A Roundtable on Covid-19 and the Attention Economy | Hacker News Reader

A Roundtable on Covid-19 and the Attention Economy

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34 pointsapollinaire5 comments

I think the people speaking in this article forgot that the average attention span in US is 8 seconds.

Where does this 8s number come from? This article claims there's no clear evidence for it: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790

Anyone want to answer my criticisms on covid lockdowns-

>You sacrifice the 99.5% for the 0.5%.(If not handled perfectly sacrifices 100%)

>Flattening the curve allows people to have access to ventilators saving an additional 12% of people (oxygen can be taken without hospitals or physicians)

>Suicides, drug addictions, home abuse and more are all side effects of attempting to save the oldest, obese, and sickest population, who otherwise can self quarentine.(My only counter point is that the 0.5% can be called into work, and lose unemployment money.)

In general, there were two possible paths - not lock down at all, or lock down and do it right. The current divided US was unable to do anything because of political gamesmanship and poor federal leadership. Proper lockdowns work - Germany, France, etc, are proving that it is possible. Most weaker states are struggling, which is not a surprise.

> You sacrifice the 99.5% for the 0.5%.(If not handled perfectly sacrifices 100%)

This is a slippery slope - let's say your a small minority. You could always argue "well they're just a small group of people, who cares, it's not most so they can suffer." It's a very dangerous mentality.

> Suicides, drug addictions, home abuse and more are all side effects of attempting to save the oldest, obese, and sickest population, who otherwise can self quarentine.(My only counter point is that the 0.5% can be called into work, and lose unemployment money.)

These may follow a quarantine but they are not necessarily caused by it. If a proper safety net existed in the US, I'm sure most of these numbers would decrease. The US on the whole is worse for drug addiction than most first world nations.

The fact is, even if the US KNEW what to do - it wouldn't be able to execute it. Poor leadership, political infighting, marketing to the extreme post stage capitalism is finally burning the US out.

>If a proper safety net existed in the US, I'm sure most of these numbers would decrease

Are you going to have government prostitutes to take care of males? I'm kind of joking, but my depressed friends are single males who were first to the bars.

>well they're just a small group of people, who cares, it's not most so they can suffer

"Well the 99.5% is just a small group, who cares if they suffer?"

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