No lockdown, please, we’re Swedish.

[TBoneTX 43,022]

An eloquent (and, I think, persuasive) observation from a Swede.

Quote

No lockdown, please, we’re Swedish.

Fredrik Erixon - April 1, 2020

 

[...] We're careful.  But our approach to fighting the pandemic starts from something more fundamental: in a liberal democracy you have to convince and not command people into action.  If you lose that principle, you will lose your soul. [...]

 

Continues here: https://spectator.us/lockdown-please-swedish/  

 

 

 

[Steeleballz 7,550]

  

   Well there is always the contrasting opinion. Linked below without embedding for optimal visual distraction. Hard to predict the future, but not hard to speculate based on prior outcomes. New Orleans wasn't too worried about social distancing a few weeks ago either. 

 

    

Quote

'They are leading us to catastrophe': Sweden's coronavirus stoicism begins to jar

 

   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/catastrophe-sweden-coronavirus-stoicism-lockdown-europe

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

This is so true. The only growth to any liberalized society is the will to action and people making free choices.

 

The idea of coercing people is not liberal at all, yet this idea is permeating the thought process of people that ascribe to supposed liberal values. This is where today's left are paradoxically looking more like the right, hence "regressive". Repackaging outdated viewpoints liberal society long rejected and selling those as novel isn't liberal.

[Dashinka 23,211]

41 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

This is so true. The only growth to any liberalized society is the will to action and people making free choices.

 

The idea of coercing people is not liberal at all, yet this idea is permeating the thought process of people that ascribe to supposed liberal values. This is where today's left are paradoxically looking more like the right, hence "regressive". Repackaging outdated viewpoints liberal society long rejected and selling those as novel isn't liberal.

This is why I always refer to the “bigger government” folks of today as Left and not Liberal.  I myself am very liberal, but I am definitely not a big government Leftist.

[TBoneTX 43,022]

South Korea has also done pretty darn well for itself during all this, but they had systems ready to apply.

[OriZ 3,157]

The main problem, and why we needed to take extreme measures(though still not nearly as extreme as Italy or Spain), is that we didn't enact, and still aren't enacting, many of the less severe measures of mitigations countries like South Korea or Hong Kong are enacting. When you have a small fire you can use sprinklers, but if it got to the point where your house is burning down you need a whole crew of firemen to put it out. We need to put this fire out, and then we need to let people get back to their normal lives, while taking the proper measures to contain this.

Edited April 5, 2020 by OriZ

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

South Korea and Hong Kong are not comparable to the United States. Those are very small regions, way more population dense, very different systems of government, which makes the entire process much easier for them when it comes to distribution and control. In the US, you have numerous conflicts of sovereignty, by design, over much larger land mass, and this is where those governments are supposed to work together (for the United States as a nation), yet don't. Regardless, the US can't lock things down even like China or Russia can (and they aren't very good at it), because it isn't like them either. The federal gov doesn't have the type of sweeping powers over supply/distribution people think they do.

 

So in the end, the best idea is to work to facilitate safer, more self-preserving behaviors in general, especially by the most vulnerable, rather than give them a false sense of security by trying to have the world bend around them, or pretend that Country A can be like Country B, D, M, G, F, T, etc.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[OriZ 3,157]

15 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

South Korea and Hong Kong are not comparable to the United States. Those are very small regions, way more population dense, very different systems of government, which makes the entire process much easier for them when it comes to distribution and control. In the US, you have numerous conflicts of sovereignty, by design, over much larger land mass, and this is where those governments are supposed to work together (for the United States as a nation), yet don't. Regardless, the US can't lock things down even like China or Russia can (and they aren't very good at it), because it isn't like them either. The federal gov doesn't have the type of sweeping powers over supply/distribution people think they do.

 

So in the end, the best idea is to work to facilitate safer, more self-preserving behaviors in general, especially by the most vulnerable, rather than give them a false sense of security by trying to have the world bend around them, or pretend that Country A can be like Country B, D, M, G, F, T, etc.

Just because there are differences between the US and South Korea, doesn't mean we can't be more proactive like they are, identify cases quickly, isolate/quarantine only those people or areas where there are major issues while keeping everything else open, have an app like they do even in Israel which basically lets you know if you were around someone who was potentially infected, etc. "but what about our privacy" I don't see how something like this would be an issue:

 

https://www.grahamcluley.com/shield-israeli-coronavirus-app/

 

You don't have to install it if you don't want to. There are many, many ways, those and others, to tackle this, but we're doing nothing, even now. Basically still just sitting on our hands hoping it just goes away if we lock people up for a month or two. There are about 450 confirmed cases in VT. I know where none of them are from, where none of them have been(maybe the grocery store right next to me?) and when. In many other countries, you can access a whole epidemiologic investigation. Again, you won't know who those people are, so I see no issue with that. 

Edited April 5, 2020 by OriZ

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

48 minutes ago, OriZ said:

Just because there are differences between the US and South Korea, doesn't mean we can't be more proactive like they are, identify cases quickly, isolate/quarantine only those people or areas where there are major issues while keeping everything else open, have an app like they do even in Israel which basically lets you know if you were around someone who was potentially infected, etc. "but what about our privacy" I don't see how something like this would be an issue:

 

https://www.grahamcluley.com/shield-israeli-coronavirus-app/

 

You don't have to install it if you don't want to. There are many, many ways, those and others, to tackle this, but we're doing nothing, even now. Basically still just sitting on our hands hoping it just goes away if we lock people up for a month or two. There are about 450 confirmed cases in VT. I know where none of them are from, where none of them have been(maybe the grocery store right next to me?) and when. In many other countries, you can access a whole epidemiologic investigation. Again, you won't know who those people are, so I see no issue with that. 

I'm in Canada right now and I know just as much. Logically, the only thing you can do is pay attention locally, rather than more irrelevantly zoom out in scope and presume this is applicable everywhere. There are already rational/general guidelines to follow for prevention of contracting/spreading pathogens. 

 

When you talk about "proactive", you're talking about insanely massive increases of federal spending for less and less marginal benefit. The federal government isn't known for its efficiency, particularly because it lacks significant resources on the ground, and the federal government simply does not have the ability to do what you're asking. Israel is an example of another tiny country that has far fewer barriers, politically and logistically, to the desired implements.

[OriZ 3,157]

20 hours ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

I'm in Canada right now and I know just as much. Logically, the only thing you can do is pay attention locally, rather than more irrelevantly zoom out in scope and presume this is applicable everywhere. There are already rational/general guidelines to follow for prevention of contracting/spreading pathogens. 

 

When you talk about "proactive", you're talking about insanely massive increases of federal spending for less and less marginal benefit. The federal government isn't known for its efficiency, particularly because it lacks significant resources on the ground, and the federal government simply does not have the ability to do what you're asking. Israel is an example of another tiny country that has far fewer barriers, politically and logistically, to the desired implements.

Honestly, all I'm hearing is excuse after excuse with no valid reasons. Are you saying Israel, a country that has gone through 3 elections in the last year and still doesn't have a functional government, has more resources than the US? Lets be real here...their equivalent of the US' $2 trillion package was a ~$20 billion package. That's 1% of it. Are you saying an open source app that they developed in a week, can't be developed in the US over the course of 2 months? 

 

You've got countries pulling over buses where they know irresponsible sick people are on and getting them off of it. Does the US not have the ability to do this?

 

All I've been hearing so far is "lockdown is bad". Great, I agree there are other ways. Then when other ways are brought up, "the US can't do this". So, what can we do? anything? or do we just expect to continue business as usual and pretend it's just another flu?

Edited April 6, 2020 by OriZ

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

1 hour ago, OriZ said:

Honestly, all I'm hearing is excuse after excuse with no valid reasons. Are you saying Israel, a country that has gone through 3 elections in the last year and still doesn't have a functional government, has more resources than the US? Lets be real here...their equivalent of the US' $2 trillion package was a ~$20 billion package. That's 1% of it. Are you saying an open source app that they developed in a week, can't be developed in the US over the course of 2 months? 

 

You've got countries pulling over buses where they know irresponsible sick people are on and getting them off of it. Does the US not have the ability to do this?

 

All I've been hearing so far is "lockdown is bad". Great, I agree there are other ways. Then when other ways are brought up, "the US can't do this". So, what can we do? anything? or do we just expect to continue business as usual and pretend it's just another flu?

The federal government doesn't have the ability to police millions of people in the fashion of your bus analogy. The cost, implementation, staff, etc., do you grasp any of this? 2 trillion is nothing compared to what it would cost to inflate the federal government to be able to implement the things you're describing. Not to mention the nuance of state and local vs. federal sovereignty. 

 

If you're going to pointlessly simplify, rather than the awful "lockdown is bad", you'd be slightly more accurate with "get rid of the Republic".

Edited April 6, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[JonSeattle 201]

Japan looked like they had it under control, and their numbers are still low. But the last two weeks have been exponential growth there. But I hope we get a tracking app here the US very soon.

[OriZ 3,157]

3 minutes ago, JonSeattle said:

Japan looked like they had it under control, and their numbers are still low. But the last two weeks have been exponential growth there. But I hope we get a tracking app here the US very soon.

You'd think it would be a no-brainer.

[Dashinka 23,211]

3 hours ago, OriZ said:

You'd think it would be a no-brainer.

Maybe the UN should lock down the planet?

[OriZ 3,157]

4 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Maybe the UN should lock down the planet?

The only one bringing the UN or planet lockdown into this is you...