[ExI] perspective on covid

[John Clark]

On Sun, Mar 8, 2020 at 7:16 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> If we fail to balance the Federal budget, trouble will result.*


The Scientific Method says regardless of how beautiful a theory is if it
doesn't fit  the facts then it must be rejected, and your theory concerning
the budget deficit of the USA just doesn't fit the historic facts. I don't
even understand why we're talking about this now when there is something
far more urgent staring us in the face that could effect every member of
this list, and not abstractly in the far future but personally and in less
than a year; I certainly hope that won't happen and maybe it won't, but
today we should act as if it will.

>> for some unknown reason budget deficits only become existential threats
>> during Democratic administrations…
>
> > *Unless of course one is Libertarian, in which case they are always
> existential threats, *


It's not very existential if 2 centuries (minus the Clinton years) of
government deficits haven't managed to wipe libertarians out of existence.

> *I don’t recall ever saying anything about presidential actions or lack
> of them.  This isn’t the forum for that. *
>

Spike, I don't see how anyone can meaningfully discuss the current pandemic
and its possible future, or any other existential threat for that matter,
without also mentioning the most powerful man in the world's actions
regarding it.  As a libertarian it's OK to lament the fact that one man
should have such immense power, but such lamentations in no way change the
reality that the man does in fact have that immense power.  Being
libertarian doesn't mean being unable to recognize the fact that the world
they live in and must deal with may not fit all their libertarian ideals.


> > *Don’t rely on the federal government John. *
>

It's not a question of relying on something its just facing reality. Like
it or not the federal government is not going to fade away in the next
year, no way no how, and thus government actions or lack of actions will
have a huge impact on how fast this epidemic spreads and how likely you or
somebody you love will die of it in the next year. And after a year or 18
months if we're lucky we may have a vaccine.

John K Clark
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