Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

C & C: Coronavirus #4

Rate this topic


Easy Truth

Recommended Posts

14 hours ago, EC said:

The flu doesn't cause a spike that can overwhelm health care systems like Covid-19 does due to it being novel with no immunity or vaccine's for it. The actual problem is worldwide socialized medicine that can't/couldn't properly prepare or real-time pivot during such a sudden and novel disease outbreak.

Yes, I appreciate that the "spike" in this pandemic, as distinct from the 'normal' flu case-and-mortality rate's more even distribution annually, spreading across geographical zones according to temperatures (as a major contributor), is unprecedented. This contingency is for what, surely, institutions like the CDC design predictive models. My strong impression is that all countries were caught hopping and then each played catch-up. The tactics, strategies, policies, media messages, political responses, inroads in individual freedoms - the thinking - ultimately the contemporary philosophy, itself - have been at fault. I agree that such a crisis reveals the flaws of socialized medicine - but the self-destructive (to my view) response to the coronavirus has deeper causal roots.   

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "war we are in", and "the enemy which must be defeated" has been commonly touted. While the metaphor may be understandable in coaxing/pressuring, but finally *coercing* peoples to be aware, take precautionary actions and modify behaviors (which they should for each one's own good, let alone everyone else's ) - and tacitly, to expect many subsequent 'casualties of war'- it is also specious. The "enemy" is perceived as you or I, or the nearest individual to us, stranger or friend, who speaks to us or coughs. Everybody perceives it is a human carrier (seen, potential, possible, or imaginary) and the objects he/she has touched, which is the real enemy, over and above the virus. For all the (wishful) narratives, an avalanche of which anyone does see daily on social and mainstream media, that "We are in this together, responsible for each other" - etc. the speakers must know they are self-deceiving. Newly learned behaviors and attitudes to others, is not easily re-learned, and already is driving humans apart: fear and distrust of the 'other' are at center and it's improbable that any minimal amount of previous, general good will to others will return soon, afterwards. As aside from what and whom most parents are teaching their kids also to morbidly and permanently fear. Here's one psychological aspect only of "the cure being worse than the disease".

When this surreal nightmare is finally over, done and dusted, and this virus "defeated" and we survey the battlefield and -all- our losses of every kind, we are going to ask - What the hell was that about?!

Was it worth it?

Historians will write this episode up as a Pyrrhic victory.

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Easy Truth said:

Worth it to whom?

To the president of the country that did not have on his resume "oversaw the deaths of 1 million or more citizens", yes, it is worth it. That is the motivation driving it ultimately.

I don't see this purely in terms of the world's leaders, presidents, prime ministers and so on. I will say that I think every "leader" today of all political bents, would do almost the same as what all the others do. The cost of making an end to their careers - - and - the devastating personal and public load of losing unpredictable numbers of lives of their citizens - is too great, to buck the universal trend, completely. Every politician I've ever seen wants to leave "his legacy" in the history books. Therefore, I fault today's philosophy and ethics, primarily -- and that philosophy is indeed cynical. I surmise that your president, at the very least, is attempting to get the US back on track and operating asap. At the cost, he knows, of being lambasted (impeached?) for not taking the virus seriously enough, for rushing things, which anyone can predict the opposition will do. He comprehends simply that men/women need activity, productivity and income to take pride in and so, a good economy. For that alone I totally agree with him. He is treading a middle line on the pandemic between media-driven overwhelming alarmism, and the practical good for all in the nation , it seems to me; an uncomfortable position.

Is "it worth it" and to whom? Endless streams of personal and private agonies like the strap line on TV news I saw just now, a question from an anonymous public member, that I only spotted the ending of "...when I don't know where my next penny is coming from?" That's whom it matters to. Man's life as "man".

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

This won't sway the majority.

I know that's so. But you don't think that every person knows this implicitly? He doesn't earn, he doesn't survive, he doesn't survive he cannot hold onto his values and thrive "proper to man". I think so. If it is explicitly evaded, is because most people sense the logical outcome would be to be "selfish" about their life. Given the morality they've been imbued with, an unbearable notion.

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

He doesn't earn, he doesn't survive,

The problem is the subjectivity around the concept "earn" or "deserve" and "worth". Currently, a large number of people don't deserve to die. This (large) number is more of a consensus that fact (threshold) of reality.

What is it worth to me? Depends if I get it and can't breath for one thing. But I personally don't think it, I think I will get it and have no symptoms. It is just "a thought" that overwhelms my other thoughts and therefore my emotions. Others may think, "oh shit, I better avoid it, it will definitely kill me". There is a very different reaction and different things are worth it to them.

Thoughts about the future are individual and they affect our assessment of what is worth it or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Easy Truth said:

The problem is the subjectivity around the concept "earn" or "deserve" and "worth". Currently, a large number of people don't deserve to die. This (large) number is more of a consensus that fact (threshold) of reality.

What is it worth to me? Depends if I get it and can't breath for one thing. But I personally don't think it, I think I will get it and have no symptoms. It is just "a thought" that overwhelms my other thoughts and therefore my emotions. Others may think, "oh shit, I better avoid it, it will definitely kill me". There is a very different reaction and different things are worth it to them.

Thoughts about the future are individual and they affect our assessment of what is worth it or not.

"Thoughts about the future are individual..." Yes, at the individual level, what does one do or think about the risk of death? 

And yes, a great amount of subjectivity (and subjective and intrinsic value) is doing the rounds now - an epidemic too, one might say. "Deserve to die" needs an answer. I think can be inferred lately more of the primacy of consciousness meme "nobody must die, not ever!" Science/tech -must- provide us everlasting lives - else the government... 

For one's own life, e.g. mine, I am willing to take the risk like all the risks I've taken before (plus being more vigilant than before) in order to keep my freedom of action; what happens, happens, so be it. For anyone close to me, the worry about them if they contracted the disease (or the pain if they died from it) would be a far less easy prospect to consider. 

Going on to everyone else, those numbers who are dying and those dead, and the individuals who mourn them: I don't know what to say. Cold comfort to say that we're all going to die, that his mortality is what is known to the rational animal, therefore for all mankind. (Pneumonia is a hard way to go, imagine the sensation of drowning, but there are many other torments humans suffer).

To return to keeping perspective and proportion. i.e. Comparisons to the other "commonly normal" flu virus which ends for a minority of unfortunates the same way as coronavirus..  

Millions caught it, as did you (I suppose), and me more than once.  Suffered for a while with fever and went on with things.

1. we survived while casually being aware that others do not. We went to no great lengths to avoid the hazard, and specifically there were no stringent acts of govt. to combat the flu.. 

2. we hardly cared for a moment, WHOM, which individual, we caught it from. In public and sometimes at home from a child, maybe. "Whom" seemed irrelevant to most, I think, while one tried to avoid passing it on.

3. the flu was vaccinated against (except many still die of it).

I suggest it is "the perception" (hello, media) which affects billions of people's emotions and governments' actions. Humans have increasingly reduced attention span - not to add is often concrete-bound. The rapidity of the spread, rather higher mortality (beginning to settle at one-plus per cent, I gather), the visibility of greater numbers of infection over a much shorter time frame in places around the world, and not least,  the intimately personal nature of "catching it" from SOMEONE,  a bad person who infects us, Zombie-like, have distorted everyone's thinking.   

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, whYNOT said:

 My strong impression is that all countries were caught hopping and then each played catch-up. The tactics, strategies, policies, media messages, political responses, inroads in individual freedoms - the thinking - ultimately the contemporary philosophy, itself - have been at fault. I agree that such a crisis reveals the flaws of socialized medicine - but the self-destructive (to my view) response to the coronavirus has deeper causal roots.   

No, I agree. I was just using "socialized medicine" as a catch-all for all these causes and ways of thinking since it's the most perceptual end result of them.

Edited by EC
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Worth it to whom?

To the president of the country that did not have on his resume "oversaw the deaths of 1 million or more citizens", yes, it is worth it. That is the motivation driving it ultimately.

Besides this being a rather sudden onslaught from a completely new disease, why is this supposedly so metaphysically worse when many diseases cause deaths at about the same order of magnitude, such as the flu?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, EC said:

Besides this being a rather sudden onslaught from a completely new disease, why is this supposedly so metaphysically worse when many diseases cause deaths at about the same order of magnitude, such as the flu?

Value is determined by the valuer. There is no better or worse metaphysically speaking. The universe does not care about more or less dead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Value is determined by the valuer. There is no better or worse metaphysically speaking. The universe does not care about more or less dead.

Metaphysically is meant to equal in reality in that quote. Do I actually have to spell out everything exactly and in complete detail in every post to be understood? It's why I rarely post here even though I agree with 95%+ of what most posters are saying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, EC said:

Do I actually have to spell out everything exactly and in complete detail in every post to be understood?

No, but in this case it would help. Maybe I misunderstood your original post.

"Besides this being a rather sudden onslaught from a completely new disease, why is this supposedly so "equal in reality" worse when many diseases cause deaths at about the same order of magnitude, such as the flu?"

If the flu had the same magnitude you would be correct. Covid-19 mortality seems to be 10 times higher.

But most likely you are saying more than that. So value are you referring too?

The overwhelming value and (moral value) seems to be the value it has for the leadership based on the government system that we have. A leadership can't bear to be known as standing by and letting people die. It is career limiting.

Although, legally, one can stand by and watch someone die. politically, reprehensible looking, means end of career.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, EC said:

Besides this being a rather sudden onslaught from a completely new disease, why is this supposedly so metaphysically worse when many diseases cause deaths at about the same order of magnitude, such as the flu?

But you already answered this. You said there are no vaccines and apparently no immunities. That's the reason why, it is more deadly and less preventable than other diseases out there right now. So no, it isn't about the same order of magnitude. It is at least one order of magnitude worse than the flu (that's a conservative estimate). As in, it's at least 10 times worse, maybe 100 times worse.

Edited by Eiuol
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Eiuol said:

But you already answered this. You said there are no vaccines and apparently no immunities. That's the reason why, it is more deadly and less preventable than other diseases out there right now. So no, it isn't about the same order of magnitude. It is at least one order of magnitude worse than the flu (that's a conservative estimate). As in, it's at least 10 times worse, maybe 100 times worse.

Yeah, but is it really 10x more deadly than the flu? I highly suspect that it won't be when all the number come in. I think they will be similar long term, but still allowing that Covid is worse in the short term while there is no vaccine or natural immunity (yet). So I'm not contradicting myself, although I could be wrong about the assumption. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

‘This is additive, not in place of. Yes, the flu kills thousands of people every year, but we’re going to have more deaths.’

— Amesh Adalja, Infectious Diseases Society of America

I think this is one important consideration. A further corollary he doesn't mention which anyone can deduce: Due to the greater awareness, modified behaviors and sensible precautions (without going stupidly paranoid over them) raised with Coved-19, the 'normal flu' should have predictably less cases and mortality this year - and in future - therefore a net ~subtractive~ result, too, you'd think.

Although the strains are different, the epediomologists tell us, and differ between approx. O.1% to 1+ % in mortality rates, the transmission and symptoms are near identical so measurement omission applied to both viruses is that the individual (and governments) simply takes equally sensible measures to both.

This ~anti-epistemic pandemic~ and consequent, rampant emotionalism leaves the world more vulnerable to opportunistic, political-global control, more fatal than the virus.  

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

COVID antibody test in German town shows 15 percent infection rate

If this is indicative, some numbers may be extrapolated in the following manner:

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) reported Germany with 119,624 cases and a population of 83.02 million per wikipedia (2019)

That's 0.144% reported. 15% is 105 times that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Numbers, figures, percentages. Endless, addictive, hard to tear your eyes away from.

Has anyone considered Kant in all this?

"Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it become a universal law".

I.e.: one decides one's own moral acts by extrapolation to, and by the standard of, that inconceivable concept - *everyone else*.

I.e.: you sacrifice yourself, your freedom and your good, by the very virtue of your own 'reasoning', turned against itself.

Attitudes and reactions at large, to this pandemic, reflect the premise and K's principle. The sheer weight of numbers of the generic "others'" health and living, rates more important than, and must subjugate, your's.

Which goes to show, one can never forget Kant's insidious effects. The (auto-) tamed society.

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ECThen there is the dark side - socialized medicine - inept, collectivist, 'ageist' and broke  - so compelling triage by necessity: "humanitarian, egalitarian" socialism, anyone?

https://gatestoneinstitute.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ae44aaf3f07dbffc928ba7cb5&id=60e6a82fb2&e=454b6dbdd

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Numbers, figures, percentages. Endless, addictive, hard to tear your eyes away from.

Would an Excel Spreadsheet avatar serve my moniker better, if I understand the point intended correctly.

I've found that the Elsworth Toohey's  of the world rely on notion that individuals are gullible and susceptible to their snake-oil pitches. And while there is seemingly no shortage of customers, folks get what they pay for and heed what they attune to.

Watching the sheep queue up into two proffered lines, I've pondered over the years that the bleating doesn't translate into the questions among themselves about if the line their in leads to the shearers or the slaughterhouse. The tanner, in this case seduces them with the alternative between the mountebank and the meliorist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

Would an Excel Spreadsheet avatar serve my moniker better, if I understand the point intended correctly.

I've found that the Elsworth Toohey's  of the world rely on notion that individuals are gullible and susceptible to their snake-oil pitches. And while there is seemingly no shortage of customers, folks get what they pay for and heed what they attune to.

Watching the sheep queue up into two proffered lines, I've pondered over the years that the bleating doesn't translate into the questions among themselves about if the line their in leads to the shearers or the slaughterhouse. The tanner, in this case seduces them with the alternative between the mountebank and the meliorist.

No, that's a general observation. The TV screen on any channel, local, CNN, BBC, etc. crawls with figures and they go on rising, one knows those record some potential deaths and real deaths and the flood is terrible to think about. Horrible too, is that all news channels feed us on a solid diet of such, knowing the emotional results on people. Information, sure, but promoting fear is hateful and they can go to hell. This period is one of immense-scale sacrifice of we the living - action, life itself - coerced into every place. The media - Leftist, most of it - aren't exactly displeased by that either.

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

No, that's a general observation.

Then I misconstrued it. While the reports have focused on the overall totals, what is missing is the percentages of increase, or the per capita focus, and in the German town example, where the 15% has been revised down to 14% (revising the 105 times the reported cases downward slightly),  your emphasis, then, is on how bad news sells, therefore, keep the focus on the worse case scenario, even if there are other less catastrophic considerations available.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dream_weaver said:

Then I misconstrued it. While the reports have focused on the overall totals, what is missing is the percentages of increase, or the per capita focus, and in the German town example, where the 15% has been revised down to 14% (revising the 105 times the reported cases downward slightly),  your emphasis, then, is on how bad news sells, therefore, keep the focus on the worse case scenario, even if there are other less catastrophic considerations available.

You'll recognise the writer, d_w:

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics". They tell little of the human condition.

But this is not the media concern for circulation (etc.) I mean, publishers have long known that when they find a popular "ideological" base, the numbers will follow, to the point of mass manipulation. The next evolution is political control, over minds, through emotions, enlarging the base.

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...