortable. If it wants its customers to wear an "elephant's trunk" gas mask and stay 50 feet apart (rather than a face condom and 6 feet apart), I support their decision to require it, even if my right to a bare face ends at their door. At the same time, I have a right not to patronize it, and to review it harshly but fairly on Yelp.
The problem is that "they" treat masks and social distancing as a cure-all, and coerce private businesses into doing the same. Well, states with the strictest mask and social distancing mandates still have longest-lasting Covid rates. By contrast, South Dakota and Florida, where you can show your face and hug people, only had high spikes that were a flash in the pan. Covid simply burned out through natural herd immunity not found in a syringe.
Florida's COVID case reporting has been attenuated by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Florida Health Officials Ordered Not To Discuss Covid Publicly Leading Up To Election
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration ordered local health officials to not release public statements about the Covid-19 pandemic for more than a month leading up to Election Day on November 3, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, in what appears to be yet another effort by the governor’s office to downplay the massive toll coronavirus has taken on public health in the state."
Florida Agents Raid Home of Rebekah Jones, Former State Data Scientist
"Jones has said she lost her job after she refused requests to manipulate data to suggest Florida was ready to ease coronavirus restrictions. A spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time that she 'exhibited a repeated course of insubordination during her time with the department.'"
The OP's main complaint seems to be that our culture isn't well suited to mitigating a contagious pandemic. Yet our Enlightenment-based culture has suited us quite well over the past, let's say two and a half centuries or so.
We have:
Abolished slavery
Given women the right to vote
Legalized gay marriage
Established world peace as an ultimate goal
India still struggles with violence against women, religious riots, and legacies of the caste system.
China (Beijing) still sends ethnic minorities to concentration camps, still forces the Dalai Lama to live in exile, and cracks down hard on Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.
We may "get offended" when a foreign classmate gets too personal without realizing it. But so what? We are told to be very cautious because anything we say or do can be perceived as a "microaggression". Why now invite our foreign classmates to take stock of their own unintended microaggressions?
And yet our culture is one of the most Imperialist of them all. The conduct engaged in by our military on foreign lands is oftentimes threatening enough that if another country did the same to us as we do to them, they would be viewed as engaging in terroristic threatening. And for what, to prop up the military-industrial complex? Establishing world peace as an ultimate goal is one thing, but proclaimed values mean nothing if your actions betray those proclamations and show where your real priorities are.
Also, even in non-pandemic times, the degree of healthcare and housing inequity in this country far surpasses that in many other developed countries. In the USA you have no guaranteed paid sick leave, no guaranteed paid parental leave, and no guarantee of being able to afford basic healthcare. Much of the rest of the world is far more accepting of basic humanitarian values and social safety nets. Our rugged individualism has resulted in a significant loss of empathy that has made it socially acceptable to simply throw poor and disabled people completely under the bus. People who have lost an arm are not given reasonable accommodation, unless, of course, that arm was lost in service of the War Machine.
The US doesn't want to promote science or public goods, it seems, except when it is used to fight a war. In no way can this be considered to be a continuation of Enlightenment.
At this point, people who don’t “believe” in masks are not going to be convinced. So private companies have to just exercise their private property rights and restrict entry to those who wear masks. If one doesn’t “believe” in masks, their option is to stay home. Fairly simple. Anyone forcing the issue and insisting on entry should be arrested. You can’t argue with irrational people. But you can bar them from entering your private property. So let’s just keep it simple and do that.
I agree that private companies should have the ability to restrict those who enter their establishment, but with that said, we shouldnt be able to pick and choose which restrictions are allowable and which are not. Let the private companies restrictions dictate their success and eventually they will be weeded out.
As you know, I personally am against wearing a mask. I know some people dont "believe" they work, but my position is that I simply dont feel Covid is a threat to the majority of the population; it goes back to personal responsibility. If I did feel threatened, I would certainly have no issues wearing a mask. I also view the world as being overpopulated, so I will just leave that there.
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that insists the world is turning into a hot inferno during a -25*F cold snap. I only trust science from conservative sources or from centuries-old common knowledge. Covid may be real, but it's a glorified flu virus, and doesn't deserve the attention the blue states give it. Why can't all states be like South Dakota, 'Rona-wise!
