[dlwdlw]

The authoritarianism is a red herring IMO. The real issue is economic incentives trumping everything else. For example in Japan if you test positive the hospital gets quarantined losing tons of money. In the US, you can end up payong huge medical bills. The fear is the same.

The lesson from WW2 should have been that people are all the same when pushed to extremes. This includes the people who make up the communist party leadership in China and every moral philosoher in the west as well.

My armchair belief is that China has ended up absorbing at a global scale, all of capitalism’s externalities. It is an integral part of the world that gives us many things we take for granted like cheap iphones and many others. We do NOT have the convenience to look away and scapegoat one aspect without taking into consideration the whole.

This ended up kinda ranty but every time coronavirus is used to bring up something whose purpose is to draw an “us vs them” line between the world and China I want to throw something.

[calf]

I often think to the fable of Armus in ST:TNG, an advanced civilization achieved transcendence, but they left behind the black tar creature that gained sentience and represented all of their evils.

[mark_l_watson]

+1 I am not sure why, but your comment is the best thing I have read this morning.

A couple of my friends kid me about it, but I meditate almost every day for world peace and the reduction of suffering in the world. It can’t hurt and it makes me feel more connected to the world at large. I live in a small town, volunteering at the local food bank is one of my favorite activities, but I tend to think too much about just local life. I have a difficult time getting too excited about national/global politics, etc. Meditation on peace is the most effort I put into the global situation.

[jonplackett]

This is a thoughtful comment. Don’t see why it’s getting downvoted.

[numpad0]

“in Japan if you test positive the hospital gets quarantined losing tons of money” is at least inaccurate, Japan has national healthcare that short-term “sales”/cash strapping don’t matter for hospitals. Economy wise there’s nothing for their corporate to lose OR gain.

[refurb]

I’m not sure that matters.

Look at any government institution in the US - despite not having a profit motive, there are still plenty of incentives to grow the budget - increased influence in the government, funding pet projects,etc.

And not to mention shutting down a hospital likely means lost wages for a lot of people.

[pbhjpbhj]

In the UK hospitals still have individual budgets, is that not how it works in Japan.

Yes, I'd expect them to be overridden in times of emergency, but nonetheless - do Japanese hospitals really have scope to spend at will without constraints?

[infinity0]

Your comment is very reasonable and informative, please don't let the Hacker News anonymous downvote thoughtpolice mafia discourage you from posting comments to this site. They are the ones who should be getting banned.