Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

Honestly a horrible article. From comparing the current state of affairs to Henry Simon's utopian socialism, or asserting that Bill Gates symphatizes with Chinese authoritarianism, or even the term 'hygienic fascism' and Italian blackshirts and "climate crusader Jerry Brown".

Are we looking at the same US here? The US can't even get people to wear masks properly while cases are exploding and riots took place. I'm pretty sure the US is far away from Brave New World technocracy.

What strikes me as oddly 'fascist' if we are going to use that word is this acceptance of death and disease in the name of freedom, as if safety does not matter and mom and pops and the sick and the weak have to be sacrified so the economy can keep going and the youth can enjoy their beachtime. I mean it really betrays a childish worldview to think safety and freedom are polar opposites. Public health is a requirement, not an enemy of freedom. You don't have much freedom if your lungs don't work.

> You don't have much freedom if your lungs don't work.

Freedom and safety may not be polar opposites, but there's certainly tension between them. Many believe that you should have the freedom to decide what to do with your own lungs. The idea that you lose freedom because your lungs don't work seems to be a willful misinterpretation of the idea of freedom from government.

If the reason why your lungs don't work is a virus, as in this case, you're not just talking about your own freedom, you're talking about the freedoms of others. And given that these brave people are the first ones to line up in the ER, this is obviously an issue of public health, it has the word 'public' in the name for a reason.

We're living in complex societies where reckless behaviour puts others at risk. If you live on a sheep farm in the appalachians do with your lungs what you want, the reality of modern urban society is that we're interconnected. In that context freedom and safety are mutually dependent, even reinforcing.

The idea of "I can do with my X whatever I want" and then stop thinking there and calling everyone a fascist or an oligarch made a lot of sense if you're a 18th century homesteader, it doesn't make much sense today.

Should you have freedom to walk naked? Nudists were advocating this kind of freedom for a long time. I personally have sympathy for this point of view.

Passing COVID-19 or flu onto another person, especially elderly, may kill that person. Walking naked with mask if you keep your body clean as far as I can see will not kill anybody. So, why should we enforce clothes if we do not enforce masks?

Bans on public nudity are almost certainly motivated by moral decency and not subjecting children to this, not for health reasons.

I know. So, just to be sure. Are you suggesting that limiting freedom because of "moral decency" is ok, but limiting freedom because you can kill people is not? And what is "moral decency" anyway, because in many Asian countries people will look at you as if you are breaking moral standards when without a mask.

Also, children are perfectly able to handle asexual nudity. A lot of countries in Europe allow being top-less in public places like beaches.

There is just no way to justify things like enforcing bras on women, but not enforcing masks in crowded places during pandemic.

Look, if you want to live in a bubble, you should be free to strap on an airtight suit and walk around in it. Personally, I'm healthy, young, symptomless, and I've got a strong immune system and I'm fully aware of the risks of disease. But life is too short to spend years of your short existence cowering in fear or being arbitrarily controlled with what you can and can't do by power hungry politicians who think they can regulate nanometer sized viruses out of existence. The cost is way too high.

My ancestors went to war to fight for freedom. Many of them died on the battlefield. I don't take that for granted, and I do not consent to yielding it to Covid Karens.

>Look, if you want to live in a bubble, you should be free to strap on an airtight suit and walk around in it.

In my country we did that for three months and now we have 100 infections per day and everyone's life has returned to 90% normal.

Which was literally my point. If you on occassion listen to experts and officials and do what they say then you don't need to tell yourself stories about your brave ancestors and their battles in the normandy, you simply solve problems, and then life goes back to normal, without deaths and with the freedoms you had before.

What's 90% normal? Are you able to go to church, concerts, movies, school, bars, restaurants, with no mask requirements and no occupancy requirements?

> mom and pops and the sick and the weak have to be sacrified so the economy can keep going and the youth can enjoy their beachtime

Are there no sacrifices involved in shutting down the economy or preventing kids from having normal lives (whether its beach time or attending school)? Are not some of those sacrifices also a matter of life and death?

If everyone complies for a relatively short amount of time? No, not really. Most of the sacrificies enacted in countries like Taiwan were mundane, and included doing exactly the opposite of what the author is advocating for. Listening to experts, following guidelines, complying with public health authorities, and collective discipline.

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