[gdulli]

We're all aware of the mortality rate, but not everyone finds sacrificing hundreds of thousands of sick and elderly to be viable just because the denominator is sufficiently large.

It's the same reason we don't tell wheelchair users to "just stay home" if they can't deal with a world that only has stairs.

We're trying to be a more advanced civilization with structures to ensure quality of life for as many as possible, not only the young and healthy. We're evolving beyond the raw survival of the fittest that determined who lived and who died when we were essentially animals.

Many of us spend most of our lives healthy enough not to need help, but either we care that others do, or else we selfishly recognize that we could find ourselves needing help someday for unexpected reasons outside our control. So it's in our best interest to invest in these social structures.

It's like a society-wide marshmallow test.

[anonunivgrad]

We all die. Let that idea sink in. Even you will one day cease to live and the important thing won’t be the extra year or two you lived by sapping the prosperity of future generations. Life isn’t worth extending at all costs.

[gdulli]

I'm young and healthy myself, and feel the temptation of that mindset on a base emotional level.

But I'm also smart enough to realize that someday I might be 62 and benefit from living in a society that doesn't give up on addressing a pandemic that can be mitigated by something as simple as wearing masks. Should ideology not get in the way.

I could have 20 quality years of life ahead of me before attempts to keep me alive become needlessly heroic.