Fear: The Mind-Killer

It really shocks me how the Kung Flu has turned off people's brains.

I don't have a solid position on whether this virus is truly serious or overblown because the available data are trash - we definitely don't have the true denominator for the CFR, and we may not even have an accurate numerator - and the expert opinions I've seen are profoundly divided. But even if the worst is true, I still believe certain local responses have been ridiculous in the extreme.

I was listening to one of my favorite YouTubers last night, and he reported that in his town (in southern Texas, I believe), authorities had actually spent money ripping picnic tables out of the ground and carrying them away. Granted, this virus can apparently survive on surfaces for quite some time, but -- wouldn't it be easier to install a disinfectant dispenser and some signage urging people to wipe things down before and after they use them?

I also saw a video on Twitter last night in which a gaggle of cops literally dragged a guy off a bus because he wasn't wearing a mask. My reaction? Er -- wouldn't it be far less traumatic (and fascistic) to simply distribute masks to people who aren't wearing them in public? Because I gotta tell ya: Mom and I had trouble procuring masks for ourselves, and I suspect lots of other people have experienced the same difficulty. (Come to think of it, the aforementioned YouTuber did note his own inability to find a mask in the same video in which he was laughing at the picnic table fiasco.)

It's certainly reasonable to discourage large gatherings because those tend to be plague vectors (as anyone who's suffered from a few cases of con crud will tell you) -- but shouldn't the definition of "large" be dependent on the actual space in which a theoretical gathering is being held? And shouldn't the same go for store capacity? If you own a tiny storefront - like the guy selling comics half a mile down the road from me - you probably should limit entry to less than 10 at a time. But if you're Home Depot? Obviously, you can hold more without jeopardizing everyone's ability to distance themselves from other shoppers. So why the blanket pronouncements regarding which businesses are allowed to be open, what they're allowed to sell, and how many people they can serve at a time? Why not just issue guidance to all business owners regarding how many customers they should admit at a time based on their available square footage and then let the business owners work out for themselves what exactly they need to do to keep everyone safe?

And by the way, couldn't similar guidance be issued to religious institutions?

I honestly don't think keeping people six feet away from each other requires we stop people from going to the park, surfing in the ocean, running on the beach, worshiping God in public, or taking drives in their own cars. I don't even think it requires draconian shutdowns of most economic activity (see the paragraph above) -- and I believe it's outright vile to encourage snitching on one's neighbors. Yet the restrictions keep escalating beyond all bounds of common sense. So what the holy hell is going on?

Well, first of all, it seems clear that some people are just power-tripping -- especially politicians and most especially leftist politicians, who've been dying to control people since they entered public life.

But the rest? The ones who are meekly taking the abuse? There, I think we're dealing with fear -- and a loss of the understanding of optimization. Yeah: using the measures I suggested above involves some risk that people won't heed the advice. I get it: lots of people are stupid. But should we really direct government power towards abolishing stupidity? Is that even possible?

No. Life, alas, cannot be made perfectly safe without doing untold damage to human well-being. So what we've always done, historically, is toggle the various risks until we've achieved what we feel is the best balance between competing objectives. That's why we've kept alcohol legal and have been moving towards fully legalizing pot -- even though it's demonstrably the case that abuse of those mind-altering substances causes damage to addicts and to the people around them. That's why some highways have posted speed limits in excess of 75 mph -- even though your chances of dying in a wreck increase the faster you're traveling.

Bottom line at the end: don't let panic smother your ability to think. Contrary to what seems to be the popular belief, you can take this pandemic seriously without fully surrendering your natural rights. Please don't let goose-stepping officials tell you the opposite.

(Because I'm expecting push-back on this, please note: I will not let your comment go through moderation if you accuse me of wanting grandma to die for the sake of Wall Street or anything similar. I will also decline to let your comment go through if you accuse me of downplaying the need for at least some preventative public health measures. This is a space for accurate reading comprehension and rational discussion, not invective. Disagree if you wish, but do so in good faith. Thanks.)