Generic Virus Thread

[terrytini]

I’ve had it here.

Honestly, my thoughts go out to all those too ill, too old, too restricted,  for whatever reason, to have the luxury of arguing for their right to do what the feel like.

 

[bannedfromHandV]

2 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Basic psychology divides our personalities into Parent, Adult, Child.

Only the Child part of us responds to safety concerns by feeling punished.

Ah right, it’s okay folks, we’re not on terrytini’s emotional / intelligence level, that’s the problem here, we’re all immature......what a crock of shite that is mate.

[terrytini]

2 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Spot on!

It’s given me a new appreciation of how easy it must have been for authoritarian governments to come to power during a crisis throughout history. 

Pathetic way of defending a life saving directive.

Ive spent my life campaigning against authoritarian rules, facist politics, and the rest.

To not see the distinction is ridiculous.

For a few weeks people can only go out for exercise ( and the other specified reasons)....all that is being said is that due to people not heeding this they may have to remove that aspect. How would you do it ! Have you volunteered to help the police ?

NHS staff, Care Home staff, pleading for people to stay home.

If they try to keep the restrictions as it subsides, by all means protest, ill join you.

[terrytini]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Ah right, it’s okay folks, we’re not on terrytini’s emotional / intelligence level, that’s the problem here, we’re all immature......what a crock of shite that is mate.

Nope, it’s true.

[snowychap]

13 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

What's the actual science behind 'not sunbathing' then?

It's not a case of science behind not sunbathing, it's about people seeing one person doing it and then thinking that it's fine and in not too much time you've got too many to keep to social distancing requirements and to police 'gatherings'.

 

[LondonLax]

1 minute ago, terrytini said:

Pathetic way of defending a life saving directive.

Ive spent my life campaigning against authoritarian rules, facist politics, and the rest.

To not see the distinction is ridiculous.

For a few weeks people can only go out for exercise ( and the other specified reasons)....all that is being said is that due to people not heeding this they may have to remove that aspect. How would you do it ! Have you volunteered to help the police ?

NHS staff, Care Home staff, pleading for people to stay home.

If they try to keep the restrictions as it subsides, by all means protest, ill join you.

Well UK’s regulations don’t impact me personally, I live in Sweden, the last bastion of the free west

I just think you need to question and examine every decision your government makes. Is it based on scientific evidence and are there unintended consequences of the decisions made by the government?

Every country is setting restrictions in a slightly different way and so they can’t be all correct. 

[HanoiVillan]

17 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Lying down isn’t exercising.

Neither is sitting in your garden reading the newspaper, but that isn't forbidden, and nobody is talking about doing so.

You are on here making lots of moral distinctions, but the virus doesn't do that. It's not travelling the world thinking 'Johnny is sunbathing in the park, and Samantha is lying on the beach, but Eileen is jogging so I'll spare Eileen and infect the others'. The way this works is there are safe distances from other people; I haven't been persuaded by any argument that sitting down at a safe distance from other people puts you or anyone else at more risk than running at a safe distance from other people.

[bannedfromHandV]

9 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Nope, it’s true.

Haha think someone might have had a double dose of their self confidence pills this morning.

You don’t know any better than anyone else what the correct course of action is, you’re just allowing yourself to be directed by an inept government.

I reserve the right to use my own judgement on the matter still, so I’m still going to take my dog out twice a day.

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, snowychap said:

It's not a case of science behind not sunbathing, it's about people seeing one person doing it and then thinking that it's fine and in not too much time you've got too many to keep to social distancing requirements and to police 'gatherings'.

Seem to be a few logical leaps in there though, don't there. Is this what the 'Behavioural Insight Team' conclude will happen (presumably specifically with sunbathing, but not jogging)?

[snowychap]

3 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

I just think you need to question and examine every decision your government makes.

Absolutely and herein there lies a difficulty.

There should be, at the very least, mechanisms in place whereby some sort of virtual parliament can be in place to maintain scrutiny of the SIs that have been brought in (and any future SIs).

Court procedures should still be in place where these regulations and guidance can be challenged as to their lawfulness and proportionality - there's a Bindman's challenge to the Gov guidance at the moment and the renewed policing guidance that was issued earlier in the week was as a result of people pointing out the counterproductiveness of some policing measures and communications that semed to be out of touch with both the guidance and most suredly the legislation.

But there are some problems with the immediate jump to the extreme worry of the illiberal measures that are in place, a couple of which are:

firstly, it rather takes away from the considered scrutiny and challenge - it allows for the writing off proper checks with the 'don't you know there's a virus on' and 'can't we all just not politicise everything', &c.;

secondly, when illiberal measures are in place for a temporary period with the overall acceptance of the people and they're not discriminatory, they don't lead to persecutions, they don't hand excessive power to officials (so there needs to be caution about implementation and use) then it's very much a different case to authoritarian governments using crises to further specifically authoritarian ends (so I'd put the measures of the UK, France and others up against those of Orban, say, as examples of the two types).

It's not to say that there isn't the potential for the former to become the latter or the great temptation for those that have granted themselves some illiberal powers to do everything they can to keep them and people need to make sure that this doesn't happen.

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Seem to be a few logical leaps in there though, don't there. Is this what the 'Behavioural Insight Team' conclude will happen (presumably specifically with sunbathing, but not jogging)?

I have no idea what the 'behavioural insight team' are saying.

Are you arguing that groups of people do not behave in this way, i..e. one person 'tests the water' and others follow?

I think we see this all around us all the time, especially with things that may be perceived as petty rule-breaking (or things that people might think twice about doing if no one else is already doing it).

I do seem to remember reading someone's blog once (possibly/probably Dillow's) where it pointed to academic psychological work that showed that once as individual had broekn down a particular barrier then lots of people poured through but I can't put my finger on it at the moment. Maybe later, after, erm, I've been out in to the garden (genuinely - have washing to put out and veg seeds to sow).

[snowychap]

21 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I haven't been persuaded by any argument that sitting down at a safe distance from other people puts you or anyone else at more risk than running at a safe distance from other people.

I'd hope you haven't because I don't think anyone has made that argument (apologies if I've missed where they have) and because that argument (as you phrase it above) doesn't hold.

Edited April 5, 2020 by snowychap

[chrisp65]

So, right now the ‘science’ behind the government lockdown is suggesting that all week I can travel around the country visiting live building sites.

But on the weekend, I can’t visit the park that is 10 minutes walk from my house.

I can’t visit the park, because instead of closing roads to car traffic, the authorities are allowing traffic to travel 20 miles to this park, but filming it from their helicopters and telling us they will need to crack down on us all.

Perhaps park one of your helicopters on the road in to town? Save some fuel, cut out the noise pollution, solve the **** problem?

If the authorities are getting it wrong, we need to speak up against blind stupidity and blind obedience.

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

 

[Nigel]

52 minutes ago, Xann said:

Lovely cycling at the moment. 

Little traffic means you can swing wide to avoid the millions of pot holes.

With all the crap that this is bringing to our lives its important not to overlook the good things.

My daughter has learned to ride a bike as the roads are so clear it's made teaching her a doddle. 

It just feels healthier too!

 

[Jareth]

I think the government are flailing, there is speculation that Hancock and the chancellor are fighting and meanwhile the PM is (I imagine he's happy with this) unable to run the show. All I hear from them is either conflicting messages or a bare faced lie. Their problem is they've run out of things or people to blame - and they're being held to a very simple indisputable metric - deaths, ventilator production, testing numbers. They could not be more uncomfortable.

[foreveryoung]

I'm with terry on this. Use your common sense. We have all been told to "Stay in save lives". If you want to start upsetting the goverment by going out an doing "none essential things", like sunbathing, taking selfies meeting up with friends, I'm sure they will throw it through parliament and make it law. I think we all have the intellect to understand what is required of us, it's just maybe some ignore the media, as many do, an some think it's back to the days mommy told you not to go out and play, then what did you do!

[LondonLax]

15 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I have no idea what the 'behavioural insight team' are saying.

Are you arguing that groups of people do not behave in this way, i..e. one person 'tests the water' and others follow?

I think we see this all around us all the time, especially with things that may be perceived as petty rule-breaking (or things that people might think twice about doing if no one else is already doing it).

I do seem to remember reading someone's blog once (possibly/probably Dillow's) where it pointed to academic psychological work that showed that once as individual had broekn down a particular barrier then lots of people poured through but I can't put my finger on it at the moment. Maybe later, after, erm, I've been out in to the garden (genuinely - have washing to put out and veg seeds to sow).

There is the ‘broken windows’ theory which fits with this

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

[LakotaDakota]

Give every household one of these & tell them to stay the F**k inside. simples...

Edited April 5, 2020 by LakotaDakota

[HanoiVillan]

22 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I have no idea what the 'behavioural insight team' are saying.

Are you arguing that groups of people do not behave in this way, i..e. one person 'tests the water' and others follow?

I think we see this all around us all the time, especially with things that may be perceived as petty rule-breaking (or things that people might think twice about doing if no one else is already doing it).

I do seem to remember reading someone's blog once (possibly/probably Dillow's) where it pointed to academic psychological work that showed that once as individual had broekn down a particular barrier then lots of people poured through but I can't put my finger on it at the moment. Maybe later, after, erm, I've been out in to the garden (genuinely - have washing to put out and veg seeds to sow).

The bottom line is I don't know, but it seems to me that there's also an opposite possibility, which is that a new law or regulation is created which has no public buy-in (because it's not visibly based on new scientific advice) and that then is ignored, leading people to ignore other rules that are based on more reliable scientific guidance. That's why I'm asking about the Behavioural Insight Team; for once, their bat signal is actually flashing!