• Harry Hindu
    5.1k
    There's no proof of this.boethius
    Proof? Lol. The proof is in the definition. If you don't understand the basic concepts of what you are talking about than what are you even doing discussing it? Go educate yourself.
  • boethius
    2.3k
    You still dont get it. Libertarians arent concerened with telling others how to live. They only rule is "Do as you will but dont tread on me".Harry Hindu

    But that's telling people how to live. You're telling them not to tread on you.

    To make sure it's not a suggestion but an ideal enforced as best you can, you want police and a justice system to safeguard property rights. Maybe other institutions to then safeguard those institutions, etc.

    If your scheme isn't enough institutions designed in the right way to be stable, you may lose even those institutions you think are in fact necessary and someone treads on you hard.

    I am arguing public education and health policies protect more from the situations you want to avoid, not less. What's your counter argument? Other than telling me how to live and to not tread on you.
  • boethius
    2.3k
    Proof? Lol. The proof is in the definition.Harry Hindu

    I just explained it is no proof.

    Unless you have some extreme position where you don't want the police, justice system ensuring property rights are defined and allocated, voting for management of at least these systems, then you are admitting that to pursue your goal you need some institutions.

    You have no proof that your list of institutions and laws is actually optimum, or even remotely close to the optimum, to pursue your goal.

    It's like saying "I want to travel light, as less mass means less energy needed to get to where I am going; therefore, I will walk naked from New York to San Fransisco without any supplies at all". Then saying "proof by definition!" when someone points out this doesn't follow in the slightest.
  • Harry Hindu
    5.1k
    Put that's telling people how to live. You're telling them not to tread on you.boethius
    They are still free to try and tread on me, but then can they handle the consequences of their actions? This is basic human psychology and natural behavior that all organisms engage in. Invading ones territory will illicit a response from the organism whose territory you're invading. Wil you come out unscathed? Will it be worth it? These are questions reasonable people would ask themselves. Reasonable people who don't rely on someone else to tell them how to live their life. Some people are weak and look to others to define them and tell them how they should live. That isn't me. If that's you then thats good for you, not me.
  • boethius
    2.3k
    They are still free ro try and tread on me, but then can they handle the consequences of their actions? This is basic human psychology and natural behavior that all organisms engage in. Invading ones territory will illicit a response from the organisms territory you're invading. Wil you come out unscathed? Will it be worth it?Harry Hindu

    Ok, so you don't want even the institutions of the police and justice system?
  • Harry Hindu
    5.1k
    Start a new thread.
  • boethius
    2.3k
    Start a new thread.Harry Hindu

    Don't tell me what to do bro.
  • Punshhh
    2.6k
    Everybody who goes to hospice is about to die. But I take your point. A sudden outbreak in a community where no one has immunity yet could briefly overwhelm the system. So the cancellations of large gatherings makes sense.
    The staff in the care home are an issue, they could be lumped into the group of healthcare workers. They work in a healthcare community, or a hospital. It is imperative that such communities don't get infected because it is highly disruptive*.

    Weirdly some of these facilities will be required to admit infected acute cases, while protecting the healthcare workers from infection. There may even develop a circumstance where acute cases are warehoused while they die ( khaki tents).

    An issue with banning large gatherings has been highlighted, in that it might result in numerous small gatherings in confined spaces. For example holding football games with no crowd, resulting in many fans congregating in pubs to watch the game on big screens.

    P.s. I'm not expecting you to reply to all that, I'm addressing the whole thread really.

    *an example of disruption occurred in a hospital near me the other day. There was a scare that a patient with a persistent cough had the virus, he was tasted and found to be clear, but in the meantime rumours spread far and wide that there was an infected person in there. This resulted in healthcare workers, cleaners and maintenance staff not going in to work.
  • frank
    15.8k
    The staff in the care home are an issue, they could be lumped into the group of healthcare workers. They work in a healthcare community, or a hospital. It is imperative that such communities don't get infected because it is highly disruptive*.Punshhh

    A hospice facility isn't a care home. It's palliative care.

    an example of disruption occurred in a hospital near me the other day. There was a scare that a patient with a persistent cough had the virus, he was tasted and found to be clear, but in the meantime rumours spread far and wide that there was an infected person in there. This resulted in healthcare workers, cleaners and maintenance staff not going in to work.Punshhh

    Aren't you British?
  • Michael
    15.5k
    How does a libertarian differ from an anarchist?
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    Currently .02% of the world is infected with the coronavirus (169,387 / 7,771,074,926). The percentage of worldwide deaths rounds to 0.00% (6,513), but if you take it out enough decimal points you will eventually see some evidence of it.

    That leaves 99.98 % of the population uninfected and about 100% of us not killed by this epidemic.
  • ssu
    8.5k
    Now my country is going to a lock down until 13th of April. Schools closed, every over 70-year old person will be quarantined. Meetings of over 10 person will be forbidden. State of emergency and emergency laws are introduced tomorrow. Government will spend 5 billion euros to help the economy (GDP 290 bn euros).

    - 272 infections, no deaths yet reported. Let's see how the toilet paper situation will develop.
  • boethius
    2.3k
    Currently .02% of the world is infected with the coronavirus (169,387 / 7,771,074,926). The percentage of worldwide deaths rounds to 0.00% (6,513), but if you take it out enough decimal points you will eventually see some evidence of it.

    That leaves 99.98 % of the population uninfected and about 100% of us not killed by this epidemic.
    Hanover

    No one is disputing that.

    The question is how those numbers grow over time under different responses.

    Evidence we have at the moment is letting it grow out of control would lead to about 100 millions deaths.

    Those would show up in your significant figures.

    If you say "well, they won't grow that high because something will be done", then you've joined the discussion about what should have been done before, even a week ago to avoid 2 or 3 doubling times, what should be done right now, what should be done later, and how these actions affect society in second order consequences, like people losing jobs and so on.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    Evidence we have at the moment is letting it grow out of control would lead to about 100 millions deaths.boethius

    Those at risk of death can take whatever precaution they need to. The average person is just going to get flu like symptoms or less. It's a disproportionate shotgun response, showing how panic and fear of any risk leads to a terrible result.
  • boethius
    2.3k
    272 infections, no deaths yet reported.ssu

    This number may seem low to you, but the number of infected is some multiple of the current number of diagnosed cases.

    Some proportion of infected will develop symptoms and become cases some days from now, and some of those will be critical care patients.

    No deaths means those critical within the 272 infections are getting the care they need.

    If the trend elsewhere is reoccurring in Finland, then there's about 20 to 40 people in critical care, or will enter critical care shortly, among this group.

    That's already quite a lot in normal times. Nothing overwhelming, but not a drop in the bucket either.

    Also, don't confuse "beds" with care. From what I have read, major cities typically have a dozen or two of these respirators. Treating crucial cases of this disease requires not only equipment but highly intensive care by skilled doctors and nurses. Keeping someone alive who would otherwise be dead without intervention is no easy task.

    Because infections lag behind cases, and grow exponentially without extreme measures, this 272 number has already doubled one or several times in terms of people infected. At this stage, it depends on a lot of factors, so we'll only know later if it's more or less compared to other countries that are further along. But, it's already enough critical care patience "in the pipe" to saturate quality care capacity for these symptoms.

    Policy makers in Finland have exactly the same analysis which is why they are shutting things down now, rather than later. For, let's say 1000 critical care patients is the capacity limit, if you wait to reach that thousand, repeat the above logic, and you have at least 2000 -- since doubling times are shorter than infection to critical care times -- maybe even more, 4000 or 8000 or even 16 000, depending on how out of control infections are.

    Keep in mind, once restrictions are implemented, they are not instant in reducing infections; there is an initial period of society "getting into it". So not only are there doubling times already "out there" but there is probably at least another doubling time that is unavoidable while society reconfigures for quarantine.
  • xyzmix
    40
    It could be a discreet nerve agent in phase 1.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Um, no, letting morons crowd into pubs and football matches (which they will because some people are incapable of understanding math and science) will result in far more deaths and hospitalizations than a strict response. Your medical system would collapse and people suffering other conditions wouldn't be able to get the help they need either. Plus, fuckwitts walking around like nothing is wrong may not suffer very serious effects but they will become vectors spreading to others, one of twenty of whom will die, and the rest will become more vectors etc. If minimizing deaths is the goal (which presumably we share), then not only are we not doing too much, we're not doing enough.
  • Punshhh
    2.6k
    A hospice facility isn't a care home. It's palliative care.
    The're interchangeable around hear. The're all heading in the same direction and the same point about the staff holds.

    Yes, I'm British, I don't see the relevance though?
  • boethius
    2.3k
    Those at risk of death can take whatever precaution they need to. The average person is just going to get flu like symptoms or less. It's a disproportionate shotgun response, showing how panic and fear of any risk leads to a terrible result.Hanover

    Easier said than done.

    First, not all cases are from at-risk-groups, so even if you succeeded in isolating at-risk-groups, you'd still have a huge amount of cases from allowing exponential growth to occur unimpeded in all low-risk groups.

    Second, isolation of at-risk-groups is basically impossible. People need to interact to survive. Even doctors and nurses with proper gear are getting infected, that's how infectious this disease is, so there's simply no way to prevent it getting into care-homes where workers don't have gear, don't know how to use it, and there's none available anyways.

    Agreed, at-risk-groups that can effectively self-isolate should self-isolate, but even if that's completely effective that won't prevent overwhelming amounts of cases coming from at-risk-groups that can't self-isolate, that need quotidian care to survive from younger people, nor would it stop an overwhelming amount of cases from low-risk-groups, that are more numerous so a smaller percentage becoming critical care cases is still overwhelming anyways.

    Keep in mind, the low-risk of dying for healthy and younger people is not the same as the risk of needing critical care. One reason the death age is so old, is because the old are triaged in favor of the young.

    It is the critical care percentage that matters in terms of public policy. Maxing out critical care capacity means needing to triage both new cases and every other medical problem that arises from heart attacks to gunshot wounds.

    The only way to protect high-risk-groups and low-risk-groups and all goups in between in terms of total number of deaths as well as preventing overload of the system is, at this point, through extreme measures that affect everyone.

    UK will do the same as @ssu reports Finland is doing. These "changes in strategy" is simply propaganda to walk from "oh, crap, it is a problem I should have realized will hurt the stock market much more by downplaying it compared to being proactive" to the inevitable position of "all hands on deck! to prevent more spread and get this under control! for queen and country lads!" without admitting to any mistakes and pretending it was "people's loved ones" that were the center most priority all along, just a few understandable course corrections along the way; we managed bold and brilliantly really, an unfeasibly high intellectual standard close to some godlike omniscience such as Thomas the Train couldn't have done any better, get off our backs about it, you're just using people who are suffering from our mismanagement for your own political gain!!! meany-boys!!! vote for us again.
  • praxis
    6.5k


    Simply put, Libertarians primary value personal liberty, whereas Liberals (American at least) value fairness and care above liberty.

    Socialists can only be authoritarian as they think they know what is "good" for everyone, and want to impose their morality on everyone else. It really is no different than a religion.

    Are you still equating liberals and socialists?

    All political brands are like religion in the way that you mean.
  • ssu
    8.5k
    This number may seem low to you, but the number of infected is some multiple of the current number of diagnosed cases.boethius
    It's been estimated that infections are about 20-30 times more. No one has any idea what it is now.

    If the trend elsewhere is reoccurring in Finland, then there's about 20 to 40 people in critical care, or will enter critical care shortly, among this group.boethius
    Actually there is only one elderly corona-virus patient in intensive care.

    Because infections lag behind cases, and grow exponentially without extreme measures, this 272 number has already doubled one or several times in terms of people infected. At this stage, it depends on a lot of factors, so we'll only know later if it's more or less compared to other countries that are further along. But, it's already enough critical care patience "in the pipe" to saturate quality care capacity for these symptoms.boethius
    Everybody has accepted the fact that Finland is simply lagging behind Sweden and Norway. The measures now taken are to curb the height of the epidemic. But they are accepting that the country is in the epidemic phase. Anyway, interesting to see what the effects are.

    Keep in mind, once restrictions are implemented, they are not instant in reducing infections; there is an initial period of society "getting into it". So not only are there doubling times already "out there" but there is probably at least another doubling time that is unavoidable while society reconfigures for quarantine.boethius
    The restrictions and voluntary cancellations of meetings started last week and people started to change their behavior basically last weekend. The weekend before that things were normal.

    After tomorrow, I have to say that I'm not living anymore in an ordinary Western Republic as the emergency laws take hold (let's see what they come with) and the ordinary individual liberties aren't anymore. The emergency laws will surely pass Parliament as the opposition has already demanded them.

    But on the positive side, I have two happy children that at least now are excited that there's no school and they can sleep late. Let's see what their attitude is after one month of home schooling.
  • Baden
    16.3k
    Now my country is going to a lock down until 13th of April. Schools closed, every over 70-year old person will be quarantined. Meetings of over 10 person will be forbidden. State of emergency and emergency laws are introduced tomorrow. Government will spend 5 billion euros to help the economy (GDP 290 bn euros).ssu

    :clap: This needs to happen everywhere and now, not when the damage is already done.
  • boethius
    2.3k
    It's been estimated that infections are about 20-30 times more. No one has any idea what it is now.ssu

    Then we're in agreement.

    Actually there is one elderly corona-virus patient in intensive care.ssu

    At the early stage, the cases-to-critical ratio care can be far from the global average. But there's no reason to believe it won't approach fairly closely the global average. It is possible by some genetic quirk that protects Fins, but essentially zero reason to predict that.

    Of diagnosed cases now, many maybe critical care cases but just haven't developed to that stage yet; it can take 5-10 days from symptoms to critical care. Additionally, the first clusters to get infected can happen to all be low-risk-groups, which is basically blind luck but really significant if measures are then put in place to stop further spread moving quickly towards "well mixed" in society.

    After tomorrow, I have to say that I'm not living anymore in an ordinary Western Republic as the emergency laws take hold (let's see what they come with) and the ordinary individual liberties aren't anymore.ssu

    I don't think this is quite fair. It's certainly not an ordinary circumstance, but personal liberties are always relative some standard of the public good: you can't walk in the middle of the highway, you can't just carry buckets of gasoline with you to the super market for fun, you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, you can't build and sell houses not to code, you can't do a lot of things that are reckless in likelihood to cause harm. It's just the conditions of what actions will likely cause harm are changed under the pandemic. It's extremely unusual for conditions to change so radically, but the same logic can be still the same and people agree to this framework.

    These measures for sure would be draconian if done for political control purposes, and that can be a duel purpose and is certainly a concern -- i.e. China; South Korea to an extent as well with their tracking app -- but the situation I think is not adequately described as "losing Western liberties", as such in most Western places ... of course, second order effects could definitely go in this direction, but I'm not too concerned about Finland in this regard. You're not arguing these points, but without making the above distinction there's no quick and easy retort, is my point; and people were making such arguments during the "great minimizing".

    That "it's draconian" is only an argument if you really think the risk is low and so believe this is added weight to the "do nothing" argument. Just like banning flights from China is "racist" is only an additional propaganda argument that makes sense if you really do believe the risk is low and there's no reason to ban flights from China on the merits of the science of epidemiology, so smearing one's opponents as racist is a "good trick" to protect the share prices of airlines.

    But on the positive side, I have two happy children that at least now are excited that there's no school and they can sleep late. Let's see what their attitude is after one month of home schooling.ssu

    I completely agree the results of this general social experiment will be incredibly interesting on many levels.
  • ssu
    8.5k
    But there's no reason to believe it won't approach fairly closely the global average. It is possible by some genetic quirk that protects Fins, but essentially zero reason to predict that.boethius
    I'd suspect this is just a thing of statistical variance. As all known infections here have or can be traced to abroad, it's likely that the vast majority of the victims are in good health (as very weak old people don't travel). It can easily change especially if an elderly home gets the virus etc. I'm just thinking of my frail 80-year old father who is living alone at home. He is visited twice daily by health care personnel, so I'm just wondering how large that group of people running there at his home is. Talk about a quarantine. But now when he goes to the hospital for treatment, every time a single room.

    I don't think this is quite fair. It's certainly not an ordinary circumstance, but personal liberties are always relative some standard of the public goodboethius
    Oh I put the words like that just to get NOS4A2 to tell us "See, I told you so!"

    Once these restrictions have continued for a while I guess some people both in the US and in Finland are a fertile ground for conspiracy theories: that the corona-virus is a devious sinister plot by the extremely rich to oppress innocent people and get the "sheeple" to be even more obedient.
  • frank
    15.8k
    The're interchangeable around hear. The're all heading in the same direction and the same point about the staff holds.

    Yes, I'm British, I don't see the relevance though?
    Punshhh

    There is hospice in the UK. It's separate from longterm nursing care. I think you meant that workers for a longterm nursing facility avoided work because of rumors of coronavirus. That's possible. Hospital workers? No, I don't believe it.
  • Punshhh
    2.6k
    Yes there are some hospices just for palliative care, but many double up as long term care homes. Also there is a grey area around which patient is a palliative care patient and which is a long term care patient.

    It was Norwich hospital, but I can't confirm who refused to go in to the facility, as I heard a doctor from the hospital talking on talk radio about the rumours.
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