Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
On this point, I agree with you. One has to weigh costs and benefits. And the extremists (people who'd defend China's Monty Pythonesque response to the disease, even at this late stage) are as guilty of making the perfect the enemy of the good as are those who'd argue mask mandates didn't work.
It's a little different, but I think I've made the point here before. Some people believe all must be done no matter the costs to preserve even a statistically small number of lives that might be lost if certain risks are not avoided. Others believe that such risk avoidance should be weighed against the burden it puts on the rest of us.
The safety standard for products is never "Must not under even the most unusual circumstances ever contribute to a death or injury." Rather, its always based on what's reasonable. What can a manufacturer do without making production impossibly expensive, thus precluding everyone else from enjoying a product that will not harm the overwhelming majority of users?
There's also an element of virtue-seeking in the extreme risk avoidance crowd. (Not virtue signalling, which is a different thing.) People like the idea that they are on the side of saving lives damn the costs. Who doesn't agree with that notion... in a vacuum? But we don't live in a vacuum. So trying to be the most virtuous causes people like Adder to take laughable positions, like defending China. It's not wrong. It's actually quite decent. It's also wildly unrealistic. And a product of addiction. Once one starts on the continuum of virtue-seeking, there's nowhere to go but up. What can one do? Settle for being less virtuous than he might be? Nope. Can't do that. There's always another peak of virtuousness to be ascended. (I guess sainthood is the top.)
The virtue seeking also become the sworn enemies of the Defiant (the Trump mobs of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, for whom the ever unrealized peak of self-actualization is refusing to cooperate with any effort to protect others, no mater how reasonable). When the two groups meet, you get an idiot wind hurricane (yes, that's a nod to Dylan) that spins around the sane of us in its center.
Ignore it. Live your life respectfully and sanely. If it doesn't get your eyes, it disappears.
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When we weigh costs and benefits, let's remember two things. The first is, having to wear a mask just isn't that much of a cost, no matter how much some people bitch about it, and no matter how much some people become emotionally committed to the idea that it's intolerable. Certainly not compared to the costs of dying of COVID, or getting long COVID, or having a friend or relative die of COVID, or having to work in a hospital caring for COVID, etc. The second is, when you don't wear a mask, you not only expose yourself to some additional risk, you also expose other people. Many people seem incapable of acknowledging or weighing that risk, in some cases because they're ignorant but in many cases because they are assholes. Not wearing a mask is a little like dumping garbage on your own lawn and saying, "it's my property so I'll decide whether it looks good," but it's also like dumping garbage on your neighbors' lawns and saying, "fuck all of you."
