Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[EricHiggin]

Hiku said:

EricHiggin said:

Sorry. My bad. I didn't realize agreement was also essential..

What was I thinking?

You're missing the point as to why that was brought up though. I'm saying the power plant and the entire system isn't fully automated. Without those workers, some people will die. So what they may do is essential, but those people aren't robots. They aren't slaves to that job. The reasons they do that job matters greatly, and suggesting that a person in that position has no morals, or a lack of them, in comparison to someone else who is or isn't deemed an essential worker of another sort is nonsense. Someone else having the "moral high ground" because they automatically deem their job more virtuous, is, well, to be expected in today's world unfortunately. Not that there couldn't be any merit in that thought process, but it's not like my job is selling t-shirts. I can see why some may be confused though since they 'know how much I love my t's..'

What I'm missing is who claimed that power plant workers are not essential?
Pemalite said "You do know what an essential worker is right? Going into lockdown does not mean and has not ever meant any of that halts... Meaning your entire argument is non-sequitur."

Meaning power plants are still operational during a lockdown because power plant workers are deemed essential workers.

vivster said:

EricHiggin said:

Sorry. My bad. I didn't realize agreement was also essential..

What was I thinking?

You're missing the point as to why that was brought up though. I'm saying the power plant and the entire system isn't fully automated. Without those workers, some people will die. So what they may do is essential, but those people aren't robots. They aren't slaves to that job. The reasons they do that job matters greatly, and suggesting that a person in that position has no morals, or a lack of them, in comparison to someone else who is or isn't deemed an essential worker of another sort is nonsense. Someone else having the "moral high ground" because they automatically deem their job more virtuous, is, well, to be expected in today's world unfortunately. Not that there couldn't be any merit in that thought process, but it's not like my job is selling t-shirts. I can see why some may be confused though since they 'know how much I love my t's..'

What even is it that you're arguing against right now? Is it still against lockdowns that were executed well in so many other countries without them dissolving into chaos? Or have you given up on that hopeless position and are just trying to side track with meaningless philosophy?

Please enlighten me because I genuinely cannot see any coherent point in your last few posts.

Pemalite said:

EricHiggin said:

I'll save you the time, by pointing out that it's about what's essential to the individual first, and the community second. The question you aren't asking is, is the job essential to me? If the answer to that happens to be no, as in I don't so much require the money, then you can't help but ask why am I doing it then, or more importantly, why have I gone back to that sector of work again? Maybe it potentially has to do with my morals? Considering trades aren't exactly a dime a dozen, the more specialized one's even beyond that, and what they provide tends to be deemed as necessity in today's world.

Ignoring all the other pointless irrelevant rubbish (I.E. Memes/Gifs/Videos) you posted...

An essential worker is someone who provides an essential service in order for a standard of living to be maintained and necessities provided to an entire society.
Thus any personal "opinions" on whether something is essential or not as you may not use a particular service or product is thus moot, personal situation and opinion has nothing to do with it.

Those who work in the food industry preparing, packaging and delivering food is such an essential worker, you might grow your own food, doesn't stop them being an essential worker for society.

Those who work to deliver and support water and electricity being delivered to our homes are an essential worker, you might use rain water and solar power, doesn't stop those services being essential to support society.

A firefighter is an essential worker, because life, property and the environment still needs to be protected.

That. Is an essential worker... And those are the workers that need to keep working during a pandemic... And those are the workers we need to protect during a pandemic in order to provide essential goods and services to keep society functioning.

The key words "society functioning". Not "Eric functioning".

Ok, so you want people to do things a certain way because of covid, that will benefit you so you can keep doing what you're doing, and that's what gives you the moral high ground?

All people are not the same. For all you know, I may be asymptomatic, or may have antibodies, so others 'doing their part', may be a complete waste of their time. In fact, the poorer communication with other employees or customers could very well create problems, because at times, it does. Do you risk removing masks to make sure vital information is crystal clear, potentially spreading or contracting the illness, or do you waste precious time, or hope for the best and potentially get someone inured or killed because something wasn't comprehensible?

If I said all drivers of the general public should pull off to the side of the road for me when on my way to a potentially life threatening emergency call, would that be a reasonable and justifiable request? By doing so, would that now give me higher moral standards, because I'm willing to inconvenience all those drivers for someone else's good, potentially helping to save lives? Would it really be much of an inconvenience at all? Why isn't that a thing then if what I do is so essential? If shutting power down to others in the area is a justified inconvenience to complete the work, why not drivers on the way to the outage?

If I don't personally choose to function at that essential work for whatever reason, then the work doesn't get done, and people don't receive those services, so personal opinions and choices do matter. If I'm willing to do the job regardless of whether or not others are masked up etc, does this put me higher or lower on the morality scale?

If a qualified leader were to tell the public not to bother wearing masks, because unknowingly to the public, there was a shortage and some health care workers were more at risk at work, would that leader have the moral high ground? What if just one citizen died, because they thought it made sense to wear a mask, but took that professional leaders advice/opinion not to instead, contracting the illness by inhaling it? In this situation, which happened in the US, an all lives matter equally approach could not be taken, unless the leadership wanted to leave life and death up to chance. The lock down itself led to other non covid related death. Once you've made the choice to choose what's best for everyone, you've already lost, because you will always be favoring some lives over others. That's why people need to be free to choose as much as reasonably possible.