Well, considering how he answers to other people in the feed, or the 2 precedent tweets (« Give people their freedom back!» and « Bravo Texas! » regarding a news saying business reopen in Texas), if it’s trolling, it’s a big one.
But - and here is the rub - it will be because the lockdown interrupted person-to-person transfers, and not because the inert bases making up the virus suddenly decided all by themselves, and all over the world, to lower their R0 from > 3 to < 1.
Thank you for that. Funny my comment still got downvoted. I’m pretty sure I made some enemies with my COVID opinions and someone has a bot downvoting all my posts at this point.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
Exactly. If one draws the distinction that children aren't allowed in bars, alcohol stores or adult bookstores, why can't persons who are vulnerable not be allowed where people assembling might cause them vulnerable harm?
This would allow people their freedom to assemble.
Well then, consider the bubble boy who was immunodeficient. All those vulnerable to the degree it is life threatening can get one of those and let everyone else get on with their lives.
>Just because Congress didn't make the gubernatorial orders doesn't excuse state governors from these constitutional rights violations.
They aren't constitutional rights violations by definition. Congress (and, explicitly, as written, only Congress as a body) is prevented from passing laws at a national level forcing states to violate their citizens' right to speech and assembly, but states have the right to do so of their own accord (as states by default claim all powers not given to the Federal government), and precedent has allowed it under exigent circumstances, such as 9/11 and prior pandemics.
One could argue that the lockdown orders are unnecessary, but I think that would only be apparent in hindsight, and even then it would turn out to be a misuse of power that states legitimately have, but not abuse or an unlawful exercise of power, unless certain conspiracy theories about "globalist elites" turned out to be true (spoiler: they won't.)
>IANAL, but pretty sure that’s not how it works. Articles incorporated against the State prevent the State from passing laws that violate the Article.
IANAL either, but here are examples of legal decisions and opinions by the various courts including the Supreme Court which appear to disagree with you[0-2], as well as some articles [3-4] which provide a basis for a legal argument that states have the right to restrict the movements of citizens in the name of public safety, including the imposition of quarantine measures, and that these powers are not a violation of the constitution. What is not constitutional is a national quarantine enacted by Congress.
>The Attorney General specifically has told the DOJ to be on the lookout for over-reach by the States in these lockdown orders.
Indeed, here's an article on that[5] with the following quoted from a memo by AG Barr himself:
"If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate
exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing
infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department
of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach
in federal court."
So even from the AG's own pen, we have the admission that states do have appropriate authority in this case, although that authority is limited and can be abused. This is a different and more nuanced argument than the one apparently made by GP, that the first amendment prevents states from having any such authority at all. If that were the case, the AG wouldn't be telling the DOJ to be on the lookout for something that already exists in plain sight.
When the issue goes to the SCOTUS, I'm sure that parallels will be drawn to how our society manages restricting vulnerable populations versus restricting all population.
An example would be how children aren't allowed in establishments whose sole purpose is to sell adult restricted items like alcohol or pornography.
Everyone is vulnerable during a pandemic though, and the US is suffering from the effects of a lack of critical foresight and initial preparedness. I have no doubt at all that this is going to wind up in the Supreme Court but I don't think it's a cut and dry case.
You started with "these aren't constitutional rights violations by definition" which is specifically what I took issue with, and now moved into explaining why you believe these measures may survive strict scrutiny.
You can certainly make an argument that these measures satisfy "strict scrutiny" as being both necessary, as well as the least restrictive means possible to accomplish the goal. I merely hope we can agree on the correct framework for evaluating whether State and Local quarantine measures are constitutional or not.
To be clear, I believe any State or Local regulation limiting freedom of assembly (which necessarily involves freedom to assemble publicly) whether it be for health reasons or otherwise, has to pass "strict scrutiny" which is the legal term for how high the bar is set to prove the measure is Constitutional. In these cases it is incumbent on the government to prove the measure should be deemed Constitutional, which is flipped from how it normally is.
To quote Wikipedia;
1. that the law is necessary to a "compelling state interest";
2. that the law is "narrowly tailored" to achieving this compelling purpose;
3. that the law uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve the purpose.
The legal cases you link to are specific actions taken against individuals. An executive order ordering the quarantine of a single person. A mental health examination of a single person. None of them involve blanket orders against large populations.
The news articles are editorials, including the following quotes;
> "Pandemic is not a magic word that instantly negates all individual constitutional rights," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. "A pandemic gives states a compelling state purpose in the imposition of restrictions. But when the state denies or restricts constitutional rights, it must satisfy a balancing test." The orders can be challenged on the basis that they're overly broad, he said, or that they don't properly weigh the individual restrictions against public health threats. Turley pointed to Michigan, a state he thinks has an order broad enough that it could be challenged.
>You started with "these aren't constitutional rights violations by definition" which is specifically what I took issue with, and now moved into explaining why you believe these measures may survive strict scrutiny.
I used the latter as a means of criticizing the former - if these measures were unconstitutional by definition, it would be impossible for them to survive strict scrutiny even in theory. Even AG Barr's memo concedes their legality, while warning about the potential of abuse.
I can agree with: "These aren't ipso facto constitutional rights violations."
Totally disagree with: "By definition, these aren't constitutional rights violations."
So I think we do probably violently agree, and I probably misinterpreted your: "These aren't constitutional rights violations by definition." statement.
Another way to think about it is that they obviously do violate Constitutional rights, but this is actually allowed only under very specific and limited circumstances, of which COVID may in fact be one of, but such a thing has never been tested in front of the Supreme Court as far as I'm aware.
He doesn't appear to be. He's calling for Americans to exercise their freedom in sacrificing themselves to the virus for the profit of the capitalists.
The more Musk tweets, the further away he gets from the visionary with dreams of Mars and the closer he gets to Trump. I used to be a fan, but I’ve found it impossible to defend Musk in recent years.
I don't mean to insult, sorry. But the politics around this are very real and there are intense emotions. I think it inhibits the discussion of reasonable approaches and tends to lump positions together unfairly.
But how antilockdown? Like, everyone can do what they want, no new rules, back to pre-covid?
I think that voluntary-only measures will cost a LOT of lives. I think everyone agrees more restriction == more lives saved, this is the classic argument for antiterrorism. Where people are diverging is where the best place to draw that line.
Maybe everyone should begin with a disclaimer of how many people they are willing to let die relative to essential-workers-only.
I think his opinion is that the Coronavirus threat has been overblown and is perhaps the biggest direct threat to the future of Tesla.
Following, "We're working on ventilators, even though I think there will not be a shortage by the time we can make enough to matter"
I haven't checked recently, but I believe the vast majority of hospitals are not overwhelmed nor short of ventilators -- but is there any source of data on bed shortages or ventilator shortages? (That was the point of flattening the curve)
Provide data that shows it is a larger risk. Without that data you are arguing based on ideology not facts.
The thing about not working is that we have government mechanisms to help those people. We can beef up social security, unemployment benefits, or direct payments. Then people can go back to work afterwards. Work will always exist. It exists even now with a “closed” economy.
==Money will become meaningless if you can't use to buy stuff.==
I don't follow this line of thought. We already give people money for not working (examples are social security and unemployment benefits). None of that has made money obsolete. Why would a temporary measure in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic?
Why don't I see people make this same argument about businesses getting money from the government? Will money become meaningless for businesses? Do people stop trying to earn money once they reach a certain level? Elon Musk certainly hasn't.
Ok tell me then, let say the government give people money for not working then why would people then want to work on let say grocery store where you suggest its risky ?
So if the death by poverty is less than death of virus, then continue lockdown ? Must be sucks to be the one who dying due to poverty caused by lockdown.
Of course not, and here is why: lockdown is not binary, there are degrees of lockdown.
So, when you help us all out with the model of deaths-by-lockdown that informed your decision, we can all benefit from it by comparing it against the latest, updated death-by-covid-19 models and making an informed choice about the degree (if any) of lockdown to pursue.
The lesser evil.
But of course no such model exists. Its all just emoting. Happy to be wrong.
So you want to risk people’s lives by forcing them to work?
And yes, it is forcing. Amazon, a fantastic example right now, is removing the ability for warehouse workers to stay at home, unless they take unpaid leave. No pay, no healthcare benefits, unless you go into a warehouse and risk your lives.
Based on the drop in cases, ludicrously low infection and death rates, the need to balance healthcare system burden with a speedy development of herd immunity,and the economic devastation.
People can’t just say “it’s worth it if we save just one life”. Bullshit. Everything requires context, and being under lockdown has its own severe consequences. Including the loss of life.
Friday and Saturday saw the highest single day totals of new cases.
==ludicrously low infection and death rates==
Nobody knows these rates because we can’t test enough people to know infection rates. People are dying at home so it will be a while until we know actual death rates.
==speedy development of herd immunity==
You and your family should jump to the front line and help build this immunity. I’ll protect my 2 year-old and pregnant wife in our home.
All we have to do is look to the 1918 flu to see the danger of opening up too soon. Making up strawman quotes from your “opposition” doesn’t change the data on this virus or the history of past viruses.
> You and your family should jump to the front line and help build this immunity. I’ll protect my 2 year-old and pregnant wife in our home.
This is exactly how the pandemic should have been handled. Personal risk should have been allowed to be determined by the individual, not the state, at the expense of personal rights.
The obvious flaw is that we know people can be asymptomatic carriers. That means they can put others at risk which violates the personal rights of those individuals.
This also can’t be done without significant testing which still isn’t available 9 weeks after declaring a public health emergency.
>You and your family should jump to the front line and help build this immunity
Yes by allowing people to go outside, work and do their normal activity. It builds their and other people immune system. Prolong lockdown will cause immune system to go down.
We are on HN, not on a forum on healthy diet and recipe with this "bolster immune system" nonsense (that i accept reading on those forums). If something seems logical and simple, it just means you have to do your own research.
Either you are immunodepressed or you are not. Well, actually you can have an hyperactive immune system, that's what Dr house call a lupus, or a cykotine storm.
Really fast and with no details :
You can boost your protective response going out and interacting with other people/kids but this will not boost your immune system. I understand this is an easy confusion as the protective response is caused by the immune system but i assure you, this is not the same thing.
New cases are really pretty meaningless considering the confounding variable of increased testing. New hospitalizations is a much more reliable statistic, followed by new deaths, both of which are down in many (most?) states. In New York for example, new hospitalizations have been decreasing for 15 days.
It looks like it’s several times more deadly than the flu if a hospital can provide optimal treatment. Should we go ahead and rapidly infect everyone the death toll will go to Italy. Additionally, I would suspect that the cost of rapidly developing herd immunity, the subsequent uptick in deaths due to 1 in 5 or so people needing the hospital and unable to receive assistance because the hospital cannot take 1 in 5 people at once would probably crater the economy much harder and longer... Every economist I’ve looked at has said this?
(EDIT: also from what I’ve seen it is entirely possible that infection results in long term reduction in health like lung capacity. That’s super fucked if we infect everyone in that case!)
There is currently no proof that antibody testing is detecting antibodies greater than the false positive rate except in New York, which itself has biases in its study (only testing people who are already out in public, and that's only 1 in 5). Additionally there is no proof that the levels of antibody detected result in immunity or for that the levels of antibody will remain at immunity-levels long term.
Musk is a libertarian utopian-capitalist. He believes that humanity's lot and chances of long-term survival can only be improved by unrestrained, accelerated economic (and scientific and technological) growth. He's an Iain M Banks fan, and I think his ideal is probably reaching a sort of hyper-advanced, post-scarcity civilisation managed by benevolent AIs.
Therefore, from his perspective, the current lockdown is putting a huge brake on the progress necessary to help humanity and eventually reach utopia. Of course, more concretely, it also endangers his fortune and life's work, but people don't tend to like thinking of themselves as selfish to the point of acquiescing to mass death, so I imagine he rationalises his opposition to himself in this greater-good sense.
This is an incorrect oversimplification of citizenship law and of the natural-born clause.
There are residence requirements for foreign-born US citizens to pass on citizenship to children born abroad, which already contradicts your statement. This applies to mothers and fathers (with a paternity test if not married). Furthermore, it hasn't been legally settled whether someone born a US citizen abroad counts in this clause, though personally I suspect anyone born a US citizen (not just, and not always, children of US mothers) would qualify if challenged.
That's not true, else Ted Cruz wouldn't have been able to run for President in 2016. Cruz was born in Calgary. His mother is an American, father Canadian. The requirement in the Constitution is only that one must be a "natural born citizen".
If you mean the US, then he'd either need a consitutional amendment
first or for the US to invade South Africa. Which are, considering that
we live in the stupidest timeline, not impossible courses of events.
NY, NJ, PA, CT, and MA have 53% of cases. It’s time to stop treating this like every state or region is in the same situation.
Edit: Some people apparently need to be reminded that Europe is a place. Individual countries are reopening as they see fit based on how they are handling the virus. It honestly is starting to feel like some people prefer the pain than the idea of safely reopening certain states and regions.
Different states have different numbers of cases due to the different measures that have been taken. Bay Area quarantined early, and has been stricter than most of the country, followed by California at large. It's not like different states net different results simply due to magic.
So if you want to loosen up restrictions in California, it shouldn't be grounded in the fact that California seems to just be impervious. What you're proposing would be in direct contradiction with the reason why California has lower numbers. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, as there is an ideological case to be made for measuring liberty against security, but the lower number of cases is totally irrelevant for substantiating that position.
Yes. They are monitoring it and reacting appropriately. If it doesn’t work they will pull back and try again.
But their actions are not being dictated by the situation in Italy or France. Likewise, Montana should not take action based on what is going on in New York.
Except that "pull back and try again" is a lot worse than just keeping the lockdown in the first place. Both economically and from a disease prevalence POV.
and I love how many privileged middle class people are smugly calling to press pause on civilization from the comfort of their homes which they can only do because a faceless army of poor people keeps them fed and cared for
uh, no they're not. do you think the chicken fairy is depositing frozen birds in your supermarket? your existence is secured by a chain of people who haven't achieved the level yet for "is it safe for me to go to work?" to even register as a question
...because we've done enough to slow the spread. Any responsible look at the stats show that clearly. Here's a link in case the entire internet wasn't enough:
The factories may have been automated, but the supply chain has not.
The most common job in the United States is retail salesperson, followed by cashier, office clerk, and food prep. Of those, only office clerk can reasonably be done from home. Maybe. In some cases.
Yes, those are considered "service" jobs. That doesn't change the fact that the chicken is only in the supermarket meat case because a person physically put it there. There's no big automated conveyor belt running from the chicken farm, through the slaughterhouse, and winding up in the meat case.
Points for not being a Silicon Valley coward blindly following the 'lockdown' religion but he doesn't seem to have a clear handle on the virus to be saying what he is.
I'm not sure he even noticed C19 in January or February.
virus OR coronavirus OR c19 OR covid OR covid-19 (from:elonmusk) until:2020-04-29 since:2020-01-01
Writing from the Netherlands. I believe the American rhetoric has fully been divided between the "if you aren't careful, you are killing people" on the left and "open the economy" on the right.
I'm surprised that it isn't clear why the left is in an extremely dangerous position. They can't win unless lots of people are dying. Otherwise, the non-zoom working class will vote in anyone who prioritizes the economy. Isn't wholesale economic collapse a much bigger civilization-wide existential threat than COVID19 itself?
I would have also thought that the left would be more scared of another 4 years of Trump (now with unlimited power and money) than his voter base dying in droves. Just surprising, that's all.
Maybe it's different in the Netherlands. But here there seems to be a lot of contempt for not being able to do construction, cut hair or otherwise work.
Luckily, the weather is nice, which generally puts people in good spirits.
Maybe I'm wrong, but in the U.S. it seems most people that want things re-opened is a part of the Zoom working class and the upper classes.
In the US most blue collar work has been deemed essential anyway. Construction for example, is deemed essential. Layoffs are still happening like crazy, I suppose. I'd say the left generally wants to leave non-essential parts of the economy closed, and give people UBI or freeze rent, etc to help out the working class.
> in the U.S. it seems most people that want things re-opened is a part of the Zoom working class and the upper classes.
This does not seem accurate to me at all. The upper classes have fled the hot-spot cities. The upper-class-aspirant professionals are stuck in the cities working via Zoom. The risk of premature opening there is real, so they're not pushing for reopening.
The people pushing for re-opening are mainly non-Zoom non-essential working class people who are feeling the economic pain of the prolonged shutdowns in places where they're not needed.
Also, to a lesser extent, people who object to the restrictions on freedoms on cultural-ideological grounds, either on principle or on a cost-benefit basis.
That doesn't comport at all with my observations so far.
The non-Zoom working class is also the group most impacted by the economic disruption of shutdowns, which in many (most?) places is needless and everywhere is having regressive economic outcomes, benefiting large companies at the expense of small businesses.
Another thing ignored by the modern left, who claim to speak out for minority populations, is that authoritarian regimes have historically divided, arrested, restricted, imprisoned, and outright murdered minorities. To be consistent with their claims, they should be terrified of anything approaching authoritarianism.
The big mistake is to see this as question of left and right and winning or loosing.
Actual lifes are on the line, Italy was a disaster. I totally get it why we should avoid sometihng similar at all costs.
Up to now, politics followed science, which is not a clear-cut balck-or-white thing. Science is ambigious, especially with stuff like a new virus. Now, I see a lot of movement against that. From the press, from politicians (predminantely, but not exclusively from the conservatives), from celebrities. I, for my part, would rather hear and read from epidemiologists and the like than from theater producers. One of the latter group got a huge article in Der Spiegel this week.
The dangerous thing is, as soon as discussions about easing restrictions started in Germany people got more mobile and started to care less. Germany got through all this rather well so far, due to a combination of reasonable actions, luck and a above average testing capacities and ICU beds. I hope the pro-opening people are right, and nothing will happen due to lifted restrictions. But if they are not we might regret the opining in a couple of weeks.
This seems pretty biased. To say some group of people who are sacrificing too much for caution "can't win unless lots of people are dying" is mischaracterizing. It's also kind of silly that you've omitted the accusation of killing from the right's position ("open the economy") when the economic danger is "a civilization-wide existential threat".
Ok, I'll bite. How is it mischaracterizing? I just don't see how the left can beat Trump, if Trump is advocating for opening up. Especially if the economy stays closed and he is fighting to open it up, he will especially look good. The options are, from my view:
Either the economy opens and people die (trump loses), it opens and people don't die (trump wins), the economy stays closed and people die (trump wins) or the economy stays closed and people don't die (trump wins)
Easy to dismiss him because of his wealth or other prejudices you may have of him. "Free America Now" raises an incredibly important debate that all lockdown-ridden countries should be having. Were lockdowns constitutional? Were lockdowns effective? Could other measured responses have achieved similar outcomes?
Were lockdowns done in vain? And have we set a dangerous precedent?
Bunch of questions. Don't flame him or me. Just participate in the debate.
"Just participate in the debate" is the kind of nonsensical rhetoric Creationists use to push their religious beliefs into science education. There is no debate. There are no questions. The only dangerous precedent we're setting is one of ignoring the expert epidemiologists tasked with protecting the public.
To summarize, during the 1918 flu pandemic, American cities that implemented early and extensive non-medical measures (including quarantines) suffered no additional adverse economic effects due to implementing those measures when compared with cities that implemented measures late or not at all.
Again, to summarize, American Samoa and New Caledonia succeeded in preventing even a single death from the 1918 influenza through effective quarantines.
Yes. Courts have historically granted a lot of deference to the government in crisis situations. Also, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" [0]
> Were lockdowns effective?
Yes. In pretty much every region, the flattening of new cases lined up exactly with the beginning of lockdown measures + incubation time, and this was also captured by unofficial measurements like smart thermometer data: [1]
> Could other measured responses have achieved similar outcomes?
Probably not. The aforementioned thermometer data showed no drop in fevers from the early half-measures like banning large gatherings, effectiveness was only from the lockdowns.
He might just want to do it as e.g Germany does it. i.e. basically opening most smaller and some bigger businesses. shops with limited people at the same time, masks, hygiene procedures etc. schools more or less closed until end of summer.
Though Germany already has receding numbers for a while now, US is still a little behind. Total number of cases vs deaths is (if counted and reported correctly in worldometers) quite comparable (to my surprise). UK is way worse in this respect.
Difficult to say what he really wants as he does NOT communicate well in this respect. In longer interviews he is way more thoughtful.
I doubt that you can measure this already, it has only been two days (also when the lockdown started it took over a week until the effect was visible). That's why at least some countries want to take it slow, after each small step you need at least two weeks to judge the effects.
I read that too but actually the case augmentation is not statistically significant yet (comparing d1 and d2 after the reopening is not enough). You'll have to wait until at least d4 to have a better idea and i think they can manage to wait until week two to decide to either go for herd immunity (at R0 ~ 1 this is viable, deadly but viable for healthcare workers) or lock their country for a month again.
"US is still a little behind" is a bit too understated I'd say - the US measures haven't even managed to make the number of active cases stop growing. They are shrinking in Germany since about the beginning of april.
I tend to feel that what we are seeing is a society without any philosophical understandings. The hard sciences have taken over, and we are to see a new version of eugenics take over - a different name, a stated different goal, but an equally immoral result.
Did this open up focussed on a tweet by a "Melissa A" with a reply by Elon Musk saying "True" for anyone else? Took me a few seconds to realise that I needed to scroll up to see the actual linked tweet (literally just the words "FREE AMERICA NOW"). I tried on a few browsers with the same behaviour, looks like this is deliberate.
No no no I don’t mean that you did this - you used the correct URL for the tweet.
I meant that this looks like another weird Twitter UX decision. And it seems this is on Desktop (so FF, Chrome, Edge), I just looked on mobile and it was fine.
No one cares to address point that have been addressed already.
If we talk about the numbers then opening up a country runs a risk of even higher daily deaths and longterm economical damage due to lack of workforce after the disease passes.
Americans want to be South Koreans without taking South Korean measures. You simply cannot have a cake and eat it too.
Food supply chain disruption is known thing because populations without herd immunity that congregate together, if one person in that herd becomes ill, the disease will rocket through the population. It's happening already. It's really easy for Trump to sign papers to force a company to produce food. Trump can't sign papers to make individuals healthy enough to work or make individuals unafraid to congregate for work purposes.
Why do all the rich people want to "free America now" ? Would it be because their factories are not running ? Get real people. Do not follow the wolf in sheep's skin. If something happens to you because you contracted the virus, you will be no more than collateral damage, as long as Tesla's roll off the production line.
Please don't post like this to HN. It's off topic [1], against the spirit of the site, and led to a wretched and utterly predictable flamewar.
HN is fragile. The idea here is to try to stave off the default fate of internet forums [2, 3]. The forces pushing in that direction are far stronger than the ones in our favor. It wouldn't take much to destroy this place, and a thread like this is a real dose of poison.
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