Imagine where the US is headed with online censorship and cancel culture. If you publicly disagree with controversial views you’re in for a bad time.
A difference the US has with the situation in the article is the Thai hotel was able to get law enforcement involved -- I don't think the US has crossed that line yet.
Also you could view this TripAdvisor warning as a chilling effect against other establishments that might try to use the law to silence critics. Hopefully this hotel goes out of business
But if you keep your arguments here well written and reasonable usually it’s fine.If you must know I was referring to contact tracing. I’m against it. I’m anti lockdown too. I get ostracized every time I bring it up.
If so, would its investigation hold a candle to what takes place in a conventional legal proceeding?
The client: Decided to post a (possibly fake) review on a hotel he was staying at. The hotel: Sued the client as is their right I suppose. TripAdvisor: Gave the above information to their new clients so they'd know that leaving a bad review could be met with legal action from the hotel.
Nothing wrong happened here? Why shouldn't TripAdvisor be allowed to inform their customers? Why should the hotel not use the law of their country to sue an individual?
Give me a break, most hotels have some bad reviews which, when the hotel is actually good will be drowned in good reviews. TripAdvisor could say that they are alligators in the pools for all I care, they are a private entity...
Or maybe, just maybe, you do not have the monopoly opinion on what "free speech" is and is not. In all of the examples given, excepting the Thai Hotel case, free speech is still assured. You can still offer your opinions freely, but no publisher is required to publish them. And, having published them, no other punter is required to accept them, and specifically accept them without quarrel.
Perhaps what you are seeing is actually free speech in all its glory! The 'anti-free speech people' have a right to speak their opinions just as you do. The fact they exist is proof that free speech exists, as it certainly seems that you would rather they did not voice their opinions.
Remember, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences!
No, I was making a reference to people like James Damore, who seem to.
> If you must know I was referring to contact tracing. I’m against it. I’m anti lockdown too. I get ostracized every time I bring it up.
I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon, but I'd love to hear what alternatives you have to getting a handle on the global pandemic that's killed 200k Americans and over a million people world-wide.
(Preferably without making references to "herd immunity", which has been shown to not be effective, or comparing it to other causes of death, which are at best orthogonal to the issue at hand.)
On the face of it, that's an interesting position to take. We know someone has a communicable disease that kills, we wonder if people he's been in contact with might also have it and might also be spreading it and dying of it; finding out seems like quite a sensible idea. What's the objection?
Would you even call them yourself to tell them you might have infected them? I guess if you'd been to somewhere that you didn't know everyone, you'd just have to take that as an unavoidable sacrifice they're making for your privacy.
Those are some pretty horrible numbers you're attempting to use. 350m people haven't been infected, so it's nowhere close to 240k/350m. It's closer to 240k/10m.
As for privacy: if we were told we'd need to be permanently tracked from now until the end of time, I think just about everyone would agree with you (at least on HN) that it's just not a sacrifice worth making. But NOBODY is saying that, they're saying: how about we use this tool until a vaccine is ready - which is a far more reasonable ask.
That being said, a lot of people seem to be ignoring that it's not just about who dies from this virus.
There seems to be a lot of evidence that a good percentage of people get long term damage from it. Including athletes and extremely healthy (before) people.
Hopefully some we'll be able to quantify that at some useful point too, in order to better assess risks, priorities, etc.
Generally speaking, when you're pro something that provably kills innocent people, just because the alternative is inconvenient for you personally, you're going to get ostracized.
"I'm for drunk-driving because I don't like paying or waiting for Ubers and I drive a big truck so I'll be OK" - also going to get you ostracized. Has almost nothing to do with "cancel culture" and everything to do with: show some basic respect to your fellow human beings.
No, it really isn't. You are just trying to pretend it is because the current solutions do not fit your particular worldview or cause you some temporary inconvenience.
> Covid is barely worse than the average flu for healthy young people,
Not true. We are really starting to understand the long-term consequences of even 'light' covid cases so I have absolutely no idea why you thought you were going to be able to float this particular lie past us.
> yet even those with no contact with at-risk groups must still disrupt their lives for seemingly no reason.
Because the people they interact with may have contact with at-risk groups. This is epidemiology 101, limit transmission paths to slow down a disease.
> IMO this is unfair to them and also prevents herd immunity from developing.
It is becoming pretty clear that 'herd immunity' is going to be hard to develop without some widespread vaccination.
> Furthermore outbreaks are happening in places even with more strict protocols.
But places with strict protocols are doing a lot better than those without.
> Overall I think the damage from the reaction to the pandemic is worse than the disease itself.
Demonstrably false. It is quite telling that you and all of the other anti-lockdown people are no longer trying to tell us that Sweden is the model to follow. Over the past month it has become obvious that Sweden really fucked up badly and their choice to not lockdown is leading to a huge second wave while their neighbors are cruising along at almost no cases/deaths.
You should be. You are talking about millions of peoples lives here. The fallacies that create these opinions like the proven false economy vs health narrative are utterly misguided delusions.
I’m sure lots of (most?) people would choose the “temporary death” option over being prisoners inside their homes, just fall asleep and wake up free.
Here is a graph of who is dying in Massachusetts from Covid https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/09/02/who-is-dy...
It’s overwhelmingly those above 80 years old. Completely disrupting the economy and lives for people under 40 makes no sense no matter how you want to warp logic.
Bottom line though, I go to work and I go home. Contact tracing the old fashioned way is 100% sufficient for me. If you want to engage risky behavior that’s on you. I have no obligation to have my every movement tracked because of your exercise of free will.
Errr... you said you are against "contact tracing".
I (personally) took that to mean "the old way". But it sounds like you're against the automated phone app thing?
Well, I am too. My phone isn't capable of running any of the apps anyway, so it's kind of moot in my case.
Regarding lockdown, in my state (Victoria, Australia) we're just now starting to loosen our lock down rules after a sustained (multi-month) period of lock down.
For us, it worked. We've just had our 14th day of 0 new coronavirus cases in a row, and they shouldn't be returning. :)
That was after starting into a J-curve of increasing coronavirus cases, hitting 700+ per day before the lock down started taking effect.
So, lockdowns + masks work. And if we hadn't gone down that path, we'd be heading to a dark place about now (like the US) and our economy would probably end up turning to shit. o_O
That being said, the lock down sucked.
We also had a curfew (8pm - 5am), to help manage it. Not being able to go out except for exercise or to buy food gets to a person after a few weeks. :(
I think it’s naive to think contact tracing will ever be rolled back. I fear it will be a new permanent surveillance tool.
I would rather keep my personal liberty.