[uncoder0]

I feel like the last year of 'quarantine' for most of the Western world has made people more comfortable with authoritarian governments and actions. It's rather alarming how widespread and quickly this change in ideology has happened.

[goostavos]

I don't even know where people are coming from any more.

Like literally everyone else in tech who knows how the sausage gets made, I'm appalled by the teams of Ph.Ds which exist solely to exploit the dopamine response of children. However, it never would have ever crossed my mind to jump from "here's a particular problem" to "the government should control how much of a specific activity your child can do at home"

[devnulll]

There are all sorts of things governments express control over, even at home.

The obvious scenarios are alcohol, nicotine & drugs. As a parent of young children, there are addition parallels between Minecraft / Roblox / Alcohol / Cigarettes.

To a real degree, more effort is put into making gaming deliberately additive - although flavored vaping (bubble gum, cotton candy, etc) would like to enter the conversation.

[goostavos]

I don't know if we're coming at it from the same angle if we're lumping Minecraft in with alcohol and cigarettes. To your initial point, though, just because the government currently expresses control is not actually an argument that they should continue to do so or be granted additional powers to do more. Because it's normal, doesn't mean it's correct.

Flavored vaping products are for sure bad. I'll happily give you that. I'll also give you sugar, processed food, alcohol, cigarettes, McDonalds, and a near never ending supply of things we regularly consume (food, entertainment, or other).

I wouldn't petition the government to control access to any of them. I tend to trust the millions of individual personal (or parental) decisions over the long haul more than I do centrally planned, top-down mandates.

[xvector]

Videogame addiction probably stunted my childhood development as much as drugs would have, so I can see where the Chinese government is coming from if it's from an addiction perspective.

[devnulll]

> I don't know if we're coming at it from the same angle if we're lumping Minecraft in with alcohol and cigarettes.

My belief is that's a reasonable debate with very valid points on both sides. At a personal level, kids 2-12 are Addicted to games (Minecraft, Roblox, etc). Taking the games away has the same impact as taking away narcotics from an addict.

The unregulated ability of these platforms to target children (and they do), seems very analogous to pre-regulated cigarettes, drug, and alcohol marketing.

I wager more psychological studies are done on driving MAU, rapid viral adoption, and upping Click Through Rates than were done for nicotine.

[pluto8195]

the US has imposed many rules on the manufacturers and distributors of addictive substances as well (banning flavored vapes, marketing towards children), I think it would be much more constructive to impose some regulation on how games are made, and how they are pushed rather than the behavior of children.

[binarybanana]

What makes you think adults don't like flavored liquids?

Seems insane to suggest that adults would prefer the taste of ashtray over apple or orange (I like fruity aromas). I mostly vape without flavoring nowadays because I'm lazy, but I just don't get the mindset. Adults like sugar, sweets, lemonade and all that stuff just as much as children do. Some seem to really like the taste of cigarettes, but I think for the most part people are just more comfortable to say "I like the taste" instead of "I'm addicted to nicotine", because inhaling burnt plant matter along with the diffused active agents and aromatic compounds generally isn't good for taste. Weed also tastes much better vaped.

[Spivak]

I think it's more a response to two decades of corporations having free rein to exploit kids (and adults honestly but I understand such a policy would be less palatable). We've known since forever that the only solution would be government intervention since the market will never correct a dopamine lever and just .. nothing happened because it's profitable.

It's honestly nice to see a not totally incompetent government try a novel policy with good intentions. It's welcome break from the firehose of our own government making policies that seem to only target the poor and minorities.

[ryan93]

You make it sound a lot more scientific than it is.

[eric-hu]

Seconded. It doesn’t take a team of PhD’s to run A/B testing on features and variations that improve lift. Tie performance bonuses to improved engagement and sales, and you can motivate many non doctorates to find novel ways to make things addictive.

[Jensson]

Pretty sure Candy Crush has such a team of PhD's though. Not all games, but the big games definitely do.

You can read about it here from their own page:

https://careers.king.com/kingdom-news/data-at-king/

> That experiment is typical of how we learn from data at King. We have about 150 people working in data roles, out of a total workforce of 2,000. They come from a range of backgrounds. Many are from the games industry, of course, but we also bring in lots of recruits straight from university.

> These people will have just done their masters or PhD in a wide range of disciplines. Many of our team studied statistics, physics or computer science but we also have people who came from theoretical biology because work on DNA sequencing in that field has produced a lot of data-sophisticated people. Others are behavioural psychologists or behavioural economists.

Now in the specific example they choose to highlight they saw that making the game less frustrating made people spend more money. However if making the game more frustrating turned out to make more money since users bought more powerups then they absolutely would do it.

[ryan93]

None of that requires any special knowledge of the brains dopamine response

[908B64B197]

Australia seems to be rushing toward that future at an out of control pace.

[AustinDev]

My wife and I were actually considering moving there. We even started some of the paperwork but after seeing the absurdity of their covid measures We have decided against it for now.

[theintern]

What about their covid measures put you off? When for so much of the pandemic they were seen as absolute world leaders and were living as normal when the rest of us were in lockdowns?

[trompetenaccoun]

World leader in fining people thousands of dollars for the most benign reasons. Australians also can't leave their own country anymore.

[AustinDev]

Sorry to grave dig. This is more recent but, check out this quote... and tell me you want to live in this kind of society:

“ The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,””

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-a...

[ehvatum]

I can describe my own objection to international travel to restrictive countries:

Australia was a model for success, until a cab driver in Sydney contracted the delta variant. Much of the country is now in total lockdown, while the army patrols Sydney streets and daily COVID cases continue to rise exponentially, far exceeding any previous COVID outbreak in Australia. There is no ten billion dollar program to develop vaccines for new variants, no path to eradication, and no way out of the continuing crisis except to ignore it. Therefore, I expect that this situation of mandatory quarantines, mandatory vaccination proof, mandatory negative test result proof, and multiple new-variant outbreaks and lockdowns annually will continue until politically untenable, and I conclude that countries instituting hard lockdowns are not places where I want to live or travel, until they eventually reform.

[908B64B197]

Existing vaccines work pretty well against Delta.

Australia knows it can just... get vaccines right? They are sitting at 27.1% fully vaccinated vs 52% in the US. What's their excuse?

[jimmydorry]

>Australia knows it can just... get vaccines right? They are sitting at 27.1% fully vaccinated vs 52% in the US. What's their excuse?

The five key reasons that come to mind, after witnessing events unfold:

1. Sitting at a lower global priority on the vaccine purchase list for Pfizer due to very low case numbers.

2. Government deciding that the bulk of vaccines should be produced locally (likely due to a combination of sourcing being difficult, and for national security reasons). This inevitably means taking a bit longer to ramp production up.

3. The Australian Immunization Advisory Group declaring that the vaccine produced locally should be used on people aged 60+, while Pfizer would be the preferred vaccine for everyone else.

4. No vaccine injury scheme. If you are unlucky and get a rare blood clotting disorder, you have to wear the full treatment cost. And because of #3, you have to see a doctor and sign a waiver to get AstraZeneca. (This has since been relaxed now and does not have to be a doctor consultation. You can just sign the waiver at the point of vaccination)

5. Government not pushing as hard, as it in hindsight should have, to purchase more Pfizer. This is a difficult call for any government to have made at the start of the pandemic though and really ties back into #1. The locally produced vaccine would have easily covered the entire population, but the chance of blood clotting really did a number on this strategy.

[erklik]

> Australia knows it can just... get vaccines right? They are sitting at 27.1% fully vaccinated vs 52% in the US. What's their excuse?

Ahh. This one is good old pure utter incompetence plus possibly some good old corruption thrown in to the mix as well.

As much as a I understand, the gov decided not to buy Pfizer early in the pandemic since they could produce AstraZeneca plus an early vaccine candidate developed at University of Queensland at CSL (Australian BioTech company).

Instead of placing multiple orders with multiple providers, they put all their faith into CSL and it's trials.

Turns out, the vaccine at University of Queensland returned false positives of HIV cases. Stage 2/3 trials never occurred.

AstraZeneca later turned out to have side effects that quickly led to vaccine-hesitancy. By that time, Pfizer had supply issues since the US went full swing in to the vaccination drive.

There were some reports that the PM's mates were high up in CSL. I am not entirely sure of that bit but it doesn't seem unlikely.

[majani]

That's an opinion from your filter bubble. Try get some info from conservative and libertarian sources. The results may shock you.

[gorwell]

You're not kidding. Notice the language they're using and how the government is granting "new freedoms".

"From September 13, NSW residents that are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be given new freedoms.

Residents of hotspots can leave home for an hour of recreation on top of their exercise hour, while people in other areas can meet five others outdoors.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the vaccination milestone of six million reached this week would allow for a small renewal in freedoms for residents with the jab."

https://twitter.com/9NewsSyd/status/1430707532134236163

[908B64B197]

> how the government is granting "new freedoms".

Freedom is never granted, only earned.

[knownjorbist]

This is comparing apples and oranges, frankly.

[honkdaddy]

I would say in both cases it's the government exhibiting control over its citizens lives under the notion that it's for their own protection. I think everyone has a point at which government control becomes tyranny. For some it's lockdowns during a pandemic, for others it's time-limits on video games. Seems like all apples, to me.

[dlp211]

Your kid playing videogames 12 hours a day has no impact on my life. You giving me Covid does. These situations are not the same and the complete lack of nuance on when government authority is good and needed, and when it is bad and harmful is...well, I don't have the word(s), perhaps disappointing.

I don't get the desire to see everything as black and white and boil everything problem down to a slippery slope fallacy.

[honkdaddy]

One could absolutely argue that kids playing videogames 12h a day has an impact on your life, because if every kid spent their time that way, society would crumble in a generation because young people are choosing to play games instead of work.

The topic in question was whether Covid restrictions has made people more comfortable with other authoritarian measures which are implemented to benefit society as a whole. I actually think it's a very apt point and I'm surprised you don't see the connection.

[zarzavat]

Authoritarianism often comes with a good reason, in a moment of crisis, such as war, ethnic tensions, etc. The problem is getting rid of it once the crisis abates. Power tends to work on a ratchet.

If you are only looking for a cartoon villain and not, say, yourself, you might be caught flat footed when it arrives at your door.

[knownjorbist]

Okay, but this example doesn't really apply here as we've already seen what relatively limited restrictions were imposed rolled back across states and localities to varying degrees. It doesn't have to be so dramatic.

[staunch]

Temporary and mild authoritarian measures during a once-in-a-century pandemic make complete sense, even to very libertarian people. The U.S. has a track record of such measures being temporary, such as the much more extreme measures taken during WW2.

Comparing this kind of thing to what China is doing is drawing a false equivalency. There is no legitimate comparison to be made.

[abecedarius]

I agree with you about China going beyond that.

But now would be a good time to roll back all the temporary 9/11 stuff, if there are any politicians wanting to see some trust lent to talk about 'temporary'. Hard to see a better occasion for it ever coming up, with the 20th anniversary in a couple weeks.

About the WW2 example, I was surprised how much was still on the books and even in continuing 'emergency' use, reading https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Leviathan-Critical-Government-...

[staunch]

A lot of laws stay on the books but are not employed. Many of them should be struck down and many would be if they were ever brought to court. Judges need cases to strike them down.

The U.S. legal system is by no means perfect but there are very few examples of real abuse that go unchecked for long periods. U.S. history is full of overreach that is curtailed relatively quickly, although it can go on for years at a time.

The Patriot Act was not renewed. Very little over the overreach inspired by 9/11 is still in place. Even mass surveillance has been curtailed and restricted to a large degree (although not enough by my estimation).

[abecedarius]

Airport security theater and ID mandates; the AUMF; mass domestic spying, extent unknown but normalized and unquestionably at a level 20th-C. Americans would consider completely unamerican. For a start.

I think it's status-quo bias to look at this picture and think the high-order bit is that yes, temporary emergency measures were temporary. In the bigger picture there are dozens of separate national emergencies getting repeatedly renewed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i....

[trompetenaccoun]

I have lived in Mainland China and the West both equally long. What's happening in the West now is of course not exactly the same but it's absolutely comparable. There is a trend towards authoritarianism that did not even start with the pandemic, but it was a massive catalyst which suddenly made the problem much bigger. For many people in the system, this isn't apparent to them at all. Ask the average Chinese person and they will tell you nothing's wrong, things are going fine. They just restricted overseas travel and have stopped issuing passports in China. Many locals don't even know that because it wasn't reported much. Similarly, as someone who cares about civil rights, I notice that a lot of people in the West are not well informed about all the very concerning developments since the corona crisis. This goes to absurd levels like in Australia where the majority will tell you the government is handling things great, all the while protests are forbidden under threat of $5000 fines and jail time, people have been issued $1000 fines for talking to each other in public, parliament in Victoria is suspended, people get arrested for "illegaly" crossing state borders of their own country, etc...

No, the West isn't find. Mild tyranny isn't cool and how temporary these measures are is debated. If they actually were temporary, why is there no restriction for how long they can last? How much longer will it go? Nobody knows.

This is a loophole in our constitutions, they can use "emergency" situations to suspend civil rights indefinitely. This very same method has been used many times in history to establish dictatorships and totalitarian systems, so it's a very legitimate concern.

[staunch]

This isn't a made up "emergency" being used as an excuse to get people to wear masks...

And the U.S. has a legal system unlike any other country, that has proven itself able to prevent long-standing and unjustified overreach. The Supreme Court is incredibly powerful and has the ability to strike down unconstitutional laws, and has done so many times.

People should be concerned about this issue and pay close attention. But there is very little reason to be very concerned at all. These mask mandates, or even requiring vaccine proof, is not a cover story for a take over of the U.S.

These are extremely rational and justified, and even mild, measures being taken to address a very real and easily verified threat.

The U.S. is not Australia. No one's first amendment rights are being curtailed. Anything anyone wants to say is perfectly accessible to the public. No one is being fined.

And the U.S. is not China or a a banana republic and there's absolutely no evidence that we're in any danger of becoming like either.

[sillysaurusx]

I'm surprised to see you getting hammered for this sentiment. I agree with you and with the parent comment.

Both things can be simultaneously true.

I think you've implicitly agreed that the pandemic countermeasures were authoritarian, and this thread is saying "authoritarian bad." But we all saw what happened to places that delayed or denied countermeasures. If authoritarian bad, then that questions whether non-authoritarian is actually good in this case.

[nickff]

The parent made a specific claim:

>"Temporary and mild authoritarian measures during a once-in-a-century pandemic make complete sense, even to very libertarian people. "

I have not seen any (even centrist) libertarians supporting these measures; having checked the most mainstream libertarian publication (Reason). Additionally, 'very libertarian people' are minarchists, who definitely don't support these measures.

Have you actually seen/heard 'very libertarian people' endorsing these measures? Is it possible that the parent is projecting their beliefs onto others?

[sillysaurusx]

Libertarians? Sure, a few from my Twitter circle. Also pg comes to mind.

Very-libertarians? That’s a good point; I’m not sure I’ve seen any. But it’s hard to know who among us is very-libertarian except those who say so, which may be a small subset.

[908B64B197]

> Temporary

"Ahh, they fell for the temporary fallacy!"

[staunch]

U.S. history is full of examples of temporary measures taken during emergencies. This isn't a conspiracy by Big Mask.

[goostavos]

>even to very libertarian people

I'm not even "very" libertarian at all, yet I find the "temporary" (which is not so very temporary) and "mild" (which is not so very mild) authoritarian measures absolutely reprehensible.

Just saying something is a false equivalency doesn't make it so. Both instances have the government putting limits on your autonomy in unprecedented ways. The government is very boldly telling you what you can and cannot do and how much of it when allowed. I completely reject your characterization of totalitarianism as "mild" and "making complete sense."

[nickff]

Which libertarians are you talking to? Every libertarian I've read or heard from has been against these "[t]emporary and mild authoritarian measures". The more popular libertarian publication/website, "Reason" has been against (all?) these measures.

[staunch]

Libertarians or libertarians? I know a half dozen people that are, what I consider, very libertarian (not Libertarian) personally that think its entirely reasonable.

Most Libertarians are extremist libertarians in my view.

[pageandrew]

Temporary? We're a year and a half in, with no end in sight. If the vaccines weren't the end game, there is no end game. Indefinite public health authoritarianism.

Mild? Australians can't travel more than 5km from their homes. For essential purposes only. Vaccinated Australians can only leave their homes for 2 hours a day (unvaxed 1 hour a day).

[yupper32]

> If the vaccines weren't the end game, there is no end game.

Your argument is already flawed. We don't have vaccines available to everyone in the US yet.

[nightfly]

I mean, delta changed the math of how effective the vaccine was at preventing spread and mild illness. This is why the idea of a _novel_ coronavirus epidemic was bad, we had no idea where it was gonna go.

In Oregon we were on a very bad trajectory in the last two weeks with hospitals full and "elective" medical procedures suspended in some areas (my family being directly effected by this), that is now being deflected a bit by the renewed mask mandate. And in America we're very fortunate with how easy access we have to vaccines, other places aren't as lucky so they have to enact harsher measures...

[rootusrootus]

This is all true, but at the same time, it is a legitimate question to ask 'when does this stop?' I think we can all agree that it can't last forever. But Kate Brown mandated masks even outdoors, and while her intentions may be pure, she didn't provide any metrics that she will use to decide the mandate can be dropped. We are past the 70% vaccination threshold she originally used. Even then, the metric was created well after the mandates, and I disagree with that. When we are going to put such rules in place they should be defined from the beginning as temporary or permanent, and in the case of the former should come with a definition for the end. A date, a set of metrics, something specific.

[nightfly]

It will stop when our hospitals aren't stretched past their limits. I don't think anyone knows when that will be right now.

I've complained in other spaces about this, but it really feels like we're reliving the 1918 flu again. People dealt with restrictions the first year, but got fed up the second year. Costing lots of human lives.

[rootusrootus]

> It will stop when our hospitals aren't stretched past their limits. I don't think anyone knows when that will be right now.

My problem is simply the loose definition. Kate Brown didn't even say that much, I don't think. But if that's the metric, it should be easy enough to say so, and define it. E.g. "When ICU bed occupancy is below 90% and has declined for three consecutive weeks, the mandate is lifted."

I think many people would quibble less about the mandates if they weren't open-ended.

[m0zg]

LOL at people still thinking any of this is "temporary" or it will stay "mild". You're looking at stratification of society a year from now where anyone whose mandatory booster shot is older than 6 months can't participate, you must quadruple mask and wear a buttplug (farts spread covid too, you know), and you can't complain on FB or anywhere else about any of this because you'll get banned not just from FB but from everywhere, and lose your job, too.

[sk2020]

>once-in-a-century

There’s a newsworthy virus (usually SARS-like) every 2-5 years. There are notable “variants” every few months. The perceived risk of COVID has a lot to do with reporting, which is fickle at best. Heart disease kills hundreds of thousands and we basically don’t care.

>temporary

Nixon’s closing the Gold window and Bush’s GWOT come to mind as substantial counter-examples. I don’t foresee the US politburo giving up on their newfound unlimited and totally arbitrary authority so long as their appointed brain trust says it’s for your own good. Their subjects might start to ignore them, though.

[theintern]

How many of these variants or noteworthy viruses kill as many people? Genuine question, because covid has been on a different scale to SARS, MERS or any of the various animal flu pandemics, in terms of R number and how difficult it is to control.

[ezekg]

It's crazy to me because I would have thought the last year or so would produce the opposite effect. But a fearful populace is a malleable populace, I guess.

[keyb0ardninja]

This is exactly what F. A. Hayek warned us about in his book The Road to Serfdom.

[trompetenaccoun]

I don't know why this man has such a large following outside of economics. There are a lot of better analysis of how such oppressive systems form. I respect Hayek but The Road to Serfdom is a boring read.

[lvs]

The analogy doesn't hold. It's hard to say that video games are an acute crisis causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.

[anonporridge]

Perhaps because we've all seen firsthand the reckless social irresponsibility of a massive segment of the population.

Faced with this, it's not surprising to me that many people would see a more authoritarian government to be preferable to a laissez faire approach that requires the vast majority of individuals to make reasonably good choices for the collective and understand the wider implications of their behavior.

It would be ironic if the right wing shrieking for 'freedom' ends up backlashing on all of us because they've simultaneously demonstrated that we're not mature enough to handle that level of freedom.

[ryandrake]

COVID has convinced me that a functioning society can’t just throw its hands up and exclusively rely on Nash Equilibrium to deal with all problems. If you rely on everyone being rational self-interest-optimizing actors, you’ll never solve problems that require voluntary collective, coordinated action. It just ends up as a giant game of prisoner’s dilemma with everyone choosing DEFECT.

[TillE]

Yeah, there's basically no way the pandemic is ever going to end without broad vaccine mandates. I would expect China to be one of the first countries to move in that direction, but we'll see.

[echelon]

> I feel like the last year of 'quarantine' for most of the Western world has made people more comfortable with authoritarian governments and actions.

Half of the US is up in arms about it, for better or worse. I think you'd have a hard time imposing anything on the US.

The other half doesn't think immunizations are authoritarian, just science.

Maybe 1% of the loud and attention grabbing people on either side of the isle wants to impose things on the other just for the sake of imposing them.

So not exactly.

[UnFleshedOne]

That 1%, if they are loud enough, can move overton window for the whole society. Recall how fast vaccine passports moved from a crazy right wing conspiracy theory to an obvious and necessary measure. Last year is full of such examples.

[1270018080]

I think you have it backwards. In the last year, vaccines passports (in other words, immunization records) went from an obvious and necessary measure to a crazy wight wing conspiracy theory.

[honkdaddy]

A year ago in my country, vaccine passports were very much a conspiracy theory, and back in 2020, our PM assured us they wouldn't be coming. [1] A year later, as the GP mentioned, this has instead become the standard to expect going forward. [2]. Exactly what they described has happened, something which was once considered an irrational fear of libertarians has become reality.

[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/7576955/coronavirus-vaccine-passp...

[2] https://globalnews.ca/news/8104692/canada-getting-proof-of-v...