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Reblogged:It Is Not 'Self-Interest' to Take Illness Lightly

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1 hour ago, dream_weaver said:

The risk of complications increase for those over 65 years of age CoViD-19. Some in that age group support the sacrifices advocated, others in that age group do not.

Those supporting the sacrifices advocated are morally culpable.

Thee, thou, thy, thine and ye have been dropped in favor of the more equivocal 'you' and 'your' which tend to straddle the singular/plural fence.

It appears that whYNOT, and others, may not be as sensitized to that distinction. 

 

Fine. whYNOT using "they" instead of "you" twice would have sufficed.

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7 hours ago, merjet said:

Okay.

Why the switcheroo? You start referring to "those older ones", then switch midstream to "you", i.e. me. I am not one of those you attack, whether your attack was intended or not. Please show a little more respect.

Ha. Plain English. If read properly.

I began with, quote: "TO those older ones...and went on with "...you ..."[i.e.: older ones, the subject of the sentence]

Please show a little more good faith and less taking anything as a personal attack.

Edited by whYNOT
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12 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

But sometimes you seem to be arguing that we have freedoms such as:

  • you can sneeze on others without consequence at all (i.e. why were you there in the first place)
  • "Freely" set up super spreader events where some people don't know the consequence
  • Hide the truth about your being infectious and interact physically
  • Freedom to not voluntarily quarantine and potentially causing transmission when you are sick
  • Refusal to quarantine when you in fact are infected and transmissible

    
This is the area where the "right to NOT be infected" becomes applicable. The right to self defense through prosecution has to exist, it is not altruism.

Yes, all right. I guess there is much of me assuming people are mostly upfront, decent and well-behaved enough to not arbitrarily want to impose their habits or diseases on others. Largely trained from upbringing and through social intercourse, I believe that holds true. I mean, is there any time you have seen anyone sneeze directly into an other's face? Rarely, I imagine.

There's a huge 'gap' between one knowing and unknowing that one is not infected or infected with a virus. (At first, e.g. one might believe he has the common cold). Rather than leave that up to each person to discover from the information about Covid symptoms and choose to seriously do something about, the presumption made is that we are each and all infectious ALL of the time. This becomes dangerous, and has gotten so. We then have governmental and social impositions in our private lives and bodies, on the basis everyone is a child who needs to be frightened and 'guilted' into obedience. 

But if one really doesn't know he is infected, he can't be held liable. If he lies in court, claiming he didn't know, that's highly difficult to disprove. So there's not much recourse to be had.

The rational solution, imo, would be: proceed with caution - while actively living one's life without unnecessary fear and unearned guilt - and to not ¬personalize¬ getting the infection (or possibly and inadvertently transmitting it).

 

 

Edited by whYNOT
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3 hours ago, whYNOT said:

But if one really doesn't know he is infected, he can't be held liable

That is at the core of my disagreement.

If a person caused the harm, they have some responsibility.

Liability does not mean every harm requires the exact same compensation. The remedy for the damage should be different. 

Those who are proven to do it on purpose vs. those who did it by accident should NOT be treated the same.

The fundamental point is "the freedom to harm others" be it on purpose or accidental should not exist.

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Is the bureaucracy that cites "the public good" while clamping down on the freedom of rational actors to act accordingly exempt from "the freedom to harm others", be it on purpose or accidental? 

The metaphysical aspects of a virus are not man-made. Governments and the choice of what purpose governments are instituted for are,  indeed, man-made. 

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13 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

The risk of complications increase for those over 65 years of age CoViD-19. Some in that age group support the sacrifices advocated, others in that age group do not.

Those supporting the sacrifices advocated are morally culpable.

 

 

The CDC gives the most up to date charts that I found (for the US, but they are a useful indicator to other places). Effectively, excluding other complex factors, up to (very) approx. 65 y.o., one should/could be functioning normally, working, earning - keeping the country's wheels turning, so to speak. That's the large age group I think are under sacrifice by the severe regulations, globally. There are the 2.9 mil (of 328mil) who die each year from all causes. One doesn't linger usually on the high number of deaths going on around one, but puts into perspective Covid fatalities. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

 

Edited by whYNOT
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18 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

Is the bureaucracy that cites "the public good" while clamping down on the freedom of rational actors to act accordingly exempt from "the freedom to harm others", be it on purpose or accidental? 

Not sure what you are saying here. Exempt from a freedom that should not exist???

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1 hour ago, Easy Truth said:

That is at the core of my disagreement.

If a person caused the harm, they have some responsibility.

Liability does not mean every harm requires the exact same compensation. The remedy for the damage should be different. 

Those who are proven to do it on purpose vs. those who did it by accident should NOT be treated the same.

The fundamental point is "the freedom to harm others" be it on purpose or accidental should not exist.

"Harm" would next need defining. An infection causing a few days in bed and off work; a long debilitating illness; a fatality?

I assume you mean there would be a sliding scale of compensation. Is that right?

And then to be consistent, is that applied equally to all infectious diseases? e.g. TB, influenza, chicken pox?

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53 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

"Harm" would next need defining. An infection causing a few days in bed and off work; a long debilitating illness; a fatality?

I assume you mean there would be a sliding scale of compensation. Is that right?

And then to be consistent, is that applied equally to all infectious diseases? e.g. TB, influenza, chicken pox?

Yes, the harm, the amount of damage, the intent has to be determined. And yes the "compensation/repair/punishment" should apply to any (non defensive aggression/initiation of aggression).

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9 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

A few points seem worth repeating.

Everyone is at some risk of death or long-term impairment from Covid-19.

Breathing and talking can spread the virus.

Presymptomatic people can spread the virus.

Yes Doug, but what's your conclusion based on this? This supports what conclusion?

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Mask-wearing, social distancing, and avoiding crowds, on the part of people of any age, can have rational, egoistic, individualistic, rights-respecting, production-respecting motivation.

We should not let ourselves be pushed in either direction by the viciousness, irrationality, altruism, collectivism, statism, hatred of life, hatred of capitalism, power-seeking, virtue-signaling, and/or other evils practiced by many advocates of Covid-19 restrictions.  We should not fall into the trap of becoming the rebellious type of social metaphysician.

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4 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Mask-wearing, social distancing, and avoiding crowds, on the part of people of any age, can have rational, egoistic, individualistic, rights-respecting, production-respecting motivation.

We should not let ourselves be pushed in either direction by the viciousness, irrationality, altruism, collectivism, statism, hatred of life, hatred of capitalism, power-seeking, virtue-signaling, and/or other evils practiced by many advocates of Covid-19 restrictions.  We should not fall into the trap of becoming the rebellious type of social metaphysician.

You have acknowledged and identified the premises of many of the wrongs in play. ( I think seriously, but perhaps sarcastically). There are also several rightful aspects. The reason that one has a hierarchy of values is to prioritize which is better than what, what is worse than which. I have not argued that a pandemic isn't very bad, I've argued that a pandemic PLUS the psychological (etc.etc.) killer imposed by heavy restrictions on human activity is worse than bad. For many millions, internationally, billions, you can safely infer that they would far prefer to continue functioning as fully as they can. Even at some risk. They are not as safety prone and timid as others, their priorities arrange differently; the implication being they'd 'rather die on one's feet than live on one's knees'.

Individually such people have already made the choice of a proper life over the chance of death and didn't need to know about "value-systems", "man's life" - and so on.

There are many too who can afford to sit this out in comfort, being of independent means or a guaranteed income or on welfare.

You want a one size fits all? That is to remove individual choice, therefore liberties.

On the macro scale, Western civilization has taken a big hit, there are social and political power transformations often for the worse. I anticipated some version of new power filling up the vacuum when populaces and previous principles were weakened. After this perhaps people should better appreciate a flourishing economy, individualism and capitalism, but don't count on it. When this is finally over, the freedoms enjoyed earlier might not be so easily recoverable.

And when I have some idiot, usually a Lefty, assuming I don't care about people dying, I retort I can feel for them and can also care more for those whom, I know, one can see, are existing in a type of living death. Strangely, that person shows little empathy for such people, individually or in the billions. They do tend to being materialist. Maybe if people were starving, he/she would shed a tear...don't count on it either.

Comes down to was it worth it? Were draconian interventions into masses of lives the answer for "the common good"? I'm not being drawn all over again into the effectiveness of safety measures/protocols. I don't know enough, and I suggest - no one knows enough just yet. And their efficacy certainly hasn't been proven by further waves of the CV. But the reality of the consequences of immoral lockdowns is evident.

 

Edited by whYNOT
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17 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

I don't know enough, and I suggest - no one knows enough just yet. And their efficacy certainly hasn't been proven by further waves of the CV. But the reality of the consequences of immoral lockdowns is evident.

It is known that social distancing, wearing masks, and avoiding crowds works. People do know enough. I think everything you said is true, all you have to add is that the voluntary measures advocated here are known to work. It just seems like you missed the idea that for preventive measures involving multiple people to work, other people should do them. Following traffic rules only work because everyone else follows them. Rules of grammar for communication only work because everyone else follows them. 

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49 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

It is known that social distancing, wearing masks, and avoiding crowds works. People do know enough. I think everything you said is true, all you have to add is that the voluntary measures advocated here are known to work. It just seems like you missed the idea that for preventive measures involving multiple people to work, other people should do them. Following traffic rules only work because everyone else follows them. Rules of grammar for communication only work because everyone else follows them. 

"Works", means the pandemic would have already ended. The pandemic has continued. Although now with an end in sight due to vaccines - additionally with some certain amount of herd immunity. There's a trouble here between the theory (it "works") and the implemented practice (in what context?). 

The argument that if everyone does it, it would have worked, ignores that humanity isn't like that. There can never be a uniformly collective decision for the common good, made by the millions. Like herding cats, it doesn't work. Then what? Further force needs be applied to MAKE it work. The vicious cycle repeats.

Okay, I have said often that the masking etc. should be voluntary, and I do concede that it doesn't have to be a perfect solution to convince oneself that, at least, it can't do much harm to comply.

Edited by whYNOT
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All I really need to point out here is your skepticism and lack of benevolence about people. Although you said earlier that there is much of you assuming that people are mostly upfront decent and well behaved and not arbitrarily imposing their habits on others, what you are saying does not reflect this. Just hold onto the idea for a moment that people can find mutual benefit in following rules. It's no different than traffic rules. We don't just throw up our hands and say that not everyone can do it, humanity isn't like that, and those rules could never be followed uniformly without force. 

People are in fact able to create functional systems that depend on the majority of people following the implicit rules. This is actually why standards exist. The Internet can't work unless people agree beforehand to use essentially the same method of connecting to webpages. Food safety doesn't work unless food producers agree to meet the same standards of safety. All this is part of a wider idea: capitalism only works unless everyone agrees to follow the rule that you must not initiate force. I don't the you would say this ignores how humanity works, even though quite obviously there are a number of people who don't give a damn about following that rule. Fortunately, there are not enough of those people for capitalism to collapse completely.
 

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Defiant Michigan UP cafe owner told to shut down after serving indoor diners

Since November, bars and restaurants in Michigan have been limited to carry-out service or outdoor dining in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Who is mandating the limitation (and by what means)?

Who's rights are being violated? Is it the people who chose not to frequent this establishment for CoViD-19 concerns? Is it the owner and voluntary workers at a restaurant violating a mandate to only fulfill carry out orders?

A patient checks into a hospital and the diagnosis turns out to be CoViD-19. How did the patient acquire it? Was the patient get infected at a restaurant, a gym, a grocery store, Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner with friends and/or family, the local hardware store, the local mall while buying christmas gifts? Assume the patient was wearing a mask, as mandated by most states and counties-townships-cities-etc., and second-handedly requested by most establishments not quashed by law to allow customers to frequent.

Keep in mind that this is by no means an exhaustive list. It is only intended to illustrative of another passage that comes to mind from Atlas Shrugged:

"You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you're incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others—that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler—that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and to vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over the gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of your capacity, would be unable successfully to fill the job of assistant greaser."

Yes, social order can come into play, but not by means of folk that harbor a vision of man as incapable of acting rationally when a new virus is discovered. 

While a majority may serve as a deciding factor in a democracy, the morally decisive response requires a knowledge of what is the right recourse. Absent that, each individual should be granted the freedom to act according to their independent judgement, providing it does not infringe on anyone else acting according to their independent judgement.

Edited by dream_weaver
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6 hours ago, Eiuol said:

All I really need to point out here is your skepticism and lack of benevolence about people. Although you said earlier that there is much of you assuming that people are mostly upfront decent and well behaved and not arbitrarily imposing their habits on others, what you are saying does not reflect this. Just hold onto the idea for a moment that people can find mutual benefit in following rules. It's no different than traffic rules. We don't just throw up our hands and say that not everyone can do it, humanity isn't like that, and those rules could never be followed uniformly without force. 

People are in fact able to create functional systems that depend on the majority of people following the implicit rules. This is actually why standards exist. The Internet can't work unless people agree beforehand to use essentially the same method of connecting to webpages. Food safety doesn't work unless food producers agree to meet the same standards of safety. All this is part of a wider idea: capitalism only works unless everyone agrees to follow the rule that you must not initiate force. I don't the you would say this ignores how humanity works, even though quite obviously there are a number of people who don't give a damn about following that rule. Fortunately, there are not enough of those people for capitalism to collapse completely.
 

Odd. Back to front. About benevolence, uniformity, rules, agreement - and that capitalism works(/is ethical) because of consensus on the rule against initiation of force. (!)

By this line of reasoning: A. Social distancing is *proper* because everybody, without exception, accepted it to be. B. Those protocols are *right* because they worked in ending the pandemic.

Who can deny that both A and B are and were false? The case you have made, in fact, is ~against~ masking, etc.

You could re-address "benevolence". Benevolence indeed is proper and works ~only when and because~ one is not obligated to, nor under the control of, anyone and everybody else.

In other words, when government and/or other people do not impose the protocols on one. Reverse the causal process and any initial benevolence turns to altruism and collapses benevolence.

So we can't invoke benevolence when doing something comes at cost to oneself and to millions of selves - therefore self-contradicts. (And I've gone on at length, have you forgotten? that social distancing is inimical to ~huge numbers~ of small to medium sized businesses. Those businessmen and employees should just continue to suck it up, I suppose, and remain, well ... benevolent).

The entire argument 'conform for our own good in this pandemic' could be lifted from Communists. ("The system is perfect but humans aren't").

There is no getting around it, the realization that the free-er (the more non-sacrificial) the nation and a society, the harder it will be to control/suppress/contain a pandemic.

The corollary of that equally holds.

Returning to a value-hierarchy, to be free(er) an occasional pandemic is the price one will pay for a greater, a maximum value.

 

Edited by whYNOT
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8 hours ago, Eiuol said:

All I really need to point out here is your skepticism and lack of benevolence about people. Although you said earlier that there is much of you assuming that people are mostly upfront decent and well behaved and not arbitrarily...
 

It is universal love that you extol. Not good will. Spare me from this baseless notion of 'benevolence'. Haven't you observed that this bandied-about, impossible emotion of 'love' for all others in general, whom one does not specifically individually know, nor, as consequence, highly value in their own right - is exactly what has nullified the basic respect and benevolence by all and for all, in your society? And even any 'tolerance'? 

You must have. I recognize the same, here, identically as there.

The "lovers of humanity" who would coerce individuals to do their will as they always end up, the sacrificers, are by definition haters of humanity. Watch out for those who ostentatiously carry the badge of compassion, they are empty of even that good emotion. Again, do any visibly care one iota for the losses and spiritual suffering of many of their fellow citizens? Instead, they apparently delight in such and vilify the formers' *selfishness* when they don't obey..

Right. I withhold my benevolence when meeting and hearing any of them. Any Objectivist would.

Edited by whYNOT
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9 hours ago, Eiuol said:

 

People are in fact able to create functional systems that depend on the majority of people following the implicit rules. This is actually why standards exist. The Internet can't work unless people agree beforehand to use...
 

The majority follow these rules and systems because they see them to be rational, consistent, useful and good for them.

Risking repetition, a majority of working men and women and those who have to meet payrolls and overheads, etc. do not see any rationality and good coming from being arbitrarily restricted and the shrinking of patronage. They do not see less people getting sick as a result of the majority's and their own efforts at social distancing. Conversely, they hear of the numbers increasing. They see their own lives as misery and futures as bleak. Only anyone who hasn't met a payroll can be oblivious to the pain of telling staff they cannot be paid any longer. And that the enterprise they poured their resources into must close. They see sacrifice, but haven't the words to articulate that concept nor that of moral self-interest. Are we on the side of productive men and women? Then we should be articulating these principles for them. Not siding with utilitarianists and sacrificers.

It is indicative that many of those masking dictators have previous wealth or means (or state welfare and govt. employment) to indulge themselves in the luxury of commanding others to be obedient "to unselfishly save lives". And so one gets the self-righteous hypocrisy of film stars and billionaires, university professors and bureaucrats and New Socialists ordering commercial and business people how to behave, at their own financial and emotional cost.

Edited by whYNOT
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