You judge me, I'll judge you

Small differences in fact lead to huge disparities in moral judgments. I'm sure this has been said before, but I don't know by whom and I'm not going to bother trying to find out. I just want a fun way to roll into my latest idea on the coronavirus crisis (how much longer with coronavirus get the squiggly red line?). I've been reading too much speculation on what the next few months look like with the idea of the coronavirus haunting our every move. The correct answer is that nobody has the slightest idea of what the virus will do in the next few months. We know next to nothing about the virus and its behavior. Sure, we know all about its genetic code and how it interacts with cells in vitro but we have no idea how it does its thing in a body. We can see its effects, but how it goes about doing those things are hypothesis and conjecture. 

But all the wise and informed commentators on Twitter and the supposedly more informed writers turning guessing which number will come up when I drop my Plinko chip into serious journalism are quick to tell us that we know plenty about the virus. If you're out there interacting with other people you are putting your life at risk. What? Have they looked at the demographics of the people who have died. It's a bunch of small bars until you get to the 70+ age group. That bar is big. Even that data is a coarse filtering of a very complex data set. The deaths are not random (even though it may feel that way given how the stories are told in the media). The virus exposes a deficiency in the overall health of the victim. Most people will handle the virus with no real issue. 

Now, if you take the view that you are risking death every time you venture out the door, you might not think too highly of somebody going around living their life. How dare they put us all at risk by exposing themselves to the horrors of The Virus! Crowds are frightening. Your death could be lurking in that mass of humanity. All those deadly vapors swirling around! The Horror!

So if you look at the virus as a risk to some but a nuisance to most, you're probably not going to get too worked up about going to the grocery store. Forget the mask (they don't do anything to stop the spread of the virus anyway, the viral particles are way too small) and just do your shopping. I'm not putting the world population at risk. I'm living my life. The reality of the virus is not nearly as dire as our collective angst has elevated it. But that's not listening to science! The virus is going to kill us all! We need to hide from each other until the salvation of the Vaccine is bestowed upon us by the deities who occupy the labs of those horribly corrupt pharmaceutical companies! 

So accepting the dire narrative leads you to judge somebody who has taken a more reflective view of the risks presented by the virus as morally failing. A different view of the facts leads to a decidedly different moral position. I read an opinion piece that it is morally essential to download a tracing app. I will leave my phone at home before I download a tracing app. The writer finds the virus's danger so extreme that we should let companies tell us when we had close personal contact (whatever the hell that means) with somebody who tested positive for the virus. I'm not convinced that the danger of the virus is so extreme that we need to take those measures. It's certainly a danger to a select portion of our population, but ushering in a surveillance state is not worth the trade for feeling like we're not at risk. 

The actions being taken against the virus are psychological measures against fear promulgated by people who claim to know much but know very little.