BarryP wrote:
Quote:
All that being said I think it's a bit specious to make the statement of "Well we don't have a rock solid study on that so we should just ignore it because after all we are unquestionably saving lives"
Matt, you literally just reversed my argument.
The two arguments primarily put forth are:
A) Do what the CDC recommends
B) Ignore the CDC and get everyone back to work because more people will die as a result of an economic depression.
A) is backed by hard science. Thorough science. A large consensus among the world's experts. Link after link after link of study after study after study educating people on this.
B) is pulled out of the butts of dicks on the internet or rightwing radio and TV.
It is fallacious reasoning to say, "Well A is not rock solid perfect, so we might as well go with the out of the butt answer."
Its even worse to read everything I wrote and then say, "Hey, you shouldn't dismiss B just because it isn't rock solid?" Rock solid??!! It is OUT OF THE BUTT.
Yes, I am gong to dismiss out of the butt answers. Is it a worthy hypothesis? Sure. But if anyone wants to have an opinion on it, do your due diligence and back it up with something.
I heard the other day someone comment "I wish they had someone other than doctors and disease experts being interviewed". The fact is if the only people you listen to are people who are trained for, geared for and work toward stopping the spread and the effects of a disease the only perspective you will get is that perspective.
I'm not going to do your homework for you but if you bother to look around there are plenty of studies, articles etc etc showing correlation between, unemployment, slow economic growth, poverty and death. There are also plenty of articles, studies, even actuarial tables showing how much a life is worth.
To simply sit by and accept one side of a position that is obviously biased, not inappropriately that is their job, and ignore the other side is living with ones head in the sand.
I'm not suggesting A or B. I'm suggesting that we need to look at A AND B and find out what the best approach is. Ignoring everyones safety and allowing a run away disease could very well cause MORE damage, I.E. The dark ages. However the opposite is also clearly true, locking everything down and ignoring the economic damage can most certainly cause more damage than some lesser form of lockdown.
The CDC et el are designed and programmed on one criteria. Prevent the spread of the disease, period. They do not consider economic damage, they aren't economists. Making any decision on one perspcetive that covers and entire economy is dangerous an likely to not have the best possible outcome.