Is it selfish to not socially distance yourself?

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

In the pub I witnessed one of the 20 year old females hugging one of the middle aged men, which even I thought was a bit much.

Where abouts did you say this pub was? Might pop down later just out of curiosity.

[pancreas]

Howe d'you mean?

It's a very egocentric pov, like antivaxxers, the idea that one makes a choice in isolation, it doesn't allow for any cumulative effect, it ignores the existence of others.  What if we all just go down the pub because we fancy a chekky laqer, would that be perfectly fine?  Just enjoying ourselves.

People are pushed up against each other on the tube every morning and you're worried about someone sitting at a table at a medium distance from others. It's getting to drop-in-the-ocean levels.

The govt is clearly determined to kill loads of people. Ventilator companies have received no new orders. The pubs are not closed. Non-key workers still forced to go to work. I am not going to blame anyone for going to the pub and maintaining sensible distance.

[Buelligan]

I can believe that someone whose life is based on logic and number cannot fathom why adding something is adding something.  I say that with love.  What if that drop in the ocean is the one that drowns someone you care about?  What is an ocean but a collection of drops?

No one needs to blame anyone, we just need to not do things that increase risk for ourselves or others.

[Uncle TechTip]

Plenty of us aren't fucking allowed to stay indoors.

What about people who go to 2 supermarkets rather than one as the first doesn't have all the things they would like?

What about people who nip in to the newsagents to buy a paper as they'd like to support their local businesses?

What about the people who go to a local bookshop that has kept it's doors open as it can't afford to close, rather than buying from Amazon?

What about someone who drops off a parcel at the local food bank or goes to the Post Office to send some money to cash-strapped relatives?

Are they all "cunts" too?

The first & fourth ones could be considered essential. The others, i admire your motive but maybe post it to them? I am considering overpaying the milk bill, that's a simple thing to do and i don't have to leave the house.

Edit: actually on reflection, that's a bit stupid if these places are round the corner. Go out and observe the practices when outside and when you return home. Going further afield should be reconsidered.

[momatt]

Plenty of us aren't fucking allowed to stay indoors.
What about people who go to 2 supermarkets rather than one as the first doesn't have all the things they would like?
What about people who nip in to the newsagents to buy a paper as they'd like to support their local businesses?
What about the people who go to a local bookshop that has kept it's doors open as it can't afford to close, rather than buying from Amazon?
What about someone who drops off a parcel at the local food bank or goes to the Post Office to send some money to cash-strapped relatives?
Are they all "cunts" too?

Well no, they're different things that I wasn't talking about.  Going to the pub is far from essential.  Things like going to the shop so you (and others) don't starve to death is fair enough.
It's difficult if some employers are being shit.  Not sure what I'd do - call in sick?

[pancreas]

I can believe that someone whose life is based on logic and number cannot fathom why adding something is adding something.  I say that with love.  What if that drop in the ocean is the one that drowns someone you care about?  What is an ocean but a collection of drops?

No one needs to blame anyone, we just need to not do things that increase risk for ourselves or others.

We should all be vegans, we should never travel, we should refuse to buy anything in plastic, we should wash our sheets no more than once a month ... abrogating responsibility on any of this is all 'adding'.

And it's not like there are no conceivable benefits to a pandemic.

I'm afraid protecting others from an outbreak of coronavirus just doesn't occupy a distinguished moral position for me. Where the risk appears to be low, I think one could be sensible. If the govt has decided we're all getting it anyway—which looks to be the case—then it hardly seems to matter anyway.

[Danger Man]

Wife has told me that all the mosques are to be closed for the next 4 weeks. UAE taking it seriously, it seems.

[Buelligan]

We should all be vegans, we should never travel, we should refuse to buy anything in plastic, we should wash our sheets no more than once a month ... abrogating responsibility on any of this is all 'adding'.

It's true.  I think a great part of the reason humans don't live more lightly, that we destroy our planet and our selves so wantonly is that ego and capital work hard to divorce cause and effect for us.  If we understood the consequences of our actions, really understood them, our actions would change.

[ZoyzaSorris]

We should all be vegans, we should never travel, we should refuse to buy anything in plastic, we should wash our sheets no more than once a month ... abrogating responsibility on any of this is all 'adding'.

And it's not like there are no conceivable benefits to a pandemic.

I'm afraid protecting others from an outbreak of coronavirus just doesn't occupy a distinguished moral position for me. Where the risk appears to be low, I think one could be sensible. If the govt has decided we're all getting it anyway—which looks to be the case—then it hardly seems to matter anyway.

Yes it' the completely binary and monomaniacal attitude I find a bit confusing. I understand this is a seismic event and it is affecting us all psychologically in different ways.

[Buelligan]

But I see it as binary and monomaniacal, if you like, to be unable to grasp the idea that our individual choices impact on others (and therefore we need to consider those impacts when making our choices).  I feel like that, not just about choices during this pandemic, but in all our daily choices. Odd old world isn't it?

[Sheffield Wednesday]

Hope anyone going out dies before they infect anyone else.

[pancreas]

Hope anyone going out dies before they infect anyone else.

Going out at all? Going out to the supermarket to get food? Going out to volunteer at a homeless shelter or food bank? Going out to support your local businesses being fucked by the govt?

Where is the line?

[QDRPHNC]

We should all be vegans, we should never travel, we should refuse to buy anything in plastic, we should wash our sheets no more than once a month ... abrogating responsibility on any of this is all 'adding'.

I broadly agree with you. But I think the difference is that the negatives of factory farming and plastic waste seem very abstract and far away. And I think what's rubbing people the wrong way here is that, as feckless and thoughtless as we can be, it's galling just how feckless and thoughtless people can be - such as, being unable to not have a pint, even though people on their doorstep are sick and dying and all forecasts predict it's going to get much worse before it gets better.

So "the line" is defined by necessity, I think. Is it necessary to buy groceries so your family can eat? Is it necessary to go to the pub because you just like going to the pub? What are you willing to sacrifice so more people don't die in what is truly a global pandemic with skyrocketing infection rates? Can you give up a pint in a pub for a couple of months?

[pancreas]

True. There are also hundreds of old cunts milling around the centre of Newcastle that won't be told. So y'know.

[BlodwynPig]

True. There are also hundreds of old cunts milling around the centre of Newcastle that won't be told. So y'know.

Lunch at the club?

[QDRPHNC]

True. There are also hundreds of old cunts milling around the centre of Newcastle that won't be told. So y'know.

Not for long!

[GMTV]

Would this have happened in an independent Scotland? Nicola Sturgeon is asking the tough questions.

[BlodwynPig]

Not for long!

They are selfish. Attending tai chi classes but with an extra 1 metre between each silver haired bletherer

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

It's a very egocentric pov, like antivaxxers, the idea that one makes a choice in isolation, it doesn't allow for any cumulative effect, it ignores the existence of others.  What if we all just go down the pub because we fancy a chekky laqer, would that be perfectly fine?  Just enjoying ourselves.

Have you shifted your view in the last 10 days?

Can I be more clear?  Do we close down society, do we lock it down, because some poor people are or might suffer or die?  No, we do not do that.  We accept that people sometimes die.  We start getting antsy though when privileged people realise that their privilege might not give them a free pass on this one. 

At that point, the song changes, rather than people being free to develop asbestosis, because they work in a factory and live in it's wind-shadow, it suddenly hits home that the board of directors, down in leafy Surrey, might get themselves a dose too.  Everything changes then.

The only power the poor have is their freedom to suffer, they shouldn't allow their suffering to be corralled behind closed doors, they should hold hands with their oppressors and kiss them on the lips.  That's when change might happen.  That's when energy suddenly goes into building hospitals.

[Buelligan]

In the first I'm talking about personal responsibility, for personal choices, towards other people and the planet.  My ideas on that topic are unchanged.

In the second, I'm talking about the difference in attitude to disasters by government when their effects are confined only to the poor and when they affect the elite too.  My ideas on that have remained unchanged.

[pancreas]

Yes, but taking both points together you are arguing both *for* and *against* lockdown aren't you?

I'm not trying to be an arsehole—well, no more than usual. I do think the situation is morally and logically ambiguous for a bunch of different reasons.

[bgmnts]

I just hope everyone on earth dies except for me and some members of my family.

[QDRPHNC]

I'm Coronavirus and so is my wife.

[phes]

I broadly agree with you. But I think the difference is that the negatives of factory farming and plastic waste seem very abstract and far away. And I think what's rubbing people the wrong way here is that, as feckless and thoughtless as we can be, it's galling just how feckless and thoughtless people can be - such as, being unable to not have a pint, even though people on their doorstep are sick and dying and all forecasts predict it's going to get much worse before it gets better.

So "the line" is defined by necessity, I think. Is it necessary to buy groceries so your family can eat? Is it necessary to go to the pub because you just like going to the pub? What are you willing to sacrifice so more people don't die in what is truly a global pandemic with skyrocketing infection rates? Can you give up a pint in a pub for a couple of months?

Necessity is pretty unclear though, isn't it. It is necessary to see your partner, parents, wider family, grown up kids? How many people in pubs and old codgers rattling about town don't have partners or immediate family in the household. I'm not promoting going to the pub but labelling anyone who does as a feckless sort who just does whatever the hell they want because they feel like it isn't very fair. People need some degree of human contact and that all comes with risk

[Thomas]

Did a (reasonable) big shop for provisions at Lidl yesterday and paused to feed some ducks in a deserted park. Ducks can't catch it, can they? Out of breath carrying all that bread and falafel home; my lungs will crumple under the virus.

Back in the house now. Sealed in. Some kids just came up to the window to stare at the cat, but scarpered again before I had to reach for the shotgun.

[Sheffield Wednesday]

Going out at all? Going out to the supermarket to get food? Going out to volunteer at a homeless shelter or food bank? Going out to support your local businesses being fucked by the govt?

Where is the line?

OUT = DEATH

[Buelligan]

Yes, but taking both points together you are arguing both *for* and *against* lockdown aren't you?

I'm not trying to be an arsehole—well, no more than usual. I do think the situation is morally and logically ambiguous for a bunch of different reasons.

Of course it's somewhat ambiguous, what does lockdown even mean?  Different things to different people, I imagine.  And in reality too, depending on where the lockdown takes place and who's running it.  Establishing the terms of the conversation, establishing the context, is difficult enough. 

[Better Midlands]

OUT = DEATH

I'd probably avoid Gay Pride this year if I was you.

[Cloud]

Hopefully soon we can get this antibody test available and decide who can safely re-enter human civilization.

We probably have to accept that as things stand, this will be the end of pubs.  There's talk now of having to keep up distancing for a year or more - no pub will survive that. 

[QDRPHNC]

Necessity is pretty unclear though, isn't it. It is necessary to see your partner, parents, wider family, grown up kids? How many people in pubs and old codgers rattling about town don't have partners or immediate family in the household. I'm not promoting going to the pub but labelling anyone who does as a feckless sort who just does whatever the hell they want because they feel like it isn't very fair. People need some degree of human contact and that all comes with risk

Exactly, it's all risk. I think the debate is around what  society deems to be risk-taking for the right reasons. It's fuzzy in the middle.