I understand your point, but do you and JJ understand mine? 
What incentive exists, outside government intervention, for an individual restaurant to enforce social distancing?  People, historically, have enjoyed being in crowds.  How can an individual theater enforce social distancing in any sustainable way without government backup?  The last few people to enter before the show starts won't want to go all the way to the back row, when so many other seats are "open".  
And the theaters and restaurants that get more "lax" with this certainly get more customers through the door (turning fewer away) without any obvious decline in customer satisfaction.  That's how it worked in the past.  Their competitors will see it and do likewise.  Right?  
In these cases, the market forces that you and JJ want to unleash point to larger and larger crowds more and more frequently over time.
So, if the market forces are pointing the wrong way, only the government can correct that.
I don't see why you and JJ see this as a hill for your individualistic views to die on.  These social distancing measures are not permanent.  They may not end as soon as you like, but they will end.

The consumer has an incentive to pursue life safety and fulfillment of a like want or need. 

The producer has an incentive to meet said needs in order to attract customers and make profit.  

It's only the system that lifted the world out of poverty.  

Politicians have incentives to pursue their re-election that may or may not align with real world economic incentives.  

Bureaucrats are insulated from economic and political incentives (basically the death code of progressivism.)

Have you ever been in a traffic jam, JJ?

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

The consumer has an incentive to pursue life safety and fulfillment of a like want or need. 

The producer has an incentive to meet said needs in order to attract customers and make profit.  

It's only the system that lifted the world out of poverty.  

Politicians have incentives to pursue their re-election that may or may not align with real world economic incentives.  

Bureaucrats are insulated from economic and political incentives (basically the death code of progressivism.)

Have you ever been in a traffic jam, JJ?

No, ofcourse not.

---

Have you ever been in a traffic jam, JJ?

No, ofcourse not.

Because in a traffic jam, a bunch of people leave their homes having made rational choices about their risk, but the situation gets riskier for each new person added to the road.  But they don't realize their choice was riskier until they are a few blocks from home.  And anyways, they need to get to work and might as well stick it out. Suddenly you go from clear roads and almost no risk of collision to congested roads and a high risk of collision.  In fact, the risk of collision incteases exponentially with each new car, just like the risk of you getting infected increases exponentially with each new infected person in your community.


Now with a traffic jam, there's not much to be done. We've already made cars extremely safe with airbags and such.  We try to build more roads and encourage carpooling.  In Sao Paolo they took the more extreme step of saying you can only drive every other day, but it doesn't work. 

Regardless, if you understand the metaphor, you see that the only possible mitigations to traffic jams are organized at the social level, not the individual level.  Similarly, choices about opening restaurants and gyms have to be made at the social level.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

I did see this has been touched upon in this thread already, but I did just see/read this article from last week that mentioned how 66% of the new cases in NY of COVID were from people who stayed at home, and who were mostly unemployed or retired. This article also mentions how this is apart of the 84% total overall (that includes the other 18% of people in nursing home) who have recently contracted COVID-19.

Governor Cuomo was talking about how shocked he is that a lot of these cases are people staying at home and not people who are going out (like essential workers). It sounds too like a lot of the new cases are people who are higher/closer to being in higher risks groups. I think this article has some interesting information in it, including how only 2% of the new cases in NY are in the homeless population:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-c...-home.html

---

You clearly understand the concept of personal freedom even while you continue to assault it.

I understand your point, but do you and JJ understand mine? 
What incentive exists, outside government intervention, for an individual restaurant to enforce social distancing?  People, historically, have enjoyed being in crowds.  How can an individual theater enforce social distancing in any sustainable way without government backup?  The last few people to enter before the show starts won't want to go all the way to the back row, when so many other seats are "open".  
And the theaters and restaurants that get more "lax" with this certainly get more customers through the door (turning fewer away) without any obvious decline in customer satisfaction.  That's how it worked in the past.  Their competitors will see it and do likewise.  Right?  
In these cases, the market forces that you and JJ want to unleash point to larger and larger crowds more and more frequently over time.
So, if the market forces are pointing the wrong way, only the government can correct that.
I don't see why you and JJ see this as a hill for your individualistic views to die on.  These social distancing measures are not permanent.  They may not end as soon as you like, but they will end.

Who gets to decide which way is wrong?

Are you really that clueless that you don't understand that many people will choose to avoid restaurants, that many others will choose to avoid crowded restaurants, and that the restaurants have a market incentive to please the potential customers who aren't cowering at home? There was no need for governments to force those businesses to close.

And that's assuming that a crowded restaurant is more dangerous that being locked out in the long run. The point of this was to flatten the curve. No lives were saved by flattening the curve since the hospitals were never in danger of running out of ICU beds, it just distributed the deaths over a longer period. Compare that to the lives lost by suicide after restaurant owners lost their life savings.

Also, your traffic jam example isn't comparable since market forces don't control traffic, government does (and we see how well that works).

---

                                                                          

"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

I understand your point, but do you and JJ understand mine? 
What incentive exists, outside government intervention, for an individual restaurant to enforce social distancing?  People, historically, have enjoyed being in crowds.  How can an individual theater enforce social distancing in any sustainable way without government backup?  The last few people to enter before the show starts won't want to go all the way to the back row, when so many other seats are "open".  
And the theaters and restaurants that get more "lax" with this certainly get more customers through the door (turning fewer away) without any obvious decline in customer satisfaction.  That's how it worked in the past.  Their competitors will see it and do likewise.  Right?  
In these cases, the market forces that you and JJ want to unleash point to larger and larger crowds more and more frequently over time.
So, if the market forces are pointing the wrong way, only the government can correct that.
I don't see why you and JJ see this as a hill for your individualistic views to die on.  These social distancing measures are not permanent.  They may not end as soon as you like, but they will end.

Who gets to decide which way is wrong?

Are you really that clueless that you don't understand that many people will choose to avoid restaurants, that many others will choose to avoid crowded restaurants, and that the restaurants have a market incentive to please the potential customers who aren't cowering at home? There was no need for governments to force those businesses to close.

And that's assuming that a crowded restaurant is more dangerous that being locked out in the long run. The point of this was to flatten the curve. No lives were saved by flattening the curve since the hospitals were never in danger of running out of ICU beds, it just distributed the deaths over a longer period. Compare that to the lives lost by suicide after restaurant owners lost their life savings.

Also, your traffic jam example isn't comparable since market forces don't control traffic, government does (and we see how well that works).

No, I understand these things firsthand.
I went on a three day cruise that departed March 13.  Last day before they stopped.
The ship was mostly empty.  People had chosen to stay home, even though they didn't have to.  And I was optimistic at first.  Maybe the market was working and everything would be OK.
Then dinner.  They only were using like 1/8th of the tables, and sure enough, the ones they decided to use were all right next to each other.
Then the show.  My family decided to skip a row and stagger away from the nearest people.  Right before the show started, even though all the seats in the wings of the theater were totally open, a family comes in, and fills in the seats between us and the people in front of us.
I knew it was wrong, but I didn't want to cause problems.
We needed the shutdowns, at the very least, to tell people this is not a joke. To break their old habits.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

You clearly understand the concept of personal freedom even while you continue to assault it.

I understand your point, but do you and JJ understand mine? 
What incentive exists, outside government intervention, for an individual restaurant to enforce social distancing?  People, historically, have enjoyed being in crowds.  How can an individual theater enforce social distancing in any sustainable way without government backup?  The last few people to enter before the show starts won't want to go all the way to the back row, when so many other seats are "open".  
And the theaters and restaurants that get more "lax" with this certainly get more customers through the door (turning fewer away) without any obvious decline in customer satisfaction.  That's how it worked in the past.  Their competitors will see it and do likewise.  Right?  
In these cases, the market forces that you and JJ want to unleash point to larger and larger crowds more and more frequently over time.
So, if the market forces are pointing the wrong way, only the government can correct that.
I don't see why you and JJ see this as a hill for your individualistic views to die on.  These social distancing measures are not permanent.  They may not end as soon as you like, but they will end.

Me!  My decision to either go into the restaurant or not.  It is the one thing YOU continue to ignore.  I do not need someone nor some entity (read government) to tell me what is best for me.  Here is what you with your superior intellect cannot comprehend; a vast majority of the population is capable of thinking for themselves.

---

Original Season Ticket Holder - Retired  1995 - 2020


At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening.
 

I understand your point, but do you and JJ understand mine? 
What incentive exists, outside government intervention, for an individual restaurant to enforce social distancing?  People, historically, have enjoyed being in crowds.  How can an individual theater enforce social distancing in any sustainable way without government backup?  The last few people to enter before the show starts won't want to go all the way to the back row, when so many other seats are "open".  
And the theaters and restaurants that get more "lax" with this certainly get more customers through the door (turning fewer away) without any obvious decline in customer satisfaction.  That's how it worked in the past.  Their competitors will see it and do likewise.  Right?  
In these cases, the market forces that you and JJ want to unleash point to larger and larger crowds more and more frequently over time.
So, if the market forces are pointing the wrong way, only the government can correct that.
I don't see why you and JJ see this as a hill for your individualistic views to die on.  These social distancing measures are not permanent.  They may not end as soon as you like, but they will end.

Me!  My decision to either go into the restaurant or not.  It is the one thing YOU continue to ignore.  I do not need someone nor some entity (read government) to tell me what is best for me.  Here is what you with your superior intellect cannot comprehend; a vast majority of the population is capable of thinking for themselves.

But you think wrong things. You must obey your Betters, it's for your own good.

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

I understand your point, but do you and JJ understand mine? 
What incentive exists, outside government intervention, for an individual restaurant to enforce social distancing?  People, historically, have enjoyed being in crowds.  How can an individual theater enforce social distancing in any sustainable way without government backup?  The last few people to enter before the show starts won't want to go all the way to the back row, when so many other seats are "open".  
And the theaters and restaurants that get more "lax" with this certainly get more customers through the door (turning fewer away) without any obvious decline in customer satisfaction.  That's how it worked in the past.  Their competitors will see it and do likewise.  Right?  
In these cases, the market forces that you and JJ want to unleash point to larger and larger crowds more and more frequently over time.
So, if the market forces are pointing the wrong way, only the government can correct that.
I don't see why you and JJ see this as a hill for your individualistic views to die on.  These social distancing measures are not permanent.  They may not end as soon as you like, but they will end.

Me!  My decision to either go into the restaurant or not.  It is the one thing YOU continue to ignore.  I do not need someone nor some entity (read government) to tell me what is best for me.  Here is what you with your superior intellect cannot comprehend; a vast majority of the population is capable of thinking for themselves.

The government isn't necessarily trying to enforce upon you that which is best for you, but rather, that which is best for others.  I think the important question is, can the vast majority of the population be trusted to act responsibly, for the safety of others, without government intervention.  For example, is an individual going into a grocery store without a mask acting responsibly?

---

When you get into the endzone, act like you've been there before.

Me!  My decision to either go into the restaurant or not.  It is the one thing YOU continue to ignore.  I do not need someone nor some entity (read government) to tell me what is best for me.  Here is what you with your superior intellect cannot comprehend; a vast majority of the population is capable of thinking for themselves.

The government isn't necessarily trying to enforce upon you that which is best for you, but rather, that which is best for others.  I think the important question is, can the vast majority of the population be trusted to act responsibly, for the safety of others, without government intervention.  For example, is an individual going into a grocery store without a mask acting responsibly?

Hmmmm.  Good question.  Let's ask the guy in charge.  

---

No, ofcourse not.

Because in a traffic jam, a bunch of people leave their homes having made rational choices about their risk, but the situation gets riskier for each new person added to the road.  But they don't realize their choice was riskier until they are a few blocks from home.  And anyways, they need to get to work and might as well stick it out. Suddenly you go from clear roads and almost no risk of collision to congested roads and a high risk of collision.  In fact, the risk of collision incteases exponentially with each new car, just like the risk of you getting infected increases exponentially with each new infected person in your community.


Now with a traffic jam, there's not much to be done. We've already made cars extremely safe with airbags and such.  We try to build more roads and encourage carpooling.  In Sao Paolo they took the more extreme step of saying you can only drive every other day, but it doesn't work. 

Regardless, if you understand the metaphor, you see that the only possible mitigations to traffic jams are organized at the social level, not the individual level.  Similarly, choices about opening restaurants and gyms have to be made at the social level.

Traffic jams occur because scarcity exists.  Scarcity is a reality of the human condition.  It's best manag ed by allowing individuals the ability to create new resources with alternative uses and manage how best to meet their needs through voluntary exchange.  


What's the difference between old age insurance and a retirement program?....   I'll wait.

What was the recommendation to NY state government in 2015 regarding the risk of ILI & How does that correlate to the current crisis?  

What was the determination about chimeric gain of function viral research in the mid 2010s.  Where did we outsource that research?  What bearing does that have on the current crisis.  

What was the social solution to managing banking risk.  Why was it proposed?  What were the results?

---

Have you ever visited a messageboard, JJ?

---

Have you ever visited a messageboard, JJ?

Senator, I'd like to invoke my 5th amendment privilege : )

---

Who gets to decide which way is wrong?

Are you really that clueless that you don't understand that many people will choose to avoid restaurants, that many others will choose to avoid crowded restaurants, and that the restaurants have a market incentive to please the potential customers who aren't cowering at home? There was no need for governments to force those businesses to close.

And that's assuming that a crowded restaurant is more dangerous that being locked out in the long run. The point of this was to flatten the curve. No lives were saved by flattening the curve since the hospitals were never in danger of running out of ICU beds, it just distributed the deaths over a longer period. Compare that to the lives lost by suicide after restaurant owners lost their life savings.

Also, your traffic jam example isn't comparable since market forces don't control traffic, government does (and we see how well that works).

No, I understand these things firsthand.
I went on a three day cruise that departed March 13.  Last day before they stopped.
The ship was mostly empty.  People had chosen to stay home, even though they didn't have to.  And I was optimistic at first.  Maybe the market was working and everything would be OK.
Then dinner.  They only were using like 1/8th of the tables, and sure enough, the ones they decided to use were all right next to each other.
Then the show.  My family decided to skip a row and stagger away from the nearest people.  Right before the show started, even though all the seats in the wings of the theater were totally open, a family comes in, and fills in the seats between us and the people in front of us.
I knew it was wrong, but I didn't want to cause problems.
We needed the shutdowns, at the very least, to tell people this is not a joke. To break their old habits.

The last time I was at a restaurant before they were locked down people were all carefully seated by the restaurant at widely spaced tables. No government guns required. If you found a restaurant that chose to bunch everyone up, then just don't go there anymore.

The government needs to give advice (and sound advice, not "masks don't help" advice). The government shouldn't be using force, especially in this case where so much was and is still unknown.

---

                                                                          

"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

No, I understand these things firsthand.
I went on a three day cruise that departed March 13.  Last day before they stopped.
The ship was mostly empty.  People had chosen to stay home, even though they didn't have to.  And I was optimistic at first.  Maybe the market was working and everything would be OK.
Then dinner.  They only were using like 1/8th of the tables, and sure enough, the ones they decided to use were all right next to each other.
Then the show.  My family decided to skip a row and stagger away from the nearest people.  Right before the show started, even though all the seats in the wings of the theater were totally open, a family comes in, and fills in the seats between us and the people in front of us.
I knew it was wrong, but I didn't want to cause problems.
We needed the shutdowns, at the very least, to tell people this is not a joke. To break their old habits.

The last time I was at a restaurant before they were locked down people were all carefully seated by the restaurant at widely spaced tables. No government guns required. If you found a restaurant that chose to bunch everyone up, then just don't go there anymore.

The government needs to give advice (and sound advice, not "masks don't help" advice). The government shouldn't be using force, especially in this case where so much was and is still unknown.

and again, the state doesnt innovate.  Political incentives dont generally tolerate calculated risk.

Free people solve problems in creative ways.  Some would have seating outside.  Some would use low dose UV lighting similar to a TB treatment facility (overkill for a pathogen that's not truly aerosolized.)  Some would keep the thermostat @ 78 instead of 74.  Some would use higher pricing to ration socially distanced restaraunt space.  The point is that by allowing diffuse calculated risk taking you dramatically increase the probability of finding the right solution through trial and error.  When you do find a widely scalable solution it will quickly reach universalty through market CONSENSUS.  

By that I mean, if someone operates at 90% capacity with overhead uv and an ambient temperature close to 80 degrees & replicates the conditions of outdoor transmission rates (next to nothing) then that model will naturally spread to other vendors.  Conversely, with top down strategies you have strategies that are granted universality through government fiat but in order to meet political demands from emotional sources, namely fear, instead of market demands to meet economic forces.

---

Knowledge is power.
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-ris...avoid-them

---

Have you ever visited a messageboard, JJ?

Senator, I'd like to invoke my 5th amendment privilege : )

Dang, you ruined my follow up, which was going to go something like this: 

Because on a messageboard, a bunch of people visit the internet having made rational choices about their risk, but the situation gets riskier for each new person that visits this board.  But they don't realize their choice was riskier until they read a mikesez post.  And anyways, they need to avoid work and might as well stick it out. Suddenly you go from clear thinking and almost no risk of brain damage to muddled, pretentious drivel and a high risk of brain damage.  In fact, the risk of brain damage incteases exponentially with each new mikesez post, just like the risk of you getting infected increases exponentially with each new infected person in your community (whatever the hell that means).

Regardless, if you understand the metaphor, you see that the only possible mitigations to messageboards are organized at the social level, not the individual level.  Therefore the government should regulate mikesez posts. 

Back to the conversation. I find it hilarious that he uses this metaphor to prove his point. There is an innovation that is going to solve traffic jams. It's AI and self-driving cars and it's being developed in.... wait for it... the private sector. I'm not a libertarian. I think there is a role the government should play in societal affairs, but I just had to point out the obvious flaw in this dude's reasoning.

---

The last time I was at a restaurant before they were locked down people were all carefully seated by the restaurant at widely spaced tables. No government guns required. If you found a restaurant that chose to bunch everyone up, then just don't go there anymore.

The government needs to give advice (and sound advice, not "masks don't help" advice). The government shouldn't be using force, especially in this case where so much was and is still unknown.

and again, the state doesnt innovate.  Political incentives dont generally tolerate calculated risk.

Free people solve problems in creative ways.  Some would have seating outside.  Some would use low dose UV lighting similar to a TB treatment facility (overkill for a pathogen that's not truly aerosolized.)  Some would keep the thermostat @ 78 instead of 74.  Some would use higher pricing to ration socially distanced restaraunt space.  The point is that by allowing diffuse calculated risk taking you dramatically increase the probability of finding the right solution through trial and error.  When you do find a widely scalable solution it will quickly reach universalty through market CONSENSUS.  

By that I mean, if someone operates at 90% capacity with overhead uv and an ambient temperature close to 80 degrees & replicates the conditions of outdoor transmission rates (next to nothing) then that model will naturally spread to other vendors.  Conversely, with top down strategies you have strategies that are granted universality through government fiat but in order to meet political demands from emotional sources, namely fear, instead of market demands to meet economic forces.

Okay buddy.
If your vision of a nice time out of the restaurant is asking the hostess detailed questions about their covid 19 mitigation practices before you even sit down, then you're a weirdo! JJ will be standing at the podium asking detailed questions about the wattage of the UV bulbs, and how long they've been in operation, and pulling up studies on his phone to make sure that it's sufficient.
Nobody else wants to do that.
Nobody else will do that.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Have you ever visited a messageboard, JJ?

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Senator, I'd like to invoke my 5th amendment privilege : )

Dang, you ruined my follow up, which was going to go something like this: 

Because on a messageboard, a bunch of people visit the internet having made rational choices about their risk, but the situation gets riskier for each new person that visits this board.  But they don't realize their choice was riskier until they read a mikesez post.  And anyways, they need to avoid work and might as well stick it out. Suddenly you go from clear thinking and almost no risk of brain damage to muddled, pretentious drivel and a high risk of brain damage.  In fact, the risk of brain damage incteases exponentially with each new mikesez post, just like the risk of you getting infected increases exponentially with each new infected person in your community (whatever the hell that means).

Regardless, if you understand the metaphor, you see that the only possible mitigations to messageboards are organized at the social level, not the individual level.  Therefore the government should regulate mikesez posts. 

Back to the conversation. I find it hilarious that he uses this metaphor to prove his point. There is an innovation that is going to solve traffic jams. It's AI and self-driving cars and it's being developed in.... wait for it... the private sector. I'm not a libertarian. I think there is a role the government should play in societal affairs, but I just had to point out the obvious flaw in this dude's reasoning.

I believe in government, just very limited government. I also believe strongly in the private sector and that government reach into that sector should be eliminated as much as reasonable. What we're learning (again) with this pandemic is that large centrally-planned governments fail.

---

and again, the state doesnt innovate.  Political incentives dont generally tolerate calculated risk.

Free people solve problems in creative ways.  Some would have seating outside.  Some would use low dose UV lighting similar to a TB treatment facility (overkill for a pathogen that's not truly aerosolized.)  Some would keep the thermostat @ 78 instead of 74.  Some would use higher pricing to ration socially distanced restaraunt space.  The point is that by allowing diffuse calculated risk taking you dramatically increase the probability of finding the right solution through trial and error.  When you do find a widely scalable solution it will quickly reach universalty through market CONSENSUS.  

By that I mean, if someone operates at 90% capacity with overhead uv and an ambient temperature close to 80 degrees & replicates the conditions of outdoor transmission rates (next to nothing) then that model will naturally spread to other vendors.  Conversely, with top down strategies you have strategies that are granted universality through government fiat but in order to meet political demands from emotional sources, namely fear, instead of market demands to meet economic forces.

Okay buddy.
If your vision of a nice time out of the restaurant is asking the hostess detailed questions about their covid 19 mitigation practices before you even sit down, then you're a weirdo! JJ will be standing at the podium asking detailed questions about the wattage of the UV bulbs, and how long they've been in operation, and pulling up studies on his phone to make sure that it's sufficient.
Nobody else wants to do that.
Nobody else will do that.

I wouldn't do that, but I would also choose to sit down and eat. A decision that is taken from me when the government closes all the damn restaurants.

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato