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In the case of COVID, why can't individuals choose goals for themselves? It seems possible to allow those who want to take their chances with COVID in order to maintain personal liberties and/or economic viability to function as usual, while assisting those who want to prioritize virus avoidance (e.g. subsidized food delivery services for the elderly, a modest stipend for those who want to avoid the workplace for a while, etc.).

Is this too complicated to implement?

I would think this more nuanced approach has way more upside than going 100% one way or the other.

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I think the issue is that it is a collective action problem. No one person's actions on the margin are really making much difference to society-wide spread and assuming you don't want to completely isolate yourself indefinitely, then your personal risk of contracting COVID is very sensitive to the level of infection in the society around you. In theory, we could achieve a higher average standard of living all around if we could coordinate everyone reducing their risky behavior by 30% (a number I just made up).

This is the point that I think often gets missed in the discussion around "lockdowns". I would bet that we could actually reduce the spread of COVID quite substantially without a massive change in the living standards of most people. The problem is that there is a segment of people who refuse to do anything at all to reduce the risk of transmission so we end up having to take more extreme actions to compensate.

>The problem is that there is a segment of people who refuse to do anything at all to reduce the risk of transmission so we end up having to take more extreme actions to compensate

I think you might be missing the fact that if this segment of the population does increase transmission, it can only do so by the members of that segment getting infected, and that can only happen once per person as far as we know. So over time, you would expect that group to be less and less prone to infection, and therefore less able to pass on infection to others. So the more time goes by, the weaker this argument becomes.

Strictly speaking that is of course true, but I'm not sure it is relevant over the time scales we are concerned with. If there were only a handful of such people then they would all get infected relatively quickly and stop contributing to overall spread. And that may be the case in localized outbreaks, but I see their role overall as "seeding" individual hot spots. In other words, people who disregard basic social distancing protocols may not spread COIVD until it actually becomes prevalent in their local area. And when that happens they become the super-spreaders which cause new local outbreaks to fire up.

"In the case of COVID, why can't individuals choose goals for themselves?"

In case of driving, why can't individuals choose which side of the road to use for themselves?

"while assisting those who want to prioritize virus avoidance (e.g. subsidized food delivery services for the elderly, a modest stipend for those who want to avoid the workplace for a while, etc."

Who is going to pay for that? Those who are maintaining their personal liberties? Keep in mind that the poorer parts of the community are impacted worse by both COVID and the economy.

In a situation where a large part of the population is "taking their chances", those who "want to prioritize virus avoidance" must avoid all contact with others. That's quite a different trade off than handwashing, masks, and social distance.

> In case of driving, why can't individuals choose which side of the road to use for themselves?

It not a choice of side it's a choice of whether to use the road at all, those who agreed to use it before managed fine and those who are choosing not to use it now are perfectly free to do so.

> Who is going to pay for that?

The same people who are already paying for Furlough and all the other financial safety nets that are already in place at the moment.

> In a situation where a large part of the population is "taking their chances", those who "want to prioritize virus avoidance" must avoid all contact with others. That's quite a different trade off than handwashing, masks, and social distance.

The requirement to stop all contact is already effectively there for those at risk, and the demands aren't stopping at handwashing, masks, and social distance as those don't appear to be working; instead indefinite lockdowns, blanket bans on household mixing and abolition of major sections of peoples lives and livelihoods are being demanded.

I'm 53 and have asthma. I'm sorry my existence inconveniences you, but I believe the "isolate the at-risk and everyone else can pretend nothing is happening" is a direct attack on my liberty.

"...the demands aren't stopping at handwashing, masks, and social distance as those don't appear to be working; instead indefinite lockdowns, blanket bans on household mixing and abolition of major sections of peoples lives and livelihoods are being demanded."

Have you considered moving somewhere else? I don't know where you are, but hand-washing, mask, and social distance seem to be doing fine here, and there are no indefinite lockdowns or the other things you mention. See https://governor.alabama.gov/assets/2020/09/Safer-at-Home-Or....

I have friends and family whose businesses and livelihoods have been destroyed by this, but no it's fine we should just let them all go to the wall, what's a few evictions here and suicides there eh? I mean fuck em right, you've got yours?

If you have a look on a news site that covers areas outside the global hub that is alabama (reuters for example https://reuters.com/news/world or any other major news organisation) you will find...

1. It is pointless moving elsewhere as the virus and the response is worldwide (that 7 months of this hasn't brought this to your attention is...of note.)

2. The measures are being viewed as insufficient and and we are facing curfews and all of the things that I mentioned ARE happening.

Genuine question as i hear this argument quite often: "to maintain personal liberties". presumably infecting and/or killing other people would fall under this liberty? anyone outside their own home is considered to optimise his personal liberty and therefor ok with being killed?

if not, how do you include those who would like to maintain their personal liberties but don't want to trust others with their life in your proposed worldview (reckless behavior of others in terms of infections etc)?

Actually even more complicated than that. Say we adopt the personal liberty premise. If I am at high risk, I stay in my house and have everything delivered etc. Then my furnace breaks in a way I can't fix, and its winter. If I don't want to freeze to death, I need to get it repaired. If the repairman was willing to "take their chances", I could be forced into exposure and infection.

It really is a group activity - individuals can not take their own risk without risking the lives of others.

We accept a certain amount of risk in our lives no matter what we do. You personally had the liberty to go out and infect people who were at risk of death from colds, flu and any many others diseases before covid came along and that was never reason for a global shutdown.

Those who don't want to trust others with their lives are welcome to take the precautions that are being asked of everyone at the moment (no household mixing, complete lockdown) the only difference would be it would only be those at risk subjected to the lockdowns.

to a certain extent. hence i am not allowed to infect other people knowingly with HIV. or drive on a sidewalk. or fire guns at a school. or drive drunk. list goes on. not even sure about the flu/colds, presumably that is more a problem of proving guilt rather than liberty.

it isn't binary but a fine-tuned probability. i don't see a problem not allowing riskier than usual (i.e. increasing the probability of infection) behavior.

It falls apart once you actually think about. People live in a world where we all interact together. If you want to get infected thats fine, but now you're contagious at the same unavoidable gathering places like supermarkets

> subsidized food delivery services for the elderly,

or this, now people are stuck being forced into risky scenarios because they're forced to serve the others fortunate to pay for their problems to go away

What percentage of people who want the freedom to ignore virus precautions do you think are also willing to pay to subsidize others staying home? I'm not optimistic it would be large.

The solution you suggest would be equivalent to a permanent Red Hour, with those bent on damaging themselves and others roaming the streets at will, while those with any sense cringe helplessly indoors, starving to death. "Nuanced" is not the word I would use to describe it.

The same ones that are already paying for the current financial safety nets; it would be just a case of switching the money from those over to taking care of those at risk.

Provided the risks are understood (although I would like real data on long term covid effects before continuing) the solution would effectively bring us back to pre covid society.

> The same ones that are already paying for the current financial safety nets

Those who are currently paying for safety nets are doing so by compulsory taxes. If left up to their choice, as above poster suggests, why should anyone expect them to continue paying at the same rate?

Because it likely wouldn't be left up to choice, it would be from a tax in the same way the aforementioned financial safety nets are.

What's a "Red Hour"? (Duckduckgo-ing didn't help, unless you mean the Ben Stiller production company)

"The name was derived from a 1967 Star Trek episode, 'The Return of the Archons', which features a scheduled alien riot." [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hour_Productions

You propose this initially as "individuals choose goals for themselves" but what it requires is "government to provide options for individuals."

"Government to provide" gets you into huge trouble in large parts of the US who will decry this as socialism, etc.

And sadly, even a lot of the US that isn't so cruel and selfish, seems worse than its peer countries at executing government programs effectively...

Half the country doesn't have the imagination to imagine things could be better for everyone without being worse for them, and the other half doesn't have the imagination to hold themselves responsible for actually delivering results vs just trying.

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