Hacker News Reader

Comment by s1artibartfast | Hacker News Reader

The point is that it's context-specific.

Only you have the personal context.

I know several people that have ignored fire evacuation orders and saved their homes instead. No fire department is going to tell people to fight the fire because they don't know people's individual situations.

Shelter and place orders are another funny one. I have a lot of fond memories ignoring shelter in place orders hiking and camping in the wilderness during covid. It probably reduced my risk versus Sheltering at home. Blanket orders were one size fits all, made to address the person that is going to parties and bars.

The government is never looking out for your individual interests. It only cares about the average, and you can be the person that dies as collateral damage from an order that still has a good average outcome

View on HN

>The government is never looking out for your individual interests. It only cares about the average, and you can be the person that dies that's collateral damage from an order that still has a good average outcome

This only works up to a point. If everyone stays home and turns on their sprinklers and hoses, the water distribution system quickly fails, and then NOBODY can fight the fire, be it individuals or the average. This is a very simple lesson that was learned more than a century ago. Acting in a selfish manner only works if a tiny fraction of people do that. We typically name these people after a certain excreting orifice for a reason.

I'm not saying everyone should stay home. I'm explicitly acknowledging that the average policy works for the average person.

The people that I know that fought fires are Rural and not even on a distribution system. They saved their home while the firefighters passively watched their neighbors houses burned down. The firefighters orders were to make sure there were no fires by a Road intersection, and since there weren't, this meant standing around doing nothing for 24 hours within shouting distance of houses burning down. A good example of how public priorities don't always match your personal priorities.

I get that people hate non-conformists and deviance, but Not everything needs to be an us vs them zero-sum game.

>I know several people that have ignored fire evacuation orders and saved their homes instead.

Lots of wildfire stories include people who ignored evacuation orders and died. This is just silly confirmation bias. The large majority of people who survive wildfires do so because they listened to government officials and implying that people should ignore evacuation orders is frankly stupidly dangerous.

>Shelter and place orders are another funny one. I have a lot of fond memories ignoring shelter in place orders hiking and camping in the wilderness during covid. It probably reduced my risk versus Sheltering at home. Blanket orders were one size fits all, made to address the person that is going to parties and bars.

How would going out lower your risk in this case? You obviously increased your risk, if only so slightly.

Edit* I literally just got notice of a level 3 evac that doesn't cover me but is near me. I'm sure all those "non-conformists" will stay and make life miserable for firefighters.

To quote PHPisthebest "I think you have confused ignoring the government orders with "doing the opposite".

Are you claiming that government orders are optimal 100% of the time in 100% of situations? If not, then sometimes it is wrong, and it might be wrong for you.

>How would going out lower your risk in this case? You obviously increased your risk, if only so slightly.

Being alone miles from anyone else has zero covid risk. Covid risk doesn't kick in when you leave the door of your house. In my case, I also had roommates who worked, like me and interacted with other people.

>Are you claiming that government orders are optimal 100% of the time in 100% of situations? If not, then sometimes it is wrong, and it might be wrong for you.

Of course not. Your example was just not a situation where not following orders was individually optimal. You and your friends are suffering from confirmation bias. They did something incredibly stupid and dangerous and put their lives at risk and more importantly, increased risk for the firefighters working the job. It happened to work out but that doesn't mean it was wise. They could have just as easily died or killed a firefighter who was trying to rescue them.

Why don't you reach out to a wildland firefighters outfit and see their perspective on what bullshit they have to deal with when dumbasses don't evacuate.

For the vast majority of people, the vast majority of the time, following emergency instructions is the optimal outcome. Even in this case, the folks who went around the barrier didn't know that going around was safer than going back. They gambled and it worked out.

>Being alone miles from anyone else has zero covid risk. Covid risk doesn't kick in when you leave the door of your house. In my case, I also had roommates who worked, like me and interacted with other people.

Ah yes, I'm sure you magically went from your bedroom to wilderness miles away from anyone else without stopping or interacting with anyone!

Look, I'm not saying going out in the wilderness was wrong, its just silly to think it lowered your risk at all.

I think that you are approaching this is making the mistake of treating each instance as identical when they are not. Different situations have different risks and you can't claim that a choice was wrong or stupid without understanding the specific situation. This is the difference between the usefulness of a heuristic in general, and the usefulness of a heuristic in a specific situation.

You can't claim that they put their lives at risk and made a stupid mistake without that information.

The same holds true for the covid example. You don't know the specifics and are making a generalization. It is in fact possible to go camping without interacting with people.

Why you believe outsourcing your thinking is the best course of action? Why has government done to earn such blind loyalty from you? As someone who has pretty in depth knowledge of history I can not fathom the level of trust you have placed in government. it is almost theological ...

> Shelter and place orders are another funny one. I have a lot of fond memories ignoring shelter in place orders hiking and camping in the wilderness during covid.

I was thinking more about sheltering from tornados and hurricanes.

I see. the same holds true. If you have prior knowledge that your house is structurally unsound and your neighbor has a bomb proof house, you should probably use common sense and stay with your neighbors instead.

Im not saying never follow orders, just that by definition universal orders aren't best for everyone in every situation. Common sense goes a long way towards contextualizing them and their usefulness.

I think you have confused ignoring the government orders with "doing the opposite of what the government says"

For example at different times I have went to my basement during while the tornado sirens where going off, and other times I have stood outside looking at the clouds...

Why because I took the governments recommendation, added my own information from various weather sources, radar, and decades of experience and formulated my personal risk at that moment

Reply on news.ycombinator.com