FWIW I also value personal liberty above restrictions but I do value internalizing externalities concurrently.
I don't know of any society that has had a social contract or laws to this effect, unless a person is maliciously, intentionally, spreading a disease.
The US is also full of people who literally cannot afford to take sick days, which creates a culture of people going to work sick and toughing it out. Even in middle-class and upper middle-class jobs there's a prevalent fear of having to be seen in the office at all cost to avoid being fired.
What you are suggesting is the exact opposite of this, with the addition of being extra cruel against people who are not privileged enough to have a cushy job that allows them to work from home.
It isn't much of a leap, honestly. Few societies permit me to drive drunk for instance, even if I genuinely intend to kill no one. And I assure I don't want to kill anyone ever. I'm a lover not a killer.
If you expose someone to corona on purpose (i.e. you're so drunk you can't avoid people) they likely won't die.
It's not Ebola. And the analogy doesn't fit.
How about speeding? That fits a little better.
Whereas it's possible you may kill a small number of people while drunk in a car- even if we assume it's a bus you are driving and hit several other buses- eventually your vehicle or yourself will have sustained injuries keeping you or it from harming others further.
However you could easily infect who knows how many people since covid is transmissable, and anyone you infected will keep infecting others, every one of which is your fault.
Exponential growth. Not only deaths but possible permanent damage to respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems.
I agree, do what you want, but I think you should also be liable for the damages you inflict on others. If this means jail time (possibly life if enough are infected and killed), how does that help your 'personal freedom'.
Firstly, yes drunk driving is far more dangerous to the public per incident than a Covid infectious positive case. This is glaringly obvious.
Secondly, you don't need to be immuno-compromised to be killed by a car. I.e. that's a small section of the population.
Digressing: There are many things in society where the risk of injury exists where it probably isn't a good idea to punish the person causing injury.
One problem with drunk driving is that it is illegal. It's not just illegal to kill someone while driving drunk. So no injury is even required.
Yet, being near others in a grocery store with a cloth mask (that does practically nothing) isn't nearly as dangerous and shouldn't be treated as such.
So you're making a point about injury where the law starts way before that, risk of injury. But everything has risk. Playing baseball is risky of the off chance of the ball hitting someone in the head. Less risky, but could kill someone, say someone who was skull-compromised like an infant. Do you want to outlaw baseball games?
That's an obvious "way on the other side of the spectrum" example. Where do you draw the line?
And clearly, drunk driving (driving not even being a right) is MUCH more dangerous than possibly infecting someone with a virus that kills, to be honest, a minority of those infected.
There are other viruses for example that is also transmitted in the same way, kills somewhat less frequently though like the flu.
Do you propose (like drunk driving) that not wearing a mask in public period should be illegal? Because you never know if you're interacting with someone who is immuno-compromised.
Do I need to pay up or am I clear? Maybe getting the courts involved is not such a bad idea.
Intentionally and maliciously is one thing, but there is a level below that, which is well-established: reckless endangerment, manslaughter, etc.
Not wearing a mask in the middle of a pandemic is somewhere within the ballpark of this, and it’s reasonable to enforce and punish it, as we do with other reckless behaviors.
Why stop at Corona? Flu is next.
Then "we" (or whoever chose masks) learn that 70% of mask wearers still get sick (because either masks don't work or because plebs can't be trusted with them) next we need universal vaccination or else we get fined. And if we don't pay fines, jail...
Etc. Etc.
Who decides when we are required to wear masks?
'Rule by expert'?
What, today, is stopping a billionaire from parking nearly anywhere they like and then just paying the fine, over and over? Or, beyond that, the quality of civil or criminal defense you can expect to receive is directly correlated to how much you're willing to pay.
The answer to any slippery slope argument, when asked "when does it stop" is to just choose a point to stop.
(And in the case of a representative Democracy like the U.S., the choice mechanism is well documented if imperfect)
Engaging in this type of discussion leaves the choice of where to stop at the individual level to justify and not swallowing what an expert says today or tomorrow and ignoring all information left out of the communication.
Forcing mask wearing probably won't go anywhere federally. The states is where it becomes a problem.
The elected authorities, whether local, regional, state, or federal, preferably as advised by trained and trusted experts.
> Should we always be forced to wear masks going forward given that we've been made aware of the efficacy?
If that makes sense, as determined by the above answer.
> Why stop at Corona? Flu is next.
If that makes sense. In fact, there would almost certainly be a net benefit to society for the majority of the population to wear masks during flu season, and literally no reasonable downside. But it won't happen, despite making rational, logical sense, because our society can't even get people to wear masks, maintain social distance, wash your hands, etc. during an actual, honest-to-God pandemic.
> Who decides when we are required to wear masks?
See the first answer.
The value of your "slippery slope" argument doesn't seem to be there to me; you seem to have already decided that the buck of mask wearing or public health in general stops at the individual level, ignoring the fact that that's simply not true. Cue rehashed arguments discussing seat belts, nudity, etc. etc.
> Forcing mask wearing probably won't go anywhere federally.
Here's hoping Biden can be persuasive https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/11/11/joe-bi...
Cloth masks aren't effective yet we're all pretendying, even the experts (who were all laughing at the plebs who were scared before mask mandates, wanting to wear masks and not knowing how to use them) [I'm in a very large medical community and this was the general sentiment before the WHO and Fauci changed their tune]
Experts disagree. Politicians fear blowback so they see who the media are agreeing with and then do that. They aren't rational actors.
And no, mask wearing has many negative effects.
E.g. of Experts and Politicians making mistakes: lockdowns, they have much worse negative effects than positive but they look politically good. Experts don't present any reason for them that is backed scientifically as a whole.
Who should we give the right to take away our freedom?
Experts lie, politicians lie and they do don't care. I don't trust them with that much power.
Humans cannot survive if they reduce social interactions to such a naked transactional level.
Reminds me of that short story in which, in the future, we all pay each other micro-transactions for the dozens of small IP infringements we commit every day.
I’m not saying coronavirus isn’t serious, in case it need be said.
After a few weeks I realized it was mostly to reduce hospital load.
It's been 9+ months now, and it wont end anytime next year. If a government leader thinks they can put pandora back in the box at this point, by taking more liberties away, they're a fool
I don't think anyone believes they're putting pandora back in the box. Most officials pushing for restrictions are compromising their public goodwill (and [re]electability) to try to save lives.
The governor of CA violated his own rules to attend a party while demanding others dont
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/11/biden-covid-advisor-says-us-...
Also where would your proposed approach to managing externalities end? If you want to start tracing the cost of externalities across the board then you have to also do things like start taxing people below certain IQ levels for the externality of being a burden (net loss of utility) on society.
My entire rationale is that this has shifted to risk management. Can’t I be taught how to minimize the probability of infecting others? It’s not black and white. I can conduct my life and do my best to help my fellow human.
There is no fault here and this shouldn’t remotely suggest “covid transmission insurance”. It’s about making educated, science based risk calculations. Right?
If you want to be slightly riskier then your insurance will be more expensive. Or you can go without and be on the hook.