I want to be brave enough to do this, but I’m not sure I will be. I’m also scared that I’ll call 911 and they will be too overwhelmed to respond, leaving me to die alone in agony.
I’d like to at least have a way to end things here at home if that happens. Jesus god, I need something for anxiety!
This is humorous, but relevant, in terms of a constituent of “the economy.”
Twitter Mocks Big Companies Begging For Bailout Money With “Advice” Often Given To The Poor
Nope, I’m only 32, don’t want to die.
I’m only in my 30s but I live alone and have no immediate family. If I get sick and my body can’t drive it off without medical intervention, then my time has come. It would probably have only been a matter of time before some other illness got me if I couldn’t survive it. I’d probably find a (non-alarming) way to notify my landlord of my impending demise so that my body doesn’t putrefy for some extended period of time. Current lockdown measures would prevent anyone from noticing my absence.
I should let myself die so multi-billionaires can prosper?
Fuck that shit.
I propose establishing Ethical Suicide Parlors at or adjacent to all GOP offices. Encourage volunteers. Hey 'Pubs, it’s for the sake of all those sacred multi-billionaires. Do your part; drink the kool-ade. “Suicide is painless / It brings on many changes.”
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. C’mon, be heroic. Self-discorporate and ascend to heaven escorted by topless angels and trumpeting cherubs. Your name will be hand-inscribed on the Monolith of Honor at Mar-e-Lago’s 19th Hole VIP restroom. You medical bills will be voided, saving your survivors (if any) from financial doom. Shamans will chant your name around campfires for generations.
Someone should track those who publicly volunteer. See how long they last.
I’m not willing to go back to “normal” without doing anything to address the abnormal problems caused by COVID-19. Millions of people want to work, but millions of people have no paid sick leave to allow them to do so without risking unemployment. So if they get sick, they will work. And they will make everyone else sick, including vulnerable people (not all of them old). If Trump signed an executive order granting every working adult three weeks of paid sick leave during this global pandemic, I would feel like he was addressing a major problem we have. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be something.
If Trump were to commit to doubling the US’s hospital bed capacity by the end of the year, prioritizing hot zones like NYC, I would feel like he was addressing another major problem caused by COVID-19. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be something.
I have a major problem endorsing a “back to normal” plan that ignores these realities. Address these realities and then we can talk about going back to normal.
I don’t want to sit home for months on end either (which is why I go for lots of walks and scoot around on my scooter). But a bunch of people sitting at home is the price we pay for not preparing better for a global pandemic. I’d rather we pay it with some economic anxiety that will eventually dissipate rather than pay for it with lost lives and crippled bodies. You can’t bring those things back. You can always bring back the economy. We also have enough wealth in this country to guarantee food and shelter for everyone no matter what the economy the looks like. So I’m tired of hearing all the wailing about all the lives that will be ruined to poverty. We have chosen to make American poverty into a horrible, undignified, ruinous, suicide-worthy thing. It doesn’t have to be that way. We are truly a stupid people if we can’t come up with a plan for keeping us resilient in the face of economic hardship. We are a shithole country if we can’t do that.
This whole thread, why anyone would argue, is just beyond stupid and morally illiterate.
If you are worried about people, JUST GIVE THEM MONEY. IT IS MONEY.
I have said this before. I am not going to play pub trivia right now. I have also said I would pay, pay tax, equal to the amount that I spend on things I can’t do right now, and even take nothing in return for what I am paying. To help those who might be out of a job.
But I would rather pay that and get nothing than pay the same and sit in the bar for 2 hours and possibly get COVID-19. The personal interaction is a negative value right now. You can take my portion of the money, I am fine with that. But the whole risking my life thing, there is absolutely no reason for me to do that. It’s completely disconnected from the money, and idiotic that anyone thinks that risking your life sitting in a bar for two hours adds any value whatsoever. It doesn’t.
You want to risk your life, get involved in some sort of essential service that actually needs to be maintained. Otherwise, take care of the rest of the people with money, I will pay my share, and leave the completely needless risk of life out of it.
Your agreement was trying to highlight that people are unwilling to take their own personal health risks for the sake of the economy. I disagree.
Further, I’m trying to highlight the consequences of NOT going back to work for months.
I agree to your terms and accept those risks. Are you willing to accept the consequences of your choice? There are no other choices being given at this time. It would be fantastic if the orange cheeto and company would do the right things, but they won’t.
More hospital beds by the end of year??? This thing will be over in a few months. Additionally, we have constraints not just in beds, but in doctors and medical staff. You won’t be doubling that by the end of the year.
You have poor reading comprehension if that is what you take away from my post.
Of course people are more than willing to risk their own lives. The problem isn’t that they are risking their own lives. They would be risking everyone’s lives. Including people who don’t have paid sick leave. So if those people get sick and can’t work, guess what? They probably won’t have a job to come back to.
I don’t need you to highlight the consequences for me because I’m not an idiot.
What do you think my choice is? What do you think I’m advocating?
They won’t do the right things because people like yourself are only focusing on getting back to normal instead of talking about the measures we need to put in place to help people get the economy back to normal. You are talking about the economy like it exists independent of the public and thus public health. Help the people and the economy will come together in due time. Fuck people over and the economy is doomed.
That is to laugh.
Go read up on the Spanish flu and report back to class how long it lasted. Hint: It wasn’t a few months.
This is what I said:
Your agreement was trying to highlight that people are unwilling to take their own personal health risks for the sake of the economy. I disagree.
This was your post:
You further said it would skeeve people out and doubted millions would sign. Where are my reading comprehension skills wrong on this? The exact statement you want people to sign is that they are willing to risk their health for the sake of the economy.
No, you aren’t. I understand that. I’m not either. You made a claim I disagreed with and wanted to test your claim against your own personal risk aversions, etc. It wasn’t intended to insult you. I’m sorry if it came across that way.
You seemed to be clearly advocating that people would be skeeved out if they had to sign a document that said they wouldn’t get healthcare for some period of time if they agreed to go back to work. You even said if it were in the millions it would be worth considering.
This is a different argument than the one I questioned. We can have that one if you wish, but I questioned your assertion that millions would skeeved if they were allowed to go back to work in lieu of medical care for (realistically) 3 months. You keep dodging the reality of the choice you are making, which is to put millions out of work and that even with social distancing we are changing the odds of getting medical care from 3% to 8%.
Go read the paper I cited. It clearly says this will be over in 3 months if we do nothing. Doing what we are doing will will save lives as a direct result of this disease, but will result in months more of having to deal with it and doesn’t address the secondary impacts of putting millions out of work.
And it would have been over much faster if the concept of isolation was followed. Some towns isolated themselves - they were not affected.
Thanks psychobunny!
There were 3 waves to the Spanish Flu, but by far the deadliest lasted 3 months. The other two were relatively mild in comparison.
There is no such possible tradeoff.
The stores and restaurants and tourist attractions were mostly closing a day or two before governors closed things down. Commercial aircraft were commonly flying mostly empty.
Allowing a restaurant to re-open isn’t going to bring back enough customers to make it profitable for the wait staff to return. Too few people are going to plan vacations, for places with most of the attractions voluntarily closed, for it to make it profitable for them to re-open. Etc. Etc.
The politicians are not running this. The virus is. And the people who are afraid of giving it to their loved ones.
Twelve percent of American workers work in health care. My daughter in law works in a big-city hospital. My son in law’s mother works in a small-town hospital. My mother is 93. This is why we don’t leave the house much, not some order from a politician.
Allowing a few reckless businesses to re-open is not going to prevent economic decline – it may easily make it worse by dragging this out.
I realize I’m not addressing a buried implication of your post – maybe there is a choice where we can choose a depression decade instead of racking up long-term debt, that will be hold back the economy for 30 years or so, to fight it. Most economists do not see that as a viable choice, but I admit to lacking the economic expertise to really argue it.
Have you read yet what it is like to die from COVID-19? As more people do, it will become even more impossible for politicians to reverse closures before the virus is radically beaten back.
Not everything is about Democrats vs. Republicans. The virus is neither.
No, even though I’m in an age range and condition that some would probably like me to throw myself on the bonfire of capitalism. I still want to live if I can.
I’m sure as hell not sacrificing myself so the stock market can keep running the way it has my whole life. It exists solely to run up the 1%'s portfolios without even actually producing anything of value for society. It wants to have as few employees as possible and pay them as little as possible and drive up the Dow with stock buy-backs that produce no value except for the 1%. Why would I purposely kill myself for that?
And hell, even if I and millions of others did, it wouldn’t guarantee that the economy would improve or that trump and other Republicans wouldn’t still run up the deficit even higher for younger people to have to pay off.
Trump is measuring the economy by the stock market. Nothing about the stock market going up, up, up means that there are more actual jobs or a lower budget deficit or anything that’s supposed to help younger people. A bunch of 70-year-olds throwing themselves on the bonfire won’t create more jobs.
Lets put some numbers to this discussion.
Regarding recessions and depressions killing people -
Research has put the number of excess cancer deaths in the US due to the GFC at around 18,000: 9,000 per year over two years cite. Obviously that’s just one cause, but this chart of death rates by cause which covers the GFC period doesn’t seem to show all that much of an anything for the relevant period
Other research shows the effect of the Great Depression on death rates to be … basically zero. That seems to be a little small to be believed, honestly, but whatever effect it did have is obviously small enough to be hard to pick up on.
Meanwhile…
Other research claims that excess deaths due to being uninsured in America - a problem that the powers that be seem to be in no hurry to fix - is around 45,000 per year.
Estimates of deaths from a ‘let her rip’ covid outbreak that infects nearly everyone at once range from a ridiculously low half a million or so (only a third of the country ends up with the disease, the death rate is no more than the 0.6% reported in well-managed South Korea) up to a still-plausible seven-and-a-half million (half the country gets it, all of the 5% who need intensive care don’t get any, and they all die)
You see why many of us won’t take the ‘but economic downturns cause death too!’ argument seriously.
That absolutely closes out those questions! Thanks for doing that research.
Just leaving this here to wake people up to the fact that we aren’t simply talking about nursing home residents dying.
Brooklyn high school principal, 36, dies from coronavirus
I don’t think we can spare very many people like this.
Oh for some reason I don’t think Trump supporters will see this as a bad thing.
