Not seriously suggesting that they do it, of course. But I think you could make a very strong argument that if we just shot ~100,000 people in China, we'd possibly end up saving hundreds of thousands (or possibly even millions) of lives. And possibly stave off a global recession to boot. And as an added bonus, maybe even cause the stocks of ammunication companies to gain a quarter of a percentage point or so.

Am I wrong?

And to be clear, the reason why I ask is because that’s a (very extreme) example of the strategy that China seems to be taking.

My understanding is they’re basically now rounding up everyone with a fever and sticking them in makeshift camps. Obviously there are a lot of false positives with the flu or other illness. Many of these people will become contaminated and die (and they might otherwise have lived.)

But given the constraints China is working under, this seems like a rational strategy in that it produces the greatest good for the greatest number.

Narrative. Not a good narrative. People like those.

Yeah actually this was kind of a d*ck question to ask given what's going on and I posed it quickly as I was getting ready to leave. If someone just wants to lock / delete this thread I'm totally okay with it.

I guess the basic point I was getting at is that an aggressive and seemingly inhumane response (like the one China is apparently starting to do) might actually be the right thing to do in a situation like this, and a lot of the times when you have a question like that it's useful to think about it by taking it to a really extreme case and asking what would happen then. But honestly given the seriousness of the situation I don't even want to discuss it too much.

The corona virus has a long period of contagiousness before symptoms become apparent. Maybe they could just kill everyone who’s infected adjacent, just to be safe.

Thank god some one percent ghoul would make a nice profit from ammunition stocks though.

No one that has posted in SMP has ever been wrong.

I know this is a joke but if you would do this for real, you can't just expect those people just go like lambs to the slaughter. Some of these 100,000 would flee or even fight back, other people may fear to become targets soon and flee as well, and all of a sudden you have tons of people moving around which shouldn't move around. I say it would make things worse.

Is a load of old and sick people dying good for the economy?

I guess it is for social security funds, but dunno about the economy. They still buy stuff. And if it was, in the case at hand, I highly doubt it would outweigh
the negative economic effects this pandemic has otherwise.

The old and sick suck up a lot of health care

...then again, if there weren't sick people, there would be no health care.

Preposterous.

Imagine you had an illness and you knew that going to your doctor means getting the best possible treatment and highest chances to get healthy again and sparing your family and friends from the same fate.

Would you visit your doctor? Or what would you do?



Imagine you knew that you showing any kind of illness to "officials" would get you killed.

Would you visit your doctor? Or would you do something else?

Would you send your wife to die? Your kids? Your mother, father, sister, brother? Friends? Or would you help hide them, maybe help them try to reach a different country where they might get medical help?

Im really not sure what kinda Wonderland you imagine, but if you think getting rid of new viruses is as easy as asking the first few inceted to just kindly sacrificing themselves, you are severely misjudging the human nature in extreme situations.

If it was that easy, you could just quarantine them and let the global medical community help out, gain shitloads of research data and be more prepared for the next viruses.

China has been trying to control population growth for decades now.
So, for China, maybe it's not so far fetched.
I'm giggling to myself as I write this.
Hope there wasn't one ting of seriousness in this op.

So every time there is some similar outbreak, just round up hundreds of thousands people like we do livestock and slaughter them.
Where does it end?
Pure genius.

I suggest reading The Plague, by Albert Camus. An illustrative novel of useful value for our, and any other, time(s).

Doubt it. Shooting people doesn't mean you kill the virus. If the wind blows over a dead body and moves the virus to the next town then ...

Well, obviously you wouldnt shoot them.

Taking the Trolley Problem to the Nth degree.

Obv, you cant shoot everyone who sneezes for the rest of time. By the time you have enough evidence to say that shooting everyone in the city would have saved lives, its faaaarrr too late and the virus is long gone on its merry way. You dont want to murder a city on a false positive so you have to be very damn sure of the damage the virus would cause to justify such an action.

If you could prove it would end humanity, that city would be gone. Its sad, but its true. However I imagine a nuclear bomb would be used and not guns.

I think it will far outweigh the negative effects even if it causes a 10 year recession. If it was children the story would be the opposite. Old people buy stuff, sure, but they dont make money. If they die, their money is not evaporated, it gets transferred and spent probably even faster. I will note that noticing a benefit of old people dying out of our control is in no way related to the action of recommending that they die if it were controllable.

The day you decide a person has no right to fight to regain their health in the name of plausibly (but not 100% securely) saving more down the road is the day you declare your society is weak and not worth saving, unprepared to fight and win while declaring its allegiance to the one most important core value of western civilization, the faith in the power of the individual human spirit.

Even if you knew you would contain the situation the future is not written but your actions will be irreversible.

You most certainly can find an island to sacrifice and move there thousands instead and feed them in isolation. It is a better alternative.

If you want to play a utility theory game you better realize which exactly is the greatest utility and maybe it is not the most people but something else that makes living important and worthy.

Brave people die only once. Cowards die every day. We are not cowards. We will stick around and fight and fail and then come back and make 2020 a great year!

Obviously with coronavirus this would never happen, the mortality rate is no where near required. With a 100% fatality virus that was as infectious as the coronavirus, moving the people to an island would be ... catastrophic. There is no way you could handle it without spreading the disease. You couldn't even build a wall around them without spreading it. Maybe if this arises there is nothing you can do and the world ends for humans.

If in my city arises a virus that has an infection rate of 1.5, 2 weeks of non-symptoms while being contagious, and a mortality rate of 1.0, I would want my city to get nuked. Either I die from the nuke or I die from the virus, the only difference is that with the nuke other people get to live.

Whats the alternative? They build a wall around us or isolate us on and island and we die from the virus? We resort to cannibalism when the food runs out? There is a breakdown of law and order and unheard of atrocities are committed without any means of stopping them? And all this just so that someone doesn't have to make a hard decision? Seems worse to me.

Although with a 25% survival rate humanity can continue ... so I'm not so sure about the nuke if that is the case. I wonder how much philosophy has been done on this area or if anyone has argued convincingly where the line should be drawn.

If by offensive you mean it caused negative feelings in your mind, then that's not important. This is SMP, and we tend not to be concerned with feelings as much as reasons, arguments, facts, &etc.

edit: maybe not tend to be, but try to be, I think.

I think this is still a viable situation but could be tricky at this point, I'm going to run this through my models.

Strange that I don't see the original post by Kretschmerk863 to which you are replying. We can delete posts on this forum?

crazy.