[HN Gopher] Plans you're not supposed to talk about
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Plans you're not supposed to talk about
        
       Author : dynm
       Score  : 193 points
       Date   : 2021-12-14 17:34 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dynomight.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net)
        
       | bradhe wrote:
       | man that was painful to read
        
         | 63 wrote:
         | Can you expand on that? There were definitely some parts I
         | didn't understand or agree with, but the main idea seemed
         | interesting.
        
           | Supermancho wrote:
           | In some cases it tried to make observations in an objective
           | or granular way, while at the same time mixing in sweeping
           | generalizations and hand waving,
           | 
           | > You're in love.
           | 
           | > Critically, you get everyone to agree that it's gauche to
           | discuss the strategic logic of all this.
           | 
           | I'm thinking no. Lots of people talk about the expense of
           | marriage. Some go so far as to say "it's just a piece of
           | paper". Everyone doesn't agree there is strategic loss or
           | that "you're in love" is a singular recognizable concept to
           | justifies anything in particular.
           | 
           | > You secretly guess that the group is sustained by a
           | minority of true believers who make up critical mass for a
           | larger group of people you, but you never talk about this and
           | neither does anyone else.
           | 
           | Nobody talks about this except every atheist from high school
           | forward. Rather than have a nuanced or an informed insightful
           | analysis we get these short statements that both seemed lazy
           | and misrepresenting a supposed underlying zeitgeist.
           | 
           | etc
           | 
           | It's like reading an antivax manifesto.
        
             | vmception wrote:
             | I got something different out of both of your examples.
             | 
             | Its not that many people talk about the expense of
             | marriage, its that people would invalidate the people who
             | talk about the financial intertwining and folly of marriage
             | as both a cultural institution or contract.
             | 
             | Just like you pointed out that only people in the religion
             | of anti-religion are the ones who talk ad nauseum about it,
             | instead of just being non-religious people.
        
         | recursive wrote:
         | I felt nothing, except intrigued.
        
       | bryanrasmussen wrote:
       | As an authorial technique starting off with a just so story about
       | how marriage came to be that lasts several paragraphs and is
       | obviously not at all how marriage came to be and doesn't even
       | have the excuse of referencing some sort of supernatural source
       | for being wrong might seem interesting but bored me too much to
       | continue.
       | 
       | I'm supposing the rest of it is also wrong and badly argued.
        
         | gipp wrote:
         | It is not talking literally about how marriage came to be. It
         | is just laying out a set of incentives that probably play a
         | role in the success of marriage as an institution.
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | It's written in the same vein as "Body Ritual among the
         | Nacirema" [1]. (Read it. Then read the Wikipedia article.)
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://www.sfu.ca/~palys/Miner-1956-BodyRitualAmongTheNacir...
        
       | danblick wrote:
       | The author presents the idea that "you may be born into a culture
       | with social practices that you don't understand but that work for
       | your benefit; they may work better if you don't understand them!"
       | 
       | I find this idea a little repellant, but it's something Friedrich
       | Hayek wrote about too. (In my mind Hayek is the person most
       | associated with distributed knowledge.) ~"You may not understand
       | the forces that have led society to be organized the way that it
       | is, but you should respect that sometimes the order of things
       | reflects knowledge you may not have."
       | 
       | One of his essays on this topic was "Individualism: True and
       | False":
       | 
       | """This brings me to my second point: the necessity, in any
       | complex society in which the effects of anyone's action reach far
       | beyond his possible range of vision, of the individual submitting
       | to the anonymous and seemingly irrational forces of society--a
       | submission which must include not only the acceptance of rules of
       | behavior as valid without examining what depends in the
       | particular instance on their being observed but also a readiness
       | to adjust himself to changes which may profoundly affect his
       | fortunes and opportunities and the causes of which may be
       | altogether unintelligible to him."""
       | 
       | https://fee.org/articles/individualism-true-and-false/
        
         | jfrunyon wrote:
         | > At a time when most movements that are thought to be
         | progressive advocate further encroachments on individual
         | liberty
         | 
         | LOL okay I literally can't go any further than the first
         | sentence. Very good much wow so projection.
         | 
         | I like the document title, though. "Microsoft Word -
         | Document1". Very classy.
        
           | generalizations wrote:
           | Didn't even bother to read the citation for that statement?
           | 
           | > This has now been true for over a century, and as early as
           | 1855 J. S. Mill could say (see my John Stuart Mill and
           | Harriet Taylor [London and Chicago, 1951], p. 216) that
           | "almost all the projects of social reformers of these days
           | are really liberticide."
           | 
           | > I like the document title, though. "Microsoft Word -
           | Document1". Very classy.
           | 
           | Textbook example of an ad homenim.
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | That's pretty loaded language, but it makes sense.
             | 
             | When an area is sparsely populated it doesn't matter as
             | much how people behave. They aren't harming other people
             | because there are none around.
             | 
             | As the population density increases the same actions like
             | emitting pollution of one kind or another (air, sound,
             | light, etc...) becomes a problem and all of the other
             | people come together to ask you to stop, thus infringing on
             | your liberties.
             | 
             | All of society is just people trying to get along with your
             | neighbors. The more people you live near with the harder it
             | is to stay on good relations with all of them. As the
             | population continues to grow it becomes increasingly
             | difficult to not live near other people, effectively
             | impossible for an ever growing percentage of the
             | population.
             | 
             | Some of this may even partially explain the rural/urban
             | divide in politics.
        
       | calibas wrote:
       | >Cutting back on CO2 emissions would clearly work, but it's
       | expensive and painful.
       | 
       | This is so painfully backwards. "Saving the Planet" doesn't mean
       | spending tons of money and doing tons of work, quite the
       | opposite. The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for
       | every human being to do nothing at all. Stop driving, stop
       | working, stop eating entirely, and then things will quickly
       | recover. Obviously that's a bit extreme, but it's to illustrate
       | that less activity, not more, is what's best for the Planet.
       | 
       | It's so odd that all our frantic doing is what's thrown the
       | Planet out of balance, and for some reason we think we're going
       | to fix things by doing even more. The less active and industrious
       | human beings are, the less they obsess over money and work, the
       | less taxing we are on the Planet.
        
         | lowbloodsugar wrote:
         | >Stop driving, stop working, stop eating entirely, and then
         | things will quickly recover.
         | 
         | ... after "stop eating", stop breathing will soon follow. Why
         | don't you go first? Why haven't you gone first already? Is it
         | because humans just don't work like that? At all?
         | 
         | I mean, thanks. Your argument demonstrates precisely why "make
         | less CO2" will never work: You believe it, and yet even you are
         | still breathing.
         | 
         | (please don't stop breathing. i don't think your suggestion is
         | serious, so neither is mine).
        
         | joshxyz wrote:
         | Haha this is nice, really a question of how much we live in
         | excess and if do we really have enough for everybody in a
         | sustainable manner
        
         | mdavis6890 wrote:
         | This is a bit like saying that the planet would be better off
         | without humans. And maybe that's what you believe, I don't
         | know. It might even be true!
         | 
         | But I don't care: I'm a human and I love other humans and I
         | want humans to prosper as much as possible. Which requires
         | activity which contributes to our shared prosperity. Ideally
         | that prosperity would also include a nice planet to live on
         | though. Earth is a reasonable choice.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | > The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for every
         | human being to do nothing at all.
         | 
         | Actually the planet doesn't give a shit either way. People have
         | been busy changing it, and it has simply reacted. Now they are
         | selfishly unhappy with it because it's less congenial than it
         | used to be for vertebrates, or specifically humans. They just
         | want an earth that will support them in continuing to do the
         | things they want.*
         | 
         | Perhaps in 30 megayears the cockroach archeologists will marvel
         | at all the weird endoskeletal animals in the fossil record and
         | wonder if any of them were intelligent.
         | 
         | * this is why I don't like population-based arguments about the
         | climate. If you believe the earth should be optimized for
         | humans, how can you simultaneously say "but only for these
         | ones?" Making people is an activity some people choose to do.
        
         | abyssin wrote:
         | The practical issue for me is: how to do less and still feel
         | like I'm a member of a functional group of people? Doing less
         | is easy. Being part of a group of people that do little is
         | doable. But I've yet to find such a group that isn't made of
         | crazies or depressive people.
         | 
         | Doing stuff and consuming resources and _spending_ is a
         | religion. We don't have temples to make offerings. Our entire
         | cultural environment is dedicated to the symbolic activity of
         | producing and sacrificing. Taking part in it is a requirement
         | to be recognized as a legitimate member of society. Problems
         | that are seen as legit are all related to this religious
         | endeavour.
        
         | kragen wrote:
         | We can divide possible strategies into four groups: those that
         | help the ecosystem and hurt humans in the short term (like your
         | extreme example), those that hurt the ecosystem and hurt humans
         | in the short term (like nuclear war or Agent Orange), those
         | that help the ecosystem and help humans in the short term (like
         | moving from fossil fuels to solar), and those that hurt the
         | ecosystem and help humans in the short term (like expanding the
         | use of fossil fuels). (And of course there are many things that
         | are on the borderline.)
         | 
         | You are setting up an opposition between strategy groups 1 and
         | 4, but ignoring the existence of the other two groups. But
         | group 3, the Bright Green group, is where all the action is!
        
         | majormajor wrote:
         | Let's get even more pedantic!
         | 
         | "Save the planet" is misleading entirely: the planet isn't
         | going anywhere. It will survive extinction events.
         | 
         | "Preserve nonhuman species and the current state of the
         | environment" is where your "get rid of all the humans and their
         | activity" proposal would fit.
         | 
         | But is that actually what anyone wants? The real goal for most
         | people would be, I wager, much more like: "Preserve both human
         | and non-human life, with 21st-century-wealthy-country-
         | standards-of-living, and also preserve the current state of the
         | environment."
         | 
         | In short: you're making "save the planet" into a very
         | particular strawman that misrepresents what people who say it
         | mean.
        
           | calibas wrote:
           | So when people say "save the planet" they also mean
           | preserving a completely unsustainable standard of living? I
           | disagree, but if I wanted a strawman to shoot down that's a
           | good one.
           | 
           | To be clear, I meant protecting the current ecosystems and I
           | don't believe we need to regress or eliminate the human race
           | to do that either.
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | How about transforming an unsustainable standard of living
             | into a sustainable one?
             | 
             | "Kill all humans" is so defeatist. So is "kill most humans
             | and go back to being hunter/gatherers". That's not even
             | trying. That is flipping the board because you think you're
             | losing.
        
         | jeffreyrogers wrote:
         | > The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for every
         | human being to do nothing at all.
         | 
         | The planet doesn't care what lives on it or if anything lives
         | at all. There is no best for the planet outside of goals humans
         | set for it.
         | 
         | > It's so odd that all our frantic doing is what's thrown the
         | Planet out of balance
         | 
         | The planet has never been in balance. And even if we stop
         | anthropogenic climate change something else will throw the
         | planet out of balance again too.
        
           | calibas wrote:
           | FYI, when people are talking about helping "the Planet"
           | they're not talking about lifeless rocks, they're talking
           | about preserving the diversity of life on the Planet.
           | 
           | And by balance I mean not precipitating another extinction
           | event. Sure, they're going to happen anyway eventually, but
           | we probably shouldn't cause an extra one if we don't have
           | to...
        
             | tshaddox wrote:
             | Humans might indeed cause one or more large extinction
             | events, but there are also several known causes (and
             | perhaps many more unknown ones we could discover) of large
             | extinction events which seem to be unpreventable except
             | through the actions of humans (or another intelligent and
             | technological species). If you were to permanently halt all
             | technological progress now, or perhaps revert to before
             | nuclear weapons or even before the industrial revolution,
             | you could prevent extinction events from, say, human-caused
             | climate change, nuclear war, or Skynet. But you'd also
             | effectively guarantee some other eventual extinction event,
             | perhaps from an asteroid impact, a supernova, or any number
             | of phenomena we haven't even discovered yet.
        
             | lowbloodsugar wrote:
             | After the dinosaurs were wiped out, millions of new species
             | evolved. So causing a climate disaster that wipes out
             | humans scores higher on the "diversity of life" scale than
             | keeping humans alive. Live evolves. The Planet, "Planet"
             | here as Gaia, will survive our extinction.
        
             | mrfusion wrote:
             | > they're talking about preserving the diversity of life on
             | the Planet.
             | 
             | Do we know for sure that climate change will decrease
             | diversity? I'd imagine making colder areas of the planet
             | warmer would allow more life to thrive. I mean compare now
             | to the last ice age. Surely there's more life now.
             | 
             | Don't get me wrong, I'm totally on board with team climate
             | so I hope this doesn't come across as blasphemy.
        
             | vasco wrote:
             | > FYI, when people are talking about helping "the Planet"
             | they're not talking about lifeless rocks, they're talking
             | about preserving the diversity of life on the Planet.
             | 
             | I disagree, I think this is the virtue signaling projection
             | but most people only care about global warming because they
             | think there's a non negligible chance they'll see real
             | impacts _on their own quality of life_ either during their
             | life or during the life of their direct offspring. I think
             | there's likely plenty of individuals who truly value
             | biodiversity but with all the evidence around us I'm pretty
             | sure the majority doesn't actually care about saving even a
             | non-cute mammal, much less actual diversity like thousands
             | of species of insects or bees or whatever.
        
             | JackFr wrote:
             | > Sure, they're going to happen anyway eventually, but we
             | probably shouldn't cause an extra one if we don't have
             | to...
             | 
             | Honestly why not?
             | 
             | (To be clear, I don't think we should, but I know my
             | reasons. They're not science based, because the question
             | "Should we care if humanity causes an extiction event?"
             | can't have a scientific answer.)
        
           | cesaref wrote:
           | I'd suggest you dig out and read a copy of James Lovelock's
           | Gaia Hypothesis. It's obviously all new age whackery, but the
           | more you read about it the more sense you'll see in it.
           | Definitely worth tracking down.
        
         | sieabahlpark wrote:
         | > Stop driving, stop working, stop eating entirely, and then
         | things will quickly recover. Obviously that's a bit extreme,
         | but it's to illustrate that less activity, not more, is what's
         | best for the Planet.
         | 
         | How do I get the food without a currency I earn at work?
         | 
         | Will I be given perpetually free stuff from some benevolent
         | government? I believe I've heard that pitch before and it
         | hasn't ever worked and never will.
         | 
         | This is a nonstarter and completely disregards just how the
         | world actually works.
        
         | dejj wrote:
         | If by:
         | 
         | > do nothing at all. Stop driving, stop working, stop eating
         | entirely, and then things will quickly recover.
         | 
         | you mean: let humans go extinct. Then yes, that would work. It
         | has the elegance of Multivac's answer to Asimov's "The last
         | question"
         | 
         | "And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the
         | direction of entropy.
         | 
         | But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of
         | the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration --
         | would take care of that, too."
        
         | sushisource wrote:
         | IMO this is technically true in a totally uninteresting way.
         | 
         | People aren't going to stop doing stuff. That's just fairly
         | obviously not really on the table, despite the minority of
         | people who are into ideas of going back to some pre-modern
         | agrarian societal model.
         | 
         | So, how do we let people continue to do stuff without totally
         | messing up the planet? That's the crucial question humanity is
         | interested in solving (or, maybe more accurately, needs to
         | solve).
        
           | LAC-Tech wrote:
           | I mean we could do _less_.
           | 
           | COVID showed that (a lot of us ) really don't need to be
           | commuting and flying all that much. It's tragic that
           | 'society' wasted a perfectly good pandemic by not learning
           | any of the things it showed us.
        
             | JumpCrisscross wrote:
             | > _COVID showed that (a lot of us ) really don 't need to
             | be commuting and flying all that much. It's tragic that
             | 'society' wasted a perfectly good pandemic by not learning
             | any of the things it showed us._
             | 
             | I'm flying a lot more post Covid. It showed me how precious
             | travel and meeting people face to face and experiencing new
             | cultures is. Based on current air travel statistics, I'm
             | not alone.
        
             | rkk3 wrote:
             | If anything I was more surprised at the lack of impact.
             | Emissions only fell by around 6.4%
             | 
             | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3
        
           | haswell wrote:
           | I think it's interesting, and here's why.
           | 
           | Think about this as it relates to other common problems
           | humans face like debt or the need to lose weight.
           | 
           | I can put all of my energy and focus into making more money
           | so I can get my debt under control, but that won't matter if
           | I have really bad spending habits.
           | 
           | I can put all of my energy into exercising more and burning
           | the calories I take in, but that won't matter if I'm eating
           | more calories than I can reasonably burn in a day.
           | 
           | I'd argue that doing less is still doing something. It's just
           | looking for a solution in a different place. It's focusing on
           | the cause, instead of trying to put a band-aid on the effect.
           | 
           | This falls into the category of "low hanging fruit", and one
           | of the easiest potential sources of meaningful change.
           | Inventing new things, increasing energy efficiency, etc. are
           | all possible optimizations, but are not guaranteed. Eating
           | less, spending less, and burning less energy are all but
           | guaranteed to have a positive result.
           | 
           | The real question of interest is now: how much are people
           | willing to not do?
        
             | Dylan16807 wrote:
             | For something like spending or calories, you probably have
             | to cut back under 20% or under 10%, and even that is hard
             | enough on its own.
             | 
             | Trying to simply cut back for CO2 needs something like a
             | 90% reduction to actually solve things. It could
             | theoretically work but it very quickly hits diminishing
             | returns and becomes a bad allocation of effort. Projects
             | like actively replacing all our power plants, and making
             | sure all cars have a minimum electric range, are much more
             | "low hanging fruit" than trying to directly cut consumption
             | that far.
        
             | ethanbond wrote:
             | Well I'll take a stab at this one:
             | 
             | Privileged folks like those on HN will not cut back much.
             | Folks who are _already_ being forced to cut back will
             | continue to do so, and with massive amounts of suffering.
             | 
             | Really a simple solution!
        
               | haswell wrote:
               | This is rather pessimistic, trivializes the argument and
               | assumes that it's directed only at individuals.
               | 
               | Doing less doesn't have to mean it's only an individual's
               | responsibility. Applying this more broadly, doing less is
               | a category of potential solutions to much bigger
               | problems.
               | 
               | Relying on individuals will never move the needle very
               | far.
        
               | ethanbond wrote:
               | This is the opposite of assuming it's directed only at
               | individuals. I'm saying we are _already_ doing this,
               | systematically, at massive scale. What it looks like is
               | people fleeing particular regions, turned from farmer or
               | industrial worker to... "doing less." It looks like mass
               | migration and failed states. This happens either because
               | the economics cease to make sense (the sort of levers any
               | systematic solution would have available), or ecological
               | facts require it (the sort of solution that will be
               | forced upon us in lieu of action).
               | 
               | In either case, it's clear that the "doing less"
               | approaches are bound to start with the people who are
               | already doing the least.
        
           | calibas wrote:
           | This seems to be the standard response, I've certainly heard
           | it before, but all I'm suggesting is doing less. I'm not a
           | luddite, I'm not arguing for a "pre-modern agrarian societal
           | model", I'm arguing for a post-modern agrarian society that
           | balances technology, industry and the ecosystem.
           | 
           | We consume enormously more than we need, and far more than
           | the Planet can handle. I feel like the one of the few sane
           | people when I'm saying it's imperative that we lower our
           | consumption right now.
        
             | slg wrote:
             | Funny enough you are falling into a similar situation as
             | item 5 from that list. You are "pushing a view that has
             | absolutely no advantage to anyone". You feel like one of
             | the few sane people because you are of course technically
             | right. However no one will listen to you because "even if
             | that's true, there's no profit in thinking about it" as it
             | is currently impossible from a societal standpoint. There
             | is no way to get a critical mass of people to return to an
             | agrarian society until they have no other real choice
             | because collectively modern consumption makes our
             | individual lives more enjoyable. That is why reducing
             | emissions is expensive and painful because the cheap and
             | easy answer of just not consuming isn't feasible.
        
               | Swenrekcah wrote:
               | Some part of modern consumption however is not really
               | making lives any more enjoyable at all, for instance all
               | the low quality clothes and items sold in large
               | quantities to fill some internal void for people for a
               | short while.
               | 
               | If there was for instance a carbon tax on the raw
               | materials and transport then I'm fairly sure the price
               | difference between high quality and low quality items
               | would become minimal so people would start buying more
               | sensibly for the planet because our systems would make it
               | more sensible for them individually.
        
               | slg wrote:
               | >to fill some internal void for people for a short while.
               | 
               | You just answered your own point there. It makes people
               | happy. Maybe that feeling is fleeting, but it is still a
               | good feeling that people will not give up voluntarily
               | unless there are no other options.
               | 
               | >If there was for instance a carbon tax on the raw
               | materials and transport then I'm fairly sure the price
               | difference between high quality and low quality items
               | would become minimal so people would start buying more
               | sensibly for the planet because our systems would make it
               | more sensible for them individually.
               | 
               | I don't disagree, but a carbon tax is in the expensive
               | and painful bucket above not the cheap and easy one. It
               | makes the low quality goods more expensive so people
               | consume less of them. That is not people voluntarily
               | giving up those good for the benefit of the planet.
        
               | Swenrekcah wrote:
               | Nah, I don't buy that. People wouldn't be "giving up"
               | anything for the benefit of the planet by not buying a
               | new pair of shoes every month or something. It would
               | actually be for their own benefit to be more content.
               | 
               | That's kind of the whole problem, the people who would
               | lose are the sellers and advertisers who cultivate the
               | insecurities in discontent people for their own benefit,
               | not the consumers.
        
               | calibas wrote:
               | >You are "pushing a view that has absolutely no advantage
               | to anyone".
               | 
               | Really? I'm of the opinion that doing less, working less,
               | and doing things like having your own garden would lead
               | to much greater health and happiness for the average
               | person. The only way I can see "no advantage" is when
               | viewed through the lens of modern capitalism, then my
               | suggestions are certainly blasphemous.
        
               | strictured wrote:
               | You're ignoring his more important point that you will
               | not be able to get the critical mass necessary to make it
               | useful and true on a collective/societal level. Believing
               | that you can ask people to work less, and that the lost
               | income (and subsequently access to critical resources
               | like food) can somehow be supplemented with a garden that
               | many people wouldn't even have access to the space
               | necessary to implement, betrays a lack of understanding
               | of the economic situation of most people. How many proles
               | rent rather than own, and how may have access to fertile
               | ground?
        
               | rpdillon wrote:
               | It's not they're blasphemous, it's that there's no clear
               | way to incentivize a critical mass to change their
               | behavior. Put another way: the destination is clear
               | enough, but how to get there isn't. Reminds me a bit of
               | nuclear disarmament.
        
               | slg wrote:
               | Exactly, it is more the transition that is impossible
               | rather than the end state. You can't tell people to give
               | up international travel, visiting family members, eating
               | non-local foods, air conditioning, and the overwhelming
               | majority of society's leisure activities and replace it
               | all with gardening. Maybe that is a desirable end result
               | that would be healthier for both humanity and the planet,
               | but there is no way to get there voluntarily. That is
               | just asking people to give up too much.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | mrfusion wrote:
       | Neat article. I don't understand what he's saying for number 4
       | though.
        
       | imwillofficial wrote:
       | This article is a sad way to look at the world
        
         | Noumenon72 wrote:
         | Executing strategy #5, I see.
        
           | imwillofficial wrote:
           | No, it's empathy. There is something human about our
           | irrationality. Rising above that, we lose a bit of that magic
           | that makes us unique.
        
       | javajosh wrote:
       | Regarding plan 1, the prenup is the most romantic idea of all.
       | Why? Because you stay together not out of fear, but out of love.
       | Sadly, there are limits to what prenups can do (they can't apply
       | to time-sharing the children, in most states). Note that not
       | getting married is not enough; common law marriage applies if you
       | live together long enough.
       | 
       | As for the rest, it's disturbing and I don't want to think about
       | it. So I won't.
        
       | didibus wrote:
       | Most of these seem to imply you don't remember the plan while
       | still following it, so in a sense, you don't have a good reason
       | not to talk about them, since you actually wouldn't know what to
       | talk about.
       | 
       | That means the only thing I take from this is that you get really
       | good followers by indoctrination which is a combination of
       | leading by example, shaming/rewarding people at a social level,
       | and possibly force or power, and that requires you to be sleazy
       | about it, by never divulging the real motives to others. Maybe
       | you can get yourself to believe in it as well to a point and
       | forget, but that seems less likely to me, most likely you just
       | got others indoctrinated to follow your plan without knowing the
       | real reasons why, which eventually get forgotten to history.
        
       | tpoacher wrote:
       | This reminded me of today's Dilbert strip:
       | https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-12-14
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | So when you find yourself reading "They're _internment camps_ ,
       | not 'concentration camps'" as a serious, honest defense of
       | involuntary quarantine, just relax, go with the flow, and hope
       | your betters are following one of these plans. Surely everything
       | will turn out OK and my individual reservations are not just
       | meaningless, but possibly ultimately antisocial...
        
       | bsedlm wrote:
       | this is the best explanation I've even seen for a positive aspect
       | to secrecy.
       | 
       | yet I still distrust secretive practices on principle, because
       | evil deeds require secrecy 99% of the time
        
         | vmception wrote:
         | transparency is a deflection and most of the implementation is
         | based on lies
         | 
         | many forms of good deeds also rely on secrecy
        
       | mjlawson wrote:
       | This reminds me of a set of poems, Knots, by R.D. Laing, the
       | first of which goes:
       | 
       | > They are playing a game
       | 
       | > They are playing, at not playing a game
       | 
       | > If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they
       | will punish me.
       | 
       | > I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
       | 
       | It's a lovely collection, and though I haven't thought about it
       | recently, I think there's a lot of value in considering these
       | kinds of unspoken self/group contradictions.
        
         | yakshaving_jgt wrote:
         | I lost the game.
        
           | janlaureys wrote:
           | Same here. Had such a long streak going as well.
        
         | JALTU wrote:
         | Thanks for sharing! Knots has lovely metre, which feels/sounds
         | like the famous Bene Gesserit litany against fear.
         | 
         | I must not reveal the game / Revelation makes me the rule
         | breaker / Revelation means alienation that brings total
         | ostracization
        
         | not1ofU wrote:
         | I shall break the rules and they will punish me ~Julian Assange
         | 
         | Edit: To the downvoters, :wave: - if I was to change the name
         | to Chelsea Manning would you have downvoated anyway? If so why,
         | educate me. I dont see the problem here.
         | https://scheerpost.com/2021/12/13/hedges-the-execution-of-ju...
         | Lets discuss this ^
        
       | vmception wrote:
       | I keep my tax plans secret.
       | 
       | A) Because I paid alot for the CPAs, tax lawyers, private letter
       | rulings and case law.
       | 
       | B) Actually talking about it to those struggling with taxes would
       | result in them noticing they can't participate any more than
       | driving to the neighboring municipality for cheaper gas tax,
       | instead of anything more convenient, and could result in the tax
       | laws changing from their widespread annoyance.
       | 
       | C) tax clickbait publishers like ProPublica won't figure it out
       | for them for another two decades, which is long enough.
        
         | Noumenon72 wrote:
         | I am very susceptible to this kind of thing. Most of my life I
         | have read articles about most tax shelters being dodgy, watched
         | by the IRS, and concluded all I can really do is 401k and tax
         | loss harvesting. But now that you mention it, this feels the
         | same way as me not realizing all the effort people to to look
         | better on camera, because they don't really talk about it. So I
         | end up not competing in the areas of tax avoidance,
         | presentability, or clout, giving those who kept their plans
         | secret an even bigger advantage.
        
           | vmception wrote:
           | Sadly it is a factor of exposure. I have read many tax ideas
           | that were non-compliant or under heavy scrutiny by the IRS,
           | and I have read many tax ideas that are very compliant and
           | actively helped by the IRS. From my observation and
           | experiences, the IRS cares more about compliance than the
           | actual revenue which is in their name. They should really be
           | called the Tax Compliance and Collections Department, but
           | their name is really homage to the idea that the Federal
           | government can raise and collect revenues from many other
           | sources, which predates the income tax dragnet and the
           | constitutional amendment that was required to go down that
           | path.
           | 
           | Different people at the IRS understand different things, and
           | different tax professionals interface with different parts of
           | the IRS (and judiciary).
           | 
           | Congress and the White House would not be able to keep up,
           | despite being able to espouse an opinion of the government
           | about the amount of money that winds up subject to tax
           | collection, they are not the IRS which has the only relevant
           | opinion. Although good tax lawyers and judges can have a more
           | relevant opinion.
        
         | throwaway0a5e wrote:
         | I don't talk about my side gig for the same reason.
         | 
         | If it was widely hyped among the people who have the capital to
         | enter it all the money would be driven out of it.
        
       | xupybd wrote:
       | As one of the church goers that genuinely believes in God and the
       | afterlife I'm surprised and saddened to hear people attend in
       | disbelief. It's a shame the same community can't be found amongst
       | others that hold similar beliefs. It's sad that someone can't be
       | true to their own beliefs.
        
       | temptemptemp111 wrote:
       | Stop with the chemtrails already! That isn't engineering, that's
       | pollution.
        
       | reducesuffering wrote:
       | You're the (US) government. You want to prevent deaths from
       | Covid. Research keeps generally concluding that previous Covid
       | infection natural immunity is roughly as good as vaccine induced.
       | You realize if you message this to the public and allow equality
       | to vax-passes, never-vax people will be incentivized to now try
       | and get covid so they can be restriction-less without being
       | vaxxed, further spreading covid. You decide not to message this,
       | leaving some astute researchers perplexed.
        
         | seoaeu wrote:
         | Is anyone really surprised by this? All evidence suggests that
         | getting the vaccine strictly increases your immunity to Covid,
         | even if you've already had the disease.
        
       | jvanderbot wrote:
       | The underlying issue, and one that bugs the hell out of me, is
       | Policy vs Truth.
       | 
       | You can say true things all day, and convince nobody. You can
       | enact policy based completely on Truth (e.g., Trust the Science),
       | and completely fail. People don't care about Truth, they care
       | about what changes they need to make, and who is asking them to
       | make them.
       | 
       | Good policy is only partially based on truth, it's more based on
       | easy implementation and high acceptability. In the article, you
       | _don 't talk about the real reasons (truth)_, you do what you
       | need to do to steer the ship. That probably includes
       | bullshitting, compromise, apparent-hypocrisy, etc.
       | 
       | I'm afraid we've completely forgotten to separate the means from
       | the end goal.
       | 
       | I've tried to explain this to people, and I've been met with
       | blank stares from even the most intelligent folks.
       | 
       | As suggested though, it works wonders if you're at least a little
       | good at magical thinking or self deception. (If I run these 3
       | miles, I'm much more likely to get that raise)
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | 63 wrote:
         | >I've tried to explain this to people, and I've been met with
         | blank stares from even the most intelligent folks.
         | 
         | That's definitely an experience I've had with similar topics. I
         | particularly remember talking to a friend who I generally
         | respect and admire about something that isn't socially
         | acceptable for no obvious reason, and upon explaining my
         | thoughts and asking what the deal was with it, they completely
         | shut down and acted like I was totally insane.
         | 
         | It's just particularly annoying that so many people claim to be
         | for truth or actions based on some ultimate moral value, but
         | then act totally differently because all they were ever really
         | for was tradition which includes hypocrisy about what it's for.
        
         | jollybean wrote:
         | There's a term for this and it's called 'Public Communications'
         | sometimes into the domain of propaganda.
         | 
         | This is not a 'new' concept it's as old as time and 100% of
         | people with real power have an awareness of this, it's almost a
         | defining feature of an elite class.
         | 
         | Policy should obviously be guided by 'Truth' and we need
         | transparency, at the same time, irrespective of how smart
         | individuals are, as crowds, we act with a lowest-common-
         | demoninator IQ and things need to be communicated effectively.
         | 
         | A great example of 'Truths We Cant't Handle' are vaccination-
         | caused deaths.
         | 
         | All the vaccines cause death, and AZ is particularly tricky.
         | But it's really hard to find exact data on that because it's
         | very well suppressed. I suggest it's probably available with
         | some digging but if you imagine a 'chain of communications'
         | from the doctors, to health officials, to politicians to media,
         | all of whom are ostensibly trying to act in the interest of the
         | 'Public Good' - it's not going to come out.
         | 
         | Bonnie Henry in BC is a great Public Health official, I listen
         | to her communications almost weekly, very smart, generally
         | open, data-driven, smart journalists asking good questions -
         | but they have never broached the subject of 'How many have died
         | form vaccines'. The information is just too explosive. So they
         | don't talk about it. We're learn more about it after the
         | pandemic.
        
         | jfrunyon wrote:
         | > I'm afraid we've completely forgotten to separate the means
         | from the end goal.
         | 
         | I'm afraid we've completely forgotten "the ends don't justify
         | the means". ;)
        
         | sieabahlpark wrote:
         | You know science is inherently flawed? Making policy on
         | kneejerk reactions to "science" is no better than being a
         | tyrant. Especially when you consider how specific studies are
         | funded (like oil being environmentally friendly).
         | 
         | A majority of studies are just outright wrong and are trying to
         | reach for conclusions for grant money.
        
         | lkrubner wrote:
         | This is related to an issue I've studied a lot and recently
         | written about. In "Don't make a fetish of having a flat
         | organization" I try to address this in the context of business,
         | making clear that a well-designed bureaucracy can empower an
         | organization to be more flexible at scale, but for various
         | reasons we don't often think of it this way:
         | 
         | https://demodexio.substack.com/p/dont-make-a-fetish-of-havin...
         | 
         | But perhaps more relevant, in the context of government and
         | policy, I've tried to make the point that we should think of
         | government and bureaucracy as machines that produce policy.
         | Every machine is optimized to produce certain kinds of
         | policies. If you advocate for a great policy, and you've the
         | facts on your side, and yet no one will listen to you, then you
         | need to think about the structure of that machine, because it
         | will take a change in the machine to get that machine to start
         | producing the kinds of policy that you want:
         | 
         | https://demodexio.substack.com/p/democracy-for-realists-part...
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | The power and foolishness of democracy lies therein. A good
         | story is more motivating that the complicated truths of life.
         | It is probably better for all of us to link every tornado and
         | hurricane to climate change in a neat little story than refrain
         | from doing so because we cannot link the particular storm on
         | man-made climate change. The story has power to effect positive
         | change.
        
         | UnFleshedOne wrote:
         | While practical and maybe inevitable, this approach will
         | alienate exactly the kind of people you want on your side if
         | you want to _actually_ reach your goal and course correct when
         | needed.
         | 
         | Instead you will attract people who will happily pretend to be
         | on the right path and will keep performing rain dances on
         | titanic.
         | 
         | What you propose can work if it is a technocratic conspiracy
         | where people who know what's going on maintain power and can
         | update direction relatively easily (we were always at war with
         | Eurasia). Then again, there is always a risk of losing real
         | power to one of the mid-rank rain-dancing activists and screw
         | up the whole project, maybe for good.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kelseyfrog wrote:
       | The real fun is talking about other peoples' plans they aren't
       | supposed to talk about. That's the best part about the internet
       | -- there aren't any real consequences for doing so.
        
       | jollybean wrote:
       | Like discovering the ancient concept of 'Public Communications'
       | by accidental recourse of self aware rhetoric.
       | 
       | Every single thing we do, if the public were to have access to
       | the raw facts, it would cause 'outrage'. The entirely of
       | leadership is putting the difficult facts into the difficult
       | context and making the trade offs.
       | 
       | We 'don't talk about' the fact that we don't give medical aid to
       | COVID patients past a certain point because we have to put a
       | dollar figure on it (i.e. triage), similarly the fact we have
       | $1200 'solutions' to COVID that could probably wipe it out
       | without vaccines if we could get everyone the tech, but we can't
       | 'afford' it, or that masks do not protect you like wearing a gas
       | mask through a chlorine cloud, rather, they're minimally
       | protective but nevertheless we believe 'do make difference' and
       | we want people to wear them, so we don't talk about it in detail,
       | rather, just suggest or require them as policy in some locales.
       | 
       | Because people make decisions based on the emotive strength of
       | the rhetorician, the magnitude of impressions, emotions, group
       | consensus, 'opposition', politics, their instinct for the
       | validity of the source ... and not conscientious and
       | dispassionate civic reasoning ... we worry about what is said on
       | 'mass media'. People will do largely what their favourite
       | 'talking head' say to do ... so we have to be careful about what
       | 'talking heads' say, at least in some situations.
        
         | throwaway0a5e wrote:
         | We don't talk about this stuff because we've lost the ability
         | to have honest adult discussions about the cost/benefit of
         | anything that involves not just harm, but risk of harm, let
         | alone death.
         | 
         | There's a classic engineering ethics problem involving an
         | overpass. Build a cheap overpass with a support in the median
         | and eventually someone may die crashing into it. The odds are
         | low and the cost of a bridge with no support is high.
         | 
         | Modern, western, white collar society is unable to look itself
         | in the mirror and say "we're building the cheap bridge" for
         | anything but the most ludicrously extreme cases.
         | 
         | If it wasn't Covid that made this clear it would have been
         | something else.
        
           | jollybean wrote:
           | It has little to do with 'Modern' 'Educated' or 'White
           | Collar'.
           | 
           | 'Public Communications' is more ancient than as the joke goes
           | 'the oldest profession'.
           | 
           | PR is probably the oldest profession.
           | 
           | Even Egyptian Pharaohs were overwhelmingly concerned with
           | their perception among the Plebes, the Nobles, and their
           | Enemies, and almost everything they did was oriented towards
           | that. Every group or individual in a position of power since
           | then has that as a fundamental concern.
           | 
           | Imagine writing a Constitution that says 'Everyone is Created
           | Equal' and then still having slaves, you need some serious
           | narrative formation to keep that paradox from bubbling up.
           | (FYI I'm not taking a postmodern view of history here, just
           | saying the issue is real).
           | 
           | COVID is a gigantic example.
        
         | newaccount74 wrote:
         | I think Covid handling is an example where the public has
         | extensive access to the raw facts; it's quite surprising just
         | how much data is available to the public. I can get time series
         | of covid cases, hospitalisations, vaccination rates, by area
         | and by age... It's really surprising how much info we have.
        
           | motohagiography wrote:
           | What I can't quite tell is whether the mental alarm bells of
           | people with ostensibly responsible mainstream views
           | legitimately aren't going off at all, or they too know what
           | this whole thing is, and they just think their complicity
           | will spare them.
        
           | jollybean wrote:
           | We do, but at the same time, we can't contextualize it very
           | well necessarily.
           | 
           | For example 'spikes' can mean all sorts of things. CFRs and
           | test positivity rates have to be hugely contextualized.
           | 
           | We also have 'studies' about Ivermectin some of which are
           | good, some of which ar flawed, that lack context i.e. 'study
           | shows Ivermectin works! - if that's all they see, well, then
           | they might be inclined to believe it.
           | 
           | And a huge amount of anecdotal data that is very misleading
           | as well.
           | 
           | It's good the data is out there, but we also need sources to
           | make sense of it.
        
         | 908B64B197 wrote:
         | > We 'don't talk about' the fact that we don't give medical aid
         | to COVID patients past a certain point because we have to put a
         | dollar figure on it (i.e. triage)
         | 
         | That's not how triage works.
         | 
         | > similarly the fact we have $1200 'solutions' to COVID that
         | could probably wipe it out without vaccines if we could get
         | everyone the tech, but we can't 'afford' it,
         | 
         | What is this mysterious cure?
         | 
         | > or that masks do not protect you like wearing a gas mask
         | through a chlorine cloud, rather, they're minimally protective
         | but nevertheless we believe 'do make difference' and we want
         | people to wear them, so we don't talk about it in detail,
         | rather, just suggest or require them as policy in some locales.
         | 
         | That's a known fact. Masks don't really protect the wearer
         | unless it's a properly fitted N95. They reduce the aerosol
         | emitted which reduces the chances of transmitting it to other
         | people. They protect a group of people if most wear them by
         | limiting transmission.
         | 
         | That's high school level biology.
        
           | MaxBarraclough wrote:
           | > Masks don't really protect the wearer unless it's a
           | properly fitted N95. They reduce the aerosol emitted which
           | reduces the chances of transmitting it to other people. They
           | protect a group of people if most wear them by limiting
           | transmission.
           | 
           | Many people seem to respond to this with a line of thought
           | akin to _Why would I take on a minor inconvenience merely to
           | help save the lives of other people?_ Surprisingly few seem
           | to think _I 'd better get some N95 masks then_. They've been
           | in ready supply for months.
        
             | 908B64B197 wrote:
             | Wearing a properly fitted one isn't comfortable at all.
             | 
             | Regular masks work great if everyone is wearing them
             | correctly.
        
           | jollybean wrote:
           | --- "That's not how triage works."
           | 
           | Triage: "the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or
           | illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number
           | of patients or casualties."
           | 
           | Seems exactly like triage.
           | 
           | --- "What is this mysterious cure?"
           | 
           | Monoclonal Antibodies are a very effective treatment that we
           | would use almost ubiquitously were it not for the cost.
           | 
           | If they were $1 and easily administered, they are in some
           | ways as effective as vaccines, and pragmatically 'could be
           | the first order solution'
           | 
           | " there was a significant reduction in COVID-related
           | hospitalization or death of 71.3% (1.3% vs. 4.6%; p<0.0001)
           | in the 2,400 mg group and 70.4% (1.0% vs. 3.2%) in the 1,200
           | mg group, as compared to placebo." [1]
           | 
           | 70% effective, taken at onset of symptoms, is more protective
           | than my current AZ vaccine.
           | 
           | But at $1200 ea. we can only use it in specialized scenarios.
           | 
           | FYI - 100% of 'Rich Americans' will have access to this if
           | they contract COVID and want to take it - but only a minority
           | of poor and middle class Americans will.
           | 
           | If the Media ever wanted to highlight this discrepancy, there
           | might be a revolution, but it's not in anyone's best interest
           | at this point, i.e. 'We Don't Talk About It'.
           | 
           | --- "Mask Protection Are a Known Fact"
           | 
           | No, it's not, in the minds of most people, and the specific
           | facts are purposefully avoided in the interest in the simple,
           | basic communication of: "Wear Your Mask" which is in the
           | public interest.
           | 
           | My parents and everyone in my family get jitters if 'one
           | person in vicinity' isn't wearing a proper mask, because
           | their 'instinct' is more along the 'N95 belief'.
           | 
           | 'One person without a mask' is along the lines of 'working in
           | a smokey nihgtclub for a week'. While not good, it's probably
           | not going to hurt you. If _everyone_ worked in smoke-filled
           | nightclubs, it wold cause harm for sure, just like if we all
           | didn 't wear masks, R0 would nudge up.
           | 
           | The 'Public Communication' on masks has definitely not been
           | nuanced to the point wherein they spend time going into the
           | details, and so the resulting 'common understanding' isn't
           | perfectly consistent with reality.
           | 
           | And it gets much better:
           | 
           | Vaccines kill.
           | 
           | We knew this, and we have a better understanding of it now,
           | but even the most 'transparent' Public Health communicators
           | completely avoid the subject. The visceral impact of 'So and
           | So Died from a Vaccine', even as we know that on the whole,
           | the vaccines are effectively safe and we want people to take
           | them, is just to much. A single anecdote of 'someone dying'
           | is easily enough for anti-vaxxers to propagandize and
           | misrepresent the materiality of risk.
           | 
           | Go ahead and try to get the 'hard data' on exactly where
           | vaccines have materially caused death, good luck, it's hard
           | to find. That is basically a level of 'transparency' that is
           | basically a problem for the 'Public Good' and basically that
           | information is actively suppressed. Maybe not 100% hidden,
           | but absolutely suppressed i.e. 'We Don't Talk About It'
           | 
           | [1] https://www.idsociety.org/covid-19-real-time-learning-
           | networ...
        
             | newaccount74 wrote:
             | > Go ahead and try to get the 'hard data' on exactly where
             | vaccines have materially caused death, good luck, it's hard
             | to find.
             | 
             | The Paul Ehrlich institute for example publishes exact
             | numbers of possibly vaccine related deaths. What more do
             | you want? Do you want them to publish names and photos of
             | every person that died after getting vaccinated?
        
       | crmd wrote:
       | They lost me at the dangers of ultrasonic humidifiers.
        
         | not2b wrote:
         | I think you misinterpreted that part. It's talking about how
         | cults who believe in weird stuff grow, despite there being no
         | real danger of ultrasonic humidifiers or whatever.
        
           | rkk3 wrote:
           | There is a non-zero risk of aerosolizing bacteria/mold etc if
           | you don't maintain an ultra-sonic humidifier properly, which
           | doesn't exist with other methods. Of course with a boiling
           | humidifier, you've got a container of scalding hot water
           | laying around.
        
           | the_pwner224 wrote:
           | The author is a part of that 'cult': -
           | https://dynomight.net/air/ -
           | https://dynomight.net/humidifiers/
           | 
           | So from context I think that the Hobo-Dyer projection and
           | using bromine are both supposed to be superior to current
           | common approaches, but, like ultrasonic humidifiers, normies
           | don't accept these superior new facts even though the
           | arguments for them are strong and infalliable.
           | 
           | I still don't get the point of the last two paragraphs in
           | that part.
        
         | mikewarot wrote:
         | If you put tap water in an ultrasonic humidifier, there
         | actually is a level of danger created.
         | 
         | Here's what appears to be a fair and balanced google search
         | result - https://www.childrenscolorado.org/conditions-and-
         | advice/pare...
        
       | mherdeg wrote:
       | Reading this gave me a kind of horrifying idea that goes
       | something like:
       | 
       | You know about a deadly disease whose most serious outcomes can
       | be avoided by getting a shot.
       | 
       | Many members of a group in your society have decided they don't
       | want to get the shot. You are annoyed by the way they talk about
       | a lot of things, including the way they talk about avoiding the
       | shot. They, in turn, call you "smug" for the way your group talks
       | about having everyone get the shot.
       | 
       | You realize that if the other tribe keeps acting this way, a lot
       | of them will die -- 1% of them overall, and as many as 10-15% of
       | the oldest members of the tribe, with them having a fresh chance
       | to die with every mutation and reinfection every 12 months.
       | 
       | You realize that smugly insisting that those people should "get
       | the shot" will make them dig in their heels and insist they will
       | never do any such thing. This will, in turn, kill them. This will
       | diminish their tribe's size and political influence. Is this a
       | plan? Is it a thing you are doing on purpose?
        
         | vmception wrote:
         | 1% decrease doesn't diminish their size and political influence
         | substantially, even of the disproportionate elderly population.
         | Then only a fraction of the remainders that lose a loved one
         | would re-evaluate, a large fraction of them would still be
         | bounced back when they realize the other ideas "your group"
         | inherits is even harder to accept as a personality trait. Most
         | of them will inherit just enough to not think further about the
         | matter.
        
           | jfrunyon wrote:
           | It's 1% of the whole population, but a much larger percentage
           | of certain political ideologies.
        
             | vmception wrote:
             | well, sure yeah.
             | 
             | far left spiritualists and naturopaths are a tiny
             | population, far right people occupy sparsely populated
             | areas.
             | 
             | funny application of horseshoe theory.
        
           | lowbloodsugar wrote:
           | IIRC some swing states were decided by less than 1%?
        
         | bsedlm wrote:
         | but why are you so adamant on making everybody so perfectly
         | safe?
         | 
         | there used to be something about freedom and risk; heck, about
         | life and risk.
         | 
         | it's risky to be alive but it was more risky live way back in
         | the day
         | 
         | at what point does safety begin to stifle the drive to live?
         | 
         | we as humans originally evolved in a risky environment, we
         | thrived in it, we made it safer for ourselves; but maybe, just
         | maybe, we also acquired a need for this risky behavior and
         | without it our lives feel emptier?
         | 
         | the point I am trying to make (granted not very eloquently)
         | starts out from this idea [1] that humans are kind of crazy,
         | and that maybe this crazyness is what makes us so successful;
         | so I put that too much safety may undo this crazyness, it puts
         | it to sleep?
         | 
         | see also anti-fragility
         | 
         | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97jBvbmY03g&t=252s
        
           | agentdrtran wrote:
           | sure, but on one hand, you have being mildly inconvenienced
           | by a shot, and on the other hand, you have conspiracy
           | theories that can get loads of people filled. People are
           | crazy, we should embrace that, but that doesn't mean you let
           | everyone drive drunk.
        
           | johnchristopher wrote:
           | > the point I am trying to make (granted not very eloquently)
           | starts out from this idea [1] that humans are kind of crazy,
           | and that maybe this crazyness is what makes us so successful;
           | so I put that too much safety may undo this crazyness, it
           | puts it to sleep?
           | 
           | You are blurring the lines between taking a personal risk in
           | one occasion at a specific time and taking the risk of not
           | wearing a mask or washing hands or cooking meat every day all
           | year long.
           | 
           | Craziness for the sake of craziness is just random trial and
           | error.
        
           | handrous wrote:
           | What does this have to do with the actual topic of the parent
           | post?
        
           | guidoism wrote:
           | Less about making those people safe and more about making you
           | safe by making those other not spread the disease to you.
           | 
           | For example: Go ahead and drive drunk, I don't care, just do
           | it on your private property so you don't kill me.
           | 
           | Similarly: Go and don't get vaxed, honestly I don't care. But
           | viruses don't respect borders like cars do, so if you are
           | going to do it then make sure you are isolated on a private
           | island where you don't leave, or Antarctica, or mars or
           | something.
        
             | EB-Barrington wrote:
             | "Our vaccines are working exceptionally well. They continue
             | to work well for Delta with regard to severe illness and
             | death - they prevent it, but what they can't do anymore is
             | prevent transmission,"
             | 
             | CDC Director Rochelle Walensky
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | arrow7000 wrote:
           | Ok but what's the point of taking risks for its own sake? It
           | makes sense to take risks if you stand to gain something. But
           | a risk with only downside is just a bad idea.
        
         | yongjik wrote:
         | You had me until the last paragraph. If "smugly" insisting X
         | would make them dig in their heels, what are we supposed to do?
         | Say "Oh of course it's totally in your rights, please send your
         | unvaccinated children to the same school my kids go to"?
         | Because I don't think it will change their minds either.
         | 
         | What happened to "personal responsibility" that these people
         | like so much? If the whole country tells these people to get
         | vaccinated, they don't, and they die, then I don't think I
         | should be held responsible for being smug, or snarky, or
         | whatever.
        
           | taejavu wrote:
           | The vaccines don't prevent catching covid, or spreading it to
           | other people, so what exactly is the problem with
           | unvaccinated kids going to schools with yours?
        
             | AnimalMuppet wrote:
             | The vaccines don't _prevent_ those things. They do _lower
             | the probability_ - or at least, that 's the claim. That's
             | not perfection, but it's not nothing, either.
             | 
             | As to whether the claim is accurate... that's outside the
             | scope of this comment.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | guidoism wrote:
         | Yikes don't say that out loud!
         | 
         | But seriously, the left needs to think more like this. The
         | right plays dirty and if the left plays like this they get the
         | same outcomes of playing dirty but is not saying anything bad
         | or wrong.
        
           | exolymph wrote:
           | You do realize that you're responding to a comment reframing
           | the USA left-establishment's covid vaccine rhetoric, right?
           | Point being, how do you know the left _isn 't_ playing like
           | this?
        
           | throwaway0a5e wrote:
           | The comment you are replying to is not a novel take. This
           | stuff has long since been thought of by some strategists on
           | pretty much every side of every issue for about as far back
           | as we have record of this sort of thing. Heck, revise the
           | wording a little bit and it could pass for something some
           | enlightenment thinker half a century ago would have said
           | about whatever issue they were talking about that minute.
        
         | lijogdfljk wrote:
         | I like the thought experiment, but i would counter that i
         | suspect the 1% that would die would be replaced by a larger
         | volume of new group members - due to the divisive nature of "us
         | vs them", everyone has to choose, and so the forced unity ends
         | up increasing overall members. Forcing people to choose
         | increased membership of both parties.
         | 
         | Not a statement, just a thought.
        
         | tshaddox wrote:
         | Consider that causing 1% of the group's population to die might
         | not weaken the group and in fact might make the group stronger.
        
           | willob33 wrote:
           | He's effectively describing Trump's leaked plan to let covid
           | ravage blue urban areas before the election, but here framing
           | it as a liberal plot as a narrative device
           | 
           | Maybe he's a Republican astroturfer
           | 
           | Someone just learned the root language of real human
           | economics taught to us as abstractions through story and pie
           | chart.
        
           | XorNot wrote:
           | Disease doesn't kill "weaker" members of a group, it kills
           | susceptible ones.
           | 
           | The Spanish Flu notably had a much higher mortality amongst
           | younger, healthier people.
        
             | tshaddox wrote:
             | I didn't mean some sort of darwinian thing where the
             | average strength goes up. I mean that the strength of the
             | group as a whole could very well increase.
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | COVID however is most fatal to the eldery. Letting it
             | simply rage out of control could push back the social
             | security crisis a few years.
             | 
             | I don't think anything as Machiavellian as this is going
             | on. I think it was all just a culmination of decades anti-
             | expert propaganda and knee-jerk obstructionism coming to a
             | head in a terribly fatal way.
        
         | EB-Barrington wrote:
         | Correction - it's not 1%, it's 100%. Of both tribes.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | willob33 wrote:
         | It's just business
        
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