To me that nudges things somewhat, but isn’t a game changer. I don’t think it makes it 10x less bad or anything.
Fair enough. As a leaning-utilitarian, I personally share your intuition that it isn’t 10x bad (if I had to choose between coronavirus and ending negative consequences of live-style factors for one year, I don’t have a strong intuition in favor of coronavirus). Psychologically speaking, from the perspective of average deontological Joe, I think that it (in some sense) is/feels 10x as bad.
Is that really a possibility? I imagine that governments would impose a strict quarantine before letting it get that bad.
10% is unlikely but possible—not because of the coronavirus itself alone but because of the potential for systemic failure of our healthcare system (based on this comment). I think it’s likely that governments may impose a strict quarantine before it gets that bad or (alternatively) bite the bullet and let coronavirus victims die to triage young people with more salient medical needs.
In the situation where you don’t have savings or a job, here is what I’m imagining. The majority would have family or a friend they could stay with until they get back on their feet, which doesn’t seem that bad.
I partially agree with this. Frankly, as a well-off person myself, I’m not exactly sure what people would do in that situation. Conditioned on having friends or (non-abusive) family with the appropriate economic runway to be supportive, I agree that it wouldn’t be that bad. However these (in my sphere) are often significant contributing factors to being low-income in the first place.For low-income families, things also get messier to do the need-to-support-people being built in.
Homeless shelters do provide basic needs, so if you want to be really hardcore with the “happiness is all in your head” stuff, you should still in theory be ok. But I don’t know much about what it’s truly like; maybe there’s more to it than that.
I agree that this kind of stoicism helps (I resonate a lot with stoicism as a philosophy myself). But I view this as more of a mental skill that is built-up rather than something that people start doing immediately when thrust into lower-standad-of-living situations. Hedonic adaptation takes time and the time it takes before setting in can also be unpleasant. I’d also like to push-back a little on the idea of hedonic adapation with respect to losing money because there is a correlation between measures of happiness and income which only starts breaking down around $50k.
But I view this as more of a mental skill that is built-up rather than something that people start doing immediately when thrust into lower-standad-of-living situations.
That’s a great point. I got caught up thinking about how (I think) people should respond as opposed to thinking about how it’ll actually play out in practice. That moves me a few more steps towards thinking that it is more harmful.
Fair enough. As a leaning-utilitarian, I personally share your intuition that it isn’t 10x bad (if I had to choose between coronavirus and ending negative consequences of live-style factors for one year, I don’t have a strong intuition in favor of coronavirus). Psychologically speaking, from the perspective of average deontological Joe, I think that it (in some sense) is/feels 10x as bad.
10% is unlikely but possible—not because of the coronavirus itself alone but because of the potential for systemic failure of our healthcare system (based on this comment). I think it’s likely that governments may impose a strict quarantine before it gets that bad or (alternatively) bite the bullet and let coronavirus victims die to triage young people with more salient medical needs.
I partially agree with this. Frankly, as a well-off person myself, I’m not exactly sure what people would do in that situation. Conditioned on having friends or (non-abusive) family with the appropriate economic runway to be supportive, I agree that it wouldn’t be that bad. However these (in my sphere) are often significant contributing factors to being low-income in the first place.For low-income families, things also get messier to do the need-to-support-people being built in.
I agree that this kind of stoicism helps (I resonate a lot with stoicism as a philosophy myself). But I view this as more of a mental skill that is built-up rather than something that people start doing immediately when thrust into lower-standad-of-living situations. Hedonic adaptation takes time and the time it takes before setting in can also be unpleasant. I’d also like to push-back a little on the idea of hedonic adapation with respect to losing money because there is a correlation between measures of happiness and income which only starts breaking down around $50k.
That’s a great point. I got caught up thinking about how (I think) people should respond as opposed to thinking about how it’ll actually play out in practice. That moves me a few more steps towards thinking that it is more harmful.