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Coronavirus - potential Black Swan?


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HOLA441
Just now, Bruce Banner said:

They should be happy because there is a huge raft of legislation, in place, to protect us from ourselves. 

Glad we're back to an area we agree on :)

Anyway, you know what they're like. It's not to protect you, it's to protect others. Of course we're all others to everyone else so it still amounts to the same thing, but if you phrase it in terms of protecting others you can guilt trip people and immediately dismiss any complaint as being selfish.

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HOLA442
1 minute ago, Riedquat said:

A fairly old, unhealthy, densely packed population and decades of pushing against the idea of self-responsibility and encouraging simple black and white views of everything. I'd chance a bet that they're far more responsible for the UK's death rate than anything the government's done.

Yes. Everyone should be allowed to take the drive a car eye test.

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HOLA443
11 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

Glad we're back to an area we agree on :)

Anyway, you know what they're like. It's not to protect you, it's to protect others. Of course we're all others to everyone else so it still amounts to the same thing, but if you phrase it in terms of protecting others you can guilt trip people and immediately dismiss any complaint as being selfish.

IMO it tends to be older people that are more self reliant and want independence from government. The problem is that they then behave in a way that isn't condusive to the public good.

There is a halfway house between wanting to ignore everything the government says and obeying everything it says without question.

It tends to be the younger ones with the sad faces in the daily rage saying "the government let my granny die".

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HOLA444
37 minutes ago, GeneCernan said:

I have a feeling that obesity is a huge factor, and boy do we have a lot of fat people. 

I would love to see data that compares BMI with rates of death.

I have seen a lot of stories in the daily rage about the tragedy of young people (under 40 and often with families) dying of covid. Suffice to say in nearly all of those cases the victim has appeared to be morbidly obese (in the mens case often described as "strong").

Obviously anyone dying, especially the young, is a tragedy, but there are clearly things you can do to help yourself.

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HOLA445
44 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

No one has actually mentioned the more infectious strain, which is probably the root of where we are now.

People are too quick to want to blame government action.

However the new more infectious strain may well have arose from government policy of running "hot", tolerating a relatively high level of infection and hence repeated testing of new viral mutants against the population and control measures.

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HOLA446
3 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

IMO it tends to be older people that are more self reliant and want independence from government. The problem is that they then behave in a way that isn't condusive to the public good.

There is a halfway house between wanting to ignore everything the government says and obeying everything it says without question.

It tends to be the younger ones with the sad faces in the daily rage saying "the government let my granny die".

Definitely there's a half-way house, otherwise I'd be asking for no laws at all, but the balance is too tipped towards turn brain off, shut up, and do as you're told for my taste - I felt this very strongly even before the pandemic started, finding modern Britain insanely patronising and over-protective. But as you say half-way house somewhere - as another example of people failing to grasp that it's notable that whenever I've said that someone usually pipes up with comments about Victorian factory working conditions, as if there's nothing in between.

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HOLA447
2 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

IMO it tends to be older people that are more self reliant and want independence from government. The problem is that they then behave in a way that isn't condusive to the public good.

There is a halfway house between wanting to ignore everything the government says and obeying everything it says without question.

It tends to be the younger ones with the sad faces in the daily rage saying "the government let my granny die".

Like when a bobby on a bike knocked on my car window and told me to put my seatbelt on, fair enough, he was only doing his job. Then he said "It's for your own good", I nearly bit my tongue off :(.

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HOLA448
Just now, Bruce Banner said:

Like when a bobby on a bike knocked on my car window and told me to put my seatbelt on, fair enough, he was only doing his job. Then he said "It's for your own good", I nearly bit my tongue off :(.

But you might've been catapulted through the window and hit someone innocent - think about others, or you're selfishly putting others at risk! (even though speaking as an "other" in this case I'd say the risk of you flying through your windscreen in to me is low enough that I'm not the slightest bit worried about it).

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HOLA449
4 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

Like when a bobby on a bike knocked on my car window and told me to put my seatbelt on, fair enough, he was only doing his job. Then he said "It's for your own good", I nearly bit my tongue off :(.

Clearly it is for both your good and the public good. What proportion of each is arguable.

Unless you don't count having your brain smashed in as in your own good of course.

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HOLA4410
3 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

Clearly it is for both your good and the public good. What proportion of each is arguable.

Unless you don't count having your brain smashed in as in your own good of course.

That should be up to him, no matter how good an idea it is.  The only time laws and rules to protect people from themselves are justified are for people unable to properly look after themselves. At the risk of exaggerating for effect we shouldn't ever have to have "do not jump off" signs at the top of cliffs.

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HOLA4411
9 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

That should be up to him, no matter how good an idea it is.  The only time laws and rules to protect people from themselves are justified are for people unable to properly look after themselves. At the risk of exaggerating for effect we shouldn't ever have to have "do not jump off" signs at the top of cliffs.

Maybe people unable to see the logic of and get into the habit of wearing a seatbelt are in a very real sense unable to look after themselves. 

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HOLA4412
7 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Maybe people unable to see the logic of and get into the habit of wearing a seatbelt are in a very real sense unable to look after themselves. 

:rolleyes:

On that basis, all "dangerous" sports and activities should be banned because the participants are clearly unable to look after themselves.

Actually, I mostly wore a seatbelt, out of choice, before wearing them was made compulsory, but as a matter of principle I strongly disagree with compulsion.

Edited by Bruce Banner
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HOLA4413

Seatbelts cant really be seen as just protecting the person wearing it, if you have a human corpse flying around inside a car unrestrained that corpse can kill the other passengers, or even eject and cause injury to others outside the car.

A human is a pretty weighty solid object to be thrown at you with force.    

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HOLA4414
3 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Maybe people unable to see the logic of and get into the habit of wearing a seatbelt are in a very real sense unable to look after themselves. 

To me this is actually true.

We are moving to a point where the belief in society is that no one of sane mind would actually argue that not wearing a seatbelt is a good idea, and that people that do so are in some way mentally deficient.

It then becomes an argument as to whether people who are mentally deficient should be protected by society against themselves.

There is clearly a danger of infringing rights by extension though, for example smoking. But it can probably be gauged by public opinion whether people have a right to self harm or not.

I think the overwhelming majority are in favour of wearing seatbelts, and the argument in favour is can be logically and clearly rationalised. So for me, certainly people who would refuse to wear them are to some degree mentally deficient.

 

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HOLA4415
2 minutes ago, jiltedjen said:

Seatbelts cant really be seen as just protecting the person wearing it, if you have a human corpse flying around inside a car unrestrained that corpse can kill the other passengers, or even eject and cause injury to others outside the car.

A human is a pretty weighty solid object to be thrown at you with force.    

Covered as "public good".

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HOLA4416
2 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

To me this is actually true.

We are moving to a point where the belief in society is that no one of sane mind would actually argue that not wearing a seatbelt is a good idea, and that people that do so are in some way mentally deficient.

It then becomes an argument as to whether people who are mentally deficient should be protected by society against themselves.

There is clearly a danger of infringing rights by extension though, for example smoking. But it can probably be gauged by public opinion whether people have a right to self harm or not.

I think the overwhelming majority are in favour of wearing seatbelts, and the argument in favour is can be logically and clearly rationalised. So for me, certainly people who would refuse to wear them are to some degree mentally deficient.

 

In most instances wearing a seatbelt is a good thing. It's not the wearing that I'm against, it's the compulsion. 

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HOLA4419
35 minutes ago, jiltedjen said:

Seatbelts cant really be seen as just protecting the person wearing it, if you have a human corpse flying around inside a car unrestrained that corpse can kill the other passengers, or even eject and cause injury to others outside the car.

A human is a pretty weighty solid object to be thrown at you with force.    

"What if?", "But it might happen", and "think of the others!" all rolled in to one. It's patronising to protect someone from themselves, and quite honestly equally patronising to say "we're doing you a favour by patronising everyone else to protect you from them."

Bruce is right. Wearing a seatbelt is a good idea. About the only time I don't is if I'm moving the car a few yards because I can't get around the front to clean it where it's normally parked. But being compulsory is going too far. Just because something's obvious doesn't mean it should be compulsory; should the law specifically legislate against jumping off cliffs? You might land on someone...

Should bike helmets be compulsory (not motorbike ones, they already are)?

Edited by Riedquat
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HOLA4420
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HOLA4421
37 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

:rolleyes:

On that basis, all "dangerous" sports and activities should be banned because the participants are clearly unable to look after themselves.

Actually, I mostly wore a seatbelt, out of choice, before wearing them was made compulsory, but as a matter of principle I strongly disagree with compulsion.

No. Because they are behaving logically (they simply trade risk for reward) and the majority of society understand and identify with that, even though they may not want to do those particular actions personally (although they may do lower risk ones - we all do to some degree). If their sporting activities become too dangerous for society as opposed to the individual they are made illegal.

The majority of people don't see a great risk reward benefit for not wearing seatbelts, and they see the harm not wearing them may do to society.

 

 

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HOLA4422
6 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

"What if?", "But it might happen", and "think of the others!" all rolled in to one. It's patronising to protect someone from themselves, and quite honestly equally patronising to say "we're doing you a favour by patronising everyone else to protect you from them."

Bruce is right. Wearing a seatbelt is a good idea. About the only time I don't is if I'm moving the car a few yards because I can't get around the front to clean it where it's normally parked. But being compulsory is going too far. Just because something's obvious doesn't mean it should be compulsory; should the law specifically legislate against jumping off cliffs? You might land on someone...

The patronising "It's for your own good" bobby who knocked on my window was on a pushbike and my car had been stationary for ten minutes.

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HOLA4423

In the case of seatbelts, is it not that it's not just the individual aspect, it's the impact on society? The cost of a bit of physio as opposed to months of rehabilitation and long term disability from a traumatic brain injury.  Young men are disproportionately involved in accidents so there's also the long term loss of productivity from this.

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HOLA4424
2 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

The majority of people don't see a great risk reward benefit for not wearing seatbelts, and they see the harm not wearing them may do to society.

The harm they may do to society is very small indeed, but because of the obsession with "but what if?" and "there is a risk!" they exaggerate it, get scared, and start to think such patronising rules are justified.

I have a strong suspicion that decades of encouraging such fear, in looking no further than "but what if?" and "there is a risk!" is playing right in to the hands of the anti-vaxxers and driving down the take-up rates from people fearful of a bad reaction.

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HOLA4425
Just now, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

No. Because they are behaving logically (they simply trade risk for reward) and the majority of society understand and identify with that, even though they may not want to do those particular actions personally (although they may do lower risk ones - we all do to some degree). If their sporting activities become too dangerous for society as opposed to the individual they are made illegal.

The majority of people don't see a great risk reward benefit for not wearing seatbelts, and they see the harm not wearing them may do to society.

 

 

Then the majority of people are wrong because compulsion is the thin end of the wedge and leads to yet more compulsion.

I remember one reader's letter to a newspaper at the time the seatbelt legislation came in, saying that they supported the legislation because they "know it makes sense" but did not always do it and the legislation would now force them to :rolleyes:.

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