Comment by throwaway0a5e | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway0a5e | Hacker News Reader

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It all comes down to who the people making these decisions are trying to please. The elected officials (assuming they're at least sort of doing their job) are acting on what they think will please the most voters. The net difference in the number of constituents hate this option, the next option, and every other feasible option for the school year is likely very small. This is what the tyranny of the majority looks like.

But of course thinking about the incentives and mechanisms that lead to this outcome is uncomfortable and clutching our pearls is comfortable and easy so what we'll do is a forgone conclusion.

Edit: I'm personally no fan of the policy the school chose but asinine or not they didn't choose it for no reason and it's worth exploring what lead to the people making the decisions to choose what they chose.

Edit2: Some of you would do well to read only the words I am writing here and not assume any unwritten meaning or motivation. I am specifically trying to avoid debating whether this particular instance of public policy is good/bad/right/wrong and some of you seem to be very eager to do just that.

During a health crisis popular or unpopular does not matter. You do what is necessary wither you like it or not. What these "leaders" are doing is complete incompetence and negligent.

The problem is that 'necessary' to the people driving the Georgia decisions seems to be 'necessary to support my beliefs and my fiscal policy', not 'necessary for the best good of all'.

> There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening, only unpopular and even more unpopular and it all comes down to who you're trying to please.

Which path forward "pleases" you the most? I can't believe this needs asking but: How many deaths are you willing to tolerate before you are no longer "pleased" by this approach? If one approach "pleases" you but "kills" someone else, how should we balance that tradeoff?

This is nonsense. If the administration actually made a good-faith effort, they would have re-opened, with a mask mandate.

They haven't made a good-faith effort. This isn't what tyrrany of the majority looks like, this is what the end result of a cynical propaganda campaign looks like.

Good faith for who? To you and me and other people who aren't from there?

The fact that a public official felt comfortable calling masks a "personal choice" tells me that this district isn't a big fan of masks.

Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks.

I am positive that this school has a dress code. For some reason, though, they feel that they can prescribe what students can wear, unless it's a mask..?

>Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks.

If they're virtue signaling then by definition they're showing support for whatever the locally accepted opinion already is.

That opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted. You have no idea how many people support it - whether it's 20% of the population, 40% of the population, or 80% of the population.

They could have made this decision the other way, and your arguments, when used in defense of it would be just as sound.

It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority. Just because you're an administrator in a public service doesn't mean that you are actually doing what the community wants you to do - especially when there are limited ways of removing you.

It's even possible that the minority you are virtue signaling to is politicians and insiders - who actually have ways of removing you. It would be incredibly stupid of you to not do what they want.

>that opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted.

You're not technically wrong but it would be monumentally stupid to do for this particular opinion.

>It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority.

And it's moronic for an elected official to do that if the nature of the signal will absolutely enrage a majority or a different larger minority which "a mask is a personal choice" most certainly does.

Exactly what the school doesn't want, all the political consequence falling on them even though health experts coordinating over data should be the ones making the call at higher levels of government.

> There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening...

Which is exactly the view that politicians want to foster with this pandemic. Unfortunately, they're politicians and not infectious disease specialists.

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