"None of the Above": Imagine all the People...Tested for COVID-19
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- On YouTube, there's a little bit of a backlog in Zoom right now, which I think is a good sign. That means people are home and doing cool things. So how are you, James? - I'm great. Definitely don't have coronavirus. I'm feeling wonderful. - Okay, well, I mean, that, you could be completely asymptomatic and still have it. As I was telling you in the couple moments before we went live here,

I am perhaps not so lucky. We're going to have to see what happens. I'm having a little bit of symptoms and I didn't even know really what the symptoms were. And, you know, I knew some of the symptoms, right. But I didn't really know a definitive list. And then I was Googling and there's an article. Let's see what publication it's in here. Let me find it.

Well, they'll say that if you have a fever or difficulty breathing, that's when you should really be concerned. Right. But then they were saying it can start out in the sinuses. Right. Right. Or in the digestive. I read another thing that said it might be starting in the digestive tract, too. Well, I've got...

Sinus stuff going. Yeah. So like headache and sinus. So that's there are lots of causes for that, right? There are. And so we will see. But yeah, I might be someone who actually goes to try to seek a test.

well the test should be available to anyone who wants them and needs them my god yes that's the crazy part i mean way back way back when what it's and it's the fda and it's our health officials and our health regulations that really prevented that we have this slow cumbersome process that prevented widespread testing i mean one of the really irritating things about this is that the

there is a sort of a procedure, a protocol to go through if you've got an infectious disease that could be deadly. You test people, you isolate those who've got it. - Yes. - Because we didn't have the testing, the widespread testing, we were unable to do that until the cat was well out of the bag. That is just criminal. That really is horrible. One of the horrible things about this whole thing in my view. - Yes, yes.

And, you know, so now here I am, it's like, oh, maybe I'm having a little bit of something. I guess after we're done, I'm going to call up a doctor and say, yes, should I do? And yeah, definitely. Because, you know, can't I go up to one of these drive through tests or something? Yeah. See what's going on. Yeah. Yeah.

but as I said, right now, it's just like yesterday, I was already having a bit of headache. And then only this morning did I think, okay, really, it's kind of sinus headache, really, that I'm having and tiny, slight fever yesterday that

The timing is about right in terms of potential exposure, maybe. Do you think like three days or it takes like two or three days to... The average is apparently five for an incubation period. Well, what were you doing three to five days before yesterday? So, you know, I've had a little bit of exposure to someone who traveled.

Oh, yes. Not from anybody, you know, like Italy or anything like that, but, you know, just traveling in general is not the same. Just being on an airplane. Well, and not so much the airplane, but then what they're doing in the customs with the screening.

is really counterintuitive, right? You know, supposedly they're protecting us by having these screening procedures. But as I understand it, they basically pack them pretty closely in a small area for three hours while they're waiting in all these lines to get tested. Kind of defeat the whole purpose, right? Yeah, yeah. So as I said, we'll, you know, we'll see. I would like to...

get the test if they would give it to me and just know one way or the other and then if indeed they do have some of these treatments that are effective antivirals and stuff so it could

lessen the course or the duration then that would be right there's really i guess some really promising stuff with well-known malaria medicines and particularly a cocktail of them apparently in france is having remarkable results i mean just a few days it eliminates the virus yeah yeah

And it can be used prophylactically. It can be used. So, wow. So that's where I'm at. If it is indeed that, then that's what I would love to have. But I have to say, when I heard the FDA director talking about it, I really almost wanted to throw up because we have these drugs that are malaria medicines are well-known. So we know that they're perfectly safe with lots of population groups, right? Right.

And we know which population groups it's safe with. But here he is saying, no, no, no, but we still can't just let doctors prescribe it or something. We still have to go through our protocol of testing and making sure that it can go out there. It just sickens me. It's the doctors. I mean, I trust my doctor more than I trust some bureaucrat in Washington.

It should be up to physicians, not some FDA director as to whether or not a patient gets these malaria medicines, especially ones that are already well known. Yes. It's crazy to me. Just crazy. So, yeah. So, you know, watch this space. And there are a number of people who have had, you know, just little minor symptoms, right? Like your headaches and sinus and stuff. And then it doesn't go much further than that.

you know, even without treatment. So, you know. Right. Well, the vast majority of cases. I've been reading reports that say there may be some widespread infection, right, that we are even unaware of. Yes. Because there's so many who had either a light or asymptomatic or just a minor case. Yeah, they're saying that 80, 86%.

were basically asymptomatic enough so that there'd be no reporting. I mean, for me right now, you know, if normally if I'd have this kind of sinus thing, I'd say, oh yeah, you know, I got some sinus thing and no big deal. - But doesn't that make us wonder how effective any of these lockdowns and travel restrictions and isolation orders? - Well, yeah, and so this is the thing, right? So I was reading a couple of pieces this morning and this was thanks to Rob Wolf and he's got his healthy rebellion. He is posting a lot of great information there.

But he had an article that when, you know, the first article that you're looking at is this guy who is analyzing the recent data that's coming from the testing of all the NBA basketball players. Right. In addition to, you know, the, all the testing that they did in South Korea, South Korea has kicked everyone's butt as far as I know on testing. Okay. So there they were saying that,

potentially 86% of people have such minor symptoms that you can consider them basically asymptomatic. And then there's a click through to a science magazine article, and they were analyzing the data in Wuhan and China and saying, basically, that's the same that really only about 14% of the cases ended up being reported as

been reported at all. Yeah. Yeah. Much less be hospitalized. Yeah. So, I mean, with what I'm feeling right now, it's relatively minor, but for me, it's like, does that mean it's going to progress or is that mean, you know, so that's why I would want to know if this, I could put in recent months, you've been immune system compromised a bit. Yeah. Yeah. So, but you know, I'm getting better. I don't know if like my, my latest news actually gained some weight and

so that's great yeah you're looking good you're looking healthy yeah I'm I'm doing I'm doing okay probably I'm going to be like frowning a little because I got the little bit of that I haven't taken anything for the headache or the sinuses apparently uh if I want to take something I should be taking only acetaminophen and not right any ibuprofen so I so further notice no yeah and I'm taking my zinc and my vitamin c and you know various things I'm eating my meat and

all of that. So I think I'm fairly strong. I'm almost not even underweight, even though I look thin, technically, I'm almost not there. Well, the standards for what is over and underweight are pretty, that's ridiculous. So no, no, I mean, you know, I think I'm fairly strong, but yeah, I mean, this is the thing. Okay. So this is what we'll get into today. Right. Um,

I've titled the episode without even your consent. Okay, I didn't put a title on this thing. But I'm, you know, saying, imagine all the people COVID-19 tested, right? Imagine if everybody was tested. And it occurs to me that now they're going to send everybody a check for $1,200 or whatever it is. I can't remember. First it was $1,000. And then they said, no, you know, I'll raise your $1,000 to $1,200, right?

They're battling over it. Let's send the money and make them feel good. Don't send me a check. Send me a damn test. Right. Very much so I can get back to work. Yes. Send everybody an antibody test for COVID-19. What in the world? Right, right, right, right. No, you're absolutely right. Be far more effective and economically efficient.

Do they even have the tests, though, to even test? Well, so now there's a company out of Austin that's ramping it up. Yeah, they are going to have a test that they can mail everybody. So if I guess if I can't get a test, I'll get online. But we need millions and millions of tests out there. And they should have been on this weeks ago. Yes, yes. And so here's the thing, right? And this is kind of the debate that's been going in the limited government slash objectivist space.

for about a week now. And the question is, is any sort of a lockdown appropriate in the context? And if so, what kind? And I argued on my show on Wednesday that I could see doing a lockdown given the total context. And the total context is that we, the government has messed it up so far

that we do have a medical system in which there is a lot of government involvement and therefore the capacity of our health care system is atrophied to a large extent. There are a number of people who are going to need medical care potentially all at once because of the totality of the circumstances right now. And it just so happens to be the case that

People are in the habit, unfortunately, of relying on government. They should not be, right? But, you know, progressive education, plus the fact that government has been taking it upon itself to quote, take care of everybody for so long, has created this mess such that even if

you know, you could say, okay, we've got a great argument for the fact that it would be morally good for people to just kind of lay low for a bit, especially given that we don't want to overrun the medical system. I mean, imagine, you know, you can stay home for a couple weeks. Imagine the government's not mandating it, but you have this option. You could stay home for a couple weeks and the result would be not only that your neighbor down the street or whatever has less chance of

getting it, somebody you just assume is a good person and you don't want them to get seriously ill or die. Right. And then second that, sorry, brain fog for a second here is brain fog a symptom. No. And then second, this is the really important thing that I haven't really emphasized so much out there on the social media debates that you end up having about this is

The doctors, the nurses, all the healthcare workers, do you really want to put them in the position of the doctors in Italy who have been on the front lines of this garbage, having to ration on the spot, the available resources to them? They're going to be overworked and tired and everything else. And then you put them in this horrible position too.

These are the people who save our lives. You don't want to do that, right? So to me, in terms of, is it rationally self-interested to want to lay low for a couple weeks as long as it's not a sacrifice to you? Yes. And then given that today the system is what it is and the government has messed up to the extent that it has, right?

See, some of your argument is based on that. And I think a lot of the objectivist world needs to understand that context, that what you're arguing is the result of a bunch of government screw ups and what the situation is now, the government has taken it on, so forth and so on. In other words, this isn't the way it should be or ought to be in any way. We're coping with something that is...

an odd situation, an artificial situation. You know, Trump says things like in his press conferences, something like this has never happened before. Well, of course, something like this has happened many, many, many times before, uh, probably with greater fatality rates. Well, he, this is not the first time that he said something was unprecedented during exactly. Uh, but the fact is that something like this has happened several times before. And, uh,

We have, for example, in the case of Ebola, we had a great example of how to contain it in the country. So, well, the dictatorship in China is to blame. Yes, one. There's the first. Yes. They were they didn't allow health officials in. They didn't give good information. And that put us behind the eight ball from the start. And that.

out of east asia which is criminal right there right uh because we have learned how to keep diseases in one spot and ebola was a much much deadlier disease something like 80 of the people didn't have mild cases 80 of the people died yeah so it was much more critical in that situation and that let's make a mental note because there's a point i want to get to on this uh

Yet it comes here. We have a travel ban on China. That I have no problem with. I think actually the president did a good thing there. But

In the wake of it becoming so political here, because as we discussed before, the New York Times weeks ago was already saying this is the Trump virus. If you feel bad, you know who to blame. And that was madness. Yes. But in so doing, in making it so political, this has now become a political test for Trump. So now it is. And if you heard the press conference today, the press is all over that.

Oh, he's got a new one today? Oh, God. Oh, no, no. I heard Trump and his health officials today. And what did he say now? Well, he had to...

One reporter said, how do you deal, how do you answer people who are afraid? They're really, really afraid and they're frightened. And so Trump came roaring back with a, that is a dishonest question. That's a fake news question. You're the one who's causing the panic. I don't consider that good journalism. Another journalist came back and said, well, why don't you answer the question? What do you tell people who are afraid? And he came back around and gave a whole biographical essay on how rotten that journalist was.

So given the intensity, the political intensity, given the fact that this is a test for Trump, it's perceived that way. Trump will spare no expense.

Trump will do whatever it takes, even if it is way overkill, it seems to me, to make it look like he's efficiently dealing with this problem because that is, see, he may have an excuse here for an economic slowdown. People might not blame him for it, but how he deals with this crisis is really what I think this election may turn on.

And so, of course, the natural instinct of every media person and Trump himself is government is the solution. A single death, right, is too many as far as they're concerned. So I'd ask the philosophical question, at what point...

Is it valid to take government steps where they point a gun and say, shut down your business? Right. Okay. Yeah. What rate of fatality? What risk of fatality? Well, okay. Okay. But, but, and then it's, and then it's also...

given where we are, right? So right now you and I would agree that we think the social security system is immoral. Yes. But we would also agree that if you just instantaneously wiped it out right now, that would not be the right solution in the context. And so what I've been saying is that, yes, probably some sort of government mandated lockdown even,

would be justified in the context, but it would have to be strictly limited. And I'm talking two weeks, maybe three weeks at the outside, enough to...

ramp up all the testing enough to, and again, you know, this is all that the FDA has got to get out of the way of the antivirals that we were talking about before the ones that I might have to go seek and say, you know, give me something to make sure that I am a mild case. Thank you very much. If I get, if I have it right. This is the thing that needs to be done, right? Limited,

And what I would call, you know, to make an analogy to a time of war and exit strategy. We're doing it for this delimited time for this delimited purpose. The only way that we could extend the delimited time is if

you know, the delimited purpose was not met and we know that there's a delimited time, but none of this like, oh, it's indefinite and we're going to have a ship out, you know, because Newsom yesterday, right? He's out there. He's given an official lockdown for the whole state of California. Right. And he's saying basic, I mean, he's like hinting that this is going to go on to September or something.

How does he expect people to survive that long? Well, let's consider the thing in the abstract. They were saying social isolation may have to continue forever.

Indefinitely, for months. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's an inhuman way of living. That is impossible. I myself would rather risk death than be imprisoned in social isolation for indefinitely. If you tell me this has to go on for several months or more than a year, no, no, no, no, no. It's just not worth it.

And so I'm asking philosophically, I guess, the question, at what point does it become valid for the government to come in and shut down businesses at all by force? There is a cost to that and there would be a cost to that. People don't realize the cost in lives that economics actually is if this does last for more than a week or two.

We're going to see mass... Okay, well, okay. So I'll give you a ridiculous example. A company decides that they're going to host an Ebola beach party in San Diego. All you sufferers of Ebola, we will fly you in and let you have a beach party in San Diego. Well, see, I think that's conceptually easier, maybe at one end of the spectrum, because they're most of the people who get Ebola die. Right.

It's a death sentence and it's a contagious disease. Right. And pretty easily contagious disease if you have physical contact. So, wow, that's scary. Obviously, the government can restrict people's movements at the point of a gun if that's the case. Right. If we have. Well, you know, people say it's not fair to compare other things, other causes of death. You know, in one sense, that's true. In another sense, it's what we all we have.

We have right now 205 or so deaths from this in the United States so far, right? How many people have died this year from regular flu? A lot more, right? I mean, a lot more. And that's a contagious disease.

And that's a good thing. But, but, but, but, but there's a vaccine available for that one. Okay. There's a vaccine available. And so what? It's killing more people. So in other words, if the justification for the shutdown is that we're going to save lives, right? Obviously that's the only sole purpose of this. No, no, no, that's not the only sole purpose. Okay. Okay. So some other reason. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

No, the justification is that this is all coming on at once versus the flu being spread out over a longer period of time. And the fact that it's going to come on all at once is going to take those doctors and those nurses and those healthcare workers and put them in an impossible, tragic, horrible situation. That's the justification. Well, but the justification is ultimately to save lives. Okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

no, no, no, no, no, no. You're going to save lives. Well, who cares if the healthcare system gets overwhelmed? Right? The reason we care about the health is because we also love our doctors. Okay. Well, that's true. Okay. So doctors are special and their lives are... I mean, up in

Up in Seattle, James, an overworked and beleaguered cardiologist lost his life because of this. Right, right. They are overworked, and so therefore they are tired, and all they do is they make one mistake in their typical procedures that they do to avoid being contaminated, and suddenly they're infected, plus they're overworked and tired, and then

This guy, this well-respected cardiologist faculty member at University of Washington in Seattle died. That's horrible. This is the, so it's not just, you know, quantified deaths or whatever. It's the fact that it's the fact that it's going to at one point,

time overwhelm the system and put all these medical professionals who normally are but their deaths in other words the bottom line for the government justification for the force here is that people could die doctors the health care system be overwhelmed and that means more this is a very temporary emergency that's right you can avoid but the the only reason why we have it's basically like a tornado okay but if it weren't for people dying you wouldn't shut down business would you

Okay, the only reason that I would have the government shut down business in today's context is because the situation is so screwed up that people are not going to be ethical, that they're just going to fly. Okay, the government. Okay, agreed. The government is responsible for this, right? They've created a healthcare system, which is hobbled. We do not have the healthcare resources that we would.

We would have respirators and there'd be, you know, there wouldn't be any issue that way, right? We would have had testing, testing, testing early on. And we could have handled this in an ultimately in a radically different way, right? Right, right, right, right. So the government's the one who's caused the problem. But ultimately the only justification is

for the government shutting down business is that people will die if no one was going to die. Just like the only ultimate justification for continuing the social security system for some period of time right now, which is government force.

is because there were a lot of people who would suffer. I don't know if they die. No, you know, there's a lot of human suffering. But there it's economics to economics. Here in the health, this is exactly my point. Here in an infectious disease. Yeah, people would die. And then that's what we're calculating in the infectious disease. But also the collapse of the health care system. Well, that's true. That's true.

I'm not, let's hold that off for a second. But ultimately, the justification for state intervention here is the deaths involved.

And therefore we cannot lose sight of the relative danger of this versus other causes of death, whether it's traffic accidents, cancer, or the regular flu. Okay. But again, you know, no, I'm sorry, because with the flu and with traffic accidents, it is spread out over time such that the medical system, the healthcare system doesn't get overwhelmed. There we go. So what we need is

to make sure that the healthcare system doesn't get overwhelmed. And there, I agree with you.

Is the shutdown of the economy the best way to help to shore up our healthcare system and make sure it's not overwhelmed? I would say a very temporary shutdown enough so that you just flatten it enough so that it's not a disgusting tragedy like you have in Italy would be good. Now, I think that would be ethical to do that. So ideally, when you don't have the horrible situation we have today, ideally, you'd have just people

volunteering to stay home for a couple weeks. You know, for instance, I mean, I see the analogy, it's like a tornado, right? And you know that by, you know, limiting your conduct in a certain way for a very delimited period of time, you can prevent your neighbor from being hit by a tornado.

I'd do it. Of course, as long as it's not a sacrifice to me, that would be the moral thing to do just out of benevolence for your fellow man. I have an interest in my neighbors not getting sick, even if I don't get sick. And I have an interest in my doctors staying alive and healthy. I understand that. The question is, at what point is it justified to bring out the government guns?

See, if we had a free market health system, obviously we wouldn't have had this situation. And of course, if everyone were acting in their own rational interest, taking proper health care of themselves and care in terms of not getting or spreading a disease, we'd all be doing swell. Right.

That's not the world, obviously, that we're living in. We're living in a world in which, as you just indicated, there may be widespread infections that we are not even aware of, making the shutdown almost too late, almost the cat out of the bag. We don't even know at this stage whether the shutdown will be effective because of those things. Well, okay, but this is one of the things I read in the article, and this also argues against the shutdown being very long.

is that people who are asymptomatic are also only basically contagious for a few days. And so if you even shut down for a week,

you can flatten significantly if you can prevent that spread. So what I'm arguing for is, again, I see the analogy as what we all did. Well, not we all. I don't remember your position when we had the ground zero mosque debate. I was even on and we talked about it.

Did we talk about that? Okay, so I don't remember. But I was against the Ground Zero Mosque. So was I. I aggressively defended Leonard's position on that. So I was against the Ground Zero Mosque, even though the

principle of private property rights would dictate that we just allow, you know, people who have purchased a piece of land to do whatever they want with their piece of land. Yeah. And the government had messed things up and it hadn't declared war like it was supposed to and everything else, all the things that would invalidate property rights. But, you know, we didn't have that. But yet, nonetheless, I was against the

the erecting of a mosque right near the ground zero. Right. We deal with the system that we have. And if the system is creating some intolerable harm that wouldn't have happened otherwise, we still have to just lump it. We have to swallow it and make sure that that harm doesn't happen. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's kind of what my analogy here, but it needs to be super delimited and it has to super delimited, super delimited. Like, you know, again, like what would you do with the ground zero mosque? You say, okay, some certain circumference around ground zero is where you prevent the building of the mosque. And you say, okay, here we are in the situation. We don't want

hear what happened to Italy with the doctors and some of it we've already seen, like I say, the poor guy in Seattle. We live in such a crazy world that when someone would suggest putting up the Imperial Japanese flag over Pearl Harbor in the early 1940s,

People wouldn't react at, oh, my gosh, you know, what racism to oppose the imperial Japanese flag being put over Pearl Harbor. OK, but when it was put that way, then obviously people will say, oh, it's really clear. It would be like allowing Nazi propaganda during World War Two. Right. And it's an unfortunate side effect that peaceful, innocent Muslims don't get their symbol there in lower Manhattan. Well, too bad.

Right. Because it is a symbol for what destroyed it. Now, given that context and given the context that if we did have a legitimate war, obviously there wouldn't be a, you know, there wouldn't be a jihadist propaganda would not have been allowed to be spread much less in lower Manhattan. So to the extent that we needed it here, of course, it's way more complex and weird situation. I still want that philosophical question answered at what stage of risk

Does it become, see, if it's just an ordinary cold, can the government use force to control people's behavior because they're spreading, say? No, obviously not. Okay, so when does it kick in? You could say there's a certain fatality rate. Okay, wait. I would say, okay, yeah. There's a certain fatality rate to the vulnerable.

Elderly or the very young or the ill population and there's a certain fatality rate to them, which is what we're talking about here in this case too. At what fatality rate or at what stage of not knowing that fatality rate versus the infectious rate, does it justify the government coming in with their guns?

And I think that is an unanswered question in the philosophy of law that needs, from our perspective. True, true. So then even if it didn't need to be answered with respect to a lockdown domestically, it would need to be answered with respect to allowing people in through the border, for example. Right. And would you stop people at the border with X, Y, Z? We stop them if they have Ebola. We're not going to let them in. We know this. Right.

maybe at a certain stage of not knowing we stopped them from coming in from Wuhan. Well, if something was like tuberculosis, obviously we stopped them coming in. If they've got an infectious disease that can cause serious illness and we can have some control at the border, you could say we don't let anyone with a serious infectious disease come in at all. What about measles?

That's a really good question. There's a vaccine available. See, well, that's it. Until the person is neutralized, made safe from spreading measles, even there I would think that the government, because, you know, measles can have complications and pregnant women can have babies die. So, yeah, at the border, I think it's really straightforward. I have someone I know right now. His name is David Latt.

attorney who very kind of well-known blogger in the legal space and I actually was in participated in an event where we hosted him at Southwestern and I presented a review of his book and he's 44 he has run a couple marathons he had suffered from asthma a bit and so he came down with COVID and

and has had complications. And I've been watching his Twitter feed because he has not actually tweeted in the last couple of days. And he was on oxygen and such and tweeting a lot. I just tested, I mean, he's tested, just checked this morning. I want to test him. No, but I just checked this morning to see if he had tweeted and he has, last I saw, not tweeted yet. Let me see. All right.

Yeah, two days ago was his pinned tweet. Yeah, he hasn't tweeted for over a day. And I'm concerned about him. He's back east. Right.

One of his tweet, you know, oxygen is a hell of a drug. He's got a picture of himself. I don't know if you can see there is. But he was kind of tweeting his experience. There are complications and not just for older people. And yeah, he had asthma as a potential confounding factor. But 44 did a couple of New York City marathons. Not the most unhealthy person in the world. Right. Actually, yeah.

relatively well in the prime of life at least and a healthy guy who runs marathons but asthma does put you you know where we don't and this is the thing i think the government the justification for government action increases given the context some of the factors in the context here such as we're learning that at least in some cases there can be permanent lung damage

Right. And with certain cases where they're, it's not normal, obviously, the average age of the person who dies is still like 81, 82. But still, we're getting some younger people cases. And in some of those cases, we're learning that things like asthma, certain kinds of sensitivities make you very sensitive to having a severe case. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's, you know, it's not a trivial thing, but then at the same time, yeah, is the rate, the overall rate low in an ideal scenario?

world, I would say, no, you don't have government intervention for this, right? And, you know, at the borders is maybe a little bit different than in the interior, right? And in terms of restricting movement, you know, if I'm a carrier of an infectious disease that could kill my neighbors, the government has, I think, the authority to restrict my movement.

when the government is restricting everybody's movement, whether they don't test, they don't know exactly. Wait a minute. Their failure to test creates an ignorance, right? Or to allow, not test as if they have an obligation to test, no, to allow testing. They were full of red tape and obstacles and preventing results and testing and testing procedures. It's their fault that we're in this ignorant state. Yes. And so now we're,

It's weird how they put it too at their press conferences, these businesses and these individuals through no fault of their own. As if simply through no fault of their own were the just, no, the government is what's shutting down the businesses.

Yes. Right. So the whole justification for the bailouts and the extended unemployment and so forth. They're coming in with their usual blunt force instrument. And, you know, just making things worse like government pretty much always does instead of, you know, again, this is.

We, you and I, to take that analogy of social security again, we could try to come up with as, you know, acceptable as possible, a solution for phasing out social security. You wouldn't get rid of it all tomorrow. But you know, now given all the government intervention and everything, maybe there'd be some little ideal window, but they're they are coming in Newsom, right? He didn't put any length on this, right?

Yeah, see, and our moral justification isn't what's going to control here. What's going to get in people's heads is that, look, people could die. That justifies the government shutting down business and controlling my movement because someone else has a risk of dying through no fault of their own. Well, then that's insane. That's insane. When this is all over, like I say, you know, when we compare it to other causes of death, right?

The number of deaths here is going to be a fraction of other causes of death. Will that justify the government taking such draconians? Okay, but again, I would take the focus off of that, James. But unfortunately, that's where whatever you and I say about the morality of this right now,

The vote, the lesson learned here, the precedent set here. Well, but that's not so much right, because a lot of people are also looking at the flattening the curve as being the justification. Right. This one does not not not, you know, as long as there's one disease and you and I can morally feel good about what the government did. But at the end of the day, that's not what's going to be left in people's perception.

What's left in people's perception is that right and left both agree that when X number of people might die through no fault of their own, the government is fully justified in doing all of this. Well, so then I think, you know, there's a couple things going forward that, first of all, the government involvement is potentially justified only because of this particular very screwed up context that the government is responsible for.

You and I see that. Yes, yes. And then second, that you need to hammer the facts, right? Because the real fact is not the number of people that would die, but the fact that it would come on all at once. Right. We don't want to overwhelm the medical system. And not just...

the medical system is so depersonalized, right? To even talk about it that way. We're talking nurses, individual, awesome human beings who are the doctors and the nurses and all those providers who are going to be on the front lines, putting themselves at risk,

tired, overworked, and then put in that impossible situation where they're supposed to ration resources. That, imagine being in that situation. So I'm saying, look, you know, compassion for your fellow awesome, productive human beings in the healthcare system would demand that if there were no government mandate, that you would, if it wasn't a sacrifice to you, and I would submit that even if you were giving up quite a bit,

you would be willing to stay home for a couple of weeks to achieve that end of saving all of those people. You know, when it comes to money versus lives, I think most people would clearly say, look, if it is just money versus life. But not the kids who go and just, you know...

do their spring break on the beach in Texas or Florida or whatever else I've seen. Well, they're not even being self-interested in my view. It's insane, the behavior of such feckless, reckless people. But I agree with you totally there. And

self-care requires something else than what we see in just in terms of that but to me the question is to what extent and uh in what circumstances is it okay morally okay for the government to be doing taking these steps i think some of the steps that they're taking right now are almost certainly overkill well no for sure you and i agree about that

Right. But when it comes to restricting some movement for a limited period of time, the government certainly has a right to do that if people are spreading infectious diseases that can be fatal. Yeah. And so, like you say, it would depend on the particular context, which would be, you know, in a proper society, that particular context would be only focused on the contagiousness and the lethality of disease.

the underlying disease. Right. But unfortunately today, we have to think of all these stupid other confounding. And there really has to be a principle that says at what point in the risk curve,

Does that justify? I don't know that it's a principle, right? I don't know that it's a principle in so much as it's a line drawing situation, just like we have when, you know, what is the age of majority? Well, we say it's 18. You know, a line has to be drawn somewhere. Now the line is drawn according to a principle, but the principle doesn't dictate the exact place that the line must be drawn. Right. So, you know, you and I could, we could hash it out right here because we're both lawyers. Can't we just legally philosophize on the,

on the spot, right? - You know, you and I could probably come up with a pretty good rule. - Well, so the one that was coming to my mind earlier was kind of the more likely than not. So suppose it's 50%. What do you think of something weird like that? Like if it was a 50, you know, evil was 80%, so that's an easy case. - Here it's a very, very complex calculation because it's not just the 50% risk of death, but how much death.

Because if we're talking about two people who are very, very sensitive at the margin. It's like a little bit pregnant, a little bit dead. No. No. Well, but the point is like 50 percent risk of death for death. But if we're talking person who gets it. But OK, suppose that's what it was for the average person who gets it. Well, then under that standard, there would be nothing the government could do with this one. Eighty percent of the people get it. It'll have a mild case.

No, no, you're talking about this. Okay. Right now we've got the mortality rate. I've moved to the abstract question. But it's good to concretize it because in this case. Okay, but I wanted to answer the abstract question first. The fatality rate may be what? One point? We're down to like one point. Okay, okay. But again, the fatality rate is not what is at play only here.

In this case, I agree.

Maybe it would have to be, you know, very contagious and more likely than not, you would die from it. Something like that. Right. But, you know, we can figure that out. Yes. The government does need to do something about this case. Well, in this case, in this case, all the only reason that I think it is appropriate for the government to do something for a very delimited time is because.

Even with the low rate of death right now, it would be, I believe, morally proper given that there's no vaccination and it's a temporary thing and the blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of lives that you could save by participating in an effort to stay home and lay low. Even if the government had screwed it up, suppose it was just in that situation. You were told you could save however many lives by just staying home.

morally it'd be the right thing to do. Right now it happens to be that, you know, it's, it's been made a lot worse. Our system is, as I said, our medical system is atrophied by government involvement. There's all these confounding factors that make me say, yes, reluctantly, it is, I think good in the circumstances to have a very delimited,

time period where we do have some kind of penalty behind it, but it has to be delimited. This, you know, indefinite new Samoa will just keep control as long as I can. I mean, he looked all smarmy and gross and he's in front, he's, he's Mr. You know, like I'm the governor, I'm in charge and worse than the FDA director for me, but I was looking up the California laws too. And most state laws are very similar. There's almost blanket.

plenary authority that the state governors have in doing this, and it could go on indefinitely. That's disgusting. And it creates a misdemeanor offense for any of us who violate it. So as the cops are not arresting for other crimes, they may have to be arresting to enforce

in effect, this isolation order. But he's got that authority under state law. And his announcement as the governor of Pennsylvania and the governor of New York's announcements make a misdemeanor offense out of anyone who would break their authority.

I don't know how easy it would be to enforce right how do cops go along and where are you stopping well and I when I first heard it was like is it legal for me to go out and walk my dog I'm going to be out walking my dog right stay at home though is basically the order and without greater clarity it would be a hard thing to enforce because if the cops they stopped you walking your dog and you went to court and said well I didn't know I couldn't walk my dog I thought stay at home meant I couldn't

and go do unnecessary trips far out from my home. And all that is unknown by the public and would constitute good defenses. So I don't see a lot of criminal cases coming from these isolation orders. It's really just a threat to try and get people to comply voluntarily.

but that's what's really going to do it. And I saw some other statistics too. If there's only a small amount of non-compliance, 15, 20% of non-compliance pretty much have shot the effectiveness of the whole thing. This thing is so contagious. The fact that

The reason why you'd have the lockdown is because of how contagious it is, right? Three, four times or more contagious than regular flu. Well, given the fact that it's three, four times or more contagious than the regular flu, all it will take is 15 or 20% noncompliance and you've basically blown most of the effect of the shutdown order in the first place.

And like I say, so we don't, there's all kinds of unknowns. We won't even know if this thing was worth it or effective until we get better data. In other words, the disease may have already spread so what has been so widespread already that we're closing the barn door and long after thousands escaped. And that's where I go back to imagine all the people tested because if they sent us all a kit during this time that they're having us stay home. Right.

Then we'd see cause and effect. Exactly. So we don't know if this is working, will workers worth it at all, or is this a meaningless waste of a trillion dollars a month. So that's just the government expense of what they passed. Insane, insane.

And so, yeah, I am right there with the people saying that the way that it's being presented to us now, which is for an indefinite length of time and without the serious ramping up of both the testing and the approval of the antiviral vaccine.

measures that this is just a government power grab it's a government power grab and and the way that they are doing it is not justified and don't worry the fda is going to prevent uh widespread use of those malaria medicine oh yeah so what yeah so at least delay it i was i was gonna i was gonna read you something because one of the things that i had posted was um

you know, about testing this morning. I was really on this and let's see what I've got here. People were commenting on my various threads and I'm a little bit lost. Yeah. So I'm

Essentially, it has to do with what the FDA standards are for approving tests. And you'd say, well, why is it that they even, I mean, tests aren't dangerous. You could say, okay, well, you know, at least the FDA is protecting you from some horrible lethal side effects of drugs, right?

Right. But what's what's wrong with the test I mean you're going to get, you know, like some blood drawn or, you know, you're going to get a little swab. Why do you need to be protected from tests. And as I understand it. Oh gosh, where is it.

Okay, yeah, here's, here's the one here's the one. So somebody has come up with a mail at home, every well to me, Everly well Everly well is the company, they've come up with this mail test a home testing that you could do. So maybe I'm going to get it if I can't get tested otherwise right but

Anyway, apparently it's a good company and everything, and so that would be good. And then Timothy Sandefur put into the thread a link to the at-home tests are here and should you take one, et cetera. And then here's the quote about the FDA. And thanks to Steve Rogers for pulling what he calls the money quote. Here it is. Usually, the FDA requires evidence showing how people may respond to COVID.

test results before it allows them to be said to people no no no no no that is insane yes that is insane so it's the psychological effect of the test results that they're protecting you from oh my god

Oh, no. And people are going to die. People are going to die. Sorry, that was briefly for the FDA. I hope it doesn't get me censored on YouTube. Oh, my God. That's truly evil. Now that I've gotten the laugh out, that is deadly evil. That is life and death evil. People are going to die because of that insane regulation. Straight up, people are going to die because of that attitude. As if we need protecting from ourself by an FDA in the first place. I've got a doctor.

I have a good doctor. My doctor keeps abreast of medical information. He is the only one or she should be the only one who is advising me on whether or not I can take a certain treatment for a coronavirus, like a malaria medicine or not. They are the only ones who should...

you know, be the gatekeepers at all, even if we're going to have a prescription gatekeeper system. But why we have this additional layer of the FDA telling all doctors the way it's going to be for all patients, that's murder, wholesale murder as far as I'm concerned. Harry Binswanger has it right there, the Federal Death Agency.

That's a decent acronym. Yeah. So, oh, wow. An office in Lexington, Kentucky just opened a drive-through test site for anyone. Yeah. I mean, that's where I am. I would go get tested today if I could. Right. Well, we should have had this on, you know, in February. We shouldn't have it now. Well,

We should already know the results of millions of tests at this point. And it's that ignorance that is making us take extraordinary measures to have to cope with it. Literally, it's a huge government failure. That's the other thing. Neither side is going to recognize. And that's the whole thing, you know, so when you look at any of the government programs and things that we've criticized and things that Trump has helped to perpetuate, you

If I point out like, oh, look, Trump is just perpetuating government spending out of control or all these other things that they're doing. And then people say, oh, well, government has always done this and the blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, there are things that Trump could do that would show that he disagreed with all of that prior conduct.

And to the extent that he would not be able to do exactly what would be the right thing to do if you are truly a free market advocate.

He could do whatever he could plus say, I would do X, Y, and Z, but these are the things that are preventing me from doing it. So if Trump or Newsom got up and said, okay, you know, we admit that we in the government have made this situation worse, right? You know, that the people who are responsible, you go all the way back to the Chinese government and you go back to the people who had those markets

in Wuhan where they've got these animals all together and it's dangerous in such a way that this stupid virus could get over to human beings in the first place. Those are the original people to blame, but our government has made it worse. So suppose our government officials got up and said, okay, we realize we've made it worse because we didn't allow for the widespread testing. And we've got, you know, these sort of draconian things keeping people

safe drugs that are already out there from being used in this situation. We're going to clean up the mess, but everybody, we need you guys to stay home for two weeks. We're going to clean up our mess. We're going to allow this, this, this, and this, and it's going to make this measurable difference in two weeks. This is why we're doing it.

And suppose they did it that way. Suppose they did it that way. But they're not doing it now. Yeah, they would point out how we got here. And at least it wouldn't give a moral sanction for the emergency steps they'd have to take. More than that, they are doing some good things. What needed to happen was massive deregulation.

Part of what needed to happen was that the government needed to get out of the way. And so part of the good stuff Trump is doing is deregulating. But instead of selling that as, look, this regulation was a killer. We needed to get rid of it. He's selling it as, no, government is active. We're on it. And well, there's these temporary deregulations that will help out. But really, the government needs to provide for everybody and make sure that there's no risk at all, which is...

ridiculous and as I say, setting a terrible, terrible precedent in the public mind.

So a risk of this much death means the government can come in and basically take control over our lives and our businesses. I am terrified at that prospect. Yes. But you're right. It's how they do it. Question is giving it the moral sanction and getting the government, insofar as the government has been the problem, out of the way. Yes.

Yes. You know, over the last several years, hospital building just hasn't gone on in this country. A lot of medical infrastructure is down to hospitals, much less ventilators, respirators, ICU beds, masks, gloves, all of that. The investment in medicine has been diverted to bureaucracy, administration, lawsuits, you name it. We have such a miserable health care system that it has been hobbled and we are now in

in mortal jeopardy because of the medical system that's been hobbled by the state. He could try and sell it that way so we can start. Are you doing something to improve the situation? Yes. Or are you moving us back? No. And everything that I see, they're moving us back. How is the Fed lowering interest rates to make everybody better off? How is sending everybody a check such that basically we're just going to have inflation

Making everybody better off. I don't see that anything that they're doing. Spend a trillion dollars a month for the indefinite future. And then I just saw a headline. The, you know, the coronavirus stimulus package is just inspiring a whole bunch of lobbying.

How does law, you know? Oh, of course. Of course. It's blood and then water. These are sharks. So the stock markets are way down still. I've just took, I'm taking a peek at that right now. You know, imagine what the difference would be in the stability of stock prices and other investment prices. And our capacity to handle shocks. Like if a disease came in and disrupted work,

No, again, it's not just our medical system, it's our entire economic system that's been hobbled by the state. Yes, and again, I think the indefinite length of

And the arbitrariness of the whole thing is what makes the markets all freaked out. If, if, if, if the, you know, again, the moral is the practical right so how do governments clean up this mess, it might be, you know, a two week lockdown as part of it, but it would be.

definite time period and a definite time period where they're doing everything possible to get out of the way so that everything can be better on its own and not do anything to make anything worse than they already have. And it's hard, you know, in this context where we've got already a mixed economy situation across the board in the whole system.

to talk about which sort of things, which sort of tweaks you can make that are unequivocally in the direction of more freedom and more life preserving versus not. It's a hard choice to make. But right now you can tell with the markets, this unpredictability is the worst for people. You know, they tell you that a shutdown of productivity is going to go on indefinitely. Of course, you're going to get this.

At what point does it become counterproductive? I mean, the point of life is living. It's not to stop people from dying, right? Yes.

into this issue. Get hospital beds, respirators. Send tests to everybody. Don't send them a check. Send them a test. But in the short term, you're right. In the next week or two, we're obviously not going to have enough resources geared up

to meet that. And so it's really the short-term need to not have an overwhelmed healthcare system that we're doing all this for. But does that mean that we destroy the rest of the economy? You can't do that. It makes no sense. So what do we do in the meantime? How do you make your lemonade in this time period, James? Well, you know, a friend of mine said, and this is something to think about, and I don't mean to be, you know, gallows humor or anything, but

Really, this is an opportunity, isn't it? Every crisis, it does, you know, I don't mean to sound in a political sense because those people repulse me. It's loathsome how the politicians are using this. But those of us in our individual lives use it. You know, people are sending along the memes. You know, Isaac Newton, he was quarantined for plague when he did some of his most productive work. Shakespeare wrote some of his best plays when he was quarantined for plague. So take advantage of this opportunity.

Most assuredly, this is not an excuse to stop being productive, but perhaps to take inventory, reassess things, but find the opportunity in this for sure.

Yeah, no, I'm definitely in a lot of ways sort of redoubling back to what are values and, you know, thinking about life going forward after this. But the other thing that I'm planning on doing, but, you know, watch this space. If I post by tomorrow at my blog, don'tletitgo.com, that I am going to go forward with a class that I want to teach, then you'll know that I'm not feeling that bad and or I'm getting tested and, you

you know, confident I'm getting taken care of. And what an important topic, logic. Logic. And I talked about why on my show on Wednesday, but it was because I have seen people just not use logical thinking. And, you know, one thing I will talk about, of course, because this has sort of been the thing that I was hit with this week, logical thinking doesn't always mean completely deductive

application of principle without looking at the total context. And that's what I've tried to argue for here a little bit. You know, no, it's not like I'm in favor of government intervention in all cases where you have a disease like this.

not at all. It's a very contextual application. Again, the analogy that I draw is that ground zero mosque situation, which was another sort of a unique situation where our government wasn't doing the right thing, and yet you would still be in favor of government restricting what could be done with pieces of land around that site.

So that's, you know, a little nuance when it comes to the deductive reasoning part of an introductory logic class but the thing that really inspired it was just people out there with the racist kind of ad hominem stuff and

Just, you know, I had one person whom, you know, we follow each other on Twitter. He's an actor. And someone asked him because he's debating something about this whole coronavirus something. He says, are you really saying blank? I'm not going to say his name right now. Are you really saying that your opinion is more worthy than others because they have fewer followers on Twitter?

And he says, yes, that's what I am saying. Talk about just blatant logical fallacy right there on Twitter. Okay, it's time. No, and I had suspected I wanted to do this before.

For years, we've been talking about the fact that critical thinking skills are not taught in universities. And we are not the only ones who are talking about that. A lot of people are talking about that. Just basic critical thinking skills could be so valuable in any time talking about politics or any other contentious subject. But I have seen, and you know, it's understandable that during this time period, the stress that people are feeling is

is also making it more crucial to stay as rational as possible. And, you know, keep our discourse substantive and stop, you know, attacking each other and all of this, not only because it's

mean and nasty but because it doesn't get you anywhere logically right and it's not good for your immune system it's not good for anybody uh the stress is not a good thing uh so yeah no in fact keeping our sense of humor at this time is particularly important yeah um yeah

So it will be, if I do it and, you know, watch this space, but I'm going to figure out how I'm doing in the next day. I've got my book, my, my book that there's a textbook and I don't think I'm going to make the textbook required. Cause I want to people, you know, people save as much money as possible, but I've got a textbook arriving today. And then I was planning on putting together a syllabus tomorrow and it would be a standard introductory logic course for 10 weeks, uh,

meeting an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays on Zoom. And if you enrolled in it, then I would give you the Zoom link and all that. And if you couldn't attend live, you know, suppose that in a few weeks, they actually do let us all out and you can't attend live during the time that you could have because you were in lockdown, then you would still get recordings and there'd be a, there's going to be a midterm final exam. I mean, we're talking standard exams.

introductory logic course, the kind that should be taught, probably should be required as part of any college degree, undergraduate college degree, all across the country. It could even be part of a rigorous high school curriculum, I think, a good proper rigorous high school curriculum. But yeah, just standard introductory logic, all the common informal fallacies, and then also formal reasoning, and even some of the probability stuff, just it's kind of geeky, but it's fun as well.

So that's, oh yeah, that's great. That's the plan. That's the lemonade I want to make during this time period. Yeah. So follow me at don't let it go.com. If you don't already follow me on social media, or if you're not one of my supporters over at Patreon and subscribe star, by the way, people who are supporters, either through Patreon subscribe star or at my blog, I've got the paypal.me forward slash Amy peek off link.

If you're a supporter, if you're one of those, you're going to get a substantial discount on it. So it might be time to become a supporter because a supporter just means five bucks a month. This discount will be much more than that. So anyway, that's what I have in mind for my lemonade. So you're going to stay home and write, I take it from what you said. Yes, yes, right, right, right, right, right. In fact, I'm going to start making writing a much bigger focus of my time and work right now. Yeah.

and and you think that this whole crisis has kind of pushed you in that direction yeah it really hasn't changed my lifestyle I was you know I'm kind of a nerdy homebody but you know this year but you know just the last few months of my taking my wife out to two Beethoven concerts I've been out you know to plays and restaurants with friends and all that is definitely changing so uh

Yeah, there are more cultural events online. See, three cheers for technology, right? They're going to make bearable any kind of isolation that we have. Really, I mean, the educational opportunities now, the entertainment opportunities now are astonishing. We can communicate in real time with friends around the world. So three cheers for technology. Yes, yes, definitely.

Okay, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. I'm going to go kind of see what I think I should do. If I should try to go get tested. Should I wait till my symptoms would get a little worse? Go do a drive-thru testing. I would like to if I can. So I'm going to see if that's even possible. And you guys all take care. Stay tuned. Dontletitgo.com is where to find me. And hopefully I will see you very soon. Let me get over my mind. I got to get over to Zoom and turn this thing off. Take care. You too.