How do you expect to "motivate" people to just go to work, spend money in restaurants, fly around, take cruises...as if there was nothing going on, while at the same time millions of people are dying? Everyone is going to have someone in their family who dies because of this virus. And they're not going to die silently - you'll have crazy imagery of emergency rooms spilling over with patients circulating among the public. And I'm not speaking about "media hype" - since this will hit all hospitals, people will just have to look left and right in their hometown to see the catastrophe evolving.
Are you going to plan to force people to take vacations, eat out, do their "normal" stuff, while this is unfolding? Because without excessive force, nobody will do that. You'll have open businesses, but they won't have any customers for months while the above-described pans out. And probably for quite a while to come, because this event will rip a gaping wound into the conscience of the American people, probably larger than 9/11 did.
If the media hadn't spent weeks fearmongering and spinning this as some killer exotic plague (rather than something that hits at-risk populations much harder but is survivable for most others). Only a few percent of younger people have needed intensive care. It won't make too much of a difference anyway; we'll still hit a peak and have a colossal shortage of everything. The doctors will have to make a choice: do we save the young person with more years and more productivity ahead of him, or do we save the eighty-year-old? Guess which will be chosen?
There is no pretty solution to this problem. A lot of people will get hurt. I wish everyone would stop staring like a hungry child at the government, begging it to "do something". The government cannot solve this problem. Stealing more money from those who remain in work won't solve anything. This is precisely the time to reduce taxes massively, completely gut every entitlement program, and strangle the bureaucracy that caused this mess until the nation has a chance to prosper.
EDIT: Replying to Slartie comment here, as HN is rate-limiting.
What is "navigating through"? The government can't arrest those who violate its un-constitutional orders, lest it risk spreading disease further. Why can the precious bureaucracy solve this? How? It'll do something, that's for sure, but that's because everyone keeps screaming to "do something".
You're looking at this absolutely the wrong way. This is the time to massively cut taxes, promote supply-side growth, and remove almost all entitlements. It is the job of each American to be responsible for his own welfare, not for Big Daddy Government to swoop in and save him. The Nanny State strikes again. Twelve-hundred-dollar hand-outs to everyone? Disgraceful. We're turning into a nation of lazy mooching welfare queens.
> Now tell me again that the "government cannot solve this problem".
> Even the anti-government Republicans currently seem to look to the government as the only instance potentially capable of solving this problem.
Who said I was a Republican, or agreed with the party, or approved of its actions? I don't. It's a disgrace.
EDIT: Replying to ss2003 here, as HN is rate-limiting.
Yes, but entitlements too. They make up most of our expenses, not military.
EDIT: Replying to jahaja here, as HN is rate-limiting.
Why do you say that? You'd really saddle the next generation with debt to pay for a shutdown that saves mostly older people? That's no more fair than a million people being killed by a virus. If you could choose that everyone looses his job or one person dies, what would you choose? Why? What about a hundred people dying? Thousand? Where's you're bright line?
So far, if the 3rd bill makes it into law, we will be at well over 2 trillion dollars trying to keep the economy from imploding. Many say that it won't be enough and we will be looking at more bills and A LOT more spending. Yearly military expenditures are at 700 billion a year.
I agree, things get heated when people start to moralize about things without considering the other side. On one hand, people affected by a death or very sick family member are going to feel one way, especially if they are not feeling a lot of economic pain. That said a small restaurant owner, or worker who is living on the edge who is facing the real possibility of losing everything is, understandably going to feel differently. Both have VERY valid points and there is not an easy answer because both options have very bad outcomes for a group of people.
There's also a third group with an equally-valid point: the people who don't want to pay for any of it. I think they've gotten drowned out by the others.
Yes, seriously. You're willing to sacrifice a million people to keep your house of cards economy going instead of fixing the root cause. To add insult to injury you want to shrink the state, thus collective resources, even more and calling every citizen of the US welfare queens? What the hell?
This is some fundamentalist "the cause justify the means" bullshit. An economy that requires 1 million in human sacrifice during a crisis is nothing to keep around. Not to mention the already ~60k/year that dies due to lack of healthcare access because people like you want to keep the welfare state to this non-functioning minimum.
Maybe, but if you're going to defend the health of the community, you need to do exemplify its norms (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), not violate them, while doing so. Otherwise it seems like you're attacking for petty reasons, such as personal or ideological animosity.
It isn't easy. The mind likes to take the experience of being right as an opportunity to also vent surplus emotion or aggression. To catch oneself doing this and forego the satisfaction is not something we do instinctively. Surprisingly, though, the trivial genre of internet comments turns out to be a good place for practice (and lord knows we can all use it).
The problem is that when people leave those bounds, they all-too-easily feel that they're doing it for principled reasons, and this is almost always false. They may not feel it, but it comes through acutely to others—especially to those on the side being attacked, who then feel entitled to react in kind. This is how we get a downward spiral. Each reacts to the shadow of the other, which appears as a kind of demon [1], and fails to see their own, and therefore feels justified and righteous. "He's causing the problem; I'm simply reacting." It's astonishing how often that comes up even in the mostly-trivial field of an internet forum.
I know these moderation comments can easily sound like "everybody please be civil and courteous", but that's not where we're coming from. Closer would be to say: be responsible for your shadow.
It's an open question how to process enough of one's shadow so that pure anger can cut like a sword in a clear way when called for. Most of us have work to do before we get there.
Thanks for a well-thought-out answer. I do reckognise that there's indeed a snowball-effect. But perhaps the shadow that's being blocked, may be blocked for a reason. I'm not a moderator of any sort, so I know that my opinions are obviously biased. I do respect the effort in objectivity.
> You're willing to sacrifice a million people to keep your house of cards economy going instead of fixing the root cause.
There's this bizarre idea that the only people who are harmed by a bad economy are "those evil one percenters". Being out of work hurts lots of people. What do you believe is the root cause? Also, many of those will still die even with measures taken.
If one person could die, or everyone could lose his job, which would you pick? Ten people? Where's your bright line? At some point, that one person doesn't get to tell everyone he expects the nation to stay home to save him. Nor do the ten people. Why is that different for more people, and how many must it be? I'm not saying they should just go to work and harm themselves, but they are responsible for keeping themselves home and safe. Not the government.
> you want to shrink the state, thus collective resources
Yes. Why is this bad?
> calling every citizen of the US welfare queens?
I didn't call every citizen one, I said we're turning into a nation of them. There's a joke that is depressingly accurate that I've seen in several places over the past few days:
"What does it take to turn a Trump supporter into a socialist?"
"$1200."
Everyone wants to take someone else's money.
> fundamentalist
No, I just don't believe it's the government's job to keep us safe from a virus. I get pretty sick of people running around asking bureaucrats to "do something". Americans need to take responsibility for themselves; weigh their options and make their best decisions.
> people like you want to keep the welfare state to this non-functioning minimum.
Who are "people like me"? You seem to be lumping me in with some "other", but I'm not sure which. To be more accurate, I wish to abolish the welfare state entirely; I'd hardly call three trillion dollars a year a "minimum" of any sort.
The government is precisely the only instance that is able to solve this problem, with "solution" not being "make it go away instantly", but "navigating through the time until a vaccine is available in the best way possible".
> reduce taxes massively
This ideology partially got you into the problem. 1.5 trillions in taxes have just been reduced while everything was fine, just "because the people in power could" - and because it benefitted their purses. It's an ironic twist of fate that Congress just passed a deal of almost-identical "historic" proportions with the goal of pushing a similar sum of money into the hands of the people that are NOT in power, because if the people in power don't do this, the entire country is going to blow up around them, reducing the previously-inflated contents of their purses (stocks, real estate) to shreds.
Now tell me again that the "government cannot solve this problem". Even the anti-government Republicans currently seem to look to the government as the only instance potentially capable of solving this problem.
Are you going to plan to force people to take vacations, eat out, do their "normal" stuff, while this is unfolding? Because without excessive force, nobody will do that. You'll have open businesses, but they won't have any customers for months while the above-described pans out. And probably for quite a while to come, because this event will rip a gaping wound into the conscience of the American people, probably larger than 9/11 did.