LogFAQs > #947983874

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

If the situation really were so dire wouldn't that on it's own convince people to take precautions?

This notion relies on two rather shaky assumptions: That most people are intelligent enough to arrive at reasonably optimal solutions based on the information available to them (a dangerously large percentage of the population isn't), and that most people are informed enough to independently draw such conclusions without needing to rely on summaries and interpretations from experts to guide them. The whole intelligence angle is a pretty questionable one to pursue, since fundamentally, "you're too stupid to make your own decisions" has a hell of a lot of potential to be abused quite horrifically, so I'm fine with ignoring that one.

The information aspect, however, is crucial here. The simple fact of the matter is that it is not possible for most people to be sufficiently informed to make good decisions in this matter (at least it wasn't when most of these policies and recommendations were first coming out). The Covid pandemic has been a complex, rapidly-evolving situation with very little precedent to draw on. Staying informed requires one to spend hours every day studying emergent literature on the subject, which the vast majority of people simply don't have the time to do (to say nothing of the scientific literacy, which is also something most people suck at). That means the only sensible course of action is to defer to the advice of professionals who do have that time (because it's their job) and the knowledge and skills needed to contextualize the new information into recommendations. Any other response is foolish. Nobody objecting to these recommendations is doing so because they've actually studied the matter comprehensively enough to form a well-reasoned objection, they're objecting to them because they don't want to have to follow them and will cherry-pick whatever bits of evidence and/or appeals to authority they can find to support the position they wish were true.

And certainly, regardless of whether or not we actually go so far as to say "you're too stupid and/or uninformed for your opinion to matter," we very much cannot base any conclusions on the gravity of the situation on the public's independent response to it. That's just an absurd suggestion.

---

This is my signature. It exists to keep people from skipping the last line of my posts.