[ExI] UN worried about police brutality against protestors

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2021 at 12:47, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2021 at 3:55 PM Dave S via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> So when the next pandemic comes along, how do we decide which
>> countermeasures make sense and which are government overreach? Especially
>> when little is known about the pathogen?
>>
>
>  ### Speaking as a minarchist (in case anybody wonders, I became a
> conditional minarchist in the past,oh, two years or so), almost all
> government-mandated countermeasures are overreach, since it's not the
> government's job to manage pandemics. Anybody who is stupid enough to get
> out of their house without absolute necessity when ebola is afoot deserves
> whatever befalls him. Anybody who is timid enough to stay at home because
> of covid (except for the old and decrepit ones) deserves to suffer all the
> losses resulting from his decision.
>
> It is simply not true that pandemic responses have to be coordinated. As
> long as true information about the given disease of the day is promptly
> made available, individuals should be able to choose their course of
> action, and suffer the consequences or gain the rewards. If a disease is
> bad enough, reasonable people will quarantine themselves, no need for a
> lockdown. Unreasonable people will make unreasonable decisions and may end
> up being culled from the population by the infectious agent. They make bad
> decisions and pay for them with their own lives, and yes, we free people
> have the inalienable right to keep or throw away our lives, as we see fit.
>
> This is very similar to the question of what to do about people who engage
> in extreme sports, and end up killing themselves - it would be wrong and
> immoral to outlaw e.g. extreme skiing or birdman flying or freeform
> mountain climbing. By the same token, it would be wrong and immoral to have
> a law forbidding people to walk out of their home in the midst of a
> pandemic.
>

But if a mountain climber comes near you it can't kill you. And if it
could, it wouldn't be reasonable to stay indoors because of all the
mountain climbers out there who cannot be easily identified and refuse to
take available measures to reduce the risk to others.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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