I'm not making any cash on this, and I want the lockdown to continue. Because I don't want COVID and have a rudimentary knowledge of how disease is transmitted.
> Social isolation may be the best solution. Fine. Don't force it on us. If it's the right solution, then it will be followed.
I think your own statement is proof that this is not the case. We know social distancing works, yet you don't want to implement it.
> just like what happened after 9/11 in the US with the imposition of the Patriot Act.
I agree that governments will always do this. That doesn't make COVID any less of a threat though. The lockdown isn't the only lever of authoritarian control. There's plenty of others you can fight to increase individual liberty. Things that won't put millions of others (and yourself) at risk.
> I think your own statement is proof that this is not the case. We know social distancing works, yet you don't want to implement it.
I said I don't want to force it on people - I never said it was a bad idea to remove yourself from close contact with strangers during a pandemic. Forcing it on people is how you get deaths of despair, run everyone's businesses to the ground, and ruin every healthy person's life who isn't at risk.
You don't have to force it. Social distancing is a decision an individual makes, and a rational individual would choose to do this if they wanted to live without the risk of getting infected.
> I said I don't want to force it on people - I never said it was a bad idea to remove yourself from close contact with strangers during a pandemic.
Allowing anyone to opt out disproportionately negatively affects people who are unable to isolate for whatever reason: essential job, medical emergency, etc. People not isolating creates more risk for the grocery checkout person or power plant operator, for example.
> Social distancing is a decision an individual makes, and a rational individual would choose to do this if they wanted to live without the risk of getting infected.
It's just selfishness (or at best rank ignorance) to believe that whether or not you personally isolate only affects your health.
We are unable to identify when, where, and how an individual got infected with COVID-19. It is absurd to say that people "not isolating" creates more risk, unless those not isolating are the people at risk in the first place. Those at risk of dying from something as benign as COVID-19 ought to be nowhere near a power plant or a supermarket. The responsibility to not die from COVID-19 is in the hands of the individual at risk of dying from it. If you are that frail and in such poor health, stay away from the public. You don't need a damn law to enforce that, since this is typically what is done naturally in human populations; the sick & frail stay home and out of the public, the healthy live on and try to keep the world turning.
> Social isolation may be the best solution. Fine. Don't force it on us. If it's the right solution, then it will be followed.
I think your own statement is proof that this is not the case. We know social distancing works, yet you don't want to implement it.
> just like what happened after 9/11 in the US with the imposition of the Patriot Act.
I agree that governments will always do this. That doesn't make COVID any less of a threat though. The lockdown isn't the only lever of authoritarian control. There's plenty of others you can fight to increase individual liberty. Things that won't put millions of others (and yourself) at risk.