[ExI] UN worried about police brutality against protestors

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Fri, Dec 24, 2021 at 11:23 AM John Klos via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> > Really? Did you think it over before committing this to the keyboard?
>
> Yes, I did.
>
> > Let me upack the logic here for you. Let's assume that a population of
> > well-informed individuals who are at risk of a deadly infection if they
> > leave their homes but are safe if they stay in...
>
> This isn't the case at all. We have well meaning people who care about
> themselves, their families and people around them. They are conscientious
> and careful, they wear masks, and they've gotten vaccinated. This is a
> majority of people.
>
> Then we have people who are in excellent health and/or think that the
> effects of Covid are exaggerated, and therefore don't care much about
> whether they get Covid, but who aren't selfish and care enough about
> others to vaccinate, wear masks and otherwise participate in trying to
> avoid spreading Covid.
>
> Then you have people who want to force their beliefs on others. It's not
> enough for them to passively participate, or to avoid public places. They
> don't care about possibly affecting others.
>
> Trying to say that the last group is equal to the first two and are
> equally "making the decision for themselves" is... Well, it's ridiculous.
> You're really, really stretching here, so much so that I find it difficult
> to know whether to take you seriously.
>
> You're essentially saying that engaging in risky public behavior that can
> hurt others is fine, because others have made the decision to participate
> in being public. So, by extension, you're saying that if 5% of the
> population wants to do something to scare the other 95% in to staying in
> their houses, they should be allowed, because, again, we're all making our
> own decisions about whether to participate in anything public. You're also
> suggesting that the concept of "public good" has little or no weight nor
> value.
>
> If this is how you feel, then we fundamentally disagree, and we can simply
> agree to disagree.
>
> But I know for a fact that you would be screaming bloody murder if the
> roles were reversed.
>
> Imagine this: what if I had an aerosol form of a Covid vaccine and walked
> around in public spraying it everywhere? And what if my attitude was that
> if you don't want to be vaccinated, then simply don't go out in public.
> Would you meekly stay home and accept that we're both making decisions for
> ourselves? No, of course you wouldn't. But I seriously doubt you could
> acknowledge this.
>
>
> I brought up pollution not as an analogy but as an example of how
> self-righteousness and selfishness are similar between polluters and
> anti-vaccine people: they both require the idea that the individual's
> desires outweigh any possible impact to others.
>
> But if you want to make an analogy of it, I'd suggest that it's similar to
> people who drive while on the phone not caring about their potential
> impact on others. Again, there's no equivalence between those who don't
> want to be told to not be on their phones and everyone else. We'd accuse
> people who insist they should be allowed to drive while using their phones
> of a "tremendous amount of selfishness and a criminal lack of self
> reflection", but obviously not all drivers :)
>
> And I haven't the slightest clue about what you're talking about in your
> non-sequitur about "lazy, witless moralizing" that has somehow led to
> "turmoil that cost tens of trillions of dollars and millions of lives".
>
> I wish there were more substance in what you're writing, because I REALLY
> want to understand why people anti-vaccine and anti-mask people don't
> really care about others. Outrage about masks, negative test results, or
> vaccination requirements is somehow equivalent and just as bad as, in your
> collective minds, possibly harming or killing people. If someone killed
> someone you love via Covid, would you really be OK with the idea that it
> could've been avoided, but avoiding is too onerous? Would you even answer
> that question honestly?
>
>
### I made a very specific argument about lockdowns and I showed the
analogies you used on that subject were unsound. I demonstrated that people
venturing out in a lockdown are not "selfish polluters" and "criminally"
stupid.

Your response above never acknowledges my point. You do not concede the
point (as a gracious debater would). You don't refute my logic. Instead you
write about vaccinations and masking, and "public good", and the kitchen
sink, and pour on the moralizing, anything but to address the specific
point about lockdowns I made. TL:DR

If you want to be treated like a serious debater you need to make specific,
well-formed arguments. State your premises. Quote factual information. Do
the numbers. Go over the detailed sequences of events that happen or are
predicted to happen (as I did in discussing the moral justification of
lockdowns). Articulate specific conclusions about the value of specific
actions (no lumping of vaccination, lockdowns and masking into one big glob
of confusion).

Are you for or against state-mandated lockdowns and why?

Are you for the indefinite detention of the unvaccinated? Why? (Quote
efficacy data, cost-benefit calculations)

What mechanism of harm prevention do you posit that would justify e.g.
forcing me to wear a mask outdoors? Or while walking to my table in a
restaurant?

All else is just witless moralizing.

Rafal
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