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Preface: I'm glad you're in a pub. I wish I could be! Sounds nice, masks and all.

> Almost no matter how bad it gets, I think people care about social interaction above almost all else even their own safety.

Ultimately, my struggle is that I don't understand this. I don't value social interaction this way, and most of my close family and friends don't either (though it's far closer to 50/50 than I am comfortable with).

Ultimately people are irrational. People want to be masters of their own destiny. Is it illegal to go outside? Am I going to get in trouble? So long as people can act without consequence, they will.

With a deadly virus that spreads so silently, I really fear for humanity here. The fools will be the end of us all.

The only hope of real consequence is contract tracing and frankly, I don't think the majority of people want contract tracing to even work, especially Americans, who value their liberties to such extremes. People would rather kill anonymously without consequence.

This all makes me so sad.




Being charitable - you're inadvertently being dishonest here.

Your "close friends", unless you met them all on IRC or whatever, literally _exist_ because you met them. Your family exist because you spent time close to each other.

I don't think you really understand what this whole brave new "social distancing" world means. It means never forming social bonds. It means young people never finding a partner, having children. It means children growing up thinking that their friends are virons.

We can do it in lockdown, for a while, that's what we're doing, and sensible people have no issue with that.

If you think we are going to do it for years, you're being daft. It's like imposing a chronic disease on 100% of the population.


If it helps, think of social interaction like sunshine. If you could only be safe by never ever going out into the sun, at all, for a year or more, could you do it? Social interaction is like this, it warms people up, makes them healthier, and people feel the loss when they can't, yes, even introverts.


I could probably avoid the sun forever. I don't have some innate requirement to be exposed to the sun to survive, or to enjoy life.




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