Covid: why didn't the old lie down for the young ?
It's clear that covid's impacts are much more severe and felt by those over 50.
Yes there are anecdotal stories of younger people being seriously affected, but the odds are similar to being struck by lightning.
So the reality is that our policy response to covid is aimed at protecting those over 50.
I can't help but wonder why those over 50 didn't lie down for the young.
The arguably irreversible damage done to children and teens by the restrictions and changes to their freedoms is huge. They have suffered and continue to suffer so much.
Yet they are clearly at very little risk from this virus. The flu is in fact a greater threat to them.
So they are made to suffer these restrictions, not for their own protection, but rather to protect those in the plus 50 group.
I wonder though if you asked all those parents and grandparents in the above 50 group whether they would WANT their children and grandchildren to make that sacrifice for their sake, how many would say yes?
I have no children but can say without a doubt I would have chosen to face the risks that come with a lack of restrictions on children to protect the freedom and happiness of children.
I know without a doubt that my grandparents and parents would have done that for me.
I wonder if we had given people a choice, how many in the over 50 group would have asked children and teens to give up their freedoms and happiness?
Yes there are anecdotal stories of younger people being seriously affected, but the odds are similar to being struck by lightning.
So the reality is that our policy response to covid is aimed at protecting those over 50.
I can't help but wonder why those over 50 didn't lie down for the young.
The arguably irreversible damage done to children and teens by the restrictions and changes to their freedoms is huge. They have suffered and continue to suffer so much.
Yet they are clearly at very little risk from this virus. The flu is in fact a greater threat to them.
So they are made to suffer these restrictions, not for their own protection, but rather to protect those in the plus 50 group.
I wonder though if you asked all those parents and grandparents in the above 50 group whether they would WANT their children and grandchildren to make that sacrifice for their sake, how many would say yes?
I have no children but can say without a doubt I would have chosen to face the risks that come with a lack of restrictions on children to protect the freedom and happiness of children.
I know without a doubt that my grandparents and parents would have done that for me.
I wonder if we had given people a choice, how many in the over 50 group would have asked children and teens to give up their freedoms and happiness?
Comments (114)
Because death is a more serious affliction than not being able to get a haircut maybe? Because most under 50s are not selfish rats? Because the chaos of letting COVID run riot would not be limited to one age group? Because the under 50s did not entirely give up their freedom and happines but merely mitigated it along with everyone else? Because watching their parents and grandparents die would not generally make young people happy anyway?
Like spending more time with their parents? A large percentage of children surveyed in Canada now identify their parents as their "best friends". Like learning the value of sacrificing trivial personal freedoms for the greater good? Like being forced to utilize their minds to come up with creative alternatives to habitual rituals?
Human beings thrive and grow and learn through challenges.
I think that your suggestions of suggesting that older people should lie down and just allow for younger people to thrive would be asking for them to become martyrs. Also, you speak of all over 50s and that would mean a significant proportion of the population. Most people at 50 are working and may live for 30 or 40 more years. If an ideology that the older people should just be allowed to get sick and died had developed during the pandemic it would have been one of ageism. Also, it would have been in complete opposition to the life instincts of people.
Your opinion of letting die older because they already lived so much is somehow selfish. It does not respect the human nature of individualism. I don't have to die for others neither others for me. The solution is the accessibility vaccine for all the citizens not just let others die because we are not good enough to make a strategic plan in the pandemic
I disagree with this. Where the virus was out of control, restrictions were meant to keep the hospitals from being overloaded.
If they became overloaded everyone would suffer including young people in motor vehicle accidents, for instance.
In places where the virus remained controlled, restrictions were meant to keep it that way.
You mean the coordinated effort of the Civil War and WW2 and the like by federal GOVERNMENT? :roll:
You mean the UNION of the states to come together to form Committees of Correspondence to fight the Revolutionary War?
No, I mean the covid restrictions.
This last year has been a pathetic example of the incredibly weakness of people in the West, adult children infected by a culture of intellectual bewilderment and victimhood.
It's time to put on your big-boy pants, folks!
Another example of Tim’s bigotry.
And so on your island of self-sufficiency, do you refuse all treatment for all diseases and just lay down and die because to do otherwise would rely upon someone else for your safety? Would you pathetically walk into an emergency room with a broken arm and say "SAVE ME!! SAVE ME!!," or would you heroically try to set your own bone and deal with the infection the best you could?
Sometimes the solution is a vaccine, sometimes a cast, sometimes a mask, and sometimes quarantine. What is your principled distinction between these where some are pathetic reactions and some are not?
Why is it more grown up to behave as if you are entirely in control of your destiny as opposed to behaving as if others also control your destiny, especially considering the latter is true and the former is false?
Oh because you said:
Quoting NOS4A2
And I thought it ironic that fighting for those freedoms involved coordinating on a federal level in exactly the way that you seem to be opposing. I gave examples of it including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and certainly WW2.
All the time people should be figuring things out for themselves by using clarity in their powers of observation and critical thinking instead of allowing these morons in the media and government to decide for them.
By saying “fighting for those freedoms” I didn’t necessarily mean war. Personally, I wouldn’t use the example of a federal coordination towards mass death and destruction as an example of good government.
This is just another example of governments treating their citizens like children. Wear a coat when it rains outside! Don't run with sharp objects! Wash your hands before dinner!
A while back there was a thread that talked about how western society seems inhabited by adult children. My reply was; treating people like children, makes them act like children.
And that sums up this whole situation. Governments playing the role of overbearing, controlling mother and turning its population into dysfunctional children.
Meaning that the people who have seen the most success in life throughout the ages are those who are willing to take complete responsibility for themselves. This allows the individual to develop to their full potential, a state of being which benefits all in society.
Next time you go to the emergency room, I hope you get this response. You don't just "figure out" every health issue for yourself. If the powers that be get a pandemic wrong by listening to those whose egos considerably outweigh their intellect, the consequence is death and economic destruction on a far greater scale than we have now. So, maybe put your pecker back in your pocket and leave it to those who have a clue.
One of the solutions to the health care crises in the West is for people to take responsibility for their own health. If you make the effort, you can educate yourself about almost everything you need to know. Prevention is the number one factor everybody has control of.
Believe me, the folks who run the health care system (be it corporate of government) are NOT your friends. The only solution is taking responsibility for yourself no matter the issue. Educate yourself to the point where you can use the so-called "experts" as people who will further your knowledge, but rely on your own brain because nobody cares as much about you as YOU. The experts have sold you out long ago...
I'm a moron when it comes to virology. Did you figure out a cure on your own or maybe you relied on someone else?
I'm going to need names, dates, and details. Otherwise this is mindless conspiracy theory telling me what the undefined "they" did.
Well said.
Entire generations have been taught to leave their responsibility to protect themselves at the feet of the paternalistic government. In that sense they are unweaned.
That's because you don't think covid is a serious threat. If you thought it was like ebola and going to kill indiscriminately and quickly, you'd demand the infected be quarantined. Do you think it'd be a reasonable response to Ebola to just tell people if they're worried about getting it from the infected folks on the street, then just stay inside?
That it to say you're not a freedom fighter, but just someone who doesn't think this disease warrants much concern.
I can tell. Educate yourself. Read about it. It's not that complicated. If you had a serious lung condition, do you think you might make some time to educate yourself?
And yes, I do what I can to take care of myself, daily exercise, eating property, taking care of myself mentally/spiritually. I do what I can. How about you?
They don't have to be my friends any more than those who fix my car have to be friends. I'm smart enough to respect the limits of my knowledge. This also handily saves me from mastering every discipline in the world in search of some mythical level of self-sufficiency.
Hanover is indeed a dummy. He totally misdiagnosed my STD. Although maybe he did that on purpose... Hm.
I just try to do what makes sense to me. And taking responsibility for myself, educating myself, and keeping myself in the best condition possible seems to be the way to go.
I can tell that you've probably not taken a single course in virology and I wouldn't rely upon your knowledge on the subject, regardless of how many hours you spent Googling. Quoting synthesis
You're asking me what I ate for dinner and my exercise routine? Good questions. That'll get to the bottom of this.
I just assumed it was the same as mine.
It's not the 1950's anymore when the majority of people were pretty honest.
I've been a practicing physician for forty years. I've seen tens of thousands of patients. I know what people are capable of and it's a lot more than you are willing to do. I am telling you from experience that you have to take responsibility for yourself. Don't ever assume that anybody in this health care system is acting in your interests. I know that sounds bleak, and there are some great people who work within the system, but it is what it is.
Good point. Right now, I'm researching PES (Pecker Ego Syndrome). An interesting condition that results in unabashed and unjustifiable levels of self-confidence.
Quoting synthesis
My memories of pre-birth eras are pretty fuzzy. But there's another opportunity to learn from you, I guess.
People have been brainwashed to believe that they are incapable of doing these things but it is not true. I have had patients that have been incredibly well-educated in their particular issues. Medicine is not that difficult to get a reasonable handle on. It is imperative that everybody do this because if you're depending on your corporate/government people to do this for you, you're SOL.
It doesn't follow that they're actively trying to harm me. Or that I need to learn their job in order to analyze every bit of advice they give me. Scepticism isn't always justified or helpful and maximalism in the area is likely downright unhealthy if not practically impossible.
Your choice. Spend your time as you wish. You will get out of life exactly what you put into it.
I've been in the health care system for the last forty years and your what? I am not telling you anything I haven't told my patients since the 90's. Do what you want. It's your life. After all, who would believe that educating yourself about something like your own health would be such a great idea, anyway?
No-one's arguing against self-education in general. We're all for that. We are arguing though against maximalist scepticism of the naive and impractical species you're advocating*. It's precisely because I have educated myself on many areas including the way the virus works that I know your position is at best silly and at worst utterly nonsensical.
*What distinguishes your line of argument from that of anti-vaxxers and other anti-scientific kooks, for example?
b) "Taking care of yourself" does not offer you or others immunity from COVID.
c) The unchecked spread of COVID would have had devastating health, social, and economic consequences (don't believe me, educate yourself).
Alright, I won't assume you're acting in my interests. It's an odd request, but be that as it is.
Your overarching argument, as far as I can tell, is that you don't believe anyone can rely upon anyone else, so we're all in this by ourselves. Should I take your advice and bring in my reams of printed out wiki articles to my next doctor's appointment, I will be faced with the realization (assuming I'm one of the educated masses) that I can neither trust my doctor nor the wiki articles I've brought in because we've posited that reliance upon anyone other than ourselves is folly. My point being that reliance upon my own web based research is not self-reliance, but it's reliance upon the author of the documents I'm reading. It makes no more sense to trust one source than the other as you've noted, so I need to find me some test tubes and do the research myself. My methods and practices must of course be self-created because, God forbid, I might read how others have researched in the past and be manipulated by them into adopting their methodologies.
What does this all mean? It means we all commonly rely upon the expertise of others, largely to our benefit, and recommending that we rely upon own personal novice opinions for serious matters due to a paranoid fear the world is conspiring against you, is irresponsible and irrational.
Quoting synthesis
Your cynicism can be commiserated with, and your maxims too; your reductionist assertions, however, not.
And what exactly am I advocating?
This is not that difficult to understand.
You guys are in for a BIG surprise when you get out into the real world.
I thought the 1950s were the years of 'mindless conformity'!
For some, for sure.
Ok, so we reject expert opinion and learn it all ourselves. Who do you think we learn from if not experts? Who do you think write medical books and papers, for example, if not medical experts? (often the same ones guiding government policy). In order to cease our reliance on experts, we'd have to get into some fairly kinky experimentation on ourselves and others, and, in my experience, that is not always appreciated. In short, your position appears not just impractical, but essentially incoherent.
*Damn, Hanover said this already. Note to self: read Hanover's posts even though you don't want to.
My intepretation of your position is pretty much as @Hanover outlined it. If it's more nuanced than that, feel free to clarify.
Seriously, though, educate yourselves as much as you can. Your value in this world (to yourself and others) is what you know.
And here's something I have told my patients forever (words handed down over the millennia by the great sages)...Eat well, sleep well, exercise regularly, and pray/meditate daily.
Good luck to you all. Enjoyed the conversation.
I think I get your point.
Speaking of expert opinion, this expert believes the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, which presumably also employs experts. Experts at the WHO say the idea it escaped from the lab as “extremely unlikely”, even though Chinese experts refused to give raw data. So which expert will teach us which expert we should believe?
Exactly. I'd far rather cease to a defiance of a medical practitioner's oath (with the foreknowledge of its possibility), than succumb to my own partially accurate, and rudimentary understanding of medicine (say, perhaps, by ingesting a fatal tablet). Maximalism, in this regard, is unfeasible; it's a quagmire of two discomforts - one of which is livable, and the other perilous.
I agree with you -- under the condition that one do a lot of reading (reliable sources only) over time. It is not reasonable to expect a population of hundreds of millions to do this. It isn't that they are dependent state / corporate teat suckers. You know perfectly well that a good share of the population would have considerable difficulty maintaining a high level of laymen's knowledge.
Public Health is a different beast than medical practice--one patient at a time, generally anxious to be treated, and usually cooperative. Public Health deals with millions of people, many of whom resent any instruction directed at the whole population, like social distancing, masking, avoiding large gatherings, hand washing, etc. Same thing for MMR and other vaccination, smoking, drinking, eating too much fat and sugar, unprotected promiscuous sex with strangers (one of my past favorites) and the like.
Oddly, people who regularly follow individual medical advice (taking meds for chronic diseases or acute infection) balk when it comes to 'group health'. My uneducated sister is well informed about ordinary health issues but has taken up all sorts of misinformation and non-information about this specific vaccination. This is consistent with her very conservative political views. Trump managed to politicize what should have been an a-political issue.
The point is that given the conflicting expert opinions, anyone who proposes listening to experts is left going in circles. At some point he must make up his own mind and come to his own conclusions.
Yes, all you have left is to disregard someone’s expertise on political grounds, or for some other specious reason, which in my mind isn’t too bright.
I’m not concerned; you couldn’t hit a fish in a barrel anyways. As for the lab theory, I don’t claim to know the answer. I do know that accidents happen, the CCP hasn’t been forthcoming with the data, and that their cover-up has been well established. Why would you dismiss this theory?
You don’t know about any of this, do you? Who should we blame for your ignorance?
My point is it isn’t my duty to educate you.
Classic anti-intellectualism. This is why no one trusts NOS4A2.
The only claim I made is that I do not know the answer.
It was in the NYT. It's mentioned in a Frontline documentary. You should know this already.
Not much of an argument, but it’s Banno and we shouldn’t expect much else.
All I’ve ever read from you were unwarranted opinions derived from your fee-fees. If you ever mention facts I’ll be sure to consider them.
You reject expert opinion, but agree with Synthesis, who's entire argument is
Quoting synthesis
I do not reject expert opinion. I reject appeals to authority.
Quoting NOS4A2
Sure.
The point was about which expert to trust, and if we believed all of them we would believe contradictory things. Over your head and below your knees, I suppose.
I just said “I think I get your point”. Pesky facts.
Do you trust all experts?
Here's my point for you, again: Quoting Banno
Cheers.
I didn’t think you would be able answer. More fee-fees. Cheers.
There is no answer to the question “Do you trust all experts?”
It’s a yes or no question. That is factually incorrect. Pesky facts.
This is bad, if there's much truth to it, but the problem is not the virus. Something really messed up with the lives of these kids that a lockdown irreversibly damages them.
It's a yes or no question.
It's really not that hard to evaluate an expert opinion. You rely on rhetorical fumbling to pretend expert opinion is unreliable, so that you can ignore inconvenient facts.
We can rely on experts. Not on Synthesis' beliefs. And not on you.
It was my point that it is up to us to evaluate expert opinion, and here you are restating my point after accusing me of anti-intellectualism and trusting another user on some message board. Just brilliant.
But that's not your point. That's the place you back down to when called out. What you pretend to is that we cannot trust any experts, and so all we have is our own opinion. You do this in order to ignore the facts.
And it's why you are untrustworthy.
It was my point. The only answer to my question “which expert will teach us which expert we should believe?” is ourselves.
You assumed my view and intention without evidence. Had you asked me what they were instead of levying false accusations we might be in less of a quarrel. So much for common ground.
Medical malpractice is one of the leading causes of death in the US. It’s why we get second opinions, or more. So yes, I believe it is prudent to treat expert opinion with a little skepticism.
The evidence is there in the history of your posts, available for anyone who cares to look. Here it is: https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/comments/4321/nos4a2
I invite all who are interested - and I doubt there are many - to take a scroll through your posting history. You don't recognise facts.
Name one.
Quoting NOS4A2
No.
That's just an invitation to play your rhetorical cat-and-mouse game.
Again, I invite all who are interested to take a scroll through your posting history.
It’s an invitation to you to prove your smears. If you can assert I don’t recognize facts, surely you can name a fact I do not recognize. If I have not recognized a fact maybe I can explain why I don’t. If I wasn’t clear I can clarify. If I was wrong I will admit it. But if you will not let me defend myself, or as always, weasel away, why bother? If this is the intellectualism you’re trying to protect, then yes, consider me opposed.
But since you do not recognise facts, you will simply disagree with whatever I say is factual - an invitation to play tag. You've done this repeatedly; hence my invitation for folk to peruse your post history.
No, I am content to point out that you are a charlatan.
He does recognize facts... when they suit his political narrative, which is the only thing that ever matters to him.
It hovers in an uncomfortable space between the shallow, the callous, and the ludicrous, and has probably already received more attention than it deserves.
Just one little question. If you had been lucky enough to have kids and one of them brought the local junky/drug dealer to your house, would you have been happy about it? I doubt it because it would have made a mess of your life.
Now just swap Covid for junky and see if it makes sense to you now.
That's an interesting empirical question. The answer is not to be found on this forum.
Protect your kids, sacrifice FOR the future generations, not sacrifice THE future generations.
I don't recall anyone arguing for blind faith in their healthcare provider.