COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)

UncleTrvlingJim said
This is basically where I'm at. I think it's reasonable to be worried about government overreach and worrying about slippery slopes and all that. But it's also reasonable to allow the government to coordinate what must be a community response. The simple way to balance this is to set up a Schelling fence ahead of time to prevent things from going down a path that at this moment seems terrible but might be made possible by incremental changes that make this end result more possible at some future point.

I've been itching to drop in a murder Ghandi reference for some time now, and now's my chance. I'm taking it from here (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelling-fences-on-slippery-slopes). It's from a blog that I think you'd enjoy, it has some strong libertarian influences (one of the main contributors also runs this blog (https://slatestarcodex.com/)).

Anyway, the legend of murder Ghandi goes like this. Let's say Ghandi is the ultimate non-violent pacifist. As such, if you were to offer him a pill that would turn him into a murdering psychopath, he'd obviously refuse. Even if you offered him a million dollars. But let's say that you could offer him a pill that would make him 1% less likely to be a complete non-violent pacifist for a million dollars. 99% Ghandi is still pretty good and really unlikely to kill anyone, and now he'd have a million dollars to do more good. If you're a utilitarian, it makes sense for Ghandi to take the pill and the million dollars. Now lets say you make the offer again -- you're now dealing with 99% good Ghandi, he's slightly less abhorrent to murder than 100% Ghandi was. He's more likely to take the pill and the million dollars -- after all 98% Ghandi is still really good. And you can do this all the way down until you have Ghandi rampaging through the streets. However, if let's say Ghandi was able to think about this ahead of time and decide that 95% of his peak goodness he's pretty comfortable at his moral fiber. He can set up a Schelling fence at that point and not go beyond it.

We can do this with pretty much any policy we're worried about creating a slippery slope.

Very interesting. And I tend to think that is what SCOTUS has done with the balancing tests it uses for violations of rights. They set up a Scheilling fence in the form of tests that allow violations under a test of compelling state interest, reasonable state interest, and any state interest based on the importance of the right being violated. I don't always agree with how they apply those tests or what they count as a more important right than others, but it is a system to create that Schelling fence, as imperfect as it may be.

On a more broad point, I tend to think humans are totally self-interested by nature and evolution, but I also think that we can at least push them towards acting with rational self-interest. By that, I mean get them to realize that sometimes a small sacrifice for the greater good of society is actually in their own self interest because they will live in a better society. For example, you want to pay taxes for good public education, a good social safety net, etc. because that will make the world around you better with less crime and more educated and less desperate people.

In this instance, you want to give your name and phone number because it stops the virus from spreading again which could either lead to you and/or your family getting the virus, or you being unable to get the food, medical, and other resources necessary for you to live.