Say the death rate is 1%. And you engage in a behavior with one other human that has a transmission rate of 50%.
Every time you engage with someone like that, you are basically willing to accept that you might be pointing a 200 round gun at the person which randomly has one chamber loaded to kill. And a bunch of chambers loaded to hurt. And a bunch of chambers will not harm at all, if you’re even holding the gun at all.
You don’t know if you’re asymptomatic or not, because you’re not getting tested before and after you encounter another person in this coronavirus world.
Yet, we need to keep the economy going as much as possible. Without losing freedom as much as possible.
We could all live in a separate box until everyone with the virus dies or heals. Right? We’d be done in a month assuming the whole world does it. The Netflix show “Alone” applied to 7 billion people at the same time. That’s not going to happen.
I think a good framework for processing the debate is to start by acknowledging there are different quadrants of people that all need to find balance with each other to have outcomes to meet their needs, given the constraints I spoke of yesterday.
There are those that are afraid and those that are not. There are those that are immune and those that are high risk.
The 4 quadrants: 1) afraid and high risk, 2) afraid and low risk, 3) risk taker and high risk, 4) risk taker and low risk. Are you a gambler or not? Are the casinos odds good or not for you?
I am personally in quadrant 4. A lot of the debate is groups 1 & 2 telling groups 3 & 4 how to live. Nobody likes to be told how to live. And groups 1 & 2 spew a lot of moral debate mumbo jumbo in their rhetoric.
I am only interested in finding the optimal solution that enables all 4 groups to respect each other. Period. Peaceful debate.
Outside of a minimal set of rules on my quadrant #4, I will fight anyone who tries to make me give up any of my freedoms more than that. My ancestors fought too hard for freedom to see it taken away by those that live in fear. That’s how I feel honestly. I have a right to my feelings.
And here is a little jab at groups 1 & 2: If you see someone dying on the proverbial side of the road of coronavirus, you had better take the risk of helping them out. That is the right moral choice, given the odds of overall death and injury, in my book. When someone is getting carried away by a river, do you jump in to save them? How strong is the coronavirus current to you?
As a final comforting thought, here are wise words from the Prophet of my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, about coronavirus. Hang in there folks; I also believe there are tremendous fruits coming out of this mess, as there are in life anytime we do something difficult or challenging, and better times are ahead.
How do we address each of the 4 quadrants that emerges from the attributes of fear and risk? What framework do you suggest? What do you think?
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