psuhoffman

He may be exaggerating but there is a clear economic impact on mental health. The basic point he is making has some legitimacy. But there are a lot of other variables he is leaving out.

I think some people need to lighten up and let opposing points of view have a chance to make their claims. But you can be an ass so you’re bringing some of it on yourself. You could make the same exact claims but in a less abrasive antagonistic way and get a lot less negative reaction. You like the negative reaction. Stop pretending you don’t.

I’m engaging him on the merits of his claims. He is being given a chance to make his case. But I don’t blame those that are done with him. His claims are all over the place. They lack logical consistency. They contradict at times. Often what he is doing lacks integrity when he clearly attempts to bait people into a response so he can use it against them. He likes to troll. I love to debate and even I have to take a break from him after a while.

Yes going to get food is a greater risk and it’s why I am trying to limit my trips as much as possible. But I do eventually have to get food. No one HAS to go try to intimidate and scare their elected officials with rifles. And no I’m not in love with the idea of trying to use fear and intimidation to set policy. I doubt that’s the best way to create rational effective policy on anything. Glad to see so many people suddenly care so much about poverty! Where you all been the last 25 years...but now that you’re all here once this is over we can finally get to work fixing poverty. Better childcare, maternity leave, sick leave, universal healthcare, living wage. About time we cared about poverty!!!!! I’m a sociologist and I teach economics and political science, I’m well aware of the impacts of poverty. But I am also aware of the folly of compounding bad decisions and I don’t accept the construct you’ve created. First of all we could do a better job of limiting the economic fallout. I’ve made my economic case already, no need to go into it here again. But we shouldn’t set a healthcare policy based on an assumption of a stupid economic decision. The economic fallout won’t be totally due to the virus. It will be made worse by our unwillingness to take certain actions because of our fear/aversion to government controls. But there is a way to both mitigate the virus better and limit economic fallout. So I reject your false premise that it’s a binary choice. Second we could do more about mental health. Third...there is a choice aspect to this. Death from a virus isn’t a choice. Suicide is. That said I am not minimizing mental health! But policy sometimes has to deal with the problem right in front of you most urgent. It’s incredibly unfortunate that some choose to succumb to feelings it grief in times of hardship and I empathize but if faced with a policy choice between letting a deadly virus spread unmitigated and possibly cause society “stress” which could lead to some people choosing to give in to feelings of grief and depression...that really is a difficult choice. I’m not going to say what’s right there. I’m empathetic to both sides. But it’s not the easy answer you make it. And your argument contradicts again. You seemed big on choice earlier! I’m actually enjoying the mental exercise. I coach policy debate. Have to keep my knives sharp somehow!

Antibody studies have shown exposure rates around 20-25% in the most hard hit regions. Nothing close to the levels you’re implying here.

Shouldn’t the goal be noble? No one ever achieved great things by starting out like “well we probably can’t do what’s best so let’s just try some half assed shit and see what happens”. WRT mental health...you have a pretty low opinion of us if you think we can’t adapt and cope. Humans are capable of a lot. We’ve dealt with pandemics before. We’ve had to sacrifice in times of war and tragedy. Whatever it takes we can adapt our mental expectations to cope but only if we have effective leadership they rallies people to a cause. When we are fractured like this nothing will work.

1. Yes that person does increase my odds. How much depends who else they come in contact with and how extensive their idiotic behavior is. But your assertion is false. 2. If that gun toting idiot intimidated the legislature and governor into a stupid policy decision it most definitely could effect my health. 3. You said give people choice. But now you are editing that to “give people choice when it doesn’t increase risk to others”. But almost anything increases risk. The question is where is the acceptable line where individual choice and unacceptable risk to society meets. And that is subjective. It necessitates being debated on the merits of each policy not broad talking points like “just let people make choices”.

This is an intellectually hollow libertarian argument. What if I want to use my personal choice to dump toxic chemicals in my yard and it contaminates my neighbors well water? Rights cannot be unlimited because then one person can use their rights to subjugate someone else.

1: I never said we were likely to take the necessary social measures to effectively combat this. I actually am not the least but shocked that we aren’t. Everything about our society is the opposite of what you would want for an effective pandemic mitigation strategy. 2. But I don’t accept the paradigm that I have to create policy based on those limitations. What works works. What doesn’t doesn’t. I’m not going to advocate a strategy that doesn’t work simply because we lack the willingness to do what does. In the end we will probably not take the more effective approach but that’s not on me. Take the economy. We could mitigate the econonic pain better. Just because we are too anti government ideologically to do the necessary command measures to do that does not mean I’m going to advocate a less effective virus policy. One stupid decision won’t dictate another stupid decision from me. Now if that’s how society decides to go so be it. But it won’t be any fault of mine. My advocacy will always be for what I think is the most effective policy given the evidence at hand. If people don’t want to listen that’s on them. 3. If you want to debate with me than debate what I say. I’ve never made any of those accusations. I’m not going to continue a dialogue if you just want to debate with others through me.

This argument contradicts your post about Denmark where they effectively stifled the spread then were able to reopen without much negative consequences. You can run more then one policy stance concurrently but only if they aren’t contradictory. You’re in a double bind here.

On the contrary taking an ineffective action because “we are America” lacks logical consistency. We have the same biology as everyone else. The virus isn’t going to give us some special leniency just because our society is more individualistic than the rest of the world. What works works. What doesn’t doesn’t. The flag in your front yard won’t change that.

We aren’t in a lockdown. I can see route 30 from my house and there is constant traffic. When I take my weekly food trip there are lots of people out. My neighbors job isn’t at all related to national defense but his company has some degree of military contracts at one of their facilities and so they used that to be “essential”. Parks are packed. We didn’t lock down. We took a half ass measure and called it a lockdown and some people are whining and complaining like that was too much. What we did was maybe the worst of both worlds. Enough to hurt the economy but not enough to stop the spread. Of course we can’t say that for sure because if every city ended up like NYC the economy would have collapsed anyways. But either way we have not been willing to implement effective strategies. True lockdowns without 800 exceptions. Universal testing. Contact tracing. There are things that work. And then there is what we’re doing.

Sorry I had my headphones in...could you explain that again.

He isn’t worth replying too anymore.

Earth is mad and we should just accept our punishment. Got it. Thanks for your input. ETA: the world is what we make it. Your attitude is a defeatist self fulfilling prophecy.

Are you new here?

It is what it is might make a decent bumper sticker but it’s a pretty shitty policy stance ON ANYTHING

This isn’t going to end well

Imo we aren’t in near lockdown. Our version makes so many exceptions...we’ve taken a pretty middle ground policy and it’s not shocking that isn’t resulting in a total stifling of spread.

Agree but I’m skeptical we will proceed with compassion towards those in the vulnerable populations. Early indications from some states look more like a “that’s your problem” attitude then a “how do we protect the vulnerable population” one.

lol... all these years you thought I criticized you because you are liberal? Try again

Lastly...I am not in favor of simply "lock us down forever" policies. We need to come up with a solvent plan for society to function and survive. It very well might be time to start some new strategies soon. But I am VERY concerned with using shoddy logic and bad science to inform those strategies. I also have some concerns based on what I know about our society, with implementing some of these best practices in a way fair and equitable to everyone. I brought up my concern regarding "what to do with the at risk population" if we go to a phased opening scenario. And sure enough...we are now seeing this play out where the answer is..."well you can choose to stay home if you are at high risk but don't expect any help, good luck". I guess I would be more open to entertaining some of the arguments for a quicker relaxation of mitigation measures if I had more faith that they would actually implement equitable measures to assist the vulnerable populations that strategy will create. But we are already seeing that isn't likely to happen in many areas. I can't help but feel some of these arguments lack integrity. Its a "throw any point I can think of at the wall to meet my agenda" type thing...because when it comes time to implement a preferred policy it doesn't happen with the care and compassion that it is sold in these types of debates.

We are starting to see a lot of "anecdotal" arguments flying around under the pretense of a qualified medical opinion simply by having a "dr" as the mouthpeace of said opinion. There were the 2 California Doctors who own the clinics the other day...but their "cited" study was a sham and the vast majority of the medical community invalidated their findings. There will always be dissent. Finding the 1% of "experts" who disagree with the vast majority and holding them up as expert proof is dodgy at best. Now that does not mean their contrarian challenges should be dismissed out of hand...but their challenges need to be examined carefully and put through scientific testing not just accepted with equal weight to the vast majority. The "two sided" aspect of our society wrt news and ideology tends to hurt us here...as we sometimes value giving "both sides" of a story more weight than simply finding the best most likely answer to something.

Couldn't agree more. Someone the other day in a covid policy discussion criticized me for "being too empathetic". As if empathy is a bad thing...

Ok I know this is teetering on the edge and could fly off into way over the line if we aren't careful...but I find it somewhat "disingenuous" that most of the people making this argument right now for why we need to get back to work don't seem to care a lick about the negative effects of poverty under normal circumstances. Many of the people using poverty as a reason for their policy advocacy now try to block any attempt at social programs to deal with poverty when they are proposed in every other situation. I am NOT saying that is you...I have no idea what your stance on this stuff is...but in general my twitter feed and fb wall is filled with people ive argued with for years and who never gave a single F about doing a thing about poverty suddenly all upset about it now.